Book of Mormon Evidence: Deflected Agreement

Deflected Agreement

Generally speaking, in Semitic languages “words from different categories or parts of speech (nouns, verbs, adjectives, etc.), when grammatically juxtaposed to one another, must agree in a number of details: number, gender, and, to a certain degree, definiteness.”1 While English verbs do not require consistency in form based on gender or definiteness, they do require consistency in number. The same is true for pronouns. When an English sentence has a verb that does not numerically match its subject (e.g., “they was happy”) or a pronoun that does not match its corresponding noun (e.g., “he likes sports because it is fun”), it is typically viewed as grammatically incorrect.

In Semitic languages, however, these types of grammatical disagreements are sometimes permissible. This feature is commonly known as deflected agreement and is present in both Arabic and Classical Hebrew. Arabic linguists typically define deflected agreement as “feminine singular agreement with nonhuman plurals.”2

Deflected Agreement in the Bible

While deflected agreement generally appears in later Hebrew texts, scholars have observed that a “type of [deflected agreement], wherein parts of speech are grammatically juxtaposed but do not agree in number or gender, is also seen in biblical Hebrew, albeit more rarely.”3 In these instances, nonhuman plural nouns are given feminine singular agreement with other parts of the sentence. Consider the following examples:4

• “The beasts [bahămôt; feminine plural noun construct state] of the field [śādeh; masculine singular noun] cry [taʿărôg; third-person feminine singular imperfect verb].” (Joel 1:20)
• “None of his steps [ʾăšūrāyw; masculine plural noun] shall slide [timʿad; third-person feminine singular imperfect verb].” (Psalm 37:31)
• “The beasts [bĕhēmôt; feminine plural noun] are consumed [sāptâ; third-person feminine singular perfect verb], and the birds [ʿôp; masculine singular collective noun].” (Jeremiah 12:4)
• “When Jehudi had read [kiqrôʾ; qal infinitive verb construct] three or four leaves [dĕlātôt; feminine plural noun], he cut [yiqrāʿehā; third-person masculine singular imperfect verb with the third-person feminine singular suffix] it with the penknife.” (Jeremiah 36:23)

Regarding these examples, Andrew C. Smith observes, “Interestingly, a number of instances of DA [deflected agreement] occur in the book of Jeremiah. Because Jeremiah was a contemporary of Lehi, these instances confirm that this linguistic phenomenon was a known and acceptable variation in the Hebrew of Lehi’s period. This would lend credence to the presence of DA in the words of Nephi and its subsequent transfer to later writers in the Book of Mormon.”5

Deflected Agreement in the Book of Mormon

Exploring this possibility, Smith identified 329 potential examples of deflected agreement in the earliest edition and manuscripts of the Book of Mormon. He found that “number disagreement between subjects and verbs, as well as between antecedents and their pronouns,” is one of the more common grammatical anomalies present in “the original manuscript, the printer’s manuscript, and the 1830 edition of the Book of Mormon.”6 Many of these instances were subsequently removed beginning in 1837 in an effort to correct what likely appeared to be bad grammar.7

However, if Smith’s thesis is correct, what we may be looking at here is not bad grammar, per se, but instances of ancient Semitic grammar that were preserved in translation. Examples of possible deflected agreement in the Book of Mormon can be broken down into three main categories: verbal, pronominal, and demonstrative.

Verbal Deflected Agreement 

By far the most common type of deflected agreement “consists of instances of non-human plural subjects with singular agreement expressed by the associated verbs.”8 Smith has observed 264 instances of this type. Consider, for example, the following verses (with the text taken from the 1830 edition of the Book of Mormon and emphasis added):

• “For he truly spake many great things unto them, which was hard to be understood, save a man should inquire of the Lord.” (1 Nephi 15:3)
• “And the seats … which was above all the other seats.” (Mosiah 11:11) 
• “And he will take upon him death, that he may loose the bands of death which binds his people.” (Alma 7:12) 
• “Yea, I say unto you, my son, that there could be nothing so exquisite and so bitter, as was my pains.” (Alma 36:21)

A similar type of disagreement arises in what are called inflectional verb endings, specifically when the ending -th is applied to verbs that aren’t third-person singular. Here are several examples:

• “Nephi’s brethren rebelleth against him.” (1 Nephi preface)
• “Do ye suppose that ye can convince the Lamanites … whose hearts delighteth in the shedding of blood” (Alma 26:24)
• “of which the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost beareth record.” (Ether 5:4)

Occasionally, number discrepancies also manifest in helping verbs. While such verbs are not found in Semitic languages, they are often employed by English translators “to indicate the mood, aspect, or tense of the original one-word Semitic verb.”9 They could therefore be markers of deflected agreement in the original text. Here are a few examples:

• “Having never called upon the Lord while the arms of mercy was extended towards them; for the arms of mercy was extended towards them.” (Mosiah 16:12)
• “And Akish did administer unto them the oaths which was given by them of old.” (Ether 8:15)
• “And the sufferings of our women and our children upon all the face of this, doth exceed every thing.” (Moroni 9:19)

Pronominal Deflected Agreement 

Deflected agreement in the Book of Mormon may also be present when “a plural antecedent is referenced using the singular pronoun it instead of the normative English pronouns they or them.”10 Smith found 60 instances of this phenomenon in the earliest edition and manuscripts. Examples include the following:

• “Behold, the time cometh that he curseth your riches, that it becometh slippery, that ye cannot hold them.” (Helaman 13:31)
• “Whatsoever things ye shall ask the Father, in my name, it shall be given unto you.” (3 Nephi 27:28)
• “But see that ye do all things in worthiness, and do it in the name of Jesus Christ, the Son of the living God.” (Mormon 9:29)
• And so great were their cries, their howlings and lamentations, that it did rend the air exceedingly.” (Ether 15:16)

Demonstrative Deflected Agreement

The third and final type of potential deflected agreement observed by Smith involves demonstrative pronouns. In these cases (only five in total), the demonstrative pronoun this is used to refer to a plural noun when standard English grammar would call for these:

• “And is not this, our afflictions, great?” (Mosiah 7:23)
• “This is the desires of our hearts.” (Mosiah 18:11)
• “And also this was the minds of the people.” (Alma 17:6)
• “Yea, I speak unto you, ye remnant of the house of Israel; and this is the words which I speak.” (Mormon 7:1)
• “And this is my thoughts upon the land which I shall give you for your inheritance.” (Ether 2:15)

Finally, it should be noted that the use of deflected agreement in the Book of Mormon, although substantive, is still relatively sparse. According to Smith, “The percentage of DA across the entire record is 16 percent (329 instances of DA out of 2,080 total instances of nonhuman plural nouns requiring number agreement).”11 While some texts exhibit a greater concentration than others, this general pattern of usage compares fairly well with biblical texts, in which deflected agreement is also fairly minimal. For instance, Smith calculates the usage rate in the book of Jeremiah to be at 15 percent.12

Contemporary English Dialects

In his analysis, Smith considered the possibility that the examples of potential deflected agreement in the Book of Mormon were merely a product of Joseph Smith’s regional English dialect. To probe into this possibility, Andrew Smith surveyed a number of Joseph’s other revelations and documents, as well as some additional English sources from around the same time period.

While not irrelevant, Joseph’s other writings are somewhat problematic as evidence. It isn’t known to what extent these texts reflect his own words versus divinely revealed words. Since even Joseph’s non-canonized statements could contain divinely-influenced discourse, it is difficult to find a control group of texts that reliably reflect the Prophet’s natural language patterns, especially around 1829.13 The other concern is that if Joseph wasn’t responsible for the English wording of the Book of Mormon, its language and grammar could very well have influenced his own linguistic habits.14 That being said, Andrew Smith did find some notable differences between the Book of Mormon and Joseph’s other writings.

[T]he difference between the number of DA instances in the Book of Mormon and in Joseph Smith’s other revelations is still striking: while Joseph exhibits only occasional and random errors of this type in other revelations and translations (from the sample detailed above, 16 DA occurrences out of 232 possible instances, or 7 percent), these instances occur less than half as often as in the Book of Mormon (329 DA occurrences out of 2,080 possible instances, or 16 percent). This figure does not even take into account the major differences seen book by book throughout the record. The percentage from Joseph’s other dictations (7 percent) hardly compares with that found in the book of Helaman (24 percent), let alone the book of Moroni (31 percent). If this phenomenon was solely an artifact of Joseph’s dialect, we would expect DA in the Book of Mormon to more closely match the roughly 7 percent usage in his other works and to be more evenly distributed throughout the record.15

As for other contemporary sources, Andrew Smith found that among the 19th-century texts he sampled, “the majority shows no evidence of [deflected agreement] at all.”16 Only one document, a journal kept by Jared Carter from 1831 to 1833, showed substantial verbal disagreement similar to the Book of Mormon. Yet even here there are notable differences. Carter’s examples were all verbal, without any number disagreements in the pronominal or demonstrative categories.

As assessed by Smith, “Joseph’s number disagreements in the translation of the Book of Mormon are significantly different from and unaccounted for in the common vernacular of the time and in his own contemporaneous writings. Particularly, the distribution of instances and the existence of number disagreement beyond the verbal category are evidence for the existence of DA in the original language of the plates and the likely influence of DA on the translation process.”17

Early Modern English

Another factor to consider is the recent spate of publications revealing the Book of Mormon’s extensive use of Early Modern English.18 As argued by Royal Skousen and Stanford Carmack, this linguistic data strongly indicates that Joseph Smith wasn’t responsible for the English wording of the text. This is largely due to the remarkable depth and breadth of archaic English forms that he most likely wasn’t familiar with.19 If Skousen and Carmack’s thesis is correct, one must consider patterns of verb and pronoun usage from that earlier period rather than just from Joseph Smith’s contemporary linguistic environment.20

While not specifically assessing the possibility of deflected agreement, Skousen and Carmack have looked closely at some relevant aspects of the Book of Mormon’s grammar. For instance, they have thoroughly documented various types of number disagreements between subjects and verbs.21 In addition, Carmack has carried out in-depth treatments on the use of was and -th in plural contexts. In all cases, there is evidence that these forms were, in fact, widely used in the Early Modern period and therefore technically weren’t non-standard at that time.22 More work still needs to be carried out on number disagreements in Early Modern pronoun usage.

Conclusion

As can be seen, accounting for the Book of Mormon’s non-standard grammatical features is a complex matter. At least when viewed in isolation, many candidates for deflected agreement in the Book of Mormon could possibly be due to Joseph Smith’s 19th-century dialect. However, in Andrew Smith’s assessment, that theory has limited explanatory power. It fails to account for the various types of disagreement, in both verbs and pronouns, as well as the disproportionate ratios of deflected agreement among different Book of Mormon texts.

At this point, it is difficult to say whether this feature is more likely an artifact of an underlying Semitic text or whether it is due to patterns in Early Modern English. There is also a possibility that it could be some of both or that these explanations overlap to some extent. Whatever the case may be, these options seem to have the upper hand compared to the contemporary dialectal theory, and they both support the notion that the Book of Mormon was miraculously revealed to Joseph Smith. If, to any extent, the proposed examples of deflected agreement really do reflect an underlying Hebrew-like text, that would provide additional support for the Book of Mormon’s claimed Hebrew origins.