Friday, November 20, 2020

"By the Hand of" in the Title Page of the Book of Mormon

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).