LeGrand L. Baker

(This is an excerpt from my Joseph and Moroni. The full text is in “Published Books” in this website.)

While Joseph and Oliver were house guests in the Peter Whitmer home, the men of the family liked having them around and were glad to help whenever they could. The visitors had little effect on the routine of their farm work, but for David’s mother, Mary Whitmer, that was not the case at all. In addition to her usual chores, like gathering the eggs, feeding the chickens, and milking the cows, she now had to fix extra for meals, bake more bread, and wash all her guests’ clothes—by hand on a scrub board. It made a great deal of difference to her that there were two more grown men living in her home.{1}

Joseph had kept his promise to Moroni and had not shown the plates to anyone, so Mary didn’t know he really had them. It may have seemed unfair to Mary that she should have the burden of looking after these two self-invited guests. She may have complained; if she didn’t, she probably wanted to.

One day, Mary went out into the barn. She was startled when she first saw an angel standing there with a knapsack over his shoulder, but his kindly appearance soon caused all her fear to go away. Her description of him was like the description of the old gentleman Joseph, Oliver, and her son David had talked with when they were riding in the wagon.

He said to her, “You have been very faithful and diligent in your labors, but you are tired because of the increase in your toil; it is proper, therefore, that you should receive a witness that your faith may be strengthened.” He then untied his knapsack and showed her the golden plates. The angel “turned the leaves of the book of plates over, leaf after leaf, and also showed her the engravings upon them; after which he told her to be patient and faithful in bearing her burden a little longer.”{2}

After Mary examined the plates, the angel left the barn. She followed him because she wanted to ask him a question, but he was gone.

The angel’s showing Mary the plates teaches about how the Lord looks after His children. The Three Witnesses and the Eight Witnesses saw the plates and they were given the responsibility of testifying that they had seen them and they were told never to deny that testimony. But Mary was not given that responsibility. She was shown the plates because the Lord wished to give her peace and to help her understand.

The Testimony of Sarah Conrad

Mary Whitmer never wavered in her support for Joseph Smith after she saw the angel and the plates. But she did do something to lighten her burden and make it easier to care for her family and guests.

The angel had suggested that she hire someone to help her, so she hired her niece, a girl named Sarah Conrad, to live at the house and help with the chores.{3} She did not tell Sarah what Joseph and Oliver were doing, but it did not take long for Sarah to discover that something unusual was going on. Sarah noticed that the Prophet and his friend “would go up into the attic, and they would stay all day. When they came down, they looked more like heavenly beings than they did just ordinary men.”{4}

At first Sarah was curious, but in time their luminous appearance actually frightened her. She told her aunt how she felt and asked what made those men “so exceedingly white.”{5}

When Mrs. Whitmer explained to Sarah about the Book of Mormon, she “told her what the men were doing in the room above and that the power of God was so great in the room that they could hardly endure it. At times angels were in the room in their glory which nearly consumed them.”{6} The light that shone from Joseph and Oliver’s faces came from their having been with the angels.

This explanation was reasonable enough and satisfied Sarah. She not only stayed with the Whitmers, but she also became one of Joseph’s good friends. She was baptized, and much later, after she and the other Saints were driven from Nauvoo, she settled with them in Provo, Utah.{7}

Joseph never told his readers how he translated the Book of Mormon except to say that he used the Urim and Thummim and that he did it “by the gift and power of God.” But there are some interesting indications that he had help from other angels besides Moroni.{8}

Sarah’s is the earliest of a number of accounts that testify that at times, when the Prophet was receiving revelation or was in the presence of heavenly beings, he, like Moses, actually glowed (Exodus 34:29-35).

Wilford Woodruff tried to describe the Prophet’s appearance on one of those occasions. He said, “His face was clear as amber.”{9} Philo Dibble, who was present when the Prophet received the revelation that is now the 76th section of the Doctrine and Covenants, reported, “Joseph wore black clothes, but at this time seemed to be dressed in an element of glorious white.”{10}

Sarah’s testimony that the men who were working on the translation of the Book of Mormon “looked so exceedingly white,” combined with Mrs. Whitmer’s explanation that “angels were in the room in their glory which nearly consumed them,” gives a valuable key to understanding the Book of Mormon and to knowing how it was translated. One may assume that if there were angels in the room, they had some purpose for being there other than just to pass the time of day. Their presence in the translating room certainly had an impact upon the ultimate outcome of Joseph’s work.

Angels Helped Joseph Translate

Neither Joseph Smith, nor Oliver Cowdery, nor the Whitmers, nor Sarah Conrad left any record identifying who the angels were, but others also knew, and they have given some important information about who the angels might have been.

Elder Parley P. Pratt did not identify the angels by name, but he testified that through Joseph Smith “and the ministration of holy angels to him, that book came forth to the world.”{11} His brother Orson added that during those years, Joseph “was often ministered to by the angels of God, and received instruction” from them.{12}

President John Taylor, who was a dear friend and confidant of the Prophet Joseph mentioned some of the angels by name. He said:

Again who more likely than Mormon and Nephi, and some of those prophets who had ministered to the people upon this continent, under the influence of the same Gospel, to operate again as its representatives? Who more likely than those who had officiated in the holy Melchisedec priesthood to administer to Joseph Smith and reveal unto him the great principles which were developed? Well, now, do I believe that Joseph Smith saw the several angels alleged to have been seen by him as described, one after another? Yes, I do.{13}

On another occasion, when President Taylor was discussing the restoration of the gospel, he said, “I can tell you what he [Joseph] told me about it.” Then he told this story:

Afterwards the Angel Moroni came to him and revealed to him the Book of Mormon, with the history of which you are generally familiar, and also with the statements that I am now making pertaining to these things. And then came Nephi, one of the ancient prophets, that had lived upon this continent, who had an interest in the welfare of the people that he had lived amongst in those days.{14}

President Taylor was even more explicit in another address to the Saints:

And when Joseph Smith was raised up as a Prophet of God, Mormon, Moroni, Nephi and others of the ancient Prophets who formerly lived on this Continent, and Peter and John and others who lived on the Asiatic Continent, came to him and communicated to him certain principles pertaining to the Gospel of the Son of God. Why? Because they held the keys of the various dispensations, and conferred them upon him, and he upon us. He was indebted to God; and we are indebted to God and to him for all the intelligence that we have on these subjects.{15}

Similarly, President George Q. Cannon once assured his listeners:

[The Prophet Joseph] had doubtless, also, visits from Nephi and it may be from Alma and others. He was visited constantly by angels…. Moroni, in the beginning, as you know, to prepare him for his mission, came and ministered and talked to him from time to time, and he had vision after vision in order that his mind might be fully saturated with a knowledge of the things of God, and that he might comprehend the great and holy calling that God has bestowed upon him.{16}

Joseph said very little about his meeting with Book of Mormon prophets other than Moroni. However, in the famous letter to John Wentworth, the one in which he wrote the Articles of Faith, the Prophet explained that the Book of Mormon came forth only “after having received many visits from the angels of God unfolding the majesty and glory of the events that should transpire in the last days.”{17} The “many visits” could, of course, have all been from Moroni. But Moroni is only one angel and Joseph wrote that he had received “many visits from the angels.” That statement by the Prophet, coupled with those of his friends, leads one to conclude that the translation of the Book of Mormon was something of a joint effort between Moroni; Joseph Smith, who used the Urim and Thummim; Nephi (probably more than one Nephi); Alma; Mormon; and other original authors of the Book of Mormon.

One cannot read the Book of Mormon without noticing the Lord’s promises to the prophets that their messages would be passed on to people in the last days.{18} It is not surprising, then, that those same prophets who wrote those messages should be present with Joseph while he was translating their own writings. If the original authors did help in the translation of their own parts of the book, that would guarantee that the English version of the Book of Mormon says just exactly what the authors wanted it to say, and could help account for the remarkably rich diversity in the wordprints of the various authors.
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FOOTNOTES

{1} Jensen, Biographical Encyclopedia, 1:267.

{2} Jensen, Biographical Encyclopedia, 1:267.

{3} Newell, “History of Sarah (Sallie) Heller Conrad Bunnel,” and “My Grandmother Bunnel.”

{4} Interview statement reported in, Richard L. Anderson, “The House Where the Church Was Organized,”Improvement Era, April, 1970, 21.

{5} Oliver B. Huntington, “Diary,” typescript copy at BYU Library. vol. 2, 415-16. Huntington heard this story from Sarah, herself, when she was 88 years old.

{6} Huntington, “Diary,” 2:415-16.
{7} Huntington, “Diary,” 2:415-16. See also Anderson, “The House,” Improvement Era, April, 1970 21. I have also spoken with Sarah’s descendants who confirmed the story.

{8} For a discussion of how Joseph translated, see: Elder Neal A. Maxwell, “By the Gift and Power of God,” Ensign, Jan. 1997, 36-41. Regarding the time that it took to translate and write the 116 pages, Joseph Smith wrote that Martin arrived “about the 12th of April, 1828, and commenced writing for me while I translated from the plates, which we continued until the 14th of June [1828]” (History of the Church, 1:20).

{9} Wilford Woodruff, Conference Report, April, 1898, 89.

{10} Juvenile Instructor, 27:303-04.

{11} Journal of Discourses, 9:212. See also: Journal of Discourses, 3:185.

{12} Journal of Discourses, 15:185. See similar testimonies in Journal of Discourses, 13:66 and 14:140.

{13} Journal of Discourses, 21:163-64.

{14} Journal of Discourses, 21:161-62.

{15} Journal of Discourses, 17:375-76.

{16} Journal of Discourses, 23:363.

{17} Joseph Smith, History of the Church, 4:537.

{18} For examples see: 2 Nephi 33:3-4; 3 Nephi 5:18; Mormon 8:12, 9:30-31; Enos 1:15-16; Ether 12:25-29. See also, 2 Nephi 3:19-21, 26:16, chapter 27; Mormon 5:12-13; Mosiah 1:7; D&C 17:6, D&C 10:46-53.
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In his introduction in 1 Nephi 1:1, Nephi wrote, “yea, having had a great knowledge of the goodness and the mysteries of God, therefore I make a record of my proceedings in my days.” Those are his primary objectives: to teach of the goodness and the mysteries of God. He tells us at the outset—then immediately shows us—that he intends to write in “double-layered discourse.” He will use the surface text to show the goodness of God, but he will reserve the most sacred things—the mysteries—to a subtext that can only be seen and read by those who know the depth of the ancient Israelite temple drama. He wrote,

1 … yea, having had a great knowledge of the goodness and the mysteries of God, therefore I make a record of my proceedings in my days.
2 Yea, I make a record in the language of my father, which consists of the learning of the Jews and the language of the Egyptians (1 Nephi 1:1-2).

Yea is a very important word here. It is “used to introduce a statement, phrase, or word stronger or more emphatic than that immediately preceding.”{1} So, the words following yea are not simply the conclusion. They are the culmination or crest of the ideas that introduced it.

Verse 2 does not say, “I make a record in the language of my father, which consists of a mixture of the languages of the Jews and the Egyptians.” It says he will write in a dual language using the same words to convey two separate meanings.

In verse 2, Nephi is giving us a clue to understand his sacred subtextual record. There are two distinct elements of his writing, the learning of the Jews and the language of the Egyptians. At that time in the Israelite world, Egyptian was a dominant language, just as English is now. It was a language that many who were educated and literate could speak and, possibly, could read and write.

Nephi was a prophet, and his language, like that of Lehi and Isaiah, was the language of temple and priesthood—the learning of the covenant Jews—an audience blessed with “eyes to see.” Thus Nephi’s work is filled with language that is dualistic and symbolic in its meaning. In the record we have today, English functions much like Egyptian, allowing people who read it to understand the “goodness of God.” But the code language is still there and deals with the “mysteries of God.”

There are two main themes woven into the First Nephi narrative—the ancient Israelite temple drama and the Atonement of the Messiah. When woven together, they become the golden thread that runs through the entire narrative of First Nephi, giving continuity and purpose to the surface text and to the equally important subtext, each independently but with perfect harmony.

Nephi’s first objective: to teach about the goodness of God— is accomplished by his repeatedly reminding us that notwithstanding all the roadblocks that were thrown in front of his father and himself, the Lord intervened to help them overcome those hindrances and fulfill their assignments.

Nephi’s second object: to illuminate “the mysteries of God,”is transmitted to us through its inspired translation. One of the greatest miracles of the Book of Mormon is that it was translated into King James English so we can move from the Bible to the Book of Mormon and back again, knowing that the meanings of the words in one are the same as the meaning of the words in the other.

That being so, all we have to do to know what Nephi meant by the word translated mysteries is to find out how that word is used in the Bible. What we find is that every time mystery is found in the New Testament, it is a translation of mysterion, which means “a secret or ‘mystery’ through the idea of silence imposed by initiation into religious rites.”{2}

The distinguished Biblical scholar, Raymond E. Brown, has shown that the meaning of the Greek word mysterion (translated “mystery” in the English versions of the New Testament) and of the Hebrew word sode (translated “secret” in the English versions of the Old Testament) is essentially the same. Mysterion is more specific since it refers to secrets disclosed during initiation into sacred religious rites, while sode is more general in that it refers to the deliberations (or decisions) of either a religious or a secular council. Brown observes that the New Testament mysterion refers to the Council in Heaven. He shows that in the Old Testament sode sometimes refers to that Council or its decisions (as in Amos 3:7), though it is sometimes used to describe any gathering, whether legal, or illegal and conspiratorial.{3}

Understanding these words casts a fascinating light on the manner in which the Book of Mormon was translated. The Nephites most likely spoke Hebrew or some other Semitic language, not Greek, so the Greek word mysterion was probably not a part of their language, whereas the Hebrew word sode (with its English equivalents) was likely familiar to the ancient Book of Mormon peoples. In the Book of Mormon, as in the Bible, sode might refer to a Council in Heaven sode experience, or a ceremony related to the temple drama representing a sode experience, or even the secret decisions of conspirators. In this, the English translation of the Book of Mormon is very precise. When the underlying word sode is used in the negative sense, it is translated as “secret,” as in “secret combinations.” However, when the underlying word sode is used in the positive sense—indicating a temple or temple-like experience—it is always translated as “mystery,” equivalent to the English New Testament translation of the Greek mysterion. Thus, Nephi writes of “having had a great knowledge of the goodness and the mysteries of God” (1 Nephi 1:1). Read that way, one can find references to the ancient Christian rites throughout the New Testament, and references to the ancient Nephite temple rites throughout the Book of Mormon.

Nephi was probably about 45 years old when he wrote in his very first verse that he had “a great knowledge of…the mysteries of God,” he was declaring that he understood the ancient Israelite temple drama, ordinances, and covenants.{4}

Nephi says he was very selective, not only about what he wrote on the small plates, but also about how he wrote it. In both the surface and the subtext, he told only sacred things that would fit into the temple pattern he wished to illustrate. The English translation accurately transmits all of that to modern readers. This being so, we would do well to look very carefully at what he says, but even more especially at how he says it.
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FOOTNOTES

{1} Oxford English Dictionary, definition 3.

{2} The Greek dictionary at the back of James Strong, The Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible, 3466. For a more extensive discussion of the sode experience as it relates to the Council in Heaven see the chapter called “Sode Experience” in Who Shall Ascend into the Hill of the Lord, First edition, p. 195-208; Second edition, p. 139-148.

{3} Raymond E. Brown, The Semitic Background of the Term “Mystery” in the New Testament (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1968), 2-6.

{4} That pattern of using a sacral subtext to teach and explain the ancient Israelite temple drama was used by the prophets throughout the Book of Mormon. The entire last half of Who Shall Ascend into the Hill of the Lord is a careful but undisclosed analysis of that Book of Mormon subtextual message.
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1 Nephi 1:1

1. I, Nephi, having been born of goodly parents, therefore I was taught somewhat in all the learning of my father; and having seen many afflictions in the course of my days, nevertheless, having been highly favored of the Lord in all my days; yea, having had a great knowledge of the goodness and the mysteries of God, therefore I make a record of my proceedings in my days.

Anciently, writers often used a literary device called a colophon at the beginning or end of a document. It identified the author, declared his authority, and briefly stated what he was writing about.{1}

Verse 1 of First Nephi is an impressive ancient colophon. Standing alone, it is sufficient evidence that the Book of Mormon is an ancient document. It is a bit awkward for us to read today, but it is the awkwardness that makes it so important. Its language would be perfectly at home tucked amid Plato’s writings, but there was nothing in Joseph Smith’s New England backcountry culture that could have caused him to write the sentence in that way.

Another example is the beginning of Zeniff’s autobiography:

I, Zeniff, having been taught in all the language of the Nephites,
having had a knowledge of the land of Nephi…
having been sent as a spy…
Therefore, I contended with my brethren…. (Mosiah 9:1-2)

Another example is this exchange of official correspondence:

14 Now I close my epistle. I am Moroni; I am a leader of the people of the Nephites.
15 Now it came to pass that Ammoron, when he had received this epistle, was angry; and he wrote another epistle unto Moroni, and these are the words which he wrote, saying:
16 I am Ammoron, the king of the Lamanites; I am the brother of Amalickiah whom ye have murdered. Behold, I will avenge his blood upon you, yea, and I will come upon you with my armies for I fear not your threatenings.

Nephi’s colophon is awkward to us because it seems to be logically upside down. If we, or the Prophet Joseph, were to write those ideas we would say:

I am Nephi, and I am writing for the following five reasons:
.        First…. I was taught in all the learning of my father.
.        Second….I have seen many afflictions.
.        Third….I have been highly favored of the Lord.
.        Forth….I have a knowledge of the goodness of God.
.        Fifth….I have a knowledge of the mysteries of God.

However, Nephi’s colophon is not like that. Rather, it is written in a Greeklike logical pattern whose structure is like a simple addition problem with five points and a conclusion:

I Nephi
.        having been taught in all the learning of my father
.        plus … seen many afflictions
.        plus … highly favored of the Lord
.        plus … knowledge of the goodness of God,
.        plus … knowledge of the mysteries of God,
conclusion : Therefore I write.

This second pattern is the same structure as a simple addition problem, which is the same pattern as an ancient logical argument. It would be very comfortable among the works of Plato, but sounds awkward to us just as it would have been awkward to Joseph Smith and his contemporaries. Even though there was nothing in Joseph’s own background to cause him to write a sentence in that form, it is the form in which Nephi’s well educated contemporaries would have written. Therefore, the structure of Nephi’s colophon is convincing evidence that we are dealing with an ancient text.

Of the colophons in the Book of Mormon, Nephi’s is the most significant and by far the most interesting because of its structural completeness, its window into Nephi’s purposes and personality, and especially because of its multilayered meanings.

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FOOTNOTE

{1} The first chapter of Revelation is an excellent example. The author identifies himself as John the apostle. He has been instructed by an angel to write, and his writings will testify of the Jesus the Savior
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1 Nephi 1:1 — LeGrand Baker — “Therefore I write” — The Chiastic Structure of First Nephi

First Nephi has a carefully structured, chiastic, arrangement. Its language is unlike anything else in the Book of Mormon. It is written like a Greek or Norse epic poem. It is a chiasmus, and, like those other ancient epic poems, it follows the model of the cosmic myth. The cosmic myth is always in the pattern of a chaismas. In its simplest form it looks like this:

.     A. The hero is required to leave home.
.          B. He is given a seemingly impossible task.
.               C. He receives the necessary tools to begin
.                    D. He confronts overwhelming odds
.               c. He receives additional tools
.          b. He fulfills the task.
.     a. The hero returns home, triumphant.{1}

That is also the outline of the plan of salvation and of the ancient Israelite temple drama.{2} Nephi also uses that pattern when he writes 1 Nephi:

.     A. Nephi and his family must leave home.
.          B. They are given a seemingly impossible task.
.               C. They receive the brass plates and Ishmael’s family.
.                    D. Rebellion and starvation in the wilderness.
.               c. The Liahona leads to a mountain top for sustenance.
.          b. They travel to Bountiful to complete their task.
.     a. They arrive at the promised land.

The pattern is actually more complex than that and is discussed in the my last chapter about 1 Nephi called, “1 Nephi 22 — LeGrand Baker — Nephi’s Conclusion.”

The ancient pattern after which First Nephi is written is called by modern scholars “the hero cycle” or “the cosmic myth.”{3} It is cosmic because it reflects the pattern of stories recited and written throughout human history. It is a complete worldview. It is called a myth because the principles it teaches are not dependent on the historicity of the story.{4} That is, the story it tells may be historically true, like First Nephi, or it may be fictional, like Star Wars or Hamlet, but the principles it teaches are universally the same.

To say that 1 Nephi is an epic poem means much more than that it is lengthy, involved, and tells about a hero’s journey, as Meyer Abrams explained:

An epic poem is a ceremonial performance, and is narrated in a ceremonial style which is deliberately distanced from ordinary speech and proportioned to the grandeur and formality of the heroic subject and epic architecture.{5}

We have wondered if First Nephi had ever been used that way in a ceremonial performance. Such a thing was not unknown in ancient Israel. Every seventh year, during the pre-exilic Israelite New Year’s Festival, the king and the entire congregation would recite the book of Deuteronomy as a reminder of the Lord’s covenants and of Moses’s instructions to them.{6} Deuteronomy was Moses’s last sermon to the people just before he departed. Such a ceremonial use of First Nephi would have given a sustained religious underpinning for the Nephite split with the Lamanites, and may, in part, account for the repeated admonition to “remember” the covenants made to the fathers.

It may also account for why Mormon searched the royal archives to find the original plates of Nephi, rather than using just a later copy, to attach to the gold plates that Moroni would eventually deliver to the Prophet Joseph (Words of Mormon:1:3-5).

Nephi was probably about 45 when he began writing First Nephi, and it took him ten years to write it.{7} It seems that if Nephi, who obviously had an excellent education, would spend ten years writing a fifty-plus page work in the chiastic style of an epic poem, then every word of Nephi’s original manuscript version must have been what it was intended to be, and that the whole of the version Nephi engraved on the gold plates was carefully polished. We believe that is also true of our English version. That is, we believe the English version is not so much a “translation” as it is an English rendering of the original.{8}

So, admittedly without having any proof of how or where—or even if—it might have been used by the Nephites for ritual purposes, we wonder if Nephi’s poem was used in connection with “a ceremonial performance.” Could it be that the Nephites used First Nephi in the same way the Israelites used Deuteronomy or the Book of Genesis in the portrayal of the covenant renewal drama during their Feast of Tabernacles?

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FOOTNOTES

{1} The ancient Hymn of the Pearl is an excellent example. See LeGrand L. Baker and Stephen D. Ricks, Who Shall Ascend into the Hill of the Lord? The Psalms in Israel’s Temple Worship in the Old Testament and in the Book of Mormon (Salt Lake City, Eborn Books), first hardback edition 2009, p. 97-135; second paperback edition 2010, p. 79-98) The paperback edition is found on this website under “published books.”

{2} The pattern of the Israelite and Nephite temple dramas is the theme that runs throughout our book, Who Shall Ascend into the Hill of the Lord. The book gives a reconstruction of the Israelite temple drama at the time of Solomon’s Temple. The second half of the book shows that virtually every sermon in the Book of Mormon is based on the Nephite temple experience.

{3} Two classic works on the universality of the hero cycle or cosmic myth are Joseph Campbell, The Hero with a Thousand Faces (New York: MJF, 1949); and Giorgio de Santillana and Hertha von Dechend, Hamlet’s Mill: An Essay on Myth and the Frame of Time (Boston: Gambit, 1969).

{4} For a discussion of the cosmic myth see Who Shall Ascend into the Hill of the Lord, hardback edition, p. 97-135; paperback edition, p. 79-98)

{5} Meyer Abrams, A Glossary of Literary Terms (Boston, Heinle & Heinle , 1999), 77.

{6} John A. Tvedtnes, “King Benjamin and the Feast of Tabernacles” in John M. Lundquist and Stephen D. Ricks, eds., By Study and Also by Faith: Essays in Honor of Hugh W. Nibley on the Occasion of His Eightieth Birthday, 27 March 1990, 2 vols. (Salt Lake City and Provo: Deseret Book Co., Foundation for Ancient Research and Mormon Studies, 1990), 2:206.

{7} Nephi reports that he received instructions to make the small plates 30 years after the family had left Jerusalem. He has completed 1 Nephi after they had been gone 40 years (2 Nephi 5:28-34).

{8} For a discussion of Nephi’s possible personal involvement in the English translation see LeGrand L. Baker, Joseph and Moroni (Salt Lake City, Eborn Books, 2007), 91-98.

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1 Nephi 1:4

… and in that same year there came many prophets, prophesying unto the people that they must repent, or the great city Jerusalem must be destroyed.

We know so little about the Israelite religion before the Babylonian captivity. Actually, the Book of Mormon is a much better source of pre-exilic Israelite theology than anything we find in the Bible. The reason is that all the history books in Old Testament were written or edited after the destruction of Jerusalem and end of the Melchizedek Priesthood rites of Solomon’s Temple. After the Babylonian captivity, the five books of Moses were so severely edited that most scholars believe that they were actually written as late as the fourth century B.C.{1}

The Jewish apostasy began before the Babylonian captivity and was the reason Lehi and the other prophets were persecuted. Who Shall Ascend into the Hill of the Lord has a chapter called “Evidences of Ancient Jewish Apostasy.” It helps explain why the prophets in Lehi’s time were in such trouble.{2} By then, there were two competing “priesthood groups.” The prophets such as Elijah, Elisha, and Lehi had the Melchizedek Priesthood. However, for the most part they were disdained by the authors of the Old Testament who told stories about bears eating children and that sort of thing. The competing group was the priests who had control of the Temple and the temple treasury. From the time of King Josiah the priests either dominated, or at least were in cahoots with the apostate kings. After the Babylonian captivity the priests were in almost complete control. One of the authors of Chronicles gives us a hint of the conflict between the priests and the prophets, but there are no real details:

14 Moreover all the chief of the priests, and the people, transgressed very much after all the abominations of the heathen; and polluted the house of the Lord which he had hallowed in Jerusalem.
15 And the Lord God of their fathers sent to them by his messengers, rising up betimes, and sending; because he had compassion on his people, and on his dwelling place:
16 But they mocked the messengers of God, and despised his words, and misused his prophets, until the wrath of the Lord arose against his people, till there was no remedy (2 Chronicles 36:14-16).

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FOOTNOTES

{1} Their editorial policy was apparently to remove evidences of such ideas as the Atonement, priesthood, and temple rites from the text. For an example see the contrast between the accounts of Noah and the ark as recorded in Genesis and in the Book of Moses in Who Shall Ascend into the Hill of the Lord: 2009 edition pages 64-67; 2010 edition pages 59-61.

{2} Two works that discuss the pre-exilic Jewish apostasy are: Margaret Barker, The Great High Priest, The Temple Roots of Christian Liturgy (London and New York, T&T Clark, 2003); and G. W. Ahlstrom, Joel and the Temple Cult of Jerusalem, (Leiden, E. J. Brill, 1971).

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1 Nephi 2:19-22  

19 And it came to pass that the Lord spake unto me, saying: Blessed art thou, Nephi, because of thy faith, for thou hast sought me diligently, with lowliness of heart.
20 And inasmuch as ye shall keep my commandments, ye shall prosper, and shall be led to a land of promise; yea, even a land which I have prepared for you; yea, a land which is choice above all other lands.
21 And inasmuch as thy brethren shall rebel against thee, they shall be cut off from the presence of the Lord.
22 And inasmuch as thou shalt keep my commandments, thou shalt be made a ruler and a teacher over thy brethren.

These verses contain the Lord’s commission to Nephi to “be a ruler and a teacher”—a king and a priest—to bless his people. In a way that Nephi understood perfectly, the whole legitimacy of the kings and prophets of the Book of Mormon rests on the authenticity of that commission.

In our time, when most people have never encountered a king except in a book, or in the movies, the word “king” evokes an image that tends to focus on an imaginary spectrum that reaches from wicked king John who fought brave Robin Hood on one end, or, to the other extreme, modern constitutional monarchs who some think are more decorative than useful.

But an ancient Israelite king was someone quite different from anything, anywhere along that imaginary spectrum. Kings like David and Solomon, who were the ruling monarchs of Israel, were, first of all, representatives of God. As such, a king was legitimatized by being an adopted “son” of God.{1} He was not just the “head of state,” he was the state personified.{2} His decrees were the only legislation; his power was the only executive authority. His private army enforced local law and protected the nation from outside enemies. His wisdom was the nation’s supreme court.{3} In religious matters, he was a prophet{4} and the nation’s highest High Priest.{5} The easiest way to understand the meaning of “righteous king” is to examine the multiple roles of King Benjamin in the Book of Mormon.

A reason why the Lord’s declaration was so important to Nephi and his posterity was that it established Nephi’s dynastic legitimacy. In ancient Israel, it was understood that the king was the representative of Jehovah in this world, and that his legitimacy rested on two necessary propositions: First, that he had been foreordained in the Council in Heaven to be king when he came to this world. Second, that, through appropriate ordinances, he be formally adopted as the son and heir of God. That was shown to be so during the Jewish temple drama of the Feast of Tabernacles.{6}

In an established dynasty, that heirship was presumed to belong to the oldest son. But when a dynasty failed, the new king had to give evidence that he had been foreordained to create a new dynasty. When Saul and his heirs were displaced by David, the Old Testament authors went to great lengths to demonstrate that David’s new dynasty was legitimate, that he was designated by God to be Israel’s king, anointed by the prophet, and that he represented Jehovah as his son and heir in Israel.

During the first Temple period, the Jewish Kings based their legitimacy on the fact that they were descended from David and could claim the Lord’s covenant with David for themselves.{7} The same concept held in the Book of Mormon, but these people were descendants of Joseph, not of Judah, so the legitimacy of their dynasty must rest on the covenant the Lord had made with Nephi. That covenant is found in the Lord’s words, “And it came to pass that the Lord spake unto me, saying: Blessed art thou, Nephi, because of thy faith, …And inasmuch as thou shalt keep my commandments, thou shalt be made a ruler [king] and a teacher [priest] over thy brethren” (1 Nephi 2:19-22).

In the Book of Mormon, we see Nephi initiating a new dynasty that will last a thousand years. During those years, Nephi’s descendants will first be kings; then Chief Judge and President of the Church (Mormon makes a point of saying that he and Alma were descendents of Nephi); and finally, after the Savior came, they were the prophets who led the Church. Throughout Nephite history, almost every important leader was a direct descendent of Nephi.

Everything is done in order, so ultimately both the Lord’s kingship covenants with David and Nephi are rooted in the blessings of Abraham (see Psalms 47 and 105). Their heirs must show their family ties to the founding king—to David and to Judah; or to Nephi and to Joseph—to claim the patriarchal blessing which Jacob gave to his sons along with their attendant promises of kingship. (Genesis 49) Then through Jacob to Abraham and priesthood “after the order of Melchizedek.” (Psalms 110).
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FOOTNOTES

{1} “Son” is the royal new name given by God to the king in Psalm 2. And as Koester observed, “I will be his Father and he will be my Son. The quotation is from 2 Sam 7:14 (LXX), the oracle in which Nathan told David that God would establish a Davidic dynasty.” (Craig R. Koester, The Anchor Bible, Hebrews (New York, Doubleday, 2001), 191-92.

{2} Carlo Zaccagnini, “Sacred and Human Components in Ancient Near Eastern Law,” in History of Religions (33:3, February 1994), 265-286.For a discussion of the Israelite government of the Old Testament, see Stuart A. Cohen, “Kings, Priests, and Prophets, Patterns of Constitutional Discourse and Constitutional Conflict in Ancient Israel,” in Zvi Gitelman, The Quest for Utopia, Jewish Political Ideas and Institutions through the Ages (Armonk, New York, M.E. Sharpe, Inc., 1992), 17-40.

{3} “Judge,” here, implies something like a supreme court rather than “judge” in the sense that Sampson or Deborah were judges. “Like Egyptian kings, Israel’s kings served as the final arbiter in judicial matters (2 Samuel 14:4-20; 1 Kings 3:16-28; 2 Kings 6:26-29.” James K Hoffmeier “From Pharaoh to Israel’s Kings To Jesus,” in Bible Review (13/2, June 1997), 47.
For a discussion of Israel’s king as judge, see Aubrey R. Johnson, “Hebrew Conceptions of Kingship,” in S. H. Hooke, ed., Myth, Ritual, and Kingship (Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1958), 206-207. For a discussion of Israel’s pre-dynastic judges see, G. W. Ahlstrom, History of Religions (8:2, Nov. 1968), 94-99.

{4} For a discussion of David’s use of the Urim and Thummim, both before and after his anointing as king, see Cornelis Van Dam, The Urim and Thummim (Winona Lake, Indiana, Eisenbrauns, 1997), 187-188, 247-250.

{5} Two examples of the king acting as High Priest are: (1) David’s officiating at the sacrifice and pronouncing a blessing upon the people in the name of the Lord in 2 Kings chapter 6; and (2) Hezekiah’s taking the letter of the Assyrians into the Holy of Holies, kneeling before the throne of cherubims and showing it to the Lord, in 2 Kings 19:14-20. “And Hezekiah received the letter of the hand of the messengers, and read it: and Hezekiah went up into the house of the Lord, and spread it before the Lord. And Hezekiah prayed before the Lord, and said, O Lord God of Israel, which dwellest between the cherubims, thou art the God, even thou alone, of all the kingdoms of the earth: thou hast made heaven and earth.” (v. 14-15) For a discussion of the king as High Priest see, Aubrey R. Johnson, “Hebrew Conceptions of Kingship,” in S. H. Hooke, ed., Myth, Ritual, and Kingship (Oxford, Clarendon Press, 1958), 211-214. Geo Widengren, “King and Covenant” in Journal of Semitic Studies, vol. II, no. I, 1957, is about the ancient Israelite king’s function as a high priest and mediator of the covenant. “The Davidic dynasty acted as the true heirs of the ancient king of Jerusalem, Melchizedek, at once priest and king.” Sigmund Mowinckel, He that Cometh (New York: Abingdon Press, 1954), 75.

{6} See the chapter “Psalm 2, The Ancient Israelite Royal King-name” in Who Shall Ascend into the Hill of the Lord. First edition, p. 499-516; Second edition, p. 360-373.

{7} “I will be his Father and he will be my Son. The quotation is from 2 Sam 7:14 (LXX), the oracle in which Nathan told David that God would establish a Davidic dynasty.” (Craig R. Koester, The Anchor Bible, Hebrews [New York, Doubleday, 2001], 191-92.)
“YHWH swore to David, a surety from which he will not turn back: “Your offspring [I will cause to be enthroned]; I will place (them) on your throne. If your sons keep my covenant, And my stipulation which I teach them. Their children also, forever, Shall sit upon your throne. (Ps 132:11-12).
“The irrevocable nature of YHWH’s oath to David is reiterated elsewhere in the Hebrew Bible, notably in the so-called “last words of David” (2 Sam 23:1-7) and in the following portion of an old liturgy: ‘Once I swore by my holiness; I will not be false to David. His seed will exist forever; And his throne like the sun before me’ (Ps 89:36-37),” (C. L.Seow, Myth, Drama, and the Politics of David’s Dance [Atlanta, Georgia, Scholars Press, 1989], 179-80).

{8} Those patriarchal blessings are found in Genesis 49.
Judah is promised, “The sceptre shall not depart from Judah, nor a lawgiver from between his feet, until Shiloh come” (Genesis 49:10).
Joseph was given the birthright blessing: “The blessings of thy father have prevailed above the blessings of my progenitors unto the utmost bound of the everlasting hills: they shall be on the head of Joseph, and on the crown of the head of him that was separate from his brethren” (Genesis 49:26).

I suppose that is, in our day, a reason a declaration saying which tribe of Israel one belongs to is a necessary part of everyone’s patriarchal blessing, and one reason why patriarchal blessings are given before one goes to the temple.

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