The Critical Edition

When the boys return, with Laban’s servent Zoram, they find that Sariah, their mother, has been complaining about Lehi’s decision to drop everything and run to the wilderness. But what the description is odd:

For [Sariah] had supposed that we had perished in the wilderness; and she also had complained against my father, telling him that he was a visionary man; saying: “Behold thou hast led us forth from the land of our inheritance, and my sons are no more, and we perish in the wilderness.”

“Visionary” today means far-seeing; it’s hardly derogatory. I’m assuming that it meant something different in Smith’s day.

There is some textual help, though: a cross reference in the on-line version of the Book of Mormon. It refers to Genesis 37.19: “And they said one to another, Behold, this dreamer cometh.”

Slick. Really, a good con — this gives the indication that the Book of Mormon was a translation, and that the term used in 1 Nephi 5.2 is the same Hebrew word in Genesis 37.19. But it doesn’t all add up. To begin with, we have no way to determine what term was used in the original BoM because we don’t have the original text; all we have is a purported translation.

Not only that, but Mormon apologists can’t even agree on the original language used for the plates:

Latter-day Saint scholars have long been divided on the issue of the language in which the Book of Mormon is written. Some have proposed that the Nephite record was simply written in Egyptian, while others have suggested that the Nephite scribes used Egyptian script to write Hebrew text. While either of these is possible, this present study will elicit evidence for the latter.

Non-Latter-day Saint scholars and others have long scoffed at the idea that an Israelite group from Jerusalem should have written in Egyptian and mocked the term “reformed Egyptian” as nonsense. Since Joseph Smith’s time, we have learned a great deal about Egyptian and Israelite records and realize that the Book of Mormon was correct in all respects.

The ancient Egyptians used three types of writing systems. The most well known, the hieroglyphs (Greek for “sacred symbols”), comprised nearly 400 picture characters depicting things found in real life. A cursive script called hieratic (Greek for “sacred”) was also used, principally on papyrus. Around 700 B.C., the Egyptians developed an even more cursive script that we call demotic (Greek for “popular”), which bore little resemblance to the hieroglyphs. Both hieratic and demotic were in use in Lehi’s time and can properly be termed “reformed Egyptian.” From the account in Mormon 9:32, it seems likely that the Nephites further reformed the characters.

While it is clear that the Book of Mormon was written in Egyptian characters, scholars are divided on whether the underlying language was Egyptian or Hebrew. (Source)

There’s a lot in this passage, and not just the admission that there’s no consensus. Most striking is this statement: “Both hieratic and demotic were in use in Lehi’s time and can properly be termed ‘reformed Egyptian.’” I think this is called begging the question. The issue is whether or not there’s something called “reformed Egyptian,” and the authors of the paper simply assume it blithly.

Getting back to Nephi’s first book, the story continues with mother being comforted, everyone offering sacrifices of gratitude, and Lehi finally looking at the critical tablets brought back from Laban. They contain the books of Moses as well as Lehi’s fathers’ geneology, enabling Lehi to trace his lineage back to to the patriarch Jacob.

This should not be surprising, given the fact that Lehi and everyone are Jews.

Lehi gets excited — “filled with the Spirit” — and declares that all nations, all humans, in all times, should see these documents.

Chapter five sets up some heavy expectations: after all, Lehi himself said “Let everyone know.” But chapter six is a disappointment. It reads, in its entirety:

And now I, Nephi, do not give the genealogy of my fathers in this part of my record; neither at any time shall I give it after upon these plates which I am cwriting; for it is given in the record which has been kept by my father; wherefore, I do not write it in this work. For it sufficeth me to say that we are descendants of Joseph.And it mattereth not to me that I am particular to give a full account of all the things of my father, for they cannot be written upon these plates, for I desire the room that I may write of the things of God. For the fulness of mine intent is that I may apersuade men to bcome unto the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, and be saved. Wherefore, the things which are pleasing unto the world I do not write, but the things which are pleasing unto God and unto those who are not of the world. Wherefore, I shall give commandment unto my seed, that they shall not occupy these plates with things which are not of worth unto the children of men.

It’s growing increasingly difficult to take this book seriously.

There is a lot of effort — all mental, though — trying to legitimize the Book of Mormon. It should be physical effort, in the form of archeology, but that pesky angel took the plates with him.

If we could just get a look at the plates, I’m sure we could do all kinds of analysis — physical and textual — to prove their authenticity. But at least we have the translation, and we can use the translation to look for traces of Hebrew influences that would have been in the original Egyptian-script original.

At least that’s what John A. Tvedtnes argues in an article entitled “The Hebrew Background of the Book of Mormon.”

The essay begins,

The English translation of the Book of Mormon shows many characteristics of the Hebrew language. In many places the words that have been used and the ways in which the words have been put together are more typical of Hebrew than of English. These Hebraisms, as I will call them, are evidence of the authenticity of the Book of Mormon—evidence that Joseph Smith did not write a book in English but translated an ancient text and that his translation reflects the Hebrew words and word order of the original.

I read this and I think, “Are you serious?”

He is.

His essay is an attempt to prove the Hebrew origin of one book by comparing the English translation with an English translation of another book known to be written in Hebrew.

Some choice passages:

Hebrew uses another compound preposition that would be translated literally as from before the presence of or from before the face of. English would normally use simply from. The influence of the Hebrew can be seen in these Book of Mormon passages:

• “they fled from before my presence” (1 Nephi 4:28)
• “he had gone from before my presence” (1 Nephi 11:12)
• “they were carried away . . . from before my face” (1 Nephi 11:29) [...]

Hebrew has fewer adverbs than English. Instead, it often uses prepositional phrases with the preposition meaning in or with. The English translation of the Book of Mormon contains more of these prepositional phrases in place of adverbs than we would expect if the book had been written in English originally—another Hebraism. Here are some examples:

• “with patience” instead of patiently (Mosiah 24:15)
• “with much harshness” instead of very harshly (1 Nephi 18:11)
• “with joy” instead of joyfully (Jacob 4:3)

The Book of Mormon uses cognates much more often than we would expect if the book had originally been written in English. These cognates show the Hebrew influence of the original. One of the best-known examples is “I have dreamed a dream” (1 Nephi 8:2). That is exactly the way that the same idea is expressed in literal translation of the Old Testament Hebrew (see Genesis 37:5; 41:11).

Here are some other examples of the use of cognates in the Book of Mormon, each followed by the more normal expression for English:

• “work all manner of fine work” (Mosiah 11:10) instead of work well
• “and he did judge righteous judgments” (Mosiah 29:43) instead of judge righteously or make righteous judgments [...]

For example, Hebrew uses compound prepositions that would be translated literally as by the hand of and by the mouth of. English would normally use just by. The Book of Mormon contains many examples that appear to show the influence of this Hebrew use of compound prepositions:

• “ye shall be taken by the hand of your enemies” (Mosiah 17:18)
• “I have also acquired much riches by the hand of my industry” (Alma 10:4) [...]

All Tvedtnes succeeds in doing this is the exact opposite of what he’s arguing: he’s providing indications that Smith simply used the old KJV as a model for his writing.

But if “it looks like translated Hebrew” is a good enough argument, well…

And I have taken this computer by the hand of he who is webmaster and have written a fine writing and posted a wonderful post explaining, with much patience, the idiocy of this argument.

And write like Yoda too, I can. A Mormon Jedi must I be!

If a college student were to turn in a paper with this kind of reasoning, the professor would probably write two words at the top of the paper: “See me.”

Yet this kind of “exegesis” is hardly new. I was first introduced to this kind of thinking growing up in Herbert Armstrong’s Worldwide Church of God. It was there that I learned the true etymology of the term “Saxons.” It came from the old days when the children of the Biblical Isaac were referred to as “Isaac’s sons.” It’s easy to see how one could quickly drop the “I” and simply call them “Saac’s sons.”

There are a few problems with this line of reasoning.

1. “Saxon” comes from the Anglo-Saxon word “seax.”
2. There is no evidence that anyone ever used “Saac” as a nickname for Isaac.
3. This derivation depends on modern English (”Saac’s sons”), which would be several hundred years in the future from the time, Armstrong claimed, people began calling the descendants of Isaac “Saac’s sons.”

But in the world of cultic exegesis and the presumed conclusion, we can overlook these kinds of things.

Hat tip to Mormanity - A Mormon Blog for the initial link to this article.
Tvedtnes’s original article is available here.

Is Obama an enlightened being? / Spiritual wise ones say: This sure ain’t no ordinary politician. You buying it?
Is Obama an enlightened being?

The parents of a blind seven-year-old who was sent to a religious school in Pakistan have told how he was hung by his feet from a ceiling and beaten to death after failing to memorise the Koran. (Blind seven-year-old beaten to death for failing to learn the Koran)

God comes to Lehi, Nephi’s father, in a dream and tells him to take his family to the wilderness. He doesn’t really give a reason, and Lehi complies: “he left his house, and the land of his inheritance, and his gold, and his silver, and his precious things, and took nothing with him, save it were his family, and provisions, and tents, and departed into the wilderness,” setting up camp near the Red Sea.

Here we learn a little about Nephi’s family. His mother is Sariah, and he has three elder brothers: Laman, Lemuel, and Sam.

They come across a river, which Lehi names after Laman, then says to him, “O that thou mightest be like unto this river, continually running into the fountain of all righteousness!” To Lemuel he says, ” O that thou mightest be like unto this valley, afirm and bsteadfast, and immovable in keeping the commandments of the Lord!” Nephi explains that Lehi says this because of the “stiffneckedness” of Laman and Lameul. Much like the first family, there’s some tension, with two of the brothers murmuring against their father and complain about having to follow father into the wilderness and leave behind their inheritance. Lehi puts the fear of God in them and they shape up.

At this point, God comes to Nephi and tells him something, but we don’t immediately know what. Nephi goes to Sam and tells him what God told him; Sam believes — yet we still don’t know what that was. All the same, Lamuel and Laman hear it and don’t believe, at which point God speaks to Nephi again. He tells him that, because he keeps his commandments, he shall prosper, while his brothers shall be cut off. God promises that Nephi will be made a ruler and a teacher.

Chapter three begins with a new command from God, which Nephi explains to his father:

Behold I have dreamed a dream, in the which the Lord hath commanded me that thou and thy brethren shall return to Jerusalem. For behold, Laban hath the record of the Jews and also a genealogy of my forefathers, and they are engraven upon plates of brass. Wherefore, the Lord hath commanded me that thou and thy brothers should go unto the house of Laban, and seek the records, and bring them down hither into the wilderness.

Nephi and his brothers return to Jerusalem, then cast lots to see who exactly is going to go into the house to get the records. Laman gets the short straw and goes to get the plates. Laban refuses, and the boys grow despondent.

Then Nephi remembers all the gold they’d left in Jerusalem and they head off to get it. They offer to buy the plates, but Laban, seeing the treasure, decides simply to kill the brothers and take the money. The brothers run off, leaving the treasure behind. They hide in a cave, where the older brothers begin beating Nephi. An angel appears and asks them why they’re beating the one who will rule over them in the future. The angel assures the brothers that God will deliver Laban into their hands. The brothers don’t believe, despite the message having a clearly supernatural source.

The brothers return to Jerusalem at the beginning of chapter four, after Nephi points out that it was an angel that promised them all this — he must have inside knowledge. As they approach Laban’s house, who should appear but Laban himself, drunk and stumbling. He passes out at the feet of Nephi, who takes Laban’s sword and feels the Spirit telling him to slay Laban. But Nephi is a young man; he’s never killed anyone; he’s nervous. God speaks to him, stiffening his resolve:

Behold the Lord hath delivered him into thy hands. Yea, and I also knew that he had sought to take away mine own life; yea, and he would not hearken unto the commandments of the Lord; and he also had taken away our property. And it came to pass that the Spirit said unto me again: Slay him, for the Lord hath delivered him into thy hands; Behold the Lord slayeth the wicked to bring forth his righteous purposes. It is better that one man should perish than that a nation should dwindle and perish in unbelief.

So Nephi pulls Laban up by his hair and decapitates him with Laban’s own sword. He then takes Laban’s armor for his own. He heads to Laban’s house and, predictably, everyone thinks he’s Laban. He gets the plates and much of Laban’s treasure, then convinces Zoram, Laban’s servant, to head back with the now-rich brothers.

It’s striking how similar the actions of Nephi and the others are to the characters of the Old Testament. In a word, barbaric. There are two ways to explain this: the first is that the Book of Mormon is as genuine as the Bible, and thus is a fairly accurate reflection of life in those times. The second is that Smith deliberately chose to pattern his book after the Old Testament — a wise move, considering the claims he makes about it. However, there seems to be a third option, combining the other options: Smith was himself convinced that he was transmitting the word of God, but in fact was deluding himself. This might work if Smith claimed, as Mohammad did, that a supernatural being dictated the words to him. However, Smith claims that he translated plates — in other words, it would be possible to have physical proof of the divine inspiration of the Book of Mormon, if only the plates were still here. That backs Smith into a corner: either he’s telling the truth, or he’s deliberately lying. And if he’s lying, then that means a whole religion was created on one man’s lies.

How many times has that happened?

Free will is overrated, at least as framed by Christianity. It’s not that I want to feel compelled to do this or that, but I’m willing to give up certain “freedoms” for the betterment of humanity.

Take the freedom to kill or torture children, for example. According to the Christian notion of free will, we must have the ability to do such an awful thing else we’d be robots.

This ability to torture the innocent wouldn’t really be a theological/philosophical problem were it not for the insistence that the Christian God is, among other things,

1. completely good,
2. all knowing, and
3. all powerful.

Put those three together with the world’s suffering and we have a problem. In order to explain the suffering, we have to compromise. Maybe God isn’t all knowing, and isn’t aware of the suffering. Maybe God isn’t completely benevolent and doesn’t want to do something about the suffering. Or perhaps God knows about the suffering and wants to alleviate it, but being limited, there’s nothing he can do about it.

Since none of these alternatives are acceptable to most believers, Christians explain suffering by invoking free will and saying that it couldn’t be any other way if humans are to be more than robots.

But free will doesn’t fly, especially considering the patriarchal God we see in the Bible.

God is seen, among other things, as the perfect father. “Our Father who art in heaven” pray Christians every Sunday; Jesus, in the Gospel narratives, cries out to “Abba” — “Papa” — while being crucified. God is the ultimate father.

This post was inspired by Thud’s “The Org Chart God.”

I too am a father, and if I imagine treating my child (eventually children) like the Christian God treats his children, I shudder.

A thought experiment: in the future, my wife and I have a second child. At some point, our first-born daughter gets the notion that it would be a pretty good idea to see if rocks can bounce off little brother’s head. If I’m standing by and do nothing about it, what kind of father am I? That kind of behavior would rightly be labeled child abuse.

“But, Your Honor,” I protest before the judge, “I was just giving my daughter the ability to practice her free will.”

In the real world, “free will” doesn’t cut it. We might have the Twinkie legal defense and any number of other, bizarre explanations/excuses for behavior, but I don’t know that any lawyer has ever tried the “free will” defense, and for good reason: it’s absurd.

And yet Christians use the free will defense daily to get their God acquitted.

A correlative defense is the “God’s ways are not our ways” defense. This raises just as many questions as it is supposed to answer, but suffice it to say that any being whose ways include non-intervention when children are suffering is not a being I have much respect for.

The bottom line is that there really is no adequate answer for the problem of evil. Indeed, some of the more traditional answers seem quite outdated, as John Hagee discovered recently when he suggested that God allowed, even directed, the Holocaust through Hitler. Yet this was nothing new. Jewish theologians have been saying similar things for centuries.

Pastor Hagee’s view that an omnipotent God must sanction the evil in our world actually has deep roots in Jewish thought. To cite just one example, the Talmud teaches us that the Temple in Jerusalem was destroyed because of “sinat hinam,” or baseless hatred. In other words, our own Talmud teaches that God used the Romans to perpetrate the greatest tragedy in the history of the Jewish people (until the Holocaust) because of Jewish sins. (haaretz.com)

The defense of God’s actions — or apparent lack thereof — is a distasteful activity to begin with, so it’s not surprising that we can so mangle ideas that they come out sounding offensive to casual listeners. Then again, why should finite humans get stuck defending an infinite being?

The problem of evil is what ultimately led me away from theism, but that’s somewhat surprising considering how theists frame the question in relation to their faith: there is no answer, but I have faith that there is a reason, that it will all make sense. Yet it seldom does make sense during our Earthly lives.

The Book of Mormon opens with something called “The First Book of Nephi.” I sit down to begin reading, and I feel I’m reading Tolkien: I’m wondering when all these names will be explained. People? Places? Creatures? If only Gandolf were here to explain.

Nephi is, obviously enough, the author, and he begins his book by explaining his lineage:

• “born of goodly parents”
• “taught the learning of [his] father”
• lived a life filled with its fair share of trouble but still close to God, and
• “having had a great knowledge of the goodness and the mysteries of God.”

He is something of a Gandolf: keeper of long-lost knowledge.

Nephi goes on to explain that his chronicle, written in “the language of my father, which consists of the learning of the Jews and the language of the Egyptians,” is true: “I make it with mine own hand; and I make it according to my knowledge.” Evidently it has never cross Nephi’s mind that his knowledge could be flawed.

It’s a strange statement, though, because this is supposed to be a book divinely inspired. Wouldn’t it have made more sense to argue that the book is true because it comes from God? I suppose he’s simply stating here that this is firsthand knowledge, but we immediately see it’s not, for he starts talking about his father’s experiences:

For it came to pass in the commencement of the first year of the reign of Zedekiah, king of Judah, (my father, Lehi, having dwelt at Jerusalem in all his days); and in that same year there came many prophets, prophesying unto the people that they must repent, or the great city Jerusalem must be destroyed.

Finally, we get a known name: Zedekiah. Zedekiah was the successor to Jehoiachin, and the prophet Jeremiah was his adviser.

2 Kings 24.18 explains, “Zedekiah was twenty-one years old when he became king, and he reigned in Jerusalem eleven years. His mother’s name was Hamutal daughter of Jeremiah; she was from Libnah.”

In Jeremiah we read

He did evil in the eyes of the LORD, just as Jehoiakim had done. It was because of the LORD’s anger that all this happened to Jerusalem and Judah, and in the end he thrust them from his presence. Now Zedekiah rebelled against the king of Babylon.

Zedekiah basically stood up to Nebuchadnezzar, who then came down to Jerusalem and destroyed it. With this mention of Zedekiah, we get more than a known name; we get a possible date: between 597 and 586 BCE. This means we get a time frame for the events of the Book of Mormon, a time frame we could use to get archaeological verification.

The first chapter concludes with Lehi, Nephi’s father, getting a visit from God, in the familiar pillar of fire. God warns Lehi what’s coming by giving him a book of prophecy. There is an obvious parallel with Smith here, and if the Book of Mormon is not of divine origin, it’s a smart stroke on Smith’s part to start legitimizing his book within the book itself.

Suddenly, Nephi stops discussing his father’s story:

And now I, Nephi, do not make a full account of the things which my father hath written, for he hath written many things which he saw in visions and in dreams; and he also hath written many things which he prophesied and spake unto his children, of which I shall not make a full account.

It seems like more legitimizing: “this is not the first time we’ve seen books that are critical aspects of God’s revelation to humanity simply disappear,” Smith can argue.

The first chapter concludes by explaining that, after God’s revelations, Lehi did what Smith himself would do later: prophecy. And the result was the same:

And when the Jews heard these things they were angry with him; yea, even as with the prophets of old, whom they had cast out, and stoned, and slain; and they also sought his life, that they might take it away. But behold, I, Nephi, will show unto you that the tender mercies of the Lord are over all those whom he hath chosen, because of their faith, to make them mighty even unto the power of deliverance.

A cliffhanger! Brilliant — I can’t wait to see how Lehi got out of this pickle…

David Heinmann, a pastoral associate of Chicago’s St. Ignatius parish church, took a trip around the world in 365 days, each day celebrating Mass in a different location. An intriguing idea, but as I read it, I kept thinking, “What a waste of resources.” It sounds like nothing more than a glorified field trip. Toward the end of the article, though, Heinmann is quoted as saying,

America doesn’t do pilgrimage because we think we’ve already arrived[ ... .] We Think this is the Holy Land. In doing so we’ve lost that sense that there’s another journey that we must make, one to the center that lives in the heart of every human being.

I believe that says more about American Christianity than anything I’ve read in a long time.