Monday, August 26, 2019

Grant Hardy on Implicit and Theological Interpretations of the Bible in the Book of Mormon


In a recent essay on the Bible and the Book of Mormon, Grant Hardy wrote the following on the topic of (1) implicit interpretation and (2) theological innovation of the Bible in the Book of Mormon

Implicit interpretations occur when biblical phrases are used in new contexts or with novel meanings or grammatical twists. Here are three examples:

(1) At Gen 6:3, the cryptic phrase “my spirit shall not always strive with man” seems to refer to a limit set on human lifespans; in The Book of Mormon it indicates the point at which God gives up on his rebellious children (1 Ne 7;14; 2 Ne 26:11; Morm 5:16; Ether 2:15)

(2) Matthew 21:22 portrays Jesus as teaching his disciples “whatsoever ye shall ask in prayer, believing, ye shall receive,” but the verb believing has no obvious object. In The Book of Mormon, the comma after believing is consistently replaced by that, to indicate that Christians should pray in the firm belief that their prayers will be answered: “If ye will not harden your hearts, and ask me in faith, believing that ye shall receive . . . surely these things shall be made know unto you” (1 Ne 15:11). The injunction to “ask . . . believing that ye shall receive” also appears at Enos 1:15, Mosiah 4:21, 3 Ne 18:20, and Moro 7:26.

(3) The book of Revelation famously condemns the Devil and his followers to be tormented with fire and brimstone, whose smoke ascends up forever and ever (Revelation 14:10-11; cf. 19:20; 20:10; 21:8). Despite Dan Vogel’s quite plausible identification of anti-Universalistic tendencies in The Book of Mormon, in three verses the Mormon scripture transforms the fiery phrases of Revelation into a simile (“their torment is as a torment of fire and brimstone”; 2 Ne 9:16, Mosiah 3:27, Alma 12:17) (the word as in 2 Ne 9:16 was added by Joseph Smith in the 1837 edition), and at Mosiah 2:38 the lames are regarded as more psychological or spiritual than literal: “if the man repenteth not . . . the demands of divine justice to awaken his immortal soul to a lively sense of his own guilt, which doth . . . fill his breast with guilt, and pain, and anguish, which is like an unquenchable fire whose flame ascendeth up forever and ever.”

. . . There are many such cases where theological innovation in The Book of Mormon can be recognized from their connections with familiar phrases from the Bible. Three examples follow.

(1) Both the Old and New Testaments use the expression “blot out [one’s] name” to refer to physical destruction or being deleted from God’s book of life. The verb “blot out” can also be paired with “sin” or “transgression” to denote forgiveness. The Book of Mormon continues these uses, but in one particular passage, it is God’s name that should not be blotted out. King Benjamin tells his people that they will be “called by the name of Christ” and that this name “never should be blotted out, except it be through transgression; therefore take heed that ye do not transgress, that the name be not blotted out of your hearts” (Mosiah 5:9, 11).

(2) The omission of “thy kingdom come” from 3 Nephi version of the Lord’s Prayer (cf. 3 Ne 13:10 with Matt 6:10) suggests that Christ actually established his promised kingdom among the Nephites, with significant implications for the problem of the delayed Parousia; i.e., that Jesus actually did return to earth within a generation to establish his kingdom, but that event happened in the Americas rather than in Judea.

(3) Later in his postresurrection appearance in the New World, Jesus tells the Nephite Twelve that “whoso repenteth and is baptized in my name shall be filled. And if he endureth to the end, behold, him will I hold guiltless before my Father at that day when I shall stand to judge the world” (3 Ne 27:16). The phrase “hold [someone] guiltless” is almost exclusively associated with the Ten Commandments (“the Lord will not hold him guiltless that taketh his name in vain”; Exod 20:7; Deut 5:11; Mosiah 13:15), so there is a strong implication that being baptized in Jesus’ name, and then not enduring to the end is one way to take the Lord’s name in vain. (Grant Hardy, “The Book of Mormon and the Bible” in Elizabeth Fenton and Jared Hickman, eds. Americanist Approaches to the Book of Mormon [New York: Oxford University Press, 2019], 107-35, here, pp. 127-29; one disagrees with Hardy's positive comments about Vogel's work, however; for a refutation, see Martin S. Tanner, Is There Nephite Anti-Universalist Rhetoric in the Book of Mormon?)