And because my words shall hiss forth-- many of the Gentiles shall say:
A Bible! A Bible! We have got a Bible, and there cannot be any more Bible. But
thus saith the Lord God: O fools, they shall have a Bible; and it shall proceed
forth from the Jews, mine ancient covenant people. And what thank they the Jews
for the Bible which they receive from them? Yea, what do the Gentiles mean? Do
they remember the travails, and the labors, and the pains of the Jews, and
their diligence unto me, in bringing forth salvation unto the Gentiles? O ye
Gentiles, have ye remembered the Jews, mine ancient covenant people? Nay; but
ye have cursed them, and have hated them, and have not sought to recover them.
But behold, I will return all these things upon your own heads; for I the Lord
have not forgotten my people. Thou fool, that shall say: A Bible, we have got a
Bible, and we need no more Bible. Have ye obtained a Bible save it were by the
Jews? Know ye not that there are more nations than one? Know ye not that I, the
Lord your God, have created all men, and that I remember those who are upon the
isles of the sea; and that I rule in the heavens above and in the earth
beneath; and I bring forth my word unto the children of men, yea, even upon all
the nations of the earth? . . . And it shall come to pass that the Jews shall
have the words of the Nephites, and the Nephites shall have the words of the
Jews; and the Nephites and the Jews shall have the words of the lost tribes of
Israel; and the lost tribes of Israel shall have the words of the Nephites and
the Jews. (2 Nephi 29:3-7, 13)
Commenting on this text, Wesley Ziegler wrote that:
It is a well known fact that Joseph Smith’s contemporaries did react to
the Book of Mormon exactly that way. If Smith wrote the Book himself, then he
is the one who predicted it would be rejected. If he thought it would be
rejected, what did he expect to accomplish by writing it? Many suggest that
this passage was inserted as a clever effort to induce people not to reject it.
If he expected to persuade the readers not to reject it, then the prophecy that
it would be rejected would have been false. Smith might have been too stupid to
think of that, but such a conclusion could only be based on the view that he
did write the book—or plagiarized it from another stupid person—and the innumerable
checks on authenticity reveal the author to be anything but stupid. Since it is
necessary to consider other points of cleverness to determine the intelligence
of the author, the above passage cannot be advanced on its own merits either
for or against the validity of the Book of Mormon. But it definitely is a prophecy
and one that was fulfilled. (Wesley Ziegler, An Analysis of the Book of
Mormon [Pasadena, Calif.: Wesley Ziegler, 1947], 40)
Further Reading:
