A friend recently shared a transcript of David Bokovoy’s recent presentation at Sunstone, "The Book of Mormon as Inspired Scripture":
To demonstrate the way context makes a difference in analysis, we might consider the Book of Mormon image of the iron rod, which leads the faithful to the tree of life. How does the author wish his readers to visualize that rod? If the original cultural milieu is the ancient Near East, then the rod is precisely what it is in the Bible, a shepherd's staff belonging to the good shepherd that leads believers to green pastures with desirable fruit, as it guides beside the not so still waters along the path of righteousness for his name’s sake. And though we may, like both Lehi and the psalmist, walk through the valley of the shadow of death, we need not fear the evil represented by the great and spacious building, for the good’s shepherd’s iron rod, his staff, will comfort us throughout our journey. Well, that’s one way of looking at the rod. But what if the author intended something else entirely. What if the image was not directly influenced by Hebraic symbolism, but instead, as my friend Loyd Erickson has suggested online, was a diving rod or witching stick similar to the one used by Oliver Cowdery, and which was declared in one of Smith’s revelations as a sacred tool that allowed him to do many marvelous works? Which image does the text itself depict? Reading the Book of Mormon as 19th century religious literature or as an ancient document produced by people whose ancestral and cultural origins stem from the ancient Near East changes the way we interpret the work.
Frankly, trying to tie the iron rod in 1 Nephi (1 Nephi 8:19,20, 24, 30; 11:25; 15:23) with Oliver Cowdery’s divining rod is desperate, to put things nicely.
To understand how the Book of Mormon’s use of “rod” in general fits better the Ancient Near East, consider the following in chapter of a book entitled “Rod as a Symbol of Power”:
The rod was seen as a symbol of political authority in the ancient Near East. Anciently, shepherds used rods or staffs as a tool to care or their flocks. In the Bible, a connection appears between Israel's rulers and shepherds in passages such as Ezekiel 34:2, 23, and Jeremiah 2:8. In addition, the Egyptian Pharaohs were frequently depicted with a flail in one hand and a small shepherd’s crook in the other.
The famous stela of Hammurabi depicts the Babylonian King receiving a rod from the sun god Shamesh as a sign that Hammurabi was “the shepherd selected by the god Enlil” to establish a righteous government over his people (Marta T. Roth, Law Collections from Mesopotamia and Asia Minor [Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1997], 77). This same symbol also appears throughout the Hebrew Bible. “The Lord shall send the rod of thy strength out of Zion,” declares the Psalmist, “rule thou in the midst of thine enemies” (Psalm 110:2). In a similar passage the prophet Ezekiel declared, “and she had strong rods for the scepters of them that bare rule, and her stature was exalted among the thick branches, and she appeared in her height with the multitude of her branches” (Ezekiel 19:11). These examples demonstrate that the rod once served as an important political authority.
Recognizing the symbolic value associated with the rod in antiquity, it seems significant that Laman and Lemuel chose to beat both he and Sam with a rod (See John A. Tvedntes, “Rod and Sword as the Word of God,” The Journal of Book of Mormon Studies 5/2 [1996]:148-55).
And it came to pass as they smote us with a rod, behold an angel o the Lord came and stood before them, and he spake unto them, saying: why do ye smite your younger brother with a rod? Know ye not that the Lord hath chosen him to be a ruler over you? (1 Nephi 3:29)
The connection between rod and authority seems to have been recognized by the angel of God who chastened Laman and Lemuel for their crime. No doubt the words spoken by the messenger held considerable meaning to Laman and Lemuel, who would have recognized the symbolic value of the weapon they used to bear their younger brothers. As such, the angel’s words seem to have been laced with a degree of poignant irony.
Who wrote such an obvious apologetic piece? Daniel Peterson? Jeff Lindsay? Nope. It came from a book written by both John Tvedtnes and David Bokovoy, Testaments: Links between the Book of Mormon and the Hebrew Bible (Tooele, UT.: Heritage Distribution, 2003), 43-44. Indeed, this is a very important book presenting many interesting evidences for the Book of Mormon as a translation of an ancient text. It is a pity to see Bokovoy do a 180 on the issue of the historicity of the text in such a short space of time.
Again, to understand the nonsense of the “inspired fiction” thesis, Stephen Smoot’s essay, The Imperative for a Historical Book of Mormon is a must-read. My friend, William Hamblin, has a very good post, The Book of Mormon as Inspired Fiction? which also points out some of the overwhelming problems with this nonsense thesis.