Tuesday, October 22, 2019

Answering Christina Darlington on JST Genesis 17:10-12 and the Age of those to be Circumcised


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: