The polygamy escape clause

1. Jacob's sermon and the escape clause

Mormonism and polygamy are so closely connected in the popular mind that I suppose it comes as a bit of a surprise to first-time readers that the Book of Mormon contains an impassioned diatribe against the practice:

But the word of God burdens me because of your grosser crimes. For behold, thus saith the Lord: This people begin to wax in iniquity; they understand not the scriptures, for they seek to excuse themselves in committing whoredoms, because of the things which were written concerning David, and Solomon his son.

Behold, David and Solomon truly had many wives and concubines, which thing was abominable before me, saith the Lord.

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.

Wherefore, I the Lord God will not suffer that this people shall do like unto them of old.

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;

For I, the Lord God, delight in the chastity of women. And whoredoms are an abomination before me; thus saith the Lord of Hosts.

Wherefore, this people shall keep my commandments, saith the Lord of Hosts, or cursed be the land for their sakes.

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.

For behold, I, the Lord, have seen the sorrow, and heard the mourning of the daughters of my people in the land of Jerusalem, yea, and in all the lands of my people, because of the wickedness and abominations of their husbands.

And I will not suffer, saith the Lord of Hosts, that the cries of the fair daughters of this people, which I have led out of the land of Jerusalem, shall come up unto me against the men of my people, saith the Lord of Hosts.

For they shall not lead away captive the daughters of my people because of their tenderness, save I shall visit them with a sore curse, even unto destruction; for they shall not commit whoredoms, like unto them of old, saith the Lord of Hosts.

And now behold, my brethren, ye know that these commandments were given to our father, Lehi; wherefore, ye have known them before; and ye have come unto great condemnation; for ye have done these things which ye ought not to have done.

Behold, ye have done greater iniquities than the Lamanites, our brethren. Ye have broken the hearts of your tender wives, and lost the confidence of your children, because of your bad examples before them; and the sobbings of their hearts ascend up to God against you. And because of the strictness of the word of God, which cometh down against you, many hearts died, pierced with deep wounds.

[. . .]

Behold, the Lamanites your brethren, whom ye hate because of their filthiness and the cursing which hath come upon their skins, are more righteous than you; for they have not forgotten the commandment of the Lord, which was given unto our father[s] -- that they should have save it were one wife, and concubines they should have none, and there should not be whoredoms committed among them.

And now, this commandment they observe to keep; wherefore, because of this observance, in keeping this commandment, the Lord God will not destroy them, but will be merciful unto them; and one day they shall become a blessed people.

Behold, their husbands love their wives, and their wives love their husbands; and their husbands and their wives love their children; and their unbelief and their hatred towards you is because of the iniquity of their fathers; wherefore, how much better are you than they, in the sight of your great Creator? (Jacob 2:23-25, 3:5-7)

The verse I have bolded is the "escape clause." It is almost universally understood to mean that if the Lord decides to "raise up seed unto" him -- meaning to have his people reproduce more prolifically -- he "will command" them to practice polygamy; "otherwise they shall hearken unto these things" -- meaning everything else Jacob has just said about polygamy, namely, that it is one of the "grosser crimes," an "abominable" excuse for "committing whoredoms."

Notice how glaringly out of place this is in the context of the surrounding verses. Before and after the escape clause, Jacob is fulminating against polygamy as an unadulterated evil -- but then in the middle of this denunciation he pauses to mention parenthetically that actually the Lord might command it sometimes and in that case it's fine?

What possible rhetorical motivation could there be for such an aside? If some modern Christian preacher against polygamy inserted some such escape clause into his sermon, we would assume its purpose was to excuse the various biblical worthies -- Abraham, Jacob, Moses, David, Solomon -- who had more than one wife. Jacob in the Book of Mormon, though, despite being named after one of these biblical polygamists, clearly does not shy away from condemning them. He states unequivocally that the polygamy practiced by David and Solomon "was abominable." In any case, the excuse he gives -- that polygamy is okay if God commands it -- wouldn't exonerate anyone in the Bible, since nowhere in the Bible is anyone ever commanded to practice polygamy.

2. An interpolation?

If Jacob's sermon were a biblical text, I would be extremely confident in calling the escape clause an interpolation, and I'm sure this opinion would be virtually universal among critics: It clearly doesn't belong there but was added later by someone who wanted to practice polygamy.

It would be tempting to conclude the same thing about the Book of Mormon text: It originally condemned polygamy with no exceptions but was then modified (by Joseph Smith later in life, or perhaps by Brigham Young) to allow it in some cases. Unlike the patriarchs and kings of the Bible, Mormon leaders did claim that God had commanded them to practice polygamy, and the so the escape clause would appear to be tailor-made to justify them. The problem is that the escape clause was there from the beginning. I don't believe the original manuscript for this part of the book has survived, but certainly the escape clause is already there in the first published edition.

If we still want to see the escape clause as an interpolation, we have following options:

1. Joseph Smith modifying his own work. For the skeptic, who sees the entire text as the work of Joseph Smith, it's hard to explain the inclusion of both the anti-polygamy sermon and the escape clause. If Smith had intended to practice polygamy, why write the anti-polygamy sermon in the first place? If he did not intend to practice polygamy, why put in the escape clause? It must be that he was originally against polygamy but later changed his mind.

If the escape clause had been added later in Smith's career, it would be relatively easy to explain. Perhaps he began writing the Book of Mormon with relatively pure motives (some version of Dan Vogel's "pious fraud" theory), but once he began to amass a cult following, he was corrupted by power, wished to take advantage of his position for his own sexual gratification, and modified the text accordingly.

The problem is that the escape clause was already there in the first edition, so Smith's second thoughts on the total polygamy ban must have come just a few weeks or months after the original anti-polygamy sermon had been dictated. This would also have been before the Book of Mormon was published, before he had founded a church, and therefore presumably before he was subject to the temptations a successful cult leader is heir to. It's hard to account for the change in that time frame.

2. Joseph Smith modifying revealed material. In this scenario, the text of the Book of Mormon was revealed to Joseph Smith as claimed (not created by him), but he added the escape clause himself, either during the dictation or shortly thereafter. This would mean Smith was both a genuine prophet, producing the Book of Mormon by supernatural means, and at the same time a bit of a scoundrel, daring to tamper with holy writ in the service of his own ulterior motives. This may seem far-fetched, and certainly it doesn't fit well into the usual "prophet or con man" dichotomy, but I don't think it's entirely implausible. It wouldn't be the first time substantial spiritual gifts coexisted with a pretty serious dark side. In fact, the mainstream LDS view of Smith -- that he was a true prophet who also practiced polygamy and lied about it -- implies a similar view of his character.

3. God modifying Jacob. If we take the view that Mormon polygamy really was commanded and justified by God, then perhaps God himself added the escape clause as he was revealing Jacob's words to Joseph Smith. The higher law of polygamy had not been revealed to Jacob, who therefore spoke from his limited understanding. Since God planned to command Smith later to practice polygamy, he added the escape clause to make it easier for the Prophet to accept this future commandment.

4. Later Nephites modifying Jacob. Because the pre-Mosiah books of the Book of Mormon were not abridged by Mormon, it is easy to assume that they contain the unedited words of Nephi, Jacob, and the others. In fact, though, we know virtually nothing of the provenance of the "small account." All Mormon says is this:

I searched among the records which had been delivered into my hands, and I found these plates, which contained this small account of the prophets, from Jacob down to the reign of this king Benjamin, and also many of the words of Nephi (W of M v. 3).

He just "found" them, some 900 years after the time of Jacob? This is obviously suspect, just as suspect as Hilkiah happening to "find" the previously unknown Book of Deuteronomy in the Temple one day. I've sometimes entertained the possibility that the Small Account, though included by Mormon in good faith, was actually late Nephite pseudepigrapha, not the authentic writings of Nephi and Jacob. This would account for some of the Small Account's perplexing features, such as the dated prophecies of the coming of Christ, which seem to have been unknown to later Nephites, and the quotations from Malachi 3 and 4, which the Nephites had access to only after the coming of Christ.

Another possibility, though, is that the Small Account contains a a core of authentic early Nephite texts, but with many additions and alterations by the many generations of record-keepers through whose hands it passed. We know that some later Nephites (King Noah and his people at the very least) did practice polygamy, so perhaps the escape clause was added by later Nephites to an otherwise authentic sermon by Jacob in order to justify such things.

I think this idea is worth pursuing, and that it may be worthwhile to read the whole of the Small Account with an critical eye out for passages which may be later interpolations.

3. Jeremy Hoop's alternative reading of the escape clause

The proximate inspiration for this post was this video from Jeremy Hoop:

Hoop's position is that Joseph Smith never taught or practiced polygamy, and that the Book of Mormon makes no allowances for it, either. He therefore has to reinterpret the escape clause so that it is not an escape clause after all. His reading is ingenious and, I think, not impossible.

Although the meaning of the escape clause seems obvious when we read it in the light of the later Mormon practice of polygamy, the verse itself is actually rather ambiguous. It reads, recall,

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 standard reading hinges on two questionable assumptions: (1) that "command my people" means "command my people to practice polygamy," and (2) that "these things" means Jacob's denunciation of polygamy. Hoop questions both of these.

First, what does "command my people" mean? Well, this is what immediately precedes the escape clause:

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; For I, the Lord God, delight in the chastity of women. And whoredoms are an abomination before me; thus saith the Lord of Hosts. Wherefore, this people shall keep my commandments, saith the Lord of Hosts, or cursed be the land for their sakes (Jacob 2:27-29).

The "commandments" referenced immediately before "command my people" are clearly commandments not to practice polygamy. The fact that v. 30 begins with for (rather than nevertheless) implies that it is explaining more about these same commandments, not introducing the possibility of diametrically opposite commandments in the future.

What about "these things"? As Hoop points out, this is the only reference to "things," plural, before the escape clause:

This people begin to wax in iniquity; they understand not the scriptures, for they seek to excuse themselves in committing whoredoms, because of the things which were written concerning David, and Solomon his son (Jacob 2:23).

In Hoop's reading, the Lord is saying, "I will command my people not to practice polygamy. If I did not explicitly so command them, they would hearken unto the things which are written concerning David and Solomon and excuse themselves in committing whoredoms."

Two possible grammatical objections: First, we normally read will as having a future reference. "I will command my people" is naturally understood to refer to a possible future commandment, not to a commandment already "given unto our fathers." Second, in modern usage, except with a first-person subject, shall typically has an imperative meaning (as in "Thou shalt not kill" or "Congress shall make no law").

The second objection is easily dealt with. The Book of Mormon contains many instances of "they shall" which are clearly predictions rather than commands -- for example "they shall rebel against me" (1 Ne. 2:23), "they shall dwindle in unbelief" (2 Ne. 1:10), and many others.

Non-future use of auxiliary will is on shakier ground. It's possible in theory, but I can't find any clear examples in the King James Bible or elsewhere in the Book of Mormon.

What about "raise up seed unto me"? Doesn't that mean increasing the birthrate among the righteous? And isn't that goal better served by commanding polygamy than by banning it?

For Jeremy Hoop's take on that, we will have to turn to another ingenious element of his argument: connecting Jacob's sermon with Abinadi's.

4. Jacob's sermon as context for Noah and Abinadi?

When the wickedness of King Noah is introduced, it is clear that polygamy is one of his chief sins:

For behold, he did not keep the commandments of God, but he did walk after the desires of his own heart. And he had many wives and concubines. And he did cause his people to commit sin, and do that which was abominable in the sight of the Lord. Yea, and they did commit whoredoms and all manner of wickedness (Mosiah 11:2).

The language here is very similar to Jacob's sermon. Polygamy is "abominable" and means committing "whoredoms." In practicing polygamy, Noah "did not keep the commandments of God" -- so, as in Jacob 2, the commandment is not to practice polygamy.

Later, in preaching to Noah and his people, Abinadi quotes extensively from Isaiah, including a passage about how the Messiah "shall see his seed" (Isa. 53:10). He then expounds at length on what that means, emphasizing that the "seed" are not biological offspring:

And now what say ye? And who shall be his seed?

Behold I say unto you, that whosoever has heard the words of the prophets, yea, all the holy prophets who have prophesied concerning the coming of the Lord -- I say unto you, that all those who have hearkened unto their words, and believed that the Lord would redeem his people, and have looked forward to that day for a remission of their sins, I say unto you, that these are his seed, or they are heirs of the kingdom of God.

For these are they whose sins he has borne; these are they for whom he has died, to redeem them from their transgressions. And now, are they not his seed?

Yea, and are not the prophets, every one that has opened his mouth to prophesy, that has not fallen into transgression, I mean all the holy prophets ever since the world began? I say unto you that they are his seed (Mosiah 15:10-13).

Why does Abinadi spend so much time on this seemingly minor question of Isaiah interpretation? Why, in calling a corrupt king and his court to repentance, is it so important to clarify what exactly is meant by the prophecy that "he shall see his seed"?

Jeremy Hoop connects the dots and proposes that Noah and his priests had Jacob's anti-polygamy sermon, accepted it as scripture, and tried to justify their own practice of polygamy in precisely the same way that the Mormons would do centuries later: by invoking (and, Hoop would say, misinterpreting) the "escape clause": The Lord sometimes commands polygamy "if I will . . . raise up seed unto me." Mosiah's exegesis of Isa. 53:10 is an implicit critique of this excuse. His whole point is that raising up "seed" unto the Lord -- for he has earlier identified Isaiah's Messiah as "God himself" (Mosiah 15:1) -- has nothing to do with literal baby-making and is therefore no justification for the practice of polygamy.

This is an extremely clever reading, and I'm half convinced. On the one hand, it's quite a coincidence that Abinadi, in preaching to wicked polygamists, would hammer home this point about the Lord's "seed," the very same language that appears in Jacob's escape clause. On the other hand, it's hard to see why Abinadi would not make the connection explicit in his preaching. In fact, although the scene is set with the information that Noah and his priests are polygamists, nothing in Abinadi's preaching addresses polygamy directly. Does he expect his audience to connect the dots themselves? -- "Hey, if the seed of the Lord is not literal, that implies that our reading of the polygamy escape clause is wrong!" I would expect much more directness from Abinadi.

If Hoop is right -- if Jacob's sermon (with the escape clause) was known and accepted as scripture by Noah and his priests -- that has important implications for the status of the Small Account. As far as I know, the only place where the Book of Mormon proper appears to quote from the Small Account is in Alma's words to his son Helaman:

Yea, methought I saw, even as our father Lehi saw, God sitting upon his throne, surrounded with numberless concourses of angels, in the attitude of singing and praising their God (Alma 36:22).

This is the same language used by Nephi in his account of Lehi's Jerusalem vision:

[H]e thought he saw God sitting upon his throne, surrounded with numberless concourses of angels in the attitude of singing and praising their God (1 Ne. 1:8).

The exact match with Nephi's wording, even down to "he thought he saw," strongly suggests that this is a direct quote from the Small Account. It's not quite a smoking gun, though, since Lehi's Jerusalem vision is of such central importance that it would surely have been included on the main Plates of Nephi as well, possibly even with the same wording. Even in this more secular history, you can't very well tell the story of Lehi without mentioning that vision.

Jacob's sermon, on the other hand, is of no particular historical significance but is included for spiritual reasons only. It was thus likely recorded only in the Small Account. If Hoop's reading of Abinadi is correct, it is strong evidence that some version of the Small Account was not only known to the post-Mosiah Nephites but accepted by them as authoritative scripture.

Does this one verse in the Book of Mormon imply reincarnation?

I never noticed before how odd the second verse of Words of Mormon is:

And now I, Mormon, being about to deliver up the record which I have been making into the hands of my son Moroni, behold I have witnessed almost all the destruction of my people, the Nephites.

And it is many hundred years after the coming of Christ that I deliver these records into the hands of my son; and it supposeth me that he will witness the entire destruction of my people. But may God grant that he may survive them, that he may write somewhat concerning them, and somewhat concerning Christ, that perhaps some day it may profit them (W of M vv. 1-2).

So Mormon supposes (or, rather, "it supposeth him," a construction which is to the best of my knowledge unique to the Book of Mormon) that his son Moroni will live to see the entire destruction of the Nephites. He prays that Moroni will "survive" the Nephites -- meaning that he will continue to live after all the other Nephites have been killed, for that is the meaning of survive when it is used transitively, as detailed in Webster's 1828 dictionary, the standard reference for English as used by Joseph Smith and his contemporaries.

Webster expresses most people's natural sentiments when he gives as an example the sentence, "Who would wish to survive the ruin of his country?" But Mormon positively prays that his son will survive not only the ruin of his country but the "entire destruction" of his people. Why? To quote the key sentence again:

But may God grant that he may survive them, that he may write somewhat concerning them, and somewhat concerning Christ, that perhaps some day it may profit them.

Each of the three instances of them must have the same antecedent: "my people, the Nephites." No other reading is possible. Mormon wants Moroni to outlive all the other Nephites so that he can write about the Nephites -- which I suppose makes sense, since the full story of the Nephites cannot be written until after that story has ended. And why is it important to write about the Nephites? "That perhaps some day" -- in the future, long after the Nephites are extinct -- "it may profit them," meaning the Nephites.

The only sense I can make of this is that Moroni's writings will profit beings who once lived as Nephites but have since moved on to another state. I would assume that spirits and resurrected beings would remember their own history and would have no need (and in the case of spirits perhaps no ability) to read a book about it. It makes the most sense if we assume that the writings will help reincarnated Nephites, who having passed through the veil of forgetfulness would have no knowledge of their own past lives as Nephites, or even of the fact that there ever were any such people as the Nephites.

Tight like unto a saucer?

My last post, "Thoughts on the Astronaut Nephi theory," looked at Nephi's ship and his family's voyage to the promised land through the lens of the theory that the voyage was an interplanetary one. This post will give the Jaredites the same treatment.

Earlier use of barges

Nephi only built one vessel and crossed one body of "water." The Jaredites' travels are a bit more complicated, which poses special problems for the space-travel interpretation:

And it came to pass that they did travel in the wilderness, and did build barges, in which they did cross many waters, being directed continually by the hand of the Lord.

And the Lord would not suffer that they should stop beyond the sea in the wilderness, but he would that they should come forth even unto the land of promise, which was choice above all other lands, which the Lord God had preserved for a righteous people. . . .

And now . . . it came to pass that the Lord did bring Jared and his brethren forth even to that great sea which divideth the lands. And as they came to the sea they pitched their tents; and they called the name of the place Moriancumer; and they dwelt in tents, and dwelt in tents upon the seashore for the space of four years. . . .

And the Lord said: Go to work and build, after the manner of barges which ye have hitherto built. And it came to pass that the brother of Jared did go to work, and also his brethren, and built barges after the manner which they had built, according to the instructions of the Lord (Ether 2:6-7, 13, 16).

So the Jaredites first used barges to "cross many waters," arriving in a wilderness "beyond the sea." From there they continued their journey until they reached "that great sea which divideth the lands." To cross this latter body of water, they built "barges after the manner which they had built" before, when they crossed many waters.

I trust the problems this poses for the space travel theory are obvious. There narrative has the Jaredites crossing at least two distinct bodies of water, but there is only one outer space. Therefore at most one of these can be a space voyage -- presumably the second, across the Great Land-Dividing Sea, since that is presented in the text as a much more difficult and impressive feat than their earlier crossing of many waters. However, they cross this latter "sea" with barges of the same sort -- built after the same "manner" -- as those with which they had earlier crossed literal seas of water. Even without knowing any details of the technology the Jaredites used, I think we can safely say that a spacecraft would be constructed after an entirely different "manner" from a seagoing vessel.

Just as the Lehites called the great sea Irreantum, the Jaredites gave a name either to the great sea or to the place on its shore where they camped: Moriancumer. I have analyzed Irreantum as Aire-yan-tum -- meaning simultaneously "vast, deep sea" and "holy darkness." William Wright has analyzed Moriancumer as Elvish before ("Jaredites in Moria: Making sense of the Brother of Jared and his shining stones"), but he wants to connect it to Moria, so he just ignores the letter n. I would instead assume that Moriancumer includes the same yan morpheme as Irreantum and thus analyze it as Mor-yan-kuma. (For the interchangeability of -er and -a in Joseph Smith's transliterations, see the Book of Abraham manuscripts, where the same name is rendered variously as Elkenah and Elk-kener.) The first morpheme of course means "dark, black," as in Mordor. The second, yan, means "wide, vast, huge" and also "holy". The third, most appropriately for the outer-space hypothesis, means "void." So they arrived at "that great sea which divideth the lands . . . and they called the name of the place" Vast Black Void.

That's a pretty good name! But, as discussed in my last post, it's hard to know how interpret their "coming to" the "shore" of outer space.

Making the barges

Here is the description of the new barges, built to cross the Great Land-Dividing Sea:

And it came to pass that the brother of Jared did go to work, and also his brethren, and built barges after the manner which they had built, according to the instructions of the Lord. And they were small, and they were light upon the water, even like unto the lightness of a fowl upon the water.

And they were built after a manner that they were exceedingly tight, even that they would hold water like unto a dish; and the bottom thereof was tight like unto a dish; and the sides thereof were tight like unto a dish; and the ends thereof were peaked; and the top thereof was tight like unto a dish; and the length thereof was the length of a tree; and the door thereof, when it was shut, was tight like unto a dish.

And it came to pass that the brother of Jared cried unto the Lord, saying: O Lord, I have performed the work which thou hast commanded me, and I have made the barges according as thou hast directed me. And behold, O Lord, in them there is no light; whither shall we steer? And also we shall perish, for in them we cannot breathe, save it is the air which is in them; therefore we shall perish (Ether 2:16-19).

The repeated emphasis "tight like unto a dish" (flying saucer?) seems odd -- of course any ship has to be watertight! -- but then the Brother of Jared's prayer makes it clear that these vessels are going to be hermetically sealed, making it impossible for the passengers to breathe. This is certainly consistent with their being spacecraft -- or at least it seems so until we get the Lord's response:

And the Lord said unto the brother of Jared: Behold, thou shalt make a hole in the top, and also in the bottom; and when thou shalt suffer for air thou shalt unstop the hole and receive air. And if it be so that the water come in upon thee, behold, ye shall stop the hole, that ye may not perish in the flood (Ether 2:20).

I don't see any possible way of reconciling this with the outer-space hypothesis. Obviously you can't restock a spacecraft with air by unstopping a hole in it and letting the air in! The Lord also mentions the possibility that water will come in when the hole is unstopped. It's not clear what that could mean if the "water" is actually the vacuum of outer space.

Perils of the voyage

Prior to the voyage, the Lord explains some of the conditions the Jaredites will have to face:

And the Lord said unto the brother of Jared: What will ye that I should do that ye may have light in your vessels? For behold, ye cannot have windows, for they will be dashed in pieces; neither shall ye take fire with you, for ye shall not go by the light of fire.

For behold, ye shall be as a whale in the midst of the sea; for the mountain waves shall dash upon you. Nevertheless, I will bring you up again out of the depths of the sea; for the winds have gone forth out of my mouth, and also the rains and the floods have I sent forth.

And behold, I prepare you against these things; for ye cannot cross this great deep save I prepare you against the waves of the sea, and the winds which have gone forth, and the floods which shall come. Therefore what will ye that I should prepare for you that ye may have light when ye are swallowed up in the depths of the sea? (Ether 2:23-25)

The comparison to "a whale in the midst of the sea" makes it sound as if these "barges" will actually be submarines, which is consistent with a space voyage, in which the ship is immersed in the "sea" rather than floating on its surface. This is followed by a warning that "the mountain waves shall dash upon you," though, which seems like something that could happen only on the surface. Perhaps the meaning is that they will sail on the surface but, due to the "mountain waves," the vessels will be submerged from time to time. Or we could see the apparent paradox of waves in the midst of the sea as evidence that it is not a literal ocean that is being described.

The voyage

After a digression, Moroni returns to the narrative in Chapter 6:

And it came to pass that when they had prepared all manner of food, that thereby they might subsist upon the water, and also food for their flocks and herds, and whatsoever beast or animal or fowl that they should carry with them—and it came to pass that when they had done all these things they got aboard of their vessels or barges, and set forth into the sea, commending themselves unto the Lord their God.

And it came to pass that the Lord God caused that there should be a furious wind blow upon the face of the waters, towards the promised land; and thus they were tossed upon the waves of the sea before the wind.

And it came to pass that they were many times buried in the depths of the sea, because of the mountain waves which broke upon them, and also the great and terrible tempests which were caused by the fierceness of the wind.

And it came to pass that when they were buried in the deep there was no water that could hurt them, their vessels being tight like unto a dish, and also they were tight like unto the ark of Noah; therefore when they were encompassed about by many waters they did cry unto the Lord, and he did bring them forth again upon the top of the waters (Ether 6:4-7).

This seems to make it clear that the vessels were sometimes "buried in the deep" and other times "upon the top of the waters." This makes sense on a literal sea, but it's not clear how we could interpret that distinction if this were a space voyage.

And it came to pass that the wind did never cease to blow towards the promised land while they were upon the waters; and thus they were driven forth before the wind. . . . And thus they were driven forth; and no monster of the sea could break them, neither whale that could mar them; and they did have light continually, whether it was above the water or under the water (Ether 6:8, 10).

The reference to whales and sea monsters poses another serious problem for the outer-space theory, unless we want to propose that animals of some kind live in the void of outer space, and that the vacuum is densely enough populated with them to make them a danger to space voyagers.

And thus they were driven forth, three hundred and forty and four days upon the water. And they did land upon the shore of the promised land (Ether 6:11-12).

Their voyage took about five times as long as Columbus's crossing of the Atlantic, despite the fact that they were continually driven by "a furious wind" and thus should have made good speed. This is perhaps evidence that this was not a normal ocean voyage.

One other thing I should mention is that neither here nor in the account of the Lehite voyage are there any references to the points of the compass. As long as the Lehites and Jaredites are traveling by land, we are told which direction they are going, but when they sail it is only "towards the promised land," with no indication of whether that meant north, south, east, or west. This is a curious omission from an account of a nautical voyage, but is of course consistent with a voyage through space, where such terms would have no meaning.

Conclusion

Despite a few intriguing hints, any attempt to read the Book of Ether as we have it as describing a space voyage runs into multiple extremely serious, perhaps insuperable, problems. If we want to maintain that the Jaredites did in fact traverse outer space, I think our only option is to conclude that the version of the story we have in the Book of Mormon -- written by Ether, who lived centuries after Jared; and abridged by Moroni, who lived centuries after Ether -- is a distorted one, with the space voyage incorrectly interpreted by later writers who no longer understood such things.

Thoughts on the Astronaut Nephi theory

William Wright ("The Promised Land: Landing the Jaredites and Lehites somewhere..." and passim) and Leo ("Mapping God's Vineyard") have proposed that the "sea" across which Lehi's family traveled to reach the promised land was actually outer space. In this post I try to assess how textually plausible that is.

Irreantum

And we did come to the land which we called Bountiful, because of its much fruit and also wild honey; and all these things were prepared of the Lord that we might not perish. And we beheld the sea, which we called Irreantum, which, being interpreted, is many waters (1 Ne. 17:5).

"Being interpreted" appears multiple times in the New Testament, always to translate a Hebrew or Aramaic word or name into the Greek in which the New Testament is written. These glosses are necessary because the language of the intended readers is not the same as the language of Jesus and his disciples. Here, though, Nephi is writing for his own descendants and reporting a name that his own family gave to the sea, so it's not clear why a gloss would be necessary. Why would Lehi's family have given the sea a name that their own children would have difficulty understanding? To me, this strongly suggests that, though this part of the Book of Mormon is not supposed to have been edited by Mormon, it was likely edited by someone and that the gloss was added by this later editor and not by Nephi himself. This in turn implies that the meaning of Irreantum is obscure and that therefore the gloss might be wrong. So that's a point in favor of the theory that Nephi might not have been talking about literal waters.

Since the Astronaut Nephi theory is something I got from William Wright and his friend Leo, and since they also try to tie the Book of Mormon in with Tolkien's world and languages, it occurred to me to try to find an Elvish etymology for Irreantum. Here's one possible analysis as a three-morpheme compound:

• airë -- an archaic Quenya word for "sea" which fell out of use due to conflict with another word airë, which means "holy." Although today we pronounce Irreantum so that the first two syllables sound like those of irresponsible, I don't think it's impossible, given the non-standard spelling habits of Joseph Smith and his associates, that a "long i" sound, corresponding to the diphthong in the Elvish word, was originally intended.
• yána -- Quenya for “wide, vast, huge,” from the root √YAN. In earlier versions of the language, √YAN meant "holy." The root for "holy" was later changed to √AYA(N), but it's interesting that both airë and yan could mean "holy." This is one possible explanation for the gloss: In a compound word, aire-yan would most naturally be understood to mean "holy," since both elements can mean that; hence the need to explain that in this case it actually means "vast sea."
• tumna -- Quenya for "deep" -- or, in Tolkien's earlier notes, "profound, dark, hidden" -- from the root √TUB, also meaning "deep"; in many words derived from the root (for example Sindarin tum, "valley"), the final b becomes m.

So Irreantum could be Aireyantum, suggesting both "vast, deep sea" and "holy darkness." As evidence that the latter reading can be very naturally applied to outer space, we have Carl Sagan's essay "Sacred Black," in which he modifies the French minced oath sacre-bleu and applies it to outer space.

Unfortunately for the Astronaut Nephi theory, everything else about Irreantum seems inconsistent with its being anything other than a literal body of water. Even in the first just quoted, they "beheld the sea" only after they had "come to the land which we called Bountiful." If the "sea" is simply the night sky, it should be equally visible from anywhere, and the association with a particular place seems strange.If anything, the night sky would have been more clearly visible in the desert they had just left than in Bountiful, whose "much fruit" implies higher humidity and probably lots of trees.

Furthermore, we learn that this "sea" has a "seashore":

And it came to pass that we did pitch our tents by the seashore; and notwithstanding we had suffered many afflictions and much difficulty, yea, even so much that we cannot write them all, we were exceedingly rejoiced when we came to the seashore; and we called the place Bountiful, because of its much fruit (1 Ne. 17:6).

What could possibly be meant by the "shore" of outer space? Isn't every point on Earth's surface equally "adjacent" to outer space? I suppose one could say that a very high mountain, being closer to the place where the atmosphere ends and the vacuum begins, is on the border or "shore" of space. Unfortunately, the tops of high mountains are not notable for their "much fruit," and in any case the text seems to make it clear that Bountiful by the sea is not a mountaintop:

And it came to pass that after I, Nephi, had been in the land of Bountiful for the space of many days, the voice of the Lord came unto me, saying: Arise, and get thee into the mountain. And it came to pass that I arose and went up into the mountain, and cried unto the Lord (1 Ne. 17:7).

Nephi has been in Bountiful for many days before he goes "up into the mountain." It was near a mountain but not on it. I suppose this is technically consistent with its being "by the seashore," but that just seems like a ridiculously convoluted way of saying "near a high mountain," especially since one verse later the mountain is referred to plainly as "the mountain."

And it came to pass that the Lord spake unto me, saying: Thou shalt construct a ship, after the manner which I shall show thee, that I may carry thy people across these waters (1 Ne. 17:8).

"These waters" can only mean Irreantum, and for the reasons discussed above, it's hard to force the reading that Irreantum is outer space. I suppose you would have to say that in these verses references to a literal sea and seashore are interspersed with references to the "waters" of outer space. Perhaps Nephi stays down on the (literal) seashore, and perhaps contemplates crossing those waters, but the Lord calls him up into a mountain, away from the ocean but closer to the sky, and says, "No, actually you're going to cross these waters."

This still strikes me as an extremely strained reading, and I would want to find a pretty clear smoking gun in the text before subjecting it to such an extravagant interpretation.

More than just this earth

A bit later in the same chapter, we find some verses more amenable to the Astronaut Nephi theory. In rebuking his brothers for mocking and criticizing his ship-building enterprise, one of the things Nephi says to them is this:

Behold, the Lord hath created the earth that it should be inhabited; and he hath created his children that they should possess it. . . . And he leadeth away the righteous into precious lands . . . . He ruleth high in the heavens, for it is his throne, and this earth is his footstool (1 Ne. 17:36-39).

Is it possible that "the earth" in v. 36 means something more like "the world" -- or perhaps "land" in a generic sense -- including more than just the one planet called "this earth" in v. 39? We can imagine Nephi gesturing up at the stars and saying, "God created all this land -- on all these planets -- to be inhabited, and he created us, his children, to possess it. After all, his domain is the whole of the heavens, of which this earth is just a part."

The expression "this earth" does not occur in the King James Bible, but it used in the Book of Moses, clearly in the context of there being other earths:

And worlds without number have I created; . . . But only an account of this earth, and the inhabitants thereof, give I unto you. For behold, there are many worlds (Moses 1:33, 35).

Nephi alludes to two passages from Isaiah. One of these, Isa. 66:1, has the Lord say, "The heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool." The other, Isa. 45:18, says:

For thus saith the Lord that created the heavens; God himself that formed the earth and made it; he hath established it, he created it not in vain, he formed it to be inhabited: I am the Lord; and there is none else.

This strongly implies multiple habitable worlds. It states that the earth would have been created "in vain" if it were not inhabited, implying that the same is true of the heavens.

To throw me into the depths of the sea

After Nephi's rebuke, his brothers

were angry with me, and were desirous to throw me into the depths of the sea; and . . . they came forth to lay their hands upon me" (1 Ne. 17:48).

This has to be a literal sea, right? Everyone is still on earth at this point, so throwing Nephi into outer space doesn't seem possible. I mean, we can make something up -- perhaps the ship included an antigravity device which Laman and Lemuel planned to use to make Nephi fly off into the void -- but nothing in the text warrants that.

Nephi then says,

If God had commanded me to do all things I could do them. If he should command me that I should say unto this water, be thou earth, it should be earth; and if I should say it, it would be done. And now, if the Lord has such great power, and has wrought so many miracles among the children of men, how is it that he cannot instruct me, that I should build a ship? (1 Ne. 17:50-51).

Even though Nephi is talking about seemingly impossible feats, still some things are more readily imagined than others. Douglas Hofstadter writes somewhere that, after driving a car through a swarm of bees, it's very natural to say, "It's lucky the windows weren't open," but not at all natural to say, "It's lucky those bees weren't made of cement." In the same way, it's natural to imagine being able to transform sea into dry land -- but to transform outer space into land? What would that even mean? Here, again, I think water just has to mean "water."

Of course it's possible in principle that Nephi was camped at a literal seashore while he built a ship to cross the very different "sea" of outer space, but this passage makes the most sense if the water he imagines being turned into earth is the very water they intend to cross. Nephi is saying, "Look, if God wanted to get us across this sea by teaching me how to turn it into earth and then having us walk across, he could do it. So why not the much less extravagant miracle of teaching me how to build a ship?"

The building of the ship

Here is the description of the building of the ship itself:

[W]e did work timbers of curious workmanship. And the Lord did show me from time to time after what manner I should work the timbers of the ship. Now I, Nephi, did not work the timbers after the manner which was learned by men, neither did I build the ship after the manner of men; but I did build it after the manner which the Lord had shown unto me; wherefore, it was not after the manner of men.

And I, Nephi, did go into the mount oft, and I did pray oft unto the Lord; wherefore the Lord showed unto me great things.

And it came to pass that after I had finished the ship, according to the word of the Lord, my brethren beheld that it was good, and that the workmanship thereof was exceedingly fine (1 Ne. 18:1-4).

Nephi emphasizes the fact that the construction of the ship "was not after the manner of men." This was not an ordinary ship and did not reflect ordinary human technology. This is consistent with the theory that it was actually a spacecraft. On the other hand, it is apparently made of "timbers," an unlikely material for an interplanetary vessel. Reports of UFOs that incorporate wood in their structure are not unheard of, though, with the Roswell wreckage being the best known example. Who is to say what materials would or wouldn't be suitable for this "curious workmanship" that "was not after the manner of men"?

The voyage

How consistent is the description of the voyage itself with space travel?

And it came to pass after we had all gone down into the ship, and had taken with us our provisions and things which had been commanded us, we did put forth into the sea and were driven forth before the wind towards the promised land (1 Ne. 18:8).

The reference to putting forth into the sea, rather than onto, is consistent with the "sea" being space; a spacecraft does not float on the surface of space but is immersed in it.

"Driven before the wind" is obviously incompatible with space travel if it is taken literally, since "wind" in the ordinary sense is an atmospheric phenomenon. In support of the space-travel reading, though, we might note the way "before the wind" is used in the King James Bible. It is never used to refer to the propulsion of a sailing ship, but only to describe lightweight things such as chaff and stubble being blown away, or made to "fly."

And I, Nephi, began to fear exceedingly lest the Lord should be angry with us, and smite us because of our iniquity, that we should be swallowed up in the depths of the sea (1 Ne. 18:10).

As noted above, a spacecraft is "immersed" or "swallowed up" in the depths of outer space even when it is operating normally. We can contrive ways of making Nephi's fear fit the outer-space setting, but the most natural reading is definitely that he fears their floating ship will sink.

Laman and Lemuel then "bind" Nephi "with cords" (1 Ne. 18:11). Artists almost universally depict Nephi being tied to the mast like Odysseus, but nothing in the text suggests this. Nephi reports that after his bands were loosed, his wrists and ankles were swollen (v. 18), which sounds more like he was hogtied rather than tied to anything. Anyway, no references to a mast and therefore no conflict with the outer-space reading.

18:13 Wherefore, they knew not whither they should steer the ship, insomuch that there arose a great storm, yea, a great and terrible tempest, and we were driven back upon the waters for the space of three days; and they began to be frightened exceedingly lest they should be drowned in the sea; nevertheless they did not loose me. And on the fourth day, which we had been driven back, the tempest began to be exceedingly sore. And it came to pass that we were about to be swallowed up in the depths of the sea. And after we had been driven back upon the waters for the space of four days, my brethren began to see that the judgments of God were upon them (1 Ne. 18:13-15).

Like the earlier reference to "wind," "storm" and "tempest" normally refer to atmospheric phenomena, though we could perhaps contrive a space-friendly reading. Also, in contrast to the earlier reference to the ship's going "into" the sea, here it is "upon the waters" -- more consistent with sailing on a surface than with traveling through space.

When Nephi's parents' lives are in danger during the voyage, he writes,

their grey hairs were about to be brought down to lie low in the dust; yea, even they were near to be cast with sorrow into a watery grave (1 Ne. 18:18).

I don't think this is a very natural way of describing a death in space, even in the context of the "great waters" metaphor.

When the storm ceases, we have this description.

And it came to pass that I prayed unto the Lord; and after I had prayed the winds did cease, and the storm did cease, and there was a great calm. And it came to pass that I, Nephi, did guide the ship, that we sailed again towards the promised land (1 Ne. 18:21-22).

This is essentially the same language used in the New Testament to describe Jesus stopping a storm on the Sea of Galilee: "And the wind ceased, and there was a great calm" (Mark 4:39). There is one hint, though, that this may not be a literal storm on a literal sea: Immediately after the winds cease and there is "a great calm" -- i.e., no wind -- they "sailed again towards the promised land." Obviously you can't sail towards anything when there's no wind. Of course the Gospels also describe the voyage continuing after the wind ceases and there is a great calm, but they don't say they sailed (Luke alone mentions sailing, and only before the storm; see Luke 8:23), and we know that they sometimes traveled the Galilee by rowing (see Mark 6:48).

While I wouldn't call it a smoking gun, this reference to "sailing" in "a great calm" is the only textual evidence I can find against the standard reading that the Lehites sailed an ordinary ship across an ordinary sea.

Conclusion

As much as I like the interplanetary reading of the Book of Mormon and want to find it convincing, so far I'm just not finding it that plausible. For the time being, I think I regrettably have to classify it together with readings that propose that maybe north means "west" and horse means "tapir."

The purpose of plates: A hypothesis

Obviously, I haven't posted on this blog for a while. I've been hung up on my inability to make sense of the whole idea of "plates" as a record-keeping medium, but I think I'm finally starting to make some progress.

Why would any people want to engrave its scriptures on metal plates rather than writing them on scrolls as the writers of the Bible did? The reason given in the Book of Mormon is a concern for the permanence of the records:

I cannot write but a little of my words, because of the difficulty of engraving our words upon plates; and we know that the things which we write upon plates must remain; but whatsoever things we write upon anything save it be upon plates must perish and vanish away (Jacob 4:1-2).

In theory, something engraved in gold should be permanent, since gold is one of the least reactive substances known to man and will not rust or corrode or decay the way other materials eventually do. In practice, though, we would not expect a document written on gold to be preserved down through the millennia, simply because the material itself is so valuable and so easily cannibalized for other purposes. "Neither moth nor rust doth corrupt" gold, granted, but what about the "thieves break through and steal" bit? Trusting that something will be preserved for future generations simply because it's engraved in gold seems foolish.

With relatively few exceptions, documents of great antiquity which have survived down to the present have done so not because the original was written in some uniquely permanent and incorruptible medium, but because a great number of copies were made, and then copies of those copies, and then copies of copies of copies, and so on.

This process of iterative copying is not perfect, of course, and over time errors and emendations creep into the text. All things considered, though, it's a remarkably effective way of preserving a text for a long period of time. Written language consists of discrete characters, drawn from a finite set and arranged in a linear order, which makes it the kind of thing that can be copied perfectly. It's even possible to memorize a lengthy composition word-for-word and then write down a faithful copy from memory, which is likely how the first written copies of the Homeric epics and the Quran originated.

The words of Homer, who sang nearly three millennia ago, are still readily available today. Of the celebrated works of Parrhasius, four centuries closer to our time than Homer, nothing survives. The reason for this is simply that Homer was a poet, and Parrhasius was a painter, and paintings cannot be copied perfectly by hand the way poems can. If you had the time and the inclination, you could copy down the entire Vulgate Bible by hand, and do so perfectly, even if you didn't understand a word of Latin. Now try to imagine producing, by hand, a perfect copy of this picture of Jerome writing the Vulgate:

Obviously this is impossible. Not just difficult, but strictly impossible. Dürer himself, who created the original, could not have produced a perfect copy by hand. However, many perfect copies were made, and long before modern photographic technology, because what Dürer created was not a painting on canvas but an engraving on a copper plate. This could be used to produce any number of prints, with perfect fidelity, through the technique of intaglio printmaking. The process is illustrated on Wikipedia as follows:

When you hear that Dürer is most famous for his woodcuts and copper engravings, you should not imagine sheets of engraved copper hanging up in a museum somewhere. The copper plate was not the artwork itself, but a means of producing and reproducing countless iterations of it.

As you can see above, the intaglio process involves getting ink into the engraved grooves on the plate and then transferring this ink to paper, creating a perfect mirror-image of the engraving. Although the diagram above makes it look as if this completely removes the ink from the grooves, in fact the grooves remain black with ink even after the print has been made.

In his book The Lost 116 Pages, Don Bradley quotes some little-known early descriptions of the Golden Plates. Citing Orson Pratt, he writes:

The plates, witnesses reported, were partly sealed shut and were engraved with hieroglyphics, in the grooves of which was a "black, hard stain" that contrasted the characters against the golden page.

He also quotes a similar description given by Francis Gladden Bishop:

The characters are rubbed over with a black substance so as to fill them up, in order that the dazzling of the gold between the characters would not prevent their being readily seen.

Both Pratt and Bishop apparently understood the black ink to be in the grooves for the purpose of contrast, to make it easier to read the text directly from the plates. Doesn't it seem likelier, though, that this black stain is an indication that the Golden Plates, like the copper plates of Dürer, were primarily used for making prints? Of course, one could read directly from the plates, but the text would be in mirror image. Perhaps a pair of specially designed spectacles could correct that, though. Hypothetically speaking.

If I am correct in my hypothesis that the scriptures used by ordinary Nephite literati were intaglio prints from the Plates, that would suggest that their sacred writings had a form that made this particular form of copying necessary -- that the "text" on the Plates was much more like Saint Jerome in His Study than it was like the Vulgate Bible. Had they relied on low-fidelity hand-copying to preserve it, much of the content would rapidly have "perished and vanished away."

It is interesting to note in this connection that, in addition to texts in the narrow sense, Joseph Smith introduced certain pictures into the canon of sacred writings, and that these were of Egyptian origin. Take for example this Facsimile from the Book of Abraham:

I don't want to get into questions about this facsimile in particular -- Joseph Smith interpreted about half of it as being about a rather cryptic astronomical theory and left the rest of it a mystery, while modern scholars see it as a common funerary talisman -- but simply to note the significance of the fact that this picture, just as much as the text of the Bible or Book of Mormon, is part of the scriptural canon of the Latter-day Saints. The facsimile as we have it is an excellent example of my point about it being impossible to produce perfect copies of pictures by hand, as it is pretty clearly a copy of a copy of a copy, from which much of the detail has been lost or corrupted. It's a pity that Abraham didn't use intaglio printing technology instead of writing "by his own hand upon papyrus"!

This, according to Joseph Smith, is an example of what Egyptian scripture looks like. Both the Golden Plates and the Brass Plates, we know, were written in the Egyptian manner (see 1 Ne. 1:2, Mosiah 1:4, Morm. 9:32). Is it possible that the engravings on the Plates consisted of, or at least included, similar "facsimiles"? For evidence of that, I turn again to Don Bradley's indispensable work. According to Charles Anthon, who looked at characters hand-copied from the Golden Plates:

The characters were "arranged in perpendicular columns, and the whole ended in a rude delineation of a circle divided into various compartments, decked with various strange marks." Anthon saw in this circular design an echo of "the Mexican Calendar given by Humboldt," meaning the Aztec calendar published by Alexander Von Humboldt in 1814.

Anthon wrote this well before Joseph Smith had purchased the papyri from which the Book of Abraham was produced, but doesn't that description -- "a rude delineation of a circle divided into various compartments, decked with various strange marks" -- sound exactly like Facsimile 2? As with that facsimile, I attribute the "rudeness" of the delineation to the fact that it was a hand-drawn copy. Presumably the original on the Plate was anything but rude. If this was indeed the character of the Nephite records, the need for intaglio printing to preserve the details intact is evident.

Finally, there's the question of why the Nephite and Jaredite plates were gold but Laban's were brass. Given the costliness of gold, there must have been some compelling reason for using it, but the existence of Laban's plates seems to indicate that brass -- cheaper, lighter, less susceptible to deformation -- would have served just as well. In fact, copper and zinc (the components of brass) remain the favored materials for intaglio plates. How to account for the use of both types of plates, gold and brass?

Here's my theory. In almost all ways, brass plates would be preferable to gold in practical terms. The chief value of gold is (1) that it does not corrode and (2) that it is so expensive as to make the production of unauthorized "fake" gold plates by private citizens impractical. I propose that gold plates were rarely used directly, but were kept (by kings or chief priests) as the "gold standard" guaranteeing the authenticity of all copies. Prints from the gold plates were used to create brass plates, and these brass plates (which were more portable, and of which there could be multiple copies) were used to create the prints in common use. In the event that the gold plates were themselves lost, prints from authenticated brass plates could be used to create a new set of gold plates -- an extremely expensive undertaking beyond the means of anyone outside the kingly or priestly establishment.

Laban was an important man, but not that important."He can command fifty" -- what is that, like a first lieutenant? He was entrusted with a brass-plate copy of the Josephite record, not with the original gold. Given the many centuries separating Joseph from Laban, it seems likely that the gold-plate record was no longer extant. It also appears that Laban or his associates were making brass-plate copies of the words of contemporary prophets, like Jeremiah, who would not yet have reached the stage of being canonized in gold.

Lehi seems to have understood that brass, unlike gold, is not an imperishable medium: "Wherefore, he said that these plates of brass should never perish; neither should they be dimmed any more by time" (1 Ne. 5:19).This reads most naturally as a prophecy that the Brass Plates will be miraculously preserved, and the statement that they should not "be dimmed any more by time" suggests that they had already been considerably dimmed.

So that's my current theory on plates. As I continue to reread the Book of Mormon, with this theory in mind, I'll see if it helps any puzzle pieces fall into place or if it all just ends in a stupor of thought causing me to forget the thing that was wrong.

Thoughts on the murder of Laban

Nephi and his brothers have twice failed to obtain the plates of brass from Laban. The first time, Laman alone goes to Laban and simply asks for the plates; Laban refuses, calls him a robber, and threatens to kill him. The second time, the four brothers goes together, bringing gold and silver to offer in payment. Laban again refuses, throws them out, and sends servants to kill them. In fleeing, the brothers have no choice but to leave their gold and silver behind, "and it fell into the hands of Laban" (1 Ne. 3:26).

The third attempt famously ends with Nephi's decapitating the helpless Laban, whom he then impersonates in order to steal the plates. None of this was planned in advance, we are told, but Nephi nevertheless seems to have had a premonition that things would end with the "destruction" of Laban. Citing Moses as an example to encourage his brothers before this final attempt, Nephi concludes with, "Let us go up; the Lord is able to deliver us, even as our fathers [who left Egypt with Moses], and to destroy Laban, even as the Egyptians" (1 Ne. 4:3). He approaches Laban's house alone, with neither weapons nor money nor a clear plan, apparently counting on the Lord to come through with a Moses-style miracle.

And it was by night; and I caused that they should hide themselves without the walls. And after they had hid themselves, I, Nephi, crept into the city and went forth towards the house of Laban.

And I was led by the spirit, not knowing beforehand the things which I should do.

Nevertheless I went forth, and as I came near unto the house of Laban I beheld a man, and he had fallen to the earth before me, for he was drunken with wine.

And when I came to him I found that it was Laban (1 Ne. 4:5-8).

The standard Mormon reading is that "the spirit" that led Nephi was the Spirit of the Lord -- hence the capitalization in current editions -- but several commentators have pointed out that this is never made explicit in the text; it is only ever called "the spirit." Daymon Smith has proposed that it was a spirit associated with Makmahod, the sword which Laban wore and with which Nephi killed him. Corbin Volluz raises an even darker possibility with the Hamlet quote that serves as the title of his 2013 essay "'The Spirit That I Have Seen May Be The Devil' -- Nephi's Slaying of Laban." It has also been proposed that the "spirit" was only Nephi's own internal monologue, which is how most moderns would also understand the "gods" who moved the Homeric heroes, but in my judgment this possibility can be ruled out. In telling the story, Nephi distinguishes sharply between the words of the spirit and his own rationalizations, even though it would be in his interest to ascribe the latter to the spirit as well.

And I beheld his sword, and I drew it forth from the sheath thereof; and the hilt thereof was of pure gold, and the workmanship thereof was exceedingly fine, and I saw that the blade thereof was of the most precious steel.

And it came to pass that I was constrained by the spirit that I should kill Laban; but I said in my heart: Never at any time have I shed the blood of man. And I shrunk and would that I might not slay him (1 Ne. 4:9-10).

Nephi presents himself as unwilling to kill Laban, doing so in the end only because he was thus "constrained" -- that is, compelled or forced -- by the spirit. The spirit speaks only after Nephi has drawn Laban's sword, which is one of Daymon Smith's reasons for associating the spirit with the sword itself. It also raises a question, though: Why is Nephi, professedly unwilling to shed blood, unsheathing Laban's sword before the spirit has constrained him to kill? Is he drawn to the fine weapon by an irrepressible manly curiosity, like Achilles among the women? Is he planning to take it with him for self-defense as he sneaks into Laban's house to steal the plates? Possibly -- but the most natural reading is that the idea of murdering Laban has already occurred to Nephi by the time the spirit on his shoulder, be it angel or devil, chimes in.

And the spirit said unto me again: Behold the Lord hath delivered him into thy hands. Yea, and I also knew that he had sought to take away mine own life; yea, and he would not hearken unto the commandments of the Lord; and he also had taken away our property (1 Ne. 4:11).

The spirit first simply says, "Kill him," with no explanation given. The second time it offers that "the Lord hath delivered him into thy hands" -- not a moral justification, but a suggestion that Nephi's remarkable luck in finding Laban defenseless may not be luck but providence. If God didn't want you to kill him, why would he have made him so easy to kill? Note also that the spirit refers to "the Lord" in the third person, implying that it is not itself the Spirit of the Lord.

Nephi then begins to give his own rationalizations for the murder: that Laban had tried to kill him and had taken their property. As Corbin Volluz mentions in his essay, Nephi will go on to commit these very crimes against Laban, killing him and taking his property. When he goes on to put on Laban's clothes and speak in his voice, it perhaps underscores the deeper symbolic sense in which he has "become Laban." Nephi also says that Laban "would not hearken unto the commandments of the Lord," perhaps implying that Nephi and his brothers had told him that the Lord had commanded them to take the plates but that Laban had still refused to cooperate.

And it came to pass that the spirit said unto me again: Slay him, for the Lord hath delivered him into thy hands; behold the Lord slayeth the wicked to bring forth his righteous purposes. It is better that one man should perish than that a nation should dwindle and perish in unbelief.

And now, when I, Nephi, had heard these words, I remembered the words of the Lord which he spake unto me in the wilderness, saying that: Inasmuch as thy seed shall keep my commandments, they shall prosper in the land of promise. Yea, and I also thought that they could not keep the commandments of the Lord according to the law of Moses, save they should have the law. And I also knew that the law was engraven upon the plates of brass. And again, I knew that the Lord had delivered Laban into my hands for this cause -- that I might obtain the records according to his commandments.

Therefore I did obey the voice of the spirit, and took Laban by the hair of the head, and I smote off his head with his own sword (1 Ne. 4:12-18).

After repeating its previous statements, the spirit adds that the Lord himself "slayeth the wicked," implying that therefore Nephi is justified in doing the same. What follows is clearly influenced by the New Testament and is thus textually suspect: "It is better that one man should perish than that a nation should dwindle and perish in unbelief." This echoes the language of Caiaphas as to why Jesus must die:

Then gathered the chief priests and the Pharisees a council, and said, What do we? for this man doeth many miracles. If we let him thus alone, all men will believe on him: and the Romans shall come and take away both our place and nation.

And one of them, named Caiaphas, being the high priest that same year, said unto them, Ye know nothing at all, nor consider that it is expedient for us, that one man should die for the people, and that the whole nation perish not.

And this spake he not of himself: but being high priest that year, he prophesied that Jesus should die for that nation; and not for that nation only, but that also he should gather together in one the children of God that were scattered abroad (John 11:47-52).

This introduces further moral complications. On the one hand, Caiaphas is clearly proposing something wicked: that Jesus be killed for the crime of performing miracles, lest he become so popular as to be perceived as a threat to Rome and provoke violent retaliation. On the other hand, the Gospel author suggests that, due to his role as high priest, Caiaphas spoke more than he knew, and that his words had an unintended but truer meaning: that it was in fact good for Jesus to die in order to save his own nation and others.

Taking his words as he intended them, though, Caiaphas was wrong. Having Jesus executed did not save the Jews from the Romans, who in a matter of decades would raze Jerusalem and its Temple and kill or enslave most of the Jewish people. Nephi's hopes were to prove equally vain. What happened to his nation, the Nephites, in the end? The very fate that the murder of Laban was supposed to prevent: They "all dwindled in unbelief" (Ether 4:3), and then "they were all destroyed" (Morm. 8:2).

Daymon Smith in the final volume of his Cultural History of the Book of Mormon makes the provocative suggestion that the theft of the brass plates may have caused another nation, too, to dwindle in unbelief:

Moreover, we can suppose that the Brass Plates -- being removed from Jerusalem, immediately prior to its capture by Babylon -- also generated commentary and other metatext. Such metatext would've been preserved, carried to Babylon and eventually the gaps in the record were filled in by Babylonian traditions.

This, he says, would yield the Old Testament as we have it, a Babylonized "counterfeit" of the brass-plate records "which inscribes false traditions into scripture."

Who or what was the "spirit" that constrained Nephi to kill? How laudable or culpable was Nephi for obeying it? I don't have definitive answers to those questions, but I think it is clear that the acquisition of the brass plates came at a cost. "Should the first book in the Nephite record be subtitled, 'The Tragedy of Nephi'?" Corbin Volluz asks. It is certainly tempting to see in him a tragic hero in the classical mold: a good man doomed by a tragic error or hamartia, in this case the murder of Laban and the theft of the plates.

The snail on the roof, the Lincoln Memorial, and the translation of the Book of Mormon

LDS Discussions, which is maintained by the pseudonymous "Mike" and is one of the more even-handed anti-Mormon sites out there, has a whole essay on the question of "Tight vs Loose Translation" of the Book of Mormon, defining the terms thus:

Tight translation: As outlined above by FAIR's use of Emma Smith’s quote above, a tight translation is where Joseph Smith is directly translating the Book of Mormon via the seer/peep stone in the hat word for word. The translation of the plates would appear on Joseph Smith’s seer/peep stone in the hat, and Joseph Smith would dictate them to his scribe. This method of translation is a literal one and does not afford Joseph Smith the ability to change or alter the words as the tight translation must be direct for the stone to reveal further words as we will see from the accounts of the translation.

​Loose translation: This method of translation would give Joseph Smith "inspiration" through revelation, which allowed Joseph Smith the freedom to dictate the text of the Book of Mormon through his own milieu, putting the text of the Book of Mormon in his own words. Effectively Joseph Smith would be given the general lessons and concepts through revelations, but it was then left to Joseph Smith to weave those into a story that could be understood in his time. Some have argued that this would be a revelation of “pure intelligence” where Joseph Smith was flooded with the story itself, some say Joseph Smith could see the actual Book of Mormon events in visions, and some say he got literal translations but was then free to make changes as he saw fit.

Mike's argument is that all eyewitness accounts of the translation support the "tight translation" theory: Joseph Smith saw a bit of text, read it out, made sure his scribe had copied it down correctly (including spelling), then saw the next bit of text, and so on. This implies that every word of the text was revealed, and that Smith played no more active or creative a role in the production of the text than did his scribes. A few aspects of the text -- for example, the use of unfamiliar words like cureloms and ziff, which were not understood by Smith but were faithfully copied down as received -- support this theory.

Overall, though, the English text of the Book of Mormon strongly implies a loose translation. It is full of anachronisms, historically problematic uses of the King James Bible, and 19th-century Protestant theology. The original text was also full of misspellings and grammatical errors, most of which have since been corrected. Smith himself also apparently felt at liberty to alter the revealed text in more substantial ways -- for example by inserting "the son of" in places where the first edition had portrayed Jesus as being God himself. All these issues constitute overwhelming evidence that, if the text of the Book of Mormon was indeed revealed, the revelation was filtered through the limited understanding of Joseph Smith, introducing countless errors and changes that were not in the original source text on the golden plates.

Mike argues that defenders of the Book of Mormon can't have it both ways: They can't say that the text was revealed word for word, as all eyewitnesses attest, and then turn around and say that problematic aspects of the text reflect Joseph Smith's own language and limited understanding.

I believe we can have it both ways. My own theory is that Joseph Smith experienced every word of the text as "given" or revealed -- that he was reading off what he saw, not consciously interpreting it or putting it in his own words -- but that what he saw was nevertheless substantially influenced and corrupted by his own understanding.

I briefly introduced this theory in my inaugural post here, "Lehi, Nephi, and the pillar of fire that "dwelt upon a rock": A case study of hard-to-define biblical parallels" (September 2023). I gave an example from my own experience as a dabbler in the art of remote viewing, in which one is given a string of numbers which have been assigned to a "target" about which one knows nothing and then attempts to perceive that target by psychic means. Later, the identity of the target is revealed, and the accuracy of the viewing can be assessed.

In the example I discussed there, I received and sketched an image of a sloping roof with dark shingles, with a very large snail shell on it. After the viewing, I checked the target image and found that it was indeed a photograph of a snail shell on a dark surface sloping in the direction indicated in my sketch -- but that the surface was rock, not a shingled roof. This was undeniably a "hit," an example of successful extrasensory perception -- the odds of my having seen a snail shell on a dark sloping surface by chance are effectively zero --  but the "shingled roof" aspect was an error. Did I see a dark sloping surface and then reason that it was most likely a shingled roof? No. I saw the roof -- including the opposite slope, with no snail on it -- just as clearly as I saw everything else. The whole thing was experienced as "given," with absolutely no sense that I was interpreting or expanding on what I saw. And yet, apparently, I was. The roof came not from the target image but from my own experience and expectations about the likely identity of dark sloping surfaces.

I recently read an even clearer example of this sort of thing from a much more professional remote viewer: Courtney Brown of the Farsight Institute, in his magnum opus, Remote Viewing: The Science and Theory of Nonphysical Perception. Brown is describing two different remote-viewing sessions in which, unbeknownst to him going in, the target was the same: the assassination of Abraham Lincoln.

The first of the two sessions is very accurate with regard to location and environment. Descriptions of Washington, D.C. are very clear. Descriptions and sketches of various landmarks (such as the Washington Monument and what appears to be the Lincoln Memorial) in Washington, D.C. are also clear. Descriptions and sketches of what appears to be the Ford Theater are quite good . . . . The session is also very accurate with regard to perceptions of the nature of the primary subject (a U.S. president). In this session I do not perceive the actual attack on President Lincoln, although I do report a mental despondency on the part of the President at the time of the assassination event.

The second of my two sessions for this target is also very accurate with regard to location and environment. Descriptions of Washington, D.C. are very clear. Descriptions of various landmarks (such as the Washington Monument and the Lincoln Memorial) in Washington, D.C. are also clear, and some of the sketches with identifying deductions are quite remarkable. (See figures 6.1, 6.2a, and 6.2b.) Descriptions and sketches of what appear to be the Ford Theater (or components of the Ford Theater) are quite good. However, I do not perceive the actual attack on President Lincoln.

This gibes with my own experience -- that the relative "importance" or salience of different aspects of the target seems to have no effect on remote viewing, and that often peripheral elements are perceived at the expense of the main target. Still, getting clear images of Washington, D.C., both times is impressive, given that this was part of an experiment with dozens of sessions, with targets ranging from an 18th-century naval battle to the largest crater on the Moon. Brown's perceptions of the Washington Monument and the Lincoln Memorial were so clear that they were chosen as cover illustrations for the paperback edition of the book. But one major problem, which Brown fails to mention, is that there was obviously no Lincoln Memorial at the time of Lincoln's assassination. This element of his viewing is a glaring anachronism.

Nevertheless, Brown perceived the Lincoln Memorial in direct low-level terms. It's not as if he got a general impression of Washington and then filled in the details based on his own knowledge -- not consciously, at any rate. Here are the figures mentioned in the text I have quoted above:

In Brown's notes, D means "deduction" -- in both senses of that word. Viewers are supposed to focus on low-level sensory-type information and avoid making logical inferences, but when inferences present themselves, they're supposed to jot them down as a way of getting them out of their system ("deducting" them) to minimize their contaminating effect. So for the Lincoln Memorial, what Brown perceived was the shape in the sketch, plus the ideas of "smooth surface, heavy, stone, short, angular." From these direct perceptions came the deductions "Lincoln Memorial, tomb, monument." Likewise, "Washington Monument" is a deduction from the perceptions "stone, heavy, thick, flat sides."

If Brown's sketch of the Washington Monument looks a bit short, and if "thick" seems an odd way of characterizing the structure, that's actually a point in his favor. Though Brown doesn't mention it, at the time of Lincoln's assassination, the Washington Monument was still under construction and looked like this:

So in these sessions we have a combination of impressive "revealed" content -- the Washington Monument not in its familiar form but as it appeared in 1865 -- combined with the obvious error of a Lincoln Memorial already existing before Lincoln had even died. The Lincoln Memorial might have crept into Brown's vision because it is a standard D.C. landmark, or because it is conceptually related to the idea of Lincoln's assassination, but in any case it was clearly inserted into the picture by Brown's mind with its 20th-century perspective, not by the target itself.

Nevertheless, the two perceptions -- the historically correct Washington Monument (analogous to Joseph Smith's nailing some little-known Hebraism) and the howler of an 1865 Lincoln Memorial (analogous to quoting Deutero-Isaiah or whatever) -- were received by Brown in the same way, with no way of distinguishing the true vision from the corrupted one. It was me both times, baba, me first and second also me.

While Joseph Smith's seership was obviously not the same thing as modern military-style remote viewing, my working hypothesis is that they had a lot in common, and that even if the entire text of the Book of Mormon was directly perceived by Joseph Smith, as if written by the finger of God, it was nevertheless filtered through his mind and compromised by his own understanding and mental associations -- most notably by the fact that his was a mind positively saturated with the King James Version of the Bible.

The question, then, is why. I have been using words like corrupted and compromised, but this was the way the Lord chose to have the text revealed. He could presumably have given the plates to a scholar, provided a Rosetta stone, and had the book translated in a more straightforward way, but he chose to do it through seership instead, ensuring the production of a hybrid work with massive 19th-century influences. This must have been optimal for his purposes. There is great value in having an accurate record of ancient religious thoughts and practices, but, to coin a phrase, "a Bible, a Bible, we have got a Bible." The Book of Mormon is something different. As Ezra Taft Benson said, "The Nephites never had the book; neither did the Lamanites of ancient times. It was meant for us."