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| <pre>Preface:
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| Relevancy and Methodology for a Study of the Proper Names of the Book of Mormon
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| Paul Y. Hoskisson
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| Many scattered and disconnected statements (mostly proffered etymologies) have been made about the proper names in the Book of Mormon.1 Because of the mixed
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| 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.
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|
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| Relevancy
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| With the exception of a few modern proper names coined for their composite sounds,2 all names have meanings in their language of origin. Often people are not
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| 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
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| 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
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| word wain, meaning a “wagon or cart;” hence the surname Wainwright, “builder/repairer of wagons.”3 However, to our contemporary ears Wayne no longer has a meaning;
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| it is simply a personal name.
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| 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,
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| Tony and Sasha (also written Sacha from the French spelling) have been borrowed into English from Danish,4 Italian5 and Russian6 respectively. The latter is particularly
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| instructive, because it represents a rather complicated transference of names. Sasha is a Russian diminutive (nickname) for Aleksandr (English Alexander), which in turn was
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| 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
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| form it was derived from, let alone the Greek origin and meaning of the name.
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| 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
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| 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
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| spelled i.7 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
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| wayne = wain = wagon.8
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| 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
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| and therefore phonemes of the original, despite several transmigrations involving intermediate languages. For example, the English name Esther can be traced ultimately
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| 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
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| goes back to the Greek form in the Septuaginta or to the Hebrew, Esther, both of which ultimately derive from the Babylonian, Ištar.
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| For the above two reasons,9 the onomasticon10 of the Book of Mormon can preserve the lexemes of the languages used to compose the book. In this respect, the
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| 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
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| understanding the cultures of the Book of Mormon.
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| 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
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| names necessarily were consciously based on meaning,11 most were. For instance, Isaiah gave his two sons long and, for most English speakers, unpronounceable names.
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| 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
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| that message gives us insight into the literary work of a great prophet.12
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| 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
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| 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
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| means “man of the lord,”13 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
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| 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
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| expresses an opinion of the author of II Samuel about that person. The redactor or author of I Chronicles used the original name.
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| 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
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| a famous Babylonian king, Nebuchadnezzar in Kings14 and Nebuchadrezzar in Jeremiah15, could have been made only by someone familiar with the times these passages
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| portray. The latter can be translated from Babylonian as “Nabu protect the heir,” while the former means “Nabu protect the mule.”16 Only someone writing from an
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| 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
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| writers. This corroborates the general anti-Babylonian tenor of Kings and the pro-Babylonian stance of Jeremiah. However, unlike Ishbosheth mentioned above this
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| 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
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| name.17
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| 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
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| are given a land called Jershon. The etymology of this toponym can be traced with some certainty to a Hebrew root meaning “to inherit.”18 Alma 27:22 states that “this land
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| 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
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| makes a statement about the Nephite action of giving the land to the converted Lamanites.19
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| 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
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| Jaredite name, Korihor.20 Likewise, perhaps the second most infamous apostate movement in the Book of Mormon also carries a Jaredite name, order of Nehors, named
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| after the Nephite, Nehor.21 This name however is a Jaredite toponym,22 appearing as a proper name in the Book of Ether. These two examples suggest that Nephite
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| 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
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| with actual survivors of the Jaredite culture.
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|
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| Methodology
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| 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
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| 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
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| 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
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| 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
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| /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”
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| or “stranger” for the word Jershon is not possible. In addition, the sound /š/ in Jershon would still be unexplained.23
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| 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
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| 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,
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| 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
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| 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
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| 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,
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| etc., should be a last resort.
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| 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
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| traceable to more than one language. For example, one author has seen in Alma an Arabic name,24 while in Hebrew there could be as many as four possible etymologies,
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| ʾlm, ʿlm/ǵlm, ʾlmʿ, though only ǵlm works best.
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| 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
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| the Book of Mormon has conveniently made such a list possible.25 For instance, any etymology of the toponym Cumorah must be based on an acceptable reading of the
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| 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
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| 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
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| Book of Mormon. Cumorah appears in all subsequent editions.26
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| 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
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| 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
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| 1830 edition a b was slipped in, probably because of the proximity of the phonetically similar shiblon.27
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| 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
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| 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
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| 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
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| 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
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| Book of Mormon onomasticon.
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| A further complication involves the commingling of Jaredite names among the Nephite names. Unless and until it can be determined from which cultural background
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| the Jaredites departed,28 it will be impossible to do anything but guess about etymologies for Jaredite names. It also appears that Jaredite names surface rather early in
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| the Nephite record29 and should not be considered with Nephite names when etymologies are proposed.
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| Conclusion
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| 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
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| 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
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| methodology. This study has proposed an apposite methodology, i.e., control of the possible primary languages, discretion in determining the primary languages, thorough
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| 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
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| texts.
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| 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
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| 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
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| 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
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| understand the world of the Nephites and Jaredites.
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| 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
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| the Book of Mormon.
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|
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| The editor, Paul Y. Hoskisson </pre>
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|
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| 1 In making a list of proposed etymologies of Book of Mormon names I have logged over 300 suggestions made over a period of more than 140 years and in more than
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| thirty publications.
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|
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| 2 For example, LaDell, Shalynn, Sonda, etc.
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|
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| 3 See Leslie Dunkling and William Gosling, Everyman's Dictionary of First Names (London & Melbourne: J. M. Dent & Sons, 1983), p. 290. Cf. also The Compact Edition
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| of the Oxford English Dictionary (Oxford: Oxford University, 1981), pp. 3667-3668.
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|
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| 4 E. G. Withycombe, The Oxford Dictionary of English Christian Names (Oxford: Clarendon, 1977), p. 186. See also Dunkling, pp. 148-149.
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| 5 Withycombe, p. 28; and Dunkling, p. 276.
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|
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| 6 Withycombe, p. 13; and Dunkling, pp. 251 and 247.
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|
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| 7 The OED entries on pp. 3667-3668 list the earliest readings for wayn (first entry @1250) while the spelling wain usually appears several centuries later.
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| 8 See the previous footnote. The spelling wagon was adopted into English around the 16th century (OED, "wagon," p. 3666).
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| 9 That is, 1.) when enough is known about a name it can be traced to its language of origin, and 2.) the names can preserve original phonemes and lexemes of the
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| language of origin even though the name originated in a language no longer spoken.
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|
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| 10Unless all substantives are included in a definition of the Book of Mormon onomasticon (a list of proper names), nouns like rameumptom (Alma 31:21) and irreantum
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| (1 Nephi 17:5), which normally would not be included in an onomasticon, form an exception to this rule.
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|
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| 11For instance see Rivkah Harris, "The nadtu Woman," in Studies Presented to A. Leo Oppenheim (Chicago: The Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago, 1964),
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| p. 127, who states, in speaking of the names given to nadtu priestesses in the Old Babylonian period, "Then as now there were vogues in names."
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|
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| 12 The names, Shear-jashub "a remnant shall return" (Isaiah 7:3; for the translation see F. Brown, S. R. Driver, and C. A. Briggs, A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the
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| Old Testament [Oxford: Clarendon, 1968], p. 984), and Maher-shalal-hash-baz "Hurry the spoil, hasten the plunder" (Isaiah 8:3; see also the translation on page 555
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| of the above dictionary), refer to the impending captivity and the subsequent return of a small remnant from that captivity. See Isaiah 8:18.
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|
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| 13 In the earlier Biblical texts Baal (from the Hebrew root bcl) still carries its original meaning, "lord" or "master." In later Biblical texts Baal came to be the proper name
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| of a Canaanite god whose name is otherwise not known.
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|
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| 14 E.g., 2 Kings 24:1.
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|
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| 15 E.g., Jeremiah 37:1.
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|
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| 16 For a recent handling of this topic see A. van Selms, "The Name Nebuchadnezzar," in Travels in the World of the Old Testament, M. van Voss, Philo Houwink ten Cate
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| and N. A. van Uchelen, eds. (Assen: Van Gorcum, 1974), Studia Semitica Neerlandica 16, pp. 223-229.
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| 17 The play on words works best in Akkadian, not at all in Hebrew, and only partially in Aramaic. For this reason it is likely that this dysphemism originated in the
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| cuneiform world and not in Palestine.
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|
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| 18 The root in Hebrew is *yrš. ([š] = the sound "sh" and is the letter in Hebrew called shin.) See below for another proposed etymology, albeit undoubtedly false.
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|
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| 19 This was first drawn to my attention by John W. Welch of the BYU Law School faculty.
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|
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| 20 The Jaredite form is with a c, Corihor. The use of a c in the Jaredite name and a k in the Nephite one poses no phonological problems.
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| 21 For the movement "order of Nehors" see Alma 21:4 and 24:28. Nehor himself first appears in Alma 1:15.
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| 22 See Ether 7:4 and 9. It is not attested as a Jaredite personal name.
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|
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| 23 For the most likely etymology of the name Jershon see the example given above. With the etymology proposed there, the only unaccounted for element in the name
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| Jershon is the ending -on, which is probably to be understood as deriving from -ân, used in Ugaritic (see §8.58 in C. H. Gordon, Ugaritic Textbook [Rome: Pontifical
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| Biblical Institute, 1965], Analecta Orientalia 38), in Hebrew (confer its probable use in the eponym Zebulon [The original pronunciation is preserved in the gentilic in
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| Numbers 26:27 and Judges 12:11]), and in Akkadian (see Wolfram von Soden, Grundriss der akkadischen Grammatik [Rome: Pontifical Biblical Institute, 1969], Analecta
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| Orientalia 33/47, §56r, where it appears to be used only in a narrow sense).
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|
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| 24 Hugh Nibley, An Approach to the Book of Mormon, 2nd ed. (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1965), p. 59.
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| 25 The Critical Text of the Book of Mormon, in five volumes: The Original Manuscript (2001), The Printer’s Manuscript, in two parts (2001); The History of the Text of the
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| Book of Mormon, (three parts projected for 2012), Analysis of Textual Variants, in six parts (2004-2009); and A Complete Electronic Collation of the Book of Mormon
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| (no date yet set); Provo, UT: The Foundation for Ancient Research and Mormon Studies.
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|
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| 26 For calling my attention to this information I am indebted to Robert Smith.
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|
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| 27 Robert Smith originally drew my attention to this spelling error. For a thorough discussion of the error see Royal Skousen, Analysis of Textual Variants of the Book of
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| Mormon, part 3 (Provo UT: Foundation for Ancient Research and Mormon Studies, 2006), 1810-11.
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|
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| 28 The popular conception in the Church is that the Jaredites departed from Mesopotamia. Hugh Nibley, an LDS scholar, believes that the Jaredites departed from
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| somewhere around Lake Van. (See his treatment in Lehi in the Desert and The World of the Jaredites (Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1952), pp. 143-272.
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|
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| 29 The Small Plates in the form we now have, 1 Nephi through Words of Mormon, do not contain any obviously Jaredite names. Beginning at least with the book Alma
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| Jaredite names begin to appear among the Nephite personal names, e.g., Korihor (= Jaredite Corihor in Ether 13:17) in Alma 30 passim. See also Coriantumr in Helaman
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| 1:15ff and Ether 12-15 passim.
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| </pre>
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