Wherefore it came to pass that my father, Lehi, as he went forth prayed unto the Lord, yea, even with all his heart, in behalf of his people. And it came to pass as he prayed unto the Lord, there came a pillar of fire and dwelt upon a rock before him; and he saw and heard much; and because of the things which he saw and heard he did quake and tremble exceedingly (1 Ne. 1:5-6).
And [Samson] smote them hip and thigh with a great slaughter: and he went down and dwelt in the top of the rock Etam. Then the Philistines went up, and pitched in Judah, and spread themselves in Lehi (Judg. 15:8-9).
Now when the sacrifice was consumed, Neemias commanded the water that was left to be poured on the great stones. When this was done, there was kindled a flame: but it was consumed by the light that shined from the altar. . . . And Neemias called this thing [i.e. the "water"] Naphthar, which is as much as to say, a cleansing: but many men call it Nephi (2 Macc. 1:31-32, 36).
And when he came unto Lehi, the Philistines shouted against him: and the Spirit of the Lord came mightily upon him, and the cords that were upon his arms became as flax that was burnt with fire, and his bands loosed from off his hands (Judg. 15:14).
And the prayer was after this manner; O Lord, Lord God, Creator of all things, who art fearful and strong, and righteous, and merciful, and the only and gracious King, the only giver of all things, the only just, almighty, and everlasting, thou that deliverest Israel from all trouble, and didst choose the fathers, and sanctify them . . . (2 Macc. 1:24-25).
And it came to pass that when my father had read and seen many great and marvelous things, he did exclaim many things unto the Lord; such as: Great and marvelous are thy works, O Lord God Almighty! Thy throne is high in the heavens, and thy power, and goodness, and mercy are over all the inhabitants of the earth; and, because thou art merciful, thou wilt not suffer those who come unto thee that they shall perish! And after this manner was the language of my father in the praising of his God; for his soul did rejoice, and his whole heart was filled, because of the things which he had seen, yea, which the Lord had shown unto him (1 Ne. 1:14-15).
And they sing the song of Moses the servant of God, and the song of the Lamb, saying, Great and marvellous are thy works, Lord God Almighty; just and true are thy ways, thou King of saints (Rev. 15:3).
Plant thy people again in thy holy place, as Moses hath spoken. And the priests sung psalms of thanksgiving (2 Macc. 1:30).
"It's us that makes it go," he says, and grins.Now Alvin laughs, a-settin on the ground:"Maybe it goes a little widdershins,But it gets around!"
HomeStadter said...
The Book of Mormon claims that one of its purposes is to establish the truth of The Bible. That is an astonishing claim that is far from being fulfilled, even among its adherents.
This might be a clue though, of how we are to treat the KJV copy-paste, and why it is there. These are parts of the bible that the BoM particularly wants us to know are true and relevant. Or perhaps not us, but rather a close but still future generation that finds the BoM more credible than the Bible.Wm Jas Tychonievich said...
I assume you're referring to 1 Nephi 13?
"These last records, which thou hast seen among the Gentiles, shall establish the truth of the first, which are of the twelve apostles of the Lamb."
I'm not so sure this referring to the Bible as we know it -- which, even taking dubious traditional attributions at face value, only contains the writings of three to five of the twelve apostles.Eric said...
Mormon says something similar near the end of the book:
Therefore repent, and be baptized in the name of Jesus, and lay hold upon the gospel of Christ, which shall be set before you, not only in this record but also in the record which shall come unto the Gentiles from the Jews, which record shall come from the Gentiles unto you.
For behold, this is written for the intent that ye may believe that; and if ye believe that ye will believe this also (Mormon 7:8-9).
I think it's pretty clear that "this" is the Book of Mormon and "that" is the Bible, based on what Mormon is saying.Wm Jas Tychonievich said...
Could be, Eric. Or perhaps some other record which will in the future come from the Jews to the Gentiles to the Lamanite remnant. Mormon's language -- "not only in this record but also in the record which shall come unto the Gentiles from the Jews" -- makes it sound as if "that" comes to light after "this," chronologically. Mormon was writing in the late 4th century AD, after the Gentiles already had the Bible.
HomeStadter said...
I started reading Smith's Fantasia, which goes into this into detail, presenting convincing arguments that this book is not the bible we already have - and that the "A bible, a bible, we already have a bible" is not principally about the Book of Mormon.
Lehi's Jerusalem vision
After his first vision of the pillar of fire -- of which we have no other details, only that "he saw and heard much" -- Lehi returned home to Jerusalem, "cast himself upon his bed," and proceeded to have a second vision:
And being thus overcome with the Spirit, he was carried away in a vision, even that he saw the heavens open, and he thought he saw God sitting upon his throne, surrounded with numberless concourses of angels in the attitude of singing and praising their God.
And it came to pass that he saw One descending out of the midst of heaven, and he beheld that his luster was above that of the sun at noon-day.
And he also saw twelve others following him, and their brightness did exceed that of the stars in the firmament. And they came down and went forth upon the face of the earth.
And the first came and stood before my father, and gave unto him a book, and bade him that he should read. And it came to pass that as he read, he was filled with the Spirit of the Lord. And he read, saying:
Wo, wo, unto Jerusalem, for I have seen thine abominations!
Yea, and many things did my father read concerning Jerusalem—that it should be destroyed, and the inhabitants thereof; many should perish by the sword, and many should be carried away captive into Babylon (1 Ne. 1:8-13).
Much more followed -- "many great and marvelous things" both "read and seen," but again we have no details. Apparently it wasn't all bad news about the destruction of Jerusalem, based on Lehi's reaction: "his soul did rejoice, and his whole heart was filled, because of the things which he had seen, yea, which the Lord had shown unto him” (v. 15). Specifically,
He testified that the things which he saw and heard, and also the things which he read in the book, manifested plainly of the coming of a Messiah, and also the redemption of the world (v. 19).
The traditional interpretation, and problems with it
The "One" descending out of heaven is capitalized in modern editions (though not in the 1830 edition or the printer's manuscript), implying that this being is understood to be Christ, with the "twelve others following him" presumably being the twelve biblical apostles.
This interpretation is reinforced by the very similar language used in the account of Nephi's vision: "And the Lamb of God went forth . . . . And I also beheld twelve others following him" (1 Ne. 11:27, 29). These twelve are later explicitly identified as "the apostles of the Lamb; for thus were the twelve called by the angel of the Lord" (v. 34). Given that we know Lehi's vision included content about the Messiah, and that he used the same expression ("twelve others following him") with which Nephi would later refer to the apostles, it seems obvious that the One Descending must be Christ and that the Twelve Others must be the apostles. Who else could they be?
Here are my reasons for questioning this traditional and seemingly obvious interpretation.
First, Lehi's vision also includes "God sitting upon his throne," clearly a separate being from the One Descending -- but Nephite prophets always taught that the Messiah was the same being as God: "God himself shall come down among the children of men, and shall redeem his people" (Mosiah 15:1). We know that that later Nephites knew Lehi's vision (it is directly quoted by Alma the Younger in Alma 36:22). If they had understood the One Descending to be the Messiah, they would not have conflated the Messiah with God.
Second, Nephi's vision is consistent with the twelve followers being ordinary mortals, but Lehi's is not. Like the One Descending, they come down from heaven: "they came down and went forth upon the face of the earth" (1 Ne. 1:11). Christ came down from heaven, but did the apostles? Only in the same sense that we all do, I suppose, "trailing clouds of glory from God, who is our home." Lehi's Twelve are not earth-dwellers who meet and follow the One after he descends; the Twelve and the One descend together. They "follow him" not in the sense of being his disciples, but in literally following him from heaven down to earth.
Third, Nephi is seeing a vision of things that will happen in the distant future. He sees Christ being born and baptized, acquiring twelve followers, being crucified, and so on. None of these figures he sees talk to him or interact with him, because they're not actually present; he's essentially watching a movie.
Although Lehi also apparently saw visions of the future Messiah, the vision of the Twelve and the One is not a movie-like vision of the future. These beings come down and interact with Lehi. One of them -- either the One Descending or the first of the Twelve Others -- gives him a book in which he reads the fate of Jerusalem. Their coming down is not a future event Lehi is precognitively witnessing; it is a present event, involving beings who were in heaven at the time of Lehi and came down to reveal things to him. His experience is fundamentally different from Nephi's.
Of course, if we accept the preexistence of human spirits (and we do), it is possible that the Twelve Others were the same beings that would later incarnate as the apostles of Jesus, and that they came down to Lehi in their pre-incarnate state, both to inform him of the fate of Jerusalem and to dramatically pre-enact for his benefit certain elements of their future mission -- as if their going "forth upon the face of the earth" was a sort of pantomime of their anticipated work as traveling preachers some six centuries later.
So the Twelve Others could be the apostles, but if so that has important ramifications. Assuming these twelve apostles are more or less the same characters we meet in the New Testament, in that latter book they come across as being ordinary men who were transformed through their association with Christ and became extraordinary. (At least this is true of Simon Peter, the most fleshed-out of the lot.) If they are Lehi's Twelve Others, though, they seem already to have been angelic beings of sorts all those centuries before, brighter than the stars in the firmament, their incarnation as much a "condescension" as that of Christ. And among these godlike beings was the future Judas Iscariot? It's not impossible, but it would require some major reevaluation of the way we normally think of the apostles -- who seem almost to be cast as "bumbling sidekicks" in much of the Bible.
Who else could they be?
If the thirteen luminous beings are not already-godlike beings who will, centuries in the future, condescend to incarnate as mortals, the other possibility is that they are people who already incarnated centuries in the past and have since "gone to heaven" and become like angels. If not the twelve apostles, could they be the twelve patriarchs?
Think of the two dreams of Joseph. In the first,
we were binding sheaves in the field, and, lo, my sheaf arose, and also stood upright; and, behold, your sheaves stood round about, and made obeisance to my sheaf (Gen. 37:7).
Joseph's brothers immediately understand the dream's import and say, "Shalt thou indeed reign over us?" (v. 8). The upright sheaf represents Joseph himself, and the bowed sheaves represent his 11 brothers.
The second dream is more directly relevant to Lehi's Jerusalem vision because it uses the imagery of the sun and stars:
Behold, I have dreamed a dream more; and, behold, the sun and the moon and the eleven stars made obeisance to me (v. 9).
Joseph's father, Jacob, understands the dream thus: "Shall I and thy mother and thy brethren indeed come to bow down ourselves to thee to the earth?" (v. 10). The sun is Jacob, the moon is Rachel, and the 11 stars are Joseph's brothers. Joseph does not mention how he himself was represented in this latter dream, but if the sheaves bowed to a sheaf, it stands to reason that the stars bowed to a star. Could Lehi's sun-like being be Jacob; and the 12 star-like beings, his sons?
After the One and the Twelve descend,
the first came and stood before my father, and gave unto him a book, and bade him that he should read. And it came to pass that as he read, he was filled with the Spirit of the Lord (1 Ne. 1:11-12).
Does "the first" mean the One, or the first among the Twelve? If the latter, then this should be Joseph, clearly primus inter pares in the dream on whose imagery Lehi's vision seems to draw.
Now isn't that curious? Later, in his "real," non-visionary life, Lehi is given another book and reads it. After seeing what is in the book, "he was filled with the Spirit, and began to prophesy concerning his seed" (1 Ne. 5:17). What book was this? The plates of brass, a record kept by the descendants of Joseph, and identifying Lehi as one of their number (something he had apparently not known before). What did he prophesy? "That these plates of brass should go forth unto all nations" (v. 18), just as the 12 star-like beings in his vision "went forth upon the face of the earth."
If Joseph -- in the form of the book kept by his tribe, the plates of brass -- will go forth unto all nations, what of the other 11 starry beings who also go forth? Well, according to Nephi's later prophecies, each of the other tribes will also produce a holy book, and these, too, will go forth to the world.
For behold, I shall speak unto the Jews and they shall write it; and I shall also speak unto the Nephites and they shall write it; and I shall also speak unto the other tribes of the house of Israel, which I have led away, and they shall write it; . . . And it shall come to pass that the Jews shall have the words of the Nephites, and the Nephites shall have the words of the Jews; and the Nephites and the Jews shall have the words of the lost tribes of Israel; and the lost tribes of Israel shall have the words of the Nephites and the Jews (2 Ne. 29:12-13).
There's one more hint that the book in Lehi's vision is, or represents, the brass plates. When the contents of the plates of brass are summarized, one prophet is singled out for special mention. The plates contained
the prophecies of the holy prophets, from the beginning, even down to the commencement of the reign of Zedekiah; and also many prophecies which have been spoken by the mouth of Jeremiah (1 Ne. 5:13).
Jeremiah perhaps receives special mention because he was Lehi’s contemporary (all the prophets, even the new guy!) and because, as a different Nephi would put it centuries later, Jeremiah was “that same prophet who testified of the destruction of Jerusalem” (Hel. 8:20).
Of the specific contents of the book in Lehi’s Jerusalem vision we have but this one sentence:
Wo, wo, unto Jerusalem, for I have seen thine abominations! (1 Ne. 1:13)
And this is clearly a condensed paraphrase of one of the prophecies of Jeremiah:
I have seen thine adulteries, and thy neighings, the lewdness of thy whoredom, and thine abominations on the hills in the fields. Woe unto thee, O Jerusalem! (Jer. 13:27)
So this book — which may have been presented to Lehi by Joseph of Egypt, contained the words of Jeremiah, and filled him with the Spirit of the Lord — may have been identical to the brass book of Laban, a record kept in Egyptian by the descendants of Joseph, which also contained the words of Jeremiah, and which also filled Lehi with the Spirit of the Lord.
To me this makes more sense than the theory that the twelve apostles came down 600 years before their birth to tell him about the imminent destruction of Jerusalem.
WJT said...
Lehi’s book also said (paraphrased by Nephi) that “many should perish by the sword, and many should be carried away captive into Babylon” (1 Ne. 1:13).
This is also the wording of Jeremiah: “he shall carry them captive into Babylon, and shall slay them with the sword” (Jer. 20:4).
The book Lehi read was, or included, the Book of Jeremiah.Wm Jas Tychonievich said...
"Jerusalem . . . and the inhabitants thereof" is also a turn of phrase found only in Jeremiah (Jer. 23:14).
Lehi was reading from the Book of Jeremiah.HomeStadter said...
This is interesting. There certainly is precedence in mormon writings for a resurrected being (Moroni) to come back to earth to see to their records being disseminated properly. There are examples of pre-mortal beings coming to earth too: angels to Adam and Eve to teach them the gospel, and the Son of God appearing to the brother of Jared. Perhaps that was only because there was no appropriate resurrected person to do those tasks.
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?
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.
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.
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