Many have probably already seen the post, “An
Atheist’s Response to the First 31 Pages of The Book of Mormon.” I am going to
guess that fewer people have seen “A REAL Atheist’s Response to the First 31
Pages of the Book of Mormon.” This “real atheist” appears to be an ex-Mormon
named Benjamin V. (or else a Benjamin posted this on behalf the atheist). In
any case, this “real atheist” (RA from here on out) is much less flattering
than the first, providing a critique of the historicity of the Book of Mormon. (In
keeping with RA’s own practice, I will not link to either of these blog posts.)
RA was respectful in his critique, no snarky remarks
or sarcastic jabs, which I appreciate. I nonetheless found his critique to be
somewhat naïve not only of LDS scholarship, but of biblical scholarship more
generally. In RA’s defense, he (I am assuming gender here) does admit, “I’m not
an expert on Christian theology or the Bible, and I certainly don’t believe in
much of either, but I do have a passing familiarity with them.” In the spirit
of promoting a more informed discussion, I would just like provide an informed
Mormon’s opinions of RA’s objections.
1. Pre-Exilic
Jews: RA
thinks Nephi’s frequent reference to “Jews” is anachronistic. He writes, “the
term ‘Jew’ wasn’t coined until after the Israelites returned from captivity
under the reign of the Persians.” RA then tries to predict the apologetic
response:
Knowing a bit about Mormon
apologetics, I’m sure some would like to explain this away by appealing to
Joseph Smith’s imperfect translation skills. Perhaps Nephi used a word like
“Israelite,” and Joseph Smith translated it as “Jew.” But there are clues in
the text that would argue against this explanation. For example, in 1 Nephi
15:17 (on page 31, as it happens), Nephi refers to “…the Jews, or… the House of
Israel.” Clearly Nephi was familiar with both terms, when only one would have
been invented at the time of his writing.
Actually, a more simple solution is that Nephi used yehudi (יהודי); plural yehudim (יהודים), which is translated as “Jew” (or in
the plural, “Jews”) in the KJV, and even in some instances in modern
translations like the NIV and the NASB. In fact, it appears at a rather high
frequency in the writings of Jeremiah, Nephi’s contemporary (e.g., Jeremiah
32:12; 34:9; 38:19; 40:11, 12, 15: 41:3; 44:1; 52:28, 30). Though it more
properly means “Judean” or “Judeans,” the distinction was not made in 1830. So,
there is really no problem with Nephi’s use of the term. In fact, there are
arguably a number of wordplays in the underlying text on the Hebrew meaning of
the word.[1]
An interesting point to consider, since Joseph Smith did not know Hebrew.
2. Egyptian
Writing: RA’s
next comments, “It’s hard to understand why someone who was born and raised in
Jerusalem ‘in all his days’ would have known Egyptian at all.” This is not
really a serious conundrum. Stefen Wimmer has documented several instances of
what he calls “Palestinian hieratic,” an Egyptian script being used by
Israelites in ancient times (cf. 1 Nephi 1:2).[2]
According to Wimmer, this script was used in Palestine “probably over several
centuries,” and its usage peaks in the late-7th century bc, coming to an abrupt end “after the Babylonian
captivity.”[3]
This is the very time period of Lehi, Nephi’s father (it probably would not
have been his primary language, but
nothing in the text requires it to be). Given that RA says he knows “a bit
about Mormon apologetics,” I am little surprised he does not know about this,
since it has frequently been commented on by LDS scholars.[4]
The idea that Lehi’s “children write their diaries in
Egyptian,” is not really in the Book of Mormon. Nephi is not writing a “diary,”
but an official record of his people, replete with an origin story meant to
give them a sense of identity and meaning. Under such circumstances, Nephi was
probably following the pattern of the Brass Plates, which were actually written
in Egyptian (Mosiah 1:4). This resolves the contradiction RA creates by saying,
“This document seems to have been written in Hebrew, but it is taken, in part, ‘that
we may preserve unto our children the language of our fathers.’ So is the
language (always singular) of their fathers Egyptian or Hebrew?”
3. Clarity
About the Messiah: The next strange thing, according to RA is “their portrayal
of the Messiah.” RA goes on to explain that there are few explicit prophecies
of Christ in the Old Testament, and the prophecies of the Messiah that do exist
provide a very different picture than the Christian version. He states that
most Messianic prophecies are taken out of context.
if you read the Old
Testament and 1 Nephi back-to-back, 1 Nephi’s Messianic prophecies are wildly
out of place. The Old Testament contains a few scant clues that (even if read
the way Christians traditionally understand them) are so vague that they could
only be understood in hindsight. Meanwhile, Nephi is receiving incredibly
specific prophecies that could only apply to Jesus. The Jewish conqueror-Messiah
of the Old Testament is nowhere to be found in 1 Nephi. In his place is a Jesus
precisely described, right down to the time and place of his birth, his name,
his mother’s name, and a description of John the Baptist. It also specifically
refers to this Messiah as God, which would never have occurred to any Old
Testament prophet. If anything like this
had appeared in the Old Testament, it’s hard to imagine that anyone would have
questioned Jesus’ divine identity. (emphasis added)
Frankly, I think that RA answers his own question
here. The prophecies are only “wildly out of place” if one rejects the idea of
genuine prophecy. If we accept that God can, in fact, reveal the future, then
there is no real barrier to believe that God could reveal even highly specific prophecies;
nor can there be a reasonable objection to God revealing more specific
prophecies to one group of people, and less specific prophecies to others. Within
Mormon theology, agency is an all-important principle: people need to have the
ability to choose. Thus, since highly specific prophecies like those in the
Book of Mormon make it “hard to imagine that anyone would have questioned
Jesus’ divine identity,” such specificity could not be revealed to those
who would be there for his mortal ministry; otherwise it would be so obvious
their agency would be compromised. Meanwhile, those who would not be there could
have more specific details.
I get that this answer can come across as a bit of a
cop-out. But the purpose of the Book of Mormon is to provide evidence that
revelation is real. As such, it seems inappropriate, to me, to judge its
historicity on grounds which rule prophecy and revelation out a priori. For what it is worth, some
non-LDS scholars would dispute RA’s points entirely. Margaret Barker, for
instance, has argued that Christianity was based on deep roots of pre-Exilic
(i.e., before the Babylonian captivity) Israelite religion. When she commented
on the Book of Mormon, she wrote:
The original temple
tradition was that Yahweh, the Lord, was the Son of God Most High, and present
on earth as the Messiah. This means that the older religion in Israel would
have taught about the Messiah. Thus finding Christ in the Old Testament is
exactly what we should expect, though obscured by incorrect reading of the
scriptures. This is, I suggest, one aspect of the restoration of “the plain and
precious things, which have been taken away from them” (1 Nephi 13:40).[5]
Daniel Boyarin, a Jewish scholar, has made a similar argument.[6]
I have not yet read Boyarin’s book, but Daniel C. Peterson quotes him as
saying, “The theology of the Gospels, far from being a radical innovation
within Israelite religious tradition, is a highly conservative return to the
very most ancient moments within that tradition, moments that had been largely
suppressed in the meantime — but not entirely.”[7]
Nephi’s prophecies still might seem much too specific
for those who refuse to believe in revelation, but in light of work by the
likes of Barker and Boyarin, they really are not quite so “wildly out of place”
after all.
4. Law of
Moses: RA
states that, “upon a cursory analysis of the text, I could find very little
evidence that these people even knew what the Law of Moses was, let alone that
they lived it.” Many who have given the text more than a cursory reading,
however, have found that the law of Moses permeates the text. John W. Welch, who
is an attorney and a scholar of ancient Jewish and Israelite law, has provided
numerous studies of the law and the Book of Mormon. Welch has shown that the text
describing Nephi’s “particularly grizzly murder,” of Laban, as RA calls it, was
in fact consciously written with an understanding of the Mosiac law as it
existed and was interpreted in 600 bc.[8]
Welch has also thoroughly examined 7 legal cases in the Book of Mormon, finding
them consistent with the ancient law of Moses.[9]
What about the “holidays or festivals that play such an important role in
Jewish life,” which RA says, are never “mentioned in the Book of Mormon”?
Several scholars have shown that major sermons like those of Jacob in 2 Nephi
6–10 and Benjamin in Mosiah 1–6 are examples of just such festivals.[10]
Several other aspects of the law of Moses have also been found in the Book of
Mormon.[11]
Then there is the fact that, “the moment Lehi and his
(non-Levite) family leave Jerusalem, they immediately set up altars and
sacrifice animals in the wilderness, which would have scandalized a family of
Israelites raised in the Deuteronomistic Mosaic tradition.” This actually finds
an interesting solution in the Dead Sea Scrolls, where the Temple Scroll allows such sacrifices if you are beyond a three-day
journey from the temple.[12]
It also worth pointing out that some have argued that Lehi was not fully on
board with the Deuteronomistic reforms going on in his day, and in fact spoke
out against them; in which case, his not being in full compliance with the
Deuteronomistic tradition is not a serious defect.[13]
5. Miscellaneous
Topics: RA
states that, “there are so many other oddities that it would be ponderous to
give an exhaustive list.” In that same spirit, I note that there are so many
other responses, both to the topics I have chosen to respond to, and the ones I
have not, that it would be a rather tedious task to keep going. He notes that, “structures
that seem to be natively English,” and “phrases copied from the New Testament”
which are, in my opinion, not surprising for an English translation made ca.
1830. He also notes “a pattern of prophecy that is highly unusual, consisting
of uncharacteristically specific predictions from the time of Nephi to the time
of Joseph Smith … followed by absolute silence about anything that’s happened
since the early 19th Century, which would have been most useful to the stated
audience of the book.” This, like the prophecies of Christ, are really a matter
of accepting prophecy or not, and agency could again be invoked for the lack of
specificity on details after Joseph Smith’s time—highly specific prophecy of events
after its publication would have simply made it’s truth to obvious, and thus
interfered with the exercise of true agency (which requires that competing
explanations have seemingly approximately equal merit). I could go on with the
issues I have skipped over, but will refrain.
Closing
Comments
I appreciate that RA was willing to read and comment
on the Book of Mormon, and his professional tone. I hope I have successfully engaged
him with just as much professionalism. I realize that little of what I have to
say is going to convince RA or any other atheist that the Book of Mormon is
true. And, it is certainly correct that none of the above proves the Book of Mormon true. I have merely sought to add to the
conversation, as I said before, with some reflections from a Mormon who
considers himself well-informed. I hope that, at the least, I have shown some
that the Book of Mormon merits a more serious reading. Much of what initially
seems odd and out of place turns out to fit more comfortably than one would
expect, and certainly more comfortably than what was known in 1830.
[1]
Matt Bowen, “‘What Thank They the Jews’? (2 Nephi 29:4): A Note on the Name ‘Judah’
and Antisemitism,” Interpreter: A Journal
of Mormon Scripture 12 (2014): 111–125.
[2]
Stefen Wimmer, Palästiniches Hieratisch:
Die Zahl- und Sonderzeichen in der althebräishen Schrift (Wiesbaden:
Harraossowitz, 2008).
[3]
An English summary of Wimmer’s work, from which I have quoted, is William J. Hamblin, “Palestinian Hieratic,” at
Interpreter (blog), September 1,
2012, online at http://www.mormoninterpreter.com/palestinian-hieratic/
(accessed September 25, 2014).
[4]
For example, Stephen D. Ricks and John A. Tvedtnes, “Notes and Communications—Jewish
and Other Semitic Texts Written in Egyptian Characters,” Journal of Book of Mormon Studies 5/2 (1996): 156–163; John S.
Thompson, “Lehi and Egypt,” in Glimpses
of Lehi’s Jerusalem, ed. John W. Welch, David Rolph Seely, and Jo Ann H.
Seely (Provo, Utah: FARMS, 2004), 266–267; Aaron P. Schade, “The Kingdom of
Judah: Politics, Prophets, and Scribes in the Late Preexilic Period,” in Glimpses of Lehi’s Jerusalem, 315–319; William J. Hamblin, “Reformed
Egyptian,” FARMS Review 19/1 (2007): 31–35.
[5]
Margaret Barker, “Joseph Smith and Preexilic Israelite Religion,” in The Worlds of Joseph Smith: A Bicentennial
Conference at the Library of Congress, ed. John W. Welch (Provo, Utah: BYU
Press, 2006), 79.
[6]
Daniel Boyarin, The Jewish Gospels: The
Story of the Jewish Christ (New York: The New Press, 2012).
[7]
Daniel C. Peterson, “Messianic Ideas in Judaism,” Deseret News, June 14, 2012, online at: http://www.deseretnews.com/article/765582991/Messianic-ideas-in-Judaism.html?pg=all
(accessed October 23, 2014).
[8]
John W. Welch, “Legal Perspectives on the Slaying of Laban,” Journal of Book of Mormon Studies 1
(1992): 119–141.
[9]
John W. Welch, Legal Cases in the Book of
Mormon (Provo, Utah: BYU Press and Neal A. Maxwell Institute of Religious
Scholarship, 2008).
[10]
John S. Thompson, “Isaiah 50–51, the Israelite Autumn Feastivals, and the
Covenant Speech of Jacob in 2 Nephi 6–10,” in Isaiah in the Book of Mormon, ed. Donald W. Parry and John W. Welch
(Provo, Utah: FARMS, 1998), 123–150; John W. Welch and Stephen D. Ricks, eds., King Benjamin’s Speech: “That Ye May Learn
Wisdom” (Provo, Utah: FARMS, 1998).
[11]
For example, John W. Welch, ed., Reexploring
the Book of Mormon: A Decade of New Research (Provo, Utah: FARMS, 1992),
chaps. 16, 18, 24, 38, 39, 44, 50, 54, 56, 70, 72, 73.
[12]
David Rolph Seely, “Lehi’s Altar and Sacrifice in the Wilderness,” Journal of Book of Mormon Studies 10/1
(2001): 62–69.
[13]
Margaret Barker and Kevin Christensen, “Seeking the Face of the Lord: Joseph
Smith and the First Temple Tradition,” in Joseph
Smith Jr.: Reappraisals after Two Centuries (New York: Oxford University
Press, 2009), 143–172; Kevin Christensen, “The Temple, the Monarchy, and
Wisdom: Lehi’s World and the Scholarship of Margaret Barker,” in Glimpses of Lehi’s Jerusalem, 449–522; Kevin
Christensen, “Paradigms Regained: A Survey of Margaret Barker’s Scholarship and
Its Significance for Mormon Studies,” FARMS
Occasional Papers 2 (2001).
I really enjoyed your comments regarding agency and evidence. I hadn't made that connection before but it makes great sense and am certain it is a true principle thank you.
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