In the Title Page of the Book of Mormon, we read that it is “An account written by the hand of Mormon,” notwithstanding the title page itself was written, not by Mormon, but Moroni, his son.
In response to a hypothesis, proposed by
Daniel Ludlow, that Mormon wrote the first portion of the Title Page, Brant
Gardner wrote:
While this suggestion
is plausible, it requires that Mormon consider the work finished, which is not
apparent from the text of the Book of Mormon. Moroni writes in Mormon 8:1: “Behold
I, Moroni, do finish the record of my father, Mormon. Behold, I have but a few
things to write, which things I have been commanded by my father.” If Mormon
instructed Moroni to write additional material, then arguable he did not
consider the work closed. If the work is not finished, why would he have
composed a title page?
Ludlow’s suggestion
that the parallel phrasing might indicate two authors is less convincing, since
he splits an intentional parallelism . . . Clyde J. Williams also finds Ludlow’s
argument dubious: “It seems likely that, rather than being a repetition, the
second sentence, in the form of poetic parallelism, is a purposeful
clarification of the first.” In fact, he sees that the distribution of two
terms in the Book of Mormon actually may demonstrate Moroni’s authorship of the
title page:
Perhaps the most
compelling evidence for Moroni’s authorship of the entire title page comes from
a study of two unusual words or word combinations that appear infrequently in
the Book of Mormon. The word interpretation appears 7 times in the Book
of Mormon text, written once by Nephi and 6 times in the writings of Moroni
(Morm. 9:7, 34; Ether 2:3; 4:5; 15:8; Moro. 10:16). The words seal(ed) up occurs
only 14 times in the Book of Mormon, 5 times by Nephi and 9 times in Moroni’s
writings (Ether 3:22-23, 27-28; 4:5; 5:1; Moro. 10:2). Those expressions do not
appear anywhere in Mormon’s translated writings yet they do occur in the very
portions of the title page that some scholars have attributed to both Mormon
and Moroni. The distribution of those expressions weights heavily in favor of
Moroni as the sole author. (Clyde J. Williams, “More Light on Who Wrote the
Title Page,” Journal of Book of Mormon Studies 10, no. 2 [2001]: 28, 29)
(Brant A. Gardner, Second Witness: Analytical and Contextual Commentary on
the Book of Mormon, Volume 1: First Nephi [Salt Lake City: Greg Kofford
Books, 2007], 51)
Why is this important? It shows that, if Moroni was indeed the author of the Title Page, we
have an early example of the phrase “by the hand of ‘x’” in uniquely Latter-day
Saint scripture that should not be taken in a naïve, simplistic manner,
something that relates to the Book of Abraham being said to have been written “By
the hand of Abraham” (on this, see the FairMormon Wiki article, Book
of Abraham/By his own hand). Indeed, the expression "by the hand
of" and similar locutions can denote agency. If Abraham wrote/dictated the
original text which was passed down/redacted until the Ptolemaic era, ancients
would correctly say it was "by the hand of" Abraham (just as one
would claim that, even the original of Romans was "by the hand of
Paul" although it was dictated to a scribe). The Hebrew be'yad appears
in such a way many times (e.g., Hag 1:1; 2:1; Zech 7:7, 12; Mal 1:1).
Exo 9:35: "And
the heart of Pharaoh was hardened, neither would he let the children go, as the
Lord had spoken by (בְּיַד) Moses"
1 Sam 28:15:
"And Samuel said to Saul, Why hast thou disquieted me, to bring me up? And
Saul answered, I am sore distressed; for the Philistines make war against me,
and God is departed from me, and answereth me no more, neither by (בְּיַד) prophets,
nor by dreams: therefore I have called thee, that thou mayest make known unto
me what I shall do."
In the second year of
Darius the king, in the sixth month, in the first day of the month, came the
word of the Lord by (בְּיַד) Haggai the prophet unto Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel, governor of
Judah, and to Joshua the son of Josedech, the high priest, saying . . . (Hag 1:1)
Then came the word of
the Lord by (בְּיַד) Haggai the prophet, saying . . .
(Hag 1:3)
In the seventh month,
in the one and twentieth day of the month, came the word of the Lord by (בְּיַד) the prophet Haggai,
saying . . . (Hag 2:1)
Should ye not hear
the words which the Lord hath cried by (בְּיַד) the former prophets,
when Jerusalem was inhabited and in prosperity, and the cities thereof round
about her, when men inhabited the south and the plain? (Zech 7:7)
Yea, they made their
hearts as an adamant stone, lest they should hear the law, and the words which
the Lord of hosts hath sent in his spirit by (בְּיַד) the former
prophets: therefore came a great wrath from the Lord of hosts. (Zech 7:12)
The burden of the
word of the Lord to Israel by (בְּיַד) Malachi. (Mal 1:1)
Interestingly, in the
"autobiography" of Idrimi, authorship is attributed to Idrimi himself
while at the same time making a number of mentions of the name of the scribe
who physically wrote the text. It is not hard to imagine a similar situation
for the Abrahamic original and its later forms throughout the ages until its
final form (see Edward
L. Greenstein, “The
Akkadian Inscription of Idrimi,”
Journal of the Ancient Near Eastern Society, Vol. 8. Issue 1, 1976).
