Literary Themes in the Book of Mormon

The Nephite-Kenite Hypothesis: Nephi as Scribe

2011-01-17T21:41:00.006-07:00

“It is to writings that you must set your mind ... I do not see an office comparable with [the scribe's] ... I shall make you love books more than [you love] your mother, and I shall place their excellence before you.”

-- From the Egyptian text The Satire on the Trades: The Instruction of Dua-Khety

Literacy in the ancient world was restricted to a very elite group, and the Near East was no exception.[1] Over ninety percent of the populace lived on farms and were almost completely illiterate, although some could write their name or recognize it on a seal. A small group of urban dwellers comprising around five percent of the population would have had some functional literacy.[2] But even many among this group, including scribes, were merely capable of copying simple documents and signing their names.[3] Those who could create extensive literary texts were extremely rare:

It seems prudent, therefore, when speaking of literacy, to make a distinction between the ability to write something and the ability to produce literature. Put differently, we might distinguish between rudimentary writing and refined writing. Rudimentary writing would include the ability to write one's own name, to record basic receipts of goods received, and perhaps even to engrave words on a seal or other object. Refined writing, by contrast, would be restricted to a particular social group and wold result in the production of highly complex texts demonstrating great learning and skill in the artful use of repetition, direct discourse, rhetorical patterning and the like.[4]

This limited group of individuals was influential: “Egyptian scribes could attain great wealth, prestige and position. The most highly regarded were priestly scribes, a station reserved for a select few.”[5] These scribes were usually connected to the temple[6] and functioned as a hereditary guild:

On the whole, the scribal profession was hereditary. “The son takes the profession of his father,” according to a Sumerian school text. In the first millennium, knowledge was also passed on from father to son, especially when the son was at a more advanced phase of his studies. Colophons show that junior scribes would often copy tablets for their fathers’ collections—collections that they would eventually inherit. In the different cities of southern Mesopotamia, scribes were organized according to families. Many of them traced their ancestry back to the late second millennium b.c.e.[7]

The biblical record also details families of scribes (cf. 1 Chron 2:55), and Nephi speaks of learning the things of his father and handing down records within his own family clan. It is in this context that we must examine the scope of Nephi's texts, for his output is not rudimentary in any sense but rather highly sophisticated literature. He has been taught in scribal languages, he creates record divisions that mirror scribal techniques of his day, he uses literary formulas prevalent in scribal training texts, he copies biblical texts, he creates commentaries (or pesherim) to apply them to his own situation, and he deliberately crafts his narratives to mirror those of key biblical events. So when we look at indicators of professions for Nephi and Lehi, we must first start with that of scribe.

Nephi appears to know at least Hebrew and Egyptian fluently. He tells us that he makes his record in the language of his father, “which consists of the learning of the Jews and the language of the Egyptians" (1 Nephi 1:2), later called “reformed Egyptian” by Moroni (Moroni 9:32). The “learning of the Jews” likely refers to Hebrew, as the record keepers knew this language as well (Moroni 9:33-34). And their fluency in Egyptian likely aided Lehi and Nephi to read the records on the Brass Plates (Mosoiah 1:3-4), Nephi having been taught in the learning of his father (1 Nephi 1:1). While a merchant might have some training in the languages among whose cultures he moved, an extensive literary fluency in those languages indicates the world of scribes, who were trained in Egyptian from the tenth century B.C.[8]

The very fact that Lehi and Nephi are adapting and combining languages is another scribal indicator. Tvedtnes and Ricks have compiled examples of Israelite scribes doing just this, including

an ostracon uncovered at Arad in 1967. Dating “toward the end of the seventh century B.C.,” it reflects usage from shortly before 600 B.C., the time of Lehi. The text on the ostracon is written in a combination of Egyptian hieratic and Hebrew characters, but can be read entirely as Egyptian.[9]

Egyptian Hieratic and Demotic are themselves examples of languages modified by scribes and priests for different purposes and different surfaces.[10] Frank Moore Cross addressed why this class in particular would frequently adapt the languages with which they worked:

A Canaanite scribe who was bilingual or trilingual, who could write in more than one writing system, evidently was freer to let his imagination range, to contemplate the possibility of other, simpler alternates to the writing systems he knew.[11]

Aside from that fact that knowing Egyptian and adapting Egyptian are both indicative of scribal training, Nephi specifically uses literary formulas from Egyptian texts used to train scribes. Among other markers, Nibley points to the phrase “I, Nephi, having been born of goodly parents” as mimicking the opening lines of hundreds of Egyptian literary autobiographies,[12] and he compares Nephi's narrative to the Egyptian epic story of Sinuhe. Yet these autobiographies and stories are the very texts used for training scribes in the Egyptian system.[13] Referring specifically to the Sinuhe narrative, William Simpson tells us that “master scribes and their students copied the text in school on limestone flakes (ostraca)” and that “with the exception of religious texts and various standard formulas, few other compositions are represented in as many copies or partial copies.”[14]

Another indicator of Nephi's scribal training is apparent in the way he references additional records that contain parallel information, such as Lehi's record:

And now I, Nephi, do not give the genealogy of my fathers in this part of my record; neither at any time shall I give it after upon these plates which I am writing; for it is given in the record which has been kept by my father; wherefore, I do not write it in this work. (1 Nephi 6:1; see also 1:17; 19:2.)

He also refers to information on a prior set of records he has made:

And I knew not at the time when I made them that I should be commanded of the Lord to make these plates; wherefore, the record of my father, and the genealogy of his fathers, and the more part of all our proceedings in the wilderness are engraven upon those first plates of which I have spoken; wherefore, the things which transpired before I made these plates are, of a truth, more particularly made mention upon the first plates. (1 Nephi 19:2.)

This technique of referencing information in other records is common to the scribes of his time and place. Charles David Isbell, among others, refers to a formula used by the scribes who edited 1 and 2 Kings:

Beginning with Solomon, numerous times following the notice of a king's death, the biblical text offers the following disclaimer: “Now the rest of the activities of ________, are they not written in the Book of the _________?” The only change in this formula is the name of the king and the exact name of the book.[15]

Walter Dietrich refers to it as a “regular concluding formula,”[16] while Marvin Sweeney calls it a “concluding regnal formula.”[17] Yet this is a recognized scribal technique that Nephi uses frequently in his own narrative. He even seems to realize that basic devices such as a genealogy list would normally occur in particular areas of a text of his genre, which is why he points out that the data that would usually be expected in a certain location is really found in another record.

Nephi not only copies large blocks of scriptures (mostly Isaiah), the province and practice of scribes, but he also provides a commentary on these verses to apply them particularly to his time and place. Isaiah's words become relevant because, adapted for his purposes, they refer to his people as a branch of Israel, they prophecy the very record that he creates, and they speak of judgment and mercy for his descendants. He adapts Isaiah's words to his community and the politics of his community. To be sure, his commentary (pesher) will be different than others', but this type of interpretation and rereading is the common practice of priestly scribes throughout Jewish literature,[18] and it particularly resembles the pesherim of the Qumran community:

These Qumran writings contain one unusual type of annotation: "They are not commentaries in the modern sense of the term. Their keyword is, in Hebrew, pesher, and pesher means properly the interpretation of a dream or the unravelling of a puzzle." Thus they apply the hidden meaning of the scriptures to the Qumran group by means of long quotations handled verse by verse: "The pesharim are a group of sectarian writings that present, section by section, continuous commentaries on biblical books." The Old Testament books are written out but regularly interrupted with comments on fulfillment, typically introduced by the ritual phrase, "the interpretation concerns." In other words, the community looked to its spiritual leaders to teach the sense and application of the prophets. Most comments follow prophet extracts, though sometimes they introduce them—a pattern similar to that found in Book of Mormon commentaries. Both Qumran and Nephite literatures are similar not only in treasuring their own prophecies and psalms, but also in devoting a large block of writing to biblical quotation and explanation. In neither culture are their leaders free to speak without reviewing their scriptural heritage in detail . . . [19]

Perhaps the best indicator of Nephi's extensive training is his ability to craft his narratives in a way that shows he is deliberately mirroring the structure of other biblical narratives. For example, a number of LDS scholars have noted Nephi's extensive use of the Exodus pattern to illustrate his family's voyage out of Jerusalem to their own promised land.[20] Terrence L. Szink tells us that “quite probably, Nephi, the author of this section, consciously wrote his account of the wilderness journey in a way that would remind the reader of the Exodus of the children of Israel from Egypt.”[21] He follows this with an extensive list of textual points of contact.[22] He concludes with the following:

There are a number of parallels between the stories of these two groups of people, both led by God's hand through trials in a desert wilderness to a new land. Some are general, and others are specific and very clear. It seems to me that such a large body of parallels cannot be accounted for by coincidence. It appears that Nephi purposefully wrote his account in a way that would reflect the Exodus. His intention was to prove that God loved and cared for the Nephites just as he did the children of Israel during the Exodus from Egypt.

Certainly this connection could not have been a product of Joseph Smith's writing. The parallels to Exodus occur at dozens of places throughout the Book of Mormon record. No hasty copying of the Bible could have produced such complex similarities, not to mention the differences that remain. In fact, because they are so quiet and underlying, no Latter-day Saint until our day has even noticed these comparisons. Nephi clearly composed a masterpiece full of subtle literary touches that we are only now beginning to appreciate.[23]

Other scholars are just as convinced. Mark Johnson tells us that “We cannot conclude whether the Lehites were aware of the parallels to the Exodus as they were reenacting them, although it appears that Nephi did at least thirty years later,”[24] and “We find that the parallels between the two instances of exodus are numerous.”[25]

Another example of biblical intertextuality appears as Nephi crafts his narrative about the slaying of Laban in a way that alludes to the story of David and Goliath. After Ben McGuire examines the evidence, he concludes that the “allusion seems to be intended to convince its readers that Nephi is a legitimate king and that there was a dynastic shift from the Davidic line of kings.”[26] These types of deliberate, subtle allusions are the product of someone with extensive training in literature and language. As we narrow our search to locate Nephi and Lehi in the world of 600 B.C., we must first acknowledge that they are trained scribes. Knowing this also tells us that we will soon be forced to consider the world of priests and temples.

Notes

1. Cf. Piotr Bienkowski and Alan Millard (eds.), Dictionary of the Ancient Near East (Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2000) 182; Phillip R. Davies, Scribes and Schools: the Canonization of the Hebrew Scriptures (Louisville, Kentucky: Westminster John Knox Press, 1998) 77; William G. Dever, Did God Have a Wife: Archaeology and Folk Religion in Ancient Isreal (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdmans, 2005) 28; David W. Jamieson-Drake, Scribes and Schools in Monarchic Judah: A Socio-Archeological Approach (Sheffield, England: Sheffield Academic Press, 1991) 154-157; Eric A. Seibert, Subversive Scribes and the Solomonic Narrative: A Reading of 1 Kings 1-11 (New York, NY: T&T Clark, 2006) 46; Daniel C. Snell, A Companion to the Ancient Near East (Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 2005) 196, 245, 330.

2. Karel Van der Toorn, Scribal Culture and the Making of the Hebrew Bible (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 2007) 10; Others have argued that this estimate is too high. In “Literacy and Ancient Egyptian Society” J. Baines argues that literacy in Egypt couldn't have been more than one percent (Man n.s. [London: Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland, 1983) 572-99, as cited in Rivkah Harris, “The Female Sage in Mesopotamian Literature (with an Appendix on Egypt)” published in John G. Gammie and Leo Perdue (eds.), The Sage in Israel and the Ancient Near East [Eisenbrauns, 1990] 15.

3. Bart D. Ehrman, Whose Word is It? (New York, NY: Continuum Publishing, 2006) 38-39.

4. Seibert, 49.

5. Steven Roger Fischer, A History of Writing (London: St Edmundsbury Press, 2001) 45.

6. Cf., Snell, 196; Van der Toorn, 2-4, 56;

7. Van der Toorn, 62.

8. Robert F. Smith, “Epistolary Form in the Book of Mormon,” FARMS Review: 22/2 (Provo, Utah: Maxwell Institute, 2010), accessed on January 15, 2011.

9. John A. Tvedtnes and Stephen D. Ricks, “Jewish and Other Semitic Texts Written in Egyptian Characters,” JBMS 5/2 (Provo, Utah: Maxwell Institute, 1996) 161.

10. Hugh Nibley (Teachings of the Book of Mormon, vol. 1 [electronic edition] 44) emphasizes the role of exiled priestly scribes (like Lehi) in developing and adapting languages:

Incidentally, at that very time (the generation that Lehi was living) was the time that Reformed Egyptian (Demotic) became the official government language. In the twenty-sixth dynasty, the time of Semiticus II and of Lehi, it became the official way of writing. It was this new reformed type of Egyptian known as Demotic. And at the very same time, the priests who used to be in the former royal court at Napata fled farther to Meroë. There they produced a new type of Egyptian at this time which was Meroitic (I've got a picture of it here).

11. Frank Moore Cross, "Frank Moore Cross—An Interview, Part III: How the Alphabet Democratized Civilization," Bible Review 8/6 (December 1992): 21 as cited in Robert F. Smith, “Epistolary Form in the Book of Mormon.”

12. Nibley, 41.

13. William Kelly Simpson, The Literature of Ancient Egypt: An Anthology of Stories, Instructions, Stelae, Autobiographies, and Poetry (Yale University Press, 2003) 438.

14. Ibid., 54.

15. Charles David Isbell, “History and Writing”, accessed on January 17, 2011.

16. Walter Dietrich, “1 and 2 Kings” in John Barton and John Muddiman (eds.), The Oxford Biblical Commentary (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001) 232.

17. Marvin A. Sweeney, I and II Kings (Louisville, Kentucky: John Knox Press, 2007) 161.

18. Cf., J. Blenkinsopp, Opening the Sealed Book: Interpretations of the Book of Isaiah in Late Antiquity (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdmans, 2006), passim.

19. Richard Lloyd Anderson, “Imitation Gospels and Christ's Book of Mormon Ministry” in C. Wilfred Griggs (ed.), Apocryphal Writings and the Latter-day Saints (Provo: BYU Religious Studies Center, 1986), accessed on January 17, 2011.

20. Cf., George S. Tate, "The Typology of the Exodus Pattern in the Book of Mormon," in Neal E. Lambert (ed.), Literature of Belief: Sacred Scripture and Religious Experiences (Provo: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University, 1981), 245–62; Terrence L. Szink, "To a Land of Promise (1 Nephi 16–18)," in Kent P. Jackson (ed.), Studies in Scripture: Volume Seven, 1 Nephi to Alma 29 (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1987), 60–72; S. Kent Brown, "The Exodus Pattern in the Book of Mormon," BYU Studies 30 (Summer 1990): 112–26; and Bruce J. Boehm, "Wanderers in the Promised Land: A Study of the Exodus Motif in the Book of Mormon and Holy Bible," JBMS 3/1 (Spring 1944): 187–203.

21. Terrence L. Szink, “Nephi and the Exodus” in John L. Sorenson and Melvin J. Thorne (eds.), Rediscovering the Book of Mormon (Shadow Mountain, 1991), accessed on January 15, 2011.

22. Ibid.

23. Ibid.

24. Mark J. Johnson, “The Exodus of Lehi Revisited” JBMS 3/2 (Provo, Utah: Maxwell Institute, 1994) 125.

25. Ibid., 126.

26. Ben McGuire, “Nephi and Goliath: A Case Study of Literary Allusion in the Book of Mormon,” Journal of the Book of Mormon and Other Restoration Scripture: 18/1 (Provo, Utah: Maxwell Institute, 2009), accessed on January 15, 2011.

The Nephite-Kenite Hypothesis: Introduction

2011-01-03T20:59:00.002-07:00

Moses takes his leave of Jethro, by Jan Victors

In his book An Approach to the Book of Mormon, Hugh Nibley fleshed out the religious, economic and cultural milieu of 600 B.C. and painted the picture of Lehi as merchant. This created a base camp from which various LDS scholars have launched intriguing explorations into Lehi's background. While all of this is highly speculative, I do think we can advance the discussion by systematically gathering all the indicators about Lehi that would align with specific trades of his time and then template these professions over a background that best fits this training. After doing so, I propose that the closest match will have some connection to the Midianites and their sub-clans the Kenites and Rechabites, metalworking tribes in the Levant.

This exploration will entail multiple parts. The first three sections will entail documenting the indicators of Lehi's apparent professional training as priest, scribe, and metalworker. To do so I will use Nephi's narrative about Lehi as well as texts about Nephi and his siblings. Remember that the socio-economic environment of the ancient near east was structured into guilds that were clan-based and the trades of the father were usually the trades of the son. Thus, Nephi tells us that he “was taught somewhat in the learning of [his] father” (1 Nephi 1:1), which aligns with the practice of the times. It also means that indicators about Nephi's background can give us some insight into Lehi and his origins as well, since in a guild-clan structure Nephi would reflect the learning and trade of his fathers.

After documenting the indicators for Lehi and Nephi as priests, scribes, and metalworkers, I plan to examine how someone trained in all three of these professions would fit within a Midianite context. Metalworking in ancient Palestine was not practiced by Israelites but rather by Phoenicians on the coasts or Midanites/Kenites to the south in the copper mines of the Trans-Jordan. It is among these Midianites that Moses finds refuge, and it is the Midianite priest Jethro who mentors Moses before he is divinely commissioned to return to Israel. These priestly tribes accompany Israel into Canaan and inter-marry with their priestly families and are listed as scribes and counted as members of various tribes. On the eve of destruction, Jeremiah gathers the Rechabite priests in the temple to commend them on their zeal in obeying the commands of their father. This is the milieu in which I believe that Lehi's background is to be found, among the Midianite/Kenite/Rechabite lineage that carried the Melchezidek priesthood (see D&C 84), which Lehi appears to hold.

Adam Versus the Patriarchs: Covenant Renewal in the Book of Mormon

2010-10-26T21:48:00.004-06:00

Over the last century, archaeologists have uncovered many treaties from the Ancient Near East (ANE) that served to regulate the affairs between powerful nations and their vassal states. Scholars have subsequently shown that many biblical texts follow the format of these vassal treaties, especially the covenant rituals found in portions of Joshua and Deuteronomy. Frank Moore Cross tells us, “The parade example of the covenant ritual is found in the accounts of Joshua's covenant making in Joshua 24:2-28 happily supplemented by Joshua 8:30-34 and Deuteronomy 27 (11) 15-26.”[1]

What I find interesting is that some scholars have noted that the biblical texts behind these vassal treaties create a direct link to the patriarchs while omitting any connection to personages in the primeval history (Genesis 1-11) such as Adam. For example, Lloyd Bailey notes that the covenant ceremony in Joshua 24 begins with a retelling of the migration of Abraham and that Deuteronomy 26 also begins with the homeless wandering of the patriarchs. He concludes that “the ‘primeval’ events thus may seem to us to be conspicuously absent from the recitals.”[2]

In the Book of Mormon, King Benjamin’s address is often discussed by LDS scholars in the context of these same ANE covenant-renewal ceremonies.[3] An interesting difference, however, is Benjamin’s reliance on comparisons to Adam and not to the patriarchs. Unlike the covenant renewal ceremonies in the biblical texts that compare the ritual to the patriarchs, Benjamin explains the salvific ritual in the context of Adam’s garden story no less than five times:

I say, that this is the man who receiveth salvation, through the atonement which was prepared from the foundation of the world for all mankind, which ever were since the fall of Adam, or who are, or who ever shall be, even unto the end of the world. (Mos 4:7; see also 3:11, 16, 19, 26).

Why does the covenant-renewal theology in the Book of Mormon link to Adam while the covenant texts from the Hebrew Bible link to the patriarchs? It's an interesting question. Covenant renewal liturgy in the Hebrew Bible that does reference Adam, the creation, and other aspects of the primeval history can be found in numerous Psalms that also reference a fall festival that would have included a combined pre-exilic Tabernacles/Day of Atonement coronation ritual for the king as Yahweh.[4] On the other hand, the Deuteronomistic reforms that lie behind the passages in Joshua and Deuteronomy appear to omit the Day of Atonement that is the cultic setting for these Psalms (as well as Benjamin’s sermon). In other words, the Book of Mormon appears to reflect a faith setting prior to (or at variance with) the Deuteronomistic reforms.

As many LDS scholars have pointed out, the similarities between this text from Mosiah and the biblical covenant-renewal passages are important in establishing a common ANE pattern between both texts. What I am asking here is this: are the differences illuminating as well?

Notes

1. Frank Moore Cross, Canaanite Myth and Hebrew Epic: Essays in the History of the Religion of Israel (USA: Harvard University Press, 1973) 84.

2. Lloyd R. Bailey, Noah: The Person and the Story in History and Tradition (Columbia, SC: Univ of SC Press 1989) 117.

3. Cf., Stephen Ricks, “Kingship, Coronation, and Covenant in Mosiah 1-6,” in Stephen D. Ricks and John W. Welch (eds.), King Benjamin's Speech: "That Ye May Learn Wisdom" accessed at http://maxwellinstitute.byu.edu/publications/books/?bookid=31&chapid=121

on October 26, 2010.

4. See my series of posts on the Fall Festival in ancient Israel and the Book of Mormon:

The Annual Fall Festival in the Book of Mormon
The Fall Festival in Jacob 2-3
“Rid of Your Blood”: Robes and Atonement in the Book of Mormon
A Tower and a Name: Benjamin as the Anti-Nimrod

The Fall Festival in Jacob 2-3

2010-07-28T23:12:00.006-06:00

Some weeks ago I started a series of posts that attempted to identify a number of Book of Mormon texts that appeared to have the autumn or fall festival (Day of Atonement/Feast of Tabernacles) as their setting. In one of the first posts in this series (“The Annual Fall Festival in the Book of Mormon”), I documented a few reasons why the three festivals in the harvest month of Tishri (Num 29; Lev 23) were originally part of a single fall harvest festival that contained elements of what would later be separated into the separate feasts. I noted that some of the themes from this festival appeared in the form of imagery of gates and robes used by Book of Mormon prophets. In “A Tower and a Name: Benjamin as the Anti-Nimrod” I made the case that the theology of this fall festival explains the context behind the tower story in Genesis and that King Benjamin is consciously using these same festival themes as well as the tower rebellion as a reference point in his narrative to address descendants of the those who came from that tower. For the reasons given below, I also believe that this fall festival underlies the sermon in Jacob 2-3 and that this context gives Jacob's words added depth.

The fall festival of ancient Israel celebrated the enthronement of Jehovah as king. It was the Day of Judgment as well as the Day of Atonement, when the Lord provided healing for his people and their land. Psalms that preserve the temple ritual behind this fall festival tell us that it begins with a procession of the people ascending up to the gates of the temple, where they ask the keeper of the gate for admittance:

Open to me the gates of righteousness: I will go into them, and I will praise the LORD: This gate of the LORD, into which the righteous shall enter. (Psalm 118:19-20 KJV)

This is the generation of them that seek him, that seek thy face, O Jacob. Lift up your heads, O ye gates; and be ye lift up, ye everlasting doors; and the King of glory shall come in. (Psalm 24:6-7 KJV)

The gatekeeper asks them questions about their worthiness to enter:

Who shall ascend into the hill of the LORD? or who shall stand in his holy place? He that hath clean hands, and a pure heart; who hath not lifted up his soul unto vanity, nor sworn deceitfully. (Psa 24:3 KJV)

As part of the ritual, the assembled people at the temple would present themselves inside the gates of the temple before the high priest to be purified from their sins. On this day the high priest has set aside his multi-colored garments with jeweled and gold-plated accoutrements (see Exodus 28) and has put on the simple white linen robe of a common Levite (Lev 16:4; “these are holy garments,” says the text). He takes a censer of burning coals behind the veil into the holy of holies (Lev 16:12)—the one time in the year that he is allowed to enter God's presence in this most holy place (Lev 16:2). He sets the censer on the ground before the Mercy Seat (kapporeth, or ‘atonement cover’) and places incense on the burning coals so that a cloud covers God's throne (Lev 16:13). He exits the holy of holies and sacrifices the goat designated “for the Lord” (Lev 16:15), collecting its blood in a basin. Back within the veil, he sprinkles the blood on and before the mercy seat to “make atonement for the holy place, because of the uncleanness of the children of Israel, and because of their transgression in all their sins” (Lev 16:16). In the darkness much of the blood lands on his robes, and so he removes them and immerses himself to wash away the ritual impurity, putting on his usual high-priestly robes afterward (Lev 16:23-24).

After the blood ritual, the high priest addresses those assembled as God's representative, reading from key biblical texts and giving them divine guidance as if he were God himself. One of the autumn festival texts from Psalms documents how he would likely start: “Hear, O my people, and I will testify unto thee: O Israel, if thou wilt hearken unto me” (Psalm 81:8 KJV). Another psalm from this festival is similar: “For he is our God, and we are the people of his pasture, and the sheep of his hand. O that today you would hearken to his voice!” (Psalm 95:7 RSV). These words of God are often a rebuke to the people for their disobedience, greed and lack of social consciousness. Thus, in Psalm 15:5, the high priest, representing God, rails against those who charge interest when lending money to the innocent. And in another fall festival psalm that Jacob will reference in his discourse, the priest talks about the disobedience of their ancestors: “Harden not your heart, as in the provocation, and as in the day of temptation in the wilderness: When your fathers tempted me, proved me, and saw my work” (Psalm 95:9 KJV). One Day of Atonement text from Isaiah reproves Israel for not taking care of those in need:

Is not this the fast that I have chosen? to loose the bands of wickedness, to undo the heavy burdens, and to let the oppressed go free, and that ye break every yoke? Is it not to deal thy bread to the hungry, and that thou bring the poor that are cast out to thy house? when thou seest the naked, that thou cover him; and that thou hide not thyself from thine own flesh? (Isaiah 58:6-7 KJV)

Isaiah's comments reference the sabbatical and Jubilee requirements—holy periods that are initiated by fasting on the Day of Atonement as part of the autumn festival—to release both people and land from bondage and to take care of their needs.

Jacob's sermon in the Book of Mormon comprising Jacob chapters 2-3 is a powerful discourse that touches on these themes from the fall festival—judgment, accountability, and social responsibility. He is a priest (Jacob 1:18)—and very likely the high priest as well. This fact colors much of how he thinks and what he says. Several of the indicators that point to the fall festival as the cultic Sitz im Leben for his sermon include aspects of location, theme, textual citations, and imagery.

Jacob has assembled his people at the temple for instruction, and in ancient Israel, these assemblies occurred as part of the festivals. We know that the Nephites observed the festivals of ancient Israel because this would have been part of the law that they repeatedly tell us that they kept (cf. 2 Ne 5:10; 2 Ne 25:24; Jarom 1:5; Alma 30:2-3). Jacob tells us that he is directed to go up to the temple “on the morrow” to teach his people. Is this an ad-hoc gathering that is organized at the last minute, or is Jacob receiving revelation in preparation for something that is already scheduled for the next day? If the biblical tradition were being followed here in the temple patterned after that of Solomon, then this would be the latter case and Jacob would be inquiring of the Lord in order to prepare for a sacred ceremony that involved addressing the assembled people.

While the setting for Jacob's speech is the temple, the context is sin and judgment. This is the purpose of the Day of Atonement, which is the Day of Judgment. The assembled are confronted with their sins and then redeemed through the atoning ritual involving the blood of the goat “for Jehovah” shed on their behalf. “You are beginning to labor in sin,” he tells his people (Jacob 2:5). He combines the concepts of the judgments of God coming upon them (Jacob 2:14) with the redemptive idea that God can rid them of their abomination (Jacob 2:16). The entire sermon reflects the potential wrath of God, which occurs “when ye shall be brought before the throne of God” (Jacob 3:8), a judgment scene before the heavenly throne. It is followed by a reference to the sins of the children being heaped on parents at the last day (Jacob 3:10) and being thrown into the lake of fire (Jacob 3:11), clear references to the Judgment Day.

The other aspect of Jacob's sermon that keeps appearing is the subject of land healing and cursing. Jacob tells his people that theirs is a land of promise (Jacob 2:12) but that if they don't repent others will take it (Jacob 3:4). He is rather emphatic about the connection between sin and land: “Except you repent the land is cursed for your sakes” (Jacob 3:3). This ties back to aspects of the Day of Atonement concerned with the healing of the land and the promise for those who kept these statutes to be protected in the land. (These were also main concerns of the jubilee and sabbatical years that were initiated on the Day of Atonement.) The ritual enacted at the temple provided atonement for the land as well as for the people, and Jacob's sermon reflects a priestly concern for the purity of both. In a Day of Atonement narrative found in Zechariah, the high priest Joshua is met by the angel of the Lord in the holy of holies and given a change of robes to remove his iniquity (Zech 3:5), after which the the Lord promises to “remove the iniquity of that land in one day” (Zech 3:9 KJV). In another Day of Atonement text, the Lord appears on the Day of Judgment to “make atonement for his land and people” (Deut 32:43 NIV). Jacob's emphasis on the land being cursed reflects these ideas of land iniquity healed on the Day of Atonement.

In his sermon Jacob also frequently cites, alludes to, or uses language that is similar to biblical texts that have been identified as fall festival discourses. While there is no requirement for the contexts to be the same simply because he cites these texts, the fact that his themes are the same while almost all of his citations are from fall festival texts certainly enhances the probability that this ritual lies behind his discourse as well.

One of the fall festival texts that seems to be at the forefront of Jacob's sermon is Psalm 24.[1] Here the priestly gatekeeper dwells on the worthiness of those who ascend to the temple: “Who shall ascend into the hill of the Lord? or who shall stand in his holy place? He that hath clean hands, and a pure heart” (Psalm 24:3). The priest then says “Lift up your heads, O ye gates; and be ye lift up, ye everlasting doors; and the King of glory shall come in” (Psalm 24:7 KJV), as if the gates were members of the divine council or assembly.[2] Jacob's sermon also stresses the ascent to the temple: “I come up into the temple this day that I might declare unto you the word of God” (Jacob 2:2; see also 2:11). As one who presides over the assembly of those who have ascended into the hill of the Lord, he is concerned about their worthiness, frequently talking of their sins in the context of those who are “pure in heart”' (Jacob 2:10; 3:1, 3). One of these 'pure in heart' passages also uses the lifting heads imagery of the gates or those in the divine council: “O all ye that are pure in heart, lift up your heads and receive the pleasing word of God, and feast upon his love” (Jacob 3:2). Jacob appears to be using the language and imagery of Psalm 24 as he places his thoughts in the context of ascending to the temple, the pure in heart within the temple, and lifting their heads in the presence of God, God's word, or God's love.

Jacob cites another fall festival text as he introduces the reason for preaching to his people prior to the start of his sermon:

Wherefore we labored diligently among our people, that we might persuade them to come unto Christ, and partake of the goodness of God, that they might enter into his rest, lest by any means he should swear in his wrath they should not enter in, as in the provocation in the days of temptation while the children of Israel were in the wilderness. (Jacob 1:7)

David Bokovoy points out that Jacob is using the very language of Psalm 95:9 here as a reference point:[3] “Harden not your heart, as in the provocation, and as in the day of temptation in the wilderness” (Psalm 95:9 KJV). In a series of presentations on the priestly Jacob, Bokovoy details a number of points of contact between Jacob's sermon and Psalm 95.[4] While Psalm 95 is part of a type of psalm called a Prophetic Liturgy or Exhortation, it is also one of the psalms identified as part of the enthronement ceremony enacted during the autumn festival in ancient Israel.[5]

Jacob's sermon also touches on the social aspects of the Day of Atonement. Since this holy day began the Sabbatical and Jubilee years—wherein slaves were released from bondage, debts were forgiven, and the land was allowed to lie fallow—this day became a time for the prophet or priest in Israel to proclaim the requirements each person had to their fellow beings. As noted above, a Day of Atonement text from Isaiah gives these requirements as follows:

Jacob's sermon contains language that is very similar to this:

And after ye have obtained a hope in Christ ye shall obtain riches, if ye seek them; and ye will seek them for the intent to do good--to clothe the naked, and to feed the hungry, and to liberate the captive, and administer relief to the sick and the afflicted. (Jacob 2:19)

On the whole, this sermon by Jacob, comprising chapters 2-3, has many overtones from Isaiah 58, but this verse in particular seems fairly connected to the same list that Isaiah is using in the context of social practices based on the Sabbatical and Jubilee year customs that were initiated on the Day of Atonement. Note that this same type of list shows up in King Benjamin's speech as well: “I would that ye should impart of your substance to the poor, every man according to that which he hath, such as feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, visiting the sick and administering to their relief” (Mosiah 4:26; for the fall festival as the context for King Benjamin's address, see my post “A Tower and a Name: Benjamin as the Anti-Nimrod”).

As mentioned earlier, part of the ritual enacted to atone for the people's sins during the Day of Atonement portion of the fall festival required the high priest to sprinkle the blood of a slaughtered goat (that had represented Jehovah) onto the mercy seat in the darkness in the holy of holies as a ritual that redeemed the assembled people from their sins. The sprinkling in the dark would have ended up on the robes of the priest as well as the veil of the holy of holies.[7] The high priest would later change his robe because of its filthiness—the iniquity of the people staining red the white linen of his holy garments. As noted previously, we saw this same change of robe by Joshua the high priest in the holy of holies as part of the Day of Atonement ritual in Zechariah. Jacob uses this very imagery of blood on the skirts of the high priest as part of his message about sin and redemption:

Now, my beloved brethren, I, Jacob, according to the responsibility which I am under to God, to magnify mine office with soberness, and that I might rid my garments of your sins, I come up into the temple this day that I might declare unto you the word of God. (Jacob 2:2)

The imagery of a high priest ridding his garments of the sins of his people in the temple comes directly from the Day of Atonement ritual. And he had said something similar in his introduction to the sermon:

And we did magnify our office unto the Lord, taking upon us the responsibility, answering the sins of the people upon our own heads if we did not teach them the word of God with all diligence; wherefore, by laboring with our might their blood might not come upon our garments; otherwise their blood would come upon our garments, and we would not be found spotless at the last day. (Jacob 1:19)

While priests would typically gather blood on their robes during all forms of animal sacrifice, the high priest did not participate in the common sacrifices, only this one, so when Jacob uses this blood imagery it likely comes from the one time he would officiate in the sacrifice—on the Day of Atonement. For a more in-depth analysis on this theme, see my post “'Rid of Your Blood': Robes and Atonement in the Book of Mormon.”

While perhaps not very strong individually, the accretion of these indicators point towards a cultic setting for Jacob's sermon in the Day of Atonement portion of the fall festival as performed in pre-exilic Israel. He gathers his people at the temple to talk about judgment and atonement, while emphasizing land purity and iniquity. He cites biblical passages that come from Day of Atonement texts, and he uses imagery that lies at the heart of this ritual. He is likely the high priest for his gathered people, and his sermon reads like the prophetic oracle of judgment delivered in Israel on this very occasion.

Notes

1. Psalm 24 (along with Psalm 15) is usually designated as an entrance liturgy commemorating a procession of the ark into the temple gates, and this procession is often placed within the rituals enacted during the fall festival; The Oxford Bible Commentary [(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001) 374] note on this is fairly representative of most scholarship: “Within the worship of the pre-exilic temple it may have been used during the annual Autumn Festival, with the celebration of YHWH as creator, and as a warrior who returns to his temple in triumph after the defeat of the powers of chaos”; Frank Moore Cross [Canaanite Myth and Hebrew Epic: Essays in the History of the Religion of Israel (Harvard University Press, 1997) 93] is more emphatic: “The psalm is an antiphonal liturgy used in the autumn festival”; see also J. H. Eaton, The Psalms: A Historical and Spiritual Commentary (New York: Continuum, 2005) 125-127, 139; Sigmund Mowinckel, The Psalms in Israel's Worship (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdmans, 2004) 106-192. This portion of Psalm 24 is noted for the entrance requirements or instructions that have also been identified in another fall festival text, Psalm 15:1-2, which also mentions clean hands and a pure heart. Other entrance instruction texts can be found in Isaiah 33:14-16 and Micah 6:6-8. On this see Claus Westermann, The Psalms: Structure, Content & Message (Minneapolis: Augsburg Publishing House, 1980) 103-104.

2. For more on this, see my earlier post “Gates and the Divine Council in the Book of Mormon.”

3. David Bokovoy, “Temple Imagery in the Book of Mormon” parts 1 and 2.

4. Ibid.

5. Cf. Larence A Hoffman (ed.), My People's Prayer Book: Traditional Prayers, Modern Commentaries, vol 8 (Woodstock, VT: Jewish Lights Publishing, 2005) 23-24; Irene Nowell, Sing a New Song: the Psalms in the Sunday Lectionary (Collegeville, Minnesotta: The Liturgical Press, 1993) 168: “Psalm 95 is an enthronement song (see Psalm 93). The psalm suggests a great procession into God's sanctuary.” Herman Gunkel, followed by Kraus (and others), excludes Psalm 95 from the enthronement ceremony psalms and focuses on its use as Prophetic Liturgy. However, recall that Gunkel originally did not even concede the presence of an enthronement ceremony in ancient Israel at all, only to revise his views after his former student Sigmund Mowinckel provided sufficient documentation for the ritual. After accepting the celebration of an enthronement festival, he limited the number of references to this festival in the Psalms to only those proclaiming Yahweh as king within the text. Mowinckel responded that many of the psalms were of more than one type (or Gattung) and that Psalm 95 was used as a lament as well as for the enthronement ritual. His response to Gunkel concerning Psalm 95 (and others) as part of the enthronement ritual can be found in Sigmund Mowinckel, The Psalms in Israel's Worship (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdmans, 2004) 243-244; for a good discussion on the different views on the Gattung and cultic Sitz im Leben for Psalm 95, see W. S. Prinsloo, “Psalm 95: If Only You Will Listen to His Voice” in M. Daniel Carroll R., David J.A. Clines, and Phillip R. Davies (eds.), The Bible in Human Society: Essays in Honor of John Rogerson (Sheffield, England: Sheffield Academic Press, 1995) 393-397; for an excellent survey of the views of the leading scholars on Psalm 95's inclusion in or exclusion from this ritual, see chapter 9 (“The Psalms and the sukkôt Festival”) in Karl William Weyde, The Appointed Festivals of YHWH (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2004).

6. For the autumn festival as the setting for Isaiah's discourse, see Margaret Barker, “Isaiah” in (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdmans, 2003) 537; Daniel Stökl Ben Ezra, The Impact of Yom Kippur on Early Christianity (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2003) 56, 155-156; Johanna Manley, Isaiah Through the Ages (CA: Monastery Books, 1995) 870; Robert B. Sloan, “The Favorable Year of the Lord: An Abbreviation and Addenda” in Jerry Vardaman (ed.), Chronos, Kairos, Christos II: Chronological, Nativity, and Religious Studies in Memory of Ray Summers (Macon, Georgia: Mercer University Press, 1998) 270.

7. For blood on the priest's clothing, see Martha Himmelfarb, “Earthly Sacrifice and Heavenly Incense: The Law of the Priesthood in Aramaic Levi and Jubilees” in Ra’anan S. Bouston, Annette Yoshiko Reed (eds.), Heavenly Realms and Earthly Realities in Late Antique Religions (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2004) 107:

Sacrifice must have been an extremely messy ritual. Although P does not appear to be worried about blood on priest’s garments, the Mishnah contains some indications that it expected priests to change their garments frequently. A list of Temple officials includes a certain Phineas who was in charge of the garments (m. Sheqalim 5:1); he had a chamber designated for his use (m. Middot 1:4). We also learn that there were niches in which priests kept their garments when not participating in the service (m. Tamid 5:3).

See also Clyde M. Woods, Justin Rogers (eds.), The College Press NIV Commentary (Joplin, Missouri: College Press Publishing Company, 2006) 105:

How can the high priest be certain that the blood reaches the atonement cover, since it is so dark inside the Most Holy Place? Jewish tradition answers this question by simply stating that he cannot be certain. In fact, Josephus mentions that the blood was thrown rather haphazardly, aimed at the ceiling and floor (Antiquities 3.243). The rabbis concur, stating that the blood ritual was completed in a whiplike fashion (m. Yoma 5:3).

For blood on the veil due to the sprinkling, see Margaret Barker, The Great High Priest, London: T & T Clark International, 2003, pp. 205-206:

Another veil was taken as loot by Titus after the sack of Jerusalem in 70 ce. He ordered the golden temple vessels to be stored in the Temple of Peace, but the scrolls of the Law and the veil of the holy of holies he kept in his palace (War 7.162). A rabbi who taught in the middle of the second century ce saw the veil there: 'Said R. Eleazar b. R. Jose “I myself saw it in Rome and there were drops of blood on it.” And he told me “These are the drops of blood from the Day of Atonement”' (Tosefta Kippurim 2.16).

Gates and the Divine Council in the Book of Mormon

2010-07-05T21:41:00.004-06:00

Open to me the gates of righteousness: I will go into them, and I will praise the LORD. (Psalm 118:19)

Cosmology in the ancient near east represented both the underworld and the heavens as being barred by a series of portals or gates guarded by angels placed there by divine commission to keep out the unworthy. Mortals desiring entrance to these worlds were required to traverse the doors and bypass the keepers of the portals. The earthly application of this principle resulted in special offices of priests acting as keepers of the sacred gates of the temple asking questions about the purity of those who would enter: “Who shall ascend into the hill of the Lord?” (Ps 24:3; see also Ps 15 and 95). We see this gate-salvation imagery used by the Savior in the New Testament: “Enter ye in at the strait gate . . . Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it” (Mat 7:13-14 KJV; see also Luke 13:24). The metaphor is also used frequently in the Book of Mormon: “Yea, thus we see that the gate of heaven is open unto all, even to those who will believe on the name of Jesus Christ” (Hel 3:28; see also 2 Ne 4:32; 31:9, 17, 18; 33:9; Jac 6:11; 3 Ne 11:39-40; 14:13-14; 18:13; 27:33). However, in a departure from the usual idea of priests and angels as keepers of the threshold, Jacob in his great sermon on the atonement (2 Ne 6-10) refers to God himself standing at the gate. This metaphor echoes old ideas about the divine council sitting in judgment on the Day of Atonement and reflects strains of similar thought in the Bible and other ancient near eastern texts.

Jacob's atonement address was likely part of what is known as the autumn or fall festival in ancient Israel, a harvest ritual that centered on the enthronement of Yahweh (Jehovah) as king, who after his victory over the monsters of chaos renews the covenant of creation, stands as judge over his congregated people (day of judgment), and extends atonement and healing to the land and people, after which they celebrate the harvest and start the new year. After the Babylonian exile, this festival would be separated into the three discrete festivals celebrated as New Year, the Day of Atonement, and Tabernacles as described in Numbers 29 and Leviticus 23. (See my earlier post, “The Annual Fall Festival in the Book of Mormon”). During this speech, Jacob tells us that the gate keeper is none other than the very God of Israel:

O then, my beloved brethren, come unto the Lord, the Holy One. Remember that his paths are righteous. Behold, the way for man is narrow, but it lieth in a straight course before him, and the keeper of the gate is the Holy One of Israel; and he employeth no servant there; and there is none other way save it be by the gate; for he cannot be deceived, for the Lord God is his name. (2Ne 9:41)

As I noted in a previous post (“A Tower and a Name: Benjamin as the Anti-Nimrod”), this imagery of God at the gate is similar to the experience of the biblical Jacob, who sees a ladder reaching into heaven with “the angels of God ascending and descending on it” (Gen 28:12). At the top of the ladder Jacob encounters the Lord himself, who renews the Abrahamic covenant with him (Gen 28:13-15). Jacob calls this 'the gate of heaven' (Gen 28:17), giving us the image of God standing at the gate to make a covenant with Jacob. And this type of imagery was reflected in the sacred texts of other ancient cultures whose temples were stepped to symbolize their use as a spiritual ladder or staircase to the god who waited at the other end. The Egyptian god Osiris, the judge of the dead, was known as “the god at the top of the staircase.”[1] The Egyptian funerary text from the New Kingdom called “The Book of Gates” narrates how deceased souls pass into the afterlife by traversing a number of gates represented as encounters with a council or assembly of gods stationed at each portal.[2]

But there is something else going on with Jacob's atonement speech. His concern for righteousness and use of titles like 'the Holy One' and 'the Holy One of Israel' reflects a dependence on the priestly purity language of the Holiness Code of Leviticus, while the imagery of a straight path to a gate reflects the underlying context of the fall festival that included a ritual procession consisting of the assembled people making their way up to the gate of the temple as part of the ceremony that celebrated the enthronement of Yahweh as king. As part of this ritual, those approaching the temple would implore the keeper to “Open to me the gates of righteousness” (Ps 118:19). According to early Jewish and Muslim tradition, this refers to the eastern gates of the temple because “Gates of Righteousness” was their original name.[3] Note Nephi's use of similar terminology in his own psalm: “O Lord, wilt thou not shut the gates of thy righteousness before me” (2Ne 4:32).

In another psalm that documents the same ritual procession, those approaching the eastern gate[4] of the temple address the doors as if these objects are actually the keepers of the threshold themselves: “Lift up your heads, O ye gates; and be ye lift up, ye everlasting doors” (Psa 24:7 KJV). Frank Moore Cross sees this as a reference to the assembled gods of the divine council:

How does a gate lift its head? Where is its head that it may be lifted? . . . The figure is actually one of full personification of the circle of gate towers which like a council of elders sat waiting the return of the army and its Great Warrior gone to battle, and which sat bowed and anxious. Then comes the shout,

שאו שערים ראשיכם

Lift up, O Gates, your heads!

In Ugaratic Text 2.1.19-37, we find a picture of the council of the gods assembled in the mountains of 'El. On the approach of emissaries of Ba'l's arch foe, Prince Sea, the gods are cowed and fearful, “dropping their heads onto their knees, down on their princely thrones,” sitting in fear and despair. Ba'l, the young king, shouts:

š'u 'ilm r'ašikm

Lift up, O Gods, your heads!

Ba'l can deal with the foe. The verse is addressed to the divine council in this text and the phrase in the Psalm are strikingly alike in wording and prosodic form.[5]

The parallel between gods and gates in this Ugaritic text is intriguing. Mark Smith also draws a parallel between the two words in the context of the divine council:

It is not uncommon for Bronze Age texts from Mesopotamia and Syria to refer to the general collectivity of deities as a “council” or “assembly.” Indeed, this divine social structure seems to be the dominant way to refer to the gods and goddesses as a group. Mesopotamian literature attests to “the assembly of the gods” (puḫru ilāni) in a number of different contexts. The Ugaritic texts also use this language extensively to refer to the deities. Apart from the expression “meeting of the gods” ('dt 'ilm), which is confined to one section of Kirta (1.15 II 7, 11), the terminology for the general assembly involves the root *pḫr . . . . The meaning of Ugaritic pḫr is suggested not only by the ample attestation of its cognate term puḫru in Akkadian but also by its use in the Ugaritic texts. In 1.23.57 the word refers to a group: “and the assembly sings” (wyšr pḫr). In 1.96.9, 10, the word is apparently parallel to “gate” (ṯgr). These passages illustrate the sensibility of what Ugaritic pḫr designated, namely, a group (1.23.57) and perhaps the location where that group meets (1.96.9-10?).[6]

Among the Israelites, the earthly representation of this principle consisted of a council or assembly of city elders who would meet at the city gate to execute their office as judges of the people (cf. Deut 21:19; Ruth 4:1-11; Ps 107:32; Prov 31:23). In the heavenly aspect, the assembly consisted of a “council of the holy ones” (Ps 89:7 NIV) who were present when God judged his people: “God has taken his place in the divine council; in the midst of the gods he holds judgment” (Ps 82:1 NRSV). He would naturally take his place in the divine council at the heavenly gates—or “gate of heaven.” In ancient Israel, this day of judgment was the Day of Atonement (part of the autumn or fall festival), which started with the gate ritual that asked who was worthy to enter the temple and thus God's presence. In this context, Jehovah stands as the son of Elohim who leads the other sons of God in the divine council at the gate of heaven, and it is he who admits others past the gate and into the assembly, thus defeating the monster death and hell. When Jacob speaks of the Holy One of Israel as the keeper of the gate, he does so within the ancient context of atonement on the day of judgment. The priest at this portal is not just any priest—it is the heavenly high priest and king, the very God of Israel who leads the divine council and administers healing to the people and their land. And he does so at the gate.

Notes

1. Northrop Frye, Words with Power: Being a Second Study of “The Bible and Literature” (Toronto, Canada: University of Toronto Publishing, 2008), 140.

2. Cf. J. Zandee's translation of “The Book of Gates” as published in Liber Amicorum: Studies in Honor of Professor Dr. C.J. Bleeker (Leiden: Brill, 1969) p. 309:

[165] Second figure. Legend: the council of judges.

Text: It is they who judge (read ntsn wḏ', ntsn from p. 164) near this gate, [166] who hold the trail and who are in it.

Re says to them: Hail to you, oh gods, council of judges, who judge the dead, who protect the divine son (Horus) so that he is placed on his (Osiris') throne. Your righteousness belongs to you, oh gods.

[173] EIGTH DIVISION.

Gate. Introduction: Approach to this gate on the part of this great god, entering this gate, praise to this great god on the part of the gods [174] who are in it.

[175] Gate. Name of the gate: The burning one.

. . .

Text of the nine deities placed one above the other: Come to us, oh thou who art in the horizon, great god who opens [177] mysteries. Mayest thou open the holy gate. Unlock the mysterious door.

3. See J. Morgenstern's argument in “The Gates of Righteousness” (Hebrew Union College Annual 6, 1929) 1-37; see a useful summary in Andrew C. Brunson, Psalm 118 in the Gospel of John: An Intertextual Study on the New Exodus (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2003) 335-36.

4. See Morgenstern's argument that this reflects early Christian and rabbinic tradition as summarized in J. Glen Taylor, Yahweh and the Sun: Biblical and Archaeological Evidence for Sun Worship in Ancient Israel (Sheffield: JSOT, 1993) 246.

5. Frank Moore Cross, Canaanite Myth and Hebrew Epic: Essays in the History of the Religion of Israel (US: Harvard University Press, 1973) 98-99; many others have followed Cross' lead in this interpretation—cf. J. J. M. Roberts, The Bible and the Ancient Near East: Collected Essays (US: Eisenbrauns, 2002) 105; citations to the Ugaritic texts in Cross are from Andrée Herdner, Corpus des Tablettes en Cunéiformes alphabétiques (Geuthner, 1963), abbreviated as CTA in most citations.

6. Mark S. Smith, The Origins of Biblical Monotheism: Israel's Polytheistic Background and the Ugaritic Texts (New York: Oxford University Press, 2001) 41.

Shades of Enoch: Steadfast in Keeping the Commandments

2010-06-27T22:07:00.001-06:00

There are a number of Book of Mormon passages that appear to converge with themes from Enochian literature. One of these occurs when Lehi pleads with his sons Laman and Lemuel to be as consistent and steadfast as certain elements in nature:

9 And when my father saw that the waters of the river emptied into the fountain of the Red Sea, he spake unto Laman, saying: O that thou mightest be like unto this river continually running into the fountain of all righteousness!
10 And he also spake unto Lemuel: O that thou mightest be like unto this valley, firm and steadfast, and immovable in keeping the commandments of the Lord! (1 Ne 2:9–10)

Enoch expresses a fairly similar thought in I Enoch 5:3–4 as translated by R.H. Charles:

3. And behold how the sea and the rivers in like manner accomplish {and change not} their tasks {from His commandments.}
4. But ye—ye have not been steadfast, nor done the commandments of the Lord . . . (I Enoch 5:3–4)[1]

Note that the translation by E. Isaac is slightly different:

3. And look at the seas: They do not part; they fulfill all their duties.
4. But as for you, you have not been long-suffering and you have not done the commandments of the Lord . . . (I Enoch 5:3–4)[2]

The textual points of contact are certainly not explicit, but there does seem to be an overlap in the use of simile and imagery to make a very similar point. One wonders how much of Enoch's writings were available to Lehi.

Notes

1. R.H. Charles, The Book of Enoch the Prophet (York Beach, ME: Red Wheel/Weiser, 2003) 3. The words enclosed in brackets represent words found in the Greek Version but not the Ethiopic Version.

2. James H. Charlesworth (ed.), The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha, vol 1 (New York: Doubleday, 1983) 15.

A Tower and a Name: Benjamin as the Anti-Nimrod

2010-06-15T23:46:00.006-06:00

The name of the LORD is a strong tower. (Prov. 18:10)

In a veiled story in Genesis associated with a Babylonian kingship rite, Nimrod builds a temple-tower to “make a name” for his people, the result of which is a confusion of tongues and scattering of the people. In the Book of Mormon, King Benjamin builds a tower at the temple in Zarahemla in order to give his people a name and pronounce his son a king. And he does this after the Nephites have discovered a remnant of scattered Israel who has experienced a degeneration of tongues and who has mixed with the seed of those who left Nimrod's temple-tower. In doing so, Benjamin seems to be deliberately constructing an event that is both related and opposed to what happened on the plains of Shinar. And both episodes seem to be connected to the yearly fall festival in ancient Israel.

Nimrod as King and God

In the table of nations (Genesis 10), Nimrod is described as a mighty hunter and a king of Babylon in the land of Shinar. Because Babel is “the beginning of his kingdom” (Gen 10:10), the tower episode has always been associated with Nimrod and his ascent to the throne. Many Jewish legends place the tower story in the context of his coronation as king after a great war between the descendants of the sons of Noah.[1] Several of the legends explain that Nimrod “wishes to 'set himself up as a god' so that all nations will pay him divine homage.”[2] In these texts, the role of the tower is to empower him with divine status to rival that of God's:

And not all this sufficed unto Nimrod's evil desire. Not enough that he turned men away from God, he did all he could to make them pay Divine honors unto himself. He set himself up as a god, and made a seat for himself in imitation of the seat of God. It was a tower built out of a round rock, and on it he placed a throne of cedar wood, upon which arose, one above the other, four thrones, of iron, copper, silver, and gold. Crowning all, upon the golden throne, lay a precious stone, round in shape and gigantic in size. This served him as a seat, and as he sat upon it, all nations came and paid him Divine Homage.[3]

The tower-temple as the location for a heavenly throne follows the function of ancient temples generally, including those of Babylon,[4] where God's throne is in his temple. Much of Babylonian literature represents Bel-Marduk reigning as king of the gods from his temple-throne.[5] Kings in the ancient near east would sit on God's throne in the temple and represent him as they ruled on his behalf, becoming an anointed son of God.[6] The ancient Hebrew tradition was fairly similar, with the ark of the covenant in the holy of holies representing God's throne in heaven. Solomon sat on this throne in the temple as king (1 Chron 29:23), and Psalm 2 recounts the coronation ritual of the Israelite king becoming God's divine son.[7] In many instances the king became identified with the god he represented, just as Nimrod was often equated with the Babylonian god Marduk.[8] This lends context to Isaiah's story about a Babylonian king who desired to sit on God's throne and rebel against him:

12 How you have fallen from heaven, O morning star, son of the dawn! You have been cast down to the earth, you who once laid low the nations!

13 You said in your heart, "I will ascend to heaven; I will raise my throne above the stars of God; I will sit enthroned on the mount of assembly, on the utmost heights of the sacred mountain.

14 I will ascend above the tops of the clouds; I will make myself like the Most High."

15 But you are brought down to the grave, to the depths of the pit.

(Isaiah 14:12‒15; NIV Translation)

While this has always been understood as prophetic invective against the Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar who wanted to become divine, many early Christians understood the context as a comparison between Nebuchadnezzar and one of God's chief angels who rebelled and took a host of heavenly beings with him.[9] But many scholars suggest that the foundation of the comparison is not just to Nebuchadnezzar or to the angelic rebellion but also to Nimrod and his temple-tower.[10] Perhaps this is because Nebuchadnezzar seems to have intentionally created a link between himself and Nimrod by re-elevating the god Marduk to supremacy through rebuilding the temples of Esagila and Etemanki,[11] long considered candidates for Nimrod's original tower.[12] But the elements of Nimrod's rebellion are there: pride and and a throne in opposition to God's. We see another point of contact with Nimrod in the 'name' terminology of the last verse in Isaiah's message: "'I will rise up against them,' declares the Lord Almighty. 'I will cut off from Babylon her name and survivors, her offspring and descendants,' declares the Lord” (Isaiah 14:22; NIV translation; emphasis mine). In the Genesis account, Nimrod also desired to give his people a name so that they would not be cut off.

Tower as Temple

The Genesis pericope tells us that the tower's top would “reach unto heaven,” which is language that reflects the spiritual rather than the literal function of the building. And this wording is found in many of the Babylonian temple texts as well.[13] The word 'babel' itself comes from bab il ('gate of God'), and ancient tower-temples were stepped in construction to symbolize the ascent to God's gate and presence. The Egyptian pyramids are a good example:

The step-pyramids had the shape not only of a hill, but (at least in their most ancient form) of a staircase. Spell 267 of the Pyramid Text reads: “A stair case to heaven is laid for him [i.e., the king] so that he may climb up to heaven thereby.”[14]

The staircase to heaven theme is emphasized by the fact that Osiris, the judge of the dead in the Egyptian pantheon, was known as “the god at the top of the staircase.”[15] We see the same concepts at work in Mesopotamia:

The construction of the Esagila, the principal temple of Babylon, is described within the framework of the creation epic Enuma Elish . . . It is called the “house of the foundation of heaven and earth” . . . In step-temples, the character of staircase generally dominates that of the primeval hill. It is obvious where the huge stairs lead. The ziggurat of Larsa bears the beautiful name, “house of the bond between heaven and earth”; that of Kish is the “exalted house of Zababa and Ininna, whose head is as high as the heavens” (cf. Gen 11:4; Ps 78:69). The step-tower of Nippur bears the title, “house of the mountain”; that of Assur is the “house of the great mountain of the nations.”[16]

The idea of a staircase to God lies behind the Psalms of “ascent” or Psalms of “degrees” that were sung by pilgrims on the way up the hill to the temple complex or while climbing the steps of Solomon's temple itself. Northrop Frye makes the connection between this staircase, Jacob's Ladder (Gen 28:12) and the Tower of Babel.[17]

Scholarship almost unanimously equates Nimrod's tower in Genesis with the Babylonian temple-tower, or ziggurat. And in the “Babylonian tradition the temple-tower of Babel was a cosmic and holy place, built by the gods, where Marduk's presence was manifested on earth.”[18] The ziggurats were terrestrial representations of the mountain of the Gods,[19] much as the Israelite tabernacle represented a horizontal version of the sacred mountain of Sinai and the ascent into God's presence,[20] just as the later and more permanent temples represented the mountain of the Lord (cf. Isa 2:2).

These temple-tower themes carry over into late Jewish and early Christian texts as well. Hermas, for example, represents the church as a tower and the Son of God as the gate through which its members must enter.[21] And the watchtower in Isaiah's Song of the Vineyard (see Isa 5:1-7) clearly symbolizes Israel's temple in many texts, including Enochic litereature, where the parable is retold with the tower as the temple that is destroyed because of covenant violation (see I Enoch 89:51-67). In the New Testament, Mark's account of the Savior calling the temple a den of thieves borrows phrasing from Isaiah's vineyard parable in a way that clearly connects the watchtower to Herod's temple.[22] The same argument is made in some rabbinic texts as well.[23] A text from Qumran links the watchtower in Isaiah 5 to the temple using a familiar ziggurat temple-tower phrase (“to the gate of the holy height”; see 4Q500, line 4), and the Aramaic Targum version of Isaiah makes the temple-watchtower link very clear:

The prophet said, I will sing now for Israel—which is like a vineyard, the seed of Abraham, my friend—my friend's song for his vineyard: My people, my beloved Israel, I gave them a heritage on a high hill in fertile land. And I sanctified them and I glorified them and I established them as the plant of a choice vine; and I built my sanctuary in their midst, and I even gave my altar to atone for their sins; I thought that they would do good deeds, but they made their deeds evil. And now I will tell you what I am about to do to my people. I will take up my Shekinah from them, and they shall be for plundering; I will break down the place of their sanctuaries, and they will be for trampling.[24]

A parable very similar to the one in Isaiah 5 is also found in the Doctrine and Covenants, where modern temples are referred to as towers (D&C 101:44-62). Anciently, the figure of the watchman on the watchtower referred to the prophet in his temple, receiving revelation to warn Israel.[25]

A Name as Divine Covenant

The Genesis tower narrative has the protagonists telling each other, “let us make a name, lest we be scattered abroad” (Gen 11:4). This comes immediately following the temple-centric phrase about the tower reaching into heaven, placing the idea of a name, land-covenant, and seed in the world of the temple as well. This is prefigured by the story of the offspring of the sons of God in Genesis 6—'giants' who were “men of renown,” or “men of the name” (Gen 6:4; KJV translation; emphasis mine). The KJV translators did not translate the word 'giants' from the Hebrew text, which reads nephilim (נפלים) but from the Greek translation (the Septuagint, or LXX) that interpreted the nephilim to be giants and so used the Greek word gigantes (γίγαντες). Most modern translations, however, prefer to simply leave it as nephilim,[26] the root of which is the verb nfl (נפל) “to fall or remove.” In other words, the people in question are spiritually fallen, not physically large. They had been “men of renown,” a translation of the Hebrew anshey ha-shem, or “men of the name” who have fallen and been removed from their covenant and priesthood offices. The version of this story in the Pearl of Great Price emphasizes that Noah's sons were called “sons of God” because they hearkened unto the Lord (Moses 8:13) in the context of patriarchal covenants with God about his seed filling the earth—a promise for posterity and land (Moses 8:2‒3). In contrast, the children of these sons of God forsook the Lord and his covenants, taking to wives daughters of men who were not participants in these covenants (“daughters of men” in contrast to the “sons of God”; Moses 8:21). These sons of God become increasingly wicked after forsaking their covenant of the name (Moses 8:22). Rather than a tale of giants, this is the story of men “of the name” who made priestly covenants but chose to abandon them in order to pursue wickedness. They are apostates. The Enoch account of this rebellion (I Enoch 69:13-21 ) refers to them as angels who have sought to apply the 'name' covenant that lies behind the very act of creation to their oath of rebellion. The temple-tower story would have to be telling a similar story.

The make-a-name temple theme from Genesis 11 had at its root a desire to prevent the scattering of a people and seed. In the ancient near east, this scattering is prevented by the retention of a land promised by God for those who obey him. It is the land-covenant concept that we see promised to God's people and associated with the Jubilee year requirements as outlined in Leviticus 25:18-19 that promised security and safety in the land from one's enemies. Given this, it is intriguing to see the tower episode of Genesis 11 immediately followed (in Genesis 12) by the name symbolism of the Abrahamic covenant in conjunction with blessings of a land (“that I will shew thee”), a posterity of righteous seed, and a name. God tells Abram, “I will bless thee, and make thy name (shem) great” (Gen 12:2), followed by a covenant that promised him a posterity as numerous as the stars in heaven (Gen 15:5‒10). This covenant is reiterated later along with a change of name (shem) to Abraham (Gen 17:1‒8). Remember that this same type of covenant for righteous posterity was given to Noah's first son, who was called Shem (the word for 'name'). These patriarchs were truly anshay ha-shem, or “men of the name.”

After Abraham, this 'name' covenant is renewed with Isaac and then Jacob, the latter in a series of encounters with God that involve both a tower and a name. After Isaac reiterates the blessings of Abraham to Jacob and counsels him to find a suitable wife in order to fulfill this 'name' covenant (Gen 28:1‒4), Jacob sees a ladder reaching into heaven with “the angels of God ascending and descending on it” (Gen 28:12). At the top of the ladder is the Lord, who proceeds to renew the Abrahamic 'name' covenant with Jacob (Gen 28:1‒15). Knowing the place to be sacred, Jacob calls it 'the house of God' and 'the gate of heaven' (Gen 28:17). The 'gate of heaven' terminology is strikingly similar to the 'gate of God' terminology behind the name Babel and its staircase construction. Genesis Rabba tells us that Jacob's ladder was really a staircase.[27] And other commentaries on Jacob's experience make the connection to the staircases on the ziggurat temple-towers of Mesopotamia based on the word used for 'ladder':

Etymologically, the term (stem sll “to heap up, raise”) suggests a ramp or a solid stairway. And archaeologically, the Mesopotamian ziggurats were equipped with flights of stairs leading up to the summit . . . Only such [a] stairway can account for Jacob's later description of it as a “gateway to heaven.” . . . The phraseology is much too typical of the temple tower to be merely coincidental, and the underlying imagery cannot be mistaken; the allusion is all more suggestive when viewed in connection with Jacob's journey to Mesopotamia.[28]

Bethel is later associated with a temple in Israel,[29] and in second temple Jewish texts it becomes the site of many temple-related functions, such as Levi's divine investiture as a priest.[30] Notice that—like Osiris in the Egyptian temple texts—the Lord stands at the top of this ladder that is the 'gate of heaven,' or 'gate of God' in the case of the Babel temple-tower. This is the idea of God as the keeper of the gate and explains the Book of Mormon prophet Jacob's atonement terminology:

The concept of approaching the Lord at the gate brings us to (the Biblical) Jacob's next encounter with God. Shortly after the event just described, Jacob sees God and wrestles with him, asking for a blessing and God's name (Gen 32: 24‒30). This can be understood with Nibley's explanation that the word 'wrestled' here is better translated as 'embraced'.[31] Thus, in a series of theophanies related to Jacob's intent to seek a wife in order to enter into the Abrahamic 'name'-covenant promises of posterity to fill the earth, he sees God at the gate of heaven, then later embraces him and asks his name, whereupon God gives him his name, touches the hollow of his thigh, and blesses him.

The make-a-name theme is found elsewhere in the Hebrew bible in contexts of posterity, land, redemption, and atonement. For example, David inquires of the Lord about the future of his descendants:

And what one nation in the earth is like thy people, even like Israel, whom God went to redeem for a people to himself, and to make him a name, and to do for you great things and terrible, for thy land, before thy people, which thou redeemedst to thee from Egypt, from the nations and their gods? (2 Samuel 7:23; 1 Chr 17:21.)

And there are many other passages that link the make-a-name theme to atonement. Isaiah talks about the Messiah's suffering and affliction that saved and redeemed Israel (Isa 63:9) then uses the escape from Pharaoh and the waters of the Red Sea as a metaphor for this redemption: “[He] led them by the right hand of Moses with his glorious arm, dividing the water before them, to make himself an everlasting name?” (Isaiah 63:12; see also verse 14). And in a striking reversal of the Tower episode usage, God employs the phrase in terms of gathering those who have been scattered: “Even in the time that I gather you: for I will make you a name and a praise among all people of the earth” (Zeph 3:20). As with the idea of scattering, the principle of gathering reinforces the idea of land-covenant righteousness.

But most of the references to the name take us back to the temple. Solomon's temple was a place that was sanctified for God's name (2 Chr 7:20), where God's name could dwell (1 Kgs 8:29) and where people could approach God by confessing his name (1 Kgs 8:33). The High Priest wore the sacred name on a thin plate of gold on his forehead as a symbolic crown. This name was so sacred that later it would be forbidden to be pronounced outside the realm of the temple.[32] And even in the temple, it was usually pronounced only once a year during the Day of Atonement ceremony, where the children of Israel—along with their land and temple—were healed and redeemed from the effects of sin and rebellion (see Lev 16). In this ritual, the High Priest would sacrifice the goat “for Jehovah” (Lev 16:8, 21) and take its blood beyond the veil of the temple, into the holy of holies (the only time he entered this “most holy place”). He would then sprinkle the blood onto the ark of the covenant (the 'mercy seat' or 'atonement covering') to purge the congregation of their sins (Lev 16:15‒16). After changing his blood-spattered robes and emerging, he would pronounce the sacred name as he read the text of Lev 16:30, after which the gathered people prostrated themselves in the dust:

The response of the priests and the people in the temple court reaches a crescendo at this point, and it is said that on hearing the name “they used to kneel and bow themselves and fall down on their faces and say, “Blessed be the name of the glory of his kingdom for ever and ever!”[33]

This temple rite helps us understand what happens near the end of the gospel of John. At the close of his intercessory prayer and its sufferings associated with the workings of the Atonement, the Savior tells his father, “I have declared unto them thy name, and will declare it” (John 17:26). As he arises, he is approached by Judas and a group sent by the chief priests and Pharisees, and he asks them who they seek (John 18:4). When they tell him that they seek Jesus of Nazareth, he announces, “I am he” (John 18:5). Although the KJV translators here have chosen to insert a pronoun ('he'), the original Greek simply reads ego eimi (εγω ειμι), or “I am,” which is how Jehovah announces himself to Moses (see the “I AM” declarations in Ex 3:13‒15), a derivative of the sacred letters making up the name of Jehovah, the name used only in the temple on the Day of Atonement. After the Savior pronounces the sacred name, those who came seeking him “went backward and fell to the ground” (John 18:6), just as gathered Israel did on the Day of Atonement.

What all of this tells us is that the tower episode in Genesis appears to contain all the elements of an intended temple coronation accompanied by the themes of land-covenant and posterity usually associated with the Day of Atonement. And this means that there is some kind of relationship between this episode and the annual fall festival observed in ancient Israel. This feast, which would be broken up into three separate rituals after the exile (New Year, Day of Atonement, and the Feast of Tabernacles), celebrated the enthronement of Yhwh (Jehovah) as king, who after his victory over the monsters of chaos renewed the covenant of creation, stood as judge over his assembled people, and extended atonement and healing to the land and people, after which they celebrated the harvest and started the new year. (See my previous post, The Annual Fall Festival in the Book of Mormon.) Yet by what authority does Nimrod expect to conduct this festival given his rebellion towards God and his throne? If he gives his people a name so that they retain a land where they cannot be scattered—essentially a promised land—whose name does he plan to give them? It can hardly be God's name under the circumstances. Is it his own? Whatever is going on, it seems that he has turned the worship of God into the worship of himself and in so doing has turned the premise of the festival on its head.

A Jaredite Heritage among the Mulekites and Nephites

In the Book of Mormon narrative, we read of serious warfare among the sons of Lehi (Omni 10), after which Mosiah 1 and his people discover a remnant of scattered Israel in the land of Zarahemla. These descendants of Mulek, a son of Zedekiah (Mosiah 25:2), had experienced a deterioration of their language severe enough that neither “Mosiah, nor the people of Mosiah could understand them” (Omni 17). The Mulekites had recovered a record of the earlier Jaredite nation engraved on stone that provided details of how their “first parents came out from the tower, at the time the Lord confounded the language of the people” (Omni 22). Although Ether prophesies of the destruction of the household of Coriantumr and chronicles the destruction of his people, there were likely a number Jaredite survivors that had mixed with the Mulekites:

Ether writes of the annihilation of his people, but this was not necessarily an extermination of the entire population. One may assume that many of the commoners were not in the two armies and thus survived after these wars. The Jaredite people were crushed and dispersed, but probably not exterminated, since explicit features of Jaredite culture (especially personal names) were later evident in the Nephite culture.[34]

The fact that the language spoken by the Mulekites was unintelligible to the Nephites points to a diverse ethnic population rather than just a deterioration of the language,[35] and this diverse ethnic population likely would have included Jaredite remnants. As mentioned, many of the Jaredite names are later transmitted to the Nephite culture[36] via the Mulekites. We also see a descendant of the Mulekite Zarahemla with the Jaredite name Coriantumr (Hel 1:15-17), raising the possibility that Jaredite remnants had intermarried into the Mulekite monarchy.

In this context, Jaredite themes and founding narrative events like Nimrod's tower episode would have influenced much of the Mulekite social and political structures, as well as the oral histories of both peoples.[37] For an example of how formative events continue to impact the later oral history of a people, note how the frequency with which the Jaredite rulers remember their fathers crossing the 'great deep' shows up even in a translation of a summary of a translation (see Ether 7:27; 8:9; 10:2). In this light, the name Zarahemla itself is worth considering. Most likely based on the Hebrew zéraʻ hemlā (זֶרַע חֶמְלָה), meaning "seed of compassion," it probably refers to Mulek as the sole surviving son of Zedekiah. (Note how the Mulekites are referred to as “the seed of Zedekiah” in Hel 8:21.) However, another possibility involves the Jaredite account of the tower episode, which is the only place in the Book of Mormon where we find a convergence of the terms 'seed' and 'compassion.' After Nimrod's enterprise ends in disaster, Jared asks his brother to plead with the Lord on their behalf (Ether 1:34) then repeatedly emphasizes the Lord's compassion in sparing them (Ether 1:35, 37, 40) and providing a special land for their seed (Ether 1:42). And of course, this discourse about land and posterity is simply another version of the patriarchal name-covenant episodes from Genesis that we saw earlier. And if Zarahemla and his people were indeed of mixed heritage, the name could well reference both the tower episode as well as Mulek's flight, since both of these events defined their respective cultures by an escape from the old world and a promised land for their posterity in the new. That the name could have combined both Jaredite and Mulekite foundational elements is demonstrated when Ether does something similar by merging the special-land theme of the Jaredites (Eth 13:2) with the theme of compassion on the descendants of Joseph (Eth 13:7) of the Nephites.

Tower and Temple

It is in this cultural milieu that Mosiah's son Benjamin has grown up, less than a generation removed from the discovery of the Mulekites and their stone that proclaimed the origins of the Jaredites. His own reign would have been the first time a king was chosen after the confluence of the two nations and therefore the first test of his father's ascendancy over the diverse Mulekite population that had likely absorbed Jaredite remnants. What were the populace's expectations of their monarch? Did the old Mulekite nobility retain any influence in the society and cause any friction? If so, was the friction still alive at the end of Benjamin's life? What did the Jaredite history mean to the Nephites in this first generation of contact and assimilation with the Mulekites? In this context, I wonder what the expectations were among Benjamin's people when he called for a special assembly near the end of his days to anoint his son a king and a ruler and to give his people a name.

While the Genesis tower is really a temple, Mosiah's tower is really just a tower—an elevated platform from which the king could address his subjects. But it is located at the temple for a reason. The whole focus of this event is the temple, as this is the place where the king is to be anointed, just as in ancient Israel. The people have gathered together “that they might go up to the temple to hear the words which King Benjamin should speak unto them” (Mosiah 2:1). And it was Benjamin's intent to speak to them in the temple but because there is not enough room there he does so from the tower instead (Mosiah 2:7). But in doing so, he is following the custom of ancient Israelite kings who built tower platforms at temple complexes for instruction, anointing, and to dedicate the temples in prayer.[38] In other words, we should read this as a temple event and a temple text. Benjamin's tower is simply part of the temple.

And because this is a temple ritual, the people have brought animals to sacrifice “according to the law of Moses” (Mosiah 2:3). Just what was the underlying ritual associated with the coronation? Most scholars have identified the ritual as the pre-exilic yearly fall festival,[39] which is the same festival that appears to lie behind the Genesis tower episode. Anciently this festival celebrated the coronation of Jehovah as king who then atoned for the land and its people through the sprinkling of a goat's blood that represented the blood of God himself. It also celebrated the new year while initiating (every seven and fifty years, respectively), the sabbatical and Jubilee years when the prisoners and servants were released, debts were forgiven, and the land was allowed to rest and heal. Benjamin's discourse likely took place during this fall festival while initiating a Jubilee year.[40]

Name as an Atonement Covenant

Before Benjamin begins, he tells his son that his purpose is to give his people a name: “And moreover, I shall give this people a name, that thereby they may be distinguished above all the people which the Lord God hath brought out of the land of Jerusalem” (Mosiah 1:11; compare the taking of a name by the people of Ammon in Alma 23:16; 27:26). Fairly soon it becomes evident that the name is actually the name of the Messiah. Salvation comes through this name (Mosiah 3:9)—in fact, it's the only name whereby salvation can come (Mosiah 3:17). This is achieved through repentance and faith on his name (Mosiah 3:21; 5:7) and by calling on his name (Mosiah 4:11), begging for a remission of sins through his name (Mosiah 4:20). The name Benjamin wants to give them is the name of Christ:

There is no other name given whereby salvation cometh; therefore, I would that ye should take upon you the name of Christ, all you that have entered into the covenant with God that ye should be obedient unto the end of your lives. (Mosiah 5:8)

If the name of Christ becomes a covenant, it is because the Messiah is both the redeemer and the judge, themes from the Day of Atonement aspect of the fall festival, which is the day of judgment. “For behold he judgeth,” says Benjamin, “and his judgment is just” (Mosiah 3:18). He is the very God of Israel who assumes mortality to save his people in a sacrificial death, after which “he standeth to judge the world” (Mosiah 3:10). His atonement is accomplished through the shedding of his own blood “that cometh from every pore” (Mosiah 3:7), reminding us of the blood of the goat “for Jehovah” that redeemed the people and their land on the Day of Atonement. This is the one day of the year that the High Priest entered the Holy of Holies, sprinkling the blood in the dark over the mercy seat, gathering blood on himself and the veil in the process (see my previous post, “Rid of Your Blood: Robes and Atonement in the Book of Mormon”). Benjamin uses this Day of Atonement blood imagery to emphasize the themes of sin and atonement:

Even so at this time have I caused that ye should assemble yourselves together, that I might be found blameless, and that your blood should not come upon me . . . that I might rid my garments of your blood (Mosiah 2:27-28).

As with the Day of Atonement festival, Benjamin's atonement discourse centers around redemption through the sacred name, after which the assembled people fall to the dust, just as gathered Israel did on the Day of Atonement:

When king Benjamin had made an end of speaking the words . . . he cast his eyes round about on the multitude, and behold they had fallen to the earth . . . . And they all cried aloud with one voice, saying: O have mercy, and apply the atoning blood of Christ that we may receive forgiveness of our sins, and our hearts may be purified; for we believe in Jesus Christ, the Son of God. (Mosiah 4:1-2)

Within the atonement context, the posterity or seed that God promises is for the obedient to become the very sons and daughters of God himself:

And now, because of the covenant which ye have made ye shall be called the children of Christ, his sons, and his daughters; for behold, this day he hath spiritually begotten you; for ye say that your hearts are changed through faith on his name; therefore, ye are born of him and have become his sons and his daughters. (Mosiah 5:7)

And of course the keeping of this covenant is tied to the land. Benjamin makes it a point to tell his subjects repeatedly that if they keep the covenant they will prosper (Mosiah 2:22) and their enemies will have no power over them (Mosiah 2:31; see also 2:36), echoing the land-covenant promises from Leviticus associated with the Jubilee and the Day of Atonement.

All of these elements are the same that we see at work with the name-covenant patriarchal episodes in Genesis as well as what appears to be going on in the tower pericope at Babel. They are all related to the yearly fall festival and its elements of coronation, atonement, and name covenant to redeem the people and inherit a land for their posterity where they cannot be scattered by their enemies. The difference is that Benjamin seems to be addressing an additional element that is front and center in the Genesis tower narrative: pride and rebellion against God. While the Babel tower episode features Nimrod's desire to usurp God's power and throne, Benjamin continually emphasizes his human status even as a divinely-appointed Israelite king:

I have not commanded you to come up hither that ye should fear me, or that ye should think that I of myself am more than a mortal man. But I am like as yourselves, subject to all manner of infirmities in body and mind; yet I have been chosen by this people, and consecrated by my father, and was suffered by the hand of the Lord that I should be a ruler and a king over this people; and have been kept and preserved by his matchless power, to serve you with all the might, mind and strength which the Lord hath granted unto me. (Mosiah 2:10-11)

This is the tenor of the entire first chapter of the discourse. Benjamin is a mortal man who depends on God for his very breath. In this he is the anti-Nimrod because he apparently has no desire to sit on God's throne and take his power as Nimrod did. Despite Benjamin's royal—and thus divine—status, he exists to serve God and his people, not to use them for his own ambition. A clearer contrast with the original tower episode and Isaiah 14 couldn't be given. Then Benjamin emphasizes that those who don't serve God are listening to his adversary, the evil spirit (Mosiah 2:32-33; 37), and have come out in open rebellion against God (Mosiah 2:37), just as Nimrod did.

The intriguing thing is that other fall festival narratives don't feature the pride-mortality element to this degree—except, of course, the Genesis tower episode. What connects the two is the Jaredite migration from the old world that retained an account of the whatever these unauthorized covenant practices were. Several generations later, the daughter of Jared asks:

Hath he not read the record which our fathers brought across the great deep? Behold, is there not an account concerning them of old, that they by their secret plans did obtain kingdoms and great glory? (Ether 8:9)

So aside from oral history, apparently there were physical records that recorded these secret practices. But what kingdoms and great glory are referenced here? Could at least two of these be the tower episode and the fallen “sons of god” narrative from Genesis 11 and 6 that both involve oaths and covenants? In any case, the record mentioned here contains the details of a ritual oath ceremony that is used by Jared in his quest for power. And the ritual is renewed several generations later by Heth (Ether 9:26-27). Speaking of these Jaredite records, Alma tells his son Helaman that the secret oaths destroyed the Jaredite nation, and he therefore begs Helaman not to reveal the rituals that were recorded on the plates (Alma 37:21-32). But with Jaredite remnants among the Nephites, an idea of their type and origin must already have been circulating because these oaths end up destroying the Nephites as well. Indeed, the governor of the Gadianton society, Giddianhi, tells Lachoneus that their secret works “are of ancient date” and that they had “been handed down” to them (3 Nephi 3:9).

One wonders how much this type of activity had permeated Benjamin's society. Why does he take so much time during a fall festival discourse to address themes of rebellion against God as contrasted with mortality, humility, and service? This in the context of a scattered remnant of Israel whose language had degenerated, a seeming parallel to language confusion themes in the tower narrative. He seems to be building an inversion of the tower story in the context of the fall festival, contrasting the types of secret oaths and name-covenants associated with rebellion with taking on oneself the name of Christ, the Messiah, the very God of Israel. He is addressing remnants of the people whose fathers came from the tower and carried powerful memories of that event and used them for their gain. There are many threads that run through Benjamin's discourse. But one of them surely appears to be Benjamin's deliberate association—and disassociation—with the tower story in Genesis.

NOTES

1. Stephen R. Haynes, Noah's Curse: The Biblical Justification of American Slavery (New York: Oxford University Press, 2002) 42‒43.

2. Haynes, 43; see also Louis Ginzberg, The Legends of the Jews, vol 1 (Kessinger, 2004) 121-122, where Abraham's mother asks “Is there a god besides Nimrod?” while the Babylonian courts calls Nimrod as “our king and our god!”

3. Ginzberg, 1:116.

4. Herodotus describes The Esagila temple as having a throne room (International Standard Bible Encyclopedia, vol 1 [Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdmans, 1979] 388; Julye Bidemead describes throne rooms as part of the temple complexes in Mesopotamia (Julye Bidmead, The Akitu Festival: Religious Continuity and Royal Legitimation in Mesopotamia [Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias Press, 2004] 115-116; in one Sumerian epic poem, Enmerkar, the king of Erech, “received emissaries from Iran in the gu-en-na, the throne room of the temple” (Max E. L. Mallowan, Early Mesopotamia and Iran [UK: Thames and Hudson, 1965] 88).

5. Russell E. Gmirkin, Berossus and Genesis, Mantetho and Exodus: Hellenistic Histories and the Date of the Pentateuch (London: T&T Clark, 2006) 128; see especially The Poem of Erra, where the protagonist visits Marduk in his temple-tower ziggurat:

He made ready to speak, saying to the king of the gods:

(tablet 1, lines 127‒130)

6. cf. Sarah Iles Johnson (ed.), Religions of the Ancient World: A Guide (Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press, 2004) 551.

7. Most agree that the “anointed” here is the Israelite king who becomes the son of God. Cf. “Psalms” in Robert B. Hughes and J. Carl Laney, Tyndale Concise Bible Commentary (Wheaton, Illinois: Tyndale House Publishers, 1990), 208: “In Psalm 2 the 'anointed one' is the king in the Davidic line. He is the Son of God in the sense 2 Samuel 7:14: 'I will be his father, and he will be my son'”; Allen P. Ross, “Psalms,” in John F. Walvoord and Roy B. Zuck (eds.) The Bible Knowledge Commentary: Old Testament (Colorado Springs, CO: David C. Cook, 1983), 792: “At any rate it is clear that the psalmist is telling the earth's kings to submit to the Lord and to his anointed son, Israel's king”; others argue that this phrase is Messianic in its entirety, while some will differentiate between the Israelite view of a king becoming an adopted son of God (still human) and the rest of the ancient world where this concept is literal and the king actually becomes defied in the process. For related concepts, see my earlier post, “Psalms 1 and 2 as the Tree of Life Vision.”

8. Cf. William Ewing and John E. H. Thomson, The Temple Dictionary of the Bible (New York: E. P. Dutton & Co., 1910) 514; International Standard Bible Encyclopedia, vol. 7 (Albany, Oregon: AGES Electronic Edition, 1996) 1141; Claus Westermann, Genesis 1‒11: A Continental Commentary (Minneapolis: Augsberg, 1984) 515.

9. For a survey of early Christian thought on this, see Robert L. Wilken (ed.), Isaiah Interpreted by Early Christian and Medieval Commentators (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdmans, 2007) 173‒181.

10. Cf. Steven Goldsmith, Unbuilding Jerusalem: Apocalypse and Romantic Representation (Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press, 1993) 64; Martin Kessler, Battle of the Gods: The God of Israel Versus Marduk of Babylon (Assen, The Netherlands: Royal Van Gorcum, 2003) 207.

11. Cf. David Noel Freedman (ed.), Eerdman's Dictionary of the Bible (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdmans, 2000) 953; also Mark H. Munn, The Mother of the Gods, Athens, and the Tyranny of Asia (Berkeley and Los Angeles, California: University of California Press, 2006) 206; H. W. F. Saggs, Babylonians (Berkeley and Los Angeles, California: University of California Press, 2000) 166.

12. Cf. M. A. Dandamaev, A Political History of the Achaemenid Empire (Leiden: Brill, 1989) 46; Gmirkin, 120; The International Standard Bible Encyclopedia, 1:388; Saggs, 166.

13. The description of the construction of the ziggurat temple-tower Esagila in the Babylonian epic Enuma Elish (6:60‒62) is very similar; see also Westermann, 545‒46.

14. Othmar Keel, The Symbolism of the Biblical World: Ancient Near Eastern Iconography and the Book of Psalms (New York: Seabury Press, 1978) 113; see also Alan F. Segal, Life after Death: The History of the Afterlife in the Religions of the West (New York, New York: Doubleday, 2004), 37: “The steps suggest a ladder or staircase for the king to ascend to his heavenly abode, as in one of the depictions of the ascent of the pharaoh in the tomb of Unas.”

15. Northrop Frye, Words with Power: Being a Second Study of “The Bible and Literature” (Toronto, Canada: University of Toronto Publishing, 2008), 140.

16. Keel, 113.

17. Northrop Frye, The Great Code: The Bible and Literature (London, England: ARK, 1981), 158.

18. Ronald Hendel, “Genesis 1‒11 and its Mesopotamian Problem” in Erich S. Gruen (ed.), Cultural Borrowing and Ethnic Appropriations in Antiquity (Stuttgart, Germany: Franz Steiner Verlag, 2005) 32.

19. W. F. Albright, “The Babylonian Temple-Tower and the Altar of Burnt-Offering” (JBL 39, 3/4), 137.

20. Matthew B. Brown, The Gate of Heaven (American Fork, Utah: Covenant Communications, 1999) 60.

21. Pastor of Hermas, Book 1, Vision 3, Chapters 2-9; Similitude 9, Chapters 2-13; see also Lloyd Gaston, No Stone on Another (Leiden: Brill, 1970) 199, who links the tower in Hermas to the tower in the book of Enoch.

22. Timothy C. Gray, The Temple in the Gospel of Mark (Tübingen, Germany: Mohr Siebeck, 2008) 62.

23. Cf. Tosefta Sukkah 3:15.

24. Craig A. Evans, The Bible Knowledge Background Commentary: Matthew - Luke (Colorado Springs, Colorado: Cook Communications, 2003) 399.

25. Cf. Margaret Barker's commentary on Isaiah 21 in James D. G. Dunn and John W. Rogerson (eds.), Eerdmans Commentary on the Bible (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdmans 2003), 514:

The fragments of this oracle enable us to glimpse the eighth-century prophet at work. He is the “watchman who stands on the tower” (21:8, just as in Hab 2:1; thus 1QIsa^a, but older translations use the impossible MT “lion”), and he sees history unfold before him, as does Enoch (1 Enoch 87:1-4), Abraham (in the later Apocalypse of Abraham 21-29), and Jesus (Luke 4:5: “all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time”). This is temple tradition, seeing all history from beyond time from the presence of God in the holy of holies (see on Isa 40:12-31).

Her commentary on the towers in Isaiah 33 is intriguing as well:

The Targum of Isaiah understood the curious activity of “counting towers” (33:18) as the “counting of mighty men” (“exalted ones,” a possible understanding of the Hebrew), another description of heavenly triumph (cf. Isa 40:26, where the Lord numbers the host of heaven and names them as a sign of his power).

26. Cf., The New International Version, The New Jerusalem Bible, The New English Translation, The Jewish Publication Society, The American Standard Version, The Revised Standard Version, The New American Standard Bible, and The New Revised Standard Version Bible.

27. Heinz Schreckenberg and Kurt Schubert, Jewish Historiography and Iconography in Early and Medieval Christianity (Netherlands: Van Gorcum, 1991) 196; See also Frye 2008, 139: “Further, if angels were going both up and down on it, it was really a staircase, not a ladder.”

28. E.A. Speiser, Genesis (Garden City, New York: Doubleday, 1986), 218, 20 as quoted in Brown, 42.

29. Cf., Margaret Barker, The Gate of Heaven (Sheffield, England: Sheffield Phoenix Press, 2008) 14, 17; Lawrence Boadt, Reading the Old Testament: an Introduction (Mahwah, New Jersey: Paulist Press, 1984) 269‒70; Menahem Haran, Temples and Temple-Service in Ancient Israel (Winona Lake, Indiana: Eisenbrauns, 1985) 13‒42, esp. 28‒30;

30. See Esther Eshel's survey in “Jubilees 32 and the Bethel Cult Traditions in Second Temple Literature” in Things Revealed: Studies in Early Jewish and Christian Literature in Honor of Michael E. Stone (Leiden, The Netherlands: Brill, 2004) 21‒36.

31. Brown, 43.

32. Generally, see tractates tamid and yoma in the Talmud; for an excellent overview on the subject, see chapter two, “The Use of the Name YHWH,” in Sean M. McDonough, YHWH at Patmos (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1999) 58‒122.

33. McDonough, 100‒101; see also tractate yoma 3:8.

34. Morgan W. Tanner, “Jaredites” in The Encyclopedia of Mormonism online at http://mi.byu.edu/publications/books/?bookid=51&chapid=385; see also Hugh W. Nibley's chapter “A Permanent Heritage” in Lehi in the Desert; The World of the Jaredites; There Were Jaredites (Deseret Book, 1988); John L. Sorenson, “The Years of the Jaredites,” in BYU Today, September 1968, pp. 18—24:

There is solid evidence in the Book of Mormon itself, and certainly more from archaeology, indicating that remnants of the old population survived in various spots after the final organized battle. The scripture only talks, after all, of the destruction of the Jaredite people as a social entity, not the extinction of the entire population.

35. John L. Sorenson, “Peoples of the Book of Mormon” in The Encyclopedia of Mormonism online at http://mi.byu.edu/publications/books/?bookid=51&chapid=424

36. Cf. John A.Tvedtnes, “A Phonemic Analysis of Nephite and Jaredite Proper Names,” presented at the Twenty-second Annual Symposium on the Archaeology of the Scriptures and Allied Fields, held at Brigham Young University on October 28, 1973. Accessed online at: http://ancientamerica.org/library/media/HTML/qx6x4fwp/A%20PHONEMIC%20ANALYSIS%20OF%20NEPHITE%20AND%20JAREDITE%20PROPER%20NAMES.htm?n=0. See also Nibley, “A Permanent Heritage.”

37. Note how Zarahemla is able to give “a genealogy of his fathers, according to his memory” (Omni 18), which implies a systemic oral history is being preserved at least among the Mulekites; if the two cultures have mixed, would the oral history of the Jaredites have been preserved in this fashion as well?

38. Cf., “Upon the Tower of Benjamin” in Melvin J. Thorne and John W. Welch (eds.), Pressing Forward with the Book of Mormon: The FARMS Updates of the 1990s (Provo, UT: FARMS, 1999). Notice also how Noah builds a tower near his temple (Mosiah 11:12), although it doesn't seem to have much of a spiritual function.

39. Cf. Terence L. Szink and John W. Welch, “King Benjamin's Speech in the Context of Ancient Israelite Festivals” in John W. Welch 1998 147–223; John A. Tvedtnes, “King Benjamin and the Feast of Tabernacles” in John M. Lundquist and Stephen D. Ricks (eds.), By Study and Also by Faith, vol. 2 (Salt Lake City: 1990).

40. Some scholars argue that King Josiah's temple reform (622 BCE; 2 Kings 22) and Ezekiel's vision of the restored temple exactly 50 years later (572 BCE; Ezekiel 40:1) are Jubilee events. (Cf. Margaret Barker, The Great High Priest [London: T&T Clark, 2003] 36-37; Håkan Ulfgard, The Story of Sukkot: The Setting, Shaping, and Sequel of the Biblical Feast of Tabernacles [Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1998] 42). If we accept these dates as a starting point for the Jubilee cycle, then 122 bce would have been a Jubilee year as well, and King Benjamin's discourse is usually dated to “around 124 b.c.” There are many points of contact between Benjamin's discourse and Jubilee texts, leadings several LDS scholars to argue for Mosiah 2-4 as a Jubilee year sermon (cf., Szink and Welch).

“Rid of Your Blood”: Robes and Atonement in the Book of Mormon

2010-06-07T22:52:00.016-06:00

Mankind has always been preoccupied with sin and death. In the temple-centric world of ancient Israel, the effects of sin resulted in rupturing the original covenant of creation, allowing chaos to disorder the universe until these bonds could be renewed on the Day of Atonement (Leviticus 16), when the Lord would redeem his people by atoning for their sins. As I noted in an earlier post, The Annual Fall Festival in the Book of Mormon, the Day of Atonement was part of the larger fall enthronement festival that saw the Lord celebrated as king and victor over the monsters Rahab and Leviathan and represented the final day of judgment, when the forces of evil would be bound, the prisoners would go free, and the people and their land would be healed. On this one day every year, the High Priest would set aside his usual ornate clothing to don simple white linen robes of purity, entering beyond the veil of the temple into the Holy of Holies with a bowl that carried the fresh blood of the sacrificial goat that represented Jehovah. The blood represented the sins of collective Israel, and in the darkness the high priest would sprinkle the blood before the mercy seat, covering himself in the process as he interceded for his people's sins. I believe this is the context behind the imagery of robes and blood used so vividly by Book of Mormon prophets such as Jacob and King Benjamin.

The blood is the key to the entire ritual. “For the life of the flesh is in the blood: and I have given it to you upon the altar to make an atonement for your souls: for it is the blood that maketh an atonement for the soul” (Lev 17:11). This is connected to the strictures to Noah against consuming blood (Gen 9:4‒6). According a halakhic midrash on Leviticus, “there is no expiation except with blood” (Sipra Lev, Nedaba 4:10). And in his great commentary on the Day of Atonement, the author of Hebrews tells us that “without shedding of blood is no remission” (Heb 9:22 NRSV). We are “justified by his blood” (Rom 5:9), overcoming the adversary “by the blood of the Lamb” (Rev 12:11). And the Savior tells us, “For this is my blood of the new testament, which is shed for many for the remission of sins” (Matt 26:28).

Some of Israel's priestly rituals appear to reflect the future Messiah's capacity to purify, cleanse, and redeem through blood. When collected Israel accepts the word of the Lord by covenant, part of the ritual act includes Moses sprinkling the blood of sacrificial oxen onto the people, saying “Behold, the blood of the covenant which the Lord hath made with you” (Ex 24:8).[1] Another blood ritual described in Exodus 29 purifies the priests, although there is some suspicion that the rite described is simply the outer form of a an earlier more meaningful event.[2] After dressing in the sacred robes, Aaron, his sons and their priestly garments were to be made holy through the blood of a sacrificial ram, whose life force was daubed on the right ears, thumbs, and toes of Aaron and his sons, flung against the altar, and sprinkled on their garments (Ex 29:19‒22).

However, blood usually made Israelites unclean. Women with a menstrual issue had to be quarantined. And blood would especially make priests ritually unclean in their capacity to offer sacrifices. In Jubilees, when Abraham instructs Isaac on the particulars of animal sacrifice, he tells him, “And let no blood appear upon you nor upon your clothes; be on thy guard, my son, against blood, be on thy guard exceedingly; cover it with dust” (Jubilees 21:17; see also 7:30). The text of Aramaic Levi has Isaac repeating some of these instructions to his son Levi.[3] Indeed, all of the blood from these rituals would have been an unsavory mess:

In contrast to the scarlet blood, the whiteness of priestly linen symbolized divine holiness and righteousness (Cf. Dan. 7.9 and 1 Enoch 14.20, which describe God’s holiness by the symbolism of his garment’s whiteness; see also Job 29:14; Psalm 132:9; Isaiah 61:10; Revelation 3:5; 15:6; 19:7-8, 11, 13-15). In the Book of Mormon, the heavenly guides for Lehi and Nephi during their visions wore white robes (1 Ne 8:5; 14:19), as did the Savior during his visit (3 Ne 11:8). In the context of redemption and atonement, Nephi talks about being encircled about in the Lord's “robe of righteousness” (2 Ne 4:33) and Jacob refers to “being clothed with purity, yea, even with the robe of righteousness” (2 Ne 9:14). But the profusion of blood on these sacred garments from ritual sacrifice would have rendered them unclean. Alfred Edersheim tells us that “every spot of blood from a sin-offering on a garment conveyed defilement, as being loaded with sin, and all vessels used for such sacrifices had either to be broken or scoured.”[5] The robes had to be washed free from the stain of the symbol of sin: “And when there is sprinkled of the blood thereof upon any garment, thou shalt wash that whereon it was sprinkled in the holy place” (Leviticus 6:27 KJV).[6]

And this brings us back to the Day of Atonement. When the High Priest sprinkled the blood on the mercy seat in the pitch dark (except for the light from the glowing coals) of the Holy of Holies, the blood that represented the sins of collected Israel—and the means of expiating both them and healing the land—would have covered his white linen garments as well as the veil.[7] Some commentators see this Day of Atonement blood imagery behind Isaiah's scarlet-sin-to-white-snow metaphor in Isaiah 1:18.[8] (Isaiah 63:2 gives us the Messiah as high priest soaked in the blood of the vineyard.) After the sacrifices were complete, the high priest would remove his blood-soaked garments, bathe himself, and then put on new robes that were free from the impurities associated with the sins of the people. (Leviticus 16:23-24).[9] In another day of atonement pericope,[10] the high priest Joshua is taken into the Holy of Holies, where his filthy garments, representing the sins of the nation[11] are changed for clean ones:

Now Joshua was clothed with filthy garments, and stood before the angel. And he answered and spake unto those that stood before him, saying, Take away the filthy garments from him. And unto him he said, Behold, I have caused thine iniquity to pass from thee, and I will clothe thee with change of raiment. (Zechariah 3:3‒5)

We see this type of blood garment imagery associated with the sins of the people in a very similar context in the Book of Mormon. And like those found in the Hebrew Bible, these passages also evoke a larger context of the fall festival of which the Day of Atonement would have been a part. Jacob uses it first in his great sermon on the atonement:

O, my beloved brethren, remember my words. Behold, I take off my garments, and I shake them before you; I pray the God of my salvation that he view me with his all-searching eye; wherefore, ye shall know at the last day, when all men shall be judged of their works, that the God of Israel did witness that I shook your iniquities from my soul, and that I stand with brightness before him, and am rid of your blood. (2 Nephi 9:44)

Jacob refers to the iniquities of his people on his robe as if he were the high priest in the Day of Atonement ceremony, with the bloody sins of his branch of collective Israel defiling his garments. He also uses this imagery twice more at the temple during another sermon about sin and redemption:

This image seems clearly to evoke the process of the Day of Atonement where the high priest ritually incurred the sins of his people onto the skirts of his robes in the form of blood. And we see the same type of imagery from King Benjamin during the enthronement ceremony for his son. In what has often been identified as a Feast of Tabernacles ritual[12]—part of the annual fall festival of ingathering that includes the Day of Atonement—this righteous priest-king assembles his subjects to anoint a new king and proclaim atonement through the blood of the coming Messiah. But he frames the context with blood imagery worthy of a high priest on the Day of Atonement:

I say unto you that I have caused that ye should assemble yourselves together that I might rid my garments of your blood, at this period of time when I am about to go down to my grave, that I might go down in peace, and my immortal spirit may join the choirs above in singing the praises of a just God. (Mosiah 2:28)

Combined with an Atonement/Tabernacles setting, the imagery here seems clearly linked to the high priest's bloody robes from Leviticus 16. And there are several other passages where Book of Mormon prophets talk about the sins of others as blood on their robes (cf. Mormon 9:35; Ether 12:38). Additionally, this concept seems to grow into the related idea that requires all of Israel to be free from their own sins by redemption through the blood of the Messiah as symbolized by white garments free from blood (cf. Alma 5:21-22, 24, 27; 7:25; 13:11-12; 34:36; 27:19; Ether 12:37; 13:10). Yet these three instances—two by Jacob and one by King Benjamin—all clearly seem to have a fall festival setting that uses the rituals of Leviticus 16 as the backdrop for much of their entire discourse

Notes

1. The book of Jubilees tells us that the blood sprinkling as part of this covenant ritual relates back to the stipulation not to eat blood given in Genesis 9 (see Jubilees 6:11‒12).

2. Cf. Z’Ev Ben Shimon Halevi, Kabbalah and Exodus (Boston, MA: Weiser Books, 1988) 171:

The two rams were then to be slaughtered. The first was another burnt food offering to placate the Deity while the second ram’s blood was put on the right ears, thumbs and toes of Aaron and his sons, before it also was flung against the altar. This again is probably the description of a symbolic ceremony that had become corrupted by priests who no longer knew anything more than the outer form. The text goes on to describe how the ram’s blood should be sprinkled over Aaron and his sons’ vestments, that they might become holy. This is an account of an event that at one time must have had much more to it than what is described, if its purpose was really to make a man and his garments become holy.

3. Martha Himmelfarb, “Earthly Sacrifice and Heavenly Incense: The Law of the Priesthood in Aramaic Levi and Jubilees” in Ra’anan S. Bouston, Annette Yoshiko Reed (eds.), Heavenly Realms and Earthly Realities in Late Antique Religions (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2004) 107.

4. Ibid.

5. Alfred Edersheim, The Temple: Its Ministry and Services As They Were at the Time of Jesus Christ (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Kregal Publications, 1997) 93.

6. Other bodily fluids would also render the garments unclean. When contaminated with semen, the garments must be washed, and the person affected was unclean until the evening (Lev. 15:17). If contaminated by leprosy, they must be examined (Lev. 13:47-59; 14:33-47) and either burned or washed, depending on the stage of growth (13:56-58).

7. Margaret Barker (The Gate of Heaven [Sheffield, England: Sheffield Phoenix Press, 2008] 107) relates the following:

Similarly, in ad 70 Titus took the curtain of the temple among his spoils together with a great quantity of blue and purple wools. He ordered that the curtain be kept in his palace in Rome (Josephus, War VII.162), where a second-century Rabbi saw it. He also saw on it the bloodstains from the Day of Atonement sprinklings: 'Said R. Eleazar b. R. Yose, “I myself saw it in Rome and there were drops of blood on it. And he told me, “These are the drops of blood from the Day of Atonement'”' (Tosefta, Kippurim 2.16).

8. Edward Chumney, The Seven Festivals of the Messiah (USA: Treasure House, 1994) 154: “Isaiah 1:18 speaks of the blood-stained garments and the new garments that were put on afterwards.”

9. An interesting commentary on this is found in Jung Hoon Kim, The Significance of Clothing Imagery in the Pauline Corpus (New York: T&T Clark International, 2004), 22:

One interesting aspect is that the priest takes a bath before coming out of the sanctuary area. What is the reason for this bath? It cannot be because his regular garments are holier than the sacred linen ones which have been worn in his ministry. There are perhaps two reasons. Firstly, it is conceivable that the priest might be defiled in the process of performing an offering, in particular, a sin offering. On the Day of Atonement, washings and cleansings (symbolizing getting rid of all taint of sin) are significantly performed in various situations (Lev. 16.26, 28). R.E. Clements holds that ‘contact with the sin-bearing animal could lead to the rubbing off of sin onto the person touching it’. The sacrificial blood of the animal is holy, but this holiness, paradoxically, defiles the high priest; a garment which is stained with the blood should be washed in a holy place (cf. Lev. 6.27).

10. Cf. Daniel Stökl Ben Ezra, The Impact of Yom Kippur on Early Christianity (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2003) 81; Marko Jauhiainen, The Use of Zechariah in Revelation (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2005) 44‒45.

11. Cf. Herbert Lockyer, All the Parables of the Bible (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan, 1963) 108; Jung Hoon Kim, The Significance of Clothing Imagery in the Pauline Corpus (New York: T&T Clark International, 2004) 24. George L. Klein (Zechariah [USA: B & H Publishing Group, 2008] 151) tells us this activity “would once more effect its ancient goal of restoring the damaged relations between God and his people”; James C. VanderKam, “Joshua the High Priest and the Interpretation of Zechariah 3,” CBQ 53 (1991): 564-65. David Baron, Zechariah: A Commentary on his Visions and Prophecies (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Kregel Publications, 1918:

The word צואים, tsoyim, which is found only here as an adjective, is the strongest expression in the Hebrew language for filth of the most loathsome character, and the garments so defiled denote the sins of the people as viewed by the Holy One, in which the high priest as their representative stood, so as to say, clad in His presence.

12. Cf. John W. Welch and Stephen D. Ricks (eds.) King Benjamin's Speech: “That Ye May Learn Wisdom” (Provo, Utah: FARMS, 1998).

The Annual Fall Festival in the Book of Mormon

2010-06-04T10:34:00.023-06:00

In the seventh month, on the tenth day of the month, you shall afflict your souls, and you shall not do any work . . . For on that day he shall provide atonement for you to cleanse you from all your sins before the LORD. (Leviticus 16:29-30)

The Hebrew Bible actually records three festivals in ancient Israel during the autumnal harvest month of Tishri: New Year (Rosh ha-Shana) starting on the 1st of Tishri, the Day of Atonement (Yom Kippur) starting on the 10th, and Tabernacles (Sukkot) starting on the 15th (cf. Num 29 and Lev 23). However, this tri-fold division of the festival complex is generally seen as a post-exilic redaction, the consensus being that anciently there was a single yearly autumnal agrarian ingathering festival that was later divided into the three distinct feasts.[1] This is seen as happening in stages. In the time of King Josiah, the deuteronomist reformers deemphasized the land atonement and land fertility aspects of the fall festival (as well as its local nature) in order to create a national festival at the Jerusalem Temple.[2] Later, due to the exile, the solar-based harvest calendar is abandoned in favor of a Babylonian lunar system of chronology that required fixing rituals to precise calculations of new moons rather than on a fluctuating harvest season.[3] Many of the names used for months in Israel's calendar, including Tishri itself, are actually of Babylonian origin; very few of the original Hebrew names for the months are actually known, further evidence of the editing that took place due to Babylonian influence.

While the existence of a single pre-exilic fall festival period is generally accepted, its precise character has been debated. In part this is because there is a general suspicion that ritual texts like Leviticus were finalized after the exile and thus contain a mixture of both early and late material.[4] Further, the rituals are often given as simply lists of instructions with few (if any) explanations as to meaning, purpose, or context—possibly because later priests (after the exile) no longer knew the reasons behind the first Temple rituals and thus had altered them.[5] The texts that are definitively considered to be pre-exilic rarely mention the festival yet provide a narrative that assumes a ritual festival as its context. To overcome the paucity of reliable data, many scholars have attempted to flesh out the festival complex by looking for instances elsewhere in the Hebrew Bible where the cultural and religious aspects of (sometimes only implied) cultic festivals are emphasized. In the early twentieth century, the Norwegian scholar Sigmund Mowinckel proposed that the context missing from the instructional texts could be recovered in a large part from the Psalms, many of which he saw as cultic hymns and prayers for these very rituals.[6] He reconstructed a single fall festival that centered on the enthronement of Yhwh (Jehovah) as king, who after his victory over the monsters of chaos renews the covenant of creation, stands as judge over his congregated people, and extends atonement and healing to the land and people, after which they celebrate the harvest and start the new year.[7] He and others saw parallels between this reconstruction and the yearly purification and enthronement festivals of other ancient peoples, such as with the Babylonian Akitu festival. Mowinckel's theory has largely altered all discussion about the fall festival, and most still accept his basic thesis with various modifications.[8]

Several LDS scholars have engaged these ideas with good results. A few examples would include Hugh Nibley's ongoing discussion of the year-rite kingship ceremonies of ancient nations,[9] and Terence L. Szink and John W. Welch's thesis of a single fall festival with its three component parts as the setting for King Benjamin's speech.[10] The same thesis is used by Robert D. Hunt and John W. Welch in describing Jerusalem circa 600 BCE:

The third festival encompasses three holy days. This festival is celebrated in the fall and is made up of Rosh ha-Shanah, or New Year; Yom Kippur, Day of Judgment, or Day of Atonement; and Sukkot, or Feast of Tabernacles. Today, Jews celebrate these days as separate, distinct holidays but here in the ancient world Israelites looked upon them as one large and single season of celebration.[11]

Understandably, much of the research to date focuses on King Benjamin's kingship ceremony and covenant-making ritual with his people in comparison to what we now know as Sukkot, or Tabernacles. However, what has gone undocumented to a certain extent is the pervasive nature of the priestly Yom Kippur, or Day of Atonement aspects in this and other portions of the text. I believe that we see aspects Yom Kippur not only in King Benjamin's discourse, but that it is the main context for understanding Jacob's sermons in 2 Nephi 6-10 and Jacob 2-3. It also seems to be an important aspect of Lehi's land-covenant discourse in the first chapter of 2 Nephi. Over the next few months I hope to elaborate on these and related themes to try and flesh out the connections I see.

Notes

1. Cf. Jacob Milgrom, Leviticus 23–27 (Anchor Bible Series 3B, New York: Doubleday, 2001) 2045‒46; Margaret Barker, The Great Angel (Louisville, Kentucky: Westminster John Knox Press, 1992) 44: “The pattern of festivals for the month Tishri in the period of the second Temple suggests that the three (New Year, Day of Atonement, Tabernacles) were the separated parts of what had formerly been the one great festival.”; Roland J. Faley, “Leviticus” in Raymond Brown, Joseph A. Fitzmyer, and Roland E. Murphey (eds.), The Jerome Biblical Commentary (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1968) 81‒83; Norman Snaith “The Religion of Israel” in H. Wheeler Robinson (ed.), Record and Revelation: Essays on the Old Testament by (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1938) 260; fairly representative is Hayyim Schauss (trans. Samuel Jaffe), The Jewish Festivals: From Their Beginnings to Our Own Day (Cincinnati: Union of American Hebrew Congregations, 1938) 112‒122, esp. 113:

In those days they observed only one festival at that time of the year, the Festival of the Ingathering of the fruits and grapes. That festival had many rites that are now associated with Rosh Hashonoh, Yom Kippur, and Sukkos. It was only later, after the Babylonian Exile, that the autumn festival was divided into three separate holidays. For this reason Jews observe, in one season of the year, three festivals which are all actually New Year festivals.

2. Cf. Frank H. Gorman Jr., “Feasts, Festivals” in David Noel Freedman (ed.), Eerdmans Dictionary of the Bible (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdmans, 2000), 457‒59; Håkan Ulfgard, The Story of Sukkot: The Setting, Shaping, and Sequel of the Biblical Feast of Tabernacles (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 1998) 45: “ Emphasis on the pesah/ massot festival instead of the autumnal harvest festival meant a conscious delimitation over against other cultures, a way of denoting a particular Judaic identity in the worship of YHWH. The idealized story about Josiah’s Passover (2 Kgs 23:21-23; cf. 2 Chron 35:1-19)—the culmination of the Josianic and deuternomistic cult reformation—illustrates the emphasis on this particular festival . . .” Yet the Song of Moses, or Cantemus Domino (Deut 32:1‒43), which itself shows evidence of later redaction (cf. Barker 1992, 43‒44), emphasizes the earlier, pre-exilic view concerning the coming of the Messiah on the Day of Judgment/Day of Atonement to perform atonement for the land as the high priest (Deut 32:43); Roland de Vaux emphasizes the land aspect as the genesis for the festival, in Ancient Israel: It's Life and Institutions (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdmans, 1997) 495‒496.

3. Julye Bidmead, “New Year” in David Noel Freedman 2000, 962; G. Johannes Botterweck, Helmer Ringgren, Heinz-Josef Fabry (eds.), Theological Dictionary of the Old Testament, vol 10 (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdmans, 2000) 246–248; Roland de Vaux 1997, 498: “the date was not fixed . . . and was therefore held when all the crops had been gathered in”; Walter J. Houston, “Leviticus” in James D.G. Dunn and John W. Rogerson (eds.), Eerdman's Commentary on the Bible (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdmans, 2003) 120: “The tension arises in that the harvest does not begin or end on fixed dates every year.”; Håkan Ulfgard 1998, 37-55, esp. 43:

Evidently this is an example of the tension between older and younger calendrical traditions, where the ancient agrarian calendar's dating of the harvest festival to the turn of the year at the autumnal equinox has been replaced by the lunar calendar's precise dating of the festival to the 15/7 (the full moon of the seventh month). Similar conclusions are reached by H. Cazelles, explaining how the ancient, pre-exilic autumnal and harvest and New Year festival was split up into three separate holidays.

4. On Leviticus as a whole, see Walter Brueggemann, An Introduction to the Old Testament: The Canon and Christian Imagination (Westminster John Knox Press, 2003) 67; Walter J. Houston, “Leviticus” in James D.G. Dunn 2003, 102‒103; Watson E. Mills, Edgar V. McKnight, Roger A. Bullard (eds.), Mercer Dictionary of the Bible (Mercer University Press, 1997) 511. On Leviticus 16 in particular (the Day of Atonement ritual), see Roland de Vaux (trans. John McHugh), Ancient Israel: Its Life and Institutions (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdmans, 1997) 509; Martin Noth, Leviticus: A Commentary (The Westminster Press: Philadelphia, 1965) 117–125;

5. Cf. the explanation for the priestly blood sprinkling in Exodus 29 in Z’Ev Ben Shimon Halevi, Kabbalah and Exodus (Boston, MA: Weiser Books, 1988) 171:

For the lack of explanation behind the rituals in Leviticus, see Walter J. Houston, “Leviticus” in James D.G. Dunn and John W. Rogerson (eds.), Eerdman's Commentary on the Bible (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdmans, 2003) 102‒103; Martin Noth sees the Day of Atonement rituals as partially corrupted with the original reason lost, in Leviticus: A Commentary (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1965) 117–119; Margaret Barker explores the Enoch traditions as texts that claim to preserve the true priestly tradition that has been altered in Leviticus, in The Gate of Heaven (Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix Press, 2008) 41–43; Jacob Milgrom argues for the goat ritual (Leviticus 16) as a later priestly altering of an earlier pagan practice whose function is then theologically changed by the priests over time, in Leviticus 1–16: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary (The Anchor Bible; New York: Doubleday, 1992) 1018, 1020, 1023–1024.

6. He advanced his theories in German in a six-volume series entitled Psalmenstudien (published in Kristiania, Norway between 1921–1924 by Skrifter utgitt av Det Norske Videnskaps-Akademi i Oslo, II. Hist.-Filos. Klasse). The Norwegian edition was entitled Offersang og Sangoffer (Oslo: H. Aschehoug & Co, 1951), while the English version (trans. D.R. Ap-Thomas) emerged as The Psalms in Israel's Worship (Nashville: Abingdon, 1962).

7. See especially chapter five (“Psalms at the Enthronement Festival of Yahweh”) in The Psalms in Israel's Worship.

8. A good review of Mowinckel's theory, an assessment of its detractors' arguments, and its current state in the scholarly world is found in J.J.M Roberts, “Mowinckel's Enthronement Festival: A Review,” in Peter W. Flint and Patrick D. Miller (eds.), The Book of Psalms: Composition and Reception (Leiden: Brill, 2005) 97-115. See also Patrick D. Miller, “Israelite Religion,” in Douglas A. Knight and Gene M. Tucker (eds.), The Hebrew Bible and Its Modern Interpreters (Philadephia: Fortress, 1985) 220-22.

9. Cf. his chapter “Old World Ritual in the New World” in An Approach to the Book of Mormon, 3^rd ed. (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book and FARMS, 1988) 295–310; see also his “Assembly and Atonement” as published in John W. Welch and Stephen D. Ricks (eds.) King Benjamin's Speech: “That Ye May Learn Wisdom” (Provo, Utah: FARMS, 1998) 121–122.

10. “King Benjamin's Speech in the Context of Ancient Israelite Festivals” in John W. Welch 1998 147–223.

11. Robert D. Hunt and John W. Welch, "Culturegram: Jerusalem 600 BC” in Glimpses of Lehi's Jerusalem by David R. Seely, JoAnn H. Seely, and John W. Welch as found at the Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship at http://mi.byu.edu/publications/books/?bookid=2&chapid=21.

A Robe of Righteousness: From Adam to Isaiah

2010-05-31T19:31:00.016-06:00

Let thy priests be clothed with righteousness; and let thy saints shout for joy. (Psalms 132:9)

The imagery of a robe of righteousness is one of the more powerful symbols of the Atonement in the Book of Mormon. Yet it is only used twice in that text—once by Nephi and once by his brother Jacob.[1] It is a priestly symbol linked to the Day of Atonement ritual (Leviticus 16) likely influenced by Isaiah, yet at least Jacob's usage seems to also evoke imagery associated with Adam.

Nephi's use of the phrase is found in his Psalm, where he asks, “O Lord, wilt thou redeem my soul?” and “Wilt thou make me that I may shake at the appearance of sin?” (2 Nephi 4:31). In this context of redemption from sin, Nephi pleads, “O Lord, wilt thou encircle me around in the robe of thy righteousness!” (2 Nephi 4:33). Jacob uses the same metaphor in his great sermon on the Atonement:

Wherefore, we shall have a perfect knowledge of all our guilt, and our uncleanness, and our nakedness; and the righteous shall have a perfect knowledge of their enjoyment, and their righteousness, being clothed with purity, yea, even with the robe of righteousness” (2 Nephi 9:14).

A priestly Atonement context here is fairly clear, and I have longed believed that the block of chapters from 6-10 in 2 Nephi are best explained as part of the priestly ritual surrounding the Day of Atonement. However, this passage also seems to include overtones from the Garden of Eden story: Adam and Eve, after partaking of the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil are suddenly aware of their guilt, uncleanness, and nakedness (see Gen 3:6–11) then afterwards clothed by God himself in a holy garment (Gen 3:21; Moses 4:27) prior to him explaining the atonement in terms of animal sacrifice (Moses 5:5-8). In other words, this is Adam as priest. In fact, Jewish legend argues that even before the fall, God made priestly robes of glory for Adam that were just like the robes worn by angels but that these robes were taken from him when he sinned (see Numbers Rabbah 4:6). The venerable John Henry Newman, who left the Church of England to pursue Roman Catholicism, speculated that Adam's awareness of his naked state implied the loss of some other kind of garment first:

Moreover, it may throw light on the meaning of the text to observe, that, whereas we have gained under the Gospel what we lost in Adam, and justification is a reversing of our forfeiture, and a robe of righteousness is what Christ gives, perchance a robe is what Adam lost. If so, what is told us of what he lost, will explain what it is we gain. Now the peculiar gift which Adam lost, is told us in the Book of Genesis; and it certainly seems to have been a supernatural clothing. He was stripped of it by sinning as of a covering, and shrank from the sight of himself.[2]

White linen robes were the clothing of priests and angels. It is what the saints who had overcome would wear on the heavenly throne (Rev 3:4-5; 4:4; 7:9, 13; 15:6; 19:8, 14), just as the Ancient of Days wore a white robe on the heavenly throne (Daniel 7:9). We see this imagery in Job: “I put on righteousness, and it clothed me: my judgment was as a robe and a diadem” (Job 29:14). And a similar metaphor is found in Sirach: “If thou followest righteousness, thou shalt obtain her, and put her on, as a glorious long robe” (Sirach 27:8). But the closest passage to the usage by Nephi and Jacob is found in Isaiah:

I will greatly rejoice in the LORD, my soul shall be joyful in my God; for he hath clothed me with the garments of salvation, he hath covered me with the robe of righteousness, as a bridegroom decketh himself with ornaments, and as a bride adorneth herself with her jewels. (Isaiah 61:10)

The last part of the text here is a little problematic. Alternate versions of 'as a bridegroom decketh himself with ornaments' read “as a bridegroom serving as a priest with a crown,”[3] while the Isaiah Targum has “as the high priest, who is prepared in his garments.”[4] This emphasizes the nature of the metaphor of the covenant relationship between bride and high priest as symbolized by the high priestly robe of righteousness. And this is supported by the context of the entire chapter. Isaiah 61 starts with the anointing of the Lord's servant and his call to release the prisoners and proclaim liberty to the captives (Isa 61:1). It is the day of vengeance (Isa 61:2), or Day of Judgment, and time for the land to be healed (Isa 61:4). Those who are addressed are called priests of Jehovah (Isa 61:6) and participate in the everlasting covenant (Isa 61:8). These are all signs of the jubilee year and the Day of Atonement ritual that begins the jubilee. And this is the text that the Savior chose to read publicly in the synagogue as he began his ministry (Luke 4:16-21).

Further, Isaiah 61 compares well to the story of Adam in Genesis. The consequences of Adam's choice led to captivity to sin and expulsion from paradise into a broken land in need of healing. He was judged yet promised salvation while given holy garments of skin and paired with his bride Eve in exile. In fact, Jewish mythology creates a number of links between Adam and the robe in Isaiah 61. Some of these legends follow Adam's garment through his posterity down to the Levite robes, eventually becoming the robe of righteousness of Isaiah 61:10 that will be worn by the Messiah.[5] The Greek version of an early legend has Eve lamenting to Satan about her lost robes using language very similar to that of Isaiah 61: “And I wept saying, Why have you done this to me. Now I am removed from the righteousness from which I was clothed (The Life of Adam and Eve, 21:2).

The dating of Trito-Isaiah aside, one wonders if Jacob and Nephi are referencing Isaiah 61 here. By their own admission, these brothers are heavily influenced by that great prophet, and Jacob's passage, at the very least, seems to share with Isaiah 61 an allusion to Adam. It's almost as if there were anciently some kind of ritual instruction about atonement and robes that took place in the temple on the Day of Atonement that began with the story of Adam.

Notes

1. The robe of righteousness metaphor is also used in several revelations to Joseph Smith, also in a context of exaltation through atonement. See D&C 29:12; 109:76.

2. John Henry Newman, Lectures on Justification (London: J. H. Parker, 1838) 179.

3. Gregory K. Beale, The Book of Revelation: A Commentary on the Greek Text (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdmans, 1999) 938.

4. Ibid.

5. Nissan Rubin, Time and Life Cycle in Talmud and Midrash (Brighton, MA: Academic Studies Press, 2008) 42-48.

Nephi and His Brothers Hit it Off

2010-01-16T09:56:00.004-07:00

In my last post, "Psalm 1 and 2 as the Tree of Life Vision," I discussed the rod of iron in Lehi's vision and in Psalm 2 as a symbol of authority to rule both temporally and spiritually. The divine kings of the ancient Near East were given a staff at their coronation that assisted them in warding off enemies in war while shepherding their subjects along the correct path. In this respect, there is a curious event involving a rod that plays out with Nephi and his brothers.

When Lehi needs his sons to return to Jerusalem to retrieve the brass plates, he seems to have talked to Laman and Lemuel before talking to Nephi (1 Ne 3:5). This makes sense at this point in the narrative because they were older and assumed some type of ascendency over their younger brothers, even though Nephi has had assurances that he will be "a ruler and a teacher over [his] brethren" at some point (2 Ne 2:22). So after Laman fails at convincing Laban to give them the plates, it is Nephi who steps up to encourage his brothers spiritually and suggest a new plan of action. But when this attempt is not successful either, Laman and Lemuel punish their younger siblings with a staff:

And it came to pass that Laman was angry with me, and also with my father; and also was Lemuel, for he hearkened unto the words of Laman. Wherefore Laman and Lemuel did speak many hard words unto us, their younger brothers, and they did smite us even with a rod. (1 Ne 3:28)

As they use the rod, they are stopped by a divine messenger:

And it came to pass as they smote us with a rod, behold, an angel of the Lord came and stood before them, and he spake unto them, saying: Why do ye smite your younger brother with a rod? Know ye not that the Lord hath chosen him to be a ruler over you, and this because of your iniquities? (1 Ne 3:29)

It is interesting that the angel appears to tie the use of the rod to the authority to rule. While Laman and Lemuel use Nephi as a piñata, the angel points out that hitting Nephi with a rod (note how only Nephi--and not Sam--is singled out here) is wrong not because it could hurt him but because Nephi should be ruling. It seems to be connected. And the rod (or staff) is the symbol of that authority to rule. Laman and Lemuel misuse that authority and have it taken away from them.

Psalm 1 and 2 as the Tree of Life Vision

2010-01-04T23:14:00.018-07:00

Soon after a prophetic calling that appears to include initiation into the Divine Council,[1] the prophet Lehi receives a vision of the tree of life. He describes a harrowing journey through a dark and dreary wilderness that troubles him enough that he prays for mercy. He then finds himself at the tree of life, whose fruit makes those who partake of it happy, filling them with exceeding joy. The tree is planted near a river, by which he sees a path and a rod of iron. Lehi then contrasts those who follow this path to happiness with those who choose other paths, becoming lost in midst of darkness and among the mocking throngs of those in the great and spacious building.

In his expanded version of this same vision, Nephi asks his spiritual guide the meaning of the powerful symbols that he and his father have both witnessed. He learns that the tree represents the birth of the Son of God in the flesh to Mary. The iron rod represents the word of God that guides people along the path to the tree of life. A description of the mocking opposition leads to a multi-chapter apocalyptic presentation on a conspiracy by the Adversary and his acolytes against the Anointed and his followers—those who partake of the tree of life and become 'saints.'

I believe that the specific context of this vision underlies many of the Psalms, but particularly psalms 1 and 2. While the majority of scholars characterize these first two hymns as post-exilic additions that act as introductions to book one of the psalter (Psalms 1-41),[2] there are those who still advocate for an early date for either their composition, material, or both.[3] One study tells us that “Psalm 2 has a far more plausible Sitz im Leben in the period of the monarchy, in the context of an enthronement ceremony.”[4] Intriguingly, there are early manuscripts that have them joined as one Psalm. And several variants of Luke's citation of Psalms 2:7 in Acts 13:3 (manuscripts D latd g) introduce it with εν τω πρωτω ψαλμω (“in the first psalm”), implying that what is now Psalm 1 had originally been part of Psalm 2 and would have been purposefully detached in order to form a separate introductory hymn. F. F. Bruce comments on these variants as follows:

This was the reading of Latin codices known to Bede. Origin (on Ps. 2) says he has seen two Heb. Mss, in one of which Pss. 1 and 2 were joined as one. Justin, Tertullian, Cyprian, Eusebius, and Hilary also testify more or less explicitly to this practice of regarding these two psalms as one. In bBer. 9b “Blessed is the man . . .” (Ps. 1) and “Why do the nations conspire? . . .” (Ps. 2) are said to form “one chapter.”[5]

That these two may originally have been a single psalm might have something to do with their combined subjects. Psalm 1 is a wisdom hymn, focusing on the study of the law, while Psalm 2 is a royal psalm that talks about the coronation of the divine king. Together, they perfectly comprise the warning to the anointed Israelite kings to study the law as given in Deuteronomy 17:18-20—a key text in Israel's history. J. H. Eaton makes this connection in his commentary on Psalm 1:

There are several verbal coincidences with Psalm 2 (Int. 7b), and the two psalms in some manuscripts were joined as one . . . . It is possible that the teaching of Psalm 1 was originally directed to kings, who were meant to uphold and to study the tora of the Lord (Deut. 17.18-20), and in this case a linking to royal Psalm 2 would be fitting.[6]

Also citing the passage in Deuteronomy, Samuel Terrien sees ritual at work in these combined psalms: “For this reason, among others, scholars suggest that Psalms 1 and 2 originally formed a single poem, to be sung in a coronation liturgy.”[7] And in this he follows the scholarship of Brownlee and others.[8] That they were combined seems increasingly more certain. And together, the result seems fairly close to the vision of the tree of life.

Psalm 1 begins by contrasting two paths:

Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful.

But his delight is in the law of the LORD; and in his law doth he meditate day and night. (Psa 1:1-2 KJV)

Here we have a path of sinners and scorners contrasted with the righteous man who studies 'the law of the Lord,' which is torah, or divine instruction—what we might call scripture, or the word of God (written or oral). Compare this to the injunction to divine kings:

And it shall be, when he sitteth upon the throne of his kingdom, that he shall write him a copy of this law in a book out of that which is before the priests the Levites:

And it shall be with him, and he shall read therein all the days of his life: that he may learn to fear the LORD his God, to keep all the words of this law and these statutes, to do them:

That his heart be not lifted up above his brethren, and that he turn not aside from the commandment, to the right hand, or to the left: to the end that he may prolong his days in his kingdom, he, and his children, in the midst of Israel. (Deu 17:18-20 KJV)

Note that in this passage, as with the Psalms, studying the law (or scriptures) is compared to a path in that it assists the reader not to 'turn aside' to 'the right hand' or 'to the left.' Similarly, the righteous man in Psalm 1 chooses a path that involves studying the word of God. And this leads us to the tree imagery:

And he shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water, that bringeth forth his fruit in his season; his leaf also shall not wither; and whatsoever he doeth shall prosper. (Psa 1:3 KJV)

While this is widely regarded as a reference to the tree of life in the garden of Eden[9], the image is also seen by many as a symbol of the Messiah. Martin Luther followed several medieval commentators in advocating the tree in Psalm 1 as a symbol of Christ,[10] and many of the early fathers like Jerome and Augustine interpreted it this way as well.[11] Erasmus not only compares the Psalm 1 tree of life to Christ but specifically to his incarnation: “The Son of God will assume a human body, and descending from heaven, will be planted on earth beside the streams of the waters.”[12] In Proverbs 3 the tree is Wisdom, and in Proverbs 8 Wisdom is physically conceived or begotten in heaven (see Hebrew verb qanah in Prov 8:22). In another passage, Yahweh tells Israel that he is a tree for them: “I am like a luxuriant cypress; From Me comes your fruit” (Hos 14:8 NAS).[13] The tree in Psalm 1 is Christ made flesh. This parallels the vision Nephi has where he asks the meaning of the tree and as an answer sees the birth and mortal ministry of the Savior.

The reason for following the law or word of God to the tree that represents the Messiah is stated in the very first word of the psalm: 'ashery ha-ish (“happy is the man”). It is intensified by the word 'delight' (chephets) in verse 2 and implies that it is the result of movement along a path:

It derives from a root meaning “to go forward,” “to walk on,” “to march steadily” (cf. Akkadian, Arabic, etc.), perhaps even to progress in the way of comprehension (Prov 4:14; 9:6). By extension, it is a hortative of felicitation for blazing a trail.[14]

In other words, happiness and delight (or “joy”) come from following the path of the righteous that involves studying the word of God, which is then likened to the tree of life with its fruit. In Lehi's version, eating the fruit of the tree of life gave him great joy and happiness.

The last portion of Psalm 1 again contrasts the wicked and the righteous:

Therefore the ungodly shall not stand in the judgment, nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous. (Psa 1:5 KJV)

The word translated as 'righteous' here (Heb zaddiqim) means 'holy ones' and would be the same word underlying Nephi's reference to 'saints' in a similar contrast: “And I said unto them that it was an awful gulf, which separated the wicked from the tree of life, and also from the saints [zaddiqim] of God” (1 Ne 15:28). Note that the saints of God, the righteous, are paired with the tree of life just as in Psalm 1 in contrast to the wicked who are separated from this assembly (the divine council). The next verse again emphasizes the two ways:

For the LORD knoweth the way of the righteous: but the way of the ungodly shall perish.” (Psa 1:6 KJV)

Here we have the two ways—or literally paths (Heb derek)—that are characterized by the righteous saints (zaddiqim) and the wicked who perish. The word 'perish' here is translated from the Hebrew 'abad, whose roots refer to destruction and hint at the underworld but can also mean 'to stray' or 'become lost' (cf. 1 Sam 9:3, 20), which may be a better fit here when talking about an actual path.

Psalm 2—to which Psalm 1 was most likely originally attached—is widely regarded as a royal coronation psalm, where the Davidic king is anointed as the Son of God. As with Psalm 1, the overall context is a contrast between the wicked against the righteous:

Why do the nations conspire and the peoples plot in vain?

The kings of the earth take their stand and the rulers gather together against the LORD and against his Anointed One. (Psa 2:1-2 NIV)

In the midst of this plotting, the Messianic king is introduced:

I will proclaim the decree of Yahweh: He said to me, 'You are my son, today have I fathered you.' (Psa 2:7 NJB)

In the ancient Near East, the king became the son of God at his coronation ceremony. And not just an adult son but symbolically an actual newborn child, as they were considered to be fathered or begotten on that day. The verb for 'fathered' here in Psalm 2:7 (Heb yalad) is generally used for actual children and is not used elsewhere for an adult king.[15] This idea of the king being fathered on that day parallels similar ancient Near Eastern ceremonies where the coronation ritual symbolized the birth of the king by the gods, as in the coronation hymn to the goddess Aten that refers to the newly anointed king as “your son who came forth from your body.”[16] A coronation inscription for Hatshepsut reads, “My daughter, from my body, Maat-Ka-e, my brilliant image, gone forth from me. You are a king, who take possession of the two lands, on the throne of Horus, like Re.”[17] The declaration of Amun at the coronation of Haremhab is similar: “You are my son, the heir who came forth from my flesh.”[18] Or the blessing of Ptah: “I am your father, who have begotten you as a god and your members as gods.”[19] Some of these texts from the ancient Near East are filled with great detail about the physical conception and birth of the king by the gods as metaphor for divinity and authority.[20]

Israel held a similar belief about its king. Referring to Solomon's future status as king, Yahweh tells David: “I will be his father, and he shall be my son” (2 Sam 7:14 KJV). One school of thought ties this coronation terminology of fathering the king to the Messianic prophecy in Isaiah about the royal birth:

For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace. (Isa 9:6 KJV)

The same verb yalad is used here for the child being born as the “I have fathered you” in Psalm 2:7. G. von Rad and A. Alt see this verse related to Psalms 2:7 as the coronation ceremony for Hezekiah,[21] while other scholars point to Josiah or other kings.[22] In both passages we have the birth of royal kings as symbols of the Messiah. While Isaiah 9:6 has had more exposure in this regard, the tradition of Psalm 2:7 as Messianic in nature is just as long. J. H. Eaton tells us that this concept of the divine king in Psalm 2 “was joined to the visionary ideas concerning the Lord as the Most High God and Creator-King, and so nourished the religious faith that we later see blossoming in the hope of the Messiah (Hebrew for 'Anointed', Greek 'Christ'), who would represent the final kingdom of God.”[23] According to Rashi's commentary on this psalm, this was also the rabbinic interpretation that was later suppressed in order to counter Christian claims:

Our rabbis interpreted the subject of the chapter as a reference to the King Messiah. However, according to its basic meaning and for a refutation of the Christians it is correct to interpret it as a reference to David himself in consonance with what is stated in the Bible.[24]

Part of the coronation ceremony that is reflected in Psalm 2 involves a written oracle given to the king that proclaims his divine right to rule. This is what lies behind the introductory phrase “I will declare the decree” in Psalm 2:7 before we get “Thou art my son.” Eaton summarizes this as follows:

As part of his installation, the king has been given a document containing oracles of God; these appoint and acknowledge him, bestow blessings and probably make requirements. This document, called here the 'decree of the Lord', is probably the 'testimony' given with the crown in the story of 2 Kings 11.12; a comparable document featured in Egyptian enthronements.[25]

It is this same type of oracle we see at work in Isaiah 9:6 (“Unto us a child is born”). The written scripture becomes an authority to rule, which is what the king's staff or rod symbolizes as well. This staff shows up in the hand of the divine king in Psalm 2:

Thou shalt break them with a rod of iron; (Psa 2:9 KJV)

This rod reflects the traditions of the ancient Near East of the divine Shepherd-King, where the divine king possessed a shepherd's rod that symbolized both his divine authority to rule as king as well as his priestly responsibility to shepherd his people spiritually. Many of the ancient coronation texts refer to the king's responsibility as a shepherd. Sumerian coronation texts contain phrases such as “has exalted you as shepherd over the land of Sumer, [and] has put your enemies under your feet.”[26] Egyptian texts have similar terminology: “Give the crook into his hand so that the head of Lower and Upper Egypt shall be bowed.”[27] Assurbanipal's Assyrian coronation hymn says: “Place in his hand the weapon of war and battle, give him the black-headed people [i.e. Mankind], that he may rule as a shepherd.”[28] These rods were also royal sceptres that were frequently made out of iron: “Composite-sceptres with iron parts dated to the Iron Age II of the eighth and seventh century BCE were excavated in Tel Dan, Ta'anach and Nimrud.”[29]

Israel had it's own history of a Davidic Shepherd-King:

And I will set up one shepherd over them, and he shall feed them, even my servant David; he shall feed them, and he shall be their shepherd. (Eze 34:23 KJV)

The shepherd's rod or staff was used “for disciplining a wandering sheep, encircling a sheep’s neck or belly to rescue it from a gully and laying across the backs of sheep for purposes of counting (the so called rodding of the sheep) as they entered the sheepfold (Lev 27:32; Ezek 20:37).”[30] And this is the rod of the Shepherd-King in Psalm 2:9. But to see this we must take a closer look at the language behind the phrase “break them with a rod of iron.” The Hebrew text (unvoweled) gives us תרעם. Assuming the psalm to be late, many translators see this as a conjugation of the Aramaic verb ra'a', to break. But if we assume the material here to be pre-exilic, then we read it as a form of the Hebrew ra'ah, to feed, pasture, or shepherd. The Septuagint (LXX) Greek translators must have read this with the older Hebrew in mind and not as an Aramaic loan-word, because they chose the verb poimaneis (ποιμανεῖς, to shepherd or rule) as the translation, instead of the Aramaic “break.” (Thus, “He shall shepherd them with a rod of iron.”) The New Testament authors who cite Psalms 2:7 also use the Greek poimaneis, showing how they read this passage. And in the book of Revelation, John cites a portion of this verse with some powerful added imagery: “And she brought forth a man child, who was to rule [Greek poimaneis] all nations with a rod of iron: (Rev 12:5 KJV).” Note how this connection to the Son of God and his shepherd staff in Psalm 2 includes the vision of the actual birth of the Messiah from his mother, just as in Nephi's vision. But the Hebrew root that the Greek translation assumes can be found in similar contexts elsewhere: “Feed [from ra'ah] thy people with thy rod, the flock of thine heritage” (Mic 7:14 KJV; the Dead Sea Scrolls version is simply “shepherd your people with your rod”[31]). Thus the rod represents the shepherd's responsibility and authority to lead his flock along the path to pasture.

We see this leading function of the rod and shepherd throughout the biblical text, including elsewhere in the psalms: “Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me. (Psa 23:4 KJV). In the version at Qumran the text is better read “Even when I walk through the valley of deepest gloom . . . your rod and your staff—they comfort me,”[32] which reminds us of Lehi's journey through a dark and dreary waste and a rod of iron that leads others through gloomy mists of darkness. The rod of iron or shepherd's staff leads others and comforts them along the journey, avoiding those who gather in conspiracy to mock and challenge the Lord's anointed. This rod becomes the spiritual authority for Moses to lead the children of Israel out of Egypt on their own journey through a dark and dreary waste: "But lift thou up thy rod, and stretch out thine hand over the sea, and divide it: and the children of Israel shall go on dry ground through the midst of the sea” (Exo 14:16 KJV). Later, God tells him to “Take the rod, and gather thou the assembly together” (Num 20:8 KJV).

Thus in Psalm 2 we have a divine king who is anointed and presented as a Son of God, who is begotten just as the Messianic child in Isaiah's famous oracle. This Son of God is presented a written text of scripture that legitimizes his authority to rule, while he shepherds and leads his people with a rod of iron, protecting them from the wicked conspirators gathered to fight the Messianic Shepherd-King. When we place Psalm 1 back in the context of it's position with Psalm 2, we add the context that those gathered in conspiracy also mock and scorn the righteous saints (zaddiqim) who choose an actual path (derek) that is defined by studying the word of God and a tree with fruit (by a river) that makes one happy and represents King Messiah in his tabernacle of flesh. I submit that the the first two psalms were originally one hymn that celebrates the same vision that we have in the Book of Mormon as explained by Lehi and Nephi.

NOTES

1. 1 Ne 1:6-14. For an introduction to the Divine Council in biblical literature, see David E. Bokovoy, “Invoking the Council as Witnesses in Amos 3:13” JBL 127, no. 1 (2008): 37-51; Richard J. Clifford, The Cosmic Mountain in Canaan and the Old Testament (HSM 4; Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1972); Frank Moore Cross, "The Council of Yahweh in Second Isaiah." JNES 12 (1953): 274-277; John Day, Yahweh and the Gods and Goddesses of Canaan (JSOTS 265; Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1994; E. Theodore Mullen, Jr., The Divine Council in Canaanite and Early Hebrew Literature (HSM 24; Chico, CA: Scholars Press, 1980).

2. There are several reasons for this, including the lack of a superscription for both, as well as dependence on supposed Aramaic vocabulary in Psalm 2 (which will be discussed later). For a summary of the different time lines proposed for their composition, see Hans-Joachim Kraus, Psalms 1-59: A Continental Commentary (Minneapolis: Augsburg, 1988) 114-15.

3. The coronation of the Israelite king in Psalm 2, for example is indicative of pre-exilic kingship rites, and it displays Egyptian and Assyrian influence from the second millennium bce. Cf. Eckart Otto, “The Judean Legitimation of Royal Rulers in its Ancient Near Eastern Contexts” in Dirk J. Human and Cas J. A. Vos (eds.), Psalms and Liturgy (London: T&T Clark, 2004) 135;

4. Adela Yarbro Collins and John J. Collins, King Messiah as Son of God: Divine, Human, and Angelic Messianic Figures in Biblical and Related Literature (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdmans, 2008) 12:

5. F. F. Bruce, The Acts of the Apostles: The Greek Text with Introduction and Commentary (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdmans, 1990) 309; Kraus (Psalms 1-59, 114) instead speculates that the first psalm hadn't been added to the psalter at this point. Due to contrary evidence in the DSS and other manuscripts, this view is not followed by others.

6. J. H. Eaton, The Psalms: A Historical and Spiritual Commentary with an Introduction and New Translation (London: T & T Clark, 2003) 61. Note that despite these connections, Eaton also sees differences in the two and still leans toward a late composition date.

7. Samuel L. Terrien, The Psalms: Strophic Structure and Theological Commentary (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdmans, 2003) 79-80.

8. W. H. Brownlee, “Psalms 1-2 as a Coronation Liturgy,” Biblica 52 (1971) 321-336.

9. Cf., William P. Brown, Seeing the Psalms: A Theology of Metaphor (Louisville, Kentucky: Westminster John Knox Press, 2002) 57-61.

10. William Lee Holladay, The Psalms Through Three Thousand Years: Prayerbook of a Cloud of Witnesses (Minneapolis, MN: Augsburg Fortress, 1993) 193.

11. Craig A. Blaising and Carmen Hardin (eds.), Psalms 1-50: Ancient Christian Commentary on Scripture (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2008) 8.

12. Dominic Baker-Smith and Michael J. Heath (eds.), Collected Works of Erasmus: Expositions on the Psalms (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1997) 33; the comparison to Christ continues for the next few pages.

13. The KJV appears to have Ephraim speaking these words; however the Hebrew is better understood with Yahweh addressing Ephraim, as reflected in many other translations, e.g., the New International Version, the New Jerusalem Bible, the New English Translation, the New American Standard Bible, the English Standard Version, and others.

14. Terrien, The Psalms, 71.

15. Cf. Hans Wildeberger, Isaiah 1-12 (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1991) 398.

16. As cited in Alistaire G. Hunter, Psalms (London: Routledge, 1999) 51.

17. Collins and Collins, King Messiah as Son of God, 13.

18. Ibid.

19. Ibid.

20. Ibid., 4-10.

21. Cf. Gary V. Smith, Isaiah 1-39: An Exegetical and Theological Exposition of Holy Scripture (US: B&H Publishing Group, 2007) 236; see also Collins and Collins, King Messiah as Son of God, 13-14.

22. Smith, Isaiah 1-39, 236.

23. Eaton, The Psalms, 65.

24. Mayer I. Gruber, Rashi's Commentary on Psalms (JPS, 2008) 177.

25. Eaton, The Psalms, 66.

26. Hunter, Psalms, 51.

27. Ibid., 52.

28. Human and Vos, Psalms and Liturgy, 135-136.

29. Ibid., 135

30. Leland Ryken, James C. Wilhoit, Tremper Longman III (eds.), Dictionary of Biblical Imagery (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1998) 2468.

31. See Martin Abegg, Jr., Peter Flint, and Eugene Ulrich, The Dead Sea Scrolls Bible (New York: HarperOne, 1999).

32. Ibid.

Alma's Baptismal Covenant

2009-08-01T15:27:00.008-06:00

In the church we typically view baptism as an individual covenant that puts us on the pathway to eternal life and exaltation. In the book of Mosiah we see Alma the Elder travel this entire road, from sin and rebellion to repentance, baptism, and enduring to the end with a promise of eternal life. What I love about his journey, however, is that it underscores how much these important individual covenants are actually not about the individual at all. Alma's words to the gathered prospective saints at the waters of Mormon are a great example of this:

Mosiah 18:8‒9

8 And it came to pass that he said unto them: Behold, here are the waters of Mormon (for thus were they called) and now, as ye are desirous to come into the fold of God, and to be called his people, and are willing to bear one another's burdens, that they may be light;
9 Yea, and are willing to mourn with those that mourn; yea, and comfort those that stand in need of comfort, and to stand as witnesses of God at all times and in all things, and in all places that ye may be in, even until death, that ye may be redeemed of God, and be numbered with those of the first resurrection, that ye may have eternal life--

It's interesting that the individual covenant of baptism is not as much about the individual who makes the covenant as it is about those around them. Will you mourn with and comfort them? Will you bear their burdens? Will you stand as a witness of God? We tend to celebrate the individual who makes the covenant, whereas the wording of the covenant itself is asking that person to celebrate others. It's not really about them at all.

Near the end of his life, Alma pours out his soul to God as he seeks for guidance about the rebellious nature of the rising generation. The response he receives takes us back to this baptismal experience and includes a promise of eternal life:

Mosiah 26:15, 20‒21
15 Blessed art thou, Alma, and blessed are they who were baptized in the waters of Mormon. Thou art blessed because of thy exceeding faith in the words alone of my servant Abinadi.
20 Thou art my servant; and I covenant with thee that thou shalt have eternal life; and thou shalt serve me and go forth in my name, and shalt gather together my sheep.
21 And he that will hear my voice shall be my sheep; and him shall ye receive into the church, and him will I also receive.

After reminding Alma about the prior covenant of baptism that consisted of promising to serve others, God makes another covenant with him, promising eternal life. But once again, this covenant is not as much about Alma as it is about serving God by gathering his sheep. Once again the focus of the covenant is not on the individual but on what that individual will do for others.

In this we follow the example of Christ. Nephi's vision of the Savior's baptism (1 Nephi 11:27) is immediately followed by the statement that the Reedemer “went forth ministering unto the people, in power and great glory” (1 Nephi 11:28). In other words, he was baptized then started serving others. And he informs us that we need to do the same: “He that is baptized in my name, to him will the Father give the Holy Ghost, like unto me; wherefore, follow me, and do the things which ye have seen me do” (2 Nephi 31:12). Just like the juxtaposition of losing your life to find it, the individual covenants we make with our Heavenly Father in the end are really more about those around us.

Lamanite Kings and Approaching Armies

2009-07-16T19:59:00.011-06:00

There are a number of episodes in The Book of Mormon that contain thematic and textual similarities. For example, both Nephi and Lehi experience visions of the tree of life that are similar, and Alma the Younger recounts his conversion story using language that is very much like his father's. (For specific comments on the latter, see my entry under Authorial Influence: Alma the Elder and Alma the Younger.) Another recurring motif appears in the context of Lamanite kings and approaching armies.

The first example concerns Nephite colonists who have returned from Zarahemla to the Land of Nephi, making a treaty with the neighboring Lamanites to occupy the city Lehi-Nephi, the city Shilom, and the adjoining land (Mosiah 7:21). Eventually, however, they are attacked by the Lamanites, during which the people of Limhi discover the Lamanite king among the wounded (Mosiah 20:12). When they ask him why he attacked without provocation, the king accuses Limhi's people of abducting Lamanite maidens (Mosiah 20:15). With a large Lamanite army marching against his people, Limhi convinces the captured king that the priests of Noah are the true culprits (Mosiah 20:23). As a result, the Lamanite king is pacified toward the Nephites and agrees to intercede with the advancing troops (Mosiah 20:24–26). Note the emphasis placed on giving up weapons:

Mosiah 20:24–26
24 And it came to pass that the king was pacified towards his people; and he said unto them: Let us go forth to meet my people, without arms; and I swear unto you with an oath that my people shall not slay thy people.
25 And it came to pass that they followed the king, and went forth without arms to meet the Lamanites. And it came to pass that they did meet the Lamanites; and the king of the Lamanites did bow himself down before them, and did plead in behalf of the people of Limhi.
26 And when the Lamanites saw the people of Limhi, that they were without arms, they had compassion on them and were pacified towards them, and returned with their king in peace to their own land.

A similar episode occurs in the exact same area some 32–68 years later. (The events under Limhi are dated to 145–122 B.C., while the subsequent account is estimated at 90–77 B.C.). In this account, the sons of Mosiah, led by Ammon, return to the Land of Nephi to serve the Lamanites and preach among them. (An earlier Ammon, also traveling from Zarahemla to Nephi enters the picture as an emissary to king Limhi some time soon after the events of the first episode.) A series of events that includes the Lamanite king finding himself in the power of the Nephite Ammon (Alma 20:8–24) culminates in thousands of Lamanites converting (Alma 23:3–8). The Lamanite cities involved include the land of Ishmael, the land of Middoni, the city of Nephi, the land of Shilom, the land of Shemlon, the city of Lemuel, and the city of Shimnilom (see Alma 23:9–12)—areas in close proximity that also comprised the geographic stage for the first episode decades earlier (see Mosiah 7:1, 5; 9: 14; 20:1–5). Soon, however, the newly converted Lamanites find themselves faced with the approach of an angry army of Lamanites, a remnant of those who did not convert. The Lamanite king, as in the first episode, advocates facing them without weapons:

Alma 24:16
16 And now, my brethren, if our brethren seek to destroy us, behold, we will hide away our swords, yea, even we will bury them deep in the earth, that they may be kept bright, as a testimony that we have never used them, at the last day; and if our brethren destroy us, behold, we shall go to our God and shall be saved.

Just as the king prostrated himself before the approaching armies in the first episode, the entire people do so in this version:

Alma 24:21
21 Now when the people saw that they were coming against them they went out to meet them, and prostrated themselves before them to the earth, and began to call on the name of the Lord;

Reflecting on these episodes I find myself wondering if these actions are influenced by culture or if the first episode affected the second in any way. Perhaps both. If the gap is really as small as 30 years, was the second king alive during the events of the first episode? Was he actually there as a young leader or soldier? Did he witness the king prostrate himself without weapons in front of his own army to protect Limhi's people? If so, does it influence his thought process as he finds himself in a similar situation decades later?

I also wonder about the thousands of Lamanites who were converted by this small missionary band of Nephites. Since the cities mentioned are the same in both episodes (with a few exceptions—probably places that were built after Limhi's time), wouldn't the Lamanites who converted—or their parents—have known (or known of) Limhi's group? This is especially true given the nature of this war and the several that follow shortly after. How did these events impact their willingness to be converted? Did it prepare them in any way? Again, how did the events in the first episode affect the second?

Fruitless questions, I know. But I'm curious.

Zenos and the Prayer of Enos

2009-07-06T22:36:00.005-06:00

That Jacob seems to have an affinity for the prophet Zenos is evident in his quotation of that prophet's allegory (Jacob chapter five) and his own explanation and application of it (chapter six). One even wonders whether his son Enos is named after Zenos in some fashion. Aside from the parable in Jacob 5, however, we also have portions of his text as cited from other Book of Mormon authors. For example, Alma, in response to questions from the poor among the Zoramites, quotes Zenos as talking about worship in prayer in multiple locations. Part of the text reads as follows:

Alma 33:3–4, 11
3 Do ye remember to have read what Zenos, the prophet of old, has said concerning prayer or worship?
4 For he said: Thou art merciful, O God, for thou hast heard my prayer, even when I was in the wilderness; yea, thou wast merciful when I prayed concerning those who were mine enemies, and thou didst turn them to me.
11 And thou didst hear me because of mine afflictions and my sincerity; and it is because of thy Son that thou hast been thus merciful unto me, therefore I will cry unto thee in all mine afflictions, for in thee is my joy; for thou hast turned thy judgments away from me, because of thy Son.

While the idea of praying in the wilderness would be consistent with multiple protagonists in the Book of Mormon, the words of Zenos seem to particularly fit the way Enos articulates his own experience. He is in the wilderness and prays to be forgiven of his sins. He is forgiven because of the Son, after which he prays for his brethren as well as his enemies:

Enos 3–8, 11
3 Behold, I went to hunt beasts in the forests; and the words which I had often heard my father speak concerning eternal life, and the joy of the saints, sunk deep into my heart.
4 And my soul hungered; and I kneeled down before my Maker, and I cried unto him in mighty prayer and supplication for mine own soul; and all the day long did I cry unto him; yea, and when the night came I did still raise my voice high that it reached the heavens.
5 And there came a voice unto me, saying: Enos, thy sins are forgiven thee, and thou shalt be blessed.
6 And I, Enos, knew that God could not lie; wherefore, my guilt was swept away.
7 And I said: Lord, how is it done?
8 And he said unto me: Because of thy faith in Christ, whom thou hast never before heard nor seen. And many years pass away before he shall manifest himself in the flesh; wherefore, go to, thy faith hath made thee whole.
11 And after I, Enos, had heard these words, my faith began to be unshaken in the Lord; and I prayed unto him with many long strugglings for my brethren, the Lamanites.

Enos' story of how he is forgiven of his sins because of the Son through prayer in the wilderness is similar to the words of Zenos about prayer. We cannot know if Enos had these verses in mind when he went to pray, similar to the way James 1:5 influenced Joseph's prayer in 1820. But we do know that he would have been familiar with Zenos' words. His father, Jacob, loved the writings of Zenos and applied them to his people's condition, and it is possible that Enos is in fact named after him. The possibility that Zenos' words helped inspire Enos that day is intriguing.

Nets of Belial in the Book of Mormon

2009-04-19T21:35:00.018-06:00

Introduction

One of the themes that runs throughout post-exilic Jewish literature is a persistent charge of corruption levied against the religious elite by minority sects of Judaism. The texts authored and preserved at Qumran, for example, repeatedly charge the priestly class in Jerusalem with committing specific sins inspired by Belial (the name used commonly in Qumran texts to refer to the leader of evil forces). The accusations are frequently articulated using the imagery of snares, pits, traps, and nets. And the sins in question are frequently the same: fornication, pursuit of riches, and polluting the sanctuary. But the pattern encompasses more than just the Qumran separatists. The same theme is found in other texts of Second Temple Judaism and is even thought to surface in early Christianity. Using similar terminology, these same specific accusations against a corrupt priestly class are seen frequently in the Book of Mormon. The convergence of patterns is intriguing and could indicate that concerns about these specific sins have a common origin in the situation among the priestly class in Jerusalem at the time of the exile.

Nets of Belial in the Texts of Second Temple Judaism

The Damascus Document (4Q265-73, 5Q12, and 6Q15) is one of the key texts of the Qumran community. The authors, who place their origin in Damascus (most likely Babylon) shortly after the fall of Jerusalem, frequently cite Isaiah and reinterpret key texts like Deuteronomy, Ezekiel, and others. Specifically, the Damascus Document (CD) charges the priests at the Jerusalem temple with three sins, using Isaiah 24:7 as the foundation: “Fear (pachad), and the pit (pachath), and the snare (pach), are upon thee, O inhabitant of the earth.” Isaiah's alliterative use of these three terms (pachad, pachath, and pach – fear, pit, and the snare) is interpreted as calling attention to three sins that the authors refer to as 'the three nets of Belial': “The first is fornication, the second is riches, and the third is profanation of the Temple” (CD 4:17). Other Qumran texts, such as the Psalms Pesher (4Q171, 2:9-12), talk of the “snares of Belial” using the same word (pach) as the verse in Isa 24.

The first net in the CD is fornication. In a departure from the usual definition, the authors refer to fornication as taking plural wives and concubines (4:20-5:5). A similar injunction against polygamy is found in the Temple Scroll (11QT, 57:17-18).

The second net, pit, or snare, called simply “riches,” refers to lusting after wealth. This is also found throughout the Qumran corpus, with the Habakkuk Pesher containing allusions to “robbing the poor,” and “gathering riches,” while the Psalms Pesher (4Q171) also refers to wealth as a “snare of Belial” (e.g., 2:9-12). The Thanksgiving Hymns (Hodayot) call wealth a snare or pit (e.g, 1QHodayot 11:25-27). In the Quram community, “the disposition of wealth is one of the key criteria for distinguishing the faithful cohort from the devilish assembly.”[1] The CD later pairs the nets of wealth and fornication together: “They are all of them rebels, for they have not turned from the way of traitors but have wallowed in the ways of whoredom and wicked wealth” (8:4-5).

The third net or snare in the CD is defiling the sanctuary. The authors contend that sacred space is violated when its guardian priests commit immoral acts that basically consist of the first two nets--sexual or economic sins. The CD mentions sexual sins committed by priests that pollute the sanctuary (4:20, 5:6-9). And the charges of priestly bribery, thievery, greed, property crimes and other economic immoral acts are compounded throughout the corpus in a leitmotif of priestly defilement and pollution of the temple.[2]

Other Qumran scrolls pair some of these charges together as well. In the Angels of Mastemoth and the Rule of Belial (4Q390), God tells his people why the “rule of Belial” is upon them:

Seventy years from the day when they broke the [Law and the] Covenant, I will give them [into the power of the An]gels of Mastemoth, who will rule them, and they will neither know nor understand that I am angry at them because of their rebellion, [because they aban]doned Me and did what was evil in My eyes, and because they chose what displeases Me, overpowering others for the sake of Riches and profiteering . . . They will rob their neigh[b]ors and oppress one another and defile My Temple . . . and My festivals . . . through [their] children they will pollu[te] their seed. (Frag 2, col 1, 6-10).

Other texts of Second Temple Judaism echo these charges. One of the dominant themes of The Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs involves the sons of Jacob explaining the 'nets of deceit' as prophesied in the Book of Enoch to their descendants. These nets involve a love of money, lust for women, and defiling the sanctuary and their priesthood. Levi tells his gathered family what his father taught him: “Be on guard against the spirit of promiscuity, for it is constantly active and through your descendants it is about to defile the sanctuary” (T. Levi, 9:9-10). He later gets more specific about the three sins:

And now, my children, I know from the writings of Enoch that in the end-time you will act impiously against the Lord, setting your hands to every evil deed . . . You plunder the Lord's offerings; from his share you steal choice parts, contemptuously eating them with whores. You teach the Lord's commands out of greed for grain; married women you profane; you have intercourse with whores and adulteresses. You take gentile women for your wives and your sexual relations will become like Sodom and Gomorrah . . . Therefore the sanctuary which the Lord chose shall become desolate through your uncleanness, and you will be captives in all the nations.
(T. Levi, 14:1–15:2)

Levi ends by pleading for his children not to choose the “works of Beliar” (19:1). Judah spends many chapters on the evils of sexual promiscuity, after which he tells them: “For in the books of Enoch the Righteous I have read the evil things you will do in the last days. Guard yourselves therefore, my children, against sexual promiscuity and love of money” (T. Judah, 18:1-3). Dan says something similar: “I read in the Book of Enoch the Righteous that your prince is Satan and that all the spirits of sexual promiscuity and of arrogance devote attention to the sons of Levi in the attempt to observe them closely and cause them to commit sin before the Lord” (T. Dan, 5:6; see also T. Naphtali, chs. 3-4; T. Asher, ch. 7; T. Benjamin, ch. 9).

The Book of Jubilees picks up the same theme with similar language that describes three sins in the context of priestly angels involved in fornication:

For it was on account of these three things that the flood was on the earth, since (it was) due to fornication that the Watchers had illicit intercourse—apart from the mandate of their authority—with women. When they married of them whomever they chose they committed the first (acts) of uncleanness.
(Jubilees 7:21)

In the NT, Paul mentions Belial's opposition to Christ in the context of being holy temples of God and coming out from among the wicked and touching not the unclean thing (2 Cor 6:15-17). Several scholars tie Paul's usage to a continuation of the 'net' or 'snare' pattern running from Philo and Qumran into early Christianity.[3] Others see similarities between Paul's statement in Ephesians 5:3 (“But fornication, and all uncleanness, or covetousness, let it not be once named among you, as becometh saints”) and the CD's 'three nets of Belial'.[4] Still others make a comparison between these three nets and Satan's tempting of Christ in the wilderness.[5]

Pits and Snares in the Book of Mormon

I believe that this pattern of specific charges is repeated frequently in the Book of Mormon. Jacob (Jacob 2‒3) and Abinidi (Mosiah 11–17) make these accusations using similar terminology, while you can see the same theme in the visions and sermons of Nephi (1 Ne 13, 2 Ne 28), Alma (Alma 31), Nephi son of Helaman (Hel 7), and Mormon (Mormon 8). The chapters indicated include specific instances where (usually in the temple) the priestly class is charged with fornication, (whoredoms, plural wives, and concubines), and searching after riches. The third net or snare (pollution of the temple) is never directly addressed in these contexts, although it could be underlying Jacob's sermon.

1. Jacob’s Sermon at the Temple

Sometime after the death of Nephi, wickedness sets in among his people. Jacob catalogs the main sins as taking plural wives and concubines and searching after riches (Jacob 1:15‒16). The next day, Jacob denounces these very problems as the people are gathered in the temple. In Jacob 2:12–22 he addresses the latter:

12 And now behold, my brethren, this is the word which I declare unto you, that many of you have begun to search for gold, and for silver, and for all manner of precious ores, in the which this land, which is a land of promise unto you and to your seed, doth abound most plentifully.
13 And the hand of providence hath smiled upon you most pleasingly, that you have obtained many riches; and because some of you have obtained more abundantly than that of your brethren ye are lifted up in the pride of your hearts, and wear stiff necks and high heads because of the costliness of your apparel, and persecute your brethren because ye suppose that ye are better than they.
14 And now, my brethren, do ye suppose that God justifieth you in this thing? Behold, I say unto you, Nay. But he condemneth you, and if ye persist in these things his judgments must speedily come unto you.
(Jacob 2:12–14)

Then he transitions to their grosser crimes of plural marriage, calling it a ‘whoredom’:

23 But the word of God burdens me because of your grosser crimes. For behold, thus saith the Lord: This people begin to wax in iniquity; they understand not the scriptures, for they seek to excuse themselves in committing whoredoms, because of the things which were written concerning David, and Solomon his son.
24 Behold, David and Solomon truly had many wives and concubines, which thing was abominable before me, saith the Lord.
(Jacob 2:23–24)

While the women and children are present, Jacob appears to be only addressing the men. Are these men part of a priestly class working at the temple, or is he addressing the entire believing population? While not explicitly mentioning pollution of the sanctuary, Jacob does reference purity and being cleansed from blood in the temple (Jacob 2:2). The context seems to be one of the autumnal ingathering festival that would necessarily involve the priestly question of who can ascend the holy hill and participate in ritual in the Lord's house.[6]

2. Abinidi and the Priests of King Noah

After his conversion, Alma the Elder tells his people about his previous sins: “But remember the iniquity of king Noah and his priests; and I myself was caught in a snare, and did many things which were abominable in the sight of the Lord” (Mosiah 23:9). By extension, Alma here refers to King Noah’s iniquity as a snare, which is similar to the snare, pit, or net terminology used in the Qumran texts. What is this snare of King Noah?

1. He had “many wives and concubines” and committed many “whoredoms and all manner of wickedness” (Mosiah 11:2).

2. Noah “laid a tax of one fifth part of all they possessed” (Mosiah 11:3) in order to “support himself, and his wives and his concubines” (Mosiah 11:4)

3. He put away the proper priests (Mosiah 11:5) and engaged in idolatry (Mosiah 11:6–7).

The first two mentioned are re-emphasized several times. For example, the narrator tells us that Noah “placed his heart upon his riches, and he spent his time in riotous living with his wives and his concubines; and so did also his priests spend their time with harlots” (Mosiah 11:14). Another time he is charged with the same thing by Abinidi:

29 Why do ye set your hearts upon riches? Why do ye commit whoredoms and spend your strength with harlots, yea, and cause this people to commit sin, that the Lord has cause to send me to prophesy against this people, yea, even a great evil against this people?
(Mosiah 12:29)

Abinidi informs us that it is the Devil who entices us towards these sins (cf. Mosaiah 16:3, among others) and tells those of the corrupt priestly class that they will be scattered as a result of their wickedness (Mosiah 17:17).

3. The Great and Abominable Church

Nephi sees the formation of a great and abominable church comprised of a corrupt priestly class pursuing riches, fornication, and persecution of the saints:

6 And it came to pass that I beheld this great and abominable church; and I saw the devil that he was the founder of it.
7 And I also saw gold, and silver, and silks, and scarlets, and fine-twined linen, and all manner of precious clothing; and I saw many harlots.
8 And the angel spake unto me, saying: Behold the gold, and the silver, and the silks, and the scarlets, and the fine-twined linen, and the precious clothing, and the harlots, are the desires of this great and abominable church.
(1 Nephi 13:6–8)

The Devil is the founder of this church and will result in the scattering and destruction of those who belong to it. During the vision, the traps laid for the saints by the great and abominable church are compared to a pit (type of snare or trap):

3 And that great pit, which hath been digged for them by that great and abominable church, which was founded by the devil and his children, that he might lead away the souls of men down to hell—yea, that great pit which hath been digged for the destruction of men shall be filled by those who digged it, unto their utter destruction
(1 Nephi 14:3)

See also 2 Nephi 8:1, 14 and 2 Nephi 24:15,19 for additional pit terminology. In several of these, the pit is identified as hell.

4. Nephi sees the Condition of the Last Days

Nephi tells us that in the last days the priestly class and their churches would become corrupt and lifted up with pride (2 Nephi 28:11-12). Among several sins, the lust after riches resulting in the rejection of the poor is emphasized. Whoredoms are also listed:

13 They rob the poor because of their fine sanctuaries; they rob the poor because of their fine clothing; and they persecute the meek and the poor in heart, because in their pride they are puffed up.
14 They wear stiff necks and high heads; yea, and because of pride, and wickedness, and abominations, and whoredoms, they have all gone astray save it be a few, who are the humble followers of Christ; nevertheless, they are led, that in many instances they do err because they are taught by the precepts of men.
15 O the wise, and the learned, and the rich, that are puffed up in the pride of their hearts, and all those who preach false doctrines, and all those who commit whoredoms, and pervert the right way of the Lord, wo, wo, wo be unto them, saith the Lord God Almighty, for they shall be thrust down to hell!
(2 Nephi 28:13–15)

It is the evil one who lures people into these traps (2 Ne 28:20–23).

5. Alma and the Zoramites.

The Zoramites have separated themselves from the Nephites, building their own synagogues and raised pulpits (the Rameumpton) from which to pray. Alma sees that they are a “wicked and a perverse people; yea, he saw that their hearts were set upon gold, and upon silver, and upon all manner of fine goods” (Alma 31:24). He elaborates further:

28 Behold, O my God, their costly apparel, and their ringlets, and their bracelets, and their ornaments of gold, and all their precious things which they are ornamented with; and behold, their hearts are set upon them
(Alma 31:28)

It is while Alma is here that his son Corianton (part of Alma's priestly contingent) chases after the harlot Isabel, who did “steal the hearts of many” ('many' presumably referring to Zoramites; see Alma 39:3-4). Corianton follows her to a border region with the Lamanites (“Land of Siron”), but part of this must have taken place among the Zoramites, for they see his conduct (v 11). Alma tells his son: “Seek not after riches nor the vain things of this world” (v. 14). These sins are attributed to the devil: “Suffer not the devil to lead away your heart again after those wicked harlots” (v. 11).

6. Nephi, son of Helaman

Nephi, son of Helaman, describes the wickedness of his day. He charges the ruling authority with getting gain and committing adultery, using Nets of Belial imagery:

4 And seeing the people in a state of such awful wickedness, and those Gadianton robbers filling the judgment-seats—having usurped the power and authority of the land; laying aside the commandments of God, and not in the least aright before him; doing no justice unto the children of men;
5 Condemning the righteous because of their righteousness; letting the guilty and the wicked go unpunished because of their money; and moreover to be held in office at the head of government, to rule and do according to their wills, that they might get gain and glory of the world, and, moreover, that they might the more easily commit adultery, and steal, and kill, and do according to their own wills--
(Helaman 7:4)

Nephi tells us that it is the evil adversary who is leading them in these sins (Helaman 7:16). He later repeats the charge of economic lust (Hel 7:21; “that ye might get gold and silver”), and the accusation of fornication comes soon after (Hel 8:26).

7. Mormon describes the last days

Mormon uses the word ‘pollution’ many times to describe the corrupt priests in the last days. He talks of “great pollutions upon the face of the earth” (Mormon 8:31) that have polluted their churches (8:36). In one verse he further talks about polluting the sanctuary in a way reminiscent of the third net of Belial: “O ye pollutions, ye hypocrites, ye teachers, who sell yourselves for that which will canker, why have ye polluted the holy church of God?” (Mormon 8:38). These religious elites (priestly hypocrites) would be fixated on “whoredoms, and all manner of abominations” (8:31), offer forgiveness of sins for money (Mormon 8:32), build churches to get gain (8:33), and love money and substance more than the poor and needy (8:37).

Conclusion

The Book of Mormon originates with a priestly remnant fleeing Jerusalem in 600 BCE, shortly before its destruction due to altercations with Jerusalem's ruling elite. In contrast, most of the Second Temple texts cited have a final form closer to the common era. The Damascus Document, for example, generally dates to Palestine from 100–50 BCE, and most scholars understand the corruption charges in it to be levied against the Hasmonian priestly line. (Robert Eisenman, in a series of articles and books, however, makes a good case for a Herodian milieu.) However, most of these documents claim an earlier provenance for themselves. The CD's own introduction, for example, tells the story of a priestly remnant of Jerusalem determined to make a new covenant in the land of Damscus after Jerusalem has been destroyed, because the first covenant was not kept by Jerusalem's corrupt priestly class (see ch. 1). Some scholars argue that the CD group itself was formed in Babylon after the exile, while others, like Boccaccini, argue that it is the pattern or motif of accusations that have its locus there.[7] That the 'Nets of Belial' pattern and terminology is fairly prominent in the Book of Mormon and Second Temple texts (maintained by anti-establishment alternative sects of Judaism) while not highly distinguishable (or as dominant) in the final form of the Hebrew Bible shaped by the exilic and post-exilic establishment priests is intriguing. It moves the discussion beyond charges of a Joseph Smith 19th century locus, or simple KJV cribbing. There seems to be a commonality that converges with specific accusations against the priestly ruling class in Jerusalem just before its destruction. And here we are in the territory of Deteronomistic reforms under Josiah, a subject of growing interest.

NOTES

[1] Catherine M. Murphy, Wealth in the Dead Sea Scrolls and in the Qumran Community (Leiden: Brill, 2002), p. 243.

[2] For a good survey of these texts in context, see chapter five (“Sinful People, Impure Priests, and Inadequate Structures: The Temple as Defiled and Rejected”) in Jonathan Klawans, Purity, Sacrifice, and the Temple: Symbolism and Supersessionism in the Study of Ancient Judaism (New York: Oxford University Press), pp. 145-174, esp. 147-149.

[3] For a survey on this issue, see Albert L. A. Hogeterp, Paul and God's Temple (Leuven, Belgium: Peeters, 2006), pp. 365- 372.

[4] Nils Alstrup Dahl, Studies in Ephesians (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2000), p. 133:

The threefold complex in Eph 5:3 - Πορνεία, ακαθαρσία, πλεονεξία (see also 4:19: ασελγεία κτλ.) — is strongly reminiscent of the Damascus Document CD IV 15-18.

[5] H.A. Kelly, “The Devil in the Desert,” CBQ 26 (1964), p. 212, as quoted in Monika Pesthy, “The Three Nets of Belial from Qumran to the Opus Imperfectum in Matthaeum,” in F. García Martínez and G.P. Luttikhuizen, Jerusalem, Alexandria, Rome: Studies in Ancient Cultural Interaction in Honour of A. Hilhorst (Leiden: Brill, 2003), p. 246:

Finally, examining the NT, we cannot avoid to speak about the threefold temptation of the Lord. Interpreting this scene, Kelly mentions CD 4:12-19 as a parallel to it and gives the following explanation: “In comparing it with the accounts of Luke, we may correlate the net of lust with the invitation to make bread out of the stones; the net of riches with the offer of the authority and glory of all kingdoms of the world; the net of defilement of the Sanctuary with the temptation to tempt God by leaping from the pinnacle of the temple.”

[6] The annual fall festival entailed a processional ceremony that started at the bottom of the hill from the temple. As they prepared to ascend, there were questions about the participants' worthiness to enter and participate. Several of the Psalms are seen as references to this cultic ritual. Psalm 24 starts with Yhwh as victor over the chaos of creation, after which the gatekeeper asks the question: “Who shall ascend into the hill of the Lord? Or who shall stand in his holy place?” (v. 3). The answer comes as: “He that hath clean hands, and a pure heart” (v. 4). The same theme of purity in heart is echoed in Psalm 51, another priestly “gatekeeper” psalm that is part of the fall festival. Jacob's sermon is replete with the same 'pure-in-heart' terminology, as Jacob questions the worthiness of the 'brethren' he addresses at the temple. The implication is that the economic and sexual priestly transgressions result in a question about their presence in the temple and approximates, to some extent, the concerns in the Dead Sea corpus that priestly violations of economic and sexual mores constitute a pollution of the sanctuary. A longer treatment of the Fall Festival setting of Jacob 2-3 and its connection to the entrance psalms will likely be the subject of another post.

[7] Gabriele Boccaccini, Beyond the Essene Hypothesis (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdmans, 1998), p. 126:

Many scholars take “the new covenant in the land of Damascus” (6:5, 19; 7:14-15, 18-19; 8:21; 20:12) as a reference to the exile of the Qumran community in the Judaean desert.” For Lawrence H. Schiffman, “Damascus” is “a code word for Qumran.” As Davies has correctly pointed out, however, every time “Damascus” is mentioned in the Damascus Document, “only one historical context is provided, and it is the Babylonian exile. . . . There are cogent reasons for preferring Damascus as a symbol of Babylonia. . . . It is the claim made by the community of CD . . . that the true Israel (or Judah) arose in Babylon . . . [and] that its covenant and its legal tradition and its organization originated in Babylon in the wake of the exile. . . . Damascus lies not at the end of the process, but the beginning.”
This does not mean that the parent community actually developed in the eastern Diaspora and returned to Palestine only during the Maccabean period, as Jerome Murphy-O'Connor suggested. The point of the Damascus document is not that the parent sect lived in Babylon, but that its roots were there. As Davies concludes, “the ideology of CD has powerful roots in priestly exilic literature, especially the Holiness Code and Ezekiel.” The Damascus Document “celebrates a group which claims authentic descent from the Babylonian exile, has its own covenant, exegetical tradition, based on the same scripture, its genealogy (now missing), and an only slight different version of the 'official' history of Israel.

Priests as Angels: Alma 29:1 and Malachi 2:7

2009-03-28T11:26:00.013-06:00

After the great wars with the Lamanites that followed the conversion of the people of Ammon, Alma laments the destruction caused by evil:

Alma 29:1-2
1 O that I were an angel, and could have the wish of mine heart, that I might go forth and speak with the trump of God, with a voice to shake the earth, and cry repentance to every people!
2 Yea, I would declare unto every soul, as with the voice of thunder, repentance and the plan of redemption, that they should repent and come unto our God, that there might not be more sorrow upon all the face of the earth.

This mirrors the concept in ancient Israel that the priests were the teachers of the law (see Lev 10:10-11; Deut 33:10; Jer 18:18; Ezekiel 44:23). What is intriguing is that there are a few texts that also link this priestly function of teaching the law and judging to an angelic/priestly assignment.

The book of Malachi is a message or oracle from God to his people through his priest/angel. It begins with “the word of Jehovah to Israel through Malachi" ('my messenger' or 'my angel'). In chapter two, the messenger accuses the other priests of not performing their duties adequately in, among other things, teaching the law:

Malachi 2:7
7 For the priest's lips should keep knowledge, and they should seek the law at his mouth: for he is the messenger (Heb malak, can also mean angel) of the LORD of hosts.

In the context of corrupt priests and broken covenants, Malachi is told that the priest (כֹהֵן) should be an angel (מַלְאַ֥ךְ -malak, 'messenger') in the context of imparting knowledge of the LORD. The priests were to teach the law, to instruct the difference between clean and unclean. They were rebuked because they were not giving instruction like they should and were told that the priests in this function were angels of the Lord.

This incident becomes the starting point for a whole priestly/angelic teaching theme developed among the Qumran community. In 4Q400 fr I i (Songs for the Holocaust of the Sabbath), the priests (as angels) impart divine knowledge of judgment and mercy for those who repent. Crispin H. T. Fletcher-Louis makes a fairly good case for direct points of contact between the language here and Malachi 2:7 (All the Glory of Adam: Liturgical Anthropology in the Dead Sea Scrolls [Leiden: Brill, 2002], p. 284). In 4Q511 fr 35 (Songs of the Sage), God, angry at the wickedness of man, appoints a community of priests as angels to terrify and subdue the wicked. This theme is picked up in the New Testament in the book of Revelation, where the priestly leaders of each church in Asia called to repentance were named angels (e.g., 2:1, 3:1, etc.). Later, seven angels would come out of the temple dressed in the clothing of priests (15:6) to receive vials full of the wrath of God against the wicked (15:7).

In Zechariah 3, Joshua the High Priest is taken into the Holy of Holies before the angel of the Lord and commissioned to judge Israel. In return, the angel promises: “and I will give thee places to walk among these that stand by” (Zech 3:7), referring to the angels that ministered in the temple. The word 'walk' here (mahlek) is the same used by Ezekiel describing a walkway near priestly chambers in the temple (Eze 42:4; “And before the chambers was a walk of ten cubits breadth”). Joshua, the priest, is given the divine command to judge Israel at the same time he is given his priestly clothing and told he will walk with angels in the temple.

In this context, Alma is in good company. As a High Priest, Alma sorrows at the wickedness of his people and desires to preach repentance and judgment as an angel.

Trumpets, Repentance, and Harvest: Isa 58 and Alma 29

2009-03-26T09:00:00.010-06:00

"We know that a trumpet is usually not so much heard as dreaded; it is not so much accustomed to bring pleasure as to inspire fear. A trumpet is necessary for sinners; it not only penetrates their ears but should strike their heart as well; it should not delight with its melody but chastise when it has been heard; it should encourage the bravehearted to righteousness, while it should turn the cowardly from their crimes" - Maximus of Turin
(Sermon 93.1, Ancient Christian Writers: The Works of the Fathers in Translation, Mawah, NJ: Paulist Press, 1946, 50:215.)

Isaiah 58 starts with a comparison of crying repentance to a blast from a trumpet ( shofar)

Isaiah 58:1
1 Cry aloud, spare not, lift up thy voice like a trumpet, and shew thy people their transgression, and the house of Jacob their sins.

It then moves into a detailed explanation of sins with the backdrop of the annual day of fasting, which is the Day of Atonement (Lev 16), a release from the bondage of sins at the time of the autumnal harvest, or ingathering (the Jubilee and Sabbatical years that prescribed a release from servitude and debt were aligned to start with the Day of Atonement). Isa 58:6 talks of loosing bands, undoing burdens, breaking yokes and letting the oppressed go free. It is often associated with Israel's failure to release their servants as required by law (e.g., Exodus 21:2). The harvest feasts such as the Day of Atonement and the Feats of Trumpets (as with most ritual acts and celebratory gatherings in ancient Israel) start with the blowing of the shofar:

Leviticus 23:24
24 Speak unto the children of Israel, saying, In the seventh month, in the first day of the month, shall ye have a sabbath, a memorial of blowing of trumpets, an holy convocation.

Interestingly, the Hebrew for this verse does not even contain the word 'trumpet.' The Hebrew word teruah (translated in the KJV as “blowing of trumpets”) means literally to "raise a noise" and can be used for the sound of a voice that shouts or for the sound that issues from a trumpet. Not only is teruah the word behind the “trumpet blasts” here in Leviticus, it's also the word used when congregated Israel “shouts” on the arrival of the Ark (1 Sam 4:5) and when the sons of God “shout” for joy (Job 38:7). Because of this, when Isaiah juxtaposes the concept of crying aloud with lifting one's voice as a trumpet, the imagery is particularly effective. And the theme of lifting one's voice as a trumpet against sin in the context of deliverance from bondage is picked up elsewhere:

Hosea 8:1
1 Set the trumpet to thy mouth . . . because they have transgressed my covenant, and trespassed against my law.

You can see the same principles in action in Jer 4:5 and Ezek 33:6. And the theme is resurrected in the New Testament in the book of Revelation, where John is told to cry repentance to the seven churches in Asia. Set against a panoply of imagery associated with the autumnal harvest festival, John hears behind him "a great voice, as of a trumpet" (1:10; see also 4:1). The message is clear: "Remember therefore from whence thou art fallen, and repent, and do the first works; or else I will come unto thee quickly and will remove thy candlestick out of his place, except thou repent" (2:5). It's another example of the prophetic voice crying out like a trumpet to issue a call to repentance during a time associated with release from bondage and sin.

Enter Alma, who uses the exact metaphor in the same context:

Alma 29:1
1 . . . that I might go forth and speak with the trump of God, with
a voice to shake the earth, and cry repentance unto every people!

And this call to repentance is set within the context of deliverance from bondage:

Alma 29:11
11 Yea, and I also remember the captivity of my fathers; for I
surely do know that the Lord did deliver them from bondage . . .

Alma 29:12
12 Yea, I have always remembered the captivity of my fathers; and that same God who delivered them out of the hands of the Egyptians did deliver them out of bondage.

He finishes up with harvest/ingathering imagery:

Alma 29:15
15 Behold, they have labored exceedingly, and have brought forth much fruit.

Alma 29:17
17 And now may God grant unto these, my brethren, that they may sit down in the kingdom of God; yea, and also all those who are the fruit of their labors that they may go no more out . . .

I think I just might have to buy a trumpet and start our Family Home Evenings with a blast to repentance!

Liberating the Captive: Jacob 2 and Isaiah 58

2009-03-25T10:01:00.009-06:00

I was reading Jacob's great sermon in Jacob 2-3 the other morning and was struck by a few thematic similarities with Isaiah 58. Both of these are strong social commentaries set against the annual autumnal harvest/ingathering festival (Atonement/Tabernacles). Within this context, Jacob instructs his people to do the following:

1. Clothe the naked (Jac 2:19)
2. Feed the hungry (Jac 2:19)
3. Liberate the captive (Jac 2:19)
4. Administer relief to the sick and afflicted (Jac 2:19)

Contrast this to what Isaiah tells us:

1. Loose the bands of wickedness, to undo the heavy burdens, and to let the
oppressed go free, and that ye break every yoke (Isa 58:6)
2. Deal thy bread to the hungry (Isa 58:7)
3. Bring the poor that are cast out to thy house (Isa 58:7)
4. When thou seest the naked, that thou cover him (Isa 58:7)
5. Hide not thyself from thine own flesh (Isa 58:7)

Granted, the wording is not exact enough to show a direct dependancy (not to mention perceived Deutero- or Trito-Isaiah timeline issues), but the lists are fairly similar. There are other texts that also stress the social requirements, and many of these have a similar locus. King Benjamin's speech touches on some of the same themes (but not with as compact a list) and also shares an autumnal festival (Tabernacles) setting. And the Day of Atonement did have a strong link to the Sabbatical/Jubilee requirement to release servants from bondage.

Just a few thoughts from the comfort of my couch this morning . . .

Authorial Influence: Alma the Elder and Alma the Younger

2008-05-31T10:59:00.005-06:00

Alma and his son Alma the Younger both experienced conversions that changed the course of their lives. Later, as Alma the Younger articulates his conversion, he frames it using some of the same language his father used earlier to recount his own movement away from the court of King Noah. This is a wonderful literary phenomenon, and it is an interesting insight into Alma the Younger's respect for his father. What follows are just a few of the words, themes and phrases that link the conversions of both of these great men.

Bonds of iniquity

Alma the Elder uses the phrase ‘bonds of iniquity’ to describe being in bondage physically to King Noah and then uses it as a spiritual metaphor and a learning point as to why they don’t want a king.

Mosiah 23:13
13 And now as ye have been delivered by the power of God out of these bonds; yea, even out of the hands of king Noah and his people, and also from the bonds of iniquity, even so I desire that ye should stand fast in this liberty wherewith ye have been made free, and that ye trust no man to be a king over you.

Alma the Younger then uses this phrase several times to describe his own spiritual freedom from the bondage from sin, adding the words “gall of bitterness’ to the phrase.

Mosiah 27:29
29 My soul hath been redeemed from the gall of bitterness and bonds of iniquity. I was in the darkest abyss; but now I behold the marvelous light of God. My soul was racked with eternal torment; but I am snatched, and my soul is pained no more.

Alma 41:11
11 And now, my son, all men that are in a state of nature, or I would say, in a carnal state, are in the gall of bitterness and in the bonds of iniquity; they are without God in the world, and they have gone contrary to the nature of God; therefore, they are in a state contrary to the nature of happiness.

Mormon then uses this phrase twice in chapter eight of his book (Mormon 8:14, 31). However, besides the quote by Mormon, it is only used by the father-son combination of Alma the Elder and Alma the Younger. It shows that Alma the Younger absorbed the story of his father’s conversion and internalized some of the principles, applying them to his own conversion experience.

Redeemed of God

Alma the Elder uses the phrase ‘redeemed of God’ during his baptismal address in Mosiah 18.

Mosiah 18:9
9 Yea, and are willing to mourn with those that mourn; yea, and comfort those that stand in need of comfort, and to stand as witnesses of God at all times and in all things, and in all places that ye may be in, even until death, that ye may be redeemed of God, and be numbered with those of the first resurrection, that ye may have eternal life--

The only other person to use this phrase in the Book of Mormon is his Son, Alma the Younger, who references his own conversion experience:

Mosiah 27:24-25
24 For, said he, I have repented of my sins, and have been redeemed of the Lord; behold I am born of the Spirit.
25 And the Lord said unto me: Marvel not that all mankind, yea, men and women, all nations, kindreds, tongues and people, must be born again; yea, born of God, changed from their carnal and fallen state, to a state of righteousness, being redeemed of God, becoming his sons and daughters;

Much tribulation

Alma the Elder tells us that his conversion experience entailed ‘much tribulation’:

Mosiah 23:10
10 Nevertheless, after much tribulation, the Lord did hear my cries, and did answer my prayers, and has made me an instrument in his hands in bringing so many of you to a knowledge of his truth.

The phrase is used only twice more in the Book of Mormon. In the first, Alma the Younger refers to the trials of his own conversion:

Mosiah 27:28
28 Nevertheless, after wading through much tribulations, repenting nigh unto death, the Lord in mercy hath seen fit to snatch me out of an everlasting burning, and I am born of God.

The only other time it is used is by Mormon in paraphrasing the words of Alma the Younger about trials in his missionary service:

Alma 8:14
14 And it came to pass that while he was journeying thither, being weighed down with sorrow, wading through much tribulation and anguish of soul, because of the wickedness of the people who were in the city of Ammonihah, it came to pass while Alma was thus weighed down with sorrow, behold an angel of the Lord appeared unto him, saying:

Mormon often adopts the words of the persons whose writings he is summarizing. Thus the phrase ‘much tribulation’ probably was used by Alma the Younger in his own text and merely carried over into the abridgment by Mormon.

I also find it interesting that Alma the Younger would use it only in the context of A) his own conversion, and B) his attempts toward the conversion of others. The two seem to be related as well in latter-day scriptures attesting to the fact that as we bring others to repent of their sins we are covering a multitude of our own, just as our own forgiveness is linked to our forgiveness of others.

Lie Down Unto the Lord: Night Visions in Psalms and the Book of Mormon

2008-04-30T02:00:00.007-06:00

Que la cama no es sólo para el sueño.
Que la noche no es Dios con los párpados cerrados.
Andrea Cote Botero [1]

[Unless otherwise noted, all English citations to the Hebrew Bible are from the King James Version]

Many of the biblical patriarchs experienced theophanies that took place during the hours of darkness [2]. Later, the Lord reaffirmed to Israel that he would speak to his prophets by dreams and visions (Num 12:6-8), many of which did in fact take place during the night. While this theme is referenced occasionally elsewhere in the Hebrew Bible (cf. 1 Kgs 3:5; Job 4:13, 33:15), it is particularly prominent in the Psalms and the Book of Mormon.

The Psalmist often converses with God about being visited: “Thou hast proved mine heart; thou hast visited me in the night; thou hast tried me” (17:3). (Instead of 'thou has tried me,' the LXX reads ἐπύρωσάς με, or 'you set me on fire.') He also talks of being instructed by God: “Day unto day uttereth speech, and night unto night sheweth knowledge” (19:1-2); "I will bless the Lord, who hath given me counsel: my reins also instruct me in the night seasons" (16:7).

There are also frequent conversations with and inquiries of God in a setting that implies a nighttime view of the heavens:

When I consider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers, the moon and the stars, which thou hast ordained; what is man, that thou art mindful of him? and the son of man, that thou visitest him? (8:3-4). [3]

In Psalm 18, we are told, “In my distress I called upon the Lord . . . he heard my voice out of his temple” (v. 6). Soon the petitioner is visited: “He bowed the heavens also, and came down: and darkness was under his feet” (v. 9), and this heavenly visitor “made darkness his secret place; his pavilion round about him were dark waters and thick clouds of the skies” (v. 11). (Here the Jewish Publication Society (JPS) version uses ‘hiding place’ instead of ‘secret place,’ which is probably a better translation of the LXX ἀποκρυφὴν αὐτοῦ) During this vision where he sees the Lord (vv. 6–13), there are several times where the darkness is emphasized. Although the vision seems to be happening within or in some relationship to the temple (v. 6), much of the imagery takes place outside, the darkness contrasting with ‘the brightness that was before him’ (v. 12).

One Psalm even speaks of a visitation of God's music to comfort and foster gratitude: “Yet the Lord will command his lovingkindness in the daytime, and in the night his song shall be with me” (42:8). This verse would seem to be related to Elihu's comment to Job: “God my maker, who giveth songs in the night” (Job 35:10). The imagery of God visiting his children at night with the joy of music is rather powerful.

The authors of the Book of Mormon use these images and language frequently as well. Nephi tells us, “Behold, he hath heard my cry by day, and he hath given me knowledge by visions in the nighttime” (2 Ne 4:23). He tells us numerous times of the dreams and visions his father experienced (1 Ne 2:1-2, 3:2, 8:2), several of which are specifically given as happening at night:

And it came to pass that the voice of the Lord spake unto my father by night, and commanded him that on the morrow he should take his journey into the wilderness (1 Ne 16:9).

Others in the family experience the same type of phenomenon. Jacob is given knowledge by an angelic visitor at night: “Wherefore, as I said unto you, it must needs be expedient that Christ--for in the last night the angel spake unto me that this should be his name” (2 Ne 10:3). And a generation later, his son Enos undergoes a day-long supplication that is finally answered at night:

And my soul hungered; and I kneeled down before my Maker, and I cried unto him in mighty prayer and supplication for mine own soul; and all the day long did I cry unto him; yea, and when the night came I did still raise my voice high that it reached the heavens. And there came a voice unto me, saying: Enos, thy sins are forgiven thee, and thou shalt be blessed (Enos 4-5).

The imagery of a visitation of God's music is also referenced in the Book of Mormon. Alma the Younger rehearses to the people of Zarahemla the trials of his father's people after they escape from King Noah and become subject to the Lamanites. God 'changed their hearts' and 'wakened them out of a deep sleep' as 'they were in the midst of darkness' (Alma 5:7). But in the darkness, arising from sleep, their “souls did expand, and they did sing redeeming love” (v. 9). He then adapts the message to his audience, asking them if they have felt the same 'music':

And now behold, I say unto you, my brethren, if ye have experienced a change of heart, and if ye have felt to sing the song of redeeming love, I would ask, can ye feel so now? (Alma 5:26).

Another variation on the theme is a pattern of supplication-visitation while retiring to one's bed. For example, the Psalmist tells us, “commune with your own heart upon your bed, and be still” (4:4). (The JPS translation has 'ponder it on your bed.') This is reiterated several times throughout the psalter:

When I remember thee upon my bed, and meditate on thee in the night watches (63:6).

This idea of pondering spiritual matters in communion with God upon one's bed is contrasted with he who “deviseth mischief upon his bed” (36:4) and he who would dwell on his sorrow: “I am weary with my groaning; all the night make I my bed to swim; I water my couch with my tears” (6:6; see also 22:2).

Compare this imagery to Lehi’s experience where he “cast himself upon his bed, being overcome with the Spirit and the things which he had seen” (1 Ne 1:7), after which he was immediately “carried away in a vision, even that he saw the heavens open, and he thought he saw God sitting upon his throne” (1 Ne 1:8). Later, Nephi's sorrow echoes that of the Psalmist: “mine eyes water my pillow by night” (2 Ne 33:3), possibly involving long supplication and tearful pleading. King Lamoni, while unconscious on his bed (Alma 18:43), has a vision of his Redeemer (alma 19:13). And Alma tells us, “Counsel with the Lord in all thy doings . . . yea, when thou liest down at night lie down unto the Lord, that he may watch over you in your sleep (Alma 37:37). The idea of counseling with the Lord and lying down unto the Lord certainly gives the impression of one communing with Him in the bed as they retire, pondering one's spiritual state and well being.

NOTES

[1] From her poem “La noche en ti queda” as published in La Merienda and found at http://festivalinternacionaldepoesiaenpuertorico.com/andreacotebotero.html.

[2] For just a few examples, see Gen 20:3 (Abraham); Gen 28:10-19, 46:2 (Jacob); Gen 37:5-7 (Joseph).

[3] Most commentaries lean toward the interpretation that this is a nighttime view of the firmament, as the sun is not mentioned. In a similar scene in the Pearl of Great Price, Abraham talks with God about the visible elements of the heavens (Abraham 3:1-11). Gee, Hamblin, and Peterson argue that while not a vision per se, God is talking to Abraham at night about what is visible with his own eyes. (“And I Saw the Stars -- The Book of Abraham and Ancient Geocentric Astronomy” from Astronomy, Papyrus, and Covenant found at the Maxwell Institute: http://maxwellinstitute.byu.edu/publications/bookschapter.php?bookid=40&chapid=161.

Authorial Influence: Jacob and Enos

2008-03-12T21:06:00.001-06:00

Unfortunately, Enos does not leave much recorded on the Small Plates, making it hard to compare his writing with that of his father or uncle. What he leaves in comparison to Nephi, for example, is about what my poor journal-writing efforts have been in comparison to my wife's. What little Enos did leave, however, does compare remarkably with other themes we've seen before. (I wish I could say the same for my own journal writing.)

Joy of the saints

Enos tells us that the words his father, Jacob, taught him concerning eternal life and ‘joy of the saints’ sunk deep into his soul and caused his hunger to be forgiven of his sins.

Enos 1:3
3 Behold, I went to hunt beasts in the forests; and the words which I had often heard my father speak concerning eternal life, and the joy of the saints, sunk deep into my heart.

The word ‘saints’ is used 28 times in 27 verses in the Book of Mormon. The vast majority of these instances, however, reference tribulation and the Lord’s vengeance for those who spill ‘the blood of the saints’, ‘kill the saints’, or ‘destroy the saints’ (1 Ne 13:5, 9; 2 Ne 26:3, 5; 2 Ne 28:10; 3 Ne 9:5, 7–9, 11; 3 Ne 10:12; Mor 8:27, 41; Eth 8:22). Nephi also speaks of the saints as spreading abroad on the face of the earth (1 Ne 14:12, 14), Jacob tells us that God delivers his saints from death and hell (2 Ne 9:19); others prophesy or testify that graves were opened at the time the Savior was resurrected and the saints appeared to many (Hel 14:25; 3 Ne 23:9, 11). Mormon tells us that the saints shall cry from the dust through the coming forth of the Book of Mormon (Mor 8:23), speaks of the prayers of the saints (Mor 9:36), and tells us that the saints shall dwell with God after tribulation (Mor 8:26).

Of all those who speak of the saints, however, Jacob is the only one to explicitly mention the saints in the context of joy or happiness (2 Ne 9:18, 43):

2 Nephi 9:18
18 But, behold, the righteous, the saints of the Holy One of Israel, they who have believed in the Holy One of Israel, they who have endured the crosses of the world, and despised the shame of it, they shall inherit the kingdom of God, which was prepared for them from the foundation of the world, and their joy shall be full forever.

2 Nephi 9:43
43 But the things of the wise and the prudent shall be hid from them forever--yea, that happiness which is prepared for the saints.

Interestingly, Jacob’s father, Lehi, teaches his children that the fruit of the tree was “desirable to make one happy” (1 Ne 8:10) and filled his soul with “exceedingly great joy” (1 Ne 8:12). Of course, these are the very words that Enos remembers Jacob using in the context of ‘joy of the saints’ and ‘happiness of the saints.’ And Nephi makes the connection from Enos' memory to Lehi's description complete by referring to those in Lehi’s dream that partook of the fruit as 'saints' (1 Ne 15:28).

This brings Enos’ thirst after the ‘joy of the saints’ into the realm of the Tree of Life vision: He is in the wilderness, desires conversion and the joy and happiness the fruit brings, then desires for the conversion of his loved ones, just as Lehi and Nephi both did in the Tree of Life vision. It's also likely that Jacob experienced the same vision or something similar--consider that Nephi and Lehi both tell us that Jacob saw the Savior (2 Ne 2:4; 2 Ne 11:3) and Lehi tells us that Jacob has beheld "that in the fullness of time he [the Redeemer] cometh to bring salvation unto men" (2 Ne 2:3). This sounds like the extended vision of the Tree of Life vision that explains the Savior's mortal ministry.

Thus, the phrase ‘joy of the saints’ frequently used by Enos' father, Jacob, probably referred to the Tree of Life, whose fruit was seen by Lehi, Nephi, and (probably) Jacob, and brought joy and happiness to the saints. It shows the remarkable literary complexity in the Book of Mormon and argues for a spiritual/literary influence between Jacob and Enos--indeed, Lehi, Nephi, Jacob, and Enos--that becomes evident in the writings these men left behind.

Authorial Influence: Nephi and Jacob

2008-03-04T18:54:00.002-07:00

As stated in the introduction (last entry), I wanted to look at specific words, phrases, or ideas unique to individuals that have a literary or spiritual effect on someone closely related. In today's entry, I'll explore the ideas that show Nephi's influence on Jacob. As an aside, I don't think this is a one-way relationship. Jacob must have influenced Nephi substantially, for Nephi includes five chapters of Jacob's words in the middle of his own record (2 Ne 6-10) and calls on him as a fellow witness of the Savior (2 Ne 11:3). But we'll leave that for another day.

Condescension of God

When Nephi asks to be shown the things his father had seen and to know the interpretation thereof, he is shown the birth of the Son of God to a fair virgin and asked, “Knowest thou the condescension of God?” (1 Ne 11:16). Then, about to show Nephi the ministry of the Savior, the angel tells him, “Look and behold the condescension of God!” (1 Ne 11:26). This concept of the condescension of God obviously impresses Nephi, for he then uses it in his own ‘Psalm’:

2 Nephi 4:26
26 O then, if I have seen so great things, if the Lord in his condescension unto the children of men hath visited men in so much mercy, why should my heart weep and my soul linger in the valley of sorrow, and my flesh waste away, and my strength slacken, because of mine afflictions?

The only other time this word shows up again in the Book of Mormon is when it is used twice by Nephi’s brother Jacob:

2 Nephi 9:53
53 And behold how great the covenants of the Lord, and how great his condescensions unto the children of men; and because of his greatness, and his grace and mercy, he has promised unto us that our seed shall not utterly be destroyed, according to the flesh, but that he would preserve them; and in future generations they shall become a righteous branch unto the house of Israel.

Jacob 4:7
7 Nevertheless, the Lord God showeth us our weakness that we may know that it is by his grace, and his great condescensions unto the children of men, that we have power to do these things.

That the word only shows up within the writings of two brothers demonstrates the influence Nephi’s teachings must have had on Jacob.

A whore of all the earth

The angel who is guiding Nephi through his vision refers to the great and abominable church as ‘the whore of all the earth’:

1 Nephi 14:10
10 And he said unto me: Behold there are save two churches only; the one is the church of the Lamb of God, and the other is the church of the devil; wherefore, whoso belongeth not to the church of the Lamb of God belongeth to that great church, which is the mother of abominations; and she is the whore of all the earth.

Nephi then immediately uses it in his narrative in the following verses to describe the activities and characteristics of this church:

1 Nephi 14:11–12
11 And it came to pass that I looked and beheld the whore of all the earth, and she sat upon many waters; and she had dominion over all the earth, among all nations, kindreds, tongues, and people.
12 And it came to pass that I beheld the church of the Lamb of God, and its numbers were few, because of the wickedness and abominations of the whore who sat upon many waters; nevertheless, I beheld that the church of the Lamb, who were the saints of God, were also upon all the face of the earth; and their dominions upon the face of the earth were small, because of the wickedness of the great whore whom I saw.

Nephi then uses it to explain two chapters of Isaiah (1 Ne 20, 21—Isaiah 48, 49) about the scattering and gathering of Israel:

1 Nephi 22:13–14
13 And the blood of that great and abominable church, which is the whore of all the earth, shall turn upon their own heads; for they shall war among themselves, and the sword of their own hands shall fall upon their own heads, and they shall be drunken with their own blood.
14 And every nation which shall war against thee, O house of Israel, shall be turned one against another, and they shall fall into the pit which they digged to ensnare the people of the Lord. And all that fight against Zion shall be destroyed, and that great whore, who hath perverted the right ways of the Lord, yea, that great and abominable church, shall tumble to the dust and great shall be the fall of it.

Nephi then uses it for the last time to describe the activities of the great and abominable church in the last days:

2 Nephi 28:18
18 But behold, that great and abominable church, the whore of all the earth, must tumble to the earth, and great must be the fall thereof.

The only other person in the Book of Mormon to employ this concept like this is Nephi’s brother Jacob, who explains or defines just who this ‘whore of all the earth’ or ‘great and abominable church’ really is:

2 Nephi 10:16
16 Wherefore, he that fighteth against Zion, both Jew and Gentile, both bond and free, both male and female, shall perish; for they are they who are the whore of all the earth; for they who are not for me are against me, saith our God.

The use of the phrase by Jacob shows the influence of his brother’s visions and writings on his own spiritual development and points to the literary richness in the Book of Mormon.

A blessed people

In his vision, Nephi is shown the Gentiles who are brought to the promised land. If these Gentiles will not harden their hearths, they can become a blessed people:

1 Nephi 14:1–2
1 And it shall come to pass, that if the Gentiles shall hearken unto the Lamb of God in that day that he shall manifest himself unto them in word, and also in power, in very deed, unto the taking away of their stumbling blocks--
2 And harden not their hearts against the Lamb of God, they shall be numbered among the seed of thy father; yea, they shall be numbered among the house of Israel; and they shall be a blessed people upon the promised land forever; they shall be no more brought down into captivity; and the house of Israel shall no more be confounded.

The only other person in the Book of Mormon to talk about the concept of a blessed people like this is Nephi’s brother Jacob. While talking about the wickedness of the Lamanites, he tells us that there will come a time when the descendents of the Lamanites will become a blessed people.

Jacob 3:5–6
5 Behold, the Lamanites your brethren, whom ye hate because of their filthiness and the cursing which hath come upon their skins, are more righteous than you; for they have not forgotten the commandment of the Lord, which was given unto our father--that they should have save it were one wife, and concubines they should have none, and there should not be whoredoms committed among them.
6 And now, this commandment they observe to keep; wherefore, because of this observance, in keeping this commandment, the Lord God will not destroy them, but will be merciful unto them; and one day they shall become a blessed people.

Jacob’s use of the same phrase shows the impact his brother’s teachings had upon him.

Persuading men to Christ

Nephi frequently uses the word 'persuade' as he talks about convincing others to believe in Christ.

1 Nephi 19:18
18 And I, Nephi, have written these things unto my people, that perhaps I might persuade them that they would remember the Lord their Redeemer.

1 Nephi 19:23
23 And I did read many things unto them which were written in the books of Moses; but that I might more fully persuade them to believe in the Lord their Redeemer I did read unto them that which was written by the prophet Isaiah; for I did liken all scriptures unto us, that it might be for our profit and learning.

See also 1 Ne 3:21; 1 Ne 6:4; 2 Ne 25:16,23; 2 Ne 26:27; 2 Ne 33:4. Then Jacob uses it in the same context:

Jacob 1:7-8
7 Wherefore we labored diligently among our people, that we might persuade them to come unto Christ, and partake of the goodness of God, that they might enter into his rest, lest by any means he should swear in his wrath they should not enter in, as in the provocation in the days of temptation while the children of Israel were in the wilderness.
8 Wherefore, we would to God that we could persuade all men not to rebel against God, to provoke him to anger, but that all men would believe in Christ, and view his death, and suffer his cross and bear the shame of the world; wherefore, I, Jacob, take it upon me to fulfil the commandment of my brother Nephi.

While this concept is also used by the editors of the Book of Mormon at the end of the record (For Mormon, see Mor 3:22; 5:14; Mor 7:16, 17. For Moroni, see Eth 4:11, 12; 8:26), there are no other non-editors who use this concept of 'persuading to come unto Christ.' The fact that the two authors who use it together are brothers argues for the literary/spiritual influence that they had on each other. You could also argue that the use of it by the two main editors at the end of the record demonstrate an influence on each other as well.

Nursing scattered Israel

Nephi quotes Isaiah 49 to the effect that gentile leaders would later assist scattered Israel:

1 Nephi 21:23
23 And kings shall be thy nursing fathers, and their queens thy nursing mothers; they shall bow down to thee with their face towards the earth, and lick up the dust of thy feet; and thou shalt know that I am the Lord; for they shall not be
ashamed that wait for me.

Nephi then uses the word 'nurse' in the same context himself when explaining the Isaiah passages to Laman and Lemuel:

1 Nephi 22:6
6 Nevertheless, after they shall be nursed by the Gentiles, and the Lord has lifted up hIs hand upon the Gentiles and set them up for a standard, and their children have been carried in their arms, and their daughters have been carried upon their shoulders, behold these things of which are spoken are temporal;

It is interesting that Jacob then does the exact same thing. He uses the same quote from Isaiah 49 . . .

2 Nephi 6:7
7 And kings shall be thy nursing fathers, and their queens thy nursing mothers; they shall bow down to thee with their faces towards the earth, and lick up the dust of thy feet; and thou shalt know that I am the Lord; for they shall not be ashamed that wait for me.

. . . then explains it to his people using the same word in context, just as Nephi did:

2 Nephi 10:9
9 Yea, the kings of the Gentiles shall be nursing fathers unto them, and their queens shall become nursing mothers; wherefore, the promises of the Lord are great unto the Gentiles, for he hath spoken it, and who can dispute?

No one else uses this term at all in the Book of Mormon. The fact that Nephi and Jacob both quote the same passage from Isaiah and then explain it in similar fashion demonstrates the influence Isaiah had on them and that Nephi had on Jacob.

Authorial Influence: Introduction

2008-03-03T20:12:00.002-07:00

When my family moved to the US from Egypt and we finally got access to cable TV, my Dad and I became serious sports junkies. We'd be into our third bowl of popcorn watching the German Hammer Throw Championship on ESPN 5 and someone would actually call our house. On the phone. This meant it was probably ringing during a funny beer commercial. Dad started shouting "Go away!" before getting up to answer it. Then we started unplugging it. Since then, I've been known to use the phrase myself a few times. Worse, my kids have picked up on it as well.

The beauty of language is that phrases, words, and concepts are often unique to individuals, demonstrating their creative influence on a particular work. For example, Alma the Younger is the only author in the Book of Mormon to use the word ‘abyss’ (Mosiah 27:29, Alma 26:3). Nephi is the only one to use the construction “plain and precious” — he uses it to refer to the plain and precious things he makes sure to add to his spiritual record (1 Ne 19:3) after seeing in vision the plain and precious things taken out or held back from another spiritual record (1 Ne 13:28, 29 [twice], 34, 35, 40). Also, Moroni is the only author to use the phrases ‘strict to observe’ (Moroni 6:7) and ‘as oft as’ (Moroni 6:8).

Because phrases and concepts can be unique to individuals, you sometimes see how the influence of these individuals and their writings affect others who are close to them. This is true of the Book of Mormon authors and editors as well. On many occasions, the words, phrases, or ideas that are peculiar to an individual are then later used by a son or brother of that individual, reflecting the spiritual and literary influence the authors had on each other. This adds a depth of realism and literary complexity to the Book of Mormon that makes it special, mirroring our own lives where we learn and grow from the words, ideas, and concepts of those who are close to us. ("Go away!")

In future posts, I'll be highlighting a few of the examples I’ve found in the Book of Mormon of this concept—sons, fathers, and brothers all learning from each other. There are probably many more instances to be found, and this is definitely a work in progress. Any comments are welcome.

First Thoughts

2008-02-29T20:42:00.001-07:00

I sometimes think of my relationship with the Book of Mormon in terms of Robert Frost's "Devotion," a simple poem published in 1928 in a volume called West Running Brook:

The heart can think of no devotion
Greater than being shore to the ocean--
Holding the curve of one position,
Counting an endless repetition.

I've read the Book of Mormon so many times that it sometimes feels as if I am the shore to its ocean, continuously washed with simple waves that hint at a complexity of life just below the surface. The thoughts and feelings that result leave me as impressionable as the wet sand that sits counting the endless repetition of contact. During some periods of my life, it feels as if I've lived in its pages like I would my home, drawing from them a wonderful power and energy that infuses my life with meaning and draws me closer to the Savior and to my family.

Like most who undertake a life-long journey through this book, I've also come to treasure the Book of Mormon for its literary richness. It is a textbook of conversion and redemption, a powerful insight into human nature and potential. And like the fruit Lehi briefly held in vision, the insights we receive just have to be shared. However unremarkable and ordinary my insights are, they are my own devotion, a result of patterns and themes that have made an impression on me through countless repetition and occasional understanding.