Most
have heard Mark Twain's sarcastic quip that removing "and it came to pass" from the Book of Mormon would reduce the
book to a pamphlet. Who could blame him? Even in the present edition of the
Book of Mormon "it came to pass" occurs 1297 times. However, this
phrase is not unique to the Book of
Mormon, since the phrase also occurs 457 times in the KJV of the Old
Testament. According to Donald W. Parry, Instructor in biblical Hebrew, BYU, it
appears 727 in the KJV of the Bible.
As
one critic recently wrote: “The Book of Mormon is cursed with the clumsy,
repetitious phrase “and it came to pass” that appears hundreds of times in the
book, on almost every page.” Interestingly, not he, nor Mark Twain, nor even
Joseph Smith would have known in the nineteenth century just how important the
phrase was to the Book of Mormon authors and as an authentic example of the
accuracy of the book.
“The
English translation of the Hebrew word wayehi
(often used to connect two ideas or events), “and it came to pass,” appears
some 727 times in the King James Version of the Old Testament. The expression
is rarely found in Hebrew poetic, literary, or prophetic writings. Most often,
it appears in the Old Testament narratives, such as the books by Moses recounting
the history of the children of Israel.
This word, actually “veyehi” which
is the same as hâyâh,
means
loosely “and it was,” and is a very common word, but often indicates more than
a simple introduction as the rabbis explicate it to refer (often) to a negative
situation; others claim it means “and he lived,” such as in “And Jacob lived in
the land of Egypt seventeen years” (Genesis 47:28). The problem is that there
really is no way to singularly translate most Hebrew (especially interlinear
translations) since there is no one-to-one correspondence between words in
English and words in Hebrew.
As
an example of difficulty, this word can be spelled with either a “chet”
(pronounced “chate”) and a “hey” (pronounced “hay”). “Chet” is the 8th
letter of the Hebrew alphabet, and is usually transliterated as
"ch", "kh", or simply an "h" in English; on the other hand, “hey” is the fifth letter of
the Hebrew alphabet, but both are extremely similar in appearance:
Biblically,
it is the English translation of the single Hebrew word, hâyâh. We tend to read this phase as indicating a passage of time. Yet,
Jacob Weingreen, in Practical Grammar for
Classical Hebrew (Oxford University Press, 2nd Ed., 1959), suggests
that it would best be given the meaning, "now it happened." Strong's Hebrew dictionary suggests "to
exist" or "to become" as possible translations of hâyâh. Royal Skousen postulates that hâyâh represents a "discourse
marker" and suggests that the phrase and it came to pass "may be considered equivalent to “and then" or
"and so” (Journal
of Book of Mormon Studies, Vol. 3 No. 1, p. 37).
The
Hebrew Old Testament has 1204 occurrences of the word hâyâh, Most of these have either been ignored or reduced to simply "and,"
with only 727 of these translated as “and it came to pass.” While in the Bible
some variety was used by the numerous groups that translated the KJV in 1611,
Joseph Smith, the single translator, kept more true to his source, using “and
it came to pass” in every instance.
As in the Old Testament, the
expression in the Book of Mormon (where it appears some 1,404 times) occurs in
the narrative selections and is clearly missing in the more literary parts,
such as the psalm of Nephi (see 2 Nephi 4:20-25); the direct speeches of King
Benjamin, Abinadi, Alma, and Jesus Christ; and the several epistles.
In
his editing for the 1837 edition of the Book of Mormon Joseph Smith removed 46
occurrences of "it came to pass," rendering them as "and,"
just as was done by the King James translators. Think how Mark Twain might have
reacted had he read the 1830 edition, which had passages like:
•
"and it came to pass that when my
father had made an end of speaking unto them behold it came to pass that he
spake unto the sons of Ishmael…" (2 Nephi 4:10):
•
"now it came to pass that after Alma
had received his message from the angel of the Lord he returned speedily to the
land of Ammonihah and it came to pass that he entered the city by another way
yea by the way which was on the south of the city Ammonihah and it came to pass
that as he entered the city…” (Alma 8:18-19).
Had
the Bible been translated as literally as the Book of Mormon, Mark Twain might
have had the same comment to make of it. Take for example this passage of the
Bible:
•
“"And they journeyed from Bethel;
and [it came to pass that] there was but a little way to come to Ephrath: and
Rachel travailed, and she had hard labour. And it came to pass, when she was in
hard labour, that the midwife said unto her, Fear not; thou shalt have this son
also. And it came to pass, as her soul was in departing, (for she died) that
she called his name Benoni: but his father called him Benjamin” (Genesis
35:16-18)
It
is important to ask “Why is this phrase so common in the Book of Mormon?” The
answer is simple: Because Joseph Smith was translating a Hebrew text. If "it
came to pass" were not prominent in the Book of Mormon, the Hebrew claims
for its origin would be absurd. Hâyâh
is an integral part of Hebrew expression. Thus, "it came to pass"
must be found as a common expression in any document that claims to be a
translation from Hebrew to English. Does this prove the Hebrew origins of the
Book of Mormon? No. But another thread is added to our tapestry of evidence.
Now
before anyone jumps on the bandwagon and scrolls down to leave a comment like:
“But the Book of Mormon is not translated from Hebrew, but from Reformed
Egyptian,” we need to be reminded that those writing the Book of Mormon on the
plates were speakers of Hebrew and spoke that language every day for their 1000
year history (Mormon 9:32-33), and one tends to write, even in another
language, those idioms and phrases that one commonly uses.
Another
ingredient of Hebrew that shows the authenticity of the Book of Mormon, is that
in Hebrew, words, phrases, and sentences are generally
connected by a single character, usually translated "and." Thus, in a
literal translation of Hebrew into English "and" appears in many
places where English would have a punctuation mark. In this literal
translation, many sentences would begin with "and," as in Alma 11
where 20 of the 23 verses begin with "And." Lists in this literal
translation would have each item set off by "and," both briefly and
extensively, as in “with our bows and our arrows and our stones and our slings”
(1 Nephi 16:15), or “and of gold, and of silver, and of copper” (1 Nephi 18:25)
or in "all manner of wood, and of iron, and of copper, and of brass, and
of steel, and of gold, and of precious ores" (2 Nephi 5:15).
This
Hebrew conjunction translated and really has many possible meanings in English.
In the Old Testament it has been translated: "And also"
In
addition, there are other different uses of the word “and” that are found in the
Book of Mormon, such as in the Old Testament: "or," "then,"
"certainly," "perhaps," "in order to,"
"like," "therefore," "so," "thus," and
"but." This last, “but,” leads to an interesting observation in the
Book of Mormon. Consider this sentence from Moroni 9:4, "and when I speak
the word of God with sharpness they tremble and anger against me; and when I
use no sharpness they harden their hearts against it." Obviously, the
sense of this "and. ." would, in English, be better expressed by
the word "but. .." However, if Joseph was making a near literal
translation of Hebrew, "and" is a correct rendering.
Another
example provides a strong illustration when the Lord is quoted by Lehi in 2
Nephi 1:20. In 2 Nephi 4:4, this same passage is again quoted, with one
interesting difference: the "but" appearing in the first passage is
replaced by an "and." in the second. The Hebrew for each of
these passages would be identical and both renditions are fully acceptable
translations of that Hebrew.
(See
the next post, “It’s Very Good Hebrew – Part II,” for more on how the Book of
Mormon fails in English but excels in Hebrew.
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I just finished reading Del's book on scientific fallacies; I really enjoyed it especially the chapters on radiocarbon dating, the creation, and the flood. I highly recommend it.
ReplyDeleteI also recently read his book on "who really settled Mesoamerica". Outstanding chapters on the Jaredites-their origin, their journey, etc another must read.
Thank you.
ReplyDeleteThere’s a couple giant issues with this entire premise. There has never been a claim that the Book of Mormon was written in Hebrew. In fact, the major claim is that it was written in a language closer to Egyptian and no man at the time could translate it. Thousands if not millions of people at the time spoke Hebrew and would have easily translated a Hebrew manuscript. If it was in Hebrew, why would you need a translator or seer or seer stones to begin with? That was a well known language at the time, and still is.
ReplyDeleteAlso, I have to point out that the amount of “And it came to Pass” In the BoM vs the Old Testament per word makes the premise of this article also a hard sell. The BoM is FAR shorter than the KJV of the Bible. It occurs roughly 5x more often, but when adjusting for word count it occurs roughly 25x (and it came to pass vs any other phrase or word in the entire literary work) and is just another issue with the BoM to begin with. It’s a redundant phrase in BoM, whereas in the Old Testament it’s a causative preposition; an antecedent. It’s not used that way in the BoM almost at all.
We have never said the Book of Mormon was written in Hebrew. There can be no question that it was written in what Nephi said was “Reformed Egyptian.” As Nephi said, “Yea, I make 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). In addition, Moroni makes it quite clear that it was written in Egyptian: “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” (Mormon 9:32, emphasis added). And again, Moroni states: “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” (Mormon9:33, emphasis added). Thus, the Nephites spoke Hebrew in their daily lives, but wrote the sacred record on the plates in Reformed Egyptian.
ReplyDeleteSince the Nephites spoke Hebrew in their daily lives and evidently wrote in Hebrew on other writings, the would have thought in Hebrew. This means that their constant lives was thinking, speaking and writing in Hebrew. Only the sacred record on the plates varied from this—consequently, Hebrew would have influenced how they wrote on the plates, even though writing in Reformed Egyptian.
As for “it came to pass,” the phrase often indicates that what is happening is the result of a course of events, such as “Our only hope now is that these dire predictions will not come to pass, but can be avoided somehow” or “When it finally came to pass, it almost felt like a letdown” or “After a lengthy process the adoption finally came to pass” or “Due to the length of time involved, it finally came to pass that we reached the narrow corridor through the mountains.”
The phrase as used by the Nephite prophets is that a passage of time or process took place and the author did not want to describe what that was, but skipped over it to continue with his main line of thought. In English, we have several words or phrases that do the same thing: Later; occurred; arise; take place; transpired; befall/befell; it turned out; it so happened; will happen; and then it happened; will take place; did happen; did take place;
And “it came to Pass” occurs in the English translation of the Book of Mormon 1,381 times. It is found in all books except Moroni. The phrase or one of its derivatives occurs in the Bible 526 times in the Old Testament and 87 times in the New Testament. This supports the fact that this phrase “and it came to pass” is Hebrew in origin and correlates with Nephi's statement, “Yea, I make a record in the language of my father, which consists of the learning of the Jews and the language of the Egyptians.”
It is used 203 times in 48½ pages in 1 Nephi alone where it used for the most part for an elapse in time—which is consistent with the events at the time as they leave Jerusalem, travel to the seashore (a period of 8 years), build a ship and sail to the Land of Promise. In addition, it is used 201 times in 59½ pages in 2 Nephi, again, which covers the elapse of time as they travel to the Land of Nephi and settle in, covering the time of travel, building and settling in to their lives. Thus, in 1 Nephi, we find that the phrase “it came to pass” used 4.1 times per page, and in 2 Nephi, used 3.3 times per page. From that point onward, with the story line more settled, it drops to 2.5. times per page in Jacob, Mosiah, Alma and 2.8 times in Helaman, and 3.2 times per page in Mormon (60 times in 18.5 pages) who, for the most part, was describing an entire war covering his life from the age of 15 to his death in 385 AD, when he was about 75.
In addition, we need to keep in mind that the Book of Mormon was abridged by Mormon from Mosiah onward—he says he could only write a hundredth of what he was abridging—which means he needed to sequence time from one event to another far more often than would have occurred in the Bible.