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< Countercult ministries | Tower to Truth Ministries | 50 Questions to Ask Mormons
Questions About LDS Prophets | A FAIR Analysis of: 50 Questions to Ask Mormons A work by author: Tower to Truth Ministries
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Questions About the Bible |
9. Can you show me archeological and historical proof from non-Mormon sources that prove that the peoples and places named in the Book of Mormon are true?
10. If the words "familiar spirit" in Isaiah 29:4 refer to the Book of Mormon, why does "familiar spirit" always refer to occult practices such as channeling and necromancy everywhere else in the Old Testament?
The reason Latter-day Saints won't tell you that "familiar spirits" are "good" is because the subject of "familiar spirits" is rarely, if ever, discussed. Most Latter-day Saints would scratch their head upon hearing this claim.
Why are the words "familiar spirit" in Isaiah 29:4 said to refer to the Book of Mormon (as used in 2 Nephi 26꞉16, when "familiar spirit" usually refers to occult practices such as channeling and necromancy everywhere else in the Old Testament? This doesn't mean that Isaiah was only referring to the Book of Mormon, or that he was particularly thinking about it at all. Nephi simply used the imagery and language of Isaiah, and adapted it to make his point. This was common practice in the ancient world. One wonders how young Joseph Smith knew that?
The comparison does not say that the Book of Mormon is a familiar spirit, but that the message from the Book of Mormon would be comparable, or like such a spirit.
The answer to this criticism depends on understanding Isaiah—and Nephi's use of him. Critics count on the Latter-day Saints being unfamiliar with these materials, and so a review is helpful.[1]
It is natural that some have misunderstood the term "familiar spirit." The contemporary use of familiar is as an adjective, derived from the Latin familiaris, meaning “domestic” (an adjectival formation from familia, “family”). The word means something like “intimate, very friendly.” But in about 1590 the word also began to be used as a noun meaning “demon, evil spirit.”
So in the KJV, the “one that hath a familiar spirit” does not, mean that people will be familiar with it (e.g., as might be expressed by saying it "rings a bell," or is something they've been acquainted with before they heard it.)
Rather, the term "familiar spirit" in Isaiah has something to do with divination by communicating with the spirits of the dead (necromancy). KJV use of “familiar” in this sense is an unfortunate translation, both because it confuses modern English readers and because it brings up images of medieval witchcraft that don't match the ancient biblical world.
The key word in Hebrew is ‘ob, which appears about 15 times in the OT. Unfortunately, we don’t really know for sure what the word means or whence it is derived. It is used in a variety of different ways. The possible meanings include a spirit, an ancestral spirit, the person controlled by a spirit, a bottle (made of skin), the ritual pit from which spirits are called up, a ghost, a demon. Most scholars simply admit the ambiguity and admit that the word can be used in different ways: a ritual pit used by a necromancer, a spirit called up by a necromancer, and/or the necromancer himself or herself.
The word ‘ob is closely associated with the word yidde’oni. Although ‘ob appears independently (in four passages), yidde’oni always appears in connection with ‘ob (in 11 passages). Many believe the two words are always used together as a hendiadys (a rhetorical device where two nouns joined by and are meant to convey a single sense); others, including most translations, see the terms as referencing two different people, often rendered something like “medium and wizard.” In the case of yidde’oni we can recognize the root *YD’, but it is unclear whether the “one who knows” is the one consulted or the one doing the consulting.
We can now consider what Isaiah meant.
Isaiah is referring to events at Jerusalem (called "Ariel"), and says:
4 And thou shalt be brought down, and shalt speak out of the ground, and thy speech shall be low out of the dust, and thy voice shall be, as of one that hath a familiar spirit, out of the ground, and thy speech shall whisper out of the dust. (Isaiah 29:4)
The New English Translation (NET) Bible translation renders this verse as
"Your voice will sound like a spirit speaking from the underworld."
Thus, Jerusalem and its inhabitants will be destroyed, and (in a striking image) Isaiah says that the only thing that will linger on is their voices or witness "from beyond the grave," so to speak. Their destruction will leave them to bear witness, but that is all they can do.
Most translations of Isaiah use some variant of “ghost” in this passage, meaning a shade from Sheol (the Hebrew realm of the dead, or land of spirits).
Nephi (a lover of Isaiah) uses the Isaiah passage to explain or illustrate his own prophecy:
14 But behold, I prophesy unto you concerning the last days; concerning the days when the Lord God shall bring these things forth unto the children of men.
15 After my seed and the seed of my brethren shall have dwindled in unbelief, and shall have been smitten by the Gentiles; yea, after the Lord God shall have camped against them round about, and shall have laid siege against them with a mount, and raised forts against them; and after they shall have been brought down low in the dust, even that they are not, yet the words of the righteous shall be written, and the prayers of the faithful shall be heard, and all those who have dwindled in unbelief shall not be forgotten.
16 For those who shall be destroyed shall speak unto them out of the ground, and their speech shall be low out of the dust, and their voice shall be as one that hath a familiar spirit; for the Lord God will give unto him power, that he may whisper concerning them, even as it were out of the ground; and their speech shall whisper out of the dust.
17 For thus saith the Lord God: They shall write the things which shall be done among them, and they shall be written and sealed up in a book, and those who have dwindled in unbelief shall not have them, for they seek to destroy the things of God. (2 Nephi 26꞉14-17)
This passage is a pesher, applying the Isaianic imagery to the appearance of the BoM in the last days, with speech low out of the dust. If you read this BoM passage with a proper understanding of the familiar spirit reference, it actually makes excellent sense. The words of the Book will speak low out of the dust as a ghost called up from the netherworld.
(All writing from another time does this—it allows the dead to speak to us. Matthew and Paul speak to us "as if" from the dead in the Bible, Shakespeare speaks to us through his plays, etc.)
Thus, the Book of Mormon, being a record from a fallen Christian civilization, would be "as if" the dead spoke, since those who are now dead can speak to us. The comparison to Isaiah's Jerusalem probably seems appropriate to Nephi, since:
The symbol used by Isaiah is thus both appropriate for Nephi's situation, and ironic, since the Nephites have ended up also "speaking from the dust" just like the people at Jerusalem from whom the Nephites fled to avoid destruction!
Remember also that the Book of Mormon was "To come forth by the gift and power of God unto the interpretation thereof" as the title page to the book states. The interpreters, or Urim and Thummim, as well as the seer stone, are what are being referred to here. These are sacred implements. Implements are also used in the context of divination. So it is not surprising that the gift and power of God manifest through use of sacred implements would be described in this manner in Isaiah. The tools such as seer stones and so forth are abused by those who misuse them in occult contexts. But in the context of their correct use under priesthood authority and revelation from God, they are still spiritual implements that manifest things from the unseen world, but in that case, being acted upon by the power of God, not by false spirits.
The critics try to tie the Book of Mormon's use of this passage to ideas of witchcraft or devil-worship. But, Isaiah uses the same imagery (a ghost speaking from beyond the grave) to describe Jerusalem events. Surely the critics don't expect us to believe that Isaiah's use of this metaphor means he approves of witchcraft?
The Book of Mormon verse also emphasizes that the power to translate the Book of Mormon comes from God, not from channeling or necromancy: "the Lord God will give unto him [the translator] power." But, the critics do not mention this inconvenient fact.
Those who advance this criticism also ignore that the Book of Mormon also speaks negatively about appealing to actual "familiar spirits," in another citation from Isaiah in 2 Nephi 18꞉19.
11. Why did Joseph Smith condone polygamy as an ordinance from God (D. & C. 132) when the Book of Mormon had already condemned the practice (Jacob 1:15, 2:24)
Jacob 2:24-29 states:
24 Behold, David and Solomon truly had many wives and concubines, which thing was abominable before me, saith the Lord.
25 Wherefore, thus saith the Lord, I have led this people forth out of the land of Jerusalem, by the power of mine arm, that I might raise up unto me a righteous branch from the fruit of the loins of Joseph.
26 Wherefore, I the Lord God will not suffer that this people shall do like unto them of old.
27 Wherefore, my brethren, hear me, and hearken to the word of the Lord: For there shall not any man among you have save it be one wife; and concubines he shall have none;
28 For I, the Lord God, delight in the chastity of women. And whoredoms are an abomination before me; thus saith the Lord of Hosts.
29 Wherefore, this people shall keep my commandments, saith the Lord of Hosts, or cursed be the land for their sakes.
Those who cite this as a condemnation of plural marriage generally refrain from citing the very next verse:
30 For if I will, saith the Lord of Hosts, raise up seed unto me, I will command my people; otherwise they shall hearken unto these things. (Jacob 2:30).
The Book of Mormon makes it clear that the Lord may, under some circumstances, command the practice of plural marriage.
Jacob demonstrates that some of David and Solomon's actions were contrary to Torah, and contrary to God's established order. If God will not justify even the kings of Israel in such behavior (Jacob seems to argue) why do you think he will justify you in taking plural wives which I, Jacob, have not approved as God's representative among you?
On the other hand, the Doctrine and Covenants' intention is to explain under what circumstances God has and would not only permit but command plural marriage through his prophets.
These two texts are not discussing the same thing at all. This is not immediately obvious, but becomes clear as we look closer.
One of the challenges is that at some point after these events (David and Solomon), it was encoded into Mosaic law that a man was not to have many wives—and this (back when polygamy was still considered acceptable in mainstream Judaism) was later interpreted by the Rabbis to mean that a man could have as many as four wives.
This injunction on the number of wives seems to be carried over into the polemic given in Jacob. The key in this interpretation of the text is the phrase "Behold, David and Solomon truly had many wives and concubines...". This is a citation of the Old Testament text found in Deuteronomy 17:17, although the rendering is much closer to the NIV than to the KJV. (Deuteronomy in its present form was probably not written before the Lehites' departure, but a similar body of law and thought would have gone back to Lehi's day.)
Here is the relevant passage from the New International Version of the Bible (NIV), which describes the responsibilities and powers of the king.
Deuteronomy 17:14-20 (NIV, emphasis added)
Compare this with the KJV:
Deuteronomy 17:14-20 (KJV, emphasis added)
It is probable that Jacob is effectively quoting this passage (or a precursor to it) from the Brass Plates, and whether or not some of those wives/concubines were given to these men by God is to an extent irrelevant to his point. In other words, the passage in the Book of Mormon and the passage in the Doctrine and Covenants, quite possibly, are really not discussing the same issue at all.
Jacob was not just saying that David and Solomon had more than one wife, he says that they "truly had many wives," as if to say, "there is no question that David and Solomon had many wives." The fact that the Old Testament strictly forbade the practice of taking many wives for a king (both Solomon and David were kings) leads one to conclude that they were in violation of Torah. The reason to suggest it as a recitation of Deuteronomy 17:17 is because of the context.
If it is not a recitation, then there is no previous indication that this is an abomination (at least within the scriptures that we have today) and that this would be a new rule. How then could it be retroactively applied to Solomon and David? This ultimately is the point—Jacob was defending the new 'party line' on polygamy from the scriptures.
The Book of Mormon account is basing its statements on an interpretation of Mosaic Law to defend a new (to them) negative position on polygamy. The Doctrine and Covenants, by contrast, wishes to explain how and when polygamy can be acceptable to God. One states that the abomination of Solomon and David was in their breaking the commandments in Torah according to the text, and while there are many polygamous figures in the Old Testament, very few "truly had many wives." It is doubtful that the Nephite proponents of polygamy restricted their proof texts to only David and Solomon.
What were the wrongdoings of David and Solomon from Jacob's perspective? Was polygamy the sinful act they committed, or was it something else? Obviously, polygamy was accepted by the Lord at times, since many of His prophets participated in the practice. In fact, the Bible says that God gave David his plural wives:
2 Samuel 12:7-8 (emphasis added)
Would God give anyone something that was sinful, wrong, or evil? Absolutely not. If polygamy was not the sin that David committed, then what was it? The very next verse in the Bible explains the sin.
2 Samuel 12:9 (emphasis added)
It was the murder of Uriah and the taking of his wife that was the sin David committed, not polygamy. David already had plural wives. These wives were given to him by God. Polygamy was not the sin David was guilty of, but murder and coveting another's wife was. David committed this murder (or rather caused it to happen) so he could have Uriah's wife as his own. In other words, David took an additional wife that the Lord did not give him. But the fact that he had plural wives was in no wise a sin.
The Doctrine and Covenants confirms what the Bible tells us concerning this matter.
What of Solomon? Was polygamy his sin? Not according to the Bible.
1 Kings 11:1-6 (emphasis added)
It was the fact that Solomon allowed some of his wives to turn his heart away from the Lord, just like Uriah's wife did with David, that resulted in sin or evil. It was not polygamy that was evil. The Book of Mormon explains that only when God commands it can a man have more than one wife at a time.
Now, let's return to the second chapter of Jacob:
Jacob 2꞉23 (emphasis added)
Remember that verse 30 could be the "exception clause." That is why it is important to look at the full account in the scriptures, and not selectivity pick one or two verses.
Jacob 2꞉23 (emphasis added)
The Lord had not given permission for the people to have more than one wife at that time. The people were selectively using the scriptures to obtain more than one wife. Because the Lord had not given His permission, it was wrong to have more than one wife at a time, and Jacob can demonstrate how both these kings were also condemned by the Law for their unapproved actions.
It was not the concubines or the multiple wives that was abominable, it was abominable because there was some abuse and not all of it was specifically approved by the Lord.
Their plural wives and concubines were an abomination in that not all of them were approved by the Lord. They were kings who used their temporal power to take that which God had not approved.
Critical sources |
Critics of the Book of Mormon attempt to use the words of early LDS leaders to bolster their position. For example, note how the words of Orson Pratt are "mined" to support the critic's assertion that the Book of Mormon condemns polygamy:
Reference | Original quote... | What the critics want the quote to say... |
---|---|---|
Tanner, The Changing World of Mormonism, p. 221 quoting Orson Pratt in Journal of Discourses 6:351 | The Book of Mormon, therefore, is the only record (professing to be Divine) which condemns plurality of wives as being a practice exceedingly abominable before God. But even that sacred book makes an exception in substance as follows—"Except I the Lord command my people." The same Book of Mormon and the same article that commanded the Nephites that they should not marry more than one wife, made an exception. Let this be understood—"Unless I the Lord shall command them." We can draw the conclusion from this, that there were some things not right in the sight of God, unless he should command them. We can draw the same conclusion from the Bible, that there were many things which the Lord would not suffer his children to do, unless he particularly commanded them to do them. | The Book of Mormon, therefore, is the only record (professing to be divine) which condemns the plurality of wives as being a practice exceedingly abominable before God. |
The critics use this quote to state that Orson Pratt "admitted" that the Book of Mormon condemns plural marriage by extracting only the portion of his quote that mentions it. They omit Pratt's subsequent explanation regarding the exception mentioned in Jacob 2:30, thus implying that Pratt was making an "admission" that the Book of Mormon condemned polygamy.
Jerald and Sandra Tanner quote Vol. 1, p. 480 of the Smoot hearings for this claim. They ignore the exchange on the very next page in which President Joseph F. Smith responds to this claim in the Senate, with the senate making the same error made by the Tanners and other critics.
A splinter group of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints known as the "Doctrine of Christ" have been adamant that the Book of Mormon doesn’t actually condone polygamy under certain circumstances.
The focus is over Jacoh 2:30. Jacob is speaking to Nephite men and women. Here are the verses in question verbatim
Those associated with the Doctrine of Christ have interpreted this verse in a variety of ways that do not include the "exception clause" provided by Jacob 2:30 that polygamy may be commanded by God when God needs to raise up seed.
This article will respond to the major arguments in favor of reinterpreting this passage.
One of the arguments is that to "raise up seed", God wouldn’t need to command polygamy but, like Lehi, he could just command his covenant people to move to another location. In the case of Lehi, he was commanded to leave Jerusalem and sail to another location. At the beginning of 1 Nephi 7, Nephi informs us of the following:
Thus, the Lord commanded Lehi to get his sons to take daughters to wife and take them to the land of promise where they could raise up seed. Monogamously, the Nephites may very well have done that. There are many verses in the Book of Mormon that speak of the Nephites multiplying monogamously.
In Jacob 2 itself Jacob declares:
But verse 30 does not entirely rule out that polygamy might be among the strategies the Lord might pursue in order to raise up seed. Leading people away from hostile environments might only be one of those strategies. Saying that verse 30 totally rules out polygamy is thus a form of eisegesis.
The next major assertion is that Jacob flatly condemns polygamy in his discourse. At first blush, this assertion seems to be entirely correct. Jacob 2:25 says:
There is a lot more complexity to Jacob’s assertion though. We have outlined that complexity in the article below.
As a clue to some of the complexity, several biblical characters practiced plural marriage and they did not receive condemnation from neither God nor Jacob.
Richard Price "is a Reorganization conservative who interprets redirection in the church’s policy and doctrine as evidence of apostacy [sic] from the truths of the Restoration. He has become the chief spokesman for Reorganization fundamentalists, and a rival church organization is now developing around him."[2] Him and his wife Pamela are the authors of the three-volume series Joseph Smith Fought Polygamy.
They claim the following:
The true interpretation of the passage shows that it is definitely monogamous, and that it is in harmony with all the rest of the revelation which the Lord gave through Jacob. The true interpretation is:This is the true meaning of this passage—and therefore it condemns polygamy, rather than justifying it as the Mormon Church leaders claim.[3]
- For if I will, saith the Lord of hosts, raise up [righteous] seed unto me, I will command my people [the Lord will be their commander—He will give them commandments to obey]: otherwise [if the Lord is not their commander; or they do not obey His commandments], they shall hearken unto these things [they shall practice the sins of polygamy].
Other authors have followed their lead in interpreting Jacob 2:30 this way.
Gregory L. Smith pointed out the major flaws of their argument in a post on the FAIR Blog:
This is certainly a creative reading. I see a few problems, however:
- The reading requires the "shall hearken" to be read as predictive (what will happen), not imperative (what should happen). Yet, in Joseph’s day, shall is typically an imperative when applied in the second and third person, not a future tense. See Webster’s 1828 dictionary, "shall," definition #2.
- It seems strange for the Lord to say simply that He will be "their commander,"–the verse is clearly talking about commanding SOMETHING. And, it involves the Lord "will"[ing] something that He might not will in other situations.
- It ignores the fact that Jacob is almost certainly commenting on Deuteronomic (or Deuteronomy-like) writing about plural marriage in Judaic kings, some of whom clearly had wives given them by God. (e.g., 2 Sam 11:8) See here and here for analysis on these lines by FAIR.[4]
These rebuttals should suffice in demonstrating that the major arguments in favor of reinterpretation are all either false or non-determinative.
"Plural Marriage and Families in Early Utah," Gospel Topics on LDS.org
The Bible and the Book of Mormon teach that the marriage of one man to one woman is God’s standard, except at specific periods when He has declared otherwise. [5]
Critical sources |
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Notes
12. Why were the words "white and delightsome" in 2 Nephi 30:6 changed to "pure and delightsome" right on the heels of the Civil Rights campaign for blacks?
This change was originally made in the 1840 edition but because subsequent editions were based off the European editions (which followed the 1837 edition), the change did not get perpetuated until the preparation of the 1981 edition. The change is not (as the critics want to portray it) a "recent" change designed to remove a "racist" original.
The idea that the Church has somehow "hidden" the original text or manuscripts of the Book of Mormon in order to hide this is simply unbelievable. Replicas of the 1830 Book of Mormon are easily obtained on Amazon.com, and the text is freely available online. In addition, Royal Skousen has extensively studied the original Book of Mormon manuscripts and published a critical text edition of the Book of Mormon. The claim by the critics that the Church has somehow hidden these items is seriously outdated.
This change actually first appeared in the 1840 edition, and was probably made by Joseph Smith:
This particular correction is part of the changes referred to in the note "About this Edition" printed in the introductory pages:
"Some minor errors in the text have been perpetuated in past editions of the Book of Mormon. This edition contains corrections that seem appropriate to bring the material into conformity with prepublication manuscripts and early editions edited by the Prophet Joseph Smith."
It’s doubtful that Joseph Smith had racism in mind when the change was done in 1840 or other similar verses would have been changed as well.
Furthermore, "white" was a synonym for "pure" at the time Joseph translated the Book of Mormon:
3. Having the color of purity; pure; clean; free from spot; as white robed innocence....5. Pure; unblemished....6. In a scriptural sense, purified from sin; sanctified. Psalm 51.[1]
Thus, the "pure" meaning likely reflected the original intent of the passage and translator.
13. If God is an exalted man with a body of flesh and bones, why does Alma 18꞉26-28 and John 4:24 say that God is a spirit?
Some Christians object to the LDS position that God has a physical body by quoting John 4꞉24:
God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth. (Italics in KJV original).
Adopting a critical reading of this verse leads to some strange conclusions if we are consistent. Deuteronomy 4:28 says that our God can see, eat and smell. Can an unembodied spirit do that? Deuteronomy 4:24 and Hebrews 12:29 say that God is a consuming fire, 1 Jn 1:5 says God is light, and 1 Jn 4:4,16 says that God is love. Is He just those things? Clearly not, and the LDS conclude that neither is He just a spirit.
Note that in the KJV cited above, the word “is” is italicized. This is because the King James translators have inserted it on their own—it is not present in the Greek text from which the translation was made.
Secondly, the reader should be aware that the indefinite article (“a”, as in "a dog" or "a spirit") does not exist in Greek. Thus, the addition of the word "a" in English occurs at the discretion of the translators.[2]
This leaves two Greek words: theos pneuma [θεος πνεμα]—“God spirit”. The JST resolves this translational issue by saying “for unto such hath God promised his spirit”. The word pneuma, which is translated spirit, also means ‘life’ or ‘breath’. The King James Version of Revelation 13:15 renders ‘pneuma’ as life. Thus "God is life," or "God is the breath of life" are potential alternative translations of this verse.
Also, if God is a spirit and we have to worship him in spirit, do mortals have to leave our bodies to worship him?
Thus, the Latter-day Saints believe that man is also spirit (D&C 93꞉33-34; Numbers 16:22; Romans 8:16) and is, like God, housed in a physical body. We were, after all, created in the "image" of God (Genesis 1:26-27).
It is interesting that in 1 Corinthians 2:11, Paul wrote about "the spirit of man and the Spirit of God." Elsewhere he spoke of the resurrection of the body and then noted that it is a "spiritual" body (1 Corinthians 15:44-46), though, rising from the grave, it is obviously composed of flesh and bones, as Jesus made clear when he appeared to the apostles after his resurrection (Luke 24꞉37-39).
Paul also told the saints in Rome, "But ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you" (Romans 8:9).
One Commentary insists:
That God is spirit is not meant as a definition of God's being—though this is how the Stoics [a branch of Greek philosophy] would have understood it. It is a metaphor of his mode of operation, as life-giving power, and it is no more to be taken literally than 1 Jn 1:5, "God is light," or Deuteronomy 4:24, "Your God is a devouring fire." It is only those who have received this power through Christ who can offer God a real worship.[3]
Non-LDS Christian Stephen H. Webb wrote:[4]
Perhaps the most complicating factor for creedal dialogue with Latter-day Saints is that Mormons, unlike other restorationists, were not content to flounder in suspicion of the way the early Church absorbed Greek metaphysics. Instead, Mormons put the Platonization of Christianity at the heart of their critique of the ossification and corruption of Christianity. Something went terribly wrong after the age of the Apostles, they argue, and that something has to do with the theological turn toward a metaphysics of immaterialism. Far from ignoring early church history, then, Mormons are committed to an interrogation of the relationship of theology to philosophy that objects to nearly every development that led to the ecumenical creeds. They do not just raise objections, however. It is as if, as they follow the road orthodox theologians took to the creeds, Mormons pause to pick up the detritus that was jettisoned along the way. They recycle these discarded beliefs into a shining, novel creation of their own. [5]:86
14. Why did God encourage Abraham & Sarah to lie in Abraham 2꞉24? Isn't lying a sin according to the 10 commandments? Why did God tell Abraham and Sarah to lie when 2 Nephi condemns liars to hell?
Other examples of God instructing others to hide the truth include:
1 And the Lord said unto Samuel, How long wilt thou mourn for Saul, seeing I have rejected him from reigning over Israel? fill thine horn with oil, and go, I will send thee to Jesse the Beth-lehemite: for I have provided me a king among his sons. 2 And Samuel said, How can I go? if Saul hear it, he will kill me. And the Lord said, Take an heifer with thee, and say, I am come to sacrifice to the Lord.
Some ask, "Why God would encourage Abraham & Sarah to lie in Abraham 2꞉24? Isn't lying a sin according to the 10 commandments? Why did God tell Abraham and Sarah to lie when 2 Nephi condemns liars to hell?"
The Bible tells us that Moses did what God told him to do. Is it so surprising that Abraham might have been told something similar to prevent death to the righteous? The Pharaoh would sometimes kill a husband then take their wives for themselves. The Bible record tells us that God blessed Abraham despite his action. The Book of Abraham simply makes it clear that Abraham did not choose this path on his own, but like Moses was obeying a direct command from God, who may grant exceptions to His Laws if He pleases.
The Bible records Abraham's lie to Pharaoh, and then God rewards the lie (see Genesis 12꞉17). This seems a strange action if God disapproved their action.
In the ancient Genesis Apocryphon text, Abraham has the same motives described in the Pearl of Great Price as delivered by Joseph Smith. He tells Sarah that God has given him a dream in which she saves him from being killed. He then tells her:
[Say to them] of me, 'He is my brother,' and because of you I shall live, and because of your my life shall be saved...'
And Sarai wept that night on account of my words..." [6]
How did Joseph produce this authentic ancient detail, with this text not available until 1948?
The first example involves Pharaoh's murderous instructions to the Egyptian midwives:
16 And he said, When ye do the office of a midwife to the Hebrew women, and see them upon the stools; if it be a son, then ye shall kill him: but if it be a daughter, then she shall live.
17 But the midwives feared God, and did not as the king of Egypt commanded them, but saved the men children alive.
18 And the king of Egypt called for the midwives, and said unto them, Why have ye done this thing, and have saved the men children alive?
19 And the midwives said unto Pharaoh, Because the Hebrew women are not as the Egyptian women; for they are lively, and are delivered ere the midwives come in unto them. Exodus 1:16-19
The midwives are confronted with a command from the head of state which offends their personal/professional morality. They decline to participate, and actively deceive the Pharaoh--they even lie to him or his officers so that the deception may continue, as well as to (one assumes) spare themselves his punishment. The subsequent verses indicate God's approval of their action. (See Exodus 1:20).
Honesty to the wicked is not the primary moral value: obedience to the will of God is.
The second example comes from the prophetic call of Moses. The Lord speaks to Moses and says:
17 And I have said, I will bring you up out of the affliction of Egypt unto the land of the Canaanites, and the Hittites, and the Amorites, and the Perizzites, and the Hivites, and the Jebusites, unto a land flowing with milk and honey.(Exodus 3:17)
The Lord announces His intention to liberate the Israelites from slavery. But, in the very next breath, He tells Moses what to tell Pharaoh—what the "public story" should be, if you will:
18 And they shall hearken to thy voice: and thou shalt come, thou and the elders of Israel, unto the king of Egypt, and ye shall say unto him, The LORD God of the Hebrews hath met with us: and now let us go, we beseech thee, three days' journey into the wilderness, that we may sacrifice to the LORD our God.(Exodus 3:18)
The "public stance" of Moses and the Israelite leaders is to be that they only want to go three days' journey to sacrifice. So, here the Lord is advocating some degree of deception. This extends to even deceiving their Egyptian neighbors:
21 And I will give this people favour in the sight of the Egyptians: and it shall come to pass, that, when ye go, ye shall not go empty:
22 But every woman shall borrow of her neighbour, and of her that sojourneth in her house, jewels of silver, and jewels of gold, and raiment: and ye shall put them upon your sons, and upon your daughters; and ye shall spoil the Egyptians.(Exodus 3:21-22)
Because they are just going to make sacrifices, in the public version, the Israelites are to "borrow" valuable goods from the Egyptians. But, the true intent is clearly spelled out: they are to "spoil" (i.e. "loot") the Egyptians.
Pharaoh is, of course, nobody's fool. He seems to strongly suspect that there is more to the story than Moses is publicly admitting. He offers all sorts of compromise positions, seemingly designed to assure that the slaves will return after fulfilling their duties.
Things proceed to the point that Pharaoh threatens Moses' life despite the plagues and signs. The people are finally freed, but once they have left Pharaoh and his councilors decide to resort to violence and slaughter:
5 And it was told the king of Egypt that the people fled: and the heart of Pharaoh and of his servants was turned against the people, and they said, Why have we done this, that we have let Israel go from serving us?
6 And he made ready his chariot, and took his people with him:
7 And he took six hundred chosen chariots, and all the chariots of Egypt, and captains over every one of them.
8 And the LORD hardened the heart of Pharaoh king of Egypt, and he pursued after the children of Israel: and the children of Israel went out with an high hand.(Exodus 14:5-8)
We are not told why the Lord instructed Moses to deal with the Egyptians in the way that he did. It is significant that Moses did not take such an approach on his own; only a direct command motivates his less-than-forthright behavior.
One can speculate, however—it is certainly reasonable to think that the Egyptians would have murderous intent toward their slaves who presumed to leave. They are willing to act on such inclinations, despite the plagues, when it becomes indisputable that Israel has left for good. If Moses had announced that Israel was leaving, what would the reaction of Pharaoh's court have been? Moses' failure to tell the whole story may well have saved Egyptian life, as well as Israelite. To be sure, God could have used another way. But, in this instance, deception was the specific tactic which He commanded.
Anti-Moses authors could doubtless exploit this situation to great rhetorical effect--they could mock Moses' "ethical lapse" here, and insist that he did it all for monetary gain. They could contrast his behavior here with the "thou shalt not covet," "thou shalt not bear false witness," and "thou shalt not steal" commands given later at Sinai, and point out that "borrowing" when you don't ever intend to come back looks a lot like "stealing."
The book of Genesis contains two well-known accounts of Abraham lying about his wife, Sarah (Gen. 12:10–20; 20:1–18).1 In each of them, Abraham reports that Sarah is his sister, 2 Sarah is then taken from Abraham, trouble ensues for those who have taken her, and Sarah is then returned to Abraham. The account in Genesis 20 also explicitly tells us that the Lord protected Sarah from being “touched” in the circumstances (v. 6), and the account in Genesis 12, too, tells us that the Lord intervened, presumably for the same purpose (v. 17)...The concern in considering Abraham’s conduct is to explore the moral status of lying itself—and, for that issue, the question of primacy is irrelevant. From a moral standpoint, it is actually simpler to think of all these accounts as depicting separate incidents. What matters is that they all present the same general circumstances—and in each case, those circumstances present us with an ethical question about lying. This ethical question, then—not exegesis—is the present concern, and on that issue, the two competing views about Abraham make a common assumption—namely, that lying itself is morally wrong and thus prohibited. That shared assumption is the subject of this brief study.
15. Why does the Book of Mormon state that Jesus was born in Jerusalem (Alma 7:10) when history and the Bible state that he was born outside of Jerusalem, in Bethlehem?
Note also 2 Kings 14꞉20 and Luke 2꞉4:
And they brought [Amaziah] on horses: and he was buried at Jerusalem with his fathers in the city of David" (2 Kings 14:20)
And Joseph also went up from Galilee, out of the city of Nazareth, into Judaea, unto the city of David, which is called Bethlehem; (Luke 2:4)
Therefore Amaziah was buried AT Jerusalem, in the city of David (which is called Bethlehem). The Savior was born AT Jerusalem (in the city of David, which is called Bethlehem).
Some have noted that Alma 7:10 says that Jesus would be born "at Jerusalem which is the land of our forefathers." Yet, every schoolchild knows that Jesus was born in Bethlehem. They claim that this is a mistake, and evidence that Joseph Smith forged the Book of Mormon.
The town of Bethlehem is in the "land of Jerusalem." In fact, Bethlehem is only 5 miles south of Jerusalem: definitely "in the land," especially from the perspective of Alma, a continent away. Even locals considered Hebron, twenty five miles from Bethlehem, to be in the "land of Jerusalem." This is, in reality, another literary evidence for the Book of Mormon. While a forger would likely overlook this detail and include Bethlehem as the commonly-understood birthplace of Jesus, the ancient authors of the Book of Mormon use an authentic term to describe the Savior's birthplace—thereby providing another point of authenticity for the Book of Mormon.
This is an old criticism that has been dealt with at least as far back as 1842.[7] but continues to pop up now and again.
BYU professor Daniel C. Peterson pointed out the absurdity of this argument:
To suggest that Joseph Smith knew the precise location of Jesus' baptism by John ("in Bethabara, beyond Jordan" (1 Ne. 10:9) but hadn't a clue about the famous town of Christ's birth is so improbable as to be ludicrous. Do the skeptics seriously mean to suggest that the Book of Mormon's Bible-drenched author (or authors) missed one of the most obvious facts about the most popular story in the Bible — something known to every child and Christmas caroler? Do they intend to say that a clever fraud who could write a book displaying so wide an array of subtly authentic Near Eastern and biblical cultural and literary traits as the Book of Mormon does was nonetheless so stupid as to claim, before a Bible-reading public, that Jesus was born in the city of Jerusalem? As one anti-Mormon author has pointed out, "Every schoolboy and schoolgirl knows Christ was born in Bethlehem." [Langfield, 53.] Exactly! It is virtually certain, therefore, that Alma 7:10 was foreign to Joseph Smith's preconceptions. "The land of Jerusalem" is not the sort of thing the Prophet would likely have invented, precisely for the same reason it bothers uninformed critics of the Book of Mormon.[8]
It is important to note what Alma's words were. He did not claim Jesus would be born in the city of Jerusalem, but "at Jerusalem which is the land of our forefathers."
Thus, the Book of Mormon makes a distinction here between a city and the land associated with a city. It does this elsewhere as well:
This is consistent with the usage of the ancient Middle East. El Amarna letter #290 reports that "a town of the land of Jerusalem, Bit-Lahmi [Bethlehem] by name, a town belonging to the king, has gone over to the side of the people of Keilah."[9] (One over-confident 19th century critic blithely assured his readers that "There is no such land. No part of Palestine bears the name of Jerusalem, except the city itself."[10] While this was perhaps true in the 19th century, it was not true anciently. A supposed "howler" turns into evidence for the text's antiquity.
Thus, the Book of Mormon gets it exactly right — the town of Bethlehem is in the "land of Jerusalem." In fact, Bethlehem is only 5 miles south of Jerusalem: definitely "in the land," especially from the perspective of Alma, a continent away. Even locals considered Hebron, twenty five miles from Bethlehem, to be in the "land of Jerusalem."
Hugh Nibley noted in 1957:
while the Book of Mormon refers to the city of Jerusalem plainly and unmistakably over sixty times, it refers over forty times to another and entirely different geographical entity which is always designated as "the land of Jerusalem." In the New World also every major Book of Mormon city is surrounded by a land of the same name.
The land of Jerusalem is not the city of Jerusalem. Lehi "dwelt at Jerusalem in all his days" (1 Nephi 1꞉4), yet his sons had to "go down to the land of our father's inheritance" to pick up their property (1 Nephi 3꞉16,22). The apparent anomaly is readily explained by the Amarna Letters, in which we read that "a city of the land of Jerusalem, Bet-Ninib, has been captured."17 It was the rule in Palestine and Syria from ancient times, as the same letters show, for a large area around a city and all the inhabitants of that area to bear the name of the city.18 It is taken for granted that if Nephi lived at Jerusalem he would know about the surrounding country: "I, of myself, have dwelt at Jerusalem, wherefore I know concerning the regions round about" (2 Nephi 25꞉6; italics added). But this was quite unknown at the time the Book of Mormon was written—the Amarna Letters were discovered in 1887. One of the favorite points of attack on the Book of Mormon has been the statement in Alma 7꞉10 that the Savior would be born "at Jerusalem which is the land of our forefathers" (italics added). Here Jerusalem is not the city "in the land of our forefathers"; it is the land. Christ was born in a village some six miles from the city of Jerusalem; it was not in the city, but it was in what we now know the ancients themselves designated as "the land of Jerusalem." Such a neat test of authenticity is not often found in ancient documents.[11]
16. If the Book of Mormon is the most correct of any book on earth, as Joseph Smith said, why does it contain over 4000 changes from the original 1830 edition?
17. If the Book of Mormon contains the "fulness of the everlasting gospel," why does the LDS Church need additional works?
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18. If the Book of Mormon contains the "fulness of the everlasting gospel," why doesn't it say anything about so many important teachings such as eternal progression, celestial marriage, the Word of Wisdom, the plurality of Gods, the pre-existence of man, our mother in heaven, baptism for the dead, etc?
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19. Why do you baptize for the dead when both Mosiah 3꞉25 and the Bible state that there is no chance of salvation after death?
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20. Since the word grace means a free gift that can't be earned, why does the Book of Mormon state "for we know that it is by grace that we are saved, after all we can do." (2 Nephi 25꞉23)
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21. Does the LDS Church still regard the Book of Abraham in the Pearl of Great Price as Holy Scripture even after several prominent Egyptologists proved it was an ancient funeral scroll?
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22. Why does the Book of Abraham, chapters 4 & 5, contradict Alma 11 in stating that there is more than one God.
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23. Why does D. & C. 42:18 say there is no forgiveness for a murderer when 3 Nephi 30:2 says there is forgiveness for him?
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24. If the Adam-God doctrine isn't true, how come D. & C. 27:11 calls Adam the Ancient of Days which is clearly a title for God in Daniel Chapter 7?
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25. Why does the Book of Mormon contain extensive, word-for-word quotes from the Bible if the LDS Church is correct in teaching that the Bible has been corrupted?
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26. Why do the Bible verses quoted in the Book of Mormon contain the italicized words from the King James Version that were added into the KJV text by the translators in the 16th and 17th centuries?
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27. If the Book of Mormon was engraved on gold plates thousands of years ago, why does it read in perfect 1611 King James Version English?
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Notes
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