INTERPRETER

A Journal of Mormon Scripture

§

Volume 4 • 2013

The Interpreter Foundation

Orem, Utah

The Interpreter Foundation

Chairman and President

Daniel C. Peterson

Executive Board

Kevin Christensen

Brant A. Gardner

William J. Hamblin

Bryce M. Haymond

Louis C. Midgley

George L. Mitton

Gregory L. Smith

Tanya Spackman

Ted Vaggalis

Contributing Editors

Robert S. Boylan

John M. Butler

James E. Faulconer

Benjamin I. Huff

Jennifer C. Lane

David J. Larsen

Donald W. Parry

Ugo A. Perego

Stephen D. Ricks

G. Bruce Schaalje

David R. Seely

John A. Tvedtnes

Sidney B. Unrau

Stephen T. Whitlock

Lynne Hilton Wilson

Vice Presidents

Jeffrey M. Bradshaw

Daniel Oswald

Board of Editors

David Calabro

Alison V. P. Coutts

Craig L. Foster

Ralph C. Hancock

Cassandra S. Hedelius

Benjamin L. McGuire

Tyler R. Moulton

Andrew C. Smith

Martin S. Tanner

Bryan J. Thomas

Gordon C. Thomasson

John S. Thompson

Production Editor

Alison V. P. Coutts

Media and Technology

Bryce M. Haymond

© 2013 The Interpreter Foundation. A nonprofit organization.

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/ or send a letter to Creative Commons, 444 Castro Street, Suite 900, Mountain View, California, 94041, USA.

The goal of the Interpreter Foundation is to increase understanding of scripture through careful scholarly investigation and analysis of the insights provided by a wide range of ancillary disciplines, including language, history, archaeology, literature, culture, ethnohistory, art, geography, law, politics, philosophy, etc. Interpreter will also publish articles advocating the authenticity and historicity of LDS scripture and the Restoration, along with scholarly responses to critics of the LDS faith. We hope to illuminate, by study and faith, the eternal spiritual message of the scriptures—that Jesus is the Christ.

Although the Board fully supports the goals and teachings of the Church, Interpreter Foundation is an independent entity and is neither owned, controlled by nor affiliated with The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, or with Brigham Young University. All research and opinions provided are the sole responsibility of their respective authors, and should not be interpreted as the opinions of the Board, nor as official statements of LDS doctrine, belief or practice.

This journal is a weekly publication. Visit us at MormonInterpreter.com

Table of Contents

Editor’s Introduction  vii

Daniel C. Peterson

Ancient Affinities within the LDS Book of Enoch
Part One  1

Jeffrey M. Bradshaw and David J.  Larsen

Ancient Affinities within the LDS Book of Enoch
Part Two  29

Jeffrey M. Bradshaw and David J.  Larsen

Book Review  75

Samuel Alonzo Dodge and Steven C. Harper, eds.
Exploring the First Vision

Neal Rappleye

Book Review  85

Roger E. Olson. Against Calvinism

Louis C. Midgley

Whither Mormon Studies?  93

John Gee

Letter to a Doubter   131

Terryl Givens

The Sôd of Yhwh and the Endowment  147

William J. Hamblin

Some Notes on Book of Mormon Names  155

Stephen D. Ricks

Josiah’s Reform: An Introduction  161

Benjamin L. McGuire

Vindicating Josiah  165

William J. Hamblin

Prophets and Kings in Lehi’s Jerusalem and
Margaret Barker’s Temple Theology  177

Kevin Christensen

Standing on the
Shoulders of Giants

Daniel C. Peterson

Early in the 1980s, my father suffered a serious heart attack. My wife and I were living in Egypt then, and we learned the news via a telegram from my brother.

Egyptian phone service was so inadequate in those days that many companies employed messengers to crisscross the city of Cairo rather than depending upon unreliable telephone connections. It took me more than twenty-four hours to get a telephone call through to California. In the meantime, I didn’t know whether my father was alive or dead. My anxiety was intense, but there was little alternative. (As it happened, he recovered fully and lived on for more than two additional decades.)

We take modern means of communication for granted. But we shouldn’t. I’m convinced, for example, that the church founded anciently by Christ not only didn’t survive intact but couldn’t have, largely because the contemporary means of communication weren’t up to the task.

Within a remarkably short time after Pentecost, the Christian movement had expanded beyond Palestine—to Anatolia and Greece, to Rome and Italy, to Spain, eastward into Armenia and Mesopotamia, across Egypt and North Africa. It had covered vast distances, largely due to the Pax Romana, the “Roman peace,” and the impressive system of Roman roads that had been principally designed to facilitate the relatively rapid movement of the Roman legions across the Empire. So secure were the Romans and those who lived under their rule that what we now call the Mediterranean Sea was, in their terminology, usually called Mare Nostrum, “Our Sea.”

But travel and communications were still, by our standards, very, very slow. The “supply lines” of ancient Christianity were extraordinarily long and, moreover, in the first two centuries or so they were quite thin. There simply weren’t very many Christians at the first. Thus, those lines of communication were rather fragile, and were seriously exposed to persecution, corruption, human sin and ambition, misunderstanding, forgetfulness, and a host of other threats.

The problems that this would have caused for the leadership of the fledgling Christian church should be fairly obvious.

I’ll mention a few of them in a moment, but, first, there are some other factors that we need to keep in mind: For at least the first century of Christianity, and probably for much longer, there was no New Testament. It was still being written during the thirty to seventy years following the ascension of Christ, and, even when they were complete, individual gospels and epistles circulated separately; the “New Testament” still hadn’t been gathered together, and the canon hadn’t yet been defined. Even after they had been written and put into circulation, copies of the scriptural texts, expensive and hand-produced, were extremely rare. Ordinary Christians wouldn’t have had their own private copies of scripture, let alone several of them, as many of us do today. (Many of them couldn’t read, anyway.) In fact, most branches of the church, even whole regions, would probably have had little or nothing in the way of scriptural manuscripts. And those privileged church congregations that possessed, say, part of a gospel or one of Paul’s epistles might have had nothing else.

Thus, local leaders, who might have joined the church after only the briefest of missionary instruction—commonly at the hands of preachers who, themselves, had received no more than a cursory oral introduction to the basic Christian story and a few fundamental doctrines—would have had no scriptures to consult, let alone anything like a “general handbook of instructions,” when difficult questions arose. And teachers and class members were unable to simply flip through their personal copies of the Bible in order to learn Christian doctrine and practice.

It’s a miracle that Christianity survived as well as it did. And I mean that literally; I attribute it to the work of the Holy Spirit.

But what did leaders do when a crisis or a question or a dilemma arose? While the apostles were alive, inquiries or requests for help could perhaps be sent to them. But, at any given time, it might be almost impossible to know where the apostles were. In Rome? In Athens? In prison? Dead? Unlike the emperor of Rome and the decreasingly relevant Roman Senate, the leadership of the church had no permanent fixed headquarters, and the apostles were, as they had been called to be, everywhere, preaching Christ and Him crucified. (The imperial court would soon become rather nomadic itself, but that’s another story.) And how long would it take to get a response from one of them?

A local problem might brew for weeks, or months, or perhaps even years before local leadership sought advice from the apostles. (Let’s leave out of consideration cases in which the local leadership, or perhaps an entire branch or region, might have been the problem. There were, we know, many of these.) Then, even when the apostle’s location was known, it might require several weeks or months to get an inquiry to him. He would, of course, need time prayerfully to consider the matter, and then several weeks or months would be needed for his response to reach those who had inquired. Turnaround time for counsel from an apostle, in other words, likely would have run into months, and perhaps into many of them. That allows plenty of opportunity for problems to become insuperable.

But even if an apostle visited an area, how were local people to know that he really was who and what he claimed to be? There were no two-page General Authority photo charts in any ancient equivalent of the Ensign or the Liahona, and Paul, for example, repeatedly laments the damage caused by “false apostles.” (See, for instance, 2 Corinthians 11:13–15.) Apostolic faces weren’t familiar to people who had never met them before.

For these and other reasons, as I say, it’s difficult for me to imagine how the ancient church could ever have survived without serious deformation and distortion. And we know by divine revelation that, in fact, it didn’t. That is why the Restoration was necessary.

Especially in America, Latter-day Saints often affirm that the freedoms afforded by the United States were established in order to enable the restoration of the Gospel and the Church, which presumably could not have survived under the state churches and oppressive governments of earlier European centuries. There is truth in this, I think. But we should not neglect the preparation of the path for the Restoration via new means of transportation and communication. These have, in their own way, made possible the rise of a unified global church. They are indispensable if “the stone . . . cut out of the mountain without hands” is really to fill “the whole earth.” (Daniel 2:45, 35.)

Movable type and printing had already made books relatively inexpensive long before Joseph Smith’s birth, and, by that means, had rendered literacy something worthwhile for common people. “I defy the Pope and all his laws,” the great English Bible translator William Tyndale (d. AD 1536) had said. “If God spared [my] life, ere many years [I will] cause a boy that driveth the plough to know more of the Scripture, than he did.” [1]

Thus, by the time of the founding of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints on 6 April 1830, each potential Latter-day Saint convert could own and read the scriptures for herself, and each could easily receive instructions via church periodicals. Very shortly thereafter, railroad travel began to be commonly established. And steamships. And the telegraph. Then came aviation, and ever more rapid travel around the world. Today’s Church leaders can watch over the kingdom, and intervene where necessary, via telephone, faxes, and the Internet. Indeed, a modern apostle can be virtually anywhere on the planet, if need be, within a day. The apostle Paul couldn’t have conceived of such easy movement:

Of the Jews five times received I forty stripes save one.

Thrice was I beaten with rods, once was I stoned, thrice I suffered shipwreck, a night and a day I have been in the deep;

In journeyings often, in perils of waters, in perils of robbers, in perils by mine own countrymen, in perils by the heathen, in perils in the city, in perils in the wilderness, in perils in the sea, in perils among false brethren;

In weariness and painfulness, in watchings often, in hunger and thirst, in fastings often, in cold and nakedness. (2 Corinthians 11:24–27)

Which brings me to this journal, and to The Interpreter Foundation. A few months ago, someone observed to me that the Foundation for Ancient Research and Mormon Studies (FARMS) had, conceptually at least, been an Internet organization avant la lettre—that is, before there actually was an Internet. The initial, limited goal of the organization was to bring together a network of scholars who had been working, often in isolation, on the Book of Mormon and related matters, and to facilitate their sharing of their work, both with each other and with a small interested public.

But, given the means of communication of the day, we were basically limited to print, conferences, and the occasional fireside. And the people centrally involved in FARMS, which would later be called the Institute for the Study and Preservation of Ancient Religious Texts, and, ultimately, the Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship, had to be in reasonably close geographical proximity to Brigham Young University and to each other.

Now, though, The Interpreter Foundation can carry on the vision of those who founded, nurtured, and led FARMS in a way that very few could have imagined even several years ago, let alone back in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Our Executive Board includes members from various points in Utah, but also from Alberta, Florida, Missouri, New Mexico, Pennsylvania, and Washington DC, and we’re in constant and easy communication with one another, including by videoconference. Our overall board of editors is even more far flung (including people in Hawaii, Ireland, and Italy), and a videoconference for the whole board is planned. The Foundation posts weekly “scripture roundtables” during which, thus far, discussants based in California, Michigan, New Mexico, Utah, and Ireland have carried on conversations with one another, in real time, about scriptural texts.

I find such things truly stunning, and I’m grateful for all those who have made it possible. The remarkable spirit of volunteerism and dedication that created and built FARMS lives on in The Interpreter Foundation, and is visibly apparent in the pages of this journal. The Foundation is more agile, more nimble, than the old FARMS ever was. I thank those who have donated time and effort to the cause, as well as those who have begun, very generously, to give of their money and means. In particular, I’m grateful right now to the authors of the pieces in this issue of Interpreter: A Journal of Mormon Scripture, to the proof readers and peer reviewers who work the articles over during our editorial process, and to Alison V. P. Coutts, Tanya Spackman, and Bryce M. Haymond, who prepare these pieces for actual publication.

Interpreter’s achievements to this point are remarkable. Amazing. And they’re going to get even better still. This effort is in its infancy.

Daniel C. Peterson (PhD, University of California at Los Angeles) is a professor of Islamic studies and Arabic at Brigham Young University and is the founder and editor-in-chief of the University’s Middle Eastern Texts Initiative. He has published and spoken extensively on both Islamic and Mormon subjects. Formerly chairman of the board of the Foundation for Ancient Research and Mormon Studies (FARMS) and an officer, editor, and author for its successor organization, the Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship, his professional work as an Arabist focuses on the Qur’an and on Islamic philosophical theology. He is the author, among other things, of a biography entitled Muhammad: Prophet of God (Eerdmans, 2007).

[1]  .  John Foxe, Foxe’s Book of Martyrs: An Edition for the People (New York: Eaton and Mains, 1911, repr. Greenville, NC: Ambassador International, 2005), 139.

Ancient Affinities
within the LDS Book of Enoch

Part One

Jeffrey M. Bradshaw and David J. Larsen

Abstract: In this article, we will examine affinities between ancient extracanonical sources and a collection of modern revelations that Joseph Smith termed “extracts from the Prophecy of Enoch.” We build on the work of previous scholars, revisiting their findings with the benefit of subsequent scholarship. Following a perspective on the LDS canon and an introduction to the LDS Enoch revelations, we will focus on relevant passages in pseudepigrapha and LDS scripture within three episodes in the Mormon Enoch narrative: Enoch’s prophetic commission, Enoch’s encounters with the “gibborim,” and the weeping and exaltation of Enoch and his people.

There are few other branches of Christianity that revere Holy Scripture as do the Latter-day Saints. Paradoxically, no other Christian faith has felt such liberty—or rather such necessity—to add to and even revise it continually. This is because Latter-day Saints are not fundamentally a “People of the Book” [1] but instead a “People of Continuing Revelation.” [2] In other words, not only do they subscribe to the idea of an enlarged canon through official acceptance of three additional books of scripture besides the Bible, but they also accept the concept of an open and growing canon,[3] regarding efforts to “harden on the all-sufficiency or only-sufficiency of any part of scripture” as tantamount “to prais[ing] the cup and reject[ing] the fountain.” [4] Thus, members of the Church hold that sacred texts are not only susceptible to a “plainer translation” (D&C 128:18), but also open to the possibility of significant expansion and elaboration through the living spirit of prophecy.[5] To Latter-day Saints, a closed and immutable canon is inconsistent with the idea of God’s continuing revelation as expressed in our ninth Article of Faith: “We believe in all that God has revealed, all that he does now reveal, and we believe that he will yet reveal many great and important things pertaining to the kingdom of God.” [6]

An expanded and revised version of material contained in this article will appear as part of Jeffrey M. Bradshaw, et al., Enoch, Noah, and the Tower of Babel. In God’s Image and Likeness 2 (forthcoming). Translations of non-English sources are by the first author unless otherwise noted.

In a paper written in 1985, George Nickelsburg explored a similar stance in primitive Christianity. This is the idea that “the early Christians, and some Jews before them, based their exclusivistic stance on the claim they had received divine revelation.” [7] Prominent among the sectarian Jews who accepted this claim were those who accepted purported revelations found within the collection of books we now call 1 Enoch as well as the people of Qumran who preserved the Dead Sea Scrolls. Likewise, Nickelsburg asserts that early Jewish Christians, while more open to Gentile outsiders, appear “to have adopted the sectarian Jewish approach that asserted the validity of its position by claiming divine revelation. Salvation was tied exclusively to the person and activity of Jesus of Nazareth.” [8] Nickelsburg’s description of the twofold irony of the Christian position will not be lost on those who realize its resemblance to the relationship between Mormonism and mainstream Christianity: “A young, upstart group . . . was asserting that it was more authentic than its parent group. And this attitude of superiority and exclusivism was derived, in part, from ideas and attitudes already present in the parent body.” [9]

Of course, in saying this, it must be recognized that Latter-day Saints share a core of essential, biblically based beliefs in common with other Christians. Paramount among these beliefs is that salvation comes only “in and through the grace of God” (2 Nephi 10:24. Cf. Ephesians 2:8) and “the name of Christ” (Mosiah 3:17. Cf. Acts 4:12). We also agree with Nickelsburg’s commendable charge to all Christian scholars to “build wisely, responsibly, and with love both for those within the immediate community of faith and for those within the broader community.” [10] However, it must be recognized that the bold claim of continuing revelation is not a mere footnote to LDS teachings but the very heart of the faith. Mormons realize that denying this claim would be, to use the apt metaphor of Nickelsburg, more than “simply pulling a little theological splinter that has been the source of great irritation” in the interest of promoting “a new, wiser, and more loving and ecumenical age,” but rather tantamount to performing “radical surgery on a vital organ of the faith.” [11] In submitting to such surgery, the patient would not be risking his life, but rather ending it.

That the enthusiastic stance of welcome in the LDS faith for additional discoveries of the word of God includes parts of the Apocrypha—and also perhaps, certain more problematic pseudepigraphal writings of complex and uncertain provenance—is affirmed in a revelation that Joseph Smith received in 1833:

Verily, thus saith the Lord unto you concerning the Apocrypha—There are many things contained therein that are true, and it is mostly translated correctly; There are many things contained therein that are not true, which are interpolations by the hands of men. . . . Therefore, whoso readeth it, let him understand, for the Spirit manifesteth truth; And whoso is enlightened by the Spirit shall obtain benefit therefrom. (D&C 91:1–5)

Although Mormons do not count any of the pseudepigraphal works of Enoch among the books of their canon, the prophetic word that “whoso is enlightened by the Spirit shall obtain benefit” (D&C 91:5) from the Apocrypha leads us to consider seriously what light extracanonical writings can shed on our scripture, doctrine, and teachings—and vice versa. In such matters, seership and scholarship can go comfortably hand in hand. As Terryl S. Givens astutely observed: “Our contemporary condescension in this regard was clearly foreign to a prophet who showed the world he could translate gold plates written in Reformed Egyptian, then[, a few years later,] hired a Jewish schoolmaster to teach him Hebrew.” [12]

Givens notes that this paradoxical “two-pronged approach” to the search for religious truth is characteristic of Mormonism. It is “a group embrace of a rhetoric of absolute self-assurance about spiritual truths” revealed directly from God—“coexisting with a conception of education as the endless and eternal acquisition of the knowledge that leads to godhood.” The seriousness with which Joseph Smith took both aspects of this two-pronged approach

is to be fathomed from its timing and growing direction in the context of his own prophetic career: after the youthful leader had established his credentials as Prophet and translator, after he had personally manifested his power to reveal the fulness of saving truth directly from heaven, and after he claimed receipt of authority to perform all saving ordinances in the new church. At that moment when he had powerfully demonstrated to his followers the irrelevance of priestly training, clerical degrees, and scholarly credentials . . . [13]

he opened a school where he along with his followers could acquire a classroom education.[14] In a revelation given at the subsequent dedication of the first Mormon temple, the charge to the Saints to embrace a two-pronged vision of learning was made explicit: “[S]eek ye out of the best books words of wisdom; seek learning, even by study and also by faith.”[15]

Carrying that vision of learning forward to our day, an enthusiastic cadre of Latter-day Saint scholars has essayed to discover and understand affinities between LDS expansions of biblical narratives and ancient sources from outside the Bible. With these efforts in mind, Truman G. Madsen wisely provided both caution and encouragement to such scholars:

Surface resemblance may conceal profound difference. It requires competence, much goodwill and bold caution properly to distinguish what is remotely parallel, what is like, what is very like, and what is identical. It is harder still to trace these threads to original influences and beginnings. But on the whole the Mormon expects to find, not just in the Judeo-Christian background but in all religious traditions, elements of commonality which, if they do not outweigh elements of contrast, do reflect that all-inclusive diffusion of primal religious concern and contact with God—the light “which lighteth every man that cometh into the world” (John 1:9). If the outcome of hard archeological, historical, and comparative discoveries in the past century is an embarrassment to exclusivistic readings of religion, that, to the Mormon, is a kind of confirmation and vindication. His faith assures him not only that Jesus anticipated his great predecessors (who were really successors) but that hardly a teaching or a practice is utterly distinct or peculiar or original in his earthly ministry. Jesus was not a plagiarist, unless that is the proper name for one who repeats himself. He was the original author. The gospel of Jesus Christ came with Christ in the meridian of time only because the gospel of Jesus Christ came from Christ in prior dispensations. He did not teach merely a new twist on a syncretic-Mediterranean tradition. His earthly ministry enacted what had been planned and anticipated “from before the foundations of the world,” [16] and from Adam down. [17]

In this article, we will examine affinities between ancient extracanonical sources and a collection of modern revelations that Joseph Smith termed “extracts from the Prophecy of Enoch.” [18] This article builds on the work of scholars intrigued by LDS accounts of Enoch, in particular the pioneering insights of Hugh W. Nibley. Regrettably, after he completed his initial studies of the relationship between ancient documents and Joseph Smith’s Enoch revelations in 1978,[19] Nibley turned his attention to other subjects and never again took up a sustained study of Enoch. Now, more than thirty years later, it is time to revisit his findings with the benefit of subsequent scholarship. Following an introduction to the LDS Enoch revelations, we will focus on relevant passages in pseudepigrapha and LDS scripture within three episodes in the Mormon Enoch narrative:

- Enoch’s prophetic commission

- Enoch’s encounters with the gibborim

- The weeping and exaltation of Enoch and his people

Introduction to the LDS Enoch Revelations

Both in the expansive nature of its content and the eloquence of its expression, Terryl and Fiona Givens consider the LDS account of Enoch as perhaps the “most remarkable religious document published in the nineteenth century.”[20] It was produced early in Joseph Smith’s ministry—in fact in the same year as the publication of the Book of Mormon—as part of a divine commission to “retranslate” the Bible.[21] Writing the account of Enoch occupied a part of the Prophet’s attention for a month from 30 November to 31 December 1830. Later, the first eight chapters of the Joseph Smith Translation of Genesis, which included two chapters on Enoch, were separately canonized as the Book of Moses.[22]

Joseph Smith’s “Book of Enoch” provides “eighteen times as many column inches about Enoch . . . than we have in the few verses on him in the Bible. Those scriptures not only contain greater quantity [than the Bible] but also . . . contain . . . [abundant] new material about Enoch on which the Bible is silent.” [23] This material was not derived from deep study of the scriptures [24] or from exposure to the extracanonical Enoch literature,[25] nor was it absorbed from Masonic or hermetical influences.[26] Rather, according to the eminent Yale professor and Jewish literary scholar Harold Bloom, Joseph Smith’s ability to produce writings on Enoch so “strikingly akin to ancient suggestions” stemmed from his “charismatic accuracy, his sure sense of relevance that governed biblical and Mormon parallels.” Having studied the life and revelations of the Prophet, Bloom concludes: “I hardly think that written sources were necessary.” While expressing “no judgment, one way or the other, upon the authenticity” of LDS scripture, he found “enormous validity” in these writings and could “only attribute to [the Prophet’s] genius or daemon” his ability to “recapture . . . crucial elements in the archaic Jewish religion . . . . that had ceased to be available either to normative Judaism or to Christianity, and that survived only in esoteric traditions unlikely to have touched [Joseph] Smith directly.” [27]

Before proceeding further with our examination of extracanonical affinities with the Enoch chapters in the Book of Moses, some cautionary words relating to the Prophet’s translation process are in order. Though some revelatory passages in the Joseph Smith Translation of the Bible seem to have remarkable congruencies with ancient texts, we think it is fruitless to rely on JST Genesis as a means for uncovering an Enoch Urtext. Mormons understand that the primary intent of modern revelation is for divine guidance to latter-day readers, not to provide precise matches to texts from other times. Because this is so, in fact we would expect to find deliberate deviations from the content and wording of ancient manuscripts in Joseph Smith’s translations in the interest of clarity and relevance to modern readers. As one LDS apostle expressed it, “the Holy Spirit does not quote the Scriptures, but gives Scripture.” [28] If we keep this perspective in mind, we will be less surprised with the appearance of New Testament terms such as “Jesus Christ” in Joseph Smith’s revelations when the title “the Son of Man” would be more in line with ancient Enoch texts.[29]

The LDS accounts of Enoch combine both ancient elements and the results of subsequent prophetic shaping to enhance intelligibility and relevance for our day. This should not be a foreign concept to readers of the Book of Mormon familiar with the history of how its editors wove separate, overlapping records from earlier times into the finished scriptural narrative.[30] Indeed, the Book of Mormon prophet Nephi explicitly admitted such prophetic shaping when he wrote: “I did liken all scriptures unto us, that it might be for our profit and learning” (1 Nephi 19:23).[31]

As evidence for this perspective, we note Philip Barlow’s conclusions that during the process of Bible translation, Joseph Smith made several types of changes. These changes ranged from “long revealed additions that have little or no biblical parallel, such as the visions of Moses and Enoch, and the passage on Melchizedek” to “common-sense” changes and interpretive additions, to “grammatical improvements, technical clarifications, and modernization of terms”—the latter the most common type of change.[32] Of course, even in the case of passages that seem to be explicitly revelatory, it remained to the Prophet to exercise considerable personal effort in rendering these experiences into words (cf. D&C 9:7–9). As Kathleen Flake puts it, Joseph Smith did not see himself as “God’s stenographer. Rather, he was an interpreting reader, and God the confirming authority.” [33]

Though Joseph Smith was careful in his efforts to render a faithful translation of the Bible, he was no naïve advocate of the inerrancy or finality of scriptural language.[34] His criterion for the acceptability of a given translation was pragmatic rather than absolute. For example, after quoting a verse from Malachi in a letter to the Saints, he admitted that he “might have rendered a plainer translation.” However, he said that it was satisfactory in this case because the words were “sufficiently plain to suit [the] purpose as it stands,” (D&C 128:18). This pragmatic approach is also evident both in the scriptural passages cited to him by heavenly messengers and in his preaching and translations. In these the wording of Bible verses was often varied to suit the occasion.[35]

For this reason, we should not presume that the Joseph Smith Translation of the Bible is currently in any sort of “final” form—if indeed such perfection in expression could ever be attained within the confines of what Joseph Smith called our “little, narrow prison, almost as it were, total darkness of paper, pen and ink; and a crooked, broken, scattered and imperfect language.”[36] As Robert J. Matthews, a pioneer of modern scholarship on the JST, aptly put it: “[A]ny part of the translation might have been further touched upon and improved by additional revelation and emendation by the Prophet.” [37]

There is an additional reason we should not think of the JST as transmitted to us in its “final” form. Our study of the translations, teachings, and revelations of Joseph Smith has convinced us that he sometimes knew much more about certain sacred matters than he taught publicly. For example, in some cases, we know that the Prophet deliberately delayed the publication of early temple-related revelations connected with his work on the JST until several years after he initially received them.[38] Even after Joseph Smith was well along in the Bible translation process, he seems to have believed that God did not intend for him to publish the JST. Writing to W.W. Phelps in 1832, he said: “I would inform you that [the Bible translation] will not go from under my hand during my natural life for correction, [revision], or printing and the will of [the] Lord be done.” [39] Although in later years Joseph Smith reversed his position and apparently made serious efforts to prepare the manuscript of the JST for publication, his own statement makes it clear that initially he did not feel authorized to share publicly all that he had produced—and learned—during the translation process. Indeed, a prohibition against indiscriminate sharing of some of the most sacred revelations, which parallels similar cautions found in pseudepigrapha,[40] is made explicit in the Book of Moses when it says of sacred portions of the account: “Show them not unto any except them that believe.” [41] Such statements are consistent with a remembrance of a statement by Joseph Smith that he intended to go back and rework some portions of the Bible translation to add in truths he was previously “restrained . . . from giving in plainness and fulness.” [42]

Taken together, these reasons suggest that in our exploration of ancient affinities with modern revelation, we should be wary of claims that the JST or the book of Enoch in particular constitutes a restoration of the “original” text of the Bible or of any extracanonical text. With this limitation in mind, any resemblances between the JST and ancient texts become all the more significant.

We will begin our study with an examination of the prophetic commission of Enoch.

Enoch’s Prophetic Commission

Joseph Smith’s account of Enoch’s prophetic commission begins as follows: “And it came to pass that Enoch journeyed in the land, among the people; and as he journeyed, the Spirit of God descended out of heaven, and abode upon him. And he heard a voice from heaven, saying: Enoch, my son, prophesy unto this people” (Moses 6:26–27).

Curiously, the closest biblical parallel to the wording of these opening verses is not to be found in the call of any Old Testament prophet but rather in John the Evangelist’s description of events following Jesus’s baptism where, like Enoch, he saw “the Spirit descending from heaven” and that it “abode on him” (i.e, Jesus; John 1:34).[43] Two additional parallels with Jesus’s baptism follow: first in the specific mention of a “voice from heaven” (Matthew 3:27), then in the proclamation of divine sonship by the Father (Mark 1:11).[44] The connection between Enoch’s divine encounter and the baptism of Jesus becomes intelligible when one regards the latter event, as do Margaret Barker and Gaetano Lettieri, as an “ascent experience” [45] consistent with the idea of baptism as a figurative death and resurrection (Romans 6:4–6). From this perspective, Enoch’s prophetic commission may be seen as given him in the context of a heavenly ascent.

In his masterful commentary on the book of Ezekiel, Walther Zimmerli “distinguishes between two types of prophetic call in the Bible—the ‘narrative’ type, which includes a dialogue with God or other divine interlocutor; and the ‘throne theophany’ type, which introduces the prophetic commission with a vision of the heavenly throne of God.” [46] Following Norman Habel, Stephen Ricks distinguishes six characteristic features of the narrative call pattern:

1. the divine confrontation

2. the introductory word

3. the commission

4. the objection

5. the reassurance

6. the sign [47]

Drawing on Ricks’s discussion in which he shows how the six features apply in the account of the commissioning of Enoch, we will highlight selected details of this pattern. Following the “divine confrontation” (Moses 6:26), and the “introductory word” (Moses 6:27–30). Enoch’s “objection” reads as follows “And when Enoch had heard these words, he bowed himself to the earth, before the Lord, and spake before the Lord, saying: Why is it that I have found favor in thy sight, and am but a lad, and all the people hate me; for I am slow of speech; wherefore am I thy servant?” (Moses 6:31).

Obvious similarities with the calls of Moses and Jeremiah present themselves in this verse. Moses responds to his call as follows: “Who am I, that I should go unto Pharaoh, and that I should bring forth the children of Israel out of Egypt?” (Exodus 3:11). Later Moses objects more specifically in saying that he was “slow of speech, and of a slow tongue” (Exodus 4:10). Jeremiah complains by saying: “Ah, Lord God! behold, I cannot speak: for I am a child”( Jeremiah 1:6). Enoch combines the objections of Moses and Jeremiah, adding that “all the people hate me” (Moses 6:31).

LDS readers have often puzzled over Enoch’s self-description as a “lad”—though he was sixty-five at the time. This is the only instance of the term lad in the teachings and revelations of Joseph Smith. The use of this term by Joseph Smith is of special interest considering the prominence of “lad” as a title for Enoch in the pseudepigraphal books of 2 Enoch and 3 Enoch.[48] Gary A. Anderson of Notre Dame writes the following about the references in 2 Enoch:

The acclamation of Enoch as “lad” [49] is curious. It certainly recalls the question that began the story: “Why are you called ‘lad’ by [those] in the heights of heaven?” It is worth noting that of all the names given Enoch, the title “lad” is singled out as being particularly apt and fitting by the heavenly host. Evidently the seventy names were of a more general order of knowledge than the specific title “lad.” . . . In any event, the reason our text supplies for this title is deceptively simple and straightforward: “And because I was the youngest among them and a ‘lad’ amongst them with respect to days, months, and years, therefore they called me ‘lad.’ ” [50]

Although Anderson reports that “[m]ost scholars have not been satisfied with the simple and somewhat naïve answer the text supplies”[51] and have instead formulated a variety of more elaborate hypotheses for the name, Enoch’s explanation for his title of “lad” in the Joseph Smith account fits the “simple and straightforward” explanation given in 2 Enoch.

God’s “reassurance” to Enoch in light of his “objection” reads as follows: “And the Lord said unto Enoch: Go forth and do as I have commanded thee, and no man shall pierce thee. Open thy mouth, and it shall be filled, and I will give thee utterance” (Moses 6:32).

God’s promise that “no man shall pierce thee” recalls a corresponding event in a Mandaean account of Enoch’s call. Note that his description as “little Enoch,” corresponding to Enoch’s title of “lad” here appears in the context of his prophetic call while on the course of a journey,[52] just as it does in Joseph Smith’s Enoch account: “Little Enoch, fear not. You dread the dangers of this world; I am come to you to deliver you from them. Fear not the wicked, and be not afraid that the floods will rise up on your head; for their efforts will be vain: it shall not be given them to do any harm to thee.” [53] Later in the same Mandaean account Enoch’s cosmic enemies confirm the fulfillment of the divine promise of protection for Enoch when they admit their utter failure to thwart the prophet and his fellows: “In vain have we attempted murder and fire against them; nothing has been able to overcome them. And now [i.e., after he and his people have ascended to heaven] they are sheltered from our blows.” [54]

When Enoch is told: “Open thy mouth, and it shall be filled,” the obvious parallel is with Moses, who was also told that the Lord would “be with” his mouth and teach him what to say (Exodus 4:12). However, an equally good parallel is found again in the Enoch literature. In 2 Enoch 39:5, Enoch avers: “it is not from my own lips that I am reporting to you today, but from the lips of the Lord I have been sent to you. For you hear my words, out of my lips, a human being created exactly equal to yourselves; but I have heard from the fiery lips of the Lord.” [55]

Joseph Smith’s Enoch will manifest God’s power not only through his words but also through his actions: “The mountains shall flee before you, and the rivers shall turn from their course” (Moses 6:34). Later in the Book of Moses we read the fulfillment of this promise: “So great was the faith of Enoch that . . . the rivers of water were turned out of their course”(Moses 7:13). Compare the striking similarity of Enoch’s experience in the Book of Moses to the Mandaean account: “The [Supreme] Life replied, Arise, take thy way to the source of the waters, turn it from its course. . . At this command Tavril [the angel speaking to Enoch] indeed turned the pure water from its course.” [56]

We find no account of a river’s course turned by anyone anywhere in the Bible; the only two places it appears are in this pseudepigraphal account and in its counterpart in Joseph Smith’s revelations—in both instances within the story of Enoch.

Next, Enoch’s eyes are washed and “opened”: “And the Lord spake unto Enoch, and said unto him: Anoint thine eyes with clay, and wash them, and thou shalt see [Cf. John 9:6–7]. And he did so. And he beheld the spirits that God had created; and he beheld also things which were not visible to the natural eye; and from thenceforth came the saying abroad in the land: A seer hath the Lord raised up unto his people” (Moses 6:35–36).

As a sign of their prophetic calling, the lips of Isaiah (see Isaiah 6:5–7) and Jeremiah (Jeremiah 1:9) were touched to prepare them for their roles as divine spokesmen. However, in the case of both Joseph Smith’s revelations and the pseudepigrapha Enoch’s eyes “were opened by God” [57] to enable “the vision of the Holy One and of heaven.” [58] The words of a divinely given song recorded in Joseph Smith’s Revelation Book 2 [59] are in remarkable agreement with 1 Enoch: “[God] touched [Enoch’s] eyes and he saw heaven.” [60] This divine action would have had special meaning to Joseph Smith, who alluded elsewhere to instances in which God touched his own eyes before he received a heavenly vision.[61]

The description of the anointing of the eyes with clay in the Book of Moses recalls the healing by Jesus of the man born blind (John 9:6–7).[62] Craig Keener observes that “by making clay of the spittle and applying it to eyes blind from birth, Jesus may be recalling the creative act of Genesis 2:7” [63] (cf. John 20:22), a fitting analog to the spiritual rebirth of Enoch in Joseph Smith’s revelation.

Having examined ancient affinities in the prophetic commission of Enoch, we will turn our attention in part 2 of this article to the events of his subsequent teaching mission and to the exaltation of Enoch and his people.

Jeffrey M. Bradshaw (PhD, University of Washington) is a Senior Research Scientist at the Florida Institute for Human and Machine Cognition (IHMC) in Pensacola, Florida (www.ihmc.us/groups/jbradshaw/). His professional writings have explored a wide range of topics in human and machine intelligence. Jeff has written a detailed commentary on the first five chapters of the book of Moses (In God’s Image and Likeness, Eborn, 2010) and, with David Larsen, is currently preparing a second volume on the stories of Enoch, Noah, and the Tower of Babel (www.templethemes.net). He has also authored Temple Themes in the Book of Moses, Temple Themes in the Oath and Covenant of the Priesthood, and articles on temple studies and the ancient Near East for Studies in the Bible and Antiquity, Element: A Journal of Mormon Philosophy and Theology, and BYU Studies.

David J. Larsen is a PhD candidate at the University of St Andrews in Scotland and is currently finishing his dissertation, “Royal Themes in the Psalms and in the Dead Sea Scrolls.” He holds an MA degree in Biblical Theology from Marquette University and a BA in Near East Studies from Brigham Young University.  His research interests include Jewish and Christian apocalyptic and mysticism, pseudepigrapha and apocryphal literature,royal/messianic themes in the Bible and in the Dead Sea Scrolls, and “ascent to heaven” traditions. He is the author of the blog heavenlyascents.com, where he explores topics in early Jewish and Christian mysticism, LDS theology, and other topics in religious studies. He currently lives in Springville, Utah with his wife, Marluce, and their four children.

[1]  .  Muslims refer to Jews and Christians (along with themselves) as ahl al-kitab, meaning roughly “The People of the Book,” thus recognizing these groups as having faith rooted in genuine revelation from God. See Richard C. Martin, ed. Encyclopedia of Islam and the Muslim World. 2 vols. (New York, City: Macmillan Reference USA, Gale Group, Thomson Learning, 2004), 1:27–29. The “Book” in question is not the Qur’an or any single work of scripture but rather the complete and perfect heavenly archetype from which all authentically revealed texts that have been sent down “gradually” since the time of Adam, were originally derived, see at-Tabataba’i Allamah as-Sayyid Muhammad Husayn, Al-Mizan: An Exegesis of the Qur’an, trans. Sayyid Saeed Akhtar Rizvi. 3rd ed. (Teheran: World Organization for Islamic Services, 1983), 5:8–9, 79–80; cf. Qur’an 25:32; John Wansbrough, Qur’anic Studies: Sources and Methods of Scriptural Interpretation (Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 2004), 83, 170; Brannon M. Wheeler, ed., Prophets in the Quran: An Introduction to the Quran and Muslim Exegesis. Comparative Islam Studies (London: Continuum, 2002), 3–4; Qur’an 3:315–136, 85:21–22. Though Muslims believe that Jews and Christians have since embraced many errors because of subsequent corruption of their respective books of scripture (at-Tabataba’i, Al-Mizan, 3:79–80, 5:10–11, 6:184–219; Tarif Khalidi, ed. and trans. The Muslim Jesus: Sayings and Stories in Islamic Literature. Convergences: Inventories of the Present [Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2001], 20), their faiths are held in higher esteem than the faiths of those who do not accept Abraham, Moses, or Jesus. See Qur’an 2:105; Zachary Karabell, Peace Be upon You: The Story of Muslim, Christian, and Jewish Coexistence (New York City: Knopf, 2007), 19–20; Daniel C. Peterson, “Muhammad,” in The Rivers of Paradise: Moses, Buddha, Confucius, Jesus, and Muhammad as Religious Founders, ed. David Noel Freedman and Michael J. McClymond (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2001), 590–91).

[2]  .  Dallin H. Oaks, “Scripture Reading and Revelation.” Ensign, January 1995, 7.

[3]  .  2 Nephi 29:3–14; Alexander B. Morrison, “The Latter-day Saint Concept of Canon,” in Historicity and the Latter-day Saint Scriptures, ed. Paul Y. Hoskisson Provo, UT: BYU Religious Studies Center, 2001), 3–4. By way of contrast to the common Christian belief in a closed canon, Peterson laments that: “The creation of a canon commences when revelation is thought to have come to a halt, and in turn the concept of a canon reinforces the notion that revelation has ceased,” Peterson, “Muhammad,” 597.

[4]  .  Madsen, “Introductory Essay,” xv. Madsen further explains: “Mormons seem to be biblicistic and literalistic. But it is the recognition that the Bible is in central parts clear narrative, an account of genuine persons involved in genuine events, that is characteristic … Creation was an event; the Resurrection occurred. The religious experiences chronicled in the book of Acts are acts in a book. The Bible, the point is, becomes thus a temporal document just as much as it is spiritual. And the same can be said for other Mormon scriptural writings. They too are “time-bound”; they cannot be understood in a non-historical way. They arise from and, it is hoped, return to the concrete realities of the human predicament” (p. xv). For more about LDS perspectives on the historicity of scripture, see Jeffrey M. Bradshaw, “Excursus 13: Some Perspectives on Historicity,” Ancient and Modern Perspectives on the Book of Moses: In God’s Image and Likeness 1 (Salt Lake City: Eborn Publishing, 2010), 552–53.

[5]  .  Joseph F. Smith, Gospel Doctrine (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1986), 36–37.

[6]  .  Thus, Elder Neal A. Maxwell’s comment: “Today we carry convenient quadruple combinations of the scriptures. But one day, since more scriptures are coming, we may need to pull little red wagons brim with books,” Neal A. Maxwell, A Wonderful Flood of Light (Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1990), 18. He added, “Of course, computers may replace wagons,” Neal A. Maxwell, The Neal A. Maxwell Quote Book (Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1997), 298.

[7]  .  George W. E. Nickelsburg,“Revealed Wisdom as a Criterion for Inclusion and Exclusion: From Jewish Sectarianism to Early Christianity,” in “To See Ourselves as Others See Us”: Christians, Jews, “Others” in Late Antiquity, ed. Jacob Neusner and Ernest S. Frerichs (Chico, CA: Scholars, 1985), 73, emphasis added.

[8]  .  Nickelsburg, “Revealed Wisdom,”89.

[9]  .  Nickelsburg, “Revealed Wisdom,” 73.

[10]  .  Nickelsburg, “Revealed Wisdom,” 91.

[11]  .  Nickelsburg, “Revealed Wisdom,” 91.

[12]  .  Terryl L. Givens, “Dialectic and Reciprocity in ‘Faithful Scholarship’: Preexistence as a Case Study,” paper presented at the Annual Conference of Mormon Scholars in the Humanities, Provo, UT, March 22, 2007.

[13]  .  Terryl L. Givens, People of Paradox: A History of Mormon Culture (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007), 74.

[14]  .  See, e.g., D&C 88:79.

[15]  .  D&C 109:7, 14. See also D&C 88:118.

[16]  .  See, e.g., John 17:24; Ephesians 1:4; 1 Peter 1:20; Alma 22:13; D&C 130:20; Moses 5:57; Abraham 1:3.

[17]  .  Truman G. Madsen, “Introductory Essay,” in Reflections on Mormonism: Judeo-Christian Parallels, Papers Delivered at the Religious Studies Center Symposium, Brigham Young University, March 10-11, 1978, ed. Truman G. Madsen (Provo, UT: BYU Religious Studies Center, 1978), xvii. The Prophet Joseph Smith taught: “Some say that the kingdom of God was not set up on the earth until the day of Pentecost … but, I say in the name of the Lord, that the kingdom of God was set up on the earth from the days of Adam to the present time. Whenever there has been a righteous man on earth unto whom God revealed His word and gave power and authority to administer in His name, and where there is a priest of God—a minister who has power and authority from God to administer in the ordinances of the gospel and officiate in the priesthood of God, there is the kingdom of God. . . . Where there is a prophet, a priest, or a righteous man unto whom God gives His oracles, there is the kingdom of God; and where the oracles of God are not, there the kingdom of God is not,” Joseph Smith, Jr., Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1969), 22 January 1843, pp. 21–22).

[18]  .  Joseph Smith, Jr., History of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Documentary History), 7 vols. (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1978), December 1830, 1:133.

[19]  .  Nibley’s chief works on Enoch have been conveniently collected in Hugh W. Nibley, Enoch the Prophet (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book), 1986.

[20]  .  Terryl L. Givens and Fiona Givens, The God Who Weeps: How Mormonism Makes Sense of Life (Salt Lake City: Ensign Peak, 2012), 24.

[21]  .  Bradshaw, God’s Image 1, 1–9. Joseph Smith’s “translation” did not involve the study of original manuscripts in ancient languages but was the result of his prophetic gifts.

[22]  .  Bradshaw, God’s Image 1, 8–9.

[23]  .  Maxwell, Flood, 31. For the quantitative comparison, Elder Maxwell cites a letter to him dated August 12, 1988, from Robert J. Matthews, late LDS scholar of the Joseph Smith Translation of the Bible. Richard L. Bushman computes a roughly similar ratio: “In Genesis, Enoch is summed up in 5 verses; in Joseph Smith’s revision, Enoch’s story extends to 110 verses,” Richard L. Bushman, Joseph Smith: Rough Stone Rolling, A Cultural Biography of Mormonism’s Founder (New York City: Knopf, 2005), 138.

[24]  .  The proportion of Joseph Smith’s book of Enoch that could have been derived straightforwardly from the five relevant verses in the Bible is very small. Moreover, Joseph Smith’s mother wrote that as a boy he “had never read the Bible through in his life: he seemed much less inclined to the perusal of books than any of the rest of our children, but far more given to meditation and deep study,” Lucy M. Smith, Lucy’s Book: A Critical Edition of Lucy Mack Smith’s Family Memoir (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 2001); Martha Coray/ Orson Pratt 1853 version, p. 344. Contra Michael Quinn’s claim cited in Lucy’s Book, 344 n. 47, Philip Barlow sees “no reason to doubt such memories,” though he does note the “potent biblicism” of his environs, recollections by a neighbor of Bible study in the Smith home, and how young Joseph “searched the scriptures” as he experienced the “revivalistic fires of the surrounding ‘burnt-over district,’” Philip L. Barlow, Mormons and the Bible: The Place of the Latter-day Saints in American Religion (New York: Oxford University Press, 1991), 13. It is hard to imagine, however, that the story of Enoch would have been a focus of attention for any early encounters that Joseph Smith had with the book of Genesis in his home or community. Observe also that the “restrained, assured, and polished” nature of Joseph Smith’s prose from his later years (Barlow, Mormons and the Bible, 15) was not evident in his early personal writings to the degree found in his very first translations and revelations. Indeed, Joseph Smith’s wife Emma testified that during the time he was fully engaged in translation, her husband “could neither write nor dictate a coherent and well-worded letter; let alone dictating a book like the Book of Mormon. And, though I was an active participant in the scenes that transpired, and was present during the translation of the plates, and had cognizance of things as they transpired, it is marvelous to me, ‘a marvel and a wonder,’ as much so as to anyone else,” Joseph Smith, III, “Last Testimony of Sister Emma.” Saints’ Herald 26 (1879), 290.

[25]  .  In his master’s thesis, Salvatore Cirillo cites and amplifies the arguments of D. Michael Quinn, Early Mormonism and the Magic World View rev. and enl. ed. (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1998), 193 that the available evidence that Joseph Smith had access to published works related to 1 Enoch has moved “beyond probability—to fact.” He sees no other explanation than this for the substantial similarities that he finds between the Book of Moses and the pseudepigraphal Enoch literature (Salvatore Cirillo, “Joseph Smith, Mormonism and Enochic Tradition,” MA thesis, Durham University, 2009, 126, at http://etheses.dur.ac.uk/236/1/Thesis_Final_1_PDF.pdf). However, reflecting on the “coincidence” of the appearance of the first English translation of 1 Enoch in 1821, just a few years before Joseph Smith received his Enoch revelations, see Richard Laurence, ed. The Book of Enoch, the Prophet: Translated from an Ethiopic Manuscript in the Bodleian Library, the Text Now Corrected from His Latest Notes with an Introduction by the [Anonymous] Author of ‘The Evolution of Christianity,’ (Oxford, England: Oxford University Press, 1883) at http://archive.org/details/bookofenochproph00laur, Richard L. Bushman nonetheless concludes: “It is scarcely conceivable that Joseph Smith knew of Laurence’s Enoch translation,” Bushman, Rough Stone Rolling, 138. Perhaps even more significant, is the fact that the principal themes of “Laurence’s 105 translated chapters do not resemble Joseph Smith’s Enoch in any obvious way,” Bushman, Rough Stone Rolling, 138. Cf. Jed L. Woodworth, “Extra-biblical Enoch Texts in Early American Culture,” in Archive of Restoration Culture: Summer Fellows’ Papers 1997-1999, ed. Richard L. Bushman, (Provo, UT: Joseph Fielding Smith Institute for Latter-day Saint History, 2000), 190–92. Indeed, apart from the shared prominence of the Son of Man motif in BP and the Book of Moses and some common themes in Enoch’s visions of Noah (see more on these resemblances below), the most striking resemblances to the Prophet’s revelations are found not in 1 Enoch, but in related pseudepigrapha such as 2 Enoch (first published at the end of the 19th century) and the Qumran Book of the Giants (discovered in 1948). Woodworth concludes: “While I do not share the confidence the parallelist feels for the inaccessibility of Laurence to Joseph Smith, I do not find sharp enough similarities to support the derivatist position. The tone and weight and direction of [1 Enoch and the Book of Moses] are worlds apart. . . . The problem with the derivatist position is [that] … Laurence as source material for Joseph Smith does not make much sense if the two texts cannot agree on important issues. The texts may indeed have some similarities, but the central figures do not have the same face, do not share the same voice, and are not, therefore, the same people. In this sense, the Enoch in the Book of Moses is as different from the Enoch of Laurence as he is from the Enoch in the other extra-Biblical Enochs in early American culture. Same name, different voice,” p. 192. Note also that since Joseph Smith was aware of the quotation from 1 Enoch in Jude 1:14–15 (Smith, Documentary History, December 1830, 1:132), the most obvious thing he could have done to bolster the case for the antiquity of the Book of Moses account if he were a conscious deceiver would have been to include that citation somewhere within his revelations on Enoch. But this he did not do.

[26]  .  For example, John L. Brooke seeks to make the case that Sidney Rigdon, among others, was a “conduit of Masonic lore during Joseph’s early years” and then goes on to make a set of weakly substantiated claims connecting Mormonism and Masonry; John L. Brooke, The Refiner’s Fire: The Making of Mormon Cosmology, 1644-1844 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994). These claims, including connections with the story of Enoch’s pillars in Royal Arch Masonry, are refuted in William J. Hamblin, Daniel C. Peterson, and George L. Mitton, “Mormon in the Fiery Furnace or Loftes Tryk Goes to Cambridge.” Review of Books on the Book of Mormon 6/2 (1994): 52–58; cf.  William J. Hamblin, Daniel C. Peterson, and George L. Mitton, “Review of John L. Brooke: The Refiner’s Fire: The Making of Mormon Cosmology, 1644-1844,” BYU Studies 34/4 (1994): 178–79. Non-Mormon scholar Stephen Webb agrees with Hamblin, et al., concluding that “actual evidence for any direct link between [Joseph Smith’s] theology and the hermetic tradition is tenuous at best, and given that scholars vigorously debate whether hermeticism even constitutes a coherent and organized tradition, Brooke’s book should be read with a fair amount of skepticism,” Stephen H. Webb, Jesus Christ, Eternal God: Heavenly Flesh and the Metaphysics of Matter (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012), 260) See also Barlow, Decoding; Bushman, Mysteries; Jan Shipps, Sojourner in the Promised Land: Forty Years among the Mormons (Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press, 2000), 204–17. For a debunking of the idea that LDS temple ordinances are a simple derivation from Freemasonry, see Matthew B. Brown, Exploring the Connection Between Mormons and Masons (American Fork, UT: Covenant Communications, 2009). Brown’s more in-depth manuscript dealing with this topic still awaits publication.

[27]  .  Harold Bloom, The American Religion: The Emergence of the Post-Christian Nation (New York City: Simon and Schuster, 1992), 98, 99, 100, 101.

[28]  .  Hyrum M. Smith and Janne M. Sjodahl, Doctrine and Covenants Commentary, rev. ed. (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1979), 350.

[29]  .  Although the primary referent for the term Son of Man in LDS teachings and revelation is Jesus Christ, we will discuss below how it is applied more generally to others who have acquired that title in likeness of Enoch; e.g., Margaret Barker, The Older Testament: The Survival of Themes from the Ancient Royal Cult in Sectarian Judaism and Early Christianity (London: SPCK, 1987), 38–44; George W. E. Nickelsburg and James C. VanderKam, eds. 1 Enoch 2: A Commentary on the Book of 1 Enoch, Chapters 37–82 (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press), 2012, 60:10, p. 233, 71:14, p. 321, pp. 327–28 n. 13–14; James A. Waddell, A Comparative Study of the Enochic Son of Man and the Pauline Kyrios (London: Clark, 2011), 51–60.

[30]  .  The authors and editors of the Book of Mormon knew that the account was not preserved primarily for the people of their own times but rather for later generations (e.g., 2 Nephi 25:31; Jacob 1:3; Enos 1:15–16; Jarom 1:2; Mormon 7:1, 8:34–35). More specifically, LDS Church President Ezra Taft Benson taught: “It was meant for us. Mormon wrote near the end of the Nephite civilization. Under the inspiration of God, who sees all things from the beginning, he abridged centuries of records, choosing the stories, speeches, and events that would be most helpful to us,” Ezra Taft Benson, “The Book of Mormon—Keystone of our Religion,” Ensign 16, November 1986. Of course, not all tradents of scripture worked under equal influence of the spirit of inspiration. Joseph Smith recognized that in the transmission of Bible texts over the centuries: “Ignorant translators, careless transcribers, or designing and corrupt priests have committed many errors,” Smith, Teachings, 15 October 1843, 327.

[31]  .  Nephi left us with significant examples in which he deliberately shaped his explanation of Bible stories and teachings in order to help his readers understand how they applied to their own situations (e.g., 1 Nephi 4:2, 17:23–44).

[32]  .  Barlow, Bible, 51–53.

[33]  .  Kathleen Flake, “Translating time: The Nature and Function of Joseph Smith’s Narrative Canon,” Journal of Religion 87/4 (October 2007): 507–8; cf. Grant Underwood, “Revelation, Text, and Revision: Insight from the Book of Commandments and Revelations,” BYU Studies 48/3 (2009): 76–81, 83–84. With respect to the English translation of the Book of Mormon, Royal Skousen argues that the choice of words was given under “tight control,” Royal Skousen, “Joseph Smith’s Translation of the Book of Mormon: Evidence from the Original Manuscript,” Journal of Book of Mormon Studies 7/1 (1998): 22–31. By way of contrast, however, Skousen questions whether one should assume that every change made in the JST constitutes revealed text. Besides arguments that can be made on the basis of the modifications themselves, questions exist regarding the reliability and degree of supervision given to the scribes involved in transcribing, copying, and preparing the text for publication. Differences are also apparent in the nature of the translation process at different stages of the work. For example, while a significant proportion of the Genesis passages canonized as the Book of Moses look like “a word-for-word revealed text,” evidence from a study of two sections in the New Testament that were translated twice indicates that the later “New Testament JST is not being revealed word-for-word, but largely depends upon Joseph Smith’s varying responses to the same difficulties in the text,” Royal Skousen, “The Earliest Textual Sources for Joseph Smith’s ‘New Translation’ of the King James Bible,” FARMS Review 17/2 (2005): 456–70. For the original study, see Kent P. Jackson and Peter M. Jasinski, “The Process of Inspired Translation: Two Passages Translated Twice in the Joseph Smith Translation of the Bible,” BYU Studies 42/2 (2003): 35–64.

[34]  .  Gerrit Dirkmaat gives examples of Joseph Smith’s efforts to revise and update his Doctrine and Covenants revelations as they were prepared for publication, Gerrit Dirkmaat, “Great and Marvelous are the Revelations of God.” Ensign 43, January 2013, 56–57.

[35]  .  Perhaps the most striking example is found in citations of Malachi 4:5–6, a key prophecy relating to the restoration of the priesthood: “Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord: And he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their fathers, lest I come and smite the earth with a curse” (KJV Malachi 4:5–6). Cf. Luke 1:17; 3 Nephi 25:6; D&C 27:9; 110:15; 128:17. See also Smith, Teachings, 2 July 1839, 160; 20 January 1844, 330; 10 March 1844, 337; 7 April 1844, 356. Joseph Smith—History 1:38–39: “Behold, I will reveal unto you the Priesthood, by the hand of Elijah the prophet, before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord. . . . And he shall plant in the hearts of the children the promises made to the fathers, and the hearts of the children shall turn to their fathers. If it were not so, the whole earth would be utterly wasted at his coming,” 1838; Joseph Smith, Jr., Karen Lynn Davidson, David J. Whittaker, Mark Ashurst-McGee, and Richard L. Jensen. Joseph Smith Histories, 1832–1844. The Joseph Smith Papers, Histories 1, ed. Dean C. Jessee, Ronald K. Esplin, and Richard Lyman Bushman, (Salt Lake City: The Church Historian’s Press, 2012), 1832–1844, History Drafts 2 and 3, pp. 224–225; Smith, Documentary History, 1:12. Smith, Teachings, 27 August 1843, 323: “Elijah shall reveal the covenants to seal the hearts of the fathers to the children, and the children to the fathers”; 20 January 1844, 330: “Now, the word ‘turn’ here should be translated ‘bind,’ or ‘seal’”; 10 March 1844, 337: “He should send Elijah to seal the children to the fathers, and the fathers to the children.” For a discussion of the idea of “sealing” children and fathers and the power of Elijah, see Jeffrey M. Bradshaw, Temple Themes in the Oath and Covenant of the Priesthood (Salt Lake City: Eborn Publishing, 2012), 45–51.

[36]  .  Smith, Documentary History, 27 November 1832, 1:299.

[37]  .  Robert J. Matthews, “A Plainer Translation”: Joseph Smith’s Translation of the Bible—A History and Commentary (Provo, UT: BYU Press, 1975), 215.

[38]  .  For example, Danel Bachman has argued convincingly that nearly all of D&C 132 was revealed to the Prophet as he worked on the first half of JST Genesis, see Danel W. Bachman, “New Light on an Old Hypothesis: The Ohio Origins of the Revelation on Eternal Marriage,” Journal of Mormon History 5 (1978): 19–32. This was more than a decade before 1843, when the revelation was shared with Joseph Smith’s close associates.

[39]  .  Smith, Writings, 31 July 1832, 273. This is consistent with George Q. Cannon’s statement about the Prophet’s intentions to “seal up” the work for “a later day” after he completed the main work of Bible translation on 2 February 1833: “No endeavor was made at that time to print the work. It was sealed up with the expectation that it would be brought forth at a later day with other of the scriptures. . . . [See D&C 42:56–58.] [T]he labor was its own reward, bringing in the performance a special blessing of broadened comprehension to the Prophet and a general blessing of enlightenment to the people through his subsequent teachings,” George Q. Cannon, The Life of Joseph Smith, the Prophet, 2nd ed. (Salt Lake City: The Deseret News, 1907), 129. Bradshaw has elsewhere argued the likelihood that the focus of the divine tutorial that took place during Joseph Smith’s Bible translation effort was on temple and priesthood matters—hence the restriction on general dissemination of these teachings during the Prophet’s early ministry, see Bradshaw, God’s Image 1, 3–6; Jeffrey M. Bradshaw, Temple Themes in the Book of Moses (Salt Lake City: Eborn Publishing, 2010), 13–16.

[40]  .  For example, 4 Ezra records that the Lord commanded Moses to reveal openly only part of his visions on Mt. Sinai; the rest was to be kept secret. Similarly, Ezra is reported to have been told that certain books were to be read by the “worthy and unworthy” whereas others were to be given only “to the wise,” Bruce M. Metzger, “The Fourth Book of Ezra,” in The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha, ed. James H. Charlesworth. 2 vols. (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1983), Ezra 14:6, 45–47, pp. 553, 555. Rabbinical arguments to this effect are summarized in Abraham J. Heschel, Heavenly Torah as Refracted Through the Generations, trans. Gordon Tucker (New York: Continuum, 2007), 656–57. See also Hugh W. Nibley, Teachings of the Pearl of Great Price (Provo, UT: FARMS, 2004), 223–24. For examples of other scriptural passages that speak of restrictions on making revelations known, see 2 Corinthians 12:4; 3 Nephi 17:16–17; 28:13–16; Ether 3:21–4:7.

[41]  .  Moses 1:43. See also Moses 4:32: “See thou show them unto no man, until I command you, except to them that believe.”

[42]  .  The quoted words are from Mormon Apostle George Q. Cannon’s remembrance: “We have heard President Brigham Young state that the Prophet before his death had spoken to him about going through the translation of the scriptures again and perfecting it upon points of doctrine which the Lord had restrained him from giving in plainness and fulness at the time of which we write,” Cannon, Life of Joseph Smith, 129 n.

[43]  .  Cf. Matthew 3:16. See Richard D. Draper, S. Kent Brown, and Michael D. Rhodes. The Pearl of Great Price: A Verse-by-Verse Commentary (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2005), 92.

[44]  .  Cf. Mark 9:7. Compare Moses 1:4, 6. See also Matthew 3:16; Mark 1:10; Luke 3:22; John 1:32; D&C 93:15; Margaret Barker, The Risen Lord: The Jesus of History as the Christ of Faith (Valley Forge, PA: Trinity, 1996), 46–49.

[45]  .  Barker, Risen Lord, 46–49; Margaret Barker, The Hidden Tradition of the Kingdom of God (London: SPCK, 2007), 91–94; Gaetano Lettieri, “The Ambiguity of Eden and the Enigma of Adam,” in The Earthly Paradise: The Garden of Eden from Antiquity to Modernity, ed. F. Regina Psaki and Charles Hindley (Binghamton, NY: State University of New York at Binghamton, 2002), 26–29.

[46]  .  Walther Zimmerli, Ezekiel 1: A Commentary on the Book of the Prophet Ezekiel Chapters 1-24, trans. Ronald E. Clements (Philadelphia, PA: Fortress Press, 1979), 97–100.

[47]  .  Stephen D. Ricks, “The Narrative Call Pattern in the Prophetic Commission of Enoch.” BYU Studies 26/4 (1986): 97. For an interpretation of Ezekiel 1 as a heavenly ascent, see Silviu N. Bunta, “In Heaven or on Earth: A Misplaced Temple Question about Ezekiel’s Visions,” in With Letters of Light: Studies in the Dead Sea Scrolls, Early Jewish Apocalypticism, Magic, and Mysticism in Honor of Rachel Elior, ed. Daphna V. Arbel and Andrei A. Orlov (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2011).

[48]  .  See Old Testament Pseudepigrapha: F. I. Andersen, “2 (Slavonic Apocalypse of) Enoch,” 2 Enoch 10:4 (shorter recension), 119; P. Alexander, “3 (Hebrew Apocalypse of) Enoch,” 3 Enoch 2:2, p. 357; 3:2, p. 257; 4:1, p. 258; and 4:10, p. 259. Charles Mopsik, ed., Le Libre hébreu d’Hénoch ou Livre des Palais: Les Dix Paroles, ed. (Lagrasse: Éditions Verdier, 1989), 48D 1, 156. For discussions of these and other ancient references to Enoch as a “lad,” see, e.g., Gary A. Anderson, “The Exaltation of Adam,” in Literature on Adam and Eve: Collected Essays, ed. Gary A. Anderson, Michael E. Stone, and Johannes Tromp (Leiden: Brill, 2000), 107–108; Mopsik, Hénoch, 188–90; Nibley, Enoch, 208–209; Andrei A. Orlov, The Enoch-Metatron Tradition (Tübingen: Mohr, 2005), 133–36. Psalm 89:19 provides an intriguing possibility of parallel with the title of lad/youth given to Enoch in vision. Citing a vision “of old” (see Lane T. Dennis, Wayne Grudem, J. I. Packer, C. John Collins, Thomas R. Schreiner, and Justin Taylor, English Standard Version (ESV) Study Bible [Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles, 2008], 89:19, p. 1050; John H. Eaton, The Psalms: A Historical and Spiritual Commentary with an Introduction and New Translation [London: Clark, 2003], 89:19, p. 317) that was given to His “holy one” (KJV), the Lord is quoted as saying that He has exalted a baḥur from among the people. Baḥur is an interesting word—it is usually translated as “chosen,” but perhaps in the context of this verse may be more accurately rendered “youth” or “young man,” see Francis Brown, S. R. Driver, and Charles A. Briggs, The Brown-Driver-Briggs Hebrew and English Lexicon (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers, 2005), 104c, d; Ludwig Koehler, Walter Baumgartner, Johann Jakob Stamm, M. E. J. Richardson, G. J. Jongeling-Vos, and L. J. de Regt, The Hebrew and Aramaic Lexicon of the Old Testament (Leiden: Brill, 1994), 1:118. Cf. Eaton’s translation: “I have set a youth [emending ‘ezer to naar] above the warrior; I have raised [exalted] a young man [baḥur] over the people,” Eaton, Psalms Commentary, 89:19, p. 317; “I have exalted a young man from among the people,” NIV Study Bible, Psalm 89:19, p. 889. One might, in fact, conjecture a play on words between baḥir in v. 3 and baḥur in v. 19. The youth who is set above the warrior (Hebrew gibbor) recalls Enoch’s victory over the gibborim in the Book of the Giants and in the Book of Moses (as well as David’s youthful triumph over the giant Goliath). Of course the motif of the exaltation of the anointed one is relevant to the stories of Enoch’s heavenly ascent in the Book of Moses and in the pseudepigrapha. For a summary of other ancient traditions relating to resentment of the exaltation of the younger rival over the older one, see Bradshaw, God’s Image 1, 225, 540–41, 582–83.

[49]  .  Or the equivalent term youth in other translations.

[50]  .  Anderson, “Exaltation,” 107.

[51]  .  Anderson, “Exaltation,” 107.

[52]  .  “When I saw myself thus surrounded by enemies, I did flee. . . . And after that, with my eyes on the road, I looked to see . . . if the angel of Life would come to my aid. . . . Suddenly I saw the gates of heaven open,” Jacques P. Migne, “Livre d’Adam,” in Dictionnaire des Apocryphes (Paris: Migne, 1856), 21, p. 167.

[53]  .  Migne, “Livre d’Adam,” 21, p. 167. See also Nibley, Enoch, 210.

[54]  .  Migne, “Livre d’Adam,” 21, p. 170.

[55]  .  Andersen, “2 Enoch, 39:5 (longer recension),” 162.

[56]  .  Migne, “Livre d’Adam,” 21, 169. See also Nibley, Enoch, 210.

[57]  .  George W. E. Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 1: A Commentary on the Book of 1 Enoch, Chapters 1-36 (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2001), 1:2, p. 137.

[58]  .  Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 1, p. 137.

[59]  .  Manuscript Revelation Books, Facsimile Edition. The Joseph Smith Papers, Revelations and Translations, ed. Dean C. Jessee, Ronald K. Esplin and Richard Lyman Bushman (Salt Lake City, UT: The Church Historian’s Press, 2009), Revelation Book 2, 48 [verso], 27 February 1833, pp. 508–509; spelling and punctuation modernized. Cf. Abraham 3:11–12. The preface to the entry in the revelation book says that it was “sung by the gift of tongues and translated.” An expanded and versified version of this song that omits the weeping of Enoch was published in Evening and Morning Star, 1:12, May 1833. Frederick G. Williams argued that both the original and versified version of this song should be attributed to his ancestor of the same name, see Frederick G. Williams, “Singing the Word of God: Five Hymns by President Frederick G. Williams.” BYU Studies 48/1 (2009): 57–88. On the other hand, the editors of the relevant volume of the Joseph Smith Papers note: “An undated broadside of the hymn states that it was ‘sung in tongues’ by David W. Patten and ‘interpreted’ by Sidney Rigdon [“Mysteries of God.” Church History Library]. This item was never canonized,” Manuscript Revelation Books, p. 377 n. 65.

[60]  .  Manuscript Revelation Books, Revelation Book 2, 48 [verso], 27 February 1833, pp. 508–509, spelling and punctuation modernized.

[61]  .  Joseph Smith’s eyes were apparently touched at the beginning of the First Vision, and perhaps also prior to receiving D&C 76. Regarding D&C 76, see D&C 76:19–20 and J. Smith, Jr. (or W. W. Phelps), A Vision, 1 February 1843, stanzas 15–16, p. 82, reprinted in Larry E. Dahl, “The Vision of the Glories,” in The Doctrine and Covenants, ed. Robert L. Millet and Kent P. Jackson (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1989), 297. Thanks to Bryce Haymond for pointing out the latter reference. With respect to the First Vision, Charles Lowell Walker recorded the following: “Br. John Alger said while speaking of the Prophet Joseph, that when he, John, was a small boy he heard the Prophet Joseph relate his vision of seeing the Father and the Son. [He said t]hat God touched his eyes with his finger and said ‘Joseph, this is my beloved Son hear him.’ As soon as the Lord had touched his eyes with his finger, he immediately saw the Savior .… [Br. Alger said] that Joseph while speaking of it put his finger to his right eye, suiting the action with the words so as to illustrate and at the same time impress the occurrence on the minds of those unto whom he was speaking,” Charles L. Walker, Diary of Charles Lowell Walker, 2 vols, ed. A. Karl Larson and Katharine Miles Larson (Logan, UT: Utah State University Press, 1980), 2 February 1893, 2:755–756; punctuation and capitalization modernized.

[62]    See Draper et al., Pearl of Great Price, 95.

[63]  .  Craig S. Keener, The Gospel of John: A Commentary. 2 vols. (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 2003), 1:780.

Ancient Affinities
within the LDS Book of Enoch

Part Two

Jeffrey M. Bradshaw and David J. Larsen

Abstract: In this article, we will examine affinities between ancient extracanonical sources and a collection of modern revelations that Joseph Smith termed “extracts from the Prophecy of Enoch.” We build on the work of previous scholars, revisiting their findings with the benefit of subsequent scholarship. Following a perspective on the LDS canon and an introduction to the LDS Enoch revelations, we will focus on relevant passages in pseudepigrapha and LDS scripture within three episodes in the Mormon Enoch narrative: Enoch’s prophetic commission, Enoch’s encounters with the “gibborim,” and the weeping and exaltation of Enoch and his people.

Having examined ancient affinities in the prophetic commission of Enoch, let us turn our attention to the events of his subsequent teaching mission.

Enoch’s Encounters with the Gibborim

The Book of Giants is a collection of fragments from an Enochic book discovered at Qumran. Though it is missing from the Ethiopic book of 1 Enoch [1] and resembles little else in the Enoch tradition, material related to the Book of Giants is included in Talmudic and medieval Jewish literature, in descriptions of the Manichaean canon,[2] in citations by hostile heresiologists, and in third and fourth century fragments from Turfan published by Henning in 1943.[3] Later, several fragments of a related work were identified among the Qumran manuscripts. These fragments showed that the “composition is at least five hundred years older than previously thought” [4] and thus they help us “to reconstruct the literary shape of the early stages of the Enochic tradition.” [5]

An expanded and revised version of material contained in this article will appear as part of Jeffrey M. Bradshaw, et al., Enoch, Noah, and the Tower of Babel. In God’s Image and Likeness 2 (forthcoming). Translations of non-English sources are by the first author unless otherwise noted.

Although the Book of the Giants scarcely fills three pages in the English translation of Martinez, we find in it the most extensive series of parallels between a single ancient text and Joseph Smith’s Enoch writings. Note that the term giants in the title of the book is somewhat misleading. Actually, this book describes two different groups of individuals, referred to in Hebrew as the gibborim and the nephilim.[6] In discussing the gibborim, we will use the customary connotation elsewhere in the Bible of “mighty hero” or “warrior.” In his Enoch writings, Joseph Smith specifically differentiated the “giants” from Enoch’s other adversaries.[7]

Consistent with the concept of the gibborim as “mighty warriors,” Joseph Smith’s Enoch writings describe scenes of wars, bloodshed, and slaughter among the people (see Moses 6:15; 7:7, 16). For example, in Moses 6:15 we read: “And the children of men were numerous upon all the face of the land. And in those days Satan had great dominion among men, and raged in their hearts; and from thenceforth came wars and bloodshed; and a man’s hand was against his own brother, in administering death, because of secret works, seeking for power.”

The Book of Giants account likewise begins with references to “slaughter, destruction, and moral corruption” [8] that filled the earth.[9] The mention of “secret works” and “administering death” (Moses 6:15) in the Book of Moses recalls a similar description in the Book of the Giants: [10] “they knew the se[crets [11] . . . ] and they killed ma[ny . . . ].” Elsewhere the Qumran manuscripts refer to the spread of the “mystery of wickedness.” [12]

In the Book of Moses, Enoch’s preaching first attracts listeners out of pure curiosity: “And they came forth to hear him, upon the high places, saying unto the tent-keepers: Tarry ye here and keep the tents, while we go yonder to behold the seer, for he prophesieth, and there is a strange thing in the land; a wild man hath come among us (Moses 6:38).

The term wild man (Genesis 16:12) is used in only one other place in the Bible, as part of Jacob’s prophecy about the fate of Ishmael. We see a more fitting parallel, however, in a passage in the translation by Wise of the Book of the Giants, where the wicked leader of the gibborim, ’Ohya, boasts that he is called “the wild man,”[13] just as in the Book of Moses the same term is used—sarcastically—to describe Enoch.

Then, out of nowhere, appears Mahijah, the only named character besides Enoch himself in Joseph Smith’s story of Enoch: “And there came a man unto him, whose name was Mahijah, and said unto him: Tell us plainly who thou art, and from whence thou comest?” (Moses 6:40).

In the Book of Moses, the name Mahijah appears a second time in a different form as Mahujah (Moses 7:2).[14] Likewise in the Masoretic Hebrew text of the Bible, the variants MHYY [Mahijah] and MHWY [Mahujah] both appear in a single verse (with the suffix “-el”) as references to the same person, namely Mehuja-el.[15] Because the KJV renders both variants identically, Joseph Smith would have had to access and interpret the Hebrew text to see both versions of the name. But there is no evidence that he or anyone else associated with the translation of Moses 6–7 knew how to read Hebrew or, for that matter, even had access to a Hebrew Bible. Joseph Smith did not begin his Hebrew studies until a few years later after he engaged Joshua Seixas as a teacher in Kirtland, Ohio.[16] Moreover, even if it were postulated that Joseph Smith must have been working from the Hebrew, it would still be difficult to explain why, assuming that he indeed possessed this information, Joseph Smith would have chosen not to normalize the two variant versions of the name into a single version as virtually all English translations of the Hebrew text have done. Instead, both of the attested variants of the name are included in the Book of Moses in appropriate contexts, preserving both ancient traditions. Moreover, the Joseph Smith versions of the name drop the “-el” suffix to the name,[17] thus differing from the Hebrew text of the Bible and in accord with its Dead Sea Scrolls [18] equivalent, as we will describe.

There are intriguing similarities not only in the name but also in the role of the Mahijah/Mahujah character in Joseph Smith’s Book of Moses and the role of a character named Mahujah [MHWY] in the Book of Giants.[19] Hugh Nibley observes: “The only thing the Mahijah in the Book of Moses is remarkable for is his putting of bold direct questions to Enoch. And this is exactly the role, and the only role, that the Aramaic Mahujah plays in the story.” [20]

In the Book of Giants, we read the report of a series of dreams that troubled the gibborim. The dreams “symbolize the destruction of all but Noah and his sons by the Flood.”[21] In an impressive correspondence to the questioning of Enoch by Mahijah in the Book of Moses, the gibborim send one of their fellows named Mahujah to “consult Enoch in order to receive an authoritative interpretation of the visions.”[22] In the Book of Giants, we read: “[Then] all the [gibborim and the nephilim] . . . called to [Mahujah] and he came to them. They implored him and sent him to Enoch, the celebrated scribe [23] and they said to him: “Go. . . and tell him to [explain to you] and interpret the dream. . .”[24]

Cirillo comments: “The emphasis that [Joseph] Smith places on Mahijah’s travel to Enoch is eerily similar to the account of [Mahujah] to Enoch in the [Book of the Giants].”[25]

A reasonable case can be made for the identification of the Book of Giants Mahujah with the biblical Mehuja-el, who was a descendant of Cain and the grandfather of the wicked Lamech.[26] The case for identification is only made stronger when we consider the additional material about Mehuja-el’s family line included in the Joseph Smith account. Note that in the Book of Moses, Mehuja-el’s grandson, like the other “sons of men” (Moses 5:52, 55), “entered into a covenant with Satan after the manner of Cain” (Moses 5:49). Similarly, in 1 Enoch we read that a group of conspirators, here depicted as fallen sons of God, “all swore together and bound one another with a curse.” [27] Elsewhere in 1 Enoch we learn additional details about that oath: “This is the number of Kasbe’el, the chief of the oath, which he showed to the holy ones when he was dwelling on high in glory, and its (or “his”) name (is) Beqa. This one told Michael that he should show him the secret name, so that they might mention it in the oath, so that those who showed the sons of men everything that was in secret might quake at the name and the oath.” [28]

The passages in 1 Enoch are reminiscent of a passage in the Book of Moses that describes a “secret combination” that had been in operation “from the days of Cain” (Moses 5:51). As to the deadly nature of the oath, we read in the Book of Moses: “Swear unto me by thy throat, and if thou tell it thou shalt die” (Moses 5:29),[29] just as in 1 Enoch the conspirators “bound one another with a curse.” [30]

In 1 Enoch, the conspirators agreed on their course of action by saying: [31] “Come, let us choose for ourselves wives from the daughters of men.” Likewise, in the Book of Moses, Mehuja-el’s grandson became infamous because he “took unto himself . . . wives”(Moses 5:44) [32] to whom he revealed the secrets of their wicked league (to the chagrin of his fellows; Moses 5:47–55).[33] In 1 Enoch, as in the Book of Moses,[34] we also read specifically of how “they all began to reveal mysteries to their wives and children.” [35]

In answer to the second part of Mahijah’s question, Joseph Smith’s Enoch says: “And he said unto them: I came out from the land of Cainan, the land of my fathers, a land of righteousness unto this day” (Moses 6:41).

Amplifying the Book of Moses description of Enoch’s home as a “land of righteousness,” the leader of the gibborim in the Book of Giants says that his “opponents” [36] “reside in the heavens and live with the holy ones.”[37]

In the Book of Moses, Enoch describes the setting for his vision: “And it came to pass, as I journeyed from the land of Cainan, by the sea east, I beheld a vision” (Moses 6:42).

Enoch’s vision as he travelled “by the sea east” [38] recalls the direction of his journey in 1 Enoch 20–36 where he traveled “from the west edge of the earth to its east edge.” [39] Elsewhere 1 Enoch records a vision that Enoch received “by the waters of Dan,” [40] arguably a “sea east.” [41]

In preaching to the people, the Enoch of the Book of Moses refers to a “book of remembrance” (Moses 6:46), in which the words of God and the actions of the people were recorded. Correspondingly, in the Book of the Giants, a book in the form of “two stone tablets” [42] is given by Enoch to Mahujah to stand as a witness of “their fallen state and betrayal of their ancient covenants.” [43] In the Book of Moses, Enoch says the book is written “according to the pattern given by the finger of God” (Moses 6:46). This may allude to the idea that a similar record of their wickedness is kept in heaven[44] as attested in 1 Enoch: “Do not suppose to yourself nor say in your heart, that they do not know nor are your unrighteous deeds seen in heaven, nor are they written down before the Most High. Henceforth know that all your unrighteous deeds are written down day by day, until the day of your judgment.” [45]

As Enoch is linked with the book of remembrance in the Book of Moses, so he is described in the Testament of Abraham as the heavenly being who is responsible for recording the deeds of mankind so that they can be brought into remembrance.[46] Likewise, in Jubilees 10:17 we read: “Enoch had been created as a witness to the generations of the world so that he might report every deed of each generation in the day of judgment.” [47]

In the Book of Moses, Enoch’s reading of the book of remembrance put the people in great fear: “And as Enoch spake forth the words of God, the people trembled, and could not stand in his presence” (Moses 6:47).

Likewise, in the Book of the Giants,[48] we read that the leaders of the mighty warriors “bowed down and wept in front of [Enoch].” 1 Enoch describes a similar reaction after Enoch finished his preaching:

Then I [i.e., Enoch] went and spoke to all of them together. And they were all afraid and trembling and fear seized them. And they asked that I write a memorandum of petition [49] for them, that they might have forgiveness, and that I recite the memorandum of petition for them in the presence of the Lord of heaven. For they were no longer able to speak or to lift their eyes to heaven out of shame for the deeds through which they had sinned and for which they had been condemned. . . . and they were sitting and weeping at Abel-Main,[50] . . . covering their faces. [51]

Among the declarations that Joseph Smith’s Enoch makes to his hearers from the book of remembrance is that their children “are conceived in sin” (Moses 6:55). This has nothing to do with the concept of “original sin” but rather is the result of their moral transgressions. As Nibley expresses it: “[T]he wicked people of Enoch’s day . . . did indeed conceive their children in sin, since they were illegitimate offspring of a totally amoral society.” The relevant passage in the Book of Giants reads: [52] “Let it be known to you th[at . . . your activity and that of [your] wive[s and of your children . . . through your fornication.” [53]

Both the Qumran and the Joseph Smith sermons of Enoch “end on a note of hope” [54]—a feature unique to these two Enoch accounts: “If thou wilt turn unto [God], and hearken unto my voice, and believe, and repent of all thy transgressions” (Moses 6:52).

In the Book of Giants, Enoch also gives hope to the wicked through repentance: [55] “Now, then, unfasten your chains [of sin]. . . and pray.” [56] In addition, Reeves [57] conjectures that another difficult-to-reconstruct phrase in the Book of Giants might also be understood as an “allusion to a probationary period for the repentance of the Giants.” [58]

Any conjectured move toward repentance was temporary, however, and eventually Enoch’s enemies began to attack, as we read in the Book of Moses: “And so great was the faith of Enoch that he led the people of God, and their enemies came to battle against them; and he spake the word of the Lord, and the earth trembled, and the mountains fled, even according to his command; and the rivers of water were turned out of their course; and the roar of the lions was heard out of the wilderness” (Moses 7:13).

Similarly, in the Book of Giants, ’Ohya, a leader of the gibborim, gives a description of his defeat in such a battle: “[. . . I am a] [mighty warrior] (cf. Moses 7:15), and by the mighty strength of my arm and my own great strength[59] [I went up against a]ll mortals, and I have made war against them; but I am not . . . able to stand against them.” [60]

Of special note is a puzzling phrase in Martinez’s translation of the Book of Giants that immediately follows the description of the battle: “the roar of the wild beasts has come and they bellowed a feral roar.” [61] Remarkably the Book of Moses account has a similar phrase following the battle description, recording that “the roar of the lions was heard out of the wilderness” (Moses 7:13).

Both the Book of Moses and the Book of Giants contain a “prediction of utter destruction and the confining in prison that is to follow” [62] for the gibborim. From the Book of Moses we read: “But behold, these . . . shall perish in the floods; and behold, I will shut them up; a prison have I prepared for them” (Moses 7:38).

Similarly, in the Book of the Giants we read: “he imprisoned us and has power [ov]er [us].” [63]

Note that the parallels with the Book of the Giants we have cited are not drawn at will from a large corpus of Enoch manuscripts but rather are concentrated in a scant three pages of Qumran fragments. These resemblances range from general themes in the story line (secret works, murders, visions, earthly and heavenly books of remembrance that evoke fear and trembling, moral corruption, hope held out for repentance, and the eventual defeat of Enoch’s adversaries in battle, ending with their utter destruction and imprisonment) to specific occurrences of rare expressions in corresponding contexts (the reference to the “wild man,” the name and parallel role of Mahijah/Mahujah, and the “roar of the wild beasts”). It would be thought remarkable if any nineteenth-century document were to exhibit a similar density of close resemblances with this small collection of ancient fragments, but to find such similarities in appropriate contexts relating in each case to the story of Enoch is astonishing.

The Weeping and Exaltation of Enoch and His People

In a vision of Enoch found in the Book of Moses, three distinct parties weep for the wickedness of mankind: God (Moses 7:28; cf. v. 29), the heavens (Moses 7:28, 37), and Enoch himself (Moses 7:41, 49). In addition, a fourth party, the earth, mourns—though does not specifically weep—for her children (Moses 7:48–49). Daniel Peterson has discussed the interplay among the members of this chorus of weeping voices, citing the arguments of non-LDS biblical scholar J.J.M. Roberts that identify three similar voices within the laments of the book of Jeremiah: the feminine voice of the mother of the people (corresponding in the Book of Moses to the voice of the earth, the “mother of men”; Moses 7:48), the voice of the people (corresponding to Enoch), and the voice of God Himself. [64] In addition, with regard to the complaints of the earth described in Moses 7:48–49, valuable articles by Andrew Skinner [65] and Peterson,[66] again following Nibley’s lead,[67] discuss interesting parallels in ancient sources. Finally, taking up the subject of previously neglected voices of weeping—namely the weeping of Enoch and that of the heavens—we have written, with the additional contributions of Jacob Rennaker, a comparative study of ancient texts.[68]

We will not attempt a summary of these discussions. However, below we will sketch and extend previous analyses of the weeping of Enoch and of God while noting resonances between ancient literature and the Book of Moses.

The tradition of a weeping prophet is perhaps best exemplified by Jeremiah, who cried out in sorrow, “Oh that my head were waters, and mine eyes a fountain of tears, that I might weep day and night for the slain of the daughter of my people!”(Jeremiah 9:1).[69] Less well known is the story of Enoch as a weeping prophet. In 1 Enoch, his words are very near to those of Jeremiah, “O that my eyes were a [fountain] [70] of water, that I might weep over you; I would pour out my tears as a cloud of water, and I would rest from the grief of my heart.” [71]

We find the pseudepigraphal Enoch, like Enoch in the Book of Moses, weeping in response to visions of mankind’s wickedness. Following the second of these visions in the 1 Enoch account, the prophet is recorded as saying: “And after that I wept bitterly, and my tears did not cease until I could no longer endure it, but they were running down because of what I had seen . . . I wept because of it, and I was disturbed because I had seen the vision.” [72]

Enoch’s weeping is not only the result of his visions but also a precursor to additional ones. For example, in the Cologne Mani Codex, Enoch’s tearful sorrow is directly followed by an angelophany: “While the tears were still in my eyes and the prayer was yet on my lips, I beheld approaching me s[even] angels descending from heaven. [Upon seeing] them I was so moved by fear that my knees began knocking.”[73] A description of a similar set of events is found in 2 Enoch, which Moshe Idel called “the earliest evidence for mystical weeping” [74]: “In the first month, on the assigned day of the first month, I was in my house alone, weeping and grieving with my eyes. When I had lain down on my bed, I fell asleep. And two huge men appeared to me, the like of which I had never seen on earth.” [75]

The same sequence of events—Enoch’s weeping and grieving followed by a heavenly vision—can be found in modern revelation within the song recorded in Joseph Smith’s Revelation Book 2: “Enoch. . . gazed upon nature and the corruption of man, and mourned their sad fate, and wept, and cried out with a loud voice, and heaved forth his sighs: ‘Omnipotence! Omnipotence! O may I see Thee!’ And with His finger [God] touched his eyes and [Enoch] saw heaven. He gazed on eternity and sang an angelic song.” [76]

Turning from the weeping of Enoch to the weeping of God, the relevant passage in the Book of Moses begins as follows:

And it came to pass that the God of heaven looked upon the residue of the people, and he wept. . . . And Enoch said unto the Lord: How is it that thou canst weep, seeing thou art holy, and from all eternity to all eternity? . . . The Lord said unto Enoch: Behold these thy brethren; they are the workmanship of mine own hands, and I gave unto them their knowledge, in the day I created them; and in the Garden of Eden, gave I unto man his agency; And unto thy brethren have I said, and also given commandment, that they should love one another, and that they should choose me, their Father; but behold, they are without affection, and they hate their own blood; (Moses 7:28–33)

Because of its eloquent rebuke of the idea of divine impassibility [77]—the notion that God does not suffer pain or distress—this passage that speaks of the voice of the weeping God has received the greatest share of attention in LDS scholarship compared to the other voices of weeping, eliciting the pioneering notices of Hugh Nibley,[78] followed by lengthy articles by Eugene England [79] and Daniel C. Peterson.[80] Most recently, a book relating to the topic has been written by Terryl and Fiona Givens. They eloquently summarize the significance of this passage as follows:

The question here is not about the reasons behind God’s tears. Enoch does not ask, why do you weep, but rather, how are your tears even possible, “seeing thou art holy, and from all eternity to all eternity?” Clearly, Enoch, who believed God to be “merciful and kind forever,” did not expect such a being could be moved to the point of distress by the sins of His children. And so a third time he asks, “how is it thou canst weep?”

The answer, it turns out, is that God is not exempt from emotional pain. Exempt? On the contrary, God’s pain is as infinite as His love. He weeps because He feels compassion. As the Lord explains to Enoch, “unto thy brethren have I said, and also given commandment, that they should love one another, and that they should choose me, their Father; but behold, they are without affection, and they hate their own blood . . . and misery shall be their doom; and the whole heavens shall weep over them, even all the workmanship of mine hands; wherefore should not the heavens weep, seeing these shall suffer?”

It is not their wickedness, but their “misery,” not their disobedience, but their “suffering,” that elicits the God of Heaven’s tears. Not until Gethsemane and Golgotha does the scriptural record reveal so unflinchingly the costly investment of God’s love in His people, the price at which He placed His heart upon them. There could be nothing in this universe, or in any possible universe, more perfectly good, absolutely beautiful, worthy of adoration, and deserving of emulation, than this God of love and kindness and vulnerability. That is why a gesture of belief in His direction, a decision to acknowledge His virtues as the paramount qualities of a divided universe, is a response to the best in us, the best and noblest of which the human soul is capable. But a God without passions would engender in our hearts neither love nor interest. In the vision of Enoch, we find ourselves drawn to a God who prevents all the pain He can, assumes all the suffering He can, and weeps over the misery He can neither prevent nor assume.[81]

Joseph Smith’s account of a God who weeps for human misery can be contrasted with Jed Woodworth’s observation that the God in 1 Enoch shows remorse “only after it becomes obvious the floods did not have the desired effect.”[82] In 1 Enoch, according to Woodworth:

God is most concerned with exacting maximum justice. “Destroy all the souls addicted to dalliance,”[83] he tells his righteous angels. Then bind the wicked “for seventy generations underneath the earth, even to the day of judgment,” when they will be “taken away into the lowest depths of the fire in torments; and in confinement shall they be shut up forever.”[84] Enoch’s angel-guide tells him how four of God’s faithful servants—Michael, Gabriel, Raphael, Phanuel—will be given special power to “cast them [the ungodly] into a furnace of blazing fire, that the Lord of spirits may be avenged of them for their crimes”[85] . . . The crimes are so great, “never shall they obtain mercy, saith the Lord of spirits.”[86] Only crimes worthy of sentences without parole, it seems, could exonerate God from sending out the floods.

Unlike [the God in 1 Enoch], the God in Joseph Smith works for maximum mercy. When the wicked reject Enoch’s entreaties, God does not jump to send the flood but rather a second wave of servants. Immediately after seeing the earth’s inhabitants in Satan’s grasp, Enoch beholds “angels descending out of heaven, bearing testimony of the Father and the Son” (Moses 7:27). The Holy Ghost falls upon those who hearken, and they are “caught up by the powers of heaven into Zion” (Moses 7:28). Even at the midnight hour, Zion is still enlarging her borders to include those who will turn from their evil ways. Those who refuse the invitation bring God great pain. Looking down from the heavens, God weeps for his wicked, even “as the rain upon the mountains” (Moses 7:28). He anguishes for those who reject their Father and who now “hate their own blood” (Moses 7:33). Not only He suffers, but also “the whole heavens shall weep over them, even all the workmanship of mine hands” (Moses 7:37). When the floods finally come, we feel them as sobs of remorse, not as rains of retribution. . . .

What is the fate of those who perish in the flood? In [1 Enoch], there is one fate only: everlasting punishment. Those who are destroyed in the flood are beyond redemption. For God to be reconciled, sinners must suffer forever. Enoch has nothing to say because God has no merciful side to appeal to. In Joseph Smith, however, punishment has an end. The merciful side of God allows Enoch to speak and be heard. God and Enoch speak a common language: mercy. “Lift up your heart, and be glad; and look,” God says to Enoch after the flood (Moses 7:44). There is hope for the wicked yet: “I will shut them up; a prison have I prepared for them. And that which I have chosen hath pled before my face. Wherefore, he suffereth for their sins; inasmuch as they will repent in the day that my Chosen shall return unto me, and until that day they shall be in torment” (Moses 7:37–38).

The Messiah figure in [1 Enoch 45–47] and in Joseph Smith function in different ways. In Joseph Smith, the Chosen One will come to earth at the meridian of time to rescue the sinners of Enoch’s day. After the Messiah’s death and resurrection, “as many of the spirits as were in prison came forth, and stood on the right hand of God” (Moses 7:57; see also 1 Peter 3:20). The Messiah figure in [1 Enoch] does not come down to earth and is peripheral to the text; he presides over the “elect” around God’s throne [87] but does not rescue the sinners of Enoch’s day. “In the day of trouble evil shall [still] be heaped upon sinners,” [88] he tells Enoch.[89]

Clearly there are wide differences between 1 Enoch and the Book of Moses in their projections of the fate of the antediluvian sinners. That established, can any ancient parallels for the weeping God of Joseph Smith be found in other extracanonical accounts of Enoch?

Remarkably, such a passage does appear in the Midrash Rabbah on Lamentations, which portrays Enoch as weeping in likeness of God as a consequence of the destruction of the Israelite temple. We have found no similar scene in the ancient literature relating to any other prophet, but here in Midrash Rabbah and in the Book of Moses we find it specifically connected with Enoch:

At that time the Holy One, blessed be He, wept and said, “Woe is Me! What have I done? I caused my Shekhinah to dwell below on earth for the sake of Israel; but now that they have sinned, I have returned to My former habitation. . . .” At that time Metatron [who is Enoch in his glorified state] came, fell upon his face, and spake before the Holy One, blessed be He: “Sovereign of the Universe, let me weep, but do Thou not weep.” He replied to him: “if thou lettest Me not weep now, I will repair to a place which thou hast not permission to enter,[90] and will weep there,” as it is said, “But if ye will not hear it, My soul shall weep in secret for pride” [Jeremiah 13:17].[91]

The withdrawal of the divine presence through the loss of the temple that provoked God’s weeping in Midrash Rabbah is a fitting analog to the taking up of Enoch’s Zion from the earth in the Book of Moses. Whereas in Midrash Rabbah God withdraws His presence because of the wickedness of the people, the account in the Book of Moses (Moses 7:21, 23, 27, 31) has God removing the city of Zion in its entirety from among the wicked nations that surround it because of its righteousness. The two pericopes may have more in common than is immediately apparent. A study of Jewish literature reveals a significant correspondence between Zion and the Shekhinah (Divine Presence). Zion is often personified as the Bride of God (Revelation 21:2). Shekhinah is a feminine noun in Hebrew and often associated with the female personified Wisdom. It is likewise described in later Jewish writings as the Bride of God. In short, the idea of Zion being taken up and the Shekhinah being withdrawn are parallel motifs,[92] a topic treated extensively by David Larsen elsewhere.[93]

All this aside, it is our view that the most important thrust of the parallel passages in Midrash Rabbah and the Book of Moses is not the parallel motif of the withdrawal of the presence of God from the earth but rather the sympathetic union of God and Enoch in their sorrow. Enoch in Midrash Rabbah, like Enoch in the Book of Moses, judges the emotional display to be inappropriate for the holy, eternal God and responds with his personal commiseration. The weeping of Enoch is not merely significant in its own right but also because, according to the Givenses, it is an illustration “of what the actual process of acquiring the divine nature requires . . . Enoch is raised to a perspective from which he sees the world through God’s eyes.”[94]

In the Book of Moses, we read “And it came to pass that the Lord spake unto Enoch, and told Enoch all the doings of the children of men; wherefore Enoch knew, and looked upon their wickedness, and their misery, and wept and stretched forth his arms, and his heart swelled wide as eternity; and his bowels yearned; and all eternity shook” (Moses 7:41).

The idea of raising the prophet to a level approaching godhood through shared sorrow with the divine is explored at length by theologian Terence Fretheim. Fretheim argues that the prophet’s “sympathy with the divine pathos” was not the result of merely contemplating the divine but instead a result of the prophet’s elevation to become a member of the divine council. He writes:

[T]he fact that the prophets are said to be a part of this council indicates something of the intimate relationship they had with God. The prophet was somehow drawn up into the very presence of God; even more, the prophet was in some sense admitted into the history of God. The prophet becomes a party to the divine story; the heart and mind of God pass over into that of the prophet to such an extent that the prophet becomes a veritable embodiment of God.[95]

Not surprising then, in the aftermath of Enoch’s soul-stretching emulation of “divine pathos” in the Book of Moses, is that the weeping prophet is given a right to the divine throne. Says Joseph Smith’s Enoch to God: “thou hast . . . given unto me a right to thy throne” (Moses 7:59).

The Book of Moses motif of granting access to the divine throne is nowhere more at home than in the pseudepigraphal Enoch literature. For example, in 3 Enoch, Enoch declares: “the Holy One, blessed be He, made for me a throne like the throne of glory . . . and sat me down upon it.” [96]

Summarizing other ancient literature relevant to this passage, Charles Mopsik concludes that the exaltation of Enoch is not meant to be seen as a singular event. Rather he writes that the “enthronement of Enoch is a prelude to the transfiguration of the righteous—and at their head the Messiah—in the world to come, a transfiguration that is the restoration of the figure of the perfect Man.” [97] Following this ideological trajectory to its full extent, Mormons see the perfect Man (with a capital “M”), into whose form the Messiah and Enoch and all the righteous are transfigured, as God the Father, of whom Adam, the first mortal man, is a type.[98] Fittingly, as part of Joseph Smith’s account of Enoch’s vision, God proclaims His primary identity to be that of an “Endless and Eternal” Man, declaring: “Man of Holiness is my name” (Moses 7:35). Given the identity of God the Father as the “Man of Holiness,” the title “Son of Man,” which is a notable feature of the Book of Parables in 1 Enoch [99] and also appears in marked density through the Book of Moses vision of Enoch (Moses 7:24, 47, 54, 56, 59, 65), is perfectly intelligible within LDS theology. So are the related titles of “Chosen One” (Moses 7:39; cf. Moses 4:2), “Anointed One” (i.e. Messiah; see Moses 7:63), and “Righteous One” (Moses 6:57; 7:45, 47, 67), that appear prominently both in 1 Enoch and the LDS Enoch story. After considering the sometimes contentious debate among scholars about the single or multiple referent(s) of these titles and their relationship to other texts, Nickelsburg and VanderKam[100] conclude that the author of 1 Enoch (like the author of the Book of Moses) “saw the . . . traditional figures as having a single referent and applied the various designations and characteristics as seemed appropriate to him.” Consistent with texts found at Nag Hammadi,[101] Joseph Smith’s Enoch straightforwardly equates the filial relationship between God and His Only Begotten Son in the New Testament to the Enochic notion of the perfect Man and the Son of Man as follows “Man of Holiness is [God’s] name,[102] and the name of his Only Begotten is the Son of Man, even Jesus Christ, a righteous Judge,[103] who shall come in the meridian of time” (Moses 6:57).

Note that the single specific description of the role of the Son of Man given in this verse from the Book of Moses as a “righteous judge” is highly characteristic of the Book of the Parables within 1 Enoch, where the primary role of the Son of Man is also that of a judge.[104] Reviewing the passages in 1 Enoch, Nickelsburg and VanderKam conclude: [105] “If the central message of the Parables is the coming of the final judgment,[106] the Son of Man/Chosen One takes center stage as the agent of this judgment.” [107]

As Mopsik observed, however, the story does not end here. Recall his conclusion that the “enthronement of Enoch is a prelude to the transfiguration of the righteous—and at their head the Messiah—in the world to come.” [108] Indeed, in one of Joseph Smith’s revelations, this is idea is made explicit in the idea that these righteous will be ordained “after the order of Melchizedek, which was after the order of Enoch, which was after the order of the Only Begotten Son. Wherefore, as it is written, they are gods, even the sons of God.” [109] Unlike priesthood ordinations performed by men, the ordinance that conveys this power is administered directly by God Himself, just as this status was conferred upon Enoch as part of his heavenly ascent: “And [the high priesthood after the order of the covenant which God made with Enoch] was delivered unto men by the calling of [God’s] own voice” (JST Genesis 14:29). In another of Joseph Smith’s revelations we are told that all of God’s earthly children are called, in essence, “Sons of Man” [110] with the potential to “become perfect, even as [their] Father which is in heaven is perfect” (Matthew 5:48). Making explicit the role of the Son of Man as the forerunner for the Sons of Man, the resurrected Jesus Christ varies this statement slightly in the Book of Mormon: “Therefore I would that ye should be perfect even as I, or your Father who is in heaven is perfect” (3 Nephi 12:48).

In his insightful discussion of the Greek word teleios, translated “perfect” in Matthew, John Welch writes:

[I]n commanding the people to “be perfect even as I, or your Father who is in heaven is perfect” (3 Nephi 12:48), it seems that Jesus had several things in mind besides “perfection” as we usually think of it. Whatever he meant, it involved the idea of becoming like God (“even as I or your Father who is in heaven”), which occurs by seeing God (see 1 John 3:2) and knowing God (See John 17:3). These ultimate realities can be represented [ceremonially] in this world,[111] for as Joseph Smith taught, it is through [the] ordinances [of the temple] that we are “instructed more perfectly.” [112]

This last statement brings us to the subject of Enoch and the temple. Hugh Nibley cited Caquot as saying that Enoch is:

“in the center of a study of matters dealing with initiation in the literature of Israel.” Enoch is the great initiate who becomes the great initiator. . . . [113] The Hebrew book of Enoch bore the title of Hekhalot, referring to the various chambers or stages of initiation in the temple.[114] Enoch, having reached the final stage, becomes the Metatron to initiate and guide others. “I will not say but what Enoch had Temples and officiated therein,” said Brigham Young, “but we have no account of it.” [115] Today we do have such accounts. [116]

In line with the theme of Enoch as a forerunner in the “transfiguration of the righteous” [117] is the Book of Moses idea that Enoch succeeded in bringing a whole people to be sufficiently “pure in heart” (D&C 97:21) to fully live the law of consecration. In Zion, the “City of Holiness (Moses 7:19), the people “were of one heart and one mind, and dwelt in righteousness; and there were no poor among them” (Moses 7:18). We are told that not only Enoch but also “all his people walked with God” (Moses 7:69) and they were eventually taken into heaven with him:[118] “And Enoch and all his people walked with God, and he dwelt in the midst of Zion; and it came to pass that Zion was not, for God received it up into his own bosom; and from thence went forth the saying, Zion is Fled” (Moses 7:69).This topic is treated extensively by David Larsen elsewhere.[119]

In LDS temples, the promise of being “received . . . into [God’s] own bosom” (Moses 7:69) like Enoch and his people is extended to all those who prepare themselves to receive it,[120] through the sanctifying power of Christ. One of Joseph Smith’s revelations identifies Zion with “the pure in heart” (D&C 97:21)—and, as Jesus said in the Sermon on the Mount, the reward of the pure in heart is that they shall “see God” (Matthew 5:8, 3 Nephi 12:8, D&C 97:16; cf. D&C 58:18). “Therefore,” the Lord told Joseph Smith, “sanctify yourselves that your minds become single to God, and the days will come that you shall see him; for he will unveil his face unto you, and it shall be in his own time, and in his own way, and according to his own will. Remember the great and last promise which I have made unto you” (D&C 88:68–69).[121]

Thus end the Enoch chapters in the Book of Moses.

Conclusion

In a recent discussion of Mormon theology, Stephen Webb [122] concludes that Joseph Smith “knew more about theology and philosophy than it was reasonable for anyone in his position to know, as if he were dipping into the deep, collective unconsciousness of Christianity with a very long pen.” More significantly, the Prophet recovered a story of Enoch that manifests a deep understanding of what it means to become a “partaker of the divine nature” (2 Peter 1:4),[123] and in that process to become a partner with God Himself in the salvation and exaltation of His children,[124] being raised to a perspective from which we see the world through God’s eyes. Those who wish to follow the path of Enoch, which is the same path that was laid out by the great Redeemer, must take upon themselves its sufferings with its glory (Romans 8:17).[125] Nowhere is this fact more apparent than in the ordinances of Mormon temples, where, as Truman Madsen observed, “a full-scale covenant relationship, the Atonement of Christ may be written, as it were, in our very flesh.” [126] “One is. . . obliged,” writes Eugene Seaich, to become not only “ ‘one flesh’ with Christ, but [also] one life, one sacrifice, thus participating actively in the eternal act of love which began in the heavens.” [127]

Acknowledgements

We appreciate the kindness of Jared Ludlow, Stephen D. Ricks, David Calabro, and Chris Miasnik in providing helpful comments and suggestions on an earlier draft of this article. Dan Bachman pointed our attention to the thesis of Salvatore Cirillo. We also extend our thanks to Tim Guymon for his expert assistance with technical editing and Alison Coutts for her long labors in typesetting and proofreading this article.

Jeffrey M. Bradshaw (PhD, University of Washington) is a Senior Research Scientist at the Florida Institute for Human and Machine Cognition (IHMC) in Pensacola, Florida (www.ihmc.us/groups/jbradshaw/). His professional writings have explored a wide range of topics in human and machine intelligence. Jeff has written a detailed commentary on the first five chapters of the book of Moses (In God’s Image and Likeness, Eborn, 2010) and, with David Larsen, is currently preparing a second volume on the stories of Enoch, Noah, and the Tower of Babel (www.templethemes.net). He has also authored Temple Themes in the Book of Moses, Temple Themes in the Oath and Covenant of the Priesthood, and articles on temple studies and the ancient Near East for Studies in the Bible and Antiquity, Element: A Journal of Mormon Philosophy and Theology, and BYU Studies.

David J. Larsen is a PhD candidate at the University of St Andrews in Scotland and is currently finishing his dissertation, “Royal Themes in the Psalms and in the Dead Sea Scrolls.” He holds an MA degree in Biblical Theology from Marquette University and a BA in Near East Studies from Brigham Young University.  His research interests include Jewish and Christian apocalyptic and mysticism, pseudepigrapha and apocryphal literature,royal/messianic themes in the Bible and in the Dead Sea Scrolls, and “ascent to heaven” traditions. He is the author of the blog heavenlyascents.com, where he explores topics in early Jewish and Christian mysticism, LDS theology, and other topics in religious studies. He currently lives in Springville, Utah with his wife, Marluce, and their four children.

ADDENDUM:

After part one of this study appeared, we became aware of a publication by Samuel Zinner [128] that relates to allusions to the baptism of Jesus Christ in Moses 6:26–27 that were discussed in that article.[129] The allusion to baptism in those verses relating to the call of Enoch is strengthened by parallel wording in the later account of the descent of the Spirit at the baptism of Adam (Moses 6:65: “the Spirit of God descended upon him”) followed by a “voice out of heaven” (Moses 6:66) and a declaration of the sonship of Adam (Moses 6:68: “Behold, thou art one in me, a son of God; and thus may all become my sons”). Since God the Father is declared to be the “Man of Holiness” in Moses 6:57, the titles “son of God” and “son of Man” can be equated.

Zinner compares Hebrews 1:5–6 to passages relating to the father’s declaration of sonship at the baptism of Jesus in the Gospel of the Ebionites and the Gospel of the Hebrews. He also notes that the motifs of “rest” and “reigning” co-occur in these three texts as well as in the Coptic Gospel of Thomas (logion 2).[130] Finally, he argues for a “striking isomorphism” shared between 1 Enoch and the baptismal allusion in the Gospel of the Ebionites in a promise made by Enoch to the righteous: “and a bright light will shine upon you, and the voice of rest you will hear from heaven.” [131] In light of these (and additional passages relating these themes to the personage of the “Son of Man” [132]), Zinner argues for the likelihood that the ideas behind all these passages “arose in an Enochic matrix.” Hence, the strange parallel to Jesus’s baptism in the Book of Moses account of the calling of Enoch—which on the face of it originally might have been looked upon as an obvious anachronism—has turned out to be a passage with plausible Enochic affinities and possible Enochic origins.

[1]  .  However, 1 Enoch and the Book of Giants both touch on some related themes as seen below. For a summary of the literary relationship between the 1 Enoch Book of Watchers and the Book of Giants, see Loren T. Stuckenbruck, The Book of Giants from Qumran: Texts, Translation, and Commentary (Tübingen: Mohr, 1997), 24–28.

[2]  .  Homilies 25:2–5, Psalm-Book 46:21–47:4, Kephalia, 5:22–26.

[3]  .  For a comprehensive study of the manuscript evidence, see John C. Reeves, Jewish Lore in Manichaean Cosmogony: Studies in the Book of Giants Traditions (Cincinnati, OH: Hebrew Union, 1992). Reeves concludes that this foundational work of Manichaean cosmogony is indebted in important respects to Jewish exegetical traditions relating to Genesis 6:1–4.

[4]  .  Michael Wise, Martin Abegg, Jr., and Edward Cook, eds. The Dead Sea Scrolls: A New Translation (New York City, NY: Harper-Collins, 1996), 290. Stuckenbruck dates the Book of Giants to “sometime between the late 3rd century and 164 BCE,” Stuckenbruck, Book of Giants, 31.

[5]  .  Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 1, p. 11.

[6]  .  Reeves explains:

The term gbryn is the Aramaic form of Hebrew gibborim (singular gibbor), a word whose customary connotation in the latter language is ‘mighty hero, warrior,’ but which in some contexts later came to be interpreted in the sense of ‘giants.’ (The term is translated seventeen times with the Greek word for “giants” in the Septuagint. Reeves, Jewish Lore, 134 n.60) . . .  Similarly nplyn is the Aramaic form of the Hebrew np(y)lym (i.e., nephilim), an obscure designation used only three times in the Hebrew Bible. Genesis 6:4 refers to the nephilim who were on the earth as a result of the conjugal union of the [‘sons of God’ and the ‘daughters of Adam’] and further qualifies their character by terming them gibborim. Both terms are translated in [Septuagint] Genesis 6:4 by [‘giants’] and in Targum Onkelos by gbry’. Numbers 13:33 reports that gigantic nephilim were encountered by the Israelite spies in the land of Canaan, here the nephilim are associated with a (different?) tradition concerning a race of giants surviving among the indigenous ethnic groups that inhabited Canaan. A further possible reference to both the nephilim and gibborim of Genesis 6:4 occurs in Ezekiel 32:27. The surrounding pericope presents a description of slain heroes who lie in Sheol, among whom are a group termed the gibborim nophelim [sic] me’arelim. The final word, me’arelim, ‘from the uncircumcised,’ should probably be corrected on the basis of the Septuagint . . . to me’olam, and the whole phrase translated ‘those mighty ones who lie there from of old,’ ” Jewish Lore, 69–70. The conjunction of gbryn wnpylyn in QG1 1:2 may be viewed as an appositional construction similar to the expression ‘yr wqdys “Watcher and Holy One” (e.g., Daniel 4:10, 14). However, the phrase might also be related to certain passages that suggest there were three distinct classes (or even generations) of Giants, names for who of which are represented in this line .… [C]ompare Jubilees 7:22: ‘And they bore children, the Naphidim [sic] . . . and the Giants killed the Naphil, and the Naphil killed the ‘Elyo, and the ‘Elyo [killed] human beings, and humanity [killed] one another,” Reeves Jewish Law, 69–70.

For additional analysis of these terms, see also Archie T. Wright, The Origin of Evil Spirits, ed. Jörg Frey (Tübingen: Mohr, 2005), 79–95.

[7]  .  Moses 7:14–15 distinguishes between “the enemies of the people of God” (gibborim?) and “the giants of the land” (nephilim?).

[8]  .  Reeves, Jewish Lore, 67.

[9]  .  Florentino Garcia Martinez, “The Book of Giants (1Q23),” in The Dead Sea Scrolls Translated: The Qumran Texts in English, ed. Florentino Garcia Martinez, 2nd ed, trans. Wilfred G. E. Watson (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1996), 9+14+15:2–4; Wise, Dead Sea Scrolls, Book of Giants (1Q23), 9+14+15:2–4, p. 291.

[10]  .  Wise, Dead Sea Scrolls, Book of Giants (1Q23), 9+14+15:2–4, p. 291.

[11]  .  Martinez translates the term as “mysteries,” Martinez, “The Book of Giants (1Q23),” 9+14+15:2, p. 291. Stuckenbruck is more cautious and does not attempt translation: “Not enough is visible on 1Q23 14 to verify this reading,” Stuckenbruck, Book of Giants, 163.

[12]  .  Wise, Dead Sea Scrolls, Tales of the Patriarchs (1QapGen) 1:2, p. 91. Cf. Joseph A. Fitzmyer, ed., The Genesis Apocryphon of Qumran Cave 1 (1Q20): A Commentary (Rome: Editrice Pontificio Istituto Biblico, 2004), 1:2, p. 67; Florentino Garcia Martinez, “Genesis Apocryphon (1QapGen ar).” in Dead Sea Scrolls Translated, 1:2, p. 230: “mystery of evil.” See also 2 Thessalonians 2:7 (Fitzmyer, Genesis Apocryphon, 120 n. 1:2). For an extended discussion, see Samuel I. Thomas, The “Mysteries” of Qumran: Mystery, Secrecy, and Esotericism in the Dead Sea Scroll (Atlanta, GA: Society of Biblical Literature, 2009), 180–82.

[13]  .  Wise, Dead Sea Scrolls, Book of Giants (4Q531), 22:8, p. 293: “the wild man they call [me].” Contrast “and the hinds of the field are calling,” Stuckenbruck, Book of Giants, 4Q531, 17:8, p. 164, and “and they bellowed a feral roar,” Martinez, “Book of Giants (4Q531),” 2:8, p. 262: Regarding translation difficulties in this passage, see Stuckenbruck, Book of Giants, 163.

[14]  .  “As I was journeying, and stood upon the place Mahujah, and cried unto the Lord, there came a voice out of heaven, saying—Turn ye, and get ye upon the mount Simeon.” On the basis of the pronoun “I” that is present in the OT1 manuscript (see Scott H. Faulring, Kent P. Jackson, and Robert J. Matthews, eds. Joseph Smith’s New Translation of the Bible: Original Manuscripts [Provo, UT: BYU Religious Studies Center, 2004] 103), and the use of the second-person plural “ye” that appears twice later in the verse, Cirillo argues (correctly, we think) for an alternate reading: “As I was journeying and stood in the place, Mahujah and I cried unto the Lord. There came a voice out of heaven, saying—Turn ye, and get ye upon the mount Simeon,” Cirillo, “Joseph Smith,” 103, punctuation modified. This turns the name Mahujah into a personal name instead of a place name, i.e., Enoch is “standing with” Mahujah, “not on Mahujah” (Cirillo, “Joseph Smith,” 103).

[15]  .  Mahijah (Moses 6:40) and Mahujah (Moses 7:2) are legitimate ways of transliterating variations of a single name that has been preserved in ancient manuscripts in two versions. For example, the Masoretic text of Genesis 4:18 includes both spellings of the name (Mehuja-el and Mehija-el), one right after the other in a context that leaves no doubt that each occurrence is referring to the same individual. See, e.g., Barry L. Bandstra, Genesis 1-11: A Handbook on the Hebrew Text (Waco, TX: Baylor University Press, 2008), 1–11, p. 268). Ronald S. Hendel, The Text of Genesis 1-11: Textual Studies and Critical Edition (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998), 47–48 attributes this phenomenon either to a graphic confusion of “y” and “w,” cf. Hugh W. Nibley, “Churches in the Wilderness,” in Nibley on the Timely and the Timeless, ed. Truman G. Madsen (Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1978), 157; Nibley, Enoch, 278; or to linguistic modernization of what seems to be the older form (Mehuja-el). Note that instead of featuring each of the two forms of the name in succession as in the Masoretic text, the Cairo Geniza manuscript gives Mehuja-el twice, whereas the Samaritan version has Mahi-el twice. See Mark Shoulson, ed., The Torah: Jewish and Samaritan Versions Compared (LightningSource, 2008), Genesis 4:18, p. 11.

[16]  .  Louis C. Zucker, “Joseph Smith as a Student of Hebrew,” Dialogue 3/2 (1968): 41–55.

[17]  .  Because Joseph Smith retained the “-el” suffix in Moses 5:43, corresponding to Genesis 4:18, a reasonable assumption is that he did not himself recognize an equivalence among Mahujah, Mahijah, and Mehuja-el.

[18]  .  John W. Wevers, Notes on the Greek Text of Genesis (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1993), 62 n. 4:18 notes the existence of “Mehuja” as a variant spelling of Mehuja-el in a Greek manuscript of Genesis 4:18. Richard S. Hess, Studies in the Personal Names of Genesis 1-11 (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 2009), 41–43 gives two possible meanings of the name Mehuja-el: 1. god/El enlivens; 2. life of god/El, i.e., divine life. Hess sees the former meaning as more probable.

[19]  .  The rendering of MHWY from the Book of the Giants that is given most often in English transliterations is Mahawai (keeping the ‘h’ and transliterating the ‘w’ as a consonant), but Mahujah or Mahujah are equally acceptable alternatives. Nibley, Enoch, 278 notes that Mehuja-el appears in the “Greek Septuagint as Mai-el. See Cécile Dogniez and Marguerite Harl, eds. Le Pentateuque d’Alexandrie: Texte Grec et Traduction. La Bible des Septante (Paris: Éditions du Cerf, 2001), Pentateuque, Genesis 4:18, p. 145; Melvin K. H. Peters, A New English Translation of the Septuagint and the Other Greek Translations Traditionally Included under that Title: Deuteronomy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), Genesis 4:18, p. 8) and in the Latin Vulgate as Mawiah-el, see Robert Weber, ed. Biblia Sacra Vulgata 4th ed. (American Bible Society, 1990), Genesis 4:18, p. 9, showing that Mahujah and Mahijah were the same name, since Mai- (Greek had no internal ‘h’) could come only from Mahi- [MHY-].” Wevers writes that “the Septuagint spelling of Mai-el follows the Samaritan tradition [Mahi-el], with the only difference being the dropped ‘h,’ Wevers, Notes, 62 n.4:18. The [Mahujah] version that we see in the Book of the Giants, which is probably related to Genesis 4:18, shows up in the Latin Vulgate as Maviahel likely due to the fact that Jerome went to the Hebrew version for his translation. He didn’t use the ‘h’ either and made the ‘w’ a consonant (‘v’) instead of a vowel (‘u’) in his transliteration. This is why in the Douay-Rheims Bible (based on the Vulgate), we see the name rendered as Maviael.” Note that the grandfather of the prophet Enoch also bore a similar name to MHWY: Mahalaleel (Genesis 5:12–17; 1 Chronicles 1:2; Moses 6:19–20. See also Nehemiah 11:4). As a witness of how these names can be confused easily, observe that the Greek manuscript used for Brenton’s translation of the Septuagint reads “Maleleel” for “Maiel.” (L. C. Lancelot Brenton, The Septuagint with Apocrypha: Greek and English (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 2005), Genesis 4:18, p. 5).

Cirillo, “Joseph Smith,” 97, citing the conclusions of Loren T. Stuckenbruck, The Book of Giants from Qumran: Texts, Translation, and Commentary (Tübingen, Mohr, 1997), 27, considers “that the most conspicuously independent content” in the Book of Giants, “unparallelled in other Jewish literature,” is the names of the giants, including Mahaway [i.e., Mahujah].” Moreover, according to Cirillo: ”The name Mahaway in the [Book of Giants] and the names Mahujah and Mahijah in the [Book of Moses] represent the strongest similarity between the [LDS revelations on Enoch] and the [pseudepigraphal books of Enoch] (specifically the [Book of Giants]).”

[20]  .  Nibley, Enoch, 278. Noting the possibility of wordplay, Nibley conjectures that “what the Ma- [in Mahijah] most strongly suggests is certainly the all-but-universal ancient interrogative, Ma (“who?” or “what?”), so that the names Mahujah and Mahijah both sound to the student of Semitics like questions.”

[21]  .  Wise, Dead Sea Scrolls, 292. Regarding the details of the first dream, see Reeves, Jewish Lore, 84–90, 95–102. On the second dream, see  Reeves, Jewish Lore, 92–93. For more on the interpretation of the dreams, including a discussion of resonances between the Book of Giants and 3 Baruch, see Andrei A. Orlov, “The Flooded Arboretums: The Garden Traditions in the Slavonic Version of 3 Baruch and the Book of Giants.” Catholic Biblical Quarterly 65/2 (April 2003): 184–201.

[22]  .  Reeves, Jewish Lore, 84.

[23]  .  Or “the scribe [who is] set apart,” Reeves, Jewish Lore, 91, taking the Aramaic term to describe the separation of Enoch from human society by way of analogy to the description of how Joseph was “set apart from his brethren” (Genesis 49:26) when he went to Egypt Reeves, Jewish Lore, 77. Rashi understood “set apart” in the sense of “separated” or “isolated,” Rashi, The Torah with Rashi’s Commentary Translated, Annotated, and Elucidated. Vol. 1: Beresheis/Genesis, trans. Rabbi Yisrael Isser Zvi Herczeg (Brooklyn, NY: Mesorah Publications, 1995), Genesis 49:26, 4:559; Reeves, Jewish Lore, 139 n.107.

[24]  .  Martinez, “Book of Giants (4Q530),” 2:20–23, p. 261. Cf. the word go in Enoch’s formal commission (Moses 6:32). For more about the use of this form in the commissioning of Mahujah and in similar contexts in the Enoch literature, see  Reeves, Jewish Lore, 93–94. An additional phrase in Vermes’s translation implies that Mahujah was chosen because he had been to Enoch for advice before: “previously you listened to his [Enoch’s] voice,” Geza Vermes, The Complete Dead Sea Scrolls in English, rev. ed. (London: Penguin Books, 2004), 550; cf. Wise, Dead Sea Scrolls, 2:23, p. 294: “you have heard his voice.” This may correspond to Mahujah’s assertion that this is the second request he has made of Enoch, see Florentino Garcia Martinez, “Book of Giants (4Q530),” in Dead Sea Scrolls Translated, 3:7, p. 261: “For a second time I beg you for an oracle.” “Beyer understands this … passage to signify … that [Mahujah] was the only Giant capable of executing this mission due to his personal acquaintance with Enoch,” Reeves, Jewish Lore, 94 n.23. Affirming the idea that Enoch and Mahujah had been previously acquainted, Stuckenbruck cites the Manichaean Uygur fragment in which Enoch calls out Mahujah’s name “very lovingly,” Stuckenbruck, Book of Giants, 127 n.140.

[25]  .  Cirillo, “Joseph Smith,” 105. Since the Book of the Giants was not discovered until 1948, Cirillo is obliged to look elsewhere for what he takes to be Joseph Smith’s manuscript source of these ideas. He argues that: “This journey however is not unique to the [Book of the Giants], it is also found (and likely based on) the journey of Methuselah in 1 Enoch (The Birth of Noah, Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 1, 106:1-107:3, pp. 536-537) … This format, for one person journeying to Enoch to question him, is evident once more in 1 Enoch (The Apocalypse of Noah, Nickelsburg et al., 1 Enoch 2, 65:1-68:1, pp. 273–74),” Cirillo, “Joseph Smith,” 105–106. A reading of the 1 Enoch accounts will show that the resemblance to the Book of Moses is weak and, moreover, there is no mention of Mahijah or Mahujah in the 1 Enoch accounts. In addition, Cirillo fails to provide any explanation for the other striking similarities between Joseph Smith’s accounts of Enoch and the Book of the Giants that are outlined in this paper.

[26]  .  Mahujah identifies himself elsewhere (Wise, Dead Sea Scrolls, 6Q8, 1:4, p. 292) as the “son of Baraq’el one of the twenty fallen Watchers listed by name in 1 Enoch,” Reeves, Jewish Lore, 93. See Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 1, 6:7, p. 174, 8:3, p. 188; Nickelsburg, et al. 1 Enoch 2, 69:2, p. 297, cf. 60:13–15, p. 224. See also Mopsik, Hénoch, 14:4, p. 109, 17:1, 3, pp. 110, 111). In Moses 5:43, the name of Mahuja-el’s father is given as Irad, a prominent member of the secret combination who was killed later by his great-grandson Lamech when he revealed their secrets in violation of deadly oaths he had taken (Moses 5:49–50). In Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 1, 6:7, p. 174; Nickelsburg, et al., 1 Enoch 2, 69:3, p. 297, Baraq’el is the ninth chief, under the leader Shemihazah, of the Watchers who descended on Mount Hermon and “swore together and bound one another with a curse,” Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 1, 6:5, p. 174, as they determined to “choose… wives from the daughters of men,” Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 1, 6:1, p. 174. We learn the secrets that each of the heads of the Watchers revealed to mankind, Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 1, 8:3, p. 188,. Elsewhere, we read of their responsibilities of each of these in the governing of the seven heavens, Mopsik, Hénoch, 14:4, p. 109, 17:1, 3, pp. 110, 111; Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 2, 60:13–15, p. 224. Baraq’el appears as Virogdad in the Manichaean fragments of the Book of Giants, see Reeves, Jewish Lore, 147 n. 202, p. 138 n. 98. According to Jubilees 4:15, Baraq’el is also the father of Dinah, the wife of Enoch’s grandfather Mahalaleel; see O. S. Wintermute, “Jubilees,” in Old Testament Pseudepigrapha, Jubilees 4:15, p. 61, see also pp. 61–62 n. g. If one assumed the descriptions in the relevant accounts were consistent, this would make the prophet Enoch a first cousin once-removed to Mahujah.

In the Doctrine and Covenants, the name of Enoch (D&C 78, 82, 92, 96, 104) or Baraq’el (= Baurak Ale. D&C 103, 105. Note that Joseph Smith’s approach is simply to follow the lead of his Hebrew teacher, J. Seixas, who seems to have transliterated both the Hebrew letters kaph and qoph with a “k,” so it is difficult to trace what original name he is transliterating), was sometimes used as a code name for Joseph Smith; see David J. Whittaker, “Substituted Names in the Published Revelations of Joseph Smith.” BYU Studies 23/1 (1983): 6. Nibley,  observes:

“That Baraq’el is interesting… because[, in the Book of the Giants,] Baraq’el is supposed to have been the father of [Mahujah] . . . A professor in Hebrew at the University of Utah said, “Well, Joseph Smith didn’t understand the word barak, meaning ‘to bless” [Zucker, “Joseph Smith,” 49. William W. Phelps had suggested that “Baurak Ale” meant “God bless you,” see Whittaker, “Substituted Names,” 6.]. But “Baraq’el” means the “lightning of God” [see Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 1, p. 180]. The Doctrine and Covenants is right on target in that. (Nibley, Teachings, 268)

Cirillo, “Joseph Smith,” 111 cites the conclusion of Quinn, Magic, 224 that the transliteration “Baurak Ale” came from a “direct reading” of Laurence’s English translation of 1 Enoch. Note, however, that Laurence’s transliteration was “Barakel” not “Baurak Ale”—if Joseph Smith simply borrowed this from Laurence, why do the transliterations not match more closely?

[27]  .  Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 1, 6:5, p. 174.

[28]  .  Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 2, 69:13–14, p. 304.

[29]  .  For more on the uses of such oaths within and outside of scripture, see J. M. Bradshaw, God’s Image 1, Moses 5:29b-d, pp. 377–378; Jeffrey M. Bradshaw and Ronan J. Head, “The Investiture Panel at Mari and Rituals of Divine Kingship in the Ancient Near East,” Studies in the Bible and Antiquity 4 (2012): 33–34.

[30]  .  Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 1, 6:5, p. 174.

[31]  .  Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 1, 174.

[32]  .  See Bradshaw, God’s Image 1, Moses 5:44a, p. 392: “The wording ‘took unto himself’ is paralleled in the description of the illicit relationships of the wicked husbands in the days of Noah (Moses 8:14, 21).  Wright observes that “there is no indication … that a marriage actually took place, but rather [the phrase] could be translated and understood as ‘Lamech took to himself two women,’ ” Wright, Evil Spirits, 135–36.

[33]  .  See Bradshaw, God’s Image 1, Moses 5:47a-54c, pp. 395–99.

[34]  .  Moses 5:53: “Lamech had spoken the secret unto his wives, and they rebelled against him, and declared these things abroad, and had not compassion.”

[35]  .  Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 1, 8:3, p. 188.

[36]  .  Wise, Dead Sea Scrolls, 4Q531, 22:5, p. 293. Cf. Stuckenbruck, Book of Giants, 4Q531, 17:5, p. 164: “adversaries.” Martinez, “Book of Giants (4Q531),” 2:5, p. 262 translates the term as “accusers.”

[37]  .  Martinez, “Book of Giants (4Q531),” 2:6, p. 262. Stuckenbruck, Book of Giants, 4Q531, 17:6, p. 164 “and in t]the heavens are seated, and among the holy places they dwell.”

[38]  .  Note that LDS scripture teaches that Enoch’s ministry took place in the New World (D&C 107:53–57).

[39]  .  Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 1, 290. In 1 Enoch, Enoch’s journey to the eastern edge of the world would have been seen as taking him to the “east sea” on the edge of the dry earth, where heaven meets the sea. Enoch’s cosmology is sometimes hard to follow, but at this place he sees the gates where the celestial luminaries emerge. Consistent with ancient perspectives, this “east sea” might be equated to the place of the gate where the sun arose each morning.

[40]  .  Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 1, 13:7–8, p. 237.

[41]  .  The “waters of Dan” in 1 Enoch arguably may be identified with the Sea of Galilee. Although the “sea east” in the biblical text usually refers to the Dead Sea, the Sea of Galilee (or Kinnereth) is also certainly an “east” sea. See Joshua 12:3; Numbers 34:11–12, where the Sea of Kinnereth is considered the eastern frontier of the Promised Land. In Numbers 13:29, the Canaanites live by this sea. The Sea of Galilee could probably be called the “waters of Dan,” as it borders on that land. Nearby Mt. Hermon is, of course, where the descent of the Watchers and the ascent of Enoch take place. It was also the site of the Transfiguration, the place marking both Heaven and Sheol. Jewish tradition links Mount Hermon with Jerusalem/Zion (the Jordan was thought to have its source at Mt. Hermon), especially for cultic events like the Yom Kippur liturgy. For more on this, see Crispin H. T. Fletcher-Louis, “The Revelation of the Sacral Son of Man: The Genre, History of Religions Context and the Meaning of the Transfiguration,” in Auferstehung—Resurrection: The Fourth Durham-Tübingen Research Symposium, ed. Friedrich Avemarie and Hermann Lichtenberger, (Tübingen: Mohr, 2001), 266–271; Nickelsburg, “Enoch, Levi, and Peter: Recipients of Revelation in Upper Galilee,” Journal of Biblical Literature 100/4 (December 1981): 599.

[42]  .  Reeves, Sundermann Fragment L I Recto 1–9, Jewish Lore, 109. See also p. 110 n.6 and p. 154 n.306.

[43]  .  Nibley, Enoch, 214. See Florentino Garcia Martinez, “Book of Giants (4Q203),” in Dead Sea Scrolls Translated, 8:1–11, pp. 260–61.

[44]  .  Noting that the Book of Giants refers to the second tablet given to Mahujah by Enoch as being a “copy” (F. G. Martinez, Book of Giants (4Q203), 8:3, p. 260), Reeves conjectures: “Perhaps Enoch employed the ‘heavenly tablets’ in the formulation of his interpretation,” Reeves, Jewish Lore, 111 n.3.

[45]  .  Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 1, 98:7–8, p. 468. Cf. 81–82, pp. 333–334, 97:6, p. 467, 104:7, p. 513.

[46]  .  Dale C. Allison, Testament of Abraham (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2003), 10:1, 6–7, 11, p. 254. Likewise, in the Testament of the Twelve Patriarchs, Dan, the son of Jacob-Israel, finds the record of the wickedness of the sons of Levi in the book of Enoch, see Howard C. Kee, “Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs,” in Old Testament Pseudepigrapha, Dan 5:6, p. 809: “I read in the Book of Enoch the Righteous that your prince is Satan and that all the spirits of sexual promiscuity and of arrogance . . . cause them to commit sin before the Lord.” See also ibid., Kee, “Testaments,” 5:4, p. 786: “For I have seen in a copy of the book of Enoch that your sons will be ruined by promiscuity”; Naphtali 4:1, p. 812: “I have read in the writing of holy Enoch that you will stray from the Lord, living in accord with every wickedness of the gentiles and committing every lawlessness of Sodom”; Benjamin 9:1, p. 827: “From the words of Enoch the Righteous I tell you that you will be sexually promiscuous like the promiscuity of the Sodomites.”

[47]  .  O. S. Wintermute, “Jubilees,: in Old Testament Pseudepigrapha, 10:1, p. 76.

[48]  .  Martinez, “Book of Giants (4Q203),” 4:6, p. 260.

[49]  .  Nibley, Enoch, 216: “A Hypomnemata, or memorial.”

[50]  .  “Abel-Main is the Aramaic form of Abel-Maim . . . (cf. 1 Kings 15:20 and its parallel in 2 Chronicles 16:4). It is modern Tel Abil, situated approximately seven kilometers west-northwest of ‘the waters of Dan,’ at the mouth of the valley between the Lebanon range to the west and Mount Hermon, here called Senir, one of its biblical names (Deuteronomy 3:8–9; cf. Song of Solomon 4:8; Ezekiel 27:5), Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 1, 250 n. 9–10. For more on the history of the sacred geography of this region, see  Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 1, 238–47.

[51]  .  Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 1, 13:3–5, 8–9, pp. 234, 237. See Nibley, Enoch, 214.

[52]  .  Stuckenbruck, Book of Giants, 4Q203, 8:6-9, p. 90. Cf. Martinez, “Book of Giants (4Q203),” 8:6–9, p. 260: “Know that […] not your deeds and those of your wives […] they and their sons and the wives of [their sons…] for your prostitution in the land.”

[53]  .  Nibley, “Churches in the Wilderness,” 160. See Reeves, Jewish Lore, 114 n. 9. Compare Kee, “Testaments,” Dan 5:6, p. 809: “I read in the Book of Enoch the Righteous… that all the spirits of sexual promiscuity … cause [the sons of Levi] to commit sin before the Lord”; Simeon 5:4, p. 786: “For I have seen in a copy of the book of Enoch that your sons will be ruined by promiscuity”; Naphtali 4:1, p. 812: “I have read in the writing of holy Enoch that you will stray from the Lord, living in accord with every wickedness of the gentiles and committing every lawlessness of Sodom”; Benjamin 9:1, p. 827: “From the words of Enoch the Righteous I tell you that you will be sexually promiscuous like the promiscuity of the Sodomites.”

[54]  .  Nibley, “Churches in the Wilderness,” 159.

[55]  .  Martinez, “Book of Giants (4Q203),” 8:14–15, p. 261.

[56]  .  Cf.  Wise, Dead Sea Scrolls, Book of the Giants, 4Q203, 8:14–15: “But now, loosen the bonds [ … ] and pray.” Reeves, Jewish Lore, 65 translates this as: “free your prisoners and pray!” He adduces conjectural evidence for this interpretation from the Manichaean fragments of the Book of Giants that “retain some isolated references to ‘prisoners’ or ‘slaves.’ ” Stuckenbruck similarly reads: “set loose what you hold captive . . . and pray,” Stuckenbruck, Book of Giants, 4Q203, 8:14–15, p. 90.

[57]  .  Reeves, Jewish Lore, 103. Cf. J. W. Etheridge, ed., The Targums of Onkelos and Jonathan Ben Uzziel on the Pentateuch, with the Fragments of the Jerusalem Targum from the Chaldee. 2 vols, (repr. Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias Press, 2005), Genesis 6:3, p. 47.

[58]  .  Alternatively, this phrase is translated by Florentino Garcia Martinez, “Book of Giants (4Q530),” 3:3, p. 261 as “the evidence of the Giants.”

[59]  .  Reeves, Jewish Lore, 118 n.3 cites similar Jewish sources that highlight the pride and arrogance of the Giants: H. Anderson, “3 Maccabees,” in Old Testament Pseudepigrapha, 2:4, p. 519; Flavius Josephus, Antiquities, 1:3:1; Wisdom of Solomon 14:6, in The New English Bible with the Apocrypha, Oxford Study Edition, ed. Samuel Sandmel, M. Jack Suggs and Arnold J. Tkacik (New York: Oxford University Press, 1976).

[60]  .  Wise, Dead Sea Scrolls, 4Q531, 22:3–7, p. 293. Cf. Hugh W. Nibley, Teachings of the Pearl of Great Price (Provo, UT: FARMS, 2004), 269.

[61]  .  Martinez, “Book of Giants (4Q531),” in Dead Sea Scrolls Translated, 2:8, p. 262. Cf. “]rh of the beasts of the field is coming and the hinds of the field are calling,” Stuckenbruck, Book of Giants, 4Q531, 17:8, p. 164.

[62]  .  Nibley, “Churches in the Wilderness,” 161.

[63]  .  Reeves, Jewish Lore, 66. Compare Stuckenbruck, Book of Giants, 4Q203, 7 B1:4, p. 83: “he has imprisoned us and defeated yo[u,” and Martinez, “Book of Giants (4Q203),” 7:5–7, p. 260: “he has seized us and has captured you.” See also the parallel references to the fate of the Watchers in the Genesis Apocryphon, Fitzmyer, Genesis Apocryphon, 0:8, p. 65): “And now, look, we are prisoners,” Wise, Dead Sea Scrolls, Tales of the Patriarchs (1QapGen), 0:8, p. 91: “we are bound” and Martinez, Genesis Apocryphon, 1:1:4, p. 230: “I have oppressed the prisoners,” following Milik—see Fitzmyer, Genesis Apocryphon, 118 n.0:8. See also Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 1, 14:5, p. 251: “it has been decreed to bind you in bonds in the earth for all the days of eternity”;  Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 1, 10:11–13, p. 215: “Go, Michael, bind Shemihazah and the others with him, … bind them … in the valleys of the earth, until the day of their judgment … Then they will be led away to the fiery abyss (cf.  Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 1, 221–22 nn.4–6, p. 225 nn.11–13), and to the torture, and to the prison where they will be confined forever.”

For discussions of the theme of the imprisonment of the wicked at the time of Noah as it appears in the Bible, see Paul J. Achtemeier, 1 Peter (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 1996), 239–74; Bradshaw, God’s Image 1, Caption to Figure E24–1, p. 588; Peter H. Davids, The Letters of 2 Peter and Jude (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2006), 48–51, 225–226; Davids, II Peter and Jude: A Handbook on the Greek Text (Waco, TX: Baylor University, 2011), 9–11, 69–70; Jerome H. Neyrey, 2 Peter, Jude: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary (New York: Doubleday, 1993), 202; Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 1, 560; Annette Y. Reed, Fallen Angels and the History of Judaism and Christianity: The Reception of Enochic Literature (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), 104–107; Christopher Rowland and Christopher R. A. Morray-Jones, The Mystery of God: Early Jewish Mysticism and the New Testament (Leiden: Brill, 2009), 58–59; James C. VanderKam, Enoch: A Man for All Generations (Columbia, SC: University of South Carolina Press, 1995), 172.

[64]  .  Daniel C. Peterson, “On the Motif of the Weeping God in Moses 7,” Revelation, Reason, and Faith: Essays in Honor of Truman G. Madsen, ed. Donald W. Parry, Daniel C. Peterson and Stephen D. Ricks (Provo, UT: Foundation for Ancient Research and Mormon Studies, 2002), 285–317. Peterson cites J.J.M. Roberts, “The Motif of the Weeping God in Jeremiah and its Background in the Lament Tradition of the Ancient Near East,” in The Bible and the Ancient Near East: Collected Essays, ed. J. J. M. Roberts (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 2002), 132–42.

[65]  .  Andrew C. Skinner, “Joseph Smith Vindicated Again: Enoch, Moses 7:48, and Apocryphal Sources,” in, Revelation, Reason, and Faith, 373–80. In his discussion, Skinner cites ancient texts such as  Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 1, 7:6, 9:2, 87:1, pp. 182, 202, 364; Wise, Dead Sea Scrolls, 4Q203 Frag. 8:9, p. 294. See also Bakhayla Mika’el, “The Book of the Mysteries of the Heavens and the Earth,” in The Book of the Mysteries of the Heavens and the Earth and Other Works of Bakhayla Mika’el (Zosimas), ed. E. A. Wallis Budge (repr. Berwick, ME: Ibis Press, 2004), 29: “[e]ven the earth complained and uttered lamentations.” Evaluating the wider context of parallels in the linkages between Enoch and Noah in the Book of Moses and 1 Enoch accounts, Cirillo writes: “A human-like earth is not a new idea. An expression of earth as human-like in an account related to Enoch and Noah together, however, is beyond parallels. This is a substantial similarity that cannot be explained away as mere coincidence. In the [Book of Moses] and in [1 Enoch]: A) Enoch has a vision of the impending flood (1 Enoch 91:5; Moses 7:43); B) Enoch sees Noah and his posterity survive (1 Enoch 106:18; Moses 7:43, 52); C) Enoch knows Noah’s future through an eschatological vision directed by God (1 Enoch 106:13-18; Moses 7:44–45, 51); and, D) an anthropomorphized earth suffers only to be healed by Noah (1 Enoch 107:3; Moses 7:48–50). It is not difficult to consider that [1 Enoch] and the [Book of Moses] might share the idea of Enoch and Noah having had a relationship. It is the substantial similarities of the expression of this idea that provide overwhelming cause for consideration, Cirillo, “Joseph Smith,” 94.

[66]  .  In addition to discussing one of the 1 Enoch passages mentioned by Skinner, Peterson follows J. J. M. Roberts in citing examples of Sumerian laments of the mother goddess, Peterson, “Weeping God,” 298–306.

[67]  .  Nibley, Enoch, 11–14, 74–75, 205–206.

[68]  .  Jeffrey M. Bradshaw, Jacob Rennaker, and David J. Larsen. “Revisiting the Forgotten Voices of Weeping in Moses 7: A Comparison with Ancient Texts,” Interpreter 2 (2012): 41–71; at http://www.mormoninterpreter.com/revisiting-the-forgotten-voices-of-weeping-in-moses-7-a-comparison-with-ancient-texts/.

[69]  .  Cf. Jeremiah 14:17. See also Isaiah 22:4: “Therefore said I, Look away from me; I will weep bitterly, labour not to comfort me, because of the spoiling of the daughter of my people.”

[70]  .  The text reads dammana [“cloud”], which Nickelsburg takes to be a corruption in the Aramaic, Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 1, 463–64. Nibley’s interpretation of the motif of the “weeping” of clouds in this verse as a parallel to Moses 7:28 is arguable, Nibley, Enoch, 199. However his translation of 1 Enoch 100:11–13 as a description of the weeping of the heavens is surely a misreading, Nibley, Enoch, 198; cf.  Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 1, 100:11–13, pp. 503.

[71]  .  Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 1, 95:1, p. 460. Woodworth observes by way of contrast to the Book of Moses that Enoch’s weeping “comes after he learns that the wicked will not be rescued,” Woodworth, “Extra-biblical Enoch Texts,” 193 n.45, emphasis added. See Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 1, 94:10, p. 460: “He who created you will overturn you; and for your fall there will be no compassion, and your Creator will rejoice at your destruction.”

[72]  .  Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 1, 90:41–42, p. 402.

[73]  .  J. C. Reeves, Heralds of that Good Realm, ed. James M. Robinson and Hans-Joachim Klimkeit (Leiden: Brill, 1996), 183.

[74]  .  Moshe Idel, Kabbalah: New Perspectives (New Haven, CN: Yale University Press, 1988), 76. Later adepts of mystical Judaism emulated the example of Enoch in a deliberate effort to obtain a vision by weeping. See pp. 75–88.

[75]  .  Andersen, 2 Enoch, A (short version), 1:2–4, pp. 105, 107.

[76]  .  Manuscript Revelation Books, Revelation Book 2, 48 [verso], 27 February 1833, pp. 508–509, spelling and punctuation modernized. The accounts of Enoch’s weeping followed by a vision can be compared profitably to the experience of Lehi who, “because of the things which he saw and heard he did quake and tremble exceedingly,” and “he cast himself upon his bed, being overcome with the Spirit” (1 Nephi 1:6–7). Whereupon the heavens were then opened to him (see 1 Nephi 1:8). See also, e.g., Baruch’s weeping for the loss of the temple, A. F. J. Klijn, “2 (Syriac Apocalypse of) Baruch,” in Old Testament Pseudepigrapha, 35:2, p. 632, quoting Jeremiah 9:1, which was also followed by a vision.

Compare the Apocalypse of Abraham, in which Abraham recites certain words of a “song” taught to him by the angel in preparation for his ascent to receive a vision of the work of God. Abraham’s recitation ends with: “Accept my prayer and… sacrifice… Receive me favorably, teach me, show me, and make known to your servant what you have promised me,” R. Rubinkiewicz, “Apocalypse of Abraham,” in Old Testament Pseudepigrapha, 17:20–21, p. 697. The text relates that while Abraham “was still reciting the song” (i.e., a recitation of a fixed set of words he had been taught by the angel), he heard a voice “like the roaring of the sea” (cf. “voice of many waters” in Rubinkiewicz, “Apocalypse,” 17:1, p. 696) and was brought into the presence of the fiery seraphim surrounding the heavenly throne, 18:1–14, p. 698. In such accounts, once a person has been thoroughly tested, the “last phrase” of welcome is extended to him: “Let him come up!” Michael E. Stone, “The Fall of Satan and Adam’s Penance: Three Notes on the Books of Adam and Eve,” in Literature on Adam and Eve: Collected Essays, ed. Gary A. Anderson, Michael E. Stone and Johannes Tromp (Leiden: Brill, 2000), 47; cf. Revelation 4:1: “Come up hither”; Matthew 25:21: “Enter thou into the joy of thy Lord.” See Jeffrey M. Bradshaw and David J. Larsen, “The Apocalypse of Abraham: An Ancient Witness for the Book of Moses,” presented at the 2010 FAIR Conference, Sandy, UT, August 5, 2010, at http://www.fairlds.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/2010_Apocalypse_of_Abraham.pdf.

In his lyrical description of the great and final song of Moses, Philo paints a similar scene, Philo, Virtues, 8:207, a depiction that would have powerfully evoked for Dura Europos synagogue worshipers both the portrait of the divinized Moses and the Orpheus theme in the adjacent tree of life mural, see Erwin R. Goodenough, Symbolism in the Dura Synagogue. 3 vols. (New York: Pantheon, 1964), 9:101, 116–18. For more on the angelic song of divinized humanity as represented within the Ezekiel mural at Dura Europos, see Jeffrey M. Bradshaw, “The Ezekiel Mural at Dura Europos: A Tangible Witness of Philo’s Jewish mysteries?” BYU Studies 49/1 (2010): 17–20, 26–28.

[77]  .  See, e.g., discussion in Peterson, “Weeping God,” 285–98.

[78]  .  Nibley, Enoch, 5–7, 42–44, 68–70, 189–191, 198–199.

[79]  .  Eugene England, “The Weeping God of Mormonism,” Dialogue 35/1 (2002): 63–80.

[80]  .  Peterson, “Weeping God.”

[81]  .  Terryl L. Givens and Fiona Givens, The God Who Weeps: How Mormonism Makes Sense of Life (Salt Lake City: Ensign Peak, 2012), 24–25.

[82]  .  Woodworth, “Extra-biblical Enoch Texts,” 193 n.44. Similarly, in Paradise Lost, John Milton’s God, “in a particularly disagreeable moment of irony, feigning to be fearful of the rebel armies, laughs the apostate angels to scorn (J. Milton, Paradise Lost, 5:737, p. 115),” John S. Tanner, “Making a Mormon of Milton.” BYU Studies 24/2 (1984): 196).

[83]  .  Laurence, Book of Enoch, 10:18, p. 12.

[84]  .  Laurence, Book of Enoch, 10:15–16, p. 12.

[85]  .  Laurence, Book of Enoch, 53:6, p. 60. The angel speaks specifically of the fallen angels that “seduced those who dwell upon the earth” (53:6, p. 60).

[86]  .  Laurence, Book of Enoch, 39:2, p. 42.

[87]  .  Laurence, Book of Enoch, 45:3–5, pp. 49–50, 56:3, p. 64.

[88]  .  Laurence, Book of Enoch, 49:2, pp. 55–56. In 49:3–4, p. 54 he does, however, speak of “mercy” that will be shown to “others” who repent.

[89]  .  Woodworth, “Extra-biblical Enoch Texts,” 191–92.

[90]  .  I.e., the inner chambers of the heavenly temple. See also Babylonian Talmud Hagigah 5b, cited in Herbert W. Basser, “A Love for All Seasons: Weeping in Jewish Sources,” in Holy Tears: Weeping in the Religious Imagination, ed. Kimberley Christine Patton and John Stratton Hawley (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2005), 184–85.

[91]  .  H. Freedman and Maurice Simon, eds.,”Lamentations 24,” Midrash Rabbah 3rd ed. 10 vols. (London, England: Soncino Press, 1983), 41.

[92]  .  A profitable comparison also might be made between Moses 7:69 (“Zion is Fled”) and the Dead Sea Scrolls theme of ascension. With texts like the Hodayot and the Songs of the Sabbath Sacrifice, it seems the members of the Qumran community were interested in the ascension of not only individuals, but the whole community (cf. City of Enoch in the Book of Moses)—or at least the governing priesthood. The idea that the Heavenly Jerusalem will come down at the Eschaton is another topic worthy of further exploration.

[93]  .  David J. Larsen, “Enoch and the City of Zion: Can an Entire Community Ascend to Heaven?” Presented at the Academy of Temple Studies Conference on Enoch and the Temple, Logan, UT and Provo, UT, February 19 and 22, 2013.

[94]  .  Givens and Givens, God Who Weeps, 105.

[95]  .  Terence Fretheim, The Suffering of God: An Old Testament Perspective (Philadelphia, PA: Fortress Press, 1984), 149–50. See especially chapter 10, “Prophet, Theophany, and the Suffering of God,” 149–66. The relevance of Fretheim’s work on this topic for Moses 7 was first noted in Peterson, “Weeping God.”

[96]  .  P. Alexander, “3 (Hebrew Apocalypse of) Enoch,” in Old Testament Pseudepigrapha, 3 Enoch 10:1, 3, pp. 263–64.

[97]  .  Mopsik, Hénoch, 214. Based on careful study of the Aramaic that he presumes to lie behind all uses of the term “son of man,” Maurice Casey criticizes the work of earlier scholars such as Sigmund Mowinckel, He That Cometh, trans. G. W. Anderson (Oxford: Blackwell, 1956), and Frederick H. Borsch, The Son of Man in Myth and History (Philadelphia, PA: SCM-Westminster Press, 1967), dismissing their notions of a Primordial Man and of a titular “Son of Man” as “artificial construct[s],” Maurice Casey, The Solution to the ‘Son of Man’ Problem (London: Clark, 2009), 25. In a more recent study, however, Waddell, Comparative Study, 76–85 shows that Casey’s conclusions regarding the “son of man” are problematic in several respects, and marshals evidence from 1 Enoch that Casey ignored in his analysis. In particular, “Casey has not taken into consideration the important evidence that the ‘son of man’ expression in BP [1 Enoch Book of Parables] is developed by midrashing Ezekiel 1 as well as Daniel 7, and that the Son of Man figure in BP is clearly more than just a human being. He is also a preexistent heavenly messiah figure who functions as the eschatological judge … Taken together, these [and other reasons] are what should lead us to conclude that ‘Son of Man’ is a title in BP,” Waddell, Comparative Study, 85.

Significantly, Waddell’s analysis also “indicates that the concept of the messiah in Paul’s thought and the concept of the messiah in the oral transmission of the earliest communities of the Jesus movement (which were later included in the written gospel accounts) grew out of the same soil [as that of the Enochic Son of Man traditions]. They were developed from the same traditions about the Son of Man that Jesus Himself spoke and taught to his disciples. In other words, it is no longer possible to view Paul’s concept of the messiah figure in [the Letters of Paul] and the concept of the messiah figure in the canonical Gospels as distinct and irreconcilable conceptions. The old view that Paul’s messiah was shaped by a non-Jewish, Gentile context and that the messiah in the Gospels was shaped in a Jewish context is no longer tenable. The wedge must now be considered to have been permanently removed,” Waddell, Comparative Study, 208.

In addition, Waddell develops his reasons for the fact that Paul only used “Son of Man” concepts and not “Son of Man” terminology, Waddell, Comparative Study, 186–201. Instead of the traditional argument that Son of Man language would have made no sense to Paul’s Gentile followers, he concludes that Paul avoided this language because of a first-century soteriological debate about how one achieved eternal life.

For a summary of the uses of the term “son of man” in the ancient literature, see Sabino Chialà, “The Son of Man: The Evolution of an Expression,” in Enoch and the Messiah, ed. Bocaccini. For a broad discussion of the use of the term “Son of Man” in the Gospels and in Daniel, see John Ashton, Understanding the Fourth Gospel 2nd ed. (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007), 240–76. For additional arguments specifically relating the “Son of Man” title to the Enoch and New Testament literatures, see the work of Margaret Barker, e.g., Margaret Barker, The Lost Prophet: The Book of Enoch and Its Influence on Christianity (London: SPCK, 1988), 91–104; Barker, Temple Themes in Christian Worship (London: Clark, 2008), 46–47, 154–65, 188–89, 195–97; Barker, Temple Mysticism: An Introduction (London:SPCK, 2011), 100–106, 134–43.

[98]  .  Joseph F. McConkie, Gospel Symbolism (Salt Lake City, UT: Bookcraft, 1985), 147. See Moses 5:24, 32; John 17:12. Philip B. Munoa, Four Powers in Heaven: The Interpretation of Daniel 7 in the Testament of Abraham (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic, 1998), 102, cites rabbinical sources giving support to the idea that Adam and God were not only identical in appearance, but: “could be thought to share the same name, even Adam . . . Lacocque, when discussing how Gnostic speculations about ‘Man’ were anchored in the ‘older Israelite mentality,’ quotes Corpus Hermeticum 10:25 to illustrate how God could be understood as a man: Man on earth is a mortal god; God in the heavens is an immortal man.”

Though the analysis of Borsch has been justly criticized, his wide survey of sources relating to the idea of the “first man” is still useful, Borsch, Son of Man, 55–88. Fletcher-Louis discusses the concept of “angelomorphism” in Second Temple Judaism, as expressed in the Dead Sea Scrolls, the Enoch literature, and other pseudepigrapha. Describing the destiny of the righteous of the community at Qumran, one text announces: “For these are those selected by God for an everlasting covenant and to them shall belong the glory of Adam,” Rule of the Community 4:22–23 in Martinez, Dead Sea Scrolls Translated, 7. Fletcher-Louis equates this “glory of Adam” to the glory of God, Crispin H. T. Fletcher-Louis, All the Glory of Adam: Liturgical Anthropology in the Dead Sea Scrolls (Leiden: Brill, 2002), 479; see also 17–19. Cf. William Blake, “There is No Natural Religion,” in William Blake: The Complete Illuminated Books, ed. David Bindman (New York: Thames and Hudson, 2000), 41; Gordon B. Hinckley, “Don’t Drop the Ball.” Ensign 24, November 1994, 46; Lorenzo Snow, The Teachings of Lorenzo Snow (Salt Lake City, UT: Bookcraft, 1984), 15 June 1901, p. 1; Waddell, Comparative Study, 186–201. See also the comprehensive study of the anthropomorphic conception of God in old rabbinic thought by A. Marmorstein, The Doctrine of Merits in Old Rabbinical Literature and The Old Rabbinic Doctrine of God (1. The Names and Attributes of God, 2. Essays in Anthropomorphism) (Three Volumes in One) (New York City: KTAV, 1968), vol. 3; James Kugel’s more recent study, James The God of Old: Inside the Lost World of the Bible (New York: The Free Press, 2003); Edmond L. Cherbonnier, “In Defense of Anthropomorphism,” in Reflections on Mormonism: Judeo-Christian Parallel, ed. Truman G. Madsen (BYU Religious Studies Center, 1978); Esther J. Hamori, “When Gods Were Men”: The Embodied God in Biblical and Near Eastern Literature (Berlin: de Gryuter, 2008); and Bradshaw, God’s Image 1, Commentary 1:12–c, p. 53, 2:26–c, p. 113.

For additional LDS statements about how God came to be God, see Smith, Teachings, 7 April 1844, pp. 345–46; Brigham Young, Journal of Discourses, 5 January 1860, p. 102; B. 12 June 1860–b, p. 81; George Q. Cannon, Journal of Discourses, 6 January 1884, p. 26; Bruce R. McConkie, A New Witness for the Articles of Faith (Salt Lake City, UT: Deseret Book, 1985), 64; James E. Talmage, “Knowledge Concerning God’s Attributes Essential to Intelligent Worship; The Relationship of Jesus Christ to God, the Eternal Father, Spiritual and Bodily; Relationship of Mankind to Deity” in Conference Reports (Salt Lake City: Deseret News, 1915), 6 April 1915, p. 123; Brigham Young, Journal of Discourses, 17 June 1866, p. 249.

[99]  .  Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 2, 46:2-4, 153; 48:2, 166; 60:10, 233; 62:5, 7, 9, 14, 254; 63:11, 255; 69:26-27, 29, 311; 70:1, 315; 71:14, 17, 320.

[100]  .  Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 2, 119, emphasis added. The entire discussion is found on pp. 113–23. For additional discussion of the “Son of Man” title from an LDS perspective, see S. Kent Brown, “Man and Son of Man: Issues of Theology and Christology,” in The Pearl of Great Price: Revelations from God, ed. H. Donl Peterson and Charles D. Tate, Jr. (Provo, UT: BYU Religious Studies Center, 1989). In the view of Fletcher-Louis, much of the controversy can be attributed to false dichotomies that have been posited in various descriptions of the identity of the Son of Man, Fletcher-Louis, “Revelation of the Sacral,” 257:

For the interpretation of Daniel 7 commentators are divided into broadly three different camps: (1) those who think the “one like a son of man” is an angel, (2) those who think that he is an individual human, the (royal) messiah, and (3) those who think he is merely a symbol representing the people of God; Israel. The debate ranges widely yet positions tend to be entrenched.

A solution to the problem entails the removal of the boundaries which force a separation between the various alternatives. In the first place it is not necessary, as commentators on all sides assume, to separate out heavenly/divine and earthly/human alternatives. There is a well-established tradition, some of the evidence for which we have examined in the preceding part of this study, that a human being or community can be angelic/divine and so the data pointing to an Israel or earthy messiah is entirely compatible with that pointing to an angel, if we have an angelomorphic human in view. Secondly, whilst there is in fact within Daniel very little evidence for an interest in a Davidic messianism there is much to suggest that a priestly figure is in view in 7:13 (cf. 9:26 where Onias III is an “anointed on”). Israel’s high priest was widely, if not universally, believed to possess a divine or angelic identity. Of course, he also represented or embodied the people of God. This is vividly expressed in his bearing of the names of the twelve tribes of Israel upon his breastplate. He therefore fulfills the requirement for all three interpretations: he is angelic, he represents the people of God and yet he is a concrete individual figure.

[101]  .  LDS scholar S. Kent Brown writes:

As we noted earlier, the portrait of an anthropomorphic deity is found repeatedly throughout Jewish and Christian literature. But such an observation does not bring us full circle to what we seek, namely, a title like Man of Holiness or Man of Counsel in Moses 6:57 and 7:35. Interestingly, it is in the Nag Hammadi collection that we draw the closest to such epithets. For instance, according to the documents known as Eugnostos the Blessed and The Sophia of Jesus Christ—or the Wisdom of Jesus Christ—the father of the Son of Man is known as Immortal Man. Within the theological system of these two texts, there “are four principal divine beings: the unbegotten Father; his androgynous image, Immortal Man; Immortal Man’s androgynous son, Son of Man; and Son of Man’s androgynous son, the Savior” (Parrott 206). Before we proceed further, it is important to note that whereas the text called The Sophia of Jesus Christ is certainly a Christian production and depends substantially on Eugnostos, the latter document has been judged to be pre-Christian in its composition (Parrott 206–7). Thus, it cannot have been influenced by Christian notions about Jesus as Son of Man. The extended significance is that any portrayal of Jesus as Son of God, when interchanged with the notion of Jesus as Son of Man, would have been far too late to suggest that Jesus as Son of Man would necessarily mean that his father was called Man as portrayed in the later document called The Sophia of Jesus Christ.

According to Eugnostos, the older text under review here, the name Immortal Man appears nine times (Parrott 214–16 [4]; 219 [1]; 221–24 [4]). Two alternative titles appear once each, First Man (Parrott, p. 215, 78:3) and Man, (Parrott, p. 216, 8:31), underscoring the idea that the father of the figure called Son of Man was called Man and that his chief characteristics were his primacy—and thus his title First Man—and his everlastingness, all leading to his epithet Immortal Man (cf. Moses 7:35; D&C 19: 10–12). And there is more.

In a tractate ascribed to Adam’s son Seth and entitled “the Second Treatise of the Great Seth,” God is referred to as “the Man,”[6] paralleling directly what we just saw in Eugnostos and the Sophia of Jesus Christ. Moreover, a fuller title for God appears as “the Man of the Greatness,” (Gibbons, p. 331, 53:4–5), an epithet which bears a notable similarity to the term Man of Holiness. The most significant observation in the text is that “the Man of the Greatness” is said to be “the Father of truth,” a clear epithet for God (ibid., 53:3–4). Furthermore, deity is also called “the Man of Truth,” (ibid., 53:17), presenting another instance of a remarkable similarity to a title in Moses, that of Man of Counsel. The pairings are not difficult to make, the Man of Greatness with Man of Holiness, and the Man of Truth with Man of Counsel. What is more, I think it not insignificant to note that the section containing the two titles in the Book of Moses is ascribed to a record of Adam, (Moses 6:51–68, especially v. 57), and the treatise in which appear the two corresponding epithets is ascribed to Adam’s righteous son, Seth. In other words, it is in records which come from the family circle of Adam that these almost identical titles for deity appear. To be sure, similar names occur in texts unrelated to Adamic documents such as that ascribed to God in Eugnostos the Blessed. But the names recorded there do not share the notable similarities that those from the Adam/Seth texts exhibit. (Brown, “Man and Son of Man,” 68–69).

[102]  .  Cf. Moses 7:35. Elder Bruce R. McConkie comments: “[W]hen Jesus asked the ancient disciples, “Whom do men say that I the Son of man am?” (Matthew 16:13), it was as though he asked: “Who do men say that I am? I testify that I am the Son of Man of Holiness, which is to say, the Son of that Holy Man who is God, but who do men say that I am?” In this same vein, one of the early revelations given in this dispensation asks: “What is the name of God in the pure language?” The answer: “Ahman.” Question: “What is the name of the Son of God?” Answer: “Son Ahman” (see O. Pratt, 22 October 1854, pp. 99–100; Manuscript Revelation Books, Revelation Book 1 (verso), ca. March 1832, 144, pp. 265, 204,” McConkie, New Witness, 59. The term “Son Ahman” is used in Doctrine and Covenants 78:20 and 95:17 (see Edward J. Brandt, “Ahman,” in Encyclopedia of Mormonism, ed. Daniel H. Ludlow [New York: Macmillan, 1992], at http://www.lib.byu.edu/Macmillan/). D&C 78:20 originally was given as “Jesus Christ,” but was later modified in the handwriting of William W. Phelps to read “Son Ahman” (see Manuscript Revelation Books, Revelation Book 1, 1 March 1832 [D&C 78], 146 [verso], pp. 269, 209). The term also appears as part of the place-name of Adam-ondi-Ahman in D&C 78:15 (1 March 1832), 107:53 (Dating uncertain. See Bradshaw, God’s Image 1, Excursus 40: Dating Joseph Smith’s Vision of Adam-ondi-Ahman, pp. 625–26), 116:1 (19 May 1838), 117:8, 11 (8 July 1838). On the meaning of Adam-ondi-Ahman, see  Bradshaw, God’s Image 1, Excursus 38: The Meaning of Adam-ondi-Ahman, p. 622.

[103]  .  Cf. John 5:27: “And [the Father] hath given him authority to execute judgment also, because he is the Son of man.” For a comparison of the claims of Jesus in this verse to related ideas in the Old Testament (Moses, Daniel) and the pseudepigraphal literature, see Keener, Gospel of John, 1:651–52. Helga S. Kvanvig relates the theme of enthronement and the Son of Man role of judgment to Psalm 110 in which the declaration of sonship is made explicit, Helga S. Kvanvig, “The Son of Man in the Parables of Enoch,” in Enoch and the Messiah Son of Man: Revisiting the Book of Parables, ed. Gabriele Boccaccini (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2007), 179–215. See also David J. Larsen, “The Royal Psalms in the Dead Sea Scrolls,” PhD diss., St. Andrews University. On the royal tradition, in which the king is the son of God (son of Man), who is raised up and made the righteous judge, with power given him to punish the wicked, see Psalms 2, 72, and 101, especially. Also, e.g., 122:5; 76:8–9; 99:4.

[104]  .  E.g., Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 2, 69:27, 311: “And the whole judgment was given to the Son of Man.”

[105]  .  Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 2, 119.

[106]  .  See Nickelsburg, 1 Enoch 2, 49–50.

[107]  .  Cirillo is convinced that “the prophet is right on target” in placing the explicit use of the “Son of Man” motif “on the lips of Enoch when he speaks about Christ,” Cirillo, “Joseph Smith,” 90–91. With respect to the explanation for this congruence of texts, he can countenance no other explanation but that it “indicates knowledge of the Book of Parables [BP] accounts of Enoch and the Son of Man. . . . The NT relies heavily upon the BP and uses the motif extensively in discussions of the Son of Man, without once indicating that knowledge of the Son of Man is in any way attributable to, or can be associated with, Enoch and/or Enochic materials. Yet [Joseph] Smith’s [revelation on Enoch] exhibits a relationship between Enoch and the ‘Son of Man’ motif otherwise unknown to those reading only the Old and New Testaments. Smith recounts Enoch discussing the Son of Man a total of seven times. Could this be a mere coincidence? Of all the prophets in the [Book of Mormon, the Pearl of Great Price, and the Doctrine and Covenants], why Enoch?” Cirillo, “Joseph Smith,” 91.

[108]  .  Mopsik, Hénoch, p. 214.

[109]  .  D&C 76:57–58 (16 February 1832). Cf. JST Genesis 14:27–28.

[110]  .  “Sons Ahman, the human family, the children of men,” Manuscript Revelation Books, Revelation Book 1 (verso), ca. March 1832, 144, pp. 265, 206; spelling and punctuation modernized.

[111]  .  For discussions of ceremonial representations of the process of becoming a Son of God in Mesopotamian and Jewish settings, see Jeffrey M. Bradshaw, “Ezekiel Mural”; Bradshaw and Head, “Investiture Panel.” Fletcher-Louis similarly describes an angelomorphic form of worship in the Dead Sea Scrolls community in Fletcher-Louis, “Reflections”; Fletcher-Louis, All the Glory of Adam. For analogues in the LDS tradition, see Bradshaw, Temple Themes in the Oath and Covenant.

[112]  .  John W. Welch, The Sermon at the Temple and the Sermon on the Mount (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1990), 57–62. Cf. John W. Welch, The Sermon on the Mount in the Light of the Temple (Farnham: Ashgate, 2009), 116–20. See Smith, Documentary History, 14 November 1835, 2:312. More to the point, the Prophet urged his followers to “go on to perfection, and search deeper and deeper into the mysteries of Godliness,” Smith Teachings, 16 June 1844, p. 364. In this context, see also his frequent citations (and emendations) of Hebrews 5:1, Smith, Documentary History, 18 June 1840, 4:136; Teachings, 1 September 1835, p. 82, 15 October 1843, p. 328, 10 March 1844, p. 338, 8 April 1844, p. 360).

[113]  .  A. Caquot, “Pour une étude de l’initiation dans l’ancien Israel,” in Initiation, ed. C. Bleeke (Leiden: Brill, 1965), 121; translation by Nibley.

[114]  .  Alexander, “3 Enoch”; Mopsik, Hénoch.

[115]  .  Journal of Discourses, 1 January 1877, p. 303.

[116]  .  Nibley, Enoch, 19–20.

[117]  .  Mopsik, Hénoch, 214.

[118]  .  Woodworth sees this as one of the most significant differences between the Joseph Smith Enoch and the pseudepigraphal 1 Enoch: “Enoch in the book of Moses walks with God not alone, but with all the redeemed prodigals,”  “Extra-biblical Enoch Texts,” 192.

Other than the Mandaean Enoch fragment cited previously (Migne, “Livre d’Adam,” 21, p. 170), Adolph Jellinek provides the only explicit analog we have found so far to the Book of Moses idea that others besides Enoch ascended with him:

It happened at that time, that as the children of men were sitting with Enoch he was speaking to them, that they lifted up their eyes and saw something like a great horse coming down from heaven, and the horse moving in the air [wind] to the ground, And they told Enoch what they had seen. And Enoch said to them, “It is on my account that that horse is descending to the earth; the time and the day have arrived when I must go away from you and no longer appear to you.” And at that time that horse came down and stood before Enoch, and all the people who were with Enoch saw it. And then Enoch commanded, and there came a voice to him (literally “a voice passed over him”) saying, “Who is the man who delights to know the ways of the Lord his God? Let him come this day to Enoch before he is taken from us” (“him” is emended to read “us”). And all the people gathered together and came to Enoch on that day .…

And after that he got up and rode on the horse, and he went forth, and all the children of men left and went after him to the number of 800,000 men. And they went with him for a day’s journey. Behold, on the second day he said to them, “Return back to your tents; why are you coming?” And some of them returned from him, and the remainder of them went with him six days’ journey, while Enoch was saying to them every day, “Return to your tents lest you die.” But they did not want to return and they went with him. And on the sixth day men still remained, and they stuck with him. And they said to him, “We will go with thee to the place where thou goest; as the Lord liveth, only death will separate us from thee!” (cf. 2 Kings 2:2, 4, 6; Ruth 1:17) And it came to pass that they took courage to go with him, and he no longer addressed [remonstrated with] them. And they went after him and did not turn away.

And as for those kings, when they returned, they made a count of all of them (who returned) to know the number of men who remained, who had gone after Enoch. And it was on the seventh day, and Enoch went up in a tempest [whirlwind] into heaven with horses of fire and chariots of fire. And on the eighth day all the kings who had been with Enoch sent to take the number of the men who had stayed behind with Enoch [when the kings left him] at the place from which he had mounted up into the sky. And all the kings went to that place and found all the ground covered with snow in that place, and on top of the snow huge blocks [stones] of snow. And they said to each other, “Come, let us break into the snow here to see whether the people who were left with Enoch died under the lumps of snow.” And they hunted for Enoch and found him not because he had gone up into the sky. Adolph Jellinek, ed., Bet ha-Midrasch. Sammlung kleiner midraschim und vermischter Abhandlungen aus der ältern jüdischen Literatur. 6 vols. (Leipzig: Vollrath, 1857), 4:131–32.

[119]    Larsen, “Enoch and the City of Zion.”

[120]    Dallin H. Oaks, “The Challenge to Become,” Ensign 30, November 2000, 32–34.

[121]    Smith, Teachings, 7 April 1844, 350.

[122]  .  Webb, Jesus Christ, 253.

[123]    For more on this verse, James Starr, “Does 2 Peter 1:4 Speak of Deification?” in Partakers of the Divine Nature: The History and Development of Deification in the Christian Traditions, ed. Michael J. Christensen and Jeffery A. Wittung (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2008), and Blake T. Ostler, Of God and Gods (Draper, UT: Greg Kofford Books, 2008), 392–95.

[124]  .  Elder John A. Widtsoe, cited in Archibald F. Bennett, Saviors on Mount Zion: Course No. 21 for the Sunday School (Salt Lake City: Deseret Sunday School Union Board, 1950), 11–12; Boyd K. Packer, The Holy Temple (Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1980), 216.

[125]    As Elder Bruce C. Hafen expressed it:

Christ’s love is so deep that He took upon Himself the sins and afflictions of all mankind. Only in that way could He both pay for our sins and empathize with us enough to truly succor us—that is, run to us—with so much empathy that we can have complete confidence that He fully understands our sorrows. So, to love as Christ loves probably means that we will taste some form of suffering ourselves, because the love and the affliction are but two sides of the same coin. Only by experiencing both sides to some degree can we begin to understand and love other people with a depth that even begins to approach Christ’s love. (Bruce C. Hafen, Spiritually Anchored in Unsettled Times [Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2009], 30).

[126]  .  Truman G. Madsen, “The Suffering Servant,” The Redeemer: Reflections on the Life and Teachings of Jesus the Christ (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2000), 234. See Romans 8:17; 2 Corinthians 4:10; Galatians 2:20, 6:17; Bradshaw, God’s Image 1, 5:4–a, p. 355, Excursus 37: Traditions About the Role of Abel, p. 617; Solomon C. Malan, The Book of Adam and Eve (repr. San Diego, CA: Book Tree, 2005), 1:69, pp. 83–84; Isaac Mika’el, son of Bakhayla, “Discourse Concerning the Mystery of the Godhead and the Trinity,” in Book of Mysteries, ed. Budge, 136.

[127]  .  John E. Seaich, Ancient Texts and Mormonism: Discovering the Roots of the Eternal Gospel in Ancient Israel and the Primitive Church (2nd ed., Salt Lake City: n. p., 1995), 550. Regarding the “eternal act of love which began in the heavens,” see Revelation 13:8: “the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.” Gross notes that “to imitate the ‘passion’ of a hero-savior in order to ensure salvation” is the heart of the mysteries, Jules Gross, The Divinization of the Christian According to the Greek Fathers, trans. Paul A. Onica (Anaheim, CA: A & C Press, 2002), 87). Cf. P. E. S. Thompson’s observation that the story of God’s choosing of Abraham—and later of Israel—”was to demonstrate that it was not an election to privilege … but to responsibility for all mankind,” cited in LaCocque, Trial, 19). Commenting on Romans 8:17, LDS scholar James Faulconer observes: “Paul puts only one condition on the heirship of those who will be adopted into the household of God: We must suffer with Christ … He is not saying that just as Christ could not escape suffering, we too cannot escape. Rather, he says that we suffer the same thing as Christ if we are heirs with him: inheriting the same thing requires suffering the same thing,” James E. Faulconer, The Life of Holiness: Notes and Reflections on Romans 1, 5-8 (Provo, UT: Maxwell Institute, 2012), 405). For additional LDS perspectives on this idea, see Bradshaw, Temple Themes in the Oath, 78, 180 n.389.

[128]  .  Samuel Zinner, “Underemphasized Parallels between the Account of Jesus’ Baptism in the Gospel of the Hebrews/Ebionites and the Letter to the Hebrews and an Overlooked Influence from 1 Enoch 96:3: ‘And a Bright Light Shall Enlighten You, and the Voice of Rest You Shall Hear from Heaven,’ ” at http://www.samuelzinner.com/world-literature.html

[129]  .  See Jeffrey M. Bradshaw and David J. Larsen, “Ancient Affinities within the LDS Book of Enoch, Part 1,” Interpreter 4/1 (2013): 19.

[130]  .  Although there is no mention of “rest” in the account of Enoch’s divine commission, the term appears frequently in later passages from the Enoch chapters in the Book of Moses dealing with the lament of the earth and the promise that it should receive “rest” in the last days (Moses 7:48, 54, 58, 61, 64). Perhaps of greater relevance is the statement in Abraham 1:2 that, “finding greater happiness and peace and rest” for himself, the patriarch “sought for the blessings of the fathers” (i.e., the greater priesthood and its office of high priest).

[131]  .  George W. E. Nickelsburg and James C. VanderKam, eds., 1 Enoch: The Hermeneia Translation (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress, 2012), 96:3, p. 145. Cf. 1 Enoch 91:1, 136, which speaks of “a voice calling me, and a spirit poured out upon me.” Relating to the theme of reigning, Zinner also notes 1 Enoch 96:1 that speaks of the “authority” that the “righteous” will have over the “sinners” (Nickelsburg and VanderKam, 1 Enoch, 96:1, 145).

[132]  .  Nickelsburg and VanderKam, 1 Enoch, 71:14–16, 95.

Trusting Joseph

Neal Rappleye

Abstract: The “first steps” of Mormon history are vital to the faith claims of the Latter-day Saints. The new volume Exploring the First Vision, edited by Samuel Alonzo Dodge and Steven C. Harper, compiles research into the historical veracity of Joseph Smith’s First Vision narrative which shows the Prophet to have been a reliable and trustworthy witness. Ultimately, historical investigation can neither prove nor disprove that Joseph had a theophany in the woods in 1820. Individuals must therefore reach their conclusions by some other means.

Review of Samuel Alonzo Dodge and Steven C. Harper, eds. Exploring the First Vision. Provo, Utah: BYU Religious Studies Center, 2012. 338 pp. with index. $25.99

If the beginning of the promenade of Mormon history, the First Vision and the Book of Mormon, can survive the crisis, then the rest of the promenade follows and nothing that happens in it can really detract from the miracle of the whole. If the first steps do not survive, there can be only antiquarian, not fateful or faith-full interest in the rest of the story.

Martin E. Marty [1]

I would like to thank Ted Jones and William J. Hamblin for their helpful feedback on an earlier version of this review.

As Martin Marty keenly observed, the “first steps” of Latter-day Saint history are absolutely vital to the rest of the story. As the very first step in that history, the First Vision of the Prophet Joseph Smith holds a prominent and crucial position—if the first step was a misstep, then what of all the other steps that follow? Recognizing this, critics of the faith from both secular and sectarian persuasions have for decades now sought by all means possible to tear down the historical veracity of the vision, and they will continue to do so in the future. Hence, to safeguard against these attacks, Latter-day Saints would be well to familiarize themselves with the careful historical investigations into the vision’s history and background done by faithful and believing historians over the last forty years. In this task the Saints have been greatly assisted by Samuel Alonzo Dodge and Steven C. Harper, who have collected several of the seminal articles on the First Vision and combined them with some new research in this volume, Exploring the First Vision. Both editors stress that this volume has been published to ensure this research gets into the hands of the “rising generations” of Latter-day Saints (see pp. vi and viii, both referencing Doctrine and Covenants 69:8). As the papers brought together in this volume rigorously demonstrate, Joseph Smith’s early experiences, including the First Vision, stand up well to historical scrutiny.

As a sort of introduction to the topic, editor Samuel Alonzo Dodge’s essay “Joseph Smith’s First Vision: Insights and Interpretation in Mormon Historiography” provides a short intellectual history on the First Vision, placing particular emphasis on how the critical approaches of Fawn Brodie and Wesley Walters influenced and shaped Mormon scholarship on the vision (pp. ix–xxi). Dodge’s introduction is followed by “The Earliest Documented Accounts of Joseph Smith’s First Vision,” Dean C. Jessee’s presentation of all the contemporary accounts, both first and second hand (pp. 1–40).[2] This paper by Jessee provides transcripts of all eight documents based on the five accounts given by Joseph Smith, five contemporary accounts from people who heard the story straight from the Prophet, and a couple of later reminiscences after his death.  In the introduction and conclusion, Jessee discusses Joseph’s limited education and the “broad record-keeping setting” (p. 33) as the context under which to evaluate the First Vision accounts, and Jessee also provides some historical background as he introduces each account. Access to the primary documents is essential when studying any historical event, making this article by Jessee invaluable to those interested in the Prophet Joseph Smith’s First Vision.

The next paper, James B. Allen and John W. Welch’s “The Appearance of the Father and the Son to Joseph Smith in 1820” [3] (pp. 41–89), discusses all ten accounts and thirteen documents, provides more historical background on each account and the audiences for whom they were written, some discussion of the differences in the accounts, and a thorough synthesis of all ten available contemporary narrations.[4] At the end there is a table that includes over seventy details that appear throughout the accounts, demonstrating an overall consistency throughout each of the reports (pp. 79–83).[5] Allen and Welch show that none of the reports “is incompatible with the other accounts,” that there exists a “striking consistency throughout the narratives,” and that “they combine impressively to give a consistent and coherent picture” (p. 78).

The most significant contribution to the volume is Richard Lloyd Anderson’s “Joseph Smith’s Accuracy on the First Vision Setting: The Pivotal 1818 Camp Meeting,” the third chapter of the book (pp. 91–169).[6] Expanding on arguments Anderson originally made in a lecture given on 20 March 2009,[7] this new paper brings the importance of the June 1818 revival near Palmyra into focus.[8] Drawing together a variety of historical sources, Anderson argues that the Methodist camp-meeting held near Palmyra in June 1818 and the events that followed in 1818–19, including the Genesee Conference in Vienna (twelve miles from Palmyra) during the summer of 1819, sufficiently satisfy the all requirements of the “unusual excitement on the subject of religion” described in Joseph’s First Vision narrations (Joseph Smith—History 1:5). Anderson thus argues that there is no need to suppose that Joseph is conflating pre-1820 events with the later revivals of 1824–25. Anderson concludes that “Joseph’s accounts coalesce not only with each other but also with family, local, and revival records, showing that his First Vision setting is historically authentic” (p. 138).

Other articles that appear in this volume include classics like Milton V. Backman’s article on the religious atmosphere of western New York in 1819–20 (pp. 171–97), Larry C. Porter’s paper on the Methodist Preacher Rev. George Lane and his potential influence in moving young Joseph to ask God regarding which Church is true (pp. 199–226),[9] two additional articles from James B. Allen (pp. 227–60, and 283–306), each of which discusses the development of the First Vision in later Mormon thought, and Richard L. Bushman’s response to Wesley Walters (pp. 261–81).[10]

The final article in the volume is a contribution by co-editor Steven C. Harper, who evaluates the arguments of Fawn Brodie, Wesley Walters, and the response of the Methodist minister Joseph Smith discusses in his 1838 account (pp. 307–23).[11] Though Harper critiques their arguments against Joseph Smith’s First Vision, he also empathizes with each of these critics’ attempts at dealing with Joseph Smith’s claims in light of their assumptions. Harper also discusses the different hermeneutic approaches taken by believers and critics, and calls for civil dialogue going forward as discussion of these important documents and the events they record continues.

Adding to the value of this volume, sprinkled throughout the articles are excerpts of interviews of each of the contributing scholars, conducted by Dodge back in 2009.[12] These excerpts provide interesting personal stories about their experience researching the First Vision and how this has strengthened their faith and trust in Joseph Smith. These interviews were recorded and have been used to put together a nice video series on the First Vision to accompany and supplement the book.[13] One of the highlights of these interviews comes from James B. Allen, as he tells the story of the first time he looked at the 1832 account.

As I read through that first written account of the vision, a powerful spiritual feeling came over me that I don’t think I had ever experienced before, and it was not quite like anything I have experienced since. It said to me, “This young man is telling the truth!” It was an absolutely convincing handwritten story. . . . [T]he power that was in it, including the feelings of a young man trying to express how he felt before he went into the grove to pray, was absolutely profound to me. (p. 44)

Allen’s experience in reading the 1832 account is representative of the kind of sentiment expressed by these top-notch historians who have studied these accounts thoroughly for decades. Many of them speak of how studying the documents has only strengthened their testimony and conviction that Joseph Smith was telling the truth. Their confidence in Joseph Smith and the reliability of his testimony is worthy of notice, because as Steven C. Harper explains elsewhere, “These are not bumpkins. They include Ivy League-educated historians who have authored prize winning books and have studied the documents and their context for decades.” [14]

Although it will never stop the critics from trying to assert their historical interpretation as fact, the historical record ultimately cannot resolve the question of whether or not Joseph Smith really had a vision. That is a conclusion that can only be reached by the individual. Again, to quote from Harper, “Believing or not believing in one of the best-documented theophanies in history is ultimately a conscious, individual decision. One must decide whether to trust or be suspicious of the historical record created by Joseph Smith. That decision reveals much more about the subjective judgments of its maker than it does about the veracity of the claims Joseph made in historical documents.” [15]

Dodge and Harper have performed a valuable service in collecting these papers and making them more readily available to the “rising generations” of Latter-day Saints. As the papers in this volume demonstrate, Joseph Smith proves to be a reliable and trustworthy witness on matters that are historically verifiable. From there the individual must decide if they are willing to trust Joseph on the more subjective, yet most important, detail of whether or not he really had a theophany in the woods in 1820.

Neal Rappleye is a student at Utah Valley University working toward a BA in History with a minor in Political Science. He follows with interest LDS scholarship and apologetics, is a volunteer with FAIR and an Editorial Consultant with Interpreter: A Journal of Mormon Scripture. His main research interests are the foundational events in early Latter-day Saint history and the ancient origins of the Book of Mormon. He blogs about Latter-day Saint topics at http://ldsreasonandrevelation.blogspot.com/

[1]  1.  Martin E. Marty, “Two Integrities: An Address to the Crisis in Mormon Historiography,” Journal of Mormon History 10 (1983): 9, capitalization altered.

[2]  .  Originally published as Dean C. Jessee, “The Early Accounts of Joseph Smith’s First Vision,” BYU Studies 9/3 (Spring 1969): 275–94. This version of the paper only includes four accounts, all from the Prophet himself. The fifth account from Joseph, in the Wentworth Letter, is printed just after this article on pp. 295–96 of the same issue of BYU Studies, which was a special issue dedicated to scholarship on the First Vision. This paper was extensively updated and revised for publication in 2005 as Dean C. Jessee, “The Earliest Documented Accounts of Joseph Smith’s First Vision,” in Opening the Heavens: Accounts of Divine Manifestations, 1820-1844, ed. John W. Welch with Erik B. Carlson (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2005), 1–33. No additional changes were made for publication in this new volume.

[3]  .  First published in the official magazine of the Church, as James B. Allen, “Eight Contemporary Accounts of Joseph Smith’s First Vision—What Do We Learn from Them?” Improvement Era 73/4, April 1970, 4–13. In this article, Allen introduced each of the known accounts (three first-hand from the prophet, and five second-hand reports), discussed some reasons why there might be differences, addressed the two differences he felt were most problematic, and provided a synthesis of the accounts, utilizing each of the eight reports. It was first substantially revised, expanded, and updated with the assistance of John W. Welch for publication in 2005 in Opening the Heavens, like the Jessee paper. See James B. Allen and John W. Welch, “The Appearance of the Father and the Son to Joseph Smith in 1820,” in Opening the Heavens, 35–75. Some additional updates and minor changes were made to the article for its appearance in this volume.

[4]  .  In Allen’s original 1970 article, the differences were address separately and independently, while in this version, discussion of the differences is interwoven into the “composite story” (p. 60) of Joseph’s First Vision.

[5]  .  The table in the original paper only consisted of eighteen items. See Allen, “Eight Contemporary Accounts,” 12. The table is divided into five separate tables appearing throughout the paper in the Opening the Heavens version. See Opening the Heavens, 56, 60, 62, 66, and 68.

[6]  .  This is essentially a new paper, though it does incorporate, and update, substantial portions of Richard Lloyd Anderson, “Circumstantial Confirmation of the First Vision Through Reminiscences,” BYU Studies 9/3 (Spring 1969): 373–404.

[7]    See Richard Lloyd Anderson, “Probing the Lives of Christ and Joseph Smith,” FARMS Review 21/2 (2009): 16–18. I appreciate Alison Coutts and Kevin Christensen for reminding me of Anderson’s comments in this lecture.

[8]  .  In that respect, Anderson is building on the work of D. Michael Quinn, “Joseph Smith’s Experience of a Methodist ‘Camp-Meeting’ in 1820,” Dialogue Paperless, E-Paper 3, Expanded Version (Definitive), December 20, 2006, online at http://www.dialoguejournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/04/QuinnPaperless.pdf. Anderson builds on Quinn’s emphasis of the June 1818 camp-meeting as the beginning of Joseph’s seeking, but does not follow Quinn on the importance of the June 1820 camp-meeting, which Quinn argues was ultimately the catalyst of Joseph’s going to God in prayer and having the First Vision. Anderson also does not follow Quinn’s line of reasoning that Joseph retroactively conflated the pre-1820 events with the events of 1824 and its accompanying revivals. See the body of the text for a summary of Anderson’s argument.

[9]  .  Each of these was originally published in 1969 as a part of the special First Vision issue of BYU Studies. See Milton V. Backman Jr., “Awakenings in the Burned-over District: New Light on the Historical Setting of the First Vision,” BYU Studies 9/3 (Spring 1969): 301–20; Larry C. Porter, “Reverend George Lane—Good ‘Gifts,’ Much ‘Grace,’ and Marked ‘Usefulness’,” BYU Studies 9/3 (Spring 1969): 321–40. These papers are reprinted essentially as they appeared in 1969. The only differences I noticed were both in the Porter paper: (1) an extra footnote (p. 219, 225 n.74) explaining that Joseph probably informed Oliver Cowdery of  Rev. Lane’s influence, and (2) an additional two sentences, plus footnote, explaining that both Cowdery and William Smith identify Lane’s influence on Joseph Smith (pp. 219–20, 226 n.77).

[10]  .  These were all originally published, with no substantial differences from their current form, as the following: James B. Allen, “Emergence of a Fundamental: The Expanding Role of Joseph Smith’s First Vision in Mormon Religious Thought,” Journal of Mormon History 7 (1980): 43–61; James B. Allen, “The Significance of Joseph Smith’s ‘First Vision’ in Mormon Thought,” Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 1/3 (1966): 29–46; Richard L. Bushman, “The First Vision Story Revived,” Dialogue 4/1 (1969): 82–93. Bushman is responding to the article just preceding his, Wesley P. Walters, “New Light on Mormon Origins from the Palmyra Revival,” Dialogue 4/1 (1969): 60-81. After Bushman’s response, Walters closes the exchange with “A Reply to Dr. Bushman,” Dialogue 4/1 (1969): 94-100.

[11]  .  The day after this volume hit the shelves, a somewhat revised version of this paper was published as Steven C. Harper, “Evaluating Three Arguments Against Joseph Smith’s First Vision,” Interpreter: A Journal of Mormon Scripture 2 (2012): 17–33, online at http://www.mormoninterpreter.com/evaluating-three-arguments-against-joseph-smiths-first-vision/. Also see the similar paper, Steven C. Harper, “Suspicion or Trust: Reading the Accounts of Joseph Smith’s First Vision,” in No Weapon Shall Prosper: New Light on Sensitive Issues, ed. Robert L. Millet (Provo, UT: BYU Religious Studies Center, 2011), 63–75. Harper has also reiterated these arguments in his own book, released a couple months after this volume. See Steven C. Harper, Joseph Smith’s First Vision: A Guide to the Historical Accounts (Salt Lake City, UT: Deseret Book, 2012), 67–83. Harper’s book is a short, well written “guide” for the everyday Latter-day Saint that reprints all the historical accounts, along with providing some historical context (pp. 31–66), stresses the importance of seeking, rather than assuming, when trying to understand the different accounts (pp. 3-12), and also includes several high-quality color photos of the relevant documents. Overall, it is an excellent book that nicely summarizes the scholarship on the First Vision, and makes important new contributions to the literature by discussing the various accounts in terms of both communications theory (pp. 84-93) and memory research (pp.94–110). I would highly recommend Harper’s book, especially to the Latter-day Saint or investigator who might be curious about some of the accounts, but is not well versed in historical matters.

[12]  .  See pp. 3, 5, 34, 42, 44, 48, 55, 76, 92, 173, 184, 187, 203–204, 218, 263, and 277.

[13]  .  Joseph Smith: Seeking the Accounts, directed by Johnny Hall and Ryan Haldeman (Orem, UT: Amber Media, 2010), online video series, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mll32jbVl20&playnext=1&list=PL2B95672E3DCFA340&feature=results_main.

[14]  .  Harper, “Suspicion or Trust,” 72.

[15]  .  Harper, “Suspicion or Trust,” 73-74.

Confronting Five-Point Calvinism

Louis C. Midgley

Review of Roger E. Olson. Against Calvinism. Foreword by Michael Horton, author of For Calvinism. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2011. 207 pp., no index. $16.99 (paperback).

The arguments in Roger Olson’s Against Calvinism rest on his deep sympathies with the Dutch theologian Jacobus Arminius (1560–1609), whose followers were known as Remonstrants. Arminians traditionally qualify, question, or reject what is commonly known as Five-Point Calvinism which is often but not necessarily summed up by the acronym TULIP: Total depravity, Unconditional election, Limited atonement, Irresistible grace, and Perseverance. Olson traces the versions of Calvinist dogmatic theology to which he objects back to the decisions made at the famous Synod of Dort, a gathering of Calvinist divines that took place in the city of Dort (Dordrecht in Dutch) in 1618–19.

Against Calvinism contains strong objections to some versions of Calvinism, or to what is also known as Reformed theology, though not to all of what John Calvin (1509–1564) taught. Olson’s objections are directed especially at recent aggressive manifestations of what he calls “mere Calvinism” and “the TULIP system” (p. 38). His protests against what is entailed in these versions of Calvinism should, I believe, be of interest to Latter-day Saints, whose faith is often criticized by zealots whose opinions are often heavily influenced by various brands of Calvinism.

Dutch Calvinists, somewhat like those who constitute the anti-Mormon element in the unseemly countercult industry, were ardent heresy hunters. The primary differences between the two are the absence of intellectual fire-power among countercultists, and also the fact that Dutch Calvinists could and did make full use of the power of political regimes which they controlled to crush what they considered heresy. An example of their passion for persecution was their treatment of the famous jurist Hugo Grotius (1583–1645), an Arminian whom they sentenced to life in prison (though, with the help of friends, he escaped in a book chest and fled to Paris).

Later the Synod of Dort was anxious to quash the Arminian Remonstrants through the setting out of what were believed to be their heresies. The eventual result was, Olson claims, what is now known as Five-Point Calvinism (see pp. 40–41 for his account of the famous Synod). However, the acronym TULIP was fashioned much later, first appearing in American newspapers in 1913. Subsequently TULIP has become a kind of benchmark of presumably authentic Reformed theology for many scholars and preachers.[1] Put another way, not all Calvinists against whom Olson remonstrates in Against Calvinism necessarily employ the TULIP acronym or, from his perspective, display all the errors and excesses that clearly trouble him.

Olson considers Calvinists of whatever brand to be Christians (pp. 12–13), though he winces because not all Calvinists return the favor (p. 15).[2] He can “worship with Calvinists without cringing,” and he considers them “a part of the rich tapestry of classical Christianity” (p. 13). Although he does not oppose all of Reformed theology as such, he is strongly against those he calls “high Calvinists,” that is, “those committed to the entire TULIP schema” (p. 13). Besides opposing high Calvinism (p. 15), he objects to the pugnacious “‘new Calvinism’ celebrated by Time magazine (12 May 2009) as one of the ten great ideas changing the world ‘right now’ ” (pp. 15–16).[3] He argues that TULIP does not accurately or fully describe Calvin’s views or even the theology of some and perhaps many of those who have been his disciples (pp. 26–37). Hence Olson does not object to all of Reformed theology. He argues, instead, that this venerable theological tradition, apart from what he considers its more objectionable elements, is in his estimation clearly Christ-centered (p. 13). Latter-day Saint readers should be aware that Olson does not allow that their faith is Christian despite the fact that it is profoundly Christ-centered. This seems odd to me and I have dealt with this seeming anomaly elsewhere.[4]

Some contemporary Reformed scholars avoid TULIP entirely, while others use it to describe the very core of Reformed theology. In addition, many of those in the unseemly countercult industry advance strident, rough versions of Reformed theology in which elements of TULIP are driven home with force.[5] Perhaps pugnacious people have a proclivity for harsh versions of Calvinism. In addition, those who maintain that God predestined some to salvation—the predestined elect at the moment everything was created out of nothing—always turn out to picture themselves as elected, and all those who do not share their opinion were passed over when justification was determined. These folks are often busy trying to spot signs of “works righteousness” among those not so fortunate. For this and related reasons the gentle Richard Mouw, who affirms TULIP, admits that he finds it harsh and those devoted to it highly contentious and quarrelsome rather than kind and loving (see p. 36).[6] Contentious Calvinists are, it seems, part of Calvin’s somewhat ambiguous legacy.

Olson insists that “renowned scholars of the Reformed tradition” both define and describe it very differently (p. 35). Hence what he calls the “high” and the “new” varieties of Calvinism are treated by him as a subset of Reformed theology (p. 38), and are seen as merely branches of a larger Reformed tradition. Since Calvinists of all stripes stress divine sovereignty, Calvinists also commonly insist on predestination and meticulous divine providence. But, according to Olson, within this “commonality” there “exists a diversity that often gives rise to debates even among Calvinists” (p. 38), which is clearly the case. What he also calls “mere Calvinism” or “garden variety Calvinism” (p. 38) is not, he insists, tightly linked to Calvin. Why? “What we usually call ‘Calvinism’ today includes some elements Calvin himself did not emphasize if he believed them at all” (p. 38). Olson thus strives to save Calvin from at least some or, perhaps, from many Calvinists.

Latter-day Saints who have encountered TULIP-spouting countercult critics of their faith will, I am confident, agree with Olson that God must be seen as “the standard of moral goodness” and “the perfectly loving source of love” (p. 178). The Calvinism against which Olson remonstrates tend to

confess that God ordains, designs, controls, and renders certain the most egregious evil acts such as the kidnaping, rape, and murder of a small child and the genocidal slaughter of hundreds of thousands in Rwanda. They confess that God “sees to it” that humans sin. . . . And they confess that all salvation is absolutely God’s doing and not at all dependent on free will decisions of people . . . and that God only saves some when he could save all—assuring that some large portion of humanity will spend eternity in hell when he could save them from it. (pp. 178–79)

In this and other instances, Olson expresses moral outrage at the God often pictured in Reformation theology. He does not, however, wish to be seen as rejecting Reformed theology as such, or even all of what is commonly known as Calvinism. He objects, instead, primarily to what is set forth in the notorious TULIP acronym.

Olson’s complaints against Calvinism ultimately rest on what he terms conundrums, which are for him logical puzzles that lie somewhere between mystery and contradiction or paradox and that need to be solved. Whereas mysteries like the Trinity are for him acceptable, contradictions are not. Conundrums jar the mind, he says. They “appear at times like contradictions although they are not formal, logical contradictions” (p. 175). He strives to demonstrate that Calvinism is replete with conundrums (pp. 175–79). If the radical divine determinism entailed in Five-Point Calvinism is taken seriously, God is dishonored on moral grounds, and His good name impugned. According to Olson this is done for no good reason. Despite the heavy hand of Augustine on the Reformation, neither logic nor the Bible requires it. I am in full agreement with Olson on these matters.

What Augustine bequeathed to the Protestant Reformation has led its theologians to deny what the Saints call moral agency. Those in debt to Augustine, of course, celebrate what they call free will. They insist that the human will is free to do as one desires, but they also insist all desires are strictly given to human beings and hence are firmly determined by God. So from this perspective one is merely free to do what one was predestined to desire. This is clearly not what the Saints know as moral agency.

The Augustinian legacy has thus, it seems, led Calvinists to picture human beings as puppets in the hands of an all-powerful, inscrutable First Thing that created everything, including both space and time, out of nothing and that in a full sense caused everything, including even the moral evils, that humans encounter in this often troubling, fallen world. Insisting on divine sovereignty in such a very loud voice may end up actually demeaning the divine. This problem seems to me to stem from a fascination with what is now sometimes called classical theism, where what is attributed to God makes it impossible for him to be loving, gentle, and merciful. But most conservative Protestants, despite the abstract distant figure sketched by classical theism, when they face evils in this disconsolate world, end up pleading with a God who is not passive, but fully passionate and both can and will listen and respond to those who genuinely turn to him for mercy and consolation, as well as hope beyond the miseries of this world and of the grave.

But Protestant theologians, it seems, by either challenging or rejecting Calvinism, risk being accused of an affront to the dignity of the divine, as well as of believing in dreaded “works righteousness.” Protestants it seems often genuinely fear this possibility, and their anxiety in this regard has been shaped by a long history of heresy hunting which once led to bold persecution when the force of nation-states could be employed. All of this, in addition to classical theism and the great ecumenical creeds, lurks behind or flows from the TULIP ideology against which Olson now remonstrates.

It should be clear that I admire Olson’s historical scholarship. I have urged the Saints to consult his books, which include the following, some of which I have previously reviewed favorably:

(With Stanley J. Grenz) 20th Century Theology: God and the World in a Transitional Age (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1992).

The Story of Christian Theology: Twenty Centuries of Tradition and Reform (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 1999).[7]

(With Christopher A. Hall) The Trinity (Eerdmans, 2002). Though I have not published a review of this book, I have often recommended it to Latter-day Saints who are often faced with critics who seem to spout the Sabellian (or modalist) heresy, at least when they attack the faith of the Saints.

The Mosaic of Christian Belief: Twenty Centuries of Unity and Diversity (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2002).[8]

The Westminster Handbook to Evangelical Theology (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2004).[9]

Arminian Theology: Myths and Reality (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 2006).[10]

Pocket History of Evangelical Theology (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 2007).[11]

(With Adam C. English) Pocket History of Theology (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 2005).[12]

I am impressed by Roger Olson’s historical scholarship. And I am pleased to recommend to Latter-day Saints readers his impressive Against  Calvinism, which is a useful book for all  those interested in one of the contending versions of historical and contemporary Protestant dogmatic theology.

Louis Midgley (PhD, Brown University) is an emeritus professor of political science at Brigham Young University. Dr. Midgley has had an abiding interest in the history of Christian theology. He wrote his doctoral dissertation on Paul Tillich, the then-famous German-American Protestant theologian and political theorist/religious-socialist activist. Midgley also studied the writings of other influential Protestant theologians such as Karl Barth. Eventually he took an interest in contemporary Roman Catholic theology, and was also impacted by the work of important Jewish philosophers, including especially Leo Strauss and his disciples.

[1]  .  For a useful history of the TULIP acronym and also an analysis of some of the myths that surround Calvin’s legacy, see Kenneth J. Stewart, Ten Myths about Calvinism: Recovering the Breadth of the Reformed Tradition (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Academic, 2011), 75-96. See also my review of this important book in Mormon Studies Review 23/1 (2011): 177–79.

[2]  .  Olson has had more to say about this elsewhere. See his Arminian Theology and related commentary below.

[3]  .  See also Collin Hansen, Young, Restless, Reformed: A Journalist’s Journey with the New Calvinists (Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2008).

[4]  .  See my essay entitled “On Caliban Mischief,” FARMS Review 15/1 (2003): xi–xxxv at xxv–xxx; and also “Evangelical Controversy: A Deeply Divided Movement,” Interpreter 3 (2013): 63–84 at 69, 79, 82.

[5]  .  An example of this can be found in the “debates” of “Dr.” James R. White, who directs the Alpha and Omega Ministries, which is his Reformed style evangelical “outreach” based in Phoenix, Arizona, through which he blasts away at the faith of Roman Catholics, and also, among others, Latter-day Saints.

[6]  .  For Mouw’s account of his attachment to TULIP-type Calvinism, see his Calvinism in the Las Vegas Airport: Making Connections in Today’s World (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2004). See my review in the FARMS Review 19/1 (2007): 366–68.

[7]  .  See Midgley, “On Caliban Mischief,” FARMS Review 5/1 (2003): xxv–xxx, and see also David Paulsen’s rather enthusiastic review of Olson’s The Story of Christian Theology in BYU Studies 39/4 (2000): 185–94.

[8]  .  For comments on Olson’s impressive The Mosaic of Christian Belief, see Midgley, “On Caliban Mischief,” xxv-xxx.

[9]  .   This book was published in England as The SMC Press A-Z of Evangelical Theology (London, UK: SMC Press, 2005). Olson explores (1) The Story of Evangelical Theology; (2) Movements and Organizations Related to Evangelical Theology; (3) Key Figures in Evangelical Theology; (4) Traditional Doctrines in Evangelical Theology; and (5) Issues in Evangelical Theology, all of which is worthwhile material for one striving to understand the current evangelical movement.

[10]  .   See my review in FARMS Review 19/1 (2007): 368–69.

[11]  .   See my review in FARMS Review 22/1 (2010): 286–89.

[12]  .   See my review in FARMS Review 22/1 (2010): 290–92.

Whither Mormon Studies?

John Gee

Abstract: The proliferation of Mormon Studies is surprising, considering that many of the basic questions about the field have never been answered. This paper looks at a number of basic questions about Mormon Studies that are of either academic concern or concern for members of the Church of Jesus Christ. They include such questions as whether Mormon Studies is a discipline, whether those who do Mormon Studies necessarily know what is going on in the Church, or if they interpret their findings correctly, whether there is any core knowledge that those who do Mormon Studies can or should have, what sort of topics Mormon Studies covers or should cover and whether those topics really have anything to do with what Mormons actually do or think about, whether Mormon Studies has ulterior political or religious motives, and whether it helps or hurts the Kingdom. Is Mormon Studies a waste of students’ time and donors’ money? Though the paper does not come up with definitive answers to any of those questions, it sketches ways of looking at them from a perspective within the restored Gospel and suggests that these issues ought to be more carefully considered before Latter-day Saints dive headlong into Mormon Studies in general.

In my lifetime, Mormonism has gone from mostly under the radar of Religious Studies to the point where there are now academic programs in Mormon Studies. Whether this is a good development can at least be debated. As the Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship suspended the Mormon Studies Review (but has now announced that it will be relaunched, perhaps toward the end of 2013), it is worth looking at some lingering questions in the field of Mormon Studies. These are some questions about the field that have not been satisfactorily answered—nor are they necessarily answered here—but they need to be considered lest Mormon Studies become seen by Latter-day Saints as simply another dash of the Gadarene swine.[1] As a partial foil for my discussion, I would like to use an unappreciated pioneer in Mormon Studies, the late British Shakespearean scholar Arthur Henry King, who was widely read and widely traveled and already had a distinguished academic career before he encountered The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. At the very end of his academic career he produced a thoughtful work of Mormon Studies that was part analysis and part critique.[2] The critique was aimed at members of the Church who substituted their own naïve presuppositions, culture, politics, or ethnicity for the Gospel and did not consider their actions in the light of what the scriptures taught.

Is There any Discipline in Mormon Studies?

When Arthur Henry King taught Shakespeare, he would begin his upper division classes by announcing that he was not going to require the class to write an essay on Shakespeare since none of them was competent to do so. Instead he would teach them a method that, if pursued for twenty years, might equip them with such competence. The English majors were instantly offended at his suggestion that they did not know enough to write an essay on Shakespeare, but he was absolutely right. His disciplined method required the scansion of every line and the analysis of every word in the context of the play, in the context of Shakespeare’s usage, and in other usage in Shakespeare’s day. It involved asking moral questions of the material, such as: Is there any love in this play? Who is posturing in this play and why? This is an admired speech, but is it a good one? Is the sentiment expressed by this character moral? If this character were to give a Christian response here, what would it be? What does this character need to repent of? Does he or she repent? His method required a reflexive critique on whether interpretations were (1) actually preferable, (2) just probable, (3) merely possible, or (4) simply impossible. King was as demanding of himself as he was of his students. He would stand up and walk out of a play if the director carelessly omitted Marcellus’s speech in the first scene of Hamlet (which he thought was the highlight of the play),[3] or butchered The Tempest by substituting Prospero’s nihilistic speech [4] (which he must repent of) [5] for his repentance at the end.[6] Students who entered King’s office would find his packed bookshelves filled with little else than three-inch-thick binders filled with his notes on every Shakespearean play. Observant students could tell that he had practiced his own method for many years and was teaching from personal experience and personal discipline. His method described a discipline for studying Shakespeare that can be profitably applied to other fields.[7]

Many areas of study require the mastery of language(s), or mathematics, or some other demanding base, without which one cannot even begin to work competently in the field. A physicist cannot begin to probe the mysteries of quantum mechanics without the calculus, even though mathematics is not his area of interest. A student of the Old Testament requires not just Hebrew but also German in order to interact with the technical literature of his field, though his interest is hardly focused on modern European languages. While it is clear that many who write on Mormon Studies are not competent to do so, the cause of this problem has been often overlooked. Tellingly, Mormon Studies seems to lack the disciplinary “prerequisites” which other fields demand—the original documents are mostly in English and easily read by any literate layperson, which means that the would-be author faces few bars to entry. If the ability to read English and talk to a few Mormons are the only requirements, why pretend that the quality of most work in Mormon Studies reflects the standards of an academic discipline, such as peer review, graduate school apprenticeship, and a necessary command of the relevant literature? To produce work worthy of serious interest, Mormon Studies may need a discipline that after twenty years of experience might produce something worthy of consideration.

Discipline requires “a certain amount of grind and insistence on detail and accuracy.” [8] Without discipline we end up with what King called “higher illiteracy,” which he said comes “partly because during the years of our schooling we have not been submitted to any unremitting disciplinary training in the use of language.” [9] It is that lack of discipline—and the rigorous training that might supply it—that often leads individuals to use such sloppy and ill-thought-out categories as “mysticism,” “theology,” and “objectivity” when talking about The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

King was blunt and forthright in academic matters; he was not interested in “Mormon nice.” Nice, after all, comes from the Latin nescius “ignorant” and originally meant “foolish, stupid, senseless.” [10] “Nice” is how one treats people when one does not know any better. While it is often a good thing for Latter-day Saints to ignore the learning of the world (such can afford to be nice), Latter-day Saints who wish to engage in Mormon Studies cannot afford to be nice if this means ignoring sloppy work, immature thinking, or a lack of grounding in the relevant fundamentals. Christ’s command was not merely to be as harmless as doves but to be wise as serpents.

Most of those who have excelled at Mormon Studies come from other disciplines and have excelled because they apply their discipline to their Mormon subject. They are careful thinkers. They also love their subject and are excited about it—not because they think that it is somehow strange but because they think that it is wonderful. Good entomologists, for example, do not think that insects are weird or strange or some academic curiosity. They are passionate advocates of their subject; they are not trying to kill off the species they study. It is precisely their passion for their subject that compels them to bring their best to their study. They do not affect disinterest. Disinterested people are incapable of research, since research requires an interest in the topic of research. Disinterested people write trite drivel. Disinterested speakers are boring. Students hate disinterested professors; they prefer enthusiastic ones. (And we should remember that enthusiasm comes from a Greek term meaning “to be inspired or possessed by a god.”) [11] We do not want disinterested observers of Latter-day Saints because disinterested people do not care. Why would anyone want to affect or feign disinterestedness in her topic?

From the point of view of the Saints, Mormon Studies should not pretend to learning for learning’s sake. As King wrote,

For us, all learning is for God’s sake, not for its own sake. As soon as we speak of learning for its own sake, we set up learning as an idol independent of God. The Mormon tradition is supremely one of work, work for the Lord and others—service. Work is the second great virtue. Caring or love is the first; and work should spring from caring. The object of a Mormon university must be to build the kingdom of God, to serve in the Church in the full sense of what that implies. Because we believe in the Church, because we believe it to be the most important organization on this earth, because we believe it to be the instrument of God’s will, because we believe Christ is its head, we must therefore believe that any organization that the Church sets up must finally and ultimately serve the Church.[12]

Does a Specialist in Mormon Studies Necessarily Know What is Going on in the Church?

We cannot presume that someone professing to do Mormon Studies is necessarily a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, but we have the right to expect him or her to know something about the Church.[13] That is, after all, supposedly his or her area of expertise. In reality, though, that area of expertise can be overstated. A scholar of Mormon Studies might have broad interests in the Church and some knowledge about the Church, but expertise will generally be in a more narrow range, such as Church history in the Nauvoo Period, or Mormons in the southeastern United States in the late nineteenth century, for example. A potential problem then appears when outside observers, such as the media, turn to a scholar focused on some narrow aspect of Mormon Studies, and mistakenly conclude that the scholar is some sort of authority on the Church in all its dimensions. A biochemist specializing in DNA would not be consulted about transition-metal chemistry simply because he is a “chemist,” but scholars of Mormonism are often asked to comment on matters equally far from their area of expertise. More troubling, neither they nor their audience seem to realize they are doing so.

Jan Shipps was a well-known example of this phenomenon. Shipps was constantly consulted by the media for her opinions about what was going on in the Church, though some of the Saints could be forgiven for wondering from her statements excerpted in the media how informed she was. Shipps recalls that her first exposure to the Church was when she moved to Logan, Utah, for a year.[14] Most of the people that she associated with “did not fit into the ‘active Mormon’ category” and most of what she learned about Latter-day Saints was over alcohol.[15] She recalls that “we never attended a sacrament meeting.”[16] She then moved to Colorado, where she did graduate work on Mormonism all while trying “to avoid being pulled one way or the other.”[17] In the early seventies she finally entered what she considered the “real Mormon community,” which was “the community of Mormon intellectuals then gathering around Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought.”[18] She herself admits that “this loosely organized community stood in sharp contrast to the ever more rigidly organized and strictly regulated religious body to which the great majority of LDS intellectuals belonged and in which many were active participants.”[19] In other words, she has only had limited contact with what goes on in the Church and her principal informants have been those on the fringes. While outsiders can, and sometimes do, have important insights into the Latter-day Saint experience, insiders know that outsiders’ understanding is incomplete, and they often fail to grasp basic, fundamental, even obvious facets from their outside position. This dynamic can make them unreliable sources of information for those who actually want to understand the church better.

Why does this problem arise? In the first place, most scholars of Mormonism are in a very poor position to understand what is going on in the Church simply because of its sheer size and extent. In 2009, the Church had 2,865 stakes with 28,424 wards and branches in over 150 countries.[20] Assume for the moment that a scholar of Mormonism has twenty friends in different stakes around the Church reporting to her what is going on in their wards and stakes (an overly optimistic estimate), perhaps a couple of times a year. A stake president will have, on average, about ten units reporting to him. Additionally, most Sundays he will be visiting one or two of those wards in person. Every month he will be interviewing the bishops. At least three or four times a month (sometimes three or four times a week) he will be interviewing various members of the stake to issue callings, to issue temple recommends, to counsel those with problems, and to deal with the wayward. Additionally, nearly every week a stake president (or a bishop, for that matter) will receive a packet in the mail from Church headquarters informing him about minor policy changes and upcoming things of which he should be aware. A stake president, therefore, is better informed about what is going on in the Church than a typical scholar of Mormonism, albeit often for a more restricted geographical area.

This is not to say that the media ought to go to a stake president for information. (The stake president would likely send a reporter to the local public affairs representative.) But a stake president is more likely to be informed about what is going on in the Church than someone whose primary source of information consists of those Latter-day Saints who frequent cocktail parties. If one wants to understand what is going on in the current Church, however, one needs to have a larger picture than even a stake president can provide.

A member of the Quorum of the Seventy in an Area Presidency will have responsibility for an average of about 90–100 stakes, consisting of 900–1000 wards. An apostle will have an average of 686 stakes and 6869 wards reporting to him. The apostles as a group also receive reports from each of the Area Presidencies at least a couple of times a year. Furthermore, these brethren will spend about forty weeks a year on assignment visiting Latter-day Saints worldwide, which the scholar will not.

This is not to say that either the media or scholars of Mormon Studies should waste the time of the General Authorities with routine media queries. Church Public Affairs is established to interact with the media. So while someone who does Mormon Studies may be an expert in his or her particular niche, he or she will be in less of a position to say what is generally happening Church-wide than a typical General Authority.

What Will a Student Learn in a Mormon Studies Program?

Most “studies” programs are interdisciplinary, with a number of different faculty in different departments specializing in where the subject of the “studies” program intersects with the discipline: for example, history, theology, philosophy, sociology, anthropology, archaeology, languages, political science, literature, and so forth. Outside of Brigham Young University, Brigham Young University–Hawaii, and Brigham Young University–Idaho, no university has more than a single chair in Mormon Studies. This lack of a broad interdisciplinary approach means that other universities cannot really have an effective program and students who study in such places are unlikely to get a well-rounded education in the topic. Instead, in the classroom they will be instructed in the eccentricities of their particular professor.

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is a worldwide church with more members living outside the United States than inside the United States, yet Mormon Studies has generally been focused on the United States. Will Mormon Studies programs based exclusively in the United States deal well with the worldwide Church or will they only focus on the Church in the United States? Can one specialist really be expected to cover more than a fraction of the territory?

Students in a Mormon Studies program will learn mostly from and be greatly influenced by their professor. What then will their students be learning from them? “Generally, course and faculty / student interface are needed for the development of skills, the inculcation of method, the application of principle, the acquiring of attitude—to show how learning is organized, how it can stimulate and lead to discussion—not for information that students should be getting by reading.”[21] The character of the professor assumes a crucial role here.

What Core Areas of Knowledge Should a Specialist in Mormon Studies Have?

While someone in Mormon Studies may have a specialist niche, there should be some standard core knowledge that a specialist in Mormon Studies ought to be expected to have. An analogy from another discipline might be appropriate here. While Egyptology covers thousands of years and every facet of that civilization and Egyptologists necessarily specialize, there is a core of knowledge that comes as part of their training that they can all be expected to have. There are texts that all are expected to have read, and minimal competencies that all are expected to have achieved before proceeding to their specialties. Likewise, those involved in Mormon Studies should share a standard core of texts and a standard core of basic knowledge.

While there will be some debate regarding all the texts and knowledge that a scholar of Mormon Studies should have, I will here suggest a bare minimum. A scholar of Mormon Studies worthy of the title should at a bare minimum have carefully read all of the standard works of the Church: the Bible (both Old and New Testaments), the Book of Mormon, the Doctrine and Covenants, and the Pearl of Great Price. Some reasons for this are obvious. As the canon of the Church, these are the core texts throughout the Church that all members are encouraged to study. It is only to be expected that members and scholars should be familiar with them. Latter-day Saint writing and talks are peppered with quotations from, and allusions to, these books of scripture (over 100,000 of them in the last sixty or so years of General Conference alone).[22] One cannot presume to write intelligently about Latter-day Saints without an intimate grasp of this core intellectual background.

It should likewise be expected that anyone who wishes to write knowledgeably about Latter-day Saints should know the basics of Latter-day Saint belief. This base would include the Gospel (i.e., faith in Jesus Christ, repentance, baptism, the gift of the Holy Ghost, and enduring to the end). Those basics can be found in the lessons taught to investigators and new members. That is what the Church expects its members to believe and commit to. Thus, those who do not belong to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, but wish to participate intelligently in Mormon Studies, would do well to familiarize themselves with the third chapter of Preach My Gospel, the Church’s guide for missionary work.[23] This chapter covers the basics of Latter-day Saint beliefs and tenets. The guide is available in forty-three languages, all of which are available for free on the internet, so there is no excuse for not knowing the material.[24]

One would also expect that those doing Mormon Studies would have some idea of what a Church meeting was like; one would think that they should have at least attended a Sacrament Meeting, a Fast and Testimony Meeting, and a session of General Conference. (I deliberately exclude familiarity with temple ordinances because not all Latter-day Saints have yet experienced the temple.)

Beyond these recommendations, one would expect a knowledge of the general outlines of LDS Church history, if for no other reason than to help them navigate more specialist discussions.

Doubtless, there is more that should be included. The exact core competencies can be debated, but I have a hard time imagining how someone could even claim the sort of competence in Mormon Studies necessary to publish without this bare minimum.

Will Students of a Specialist in Mormon Studies Necessarily Know Even the Basics about the Church?

One of the most disappointing things about reading accounts of the Latter-day Saints by outsiders is the persistent failure to get even basic information correct.

In 2009 the Church had 51,736 missionaries who baptized 280,106 converts for an average of over 10 ¾ converts per missionary companionship. This does not include all the investigators who did not end up being baptized, but is limited to those people who were taught well enough that the individual could pass a baptismal recommend interview, which means that the person understood the basics of the Church. Is it plausible that any professor of Mormon Studies is going to get ten of his students a year able to answer all those questions satisfactorily? Students in a Mormon Studies program should not be required to convert, but they should be familiar with the basics, which is what the missionaries teach. A Mormon Studies instructor who fails to help his students understand the basics has failed his students. This is not to say that missionaries are particularly gifted teachers; their training in teaching is rather minimal. For all its brevity, however, it is more extensive than the amount of pedagogical training necessary to receive a PhD.

So a Mormon Studies graduate is likely to be no better informed about the Church in general than a stake president and no better a teacher than a missionary. A scholar can be an expert in particular without being an authority in general. A scholar might, for example, be an expert in a comparatively specialized subject, and might be the most knowledgeable person in the Church in that particular area. This specialized expertise has to be the strength of those involved in Mormon Studies.

What is the Purpose of Mormon Studies?

For years we have had individuals with specialist knowledge without programs and positions in Mormon Studies. Their existence does not require or even argue for a need for such programs. Since the purpose of Mormon Studies is the key question, and one which I will not presume to answer at this time, I suggest that the answer might depend on the position of the individual to whom the question is put. The purpose of Mormon Studies may mean one thing to the professor of Mormon Studies, another to the student, something else to the donor who has put up the money for the professor’s position, something different to the member of the Church, and yet something different to a leader of the Church.

As in the rest of academia, a potential problem for the professor of Mormon Studies is simply the inevitable pressure to publish, perhaps before the professor has anything to say. Like Jan Shipps, Arthur Henry King encountered the Church in the 1960s, but, unlike Shipps, King did not pretend or presume to be neutral, but rather joined the Church. Already an academic by training and sometime professor at Cambridge, King joined the faculty at Brigham Young University as a professor of English and taught English, particularly Shakespeare. He published very little. After some twenty years among the Latter-day Saints, however, he produced a book which he began by admitting, “I am new to the Church; and I wondered, therefore, what I could say from inside it that could interest you, or indeed, be knowledgeable. I have come in late, but I am addressing people here who have always been in the Church, or perhaps came to it early.” [25] Yet, his relative newness to the church notwithstanding, he wrote a work which remains one of the most original and insightful books in Mormon Studies because of his careful and thoughtful engagement with the subject.[26] I doubt that he would have produced anything so profound had he rushed into print to satisfy the timetable of a tenure committee. If a professor has perhaps not matured enough to produce something profound, it is even more unlikely that a graduate student who is not a member of the Church would have anything useful to say. Would a graduate student who has spent 45 hours in a semester-long class on Mormonism really have the hubris to think that he would have anything worthwhile to tell the typical Church member who spends at least 150 hours a year  in Church meetings alone (to say nothing of the countless hours outside the Sunday block)? These are people who have covenanted with God and given their lives to him through his Church. They are citizens and inhabitants of the kingdom of God, not tourists. They may not be specialists and they do not know everything, but they know from personal experience and devoted time how the Church works and what LDS life is like.

A professor, furthermore, might take a different attitude toward his subject. Some, caught in the publish or perish trap, might decide to pump forth whatever bilge they think they need to placate a tenure committee, probably staffed by secular Religious Studies scholars. For others, their professorship might serve as an opportunity to demonstrate their erudition or cleverness. While Latter-day Saints may put up the money to fund chairs in Mormon Studies, Religious Studies scholars are the ones who will determine the rank advancement of those who hold university chairs in Mormon Studies and who will determine who will be hired. Thus the interests of Mormon Studies chairs will not necessarily align with the desires of Latter-day Saints. This has been less of a concern in the past when those hired for Mormon Studies chairs were established scholars, such as Richard Bushman, who had already established track records for competence. Any younger, non-tenured scholar will have to make his or her work in Mormon Studies please the senior scholars in Religious Studies who hold the key to his or her rank advancement and tenure. Will work in Mormon Studies conform to the expectations of the Religious Studies departments? Will it serve the academy, and not the Kingdom? There are times when it might serve both, but there might also be times when one simply cannot serve two masters and thus must choose whom one will serve. “It is the tradition of the academic that he should be a self-regarder, a self-lover, an exhibitionist, a narcissist, one who postures and clowns for educational purposes.” [27] Arthur Henry King noted, “I have been a member of several universities, and I have visited some two hundred. And I can assure you that the outstanding feature of the faculty of universities is an extraordinary immaturity which springs from self-regard, the praise given by others, arrogance, the belief in one’s own powers—any of these things will bring it about. It is more difficult to grow up when one is clever.” [28]

There is, however, a more excellent way. As Arthur Henry King taught, “When we have laid down at Christ’s feet all our scholarship, all our learning, all the tools of our trades, we discover that we may pick them all up again, clean them, adjust them, and use them for the Church in the name of Christ and in the light of his countenance. We do not need to discard them. All we need do is to use them from the faith which now possesses us. And we find that we can.” [29] Otherwise, as Hugh Nibley warned, for those who do not defend the kingdom of God, their “whole career will become one long face-saving operation—at the expense of the Church.” [30]

Lehi’s and Nephi’s visions of the tree of life are relevant here. Lehi describes “a great and spacious building . . . filled with people, both old and young, both male and female, . . . in the attitude of mocking and pointing their fingers towards those who had come at and were partaking of the fruit” (1 Nephi 8:26–27). An angel explains to Nephi that the building represents “the world and the wisdom thereof” (1 Nephi 11:35). Nephi somberly explains that “as many as heeded them, had fallen away” (1 Nephi 8:34).

For Latter-day Saints, who generally already know their faith much better than outsiders ever will, one important purpose for Mormon Studies is to provide believers with insight. Arthur Henry King liked to quote from T.S. Eliot: “We shall not cease from exploration / And the end of all our exploring / Will be to arrive where we started / And know the place for the first time.”[31] A good work in Mormon Studies will make the Latter-day Saint who already knows the subject feel as though he or she is encountering the subject for the first time. It will add fresh insight and be edifying.

Are Scholars of Mormon Studies Necessarily the Best at Interpreting What is Going on in the Church?

If the purpose of Mormon Studies is to be insightful and edifying, we might wonder how insightful scholars of Mormon Studies actually are. I was struck by the perspicacity of one member of the Church with whom I attended the October 1999 Priesthood Session of General Conference. After the meeting, he announced that the Church was going to sell ZCMI, which the Church did a month and a half later. He had correctly read between the lines when the following passage was delivered over the pulpit:

Now, the next question: “Why is the Church in business?”

We have a few business interests. Not many. Most of these were begun in very early days when the Church was the only organization that could provide the capital that was needed to start certain business interests designed to serve the people in this remote area. We have divested ourselves long since of some of these where it was felt there was no longer a need. Included in these divestitures, for instance, was the old Consolidated Wagon and Machine Company, which did well in the days of wagons and horse-drawn farm machinery. The company outlived its usefulness.

The Church sold the banks which it once held. As good banking services developed in the community, there was no longer any need for Church-owned banks.[32]

Granted that the man who drew the conclusion was, and is, more astute than most, the correct conclusion drawn at the time is not necessarily straight-forward even in retrospect. Are those who do Mormon Studies so astute? They may not necessarily be. Looking back at various interpretations made by certain intellectuals doing Mormon Studies regarding events and trends happening in the Church, one gets the distinct impression that they misunderstood them. This is not to say that all intellectuals, or even all Mormon intellectuals, are clueless. Most of the time those in Mormon Studies have the good sense not to claim to be prophets, but they have, on occasion, presumed as much.[33] If Latter-day Saints are going to find something insightful and edifying in Mormon Studies, some facets of the field are going to need to change.

What Sort of Topics Should be Covered by Mormon Studies?

For some, Mormon Studies is synonymous with Mormon History. While history is an important component of Mormon Studies, the field itself cannot be reduced to history. By its designation, Mormon Studies models itself on the broader discipline of Religious Studies. The chairs in Mormon Studies have, so far, been in Religious Studies departments, not history departments. Church members excited over the prospect of Mormon Studies may not be as excited over the topics that Religious Studies as a larger discipline prefers to address.

One could consider the list of the Mormon Studies topics presented over the last few years at the Annual Meetings of the American Academy of Religion, perhaps the premiere outlet for Religious Studies in the United States.[34] It is indicative of the type of topics that one can expect to emerge out of a Mormon Studies program. Latter-day Saints will find among the topics the innocuous to the noxious. If anything, it shows the type of work that is promoted under the rubric of Mormon Studies. As might be expected in Religious Studies, there is a tremendous interest in interreligious dialogues, and comparisons across different religions. Because Religious Studies, like many “Studies” fields, tends to use a post-modern lens, which sees religion as a means to seize or maintain power (religion as politics by other means), there is a concentrated focus on politics. (The danger of such a position is that one might come to view the Church as a merely human institution that can or should be politically manipulated. It seems to me that those who take this position have grossly misunderstood the Church.) Like most “Studies” fields, Religious Studies is also fixated on issues of race and gender, particularly on sexual orientation and, from certain perspectives, deviant sexual behavior. It is unsurprising, then, that some think Mormon Studies should be no exception. Those involved in Mormon Studies have also been interested in Latter-day Saint arts. Pilgrimage seems to be another popular topic. There are other topics, but their rarity makes them almost appear as though they were aberrations. Treatments of Latter-day Saint scriptures do appear, but are fairly rare and usually deal with what someone said about a text rather than the text itself.

This is not to say that all of these topics are illegitimate, or non-academic, or uninteresting, although some of them might be some of those things. However, the vast majority of these studies are far removed from the issues that most Latter-day Saints deal with on a daily basis. Too many of them qualify as higher illiteracy. They are not things that Latter-day Saints will find insightful or edifying. They are an imposition of the interests of outsiders on the Latter-day Saints. They generally deal with isolated instances or marginal phenomena. None of them deal with the gospel. None of them deal with the central issues of the kingdom of God. Few of them appear to help the kingdom—at best, they are neutral toward its progress, and at worst, they are sometimes overtly hostile. They are distractions from what we are supposed to be doing as a Church and as a people. “Our task is not to accept agnostic literature.” [35] That is, for Latter-day Saints, the danger in Mormon Studies. We can expect that as younger scholars in Mormon Studies try to produce work respected by the academy at large, more of the sort of drivel that is at best of marginal interest to the Saints will be produced in the name of satisfying whatever prevailing fad possesses the academy. King writes,

We do not need to catch up with the world, the flesh, and the devil. If we are the Lord’s, we are not of this world. If we fulfill prophecy, it will not be by imitating other universities, but by taking note of what they do and, in the light or darkness of that, working out our own path. That path should ultimately be traced for us by inspiration and revelation, but it will not be traced for us at all unless we use ourselves to the maximum in the magnificent possibilities that are given us here. We are obligated, each of us, to make the best of ourselves in order that we may do the best for Christ, and this is as true of our intellectual work as of all other kinds of work we have to do.[36]

Not all of the presentations at the American Academy of Religion meetings were by members of the Church. Some were by disaffected Latter-day Saints, some by those who have left the Church, some by anti-Mormons who have never been members, some simply by professors who think they know more about the Church than they actually do. We can expect more of these in the future. After all, “to attack religion is the one safe course for the ambitious intellectual. . . . this marks him as a great thinker and above all saves him from being called to account, for if he is too closely questioned or criticized, he can always play the martyred liberal.” [37] It is even likely that a graduate student will train to become a secular, academic species of professional anti-Mormon. Indeed, I know of at least four who are. Ironically, he or she may do so in a Mormon Studies program funded by members of the Church who could conceive of nothing ill coming out of it.

We should expect more of things like the program, “What the Study of Mormonism Brings to Religious Studies: A Special AAR Session Organized on the Occasion of the Bicentennial of Joseph Smith’s Birth” which was presented at the 2005 American Academy of Religion meetings in Philadelphia. At that session, one scholar announced that The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints had no interest in being perceived as Christian until the year 2000. The Latter-day Saints in the audience, who made up probably between one and two thirds of the assembled, may have been wondering where this person had been, since the subject has made periodic appearances in General Conference from as early as 1962.[38] One after the other speakers prefaced their prepared remarks with the comment, “I do not really know anything about the Mormons, but . . .” The pièce de résistance of the entire meeting was the observation by a distinguished Old Testament scholar, based on an examination of three pages literally at random from the Book of Mormon, that the Book of Mormon made no use of the Old Testament. With such truly incredible conclusions one wonders how much more he could have embarrassed himself in front of such an audience, at least a third of whom recognized that the emperor had no clothes. One also wonders what sort of lack of study of Mormonism continues to occur in Religious Studies. Not all presentations on Latter-day Saints in such programs are so blithely ignorant of the object of their study, but too many are. This is not a situation which would occur—much less be tolerated—in virtually any other discipline.

Is Mormon Studies Reductionist?

The session devoted to “What the Study of Mormonism Brings to Religious Studies” was notable for another omission. There was no mention of one of the especially distinctive features of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. When Joseph Smith went to Washington, D.C. in December 1839 to petition redress for the robbery, vandalism, and deprivation of rights associated with the Missouri persecutions, the President of the United States, Martin Van Buren, asked him “wherein we differed in our religion from the other religions of the day. Brother Joseph said we differed in mode of baptism, and the gift of the Holy Ghost by the laying on of hands. We considered that all other considerations were contained in the gift of the Holy Ghost.” [39] The presence, influence, and inspiration of the Holy Ghost is still seen as a driving force among the Latter-day Saints. One Sunday a month, the bulk of the time in the principal worship service is devoted to members, as prompted by the Holy Spirit, telling of the influence that the Spirit has had in their lives and of the mighty acts of God they have witnessed. A section of the Church’s official magazine for adults is devoted to the same thing. Much of what has been done in the name of Mormon Studies omits this distinctive characteristic. For some topics and discussion, it may not be necessary or appropriate, and some who do Mormon Studies may not believe a word of it, but to wholly omit it from consideration is to falsify the account of the experience of Latter-day Saints. It cannot be a true account. It reduces the faith of the Saints to something much less. It is as though one were to stage Shakespeare’s Tempest without Prospero or Ariel.

As has happened in other Religious Studies sub-disciplines, Mormon Studies might try to describe something and the Latter-day Saints might find their faith “not only well described, but also explained, i.e., explained away into political, historical or literary factors.” [40] Work in Mormon Studies that neglects the influence of God in the experience of the Latter-day Saints risks being reductionist in the worst sense of the word. Latter-day Saints who engage in such work might wonder how their work fits in with Doctrine and Covenants 59:21. Those who are not Latter-day Saints or who are merely “cultural Mormons” should realize that their reductionist work will be viewed by the Saints as flawed: at best as not fully accurate and at worst as fundamentally fallacious, if not intentionally misleading.

Those who take a reductionist approach, Nibley noted, do not take kindly to those who suggest there is something more, or who try to correct their errors. They “promptly sound the alarm and attack them as fanatics and troublemakers.”[41] The current straw man term of opprobrium is apologist, ironically employed by individuals vigorously and vociferously defending their own position, i.e., acting as apologists themselves. The entire scholarly enterprise is scarcely anything but apologetics—the defense or advocacy of a position through reason, evidence, and the marshaling of argument.

Is There a Political Program to Mormon Studies?

Many academic fields that end in “studies” are viewed by some as less a discipline than a political program, as less interested in doing research than in indoctrinating students into a particular ideology. One wonders whether some engaging in Mormon Studies have such an ideological program. Looking at the trendy topics covered in presentations on Mormon Studies at past academic conferences, one may perhaps be forgiven for asking such an impolitic question. If the faith of the Saints is going to be reduced to something, to what will it be reduced? If there is a political program, Latter-day Saints will want to know to what extent the ideological agenda coincides with sustaining the kingdom of God. Most political agendas simply do not coincide with the kingdom of God. If a book or article of Mormon Studies is reductionist, it will largely reduce the faith of the Saints to something with a political agenda, and that political agenda, having removed God from the kingdom of God, will be something largely alien to the community of believers.

What is the Student of a Program in Mormon Studies Supposed to Do with His or Her Education?
Whenever I have run into Latter-day Saints enrolled in a divinity program, I have asked them what they intend to do with their degree. After all, the purpose of a divinity school is to prepare ministers of various other denominations for the ministry. Since a Latter-day Saint cannot be a minister in those denominations, what would one do with a divinity degree? Fortunately, all of those I have talked to were getting a Master’s degree and have intended to use it as a stepping stone into a doctoral program, so it made some sense on the path of education. Currently there are no Mormon Studies degrees (the degrees are in Religious Studies), but Mormon Studies could be an academic ticket to nowhere. As the chair of one Religious Studies department put it: “In the academic world, specialization in Mormon Studies can wreck a promising career.” [42] In the past, those who did Mormon Studies got their training in other fields and pursued Mormon Studies, initially, on the side. This is true of most of the bigger names in Mormon Studies such as Richard Bushman (American history), Terryl Givens (comparative literature), Arthur Henry King (Shakespeare), Leonard Arrington (economics), John Sorenson (anthropology), Hugh Nibley (history), Dan Peterson (Arabic), Lou Midgley (political philosophy), Noel Reynolds (political philosophy), and Jack Welch (law). At one time most of these, such as Nibley, Sorenson, Bushman, Givens, Peterson, Reynolds, Welch, and Midgley, were associated with the Neal A. Maxwell Institute but the Institute’s current management has decided to go in a different direction. (Bushman and Givens are still associated with the Institute on the new Mormon Studies Review advisory editorial board announced in late March, 2013.)

If Mormon Studies programs house and promote students who are in Mormon Studies to promote their own anti-Mormon agenda, they will destroy their program’s reputation with places that might be inclined to hire their graduates. While one might think that graduate programs would, in their own interest, not want to make their students toxic, most do not seem to care. So long as they are well-paid, some academics seem not to care about the fate of their students; and thus we see that academia will not support its children at the last day. Will this cause students who recognize that something is wrong with the program to avoid it? Might the long-term result be the elimination of such an academic program? This might well be the case with Mormon Studies programs.

Are the Funds for Mormon Studies Chairs Wasted?

So far three chairs have been endowed in Mormon Studies (Utah State University, Claremont Graduate University, and the University of Virginia). Endowed chairs do not come cheap. What sort of return do the investors expect from their investment? Are the publications and the type of research done by those chairs in line with the expectations of their Latter-day Saint funders? Obviously the donors are the ones who can best answer those questions, but the Latter-day Saint community has an interest in the answer to the questions. In the end, Mormon Studies is not about some small clique of intellectuals but about the Latter-day Saints who are the subject of the study and who may feel that the study rightfully belongs to them.

Conclusion

Above all, the relatively new field of Mormon Studies needs humility in its practitioners. Like it or not, the real experts on Mormon Studies are the General Authorities. As good as some of us may be in our particular niches, we need to keep in mind the many things that we do not know, and may never know. Mormon intellectuals are not particularly well positioned to get a very broad view of a worldwide Church. The interests and incentives of those who engage in Mormon Studies are not necessarily, and for the most part are not at all, the interests of the Kingdom. While typical Latter-day Saints might naïvely think that Mormon Studies is a good idea, they will not be happy with most of the material that passes for Mormon Studies if it follows the trend of Religious Studies in general, or the early output of those currently engaged in formal Mormon Studies programs. Scholars who want Mormon Studies to conform to the Religious Studies model should not be surprised, then, if Latter-day Saints have little regard for the work that they do. For most Latter-day Saints, the question is not whether serving God with all one’s mind can include Mormon Studies, but whether Mormon Studies is actually serving God.

John Gee is the William (Bill) Gay Research Chair and a Senior Research Fellow at the Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship at Brigham Young University.

Appendix

Mormon Studies Talks at the Annual Meetings of the American Academy of Religion 2001–2011 Sorted by Topic (author’s names removed to protect the guilty)

Comparative Religion

“ ‘I am a Mormon’ and ‘I am a Scientologist’: Recent Marketing Efforts in Mormonism and Scientology” (2011). “This presentation offers a comparative analysis and critique of recent marketing efforts by both churches to introduce the public to ordinary Mormons and Scientologists as a means of introducing the Mormon Church and the Church of Scientology: the “I am a Mormon” and “I am a Scientologist” campaigns. Why are these churches marketing themselves in these ways? What do they reveal about the socio-religious dialectic and tension between new religious movements and mainstream American society? This presentation draws on video evidence, fieldwork, and interviews conducted with church leaders to elucidate the origin and aim of the campaigns from the perspective of Mormons and Scientologists themselves.”

“The Personal and the Impersonal Divine in Mormonism and Bohemeanism” (2011). The author sees similarities between Joseph Smith and Jacob Boehme. “In their Promethean equation of the divine and human Mormons were more radical than Boehme for though he eliminates the ontological distinction between God and humanity Boehme still makes important distinctions between the relative eternal status of God and humanity. Joseph Smith eliminates this distinction in the King Follet Discourse declaring that God is a glorified human being.”

“The Enoch Figure: Pre- and Post-Joseph Smith” (2011). The paper claims to rely on “snippets of Enoch’s appearances throughout history, showing how Enoch is almost always used in associated with secret knowledge (mysteries) and powerful (often magical) language. Special consideration will be given to Joseph Smith and his complex connections with the many Enoch texts, traditions, and ideas.”

“Not the End of the Story: Theological Reflections on the Mormon Afterlife” (2011). The paper examines “the more fundamental differences between a Mormon afterlife and the one taught by traditional Christianity” through the lends of “dualism and embodiment.”

“When Humans Become Gods: Mormonism and Transhumanism” (2010).

“ ‘And the Word Was Made Flesh’: The Meaning of the Incarnation in LDS Christology” (2010).

“The Mormon Jesus and the Nicene Christ” (2010).

“Mormonism and the Christological Spectrum” (2010).

“Evangelicals, Catholics, and Mormons in Dialogue: Pluralism and the American Religious Right” (2009). The purpose of this paper is so that those “committed to more liberal pluralisms may find that this cautious yet contested conservative pluralism open up new possibilities for elaborating counter-discourses to religious conservatism and for extending pluralist values in Unites States’ society.”

“The Significance of Recent Mormon–Evangelical Dialogues” (2009). Claiming that a “Mormon-Evangelical dialogue” has been occurring over many years, this panel “examines the issues engaged, the strategies employed, the challenges faced, and the consequences observed within the respective faith communities.”

“ ‘Lifting the Scourge’: The LDS Resanctification of the Community of Christ’s Kirtland Temple, 1965–2008” (2009). This paper claims that it “interrogates why and how a place can be transformed from defiled space to sacred space in less than a generation.”

“Nineteenth-Century North American Brethren in Latin America: A Brief Comparison of Mormons and Jehovah’s Witnesses” (2007). This papers purports to address issues because “North American nineteenth century new religious movements such as the Mormons and Jehovah’s Witnesses are expanding largely under the radar of social science heretofore preoccupied with the growth of evangelicos.”

“Teaching Mormon Studies: Theory, Topics, and Texts” (2007). This panel discussion was supposed to address “how will it [Mormon Studies] be impacted by the particular theoretical issues that influence these sub-disciplines as well as by recent theorizing in the study and teaching of religion generally? How might Mormonism best be studied from an interdisciplinary perspective or from the vantage point of comparative religion?”

“Elijah III: The Influence of Mormonism on John Alexander Dowie” (2006).

“The Human’s Naming of the Creatures as the World’s (and God’s) Open Future: A Conflict of Interpretations among Jews, Muslims, and Mormons” (2006).

“Open Readings of Genesis: Jacob Boehme’s Mysterium Magnum and Joseph Smith’s Books of Moses, Abraham, and The Book of Mormon” (2006).

“ ‘A PO Box and a Desire to Witness for Jesus’: Calling and Mission in the Ex-Mormons for Jesus” (2006).

“Opening the Bible: Open Canon and Openness Theology” (2006).

“What the Study of Mormonism Brings to Religious Studies: A Special AAR Session Organized on the Occasion of the Bicentennial of Joseph Smith’s Birth” (2005).

“ ‘Mine Is a House of Order’: A Comparative Analysis of Mormon and Focus on the Family’s Prescriptive Parenting Literature” (2001).

“Mormonism in the ‘American Religion’ Survey Course” (2001).

“What’s in a Church’s Name?: Mormonism, Christianity, and the Limits of Self-Identification” (2001).

Politics

“Uneasy Bedfellows: Twenty-first Century Mormonism and Modern American Memory” (2008).

“Anti-Mormonism and the Romney Campaign; or, Did Evangelical Hostility Sink Mitt’s Ship?” (2008).

“Vocal Mormons Meet Mitt Romney: The Impact of a Mormon Presidential Candidate on Mormon Self-expression” (2008).

“Media and the Mormon Candidate: One Reporter’s View” (2008).

“Author Meets Critics: Sarah Barringer Gordon’s The Mormon Question: Polygamy and Constitutional Conflict in Nineteenth-Century America” (2002).

“The Federal Courts and Religious Minorities: Rethinking the Mormon Polygamy Cases” (2001).

“Solving the ‘Mormon Problem’: The Smoot Hearing of 19031907 and the Delimitation of Religious Citizenship” (2001).

“Mormons, Violence, and Democracy in Nineteenth-Century America” (2001).

Race

“Jane Manning James: Reenacting and Reclaiming the ‘Black’ and ‘Mormon’ Past” (2011). The paper argues that “the LDS worked to preserve Utah as a (white) Mormon homeland by discouraging blacks from moving to Utah and joining the Church. Yet the presence of well-known black Mormons, especially Jane Manning James, hindered the realization of such a project.” It claims that “a century later, through reenactments of James’s spiritual autobiography, contemporary black Mormons aim to create a space in the Church, and in Utah, in which a saint can be both black and Mormon.”

“ ‘Not Only to the Gentile but Also to the African’: African American Mormons and Mormon Identity in the Nineteenth Century” (2008).

“Black Anti-Mormonism and the Construction of African American Identity in the Late Nineteenth Century” (2008).

“Assessing the African-American Latter-day Saint Experience Since the 1960s” (2008).

“The Changing Face of Mormonism: An Examination of the Influx and Interest of African Americans in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints” (2008).

“Reorienting Mormonism: Race, Ethnicity, and the Possibilities for Paradigm Shifts in the LDS Church” (2008).

“Nobody Knows: The Untold Story of Black Mormons” (2008).

“Seeing Jane: Jane Elizabeth Manning James’ Posthumous Career as an LDS Symbol” (2006). The author states “I argue that Saints have selectively appropriated, and often simplified, the stories James told about her own life in order to create a usable past and imagine a brighter future for the LDS Church and the world.” The author, on the other hand, would rather see her as one who “repeatedly petitioned LDS Church officials for her endowments and sealings, rituals that would enable her to reach the highest levels of glory after her death. Because of her race, officials consistently denied James’ requests.”

“Mormons, Natives, and the Category “Religion” in the Colonization of the American West” (2007). This paper purports to use history to explain “the influence of theological agendas in the emergence of religious studies in American universities”

“Mormonism and Miscegenation: A Study in Religion, Politics, and Culture” (2004).

Gender

“The Mommy Wars, Mormonism, and the ‘Choices’ of American Motherhood” (2011). Starting with the supposition “that choices among American women regarding childbirth and infant feeding necessarily result in regret and insecurity that are then projected onto other women” the paper intends to show that “religiously motivated ‘choices’ [among LDS women] undermine this thesis.”

“Western Pioneer Mythos in the Negotiation of Mormon Feminism and Faith” (2011). The paper idolizes the “Mormon women who supported the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA)” because they “faced persecution and excommunication from the church.” It argues that “despite the possible cost, they continued to support the bill bolstered by a western pioneer mythos.”

“Scripting, Performing, Testifying: Giving Faithful ‘Seximony’ through the Mormon Vagina Monologues” (2011). Examining a presentation entitled “the Mormon Vagina Monologues” at the 2001 Sunstone conference that “critiqued the Mormon Church patriarchy, but also used essential elements of Mormon faith – those of testimony, scripture, and personal revelation – to envision a Church more accepting of sexual differences. Using methodological approaches from Mormon studies, feminist studies of religion, and performance studies . . . a number of monologues are examined, including pieces dealing with sacred undergarments, female masturbation, eternal marriage and the celestial kingdom, and the personal and theological struggles of male-to-female transsexual Latter-day Saints.”

“ ‘Further Light and Knowledge’: Ways of Knowing in Mormonism and the New Spirituality” (2011). A look at “how particular LDS women have synthesized, supplemented or replaced Mormonism with esoteric elements of twenty-first century New Spirituality . . . such as astrology, reincarnation, channeling, and divination” to lead them “towards a progressive, more humanistic spirituality.”

“Female Priestly Subjectivity and Dynasty in Early Mormonism” (2011). “This paper takes up the question of female subjectivity raised by the equation of priestly power and marriage. . . . In sum, I will consider the manner in which these women inhabited or performed patriarchal norms and, in the process, achieved a recognizably culture-specific subjectivity or self-conscious identity and agency in public and private, ecclesiastical and familial domains.”

“Muscular Mormonism: Gender Ideologies in an Era of Transition, 18901920” (2005).

“The Interpretation of Tradition within Mormon Women’s Literature” (2003).

Sex

“Captive Bodies, Queer Religions: Scripting North American Religious Difference” (2011). The author argues that “queering the study of North American religions requires more than simply recovering the voices of American LGBT people of faith—that we must rather mobilize critical theories of sexualities to think about religious difference in North America. Next, I consider three examples of the North American captivity narrative genre—Mormon, Neopagan, and Muslim—as articulations of American Protestant anxieties about the perceived challenges marginal religions pose to heteronormativity.”

“Giving Them a Way Out: What American Muslim Women Can Do About Polygyny” (2011). The paper argues that fundamentalist Mormons have allowed American Muslims to be more open about polygyny. “This paper will outline the history of polygyny as practiced in the U.S., particularly among African American Muslims, and consider the ways in which the jurisprudence of Islam and the U.S. may offer Muslim women the legitimate ‘way out’ they seek.”

“ ‘I am a Daughter of My Heavenly Father’: Transsexual Mormons and Performed Gender Essentialism” (2011). “Using monologues featured in the Mormon Vagina Monologues (MVM) and scripted by male-to-female transsexual Latter-day Saints, this paper offers a case study of sexual identity construction within a rigid religious system.” “In transitioning, Mormon transsexuals disobey the Church but obey God, thereby becoming ‘who the Lord Jesus wants me to be.’ As this paper shows, the MVM’s transsexual contributors reclaim sexual subjectivity by performing testimonies—not of the Church’s truthfulness, but of gender identity and theological commitment.”

“ ‘That They Might Have Joy’: Towards a Postheteronormative, Gay Mormon Hermeneutic” (2011). The paper strives to find “a viable gay Mormon hermeneutic.” The author argues that the Church will change its position on this issue although “a healthy dose of their own ‘civil disobedience’ may be necessary for LGBTQ Mormons, their families and sympathizers, who are willing to stick with the Church, and seek for change from within it.”

“Joseph Smith, Polygamy, and the Problem of the Levirate Widow” (2011). The paper argues that “Polygamy was part of a wide-ranging attempt to solve the problem of death. In an under-appreciated exegesis of the Sadducean thought experiment of a serially bereaved levirate widow in Luke 20, Smith found support for a tie between widowhood and polygamy, a close association between marriage and resurrection, a demotion of angels, and a view of marriage as a sacrament. This paper explores Smith’s exegesis and its relevance to practical problems like the afterlife shape of families when widow(er)s remarried. This paper also emphasizes the close relationship between early Mormon polygamy and afterlife beliefs.”

“Sentimental Politics: Gay Male Mormon Suicides as Symbolic Capital” (2010).

“Why Same-Sex Civil Marriage Belongs in the Kingdom of the World: Extending the Teachings of Martin Luther” (2009). This paper claims that a state-based approach to marriage “frees religious communities to accept same-sex civil marriage while simultaneously allowing for particular religious communities to define marriage rites narrowly according to their own sources of authority.”

“Queer Families, Mormon Polygamy, and Big Love” (2008).

“A Mormon Philosophy of Sex: Some Surprises” (2006).

“Concealing the Body, Concealing the Sacred: The Decline of Ritual Nudity in Mormon Temples” (2005).

“Why Are There So Many Gay Mormon Websites?” (2005).

“Disciplining Mormons: Polygamy and the Legal Reification of Public and Private” (2004).

“Author Meets Critics: Sarah Barringer Gordon’s The Mormon Question: Polygamy and Constitutional Conflict in Nineteenth-Century America” (2002).

“The Federal Courts and Religious Minorities: Rethinking the Mormon Polygamy Cases” (2001).

“Land as Lover: Mormon Eco-Eroticism and Planetary Polyamory in the Work of Terry Tempest Williams” (2001).

LDS Arts

“ ‘For Death was That — and This — is Thee’: Stephenie Meyer, Theosis, and the Twenty-first Century Vampire Romance” (2011). “This paper examines Stephanie Meyers’s Twilight novels within the framework of the Mormon doctrine of exaltation, the elevation of the pious to godhood after death.”

“Mormon Literature: Where Are We Going? Where Have We Been?” (2010).

“The Scope of Mormon Cinema” (2010).

“The Story Lives Here: Faith, History, and the Instructional Film” (2010).

“New York Doll” (2010). A showing of the film by the same name, “a 2005 Sundance Film Festival award winner that treats the formation, demise, and 2004 reunion performance of the New York Dolls, an influential ‘glam–rock,’ ‘proto-punk’ band who performed in the early 1970s. . . . The film centers on bassist Arthur ‘Killer’ Kane, intersecting his role in the band, his conversion to religion (Mormonism), his poverty and loneliness, and his reunion performance with the band, all preceding his death from leukemia.”

“Coming Face to Face with the ‘Mormon Jesus’ through Paintings by Del Parson, Greg Olsen, and Paul Grass” (2010).

“The Mormons” (2007). A showing of Helen Whitney’s PBS documentary which it praises for “the breadth and depth of its coverage.”

“The Interpretation of Tradition within Mormon Women’s Literature” (2003).

Pilgrimage

“ ‘When You’re Here, We’re Here’: Encounters between the Living and the Dead at Latter-day Saint Pilgrimage Sites” (2011). “This paper examines encounters between the living and the dead in pilgrimage using Latter-day Saint (Mormon) pilgrimage as an illustrative case study. . . . Latter-day Saint pilgrimages are uniquely structured around interaction between the living and the dead, making the Latter-day Saint case particularly productive for exploring these issues.”

“This Is the (Right) Place: Memorializing Sacred Space and Time in Salt Lake Valley” (2010).

“ ‘Over the Winding Trail Forward We Go’: Children and Pilgrimage in the Latter-day Saint Tradition” (2010).

“Religious WorldMaking: Pilgrimage and Scriptural Narrative in the Construction of Latter-day Saint Sacred Space” (2008).

Miscellaneous

“The Cultural Logic of LDS Death-ritualization: Puzzles and Possibilities” (2011). “Why didn’t Mormons develop funerary rites as components of the esoteric temple ritual that emerged in the 1840s? . . . Historical precedents in LDS ritual allow us to imagine temple-based funerary rites that might have been but weren’t, in turn providing foils for a Geertzian reading of the cultural logic of how Mormons do and don’t ritualize death.”

“ ‘An Influence Among Humanity’: Internal Religious Debate over Narrative Paradigms” (2010). The author is interested in the 1911 evolution controversy at Brigham Young University, although she cannot get even the name of the Church correct. She argues that “ultimately, the controversy represents a missed opportunity for the church to be viewed as relevant in secular discourse and opens up a discussion about the potential of religious organization in general to better engage in secular discourse.”

“Joseph Smith and the Rhetoric of Economics and Prophecy” (2006) “this paper will examine Smith’s discourse on economics in an attempt to state clearly his theory of political economy, and to expand understanding” of “prophetic rhetoric” which “can best be characterized as poetic, if not frenzied.”

LDS Scripture

“Discussion of Grant Hardy’s Understanding the Book of Mormon (Oxford University Press, 2010)” (2010).

[1]    I would like to thank William Hamblin, Kristian Heal, Paul Hoskisson, Louis Midgley, and Gregory Smith for fruitful discussions and comments about this topic. This article was originally accepted by the Mormon Studies Review and was to have been included in the first issue, Mormon Studies Review 23/1, but did not appear. The article has been adjusted slightly to reflect recent events.

[2]    Arthur Henry King, The Abundance of the Heart (Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1986). This was reissued with slight revisions as Arthur Henry King, Arm the Children: Faith’s Response to a Violent World (Provo, UT: BYU Studies, 1998).

[3]    William Shakespeare, Hamlet I.i.158–164.

[4]    William Shakespeare, The Tempest IV.i.146–158.

[5]    William Shakespeare, The Tempest IV.i.158–163.

[6]    William Shakespeare, The Tempest epilogue.1–20.

[7]    I have used it with some profit in Egyptology. Among the Egyptological essays I have produced reflecting the method King taught are: John Gee, “Notes on Egyptian Marriage: P. BM 10416 Reconsidered,” Bulletin of the Egyptological Seminar 15 (2001): 17–25; “Trial Marriage in Ancient Egypt? P. Louvre E 7846 Reconsidered,” in Res severa verum gaudium, ed. Friedrich Hoffmann and Günther Vittmann (Leuven: Peeters, 2004), 223–31; “On the Practice of Sealing in the Book of the Dead and the Coffin Texts,” Journal of the Society for the Study of Egyptian Antiquities 35 (2008): 105–22; “A New Look at the Conception of the Human Being in Ancient Egypt,” in ‘Being in Ancient Egypt’: Thoughts on Agency, Materiality and Cognition, ed. Rune Nord, Annette Kjølby (Oxford: Archaeopress, 2009), 1–14; “A New Look at the ‘nḫ p by Formula,” in Actes du IXe Congrès international des études démotiques, ed. Ghislaine Widmer et Didier Devauchelle (Cairo: Institut Français Archéologie Orientale, 2009), 133–44.

[8]    King, Abundance of the Heart, 240.

[9]    King, Abundance of the Heart, 240.

[10]    Oxford English Dictionary, s.v. nice.

[11]    Henry George Liddell, Robert Scott, Henry Stuart Jones and Roderick McKenzie, A Greek-English Lexicon (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1968), 566–67.

[12]    King, Abundance of the Heart, 263–64.

[13]    While splinter groups may be a legitimate object of study, they are statistically insignificant and may well meet the definition of fringe groups. Only two splinter groups (the Bickertonites, and the Community of Christ) have sufficient numbers to be mentioned in the Association of Religion Data Archives. Mormon Studies is principally about The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and this is how I will use the term here.

[14]    Jan Shipps, Sojourner in the Promised Land: Forty Years among the Mormons (Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press, 2000), xii.

[15]    Shipps, Sojourner in the Promised Land, 372.

[16]    Shipps, Sojourner in the Promised Land, 372.

[17]    Shipps, Sojourner in the Promised Land, 373.

[18]    Shipps, Sojourner in the Promised Land, 374.

[19]    Shipps, Sojourner in the Promised Land, 374.

[20]    Brook P. Hales, “Statistical Report, 2009,” Ensign 40/5 (May 2010): 28.

[21]    King, Abundance of the Heart, 240.

[22]    See http://scriptures.byu.edu/.

[23]    Preach My Gospel (Salt Lake City: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 2004), 29–88.

[24]    At http://lds.org/library/display/0,4945,–8057144241,00.html.

[25]    King, Abundance of the Heart, 9.

[26]     King, Abundance of the Heart.

[27]    King, Abundance of the Heart, 262.

[28]    King, Abundance of the Heart, 263.

[29]    King, Abundance of the Heart, 30.

[30]    Hugh Nibley, “Nobody to Blame,” in Hugh Nibley, Eloquent Witness: Nibley on Himself, Others, and the Temple (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book and FARMS, 2008), 136.

[31]    T. S. Eliot, “Little Gidding” V, from The Four Quartets, in T. S. Eliot, The Complete Poems and Plays 1909–1950 (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1980), 145.

[32]    Gordon B. Hinckley, “Why We Do Some of the Things We Do,” Ensign 29 (1999): 52.

[33]    Nibley, “Nobody to Blame,” 127.

[34]    The list of has been assembled over several years from the American Academy of Religion’s website, with excerpts of the author’s abstracts when available. The length of the list has forced it into an appendix.

[35]    King, Abundance of the Heart, 268.

[36]    King, Abundance of the Heart, 271.

[37]    Nibley, “Nobody to Blame,” 137–38.

[38]    Hugh B. Brown, “Are the Latter-day Saints . . . Christian?” Improvement Era 65/6 (June 1962): 408–10.

[39]    History of the Church, 4:42.

[40]    Herman te Velde, “The History of the Study of Ancient Egyptian Religion and its Future,” in Egyptology at the Dawn of the Twenty-first Century, ed. Zahi Hawass and Lyla Pinch Brock (Cairo: The American University in Cairo Press, 2003), 2:43.

[41]    Nibley, “Nobody to Blame,” 136.

[42]    Peter A. Huff, “A Gentile Recommends the Book of Mormon,” Dialogue 43/2 (2010): 208.

Letter to a Doubter

Terryl Givens

I understand that some doubts have arisen in your mind. I don’t know for sure what they are, but I imagine I have heard them before. Probably I have entertained some of them in my own mind. And perhaps I still harbor some of them myself. I am not going to respond to them in the ways that you may have anticipated. Oh, I will say a few things about why many doubts felt by the previously faithful and faith-filled are ill-founded and misplaced: the result of poor teaching, naïve assumptions, cultural pressures, and outright false doctrines. But my main purpose in writing this letter is not to resolve the uncertainties and perplexities in your mind. I want, rather, to endow them with the dignity and seriousness they deserve. And even to celebrate them. That may sound perverse, but I hope to show you it is not.

So, first, a few words about doubts that are predicated on misbegotten premises. I will illustrate an example of this from the life of Mormonism’s greatest intellectual, and then address five other kinds in particular. The example comes from B. H. Roberts.

From his first experience debating a Campbellite minister on the Book of Mormon in 1881, Roberts was devoted to defending the Mormon scripture. While in England as a Church mission president in 1887 and 1888, he studied in the Picton Library, collecting notes on American archeology that could serve as external evidence in support of the Book of Mormon. The three volumes of the work that resulted, New Witnesses for God, appeared in 1895, 1909, and 1911. Then, on 22 August 1921, a young member wrote a letter to Church Apostle James E. Talmage that would shake up the world of Mormon apologetics, and dramatically refocus Roberts’s own intellectual engagement with Mormonism . The brief letter sounded routine enough. “Dear Dr. Talmage,” wrote W. E. Riter, one “Mr. Couch [a friend of Riter’s] of Washington, D.C., has been studying the Book of Mormon and submits the enclosed questions concerning his studies. Would you kindly answer them and send them to me.”[1] Talmage forwarded the five questions to the Church’s Book of Mormon expert, B. H. Roberts, expecting a quick and routine reply. Four of the questions dealt with anachronisms that were fairly easily dismissed by anyone who understands a little about translation theory. But one had Roberts stumped. It was this question: “How [are we] to explain the immense diversity of Indian languages, if all are supposed to be relatively recent descendants of Lamanite origin?” To put the problem in simple terms, how, in the space of a mere thousand years or so, could the Hebrew of Lehi’s tribe have fragmented and morphed into every one of the hundreds of Indian languages of the Western Hemisphere, from Inuit to Iroquois to Shoshone to Patagonian? Languages just don’t mutate and multiply that quickly.

From a fireside presentation to the Single Adult Stake, Palo Alto, CA, October 14, 2012. Revised October 22, 2012/November 14, 2012.

Several weeks after Talmage’s request, Roberts still had not responded. In late December, he wrote the President of the Church, explaining the delay and asking for more time: “While knowing that some parts of my [previous] treatment of Book of Mormon problems . . . had not been altogether as convincing as I would like to have seen them, I still believed that reasonable explanations could be made that would keep us in advantageous possession of the field. As I proceeded with my recent investigations, however, and more especially in the, to me, new field of language problems, I found the difficulties more serious than I had thought for; and the more I investigated the more difficult I found the formulation of an answer to Mr. Couch’s inquiries to be.” [2]

Roberts never found an answer to that question, and it troubled him the rest of his life. Some scholars think he lost his testimony of the truthfulness and antiquity of the Book of Mormon as a result of this and other doubts—though I don’t see that in the record. But here is the lesson we should learn from this story. Roberts’s whole dilemma was born of a faulty assumption he imbibed wholesale, never questioning, never critically analyzing it—that Lehi arrived on an empty continent, and that his descendants alone eventually overran the hemisphere from the Arctic Circle to the Straits of Magellan.

Nothing in the Book of Mormon suggests that Lehi’s colony expanded to fill the hemisphere. In fact, as John Sorenson has conclusively demonstrated, the entire history of the Book of Mormon takes place within an area of Nephite and Lamanite habitation some five hundred miles long and perhaps two hundred miles wide (or a little smaller than Idaho). And though, as late as 1981, the Book of Mormon introduction written by Bruce R. McConkie referred to Lamanites as “the principal ancestors of the American Indians,” absolutely nothing in that book of scripture gave warrant for such an extravagant claim. That is why, as of 2007, the Church changed the wording to “the Lamanites are among the ancestors” (emphasis added). No, the most likely scenario that unfolded in ancient America is that Lehi’s colony was one of dozens of migrations, by sea and by land bridge. His descendants occupied a small geographical area and intermingled and intermarried with other peoples and cultures. Roberts couldn’t figure out how Inuit and Patagonian languages derived from Hebrew because they didn’t. And there was absolutely no reason to try to make that square peg fit into that round hole. You see, even brilliant individuals and ordained Seventies can buy into careless assumptions that lead them astray. That Joseph Smith at some point entertained similar notions about Book of Mormon geography only makes it more imperative for members not to take every utterance of any leader as inspired doctrine. As Joseph himself complained, “he did not enjoy the right vouchsafed to every American citizen—that of free speech. He said that when he ventured to give his private opinion,” about various subjects, they ended up “being given out as the word of the Lord because they came from him.” [3]

So what are some of the assumptions we might be making that create intellectual tension and spiritual turmoil? I will mention five: the prophetic mantle, the nature of restoration, Mormon exclusivity, the efficacy of institutional religion, and the satisfactions of the gospel—including personal revelation. I can only say a few words about each but enough, I hope, to provoke you to consider if these—or kindred misplaced foundations—apply to you.

1. The Prophetic Mantle

Abraham deceived Abimelech about his relationship with Sarah. Isaac deceived Esau and stole both his birthright and his blessing (but maybe that’s okay because he is a patriarch and not a prophet, strictly speaking). Moses took glory unto himself at the waters of Meribah and lost his ticket to the promised land as a result. He was also guilty of manslaughter and covered up his crime. Jonah ignored the Lord’s call, then later whined and complained because God didn’t burn Nineveh to the ground as He had threatened. It doesn’t get a lot better in the New Testament. Paul rebuked Peter sharply for what he called cowardice and hypocrisy in his refusal to embrace the gentiles as equals. Then Paul got into a sharp argument with fellow apostle Barnabas, and they parted company. So where on earth do we get the notion that modern-day prophets are infallible specimens of virtue and perfection? Joseph said emphatically, “I don’t want you to think I am very righteous, for I am not very righteous.” [4]  To remove any possibility of doubts, he canonized those scriptures in which he is rebuked for his inconstancy and weakness. Most telling of all is section 124:1, in which this pervasive pattern is acknowledged and explained: “for unto this end have I raised you up, that I might show forth my wisdom through the weak things of the earth” (D&C 124:1; emphasis added). Air-brushing our prophets, past or present, is a wrenching of the scriptural record and a form of idolatry. God specifically said he called weak vessels so that we wouldn’t place our faith in their strength or power, but in God’s. Most crippling, however, are the false expectations this paradigm sets up: When Pres. Woodruff said the Lord would never suffer his servants to lead the people astray, we can only reasonably interpret that statement to mean that the prophets will not teach us any soul-destroying doctrine—not that they will never err. President Kimball himself condemned Brigham Young’s Adam-God teachings as heresy; and as an apostle he referred as early as 1963 to the priesthood ban as a “possible error” for which he asked forgiveness.[5] The mantle represents priesthood keys, not a level of holiness or infallibility. God would not have enjoined us to hear what prophets, seers, and revelators have to say “in all patience and faith” if their words were always sage and inspired (D&C 21:5).

2. The Nature of Restoration

Recently a Mormon scholar announced his departure from Mormonism and baptism into another faith tradition. “Mormons believe that the [Christian] church—Catholic, Orthodox, and Protestant versions alike—completely died,” he said of his principal reason for leaving. Then he quoted another dissident as saying, “The idea that God was sort of snoozing until 1820 now seems to me absurd.” Well, guess what? That sounds absurd to Mormons as well. President of the Church John Taylor said, “There were men in those dark ages who could commune with God, and who, by the power of faith, could draw aside the curtain of eternity and gaze upon the invisible world . . . There were men who could gaze upon the face of God, have the ministering of angels, and unfold the future destinies of the world. If those were dark ages I pray God to give me a little darkness.” [6] Joseph didn’t believe the Christian Church died either. He was very particular about his wording when he recast his first revelation about restoration to state specifically that God was bringing the Church back out of the wilderness, where it had been nurtured of the Lord during a period when priesthood ordinances were no longer performed to bind on earth and in heaven. Precious morsels of truth had lain scattered throughout time, place, religion, and culture, and Joseph saw his mission as that of bringing it all into one coherent whole, not reintroducing the gospel ex nihilo.

3. Mormon Exclusivity

In a related way, some come to doubt Mormonism’s “monopoly on salvation,” as they call it. It grows increasingly difficult to imagine that a body of a few million, in a world of seven billion, can really be God’s only chosen people and the sole heirs of salvation. I think this represents the most tragically unfortunate misperception about Mormonism. The ironic truth is  that the most generous, liberal, and universalist conception of salvation in all Christendom is Joseph Smith’s view. We would do well to note what the Lord said to Joseph in Doctrine and Covenants section 49, when he referred to “holy men” that Joseph knew nothing about and whom the Lord had reserved unto himself. Clearly, Mormons don’t have a monopoly on righteousness, truth, or God’s approbation. Here and hereafter, a multitude of non-Mormons will participate in the Church of the Firstborn.

As a mighty God, our Heavenly Father has the capacity to save us all. As a fond father, He has the desire to do so. That is why, as Joseph taught, “God hath made a provision that every spirit can be ferreted out in that world” that has not deliberately and definitively chosen to resist a grace that is stronger than the cords of death.[7] The idea is certainly a generous one, and it seems suited to the weeping God of Enoch, the God who has set His heart upon us. If some inconceivable few will persist in rejecting the course of eternal progress, they are “the only ones” (D&C 76:37, 38) who will be damned, taught Joseph Smith. “All the rest” (D&C 76:39) of us will be rescued from the hell of our private torments and subsequent alienation from God.

4. Inefficacy of Institutional Religion

Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote perhaps his greatest sermon on the fallacy of cheap grace. I think the plague of our day is the fallacy of cheap spirituality. I find among the college freshmen I teach a near-universal disdain for “organized religion” and at the same time an energetic affirmation of personal spirituality.

The new sensibility began innocently enough with the lyrical expression of William Blake, who suggested that God might be better found in the solitary contemplation of nature than in the crowded pews of churches. He urged readers “to see the world in a grain of sand, and heaven in a wildflower / Hold infinity in the palm of your hand, and eternity in an hour”[8] It took a Marxist critic, Terry Eagleton, to point out that the Gospel of Matthew teaches us that “Eternity lies not in a grain of sand but in a glass of water. The cosmos revolves on comforting the sick. When you act in this way, you are sharing in the love which built the stars.”[9] Holiness is found in how we treat others, not in how we contemplate the cosmos. As our experiences in marriages, families, and friendship teach us, it takes relationships to provide the friction that wears down our rough edges and sanctifies us. Then, and only then, those relationships become the environment in which those perfected virtues are best enjoyed. We need those virtues not just here, but eternally, because “the same sociality which exists among us here will exist among us there, only it will be coupled with eternal glory, which glory we do not now enjoy” (D&C 130:2).

In this light, the project of perfection, or purification and sanctification, is not a scheme for personal advancement, but a process of better filling—and rejoicing in—our role in what Paul called the body of Christ, and what others have referred to as the New Jerusalem, the General Assembly and Church of the Firstborn, or, as in the prophecy of Enoch, Zion. There are no Zion individuals. There is only a Zion community.

5. Satisfactions of the Gospel/Personal Revelation

Brigham Young said, “To profess to be a Saint, and not enjoy the spirit of it, tries every fiber of the heart, and is one of the most painful experiences that man can suffer.”[10] We expect the gospel to make us happy. We are taught that God answers prayers, that all blessings can be anticipated as a direct and predictable result of a corresponding commandment. I love that quote, because I think Young was being truly empathetic. He realized that then, as now, thousands of Saints were paying the high price of discipleship and asking, “Where is the joy?” And he knew the question was born in agony and bewilderment.

I have no glib solace to offer. I will not bore you or insult your spiritual maturity with injunctions to pray harder, to fast more, to read your scriptures. I know you have been traveling that route across a parched desert. But do let me repeat here three simple ideas: be patient, remember, and take solace in the fellowship of the desolate. In Lehi’s vision, he recorded, he “traveled for the space of many hours in darkness” (1 Nephi 8:8).

Patience does not mean to wait apathetically and dejectedly, but to anticipate actively on the basis of what we know; and what we know, we must remember. I believe remembering can be the highest form of devotion. To remember is to rescue the sacred from the vacuum of oblivion. To remember Christ’s sacrifice every Sunday at the sacrament table is to say no to the ravages of time, to refuse to allow his supernal sacrifice to be just another datum in the catalogue of what is past. To remember past blessings is to give continuing recognition of the gift and to reconfirm the relationship to the Giver as one that persists in the here and now. Few—very few—are entirely bereft of at least one solace-giving memory: a childhood prayer answered, a testimony borne long ago, a fleeting moment of perfect peace. And for those few who despairingly insist they have never heard so much as a whisper, then know this: We don’t need to look for a burning bush when all we need is to be still and remember that we have known the goodness of love, the rightness of virtue, the nobility of kindness and faithfulness. And as we remember, we can ask if we perceive in such beauties merely the random effects of Darwinian products, or the handwriting of God on our hearts.

At the same time, remembering rather than experiencing moves us toward greater independence and insulates us from the vicissitudes of the moment. Brigham said God’s intention was to make us as independent in our sphere as he is in his.[11] That is why the heavens close from time to time, to give us room for self-direction. That is why the Saints rejoiced in a Pentecostal day in Kirtland’s temple but were met with silence in Nauvoo—silence, and their memories of Kirtland. One can see the Lord gently tutoring us to replace immediacy with memory when he says to Oliver, “If you desire a further witness, cast your mind upon the night that you cried unto me in your heart, that you might know concerning the truth of these things. Did I not speak peace to your mind concerning the matter? What greater witness can you have than from God?” (D&C 6:22–23). Citing C. S. Lewis, Rachael Givens writes, “God allows spiritual peaks to subside into (often extensive) troughs in order [to have] ‘servants who can finally become Sons,’ ‘stand[ing] up on [their] own legs—to carry out from the will alone duties which have lost all relish . . .  growing into the sort of creature He wants [them] to be.’ ” [12]

Finally, find solace in what I have called the fellowship of the desolate—with Mother Teresa, who said, “I am told God loves me—and yet the reality of darkness and coldness and emptiness is so great that nothing touches my soul. . . . Heaven from every side is closed.” [13]

Or with the magnificent Jesuit poet Gerard Manley Hopkins, who poured out his soul in this achingly beautiful lament:

I wake and feel the fell of dark, not day.

What hours, O what black hours we have spent

This night! what sights you, heart, saw; ways you went!

And more must, in yet longer light’s delay.

With witness I speak this. But where I say

Hours I mean years, mean life. And my lament

Is cries countless, cries like dead letters sent

To dearest him that lives alas! away.[14]

Or with my favorite poet, George Herbert, who expressed frustration with his own ministry, barren as it felt of joyful fruit, and described his—almost—defection from life lived in silent patience:

I struck the board, and cried, No more.

I will abroad.

What? shall I ever sigh and pine?

My lines and life are free; free as the road,

Loose as the wind, as large as store.

Shall I be still in suit?

Have I no harvest but a thorn

To let me blood, and not restore

What I have lost with cordial fruit?

Sure there was wine

Before my sighs did dry it: there was corn

Before my tears did drown it.

Is the year only lost to me?

Have I no bays to crown it?

No flowers, no garlands gay? all blasted?

All wasted?

…

Away; take heed:

I will abroad.

Call in thy death’s-head there: tie up thy fears.

He that forbears

To suit and serve his [own] need,

Deserves his load.

But as I rav’d and grew more fierce and wild

At every word,

Methought I heard one calling, Child:

And I replied, My Lord.[15]

Finally, listen to Fyodor Dostoevsky who, like Herbert, found only the slim anchor of one memory ensconced in an overwhelming silence to hold onto—but hold on he did:

I will tell you that I am a child of this century, a child of disbelief and doubt. I am that today and will remain so until the grave. How much terrible torture this thirst for faith has cost me and costs me even now, which is all the stronger in my soul the more arguments I can find against it. And yet, God sends me sometimes instants when I am completely calm; at those instants I love and feel loved by others, and it is at those instances that I have shaped for myself a Credo where everything is clear and sacred for me. This Credo is very simple, here it is: to believe that nothing is more beautiful, profound, sympathetic, reasonable, manly and more powerful than Christ.[16]

Conclusion

Maybe none of these issues apply to you. Maybe you have a whole different set of doubts. Or maybe none of my words are persuasive in allaying those doubts. In that case, I turn to my last but most important point. Be grateful for your doubts.

William Wordsworth was. Mormons know the early stanzas from his “Intimations” ode, the “trailing clouds of glory” lines. But more magnificent, in my opinion, are the later stanzas, where he tells us what he is most grateful for, where he finds the source of his joy. After struggling with the indelible sadness of adulthood, trying in vain to recapture the innocence and joy of childhood delight and spontaneity, he realizes it is the tension, the irresolution, the ambiguity and perplexity of his predicament that is the spur to his growth. That is why, as he tells us, in the final analysis he appreciates the very things that plague the questing mind. He is grateful not for the blithe certainties and freedom of a past childhood. He is thankful not for what we would expect him to appreciate:

Not indeed

For that which is most worthy to be blest—

Delight and liberty, the simple creed

Of Childhood, whether busy or at rest,

With new-fledged hope still fluttering in his breast: —

Not for these I raise

The song of thanks and praise;

But for those obstinate questionings

Of sense and outward things,

Fallings from us, vanishings;

Blank misgivings of a Creature

Moving about in worlds not realised.…

Those shadowy recollections,

Which, be they what they may,

Are yet the fountain light of all our day.[17]

You see, it was in the midst of his perplexity, of his obstinate questions, uncertainties, misgivings, and shadowy recollections that almost but don’t quite pierce the veil, that he found the prompt, the agitation, the catalyst that spurred him from complacency to insight, from generic pleasures to revelatory illumination, from being a thing acted upon to being an actor in the quest for his spiritual identity.

I know I am grateful for a propensity to doubt because it gives me the capacity to freely believe. I hope you can find your way to feel the same. The call to faith is a summons to engage the heart, to attune it to resonate in sympathy with principles and values and ideals that we devoutly hope are true and which we have reasonable but not certain grounds for believing to be true. There must be grounds for doubt as well as belief in order to render the choice more truly a choice, and therefore more deliberate and laden with more personal vulnerability and investment. An overwhelming preponderance of evidence on either side would make our choice as meaningless as would a loaded gun pointed at our heads. The option to believe must appear on one’s personal horizon like the fruit of paradise, perched precariously between sets of demands held in dynamic tension. Fortunately, in this world, one is always provided with sufficient materials out of which to fashion a life of credible conviction or dismissive denial. We are acted upon, in other words, by appeals to our personal values, our yearnings, our fears, our appetites, and our egos. What we choose to embrace, to be responsive to, is the purest reflection of who we are and what we love. That is why faith, the choice to believe, is, in the final analysis, an action that is positively laden with moral significance.

The call to faith, in this light, is not some test of a coy god waiting to see if we “get it right.” It is the only summons, issued under the only conditions which can allow us to reveal fully who we are, what we most love, and what we most devoutly desire. Without constraint, without any form of mental compulsion, the act of belief becomes the freest possible projection of what resides in our hearts. Like the poet’s image of a church bell that reveals its latent music only when struck, or a dragonfly that flames forth its beauty only in flight, so does the content of a human heart lie buried until action calls it forth. The greatest act of self-revelation occurs when we choose what we will believe, in that space of freedom that exists between knowing that a thing is and knowing that a thing is not.

This is the realm where faith operates; and when faith is a freely chosen gesture, it expresses something essential about the self.

Modern revelation, speaking of spiritual gifts, notes that while to some it is given to know the core truth of Christ and His mission, to others is given the means to persevere in the absence of certainty. The New Testament makes the point that those mortals who operate in the grey area between conviction and incredulity are in a position to choose most meaningfully, and with most meaningful consequences.

Peter’s tentative steps across the water capture the rhythm familiar to most seekers. He walks in faith, he stumbles, he sinks, but he is embraced by the Christ before the waves swallow him. Many of us will live out our lives in doubt, like the unnamed father in the Gospel of Mark. Coming to Jesus, distraught over the pain of his afflicted son, he said simply, “I believe, help thou mine unbelief” (Mark 9:24). Though he walked through mists of doubt, caught between belief and unbelief, he made a choice, and the consequence was the healing of his child.

“The highest of all is not to understand the highest but to act upon it,” wrote Kierkegaard.[18] Miracles do not depend on flawless faith. They come to those who question as well as to those who know. There is profit to be found, and advantage to be gained, even—perhaps especially—in the absence of certainty.

Terryl Givens did graduate work at Cornell University in Intellectual History and at UNC Chapel Hill where he received his PhD in Comparative Literature. He holds the James A. Bostwick chair of English, and is Professor of Literature and Religion at the University of Richmond, where he teaches courses in 19th century studies and the Bible’s influence on Western literature. Author of several books, his writing has been praised by the New York Times as “provocative reading,” and includes, most recently, When Souls had Wings, a history of the idea of premortal life in Western thought, and a biography (with Matthew Grow) of Parley Pratt. The God Who Weeps (with Fiona Givens) was released in October. He is currently at work on a two-volume history of Mormon thought for Oxford University Press.

[1]  .  W. E. Riter to James E. Talmage, 22 August 1921, in B. H. Roberts, Studies of the Book of Mormon, ed. Brigham D. Madsen (Salt Lake City: Signature, 1992), 35.

[2]  .  B. H. Roberts to Heber J. Grant et al., 29 December 1921, in Roberts, Studies of the Book of Mormon, 46.

[3]  .  Hyrum L. Andrus and Helen Mae Andrus, They Knew the Prophet: Personal Accounts from over 100 People Who Knew Joseph Smith (Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1974), 140.

[4]  .  Manuscript History of the Church D-1, pp. 1555–57.

[5]  .  Spencer W. Kimball, Teachings of Spencer W. Kimball ed. Edward L. Kimball,  (Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1995), 448–49.

[6]  .  John Taylor, in Brigham Young et al., Journal of Discourses, 26 vols., reported by G. D. Watt et al. (Liverpool: F. D. and S. W. Richards, et al., 1851–86; repr., Salt Lake City: n.p., 1974), 16:197–98.

[7]  .  Joseph Smith, Words of Joseph Smith, ed. Andrew F. Ehat and Lyndon W. Cook (Orem, UT: Grandin, 1991), 360.

[8]  .  William Blake, Auguries of Innocence, at http://www.poetryloverspage.com/poets/blake/to_see_world.html.

[9]  .  Terry Eagleton, The Meaning of Life: A Very Short Introduction (New York: Oxford University Press, 2008), 95.

[10]  .  Journal of Discourses, 12:168.

[11]  .  See Journal of Discourses, 3:252, 13:33.

[12]  .  See C. S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters (1941; reprint, New York: HarperCollins, 1996), 39–40, as cited in Rachael Givens, “Mormonism and the Dark Night of the Soul,” at http://www.patheos.com/blogs/peculiarpeople/2012/09/mormonisms-dark-night-of-the-soul/.

[13]  .  Mother Teresa, Come Be My Light (New York: Random House Digital, 2009), 202.

[14]  .  Gerard Manley Hopkins, Selected Poems of Gerald Manley Hopkins, ed. Bob Blaisdell  (Mineola, NY: Dover, 2011), 59–60.

[15]  .  George Herbert, The Temple, 2nd ed. (1633; repr., London: Pickering, 1838), 159, at http://books.google.com/books?id=vv-PaLfn8wIC. Spelling has been modernized.

[16]  .  Joseph Frank, Dostoevsky: The Years of Ordeal, 1850–1859 (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1987), 160.

[17]  .  William Wordsworth, Poems of Wordsworth, ed. Matthew Arnold (London: MacMillan, 1882), 205–6. Emphasis added.

[18]  .  Søren Kierkegaard, The Soul of Kierkegaard: Selections from His Journals, ed. Alexander Dru (Mineola, NY: Dover, 2003), 213.

The Sôd of Yhwh
and the Endowment

William J. Hamblin

Abstract: In the Hebrew Bible, the Sôd of God was a council of celestial beings who consulted with God, learned His sôd/secret plan, and then fulfilled that plan. This paper argues that the LDS endowment is, in part, a ritual reenactment of the sôd, where the participants observe the sôd/council of God, learn the sôd/secret plan of God, and covenant to fulfill that plan.

In its broader sense the Hebrew term sôd (דוס) means a confidential discussion, a secret or plan, a circle of confidants, or council.[1] Nearly all scholars now agree that sôd, when used in relationship to God, refers to the heavenly council/sôd of God, which humans may sometimes visit to learn divine mysteries or obtain a prophetic message to deliver to humankind.[2] The celestial members of this council are variously called the “host of heaven” (1 Kings 22:19), “gods” or “sons of God” (Ps. 82:1, 6), or “Holy Ones.” Sôd can refer to either the divine council itself or to the deliberative secret results of that council—that is the secret plans of the council—which a prophet is sometimes permitted to learn or to reveal to humankind. Only those who are part of the divine sôd/council know the sôd/secret plan, and only those who are given explicit permission may reveal that sôd to humankind.[3] This concept is illustrated in a number of biblical passages:

In 1 Kings 22:19–23, the prophet Michaiah describes his vision of the sôd as follows:

19 I saw Yhwh sitting on his throne, and all the host of heaven standing beside him on his right hand and on his left; 20 and Yhwh said, “Who will entice Ahab, that he may go up and fall at Ramoth-gilead?” And one said one thing, and another said another. 21 Then a spirit came forward and stood before Yhwh, saying, “I will entice him.” 22 And Yhwh said to him, “By what means?” And he said, “I will go out, and will be a lying spirit in the mouth of all his prophets.” And he said, “You are to entice him, and you shall succeed; go out and do so.” 23 Now therefore behold, Yhwh has put a lying spirit in the mouth of all these your prophets; Yhwh has declared disaster for you.[4]

Notice here that Michaiah participated in the sôd of Yhwh and therefore knows Yhwh’s secret plan and therefore can accurately prophesy, whereas the other court prophets, with no knowledge of Yhwh’s sôd, are deceived. Note, too, the important motif that God is sitting on his throne surrounded by his sôd. (22:19). Biblical divine enthronement scenes and throne theophanies often imply a meeting of the sôd.[5]

In Isaiah 6, Isaiah enters the presence of Yhwh seated on his throne in the temple (6:1). There he meets with the divine council (6:2–3) and is invested with a mission to reveal the deliberations of the council to humankind (6:8–9). Note that in Isaiah the sôd of Yhwh meets in the celestial temple, where Yhwh sits enthroned just as in Michaiah’s vision.

Jeremiah 23:16–18 describes Jeremiah’s response to prophets who prophesy victory for Judah over Babylon. Jeremiah writes:

16 Thus says Yhwh of hosts: “Do not listen to the words of the [false] prophets who prophesy to you, filling you with vain hopes. They speak visions of their own minds, not from the mouth of Yhwh. 17 They say continually to those who despise the word of Yhwh, ‘It shall be well with you’; and to everyone who stubbornly follows his own heart, they say, ‘No disaster shall come upon you.’ 18 But who among them has stood in the sôd of Yhwh to see and to hear his word, or who has paid attention to his word and listened?

Jeremiah 23:21–22 continues this theme, when Yhwh himself speaks:

21 “I did not send the [false] prophets, yet they ran; I did not speak to them, yet they prophesied. 22 But if they had stood in my sôd, then they would have proclaimed my words to my people, and they would have turned them from their evil way, and from the evil of their deeds.”

The obvious implications of these two passages is that Jeremiah has “stood in the sôd of Yhwh,” just like Michaiah and Isaiah before him, and therefore knows Yhwh’s sôd/secret plan, which he can reveal to humankind through his prophecies. The distinction between a true prophet and a false one is that the true prophet has “stood in the sôd of Yhwh,” while the false prophet hasn’t. This precisely parallels the description of Micaiah’s vision of the sôd, while the false prophets don’t know God’s sôd/secret plan.

Psalm 82 offers a fascinating description of the “council of God”:

1 God (םיהלא ělōhîm) has taken his place in the council (תדע ʿǎdat) of God (לא ʾel); in the midst of the gods (םיהלא ělōhîm) he holds judgment. . . . 6 I [God] said, “You [of the divine council/ʿǎdat] are gods (םיהלא ělōhîm), sons of the Most High (ןוילע ינב benê ʿelyôn), all of you.”

In this meeting of the “council of God,” God calls the members of his sôd “gods” and “sons of the Highest.”

Amos 3:7—a passage often quoted by LDS—describes Yhwh’s sôd as follows: “For the Lord Yhwh doesn’t do anything (רבד dābār) [6] without revealing his sôd to his servants the prophets.” Amos provides here a summary principle paralleling the explicit examples of Michaiah, Isaiah and Jeremiah given above. God reveals the sôd (secret plan) of his sôd (divine council) to his prophets.

Psalm 25:14 adds an interesting covenantal aspect to the sôd. “The sôd of Yhwh is for those who honor him; he reveals his covenant (berît) to them.” In this verse knowledge of the sôd of Yhwh is directly linked with the revelation of his covenant.

Finally, Job provides a description of God’s sôd, composed of the “sons of God,” meeting in council (Job 1:6, 2:1). In Job 15:8, Eliphaz insists that Job has not sat in the sôd and therefore cannot understand God’s will regarding Job.

All of this is, of course, familiar to many Latter-day Saints, since these texts have been compared to several passages in LDS scripture which also describe the sôd of Yhwh (e.g., 1 Nephi 1:8–18; Abraham 3:22–23).[7] I would like, however, to move one step further and suggest that we should understand the LDS Endowment as a ritual and dramatic participation in the sôd/divine council of God, through which God reveals to the covenanter his sôd/secret plan of salvation—the hidden meaning and purpose of creation and the cosmos. When we consider the Endowment drama in this way—remembering that in Isaiah the meeting place of the sôd of Yhwh is in the temple (Isa. 6:1)—the Endowment fits broadly in the biblical tradition of ritually observing or participating in “the council/sôd of Yhwh” described in these biblical texts.

General Bibliography (Chronological Order)

Robinson, H. “The Council of Yahweh.” Journal of Theological Studies 45 (1944): 151–57.

Cross, F. “The Council of Yahweh in Second Isaiah.” Journal of Near Eastern Studies 12/1 (1953): 274–77.

Kingsbury, E. “Prophets and the Council of Yahweh.” Journal of Biblical Literature 83 (1964): 279–86.

Brown, R. The Semitic Background of the Term “Mystery” in the New Testament. Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1968.

Miller, P. “The Divine Council and the Prophetic Call to War.” Vetus Testamentum 18 (1968): 100–107.

Mullen, T. The Assembly of the Gods: The Divine Council in Canaanite and Early Hebrew Literature. Chico, CA: Scholars Press, 1980.

Miller, P. “Cosmology and World Order in the Old Testament: The Divine Council as Cosmic-Political Symbol.” Horizons in Biblical Theology 9 (1987): 53–78.

Fleming, D. “The Divine Council as Type Scene in the Hebrew Bible.” PhD diss, The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, 1989.

Bockmuehl, M. Revelation and Mystery in Ancient Judaism and Pauline Christianity. Tübingen: J.C.B. Mohr, 1990.

Malamat, A. “The Secret Council and Prophetic Involvement in Mari and Israel.” In R. Liwak and S. Wagner, eds., Prophetie und geschichtliche Wirklichkeit im alten Israel. Stuttgart: W. Kohlhammer, 1991. 231–36.

Mullen, T. “Divine Assembly,” ABD (1992): 2:214–17, nicely summarizes the concept.

Nissinen, M. “Prophets and the Divine Council.” In Kein Land für sich allein: Studien zum Kulturkontakt in Kanaan, Israel / Palastina und Ebirnari für Manfred Weippert zum 65. Geburtstag. Vandenhoeck: Universitatsverlag Freiburg Schweiz, 2002. 4–19.

Heiser, M. “The Divine Council in Late Canonical and Non-Canonical Second Temple Jewish Literature.” PhD diss., University of Wisconsin—Madison, 2004.

Heiser, M. “Introduction to the Divine Council.” http://www.thedivinecouncil.com/HeiserIVPDC.pdf.

Lenzi, A. Secrecy and the Gods: Secret Knowledge in Ancient Mesopotamia and Biblical Israel. Helsinki: Neo-Assyrian Text Corpus Project, 2008. 221–71.

Thomas, S. The “Mysteries” of Qumran: Mystery, Secrecy, and Esotericism in the Dead Sea Scrolls. Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2009. 82–95.

LDS Bibliography (Alphabetical Order)

Barney, K. “Examining Six Key Concepts in Joseph Smith’s Understanding of Genesis 1:1.” BYU Studies 39/3 (2000): 107–24.

Bokovoy, D. “Joseph Smith and the Biblical Council of Gods” (2010) .http://www.fairlds.org/FAIR_Conferences/2010-David-Bokovoy.pdf

Bokovoy, D. “ ‘Ye Really Are Gods’: A Response to Michael Heiser concerning the LDS Use of Psalm 82 and the Gospel of John,” FARMS Review 19/1 (2007): 267–313.

Heiser, M. “You’ve Seen One Elohim, You’ve Seen Them All? A Critique of Mormonism’s Use of Psalm 82.” FARMS Review 19:1 (2007): 221–66.

Ostler, Blake, Exploring Mormon Thought, Vol. 3: Of God and Gods. Salt Lake City: Kofford, 2008.

Peterson, Daniel C. “ ‘Ye Are Gods’: Psalm 82 and John 10 as Witnesses to the Divine Nature of Humankind.” In The Disciple as Scholar: Essays on Scripture and the Ancient World in Honor of Richard Lloyd Anderson. Ed. Stephen D. Ricks, Donald W. Parry, and Andrew H. Hedges. Provo, UT: FARMS, 2000. 471–594.

Shirts, K. “The ‘Adat El, ‘Council of the Gods’ & Bene Elohim, ‘Sons of God’: Ancient Near Eastern Concepts in the Book of Abraham.” http://www2.ida.net/graphics/shirtail/council.htm.

Summary of issues at: http://answering-lds-critics.blogspot.com/

William J. Hamblin is Professor of History at Brigham Young University (Provo, Utah, USA), specializing in the ancient and medieval Near East. He is the author of dozens of academic articles and several books, most recently, Solomon’s Temple: Myth and History, with David Seely (Thames and Hudson, 2007). In the fall of 2010 his first novel was published (co-authored with Neil Newell): The Book of Malchus, (Deseret Book, 2010). A fanatical traveler and photographer, he spent 2010 teaching at the BYU Jerusalem Center, and has lived in Israel, England, Egypt and Italy, and traveled to dozens of other countries.

[1]  .  L. Koehler and W. Baumgartner, The Hebrew and Aramaic Lexicon of the Old Testament (Leiden: Brill, 2000), 745; J. Botterweck and H. Ringgren, Theological Dictionary of the Old Testament (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1975–2003), 10:171–77.

[2]  .  See “General Bibliography” at the end of the paper.

[3]  .  Part of this is reflected in the Bible, where prophets are often expressly “sent” from Yhwh (Hebrew Yahweh, anglicized as Jehovah) with a message—hat is they are to reveal Yhwh’s sôd. See Exod. 3:10, 15, 7:16; Deut. 34:11; Josh. 24:5; 1 Sam. 15:1; 2 Sam. 12:1, 25; Isa. 6:8–9; Jer. 1:7, 7:25, 19:14, Ezek. 2:3–4; Mic. 6:4; Hag. 1:12; Zech. 2:12,13,15; Mal. 3:23; Ps 105:26. See James Ross, “The Prophet as Yahweh’s Messenger,” in Bernhard W. Anderson and Walter Harrelson, eds., Israel’s Prophetic Heritage: Essays in Honor of James Muilenburg (New York: Harper & Row, 1962), 98–107.

[4]  .  Translations are generally modified by me from the English Standard Version (ESV), which is a modernized and corrected KJV.

[5]  .  On the significance of throne theophanies, see Timo Eskola, Messiah and the Throne (Tübingen: Mohr Siebeck, 2001).

[6]  .  The Hebrew dābār can mean “thing” or “word.”

[7]  .  See the “LDS Bibliography” at the end of this article for a list of LDS studies.

Some Notes on
Book of Mormon Names

Stephen D. Ricks

The Book of Mormon as an Ancient Document:
Proper Names as a Test Case

Abstract: This study considers the Book of Mormon personal names Josh, Nahom, and Alma as test cases for the Book of Mormon as an historically authentic ancient document.

At the beginning of Lehi in the Desert, the late, legendary Hugh Nibley reviews the distinguished American archaeologist William F. Albright’s criteria for determining the historical plausibility of the Middle Egyptian tale of Sinuhe, which Albright considers to be “ ‘a substantially true account of life in its milieu’ on the grounds (1) that its ‘local color [is] extremely plausible,’ (2) it describes a ‘state of social organization’ which ‘agrees exactly with our present archaeological and documentary evidence,’ (3) ‘the Amorite personal names contained in the story are satisfactory for that period and region,’ and (4) ‘finally, there is nothing unreasonable in the story itself.’ ” [1] Nibley then asks about the story of Lehi: “Does it correctly reflect ‘the cultural horizon and religious and social ideas and practices of the time’? Does it have authentic historical and geographical background? Is the mise-en-scène mythical, highly imaginative, or extravagantly improbable? Is its local color correct, and are its proper names convincing?” [2] As regards proper names in the Book of Mormon, they are arguably ancient, deriving either from ancient Hebrew, another ancient Semitic dialect, ancient Egyptian, or some other ancient language. The following three Book of Mormon proper names—Josh, Nahom, and Alma (the first of several that will be presented and discussed in forthcoming issues of this journal)—are illustrations of the ancient setting of this book, as well as being of interest in their own right.

Book of Mormon Proper Names: Josh, Nahom, Alma

JOSH

The Book of Mormon proper name Josh (mentioned as a place name in 3 Nephi 9:10 and as a personal name—the name of a Nephite general—in Mormon 6:14) is not, as English speakers might suppose, an abbreviated form of Joshua (Hebrew Yehōshuaʿ) but of Josiah (Hebrew Yōʾshiyyāhū). The unabbreviated name means “the Lord is a support,” from the hypothetical Hebrew root ʾashah “to support” (cf. the noun form ʾoshyāh, “support, buttress”).

Josh, in a slightly different abbreviated form from this root, appears in the Lachish Letters[3] as Jāʾuš [4] (an abbreviated form of yāʾushyāhū, “the Lord will give as a gift”), according to the preexilic pronunciation. In their illuminating study, “Book of Mormon Names in Ancient Hebrew Inscriptions,” John A. Tvedtnes, John Gee, and Matthew Roper note that “four of the bullae found near Tel Beit Mirsim and dating from ca. 600 b.c. bear the name Yʾš. Three of them were made from the same seal.” [5] They also point out that the personal name Yʾš appears six times in the fifth-century BC Jewish Aramaic papyri from Elephantine in Upper Egypt.[6] The Book of Mormon form, Josh, reflects the loss of the consonantal quality of the “waw” from the Hebrew root ʾwš, meaning “to give, to gift; gift, reward, etc.” Though the root ʾwš does not occur apart from personal names in the Hebrew Bible, it does occur in, for example, Ugaritic usûn, “gift”; Arabic ʾāsa, “to give, reward”; ʾaws, “gift”; Old South Arabian ʾws.[7]

NAHOM

Surprisingly, evidence for Nahom, the name of the place where Ishmael was buried (1 Nephi 16:34), is based on historical, geographic, and archaeological—and only secondarily on etymological—considerations.

Three altar inscriptions containing NHM as a tribal name and dating from the seventh to sixth centuries BC—roughly the time period when Lehi’s family was traveling though the area—have been discussed by S. Kent Brown.[8] Dan Vogel, writing in the misleadingly named Joseph Smith: The Making of a Prophet and responding to two books by LDS authors about Lehi’s journey in the Arabian desert, has objected to the dating of the Arabian word NHM: “There is no evidence dating the Arabian NHM before A.D. 600, let alone 600 B.C.” [9] It should be noted, however, that Burkhard Vogt, perhaps unaware of its implications for the Book of Mormon, dates an altar having the initial letters NHM(yn) to the seventh to sixth centuries BC.[10] This is not insignificant since Vogel’s book was published in 2004, while Vogt’s contribution was published in 1997.

Nhm appears as a place name and as a tribal name in southwestern Arabia in the pre-Islamic and early Islamic period in the Arab antiquarian al-Hamdani’s al-Iklīl [11] and in his Ṣifat Jazīrat al-‘Arab.[12] If, as Robert Wilson observes, there is minimal movement among the tribes over time,[13] the region known in early modern maps of the Arabian Peninsula as “Nehem” and “Nehhm” as well as “Nahom” may well have had that, or a similar, name in antiquity.[14]

The Hebrew root nhm, meaning “to groan” (of persons),[15] mentioned in Ezekiel 24:23 and Proverbs 5:11, may reflect the actions of the daughters of Ishmael in 1 Nephi 16:35 in “mourn[ing] exceedingly, because of the loss of their father, and because of their afflictions in the wilderness.” Were the name originally “Neḥem,” the Semitic roots suggested in 1950 by Hugh Nibley (the Arabic naḥama, “to sigh or moan;” and the Hebrew root nḥm, “comfort”) [16] would also fit the context of 1 Nephi 16.

ALMA

Although the female personal name Alma (from the Latin adjective almus, alma, almum, “nurturing, fostering,”) is popular in the Western tradition of naming, the male personal name Alma is of incontestable antiquity. The name appears at least eight times in documents dating from the late third millennium BC from the archives at Ebla (located in modern-day Syria).[17] It also occurs in the Bar Kokhba letters, dating from the period of the Second Jewish Revolt in AD 132–35.[18] It appears as Alma ben Yehudah (“Alma son of Judah”) in a business document and is written both ʾlmʾ and ʾlmh.

The initial consonant of the name Alma in the Bar Kokhba documents is aleph (transliterated as ʾ). However, the name ultimately derives from the consonant ghayin (hence the pronunciation ghlmʾ in the period before the third century BC). However, over the centuries the sound ghayin came to be pronounced as ʿayin and, finally, as ʾaleph.[19]

The Hebrew word ʿelem occurs twice in the Old Testament—once at 1 Samuel 17:56 and again at 1 Samuel 20:22 with the meaning “youth, lad.” The personal name Alma (ʾlmʾ) may well be a hypocoristic form (a word or name with the name of deity—El—suppressed), thus “God’s lad, youth.” Strikingly, in Mosiah 17:2 when Alma is first introduced, he is described as a “young man,” a subtle play on words that would likely have escaped Joseph Smith, whose education in ancient Hebrew did not begin until after his arrival in Kirtland, Ohio in the early 1830s.

The demonstrable antiquity of these names is significant for understanding the Book of Mormon as an ancient document.  The names themselves are arguably Semitic: two (Josh and Alma) are Hebrew but are not found in the Bible, while the third (Nahom) is ancient Arabian and attested archaeologically from the period dating from the seventh to sixth centuries BC. The name Alma contains a subtle play on words that Joseph Smith would most likely not have understood given the state of his understanding of ancient Hebrew at that time. All of this, in turn, obliges the reader to decide whether Joseph Smith was an unsophisticated hayseed who just happened to get these names right, or a divinely inspired translator.

Stephen D. Ricks completed his BA in Ancient Greek and MA in the Classics at Brigham Young University, and then received his PhD in ancient Near Eastern religions from the University of California, Berkeley and the Graduate Theological Union. While completing his doctoral work he spent two years studying at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. He is now professor of Hebrew and Cognate Learning at Brigham Young University where he has been a member of the faculty for over thirty years.

[1]  .  Hugh Nibley, Lehi in the Desert; The World of the Jaredites; There Were Jaredites (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book and FARMS, 1988), 3.

[2]  .  Nibley, Lehi in the Desert, 4.

[3]  .  Hugh Nibley was the first person to call attention to the Jāʾuš in the Lachish letters. See “The Lachish Letters: Documents from Lehi’s Day,” Ensign, 11:12 (December 1981): 51.

[4]  .  For the most recent treatment of this name in the Lachish letters see Shmuel Ahituv, Echoes from the Past: Hebrew and Cognate Inscriptions from the Biblical Period (Jerusalem: Carta, 2008), 481–82.

[5]  .  John A. Tvedtnes, John Gee, and Matthew Roper, “Book of Mormon Names Attested in Ancient Hebrew Inscriptions,” Journal of Book of Mormon Studies 9/1 (2000): 49, 78, citing Nahman Avigad, Hebrew Bullae from the Time of Jeremiah: Remnants of a Burnt Archive (Jerusalem: Israel Exploration Society, 1986), 42–43, 59; Robert Deutsch and Michael Heltzer, New Epigraphic Evidence from the Biblical Period (Tel Aviv: Archaeological Center Publication, 1995), 56–57; Nahman Avigad and Benjamin Sass, Corpus of West Semitic Stamp Seals (Jerusalem: Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities, 1997), 184, 202–3.

[6]  .  Tvedtnes, Gee, and Roper, “Book of Mormon Names,” 48, 78, citing Elephantine Documents 12:8; 13:13; 18:5; 22:89; 39:4; 40:5, in Arthur Cowley, Aramaic Papyri of the Fifth Century BC (Oxford: Clarendon, 1923).

[7]  .  See further Ludwig Köhler and Walter Baumgartner, Hebrew and Aramaic Lexicon of the Old Testament (Leiden: Brill, 1994), 1:26.

[8]  .  Brown, “New Light from Arabia on Lehi’s Trail,” in Echoes and Evidences of the Book of Mormon, ed. Donald W. Parry, Daniel C. Peterson, and John W. Welch (Provo, UT: FARMS, 2002), 55–125, esp. 81–82.

[9]  .  Dan Vogel, Joseph Smith: The Making of a Prophet (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 2004), 609.

[10]  .  Burkhard Vogt, “Les temples de Maʾrib,” in Yémen: au pays de la reine de Saba (Paris: Flammarion, 1997), 144.

[11]  .  Al-Hasan ibn Ahmad al-Hamdani, al-Iklil, ed. Nabih Faris (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1940), 35, 94.

[12]  .  al-Hamdani, Sifat Jazirat al-‘Arab, ed. David H. Müller (Leiden: Brill, repr. 1968), 49, l. 9; 81, l. 4, 8, 11; 83, l. 8, 9; 109, l. 26; 110, l12. 2, 4 126, l. 10; 135, l. 19, 22; 167, l. 15–20; 168, l. 10, 11, where nhm is listed as either the name of a “region, territory” (Ar. balad) or a “tribe” (Ar. qabila); Jawad ‘Ali, Al-Mufassal fi Ta’rikh al-‘Arab qabla al-Islam (Beirut: Dar al-‘Ilm lil-Malayin, 1969–73), 2:414, gives “Nhm” as the name of a “region” (Ar. ard) during the period of the “mukarribs and the [ancient] kings of Saba” (Ar. fi ayyam al-mukarribina wa-fi ayyam muluk Saba’); he also gives “Nhm” as a place name, Al-Mufassal, 4:187 and 7:462.

[13]  .  Robert Wilson, “al-Hamdani’s Description of Hashid and Bakil,” Proceedings of the Seminar on Arabian Studies 11 (1981): 95, 99–100.

[14]  .  On the names of this location in maps of the early modern era (1751-1814), see James Gee, “The Nahom Maps,” Journal of the Book of Mormon and Restoration Scripture 17/1 (2008): 40–57.

[15]  .  D. J. A. Clines, ed, The Dictionary of Classical Hebrew (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 2001), 5:631.

[16]  .  Hugh W. Nibley, “Lehi in the Desert,” Improvement Era 53 (June 1950): 517; Nibley, Lehi in the Desert and the World of the Jaredites (Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1952), 79, 90–91.

[17]  .  Terrence L. Szink, “The Personal Name ‘Alma’ at Ebla,” Religious Educator 1/1 (2000): 53–56; see also Szink, “New Light: Further Evidence of a Semitic Alma,” Journal of Book of Mormon Studies 8/1 (1999): 70.

[18]  .  Yigael Yadin, Bar Kokhba: The Rediscovery of the Legendary Hero of the Last Jewish Revolt against Imperial Rome (Jerusalem: Steimatzky, 1971), 121.

[19]  .  On aleph and ʿayin in the spelling of the name “Alma,” see John A. Tvedtnes, “More on the Name Alma” Book of Mormon Research (September 2008), which may be accessed online at http://bookofmormonresearch.org/more-on-the-name-alma.

Josiah’s Reform:
An Introduction

Benjamin L. McGuire

In 1951 in The Improvement Era, Sidney B. Sperry published a short article titled “Some Problems of Interest Relating to the Brass Plates.” [1] In this article he outlines several problems including issues related to the Pentateuch, Jeremiah’s prophecies, The Book of the Law, and the Brass Plates themselves. In many ways, Sperry laid down a gauntlet that has been taken up many times by LDS scholars looking for answers that help to explain these issues in the Book of Mormon within the context of the best current biblical scholarship.

Several aspects of these four issues coalesce in the brief period before the early destruction of Jerusalem in 586 BC. During this timeframe, the Pentateuch (the five books of Moses in our Old Testament) was still undergoing revision, Jeremiah was prophesying, the Brass Plates were created, and the Book of the Law (mentioned in 2 Kings 22:8 and now generally thought to be the Book of Deuteronomy) was discovered in the temple. It is also the time during which Lehi began his ministry in Jerusalem and left for the New World.

The discovery of the Book of the Law during King Josiah’s reign (from 640 to 609 BC) jump-started a reform movement within Judaism. As part of this reform, Josiah carried out an aggressive shift within the popular religion—removing pagan religious institutions, eliminating sites of worship throughout Judah in order to centralize all worship at the Temple in Jerusalem, and attempting to reestablish the covenant between the Jewish people and God. These events are particularly noteworthy for LDS students of the scriptures since they occurred within the early lifetimes of the prophets Jeremiah and Lehi, and these events influenced both their ministries and their theology. The scriptures that were being used in Jerusalem at the end of Josiah’s reign, including some of the prophecies of Jeremiah and the Book of Deuteronomy (the Book of the Law) appear in the Brass Plates taken by Lehi to the New World. And both Jeremiah and the Book of Mormon quote and allude to Deuteronomy frequently.

In continuing this dialogue about the significance of these events, Interpreter presents two essays over the next two weeks, dealing primarily with Josiah’s reform, its outcome, and its influence on later scripture (both in the writings of Jeremiah and the Book of Mormon, as well as second temple Judaism and early Christianity). The first is Dr. William Hamblin’s “Vindicating Josiah.” The second is Kevin Christensen’s response: “Prophets and Kings in Lehi’s Jerusalem and Margaret Barker’s Temple Theology.” Both of these essays engage the work of Margaret Barker, a biblical scholar working on the significance of the temple in ancient Israelite and Jewish religion, and in early Christianity.

Just as with the underlying biblical scholarship, these two essays present two different perspectives on the value of Josiah’s reform and the nature of the Jewish apostasy that caused this reform. Margaret Barker argues that there was a shift in Jewish temple theology that begins with Josiah and culminates in second-temple Judaism—requiring a subsequent return to that temple theology seen in early Christianity. Christensen, in agreement with Barker, argues that Josiah’s reform isn’t just a reform movement, but is also a part of that apostasy or shift from an earlier temple theology, and that this perspective is reflected in Lehi’s own concerns and teachings as he leads his family out of Jerusalem and into the wilderness. On the other hand, Hamblin argues that the apostasy in ancient Judah was more an issue of syncretism—the merging or combining of Jewish theology with the religious views of its neighbors. Hamblin argues that Josiah’s reform was a successful reform, helping to maintain the older traditional temple theology, and then goes on to suggest that the real shift from these older (correct) traditions described in the Old Testament text occurred under the Hasmonean kings in the second century BC—well into second-temple Judaism (the period from the rebuilding of the temple around 530 BC up until the second destruction of the temple around AD 70). While both theories end up in the same place with regard to apostate temple theology in Judaism and a restoration in early Christianity, both theories have significantly different implications for reading the Book of Mormon and understanding Lehi’s own vision of the temple.

Benjamin L. McGuire is a technologist in the field of healthcare in northern Michigan, where he lives with his wife and three children. He has special interest in the field of literary theory and its application to the Book of Mormon and early LDS literature. He has previously published with the Maxwell Institute.

[1]  .  The article can be downloaded at http://maxwellinstitute.byu.edu/publications/jbms/?vol=4&num=1&id=89.

Vindicating Josiah

William J. Hamblin

Abstract: Margaret Barker has written a number of fascinating books on ancient Israelite and Christian temple theology. One of her main arguments is that the temple reforms of Josiah corrupted the pristine original Israelite temple theology. Josiah’s reforms were therefore, in some sense, an apostasy. According to Barker, early Christianity is based on the pristine, original pre-Josiah form of temple theology. This paper argues that Josiah’s reforms were a necessary correction to contemporary corruption of the Israelite temple rituals and theologies, and that the type of temple apostasy Barker describes is more likely associated with the Hasmoneans.

The discovery of the “Book of the Law” (generally thought to be Deuteronomy) in the Jerusalem temple during the reign of Josiah, and Josiah’s subsequent reforms of Israelite religion and cult to bring them into conformity with the precepts of that book, have long been recognized as decisive moments in biblical history.[1] The origins of the Book of the Law and its meaning and implications have been debated by scholars for centuries. But no one denies the dominant sect of Israelite religion at the time of Jesus was strongly Deuteronomistic.[2] Deuteronomy’s influence on subsequent Judaism and Christianity cannot be underestimated.

In modern biblical studies the term “Deuteronomist/s” refers to a group of authors, redactors and/or editors of part of the Bible.[3] The Deuteronomistic books of the Bible are generally said to be Deuteronomy, Joshua, Judges, 1–2 Samuel, and 1–2 Kings.[4] When read in sequence and isolation, these books provide a complete history of Israel from Moses and the Sinai covenant to the Babylonian captivity, presented with a shared theological perspective. These books as a collection are generally called the Deuteronomistic History.

One of the key beliefs of the Deuteronomists is that there should be only one temple at Jerusalem. Since its construction by Solomon, sacrifice and worship were not permitted elsewhere. Likewise, only Yhwh (JeHoVaH) can be worshipped by Israelites, though Yhwh allows the other nations to worship their own gods (Deuteronomy 4:19). Thus the Jerusalem temple alone, and Yhwh alone are the two founding principles of the Deuteronomists (Deuteronomy 12). However, biblical texts, artistic evidence, and archaeological evidence agree that throughout much of Israelite history many if not most Israelites followed neither of these two central Deuteronomistic mandates.[5] Some scholars believe the Deuteronomistic ideology was in fact an innovation of the late seventh century BC, rather than representing an earlier ongoing sectarian movement within Israel whose ideas eventually crystalized into the Deuteronomistic books.

The centrality of the temple of Jerusalem in Deuteronomistic theology means that the Deuteronomistic history has much to say on the subject. According to the Deuteronomists, the corruption of the Jerusalem temple cult and the worship of other gods—which are essentially one and the same problem—were the primary reasons for God’s anger with Israel. Hezekiah (715–686 BC) and Josiah (640–609 BC) were the two greatest kings of Judah because they attempted to reform and purify the temple. Whereas the northern kingdom of Israel was destroyed by the Assyrians in 721 BC because of their apostasy,[6] Hezekiah’s reforms saved Jerusalem and its temple from a similar fate at the hands of the Assyrians in 701 BC (2 Kings 18–20). The subsequent apostasy of Hezekiah’s son Manasseh (686–642 BC)[7] required a second temple reform movement initiated by Josiah (2 Kings 22–23). The ultimate failure of Josiah’s reform effort culminated in God unleashing the king of Babylon to punish the Israelites, destroying both Jerusalem and its temple (2 Kings 23:36–25:26). For the Deuteronomist, the failure of Judah to worship only Yhwh and to worship him only in the temple of Jerusalem were the direct causes of the destruction of the kingdom of Judah, the city of Jerusalem, and the temple of Yhwh by the Babylonians in 586 BC.[8]

Enter Margaret Barker, the prolific biblical scholar who has spent her career attempting to elucidate the importance of the temple for ancient biblical religion and early Christianity.[9] The following are her major arguments regarding the Deuteronomistic writers and the temple.

1. The original pre-Exilic temple cult and theology of Israel focused on visions, angelic manifestations, heavenly ascent, prophecy, revelation of divine wisdom, esoteric teachings and rituals, and theophany.[10] It also included the veneration of a divine feminine figure associated with the biblical “Lady” Wisdom.[11]

2. In the late seventh century, priests and courtiers of king Josiah, under the influence of the Deuteronomists, systematically downplayed, obscured, and suppressed many of these elements of the original ancient Israelite temple cult.[12]

3. These ancient temple beliefs and practices, however, survived among other minority Israelite religious groups and movements. This earlier temple theology is reflected in the noncanonical Israelite books such as those found in the pseudepigrapha and the Dead Sea Scrolls.[13]

4. At least some of the ideas of Jesus and the earliest New Testament Christians were related to these temple-oriented movements.[14]

5. Earliest Christianity included all these suppressed or hidden temple beliefs, rituals, and practices, such as Jesus as the cosmic king and high priest (Hebrews), and the possibility of visionary ascent to heaven for a theophany of God in His celestial temple (Revelation).[15]

For Margaret Barker, then, the reforms of Josiah were in fact a type of apostasy, which placed the Deuteronomists in positions of power in the state and temple, allowing them to suppress the authentic pre-exilic temple theology, mysteries, and ritual, which were eventually restored by Christianity—which may imply that much of the Old Testament as we have it was written and edited by apostates.

Although I accept much of her broader thesis, I disagree with Barker on several key issues, which I do not think are fundamental to the validity of her broader perspective. First, I do not believe there was ever a single pre-exilic temple theology.[16] One of the fundamental principles of interpreting ancient Israelite religion and early Judaism is that when you have two rabbis, you will always have three or more opinions. This is, of course, simply part of human nature. Sectarian tendencies in Israelite religion were undoubtedly just as strong in pre-exilic times (before 586 BC) as they were in early Judaism of the second temple period (c. 500 BC–AD 70), rabbinic Judaism (after AD 70), and early Christianity. Thus, in my opinion, in pre-exilic times there were already many different interpretations of temple theology and mysticism in ancient Israel. I believe Barker occasionally attempts to conflate this broad range of Israelite temple ideologies reductionistically into a single unified theology.

Second, whereas Barker tends to depict Israelite temple theology as relatively static, I believe it changed significantly through time. Thus, when Barker speaks of third century BC Enochian temple theology as reflecting pre-exilic ideas, I believe it likely she is at least partially conflating ideas from different early Jewish movements, times, places, and sects. The result is that she sometimes fails to contextualize her sources properly and historically and fully consider the importance of historical change through time. This means she often retrojects temple ideas from later centuries onto pre-exilic temple theology. In my opinion it is very unlikely that the survival of the temple of ideologies of the seventh century BC remained unchanged and static through the first century AD. I believe it is very important to contextualize temple texts that Barker studies in their proper time and sect, though this can, of course, sometimes be somewhat obscure.[17]

Third, whereas Barker claims that Josiah’s reforms represented an apostasy from the pre-Deuteronomistic temple theology, I believe the situation is much more complex. We need to realize that the Deuteronomists represent Josiah’s reforms as a restoration of the original pristine Mosaic temple theology. What we really have are two (or more) competing visions of what authentic ancient Israelite temple theology originally was and hence ought to be. Barker takes the Deuteronomist position and turns it on its head. For Barker, the Deuteronomist reforms were an apostate innovation which attempted to suppress the original authentic pre-exilic temple worship. I believe instead that sectarian complexity in temple theology, ritual, and mysticism was already the norm in pre-exilic Israel.

Finally, I believe that Josiah’s reforms were necessary and inspired. The first thing to note is that no biblical prophet ever opposed or criticized Josiah’s reforms. No biblical prophet ever endorsed the worship of the goddess Asherah.[18] No biblical prophet ever endorsed the worship of any god other than Yhwh. No biblical prophet ever endorsed the worship of idols. Now, one could in theory argue this is because the Deuteronomists decided which books to include in the Bible and consciously suppressed alternative viewpoints from non-Deuteronomistic prophets. But the fact remains that in the surviving texts, all the prophets agree with at least these three basics of Josiah’s reforms: (1) Israel should worship only Yhwh; Israel must not worship foreign gods; (2) Israel must not worship idols (or worship Yhwh as an idol), or follow other Canaanite cultic practices; and, to the extent they discuss it, (3) Israel must worship only in the Jerusalem temple. Even Ezekiel, whom Barker sees as one of the most important prophets of authentic temple theology and mysticism, agrees with these principles [19] and insists that failure to follow these three principles was the cause for the departure of the Glory/kābôd of Yhwh from the temple (Ezekiel 10), leaving it ripe for destruction by the Babylonians.

Why did Josiah believe these reforms were necessary? The fundamental problem was syncretism. The ancient Israelites were given numerous laws whose primary purpose was to distinguish them from non-Israelites. Circumcision, the types of clothing one could not wear (Deuteronomy 22:11–12), permitted hair styles (Leviticus 21:5), forbidden foods, marriage only to Israelites, and various cultic restrictions were all designed at least in part to prevent the Israelites from losing their distinct religious and ethnic identity. The reason the Jews survived the Babylonian captivity with their religion and identity relatively intact was precisely because of their refusal to syncretize with the culture and religion of their captors. The reason the Jews are one of the very few ancient Near Eastern peoples whose religion survives to the present is the restrictions on their syncretizing with foreign cultures and religions.[20] Without Josiah’s reforms, the Jews would probably not have survived the Babylonian captivity or Hellenistic and Roman occupations. They would have ended like the ten tribes of Israel, losing their identity in the captivity. There would have been no Judaism in the first century AD and hence no Jesus and no Christianity. Josiah’s strict antisyncretizing reforms of Israelite religious belief, practice, and cult insured the survival of the Jews. Centralization of Jewish worship in the Jerusalem temple was necessary because the provincial cultic sites were the major centers of cultic syncretism.

This does not, however, necessarily mean that nothing was lost. The exoteric, public temple cult of Israel is repeatedly criticized by the prophets for its sterile ritualism.[21] There were clearly sectarian movements within Israel which rejected part or even all of the temple esoterica and secret teachings, as Barker describes throughout her books. It is important to remember that Barker is able to envision the lost temple theology of pre-exilic Israel precisely because it was never actually completely lost. It survived among esoteric groups of temple priests, such as Ezekiel and Joshua the High Priest (Zechariah 3:1–10, 6:11) as well as among sectarian Jewish movements, most notably at Qumran as reflected in the Dead Sea Scrolls [22] and in esoteric temple texts found in part in the Pseudepigrapha.[23]

I believe a more fundamental apostasy of Jerusalem temple theology, ritual, and mysteries occurred in the mid-second century BC when the Hasmoneans usurped both Davidic kingship and the Zadokite high priesthood,[24] while consciously suppressing prophecy. This usurpation resulted in a schism when Onias IV, considered by many to be the true successor to the Zadokite high priest, fled for his life to Egypt, where he built an alternate temple at Leontopolis which functioned from around 160 BC–AD 73.[25] The Qumran community likewise fled into the wilderness and went underground at about that time, creating their own esoteric interpretation of the temple mysteries. Thus, by the late second century BC, there were at least three separate rival temple theologies: Leontopolis (largely unrecoverable), Jerusalem, and Qumran, each rejecting the others and claiming exclusive authority. There were undoubtedly many other movements as well.

The Hasmoneans were not averse to killing those who rejected their priestly authority. Alexander Jannaeus (103–76 BC) slew thousands of Jews who threw their citrons at him during the feast of Sukkot as Alexander tried to act as High Priest,[26] reflecting the fact that most of the people rejected Hasmonean claims to the High Priesthood. Jannaeus’s crucifixion of 800 opponents of his rule also reflects the nature of Hasmonean tyranny and their compulsion to punish those who questioned their royal or priestly authority.[27] After the fall of the Hasmoneans, selection of the High Priest eventually fell into the hands of Roman overlords, leading to the corruption of the office and the temple [28] as frequently decried in the New Testament.

The Hasmonean suppression of prophecy is described in 1 Maccabees 14:41, when the people and priests declared that “Simon should be king and high priest in perpetuity until a true prophet should arise.” This Hasmonean hope for a future “true” prophet reflected an assumption that there were no contemporary authentic prophetic voices. In fact, the writers of the Dead Sea Scrolls claimed prophetic authority and strongly rejected Simon’s priestly claims.[29] But as opponents of the Hasmoneans, they were not considered “true” prophets, and because no prophet spoke in support of the Hasmonean usurpation, the official Hasmonean view was that there were no “true” prophets.[30]

Thus, while I agree with Barker that there was a corruption and apostasy of ancient Israelite temple theology, mysticism, and cult in ancient Israel, I believe it occurred in the second century BC, not the seventh. Much of Barker’s theories about the temple and early Christianity are still valid if the temple apostasy occurred in the second century rather than the seventh. I believe Josiah’s reform of the temple cult was both necessary and inspired and was not in itself the cause of a temple apostasy described by Barker.

William J. Hamblin is Professor of History at Brigham Young University (Provo, Utah, USA), specializing in the ancient and medieval Near East. He is the author of dozens of academic articles and several books, most recently, Solomon’s Temple: Myth and History, with David Seely (Thames and Hudson, 2007). In the fall of 2010 his first novel was published (co-authored with Neil Newell): The Book of Malchus (Deseret Book, 2010). A fanatical traveler and photographer, he spent 2010 teaching at the BYU Jerusalem Center, and has lived in Israel, England, Egypt and Italy, and traveled to dozens of other countries.

Appendix: Margaret Barker Bibliography of Major Books (Chronological Order)

The Older Testament. The Survival of Themes from the Ancient Royal Cult in Sectarian Judaism and early Christianity (London: SPCK 1987, reprinted Sheffield: Phoenix Press 2005).

The Lost Prophet. The Book of Enoch and its Influence on Christianity (London, SPCK 1988, reprinted Sheffield: Phoenix Press 2005)

The Gate of Heaven. the History and Symbolism of the Temple in Jerusalem (London SPCK, 1991, reprinted Sheffield: Phoenix Press, 2008)

The Great Angel. A Study of Israel’s Second God (London: SPCK, 1992)

On Earth as it is in Heaven. Temple Symbolism in the New Testament (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1995)

The Risen Lord; the Jesus of History as the Christ of Faith (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1996).

The Revelation of Jesus Christ (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 2000)

The Great High Priest. The Temple Roots of Christian Liturgy (London and New York: T&T Clark/Continuum, 2003)

Temple Theology: An Introduction (London: SPCK 2004)

An Extraordinary Gathering of Angels (London: MQP 2004)

The Hidden Tradition of the Kingdom (London: SPCK, 2007)

Temple Themes in Christian Worship (London: T&T Clark 2008)

Christmas: The Original Story (London: SPCK, 2008)

Creation: A Biblical Vision for the Environment (London: T&T Clark, 2009)

Temple Mysticism: an Introduction (London: SPCK, 2011)

The Mother of the Lord: The Lady in the Temple (London: Bloomsbury, 2012)

[1]  .  Marvin A. Sweeney, King Josiah of Judah: The Lost Messiah of Israel (New York: Oxford University Press, 2001), 3–32, discusses a range of scholarly theories regarding Josiah and the Book of the Law.

[2]  .  Deuteronomy is cited or alluded to dozens if not hundreds of times in the New Testament. See scripture index in Gregory K. Beale and D. A. Carson, Commentary on the New Testament Use of the Old Testament (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 2007). There are twenty-nine manuscripts of Deuteronomy in the Dead Sea Scrolls, indicating its importance among first century Jews: Lawrence H. Schiffman and James C. VanderKam, eds., Encyclopedia of the Dead Sea Scrolls (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000), 1:198–202.

[3]  .  John J. Collins and Daniel C. Harlow, The Eerdmans Dictionary of Early Judaism (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2010), 535–37.

[4]  .  Anthony F. Campbell and Mark A. O’Brien, Unfolding the Deuteronomistic History (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2000).

[5]  .  Patrick D. Miller, The Religion of Ancient Israel (Louisville, KY : Westminster John Knox Press, 2000); Beth A. Nakhai, Archaeology and the Religions of Canaan and Israel (Boston, MA : American Schools of Oriental Research, 2001); Ziony Zevit, Religions of Ancient Israel: A Synthesis of Parallactic Approaches (New York: Continuum, 2003); Carol L. Meyers, Households and Holiness: The Religious Culture Of Israelite Women (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2005); Richard S. Hess, Israelite Religions: An Archaeological and Biblical Survey (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 2007); Victor H. Matthews, Studying the Ancient Israelites: A Guide to Sources and Methods (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker, 2007); William G. Dever, Did God Have a Wife? Archaeology and Folk Religion in Ancient Israel (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2008); Francesca Stavrakpoulou and John Baron, Religious Diversity in Ancient Israel and Judah (New York: T&T Clark, 2010).

[6]  .  2 Kings 16–18, especially 2 Kings 18:12; The problem is most dramatically represented by the great struggle between Elijah against Ahab, Jezebel, and the priests of Baal, 1 Kings 17–19.

[7]  .  2 Kings 21–22, especially 2 Kings 21:1–9.

[8]  .  On the history of this period, see the relevant chapters in: J. Maxwell Miller and John H. Hayes, A History of Ancient Israel (Philadelphia: Westminster, 2006); L. Grabbe, Ancient Israel: What Do We Know and how Do We Know it? (London: T&T Clark, 2007).

[9]  .  See http://www.margaretbarker.com. See the appendix to this paper for a chronological list of her major books; her work will be cited by short title from this bibliography. For more details, and exploration of the implications for Mormons, see Kevin Christensen, “Paradigms Regained: A Survey of Margaret Barker’s Scholarship and its Significance for Mormon Studies,” FARMS Occasional Papers 2 (2001), online at: http://maxwellinstitute.byu.edu/publications/papers/?paperID=6; and Kevin Christensen, “The Deuteronomist De-Christianizing of the Old Testament,” FARMS Review 16/2 (2004): 59–90, online at: http://maxwellinstitute.byu.edu/publications/review/?vol=16&num=2&id=547

[10]  .  On the pre-exilic temple cult: Older Testament; Lost Prophet; Gate of Heaven; Great Angel; Temple Theology; Temple Mysticism; Mother of the Lord. See appendix for full bibliographic data on Barker’s books.

[11]  .  On Lady Wisdom as a Mother goddess: Older Testament, 81–103; Great Angel, 48–69; Great High Priest, 229–261; Temple Theology, 75–93; all summarized and expanded in her new 2012 book Mother of the Lord.

[12]  .  On Josiah’s reforms as suppression of pre-exilic temple cult: Older Testament; Great Angel; Mother of the Lord, 5–75, and various passages throughout her work.

[13]  .  On the survival of pre-exilic temple mysteries: Older Testament; Lost Prophet; Gate of Heaven; Great Angel; Hidden Tradition; Temple Mysticism; Mother of the Lord.

[14]  .  On New Testament Christianity as a restoration of the pre-exilic temple mysteries: Great Angel, 162–232; On Earth as it is in Heaven; Revelation; Temple Theology; Hidden Tradition, 77–130; Temple Mysticism.

[15]  .  On the continuity between early post-New Testament Christianity and the pre-exilic temple cult: Great High Priest; Temple Theology; Hidden Tradition; Temple Themes; Temple Mysticism.

[16]  .  See the books cited in note 5 for discussions of the sects and beliefs in ancient Israelite religion.

[17]  .  In this regard Hugh Nibley is sometimes similarly weak in properly contextualizing his ancient sources.

[18]  .  Generally mistranslated as “groves” in the KJV. On Asherah, see: Dever, Did God Have a Wife?; Judith M. Hadley, The Cult of Asherah in Ancient Israel and Judah: Evidence for a Hebrew Goddess (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2000); Saul M. Olyan, Asherah and the Cult of Yahweh in Israel (Atlanta, GA: Scholars, 1988); Bob Becking, et al., Only One God?: Monotheism in Ancient Israel and the Veneration of the Goddess Asherah (London: Continuum, 2002); Steve A. Wiggins, A Reassessment of Asherah: With Further Considerations of the Goddess (Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias Press, 2007).

[19]  .  On the worship of gods besides Yhwh, see Ezekiel 8. On rejection of idols, see Ezekiel 6, 14:3–7, 20:7–39, 44:19–12, and many other passages. In a future article I will examine the details of the positive relationship between Jeremiah and Deuteronomy.

[20]  .  The most important source of ongoing syncretism from the third century BC on was Hellenism. See Eerdmans Dictionary of Early Judaism, 696–99, 723–26 for summary and bibliography.

[21]  .  For example, Jeremiah 7:4; Hosea 6:6; Ecclesiastes 5:1.

[22]  .  Geza . Vermes, The Complete Dead Sea Scrolls in English (New York: Penguin Press, 1998); see Encyclopedia of the Dead Sea Scrolls, 2:921–933 for numerous references and bibliography.

[23]  .  James H. Charlesworth, ed., Old Testament Pseudepigrapha, 2 vols. (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1983–85).

[24]  .  For background on the Hasmoneans (Maccabees) see Eerdmans Dictionary of Early Judaism, 705–709. On the Hasmonean usurpation of the High Priesthood, see the relevant sections in Maria Brutti, The Development of the High Priesthood during the Pre-Hasmonean Period (Leiden: Brill, 2006); Alice Hunt, Missing Priests: The Zadokites in Tradition and History (London, T&T Clark, 2006); D. Rooke, Zadok’s Heirs: The Role and Development of the High Priesthood in Ancient Israel (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000); James C. VanderKam, From Joshua to Caiaphas: High Priests after the Exile (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2004).

[25]  .  For details and bibliography, see G. Bohak, “Heliopolis,” Eerdmans Dictionary of Early Judaism, 721–23.

[26]  .  Josephus, Antiquities, 13.372–76.

[27]  .  Josephus, Antiquities, 12.256, 13.380.

[28]  .  On the corruption of the first century AD High Priests and their collaboration with the Romans, see R. Horsley, “High Priests and the Politics of Roman Palestine: A Contextual Analysis of the Evidence in Josephus,” Journal for the Study of Judaism, 17 (1986): 23–55; see also the books in note 24.

[29]  .  Simon, or the entire line of Hasmonean high priests, are often thought to be the “Wicked Priest” of the Dead Sea Scrolls; Encyclopedia of the Dead Sea Scrolls, 2:876–878, 2:973–976.

[30]  .  The Hasmonean king John Hyrcanus (134–104 BC) claimed prophetic authority, Josephus, Wars, 1.68–69; Josephus, Antiquities, 13.282–283.

Prophets and Kings in Lehi’s Jerusalem and Margaret Barker’s Temple Theology

Kevin Christensen

Abstract: King Josiah's reign has come under increasing focus for its importance to the formation of the Hebrew Bible, and for its proximity to the ministry of important prophets such as Jeremiah and Lehi. Whereas the canonical accounts and conventional scholarship have seen Josiah portrayed as the ideal king, Margaret Barker argues Josiah's reform was hostile to the temple. This essay offers a counterpoint to Professor Hamblin's "Vindicating Josiah" essay, offering arguments that the Book of Mormon and Barker's views and sources support one another.

The first time I read anything memorable about King Josiah was in Richard Elliot Friedman’s popular introduction to the documentary hypothesis, Who Wrote the Bible? Friedman pointed out how crucial the reign of King Josiah was for the formation of the Bible as we have it, noting the appearance of the Book of the Law in connection to the reforms he launched and the evidence that an edition of the Deuteronomic histories appears to have been written during his lifetime, idealizing him as the perfect king. Friedman goes on to highlight additions and editing done to Second Kings in response to the calamity of Josiah’s unexpected death and later the destruction of Jerusalem and the temple and the exile. This picture of a reform movement progressing in phases with layers contributed to my initial approach to Margaret Barker’s work for my paper entitled, “Paradigms Regained: A Survey of Margaret Barker’s Scholarship and Its Significance for Mormon Studies.” [1]

The problem was to see how Lehi related to the Josiah reforms because Lehi must have been a witness to them as a youth or young man with his own ministry, beginning in the first year of the reign of Zedekiah, one of Josiah’s sons. Clearly, Barker’s reconstruction of first-temple theology converges remarkably with the picture in the Book of Mormon. Initially, I took the Josiah phase of the reform at face value and decided that it was the later phases that accounted for the tensions between the Book of Mormon and the traditional biblical picture and the harmonies between the Book of Mormon and Barker’s view of temple theology. However, when Barker came to BYU in 2003 and spoke on “What Did King Josiah Reform?” one particular comment struck me. “Josiah’s changes concerned the high priests, and were thus changes at the very heart of the temple.”[2]

I had by this time read other books on Josiah and have since read and seen more. Most commentators approach the relationship of Josiah to Jeremiah in terms of language, politics, social connections, law, social issues, and the like. Several portray Jeremiah as a court propagandist working for Josiah’s court in support of the reform, which does not sound much like a real prophet. For all the impressive learning and valuable observations, few contemporary scholars pay much attention to theology, the temple, or the notion of revelation. Barker seems to be seeing things no one else was noticing, in large measure because she was looking in terms of theology, the temple, and revelation, rather than politics.

My starting point for approaching Jeremiah and Lehi in relation to Josiah was Friedman’s comment that Jeremiah agrees with the Deuteronomic history on “practically every important point” [3] and agrees with Deuteronomy “on virtually every major point.” [4] Such statements contain a hidden assumption that we do not have to think any further about what is most important. I expected to see extensive harmony. The extensive harmony that Professor Hamblin sees between Jeremiah and Josiah in his “Vindicating Josiah” and elsewhere really exists.[5] The issue for me is what those harmonies mean in light of everything else I see?

I was alerted to the importance of key tensions between Deuteronomy and Lehi by comparison with the Book of Mormon. In The Great Angel, Barker cites the “preface to Deuteronomy”—now chapter 4 of that book—as showing what this group set out to remove from the religion of Israel:

First, they were to have the Law instead of Wisdom (Deut. 4:6). . . [W]hat was the Wisdom which the Law replaced? Second, they were to think only of the formless voice of God sounding from the fire and giving the Law (Deut. 4:12). Israel had long had a belief in the vision of God, when the glory had been visible on the throne in human form, surrounded by the heavenly hosts. What happened to the visions of God? And third, they were to leave the veneration of the host of heaven to peoples not chosen by Yahweh (Deut. 4:19–20). Israel had long regarded Yahweh as the Lord of the hosts of heaven, but the title Yahweh of Hosts was not used by the Deuteronomists. What happened to the hosts, the angels? [6]

In The Revelation of Jesus Christ, Barker adds references to two other Deuteronomic proscriptions. The Jews were not to “enquire after secret things which belonged only to the Lord (Deut. 29:29). Their duty was to obey the commandments bought down from Sinai and not to seek someone who would ascend to heaven for them to discover remote and hidden things (Deut. 30:11).” [7]

I observed in “Paradigms Regained” that “Lehi’s vision in the first chapter of the Book of Mormon contains most of the elements these Deuteronomy passages explicitly reject,”[8] and this “in spite of the deep affinity that the Book of Mormon shows for Deuteronomy.”[9] See 1 Nephi 1:8–12 for Lehi’s report of seeing anthropomorphic God on the throne, surrounded by the hosts, and his reading from a book that presumably includes knowledge of the hidden and secret things. I also noticed that “Nephi qualifies remarkably well as a representative of the wisdom tradition as Barker reconstructs it,”[10] which has implications for the reform as a replacement for the older wisdom. The older wisdom appears intact in the Book of Mormon, something Margaret Barker recognized.[11] Nephi and Lehi seem not to agree with Deuteronomy on the restriction of worship to the Jerusalem temple, as Nephi’s temple building shows.

When I started reading and re-reading Jeremiah, I found that certain passages began to jump out at me in light of Margaret Barker’s work and also that few of those passages elicited any comment or notice in the other Josiah/Jeremiah studies I was reading. Start with the key passage from the preface to Deuteronomy: “Keep therefore and do them [that is, the statutes and judgments of the law] for this is your wisdom and your understanding in the sight of the nations, which shall hear all these statutes and say, Surely this great nation is a wise and understanding people” (Deuteronomy. 4:6).

Barker points out that the Law here is put forward as a substitute for wisdom. She points out several places where poems in praise of wisdom have been changed to become praises of the law.[12] She discusses how often the texts that refer to this period lament the loss of Wisdom in terms of characteristic teachings as well as the female personification of Wisdom, whose great symbol was the tree of life. Jeremiah seems here to be commenting on this very passage: “How do ye say, We are wise, and the law of the Lord is with us? Lo, certainly in vain made he it; the pen of the scribes is in vain. The wise men are ashamed, they are dismayed and taken: lo, they have rejected the word of the Lord; and what wisdom is in them?” (Jeremiah 8:8-9).

Friedman and Bright both offer a stronger translation. “How can you say, ’Why we are the wise, For we have the law of Yahweh’? Now do but see—the deception it’s wrought, the deceiving pen of the scribes.”[13] With respect to the law and those who had charge of it, Jeremiah comments that “they that handle the law knew me not” (Jeremiah 2:8). “Therefore, behold, I am against the prophets, saith the Lord, that steal my words every one from his neighbor” (Jeremiah 23:30). “And the burden of the LORD shall ye mention no more: for every man’s word shall be his burden; for ye have perverted the words of the living God, of the LORD of hosts our God” (Jeremiah 23:36).

Whereas Deuteronomy relates the following: “And the Lord spoke unto you out of the midst of the fire: ye heard the voice of the words but saw no similitude; only ye heard a voice” (Deuteronomy 4:12). Barker notes the direct contradiction with the account in Exodus 24:9–11, which reports that Moses, Aaron, and seventy elders of Israel “saw the God of Israel.” Jeremiah speaks as one who has seen: “For who hath stood in the counsel of the Lord, and hath perceived and heard his word? who hath marked his word, and heard it?” (Jeremiah 23:18. Compare Isaiah 6, Ezekiel, and 1 Enoch). “But if they had stood in my counsel, and had caused my people to hear my words, then they should have turned them from their evil way, and from the evil of their doings” (Jeremiah 23:22).

The counsel is specifically the divine counsel, the sôd, as Professor Peterson and Professor Hamblin recently discussed.[14] Whereas Jeremiah treats the sôd knowledge as one of the tests for a true prophet, the current form of Deuteronomy does not. (The Dead Sea Scrolls version of Deuteronomy 32:8–9 does allude to the council referring to El Elyon as the Most High and Yahweh as one of the sons of God, but the Masoretic Hebrew has been changed to remove these ideas.) Jeremiah’s understanding of the council also shows in his frequent use of LORD of Hosts as a divine title that is absent from Deuteronomy and only very rarely found in the Deuteronomic histories.

Deuteronomy says, “The secret things belong to the LORD our God: but those things which are revealed belong unto us and our children forever, that we may do all the words of this law.” Further, it explains that “For this commandment which I command thee this day, it is not hidden from thee, neither is it far off. It is not in heaven, that thou shouldest say, Who shall go up for us to heaven and bring it unto us that we may hear and do it?” (Deuteronomy 30:11–12).

Against this, Jeremiah speaks as one who has been invited to learn and declare the secret things: “Call unto me, and I will answer thee, and shew thee great and mighty things, which thou knowest not” (Jeremiah. 33:3).

In her recent book, The Mother of the Lord: Volume 1: The Lady in the Temple, Margaret Barker cites Baruch 3.29–30 as a near quotation of this crucial Deuteronomy 30 verse that shows how it was understood, at least when the apocryphal book of Baruch was composed. The book of Jeremiah names Baruch as Jeremiah’s scribe (Jeremiah 36:3). A book of Baruch is included in the Greek apocrypha, so the text has possible ties to Jeremiah. She cites lines that those who have “forsaken the fountain of wisdom” (Baruch 3:12, which seems to allude to Jeremiah 2:13) should repent and “Learn where there is wisdom.” Barker points out lines in Baruch that echo the descriptions of Wisdom in Proverbs 3. For instance, Baruch 3:21 refers to “wisdom’s paths” and the need to ”lay hold” of them. Barker compares those lines to Proverbs 3:18, a passage that that calls to mind Lehi’s experiences:

She is the tree of life to those who lay hold of her,
Those who hold her fast are called happy.

She then cites this passage from Baruch, noting the verbal similarity to Deuteronomy 30:11–12:

Who has gone up to heaven and taken her
And brought her down from the clouds?
Who has gone over the sea and found her,
And will buy her for pure gold? [15]

Barker observes that here wisdom becomes the implied object of Deuteronomy 30:11–12. The imagery is of the temple, where the Holy of Holies represents heaven, the clouds are a feature of the burning incense, and the sea is represented in the brass basin filled with water. The symbol of wisdom in the temple had been the tree. Jeremiah 9:12 continues to lament over the corruption of Jerusalem and a prophecy of the coming doom by saying, “Who is the wise man who may understand this; who is he to whom the mouth of the Lord had spoken that he may declare it,” and adds that the situation has come because “they have forsaken my law, which I set before them, and have not obeyed my voice.” Barker also cites several places where poems originally written as praises to wisdom had been edited into praises of the law, all of which provide evidence that scribes were establishing the law as a replacement for an older wisdom tradition. The Book of Mormon treats the law differently, not as an end in itself but as “a shadow of those things which are to come” (Mosiah 16:14), and thus a complement to wisdom, not as a rival or replacement.

These points of difference between Jeremiah, Lehi, and Deuteronomy have to do with the very heart of the temple. Key differences between the Deuteronomic histories of the kings and Chronicles also have to do with the heart of the temple. That is, Chronicles includes details about temple ritual and practice the books of Samuel and Kings leave out.[16] Barker has also shown, and Professor Hamblin reported, that many of the practices purged during the reforms were practiced by the patriarchs and restored with Christianity.

Whatever might be agreeable and proper about the Reform is worth considering. When Jeremiah reproves those in Egypt who were “baking cakes to the Queen of Heaven” in Jeremiah 44, we should compare that with his complaints about those who trusted in the temple without taking care to “thoroughly amend your ways and your doings,” that is, trusting ritual without repentance and sacrifices without personal obedience. Jeremiah does look forward to valid worship in the house of the Lord (Jeremiah 33:11). Despite describing its status as a “den of robbers” (Jeremiah 7:11), he is not anti-temple. He is against those who would forsake “the fountain of living waters, and hewed them out cisterns, broken cisterns that can hold no water” (Jeremiah 2:13).

Few of the commentaries I have read noted that Jeremiah appears to have been called against the very people who put Josiah in power and thus against the very people and institutions implementing the reforms at the time of his call: [17]

For, behold, I have made thee this day a defenced city, and an iron pillar, and brazen walls against the whole land, against the kings of Judah, against the princes thereof, against the priests thereof, and against the people of the land. (Jeremiah 1:18)

Ezekiel 22 provides an extended diatribe directed at the actions of these same social groups, the princes, the priests, the people of the land, and adds false prophets. Ezekiel’s description of their activities explains why a true prophet would be called against those groups. The people of the land installed the eight-year-old Josiah as king (2 Kings 21:24), and these social groups later implemented the reforms. Their heirs edited the Hebrew scripture we now have.

And there is the issue of blindness. In describing conditions in Jerusalem at the end of the first temple period in the sixth century BC, Margaret Barker often refers to passages in 1 Enoch 93:7–8 that describe a condition of blindness that prevailed in Jerusalem at that time.

And after that in the fifth week, at its close, The house of glory and dominion shall be built for ever. And after that in the sixth week all who live in it shall be blinded, And the hearts of all of them shall godlessly forsake wisdom. And in it a man shall ascend; And at its close the house of dominion shall be burnt with fire, And the whole race of the chosen root shall be dispersed.

Several of the Biblical prophets who lived at Jerusalem also described both the blindness and the consequent forsaking of wisdom. By comparing the passages that describe the blindness, we can get a better view of what defines the condition, what wisdom was lost at the time, and the contrasting condition of vision. Each prophet gives part of the picture, and by seeing how the parts interconnect, we get a clear view of what happened. For example, Ezekiel, a priest taken as part of the first group of exiles, writes: “Son of man, thou dwellest in the midst of a rebellious house, which have eyes to see, and see not; they have ears to hear, and hear not: for they are a rebellious house” (Ezekiel 12:2).

Notice that Ezekiel credits the blindness to rebellion, which implies a willful internal enemy. Ezekiel also relates the contrasting condition of seeing with his eyes and hearing with his ears to what he has been directly shown during a vision of God (see Ezekiel. 40:2-4, also 44:5).

Jeremiah also talks about the blindness and relates it to a loss of understanding (which implies a lack of wisdom that corresponds to the description in 1 Enoch). “Hear now this, O foolish people, without understanding, which have eyes, and see not; which have ears, and hear not” (Jeremiah 5:21).

Jacob, like Ezekiel, a temple priest, provides important details about the blindness in a passage that I read as a direct comment on the reform:

But behold, the Jews [whom Lehi knew in Jerusalem in the period before the destruction] were a stiffnecked people; and they despised the words of plainness, and killed the prophets, and sought for things which they could not understand. Wherefore, because of their blindness, which blindness came by looking beyond the mark, they must needs fall; for God hath taken his plainness away from them, and delivered unto them many things which they cannot understand because they desired it. And because they desired it, God hath done it that they may stumble. (Jacob 4:14. cf. 1 Nephi 13:32 also on the blindness, and Lehi, Nephi, and Jacob as those who have seen and heard, 1 Nephi 9:1, 1 Nephi 11:3, and Jacob 7:12)

Jeremiah had also described the violence against prophets as something very public: “Your own sword hath devoured your prophets like a destroying lion . . . also in thy skirts is found the blood of the souls of the poor innocents: I have not found it by secret search but upon all of these” (Jeremiah 2:30, 36). In looking back at the accounts leading up to the destruction of Jerusalem, the most conspicuous account of extensive public violence conducted by the people in power is that of Josiah’s reform in 2 Kings 23:20.

Also pointing back to the upheavals around 600 BC, Barker provides the best clue to what the “mark” Jacob refers to actually was. Barker points to Ezekiel, like Jacob a temple priest and Jacob’s exact contemporary. In a vision of the angels of destruction summoned to the Jerusalem temple, Barker explains how Ezekiel saw that:

[A]n angel was sent to mark the faithful: “Go through the city, through Jerusalem, and put a mark upon the foreheads of the men who groan and sigh over all the abominations that are committed in it” (Ezek. 9.4). The LORD then spoke to the other six angels: “Pass through the city after him and smite . . . but touch no one upon whom is the mark . . .” (Ezek. 9.5-6). The mark on the forehead was protection against the wrath.

“Mark,” however conceals what that mark was. The Hebrew says that the angel marked the foreheads with the letter tau, the last letter of the Hebrew alphabet. In the ancient Hebrew script that Ezekiel would have used, this letter was a diagonal cross, and the significance of this becomes apparent from the much later tradition about the high priests. The rabbis remembered that the oil for anointing the high priest had been lost when the first temple was destroyed and that the priests of the second temple were only “priests of many garments,” a reference to the eight garments worn on the Day of Atonement (m. Horayoth 3.4). The rabbis also remember that the anointed high priests of the first temple had been anointed on the forehead with the sign of a diagonal cross (b. Horayoth 12a). The diagonal cross was the sign of the Name on their foreheads, the mark which Ezekiel described as the letter tau.[18]

Jacob’s “mark” must be a reference to the anointed high priest of the first temple. Those who received the anointing were those who took upon themselves the name of the anointed, the Messiah. Barker explains that: “It was also remembered that the roles of the anointed high priest and the priest of the many garments differed in some respects at Yom Kippur when the rituals of atonement were performed. The anointed high priest, they believed, would be restored to Israel at the end of time, in the last days.” [19]

Why does this matter? We will recall that the Hebrew Messiah and the Greek Christ, both mean “anointed one.” The implication is that the role of the anointed high priest was changed and that the differences had something to do with the Day of Atonement, which, as Barker observes, is conspicuously missing from the sacred calendar in Deuteronomy 16.

Lehi begins his own ministry in Jerusalem by prophesying of “a Messiah, and the redemption of the world” (1 Nephi 1:19). This clearly points to the “anointed” and to the Day of Atonement, which ritually enacts the redemption of the world and suggests that Lehi acted in direct opposition to those who were making these changes. During his vision, Lehi testified as one who “saw and heard,” (1 Nephi 1:19) which makes him a man of vision like Jeremiah and not a man who was blind and deaf and therefore under the penalty of a consequent loss of wisdom. He later had his vision of the tree of life (1 Nephi 8), the great symbol of wisdom that Josiah had recently removed from the temple and burned (2 Kings 23:5). He read from a heavenly book in which the Messiah and redemption of the world were “manifested plainly,” which points to Jacob’s description of those in Jerusalem who “despised words of plainness.” That is not to say that Lehi would necessarily disagree with everything that was going on any more than Jeremiah or Ezekiel might. There is no reason for Jeremiah or Lehi to complain about reform efforts to secure social justice, follow the law, fight paganism, or end the practice of child sacrifice. Common beliefs can also form the foundation of rivalry about differences. Sherem agrees with Jacob about the Law of Moses but not about revelation or the coming Messiah. (Jacob 7:7) While Nephi agrees with the first two points that Hamblin mentions regarding foreign gods and idols, he clearly does not agree that worship can happen only in the Jerusalem temple. Points of agreement are important, but where the differences touch the heart of the temple, we might want to keep our eyes open.

Professor Hamblin has noted in his essay that the changes during Josiah’s reform did much to ensure the survival of the Jews as a people. But remember that Jacob was concerned at how the blindness and loss of plainness concerning the atonement of Christ would lead them to stumble. He then tells the elaborate allegory of the olive trees as the answer to how people who had so tragically stumbled might eventually be recovered to build on the “sure foundation” (Jacob 4:14–18).

Scriptures do get edited during transmission, and Jeremiah, 1 Enoch, and Jacob 4:14 are among the texts that complain about some aspects of what happened. The state of the Hebrew texts we have provides further clues. Helaman 18:19–20 claims that Jeremiah had prophesied that the “Son of God would come.” John Tvedtnes has shown there is evidence that Jeremiah did utter such a prophecy.[20] Barker’s Temple Theology shows a context in which such a prophecy would be meaningful in Lehi’s Jerusalem, why it would get him into trouble, and why it does not appear in our current Jeremiah. Jacob 4:14 suggests the reasons such a prophecy would be suppressed by those who looked beyond the mark of anointing.

Kevin Christensen has been a technical writer since 1984, since 2004 in working in Pittsburgh, PA. He has a BA in English from San Jose State University. He has published articles in Dialogue, Sunstone, the FARMS Review, the Journal of Book of Mormon Studies, Insights, the Meridian Magazine, the FARMS Occasional Papers, (Paradigms Regained: A Survey of Margaret Barker’s Scholarship and Its Significance for Mormon Studies), Glimpses of Lehi’s Jerusalem, and, in collaboration with Margaret Barker, an essay in Joseph Smith Jr.: Reappraisals after Two Centuries. He lives with his wife Shauna in Bethel Park, PA.

Further Reading

Richard Elliot Friedman, Who Wrote the Bible? (New York: Harper & Row, 1987). A well-known explanation of the Documentary Hypothesis written for popular audiences (that is, well-informed, simple and clear, addressed to lay readers). He also makes very clear just how important Josiah’s reign was for the formation of the Hebrew Bible as we have it.

Marvin A. Sweeney, King Josiah of Judah: The Lost Messiah of Israel (New York: Oxford, 2001). An academic approach to Josiah, emphasizing the importance of his reign for the formation of the Hebrew Bible.

W. B. Barrick, The King and the Cemeteries: Toward a New Understanding of Josiah’s Reform (Leiden: Brill, 2002). An expensive book, which I read in the BYU library, argues that the archeology suggests some of the activities of the reform actually happened in the south and were edited to describe activities in the north for political reasons. It is a reminder that texts are easier to edit than archeology, though of course, both must still be interpreted.

William G. Dever, Did God Have a Wife? Archeology and Folk Religion in Ancient Israel (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2005). Illuminates the changes in Israel around 600 BC from the perspective of archeology. Also see Alyson Von Feldt’s perceptive review from an LDS perspective, sympathetic to Barker’s views. The pdf version includes high resolution figures of important artifacts discussed.

http://maxwellinstitute.byu.edu/publications/review/?vol=19&num=1&id=639

Alyson Von Feldt’s paper on “His Secret With the Righteous”: Instructional Wisdom in the Book of Mormon is also very helpful.

http://maxwellinstitute.byu.edu/publications/papers/?paperID=9&chapterID=74

David Rolph Seely and Jo Ann H. Seely, “Lehi and Jeremiah: Prophets Priests and Patriarchs” in John W. Welch and David Rolph Seely and Ann H. Seely, eds., Glimpses of Lehi’s Jerusalem (Provo, UT: FARMS 2004), 357–80. Very well informed LDS scholars taking a favorable view of Josiah’s reforms. http://maxwellinstitute.byu.edu/publications/books/?bookid=2&chapid=32.

Margaret Barker, “What Did King Josiah Reform?” in John W. Welch and David Rolph Seely and Ann H. Seely, eds., Glimpses of Lehi’s Jerusalem (Provo, UT: FARMS, 2004), 521–42 at http://maxwellinstitute.byu.edu/publications/books/?bookid=2&chapid=36.

Margaret Barker, “Joseph Smith and Preexilic Israelite Religion” in BYU Studies 44/4 (2005) provides her direct response to the Book of Mormon at https://byustudies.byu.edu/showTitle.aspx?title=7141.

Margaret Barker, The Mother of the Lord: Volume 1: The Lady in the Temple (London: Bloomsbury, 2012). Her most recent work, extending her previous observations on Josiah’s reform. She offers an extended look at Jeremiah on pp. 54–75.

Also Margaret Barker’s Website, which has several relevant papers available for free reading: www.margaretbarker.com

William Hamblin’s website includes a number of related studies. http://mormonscriptureexplorations.wordpress.com/

Brant Gardner, Second Witness: Analytical & Contextual Commentary on the Book of Mormon Volume 1: First Nephi (Salt Lake City: Greg Kofford Books, 2007). An LDS approach that incorporates Barker’s view of the reform towards the Book of Mormon.

LeGrand L. Baker and Stephen D. Ricks, Who Shall Ascend into the Hill of the Lord: The Psalms in Israel’s Temple Worship in the Old Testament and in the Book of Mormon (Salt Lake City: Eborn Books, 2011).

Most of my own essays on the topic of how Barker’s work casts light on LDS scripture are linked at Howard Hopkin’s useful site: http://www.thinlyveiled.com/kchristensen.htm

[1]  .  Kevin Christensen “Paradigms Regained: A Survey of Margaret Barker’s Scholarship and Its Significance for Mormon Studies,” FARMS Occasional Papers 2 (2001).

[2]  .  Margaret Barker, “What Did King Josiah Reform?” in John W. Welch, David Rolph Seely, Jo Ann H. Seely, eds. Glimpses of Lehi’s Jerusalem (Provo, UT: FARMS, 2004), 526.

[3]  .  Richard Elliott Friedman, Who Wrote the Bible? (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1987), 146.

[4]  .  Friedman, Who Wrote the Bible?, 209.

[5]  .  See pp. 165–76 in this volume.

[6]  .  Margaret Barker, The Great Angel: A Study of Israel’s Second God (London: SPCK, 1992), 13.

[7]  .  Margaret Barker, The Revelation of Jesus Christ Which God Gave Him to Show to His Servants What Must Soon Take Place (Revelation 1.1) (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 2000), 17.

[8]  .  Christensen, “Paradigms Regained,” 15.

[9]  .  Christensen, “Paradigms Regained,” 15.

[10]  .  Christensen, “Paradigms Regained,” 21. Also see Alyson Von Feldt, “His Secret is With the Righteous: Wisdom Teaching in the Book of Mormon” Occasional Papers 5 (2007): 49–83 .

[11]  .  See Margaret Barker, “Joseph Smith and Preexilic Israelite Religion” BYU Studies 44/4 (2005): 69–82.

[12]  .  Margaret Barker, The Mother of the Lord: Volume 1: The Lady in the Temple (London: Bloomsbury, 2012), 73–74.

[13]  .  John Bright, The Anchor Bible Jeremiah (Garden City: Doubleday and Co. 1965), 60. Compare Friedman, Who Wrote the Bible?, 209.

[14]  .  Daniel C. Peterson and William Hamblin, “Deseret News,” “Old Testament Divine Council Called a Sod” http://www.deseretnews.com/article/765621073/Old-Testament-divine-council-called-a-sod.html. See also Hamblin “The Sôd of Yhwh and the Endowment,” pp. 147–54 in this volume.

[15]  .  Barker, Mother of the Lord, 73. She offers an extended look at Jeremiah on pp. 54–75.

[16]  .  Margaret Barker, Temple Theology: An Introduction (London: SPCK, 2004), 15.

[17]  .  Margaret Barker’s Mother of the Lord is an exception. See p. 57 and pp. 54–75 overall.

[18]  .  Barker, Revelation of Jesus, 162.

[19]  .  Margaret Barker, Great Angel, 15.

[20]  .  John Tvedtnes, The Most Correct Book: Insights from a Book of Mormon Scholar (Bountiful, Horizon, 2003), 98–101.