Wednesday, December 6, 2023

Brant Gardner on the Use of "God" instead of "Gods" in Mosiah 12:35 (=Exodus 20:3)

  

This change may be another simplification measure, but it may also be Abinadi’s deliberate adaptation to his trial before the priests. Because they were building new religious elements on the fundamental law of Moses, they probably had not attempted to alter with its most basic belief in one God, even if the people included converts from polytheistic cultures. In fact, such converts are typically more protective of their new religious principles than lifetime believers. Thus, it seems unlikely that the priests of Noah had attempted to introduce new gods. Rather they had probably reinterpreted the law to effectively deny the salvific role of that one God. . . . Because Abinadi’s defense of the Messiah accuses them of departing from that belief, he may have deliberately shifted to the singular form (“God”) rather than quoting the original (“gods”) because it would be easy for the priests to deny that they worshipped multiple gods. However, Abinadi’s point is not polytheism but a perversion of the worship of the One God. (Brant A. Gardner, Second Witness: Analytical and Contextual Commentary on the Book of Mormon, 6 vols. [Salt Lake City: Greg Kofford Books, 2007], 3:275)

 

Further Reading:


Shon D. Hopkin on the Textual Variant between Exodus 20:3 and Mosiah 12:35