Preliminary post.
The ongoing pursuit of clarity, charity and understanding leads me to comment on a recent video about linguistics that Scripture Central posted on YouTube video titled "New Linguistic Breakthrough Revealing the Original Language of the Book of Mormon."
The video is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D3SH_-E-x2E
This is an important topic because it involves the fundamental question whether Joseph and Oliver told the truth about the origin of the Book of Mormon. (I'm a little surprised that Scripture Central posted this video without more careful analysis because Scripture Central has otherwise been doing some great work recently.)
The content is based on an article by Stanford Carmack in the Interpreter, which you can read here:
Brother Carmack, along with Royal Skousen, are awesome people, careful scholars, faithful Latter-day Saints, etc. They have been promoting their Early Modern English (EME) theory for many years, with which many Latter-day Saints are familiar. Their EME theory claims that Joseph Smith could not have translated the engravings on the plates because he could not have known the language and grammar he dictated to Oliver Cowdery.
Basically, they use EME to promote the stone-in-the-hat (SITH) theory, which is why the Interpreter publishes their articles.
Their EME/SITH theory has led to their conclusion that, as Brother Skousen put it,
"Joseph Smith’s claim that he used the Urim and Thummim is only partially true; and Oliver Cowdery’s statements that Joseph used the original instrument while he, Oliver, was the scribe appear to be intentionally misleading."
See https://www.ldshistoricalnarratives.com/2026/04/thank-you-royal-skousen.html
Some people have adopted EME as an established fact, which is unfortunate, IMO. In stark contrast to Carmack/Skousen, I think Joseph and Oliver told the truth.
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I'm fine with people believing whatever they want, but people who want to make informed decisions deserve more clarity and information than this video (as well as the article) provide. I encourage people to pursue the FAITH model of analysis, which establishes Facts that everyone agrees upon. Then we proceed to articulating the various Assumptions, Inferences and Theories that lead to our overall Hypothesis.
In this case, neither the video nor the article included important, relevant Facts. This explains why their Assumptions, Inferences, and Theories lead to their Hypothesis. That's axiomatic.
What is more interesting is including Facts that corroborate what Joseph and Oliver always said about the translation.
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For people who have not followed this topic, the video might be a little confusing. It boils down to the use of "finite causative" construction in the text of the Book of Mormon. These are clauses such as "caused that they should..." This is a finite construction in comparison to the infinitive construction such as "caused him to do something," where the verb is infinitive. In the King James Bible, there are 300 examples of infinitive causatives using "cause" but only 3 of finitive causation (99.3% infinitive). In the Book of Mormon, there are 245 causatives, of which 42% are infinitive. This means that finitive causatives are far more common in the Book of Mormon than in the Bible.
The video claims this grammar in the Book of Mormon could not have been known to Joseph Smith, was not known in Hebrew, but was known in Egyptian, so therefore the original text on the plates must have been Egyptian.
This is a plausible argument and it is appealing because it confirms our biases regarding the antiquity of the original record on the plates. But the way it is presented and framed, it rejects what Joseph always said about the translation in favor of SITH.
The opposing view (which I find more persuasive) is that Joseph translated the engravings on the plates "after the manner of [his] language." (Doctrine and Covenants 1:24)
Here is a summary of the video (thanks to Grok):
In this Scripture Central interview, Dr. John Gee discusses new linguistic evidence suggesting the Book of Mormon was originally written in Egyptian, not Hebrew. Drawing on Stanford Carmack’s research into the Book of Mormon’s early modern English, Gee highlights the frequent use of a rare “finite causative” construction (“cause that they should…”) that closely parallels the ancient Egyptian rdi + subjunctive sdm.f causative.
This pattern is common in Egyptian but rare in Hebrew and 19th-century English. Gee argues it supports Nephi’s statement that he wrote “in the language of the Egyptians,” using Egyptian grammar and characters (likely Palestinian hieratic) on the plates. The evidence strengthens the case for the Book of Mormon’s ancient Near Eastern origins.
I suppose that, like me, most faithful Latter-day Saints enjoy learning about evidence of ancient Near Eastern origins for the Book of Mormon. However, the point is undermined when we rely on flawed reasoning, especially when the reasoning is based on the EME/SITH assumption that Joseph and Oliver misled everyone.
Here is the conclusion as stated in the video:
23:46
So based on the frequent appearance of a causative verb followed by a conjugated finite verb which is not a standard English form nor a Hebrew form but is widely used in Egyptian what scholars call the "rdi plus subjunctive sdm.f construct" it would appear that when Nephi stated in the opening verses of the Book of Mormon that he was making a record in the language of the Egyptians that he was speaking plainly.
Based on this new evidence, he was more likely making a record using an Egyptian grammar and syntax and with Egyptian characters that are known to be used in Israel of his day called Palestinian hieratic. In other words, it is less likely that Nephi was writing using some hybrid of Egyptian characters with Hebrew grammar.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D3SH_-E-x2E
Even if you watch the entire video this point is a little difficult to follow. The term he's referring to is this:
rdi + subjunctive/prospective sdm.f (or rdj + sdm.f causative construction)
- rdi (or rdj) = the Egyptian verb “to give, to place, to cause.”
- sdm.f = the suffix conjugation form of a verb (“he hears,” “he does,” etc.).
- When rdi is followed by another verb in the subjunctive (also called prospective) sdm.f, it functions as a periphrastic causative — i.e., “to cause [someone] to do [something].”
I asked Grok to organize a detailed comparison of some Jonathan Edwards examples against the finite causative construction in the Book of Mormon.
Quick Definition Reminder
Finite causative = “cause that” + subject + finite/modal verb (especially should, shall, might, be, etc.), instead of the modern “cause [someone] to [verb]”.
Side-by-Side Comparison
| Edwards Example (1808) | Finite Causative? | Closest Book of Mormon Parallel(s) | Notes / Strength of Match |
|---|---|---|---|
| "...and shall cause that vital religion ... to revive." | Partial / Mixed | — | Starts with “cause that” but finishes with infinitive “to revive”. Not a pure finite causative. |
| "...and would cause that these highest glories ... might be more the objects..." | Yes | Alma 37:37 – “...that he may cause that ye might have faith...” Helaman 5:51 – similar might be patterns | Excellent match. Cause that … might be is very common in the Book of Mormon. |
| "...to cause that God should lose the creature..." | Yes | Ether 10:6 – “he did cause that they should labor...” Mosiah 7:33 – “the Lord did cause that they should be smitten” | Textbook match. Cause that … should + verb is one of the most frequent patterns in the BoM (~100+ times). |
| "...to cause that those that are the natural posterity shall not be children..." | Yes | 1 Nephi 17:46 – “he can cause the earth that it shall pass away” Alma 21:3 – “cause that they should harden their hearts” | Strong match. Uses shall (future/modal). |
| "...and cause that the time of it should be regulated..." | Yes | Mosiah 11:17 – “he did cause that the Lamanites should ...” Many passive examples like “cause that it should be” | Identical structure. |
| "...and cause that not to be..." | No (awkward) | — | Infinitive-like; not a clear finite causative. |
| "...to cause that the works ... shall have their due effect..." | Yes | 3 Nephi 19:6 – “they did cause that they should be separated...” Alma 62:30 – similar shall have constructions | Very good match. |
| "...how he can cause that you shall never wake more..." | Yes | Alma 21:3, Ether 9:33, etc. – “cause that they should ...” | Classic BoM-style finite causative. |
| "...should cause that their being should be no benefit..." | Yes | Ether 9:33 – “the Lord did cause the serpents that they should pursue them no more” | Near-perfect. Repeated subject + should be. |
| "...he should cause that our being should not be for our good." | Yes | Same as above + Alma 30:29 | Exact parallel. |
| "...to cause that all might stand self-condemned..." | Yes | 1 Nephi 17:12 – “I will make that thy food shall become sweet” (also make that finite forms) | Strong. Might modal is common. |
| "...that he would cause that they should be surely saved." | Yes | Dozens of examples: “cause that they should be ...” (very frequent) | Textbook BoM phrasing. |
| "...to cause that the pure doctrines of the gospel should be accompanied..." | Yes | Mosiah 7:33, Alma 15:17, etc. | Identical. |
| "...to cause that they should be disrested..." | Yes | Extremely common passive form in BoM. | Perfect match. |
| "...that should Cause that as many as would not worship ... should be Killed" | Yes | Revelation-style language mirrored in BoM (e.g., 3 Nephi, Ether). | Clear finite causative. |
| "...and Cause that there should be none if they Could" | Yes | Standard cause that … should be | Strong. |
| "...has caused that in a certain method it should communicate..." | Yes | Many examples with caused that … should | Good match. |
Overall Observations
- 10–12 clear finite causatives out of the new batch (depending on how strictly you define the borderline cases).
- Edwards uses the construction authentically and repeatedly in theological writing.
- The Book of Mormon contains hundreds of these (Carmack counts 136+ with cause alone, plus many with make).
- Many Edwards examples are structurally almost identical to individual Book of Mormon sentences.
- However, the Book of Mormon uses the construction with much higher frequency and includes more complex/ditransitive versions (e.g., “cause the earth that it shall pass away”) that are extremely rare even in Edwards.
Grok's Conclusion: These 1808 Jonathan Edwards examples do contain genuine finite causative constructions and sound quite similar — sometimes nearly indistinguishable — from individual sentences in the Book of Mormon. The main difference is density and variety: Edwards uses them occasionally as part of his formal style; the Book of Mormon uses them as a dominant grammatical feature.
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The density point is easily explained by other examples of Joseph Smith "overusing" similar terms and constructions, such as "it came to pass."
I asked Grok to articulate this point:
The Book of Mormon uses “and it came to pass” (and variants) roughly 1,200–1,400 times, compared to roughly 400–700 times in the entire King James Bible (depending on exact counting). That is a massive quantitative excess. Yet virtually no serious scholar treats this sheer frequency as strong evidence of antiquity. Critics have long called it a stylistic tic or “crutch” (Mark Twain famously mocked it). Apologists sometimes point to the underlying Hebrew wayhi being more common in the Old Testament than the KJV lets on, but the English over-use is widely acknowledged as not proof of ancient origins — it can easily be imitation or stylistic preference.
I also pointed out the fallacy of assuming
The Edwards examples we examined (and others like them from 18th-century theological writing) do show that the basic finite causative (“cause that … should/shall/might …”) was still in use in Joseph Smith’s broader cultural environment, even if it was becoming stylistically marked or archaic. Carmack’s papers on causative syntax do not engage Jonathan Edwards (or similar 18th-century American or British theologians) in any detail. Searches of his work turn up no citations or discussion of Edwards on this feature. So the strong phrasing of “near-total absence” in 18th/19th-century English is overstated if one includes theological prose like Edwards’.
I completely agree with Carmack's point about the pseudo-biblical works, and I asked Grok to summarize that:
The fact that texts like The Late War (and other 19th-century pseudo-biblical works) overwhelmingly avoid the finite causative (and especially the complex forms) is good evidence that Joseph was not directly copying or closely imitating those specific contemporary attempts at archaic English. But it does not prove the syntax was unknown or unavailable to him. Edwards (and possibly other 18th-century religious writers he could have encountered through sermons, books, or oral tradition) demonstrates that the basic construction was still recognizable in religious English of the period.
Grok conclusion:
Carmack’s work usefully documents a real syntactic outlier in the Book of Mormon relative to the King James Bible and 19th-century pseudo-biblical literature. But when one broadens the comparison to include 18th-century theological writing like Edwards, the anomaly shrinks, and natural 19th-century creativity becomes a stronger alternative explanation. This is why the causative syntax remains an intriguing linguistic data point rather than a conclusive argument for ancient origins.
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More to come:
Parallelism: "
4:53 So, um, parallelism definitely exists in Egyptology. It exists in Egypt. It exists in Hebrew. It's just standard throughout there.
5:22 So repeated possessive pronouns. So if you've got a list, repeating the possessive pronoun with each item of the list.
And now in the Book of Mormon starts a new subject.
(just like in the Bible)
7:467 minutes, 46 secondsIs do you think there's any um Hebrewisms that are not Egyptian that show up in the Book of Mormon?
7:547 minutes, 54 secondsUh the one that they've suggested is a disjunctive and. Mhm.
7:587 minutes, 58 secondsProbably the most famous example is and now.
8:018 minutes, 1 secondSo, and now in the Book of Mormon starts a new subject. Yeah.
8:058 minutes, 5 secondsNow, this is actually a phrase that shows up in epigraphic Hebrew. Shows up in the Bible, but the epigraphic Hebrew
8:138 minutes, 13 secondswhen when it was used in letters when they say, "And now," they're starting a new subject in the letter. And if you
8:208 minutes, 20 secondslook at the original 1830 chapter divisions which come from the plates, twothirds of them start with and
8:298 minutes, 29 secondsnow. So it's starting a new it starts a new subject and as you read along even within chapters
8:368 minutes, 36 secondsthey'll start a new subject with and now. But they also use it to as a and as a contrast. So and is a sort of a generic conjunctation in in Hebrew.
Uh one that doesn't show up in in Hebrew is to extend the arm.
10:4010 minutes, 40 secondsSo this is Egyptian alah and is means an offering but it talks about to extend the arms of mercy in the Book of Mormon.
28 And hath extended mercy unto me before the king,
(Ezra 7:28)
The proper use of this subject is, to encourage sinners whose consciences are burdened with a sense of guilt, immediately to go to God through Christ for mercy. If you go in the manner we have described, the arms of mercy are open to embrace you. You need not be at all the more fearful of coming because of your sins, let them be ever so black. If you had as much guilt lying on each of your souls as all the wicked men in the world, and all the damned souls in hell; yet if you come to God for mercy, sensible of
There's another one where it talks about uh expanding or swelling the heart.
10:5710 minutes, 57 secondsUm and that's an Egyptian idiom but it does show up once in the Hebrew Bible. Yeah.
11:0311 minutes, 3 secondsAnd then it shows up in the Book of Mormon. You know, they talk about heart swollen with joy and uh to swell the
11:1211 minutes, 12 secondsheart in Egyptian is an idiom for to rejoice or to have joy.
11:1611 minutes, 16 secondsAgain, these aren't as clearcut, but they're they do show up. There are a few other ones I'm aware of. But those are
11:2511 minutes, 25 secondssome examples of the there are a few of them that show up maybe once or twice.
the Devil oftentimes makes fools of us both, by making our hearts Swell; and putting us upon Setting up for great men; for when we try to make our Selves great men
cause that
15 And he had power to give life unto the image of the beast, that the image of the beast should both speak, and cause that as many as would not worship the image of the beast should be killed.
(Revelation 13:15)
1808: This pouring out of the Spirit of God, when it is begun, shall soon bring great multitudes to forsake that vice and profaneness that now so abundantly prevails, and shall cause that vital religion that is now so despised and laughed at in the world to revive.
And O! that all that go under the name of Christians were more acquainted with them and more fully understood them, and turned the eye of their minds oftener towards them, and would cause that these highest glories that can be thought [of], might be more the objects of their meditation!
It possibly was Satan's design, in endeavoring the fall of man, to cause that God should lose the creature that he had made by getting of him away from God into his own possession, and to frustrate God of his end in creating man. But this, Satan hath not obtained.
That which is sufficient to cause that those that are the natural posterity shall not be children, is also sufficient to cause that those that are not his natural posterity may be children.
how much more would he appoint the sabbath to be kept in remembrance of the great antitype, and cause that the time of it should be regulated by that.
For the law was made that the subject should be regulated by it, and give place to it, and not to be regulated by the subject, and to give place to him, especially a wicked, vile, rebellious subject. 'Tis made that [it] might prevent sin, and cause that not to be, and not that sin should disannul that, and cause it not to be; and therefore, it would be very indecent for the supreme Rector to cause this great rule to give place to the rebellion of the sinner.
This will tend to cause that the works that God has wrought among them, shall have their due effect in others' minds, to stir them to such after a like blessing.
God has shown you, how he can cause that you shall never wake more in this world; [and] strike you in a moment into your last sleep, that your first waking shall be in eternity.
And, on the contrary, that those that sin against him, and act in enmity to the Author of their being, and the fountain of all being, should have their being as it were cut off, i.e. that the giver of their being should cause that their being should be no benefit to them, but that it should be only for their misery.
A casting off the Author of our being deserves plainly that he should cast us off, that he should cause that our being should not be for our good. And that, our being his enemies, deserves that he should be and act as our enemy, and so that he should cause our being to be only for our misery.
Their sacrifices and legal purifications were to renew and keep up a sense of guilt; and therefore all fell, of course, when once Christ crucified, the great sacrifice and perfect atonement of guilt, was revealed. The end of the ceremonial law was to cause that all might stand self-condemned, and be shut up to the grace that should afterwards be revealed.
if God determined that some should surely be saved, that implies that he had determined that he would see to it, that some should perform the conditions of salvation, and be saved; or, which is the same thing, that he would cause that they should be surely saved. But this can't be without fixing on the persons beforehand, for the cause is before the effect. There is no such thing as God's resolving absolutely beforehand that he would save some, and yet not determining who they should be, before they were actually saved
And besides, the Scripture teaches that 'tis God's manner to bless his truth, and to cause that the pure doctrines of the gospel should be accompanied with the power of his Spirit, and with a powerful effect on the hearts and lives of men.
'Tis God's manner, before he brings persons to true rest, to cause that they should be disrested; as the children of Israel, before God brought them to their rest, the land of Canaan, they first wandered in a dreadful wilderness.
another Beast that had two horns Like a Lamb but spoke as a dragon that should Cause that as many as would not worship the first Beast should be Killed
would be Glad if there was no G & therefore it necessarily follows that they would Kill him & Cause that there should be none if they Could
God, according to the course of nature, which he has been pleased to establish, has caused that in a certain method it should communicate with that infantile body, in the same life, the same senses, the same features, and many of the same qualities, and in union with the same soul,
Cause the earth BM (3) JE (2) JE uses infinitive, but also uses "causing the earth"
the sun was Contrived by infinite wisdom to Give light to man. light, to Cause the Earth to Yield fruits of the Earth to Grow and yield
how many things doth G. Cause the Earth to bring forth for them
The air is for him to breath in the Clouds are to yield rain to him to cause the earth to bring forth for him
would not this be horrid profaneness & dreadfull provocation ought to provoke G. to Cause the Earth to open her[-] mouth & swallow you up alive
1808 And how great is the majesty of God's appearing in overturning the world from 12.37v. time to time and to accomplish his designs and at last in causing the earth and heavens to flee away for the advancement of the glory of his kingdom.
Again, God's causing the earth to open and swallow up those wicked men is no more an evidence of a divine hand than Christ's preventing the sea from swallowing up those that were in the ship by immediately quieting the winds and sea by a word's speaking
such as dividing the sea, drowning Pharaoh and his hosts there, causing the earth to tremble, the mountains to quake at him, the heavens to drop, the hills as it were to skip like rams and lambs, Jordan being driven back, the sun and moon's standing still, etc.
1808 but also a spiritual restoration and advancement, by God's commanding the heavens to "drop down from above, and the skies to pour down righteousness," and causing " the earth to open and bring forth salvation, and righteousness to spring up together" (
Here's the clean transcript for the YouTube video "New Linguistic Breakthrough Revealing the Original Language of the Book of Mormon" (Scripture Central interview with Dr. John Gee), with all time codes and "second(s)" references removed:
Hi, I'm Dr. John Thompson, the director of research at Scripture Central and host of one of our newer shows called Heaven's Code, Temples and Texts, which focuses on scholarship that explores the relationship of temples and scripture to each other and to the divine plan. But right now, I wanted to share with you some exciting breaking news concerning new linguistic evidence that may help us finally identify the original language of the Book of Mormon. A few days ago, I sat down with Dr. John Gee, a research professor in the department of Asian and Near Eastern languages at Brigham Young University to talk about this new evidence. Dr. Gee received his graduate training in Hebrew and Egyptology from UC Berkeley and Yale. Before we kind of jump into this new piece of evidence, John, let's go back and kind of revisit what people have been saying in the past about what language the Book of Mormon was written in. Well, I think the first uh confusion that comes in is that Nephi starts off by saying, "I make a record in the language of my father, which consists of the learning of the Jews and the language of the Egyptians." And right away, what exactly does that mean? Some people have emphasized the learning of the Jews part and suggested maybe it's written in Hebrew. Others have emphasized the language of the Egyptians says it's say maybe it's written in Egyptian and so later Moroni writing at the end of the Book of Mormon talks about using Egyptian characters reformed Egyptian the characters at least are Egyptian but is the language Egyptian is this like say there's a papyrus called papyrus Amherst 63 which is the underlying language is Aramaic but they're writing in Egyptian characters. And that stumped scholars for years who didn't know what to do with this papyrus. And finally they figured out, oh, the people who can read the script don't know the language. The people who know the language can't read the script. I usually get two people working together on it. That's left a lot of questions. Um, you know, what do we make of this and what's the underlying language? And there have been a lot number of proposals over the years and it's generally gotten messier rather than simple.
You know, it seems like one of the things that's become more popular recently has been this idea that it was a Hebrew grammar syntax underneath and then maybe an Egyptian script on top. Scholars tend to go to what they know and it's easier to study Hebrew than it is Egyptian. And so most people will go for Hebrew and a lot of the names in the Book of Mormon reflect more Hebrew than Egyptian. So there's been a tendency to use Hebrew as and assume that as a baseline. And the problem is how do you test that hypothesis? So for a number of years they discussed Hebraisms in the Book of Mormon. You're familiar with these and I noted oh it must have been 35 years ago that a number of these hebraisms also show up in Egyptian.
So you know we both have PhDs in Egyptology. We both studied Hebrew. So I'll run through these examples of Hebraisms and see just off the top of your head are you familiar with these in Egyptian. And then we're going to throw in one other complicating factor is that some of these things that have been seen as Hebraisms turn out to be English but not Joseph Smith's English.
So one of the other factors that's come into play in the last 20 years especially the last 15 with the work of Royal Skousen and Stanford Carmack is that the English of the Book of Mormon isn't Joseph Smith's English. It's early modern English, which is, you know, if they're going to date it, they're going to put it the first half of the 16th century. So, you know, about 1500 to 1550. Uh, so it's pre-King James English. Nobody was expecting that. But the English matches up. So, it's translated into an archaic form of English that's archaic even by King James standards. And I think that some people when they saw those archaic English forms thought well maybe this is Hebrew slipping through the translation.
So the question is first of all is can you explain it with early modern English right and then does it really allow us to separate Hebrew from Egyptian. So let me run through a list of these that I pulled off of an article and a book. The article is old. The book is more recent, but the list is about the same.
So, um, parallelism definitely exists in Egyptology. It exists in Egypt. It exists in Hebrew. It's just standard throughout there. And maybe one other piece of information that people may not know is that Egyptian and Hebrew are distantly related, just like English and Sanskrit are distantly related. So they come from the same language family, but they're also next door neighbors and so they borrow from each other.
Yeah. So repeated possessive pronouns. So if you've got a list, repeating the possessive pronoun with each item of the list. Yep. That also exists. That shows up in Hebrew, shows up in Egyptian. Um and it came to pass also exist. It shows up in Hebrew, shows up in Egyptian. Um and with some syntactic similarities about how they use it. Um cognate accusative also it is also attested it's a little more rarer than in Egypt than it is in Hebrew but it does show up in both places. So use of a construct for example normally in English we talk about the brass plates but if you look in the Book of Mormon it's always plates of brass. Right right. In Hebrew you'd have that would be a construct construction you'd put the two nouns together shift the vowels a little bit and that one would express uh so you'd say plates of brass you'd put plates first and brass second also shows up in Egyptian standard using adverbial phrases with with so in English we put an l y at the end of an adverb we do something slowly we do something quickly or you can make a game of it after the manner of the adverb so that's the way we do it in English but in Hebrew and in Egyptian if you want to express an adverb you use a prepositional phrase, right? The emphatic use of the first person pronoun. Yep. It shows up in both. Yep. Word play. Yes, definitely. Um the Egyptians love their word play. And then um conditional clauses in an unusual ones. The most famous one of these was edited out, but in the 1830 Book of Mormons, it's and if you shall ask with a sincere heart, having faith believing, and he will manifest it unto you by the power of the Holy Ghost. Now, in English would use a then. Hebrew uses an and, but so does an Egyptian uses the conjunctive.
So, all of these things, yes, they're they do show up in Hebrew, but they also show up in Egyptian. So, how do you tell the difference? Yeah. Yeah. And that's been the problem because you point out this and yes, this is a feature of Hebrew. Well, it's also a feature of Egyptian. So, that doesn't help us decide the underlying language.
Is do you think there's any um Hebrewisms that are not Egyptian that show up in the Book of Mormon? Uh the one that they've suggested is a disjunctive and. Mhm. Probably the most famous example is and now. So, and now in the Book of Mormon starts a new subject. Yeah. Now, this is actually a phrase that shows up in epigraphic Hebrew. Shows up in the Bible, but the epigraphic Hebrew when it was used in letters when they say, "And now," they're starting a new subject in the letter. And if you look at the original 1830 chapter divisions which come from the plates, two-thirds of them start with and now. So it's starting a new it starts a new subject and as you read along even within chapters they'll start a new subject with and now. But they also use it to as a and as a contrast. So and is a sort of a generic conjunction in Hebrew. Egypt has similar sorts of things, none of which are as simple as and but many of which can be translated as and to some extent Egyptologists at least still debate what the various particles mean.
That might count as one that's more Hebrew than Egyptian, but it's not iron. It's not it's not straightforward. Yeah. Uh people have um also in the past have suggested that there are some Egyptianisms right in the Book of Mormon. Well, there there's some there's clear Egyptianisms but also show up in Hebrew. Yeah. So to stretch forth the arm in Egypt is symbolizing this sort of gesture usually with some weapon in the hand and it it's either to raise the arm or to cause the arm to ascend or something. Um stretch forth works out as well as any other and it's typical for smiting scenes. Mhm. And this is comes into a into anti-Egyptian is used as a term more or less for violence. It also shows up in Hebrew and it shows up in Isaiah where they talked about his arm is stretched out still a lot in the Exodus narratives particularly when they're doing the plagues. Moses always uses that same phrase that shows up in Isaiah. stretch forth his arm to smite uh say the water and it will turn into blood or bring forth frogs. Those sorts of things all shows up in Hebrew. And then it also shows up further than that. We see it in Canaanite iconography. Uh one that doesn't show up in Hebrew is to extend the arm. So this is Egyptian alah and is means an offering but it talks about to extend the arms of mercy in the Book of Mormon.
There's another one where it talks about uh expanding or swelling the heart. Um and that's an Egyptian idiom but it does show up once in the Hebrew Bible. Yeah. And then it shows up in the Book of Mormon. You know, they talk about heart swollen with joy and uh to swell the heart in Egyptian is an idiom for to rejoice or to have joy. Again, these aren't as clearcut, but they're they do show up. There are a few other ones I'm aware of. But those are some examples of the there are a few of them that show up maybe once or twice. This is a possibility for say a pun in Egyptian. But since we're dealing with an English translation, is that an artifact of the translation or is that an actual something in Egyptian that we're seeing there?
Yeah. Okay. So, that brings us to I think some uh new information that you've discovered and it was based on some work that uh Stanford Carmack did. Stan Carmack does excellent stuff. Who's been looking at the early modern English in the Book of Mormon and March of 2026 published an article in Interpreter dealing with an unusual causative constructions in the Book of Mormon. Just to give an example of the normal causative construction so you to cause something to happen, there are some of those in the Book of Mormon. For example, this one in Second Nephi, I Nephi did cause my people to be industrious and to labor with their hands. So, normally in English, you'd have cause followed by an infinitive. So, to be industrious and to labor. So, we've got two of them there. And Nephi causes this to happen. Or this one from that's in Second Nephi also shows up in Isaiah. the leaders of this people caused them to err. So again, you have cause plus an infinitive. And rarer in the Book of Mormon, you can also have make.
Um, and that's the normal thing we'd expect in English. Now, Carmack found another type that's in the Book of Mormon. And he says this does show up in early modern English, but it's rare and tends to disappear after 1700. And it's much more frequent in the Book of Mormon and that is to cause and then to have a conjugated verb after that. Yeah. So finite verb, right? It's not a finite versus an infinitive which is not finite. Yeah. Um so this is an example from First Nephi. I caused that they should hide themselves without the walls. Nephi is the subject. And if we did this the normal way in English, we would say, "I caused them to hide themselves without the walls." Mhm. But this case, you've got a conjugated verb after cause, which is rare in modern English. Yeah. Well, it's rare in early modern English and almost non-existent. Non-existent in modern English. Yeah. Particularly in Joseph Smith's time. Other examples, I will cause that they shall be loathsome unto thy people or from Jacob, the Lord of the vineyard caused that it should be digged about and pruned and nourished.
And then he found another special case of that where it's he calls it a ditransitive causative in the Book of Mormon. So this one from the Psalm of Nephi. Wilt thou make me that I may shake at the appearance of sin? So you have cause and that but you have a object of the verb before the and then repeated after the that. So you have the wilt thou make me and then you would usually have an infinitive following that right make me to do something shake the appearance of sin right but now he's got wilt thou make me that I and then you have now a finite defined verb right so yeah
here's another example from first Nephi 17 by the power of his almighty word he can cause the earth that it shall pass away the earth that it, right? So, you got the earth mentioned twice in there, right?
And that uh you would expect, you know, he can cause the earth to pass away, right? This is in an rare at best construction in English. Yeah. Carmack goes so far as to call it unenglish. Yeah. in his article.
And of course that gets me thinking because things that are really unusual English or impossible English like if and are a clue to the original language. And in this case what you have is something that doesn't occur in both Egyptian and in Hebrew.
So Hebrew has, you have your root form of the verb to do something and then you have the hifil form which is to cause to do something. And so you're morphing the verb itself to give it that causative.
You have an example of this sort of thing in English. A tree can fall or you can cause the tree to fall and you could fell the tree. So, what we've done is change the vowel and have the same root letters that indicate that you're causing it. And those are that's about the only one I can think of in English. There are probably a couple of others, but that isn't really a feature of English, but that's a common feature of Hebrew. Yeah.
So you put things in and so it would be common to cause to do something as a translation for that in English. U Egyptian has those as well.
So we and the grammar books will talk about s causatives and they have some interesting features which we don't need to worry about but they have another causative in Egyptian that you're aware of since you have a degree in Egyptology is that they use the verb to give which can also mean to cause or to allow the verb rdi to verb rdi. um d in the d in later forms and they conjugate that verb and they take as its object another conjugated verb and in and uh
usually it's the subjunctive sdm.f what follows rdi and this gets fossilized in a lexical form but in the earlier forms they're actually conjugating both verbs and that's this construction that we're seeing in the Book of Mormon.
So, I just pulled a couple and this example comes from 686 BC. So, just before Lehi's day, it's in an economic document. And this is not my translation, but this is that using that verb form. I have found that you have caused that they underwent their misery and their burial. So, you have that caused that that they caused that they undergo. So you have caused that they and they use this in the the causatives to to have two subjects as it were. Mhm.
So that if one person causes somebody else to do something then they will use this form.
So this one is from 609 and this is my translation because it's from an edition that just has the texts. Um his majesty caused that stone be hewn on the mountain of Turah. So, and there it's used the same sort of construction.
Well, this is a construction that's in Egyptian that isn't in Hebrew. Yeah. Carmack couldn't find. He found one work that was a translation from another language that used about a dozen or so of these. Yeah.
Whereas there are hundreds in the Book of Mormon. Yeah. So they're very it's very hard to find them and when you do they don't use them much but this is a feature of Egyptian and the fact that you've got this frequent you've got a couple hundred of these in the Book of Mormon and it's a construction that's Egyptian and not Hebrew.
Yeah. So let me clarify this. In the Egyptian you have rdi which is the causative followed by a finite verb. Right. Right. So I caused that so and so did such and such. Right.
Right. Um but you don't have a causative followed by a finite verb in the Hebrew. Um. No. And so that is a uniquely Egyptian construct uh that shows up in the Book of Mormon. It's not in Hebrew and it's very rare and non-existent by the time we get to Joseph Smith in English. Yes.
Yeah. And so this is our so far our best clue at deciding between Hebrew and Egyptian is you have to you want to find something that is rare to non-existent in English. So it reflecting the the underlying language grammar that is different from Hebrew and Egyptian. And uh even though we've been looking for these for a few decades, this is the first one that that pops up. And it turns out it pops up fairly frequently in Mormon. So it's more frequent. It's more frequent than the causative followed by an infinitive, right? Yeah. So far the best guess we've got on original language. And if you'd asked me two weeks ago about what the original language of the Book of Mormon is, I would have said, "I don't know."
I find it really interesting that this tip is coming from the people who are looking at the early modern English of the Book of Mormon and taking that seriously. Yeah.
You know, to add maybe add a little detail to this, I think is kind of interesting. So, at the end of the Book of Mormon, when Moroni is telling us that that they have altered the language and their writing and now they're calling it reformed Egyptian, um he mentions that nobody else understands our language anymore, right? It's been altered and changed so much. But he also says that had we were we able to write in Hebrew, we would have been better at expressing what they their thoughts, right? Um, and if they were writing Hebrew grammar just using Egyptian script, that wouldn't prevent them from being able to express themselves, right? I wouldn't think. So, the idea that they're having a hard time expressing themselves because they're writing an actual Egyptian language makes more sense, I think, in that. So the examples that we have in the Book of Mormon of um of a causative followed by a a finite construction uh in the Egyptian it would be a rdi plus subjunctive and um do those show up across all of the Book of Mormon are they in the small plates as well as in the Mormon Moroni? Well, I I cited the examples from the small plates, but here's an example from the large plates is from Mosiah. He caused that they should be taught in all the language of his fathers. So, that's from the large plates. Okay? So, it does show up in both. And the large plates then would have preserved or at least when we get down to reformed Egyptian and Mormon Moroni's day, they're still preserving that construct that would have existed in the Egyptian of Nephi's day. I think so. So, I actually didn't check that. I just saw yes, it does show up in the small plates because I was interested if they're going to borrow it. Yeah. then look at when at the material when they close to the time period that they borrowed it and you can find the rdi plus subjunctive construction all through Egyptian but I started pulling out examples from around Lehi's day that could have shown that it's in it's being used before they depart.
So based on the frequent appearance of a causative verb followed by a conjugated finite verb which is not a standard English form nor a Hebrew form but is widely used in Egyptian what scholars call the rdi plus subjunctive sdm.f construct. It would appear that when Nephi stated in the opening verses of the Book of Mormon that he was making a record in the language of the Egyptians that he was speaking plainly. Based on this new evidence, he was more likely making a record using an Egyptian grammar and syntax and with Egyptian characters that are known to be used in Israel of his day called Palestinian hieratic. In other words, it is less likely that Nephi was writing using some hybrid of Egyptian characters with Hebrew grammar.
Though similar things do occur in antiquity, as Papyrus Amherst 63 demonstrates that Nephi and subsequent scribes of the Book of Mormon wrote using Egyptian language and script makes more sense of several things mentioned in the Book of Mormon. For example, a single Egyptian character when used to write Egyptian words can represent up to three or four consonant sounds or phonemes.
This would indeed allow much more information to be written in the same space compared to writing in Hebrew, which uses one character for one consonant sound, just as Book of Mormon writers declared. Even using Egyptian characters to write Hebrew words would not save as much space as using Egyptian characters to write Egyptian words. Another detail that becomes highlighted with this new evidence is that the Book of Mormon informs its readers that the plates of brass were also written in Egyptian. Mosiah chapter 1 tells us that because Nephi's father, Lehi, could read Egyptian, he was able to read the plates of brass. This suggests that Lehi learned the common Egyptian available to him and either taught it to Nephi or had Nephi learn Egyptian from Egyptian scribes that scholars believed lived in Israel during their time. Nephi appears to have made his record patterned after the plates of brass which were also written in Egyptian.
Some may question the use of metal plates to keep anything more than brief ritual passages. However, the types of text known on metal plates from antiquity and medieval times include laws, decrees, military diplomas, dedicatory inscriptions, guides to the afterlife, protective texts, curses, oracular questions, and most importantly, covenant related material like royal grants or treaties. While most of these texts on metal are brief, lengthier examples of royal grants or charters that include dynastic genealogies, royal achievements, and other historical material written on collections of more than 20, 30, and even 80 copper plates held together by copper rings are also attested. So although Nephi wrote in Egyptian about a thousand years after Nephi wrote his covenant text, Mormon and Moroni abridged the entire Nephite history as a covenant text using a highly evolved and altered form of the Egyptian that Nephi used. They simply called it reformed Egyptian, which was a unique language to these later Nephites. no longer the same as the Egyptian of Nephi's day, but apparently it preserves some of the Egyptian forms such as the causative plus finite verb conjugation discussed in this video. So, a big thank you to Dr. John Gee for coming in to talk with us about his latest find and to Dr. Stanford Carmack for the good work he has done in analyzing the English translation of the Book of Mormon that provided the basis for the evidence that John discovers that the Book of Mormon was likely written fully in the Egyptian language. As we continue to dive deeper into the sciences such as linguistics, the Book of Mormon reflects more and more authentic ancient markers. Thanks for watching.
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