A few years ago, Mitchell Pacwa, a Jesuit priest and
Old Testament scholar, released a CD set entitled “Answering Missionaries at
your Door” critiquing Latter-day Saints (as well as JWs). In one segment of his
talk, he claimed that “Cumorah” in the Book of Mormon is derived from a Hebrew
word, but that it derives from the term komer, which refers to an idolatrous
priest, as distinct to that of Kohen. In a debate on the Catholic
priesthood in 2003, Pacwa also claimed that the only figure in the Hebrew Bible
called a kohen who was not a Levite was Melchizedek (Gen 14:18; cf. Psa
110:4). However, both “criticisms” are faulty.
On the latter, Pacwa is incorrect in stating that
Melchizedek is the only non-Levite who is called a כֹּהֵן. Other
examples include the Egyptian priests in Gen 47:22 and Jethro, a Midianite, in
Exo 18:1:
רַ֛ק אַדְמַ֥ת הַכֹּהֲנִ֖ים לֹ֣א קָנָ֑ה כִּי֩ חֹ֙ק לַכֹּהֲנִ֜ים
מֵאֵ֣ת פַּרְעֹ֗ה וְאָֽכְל֤וּ אֶת־חֻקָּם֙
אֲשֶׁ֙ר נָתַ֤ן לָהֶם֙ פַּרְעֹ֔ה עַל־כֵּ֕ן לֹ֥א מָכְר֖וּ אֶת־אַדְמָתָֽם׃
Only the land of the priests bought he not; for the priests had a
portion assigned them of Pharaoh, and did eat their portion which Pharoah gave
them,: wherefore they sold not their lands. (Gen 47:22)
וַיִּשְׁמַ֞ע יִתְר֙וֹ כֹהֵ֤ן מִדְיָן֙
חֹתֵ֣ן מֹשֶׁ֔ה אֵת֩ כָּל־אֲשֶׁ֙ר עָשָׂ֤ה אֱלֹהִים֙ לְמֹשֶׁ֔ה וּלְיִשְׂרָאֵ֖ל
עַמּ֑וֹ כִּֽי־הוֹצִ֧יא יְהוָ֛ה אֶת־יִשְׂרָאֵ֖ל מִמִּצְרָֽיִם׃
When Jethro, the priest of
Midian, Moses’ father in law, heard of all that God had done for Moses and for
Israel his people, and that the Lord had brought Israel out of Egypt. (Exo
18:1; cf. Exo 2:16; D&C 84:6)
With respect to the Hebrew term כֹּמֶר John A.
Tvedtnes and Stephen D. Ricks dealt with this issue in their article, “The Hebrew Origin of Three Book of Mormon Place-Names”:
A more plausible etymology
for Cumorah is Hebrew kəmôrāh, “priesthood,”
an abstract noun based on the word kômer, “priest.”
This form is based on the Hebrew noun pattern (mišqal) peʿullāh,[6] with the vowel of the second
consonant of the root, “m,” lengthened “compensatorially” from “u” to “ō/ô”
because the third consonant of the root, “r,” cannot be doubled.[7] Kōmer/kômer and kəmôrāh may be
compared in both form and meaning with the Hebrew nouns kôhēn, “priest,” and kəhunnāh, “priesthood.”[8]
Some have privately
objected that this explanation is unlikely because the term kômer is always
used in the Old Testament in reference to false priests (see 2 Kings 23:5;
Hosea 10:5; Zephaniah 1:4), while the word kôhēn is used
to denote Israelite priests.[9] But this objection fails to note that both
terms are used together in the Zephaniah passage. It seems more likely to us
that the term kômer was simply used to
denote a priest who was not of the tribe of Levi, while kôhēn in all cases refers to a Levitical priest.
Since Lehi’s party did not include descendants of Levi, they probably used kômer wherever the Book of Mormon speaks of
priests.
Notes for the Above
[6]. See James L. Sagarin, Hebrew Noun
Patterns (Mishqalim): Morphology, Semantics, and Lexicon (Atlanta:
Scholars, 1987), 33–34.
[7]. See P. Paul Joüon, Grammaire de
l’hébreu biblique (Rome: Institut biblique pontifical, 1923), 54.
[8] Francis Brown, S. R. Driver, and
Charles Briggs, A Hebrew and English Lexicon of the Old Testament (Oxford:
Clarendon, 1974), 464; compare also Ernest Klein, A Comprehensive
Etymological Dictionary of the Hebrew Language for Readers of English (New
York: Macmillan, 1987), 279, who defines the neologism kəmôrāh as
“Christian clergy, priesthood,” but also notes the Hebrew noun pattern peʿullāh
upon which it is based.
[9] One suggestion was that this would
give a meaning of “priestcraft,” rather than “priesthood” to the name Cumorah
were it to derive from kômer. But note that 2 Nephi 10:5 indicates that it
would be “because of priestcrafts . . . at Jerusalem” that Christ would be
rejected. The “chief priests” who opposed Christ were descendants of Levi and
were designated by the term kōhēn. See the definition of “priestcraft” in 2
Nephi 26:29.
