Tuesday, October 28, 2014

Non-Levitical Kohens and the Etymology of Cumorah

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 (mišqalpeʿullāh,[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.