Comparable to the Bible: First Sentence

I remember the first time I opened up the Book of Mormon and read the opening sentence.  I just about screamed.  In fact, I may have screamed.  A teacher in high school ingrained an intense dislike for bad grammar into me, and all I could think about the first sentence was about how gratingly awkward of a grammatical construct it was, and how totally superfluous it was, as well.  As a writer, I had also learned that the first sentence is the most important of all, since it is the source of your reader's first impressions and the only one (if any) you can be guaranteed he will read.  Because of this, all writing classes today teach that you should dive right in with your first sentence, doing everything you can to capture your reader's interest and set your best foot forward.

...And if this was the best foot of the Book of Mormon, I was pretty sure I didn't need to read any further.

I confess I have much the same reaction today, reading it now.  The first sentence of the Book of Mormon is 1 Nephi 1:1.  It's rambling, jarring, awkward, and (so far as I can tell) totally without purpose.

I, Nephi, having been born of goodly parents, therefore I was taught somewhat in all the learning of my father; and having seen many afflictions in the course of my days, nevertheless, having been highly favored of the Lord in all my days; yea, having had a great knowledge of the goodness of the mysteries of God, therefore I make a record of my proceedings in my days.

Take a moment to absorb the full grammatical impact of that sentence.  I'll diagram it below, as I diagrammed sentences in high school.  Propositions and their phrases will be crossed out.  Other phrases will be marked by parentheses.  Brackets will be used to identify parts of speech.

 I, (Nephi [appositive]), (having been born of goodly parents[verbal phrase]), (therefore [subordinating conjunction] I was taught somewhat in all the learning of my father[dependent clause]); and [coordinating conjunction] (having seen many afflictions in the course of my days[verbal phrase]), nevertheless [coordinating conjunction], (having been highly favored of the Lord in all my days [verbal phrase]); yea [exposition], (having had a great knowledge of the goodness of the mysteries of God [verbal phrase]), (therefore [subordinating conjunction] I make a record of my proceedings in my days [dependent clause]).

As you can see above, there is no independent clause anywhere in the sentence.  It consists entirely of verbal phrases that are dependent by nature and two other phrases which are made dependent by the presence of the subordinating conjunction therefore.  Without an independent clause, there is no main verb.  Without a main verb, what you have is an incomplete sentence.  Since it's furthermore an extremely long incomplete sentence it's really a phenomenon I have seen in blessedly few other places: an incomplete run-on sentence, easily one of the most grating grammatical errors of them all.  So much for good first impressions!

Now, what, I ask, is the purpose of this opening sentence?  Judging from the end of it and the proceeding sentences, the author (supposedly Nephi) seems to be under the impression that he's telling us the purpose of this, the first book in the Book of Mormon to carry his name.  Unfortunately, nothing in the above mess actually tells us why he's writing.  Why is Nephi making a record of his proceedings in his days?  Well, if we were to guess based on this sentence (the therefore in that last phrase tells us the answer should proceed it), we'd have to say it goes back to his childhood where his parents raised him right and he had a lot of good times and bad times...which does exactly nothing to explain why he's writing down his life experiences so much as it summarizes them.  Why open with such a summary at all?  Why provide us with an explanation of who the author is, what his childhood and experiences were like, and what it is he's setting out to write?  Why not just dive in?  The summary further, is conflicting and confused.  Nephi says he's raised by godly parents and, because of that, his father taught him stuff.  Really?  Don't all father's teach their sons something of their own knowledge?  How is that dependent on Nephi's parents being godly?  But don't worry, it get's better because Nephi then turns around and tries to rip off Mark Twain's famous opening: "It was the best of times.  It was the worst of times."  Only Nephi doesn't pull it off as well, transitioning roughly from saying how troubled his life has been to how much God has favored him all the time.

The only purpose I can see for this opening sentence actually harks back to the person the Mormon Church denies to be the book's author: Joseph Smith.  If Smith wrote this sentence instead of Nephi, he would have felt the need to introduce the narrator as a trustworthy, believable individual.  The sentence accomplishes that in a haphazard way, introducing the narrator as someone raised by good people, brought up well, experienced in the good and bad times of life, and knowledgeable about God, someone who's life story might be worth reading.  Nephi, himself, of course, would have had an entire tribe of people calling themselves after his name and would have had no more need of introduction to them (his supposed readers) than Jacob would have had need to introduce himself to the Isrealites (imagine him narrating his section of the book of Genesis and starting out with "I, Jacob, having been born to godly parents, and having had a burly twin brother full of angst, and having been a surly trickster much of my life, but having reformed after suffering trials for my wife Rachel and wrestling with God, and nevertheless having been blessed by him, I therefore write my life story."--and then imagine later generations of Jews not mocking him for it).  But if Nephi is just a character in a work of fiction, he can be forgiven for this oversight and his need to be introduced as someone modern readers can trust could easily override the need to keep his first-person narration completely consistent with what he would have actually written, had he been real.

Now, the Book of Mormon claims it is a book comparable to the Bible, a true history of the Hebrew forebears of the American Indians.  It claims to be a work, not by one modern author writing on his own, but many ancient authors writing by "the spirit of prophesy" (presumably meaning divine inspiration), whose words were complied into a single volume of scripture.  Supposing for the moment that this is true, each book in the Book of Mormon may be treated as a separate work with its own beginning, middle and end.  Many of these beginnings would be different.  Hopefully, all of them would be better than 1 Nephi 1:1.

Unfortunately, flipping through the Book of Mormon, this does not seem to be the case.  Half of the books seem to have smooth transitions from the material directly proceeding them, as though they were new chapters in the same work rather than new works altogether (see 2 Nephi 1:1; Omni 1:1; Mosiah 1:1; Alma 1:1; Helaman 1:1; 3 Nephi 1:1; 4 Nephi 1:1--all of which pick up exactly or nearly exactly where the previous verse of the previous book ended).  The other half are very similar to 1 Nephi 1:1--unnecessary, often rambling, introductions of the supposed author wherein he tries to communicate his purpose for writing, but generally does nothing of the sort.  Consider Enos 1:1-2, which is arguably worse than the beginning of 1 Nephi:

Behold, it came to pass that I, Enos, knowing my father that he was a just man--for he taught me in his language, and also in the nurture and admonition of the Lord--and blessed be the name of my God for it--and I will tell you of the wrestle which I had before God, before I received a remission of my sins.

First of all, what is a wrestle and how does one have it?  A wrestling match is a noun, a thing that one can have, but wrestle is a verb, always.  You simply can't have a wrestle.  And where is the main verb in that mess?  If it's down toward the end in the only seemingly-independent phrase ("I will tell you..."), then what is "Behold, it came to pass" doing at the beginning of the sentence?  Seriously, take out all the stuff from "knowing my father" to the em dash after "God for it" and try to read it.  It should flow, since everything you took out is grammatically a tacked-on dependent phrase (or collection thereof).  But get a load of this: "Behold, it came to pass that I, Enos,...and I will tell you of the wrestle which I had before God, before I received a remission of my sins."  It seems like Enos was about to dive in and get started when he suddenly felt the need, in mid-sentence, to break off and tell us about his dad--after which he completely forgot what he was talking about.  Second, as a rehash from 1 Nephi 1:1, what does Enos' upbringing have to do with anything?  And again, why summarize what the narrative will tell you?  Why not just dive in?

Unfortunately, diving right in seems to be something most of the authors seemed to be chronically incapable of doing.  The books of 1 Nephi, Jacob, Enos, Jarom, Omni, Mormon (the Words of), Mormon (Book of--yes, the Book of Mormon contains a book called the Book of Mormon), Ether, and Moroni all start with some sort of pointless introduction of the supposed author.  Mercifully, they are not all as bad as the start of 1 Nephi and Enos, but none of them seem to add any necessary information to the narrative.  One is forced to wonder why they were necessary at all.  History authors (which these supposedly were) do not feel the need to introduce themselves and the circumstances of their writing to their audiences (imagine if your US Hisotry book opened at chapter 1 with the words, "I, Professor James Thaddeus, having been born to third generation German-American immigrants who were extremely kind and loving, therefore having learned all I needed to learn from them, and the public education system; am sitting down here in my office at Stanford and writing you a book about American history.").  However, if the real author was Joseph Smith, he might have felt, as some beginning writers do, that he could add authenticity and believablity to his characters by throwing in unnecessary and distracting details about their personal lives and circumstances at every turn.  Most of his books seem to start this way.  He even carries over the unfortunate habit to The Pearl of Great Price, starting Abraham 1:1-2 this way.

Comparison to the Bible is telling.  Whereas in the Book of Mormon there are only two different flavors of opening sentences, in the Bible (which was actually written by many different people from different cultures over the years), there are a multitude.  What's most telling is taking a tour of the historical books (Genesis-Esther) of the Old Testament.  After all, these are histories written by people of the Hebrew culture.  Supposedly, they are in the same genre and from the same background as the Book of Mormon.  But the openings are markedly different.  Here they are in the KJV, the version in which they would have been available to Smith's contemporaries.

Genesis: In the beginning, God created the heaven and the earth.
Exodus: Now these are the names of the children of Israel, which came into Egypt; every man and his household came with Jacob.
Leviticus: And the LORD called unto Moses, and spake to him out of the tabernacle of the congregation, saying, Speak unto the children of Israel and say unto them, If any man of you bring an offering unto the LORD, ye shall bring your offering of the cattle, even of the herd and of the flock.
Numbers: And the LORD spake unto Moses in the wilderness of Sinai, in the tabernacle of the congregation, on the first day of the second month, in the second year after they were come out of the land of Egypt, saying, Take ye the sum of all the congregation of the children of Israel, after their families, by the house of their fathers, with the number of their names, every male by their polls; from twenty years old and upward, all that are able to go forth to war in Israel: thou and Aaron shall number them by their armies.
Deuteronomy: These be the words which Moses spake unto all Israel on this side Jordan in the wilderness, in the plain over against the Red Sea, between Paran, and Tophel, and Laban, and Hazeroth, and Dizahab.
Joshua: Now after the death of Moses the servant of the LORD it came to pass, that the LORD spake unto Joshua the son of Nun, Moses' minister, saying, Moses my servant is dead; now therefore arise, go over this Jordan, thou, and all this people, unto the land which I do give them, even to the children of Israel.
Judges: Now after the death of Joshua it came to pass, that the children of Israel asked the LORD, saying, Who shall go up for us against the Canaanites first, to fight against them?
Ruth: Now it came to pass in the days when the judges ruled, that there was a famine in the land.
1 Samuel: Now there was a certain man of Ramathaimzophim, of mount Ephraim, and his name was Elkanah, the son of Jeroham, the son of Elihu, the son of Tohu, the son of Zuph, an Ephrathite: and he had two wives; the name of the one was Hannah, and the name of the other was Peninnah: and Peninnah had children, but Hannah had no children.
2 Samuel: Now it came to pass after the death of Saul, when David was returned from the slaughter of the Amalekites, and David had abode two days in Ziklag; it came even to pass on the third day, that, behold, a man came out of the camp from Saul with his clothes rent, and earth upon his head: and so it was, when he came to David, that he fell to the earth, and did obeisance.
1 Kings: Now King David was old and stricken in years; and they covered him with clothes, but he gat no heat.
2 Kings: Then Moab rebelled against Israel after the death of Ahab.
1 Chronicles: Adam, Seth, Enosh, Kenan, Mahalaleel, Jered, Henoch, Methuselah, Lamech, Noah, Shem, Ham, and Japheth.
2 Chronicles: And Solomon the son of David was strengthened in his kingdom, and the LORD his God was with him, and magnified him exceedingly.
Ezra: Now in the first year of Cyrus king of Persia, that the word of the LORD by the mouth of Jeremiah might be fulfilled, the LORD stirred up the spirit of Cyrus king of Persia, that he made a proclamation, and put it also in writing, saying, Thus saith Cyrus king of Persia, The LORD God of heaven hath given me all the kingdoms of the earth; and he hath charged me to build him an house at Jerusalem, which is in Judah.
Nehemiah: The words of Nehemiah the son of Hachaliah.
Esther: Now it came to pass in the days of Ahasuerus, (this is Ahasuerus which reigned, from India even to Ethiopia, over an hundred and seven and twenty provinces:) that in those days, when the king Ahasuerus sat on the throne of his kingdom, which was in Shushan the palace, in the third year of his reign, he made a feast unto all the princes and his servants; the power of Persia and Media, the nobles and princes of the provinces, being before him: when he showed the riches of his glorious kingdom and the honor of his excellent majesty many days, even an hundred and fourscore days.

As you can see above, the styles of even these books, which all belong to the same genre, culture, and relative period, vary widely.  Some begin simply, such as Genesis, Ruth, 1 & 2 Kings, 2 Chronicles, and Nehemiah.  Others have very complex and long opening sentences.  Several begin with quotes from God or an important figure (Cyrus, in Ezra), preceded by a brief explanation of the circumstances in which it was delivered.  The oddball, 1 Chronicles, begins by leaping straight into a genealogy with no explanation or warning.  While some of them show the same seemless transitions of the Book of Mormon (which may also be found in any work where all of the parts were written from the start to go together rather than complied after the fact), most of them do not.  1 & 2 Chronicles presents a complete rehash of all the history in the books that have preceded them.  Ezra spends its opening lines rehashing the closing lines of 2 Chronicles--something that would have been necessary if Ezra were written to stand on its own.  1 Samuel starts apparently without connection to any previous books (it's connection to Ruth only becoming obvious much later when David, grandson of Ruth, appears on the scene).  Esther is difficult to connect to any of the previous volumes and does not even contain any reference to God.  Nehemiah is certainly odd in that it is the only book in the histories (and one of the few books in the Bible) written from a first-person point of view rather than third-person omniscient.

This brings me to another big point of comparison between opening sentences in the Bible verses the Book of Mormon: in the Bible, the overwhelming majority of books are by anonymous authors.  Only one author of the histories sees fit to name himself (Nehemiah).  The rest are unnamed in their works and we must rely on extra-biblical tradition to assign authors to works as we can (for example, tradition asserts Moses is the author of the first five books: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy, even though no such claim appears in those books nor does the author refer to Moses in the first person).  The majority of them remain totally anonymous even in tradition.  It seems that in Hebrew culture, historical writers (and writers in general: most of the entire Bible is anonymously written) did not consider the name of the author to be a relevant fact.  They instead concerned themselves simply with writing history.  Even in first-person Nehemiah, the author wastes very little time introducing himself.  In fact, all he gives is his name and that of his father--the minimum necessary to identify someone in a culture that does not use last names--and cuts right to the chase.  There is no explanation of the circumstances of the writing, no declaration that he's writing at all (which are completely pointless and practically everywhere in the Book of Mormon), and there is no pointless discussion of his childhood and rearing.  This is consistent with the prophetic books later in the Old Testament as well, which start out by giving the minimum of information needed to identify the prophet (name, father's name, sometimes his father's name, or hometown) and the periods their ministries covered.  The only book of the Bible to start with an explanation of its own writing is the book of Luke, wherein Luke writes a formal, complex Greco-Roman style introduction.  It contains one phrase--one--that gives details about Luke, and those details are relevant to establishing the credibility of his report: and, as his introduction establishes, verifying credibility is his main purpose of writing.

No opening sentence in the Bible contains a superfluous discussion of the writer's rearing, life experiences, or the circumstances of their writing, whereas more than half of the opening sentences of the Book of Mormon contain at least one of those things, if not all three.  Furthermore, while the grammar of the 1660-edition King James Version is archaic and difficult at times, its grammatical flaws are few and minor.  For instance, Deuteronomy 1:1 says "these be" rather than "these are" and seems to be missing the word of between "side" and "Jordan."  There are long, complex sentences, but they are grammatically-correct, long complex sentences.  These flaws can be attributed to errors in translation, which was not carried out by divine inspiration (more modern translations, such as the ESV, entirely lack these difficulties).  Contrast with the incomplete run-on that introduces the Book of Mormon.  Here, despite Joseph Smith's claim that errors are "the mistakes of men," the idea of a translator's error simply does not work.  Smith is explicitly said to have translated under the influence of and by the gift of God.  Can God not handle the transition between Hebrew--excuse me--Reformed Egyptian and English grammar?  Can God not even figure out that the first sentence of His word needs to be an actual sentence, containing an independent clause and main verb--and that it needs to be relevant in some way?  Of course He can.

And that's why He is the author of the Bible, which begins with one of the most quoted and meaningful sentences in the English language (In the beginning, God created the heaven and the earth.), but Joseph Smith, Jr., is the author of the Book of Mormon, which begins with a tortuous and irrelevant sentence that can't even seem to find its way into Mormon publications (just Google it: you'll only find it cited in versions of the Book of Mormon's complete text and commentaries on the same; Google Genesis 1:1, and you'll find it has its own Wikipedia page all to itself).

Between the first sentence of the Bible and the Book of Mormon, there's no comparison.