Why does Nephi use the poetic pattern of parallelism in his writing?

Thomas R. Valletta

“The Book of Mormon is replete with parallelisms. The poetic patterns serve, as they do in the Bible, to emphasize messages. … Sometimes the two alternating lines will repeat more than once: such a structure is called a repeated alternate parallelism … .

A The God of Jacob, yieldeth himself,

B according to the words of the angel,

A as a man, into the hands of wicked men, to be lifted up,

B according to the words of Zenock,

A and to be crucified,

B according to the words of Neum,

A and to be buried in a sepulchre,

B according to the words of Zenos”

(Parry, “Hebrew Literary Patterns in the Book of Mormon,” 60).

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References