Tuesday, July 9, 2024

Response to Nicholas Joseph Morganti on Changes in the Book of Mormon

The following comes from Nicholas Joseph Morganti, Eternal Life for Latter-day Saints: A Comparison of the Bible's Eternal Life & Mormonism's Exaltation (True Grace Books, 2024), 50-52:

 

Times are Changing and so is Scripture

 

The reality is that the LDS Church admits the Book of Mormon, at the time of this appendix, has undergone almost 4,000 changes. The LDS Church has changed the scriptures thousands of times. So, why would the Church say that nothing has been changed and nothing is left out as of 2015?

 



 

Due to the nature for the story of the gold plates, there are no manuscripts to test the Book of Mormon we have today These changes are not just grammatical or publication errors, but severely revisions change the meaning of the text. Above is a graphic to demonstrate a few of these major changes.

 

These changes not only show a change in theology, but a correction in narrative. The Book of Mormon seems to have been changed on the theological side due to the Latter-day Saint Church’s evolution of the doctrine of the Godhead. At its inception, the Book of Mormon supported a more modalistic view of God, claiming that the Lamb (Jesus) is the “Eternal Father”, only to change it to catch up with the newer view of the Godhead that claims that the three persons of the Godhead are actually three completely separate beings. As for the story of the Book of Mormon, the other changes look to fix Smith’s (or God’s?) errors by revealing things Heavenly Father had not yet, or people presented as alive who were not supposed to be.

 



Comments like the above show that Morganti has never studied Latter-day Saint scholarship and apologetics on the Book of Mormon in general, or on the textual changes in the Book of Mormon specifically. Had he done so, and had he even a modicum of intellectual integrity and honesty, he would engage with Latter-day Saints who have discussed these changes.


1 Nephi 11:21; 13:40: Early Mormon Modalism?

 

Let me note, out of intellectual honesty and integrity (which Morganti lacks), that there are four offending changes critics bring up, not just two, in an effort to claim that Joseph Smith’s earliest Christology was a form of Modalism:

 

(*) 1 Nephi 11:18: originally read "Mary the mother of God," in the 1837 ed. "the son of" was added later in the 1837 ed.

(*) 1 Nephi 11:21, 32, and 13:40: "the son of" was added before "the Eternal Father."

 

Firstly, I think these readings are sound, and both readings are acceptable in LDS theology. "Father" and like-terms are flaccid, not rigid designators; like "God" they can be predicated upon various individuals. In Isa 9:6 (v. 5 Hebrew), the Messianic figure is called "everlasting father" (or better, "father of eternity" [אֲבִיעַד]), but it would be fallacious to read into these passages Modalism. In the Book of Mormon (e.g., Mosiah 3:8) Jesus is called "Father" in that he is the creator, not that he is numerically the same person as the Father. Even in the context of just First Nephi itself, there is always a numerical distinction of person between Jesus and God the Father. For e.g., 1 Nephi 10:7; 11:6-7, 24, 27, 31-32 (same chapter 3 of the 4 changes took place in); 12:5-10, 18; 13:40, etc.)

 

I believe (and I am not alone in thinking this), that the changes were clarifications for a 19th century audience, esp. Mary being "Mother of God," which would lead to the charge of "Romanism," though I think the original readings fit very well with a pre-exilic origin of the Book of Mormon, esp. in light of the scholarship of Mark S. Smith et al. On this, see Brant A. Gardner, “Monotheism, Messiah, and Mormon’s Book” (2003), an revised version appeared as "Excursus: The Nephite Understanding of God," in Second Witness: Analytical and Contextual Commentary on the Book of Mormon, 6 vols. (Salt Lake City: Greg Kofford Books, 2007), 1:214-222.

 

 

Either way, they do not reflect a change in theology. Even in the Original Manuscript, Printer’s Manuscript, and 1830 ed. Jesus in these chapters is distinguished from the person of the Father, being "Son of God" (1 Nephi 11:7, 18 24) and the "Lamb of God" (1 Nephi 13:40 itself)

 

I have discussed the myth of early Mormon modalism at some length, both on a podcast ep and a two-part debate. One can find the playlist, "The Myth of Early Mormon Modalism" at where I also discuss issues such as the Book of Moses, 1832 First Vision Account, the Lectures on Faith, and other Book of Mormon texts such as Mosiah 15:1-4. As far as I can ascertain, alongside Blake Ostler, I have done the most work on this particular topic. Early Latter-day Saint Christology, and even the Christology of the 1830 Book of Mormon, is not Modalism. Only a naïve reading of the text will produce such a theology.


 

Mosiah 21:28: King Benjamin or Mosiah?

 

Again, Morganti seems not to have studied the topic in detail, instead just relying upon a quick google search. Had he done so, he would know it is not just Mosiah 21:18, but Ether 4:1, beginning in the 1849 edition of the Book of Mormon, that changes “Benjamin” to “Mosiah.”

 

There are two possibilities: King Benjamin should be retained in both Mosiah 21:28 and Ether 4:1, or this is a genuine mistake in the Book of Mormon (which is not an issue, as LDS do not believe in scriptural inerrancy, and the title page of the Book of Mormon warns against the “mistakes of men”).

 

On Mosiah 21:28/Ether 4:1 not being an error, consider the following from John Tvedtnes, “The Mistakes of Men: Can the Scriptures be Error-Free?” (2002):

 

King Benjamin’s death is recorded in Mosiah 6:5, but critics claim that when writing the Book of Mormon, Joseph Smith forgot that he had made Benjamin die, and wrote of him living at a later time. (See Mosiah 21:28 and Ether 4:1.) The 1830 edition of the Book of Mormon shows this error, though subsequent editions, in an attempt to remove the problem, changed the name to King Mosiah in the later references.

 

Our normal response to this is that King Benjamin lived three years after his son Mosiah2 was made king. It was at the end of these three years that the expedition was sent to the Land of Nephi, where the plates of Ether were found. After relinquishing his kingship, Benjamin may have continued to act as a seer for the three-year interval. The chronology in this part of the Book is not all that clear and we do not know how long Ammon and his brethren were in the Land of Nephi. It could have been only a matter of weeks or months. It is not inconceivable then, that Benjamin passed away shortly after their return, which still would have been “after three years.” (Mosiah 6:5) It is certainly possible that the keeper of the record of Zeniff or Mormon and Moroni (Ether 4:1) may have erred in compiling the records. After all they were mortals, capable of making mistakes. It is also possible that this was an example of a scribal error, later corrected by Joseph Smith the translator.

 

Brant Gardner believes that this reflects a mistake on the plate text and was correctly changed. Commenting on Mosiah 21:28, Gardner wrote:



Variant: The printer’s manuscript and the 1830 edition of the Book of Mormon read “that king Benjamin had a gift from God. . . .” “Benjamin” became “Mosiah” beginning in the 1837 edition. Ammon left Zarahemla after the coronation of Mosiah (Mosiah 7:2-3) but perhaps before Benjamin’s death three years after the coronation (Mosiah 6:5). Skousen notes that Benjamin lives three years after Mosiah’s coronation and Ammon’s party departs after three years of peace at the beginning of Mosiah’s reign. The timeline is close enough that “some overlap is possible. Perhaps Ammon and his men left not knowing that Benjamin had died, or perhaps he was still alive when they left.”

 

Part of the coronation was Benjamin’s transmittal to Mosiah of religious and royal objects: “And moreover, he also gave him charge concerning the records which were engraven on the plates of brass; and also the plates of Nephi; and also, the sword of Laban, and the ball or director, which led our fathers through the wilderness, which was prepared by the hand of the Lord that thereby they might be led, every one according to the heed and diligence which they gave unto him” (Mosiah 1:16). The interpreters do not appear on this list. Perhaps they were not part of the transfer of kingship. Benjamin may have retained the interpreters and his prophetic functions, passing only the governing function to his son. Therefore, the printer’s manuscript’s mention of “Benjamin” would have been correct in identifying the interpreters as being in his possession, not Mosiah’s (at least when Ammon left Zarahemla). All of this is plausible, but perhaps not the best explanation for this particular variant.

 

Looking past the modern manuscript text and its variants, we must also deal with the sources Mormon used to compile his plate text. In this case, there are two possible records, that of Limhi and that of Ammon. Most of chapter 21 must come from the records of Limhi’s people, even though it is quite probable that Mormon supplemented his sources with some record from Ammon, which is imputed from what must have been available but is never explicitly mentioned. I suggest that the original conversation from Ammon was that “the king” had the “gift from God, whereby he could interpret such engravings” (Mosiah 21:28) and did not mention the name of the king. The people of Limhi would remember only Benjamin, their first leader, Zeniff, having departed during Benjamin’s reign (Omni 1:24-29). The recorders for Limhi’s records entered their own idea of who the unnamed king was and wrote Benjamin into the record. Mormon used that record and therefore that name.

 

This same issue also occurs in Ether 4:1, where Moroni writes Benjamin and the text has been emended to read Mosiah. Of that textual issue, Skousen notes:

 

The passage in Ether 4:1 causes more difficulties than this one on Mosiah 21:28. The Ether passage implies that king Benjamin had some control over the Jaredite record, which means, of course, that he must have still been alive when king Limhi handed over these newly found records to king Mosiah (Mosiah 22:13-14). (Royal Skousen, Analysis of Textual Variants of the Book of Mormon, 3:1419)

 

Rather than a significant textual issue, however, I see Moroni’s reference as a reflection of the presence of Benjamin in Mosiah 21:28. Rather than an independent witness, Moroni is a dependent witness. Moroni simply uses the information as it appeared in his father’s text on the plates that Moroni had with him. (Brant A. Gardner, Second Witness: Analytical and Contextual Commentary on the Book of Mormon, 6 vols. [Salt Lake City: Greg Kofford Books, 2007], 3:374-76)

 

Skousen’s final comment is: “The occurrence of Benjamin instead of Mosiah cannot be readily explained as an error in the early transmission of the text; moreover, the text can be interpreted so that Benjamin was still alive when the plates of Ether were delivered by king Limhi to king Mosiah, who then gave the Jaredite record to his father, king Benjamin, for his examination and safekeeping.” Ibid., 3:1420-21. As I noted above, I disagree with this conclusion. (Ibid., 376 n. 4)

 

Now, if Morganti wants to harp on this being a mistake in the Book of Mormon that was corrected, he will have to be cautious, as the Bible has a similar mistake and attempt by later editors to change. As Tvedtnes (ibid.) noted:

 

It is interesting that the Bible has a situation similar to that found in the Book of Mormon. We read in 1 Kings 14:31-15:5 that Abijam (also called Abijah, as in the parallel passage in 2 Chronicles 12:16) became king of Judah after the death of his father Rehoboam and that, despite his sins, the Lord preserved his kingship for the sake of his ancestor David. Then, in 1 Kings 15:6-7, we read,

 

And there was war between Rehoboam and Jeroboam all the days of his life. Now the rest of the acts of Abijam, and all that he did, are they not written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Judah? And there was war between Abijam and Jeroboam.

 

The name Rehoboam is anachronistic, since he was dead and the passage was intended to describe events in the days of his son Abijam. The error is actually corrected in a few Hebrew manuscripts and in the Peshitta (Christian Aramaic) version to read, “And there was war between Abijah the son of Rehoboam.” The parallel passage in 2 Chronicles 13:2 reads, “And there was war between Abijah and Jeroboam.”

 

An important book to read is that of Isaac Kalimi, The Reshaping of Ancient Israelite History in Chronicles (Winona Lake, Ind.: Eisenbrauns, 2005). It shows that there are many instances that would make the "mistake" view of Mosiah 21:28 seem innocent. On pp. 401-2, we read the following:

 

20.15 According to 1 Kgs 9:26-28, Solomon built ships at Ezion-geber, near Elath on the shore of the Red Sea, and Hiram, king of Tyre, sent “his servants, sailors who were familiar with the sea” to Solomon. Hiram’s servants sailed to Ophir with Solomon’s servants to import gold.

 

In 2 Chr 8:17-18 the Chronicler apparently wanted to show that Solomon initiated this expedition. He wrote that Solomon went “to Ezion-geber and to Elath on the seacoast” (instead of “Ezion-geber, near Elath” in Kings!”); and Hiram sent him not only Tyrian sailors but also ships: “Hiram sent him, with his servants, ships and servants familiar with the sea. They went to Ophir with Solomon’s servants and imported gold . . . from there.” This does not seem to be a textual error, as Rudolph claims. He emends the text to read, “And for the ships he sent his servants who know well the sea.” At any rate, there is no textual support for either the supposed error or for the proposed emendation. The Chronicler’s citation is a paraphrase of the earlier text that ignored the vast geographical and technological problems prohibiting the dispatch of ships from Tyre on the Phoenician coast to Ezion-geber on the Red Sea—either by land or by sea. It is unreasonable to assume that Hiram’s ships sailed from Tyre around the African continent to reach Ezion-geber. Neither is there any evidence of a canal linking the Nile and the Red Sea during the Solomonic era. However, these possibilities existed in the Chronicler’s day, as we read in Herodotus 2.158 and 4.42 and on steles set up by Darius I (522-486 B.C.E.) along the route of the canal between the Nile and the Red Sea. On one of the steles, Darius said, “I ordered this canal to be dug up to link the river flowing throughout Egypt with the sea coming from Persia . . . and ships sail from Egypt along this canal to Persia.” But the sources available to us do not indicate that this canal existed during the period of the United Monarchy.

  

Elsewhere (ibid., 384-85), commenting  on the books of Chronicles and Inconsistency in the Completion of “Elliptical Verses," Kalimi wrote:


Inconsistency in the Completion of “Elliptical Verses”

 

The Chronicler did not always complete “elliptical phrases” that he found in earlier books. For example, he used the words of 1 Kgs 8:9 in his book (2 Chr 5:10) just as they were : “where the Lord drew up with the Israelites” (meaning “where the Lord drew up a covenant with the Israelites”). The same thing occurs in the Chronicler’s version of 1 Kgs 9:5, “as I spoke of David, your father.” In 2 Chr 7:18 the Chronicler altered the text but did not complete it, stating, “as I drew up with David, your father” instead of “as I drew up a covenant with David, your father.” He may have refrained from completing these phrases because their intent was clear to the average reader. Nevertheless, these examples do show that the Chronicler was not consistent in his reworking of elliptical phrases found in the earlier texts.

 

Furthermore, the Chronicler himself occasionally wrote elliptically. Thus, for example, in 2 Chr 13:10 (an “addition”) he wrote, “but we are_____ the Lord our God’s, and we have not abandoned him,” instead of “but we are with the Lord our God, and we have not abandoned him.” Several examples of this have to do with the Hebrew idiom “to find strength.” For instance, in 2 Chr 20:37 (an “addition”) he wrote, “they did not find _____ to travel to Tarshish” instead of “they did not find strength to travel to Tarshish [= were not able to travel to Tarshish].” In 2 Chr 14:10[11] ( an “addition”) he wrote, “in your name we have come against this multitude; O Lord, you are our God; let no mortal find _____ against you” instead of “Let no mortal find strength against you [prevail against you],” just as in 2 Chr 13:20 (an “addition”), “Jeroboam did not recover his strength”; and in 2 Chr 22:9 (“an addition”), “the House of Ahaziah did not find strength to reign [had no one able to rule the kingdom].”

 

2 Chr 1:2-3 (“an addition”) is elliptical: “Then Solomon said to all Israel, to the captains of the thousands . . . to the heads of families _____. Then Solomon, and all the crowd with him, went to the high place that was at Gibeon.” In other words, he told them to go with him to the high place at Gibeon, and then they went with him. Similarly, 2 Chr 2:2[3], “Then Solomon sent word to Hiram, king of Tyre, ‘As you did with David my father and sent him cedar to build himself a house to live in _____,’” is apparently an elliptical verse that should be completed with “so do with me.”

 

In this category also falls the lack of syntactical connection to 1 Chr 29:3 (“an addition”), “in addition to everything I have prepared for the sacred House” instead of “in addition to everything that (אשר) I have prepared for the sacred House”; and in 2 Chr 32:31 (“an addition”), “to test him to know everything in his heart” instead of “to test him to know everything that which was in your heart.”

 

Perhaps the best way to view the elliptical sentences appearing in the “additions” is that they were a kind of high style that was an attempt to imitate earlier language in order to provide the “addition” (or an emendation by the Chronicler himself) with literary character that would be thought to be "early.”


Morganti has to engage in double standards to critique the Book of Mormon but to ignore the issues with the Bible (of course, this assumes he knows about these issues; I doubt he has studied textual criticism and other areas in any depth beyond Josh McDowell-level apologetics).


2 Nephi 30:6: “White” or “Pure”?

 

Firstly, it should also be noted is that, in Hebrew, *LBN לבן can either mean "white" or "pure," depending on the sense (denotative or connotative), as can be seen in its use in the Bible. "Pure" fits the context of 2 Nephi 30, especially in light of the fact that, notwithstanding popular eisegesis by LDS and non-LDS alike, the context is not about skin color/phenotype, but about the converted Jews and the Gentiles (v. 3). Consider the following from HALOT:

 

4530  לבן

 

I לבן: to be white; ? denom. from לָבָן; white-coloured > milk )Bauer-L. Heb. 462r; Gradwohl 4:34ff(; MHeb. pi. to whiten, hif. to become white; Ph. (Friedrich §196a) and Pehl. (Jean-H. Dictionnaire 134; Junker Frahang 31 var. a); Arb. laban.

 

pi: inf. ) לַבֵּן:: hif. < *לְהַלְבֵּן, Bauer-L. Heb. 228a, 322t( to whiten, cleanse Da 1135. †

 

hif: pf. הִלְבִּינוּ; impf. אַלְבִּין, יַלְבִּינוּ: to become white )Bauer-L. Heb. 294b( Is 118 Jl 17 Ps 519. †

 

hitp: impf. יִתְלַבְּנוּ: to be cleansed )Brockelmann Grundriss 1:535; Bauer-L. Heb. 291j( Da 1210. †

 

Der. I and II לָבָן, לִבְנֶה, לִבְנָה, I and II לְבָנָה, לְבָנוֹן, לִבְנִי.

 

Interestingly, this is also a concept found in texts predating the Book of Mormon. In the autobiography of Kay, a text dating to the First Intermediate Period in Egypt (2181 BC – 2055 BC), Kay describes himself thusly in line 3:


ḥḏ ẖr nfr bỉt

"bright of face, good of character"

In the same line, he is said to be:

p3ḫ ḥt šw m snkt

“Open-hearted, free of darkness.”

Such should remind one of 2 Nephi 30:6, where “white” (in later editions, “pure”) are used to describe the then-future Jews and Gentiles and their spiritual state and that of the spiritual nature of the Lamanites. As we read in the 1830 Book of Mormon:

And now, I would prophesy somewhat more concerning the Jews and the Gentiles. For after the book of which I have spoken shall come forth, and be written unto the Gentiles, and sealed up again unto the Lord, there shall be many which shall believe the words which are written; and they shall carry them forth unto the remnant of our seed. And then shall the remnant of our seed know concerning us, how that we came out from Jerusalem, and that they are a descendant of the Jews. And the Gospel of Jesus Christ shall be declared among them; wherefore, they shall be restored unto the knowledge of their fathers, and also to the knowledge of Jesus Christ, which was had among their fathers. And then shall they rejoice, for they shall know that it is a blessing unto them from the hand of God; and their scales of darkness shall begin to fall from their eyes; and many generations shall not pass away among them, save they shall be a white and a delightsome people.

On the autobiography of Kay, one can read the Egyptian text in Egyptian Reading Book, Volume 1: Exercises and Middle Egyptian Texts, ed. A. De Buck (Leyden: Nederlandsch Archaeologisch-Philologisch Instituut Voor Het Nabije Oosten, 1948), 73-74.

The following comes from John A. Tvedntes, “The Charge of ‘Racism’ in the Book of Mormon,” FARMS Review 15, no. 2 (2003), 193-96 which gives a good history of this change in the verse:

 

“White” versus “Pure”

 

According to the 1830 edition of the Book of Mormon, Nephi, speaking of the latter-day restoration, discussed the future conversion of Lehi’s descendants: “And then shall they rejoice; for they shall know that it is a blessing unto them from the hand of God; and their scales of darkness shall begin to fall from their eyes; and many generations shall not pass away among them, save they shall be a white and a delightsome people” (2 Nephi 30:6). In 1840 the Book of Mormon was “carefully revised by the translator,” Joseph Smith,¹⁵ and in that edition the expression “white and delightsome” was changed to “pure and delightsome.” This change seems to reflect the Prophet’s concern that modern readers might misinterpret this passage as a reference to racial changes rather than to changes in righteousness. Possibly his sojourns in Ohio and Missouri had altered his perspective of the racial connotations of the term white in the contemporary United States, particularly among slaves and slaveholders. He may not have gained much understanding of this matter during his upbringing in New England and New York State, where slavery was not as common.¹⁶

 

Unfortunately for subsequent Latter-day Saint interpreters, following the Prophet’s death the changes in the 1840 edition of the Book of Mormon were not carried over into subsequent printings, which were instead based on an edition prepared by the Twelve Apostles in Great Britain after a copy of an earlier edition. The apostles, being in England, were not familiar with the 1840 edition. Consequently, Latter-day Saints did not reap the benefit of the Prophet’s clarification until it was restored in the 1981 edition of the Book of Mormon.¹⁷ Some critics have been fond of citing statements of earlier Latter-day Saint leaders, who once interpreted 2 Nephi 30:6 to mean that conversion leads to a change of skin color; however, to use such statements today is anachronistic at best and disingenuous at worst since these statements were all expressed previous to the 1981 correction and merely echo a misinterpretation of the Book of Mormon text rather than the authoritative text itself. Moreover, a change in Lamanite skin color was clearly never intended by the “white/pure and delightsome” passage that the Prophet Joseph modified because it does not refer to the Lamanites at all, but to the Nephites and Jews in the latter days who turn to Christ (see 2 Nephi 30:1–7).

 

But is the Prophet’s change from “white” to “pure” justified in the scriptural context? The answer is yes. The terms white and pure are used synonymously in Daniel 7:9, Revelation 15:6, and Doctrine and Covenants 110:3. They are also found together in a number of passages where they clearly refer to those who are purified and redeemed by Christ (Alma 5:24; 13:12; 32:42; Mormon 9:6; D&C 20:6). Similarly, Mormon expressed the hope that the Nephites “may once again be a delightsome people” (Words of Mormon 1:8). It was also of the Nephites that he wrote:

 

And also that the seed of this people may more fully believe his gospel, which shall go forth unto them from the Gentiles; for this people shall be scattered, and shall become a dark, a filthy, and a loathsome people, beyond the description of that which ever hath been amongst us, yea, even that which hath been among the Lamanites, and this because of their unbelief and idolatry. (Mormon 5:15)

 

T he use of black-and-white imagery to typify purity and righteousness is exemplified in the works of Ephraim of Syria, a fourthcentury a.d. Old World Christian writer, who commented on Philip’s baptism of the Ethiopian eunuch (Acts 8:26–39) as follows: “The eunuch of Ethiopia upon his chariot saw Philip: the Lamb of Light met the dark man from out of the water. While he was reading, the Ethiopian was baptised and shone with joy, and journeyed on! He made disciples and taught, and out of black men he made men white. And the dark Ethiopic women became pearls for the Son.”¹⁸ One of Ephraim’s poems explains that “bodies that were filled with stains are made white” by means of anointing and baptism.¹⁹ The Qur’an, a seventh-century Semitic text, also speaks of the day of judgment as “the day when some faces will be white and some faces will be black” (3:106). This could be taken as a reference to purity and righteousness on the one hand and impurity and wickedness on the other, or to salvation and damnation, but certainly not to race, since Islam has always been reasonably color-blind.²⁰ Modern Arabic still uses the idiom sawwada wajhuhu to describe the act of discrediting, dishonoring, or disgracing a person, but its literal meaning is “to blacken the face” of someone.

 

Notes for the Above:

 

15. See introduction to the 1840 edition of the Book of Mormon.

 

16. Use of the term white for the concept of purity was well attested at the time Joseph Smith translated the Book of Mormon, as well as in his cultural context. Out of six meanings for the term given in Noah Webster’s 1828 American Dictionary of the English Language, three concern purity, while only two concern color. The last concerns venerability.

 

17. For a more detailed explanation of the history of this textual variant, see Larry W. Draper

, “Book of Mormon Editions,” in Uncovering the Original Text of the Book of Mormon, ed. M. Gerald Bradford and Alison V. P. Coutts (Provo, Utah: FARMS, 2002), 43.

 

18. “The Pearl: Seven Hymns on the Faith” 3:2, in Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, 2nd ser., ed. Philip Schaff and Henry Wace (1890–1900; reprint, Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson, 1994), 13:295. My thanks to Mark Ellison for bringing this passage to my attention.

 

19. This translation comes from text 16, stanza 7, of a forthcoming edition of selected poems of Saint Ephraim the Syrian, edited and translated by Sebastian P. Brock and George A. Kiraz, to be published in a bilingual side-by-side format by Brigham Young University Press in 2004. See also Sebastian Brock, trans., The Harp of the Spirit: Eighteen Poems of St. Ephrem, 2nd ed. (London: Fellowship of St. Alban and St. Sergius, 1983), 49. My thanks go to Daniel C. Peterson for this reference and the next.

 

20. Bernard Lewis, Race and Color in Islam (New York: Harper and Row, 1971).

 

 

That the Book of Mormon is not a “racist” document (although it, like the Bible and other ancient literature, ethnocentric), see:

 

B. H. Roberts Foundation: “Racism in the Book of Mormon

 

David M. Belnap, "The Inclusive, Anti-Discrimination Message of the Book of Mormon," Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship 42 (2021): 195-370


 

"Jesus Christ" in 1 Nephi 12:18 in the 1830 Book of Mormon

 

Scripture often uses terms and names in a proleptic manner or project modern names/words back into texts. For instance, note Jer 46:2:

Concerning Egypt, about the army of Pharaoh Neco, king of Egypt, which was at the river Euphrates near Carchemish, and which was defeated by King Nebuchadrezzar of Babylon, in the fourth year of King Jehoiakim son of Josiah of Judah. (1985 JPS Tanakh)

Nebuchadrezzar was not king at the battle at Carchemish; instead, the author of this verse is projecting the title back.

This may be what is going on in the Book of Mormon in 1 Nephi 12:18. The 1830 edition of the Book of Mormon reads differently than the 1837 and subsequent editions:

And the angel spake unto me, saying, Behold . . .  Jesus Christ, which is the Lamb of God, of whom the Holy Ghost beareth record, from the beginning of the world until this time, and from this time henceforth and forever. And while the angel spoke these words, I beheld and saw that the seed of my brethren did contend against my seed, according to the word of the angel; and because of the pride of my seed, and the temptations of the devil, I beheld that the seed of my brethren did overpower the people of my seed.

Some believe this is a contradiction in the Book of Mormon, based on the belief that the name/title “Jesus Christ” was first revealed to Jacob, per 2 Nephi 10:3. While I do not believe 2 Nephi 10:3 necessitates this being the first time that Nephi et al were made aware of the name of the then-future Messiah (all Jacob states is that an angel told him the future name/title of the Messiah), even taking this to be the case, what we have in 1 Nephi 12:18 (in the earliest printings of the Book of Mormon) is Nephi adding the name “Jesus Christ” to the words of the angel in a proleptic and editorial manner, decades after the event, something we find in Jer 46:2 as well as various editorial changes to the text of the Torah itself. For more, see Biblical Prophets Changing their Words and the Words of Previous Prophets, which also blows Morganti's naive understanding of scripture out of the water. As I write on this piece with respect to editorial changes and other issues in the Torah:



  GGen 12:6; 13:7 were written from the perspective of someone living in a time when the Canaanites were no longer in the land.

·       The list of Edomite kings in Gen 36

·       The phrase "before there reigned any kings over the children of Israel" (Gen 36:31), indicating that the author was living at a time when kings were part of Israel's history (a note which would have been unnecessary during the time of Moses and his contemporaries)

·       The statement "No prophet ever again arose in Israel like Moses" in Deut 34:10

·       Reference to the "book of the wars of the Lord" (Num 21:14) as an account corroborating a geographical description (Moses would not have needed to write this to an audience contemporary with these events and the geography thereof)

·       The parenthetical note in Deut 2:20-23 is from an author later than Moses, explaining the presence of the Ammonites in the and, and why God had instructed Israel (through Moses) not to fight them.

·       Use of the place name "Dan" in Gen 14:14--this place was originally known as Laish, and was not captured by Dan until the time of the Judges.

·       The explanatory note "Kiriath Araba (that is, Hebron)" in Gen 23:2--this change of place name did not happen until the time of Joshua.

·       The use of "Bethlehem" as a place name in Gen 35:19; 48:7.

·       Repeated explanations of where certain places are, showing the reader was not going to be familiar with them (unnecessary for anyone living during Moses' or Joshua's time)--the wilderness of Zin, identified for the reader as being between Elim and Sinai (Exo 16:1; Num 33:36); Ijeabarim, identified as being near Moab (Num 21;11); Arnon, identified as the border of Moab (Num 21;13); a clarification necessary because previously it belonged to the Amorites (Judges 11:22-26); Etham, identified as being on the edge of the wilderness (Num 33:6); Jebus being identified as Jerusalem (Joshua 18:28; Judges 19:10).


·       Reference in Gen 10:12 to "the great city of Calah" which did not exist until the ninth century BC.

LDS scholar, John Tvedntes, wrote the following under the heading of “Old Testament ‘Abridgers’”:

Evidence for abridgement or redaction of earlier documents is found throughout the historical books of the Bible (Judges through 2 Chronicles). The book of Judges covers such a long period of time that it must have been compiled from earlier records or oral traditions. That it was composed by a single historian is suggested by the fact that the book, as a whole, describes what the author saw as a cycle of sin, followed by captivity, then the cry of the people for assistance, and their delivery by a judge called by God. The perspective is clearly ex post facto rather than contemporary.

According to the Talmud, Samuel wrote the book of Judges (TB Baba Bathra 14b). But the notice that “in those days there was no king in Israel” (Judges 17:6; 18:1; 19:1; 21:25) suggests that the book was composed at a time when there was a king in Israel. Moreover, the use of the name “Israel” leads to three possible conclusions. Either the book was written during the time of the united monarchy (Saul, David, Solomon), or it was composed in the kingdom of Israel after its split with Judah following the death of Solomon, or it was composed after both kingdoms had ceased to exist and had become more historical facts. In any event, the author would have had to have access to earlier records (whether written or oral) and may thus be termed an “abridger.” One of the records used by this abridger is the book of Joshua. Thus, for example, the story in Judges 1:11-15 is also found in Joshua 15:15-19, while Judges 2;6-9 draws upon Joshua 24:28-31.

But we can narrow down the time period for the composition of Judges even more In Judges 18:30, we read of the establishment of a shrine at the site of Dan, in northern Israel, where the family of one Jonathan “were priests to the tribe of Da until the day of the captivity of the land.” Since the ten tribes were taken captive by the Assyrians in 722 B.C., it is likely that the book of Judges was written after that time or that, at the very least, an editor added these comments at the later date . . . Similar phenomena are found in the book of Samuel, which was only later divided into 1-2 Samuel. Samuel, of course, did not write the book. His death is recorded in 1 Samuel 25:1. Since this is before the end of the later subdivision of 1 Samuel, it is clear that he did not write that book in its present form either. This does not mean that Samuel wrote nothing, or we have a clear statement in 1 Samuel 10:25 that Samuel had written some things. Some of his material may have been used by the later author who composed the book of Samuel. Indeed, because it covers such a long span of time, Samuel evidently is a combination of various works (see 1 Chronicles 29:29).

The time period in which the book of Samuel was written may be indicated by some of the anachronisms that appear in it. For example, in 1 Samuel 2:10, there is a reference to “his king,” in a period supposedly predating the choosing of Saul (1 Samuel 9) as Israel’s king. In several passages, we find mention of Judah and Israel at a time when they were supposedly a united people under either Saul or David (1 Samuel 11:8; 17:52; 18:16; 2 Samuel 3:10; 5:5; 11:11; 12:8; 19:11, 40-43; 21:2; 24:1, 9; see 1 Chronicles 21:5).



In 1 Samuel 1:9, there is reference to a temple, at a time when, according to other statements in the Bible, there was not yet a temple. This places the writing at least in the time of Solomon, who constructed the temple. But the reference to the kingdom of Judah in 1 Samuel 27:6 provides evidence that the book was written after the death of Solomon., for the kingdom was not split in two until the time of his son Rehoboam. (John A. Tvedtnes, The Most Correct Book: Insights from a Book of Mormon Scholar [Salt Lake City: Cornerstone, 1999], 3-5).



Matthew P. Roper, writing in response to critic Brent Lee Metcalfe, wrote the following:

 

Christ's Name

 

Metcalfe claims that "originally the revelation of 'Christ' to Jacob [in 2 Nephi 10:3] was redundant, since 'Jesus Christ had already been revealed to Nephi [1 Nephi 12:18]" (p. 430). Yet, contrary to Metcalfe, Jacob never claimed that his information on Christ's name was unique, merely that an angel had reaffirmed that this was his name. Nephi, who inserted these teachings into his record on the small plates, explained that he quoted from his brother Jacob's writings not because they were unique but because they offered another witness that his own teachings and revelations were true. Thus Nephi says, "And my brother, Jacob, also has seen him [Christ]; wherefore I will send their [Jacob and Isaiah's] words forth unto my children to prove unto them that my words are true (2 Nephi 11:3). Likewise it would be incorrect to say that King Benjamin's discourse "was to disclose the Messiah's 'name' for the first time" (p. 430 n. 44). Benjamin makes no claim that he name "Christ" is new; he only states that because of the people's faithfulness and diligence he would confer that name upon them as a people—which is something quite different. (Matthew P. Roper, "A More Perfect Priority?," FARMS Review of Books on the Book of Mormon 6, no. 1 [1994]: 366-67 [in Hebrew, "name" is the same word as "title" [שֵׁם]; cf. Isa 9:6 [v. 5 in Hebrew]).

 

For more, see Royal Skousen, Analysis of Textual Variants in the Book of Mormon, 258-59


It should be noted that the Bible is open to similar charges of theologically-driven changes (and frankly, a better case can be made). One leading scholar on this is Juha Pakkala. COmpare the following with what Morganti writes on p. 53: 


People have dedicated their lives to disproving the Bible only to find the Bible consistent through time, accurate in history, and kept miraculously intact.

 

Commenting on Exodus 24:9-11 in the MT and LXX and Whether God Can Be Seen, he wrote:


An Addition That Created an Omission in Exod 24:9-11

 

Exodus 24:9-11 provides another illustrative example of how later editors regarded the idea of seeing Yhweh as theologically offensive. Here the correction was made by an addition, which de facto created an omission, although no section of the older text was omitted.

 

According to the Masoretic version of Exod 24:9-11 (with the exception of some additional names in v. 9, the S[amaritan]P[entateuch] follows the MT closely in these verses), Moses, Aaron and the elders of Israel went up (to the mountain of Sinai), where they saw the God of Israel. Unlike in many other passages, which refer to God’s glory or fire being seen, this text refers to God himself being seen. It also implied that they see his feet under which there was a pavement made of sapphire, pure like heaven. The reference to the feet implies an anthropomorphic form. The LXX translation, however, contains two small additions that in effect omit the idea that God could be seen:

 

Exod 24:9-11 MT

Exod 24:9-11 LXX

‎ויעל משׁה ואהרן נדב ואביהוא9
ושׁבעים מזקני ישׂראל

 

10 ‎ויראו

את אלהי ישׂראל
‎ותחת רגליו כמעשׂה לבנת
‎הספיר וכעצם
‎השׁמים לטהר

11 ‎ואל־אצילי בני ישׂראל
‎לא שׁלח ידו
‎ויחזו את־האלהים
‎ויאכלו וישׁתו

9 καὶ ἀνέβη Μωυσῆς καὶ Ααρων καὶ Ναδαβ
καὶ Αβιουδ καὶ ἑβδομήκοντα τῆς γερουσίας
Ισραηλ
10 καὶ εἶδον
τὸν τόπον οὗ εἱστήκει ἐκεῖ
ὁ θεὸς τοῦ Ισραηλ
καὶ τὰ ὑπὸ τοὺς πόδας αὐτοῦ ὡσεὶ ἔργον
πλίνθου σαπφείρου καὶ ὥσπερ εἶδος
στερεώματος τοῦ οὐρανοῦ τῇ καθαριότητι
11 καὶ τῶν ἐπιλέκτων τοῦ Ισραηλ
οὐ διεφώνησεν οὐδὲ εἷς
καὶ ὤφθησαν ἐν τῷ τόπῳ τοῦ θεοῦ
καὶ ἔφαγον καὶ ἔπιον

9 Moses and Aaron, Nadab, Abihu
and seventy of the elders of Israel
went up, 10 an they saw

the God of Israel; and there was
under his feet as it were
a pavement of sapphire stone,
like the very heaven for clearness.
11 And he did not lay his hand
on the chief men
of the people o Israel;
and they beheld God,
and ate and drank.

9 Moses and Aaron, Nadab, Abihu
and seventy of the elders of Israel
went up, 10 and they saw
the places where stood
the God of Israel; and there was
under his feet as it were
a pavement of sapphire stone,
like the very heaven for clearness.
11 And of the chosen
ones of Israel there
was not even one missing
they beheld in the place of God,
and ate and drank.

 

The Greek version adds a reference to the place where God stood (v. 10) and a place of God (v. 11) immediately after the verb so that the original object was replaced by the addition. As a consequence, the original object, God, now only defines that the place is that is seen ( à place where God stood). Because the plus in the LXX occurs twice in a similar context having a similar effect in the text, the possibility of an accidental omission in the MT/SP can be excluded. The Greek version is a secondary attempt to avoid the idea that God could be seen. However, the Greek text was not systematically edited in this respect because it preserves a reference to the feet of God.

 

The additions show that the editor (or translator) who made the additions had a high regard for the text and was not unwilling or not allowed to make substantial changes to it. The older test was preserved if the correction in content could be made with an addition, a tendency that we have also seen elsewhere. For the editor it was evidently easier to accept an addition than an omission if the result was similar. The example also shows that the omission of a theologically offensive idea could be achieved by an expansion that effectively avoided the original meaning of the sentence. (Juha Pakkala, God's Word Omitted: Omissions in the Translation of the Hebrew Bible [Forschungen zur Religion und Lieratur des Alten und Neuen Testaments 251; Bristol, Conn.: Vandenhoeck and Reprecht, 2013], 195-96)


Commenting on 2 Sam 5:24 in the MT and LXX, Juha Pakkala wrote the following which could serve as evidence of a “divine feminine” in the Old Testament:

The MT contains an intentional omission in the MT, while the LXX probably preserves the original text. Verses 22-25 describe the battle between David and the Philistines in the valley of the Rephaim. David asks Yhwh how to deal with the Philistines. The divinity instructs David to outflank them so that he will be behind them (v. 23), and this is followed by instructions on when exactly to attack (v. 24):

2 Sam 5:24 MT
2 Sam 5:24 LXX*
יהי כ/בשׁמעך  את־קול
צעדה
בראשׁי הבכאים
אז תחרץ

כי אז יצא יהוה לפניך
להכות במחנה פלשׁתים
καὶ ἔσται ἐν τῷ ἀκοῦσαί σε τὴν φωνὴν
τοῦ συγκλεισμοῦ (סעדה)
τοῦ ἄλσους/των αλσων τοῦ κλαυθμῶνος
τότε καταβήσει
πρὸς αὐτούς/εις τον πολεμον,
ὅτι τότε ἐξελεύσεται κύριος ἔμπροσθέν σου
κόπτειν ἐν τῷ πολέμῳ τῶν ἀλλοφύλων
when you hear the sound of
marching
in the tops of the weeping (trees),
then act; for then Yhwh goes
before you to smite
the camp of the Philistines
When you hear the sound of
commotion
of Asherah of the weeping (trees)/of Bokim
then go down to them, for then Yhwh
goes forth before you to make havoc
in the battle against the foreigners.

Hutzli ("Theologische Textanderungen," 224-230) has rightly argued that the Greek του αλσους/των αλσων του κλαυθμωνος is to be preferred over the of the בראשׁי הבכאים MT. In the LXX, the Greek word αλσος is nearly always the translation of the Hebrew Vorlage אשרה; here the Vorlage would have read סעדה אשרה הבכאים and would refer to the commotion caused by the Asherah of Bokim, a divinity known to be present at a place called Bokim. This would make perfect sense here and it would be very difficult to explain how the LXX translation came about if it did not represent the original text. The MT, however, is easily explained as a theological correction, because the text seems to suggest that Yhwh and Asherah were closely connected divinities, an idea also corroborated by the ostraca from Kuntilet Ajrud and Khirbet el-Qom. The LXX reading suggests that Asherah, perhaps in the form of a tree, indicated the beginning of the action of Yhwh, which implies that these two divinities worked together to destroy the Philistine army. Although the possibility of an accidental corruption is evoked by McCarter, one should reject it and follow Hutzli's suggestion instead. The original text would thus refer to the commotion caused by Asherah of Bokim or of weeping (trees) . . . it is significant that the MT contains an intentional theological omission where a reference to the close connection between Yhwh and Asherah was omitted by replacing the word Asherah with a word that contains many of the same letters but that changes the meaning completely (אשרה - בראשי). The MT implies that only Yhweh is acting and that his form is somehow marching on top of the trees, while the LXX suggests that Asherah was also an active participant in the events. (Juha Pakkala, God's Word Omitted: Omissions in the Translation of the Hebrew Bible [Forschungen zur Religion und Lieratur des Alten und Neuen Testaments 251; Bristol, Conn.: Vandenhoeck and Reprecht, 2013], 212-13)


Finally, commenting on a small, purposeful and theologically-motivated change to the biblical texts by the Chronicler, Müller, Pakkala, and ter Haar Romeny wrote:


A Small Omission with a Large Impact:
Jehoiada the Priest Teaches Joash

The Chronicler’s account of Joash’s reign in 2 Chr 24:1-27 is thoroughly different from that of 2 Kgs 12:1-22, but the beginning of the story was taken almost word for word from 2 Kgs 12. Many details in the source text conflicted with the Chronicler’s theological and other conceptions, but especially the basic development of the events as described in 2 Kgs 12 would have been difficult if not impossible for him to accept

According to 2 Kgs 12, King Joash was a good king because Jehoiada, the priest, had taught him, and consequently Joash took interest in the temple and restored it. Except for the high places, which are a recurrent sin of all good and evil kings of Judah up to King Hezekiah, King Joash is said to have done nothing wrong. According to 2 Kgs 12:19, however, he said to give all the votive gifts (כל-הקדשים) from the temple as well as the gold of the temple and of the palace to King Hazael of Aram. This was done in order to save Jerusalem from an imminent attack by the Arameans. The author of 2 Kgs 12 does not appear to blame the king at all, and the event is described rather neutrally as a necessary action to save Jerusalem from destruction.

For the Chronicler the temple was the center of his theology, and he would have regarded Joash’s act of giving the votive offerings and temple measures to the Arameans as a total catastrophe and a sign of Yhweh’s anger and punishment. In view of his conceptions of divine justice and just retribution, there was an evident contradiction between the goodness of King Joash and the robbing of the temple. The course and development of the events as described in 2 Kgs 12 would hardly have been possible for the Chronicler, and this is probably the main reason for most of the changes he made in relation to the source text.

It may have been difficult for the Chronicler to change the general evaluation of Joash as a good king, because he is said to have done many good deeds, such as the repairing of the temple, but at the same time the plundering of the temple had to be given an interpretation. A small omission in the evaluation of the king’s reign solved the problem.

2 Kgs 12:1-3

בן־שבע שנים יהואש במלכו
‎ בשנת־שבע ליהוא מלך יהואש וארבעים שנה מלך בירושלם ושם אמו צביה מבארשבע
ויעש יהואש הישר בעיני יהוה כל־ימיו אשר הורהו יהוידע הכהן

1 Joash was seven years old when he began to reign, 2 in the seventh year of Jehu Joash began to reign, and he reigned forty years in Jerusalem. His mother’s name was Zibiah from Beer-sheba. 3 Joash did what was right in the sight of Yhweh all his days, because the priest Jehoiada instructed him.

2 Chron 24:1-2

בן־שבע שנים יאש במלכו וארבעים שנה מלך בירושלם ושם אמו צביה
 מבאר שבע
ויעש יואש הישר בעיני יהוה כל־ימי יהוידע הכהן

1 Joash was seven years old when he began to reign, and he reigned forty years in Jerusalem. His mother’s name was Zibiah from Beer-sheba. 2 Joash did what was right in the sight of Yhweh all the days of the priest Jehoiada.

According to 2 Kgs 12:3, Joash was a good king all the days of his life (כל-ימין) because Jehoiada had taught him. However, the Chronicler omitted a small section of this sentence, thereby changing the whole idea. According to his account, Joash was a good king all the days of Jehoiada (כל-ימין יהוידע), which implies that he was not good al the days of his own life. It is not explicitly stated that Joash was evil, but it is implied that Jehoiada kept him from committing evil deeds. That the sentence in 2 Kgs is somewhat ambiguous (whether אשר should be understood as introducing a relative or explicative clause) may have been caused by earlier editing, since the whole sentence beginning with אשר could be a later addition to 2 Kgs 12:3, as some scholars have suggested. Nonetheless, this does not change our case, because the Chronicler was evidently aware of this part of the text: in Chronicles the references to Jehoiada has been changed so that Joash’s piety is limited to a part of his life.

Once Joash’s piety was restricted to the time that Jehoiada lived, the door was open for the other changes in the passage that explained the contradiction between the king’s goodness and the restoration of the temple on the one hand (2 Kgs 12:2-17) and the catastrophe later in the king’s reign is divided by Jehoiada’s death into two different periods. The temple is restored during the time that Jehoiada lived, whereas the time after his death is characterized by sin and punishment. Because of this division, the idea of Jehoiada’s death had to be added to the Chronicler’s account (2 Chr 24:15-16). This was followed by several other insertions. Immediately after Jehoiada has died, Joash listens to the leaders of Judah (v. 17), which then leads to the neglect of the temple and the worship of the Asherim and the idols (v. 18). The prophets sent by Yhweh (vv. 19-20) are ignored, and finally Joash orders Zechariah, the son of Jehoiada, to be stoned to death (vv. 21-22). The words of the dying Zechariah function as the bridge from the sins to the ensuing catastrophe: “May Yhwh see and avenge” (v. 22).

The attack of the Arameans is described in the following verse. The additional material in vv. 15-22 serves the Chronicler’s broader conception that a catastrophe is always a punishment for sins. These verses explain how the king’s initial goodness eventually turned into evil. They are necessary to the Chronicler’s attempt to transform the story to conform to his theological conceptions.

Consequently, a comparison between 2 Kgs 12:1-3 and 2 Chr 24:1-2 illustrates how theological reasoning could justify an omission of a part of the source text that changed the meaning of the sentence substantially. This small omission then enabled the Chronicler to make other more extensive changes throughout the passage. (Reinhard Müller, Juha Pakkala, and Bas ter Haar Romeny, Evidence of Editing: Growth and Change of Texts in the Hebrew Bible [Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2014], 209-12)

On Deut 32:7-9, 43, as well as a demonstration of how little research and exegesis has done into this book, see Review of "Chapter 2: The Giver" of  N. J. Morganti, Eternal Life for Latter-day Saints: A Comparison of the Bible’s eternal Life & Mormonism’s Exaltation. One thing is crystal clear: Morganti is utterly clueless about all things "Mormon" as well as all things relating to the Bible, textual criticism included.