Chapter 11 begins a section where Nephi receives divine confirmation that Lehi's messianic prophecies. It also marks the repetition of a pattern (first seen in chapter 2) that I want to talk about. The pattern is this: it seems that every time someone wants to know the truth about something (especially if it's prophecies and divine commands relayed through others), they pray about it. Thus far, this thing has only really happened twice in the story (both times done by Nephi in response to prophecies of Lehi), but I suspect it's going to develop into one of the Book's major themes. After all, it's basically the theme repeated by the Book of Mormon's introduction and Mormon missionaries all over the world: if you want to know the truth about the Mormon Church and the Book of Mormon, pray about it.
At first, this seems wise. I mean, what could make more sense than asking the Spirit of Truth what is true? But, in taking the Book of Mormon at its word and comparing it to the Bible, an odd pattern emerges. In the Book of Mormon, people pray to determine truth all the time, and the Book contains multiple exhortations for the reader to do the same...but in the Bible this mode of determining truth is neither encouraged nor used even once. The only verse that even seems to encourage it is James 1:5, but even a cursory examination of that passage shows that James is not talking about spiritual or emotional "testimony" to truth, but to actual wisdom, of the book of Proverbs sort.
So why doesn't the Bible use prayers for and receipt of spiritual or emotional "testimony" as the best way to know truth? Because, as it turns out, the Bible teaches that these things are unreliable. Of spiritual testimony, 1 John 4:1-3 warns Christians to "believe not every spirit...for many false prophets are gone out into the world" of whom it says, "and this is that spirit of antichrist, whereof ye have heard it should come; and even now already is it in the world." Instead, believers are to "try the spirits, whether they are of God." Dueteronomy 13:1-3 and 18:20-22 similarly warn against false prophets, who use spiritual testimony to lead people astray. The Bible also warns that Satan can practice spiritual deception, making himself and his ministers appear to be angels and ministers of light (2 Corinthians 11:14). When it comes to emotional testimony of the heart, the Bible warns that "the heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked; who can know it?" (Jeremiah 17:9). Clearly, if the Bible teaches that spiritual and emotional testimony are so fraught with peril and deception, it cannot advocate or model them as good ways of knowing truth.
Instead, the Bible offers two things, and characters in the Bible repeatedly seek these two things in order to know truth. The first is scripture. In 2 Timothy 3:16, Paul testifies that all scripture is inspired directly by God (the word means "God-breathed") and is thus applicable for all sorts of things, including "for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness." It is an accurate and applicable testimony to truth direct from the Spirit of Truth. In the Bible, people are commended for seeking it out. The Bereans, specifically, are called "noble" because when the apostles came to them with the message of Christ, they "searched the scriptures daily, whether these things were so" (Acts 17:11). They did not pray and ask God or search their feelings for a "testimony"--they tested the apostles by the objective standards of scripture, and for that they were highly praised. The Bible also contains many exhortations and examples of people using the scriptures as the test of truth (Luke 24:25-27 and John 5:39 being to examples of Christ Himself doing this). Second, the Bible uses objective outside events to add further verification. This is reflected in every sign that God ever gave in the Bible. Nowhere is the sign given by God an internal feeling or subjective testimony: always it is something objective in the outside world. For Gideon, it was the fleece being alternately dry from dew in the morning, and covered with it (Judges 6:37-40); for Hezekiah, it was the shadow on the sundial moving backward ten degrees (2 Kings 20:8-11); for Jesus' followers, it was the miracles He performed (John 14:11 and Matthew 16:5-12), with the ultimate proof being His resurrection (Matthew 12:39-40)...and these are but a few of the examples in Scripture!
It is by these objective things, according to the Bible, that subjective spiritual proofs and testimonies are to be evaluated. In Deuteronomy 18, a prophet whose words and predictions contradict the objective facts of the world around him and what actually happens is judged to be a false prophet. Earlier, in chapter 13, a prophet who contradicts the objective testimony of scripture in leading the people to other gods is not to be heeded. 1 John 4 combines the two, demanding the spirits be tested to see whether or not their testimony is that Jesus Christ came in the flesh--a doctrine that is backed by both scriptural and factual proof. These are the things God gives to help us determine truth from error. At no point in the Bible does He tell us to ignore what He has already given us and pray for extra spiritual testimony--testimony which may turn out not to be from God at all (Satan can appear as an angel of light, after all).
But in the Book of Mormon, such unreliable subjective testimony is seen as the final authoritative way of knowing truth. If what I've read so far is any indication of the overall contents of the Book of Mormon, the reason why it does not appeal to the same standards of truth as the Bible may be embarrassingly obvious: it doesn't appeal to them, because it can't stand up under them. So far, after 8 posts and 10 chapters, the Book of Mormon is not measuring up very well at all against the Bible, and from reading ahead through chapter 14, it seems it only gets worse. As any archaeologist can tell you, the Book of Mormon also has a lousy track record when it comes to objective facts. Subjective proofs may be all that's left to it--but here's the rub, if it doesn't agree with other scripture, how can it be reliable as scripture? If it isn't reliable when it speaks of objectively-verifiable facts, how can it be reliable in spiritual matters (John 3:12)? If what we "know is true" based on subjective evidence clashes with the plain objective facts of scripture and science, how can we really know it is true at all?
Monday, June 24, 2013
Saturday, June 22, 2013
Comparable to the Bible: Messianic Prophesy
I don't want to spend too much time on chapter 9 in my blog here. I read it, of course. The chapter is brief and basically reiterates that Nephi is (in case you hadn't caught on by this point) abridging his father's records. He does say that he's doing this at god's command--without knowing why god commanded it, but obeying him anyway--and this does help a little...sort of. It does give Nephi a plausible reason for abridging his father's accounts, even though he's repeatedly said space on these plates is at a premium. It also connects his abridgment with the Lost 116 Pages and the threat that they would be altered and brought forward later as proof that Joseph Smith had not translated the Book of Mormon but instead made it up. This would be a plausible reason for God to command Nephi to abridge his father's records and Smith to translate the abridgment the second time around, except for a couple of problems. First, if the official story is true and the pages were stolen by evil people who intended to alter them to discredit Smith, then translating an abridgment wouldn't have helped. The evil people could have still come forward with altered copies of the original, changing details that even Smith's abridgment would have to include (for instance, they could have changed Sam's name to Shem, thereby casting doubt on Smith's account). Second, evil people never did come forward with the lost pages, and the pages remain lost to this day, with the most logical explanation for their disappearance being that they were simply destroyed immediately and that no one ever had plans to alter them at all. Would God really go to all the trouble of arranging Nephi's abridgment if He knew it would represent an insufficient solution to a non-existent problem? God is no fool, and I think Smith's fears that his own memory would prove unable to recreate his first draft were the real culprit.
But in any case, Nephi does two other noteworthy things in chapter 9. The first is to talk about how his writings (the four books of Nephi, I presume?) are divided between secular and religious histories. He even says that both of them are called Nephi (telling us four times in one sentence that he named them after himself). It's odd to note that Nephi named his books in the Book of Mormon, but that in the Bible the names of books (with the possible exception of the Song of Solomon) were assigned later, over generations. Perhaps this is a result of the Book of Mormon not having actually had generations to develop. Certainly, it is a strange contrast with the Hebrew naming tradition as seen in the books of the Old Testament.
The other thing Nephi does is announces that he is done abridging his father's records (by which I guess Smith meant he'd reached the end of the material covered in the lost first draft) and that he is now going to talk about himself and his own life. Chapter 10, however, immediately deflates this announcement, when Nephi says that "to proceed with mine account, I must speak somewhat of the things of my father, and also of my brethren." He proceeds to spend the chapter describing Lehi's messianic prophesies, making it as obvious as he did before that he's abridging, saying things like "and much spake my father concerning this thing" (1 Nephi 10:8) "and after this manner of language did my father prophesy and speak unto my brethren, and also many more things which I do not write in this book" (1 Nephi 10:15), etc. It seems very odd indeed that a writer should announce he's done summarizing a previous source (why announce it at all?) only to turn back to it immediately to summarize some more. Again, I see Smith as the author being the most likely explanation. He might well have wanted to mark the end of the summarized first draft as an important milestone, only to remember that he'd left something important (messianic prophesies, in this case) out of the recap and have to toss it in at the end.
But its the Messianic prophesies I want to focus on. They take up most of the chapter and are extremely detailed. They explicitly say the Messiah will come 600 years after Lehi left Jerusalem, that the Messiah will be "a Savior of the world" and "Redeemer of the world," and that all the world will remain "in a fallen state" unless they rely on Him. The prophecy mentions "a prophet who should come before the Messiah," describes his message (with an almost exact quote of the Gospels), and describes the place and circumstances of his baptism of Christ. It then goes on to say that the Messiah would be killed by the Jews, who would dwindle in unbelief while the Messiah made Himself manifest to the Gentiles, using the analogy of grafting them into an olive tree, after which the Jews would also be grafted back in.
There are a number of problems here. The first, and not the least of which, is that the math for Lehi's 600 years just doesn't seem to add up. The Book of Mormon says that Lehi was still in Jerusalem during the first year of Zedekiah's reign (1 Nephi 1:4). The Bible tells us that Zedekiah reigned eleven years in Jerusalem (2 Kings 24:18), and that his reign ended with the siege of Jerusalem by Nebuchadrezzer (2 Kings 25:1-2). Cross-referencing with the historical records of the Babylonians, we can firmly date the beginning of Zedekiah's reign to 597BC and the siege's end (that marks the eleventh year of his reign) to either 587 or 586BC, both of which combine with the Book of Mormon account to say Lehi could not possibly have left Jerusalem before 597BC, and that he could not have left it after 589BC (when the siege began--since Lehi's lack of mention of the siege and the ease with which his sons were able to complete their fetch-quests indicates that the siege of Jerusalem had not yet begun). This puts the 600 year mark somewhere between 4 and 12AD (there being no year zero). This presents a problem, since this date is all wrong for predicting either the birth of Christ or the beginning of his ministry. While there is some scholarly debate as to exactly when Christ was born, the range of dates is (at most) between 7 to 2BC (the idea of Jesus being born in 1AD being a popular misconception; it was indeed the whole point of the Gregorian Calendar to fix year 1 at Christ's birth, but by cross-referencing with records not available when the calendar was set, scholars have found that whoever set year 1 goofed and set it too late). Accordingly, His ministry began somewhere between 27 and 29AD. This means that the 600 years of Lehi ended in a year with exactly zero prophetic significance. The friendliest explanation that I can think of is that the 600 years is meant to be a round number rather than designed to yield the precise year of Christ's birth or ministry. However, giving a vague round number here contrasts strangely with the highly specific nature of everything else in the prophecy. An alternative explanation is that Smith goofed with his math when he made it up.
The second problem is that Lehi's prophecy is pretty blatant plagiarism of the Bible. He lifts direct quotes from the Gospels in describing the words of John the Baptist (compare 1 Nephi 10:8 with Mark 1:3 & 7). His "olive tree" metaphor is plainly an interpretation on Paul's analogy in Romans 11 (compare 1 Nephi 10:12-14 to Romans 11:17-25). Now, it's not a problem for scripture to quote and interpret scripture: it happens all the time in the Bible. The problem here is that the Book of Mormon is quoting and interpreting scripture that hasn't even been written yet! Lehi shouldn't be able to build on and interpret the words of Paul, because Paul hasn't been born yet and his words are thus unavailable. But clearly that is exactly what he's doing. It does not work to say it's the other way around and Paul was referencing Lehi because the Book of Mormon (even assuming that it isn't a 19th Century hoax) wouldn't have been available in the Old World at the time Paul wrote Romans. To say that two prophets would come up with exactly the same analogy independently is very strange, since the Bible is full of original analogies given to individual prophets. However, if Smith is the author, it makes prefect sense for him to reference as much of the Bible as he can in order to authenticate his work as scripture, without realizing that his plagiarism of books his characters should not have had access to will break the careful reader's suspension of disbelief.
The final problem is really the most interesting. Compared to the Bible, Lehi's prophecy is extremely detailed and forthcoming. Isaiah 53 (one of the foremost Messianic prophesies of the Bible) is comparatively vague and difficult to understand at first glace (even though, on closer analysis, the Isaiah prophesy actually gives more accurate, specific details, such as Jesus being executed among criminals and buried in a rich man's tomb in Isaiah 53:9). Lehi's prophesies spell out exactly what's going to happen in such plain language that really, after reading his account, there wouldn't be much point in including an account of the actual events themselves, since Lehi has already plainly said exactly how it's going to happen. Isaiah's prophesies, however, are difficult to understand and only really become clear in their meaning after the events have taken place. In story-terms, the difference between Lehi's prophecy and Isaiah's is the difference between a spoiler and foreshadowing. Isaiah is like Yoda and the vision in the cave in The Empire Strikes Back, giving Luke ominous warnings that bad things will happen if he faces Darth Vader; Lehi is like someone wandering in from off stage with a copy of the script and saying, "Yeah, Luke, if you fight Vader, you'll lose your hand, your buddy Han will wind up encased in carbonite, and--by the way--he's actually your father." The former builds anticipation, the latter gives away all the surprises.
But does that matter? Isn't Lehi's prophecy better simply because it's more clear and explicit? After all, what could the benefit be in having vague prophecies?
That is indeed a worthy question. A quick look over a list of messianic prophesies in the Bible reveals that none of them were completely clear an explicit at the time of their writing. All of them hinted at things to come, and their full meaning only became clear after the fact. In other words, they are all foreshadowing, not spoilers. Why are so many Bible prophecies this way? Wouldn't it make for better prophecies to just spell everything out, spoiler style?
Would it? That gets us down to an even deeper question: what, exactly, is the purpose of prophecy? If the purpose of prophecy is for the benefit of our knowledge, sating our curiosity about what the future holds, then clearly the more explicit a prophecy is and the easier it is for us to understand, the better it will be. In this case, Lehi's prophecy is clearly superior. But this is a very human-centered view of prophecy. It basically says that God gives us prophecy entirely for our own sakes. Is there a higher cause?
According to the Bible, I think there is. In Isaiah 41:21-29, God confronts the idols (or idol-worshipers) and challenges them to give prophecies: "Tell us what is to come hereafter, that we may know that you are gods." According to this, the purpose of prophecy is to act as a proof of divine power. As the passage goes on to say, "Who declared it from the beginning, that we might know, and beforehand, that we may say, 'He is right'?" This is in keeping with the themes of the Bible as a whole, where God does many, many things for His own sake, so that people will know and honor Him as God (which is His right). While there are a number of passages saying or implying that God is revealing something beforehand so that, when it happens, people will know that He is God, there are really none saying that He reveals the future for our own sole benefit.
So, what kind of prophecy best fits with this purpose? I would definitely have to say the foreshadowing kind. It gives hints of the future, but does not reveal it outright. It forces us to trust God in the interim when things are unclear, before finally revealing how the masterfully-hidden pieces of the puzzle fit together. Spoilers are clumsy by comparison and leave us to trust ourselves and the explicit knowledge of the future they have given us.
Of course, all of this assumes that Lehi's messianic prophesies are actual prophesies (which, given the plagiarism and date discrepancy, seems unlikely). It's also possible that Smith penned the 'prophecies" after the fact with the Gospels (and evidently Romans) to reference. If that's the case, it makes perfect sense that the "prophecy" would be way more explicit than any found in the Bible, to the level of becoming a spoiler instead of foreshadowing. After all, Smith had all the information he needed to spoil every surprise in the Gospels, and it is admittedly difficult to be poetically subtle and vague the way prophecies in the Bible are.
But in any case, Nephi does two other noteworthy things in chapter 9. The first is to talk about how his writings (the four books of Nephi, I presume?) are divided between secular and religious histories. He even says that both of them are called Nephi (telling us four times in one sentence that he named them after himself). It's odd to note that Nephi named his books in the Book of Mormon, but that in the Bible the names of books (with the possible exception of the Song of Solomon) were assigned later, over generations. Perhaps this is a result of the Book of Mormon not having actually had generations to develop. Certainly, it is a strange contrast with the Hebrew naming tradition as seen in the books of the Old Testament.
The other thing Nephi does is announces that he is done abridging his father's records (by which I guess Smith meant he'd reached the end of the material covered in the lost first draft) and that he is now going to talk about himself and his own life. Chapter 10, however, immediately deflates this announcement, when Nephi says that "to proceed with mine account, I must speak somewhat of the things of my father, and also of my brethren." He proceeds to spend the chapter describing Lehi's messianic prophesies, making it as obvious as he did before that he's abridging, saying things like "and much spake my father concerning this thing" (1 Nephi 10:8) "and after this manner of language did my father prophesy and speak unto my brethren, and also many more things which I do not write in this book" (1 Nephi 10:15), etc. It seems very odd indeed that a writer should announce he's done summarizing a previous source (why announce it at all?) only to turn back to it immediately to summarize some more. Again, I see Smith as the author being the most likely explanation. He might well have wanted to mark the end of the summarized first draft as an important milestone, only to remember that he'd left something important (messianic prophesies, in this case) out of the recap and have to toss it in at the end.
But its the Messianic prophesies I want to focus on. They take up most of the chapter and are extremely detailed. They explicitly say the Messiah will come 600 years after Lehi left Jerusalem, that the Messiah will be "a Savior of the world" and "Redeemer of the world," and that all the world will remain "in a fallen state" unless they rely on Him. The prophecy mentions "a prophet who should come before the Messiah," describes his message (with an almost exact quote of the Gospels), and describes the place and circumstances of his baptism of Christ. It then goes on to say that the Messiah would be killed by the Jews, who would dwindle in unbelief while the Messiah made Himself manifest to the Gentiles, using the analogy of grafting them into an olive tree, after which the Jews would also be grafted back in.
There are a number of problems here. The first, and not the least of which, is that the math for Lehi's 600 years just doesn't seem to add up. The Book of Mormon says that Lehi was still in Jerusalem during the first year of Zedekiah's reign (1 Nephi 1:4). The Bible tells us that Zedekiah reigned eleven years in Jerusalem (2 Kings 24:18), and that his reign ended with the siege of Jerusalem by Nebuchadrezzer (2 Kings 25:1-2). Cross-referencing with the historical records of the Babylonians, we can firmly date the beginning of Zedekiah's reign to 597BC and the siege's end (that marks the eleventh year of his reign) to either 587 or 586BC, both of which combine with the Book of Mormon account to say Lehi could not possibly have left Jerusalem before 597BC, and that he could not have left it after 589BC (when the siege began--since Lehi's lack of mention of the siege and the ease with which his sons were able to complete their fetch-quests indicates that the siege of Jerusalem had not yet begun). This puts the 600 year mark somewhere between 4 and 12AD (there being no year zero). This presents a problem, since this date is all wrong for predicting either the birth of Christ or the beginning of his ministry. While there is some scholarly debate as to exactly when Christ was born, the range of dates is (at most) between 7 to 2BC (the idea of Jesus being born in 1AD being a popular misconception; it was indeed the whole point of the Gregorian Calendar to fix year 1 at Christ's birth, but by cross-referencing with records not available when the calendar was set, scholars have found that whoever set year 1 goofed and set it too late). Accordingly, His ministry began somewhere between 27 and 29AD. This means that the 600 years of Lehi ended in a year with exactly zero prophetic significance. The friendliest explanation that I can think of is that the 600 years is meant to be a round number rather than designed to yield the precise year of Christ's birth or ministry. However, giving a vague round number here contrasts strangely with the highly specific nature of everything else in the prophecy. An alternative explanation is that Smith goofed with his math when he made it up.
The second problem is that Lehi's prophecy is pretty blatant plagiarism of the Bible. He lifts direct quotes from the Gospels in describing the words of John the Baptist (compare 1 Nephi 10:8 with Mark 1:3 & 7). His "olive tree" metaphor is plainly an interpretation on Paul's analogy in Romans 11 (compare 1 Nephi 10:12-14 to Romans 11:17-25). Now, it's not a problem for scripture to quote and interpret scripture: it happens all the time in the Bible. The problem here is that the Book of Mormon is quoting and interpreting scripture that hasn't even been written yet! Lehi shouldn't be able to build on and interpret the words of Paul, because Paul hasn't been born yet and his words are thus unavailable. But clearly that is exactly what he's doing. It does not work to say it's the other way around and Paul was referencing Lehi because the Book of Mormon (even assuming that it isn't a 19th Century hoax) wouldn't have been available in the Old World at the time Paul wrote Romans. To say that two prophets would come up with exactly the same analogy independently is very strange, since the Bible is full of original analogies given to individual prophets. However, if Smith is the author, it makes prefect sense for him to reference as much of the Bible as he can in order to authenticate his work as scripture, without realizing that his plagiarism of books his characters should not have had access to will break the careful reader's suspension of disbelief.
The final problem is really the most interesting. Compared to the Bible, Lehi's prophecy is extremely detailed and forthcoming. Isaiah 53 (one of the foremost Messianic prophesies of the Bible) is comparatively vague and difficult to understand at first glace (even though, on closer analysis, the Isaiah prophesy actually gives more accurate, specific details, such as Jesus being executed among criminals and buried in a rich man's tomb in Isaiah 53:9). Lehi's prophesies spell out exactly what's going to happen in such plain language that really, after reading his account, there wouldn't be much point in including an account of the actual events themselves, since Lehi has already plainly said exactly how it's going to happen. Isaiah's prophesies, however, are difficult to understand and only really become clear in their meaning after the events have taken place. In story-terms, the difference between Lehi's prophecy and Isaiah's is the difference between a spoiler and foreshadowing. Isaiah is like Yoda and the vision in the cave in The Empire Strikes Back, giving Luke ominous warnings that bad things will happen if he faces Darth Vader; Lehi is like someone wandering in from off stage with a copy of the script and saying, "Yeah, Luke, if you fight Vader, you'll lose your hand, your buddy Han will wind up encased in carbonite, and--by the way--he's actually your father." The former builds anticipation, the latter gives away all the surprises.
But does that matter? Isn't Lehi's prophecy better simply because it's more clear and explicit? After all, what could the benefit be in having vague prophecies?
That is indeed a worthy question. A quick look over a list of messianic prophesies in the Bible reveals that none of them were completely clear an explicit at the time of their writing. All of them hinted at things to come, and their full meaning only became clear after the fact. In other words, they are all foreshadowing, not spoilers. Why are so many Bible prophecies this way? Wouldn't it make for better prophecies to just spell everything out, spoiler style?
Would it? That gets us down to an even deeper question: what, exactly, is the purpose of prophecy? If the purpose of prophecy is for the benefit of our knowledge, sating our curiosity about what the future holds, then clearly the more explicit a prophecy is and the easier it is for us to understand, the better it will be. In this case, Lehi's prophecy is clearly superior. But this is a very human-centered view of prophecy. It basically says that God gives us prophecy entirely for our own sakes. Is there a higher cause?
According to the Bible, I think there is. In Isaiah 41:21-29, God confronts the idols (or idol-worshipers) and challenges them to give prophecies: "Tell us what is to come hereafter, that we may know that you are gods." According to this, the purpose of prophecy is to act as a proof of divine power. As the passage goes on to say, "Who declared it from the beginning, that we might know, and beforehand, that we may say, 'He is right'?" This is in keeping with the themes of the Bible as a whole, where God does many, many things for His own sake, so that people will know and honor Him as God (which is His right). While there are a number of passages saying or implying that God is revealing something beforehand so that, when it happens, people will know that He is God, there are really none saying that He reveals the future for our own sole benefit.
So, what kind of prophecy best fits with this purpose? I would definitely have to say the foreshadowing kind. It gives hints of the future, but does not reveal it outright. It forces us to trust God in the interim when things are unclear, before finally revealing how the masterfully-hidden pieces of the puzzle fit together. Spoilers are clumsy by comparison and leave us to trust ourselves and the explicit knowledge of the future they have given us.
Of course, all of this assumes that Lehi's messianic prophesies are actual prophesies (which, given the plagiarism and date discrepancy, seems unlikely). It's also possible that Smith penned the 'prophecies" after the fact with the Gospels (and evidently Romans) to reference. If that's the case, it makes perfect sense that the "prophecy" would be way more explicit than any found in the Bible, to the level of becoming a spoiler instead of foreshadowing. After all, Smith had all the information he needed to spoil every surprise in the Gospels, and it is admittedly difficult to be poetically subtle and vague the way prophecies in the Bible are.
Monday, June 17, 2013
Comparable to the Bible: A Vision, A Tree, and Salvation
Before I resume, I want to check my heart. Yesterday's sermon was on 1 John 4:7-21 and the importance of showing love as Christians, especially to other Christians but also to others. I want what I write here to be consistent with that.
As I said before, I do not hate Mormons. Those I have met (with one exception) have been very nice people who were very zealous for God. I've liked them, even as I've disagreed with them. But as they themselves have pointed out, the Mormon Church's claim to legitimacy stands or falls with the Book of Mormon. So whether or not the Book of Mormon truly is a volume of scripture comparable to the Bible is a question of great importance. If it is, then I need to know, because then I will not be able to reach the Celestial (highest) Heaven and attain the godhood that is god's desire for me unless I believe the Book of Mormon and follow all the commands of the Mormon Church and its prophets. But if the Book of Mormon is not scripture, not comparable to the Bible, then (as some of the Mormons I talked to have said) they need to know, because then there is no Celestial Heaven to work their way into and the commands of the Mormon Church are meaningless religious burdens handed down by false prophets, distracting them from the simplicity of the Gospel of Christ. I believe the Book of Mormon is not true, and so far what I've read has only served to confirm this, but I know there are many, many people out there who have read it and say it must be true. Clearly, one of us is wrong and should know it. For either party to hold their peace on a matter of such import would be unloving. An atheist once asked a Christian "If you believe Heaven and Hell are real, how much do you have to hate someone not to tell them the gospel?" A similar question might be asked here: if I believe and see from my reading that the Book of Mormon is a deception, how much do I have to hate Mormons to keep quiet about it?
With that said, chapter 8 of 1 Nephi (as I recall, and as glancing at the chapter headings to come bears out) begins a section of prophetic and symbolic visions. As the previous owner of my copy has noted, everything in chapter 8 is supposed to be symbolic.
The chapter relates a dream (or a vision: the writer seems to be unclear on what the usage of the word "vision" should be--he uses the terms as interchangeable here, though in the Bible they are distinct, as in Joel 2:28, and he also seems to be under the impression that "visionary" is an appropriate description for someone who sees visions) that Lehi's father had. Lehi introduces it as being specifically about salvation, saying that, because of this vision, he believes his sons Nephi and Sam will be saved, but fears his sons Laman and Lemuel will not.
His vision is as follows. It begins with Lehi meeting a white robe in a dark and dreary wilderness. By following this man, Lehi reaches a broad plain with a tree (which the chapter heading says in the Tree of Life, though it is never named as such). Lehi tastes the fruit from the tree and wants all his family to do so as well. He invites his wife, Nephi, and Sam to join him, and they do. He invites Laman and Lemuel to do the same, but they refuse. On this plain, there is also a river, and a rod of iron on its bank, leading along a "straight and narrow path" that leads to the tree. There is also a floating "spacious building" where richly-dressed people mocking anyone who attempts to, or actually does, reach the tree. Lehi sees many people trying to make it along the path to the tree, but many become lost in a "mist of darkness." Others, when they have reached the tree and tasted its fruit, become embarrassed because of the mocking of the people in the floating building and wander off, becoming lost. Some fall into the river and drown. Others join the mockers in the floating building.
The vision of Lehi suffers as much as the rest of the book from poor writing. Redundancy shows up in the gross overuse of "and it came to pass" (which begins three verses in a row), and the repetition that fact that the vision begins in a "dark and dreary" place and that in it Laman and Lemuel do not eat the tree's fruit. There is also the character of the white-robed man. One might initially assume it to be an angel, as they often participate in visions in the Bible and usually explain them or serve as primary characters. However, the white-robed fellow is forgotten in the narrative, soon after his introduction. Lehi follows him into darkness in verse 7 and he is never mentioned again. Lehi does not even remark on him leaving or suddenly being gone. The author evidently forgot how many characters he was supposed to have in the scene (which, as an author, I can say is all too easy to do). Verse 29 and 30 also contain a jarring reminder that Nephi is abridging and leaving lots of stuff out. Fortunately, this chapter appears to fall at the end of the lost 116 pages, so nothing critical seems to have been left out, but having Nephi jump into the middle of the narration and say, "By the way, I'm not telling you everything" doesn't really help.
But looking past that at the vision itself, some interpretation is in order. The chapter itself does very little interpretation. The heading declares only that the tree is the Tree of Life. If this is correct, it would be an odd appearance. The Tree of Life is mentioned in the Bible in Genesis and in Revelation. There are some analogies in Proverbs that use the phrase as well, saying one good attribute or another is "a tree of life" to those who have it (ex: Proverbs 11:30). In all the other instances, it's treated as being a literal tree. The Tree of Life is said to have grown in the center of the garden of Eden (Genesis 2:9). It's fruit had the ability to make man live forever, and therefore an angel was sent from God after the fall to make sure humankind could not return to the garden and eat from the Tree of Life (Genesis 3:22-24). In Revelation, however, the right to eat from the Tree of Life is one of the gifts Christ promises those who overcome in His name (Revelation 2:7). In the New Heavens and New Earth, the Tree of Life is said to grow in the New Jerusalem, along either bank of the River of Life, which flows from the Throne of God (Revelation 22:1-2). The Tree is treated as a real entity in the Bible with a real location, not being symbolic of anything. But the tree in 1 Nephi is different. It shows up in the middle of nowhere (no garden, no New Jerusalem, no river of life--the river in chapter 8, according to the notes of the previous owner, is actually symbolic of Hell and filthiness) and is clearly not literal or real. There's also an interesting contrast between how the vision and the Bible approach eating the fruit of the Tree of Life. In Genesis, God denies man the right to eat from the Tree of Life. In Revelation, man is given that right by God. In the Book of Mormon, man eats from it without God's apparent involvement or knowledge.
According to the notes of the previous owner, there is a more full interpretation. The tree is symbolic of God's love. The iron rod is God's Word, the fountain is God's love (the river that flows from it, inexplicably, is filthiness and Hell). The mist is temptations from the Devil and the floating building is pride and vain imaginations of the world. According to this interpretation, we can taste of God's love if we follow God's Word, relying on it to lead us despite the temptations of the Devil, but we must beware the scoffers of this world because even after we have tasted of God's love, they can cause us to fall away in shame. All of this, according to Lehi, is a picture of salvation: for Lehi and Sam, who ate of the tree, were saved, but Laman and Lemuel, who refused, were not.
To me, the most telling thing about this vision of salvation is who isn't in it: God. Oh, God is represented, if the previous owner's interpretation was correct. But God takes no active part. He is represented entirely by inanimate objects. It is people who, by their own volition and efforts, follow the iron rod to the tree or else turn aside and become lost. But this is not the way salvation is portrayed in the Bible. The whole idea of salvation is deliverance by a force outside of and greater than oneself. In Romans 9, Paul takes an entire chapter to talk about the sovereignty of God in salvation. Further, pictures of salvation in the Bible display God as an active agent. The Parable of the Sower is probably the most passive representation, but even there God is the sower and His Word is a live thing that reacts to the passive soil of men's hearts. But in Lehi's vision, God is absent and our salvation, it seems, depends on us alone.
From what I know of salvation in Mormonism, this is a fairly accurate representation. While there is a universal "salvation" which is by unmerited grace, giving everyone the gift of resurrection (the Bible also teaches that all will be resurrected, but not as a gift or part of salvation, John 5:28-29), entrance into the highest heaven and the good graces of God's love is earned through works of obedience, faith, and righteousness. God gives grace, but as one Mormon missionary told me, it is "after all we can do." For the most part, we sink or swim on our own. In the Bible, it is different. Salvation is by grace, not works (Ephesians 2:8-9). Grace does not come along after all that we can do and fill in what's lacking in our righteousness: rather, grace give us our righteousness--apart from works (Romans 4:1-8).
If there were one thing I could make Mormons understand, it is that God's love, Heaven, and salvation are not earned by works, but are free gifts. I sympathize with their position. Even though I have been a Christian for most of my life, believing in salvation by grace, there have been (as any regular on this blog is aware) many times when I have felt that God's love and favor were things I needed to earn. My spot or "ranking" in Heaven was something that depended on how well I performed. I spent a lot of time trying to measure up, trying to earn God's love, trying to make my relationship with Him about my works first--with His grace to fill in after all I can do. So I did all I could, but was constantly frustrated by how far short I fell. I was constantly aware of my sins and how my feeble attempts at righteousness could never please God. It was an exhausting, discouraging, and fruitless way to live. Only when I remembered that God's love was unconditional, not earned, but given, did I find any rest. Only when I remembered that my place in Heaven was prepared and reserved, rather than made and earned, did I really appreciate it, and the love of God. In grace, good works are a fruit, a harvest that springs from the soul--where previously they were a burden to be born. Surely salvation in Mormonism is such a burden, and I wish they could be free of it to live in grace.
As I said before, I do not hate Mormons. Those I have met (with one exception) have been very nice people who were very zealous for God. I've liked them, even as I've disagreed with them. But as they themselves have pointed out, the Mormon Church's claim to legitimacy stands or falls with the Book of Mormon. So whether or not the Book of Mormon truly is a volume of scripture comparable to the Bible is a question of great importance. If it is, then I need to know, because then I will not be able to reach the Celestial (highest) Heaven and attain the godhood that is god's desire for me unless I believe the Book of Mormon and follow all the commands of the Mormon Church and its prophets. But if the Book of Mormon is not scripture, not comparable to the Bible, then (as some of the Mormons I talked to have said) they need to know, because then there is no Celestial Heaven to work their way into and the commands of the Mormon Church are meaningless religious burdens handed down by false prophets, distracting them from the simplicity of the Gospel of Christ. I believe the Book of Mormon is not true, and so far what I've read has only served to confirm this, but I know there are many, many people out there who have read it and say it must be true. Clearly, one of us is wrong and should know it. For either party to hold their peace on a matter of such import would be unloving. An atheist once asked a Christian "If you believe Heaven and Hell are real, how much do you have to hate someone not to tell them the gospel?" A similar question might be asked here: if I believe and see from my reading that the Book of Mormon is a deception, how much do I have to hate Mormons to keep quiet about it?
With that said, chapter 8 of 1 Nephi (as I recall, and as glancing at the chapter headings to come bears out) begins a section of prophetic and symbolic visions. As the previous owner of my copy has noted, everything in chapter 8 is supposed to be symbolic.
The chapter relates a dream (or a vision: the writer seems to be unclear on what the usage of the word "vision" should be--he uses the terms as interchangeable here, though in the Bible they are distinct, as in Joel 2:28, and he also seems to be under the impression that "visionary" is an appropriate description for someone who sees visions) that Lehi's father had. Lehi introduces it as being specifically about salvation, saying that, because of this vision, he believes his sons Nephi and Sam will be saved, but fears his sons Laman and Lemuel will not.
His vision is as follows. It begins with Lehi meeting a white robe in a dark and dreary wilderness. By following this man, Lehi reaches a broad plain with a tree (which the chapter heading says in the Tree of Life, though it is never named as such). Lehi tastes the fruit from the tree and wants all his family to do so as well. He invites his wife, Nephi, and Sam to join him, and they do. He invites Laman and Lemuel to do the same, but they refuse. On this plain, there is also a river, and a rod of iron on its bank, leading along a "straight and narrow path" that leads to the tree. There is also a floating "spacious building" where richly-dressed people mocking anyone who attempts to, or actually does, reach the tree. Lehi sees many people trying to make it along the path to the tree, but many become lost in a "mist of darkness." Others, when they have reached the tree and tasted its fruit, become embarrassed because of the mocking of the people in the floating building and wander off, becoming lost. Some fall into the river and drown. Others join the mockers in the floating building.
The vision of Lehi suffers as much as the rest of the book from poor writing. Redundancy shows up in the gross overuse of "and it came to pass" (which begins three verses in a row), and the repetition that fact that the vision begins in a "dark and dreary" place and that in it Laman and Lemuel do not eat the tree's fruit. There is also the character of the white-robed man. One might initially assume it to be an angel, as they often participate in visions in the Bible and usually explain them or serve as primary characters. However, the white-robed fellow is forgotten in the narrative, soon after his introduction. Lehi follows him into darkness in verse 7 and he is never mentioned again. Lehi does not even remark on him leaving or suddenly being gone. The author evidently forgot how many characters he was supposed to have in the scene (which, as an author, I can say is all too easy to do). Verse 29 and 30 also contain a jarring reminder that Nephi is abridging and leaving lots of stuff out. Fortunately, this chapter appears to fall at the end of the lost 116 pages, so nothing critical seems to have been left out, but having Nephi jump into the middle of the narration and say, "By the way, I'm not telling you everything" doesn't really help.
But looking past that at the vision itself, some interpretation is in order. The chapter itself does very little interpretation. The heading declares only that the tree is the Tree of Life. If this is correct, it would be an odd appearance. The Tree of Life is mentioned in the Bible in Genesis and in Revelation. There are some analogies in Proverbs that use the phrase as well, saying one good attribute or another is "a tree of life" to those who have it (ex: Proverbs 11:30). In all the other instances, it's treated as being a literal tree. The Tree of Life is said to have grown in the center of the garden of Eden (Genesis 2:9). It's fruit had the ability to make man live forever, and therefore an angel was sent from God after the fall to make sure humankind could not return to the garden and eat from the Tree of Life (Genesis 3:22-24). In Revelation, however, the right to eat from the Tree of Life is one of the gifts Christ promises those who overcome in His name (Revelation 2:7). In the New Heavens and New Earth, the Tree of Life is said to grow in the New Jerusalem, along either bank of the River of Life, which flows from the Throne of God (Revelation 22:1-2). The Tree is treated as a real entity in the Bible with a real location, not being symbolic of anything. But the tree in 1 Nephi is different. It shows up in the middle of nowhere (no garden, no New Jerusalem, no river of life--the river in chapter 8, according to the notes of the previous owner, is actually symbolic of Hell and filthiness) and is clearly not literal or real. There's also an interesting contrast between how the vision and the Bible approach eating the fruit of the Tree of Life. In Genesis, God denies man the right to eat from the Tree of Life. In Revelation, man is given that right by God. In the Book of Mormon, man eats from it without God's apparent involvement or knowledge.
According to the notes of the previous owner, there is a more full interpretation. The tree is symbolic of God's love. The iron rod is God's Word, the fountain is God's love (the river that flows from it, inexplicably, is filthiness and Hell). The mist is temptations from the Devil and the floating building is pride and vain imaginations of the world. According to this interpretation, we can taste of God's love if we follow God's Word, relying on it to lead us despite the temptations of the Devil, but we must beware the scoffers of this world because even after we have tasted of God's love, they can cause us to fall away in shame. All of this, according to Lehi, is a picture of salvation: for Lehi and Sam, who ate of the tree, were saved, but Laman and Lemuel, who refused, were not.
To me, the most telling thing about this vision of salvation is who isn't in it: God. Oh, God is represented, if the previous owner's interpretation was correct. But God takes no active part. He is represented entirely by inanimate objects. It is people who, by their own volition and efforts, follow the iron rod to the tree or else turn aside and become lost. But this is not the way salvation is portrayed in the Bible. The whole idea of salvation is deliverance by a force outside of and greater than oneself. In Romans 9, Paul takes an entire chapter to talk about the sovereignty of God in salvation. Further, pictures of salvation in the Bible display God as an active agent. The Parable of the Sower is probably the most passive representation, but even there God is the sower and His Word is a live thing that reacts to the passive soil of men's hearts. But in Lehi's vision, God is absent and our salvation, it seems, depends on us alone.
From what I know of salvation in Mormonism, this is a fairly accurate representation. While there is a universal "salvation" which is by unmerited grace, giving everyone the gift of resurrection (the Bible also teaches that all will be resurrected, but not as a gift or part of salvation, John 5:28-29), entrance into the highest heaven and the good graces of God's love is earned through works of obedience, faith, and righteousness. God gives grace, but as one Mormon missionary told me, it is "after all we can do." For the most part, we sink or swim on our own. In the Bible, it is different. Salvation is by grace, not works (Ephesians 2:8-9). Grace does not come along after all that we can do and fill in what's lacking in our righteousness: rather, grace give us our righteousness--apart from works (Romans 4:1-8).
If there were one thing I could make Mormons understand, it is that God's love, Heaven, and salvation are not earned by works, but are free gifts. I sympathize with their position. Even though I have been a Christian for most of my life, believing in salvation by grace, there have been (as any regular on this blog is aware) many times when I have felt that God's love and favor were things I needed to earn. My spot or "ranking" in Heaven was something that depended on how well I performed. I spent a lot of time trying to measure up, trying to earn God's love, trying to make my relationship with Him about my works first--with His grace to fill in after all I can do. So I did all I could, but was constantly frustrated by how far short I fell. I was constantly aware of my sins and how my feeble attempts at righteousness could never please God. It was an exhausting, discouraging, and fruitless way to live. Only when I remembered that God's love was unconditional, not earned, but given, did I find any rest. Only when I remembered that my place in Heaven was prepared and reserved, rather than made and earned, did I really appreciate it, and the love of God. In grace, good works are a fruit, a harvest that springs from the soul--where previously they were a burden to be born. Surely salvation in Mormonism is such a burden, and I wish they could be free of it to live in grace.
Tuesday, June 11, 2013
Comparable to the Bible: Fetch Quest, Part Two
Having completed his superfluous fetch quest and murdered a man in cold blood at god's explicit command, Nephi returns with his brothers, much to the joy of his parents. His mother is particularly pleased, to the point that she utters the awkward early Modern English phrase "know of a surety" twice in the same sentence. From a quick Google search, I've found the phrase turns out to be a very common one in the Book of Mormon, even though it was already so rare in the 1660's that the KJV contains the phrase only twice.
This is one of the things that perplexes me about the origins of the Book of Mormon. Both the KJV and the Book of Mormon available today were, allegedly, translated into English from their original languages. The KJV, it's true, contains many archaic words and phrases...but it does so because it is nearly four hundred years old and the Modern English language has changed extensively in that time. When it was written in 1660, the KJV's language was thoroughly modern. But with the Book of Mormon, it is not so. The Book of Mormon contains even more archaic language (and just plain poor language), even though it was written--excuse me, translated--in 1830, nearly two hundred years after the KJV's smoother language was penned. Why is it that when Smith translated the Book of Mormon he didn't render it in contemporary Modern English, but instead threw in words and phrases that had fallen out of use long before he was born? Compare the overuse of archaic language in the Book of Mormon to it's near-contemporary, the 1860 Young's Literal Translation of the Bible, which does not use (for instance) the phrase "know of a surety" even once. I can see no reason why God would divinely inspire someone to make His word harder to read by translating it using (and overusing) outdated words and terms. However, I can see a very clear reason why Smith would write the Book of Mormon on his own with such language. By inserting and abusing familiar archaic phrases from the KJV (the most popular translation then as now), he tried to make it "sound like the Bible." It's the same tactic KJV-only proponents use to shoot down later translations with easier wording--and it's a fallacious argument: the only reason the KJV sounds archaic to us today is because the passage of time and the development of the English language have made it so...there is nothing inherently archaic about the Bible.
Of course, if you're wondering what Nephi's fetch quest was all about, it was meant to retrieve a Bible from Jerusalem. It was not the complete Bible, of course, or even the complete Old Testament, but that being said it contained a remarkably large portion of the Bible. According to 1 Nephi 5:11-13, "they did contain the five books of Moses, which gave an account of the creation of the world, and also of Adam and Eve, who were our first parents; and also a record of the Jews from the beginning, even down to the commencement of the reign of Zedekiah, king of Judah; and also 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." In addition, there was a genealogy proving Lehi was a descendant of Joseph. All of this was written on a set of "brass plates" in Laban's possession.
This raises several questions for me, not the least of which is the medium of the writing. As I said in my introduction, no literate society ever used metal as its main medium of writing, and with good reason. Certainly, the Jews never used it as their mainstay--they used scrolls and books of paper for that, as numerous Bible verses prove (Jeremiah 36:18 and 23 for contemporary examples). In the rare cases where they did choose to use metal, they used it to ornamentalize very brief pieces of text (as with the Silver Scrolls, also contemporary--and note that they wrote plain, regular Hebrew on these, not "reformed Egyptian"). But the brass plates are said to contain a ponderous amount of text, more than the Book of Mormon itself. It would have been, without a doubt, the longest section of text ever written on metal by any society--and it would demonstrate one of the key reasons no one had ever written more than eight pages on metal before: it would be enormously heavy and difficult to move. All of this, of course, makes me wonder why god sent Nephi to fetch the rarest and most cumbersome copy of these writings ever made rather than the more common and easy-to-transport copies written on scrolls.
Of course, in all fairness, there may not have been any other copy, considering the contents. The plates are said to contain a history of the Jews clear down to the time of Zedekiah's reign. Did such a concise history even exist? It's no good to simply say that the plates contained most of 1 and 2 Kings or Chronicles--both are abridgments of earlier, more extensive records made after the fact. Chronicles even goes to the trouble of pointing this out and telling readers where they can find more complete details. To say that the plates contained these earlier, more complete records defies belief, since these records would come from a number of different sources and would increase the volume (and mass) of the plates to the point where a forklift would be necessary to move them safely. The writings of the prophets, particularly Jeremiah, present similar problems. The book of Jeremiah is a compilation of numerous short pieces, arranged in topical rather than chronological order. It could not have been completed until the end of Jeremiah's ministry, and it's likely that, until that time, most of its pieces would not have been available at all. Other prophetic books present similar problems. Finally, there's the matter of having all of this material bound together in one volume. Even as late as the 1st Century (the time of Christ), the Old Testament was still being referred to as "the Law and the Prophets." It would probably have been very rare, even at that time, to find both of them written together, rather than as individual books or--better yet--as two separate volumes of scripture. But the plates are alleged to have the law and the prophets both printed together as if they were one and the same, more than 500 years before Christ.
Taking in the above, I'd say the existence of the plates defies belief, but that's nothing, of course, next to who they used to belong to. Laban, their rightful owner, was--judging from the Book of Mormon's treatment of him--a thoroughly rotten character, one of Jerusalem's corrupt elite. So, why does he have the most elaborate and weighty version of Jewish scripture ever to be written? In particular, why has he added the prophesies of Jeremiah to it? Laban (if he were real) would have been one of the people Jeremiah was publicly decrying as an enemy of God shortly to be killed by the Babylonians. Laban wouldn't have even listened to Jeremiah, let alone believed him. Why would he take the care to add the words of a prophet he didn't believe or like to his improbable collection of engraved scriptures?
Then, there's the matter of the genealogy. It's easy to see from the Bible that genealogies were important to Jews. The books of Matthew and 1 Chronicles both begin with genealogies. There are lots, and lots of genealogies in the Bible. Sometimes just naming someone can result in a sort of mini-genealogy ("A the son of B, the son of C, of the town of Z"). But the Book of Mormon explicitly skips the genealogy of Lehi, even after it's been properly introduced. Nephi says it's left out to conserve space, but honestly, if a society has enough gold to consider writing something the length of the Book of Mormon on it a good idea, then they can splurge a little for an extra plate to write the genealogy on. Nephi offers the excuse that he's just abridging, and thus doesn't want to waste space on the plates with a full account that would include the genealogies--but this just raises the question of why he's wasting gold abridging his father's work at all. Nephi then goes and makes it worse by explaining that genealogies are not spiritual enough for his records. They are "the things which are pleasing unto the world" and are not "pleasing to God" (1 Nephi 6:5); far from being simply distinct from "the things of God" (1 Nephi 6:3) they are "not of worth to the children of men" and Nephi says he will explicitly instruct his descendants never to include them in scripture (1 Nephi 6:6). That's an outright contradiction of the treatment of genealogies in the Bible. Not only does the Bible include many genealogies as worthy material, it goes further, saying they--together with "all scripture"--are inspired (or breathed-out) by God and good for mankind (2 Timothy 3:16). In the Bible, genealogies serve to show how God works to bring things about, generation by generation, even through unexpected events (example: the fact that two of the three named women in Matthew's genealogy of the Jewish Messiah are foreigners--Rahab and Ruth) or human sins (two of the links in the same genealogy of Christ are children from adultery--Perez and Solomon). Genealogies also help to give the Jews a sense of who they are and where they come from as a people. Finally, genealogies serve to authenticate the Bible's accounts by adding additional levels of detail.
This last reason, I fear, is the real reason why the genealogy of Lehi was left out: Smith wrote it on the Lost 116 Pages and simply could not remember it accurately. Afraid to rewrite it and contradict the earlier genealogy, he simply left it out. He does not improve his situation, however, by having Nephi take a chapter to explain why the genealogy wasn't included. Not only does this make Nephi contradict the Bible (a serious error), but it also shows his character as simply said-to-be Jewish rather than actually Jewish. It also, again, raises the question of why it was so important to go back and get the genealogy from Jerusalem in the first place.
But the Book of Mormon goes on, throwing us right into the middle of another fetch quest. Apparently, "the wisdom of God" is to be so unprepared that you have to send your sons back twice to the city you and your family were strictly ordered to evacuate. The first time, it was for the improbable brass book of Laban. In chapter seven, having just gotten back, the boys are sent back to find wives. Apparently it did not occur to god that they might need wives in order to "be fruitful and multiply" in the land he was taking them to. Apparently, god forgot to mention it not only when they left Jerusalem the first time, but also when they were sent back for Laban's book. The wives are apparently very much an afterthought. This, again, contrasts with the hyper-prepared nature of God shown in the Bible. For instance, when God set out to restart humanity in the days of Noah, he did not have to ask Noah's sons to hop out of the ark and rescue some women to serve as their wives--they already had wives aboard. It further raises the question of why going back for wives was necessary: the Americas were already well peopled, with several Mesoamerican civilizations existing in their prime. Why couldn't Nephi and his brothers taken wives from among those people? One might propose the Jewish insistence on pure-bloodedness, but I'm afraid the rest of the book will offer a far simpler (and far less historically accurate) explanation: that there were no women or people of any sort in the Americas at the time.
Blessedly, the story of fetching the wives for Lehi's sons is a short one. Lehi sends them to the family of Ishmael (not Abraham's son), which is conveniently very receptive to their words and promptly heads out to join them. Conveniently, Ishmael has exactly five daughters (four for the sons of Lehi, and one for the servant they dragged out into the desert lest he report the murder of his master). He also has two sons and a wife that go with him into the wilderness, but it remains to be seen whether or not Smith can remember them long enough to bring them up later in the narrative...and apparently it isn't important that the sons of Ishmael be able to have kids, only the sons of Lehi. Sorry, guys: life sucks when you're part of a plot device.
There is one notable thing in the passage, though, a verse that the former owner of the copy I read from highlighted and noted in the margin as "a promise." Verse 12 of chapter 7 says, "the Lord is able to do all things according to his will, for the children of men, if it so be that they exercise faith in him". Nephi reminds his brothers and Ishmael's daughters of this to encourage them to place faith in God. Why? Because god can do anything if you place your faith in him. The contrast with the Bible is telling. The God of the Bible does not need you to put your faith in Him in order for Him to do whatever He likes. There is no caveat to Psalm 115:3's declaration that "Our God is in the heavens; he does all that he pleases" nor to the angel's announcement to Mary that "nothing will be impossible with God." The only places where any such caveats about faith appear are where it regards getting particular answers to prayer. But according to Nephi, the god of the Book of Mormon is only omnipotent if we have faith in him--without our faith, he is a lesser being. Clearly, He is not the self-sufficiently all-powerful God of the Bible, and his book does not compare.
This is one of the things that perplexes me about the origins of the Book of Mormon. Both the KJV and the Book of Mormon available today were, allegedly, translated into English from their original languages. The KJV, it's true, contains many archaic words and phrases...but it does so because it is nearly four hundred years old and the Modern English language has changed extensively in that time. When it was written in 1660, the KJV's language was thoroughly modern. But with the Book of Mormon, it is not so. The Book of Mormon contains even more archaic language (and just plain poor language), even though it was written--excuse me, translated--in 1830, nearly two hundred years after the KJV's smoother language was penned. Why is it that when Smith translated the Book of Mormon he didn't render it in contemporary Modern English, but instead threw in words and phrases that had fallen out of use long before he was born? Compare the overuse of archaic language in the Book of Mormon to it's near-contemporary, the 1860 Young's Literal Translation of the Bible, which does not use (for instance) the phrase "know of a surety" even once. I can see no reason why God would divinely inspire someone to make His word harder to read by translating it using (and overusing) outdated words and terms. However, I can see a very clear reason why Smith would write the Book of Mormon on his own with such language. By inserting and abusing familiar archaic phrases from the KJV (the most popular translation then as now), he tried to make it "sound like the Bible." It's the same tactic KJV-only proponents use to shoot down later translations with easier wording--and it's a fallacious argument: the only reason the KJV sounds archaic to us today is because the passage of time and the development of the English language have made it so...there is nothing inherently archaic about the Bible.
Of course, if you're wondering what Nephi's fetch quest was all about, it was meant to retrieve a Bible from Jerusalem. It was not the complete Bible, of course, or even the complete Old Testament, but that being said it contained a remarkably large portion of the Bible. According to 1 Nephi 5:11-13, "they did contain the five books of Moses, which gave an account of the creation of the world, and also of Adam and Eve, who were our first parents; and also a record of the Jews from the beginning, even down to the commencement of the reign of Zedekiah, king of Judah; and also 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." In addition, there was a genealogy proving Lehi was a descendant of Joseph. All of this was written on a set of "brass plates" in Laban's possession.
This raises several questions for me, not the least of which is the medium of the writing. As I said in my introduction, no literate society ever used metal as its main medium of writing, and with good reason. Certainly, the Jews never used it as their mainstay--they used scrolls and books of paper for that, as numerous Bible verses prove (Jeremiah 36:18 and 23 for contemporary examples). In the rare cases where they did choose to use metal, they used it to ornamentalize very brief pieces of text (as with the Silver Scrolls, also contemporary--and note that they wrote plain, regular Hebrew on these, not "reformed Egyptian"). But the brass plates are said to contain a ponderous amount of text, more than the Book of Mormon itself. It would have been, without a doubt, the longest section of text ever written on metal by any society--and it would demonstrate one of the key reasons no one had ever written more than eight pages on metal before: it would be enormously heavy and difficult to move. All of this, of course, makes me wonder why god sent Nephi to fetch the rarest and most cumbersome copy of these writings ever made rather than the more common and easy-to-transport copies written on scrolls.
Of course, in all fairness, there may not have been any other copy, considering the contents. The plates are said to contain a history of the Jews clear down to the time of Zedekiah's reign. Did such a concise history even exist? It's no good to simply say that the plates contained most of 1 and 2 Kings or Chronicles--both are abridgments of earlier, more extensive records made after the fact. Chronicles even goes to the trouble of pointing this out and telling readers where they can find more complete details. To say that the plates contained these earlier, more complete records defies belief, since these records would come from a number of different sources and would increase the volume (and mass) of the plates to the point where a forklift would be necessary to move them safely. The writings of the prophets, particularly Jeremiah, present similar problems. The book of Jeremiah is a compilation of numerous short pieces, arranged in topical rather than chronological order. It could not have been completed until the end of Jeremiah's ministry, and it's likely that, until that time, most of its pieces would not have been available at all. Other prophetic books present similar problems. Finally, there's the matter of having all of this material bound together in one volume. Even as late as the 1st Century (the time of Christ), the Old Testament was still being referred to as "the Law and the Prophets." It would probably have been very rare, even at that time, to find both of them written together, rather than as individual books or--better yet--as two separate volumes of scripture. But the plates are alleged to have the law and the prophets both printed together as if they were one and the same, more than 500 years before Christ.
Taking in the above, I'd say the existence of the plates defies belief, but that's nothing, of course, next to who they used to belong to. Laban, their rightful owner, was--judging from the Book of Mormon's treatment of him--a thoroughly rotten character, one of Jerusalem's corrupt elite. So, why does he have the most elaborate and weighty version of Jewish scripture ever to be written? In particular, why has he added the prophesies of Jeremiah to it? Laban (if he were real) would have been one of the people Jeremiah was publicly decrying as an enemy of God shortly to be killed by the Babylonians. Laban wouldn't have even listened to Jeremiah, let alone believed him. Why would he take the care to add the words of a prophet he didn't believe or like to his improbable collection of engraved scriptures?
Then, there's the matter of the genealogy. It's easy to see from the Bible that genealogies were important to Jews. The books of Matthew and 1 Chronicles both begin with genealogies. There are lots, and lots of genealogies in the Bible. Sometimes just naming someone can result in a sort of mini-genealogy ("A the son of B, the son of C, of the town of Z"). But the Book of Mormon explicitly skips the genealogy of Lehi, even after it's been properly introduced. Nephi says it's left out to conserve space, but honestly, if a society has enough gold to consider writing something the length of the Book of Mormon on it a good idea, then they can splurge a little for an extra plate to write the genealogy on. Nephi offers the excuse that he's just abridging, and thus doesn't want to waste space on the plates with a full account that would include the genealogies--but this just raises the question of why he's wasting gold abridging his father's work at all. Nephi then goes and makes it worse by explaining that genealogies are not spiritual enough for his records. They are "the things which are pleasing unto the world" and are not "pleasing to God" (1 Nephi 6:5); far from being simply distinct from "the things of God" (1 Nephi 6:3) they are "not of worth to the children of men" and Nephi says he will explicitly instruct his descendants never to include them in scripture (1 Nephi 6:6). That's an outright contradiction of the treatment of genealogies in the Bible. Not only does the Bible include many genealogies as worthy material, it goes further, saying they--together with "all scripture"--are inspired (or breathed-out) by God and good for mankind (2 Timothy 3:16). In the Bible, genealogies serve to show how God works to bring things about, generation by generation, even through unexpected events (example: the fact that two of the three named women in Matthew's genealogy of the Jewish Messiah are foreigners--Rahab and Ruth) or human sins (two of the links in the same genealogy of Christ are children from adultery--Perez and Solomon). Genealogies also help to give the Jews a sense of who they are and where they come from as a people. Finally, genealogies serve to authenticate the Bible's accounts by adding additional levels of detail.
This last reason, I fear, is the real reason why the genealogy of Lehi was left out: Smith wrote it on the Lost 116 Pages and simply could not remember it accurately. Afraid to rewrite it and contradict the earlier genealogy, he simply left it out. He does not improve his situation, however, by having Nephi take a chapter to explain why the genealogy wasn't included. Not only does this make Nephi contradict the Bible (a serious error), but it also shows his character as simply said-to-be Jewish rather than actually Jewish. It also, again, raises the question of why it was so important to go back and get the genealogy from Jerusalem in the first place.
But the Book of Mormon goes on, throwing us right into the middle of another fetch quest. Apparently, "the wisdom of God" is to be so unprepared that you have to send your sons back twice to the city you and your family were strictly ordered to evacuate. The first time, it was for the improbable brass book of Laban. In chapter seven, having just gotten back, the boys are sent back to find wives. Apparently it did not occur to god that they might need wives in order to "be fruitful and multiply" in the land he was taking them to. Apparently, god forgot to mention it not only when they left Jerusalem the first time, but also when they were sent back for Laban's book. The wives are apparently very much an afterthought. This, again, contrasts with the hyper-prepared nature of God shown in the Bible. For instance, when God set out to restart humanity in the days of Noah, he did not have to ask Noah's sons to hop out of the ark and rescue some women to serve as their wives--they already had wives aboard. It further raises the question of why going back for wives was necessary: the Americas were already well peopled, with several Mesoamerican civilizations existing in their prime. Why couldn't Nephi and his brothers taken wives from among those people? One might propose the Jewish insistence on pure-bloodedness, but I'm afraid the rest of the book will offer a far simpler (and far less historically accurate) explanation: that there were no women or people of any sort in the Americas at the time.
Blessedly, the story of fetching the wives for Lehi's sons is a short one. Lehi sends them to the family of Ishmael (not Abraham's son), which is conveniently very receptive to their words and promptly heads out to join them. Conveniently, Ishmael has exactly five daughters (four for the sons of Lehi, and one for the servant they dragged out into the desert lest he report the murder of his master). He also has two sons and a wife that go with him into the wilderness, but it remains to be seen whether or not Smith can remember them long enough to bring them up later in the narrative...and apparently it isn't important that the sons of Ishmael be able to have kids, only the sons of Lehi. Sorry, guys: life sucks when you're part of a plot device.
There is one notable thing in the passage, though, a verse that the former owner of the copy I read from highlighted and noted in the margin as "a promise." Verse 12 of chapter 7 says, "the Lord is able to do all things according to his will, for the children of men, if it so be that they exercise faith in him". Nephi reminds his brothers and Ishmael's daughters of this to encourage them to place faith in God. Why? Because god can do anything if you place your faith in him. The contrast with the Bible is telling. The God of the Bible does not need you to put your faith in Him in order for Him to do whatever He likes. There is no caveat to Psalm 115:3's declaration that "Our God is in the heavens; he does all that he pleases" nor to the angel's announcement to Mary that "nothing will be impossible with God." The only places where any such caveats about faith appear are where it regards getting particular answers to prayer. But according to Nephi, the god of the Book of Mormon is only omnipotent if we have faith in him--without our faith, he is a lesser being. Clearly, He is not the self-sufficiently all-powerful God of the Bible, and his book does not compare.
Sacrificing Isaac
This Sunday, the teaching was on the sacrifice of Isaac in Genesis 22.
In certain circles, Genesis 22:1-18 is one of the more controversial passages in scripture. Atheistic sites will quote from it to prove that God is an evil god who demands child sacrifice. Of course, when they do quote from it, or other passages, to prove this point they completely neglect context. The passage begins with the announcement that God was "testing" Abraham, rather than giving him an order He wanted Abraham to carry out to completion. The story bears this out, as in verses 11-13 God sends an angel to stop Abraham at the critical moment. Then, of course, there's the larger context of the Bible itself, particularly the Old Testament, which denounces the practice of child sacrifice as utterly detestable to God.
So, while the story of the (almost) sacrifice of Isaac is not proof that God demands child sacrifice (He doesn't), it is proof of several other, more relevant things.
First, it's proof that God can test us. He speaks to us in various ways. To Abraham, He used an angel and some other unspecified means. I see, in the Bible, no reason to believe that He cannot do the same in our time. When He does, He may test us as well. Not always will everything God says to us be intended as His last word and ultimate plan for our lives. The story of Abraham gives us some idea of how far afield God's tests can be. Just one chapter before this, God had promised Abraham that he would have descendants through Isaac. That was God's ultimate plan for Abraham's life, as the end of the story in chapter 22 confirms. There is an obvious contradiction between telling a man his descendants, through a particular son, will be innumerable and greatly blessed, and telling that man he must kill that son before he can sire any offspring. Furthermore, we today know (even if Abraham didn't) that God hates child sacrifice with a passion. But God was able to give Abraham the sacrifice of Isaac as a test, despite how far it deviated from His expressed plan for Abraham's life and His overall moral will.
Second, it is proof of how we should react to a test from God. Abraham is universally praised for his actions here, not only in the Old Testament, but also in the New. He is the foremost example in the Bible of what faith should look like when tested by God. And what is his reaction? Though God's command to sacrifice Isaac in verse 2 is so very contrary to God's earlier promises about Isaac, and to His overall moral outrage over child sacrifice, Abraham did not consider these apparent contradictions to nullify what God had said to him. He did not consider these (legitimate) objections reason enough to disobey. When God commanded him to sacrifice Isaac, he obeyed, even to the point of binding Isaac atop a pile of wood on the altar and raising the knife to slaughter his son (verses 9-10). It's important to note, though, that while he obeyed God's commands even in the case of the test that seemed contrary to His promises, He did not let go of the promises. Hebrews gives us a glimpse into his internal thoughts in it's description of these events, telling us that Abraham obeyed, still expecting God to fulfill His promises through Isaac, because "he considered that God was able even to raise him from the dead." Thus Abraham followed God, even when God seemed contradictory, knowing that God would lead Him well and fulfill His every promise through that leading, even if it literally took a miracle to make God's direction and His promises match.
Third, it is proof that we can trust God in and through anything. Abraham trusted God to lead Him well and to fulfill His promises even if they seemed contradictory to God's leading. The story shows that his trust was not misplaced. God did not allow Abraham to complete the sacrifice, but sent an angel to stop him, announcing that it had been a test. Not only did this allow God to keep His promises of descendants through Isaac, but it also proves that God is trustworthy even when He tests. We do not have to be constantly on our guard against guidance from God which might be meant as a test. God does not expect us to determine ahead of time whether He's testing us or not. If He did, Abraham would have been chided for obeying God during the test rather than correctly deducing that it was a test. As it was, Abraham apparently had no idea that God was testing him until God announced it at the end of the test (otherwise Hebrews would have concluded, "for Abraham considered that it was all really a test from God and that God did not actually want him to go through with it")--and that was perfectly fine by God. The reason why we don't have to bear the pressure of figuring out when God is testing us and when He isn't is because (as in the case of Abraham) God Himself will let us know it's a test, when He wants us to stop. He did not have any trouble getting that angel to Abraham in time to stop him from killing his son. He was even able to arrange for a ram to get stuck nearby at just the right time and place that it would be available and visible the moment Abraham was called off. For bonus points, He arranged the whole thing as a double analogy of Christ (both with Abraham acting as the Father, sacrificing the life of the Son, and with the ram being a second, additional picture of Christ). If God can so seamlessly choreograph the announcement and conclusion of the test of Abraham, He is surely capable of letting us know when something's a test and when it isn't. We can trust Him to do so in our own lives.
Finally, it is proof that Abraham loved God more than the son or the promises God gave him. In this respect, it's not much different from the test Job faced, except that in Job's case God actually allowed Job's children to be killed, his health to be destroyed, and his possessions to be taken away. Abraham did not actually lose his son that day, but in following God's voice, he risked it. By accepting that risk, he proved that, in his own mind, his love for God and relationship to God was worth more to him than his own son. Isaac was, as the passage rightly says in verse 2, a beloved son to Abraham...but Abraham loved God more. May the same be said of us, in all things. Like Abraham, we may never have to actually give them up. We may never even be asked. But may we always be willing, because we love Him more.
In certain circles, Genesis 22:1-18 is one of the more controversial passages in scripture. Atheistic sites will quote from it to prove that God is an evil god who demands child sacrifice. Of course, when they do quote from it, or other passages, to prove this point they completely neglect context. The passage begins with the announcement that God was "testing" Abraham, rather than giving him an order He wanted Abraham to carry out to completion. The story bears this out, as in verses 11-13 God sends an angel to stop Abraham at the critical moment. Then, of course, there's the larger context of the Bible itself, particularly the Old Testament, which denounces the practice of child sacrifice as utterly detestable to God.
So, while the story of the (almost) sacrifice of Isaac is not proof that God demands child sacrifice (He doesn't), it is proof of several other, more relevant things.
First, it's proof that God can test us. He speaks to us in various ways. To Abraham, He used an angel and some other unspecified means. I see, in the Bible, no reason to believe that He cannot do the same in our time. When He does, He may test us as well. Not always will everything God says to us be intended as His last word and ultimate plan for our lives. The story of Abraham gives us some idea of how far afield God's tests can be. Just one chapter before this, God had promised Abraham that he would have descendants through Isaac. That was God's ultimate plan for Abraham's life, as the end of the story in chapter 22 confirms. There is an obvious contradiction between telling a man his descendants, through a particular son, will be innumerable and greatly blessed, and telling that man he must kill that son before he can sire any offspring. Furthermore, we today know (even if Abraham didn't) that God hates child sacrifice with a passion. But God was able to give Abraham the sacrifice of Isaac as a test, despite how far it deviated from His expressed plan for Abraham's life and His overall moral will.
Second, it is proof of how we should react to a test from God. Abraham is universally praised for his actions here, not only in the Old Testament, but also in the New. He is the foremost example in the Bible of what faith should look like when tested by God. And what is his reaction? Though God's command to sacrifice Isaac in verse 2 is so very contrary to God's earlier promises about Isaac, and to His overall moral outrage over child sacrifice, Abraham did not consider these apparent contradictions to nullify what God had said to him. He did not consider these (legitimate) objections reason enough to disobey. When God commanded him to sacrifice Isaac, he obeyed, even to the point of binding Isaac atop a pile of wood on the altar and raising the knife to slaughter his son (verses 9-10). It's important to note, though, that while he obeyed God's commands even in the case of the test that seemed contrary to His promises, He did not let go of the promises. Hebrews gives us a glimpse into his internal thoughts in it's description of these events, telling us that Abraham obeyed, still expecting God to fulfill His promises through Isaac, because "he considered that God was able even to raise him from the dead." Thus Abraham followed God, even when God seemed contradictory, knowing that God would lead Him well and fulfill His every promise through that leading, even if it literally took a miracle to make God's direction and His promises match.
Third, it is proof that we can trust God in and through anything. Abraham trusted God to lead Him well and to fulfill His promises even if they seemed contradictory to God's leading. The story shows that his trust was not misplaced. God did not allow Abraham to complete the sacrifice, but sent an angel to stop him, announcing that it had been a test. Not only did this allow God to keep His promises of descendants through Isaac, but it also proves that God is trustworthy even when He tests. We do not have to be constantly on our guard against guidance from God which might be meant as a test. God does not expect us to determine ahead of time whether He's testing us or not. If He did, Abraham would have been chided for obeying God during the test rather than correctly deducing that it was a test. As it was, Abraham apparently had no idea that God was testing him until God announced it at the end of the test (otherwise Hebrews would have concluded, "for Abraham considered that it was all really a test from God and that God did not actually want him to go through with it")--and that was perfectly fine by God. The reason why we don't have to bear the pressure of figuring out when God is testing us and when He isn't is because (as in the case of Abraham) God Himself will let us know it's a test, when He wants us to stop. He did not have any trouble getting that angel to Abraham in time to stop him from killing his son. He was even able to arrange for a ram to get stuck nearby at just the right time and place that it would be available and visible the moment Abraham was called off. For bonus points, He arranged the whole thing as a double analogy of Christ (both with Abraham acting as the Father, sacrificing the life of the Son, and with the ram being a second, additional picture of Christ). If God can so seamlessly choreograph the announcement and conclusion of the test of Abraham, He is surely capable of letting us know when something's a test and when it isn't. We can trust Him to do so in our own lives.
Finally, it is proof that Abraham loved God more than the son or the promises God gave him. In this respect, it's not much different from the test Job faced, except that in Job's case God actually allowed Job's children to be killed, his health to be destroyed, and his possessions to be taken away. Abraham did not actually lose his son that day, but in following God's voice, he risked it. By accepting that risk, he proved that, in his own mind, his love for God and relationship to God was worth more to him than his own son. Isaac was, as the passage rightly says in verse 2, a beloved son to Abraham...but Abraham loved God more. May the same be said of us, in all things. Like Abraham, we may never have to actually give them up. We may never even be asked. But may we always be willing, because we love Him more.
Thursday, June 6, 2013
Comparable to the Bible: Killing Laban
In chapter 4 of the first book of the Book of Mormon, the spirit of god is explicitly said to repeatedly command and, at length, convince one character to murder another while the latter is passed out and helpless. Mormons have tried to justify the killing by various means. Certainly, the narrator establishes that Laban was a horrible person who shall not be much missed. He is first introduced accusing one of Nephi's brothers of being a thief (without having any real cause to make such an accusation) and trying to kill him. Then, when Nephi and his brothers bring him all their father's wealth in order to broker a deal, Laban steals it and has his servants try to kill them. There's no question he was a truly despicable human being (or fictional character, take your pick).
But there's also no question that what Nephi did to him was the act of murder. Laban was helpless, passed out drunk on the street, when Nephi found him. There was no struggle from Laban as Nephi took Laban's sword and used it to cut the other man's head off. Apologists point out that Laban more than had it coming and that the act was therefore an execution. I won't argue that Laban didn't deserve his fate, but executions are matters carried out by the governments God has established (Romans 13:4) or the proxies they appoint, and it has always been so. Nephi was neither a government authority nor authorized to act as one and so--as his flight from Jerusalem proves he knew all too well--the slaying of Laban was murder.
It's not like murder never happens in the Bible or that, in the Bible, God never uses murders to bring about His plan (the Bible does say He works all things together for good, inclusive of our sins). But God explicitly forbids it in the Ten Commandments and never, ever commands anyone to commit it. Killings in war are commanded at times (even to the extent of genocidal total war), and kings and their appointed commanders use their authority to kill many, but murders are never portrayed as being commanded by God. But in the Book of Mormon the idea that god commanded a murder is inescapable.
Even more telling than this comparison is taking a look at how god commanded the murder. Two passages occur which are eerily similar to passages in the Bible (my guess, worded that way intentionally by Smith in hopes the appearance of familiar phrases would assuage the reader's conscious at the murder). The first reads, "Behold the Lord hath delivered him into thy hands. Yea, and I also knew that he had sought to take away mine own life" (1 Nephi 4:11). Then there's the more often-quoted line of Nephi's final decision in verse 13: "It is better that one man should perish than that a nation should dwindle and perish in unbelief" (an argument which stands only if the sole available copy of the book of the law that could possibly have been acquired by Lehi's family was in Laban's possession and unobtainable by any means except murder--which is a pretty big stretch). Comparing these verses with their original sources in the Bible is chilling.
The first passage in verse 11 is highly reminiscent of two passages in 1 Samuel, 24:4 and 26:8. In both scenes, Saul, the wicked king of Israel who has pursued, hounded, and tried to kill (many times) his divinely-appointed, righteous successor, David, lies helpless at David's mercy, unaware of his predicament. David's men urge him in the first instance, "Behold the day of which the LORD said unto thee, Behold, I will deliver thine enemy into thine hand, that thou mayest do to him as it shall seem good unto thee." But David refrains, only cutting off the hem of Saul's garment--and even that gives him a guilt trip. Later, when David again stands over a sleeping Saul, one of David's lieutenants says, "God hath delivered thine enemy into thine hand this day: now therefore let me smite him, I pray thee, with the spear even to the earth at once, and I will not smite him the second time." But again, David refuses and they leave the wicked king unharmed. In these passages, there's no question that Saul deserved to die. There's no question that, by divine providence, David was placed in a situation where he had the perfect opportunity to kill him. Since David had already been anointed as king by the prophet Samuel, he arguably had the authority of legitimate government (that Nephi lacked) with which to make it an execution rather than a murder. But David doesn't see it that way. Though the man is a renowned warrior, he refused to kill Saul, his greatest enemy, or to let any of his men do it. He considered it morally wrong. Later, he was greatly praised for his restraint. It's a stark contrast: in the Bible, these phrases appear in a story where a godly man spares his enemy's life though friends urge him to violence; in the Book of Mormon, the phrase appears in a story where god urges a reluctant man to murder his helpless enemy, rather than sparing him as David did.
The second passage in verse 14 actually echoes a New Testament verse almost exactly: John 11:50. "Consider that it is expedient for us, that one man should die for the people, that the whole nation perish not." These are the words of the High Priest Caiaphas, in the council where the Jewish religious leaders decided to try to get Jesus executed. But, as John points out, "this spake he not of himself: but being high priest that year, he prophesied that Jesus should die for that nation; and not for that nation only, but that also he should gather together in one the children of God that were scattered abroad" (John 11:51-52). So in the Bible, the idea that one man should die for a people does not pertain to the god-commanded murder of a helpless wicked man so that others may receive a law of righteousness, but to the foreordained sacrifice of one righteous man, so that others may receive freedom from the law of death and sin. It's a complete reversal!
Not only does the Book of Mormon command murder, which the Bible condemns, but even the phrases used to incite the murder of Laban are used in the Bible for the opposite purpose: not to bring death to enemies, but to spare them...not to kill sinners, but to save them. For me, the contrast between the Bible and the Book of Mormon couldn't be sharper!
But there's also no question that what Nephi did to him was the act of murder. Laban was helpless, passed out drunk on the street, when Nephi found him. There was no struggle from Laban as Nephi took Laban's sword and used it to cut the other man's head off. Apologists point out that Laban more than had it coming and that the act was therefore an execution. I won't argue that Laban didn't deserve his fate, but executions are matters carried out by the governments God has established (Romans 13:4) or the proxies they appoint, and it has always been so. Nephi was neither a government authority nor authorized to act as one and so--as his flight from Jerusalem proves he knew all too well--the slaying of Laban was murder.
It's not like murder never happens in the Bible or that, in the Bible, God never uses murders to bring about His plan (the Bible does say He works all things together for good, inclusive of our sins). But God explicitly forbids it in the Ten Commandments and never, ever commands anyone to commit it. Killings in war are commanded at times (even to the extent of genocidal total war), and kings and their appointed commanders use their authority to kill many, but murders are never portrayed as being commanded by God. But in the Book of Mormon the idea that god commanded a murder is inescapable.
Even more telling than this comparison is taking a look at how god commanded the murder. Two passages occur which are eerily similar to passages in the Bible (my guess, worded that way intentionally by Smith in hopes the appearance of familiar phrases would assuage the reader's conscious at the murder). The first reads, "Behold the Lord hath delivered him into thy hands. Yea, and I also knew that he had sought to take away mine own life" (1 Nephi 4:11). Then there's the more often-quoted line of Nephi's final decision in verse 13: "It is better that one man should perish than that a nation should dwindle and perish in unbelief" (an argument which stands only if the sole available copy of the book of the law that could possibly have been acquired by Lehi's family was in Laban's possession and unobtainable by any means except murder--which is a pretty big stretch). Comparing these verses with their original sources in the Bible is chilling.
The first passage in verse 11 is highly reminiscent of two passages in 1 Samuel, 24:4 and 26:8. In both scenes, Saul, the wicked king of Israel who has pursued, hounded, and tried to kill (many times) his divinely-appointed, righteous successor, David, lies helpless at David's mercy, unaware of his predicament. David's men urge him in the first instance, "Behold the day of which the LORD said unto thee, Behold, I will deliver thine enemy into thine hand, that thou mayest do to him as it shall seem good unto thee." But David refrains, only cutting off the hem of Saul's garment--and even that gives him a guilt trip. Later, when David again stands over a sleeping Saul, one of David's lieutenants says, "God hath delivered thine enemy into thine hand this day: now therefore let me smite him, I pray thee, with the spear even to the earth at once, and I will not smite him the second time." But again, David refuses and they leave the wicked king unharmed. In these passages, there's no question that Saul deserved to die. There's no question that, by divine providence, David was placed in a situation where he had the perfect opportunity to kill him. Since David had already been anointed as king by the prophet Samuel, he arguably had the authority of legitimate government (that Nephi lacked) with which to make it an execution rather than a murder. But David doesn't see it that way. Though the man is a renowned warrior, he refused to kill Saul, his greatest enemy, or to let any of his men do it. He considered it morally wrong. Later, he was greatly praised for his restraint. It's a stark contrast: in the Bible, these phrases appear in a story where a godly man spares his enemy's life though friends urge him to violence; in the Book of Mormon, the phrase appears in a story where god urges a reluctant man to murder his helpless enemy, rather than sparing him as David did.
The second passage in verse 14 actually echoes a New Testament verse almost exactly: John 11:50. "Consider that it is expedient for us, that one man should die for the people, that the whole nation perish not." These are the words of the High Priest Caiaphas, in the council where the Jewish religious leaders decided to try to get Jesus executed. But, as John points out, "this spake he not of himself: but being high priest that year, he prophesied that Jesus should die for that nation; and not for that nation only, but that also he should gather together in one the children of God that were scattered abroad" (John 11:51-52). So in the Bible, the idea that one man should die for a people does not pertain to the god-commanded murder of a helpless wicked man so that others may receive a law of righteousness, but to the foreordained sacrifice of one righteous man, so that others may receive freedom from the law of death and sin. It's a complete reversal!
Not only does the Book of Mormon command murder, which the Bible condemns, but even the phrases used to incite the murder of Laban are used in the Bible for the opposite purpose: not to bring death to enemies, but to spare them...not to kill sinners, but to save them. For me, the contrast between the Bible and the Book of Mormon couldn't be sharper!
Comparable to the Bible: Fetch Quests and the Wisdom of God
I tried reading the Book of Mormon once before (if your curious why I'm doing it now, see this introductory post) but didn't get very far. I think I may have made it as far as chapter 12 of 1 Nephi before giving up in disgust, and I confess to skipping a lot before that. This time, to fulfill the premise, I'll be reading it through.
As I recall, the early story-line runs something like this: Lehi becomes a prophet in Jerusalem, God tells him and his family to leave, they go hang out by the Red Sea, then Lehi's sons have to go back for something, then they hang out by the Red Sea some more and a section of visions and prophesies ensues. Yeah, I don't remember it all that well. The only part of the book I remember very clearly is the impression I got from its writing style. It's clear that it tries to imitate the style of the King James Version of the Bible, but since I grew up on the KJV (literally learned to read from it--which was about as hard as it sounds) the imitation sticks out like a sore thumb to me. I can tell the difference between old writing and poor writing. For instance, there's the overuse of "and it came to pass." Many people have commented on it through the years. Mormon apologists have given the defense that it also occurs frequently in the KJV Bible--and they are right: it occurs there 452 times...to the Book of Mormon's 1,424. Apologists have further said that it occurs more frequently because (1) the Book of Mormon is historical narrative--where the phrase is more likely to occur--whereas the Bible contains a mix of genres, and (2) the actual Hebrew word translated and it came to pass occurs 1,204 times in the Bible, but its translators went with alternate translations most of the time (and, presumably, Smith did not). Unfortunately, a little word-count undermines this logic. The historical books (Genesis-Esther) in the KJV contain 311,209 words. Even assuming that every occurrence of the phrase was in those books and every occurrence of the Hebrew word was retranslated, that would still leave that portion of the Bible with fewer occurrences--spread across a significantly larger word-count (43,046 words--the size of a small novel). And that's the poor writing I remember being grammatically correct...
Then, there's the use of inappropriate words. Not vulgar words, of course, but words that, in and of themselves, are anachronisms that shouldn't appear in the text. I spotted one today: the word church used in 1 Nephi 4:26. Both characters in the scene (and the narrator himself, Nephi) are Jews living in (or, in the case of the narrator, from) 7th Century BC Jerusalem and one of them assumes the other is talking about church. In the Bible, the word church is not used in the Old Testament, only in the New. There's a very good reason for that. The word is Greek, invented by the Greeks, actually. They coined the words translated as church to designate their democratic gatherings of called-together citizens. Christianity appropriated it to denote the called-out assembly of the saints. Jews never used the term, but stuck with terms like "congregation" or "solemn assembly" in the Old Testament when they wanted to talk about their collective religious groups or gatherings. A 7th Century BC Jew would have used one of those terms instead of a Greek word that hadn't yet been invented. But of course, if the author was actually a 19th Century American, he might not recognize the anachronism...or he might simply care more about making his Jewish characters appealing to a predominantly Christian audience than portraying them as actual Jews.
But my main reason for writing this post was to make a more substantive comparison between the wisdom of God in the Bible and the "wisdom of God" in the Book of Mormon. The first few chapters of 1 Nephi contain parallels (deliberately highlighted by Nephi at one point) between the Jewish Exodus (in the book of Exodus, of all places) and Lehi's departure from Jerusalem. Lehi leaves Jerusalem in 600BC to escape the coming destruction of the city. Thereafter, while living with his family in tents by the Red Sea, he receives another command from God in a dream telling him he must send his sons back to Jerusalem to obtain a "record of the Jews" and of Lehi's genealogy from Laban, one of the city's inhabitants. Oh, and of course these are written on metal plates made of brass, because everyone wrote in metal books back then (rather than scrolls, as Jeremiah--who also lived in Jerusalem at the time--used). One might ask why Lehi didn't get these records in the first place, or why he specifically had to get them from Laban (the only copy?--seems like a bit of a stretch, but we'll go with it). However, since there seems to be some drama going on between Nephi and his brothers and Nephi himself is undergoing some character development, one might assume, as I did at first, that God intended it to be this way all along, so that Nephi and his brothers would have to undergo the trials of their father's fetch quest. Some fetch quests, after all, are vital to the plot.
But of course, others aren't. In chapter 3, Nephi has an argument with his brothers, wherein he spells out God's logic in sending the four of them back for the book. God commanded Lehi to leave because of the immanent destruction of Jerusalem, so obviously he couldn't come back since "if my father [Lehi] should dwell in the land after he hath been commanded to flee out of the land, behold, he would also perish. Wherefore it must needs be that he flee out of the land" (1 Nephi 3:18). This is impeccable logic until one realizes two things. First of all, the city of Jerusalem is not in immanent danger. The Bible and history establish that it was besieged in 589BC and there's been no apparent passage of time since Lehi left Jerusalem (though the footnotes allow that it might be as late as 592BC, still well before the city was in danger). The lack of danger is apparent in the narrative itself by how easily Lehi's sons move in and out of the city multiple times (either that or the author failed to recognize the fact that walled cities like Jerusalem were specifically designed to be difficult to get into during times of trouble). Second, the logic of Nephi applies equally well to Lehi's children as to Lehi himself. Lehi was commanded to leave Jerusalem with his family. If him going back after being commanded to leave equals his destruction, then surely the same will be true of his family members, who were also commanded to leave. Despite these two glaring plot holes, Nephi declares the whole fetch quest "the wisdom of God" because getting those plates will allow them to "preserve unto our children the language of our fathers"--and some preservation it was, seeing as how Nephi spent so much time in chapter 1 explaining that he was writing in a totally different language altogether, which was part Egyptian. In other words, the "wisdom of God" is just being used to try to cover up obvious gaps in the logic of the plot.
Compare to the story of Exodus. Lehi, it seems, couldn't get everything the first time around moving a family of six three day's journey into the wilderness, though he left at his own discretion. Moses was tasked by God with moving over 600,000 men (about 2 million people altogether, by some estimates) a few hundred miles from Egypt to Canaan, with a side trip through the desert--and did we mention he couldn't even get started till a disagreeable and moody Pharaoh gave him the go-ahead? However, God never had to tell Moses, "Send somebody back, we forgot something." As a matter of fact, the level of preparedness and provision God demonstrates in the Jewish Exodus is simply mind-blowing. He starts out by having Moses tell all the Jews to be packed and ready to go--shoes on their feet, walking sticks in hand (Exodus 12:11)--on the very night the Pharaoh would finally decide to tell them to leave. As a bonus, he has all the Egyptian neighbors of the Hebrew people heap them with fine gifts of gold, silver, brass, silks, and skins, etc. Why would he have them do that? Isn't it just extra stuff to lug around in the desert? As a matter of fact, no, because later on those very gifts turn out to be exactly what the Hebrews needed to build their Tabernacle. God knew exactly what they would need, when they would need it, and where and when they could get it and He provided--even in the case of a couple million people needing to build a really fancy mobile temple in the middle of nowhere. That's the wisdom of God!
By contrast, god in the Book of Mormon doesn't seem to be able to get his act together. While one might think he deliberately had Lehi run off without the book so his sons would have to fetch it, Nephi's explanation shoots down that possibility by pointing out that god would have sent Lehi back for it personally if not for the fact he'd then be killed when Jerusalem fell (for some reason that escapes logic). At first the wealth of Lehi's family seems to have been left deliberately for the express purpose of being used to buy Laban off...but then the gold is stolen by Laban and vanishes from the narrative, not even reappearing once Laban has been killed (maybe he threw it down one of the plot holes). In the end, there doesn't seem to be a reason why any of this had to happen in the first place. Taken altogether, the god in this book seems to be improvising almost as much as the writer. It's a disappointment, and it doesn't compare to the wisdom of the God of the Bible.
As I recall, the early story-line runs something like this: Lehi becomes a prophet in Jerusalem, God tells him and his family to leave, they go hang out by the Red Sea, then Lehi's sons have to go back for something, then they hang out by the Red Sea some more and a section of visions and prophesies ensues. Yeah, I don't remember it all that well. The only part of the book I remember very clearly is the impression I got from its writing style. It's clear that it tries to imitate the style of the King James Version of the Bible, but since I grew up on the KJV (literally learned to read from it--which was about as hard as it sounds) the imitation sticks out like a sore thumb to me. I can tell the difference between old writing and poor writing. For instance, there's the overuse of "and it came to pass." Many people have commented on it through the years. Mormon apologists have given the defense that it also occurs frequently in the KJV Bible--and they are right: it occurs there 452 times...to the Book of Mormon's 1,424. Apologists have further said that it occurs more frequently because (1) the Book of Mormon is historical narrative--where the phrase is more likely to occur--whereas the Bible contains a mix of genres, and (2) the actual Hebrew word translated and it came to pass occurs 1,204 times in the Bible, but its translators went with alternate translations most of the time (and, presumably, Smith did not). Unfortunately, a little word-count undermines this logic. The historical books (Genesis-Esther) in the KJV contain 311,209 words. Even assuming that every occurrence of the phrase was in those books and every occurrence of the Hebrew word was retranslated, that would still leave that portion of the Bible with fewer occurrences--spread across a significantly larger word-count (43,046 words--the size of a small novel). And that's the poor writing I remember being grammatically correct...
Then, there's the use of inappropriate words. Not vulgar words, of course, but words that, in and of themselves, are anachronisms that shouldn't appear in the text. I spotted one today: the word church used in 1 Nephi 4:26. Both characters in the scene (and the narrator himself, Nephi) are Jews living in (or, in the case of the narrator, from) 7th Century BC Jerusalem and one of them assumes the other is talking about church. In the Bible, the word church is not used in the Old Testament, only in the New. There's a very good reason for that. The word is Greek, invented by the Greeks, actually. They coined the words translated as church to designate their democratic gatherings of called-together citizens. Christianity appropriated it to denote the called-out assembly of the saints. Jews never used the term, but stuck with terms like "congregation" or "solemn assembly" in the Old Testament when they wanted to talk about their collective religious groups or gatherings. A 7th Century BC Jew would have used one of those terms instead of a Greek word that hadn't yet been invented. But of course, if the author was actually a 19th Century American, he might not recognize the anachronism...or he might simply care more about making his Jewish characters appealing to a predominantly Christian audience than portraying them as actual Jews.
But my main reason for writing this post was to make a more substantive comparison between the wisdom of God in the Bible and the "wisdom of God" in the Book of Mormon. The first few chapters of 1 Nephi contain parallels (deliberately highlighted by Nephi at one point) between the Jewish Exodus (in the book of Exodus, of all places) and Lehi's departure from Jerusalem. Lehi leaves Jerusalem in 600BC to escape the coming destruction of the city. Thereafter, while living with his family in tents by the Red Sea, he receives another command from God in a dream telling him he must send his sons back to Jerusalem to obtain a "record of the Jews" and of Lehi's genealogy from Laban, one of the city's inhabitants. Oh, and of course these are written on metal plates made of brass, because everyone wrote in metal books back then (rather than scrolls, as Jeremiah--who also lived in Jerusalem at the time--used). One might ask why Lehi didn't get these records in the first place, or why he specifically had to get them from Laban (the only copy?--seems like a bit of a stretch, but we'll go with it). However, since there seems to be some drama going on between Nephi and his brothers and Nephi himself is undergoing some character development, one might assume, as I did at first, that God intended it to be this way all along, so that Nephi and his brothers would have to undergo the trials of their father's fetch quest. Some fetch quests, after all, are vital to the plot.
But of course, others aren't. In chapter 3, Nephi has an argument with his brothers, wherein he spells out God's logic in sending the four of them back for the book. God commanded Lehi to leave because of the immanent destruction of Jerusalem, so obviously he couldn't come back since "if my father [Lehi] should dwell in the land after he hath been commanded to flee out of the land, behold, he would also perish. Wherefore it must needs be that he flee out of the land" (1 Nephi 3:18). This is impeccable logic until one realizes two things. First of all, the city of Jerusalem is not in immanent danger. The Bible and history establish that it was besieged in 589BC and there's been no apparent passage of time since Lehi left Jerusalem (though the footnotes allow that it might be as late as 592BC, still well before the city was in danger). The lack of danger is apparent in the narrative itself by how easily Lehi's sons move in and out of the city multiple times (either that or the author failed to recognize the fact that walled cities like Jerusalem were specifically designed to be difficult to get into during times of trouble). Second, the logic of Nephi applies equally well to Lehi's children as to Lehi himself. Lehi was commanded to leave Jerusalem with his family. If him going back after being commanded to leave equals his destruction, then surely the same will be true of his family members, who were also commanded to leave. Despite these two glaring plot holes, Nephi declares the whole fetch quest "the wisdom of God" because getting those plates will allow them to "preserve unto our children the language of our fathers"--and some preservation it was, seeing as how Nephi spent so much time in chapter 1 explaining that he was writing in a totally different language altogether, which was part Egyptian. In other words, the "wisdom of God" is just being used to try to cover up obvious gaps in the logic of the plot.
Compare to the story of Exodus. Lehi, it seems, couldn't get everything the first time around moving a family of six three day's journey into the wilderness, though he left at his own discretion. Moses was tasked by God with moving over 600,000 men (about 2 million people altogether, by some estimates) a few hundred miles from Egypt to Canaan, with a side trip through the desert--and did we mention he couldn't even get started till a disagreeable and moody Pharaoh gave him the go-ahead? However, God never had to tell Moses, "Send somebody back, we forgot something." As a matter of fact, the level of preparedness and provision God demonstrates in the Jewish Exodus is simply mind-blowing. He starts out by having Moses tell all the Jews to be packed and ready to go--shoes on their feet, walking sticks in hand (Exodus 12:11)--on the very night the Pharaoh would finally decide to tell them to leave. As a bonus, he has all the Egyptian neighbors of the Hebrew people heap them with fine gifts of gold, silver, brass, silks, and skins, etc. Why would he have them do that? Isn't it just extra stuff to lug around in the desert? As a matter of fact, no, because later on those very gifts turn out to be exactly what the Hebrews needed to build their Tabernacle. God knew exactly what they would need, when they would need it, and where and when they could get it and He provided--even in the case of a couple million people needing to build a really fancy mobile temple in the middle of nowhere. That's the wisdom of God!
By contrast, god in the Book of Mormon doesn't seem to be able to get his act together. While one might think he deliberately had Lehi run off without the book so his sons would have to fetch it, Nephi's explanation shoots down that possibility by pointing out that god would have sent Lehi back for it personally if not for the fact he'd then be killed when Jerusalem fell (for some reason that escapes logic). At first the wealth of Lehi's family seems to have been left deliberately for the express purpose of being used to buy Laban off...but then the gold is stolen by Laban and vanishes from the narrative, not even reappearing once Laban has been killed (maybe he threw it down one of the plot holes). In the end, there doesn't seem to be a reason why any of this had to happen in the first place. Taken altogether, the god in this book seems to be improvising almost as much as the writer. It's a disappointment, and it doesn't compare to the wisdom of the God of the Bible.
Wednesday, June 5, 2013
Comparable to the Bible: Lamentations
When I started the previous post, I wanted to write this one, but found it impossible to pass over Smith's terrible exposition without comment. What I wanted to do is compare (or more, contrast, since they are nothing alike) the attitudes of prophets during the time of Zedekiah, the final king of Jerusalem.
According to the Book of Mormon, Lehi was a prophet who lived in Jerusalem during Zedekiah's reign and first began to prophesy during that time, as reflected by the verses below:
Here he is, a Jew. He has lived his entire life in Jerusalem. He's raised his family there. Probably, as a boy or a young man he saw it restored to glory under Josiah (the last good king). Now he watches as moral decay takes over under wicked king after wicked king. He's seen the city sacked three times by two different foreign powers (Egypt after the death of Josiah and Babylon twice). Still, the city survives and the Jews bravely try to carry on. Then, in a dream, he receives a book from an angel informing him that his home city will be destroyed, most of his neighbors will die violent deaths, and the rest will be taken as prisoners of war to a far away land, never to see their homeland again. What is his reaction to this news?
Well...he shouts praises to God and rejoices wholeheartedly? I'm sorry, but that's how the passage reads. I'm sure this is not how it was meant to read and that there were other revelations that softened the blow--and that it was to these Lehi responded with praise and joy. But the abridgment skips over those completely. We can only assume they were there. All we know for sure is that Lehi is told his hometown, the pride of Israel and the place where God set His name and His house, is to be destroyed along with its inhabitants...and that Lehi rejoices and praises God.
Just thinking about it from a human perspective it's difficult to believe that anyone could be happy having just heard such terrible news. I know I would not be filled with joy and praise God upon learning that Colorado Springs was to be nuked and the survivors carted off to POW camps in North Korea.
But maybe that's the point. One might argue that the Book of Mormon is trying to teach us to look beyond the merely human perspective, where such things might grieve us, and--by looking on a higher level--praise God and rejoice in Him when these things happen. After all, the Bible does say to rejoice and praise God for everything?
While this may sound really spiritual, it isn't actually what the Bible says. Philippians 4:4 says we're to always rejoice in God and verse 6 says we should give Him thanks with all of our prayers, and should pray about everything. Neither of these imply that we have to be cheerful and grateful for everything God sends our way.
Or does it? The only way I can think of to resolve the question is to search the scriptures and look at examples of people who faced similar circumstances. It really does not take long to find a suitable candidate. Jeremiah lived and ministered during the reign of Zedekiah and was, therefore, (supposedly) a contemporary of Lehi. Like Lehi, he received many prophecies about the coming destruction of Jerusalem and proclaimed them to the people, often at his own peril. I reread parts of Jeremiah today, and I don't remember any talking about how happy these prophesies made him or how much he praised God and was filled with joy after receiving them. What did Jeremiah do instead? He wrote a book called Lamentations. As the title implies, its about as cheery as a dirge. While the book acknowledges that God is right and justified in the actions He's taken, it is wholehearted in bemoaning Jerusalem's fate. It is only after the turn in Lamentations 3:22 that there is any praise, and this is in reflecting that the destruction is not absolute and that God has promised to bring His people back again. Still, the book remains dismal even thereafter. Jeremiah's reaction to the prophesies he'd received of Jerusalem's fate (and his later witness of the same) is evident: the prophet mourned.
But perhaps this is because he was a man and had the wrong perspective. After all, no one is perfect, except the one man the Bible says was without sin: Jesus. He also had a prophesy of Jerusalem's destruction:
Now, perhaps this is not the intent of the passage. Perhaps there is something truly vital missing which would account for Lehi's joyful reaction. Whether there is or isn't, it remains that when disaster strikes--even if it is just punishment from God--we are free to weep (we are commanded to weep with those who weep, truth be told--Romans 12:15). If the author of the Book of Mormon simply did not see that this would have been Lehi's natural reaction and sufficiently account for it in the abridgment, which I see as the most likely explanation, I see it as another example of how their work does not compare with the Bible.
According to the Book of Mormon, Lehi was a prophet who lived in Jerusalem during Zedekiah's reign and first began to prophesy during that time, as reflected by the verses below:
And he read, saying: Wo, wo, unto Jerusalem, for I have seen thine abominations! Yea, and many things did my father read concerning Jerusalem--that it should be destroyed, and the inhabitants thereof; many should perish by the sword, and many should be carried away captive into Babylon. And it came to pass that when my father had read and seen many great and marvelous things, he did exclaim many things unto the Lord; such as: Great and marvelous are thy works, O Lord God Almighty! Thy throne is high in the heavens, and thy power, and goodness, and mercy are over all the inhabitants of the earth; and, because thou art merciful, thou wilt not suffer those who come unto thee that they shall perish! And after this manner was the language of my father in the praising of his God; for his soul did rejoice, and his whole heart was filled, because of the things which he had seen, yea, which the Lord had shown unto him.There are a few things I don't want to get distracted by here. The first is that woe has been misspelled, even though it is an exceptionally simple word. The second is the repetitive and jarring reminders that we are lacking crucial details here that Smith simply couldn't remember when he rewrote this section (the most logical explanation, unfortunately). What I do want to focus on is Lehi's reaction here.
Here he is, a Jew. He has lived his entire life in Jerusalem. He's raised his family there. Probably, as a boy or a young man he saw it restored to glory under Josiah (the last good king). Now he watches as moral decay takes over under wicked king after wicked king. He's seen the city sacked three times by two different foreign powers (Egypt after the death of Josiah and Babylon twice). Still, the city survives and the Jews bravely try to carry on. Then, in a dream, he receives a book from an angel informing him that his home city will be destroyed, most of his neighbors will die violent deaths, and the rest will be taken as prisoners of war to a far away land, never to see their homeland again. What is his reaction to this news?
Well...he shouts praises to God and rejoices wholeheartedly? I'm sorry, but that's how the passage reads. I'm sure this is not how it was meant to read and that there were other revelations that softened the blow--and that it was to these Lehi responded with praise and joy. But the abridgment skips over those completely. We can only assume they were there. All we know for sure is that Lehi is told his hometown, the pride of Israel and the place where God set His name and His house, is to be destroyed along with its inhabitants...and that Lehi rejoices and praises God.
Just thinking about it from a human perspective it's difficult to believe that anyone could be happy having just heard such terrible news. I know I would not be filled with joy and praise God upon learning that Colorado Springs was to be nuked and the survivors carted off to POW camps in North Korea.
But maybe that's the point. One might argue that the Book of Mormon is trying to teach us to look beyond the merely human perspective, where such things might grieve us, and--by looking on a higher level--praise God and rejoice in Him when these things happen. After all, the Bible does say to rejoice and praise God for everything?
While this may sound really spiritual, it isn't actually what the Bible says. Philippians 4:4 says we're to always rejoice in God and verse 6 says we should give Him thanks with all of our prayers, and should pray about everything. Neither of these imply that we have to be cheerful and grateful for everything God sends our way.
Or does it? The only way I can think of to resolve the question is to search the scriptures and look at examples of people who faced similar circumstances. It really does not take long to find a suitable candidate. Jeremiah lived and ministered during the reign of Zedekiah and was, therefore, (supposedly) a contemporary of Lehi. Like Lehi, he received many prophecies about the coming destruction of Jerusalem and proclaimed them to the people, often at his own peril. I reread parts of Jeremiah today, and I don't remember any talking about how happy these prophesies made him or how much he praised God and was filled with joy after receiving them. What did Jeremiah do instead? He wrote a book called Lamentations. As the title implies, its about as cheery as a dirge. While the book acknowledges that God is right and justified in the actions He's taken, it is wholehearted in bemoaning Jerusalem's fate. It is only after the turn in Lamentations 3:22 that there is any praise, and this is in reflecting that the destruction is not absolute and that God has promised to bring His people back again. Still, the book remains dismal even thereafter. Jeremiah's reaction to the prophesies he'd received of Jerusalem's fate (and his later witness of the same) is evident: the prophet mourned.
But perhaps this is because he was a man and had the wrong perspective. After all, no one is perfect, except the one man the Bible says was without sin: Jesus. He also had a prophesy of Jerusalem's destruction:
O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, which killest the prophets and stonest them that are sent unto thee; how often would I have gathered thy children together, as a hen doth gather her brood under her wings, and ye would not! Behold, your house is left unto you desolate: and verily I say unto you, Ye shall not see me, until the time come when ye shall say, Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord.We do not have as much evidence of how this impacted His mood, but there is no happiness in the way those words are delivered. Indeed, from looking around the Bible, it is clear that bringing disaster on His people is something God does not relish. He does not seem to expect us to relish it either.
Now, perhaps this is not the intent of the passage. Perhaps there is something truly vital missing which would account for Lehi's joyful reaction. Whether there is or isn't, it remains that when disaster strikes--even if it is just punishment from God--we are free to weep (we are commanded to weep with those who weep, truth be told--Romans 12:15). If the author of the Book of Mormon simply did not see that this would have been Lehi's natural reaction and sufficiently account for it in the abridgment, which I see as the most likely explanation, I see it as another example of how their work does not compare with the Bible.
Comparable to the Bible: Nephi IS Captain Obvious
Well, if you read my previous post on the first
sentence of the Book of Mormon, you know that my first impressions of the
book were not favorable. Sometimes first impression are misleading...but
sometimes they're actually spot on. Unfortunately, this seems to be a
case of the latter.
After a jarring, awkward, grammatically incorrect, and pointless
opening sentence, Nephi (the narrator of the first book, and supposedly its
author) proceeds to waste two additional verses relaying information which his
contemporaries would have found completely pointless.
First, he tells us what language he's writing in. That's
right: he feels the need to tell the people who are already reading this
account in its original language (Nephi would have had no idea it would be
translated into English--a language which would not even exist for a couple
thousand years or so--, and like all authors, would have written to be
understood by the people around him living at that time) what language they're
reading. It would be as if I felt the need to introduce this blog by
saying--in English--, "I'm writing this blog in modern English, the
language of America." What would be the point of such a statement?
If you could read it, then obviously you know that I'm writing in
English and are already extremely familiar with the language since you can read it! If
you can't read English my "this is in English" notice will do you no
good--you won't understand it because you don't read English. The only
way you'll be able to guess that it is English is if you know enough about the
appearance and characteristics of the language to guess its identity without being able to read the
notice. So it is with 1 Nephi 1:2, which tells the reader, "I
write a record [the book of 1 Nephi] in the language of my father which
consists of the learning of the Jews and the language of the Egyptians."
If you can't read that language (presumably reformed Egyptian) then you
can't decipher Nephi's little language notice. If you can, you already
know that what you're reading is reformed Egyptian, you probably know as much
of its linguistic background as he tells here, and if you don't do you really care?
Seriously, what would be the point of an historian or prophet telling his
readers what language it is they're reading and what its rough origins are?
Shouldn't he instead be spending his time actually writing history and or prophesies?
Compare to the Bible. The Bible was originally written in
three different languages. Most of the Old Testament was written in
Hebrew, the language of the Jews. A few parts of it (in Daniel and Ezra)
were written in Aramaic, one of the chief languages of the Babylonian and
Persian Empires in which they were written--which eventually became the main
language of the region. The New Testament was written in Greek, which
was, at the time supplanting Aramaic as the main language of the area and had
become the language of trade throughout the then-known world. Despite
having been written in three different original languages and sometimes having
those languages juxtaposed (as in the Aramaic sections of Daniel and Ezra), the
authors of the Bible did not feel the need to explain what language they were
using and give its background. There are two mentions of Aramaic near the
Aramaic sections, but they don't talk about the language the books are written
in, but the language the characters within the books are using. For example,
at the beginning of Daniel's Aramaic section, it says that the King of
Babylon's advisers asked him a question in Aramaic (as would be proper of them,
since it was the court language, thereby showing their decorum). In Ezra,
it mentions that the king of Persia's decree was written in Aramaic (by then a
major language of the empire, and therefore an important detail because it
establishes the scope of the decree's audience) and then translated into
further languages, which remain unnamed. At no point does an author start
telling the reader that they are presently reading Hebrew, Greek, or Aramaic in
that language since such a declaration would be totally pointless.
However, all of this assumes that Nephi was, in fact, the author
of the book that bears his name. If instead Joseph Smith was the author,
suddenly, Nephi's remarks on language become meaningful and relevant.
Nephi, of course, has no reason to tell his audience what language he's
using--it's their language too and they already know it. Smith, on the
other hand, (if he is the author) writes to early 19th century Americans,
telling them stories about the Hebrew ancestors of the American Indians
supposedly retrieved from the records of the same. One question his
audience will have (which would never have occurred to Nephi or his readers) is
"what language do these people speak? What is it like?"
Well, Smith could (as he did) describe the writing (supposedly) on the
plates and let that suffice. But if Smith is not so experienced, he may be
tempted to throw similar details into his narrative, putting them in Nephi's
mouth as a form of bad exposition, popularly called "As you know"--since in it a character takes time to
reveal to the audience beyond the fourth wall something that would be perfectly
obvious to the other characters that they're (supposedly) actually addressing.
The first verse arguably also contains a moment of As you know, pointlessly
recapping Nephi's life and childhood--which would be well known to his
descendants, the Nephites, since they were named after him. So I suppose
I should not be surprised, since further bad exposition fits with Smith's style
as a writer.
Moving on from the language notice, there's the matter of the
language itself. It's said to be the language of Nephi's father:
"which consists of the learning of the Jews and the language of the
Egyptians." Lehi (Nephi's father) is then established to be a Jew who
has "dwelt at Jerusalem all his days" (1 Nephi 1:4). Anyone
know what the language of Jerusalem was in 600BC?
Well, what language were all the books of the Bible penned at that time
(including Jeremiah, Lamentations, and 1 and 2 Kings) written in? They
were written in Hebrew. Even this Mormon article (scroll down to "What languages do
people speak here?") get's it right. Based on the writing of the
Bible books at the time, the language of Nephi's father was Hebrew. The
city had just been conquered and pillaged by the Aramaic-speaking Babylonian
Empire, who installed Zedekiah as the new (and last) king of the tributary
state (the Book of Mormon supposedly opens in the first year of Zedekiah's
reign, before his fateful rebellion against Babylon), so it's possible Nephi
knew Aramaic too. Since he had lived there all his life, he was probably
lived through the brief period when the city paid tribute to Egypt, their
sometimes-ally turned conqueror, briefly, so he may have know the Egyptian
language as well. But the only language we can be sure a Jew living all
his life in Jerusalem would know would be Hebrew and--it is very probable--he
would not have know any other languages at all. If he did, it's highly
unlikely he would have been literate in them, since that would have been far
less useful than being able to speak them. But let's say he did: the
language of Nephi's father would still be Hebrew and he would still write in
Hebrew, not some weird hybrid of Hebrew and Egyptian--since those languages
were distinct and no hybridization of them existed. If one did and was in
use in Jerusalem at the time, archaeologists would have found plenty of
evidence of it. Since Lehi lived his entire life in Jerusalem, we can't even theorize about developments of Hebrew and Egyptian over centuries in the isolation of the Americas--since Nephi, his son, explicitly says he's writing in the language his father used (meaning there are no centuries nor isolation to foster development). In fact, the only possible interpretation of Nephi's
words that makes any sense is that the language of his father refers not to
Lehi's native language (Hebrew--which is obviously not an admixture of
anything), or some language he knew from living in Jerusalem (where there was no
such admixture), or even to some language which developed later in the Americas (since development in isolation takes time) but to a language Lehi made up completely on his own while living in Jerusalem or shortly thereafter.
Why would he invent his own language from two existing languages and then teach his sons to keep records in it? I invent languages because I'm a fantasy writer and I use them in my stories--but when I want to write something down for use by people I know I use English not some language I made up. The only plausible reason I can think of for Lehi making up a language and teaching it to his sons was if he was paranoid and used it as some sort of a code to keep everything he wrote secret. When Lehi and the kids moved to the Americas (as, I gather, happens eventually), they could have been left using dad's old code out of habit, I suppose--but this only makes Nephi even more of a Captain Obvious for taking up a verse telling his readers what language he's using and where it came from in the first place (I have a bad feeling that I'll find more in common with this book and bad pages from TV Tropes.org than the Bible). They would all have known for their entire lives that this was Dad's wacky old code that he made up from Egyptian and Hebrew! Further, if we consider Joseph Smith the author, hasn't he been telling everybody around that the plates are written in Reformed Egyptian, which is a strange mix of Hebrew and Egyptian languages? We suppose that hearers might ask how he knows this, and he could (as he did) simply claim a divine gift of languages that allows him to determine it is so and this will suffice...but since Smith has an established love for pointless exposition he will further make sure to cram a description of the language into Nephi's mouth.
Unfortunately, this is the explanation that makes the most sense. It also answers the question of why Nephi was (supposedly) writing in a mixture of Hebrew and Egyptian and felt the need to explain that it was so to his readers. Everyone knew that ancient Jews wrote in Hebrew, but Hebrew was known and decipherable to scholars of 19th century America. If Smith claimed it was Hebrew he was deciphering, someone could test him by giving him actual Hebrew text with a known meaning. However Egyptian hieroglyphs had been indecipherable for centuries and was only just becoming understandable to European scholars through study of the Rosetta Stone. Since no one yet reliably knew what Egyptian writing meant, if Smith claimed to be reading it, no one could challenge him. If he claimed it was a mixture of the two (Egyptian and Hebrew), he was doubly safe since no one had any idea what that would even look like. Furthermore, Egyptian was exotic, unknown, and exciting, adding to the appeal of the already reported awesome-but-impractical gold plates--and someone with a con artist upbringing (which we know Smith had) would surely learn to appeal to people's sense of awe and mystery whenever possible. Hence, he sees fit to remind readers of this mysterious hybrid language that the book was supposedly written in, in an effort to build mystery and intrigue--an effort which ultimately backfires because writing a good book is different from pulling off a good con.
Unfortunately, this is the explanation that makes the most sense. It also answers the question of why Nephi was (supposedly) writing in a mixture of Hebrew and Egyptian and felt the need to explain that it was so to his readers. Everyone knew that ancient Jews wrote in Hebrew, but Hebrew was known and decipherable to scholars of 19th century America. If Smith claimed it was Hebrew he was deciphering, someone could test him by giving him actual Hebrew text with a known meaning. However Egyptian hieroglyphs had been indecipherable for centuries and was only just becoming understandable to European scholars through study of the Rosetta Stone. Since no one yet reliably knew what Egyptian writing meant, if Smith claimed to be reading it, no one could challenge him. If he claimed it was a mixture of the two (Egyptian and Hebrew), he was doubly safe since no one had any idea what that would even look like. Furthermore, Egyptian was exotic, unknown, and exciting, adding to the appeal of the already reported awesome-but-impractical gold plates--and someone with a con artist upbringing (which we know Smith had) would surely learn to appeal to people's sense of awe and mystery whenever possible. Hence, he sees fit to remind readers of this mysterious hybrid language that the book was supposedly written in, in an effort to build mystery and intrigue--an effort which ultimately backfires because writing a good book is different from pulling off a good con.
Even after all of this, though, Nephi still has to play Captain Obvious for at least one more verse for the sake of helping Smith establish his credibility and mystery as a narrator. "And I know that the record which I make is true; and I make it with mine own hand; and I make it according to my knowledge," he says in verse three. The first two lines are forgivable. He might well state that he knows the truthfulness of what he's writing. This is not so different from how some Bible authors have supported their veracity. He might also clarify that he is writing this himself rather than through a scribe, if scribes are common enough (which remains to be seen). But that third line? That's Nephi being Captain Obvious. Of course he's writing stuff that he knows--he already said he's writing stuff he knows is true!
After that, Nephi finally gets the ball rolling, but even then, he remains Captain Obvious. He begins relating his father's spiritual experiences in Jerusalem, but is obviously leaving things out, saying things like "he saw and heard much; and because of the things he saw and heard he did quake and tremble exceedingly" (1 Nephi 1:6), "Yea, and many things did my father read concerning Jerusalem" (1 Nephi 1:13), "And it came to pass when my father and read and seen many great and marvelous things" (1 Nephi 1:14), "And after this manner was the language of my father in the praising of his God" (1 Nephi 1:15). But then, in verse 16, Nephi feels the need to tell us--in case we hadn't caught on--that he's leaving stuff out: that he's not giving a "full account" of everything his father did, said, and wrote (for bonus points, he actually says this twice). He spends verse seventeen explaining that he's actually abridging his father's work, after which he will talk about his own life (which he says he'll do twice in this verse and once in verse 1, making him fully qualified for a position in the Department of Redundancy Department). Why he's bothering to abridge his father's records is never explained. However, once one considers Smith as the author, the reason is obvious: the Lost 116 Pages. Smith had a previous draft where he'd used Lehi (Nephi's father) as the narrator and he'd lost it (presumably to critics). Fearing that his critics would expose him as a fraud if he made any changes in rewriting the same passage (or, as the LDS official story goes, if the critics forged any changes while he retranslanted the same passage), he came up with the clever idea of an abridgment (or god conveniently had Nephi abridge things thousands of years ahead of time, even though Nephi never says this is his reason). Smith needed to reproduce the missing pages because that was how his story started, but he didn't want to risk contradicting himself, so he not only abridged but was painfully obvious about it, leaving out many no-doubt-important details so that he could never find himself facing a contradictory copy of the original manuscript. No one ever did. It was probably destroyed.
Of course, actual prophets in the Bible faced the problem of missing manuscripts. Jeremiah wrote a prophesy on a scroll (or more accurately, dictated it to the scribe Baruch, who wrote it on a scroll) and gave it to King Jehoiakim. Jehoiakim was not a fan of what God had to say and had the thing burned. In Jeremiah 36:27-32 God has Jeremiah dictate the scroll again to Baruch, and he adds words to it! That the new scroll was not an exact copy of the old was not a problem for a legitimate prophet. However, Smith was not acting as a legitimate prophet. If he'd been prophesying with legitimate power from God, he wouldn't have needed to reproduce his former words exactly. If he'd been translating with legitimate power from God, he would have been able to reproduce the lost section (that he didn't try is as good as an admission that he couldn't do it). However, since neither of these were true, Smith was forced to improvise.
It shows. Nephi's abridgment compares horribly with abridgment in the Bible. The books of 1 and 2 Chronicles are transparent about the fact that they abridge other records, frequently reminding the reader that if they want to know more about something they can read this other source (2 Chronicles 36:8 for example). Yet the reading is always smooth. You don't feel like vital parts are being overlooked: you feel like your getting the whole picture, or at least the Cliffnotes version thereof. Though these frequent reminders let you know that details are being left out, Chronicles doesn't tease you the way Nephi does by starting to get detailed only to grow unexpectedly vague just when something important was about to happen (1 Nephi 1:6, for example, where a vision starts in stunning detail and then we are told simply that Lehi saw and heard lots of things and cut to him going to bed overwhelmed with the enormity of them...which we unfortunately can't share because Smith couldn't remember enough of the details to be confident in rewriting that part). Comparison between the two serves only to highlight how much of a Captain Obvious and a poor historian Nephi really is (or would be, if he were real and not just an unfortunate character in Smith's hack fiction).
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