John Tvedtnes writes that twice in the Book of Mormon, when individuals fell as if dead under the influence of the Spirit of the Lord, someone raised them by grasping their hand. This happened to Lamoni and his wife (Alma 19:29-30) and later to Lamoni's father (Alma 22:18-22), each of whom came to know the Lord during the experience. While there are no exact parallels in the Bible, in Revelation 1:17 the apostle John falls down as dead before the risen Christ, who then lays his right hand upon him and tells him not to fear. Closer parallels to the Book of Mormon stories are found in various pseudepigraphic texts unavailable to Joseph Smith.
The Apocalypse of Abraham 10:1-5; 11:1 has Abraham reporting that when he heard the voice of God speaking to him, "my spirit was amazed, and my soul fled from me. And I became like a stone and fell face down upon the earth for there was no longer strength in me to stand up on the earth." Then God sent an angel who "took me by my right hand and stood me on my feet . . . And I stood up and saw him who had taken my right hand and set me on my feet."
A similar story is told of Enoch, who is quoted as saying, "Then I fell upon my face before the Lord of the Spirits. And the angel Michael, one of the archangels, seizing me by my right hand and lifting me up, led me out into all the secrets of mercy; and he showed me all the secrets of righteousness" (1 Enoch 71:2-3).
In 4 Ezra 10:25-30, we find Ezra, in vision, being frightened by a woman (the heavenly Jerusalem) whose face shone like lightning (like the angel at the tomb in Matthew 28:2-4). "I was too frightened to approach her, and my heart was terrified . . . I lay there like a corpse and was deprived of my understanding." Then the angel Uriel came and "he grasped my right hand and strengthened me and set me on my feet."
In light of these and other accounts, the Book of Mormon stories of people falling into ecstasy and being raised by a handclasp fits quite well into the ancient world from which the Nephite record came. [John A. Tvedtnes, "Raised by a Handclasp," in The Most Correct Book, pp. 215-218]