Author: RT

In his recent op-ed to the Deseret News, Daniel Peterson has trotted out two old FARMS style proofs that supposed anachronisms in the BoM aren’t really such, framing his argument within a rhetorical context that some unspecified “critics” are anxiously engaged in a tendentious search for “concepts or items mistakenly inserted into its supposedly ancient story by an ignorant or careless modern author.”

“But we know now, from evidence found slightly more than 50 years ago, that “Alma” is an authentically ancient Semitic masculine personal name, just as the Book of Mormon presents it.”

Not quite. The consonantal name aiyn-lamed-mem-aleph is found in a 2nd century CE document (Bar Kokhba 44) and possibly reflects Aramaic. This is not evidence that Alma was a Hebrew name and because it stems from a period more than seven centuries after Nephi would have left the old world is of dubious significance.

Normon Golb mentions in a recent discussion of DSS exhibits: “To be sure, Yigael Yadin did spell the name this way (“Alma”) in a 1962 publication. However, the scientific edition of the Nahal Hever papyri transcribes the term as Allima, indicating that while the vocalization is uncertain, the name may reflect the Aramaic term meaning “the strong one” (pg. 14).
https://oi.uchicago.edu/pdf/decline_of_qumranology.pdf

Other Aramaic interpretations of the name are possible, but not Hebrew.

“Another popular claim among critics is that the word “adieu” at Jacob 7:27 is anachronistic. French, they point out, didn’t even exist in the sixth century B.C., so why does a French word appear in the Book of Mormon?”

Not so fast. The word “adieu” had indeed become an English word by the time of JS, so its use in the BoM is not anachronistic in the sense that the term is of foreign origin. But that doesn’t mean that “adieu” still doesn’t raise some red flags.

First, “adieu” only appears once in the entire BoM, while the language of the BoM as a whole is very homogenous and repetitious.

Second, the word was used as a synonym for “farewell” in the time of JS, and “farewell’ appears in the BoM quite frequently, which raises the question of why if JS was translating from an ancient document and consistently interpreted the Nephite equivalent of “farewell” as English farewell he would vary from his modus operandi only here.

Third, in most of the attestations of “adieu” in English that I have seen from the early 19th century, it seems to have had more of a literary register aspect to it–found especially in poems, songs, belles lettres, and such, which is understandable; that often happens to simple short foreign words, in this case from the cultured world of old Europe.

Thus the single appearance of “adieu” only at the end of the BoM narration process may not be simply coincidence. Jacob was one of the last books dictated by JS, which makes a striking innovation in BoM language after so many consistent uses of the term farewell more easily explicable. Furthermore, the word farewell was used just ten words before “adieu” in the same verse, which meant that the author of the BoM needed something else. Amen would have suited just fine, and in fact amen is frequently found in just this kind of context elsewhere in the BoM (that is, after farewells at the end of books, Ether 12:38-41; Moroni 8:30; 10:34; 2 Nephi 33:13-15; Jacob 6:13), but the unique adieu here was chosen instead because of its resonance with finality, appropriate for the end of the BoM, and contribution of literary color. All of which is to say, that “adieu” appears to have resulted from the rhetorical interests of the English author of the BoM, not from an ancient translation.

There has been a lot of talk lately about gender equality and whether women have real voices in the church vis a vis the all male priesthood. Of course, the standard position of church leaders is that women are equally valued and that their perspectives are given full and appropriate consideration given the divinely ordained channels of revelation to the regularly constituted authorities. But somehow this rhetoric that “women are equally valued and listened to” has not been able to allay the growing perception and opinion of many that women are unequal to men at both institutional and theological levels in signifiant ways.

So because of my interest in the Old Testament, I thought of another way of testing the church’s rhetoric about the place of women in the church. If the church claims that it values the voices and contributions of women on a par with men, how well does the church listen to the few voices of women that are already found in scripture and enjoy the authoritative seal of belonging to the standard works? Are THEY given full and appropriate consideration in our scriptural and doctrinal discussions? Admittedly, there are not many women figures in scripture and their roles are generally not as substantial as other male characters. But how we deal with these women and to what degree we remember their actions and contributions to scriptural history may tell us something about the place of women in our collective ecclesiastical consciousness.

A great example to consider is the prophetess Huldah. Do our Sunday School and church educational lessons do much remembering and memorializing of this key biblical figure? I recently watched the high quality film produced for church education in 2011 about Josiah and the Book of the Law and to my amazement the presentation of the story completely skips over the episode of Josiah’s consultation with Huldah. Most all of the major pieces of II Kings 22-23 are present, including Josiah’s childhood, the discovery of the scroll by Hilkiah, its delivery by Shaphan the scribe to the king, the idolatrous practices of the people of Judah under previous kings, Josiah’s repentance and institution of reform, and his death at Megiddo by the hands of Pharaoh Necho. But Huldah is nowhere to be found.

Why is this? What motivated completely removing Huldah the prophetess from the LDS redacted narrative of Josiah’s reforms? She is, after all, a critically important figure in the account and has more speech than any other character aside from Josiah in II Kings 22-23. When Josiah realizes that the people have gone astray after other gods and not followed the laws of the new found scroll of Torah, he instructs his servants to seek an oracle from Yahweh so that perhaps Yahweh’s anger would be averted. These servants then go to visit Huldah and she delivers a lengthy oracle that confirms the validity of the scroll of Torah, underscores Yahweh’s displeasure with the people, and promises Josiah that he will be blessed to die before Yahweh’s wrath breaks out in full (22:15-20).

One of the interesting things about Huldah’s oracle is how much it emphasizes that she is a direct representative of Yahweh. Uniquely, the prophetic introduction formula is repeated three times (“thus says the Lord,” vv. 15, 16, 18) and she speaks in first person as though the identification between her and the deity was seamless. In the broader Deuteronomistic narrative, Huldah is about as authoritative as it gets.

Could it be that for LDS authorities there is something uncomfortable about this powerful prophetic female figure? Do they want to avoid raising thoughts in the minds of young people about the relationship between women and prophecy, thoughts that would perhaps lead to questions about the legitimacy of the status quo in the church, where we almost automatically distinguish between prophets and women in our discourse and church structure?

With the recent statement disavowing aspects of Mormonism’s tangled history with racism, attention has turned to Bro Brigham and his legacy of the priesthood ban. As is well known, Young believed in line with many of his contemporaries and modern LDS scripture that the mark of Cain mentioned in the Bible was black skin and that Cain’s descendants could be identified with people of African ancestry. As such, they were a lineage under God’s malediction and unworthy of the priesthood, in contrast with those descended from Seth (the rest of humanity).

  Continue reading “Sorry Brigham, but we’re all the children of Cain!”

The rediscovery of the Late War by Gilbert Hunt recently as a possible source for understanding the language, style, and narrative content of the Book of Mormon has already elicited a considerable amount of discussion and debate. After Duane and Chris Johnson’s computer study of more than 100,000 books published before 1830 indicated that a number of texts had a high incidence of distinctive phrases matching the Book of Mormon (BoM) and that among these the most significant may be the Late War (LW), Mormon-themed message boards and Facebook pages quickly went into high gear with commentators of all sorts offering their preliminary assessments of the relevance of this book to understanding the origin of the BoM.

 

The Johnson’s own views about what conclusions may be legitimately drawn from their analysis are still evolving, but irrespective of the question of whether their methodology reveals actual literary influence or whether the distinctive nature of pseudo-biblical writing led a number of authors “to independently invent some of the same distinctive phrases and/or to independently mutate biblical phrases in some of the same distinctive ways,” once they put a spotlight on the LW and a possible literary relationship to the BoM, it did not take long for readers to identify a number of striking parallels in language and content found in both books, ranging from Hebraisms to thematic elements. And then it was brought to light that Rick Grunder had already noticed many of these same parallels several years previously in his book Mormon Parallels: A Bibliographic Source (pp. 724-772).

 

So what should be made of these parallels and how is the LW related to the BoM? The range of views that have been articulated so far encompass everything from 1) “the LW was a direct source for at least some of the language and content of the BoM,” 2) “the BoM was consciously styled in the language of the LW but was not dependent on it for narrative content,” to 3) “the parallels between the BoM and the LW are incidental and both books merely reflect a style of writing in KJV prose that was conventional during the period.”

 

Of course, the controversy over the relationship of the LW to the BoM stems from the fact that if the LW was a source for narrative elements of the BoM, then this would suggest that the BoM was developed and created as an imaginative literary work of the early 19th century and was not a translation of an ancient text. A theory of a loose translation of the BoM where Joseph Smith rendered an ancient text in language appropriate and meaningful for his time period could possibly accommodate for a substantial amount of linguistic and stylistic similarity to the LW and thus uphold belief in the essential historical core of the BoM. But if the parallels go beyond the generic and stylistic to content, then the argument for an ancient origin becomes much more difficult to sustain as the very building blocks of the narrative can be explained as having originated in Joseph Smith’s immediate cultural and intellectual context.

 

Because of the many parallels I noticed upon rather quick and superficial examination, I decided to make a more careful and systematic study of the LW in light of the BoM in order to see what kind of relationship could be discerned to have existed between these texts. Building upon Rick Grunder’s work and various random parallels cited in online discussion boards, I went back through the LW verse by verse and compiled a list of possible motifs, narrative elements, and language shared with the BoM and not the Bible. The following is a summary of what I found, with individual parallels written in italics, followed by references to the relevant LW (1819 edition) and BoM passages:

 

Parallels between the LW and BoM

 

A battle at a fort where righteous white protagonists are attacked by an army made up of dark-skinned natives driven by a white military leader. The white protagonists are prepared for battle and slaughter their opponents to such an extent that they fill the trenches surrounding the fort with dead bodies. The surviving elements flee into the wilderness/forest (pp. 102-4, 29:1-23) Alma 49:10-25

 

The enemy develops a strategy to capture the capital city of the righteous protagonists as a means of taking control of the government and land as a whole. They are able to do so because of the speed of their march and because the latter had not retained sufficient defenses (p. 160-161, 44; p. 163, 45:8-22) Helaman 1:15-22

 

A defensive battle associated with a river (Saranac/Sidon) where the enemy is slaughtered and there is extreme loss of blood. They become frightened because of the great destruction, fight with renewed vigor, and then the defenders strengthen their efforts and triumph. The threat of death results in some of the enemy deserting and joining common cause with the protagonists (p. 176, 47:2-15) Alma 43:27-54; 44:22 [In the LW it is interesting that innovative technology is on the side of the enemy and the righteous protagonists are said to “trust in the strength of their arms,” a phrase with a negative connotations in the BoM since it suggests a lack of faith in God.]

 

A project of extensive fortification during the war: casting up dirt; entrenchment; building forts, walls, towers, and battlements (p. 199-202, 51) Alma 48:7-9; 49:2-19; 50:1-6

 

Bands of robbers/pirates marauding the righteous protagonists (p. 11, 1:17; p. 190, 49:37) Helaman 6:37; 11:28-30

 

The intent of the attacking enemy is to establish a kingdom within the land and bring the people into political servitude (p. 215, 53:29) Alma 43:7-8, 29; 44:2; 48:2

 

The war defending liberty involves multiple fronts (p. 33, 9:1-2; p. 66, 19:1-2; p. 123, 34:1-2) Alma 52:13; 53:8, 22

 

Capturing a fort with prisoners in the stealth of night (p. 94, 26:2-4) Alma 55:22

 

The righteous protagonists triumph over the more numerous foe (p. 21, 5:1-6; p. 106, 30:12; p. 110, 31:5; p. 206, 52:3; p. 213, 53:16) Alma 43:51; 51:31; 56:53-54

 

The enemy army consistently outnumbers the righteous protagonists (p. 17, 3:22; p. 29, 7:45; p. 48, 14:9; p. 61, 17:17; pp. 88-89, 24:14, 21; p. 103, 29:12-15; p. 147, 40:14; p. 150, 41:7) Alma 2:24; 43:51; Helaman 4:8

 

In the course of battle the righteous army is left unscathed or nearly unscathed (p. 31, 8:17; p. 44, 13:9; p. 144, 39:7; p. 156, 42:27; p. 188, 49:19; p. 219, 54:27; p. 228, Alg: 23) Alma 49:23; 57:26; 58:39

 

Repeated casualty and wounded reports, varying from general to more precise estimates (pp. 31-32, 8:18-19; p. 42, 12:9-10; p. 44, 13:10-11; p. 49, 14:26-27; etc) Mosiah 9:19; Alma 2:19; 3:1; 28:2; 49:23; 52:40 [See Grunder]

 

The enemy tactic of stirring/rousing up the dark-skinned natives against the righteous white protagonists (p. 11, 1:19; p. 47, 14:1; p. 123, 34:2; p. 129, 35:36) Alma 24:1; 43:8; 48:1-2; 51:9 [See Grunder]

 

The use of scalping (p. 16, 3:13; p. 47, 14:2; p. 71, 19: 55; p. 96, 26:27) Alma 44:12-14 [As a contrast, it is worth noting that in the BoM scalping is actually introduced by the Nephites rather than the Lamanites and only appears once.]

 

Arrival of reinforcements who turn the tide of battle (p. 214, 53:23) Alma 56:15-18; 57:18

 

As a result of their defeat at the hands of the righteous protagonists, the natives lay down their weapons of war and enter into a covenant of peace (p. 120, 33:23-24; p. 123, 34:1; p. 129, 35:33-43) Alma 44:15

 

Alcohol causing people to lose their senses in the context of war (p. 25, 7:5; p. 31, 8:8) Alma 55:8-18; Alma 55:30

 

The use of alcohol as a stimulant in the context of war (p. 31, 8:8; p. 148, 40:17) Alma 55:11

 

The use of alcohol to manipulate inexperienced natives (p. 48, 14:11; p. 115, 32:11) Mosiah 22:6-10; Alma 55:8-18

 

The righteous protagonists engage in a principled form of warfare and treat their captives with Christian mercy (p. 48, 14:16; p. 92, 25:4; p. 104, 29: 25-28; p. 112, 31:26; p. 120, 33:19-20; p. 175, 46:27; p. 208, 52:15-16; p. 220, 54:35-36) Alma 44:1-2, 6; 48:14; 52:37; 54:2-3; 55:18-23; Helaman 1:33

 

The protagonists are peace-lovers and peacemakers (p. 10-11, 1:9, 20; p. 75, 20:20; p. 82, 22:4-5; p. 222, 55:7) Alma 44:14; 46:12, 31; 48:10, 21; 55:3

 

Several military leaders are characterized by unusual courage, righteousness, and humility (p. 47, 14:3-5; p. 69, 19:30; p. 116, 32:21-25; p. 112, 31:26-29; pp. 174-175, 46:26-27) Alma 48:11-17; 62:37

 

One commander in particular is singled out for his virtue and humility and for treating prisoners with mercy, who retires to a “land of inheritance” after the war (pp. 174-175, 46:26-31) Alma 62:42-43

 

The dark-skinned natives are unmerciful, barbaric, and uncivilized (p. 16, 3:13; p. 40, 11:9; p. 48, 14:9-10; p. 50, 14:29-34; p. 73, 20:8; p. 93, 25:13; p. 103, 29:13) Enos 1:20; Alma 17:14; 47:36; 54:3; 56:12

 

The dark-skinned natives become allied with the white-enemy (p. 11, 1:18; p. 37, 10:19; pp. 48-49, 14:12, 17; p. 51, 14:42; p. 102, 29:6) Alma 48:1-3; Helaman 4:4

 

The white enemy does not care for the blood of its dark-skinned proxies (p. 119, 33:9) Alma 49:10

 

The white enemy becomes barbaric just like the dark-skinned natives (p. 48, 14:12; p. 77-78, 21:1-16) Alma 47:36

 

The protagonists use clever stratagem to defend their land (pp. 204-205, 51:24-30) Alma 43:30

 

Soldiers love a military leader as if he were their own father (p. 71, 19:48) Alma 56:46

 

Military leader rallies his soldiers to the cause of liberty (p 217, 54:13-15) Alma 46:11-28

 

Letter sent by military leader in the context of war honoring the deeds of noble soldiers (p. 38, 10:26) Alma 56

 

A message sent in a letter threatening to unleash ferocious warriors on the righteous protagonists (p. 103, 29:10-13) 3 Nephi 3:1-4 [See Grunder]

 

After being invited to join the cause of liberty, people “flock” to its banner/standard (p. 24, 6:13-17) Alma 62:4-5

 

A banner/standard/title becomes a prominent symbol of liberty (p. 24, 6:14, 17; p. 115, 32:13; p. 183-184, 48; p. 212, 53:8) Alma 46:12-24, 36; 51:20; 62:4-5 [See Grunder]

 

Traitors attempt to destroy democratic government for their own political gain, i.e. they are promised to “rule over the people” (pp. 17-18, 3:27-34) Alma 46:3-9

 

There is a dangerous divide in the country between freemen and royalists (pp. 16-17, 3:14-17; p. 39, 11:6-8; p. 141, 38:26; p. 200, 51:7)

 

The cause of freedom/liberty is synonymous with the political-religious views of the righteous (p. 12, 1:22; p. 131, 36:4; p. 163, 45:14) Alma 43:48-49; 46:12-20, 35; 48:11; 51:7; 60:36; 61:15

 

An army is “driven” and “slaughtered with a great slaughter” (p. 37, 10:15) Moroni 4:21

 

Bands of two thousand chosen men/who volunteer to fight in defense of freedom (p. 23, 6:2; p. 126, 35:5) Alma 53:16-17; 56:5

 

A “stripling” warrior carries “a weapon of war” in his hand (p. 69, 19:32) Alma 53:19-22

 

A group of fearless young soldiers decide to defend their families with their lives with “weapons of war” (pp. 180, 48:11-13) Alma 53:16; 56:16-17, 45-47 [See Grunder]

 

Lion/tiger as symbol for powerful fighters (p. 48, 14:10; p. 69, 19:30; p. 88, 24:18; p. 119, 33:11) Mosiah 20:10; 3 Nephi 20:16

 

The number captured by the righteous army outnumber themselves (p. 112, 31:25) Alma 57:13

 

The army fighting in defense of liberty suffers from insufficient rations (p. 92, 25:2-3) Alma 58:7-8; 60:9

 

The righteous fight for their country, freedom, and families (p. 203, 51; p. 217, 54:13) Alma 43:45 [“country, wives, and firesides” (p. 203) “lives and liberty” (p. 217)]

 

As fighters, the righteous are “valiant” (p. 214, 53:23) Alma 56:13, 16

 

Preparing “all kinds” of weapons in anticipation of battle (p. 172, 46:6) Alma 2:12

 

Wrath of God will come upon those who fail to obey the laws of the land. War will come as punishment (p. 17, 3:27) Alma 50:20-22; Ether 2:12

 

Appearance of an angel delivering a message to obey the laws of land/God (p. 17, 3:26) Mosiah 3

 

Some natives are converted to the Lord as a result of missionary preaching and become notable for their gentle humanity (p. 96, 26:18-28) Alma 23:5-13; 24:8-24 [See Grunder]

 

The mention of writings engraved in brass, symbolizing a medium capable of preserving testimony (p. 134, 36:26) 1 Nephi 5:19; Jacob 4:2; Alma 37:3-5 [See Grunder]

 

A calamitous destruction characterized by thunder, people falling to the earth, rocks being rent and raised, an earthquake, the mention of overturned cities, an overshadowing black smoke that prevented sight, and the death of many people while others are saved (p. 70, 19:37-44) Helaman 14:20-27; 3 Nephi 8:6-23

 

The light of the sun is hidden by black clouds (p. 31, 8:12; p. 53, 15:16; p. 181, 48:17) 3 Nephi 8:22-23

 

North and South America are seen as one land–the land of Promise/land of Columbia (p. 73, 20:2; p. 138, 38:7) Alma 46:17

 

The association of South America with the children of Israel (p. 52, 15:6-7) 1 Nephi 10:12-13

 

Places characterized by whether poisonous snakes live there (p. 187, 49:7) Ether 9:31-33

 

A ship explores the waters of the Pacific Ocean near the equator (p. 139, 38:11) Alma 63:5-8 [See Grunder]

 

Description of the land of America as a place with much gold and silver, fruit, and “all manner” of creatures “used for food” and other animals. One animal that lived in America that is singled out for special focus is the elephant/mammoth (p. 74, 20:11-17) Ether 9:17-18 [The correlation of elements between these passages probably sheds light on the identity of cureloms and cumoms in the BoM. The fact that elephant is mentioned in both texts after the preceding focus on precious metals and food suggests that cureloms or cumoms (or both) may have reference to mammoths. See Grunder]

 

A man builds a boat of “curious workmanship”, despite the mocking and scoffing of others. The latter are humbled when they see the completed product. (pp. 192-193, 50:2-7, 12) 1 Nephi 17:17-18; 18:1-4

 

A “ball” made out of “brass” of “curious work” with clocklike spindles (p. 195, 50:28) 1 Nephi 16:10

 

Swords of fine/curious “workmanship” (p. 42, 12:12; p. 44, 13:13; p. 58, 16:24) 1 Nephi 4:9

 

Comparing ships built in the context of the narrative to the ark of Noah (p. 98, 27:12-13; p. 193, 50:8) Ether 6:7

 

The righteous enjoy a government system where taxes are not unjustifiably heavy (p. 76, 20:25) Mosiah 2:12-14; 11:6

 

America is to be a land of liberty and free of kings/tyrants (pp. 75-76, 20:19, 30; p. 224, 55:25) 2 Nephi 10:11; Alma 46:17

 

American-Israelism–the people of God in America are Israel (p. 75, 20:20) 3 Nephi 16:13; 20:21

 

The righteous are distinguished from the unrighteous by their attitude towards idolatry (p. 75, 20:20; p. 165, 45:28) Enos 1:20; Mosiah 9:12; Alma 50:21

 

American exceptionalism and millennialism (p. 76, 20:28-30; pp. 223-224, 55:22-23) 1 Nephi 13; 22; Ether 13:6-10

 

Gathering from all nations to the land of America (p. 76, 20:28-29) 3 Nephi 20:13-46; 21:29

 

The Lord as judge of history demands repentance (p. 81, 21:43) Mormon 3:17-22

 

The repetition of the ten commandments (p. 101, 28:23; p. 154, 42:13;  p. 216, 54:3) Mosiah 13:11-25

 

A prominent appearance of Columbus, who is viewed as a venerable and noble character (p. 73, 20:2-10) 1 Nephi 13:12 [See Grunder]

 

A group of innocent people are burned alive and those responsible for this unparalleled horrific act are promised to stand at the judgment bar on the last day (pp. 50-51, 14:38-43) Alma 14:10-11

 

False prophets speak flattering words and deceive the people for money (p. 19, 4:1-8; p. 20, 4:11-14) WofM 1:15-16; Alma 1:3-16

 

Books contain the wisdom of the ages and are crucial to the preservation of civilization (p. 165, 45:29-33) Mosiah 1:3; Alma 37:8

 

The association of whales with light (p. 139, 38:14) Ether 2:23-25; 6:10

 

Quotation or allusion to Isaiah 49:24-25 with reference to the righteous people of the Lord being delivered (p. 13, 2:7-8; p. 223, 55:20) 1 Nephi 21:24-25; 2 Nephi 6:16-17

 

The cult of motherhood; women are idealized as fair, tender, and virtuous and are valued primarily as the bearers of life (p. 72, 19:59; p. 75, 20:21; p. 77, 21:4; p. 81, 21:38-40; p. 134, 36:28; p. 202, 51:18; p. 220, 54:35-38) 1 Nephi 11:13; Jacob 2:7, 28-35; Mosiah 19:13-14; 3 Nephi 8:25; Ether 8:9

 

The treatment of women is a barometer of humanity’s level of civilization (p. 81, 21:38-40; p. 100, 28:13) Moroni 9:9

 

Violated chastity is the worst of abominations in the eyes of God (p. 81, 21:41) Moroni 9:9

 

Three Native American prophets are singled out (p. 128, 35:19) 3 Nephi 28:1-6

 

An assembly of people gather to hear an aged leader speaking from a tower-like edifice who, though infirm, loves his country and people, to which the people respond by shouting with a loud voice (pp. 200-201, 51:9-12) Mosiah 2:7-18; 5:2

 

The repeated use of didactic narrative commentary (p. 62, 18:1-5; p. 72, 19:57-61; p. 80, 21:35-44; p. 131, 36:1-3; pp. 223-224, 55:22) Alma 50:19-20; Helaman 12:4-5; Mormon 6:18-20 [This narrative technique is also found in the Bible but the content of the didactic commentary in the BoM and LW have some striking parallels:

 

The deeds of the renowned warriors, the patriots, and the valiant men of Columbia, have prepared a path for the scribe, which he is compelled to follow: But, as the soaring eagle moves to its craggy nest, or the cooing dove to its tender mate, so is the compulsion of his heart. If the wickedness of Britain hath made manifest her folly: if her sons have sat down in sackcloth and ashes, the scribe looketh down upon her with pity. It is written that, He who prideth himself in his strength shall be humbled; and the haughty shall be brought low. And, if the Lord hath smiled upon the arms of Columbia, let no man frown (p. 62, 18:1-5).

 

Oh! earth, how long shall thy inhabitants delight in warfare? when shall the old men cease to weep for their children? Behold yon lonely widows; they weep for their husbands and their children; but they shall see their faces no more! The fair daughters of Columbia sigh for the return of their beloved. Seest thou those little ones? they fly to their disconsolate mother, they leap with joy at the name of father! but he shall never return! Oh! that they had cast the black dust into the sea! then might not the children of men weep and wail (p. 72, 19:57-61).

 

Oh! England! that a veil might be cast over thy transgressions of that day: but it cannot be. Thy wickedness shall be written with a pen of iron, and with the point of a diamond. It was here, even in Hampton, that thy strength, and thy majesty rose up against the poor, the sick, and the needy. Instead of protecting the tender women, the fairest work of God, the life of the world; behold! what hast thou done? See! the shrieking matron cast herself into the waters that she may escape thy brutal violence: but all in vain; her garments are torn from her; she becomes a prey to thy savage lust. Not she alone, but her daughter, and her fair sisters, have fallen into thy unhallowed hands, and been defiled! Oh, Britain! the voice of violated chastity riseth up against thee; the mark of the beast is indelibly printed in thy forehead:  Even the old and weak men became victims of thy barbarity; thy, servants stripped the aged Hope, and buffeted him with the point of their swords did they torment him. Do the groans of the murdered Kirby creep into thine ears? go thou and repent of thine evil, and do so no more: the Lord God of Hosts shall be thy judge; The generous people of Columbia may possibly forgive thy crimes against them; but the remembrance thereof shall live to the end of time; neither shall they forget the name of Cockburn (p. 80, 21:35-44).

 

The frailty of man speaketh volumes; one man accuseth another; but where is he who is perfect? Man deviseth mighty plans in his own mind, but he accomplisheth them not. He is wise in his own conceit, but his wisdom faileth him: he seeth folly in others, but perceiveth not his own; he is as a reed shaken with the wind (p. 131, 36:1-3).

 

Henceforth may the nations of the earth learn wisdom: then shall peace become triumphant, and the people of Columbia be at rest; And, as it is written, their swords may be beaten into ploughshares, and their spears turned into pruning-hooks (pp. 223-224, 55:22).]

 

 

Analysis

 

Not all of these parallels are equally compelling. Taken individually, many are less than significant, since the same motifs, language, and ideas could have originated and been taken up into the BoM in any number of ways, whether from other texts or common oral traditions. For example, attacking a fort during the nighttime is a stock war narrative trope and there is no need to see the BoM usage as related to the usage in the LW. They easily and may have originated independently from one another. Many other examples could be cited, such as the cult of motherhood, an idealized view of women common during this time period, or the stereotyped picture of Native Americans. However, some of the parallels are very strong, particularly those which feature a number of individual narrative elements in the same context, sometimes in the same basic order. These would include examples such as battle at a fort (pp. 102-4, 29:1-23); capturing a capital city (p. 160-161, 44; p. 163, 45:8-22); defensive battle associated with a river (p. 176, 47:2-15); wild natives lay down their weapons of war (p. 120, 33:23-24; p. 123, 34:1; p. 129, 35:33-43); a group of fearless young soldiers (pp. 180, 48:11-13); some natives are converted (p. 96, 26:18-28); a calamitous destruction (p. 70, 19:37-44); description of the land of America (p. 74, 20:11-17); man builds a boat of “curious workmanship” (pp. 192-193, 50:2-7, 12); the narrator’s mourning for the death of the people (p. 72, 19:57-61). Furthermore, even though some individual elements are not immediately persuasive by themselves, taken in context, the clustering of so many parallels in thematic material and narrative description in one text is highly significant and requires much more than ad hoc explanation of a few prominent similarities shared between the LW and the BoM.

 

When considered as a whole, I think the above parallels strongly suggest that the BoM was dependent on the LW for a significant amount of narrative material and plot elements in addition to some of the peculiarities of its language and style. The similarities are simply too numerous and substantive to think that they could have originated by chance from two authors who happened to write in the pseudo-biblical genre. I have looked at other examples of pseudo-biblical writing from the time period and haven’t found anywhere near the extent of conceptual and narrative affinity shared between the LW and BoM.

 

Some may find this conclusion difficult to accept based on their own reading of the LW, since many of the parallels I cite appear in contexts so utterly different from what we find in the BoM. For example, the narrative in the LW about the mass conflagration of innocent people reminiscent of Alma 14:10-11 is perpetrated by Native Americans in the context of war and seems to have little else besides the narrative elements I mentioned above (mass conflagration of innocents, the promise that the perpetrators will eventually be judged on judgment day) that would cause one to connect the two. But it is important to recognize that literary dependence can occur in many different ways (consciously and less consciously, directly and indirectly) and that when borrowing from a prior literary source one need not do so by reproducing the borrowed elements in the same shape or context as one found them. The human mind is sufficiently creative and complex to enable one to select, adapt, and remix material to suit present storytelling purposes.

 

Which brings me to a final question, what was the nature of this literary borrowing? Did the author of the BoM, presumably Joseph Smith, borrow directly from the text of LW at the time he was constructing his narrative? Did he intentionally draw language and ideas from the book? I think the answer is more than likely no. First of all, the LW reflects a distinctive linguistic profile from the BoM that is difficult to reconcile with the assumption that Joseph Smith was reading the LW for narrative inspiration around the time the BoM was composed. Although the LW shares a few expressions and terms in common with the BoM that are not found in the Bible (e.g. “curious workmanship”; “fair daughters”; “lives and liberty”; “to hem in” an opponent; “to smile upon”; “cause of liberty” and many other things designated “of liberty,” such as “temple of liberty”, “altar of liberty”, “sons of liberty”, “growth of liberty”, “air of liberty”; cf. “land of liberty” [2 Nephi 1:7; 10:11; Mosiah 29:32] “foundation of liberty” [Alma 46:10] “blessings of liberty” [Alma 46:13] “title of liberty” [Alma 46:13] “standard of liberty” [Alma 51:20] “people of liberty” [Alma 51:13]), and manifests a considerable amount of language that stems from the KJV Bible and thus is present in the BoM as well (e.g. “murmur”, “proclamation”, “slew with great slaughter”, “astonished beyond measure”, “great deep”, “chief captain”, “reigned in his stead”, “children of men”, “stripling”, “stronghold”, “host”, “sand on the seashore”, “favor”, “prosperity”, “noise abroad”, etc.), there is also a high incidence of language that is not shared with the BoM but is stylistically prominent because of repetition in the book (e.g. “smooth” with reference to deceitful language; “bosom” of the sea; “wax hot” for the tempo of battle; “booty”; “bow the neck”; “tickle”; “scribe”; “gallant”; “husbandmen”; “instruments of destruction”; “high places” as places of resort; “let loose”; “evil befell”; “tongue” with descriptive qualifier; “virgins” as synonym of daughters; use of “brave” “gallant” “valiant” “wicked” as appositional epithets; “gat”, past tense of get; “stirring up the spirit of Satan” rather than stirring up people; “lord of hosts” as regular title of God, whereas in the BoM it appears almost solely in biblical quotes and in association with cursing; “receive” or “gain” praise; “extol”; “enemies”/”champions” of freedom; “knees smite together”; “mighty men of valor”). Much of this language could have easily been employed by Joseph Smith if he were borrowing directly from the LW.

 

Second, many of the motifs that are shared between the LW and BoM are so radically different that it is hard to see how the one could have directly inspired the other. For example, I think that there can be little doubt that the explosion at Little York described in LW where General Pike saves the army from utter annihilation is related to the account of the destruction of the Nephites in the BoM before the visitation of Christ, as the clustering of individual narrative elements in this story is very strong (p. 70, 19:37-44). But reading the account by itself I fail to detect any trigger (aside from the mention of “overturned cities”) that would have led Joseph Smith to develop the story in the ways he did, so that a localized act of terrorism by the British is transformed into a cosmic event of divine retribution. The path from the former to the latter would seem to be much more complex and tenuous than a simple literary loan. A more appealing explanation than strict literary borrowing is that the LW account had made a strong impression on Joseph Smith at an earlier point at some remove from his work on the Book of Mormon and that elements of the story had had time to percolate in his mind. Eventually, these elements were called forth when circumstances necessitated, perhaps even semi-consciously, and then adapted in a unique way.

 

Finally, the BoM seems to reflect a very different moral, social, and spiritual ethos from the LW and may in fact be a reflective response in some sense to the kind of simplistic moralizing ‘good guy, bad guy’ that we find in the LW. Although in general the BoM maps onto the same opposition that we see in the LW, where white-skinned righteous protagonists are set against barbaric and wicked dark-skinned natives, the BoM continually problematizes this opposition. The white-skinned protagonists are not always righteous and indeed are sometimes less righteous than the Lamanites. Moreover, in the context of prophecy the Gentiles are in danger of being cast off and removed from God’s favor. All of this seems to contrast from the rather simplistic and one-dimensional image of the white-skinned American Israel depicted in the LW. On the other hand, the Lamanites in the BoM are generally more sympathetically portrayed than LW Native Americans (often referred to as “savages”), who are at times portrayed in demonic colors. Occasionally the LW even seems to sympathize with and condone the indiscriminate killing and destruction of Native American tribes and villages (p. 48, 14:15).

 

A related difference is the BoM and LW’s respective attitudes toward war and the glory that accrues to bravery in battle. In the LW there is a continual lauding of war heroes, who are said to have achieved honor, praise, and glory for their actions, and sometimes money and medals of honor. A rather typical example of the LW’s glorification of violence is “And with resistless force his noble band rushed on, at the trumpet’s sound, over the heaps of slain and wounded, to glory, and to triumph!” (p. 71, 19:49). This attitude stands in stark contrast from the prototypical righteous warrior in the BoM, Moroni, who specifically states that he seeks not for “honor of the world” (Alma 60:36) and did not “delight in bloodshed” (Alma 48:11).

 

All of these factors suggest to me that the BoM’s literary dependence on the LW was not direct in the sense of having been strategically borrowed during the process of narrative construction, but that we should assume at least some temporal distance separating Joseph Smith’s exposure to the LW and his production of the BoM. There was a space that allowed him to mull over the content and think about it in relation to other information and life experiences, to begin the process of developing a new myth of Indian origins. The question of how much earlier is unclear. He may have read the book anytime between his early experiences in schooling (since it was marketed for use in schools) all the way up to the period of preparation for his translation work.

 

In sum, linguistic and narrative elements of the BoM are probably descended, at least in part, from Gilbert Hunt’s pseudo-biblical account of the War of 1812. The relationship between these two literary works is relatively strong, suggesting that the book had quite a memorable impact on Joseph Smith. But Smith did not borrow directly from the LW (at least for the majority of the narrative content) during the process of composing the BoM.

In a recent post TT made some interesting observations about Korihor and secularism in the context of the BoM narrative. He expressed skepticism that Korihor should be understood as an anachronistic representative of Enlightenment atheism and provocatively suggested that the narrative is actually arguing in favor of secularism if understood as the separation of ecclesiastical from political powers.

I don’t find this reading of the narrative to be persuasive, however, even though many of TT’s questions are well-placed and aspects of his analysis have caused me to reconsider the issue.

Continue reading “Korihor: An Anachronistic Exemplum of Atheism and Infidelity?”

When I opened up my new issue of the BYU magazine, I immediately encountered a short article entitled “Ask the Expert: Hebrew School” that attracted my interest. The article was a brief discussion of several Hebrew names/terms by Donald Parry, a professor of Hebrew, accompanied by a rather large photo of him holding some Hebrew scrolls.

I was interested to see what Parry had to say, since he is a well-known Dead Sea Scrolls/Old Testament scholar who has published widely, and to find out why BYU magazine would devote space to what is generally regarded as an arcane and intellectually intimidating subject. Initially I was hopeful that Parry would use the opportunity to show how careful Hebrew study could deepen and expand one’s understanding of the Hebrew Bible. But unfortunately upon reading I was disappointed to discover that the article reflected a lack of rigor and familiarity with current biblical scholarship and a problematic eisegetical tendency to project modern Mormon theology back into the text of the Hebrew scriptures.

Continue reading “BYU Professor’s Mormonizing of the Old Testament”

Book of Mormon geography is an area of research that has taken interesting turns in recent decades. Scholarly apologists have come to recognize that traditional interpretations of the Book of Mormon that understand it to have encompassed the lands of both North and South America are historically untenable and so have constructed alternative limited geographical models that see the events recounted in it as having occurred in a relatively small area of Mesoamerica (or, as some would have it, in the Great Lakes region of North America).[1] On the other hand, critics have countered that a close reading of the Book of Mormon argues against this approach and suggests that the narrative itself presupposes a hemispheric or continental perspective.[2] On this view, geographical considerations necessitate that we understand the Book of Mormon to be a fictional and mythological account of the aboriginal inhabitants of the Americas produced during the 19th century.

 

I would like to briefly expand on the argument for reading the Book of Mormon as myth by taking a closer look at the Book of Ether and its description of the land of the Jaredites, ie. the Land Northward. I will try and suggest not only that the land occupied by the Jaredites is best understood as the North American continent as a whole, but that we may be able to plausibly identify the Jaredite land Moron with a particular geographical locale within the borders of the United States as it was known to Joseph Smith.

 

We can begin by summarizing the evidence that the land of the Jaredites was coextensive with North America:

 
Continue reading “The Land Northward and the Land of Moron in the Book of Ether”

In recent weeks there seems to have been a significant uptick in online discussion and exploration of the place of women in LDS theology and their relationship to priesthood. Joanna Brooks has been holding an insightful study session on what priesthood has meant at varying periods of the Church’s history, suggesting that the concept has been far more ambiguous and malleable than generally thought, while a number of blogs and other forms of media have given prominence to issues that bear directly or indirectly on the status and role of women in the Church, such as the visibility of Heavenly Mother in orthodox belief and practice.

 

One aspect of the discussion about the place of women in LDS theology and ecclesiology that has yet to be fully explored is the question of how Mormon thinking about females and their relationship to divinity and priestly power is a function of the broader context of Christianity’s development in Western religious history. Although it is generally recognized that both early Mormon and late 20th century LDS articulations of femaleness as well as the relationship between gender and the priesthood are intricately connected to the social and religious conventions of the eras in which they developed (both in how they reinscribed and sometimes departed from traditional norms), significantly less attention has been given to the larger questions of why women have been virtually shut out of priesthood and cultic functions in Christianity more generally for the last two millennia and why God has been imagined primarily in male/masculine terms.

 

What historical factors led to this peculiar state of affairs? And to what degree can we be confident that Mormonism’s own views about a male-only priesthood and a male-only godhead are not a product of the same historical contingencies that influenced the development of Western Christianity?

 

Fortunately, April DeConick, a scholar of early Christianity at Rice University, has tackled the first of these questions in a provocative recent publication titled Holy Misogyny: Why the Sex and Gender Conflicts in the Early Church Still Matter, in which she traces the roots behind traditional Christianity’s penchant for devaluing the female. DeConick brings to her study a wealth of background knowledge, which she skillfully deploys in a survey covering more than a millennium of Israelite, Jewish, and Christian history and a broad swathe of the Mediterranean cultural context in which Christianity took shape and became institutionalized. Through a careful examination of a wide variety of canonical and extra-canonical texts, she shows how the divine and human female was systematically downgraded and erased from Christian tradition–a development that has had lasting repercussions on subsequent human history.

 

DeConick begins with a reconstruction of early Christianity that suggests a devaluation of the female was not inevitable or inherent to the theological perspectives of the movement’s earliest figures and adherents. In what may be a surprise to some, she argues that early Christianity recognized the Holy Spirit as a goddess, with an identity connected to and derived from earlier Israelite/Jewish traditions about Asherah and Sophia. She was evidently envisioned as the second member of the Trinity and the divine mother of Jesus. Based on the widespread attestation of this belief, DeConick concludes, “the doctrine of the Mother Spirit as the second person of the Trinity was not heretical to begin with. It only became heretical in the Greek and Latin west in the second century and in the Syriac East 200 years after that” (38). Of particular interest to Latter-day Saints may be the fact that the Mother Spirit was invoked in Aramaic Christianity’s baptism and eucharist rituals. The baptismal waters were seen as a symbolic womb from which converts emerged transfigured and reborn, after which they were given milk to drink.

 

Probably much less surprising to most Mormons is DeConick’s observation that several stories from the New Testament indicate that Jesus was something of a women’s advocate. His concern for women’s issues, she says, “was not a fringe or marginal aspect of his mission. On the contrary, it was central” (51).  Women seem to have ranked among his disciples and he frequently spoke out on domestic and social issues in ways that were favorable to women. For example, in Jesus’s reinterpretation of God’s laws against adultery, he emphasizes that “men had the responsibility to avert their eyes and keep their hands to themselves,” which is remarkable in view of the “general ancient worldview that the locus of lust was the female body, which was the sexual downfall of men” (44).

 

In her discussion of Christianity’s development in the immediate aftermath of the death of Jesus, DeConick notes that “women were not restricted in the leadership roles they could assume. They were functioning in a range of offices as apostles or missionaries, prophets, church leaders, deacons, and patrons” (73). For at least some women this was because they believed that in the spiritually transformed realm of the church there was “neither male nor female,” but that God’s image encompassed both the male and the female.

 

Soon, however, the activity, voices, and memories of women and female divinity in the early church were obscured and forgotten and replaced with misogynist narratives and interpretations that saw the female body as naturally deficient and responsible for “the distortion of human sexuality” (149). Paul’s teaching in 1 Corinthians that women were to veil themselves appears to have been intended to counter the practice of women taking on public roles in the Corinthian church and to assert the divinely ordained primacy of the male patriarch in both religious and domestic spheres, which he justified by interpreting Genesis 1:27 through the lens of Genesis chs 2-3. According to DeConick, Paul’s interpretation of Genesis was “radically patriarchal,” since it “[severed] the female from ever becoming God’s image” (73).

 

This patriarchal interpretive trajectory only seems to have become more entrenched and prevalent over the course of the next century in the Apostolic churches. In conflict with Marcionite teachings, the Pastoral letters “severely censored and subordinated women in the church” (73).  Women were forbidden to teach and have authority over men. Their role was confined almost solely to the domestic sphere, where as submissive wives and mothers they would find salvation through childbearing and faithfulness, a view which again is supported through a misogynist reading of the Genesis story.

 

Eventually the form of Christianity that became normative in the West settled into Roman society and lost touch with its earlier radical social vision and teachings. Female authority was “eroded, limited, and denuded by the male leaders” and “the full weight of sexuality as an evil impulse… laid permanently in their laps” (112).

 

As disturbing as this description of the gradual marginalization and vilification of the female in early Christianity is, for DeConick, what is most disturbing is that “the misogynist narrative was made sacred or holy, so that it rather than the authentic narrative, became Christianity’s truth” (147). A tradition of “holy misogyny” became the foundation for later Christian views about God (or the Trinity) and the justification for female exclusion from priestly roles.

 

Upon reading DeConick, the question that naturally comes to my mind is the extent to which Mormonism as a culture has bought into this long-lived tradition of holy misogyny. Are our views about God and priesthood in some sense a perpetuation of religious ideas and norms that earlier had resulted in the devaluation of the female?

More specifically, do we engage in holy misogyny when we value females primarily for their domestic roles? Do we engage in holy misogyny when we encourage passivity and submissiveness among women by keeping them in a subordinate position to male priesthood? Do we engage in holy misogyny by emphasizing female modesty as the key to maintaining traditional social mores? Do we engage in holy misogyny when we fail to do anything to expand upon the distinctive LDS doctrine of Heavenly Mother as a symbol of the divine potential of women? Do we perpetuate holy misogyny when we use biblical scripture, which was developed and canonized at the same time that the tradition of Christian misogyny was taking shape and becoming institutionalized, to justify the exclusion of women from the priesthood and the restriction of public recognition of Heavenly Mother?