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==Question: Is the presence of chiastic structures in the Book of Mormon simply coincidence?== | ==Question: Is the presence of chiastic structures in the Book of Mormon simply coincidence?== |
Critics of the Book of Mormon have proposed what might be called the "hickory dickory dock" theory of chiasmus. They point out that the children's nursery rhyme Hickory Dickory Dock is chiastic:
A - Hickory dickory dock
A' - Hickory dickory dock |
To be sure, this is a trivial example. If this was the only sort of chiasmus to be found in the Book of Mormon, then it would be weak evidence, at best, of any sort of ancient origin for the text. Such simple examples of chiasmus are well known in English speech. This particular example becomes a bit more complicated, of course, because this poem can also be rewritten in a different format:
Hickory dickory dock
The mouse ran up the clock
Hickory dickory dock |
Which structural label better describes the poem? Was it intended to be read chiastically? Or was it intended to be a limerick? Or does neither description best suit the likely intent of the author?
A - The last
A' - shall be last.
|
A - Fair is
A' - is fair.
|
The "hickory dickory dock" theory would seem to be a strawman. Such simple examples do exist in the Book of Mormon, (examples) but they are not the most impressive ones. Critics try to pretend that the simple, trivial parallelisms represent all such chiastic samples in the Book of Mormon. If Joseph Smith was writing the Book of Mormon himself, he might well compose simple parallelisms intentionally, or even accidentally.
Small, "trivial" chiastic structures containing only a few elements might well arise through chance or English rhetoric, especially when other elements within the text are not considered in the analysis.
However, critics ignore numerous complex, subtle, and meaningful chiamus when they assume that all of the Book of Mormon's inverted parallel structures are so simple. On the other hand, more work needs to be done to evaluate the hundreds of proposed chiastic readings of the Book of Mormon.[1] Some of them will inevitably end up as less likely than others, though statistical analysis has sustained the presence of some Book of Mormon chiasmus,[2] and failed to support it in some of Joseph's modern writings.[3]
And for LDS members, the value of these readings is less about demonstrating historicity in the text, and more about interpreting the text with the intentions of the authors in mind, as viewed through their use of rhetorical figures.
Notes
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