Sunday, March 24, 2024

Wesley Ziegler on 2 Nephi 29:3-7, 13

  

And because my words shall hiss forth-- many of the Gentiles shall say: A Bible! A Bible! We have got a Bible, and there cannot be any more Bible. But thus saith the Lord God: O fools, they shall have a Bible; and it shall proceed forth from the Jews, mine ancient covenant people. And what thank they the Jews for the Bible which they receive from them? Yea, what do the Gentiles mean? Do they remember the travails, and the labors, and the pains of the Jews, and their diligence unto me, in bringing forth salvation unto the Gentiles? O ye Gentiles, have ye remembered the Jews, mine ancient covenant people? Nay; but ye have cursed them, and have hated them, and have not sought to recover them. But behold, I will return all these things upon your own heads; for I the Lord have not forgotten my people. Thou fool, that shall say: A Bible, we have got a Bible, and we need no more Bible. Have ye obtained a Bible save it were by the Jews? Know ye not that there are more nations than one? Know ye not that I, the Lord your God, have created all men, and that I remember those who are upon the isles of the sea; and that I rule in the heavens above and in the earth beneath; and I bring forth my word unto the children of men, yea, even upon all the nations of the earth? . . . And it shall come to pass that the Jews shall have the words of the Nephites, and the Nephites shall have the words of the Jews; and the Nephites and the Jews shall have the words of the lost tribes of Israel; and the lost tribes of Israel shall have the words of the Nephites and the Jews. (2 Nephi 29:3-7, 13)

 

Commenting on this text, Wesley Ziegler wrote that:

 

It is a well known fact that Joseph Smith’s contemporaries did react to the Book of Mormon exactly that way. If Smith wrote the Book himself, then he is the one who predicted it would be rejected. If he thought it would be rejected, what did he expect to accomplish by writing it? Many suggest that this passage was inserted as a clever effort to induce people not to reject it. If he expected to persuade the readers not to reject it, then the prophecy that it would be rejected would have been false. Smith might have been too stupid to think of that, but such a conclusion could only be based on the view that he did write the book—or plagiarized it from another stupid person—and the innumerable checks on authenticity reveal the author to be anything but stupid. Since it is necessary to consider other points of cleverness to determine the intelligence of the author, the above passage cannot be advanced on its own merits either for or against the validity of the Book of Mormon. But it definitely is a prophecy and one that was fulfilled. (Wesley Ziegler, An Analysis of the Book of Mormon [Pasadena, Calif.: Wesley Ziegler, 1947], 40)

 

Further Reading:

 

Resources on Joseph Smith’s Prophecies