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| {{question}}
| | #REDIRECT [[Question: Did Elder Russell M. Nelson talk of a friend who translated the Book of Mormon into Arabic?]] |
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| ==Question==
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| I have read a talk written by Elder Russell M. Nelson in which he discusses a
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| friend of his who translated the Book of Mormon back into Arabic. What are the facts behind this story and the talk? | |
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| ==Answer==
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| At one time Elder Nelson had a neighbor named Sami Hanna, who was an Arabic scholar and a member of the Church. Based on his knowledge of Arabic and his experience translating the Book of Mormon into Arabic, Sami thought there were numerous things in the Book of
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| Mormon text that were consistent with a Semitic original of that book.
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| Elder Nelson has alluded to Sami a few times in talks, as he has to others of his extensive network of friends who can read Hebrew. But he has never given a talk specifically on Sami. The internet article that circulates under his name was not written by Elder Nelson.
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| According to Sami's son, Mark, Sami left the Church some time ago and is now some sort of a fundamentalist Christian. He now repudiates his former comments on the Book of Mormon.
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| Such a repudiation is not, however, terribly significant. Sami's material on the Book of Mormon was never a part of mainstream LDS scholarship on the subject. It was linguistically naive in a number of important respects.{{ref|naive1}}
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| There is an extensive literature dealing with Hebraisms in the Book of Mormon. A good introductory article is {{BYUS|author=John Tvedtnes|article=Hebraisms in the Book of Mormon: A Preliminary Survey|vol=11|num=1|date=Autumn 1970|start=50|end=60}}[http://contentdm.lib.byu.edu/cgi-bin/docviewer.exe?CISOROOT=/byustudies&CISOPTR=21932&CISOSHOW=2997 *]
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| ==Endnotes==
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| #{{note|naive1}}{{FARMSReview|author=John A Tvedtnes|article=Little Known Evidences of the Book of Mormon|vol=2|num=1|date=1990|start=258|end=259}}[http://farms.byu.edu/display.php?table=review&id=49 *] ''The material relating to Hanna starts about halfway down.''
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| ==Further reading==
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| ===FAIR wiki articles===
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| *[[Book of Mormon hebraisms]]
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| ===FAIR web site===
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| *{{tg|topic=Hebraisms in the Book of Mormon|url=http://www.fairlds.org/apol/ai283.html}}
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| *{{tg|topic=Textual issues in the Book of Mormon|url=http://www.fairlds.org/apol/ai111.html}}
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| *Ben Spackman, "Negative Questions in the Book of Mormon {{fairlink|url=http://www.fairlds.org/apol/bom/bom13.html}}
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| ===External links===
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| *{{BYUS|author=John Tvedtnes|article=Hebraisms in the Book of Mormon: A Preliminary Survey|vol=11|num=1|date=Autumn 1970|start=50|end=60}}[http://contentdm.lib.byu.edu/cgi-bin/docviewer.exe?CISOROOT=/byustudies&CISOPTR=21932&CISOSHOW=2997 *]
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| *{{FARMSReview|author=John A Tvedtnes|article=Little Known Evidences of the Book of Mormon|vol=2|num=1|date=1990|start=258|end=259}}[http://farms.byu.edu/display.php?table=review&id=49 *]
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| ===Printed material===
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| * John A. Tvedtnes, "The Hebrew Background and the Book of Mormon," in John L. Sorenson and Melvin J. Thorne (eds.), ''Rediscovering the Book of Mormon'' (Salt Lake City, Utah : Deseret Book Co. ; Provo, Utah : Foundation for Ancient Research and Mormon Studies, 1991), 77–91. ISBN 0875793878.{{GL|url=http://gospelink.com/library/toc?book_id=1376}}
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