Abish

 This week in our Come Follow Me readings we meet one of the six women named in the Book of Mormon.  The fact that we only have six named women in the Book of Mormon is notable. For comparison, there are about 200 named women in the Old Testament. I think one reason there might be very few women named is because of the editor. Mormon was a man who lived very much in a male centered world.  He was a military leader in a time of war, and these areas of focus were overwhelmingly the realm of men during his life. The fact that he mentions Abish by name here, therefore, means that he found her name significant. 

The name "Abish" is from two Hebrew words, ab (אָב) which means "father" and ish (איש) which means "man". So her name literally means, "father is a man".  So why would Mormon find this name significant? It is just a statement of fact: isn't everyone's father is a man?  The podcasters I listened two mentioned two possible reasons.  One is that she was converted to the gospel by "a remarkable vision of her father."  Here we have an ambiguity.  Who had the vision? One way to read this is that Abish's father had a vision and told Abish about it and Abish was converted.  A different way to read it is that Abish had a vision of her father that converted her to Christianity.  Of course, that begs the question, was it a vision of her earthly father, or is this referring to a vision of her Heavenly Father. The text just doesn't give us enough to answer these questions definitively. 

The other reason Mormon might have considered the name significant, is because it encapsulated the difference between the Nephite view of God and the Lamanite view of God.  In the the stories of Ammon preaching to Lamoni, and the one of Aaron preaching to Lamoni's father, it states that the Lamanites believed in a "Great Spirit". (Alma 18:5 and Alma 22:9)  This Great Spirit created the world, but didn't actively govern the affairs of men. The Nephites, on the other hand believed that God is in the form of a man and he is their Heavenly Father, i.e. Father is a Man--Abish. 

These are interesting speculations, but we don't reallyknow why Mormon included Abish's name and not, say, the name of Lamoni's queen who also played an important part in the story. I do find it remarkable that this name, which is not found it the Old Testament, is here in the Book of Mormon.  It is a very Hebrew sounding name and has a meaning in Hebrew that is clearly related to the story being told. Could Joseph Smith have made this up while crafting the Book of Mormon at age 21, before he had ever studies Hebrew?  It is only one of many many Hebraisms found the in book. Maybe they are all coincidences, but really?