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Skousen (gleaning and correcting from all editions of the Book of Mormon) has provided the world with “The Earliest Text” (Yale) of the Book of Mormon. What a (decades-long) herculean feat!
Carmack (gleaning and comparing from all credible English language databases) has provided the world with absolutely valid English words, phrases, and grammar for the entire Book of Mormon. What a (comprehensive, astounding, and inspired) effort!
Thank you to these two gospel scholars and goodly brethren (IMO).
We now have in print what Joseph dictated, and know that he dictated as was prophesied: ” . . . [he] read the words” 2 Nephi 27:24.
Now it remains for the Lord (but, perhaps first, us) to reveal what Joseph’s (and Mosiah 2’s) gift of “seership” really entails. Beyond the scriptural, scholarly and experiential, I have my personal view . . . for some other day.
(In passing, has Moroni’s comment “ore have I none” (Mormon 8:5) been studied as an EME form? I found two authors – there may be hundreds more – using that sentence structure: John Fletcher (1579–1625), “An Honest Man’s Fortune” https://www.bartleby.com/lit-hub/ralph-waldo-emerson/john-fletcher-15791625-29/ “Sweep clean your houses, and new line your seams,
Then say your worst: or have I none at all?”; and the apostle Peter: “Then Peter said, Silver and gold have I none …” (ACTS 3:6 KJV), but I’m neither a gospel-scholar nor good.)
Thank you for this readily-available resource. I would like to ask if you have noticed changes in grammar based on the Book of Mormon audience.
For example, according to the text the primary audience is modern day Lamanites. But it is also to Gentile and Jew (seemingly secondary). There are a few sections in the Book of Mormon that seem more directed at a different audience (i.e. 3Ne30 seems specifically to Gentiles).
Does the declared audience correlate with a change in the language style?
This is quite a statement No known pseudo-archaic author—not even a Shakespearean scholar or a medievalist15—had anywhere near the level of knowledge of Early Modern English that is exhibited in the Book of Mormon
Thank you. As we learn more of this Book of books and its translation, the more we can say with surety that it was (and is!) a marvelous work and wonder.
Moroni, the last person to write on the plates, was the custodian of them and it was Moroni who delivered them to Joesph Smith. The Book of Mormon was written mostly by Moroni’s father and the assignment as custodian of the record obviously came from God. There is no reason to suspect that anyone other than Moroni was the translator of the record into English.
The simplest and most reasonable explanation as to why it was translated into Early Modern English is that is when Moroni made the translation. This would be about the time the first English settlers were arriving in America and he most likely learned it from them. The translation was later transmitted to Joseph.
The above is a speculation that we cannot be sure about. One thing I tried to get across in this essay and in a recent BYU Studies article on Book of Mormon grammar and translation is that studies and comments on Book of Mormon English need to avoid speculation, as opposed to what has been commonplace in both the distant and recent past. Since 1830, published and private comments on Book of Mormon English have been rife with speculation, sometimes masquerading as scholarship.
Agreed.