What are extrapositional nouns and pronouns doing in the Book of Mormon?

The Book of Mormon has been found to contain extrapositional nouns and pronouns that we would not expect in English. 

John A. Tvedtnes explains:

Hebrew often uses a noun or pronoun as the direct object of the verb in one clause and a pronoun referring to the same person or thing in the following clause in a way that seems unnecessary or redundant in English. For example in Genesis 1:4, we read, “God saw the light, that it was good.” In this case, the King James Bible reflects the Hebrew wording, despite the fact that in English the normal way of saying this would be, “God saw that the light was good.” 

– John A. Tvedtnes, “The Hebrew Background of the Book of Mormon,” in Rediscovering the Book of Mormon, edited by John L. Sorenson and Melvin J. Thorne (Salt Lake City, Utah: Deseret Book Co.; Provo, Utah: Foundation for Ancient Research and Mormon Studies, 1991), Chapter 8

Examples in the Book of Mormon include:

• “I beheld, and saw the people of the seed of my brethren that they had overcome my seed” (1 Nephi 12:20).
• “I beheld the wrath of God, that it was upon the seed of my brethren” (1 Nephi 13:14).
• “And I beheld the Spirit of the Lord, that it was upon the Gentiles” (1 Nephi 13:15).
• “I . . . beheld the power of the Lamb of God, that it descended” (1 Nephi 14:14)

If Joseph Smith was expending effort to add in all these Hebraisms, wouldn’t it have been obvious to the scribes?

See:

• FAIR Latter-day Saints – Pronouns in the Book of Mormon

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