(Alma 12: 1) 1. NOW Alma, seeing that the words of Amulek had silenced Zeezrom, for he beheld that Amulek had caught him in his lying and deceiving to destroy him, and seeing that he began to tremble under a consciousness of his guilt, he opened his mouth and began to speak unto him, and to establish the words of Amulek, and to explain things beyond, or to unfold the scriptures beyond that which Amulek had done.

Okay... The following verse is one of my "beefs" with the language in the Book of Mormon. I offer this discussion not as criticism of the content, but of the difficulty of communicating with the English language, and the use of the pronoun He and Him.

Being something of a writer myself, I find this sort of thing an important one to clarify in my own writing. I try to explain to my children, when reading this, because the pronouns leave a question as to whom the various He and Him pronouns refer.

Does the first He refer to Alma or Zeezrom? The second pronoun him clearly refers to Zeezrom.

So here's my attempt at a rewrite...

NOW Alma, seeing that the words of Amulek had silenced Zeezrom, for he (Alma or Zeezrom?, I think Alma makes more sense.) beheld that Amulek had caught him (Zeezrom) in his (Zeezrom's) lying and deceiving to destroy him (Amulek (and Alma, though Zeezrom specifically engaged Amulek)), and seeing that he (Zeezrom) began to tremble under a consciousness of his (Zeezrom's) guilt, he (Alma) opened his (Alma's) mouth and began to speak unto him (Zeezrom), and to establish the words of Amulek, and to explain things beyond, or to unfold the scriptures beyond that which Amulek had done.

As you can see there are some clear places where the overuse of the pronoun "he" causes a little difficulty in communicating what occurred. Anyhow, in the hope of creating more clarity, I post this as something to think about when you read the Book of Mormon.

Best regards,

--Ray