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PODCAST TRANSCRIPT:
Welcome to Keystone! On Keystone, our goal is to fortify Latter-day Saint faith and combat misinformation through good old-fashioned research. I’m your host, David Snell. Let’s jump right in!
As Latter-day Saints, we believe the Book of Mormon is a translation of an ancient text. And among other evidences, that claim is supported by the variety of ancient literary techniques that have been preserved through the translation process. In this episode we’re going to look at yet another one of these ancient linguistic breadcrumbs—this time having to do with possessive pronouns. And if grammatical terms freak you out, don’t worry, they freak me out too, but all will be explained.
A pronoun is the word you say when you don’t want to keep using nouns over and over again. You replace the noun with he/she/you/we/they/it, etc. So instead of saying, “Kevin makes great chili,” you can say, “He makes great chili”. A possessive pronoun is just a pronoun that expresses ownership. So the possessive forms of he/she/you/we/they/it would be his/hers/yours/ours/theirs/its, etc. So instead of saying, “Kevin’s chili spilled all over the carpet,” you can say, “His chili spilled all over the carpet.”
Now, in English, when we have a possessive pronoun followed by a list of nouns, we often just use the possessive pronoun once. For example, “Kevin’s chili got on his hands, pants, shirt, tie, and jacket.” But biblical Hebrew is different. As scholar John Tvedtnes noted, “In Hebrew, [possessive pronouns] … are ordinarily attached as suffixes to the noun … therefore, one cannot say ‘his house and family and friends, etc.,’ but rather, one is obliged to say ‘his house and his family, and his friends,’….”
So if our sentence about Kevin had been translated from Hebrew, in English, it might look like, “Kevin’s chili got on his hands, his pants, his shirt, his tie, and his jacket.”
Now, let’s say goodbye to Kevin and look at some examples of this pronoun pattern in the Bible. Joshua 2:13 says, “ye will save alive my father, and my mother, and my brethren, and my sisters….” Exodus 10:9 says, “We will go with our young and with our old, with our sons, and with our daughters, with our flocks, and with our herds.” Genesis 10:20 says, “… after their families, after their tongues, in their countries, and in their nations….”
Interestingly, this ancient literary form also shows up in the Book of Mormon. For example, Mosiah 4:6 mentions “the goodness of God, and his matchless power, and his wisdom, and his patience, and his long-suffering.” Alma 17:7 says, “… and took their swords, and their bows, and their arrows, and their slings….” Alma 26:36, “This is my life and my light, my joy, and my salvation, and my redemption from everlasting wo.”
3 Nephi 30:2 repeats the possessive pronoun “your” a whopping twelve times! “Turn, all ye Gentiles, from your wicked ways; and repent of your evil doings, of your lyings and deceivings, and of your whoredoms, and of your secret abominations, and your idolatries, and of your murders, and your priestcrafts, and your envyings, and your strifes, and from all your wickedness and abominations, and come unto me, and be baptized in my name, that ye may receive a remission of your sins, and be filled with the Holy Ghost.”
Now, normally, when someone is translating Hebrew, they’re going to move the possessive pronouns to the front of the nouns (as we’ve seen) — because that looks and sounds better grammatically. However, as John Tvedtnes noted, “Such constructions in Hebrew could properly (though not grammatically, as far as English is concerned) be translated as ‘(noun) of him.’” So instead of “his chili,” you could leave the possessive pronoun on the other side and say “the chili of him.” And interestingly, Tvedtnes found several examples of this structure in the Book of Mormon, as well.
For example, we might expect 2 Nephi 9:25 to read, “They are delivered by his power.” But instead, it reads, “They are delivered by the power of him.” We might expect Jacob 4:8 to read, “How unsearchable are the depths of his mysteries,” but instead, it reads, “How unsearchable are the depths of the mysteries of him….” We might expect 2 Nephi 10:8 to read, “the Gentiles shall be great in my eyes, saith God….” but instead, it reads, “the Gentiles shall be great in the eyes of me, saith God….”
The presence of these pronoun forms in the Book of Mormon is consistent with the claim that the book is of ancient origin. That said, it certainly does not prove that the Book of Mormon is ancient. I haven’t been able to think of any great examples. I asked ChatGPT to give me an example, and it tried to give me a quote from the movie “The Princess Diaries,” but upon further review, ChatGPT just made the quote up. But I figure it’s not impossible for multiple possessive pronouns to sometimes show up in English that has no foundation in Hebrew.
So, ultimately, you get to analyze the evidence and make a choice. Some might believe that these aspects of the text just appear by chance or happenstance. Others might believe that a fraudulent Joseph Smith somehow purposefully laced the Book of Mormon with this stuff to make the book look more authentic. Still others might believe that these textual markers are there because the book actually is a translation of an authentic ancient document connected to the Hebrew literary tradition. I’m not going to tell you which option to choose. That’s between you and God.
If you’re interested in more surprising insights regarding the Book of Mormon, I highly suggest you check out episode #2 on this podcast, where we talk about the surprising testimony of an excommunicated former apostle. Have a great day!