Seeing the bodies of spirits

"Touch these stones, O Lord, with thy finger" (Ether 3:4), said the Brother of Jared, apparently taking it for granted that the Lord had in some sense such appendages. When he unexpectedly saw that finger, his reaction is somewhat surprising.

And the veil was taken from off the eyes of the brother of Jared, and he saw the finger of the Lord; and it was as the finger of a man, like unto flesh and blood; and the brother of Jared fell down before the Lord, for he was struck with fear.

And the Lord saw that the brother of Jared had fallen to the earth; and the Lord said unto him: Arise, why hast thou fallen?

And he saith unto the Lord: I saw the finger of the Lord, and I feared lest he should smite me; for I knew not that the Lord had flesh and blood (Ether 3:6-8).

The Brother later confirms, when asked by the Lord, that he has at this point seen only a finger -- just a finger, seemingly floating in the air and unattached to a body, touching the stones one by one. It seems to me that almost anyone seeing such an apparition would assume it to be a spiritual manifestation, not an actual flesh-and-blood finger. For example, when the disciples saw the flesh-and-blood Jesus walking on water -- something physical bodies don't normally do -- they assumed it was a ghost. Belshazzar even saw disembodied "fingers of a man's hand" (Daniel 5:5) but was only interested in decoding the words those fingers had written. The Brother, though, reacted differently: He already knew the Lord had "fingers" but was now shocked to discover that he had fingers that were entirely physical -- indeed, biological -- in nature. For him to have concluded this, I think the finger must have looked exactly like a physical finger, with nothing spiritual or ghostly about it (except for the fact that it was hovering in the air, I mean).

But of course this all happened several millennia BC, and the Being that the Brother saw, the future Jesus Christ, did not at that time have a body of flesh and blood. The usual Mormon understanding is that the premortal Jesus had a "spirit body" -- a quasi-physical structure, somewhat like the subtle or "astral" body of other traditions, corresponding in form to his future mortal body -- and that this is what the Brother saw. That's not what the Lord says to him, though.

And the Lord said unto him: Because of thy faith thou hast seen that I shall take upon me flesh and blood; and never has man come before me with such exceeding faith as thou hast; for were it not so ye could not have seen my finger (Ether 3:9).

He doesn't say, "You have seen my spirit body, which looks exactly the same as the physical body I will later take on." He says, "Thou hast seen that I shall take upon me flesh and blood" -- implying that the Brother has in some sense seen the future. He saw a physical finger because the Lord would in the future have an actual physical finger.

It wasn't a vision of the future in the ordinary sense, though. He didn't at this point see a vision of what Jesus would do in the future (as Nephi did, for instance). He saw what Jesus was at that time doing -- touching the stones with his finger -- but the Jesus that he saw doing this was not Jesus as he existed at that time (an invisible spirit) but as he would exist in the future, an incarnate Man.

The Lord proceeds to show the rest of himself to the Brother, calling that which he is showing "the body of my spirit":

Behold, this body, which ye now behold, is the body of my spirit; and man have I created after the body of my spirit; and even as I appear unto thee to be in the spirit will I appear unto my people in the flesh.

And now, as I, Moroni, said I could not make a full account of these things which are written, therefore it sufficeth me to say that Jesus showed himself unto this man in the spirit, even after the manner and in the likeness of the same body even as he showed himself unto the Nephites (Ether 3:16-17).

These expressions with of can be slippery and ambiguous. For instance, when we read of "the god of Elkenah" (Abr. 1:6), are we to understand that Elkenah is the name of the god himself, or -- by analogy with such phrases as "the god of Abraham" and "the gods of Egypt" -- the name of some person or place with which the god is associated? It is similarly unclear here whether Jesus means "the 'body' which is my spirit" (i.e., the "spirit body" of popular Mormon understanding) or "the body that pertains to my spirit" (because my spirit will later be incarnated in it). In my judgment, "my body of spirit" would be more natural for the first sense than "the body of my spirit." Of course Jesus' body in the latter sense didn't exist yet, but precognitive visions of the future are definitely a feature of the Book of Mormon, and as I have said, the Lord does seem to be implying that the Brother saw his future body.

Later in the same chapter, the Brother has another vision that seems as if it might be the same sort of thing:

And when the Lord had said these words, he showed unto the brother of Jared all the inhabitants of the earth which had been, and also all that would be; and he withheld them not from his sight, even unto the ends of the earth (Ether 3:25).

This has traditionally been interpreted as a vision of the entire past and future history of the earth (it is repeatedly referred to in Joseph Smith's Seer Stones as "the all-seeing vision"), but that's not what it says. It says that he saw all those who had been or would be "inhabitants of the earth." Only the people themselves are mentioned, nothing about past or future scenes or events. He could have had a panoramic view of all history, of course, but the context of his vision of Jesus strongly suggests another possibility: that he saw these past and future inhabitants in the same way that he saw the future Jesus.

Again, he didn't see scenes from Jesus' future life. Instead, he saw the pre-incarnate Jesus, doing what he was at that time doing (touching the stones), but doing it in the body into which he had not yet been born. If the popular Mormon understanding that the "spirit world" is all around us is correct, the Brother was at all times surrounded by the invisible spirits of those who had already died or had yet to be born. In this experience, these spirits became visible as Jesus had become visible, appearing in the bodies in which they had lived or would live. He didn't see those past and future lives; he saw the spirits doing whatever the spirits were doing at the time, but he saw those spirits as bodies.

Enoch perhaps had a similar experience:

And the Lord spake unto Enoch, and said unto him: Anoint thine eyes with clay, and wash them, and thou shalt see. And he did so.

And he beheld the spirits that God had created; and he beheld also things which were not visible to the natural eye; and from thenceforth came the saying abroad in the land: A seer hath the Lord raised up unto his people (Moses 6:35-36).

When you see a spirit -- something inherently invisible -- what exactly do you see? The same thing people typically see when they see "ghosts," presumably: The ghost manifests as the physical likeness of the person when he or she was alive, but you don't see their life. You see what the ghost is doing now -- wandering around "haunting" the place or whatever -- but you see the spirit as the body it once inhabited.

Another possible example of this sort of thing is the Transfiguration described in the New Testament:

And after six days Jesus taketh with him Peter, and James, and John, and leadeth them up into an high mountain apart by themselves: and he was transfigured before them. And his raiment became shining, exceeding white as snow; so as no fuller on earth can white them. And there appeared unto them Elias with Moses: and they were talking with Jesus. . . .

And suddenly, when they had looked round about, they saw no man any more, save Jesus only with themselves. And as they came down from the mountain, he charged them that they should tell no man what things they had seen, till the Son of man were risen from the dead. And they kept that saying with themselves, questioning one with another what the rising from the dead should mean (Mark 9:2-4, 8-10).

This is slightly different, since Jesus was not a disembodied spirit at the time, but one interpretation of what happened is that Peter, James, and John saw Jesus as he would later be, after the resurrection. The description of the transfigured Jesus -- whiter-than-white clothing and, Matthew adds, a face that "did shine as the sun" (Matt. 17:2) -- is consistent with descriptions of resurrected beings. Here is Joseph Smith's description of the resurrected Moroni:

He had on a loose robe of most exquisite whiteness. It was a whiteness beyond anything earthly I had ever seen; nor do I believe that any earthly thing could be made to appear so exceedingly white and brilliant. . . . Not only was his robe exceedingly white, but his whole person was glorious beyond description, and his countenance truly like lightning (JS-H vv. 31-32).

As in the Gospels, it is the preternaturally white clothing that first attracts comment, being apparently even more distinctive than the shining face. Likewise, when the resurrected Jesus appears to the Nephites, the only description given is that "he was clothed in a white robe" (3 Ne. 11:8).

At the time of the Transfiguration, Jesus hadn't yet been resurrected and didn't look like that -- but somehow he did look like that for a brief period of time. Perhaps, like the Brother of Jared, the apostles were granted the temporary ability to see present-Jesus as future-Jesus. They saw Jesus doing what he was doing at the time -- staying with them on the mountain, talking with Moses and Elias -- but they saw him doing it in a sort of body that he did not yet have.

Moroni says that the Brother of Jared saw Jesus in "the likeness of the same body even as he showed himself unto the Nephites" (Ether 3:17), suggesting that he, too, saw the Lord's resurrection body before the resurrection had occurred. There is biblical precedent for referring to the resurrection body in language similar to "the body of my spirit":

So also is the resurrection of the dead. It is sown in corruption; it is raised in incorruption: it is sown in dishonour; it is raised in glory: it is sown in weakness; it is raised in power: it is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body. There is a natural body, and there is a spiritual body (1 Cor. 15:42-44).

I haven't yet thought through the details of how this sort of phenomenon might work, and what it might imply about bodies and spirits and resurrection and time, but I wanted to get the basic idea out there first.

The Book of Mormon predicts the imminent destruction of all Western nations

And one Middle-Eastern one.

It is often said that the Book was written "for our day," but one rarely feels it viscerally, and as often as not those who say that are thinking of "our day" in the very broad sense of everything from the 19th century on. Here, though, is a prophecy that singles out this precise moment in history:

And whatsoever nation shall uphold such secret combinations [i.e., oath-bound conspiracies], to get power and gain, until they shall spread over the nation, behold, they shall be destroyed; for the Lord will not suffer that the blood of his saints, which shall be shed by them, shall always cry unto him from the ground for vengeance upon them and yet he avenge them not.

Wherefore, O ye Gentiles [i.e., "goyim"], it is wisdom in God that these things should be shown unto you, that thereby ye may repent of your sins, and suffer not that these murderous combinations shall get above you, which are built up to get power and gain -- and the work, yea, even the work of destruction come upon you, yea, even the sword of the justice of the Eternal God shall fall upon you, to your overthrow and destruction if ye shall suffer these things to be.

Wherefore, the Lord commandeth you, when ye shall see these things come among you that ye shall awake to a sense of your awful situation, because of this secret combination which shall be among you; or wo be unto it, because of the blood of them who have been slain; for they cry from the dust for vengeance upon it, and also upon those who built it up.

For it cometh to pass that whoso buildeth it up seeketh to overthrow the freedom of all lands, nations, and countries; and it bringeth to pass the destruction of all people, for it is built up by the devil, who is the father of all lies; even that same liar who beguiled our first parents, yea, even that same liar who hath caused man to commit murder from the beginning; who hath hardened the hearts of men that they have murdered the prophets, and stoned them, and cast them out from the beginning.

Wherefore, I, Moroni, am commanded to write these things that evil may be done away, and that the time may come that Satan may have no power upon the hearts of the children of men, but that they may be persuaded to do good continually, that they may come unto the fountain of all righteousness and be saved (Ether 8:22-26).

I think it is fair to say that we've reached the point where these things have been "shown unto" us, that entire nations now "see these things." There have always been conspiracy theories -- including, yes, the anti-Masonic panic of the Prophet's day -- but today, for perhaps the first time in modern history, even the normiest of normies understands that we are ruled by a psychopathic cabal of child-hating, devil-worshiping robbers and murderers. Jokes take it for granted as something everyone knows. The face of Jeffrey Epstein, which is rapidly becoming as iconic as that of Adolf Hitler, is a meme that everyone immediately understands.

Prepare ye, prepare ye for that which is to come, for the anger of the Lord is kindled, and his sword is bathed in heaven, and it shall fall upon the inhabitants of the earth.

And everyone knows that, too. The "prophet of doom" used to be a figure of fun, but now we dismiss him for another reason: that it hardly takes much of a "prophet" to predict what everyone already takes for granted.

Joseph Smith, though, wrote in the 19th century; and Moroni, if you believe it, in the fifth.

A bit of evidence for the "interplanetary Book of Mormon" hypothesis

In my August 2024 posts "Thoughts on the Astronaut Nephi theory" and "Tight like unto a saucer?" I looked and Bill and Leo's theory that Lehi and Jared traversed not ordinary seas but the "great waters" of outer space. I was mostly critical of the idea, but in my current read-through of the Book (yes, the Book of Mormon will now be known as "the Book"), I noticed a detail that does lend it some support.

The Book's "promised land" is 13 times referred to as being "choice above all." Here are 10 of these instances:

a land which is choice above all other lands (1 Ne. 2:20)

the land which is choice above all other lands (1 Ne. 13:30)

a land which is choice above all other lands (2 Ne. 1:5)

a choice land, saith God unto me, above all other lands (2 Ne. 10:19)

choice unto me above all other parts of the land of my vineyard (Jacob 5:43)

the land of promise, which was choice above all other lands (Ether 2:7)

a land which is choice above all other lands (Ether 2:10)

a land choice above all other lands (Ether 2:15)

choice above all other lands (Ether 9:20)

a choice land above all other lands (Ether 13:2)

The key word I want you to notice here is other. This is required by logic, since a land that is choice above "all lands" would have to be choice above itself, and that is impossible. Something can be choice above all members of a given category only if it is not itself a member of that category.

Now look at these two instances from Ether:

a land which is choice above all the earth (Ether 1:38)
a land which is choice above all the lands of the earth (Ether 1:42)

These differ from the others it two respects: (1) they omit the word other, and (2) they refer not to "lands" but to "the earth" or "the lands of the earth." Logically, this implies that the choice land, though it is a land, is not "of the earth." Another planet seems to be indicated.

There is, alas, one counterexample:

a land that was choice above all lands (Ether 10:28)

As stated above, it is logically impossible for what is said in this verse to be strictly true, and if the language here is logically loose, so could the language of those other two Ether verses be. This weakens the evidence presented here but does not disprove the interplanetary theory. What would potentially disprove it would be the other sort of counterexample -- "choice above all other lands of the earth," which would place the promised land firmly on planet Earth -- and this we do not find in the Book.

As evidence, this is extremely tenuous, and by itself it is hardly enough to tip the scales in favor of the interplanetary hypothesis. I thought it was worth mentioning, though. Some additional tenuous evidence may be found in the command that the Jaredites bring "seed of the earth of every kind" (Ether 1:41) -- a phrase not used anywhere else in scripture -- and in the fact that "they did also prepare a vessel, in which they did carry with them the fish of the waters" (Ether 2:2) -- scarcely necessary on an ordinary sea voyage.

Lehi's prophecy of John the Baptist

The first mention of baptism in the Book of Mormon is in this prophecy of Lehi's, as reported by Nephi:

And he spake also concerning a prophet who should come before the Messiah, to prepare the way of the Lord -- Yea, even he should go forth and cry in the wilderness: Prepare ye the way of the Lord, and make his paths straight; for there standeth one among you whom ye know not; and he is mightier than I, whose shoe's latchet I am not worthy to unloose. And much spake my father concerning this thing.

And my father said he should baptize in Bethabara, beyond Jordan; and he also said he should baptize with water; even that he should baptize the Messiah with water. And after he had baptized the Messiah with water, he should behold and bear record that he had baptized the Lamb of God, who should take away the sins of the world (1 Ne. 10:7-10).

As I noted in my inaugural post here, this is a highly suspect passage -- "jaw-droppingly detailed for something supposedly written in the 6th century BC, but also containing not one single detail not found in the New Testament." It seems to draw heavily on the Gospels in a way that Lehi himself could not have done.

It begins by alluding to Isaiah, but the form the Isaiah quotation takes shows the influence of the New Testament:

The voice of one calling out,

Clear the way for the Lord in the wilderness;

Make straight in the desert a highway for our God (Isa 40:3, NASB).

The voice of him that crieth in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our God (Isa 40:3, KJV).

The voice of one crying in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make straight the paths of our God (Isa. 40:3, Brenton's Septuagint Translation).

Almost all modern translations are similar to the NASB above in that the voice is not crying in the wilderness, "Prepare ye the way of the Lord" but rather is crying, "In the wilderness prepare ye the way of the Lord." I think the logic of Hebrew poetic parallelism almost forces this reading: The voice says something and then repeats itself in other words, using synonyms. "Prepare" becomes "make straight"; "the way" becomes "a highway"; "of the Lord" becomes "for our God"; and "in the wilderness" becomes "in the desert." 

The Septuagint, as seen in Brenton's version above, removes "in the desert," thus making it more reasonable for the voice to be crying in the wilderness rather than crying, "In the wilderness . . . ." If the Septuagint reflects an earlier Hebrew text that has since been lost, this may be the correct reading.

The Gospels are written in Greek and thus follow the Septuagint, but all three of the Synoptics further simplify the quotation by replacing "the paths of our God" with simply "his paths."

The voice of one crying in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make his paths straight (Mark 1:3, Matt. 3:3, Luke 3:4).

It is highly unlikely that three authors would independently alter Isaiah in the same way, so presumably Matthew and Luke are copying Mark rather than drawing directly from Isaiah. All three Synoptics quote this (modified) line of Isaiah and present John the Baptist as its fulfillment, but none of them actually put the words of Isaiah in John's mouth. Only the Fourth Gospel does this:

He said, I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness, Make straight the way of the Lord, as said the prophet Esaias (John 1:23).

This is an even further simplification of Isaiah, removing the poetic parallelism entirely.

Here, again, is Lehi's version:

Yea, even he should go forth and cry in the wilderness: Prepare ye the way of the Lord, and make his paths straight (1 Ne. 10:8).

Like the Fourth Gospel, this puts the words of Isaiah in John's mouth (though fewer of them; Lehi's John simply cries in the wilderness rather than telling people that he is crying in the wilderness). The Isaiah quotation itself, though, is the Synoptic version word for word. So even this part of Lehi's prophecy, the one part that seems to come from the Old Testament rather than the New (though still "Deutero-Isaiah" and thus problematic for those who accept that hypothesis), still shows the clear influence of the Gospels.

The other things that Lehi has his crier-in-the-wilderness say also come right out of the Gospels:

There cometh one mightier than I after me, the latchet of whose shoes I am not worthy to stoop down and unloose (Mark 1:7).

he that cometh after me is mightier than I, whose shoes I am not worthy to bear (Matt. 3:11)

one mightier than I cometh, the latchet of whose shoes I am not worthy to unloose (Luke 3:16)

there standeth one among you, whom ye know not; he it is, who coming after me is preferred before me, whose shoe's latchet I am not worthy to unloose (John 1:26-27).

there standeth one among you whom ye know not; and he is mightier than I, whose shoe's latchet I am not worthy to unloose (1 Ne. 10:8)

"There standeth one among you whom ye know not" is right out of the Fourth Gospel, but "mightier than I" is from the Synoptics. All four Gospels have John use a shoe metaphor to describe his unworthiness, but Lehi uses precisely the same wording as the Fourth, including the singular shoe where the Synoptics all use the plural. Again, Lehi's wording seems to be dependent on both the Synoptics and the Fourth Gospel.

The remainder of Lehi's prophecy seems to be taken from the Fourth Gospel:

John answered them, saying, I baptize with water: . . . These things were done in Bethabara beyond Jordan, where John was baptizing. The next day John seeth Jesus coming unto him, and saith, Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world (John 1:26, 28-29).

And my father said he should baptize in Bethabara, beyond Jordan; and he also said he should baptize with water; even that he should baptize the Messiah with water. And after he had baptized the Messiah with water, he should behold and bear record that he had baptized the Lamb of God, who should take away the sins of the world (1 Ne. 10:9-10).

Bethabara is mentioned only in the Fourth Gospel, and only in some versions. It is generally agreed that the original text had Bethany and that the Bethabara variant was created by Origen in the third century. That Lehi would have singled out such an obscure place, which likely did not even exist in his day, is extremely unlikely, and the fact that is juxtaposed with other material from the same part of the Fourth Gospel, such as the "Lamb of God" reference, makes it even more suspicious. (The title "Lamb of God" is used twice by John in the Fourth Gospel and nowhere else in the entire Bible. The Book of Mormon uses it 33 times.)

Nephi writes, "my father said he should baptize . . . and he also said he should baptize with water," with the also making it read as if "with water" adds some new information not already implied in the word baptize. Since baptism is definitionally a rite involving water, this is strange. The specification "with water" makes sense only when literal water baptism is being distinguished from a metaphorical "baptism" of some other kind, as in the Synoptics:

I indeed have baptized you with water: but he shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost (Mark 1:8).

I indeed baptize you with water unto repentance: but he . . . shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost, and with fire (Matt. 3:11).

I indeed baptize you with water; but .. . he shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost and with fire (Luke 3:16).

Lehi, however, at least in Nephi's abridgment, never mentions any other kind of baptism. This is yet another way in which his prophecy parallels the Fourth Gospel, which has John say "I baptize with water" without mentioning any other kind of baptism until later in the story. As I wrote in my 2019 "Notes on John 1" about vv. 24-27:

The author has not mentioned until now that John was baptizing people. Obviously he takes it for granted that his readers pretty much know who John was and what he was doing. Also omitted, though obviously implied in what comes later (and by "I baptize with water"), is John's statement that the one coming after him would baptize with the Holy Ghost.

All in all, it's hard for me to see this prophecy of Lehi's as anything but a case of massive biblical contamination. Even if we grant that detailed information about John the Baptist could have been revealed to Lehi 600 years in advance, it's not plausible that his prophecy would mention exactly the same details, in exactly the same language, as the Gospel writers who wrote of John after the fact.

It's almost as if what was revealed to Lehi was not a vision of John but rather a vision of the yet-to-be-written text of the New Testament (including a post-third-century version of the Fourth Gospel as well as at least one of the Synoptics). Visions of future books are attested elsewhere in the Book of Mormon, so it's not technically outside the realm of possibility. It does strain credulity, though, to think that the exact wording of the Gospels was predetermined 600 years in advance. Seeing that there will in the future be a "Bible" is one thing, but actually reading that Bible centuries before it is written -- by, one presumes, authors possessing creativity and free will -- is much harder to swallow.

The skeptical explanation is of course that the "prophecy" was actually invented in the 19th century by Joseph Smith and that its content was lifted directly from the King James Bible. In other words, Joseph just made it up, plagiarizing freely from the Bible, and the biblical parallels discussed here are one of many smoking guns.

The "semi-skeptical" stance I have tentatively staked out in "The snail on the roof, the Lincoln Memorial, and the translation of the Book of Mormon" is that Joseph Smith's seership worked much like modern remote viewing, in that paranormally received material (in this case revelation) was inextricably mixed with content from the seer's own mind, and that all of this was experienced as a single "given" thing, with no way for the seer to know -- other than checking it against external evidence -- what elements of the vision were true clairvoyance and which were noise or what I have called "contamination."

In the present case, the external evidence seems to be telling us that every word of Lehi's prophecy of John could be contamination -- that we can't say with any confidence that he foresaw John at all, and if he did, the content of that vision was likely quite different from what we have in the Book of Mormon. I started this post as part of an effort to figure out what the Nephites knew of "baptism" prior to Alma (the first instance of anyone actually practicing baptism in the Book of Mormon), and it appears that 1 Ne. 10 provides little or no usable evidence relative to that question.

The one element in 1 Ne. 10 that strikes me as potentially significant -- although, again, it too could easily be contamination -- is that mention of baptism "with water" as if that were a different thing from simple baptism. Obviously the word baptism in our Book of Mormon is a translation of something -- and given that baptism is a very specialized word referring to a specific feature of our culture, it is likely that the translation is not an exact one. The "with water" thing suggests (possibly) that the basic meaning of the Nephite word thus translated did not necessarily imply water. Perhaps it meant something like "purification" or "initiation" or something. The evidence for this is thus far extremely slight -- I'm basing it on details of the wording of a passage that is heavily (perhaps totally) contaminated -- but I'll be keeping it in the back of my mind as a possibility as I go through the other pre-Alma "baptism" passages.

All are not alike unto God

And I am filled with charity, which is everlasting love; wherefore, all children are alike unto me; wherefore, I love little children with a perfect love; and they are all alike and partakers of salvation

-- Mormon, Moroni 8:17

"Except to the eye of love, one Aberdeen terrier looks very much like another Aberdeen terrier, sir. Mr. Blumenfeld, I am happy to say, did not detect the innocent subterfuge."

"Jeeves," I said -- and I am not ashamed to confess that there was a spot of chokiness in the voice -- "there is none like you, none."

-- P. G. Wodehouse, "Episode of the Dog McIntosh"

I have to side firmly with Jeeves here. Against Mormon -- who says that he is full of love; therefore all children are alike to him; therefore his love is perfect -- I must insist that one member of a category is very much like another except to the eye of love. Blindness to what makes each individual and situation unique is the very antithesis of love. That is why "always love partakes of broken rule," why "the law was given by Moses, but grace and truth came by Jesus Christ" (John 1:17), and why a Pharisee is a "child of hell" (Matt. 23:15). "Platonic love" in a literal sense -- love of the ideal and not the real -- is not love.

Of course I know and agree with what Mormon is trying to say, but the way in which he says it is unfortunate. Nephi is the other offender, and this verse of his is increasingly popular with the Church Formerly Known as Mormon:

[H]e denieth none that come unto him, black and white, bond and free, male and female; and he remembereth the heathen; and all are alike unto God, both Jew and Gentile (2 Ne. 26:33).

What these two prophets mean is that all subcategories of human beings -- baptized and unbaptized, Black and White, bond and free, male and female, Christian and Pagan and Jew -- are alike to God and to those whose love is perfect. But this is not because they see only some broader category -- "children" or "children of men" -- but because they see only the individual.

A man who loves his dog loves it not because it is an Aberdeen terrier, and certainly not because it is a dog, but because it is that particular dog. Five sparrows are sold for two farthings, but each is known to God (Luke 12:6). Even the plants in my garden have individual names, and how much more must that be true with God?

Love thy neighbor as thyself -- that is, as a self, as unlumpable as your own.

Brothers and brethren

The Book of Mormon uses the archaic plural brethren 499 times and the modern brothers 9 times.

Brothers always refers to biological siblings, both elder and younger. Laman and Lemuel are Nephi's "brothers," and he and Sam are their "brothers," too.

my elder brothers, who were Laman, Lemuel, and Sam (1 Ne. 2:5)
I did not rebel against him like unto my [elder] brothers (1 Ne. 2:16)
thou and thy [elder] brothers should go unto the house of Laban (1 Ne. 3:4)
thy [elder] brothers murmur (1 Ne. 3:5)  

Laman and Lemuel did speak many hard words unto us, their younger brothers (1 Ne. 3:28)

Helaman's "brothers" are older than him; but Pagag, the firstborn, also has "brothers."

counsel with your elder brothers . . . be nourished by your brothers" (Alma 39:10)

the firstborn . . . was Pagag. . . . they chose all the [younger] brothers of Pagag (Ether 6:25-26)

Brethren is also used for both elder and younger male siblings. Laman and Lemuel are referred to as Nephi's "brethren" countless times, and he also refers to "Jacob and Joseph, my younger brethren" (2 Ne. 5:6). Besides this use, brethren can also refer to co-religionists, "brethren of the church" (1 Ne. 4:26, Alma 5:14). The convenient ambiguity of Nephi's words to Zoram makes it clear that the same word was used in both of these senses:

And I also spake unto him that I should carry the engravings, which were upon the plates of brass, to my [biological] elder brethren, who were without the walls. . . . And he, supposing that I spake of the brethren of the church, . . . did follow me (1 Ne. 4:24, 26).

So far, so unremarkable. It's just a word with two possible plurals, analogous to cows and kine, or cherubs, cherubim. What piqued my interest and prompted me to write this post was a handful of verses where brothers and brethren are used together, apparently with different meanings. Here is the first such instance:

And now there was a great mourning and lamentation among the people of Limhi, the widow mourning for her husband, the son and the daughter mourning for their father, and the brothers for their brethren (Mosiah 21:9).

Given the context, I assume that this means "younger brothers mourning for their elder brothers." It seems clear that we are talking about literal family relations, but if it were the same word both times in the original language, it's hard to see why it would have been translated differently. Although, as documented above, both brothers and brethren are used elsewhere in the text for both elder and younger siblings, here it may just be a convenient way of expressing "one kind of brother mourning for the other kind of brother."

The remaining instances of brothers being contrasted with brethren have to do with the four sons of Mosiah.

And the voice of the Lord came to Ammon, saying: Thou shalt not go up to the land of Nephi, for behold, the king will seek thy life; but thou shalt go to the land of Middoni; for behold, thy brother Aaron, and also Muloki and Ammah are in prison. Now it came to pass that when Ammon had heard this, he said unto Lamoni: Behold, my brother and brethren are in prison at Middoni, and I go that I may deliver them (Alma 20:2-3).

Ammon and Aaron are biological siblings, two of the four sons of Mosiah. We don't know who exactly Muloki and Ammah are (this is the first of only two times they are mentioned), but they are apparently either kinsmen in a broader sense (cousins or such) or biologically unrelated "brethren of the church."

Muloki and Ammah were not the only "brethren" preaching alongside the four brothers.

[Ammon, after having parted from his biological brothers,] departed out of their synagogue, and came over to a village which was called Ani-Anti, and there he found Muloki preaching the word unto them; and also Ammah and his brethren. . . . Aaron and a certain number of his brethren were taken and cast into prison, and the remainder of them fled out of the land of Middoni unto the regions round about. And those who were cast into prison suffered many things, and they were delivered by the hand of Lamoni and Ammon, and they were fed and clothed (Alma 21:11, 13-14).

The "brethren" of Ammah are apparently actual siblings or kinsmen, since if they were co-religionists they would not have been specifically Ammah's brethren. In Alma 20, the Lord tells Ammon that Aaron, Muloki, and Ammah are in prison, but here it is "Aaron and a certain number of his brethren" -- which would be an unlikely way of phrasing it if the "certain number" were two and if they were the two people who had just been mentioned by name. So it was apparently more than just those three who were in prison, but the Lord only mentioned the three to Ammon. This perhaps suggests that Muloki and Ammah may have been Ammon and Aaron's "brethren" in a different sense than the other prisoners. There is a further hint of this a couple of chapters later:

Behold, now it came to pass that the king of the Lamanites sent a proclamation among all his people, that they should not lay their hands on Ammon, or Aaron, or Omner, or Himni, nor either of their brethren who should go forth preaching the word of God, in whatsoever place they should be, in any part of their land (Alma 23:1).

This certainly makes it sound as if Ammon, Aaron, Omner, and Himni (the four biological brothers) had only two "brethren" -- who would presumably be Muloki and Ammah. However, we can't say for sure that this is the intended meaning. In Websters' 1828 dictionary (describing American English as used at the time the Book of Mormon was translated), these are the first two definitions of either:

1. One or another of any number. Here are ten oranges; take either orange of the whole number, or take either of them. In the last phrase, either stands as a pronoun or substitute.

2. One of two. This sense is included in the foregoing.

So the first definition is one "of any number." And it does make more sense that the king would forbid the Lamanites to lay hands on any and all Nephite preachers rather than singling out six individuals. Most other instances of either in the Book of Mormon clearly mean "one of two"; however, there is one unambiguous counterexample:

And now, behold, the Lamanites could not retreat either way, neither on the north, nor on the south, nor on the east, nor on the west, for they were surrounded on every hand by the Nephites (Hel. 1:31).

Here, "either way" clearly means any of four ways. Taking this into account, I think it is relatively unlikely that Alma 23:1 is singling out Muloki and Ammah.

Here is the final verse to distinguish brothers from brethren:

And now behold, Ammon, and Aaron, and Omner, and Himni, and their brethren did rejoice exceedingly . . . . And now, these are the words of Ammon to his brethren, which say thus: My brothers and my brethren, behold I say unto you, how great reason have we to rejoice (Alma 25:17, 26:1)

Here I think it is tolerably clear that Ammon's "brothers" are his actual siblings, Aaron, Omner, and Himni, while his "brethren" could be either specifically Muloki and Ammah or else his "brethren of the church" in general.

Where did Moroni's variant text of Malachi come from?

Joseph Smith reported that Moroni quoted to him a version of Malachi "with a little variation from the way it reads in our Bibles" (JS-H v. 36). Below are the King James Version and the version quoted by Moroni, with the differences italicized:

For, behold, the day cometh, that shall burn as an oven; and all the proud, yea, and all that do wickedly, shall be stubble: and the day that cometh shall burn them up, saith the Lord of hosts, that it shall leave them neither root nor branch. . . . Behold, I will send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord: And he shall turn the heart of the fathers to the children, and the heart of the children to their fathers, lest I come and smite the earth with a curse. (Mal. 4:1, 5-6).

For behold, the day cometh that shall burn as an oven, and all the proud, yea, and all that do wickedly shall burn as stubble; for they that come shall burn them, saith the Lord of Hosts, that it shall leave them neither root nor branch. . . . Behold, I will reveal unto you the Priesthood, by the hand of Elijah the prophet, before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord. And he shall plant in the hearts of the children the promises made to the fathers, and the hearts of the children shall turn to their fathers. If it were not so, the whole earth would be utterly wasted at his coming (JS-H vv. 36-39, also D&C 2).

It would normally be unsurprising -- positively to be expected -- that the biblical texts known to the Nephites should differ from our own. However, the last two chapters of Malachi are the one exception to that generalization, because we know exactly what the Nephite text looked like. This text was not brought over from Jerusalem (as it had not yet been written at the time Lehi and Mulek departed) but was dictated to them by Jesus himself. His dictation of Malachi 4 comprises 3 Nephi 25, and it reads exactly as in our King James Bibles. Moroni's father Moroni is the one who wrote the 3 Nephi we have, so it's hard to imagine how Moroni could have had any different Malachi text.

We've established that several parts of the Book of Mormon that appear to be quoting Malachi are actually quoting Zenos (see here and here), whom Malachi also quoted -- so could the text Moroni quoted to Joseph Smith have been Zenos rather than Malachi? Unlikely, for two reasons.

First, Moroni quoted "part of the third chapter of Malachi; and he quoted also the [entire] fourth or last chapter of the same prophecy" (JS-H v. 36); except for the three verses discussed above, the text was the same as in the King James Bible. In 3 Nephi, Jesus quotes Malachi 3 and 4 in their entirety (only those two chapters) and refers to what he has just quoted as "scriptures, which ye had not with you" (3 Ne. 26:2). If they already essentially the same text in Zenos, this would be unnecessary. Only a small part of the Malachi text can be quoting Zenos -- and this is what we find. Aside from the single phrase "great and dreadful day" (Mal. 4:5), all suspected Zenos material in Malachi is in two consecutive verses: Mal. 4:1-2.

Second, where Moroni's quotation differs from our Malachi, it also differs from Zenos. Moroni's quotation of Mal. 4:2 and of the "great and dreadful day" phrase do not differ from Malachi as we have it, so that leaves only part of one verse that could help us determine whether he is quoting Zenos or Malachi.

shall be stubble: and the day that cometh shall burn them up (Mal. 4:1, King James Version).

shall burn as stubble; for they that come shall burn them (JS-H v. 37, Moroni's Malachi quotation).

Let's compare these with suspected Zenos-influenced texts:

the day that cometh shall burn them up, . . . for they shall be as stubble (2 Ne. 26:4)

stubble . . . the day shall declare it, because it shall be revealed by fire . . . shall be burned (1 Cor. 3:12-13, 15)

shall be as stubble; and the day cometh that they must be burned (1 Ne. 22:15).

The only Zenos-like feature of Moroni's quotation is that he uses the word as when comparing the wicked to stubble, technically making it a simile rather than a metaphor. Where Moroni has "burn as stubble," and Malachi has "be stubble," our Zenos texts have something halfway between the two: "be as stubble." It's hard to draw any conclusions from these trivial differences in wording. The same goes for the distinction between "burn them" (Moroni) and "burn them up" (Malachi). Even if we considered the difference significant, one of our Zenos texts has "up," and the other two do not, leaving it ambiguous whether or not Zenos himself used that word.

The only really significant between Malachi and Moroni in this verse is that Malachi has the wicked burned by "the day that cometh," while in Moroni's version it is "they that come" -- apparently some group of people or angels or something -- that will do the burning. Of our three Zenos texts, one sidesteps the question by using the passive ("they must be burned"), one strongly implies that it is "the day" that brings the fire, and one matches Malachi exactly: "the day that cometh shall burn them up." None of them suggests Moroni's version, where it is a group of beings that perform the burning.

So Moroni's Malachi differs from (1) the Book of Malachi in our Bibles, (2) the Malachi chapters dictated by Jesus in the Book of Mormon, and (3) the hypothetical Zenos text Malachi seems to have been quoting or alluding to. To this list we can add (4) Joseph Smith's inspired revision of Malachi, as the Prophet's only comment on the book in his Bible revision manuscript is "Malicah Correct."

What about the possibility that Moroni had access to scripture from elsewhere? In my 2025 post "Did Mormon have the New Testament?" I make the case that the Three Nephites, who travel incognito among all peoples, have delivered to Mormon what he strongly implies that he has: "all the scriptures which give an account of all the marvelous works of Christ" (3 Ne. 28:33). Could they also have provided him with a variant Malachi text from some distant nation?

Even if that were so, though, it's hard to see why Moroni would have quoted that version of the text in preference to the one dictated by Jesus Christ himself. What authority could possibly trump that?

My best guess at this point is that Jesus Christ was the source of Moroni's modified version of Malachi. After Jesus has dictated the words of Malachi, we read:

And now it came to pass that when Jesus had told these things [i.e. dictated Malachi 3-4] he expounded them unto the multitude . . . .

And now there cannot be written in this book even a hundredth part of the things which Jesus did truly teach unto the people; but behold the plates of Nephi do contain the more part of the things which he taught the people.

And these things have I written, which are a lesser part of the things which he taught the people; and I have written them to the intent that they may be brought again unto this people, from the Gentiles, according to the words which Jesus hath spoken. And when they shall have received this, which is expedient that they should have first, to try their faith, and if it shall so be that they shall believe these things then shall the greater things be made manifest unto them (3 Ne. 26:1, 6-9).

Jesus did not provide a different text of Malachi; the text we have is correct. What he did do was expound upon the esoteric meaning of that text. Jesus' commentary on Malachi was among the "greater things" which were written on the Plates of Nephi (which Moroni had) but not included in the Book of Mormon. Malachi never wrote that "they that come shall burn them" or that Elijah will "reveal unto you the Priesthood," but that was the meaning given to his words by Jesus. Moroni did not quote Malachi verbatim but paraphrased sometimes, incorporating Jesus' commentary, in order to communicate something to Joseph Smith that would not have been apparent from the unadorned biblical text.

By the way, I believe quoting and commenting on Malachi would be very much in character for Jesus. In my 2022 post "Reasons to think Jesus read Malachi 2:1-3:1 in the Temple," I make the case that a large part of John 7 consists of commentary on Malachi. It would appear that at Bountiful he picked up where he had left off and did the next two chapters.