Dative impersonals
The Book of Mormon frequently uses an archaic grammatical structure known as the dative impersonal. The variety and frequency of its use in the text is unexpected, supporting the theory that the English wording of the Book of Mormon was divinely revealed through Joseph Smith. The dative impersonals almost always take the same basic structure in the Book of Mormon: a subject it (usually an expletive or filler it), a third-person singular verb taking the archaic –eth ending, then a pronoun in the dative, usually me (normally without the preposition to or unto), and then finally some kind of clausal complement (either a that-S clause or an infinitival clause). The dative impersonal appears in the text in connection with 8 different verbs (grieveth, mattereth, profiteth, seemeth, sorroweth, supposeth, whispereth). For some verbs, similar usage is found in the King James Bible while for others there are no biblical counterparts. As demonstrated in the following chart, the Book of Mormon’s usage of these structures exceeds biblical usage, both in variety of phrases and total quantity.
Dative impersonals:
- The Bible:
- —
- The Book of Mormon:
- 2 Nephi 27:14 — “…and in the mouth of as many witnesses as seemeth him good…”
- Words of Mormon 1:7 — “And I do this for a wise purpose; for thus it whispereth me…”
- Moroni 10:1 — “Now I, Moroni, write somewhat as seemeth me good…”
All of the above is further evidence that the Book of Mormon is indeed sacred, translated scripture, and not the crafty deceptions of a cunning, sinister young man, as the critics would propose.
Click here to return to the Hebraisms index
Click here to return to the Scriptures index
Click here to return to the Main Menu page