Hebrew Idioms and Analogies in the Book of Mormon.

By Thomas W. Brookbank.

IV.

The following sacred names occur in the Book of Mormon and are made:

(Class No. 3.)

The next group includes words that, though common sometimes, or generally, have, for one reason or another, been made proper nouns in the Book of Mormon:

(Class No. 4.)

Finally, a special list of names or parts of names, reserved for particular notice, is found in

(Class No. 5.)

This last list shall be subdivided into (a) Those that are of Greek origin as, Alpha, Omega, Christ, Bible, Anti and Arch. (b) Those that are common translatable terms as New, Tower, Twelve, Wonderful, and Red Sea. (c) Gentile forms of certain proper names as Jew and Hebrew.

In Class No. 1 of the general list there are several names that are compounded with the Greek "Anti," which in one or two instances was changed to "Ante," perhaps through a typographical error, or it may be the result of the substitution of one vowel sound for another, thus causing a variation that seems to have been quite common among the ancient Jews, and which grew out of their system of writing only the consonants of words, as, for example, b-r-d, which, in English might stand for bard, beard, bird, board, broad, brad or bred. Now, the presence of these few Greek words in the Book of Mormon instead of discrediting its authenticity in any degree, serves only to confirm its claims as a true historical record. When the colony under Lehi left Jerusalem, Egypt, Babylon, Greece and Israel were all hoary with age, though Rome was still in her swaddling clothes. The Greeks had taken Troy 684 years, and Homer had lived two centuries at least before the first line of the Book of Mormon history was written. Four hundred years before Lehi's departure from his native land the people of God had attained to world-wide fame by the building of their first magnificent temple under Solomon, and by the wisdom of their greatest king. The Jews and the Greeks were not very remote neighbors, and some traces of Greek in the Book of Mormon are to be expected. Indeed, if we found nothing whatever of that language, in that book, it would be hard to explain how it transpires that the learned founder of the Nephite people knew no Greek; knew nothing of a people with whom they doubtless had more or less literary and commercial intercourse.

Thus the occurrence of these Greek words in the Book of Mormon are perfectly consistent with what the record should disclose. In the Nephite name "Ziff," we find a Babylonian name copied outright, and this fact seems to link these two people also together at some time in neighborly association. In this connection it is worthy of remark that the Nephite name "Antionah" is apparently compounded from the Greek "Anti," the Egyptian name "On," and the Hebrew termination "Ah." "Antiparah," another Nephite name, easily separates into the Greek "Anti," and "Parah" of the land of the Jews. Anti-on-um is doubtless derived from a Greek, an Egyptian, and a Hebrew source. The names Christ, Bible, (and Mary may be included here) were all given to the Nephites by direct revelation; and the sacred use of the Greek Alpha and Omega was introduced among them by the Savior himself.

[TO BE CONTINUED.]

Flagstaff, Ariz.