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“I of Myself Am a Wicked Man”

“I of Myself Am a Wicked Man”

Last updated on: October 11, 2020 at 12:04 am by Dan Peterson

“I of Myself Am a Wicked Man” 2020-10-11T00:04:13-06:00 Dan Peterson

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The temple in Laie, Oahu, Hawaii , adjacent to the Hawaii campus of Brigham Young University, where Matthew Bowen teaches (LDS Media Library)

No, I’m not announcing the publication of my autobiography.

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I’m a bit slow in noting this, but the latest installment of my bi-weekly column in Salt Lake City’s Deseret News appeared yesterday:

“What does ‘a wall of separation between Church and State’ mean exactly?”

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Written by Professor Matthew L. Bowen, a new article appeared today in Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship:

““I of Myself Am a Wicked Man”: Some Notes on Allusion and Textual Dependency in Omni 1:1-2”

Abstract: Omni greatly revered his ancestors and their personal accounts on the small plates of Nephi. A close examination of Omni’s brief autobiography (Omni 1:1–3) evidences borrowing from all four of his predecessors’ writings. Moreover, his self-description, “I of myself am a wicked man,” constitutes far more than a confession of religious dereliction. That self-assessment alludes to Nephi’s autobiographical wordplay on his name in terms “good” and “having been born of goodly parents” and his grandfather Enos’s similarly self-referential wordplay in describing his own father Jacob as a “just man.” Omni’s name most likely represents a hypocoristic form of a longer theophoric name, *ʾomnîyyāhû (from the root *ʾmn*), meaning “Yahweh is [the object of] my faith” or “Yahweh is my guardian [or, nursing father],” but could also be heard or understood as a gentilic, “faithful one” or “trustworthy one.” These observations have implications for Omni’s stated defense of his people the Nephites (traditionally, the “good” or “fair ones”) against the Lamanites, those who had dwindled in “unbelief” (cf. Hebrew* lōʾ-ʾēmun*). In the end, Omni’s description of himself as “a wicked man” should be viewed in the context of his reverence for “goodly” and “just” ancestors and brought into balance with those sacred trusts in which he did prove faithful: preserving his people, his genealogy, and the small plates themselves.*

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The links given here will yield a plethora — “Jefe, what is a plethora?” — of materials for your ever-hungry Christopher Hitchens Memorial “How Religion Poisons Everything” File:

“Latter-day Saints Around the World: Country Newsroom Websites, October 8, 2020”

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You might enjoy these two recent entries on the unfortunately very necessary Neville-Neville Land blog:

“Elder Gerrit W. Gong, M2C intellectual”

“Did Jonathan Neville watch General Conference?”

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If you’re interested in the topic but haven’t yet read Professor Kent Jackson’s article, you should do so. Here is Dr. Jeff Lindsay talking about it:

“Turning Gems into Dirt: The Case for Adam Clarke as a Source for the “Inspired Translation” of the Bible”

Posted from Park City, Utah

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