In the 75th or 76th year of the judges, Nephi son of Helaman says in a prayer that the band of Gadianton has been eradicated. I have added in brackets the implied referents of the third-person pronouns and possessives, noting that one of them is ambiguous.
O Lord, behold this people repenteth; and they [the people] have swept away the band of Gadianton from amongst them [the people] insomuch that they [the Gadiantons] have become extinct, and they [who?] have concealed their [the Gadiantons'] secret plans in the earth. Now, O Lord, because of this their [the peoples'] humility wilt thou turn away thine anger . . . (Hel. 11:10-11).
The first possible reading is that the people have demonstrated their humility by (1) repenting, (2) wiping out the Gadianton band, and (3) concealing the Gadiantons' secret plans in the earth.
The second possible reading is that the people have been so successful in sweeping away the Gadianton band that that the Gadiantons have (1) become extinct and (2) been forced to conceal their secret plans in the earth.
The first is the most natural reading for a couple of reasons. First, "their humility" definitely refers to the humility of the people, but that reading would be difficult if the three instances of they/their preceding it all referred to the Gadiantons. Second, it is unnatural to say that the Gadiantons "have become extinct and" done something else; they obviously would have had to conceal their plans before they became extinct, and so it would be more natural to say that first in the sentence. If the meaning of the passage is that, although the Gadiantons' themselves have become extinct, their plans are still hidden somewhere in the earth, we would expect a but rather than an and. Because of its naturalness, I assume many readers of the Book of Mormon (including myself until very recently) take the first reading for granted and don't even notice the ambiguity.
The official Chinese translation of the Book of Mormon removes the ambiguity and makes the first reading the only one possible. It says, essentially, that the people have "repented, wiped out the Gadiantons, and concealed their secret plans." The subject of all these verbs can only be "this people."
However, the Russian translators made the opposite call: "они скрыли свои тайные планы" can only mean "they hid their own secret plans." If anyone other than the Gadiantons themselves had hidden the plans, the correct possessive would be их rather than the reflexive свои.
Despite what I have said about the naturalness of the first reading, I can see the Russians' point of view, too. Why would the people who eradicated the Gadiantons themselves carefully conceal the Gadiantons' secret plans instead of just destroying them? Years later, people dig up the plans and use them to start a Gadianton revival. For that even to have been possible, the plans must have been intentionally buried in such a way that they would be preserved -- something analogous to Moroni writing on gold plates and burying them in a stone box. It's hard to imagine any motive for the enemies of the Gadiantons to do that.
If the Gadiantons themselves buried the plans so that they would be preserved for future generations, that raises questions, too. It suggests that the "secret plans" were not just a playbook for criminal mischief but were seen by the Gadiantons as having some almost religious value.
I'm still trying to work out possible understandings of the whole "secret plans" plot point. I just want to document this ambiguity in the text first and see what other people think.
3 comments:
"Secret plans" seems to be the exact explicated satanic rites and machinations of this band; the same term is used in Alma 37. These were originally on the records written by Ether and translated by Mosiah, but kept hidden or sealed up from the lay Nephites to prevent them from exercising them and destroying themselves. "retain all their oaths, and their covenants, and their agreements in their secret abominations; yea, and all their signs and their wonders ye shall keep from this people." Moroni says something similar in Ether 8:20 where he won't detail them to us, the Gentiles. Ergo, they weren't fully disclosed in the records passed down among the Nephites. It says Gadianton "was exceedingly expert in many words, and also in his craft" which makes me wonder if he was a kind of scribe, historian, or boffin and was inspired by the Devil to seek out these plans in the sealed record in the archive. The only problem with this theory is that it says he didn't obtain these from the records delivered unto Helaman; "those secret oaths and covenants did not come forth unto Gadianton from the records which were delivered unto Helaman". Unless this is talking of the free records passed down, and not the sealed portion kept/retained from the Nephites. "Therefore ye shall keep these secret plans of their oaths and their covenants from this people, and only their wickedness and their murders and their abominations shall ye make known unto [the Nephites]. (Also, why would Ether include these in his record?)
"conceal[ing] their secret plans in the earth" strikes me as the Nephites sealing these oaths back up, similar to Alma 37 where they must be "retained" and "kept from the people"; sealed back up in the archive or hidden up in the ground. But that does beg a good question, as you point out; why keep them written down? Plus we see that a few years later there was a group of dissenters and Lamanites who "did search out all the secret plans of Gadianton". Did they access these records by searching for where they were kept? Or were they instructed in these plans by the Devil directly?
Back in Ether 8 it says "Whereby hath my father so much sorrow? Hath he not read the record which our fathers brought across the great deep? Behold, is there not an account concerning them of old, that they by their secret plans did obtain kingdoms and great glory?" Is this saying the oaths were in the Jaredite records that were passed down? Why would they do that? Why would the few Jaredite people who came across the ocean choose to keep the records of the evil oaths that led to the fall of Babel?
Interesting thoughts from a close reading of 3pl pronouns.
In Ether 6, the they of vv8-10 has been interpreted to refer to the Jaredites rather than their vessels, with the result that the verbs break and mar have archaic meaning.
In Ether 8, the whereby seems archaic, with a contextual meaning of 'why?' The OED has it last in Malory, which would mean it's very archaic, late ME even.
Another interesting tidbit is this: No "after that S" usage for more than half the dictation, then 115 of them, starting at 3 Nephi 12. High rates, last seen in the early 1600s. So did Joseph Smith one day in May 1829 decide that he needed to up his archaic game, and start using "after that S" 2/3 of the time, or was it revealed? Similar thing, of course, with wherefore ~ therefore and whoso ~ whosoever (see Metcalfe, ed., 1993). But also with "if it so be". Just three of these before 3 Nephi 16, then 39, the most ever. The only texts with more than ten are late ME, by Chaucer and Lydgate.
@Ftan -I sometimes wonder if there wasn't a 1600s person involved in the translation process somehow, someone knowledgeable of the scholarly debates about how to translate that eventually led to the KJV. The 'gifts of the spirit' such as translation may be the spirit allowing us to access other people's minds and use their capabilities, or to view written documents.
As to OP. The people burying it require some explanation. Maybe the plans are like The Ring of Power; they can't be destroyed and are a hazard. Secret combinations seem like a criminal syndicate and or a political movement/conspiracy at first glance, but there has to be something more than that to them, something that explains why they are such a force, and why normal people would find it so hard to resist joining them.
Post a Comment