And the angel of the Lord said unto me: Thou
hast beheld that the book proceeded forth from the mouth of a Jew; and when it
proceeded forth from the mouth of a Jew it contained the fulness of the gospel
of the Lord, of whom the twelve apostles bear record; and they bear record
according to the truth which is in the Lamb of God. Wherefore, these things go
forth from the Jews in purity unto the Gentiles, according to the truth which
is in God. And after they go forth by the hand of the twelve apostles of the
Lamb, from the Jews unto the Gentiles, thou seest the formation of that great
and abominable church, which is most abominable above all other churches; for
behold, they have taken away from the gospel of the Lamb many parts which are
plain and most precious; and also many covenants of the Lord have they taken
away. And all this have they done that they might pervert the right ways of the
Lord, that they might blind the eyes and harden the hearts of the children of
men. Wherefore, thou seest that after the book hath gone forth through the
hands of the great and abominable church, that there are many plain and
precious things taken away from the book, which is the book of the Lamb of God.
(1 Nephi 13:24-28)
Commenting
on the above pericope, Brant Gardner wrote the following:
History: Verse 28 contains the scriptural
basis for the eighth Article of Faith’s reservation that we believe the Bible “as
far as sit is translated correctly.” Of course we tend to be most interested in
the removal of the “plain and precious things” from our copies of the Bible,
but that cannot be the meaning that Nephi understood, as most of what we have
as our Bible comes after his time. It is quite probable that this reference to
the removal of plain and precious things had only one meaning for Nephi, and it
was related to the whole purpose of his writing. Nephi “restores” the understanding
of the Atoning Messiah to his people. That restoration was required because of
Josiah’s reforms . . . That reform apparently attempted to remove or diminish
the doctrine of Yahweh as Atoning Messiah. Margaret Barker has been working on
reconstructing the religion of Israel prior to the reform of Josiah. She finds
information and clues in the Bible, but more in the pseudepigraphical writings
that were not controlled by the Deuteronomistics. As she summarizes her
experience, she describes the state of the texts:
There is good reason to believe that other
information about the first temple and the older high priesthood were
deliberately suppressed. When the final form of Exodus was compiled, Moses was
told that no person could make atonement for another. After the sin of the
golden calf, he offered himself if the Lord would forgive the people’s sin, but
he was told: “Whoever has sinned against me, him will I blot out of my book”
(Ex. 32:33). Why had Moses thought such an atonement possible? Perhaps the
older ways were being superseded.
And how has it come about that so many
important text are damaged or have alternative versions? The sons of God text
in Deuteronomy is vital for reconstructing the older religion of Israel, and
yet it exists in two different versions, one without the sons of God. The verse
in Psalm 110 which describes how the king became a son of God is damaged. The
vital messianic passage in Isaiah exists in two different forms—and there are
many more examples. These are not random variations or damage. There is a
pattern. (Margaret Barker, “The Great High Priest,” Brigham Young University
Forum address, May 2003, 14).
The beginnings of the textual alternations
that Barker sees came during Lehi’s lifetime. When the angel discusses the
plain and precious things that have been removed, Nephi could have understood
that in only one way based upon his own experience. The Atoning Messiah was the
“plain and precious” thing that had been removed. Nephi will create his record
to repair that damage and return Yahweh the Messiah to his rightful place in
scripture. This is the message that permeates the Book of Mormon. In a very
literal way, Nephi sets in motion the recovery of the most precious part of the
sacred scripture that he understood to have been removed. (Brant Gardner, Second Witness: Analytical and Contextual
Commentary on the Book of Mormon, volume 1: First Nephi [Salt Lake City:
Greg Kofford Books, 2007], 236-37)
The KJV OT (which is dependent upon the MT tradition) reads:
Thy people shall be willing in the day of thy power, and in the beauties of holiness from the womb of the morning: thou hast the dew of thy youth.
Brenton's translation of the LXX reads:
With thee is dominion in the day of thy power, in the splendours of thy saints: I have begotten thee from the womb before the morning.
Both “your youth” and “I have begotten you” are spelled using the same consonants, ילדתיך. The difference between these two terms is down to vocalisation, which would have been added by the Masoretes in the medieval period. That the ancient Jews understood the correct vocalisation to be “I have begotten you” is seen in the LXX’s use of the verb, “To beget,” εκγενναω (remember that all translation is interpretation). Why did the Masoretes “fudge,” for lack of a better term, the vocalisation of this passage? Psa 110:1, 4 are the most commonly cited verses in the New Testament to demonstrate Jesus’ being the promised Messiah and the superiority of his priesthood and his once-for-all sacrifice against the priests and sacrifices of the Old Covenant, among other things. “I have begotten you” may have been understood by Christians to be an allusion to a then-future miraculous conception of the Davidic King par excellence, with Jesus being the ultimate fulfilment of this coronation text. In an effort to off-set this as a “proof-text” for the virginal conception, the Masoretes vocalised the term differently than how the LXX translators understood it to be rendered, although it is a rather nonsensical reading.