"The Sting of Death": An Anachronism in the Book of Mormon?

In the Book of Mormon, we read the following:

And if Christ had not risen from the dead, or have broken the bands of death that the grave should have no victory, and that death should have no sting, there could have been no resurrection. But there is a resurrection, therefore the grave hath no victory, and the sting of death is swallowed up in Christ. (Mosiah 16:7-8)

This, and other verses (e.g., Alma 22:14) refer to the "sting of death." Some critics alleged this is another purported example of Joseph Smith plagiarising from the New Testament, introducing an anachronism:

Death is swallowed up in victory. O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory? The sting of death is sin; and the strength of sin is the Law. (1 Cor 15:54-56)

Critics are engaging in question-begging from the get-go by holding to the a priori assumption that this is verbiage and a concept unique to Paul; this (often unchallenged) assumption is refuted when one examines Old Testament.

Hos 13;14 (KJV) reads:

I will ransom them from the power of the grave; I will redeem them from death: O death, I will be thy plagues; O grave, I will be thy destruction: repentance shall be hid from mine eyes.

Interestingly, the LXX renders the verse differently; Brenton''s translation of the LXX translates reads:

I will deliver them out of the power of Hades (death), and will redeem them from death: where is thy penalty, o death? O Hades, where is thy sting? Comfort is hidden from mine eyes.

Hosea is a pre-exilic source that predates Lehi et al. This verse shows us the idea of death (Hades being the underworld of the dead) having a "sting" is not a novelty to 1 Cor 15. Furthermore, Hosea often appropriated Canaanite concepts in his polemic against Baal and the rest of the Canaanite pantheon in his writings, evidencing a more ancient origin for such ideas.

Indeed, in the Ugariatic texts (1350-1150 BCE [significantly pre-dating Lehi et al.]), in the Baal Cycle (KTU 1.5 II 20-24), the Canaanite god Baal faces the unpleasant prospect of being "swallowed" by his enemy Mot (whose name means "death") and threatens to use his demonic cohort, "Sting," in the destructive act:

Mot [Death], the Son of El, rejoiced.
[He gave forth] his voice and cried:
How can [Baal] provide moisture now?
[How can Haddu] sprinkle now?
[My hand will shatter] the strength of Haddu,
the palm of my warrior [Rashpu]!
[I myself be]got the Sting.

The Ugaritic name "Sting" (qzb) is only a variant of the Hebrew _qtb_, the literal meaning being "sting."


One can conclude that the phrase, "the sting of death" is not an anachronism in the Book of Mormon but instead reflects (1) a valid Ancient Near Eastern concept that predates the origins of the Book of Mormon and (2) is a theme that would be appropriated by the apostle Paul several centuries later.

Rightly Dividing the Word of God? A random post

Anti-Mormon author, Tony Poldrugovac, in his Who are the Latter-day Saints? (Xulon, 2004) writes the following:

We should rightly divide (discern) the Word of God. Let us not fall into the trap of discarding one scripture to support another. All scriptures must be harmonised since all are inspired. (p. xi)

This is a common claim and purported approach taken by Evangelical Protestant critics of LDS theology; however, when one examines the attempted harmonisations on many topics, we see this is nothing short of smoke and mirrors, coupled with eisegesis. For instance, there are many texts that, with great perspicuity and exegetical strength, teach baptismal regeneration (search on baptism on this blog to see a number of posts exegeting such texts [e.g., Acts 2:38; 1 Pet 3:21]), and yet, many relegate these texts as “difficult” and must be “clarified” based on other texts. The reason? Maintaining the integrity of the Bible and its authority? No, in reality, it is protecting a dogmatic belief in a system of theology, viz. the flavour of Protestantism of the apologist (in this case, the assumption that baptism is a mere symbol and then reading that into all relevant texts--eisegesis, in other words). That is the true hermeneutic many authors take on the topic of baptism and other theological issues--it is nothing short of a question-begging and special-pleading ridden structure. Moreover, this shows us, not just the importance, but necessity of an external body (i.e., the Church) to make authoritative doctrinal decisions that allow us to have the correct hermeneutic when approaching various texts and theological issues (cf. 1 Tim 3:15).

The Church of the Uncertain Name?

Floyd McElveen, in his book, The Mormon Revelations of Convenience, has an appendix entitled, "The Church of the Uncertain Name":

According to the Mormon assertion, Christ “restored” His church using the Mormon prophet, Joseph Smith, as the instrument through whom this was accomplished. The “precise day” for the organization of the church was supposedly revealed, along with the name by which it was to be called. The name given by “divine revelation” was THE CHURCH OF CHRIST. However, four years later, in 1834, the name of the church was changed to THE CHURCH OF LATTER DAY SAINTS. Then another four years later, in April of 1838, the name was again changed. This time it became THE CHURCH OF JESUS CHRIST OF LATTERDAY [sic] SAINTS.

Does it not seem strange that it took eight years and three “revelations” to name the “true church”?

Source:  “Changes in Mormonism” from Utah Christian Tract Society, as cited by Floyd McElveen, The Mormon Revelations of Convenience (Minneapolis: Bethany Fellowship, 1978), 103. Capitalisation in original.

There are many problems with the above paragraph; for instance, the  name of the Church from 1834 until 1838 (“Church of Latter Day Saints”) was proposed by Sidney Rigdon; there is no evidence that such was credited to divine revelation. Furthermore, there was much elasticity of the name of the Church during this time-period (discussed below).

Walter Martin, in his Maze of Mormonism (2d ed.; 1978) forwarded a similar argument:

Much is made of the name of the Church by its missionaries, who claim that there was no church on the face of the earth called "The Church of Jesus Christ" when the "church" was restored in 1830.  What is the explanation for the fact that the Church changed its name twice in the first eight years of its existence?  According to The Book of Mormon (3 Nephi 27:7-8) it was to be called after Christ's name; and for the first four years, it was called "Church of Christ."  In 1834 the name was changed to "Church of the Latter-day Saints."  Finally, in 1838, it became "The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints."  Wouldn't one think that there is a serious problem of contradiction here, because Jesus made a point to instruct the Nephites on what the Church should be named, and one should reasonably assume that Christ would have informed Joseph in 1830 exactly what he wanted the Church to be called, yet He didn't speak to the point until 1838--after two different names had been used already?

LDS scholar, John A. Tvedtnes, dealt with this argument here, from which I will quote:

The “Church of Christ” was incorporated in New York State in 1830, and employed that name for the first several years of its existence. A letter of the First Presidency of the Church, dated 22 January 1834, noted “the organization of the Church of Christ, or the Church of the Latter-day Saints, on the 6th of April, 1830” (History of the Church 2:22). The following month, we read the “Minutes of the Organization of the High Council of the Church of Christ of Latter-day Saints, Kirtland, February 17, 1834” (History of the Church 2:28), employing a name nearly identical to the one used today. On 3 May 1834, Kirtland was the scene of “a Conference of the Elders of the Church of Christ” at which “a motion was made by Sidney Rigdon, and seconded by Newel K. Whitney, that this Church be known hereafter by the name of ‘The Church of the Latter-day Saints.’ Remarks were made by the members, after which the motion passed by unanimous vote” (History of the Church 2:62-63). This name change did not come as a result of revelation, but by vote. Significantly, when the Lord finally did speak in 1838, it was the name he gave the church that became official and has remained so ever since. “For thus shall my church be called in the last days, even The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints” (D&C 115:4).

The question itself distorts what the Book of Mormon says, by leaving out the context of 3 Nephi 27:7-8. Reading from the beginning of the chapter, we note that the Nephite disciples had already been traveling about, preaching and baptizing, and that when they “were gathered together and were united in mighty prayer and fasting” (vs. 1), Jesus came to them and they asked him “Lord, we will that thou wouldst tell us the name whereby we shall call this church; for there are disputations among the people concerning this matter” (vs. 3). From this, it is clear that Christ did not name the Church he established among the Nephites until after the Church had already begun growing in numbers. This is parallel to what happened in the latter-day Church, when different names were applied until the Lord himself revealed precisely how the Church should be named. In the case of both the Nephite and latter-day Churches, the question of the name was not settled until Christ revealed his will.

Two other points should be made:

1) Even before the Nephite disciples prayed to know how they should call the Church, “they who were baptized in the name of Jesus were called the church of Christ” (3 Nephi 26:21). For some reason, there were disagreements about the precise name that should be used.

2) Latter-day Saints look to the scriptures, not to missionaries, as the final source of truth. Moreover, the name of the Church, while important, is not what makes the Church true or false. When answering the Nephite disciples’ questions about the name of the Church, Christ said, “but if it be called in my name then it is my church, if it so be that they are built upon my gospel” (3 Nephi 27:8). Being built on the gospel of Christ and having authority from him is far more important than the name of the Church.

Selected Bibliography on Mariology

One of my main areas of research is that of Mariology, the theology of Mary the mother of Jesus. This is a bit of a rarity among Latter-day Saints, so the purpose of this post is to highlight some of the more “essential” books on this topic. I will present them in no particular order. Update: I have written (and published) my own book-length discussion of Mariology: Behold the Mother of My Lord: Towards a Mormon Mariology (2017).

Hilda Graef, Mary: A History of Doctrine and Devotion (2 vols.)

John Redford, Born of a Virgin: Proving the Miracle from the Gospels

Mariology (3 vols.) ed. Juniper Carol

Michael O'Carroll, Theotokos: A Theological Encyclopedia of the Blessed Virgin Mary

Mariology: A Guide for Priests, Deacons, Seminarians, and Consecrated Persons, ed. Mark Miravalle

Mary: Coredemptrix, Mediatrix, Advocate: Theological Foundations II: Papal, Pneumatological, Ecumenical, ed. Mark Miravalle

Mark Miravalle, An Introduction to Mary: The Heart of Marian Doctrine and Devotion

Idem, "With Jesus": The Story of Mary Co-Redemptrix

Idem, Mary: Coredemptrix, Mediatrix, Advocate

Eric Svendsen, Who is my Mother? The Role and Status of the Mother of Jesus in the New Testament and Roman Catholicism

John McHugh, The Mother of Jesus in the New Testament

Martin Miguens, Mary: "The Servant of the Lord"

Idem, The Virgin Birth: An Evaluation of Scriptural Evidence

Kathryn Hughes, Alone of All Her Sex

Stephen J. Shoemaker, The Ancient Traditions of the Virgin Mary's Dormition and Assumption

Idem. Mary in Early Christian Faith and Devotion

Matthew Levering, Mary's Bodily Assumption

Mary in the New Testament, eds. Raymond E. Brown, Karl P. Donfried, Joseph A. Fitzmyer, John Reumann

Rachel Fulton, From Judgment to Passion: Devotion to Christ and the Virgin Mary, 800-1200

Luigi Gambero, Mary and the Fathers of the Church: The Blessed Virgin Mary in Patristic Thought

Idem. Mary in the Middle Ages: The Blessed Virgin Mary in the Thought of Medieval Latin Theologies

The Origins of the Cult of the Virgin Mary, ed. Chris Maunder

Bridget Heal, The Cult of the Virgin Mary in Early Modern Germany: Protestant and Catholic Piety, 1500-1648

Stefano Manelli, All Generations Shall Call Me Blessed: Biblical Mariology

Reginald Garrigou-Lagrange, The Mother of our Saviour and our interior life

Matthias Joseph Scheeben, Mariology (2 vols.)

Edward Sri, Queen Mother: A Biblical Theology of Mary's Queenship

Ibid., Rethinking Mary in the New Testament

Joseph Duhr, The Glorious Assumption of the Mother of God

Joseph Ratzinger, Daughter Zion: Meditations on the Church's Marian Belief

Joseph Ratzinger and Hans Urs Von Balthasar, Mary: The Church at the Source

Chosen by God: Mary in Evangelical Perspective, ed. D.F. Wright

Edward Schillebeeckx, Mary: Mother of Redemption

Mary in the Churches, eds. Hans Küng and Jurgen Moltmann

Giovanni Miegge, The Virgin Mary: The Roman Catholic Marian doctrine

De Maria Numquan Satis: The Significance of the Catholic Doctrines on the Blessed Virgin Mary for All People, eds. Judith Marie Gentle and Robert L. Fastiggi

Michael P. Carroll, The Cult of the Virgin Mary: Psychological Origins

John de Satgé, Mary and the Christian Gospel

The Immaculate Conception: History and Significance, ed. Edward Dennis O'Connor

The Marian Writings of St. Robert Bellarmine. comp. Casimir Valla

Nicholas L. Gregoris, "The Daughter of Eve Unfallen": Mary in the Theology and Spirituality of John Henry Newman

Max Thurian, Mary: Mother of all Christians

Edward Jewitt Robinson, The Mother of Jesus Not the Papal Mary

Brant Pitre, Jesus and the Jewish Roots of Mary: Unveiling the Mother of the Messiah

Joseph Pohle, Mariology: A Dogmatic Treatise on the Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of God, with an Appendix on the Worship of the Saints, Relics, and Images

Gary Michuta, Making Sense of Mary

Christiaan Kappes and William Albrecht, The Definitive Guide For Solving Biblical Questions About Mary: Mary among the Evangelists (Biblical Dogmatics Vol. 1)

Walter J. Burghardt, The Testimony of the Patristic Age Concerning Mary's Death

Stanley G. Mathews, ed., Queen of the Universe: An Anthology on the Assumption and Queenship of Mary

Philip Schaff, History of the Christian Church (8 vols.) traces much of the evolution of Marian doctrine, especially issues relating to the immaculate conception.

Brian and Laura Hales vs. Kirk Van Allen on D&C 132

There has been an online article that has been making the rounds recently, Kirk Van Allen, “D&C 132: A Revelation of Men, not God.” Brian and Laura Hales, the latter being the author of the 3-volume Joseph Smith’s Polygamy (Greg Kofford, 2013), among other scholarly volumes, has written a very cogent and devastating refutation of the article entitled, “Lending Clarity to Confusion: A Response to Kirk Van Allen's 'D&C 132: A Revelation of Men, not God.’,” part of the FairMormon Papers and Reviews series.

EDIT: The Van Allen's have "responded" to the FairMormon piece, with Brian Hales countering such. One can find the entire to-and-fro here.

The Consequence Argument Against Compatibilism

"Maverick Philosopher" has an excellent blog post discussing the logical problems with compatibilism. For those who have interacted with Reformed/Calvinistic theology and its apologists, one will realise how “spot-on” such an assessment is. The questions at the end are worth repeating here:

1. If determinism is true, then all our actions and thoughts are consequences of events and laws of nature in the remote past before we were born.

2. We have no control over circumstances that existed in the remote past before we were born, nor do we have any control over the laws of nature.

3. If A causes B, and we have no control over A, and A is sufficient for B, then we have no control over B.

Therefore

4. If determinism is true, then we have no control over our own actions and thoughts.

Therefore, assuming that responsibility requires control,

5. If determinism is true, then we are not responsible for anything we do or think.

Therefore, assuming that freedom entails responsibility,

6. If determinism is true, then we are not free, which is to say that every form of compatibilism is false.

If you don't accept this argument, which premise will you reject?

For an LDS interaction with this issue, see Blake T. Ostler, The Problems of Theism and the Love of God (Greg Kofford Books, 2006).

Von Döllinger on Papal Authority and Infallibilty being ahistorical

In 1870, Pope Pius IX issued Pastor Aeternus which dogmatised the nature and criteria of papal infallibility and the interpretation of Matt 16:16-19. During Vatican I (1869-70), many at the council were opposed to the then-proposed concept of dogmatising papal infallibilty based on how ahistorical such a doctrine was, though many, after the decree was issued, would accept the doctrine and often would have to revise their previously published writings on more troubling issues, such as Honorious I and his condemnation at the sixth ecumenical council (e.g., Karl Josef von Hefele, author of the 5-vol. History of the Christian Councils).

One opponent of the doctrine who would later leave communion with Rome would be the Ignaz von Döllinger. The following extracts highlight how utterly ahistorical the modern Catholic dogma about papal authority and infallibility is:

For thirteen centuries an incomprehensible silence on this fundamental article reigned throughout the whole Church and her literature. None of the ancient confessions of faith, no catechism, none of the patristic writings composed for the instruction of the people, contain a syllable about the Pope, still less any hint that all certainty of faith and doctrine depends on him. For the first thousand years of Church history not a question of doctrine was finally decided by the Pope. The Roman bishops took no part in the commotions which the numerous Gnostic sects, the Montanists and Chiliasts, produced in the early Church, nor can a single dogmatic decree issued by one of them be found during the first four centuries, not a trace of the existence of any. Even the controversy about Christ kindled by Paul of Samosata, which occupied the whole Eastern Church for a long time, and necessitated the assembling of several Councils, was terminated without the Pope taking any part in it. So again in the chain of controversies and discussions connected with the name of Theodotus, Artemon, Noetus, Sabellius, Beryllus, and Lucian of Antioch which troubled the whole Church, and extended over nearly 150 years, there is no proof that the Roman bishops acted beyond the limits of their own local Church, or accomplished any dogmatic result . . . The dispute about heretical baptism, in the middle of the third century, had a still more clearly dogmatic character, for the whole Church doctrine of the efficacy and conditions of sacramental grace was involved. Yet the opposition of Pope Stephen to the doctrine confirmed at several African and Asiatic Synods, against the validity of schismatically baptism, remained wholly inoperative. Stephen went so far as to exclude those Churches from his communion, but he only drew down sharp censures on his unlawful arrogance. Both St. Cyprian and Firmilian of Cesarea denied his having any right to dictate a doctrine to other bishops and Churches. And the other Eastern Churches, too, which were not directly mixed up in the dispute, retained their own practice for a long time, quite undisturbed by the Roman theory. Later on, St. Augustine, looking back at this dispute, maintains that the pronouncement of Stephen, categorical as it was, was no decision of the Church, and that St. Cyprian and the Africans were therefore justified in rejecting it; he says the real obligation of conforming to a common practice originated with the decree of a great (plenarium) Council, meaning the Council of Arles in 314 . . . [In the eighth century] Pope Hadrian I vainly endeavored to get the decrees of the second Nicene Council on Image Worship, which he had approved, received by Charles the Great and his bishops. The great assembly at Frankfurt in 794, and the Caroline books, rejected and attacked these decrees, and Hadrian did not venture to offer more than verbal opposition. In 824, the bishops assembled in synod at Paris spoke without remorse of the “absurdities” (absona) of Pope Hadrian, who, they said, had commanded an heretical worship of images (Mansi, Council. Xiv, p. 415 seq) . . . There is another fact the infallibilist will find it impossible to explain. We have a copious literature on the Christian sects and heresies of the first six centuries--Irenaeus, Hippolytus, Epiphanius, Philastrius, St. Augustine, and later, Leonitus and Timotheus, have left us accounts of them to the number of eighty, but not a single one is reproached with rejecting the Pope’s authority in matters of faith, while Aerius, e.g., is reproached with denying the episcopate as a grade of the hierarchy.

Janus (pen name for Ignaz von Döllinger), The Pope and the Council (1870), pp. 53, 54-55, 61-62, 73.