Sunday, June 20, 2021

James H. Anderson (1933): The Book of Mormon is not the Stick, but the Record of the Stick, of Ephraim

 I have written a few blog posts against the common Latter-day Saint (mis)interpretation of Ezekiel 37:






In his 1933 book, The Present Time and Prophecy, James H. Anderson argued for a similar interpretation of Ezek 37 in light of D&C 27:5:

 

REVELATION SAYS RECORD

 

The Lord in a revelation to the Prophet Joseph Smith (Doc. & Cov. 27:5) says that the one whom He had sent to reveal the Book of Mormon was the angel Moroni, “to whom I have committed the keys of the record of the stick of Ephraim.”

 

Do we differentiate between the “record of the stick” and the “stick” itself?

 

A “record of the stick” is not the “stick;” it is not the thing of which it is merely a “record.” This fact one will note on a moment’s reflection.

 

The Book of Mormon itself says it is a “record of the people of Nephi,” etc. (Preface to the Book of Mormon, taken from the last leaf of the record itself.) It is not “the people of Nephi,” etc., but a “record” of that people.

 

The Prophet Joseph Smith says “The Book of Mormon is a record” (History of the Church, vol. 6, p. 57), and that the plates “contained the record which has been translated” (History of the Church, vol. 1, p. 71); also quoted in “Joseph Smith’s Teachings” (pp. 17, 18.

 

The Prophet Moroni had the mission to reveal the Book of Mormon, he holding the “keys” of the record spoken of.

 

The Prophet Ezekiel (37:16) says the Lord told him to take one stick and write upon it “For Judah, and for the house of Israel, his companions; then take another stick and write upon it for Joseph, the stick of Ephraim, and for all the house of Israel his companions.” These two sticks are called the stick of Judah and the stick of Joseph, or of Ephraim. These two “sticks” were the symbols of two nations that in time were to be made “one in the land upon the mountains of Israel” (37:22); not symbols of two records which are to “grow together the confounding of false doctrines and laying down of contentions,” such as the Book of Mormon says of itself that it is one of two such records (2 Nephi 3:12). This harmonizing result is to be attained through the uniting or “growing together” of the two divine records of Judah and Ephraim, and not of the union of the two nations. The uniting of the two records is to achieve the purpose of “uniting the entire Israelitish family” upon true doctrines, confounding the false. On the other hand, the two nations symbolized by the two sticks placed together as one in the hand of the Prophet Ezekiel (37:17) were to become “one nation in the land upon the mountains of Israel, and one king shall be king to them all; and they shall be no more two nations, neither shall they be divided into two kingdoms any more at all” (37:22). That is the plain, distinct, specific statement made in the book of Ezekiel, as a reading of Ezekiel 37:15-28 definitively portrays.

 

The word “stick” is an English translation of the Hebrew word “ets.” It can be and is translated stick, wood, or tree, in different parts of the Bible, It cannot be translated “roll” or “book,” or a record. The word “roll,” an instrument in writing, in Ezekiel, is translated from the Hebrew word “megillah,” and the word “book,” or “writing,” in Ezekiel is translated from the Hebrew word “sepher.” Neither of the last two Hebrew words can be translated “stick.” Thijs, one may see from any Hebrew-English lexicon, apart from suppositions.

 

THE TWO NATIONS SYMBOLIZED

 

About four hundred years before Ezekiel’s day, united Israel had been divided into two nations, one afterwards known n the Bible as Judah, the other as Ephraim, Joseph, Israel, etc. These are the two nations referred to in Ezekiel, that in the latter days were to become one nation, and in the Book of Mormon when their testimony nationally is referred to (2 Nephi 29:7, 8). One of the sticks of pieces of wood in Ezekiel’s hand symbolized the nation Judah and not the book the Bible or record of that nation. The other sick symbolized the nation Ephraim. The symbolization of the joining of the two sticks was of the union of the two nations into one nation, and not the union of two books or of the records of those two nations. It is a national reunion of Israel. That is the plain, indisputable Bible record.

 

The Bible is not the symbol of the Judah nation. It is a record of that nation, of which the stick in Ezekiel’s hand was a symbol—“Judah, and the children of Israel his companions,” the “stick of Judah,” for that nation.

 

Does the record of the “stick of Judah” consist exclusively of a record of Judah’s descendants tribally, or does the nation Judah or Jews comprise only the Judah tribe? By no means. In the division of the united Israel kingdom as it was under Solomon, as recorded in 1 Kings 11:30-32, 35, 36 and 2 Chron. 10:15, of which the Lord said “this thing is from me” (1 Kings 12:24), the tribe of Benjamin was made one of the two tribes composing the nationally known Judah kingdom in southern Palestine (after the name of the leading tribe); while the subsequently nationally known Israel, or Joseph, or Ephraim nation (after the name of its leading tribe) as variously referred to in the Bible, occupying northern Palestine, comprised ten tribes namely: Ephraim, Reuben, Gad, Asher, Naphthali, Simeon, Zebulon, Issachar, Manasseh, and Dan; Levi being then omitted in designating twelve tribes. Thus Manasseh (or other of the ten), being assigned to the Israel, or Joseph, or Ephraim nation or kingdom, record of his tribal descendants as such comes clearly within the designation “For Joseph, the stick of Ephraim, and for all the house of Israel his companions.” (Ezekiel 37:16). (James H. Anderson, The Present Time and Prophecy: Being a Selection of Addresses Made by Elder James H. Anderson Uniting this Subject with the Divine Testimony of the Prophet Joseph Smith [Salt Lake City: The Deseret News Press, 1933], 150-53, emphasis in original)