Intertextuality in 2 Zenos (Jacob 5) (Wm Jas Tychonievich)

The 2 Zenos text (as quoted in Jacob 5) has significant parallels to three different biblical texts: Isaiah 5, Luke 13, and Romans 11. In this post I will lay out the parallels and attempt to discern the direction of the influence.

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A. Isaiah 5 and 2 Zenos

Both of these texts are quoted in the Book of Mormon (in 2 Nephi 15 and Jacob 5, respectively), so we know that the Nephites had both of them. Here are the main parallels between the two.

1. Both are about a vineyard, and both explicitly say that it is an allegory about "the house of Israel." For Isaiah, Israel is the vineyard itself; for Zenos, it is an olive tree in the vineyard. These are the only two places in scripture where the house of Israel is associated with a vineyard. The "plant" to which Isaiah's parallel metaphor likens the men of Judah means in Hebrew "that which is planted"; it could refer to an individual plant such as the olive tree of Zenos, or it could mean "plantation" and refer to the vineyard as a whole.

For the vineyard of the LORD of hosts is the house of Israel, and the men of Judah his pleasant plant (Isa. 5:7).

I will liken thee, O house of Israel, like unto a tame olive tree, which a man took and nourished in his vineyard (Jacob 5:3).

2. Both texts say that the vineyard "brought forth" unwanted "wild" fruit. In Isaiah, there is no explanation for this; the well-cultivated vineyard spontaneously produces "wild grapes" (literally "stinking or worthless things" in Hebrew). In Zenos, the lord of the vineyard has grafted tame branches onto wild olive trees, which is why these trees bring forth a combination of tame and wild fruit. The only other reference to wild fruit in scripture is the story of the "wild gourds" served to the prophets in 2 Kgs. 4:39.

"he looked that it should bring forth grapes, and it brought forth wild grapes" (Isa. 5:2)
"wherefore, when I looked that it should bring forth grapes, brought it forth wild grapes?" (Isa. 5:4)

"the other part of the tree hath brought forth wild fruit" (Jacob 5:25)
"a part thereof brought forth wild fruit" (Jacob 5:45)

3. In both stories, the owner of the vineyard asks rhetorically, in almost the same language, what more he could possibly have done for the vineyard.

"What could have been done more to my vineyard, that I have not done in it?" (Isa. 5:4)

"What could I have done more for my vineyard?" (Jacob 5:41)
"But what could I have done more in my vineyard?" (Jacob 5:47)
"What could I have done more for my vineyard?" (Jacob 5:49)

4. Both texts juxtapose pruning and digging, a combination that is not found elsewhere in scripture. In Zenos, the lord of the vineyard and his servant repeatedly prune and dig about the olive trees in an attempt to save them. In Isaiah, the owner of the vineyard refuses to do so.

"it shall not be pruned, nor digged" (Isa. 5:6)

"I will prune it, and dig about it" (Jacob 5:4)
"he pruned it, and digged about it" (Jacob 5:5)
"And the Lord of the vineyard caused that it should be digged about, and pruned" (Jacob 5:11)
"Let us prune it, and dig about it" (Jacob 5:27)
"I have digged about it, and I have pruned it" (Jacob 5:47)
"Wherefore, dig about them, and prune them" (Jacob 5:64)
"I nourished my vineyard, and pruned it, and dug about it" (Jacob 5:76)

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B. Luke 13 and 2 Zenos

1. Both are about a fruit tree (not a grapevine) in a vineyard. There are no other references in scripture to anything other than grapes being grown in a vineyard.

"A certain man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard" (Luke 13:6)

"like unto a tame olive tree, which a man took and nourished in his vineyard" (Jacob 5:3)

2. Both refer to the unfruitful trees as "cumbering the ground." The verb cumber is not to be found elsewhere in scripture, except in Luke 10:40 ("Martha was cumbered about much serving"), where it is a different word more literally translated as "distracted."

"cut it down; why cumbereth it the ground?" (Luke 13:7)

"that they may not cumber the ground of my vineyard" (Jacob 5:9)
"all sorts of fruit did cumber the tree" (Jacob 5:30)
"I also cut down that which cumbered this spot of ground" (Jacob 5:44)
"Let us go to and hew down the trees . . . that they shall not cumber the ground of my vineyard" (Jacob 5:49)
"and the bad be hewn down . . . that they cumber not the ground of my vineyard" (Jacob 5:66)

3. Both have the owner of the vineyard "dig about" and "dung" the unfruitful trees. "Dig about" is to be found nowhere else, except in Job 11:18. Dung as a verb is found nowhere else.

"I shall dig about it, and dung it" (Luke 13:8)

"I will prune it, and dig about it" (Jacob 5:4)
"he pruned it, and digged about it" (Jacob 5:5)
"And the Lord of the vineyard caused that it should be digged about" (Jacob 5:11)
"Let us prune it, and dig about it" (Jacob 5:27)
"I have digged about it, and I have pruned it, and I have dunged it" (Jacob 5:47)
"dig about the trees" (Jacob 5:63)
"Wherefore, dig about them, and prune them, and dung them" (Jacob 5:64)
"I nourished my vineyard, and pruned it, and dug about it, and dunged it" (Jacob 5:76)

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C. Romans 11 and 2 Zenos

1. Both passages juxtapose firstfruit (or first fruit) with root and branches. Neither of these latter words is juxtaposed with firstfruit anywhere else in scripture

For if the firstfruit be holy, the lump is also holy: and if the root be holy, so are the branches (Romans 11:16)

I have preserved the roots and the branches of the first fruit (Jacob 5:60)

2. Both speak of branches being broken off and the branches of a wild olive tree being grafted in.

"And if some of the branches be broken off, and thou, being a wild olive tree, wert graffed in among them" (Romans 11:17)

"they came to the tree whose natural branches had been broken off, and the wild branches had been grafted in" (Jacob 5:30)

3. Both refer to "sparing" the tree or its branches.

For if God spared not the natural branches, take heed lest he also spare not thee (Romans 11:21).

But, behold, the servant said unto the Lord of the vineyard: Spare it a little longer. And the Lord said: Yea, I will spare it a little longer, for it grieveth me that I should lose the trees of my vineyard (Jacob 5:50-51).

4. Both refer to "the natural branches" of the olive tree being grafted "in again."

And they also, if they abide not still in unbelief, shall be graffed in: for God is able to graff them in again. For if thou wert cut out of the olive tree which is wild by nature, and wert graffed contrary to nature into a good olive tree: how much more shall these, which be the natural branches, be graffed into their own olive tree? (Rom. 11:23-24)

And the branches of the natural tree will I graft in again into the natural tree; And the branches of the natural tree will I graft into the natural branches of the tree; and thus will I bring them together again, that they shall bring forth the natural fruit, and they shall be one (Jacob 5:67-68).

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D. Other related texts

In 1 Nephi 10, Lehi gives a brief version of the olive tree allegory. There is no reference to wild branches or wild fruit, only to the natural branches being broken off and scattered and then later grafted back in. Most of what is in this summary can be found in Romans 11, with the exception of the "house of Israel" reference (as in Isaiah 5 and 2 Zenos) and the mention of the broken branches being scattered in many places (as in 2 Zenos).

Yea, even my father spake much concerning the Gentiles, and also concerning the house of Israel, that they should be compared like unto an olive tree, whose branches should be broken off and should be scattered upon all the face of the earth.

Wherefore, he said it must needs be that we should be led with one accord into the land of promise, unto the fulfilling of the word of the Lord, that we should be scattered upon all the face of the earth.

And after the house of Israel should be scattered they should be gathered together again; or, in fine, after the Gentiles had received the fulness of the Gospel, the natural branches of the olive tree, or the remnants of the house of Israel, should be grafted in, or come to the knowledge of the true Messiah, their Lord and their Redeemer (1 Ne. 10:12-14).

In 1 Nephi 15, Nephi comments on these words of Lehi, explaining them to Laman and Lemuel. This explanation also says nothing about the wild branches or wild fruit. The main thing it that distinguishes it from 1 Ne. 10 is that it mixes vine and olive symbolism, as only 2 Zenos does, speaking of "the true vine" as apparently interchangeable with "the true olive tree."

And they said: Behold, we cannot understand the words which our father hath spoken concerning the natural branches of the olive tree, and also concerning the Gentiles.

Behold, I say unto you, that the house of Israel was compared unto an olive tree, by the Spirit of the Lord which was in our father; and behold are we not broken off from the house of Israel, and are we not a branch of the house of Israel?

And now, the thing which our father meaneth concerning the grafting in of the natural branches through the fulness of the Gentiles, is, that in the latter days, when our seed shall have dwindled in unbelief, . . . they shall come to the knowledge of their Redeemer and the very points of his doctrine, that they may know how to come unto him and be saved.

And then at that day will they not rejoice and give praise unto their everlasting God, their rock and their salvation? Yea, at that day, will they not receive the strength and nourishment from the true vine? Yea, will they not come unto the true fold of God?

Behold, I say unto you, Yea; they shall be remembered again among the house of Israel; they shall be grafted in, being a natural branch of the olive tree, into the true olive tree (1 Ne. 15:7, 12-16).

This mention of "the true vine" (there are no "true" trees or vines in 2 Zenos) brings in John 15 as yet another possibly related text. This refers to "withered" branches (mentioned four timed in 2 Zenos) and unfruitful branches being "cast . . . into the fire" and "burned" (mentioned 11 times in 2 Zenos). Branches that bear no fruit "he taketh away," which seems different from casting them into the fire and may refer to the brances being grafted into other trees scattered around the vineyard, as in 2 Zenos.

I am the true vine, and my Father is the husbandman.

Every branch in me that beareth not fruit he taketh away: and every branch that beareth fruit, he purgeth it, that it may bring forth more fruit. . . .

Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine; no more can ye, except ye abide in me.

I am the vine, ye are the branches: He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit: for without me ye can do nothing.

If a man abide not in me, he is cast forth as a branch, and is withered; and men gather them, and cast them into the fire, and they are burned (John 15:1-2, 4-6).

In Alma 16, Mormon again references this "true vine" and specifically mentions grafting.

That they might not be hardened against the word, that they might not be unbelieving, and go on to destruction, but that they might receive the word with joy, and as a branch be grafted into the true vine, that they might enter into the rest of the Lord their God (Alma 16:17).

In Alma 13, Alma perhaps references 2 Zenos with his reference to "all parts of our vineyard."

[W]e are thus highly favored, for we have these glad tidings declared unto us in all parts of our vineyard (Alma 13:23).

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E. How are all these texts related?

Our preferred solution -- the simplest one under the assumption that the Book of Mormon is basically legit -- would be that 2 Zenos is the oldest text, that all the others are influenced by it, and that this is sufficient to account for parallels between the Book of Mormon and certain New Testament texts.

I think this works for our main texts. Consider the central image in each:

2 Zenos: an olive tree in a vineyard
Isaiah 5: a vineyard
Luke 13: a fig tree in a vineyard
Romans 11: an olive tree

If 2 Zenos is the original, each of the others takes one aspect (vineyard, tree in vineyard, olive tree) of its more complex image. If the biblical texts came first and Joseph Smith created the 2 Zenos text, he took three different allegories about three different crops and combined them into a single integrated story -- which is not impossible to do, of course, but is more difficult and unlikely than the reverse. Were it not for the Luke 13 text, I would have said that Zenos's incongruous olive tree in a vineyard was evidence of a story cobbled together from two different sources, one about an olive tree and the other about a vineyard -- but the parable in Luke about a fig tree in a vineyard shows that perhaps vineyards with crops other than grapes are not so incongruous after all.

The main sticking point is the "true vine" language used in John 11, 1 Nephi 15 (which also has "true olive tree"), and Alma 16. Mormon may have had access to the New Testament, which potentially explains Alma 16, but 1 Nephi 15 -- the words of Nephi, unedited by Mormon -- cannot be explained in that way. I also don't think it works to assume that the "true vine" comes from 2 Zenos. Unlike the 1 Zenos fragments in 1 Nephi 19 -- which are obviously just that, fragments of a larger text -- Jacob 5 seems to be a complete Zenos text quoted in its entirety. At present, I have no good explanation for the "Johannine" language in 1 Nephi 15 other than the sort of "contamination" discussed in "Lehi, Nephi, and the pillar of fire that "dwelt upon a rock": A case study of hard-to-define biblical parallels."

3 Comments:

Jacob G said...
Might '...the axe is laid unto the root of the trees: therefore every tree which bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire.' of Matthew and Luke also be a reference to 2 Zenos? In Jacob 5 its fruitless branches that are cut off not trees but its similar. IIRC the Lord is always wanting to burn them, and the servant is always suggesting some new thing to try with them.

Only Romans 11 gets the overall message of the parable while the other examples is just similar imagery.

Any ideas why the 'vineyard' seems to have mostly olive trees in it (at least 5) but doesn't talk about any vines? Some linguistic quirk perhaps?
Jacob G said...
And the phrase 'the first shall last and the last shall be first.' A bit different in v.63 'the first and the last; and the last and the first...'
WJT said...
Good possible connections. Thanks.

No idea why it's set in a vineyard when vines and grapes play no role in the story. I would have thought it a clumsy error of JS's if not for Jesus' own parable about a fig tree in a vineyard.

Friday, February 27^th 2026

Who had the vision that converted Abish?

Wm Jas Tychonievich

2.5 min read (690 words)

(image)

Sheri Doty, Abish Teaching the Lamanites

The Book of Mormon briefly mentions that Abish, a Lamanitish woman, had "been converted unto the Lord for many years, on account of a remarkable vision of her father" (Alma 19:16).

In my past readings, I had always assumed that this meant a vision that her father had had. This time around, though, I realized that it could also mean a vision in which she had seen her father -- either her own human father (presumably after his death) or her Father, God. In fact, at least in the English of our own day, this latter reading is the more natural one. If I wanted to refer to a vision which my father had had, I would say "a vision of my father's," with the possessive -'s.

Of course, we can't assume that the language of the Book of Mormon -- a combination of King James English and Joseph Smith's frontier dialect, perhaps (according to a currently popular theory) with an unexplained admixture of even earlier English -- always corresponds to current usage, so I tried to look for similar structures elsewhere in scripture.

The structure "determiner + noun + of + nominal possessive" is certainly attested in scripture, at least with pronouns: "these sayings of mine" (Matt. 7:24, 26; 3 Ne. 14:24, 26; 15:1), "a friend of mine" (Luke 11:6), "every prayer of mine" (Philip. 1:4), "those sons of mine" (Alma 56:17), "these last commandments of mine" (D&C 17:8), "these words of mine" (D&C 95:3), "any neglect of mine" (JS-H 1:59), "a neighbour of thine" (1 Sam. 15:28), "this liberty of yours" (1 Cor. 8:9), "five damsels of hers" (1 Sam. 25:42), "every beast of theirs" (Gen. 34:23), "every oblation of theirs, and every meat offering of theirs, and every sin offering of theirs, and every trespass offering of theirs" (Num. 18:9).

Searching for similar instances with nouns rather than pronouns is much more difficult, since there are so many possibilities.

The fact that of can also mean "from" in King James English (e.g. "learn of me" means learn from me, not about me) also complicates matters, since of course this sense of of would not use the possessive. So "they speak a vision of [from] their own heart" (Jer. 23:16) and "then shall they seek a vision of [from] the prophet" (Ezek. 7:26) are not counterexamples. "Every word of God" (Prov. 30:5, Luke 4:4, 1 Ne. 17:35) could also be understood in this "from" sense -- Luke is paraphrasing "every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of the Lord" (Deut. 8:3) -- and thus do not provide decisive evidence. Any reference to a "vision of God" (or "of the Almighty," as in Balaam's formula) should be assumed to mean "from God" also, unless it is made clear that God himself was seen.

The distinction we are interested in does not exist for the; "the vision of Isaiah" could mean either a vision seen by Isaiah (like "a vision of Isaiah's") or a vision in which Isaiah was seen (like "a vision of Isaiah"). So I searched the scriptures for various other determiners (a, every, any, this, that, these, those) + "visions(s) of," excluding instances where of could mean "from" and other irrelevant instances such as "a vision of the night" (Job 20:8, 33:15).

This search yielded only a single instance: "a vision of angels" (Luke 24:23), in which the angels are the ones seen and so of course the possessive would not be used. So zero relevant evidence either way.

Of course other nouns than "vision" could be relevant, and my search also missed any instances where an adjective is interposed between the determiner and the noun (as in "a remarkable vision of her father"), but it's hard to narrow down all those possibilities into something searchable. I think my only option at this point is to keep my eyes open for such expressions the next time I read through the entire canon.

Meanwhile, the nature of the vision that converted Abish remains ambiguous.

Saturday, February 28^th 2026

Is El a Lamanite god in the Book of Mormon?

Wm Jas Tychonievich

3 min read (960 words)

No El, no El, no El, no El
-- Christmas carol

(That epigraph is just a throwaway pun, of course, though it is perhaps worth noting that this very old carol includes a non-biblical detail concerning the new star which seems to be right out of the Book of Mormon: "And to the earth it gave great light / And so it continued both day and night.")

Hugh Nibley makes much of the lack of Baal names in the Book of Mormon, asking how the uneducated Joseph Smith could have known that such names happened to be very unpopular around the time Lehi left Jerusalem. I find this completely unimpressive, since no uneducated Christian would expect Israelite names to include the name of this "false god." Besides, the Book of Mormon does include one Baal name: Isabel (Alma 39:3), which is apparently either a form of Jezebel (Hebrew ʾIzeḇel, meaning "Where is Baal?") or is parallel to Isaiah (Yəšaʿyāhū, "Yahweh is salvation"), with Baal replacing Yahweh. This name occurs over 500 years after Lehi left Jerusalem, presumably part of an unbroken tradition of Baal names.

What I do find striking is the relative lack of El names. Of the 300-some proper names that are unique to the Book of Mormon, not a single one of them incorporates the element El. The Bible, in contrast, contains over 300 El-derived names. The El names that do occur in the Book of Mormon fall into three categories:

(1) Names used by Isaiah (Immanuel) and Malachi (Elijah), appearing in the Book of Mormon only where whole chapters from those books are quoted verbatim, by Nephi (2 Ne. 17:14, 18:8) and Jesus (3 Ne. 25:5) respectively.

(2) References to the biblical figures Israel -- which, significantly, means "fights against El" -- and (probably) Samuel. Jesus' reference to "all the prophets from Samuel and those that follow after" (3 Ne. 20:24) presumably refers to the biblical Samuel, since Samuel the Lamanite was a very recent prophet.

(3) Lamanite-affiliated names: Lemuel, Ishmael, and Samuel. These are the only El names that belong to Book of Mormon rather than biblical figures, although the names themselves are biblical.

The original founders of the Lamanite group were Laman, Lemuel, and the sons of Ishmael, Ishmael himself having died before the schism. The land of Ishmael was Lamanite territory, "being called after the sons of Ishmael, who also became Lamanites" (Alma 17:19). As for Samuel, he is scarcely ever mentioned without a reminder that he is a Lamanite. I strongly suspect that the Lamanites adopted El as their primary name for God, after which the Nephites stopped using it.

But isn't el just a common noun referring to any god or tutelary spirit? Yes, and so is baal a common noun meaning "lord." That doesn't stop such names from becoming associated with a particular religion, leading those who oppose that religion to avoid them. Even in English, God generally implies the specific god worshiped by Christians and some Jews.

We know that the Nephites and Lamanites used different names for God, because the Lamanite king of Ishmael (500-some years after the departure from Jerusalem) doesn't understand the name of the Nephite deity:

And Ammon began to speak unto him with boldness, and said unto him: Believest thou that there is a God?

And he answered, and said unto him: I do not know what that meaneth.

And then Ammon said: Believest thou that there is a Great Spirit?

And he said, Yea.

And Ammon said: This is God (Alma 18:24-28).

The Lamanite name for God is translated as "Great Spirit" -- thus possibly the biblical El Elyon, "the highest el."

What was the primary Nephite name for God? Not Baal, obviously, per Nibley (Isabel is a "harlot," probably the leader of a false religion like the Jezebel of Rev. 2:20-22, whose work as a self-proclaimed "prophetess" is called "fornication" and "adultery"). The next obvious candidate would be Yahweh. Certainly that name was used, as as the last verse in the book refers to "the great Jehovah" (Moro. 10:34). As an element in names, it occurs in the Nephite names Jeremiah, Joshua, and Zedekiah, all of which are biblical. It is likely that these Nephites were named after Hebrew figures rather than with specific reference to Yahweh (just as we use names like Martin and Dennis without intentional reference to Mars and Dionysus). The only non-biblical Nephite names that seem to incorporate Yahweh are Amalickiah and Mosiah. It has also been suggested that the distinctive -ihah ending in Ammonihah, Cumenihah, Mathonihah, Moronihah, Nephihah, and Onihah (though cf. the Jaredite name Orihah) may be a form of Yahweh.

Nibley has proposed that, given the Egyptian connection, Amon or Ammon (king of the gods in Egypt, also rendered Amen) may have been used as a divine name by the Nephites. The main objection to this is that Ammon itself appears as a personal name in the Book of Mormon. While names incorporating the names of gods are common, it seems highly unlikely that anyone would be named simply God. Whether or not it is a divine name, it does seem to occur in a lot of Nephite names, including (allowing for some variation in the second vowel) Aminadab, Aminadi, Ammonihah, Amnigaddah, Amnihu, Amnor, and Helaman. Since only one of these has a double m, it is possible that Amon (or Amin or Aman) was a divine name and that Ammon meant something else. If we allow Omn as a variant, we might add Gadiomnah, Omner, Omni, and Teomner to the list (though cf. Antiomno, a Lamanite). It's an interesting possibility, especially given Joseph Smith's own use of Ahman or Aumen as a name of God.

Sunday, March 1^st 2026

The harlot Isabel

Wm Jas Tychonievich

14 min read (4,100 words)

This turned out to be unexpectedly lengthy and speculative, but I think the hypotheses it introduces have got legs.

I mentioned this in passing in my last post, "Is El a Lamanite god in the Book of Mormon?", but I don't think "the harlot Isabel" (Alma 39:3) was just a hooker -- which in turn means that "these things" which are "most abominable above all sins save it be the shedding of innocent blood or denying the Holy Ghost" (v. 5) may not refer primarily to, as the chapter summary in the current CJCLDS edition has it, "sexual sin" (though of course that is abominable, too, as Jacob 2-3 makes crystal clear).

In support of the conventional reading, there is obviously the use of the word "harlot." Beyond that, we are also told that "she did steal away the hearts of many" (v. 4), which could refer to many men falling in love with her. Finally, in calling Corianton to repentance, Alma exhorts him to "go no more after the lusts of your eyes" (v. 9), which sounds like a man being seduced by a beautiful temptress.

And that's it, really. Nothing else in Alma's four-chapter speech to Corianton sounds at all like a lecture on chastity -- again, compare it to Jacob 2-3, which very clearly is a lecture on chastity. Instead, Alma devotes most of his time to doctrinal minutiae about the timing of the resurrection, the meaning of the word restoration, and so on -- none of which would seem to be a high priority if he were speaking to someone so religiously unserious as to be traveling some distance to patronize a top-drawer prostitute when he was supposed to be on a mission.

We are told that Corianton "didst forsake the ministry, and did go over into the land of Siron among the borders of the Lamanites, after the harlot Isabel" (v. 3). In other words, this is not a case of a missionary coming across an alluring prostitute and succumbing to temptation. He left the land of the Zoramites, where he had been preaching, and traveled to another land to be with a specific harlot.

It's odd that Alma would call out the harlot by name if she was just a harlot. In a book with vanishingly few named female characters, where even queens go unnamed, Alma saw fit to mention -- and Mormon saw fit to include in his abridgment -- the name of some prostitute his son slept with? I don't think he's doing that. I think he's calling Isabel a harlot, accusing her of harlotry -- meaning that she wasn't a harlot openly, or in the ordinary sense.

Alma says to Corianton:

Suffer not yourself to be led away by any vain or foolish thing; suffer not the devil to lead away your heart again after those wicked harlots. Behold, O my son, how great iniquity ye brought upon the Zoramites; for when they saw your conduct they would not believe in my words (v. 11).

But how did the Zoramites see his conduct if he left the land of the Zoramites and traveled to Siron to do it? It scarcely seems likely that he would have announced publicly that he was going on a road trip for the purpose of sleeping with a particularly famous prostitute. Even if he had been sleeping with hookers in the land of the Zoramites first, that is the sort of sin one commits in secret, not something that would likely become publicly known. It seems that Corianton's great sin was something he did openly.

Also, notice the strangeness of the reference to "those wicked harlots" -- not harlots in general (so Corianton wasn't a common whoremonger), and not Isabel in particular (so it wasn't an individual love affair, condemned as "harlotry" because illicit), but "those wicked harlots," a specific group. Elsewhere in scripture, harlots are never called "wicked," that adjective being reserved for those who patronize them or pimp them out. Here, too, it seems that Alma would be more concerned to condemn Corianton's behavior as wicked rather than that of the harlot. The only other reference in all of scripture to prostitutes being "wicked" is that in Nephi's high mountain vision to "the wickedness of the great whore" (1 Ne. 14:12) -- where it refers not to a literal hooker but to "that great and abominable church, which is the whore of all the earth" (1 Ne. 22:13).

That's what I think we're dealing with here, too: not a call girl but an abominable church. If Corianton did "forsake the ministry" to join a cult, that very likely would have been public knowledge -- converts don't keep it secret; they spread the word -- and it would have undermined Alma's teaching much more directly and seriously than if Corianton had merely struggled with chastity.

Sexual irregularities may have played a role in this cult, as they often do, but not necessarily. False religion itself is consistently referred to in scripture with the language of prostitution. For example, the phrase "go a whoring" occurs 18 times in the Old Testament, and every single time it refers not to literal prostitution but to the worship of false gods. Jeremiah 3 is another clear example, where repeated references to "playing the harlot" refer not to sex but to the nations of Israel and Judah being unfaithful to their God.

As I mentioned in my last post, Isabel is the only name in the Book of Mormon to include the theophoric element Baal, which again suggests the worship of a false god. Specifically, Isabel may be a form of the biblical name Jezebel (pronounced Izebel in Hebrew). This is interesting because, besides the historical Jezebel who championed the worship of Baal in the days of Elijah, there is another woman called by that name in the Bible:

Notwithstanding I have a few things against thee, because thou sufferest that woman Jezebel, which calleth herself a prophetess, to teach and to seduce my servants to commit fornication, and to eat things sacrificed unto idols. And I gave her space to repent of her fornication; and she repented not. Behold, I will cast her into a bed, and them that commit adultery with her into great tribulation, except they repent of their deeds (Rev. 2:20-22).

Of course Alma could not have been influenced by John of Patmos, but he may have been using a similar rhetorical device. It is unlikely that this false prophetess's name was actually Jezebel; rather, John calls her that in the same spirit in which he calls Rome "Babylon" and Jerusalem "Sodom and Egypt." Alma may be doing the same thing. Despite all the sexual language used -- seduce, fornication, bed, adultery -- it is pretty clear that "Jezebel" is not merely a woman of loose morals but a religious leader, one who "calleth herself a prophetess." Another interesting parallel is that the condemnation of "Jezebel" is prefaced with "I have a few things against thee," just as Alma tells Corianton "this is what I have against thee" (Alma 39:2). That particular turn of phrase is found only in Revelation 2 and Alma 39.

Alma's reference to Isabel's stealing "away the hearts of many" is also more consistent with the language of false religion than with that of romantic love or lust. For example:

But if thine heart turn away, so that thou wilt not hear, but shalt be drawn away, and worship other gods, and serve them (Deut. 30:17).

And he had seven hundred wives, princesses, and three hundred concubines: and his wives turned away his heart. For it came to pass, when Solomon was old, that his wives turned away his heart after other gods (1 Kgs. 11:3-4).

The passage about Solomon is particularly clear. Even when it is his wives and concubines that "turned away his heart," the reference is not to love or sex but to false religion.

An even clearer example, using the same verb steal, refers to Alma himself prior to his conversion to religion of his father:

And he became a great hinderment to the prosperity of the church of God; stealing away the hearts of the people; causing much dissension among the people; giving a chance for the enemy of God to exercise his power over them (Mosiah 27:9).

Again, this very clearly refers to drawing people into false religious beliefs or practices, not to sexual seduction.

So if Isabel was a religious leader, what was her doctrine? We can perhaps infer it from the other points Alma makes, and the misconceptions he seems eager to rectify, in the remainder of his speech to Corianton.

First, "concerning the coming of Christ," (Alma 39:15), Alma says:

And now I will ease your mind somewhat on this subject. Behold, you marvel why these things should be known so long beforehand. Behold, I say unto you, is not a soul at this time as precious unto God as a soul will be at the time of his coming? (v. 17)

If Corianton's unease of mind on this issue came from Isabel, then perhaps she taught either, like Sherem (Jacob 7:7) and Korihor (Alma 30:13) that foreknowledge was impossible or, like mainstream Bible critics today, that the words of prophets always have to do with their own time rather than with the distant future.

Second, Alma says:

I perceive that thy mind is worried concerning the resurrection of the dead. Behold, I say unto you, that there is no resurrection -- or, I would say, in other words, that this mortal does not put on immortality, this corruption does not put on incorruption -- until after the coming of Christ. Behold, he bringeth to pass the resurrection of the dead. But behold, my son, the resurrection is not yet (Alma 40:1-3).

Corianton had a problem with the doctrine of the resurrection, but not the one you would expect. Rather than doubting that resurrection was possible, he apparently believed that it was already happening in his time, before the coming of Christ.

Alma's next point is not explicitly tied to Corianton's worries, but we can still assume that that is his reason for bringing up this otherwise seemingly unimportant question and for having "inquired diligently of the Lord to know" (v. 9) more about it:

Now there must needs be a space betwixt the time of death and the time of the resurrection. And now I would inquire what becometh of the souls of men from this time of death to the time appointed for the resurrection? (vv. 6-7)

Alma then addresses misconceptions (presumably those of Corianton under the influence of Isabel) about the meaning of "first resurrection":

Now, there are some that have understood that this state of happiness and this state of misery of the soul, before the resurrection, was a first resurrection. Yea, I admit it may be termed a resurrection, the raising of the spirit or the soul and their consignation to happiness or misery, according to the words which have been spoken.
And behold, again it hath been spoken, that there is "a first resurrection, a resurrection of all those who have been, or who are, or who shall be, down to the resurrection of Christ" from the dead. Now, we do not suppose that this first resurrection, which is spoken of in this manner, can be the resurrection of the souls and their consignation to happiness or misery. Ye cannot suppose that this is what it meaneth (vv. 15-17).

The passage I have put in quotation marks is quoting Abinadi (Mosiah 15:21), who is the one who introduced the idea of a "first resurrection," so apparently Isabel accepted the authority of Abinadi (who converted Alma Sr., Corianton's grandfather) but interpreted his words differently from Alma.

Alma then begins his discussion of the meaning of "restoration":

Yea, this bringeth about the restoration of those things of which has been spoken by the mouths of the prophets. The soul shall be restored to the body, and the body to the soul; yea, and every "limb and joint shall be restored to its" body; yea, even a hair of the head shall not be lost; but all things "shall be restored to" their proper and "perfect frame." And now, my son, this is the restoration of which has been spoken by the mouths of the prophets (Alma 40:22-24).

The quotation marks indicate that Alma is here paraphrasing (with some parts quoted verbatim) his own former missionary partner Amulek (Alma 11:43-44). However, the first reference to this general "restoration" (as opposed to Nephi's references to the restoration of Israel) is again from Abinadi (Mosiah 15:24).

Alma goes on to refute the false understanding of "restoration" promoted by "some" (i.e. Isabel's group):

And now, my son, I have somewhat to say concerning the restoration of which has been spoken; for behold, some have wrested the scriptures, and have gone far astray because of this thing. And I perceive that thy mind has been worried also concerning this thing. But behold, I will explain it unto thee (Alma 41:1).

He explains that "restoration" means the righteous will be rewarded and the wicked punished. Then he says:

And now behold, my son, do not risk one more offense against your God upon those points of doctrine, which ye have hitherto risked to commit sin. Do not suppose, because it has been spoken concerning restoration, that ye shall be restored from sin to happiness. Behold, I say unto you, wickedness never was happiness (Alma 41:9-10).

Note that Corianton's offense against God concerns "points of doctrine" rather than sexual sin.

Alma moves on to the next "worry" of Corianton's:

And now, my son, I perceive there is somewhat more which doth worry your mind, which ye cannot understand -- which is concerning the justice of God in the punishment of the sinner; for ye do try to suppose that it is injustice that the sinner should be consigned to a state of misery (Alma 42:1).

As an aside, I note the synchronicity that just this morning I read these lines from Edward FitzGerald's Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyam, quoted in The King in Yellow:

Oh Thou who burn'st in Heart for those who burn
In Hell, whose fires thyself shall feed in turn;
How long be crying, 'Mercy on them, God!'
Why, who art Thou to teach, and He to learn?

As a further synchronicity, FitzGerald notes (though this is not quoted in The King in Yellow) that this tetrastich is supposed "to have arisen from a Dream, in which Omar's mother asked about his future fate," leaving it unclear whether it was Omar or his mother that had the dream. This syncs with the subject of my recent post, "Who had the vision that converted Abish?"

This ends our synchronistic intermission. Back to the harlot Isabel.

Alma's lengthy explanation of the punishment of sinners is not germane to our topic here. He concludes with this:

O my son, I desire that ye should deny the justice of God no more. Do not endeavor to excuse yourself in the least point because of your sins, by denying the justice of God (Alma 42:30).

To summarize, Corianton's main false beliefs, which we are assuming reflect the teachings of Isabel, are: (1) that resurrection is already happening; (2) that resurrection happens immediately after death, since otherwise what would happen between death and resurrection?; (3) that the "first resurrection" is not a resurrection of the body but the survival of the soul; (4) that "restoration" means being restored from sin to happiness; and (5) that it would be unjust for God to punish sinners.

I think this whole complex of ideas can be traced to a different interpretation of the teachings of Abinadi. He taught:

But behold, the bands of death shall be broken, and the Son reigneth, and hath power over the dead; therefore, he bringeth to pass the resurrection of the dead. And there cometh a resurrection, even a first resurrection; yea, even a resurrection of those that have been, and who are, and who shall be, even until the resurrection of Christ -- for so shall he be called (Mosiah 15:20-21).

I think a natural interpretation of this is that Christ will bring a resurrection when he comes, but that "there [also] cometh a resurrection, even a first resurrection" -- "first" because it happens before the later resurrection brought by Christ. What will be different about the resurrection brought by Christ? Perhaps it is a bodily resurrection, whereas the first resurrection (which has been happening all along) is simply a raising of the spirit after bodily death.

Abinadi certainly seems to be saying in this passage that the first resurrection includes absolutely everyone who dies before the resurrection of Christ. In fact, when Alma quotes Abinadi to Corianton, he even adds the implied word all: "a first resurrection, a resurrection of all those who have been, or who are, or who shall be, down to the resurrection of Christ."

Abinadi continues:

And now, the resurrection of all the prophets, and all those that have believed in their words, or all those that have kept the commandments of God, shall come forth in the first resurrection; therefore, they are the first resurrection. They are raised to dwell with God who has redeemed them; thus they have eternal life through Christ, who has broken the bands of death (vv. 22-23).

Here the first resurrection is equated with being "raised to dwell with God" to "have eternal life." In other words, it appears that everyone in the first resurrection -- meaning everyone before the resurrection of Christ -- goes to Heaven. There is no explicit mention of the resurrection of the body. Against the seeming universalism of the preceding verses, these seem to limit the first resurrection to the prophets, those who have believed the prophets, and those who have kept the commandments.

He goes on to include others, too, though, again suggesting universalism:

And these are those who have part in the first resurrection; and these are they that have died before Christ came, in their ignorance, not having salvation declared unto them. And thus the Lord bringeth about the restoration of these; and they have a part in the first resurrection, or have eternal life, being redeemed by the Lord (vv. 20-24).

Thus far, we can understand how someone might misunderstand Abinadi as saying that all sinners (or at least all before Christ) will be "restored" rather than punished. But how to reconcile this with what Abinadi says next?

But behold, and fear, and tremble before God, for ye ought to tremble; for the Lord redeemeth none such that rebel against him and die in their sins; yea, even all those that have perished in their sins ever since the world began, that have wilfully rebelled against God, that have known the commandments of God, and would not keep them; these are they that have no part in the first resurrection. Therefore ought ye not to tremble? For salvation cometh to none such; for the Lord hath redeemed none such; yea, neither can the Lord redeem such; for he cannot deny himself; for he cannot deny justice when it has its claim (vv. 26-27).

Alma Sr. had been a priest of Noah but was then converted by Abinadi. Alma Jr. was at first "numbered among the unbelievers" and sought "to destroy the church of God" (Mosiah 27:8, 10) which had been founded by his father on the teachings of Abinadi, but he later converted to his father's Abinadite religion. Now we have Alma Jr.'s son Corianton falling in with Isabel's movement, which apparently accepted the teachings of Abinadi but not those of either of the Almas, for Alma Sr. also implied that not everyone would "be numbered with those of the first resurrection" (Mosiah 18:9). Now it also appears that Isabel did not have exactly the same words of Abinadi as the Almas, for the verses quoted above flatly contradict her doctrine, and one can only "wrest" these things so far.

The words of Abinadi as we have them were written down by Alma Sr. from memory some time after he had heard them (Mosiah 17:4) and are thus unlikely to be strictly accurate. Is it possible that Isabel's movement was founded by someone who was also present in the court of Noah and was converted by Abinadi's words, but remembered them somewhat differently?

And that leads us to another possible significance of the designation "harlot." It is said of Noah and his priests (of whom Alma Sr. was one):

And it came to pass that he placed his heart upon his riches, and he spent his time in riotous living with his wives and his concubines; and so did also his priests spend their time with harlots (Mosiah 11:14).

The wording "and so did also his priests" implies that the priests did the same thing that Noah himself did, and that "harlots" is thus a pejorative reference to their own wives and concubines (which they also had; see Mosiah 11:4). For those who condemn polygamy, taking additional wives and concubines is equated with "committing whoredoms" (Jacob 2:23).

What happened to Alma Sr.'s wives and concubines when he converted to the doctrine of Abinadi and fled the court of Noah? Their husband's falling out of favor with the king would have put them in danger, so it seems likely that they would have fled with him. However, the converted Alma could not have remained "married" to any but one of them, and this abandonment might naturally have led to a falling-out. Thus we have a perfect explanation for a woman, called a "harlot," who accepted Abinadi, was at odds with the Almas, and had a somewhat different recollection of what exactly Abinadi had taught: Isabel was one of Alma Sr.'s former wives or concubines. Rather than being a seductive young temptress, she was a woman old enough to be Corianton's grandmother, and perhaps his actual grandmother, or else one of his grandmother's former sister-wives.

If this line of thinking is correct, it sheds light on another question that has bothered me for a long time: Why had Alma Jr. been trying to destroy his father's church in the first place? Actively trying to destroy the church, and to lead away others after him, suggests not mere waywardness but religious zeal. Alma Jr. is often compared to Saul of Tarsus -- the parallels are so obvious that critics accuse Joseph Smith of plagiarizing the New Testament story -- but Saul's motive is clear. Saul was a strict Pharisee (Acts 26:5), Christians venerated a scathing critic of the Pharisees as the Son of God, and Saul saw it as his religious duty to extirpate this heretical sect. Alma Jr., in stark contrast, was the son of the founder and high priest of the very religion he sought to destroy! Where did his heterodox views come from?

If his own mother was Isabel, promulgating a rival interpretation of Abinadi (on whose authority as a prophet Alma Sr.'s church rested), it all makes sense. It also explains his success in "stealing away the hearts of" so many in Alma Sr.'s church and "causing much dissension among" them (Mosiah 27:9). As happened after the assassination of Joseph Smith, different believers in the murdered prophet understood (or in some cases "wrested") his teachings differently and founded rival sects.

This has all been highly speculative, but I think it explains a lot and is thus likely to be a good seed.

Wednesday, March 4^th 2026

Idolatry or idleness

Wm Jas Tychonievich

2 min read (600 words)

A few passages in the Book of Mormon appear to contain errors immediately followed by corrections. This is probably the most obvious instance:

. . . and thus we see that they buried their weapons of peace, or they buried the weapons of war, for peace (Alma 24:19).

Since "weapons of peace" doesn't make any sense, the "or" seems to be a correction, meaning "or rather." Since one can't easily erase an error once it has been engraved on a gold plate, it makes sense that errors would be corrected in this way. Alternatively, "weapons of peace" could have been Joseph Smith's slip of the tongue rather than a mistake on the plates, but that seems less likely, since his scribe could have just crossed out the incorrect phrase and written the correct one. The mistake itself could have been made in any language, though.

The following example from Alma, though, seems like it must have been a slip of the tongue on Joseph's part, since it is only in English that idolatry and idleness sound similar.

For those who did not belong to their church did indulge themselves in sorceries, and in idolatry or idleness, and in babblings, and in envyings and strife . . . (Alma 1:32).

This seems to be an error and correction because "idolatry or idleness" is such an odd expression otherwise. The two concepts seem to be unrelated, but they do sound similar in English. However, another possibility is that the text really is equating idolatry with idleness to make some point -- something along the lines of "fasting and prayer, or otherwise rejoicing and prayer" (D&C 59:14). Three other passages in the Book of Mormon, which pair idolatry with idleness but without using similar-sounding words, suggest that this is in fact the case:

Now they were a lazy and an idolatrous people; therefore they were desirous to bring us into bondage, that they might glut themselves with the labors of our hands; yea, that they might feast themselves upon the flocks of our fields (Mosiah 9:12).

Yea, and thus they were supported in their laziness, and in their idolatry, and in their whoredoms, by the taxes which king Noah had put upon his people; thus did the people labor exceedingly to support iniquity (Mosiah 11:6).

Thus they were a very indolent people, many of whom did worship idols, and the curse of God had fallen upon them because of the traditions of their fathers; notwithstanding the promises of the Lord were extended unto them on the conditions of repentance (Alma 17:15).

This juxtaposition does not occur in the Bible. The closest thing I can think of conceptually is the occasional references to idols as "vanities," for example:

They have moved me to jealousy with that which is not God; they have provoked me to anger with their vanities: and I will move them to jealousy with those which are not a people; I will provoke them to anger with a foolish nation (Deut. 32:31).

The Hebrew words translated "vanities," and pretty clearly referring to the worship of "that which is not God," means "emptiness, futility, uselessness" and is thus conceptually akin to idleness. So perhaps that is the idea behind the "laziness and idolatry" passages in the Book of Mormon: useless people who worship useless things.

Thursday, March 5^th 2026

The Brass "five books of Moses" revisited

Wm Jas Tychonievich

3 min read (900 words)

This is the standard reading of Nephi's list of what is included in the Plates of Brass (1 Ne. 5:11-13):

And he beheld that they did contain:

(1) the five books of Moses [Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy], which gave an account [in Genesis] of the creation of the world, and also of Adam and Eve, who were our first parents;

And also (2) a record of the Jews from the beginning, even down to the commencement of the reign of Zedekiah, king of Judah [parts of Judges, Samuel, Kings, Chronicles];

And also (3) 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 [Isaiah, parts of Jeremiah, Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, and Zephaniah; plus other prophets like Zenos and Zenock].

In other words, the Brass Plates essentially contained the Old Testament, minus the post-exilic books, plus some other books we no longer have.

As discussed in "Moses and the Exodus: Where the Book of Mormon parts ways with the Torah," I doubt this. In that post, I emphasized that Nephi makes it sound as if all five books of Moses were about the Creation and Adam and Eve, when in fact only a few chapters of Genesis touch on those topics. I've just realized that another reading is possible, one in which Nephi is summarizing the content of each of the five books in turn:

And he beheld that they did contain the five books of Moses, which gave an account of:

(1) the creation of the world,

and also (2) of Adam and Eve, who were our first parents;

And also (3) a record of the Jews from the beginning, even down to the commencement of the reign of Zedekiah, king of Judah;

And also (4) the prophecies of the holy prophets, from the beginning, even down to the commencement of the reign of Zedekiah;

and also (5) many prophecies which have been spoken by the mouth of Jeremiah.

The main question this reading raises is why these would all be considered "books of Moses." If we allow ourselves a little flexibility with the punctuation, though, we can modify our reading slightly:

And he beheld that they did contain the five books:

(1) of Moses, which gave an account of the creation of the world,

and also (2) of Adam and Eve, who were our first parents;

And also (3) a record of the Jews from the beginning, even down to the commencement of the reign of Zedekiah, king of Judah;

And also (4) the prophecies of the holy prophets, from the beginning, even down to the commencement of the reign of Zedekiah;

and also (5) many prophecies which have been spoken by the mouth of Jeremiah.

In the King James English which the Book of Mormon so often imitates, a relative clause with which can refer to a person, as in the Lord's Prayer: "Our Father, which art in Heaven . . ." (Matt. 6:9). Under this reading, the five books of the Brass Plates would be: (1) Moses, (2) Adam and Eve, (3) the Jews, (4) the Holy Prophets, and (5) Jeremiah.

Note that I don't think we can assume from the Book of Mormon alone (taking the Bible to be unreliable) that Adam and Eve predated Moses. "Our first parents" is also used to refer to Lehi and Nephi at one point (Hel. 5:6), so it does not necessarily mean the first ancestors of the entire human race.

Thursday, March 19^th 2026

Identifying the 1 Zenos texts

Wm Jas Tychonievich

23 min read (6,900 words)

Acknowledgments: My starting point for this analysis was "What is Malachi doing in 1st and 2nd Nephi?," a Reddit post by someone using the handle stisa79, which Bill Wright brought to my attention; and "Samuel the Lamanite, Christ, and Zenos: A Study of Intertextuality," an Interpreter article by Quinten Barney, which was brought to my attention by a commenter using the handle jason (who, I should probably mention, strongly disagrees with Barney and calls his theory "blasphemy"). My earlier analysis, "Zenos was quoted by Joel, Nephi, Alma, Malachi, and Paul," was published in 2024 but failed to include two key secondary texts.

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1. The Zenos fragments in 1 Nephi 19

The first reference to Zenos in the Book of Mormon is in 1 Nephi 19, where Nephi quotes or paraphrases him extensively.

[10] 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.

[11] 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.

[12] 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.

[13] 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.

[14] 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.

[15] 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.

[16] 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.

[17] Yea, and all the earth shall see the salvation of the Lord, saith the prophet; every nation, kindred, tongue and people shall be blessed.

In v. 10, Nephi cites, in rapid succession, an angel, Zenock, Neum, and Zenos. In the remained of the passage, he alternates between citing "the prophet" and "the prophet Zenos." I think the most reasonable assumption is that all these references to an unnamed "prophet" also refer to Zenos. However, I do not think 1 Ne. 19:10b-17 represents a single extended quotation. The repeated interpolation of "saith the prophet" and similar expressions suggests that Nephi is stringing together bits and pieces of Zenos material, perhaps with some paraphrasing. Just after this Zenos material, Nephi will go on to quote two whole chapters of Isaiah (1 Ne. 20-21 = Isa. 48-49), introducing it with "Hear ye the words of the prophet" (1 Ne. 19:24) but then never interrupting Isaiah to say "saith the prophet" or anything similar. Nor do the Book of Mormon's other extensive quotations from Zenos (Jacob 5, Alma 33:4-11) contain any such interruptions.

If the Zenos quotations in 1 Ne. 19 are fragmentary, is there any way of reconstructing more of the original text (the hypothetical "1 Zenos") from which Nephi was drawing?

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2. An example of reconstruction from partial quotations

For the purposes of a thought experiment, I used the BYU Scripture Citation Index to find four talks by Mormon leaders in which they quoted or paraphrased parts of Matthew 5:11-12.

(image)

Now imagine that, centuries in the future, the original Sermon on the Mount has been lost, and all we have are these talks. Imagine further that the talks have come down to us without the quotation marks and ellipses and footnotes, so that we are left to infer what is a direct quotation, what is a paraphrase, and what is the speaker's own words.

Hanks cites his source as "the Sermon on the Mount" but appears to be summarizing it rather than quoting it in any detail. However, we notice that Lee and Andersen have some of the same language as Hanks, in the same order, and infer that they are referencing that same sermon. Hanks doesn't say anything about being "blessed" or about the persecution of "The prophets which were before you," but since Lee and Anderson share this language, and juxtapose it with language we have already identified as coming from the Sermon on the Mount, we can conclude that this other shared language is from the Sermon as well.

Notice that Packer doesn't use any of the language that Hanks does -- Hanks being our only source that explicitly claims to be referencing the Sermon on the Mount. Nevertheless, by noticing a parallel between Packer and Andersen, after having already concluded that the Andersen passage is quoting the Sermon, we can infer that Packer is likely quoting the Sermon as well.

In our efforts to reconstruct as much as we can of the Sermon on the Mount, we can call Hanks a primary text because we know for sure that it comes from the Sermon. Lee and Andersen are secondary texts, whose connection to the Sermon we infer from their similarity to a primary text. Finally, Packer is a tertiary text, considered to be possible Sermon material because of its parallels with a secondary text.

We could summarize our conclusions about the likely content of the Sermon on the Mount as follows:

(image)

The P column is from a primary text, so we are highly confident that it reflects the Sermon. The S + S column contains material that is not in a primary text but occurs in two different secondary texts and is thus also very likely to be from the Sermon. The third column has material that only appears in one secondary text and thus may or may not be from the Sermon. Is "for my sake" something Andersen added himself, or is it Sermon material only he quoted? We can't be sure.

Note that, though "for great is your reward in heaven" appears in two of our texts, we put it in the S column and not an S + T column. That's because this line is our only reason for considering Packer to be a tertiary text in the first place, so it would be circular reasoning to take its presence in Packer as additional evidence that it is from the Sermon.

Finally, the T column has material which only occurs in one tertiary text. If these four talks were really all we had, I would not be at all confident in concluding that this T material came from the Sermon -- unless it filled a conceptual gap, that is, unless the reconstructed text just made more sense with it included, which I don't think is true in this case.

In fact, of course, everything in the tables above does come from the Sermon on the Mount. This has just been a thought experiment to show how we might reconstruct parts of a lost Sermon, and how our confidence in the inclusion of various lines might vary.

The Zenos fragments in 1 Nephi 19 are our primary text, our Hanks. The next step is to look for potential secondary texts -- other passages in the Bible or Book of Mormon that closely parallel the primary text.

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3. Secondary texts

Much of the language in 1 Nephi 19 (P, our primary text) has parallels elsewhere in the Bible and Book of Mormon. Four secondary texts emerged as potentially informative: Joel 2 (S1, our first secondary text), Matthew 23-24 (S2), 2 Nephi 25-26 (S3), and Helaman 13-15 (S4).

3.1. Joel 2 (S1)

First, we have this brief but fairly specific parallel with Joel 2:

by fire, and by smoke, and vapor of darkness (P: 1 Ne. 19:11)

fire and pillars of smoke. The sun shall be turned into darkness (S1: Joel 2:30-31)

We have the three elements fire, smoke, and darkness in the same order. Also, where the Hebrew text of Joel has וְתִֽימֲר֖וֹת "pillars," the Septuagint (a third-century Greek translation, possibly reflecting an ancient variant Hebrew text) has ἀτμίδα "vapor," matching the 1 Zenos text (but also matching the Septuagint quotation from Joel in Acts 2:19, so this isn't a "How could Joseph Smith have known that?" moment).

3.2. Matthew 23-24 (S2)

A more extensive parallel is found with the words of Jesus in Matthew. First, the two texts refer to the necessity of what they predict in nearly the same language:

all these things must surely come (P: 1 Ne. 19:12)

all these things must come to pass (S2: Matt. 24:6)

Second, they each juxtapose signs with power and glory:

signs and wonders, and the power and glory of the God of Israel (P: 1 Ne. 19:13).

And then shall appear the sign of the Son of man . . . and they shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory (S2: Matt. 24:30).

Third, they each predict that the Jews will be killed and hated by all nations:

they shall wander in the flesh, and perish, . . . and be hated among all nations (P: 1 Ne. 19:14).

Then shall they . . . kill you: and ye shall be hated of all nations (S2: Matt. 24:9).

Fourth, they each talk about people being gathered from "four" places (meaning, figuratively, from all over):

all the people who are of the house of Israel, will I gather in . . . from the four quarters of the earth (P: 1 Ne. 19:16).

they shall gather together his elect from the four winds (S2: Matt. 24:31)

The Joel and Matthew secondary texts share the specific detail of the sun being darkened and something also happening to the moon:

The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood (S1: Joel 2:31)

shall the sun be darkened, and the moon shall not give her light (S2: Matt. 24:29)

This detail is not in the 1 Nephi 19 fragments, though it is implied by the general prediction of "darkness." The specific reference to the sun, at least, will prove to be important when we bring in the tertiary texts.

3.3. 2 Nephi 25-26 (S3)

Another secondary text is found in 2 Nephi 25-26. Chapters 12-24 comprise an extended quotation from Isaiah, and Chapter 27 is also an Isaiah commentary, it is not surprising that Chapters 25-26 should also include quotations from and commentary on a prophet, in this case possibly Zenos.

First, each text talks about a divine figure being in a sepulchre, and this is juxtaposed with a reference to a period of three days. The details in the two texts complement one another. 1 Ne. 19 says there will be three days of darkness at his death, and 2 Ne. 25 he will only be dead for three days and then rise from the dead. Neither text by itself says that it will be dark while he is in the sepulchre and light again when he comes out, but that seems to be what the original 1 Zenos text was saying. As we will see later, this is connected with the one in the sepulchre being metaphorically a "sun."

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 (P: 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 (S3: 2 Ne. 25:13)

Second, each passage describes the Lord "visiting" people with thunderings, lightnings, fire, storms, the earth opening up, and mountains moving. The parallels are very extensive here.

The Lord God surely shall visit all the house of Israel at that day, some with his voice . . . and others with the thunderings and the lightnings of his power, by tempest, by fire, . . . and by the opening of the earth, and by mountains which shall be carried up (P: 1 Ne. 19:11).

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 they shall be visited with thunderings, and lightnings, and earthquakes . . . for the fire of the anger of the Lord shall be kindled against them (S3: 2 Ne. 26:5-6).

Third, each predicts that the Jews will be "scourged" by other peoples, and this is associated with their rejection of God or Christ. Again, the details are complementary. In 1 Ne. 19, we are told that this punishment comes because they rejected and crucified God. In 2 Ne. 25, we are told that the punishment will continue until they accept Christ, which would make sense if their rejection of Christ was the reason for the punishment.

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 (P: 1 Ne. 19:13).

And after they have been scattered, and the Lord God hath scourged them by other nations . . . until they shall be persuaded to believe in Christ (S3: 2 Ne. 25:16).

3.4. Helaman 13-15 (S4)

Probably the most extensive parallels of all are found in Helaman 14. This is part of Samuel the Lamanite's Sermon on the Wall, which comprises Chapters 13-15. This raises some question marks, since the brass plates were kept by the Nephites, and we would not normally expect a Lamanite to be familiar with them.

First, both texts give three days of darkness as a sign of the death of God/Jesus. Both texts specify that the sign is intended for distant isles, not for those in Jerusalem. In 1 Ne. 19, the sign is for those who "inhabit the isles of the sea"; in Hel. 14:20, it is only "upon the face of this land" -- i.e. the Nephites' land, said to be "upon an isle of the sea" in 1 Ne. 10:20 -- that there will be no light.

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 (P: 1 Ne. 19:10)

concerning another sign, a sign of his death, . . . there shall be no light upon the face of this land, even from the time that he shall suffer death, for the space of three days, to the time that he shall rise again from the dead (S4: Hel. 14:20)

However, Samuel later seems to say that the darkness will be worldwide:

darkness should cover the face of the whole earth for the space of three days (S4: Hel. 14:27)

Second, the two texts give a similar list, in the same order, of natural phenomena that are to occur at the time of his death:

with the thunderings and the lightnings . . . by tempests . . . and by mountains which shall be carried up (P: 1 Ne. 19:11)

there shall be thunderings and lightnings . . . there shall be great tempests . . . and there shall be many places which are now called valleys which shall become mountains, whose height is great (S4: Hel. 14:21, 23)

Third, they both refer to rocks rending, with Samuel going into some detail:

the rocks of the earth must rend (P: 1 Ne. 19:12)

the rocks which are upon the face of this earth, which are both above the earth and beneath, which ye know at this time are solid, or the more part of it is one solid mass,shall be broken up; yea, they shall be rent in twain, and shall ever after be found in seams and in cracks, and in broken fragments upon the face of the whole earth, yea, both above the earth and beneath (S4: Hel. 14:21-22)

It was specifically Matthew 24 and Helaman 14 that we identified as having clear links to 1 Nephi 19. For those two secondary texts' links to each other -- which are very extensive -- we will have to go beyond chapter boundaries (which are artificial anyway and not part of the original documents) and compare Jesus' discourse in Matt. 23-24 with Samuel's in Hel. 13-15.

First, both discourses refer to "blind guides," an expression found nowhere else in scripture:

Woe unto you, ye blind guides (S2: Matt. 23:16)

Ye blind guides (S2: Matt. 23:24)

Yea, how long will ye suffer yourselves to be led by foolish and blind guides? (S4: Hel. 13:19)

Second, they condemn the people's killing and mistreatment of past prophets, hitting the main points in the same order:

Woe unto you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! because ye build the tombs of the prophets . . . And say, If we had been in the days of our fathers, we would not have been partakers with them in the blood of the prophets. . . . Wherefore, behold, I send unto you prophets, and wise men, and scribes: and some of them ye shall kill and crucify; and some of them shall ye scourge in your synagogues, and persecute them from city to city . . . thou that killest the prophets, and stonest them which are sent unto thee (S2: Matt. 23:29-30, 34, 37)

Yea, wo unto this people, because of this time which has arrived, that ye do cast out the prophets, and do mock them, and cast stones at them, and do slay them . . . ye say: If our days had been in the days of our fathers of old, we would not have slain the prophets; . . . if a prophet come among you . . . ye are angry with him, and cast him out and seek all manner of ways to destroy him . . . O that I had repented, and had not killed the prophets, and stoned them (S4: Hel. 13:24-26, 33)

It is plausible that Zenos would deliver such a diatribe, since he himself was a prophet who was persecuted and ultimately killed: "the prophet Zenos did testify boldly; for the which he was slain" (Hel. 8:19). Samuel and Jesus faced similar threats, and their quoting Zenos would add a layer of irony: You say you wouldn't have killed the prophets like your ancestors did, but your ancestors who killed the prophet Zenos said the same thing about their prophet-killing ancestors! Both discourses specifically mention the stoning of prophets. Zenock, who is never mentioned without Zenos and may have been an associate (cf. Elijah and Elisha), was stoned to death (Alma 33:17).

Third, both discourses speak of houses being left desolate, in almost identical language:

Behold, your house is left unto you desolate (S2: Matt. 23:38)

your houses shall be left unto you desolate (S4: Hel. 15:1)

Finally, both pronounce woes on pregnant and nursing mothers:

And woe unto them that are with child, and to them that give suck in those days! (S2: Matt. 24:19)

your women shall have great cause to mourn in the day that they shall give suck. . . . and woe unto them which are with child (S4: Hel. 15:2)

The parallels between the Matthew and Helaman texts are so extensive and specific that some sort of textual relationship is undeniable. To skeptics, of course, it's just Joseph Smith plagiarizing the New Testament. Postulating that Jesus and Samuel were both quoting some hypothetical earlier prophet, whose works have conveniently disappeared, would be pure special pleading were it not for the Zenos links. But these links are not obvious, as nothing in the text draws attention to them, and it seems extremely unlikely that Joseph Smith would have worked them in on purpose to give himself an out if accused of plagiarism -- an out which he never used and which was never even discovered until the Internet age. (This is not an attempt at an apologetic. The basic validity of the Book of Mormon is assumed here, not argued for.)

The Helaman text also has links to 2 Ne. 25-26, as both prophecy destruction after the fourth generation from the coming of Christ.

and many of the fourth generation shall have passed away in righteousness. And when these things have passed away a speedy destruction cometh unto my people (S3: 2 Ne. 26:9-10)

Yea, I will visit them in my fierce anger, and there shall be those of the fourth generation who shall live, of your enemies, to behold your utter destruction; and this shall surely come except ye repent, saith the Lord; and those of the fourth generation shall visit your destruction (S4: Hel. 13:10)

First, both texts condemn the mistreatment of the prophets, listing the same three actions in the same order.

they perish because they cast out the prophets, and the saints, and stone them, and slay them (S3: 2 Ne. 26:3)

Yea, wo unto this people, because of this time which has arrived, that ye do cast out the prophets, and do mock them, and cast stones at them, and do slay them (S4: Hel. 13:24)

Second, both speak of choosing darkness rather than light:

they yield unto the devil and choose works of darkness rather than light (S3: 2 Ne. 26:10)

how long will ye choose darkness rather than light? (S4: Hel. 13:29)

Third, both refer to the anger of the Lord being kindled against people:

the fire of the anger of the Lord shall be kindled against them (S3: 2 Ne. 26:6)

the anger of the Lord is already kindled against you (S4: Hel. 13:30)

Fourth, both mention signs of Jesus' coming and of his death:

And after the Messiah shall come there shall be signs given unto my people of his birth, and also of his death and resurrection (S3: 2 Ne. 26:3)

this will I give unto you for a sign at the time of his coming (S4: Hel. 14:3)
And behold, again, another sign I give unto you, yea, a sign of his death (S4: Hel. 14:14)

Fifth, both mention the Lamanites dwindling in unbelief and being smitten, but ultimately being shown mercy. Samuel explicitly references Zenos at this point:

After my seed and the seed of my brethren [the Lamanites] shall have dwindled in unbelief, and shall have been smitten by the Gentiles; yea, after the Lord God shall have camped against them round about, and shall have laid siege against them with a mount, and raised forts against them; and after they shall have been brought down low in the dust, even that they are not, yet the words of the righteous shall be written, and the prayers of the faithful shall be heard, and all those who have dwindled in unbelief shall not be forgotten (S3: 2 Ne. 26:15).

Yea, even if they should dwindle in unbelief the Lord shall prolong their days, until the time shall come which hath been spoken of by our fathers, and also by the prophet Zenos, and many other prophets, concerning the restoration of our brethren, the Lamanites, again to the knowledge of the truth -- Yea, I say unto you, that in the latter times the promises of the Lord have been extended to our brethren, the Lamanites; and notwithstanding the many afflictions which they shall have, and notwithstanding they shall be driven to and fro upon the face of the earth, and be hunted, and shall be smitten and scattered abroad, having no place for refuge, the Lord shall be merciful unto them (S4: Hel. 15:11-12).

Zenos lived before there were any such people as the Lamanites, but one of his prophecies must later have been interpreted as referring to them.

4. Tertiary texts

To summarize so far, our primary text for 1 Zenos is 1 Nephi 19 (P). Secondary texts include Joel 2 (S1), Matthew 23-24 (S2), 2 Nephi 25-26 (S3), and Helaman 13-15 (S4). Each of these has links both to the primary text and to at least one of the other secondary texts.

We now come to tertiary texts, which are linked to one or more of the secondary texts, and perhaps also to each other, but not directly to the primary text. The tertiary texts identified so far are Malachi 4 (T1), 1 Corinthians 3 (T2), 1 Nephi 22 (T3), and Alma 45 (T4).

4.1. Malachi 4 (T1)

Malachi 4 has links to two of our secondary texts: Joel 2 and 2 Nephi 25-26. With Joel it shares this distinctive expression ("terrible" and "dreadful" being alternate translations of the same Hebrew word):

The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before the great and terrible day of the Lord come (S1: Joel 2:31)

Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord (T1: Mal. 4:5)

Note that the two texts differ on what will happen before the great and terrible day.

The parallels with 2 Ne. 25-26 are more extensive. First, they both represent someone or something rising with healing in his wings. Second, if we assume that "Son" in the Book of Mormon is a scribal error for the homophone "Sun," both texts identify this healing figure as the Sun of righteousness.

he shall rise from the dead, with healing in his wings (S3: 2 Ne. 25:13)

But the Son of righteousness shall appear unto them; and he shall heal them (S3: 2 Ne. 26:9)

But unto you that fear my name shall the Sun of righteousness arise with healing in his wings (T1: Mal. 4:2)

Third, we have these very closely parallel passages about the proud and wicked being burned as stubble by the coming day:

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 (S3: 2 Ne. 26:4)

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 (T1: Mal. 4:1)

4.2. 1 Corinthians 3 (T2)

Both 2 Nephi 26 and Malachi 4 are linked to 1 Corinthians 3 via "the day" that shall burn things, including "stubble":

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 (S3: 2 Ne. 26:4).

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 (T1: Mal. 4:1).

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 shall be burned, he shall suffer loss (T2: 1 Cor. 3:12-13, 15)

4.3. 1 Nephi 22 (T3)

There are extensive links connected 1 Nephi 22 to several secondary and tertiary texts. Nephi also repeatedly cites "the prophet," confirming that he is quoting or alluding to someone else's words.

Otherwise unique language about something being "poured out" "upon all" occurs in Joel 2 and 1 Ne. 22. What is poured out is very different, though:

I will pour out my spirit upon all flesh (S1: Joel 2:28)

the wrath of God shall be poured out upon all the children of men (T3: 1 Ne. 22:16)

This use of the same expression to express both a curse (pouring out wrath) and a blessing (pouring out the spirit) is in fact typical of the biblical prophets. As Rachel Margalioth writes:

As this study proves, each prophet expresses praise and blessing by converting derogatory phrases of his own to the good, employing phrases characteristic of his book alone. Consequently, even if we did not know the authorship of a prophecy of comfort such as "Then will I build you, and not break you down, and will plant you and not pluck you up" (Jeremiah XLII:10), it would still be ascribed to Jeremiah -- for only in his book are to be found these very phrases in the contrary meanings: "Behold, that which I have built will I break down, and that which I have planted I will pluck up" (Jeremiah XLV:4; and also XXIV:6). . . . This mode of converting prophecies from doom to solace, and vice versa, with the same verbiage for both, proven customary in the prophetic books -- is never the case with two different prophets. We have no example of one prophet expressing good or evil by inverting the expressions of another (The Indivisible Isaiah, pp. 38-39).

Actually, I think we do have one example of a prophet inverting the expressions of another: Joel writes "Beat your plowshares into swords, and your pruninghooks into spears" (Joel 3:10), inverting Isaiah's "they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruninghooks" (Isa. 2:4; also Micah 4:3). Conveniently, it is Joel that is the one exception to Margalioth's generalization. Either Zenos is inverting his own expression, as prophets are known to do, with one version quoted by Nephi and the other by Joel; or else Joel is inverting Zenos, as Joel is known to do. Either way, Joel is evidence that Nephi is in fact quoting Zenos.

Both Matt. 24 and 1 Ne. 22 juxtapose "power and great glory" with a gathering from four places:

and they shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. And he shall send his angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they shall gather together his elect from the four winds (S2: Matt. 24:30-31)

and the Holy One of Israel must reign in dominion, and might, and power, and great glory. And he gathereth his children from the four quarters of the earth (T3: 1 Ne. 22:24-25)

Very similar language is used in 2 Nephi 26, Malachi 4, 1 Corinthians 3, and 1 Nephi 22 to describe the proud and wicked burning as stubble. An additional link between 1 Cor. 3 and 1 Ne. 22 is the reference to being "saved . . . as by fire."

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 (S3: 2 Ne. 26:4).

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 (T1: Mal. 4:1).

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 shall be burned, he shall suffer loss but he himself shall be saved; yet so as by fire (T2: 1 Cor. 3:12-13, 15)

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 . . . 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 (T3: 1 Ne. 22:15, 17).

Given the parallels, we can assume that "the prophet" cited in 1 Ne. 22:15 is Zenos and that the part about Satan having no more power over human hearts is also from Zenos.

Both 2 Ne. 26 and 1 Ne. 22 speak of being brought low in the dust and destroyed. The latter text attributes this language to "the prophet":

they shall have been brought down low in the dust, even that they are not (S3: 2 Ne. 26:15)

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 (T3: 1 Ne. 22:23)

Mal. 4 and 1 Ne. 22 use similar language about "calves of the stall":

and ye shall go forth, and grow up as calves of the stall (T1: Mal. 4:1).

the righteous must be led up as calves of the stall (T3: 1 Ne. 22:24).

4.4. Alma 45 (T4)

Alma 45 uses the "great and dreadful day" language of Joel 2 and Malachi 4:

The sun shall be turned into darkness, and the moon into blood, before the great and terrible day of the Lord come (S1: Joel 2:31)

Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord (T1: Mal. 4:5)

But whosoever remaineth, and is not destroyed in that great and dreadful day, shall be numbered among the Lamanites (T4: Alma 45:14)

Both 2 Nephi 26 and Alma 45 juxtapose works of darkness with the passing away of the fourth generation.

and many of the fourth generation shall have passed away in righteousness. And when these things have passed away a speedy destruction cometh unto my people; . . . for because they yield unto the devil and choose works of darkness rather than light, therefore they must go down to hell (S3: 2 Ne. 26:9-10)

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 (T4: Alma 45:12)

Both Helaman 13 and Alma 45 prophecy war, famine, and pestilence 400 years after the coming of Christ, ending in the extinction of the Nephites before the fourth generation has passed away. One problem with attributing this commonality to Zenos, though, is that both prophets explicitly present this as something that was revealed to them personally (highlighted in blue). My interpretation of this would be that, since Zenos obviously didn't prophesy specifically about "Nephites," it is through their own revelations that Alma and Samuel know to what time and people Zenos was referring.

And he said unto them: Behold, I, Samuel, a Lamanite, do speak the words of the Lord which he doth put into my heart; and behold he hath put it into my heart to say unto this people that the sword of justice hangeth over this people; and four hundred years pass not away save the sword of justice falleth upon this people. . . . And four hundred years shall not pass away before I will cause that they shall be smitten; yea, I will visit them with the sword and with famine and with pestilence. Yea, I will visit them in my fierce anger, and there shall be those of the fourth generation who shall live, of your enemies, to behold your utter destruction (S4: Hel. 13:5, 9-10).

Behold, I perceive that this very people, the Nephites, according to the spirit of revelation which is in me, in four hundred years from the time that Jesus Christ shall manifest himself unto them, shall dwindle in unbelief. Yea, and then shall they see wars and pestilences, yea, famines and bloodshed, even until the people of Nephi shall become extinct . . . I say unto you, that from that day, even the fourth generation shall not all pass away before this great iniquity shall come (T4: Alma 45:10-12).

5. Summary

This diagram shows the nine texts considered here (1 primary, 4 secondary, 4 tertiary; 2 Old Testament, 2 New Testament, and 5 Book of Mormon) and how they are interrelated. As can be seen, each of the texts is linked to between three and six of the others

(image)

The next step after this preliminary analysis is to look at the major themes of these texts, try to harmonize the details in each of them, and reconstruct as far as possible the content of the hypothetical 1 Zenos document on which they all draw.

Tuesday, March 24^th 2026

There is no Second Coming in the Book of Mormon

Wm Jas Tychonievich

3.5 min read (1,100 words)

One of the reasons my blog Fourth Gospel First has been paused for so long is that I am engaging primarily with the Book of Mormon now, and the perspective of the two books differs enough to raise questions about how to harmonize them and which should really be put "first." One thing they have in common, though, is a virtual silence on the subject of the Second Coming of Jesus -- which is interesting given how important the idea of an imminent Second Coming would become in the movement that came to be associated with the name Mormon. The CJCLDS's Topical Guide entry for "Jesus Christ, Second Coming" lists 57 scripture references, of which zero are from the Fourth Gospel and only one from the Book of Mormon.

Although the Topical Guide overlooks it, I believe there is one reference to the Second Coming in the Fourth Gospel, though it is in the 21st chapter, which was likely not part of the original Gospel:

Then Peter, turning about, seeth the disciple whom Jesus loved . . . Peter seeing him saith to Jesus, "Lord, and what shall this man do?"

Jesus saith unto him, "If I will that he tarry till I come, what is that to thee? follow thou me."

Then went this saying abroad among the brethren, that that disciple should not die: yet Jesus said not unto him, "He shall not die"; but, "If I will that he tarry till I come, what is that to thee?" (John 21:20-23)

This is at the very end of the Gospel, after Jesus has already lived, died, and risen from the dead, and yet he still speaks of some future time when he will "come." His followers associated tarrying till he comes with not dying, which may imply that they understood the Second Coming to be in the distant future, such that no mortal then living could expect to live long enough to see it. Alternatively, it could mean they expected that those alive at the Second Coming would be "twinkled" into immortality as described by Paul in 1 Cor. 15:51-53 and thus would not die. At any rate, some sort of Second Coming is definitely indicated. However, as noted, Chapter 21 probably isn't really part of the original Fourth Gospel.

The one Second Coming verse listed from the Book of Mormon is 3 Ne. 27:16. Here it is in context:

And my Father sent me that I might be lifted up upon the cross; and after that I had been lifted up upon the cross, that I might draw all men unto me, that as I have been lifted up by men even so should men be lifted up by the Father, to stand before me, to be judged of their works, whether they be good or whether they be evil -- And for this cause have I been lifted up; therefore, according to the power of the Father I will draw all men unto me, that they may be judged according to their works. And it shall come to pass, that whoso repenteth and is baptized in my name shall be filled; and if he endureth to the end, behold, him will I hold guiltless before my Father at that day when I shall stand to judge the world (3 Ne. 27:14-16).

This certainly refers to a future "judgment day," but only if we smuggle in assumptions from outside the Book does that necessarily imply a Second Coming. Jesus says nothing here about his returning to Earth. On the contrary, he repeatedly emphasizes that all men will "stand before" Jesus to be judged because they are "lifted up" by God and "drawn unto" him. In other words, we go to him; he doesn't come to us. It's logically possible that Jesus could be on Earth rather than in Heaven when this happens, but nothing in the text suggests that.

Aside from that one verse, there are a few chapters, quoting Isaiah and Malachi, which are said in the chapter headings added by the CJCLDS to refer to the Second Coming. But, like 3 Ne. 27, they don't, unless you assume they do. As I wrote in "Jesus and the Messianic prophecies: Summary and conclusions" after going through all the Messianic material in the Old Testament, "There is not the slightest hint in Old Testament prophecy that the Messiah will come twice."

To my mind, this passage from the Book of Mormon seems to rule out a Second Coming:

Wherefore, he shall bring forth his words unto them [the Jews], which words shall judge them at the last day, for they shall be given them for the purpose of convincing them of the true Messiah, who was rejected by them; and unto the convincing of them that they need not look forward any more for a Messiah to come, for there should not any come, save it should be a false Messiah which should deceive the people; for there is save one Messiah spoken of by the prophets, and that Messiah is he who should be rejected of the Jews (2 Ne. 25:18).

This is pretty unambiguous: "there should not any [Messiah] come, save it should be" -- Jesus coming back a second time? No -- "a false Messiah which should deceive the people."

I may have missed something, just as the Topical Guide people missed John 21, so if you think there's anything in the Book of Mormon that suggests there will be a Second Coming, do leave a comment.

Update: Almost immediately after publishing this, I did think of a counterexample. I don't know how I didn't think of it before, what with mentioning the Beloved Disciple and "twinkling" and all that.

Therefore, more blessed are ye, for ye shall never taste of death; but ye shall live to behold all the doings of the Father unto the children of men, even until all things shall be fulfilled according to the will of the Father, when I shall come in my glory with the powers of heaven. And ye shall never endure the pains of death; but when I shall come in my glory ye shall be changed in the twinkling of an eye from mortality to immortality; and then shall ye be blessed in the kingdom of my Father (3 Ne. 28:7-8).

"When I shall come in my glory" is pretty clearly a Second Coming.

5 Comments:

Leo said...
Am I to understand that based on your update you now say the BoM DOES presume a second coming?

I've been thinking about this topic off and on ever since my sons and I explored something called "the little season theory". The gist is pretty simple: the second coming occurred soon after the tribulation of Jerusalem when it was destroyed around 70 AD. He returned and has already completed his 1000 year reign on earth. We now live in the "little season" when the devil has been released to make war on the saints. In most versions I've seen, Jesus' kingdom has been reduced from a worldwide domain to now being confined to the North Pole (from which the tales of Santa Clause/elves derive).

I actually like the theory a lot in principle. In practice, it's difficult to fully embrace since you would have to assume most of recorded history has been heavily edited/censored. It makes Revelation easier to reconcile, however.

But I have also toyed with the idea you started with here (i.e. there is no Second Coming) and I have wondered if that idea has legs.
Wm Jas Tychonievich said...
I still lean toward there being no Second Coming. The update is just to note that the BoM, like the IVG, does include an apparent reference to it. I'm familiar with the "little season" idea but don't think it really works very well.

I guess it's important to define what exactly we mean by "Second Coming," though. Obviously the resurrected Jesus has come back to Earth from time to time (3 Nephi and the First Vision being two unavoidable examples) and will presumably continue to do so. What I mean by "no Second Coming" is that, as the BoM says, no Messiah is coming. Insofar as the various Messiah prophecies were correct, they referred to what Jesus did the first time he came. He's not coming back to complete his Messianic work, because that's already done.
JacobG said...
3 Nephi is the second coming teaching of the Book of Mormon. It doesn't say it explicitly, but it establishes that among the things God might do is unleash massive destruction, and then come down and establish a just society among the survivors. Granted, he doesn't establish this perfect society the way it's generally envisioned, but the whole thing is a second coming in miniature.
My assumption is there were several smaller comings like this, including in AD 70, and that's why we have little to no trace of Jewish gospels or Christians. This depends on my reading of JST Matthew 24 and some passages of the synoptics, which draw parallels between Jerusalem's coming destruction and Christ's coming. I don't see anything about it in John either, though.
Wm Jas Tychonievich said...
That's a very promising approach, Jacob. Samuel the Lamanite makes some of the same prophecies as Matt. 24, but to a different people at a different time, with both Samuel and Jesus apparently quoting or alluding to Zenos. So perhaps "second coming" prophecies relate not to a single unique event still in the future but to a sort of thing that happens from time to time.
JacobG said...
There may be some 2nd coming (ish) stuff in the fourth gospel. Young's literal translation has 'eternal life' as 'life age-during', which could mean until Martha's "last day" when people are resurrected. My opinion is 'eternal life' was inspired.
John 14:3 implies he is coming back to take them to live with him, which could be a mini-rapture like the one I'm proposing for 70 A.D.
There is no historical evidence for it and the lack of a Jewish-Aramaic church could simply be the result enslavement. But it would neatly tie up a lot of scriptures

Monday, March 30^th 2026

Where did Moroni's variant text of Malachi come from?

Wm Jas Tychonievich

5 min read (1,600 words)

Joseph Smith reported that Moroni quoted to him a version of Malachi "with a little variation from the way it reads in our Bibles" (JS-H v. 36). Below are the King James Version and the version quoted by Moroni, with the differences italicized:

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. . . . Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord: And he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their fathers, lest I come and smite the earth with a curse. (Mal. 4:1, 5-6).

For behold, the day cometh that shall burn as an oven, and all the proud, yea, and all that do wickedly shall burn as stubble; for they that come shall burn them, saith the Lord of Hosts, that it shall leave them neither root nor branch. . . . Behold, I will reveal unto you the Priesthood, by the hand of Elijah the prophet, before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord. And he shall plant in the hearts of the children the promises made to the fathers, and the hearts of the children shall turn to their fathers. If it were not so, the whole earth would be utterly wasted at his coming (JS-H vv. 36-39, also D&C 2).

It would normally be unsurprising -- positively to be expected -- that the biblical texts known to the Nephites should differ from our own. However, the last two chapters of Malachi are the one exception to that generalization, because we know exactly what the Nephite text looked like. This text was not brought over from Jerusalem (as it had not yet been written at the time Lehi and Mulek departed) but was dictated to them by Jesus himself. His dictation of Malachi 4 comprises 3 Nephi 25, and it reads exactly as in our King James Bibles. Moroni's father Moroni is the one who wrote the 3 Nephi we have, so it's hard to imagine how Moroni could have had any different Malachi text.

We've established that several parts of the Book of Mormon that appear to be quoting Malachi are actually quoting Zenos (see here and here), whom Malachi also quoted -- so could the text Moroni quoted to Joseph Smith have been Zenos rather than Malachi? Unlikely, for two reasons.

First, Moroni quoted "part of the third chapter of Malachi; and he quoted also the [entire] fourth or last chapter of the same prophecy" (JS-H v. 36); except for the three verses discussed above, the text was the same as in the King James Bible. In 3 Nephi, Jesus quotes Malachi 3 and 4 in their entirety (only those two chapters) and refers to what he has just quoted as "scriptures, which ye had not with you" (3 Ne. 26:2). If they already essentially the same text in Zenos, this would be unnecessary. Only a small part of the Malachi text can be quoting Zenos -- and this is what we find. Aside from the single phrase "great and dreadful day" (Mal. 4:5), all suspected Zenos material in Malachi is in two consecutive verses: Mal. 4:1-2.

Second, where Moroni's quotation differs from our Malachi, it also differs from Zenos. Moroni's quotation of Mal. 4:2 and of the "great and dreadful day" phrase do not differ from Malachi as we have it, so that leaves only part of one verse that could help us determine whether he is quoting Zenos or Malachi.

shall be stubble: and the day that cometh shall burn them up (Mal. 4:1, King James Version).

shall burn as stubble; for they that come shall burn them (JS-H v. 37, Moroni's Malachi quotation).

Let's compare these with suspected Zenos-influenced texts:

the day that cometh shall burn them up, . . . for they shall be as stubble (2 Ne. 26:4)

stubble . . . the day shall declare it, because it shall be revealed by fire . . . shall be burned (1 Cor. 3:12-13, 15)

shall be as stubble; and the day cometh that they must be burned (1 Ne. 22:15).

The only Zenos-like feature of Moroni's quotation is that he uses the word as when comparing the wicked to stubble, technically making it a simile rather than a metaphor. Where Moroni has "burn as stubble," and Malachi has "be stubble," our Zenos texts have something halfway between the two: "be as stubble." It's hard to draw any conclusions from these trivial differences in wording. The same goes for the distinction between "burn them" (Moroni) and "burn them up" (Malachi). Even if we considered the difference significant, one of our Zenos texts has "up," and the other two do not, leaving it ambiguous whether or not Zenos himself used that word.

The only really significant between Malachi and Moroni in this verse is that Malachi has the wicked burned by "the day that cometh," while in Moroni's version it is "they that come" -- apparently some group of people or angels or something -- that will do the burning. Of our three Zenos texts, one sidesteps the question by using the passive ("they must be burned"), one strongly implies that it is "the day" that brings the fire, and one matches Malachi exactly: "the day that cometh shall burn them up." None of them suggests Moroni's version, where it is a group of beings that perform the burning.

So Moroni's Malachi differs from (1) the Book of Malachi in our Bibles, (2) the Malachi chapters dictated by Jesus in the Book of Mormon, and (3) the hypothetical Zenos text Malachi seems to have been quoting or alluding to. To this list we can add (4) Joseph Smith's inspired revision of Malachi, as the Prophet's only comment on the book in his Bible revision manuscript is "Malicah Correct."

What about the possibility that Moroni had access to scripture from elsewhere? In my 2025 post "Did Mormon have the New Testament?" I make the case that the Three Nephites, who travel incognito among all peoples, have delivered to Mormon what he strongly implies that he has: "all the scriptures which give an account of all the marvelous works of Christ" (3 Ne. 28:33). Could they also have provided him with a variant Malachi text from some distant nation?

Even if that were so, though, it's hard to see why Moroni would have quoted that version of the text in preference to the one dictated by Jesus Christ himself. What authority could possibly trump that?

My best guess at this point is that Jesus Christ was the source of Moroni's modified version of Malachi. After Jesus has dictated the words of Malachi, we read:

And now it came to pass that when Jesus had told these things [i.e. dictated Malachi 3-4] he expounded them unto the multitude . . . .

And now there cannot be written in this book even a hundredth part of the things which Jesus did truly teach unto the people; but behold the plates of Nephi do contain the more part of the things which he taught the people.

And these things have I written, which are a lesser part of the things which he taught the people; and I have written them to the intent that they may be brought again unto this people, from the Gentiles, according to the words which Jesus hath spoken. And when they shall have received this, which is expedient that they should have first, to try their faith, and if it shall so be that they shall believe these things then shall the greater things be made manifest unto them (3 Ne. 26:1, 6-9).

Jesus did not provide a different text of Malachi; the text we have is correct. What he did do was expound upon the esoteric meaning of that text. Jesus' commentary on Malachi was among the "greater things" which were written on the Plates of Nephi (which Moroni had) but not included in the Book of Mormon. Malachi never wrote that "they that come shall burn them" or that Elijah will "reveal unto you the Priesthood," but that was the meaning given to his words by Jesus. Moroni did not quote Malachi verbatim but paraphrased sometimes, incorporating Jesus' commentary, in order to communicate something to Joseph Smith that would not have been apparent from the unadorned biblical text.

By the way, I believe quoting and commenting on Malachi would be very much in character for Jesus. In my 2022 post "Reasons to think Jesus read Malachi 2:1-3:1 in the Temple," I make the case that a large part of John 7 consists of commentary on Malachi. It would appear that at Bountiful he picked up where he had left off and did the next two chapters.

Thursday, April 2^nd 2026

Brothers and brethren

Wm Jas Tychonievich

4.5 min read (1,400 words)

The Book of Mormon uses the archaic plural brethren 499 times and the modern brothers 9 times.

Brothers always refers to biological siblings, both elder and younger. Laman and Lemuel are Nephi's "brothers," and he and Sam are their "brothers," too.

my elder brothers, who were Laman, Lemuel, and Sam (1 Ne. 2:5)
I did not rebel against him like unto my [elder] brothers (1 Ne. 2:16)
thou and thy [elder] brothers should go unto the house of Laban (1 Ne. 3:4)
thy [elder] brothers murmur (1 Ne. 3:5)

Laman and Lemuel did speak many hard words unto us, their younger brothers (1 Ne. 3:28)

Helaman's "brothers" are older than him; but Pagag, the firstborn, also has "brothers."

counsel with your elder brothers . . . be nourished by your brothers" (Alma 39:10)

the firstborn . . . was Pagag. . . . they chose all the [younger] brothers of Pagag (Ether 6:25-26)

Brethren is also used for both elder and younger male siblings. Laman and Lemuel are referred to as Nephi's "brethren" countless times, and he also refers to "Jacob and Joseph, my younger brethren" (2 Ne. 5:6). Besides this use, brethren can also refer to co-religionists, "brethren of the church" (1 Ne. 4:26, Alma 5:14). The convenient ambiguity of Nephi's words to Zoram makes it clear that the same word was used in both of these senses:

And I also spake unto him that I should carry the engravings, which were upon the plates of brass, to my [biological] elder brethren, who were without the walls. . . . And he, supposing that I spake of the brethren of the church, . . . did follow me (1 Ne. 4:24, 26).

So far, so unremarkable. It's just a word with two possible plurals, analogous to cows and kine, or cherubs, cherubim. What piqued my interest and prompted me to write this post was a handful of verses where brothers and brethren are used together, apparently with different meanings. Here is the first such instance:

And now there was a great mourning and lamentation among the people of Limhi, the widow mourning for her husband, the son and the daughter mourning for their father, and the brothers for their brethren (Mosiah 21:9).

Given the context, I assume that this means "younger brothers mourning for their elder brothers." It seems clear that we are talking about literal family relations, but if it were the same word both times in the original language, it's hard to see why it would have been translated differently. Although, as documented above, both brothers and brethren are used elsewhere in the text for both elder and younger siblings, here it may just be a convenient way of expressing "one kind of brother mourning for the other kind of brother."

The remaining instances of brothers being contrasted with brethren have to do with the four sons of Mosiah.

And the voice of the Lord came to Ammon, saying: Thou shalt not go up to the land of Nephi, for behold, the king will seek thy life; but thou shalt go to the land of Middoni; for behold, thy brother Aaron, and also Muloki and Ammah are in prison. Now it came to pass that when Ammon had heard this, he said unto Lamoni: Behold, my brother and brethren are in prison at Middoni, and I go that I may deliver them (Alma 20:2-3).

Ammon and Aaron are biological siblings, two of the four sons of Mosiah. We don't know who exactly Muloki and Ammah are (this is the first of only two times they are mentioned), but they are apparently either kinsmen in a broader sense (cousins or such) or biologically unrelated "brethren of the church."

Muloki and Ammah were not the only "brethren" preaching alongside the four brothers.

[Ammon, after having parted from his biological brothers,] departed out of their synagogue, and came over to a village which was called Ani-Anti, and there he found Muloki preaching the word unto them; and also Ammah and his brethren. . . . Aaron and a certain number of his brethren were taken and cast into prison, and the remainder of them fled out of the land of Middoni unto the regions round about. And those who were cast into prison suffered many things, and they were delivered by the hand of Lamoni and Ammon, and they were fed and clothed (Alma 21:11, 13-14).

The "brethren" of Ammah are apparently actual siblings or kinsmen, since if they were co-religionists they would not have been specifically Ammah's brethren. In Alma 20, the Lord tells Ammon that Aaron, Muloki, and Ammah are in prison, but here it is "Aaron and a certain number of his brethren" -- which would be an unlikely way of phrasing it if the "certain number" were two and if they were the two people who had just been mentioned by name. So it was apparently more than just those three who were in prison, but the Lord only mentioned the three to Ammon. This perhaps suggests that Muloki and Ammah may have been Ammon and Aaron's "brethren" in a different sense than the other prisoners. There is a further hint of this a couple of chapters later:

Behold, now it came to pass that the king of the Lamanites sent a proclamation among all his people, that they should not lay their hands on Ammon, or Aaron, or Omner, or Himni, nor either of their brethren who should go forth preaching the word of God, in whatsoever place they should be, in any part of their land (Alma 23:1).

This certainly makes it sound as if Ammon, Aaron, Omner, and Himni (the four biological brothers) had only two "brethren" -- who would presumably be Muloki and Ammah. However, we can't say for sure that this is the intended meaning. In Websters' 1828 dictionary (describing American English as used at the time the Book of Mormon was translated), these are the first two definitions of either:

1. One or another of any number. Here are ten oranges; take either orange of the whole number, or take either of them. In the last phrase, either stands as a pronoun or substitute.

2. One of two. This sense is included in the foregoing.

So the first definition is one "of any number." And it does make more sense that the king would forbid the Lamanites to lay hands on any and all Nephite preachers rather than singling out six individuals. Most other instances of either in the Book of Mormon clearly mean "one of two"; however, there is one unambiguous counterexample:

And now, behold, the Lamanites could not retreat either way, neither on the north, nor on the south, nor on the east, nor on the west, for they were surrounded on every hand by the Nephites (Hel. 1:31).

Here, "either way" clearly means any of four ways. Taking this into account, I think it is relatively unlikely that Alma 23:1 is singling out Muloki and Ammah.

Here is the final verse to distinguish brothers from brethren:

And now behold, Ammon, and Aaron, and Omner, and Himni, and their brethren did rejoice exceedingly . . . . And now, these are the words of Ammon to his brethren, which say thus: My brothers and my brethren, behold I say unto you, how great reason have we to rejoice (Alma 25:17, 26:1)

Here I think it is tolerably clear that Ammon's "brothers" are his actual siblings, Aaron, Omner, and Himni, while his "brethren" could be either specifically Muloki and Ammah or else his "brethren of the church" in general.

1 Comment:

Ftan said...
ATV, 1 Nephi 2:5: 549 to 9. As you note, brothers is used only with respect to blood brothers, but the singular brother can also be used to refer to a brother in the faith, as at the beginning of Helaman’s epistle to Moroni in Alma 56:2 (“my dearly beloved brother Moroni”).

Friday, April 3^rd 2026

All are not alike unto God

Wm Jas Tychonievich

1.5 min read (480 words)

And I am filled with charity, which is everlasting love; wherefore, all children are alike unto me; wherefore, I love little children with a perfect love; and they are all alike and partakers of salvation
-- Mormon, Moroni 8:17

"Except to the eye of love, one Aberdeen terrier looks very much like another Aberdeen terrier, sir. Mr. Blumenfeld, I am happy to say, did not detect the innocent subterfuge."

"Jeeves," I said -- and I am not ashamed to confess that there was a spot of chokiness in the voice -- "there is none like you, none."
-- P. G. Wodehouse, "Episode of the Dog McIntosh"

I have to side firmly with Jeeves here. Against Mormon -- who says that he is full of love; therefore all children are alike to him; therefore his love is perfect -- I must insist that one member of a category is very much like another except to the eye of love. Blindness to what makes each individual and situation unique is the very antithesis of love. That is why "always love partakes of broken rule," why "the law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ" (John 1:17), and why a Pharisee is a "child of hell" (Matt. 23:15). "Platonic love" in a literal sense -- love of the ideal and not the real -- is not love.

Of course I know and agree with what Mormon is trying to say, but the way in which he says it is unfortunate. Nephi is the other offender, and this verse of his is increasingly popular with the Church Formerly Known as Mormon:

[H]e denieth none that come unto him, black and white, bond and free, male and female; and he remembereth the heathen; and all are alike unto God, both Jew and Gentile (2 Ne. 26:33).

What these two prophets mean is that all subcategories of human beings -- baptized and unbaptized, Black and White, bond and free, male and female, Christian and Pagan and Jew -- are alike to God and to those whose love is perfect. But this is not because they see only some broader category -- "children" or "children of men" -- but because they see only the individual.

A man who loves his dog loves it not because it is an Aberdeen terrier, and certainly not because it is a dog, but because it is that particular dog. Five sparrows are sold for two farthings, but each is known to God (Luke 12:6). Even the plants in my garden have individual names, and how much more must that be true with God?

Love thy neighbor as thyself -- that is, as a self, as unlumpable as your own.

Saturday, April 11^th 2026

Lehi's prophecy of John the Baptist

Wm Jas Tychonievich

7.5 min read (2,200 words)

The first mention of baptism in the Book of Mormon is in this prophecy of Lehi's, as reported by Nephi:

And he spake also concerning a prophet who should come before the Messiah, to prepare the way of the Lord -- Yea, even he should go forth and cry in the wilderness: Prepare ye the way of the Lord, and make his paths straight; for there standeth one among you whom ye know not; and he is mightier than I, whose shoe's latchet I am not worthy to unloose. And much spake my father concerning this thing.

And my father said he should baptize in Bethabara, beyond Jordan; and he also said he should baptize with water; even that he should baptize the Messiah with water. And after he had baptized the Messiah with water, he should behold and bear record that he had baptized the Lamb of God, who should take away the sins of the world (1 Ne. 10:7-10).

As I noted in my inaugural post here, this is a highly suspect passage -- "jaw-droppingly detailed for something supposedly written in the 6th century BC, but also containing not one single detail not found in the New Testament." It seems to draw heavily on the Gospels in a way that Lehi himself could not have done.

It begins by alluding to Isaiah, but the form the Isaiah quotation takes shows the influence of the New Testament:

The voice of one calling out,
Clear the way for the Lord in the wilderness;
Make straight in the desert a highway for our God (Isa 40:3, NASB).

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, KJV).

The voice of one crying in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make straight the paths of our God (Isa. 40:3, Brenton's Septuagint Translation).

Almost all modern translations are similar to the NASB above in that the voice is not crying in the wilderness, "Prepare ye the way of the Lord" but rather is crying, "In the wilderness prepare ye the way of the Lord." I think the logic of Hebrew poetic parallelism almost forces this reading: The voice says something and then repeats itself in other words, using synonyms. "Prepare" becomes "make straight"; "the way" becomes "a highway"; "of the Lord" becomes "for our God"; and "in the wilderness" becomes "in the desert."

The Septuagint, as seen in Brenton's version above, removes "in the desert," thus making it more reasonable for the voice to be crying in the wilderness rather than crying, "In the wilderness . . . ." If the Septuagint reflects an earlier Hebrew text that has since been lost, this may be the correct reading.

The Gospels are written in Greek and thus follow the Septuagint, but all three of the Synoptics further simplify the quotation by replacing "the paths of our God" with simply "his paths."

The voice of one crying in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make his paths straight (Mark 1:3, Matt. 3:3, Luke 3:4).

It is highly unlikely that three authors would independently alter Isaiah in the same way, so presumably Matthew and Luke are copying Mark rather than drawing directly from Isaiah. All three Synoptics quote this (modified) line of Isaiah and present John the Baptist as its fulfillment, but none of them actually put the words of Isaiah in John's mouth. Only the Fourth Gospel does this:

He said, I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness, Make straight the way of the Lord, as said the prophet Esaias (John 1:23).

This is an even further simplification of Isaiah, removing the poetic parallelism entirely.

Here, again, is Lehi's version:

Yea, even he should go forth and cry in the wilderness: Prepare ye the way of the Lord, and make his paths straight (1 Ne. 10:8).

Like the Fourth Gospel, this puts the words of Isaiah in John's mouth (though fewer of them; Lehi's John simply cries in the wilderness rather than telling people that he is crying in the wilderness). The Isaiah quotation itself, though, is the Synoptic version word for word. So even this part of Lehi's prophecy, the one part that seems to come from the Old Testament rather than the New (though still "Deutero-Isaiah" and thus problematic for those who accept that hypothesis), still shows the clear influence of the Gospels.

The other things that Lehi has his crier-in-the-wilderness say also come right out of the Gospels:

There cometh one mightier than I after me, the latchet of whose shoes I am not worthy to stoop down and unloose (Mark 1:7).
he that cometh after me is mightier than I, whose shoes I am not worthy to bear (Matt. 3:11)
one mightier than I cometh, the latchet of whose shoes I am not worthy to unloose (Luke 3:16)
there standeth one among you, whom ye know not; he it is, who coming after me is preferred before me, whose shoe's latchet I am not worthy to unloose (John 1:26-27).

there standeth one among you whom ye know not; and he is mightier than I, whose shoe's latchet I am not worthy to unloose (1 Ne. 10:8)

"There standeth one among you whom ye know not" is right out of the Fourth Gospel, but "mightier than I" is from the Synoptics. All four Gospels have John use a shoe metaphor to describe his unworthiness, but Lehi uses precisely the same wording as the Fourth, including the singular shoe where the Synoptics all use the plural. Again, Lehi's wording seems to be dependent on both the Synoptics and the Fourth Gospel.

The remainder of Lehi's prophecy seems to be taken from the Fourth Gospel:

John answered them, saying, I baptize with water: . . . These things were done in Bethabara beyond Jordan, where John was baptizing. The next day John seeth Jesus coming unto him, and saith, Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world (John 1:26, 28-29).

And my father said he should baptize in Bethabara, beyond Jordan; and he also said he should baptize with water; even that he should baptize the Messiah with water. And after he had baptized the Messiah with water, he should behold and bear record that he had baptized the Lamb of God, who should take away the sins of the world (1 Ne. 10:9-10).

Bethabara is mentioned only in the Fourth Gospel, and only in some versions. It is generally agreed that the original text had Bethany and that the Bethabara variant was created by Origen in the third century. That Lehi would have singled out such an obscure place, which likely did not even exist in his day, is extremely unlikely, and the fact that is juxtaposed with other material from the same part of the Fourth Gospel, such as the "Lamb of God" reference, makes it even more suspicious. (The title "Lamb of God" is used twice by John in the Fourth Gospel and nowhere else in the entire Bible. The Book of Mormon uses it 33 times.)

Nephi writes, "my father said he should baptize . . . and he also said he should baptize with water," with the also making it read as if "with water" adds some new information not already implied in the word baptize. Since baptism is definitionally a rite involving water, this is strange. The specification "with water" makes sense only when literal water baptism is being distinguished from a metaphorical "baptism" of some other kind, as in the Synoptics:

I indeed have baptized you with water: but he shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost (Mark 1:8).

I indeed baptize you with water unto repentance: but he . . . shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost, and with fire (Matt. 3:11).

I indeed baptize you with water; but .. . he shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost and with fire (Luke 3:16).

Lehi, however, at least in Nephi's abridgment, never mentions any other kind of baptism. This is yet another way in which his prophecy parallels the Fourth Gospel, which has John say "I baptize with water" without mentioning any other kind of baptism until later in the story. As I wrote in my 2019 "Notes on John 1" about vv. 24-27:

The author has not mentioned until now that John was baptizing people. Obviously he takes it for granted that his readers pretty much know who John was and what he was doing. Also omitted, though obviously implied in what comes later (and by "I baptize with water"), is John's statement that the one coming after him would baptize with the Holy Ghost.

All in all, it's hard for me to see this prophecy of Lehi's as anything but a case of massive biblical contamination. Even if we grant that detailed information about John the Baptist could have been revealed to Lehi 600 years in advance, it's not plausible that his prophecy would mention exactly the same details, in exactly the same language, as the Gospel writers who wrote of John after the fact.

It's almost as if what was revealed to Lehi was not a vision of John but rather a vision of the yet-to-be-written text of the New Testament (including a post-third-century version of the Fourth Gospel as well as at least one of the Synoptics). Visions of future books are attested elsewhere in the Book of Mormon, so it's not technically outside the realm of possibility. It does strain credulity, though, to think that the exact wording of the Gospels was predetermined 600 years in advance. Seeing that there will in the future be a "Bible" is one thing, but actually reading that Bible centuries before it is written -- by, one presumes, authors possessing creativity and free will -- is much harder to swallow.

The skeptical explanation is of course that the "prophecy" was actually invented in the 19th century by Joseph Smith and that its content was lifted directly from the King James Bible. In other words, Joseph just made it up, plagiarizing freely from the Bible, and the biblical parallels discussed here are one of many smoking guns.

The "semi-skeptical" stance I have tentatively staked out in "The snail on the roof, the Lincoln Memorial, and the translation of the Book of Mormon" is that Joseph Smith's seership worked much like modern remote viewing, in that paranormally received material (in this case revelation) was inextricably mixed with content from the seer's own mind, and that all of this was experienced as a single "given" thing, with no way for the seer to know -- other than checking it against external evidence -- what elements of the vision were true clairvoyance and which were noise or what I have called "contamination."

In the present case, the external evidence seems to be telling us that every word of Lehi's prophecy of John could be contamination -- that we can't say with any confidence that he foresaw John at all, and if he did, the content of that vision was likely quite different from what we have in the Book of Mormon. I started this post as part of an effort to figure out what the Nephites knew of "baptism" prior to Alma (the first instance of anyone actually practicing baptism in the Book of Mormon), and it appears that 1 Ne. 10 provides little or no usable evidence relative to that question.

The one element in 1 Ne. 10 that strikes me as potentially significant -- although, again, it too could easily be contamination -- is that mention of baptism "with water" as if that were a different thing from simple baptism. Obviously the word baptism in our Book of Mormon is a translation of something -- and given that baptism is a very specialized word referring to a specific feature of our culture, it is likely that the translation is not an exact one. The "with water" thing suggests (possibly) that the basic meaning of the Nephite word thus translated did not necessarily imply water. Perhaps it meant something like "purification" or "initiation" or something. The evidence for this is thus far extremely slight -- I'm basing it on details of the wording of a passage that is heavily (perhaps totally) contaminated -- but I'll be keeping it in the back of my mind as a possibility as I go through the other pre-Alma "baptism" passages.

Monday, April 13^th 2026

A bit of evidence for the "interplanetary Book of Mormon" hypothesis

Wm Jas Tychonievich

2 min read (570 words)

In my August 2024 posts "Thoughts on the Astronaut Nephi theory" and "Tight like unto a saucer?" I looked and Bill and Leo's theory that Lehi and Jared traversed not ordinary seas but the "great waters" of outer space. I was mostly critical of the idea, but in my current read-through of the Book (yes, the Book of Mormon will now be known as "the Book"), I noticed a detail that does lend it some support.

The Book's "promised land" is 13 times referred to as being "choice above all." Here are 10 of these instances:

a land which is choice above all other lands (1 Ne. 2:20)
the land which is choice above all other lands (1 Ne. 13:30)
a land which is choice above all other lands (2 Ne. 1:5)
a choice land, saith God unto me, above all other lands (2 Ne. 10:19)
choice unto me above all other parts of the land of my vineyard (Jacob 5:43)
the land of promise, which was choice above all other lands (Ether 2:7)
a land which is choice above all other lands (Ether 2:10)
a land choice above all other lands (Ether 2:15)
choice above all other lands (Ether 9:20)
a choice land above all other lands (Ether 13:2)

The key word I want you to notice here is other. This is required by logic, since a land that is choice above "all lands" would have to be choice above itself, and that is impossible. Something can be choice above all members of a given category only if it is not itself a member of that category.

Now look at these two instances from Ether:

a land which is choice above all the earth (Ether 1:38)
a land which is choice above all the lands of the earth (Ether 1:42)

These differ from the others it two respects: (1) they omit the word other, and (2) they refer not to "lands" but to "the earth" or "the lands of the earth." Logically, this implies that the choice land, though it is a land, is not "of the earth." Another planet seems to be indicated.

There is, alas, one counterexample:

a land that was choice above all lands (Ether 10:28)

As stated above, it is logically impossible for what is said in this verse to be strictly true, and if the language here is logically loose, so could the language of those other two Ether verses be. This weakens the evidence presented here but does not disprove the interplanetary theory. What would potentially disprove it would be the other sort of counterexample -- "choice above all other lands of the earth," which would place the promised land firmly on planet Earth -- and this we do not find in the Book.

As evidence, this is extremely tenuous, and by itself it is hardly enough to tip the scales in favor of the interplanetary hypothesis. I thought it was worth mentioning, though. Some additional tenuous evidence may be found in the command that the Jaredites bring "seed of the earth of every kind" (Ether 1:41) -- a phrase not used anywhere else in scripture -- and in the fact that "they did also prepare a vessel, in which they did carry with them the fish of the waters" (Ether 2:2) -- scarcely necessary on an ordinary sea voyage.

3 Comments:

Jacob Gee said...
Getting to orbit, let alone another planet, is far beyond what a small family group could do by itself. This theory implies some handwavium drive. So why not borrow the Grey Ships idea from Tolkien, and posit that there exist seapaths to other worlds that some people and ships can find, but others can't? No Nephi the astronaut, tight like unto a dish is for submersion just like the text says.
If the BoM were set somewhere else than Earth, it has implications for my mini-raptures and 2nd comings theory - God rapts his people from Earth but establishes his people in the Land of Promise. It implies that the Earth does not belong to him in some way, and he only has authority (moral justification) to take his people out and punish those who killed them. The 4rth gospel passages about how the world hates Christ's disciples because they are not of the world could be read that way. Maybe in the Land of Promise, the worldly are the alien interlopers instead of the other way around.
Wm Jas Tychonievich said...
Well, yes, a Tolkienian model is precisely what the people who propose this theory have in mind. Bill and Leo both subscribe to the idea (from Daymon Smith's Words of the Faithful) that Tolkien is non-fiction and that the Jaredites came from Numenor.
Leo said...
Nice finds. Tenuous is good enough for me!

Tuesday, April 14^th 2026

The Book of Mormon predicts the imminent destruction of all Western nations

Wm Jas Tychonievich

2 min read (660 words)

And one Middle-Eastern one.

It is often said that the Book was written "for our day," but one rarely feels it viscerally, and as often as not those who say that are thinking of "our day" in the very broad sense of everything from the 19th century on. Here, though, is a prophecy that singles out this precise moment in history:

And whatsoever nation shall uphold such secret combinations [i.e., oath-bound conspiracies], to get power and gain, until they shall spread over the nation, behold, they shall be destroyed; for the Lord will not suffer that the blood of his saints, which shall be shed by them, shall always cry unto him from the ground for vengeance upon them and yet he avenge them not.

Wherefore, O ye Gentiles [i.e., "goyim"], it is wisdom in God that these things should be shown unto you, that thereby ye may repent of your sins, and suffer not that these murderous combinations shall get above you, which are built up to get power and gain -- and the work, yea, even the work of destruction come upon you, yea, even the sword of the justice of the Eternal God shall fall upon you, to your overthrow and destruction if ye shall suffer these things to be.

Wherefore, the Lord commandeth you, when ye shall see these things come among you that ye shall awake to a sense of your awful situation, because of this secret combination which shall be among you; or wo be unto it, because of the blood of them who have been slain; for they cry from the dust for vengeance upon it, and also upon those who built it up.

For it cometh to pass that whoso buildeth it up seeketh to overthrow the freedom of all lands, nations, and countries; and it bringeth to pass the destruction of all people, for it is built up by the devil, who is the father of all lies; even that same liar who beguiled our first parents, yea, even that same liar who hath caused man to commit murder from the beginning; who hath hardened the hearts of men that they have murdered the prophets, and stoned them, and cast them out from the beginning.

Wherefore, I, Moroni, am commanded to write these things that evil may be done away, and that the time may come that Satan may have no power upon the hearts of the children of men, but that they may be persuaded to do good continually, that they may come unto the fountain of all righteousness and be saved (Ether 8:22-26).

I think it is fair to say that we've reached the point where these things have been "shown unto" us, that entire nations now "see these things." There have always been conspiracy theories -- including, yes, the anti-Masonic panic of the Prophet's day -- but today, for perhaps the first time in modern history, even the normiest of normies understands that we are ruled by a psychopathic cabal of child-hating, devil-worshiping robbers and murderers. Jokes take it for granted as something everyone knows. The face of Jeffrey Epstein, which is rapidly becoming as iconic as that of Adolf Hitler, is a meme that everyone immediately understands.

(image)

Prepare ye, prepare ye for that which is to come, for the anger of the Lord is kindled, and his sword is bathed in heaven, and it shall fall upon the inhabitants of the earth.

And everyone knows that, too. The "prophet of doom" used to be a figure of fun, but now we dismiss him for another reason: that it hardly takes much of a "prophet" to predict what everyone already takes for granted.

Joseph Smith, though, wrote in the 19th century; and Moroni, if you believe it, in the fifth.

2 Comments:

NLR said...
suppose there are 10 righteous men
Wm Jas Tychonievich said...
I don't think that's a stable situation. Righteous people don't want to stay in an overwhelmingly wicked environment. They leave, are corrupted, or eventually die.

Thursday, April 16^th 2026

Seeing the bodies of spirits

Wm Jas Tychonievich

7 min read (2,100 words)

(image)

"Touch these stones, O Lord, with thy finger" (Ether 3:4), said the Brother of Jared, apparently taking it for granted that the Lord had in some sense such appendages. When he unexpectedly saw that finger, his reaction is somewhat surprising.

And the veil was taken from off the eyes of the brother of Jared, and he saw the finger of the Lord; and it was as the finger of a man, like unto flesh and blood; and the brother of Jared fell down before the Lord, for he was struck with fear.

And the Lord saw that the brother of Jared had fallen to the earth; and the Lord said unto him: Arise, why hast thou fallen?

And he saith unto the Lord: I saw the finger of the Lord, and I feared lest he should smite me; for I knew not that the Lord had flesh and blood (Ether 3:6-8).

The Brother later confirms, when asked by the Lord, that he has at this point seen only a finger -- just a finger, seemingly floating in the air and unattached to a body, touching the stones one by one. It seems to me that almost anyone seeing such an apparition would assume it to be a spiritual manifestation, not an actual flesh-and-blood finger. For example, when the disciples saw the flesh-and-blood Jesus walking on water -- something physical bodies don't normally do -- they assumed it was a ghost. Belshazzar even saw disembodied "fingers of a man's hand" (Daniel 5:5) but was only interested in decoding the words those fingers had written. The Brother, though, reacted differently: He already knew the Lord had "fingers" but was now shocked to discover that he had fingers that were entirely physical -- indeed, biological -- in nature. For him to have concluded this, I think the finger must have looked exactly like a physical finger, with nothing spiritual or ghostly about it (except for the fact that it was hovering in the air, I mean).

But of course this all happened several millennia BC, and the Being that the Brother saw, the future Jesus Christ, did not at that time have a body of flesh and blood. The usual Mormon understanding is that the premortal Jesus had a "spirit body" -- a quasi-physical structure, somewhat like the subtle or "astral" body of other traditions, corresponding in form to his future mortal body -- and that this is what the Brother saw. That's not what the Lord says to him, though.

And the Lord said unto him: Because of thy faith thou hast seen that I shall take upon me flesh and blood; and never has man come before me with such exceeding faith as thou hast; for were it not so ye could not have seen my finger (Ether 3:9).

He doesn't say, "You have seen my spirit body, which looks exactly the same as the physical body I will later take on." He says, "Thou hast seen that I shall take upon me flesh and blood" -- implying that the Brother has in some sense seen the future. He saw a physical finger because the Lord would in the future have an actual physical finger.

It wasn't a vision of the future in the ordinary sense, though. He didn't at this point see a vision of what Jesus would do in the future (as Nephi did, for instance). He saw what Jesus was at that time doing -- touching the stones with his finger -- but the Jesus that he saw doing this was not Jesus as he existed at that time (an invisible spirit) but as he would exist in the future, an incarnate Man.

The Lord proceeds to show the rest of himself to the Brother, calling that which he is showing "the body of my spirit":

Behold, this body, which ye now behold, is the body of my spirit; and man have I created after the body of my spirit; and even as I appear unto thee to be in the spirit will I appear unto my people in the flesh.

And now, as I, Moroni, said I could not make a full account of these things which are written, therefore it sufficeth me to say that Jesus showed himself unto this man in the spirit, even after the manner and in the likeness of the same body even as he showed himself unto the Nephites (Ether 3:16-17).

These expressions with of can be slippery and ambiguous. For instance, when we read of "the god of Elkenah" (Abr. 1:6), are we to understand that Elkenah is the name of the god himself, or -- by analogy with such phrases as "the god of Abraham" and "the gods of Egypt" -- the name of some person or place with which the god is associated? It is similarly unclear here whether Jesus means "the 'body' which is my spirit" (i.e., the "spirit body" of popular Mormon understanding) or "the body that pertains to my spirit" (because my spirit will later be incarnated in it). In my judgment, "my body of spirit" would be more natural for the first sense than "the body of my spirit." Of course Jesus' body in the latter sense didn't exist yet, but precognitive visions of the future are definitely a feature of the Book of Mormon, and as I have said, the Lord does seem to be implying that the Brother saw his future body.

Later in the same chapter, the Brother has another vision that seems as if it might be the same sort of thing:

And when the Lord had said these words, he showed unto the brother of Jared all the inhabitants of the earth which had been, and also all that would be; and he withheld them not from his sight, even unto the ends of the earth (Ether 3:25).

This has traditionally been interpreted as a vision of the entire past and future history of the earth (it is repeatedly referred to in Joseph Smith's Seer Stones as "the all-seeing vision"), but that's not what it says. It says that he saw all those who had been or would be "inhabitants of the earth." Only the people themselves are mentioned, nothing about past or future scenes or events. He could have had a panoramic view of all history, of course, but the context of his vision of Jesus strongly suggests another possibility: that he saw these past and future inhabitants in the same way that he saw the future Jesus.

Again, he didn't see scenes from Jesus' future life. Instead, he saw the pre-incarnate Jesus, doing what he was at that time doing (touching the stones), but doing it in the body into which he had not yet been born. If the popular Mormon understanding that the "spirit world" is all around us is correct, the Brother was at all times surrounded by the invisible spirits of those who had already died or had yet to be born. In this experience, these spirits became visible as Jesus had become visible, appearing in the bodies in which they had lived or would live. He didn't see those past and future lives; he saw the spirits doing whatever the spirits were doing at the time, but he saw those spirits as bodies.

Enoch perhaps had a similar experience:

And the Lord spake unto Enoch, and said unto him: Anoint thine eyes with clay, and wash them, and thou shalt see. And he did so.

And he beheld the spirits that God had created; and he beheld also things which were not visible to the natural eye; and from thenceforth came the saying abroad in the land: A seer hath the Lord raised up unto his people (Moses 6:35-36).

When you see a spirit -- something inherently invisible -- what exactly do you see? The same thing people typically see when they see "ghosts," presumably: The ghost manifests as the physical likeness of the person when he or she was alive, but you don't see their life. You see what the ghost is doing now -- wandering around "haunting" the place or whatever -- but you see the spirit as the body it once inhabited.

Another possible example of this sort of thing is the Transfiguration described in the New Testament:

And after six days Jesus taketh with him Peter, and James, and John, and leadeth them up into an high mountain apart by themselves: and he was transfigured before them. And his raiment became shining, exceeding white as snow; so as no fuller on earth can white them. And there appeared unto them Elias with Moses: and they were talking with Jesus. . . .

And suddenly, when they had looked round about, they saw no man any more, save Jesus only with themselves. And as they came down from the mountain, he charged them that they should tell no man what things they had seen, till the Son of man were risen from the dead. And they kept that saying with themselves, questioning one with another what the rising from the dead should mean (Mark 9:2-4, 8-10).

This is slightly different, since Jesus was not a disembodied spirit at the time, but one interpretation of what happened is that Peter, James, and John saw Jesus as he would later be, after the resurrection. The description of the transfigured Jesus -- whiter-than-white clothing and, Matthew adds, a face that "did shine as the sun" (Matt. 17:2) -- is consistent with descriptions of resurrected beings. Here is Joseph Smith's description of the resurrected Moroni:

He had on a loose robe of most exquisite whiteness. It was a whiteness beyond anything earthly I had ever seen; nor do I believe that any earthly thing could be made to appear so exceedingly white and brilliant. . . . Not only was his robe exceedingly white, but his whole person was glorious beyond description, and his countenance truly like lightning (JS-H vv. 31-32).

As in the Gospels, it is the preternaturally white clothing that first attracts comment, being apparently even more distinctive than the shining face. Likewise, when the resurrected Jesus appears to the Nephites, the only description given is that "he was clothed in a white robe" (3 Ne. 11:8).

At the time of the Transfiguration, Jesus hadn't yet been resurrected and didn't look like that -- but somehow he did look like that for a brief period of time. Perhaps, like the Brother of Jared, the apostles were granted the temporary ability to see present-Jesus as future-Jesus. They saw Jesus doing what he was doing at the time -- staying with them on the mountain, talking with Moses and Elias -- but they saw him doing it in a sort of body that he did not yet have.

Moroni says that the Brother of Jared saw Jesus in "the likeness of the same body even as he showed himself unto the Nephites" (Ether 3:17), suggesting that he, too, saw the Lord's resurrection body before the resurrection had occurred. There is biblical precedent for referring to the resurrection body in language similar to "the body of my spirit":

So also is the resurrection of the dead. It is sown in corruption; it is raised in incorruption: it is sown in dishonour; it is raised in glory: it is sown in weakness; it is raised in power: it is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body. There is a natural body, and there is a spiritual body (1 Cor. 15:42-44).

I haven't yet thought through the details of how this sort of phenomenon might work, and what it might imply about bodies and spirits and resurrection and time, but I wanted to get the basic idea out there first.

Monday, May 11^th 2026

Alma introduced baptism to the Nephites

Wm Jas Tychonievich

6 min read (1,800 words)

The first account of Nephites practicing baptism is at the Waters of Mormon, where Alma baptized himself and his followers. Alma had fled from the Lehi-Nephi group founded by Zeniff and later led by Noah and then Limhi. This group had broken off from the main Nephite-Mulekite group in Zarahemla c. 200 BC, and the two groups had no contact until c. 120 BC, when both Alma's group and the main Lehi-Nephi group under Limhi went to Zarahemla and united with the main Nephite-Mulekite group ruled by Mosiah II.

It was during this 80-year separation that the both the baptisms at the Waters of Mormon (c. 147 BC) and King Benjamin's address at Zarahemla (c. 124 BC) occurred.

The estimated dates I'm using are those provided by the CJCLDS in their current edition of the Book. I'm not vouching for their accuracy; I include them only to establish the sequence of events. Here's a simple diagram of that sequence, without dates and not to scale:

(image)

For convenience, I will refer to the groups that came together under Mosiah II as the Nephites (the main Zarahemla group, a mixture of Nephites proper and Mulekites), the Zeniffites, and the Almaites.

With this background in mind, we return to Alma at the Waters of Mormon. When Alma performed his first baptism, he also baptized himself (Mosiah 18:14-15), which implies that he had not been baptized before. Alma was a Zeniffite priest, and if priests were not baptized it seems unlikely that anyone was. Another possibility is that Alma had been baptized but no longer considered a baptism performed by the corrupt priests of Noah to be valid and therefore had to do it again. Against this we have the fact that Alma claims to baptize "having authority from the Almighty God" (Mosiah 18:13), and it would seem that this declaration of authority could only refer to his status as an ordained Zeniffite priest. He apparently considered Zeniffite priests to have legitimate authority to perform religious ceremonies, even though their teachings and practices had become corrupt. From all this we conclude that the Zeniffites almost certainly did not practice baptism. Alma was either innovating or else restoring an earlier Nephite practice which the Zeniffites had abandoned.

While Joseph Smith would later make it an article of the Mormon faith that baptism is "for the remission of sins" (A of F 4), Alma says nothing about that. His baptism had two functions. First, it marked a covenant with God to "serve him and keep his commandments" (Mosiah 18:10) "until you are dead as to the mortal body" (Mosiah 18:13). Second, baptism was a way to "come into the fold of God, and to be called his people" (Mosiah 18:8), and those who were baptized "were called the church of God, or the church of Christ, from that time forward. And it came to pass that whosoever was baptized by the power and authority of God was added to his church" (Mosiah 18:17).

Some decades later, King Benjamin in Zarahemla, with no knowledge of Alma or the Zeniffite group from which he had come, would do with his people something very similar to what Alma had done at the Waters of Mormon. After listening to Benjamin's address, his subjects say that they

are willing to enter into a covenant with our God to do his will, and to be obedient to his commandments in all things that he shall command us, all the remainder of our days (Mosiah 5:5)

This is the same covenant that was made by baptism at the Waters of Mormon -- to obey God's commandments until death. If Alma's baptism was an existing Nephite practice and not an innovation, we would expect that Benjamin would at this point instruct his subjects to be baptized. Instead, he says

Ye have spoken the words that I desired; and the covenant which ye have made is a righteous covenant. And now, because of the covenant which ye have made ye shall be called the children of Christ (Mosiah 5:6-7)

He twice speaks of "the covenant which ye have made." To publicly announce their willingness to make the covenant is to make the covenant. No further ceremony is required. The covenant was made by a large crowd of people as they were gathered to hear Benjamin speak. If they had all been baptized then and there, it would have been a major event and have taken quite some time. From the fact that no such action is mentioned, we can be pretty confident that it didn't happen. Just as those who make Alma's baptismal covenant are thenceforth "called the church of God, or the church of Christ," those who make Benjamin's non-baptismal but otherwise identical covenant are thereafter "called the children of Christ."

Benjamin's people made exactly the same covenant as Alma's, and with the same result. If baptism were the established way of making such covenants among the Nephites, the story of Benjamin's people would include baptism, but it doesn't. We therefore conclude that baptism was introduced by Alma, and that the Nephites did not practice it before.

In around 120 BC -- approximately four years after Benjamin's people had made their covenant -- the Zeniffites (under King Limhi) and the Almaites both come to Zarahemla and join the main Nephite body under Benjamin's successor, Mosiah II. The Almaites have all been baptized, made the associated covenant, and become known as the "church of Christ." In the main Nephite body, "there was not one soul, except it were little children, but who had entered into the covenant and had taken upon them the name of Christ" (Mosiah 6:2), though they had done so under Benjamin and without the rite of baptism. As for the Zeniffites, we are quite confident that they were not baptized, and there is no record of their having made any equivalent covenant.

After this union of the three groups, Mosiah "caused that all the people should be gathered together" (Mosiah 25:1), and Alma addressed them all. "And Alma did speak unto them, when they were assembled together in large bodies, and he went from one body to another, preaching unto the people repentance and faith on the Lord" (Mosiah 25:15). The Zeniffites (Limhi's people) responded to this preaching by being baptized:

And it came to pass that after Alma had taught the people many things, and had made an end of speaking to them, that king Limhi was desirous that he might be baptized; and all his people were desirous that they might be baptized also. Therefore, Alma did go forth into the water and did baptize them; yea, he did baptize them after the manner he did his brethren in the waters of Mormon; yea, and as many as he did baptize did belong to the church of God; and this because of their belief on the words of Alma.

And it came to pass that king Mosiah granted unto Alma that he might establish churches throughout all the land of Zarahemla; and gave him power to ordain priests and teachers over every church (Mosiah 25:17-19).

Only the Zeniffites are baptized at this point. There is no record of any of the Zarahemla Nephites wanting to be baptized after hearing Alma preach. From the language of v. 19, we might conclude that Alma's movement remained a minority sect and that most of the Nephites did not join, though Mosiah tolerantly "granted unto Alma that he might establish churches."

However, we are told that during the reign of Mosiah, those who did not belong to Alma's church "were not half so numerous as the people of God" (Mosiah 26:5). We don't know how big the Zeniffite group was, but they can scarcely have had twice the population of the main Nephite body, so we must assume that most of the Zarahemla Nephites did join Alma's movement. The most logical conclusion is that, since the purpose of baptism is to covenant lifelong obedience to God and to become his people, and since the Nephites had already done that, there was no need for them to do it again by being baptized. They had in effect made the baptismal covenant, but had done so before baptism became established among them as the way to make such covenants, and they were therefore "grandfathered in."

This is confirmed by the nature of the group that did not belong to the church.

Now it came to pass that there were many of the rising generation that could not understand the words of king Benjamin, being little children at the time he spake unto his people; and they did not believe the tradition of their fathers. . . . And they would not be baptized; neither would they join the church (Mosiah 26:1, 4).

It was explicitly stated that all of King Benjamin's subjects except "little children" entered into his baptism-equivalent covenant. It was only among this "rising generation" that some refused to be baptized because they were the only Nephites who were expected to be baptized. Those who had been of age in Benjamin's time had already done something that was counted as being in effect baptism and were not expected to do it again.

I will have more to say in a later post about the rising generation's specific reasons for not wanting to be baptized. Here I just cite their refusal as evidence that baptism was only expected of those who had not covenanted under Benjamin.

I think I've made a pretty strong case that Alma and Benjamin independently introduced the idea of making a covenant and becoming the people of Christ, that only Alma's version of this covenant involved baptism, and that baptism was not practiced by the Nephites before Alma brought it to them.

Against this conclusion, we have 2 Ne. 9 and 2 Ne. 31, where the need to be baptized is taught by Jacob and Nephi, long before Alma. This, too, will be a subject for another post.

Tuesday, May 26^th 2026

Jacob did not teach that baptism was required in his day

Wm Jas Tychonievich

3 min read (950 words)

In my last post, I argue that "Alma introduced baptism to the Nephites" -- meaning the actual practice of baptism; clearly they were aware of the concept of baptism prior to Alma, but I think I've made a pretty strong case that the Nephites at Zarahemla at least did not practice baptism before Alma and did not consider baptism as such to be strictly necessary, since those who had already made Benjamin's non-baptismal covenant were not expected tp be baptized. See that post for the evidence.

At the end of that post, though, I wrote this:

Against this conclusion, we have 2 Ne. 9 and 2 Ne. 31, where the need to be baptized is taught by Jacob and Nephi, long before Alma. This, too, will be a subject for another post.

This is that promised follow-up post -- or rather the first of them, as I've decided to address the two problematic chapters separately. Here is the relevant portion of Jacob's sermon:

O how great the holiness of our God! For he knoweth all things, and there is not anything save he knows it.

And he cometh into the world that he may save all men if they will hearken unto his voice; for behold, he suffereth the pains of all men, yea, the pains of every living creature, both men, women, and children, who belong to the family of Adam.

And he suffereth this that the resurrection might pass upon all men, that all might stand before him at the great and judgment day.

And he commandeth all men that they must repent, and be baptized in his name, having perfect faith in the Holy One of Israel, or they cannot be saved in the kingdom of God.

And if they will not repent and believe in his name, and be baptized in his name, and endure to the end, they must be damned; for the Lord God, the Holy One of Israel, has spoken it.

Wherefore, he has given a law; and where there is no law given there is no punishment; and where there is no punishment there is no condemnation; and where there is no condemnation the mercies of the Holy One of Israel have claim upon them, because of the atonement; for they are delivered by the power of him.

For the atonement satisfieth the demands of his justice upon all those who have not the law given to them, that they are delivered from that awful monster, death and hell, and the devil, and the lake of fire and brimstone, which is endless torment; and they are restored to that God who gave them breath, which is the Holy One of Israel.

But wo unto him that has the law given, yea, that has all the commandments of God, like unto us, and that transgresseth them, and that wasteth the days of his probation, for awful is his state! (2 Ne. 9:20-27)

Notice that Jacob begins by prophesying things that Jesus Christ will do in the future, expressing these future events in the present tense (with -eth). God "cometh into the word" in the future, "suffereth the pains of all men" in the future, and "commandeth all men that they must repent, and be baptized in his name" -- and this command, implicitly, is also to be given in the future. It would be strange for Jacob to suddenly jump back in time at this point and mention a commandment that had already been given centuries before Christ.

Those who refuse baptism "must be damned; for the Lord God, the Holy One of Israel, has spoken it, wherefore he has given a law." That wherefore indicates that the "law" spoken of is the requirement to repent, believe, and be baptized. It is not the Law of Moses, in force in Jacob's time, but a new "law" that would be given by Christ in the future. Just as Jacob has been using the present tense to describe Christ's future actions, we must understand "has spoken it" and "has given a law" in the same way. Christ will command baptism, and so those who refuse baptism will be damned for breaking the law Christ has given (i.e., will, at that future time, have given).

Jacob immediately follows this with an explanation that "where there is no law given . . . there is no condemnation" -- meaning that those who have not yet received the command Christ will give in the future will not be damned for failing to do what that future law will require.

Against this interpretation we have v. 27, where Jacob speaks of "him that has the law given, that has all the commandments of God, like unto us." Taken literally, this implies that Jacob and his listeners have all the commandments of God -- including, implicitly, the commandment to be baptized. In context, though, I think it is clear that he means they have the current law of God (i.e. that given by Moses) in its entirety and are thus expected to obey it, not that they have all the commandments God has ever given or will ever give. In what follows, Jacob speaks against lying, murder, whoredoms, etc. -- but never does he directly tell his listeners to be baptized.

So I think this chapter is fairly easy to reconcile with the hypothesis that the Nephites did not practice baptism before Alma. 2 Ne. 31 presents more of a challenge and will be addressed in another post.

Monday, June 8^th 2026

Nephi's teachings about baptism were intended for future generations

Wm Jas Tychonievich

5.5 min read (1,600 words)

The strongest evidence against the proposition that "Alma introduced baptism to the Nephites" is to be found in 2 Nephi 31. This post will deal with that chapter and attempt to reconcile it with that theory.

This chapter is part of an extended discourse by Nephi, beginning in Chapter 25, where he explains that he is writing not to his contemporaries but "unto all those that shall receive hereafter these things which I write" (2 Ne. 25:3). That this anticipated "hereafter" is specifically in the Christian era is implied by his statement that he writes "that our children may know . . . after the law is fulfilled in Christ, that they need not harden their hearts against him when the law ought to be done away" (2 Ne. 25:27).

As further evidence that Nephi is writing to an anticipated audience that will live after the prophecies of Christ have already been fulfilled, he repeatedly refers to Jesus and his baptism in the past tense, even though he himself is writing in the 6th century before Christ:

And now, I would ask of you, my beloved brethren, wherein the Lamb of God did fulfil all righteousness in being baptized by water? Know ye not that he was holy? . . . Wherefore, after he was baptized with water the Holy Ghost descended upon him (2 Ne. 31:6-8)

This is a strange way of speaking of events that are predicted to happen in the distant future, but he clearly is talking about what are from his own point of view future events. He goes on to tell his "beloved brethren" of the importance of "following your Lord and Savior down into the water" (2 Ne. 31:13), but how are they "following" him if they go down into the water hundreds of years before he does? Clearly the instruction to be baptized is addressed to future readers in the Christian era, not to people in Nephi's own time.

However, there are parts of this chapter where Nephi seems to include himself among those who need baptism:

And now, if the Lamb of God, he being holy, should have need to be baptized by water, to fulfil all righteousness, O then, how much more need have we, being unholy, to be baptized, yea, even by water! (2 Ne. 31:5)

My interpretation of this would be that by we Nephi means "we ordinary mortals" -- everyone other than the prophesied Lamb of God -- rhetorically including himself because otherwise it would sound like he was accusing his future readers of being particularly unholy. He doesn't actually mean that he, Nephi, needs to be baptized centuries before that rite has been introduced.

Another passage also seems to imply that Nephi himself was commanded to be baptized:

And he said unto the children of men: Follow thou me. Wherefore, my beloved brethren, can we follow Jesus save we shall be willing to keep the commandments of the Father?

And the Father said: Repent ye, repent ye, and be baptized in the name of my Beloved Son.

And also, the voice of the Son came unto me, saying: He that is baptized in my name, to him will the Father give the Holy Ghost, like unto me; wherefore, follow me, and do the things which ye have seen me do (2 Ne. 31:10-12).

When Nephi reports that Jesus "said unto the children of men: Follow thou me," his use of the past tense is again referring to events which are future to him but will be past to his readers. "Follow thou me" is something Jesus says to Simon Peter in John 21:22; it is never addressed broadly to "the children of men" because thou is a singular pronoun. If we omit the word thou, Jesus says "Follow me" some 18 times in the Gospels.

We have no account of the Father saying anything like, "Repent ye, repent ye, and be baptized in the name of my Beloved Son," but this may also be something Nephi foresees the Father saying in the future and believes he will already have said before the time of his anticipated readers.

In v. 12, though Nephi says, "the voice of the Son came unto me" -- that is, unto Nephi in the 6th century BC -- saying "follow me, and do the things which ye have seen me do" -- meaning baptism -- and promising that the gift of the Holy Ghost would follow.

If this is what it seems at first glance to be -- the voice of Jesus Christ speaking directly to Nephi and telling him to be baptized -- we would expect Nephi to go on to tell us of how he was baptized and received the Holy Ghost. Instead, the next thing he says is this:

Wherefore, my beloved brethren, I know that if ye shall follow the Son, with full purpose of heart, acting no hypocrisy and no deception before God, but with real intent, repenting of your sins, witnessing unto the Father that ye are willing to take upon you the name of Christ, by baptism—yea, by following your Lord and your Savior down into the water, according to his word, behold, then shall ye receive the Holy Ghost (2 Ne. 31:13).

What Nephi gets from this message from Jesus is not that he himself should be baptized, but that his "beloved brethren" in the future should do so. He twice refers to this as following the Son -- which, as I have already said, cannot logically mean doing something centuries before the Son. A few verses later, Nephi says, again addressing future generations:

Wherefore, do the things which I have told you I have seen that your Lord and your Redeemer should do; for, for this cause have they been shown unto me, that ye might know the gate by which ye should enter. For the gate by which ye should enter is repentance and baptism by water; and then cometh a remission of your sins by fire and by the Holy Ghost (2 Ne. 31:17).

Here Nephi clearly states that the reason he was shown a vision of the future baptism of Christ was not so that he, Nephi, would know that he needed to be baptized, but so that he could tell future generation that they needed to be baptized. Granted, Nephi is addressing future generations and is thus focused on them rather than on himself, but if he and other early Nephites had been practicing baptism, he would surely have mentioned it. But we have not the slightest hint that any Nephite was baptized until Alma centuries later.

How did Nephi know what Jesus would do and say in the future? The information was given to him in visions and locutions. When he says in v. 12 that "the voice of the Son came unto me," he may just mean that -- not that Jesus addressed him directly, but that he perceived paranormally what Jesus would say to others in the future.

If v. 12 were addressed to Nephi, telling him to be baptized so that he could receive the Holy Ghost, that would imply that Nephi had not yet received the Holy Ghost. However, in 1 Ne. 10 -- presumably recounting events that happened before those of 2 Ne. 31 -- we have references to both Lehi and Nephi operating by the power of the Holy Ghost:

And it came to pass after I, Nephi, having heard all the words of my father, concerning the things which he saw in a vision, and also the things which he spake by the power of the Holy Ghost, which power he received by faith on the Son of God -- and the Son of God was the Messiah who should come -- I, Nephi, was desirous also that I might see, and hear, and know of these things, by the power of the Holy Ghost, which is the gift of God unto all those who diligently seek him, as well in times of old as in the time that he should manifest himself unto the children of men (1 Ne. 10:17).

Lehi received the power of the Holy Ghost "by faith on the Son of God" -- no mention of baptism. Nephi goes on to say that this power "is the gift of God unto all those who diligently seek him" -- again no mention of baptism -- including those "in times of old." It appears that there have always been ways of receiving the Holy Ghost, but that this did not always involve baptism. Just as King Benjamin's people were able to make the baptismal covenant without being baptized, Lehi and Nephi were able to receive the Holy Ghost without doing so.

In conclusion, I think that, like Jacob, Nephi did not teach that baptism was necessary in his time. His prophecies about baptism were for the benefit of future generations.

1 Comment:

JacobG said...
I was thinking that this theory didn't hold up too well with the dialogue between Nephi and his audience starting in 2 Nephi 32:1 of what should we do after baptism:
"And now, behold, my beloved brethren, I suppose that ye ponder somewhat in your hearts concerning that which ye should do after ye have entered in by the way. But, behold, why do ye ponder these things in your hearts? Do ye not remember that I said unto you that after ye had received the Holy Ghost ye could"
Suppose implies that he is imagining this conversation, not gauging their reaction by non-verbal clues. I decided to search for Holy Ghost in 1 and 2 Nephi and interestingly it is found only in the Vision of the tree of life and future, and in the passages you cite in 2 Nepi 25-33, where he is adressing his "beloved brethren".
And who are his beloved brethren? Not the 4rth Nephi Nephites as they had Christ to tell them this in person, and there is no indication they had Nephis small plates - it must be the latter day lamanites, who are still kin, and presumably would have reason to trust the Book of Mormon more than the Bible.

Saturday, June 20^th 2026

The Tree of Life and the flesh and blood of Jesus

Wm Jas Tychonievich

11 min read (3,300 words)

In my post "The white blood of Jesus" (June 18) on my other blog, I explored the idea that the flesh and blood of Jesus is, at least at a symbolic level, identical with the fruit of the Tree of Life. I posted it there and not here because much of the reasoning was drawn from synchronicity and from Wendy Berg's book Red Tree, White Tree rather than from the Book of Mormon itself. Here I want to take a more Book-centered look at the same idea.

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1. The fruit of the Tree of Life is Jesus

I think this identification is made several times in 1 Nephi 11. First, we have this little exchange:

And the Spirit said unto me: Behold, what desirest thou?

And I said: I desire to behold the things which my father saw.

And the Spirit said unto me: Believest thou that thy father saw the tree of which he hath spoken?

And I said: Yea, thou knowest that I believe all the words of my father.

And when I had spoken these words, the Spirit cried with a loud voice, saying: Hosanna to the Lord, the most high God; for he is God over all the earth, yea, even above all. And blessed art thou, Nephi, because thou believest in the Son of the most high God; wherefore, thou shalt behold the things which thou hast desired.

And behold this thing shall be given unto thee for a sign, that after thou hast beheld the tree which bore the fruit which thy father tasted, thou shalt also behold a man descending out of heaven, and him shall ye witness; and after ye have witnessed him ye shall bear record that it is the Son of God (1 Ne. 11:1-7).

Here the Spirit seems to equate belief in the Tree with belief in the Son of God. While it's true that Nephi makes a blanket statement that he believes "all the words" of Lehi, the only question the Spirit asks him -- the qualifying question, which will determine whether or not he is granted the vision he seeks -- is whether he believes Lehi's account of the Tree. The Spirit then states that Nephi will receive that vision because he believes in the Son of God.

Nephi is then told that he will see "the tree which bore the fruit" and then "a man descending out of heaven," who is the Son of God. This is somewhat puzzling, since the account we have of Nephi's vision doesn't actually include a man literally descending out of heaven. Instead he sees the Tree and then the Mother of God, the two images being linked by their superlative whiteness.

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 . . . .

And it came to pass that he said unto me: Look! . . .

And it came to pass that I looked . . . . 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: Behold, the virgin whom thou seest is the mother of [the Son of] God, after the manner of the flesh (1 Ne. 11:8-15, 18).

Nephi sees an exceedingly white Tree and then, when he asks for the interpretation, he sees an exceedingly white Virgin, whom he is told is the Mother of God (or, in the second and subsequent editions of the Book, the Mother of the Son of God).

If the Tree is the Mother of God -- "You, Lady, are the Tree," as Rilke put it -- the identity of the Fruit follows logically. Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus.

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 Son of] the Eternal Father! Knowest thou the meaning of the tree which thy father saw?

And I answered him, saying: Yea, it is the love of God, which sheddeth itself abroad in the hearts of the children of men; wherefore, it is the most desirable above all things.

And he spake unto me, saying: Yea, and the most joyous to the soul (1 Ne. 11:19-23).

Note that the Virgin is seen "bearing a child in her arms," echoing the earlier reference to "the tree which bore the fruit."

The reference to the Virgin being "carried away in the Spirit" refers not to a trance state but rather to being actually carried away to a different place -- cf. the later reference to the Twelve being "carried away in the Spirit from before my face, and I saw them not" (1 Ne. 11:29). We might speculate that she was carried away to "Heaven," that Jesus was conceived and perhaps born there, and that this is the answer to the Jews' question, "Is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? how is it then that he saith, I came down from heaven?" (John 6:42).

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2. The Tree of Life is a source of both food and drink

Nephi's vision implicitly identifies the Fruit specifically with the flesh of Jesus, since the Tree that bears the Fruit is identified with "the Mother of God according to the flesh." The vision also says that the Tree is the source of living waters.

And it came to pass that I beheld that the rod of iron, which my father had seen, was the word of God, which led to the fountain of living waters, or to the tree of life; which waters are a representation of the love of God; and I also beheld that the tree of life was a representation of the love of God (1 Ne. 11:25).

Commentators often have difficulty reconciling this with what is said in the next chapter:

And the angel spake unto me, saying: Behold the fountain of filthy water which thy father saw; yea, even the river of which he spake; and the depths thereof are the depths of hell (1 Ne. 12:16).

I don't think this can be the same fountain. Rather, the first reference is saying that the Tree of Life is the fountain of living waters, that it provides both fruit and "water." Jeremiah, a prophet we know Nephi knew and read, twice refers to the Lord as "the fountain of living waters" (Jer. 2:13, 17:13). In the Fourth Gospel, Jesus promises "living water" to the Samaritan woman:

If thou knewest the gift of God, and who it is that saith to thee, Give me to drink; thou wouldest have asked of him, and he would have given thee living water. . . . whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life (John 4:10, 14).

Two chapters later, he implies that those who drink his blood "shall never thirst," thus equating that blood with the promised living water:

And Jesus said unto them, I am the bread of life: he that cometh to me shall never hunger; and he that believeth on me shall never thirst. . . .

I am the living bread which came down from heaven: if any man eat of this bread, he shall live for ever: and the bread that I will give is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world. . . .

Whoso eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, hath eternal life; and I will raise him up at the last day. For my flesh is meat indeed, and my blood is drink indeed (John 6:35, 51, 54-55).

The Tree of Life is a white tree that bears white fruit. If it is also the fountain of living waters, we would expect those waters (identified with the blood of Jesus) to be white as well. This is borne out by the many references to garments being washed white in the blood of the Lamb.

because of their faith in the Lamb of God their garments are made white in his blood. . . . and their garments were white even like unto the Lamb of God. And the angel said unto me: These are made white in the blood of the Lamb, because of their faith in him (1 Ne. 12: 10-11).

there can no man be saved except his garments are washed white; yea, his garments must be purified until they are cleansed from all stain, through the blood of him of whom it has been spoken by our fathers, who should come to redeem his people from their sins. . . . Could ye say, if ye were called to die at this time, within yourselves, that ye have been sufficiently humble? That your garments have been cleansed and made white through the blood of Christ, who will come to redeem his people from their sins? (Alma 5:21, 27)

Therefore they were called after this holy order, and were sanctified, and their garments were washed white through the blood of the Lamb (Alma 13:11).

their garments should be made white through the blood of the Lamb (Alma 34:36).

perhaps ye may be found spotless, pure, fair, and white, having been cleansed by the blood of the Lamb (Morm. 9:6)

it is they whose garments are white through the blood of the Lamb (Ether 13:10)

This language makes no sense is the "blood of the Lamb" is a red substance. It must be either white or else a colorless "living water." In fact, the biblical parallel to the above passages, in the Revelation of John, closely associates the whitening "blood" with the living waters:

And one of the elders answered, saying unto me, What are these which are arrayed in white robes? and whence came they?

And I said unto him, Sir, thou knowest.

And he said to me, These are they which came out of great tribulation, and have washed their robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.

Therefore are they before the throne of God, and serve him day and night in his temple: and he that sitteth on the throne shall dwell among them.

They shall hunger no more, neither thirst any more; neither shall the sun light on them, nor any heat.

For the Lamb which is in the midst of the throne shall feed them, and shall lead them unto living fountains of waters: and God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes (Rev. 7:13-17)

Those who have washed their robes in the blood of the Lamb neither hunger nor thirst -- just like those who eat the flesh of Jesus and drink his blood. They will not hunger because "the Lamb . . . shall feed them," presumably with his flesh, and they will not thirst because he "shall lead them unto the living fountains of waters," again implicitly identified with his blood.

We can see a fortuitous echo if this imagery in the modern LDS practice of using water rather than wine in the sacrament. I'm not sure how or when this got started. The Word of Wisdom, which generally forbids wine, specifically makes allowance for sacramental wine (D&C 89:5-6), and even if a non-alcoholic Communion were desired, grape juice (as used in many Protestant churches) would be a more logical wine-substitute than water. Anyway, however the practice arose, it turns out to be symbolically apt.

Since the robe or garment is symbolic of the physical body, washing one's robes in the blood of the Lamb could be the same thing as purifying one's physical body by eating the fruit of the Tree of Life and drinking the living waters that flow therefrom. The sacrament of bread and wine (or water) is a symbolic pre-enactment of actually partaking of the Tree of Life, which confers immortality.

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3. Eating and drinking unworthily is damnation

Jesus, anticipating Paul (1 Cor. 11:29), teaches that taking his flesh and blood "unworthily" causes damnation:

And now behold, this is the commandment which I give unto you, that ye shall not suffer any one knowingly to partake of my flesh and blood unworthily, when ye shall minister it; for whoso eateth and drinketh my flesh and blood unworthily eateth and drinketh damnation to his soul; therefore if ye know that a man is unworthy to eat and drink of my flesh and blood ye shall forbid him (3 Ne. 18:28-19).

It's not really clear why this should bring damnation -- or why, given the stakes, Jesus didn't elaborate on what constitutes "worthiness" to partake -- but given the connection we have established with the Tree of Life, we can cross-reference this with the teachings of Alma Jr.:

Now we see that Adam did fall by the partaking of the forbidden fruit, according to the word of God; and thus we see, that by his fall, all mankind became a lost and fallen people.

And now behold, I say unto you that if it had been possible for Adam to have partaken of the fruit of the tree of life at that time, there would have been no death, and the word would have been void, making God a liar, for he said: If thou eat thou shalt surely die.

And we see that death comes upon mankind, yea, the death which has been spoken of by Amulek, which is the temporal death; nevertheless there was a space granted unto man in which he might repent; therefore this life became a probationary state; a time to prepare to meet God; a time to prepare for that endless state which has been spoken of by us, which is after the resurrection of the dead. . . .

And now behold, if it were possible that our first parents could have gone forth and partaken of the tree of life they would have been forever miserable, having no preparatory state; and thus the plan of redemption would have been frustrated, and the word of God would have been void, taking none effect (Alma 12:22-24, 26).

Here it appears that the Fall had rendered Adam and Eve unworthy to partake of the Tree of Life, and if they had done so they "would have been forever miserable," which sounds a lot like damnation. Why this should be so is not really made clear, but apparently certain "preparations" must be done while in a mortal state and are no longer possible after partaking of the Tree of Life.

Coming back to the question of who is "worthy," Alma elsewhere implies that no one is. After commending his son Shiblon for his "steadiness and . . . faithfulness unto God" in "keeping his commandments" (Alma 38:2), he exhorts him to "acknowledge your unworthiness before God at all times" (Alma 38:14).

A hint as to how this "unworthiness," resulting from the Fall, can be overcome is perhaps provided by the Brother of Jared. When he prays to the Lord, he acknowledges that he is unworthy because of the Fall:

Now behold, O Lord, and do not be angry with thy servant because of his weakness before thee; for we know that thou art holy and dwellest in the heavens, and that we are unworthy before thee; because of the fall our natures have become evil continually; nevertheless, O Lord, thou hast given us a commandment that we must call upon thee, that from thee we may receive according to our desires (Ether 3:2).

Later in the same chapter, the Lord pronounced the Brother "redeemed from the fall," and thus presumably no longer "unworthy." The reason given for this redemption is somewhat surprising:

And the Lord said unto him: Believest thou the words which I shall speak?

And he answered: Yea, Lord, I know that thou speakest the truth, for thou art a God of truth, and canst not lie.

And when he had said these words, behold, the Lord showed himself unto him, and said: Because thou knowest these things ye are redeemed from the fall; therefore ye are brought back into my presence; therefore I show myself unto you (Ether 3:11-13).

The Brother is redeemed not because of repentance or anything else that we would expect, but because of his knowledge that God cannot lie. It is particularly paradoxical that this would appear to be an instance of the knowledge of good and evil, which is supposedly what brought about the Fall in the first place. It's interesting to note, though, that Alma, in the passage quoted earlier, emphasizes how by partaking of the Tree of Life prematurely, Adam and Eve would be "making God a liar" (Alma 12:23).

There's obviously a lot here that I still don't understand, but I think some things are starting to come into focus.

Monday, June 29^th 2026

Did Alma the Younger expect everyone to have experiences like his?

Wm Jas Tychonievich

3 min read (900 words)

Here is the first speech of Alma the Younger after his conversion.

And it came to pass after they had fasted and prayed for the space of two days and two nights, [that] the limbs of Alma received their strength, and he stood up and began to speak unto them, bidding them to be of good comfort:

For,

said he,

I have repented of my sins and have been redeemed of the Lord; behold I am born of the Spirit, and the Lord said unto me:

Marvel not that all mankind, yea, men and women, all nations, kindreds, tongues and people, must be born again; yea, born of God, changed from their carnal and fallen state, to a state of righteousness, being redeemed of God, becoming his sons and daughters; and thus they become new creatures; and unless they do this, they can in nowise inherit the kingdom of God.

I say unto you, unless this be the case, they must be cast off; and this I know, because I was like to be cast off. Nevertheless, after wading through much tribulation, repenting nigh unto death, the Lord in mercy hath seen fit to snatch me out of an everlasting burning, and I am born of God. My soul hath been redeemed from the gall of bitterness and bonds of iniquity. I was in the darkest abyss; but now I behold the marvelous light of God. My soul was racked with eternal torment; but I am snatched, and my soul is pained no more.

I rejected my Redeemer and denied that which had been spoken of by our fathers; but now, that they may foresee that he will come and that he remembereth every creature of his creating, he will make himself manifest unto all. Yea, every knee shall bow, and every tongue confess before him. Yea, even at the last day, when all men shall stand to be judged of him, then shall they confess that he is God; then shall they confess, who live without God in the world, that the judgment of an everlasting punishment is just upon them; and they shall quake, and tremble, and shrink beneath the glance of his all-searching eye (Mosiah 27:23-31).

If you read this quickly, it's easy to misread it as saying that the time when "he will make himself manifest unto all" will be "at the last day, when all men shall stand to be judged of him." I don't think that's actually a possible reading of the text as we have it, though.

Alma says that "now, [in order] that they may foresee that he will come . . ., he will make himself manifest unto all." The purpose of this universal manifestation is to enable people to foresee that Christ will come, so it must occur before Christ comes and therefore not at the last day. I think the most natural reading is to take now literally, as referring to Alma's own time and his recent experience ("I rejected my Redeemer and denied that which had been spoken of by our fathers; but now . . ."). Alma seems to believe that now God is going to manifest himself to everyone, just as he did to Alma himself.

The connection with the statements about the "last day," I think is that the manifestation about to happen now will leave everyone without excuse at the last day. If he is going to "make himself manifest unto all," then none of those "who live without God in the world" do so out of ignorance; hence they confess that God's judgment is just.

1 Comment:

HomeStadter said...
His expectation seems to have born some fruit. Some Lamanite royalty and possibly Ze-Ezrom seem to have had the same coma-and-redemption experience. But the next generation who did missionary work, his grandsons Nephi and Lehi didn't have this.
We all might have something like this experience as it seems to be a type of what could happen when we are judged after death. Or alternately, we feel the same guilt etc as Alma but much less intensely. The point of this is to be stark and dramatic so we can see what's going on in the more usual method of repenting. In Nephi and Lehi's case a guy told them they need to repent and cry unto the Lord, and they did, and were redeemed. Again more dramatic than my experience but I assume it was deliberate set up that way for the scripture story.

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Table of Contents

Monday, February 23rd 2026

Intertextuality in 2 Zenos (Jacob 5)

Wm Jas Tychonievich

9.5 min read (2,900 words)

3 Comments:

Friday, February 27th 2026

Who had the vision that converted Abish?

Wm Jas Tychonievich

2.5 min read (690 words)

Saturday, February 28th 2026

Is El a Lamanite god in the Book of Mormon?

Wm Jas Tychonievich

3 min read (960 words)

Sunday, March 1st 2026

The harlot Isabel

Wm Jas Tychonievich

14 min read (4,100 words)

Wednesday, March 4th 2026

Idolatry or idleness

Wm Jas Tychonievich

2 min read (600 words)

Thursday, March 5th 2026

The Brass "five books of Moses" revisited

Wm Jas Tychonievich

3 min read (900 words)

Thursday, March 19th 2026

Identifying the 1 Zenos texts

Wm Jas Tychonievich

23 min read (6,900 words)

Tuesday, March 24th 2026

There is no Second Coming in the Book of Mormon

Wm Jas Tychonievich

3.5 min read (1,100 words)

5 Comments:

Monday, March 30th 2026

Where did Moroni's variant text of Malachi come from?

Wm Jas Tychonievich

5 min read (1,600 words)

Thursday, April 2nd 2026

Brothers and brethren

Wm Jas Tychonievich

4.5 min read (1,400 words)

1 Comment:

Friday, April 3rd 2026

All are not alike unto God

Wm Jas Tychonievich

1.5 min read (480 words)

Saturday, April 11th 2026

Lehi's prophecy of John the Baptist

Wm Jas Tychonievich

7.5 min read (2,200 words)

Monday, April 13th 2026

A bit of evidence for the "interplanetary Book of Mormon" hypothesis

Wm Jas Tychonievich

2 min read (570 words)

3 Comments:

Tuesday, April 14th 2026

The Book of Mormon predicts the imminent destruction of all Western nations

Wm Jas Tychonievich

2 min read (660 words)

2 Comments:

Thursday, April 16th 2026

Seeing the bodies of spirits

Wm Jas Tychonievich

7 min read (2,100 words)

Monday, May 11th 2026

Alma introduced baptism to the Nephites

Wm Jas Tychonievich

6 min read (1,800 words)

Tuesday, May 26th 2026

Jacob did not teach that baptism was required in his day

Wm Jas Tychonievich

3 min read (950 words)

Monday, June 8th 2026

Nephi's teachings about baptism were intended for future generations

Wm Jas Tychonievich

5.5 min read (1,600 words)

1 Comment:

Saturday, June 20th 2026

Monday, February 23^rd 2026

Friday, February 27^th 2026

Saturday, February 28^th 2026

Sunday, March 1^st 2026

Wednesday, March 4^th 2026

Thursday, March 5^th 2026

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