Ancient Scriptures: Chiasmus in the Book of Mormon

One of the most oft-cited evidences for the antiquity of the Book of Mormon is the occurrence of chiasmus. FARMS writer John Welch discovered chiasmus in this book back in the 1960's. Chiasmus is basically a repetitive textual construction that often has a form such as ABCDD'C'B'A'. It occurs frequently in the Bible, and its occurrence in the Book of Mormon is claimed as evidence for the book's Hebrew roots. Many examples of chiasmus in various texts can be found on the internet, and when I was shown that this was in the Book of Mormon in high school I found it extremely convincing evidence that the book was ancient. But how good is chiasmus as evidence really? There are several points we should consider before concluding that chiasmus supports Book of Mormon antiquity.

First, in the church chiasmus is sometimes mistakenly believed to refer exclusively to ancient Hebrew poetry. While it occurs there, chiasmus is also found in other writings in many cultures over the last 3000 years, including Shakespeare and many other great writers of English literature. It is used as a rhetorical device in such writings, and I would suspect that even writers and preachers in Joseph's locale may have used it, whether consciously or unconsciously. Thus, Joseph could have been exposed to the style without having to translate it from ancient plates. For examples of chiasmus outside of the Bible, see www.chiasmus.com.

Second, many of the examples from the Book of Mormon that I have seen appear to be arbitrary. There may be better examples than the ones I have seen, but I have yet to find them. Even when I saw supposed chiasmus in high school the choice of phrases to include in the chiastic structure seemed to be arbitrary, but I realized that I was just a high school student and did not trust my own judgment. If some guy with a PhD at BYU said this was great evidence for the Book of Mormon, then I believed it. Here is an analysis of chiasmus in Alma 36 from www.lds-mormon.com (see this website for the actual passage that is discussed):

The first thing that we note is that there is an awful lot of repetition in this passage. In fact, this is a feature of the Book of Mormon in general... Given that there is so much repetition, does this not increase the chances that at least some passages would display a roughly chiastic structure? Especially when we depart from the strict definition of a chiasm, and note that there are a number of elements that have no parallels, and still others that have parallels that are outside of the chiastic structure.

Take, for example, the phrase 'born of God'. It occurs four times in this passage (and seven times in the book of Alma). Two of these occurrences are worked into the chiastic structure by Welch - verses 5 and 24. A third occurrence, in verse 26, can also be worked into the structure, because it occurs between elements L and J. The fourth occurrence, in verse 23, is found between elements M and L. If, as Welch asserts, this passage were deliberately intended to be chiastic, why would the author include elements that break the structure? A similar problem afflicts element I, which is actually misplaced in the chiastic structure. Again, to labor the point, the phrase 'harrowed up' occurs three times (verse 12, 17 and 19). Two of these, verse 17 and 19, can be worked into the chiastic structure. The third, in verse 12, cannot.

In short, it is my belief that Joseph Smith did not intend for Alma 36 to be chiastic. He was probably completely unaware of the technique. The chiasms that Mormon researchers find all over the Book are, in fact, a result of the incredible amount of repetition contained therein, and are well within the bounds of probability. This, coupled with the rather loose definition of a chiasm employed by the researchers, wherein they can include only those elements which fit the structure, and discard those elements which don't, results in a large number of imaginary chiasms in the Book.

The third point is that chiasmus is in the Bible, and by picking up the style and language of the KJV Bible Joseph would have naturally included such stylistic elements, whether consciously or unconsciously. In fact, chiasmus is found in Joseph's other writings and revelations, including the D&C. D&C 1, 88:34-38, 93:18-38 and 132:19-26 all contain examples of chiasmus. Here is an example from a letter of Joseph's to Emma, written while he was in Liberty jail (this is just an outline):

A. My Dear and Beloved Companion of My Bosom, in Tribulation, and Affliction
  B. My Lovely Children
    C. A Traitor to the Church . . . Be Careful Not to Trust Them
      D. We May Have Our Families Brought to Us
        E. I Hope for the Best Always . . . Oh May God Have Mercy on Us
          F. I Do Not Know Where it will End . . . Determined to Exterminate
        E. I Have Some Hopes . . . [God] will Extend Mercy in Some Degree
      D. I May Send for You to Bring You to Me
    C. Pray for Deliverance . . . Be Faithful and True to Every Trust
  B. Those Little Children
A. My Kind and Affectionate Emma, I am yours forever

This example is from the "Davidic Chiasmus" web page, a site designed to show that chiasmus is the Lord's style of speaking and that it can be found in modern and ancient prophetic writings. This may be true, but it weakens the argument that chiasmus is evidence for Book of Mormon antiquity if chiasmus is ubiquitous in the writings of Joseph Smith. Mormon author Blake Ostler wrote:

Book of Mormon Authorship has made a prima facie case for the ancient origins of the Book of Mormon. It fails, however, to respond to scholarly criticism in some crucial areas. For example, since Welch first published his study on chiasmus in 1969, it has been discovered that chiasmus also appears in the Doctrine and Covenants (see, for example, 88:34-38; 93:18-38; 132:19-26, 29-36), the Pearl of Great Price (Book of Abraham 3:16-19; 22-28), and other isolated nineteenth-century works. Thus, Welch's major premise that chiasmus is exclusively an ancient literary device is false. Indeed, the presence of chiasmus in the Book of Mormon may be evidence of Joseph Smith's own literary style and genius. Perhaps Welch could have strengthened his premise by demonstrating that the parallel members in the Book of Mormon consist of Semitic word pairs, the basis of ancient Hebrew poetry. Without such a demonstration, both Welch's and Reynold's arguments from chiasmus are weak. (Dialogue, Vol. 16 no 4, pg. 143)

Since then attempts have been made to show the word pairs mentioned, but again the evidence is weak (Ashment 1993).

Furthermore, John Welch has claimed that no one in Joseph's area knew about chiasmus in the Bible when the Book of Mormon was written. For example, Welch said "So I think that there was really very little chance - what should we say, a statistically insignificant chance - that Joseph Smith had any awareness of this through regular scholarly channels" (Welch, Chiasmus in the Book of Mormon, FARMS 1994, p. 18, cited in Quinn 1998a, p. 503-504). In spite of Welch's repeated assertions to the contrary, several books which discussed this issue were available in upstate New York in the 1820's including one at a bookstore near Joseph's home. One such book, Thomas Horne's Introduction To the Critical Study and Knowledge of the Holy Scriptures, published in a U.S. edition in 1825, said:

The grand, and indeed the sole characteristic of Hebrew Poetry, is what Bishop Lowth entitles Parallelism, that is, a certain equality, resemblance, or relationship, between members of each period; so that in two lines, or members of the same period, things shall answer to things, and words to words... [these are] those passages in which the same sentence is expressed not precisely in the same words, but in similar words, more full as well as more perspicuous, and concerning the force and meaning of which there can be no doubt (cited in Quinn 1998a, p. 500).

This book was advertised in a paper read by the Smith family, The Wayne Sentinel, on April 6, 13 and 20, 1825. The advertisement mentioned that this work dealt in part with Hebrew poetry. The work itself gives several examples of chiasmus from the Bible, including Isaiah 27:12-13 and Psalm 84:5-7. Furthermore, the 1818 edition of this work, published in London, was on sale at another local bookstore in 1820. Although this information has been available for some time, John Welch continues to claim that knowledge of chiasmus was unavailable to Joseph (see Quinn's discussion of the issue in Quinn 1998a, p. 499-504).

Joseph probably didn't read such books, but with the preaching and great interest in the Bible in his neighborhood, it is not unreasonable to think that he may have spoken with someone who did read the book, or at least knew about chiasmus. It is certainly possible that someone may have pointed out a few Biblical examples of Hebrew poetry to Joseph. It's clear that Joseph was intensely curious about religion and the Bible in his youth, and as his mother said, he was inclined to think often and deeply about the religious issues of the day. In the church we repeatedly make the mistake of underestimating how well-versed Joseph could have been in the religious ideas of 19th century upstate New York. If he and his family were seeking a church as much as they said they were, then it is very likely that they were aware of publicly known discoveries that were being made about the Bible. Personally, I doubt that Joseph consciously tried to create chiasmus in the book, especially since I have not seen any examples that couldn't be better explained by Joseph's effort to mimic the language of the King James Bible.

Chiasmus then, for these reasons, cannot at this time be used as evidence for the antiquity of the Book of Mormon.