Linguistic Evidence

As I explored critical theories of how Joseph Smith created the Book of Mormon, I was unconvinced. At best, I saw some loose parallels but no cohesive way for it all to come together. Interestingly, the more I explored the Book of Mormon rabbit hole, the more surprised I was by the sheer amount of compelling positive evidence for its ancient origins.

Names in the Book of Mormon

There are 188 unique names in the Book of Mormon that are not found in the Bible. Many of these names are Hebrew or Egyptian in origin, which is to be expected for a people who emigrated from ancient Jerusalem in 600 B.C.

In 1830, people knew far less about ancient Egyptian and Hebrew than historians do today.

How did Joseph Smith figure out the following Egyptian and Hebrew connections?

Most, if not all, of the listed connections were unknown in 1830.

Some more specific examples:

Nephi – Listed in the table above. John Gee alternately argues that “Nephi” could be derived from the ancient Egyptian “nfr,” meaning “good” or “beautiful”.² If so, isn’t it interesting that Nephi repeats the theme of “goodness” throughout his writings? That would make a creative triple pun³ in the first verse of the Book of Nephi:

“I, Nephi, having been born of goodly parents, therefore I was taught somewhat in all the learning of my father; and having seen many afflictions in the course of my days, nevertheless, having been highly favored of the Lord in all my days; yea, having had a great knowledge of the goodness and the mysteries of God, therefore I make a record of my proceedings in my days.”

How did Joseph Smith create a triple pun in a dead language in the first verse of the Book of Mormon?

Paanchi – As listed in the table above, in Helaman 1, Paanchi is one of the three sons of Pahoran seeking the chief judgeship. Paanchi is the same name as one of the most well-known kings in Egyptian history.⁴ Paanchi is not mentioned in the Bible. His name and history remained unknown to scholars until the end of the nineteenth century. Hugh Nibley comments that he was a “contemporary of Isaiah and a chief actor in the drama of Egyptian history at a time in which that history was intimately involved in the affairs of Palestine.”⁵

How did Joseph Smith know about a famous Egyptian king who was unknown to scholars until after Joseph’s death?

Pahoran, Paanchi, and Pacumeni – As listed in the table above. Evidence Central reports that:

“At the beginning of the book of Helaman, readers encounter a confusing cluster of three similar sounding names: two men (a father and a son) named Pahoran, as well as the son’s two brothers Paanchi and Pacumeni (Helaman 1:2–3). Although this constellation of names would be an unlikely choice for a good fiction writer, Hugh Nibley noticed that it rings true for a record written in ‘reformed Egyptian’ (Mormon 9:32–34). ‘A striking coincidence,’ Nibley noted, ‘is the predominance among both Egyptian and Nephite judge names of the prefix Pa-. In late Egyptian, this [prefix] is extremely common.’ Each of the[se] names, and not just the initial pa- (Egyptian pꜢ- = “the”) prefix, bears striking resemblance to Egyptian names.”⁶ (emphasis added)

The Book of Mormon also has several Hebrew names that are not in the Bible. They include Sariah, Alma, Abish, Aha, Ammonihah, Chemish, Hagoth, Himni, Isabel, Jarom, Josh, Luram, Mathoni, Mathonihah, Muloki, and Sam. The connection these names have to ancient Hebrew was unknown in Joseph Smith's day.⁷

Alma - Alma was widely seen as a woman’s name with Semitic or Latin roots. Critics panned Joseph Smith for this “obvious” mistake.

“Alma is supposed to be a prophet of God and of Jewish ancestry in the Book of Mormon. In Hebrew Alma means a betrothed virgin maiden—hardly a fitting name for a man.”⁸ – a prominent Evangelical author, Walter Martin (1978).

Since 1830, evidence has confirmed that Alma is an ancient Semitic male name. This evidence includes the 1961 discovery of the Bar Kokhba letters, where “Alma, son of Judah,” is named in ancient Israel.⁹

How did Joseph Smith know that Alma was an ancient male name in ancient Israel? Why did Joseph Smith not amend the Book of Mormon when his critics mocked him? Have any critics apologized to Joseph Smith yet?

Sariah - Critics mocked Joseph for naming Lehi’s wife Sariah, which was understood at the time to be an ancient male Hebrew name. That is until the name Sariah appeared on papyri in the Egyptian Jewish community of Elephantine, dating to around 500 BC for two women.¹⁰

How did Joseph Smith know that Israelite women from Egypt also carried the name of Sariah around the same time as Sariah in the Book of Mormon? Wouldn't Joseph's only source for Sariah (Seraiah) have been men in the Old Testament?

Jershon – In Alma 27:22, the Nephites give the converted Anti-Nephi-Lehites a piece of land in their territory. “This land Jershon is the land which we give unto our brethren for an inheritance.” (emphasis added) How interesting is it that the word “Jershon” is likely Hebrew for “place of inheritance”?¹¹ Doesn’t this make a creative play on words in the Book of Mormon? How familiar was Joseph Smith with ancient Hebrew in 1829?

Reformed Egyptian and Hebrew

In 721 BC, the Assyrians invaded the northern kingdom (Israel) and took thousands into captivity. From that point on, the northern tribes were lost to history. Thousands sought refuge in the southern kingdom (Judah). 120 years later, it is plausible that Lehi would not have known his lineage from the tribe of Manasseh.

In the very first chapter of the Book of Mormon, Nephi informs the reader that he is making a record “in the language of my father, which consists of the learning of the Jews and the language of the Egyptians” (1 Nephi 1:2)—that is oddly specific.

“Such propositions would likely have been scorned in Joseph Smith’s day; doctors of theology in the early 1800s would have based their views of Egyptian-Israelite relations primarily upon the Israelites’ seeming disdain for Egyptian culture as reflected in the Bible.” (emphasis added) – John S. Thompson (Glimpses of Lehi’s Jerusalem, 2004)¹²

Scholars are still learning about Egypt's cultural influence in Israel during Lehi’s day.¹³ Artifacts with Egyptian characters dating back to that period show the widespread usage of Egyptian in Israel. Critics viewed Egyptian and Israelite relations through an 1830’s lens. They mocked Joseph Smith for this apparent mistake as they perceived Israel and Egypt to be on more hostile terms.

On the surface, an uninspired Joseph Smith would have likely suspected that Hebrew was the language of Lehi. How did Joseph understand Egypt's cultural influence in Israel in 600 BC? How did he come up with what turns out to be a very plausible narrative in the book?

Caractors Document

Historians believe¹⁴ that John Whitmer copied characters (given to him by Joseph) from the Book of Mormon in the “Caractors” document.

Critics have dissected the Caractors document to make the characters seem less authentic and ancient than they are. By twisting, slightly altering, and flipping characters, Charles Shook created this chart (on the next page) in Cumorah Revisited (1910). Critics joke that “reformed Egyptian” is just “deformed English.”

Here is the problem: The argument is deceptive. Robert Boylan uses the same logic to take the following transcription of Demotic Egyptian to make it look like an English sentence.¹⁵ “Demotic is really deformed English.”

Here is my attempt to do the same thing with the Paleo-Hebrew script. In about 15 minutes, I downloaded a Paleo Hebrew font in Word and formed an English-looking sentence.

Letters from the Paleo-Hebrew alphabet

“Paleo is deformed English”

Critics may find it uncomfortable that many characters in the Caractors document have ancient origins. As stated previously, parallels are generally not conclusive proof of authenticity. However, how do critics explain that characters in the Carators document resemble ancient American and Egyptian characters?

Geologist, civil engineer, and professional translator Jerry Grover provides an over 400-pageanalysis (available for free online) of the Caractors document and its potential connections to ancient Egyptian, Hebrew, and Mayan languages. The following pages contain samples of visuals and commentary that are found on Phil Michel's supportingevidences.net website, in the reformed Egyptian and Hebrew sections.

Some characters from the Caractors document compared to Egyptian.

Characters from the Caractors document compared to characters from the statue of Serabit-el-Khadim on the Sinai Peninsula of Egypt.

How did a farmer from upstate New York, with limited resources and education, manage to create characters that have been discovered in ancient writings?

Uto-Aztecan Language

Linguist Brian D. Stubbs published a study identifying 1528 connections between the Uto-Aztecan and Semitic/Egyptian languages.¹⁶ He estimates that approximately 30 % - 40 % of the Uto-Aztecan language is derived from Semitic and Egyptian languages.¹⁷ He concludes that the Uto-Aztecan and Near Eastern languages integrated between 2500 and 3000 years ago.¹⁸

Don’t these linguistic connections make a stronger case for the Book of Mormon? Didn’t Moroni say that there were Egyptian and Hebrew elements in their speech that were “altered by us”?

“And now, behold, we have written this record according to our knowledge, in the characters which are called among us the reformed Egyptian, being handed down and altered by us, according to our manner of speech. And if our plates had been sufficiently large we should have written in Hebrew; but the Hebrew hath been altered by us also; and if we could have written in Hebrew, behold, ye would have had no imperfection in our record.” – (emphasis added) Mormon 9:32–33

Do parallels between Uto-Aztecan and Semitic/Egyptian languages absolutely prove the Book of Mormon’s divine authenticity? They do not. However, why do we continue to discover more things supporting the Book of Mormon’s claims if it was fabricated by a no-name man in 1829?

Voices in the Book of Mormon

Lewis Theobald produced a play called Double Falsehood in 1727. He claimed its author was the great William Shakespeare. The problem is that Shakespeare had passed away over 100 years earlier. Theobald’s claim was nearly impossible to prove. Most skeptics believed Lewis Theobald made up the claim to bolster ticket sales. Some believed that Shakespeare and John Fletcher co-wrote the play (they had written a couple of plays together early in Shakespeare’s career). Unfortunately, the original manuscript was destroyed in a fire. Without the original handwriting, no one could prove the authorship. Until recently, most believed the Double Falsehood was a Theobald production. Then in 2015, researchers from the University of Texas leveraged computing power to solve the mystery. Using a sophisticated computer model, they analyzed Shakespeare’s, Theobald's, and Fletcher's language, style, and voice. From this, they could create a psychological signature for each author. The model could determine who wrote Double Falsehood.¹⁹ They determined that Shakespeare likely authored the first three acts—the final two being authored by Flecher. Theobald's editorial hand was also identified.

John Hilton III uses a similar method in his book Voices of the Book of Mormon. After a decade of research, John identifies the “linguistic fingerprints of many of the major speakers in the Book of Mormon.” (emphasis added)²⁰ Nephi, Mormon, and Moroni compiled or wrote most of the Book of Mormon. However, there are other authors quoted. Sometimes, these quotes are lengthy sections or whole chapters. These voices include Jacob, Alma, Abinadi, Nephi (son of Helaman), and Jesus Christ. John’s research shows a wide range of variety from the different authors of the Book of Mormon. Also, the linguistic fingerprints of the Book of Mormon authors are distinct from Joseph Smith’s voice in his other writings. 19th-century authors, on the other hand, have limited voice diversity between different characters in their books.²¹ Even characters that differ from others in the same book written by typical 19th-century authors usually cluster around a specific range of voice diversity.

How did Joseph Smith remember and keep the different voices of the Book of Mormon authors distinct?

How did Joseph Smith remember to have Nephi say the phrase “My Soul Delighteth”²² eleven times while no other author in the Book of Mormon uses that phrase?

Why does Jesus Christ use the word “baptize” more than anyone else in the Book of Mormon?²³

How did Joseph Smith remember to distinguish the voice of Jacob in 2 Nephi 9-10 from the voice of Nephi in 2 Nephi 4-5 and 11 if both were his creations?²⁴

While the voice diversity is impressive, John Hilton also identifies the layers of intertextuality within the Book of Mormon, which adds to its complexity. For example, when Alma was teaching his son Corianton (Alma 39-42), he quoted Abinadi’s teachings and phrases hundreds of pages earlier (from Mosiah 12-13) that applied to Corianton’s concerns.²⁵

How did Joseph Smith create a book with so many layers of complexity and intertextuality?²⁶ With his limited education, in less than 90 days, in one draft, with no manuscripts to consult, off the top of his head, no less?

Jonathan Cannon summarizes the various stylometry arguments for the Book of Mormon. His article “Book of Mormon Stylometry in Pictures and Tables”²⁷ visually demonstrates how impressive the stylometry differences in the Book of Mormon are.

Figure 1 – A visual representation of how different voices of the Book of Mormon compare to each other and from the voice of Joseph Smith.

Figure 2 – A visual cluster of the authors that critics theorize wrote the Book of Mormon (Cowdery, Pratt, Spalding, Rigdon, Smith) and how different they are from the Book of Mormon writers.

Figure 3 – A visual cluster of 19th-century authors compared to the Book of Mormon authors.

Does literary evidence undeniably verify the Book of Mormon’s claim of divine origin? Not quite. However, isn’t it interesting? Compelling? Worth exploring?

Hebraisms

Ancient Hebrew's unique characteristics are evident even when translated into different languages. Hebraisms are when these features occur in another language.

The Book of Mormon contains hundreds of Hebraisms;²⁸ how? Below are a small sample of some of them.

And it Came to Pass

“’And it came to pass,’ was [Joseph Smith’s] pet. If he had left that out, his bible would have been only a pamphlet.” – MARK TWAIN²⁹

The Book of Mormon uses the phrase “and it came to pass” 1404 times. The Old Testament of the King James Version uses the same phrase 727 times. "And it came to pass" is a translation of the Hebrew word “wayehi.”³⁰ The King James version of the Old Testament translates “wayehi” as “and it came to pass,” “and it happened,” “and … became,” or “and … was.” Likely the different phrases are used in translation for variety's sake. In all, there are 1204 instances of “wayehi” in the Hebrew bible. The Old Testament and Book of Mormon use "and it came to pass" in the more narrative sections. The more literary parts lack that phrase.

As a more narrative text, extensive use of "it came to pass" shows the Book of Mormon's ancient Hebrew fingerprints. How did Joseph Smith figure that out?

If-And Conditionals

If-and conditionals are a Hebrew literary form not used in modern-day English. It is not present in the Bible or found in other accessible books for Joseph Smith. Linguist Royal Skousen first identified if-and conditionals in the original version and printer's manuscript of the Book of Mormon. Joseph Smith later removed most of them to make the passages more readable in 1837. The original publication of the Book of Mormon has fifteen if-and conditionals.

Royal Skousen shares:

“In English, it is common to express a conditional idea in the following manner: ‘If you come, then I will come,’ with then being optional. In Hebrew this same idea is expressed in another manner: ‘if you come, and I will come.’ This structure makes perfect sense in Hebrew but is not found in English. When Joseph Smith translated 1 Nephi 17꞉50, he dictated ‘if he should command me that I should say unto this water be thou earth, and it shall be earth.’ This non-English construction was removed from this verse by Oliver Cowdery as he copied the original manuscript to produce the printer's manuscript. He deleted the word and, making the text read better in English. The sentence now reads: ‘if he should ..., it should be earth.’”³¹ (emphasis added)

Other examples include Helaman 12:13-21 and Moroni 10:4.

How did Joseph Smith pick up on this ancient Hebrew literary if-and conditional when it is not correct English? A one-off could have been a grammatical error, but fifteen instances?

Chiasmus

“Chiasmus” was a popular literary device in ancient languages like Greek, Latin, and Hebrew.³² It is a type of poetic inverted parallelism. Its existence in the Book of Mormon demonstrates a high level of sophistication by Hebrew writers. Chiasmus was not consciously used in American writing until the 1850s. John Welch was the first scholar to identify chiasmus in the Book of Mormon in 1967.³³ There are dozens of chiasmi in the Book of Mormon, though not every one may be deliberate. A statistical analysis from Edwards and Edwards demonstrates that the chiasmus in Alma 36, Mosiah 3:18-19, Mosiah 5:10-12, and Helaman 9:6-11 were likely created by thoughtful design.³⁴

Here is the chiasmus in Alma 36 as it came from Joseph Smith’s lips. Its beauty and complexity make it nearly impossible to believe he made it up on the fly. Note that Jesus Christ is the center of Alma’s redemption story.

Isn’t Alma 36 a stunning demonstration of redemption and the power of Christ’s atonement?

How did Joseph Smith come up with Alma 36 and other chiasmus in the Book of Mormon off the top of his head with zero experience in ancient Hebrew literary forms?

Further, Allen Christenson found that chiasmus abounds in sixteen out of thirty-seven late Mayan texts written shortly after the Spanish conquest in the sixteenth century. Chiasmus is especially prevalent in Mayan historical and religious passages.³⁵ None of the highland Mayan documents composed after 1580 include chiasmus passages.

Are Hebraisms a bullseye for the Book of Mormon? Not quite. Nevertheless, aren’t they at least interesting? Worth exploring?

Book of Mormon | Linguistic Evidence Conclusion

The further along my faith journey I traveled, the less comfortable I was with critical explanations for the Book of Mormon. I marveled at the critic's conspiracy theory-like reconstruction of how Joseph Smith created the Book of Mormon. When I mentally recreated the critic's narrative, I felt like I was left with a scenario more unbelievable than an angel simply giving golden plates to Joseph. Then, as I learned more about the linguistic connections between ancient languages and the Book of Mormon, I was even more baffled by the book. While linguistic evidence for the Book of Mormon was not enough on its own to convince me of the truth claims of the restoration, I was starting to feel unsettled as a potential atheist.