Abstract: This paper compares the Book of Mormon’s subordinate that usage with what is found in the King James Bible, pseudo-archaic writings, and the greater textual record. In this linguistic domain, the Book of Mormon manifests as thoroughly archaic, and it surpasses all known pseudo-archaic writings in breadth and depth of archaism. The implications of this set of linguistic data indicate that the translation as originally dictated by Joseph Smith cannot plausibly be explained as the result of Joseph’s own word choices, but it is consistent with the hypothesis that the wording was somehow provided to him.

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Book of Mormon excerpt with an archaic subordinate that:“after that they had hid themselves, I Nephi crept into the city”

(1 Nephi 4:5)1

In 1 Nephi 4:5, archaic subordinate that usage (also called pleonastic that in the literature)2 involves the time conjunction after. This “after that S” usage (where S stands for a sentence-like subordinate clause) is frequently found in the King James Bible (74 times by one count, if we include the Apocrypha, which was often present in earlier Bibles). Yet as we shall see, this particular archaic subordinate that usage, as well as [Page 2]subordinate that in general, occur to a limited extent in pseudo-archaic texts of the 18th and 19th centuries. The reason for this is twofold: some biblical subordinate that usage is only lightly represented in the King James text (≤ 5 times), and subordinate that usage “declin[ed] rapidly in the 17th century to such an extent that it became virtually obliterated towards the end of that same century.”3

I will first review biblical types of archaic subordinate that usage, then pseudo-archaic usage, and then the types found in the original Book of Mormon text. Pseudo-archaic writings constitute a control group that is important to consider (see below and the final section of the appendix for how these texts were chosen). The approach taken here is not to assume that any biblical usage was automatically reproducible by Joseph Smith, as a biblical imitator, since such an assumption is not a principled, rigorous approach.

 

You can listen to or download the December 5th broadcast of the Interpreter Radio Show below. It will also be included in our podcast feed (https://interpreterfoundation.org/feeds/podcast). This episode is hosted by Neal Rappleye, Jasmin Rappleye and Hales Swift. In this episode, our hosts discussed the First Presidency’s Christmas Devotional as well as the Church’s Light the World campaign.. The second portion of the show is a roundtable discussing the upcoming Come Follow Me lesson #3 (Genesis 3-4; Moses 4-5). The Interpreter Radio Show can be heard Sunday evenings from 7 to 9 PM (MDT), on K-TALK, AM 1640, or you can listen live on the Internet at ktalkmedia.com. Call in to 801-254-1640 with your questions and comments during the live show.

 

Original air date: December 5, 2021. This recording has been edited to remove commercial breaks.

The Interpreter Radio Show is a weekly discussion of matters of interest to the hosts, guests, and callers of the show. The views expressed on the Interpreter Radio Show are those of the individuals involved and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Interpreter Foundation, nor should statements made on the show be construed as official doctrinal statements of the Church.

 

During the Winter Semester of 1986 at Brigham Young University, Dr. Hugh W. Nibley, professor emeritus of ancient scriptures, presented a series of 26 lectures to an Honors class on The Pearl of Great Price. This class was videotaped in the Maeser Building and made available by FARMS as both video and audio recordings. The text was then transcribed and included in Ancient Documents and the Pearl of Great Price, published by Deseret Book.

All 26 lectures are available immediately as follows:

* Links to both the video and audio recordings: The Complete Bibliography for Hugh Nibley (CBHN) at https://interpreterfoundation.org/bibliographies/hugh-w-nibley/lectures/

* Video recordings: Maxwell Institute playlist on YouTube at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ehBxXyk-Ots&list=PLOrN0FV73AsIeKPG48pi390UWWdOVyIgi

* Transcripts (ePub format): Deseret Books at https://deseretbook.com/p/ancient-documents-pearl-great-price-hugh-nibley-78458?variant_id=20055-ebook

* Transcripts (Kindle format): Amazon at https://www.amazon.com/Ancient-Documents-Pearl-Great-Price-ebook/dp/B004FN1QRE

This week we have the audio recordings of a total of ten Pearl of Great Price lectures relevant to the third Come, Follow Me Old Testament lesson on Genesis 3-4 and Moses 4–5. Many of these are repeats of lectures included last week for Lesson 2. Where available, we’ve also included links to the video recordings. Over the next month, we will post the remaining lectures relevant to the Come, Follow Me lessons that include sections of The Pearl of Great Price.

 

Lecture 3—Literalism

Podcast: Download/Play (Duration: 51:52 — 48.5MB)Video: View on YouTube

 

Lecture 7—The Council.

Podcast: Download/Play (Duration: 51:45 — 48.4MB)Video: View on YouTube

 

Lecture 8—The Council According to the Shabako Stone

Podcast: Download/Play (Duration: 50:22 — 47.1MB)Video: View on YouTube

 

Lecture 9—The Council According to the Shabako Stone (Continued)

Podcast: Download/Play (Duration: 54:03 — 50.6MB)Video:

This is an Interpreter Radio Roundtable for Come, Follow Me Old Testament Lesson 3, “The Fall of Adam and Eve” on Genesis 3-4; Moses 4-5. The panelists for this roundtable were Neal Rappleye, Jasmin Rappleye and Hales Swift. This roundtable was extracted from the December 5th broadcast of Interpreter Radio. The complete show may be heard at https://interpreterfoundation.org/interpreter-radio-show-December-5-2021/. The Interpreter Radio Show can be heard Sunday evenings from 7 to 9 PM (MDT), on K-TALK, AM 1640, or you can listen live on the Internet at ktalkmedia.com. Call in to 801-254-1640 with your questions and comments during the live show.

The Interpreter Radio Show is a weekly discussion of matters of interest to the hosts, guests, and callers of the show. The views expressed on the Interpreter Radio Show are those of the individuals involved and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Interpreter Foundation, nor should statements made on the show be construed as official doctrinal statements of the Church.

 

Abstract: Can people be good without believing in God? Obviously, yes. They can. Is atheistic naturalism capable of supplying a foundation for morality? That is a separate question, to which more than a few theists have answered No. However, a relatively new book by a very prominent student of religion and society suggests otherwise. A rational morality can, it argues, be founded upon atheistic naturalism — but it will necessarily be a modest and quite limited one, lacking universal scope and without a belief in human rights as objective “moral facts.”

The striking statement that, “if God doesn’t exist, everything is permitted,” is often attributed to the great Russian novelist Fyodor Dostoevsky (1821–1881) and, more specifically, to perhaps his greatest novel, The Brothers Karamazov, which was first published in 1880. Theists have used the statement to argue that the alternative to belief in God is moral nihilism. Absent a grounding in the divine, so the argument goes, human moral systems are without foundation — and, thus, are likely to crumble in the face of human self-interest, error, and corruption. At best, we will be left with the world described by the prophet Isaiah, a world of “slaying oxen, and killing sheep, eating flesh, and drinking wine,” in which the shallow refrain is “let us eat and drink; for to morrow we shall die” (Isaiah 22:13). At worst, as I discuss shortly, human life will more closely resemble that of the “state of nature” portrayed by Thomas Hobbes in the thirteenth chapter of his 1651 classic, Leviathan: “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short.”1

[Page viii]Shakespeare’s Macbeth famously captures the cynical and disenchanted mood of such a devalued world:

Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrowCreeps in this petty pace from day to dayTo the last syllable of recorded time.And all our yesterdays have lighted foolsThe way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle.Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor playerThat struts and frets his hour upon the stage,And then is heard no more. It is a taleTold by an idiot, full of sound and fury,Signifying nothing.2

In recent years, however, atheists seeking to rebut the theistic argument — and others, as well — have commonly denied that such a statement even occurs in The Brothers Karamazov. Perhaps, some will allow, it’s a decent though fairly loose paraphrase; others refuse to grant even that.

It appears, though, that Dostoevsky really did say “If God doesn’t exist, everything is permitted.”3 Or, at least, that his fictional character Ivan Karamazov did. Whether the statement accurately represents Karamazov’s actual viewpoint, of course, let alone Dostoevsky’s, is a separate question. (Presumably, not everything said by Iago or Macbeth or Richard III represents the views of Shakespeare.)

But the more important question, plainly, is whether it’s really true that “if God doesn’t exist, everything is permitted.” Does atheism actually entail moral nihilism? Please note that the question isn’t whether or not atheists can behave ethically or be morally good. Obviously, they can. Many have been and many continue to be. The question is whether,