Thursday, June 19, 2008

Mosiah 18-And it came to pass that as many as did believe him did go forth to a place which was called Mormon? —travis

Why did the King name the land Mormon? Which King?? It was infested with wild beasts, is that what Mormon means???
Well I'd guess it was King Mormon. ;) Could be there was more info about him in the Book of Lehi.

The name Mormon does not mean wild beasts. Joseph wrote in the Times and Seasons that "We say from the Saxon, 'good'; the Dane, 'god'; the Goth, 'goda'; the German, 'gut'; the Dutch, 'goed'; the Latin, 'bonus'; the Greek, 'kalos'; the Hebrew, 'tob'; and the Egyptian, 'mon.' Hence, with the addition of 'more,' or the contraction, 'mor,' we have the word 'mor-mon'; which means, literally, 'more good.'"

The wikipedia reference below points out that W. W. Phelps may have written this, but it certainly sounds like Joseph* and anyway he was the editor of T&S so he must have approved this being penned under his name.

*In his Egyptian Alphabet and Grammar Joseph wrote, "Were I an Egyptian, I would exclaim Jah-oh-eh, Enish-go-on-dosh, Flo-ees-Flos-is-is; [O the earth! The power of attraction, and the moon passing between her and the sun]." Languages were clearly a subject he enjoyed.

Source(s):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mormon#Meaning_of_the_word

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