Commenting
on the JST, Christina Darlington wrote:
One change Joseph Smith made to his version
of the Bible is at Genesis 17:10-12 where God makes a covenant with Abraham,
requiring circumcision at “eight days” old. Although this covenant was
performed for centuries by all biblical prophets up through the time of Christ,
Joseph Smith hanged it from “eight days” to “eight years” (see Genesis 17:11 in
the Joseph Smith Translation) and
this change forms the basis of the Mormon practice of baptism at “eight years,”
even though the context of the passage speaks of circumcision, and not baptism.
Does this make sense to you? Would God really wait over 3,000 years of His Prophets and His Son performing the first covenant wrong
until Joseph Smith comes along and corrects it in his Bible? (Christina R.
Darlington, Misguided by Mormonism But
Redeemed by God’s Grace: Leaving the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day
Saints for Biblical Christianity [2d ed.; 2019], 121, emphasis in original)
When I read
this text, I immediately realised where Darlington is getting this misinterpretation of JST Gen 17:11—it comes directly from the misreading of
Lee Baker, a friend of hers. I dealt with this "argument" in a blog
post entitled Answering Lee Baker's "Challenging Questions"; I will
reproduce my answer to Baker (and, by extension, Darlington) here:
Question Two: Genesis
17:11 (JST)
JST Gen 17:11 reads
as follows:
And I will establish
a covenant of circumcision with thee, and it shall be my covenant between me
and thee, and thy seed after thee, in their generations; that thou mayest know
for ever that children are not accountable before me until they are eight years
old.
For Baker, this means
that Joseph Smith erred in teaching that males had to be circumcised at eight
years of age and not at the eighth day. However, Joseph is, in a midrash-like
manner, attempting to show that the children (note there are no qualifications
here--only males, of course, were circumcised, so this is more all-inclusive)
are not "responsible" until they are eight years of age--what is in
view is not when male children are to be circumcised, but when they will be
"accountable" before God, that is, responsible for their own actions.
Being circumcised does not mean, ipso facto, that the child is
morally responsible at eight days of age, such would be an absurdity (cf. Lev
4:2, 13, 27; 5:15; Num 15:24, 25, 27 where one sins "ignorantly")
That this is the case
is proven by JST Gen 17 itself. How so? Here is what verse 17, just six verses
later(!) reads:
And he that is eight days old shall be circumcised
among you, every man child in your generations;
Commenting on JST Gen
17:11, Robert J. Matthews wrote the following:
Another interesting
item has to do with the age at which a child begins to be accountable before
the Lord. A statement in D&C 68:25-28 dated November 1831 places the time
of baptism and accountability at eight years of age. There is no statement specifying
the age of eight years in any earlier section of the Doctrine and Covenants or
in any other scriptures. The Book of Mormon is emphatic that little children
are without sin and do not need baptism, but it does not say at which age they
begin to become accountable and should be baptized. However, in the New
Translation the age of accountability is revealed to Abraham in Genesis 17:11 .
. . This was written in Old Testament Manuscript 2 on page 41. The exact date
of the writing is not specified but page 11 of the manuscript if dated December
1, 1830, and page 61 is dated April 5, 1831. Hence this information was
recorded in Genesis 17:11 of the manuscript sometime between December 1830 and
April 5, 1831. This means that the Prophet had dictated this statement, about
the accountability of children at eight years of age, as part of the new
translation of Genesis by as much as seven to ten months before it
appeared in D&C 68. In other words, the information was most certainly
known to Joseph Smith for quite some time before being recorded in the Doctrine
and Covenants. The exact date when the age of accountability was revealed to
Joseph Smith is not known, but the documentary evidence currently available
links that information to the New Translation in the early spring of 1831.
One further
observation may be in order. The law of circumcision as revealed to Abraham was
to be performed when the child was eight days old, which practice continued in
Old and New Testament times. Since the statement in the New Translation
concerning the age of accountability was given to Abraham in explanation of and
in association with both, there is a strong suggestion that the eight days were
symbolic of the eight years. Even the manner of the wording suggests that
connection: the passage speaks first of the covenant of circumcision and then
says, “that thou mayest know forever . . .” The word that seems
to be the connecting link between the two main thought of the passage. On this
basis and the early dating of the manuscript, I would conclude that the age of
accountability was made known to the Prophet Joseph while translating the
seventeenth chapter of Genesis, early in the year 1831. The age of
accountability is a fundamental concept of the gospel as revealed in the last
days, and its relationship to the New Translation further illustrates the
importance of the Prophet’s work in making the translation. (Robert J.
Matthews, “A Plainer Translation” Joseph Smith’s Translation of the
Bible: A History and Commentary [Provo, UT.: Brigham Young University
Press, 1975], 260-261; emphasis in original)
Had Joseph Smith
wished to argue that the ancient Israelites were circumcised at eight years,
not eight days, of age, he could have made changes to all the other relevant
texts. He did not. Furthermore, he left Luke 2:21 untouched; here is what the
verse reads in the 1867 RLDS edition:
And when eight days
were accomplished for the circumcising of the child, his name was called Jesus; which was so
named of the angel, before he was conceived.
Again,
Darlington shows that she lacks any intellectual honesty and integrity, and
instead of examining the relevant texts themselves (had she done so in this
instance, she would have realised Joseph did not change the age requirement for circumcision!) is just throwing
out everything but the kitchen sink that she has read in anti-Mormon
literature. And no, this is not a bald assertion—not only does the above
example prove such, so do many other examples. See the listing of articles
responding to her book at:
