{"id":34555,"date":"2016-06-25T01:15:36","date_gmt":"2016-06-25T07:15:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/?p=34555"},"modified":"2016-06-25T01:15:36","modified_gmt":"2016-06-25T07:15:36","slug":"bom-alma-36","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/2016\/06\/bom-alma-36.html","title":{"rendered":"BOM Alma 36"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"Teichert,<\/a>
\u201cAn Angel Appears to Alma and the Sons of Mosiah\u201d
(Minerva Teichert, 1950-1951; BYU Museum of Art)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

I simply can\u2019t pass by\u00a0Alma 36<\/a>, today\u2019s reading, without mentioning the seeming presence in it of an intentionally constructed chiasm.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

If you don\u2019t know about the literary device known as chiasmus, or if you\u2019re unaware of its occurrence in Alma 36, I suggest that you browse through this concise introduction:<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

http:\/\/www.jefflindsay.com\/chiasmus.shtml<\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Heck, I suggest that you take a look at the article even if you do<\/em> know about chiasmus in Alma 36, because the presence of such an artifact in the Book of Mormon is pretty darned impressive.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

And if you\u2019re wondering whether or not the chiasm might simply have occurred\u00a0in Alma 36 by sheer random coincidence, as more than a few critics have suggested, consider these two analyses by the father-and-son team of Boyd and Farrell Edwards:<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cDoes Chiasmus Appear in the Book of Mormon by Chance?\u201d \u00a0(2004)<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen Are Chiasms Admissible as Evidence?\u201d (2010)<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

The first can be downloaded for free at<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

https:\/\/byustudies.byu.edu\/content\/does-chiasmus-appear-book-mormon-chance<\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

The second can also be accessed at no charge, at<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

http:\/\/digitalcommons.usu.edu\/cgi\/viewcontent.cgi?article=1565&context=physics_facpub<\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

But I also want to mention a little detail that I find significant, and that is the remarkable \u201cintertextuality,\u201d as scholars like to call such things, between Alma 36:22<\/a> and 1 Nephi 1:8<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cYea, methought<\/span> I saw,\u201d says Alma, \u201ceven as our father\u00a0Lehi\u00a0saw, God sitting upon his throne, surrounded with numberless concourses of angels, in the attitude of singing and\u00a0praising\u00a0their God<\/span>; yea, and my soul did long to be there.\u201d<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd being thus overcome with the Spirit,\u201d says Nephi\u2019s account of his Father Lehi, \u201che was carried away in a\u00a0vision, even that he saw the\u00a0heavens\u00a0open, and he thought he\u00a0saw\u00a0God sitting upon his throne, surrounded with numberless concourses of angels in the attitude of singing and praising their God<\/span>.\u201d<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Alma\u2019s quotation of Nephi is unmistakable. \u00a0But remember that the Book of Mormon was dictated \u2014 or, if you\u2019re a skeptic, it was likely composed<\/em> \u2014 over a period of something like two months, yielding\u00a08.5 to 11 printed English pages per day, and that, according to eyewitness description, Joseph Smith never went back to review what he had done and never asked for a prior passage to be read to him in order to refresh his memory or prime his imagination for the next bout of creative writing.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Shortly before her death, Emma Smith told her son Joseph III that, \u201cwhen acting as his scribe, your father would dictate to me hour after hour; and when returning after meals, or after interruptions, he could at once begin where he had left off, without either seeing the manuscript or having any portion of it read to him. This was a usual thing for him to do. It would have been improbable that a learned man could do this; and, for one so ignorant and unlearned as he was, it was simply impossible.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Thus, to have retained such a detail as Alma\u2019s quotation from 1 Nephi in his mind for later use, along with literally hundreds of other narrative, geographical, and character minutiae, while dictating\/composing at rapid speed, is remarkable. \u00a0And it\u2019s even more remarkably<\/em> remarkable when one considers that 1 Nephi was very probably dictated\/composed after the book of Alma<\/a> \u2014 most scholars, whether they\u2019re believers in Joseph Smith\u2019s prophetic calling or not, agree on this \u2014 because of the loss of the first 110 manuscript pages by Martin Harris. \u00a0So, if Joseph was simply making it up, he had to go back and write into his story of the fictional Lehi a tiny quotation from his yarn about the fictional Alma.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

This strikes me as possible, but also as exceedingly unlikely.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

Posted from Brockwood Hall, Cumbria, England<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0 \u00a0 I simply can\u2019t pass by\u00a0Alma 36, today\u2019s reading, without mentioning the seeming presence in it of an intentionally constructed chiasm. \u00a0 If you don\u2019t know about the literary device known as chiasmus, or if you\u2019re unaware of its occurrence in Alma 36, I suggest that you browse through this concise introduction: \u00a0 http:\/\/www.jefflindsay.com\/chiasmus.shtml […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1019,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-34555","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nBOM Alma 36<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"    I simply can't pass by\u00a0Alma 36, today's reading, without mentioning the seeming presence in it of an intentionally constructed chiasm.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" 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