Mormons love Isaiah. Not because they love the Old Testament or because they spend a lot of time reading the books of Amos and Jeremiah and Isaiah. No, they love Isaiah because they are told to love Isaiah. Because they are commanded to read Isaiah (“Yea, a commandment I give unto you that ye search these things diligently; for great are the words of Isaiah,” 3 Ne. 23:1). Because fifteen Isaiah chapters appear almost verbatim in the Nephis (First and Second), along with several additional chapters of commentary.
So let us hearken unto the commandment and do some diligent searching of Isaiah. First we will look at the authorship of Isaiah 48 and 49, then look at 1 Nephi 20 and 21 which claim to quote material from the brass plates that read remarkably like KJV Isaiah 48 and 49. Let’s start with Second Isaiah (often referred to as Deutero-Isaiah).
Second Isaiah
Isaiah falls into the section of the long Book of Isaiah labeled by scholars as Second Isaiah, namely chapters 40-66, with some scholars further seeing a Third Isaiah lurking at the end of the book, chapters 56-66. Here is what Marc Zvi Brettler, a bible prof at Brandeis (now Duke) and co-editor of The Jewish Study Bible, has to say in his How to Read the Jewish Bible (OUP, 2007, paperback edition). He talks about historical Isaiah in chapter 17, then Second Isaiah in a separate chapter 20, “the Exile and Beyond.”
The prophecies of Isaiah 40-66 and other literature of the late exilic and early postexilic periods connect deeply to this background [Cyrus the Persian defeating the Babylonians and essentially annexing its territory and peoples in 539 BC]. The Persians tolerated other religions, and they allowed various peoples exiled by the Babylonians to return to their homelands. … In 538, the Judeans received their Temple vessels and were encouraged to return to Yehud [Judah]. (p. 199)
Plainly, if these later chapters of Isaiah are deeply connected to the events of the fall of Babylon, the ascension of Cyrus of Persia, and the eventual return of some of the exiled Jews back to their previous homeland, then modern readers will not understand what these chapters are talking about unless they acknowledge that connection. If you think historical Isaiah wrote these chapters around the time of Hezekiah facing down the marauding Assyrians when, in fact, these chapters were written around the time of Cyrus as exiled Jews were hoping beyond hope that they could return to their homeland, then you won’t really understand them.
Here is one example, as discussed by Brettler (p. 200-201). The Cyrus Cylinder is an artifact with Akkadian text (the language of the Babylonians) recounting how Cyrus defeated Babylon and its unpopular last king, Nabonidus. That text claims that Marduk, the chief god of Babylon, called upon Cyrus the Persian to attack Babylon and that Marduk delivered Nabonidus into his hands. Now Jews in Babylon were not at all displeased with that outcome, but they certainly did not want to give Marduk credit for these fortuitous events. No way they were going to build a shrine to Marduk in Jerusalem giving thanks for Marduk’s intervention that led to the Jews returning to Judah. Read the beginning of Isaiah 45 with this context in mind:
Thus saith the Lord to his anointed, to Cyrus, whose right hand I have holden, to subdue nations before him; and I will loose the loins of kings, to open before him the two leaved gates; and the gates shall not be shut; I will go before thee, and make the crooked places straight: I will break in pieces the gates of brass, and cut in sunder the bars of iron: And I will give thee the treasures of darkness, and hidden riches of secret places, that thou mayest know that I, the Lord, which call thee by thy name, am the God of Israel. For Jacob my servant’s sake, and Israel mine elect, I have even called thee by thy name: I have surnamed thee, though thou hast not known me.
I am the Lord, and there is none else, there is no God beside me: I girded thee, though thou hast not known me: That they may know from the arising of the sun, and from the west, that there is none beside me. I am the Lord, and there is none else. (Isaiah 45:1-6)
So in Second Isaiah and no doubt in the minds of all the Jews in Babylon, it is the Lord YHWH that gets credit for the acts of Cyrus, not Marduk. Isaiah 45 is a counter-narrative to the Cyrus Cylinder and to every Persian official or Babylonian priest who told the Jews in Babylon that, due to the grace of Marduk or Ahura Mazda, the Jews could now return to Judah. The Jews spent decades praying to YHWH, not Marduk, for deliverance, so that’s who pulled the strings to make it happen. The Jewish counter-narrative is made abundantly clear in the last two verses: “there is no God beside me” (especially no Marduk!). “I am the Lord, and there is none else” (especially no Ahura Mazda!). Those emphatic statements, illustrating the “radical monotheism” that emerged in this period, don’t even make sense in the context of Judah in the time of the Assyrians, when there were a variety of other dieties that at least some Israelites paid attention to.
Second Isaiah in the Book of Mormon
Obviously, Second Isaiah doesn’t belong on the brass plates or in the Book of Mormon, if you accept the almost unanimous scholarship about the authorship and chronology of Second Isaiah material and you subscribe to a reasonable view of causation and quotation (namely, that authors cannot quote documents and texts that have not been written yet). There are a few fundamentalist scholars and some LDS scholars who really, really want all of the Book of Isaiah to be penned by the historical Isaiah, without later additions by the anonymous “Second Isaiah.” And there are LDS apologists who have no problem with a Book of Mormon writer quoting from Bible texts that had not been written yet or to which the Nephite author would have had no conceivable access. But I won’t explore those minority views any further in this post. If you want to explore that angle, go to Book of Mormon Central and search “anachronisms” and you will find plenty of reading material.
But let’s see what the recently published The Bible and the Latter-day Saint Tradition (Univ. of Utah Press, 2023), edited by Taylor Petrey et al, has to say. This, by the way, is a book you really should have on your LDS bookshelf. Let’s look in particular at the essay “Prophets and Prophetic Literature,” by David Bokovoy (at pages 379-392). He devotes that last two pages of the essay to Isaiah in the Book of Mormon. Here are the first few sentences of that section:
One of the most significant challenges for traditional LDS readings of prophetic material is the fact that this literature grew over time and was most likely not produced by the men whose names are connected with the biblical books. This is especially true for the composition of Isaiah. Since the twentieth century, virtually all mainstream scholars have held the position that Isaiah chapters 40-66 were written after the Jewish exile into Babylon (c. 586 BCE). … If scholars are correct, then this material would not have been available to the Book of Mormon people because it was not written until after they had arrived in the New World.
Bokovoy goes on to summarize six main points that scholars cite in favor of the Deutero-Isaiah theory, any one of which strongly supports the theory. He also gives reasonable LDS apologetic responses a word or two (footnotes to the sources omitted here):
LDS apologetic responses to this challenge typically approach the topic by focusing on the Book of Mormon as a revelatory work given through Joseph Smith. In creating the Book of Mormon, Smith did not simply work his way line upon line through an ancient script carved into golden plates. The translation of the Book of Mormon was more likely a revelatory, creative experience similar to the adaptation of scriptural sources seen in earlier biblical and post biblical traditions.
1 Nephi 20 to 22
Obviously, Nephi wasn’t writing this material to inform his Nephite readers about the future conquest of Babylon by Cyrus the Persian and the subsequent return of exiled Jews to Judah. In 1 Nephi 19:22-24, just before the long quotation of Isaiah 48 and 49, Nephi expressly states his approach and intention: “for I did liken all scriptures unto us, that it might be for our profit and learning” (v. 23). So forget about historical context or questions of authorship or audience or messy anachronism issues. Let’s just selectively mine the text for words of wisdom, guidance, enlightenment, and encouragement for contemporary readers. That’s pretty much the approach taken in modern LDS instruction and curriculum as well. Now you can argue that is an appropriate approach for devotional readings (at the pulpit) and even in a Sunday School class. People don’t come to church for a history lesson. But that approach certainly does not mean a historical-critical reading is not needed to properly inform scholars and university-level teaching. In most churches, it would be required for those training for the ministry as well, but not in the LDS Church — which explains a lot about the LDS curriculum.
Reading 1 Nephi 20 and 21, I’m looking at Grant Hardy’s Maxwell Institute Study Edition, which very helpfully highlights the changes in the Nephi text compared to the Isaiah KJV text. So for 1 Nephi 20:1, the bolded text is added to Isaiah 48:1: “Hearken and hear this, O house of Jacob / who are called by the name of Israel / and are come forth out of the waters of Judah/ or out of the waters of baptism / who swear by the name of the Lord / and make mention of the God of Israel / yet they swear not in truth or righteousness.” A Mormon might read this and conclude that later untrustworthy editors removed “or out of the waters of baptism” from the text. An inquisitive Mormon reader might wonder whether it is reasonable to think Isaiah was talking about baptism six centuries before the Christian era (remember, the word is adapted from Greek). A critical Mormon might also consult Nephi’s lengthy sermon on baptism and the Holy Ghost at 2 Nephi 31 and wonder whether it is reasonable to use so many Christian concepts and doctrines in a commentary on Isaiah, as well as wondering how someone in the time of Nephi could have had access to so many Christian concepts and doctrines.
None of the other changes (a word or phrase added here or there) are particularly consequential. The only substantive change is to 49:1 (at 1 Nephi 21:1), which basically adds a complete verse at the beginning of the chapter that does not appear in Isaiah 49: “And again / Hearken o ye house of Israel / all ye that are broken off and are driven out / because of the wickedness of he pastors of my people / yea, all ye that are broken off, that are scattered abroad / who are of my people, O house of Israel.” To a modern reader, that seems like a reference to Lehi, Nephi, and the small group that ended up in the New World (per the Book of Mormon narrative). That’s more likely a “liken unto us” insertion in the narrative, added by Nephi or by Joseph Smith, rather than something that Isaiah or Second Isaiah would write. As with the Joseph Smith Translation of the Bible, it’s hard to know quite what to make of most of the additions.
What is most interesting, though, is to then read 1 Nephi 22. It starts out as Nephi’s commentary on Isaiah 48 and 49, but quickly evolves into Nephi taking flight into speculative predictions about “a mighty nation among the Gentiles” (that’s the USA); “a marvelous work among the Gentiles” (that’s the Book of Mormon); “that great and abominable church” (might be the Catholic church or it might be all of the churches collectively); “a prophet shall the Lord your God raise up unto you” (that’s Joseph Smith); and lots of churches seeking money and power. Or some readers might read 1 Nephi 22 as Joseph Smith recounting certain features of Israelite and Christian history up to 1830. Again, it’s hard to see how the commentary in 1 Nephi 22 is connected in any meaningful sense to Isaiah 48 and 49, except in the “liken unto us” sense that eschews any consideration of historical grounding or context. “Liken unto us” is simply a method to say almost anything you want under the guise of a commentary on this or that scriptural text. It easily gets out of control. It easily reads current concerns or questions or recent events back into earlier texts, rather than reading any particular doctrine or principle or ethical guidance out of an earlier text.
A final word on 1 Nephi 22. The commentary is largely a rehash of material recounted earlier in 1 Nephi 11-14. In that earlier and longer discussion, Nephi is supposedly doing a commentary on Lehi’s vision and his follow-up personal vision with angelic commentary, but it also brings in references to John and the Book of Revelation, then takes off into speculative predictions about the last days. In 1 Nephi 22, roughly the same material is re-presented in shorter form as a commentary on Isaiah 48 and 49, even more of a stretch than how 1 Nephi 11-14 ended up there. Funny how commentaries with two entirely different starting points (Lehi’s dream and the Book of Isaiah) end up at the same place.
And a last word on Isaiah generally. There’s a common saying that Israelite prophets are more like forthtellers than foretellers. In other words, they aren’t generally in the prediction business, and when they are it’s a fairly short-term concern. Instead, they are more interested in calling the king or the people in general to repentance, to more faithful worship of YHWH, and to social justice concerns. Notably, that’s a fair summary of what modern LDS prophets do as well. The image at the top of this post — an LDS illustration depicting historical Isaiah envisioning events seven centuries into the future, then writing them down — is a common misrepresentation of what Israelite prophets actually wrote about.
So there’s a lot of Isaiah in the Book of Mormon: thirteen more chapters are quoted almost verbatim at the beginning of 2 Nephi. While the text itself describes these quoted Isaiah chapters as oh-so-important, I’m betting most LDS readers just skip over 2 Nephi 12-24 and even 1 Nephi 20 and 21. If you do read them, you have to go back to the Book of Isaiah in a study bible or a good Old Testament commentary to understand what they are talking about.
So what do you think?
- What do you think of the Book of Isaiah?
- What do you think about Second Isaiah scholarship? Does it help you understand those chapters?
- What do you think about Isaiah in the Book of Mormon?
- What do you think about non-LDS biblical scholarship? I’ve got a lot more books on my bible shelf by non-LDS scholars than by LDS scholars or leaders.
Wheat & Tares 
I also have at least as many non-LDS biblical studies as I do LDS books. I’ve found that basically people take a stand and then try to justify their stand with someone else’s works who agrees with them. It seems clear though that Isaiah is not written by one person, nor was it written in one time. I think that starting just after the “real” Isaiah that others wrote in his name to get legitimacy for their writings even at the expense of giving up their authorship. I think that things were either changed or fabricated during the early Christian Time to “clarify” the beliefs at the time. Finally I think JS included it in the BoM for possibly the same reason. It’s all a matter of faith and do the words ring true with you. One thing for sure, there is a lot more to Isaiah than a simple reading can impart. The complexity of the book shows its importance to be included, changed, added to, and included in the gospel both old and new testament as well as the Book of Mormon.
A consideration that no one brings up is the fact that first Isaiah ends during King Hezekiah. Yet there’s strong tradition that Isaiah was preaching into the reign of King Manasseh who had him killed.
What of those writings? He obviously was saying something to have gotten himself killed.
Was there a Proto-Second Isaiah that was reformatted during the Exile? Maybe, PROBABLY NOT, but that does a leave out a large swathe of potential material and before you throw out the BoM for including 2nd Isaiah.
Side note: To be transparent, I set out to prove to myself that Second Isaiah was written by Isaiah by heavily researching and basically came to the opposite conclusion that 2nd Isaiah was at least finalized if not completely written in the Exile.
Thanks for the comments.
Instereo, there was a more or less complete scroll of the book of Isaiah found with the Dead Sea Scrolls, dated to 100 BC or earlier. There are very minor differences between DSS Isaiah and the traditional manuscripts that were previously available that dated almost a thousand years later. So it doesn’t look like there was any scribal or priestly tinkering with the text in New Testament times.
Andy, congratulations on your serious and detailed study of Isaiah. There should be some sort of award for that. The closest I came was taking an Isaiah class at BYU. My term paper was on the suffering servant passages in Second Isaiah, which topic I somehow neglected to work into my post.
This all ignores the work of Avraham Gileadi where he shows that the whole book of Isaiah is structured in a consistent literary pattern. Of course I can’t present his thesis in this comment. I will only give one sentence from Gileadi: “The more one analyzes these superimposed literary structures, the more the idea of three authors writing in different time periods appears unreasonable.” (The End from the Beginning, p. 31)
As a person who reads paperbacks, I find the words of Isaiah dull, dull and more dull (but running around naked isn’t). After Laman and Lemuel fail to toss Nephi overboard and instead tied him to the mast, I kinda go into a stupor of thought. I thought Joseph Smith liked pirate stories, Where’s walking the plank. I only start paying attention again when Amalickiah and the dastardly fun begins. If I played Dungeons and Dragons, that’s my guy.
As for the revered(unfortunately true) Cyrus the Great, the story I like best is Tomyris (Yes, a woman protagonist) plopping his severed head in a bag of blood. Go ahead(bad pun) and drink that. Now that’s entertainment.
“Funny how commentaries with two entirely different starting points (Lehi’s dream and the Book of Isaiah) end up at the same place.”
My understanding is that Nephi was using the words of his father, his brother Jacob, and Isaiah as three witnesses to validate his own words. And so that may be why they all seem to lead to a common end.
Re: Second Isaiah: I’m not a biblical scholar–or a scholar of any kind really. Even so, what little reading I’ve done on the subject leads me think that it should only be fair to point out that there is no “third Isaiah” to be found in the Book of Mormon–nor does it quote the first chapter of Isaiah. If, however, the BoM did quote from those two categories then we’d have a much more difficult conundrum on our hands than questions surrounding the presence of second Isaiah in the text.
But as it is, I’m content with the notion that there’s kind of a murky middle ground. Some scholars have pointed out that certain elements of Isaiah didn’t originate with the man himself but may have predated his writings as temple liturgy or what-have-you–the suffering servant being one of those elements. Plus there are commonalities between second Isaiah and Jeremiah that cannot be easily overlooked.
Dave B,
You almost lost me in your very first sentence – which you contradicted in your second to last sentence – but I pressed on and found your analysis of Isaiah and it’s relation to the BoM quite interesting. But the point remains that most Mormons of all stripes do not care for Isaiah and generally skip over those chapters in the 2 Nephi. Pimo/nuanced/ect. Mormons who are still trying to engage with the BoM skip over those chapters because they (we) can’t stomach the anachronistic stuff you point out, and conventional Mormons just focus on the Restoration affirming verses and move on. Christians do this this too with Isaiah and the rest of the OT (as I think you pointed out) – that is, they read Christianity (or even trumpism) back into the Hebrew Bible. Most readers in the groups mentioned above find Isaiah too much of a heavy lift to really bother with. I for one, have no interest clunky in revenge fantasy poems that portray a petty, vindictive God who favors one group over another. But that’s just me. To each his own.
“No, they love Isaiah because they are told to love Isaiah”
You hit the nail on the head there.
On Second Isaiah, its presence in the Book of Mormon is simply more evidence that it is a nineteenth-century text. Joseph Smith didn’t know about Second Isaiah. He presumed that Isaiah was written before 600 BC.
On non-LDS Biblical scholarship, my question is what legitimate LDS Biblical scholarship is there really? LDS scholarship on the Bible is pretty much strictly for a a believing LDS audience. Sure believing LDS Biblical scholars may say that they write for everyone to hear, but LDS Bible scholars really aren’t in it to contribute to an overall better understanding of the Bible, but simply a reconciliation of the Bible with LDS teachings. Besides, believing LDS Bible scholars have to tread oh so carefully when they approach the Bible to avoid throwing Joseph Smith, the LDS leaders, or general LDS teachings under the bus. Bible professor David Wright was pushed out of the church for refusing to acknowledge that pre-NT Israelites practiced baptism. The most liberal that I’ve ever heard any believing LDS Bible scholar go is in saying that Genesis has large doses of metaphor. I’ll never forget BYU Professor of the Hebrew Bible Donald Parry’s 1998 Ensign article entitled “The Flood and the Tower of Babel” wherein he claimed that those who believe that the Genesis flood wasn’t a global flood are not true believers in the LDS church. Any believing LDS person who wants to publish serious scholarship on the Bible is held hostage by these types of folks and by an oppressive worldview, held by members and leaders alike, that still sort of holds that human history does not predate 6,000 years and that it is wrong to talk about evolution being real, even if you’re OK privately entertaining the idea that it might be.
Joe Spencer is the LDS scholar doing the best work on Isaiah, and his books are worth your time.
I’d argue that we should be well past the 1998 Parry time. People like Ben Spackman are quite happy to provide better viewpoints. And Brant Gardner, currently the arguably best commentator on the BoM, talks about the references in 2 Nephi to baptism as anachronistic, and that JS translated whatever word appeared on the plates with the more familiar word baptism. He goes on to speculate that Nephi would have more likely been talking about some type of washing related to ritual cleanliness.
Overall, the article is a helpful jumping off point for a number of issues and a worthwhile contribution.
”What do you think of the Book of Isaiah?”
I remember a feeling of quiet dread when family scripture studies would roll back around to 2 Nephi. And I remember a privately held confusion as to why Jesus told us it was so important to read Isaiah.
“What do you think about Isaiah in the Book of Mormon?”
I think Second Isaiah is one of many smoking guns in the BoM that give away its 19th century-ness and it’s far from the only instance of the text quoting Bible passages it shouldn’t have been able to reference. Arguments in favor of a loose/generically revealed translation don’t hold water for me. Why translate an unrelated washing ceremony as baptism and not translate Curelom? Nope. It’s a post-Biblical work that’s meant to sound ancient and exotic that references the Bible because the original author had the Bible in hand or at least in mind.
Also, I think Joseph wanted to fill some pages. He wanted a thick book—one you could thump. Why else copy so many chapters of Isaiah out of context or detail oh so many battles in Alma? If he could see the size of our triple combos today he’d be delighted indeed.
Just wanted to say that you’re leaving out the long analysis on Isaiah 53 offered by Abinadi.
Thanks for the comments, everyone. I’m impressed people are this into Isaiah. I was expecting maybe two or three comments.
cachemagic, I’m familiar with Gileadi’s argument. But stylistic similarities and even thematic similarities across different sections of Isaiah don’t strongly imply single authorship. These texts were recopied (because the materials generally degraded over time) and almost certainly edited by later scribes, either intentionally (often with good intentions) or by mistake (say incorporating margin notes into the text when recopying). Walter Brueggemann calls this and other features of scriptural composition and transmission “the traditioning process.” I think you would enjoy reading his An Introduction to the Old Testament: The Canon and Christian Imagination (Westminster John Knox Press, 2003). He is writing for “the church” (believers with a devotional interest) but informed by scholarly insight.
Jack, you’re right that Third Isaiah (ch. 56-66) is not quoted in the Book of Mormon, at least not at the chapter level like we see the borrowings from Second Isaiah.
Brad D, I think there are some good scholars at BYU (often not in the religion departments) who have some good things to say about the Bible and LDS scriptures. But it certainly does seem like they are often constrained by LDS orthodoxy. At BYU, some truths can be spoken, but not others. Kind of like how a historian in Russia or China approaches their work — with great care not to offend the leaders … or else.
David D, Joe Spencer certainly merits reading. He’s the most interesting thing coming out of BYU religion lately. He’s a philosopher playing the role of a scriptural commentator, which is why he’s so good at it. Personally, I’m more interested in digging into the historical/critical scholarship of a given text than pursuing the interpretive adventures unlocked by hermeneutical and philosophical readings, but that’s just me.
Kirkstall, you and thousands of other LDS youth have faced the quiet dread of Isaiah and come out the other side. I’m sure there are personal journals out there with this line: “When hearing them read Isaiah yet again, I stare numbly into the abyss …”
Coffinberry, good observation. The Abinidi material is a great example of the midrash approach, quoting or paraphrasing mingled with commentary, as opposed to large blocks of quotation as seen in Nephi. Bokovoy talks about midrash a bit in the essay I cited in the OP, but I’m sure there are other discussions of that as applied to the Book of Mormon. Yeah, I just googled “mormon midrash” and there are a half dozen good discussions that pop up on the first page.
Isaiah if fun if and only if, you really enjoy scriptures and you enjoy history and you enjoy puzzles and the most important, you can tolerate ambiguity.
If you’re bored grab a ton of translations of Isaiah 7:20. There you’ll find that the text is so ambiguous that translators have to play with the only four elements that you can certain of:
1. Someone has a razor
2. It’s either either long, hired, or borrowed
3. The King of Assyria is there with an army
4. Someone is getting shaved by the razor. Could it be Israelites, the army, who knows?
I like what Terryl Givens says about the impetus–or at least the timing–behind Nephi’s inclusion of Isaiah in his record. And that is the death of his father and the destruction of Jerusalem. And so here you have a group of people who are broken off from Israel–who have now been scattered–as strangers in a strange land. And so what Nephi is doing is–he’s trying to ground his own people in the covenants that God made with Israel generally by applying them specifically to the Nephites. In so doing he establishes their identity as a covenant people. And then, of course, on top of that he adds his own prophecy about the future of his people. All of this taken together is calculated to help them know who they are and what the promises are that God has made to them. It’s really quite beautiful.
Another reason that Isaiah is in the Book of Mormon is because it was common in the US in the early 1800s to believe that people were living in the prophesied last days and that Isaiah was talking about the 1800s. Hence Joseph Smith included Isaiah in the Book of Mormon as a selling point. The Book of Mormon, according to Smith, was written for people in the last days, and it accordingly includes and adds to Isaiah. It was also common belief among early nineteenth-century Americans that the Bible was incomplete and that words were taken out, possibly even by nefarious actors seeking to obscure doctrinal truth. Joseph Smith sees himself and his role written into Isaiah, particularly Isaiah 29, where it talks of a sealed book and an unlearned person being unable to read it. Joseph Smith takes great liberty in the Book of Mormon to add to the passage in Isaiah (still claiming it is Isaiah) to make him and the Book of Mormon relevant and to make it appear even more clearly that Isaiah was really prophesying about Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon. The KJV Isaiah 29 mentions “sealed” only twice, both times in verse 11. But 2 Nephi 27 mentions “sealed” 10 times. You can see how Joseph Smith tries to weave his story into Isaiah in order to impress the already Biblically superstitious community around him that he was the chosen one about whom the ancient prophets prophesied.
Brad D,
I read through chapter 27 of 2nd Nephi recently–and tried as best I could to understand it from Nephi’s perspective. And what I came away with was a perspective that is much more archetypal (vis-a-vis the characters and events) rather than specific. Now there’s no question that some of the events in Joseph Smith’s history line up fairly well with Nephi’s midrash. Even so, they don’t line up as perfectly as I had previously supposed.
According to John W. Welch, Nephi is utilizing a legal process (for handling sensitive documents) that he would have been familiar with in his days as a model for how the sacred word is dispensed. And so, the people involved become archetypal figures that fit in any time and place when and where the word is delivered. So, too, the “book” is an archetypal representation of the word: the sealed section being the greater portion–or the mysteries–and the open section being the lesser portion–or that which is openly available to the world. Some have labelled it the “eschatological book” which I think is fitting in this particular context.
That being said, the plates that Joseph Smith uncovered are a “hardcopy” version of the eschatological book–with an open section and a sealed section. And hopefully in the not too distant future–though I doubt very much during my lifetime–the sealed portion of the book will be made available. Though it will only happen in accordance with Nephi’s prophetic analogy wherein the person to whom the document is addressed removes the seals in the presence of reliable witnesses. And I give it to you as my opinion that the governing quorums of the church are set up to do just that–whether through direct revelation of the eschatological–or heavenly–book or the actual unsealing and translation of the “hardcopy” on the plates.
I’m curious what people make of the fact that Jesus cites to portions of second Isaiah as being said by Isaiah.
Is that relevant at all to the conversation?
Or that the “loose translation” approach dates back to Brigham Young’s sermons explaining why the translation was loose rather than tight.
My primary exposure to Isaiah these days is following along with excerpts used in the Daily Readings used in Roman Catholic Mass, which I watch frequently on YouTube, especially now during Lent. In defense of devotional/Sunday School approaches, I find any given passage from Isaiah to be mesmerizing, lyrical, and stirring in its call to feeling, belief, and action. And there are some great statements about what religion really ought to look like and be concerned with doing.
mat says in the comments above: “I for one, have no interest clunky in revenge fantasy poems that portray a petty, vindictive God who favors one group over another. But that’s just me. To each his own.” This statement speaks to me. We get into so much trouble when we force a literal reading of these ancient texts, especially a literal reading meant to push political and social agendas.
The entire Bible, Old and New Testaments, like the Book of Mormon, and D&C for that matter, is littered with claims of chosen people (nations) favored and justified in their militant tendencies by God (nationalism). Troubling. For all the literary value an evenhanded, scholarly study provides, I wonder if we will ever rise above the worst tendencies deliberately engendered by Biblical texts. They consistently work us into pro-war frenzies against whomever we consider to be the other.
Lastly, with regard to difficulties we Mormon readers in particular seem to have. Last year, I reread for the second time in my life, the Book of Jeremiah. I utilized my electronic copy of the New Oxford Annotated Bible (NRSV). Before diving in, I read the scholarly material provided, along with Encyclopedia Britannica’s entries. You know what? It was pretty easy to begin wrapping my head around the text. It was an enjoyable read. When we accept a bit of handholding up front from good scholars, and when we read without a prefabricated conclusion provided by Church leaders, the books are not insanely impossible to grasp. I’m having the same positive experience with Romans in the New Testament during Lent, using Thomas Wayment’s translation for Latter-day Saints. But I’m also not trying to shore up my testimony of a literal reading, so…
Thanks for this post, Dave B!
There were no plates. If there has to be a miraculous explanation of their provenance they do not annd did not exist. Period.
I appreciate Jake C.’s take on reading Isaiah and Jeremiah. I too use other translations. I used printed books rather than on-line, but I like biɓlehub.com’s parallel listing of Bible verses. I also look at the biblehub citations from various commentaries. I am surprised at how much we can actually understand if we try. Reading the introductions to different books from different translations is also helpful.
What is not helpful of reading one verse wholly out of context and then making that verse, alone, support some gospel teaching.
A more careful reading, looking at other translations and other commentaries has helped me see in the OT something other the hateful, cruel God that many people see, especially in Isaiah. I find a lot of beauty there, and love, and promise of redemption, and words that edify.
Jack, “And hopefully in the not too distant future–though I doubt very much during my lifetime–the sealed portion of the book will be made available”
I thought it already was available. Christopher Nemelka, who claims he is the reincarnation of Hyrum Smith, translated it and it available online in English and a few other languages.
Brad,
I’m tempted to laugh at the joke with you. But the sad reality is that Nemelka, who claims to be an incarnation of Joseph Smith, threw his acolytes under the bus. When he could no longer sustain his narcissistic ploy he “confessed” that he made the whole thing up to prove how gullible the saints are. Whereas the real Joseph Smith sealed his testimony with his blood.