Reddit reviews American Apocrypha: Essays on the Book of Mormon (Essays on Mormonism Series)

In D. Michael Quinn's Early Mormonism and the Magic World View, p. 192, he states:

>"Similar to John W. Welch's claims about pre-1830 America's alleged ignorance of a form of biblical parallelism (chiasmus), Nibley understated the access of Palmyra's residents in the mid-1820s to information about the pseudepigraphic Enoch."

Follow fn108 to the appendix on pp 499-504. Quinn basically here submits an essay expounding John Welch's discovery of chiasmus in the BoM and subsequent dishonesty about Joseph's access to scholastic materials available at the time. From p. 500:

>"Advertised for sale in Joseph Smith's neighborhood, Horne's 1825 Introduction To the Critical Study and Knowledge of the Holy Scriptures emphasized ...: 'The grand, and indeed, sole characteristic of Hebrew Poetry, is what Bishop Lowthe entitles Parallelism, that is, a certain quality, resemblance, or relationship, between the members of each period; so that in two lines, or members of the same period, things shall answer to things, and words to words, as if fitted to each other by a kind of rule or measure. This is the general strain of the Hebrew poetry; instances of which occur in almost every part of the Old Testament ...' ... Horne further explained ... that these 'Parallel constructions and figures' referred to 'those passages in which the same sentence is expressed not precisely in the same words, but in similar words' ... Horne's 1825 American edition said that such parallelism would be found in any ancient text written by Hebrews. ... [p. 501: In the same edition,] Horne also gave ... several diagrams of 'Parallel Lines Introverted ... [Horne quotes a pair of multi-line chiasmus from Isaiah and Psalms that follow the typical ABCDCBA structure]."

Is chiasmus a reputable form of ancient Hebrew poetry? Yes. Was it also a common Old English poetic mechanism? Yes. Bill Shakespeare made abundant use of it. In my opinion, some Chiasmus in the Book of Mormon are outstanding achievements (e.g. Alma 36 in its entirety). Other purported examples can be a bit of a stretch. But Joseph Smith (and any accomplices) had everything he needed to compose such a book. To see the entire Book of Mormon reformatted to fit Hebrew poetic styles, I recommend Perry's Poetic Parallelisms in the Book of Mormon.

Interestingly, several unique changes made to Isaiah in the Book of Mormon actually ruin or obscure other types of Hebrew poetry native to the Masoretic texts. I recommend picking up a copy of American Apocrypha and reading David P. Wright's essay, "Isaiah in the Book of Mormon: Or Joseph Smith in Isaiah" - it is a bit technical, but an excellent treatment of the subject. Regardless of one's position on its authorship, the Book of Mormon as dictation literature is actually very, very impressive.