In an article on Latter-day Saints and the
Bible, LDS scholar Sidney B. Sperry recounted the following event which
shows how Church leaders have always sought out the best scholarly opinions of
the time to help with their own interpretation of Scripture as well as that of
general Church membership:
Many
years ago Dr. James E. Talmage of the Twelve called me into his office and
asked what I thought of this common interpretation given by our elders to the
Genesis passage. I frankly told him that I disagreed with it, giving my reasons
why. In the first place, the whole of Genesis 18 has provided difficulties to
Hebrew scholars and should be interpreted with caution. As an illustration of
this fact let me quote a recent commentator:
The
relation of the three men to the Lord (v. 1) is difficult. All three angels
(19.1) may represent the Lord (see 16.7n.); thus the plurality becomes a single
person in w. 10, 13. On the other hand, v. 22 and 19 suggest that the Lord is
one of the three, the other two being his attendants.
In the
second place, the Hebrew word for Lord in Genesis 18:1 is different from that
for "lord" in verse 3, which may simply be a sign of greeting
equivalent to "Sir"; and, interestingly, Joseph Smith in his
"Inspired" revision has Abraham say to the three men "My
brethren" instead of "My lord" as given in our modern
translations. A Hebrew scholar can readily understand how an original "My
brethren" might be changed by careless writing to "My lord."
And in
the third place, the Jehovah or Lord of Gen. 18:1 who spoke to Abraham was most
likely the pre-existent Savior. He it was who spoke to Moses, gave the law, and
covenanted with his people Israel (see III Nephi 15:4,5). A pre-existent Savior
would not partake of veal and cakes, and as for Elohim the Father, his name is
not even mentioned in the Hebrew of Genesis 18. And the "lord" of
Gen. 18:3 was probably a mortal being sent with authority from God. So our
elders were undoubtedly wrong in their interpretation of the passage in
Genesis. It was not right, therefore, to use it in their attempts to prove that
God was a being of flesh and bones.
Dr.
Talmage told me that he agreed with my reasoning and said that he was going to
take what steps he could to discourage our elders in using the passage in the
way I have described. My experience has been that our Church Authorities are
always looking for solid, sensible, and reasonable interpretations of
scripture, interpretations that are compatible with the basic principles of the
Gospel. (Sidney B. Sperry, "Scholars and Prophets," Dialogue: A
Journal of Mormon Thought Vol. 2, No. 1 [Spring 1967]:81-82)
