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There is so much great material here to contemplate. Once again you show us that the Book of Mormon and now also the Book of Moses have much more going on in the text than meets the eye. I am deeply grateful for your inquiries that allow us to see some of the hidden beauty and sophistication in these texts.
Your point about the ancient nature of the Book of Moses might well be compared to the tentative findings of Noel Reynolds on the Book of Mormon’s reliance on related material, some of which is directly related to the passages you examine. See Noel Reynolds, “The Brass Plates Version of Genesis,” in John M. Lundquist and Stephen D. Ricks, eds., By Study and Also by Faith: Essays in Honor of Hugh W. Nibley on the Occasion of His Eightieth Birthday, 27 March 1990, 2 vols. (Salt Lake City and Provo, UT: Deseret Book and FARMS, 1990), 2:136–173; http://publications.maxwellinstitute.byu.edu/fullscreen/?pub=1129&index=6.
Thank you, Jeff! I appreciate your kind words. The Book of Mormon and the Book of Moses (JST Genesis) definitely “have much more going on” than most readers are aware. At some point in the near future, I need to discuss my onomastic findings in terms of what Reynolds has proposed. And I hope that, for your part, you will keep up the great work that you are doing! 🙂
Thank you for your articles. I think it could help readers if you used single quotes for meaning. Is there a reason you use double quotes throughout?
You write: “The sophisticated nature of the proposed onomastic wordplay on the name Noah has important implications for Joseph Smith as translator.” Where do you stand on the question of whether Joseph saw revealed words throughout the dictation of the Book of Mormon or worked mostly from revealed ideas?
Hi Stanford,
Thank you for your comments. I appreciate the work that you are doing too. The types and degrees of intertextuality that I see in the Book of Mormon reflect a “tighter” control translation model. The examples of wordplay that I propose would not necessarily be incompatible with a “looser” control model (I suppose), but on balance, the internal and external evidences together recommend the former rather than the latter. That’s my two cents (for now). 🙂