Monday, March 6, 2023

Brian Stubbs on the Internal Consistency in the Book of Mormon

  

A striking consistency is that the first books (Nephi, Jacob, Enos, Jarom, Omni) and Mormon and Moroni are all in 1st person (I/me) while the books of Mosiah, Alma, Helaman, Third and Fourth Nephi, and ether are all in 3rd person (he/him). A fabricator would not have thought to be so careful. So Mormon writes: “king Benjamin had continual peace . . . “ (Mosiah 1:1); “in the first year of the reign of Alma . . .” (Alma 1:2); “And it came to pass that Helaman . . . “ (Helaman 2:2); “Nephi, the son of Helaman . . . departed out of the land . . . “ (3 Nephi 1:2-3); etc. At times Mormon includes 1st person quotes from those records he abridges, but those book are generally in 3rd person. However, Mormon put the small plates with his abridgement, so Joseph Smith translates directly from the original authors of the small plates: “I, Nephi, having . . .” (1 Nephi 1:1); “Nephi gave me, Jacob . . . “ (Jacob 1;1); “I, Enos, knowing my father to be a just man . . .” (Enos 1:1); “I, Jarom, write a few words . . .” (Jarom 1:1); etc. Then, as mentioned above, Mosiah to 3 Nephi are in 3rd person, until Mormon’s own book, where the narrative switches back to 1st person: “And now I, Mormon, make a record . . .” (Mormon 1:1). For a fabricator to keep all that straight would be highly unlikely. (Brian D. Stubbs, Changes in Languages from Nephi to Now [2d ed.; N.P.: Brian D. Stubbs, 2020], 17-18)

 

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