Complex?

[Everybody Wang Chung]

The chiastic structures that might be found in the two sources you are referring to, along with Strang's, don't hold a candle to Alma 36 and other examples found in the Book of Mormon.

Dialogue has a very interesting article on why the "chiasmus" in Alma is not really a chiasmus.

Conclusion
The existence of extended chiasmus in the Book of Mormon seems far from proved by Alma 36. While the inverted parallelism developed by
Welch is impressive on first reading, on closer analysis it is Welch's creativity that is most notable. By following flexible rules, he has fashioned a chiasm by selecting elements from repetitious language, creatively labeling elements, ignoring text, pairing unbalanced elements, and even including asymmetrical elements. His efforts to defend it with a "full text" chiasm and fifteen criteria only highlight all the problems as well as his own creativity.

As for Edwards's and Edwards's analysis, they acknowledge that their "quantitative judgments" are based "only on the order of words and
ideas" that they themselves select. They explicitly "disregard the overall integrity and literary merit" of the chiasm, which, as shown above, has little "chiastic strength" under Welch's own criteria.

https://www.dialoguejournal.com/wp-cont ... 04_105.pdf

Now, let's take a look at a real chiasmus. This one is found in The Late War (a book that shares many similarities with the Book of Mormon):



http://wordtree.org/thelatewar/

[Rick Grunder]

Wang Chung notes: "The Book of Mormon 'chiasmus' are of varying and non-matching size, which is a clue that these are not real chiasmus."

And that is the trouble with Alma 36 in the context of this discussion. If, for example, a diagram of faith-promoting chiasms were to leave out an element of major importance from its source text - such as a vision of God - because it does not fit the chiastic pattern claimed, would that not be a problem?

Please see my color coding of Alma 36 in Mormon Parallels, pp. 737-740, available as a free PDF download of my Gilbert Hunt entry, here:

https://www.rickgrunder.com/parallels/mp193.pdf

[Everybody Wang Chung]

In addition to the many chiasmus found in The Late War and the writings of Solomon Spaulding and Joseph Smith’s non Book of Mormon writings, let’s take a look at some chiasmus in James Strang’s Book of the Law of the Lord:

what they cannot explain is how another early Mormon, James J. Strang, could produce works in 1845 and 1851 with the same chiastic style, unless Strang’s translations have the same sacred origins as the Book of Mormon. Strang said that his translation of the Book of the Law of the Lord was made from the brass plates that the ancient Book of Mormon author named Nephi obtained from Jerusalem (as in 2 Chronicles 17:9), and the book had a testimony of witnesses.

Here is beginner’s example of chiasmus from the Book of the Law of the Lord, chapter 39, section 1, which shows good rhythm. Notice that line A parallels line A', and line B parallels line B':

A YE SHALL not CLOTHE YOURSELVES

B AFTER THE MANNER of the follies of other men;

B' but AFTER THE MANNER that is seemly and convenient,

A' SHALL YE CLOTHE YOURSELVES.

Here is a more complex example from the FIRST CHAPTER of the 1851 Book of the Law of the Lord, with God skillfully placed in the center of the structure:

A Thou shalt not TAKE the NAME of the Lord thy God in VAIN:

B thou shalt not USURP dominion

C as a RULER; for the NAME of the Lord thy God

D is great and glorious ABOVE ALL OTHER NAMES:

E he is ABOVE ALL,

F and is the ONLY TRUE God;

F' the ONLY JUST and upright King

E' OVER ALL:

D' he ALONE hath the RIGHT

C' to RULE; and in his NAME, only he to whom he granteth it:

B' whosoever is not chosen of him, the same is a USURPER, and unholy:

A' the Lord will not hold him guiltless, for he TAKETH his NAME in VAIN.

Here is another example of chiasmus from the FIRST TWO PARAGRAPHS of a different earlier record translated by James J. Strang in 1845, usually called the “Voree Plates.” The two paragraphs reverse each other in theme even more than in vocabulary:

A My people ARE NO MORE.

B THE MIGHTY ARE FALLEN, and the young slain in battle.

C Their BONES bleached on the plain by the noonday SHADOW.

D The houses are leveled to the dust, and IN THE MOAT are the walls. They shall be inhabited.

D' I have IN THE BURIAL served them,

C' and their BONES in the Death-SHADE, towards the sun’s rising, are covered.

B' They sleep with THE MIGHTY dead, and they rest with their fathers. They have FALLEN in transgression

A' AND ARE NOT, but the elect and faithful there shall dwell.

https://churchofjesuschristoflatterdays ... iasmus.htm

[MG 2.0]

Hey Wang, I suppose we've put enough out there now for lurkers and others to do some of their own research and come to their own conclusions. Thank you for joining in.

You're a good man with a good heart. That's rather obvious to everyone.

Regards,
MG

[Marcus]

A different opinion on Alma 36:

Alma 36 is not chiastic. LDS apologists have created the illusion that it is by only including the words in their chiasmus templates that fit their chiasmus scheme and ignoring everything that doesn't.

If you include all the verbiage in the chapter, it's obvious at one point that they have paired seven verses of material (vs. 5-11) with only two on the other side (vs. 23-24). This huge asymmetry, plus the fact that you have elements in the seven verses that have no counterpart on the other side, plus the fact that the chapter has multiple "mavericks," i.e. things that don't fit the chiasmus scheme, shows that Alma 36 is not, nor was intended to be, chiastic.

For more detail on how problematic the claim of Alma 36 being chiastic is, here are a couple of informative articles:

https://www.dialoguejournal.com/wp-cont ... 04_105.pdf

https://mit.irr.org/alma-36-ancient-mas ... -testimony

LDS apologists have also misrepresented the facts about chiasmus only being ancient and not being known in Joseph Smith's day.

It is found throughout English literature, and chiasmus/introverted parallelism/antimetabole as a rhetorical device was known and had been written about prior to the time the Book of Mormon was published.
https://www.reddit.com/r/Mormon/comment ... 6/kijwehl/

[MG 2.0]

A different opinion on Alma 36:

Alma 36 is not chiastic. LDS apologists have created the illusion that it is by only including the words in their chiasmus templates that fit their chiasmus scheme and ignoring everything that doesn't.

If you include all the verbiage in the chapter, it's obvious at one point that they have paired seven verses of material (vs. 5-11) with only two on the other side (vs. 23-24). This huge asymmetry, plus the fact that you have elements in the seven verses that have no counterpart on the other side, plus the fact that the chapter has multiple "mavericks," i.e. things that don't fit the chiasmus scheme, shows that Alma 36 is not, nor was intended to be, chiastic.

For more detail on how problematic the claim of Alma 36 being chiastic is, here are a couple of informative articles:

https://www.dialoguejournal.com/wp-cont ... 04_105.pdf

https://mit.irr.org/alma-36-ancient-mas ... -testimony

LDS apologists have also misrepresented the facts about chiasmus only being ancient and not being known in Joseph Smith's day.

It is found throughout English literature, and chiasmus/introverted parallelism/antimetabole as a rhetorical device was known and had been written about prior to the time the Book of Mormon was published.
https://www.reddit.com/r/Mormon/comment ... 6/kijwehl/

And I thank you, in addition to Wang, for adding extra information to benefit those that are looking at this issue from all sides. More information is always better.

Regards,
MG

[I Have Questions]

A different opinion on Alma 36:

Alma 36 is not chiastic. LDS apologists have created the illusion that it is by only including the words in their chiasmus templates that fit their chiasmus scheme and ignoring everything that doesn't.

If you include all the verbiage in the chapter, it's obvious at one point that they have paired seven verses of material (vs. 5-11) with only two on the other side (vs. 23-24). This huge asymmetry, plus the fact that you have elements in the seven verses that have no counterpart on the other side, plus the fact that the chapter has multiple "mavericks," i.e. things that don't fit the chiasmus scheme, shows that Alma 36 is not, nor was intended to be, chiastic.

For more detail on how problematic the claim of Alma 36 being chiastic is, here are a couple of informative articles:

https://www.dialoguejournal.com/wp-cont ... 04_105.pdf

https://mit.irr.org/alma-36-ancient-mas ... -testimony

LDS apologists have also misrepresented the facts about chiasmus only being ancient and not being known in Joseph Smith's day.

It is found throughout English literature, and chiasmus/introverted parallelism/antimetabole as a rhetorical device was known and had been written about prior to the time the Book of Mormon was published.
https://www.reddit.com/r/Mormon/comment ... 6/kijwehl/

Thanks Marcus. So that’s the apologetic “chiasmus, how could Joseph possibly have known…” down the toilet. And more LDS apologist reputations and credibility ruined by their own dishonesty.

[Rick Grunder]

And here, by contrast, is an unpretentious but nearly perfect chiastic selection from Joseph Smith's own place and time. It was surely written naturally without any conscious attempt at chiasmus by a non-Mormon woman in 1831. She lived about fifteen miles from Fayette, New York where the Book of Mormon dictation had been completed less than two years earlier. First, the passage in which the chiasmus is found (original spelling preserved):

. . . and now my dear young freinds who think you have latly experenced the love of God in your hearts and who once like your unworthy cousen was persuing the follys and vanitys of this vain world let me ask you if you ever found any thing to be compared with joy and satisfaction you now experence no methinks i hear you say i never knew what real happiness was before o could the whole world but know the comfort and satisfaction the saint enjoys in one hours communion with God how soon would this vain world lose its charms . . .

And here is the chiastic portion from above, arranged below for easy recognition without any cherry-picking and without omitting a single word from the relevant portion:

and who once like your unworthy cousen was persuing the follys [1]

---and vanitys of this vain world [2]

------let me ask you if you ever found any thing to be compared with joy [3]

---------and satisfaction [4] you now experence

------------no methinks i hear you say i never knew [5]

---------------what real HAPPINESS [6] was before

------------o could the whole world but know [5]

---------the comfort and satisfaction [4]

------the saint enjoys [3] in one hours communion with God

---how soon would this vain world [2]

lose its charms [1] . . .

This comes from my Mormon Parallels entry 370, https://09630705-d10a-4916-94e1-927ced7 ... 35e333.pdf, with an illustration of the original handwriting of one Betsey Searl in North Lansing, Tompkins County, New York on May 9, 1831. For other examples of American chiasmus, see Mormon Parallels entry 193 (Gilbert Hunt) which I link in an earlier reply on this thread. (And again I would emphasize that the latter entry illustrates in color coding of Alma 36 that a vision of God is omitted in a faith-promoting chiasmus diagram because it does not fit the needed symmetrical pattern claimed.)

[Dr Exiled]

Missionaries are asking people to agree with their position. At least that's what I was doing when I was out there and it seems pretty clear that's what they're doing today.

It's ok to admit that missionaries and the church as a whole want people to believe their narrative.

Missionaries AREN'T asking people to agree with their position. They do encourage people to seek the truth and ask God for answers to questions.

Regards,
MG

I guess semantics strikes again. Carry on.

Incidentally, for those not caught in a semantic snare because of some need to portray the missionary effort as just people innocently talking in all innocence and mercy, blah, blah, blah, the missionaries believe that their position on God, Jesus, the Book of Mormon etc. is the correct one from the emotional experience they supposedly had and obviously, painfully so, want the world to agree with them by having the same controlled experience that they are taught to control for the targets. If you don't get the same controlled experience, then you didn't do it correctly, they'll say, blah, blah, blah, or weren't sincere, blah, blah, blah, or had sins that you wanted to continue, blah, blah, blah.

The above is obvious to the world at large but not to the those caught up in motivated reasoning.

[malkie]

Missionaries AREN'T asking people to agree with their position. They do encourage people to seek the truth and ask God for answers to questions.

Regards,
MG

I guess semantics strikes again. Carry on.

Incidentally, for those not caught in a semantic snare because of some need to portray the missionary effort as just people innocently talking in all innocence and mercy, blah, blah, blah, the missionaries believe that their position on God, Jesus, the Book of Mormon etc. is the correct one from the emotional experience they supposedly had and obviously, painfully so, want the world to agree with them by having the same controlled experience that they are taught to control for the targets. If you don't get the same controlled experience, then you didn't do it correctly, they'll say, blah, blah, blah, or weren't sincere, blah, blah, blah, or had sins that you wanted to continue, blah, blah, blah.

The above is obvious to the world at large but not to the those caught up in motivated reasoning.

I wonder if/how the practice of missionary work might change if there were no push for people to agree with the missionaries' position. Would there still be a "numbers" push, or would MPs be satisfied with reports of the quality of discussions (real discussions, that is) in which "people {} seek the truth and ask God for answers to questions".