So, the land of Ishmael was opposite the land of Nephi and opposite the land of Lehi. Another way of saying that is “Anti-Nephi-Lehi, (not Nephites-Lehites). It was common for people to use geographical names in the Book of Mormon – such as Mormon, et. al.

Proof of this theory is the reality that once the Anti-Nephi-Lehis moved from the land of Ishmael to the land of Jershon, they changed their name to The People of Ammonn. Why? Because they were no long opposite the lands of Nephi and Lehi.

Jerry Ainsworth

We don’t know what the name meant in the first century BC in the language and culture in which it was coined. We don’t know what Mormon made of it when creating his opus almost 500 years later in a language and culture that were far different from those in use when the name first appears. We don’t know what Joseph actually saw he came across this name. We only know what Oliver wrote as his interpretation of what he heard. We don’t know if “anti” was a translation or a transliteration or a misspelling.

What we do know is once it was in print, neither Joseph nor any of his successors as prophet corrected it. We don’t know why it has never been corrected. Nobody has said. We can all invent reasons that suit our personal ideas about what the name means and why it is still the way it is after all these years. My personal theory is this is a minor issue and not worth the effort when compared with the mission of the Book of Mormon.

As to the possible negative connotations of the name, I defer to Shakespeare. “What’s in a name? that which we call a rose By any other name would smell as sweet”. The Anti-Nephi-Lehies were a righteous people. They and most of their descendants remained a righteous people for years, if not centuries. In that respect they are the role models for us in the Book of Mormon, by whatever name they are called and irrespective of how it sounds to us in 21st Century America.

I hope this will help.
Obrigado that means Thank you in portuguese.

The name “Anti” of “Anti-Nephi-Lehi” may be a reflex of the Egyptian nty “he of, the one of.” Thus, rather than having the sense “against,” it has the meaning “the one of Nephi and Lehi.”

In Chapter 23, vs 16, the king of the Lamanites met with Aaron and many of the priests to discuss what their name would be. In Chapter 27, vs 6, the new king (Anti-Nephi-Lehi) explains why they are hestitant about taking the name of the “Nephites”. With the conversion of the Lamanite king to the gospel of Jesus Christ, a clear division was occurring in the kingdom WITH the executive decision to change their name (including the ones who did not believe). The final decision was to call themselves “Anti-Nephi-Lehies”.

In the beginning of Ch 24, the king of the lamanites notices that those who do not want to take upon themselves the new name begin to rebel and prepare for a war. In vs 3, we are told that the kingdom is conferred upon the king’s son “Anti-Nephi-Lehi”. In vs 4, the king dies. From an analytical standpoint, I believe that the king’s son, Anti-Nephi-Lehi, was already born and being prepared to assume the kingdom upon the king’s death. This is consistent with the interaction that Ammon had with the new king in Ch 27. This also fits in with the decision to change the name of the people as mentioned before.

I assess that the king knew who he was going to confer the kingdom to upon his death (which came soon after). By renaming the people after the future king (a person who the father knew would lead them according to righteous ways), those who pioneered the gospel track would have at least one generation to establish a foothold in the ways of the righteous living.

The old king of the lamanites explained the reason for the name change. Implementing the name change was the final division in the kingdom. The future of the king’s followers was going to be with the converts of the gospel. The next in line was the king’s son, Anti-Nephi-Lehi. It was a wise, selfless act to rename the people that allowed for the new converts to test their faith.

– all the personal names in the Book of Mormon that start with “Anti” are political and/or military leaders (including the Lamanite king over Middoni, Antiomno)

– all instances of BofM names containing *anti* appear only in the book of Alma with a single exception: the name Antionum, which (like Mormon) appears first in Alma as a place name also (like Mormon) appears in Mormon as the name of a military leader (one of the captains of 10,000)

FWIW. ..bruce..

Alma 24

3 Now the king conferred the kingdom upon his son, and he called his name Anti-Nephi-Lehi.

My guess is that his name was Anti-Nephi-Lehi all along, but he just happened to be an important convert, so the people were named after him.

You misunderstand me. I’m NOT arguing that it “must be correct” because Joseph didn’t fix it. I’m ONLY arguing that Joseph, when reviewing it, didn’t suddenly think “What the heck!? Anti-Nephi-Lehies? That sounds like they are against the Nephites!!! Holy Molly what a huge mistake from my original intent which was “Antinephi Lehies”! I better fix that because it’s embarrassing and by my prophetic power I know that 200 years from now people on blogs will be arguing about this!”

You know, I’ve had a long standing belief that the Amlicites and Amalakites were the same people since the Amlicites just suddenly disappear and there is no origin given for the Amalekites. I had assumes that the name changed but the BoM didn’t capture it historically. It had never occurred to me before that it might just be a misspelling.

I saw Skowen speak at a fireside and he thought the Church was going to ignore all his research and not make any changes. I’m glad to hear that they are interested in it now and that we might get an improved edition of the Book of Mormon out of it. Might be cool if they add back in some of the Hebrewisms that Joseph removed in the 1837 edition because he didn’t know what they were.

Joseph Smith thought that [the hyphenation] was right, that’s why he didn’t fix it.

Actually, the original and printer’s manuscripts had almost no punctuation whatsoever, so Grandin put in most of it himself (something to keep in mind the next time someone argues a doctrinal point out of the BofM based on commas and semi-colons).

Joseph Smith did do some editing for the 1837 edition of the BofM — much of which was not so much to correct errors as to ‘modernize’ some of the more archaic/colloquial grammar and phrasing in the 1830 edition, as well as to clarify a few passages. I don’t know off hand if he corrected much in the way of punctuation. But there are still plenty of discrepancies, errors, and changes between the original and the printer’s manuscripts as well as between the printer’s manuscript, the 1830 edition, the 1837 edition, and subsequent editions. Furthermore, it’s clear that Joseph’s scribes often made transcription errors while taking down what Joseph was translating; some of these got caught, others appeared not to be caught. So arguing that something must be correct because Joseph didn’t fix it in the 1837 edition is not supported by analysis of the actual manuscripts and printed editions.

If you can, track down and spend some time with one or more of Skousen’s Analysis of Textual Variants volumes (four volumes to date, 2700+ oversized [9"x12"] pages, covering up through Alma 55) to get a sense of what some of these changes and errors are. I suspect that sometime after Skousen has finished his work — which the Church wholly supports — the Church will issue a new edition of the Book of Mormon with a number of textual changes. For example, it’s clear from the original manuscript — which only exists for about 1/3 of the Book of Mormon text — that 1 Nephi 12:18 actually reads “the sword of the justice of the Eternal God” rather than “the word“. As another example, Skousen argues that the Amlicites (mentioned in Alma 2 and 3) and the Amalakites (Alma 21 ff) are actually the same group; Oliver Cowdery was not always consistent in his spelling and transcription (Amlicites => Amelicites => Amalekites).

Anyway, FWIW. ..bruce..

Okay, so bfwebster. According to your theory we know have (if I might summarize):
1. The original work was “AntiNephiLehi”
2. Grandin decided it needed hyphenation, so it got published as “Anti-Nephi-Lehi”
3. Joseph Smith thought that was right, that’s why he didn’t fix it.

We can actually conclude either your theory or mine from this evidence. It’s either a Nephite word that got mistaken for “Anti-” (bfwebsters theory) OR in fact it is “Anti-” and it means “in place of” (if you believe NM Tony, who is actually Hugh Nibley returned from the dead) of or “not of” (my theory.)

P.S. for the record, I can’t actually remember if that is Hugh Nibley’s theory or someone else’s.

Obviously it could be that “anti” was a Nephite word and Joseph/Oliver didn’t realize that so they hyphenated it.

Actually, it doesn’t appear to be hyphenated in either the original or the printer’s manuscript (it was just “AntiNephiLehies”), which suggests that the hyphenation was likely done by E. B. Grandin, the publisher of the Book of Mormon. (See Analysis of Textual Variants of the Book of Mormon: Part Four: Alma 21-55, Royal Skousen, FARMS, 2007, p. 2092.)

Who knows. You could be right.

I’d be in good company, then, since Skousen makes the same argument: “the initial morpheme Anti appears to be an independent morpheme whose original meaning is not recoverable from the text of the Book of Mormon (at least as we have it)”. (Ibid., p. 2095). ..bruce..

LOL. I have never been accused of that before, so I don’t know whether to take it as a compliment or dis.:)

My tongue-in-cheek attempt was to simply show that anti- can be twisted into meaning both for and against, or the same and opposite. We can twist the language to fit what ever paradigm we want when given enough wiggle room.

But Hugh Nibley…oh man.

Hate to break the news to you, but this approach is (I think) the one Hugh Nibley believed. Great minds thing alike? In any case, it’s a common way to interpret Anti-Nephi-Lehi.

In fact, I’ve already referenced this theory in my original post, admittedly to make fun of it: “I’ve heard all sorts of attempts to explain this. I’ve heard “anti” means “in place of” rather than “against.” I’m not sure why being a changeling would be better than being against someone, but there you go.”

Oh, and while I mocked it in my post, the truth is that I consider it a realistic possiblity. I was just being humorous as a way of advancing my own theories… which I don’t actually believe in any more than anyone elses since it’s all just speculation anyhow.

Highlights of the tumbling exercise:

Korihor-like Christ in outward appearances; opposite in spirit.

Anti-Nephi-Lehis–like Nephites in spirit; opposite in outward appearances.

Arms raised, gymnast waits the scoring of performance.

It must be a false prophecy then… because the BYU dress code is pro-knee-high-levis!!! Oh no, the Church isn’t true after all!