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Originally Posted by abeChristianson
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And it came to pass that they took him and bound him, and scourged his skin with faggots, yeah, even onto death.
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Is this a typo or what? I am just wondering, because it doesn't man\ke much sense. ANy help here would be great! Thanks! |
Royal Skousen, a scholar of the original manuscript and the printer's manuscript of the Book of Mormon, has suggested that "scourged" may be a mistake by the scribe; Joseph may perhaps have actually said "scorched", which makes somewhat better sense in context. As it now reads, we have Abinadi being beaten almost to death with faggots (bundles of sticks), then burned alive. Possible, of course, but seems a bit strange, especially since he gives his last pronouncements as he's burning, supposedly already almost dead from the whipping. If "scourged" is really "scorched", then we simply have him being burned at the stake.
In either case, as others have pointed out, "faggots" just means bundles of sticks. How it took on its modern, rather vulgar meaning of "homosexuals", I don't know...though that does give a rather bizarre mental image of Abinadi's martyrdom...