Friday, November 25, 2016

Balaam's Donkey, but not Balaam himself, seeing the Angel of the Lord in Numbers 22

God's anger was kindled because he was going, and the angel of the Lord took his stand in the road as his adversary. Now he was riding the donkey, and his two servants were with him, The donkey saw the angel of the Lord standing in the road, with a drawn sword in his hand; so the donkey turned off the road, and went into the field; and Balaam struck the donkey, to turn it back onto the road . . . The angel of the Lord said to him, "Why have you struck your donkey these three times? I have come out as an adversary, because your way is perverse before me." (Num 22:22-23, 32 NRSV)

In this incident, the angel of the Lord appears, but is not seen by Balaam but his donkey. Arguing like a certain anti-Mormon who finds it difficult to believe that Joseph Smith’s brothers could remain asleep while the angel Moroni appeared to Joseph in their shared room, one could (being consistent, something this critic prides himself on not being) argue that this makes the above incident impossible—I mean, how could a glorious angel not be seen by Balaam but by a mere ass?

Further, as discussed in this post, an incident, as recorded in 2 Kgs 6 where an entire angel of angelic beings remains invisible to a large group of people is recorded and affirmed by the biblical authors.


It is funny that the Bible, taken to be the sole, formally sufficient rule of faith (รก la sola scriptura) by Evangelicals, serves as a great witness to the deceptive and inconsistent arguments Evangelicals utilise against the LDS Church.