Item Detail
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30239
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1
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10
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English
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The Theological Value of the King James Language in the Book of Mormon
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Journal of Book of Mormon Studies
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2018
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27
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Champaign, IL
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University of Illinois Press
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88-124
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In 1831, Alexander Campbell argued that the Book of Mormon was a fraudulent work of fiction that was full of plagiarized King James English. Recent scholarship, primarily authored by Latter-day Saints, has proposed several limited explanations for the Book of Mormon’s seventeenth-century language, though all of them limit its value, in one way or another, to the nineteenth century. This article, however, has demonstrated the existence of an underlying theological value to the King James English that is relevant to a modern reader. Reviewing the unresolved sixteenth-century controversies between Thomas More and William Tyndale over priest and elder, love and charity, and congregation and church exposed some of the theological problems inherent in the King James text, and an analysis of the Book of Mormon’s use of those same six words demonstrated the many ways in which the Book of Mormon not only addresses but resolves those issues. The seventeenth-century language in the Book of Mormon should not be perceived solely as a means of smoothing the way for the volume’s acceptance in the nineteenth century, nor should it be viewed as an unnecessary or irritating relic that has long lost its usefulness. Rather, from the Book of Mormon’s own perspective, the seventeenth-century language is an indispensable tool that allows the Book of Mormon to clarify and establish the truths in the King James Bible.
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Archaic Pronouns and Verbs in the Book of Mormon : What Inconsistent Usage Tells Us about Translation Theories
Book of Mormon Authorship Revisited : The Evidence for Ancient Origins
Delusions : An Analysis of the Book of Mormon ; with an Examination of Its internal and External Evidences, and a Refutation of Its pretences to Divine Authority
From Darkness unto Light : Joseph Smith's Translation and Publication of the Book of Mormon
Mormons and the Bible : The Place of the Latter-day Saints in American Religion
No Man Knows My History : The Life of Joseph Smith, the Mormon Prophet
The Bible, Mormon Scripture, and the Rhetoric of Allusivity
The Book of Mormon : A Reader's Edition
The Gift and Power : Translating the Book of Mormon
The King James Bible and the Restoration