"Period of Time" in the Book of Mormon

 FIRST DRAFT (Under Construction at this PERIOD OF TIME)


"I can no longer be your king." So declares an aged King Benjamin before a Grand Assembly of his people:


"I say unto you that I have caused that ye should assemble yourselves together that I might rid my garments of your blood, at this period of time when I am about to go down to my grave, that I might go down in peace, and my immortal spirit may join the choirs above in singing the praises of a just God.

And moreover, I say unto you that I have caused that ye should assemble yourselves together, that I might declare unto you that I can no longer be your teacher, nor your king" (Mosiah 2: 28-29).


What catches the attention for the student of ancient languages is the aptness of the phrase period of time, which otherwise makes for a rather cloying, long phrase in English. Wouldn't it be better just to say: at this time?

Let's consider again what follows the phrase: "at this period of time when I am about to go down to my grave, that I might go down in peace, and my immortal spirit may join the choirs above." With the turn of time, there is also a movement of descent that at once corresponds to an ascent--and all with the turn of time. All this recalls the iconography of the sarcophagus of Pacal: at once descent and ascent.

Here is the idea of the tequfah, a Hebrew word signifying the turn or cycle of time, the march of the seasons, as well as connoting the mark of the end of a cycle, the end of a year. For instance, the great year of Kolob in Facsimile 2 belongs under the heading of tequfah.

"That I might rid my garments of your blood, at this tekufah when I am about to go down" (down cycle: death).

"At this revolution of time." "At this time of ending," says Benjamin, thus also marking the beginning of a new season (as in the newly deciphered Qumranic calendar)--thus both beginning and ending. (Cf. how one is to read Mayan art: ending and beginning are one in the representation on the Pakal sarcophagus.)

Of course the English expression period of time amounts to the same thing. Consider the Greek word periodos. Periodos signifies I "a going round, the making a circuit round II a way round: a circuit compass III a book of travels. . . map IV a going round in a circle, a cycle of time, a period of time 3. the orbit of a heavenly body V a well-rounded sentence, period" (Liddel and Scott, Greek-English Lexicon).

But where the Nephites are concerned, it's the idea of the tequfah (or tekufah): the end of an era; a break in the action (as in Helaman's epistle to Moroni); a space between, as at Qumran, according to the recently translated cryptic calendar.



"one eternal round" Facsimile 2 as a map and periodos, and as tekufah. Describes tekufot and is itself a tekufah, or representation of a tekufah--thus a calendar so well as map, a mapping out of both space and time.

Here is also the meaning of "the season," tekufah, and "the end," the qetz (also qayits, as in the pun in Jeremiah 1). To lay up fruit against the season" thus signifies to lay up fruit against the turning of the season, that is, into the season beyond the harvest. The qetz and the tekufah appear together in the words of Zenos: that's a bullseye for the Hebraic nature of his allegory.

Compare 2 Nephi 9 body and spirit