Mormon Dilemma 236

27 April

And It Came To Pass

2 Nephi 1:1; And now it came to pass that after I, Nephi, had made an end of teaching my brethren, our father, Lehi, also spake many things unto them, and rehearsed unto them, how great things the Lord had done for them in bringing them out of the land of Jerusalem.

Matthew 6:7; But when ye pray, use not vain repetitions, as the heathen do: for they think that they shall be heard for their much speaking.

Twenty percent of the 6,604 verses in Book of Mormon contain the phrase “and it came to pass”.  They are merely filler words used in the deceitful practice of brain washing the Mormon people.  Repetitive words and phrases have the ability to self-hypnotize. 

 

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8 Responses to “Mormon Dilemma 236”

  1. thegardensofboxwoodmanor April 27, 2012 at 2:09 am #

    Yes, repetitive words…and fear in rules, etc. are the signatures of a cult. Yet the people are unaware!

  2. fred April 27, 2012 at 8:03 am #

    (Twenty percent of the 6,604 verses in Book of Mormon contain the phrase “and it came to pass”. They are merely filler words used in the deceitful practice of brain washing the Mormon people. Repetitive words and phrases have the ability to self-hypnotize.)

    You might want to rethink that conclusion.
    +++++++
    “It Came to Pass” in the Bible and Book of Mormon

    Statistical analysis of appearance of the phrase “came/come to pass” in both Bible and Book of Mormon indicates that the rate of occurrence in similar genres in these books is virtually the same. http://www.scribd.com/lighthorseharry/d/39997996-It-Came-to-Pass-in-the-Bible-and-Book-of-Mormon

    ++++++++++++++++
    Finally, the original text of the Book of Mormon contains expressions which seem inappropriate or improper in some of their uses. For example, in the original text a good many occurrences of the phrase “and it came to pass” are found in inappropriate contexts. In his editing for the 1837 edition, Joseph Smith removed at least 47 of these apparently extraneous uses of this well-worked phrase. In most cases, there were two or more examples of “it came to pass” in close proximity; in some cases, nothing new had “come to pass.” Now the King James phrase “and it came to pass” corresponds to the Hebrew word wayδhî “and it happened.” When translating the Hebrew Bible, the King James translators avoided translating wayδhî whenever it wouldn’t make sense in English, especially when too many events were “coming to pass” or when nothing had really “come to pass”—in other words, in those very places that the original text of the Book of Mormon “inappropriately” allows “and it came to pass” to occur. Consider the following three Book of Mormon examples (where the deleted phrase “it came to pass that” is in italics) with corresponding examples from Genesis, given in the King James version, but with the originally untranslated examples of the Hebrew wayδhî given as “it came to pass that” as and placed in square brackets:

    (1) two occurrences within the same sentence:

    2 Nephi 4:10
    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 yea and even all his household > Ø (1837)

    Genesis 27:30
    and it came to pass as soon as Isaac had made an end of blessing Jacob and [it came to pass that] Jacob was yet scarce gone out from the presence of Isaac his father that Esau his brother came in from his hunting

    Note here that the first use of “it came to pass” controls only a subordinate clause and thus the second “it came to pass” seems inappropriate for English speakers. Thus Joseph Smith removed the second occurrence in his later editing, just as the King James translators chose to ignore the second wayδhî in the Genesis passage.

    (2) three occurrences close together, with repetition of clausal elements:

    Alma 8:18–19
    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 he was an hungered and he sayeth to a man will ye give to an humble servant of God something to eat > Ø, Ø (1837)

    Genesis 35:16–18
    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

    (3) two occurrences, with parallelism:

    Alma 14:4–5
    but it came to pass that they did not [put them away privily] but they took them and bound them with strong cords and took them before the chief judge of the land and the people went forth and witnessed against them and many such things did the people testify against Alma and Amulek and it came to pass that it was done before the chief judge of the land > now this (1837)

    Genesis 39:5
    and it came to pass from the time that he had made him overseer in his house and over all that he had that the Lord blessed the Egyptian’s house for Joseph’s sake and [it came to pass that] the blessing of the Lord was upon all that he had in the house and in the field

    In these two examples “it came to pass” is used to repeat an idea without anything “coming to pass.”

    All these examples would suggest that wayδhî and the corresponding English phrase “and it came to pass” actually represents a discourse marker facilitating narrative cohesion. Perhaps it may be considered equivalent to and then or and so.
    http://maxwellinstitute.byu.edu/publications/jbms/?vol=3&num=1&id=46

  3. camdenc April 30, 2012 at 12:54 pm #

    Fred – Here’s the deal… The Bible was written on “paper”, the LDS claim the B of M was written on Brass/Gold plates (depending on which story you believe). The B of M even states that it was difficult to write on the plates as the writer would have to make deep and distinct impressions into the metal, thus the B of M states that their words are few because of the difficulty in engraving. If I remember correctly, there is a verse in the B of M that is 37 +/- words long that tells the reader “39 years had passed”…

    And why would Smith have to edit the “Most perfect book ever written” in 1837?

    If I had direct revelation from God to write something down… I would be in absolute fear of the wrath of God if I was to change anything about it.

  4. fred April 30, 2012 at 3:11 pm #

    (Here’s the deal… The Bible was written on “paper”, the LDS claim the B of M was written on Brass/Gold plates)

    There are more and more old world documents that are being found that are on metal plates, it is not unusual.

    (If I had direct revelation from God to write something down… I would be in absolute fear of the wrath of God if I was to change anything about it.)

    It is a good thing you are not one of the translators for the different Bibles. Translators of the Bible do not agree with each other, so some of them must be wrong.

  5. thegardensofboxwoodmanor April 30, 2012 at 10:07 pm #

    “There are more and more old world documents that are being found that are on metal plates, it is not unusual.”

    Where are they? I never heard of any.

  6. fred May 2, 2012 at 4:06 pm #

    (Where are they? I never heard of any.)

    +++++++
    One of the earliest known surviving examples of writing on “copper plates” are the Byblos Syllabic inscriptions (eighteenth century B.C.), from the city of Byblos on the Phoenician coast. The script is described as a “syllabary [which] is clearly inspired by the Egyptian hieroglyphic system, and in fact is the most important link known between the hieroglyphs and the Canaanite alphabet.”[2]

    It would not be unreasonable to describe the Byblos Syllabic texts as eighteenth century B.C. Semitic “bronze plates” written in “reformed Egyptian characters.”[3]

    Walter Burkert, in his study of the cultural dependence of Greek civilization on the ancient Near East, refers to the transmission of the practice of writing on bronze plates (Semitic root dlt) from the Phoenicians to the Greeks. “The reference to ‘bronze deltoi [plates, from dlt ]’ as a term [among the Greeks] for ancient sacral laws would point back to the seventh or sixth century [B.C.]” as the period in which the terminology and the practice of writing on bronze plates was transmitted from the Phoenicians to the Greeks.[4]
    ++++++++
    You can check the footnotes here:
    http://en.fairmormon.org/Book_of_Mormon/Anachronisms/Metal_plates
    Also, look here:
    http://www.jefflindsay.com/myturn.shtml#plates

  7. thegardensofboxwoodmanor May 3, 2012 at 2:43 am #

    He plates are found in pagan peoples’ religions and cultures as far as my reseach has shown ( and in yor 2 LDS links). I say, it would not be unreasonable to say that Smith’s plates were also of pagan origin, if he really found them, and his angel was also from Satan. Nothing here in the Bible regarding God writing on metal plates but that God wrote His Laws in stone.

  8. fred May 3, 2012 at 3:25 pm #

    You were wrong about ther not being records on metal plates.
    Just consider that you might be wrong on this conclusion also.

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