Odd placement of phrases in Abraham 3


zil
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I was reading Abraham 3 in preparation for the Sunday School lesson, and was struck (again) by the seemingly odd placement of certain phrases and I'm wondering if anyone has thoughts about why they appear where they do.  I've bolded the ones which seem oddly placed.  I'm leaving the full text down to verse 21 because the context is vital to the question.  My comments are in-line.

NOTE: I have no issue with the truth of the statements or anything like that, I just find their placement odd.  Remove them and the text reads perfectly smoothly.  With them, I jolt to a stop and wonder why they are where they are.  (And I'm not complaining or advocating revising the scriptures or any such thing.  Just curious if anyone has thoughts on why they are where they are - beyond the obvious answer of that's where they were put by the author / translator.)

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1 And I, Abraham, had the Urim and Thummim, which the Lord my God had given unto me, in Ur of the Chaldees;

2 And I saw the stars, that they were very great, and that one of them was nearest unto the throne of God; and there were many great ones which were near unto it;

3 And the Lord said unto me: These are the governing ones; and the name of the great one is Kolob, because it is near unto me, for I am the Lord thy God: I have set this one to govern all those which belong to the same order as that upon which thou standest.

4 And the Lord said unto me, by the Urim and Thummim, that Kolob was after the manner of the Lord, according to its times and seasons in the revolutions thereof; that one revolution was a day unto the Lord, after his manner of reckoning, it being one thousand years according to the time appointed unto that whereon thou standest. This is the reckoning of the Lord’s time, according to the reckoning of Kolob.

5 And the Lord said unto me: The planet which is the lesser light, lesser than that which is to rule the day, even the night, is above or greater than that upon which thou standest in point of reckoning, for it moveth in order more slow; this is in order because it standeth above the earth upon which thou standest, therefore the reckoning of its time is not so many as to its number of days, and of months, and of years.

6 And the Lord said unto me: Now, Abraham, these two facts exist, behold thine eyes see it; it is given unto thee to know the times of reckoning, and the set time, yea, the set time of the earth upon which thou standest, and the set time of the greater light which is set to rule the day, and the set time of the lesser light which is set to rule the night.

7 Now the set time of the lesser light is a longer time as to its reckoning than the reckoning of the time of the earth upon which thou standest.

8 And where these two facts exist, there shall be another fact above them, that is, there shall be another planet whose reckoning of time shall be longer still;

9 And thus there shall be the reckoning of the time of one planet above another, until thou come nigh unto Kolob, which Kolob is after the reckoning of the Lord’s time; which Kolob is set nigh unto the throne of God, to govern all those planets which belong to the same order as that upon which thou standest.

10 And it is given unto thee to know the set time of all the stars that are set to give light, until thou come near unto the throne of God.

11 Thus I, Abraham, talked with the Lord, face to face, as one man talketh with another; and he told me of the works which his hands had made;

12 And he said unto me: My son, my son (and his hand was stretched out), behold I will show you all these. And he put his hand upon mine eyes, and I saw those things which his hands had made, which were many; and they multiplied before mine eyes, and I could not see the end thereof.

13 And he said unto me: This is Shinehah, which is the sun. And he said unto me: Kokob, which is star. And he said unto me: Olea, which is the moon. And he said unto me: Kokaubeam, which signifies stars, or all the great lights, which were in the firmament of heaven.

14 And it was in the night time when the Lord spake these words unto me: I will multiply thee, and thy seed after thee, like unto these; and if thou canst count the number of sands, so shall be the number of thy seeds.

15 And the Lord said unto me: Abraham, I show these things unto thee before ye go into Egypt, that ye may declare all these words.

16 If two things exist, and there be one above the other, there shall be greater things above them; therefore Kolob is the greatest of all the Kokaubeam that thou hast seen, because it is nearest unto me.

17 Now, if there be two things, one above the other, and the moon be above the earth, then it may be that a planet or a star may exist above it; and there is nothing that the Lord thy God shall take in his heart to do but what he will do it.

[This seems like an odd place to interject this statement and the bit that follows.  Read 17 and 18 without the bolded bits and it flows perfectly as a single idea.  So why interject these bits here?]

18 Howbeit that he made the greater star; as, also, if there be two spirits, and one shall be more intelligent than the other, yet these two spirits, notwithstanding one is more intelligent than the other, have no beginning; they existed before, they shall have no end, they shall exist after, for they are gnolaum, or eternal.

19 And the Lord said unto me: These two facts do exist, that there are two spirits, one being more intelligent than the other; there shall be another more intelligent than they; I am the Lord thy God, I am more intelligent than they all.

[Right here seems like a better spot for the end of v17 - though I'm not sure it's the best spot, just better - it could be inserted just before the period at the end of 19 and the thought would flow nicely.  But that's not what was done, so I'm wondering if it's "just cuz" or if the placement implies something I'm missing.]

20 The Lord thy God sent his angel to deliver thee from the hands of the priest of Elkenah.

[Again, the above seems like an odd interjection between explaining hierarchies.]

21 I dwell in the midst of them all; I now, therefore, have come down unto thee to declare unto thee the works which my hands have made, wherein my wisdom excelleth them all, for I rule in the heavens above, and in the earth beneath, in all wisdom and prudence, over all the intelligences thine eyes have seen from the beginning; I came down in the beginning in the midst of all the intelligences thou hast seen.

...

Thanks for taking the time to consider (even if you think the answer is "just because").

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7 hours ago, zil said:

 

Thanks for taking the time to consider (even if you think the answer is "just because").

Just because.  :P

 

 

 

Okay kidding aside.

The first bolded phrase flows fine for me.  It's a semi-colon there so that phrase continues the phrase before it.  It basically says... if there's a greater star above it then it is God's will that it is there.

The next bolded phrase flows fine for me too although, yeah, it sounds a bit awkward but it needs to be there.  It's a new sentence - the beginning phrase.  So, that basically says... okay, I usually replace "Howbeit" in that usage with "In the same manner" which may not be accurate as Howbeit in modern usage is However.  But that's how I can make it lose its awkwardness - so I may be slightly off on this one.  So, that basically says, in the same manner as the stars that he was just talking about in the verses before that, the 2 spirits are also one greater than the other...

On the one about the angel... it also flows fine for me.  He's basically saying... before, I sent the angel to you.  Now, it's me that's here.

Hope this helps instead of make things worse.

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I do see the disconnect. It sound an awful lot like some transcripts I've seen where they missed certain words, lines, or even several sentences.  I believe there were some things missing here.

Remember that Joseph received these papyri from man, not from God. What we know of them indicates that they were a collection of many writings.  I don't know what format they were in.  I don't know how well preserved the writing was.  It may very well be that several sentences had faded while others did not.

I also know that when I'm writing, my mind wanders a bit.  I think faster than I write.  And if I don't have an eraser or delete key, I write things that don't make sense.  Abraham did not have an eraser.  He had ink.  What he wrote stayed.  Did he get up to go to the bathroom in between and forget where he was?  I don't know.  Did he dictate them to a scribe as he was still trying to make sense of a heavenly vision and skipped any attempt at segue?  I don't know.

As a collection, was the person who collected the works fully knowledgeable and careful?  Did he even have the full text?  Perhaps it was faded by the time he got the works.  And he only transcribed the legible portions word-for-word.  I don't know.

What we can tell is that as a book of scripture, what we do have is scripture.  As stand alone sentences, they make sense.  If we an make sense of them in line with the rest of the text, then they make sense.

Note: I had never noticed that this didn't really segue very well, but I agree.  Looking at it through a microscope, I see it.  I simply picked up each line independently as they contributed to the overall storyline.  With that method, there's no problem with the statements being randomly stuck into the narrative.

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2 hours ago, Carborendum said:

I do see the disconnect. It sound an awful lot like some transcripts I've seen where they missed certain words, lines, or even several sentences.  I believe there were some things missing here.

Remember that Joseph received these papyri from man, not from God. What we know of them indicates that they were a collection of many writings.  I don't know what format they were in.  I don't know how well preserved the writing was.  It may very well be that several sentences had faded while others did not.

I also know that when I'm writing, my mind wanders a bit.  I think faster than I write.  And if I don't have an eraser or delete key, I write things that don't make sense.  Abraham did not have an eraser.  He had ink.  What he wrote stayed.  Did he get up to go to the bathroom in between and forget where he was?  I don't know.  Did he dictate them to a scribe as he was still trying to make sense of a heavenly vision and skipped any attempt at segue?  I don't know.

As a collection, was the person who collected the works fully knowledgeable and careful?  Did he even have the full text?  Perhaps it was faded by the time he got the works.  And he only transcribed the legible portions word-for-word.  I don't know.

What we can tell is that as a book of scripture, what we do have is scripture.  As stand alone sentences, they make sense.  If we an make sense of them in line with the rest of the text, then they make sense.

Note: I had never noticed that this didn't really segue very well, but I agree.  Looking at it through a microscope, I see it.  I simply picked up each line independently as they contributed to the overall storyline.  With that method, there's no problem with the statements being randomly stuck into the narrative.

This leads to a discussion on how translation happens.  My understanding is - Joseph translating by the power of God doesn't really go the way Google translate goes where he translates every word/sentence as is.  Rather, he translates by impression - an understanding of what the passage says.  There's an account I've heard others say that sometimes Joseph translated the BoM without it being open.  So, is the translation of Abraham the same way?  Or does it go more like Google translate?

For clarification:  I don't see Abraham as any more disconnected than the rest of scripture.  It could be because English is not my first language and I've never once - NOT ONCE! - read scripture in my first language.

Edited by anatess2
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26 minutes ago, anatess2 said:

This leads to a discussion on how translation happens.  My understanding is - Joseph translating by the power of God doesn't really go the way Google translate goes where he translates every word/sentence as is.  Rather, he translates by impression - an understanding of what the passage says.  There's an account I've heard others say that sometimes Joseph translated the BoM without it being open.  So, is the translation of Abraham the same way?  Or does it go more like Google translate?

For clarification:  I don't see Abraham as any more disconnected than the rest of scripture.  It could be because English is not my first language and I've never once - NOT ONCE! - read scripture in my first language.

Well, some famous Jewish converts converted because the English reading of the BoM, as awkward as it may sound to English ears are perfectly straight forward considering Hebrew language quirks.  This was enough to get them interested in the BoM as a serious work, rather than a simple curiosity.

I believe it may work more like Google Tanslate than some tend to think.  But I don't believe it is prone to the same errors that GT may offer.

So, no, not word for word (which is why I have difficulty with the currently disseminated stone in the hat method).  But I believe, maybe, phrase for phrase, or sentence by sentence or something along those lines.

Edited by Guest
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I was just studying the Book of Mormon with my son today.  He asked an interesting question about the placement of a phrase.  So I thought it wasn't too far off of this thread's topic.

Quote

 And again, the angel said: Behold, the Lord hath heard the prayers of his people, and also the prayers of his servant, Alma, who is thy father; for he has prayed with much faith concerning thee that thou mightest be brought to the knowledge of the truth; therefore, for this purpose have I come to convince thee of the power and authority of God, that the prayers of his servants might be answered according to their faith.

Mosiah 27:14

He wondered why that bolded part was added.  It seems completely superfluous.

I wondered if it had something to do with Chiasmus or other Hebraism.  It turns out the entire chapter is rich with antithetical parallelism.  But I'm not seeing it in this verse.  He was right.  It does seem superfluous.  Still I paused and considered it a while. 

I looked at him and considered some of the trials he's been going through lately.  I've been praying for him about those trials just as Alma had for his son.  Then it hit me.

The Lord heard the prayers of the people, yes.  But when Alma prayed, he prayed not only as the prophet. But he prayed as this young man's father.  He prayed with all the tender love of a father.

I have a personal belief that many blessings given to someone are realized in their offspring.  There are some scriptural references to back this up as well (Abraham).  But I then realized how much Alma the Elder gave up when he chose to believe in Abinadi's words.  He was an advisor to the king.  And he chose to run away, giving up power and luxury, as well as all his sins, to live the life in the wild and serve God. 

The Lord remembered that sacrifice.  So, when he prayed for his son to be able to make the same 180 that he, himself, had made, he had the faith that the Lord could do it.  He KNEW the Lord could do it.  The Lord blessed him through his son.  A single, seemingly unimportant phrase meant a lot to me today.

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