ph in his English Bible. The personal names Kainan (from Cainan), Hananiah, and Shem become the names of lands, as, in the Book of Mormon, the place name Lehi (le-kbee) was made a personal name. How does "Adam" come to mean "many" (Moses 1:34)? This is an interpretation which may be a subconscious reflection of Moses 4:26: "for thus have I, the Lord God, called the first of all women, which are many".
The Doctrine and Covenants, first edition (1835), carried some new off-biblical names, like Shalemanasseh (section 82), Shederlaomach (112 and 104), and Tahhanhes (104) - names which have a familiar ring, sounding like Shalmaneser and Manasseh, Chedorlaomer and Tahpanhes. "Ahman," part of the name Adam-ondi-Ahman, closely resembles in sound and idea the name Amen in Revelation 3:14 ("These things saith the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the beginning of the creation of God"). Other invented names found in 82 and 104, such as Shinehah and Laneshine and Olihah, Pelagoram, and Gazelam, are hardly biblical in sound. When Joseph had reason to use pseudonyms, he could have borrowed from the Bible names like Hananeel, Hadoram, Ahiman, Aholiab, Argob, Tirzah. He uses the biblical "Mahalaleel" both as a real name and as an oblique name. "Cainhannoch" for "New York" is a linkage of Cain and Hanoch (the "Hanoch" of Genesis 4, not the good Jaredite Enoch of Genesis 5) which is both closely biblical and strangely different. All this assorted invention might spring from the exercise of the restored gift of tongues and a related taste for the tonality of the "pure Adamic language." A note (1914 ed.) on "Ahman" in 78:20, "your Redeemer, even the Son Ahman," says the name signified God "in the pure language." Also a taste for florid romance could have entered in. At all events, dependent on a knowledge of Hebrew this invention is not.
But, in the 1844 edition of the Doctrine and Covenants, two revelations (1914: 103 and 105) appeared for the first time, containing invented names which did require a knowledge of Hebrew. And this despite the fact that they are concerned with Zion's Camp and are dated April and June, 1834. In 103, Joseph obtains another pseudonym besides "Gazelam": namely, Baurak Ale, repeated in 105:16 and 27. Orson Pratt translates Baurak Ale: "God bless you," and "The Lord blesses." The form "baurak" is not actually found in the Bible but is a perfectly valid hypothetical form; Seixas gives it as one of the Roots "of common occurrence" and meaning "he blessed, knelt down" (Manual, p.77). The Bible prefers, for "he blessed," another form: ba - (like "bay") rak (Manual, p.29). Either form could say, "having blessed from aforetime, He continues to do." "Ale" or El is more fittingly a part of the name than "Jehovah" would be because 103 is the Lord's proclamation, to "the strength of my house."...
We continue with the search for effects of Joseph's Hebrew study discernible in astronomical and cosmological names, names of "strange gods" and Facsimiles 1 and 2, all of which are found in the first three chapters of the Book of Abraham. As we know, this Book, in Webb's opinion "is an actual translation from the Egyptian as written by an Israelite" (pp. 75-76); and he moves the Hyksos rule higher, to 2250-1750 B.C., so as to place Abraham in the middle of it. Names like Korash, Mahmackrah, and Shagreel, he states, are Hebrew. Of the three, only Korash sounds Hebrewish. The "Hebrew" which Webb transliterates as "Shagreel," a pupil of Seixas would transliterate as "Sha-gna-ra (ray)-el"; "el," of course, is Hebrew. Webb aserts, too, that Shinehah, Olea, and Kolob are Hebrew as truly as are Kokaubeam, Hah-ko-kau-beam, Kokob, and Raukeeyang. Three of these last four words are transliterated virtually in the Seixas way. All four are given their Hebrew meanings: stars, the stars, a star, firmament or expanse. Another such word is Shaumahyeem (exactly the Seixas pronunciation), heavens, in the sense of Genesis I; Shaumau is an invented singular, unkown to the Bible. Kolob, the name of the greatest of all the Kokaubeam, may be a varian