In Matt 5:26, we read:
Verily I say unto thee, Thou
shalt by no means come out thence, till thou hast paid the uttermost farthing
(KJV)
In 3 Nephi 12:26, when Jesus delivers a sermon similar to
that of Matt 5-7, "farthing" is replaced by "senine":
Verily, verily, I say unto thee,
thou shalt by no means come out thence until thou hast paid the uttermost
senine. And while ye are in prison can ye pay even one senine? Verily, verily,
I say unto you, Nay.
"Senine" (which also appears in Alma 11:3, 5, 7, 8
and Alma 30:33) has recently been dismissed as a nonsense word by a Protestant
critic who has less integrity than an abortion doctor when interviewed by Tony
Costa. However, is this really the case? The short answer is “no.” The longer
answer is “no; in fact, it supports the Book of Mormon being a translation of
an ancient text.” Consider the following from Robert F. Smith, “The
Preposterous Book of Mormon A Singular Advantage,” pp. 11-12:
Senine and Senum The 19th and
20th dynasty Egyptian sniw was the word for the basic silver unit of
value in the Egyptian tripartite system of pricing for a commodity,34 and
Egyptologist Jac Janssen thinks it obvious that sniw comes from ancient
Egyptian snw or snny “price”35 – probably the source for both the
Nephite silver senum and gold senine (both having a unit-value of
one, just as the sniw does in Ancient Egypt). From there one can
extrapolate to the gold limnah (Alma 11:5,10) as the equivalent of the
ancient Near Eastern mina-weight,36 since the ratio of seven Book of
Mormon senines to one limnah/mina fits the equivalent of
seven Egyptian dbn “dibans” (= 7 x 8 sheqel-base in Hebrew usage) in
just the right proportion.37 As in the Book of Mormon, these metals were
typically used in ancient Egypt in exchange for grain.38
Notes for the Above
34 Jac J. Janssen, Commodity
Prices from the Ramessid Period (Leiden: Brill, 1975), 102-109, the copper
deben being the basis for another system, and finally the hЗr grain-measure
system. Interestingly, the Nephite system is also tripartite, with separate
grain, silver, and gold measures.[RB: Note that on p. 103 of the Janssen
text, the spelling snny, not simply sny, is attested—'senine' requiring two n's
has been a criticism of this proposed etymology]
35 Janssen, Commodity Prices,
103; Rainer Hannig, Grosses Handwӧrterbuch Ӓgyptisch-Deutsch (2800-950 v. Chr.)
(Mainz: Phillip von Zabern, 1995), 713 sniw; 677 swn “buy; sell”; swnt “sales
price”; Leonard Lesko, A Dictionary of Late Egyptian, 1st ed., 5 vols.
(Providence, RI: BC Scribe Publ., 1982-1990), III:61 snw “payment”; III:24
swn(t) “price”; III:23 swn “buy; sell”; W. Westendorf, Koptisches Handwӧrterbuch,
2nd ed. (Heidelberg: Carl Winter, 2008), 204 Egyptian swnt > Demotic swn
“price” > Coptic souen “value, price” (Crum, Coptic Dictioinary, 369b); cf.
sene “granary bin, silo; heap, collection” (Crum 343b).
36 This was first systematically
suggested in a 1970 paper by Robert F. Smith, which was reedited by Janet Twigg
and published by FARMS in 1983 as “Weights and Measures in the Time of Mosiah
II,” Preliminary Report STF-83 (Provo: FARMS, 1983).
37 See Robert F. Smith’s chart
(p. 46) and the full discussion by John W. Welch in JBMS, 8/2 (1999):36-45.
38 David O’Connor “New Kingdom
and Third Intermediate Period, 1552-664 BC,” in Trigger, Kemp, O’Connor, and
Lloyd, Ancient Egypt, 228 fig. 3.10, for chart of fluctuating prices for wheat
and barley paid for in copper or silver – 19th through 20th dynasties; Alan
Lloyd, "The Late Period, 664-323 BC," in B. G. Trigger, et al.,
Ancient Egypt, 328, notes that in the late period the silver could also be
weighed by diban or qite (9.53 grams) in exchange for wheat.