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Does Chiasmus Appear In The Book Of Mormon By Chance?, Boyd F. Edwards, W. Farrell Edwards

BYU Studies Quarterly

Chiasmus in an inverted-parallel literary form that was employed by ancient Hebrew biblical writers, among others. An instance of this form, called a "chiasm," presents two or more literary elements, and then restates them in reverse order. For example, Matthew 10:39 is a two-element chiasm:

EXAMPLE 1

He that (a) findeth his life shall (b) lose it:

And he that (b) loseth his life for my sake shall (a) find it.

Lehi As Moses, Noel B. Reynolds

Faculty Publications

Our understanding of Lehi’s leadership comes through the writings of his son Nephi. While it has been previously noted that Nephi chose to tell the story of his reign and ministry (1 Nephi 10:1) in such a way that his readers would see Nephi himself as a second Moses, it has not been much observed that it may have been his father, Lehi, who first employed this device to persuade his descendants of his own divine calling. In this paper I will show that Lehi had used this device in an attempt to persuade his descendants to accept his difficult …