One of the questions that arises early for readers of the Book of Mormon is how Lehi, who is not a Levite and certainly not a descendant of Aaron, can offer sacrifice (1 Ne. 2:7), a privilege which, in the Torah as we have it, is restricted to those lineages.
The simplest answer is that this whole concept of an Aaronic or Levitical priesthood did not exist in Lehi's time.
The name Aaron occurs 50 times in the Book of Mormon, as the name of several different people and places. Not a single one of these occurrences refers to the biblical Aaron, brother of Moses and father of the priestly lineages. There is a vague reference to "a Moses" -- perhaps Moses himself, perhaps some later person figuratively so called -- having "a spokesman" (2 Ne. 3:17), but that's as close as we get to the Aaron of our Old Testament. There is no indication that this spokesman is Moses's brother, that his name is Aaron, or that he is a priest.
The name Levi occurs five times, four of which refer to a Jaredite of that name. The other does refer to the biblical Levi, and speaks of "the sons of Levi" making "unto the Lord an offering in righteousness" (3 Ne. 24:3). This is Jesus quoting the post-exilic Book of Malachi. The Nephites had not had this book before (3 Ne. 26:2), so there is no indication that they knew anything about the Levites' special role in the cult of animal sacrifice until after the visit of Jesus -- by which point, of course, said cult had been terminated by Christ (3 Ne. 9:19).
So for me the simplest solution is that Moses never instituted a priesthood restricted to descendants of his brother Aaron, that that was a much later innovation. For what it's worth, this is in broad harmony with the consensus of secular textual critics of the Bible (not a group I ordinarily put a great deal of stock in), who generally date the so-called "Priestly" material in the Torah to the late neo-Babylonian or even Persian period, well after the time of Lehi.
Rozy Lass said...
You're probably right. Adam offered animal sacrifice too, and he certainly wasn't a descendant of Levi or anyone else. What the Book of Mormon does tell us is that there were many plain and precious parts taken out and lost. I have often wished we had a "book of mormon" style bible/record of the old world. Sure would make things plainer.
WJT said...
The Bible also has Abel, Abraham, and others offering sacrifice. It was only after the introduction of the Law of Moses that (we are told) this work was restricted to Aaronides and Levites — the one exception being the Passover lamb, which was slaughtered by each family at home.
The LDS institution called the Aaronic priesthood shares nothing but a name with the biblical version. It has nothing to do with Aaron or with animal sacrifice. (I’ve read somewhere that a true descendant of Aaron — i.e. a Jewish kohen who converted — would have a natural right to be a bishop without being ordained to the Melchizedek priesthood, but I assume this has never actually happened.)Jason T said...
It seems to me in Exodus anyone can offer sacrifice, but only the Levites can do it at the tabernacle. That the sacrifices are different types. Deuteronomy implies this will change once a central place of worship (later Jerusalem) is chosen (i.e. when the temple replaces the tabernacle), and then all sacrifice will have to be done there. I don't know what time they are supposedly leaving in the book of Mormon, but if its pre-Solomon that would work as an explaination for me. Samuel offered sacrifices and he was an Ephraimite, although perhaps something about being an adopted levite could be argued.
WJT said...
Lehi left Jerusalem well after Solomon, just before the Babylonian captivity. The Book of Mormon references the Temple of Solomon (2 Ne. 5:16).
Judging by how often they are quoted elsewhere in the Book of Mormon, some of the most famous sayings of Lehi among his descendants were his exhortations to his sons Laman and Lemuel, after whom he had just named a river and a valley:
And it came to pass that he called the name of the river, Laman, and it emptied into the Red Sea; and the valley was in the borders near the mouth thereof. And when my father saw that the waters of the river emptied into the fountain of the Red Sea, he spake unto Laman, saying:
O that thou mightest be like unto this river, continually running into the fountain of all righteousness!
And he also spake unto Lemuel:
O that thou mightest be like unto this valley, firm and steadfast, and immovable in keeping the commandments of the Lord!
Now this he spake because of the stiffneckedness of Laman and Lemuel . . . . And it came to pass that my father did speak unto them in the valley of Lemuel (1 Ne. 2:8-11, 14).
The language introduced here (and no, it isn’t biblical) later shows up in Mosiah 5:15, Alma 1:25, 3 Ne. 6:14, Ether 12:28, and Moro. 8:26. In Ether, the quotation is put in the mouth of no less a personage than “the Lord,” who explicitly identifies himself as the referent of one of Lehi’s metaphors: “me, the fountain of all righteousness.”
No similar expressions occur in the other scriptures produced by Joseph Smith (e.g. the Doctrine & Covenants), so I think the repeated language represents actual quotation and is not an artifact of translation.
I’d tried to start a post on these sayings a few times but was stymied by my confusion over what Lehi was trying to say. Running into the fountain? A fountain is a source of water, not something rivers run into. And what did he mean by calling the Red Sea a fountain? As Lehi himself had just observed, the Red Sea is something rivers empty into, not their source.
(There are fountains in the Red Sea. In fact — apologists take note! — it was in the Red Sea that the first hydrothermal vents were discovered, just decades after the time of Joseph Smith. But in context, “the fountain of the Red Sea” is clearly an expression like “the city of Albuquerque” or “the sin of pride,” and means that the Red Sea is itself a fountain.)
I didn’t want to publish a post that just said, “Look, here’s a metaphor that doesn’t make sense!” So an abortive draft of this post gathered dust for a week or so.
Today I started thinking about it again, thinking that the “fountain” thing must mean something. Lehi understood how rivers work; Joseph Smith understood how rivers work; it’s not just an ignorant mistake. It occurred to me that, in the water cycle as we understand it today, the seas into which the rivers empty are also the primary source, or “fountain,” of the rain which creates the rivers in the first place.
Was the water cycle understood in Lehi’s time? Well, they likely had some concept of a water cycle. Ecclesiastes was probably written a century or two after Lehi, but it hardly presents it as a revolutionary new hypothesis:
All the rivers run into the sea; yet the sea is not full; unto the place from whence the rivers come, thither they return again (Eccl. 1:7).
Isn’t that pretty close to Lehi’s language? The sea into which the rivers run is also “the place from whence the rivers come,” i.e. their fountainhead. I don’t know how the ancient Hebrews explained the details of that process, or how close it was to our modern understanding, but they clearly grasped the basic logic: The rivers never run out of water, and the sea never fills up; therefore, it’s a cycle.
After that little breakthrough, I felt like I was ready to tackle the post again. I still had a few minutes before I would have access to my computer, though, so I picked up Joshua Cutchin’s Ecology of Souls (not a religious book, but one about the connection between UFOs and death) and read a few pages while I waited. Imagine my surprise — or rather how surprised I would have been if I weren’t already used to my life being one synchronicity after another — when one of the things I read on those few pages was this:
Everything has a soul, all derived from the same source. As this constitutes an animistic perspective, an animist analogy seems best. Like rain we fall to Earth, joining others in the river of life to flow untold miles toward the sea where all becomes one before evaporating to begin anew.
The context of this “animist analogy” — Cutchin’s discussion of the possibility that aliens may sometimes reincarnate as humans and vice versa — is far removed from the world of Lehi, but my reading of the analogy itself was perfectly timed.
So, with that long preamble out of the way, what do I think Lehi was getting at?
One fairly straightforward reading would be that he alludes to God as what Aristotle would later call a “final cause,” but the reader will understand my reluctance to read Greek philosophy into the Book of Mormon.
How far should the analogy be pressed? The deepest meaning of the water cycle is that neither river nor sea has a privileged position as “the source.” Each is the source of the other. This chicken-and-egg relationship between God and man is something we associate with “Mormon” theology, even though we find it mainly in Joseph Smith’s later work and not (we tend to think) in the Book of Mormon itself. The idea in some form is surely older than Joseph Smith, though. The Fourth Gospel tells us that the man Jesus knew “that he was come from God, and went to God” (John 13:3). Athanasius of Alexandria famously wrote that “God became man that man might become God.” Did Lehi have any such concept in mind when he exhorted Laman to flow into the fountain of all righteousness? Perhaps. Anyway, it’s something to keep in the back of my mind as I proceed with the book.
Rozy Lass said...
Really interesting thoughts. My grandpa used to say that an evidence of the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon was the phrase "river of water" (1 Ne 2:6). Where Joseph Smith lived all rivers had water in them; but Lehi and his family lived in a semi-arid or desert area where some riverbeds didn't have any water in them continuously and were dry at certain times and seasons. Always more to learn, line upon line and precept upon precept. Thanks for sharing.
Wm Jas Tychonievich said...
Well, "rivers of water" occurs multiple times in the King James Bible, so I don't think it's very strong evidence of anything one way or the other. The expression could appear in the Book of Mormon because Lehi and Nephi came from a desert area just like the biblical prophets did, or it could be because Joseph Smith was influenced by biblical language.
In support of your grandpa's interpretation, "river of water" is used only by Lehi and Nephi, who grew up in Jerusalem. Later Nephites, who like Joseph Smith apparently lived in a non-desert environment where the expression would be redundant, didn't use it.Wm Jas Tychonievich said...
Sync wink:
Today I was cleaning out my phone, deleting apps I don't use. I noticed that I have two different voice recorder apps, so I opened one of them up to see if it had any important recordings I wouldn't want to delete. There, in a list with files with such enlightening names as "Recording 1," "Recording 2," etc., was one called "Ocean empties into river." It was a recording I made in the early hours of April 26 this year, summarizing a dream from which I had just awoken.
It took me a few minutes to remember that I had actually blogged about that dream before:
https://narrowdesert.blogspot.com/2023/04/nego-negation-of-ego.html
Blessed art thou, Nephi . . . . And inasmuch as ye shall keep my commandments, ye shall prosper, and shall be led to a land of promise; yea, even a land which I have prepared for you; yea, a land which is choice above all other lands. And inasmuch as thy brethren shall rebel against thee, they shall be cut off from the presence of the Lord. And inasmuch as thou shalt keep my commandments, thou shalt be made a ruler and a teacher over thy brethren (1 Ne. 2:19-22).
Wherefore, I, Lehi, have obtained a promise, that inasmuch as those whom the Lord God shall bring out of the land of Jerusalem shall keep his commandments, they shall prosper upon the face of this land; and they shall be kept from all other nations, that they may possess this land unto themselves. And if it so be that they shall keep his commandments they shall be blessed upon the face of this land, and there shall be none to molest them, nor to take away the land of their inheritance; and they shall dwell safely forever.But behold, when the time cometh that they shall dwindle in unbelief, after they have received so great blessings from the hand of the Lord -- having a knowledge of the creation of the earth, and all men, knowing the great and marvelous works of the Lord from the creation of the world; having power given them to do all things by faith; having all the commandments from the beginning, and having been brought by his infinite goodness into this precious land of promise -- behold, I say, if the day shall come that they will reject the Holy One of Israel, the true Messiah, their Redeemer and their God, behold, the judgments of him that is just shall rest upon them. Yea, he will bring other nations unto them, and he will give unto them power, and he will take away from them the lands of their possessions, and he will cause them to be scattered and smitten. Yea, as one generation passeth to another there shall be bloodsheds, and great visitations among them (2 Ne. 1:9-12).
And behold, the words of the Lord had been fulfilled unto my brethren, which he spake concerning them, that I should be their ruler and their teacher. Wherefore, I had been their ruler and their teacher, according to the commandments of the Lord, until the time they sought to take away my life.Wherefore, the word of the Lord was fulfilled which he spake unto me, saying that: Inasmuch as they will not hearken unto thy words they shall be cut off from the presence of the Lord. And behold, they were cut off from his presence (2 Ne. 5:19-20).
Behold, do ye not remember the words which he spake unto Lehi, saying that: Inasmuch as ye shall keep my commandments, ye shall prosper in the land? And again it is said that: Inasmuch as ye will not keep my commandments ye shall be cut off from the presence of the Lord (Alma 9:13).
And thus we see how merciful and just are all the dealings of the Lord, to the fulfilling of all his words unto the children of men; yea, we can behold that his words are verified, even at this time, which he spake unto Lehi, saying: Blessed art thou and thy children; and they shall be blessed, inasmuch as they shall keep my commandments they shall prosper in the land. But remember, inasmuch as they will not keep my commandments they shall be cut off from the presence of the Lord (Alma 50:19-20, Mormon speaking).
Rozy Lass said...
I believe the reference is 1 Ne 4:14, not verse 4. Also see Ether 2:7,10,12 The Jaredites had the same covenant and promise.
I understand that the Brass Plates were/are a record of the descendants of Joseph, with some different prophets from the books that we now call the Bible. Hence the prophecies of Zenos, etc. Joseph, under the hand of Jacob/Israel was promised that his descendants would be fruitful and cross over the wall, etc. to a land "unto the utmost bounds of the everlasting hills." Perhaps in the brass plates there are more references to this covenant for the Promised Land of the new world of America.
We sure have some repenting to do to be able to keep our land of liberty.Wm Jas Tychonievich said...
Thank you, Rozy!
My reference was 2 Nephi. 4:4, not 1 Nephi, and it's correct. 1 Ne. 4:14 is an important one that I missed, though, since it's Nephi citing his own earlier revelation and condensing it to the classic "prosper in the land" form. I think I just searched for "cut off" and thus missed some verses that only include the first half of the saying. I'll have to update the post.
I agree that the brass plates were likely very different from our Bible, despite some apparent overlap. I think it's unlikely that they contained references to the future "promised land" of the Nephites, though. Lehi got the plates while en route to that land and immediately "did search them from the beginning," and Nephi gives a summary of their contents (1 Ne. 5:10-16). I think if the plates had directly referred to a promised land far from Palestine, that would surely have been mentioned at this point.
Speak unto Aaron and to his sons, that they separate themselves from the holy things of the children of Israel, and that they profane not my holy name in those things which they hallow unto me: I am the Lord. Say unto them,Whosoever he be of all your seed among your generations, that goeth unto the holy things, which the children of Israel hallow unto the Lord, having his uncleanness upon him, that soul shall be cut off from my presence: I am the Lord. . . .The soul which hath touched any [unclean thing] shall be unclean until even, and shall not eat of the holy things, unless he wash his flesh with water. And when the sun is down, he shall be clean, and shall afterward eat of the holy things; because it is his food (Lev. 22:2-3, 6-7).
And it came to pass that the Lord did warn me, that I, Nephi, should depart from [Laman and Lemuel] and flee into the wilderness, and all those who would go with me. . . . And we did take our tents and whatsoever things were possible for us, and did journey in the wilderness for the space of many days. . . . And it came to pass that we began to prosper exceedingly, and to multiply in the land. . . .And I, Nephi, did build a temple; and I did construct it after the manner of the temple of Solomon save it were not built of so many precious things; for they were not to be found upon the land, wherefore, it could not be built like unto Solomon’s temple. But the manner of the construction was like unto the temple of Solomon; and the workmanship thereof was exceedingly fine. . . .And behold, the words of the Lord had been fulfilled unto my brethren, which he spake concerning them, that I should be their ruler and their teacher. Wherefore, I had been their ruler and their teacher, according to the commandments of the Lord, until the time they sought to take away my life. Wherefore, the word of the Lord was fulfilled which he spake unto me, saying that: Inasmuch as they will not hearken unto thy words they shall be cut off from the presence of the Lord. And behold, they were cut off from his presence (2 Ne. 5:5, 7, 13, 16, 19-20).
For as death hath passed upon all men, to fulfil the merciful plan of the great Creator, there must needs be a power of resurrection, and the resurrection must needs come unto man by reason of the fall; and the fall came by reason of transgression; and because man became fallen they were cut off from the presence of the Lord.
Wherefore, it must needs be an infinite atonement -- save it should be an infinite atonement this corruption could not put on incorruption. Wherefore, the first judgment which came upon man must needs have remained to an endless duration. And if so, this flesh must have laid down to rot and to crumble to its mother earth, to rise no more (2 Ne. 9:6-7).
Now I would that ye should remember, that inasmuch as the Lamanites have not kept the commandments of God, they have been cut off from the presence of the Lord. Now we see that the word of the Lord has been verified in this thing, and the Lamanites have been cut off from his presence, from the beginning of their transgressions in the land (Alma 9:14).
But behold, it was appointed unto man to die -- therefore, as they were cut off from the tree of life they should be cut off from the face of the earth -- and man became lost forever, yea, they became fallen man. And now, ye see by this that our first parents were cut off both temporally and spiritually from the presence of the Lord . . . .Now behold, it was not expedient that man should be reclaimed from this temporal death, for that would destroy the great plan of happiness. Therefore, as the soul could never die, and the fall had brought upon all mankind a spiritual death as well as a temporal, that is, they were cut off from the presence of the Lord, it was expedient that mankind should be reclaimed from this spiritual death. . . .And now remember, my son, if it were not for the plan of redemption, (laying it aside) as soon as they were dead their souls were miserable, being cut off from the presence of the Lord. . . . And thus we see that all mankind were fallen, and they were in the grasp of justice; yea, the justice of God, which consigned them forever to be cut off from his presence (Alma 42:6-9, 11, 14).
Yea, behold, this death [of Christ] bringeth to pass the resurrection, and redeemeth all mankind from the first death -- that spiritual death; for all mankind, by the fall of Adam being cut off from the presence of the Lord, are considered as dead, both as to things temporal and to things spiritual. But behold, the resurrection of Christ redeemeth mankind, yea, even all mankind, and bringeth them back into the presence of the Lord.Yea, and it bringeth to pass the condition of repentance, that whosoever repenteth the same is not hewn down and cast into the fire; but whosoever repenteth not is hewn down and cast into the fire; and there cometh upon them again a spiritual death, yea, a second death, for they are cut off again as to things pertaining to righteousness (Hel. 14:16-18).
And behold, if the Lord shall say unto a man -- Because of thine iniquities, thou shalt be accursed forever -- it shall be done.
And if the Lord shall say -- Because of thine iniquities thou shalt be cut off from my presence -- he will cause that it shall be so. And wo unto him to whom he shall say this, for it shall be unto him that will do iniquity, and he cannot be saved; therefore, for this cause, that men might be saved, hath repentance been declared (Hel. 12:20-22).
And the Lord said unto him: I will forgive thee and thy brethren of their sins; but thou shalt not sin any more, for ye shall remember that my Spirit will not always strive with man; wherefore, if ye will sin until ye are fully ripe ye shall be cut off from the presence of the Lord. And these are my thoughts upon the land which I shall give you for your inheritance; for it shall be a land choice above all other lands (Ether 2:15).
And [Morianton] did do justice unto the people, but not unto himself because of his many whoredoms; wherefore he was cut off from the presence of the Lord.And it came to pass that Morianton built up many cities, and the people became exceedingly rich under his reign . . . . And Morianton did live to an exceedingly great age, and then he begat Kim; and Kim did reign in the stead of his father; and he did reign eight years, and his father died (Ether 10:11-13).
Rozy Lass said...
I wonder if the reason Lehi didn't know the full story of his ancestry is simply because the records had been lost to him, which is why the Lord knew he needed Laban's copy. In the OT, there are instances of needed your genealogy to prove which tribe you belonged to. Lehi seemed to be a merchant (as well as a prophet), perhaps the records were kept by Laban for the extended family but Lehi had fallen out of favor because he preached such uncomfortable things.
I'm curious as to why it matters. It appears that your brain works differently from mine. I don't question things like that when reading the Book of Mormon. I take it at face value, what it says is what Nephi (and others) wrote, and what Mormon edited in, and what God gave to Joseph Smith through translation. Until we have the rest of it, the sealed 2/3rds, we won't have all the answers. Not to mention the cave or room with all the original records that Mormon condensed. Won't that be a glorious day! To have ALL the records come forth for our study. I look forward to it.
I enjoy reading your thoughts, musings, and conclusions, even if I don't agree with them.Wm Jas Tychonievich said...
That's an interesting idea, that Lehi may have fallen out with the family after becoming a "visionary man." It still seems odd to me that he wouldn't even have known which tribe he was a member of, though.
As for why it matters, I just want to understand the book -- who the people in it are, and why they do what they do. I'm not "questioning" it in the sense of casting doubt. As it says at the top of the blog, my working hypothesis is that the book is true, and all these thoughts are in the context of that foundational assumption.
I, too, look forward to further records coming to light -- but in the meantime, we work with what we have!Wm Jas Tychonievich said...
By the way, what does "face value" mean for you in this particular case? How do you think Lehi and his family thought of themselves ethnically before obtaining the brass plates? As Jews?
Rozy Lass said...
Face value means that I read what it says and don't try to guess what the person is thinking, or meaning, or symbolizing; unless it is something like the vision of the tree of life, which is symbolic and explained. I don't know what Lehi thought, other than he knew he was of the House of Israel, but probably didn't know exactly which tribe he belonged to. Or maybe he thought he was of the tribe of Manasseh, but wasn't sure of all those generations back. Maybe he thought he was of the tribe of Ephraim and was surprised to learn that actually he was Manasseh. Not sure.
Please don't think I am criticizing you. I'd enjoy having a face to face conversation, just because you're really interesting and I don't get the opportunity to discuss the gospel, scriptures, general conference talks much with a knowledgable person who has deep and interesting ideas. Your insights cause me to think deeper and explore more. So thank you!! Keep up this good work.HomeStadter said...
The idea that's been kicking around Mormon writer circles is that Lehi was involved in trade with Egypt, possibly running caravans, and that is why they were familiar with Egyptian. In your scenario, are they recent converts to Judiasm and a naturalized Israelites? Is Laban also a convert? Perhaps they had a recent ancestor who was the convert? Would a person of Egyptian descent coming to a prominent position (Laban), and wealth (Lehi) be related to the pro-Egypt faction (as against Babylon) having come to power in the royal court.
Do you have any priors in mind re the location of the Nephites i.e. Heartland/MesoAmerica/Peru? Among neighbors or pretty much alone?David Earle said...
Hi William your readers might find this useful:
https://newworldisland.org/notesonthebom/
This is a printer/e-book friendly copy of the blog (latest 20 posts) which can be sent directly to a Kindle or similar device.
Best,
DavidWm Jas Tychonievich said...
Thanks, David. That's great! I've added a link in the sidebar.
Wm Jas Tychonievich said...
Homestadter, I think it goes beyond mere familiarity with Egyptian. Jeremiah preached in Hebrew in Jerusalem. Laban, living in Jerusalem, had Jeremiah's prophecies in an Egyptian translation. What reason could there be for this other than that Egyptian was his preferred language?
Since Laban and Lehi were related, I would assume it was a shared ancestor who converted to Judaism, rather than that them each converting independently. The religiosity of Laban is an interesting question. On the one hand, he obviously valued the words of the prophets; on the other hand, he doesn't seem to have been real big on basic morality.
I don't think any of the proposed locations for the Nephites fits very well. Ralph Olsen's Malaysian theory has a lot going for it, but there are obvious issues with locating them anywhere other than in the New World. I'll see if any clever solutions come to me as I go through the book.
And it came to pass that Laman was angry with me, and also with my father; and also was Lemuel, for he hearkened unto the words of Laman. Wherefore Laman and Lemuel did speak many hard words unto us, their younger brothers, and they did smite us even with a rod. And it came to pass as they smote us with a rod, behold, an angel of the Lord came and stood before them, and he spake unto them, saying:
Why do ye smite your younger brother with a rod? Know ye not that the Lord hath chosen him to be a ruler over you, and this because of your iniquities? Behold ye shall go up to Jerusalem again, and the Lord will deliver Laban into your hands.
And after the angel had spoken unto us, he departed. And after the angel had departed, Laman and Lemuel again began to murmur, saying:
How is it possible that the Lord will deliver Laban into our hands? Behold, he is a mighty man, and he can command fifty, yea, even he can slay fifty; then why not us? (1 Ne. 3:28-31).
Now behold ye know that this [story about Moses] is true; and ye also know that an angel hath spoken unto you; wherefore can ye doubt? (1 Ne. 4:3).
The language here is telling: “ye also know,” just as you know what happened in Egypt hundreds of years ago. This isn’t the way he would speak if the angelic visitation were just an obvious fact. He’s appealing to their faith. He’s saying, in effect, “Come on, you have to admit that guy was an angel, right?”
How successful was Nephi’s attempt at persuasion?
Now when I had spoken these words, they were yet wroth, and did still continue to murmur (1 Ne. 4:4).
They weren’t convinced. Nephi wasn’t pointing out the obvious; he was arguing for a particular interpretation of what had just happened.
I’ve just been reading in 3 Nephi 28 about the disciples commonly known as the Three Nephites (although the Book of Mormon never actually specifies their ethnicity). They were transformed into such beings “as the angels of God” (3 Ne. 28:30) but not changed to the same degree as those who are resurrected, and they apparently still looked like ordinary people, since one would scarcely try to put an obvious angel in prison.
My first thought was that Laman and Lemuel's "angel" might have been the same sort of person -- what Mormons call a "translated being," who is made quasi-immortal without dying. But who, exactly? The only figures we know of before the time in question who may not have died are Enoch, Moses, and Elijah. Moses is an interesting possibility, because after the "angel" leaves, Nephi immediately begins talking about Moses -- but on balance I think it was probably not Moses for that very reason. Nephi talks about Moses and then about the angel; if he suspected that the angel was Moses, he would surely have said something to that effect. And if he had no such suspicions, then his talking about Moses was just a massive coincidence. To be clear, I do accept the reality of massive coincidences, but all in all Moses just doesn't fit. Why would that particular person have been sent to encourage them on their quest for the brass plates?
There's someone who fits much better -- not a translated being after all.
In my September 23 post "Who were the 13 luminous beings Lehi saw in his Jerusalem vision?" (which you should read now if you haven't yet), I propose that the book Lehi reads in his vision represents Laban's brass plates, the record of the descendants of Joseph, and that the being who gives it to him is Joseph himself. In explaining why I thought this, I referred to Joseph's dreams as recorded in Genesis 37. Here's how his brothers reacted to the first of these:
And his [elder] brethren said to him, Shalt thou indeed reign over us? or shalt thou indeed have dominion over us? And they hated him yet the more for his dreams, and for his words (Gen. 37:8).
Compare this to what the angel says to Nephi's brothers:
Why do ye smite your younger brother with a rod? Know ye not that the Lord hath chosen him to be a ruler over you, and this because of your iniquities? (1 Ne. 3:29).
This fits perfectly, I think. Lehi and Nephi were righteous descendants of Joseph, but the Josephite record -- the brass book -- was currently in the hands of the wicked Laban. This ancestral spirit, as a post-mortal "angel," first appears to Lehi and allows him to read some of the brass book and then intervenes to help Nephi secure it. And just as Joseph told his elder brothers that he would rule over them, making them so angry that they plotted his death, so he came to deliver a similar message to Nephi's elder brothers.
One other little supporting detail is that the angel promises that "the Lord will deliver Laban into your hands" (1 Ne. 3:29). This is the first time deliver and hands occur together in the Book of Mormon, and the next several occurrences are all in this story of getting the brass plates from Laban. The first two times deliver and hands occur together in the King James Bible are both in, of all places, Genesis 37:
And Reuben heard it [the plot to kill Joseph], and he delivered him out of their hands; and said, Let us not kill him. And Reuben said unto them, Shed no blood, but cast him into this pit that is in the wilderness, and lay no hand upon him; that he might rid him out of their hands, to deliver him to his father again (Gen. 37:21-22).
Under the subconscious biblical contamination theory, the choice of words suggests a link between Joseph and the events of 1 Nephi 3-4, as if Joseph Smith subconsciously understood who the "angel" was.
Eric said...
Speaking of angels who don't overwhelm people with their glory, the story comes to mind of when Abraham and Sarah were told about Isaac's birth, and the angels' subsequent deliverance of Lot from Sodom.
And it came to pass that the Spirit said unto me, "Look!"And I looked and beheld a tree; and it was like unto the tree which my father had seen; and the beauty thereof was far beyond, yea, exceeding of all beauty; and the whiteness thereof did exceed the whiteness of the driven snow.And it came to pass after I had seen the tree, I said unto the Spirit, "I behold thou hast shown unto me the tree which is precious above all."And he said unto me, "What desirest thou?"And I said unto him, "To know the interpretation thereof" -- for I spake unto him as a man speaketh; for I beheld that he was in the form of a man; yet nevertheless, I knew that it was the Spirit of the Lord; and he spake unto me as a man speaketh with another.And it came to pass that he said unto me, "Look!"And I looked as if to look upon him, and I saw him not; for he had gone from before my presence. And it came to pass that I looked and beheld the great city of Jerusalem, and also other cities. And I beheld the city of Nazareth; and in the city of Nazareth I beheld a virgin, and she was exceedingly fair and white.And it came to pass that I saw the heavens open; and an angel came down and stood before me; and he said unto me, "Nephi, what beholdest thou?"And I said unto him, "A virgin, most beautiful and fair above all other virgins."And he said unto me, "Knowest thou the condescension of God?"And I said unto him, "I know that he loveth his children; nevertheless, I do not know the meaning of all things."And he said unto me, "Behold, the virgin whom thou seest is the mother of God, after the manner of the flesh."And it came to pass that I beheld that she was carried away in the Spirit; and after she had been carried away in the Spirit for the space of a time the angel spake unto me, saying, "Look!"And I looked and beheld the virgin again, bearing a child in her arms.And the angel said unto me: "Behold the Lamb of God, yea, even the Eternal Father! Knowest thou the meaning of the tree which thy father saw?" (1 Ne. 8:11-21)
Annunciation(Words of the Angel)
You are not nearer God than we;he's far from everyone.And yet your hands most wonderfullyreveal his benison.From woman's sleeves none ever grewso ripe, so shimmeringly:I am the day, I am the dew,you, Lady, are the Tree.Pardon, now my long journey's done,I had forgot to saywhat he who sat as in the sun,grand in his gold array,told me to tell you, pensive one(space has bewildered me).I am the start of what's begun,you, Lady, are the Tree.I spread my wings out wide and rose,the space around grew less;your little house quite overflowswith my abundant dress.But still you keep your solitudeand hardly notice me:I'm but a breeze within the wood,you, Lady, are the Tree.The angels tremble in their choir,grow pale, and separate:never were longing and desireso vague and yet so great.Something perhaps is going to bethat you perceived in dream.Hail to you! for my soul can seethat you are ripe and teem.You lofty gate, that any daymay open for our good:you ear my longing songs assay,my word -- I know now -- lost its wayin you as in a wood.And thus your last dream was designedto be fulfilled by me.God looked at me: he made me blind . . .You, Lady, are the Tree.
HomeStadter said...
This passage of the Book of Mormon is possibly more Marian than the Magnificat or Symeons tribute to her. That says Mary is highly favored, this puts her on a level of the godhead, or pretty close.
Catholics went ahead and did that anyways, going beyond the scripture they have. I served in Mexico, which has a strong Marian tradition because of the five Marian apparitions to Jaun Diego. I had a Mexican companion who would read from this passage (v13-18) when people would say something like, your message is very nice but I can't leave the religion of my fathers and give up venerating Mary.They were always surprised that we had this passage in our book. This didn't convert anybody, but reduced contentions considerably and made it clear we weren't another variety of evangelical.
Still, I am not sure of what to do with this passage. In the LDS church we only pray to the Father in the name of Jesus. The scriptural basis for this is the instructions given by Jesus in 3 Nephi. I would put that instruction firmly in the category of - I'm going to make the gospel very simple and well defined so there are no disputations among you. Likely there is not anything neccesarily wrong with praying to other members of the godhead, in principle, and that instruction is to prevent disputations. Which means that criticizing catholics for praying to Mary might be keeping the letter of the law we have been given, but absolutely missing the spirit of it.
This simplified gospel to avoid disputations worked very well for the Lehite nations - they were extraordinarily united.
In modern times though, this reminds me of the xkcd comic:
panel 1 - there are 15 different software coding standards
panel 2 - Hey we should make a standard that incorporates the best of all these, that is simple and easy to use so there is a universal standard.
panel 3 - lots of working, meetings, etc.
panel 4 - Title: Very soon. There are 16 different established software coding standards.
One final thought - the tree is the love* of God, and as you say it is Mary, the mother of Jesus. I think the principle here may be that love, in order to exist, needs to be between at least two people (and for the highest form a male-female dyad). That is it must be reciprocated, living water, not stagnant water, and one sided love goes bad. In Moroni we learn Jesus is our pure source of love. I suspect that for him to be a source of love he must be in an established perfected loving relationship, such as a mother-son (or possibly husband-wife.) That's why it is identifying the tree (love of God) with Mary (most beautiful corresponding to most desirable, also fair and white like the fruit) and also with Jesus (sheddeth abroad (children of men) corresponding to going forth among the children of men, also word of God like the iron rod).
*As per the fourth gospel I think of this love as also being light and life to keep it clear what this is.
Among the records on the brass plates were what Nephi describes as "the five books of Moses, which gave an account of the creation of the world, and also of Adam and Eve, who were our first parents" (1 Ne. 5). Since our Bibles also contain "five books of Moses" -- the Torah or Pentateuch, comprising Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy -- it is natural to assume that the Nephites had these same five books.
I doubt this.
First, as Daymon Smith has pointed out in his Cultural History of the Book of Mormon, the description Nephi gives, while technically true of the Torah we have, would be a very odd way of summarizing it. If you were to read Nephi with no prior knowledge of the Bible, you would assume there were five books about the Creation and Adam and Eve. In fact only one of the Torah's five books, Genesis, touches on these topics, and only very briefly, in its first few chapters. The Torah as we have it is roughly 2% about the Creation and Adam and Eve, 25% about the Patriarchs, and 73% about the life and law of Moses.
(Smith's theory is that the original five books of Moses were lost to the Jews when the brass plates left Jerusalem with Lehi, and that the Torah we have is a collection of pseudepigrapha, cobbled together by later writers from oral traditions, and organized into five books because one of those surviving traditions was that there had been "five books of Moses." I would hesitate to go that far, but Smith deserves credit for pointing out that just because a book has a familiar name doesn't necessarily mean it's the same book we know.)
Second, one of the first things I discovered after starting this blog was that the Nephites knew nothing about Aaron or the Aaronide priesthood. In the Old Testament we have, Aaron is a very major figure, mentioned nearly half as often as Moses himself; but if you read only the Book of Mormon, you wouldn't even know that Aaron existed. To me this is very strong evidence that the "five books of Moses" on the brass plates were different from our Torah, and specifically that they probably didn't include anything like Leviticus or the other "Priestly" material.
Since we can't simply take it for granted that the Nephites had the same Torah that we have, the purpose of this post is to explore possible differences between the story of Moses and the Exodus as known to the Nephites and the version we have in our Bibles.
1. A much shorter sojourn in Egypt?
According to the Torah as we have it, the Israelites left Egypt with Moses exactly 430 years after their ancestor Jacob and his family had taken up residence there (Ex. 12:40-41) -- but we are also told that Jacob's grandson Kohath was among those who entered Egypt (Gen. 46:8-11), and that Moses was Kohath's grandson (Ex. 6:18-20). Kohath lived 133 years; Moses' father, Amram, lived 137; and Moses died at 120 (Deut. 34:7) -- so there's no way to make the numbers work. What does the Book of Mormon say on the question? Did the Israelites live in Egypt for more than four centuries, or only for three generations?
Neither.
And it came to pass that my father, Lehi, also found upon the plates of brass a genealogy of his fathers; wherefore he knew that he was a descendant of Joseph; yea, even that Joseph who was the son of Jacob, who was sold into Egypt, and who was preserved by the hand of the Lord, that he might preserve his father, Jacob, and all his household from perishing with famine. And they were also led out of captivity and out of the land of Egypt, by that same God who had preserved them (1 Ne. 5:15).
To whom do the pronouns I have bolded refer? Who have we just been told God preserved? Joseph, and then, via Joseph, Jacob and his household. Those same people -- the people who were saved from the famine by Joseph -- were led out of the land of Egypt. We are told in Ether 13:7 that either Joseph himself or Jacob died in Egypt, but not all of that generation did. Those who had known Joseph lived to see Moses -- into Egypt and out in a single lifetime.
Doesn't that make more sense anyway? Wouldn't you expect the Israelite culture to have been deeply influenced by that of Egypt if they had really lived there for 430 years? Do you see any signs of that at all in the Bible? There are plenty of pagan fingerprints there, to be sure, but all Canaanite and Mesopotamian, not Egyptian.
In the Torah we have, Joseph enters Egypt as a slave but rises from that station to become second only to Pharaoh in power. When his family joins him in Egypt, they come as honored guests. But then when the Israelites leave Egypt, they are slaves again. Exodus explains this by way of "a new king over Egypt, which knew not Joseph" (Ex. 1:8) -- because he lived 400-some years after Joseph! -- who decided to re-enslave this formerly high-ranking family. In the condensed timeline suggested by the Book of Mormon, there's no reason to assume the Israelites in Egypt were ever anything other than slaves.
This timeline also fits better with the prophecy of Joseph, quoted by Lehi:
Yea, Joseph truly said: Thus saith the Lord unto me: A choice seer will I raise up out of the fruit of thy loins . . . . And he shall be great like unto Moses, whom I have said I would raise up unto you, to deliver my people, O house of Israel. And Moses will I raise up, to deliver thy people out of the land of Egypt. . . . Yea, thus prophesied Joseph: I am sure of this thing [the coming of the seer], even as I am sure of the promise of Moses; for the Lord hath said unto me, I will preserve thy seed forever (2 Ne. 3:7, 9-10, 16).
Back in my deboonking days, I used to cite this as evidence against the Book of Mormon: Joseph Smith carelessly has the Lord tell Joseph about a future seer who "shall be great like unto Moses," and then, remembering too late that Moses lived after Joseph, Smith tries to salvage the prophecy by having the Lord add parenthetically, "oh, and by the way, there's going to be this guy called Moses." (We see something similar in Ether 13, where we are told that Ether prophesied about the New Jerusalem, oh, and by the way about the yet-to-be-built original Jerusalem, too.) Obviously a clumsy mistake on the part of Joseph Smith, not a genuinely ancient prophecy.
This argument evaporates, and the prophecy reads much more naturally, if we assume that Joseph knew Moses. They were contemporaries. The Lord doesn't say "a great prophet whose name will be Moses"; he just says "Moses." They knew who Moses was. He was already a public figure, perhaps a prince in the court of Pharaoh as in the Torah we have, and the Lord was promising to "raise up" this Moses and make of him a deliverer for Joseph and his people.
This would make it impossible for Moses to be a descendant of Levi, but that's only a problem if we think the Aaronic/Levitical priesthood was instituted by Moses, and we don't think that.
2. How the Red Sea was parted
In Exodus, the only action Moses performs to part the Red Sea is to lift up his rod and stretch out his hand over the sea:
And the Lord said unto Moses, . . . But lift thou up thy rod, and stretch out thine hand over the sea, and divide it: and the children of Israel shall go on dry ground through the midst of the sea. . . . And Moses stretched out his hand over the sea; and the Lord caused the sea to go back by a strong east wind all that night, and made the sea dry land, and the waters were divided (Ex. 14:15-16, 26).
According to Nephi in the Book of Mormon, Moses parted the Red Sea by speaking to it:
Let us be strong like unto Moses; for he truly spake unto the waters of the Red Sea and they divided hither and thither (1 Ne. 4:2-3).
Now ye know that Moses was commanded of the Lord to do that great work; and ye know that by his word the waters of the Red Sea were divided hither and thither, and they passed through on dry ground (1 Ne. 17:26).
A much later Nephi, the son of Helaman, is perhaps confusing Moses with Elijah or Elisha (2 Kgs. 2:1-2, 5-15) when he speaks of him smiting the Red Sea to part the waters:
Behold, my brethren, have ye not read that God gave power unto one man, even Moses, to smite upon the waters of the Red Sea, and they parted hither and thither, insomuch that the Israelites, who were our fathers, came through upon dry ground, and the waters closed upon the armies of the Egyptians and swallowed them up? (Hel. 8:11).
3. The serpents
In the Torah, the Lord sends "fiery serpents" (seraphim) to bite the Israelites (Num. 21:6). Nephi calls them "fiery flying serpents" (1 Ne. 17:41). This is a phrase from Isaiah (14:29 and 30:6) and perhaps reflects Nephi's obvious interest in that book more than any variant version of the Exodus story he may have had.
When Moses prepares a serpent of brass on which victims of the seraphim may look to be healed, the Book of Mormon adds that many people simply refused to do so and thus perished. The Torah says nothing of this.
He sent fiery flying serpents among them; and after they were bitten he prepared a way that they might be healed; and the labor which they had to perform was to look; and because of the simpleness of the way, or the easiness of it, there were many who perished (1 Ne. 17:41).
The Son of God . . . was spoken of by Moses; yea, and behold a type was raised up in the wilderness, that whosoever would look upon it might live. And many did look and live. But few understood the meaning of those things, and this because of the hardness of their hearts. But there were many who were so hardened that they would not look, therefore they perished. Now the reason they would not look is because they did not believe that it would heal them (Alma 33:18-20).
One other possible difference is that the Book of Mormon says God "gave unto Moses power that he should heal the nations after they had been bitten by the poisonous serpents" (2 Ne. 25:20). "The nations" -- goyim -- typically means non-Israelite peoples, but in the Torah only Israelites are bitten. It's possible that "nations" here refers to the twelve tribes, though.
4. Messianic prophecies
In the Torah, the only hint of a Messianic prophecy from Moses -- and thus the sole foundation of the Samaritan Messianic tradition -- is the promise of a future "prophet" (later called the Taheb) in Deuteronomy 18:
The Lord thy God will raise up unto thee a Prophet from the midst of thee, of thy brethren, like unto me; unto him ye shall hearken; . . .
And the Lord said unto me, . . . I will raise them up a Prophet from among their brethren, like unto thee, and will put my words in his mouth; and he shall speak unto them all that I shall command him. And it shall come to pass, that whosoever will not hearken unto my words which he shall speak in my name, I will require it of him (Deut. 18:15, 17-19).
The Book of Mormon refers several times to a slightly different version of this. The main difference is that the specific punishment of being "cut off from among the people" replaces Deuteronomy's vague "I will require it of him":
Moses . . . spake, saying: A prophet shall the Lord your God raise up unto you, like unto me; him shall ye hear in all things whatsoever he shall say unto you. And it shall come to pass that all those who will not hear that prophet shall be cut off from among the people (1 Ne. 22:20).
Behold, I [Jesus] am he of whom Moses spake, saying: A prophet shall the Lord your God raise up unto you of your brethren, like unto me; him shall ye hear in all things whatsoever he shall say unto you. And it shall come to pass that every soul who will not hear that prophet shall be cut off from among the people (3 Ne. 20:23).
Therefore it shall come to pass that whosoever will not believe in my words, who am Jesus Christ, which the Father shall cause him to bring forth unto the Gentiles, and shall give unto him power that he shall bring them forth unto the Gentiles, (it shall be done even as Moses said) they shall be cut off from among my people who are of the covenant (3 Ne. 21:11).
The above references clearly cite Moses as the source of this saying, including the "cut off from among the people" but, but he never says it in the Torah we have. In fact, Deuteronomy, the only book of the Torah to mention the promised Prophet, is also the only one to have no references to this sort of "cutting off."
Besides this slightly different version of the Taheb prophecy, the Book of Mormon attributes more explicitly Christian prophecies to Moses but gives few details:
For behold, did not Moses prophesy unto them concerning the coming of the Messiah, and that God should redeem his people? (Mosiah 13:33).
[Zenos and Zenock] are not the only ones who have spoken concerning the Son of God. Behold, he was spoken of by Moses; yea, and behold a type was raised up in the wilderness, that whosoever would look upon it might live (Alma 33:18-19).
Moses . . . hath spoken concerning the coming of the Messiah. Yea, did he not bear record that the Son of God should come? And as he lifted up the brazen serpent in the wilderness, even so shall he be lifted up who should come. And as many as should look upon that serpent should live, even so as many as should look upon the Son of God with faith, having a contrite spirit, might live, even unto that life which is eternal (Hel. 8:13-15).
The Helaman reference above (from Nephi the son of Helaman) is the only one to give any detail, but it is not clear how much of it is being attributed to Moses. Moses said the Son of God should come, and Moses lifted up the serpent -- but did he connect the two, and say that the Son would be lifted up like the serpent, or was that connection made by later prophets like Alma and Nephi?
5. The Lord's "burial" of Moses
The Book of Mormon reports speculation that Alma the Younger's mortal life may have ended in the same unusual way as that of Moses:
Behold, this we know, that [Alma] was a righteous man; and the saying went abroad in the church that he was taken up by the Spirit, or buried by the hand of the Lord, even as Moses. But behold, the scriptures saith the Lord took Moses unto himself; and we suppose that he has also received Alma in the spirit, unto himself; therefore, for this cause we know nothing concerning his death and burial" (Alma 45:19).
Deuteronomy also has an account of Moses being "buried by the hand of the Lord" after viewing the Promised Land from the top of Mt. Nebo in Moab:
And the Lord said unto him, This is the land which I sware unto Abraham, unto Isaac, and unto Jacob, saying, I will give it unto thy seed: I have caused thee to see it with thine eyes, but thou shalt not go over thither.
So Moses the servant of the Lord died there in the land of Moab, according to the word of the Lord. And he [the Lord] buried him in a valley in the land of Moab, over against Bethpeor: but no man knoweth of his sepulchre unto this day. And Moses was an hundred and twenty years old when he died: his eye was not dim, nor his natural force abated (Deut. 34:4-7).
These are obviously forms of the same tradition, but they are not the same. Deuteronomy is quite specific that the Lord buried Moses in a specific location on earth ("in a valley in the land of Moab, over against Bethpeor"), which seems to preclude reading the "burial" as a figurative reference to Moses being "taken up by the Spirit." I guess you could read it as giving the location from which Moses was translated to heaven (just as Elijah was translated on the bank of the Jordan) but it seems pretty forced. "Buried" seems like a pretty odd metaphor for being taken up into heaven, too.
More definitively, the Book of Mormon (I suppose it is Mormon writing in his own voice) clearly states that "the scriptures saith the Lord took Moses unto himself" -- but no scripture that made it into our Bible does say that or anything like it. Therefore, the Nephites had a different account of the end of Moses' life, not simply a different interpretation of Deuteronomy.
Ben Pratt said...
I remember a specific moment on a tour bus for a high school music trip when I was discussing scriptures with some friends belonging to other Christian denominations, and they were balking at the story of the Three Nephites. As support for the account I referenced what happened to John the Beloved and was surprised and embarrassed when their quite reasonable reading of John 21:23 weakened my argument instead! (NB: reading it again now it is clearly a later insertion and to me it feels misleading.) It was not the first and certainly not the last time that I recognized that my reading of the Bible is heavily colored by my familiarity with and acceptance of the Book of Mormon.
Today I'm in the same spot, for I had never recognized before that the account of some of the hosts of Israel perishing for refusing to look upon the brass serpent is unique to the Book of Mormon. "The five books of Moses" whew!
I haven't commented over here yet but I've really been enjoying this blog.Wm Jas Tychonievich said...
Many such cases. In Rough Stone Rolling, Richard Lyman Bushman lists everything the Bible says about Enoch, his point being how little there is of it compared to what Joseph Smith added, but he still manages to write that before Smith's Enoch revelations, "Bible readers had always been curious about Enoch and the city transported into heaven" -- somehow missing the fact that neither the Bible nor any of the apocryphal Enoch literature contains so much as a hint of any such city!
HomeStadter said...
Do you see any signs of Egyptian influence in the bible?
Isn't the gold calf egyptian?
who decided to re-enslave this formerly high ranking family?
Here is an attempt to explain how Joseph (and presumably descendants) ruled alongside native pharoahs. You may find it interesting. https://twitter.com/Mssr_le_Baron/status/1457195867463565312
Under the one generation model, do we not have rebellion in the wilderness and them longing for the fleshpots of Egypt? Why would they have rebelled? In the KJV model the explanation for no Egyptianness might be that the 40 years in the wilderness worked - God rooted it out by being a very strict taskmaster - although it is odd that he deliberately left Canaanites in the land to tempt and try the nation of Israel after that.
Jospeh and the one like Moses could also be explained by Joseph prophesying of Moses earlier in that section, which was not quoted, since the quoting took place after Moses.
2. re Red sea parting - your examples here made me think of the phrase, 'smite them with the rod of my mouth', looking it up that phrase occurs in Isaiah 11:4.
What are your thoughts on the scholarly 'sources' - J, E, P, Deuteronomist? Possibly correct and none of them were actual inspired records? I've read the theory that Laman and Lemuel were Deuteronomists, and that explained a lot of their reasoning. In any case it occurs to me that this compiling would have taken place with the same generation as Nephi, and so it would share something of a kinship with 1 and 2 Nephi - same generation, drawing on some of the same source material, either directly or at some remove.
I'm enjoying this blog - if you prefer I keep my nitpicky comments to yourself, let me know.Eric said...
The popular idea in the world is that Deuteronomy (and many of the other books of the Old Testament) reached the form we know during the captivity in Babylon. So, it wouldn't surprise me if a lot of the Egyptian elements of Israel's culture were stripped from their records at that time--to say nothing of any elements that would make their beliefs more Christian than most people assume who don't believe in the Book of Mormon.
Wm Jas Tychonievich said...
HomeStadter, nitpicky comments are always welcome!
No, I don't see anything clearly Egyptian in the Bible. Freud tried to trace monotheism itself to Egyptian influence, but I don't find his case convincing. As for the golden calf, it could just as easily be Mesopotamian or Canaanite as Egyptian; virtually all Mediterranean cultures used bull imagery in their worship.
I don't think the rebellion in the wilderness and the desire to return to Egypt requires that they were in Egypt for a long time. Whatever the timeline, they left Egypt as slaves living under harsh conditions, and yet they still wanted to return because it was more comfortable than their life in the desert.
"Smite them with the rod of my mouth" is a good find -- all three sea-parting mechanisms united in a single metaphor!
I'm broadly sympathetic to the Documentary Hypothesis in its general outlines. What is it about Laman and Lemuel that seems "Deuteronomist"?HomeStadter said...
I believe I was thinking of this article: https://journal.interpreterfoundation.org/the-deuteronomist-reforms-and-lehis-family-dynamics-a-social-context-for-the-rebellions-of-laman-and-lemuel/
Basically, they emphasized outward observances of the Law and a centralized religion focused on the temple rites at Jerusalem and were suspicious of Lehi's and Nephi's DIY approach to seeking God. Which kind of goes along with your post on the Aaronic priesthood, but implies Nephi and Lehi knew about and rejected it and Nephi deliberately didn't teach it or record it.
LDS Discussions, which is maintained by the pseudonymous "Mike" and is one of the more even-handed anti-Mormon sites out there, has a whole essay on the question of "Tight vs Loose Translation" of the Book of Mormon, defining the terms thus:
Tight translation: As outlined above by FAIR's use of Emma Smith’s quote above, a tight translation is where Joseph Smith is directly translating the Book of Mormon via the seer/peep stone in the hat word for word. The translation of the plates would appear on Joseph Smith’s seer/peep stone in the hat, and Joseph Smith would dictate them to his scribe. This method of translation is a literal one and does not afford Joseph Smith the ability to change or alter the words as the tight translation must be direct for the stone to reveal further words as we will see from the accounts of the translation.
Loose translation: This method of translation would give Joseph Smith "inspiration" through revelation, which allowed Joseph Smith the freedom to dictate the text of the Book of Mormon through his own milieu, putting the text of the Book of Mormon in his own words. Effectively Joseph Smith would be given the general lessons and concepts through revelations, but it was then left to Joseph Smith to weave those into a story that could be understood in his time. Some have argued that this would be a revelation of “pure intelligence” where Joseph Smith was flooded with the story itself, some say Joseph Smith could see the actual Book of Mormon events in visions, and some say he got literal translations but was then free to make changes as he saw fit.
Mike's argument is that all eyewitness accounts of the translation support the "tight translation" theory: Joseph Smith saw a bit of text, read it out, made sure his scribe had copied it down correctly (including spelling), then saw the next bit of text, and so on. This implies that every word of the text was revealed, and that Smith played no more active or creative a role in the production of the text than did his scribes. A few aspects of the text -- for example, the use of unfamiliar words like cureloms and ziff, which were not understood by Smith but were faithfully copied down as received -- support this theory.
Overall, though, the English text of the Book of Mormon strongly implies a loose translation. It is full of anachronisms, historically problematic uses of the King James Bible, and 19th-century Protestant theology. The original text was also full of misspellings and grammatical errors, most of which have since been corrected. Smith himself also apparently felt at liberty to alter the revealed text in more substantial ways -- for example by inserting "the son of" in places where the first edition had portrayed Jesus as being God himself. All these issues constitute overwhelming evidence that, if the text of the Book of Mormon was indeed revealed, the revelation was filtered through the limited understanding of Joseph Smith, introducing countless errors and changes that were not in the original source text on the golden plates.
Mike argues that defenders of the Book of Mormon can't have it both ways: They can't say that the text was revealed word for word, as all eyewitnesses attest, and then turn around and say that problematic aspects of the text reflect Joseph Smith's own language and limited understanding.
I believe we can have it both ways. My own theory is that Joseph Smith experienced every word of the text as "given" or revealed -- that he was reading off what he saw, not consciously interpreting it or putting it in his own words -- but that what he saw was nevertheless substantially influenced and corrupted by his own understanding.
I briefly introduced this theory in my inaugural post here, "Lehi, Nephi, and the pillar of fire that "dwelt upon a rock": A case study of hard-to-define biblical parallels" (September 2023). I gave an example from my own experience as a dabbler in the art of remote viewing, in which one is given a string of numbers which have been assigned to a "target" about which one knows nothing and then attempts to perceive that target by psychic means. Later, the identity of the target is revealed, and the accuracy of the viewing can be assessed.
In the example I discussed there, I received and sketched an image of a sloping roof with dark shingles, with a very large snail shell on it. After the viewing, I checked the target image and found that it was indeed a photograph of a snail shell on a dark surface sloping in the direction indicated in my sketch -- but that the surface was rock, not a shingled roof. This was undeniably a "hit," an example of successful extrasensory perception -- the odds of my having seen a snail shell on a dark sloping surface by chance are effectively zero -- but the "shingled roof" aspect was an error. Did I see a dark sloping surface and then reason that it was most likely a shingled roof? No. I saw the roof -- including the opposite slope, with no snail on it -- just as clearly as I saw everything else. The whole thing was experienced as "given," with absolutely no sense that I was interpreting or expanding on what I saw. And yet, apparently, I was. The roof came not from the target image but from my own experience and expectations about the likely identity of dark sloping surfaces.
I recently read an even clearer example of this sort of thing from a much more professional remote viewer: Courtney Brown of the Farsight Institute, in his magnum opus, Remote Viewing: The Science and Theory of Nonphysical Perception. Brown is describing two different remote-viewing sessions in which, unbeknownst to him going in, the target was the same: the assassination of Abraham Lincoln.
The first of the two sessions is very accurate with regard to location and environment. Descriptions of Washington, D.C. are very clear. Descriptions and sketches of various landmarks (such as the Washington Monument and what appears to be the Lincoln Memorial) in Washington, D.C. are also clear. Descriptions and sketches of what appears to be the Ford Theater are quite good . . . . The session is also very accurate with regard to perceptions of the nature of the primary subject (a U.S. president). In this session I do not perceive the actual attack on President Lincoln, although I do report a mental despondency on the part of the President at the time of the assassination event.
The second of my two sessions for this target is also very accurate with regard to location and environment. Descriptions of Washington, D.C. are very clear. Descriptions of various landmarks (such as the Washington Monument and the Lincoln Memorial) in Washington, D.C. are also clear, and some of the sketches with identifying deductions are quite remarkable. (See figures 6.1, 6.2a, and 6.2b.) Descriptions and sketches of what appear to be the Ford Theater (or components of the Ford Theater) are quite good. However, I do not perceive the actual attack on President Lincoln.
This gibes with my own experience -- that the relative "importance" or salience of different aspects of the target seems to have no effect on remote viewing, and that often peripheral elements are perceived at the expense of the main target. Still, getting clear images of Washington, D.C., both times is impressive, given that this was part of an experiment with dozens of sessions, with targets ranging from an 18th-century naval battle to the largest crater on the Moon. Brown's perceptions of the Washington Monument and the Lincoln Memorial were so clear that they were chosen as cover illustrations for the paperback edition of the book. But one major problem, which Brown fails to mention, is that there was obviously no Lincoln Memorial at the time of Lincoln's assassination. This element of his viewing is a glaring anachronism.
Nevertheless, Brown perceived the Lincoln Memorial in direct low-level terms. It's not as if he got a general impression of Washington and then filled in the details based on his own knowledge -- not consciously, at any rate. Here are the figures mentioned in the text I have quoted above:
Laeth said...
I never commented before (because I didn't have anything to add), but I love your explorations of Book of Mormon lore. So, thank you.
Also, this post immediately reminded me of this interview with a Mormon practitioner of remote viewing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7X93SblH8woWm Jas Tychonievich said...
Thanks, Laeth. This blog gets relatively little visible engagement, so it's good to know it is in fact being read and appreciated.
HomeStadter said...
I thought from your plug on the main blog that you were going to try and remote view the actual translation process itself. But this post is good too.
Do you have any thoughts about those who see anachronisms but they are to ~1600 England, not 1800s New York. For example, Skousen thinks 'pleasing bar of God' was the clerk transcribing 'pleading bar of God' incorrectly 'pleading bar' being a 1500s or so legal terminology long archaic aby the 1800s, and 'pleasing bar' not existing in the English language prior to the Book of Mormon.
Re: Deutero-Isaiah. It is odd that trito-Isaiah (and also the first chapter), is not quoted at all in the BOM. Your theory explains the first, but not the second, unless that happened by pure chance.WJT said...
Interesting points, HS.
Regarding Trito-Isaiah, I think it is referenced in the BoM — for example “the robe of righteousness” (Isa. 61:10, 2 Ne. 9:14) — though no chapters are reproduced wholesale. Colby Townsend has done some work on this, I believe.
“Pleasing bar” is certainly an odd turn of phrase, and Skousen’s emendation makes a lot of sense. I would assume that “pleading bar” probably was known by JS, not in its original legal sense but as a religious metaphor. Religious language tends to be conservative like that. It might be worth looking into.HomeStadter said...
Yes, I think I will be reading his 'The Earliest Text' next. I just finished Bradleys '116 pages'.
If I may, your theory is that the Book of Mormon was engraved in a highly condensed form and Joseph Smith unpacked it into its current form, similar to Daniel extracting all that meaning from the words 'mene mene tekek upharsin'. However, it was strictly speaking his subconscious (including spiritual gifts) that did the translation, without conscious awareness. Assumed is that the subconscious has total recall to incorporate phrases such as 'robes of righteousness' but does not know things that never occurred to Joseph Smith, which is why the style of the Book of Mormon diverges wildly from the KJV in some ways, some of them ways that would be obvious to even the most rudimentary scholar of linguistics. In short someone other than Joseph Smith (the conscious Joseph Smith, at least) translated it, and it was not Deity either. Kind of crazy, but other explanations have some severe problems as well.
This attempted 'translation' of some of the copied down characters, are of interest to this discussion: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yciPd61VHaYWm Jas Tychonievich said...
I saw that about the translation of the "Caractors" document. I've downloaded his paper about it but haven't had time to look at it yet.
S. Carmack said...
Let's get real about the Book of Mormon. Skousen's done a lot of real text-critical work, since 1988 and finishing this year, so 36 years. And since 2014, S. Carmack has collaborated.
The more accurate terminology, from Skousen 1998, is tight control and loose control. Still, these terms are easily confused and conflated with tight and loose translation, which many associate with literal/functional/conceptual translation modes. Better to be clear by using the plain terminology: revealed words / ideas. Of course, from a non-revealed perspective, the text of 270k words was just a creative dictation of fiction, somehow accomplished in under 70 days of dictation (see John Welch, BYU Studies, 2020?, for the estimate).
But suppose one thinks it was the result of revelation. 188 unique names in thousands of instances argue for words, since names are words not ideas. Also, even if Joseph Smith in 1820s America was somehow a native speaker of 1590s Elizabethan English (which is still a view held by some today, who are invested in the text being a revelation of ideas), the FORM of the English language could not have been achieved by a mere mortal such as Smith. That's a real problem.
Ultimately, from a revelatory perspective, the lexis and syntax (and even the biblical quotes), argue that the Lord sent Smith words in 1829 (as is rather plainly suggested in 2n2724).
Indeed, syntactically speaking, the Book of Mormon is quite different from roughly contemporary pseudo-archaic production. And it is also quite different in various ways from King James syntax. And there are important aspects that even an Elizabethan speaker would not have produced. One is the heavily finite clausal complementation after several high-frequency verbs of influence, the main ones being cause, command, suffer. Hundreds of instances. No other English text has its level of finite complementation. And no text has its level of obsolete ditransitive finite complementation after these three verbs, either. There was no model of these things for Smith, and no pseudo-archaic text is this way. Smith's model was heavy infinitival complementation for these verbs.
There are many other syntactic and lexical niceties to consider, which constitute the most objective evidence, and I won't bother you with any more.
And it was by night; and I caused that they should hide themselves without the walls. And after they had hid themselves, I, Nephi, crept into the city and went forth towards the house of Laban.And I was led by the spirit, not knowing beforehand the things which I should do.Nevertheless I went forth, and as I came near unto the house of Laban I beheld a man, and he had fallen to the earth before me, for he was drunken with wine.And when I came to him I found that it was Laban (1 Ne. 4:5-8).
And I beheld his sword, and I drew it forth from the sheath thereof; and the hilt thereof was of pure gold, and the workmanship thereof was exceedingly fine, and I saw that the blade thereof was of the most precious steel.And it came to pass that I was constrained by the spirit that I should kill Laban; but I said in my heart: Never at any time have I shed the blood of man. And I shrunk and would that I might not slay him (1 Ne. 4:9-10).
And the spirit said unto me again: Behold the Lord hath delivered him into thy hands. Yea, and I also knew that he had sought to take away mine own life; yea, and he would not hearken unto the commandments of the Lord; and he also had taken away our property (1 Ne. 4:11).
And it came to pass that the spirit said unto me again: Slay him, for the Lord hath delivered him into thy hands; behold the Lord slayeth the wicked to bring forth his righteous purposes. It is better that one man should perish than that a nation should dwindle and perish in unbelief.And now, when I, Nephi, had heard these words, I remembered the words of the Lord which he spake unto me in the wilderness, saying that: Inasmuch as thy seed shall keep my commandments, they shall prosper in the land of promise. Yea, and I also thought that they could not keep the commandments of the Lord according to the law of Moses, save they should have the law. And I also knew that the law was engraven upon the plates of brass. And again, I knew that the Lord had delivered Laban into my hands for this cause -- that I might obtain the records according to his commandments.Therefore I did obey the voice of the spirit, and took Laban by the hair of the head, and I smote off his head with his own sword (1 Ne. 4:12-18).
Then gathered the chief priests and the Pharisees a council, and said, What do we? for this man doeth many miracles. If we let him thus alone, all men will believe on him: and the Romans shall come and take away both our place and nation.And one of them, named Caiaphas, being the high priest that same year, said unto them, Ye know nothing at all, nor consider that it is expedient for us, that one man should die for the people, and that the whole nation perish not.And this spake he not of himself: but being high priest that year, he prophesied that Jesus should die for that nation; and not for that nation only, but that also he should gather together in one the children of God that were scattered abroad (John 11:47-52).
Moreover, we can suppose that the Brass Plates -- being removed from Jerusalem, immediately prior to its capture by Babylon -- also generated commentary and other metatext. Such metatext would've been preserved, carried to Babylon and eventually the gaps in the record were filled in by Babylonian traditions.
Eric said...
I'm smelling a lot of "if" coming off these ideas.
For me, Mr. Volluz is too disingenuous to take seriously. The last Nephites fell because of their own sins, and not for Nephi's (implied) transgression.WJT said...
I respect Corbin Volluz as a thinker.
I cannot write but a little of my words, because of the difficulty of engraving our words upon plates; and we know that the things which we write upon plates must remain; but whatsoever things we write upon anything save it be upon plates must perish and vanish away (Jacob 4:1-2).
The plates, witnesses reported, were partly sealed shut and were engraved with hieroglyphics, in the grooves of which was a "black, hard stain" that contrasted the characters against the golden page.
The characters are rubbed over with a black substance so as to fill them up, in order that the dazzling of the gold between the characters would not prevent their being readily seen.
The characters were "arranged in perpendicular columns, and the whole ended in a rude delineation of a circle divided into various compartments, decked with various strange marks." Anthon saw in this circular design an echo of "the Mexican Calendar given by Humboldt," meaning the Aztec calendar published by Alexander Von Humboldt in 1814.
Laeth said...
this is brilliant! it makes a lot of sense though it never occurred to me (nor have I seen it mentioned by anyone, not even the great Hugh Nibley). outstanding work.
Leo said...
That's a very compelling theory.
William Wright (WW) said...
I'm curious as to why would there have been stain on the Gold Plates for the intent of making exact copies? Who was copying and for what purpose?
Both Mormon and Moroni said they created the Gold Plates that became the Book of Mormon specifically as an act of preservation at the very end of that society, that no one in the future would know the language that had been written on them (and likely few in their day even knew, since it was written in this "Reformed Egyptian" rather than the "Hebrew" that seems to have been the common language of the day, or at least more common), and that the plates, and therefore the writing on them, was useless without the interpreters that would be given with them.
Similarly, Ether's plates were written in a language that no one could understand and which Mosiah had to use the interpreters in order to translate into his own language. Distributing copies of this record (which wasn't really allowed anyway) would have involved not printmaking, but handwritten copies of the translation that Mosiah read to the people.
In both cases, it doesn't seem that making exact paper copies or replicas of the characters was a priority or even desirable.
As for whether preserving records on gold plates (and brass) was foolish and unsafe, akin to putting all of your eggs in one basket, Alma explains how this works to Helaman and why it wasn't viewed as risky, by him at least. Joseph Smith personally found out what happens if anyone tried to grab the plates with any unrighteous intent.Leo said...
Those are really good points WW. I guess we’d have to assume Mormon was publishing printed copies as part of his late stage preaching to the Nephites. I don’t think that’s too hard to imagine but it does require reading something into the record that’s not explicitly stated.
WJT said...
Excellent points, WW, exactly the sort of useful feedback I was hoping for. I see I haven’t adequately distinguished between the plates of Nephi and Jacob, kept by priests and kings for many generations, and the plates of Mormon, created as a time capsule at the end of the Nephite civilization.
Which set of plates did the witnesses see, I wonder: the Book of Mormon proper, or the Small Account?Bruce Charlton said...
It's a good idea.
Gold plates are very soft, however, and every time a print was taken from them there would have been erosion and blurring. This wad a problem even with harder metal plates used for engraving, which is why He wicked innovation of using the end grain of (very hard and resistant) box wood was positively regarded.
As you say, gold Printing plates would need to be kept as a check primarily, and used as seldom as possible for making copies.Wm Jas Tychonievich said...
Gold is 2.5 Mohs, the same as zinc, which is commonly used for intaglio printing today.
Bruce Charlton said...
Op-ed
He wicked was spelled "corrected" from Bewick's...WJT said...
Ha! Given your strong opinions on just about everything, I figured you really did consider it a “wicked innovation” for some reason.
William Wright (WW) said...
Even if it was the small plates, I can't see that yet, either. Some of the stuff written on those plates (as we currently understand those contents - I think Doug did a good job of questioning what was on the plates that Mormon attached) was clearly not for public consumption. Things like Nephi's vision of the entire destruction of his civilization, for example.
Nephi, Jacob, and others also write as if those 'small plates' were primarily for preservation (expressly said that they were written for a future generation), and Jacob suggests that they did have other writings, teachings, probably scrolls and things, but only the very best or most needed was then transferred to and captured on plates, this being because of how difficult it was to engrave. In effect, rather than producing paper copies from plates, the intent seems to have been the opposite: to take teachings, including those from paper copies, and preserve only the most critical things on plates.
Mormon also had no knowledge of the small account or their contents until he stumbled upon them as he was pulling things together, which would suggest that copies of the text were not available even to him at that time. We might say that they didn't survive until then if they did exist, but that would still be a point in favor of plates vs. copies for preserving holy records, if so.
With respect to the Brass Plates example, Lehi seems to have had no ingoing knowledge of what the Plates actually said until he examined them (he just knew some general things, like genealogy and that it was a record of the Jews, but not the specific information). Since Lehi was both a wealthy man and a prophet in some manner, my guess is if there were copies of the Brass Plates floating around, he would have had one.
I do, however, really like your hypothesis that the 'dimming' of the Brass Plates over time may have been a reference to corrosion, and that Lehi's commentary was a regarding a miracle or divine aid in preventing any further decay. I think that words really well. Not knowing anything about metallurgy, I briefly looked into this after you made that point and it made me think that without divine aid, plates made out of Brass would be long past their shelf life and perhaps unreadable today. Is that right?WanderingGondola said...
Hmm, an interesting theory; at the same time, some good counterpoints have been made. I feel like there's something missing from the whole "plates" discussion, but beats me what it could be... Maybe it's just the sync talking?
It was around 1:30am last night (the 3rd) when I first saw this post. For the previous two hours I'd been playing Elder Scrolls Online, adventuring in a mechanical realm known as the Clockwork City. I'd stopped playing shortly after perusing a library to make a copy of a poem (a talking crow wanted it in exchange for helping me find a key... it makes sense in context!), so it was very fresh in mind that the vast majority of texts in the City take the form of sets of metal plates. Can't really make a proper comparison with the BoM plates, though it's stimulating to consider anyway.
And we did come to the land which we called Bountiful, because of its much fruit and also wild honey; and all these things were prepared of the Lord that we might not perish. And we beheld the sea, which we called Irreantum, which, being interpreted, is many waters (1 Ne. 17:5).
And it came to pass that we did pitch our tents by the seashore; and notwithstanding we had suffered many afflictions and much difficulty, yea, even so much that we cannot write them all, we were exceedingly rejoiced when we came to the seashore; and we called the place Bountiful, because of its much fruit (1 Ne. 17:6).
And it came to pass that after I, Nephi, had been in the land of Bountiful for the space of many days, the voice of the Lord came unto me, saying: Arise, and get thee into the mountain. And it came to pass that I arose and went up into the mountain, and cried unto the Lord (1 Ne. 17:7).
And it came to pass that the Lord spake unto me, saying: Thou shalt construct a ship, after the manner which I shall show thee, that I may carry thy people across these waters (1 Ne. 17:8).
Behold, the Lord hath created the earth that it should be inhabited; and he hath created his children that they should possess it. . . . And he leadeth away the righteous into precious lands . . . . He ruleth high in the heavens, for it is his throne, and this earth is his footstool (1 Ne. 17:36-39).
And worlds without number have I created; . . . But only an account of this earth, and the inhabitants thereof, give I unto you. For behold, there are many worlds (Moses 1:33, 35).
For thus saith the Lord that created the heavens; God himself that formed the earth and made it; he hath established it, he created it not in vain, he formed it to be inhabited: I am the Lord; and there is none else.
were angry with me, and were desirous to throw me into the depths of the sea; and . . . they came forth to lay their hands upon me" (1 Ne. 17:48).
If God had commanded me to do all things I could do them. If he should command me that I should say unto this water, be thou earth, it should be earth; and if I should say it, it would be done. And now, if the Lord has such great power, and has wrought so many miracles among the children of men, how is it that he cannot instruct me, that I should build a ship? (1 Ne. 17:50-51).
[W]e did work timbers of curious workmanship. And the Lord did show me from time to time after what manner I should work the timbers of the ship. Now I, Nephi, did not work the timbers after the manner which was learned by men, neither did I build the ship after the manner of men; but I did build it after the manner which the Lord had shown unto me; wherefore, it was not after the manner of men.And I, Nephi, did go into the mount oft, and I did pray oft unto the Lord; wherefore the Lord showed unto me great things.And it came to pass that after I had finished the ship, according to the word of the Lord, my brethren beheld that it was good, and that the workmanship thereof was exceedingly fine (1 Ne. 18:1-4).
And it came to pass after we had all gone down into the ship, and had taken with us our provisions and things which had been commanded us, we did put forth into the sea and were driven forth before the wind towards the promised land (1 Ne. 18:8).
And I, Nephi, began to fear exceedingly lest the Lord should be angry with us, and smite us because of our iniquity, that we should be swallowed up in the depths of the sea (1 Ne. 18:10).
18:13 Wherefore, they knew not whither they should steer the ship, insomuch that there arose a great storm, yea, a great and terrible tempest, and we were driven back upon the waters for the space of three days; and they began to be frightened exceedingly lest they should be drowned in the sea; nevertheless they did not loose me. And on the fourth day, which we had been driven back, the tempest began to be exceedingly sore. And it came to pass that we were about to be swallowed up in the depths of the sea. And after we had been driven back upon the waters for the space of four days, my brethren began to see that the judgments of God were upon them (1 Ne. 18:13-15).
their grey hairs were about to be brought down to lie low in the dust; yea, even they were near to be cast with sorrow into a watery grave (1 Ne. 18:18).
And it came to pass that I prayed unto the Lord; and after I had prayed the winds did cease, and the storm did cease, and there was a great calm. And it came to pass that I, Nephi, did guide the ship, that we sailed again towards the promised land (1 Ne. 18:21-22).
This is essentially the same language used in the New Testament to describe Jesus stopping a storm on the Sea of Galilee: "And the wind ceased, and there was a great calm" (Mark 4:39). There is one hint, though, that this may not be a literal storm on a literal sea: Immediately after the winds cease and there is "a great calm" -- i.e., no wind -- they "sailed again towards the promised land." Obviously you can't sail towards anything when there's no wind. Of course the Gospels also describe the voyage continuing after the wind ceases and there is a great calm, but they don't say they sailed (Luke alone mentions sailing, and only before the storm; see Luke 8:23), and we know that they sometimes traveled the Galilee by rowing (see Mark 6:48).
While I wouldn't call it a smoking gun, this reference to "sailing" in "a great calm" is the only textual evidence I can find against the standard reading that the Lehites sailed an ordinary ship across an ordinary sea.
Conclusion
As much as I like the interplanetary reading of the Book of Mormon and want to find it convincing, so far I'm just not finding it that plausible. For the time being, I think I regrettably have to classify it together with readings that propose that maybe north means "west" and horse means "tapir."
William Wright (WW) said...
Yeah, great points. No real convincing counter evidence from me.
We might be mistaken in applying our Earth-based and grounded rules and imaginations to other worlds and realities, though, and using it as evidence, which I know is a cop out, but it is also true.
As one example, you imagine and are completely bounded by a spherical Earth in describing the problem of a seashore as something where land meets space (i.e., there is no such thing - it doesn't make sense on a globe, which I agree with). But that is how people on spherical worlds think. What if Nephi's world was a disc or flat (like that disc sitting on Peter's head)? Sounds crazy, yeah, but that is how Tolkien first envisioned Arda when he wrote his stories (before he realized how absurd it was). That is also how CS Lewis formed Narnia.
I've imagined Nephi and his group as not coming from our Earth, and that opens up possibilities for things to be different, including the possibility of living on a disc (why not?). For a person living on said disc, the idea of walking for 8 years due East in the wilderness, coming to the edge of their disc or land, beyond which is only the vastness of space or whatever encircles that world, and calling it a "seashore" would make some kind of sense, I think.
It would make just as much sense as trying to develop a practical explanation for how Lehi's family could have possible taken a full 8 years to cross the Arabian peninsula walking due east while being guided by the Liahona.Leo said...
This is a great summary. I'm glad you pulled it together. It certainly requires some creative reading to make this fit outer space. No objection on that point.
The biggest hurdle I see from your analysis is the location or setting of the seashore where Nephi built the boat. That's a very good point. I don't think straining over "onto" and "into" will help much. I doubt we can put that much confidence in the BoM's prepositions despite it being the "most correct book". Or worries about a watery grave and drowning. If one is left in outer space I think it's the same result as drowning in the Indian Ocean -- you can't breathe. If the ancients' conception of space was "great waters", which I think both the Bible and Tolkien substantiate, I think they would deem a burial in space as a watery grave.
As foreign as it sounds to us, even today's scientists describe the goings on of space as "storms". Think of a "solar storm". Or read this from NOAA: "Did you know that there are storms always occurring in space? Not rain or snow, but winds and magnetic waves that move through space! This is known as space weather."
According to NOAA we have weather, winds, waves, and storms in space. Why did today's scientists adopt earthly weather terms to describe these phenomena? If NOAA can imagine it certainly we can too. Perhaps Nephi did the same. It's a lot easier than explaining complex astrophysics at least.
None of that helps much with your concern about the setting. For that, I think, we turn to Tolkien's description of the world after it was made round at the end of the Second Age:
"And those that sailed furthest set but a girdle about the Earth and returned weary at last to the place of their beginning; and they said: 'All roads are now bent.' Thus in after days, what by the voyages of ships, what by lore and star-craft, the kings of Men knew that the world was indeed made round, and yet the Eldar were permitted still to depart and to come to the Ancient West and to Avallone, if they would.
Therefore the loremasters of Men said that a Straight Road must still be, for those that were permitted to find it. And they taught that, while the new world fell away, the old road and the path of the memory of the West still went on, as it were a mighty bridge invisible that passed through the air of breath and of flight (which were bent now as the world was bent), and traversed Ilmen which flesh unaided cannot endure, until it came to Tol Eressea, the Lonely Isle, and maybe even beyond, to Valinor, where the Valar still dwell and watch the unfolding of the story of the world. And tales and rumours arose along the shores of the sea concerning mariners and men forlorn upon the water who, by some fate or grace or favour of the Valar, had entered in upon the Straight Way and seen the face of the world sink below them, and so had come to the lamplit quays of Avallone, or verily to the last beaches on the margin of Aman, and there had looked upon the White Mountain, dreadful and beautiful, before they died."
You'll notice these tales and rumors of the straight road occurred exactly where Nephi builds his ship: "along the shores of the sea". What I envision in 1st Nephi is Lehi's crew are among those "permitted to find" the Straight Road and it is upon that Road that they set sail. Think of the Rainbow Connection Kermit the Frog sings about (although I think Sarah McLachlan does it better). You know, the one that "calls the young sailors" like in Tolkien's description.
But most importantly, I think you are forgetting that in WW's theory, Lehi and co are not departing from planet earth. They are departing from Valinor, which I suspect is still flat like earth was originally (per Tolkien). In that case, coming to the seashore would literally be the end of the earth where it meets outer space.
It might be useful to re-do this analysis using the Jaredite experience since they would have departed this earth. The only question there is did they depart it before or after the world was made round?Wm Jas Tychonievich said...
Thanks for the comments, both of you.
Proposing both Flat Earth and multiple habitable planets is a new one for me. I've only ever encountered it as a joke (e.g. the Flat Mars Society). Flat Earth usually includes the idea that the stars and planets are relatively small objects fixed to a dome above the Earth, not large Earth-like objects which one might in principle travel to and live on.
Anyway, I don't think it makes much sense to envision flat earths coexisting with spherical planets in the same universe -- let alone an originally flat earth being "made round"! The cosmological differences are too great.
I do plan to look at the Jaredite voyage next, so stay tuned.Leo said...
True, most of this sounds pretty laughable. The idea that the earth was once flat and made round is pretty silly. Or that there are flat land masses floating around space somewhere like Asgard is depicted in the Marvel movies, also a silly idea. The thing is though, if you believe the BoM or the Bible or, frankly, any religion, you are currently embracing ideas that are no less crazy/silly/irrational than those. They only seem normal because you have chosen to accept them as plausible.
Christians believe a story about a resurrected homeless man that pretty much no one has ever seen or heard from. Or that some dude made the Red Sea split. Or that the earth was made in 7 days. Or that a guy once left this planet on a chariot of fire.
Hindu think there's an elephant god with multiple arms who can give you wisdom and good luck.
Most religionists believe at one point the entire planet was covered in water and then somehow drained off.
All of those ideas are completely batsh*t crazy and would seem like a joke akin to the Flat Mars Society if they weren't widely embraced as part of religion. The truth is, you, me, and most humans choose our own list of crazy ideas we want to believe and I don't think that's without good reason. I think it's because there is some innate knowledge that belief in the unexplainable is somehow closer to reality than not. Maybe it's a failing of evolution that hasn't been eliminated yet. Or maybe this human instinct is for good reason.
Regardless, I'm looking forward to the Jaredite analysis!
And it came to pass that they did travel in the wilderness, and did build barges, in which they did cross many waters, being directed continually by the hand of the Lord.And the Lord would not suffer that they should stop beyond the sea in the wilderness, but he would that they should come forth even unto the land of promise, which was choice above all other lands, which the Lord God had preserved for a righteous people. . . .And now . . . it came to pass that the Lord did bring Jared and his brethren forth even to that great sea which divideth the lands. And as they came to the sea they pitched their tents; and they called the name of the place Moriancumer; and they dwelt in tents, and dwelt in tents upon the seashore for the space of four years. . . .And the Lord said: Go to work and build, after the manner of barges which ye have hitherto built. And it came to pass that the brother of Jared did go to work, and also his brethren, and built barges after the manner which they had built, according to the instructions of the Lord (Ether 2:6-7, 13, 16).
And it came to pass that the brother of Jared did go to work, and also his brethren, and built barges after the manner which they had built, according to the instructions of the Lord. And they were small, and they were light upon the water, even like unto the lightness of a fowl upon the water.And they were built after a manner that they were exceedingly tight, even that they would hold water like unto a dish; and the bottom thereof was tight like unto a dish; and the sides thereof were tight like unto a dish; and the ends thereof were peaked; and the top thereof was tight like unto a dish; and the length thereof was the length of a tree; and the door thereof, when it was shut, was tight like unto a dish.And it came to pass that the brother of Jared cried unto the Lord, saying: O Lord, I have performed the work which thou hast commanded me, and I have made the barges according as thou hast directed me. And behold, O Lord, in them there is no light; whither shall we steer? And also we shall perish, for in them we cannot breathe, save it is the air which is in them; therefore we shall perish (Ether 2:16-19).
And the Lord said unto the brother of Jared: Behold, thou shalt make a hole in the top, and also in the bottom; and when thou shalt suffer for air thou shalt unstop the hole and receive air. And if it be so that the water come in upon thee, behold, ye shall stop the hole, that ye may not perish in the flood (Ether 2:20).
And the Lord said unto the brother of Jared: What will ye that I should do that ye may have light in your vessels? For behold, ye cannot have windows, for they will be dashed in pieces; neither shall ye take fire with you, for ye shall not go by the light of fire.For behold, ye shall be as a whale in the midst of the sea; for the mountain waves shall dash upon you. Nevertheless, I will bring you up again out of the depths of the sea; for the winds have gone forth out of my mouth, and also the rains and the floods have I sent forth.And behold, I prepare you against these things; for ye cannot cross this great deep save I prepare you against the waves of the sea, and the winds which have gone forth, and the floods which shall come. Therefore what will ye that I should prepare for you that ye may have light when ye are swallowed up in the depths of the sea? (Ether 2:23-25)
And it came to pass that when they had prepared all manner of food, that thereby they might subsist upon the water, and also food for their flocks and herds, and whatsoever beast or animal or fowl that they should carry with them—and it came to pass that when they had done all these things they got aboard of their vessels or barges, and set forth into the sea, commending themselves unto the Lord their God.And it came to pass that the Lord God caused that there should be a furious wind blow upon the face of the waters, towards the promised land; and thus they were tossed upon the waves of the sea before the wind.And it came to pass that they were many times buried in the depths of the sea, because of the mountain waves which broke upon them, and also the great and terrible tempests which were caused by the fierceness of the wind.And it came to pass that when they were buried in the deep there was no water that could hurt them, their vessels being tight like unto a dish, and also they were tight like unto the ark of Noah; therefore when they were encompassed about by many waters they did cry unto the Lord, and he did bring them forth again upon the top of the waters (Ether 6:4-7).
And it came to pass that the wind did never cease to blow towards the promised land while they were upon the waters; and thus they were driven forth before the wind. . . . And thus they were driven forth; and no monster of the sea could break them, neither whale that could mar them; and they did have light continually, whether it was above the water or under the water (Ether 6:8, 10).
And thus they were driven forth, three hundred and forty and four days upon the water. And they did land upon the shore of the promised land (Ether 6:11-12).
Leo said...
Strong analysis once again. Your final theory is intriguing but I think if that were the case, the entire story would have been modified to not include the strange ship description or other details that don't fit well w a nautical voyage. IOW I think it would have been more heavily edited.
When I did my own analysis, I reached many of your same conclusions but what stood out to me the most is that the description of the voyage and the ships doesn't match well with EITHER theory. There are significant problems envisioning it either way (for me). But I agree, it's less difficult to place it on the Pacific Ocean than it is to place it in Space. I don't think it's *a lot* less difficult, but it is less.
For this to work in Space you'd have to envision something almost like the Kessel Run depicted in the Solo Star Wars movie where you have a very non-traditional path through Space, complete with a "monster of the sea" hidden in a space cloud (wave?) and eager to gobble up the Millennium Falcon (why would it want to eat a ship??). That doesn't solve the issue of unstopping a hole for air, but that little detail hardly fits an ocean voyage either. How realistic is it that they would be able to re-stop the hole if water started pouring in b/c they unstopped it without realizing they were "buried in the deep" at that particular moment?
You have to suspend reality quite a bit to see this Jaredite voyage as a real event even in our earth oceans. The only rational conclusion if we set aside faith/belief is that the story is completely made up by someone who had no real understanding of oceanic voyages. Joseph Smith would fit that description. And yet, we have to account for faith/belief or else this blog of yours has no point. The story is a stretch in either direction. For me, I don't see it as that much more of a stretch to place it in space. It makes some of the story easier to believe, although admittedly not all of it.Leo said...
You make a good point about the boats being the same boats they had made before and used to cross other waters. I'm trying to think through why would Jared's brother suddenly be concerned about not having light and not being able to breathe on THIS journey but not the others? If they were the same boats and the same journey just across a bigger body of water, they should have had the same problems before this journey right?
It's also strange that the BoJ asks "whither shall we steer?" That means these barges had a steering mechanism and they must have had some way to tell which direction they were heading so they could continue to steer in that direction. But for whatever reason, in this case, the BoJ is concerned that they won't be able to see and therefore won't know which way to steer. It seems like none of that fits very well with the idea that this a rinse and repeat oceanic voyage like we'd normally imagine. I agree it's no slam dunk in space though. Anyway, just still thinking it through.
And now I, Mormon, being about to deliver up the record which I have been making into the hands of my son Moroni, behold I have witnessed almost all the destruction of my people, the Nephites.And it is many hundred years after the coming of Christ that I deliver these records into the hands of my son; and it supposeth me that he will witness the entire destruction of my people. But may God grant that he may survive them, that he may write somewhat concerning them, and somewhat concerning Christ, that perhaps some day it may profit them (W of M vv. 1-2).
But may God grant that he may survive them, that he may write somewhat concerning them, and somewhat concerning Christ, that perhaps some day it may profit them.
Leo said...
There are many such examples of this in the BoM. You can find another in 2 Ne 25 where Nephi appears to be addressing both his people and the future Nephites as the same group reborn when Christ arrives:
And after Christ shall have risen from the dead he shall
Show himself unto you, my children, and my beloved brethren!
Jacob's sermon in 2 Nephi 10 is far more explicit imo.
"wherefore, as it has been shown unto me that many of our children shall perish in the flesh because of unbelief, nevertheless, God will be merciful unto many; and our children shall be restored, that they may come to that which will give them the true knowledge of their Redeemer."
He later clarifies this restoration is "in the flesh"
"When the day cometh that they shall believe in me, that I am Christ, then have I covenanted with their fathers that they shall be restored in the flesh, upon the earth, unto the lands of their inheritance."Wm Jas Tychonievich said...
I think the most natural reading of 2 Ne. 10:2 is that some of the children will perish and others will be restored. It's grammatically similar to "many should perish by the sword, and many should be carried away captive into Babylon" (1 Ne. 1:13). The second "many" is implicitly different from the first; if it were the same, it would say "them" instead of "many" in the second instance.
In 2 Ne. 26:1, I think it's possible to interpret "you, my children, and my beloved brethren" loosely so as to include future Nephite generations -- just as we might say, "In five billion years, the sun will go red giant and kill us all" without meaning that we personally will live to see that.
Words of Mormon allows no such wiggle room. It is describing what Mormon hopes will happen to the Nephites after the complete extermination of the Nephite race, when there will be no "future generations" to which he might be referring.
Of course, if we accept my reading of W of M, then we have good reason for interpreting the other passages you mention in the same way.Leo said...
Whoops I meant to say 2 Ne 26, not 25.
Yes you could say he's just referring to resurrection, which he does mention later in the chapter. But one chapter prior in the same address he tells them:
"For I know that ye have searched much, many of you, to know of things to come; wherefore I know that ye know that our flesh must waste away and die; nevertheless, in our bodies we shall see God. Yea, I know that ye know that in the body he shall show himself unto those at Jerusalem, from whence we came;"
So he's like "yeah you're gonna die and so are your children but we are promised to see God in the flesh." Then he references the people at Jerusalem who.....see God in the flesh. In the next chapter he promises them they will be "restored in the flesh". The later Nephi promises his children and brethren that Jesus would "show himself unto you" after Jesus resurrects.
So to me the simpler reading is Nephi, Jacob, and their "brethren" received a promise for themselves and their immediate children that even though they would die, they would later be restored to the flesh/reborn and see Jesus in that state so that he could save them. And that would tie nicely to tales from 3 Nephi of parents and their children being blessed directly by Jesus.
But the word of God burdens me because of your grosser crimes. For behold, thus saith the Lord: This people begin to wax in iniquity; they understand not the scriptures, for they seek to excuse themselves in committing whoredoms, because of the things which were written concerning David, and Solomon his son.Behold, David and Solomon truly had many wives and concubines, which thing was abominable before me, saith the Lord.Wherefore, thus saith the Lord, I have led this people forth out of the land of Jerusalem, by the power of mine arm, that I might raise up unto me a righteous branch from the fruit of the loins of Joseph.Wherefore, I the Lord God will not suffer that this people shall do like unto them of old.Wherefore, my brethren, hear me, and hearken to the word of the Lord: For there shall not any man among you have save it be one wife; and concubines he shall have none;For I, the Lord God, delight in the chastity of women. And whoredoms are an abomination before me; thus saith the Lord of Hosts.Wherefore, this people shall keep my commandments, saith the Lord of Hosts, or cursed be the land for their sakes.For if I will, saith the Lord of Hosts, raise up seed unto me, I will command my people; otherwise they shall hearken unto these things.For behold, I, the Lord, have seen the sorrow, and heard the mourning of the daughters of my people in the land of Jerusalem, yea, and in all the lands of my people, because of the wickedness and abominations of their husbands.And I will not suffer, saith the Lord of Hosts, that the cries of the fair daughters of this people, which I have led out of the land of Jerusalem, shall come up unto me against the men of my people, saith the Lord of Hosts.For they shall not lead away captive the daughters of my people because of their tenderness, save I shall visit them with a sore curse, even unto destruction; for they shall not commit whoredoms, like unto them of old, saith the Lord of Hosts.And now behold, my brethren, ye know that these commandments were given to our father, Lehi; wherefore, ye have known them before; and ye have come unto great condemnation; for ye have done these things which ye ought not to have done.Behold, ye have done greater iniquities than the Lamanites, our brethren. Ye have broken the hearts of your tender wives, and lost the confidence of your children, because of your bad examples before them; and the sobbings of their hearts ascend up to God against you. And because of the strictness of the word of God, which cometh down against you, many hearts died, pierced with deep wounds.[. . .]Behold, the Lamanites your brethren, whom ye hate because of their filthiness and the cursing which hath come upon their skins, are more righteous than you; for they have not forgotten the commandment of the Lord, which was given unto our father[s] -- that they should have save it were one wife, and concubines they should have none, and there should not be whoredoms committed among them.And now, this commandment they observe to keep; wherefore, because of this observance, in keeping this commandment, the Lord God will not destroy them, but will be merciful unto them; and one day they shall become a blessed people.Behold, their husbands love their wives, and their wives love their husbands; and their husbands and their wives love their children; and their unbelief and their hatred towards you is because of the iniquity of their fathers; wherefore, how much better are you than they, in the sight of your great Creator? (Jacob 2:23-25, 3:5-7)
I searched among the records which had been delivered into my hands, and I found these plates, which contained this small account of the prophets, from Jacob down to the reign of this king Benjamin, and also many of the words of Nephi (W of M v. 3).
(video)
For if I will, saith the Lord of Hosts, raise up seed unto me, I will command my people; otherwise they shall hearken unto these things (Jacob 2:30).
Wherefore, my brethren, hear me, and hearken to the word of the Lord: For there shall not any man among you have save it be one wife; and concubines he shall have none; For I, the Lord God, delight in the chastity of women. And whoredoms are an abomination before me; thus saith the Lord of Hosts. Wherefore, this people shall keep my commandments, saith the Lord of Hosts, or cursed be the land for their sakes (Jacob 2:27-29).
This people begin to wax in iniquity; they understand not the scriptures, for they seek to excuse themselves in committing whoredoms, because of the things which were written concerning David, and Solomon his son (Jacob 2:23).
For behold, he did not keep the commandments of God, but he did walk after the desires of his own heart. And he had many wives and concubines. And he did cause his people to commit sin, and do that which was abominable in the sight of the Lord. Yea, and they did commit whoredoms and all manner of wickedness (Mosiah 11:2).
And now what say ye? And who shall be his seed?Behold I say unto you, that whosoever has heard the words of the prophets, yea, all the holy prophets who have prophesied concerning the coming of the Lord -- I say unto you, that all those who have hearkened unto their words, and believed that the Lord would redeem his people, and have looked forward to that day for a remission of their sins, I say unto you, that these are his seed, or they are heirs of the kingdom of God.For these are they whose sins he has borne; these are they for whom he has died, to redeem them from their transgressions. And now, are they not his seed?Yea, and are not the prophets, every one that has opened his mouth to prophesy, that has not fallen into transgression, I mean all the holy prophets ever since the world began? I say unto you that they are his seed (Mosiah 15:10-13).
Yea, methought I saw, even as our father Lehi saw, God sitting upon his throne, surrounded with numberless concourses of angels, in the attitude of singing and praising their God (Alma 36:22).
[H]e thought he saw God sitting upon his throne, surrounded with numberless concourses of angels in the attitude of singing and praising their God (1 Ne. 1:8).
William Wright (WW) said...
I don't know if Jeremy Hoop cites them, but Richard and Pamela Price developed the argument that Hoop expresses with respect to the "escape clause" in their book "Joseph Smith Fought Polygamy" first published almost 25 years ago. I believe their work is fairly well known among Denver Snuffer's followers like Hoop, who are all fairly against Joseph having practiced polygamy.
The Price's devoted an entire chapter to this. In the link below, you will find it in Chapter 18 of Volume 1 if you scroll down:
https://restorationbookstore.org/pages/joseph-smith-fought-polygamy-online
I personally don't agree with either the Price-Hoops or the Mormon church interpretation of Jacob 2:30.Leo said...
Good summary and fascinating idea about the Small Plates being not wholly unadulterated. I had never considered that. And yes, Bill is correct that this reading isn't Jeremy's original idea although he does a good job articulating it and I think it's a potentially valid reading. Tying it to Abinadi's words is also pretty clever, as you say.
But for me it's easier to see the escape clause as a punctuation error and that it should read as follows:
"For if I will, saith the Lord of Hosts, raise up seed unto me, I will command my people otherwise; they shall hearken unto these things."
Or IOW: "For if I will, saith the Lord of Hosts, raise up seed unto me, I will command my people otherwise [meaning, to not practice polygamy]; they shall hearken unto these things [that I am telling you right now, to not practice polygamy and to keep my commandments]."
For me that reading requires a lot less work and comes to the same idea, that polygamy sucks and is a terrible thing. Plus, polygamy does not make more babies. It has no impact on the birth rate since the bottleneck is the same. Whether one man impregnates multiple women or multiple men do so, it's still a 9-month gestation.Wm Jas Tychonievich said...
Bill and Leo, thanks for the context. My first impression of Denver Snuffer was not good, and so I've never engaged with him or his movement enough to know that Hoop's reading of Jacob is not original.
Leo, I don't see how your reading works. The Lord has just commanded them not to practice polygamy, so when he mentions that he may later "command my people otherwise," I don't see how that can also mean not to practice polygamy. "Otherwise" indicates a contrast with what was said before.
Leo, from a Brighamite perspective, polygamy would still result in raising up more "seed unto the Lord," since the most "righteous (by Brighamite standards) could have enormous numbers of offspring while many of the "less faithful" would not reproduce at all. Not more babies total, perhaps, but more of the "right sort" of babies.
Bill, what's your interpretation of Jacob 2:30?Leo said...
I think you're assuming he is pivoting when he might just be continuing to rail on polygamy. IOW, "otherwise" doesn't have to indicate a contrast to what was said right before. It could be a contrast to what the Nephites think it means to "raise up seed". He's saying "if I make a commandment to raise up seed, I won't do it through polygamy, it will be done another way (otherwise)".
And it came to pass that he commanded them that they should write the words which the Father had given unto Malachi, which he should tell unto them. And it came to pass that after they were written he expounded them. And these are the words which he did tell unto them, saying: Thus said the Father unto Malachi -- . . . (3 Ne. 24:1).
And he saith: These scriptures, which ye had not with you, the Father commanded that I should give unto you; for it was wisdom in him that they should be given unto future generations (3 Ne. 26:2).
William Wright (WW) said...
". . . we know nothing of their provenance"
This isn't true, though. Provenance, stewardship, and record keepers were fairly well documented, including for the small plates.
Ammaron was the one who hid the sacred records among which Mormon 'found' the small plates, so you would need to develop a story for who within the chain of custody from him going back (which weren't many names at all, particularly in the time after Jesus visited Bountiful, which is when you say the pseudepigrapha must have occurred) included the forgery or false authorship, and why they did it, I guess.WJT said...
A document’s own claims about itself aren’t a provenance.
William Wright (WW) said...
Joseph said he got the record from a man named Nephi, who was one of the named record keepers in the book (and one of the Disciples). He seemed to vouch for the record in delivering it to Joseph, and we have the names of everyone before and after that man in the book who kept the records, and also the account of how the small plates ended up included in those records.
That is as much provenance as you are going to get in dealing with the angelic transference of golden plates.
I mentioned that there is no story here to suggest how and why such a pseudepigrapha would have come into Mormon's possession. That is what I was asking for - what is the story? How could the Angel Nephi come to give Joseph a record that contained fakes and forgeries? How was Mormon, who appears to have taken his role as historian and record-keeper so seriously, duped into tacking on those writings? Where did the chain of custody break down after Jesus and Nephi?
Could be an interesting story, I just don't see it.HomeStadter said...
Other possible explanations:
1. Some older document is the source of these distinct phrasings in both cases. I would judge this more probable if it tended to cluster better, about a similar topic.
2. I've always assumed Mormon just physically attached Nephi's plates to his record. What if he 'translated' it instead the way you are thinking Joseph Smith translated the BoM. Why he would do this is unclear, but it would then be 'contaminated' with Mormons subconscious as well as Joseph Smiths.Leo said...
Homestadter’s first theory is the same one I thought of as I read your post — that Malachi was drawing from something more ancient in his own writings. The second theory doesn’t seem to match up with the story of the small plates in the BoM, however. I would say instead perhaps someone else “translated” the original small plates and Mormon just assumed it was exactly what it claimed to be. So there you have two potential solutions.
It’s a fascinating idea for the small plates to be pseudepigrapha, though. I don’t think I agree w WW that it would make the small plates a forgery. There could have been good reasons for someone rewriting them.
Regardless, I like the first theory the best. Malachi himself may have borrowed from others.
Behold, I will send my messenger, and he shall prepare the way before me: and the Lord, whom ye seek, shall suddenly come to his temple, even the messenger of the covenant, whom ye delight in: behold, he shall come, saith the Lord of hosts (Mal. 3:1).
And it came to pass that I, Nephi, said unto my father: I will go and do the things which the Lord hath commanded, for I know that the Lord giveth no commandments unto the children of men, save he shall prepare a way for them that they may accomplish the thing which he commandeth them (1 Ne. 3:7).And when the day cometh that the wrath of God is poured out upon the mother of harlots, which is the great and abominable church of all the earth, whose founder is the devil, then, at that day, the work of the Father shall commence, in preparing the way for the fulfilling of his covenants, which he hath made to his people who are of the house of Israel (1 Ne. 14:17).And I will also be your light in the wilderness; and I will prepare the way before you, if it so be that ye shall keep my commandments; wherefore, inasmuch as ye shall keep my commandments ye shall be led towards the promised land; and ye shall know that it is by me that ye are led (1 Ne. 17:13).
Thou shalt prepare thee a way, and divide the coasts of thy land, which the Lord thy God giveth thee to inherit, into three parts, that every slayer may flee thither (Deut. 19:3).So Jotham became mighty, because he prepared his ways before the Lord his God (2 Chr. 27:6).The voice of him that crieth in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our God (Isa. 40:3).And shall say, Cast ye up, cast ye up, prepare the way, take up the stumblingblock out of the way of my people (Isa. 57:14).Go through, go through the gates; prepare ye the way of the people; cast up, cast up the highway; gather out the stones; lift up a standard for the people (Isa. 62:10).
Ye are cursed with a curse: for ye have robbed me, even this whole nation (Mal. 3:9).For behold, in that day that they shall rebel against me, I will curse them even with a sore curse, and they shall have no power over thy seed except they shall rebel against me also (1 Ne. 2:23).
And, behold, thou hast with thee Shimei the son of Gera, a Benjamite of Bahurim, which cursed me with a grievous curse in the day when I went to Mahanaim: but he came down to meet me at Jordan, and I sware to him by the Lord, saying, I will not put thee to death with the sword (1 Kgs. 2:8).
For, behold, the day cometh, that shall burn as an oven; and all the proud, yea, and all that do wickedly, shall be stubble: and the day that cometh shall burn them up, saith the Lord of hosts, that it shall leave them neither root nor branch. But unto you that fear my name shall the Sun of righteousness arise with healing in his wings; and ye shall go forth, and grow up as calves of the stall (Mal. 4:1-2).
And when the day cometh that the wrath of God is poured out upon the mother of harlots, which is the great and abominable church of all the earth, whose founder is the devil, then, at that day, the work of the Father shall commence, in preparing the way for the fulfilling of his covenants, which he hath made to his people who are of the house of Israel (1 Ne. 14:17).For behold, saith the prophet, the time cometh speedily that Satan shall have no more power over the hearts of the children of men; for the day soon cometh that all the proud and they who do wickedly shall be as stubble; and the day cometh that they must be burned (1 Ne. 22:15).For the time speedily shall come that all churches which are built up to get gain, and all those who are built up to get power over the flesh, and those who are built up to become popular in the eyes of the world, and those who seek the lusts of the flesh and the things of the world, and to do all manner of iniquity; yea, in fine, all those who belong to the kingdom of the devil are they who need fear, and tremble, and quake; they are those who must be brought low in the dust; they are those who must be consumed as stubble; and this is according to the words of the prophet. And the time cometh speedily that the righteous must be led up as calves of the stall, and the Holy One of Israel must reign in dominion, and might, and power, and great glory (1 Ne. 22:23-24).Behold, they will crucify him; and after he is laid in a sepulchre for the space of three days he shall rise from the dead, with healing in his wings; and all those who shall believe on his name shall be saved in the kingdom of God. Wherefore, my soul delighteth to prophesy concerning him, for I have seen his day, and my heart doth magnify his holy name (2 Ne. 25:13).Wherefore, all those who are proud, and that do wickedly, the day that cometh shall burn them up, saith the Lord of Hosts, for they shall be as stubble. And they that kill the prophets, and the saints, the depths of the earth shall swallow them up, saith the Lord of Hosts; and mountains shall cover them, and whirlwinds shall carry them away, and buildings shall fall upon them and crush them to pieces and grind them to powder. And they shall be visited with thunderings, and lightnings, and earthquakes, and all manner of destructions, for the fire of the anger of the Lord shall be kindled against them, and they shall be as stubble, and the day that cometh shall consume them, saith the Lord of Hosts. O the pain, and the anguish of my soul for the loss of the slain of my people! For I, Nephi, have seen it, and it well nigh consumeth me before the presence of the Lord; but I must cry unto my God: Thy ways are just. But behold, the righteous that hearken unto the words of the prophets, and destroy them not, but look forward unto Christ with steadfastness for the signs which are given, notwithstanding all persecution—behold, they are they which shall not perish. But the Son of righteousness shall appear unto them; and he shall heal them, and they shall have peace with him, until three generations shall have passed away, and many of the fourth generation shall have passed away in righteousness. (2 Ne. 26:4-9).
Leo said...
Yeah I think that probably settles it. Very thorough analysis.
William Wright (WW) said...
I stumbled on a 5-year old reddit thread in doing a quick look into this as well.
The redditor had the thought that both Nephi and Malachi were quoting Zenos, the prophet found on the Brass Plates but not in the Bible. I think it is a compelling idea and possibility after reading some of their reasoning:
https://www.reddit.com/r/lds/comments/c9ydvl/what_is_malachi_doing_in_1st_and_2nd_nephi/?rdt=44281
For behold, saith the prophet, the time cometh speedily that Satan shall have no more power over the hearts of the children of men; for the day soon cometh that all the proud and they who do wickedly shall be as stubble; and the day cometh that they must be burned. For the time soon cometh that the fulness of the wrath of God shall be poured out upon all the children of men; for he will not suffer that the wicked shall destroy the righteous. Wherefore, he will preserve the righteous by his power, even if it so be that the fulness of his wrath must come, and the righteous be preserved, even unto the destruction of their enemies by fire. Wherefore, the righteous need not fear; for thus saith the prophet, they shall be saved, even if it so be as by fire (1 Ne. 22:15-17).
For other foundation can no man lay than that is laid, which is Jesus Christ. Now if any man build upon this foundation gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, stubble; every man's work shall be made manifest: for the day shall declare it, because it shall be revealed by fire; and the fire shall try every man's work of what sort it is. If any man's work abide which he hath built thereupon, he shall receive a reward. If any man's work shall be burned, he shall suffer loss: but he himself shall be saved; yet so as by fire (1 Cor. 3:11-15).
Behold, they will crucify him; and after he is laid in a sepulchre for the space of three days he shall rise from the dead, with healing in his wings; and all those who shall believe on his name shall be saved in the kingdom of God. Wherefore, my soul delighteth to prophesy concerning him, for I have seen his day, and my heart doth magnify his holy name (2 Ne. 25:13).
Wherefore, all those who are proud, and that do wickedly, the day that cometh shall burn them up, saith the Lord of Hosts, for they shall be as stubble. And they that kill the prophets, and the saints, the depths of the earth shall swallow them up, saith the Lord of Hosts; and mountains shall cover them, and whirlwinds shall carry them away, and buildings shall fall upon them and crush them to pieces and grind them to powder. And they shall be visited with thunderings, and lightnings, and earthquakes, and all manner of destructions, for the fire of the anger of the Lord shall be kindled against them, and they shall be as stubble, and the day that cometh shall consume them, saith the Lord of Hosts. O the pain, and the anguish of my soul for the loss of the slain of my people! For I, Nephi, have seen it, and it well nigh consumeth me before the presence of the Lord; but I must cry unto my God: Thy ways are just. But behold, the righteous that hearken unto the words of the prophets, and destroy them not, but look forward unto Christ with steadfastness for the signs which are given, notwithstanding all persecution, behold, they are they which shall not perish. But the Son of righteousness shall appear unto them; and he shall heal them, and they shall have peace with him, until three generations shall have passed away, and many of the fourth generation shall have passed away in righteousness (2 Ne. 26:4-9).
And the God of our fathers, who were led out of Egypt, out of bondage, and also were preserved in the wilderness by him, yea, the God of Abraham, and of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, yieldeth himself, according to the words of the angel, as a man, into the hands of wicked men, to be lifted up, according to the words of Zenock, and to be crucified, according to the words of Neum, and to be buried in a sepulchre, according to the words of Zenos, which he spake concerning the three days of darkness, which should be a sign given of his death unto those who should inhabit the isles of the sea, more especially given unto those who are of the house of Israel. For thus spake the prophet: The Lord God surely shall visit all the house of Israel at that day, some with his voice, because of their righteousness, unto their great joy and salvation, and others with the thunderings and the lightnings of his power, by tempest, by fire, and by smoke, and vapor of darkness, and by the opening of the earth, and by mountains which shall be carried up. And all these things must surely come, saith the prophet Zenos. And the rocks of the earth must rend; and because of the groanings of the earth, many of the kings of the isles of the sea shall be wrought upon by the Spirit of God, to exclaim: The God of nature suffers. And as for those who are at Jerusalem, saith the prophet, they shall be scourged by all people, because they crucify the God of Israel, and turn their hearts aside, rejecting signs and wonders, and the power and glory of the God of Israel. And because they turn their hearts aside, saith the prophet, and have despised the Holy One of Israel, they shall wander in the flesh, and perish, and become a hiss and a byword, and be hated among all nations. Nevertheless, when that day cometh, saith the prophet, that they no more turn aside their hearts against the Holy One of Israel, then will he remember the covenants which he made to their fathers. Yea, then will he remember the isles of the sea; yea, and all the people who are of the house of Israel, will I gather in, saith the Lord, according to the words of the prophet Zenos, from the four quarters of the earth (1 Ne. 19:10-16).
But this is that which was spoken by the prophet Joel; . . . I will shew wonders in heaven above, and signs in the earth beneath; blood, and fire, and vapour of smoke (Acts 2:16, 19).
And it shall come to pass afterward, that I will pour out my spirit upon all flesh; and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, your old men shall dream dreams, your young men shall see visions: And also upon the servants and upon the handmaids in those days will I pour out my spirit. And I will shew wonders in the heavens and in the earth, blood, and fire, and pillars [LXX: vapor] of smoke. The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before the great and terrible day of the Lord come. And it shall come to pass, that whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be delivered: for in mount Zion and in Jerusalem shall be deliverance, as the Lord hath said, and in the remnant whom the Lord shall call (Joel 2:28-32).
For behold, saith the prophet, the time cometh speedily that Satan shall have no more power over the hearts of the children of men; for the day soon cometh that all the proud and they who do wickedly shall be as stubble; and the day cometh that they must be burned. For the time soon cometh that the fulness of the wrath of God shall be poured out upon all the children of men; for he will not suffer that the wicked shall destroy the righteous. Wherefore, he will preserve the righteous by his power, even if it so be that the fulness of his wrath must come, and the righteous be preserved, even unto the destruction of their enemies by fire. Wherefore, the righteous need not fear; for thus saith the prophet, they shall be saved, even if it so be as by fire. Behold, my brethren, I say unto you, that these things must shortly come; yea, even blood, and fire, and vapor of smoke must come; and it must needs be upon the face of this earth; and it cometh unto men according to the flesh if it so be that they will harden their hearts against the Holy One of Israel. For behold, the righteous shall not perish; for the time surely must come that all they who fight against Zion shall be cut off (1 Ne. 22:15-19).
to be buried in a sepulchre, according to the words of Zenos, which he spake concerning the three days of darkness (1 Ne. 19:10).and after he is laid in a sepulchre for the space of three days he shall rise from the dead, with healing in his wings (2 Ne. 25:13).But unto you that fear my name shall the Sun of righteousness arise with healing in his wings (Mal. 4:2).
Yea, and this because they shall dwindle in unbelief and fall into the works of darkness, and lasciviousness, and all manner of iniquities; yea, I say unto you, that because they shall sin against so great light and knowledge, yea, I say unto you, that from that day, even the fourth generation shall not all pass away before this great iniquity shall come. And when that great day cometh, behold, the time very soon cometh that those who are now, or the seed of those who are now numbered among the people of Nephi, shall no more be numbered among the people of Nephi. But whosoever remaineth, and is not destroyed in that great and dreadful day, shall be numbered among the Lamanites, and shall become like unto them, all, save it be a few who shall be called the disciples of the Lord; and them shall the Lamanites pursue even until they shall become extinct. And now, because of iniquity, this prophecy shall be fulfilled (Alma 45:12-14).
But the Son of righteousness shall appear unto them; and he shall heal them, and they shall have peace with him, until three generations shall have passed away, and many of the fourth generation shall have passed away in righteousness (2 Ne. 26:9).
William Wright (WW) said...
Really well done. I think pretty solid evidence, and the additional ties you made were great.
As to your last unsolved mystery, I did go back and confirm in Skousen's Earliest Text edition of the Book of Mormon that both the printer's manuscript and the 1830 edition of the Book of Mormon do indeed have "Son" rather than "Sun". The original manuscript isn't extant for either the 2 Nephi or 3 Nephi references, so we can't go back to that, unfortunately.
Skousen's edition changed it to Sun in their version, to map to Malachi, but they admit it is a conjecture on their part (they literally list that as the reason for the proposed change to those two phrases), likely envisioning that Cowdery wrote the homophone down wrong as he heard it from Joseph's dictation.
So that is a possibility, though there could be other interesting explanations for the difference.Leo said...
Man, '79 was just a good year for births, wasn't it?
jason said...
https://books.google.com/books?id=_4zcCwAAQBAJ&pg=PA169&dq=Zenos&hl=en&newbks=1&newbks_redir=0&source=gb_mobile_search&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwj0ooqsqciJAxXtG9AFHXBtHt0Q6AF6BAgIEAM#v=onepage&q=Zenos&f=false That Christ's saying are mainly also just quoting Zenos is blasphemy. Joseph Smith had his "witnesses" to the golden plates mine cool sounding sayings and make a Zenoa document from which to blaspheme God and pretend it all came from this imaginary Zenos dooofus.
WJT said...
Jason, why blasphemy? In the Gospels as we have them, Jesus undeniably quotes and alludes to many Old Testament writings. Feel free to make a case against Zenos, but “it’s blasphemy” isn’t an argument.
WJT said...
To clarify, I understand that many of Joseph Smith’s claims are blasphemous IF false. Obviously. What you seem to be implying is that the Zenos thing is inherently blasphemous and THEREFORE false.
Surely the Book of Mormon writers will tell the famous stories from Joshua, Samuel, and Kings again and again, as they so often tell and retell the story of Adam and Eve... right?It turns out that they don't. Nephi said, "I did liken all scriptures unto us, that it might be for our profit and learning." So why did the Nephite prophets not:1) Quote Joshua's adage to "choose ye this day whom ye will serve" when the Lamanites and Nephites parted ways in 2 Nephi 5?2) Recite the Lord's promise in Joshua 1:8 . . .
For thus saith the scripture: Choose ye this day, whom ye will serve (Alma 30:8).
Nevertheless, this did not put an end to the spreading of priestcraft through the land; for there were many who loved the vain things of the world, and they went forth preaching false doctrines; and this they did for the sake of riches and honor. Nevertheless, they durst not lie, if it were known, for fear of the law, for liars were punished; therefore they pretended to preach according to their belief; and now the law could have no power on any man for his belief. And they durst not steal, for fear of the law, for such were punished; neither durst they rob, nor murder, for he that murdered was punished unto death (Alma 1:16-18).
Now there was no law against a man’s belief; for it was strictly contrary to the commands of God that there should be a law which should bring men on to unequal grounds. For thus saith the scripture: Choose ye this day, whom ye will serve. Now if a man desired to serve God, it was his privilege; or rather, if he believed in God it was his privilege to serve him; but if he did not believe in him there was no law to punish him. But if he murdered he was punished unto death; and if he robbed he was also punished; and if he stole he was also punished; and if he committed adultery he was also punished; yea, for all this wickedness they were punished. For there was a law that men should be judged according to their crimes. Nevertheless, there was no law against a man’s belief; therefore, a man was punished only for the crimes which he had done; therefore all men were on equal grounds (Alma 30:7-11).
If anyone knows of a digital Book of Mormon with a less abominable search function, do let me know. I've even tried downloading the Bickertonites' Bible & BOM app, but it treats all search prompts as if they were in quotation marks -- so the prompt choose day serve returns zero results -- and so is no better than a Ctrl-F. The Community of Christ no longer appears to offer any scripture search function, and even if they did there would be the inconvenience of their different chapter-and-verse scheme.
UPDATE: The University of Michigan has a fairly decent BoM search. I'm putting it in the sidebar.
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