Monday, March 6, 2023

Brian Stubbs on "and it came to pass" and plural nouns in the Book of Mormon

  

Both Nephi and Moroni use “and it came to pass” when recounting events of the past, but when writing of their current lives respectively, the phrase is not used. Nephi began the large plates, then two or more decades later, he is commanded to create the small plates as a record for more spiritual things. So when making the small plates, he is recounting his past life up until he catches up to his “present”; thus Nephi uses “it came to pass” 198 times from 1 Nephi 1:1 to 2 Nephi 5:20, but from 2 Nephi 5:31 to the end of 2 Nephi, he never uses the phrase again. Likewise, Moroni uses “it came to pass” throughout his summary of the book of Ether, the past record of the Jaredites, but never uses it in writing about his own life. (Brian D. Stubbs, Changes in Languages from Nephi to Now [2d ed.; N.P.: Brian D. Stubbs, 2020], 18)

 

. . . Hebrew pluralizes some nouns not normally plural in English. The amplified plural is illustrated by “bloodsheds” (2 Nephi 1:12; 2 Nephi 6:15; Alma 35:15; Alma 62:39); “labor with their mights” (Jacob 5:72); “with all the energies of my soul” (1 Nephi 15:25). (Brian D. Stubbs, Changes in Languages from Nephi to Now [2d ed.; N.P.: Brian D. Stubbs, 2020], 23)

 

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