1 Nephi 11:1, 6 . Caught Away in the Spirit
The words “caught away in the Spirit of the Lord” (1 Nephi 11:1) were borrowed from Acts 8:39, while the words “into an exceedingly high mountain” were taken from Matthew 4:8. Since the New Testament was unavailable to the Nephites, who left Jerusalem six centuries before Christ’s birth, we must attribute the borrowing to Joseph Smith.
The Old Testament prophet Ezekiel uses similar imagery: “The hand of the Lord was upon me, and carried me out in the spirit of the Lord, and set me down in the midst of the valley” (Ezekiel 37:1). And in 40:2, the prophet wrote, “In the visions of God brought he me into the land of Israel, and set me upon a very high mountain.” Ezekiel was a contemporary of Lehi, and so should be expected to use similar language. In Ezekiel noted that he was carried to Jerusalem by a spirit (Ezekiel 8:3) and that the Lord spoke to him (Ezekiel 8:4-5) and cried with a loud voice (Ezekiel 9:1). Thus, when critics indicate Matthew 27:46 as the origin of the words “cried with a loud voice” (1 Nephi 11:6), we must point to the Ezekiel passage and further note that the expression is found ten times in the Old Testament.
Rather than attributing the source to Joseph Smith, is it more plausible that the hundreds or even thousands of examples of Semitic characteristics could be attributed to the fact that the original writers were Semites, famililar with customs and language known to the Semites?
I reckon that for the present time ill put up with book-marking and adding your Feed to my Google account.