The Book of Mormon as Hebraic History

Here at Brigham Young University, we have an almost unique opportunity for a kind of development that is not readily available elsewhere. Specifically, we have the opportunity to associate with many who share our beliefs while simultaneously confronting beliefs that are not ours. I did not attend Brigham Young as an undergraduate, so my experience was quite different. In fact, I attended a college that was far from Church-related. Nevertheless, that experience gave me an opportunity to see my position in the Church and to understand my gospel beliefs in a way that I might not have enjoyed elsewhere. So before I get to the text of my sermon today—which concerns the Book of Mormon—let me tell you briefly and informally how I came to be interested in this subject.

I did my undergraduate studies at Reed College, which requires students to write a senior thesis and take a three-hour oral exam on it. Those who do not meet these requirements cannot graduate and must transfer someplace else. I was in English, and as I was casting about for a topic on which I might spend a good part of my senior year, the thought occurred to me that no one had ever done a literary analysis of the Book of Mormon. The thought further occurred to me that if I did such a project, I could force every Reed faculty member to read the Book of Mormon; after all, they had to give me an examination on it, and the entire faculty gave the examination.

Before I could begin my thesis, I had to find a sponsor. The first person I asked to sponsor me was an English professor who had indicated some minor but unmistakable knowledge of the Church. I always remember him sitting there with his head down and finally looking up and saying, “Bob, I can’t afford to.” Well, that miffed me a bit, so I went to the next one. I went through another half-dozen professors, all of whom indicated—with varying degrees of embarrassment—that they felt either incompetent or unwilling. Finally, I went to the head of the humanities department. He heard me out and then said, “Bob, I’m retiring at the end of this year, so I’ll sponsor you. You can’t hurt me. But let’s face it. If you’ve got some crackpot scripture here, you’ll be torn apart in your oral. You won’t graduate at all, and I won’t be able to save you. I can’t even help you; I don’t know enough to help you. You’ll be on your own. I will put my name on your thesis, but you’re on your own.”

Well, I am afraid my ego was a little too involved in what I was doing at that point. I guess I thought, without ever articulating it, that the Lord must have been rather impressed with I was doing for him here, and I dutifully spent my time gathering material. I soon came up for my oral examination. The faculty filed in; they came in all afternoon. They would go out for a class and then drop back in. The examination was a kind of general ordeal, and those professors were not bluffing. They had read my thesis, and they were ready for me. That examination was the most interesting three hours I had ever experienced up to that point in my life.

The first professor to question me was Dr. Peters, the head of the German department. He began by criticizing my philology—I did not even really know the word. He said, “Mr. Thomas, your philology seems mildly in error. You talk about a development from ‘Nephi’ to ‘Nephihah.’ That’s incredible, Mr. Thomas. That’s exactly backward. I think I can give you an example from your own country. There is a Native American named Chief Rain-in-the-Face; his son is not named ‘Little Chief Rain-in-the-Face plus something more.’ Instead, the son’s name is shorter than the father’s. What are you going to do with that, Mr. Thomas? You make quite a point about development, but you have it backward. Joseph Smith got mixed up. He didn’t know enough, did he, Mr. Thomas?”

Well, I had not thought of that. The idea had not occurred to me, and nobody had helped me on it. Then one after the other I received criticisms, and it became rather clear after a few moments that I was not going to pass. They were not going to have the name of the college associated with my thesis. Fair enough if I chose to write it, but by doing so I also chose not to pass.

We labored through some other material until, in deep humility, I lowered my head. The professors assumed I was thinking with my head down, but I was actually praying. I prayed that the Lord’s work would not be held up to open ridicule because of my ego and my ignorance. Finally, in some desperation, feeling that I had been pushed off from almost every point I tried to make, I said, “Well, whatever else I can’t say about it, I can say it’s true.”

At that moment, the head of the philosophy department walked in. All he heard me say was the word “true.” Well, that man knew more about the Church than anyone on campus. He had taught for a while at the University of Minnesota, where he had lived with a member of the Church; he knew our theology rather clearly. I had hoped to have a little discussion about my thesis with him earlier, but I had not. And here he was. He sat down, looked over at me, and winked. Oh, I was so grateful for that. He was saying: “Fair enough, Bob, see if you can do it. I won’t pull you apart on technical matters of philosophy. You just talk to them about truth for a while.”

So I did. I talked about a pragmatic test for truth. And Dr. Peters, perhaps my most obvious critic from first to last, jumped in again. Clearly, he and I were going to finish off the discussion. In the meantime, incidentally, the head of the French department suddenly jumped up in some fury and said, “Oh, this whole thing is ridiculous. Joseph Smith must have had some scholars help him. He’s just a liar and a cheat.” Then he walked out. Well, that embarrassed everyone a bit. To say something like that at an academic level! I think that outburst provoked a tinge of sympathy for me.

Regardless, I continued talking about truth, essentially just bearing my testimony but supporting it in pragmatic terms. After they finally let me have my little say, they told me to leave while they made their decision. I thought that I might as well go home, but I went out and leaned against the wall, simply grateful that I had been able to bear my testimony. Soon one of the professors who had been on the board all afternoon, the first man I had asked to be my sponsor, came out to get me. He led me in, and I sat down. The board members said, “Well, Mr. Thomas, we’ve had an interesting afternoon, and in fairness to you we must say that perhaps your thesis has not been the most popular one written here. But we would like to tell you that you’ve passed with distinction.”

Perhaps I should have felt joy. Instead, I felt relief. I felt a deep appreciation to the Lord for coming to my rescue after letting me see how little I could do by putting my trust in the arm of flesh. I also learned that the truth is mighty and that it will prevail.

Of course, people respond differently to the truth. A couple of days after the oral examination, I met Herr Peters on campus. He stopped me and said, “Now, Mr. Thomas, it’s all over; you’re graduating with distinction. I’ve got a question. Do you really believe it’s true? You don’t have to play games with me. Just tell me if you really believe it’s true.” And I said, “With all my heart, Herr Peters.” He looked at me for a moment and then said, “Damn!” and walked off.

So, my senior thesis was the rather chaotic beginning of my interest in the Book of Mormon as a literary work. Some of the assertions I made in that onerous thesis are now a little embarrassing. I did not know enough to say what perhaps could have been said. I suspect I still do not know enough to talk with the precision I would like. I fear that in the Church we do not know enough, but we can say some rather significant things, and I hope that I can make some pertinent comments about Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon, about their interrelation.

All who read the touching lament of Jeremiah must be struck by the loneliness inherent in a prophet’s calling. Yet one can well imagine that those who walk with God may need no other companion. The prophet must know that most will reject him, but what protection does he have against his followers, those whose zeal to defend him is only matched by the questionable nature of their plea? Joseph Smith has fared reasonably well at the hands of his enemies. True, he has been maligned, misquoted, oversimplified, demeaned, and exposed ad nauseam, but at least he has been a real monster, a genuine person who cannot be explained away. He may be an enigma to his detractors, but he is always more than an icon. Unfortunately, in terms of creating icons, many of us who revere Joseph Smith as a prophet have almost succeeded where his enemies have failed. In essence, we have explained Joseph away. We speak so glibly of him as an instrument in God’s hand that we turn him into a symbol. In viewing him devotedly, we try to make everything we hear about him fit our symbolic view, uncritically accepting rumor with a superficial consistency that may well be profoundly misleading. Perhaps the most embarrassing aspect of this symbolic view is its suggestion that we are convinced that Joseph Smith must be defended, and defended on the world’s terms.

Many of the theories that have attempted to account for one of the prophet’s statements or actions reflect more faith in esoteric logic than in faith itself. In no area of Church scholarship has this tendency been more evident than in attempts to explain how the Book of Mormon was translated. Consider the vehement arguments that raged in our own Improvement Era during the first decade of this century. Advocates of the so-called automatic theory—that is, the Urim and Thummim were the actual translators, with Joseph just a transcriber—contended with proponents of the “manual” theory, which took its name from the Mutual Improvement Association manual in which it first appeared. Contrary to the automatic theory, the manual theory viewed Joseph as the responsible translator, with the Urim and Thummim as accessories. Suffice it to say that the heated exchange between advocates of these competing theories accomplished no more than we might expect in the light of the devil and not of the Lord.

The extent to which translators are responsible for the diction and syntax they use is always open to debate. Furthermore, the special circumstances surrounding the Book of Mormon translation complicate attempts to assess Joseph Smith’s responsibility for language and style beyond useful conjecture. To note this difficulty, however, is not to say that literary criticism of the Book of Mormon is pointless. As B. H. Roberts early asserted, the Book of Mormon is not immune from any kind of examination. Latter-day Saints must recognize that the Book of Mormon must submit to every test, to literary criticism as well as every other class of criticism. Our age, after all, is above all things critical, and especially critical of sacred literature. We should not hope that the Book of Mormon can escape the closest scrutiny. Neither indeed should we consider such escape advisable. No word count, no matter how carefully collated to show the difference between Joseph’s normal style and that used in the Book of Mormon, will be significant if what the book says is not significant. No citations concerning Joseph’s lack of education can make the book more miraculous than it already is if it can live up to its own claims.

An early critic bluntly approached the Book of Mormon as follows: “The question is not where Smith mined it, but is it gold?” Whatever Joseph Smith’s precise relationship to the expression of the Book of Mormon, his name will be inextricably linked to the book. No consideration of Joseph Smith as a writer can ignore the evidence of the Book of Mormon, especially the revelation of the so-called Smaller Plates of Nephi, which are free from the additional complication of abridgement.

For over a century, critics inside and outside the Church have reiterated Joseph Smith’s lack of literary skill. These general assertions are usually supported by specific citations showing grammar or punctuation errors in the Book of Mormon. Occasionally such unusual locutions as “the more part” are decried, or such words as “hefted” are used to indicate the influence of typical New England forms. In terms of responsible literary criticism, these points are mere carping. One cannot judge a work fairly by listing current preferences in grammatical form. Indeed, the easy pronouncements of nineteenth-century prescriptive grammars are suspect today, as is the nineteenth century’s flowery rhetoric, which was more given to facade than function. While the subjectivity of literary evaluations must always be recognized, a personal evaluation need not be whimsical. If we can bring ourselves to look freshly at a work like the Book of Mormon, we might be surprised to find more than our defensive prejudgment within the Church and the inattentive generations without it have provided. Unfortunately, the few LDS attempts to consider the Book of Mormon’s literary attributes have stressed expressive similarities to the King James Version of the Bible. The Bible, these writers note, contains epistles, psalms, and lamentations. So does the Book of Mormon. The Bible displays historical narrative and prophetic discourse. So does the Book of Mormon. This substitution of a quantitative gauge for a qualitative one only suggests desperation and inevitably gives rise to the nagging suspicion that the Book of Mormon as literature is inferior to the Bible. In other words, quantitative approaches betray a hope that if we show how similar the two works are, perhaps nobody will notice that one is much prettier than the other.

What the Book of Mormon has not yet received is a critical evaluation based on criteria it sets for itself. These criteria expressly appear on the title page. First of all, the Book of Mormon claims to be Hebraic history. This claim admittedly provides an essential point of contact with the Bible, but the relationship is one of matter rather than manner. Lest this summation seem too modest, we must remember that “Hebraic history” is a loaded term. Ancient Israel, for example, would have found our current theories of history incredibly naive. Indeed, unlike modern historians’ problematic attempts to assemble facts in some logical formulation, the Hebraic theory of history is devastatingly simple and exclusive: history is God’s dealings with his chosen people—no more, no less. For instance, the Genesis account makes no attempt to satisfy our scientific curiosity concerning the process of creation. Similarly, biblical writers make geographical references with notorious nonchalance, and we search in vain for an acceptable chronology throughout the entire Old Testament. To Hebraic historians, records are never ends in themselves. Rather, history enables those who hear its people-oriented account to see themselves as part of a holy race.

Concerning such self-recognition, Old Testament proverbs constantly reiterate the dogma that intensely practical wisdom has been distilled from experience. This dogma is the hallmark of a people whose rule is law and whose rallying cry is obedience. With profound psychological insight, ancient Israel knew that no fallible human identified easily with perfection. This insight marks at least one reason why we are permitted to see Abraham frightened and Jacob indecisive. We can identify with these qualities—and we do—but the Hebraic historian has more in mind than a balanced presentation. Specifically, by helping us identify with others in their weakness, the Hebraic historian hopes we will grow with them as they overcome weakness. Consider how often we see men like Joseph and Jacob grow into confident maturity as they respond to the hand of God on their shoulder. The Hebraic historian invites us to participate in that growth.

We must understand this Hebraic pattern to appreciate the Book of Mormon’s claims as Hebraic history. Details may vary, but the Hebraic pattern should remain constant. Consider Nephi’s account of himself. In the beginning, we can see that Nephi is obviously a fine boy, but he shares the immaturity of young Joseph (as opposed to that of young David). Nephi is not particularly tactful with his brothers, and his account lets us see that weakness in typical Hebraic fashion. He states his problem rather ingenuously: “I, Nephi, being exceedingly young, nevertheless being large in stature” (1 Ne. 2:16). His youth is still evident when he accompanies his brothers to get the plates and takes over as leader of the little expedition. Coming upon Laban drunken, he is overwhelmed not by the evident opportunity to get the plates but, teenager-like, by that beautiful sword, and when the Spirit tells him he must kill Laban, he is shocked. The Spirit has to urge him once more, at which point he begins a half-hearted high-school rationalization climaxed by the lame assertion that, after all, Laban has stolen their property. Only after the Spirit commands him the third time does he begin to see how the precepts he has so dutifully learned relate to the realities of the moment. He has begun to grow up. Fulfilling the commandment and donning the clothes of Laban—remember that “large in stature”—he tries to make his voice deep like Laban’s and, picking up Zoram, heads for the treasury.

In his growing excitement, as he actually touches the sacred records, Nephi experiences an all-too-human lapse. He tells Zoram that he will carry the records to his “elder brethren, who [are] without the walls” (1 Ne. 4:24). What terror young Nephi must have felt upon hearing himself say this! Laban had no brothers outside of the walls. I imagine that with his heart pounding, Nephi then asked the servant to follow him. What a breath of relief we hear in the following verse: “And he, supposing that I spake of the brethren of the church, and that I was truly that Laban whom I had slain, wherefore he did follow me” (1 Ne. 4:26).

As they contact Nephi’s brothers, Zoram suddenly realizes the whole deception and turns to flee. Nephi then seizes him. In so doing, Nephi describes himself with the following significant phrase: “And I Nephi, being a man” (1 Ne. 4:31). He has matured overnight. The sobering awareness of what serving the Lord may entail has been a refining fire. As an example of this maturity, consider Nephi’s subsequent understanding attempts to help his brothers. No longer does he merely exhort them to righteousness. Instead, he does everything he can to help them. Similarly, consider how tactfully and lovingly he takes over for his father when Lehi finally breaks under the continuing strain of providing food for his family in the wilderness. The biblical story of Jacob’s wrestle with the angel is not so dramatically related. How skillfully we see Nephi develop! This account is Hebraic history of a high order. All biblical analogues to this story are inferior to it in both focus and illuminating detail.

Now, a single exquisitely appropriate story does not justify the Book of Mormon. But Nephi’s story qualifies as an experimental crux, a critical example for which we must account. Other examples are not lacking. Consider Abinadi, the reluctant prophet. Remember Abinadi, who was told to preach but did not want to preach? He knew what would happen to him. When he finally does preach his fears are realized, and he goes into hiding. Note how he keeps saying, “Thus sayeth the Lord.” He makes it quite clear that he is not acting on his own. Then he returns two years later; after all, he is a dutiful man and knows he should go back. He goes back in disguise. But what are his opening words? “Thus has the Lord commanded me, saying—Abinadi” (Mosiah 12:1).

Now where is that disguise? He has just identified himself (I worry a little about Abinadi). The priests feel contempt for him; they believe they can catch him in his words and frame him, execute him. But something happens to Abinadi when he realizes he will have to die for his testimony. He knows those people are not going to listen to him; he knows they plan to kill him. And suddenly, he too grows up. All the reluctance he seemed to have at the beginning is burned away. This is a tremendous story.

Or consider Korihor, a favorite of mine. Have you ever read that story? Read Alma 30 again. Korihor skillfully propounds dialectic materialism. How hard it is to answer! Korihor is not blowing up city hall himself, but he is encouraging others to do so. How do we respond to Korihor? Does his speech qualify as overt action? The people do not know what to do with Korihor, and his story presents a very modern dilemma.

The three stories I have described here—Nephi, Abinadi, and Korihor—are arresting stories in themselves. More importantly, however, these stories clearly fall within the Hebraic tradition. The only defect of the Abinadi and Korihor stories is a shared one: because they appear in the abridged portion of the Book of Mormon, they lack the spontaneity of First Nephi. But that lack of spontaneity is not significant. We must read all of these tremendous stories—as well as the many others in the Book of Mormon—again, but we must do so carefully. In the past, we may have read these stories too dutifully; we may even have read ourselves to sleep on them. I get distressed when I hear people say, “You know, I read scripture every night; I read myself to sleep on scripture.” That statement is a confession—those people are not reading. We could not go to sleep if we read the scriptures attentively at bedtime. If we did, we would be awake thinking and repenting all night, just as the Hebraic historian would wish.

While Hebraic tradition informs Book of Mormon stories, certain other characteristics support the claim for the book’s ancient origin. For example, one incidental but very interesting item concerns hapax legomena. Hapax legomena are terms that cannot be translated, only transliterated—that is, expressed in the sounds of a target language but not in equivalent meanings of that language. The Book of Mormon contains several convincing examples of hapax legomena, including terms like “ziff” (Mosiah 11:3), “neas” and “sheum” (Mosiah 9:9), and “cureloms” and “cumoms” (Ether 9:19). Such terms appear in almost all ancient records. Indeed, they become a check on a record’s age. “Selah” is a biblical example of such a term—no one knows what it means. Many people used to believe it meant “amen” because it came at the end of things. Inasmuch as “selah” appears only in lyrical compositions, however, many scholars now believe that “selah” is a musical notation like fortissimo or pianissimo. Like “selah,” the Book of Mormon’s hapax legomena remain unknown. Because the significance of hapax legomena in establishing the authenticity of ancient records is a relatively recent development—principally resulting from the German higher criticism of the latter nineteenth century—hapax legomena in the Book of Mormon provide persuasive internal evidence of ancient origins.

Perhaps the most remarkable demonstration of literary sensitivity in the entire Book of Mormon appears in the seven pages comprising the books of Enos, Jarom, and Omni. At first glance, these books seem too short to be very significant, but they are an unparalleled tour de force of Hebraic scripture illustrating that style is the man. To begin, consider Enos, whose headlong impetuosity is suggested by his rather imprecise and fragmentary opening sentence. As an English teacher, I always shiver a little as I read it: “Behold, it came to pass that I, Enos, knowing my father that he was a just man—for he taught me in his language, and also in the nurture and admonition of the Lord—and blessed be the name of my God for it” (Enos 1:1). The vitality of this man fairly crackles on the page. Note especially his use of verbs and verb forms: wrestled, sunk, hungered, kneeled, cried, raised, swept, poured out, struggled. Enos simply cannot wait for logic to catch up with him—his words roll forth in an irresistible flood.

That flood grows strong as Enos describes both the Lamanites and his own people. As to the Lamanites (verse 20), Enos pours attitudes on top of environment, adds physical description, moves to military skills, shifts to diet, and returns to attitudes again. His sentences all have a spoken quality, and his sentence length seems determined only by a need for breath. As to Enos’s description of his own people, note how difficult it is to read without shouting a little:

And there was nothing save it was exceeding harshness, preaching and prophesying of wars, and contentions, and destructions, and continually reminding them of death, and the duration of eternity, and the judgments and the power of God, and all these things—stirring them up continually to keep them in the fear of the Lord. (Enos 1:23)

That description is just one sentence. Then Enos takes a big breath: “I say there was nothing short of these things, and exceedingly great plainness of speech,” one thing poor Enos does not have, “[that] would keep them from going down speedily to destruction” (Enos 1:23).

This man wrings meaning from every moment. His concluding words are beautifully in character: “And I rejoice in the day when my mortal shall put on immortality, and shall stand before [Christ]; then shall I see his face with pleasure” (Enos 1:27). Some scholars have suggested that Western literature is singularly lacking in friendship toward God. Reverence, awe, wonder, transport, even ecstasy we know; but all of these have an overture of the supernal. Enos, however, in the company of the English poet George Herbert, might well make an affectionate call on the Lord.

Moving from Enos to his son Jarom is the shortest of genealogical steps but a gigantic leap in style. Except for the expected conventional beginning, note the difference in precision: “Now behold, I, Jarom, write a few words according to the commandment of my father, Enos, that our genealogy may be kept” (Jarom 1:1). Nothing in the whole book of Enos focuses on a problem with such crispness. The succeeding verses develop both the reasons for the length of Jarom’s account and the special problems of his day in coherent, beautifully modulated sentences. Jarom’s diction, too, is precise. In discussing his people, he lets us see their total strength in saying that “they profaned not, neither did they blaspheme” (Jarom 1:5). This statement is not merely synonymous parallelism, that standard device of Hebraic appositive. Rather, Jarom provides an incremental repetition that adds meaning within a parallel framework. Specifically, “profane” literally suggests general irreverence, most commonly heard in light-minded reference to holy things. “Profane” does not, however, connote the deliberate defiance of the word “blasphemy.” The thoughtless may profane, but the intentionally wicked blaspheme.

Note how carefully Jarom focuses the general denunciations of Enos. Enos, for example, describes the Lamanites as “wild, and ferocious, and a bloodthirsty people, full of idolatry and filthiness” (Enos 1:20). Jarom’s accusation is much more precise: “They loved murder and would drink the blood of beasts” (Jarom 1:6). Perhaps more clearly than before, we see here the hopelessness of the Lamanite attitude, with its calculated wickedness. After describing Lamanite wickedness so precisely, Jarom continues his account with similar discrimination. In verse 11, he comments that religious leaders were able to teach the Law of Moses but that they had to work at “persuading” the people to “look forward unto the Messiah.” This statement provides just the right distinction. Specifically, the Law of Moses was not just a fact of holy writ, but a fact of experience; it could be rationally apprehended. The concept of a Messiah, on the other hand, resided in the realm of things yet to come, evidence not seen. Accepting the Messiah required emotional identification, the very connotation sounded by “persuading.”

From calm, exacting Jarom we move to Omni. At once we are struck by a focus on the first person: seven “I’s” appear in the first two verses. Omni is a soldier dutifully carrying out the command of his father, but not averse to identifying himself as a “wicked man” (Omni 1:2). We soon see that war is his principal interest. He lets us know of his valor in battle, and describes his times solely in terms of war and peace: “[W]e had many seasons of peace; and we had many seasons of serious war and bloodshed” (Omni 1:3). Omni’s reference to “serious war” gives him away. That reference suggests the concern of a man to whom war is neither inconsequential nor detestable; it is simply a vocation. Omni is forthright, not very reflective. His sentences march. They march briskly, but to no great end.

Amaron, Omni’s son, is more like his grandfather, Jarom. He is careful, organized, and in a few verses manages to turn our attention from personalities to issues. Yet Amaron lacks Jarom’s linguistic sensitivity. His sentences, unlike Omni’s, are neatly balanced, but the neatness is consequential, mechanical. Amaron’s style tries to synthesize the no-nonsense approach of his father with the carefully controlled cadence of his grandfather.

If Amaron is not quite successful, what shall we say of his brother, Chemish? Poor, dear Chemish! Perhaps he did not expect to have to take his turn at the records, since they usually went from father to son. Regardless, he feels overwhelmed by the responsibility that is suddenly his. He can only say, “Well, all the record keepers write in the same book, and they all write with their own hands.” He reports that he actually saw Amaron doing his writing, then helpfully tells us, “That’s the way we all do it.” I can just imagine the half-hopeful, half-relieved smile with which Chemish turns the records over to his son.

I know of no more revealing verse in all scripture than Chemish’s report. How clearly Chemish is given to us! The clarity appears not in what is said about him, but in his style and in what he says about himself. Chemish writes just one verse, a verse reflecting the whole history of inadequacy. The ghosts of my own failures clamor for recognition whenever I hear the name Chemish. I am related to him by all the blundered opportunity, the embarrassed incompetence that has threaded itself through my own life.

Passing from Chemish to Abinadom is a relief. But in reading Abinadom’s account, I detect a bit of insecurity. I suspect he has looked back to see what others have written. Abinadom contains echoes of Omni and Jarom, but nothing else. At this point in the Book of Omni, four men have written a total of eleven verses. Those verses contain all we know of those men, yet I feel I might recognize them on the street.

The final nineteen rather long verses of the Book of Omni are the breezy contribution of Amaleki. He just loves to write. He mixes exhortation and history in about equal amounts, stopping only when he has filled all the space that remained on the plates.

As the Book of Omni closes, Joseph Smith’s translation of the Small Plates concludes. The text presents typically Hebraic figures, and does so with undeniable skill. Styles that should be distinctive are consistently so, yet the overall tone bespeaks a single translator. We need only evaluate the markedly different English versions of the Bible to recognize how much a translator can provide in integrating nuance and emphasis, turning words into life. Unfortunately, time does not allow comment on the many small but significant changes the Book of Mormon provides in the celebrated words of Isaiah. Equally worthy of comment are the beautiful extensions Third Nephi gives to the Savior’s words in the Sermon on the Mount. I find one such extension so full of insight that in it alone I begin to recognize some of the plain and precious truths that unending translations have taken from the Bible.

In the Sermon on the Mount, the Savior gives an injunction to avoid becoming angry with our brother “without a cause,” lest we be brought to “the judgment” (Matt. 5:22). Now, I have never been angry in my life without a cause. Someone or something has always made me angry. The Book of Mormon, however, allows me no such rationalization: “But I say unto you, that whosoever is angry with his brother shall be in danger of his judgment” (3 Ne. 12:22). How profoundly this passage extends the biblical idea! The omission of “without a cause” prevents me from shifting responsibility for my own lack of control. Furthermore, the substitution of “his judgment” for “the judgment” helps me see that anger against my brother will begin a train of judgment and counter-judgment, a train that leads inevitably to the more serious consequences elaborated upon in the rest of the verse.

Can anyone seriously question the inspired nature of translations such as the one just cited? Yet saying that Joseph Smith was inspired does not say enough. In some sense, all good writing is inspired. Indeed, the writers’ tradition of invoking the muse is simply a formalized recognition of a basic need to have some power—some inspiration—when calling thought into being. The inspiration that attends the translation of sacred records, however, must be a very special kind, in the nature of a gift and taking of the power of God. In one of the few divine statements about inspiration and sacred translation, the Lord suggests that the person entrusted with his gift “must study [the material] out in his mind” (D&C 9:8), then ask whether the translation is correct. If it is, the Lord will cause the translator’s bosom to burn with the knowledge that what he is writing has divine sanction. How the Prophet Joseph’s bosom must have burned as he was translating the Book of Mormon! If we ever hope to fully appreciate this book, we must likewise prepare a temple for that flame.