Editor's Introduction The following paper is partly a response to Thomas E. Donofrio's "Early American Influences on the Book of Mormon," and partly a general response to "textual parallels theories" for Book of Mormon authorship. See Elder Hugh Nibley's 1959 essay, "The Comparative Method," for more on the subject. Textual parallels may not always indicate textual borrowings, but the evidence in this regard can be compelling. See Ted Chandler's Finding the Bible in the Book of Mormon and Mr. Donofrio's 2006 Reply to McGuire.

At the end of 2003, Dennis R. MacDonald released his second book arguing that the New Testament (and in particular the Gospel of Mark) was influenced directly by the Homeric epics. His 2003 book, Does the New Testament Imitate Homer? Four Cases from the Acts of the Apostles [1], followed his 2000 book: The Homeric Epics and the Gospel of Mark[2].  Neither work has been exceptionally well received within the scholarly community. The criticism of the theory falls into two broad categories. First, it has been noted that there are problems with the methodology that MacDonald forwards. Sharyn Dowd, in her review of the earlier book published in Catholic Biblical Quarterly comments:

The two questions necessary for the evaluation of a claim about any mode of inter-textuality are: What is the evidence? and By what criteria is the evidence to be evaluated? MacD. lays out the criteria in the first chapter, introducing the evidence in later chapters. … That some of MacD.’s arguments are less plausible than others is due in part to the slipperiness of his criteria for evaluating parallels. Ordinarily, the inherent circularity in the process of developing criteria to prove a case one has already intuited can be mitigated by using methods commonly agreed upon in one’s discipline. MacD.’s case is not helped by the fact that, although he alludes to four scholars in his discussion of method, he does not attempt to show to what extent his criteria are shared by others working in ancient intertexuality. … Some of the criteria are obvious: “accessibility,” “order,” and “distinctiveness” But some are too vague to be useful, such as “interpretability” – the ability of a parallel to make sense of a problem in Mark or of a detail that is otherwise problematic or apparently gratuitous. [3]

Appropriate methodology is essential in presenting a case for textual influence or reliance. The second criticism extended towards MacDonald’s work was that of rhetorical value of any proposed connection. M.D. Hooker discusses this specifically in her review of the same work:

To be sure, some of MacDonald’s parallels are intriguing, but they cannot on their own provide an explanation of what Mark is doing. Odd details in Mark’s narrative do sometimes ‘echo’ events in Homer’s story (like the feast where participants sat in nine units of ‘five hundred men’) and sometimes provide contrasts (as with the storm, in which Odysseus was awakened but was helpless to do anything). But are these parallels and contrasts deliberate? Or are they accidental? … After all, as MacDonald admits, ‘feasting and sleeping [and] journeys are common in ancient writings; these and other similarities do not require mimesis’ (p. 127). … One is left wondering why – if MacDonald is right – Mark should have chosen to depict Jesus in this way, sometimes in imitation of Odysseus and sometimes in contrast to him. What would Mark have hoped to achieve? … MacDonald’s suggestion is that he ‘crafted a myth to make the memory of Jesus relevant to the catastrophies of his day’, and that he was ‘adapting cultural monuments to address new realities’ (p. 190). So was Mark’s Gospel simply a re-telling of Homeric myth? … To show that there are similarities in plot and theme between two authors is one thing, to prove dependence is quite another. That there are certain parallels between two narratives is hardly surprising, for similar themes reappear constantly in stories told by very different people. But suggestions that there is deliberate mimesis can easily topple into parallelomania.[4]

The application here should be self-evident to Donofrio’s studies[5]. With Donofrio’s work however, we are faced with even greater difficulties. Unlike MacDonald, Donofrio offers no discussion of method, no discussion of criteria used to evaluate the texts. There is simply the presentation of unqualified evidence. Because of this, we are left to infer the method (if any was used) and to evaluate the evidence for and against Donofrio’s proposition without the advantage of understanding his own process.

In responding to Donofrio’s thesis, I wish to take two separate approaches. The first part of this response will be to examine the likelihood that these common phrases exist simply as “echoes.” In doing so, I will demonstrate that we expect a degree of overlap between texts – largely due to their production within a similar environment. After this discussion, I wish to take his evidences of literary dependence, and examine them through the lens of accepted scholarship.

Random Chance

In his on-line article, Book of Mormon Tories, near the end of a large list of parallels, Donofrio makes the following comment: “Suffice it to say, the tally of similarities begin to defy random chance.” Without anything to compare it to, this would certainly seem to be the case.

In order to investigate this claim, I took four texts which Donofrio uses, and ran them through a computerized lexical tool.  The four texts are the Book of Mormon, Spaulding’s Manuscript, Ramsay’s The Life of George Washington (I did not have easy access to an electronic text of Ramsay’s History and so do not use it for this study) and Warren’s The Rise, Progress and Termination of the American Revolution (all three volumes)[6]. For further consideration, I also included a text of Jules Verne’s Around the World in 80 Days[7]. Because of the nature of e-texts, the statistical count will be an approximation[8]. The reasons for this will be to determine what if anything can be said about the relationships between these texts from a purely statistical perspective.

Data Gathering

In comparing these five texts, I first surveyed the frequencies of the unique terms in each text, compared the different texts for similar vocabulary. Then, I produced a series of locutions. Two series were produced, one taking every occurring sequence of three words, and then one taking every occurring sequence of four words. These two series were then mapped onto the same series produced for each of the other texts to develop a list of exact three word and four word phrases common to each pairing of texts. The results would then show some degree of comparison between the different sources – as well as to provide information on what we should expect in terms of overlapping vocabulary and simple phrases. The following table lists the texts, their total word count, and the number of unique terms found in each text (as produced by the lexical tool – these numbers should be considered approximate):

Text	Total	Unique
	Word Count	Words
Warren	288,977	12,762
Ramsay	87,433	7,351
Spalding	36,930	5,251
BoM	269,072	5,575
Verne	63,713	6,790

Fig. 1

This would appear to give us a reasonable sampling across the spectrum. Notably, although they have a wildly variant vocabulary, the BoM and the Warren text are of reasonably similar length.

Common Vocabulary
Fig. 2

Figure 2 represents the common vocabulary shared between pairs of texts. The number under the shaded cells represents the total number of unique terms shared between the crossed texts. The number above the shaded cells represents the proportion of the vocabulary of the text which is shared – the first percentage represents the text in the row, and the second number represents the text for the column. Thus, the Book of Mormon and Warren’s text share 3,410 unique terms – representing 27% of the vocabulary of the Warren text, and 61% of the vocabulary of the Book of Mormon. We can see from this that there are no unusual features of the Book of Mormon relative to its vocabulary.

Fig. 4



Fig. 5

The percentages in Figure 5 represent the ratio of shared phrases to the total of unique phrases in the text at the top of each column. So, while there are 2,052 shared three word phrases common to both the Ramsay text and the Spalding text, this represents only 2.74% of the unique three word phrases in the Ramsay text, while it represents 6.09% of the unique phrases in the Spalding text.

Fig. 6




Fig. 7

As we might expect, these numbers have dropped significantly.  Where one of the texts is large (i.e. with Warren of the Book of Mormon), the drop is not as significant in terms of the ratio as when both texts are small.  What is unexpected however, is the very high ratio which Ramsay maintains with Warren. Out of every hundred unique four word phrases which occur in Ramsay, four are found in Warren (and correspondingly, 1.38% of all four word phrases in Warren can be found in Ramsay).  Based on the sizes of the text, the figures for the Book of Mormon would appear to be within a normal range of expectancy. Based solely on the numbers presented here, I would no more expect the BoM to be based on Warren’s text any more than I would expect Jules Verne’s book to be based on the Book of Mormon text. Unless we view the Ramsay-Warren connection as suspect, even considering the slightly larger overlap in vocabulary, we might find that even 10,000 shared unique four word phrases between the BoM and the Warren text would not be evidence of textual reliance or special affinity. This certainly eclipses the minor sampling which Donofrio provides (in either the shorter or the lengthier paper). As it is, there are more than 1,900 common four-word phrases shared between the Warren text and the Book of Mormon. It seems reasonable that with a very few sources of sufficient length, nearly the entire Book of Mormon could be reconstructed using phrases from these other sources.

A Matter of Method

Before dealing specifically with questions of criteria and evidence, it is perhaps best to define some specific terms. The way in which texts relate to each other – that is, the description of the relationship between texts, is called intertextuality. Intertextuality can describe a range of meanings. For the purposes of the remainder of this paper, I wish to follow the definition used by Benjamin Sommer.[9] He distinguishes between intertextuality – which doesn’t attempt to establish a direction for the movement of text, that is, it doesn’t attempt to discover which text is the source, and which text is the borrower, and allusion or influence, which deal specifically with the directional movement of text.  Intertextuality is a particularly useful term when dependence cannot be demonstrated, but where a relationship clearly exists (often because two texts may derive from an unknown common source, or when a text may be a derivative of another known text through an unknown source, or when a text may be considered to be the product of a particular community or social environment). It can be easy to confuse these issues. As Sommer notes:  “This distinction between intertextuality, on the one hand, and allusion and influence, on the other, is basic to contemporary theoretical discussions of the relations between texts, though many readers continue to confuse them.”[10]

The first issue which has to be brought up is how to distinguish from an actual borrowing – and intentional movement of text from one source to another, and an echo. As Konrad Schaefer explains, an echo is:

…often unintentional, which results from the use of stock language in common circulation. The author reflects or replicates ideas that can be found in previous literature, but he may be unaware of the background source, and he does not wittingly advert to the original. Because an echo is unintentional, its understanding does not require knowledge of a particular source. The interpreter who fails to distinguish between allusions which are intentional and echoes which are not can err in attributing what recalls a source by chance and what is a deliberate reference; this leads to misapprehension in the exegesis of a text. [11]

In other words, while an intentional movement of text is capable of providing evidence for a directional movement of material from a source to a “borrower”, an echo is not. In studies of intertexuality, criteria have been formulated to help differentiate between the two. In my introduction, Dowd mentions a series of useful criteria in discussing intertextuality. These were accessibility, order, and distinctiveness. A more complete list is found in Echoes of Scripture in the Letters of Paul by Richard B. Hayes.[12] Hayes offers seven specific questions that can be used to test the presence of literary reliance (intentional or as an “echo”) between texts[13]:

1) Availability: Was the source of the alleged reference available to the author and/or the original reader?

2) Volume: How extensive is the explicit repetition of words or syntax (or other indicators)? How prominent is the material in the source text? How much rhetorical stress does the reference receive in the borrowing text?

3) Recurrence: How often does the author cite or allude to the same source?

4) Thematic Coherence: How well does the alleged parallel fit into the argument that the alluding text is developing?

5) Historical Plausibility: Could the author have intended the alleged meaning? Would his readers have understood it?

6) Historical Interpretation: Have others seen the same relationship?

7) Satisfaction: Does the proposed reading make sense?

 

The one element from Dowd’s list not covered here is that of distinctiveness (or uniqueness). When material can be found in multiple sources, reliance can only be demonstrated by showing that the material in the text in question only occurs “in a form which one would not have used them had it not been for a knowledge of their occurrence in this particular form in another source.”[14]

In dealing then with Donofrio’s proposal, we should look at these several points and examine whether or not he has presented sufficient evidence to make his argument.

Availability

Donofrio suggests that Joseph used the following sources in the production of the Book of Mormon:

1)      Mercy Otis Warren's History of the Rise, Progress, and Termination of the American Revolution, 1805

2)      David Ramsay’s History of the American Revolution, 1789

3)      David Ramsay’s Life of George Washington

4)      Samuel Adams, American Independence speech to the State House in Philadelphia on August 1, 1776.

5)      Thomas Jefferson’s first and second inaugural addresses.

6)      Thomas Paine, Common Sense in 1776.

7)      Samuel McClintock's sermon on the New Hampshire constitution, given June 3, 1784.

8)      Abraham Keteltas, a sermon on October 5, 1775 entitled, God Arising and Pleading His People's Cause.

9)      Samuel Sherwood, The Church's Flight into the Wilderness, a sermon delivered on January 17, 1776.

10)  Timothy Dwight, from his sermon The Duty of Americans, at the Present Crisis (1789)

11)  Jonathon Edwards from assorted sermons.

12)  George Whitefield from assorted sermons.

13)  Jonathon Edwards, Jr. from assorted sermons.

Nowhere is addressed the question of how likely it was that Joseph was exposed directly to these sources. (It is insufficient to suggest that he merely had contact with the text through a third party, since Donofrio is relying on explicit points of verbal contact that would not be present if we were getting a paraphrase filtered through a third party). This is significant because Donofrio’s argument seems to be largely built on circumstantial evidence. As Dowd points out, the argument has a certain circularity to it. Donofrio does not start by listing sources to which we know Joseph had access. Rather, he determines first that Joseph was borrowing material – and then he goes in search of just such material. Finding, in the plethora of later 18^th century and early 19^th century texts, those which most closely match his purpose, he constructs his argument using a stacked deck. (I know how easy this is, since I have dozens of volumes of history, theology and collections of sermons from that time period myself).

So, whether or not Joseph Smith had access to these sources would seem to be an unknown (perhaps unknowable). But on this first point, the thesis receives its first strike.

Volume

The evidence which is presented varies quite a bit on this point. Donofrio’s selections seems questionable at times. Frequently, parallels are seen in a single word. For example, the following single words are listed as parallels between the BoM text and various sources:

Freemen, Morianton, inexpressible, havoc, combinations, alarming, slavery, priestcraft, providence, dissensions, plunderers, etc.

How does one show textual reliance in a single word? Paulien argues that a verbal parallel requires that “at least two words of more than minor significance are parallel between a passage.”[15] I would be willing to concede that a single word could represent a significant point of contact if it is used with repetition as part of a rhetorical construct.[16] But, a single word in general does not make an acceptable point of contact – particularly when context is not considered. Furthermore, Donofrio on occasion offers multiple sources for the same word. For example, with reference to freemen, Donofrio connects Alma 51:6 with Warren (p. 175) and with Samuel Adams in his American Independence speech delivered to the State House in Philadelphia on August 1, 1776. Well, which is it? Obviously both cannot be direct sources for the Book of Mormon text. And the presence of the term in multiple contemporary texts argues much more for the term being used as an echo (if a single word can be called intertextual at all) than as an intentional borrowing.

Apart from the list of single word parallels, there are dozens of two word parallels. Many of these do not meet Paulien’s criteria of significance. I didn’t bother to produce two word phrase comparisons in the statistical portion of this response largely because the numbers were large enough so as to be meaningless. Unless there is additional reason to regard them as being evidence of intertextuality, the clear preference is to view them as coincidental – as echoes created by common language used in a sufficiently large body of text as to produce such repetitions. This is all the more so because of the problems which I associate with the selection of texts.

Furthermore, a majority of the proffered evidence does not represent exact duplications of material, but rather closely connected (or apparently closely connected) text. This is not an indication of explicit movement of text – rather it is a further indication of environmental similarities effecting the language of both writers.

Recurrence

I suppose that this one is debatable. If we were to accept all of the evidence offered, this could be a very strong argument (in fact, it would be tantamount to a sure thing). The evidence when examined a piece at a time is highly suspect – and unless it can be further established with a case by case argument, it seems unlikely to really meet this criteria.

Thematic Coherence

Here, Donofrio comes about as close as at any point to any of these criteria. He discusses context with regards to some parallels. However, his application is not consistent. One of the earliest parallels between the BoM and Warren’s text reads:

W: that man, in a state of nature (p. 12)

BoM: men that are in a state of nature (Alma 41:11)

Both texts do use similar phrasing. However, the BoM text equates this “state of nature” with “a carnal state” and being “without God” and “contrary to the nature of God”. Warren’s text does not deal with the “state of nature” as a theological construct. Rather, it is the opposite of civilization – it represents the savagery of primal man. As noted on page 12, “moral evil is foreign to man, as well as physical evil” a point which directly contradicts the content of the BoM. Later in Warren’s text we read that there is a “just and happy medium between the ferocity of a state of nature, and those high stages of civilization and refinement” or that “In the state of nature, the savage may throw his poisoned arrow at the man …. [and] boast his bloodthirsty deed among the hordes of the forest without disgrace …” It seems clear that the reading of Warren is foreign to that of the Book of Mormon. The language is the same, but the intent and meaning is not. This type of occurrence is frequent within the paper. It is true that when both texts speak of warfare, that there is common content. When they speak of revolution, there is a commonality. Yet, there are many texts that refer to warfare and to revolution, and we can hardly suppose (without an argument for uniqueness as I pointed out earlier) that any specific text is the source of similar narratives in the Book of Mormon.

 

Historical Plausibility

This is one of the more subjective categories. Without examining it on a case by case basis, it seems preferable to either concede that in general, any argument which is raised from texts contemporary with Joseph Smith is in itself an adequate answer to this question.

Historical Interpretation

With few exceptions (and all of these involve critics of Joseph Smith), the answer is no. The casual reader of the Book of Mormon did not comment (either in 1830 or today) on the apparent parallels to these other texts. I suppose that part of this could be the limited number of people who have actually read Warren (and then remembered enough of that 200,000 plus word text to identify references to it in the Book of Mormon). Certainly, the types of parallels that are fronted here as evidence do not seem striking enough that they would be noticed without looking for them.

Satisfaction

Once more, this is a case by case question. And really will only be seen as a summary view of the previous evidence. Is the argument compelling? Well, that is for each individual to decide, although it should be evident from my comments here that for the most part, I do not find it so.

Finally, a few comments on uniqueness. I wish to demonstrate the ease at which such an argument can be constructed. If I were to take Warren’s text as a basis for comparison, I can (by visually examining a text – which is how I came up with the following sets of parallels, or through the more complete process of lexical analysis on a computer) create similar lists of parallels. Take these from a work entitled History of the African Methodist Episcopal Church, by Daniel Alexander Payne (1811-1893).[17] It is not as lengthy as Warren’s work, but it is of sufficient length:

 W: sets at defiance both human and divine laws

 P: and in defiance of the laws of God

 

 W: learn wisdom

 P: get wisdom

 

 W: Multitudes flocked from every quarter to the American standard

 P: people flocking to the standard of truth

 

 W: that manly spirit of freedom

 P: the spirit of freedom

 

 W: a free people

 P: free colored persons

 

 W: cause of liberty

 P: spirit of liberty

 

 W: the rights and privileges

 P: the rights and privileges

 

 W: the cause of freedom

 P: the cause of freedom

 

 W: to take up arms in defense of their rights

 P: to take up arms in defense of our wives, our children, our country

 

 W: deprive them of their rights

 P: deprived of their rights

 

 W: freemen

 P: freemen

 

 W: class of men

 P: class of persons

 

 W: the God of nature

 P: the God of nature

 

 W: at their head

 P: at their head

 

Derived Parallels

For those who have read through Dofornio’s text, these examples should be similar – I derived them from his list of BoM parallels. So, by his logic, does this text rely on the BoM or on Warren?

Perhaps if I carefully constructed a pool of texts (as does Dofornio) I could come up with even more impressive results. Taking just the last ten parallels from BoM-Warren comparison in the longer web-article I can derive the following:

1.      He bade adieu

2.      alarming

3.      genius to take advantage

4.      In these circumstances

5.      to shrink

6.      awful situation

7.      dangerous crisis

8.      at this critical conjuncture

9.      the critical moment

10.    era was truly critical

Using seven separate sources, I find the following:

He bade adieu: - found verbatim in the following sources –

Around the World in 80 Days – Jules Verne, published 1875

The History of Protestantism Vol. 2 Book 13 - James A. Wylie, published 1878

Narratives of Colored Americans – Abigail Mott (1766-1851) published posthumously in 1875

 

Near matches:

 but had not bade adieu -  John Keats. (1795-1821) 626. Ode to Psyche

 I bade adieu/and bade adieu/to bid adieu - James Thatcher, Military Journal, 1823

 

Alarming – found verbatim in the following texts:

Around the World in 80 Days – Jules Verne, published 1875

The History of Protestantism Vol. 2 Book 13 - James A. Wylie, published 1878

Narratives of Colored Americans – Abigail Mott (1766-1851) poublished posthumously in 1875

James Thatcher, Military Journal, 1823

Thomas Jefferson – Letter to John Banister, Jr. - Paris, October 15, 1785

 

genius to take advantage (I am not going to bother searching for an exact one here – the alleged parallel is as follows: prospered according to his genius – and this is hardly a parallel)

 

influenced doubtless by the evident bent of his genius - The History of Protestantism Vol. 2 Book 13 - James A. Wylie, published 1878

few men of his age would have excelled him in knowledge or genius - Narratives of Colored Americans – Abigail Mott (1766-1851) published posthumously in 1875

to see him hold that rank in the profession to which his genius and application must surely advance him. - Thomas Jefferson – Letter To Thomas Turpin Shadwell, Feb. 5, 1769

and the colonising genius of the English has created upon it - Around the World in 80 Days – Jules Verne, published 1875

Hence forth thou art the Genius of the shore - Milton (1608-1674)

 

In these circumstances (in the few sources I am working with, I have no exact duplicates of this phrase)

 

the circumstances/very different circumstances - The History of Protestantism Vol. 2 Book 13 - James A. Wylie, published 1878

the circumstances/ in my circumstances/ the following circumstances/ in his circumstances/ the like circumstances - Narratives of Colored Americans – Abigail Mott (1766-1851) published posthumously

the most embarrassing circumstances - James Thatcher, Military Journal, 1823

The circumstances under which - Around the World in 80 Days – Jules Verne, published 1875

these are the circumstances - Thomas Jefferson – Letter To Patrick Henry, Albemarle, March 27, 1779

 

To shrink: Verbatim in the following sources

Narratives of Colored Americans – Abigail Mott (1766-1851) published posthumously

 

 They shrink/shrank back - The History of Protestantism Vol. 2 Book 13 - James A. Wylie, published 1878

 I shrink in fear - William (Johnson) Cory. 1823-1892 “758. Mimnermus in Church”

 But he shrank from - Around the World in 80 Days – Jules Verne, published 1875

 

Awful situation:

Awful reality - The History of Protestantism Vol. 2 Book 13 - James A. Wylie, published 1878

unfortunate situation - Narratives of Colored Americans – Abigail Mott (1766-1851) published posthumously

Awful scene/ situation became desperate - James Thatcher, Military Journal, 1823

Awful crisis (of special note since awful crisis is the parallel in the BoM to Dangerous crisis below) - Thomas Jefferson – Letter To Benjamin Hawkins, Washington, Feb. 18, 1803

 

dangerous crisis

dangerous venture/every crisis - The History of Protestantism Vol. 2 Book 13 - James A. Wylie, published 1878

The crisis – the danger - Edgar Allan Poe. 1809-1849 696. For Annie

In such a crisis - The Texas Declaration of Independence (March 2, 1836)

Awful crisis - Thomas Jefferson – Letter To Benjamin Hawkins, Washington, Feb. 18, 1803

 

at this critical conjuncture/the critical moment/era was truly critical (another one that has no real resemblance to the BoM text that is supposed to follow from it – the key word being critical, I will focus on that for these three)

 

At this critical moment - Narratives of Colored Americans – Abigail Mott (1766-1851) published posthumously

The critical and distressing situation/ a very critical situation - James Thatcher, Military Journal, 1823

a critical moment - Thomas Jefferson – Letter To Abigail Adams, Paris, Feb. 22, 1787

at the most critical time - Thomas Jefferson – Letter To John Randolph, Monticello, August 25, 1775

Clearly, it would be a simple (but time consuming) process to reconstruct nearly the entire Book of Mormon from available contemporary sources.

But, would it mean anything?

Notes

---

[1] Dennis R. MacDonald, Does the New Testament Imitate Homer? Four Cases from the Acts of the Apostles, (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2003).

[2] Dennis R. MacDonald, The Homeric Epics and the Gospel of Mark, (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2000).

[3] Sharyn Dowd CBQ 63/1

[4] M.D. Hooker Journal of Theological Studies 53/1 (196-198)

[5] Both the shorter text found at http://www.post-mormons.com/tories.htm (downloaded 3/14/04) and the lengthier study found at http://www.mormonstudies.com/early1.htm (downloaded 3/14/04).

[6] The text of the Book of Mormon is taken from Project Gutenberg. The Spaulding text was taken from http://www.helpingmormons.org/solomon_spalding.htm, the Ramsay text was taken from http://earlyamerica.com/lives/gwlife/, and Warren’s work was taken from http://www.samizdat.com/warren/ .

[7] E-text taken from http://authorsdirectory.com/c/80day10.htm.

[8] Spelling errors, as well as the insertion of some hypertext comments (in Ramsay’s work) will add both to the number of unique words as well as to the total word count. This will also increase the number of unique word combinations, as well as reduce the number of parallel unique phrases indicated in the statistical counts. While Donofrio deals a lot with approximations in terms of unique phrasing, the computer parsing will only detail exact parallels. This will be useful, (although perhaps not as useful as a complete lexical study).

[9] Sommer describes his approach in B. D. Sommer, A Prophet Reads Scripture: Allusion in Isaiah 40-66 (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1998). See also B. D. Sommer, “Exegesis, Allusion, and Intertextuality in the Hebrew Bible: A Response to Lyle Eslinger”, VT 46 (1996) pp. 479-489.

[10] Sommer, Prophet, p. 8.

[11] Konrad R. Schaefer, “Zechariah 14: A Study in Allusion,” The Catholic Biblical Quarterly, vol. 57, No. 1 (Jan. 1995), 66-91.

[12] Richard B. Hayes, Echoes of Scripture in the Letters of Paul, (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1989).

[13] Hayes, pp. 29-32.

[14] L. P. Trudinger, “Some Observations Concerning the Text of the Old Testament in the Book of Revelation,” Journal of Theological Studies ns 17 (1996) 82 n. 1.

[15] Jon Paulien, Elusive Allusions: The Problematic Use of the Old Testament in Revelation, BR, Vol. 33 (1988), p. 41.

[16] See for example Terrence L. Szink, “To a Land of Promise (1 Nephi 16-18),” in Kent P. Jackson, ed., Studies in Scripture: Volume Seven, 1 Nephi to Alma 29 (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1987), 60-72. Szink discusses similarities between the Book of Mormon use of the word ‘murmur’ parallel to the Old Testament accounts of the Exodus.

[17] An e-text is available at docsouth.unc.edu/church/payne/payne.html