The Book of Mormon was carefully written and deserves our careful attention.
Regular readers of this blog know that this is a principle Stisa and I feel strongly about. I'm in the early stages on creating a whole series of content on this specific topic. Recognizing this fact has completely transformed my scripture study and my spirituality over the past few years.
I owe the recent surge in my interest in the Book of Mormon to Stisa, who several years ago demonstrated to me the high degree of internal consistency found in the Book of Mormon text. Both of us have posted at length on that topic. It's a very interesting topic, one that supplies a very intriguing line of evidence supporting the divine origin of the Book of Mormon. It has largely been untouched by the critics.
Internal consistency is very interesting and important. However, focusing solely on that might cause us to miss something much bigger, something more doctrinally relevant.
Looking for internal consistency helped me develop a careful eye and that careful eye has allowed me to find other examples of the multi-layered richness of the text. As I trained my mind to search the Book of Mormon for subtle details, I began to find doctrinal lessons which had eluded my detection for decades. As readers of this blog will already know, I find great joy in finding and pondering these subtle lessons.
Mormon 8:8 -- four sermons in a single verse!
Here is one such example -- a series of posts on Mormon 8:8 (This link will take you to one post which links to the other posts in the series.). I spent a big part of a month studying that verse alone (along with all of the other verses those phrases are meant to point us to). It was a very exciting discovery. Moroni wasn't just playing MadLibs with his father's writings, he was combining short phrases in a way to point careful readers to other parts of the records and drink deeply from his father's masterpiece. The lessons range from the everlasting covenant to the creation account to the resurrection.
Since making that discovery, I've tried to really maintain a humble attitude when studying the scriptures. Whereas, I used to dismiss certain awkward phrasings as nothing more than antiquated English, I now ask myself why those precise words were used, and whether that wording might be a clue to look at other verses.
My study of Mormon 8:8 made it clear to me that important truths were waiting to be found but identifying them requires patience, humility, and a deep commitment to studying the scriptures. Nevertheless, two facts make this effort worth the investment:
- The process of discovery is very exciting and satisfying.
- The more one studies and becomes familiar with the scriptures, the easier these connections are to find.
A few months later, I learned (again from Stisa, thanks buddy) that this technique is recognized by scholars as a powerful literary device used by ancient Hebrew scribes.
It even has a fancy name! Metalepsis.
Metalepsis
As Stisa recently posted (here), ancient Hebrew scribes used a technique scholars refer to as metalepsis, defined by Richard Hays as:
"a literary technique of citing or echoing a small bit of a precursor text in such a way that the reader can grasp the significance of the echo only by recalling or recovering the original context from which the fragmentary echo came and then reading the two texts in dialogical juxtaposition" (quoted here)
Bible scholars have noted that the New Testament is best understood when studied in the context of the Old Testament. To ignore the OT influence on the NT is to misinterpret the NT.
My not-so-technical term for this is "a sermon in a phrase." By invoking a certain phrase from a well-known story, the author can draw out new meaning from that old story and teach a deeper lesson in the new story at the same time. It makes perfect sense that this kind of technique would be used widely at a time when writing materials were harder to come by, when oral tradition played a huge role in religious tradition, and when cultures saw time as circular rather than linear. This technique allows the author to highlight an echo from the past on demand to add depth and richness to an account. I recently discovered an example that demonstrates this so perfectly, which will be the subject of my next post.
"Hidden wisdom"
This type of study is greatly helped when a reader is intimately acquainted with the source text. In other words, my relative unfamiliarity with the Old Testament puts me at a disadvantage when it come to identifying metalepsis involving the Old Testament.
This is also a great way to bless the hard work and diligence it takes to uncover these lessons. (Imagine if every possible lesson contained in the scriptures could be fully recognized in a single reading!)
Perhaps this is also part of a divine pattern, where certain aspects of the Gospel are metaphorically shouted from the rooftops, while others lay in wait to be discovered by those who earnestly seek in patience and faith.
Whatever the case, I'm hooked. My scripture study will never be the same, and I'm very glad for that!
The upcoming series of posts on Helaman 8-10 will attempt to outline some of the "sermons in a phrase" hiding in those verses.
I'll end this post with the little detail that opened up my understanding in what will follow, found in Helaman 10:
1 And it came to pass that there arose a division among the people, insomuch that they divided hither and thither and went their ways, leaving Nephi alone, as he was standing in the midst of them.
I think I've found a whole sermon tucked away in the words "divided hither and thither," which I'll discuss in the next posts.