In his essay
Bad
Grammar in the Book of Mormon Found in Early English Bibles, Stanford
Carmack discusses some purported grammatical errors in the Book of Mormon,
showing that they fit rather well with Old English, such as the following:
Third person
singular verb forms in {-s}
The use of third person singular {-s} forms
is included as an example of bad grammar, since this variation has been edited
out of the King James Bible and people tend to think that the scriptural {-s}
forms of the Book of Mormon are errors, cases of Joseph failing to measure up
to a biblical standard.
Third person singular (3sg) verb forms ending
in {-s} (the other form, historically) eventually look over from 3sg {-th}
forms (the southern form, historically) (see Barber, Early Modern English, 166). Nearby variation in the written record
began to be prevalent in the late 16th century. The 1568 Bishops’ Bible has an
example with the verb make (shown immediately
below), and even the King James Bible originally had a few examples, such as
the one below with the verb take:
1568, Bishops’ Bible [A10708]
What imagine ye against the Lord? he makes an utter destruction:
ye shall not be troubled twice. [Nahum 1:9; page image 1037]
Two verses
earlier, the 3sg verb form knoweth is
used, so there is nearby variation. The King James Bible has a future tense
here: “he will make an utter end.”
1611, King James Bible
every man that takes it up, will shake his hand. [Ecclesiasticus 22:2]
Instead of
2sg takes, the Bishops’ Bible employs
sgh toucheth.
Here is an example of nearby {-s} ~ {-th}
variation, which was eventually edited to be {-th} consistently:
1611, King James Bible
He sticks
not to spend his life with his wife,
and remembereth neither father nor
mother nor country. [1 Esdras 4:21]
The Book of Mormon has more than a dozen
examples of nearby 3sg inflectional variation with main verbs, as in these two
examples:
1 Nephi preface
The Lord warns
Lehi to depart out of the land of Jerusalem
because he prophesieth unto the
people concerning their iniquity.
Nephi taketh
his brethren and returns to the land
of Jerusalem
after the record of the Jews.
This same nearby variation is attested in the
17th-century textual record. EEBO1 has one instance of warns and prophesieth occurring in the same paragraph (1677, A42781), and
there are 11 distinct cases of the verbs taketh
and returns occurring within 20
words of each other (dating between 1579 and 1700), as in these two examples:
1652, Alexander Ross [1591-1654] The history of the world [A57652]
he taketh
divers towns and returns to Spain;
[page image 762]
1679, Robert Barclay [1648-1690] Apology for the true Christian divinity [A30896]
To all this he returns no answer, which taketh
up
six pages in my apology, [page 17]
Interestingly,
Carmack also provides some instances of a double negation in OED not resulting on a negative but instead,
a positive, meaning, such as the 1560 Geneva Bible:
When the jaws shall scarce open and not be able to chew no more. (Ecc 12:4)
Therefore he feared him, and would not see his face no more. (1 Macc 7:30)
That our oxen may be strong to labor: that
there be none invasion nor going out nor
no crying in our streets. (Psa 144:14)
Other
examples come from Tyndale’s 1530 translation:
For the Holy Ghost is no doom God [‘God of
judgment’] or no God that goeth a
mumming. [‘who disguises himself’] (Leviticus, prologue)
And the 1609
Douay:
We attribute no more nor less to Christ, nor to our lady, by the one reading than by the
other. (annotation to Genesis 3:15)
This should
be compared with the idiomatic use of “forbiddeth to abstain” in D&C 49:18.
On this, see:
Loren Blake
Spendlove, Whoso
Forbiddeth to Abstain from Meats
