Scholarship and the Book of Mormon

Because I was raised by active LDS parents, I was exposed to the Book of Mormon at a very early age. The strange language structures of the book just seemed natural to me – that was just the way scripture was. It wasn’t until I was a college student that I learned enough to appreciate just how different the language of the Book of Mormon was.

About 30 years ago I first read an article about Hebraisms in the Book of Mormon (see“Hebraisms in the Book of Mormon: A Preliminary Survey”, BYU Studies, 1970, Vol11:1 – available online). I finally understood why the English of the book was so different. The knowledge I gained from reading this and similar scholarship changed my ability to study and understand the Book of Mormon.

The next major influence that helped me better understand the Book of Mormon came in about 2003 when I attended a seminar in the BYU College of Humanities given by Dr. Royal Skousen. He proposed that the revealed Book of Mormon translation given to Joseph Smith by the “gift and power of God” included many words, whose meaning as used in the Book of Mormon, came from Middle English (15^ththrough 17^th centuries - I refer to this as Archaic English). I became a frequent user of the online Oxford English Dictionary because of its priceless historical data on the English Language (see Appendix: Oxford English Dictionary, below). Every time I see a word that seems unusual, I consult the OED online and dozens of times I have found that old meanings of words fit the Book of Mormon context much better than contemporary or 19^th century meanings.
In November of 2008, I was invited to a special presentation by my brother, Dr. Lynn A. Rosenvall (PhD in Geography) and his son David L. Rosenvall (MBA, BS in Engineering, David has considerable experience with internet systems) concerning their work on the Geography of the Book of Mormon. As Lynn said at the time: “the story had to take place somewhere.”Their proposal that Baja California was the site where the Book of Mormon record keepers lived was both stunning and startling to me personally. For years I had believed the story might have occurred in Mesoamerica; however, I knew there were serious challenges matching that location to the story contained within the Book of Mormon. Just two of many challenges were climate mismatches and scale mismatches.

Most satisfying to me personally was the match of their Baja proposal to the Archaic English meanings of Book of Mormon words as proposed by Royal Skousen. Time after time Lynn and David found that geographical terms as used in the Book of Mormon match with the old meanings of words (e.g. OED: isle or island: “a piece of land completely surrounded by water but formerly used less definitely, including a peninsula… see Book of Mormon | 2 Nephi 10:20, “we have been driven out of the land of our inheritance; but we have been led to a better land, for the Lord has made the sea our path, and we are upon an isle of the sea.”)

Because of all of this, I will post articles to this blog dealing with all three subjects: Language (including insights about Hebrew), Archaic English in the Book of Mormon, and research related to Baja and its geography.

Appendix: Oxford English Dictionary

In the Book of Mormon Ether 6:10 we read (emphasis added) “And thus they were driven forth; and no monster of the sea could break them, neither whale that could mar them; and they did have light continually, whether it was above the water or under the water.” With the usual meaning of damage, destroy or blemish, this verse make little sense. However, notice the OED entry for mar. An old meaning of the word is “hamper or hinder”, and it appears that this meaning is being used in the Book of Mormon.