Saturday, December 24, 2022

Christine Elyse Blythe and Christopher James Blythe on the Strangite Interpretation of Ezekiel 37

  

According to the Book of Mormon prophet Lehi, the brass plates “should go forth unto all nations, kindreds, tongues, and people who were of his seed.” (1 Nephi 5:18)

 

In 1846, Strangite Lewis Van Buren expressed his hopes to see this record. He recalled that years before, he possessed “an old-book printed in Germany some hundreds of years ago, containing many curious historical facts, which I considered worthy of notice.” The book described ancient records “engraved upon plates of copper or brass” that had been passed down through the biblical patriarchs and dated to “[a]s early as in the days of Enoch.” Van Buren believed these were the brass plates mentioned in the Book of Mormon.

 

Doubtless these records must contain many mysteries which have not been revealed to the world, and were kept secret among those who were in possession of the holy priesthood. What has become of these precious, original, patriarchal records, the book of Mormon seems to reveal, and are they not the very plates of brass that Lehi brought with him from Jerusalem, when he emigrated to the land of Joseph [i.e., the Americas], which plates were preserved until that time by the Elders of the tribe after Joseph’s death, and containing the revelation of God from the beginning, to come forth in the latter days, in order to be united with the record of Stik [sic] of Judah. (Lewis Van Buren, unnamed, Voree Herald, June 1846)

 

Van Buren curiously believed this record would come forth to fulfill a passage in Ezekiel 37 that Latter Day Saints had often cited as a prophecy of the last days Scripture. . . . Van Buren’s interpretation was unusual in that he identified the future translation of the brass plates with the stick of Ephraim and the Bible with the stick of Judah. . . .When Strang produced a translation of the plates, he also saw it as a fulfillment of Ezekiel 37 but took a different interpretation of the prophecy than either Smith or Van Buren. . . . Strangites initially followed the typical Latter Day Saint interpretation of Ezekiel 37, identifying the stick of Judah as the Bible. However, by July 1849 Strangites looked forward to “the day not far distant when the stick of Judah shall come forth in its purity, and be united with the stick of Ephraim.” (“The Lamanites, Gospel Herald, July 26, 1849) As the Book of the Law was published, Strang spoke of the translation of the brass plates as the stick of Judah. He believed its name came from the fact that he as a descendant of Judah had translated it. (Prophetic Controversy; The Book of the Law, 2nd ed; 2 Nephi 3:12) (Christine Elyse Blythe and Christopher James Blythe, “Strangite Scripture,” in Open Canon: Scriptures of the Latter Day Tradition, ed. Christine Elyse Blythe, Christopher James Blythe, and Jay Burton [Salt Lake City: University of Utah Press, 2022], 178, 179, 180)