Ancient Names in the Book of Mormon Toward a Deeper Understanding of a Witness of Christ By Matthew L. Bowen

The names of individuals, places, and peoples in the Book of Mormon are strong evidence of its authenticity as an ancient scriptural record. But these names are more than mere ornaments. By reading carefully and using our knowledge of ancient Hebrew and Egyptian—the languages Book of Mormon writers claimed they knew and used—we can locate passages where names figure crucially into the meaning of the text and strengthen its impact. Sometimes, wordplay on these names illuminates important themes in a given book. These findings are consistent with what we find throughout the Hebrew Bible, where names and their meanings (real and perceived) were integral to narrative, prophecy, and poetry. As a follow-up to Name as Key-Word (2018), Ancient Names in the Book of Mormon explores many such examples and demonstrates how they contribute to our understanding of the Book of Mormon’s witness of Christ in its ancient context.

Table of Contents

Foreword, by Jeffrey Dean Lindsay

Acknowledgments

Introduction

Abbreviations

1 “O Ye Fair Ones”—Revisited

2 Shazer: The Place of the Young Gazelle

3 “If Ye Will Hearken”: Rhetorical Wordplay on Ishmael

4 Jacob’s Protector

5 “I Kneeled Down before My Maker”: Allusions to Esau in the Book of Enos

6 “I of Myself Am a Wicked Man”: Omni’s Adaptive Autobiography

7 Becoming Men and Women of Understanding: Revisiting Wordplay on Benjamin

8 “Possess the Land in Peace”: Zeniff’s Ironic Wordplay on Shilom

9 “This Son Shall Comfort Us”: An Onomastic Tale of Two Noahs

10 “He Did Go about Secretly”: Additional Thoughts on the Literary Use of Alma’s Name

11 “I Will Deliver Thy Sons”: Oracular Wordplay on Mosiah and Ammon

12 He Knows My Affliction: Onidah versus the Rameumptom

13 The Scalp of Your Head: “Chief” as Metonymic “Head”

14 “Swearing by Their Everlasting Maker”: Paanchi and Giddianhi

15 Coming Down and Bringing Down to Destruction: Jared and the Jaredites

16 “That Which They Most Desired”: Mary and Mormon Revisited

17 Messengers of the Covenant

Bibliography

Illustration Credits

Index