Who had the vision that converted Abish?

Sheri Doty, Abish Teaching the Lamanites

The Book of Mormon briefly mentions that Abish, a Lamanitish woman, had "been converted unto the Lord for many years, on account of a remarkable vision of her father" (Alma 19:16).

In my past readings, I had always assumed that this meant a vision that her father had had. This time around, though, I realized that it could also mean a vision in which she had seen her father -- either her own human father (presumably after his death) or her Father, God. In fact, at least in the English of our own day, this latter reading is the more natural one. If I wanted to refer to a vision which my father had had, I would say "a vision of my father's," with the possessive -'s.

Of course, we can't assume that the language of the Book of Mormon -- a combination of King James English and Joseph Smith's frontier dialect, perhaps (according to a currently popular theory) with an unexplained admixture of even earlier English -- always corresponds to current usage, so I tried to look for similar structures elsewhere in scripture.

The structure "determiner + noun + of + nominal possessive" is certainly attested in scripture, at least with pronouns: "these sayings of mine" (Matt. 7:24, 26; 3 Ne. 14:24, 26; 15:1), "a friend of mine" (Luke 11:6), "every prayer of mine" (Philip. 1:4), "those sons of mine" (Alma 56:17), "these last commandments of mine" (D&C 17:8), "these words of mine" (D&C 95:3), "any neglect of mine" (JS-H 1:59), "a neighbour of thine" (1 Sam. 15:28), "this liberty of yours" (1 Cor. 8:9), "five damsels of hers" (1 Sam. 25:42), "every beast of theirs" (Gen. 34:23), "every oblation of theirs, and every meat offering of theirs, and every sin offering of theirs, and every trespass offering of theirs" (Num. 18:9).

Searching for similar instances with nouns rather than pronouns is much more difficult, since there are so many possibilities.

The fact that of can also mean "from" in King James English (e.g. "learn of me" means learn from me, not about me) also complicates matters, since of course this sense of of would not use the possessive. So "they speak a vision of [from] their own heart" (Jer. 23:16) and "then shall they seek a vision of [from] the prophet" (Ezek. 7:26) are not counterexamples. "Every word of God" (Prov. 30:5, Luke 4:4, 1 Ne. 17:35) could also be understood in this "from" sense -- Luke is paraphrasing "every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of the Lord" (Deut. 8:3) -- and thus do not provide decisive evidence. Any reference to a "vision of God" (or "of the Almighty," as in Balaam's formula) should be assumed to mean "from God" also, unless it is made clear that God himself was seen.

The distinction we are interested in does not exist for the; "the vision of Isaiah" could mean either a vision seen by Isaiah (like "a vision of Isaiah's") or a vision in which Isaiah was seen (like "a vision of Isaiah"). So I searched the scriptures for various other determiners (a, every, any, this, that, these, those) + "visions(s) of," excluding instances where of could mean "from" and other irrelevant instances such as "a vision of the night" (Job 20:8, 33:15).

This search yielded only a single instance: "a vision of angels" (Luke 24:23), in which the angels are the ones seen and so of course the possessive would not be used. So zero relevant evidence either way.

Of course other nouns than "vision" could be relevant, and my search also missed any instances where an adjective is interposed between the determiner and the noun (as in "a remarkable vision of her father"), but it's hard to narrow down all those possibilities into something searchable. I think my only option at this point is to keep my eyes open for such expressions the next time I read through the entire canon.

Meanwhile, the nature of the vision that converted Abish remains ambiguous.