In the Book of Mormon, Mormon 9:33-35 says that Mormon, the ancient American prophet, did not write in Hebrew. The language had been changed by the people. I read on your site that there are Hebrew features in the Book of Mormon text. How is that possible, if the Book of Mormon was not written in Hebrew?
Rodrigo,
/Questions/book_mormon_9_33_35_ENG_303.php
2 Responses to “In the Book of Mormon, Mormon 9:33-35 says that Mormon, the …”
Ricardo Ramos
2009-10-26 03:36:05
Hi Rodrigo. The field of historical linguistics studies how languages evolve over time. This linguistic evolution can produce a language that is distinct from but nevertheless very related to the mother tongue. Latin and its child languages are good examples. Latin and French, for example, sound very, very different. Someone who speaks Latin cannot necessarily understand French, and a Frenchman cannot necessarily understand Latin. But French evolved from Latin, and so a trained linguist can easily recognize many colloquial, vocabulary, and pronunciation similarities between these two languages, even if a layman cannot.
That's exactly how some linguists have approached the Book of Mormon. By the end of that record, the Book of Mormon peoples did not speak Hebrew, but they did speak a language that was related to Hebrew. A trained linguist can easily recognize a Semitic influence in the Book of Mormon text. In fact, of all the academic evidence in favor of the Book of Mormon, the linguistic evidence is the most convincing, in my opinion. There are literally hundreds of examples of Hebrew poetic forms and grammatical constructs in the original text of the Book of Mormon.
Richard
2009-10-30 20:58:46
What are you questioning here? This site? Well to paraphrase another person who wrote and did the best according to his knwlege and power "And now, behold, we have (created this site) according to our knowledge, in the characters which are called among us the reformed (html), being handed down and altered by us, according to our manner of speech. (or style of web publishing, also according to the programs we use to create the site). And if our (free time) had been sufficiently large we should have written in (pure, true html); but the (html languages) hath been altered by us also; and if we could have written in (pure/true html), behold, ye would have had no imperfection in our record. The site is good and we're all mortal so to quote our Savior "... Let God judge between me and thee, and reward thee according to thy deeds." (and me according to my deeds and the desire of my heart)
Webmaster: Awesome, Richard! The site is actually written in php, which is a kind of "reformed html." :)
That's exactly how some linguists have approached the Book of Mormon. By the end of that record, the Book of Mormon peoples did not speak Hebrew, but they did speak a language that was related to Hebrew. A trained linguist can easily recognize a Semitic influence in the Book of Mormon text. In fact, of all the academic evidence in favor of the Book of Mormon, the linguistic evidence is the most convincing, in my opinion. There are literally hundreds of examples of Hebrew poetic forms and grammatical constructs in the original text of the Book of Mormon.
Webmaster: Awesome, Richard! The site is actually written in php, which is a kind of "reformed html." :)