Category: Mosiah

Mosiah 15:10-14 — LeGrand Baker — On being a child of God

One of the best known testimonies of the Saviour found in this scriptures is this one in D&C 76.

22 And now, after the many testimonies which have been given of him, this is the testimony, last of all, which we give of him: That he lives!
23 For we saw him, even on the right hand of God; and we heard the voice bearing record that he is the Only Begotten of the Father –
24 That by him, and through him, and of him, the worlds are and were created, and the inhabitants thereof are begotten sons and daughters unto God (D&C 76:22-24).

That was written in February, 1832. Eleven years later, in February 1843, the Prophet Joseph published a poetic version of that same revelation. The major difference between the two versions (apart from the literary style) is that the 1832 revelation is a description of a revelation shared by Joseph and Sidney Rigdon, and so it is written in first person plural – “we saw…” In contrast, the 1843 poem is written in first person singular – “I saw…” and it apparently represents many other visions that the Prophet had seen and understood. In the poem, his testimony reads,

And now after all of the proofs made of him,
By witnesses truly, by whom he was known,
This is mine, last of all, that he lives; yea, he lives!
And sits at the right hand of God on his throne.
And I heard a great voice bearing record from heav’n,
He’s the Saviour and only begotten of God;
By him, of him, and through him, the worlds were all made,
Even all that career in the heavens so broad.
Whose inhabitants, too, from the first to the last,
Are sav’d by the very same Saviour of ours;
And, of course, are begotten God’s daughters and sons
By the very same truths and the very same powers. {endnote  1}

As one contemplates the enormity of that last phrase, one cannot help but echo the words of Enos, “Lord, how is it done?” I suppose that same question stirred in the soul of the young prince Alma as an understanding of Abinadi’s message began to unfold in his mind.

If I am correct in my last week’s suggestion that Abinadi’s discussion of the Saviour’ atonement contained a subtext that was designed to help Alma begin to comprehend his own Self, and that with the help of the Spirit, Alma and Abinadi were communicating privately during Abinadi’s public address to king Noah; then Abinadi’s response to Alma’s unspoken question was not just the next logical step in the young man’s education; it was the next necessary step. If one assumes, as I do, that Alma understood Abinadi’s message, and now wished to know how to fulfill his own covenantal responsibilities, the next question Abinadi must address would be, “How does one become a son of God and an heir to the Kingdom of Heaven ?”

The reason this question would have been as obvious as it was important is this: Assuming (as I do) that king Noah’s coronation ceremony was not substantially different from the coronation ceremonies of the kings of Israel{2}, then at the time of his coronation Noah had been ceremonially identified as a “son” and legitimate heir of God (See Who Shall Ascend into the Hill of the Lord for a discussion of the coronation ceremony and Psalm 2).

And (further assuming that things happened in America in the same way they happened in Jerusalem before the destruction of Solomon’s temple) the people who witnessed the king’s coronation ceremony had symbolically also been made heirs – sons and daughters of God – thus making the whole nation a covenant people. Now (also assuming that young Alma had participated in those ceremonies, and was familiar with those ordinances), Abinadi had just challenged the very foundation of the king’s authority, by declaring that Noah and his kingdom were apostate, and that he, Abinadi rather than the king, was authorized to speak the words of God.

If this was the academic and ceremonial context in which Abinadi spoke, then for Alma there would have been only two possible responses: Either he must agree with Noah that Abinadi was too dangerous to be permitted to live, or he must believe Abinadi’s testimony. Since the latter was true, now the young prince Alma must seek to know from Abinadi the answer to the most fundamental of all royal questions: “How, then, if those ancient ordinances are not in themselves sufficient, can one become a son and heir of God?” and it is to that question that Abinadi next addressed.

10    And now I say unto you, who shall declare his generation? Behold, I say unto you, that when his soul has been made an offering for sin he shall see his seed. And now what say ye? And who shall be his seed?
11    Behold I say unto you, that whosoever has heard the words of the prophets, yea, all the holy prophets who have prophesied concerning the coming of the Lord – I say unto you, that all those who have hearkened unto their words, and believed that the Lord would redeem his people, and have looked forward to that day for a remission of their sins, I say unto you, that these are his seed, or they are the heirs of the kingdom of God.
12    For these are they whose sins he has borne; these are they for whom he has died, to redeem them from their transgressions. And now, are they not his seed?
13 Yea, and are not the prophets, every one that has opened his mouth to prophesy, that has not fallen into transgression, I mean all the holy prophets ever since the world began? I say unto you that they are his seed.
14    And these are they who have published peace, who have brought good tidings of good, who have published salvation; and said unto Zion: Thy God reigneth! (Mosiah 15:10-14)

The nature and promise of sacral kingship and priesthood were the whole focus of Abinadi’s explanation as he described what one must be to become a child of Christ. As I have already observed, the coronation rites at the conclusion of the Feast of Tabernacles temple drama not only represented the renewal of the king’s earthly authority as adopted son of God, but they also represented the renewal of the ordinances and covenants of salvation for the king and every individual who participated in the ceremonies. Consequently, when Abinadi asked, “who shall be his seed,” then answered his own question, he answered in terms of sacral kingship:

His argument was not unique. Indeed, his conclusions are the same as are found everywhere in the scriptures. The high-point of the Beatitudes, “…for they shall be called the children of God,” is only one example. It was also, appropriately, part of King Benjamin’s address to his people during what appears to be the celebration of a New Year’s festival ceremony.

7    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 it is most beautifully expressed in the words of the Saviour to the brother of Jared:

14    Behold, I am he who was prepared from the foundation of the world to redeem my people. Behold, I am Jesus Christ. I am the Father and the Son. In me shall all mankind have life, and that eternally, even they who shall believe on my name; and they shall become my sons and my daughters.” (Ether 3:14)

Relative to these sacral kings and queens, the Prophet Joseph wrote,

1    The heavens were opened upon us, and I beheld the celestial kingdom of God, and the glory thereof, whether in the body or out I cannot tell.
2    I saw the transcendent beauty of the gate through which the heirs of that kingdom will enter, which was like unto circling flames of fire; (D&C 137:1-2)

As I mentioned last week, the root of all these ideas may be found in Psalm 2. In Psalm 2 the king speaks, quoting Jehovah.

7    I will declare the decree: the Lord hath said unto me, “Thou art my Son; this day have I begotten thee (Psalm 2:7).

The most important statement in Psalm 2 is the affirmation by the king that God has told him said,

“Thou art my Son; this day have I begotten thee.” Here “son,” “my son,” and in other places “son of God” and “Son of God” (There is a tremendous difference between “son of God” and “Son of God”!) are not just a statement of adoption or of genealogy, but are royal name-titles which signify “son” as in “heir,” “king,” or one who is anointed to become king{3}. As mentioned before, when the Father introduced the Saviour, he used that name-title (“this is my Beloved Son”) which defines both their literal relationship and the Saviour’s status as heir to whom all must do obeisance. Examples are Christ’s baptism, the Mount of Transfiguration, his appearance to the Nephites, and Joseph Smith’s first vision.

As is true with the Saviour, when someone is called a “son” or “daughter” of God, it is both a statement of one’s eternal relationship with their Heavenly Father, and also a name-title which denotes a covenantal relationship. Several scholars have discussed the evidence for the ancient Israelite use of sacred king-names. Honeyman observed that the religious practice of giving and receiving a new name,

…is based upon the belief that the name is or symbolizes the self or soul, and that an alteration of the name will effect or symbolize and perpetuate an alteration of the self; on this supposition a man whose name has been changed is no longer quite the same man, for he has been cut off from his own past, or from certain aspects of it, and the future belongs to a different being. {4}

Mowinckel wrote,

The mention of the king’s ‘name’ [in Psalms 7:18] contains an allusion to the fact that the oracles and ‘decree’ really contained those names of honour which the deity gave to the king on the day of his anointing, his ‘regnal-name’ which expressed both his close relation to Yahweh and the promise of the happiness and honour he was to gain for himself and for his people. We know this to be the case in Egypt, and both in the East generally and in Israel the custom prevailed that the king should take a new name at his accession. Probably also has to be interpreted to the effect that David’s son Jedidiah as king took the name Solomon. {5}

Honeyman concurs.

The account in II Sam 12:24-25 of the birth of Jedidiah-Solomon imputes the former name to the prophet Nathan under divine inspiration and the latter to Bathsheba or David. … Solomon is the throne name and Jedidiah the private name…. The slayer of Goliath was Elhanan the son of Jesse of Bethlehem, (II Sam. 21:19) Elhanan can be none other than he who reigned as David. {6}

So it appears that “David” (which is was not an Israelite name) became the covenant king-name of Elhanan, a man who grew up in Bethlehem, only a few miles from the Jebusite city of Jerusalem.

A new name is a kind of statement of fact – it is also a formal token of the covenant it represents.

It can be a name that evokes memories of covenants made in the past, or it may be ongoing and current in the present, or it may project one’s covenants into the future.

Some covenants guarantee the fulfilment of other covenants. Prophecies about the future are one example. On a more personal level, Ephesians 1:13-14 is a covenant made between God and individual members of the Council in Heaven, guaranteeing one’s opportunity for redemption when one finally gets out from under the burdens of this life. The verses read,

13    In whom [Christ] ye also trusted , after that ye heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation: in whom also after that ye believed, ye were sealed with that holy Spirit of promise,
14  Which [sealing] is the earnest of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession, unto the praise of his glory. (Ephesians 1:13-14)

An earnest is an enabling contract – one that guarantees another contract in the future: “I promise you that you can buy my bike when I get a new one” is a simple and informal form of an earnest. It is a covenant that another covenant will ultimately be fulfilled. In a very broad sense, a new name, like “son,” is an earnest because it is not only an acclamation of who one is, but is also an avowal of who one is becoming.

In the course of one’s life here – and most probably in the course of one’s full eternal existence – one accumulates a large number of covenant names. For example, in the king’s name-titles, one might find the whole history of the king’s final ascension to the throne. (In England, for example, the prince, becomes the Duke of York, becomes the king.) Mowinckel implies that:

The enthronement psalms must be understood against the background of this festival, with all the rich experiences contained in it, experiences including past and future in a re- creating present….  {7}

Nibley explained that the ancient Egyptians had the same concept. In ancient Egypt one received a number of names, some of which were symbolic of where and what one is doing just now, others represented one’s role in the Council and creation, still others were promises for the future. The name with which one evoked God for blessing or information was determined by the sort of information or assistance one wished.

When Re says to the gods, “ I have many names and many forms; in me Atun and the youthful Horus are addressed,” he signifies that he may be conjured either as the Ancient of Days or the Newly-born, depending on the name employed and the situation in which his presence is desired…. {8}

The reason it was important to have many names was because one’s existence covered an enormous span of time, and during that time one played many roles with covenantal responsibilities.

Every name is an epithet designating some peculiar attribute or function of an individual. That is why it is possible for persons even in our society to have more than one name, each name calling attention to a different aspect of the individual: for to have many forms and functions is to have many names…. {9}

Examples he might have given of our current use of multiple name-titles are mother, and father, or bishop, that are a kind of statement of rank assigned by one’s society, culture, or priesthood ordination. These name-titles are expected to last a lifetime. Others, like Relief Society President, scoutmaster, and high counselor are names which denote temporary called responsibilities. These name-titles are no longer effectual after one is released. In ancient Israel there were some names that were much more significant than others. The most important were given by formal ordinance and covenant.

If the psalms, and the ancient temple ordinances and covenants that were associated with them, are the background of Abinadi’s public challenge to king Noah, and of his very private conversation with Alma, then this weeks verses from Abinadi can be summed up this way:

To Noah, Abinadi said, “To be a ‘king’ one must make and keep covenants, but one’s just going through the form of the ordinances is not sufficient: Therefore, Noah, you and those like you just don’t qualify.”

But to Alma he said, “All the prophets and all those who believe in the Saviour, these are his seed – his children and his heirs. These are they who publish peace, who bring good tidings of good, who publish salvation; and say unto Zion: Thy God reigneth! – these are his sons and his daughters, the kings and queens, priests and priestesses of the Kingdom.”

————

ENDNOTES

{1} “A Vision” by the Prophet Joseph Smith – – the Prophet re-wrote the vision which is the 76th section of the Doctrine and Covenants in poetry form. It was published in the Times and Seasons, February 1, 1843, and republished in the Millennial Star, August, 1843.}

{2} As I mentioned before, that coronation ceremony is not described in the Old Testament, except briefly in Isaiah 61:3. However some of the greatest biblical scholars of the last century maintained that the text of the ancient Israelite temple ceremony (“including its coronation rites) is preserved in the Psalms. That is, that the Psalms are the are the words of the ancient temple ceremony. If you wish to pursue that idea, the best sources to begin with are Sigmund Mowinckel, translated by A.P. Thomas, The Psalms in Israel’s Worship, 2 Vols. (Abingdon, Nashville, 1962); and Aubrey R. Johnson, Sacral Kingship in Ancient Israel (Cardiff, University of Wales Press, 1967).}

{3} David, Solomon, and apparently Mosiah II, were all anointed to become king before theywere anointed “king.”

There is also a different usage of the word “son.” In the context of ancient governmental covenants and treaties where one authority was recognized as superior to another (as in the relationship between the king of Egypt and his subservient overlords), the title “son” denoted vassalage rather than heirship. }

{4} A.M. Honeyman, “The Evidence for Regnal Names Among the Hebrews,” in Journal of Biblical Literature, 67, 1948: 13.}

{5} Sigmund Mowinckel, D. R. Ap-Thomas, trans., The Psalms in Israel’ s Worship (Nashville: Abingdon, 2 vols., 1979), 1: 63 and n. 86. See also: James K Hoffmeier “From Pharaoh to Israel’s Kings To Jesus,” in Bible Review (13/2, June 1997), 48. In a footnote he adds: See 2 Kgs 23.31 (Shallum-Jo’ahaz); 23.34 (Elijakim-Jehoiakim). 2 Sam. 12.24-25.

{6} A. H. Honeyman, “The Evidence for Regnal Names Among the Hebrews,” Journal of Biblical Literature, 1984, 67:23-24.

{7} Sigmund Mowinckel, translated by A.P. Thomas, The Psalms in Israel’s Worship, 2 Vols.(Nashville, Abingdon, 1962), vol. 1, 183. Mowinckel’s footnote reads as follows: “Pss. 47., 9; 93.2, cf. V. 5b; 96.13; 97.2b, 7b, cf. The description of the epiphany- procession of entry in vv. 3-6; 98.3b, 9b; 99,1.”

{8} Hugh Nibley, The Message of the Joseph Smith Papyri, and Egyptian Endowment (Salt Lake City, Deseret Book, 1975), 40-41.

{9} Hugh Nibley, The Message of the Joseph Smith Papyri, and Egyptian Endowment (Salt Lake City, Deseret Book, 1975), 40.

The first eight verses of Mosiah 15 are considered by many to be some of the most difficult to understand in the Book of Mormon, but they become easy to follow when one realizes that Abinadi was talking about Jehovah and Jesus and the tensions they had to overcome so that Jesus could accomplish the Atonement and keep the covenants made by Jehovah—for they are the same God:

1 And now Abinadi said unto them: I would that ye should understand that God himself [Jehovah] shall come down among the children of men, and shall redeem his people. [“Redeem” in this context means to bring his people back into the presence of God—that is, to completely undo the effects of the Fall of Adam, so that we can return to the presence of God. (See Mormon 9:13; Ether3:13; 2 Nephi 1:15, 2:1-4; Alma 58:41).]

2 And because he [Jehovah] dwelleth in flesh [Jesus] he [Jesus] shall be called the Son of God [the Son of Elohim], and having subjected the flesh [Jesus] to the will of the Father [Jehovah], being the Father [Jehovah] and the Son [Jesus]—

3 The Father [Jehovah], because he [first as Jehovah and then again as Jesus] was conceived by the power of God [Elohim]; and the Son [Jesus], because of the flesh; thus becoming the Father [Jehovah] and Son [Jesus]—

4 And they [Jehovah-Jesus] are one God, yea, the very Eternal Father of heaven and of earth.

5 And thus the flesh [Jesus] becoming subject to the Spirit [Jehovah], or the Son [Jesus] to the Father [Jehovah], being one God [Jehovah-Jesus], suffereth temptation, and yieldeth not to the temptation, but suffereth himself [Jesus] to be mocked, and scourged, and cast out, and disowned by his people.

6 And after all this, after working many mighty miracles among the children of men, he [Jesus] shall be led, yea, even as Isaiah said, as a sheep before the shearer is dumb, so he [Jesus] opened not his mouth.

7 Yea, even so he [Jesus] shall be led, crucified, and slain, the flesh [Jesus] becoming subject even unto death, the will of the Son [Jesus] being swallowed up in the will of the Father [Jehovah] (Mosiah 15:1-7).

There are few scriptures which touch the soul more deeply than that last verse. It exposes all the tensions: Jesus the man—with his natural aversion to physical pain and his desire to remain with the people he loved. Jehovah the God—whose covenantal love for his friends was even more powerful—informed and inspired Jesus’s determination to perform the Atonement. They are, as Abinadi said, one God, but it was Jesus—not just Jehovah—who had to decide.

One of the reasons that scripture is so important to us—and the reason the words were so important to Alma—is that it throws a burning light on each one of us—but a light that only we ourselves can see. Perhaps the easiest way to describe that light is to try to conceptualize its effect on Alma. It was bringing into focus and personalizing the chiastic balance of the cosmic myth.

Before he left his Heavenly Father’s presence, the premortal had made Alma covenants regarding his own mission here and what he would do to fulfill his mission. What Paul wrote to the Thessalonians was true of Alma and all of Heavenly Father’s other children also: “But we are bound to give thanks alway to God for you, brethren beloved of the Lord, because God hath from the beginning chosen you to salvation through sanctification of the Spirit and belief of the truth” (2 Thessalonians 2:13). But now on this earth as a young, wealthy, demonstrably popular prince, Alma could no longer remember who he really was. His memory was darkened by the light his physical eyes could see. On earth, the expanse of his mind was limited by earthly things and his body limited through its knowledge of how to feel happiness, hunger, passion, weariness, pain, and exhilaration.

There was a time, before his memory fogged and his eyes and ears were closed, that Alma could look forward to this life and see his own purpose—when he could clearly understand his own desires. It was then, when he was fully cognizant, that he had made covenants about what he would do here. Then he was in the company of the premortal Jehovah. But now he could not remember that any more, and had come on this occasion to King Noah’s court to sit in judgment against the prophet. Abinadi, for his part, had come to answer questions that young Alma may not yet have asked, and to give credence to the things the Spirit would teach him about himself. It was Abinadi’s task to help the physical and cultural Alma, who sat in King Noah’s council, to understand that he must seek to become subjugated to the Alma who once sat in the Council of the gods. Abinadi understood that if Alma could achieve that quality of understanding and freedom, then with the tutelage of the Holy Ghost he could acquire the power to fulfill the covenants he had made. In short, the will of Alma’s present Self must be swallowed up in the will of his premortal, fully cognizant Self.

Mosiah 14:1-5 — LeGrand Baker — Isaiah’s testimony

Mosiah 14:1-5
1    Yea, even doth not Isaiah say: Who hath believed our report, and to whom is the arm of the Lord revealed?
2    For he shall grow up before him as a tender plant, and as a root out of dry ground; he hath no form nor comeliness; and when we shall see him there is no beauty that we should desire him.
3    He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief; and we hid as it were our faces from him; he was despised, and we esteemed him not.
4    Surely he has borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows; yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted.
5    But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed.

I am grateful to the Prophet Joseph that he used the words of the King James Bible when translating Isaiah, because it gives us an anchor. We can access the differences between what was on the Brass Plates and what is in our Bible much more easily now than we would have been able to do if he had given us an entirely new translation. But Isaiah is poetry, and there are other translations whose beauty also sings to one’s soul. Sometimes, just for the pleasure I get from the beauty of its poetry, I read the new, official Jewish translation of the Old Testament. It is interesting to me, that in this passage of the Jewish version, it is the Saviour who hid his face from us, rather than we who hid our faces from him – they still do not understand — just as Isaiah says, if one cannot see, then for that person the Saviour has no beauty and no charm. There are also some other subtle differences in the connotations of this translation. But apart from that, I commend the following to you for the sublime beauty that it is, and the powerful testimony that it bears.

Who can believe what we have heard?
Upon whom has the arm of the LORD been revealed?
For he has grown, by His favor, like a tree crown,
Like a tree trunk out of arid ground.
He had no form or beauty, that we should look at him:
No charm, that we should find him pleasing.
He was despised, shunned by men,
A man of suffering, familiar with disease.
As one who hid his face from us,
He was despised, we held him of no account.
Yet it was our sickness that he was bearing,
Our suffering that he endured.
We accounted him plagued,
Smitten and afflicted by God;
But he was wounded because of our sins,
Crushed because of our iniquities.
He bore the chastisement that made us whole,
And by his bruises we were healed.
We all went astray like sheep,
Each going his own way;
And the LORD visited upon him The guilt of all of us.
(Isaiah 53: 1-5, Tanakh – The Holy Scriptures, (Philadelphia, Jewish Publication Society, 1985)

Mosiah 13:25-35 — LeGrand Baker — Salvation and the Law of Moses

Abinadi’s argument here is the same as Paul’s in the first 7 chapters of Romans and in Galatians. That is, that the Law of Moses cannot save anybody; that the performances of the Law were intended to remind one of the Saviour; and that one’s redemption can only come through the atonement of Christ.

The more I study the Old Testament, and the Book of Mormon, the more I become convinced that we do not now have enough information to actually know what “the Law of Moses” was. The Book of Mormon is not a good source, because Mormon assumed we would know and didn’t bother to tell us – And even if we didn’t know, he didn’t tell us because that isn’t what the Book of Mormon is about. The Old Testament is a good source to know what Paul was talking about when he referred to the Law, but it only helps a little when we want to know what the Book of Mormon prophets meant by “the Law of Moses.” I have mentioned that before, in passing, but would now like to address it more fully. As I write this I am acutely aware that I am only an historian, and not a prophet who actually knows. Historians are people who try to understand their world through a rear view mirror. We see only a small portion of what was actually out there; but we often write as though what we see is all there ever was. In fact, all we can see is that little bit of information which by chance happened to survive. What survived may not have been the things which were most important, but we treat it as though it was. We draw conclusions and make judgements about what it all means based upon our own learning and experience, rather than on the cultural and personal experiences of the people who actually lived back then. I fall into those traps as much as anyone else. I wrote all that as a disclaimer which you may translate to mean this: What I am about to write is only my opinion, and it’s probably not what you learned in Sunday School class, so if you don’t like it, I will deny that I ever wrote it.

Let me begin by making some observations about the nature of restoration of the Gospel in Joseph Smith’s day.

Teaching the gospel has to be a culturally related thing. That is, because we learn new truths by relating them to truths we already know, most of what we learn is just a new bit added to the old. That is true whether we are learning chemistry, political philosophy, or the gospel. It is exceeding difficult – almost impossible – for us to learn information that is 100% new. For that reason, when the Prophet restored the gospel he and the missionaries had to teach a gospel which was understandable to people who grew up in a Christian-Protestant culture. I do not believe, as some have suggested, that he translated the Book of Mormon into the language of his back- country New York contemporaries. But I do believe that he preached the gospel to them in that language. The history of the church throughout Joseph’s lifetime, is the story of building line upon line, precept upon precept – of his slowly introducing new ideas which they could then relate to his earlier new ideas, until he was able to teach them the temple, and deliver the King Follett discourse. It is my belief that he as easily could have given that discourse on the evening of the first day the church was organized. But if he had tried to do so, it is likely that most of the people present would have gotten up and walked out.

From Joseph’s day, to the present, the history of the development of the “policies of the church” have been in part the story of cultural and circumstantial ccommodation – I do not mean that in any way which might suggest either criticism or non-revelation. Let me give you some obvious examples. 1) Until 1888, the focus of the church’s missionary work was the gathering to Zion. After that the focus changed to becoming an international church. It took more than half century for that transition to be made, but in the 1950’s President McKay announced that the gathering had officially ended and that all people were to stay where they were and increase Zion in that place. 2) Another example: the word of wisdom was given by the Prophet, but not until President Grant’s day was it announced that people who did not keep the word of wisdom could not go to the temple. The timing of that announcement proved to be critical to the greater mission of the church. Within a few years WWII happened, Mormon boys were drafted and sent to war. The word of wisdom was their badge of identification, both to themselves and to others. It gave them the need to unite into small church groups, and it helped provide coherence to the people in those groups. After the war, they came home, got educated through the GI bill, and began to scatter to the major cities of the US to find jobs to go with their new educations. Then they again did what they had learned to do while they were in the military. They sought out other members of the church, met together on Sundays, organized small branches, and eventually became the nucleus of wards and stakes in cities all over the country. It is possible all that could have happened without President Grant’s decision about the Word of Wisdom, but it would have been much less likely.

3) Those of you who went to the temple for the first time as many years ago as I did will recall that part of the ceremony used to be about Mormons in a Protestant environment. That part was not vital to the ceremony, but it helped give the temple message a relevant interpretation. That interpretation would have been meaningless to people living in South America, Africa, or Japan – but that was OK because there were no temples there. Then the ceremony was changed – none of the important things were taken out, but all the culturally oriented things were removed so that it becameana-culturalceremony. Assuch,itisasmeaningfulinUtahasitisinAfrica,South Africa, Japan, China, Russia or anywhere else. Removing the Protestant oriented cultural characteristics from the ceremony was probably a necessary prerequisite to establishing small temples all over the world. 4) Another example which I will not have to explain is the changing of the duties of the Quorums of Seventy. That’s what I meant when I wrote the “policies of the church” accommodate to the time and place. I wrote, “policies of the church” but did not write “doctrines of the gospel.” The doctrines of the gospel do not change, but the cultural package in which those doctrines are taught may be very different from one dispensation to another.

The Law of Moses was apparently that kind of cultural packaging. Moses had to teach the gospel to a people who had been steeped in Egyptian culture for 400 years, and who were moving into Canaan where most of the people were apostates. He had the Melchizedek Priesthood, and so did Aaron and others. (Moses, Aaron, and 70 others went on the mountain and saw God. D&C 84 says no one can see God who does not have the Melchizedek priesthood.) Moses’ Tabernacle was a Melchizedek priesthood temple. I assume that from a statement in the D&C which is about the purpose of the Nauvoo temple. It says, “For, for this cause I commanded Moses that he should build a tabernacle, that they should bear it with them in the wilderness, and to build a house in the land of promise, that those ordinances might be revealed which had been hid from before the world was.” (D&C 124:38) If those ordinances done in Moses’ Tabernacle and Solomon’s Temple were the same as the ones done in the Nauvoo Temple, then both of those ancient Israelite structures must have been Melchizedek priesthood temples. Moses received his priesthood from his father-in-law Jethro who was a priest and prince of Midiah. That is very important. It means that at the time of Moses there was at least one group of people who were not Israelites who had the Melchizedek priesthood, and therefore must have also had the fullness of the gospel. To show that there was one such group of people is not sufficient evidence to prove that there was more than one, but it is evidence that just because the Israelites rejected the fulness of the Gospel, it does not follow that everyone else in the ancient Near East had also rejected the gospel and that the gospel could not be found on the earth at that time. (The most recent issue of the Biblical Archaeological Review has an article which says there were non-Israelite temples outside of Israelite territory which were dedicated to the worship of Jehovah.)

D&C 84 says the Melchizedek priesthood was taken from the Israelites, and they were left with the Aaronic priesthood. Then that revelation does a 12 or 14 hundred year leap and says John the Baptist was a legitimate heir to that priesthood. Some have taken that to mean that, except for a few individuals, the Melchizedek priesthood did not function among the Israelite people during that 1200 or so years, but the D&C does not say that. Indeed, both the Old Testament and the Book of Mormon strongly imply that was not true.

Nephi says that the Israelites could not have occupied the land if the people who lived there had not already apostatized and corrupted the principles of the Gospel. Evidence of that apostasy is very strong when one considers that the Lord told Moses they were to cleanse the land of its wicked inhabitants. Joshua’s armies did not complete that cleansing, and the implication is that they should have done. But one of the cities which was left untouched by the Israelites for about 300 years was Jerusalem. Then, when it was captured by David, all sorts of strange things began to happen.

David began to act as though he had the Melchizedek priesthood. He was not a Levite who could hold the Aaronic priesthood, yet he used the Urim and Thummim. He spoke with God as prophets do. He planned to build that temple the D&C mentions, in which Melchizedek priesthood ordinances would be performed. He is credited with having written the Psalms which are the text of that temple’s ceremonies. The New Year’s festival – if it was anything like how I understand it to have been – could not possibly be considered to be anything except a Melchizedek priesthood ceremony. David’s son, Solomon, who built the Temple, talked with God, and therefore must have had the Melchizedek priesthood. So did Hezekiah, the king of Judah who was a close friend of Isaiah.

Every so often in that part of the Old Testament that deals with the history before the Babylonian captivity, there appears a group called “the prophets.” Scholars don’t know what to make of them, and have suggested they were itinerant shamen or magicians. These prophets watched when Elijah and Elisha went into the wilderness together, then were amazed at Elisha’s story of Elijah’s being carried off to heaven before his eyes. I have wondered if these people were actually the leaders of the ancient Church. The Old Testament does not say there was a pre-exilic church among the Jews, but Nephi tells us that Laban was among “the brethren of the church” (1 Ne 4:26), so I suppose there was such an organization among the Jews in Old Testament times.

At the time of, or shortly before and after, the Babylonian captivity, Lehi, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and Daniel (who was probably about the same age as Nephi), and the three young men in the blazing furnace, all saw God. If we can assume, as the D&C tells us, that one must have the Melchizedek priesthood to see God, then we can assume that Israelites who were in a variety of places had the Melchizedek priesthood. Lehi was on his way to America. Jeremiah was at Jerusalem, Ezekiel was somewhere in Mesopotamia. Daniel and his three friends were in Babylon. However, withing 150- 200 years after that, there is almost no evidence that there was a functional group of Melchizedek priesthood holders.

Now to return to the question of what was the “Law of Moses.” When Paul spoke of the Law, he included the law of circumcision, which was not instituted by Moses, but by Abraham. In Paul’s day, the Pharisees controlled the temple and the “official” Jewish religion. Their official canon of scriptures became the Jewish canon after the destruction of the Temple, and was adopted by the Christians as our Old Testament. When the Pharisees spoke of the Law, they meant whatever Moses said, plus and minus whatever they had added to or subtracted from the performances of the Law since Moses’ time. So in New Testament times, it appears that when Paul spoke of the “Law” he meant something like “current Jewish practices.”

Much of our Old Testament was written after the Babylonian captivity. At about that same time, the Jews (who were then part of the Persian empire, so did not have their own independent kingdom with its independent king) substantially changed their religion to fit their new political situation and apostate beliefs. They abandoned the old godhead which consisted of Elohim, Jehovah, and a heavenly Council, and replaced it with monotheism – worshiping only Jehovah, but not understanding that Jehovah would also be the Messiah. They didn’t take the name Elohim out of their scriptures, they just did what the Christians would later do – acknowledge that there was a Father and a Son, by merging them into one god.

When the post-exilic Jewish leaders changed their religion, they also changed their history, and (according to Margaret Barker) they also changed their calendar, and the times and ceremonies of their sacred festivals. Also see the chapters on the Jewish apostasy after the Babylonian captivity in Who Shall Ascend into the Hill of the Lord.

Barker and many other scholars believed that the Books of Moses were either written or severely edited at that same time. The Book of Mormon shows sufficient evidence that Moses wrote the books of Moses, but all one has to do is compare the Book of Moses in the Pearl of Great Price to the book of Genesis, to discover that some editor with a pen had a hey day with the scriptures.

The results of that post-exalic apostasy, and the editing that went along with it, were these: 1) The books of Moses, perhaps especially Leviticus, were edited so that the only instructions left regarding the sacred ceremonies were those which had nothing to do with the Melchizedek priesthood, the king, or the people’s participation. 2) When Kings and Chronicles were written (First and Second Kings were originally one book, so was First and Second Chronicles) the parts of the temple ceremony and coronation rites, which necessarily would have included Melchizedek priesthood rites, were simply left out. There can be no question about whether they were once there: The Psalms and the last half of Isaiah is sufficient evidence of that, and the Book of Mormon is full of it

As in the Book of Mormon, it appears to me that after David and the Temple, the people in the Old Testament continued to express their Melchizedek priesthood gospel understanding by using both the rites and ordinances of the Law of Moses and those associated with the Jerusalem Temple. But unlike in the Book of Mormon, the Melchizedek priesthood was taken away from the Jews a second time, sometime during the second temple period. The Jews were taken to Babylon in about 587 B.C. – 13 years after Lehi left to come to America – Cyrus decreed they might return to Jursalem in 537 B.C. Malachi prophesied almost exactly a hundred years later, 432 BC. After that – darkness – until John the Baptist.

What we don’t know is just what it was that Abinadi called the Law of Moses. It certainly included the laws of animal sacrifice prescribed by the Law. But we can’t be sure exactly what that was or how it was understood to represent the atonement of Christ, because all we have to tell us is the edited version of the Books of Moses in the Old Testament, where much of those things have been edited out. Abinadi’s “Law” may also have included

Melchizedek Priesthood rites and ordinances which may have been re-taught to the Israelites by the Jesubite inhabitants of Jerusalem when David conquered the city, and before his son built the Temple. The latter seems to have been so, because Abinadi makes references to temple and coronation principles which suggest that king Noah and his priests were adhering to many of the outward performances of Melchizedek kingship rites.

Now, after all that, let me finally get around to the point I was wanting to make. It is this: We do not, and probably cannot, know what priesthood sacrifices, rites, and ordinances were performed by Noah and his governing priests. Nor can we know what was being referred to by Abinadi when he used the phrase, “the Law of Moses.” It may have been only animal sacrifices, or more probably, it may have included the full range of Aaronic and Melchizedek rites and ordinances proscribed in the Brass Plates. What we can know, from the testimonies of both Paul and Abinadi is this: What one does, in the performance of religious services, is not sufficient to save.

Mosiah 13:15 — LeGrand Baker — new king-names

Mosiah 13:15
5    Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain; for the Lord will not hold him guiltless that taketh his name in vain.

In the Catholic/Protestant/Jewish/zilch-nothing culture we live in, that commandment is interpreted to mean “don’t use God’s name to blaspheme,” but everyone does it all the time, on TV and elsewhere, so the commandment is not taken to mean very much at all.

I would like to write about the significance of new/kingly/covenant names. But in the ancient context in which that commandment was given, it meant something more,  very different and very powerful.

Our names are our identities. When one has a new name has a new identity and therefore he is a different person when that new name is used. Becoming a king or a queen is requisite upon becoming a new person with a new name. When a new king is coronated he is always given new names. In ancient Egypt he was given three, in modern England, only one. In ancient Israel, it appears that both “David” and “Solomon” were not the original names of the persons, but were official king names.

The account in II Sam 12:24-25 of the birth of Jedidiah-Solomon imputes the former name to the prophet Nathan under divine inspiration and the latter to Bathsheba or David. … Solomon is the throne name and Jedidiah the private name…. The slayer of Goliath was Elhanan the son of Jesse of Bethleham, (II Sam. 21:19) Elhanan can be none other than he who reigned as David. Honneyman, A. H., “The Evidence for Regnal Names Among the Hebrews,” Journal of Biblical Literature, 1984, v. 67, p 13-25.}

When the Lord made a covenant with Abraham, he gave both Abraham and his wife new covenant names. When the people of king Benjamin made a covenant to obey the Lord, he gave them a new covenant name.

Moroni wrote a poem (an expression of the covenant) on his “garment:” he gave it the title of “LIBERTY.” He then drew a geographic line around names of his country (defining it as sacred space); he made a covenant, and gave his country the covenant name of “the land of liberty,” with “liberty” meaning the words of the covenant poem he had written on his garment. Later on, the sons of Helaman made a covenant and took on themselves the name of “Nephites.”

In the Church, each time we make a covenant we get a new name. For example, when we are baptized we take upon ourselves the name of “Christ,” and we reaffirm that name each time we remake the covenant by taking the sacrament.

When God makes a covenant with his people he also takes a new covenant name. For example the God of Abraham was known as “The Most High God.” (El Elyon). He was known and worshiped by that name. Yet, when Moses was on the mountain and the Lord told him to go tell the children of Israel they were going to be delivered, the first thing Moses asked was, “What shall I tell them your name is.” Moses had to. He could not go to the elders of Israel and say, “The Lord has made a covenant with me that he will take you out of Egypt, but he did not ratify that covenant by taking upon himself a new covenant name.” Moses’ claim would have meant nothing unless he was able to tell them the new name which gave validity to the new covenant.

So Moses asked, “What’s your name.” The Lord replied, “I AM.” That’s a very inclusive name. Quite simply it means: I AM sufficient, with the implication of: therefore I have the power to deliver you from Egypt. So Moses went to the rulers of Israel, armed with both the new covenant and the new covenant name.

Another example is Isaiah 48. (But it has to be read in 1 Nephi 20, because some ancient editor in the Bible version messed it up) The story begins,

12    Hearken and hear this, O house of Jacob, who are called [named] by the name of Israel, and are come forth out of the waters of Judah, or out of the waters of baptism, [ordinance] who swear [covenant] by the name of the Lord, and make mention of the God of Israel, yet they swear [covenant] not in truth nor in righteousness. Nevertheless, they call themselves of the holy city, [assume the name, “Zion”] but they do not stay themselves upon the God of Israel, who is the Lord of Hosts; yea, the Lord of Hosts is his name. (1 Nephi 20:12)

The words of the covenant they have broken are not given, but its nature is easily deduced from the two new names associated with it. The people have received the name “Israel” which means, depending on the dictionary one uses, either “let God prevail” or “one who speaks or acts for God.” The Lord’s covenant name is “Lord of Hosts” which simply means master of the armies. So the covenant is implied in the names: God is the master and the people will do what is necessary so he will win the battle.

Later on in that chapter, still speaking to the rebellious, the Lord says, “Nevertheless, for my name’s sake will I defer mine anger, and for my praise will I refrain from thee, that I cut thee not off. For, behold, I have refined thee, I have chosen thee in the furnace of affliction. For mine own sake, yea, for mine own sake will I do this, for I will not suffer my name to be polluted, and I will not give my glory unto another.” (1 Nephi 20:9)

All I have to do is substitute the word “name” with the word “covenant” and this becomes a perfectly understandable declaration of the Lord’s integrity, and makes perfect sense. I think one can do that. There are many places in the scripture where I believe one can change “name” to “covenant” without changing the meaning of the scripture at all. Because “covenant” and “name” simply refer to the same thing

A little latter on in the story, but in the next chapter, Israel defines himself this way: ” the Lord hath called me from the womb; from the bowels of my mother hath he made mention of my name.” (1 Nephi 21:1) To me, at least, that is a clear reference to pre-mortal covenants ratified by new covenant names.

Perhaps the most powerful example of this in all the scriptures is in the Beatitudes, “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the children of God.”

Given the fact that people’s relationship with God is virtually defined by both his and their new covenant names, the commandment “Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain;” and the attached warning, “for the Lord will not hold him guiltless that taketh his name in vain.” Should be taken very seriously by Latter-day Saints. It might be understood to read, “Thou shalt not take the covenants of the Lord thy God in vain; for the Lord will not hold him guiltless that taketh his covenants in vain.”

Mosiah 12:31-37 — LeGrand Baker — Abinadi’s response

Abinadi, having dodged the possible charges of treason by not responding as the king and his priests expected to the meaning of the Isaiah passage, he shows that his evading the question had nothing to do with fear. He now lays charges at the feet of the king and his priests which will ultimately bring about his own death.

Abinadi began this part of the conversation by asking the priests a question as fundamental as the one with which they had challenged him: “Doth salvation come by the law of Moses?”

As I have pointed out before, we have little idea of what he meant by “the law of Moses.” The version we have of the books of Moses and the Law were severely edited after the Babylonian captivity. That editing removed at least those portions of the New Year festival which included the part which the king and the people played in the Day of Atonement and the Feast of Tabernacles, and the editors left only instructions for what was done be the members of the Aaronic and Levitical priesthood.  Any Melchizedek priesthood functions were also removed. Those changes all took place after Lehi left, So we may suppose the Nephite scriptures still had all everything in them which were soon to be taken out by the Jewish leaders. What that means to our reading of the Abinadi story is that when he asked, “Doth salvation come by the law of Moses?” we do not know the exact meaning of his question, but we do know the implication of the priests’ answer and of Abinadi’s response.

The priests answered, “that salvation did come by the law of Moses.”

We can understand what they meant by that, when we read Abinadi’s response. He said, “I know if ye keep the commandments of God ye shall be saved; yea, if ye keep the commandments which the Lord delivered unto Moses in the mount of Sinai,. . . ”

Here again Abinadi turns tables on them. Their answer apparently meant that salvation comes through following the performances of the law. (In our day that would be the same as saying that salvation comes through being baptized, having someone lay their hands on our heads to give the Holy Ghost, paying tithing, and then going to the temple to do all the things there that are required. For one in our time, Abinadi would say the same thing he said to the priests of Noah. That is: “I understand one has to do those things – however….”)

Abinadi immediately turned from their focus on performances of the ordinances, and instead focuses on the things of the heart. He asks, do you keep these commandments:

35    Thou shalt have no other God before me.
36    Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing in heaven above, or things which are in the earth beneath.

Abinadi’s challenge, and the priest’s prior response suggests that their apostasy under king Noah had been was something like the 10 tribes’ under Jeroboam. When he separated Israel from Judah, he changed their religion just enough to make it unnecessary for the people in the Northern Kingdom to continue to look to the temple in Jerusalem as their center of worship. He established two new religious centers: Dan in the north and Bethel in the south. He built sanctuaries there and set up images of two calves, which he said represented Jehovah, and said the calves had brought the people out of Egypt. Thus he apparently changed the religion but kept the performances of the religion. It appears from this conversation that the priests of Noah had done something like that.

Abinadi asks, accusatively, “Have ye done all this? I say unto you, Nay, ye have not. And have ye taught this people that they should do all these things? I say unto you, Nay, ye have not.”

Mosiah 12:17-30 — LeGrand Baker — ‘How beautiful upon the mountains’

Mosiah 12:20-21
20     And it came to pass that one of them said unto him: What meaneth the words which are written, and which have been taught by our fathers, saying:
21     How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him that bringeth good tidings; that publisheth peace; that bringeth good tidings of good; that publisheth salvation; that saith unto Zion, Thy God reigneth;

I recall once when I was much younger, I read this – all caught up in the drama of the story – and thought “Wow, they really asked Abinadi a hard one, I could not have answered that.”

What I have since learned is that they were not asking him a hard question at all. What they were doing is entrapping him so they could accuse him of treason.

To illustrate that, lets quickly review the concluding scenes of the Feast of Tabernacles in the ancient Israelite New Year festival. In the drama, after Jehovah has rescued the king from the world of the dead, the king, the Ark of the Covenant, and the people marched in a grand procession around the city, defining it once again as sacred space, and symbolically rebuilding the city and its temple to a renewed glory. During the procession they stopped at a pool where the king was ceremonially washed.  After going all around the city, they walked through its gates and into the temple precinct. When there, the doors of the temple were opened, the veil in front of the Holy of Holies was also opened, and symbolical, the Holy of Holies was extended to include everyone in the congregation. This did not violate the sanctity of the temple because all the people had been cleansed on the Day of Atonement in preparation for this great event. The description of the king’s anointing is not given in the Bible, but some scholars believe that it was the same as is described for the anointing of the High Priest. The king’s anointing was apparently a dual ceremony. It was an adoption ordinance, so now the king became a son of God (he had to be a son, or he would have been a usurper when he sat upon the throne). And it was also the final act of coronation ordinances. So after his anointing, the king was both “son” and king. After his anointing, some scholars believe, the king sat on the throne in the back of the Holy of Holies and delivered a lecture (probably from Deuteronomy) about the law and the covenant. The final ceremonies of the Feast of Tabernacles were a general feast which took place after the king’s speech, and the next day — the conclusion of both the Feast of Tabernacles and of the New Year’s festival — there was a great feast.

In Moses’ Tabernacle, the Ark of the Covenant had been the portable throne of God, but when Solomon’s temple was constructed, there was a great throne built at the back wall of the Holy of Holies. On either side of the throne were two cherubim, whose wings stretched over the throne. The Ark of the Covenant represented the presence of God, and after the procession, when it was brought back into the temple, it was sat in front of the Throne. Some scholars believe that after the king was anointed and sat upon the throne as the legitimate son of God, that the Ark was his footstool. The Ark contained a jar of manna, the bread of life representing the fruit of the tree of life; Aaron’s rod, which represented the power of the priesthood; and the tablets on which the Lord had written the Ten Commandments, which was the Law. So the contents of the Ark represented all the powers of sacral kingship. To have one’s feet “established” probably referred to that symbolic part of the coronation ceremony.

It appears that Isaiah’s statement which Noah’s priests quoted to Abinadi is about that aspect of the coronation ceremony.

21    How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him that bringeth good tidings; that publisheth peace; that bringeth good tidings of good; that publisheth salvation; that saith unto Zion, Thy God reigneth;
22    Thy watchmen shall lift up the voice; with the voice together shall they sing; for they shall see eye to eye when the Lord shall bring again Zion;
23    Break forth into joy; sing together ye waste places of Jerusalem; for the Lord hath comforted his people, he hath redeemed Jerusalem;
24    The Lord hath made bare his holy arm in the eyes of all the nations, and all the ends of the earth shall see the salvation of our God?

If this scripture is a celebration of sacral kingship, as it appears to be, and if Isaiah’s words were quoted by Noah’s priests to remind Abinadi of that, then, because the ceremony would have been familliar to all the Nephites, just as it was familiar to all the Jews in Jerusalem, it is probable that when the priests quoted the scripture, that King Noah, his priests, all the people, and Abinadi knew exactly what the scripture was about. They understood that it was an affirmation of the sanctity of the person of the king.

Abinadi had accused king Noah of violating the laws of God. So now, if he were to explain the Isaiah’s words in the way Noah’s priests expected, he also would have had to admit that the king was appointed by God, and was God’s legitimate representative.

What amazed the priests was that Abinadi did not answer the way they expected. Some scholars believe the king’s coronation was symbolic of the coronation of everyone who was watching the ceremony. That is, what the people were watching the king do, was symbolically happening to each one of them as well. If those scholars are correct, then every person in the congregation had symbolically placed their feet upon the Ark, and it could be said of each one of them, “How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him that bringeth good tidings; that publisheth peace; that bringeth good tidings of good;.” Abinadi seems to have used this understanding of the ceremony to explain to the priests that each person who was righteous was a sacral king, and it was ultimately the righteousness — not just the ceremony — which made one’s sonship and kingship real. Only a righteous person could be a legitimate king.

The priests were unable to respond to his answer, and they had to find a different accusation to bring against the Prophet.

Mosiah 11:20 — LeGrand Baker — Abinadi’s self assurance

Mosiah 11:20
20     And it came to pass that there was a man among them whose name was Abinadi; and he went forth among them, and began to prophesy, saying: Behold, thus saith the Lord, and thus hath he commanded me, saying, Go forth, and say unto this people, thus saith the Lord–Wo be unto this people, for I have seen their abominations, and their wickedness, and their whoredoms; and except they repent I will visit them in mine anger.

Abinadi has just committed what Noah can define as high treason – and he has to know that, and he has to know there are only two possible results: either Noah and his people will take his words seriously and repent, or Abinadi will be killed. I have often used this great man as one of the ultimate examples of meekness in the sense “meek” is used in the Psalms 15 and 37, and the Beatitudes. That is, one who keeps the covenants he made with his Heavenly Father. Abinadi does that – understanding at the onset that it will cost him his life.

Let’s look at the nature of his treason. It is summed up in three accusations and one ultimatum: Their abominations, wickedness, and whoredoms; and “except they repent” the Lord will exercise his power against the kingdom.

Once again,  we can go to the Bible to discover the meaning of the Book of Mormon words, lets check out “abominations.”

In the Old Testament the word almost always has not just religious, but cultic connotations. (By cultic, I mean having to do with the rites and practices of the religion, rather than just the beliefs.) Here are just a few examples to give the flavor of how the word is used.

In the word of wisdom portion of the Law of Moses, the Lord gives specific instructions about which birds may not be eaten. “And these are they which ye shall have in abomination among the fowls; they shall not be eaten, they are an abomination: the eagle, and the ossifrage, and the ospray,” (Leviticus 11:13)

Relative to the ancient Israelite sacrifices, the Lord insists that no animal may be sacrificed which is not perfect: “Thou shalt not sacrifice unto the LORD thy God any bullock, or sheep, wherein is blemish, or any evilfavouredness: for that is an abomination unto the LORD thy God.” (Deuteronomy 17:1)

The Canaanite religious practices, especially that of sacrificing of children, are called “abominations” “But he walked in the way of the kings of Israel, yea, and made his son to pass through the fire, according to the abominations of the heathen, whom the LORD cast out from before the children of Israel.” (2 Kings 16:3) “Moreover he burnt incense in the valley of the son of Hinnom, and burnt his children in the fire, after the abominations of the heathen whom the LORD had cast out before the children of Israel.” (2 Chronicles 28:3)

The gods of the heathen nations are frequently referred to as simply “the abomination.” “And the high places that were before Jerusalem, which were on the right hand of the mount of corruption, which Solomon the king of Israel had builded for Ashtoreth the abomination of the Zidonians, and for Chemosh the abomination of the Moabites, and for Milcom the abomination of the children of Ammon, did the king defile.” (2 Kings 23:13)

So when Abinadi says the Lord “has seen their abominations,” he is condemning their religious practices and worship ceremonies – and that is treason for the king is believed to be the spokesman for God.

Throughout the ancient Near East (and since the Book of Mormon culture is an offshoot of the Near Eastern culture, we can assume this is true among the Book of Mormon people also) the king is the principle representative of the gods. In Egypt and Mesopotamia the king himself was a divine god, being a son of the chief god. In Israel the king was not deified, but he was the chief representative of Jehovah and his adopted son. The sanctity of the king, and therefore the stability of the state, rested upon the fact that the gods had appointed the king to be king, and that they would sustain him as such. In return for the support of the gods, the king built temples to them, conducted wars in their behalf, and enforced the rules and practices of their religion.

When Abinadi said that his God, had declared Noah’s cultic practices to be an abomination, and would take the necessary steps to put them down, Abinadi was challenging the legitimacy of king’s relationship with the true God, therefore challenging Noah’s right to rule, and essentially doing what Elijah did when that prophet challenged Baal, the Canaanite god, to a dual. Thus Noah responded, “Who is Abinadi, that I and my people should be judged of him, or who is the Lord, that shall bring upon my people such great affliction?” (v. 27)

As a side note, I have often wondered at the method which Noah used to put Abinadi to death. “…they took him and bound him, and scourged his skin with faggots, yea, even unto death. And now when the flames began to scorch him, he cried unto them, saying:” (17:13-14) Abinadi was burned to death, but not in the medieval European manner of tying him to a stake and lighting a bonfire under him. They “scourged his skin with faggots even unto death… and when the flames began to scorch him…” It appears that he was beaten with flaming sticks. That kind of death may have been designed as prolonged torture, but it sounds like it may have been a ceremonial thing. If that is true, Noah challenged Abinadi and his God by making Abinadi a human sacrifice.

Mosiah 11:1-19 — LeGrand Baker — King Noah as politician

In the early 1992 Beck Locey, Devan Barker, and I started the Book of Mormon Project. Until 1999 Beck took on the responsibility of sending out the emails. Richard Dilworth (Dil) Rust became a part of the Project a year or so after it began. With that background the following correspondence will make sense. The date was

[12 March, 2001, Beck wrote:]

Last week LeGrand sent me a comment which he wasn’t sure I should publish. What follows is a compilation of LeGrand’s unpublished comment from last week, as well as Dil Rust’s and my e- mail comments on LeGrand’s unpublished comment. I am including them as they occurred in e- mail, beginning with LeGrand’s original comment.
——————————————-
[My original comment on Mosiah 11:1-19 was:]

Hi Beck, I’ve got a problem with this. Sometimes I don’t do sarcasm very well. If this comes through as though I actually think Noah was a good king, you better either change it or not send it out.
———-
Mosiah 11:1-19, 7 March 2001, LeGrand Baker

We mention “wicked King Noah,” and everyone who has read the Book of Mormon knows who we are talking about. But I am not the first to notice, that if we saw the beginning of his reign though eyes other than Mormon’s, he would probably be called a successful king, and a very successful politician. Consider his accomplishments.

First of all, he established himself as his own man, and he did it in the time honored way which other kings had used – like Jeroboam, for example, when Solomon died. Noah did not break up the kingdom like Jeroboam did, because he didn’t have to, but he did get rid of all of his father’s counselors (priests), and replaced them with men of this own choosing. Like Jeraboam, he did not start an entirely new religion, but he altered the doctrines and moral standards of the old one. To justify his version of the religion, he established new cultural norms (Mormon gives us a catalog of sins), which he made acceptable to the people, and which, in turn, made it almost impossible for the people to return to the old ways or to re-accept the ideas of the old leaders. Noah himself was an overtly religious man, restoring and redecorating the temple in a glorious manner that he could be proud of, and everyone else could admire.

1 And now it came to pass that Zeniff conferred the kingdom upon Noah, one of his sons;therefore Noah began to reign in his stead; and he did not walk in the ways of his father.
2 For behold, he did not keep the commandments of God, but he did walk after the desires of his own heart. And he had many wives and concubines. And he did cause his people to commit sin, and do that which was abominable in the sight of the Lord. Yea, and they did commit whoredoms and all manner of wickedness.

Those of you who have taken classes from Chauncey Riddle will remember that he said something like this: “The general populace will tolerate corruption and lasciviousness in their leaders, as long as the leaders make sure the people have enough spare money and enough leisure time to have similar corruption and lasciviousness in their own lives.” That doesn’t sound like Chauncey’s words, but the principle is the same.

Noah had a severe tax policy, but it is obvious he spent the money well. He erected wonderful public buildings (his palace and the temple), he spent part of the money for a good defense system. This speaks of a great tower in the city, but elsewhere we learn of city walls – and he had a powerful army. These, no doubt, helped considerably in what must be seen as an excellent international relations policy. He clearly had (or they all thought he had) an good relationship with the Lamanites, and the country was at peace. Notwithstanding the taxes, the people were prosperous and the economy was growing. An idea of the wealth of the country is found in the list of things Noah taxed:

3 And he laid a tax of one fifth part of all they possessed, a fifth part of their gold and of their silver, and a fifth part of their ziff, and of their copper, and of their brass and their iron; and a fifth part of their fatlings; and also a fifth part of all their grain.

That does not describe a poor, struggling agrarian community. Neither does the description of the lifestyle of the new political and religious leaders suggest anything like poverty. Economically, the country was well off, and when the people stopped griping about Noah’s taxes, they would discover his policies would make the economy even better.

4 And all this did he take to support himself, and his wives and his concubines; and also his priests, and their wives and their concubines; thus he had changed the affairs of the kingdom.
5 For he put down all the priests that had been consecrated by his father, and consecrated new ones in their stead, such as were lifted up in the pride of their hearts. [Abinadi did not come into the city of Nephi as a stranger, but rather as a fugitive. If there is a place to discover who he was, this verse is a likely place.]
6 Yea, and thus they were supported in their laziness, and in their idolatry, and in their whoredoms, by the taxes which king Noah had put upon his people; thus did the people labor exceedingly to support iniquity.
7 Yea, and they also became idolatrous, because they were deceived by the vain and flattering words of the king and priests; for they did speak flattering things unto them.

Here we have the mark of a “true” politician. He did not live in luxury and idolatry, and insist the people live different kinds of lives. He shared the rationale for his life style with the masses, letting them share the pleasures, hype, and justification of their having a new lifestyle like his. And all this was justified by the new interpretation of the old religion.

8 And it came to pass that king Noah built many elegant and spacious buildings; and he ornamented them with fine work of wood, and of all manner of precious things, of gold, and of silver, and of iron, and of brass, and of ziff, and of copper;
9 And he also built him a spacious palace, and a throne in the midst thereof, all of which was of fine wood and was ornamented with gold and silver and with precious things.
10 And he also caused that his workmen should work all manner of fine work within the walls of the temple, of fine wood, and of copper, and of brass.

That’s important. Noah did not enslave his people to provide his magnificent buildings, rather he used “workmen.” In other words he shared the wealth by creating new jobs, both in civilian and military life. The taxes were heavy, but the people could see they were doing good things. New jobs improve the standard of living. The economy was so good that it could support a class of non-food-producing artisans. He employed these people to build and work with gold and silver. These were good jobs for people, good jobs meant that the people could afford – within limits of course – to live the same kind of life the king and his priests were living. It is probable that the standard of living was much higher under the reign of king Noah than it had been in his father’s day, because his father had not taxed the people so heavily,

therefore his father’s government could not afford to build such fine buildings, and employ so many trained and skilled workmen. So there were probably many more good paying jobs under king Noah than there had been before. From all appearances, under Noah, the economy was really great.

11 And the seats which were set apart for the high priests, which were above all the other seats, he did ornament with pure gold; and he caused a breastwork to be built before them, that they might rest their bodies and their arms upon while they should speak lying and vain words to his people.

Woops, that puts a damper on things, but then, after all, that’s only Mormon editorializing again. Under the new standards, neither Noah, his priests, or the people would have accepted that kind of editorializing as an unbiased look at the situation. After all, one must not impose one’s own value judgements on others. To be unbiased – or at least to give the appearance of being unbiased is the most important thing!

12 And it came to pass that he built a tower near the temple; yea, a very high tower, even so high that he could stand upon the top thereof and overlook the land of Shilom, and also the land of Shemlon, which was possessed by the Lamanites; and he could even look over all the land round about.

The people are not only financially well off, but they felt secure in their persons and property. No Lamanites are going to sneak up on them. This king Noah, really knows how to look after his people.

13 And it came to pass that he caused many buildings to be built in the land Shilom; and he caused a great tower to be built on the hill north of the land Shilom, which had been a resort for the children of Nephi at the time they fled out of the land; and thus he did do with the riches which he obtained by the taxation of his people.

He is not only garrisoning the city of Nephi, he is extending the military protection to the outlying areas as well. The people are comfortable, financially well off, militarily secure, and their lives are a riot. Why shouldn’t the king live it up just like the people do!

14 And it came to pass that he placed his heart upon his riches, and he spent his time in riotous living with his wives and his concubines; and so did also his priests spend their time with harlots.
15 And it came to pass that he planted vineyards round about in the land; and he built wine- presses, and made wine in abundance; and therefore he became a wine-bibber, and also his people. More economic progress! With the large production of wine, farmers now have a new cash crop – and one with a ready market – and one which increases the pleasure and the sense of well-being of both king and people.
16 And it came to pass that the Lamanites began to come in upon his people, upon small numbers, and to slay them in their fields, and while they were tending their flocks.
17 And king Noah sent guards round about the land to keep them off; but he did not send a sufficient number, and the Lamanites came upon them and killed them, and drove many of their flocks out of the land; thus the Lamanites began to destroy them, and to exercise their hatred upon them.

This is not good – but notice – the Lamanites are not actually attacking the main body of Nephites. No doubt this is just some renegade group which the

Lamanite king cannot control. Noah will take this opportunity to demonstrate the wisdom of his tax and spend policy, by showing the power of the army he has created. He will not only settle the matter with the unruly Lamanites, but he will also demonstrate his own power to his own people.

18 And it came to pass that king Noah sent his armies against them, and they were driven back, or they drove them back for a time; therefore, they returned rejoicing in their spoil.

This war was not only successful, but “their spoil” provided both pleasure and riches of the people, and it added to the accolades of the king.

19 And now, because of this great victory they were lifted up in the pride of their hearts; they did boast in their own strength, saying that their fifty could stand against thousands of the Lamanites; and thus they did boast, and did delight in blood, and the shedding of the blood of their brethren, and this because of the wickedness of their king and priests.

Now power is beginning to be fully consolidated into the hands of the King. He has demonstrated his military ability (remember, military and police power were the same in the ancient world), so now Noah can take even more severe steps to make his own people toe the line. The words, “and did delight in blood, and the shedding of the blood of their brethren, and this because of the wickedness of their king and priests,” suggests king Noah’s government has begun to be openly intolerant and oppressive. There are several ways to get rid of one’s political enemies, and Noah seems to have employed the most efficient means of them. It is little wonder that Abinadi wasn’t welcome when he came back to town and began to preach the old religion and the old ways.

This story presents a challenging perspective: Many of Noah’s policies were obviously good and wise, and were built on principles which may have been followed by righteous rulers. Economic well-being is a good thing. A strong, growing economy brings a sense of security. Good defenses and an adequate military do the same. Security – economic and physical – is usually essential to happiness. Wise leaders know that. For example, Joseph Smith in Nauvoo built public buildings, including a temple, and he commanded the city’s militia which protected the people – but there the similarity ends – and we are forced to return to Mormon’s perspective. Noah used some good principles to promote bad ends – and those bad ends corrupted the principles, so under Noah’s rule even the principles became bad – there’s the rub! There was a point to the story, and even to the sarcasm with which I told it. It could be a commentary on current affairs, but I’ll leave that for you to decide if and how. This in not the place for me to go into all that.

——————————————-

[Note from Beck Locey to LeGrand:]

It’s interesting that you said what you did about this comment. I think I will follow your suggestion and not publish it yet. I think there is something very important here to comment on. It is that people can and are lulled into a sense of “carnal security”. This block of scriptures along with your comments define how this king did it. I think it is useful to point out that we as a nation have probably suffered from a similar malady.

I think if you remove the sarcasm and point out the pattern here, this is a terrific comment. The pattern is what is important for us to see. In fact, I listen to past Gen Conf tapes, and I was listening to Elder Maxwell talking

a few years back about the terrible slide we are experiencing and how many people talk about the “progress” in the world, when in fact we MUST be aware that we are digressing spiritually.

To illustrate, in priesthood, a brother said that our world is in many ways much better off today than it was 20, 30, 50 years ago. He pointed out sex education, women’s rights, equality, and other things that in fact have improved. He went on to criticize the prophets statement that we are worse off spiritually. He was convincing. After the meeting though I thought about it, and I could see the fallacy of his points. He missed the spiritual picture, he only focused on the political issues, some civic issues, and some few things that are better.

He apostatized and has left the church. It has been a sad thing to see him go. He was easily one of the brightest guys in the quorum, and did an outstanding job while he was active.
Beck

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[Note from LeGrand Baker to Beck Locey and Dil Rust:]

Your point is well taken — too well, perhaps. Your example of the man who criticized the prophet is just the point. The problem is, I’m not at all sure how to make it. The Book of Mormon Project is not the place for comments about the contemporary political situation. Besides that, everyone knows I’m a Republican, and if the comments were seen as an anti-Clinton statement, that would miss the whole point. The issue is not a Republican / Democrat problem, it is a cultural erosion which is either reflected in contemporary politics, or else made worse by it – or both. I know Dil well enough to know that his comments this week were very restrained. I think I’ll send this conversation to him and ask how he thinks we should handle it.

Dil,
Will you read this and tell us what you think

Love you both LeGrand

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[Note from Dil Rust to LeGrand Baker and Beck Locey] Dear LeGrand and Beck,

Thanks for asking my advice. That advice is: By all means, print LeGrand’s post as is–with the exception of changing “Jeraboam” (third usage) to “Jeroboam.” (By the way, in looking at flagged “Jeraboam” I saw something interesting and typical about my spelling checker: It doesn’t contain the word “whoredoms,” but recommends “wholesome” as a replacement. Another sign of our time?)

Your comments really push the buttons that turn on my fire hydrant (and all you asked for was a drinkofwater). Anyway,heregoes.

First of all, LeGrand’s comments are not sarcasm. Given my field (especially my years of teaching MarkTwain),Iknowsarcasm–whichessentiallyisheavyuseofironyinabitingmanner. A dictionary I have at hand (I’m at my daughter’s in Connecticut) defines sarcasm as “a taunting, sneering, cutting, or caustic remark; gibe or jeer, generally ironical.” LeGrand’s remarks are quite the contrary: You are reading the story of King Noah straight and interpreting it through the lenses of the Book of Mormon writers.

(In this regard, I suggest the following modification in the close: “so under Noah’s rule, even the principles became bad–there’s the rub! The story of Noah could be a commentary on current affairs, but I’ll leave that for you to decide if and how.”)

Let me share with you an insight I had a couple of weeks ago. One Sunday morning I read Alma 37:23 for the umpteenth time and saw it in ay with Pope John Paul II.)

So is it wrong to let the Book of Mormon teach us something about “the contemporary political situation”? Quite the contrary. We would be remiss (see my point about Alma 37) if we were NOT to let the Book of Mormon discover the secret truths about our political situation. President Benson in his teachings about the Book of Mormon has said the same thing. Quoting from Gerald Lund’s article on Korihor in the July 1992 Ensign: President Ezra Taft Benson has taught that “the Book of Mormon exposes the enemies of Christ. It confounds false doctrines and lays down contention. (See 2 Ne. 3:12.) It fortifies the humble followers of Christ against the evil designs, strategies, and doctrines of the devil in our day. The type of apostates in the Book of Mormon are similar to the type we have today. God, with his infinite foreknowledge, so molded the Book of Mormon that we might see the error and know how to combat false educational, political, religious, and philosophical concepts of our time.” (Ensign, Jan. 1988, p. 3.)

And to quote President Benson from the May 1978 Ensign: “Yes, there is a conspiracy of evil. The source of it all is Satan and his hosts. He has a great power over men to “lead them captive at his will, even as many as would not hearken” to the voice of the Lord. (Moses 4:4.) His evil influence may be manifest through governments; through false educational, political, economic, religious, and social philosophies; through secret societies and organizations; and through myriads of other forms. His power and influence are so great that, if possible, he would deceive the very elect. As the second coming of the Lord approaches, Satan’s work will intensify through numerous insidious deceptions.”

Again from President Benson in the New Era for May 1975: “If we really did our homework and approached the Book of Mormon doctrinally, we could expose the errors and find the truths to combat many of the current false theories and philosophies of men, including socialism, humanism, organic evolution, and others.”

Back to Bill Clinton. In my sixty-three years on the planet, and in my reading as an Adjunct Professor of American Studies with a Ph.D. background in American history complementing my English Ph.D., I don’t know, nor have I read about, a person who more completely fits the description in the Book of Mormon of the Korihor, etc., antichrist. I would be remiss to an important purpose of the Book of Mormon, and I would surely be a foolish virgin (see D&C 45:56-57), if I did not open my eyes and spirit to the kind of person Mr. Clinton is–no matter which I political party I predominantly favor.

Now to the man Beck mentioned who saw “progress” in sex education, women’s rights, and equality. Seen through the lenses of modern prophets, these have all been misused as Satan’s counterfeits. President Hinckley spoke out clearly about the evils of sex education in the public school systems; a number of the arguments for women’s rights have exemplified scripture mingled with the philosophies of men–leading many to abandon the traditional family relationships; and “equality” as too often interpreted by the world has been counter to what each president of the Church in the last thirty years has taught about the importance of mothers staying at home as nurturers. You may remember that President Benson came under significant attack by Mormon liberals holding views such as the man Beck mentions.

LeGrand is absolutely right when he says: “The issue is not a Republican/Democrat problem, it is a cultural erosion which is either reflected in contemporary politics, or else made worse by it–or both.” Indeed, the Republican/Democrat division is, from one perspective at least, the kind of either-or decoy that Hugh Nibley has spoken about. The real opposition is between the forces of the Lord and the forces of Satan, between the children of light and the children of darkness–with the possibility that a person can be in one camp one day and in another camp the next.

Finally, as a Latter-day Saint who desires the full blessings of the gospel, I have to follow the Prophet scrupulously and to be wary of deception. That deception most distressingly can come from Church members: “Darkness covereth the earth, and gross darkness the minds of the people. . . . Vengeance cometh speedily upon the inhabitants of the earth. . . . First among those among you, saith the Lord, who have professed to know my name and have not known me, and have blasphemed against me in the midst of my house, saith the Lord” (D&C 112:23-24, 26).

With warm regards to you both,
Dil

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[Note from LeGrand Baker to Dil Rust and Beck Locey]
Dil,
Thank you for your vigorous and insightful comments. I’m glad you agree this is not a Republican/Democrat issue, but one that goes much deeper than that. As I read what you wrote I saw two sides of you coming through with equal clarity: 1) the highly moral, deeply offended citizen; 2) and the member of his stake presidency who deals with the reality of this world in the lives of the saints, so understands first-hand how serious the problems are. Again I thank you.

Beck,
I have a suggestion. Our group is not a formal academic society which only publishes well polished things. It is only friends who like to talk and think together. Why don’t you send out this entire conversation, even the little notes like this one. Dil’s point that the Book of Mormon is supposed to teach us about our times is true. So lets let our friends read the entire conversation and decide for themselves what they think. Who knows, they may even tell us.

My love to both of you

——————————————-
[A footnote from Dil Rust to LeGrand Baker]
Dear LeGrand,

Just a footnote to what I wrote yesterday. In the New York Times yesterday (March 13, 2001, p. A10) there was an article about a convention in Las Vegas of academic philosophers in which this statement was made, showing once more how clever Satan is with his counterfeits: “‘Las Vegas is a realization of the kingdom of God on earth,’ said Mark C. Taylor, who teaches philosophy and religion at Williams College. . . . ‘The culture of simulacra [reproductions that some may see as surpassing the real] has become both all-encompassing and inescapable.’”

Regards,
Dil

——————————————-
[LeGrand’s response to Dil’s footnote comment]
Beck,
Dil’s footnote caused me to wish to add one of my own:

As I read the book of Job, I think it has much to teach us about why “Las Vegas is a realization of the kingdom of God on earth,” Job would ask the question: “kingdom of which god.” Then it answers that question.

The Book of Job follows the standard pattern of the cosmic story. It begins at the Council in Heaven, presents this lonely, dreary world as a challenge to both one’s physical and intellectual sense of self, then (beginning with chapter 38) leads Job to the veil where he sees God and receives the fulfillment of all the promises God ever made to him.

It is the scene which takes place at the Council in Heaven (Job 1:6-8] I wish to call attention to:

“Now there was a day when the sons of God [members of the Council] came to present themselves before the LORD, and Satan came also among them. And the LORD said unto Satan, Whence comest thou? Then Satan answered the LORD, and said, From going to and fro in the earth, and from walking up and down in it.”

Dan Belnap has taught me that the Hebrew word which is here translated “walking” is a special kind of walking – like when God was “walking” in the Garden. This word is only used in the Old Testament to describe the ceremonial walking of gods, kings, and their representatives. [Dan has promised to send you a paper about this.]

Here, Satan is doing more than just strolling about the world. He is ceremonial walking – declaring himself to be both god and king of the earth. And he is walking for a very specific reason. He is “going to and fro in the earth… walking up and down in it.” It appears that the purpose of his walking to and fro and up and down is to measure the earth with his stride.

I grew up on a farm where I watched my father measure fields, gardens, and other places by “stepping them off” – measuring them by the length of his stride. Satan seems to be doing that same thing.

The beginning of all acts of creating sacred space is to measure it. Here, as I read it, we see Satan “stepping off” the earth – measuring it to declare it to be his sacred space.

“And the Lord said unto Satan, Hast thou considered my servant Job, that there is none like him in the earth, a perfect and an upright man, one that feareth God, and escheweth evil?”

And there we have, in a nutshell, the entire drama which is to follow: Satan is claiming this world as his sacred space. But the Lord denies his claim by asking, “Hast thou considered my servant Job?” Satan cannot claim the earth to be his own as long as Job is here. The presence, and the integrity of Job precludes Satan’s claim to the earth, just as his presence, integrity sustain God’s own claim.

So, from Satan’s point of view, Job has to go. And in this story, it is Job – poor picked-on Job – who alone must decide whether the earth will be turned over to Satan, or will remain a temple of Jehovah. Finally, after Job has suffered as much intellectual as physical persecution, Job prevails, and God makes him king.

Ultimately the decision of who gets this beautiful earth, will be made by the people who live on it. And it is now true, in this generation, as it has always been, that it is the power of the integrity and rectitude of the Saints which ultimately tips the balance of that scale toward heaven. In a word: each of us carries the same individual burden as poor, patient, kingly Job.

End of 12 Mar 2001, Comments.

Mosiah 9:1 — LeGrand Baker — Zeniff’s colopnon

Mosiah 9:1
1    I, Zeniff, having been taught in all the language of the Nephites, and having had a knowledge of the land of Nephi, or of the land of our fathers’ first inheritance, and having been sent as a spy among the Lamanites that I might spy out their forces, that our army might come upon them and destroy them–but when I saw that which was good among them I was desirous that they should not be destroyed.

This verse is in the form of an ancient a colophon. It is the introduction to Zeniff’s short autobiography, and its very structure precludes the possibility of its having been written by the Prophet Joseph.

A colophon is a formal introduction or conclusion to document, in which the author identifies himself and tells his authority and purpose for writing. In other words, it is an introduction which establishes the credibility of the author and also of the words in the document itself. Beginning a document with a colophon was an important practice in times when there was no such thing as a copyright to help confirm authorship. Its use was further necessitated by the fact that all copies of a manuscript were hand written, so the legitimacy of a copied document had to be established by the text itself, because that legitimacy could only rarely be established by the handwriting of the original author. Last week I wrote about how prophets would sometimes encode a sacred sub-text into their introductions so that anyone who could read the code would know the document was written by a prophet. This week I would like to discuss the literary practice of using colophons like the one with which Zeniff introduces his autobiography.

Our modern culture has pretty much abandoned the use of colophons, except for some legal documents such as wills. For example, “I, so-and-so, being of sound mind, etc. make this will, etc. ” That is the essence of a colophon. So-and-so gives her name and establishes her authority and credibility, and the legitimacy of her last will and testament will by the affirmation that she is of sound mind. Then she says what the document is about. Anciently, letters were written that way also.

A New Testament example of a simple, but complete colophon is the first verse of Ephesians: “Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ by the will of God, to the saints which are at Ephesus, and to the faithful in Christ.” Paul says who he is, establishes his authority by his apostleship, and says what he is doing.

A good example of a colophon in the pseudepigraphal literature is the beginning of the book of Enoch. It reads: “Enoch a righteous man, whose eyes were opened by God, saw the vision of the Holy One in the heavens, which the angels showed me, and from them I heard everything, and from them I understood as I saw, but not for this generation, but for a remote one which is far to come.” Even though it begins in second person, it quickly shifts to first, identifies the author, gives his authority, and tells what he is writing.

The colophon at the beginning of Isaiah asks questions as well as informs. It reads: “The vision of Isaiah the son of Amoz, which he saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem in the days of Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah.” Unlike the other examples, this one is not written in first person, and it dates the writings over a the period of the reigns of several kings. It obviously describes a compilation, rather than a single writing. It establishes that the author is Isaiah, and the fact that Isaiah wrote it is a sufficient statement of authority. But one cannot tell whether it was Isaiah himself or some other editor who pulled the book of Isaiah together and arranged his writings in this manner.

But half way through the book of Isaiah there is an even more interesting colophon. Beginning with chapter 40 and continuing to the end, Isaiah is a review of the principles, ordinances, and sacred rites of the ancient Israelite New Year’s festival. The colophon which introduces that portion of Isaiah reads:

1    Comfort ye, comfort ye my people, saith your God,
2    Speak ye comfortably to Jerusalem, and cry unto her, that her warfare is accomplished, that her iniquity is pardoned: for she hath received of the Lord’s hand double for all her sins (Isaiah 40:1-2).

Here, “God” is translated from the Hebrew, “Elohim.” The word “ye” is plural. In the Old Testament, whenever Elohim talks to a group of people, that group is always the Council in Heaven. In Elizabethan English, the word “comfort” has to do with empowering (see OED), as in Isaiah 61:2-3 where to “comfort” means to make one a king or queen by performing the ancient coronation rites of washing, anointing, clothing, crowning, and giving a new covenant-king-name. The word “double” (also used in Isaiah 61) is a reference to the double portion of the birthright – in this instance the birthright blessings of Abraham. In our verses, that “double” is given in exchange for one’s sins, and it is given “of the Lord’s hand.

If these two verses are, in fact, a colophon introducing the remainder of the book of Isaiah, then it is extraordinary indeed. It establishes the author as Elohim, establishes the authority of the writing as God and his Council, and it identifies the purpose as to “comfort” the people so that they can receive the birthright blessings of Abraham from the Lord’s hand.

If one takes that seriously, and accepts that as a colophon which is a legitimate statement of authorship and authority, then it establishes the remainder of Isaiah as an awesome example of sacred literature.

There are a number of colophons in the Book of Mormon. The best example, and most important is Nephi’s: “I, Nephi, having been born of goodly parents, therefore I was taught somewhat in all the learning of my father; and having seen many afflictions in the course of my days, nevertheless, having been highly favored of the Lord in all my days; yea, having had a great knowledge of the goodness and the mysteries of God, therefore I make a record of my proceedings in my days. ”

It is significant that when we encounter Zeniff’s autobiography, he also begins with a well structured colophon: “I, Zeniff, having been taught in all the language of the Nephites, and having had a knowledge of the land of Nephi, or of the land of our fathers’ first inheritance, and having been sent as a spy among the Lamanites that I might spy out their forces, that our army might come upon them and destroy them–but when I saw that which was good among them I was desirous that they should not be destroyed.”

Zeniff’s colophon merges into his story, just as Nephi’s and others do, but that first verse deserves some close examination.

Zeniff identifies himself and establishes his authority by writing “I, Zeniff, having been taught in all the language of the Nephites, and having had a knowledge of the land of Nephi,…” The phrase, “all the language of the Nephites” is an important key here. If “all” means “all,” then by that phrase Zeniff has probably written everything which he thought was necessary to establish himself as a member of the royal house – probably as a Nephite prince.

The first thing Mormon tells about King Benjamin’s sons (Mosiah 1:2) is that their father “caused that they should be taught in all the language of their fathers. (Same phrase as the one Zeniff uses)

In the next few verses we learn that this education was necessary because the brass plates were written in Egyptian, just as we learn elsewhere that Nephi’s small plates were also written in Egyptian. It appears that, like the ancient Egyptians, the ancient Nephites used at least two, and perhaps more concurrent languages. There was the every-day language which had its roots in Hebrew, and the sacral language of the scriptures which was Egyptian. It is likely that some of their first and second generation records were also written in pure Hebrew – the Hebrew which came with them from Jerusalem, before it was altered by additions from Lamanite dialect, Mulikite dialect, and (judging from the introduction of Jaredite names) the Jaredite language as well. So by the time of king Benjamin, there are at least three languages (Hebrew, Egyptian, and the contemporary mixture- like our contemporary English is a mixture of Celtic, German, French, etc) which a well educated Nephite would have to learn.

If just everyone learned all of those languages, then such an education would have been assumed, and there would have been no point in Mormon’s telling us that king Benjamin made sure his sons were taught “all the languages.” It is that implication of the uniqueness of the king’s son’s education which suggests that if Zeniff had a similar education, he may very well have had a similar birthright – may have been a prince in his own right – perhaps even the younger son of King Benjamin’s father, Mosiah I. (After all, Zeniff was the one chosen to go back to lead the reoccupation forces, and to be the new king when his Nephite followers returned to the original land of Nephi)

If I have read the statement of Zeniff’s authority correctly, then Zeniff’s colophon is another perfect example of that important ancient literary form. He identifies himself, tells his authority, and tells why he is writing. The information in that colophon not only establishes his legitimacy, but it also establishes the legal authority for the new Nephite colony – the implications of that stretch on into the Book of Mormon story for at least four or five more generations, and probably continues through the entire Book of Mormon.

Once again, the Prophet Joseph never misses. Zeniff’s colophon — but more especially the very fact that it is there where it is supposed to be, and says what it is supposed to say – is just one more little evidence that the Book of Mormon is an ancient text, and could not possibly be the product of Joseph’s backwoods New England culture.