Tuesday, November 12, 2019

Ancient Parallels to 2 Nephi 1:13-15


In 2 Nephi 1:13-15, we have this record of Lehi's words to his sons just before his death:

O that ye would awake; awake from a deep sleep, yea, even from the sleep of hell, and shake off the awful chains by which ye are bound, which are the chains which bind the children of men, that they are carried away captive down to the eternal gulf of misery and woe. Awake! and arise from the dust, and hear the words of a trembling parent, whose limbs ye must soon lay down in the cold and silent grave, from whence no traveler can return; a few more days and I go the way of all the earth. But behold, the Lord hath redeemed my soul from hell; I have beheld his glory, and I am encircled about eternally in the arms of his love.

On pp. 4-6 of his paper, Shakespeare and the Book of Mormon, Robert F. Smith provides the following examples in Egyptian, Sumerian, and other Semitic literature that portrays death and the place of the dead (OT: Sheol) as a dark, dreary place the dead (often called “travellers”) are not able to return from:

May you not go on the roads of the western ones [the dead];
They who go on them [travellers] do not return. (Pyramid Text 2175ab)

There is nobody who returns from there. (Papyrus Harris 500, vol. VI, line 8)

Behold, there is nobody who has gone, who has returned. (Ibid., VII, 2-3)

None that have gone have come back. (Song of Vizier Paser, line 12)

Why, pray, have you come to the 'Land of no Return,'
On the road whose traveler returns never,
How has your heart led you? (Sumerian Descent of Inanna)

To the house from which he who enters never goes forth;
To the road whose path does not lead back. (Descent of Ishtar, obv., lines 5-6)

Rise, shake off your dust! (Coffin Text, Spell I, 71ab)

Raise yourself, throw off your dust . . . loosen your bonds . . . ! (Pyramid Text, 1363ac [Coffin Text, III, 248ae])

Raise yourself, shake off the dust of the earth which is on your flesh! (Pyramid Text, 654ad)

Throw off your dust, loosen your bonds! (Pyramid Text, 2008ab; 2009a)

Your ties are loosened! (Pyramid Text, 593b)

Horus comes to you, that he may loosen your ties, that he may burst your chains! (Pyramid Text 2202)

You go away and return, you sleep and wake up. (Pyramid Text 1975ab)

Truly, I live (again), after having fallen asleep. (Book of the Dead, 41, III)

You who hates sleep, who is made tired, rise! (Pyramid Text, 260b)

Landing at the land that loves silence. (Song of Neferhotep I, line 9)

There is no coming back. (Ibid., line 2423)