1 Nephi
10:7-8 records Lehi’s prophecy of John the Baptist, the prophet who would be
the forerunner of the Messiah:
And he
spake also concerning a prophet who should come before the Messiah, to prepare
the way of the Lord—Yea, even he should go forth and cry in the wilderness:
Prepare ye the way of the Lord, and make his paths straight; for there standeth
one among you whom ye know not; and he is mightier than I, whose shoe’s latchet
I am not worthy to unloose. And much spake my father concerning this thing.
Robert
Bowman, an opponent of the LDS Church, wrote in a thread on the Mormon Dialogue
board a few years ago:
The verbal parallels to Mark and especially
to John are enough to establish a literary relationship, but there is more
evidence of a completely different kind that further confirms this relationship
and proves that the Book of Mormon is dependent on the NT Gospels for this
statement. John’s description of Jesus as someone so superior to him that John
considered himself unworthy to loosen his sandal reflects a very specific
cultural context in the Palestinian Judaism of the first century. Removing a
man’s sandals was an important and menial task in that culture, in particular
because of the physical geography of the land. Palestine was characteristically
extremely dusty, and one’s sandals would quickly become filthy from normal
walking outdoors. Removing another man’s sandals was a task routinely assigned
in that culture to household servants or slaves. There is evidence that such
responsibilities were assigned to servants in the broader Hellenistic world—so
that John’s statement would be meaningful to Gospel readers outside
Palestine—but in the environment of Palestine the practice was a
commonplace.[3] Rabbinical statements later recorded in the Talmud, which
reflected that same culture and environment as John and Jesus, refer to the
practice and even comment that it is too menial a task for a rabbi’s disciple
to perform (e.g., b. Ketub. 96a; b. Pesah. 4a). Some
rabbis argued that even a Hebrew slave should not be asked to perform the task;
it was so demeaning that it was to be relegated to a Gentile slave.[4] John the
Baptist’s statement, then, means that he was so inferior to Jesus that he was
unworthy even to perform the most menial, demeaning task for Jesus—that is,
that the difference between them was even greater than the difference between a
master and his slave. John’s self-description presupposes that the role of
slaves in taking care of their masters’ shoes was a commonplace in his culture.
We have no reason to think that this cultural allusion would be meaningful to Lehi’s family, who left Palestine more than 600 years before John the Baptist would make his statement. 1 Nephi 10:8 is one of just two references to shoes in the Book of Mormon (the other, 2 Nephi 15:27, is unrelated). All of the evidence that we have for this cultural convention dates from half a millennium or more after the time of Lehi. Not only is the convention not mentioned in the Old Testament, but removing someone else’s shoe in the Old Testament would have a decidedly different connotation, as it was part of an action intended to show disrespect to the shoe’s owner (Deut. 25:9-10)!
We have no reason to think that this cultural allusion would be meaningful to Lehi’s family, who left Palestine more than 600 years before John the Baptist would make his statement. 1 Nephi 10:8 is one of just two references to shoes in the Book of Mormon (the other, 2 Nephi 15:27, is unrelated). All of the evidence that we have for this cultural convention dates from half a millennium or more after the time of Lehi. Not only is the convention not mentioned in the Old Testament, but removing someone else’s shoe in the Old Testament would have a decidedly different connotation, as it was part of an action intended to show disrespect to the shoe’s owner (Deut. 25:9-10)!
LDS
scholar, Dr. David Bokovoy, responded to this (novel, though unconvincing)
argument against the historicity of the Book of Mormon, which I present in its
totality:
In the ancient Near East, the shoe served as a symbol of one’s status or
position. In his article “aqeb `heel' and aqab `to supplant' and the Concept of
Succession in the Jacob-Esau Narratives,” published in Vetus Testamentum 46
(1996): 190-212, Meir Malul has demonstrared that words relating to “foot,”
“walking,” “shoe,” and the like, occur in Akkadian as well as biblical Hebrew
for the act of succeeding to another's place in relationship to persons and to
property.
In your comment, you referred to the symbolic act of removing the shoe of the levir in Deuteronomy 25:9-10, yet I believe you've overlooked an important point. The removal of the shoe when the levir refused to carry out his duty signified that the man had surrendered his right to “come in his brother’s place and take over his status, the shoe standing for the foot which should have been planted in the slot vacated by the deceased brother, thus, supplanting him” (see Ibid. pg. 204, footnote 39).
I do not believe that this was the action John the Baptist had in mind. You are correct that within ancient Judaism, both Mekilta Exodus 21:2 and b. Ketub. 96a specifically state that untying the master’s sandals was the one demeaning task never required of a Hebrew servant. For John to be unworthy of even this task clearly signified that John did not even deserve to function as Jesus’ slave. I would be really surprised, however, to learn that these ancient Rabbinic views prohibiting a slave from performing the demeaning labor of unlatching a sandal did not trace back to a period in Jewish thought long before the time of Christ. Moreover, if the removing of the levir's shoe is read in connection with John's act then the statement would have held considerable meaning.
Since the shoe represented one's position and/or status, John the Baptist’s statement that he was unworthy to remove Christ’s “shoe” would have signified that Jesus held a stewardship and/or status that John himself was neither capable of assuming and/or taking away from Christ. Think of the English idiom "to fill one's shoes." Therefore, I believe your suggestion that such a performance would have held no meaning to Israelites prior to the time of Christ beyond "showing disrespect" to the shoe's owner fulfills the old proverb that in your argument "for want of a nail the shoe was lost."
Best,
--DB
In your comment, you referred to the symbolic act of removing the shoe of the levir in Deuteronomy 25:9-10, yet I believe you've overlooked an important point. The removal of the shoe when the levir refused to carry out his duty signified that the man had surrendered his right to “come in his brother’s place and take over his status, the shoe standing for the foot which should have been planted in the slot vacated by the deceased brother, thus, supplanting him” (see Ibid. pg. 204, footnote 39).
I do not believe that this was the action John the Baptist had in mind. You are correct that within ancient Judaism, both Mekilta Exodus 21:2 and b. Ketub. 96a specifically state that untying the master’s sandals was the one demeaning task never required of a Hebrew servant. For John to be unworthy of even this task clearly signified that John did not even deserve to function as Jesus’ slave. I would be really surprised, however, to learn that these ancient Rabbinic views prohibiting a slave from performing the demeaning labor of unlatching a sandal did not trace back to a period in Jewish thought long before the time of Christ. Moreover, if the removing of the levir's shoe is read in connection with John's act then the statement would have held considerable meaning.
Since the shoe represented one's position and/or status, John the Baptist’s statement that he was unworthy to remove Christ’s “shoe” would have signified that Jesus held a stewardship and/or status that John himself was neither capable of assuming and/or taking away from Christ. Think of the English idiom "to fill one's shoes." Therefore, I believe your suggestion that such a performance would have held no meaning to Israelites prior to the time of Christ beyond "showing disrespect" to the shoe's owner fulfills the old proverb that in your argument "for want of a nail the shoe was lost."
Best,
--DB