Preface

Relevancy and Methodology for a Study of the Proper Names of the Book of Mormon

Paul Y. Hoskisson

Many scattered and disconnected statements (mostly proffered etymologies) have been made about the proper names in the Book of Mormon. Because of the mixed quality of these statements this study proposes a scholarly methodology. First, though, a few words need to be said about the relevance of name studies.

Relevancy

With the exception of a few modern proper names coined for their composite sounds, all names have meanings in their language of origin. Often people are not aware of these meanings because the name is very old and the meaning has not been transmitted, or the name has a private interpretation, or the name has been borrowed into a language in which the original meaning is no longer evident. For example, the English personal name Wayne is an old form of the more modern English word wain, meaning a “wagon or cart;” hence the surname Wainwright, “builder/repairer of wagons.” However, to our contemporary ears Wayne no longer has a meaning; it is simply a personal name.

With training and experience, it is often possible to define the language of origin, the meaning and, when applicable, the grammatical form of a name. Names like Karen, Tony and Sasha (also written Sacha from the French spelling) have been borrowed into English from Danish, Italian and Russian respectively. The latter is particularly instructive, because it represents a rather complicated transference of names. Sasha is a Russian diminutive (nickname) for Aleksandr (English Alexander), which in turn was borrowed from Greek Αλέζανδρος, “defender of men.” To most speakers of English, Sasha conveys neither the diminutive nature of the Russian nor any trace of the Russian form it was derived from, let alone the Greek origin and meaning of the name.

Names can preserve phonemes and lexemes of the language of origin. Thus, Alexander retains a semblance of the original phonemes and the initial and final lexemes aleks and andr, but not the case ending -os of the Greek. In English, the name Wayne was frozen in a state of the English language when y represented the sound later spelled i. When we realize that the phonemes y, i and g can under certain conditions represent each other at various stages of the English language, it is easy to see that wayne = wain = wagon.

Even when the source language has been lost to memory, i.e., has become a non-spoken language, names often retain in their adopted language many of the sounds and therefore phonemes of the original, despite several transmigrations involving intermediate languages. For example, the English name Esther can be traced ultimately back to the Babylonian name for the goddess of love and war, Ištar. However, the English form of the name is derived undoubtedly from the King James Bible, Esther, which goes back to the Greek form in the Septuaginta or to the Hebrew, Esther, both of which ultimately derive from the Babylonian, Ištar.

For the above two reasons, the onomasticon of the Book of Mormon can preserve the lexemes of the languages used to compose the book. In this respect, the proper names in the Book of Mormon form a unique and useful tool for the study of the languages of the peoples of that book and make possible new insights for understanding the cultures of the Book of Mormon.

Such conclusions are be valuable for two reasons. First, giving a name in antiquity usually involved more than labeling an item. Names had meanings, and though not all names necessarily were consciously based on meaning, most were. For instance, Isaiah gave his two sons long and, for most English speakers, unpronounceable names. These names were not given for any intrinsic quality of the two children, but as a testimony to Isaiah's contemporaries. The names contained a message, and understanding that message gives us insight into the literary work of a great prophet.

Second, we also know there was an open season on names for literary treatment or mistreatment. For example, one of Saul's sons must have been less than appreciated by his contemporaries, and this is reflected not only in the material about him (he was murdered) but also in the treatment of his name. His proper name, Eshbaal, which means “man of the lord,” is preserved in the late account found in I Ch. 8:33 and I Ch. 9:39. However, in the earlier account found in II Samuel 2-4, his name was changed by the compilers of the book to Ishbosheth, meaning “man of shame.” (This is the opposite of a euphemism, a dysphemism.) This play on the name of Saul's son probably expresses an opinion of the author of II Samuel about that person. The redactor or author of I Chronicles used the original name.

A careful examination of names can also lead to information about the times in which a work was composed. The relatively unknown play on words between the name of a famous Babylonian king, Nebuchadnezzar in Kings and Nebuchadrezzar in Jeremiah, could have been made only by someone familiar with the times these passages portray. The latter can be translated from Babylonian as “Nabu protect the heir,” while the former means “Nabu protect the mule.” Only someone writing from an anti-Babylonian perspective would have used the dysphemism. The correct form of the name would have been used by pro-Babylonian, neutral and/or politically removed writers. This corroborates the general anti-Babylonian tenor of Kings and the pro-Babylonian stance of Jeremiah. However, unlike Ishbosheth mentioned above this dysphemism would not have been original with the writers of the Bible but must have been borrowed from a current Mesopotamian wordplay on the Babylonian king's name.

If a Semitic Vorlage is posited for the Book of Mormon, it also becomes evident that its authors used wordplay. For instance, in the Book of Alma the people of Ammon are given a land called Jershon. The etymology of this toponym can be traced with some certainty to a Hebrew root meaning “to inherit.” Alma 27:22 states that “this land Jershon [that is, inheritance] is the land which we will give unto our brethren for an inheritance.” This is an excellent example of word play in the Book of Mormon and also makes a statement about the Nephite action of giving the land to the converted Lamanites.

An exacting study of the names also can reveal otherwise unknown influences on Nephite society. One of the better known apostates of the Book of Mormon carried a Jaredite name, Korihor. Likewise, perhaps the second most infamous apostate movement in the Book of Mormon also carries a Jaredite name, order of Nehors, named after the Nephite, Nehor. This name however is a Jaredite toponym, appearing as a proper name in the Book of Ether. These two examples suggest that Nephite apostate movements might have been inspired by Jaredite history, either through the 24 gold plates found by Limhi's people and translated by Mosiah or through contact with actual survivors of the Jaredite culture.

Methodology

Requisite to any study of the Book of Mormon onomasticon is primary and accurate control of philologic possibilities. In the example Jershon, a widely used manual of the Church, quoting a Book of Mormon commentary, stated that the name means “Land of the exiled, or of the strangers.” This false etymology is probably based on the assumption that the root in Hebrew for the Nephite Jershon is to be derived from the Hebrew word for stranger, gr. This root begins with a gimel /g/, which normally is transliterated in the King James Bible with a /g/ and not a /j/. As discussed below the /j/ in the Hebrew names of the King James Bible usually goes back to a Hebrew yod /y/. Therefore, based on the normal transliteration techniques employed in the King James Version and assuming they apply to the Book of Mormon, the meaning “exile” or “stranger” for the word Jershon is not possible. In addition, the sound /š/ in Jershon would still be unexplained.

Inseparable from a control of the primary languages is a knowledge of which languages apply to the Book of Mormon onomasticon and to what extent they apply. When considering possible language Vorlagen for the Book of Mormon, Hebrew of the biblical period is the first choice. Nearly equal in consideration to Hebrew is Egyptian, followed by the other Semitic languages in use at or before the time of Lehi, namely, Akkadian, Aramaic, Ugaritic, Phoenician, Moabite, Ammonite, etc. Semitic languages first attested after the time of Lehi, such as Classical Arabic, the later Aramaic dialects, Ethiopic dialects, etc., are not as relevant as the earlier languages, but may be used with extreme caution. Other non-Semitic languages with which the Hebrews could have had contact before the time of Lehi, such as Hittite, Greek, Hurrian, Sumerian, etc., should be a last resort.

Even with these precautions problems cannot be avoided. A name can have several etymologies based not only on several roots in one language, but it may also be traceable to more than one language. For example, one author has seen in Alma an Arabic name, while in Hebrew there could be as many as four possible etymologies, ʾlm, ʿlm/ǵlm, ʾlmʿ, though only ǵlm works best.

Essential for the study of the names is a list of all the attested variant spellings of the names. Royal Skousen’s masterful and massive study of the textual variants in the Book of Mormon has conveniently made such a list possible. For instance, any etymology of the toponym Cumorah must be based on an acceptable reading of the received text. The present editions of the Book of Mormon are unanimous in reading Cumorah. However, this place name is spelled three different ways in the Printer's Manuscript. Thus, Mormon 6 contains the spelling Camorah and Cumorah in vs. 2, while vs. 5 has Comorah. In the 1830 edition Camorah is standard throughout the Book of Mormon. Cumorah appears in all subsequent editions.

In addition, some variations of the spellings of names have slipped into the present editions seemingly without justification, e.g., shiblum. The Original Manuscript in Alma 11:16 was corrected to read shilum, and in verse 17 it is written without correction as shilum. In both verses in the Printer's Manuscript it is spelled shilum. In the 1830 edition a b was slipped in, probably because of the proximity of the phonetically similar shiblon.

Second only to the need for a critical edition is the need to posit a theoretical model for the possible transliteration into English of the names as they might have been on the Vorlage. Thus, does a /j/ in a name in the Book of Mormon represent the phoneme /j/, or /y/, or /g/, or /ǵ/? The /j/ in the transliterated Hebrew names in the King James Bible usually stands for a /y/, the Hebrew letter yod. It is notable, however, that the King James renderings are not consistent. The initial Hebrew phonemes of Jeremiah, Isaiah and Job are /y/, /y/, and /h/ respectively. Extrapolating from this example, we can expect relative but not absolute consistency in the transliterations of the Book of Mormon onomasticon.

A further complication involves the commingling of Jaredite names among the Nephite names. Unless and until it can be determined from which cultural background the Jaredites departed, it will be impossible to do anything but guess about etymologies for Jaredite names. It also appears that Jaredite names surface rather early in the Nephite record and should not be considered with Nephite names when etymologies are proposed.

Conclusion

An understanding of the proper names in the language of the Vorlage of the Book of Mormon can reveal, via literary nuance, aspects of Nephite/Lamanite culture that remain unrecognized by the reader who is limited to modern languages. However, such results are valid only to the extent that the conclusions are based on sound methodology. This study has proposed an apposite methodology, i.e., control of the possible primary languages, discretion in determining the primary languages, thorough and rigorous examination of all the philologic possibilities in the various target languages, and an edition of the received text that indicates all variations in the received texts.

Needless to say, as the title of this paper indicates, this is only an incipient attempt at defining the relevancy and establishing a methodology for a study of the proper names of the Book of Mormon. Much work still begs attention, including an ongoing revision of this preface. Extreme caution both in the tools used and the ways in which they are used must always be the standard. Less is better and conservatism is a virtue. Yet the study of the onomasticon of the Book of Mormon is a must if we are to understand the world of the Nephites and Jaredites.

The contributors and I hope this introductory statement on relevancy and methodology will lead to even more significant progress in the study of the proper names of the Book of Mormon.

The editor, Paul Y. Hoskisson