The harlot Isabel

This turned out to be unexpectedly lengthy and speculative, but I think the hypotheses it introduces have got legs.

I mentioned this in passing in my last post, "Is El a Lamanite god in the Book of Mormon?", but I don't think "the harlot Isabel" (Alma 39:3) was just a hooker -- which in turn means that "these things" which are "most abominable above all sins save it be the shedding of innocent blood or denying the Holy Ghost" (v. 5) may not refer primarily to, as the chapter summary in the current CJCLDS edition has it, "sexual sin" (though of course that is abominable, too, as Jacob 2-3 makes crystal clear).

In support of the conventional reading, there is obviously the use of the word "harlot." Beyond that, we are also told that "she did steal away the hearts of many" (v. 4), which could refer to many men falling in love with her. Finally, in calling Corianton to repentance, Alma exhorts him to "go no more after the lusts of your eyes" (v. 9), which sounds like a man being seduced by a beautiful temptress.

And that's it, really. Nothing else in Alma's four-chapter speech to Corianton sounds at all like a lecture on chastity -- again, compare it to Jacob 2-3, which very clearly is a lecture on chastity. Instead, Alma devotes most of his time to doctrinal minutiae about the timing of the resurrection, the meaning of the word restoration, and so on -- none of which would seem to be a high priority if he were speaking to someone so religiously unserious as to be traveling some distance to patronize a top-drawer prostitute when he was supposed to be on a mission.

We are told that Corianton "didst forsake the ministry, and did go over into the land of Siron among the borders of the Lamanites, after the harlot Isabel" (v. 3). In other words, this is not a case of a missionary coming across an alluring prostitute and succumbing to temptation. He left the land of the Zoramites, where he had been preaching, and traveled to another land to be with a specific harlot.

It's odd that Alma would call out the harlot by name if she was just a harlot. In a book with vanishingly few named female characters, where even queens go unnamed, Alma saw fit to mention -- and Mormon saw fit to include in his abridgment -- the name of some prostitute his son slept with? I don't think he's doing that. I think he's calling Isabel a harlot, accusing her of harlotry -- meaning that she wasn't a harlot openly, or in the ordinary sense.

Alma says to Corianton:

Suffer not yourself to be led away by any vain or foolish thing; suffer not the devil to lead away your heart again after those wicked harlots. Behold, O my son, how great iniquity ye brought upon the Zoramites; for when they saw your conduct they would not believe in my words (v. 11).

But how did the Zoramites see his conduct if he left the land of the Zoramites and traveled to Siron to do it? It scarcely seems likely that he would have announced publicly that he was going on a road trip for the purpose of sleeping with a particularly famous prostitute. Even if he had been sleeping with hookers in the land of the Zoramites first, that is the sort of sin one commits in secret, not something that would likely become publicly known. It seems that Corianton's great sin was something he did openly.

Also, notice the strangeness of the reference to "those wicked harlots" -- not harlots in general (so Corianton wasn't a common whoremonger), and not Isabel in particular (so it wasn't an individual love affair, condemned as "harlotry" because illicit), but "those wicked harlots," a specific group. Elsewhere in scripture, harlots are never called "wicked," that adjective being reserved for those who patronize them or pimp them out. Here, too, it seems that Alma would be more concerned to condemn Corianton's behavior as wicked rather than that of the harlot. The only other reference in all of scripture to prostitutes being "wicked" is that in Nephi's high mountain vision to "the wickedness of the great whore" (1 Ne. 14:12) -- where it refers not to a literal hooker but to "that great and abominable church, which is the whore of all the earth" (1 Ne. 22:13).

That's what I think we're dealing with here, too: not a call girl but an abominable church. If Corianton did "forsake the ministry" to join a cult, that very likely would have been public knowledge -- converts don't keep it secret; they spread the word -- and it would have undermined Alma's teaching much more directly and seriously than if Corianton had merely struggled with chastity.

Sexual irregularities may have played a role in this cult, as they often do, but not necessarily. False religion itself is consistently referred to in scripture with the language of prostitution. For example, the phrase "go a whoring" occurs 18 times in the Old Testament, and every single time it refers not to literal prostitution but to the worship of false gods. Jeremiah 3 is another clear example, where repeated references to "playing the harlot" refer not to sex but to the nations of Israel and Judah being unfaithful to their God.

As I mentioned in my last post, Isabel is the only name in the Book of Mormon to include the theophoric element Baal, which again suggests the worship of a false god. Specifically, Isabel may be a form of the biblical name Jezebel (pronounced Izebel in Hebrew). This is interesting because, besides the historical Jezebel who championed the worship of Baal in the days of Elijah, there is another woman called by that name in the Bible:

Notwithstanding I have a few things against thee, because thou sufferest that woman Jezebel, which calleth herself a prophetess, to teach and to seduce my servants to commit fornication, and to eat things sacrificed unto idols. And I gave her space to repent of her fornication; and she repented not. Behold, I will cast her into a bed, and them that commit adultery with her into great tribulation, except they repent of their deeds (Rev. 2:20-22).

Of course Alma could not have been influenced by John of Patmos, but he may have been using a similar rhetorical device. It is unlikely that this false prophetess's name was actually Jezebel; rather, John calls her that in the same spirit in which he calls Rome "Babylon" and Jerusalem "Sodom and Egypt." Alma may be doing the same thing. Despite all the sexual language used -- seduce, fornication, bed, adultery -- it is pretty clear that "Jezebel" is not merely a woman of loose morals but a religious leader, one who "calleth herself a prophetess." Another interesting parallel is that the condemnation of "Jezebel" is prefaced with "I have a few things against thee," just as Alma tells Corianton "this is what I have against thee" (Alma 39:2). That particular turn of phrase is found only in Revelation 2 and Alma 39.

Alma's reference to Isabel's stealing "away the hearts of many" is also more consistent with the language of false religion than with that of romantic love or lust. For example:

But if thine heart turn away, so that thou wilt not hear, but shalt be drawn away, and worship other gods, and serve them (Deut. 30:17).

And he had seven hundred wives, princesses, and three hundred concubines: and his wives turned away his heart. For it came to pass, when Solomon was old, that his wives turned away his heart after other gods (1 Kgs. 11:3-4).

The passage about Solomon is particularly clear. Even when it is his wives and concubines that "turned away his heart," the reference is not to love or sex but to false religion.

An even clearer example, using the same verb steal, refers to Alma himself prior to his conversion to religion of his father:

And he became a great hinderment to the prosperity of the church of God; stealing away the hearts of the people; causing much dissension among the people; giving a chance for the enemy of God to exercise his power over them (Mosiah 27:9).

Again, this very clearly refers to drawing people into false religious beliefs or practices, not to sexual seduction.

So if Isabel was a religious leader, what was her doctrine? We can perhaps infer it from the other points Alma makes, and the misconceptions he seems eager to rectify, in the remainder of his speech to Corianton.

First, "concerning the coming of Christ," (Alma 39:15), Alma says:

And now I will ease your mind somewhat on this subject. Behold, you marvel why these things should be known so long beforehand. Behold, I say unto you, is not a soul at this time as precious unto God as a soul will be at the time of his coming? (v. 17)

If Corianton's unease of mind on this issue came from Isabel, then perhaps she taught either, like Sherem (Jacob 7:7) and Korihor (Alma 30:13) that foreknowledge was impossible or, like mainstream Bible critics today, that the words of prophets always have to do with their own time rather than with the distant future.

Second, Alma says:

I perceive that thy mind is worried concerning the resurrection of the dead. Behold, I say unto you, that there is no resurrection -- or, I would say, in other words, that this mortal does not put on immortality, this corruption does not put on incorruption -- until after the coming of Christ. Behold, he bringeth to pass the resurrection of the dead. But behold, my son, the resurrection is not yet (Alma 40:1-3).

Corianton had a problem with the doctrine of the resurrection, but not the one you would expect. Rather than doubting that resurrection was possible, he apparently believed that it was already happening in his time, before the coming of Christ.

Alma's next point is not explicitly tied to Corianton's worries, but we can still assume that that is his reason for bringing up this otherwise seemingly unimportant question and for having "inquired diligently of the Lord to know" (v. 9) more about it:

Now there must needs be a space betwixt the time of death and the time of the resurrection. And now I would inquire what becometh of the souls of men from this time of death to the time appointed for the resurrection? (vv. 6-7)

Alma then addresses misconceptions (presumably those of Corianton under the influence of Isabel) about the meaning of "first resurrection":

Now, there are some that have understood that this state of happiness and this state of misery of the soul, before the resurrection, was a first resurrection. Yea, I admit it may be termed a resurrection, the raising of the spirit or the soul and their consignation to happiness or misery, according to the words which have been spoken.

And behold, again it hath been spoken, that there is "a first resurrection, a resurrection of all those who have been, or who are, or who shall be, down to the resurrection of Christ" from the dead. Now, we do not suppose that this first resurrection, which is spoken of in this manner, can be the resurrection of the souls and their consignation to happiness or misery. Ye cannot suppose that this is what it meaneth (vv. 15-17).

The passage I have put in quotation marks is quoting Abinadi (Mosiah 15:21), who is the one who introduced the idea of a "first resurrection," so apparently Isabel accepted the authority of Abinadi (who converted Alma Sr., Corianton's grandfather) but interpreted his words differently from Alma.

Alma then begins his discussion of the meaning of "restoration":

Yea, this bringeth about the restoration of those things of which has been spoken by the mouths of the prophets. The soul shall be restored to the body, and the body to the soul; yea, and every "limb and joint shall be restored to its" body; yea, even a hair of the head shall not be lost; but all things "shall be restored to" their proper and "perfect frame." And now, my son, this is the restoration of which has been spoken by the mouths of the prophets (Alma 40:22-24).

The quotation marks indicate that Alma is here paraphrasing (with some parts quoted verbatim) his own former missionary partner Amulek (Alma 11:43-44). However, the first reference to this general "restoration" (as opposed to Nephi's references to the restoration of Israel) is again from Abinadi (Mosiah 15:24).

Alma goes on to refute the false understanding of "restoration" promoted by "some" (i.e. Isabel's group):

And now, my son, I have somewhat to say concerning the restoration of which has been spoken; for behold, some have wrested the scriptures, and have gone far astray because of this thing. And I perceive that thy mind has been worried also concerning this thing. But behold, I will explain it unto thee (Alma 41:1).

He explains that "restoration" means the righteous will be rewarded and the wicked punished. Then he says:

And now behold, my son, do not risk one more offense against your God upon those points of doctrine, which ye have hitherto risked to commit sin. Do not suppose, because it has been spoken concerning restoration, that ye shall be restored from sin to happiness. Behold, I say unto you, wickedness never was happiness (Alma 41:9-10).

Note that Corianton's offense against God concerns "points of doctrine" rather than sexual sin.

Alma moves on to the next "worry" of Corianton's:

And now, my son, I perceive there is somewhat more which doth worry your mind, which ye cannot understand -- which is concerning the justice of God in the punishment of the sinner; for ye do try to suppose that it is injustice that the sinner should be consigned to a state of misery (Alma 42:1).

As an aside, I note the synchronicity that just this morning I read these lines from Edward FitzGerald's Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyam, quoted in The King in Yellow:

Oh Thou who burn'st in Heart for those who burn
In Hell, whose fires thyself shall feed in turn;
  How long be crying, 'Mercy on them, God!'
Why, who art Thou to teach, and He to learn?

As a further synchronicity, FitzGerald notes (though this is not quoted in The King in Yellow) that this tetrastich is supposed "to have arisen from a Dream, in which Omar's mother asked about his future fate," leaving it unclear whether it was Omar or his mother that had the dream. This syncs with the subject of my recent post, "Who had the vision that converted Abish?"

This ends our synchronistic intermission. Back to the harlot Isabel.

Alma's lengthy explanation of the punishment of sinners is not germane to our topic here. He concludes with this:

O my son, I desire that ye should deny the justice of God no more. Do not endeavor to excuse yourself in the least point because of your sins, by denying the justice of God (Alma 42:30).

To summarize, Corianton's main false beliefs, which we are assuming reflect the teachings of Isabel, are: (1) that resurrection is already happening; (2) that resurrection happens immediately after death, since otherwise what would happen between death and resurrection?; (3) that the "first resurrection" is not a resurrection of the body but the survival of the soul; (4) that "restoration" means being restored from sin to happiness; and (5) that it would be unjust for God to punish sinners.

I think this whole complex of ideas can be traced to a different interpretation of the teachings of Abinadi. He taught:

But behold, the bands of death shall be broken, and the Son reigneth, and hath power over the dead; therefore, he bringeth to pass the resurrection of the dead. And there cometh a resurrection, even a first resurrection; yea, even a resurrection of those that have been, and who are, and who shall be, even until the resurrection of Christ -- for so shall he be called (Mosiah 15:20-21).

I think a natural interpretation of this is that Christ will bring a resurrection when he comes, but that "there [also] cometh a resurrection, even a first resurrection" -- "first" because it happens before the later resurrection brought by Christ. What will be different about the resurrection brought by Christ? Perhaps it is a bodily resurrection, whereas the first resurrection (which has been happening all along) is simply a raising of the spirit after bodily death.

Abinadi certainly seems to be saying in this passage that the first resurrection includes absolutely everyone who dies before the resurrection of Christ. In fact, when Alma quotes Abinadi to Corianton, he even adds the implied word all: "a first resurrection, a resurrection of all those who have been, or who are, or who shall be, down to the resurrection of Christ."

Abinadi continues:

And now, the resurrection of all the prophets, and all those that have believed in their words, or all those that have kept the commandments of God, shall come forth in the first resurrection; therefore, they are the first resurrection. They are raised to dwell with God who has redeemed them; thus they have eternal life through Christ, who has broken the bands of death (vv. 22-23).

Here the first resurrection is equated with being "raised to dwell with God" to "have eternal life." In other words, it appears that everyone in the first resurrection -- meaning everyone before the resurrection of Christ -- goes to Heaven. There is no explicit mention of the resurrection of the body. Against the seeming universalism of the preceding verses, these seem to limit the first resurrection to the prophets, those who have believed the prophets, and those who have kept the commandments.

He goes on to include others, too, though, again suggesting universalism:

And these are those who have part in the first resurrection; and these are they that have died before Christ came, in their ignorance, not having salvation declared unto them. And thus the Lord bringeth about the restoration of these; and they have a part in the first resurrection, or have eternal life, being redeemed by the Lord (vv. 20-24).

Thus far, we can understand how someone might misunderstand Abinadi as saying that all sinners (or at least all before Christ) will be "restored" rather than punished. But how to reconcile this with what Abinadi says next?

But behold, and fear, and tremble before God, for ye ought to tremble; for the Lord redeemeth none such that rebel against him and die in their sins; yea, even all those that have perished in their sins ever since the world began, that have wilfully rebelled against God, that have known the commandments of God, and would not keep them; these are they that have no part in the first resurrection. Therefore ought ye not to tremble? For salvation cometh to none such; for the Lord hath redeemed none such; yea, neither can the Lord redeem such; for he cannot deny himself; for he cannot deny justice when it has its claim (vv. 26-27).

Alma Sr. had been a priest of Noah but was then converted by Abinadi. Alma Jr. was at first "numbered among the unbelievers" and sought "to destroy the church of God" (Mosiah 27:8, 10) which had been founded by his father on the teachings of Abinadi, but he later converted to his father's Abinadite religion. Now we have Alma Jr.'s son Corianton falling in with Isabel's movement, which apparently accepted the teachings of Abinadi but not those of either of the Almas, for Alma Sr. also implied that not everyone would "be numbered with those of the first resurrection" (Mosiah 18:9). Now it also appears that Isabel did not have exactly the same words of Abinadi as the Almas, for the verses quoted above flatly contradict her doctrine, and one can only "wrest" these things so far.

The words of Abinadi as we have them were written down by Alma Sr. from memory some time after he had heard them (Mosiah 17:4) and are thus unlikely to be strictly accurate. Is it possible that Isabel's movement was founded by someone who was also present in the court of Noah and was converted by Abinadi's words, but remembered them somewhat differently?

And that leads us to another possible significance of the designation "harlot." It is said of Noah and his priests (of whom Alma Sr. was one):

And it came to pass that he placed his heart upon his riches, and he spent his time in riotous living with his wives and his concubines; and so did also his priests spend their time with harlots (Mosiah 11:14).

The wording "and so did also his priests" implies that the priests did the same thing that Noah himself did, and that "harlots" is thus a pejorative reference to their own wives and concubines (which they also had; see Mosiah 11:4). For those who condemn polygamy, taking additional wives and concubines is equated with "committing whoredoms" (Jacob 2:23).

What happened to Alma Sr.'s wives and concubines when he converted to the doctrine of Abinadi and fled the court of Noah? Their husband's falling out of favor with the king would have put them in danger, so it seems likely that they would have fled with him. However, the converted Alma could not have remained "married" to any but one of them, and this abandonment might naturally have led to a falling-out. Thus we have a perfect explanation for a woman, called a "harlot," who accepted Abinadi, was at odds with the Almas, and had a somewhat different recollection of what exactly Abinadi had taught: Isabel was one of Alma Sr.'s former wives or concubines. Rather than being a seductive young temptress, she was a woman old enough to be Corianton's grandmother, and perhaps his actual grandmother, or else one of his grandmother's former sister-wives.

If this line of thinking is correct, it sheds light on another question that has bothered me for a long time: Why had Alma Jr. been trying to destroy his father's church in the first place? Actively trying to destroy the church, and to lead away others after him, suggests not mere waywardness but religious zeal. Alma Jr. is often compared to Saul of Tarsus -- the parallels are so obvious that critics accuse Joseph Smith of plagiarizing the New Testament story -- but Saul's motive is clear. Saul was a strict Pharisee (Acts 26:5), Christians venerated a scathing critic of the Pharisees as the Son of God, and Saul saw it as his religious duty to extirpate this heretical sect. Alma Jr., in stark contrast, was the son of the founder and high priest of the very religion he sought to destroy! Where did his heterodox views come from?

If his own mother was Isabel, promulgating a rival interpretation of Abinadi (on whose authority as a prophet Alma Sr.'s church rested), it all makes sense. It also explains his success in "stealing away the hearts of" so many in Alma Sr.'s church and "causing much dissension among" them (Mosiah 27:9). As happened after the assassination of Joseph Smith, different believers in the murdered prophet understood (or in some cases "wrested") his teachings differently and founded rival sects.

This has all been highly speculative, but I think it explains a lot and is thus likely to be a good seed.

Is El a Lamanite god in the Book of Mormon?

No El, no El, no El, no El

-- Christmas carol

(That epigraph is just a throwaway pun, of course, though it is perhaps worth noting that this very old carol includes a non-biblical detail concerning the new star which seems to be right out of the Book of Mormon: "And to the earth it gave great light / And so it continued both day and night.")

Hugh Nibley makes much of the lack of Baal names in the Book of Mormon, asking how the uneducated Joseph Smith could have known that such names happened to be very unpopular around the time Lehi left Jerusalem. I find this completely unimpressive, since no uneducated Christian would expect Israelite names to include the name of this "false god." Besides, the Book of Mormon does include one Baal name: Isabel (Alma 39:3), which is apparently either a form of Jezebel (Hebrew ʾIzeḇel, meaning "Where is Baal?") or is parallel to Isaiah (Yəšaʿyāhū, "Yahweh is salvation"), with Baal replacing Yahweh. This name occurs over 500 years after Lehi left Jerusalem, presumably part of an unbroken tradition of Baal names.

What I do find striking is the relative lack of El names. Of the 300-some proper names that are unique to the Book of Mormon, not a single one of them incorporates the element El. The Bible, in contrast, contains over 300 El-derived names. The El names that do occur in the Book of Mormon fall into three categories:

(1) Names used by Isaiah (Immanuel) and Malachi (Elijah), appearing in the Book of Mormon only where whole chapters from those books are quoted verbatim, by Nephi (2 Ne. 17:14, 18:8) and Jesus  (3 Ne. 25:5) respectively.

(2) References to the biblical figures Israel -- which, significantly, means "fights against El" -- and (probably) Samuel. Jesus' reference to "all the prophets from Samuel and those that follow after" (3 Ne. 20:24) presumably refers to the biblical Samuel, since Samuel the Lamanite was a very recent prophet.

(3) Lamanite-affiliated names: Lemuel, Ishmael, and Samuel. These are the only El names that belong to Book of Mormon rather than biblical figures, although the names themselves are biblical.

The original founders of the Lamanite group were Laman, Lemuel, and the sons of Ishmael, Ishmael himself having died before the schism. The land of Ishmael was Lamanite territory, "being called after the sons of Ishmael, who also became Lamanites" (Alma 17:19). As for Samuel, he is scarcely ever mentioned without a reminder that he is a Lamanite. I strongly suspect that the Lamanites adopted El as their primary name for God, after which the Nephites stopped using it.

But isn't el just a common noun referring to any god or tutelary spirit? Yes, and so is baal a common noun meaning "lord." That doesn't stop such names from becoming associated with a particular religion, leading those who oppose that religion to avoid them. Even in English, God generally implies the specific god worshiped by Christians and some Jews.

We know that the Nephites and Lamanites used different names for God, because the Lamanite king of Ishmael (500-some years after the departure from Jerusalem) doesn't understand the name of the Nephite deity:

And Ammon began to speak unto him with boldness, and said unto him: Believest thou that there is a God?

And he answered, and said unto him: I do not know what that meaneth.

And then Ammon said: Believest thou that there is a Great Spirit?

And he said, Yea.

And Ammon said: This is God (Alma 18:24-28).

The Lamanite name for God is translated as "Great Spirit" -- thus possibly the biblical El Elyon, "the highest el."

What was the primary Nephite name for God? Not Baal, obviously, per Nibley (Isabel is a "harlot," probably the leader of a false religion like the Jezebel of Rev. 2:20-22, whose work as a self-proclaimed "prophetess" is called "fornication" and "adultery"). The next obvious candidate would be Yahweh. Certainly that name was used, as as the last verse in the book refers to "the great Jehovah" (Moro. 10:34). As an element in names, it occurs in the Nephite names Jeremiah, Joshua, and Zedekiah, all of which are biblical. It is likely that these Nephites were named after Hebrew figures rather than with specific reference to Yahweh (just as we use names like Martin and Dennis without intentional reference to Mars and Dionysus). The only non-biblical Nephite names that seem to incorporate Yahweh are Amalickiah and Mosiah. It has also been suggested that the distinctive -ihah ending in Ammonihah, Cumenihah, Mathonihah, Moronihah, Nephihah, and Onihah (though cf. the Jaredite name Orihah) may be a form of Yahweh.

Nibley has proposed that, given the Egyptian connection, Amon or Ammon (king of the gods in Egypt, also rendered Amen) may have been used as a divine name by the Nephites. The main objection to this is that Ammon itself appears as a personal name in the Book of Mormon. While names incorporating the names of gods are common, it seems highly unlikely that anyone would be named simply God. Whether or not it is a divine name, it does seem to occur in a lot of Nephite names, including (allowing for some variation in the second vowel) Aminadab, Aminadi, Ammonihah, Amnigaddah, Amnihu, Amnor, and Helaman. Since only one of these has a double m, it is possible that Amon (or Amin or Aman) was a divine name and that Ammon meant something else. If we allow Omn as a variant, we might add Gadiomnah, Omner, Omni, and Teomner to the list (though cf. Antiomno, a Lamanite). It's an interesting possibility, especially given Joseph Smith's own use of Ahman or Aumen as a name of God.

Who had the vision that converted Abish?

Sheri Doty, Abish Teaching the Lamanites

The Book of Mormon briefly mentions that Abish, a Lamanitish woman, had "been converted unto the Lord for many years, on account of a remarkable vision of her father" (Alma 19:16).

In my past readings, I had always assumed that this meant a vision that her father had had. This time around, though, I realized that it could also mean a vision in which she had seen her father -- either her own human father (presumably after his death) or her Father, God. In fact, at least in the English of our own day, this latter reading is the more natural one. If I wanted to refer to a vision which my father had had, I would say "a vision of my father's," with the possessive -'s.

Of course, we can't assume that the language of the Book of Mormon -- a combination of King James English and Joseph Smith's frontier dialect, perhaps (according to a currently popular theory) with an unexplained admixture of even earlier English -- always corresponds to current usage, so I tried to look for similar structures elsewhere in scripture.

The structure "determiner + noun + of + nominal possessive" is certainly attested in scripture, at least with pronouns: "these sayings of mine" (Matt. 7:24, 26; 3 Ne. 14:24, 26; 15:1), "a friend of mine" (Luke 11:6), "every prayer of mine" (Philip. 1:4), "those sons of mine" (Alma 56:17), "these last commandments of mine" (D&C 17:8), "these words of mine" (D&C 95:3), "any neglect of mine" (JS-H 1:59), "a neighbour of thine" (1 Sam. 15:28), "this liberty of yours" (1 Cor. 8:9), "five damsels of hers" (1 Sam. 25:42), "every beast of theirs" (Gen. 34:23), "every oblation of theirs, and every meat offering of theirs, and every sin offering of theirs, and every trespass offering of theirs" (Num. 18:9).

Searching for similar instances with nouns rather than pronouns is much more difficult, since there are so many possibilities.

The fact that of can also mean "from" in King James English (e.g. "learn of me" means learn from me, not about me) also complicates matters, since of course this sense of of would not use the possessive. So "they speak a vision of [from] their own heart" (Jer. 23:16) and "then shall they seek a vision of [from] the prophet" (Ezek. 7:26) are not counterexamples. "Every word of God" (Prov. 30:5, Luke 4:4, 1 Ne. 17:35) could also be understood in this "from" sense -- Luke is paraphrasing "every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of the Lord" (Deut. 8:3) -- and thus do not provide decisive evidence. Any reference to a "vision of God" (or "of the Almighty," as in Balaam's formula) should be assumed to mean "from God" also, unless it is made clear that God himself was seen.

The distinction we are interested in does not exist for the; "the vision of Isaiah" could mean either a vision seen by Isaiah (like "a vision of Isaiah's") or a vision in which Isaiah was seen (like "a vision of Isaiah"). So I searched the scriptures for various other determiners (a, every, any, this, that, these, those) + "visions(s) of," excluding instances where of could mean "from" and other irrelevant instances such as "a vision of the night" (Job 20:8, 33:15).

This search yielded only a single instance: "a vision of angels" (Luke 24:23), in which the angels are the ones seen and so of course the possessive would not be used. So zero relevant evidence either way.

Of course other nouns than "vision" could be relevant, and my search also missed any instances where an adjective is interposed between the determiner and the noun (as in "a remarkable vision of her father"), but it's hard to narrow down all those possibilities into something searchable. I think my only option at this point is to keep my eyes open for such expressions the next time I read through the entire canon.

Meanwhile, the nature of the vision that converted Abish remains ambiguous.

Intertextuality in 2 Zenos (Jacob 5)

Vincent Van Gogh, Olive Trees (1889)

The 2 Zenos text (as quoted in Jacob 5) has significant parallels to three different biblical texts: Isaiah 5, Luke 13, and Romans 11. In this post I will lay out the parallels and attempt to discern the direction of the influence.

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A. Isaiah 5 and 2 Zenos

Both of these texts are quoted in the Book of Mormon (in 2 Nephi 15 and Jacob 5, respectively), so we know that the Nephites had both of them. Here are the main parallels between the two.

1. Both are about a vineyard, and both explicitly say that it is an allegory about "the house of Israel." For Isaiah, Israel is the vineyard itself; for Zenos, it is an olive tree in the vineyard. These are the only two places in scripture where the house of Israel is associated with a vineyard. The "plant" to which Isaiah's parallel metaphor likens the men of Judah means in Hebrew "that which is planted"; it could refer to an individual plant such as the olive tree of Zenos, or it could mean "plantation" and refer to the vineyard as a whole.

For the vineyard of the LORD of hosts is the house of Israel, and the men of Judah his pleasant plant (Isa. 5:7).

I will liken thee, O house of Israel, like unto a tame olive tree, which a man took and nourished in his vineyard (Jacob 5:3).

2. Both texts say that the vineyard "brought forth" unwanted "wild" fruit. In Isaiah, there is no explanation for this; the well-cultivated vineyard spontaneously produces "wild grapes" (literally "stinking or worthless things" in Hebrew). In Zenos, the lord of the vineyard has grafted tame branches onto wild olive trees, which is why these trees bring forth a combination of tame and wild fruit. The only other reference to wild fruit in scripture is the story of the "wild gourds" served to the prophets in 2 Kgs. 4:39.

 

"he looked that it should bring forth grapes, and it brought forth wild grapes" (Isa. 5:2)

"wherefore, when I looked that it should bring forth grapes, brought it forth wild grapes?" (Isa. 5:4)

 

"the other part of the tree hath brought forth wild fruit" (Jacob 5:25)

"a part thereof brought forth wild fruit" (Jacob 5:45)

3. In both stories, the owner of the vineyard asks rhetorically, in almost the same language, what more he could possibly have done for the vineyard.

"What could have been done more to my vineyard, that I have not done in it?" (Isa. 5:4) 

 

"What could I have done more for my vineyard?" (Jacob 5:41)

"But what could I have done more in my vineyard?" (Jacob 5:47)

"What could I have done more for my vineyard?" (Jacob 5:49)

4. Both texts juxtapose pruning and digging, a combination that is not found elsewhere in scripture. In Zenos, the lord of the vineyard and his servant repeatedly prune and dig about the olive trees in an attempt to save them. In Isaiah, the owner of the vineyard refuses to do so.

"it shall not be pruned, nor digged" (Isa. 5:6)

 

"I will prune it, and dig about it" (Jacob 5:4)

"he pruned it, and digged about it" (Jacob 5:5)

"And the Lord of the vineyard caused that it should be digged about, and pruned" (Jacob 5:11)

"Let us prune it, and dig about it" (Jacob 5:27)

"I have digged about it, and I have pruned it" (Jacob 5:47)

"Wherefore, dig about them, and prune them" (Jacob 5:64)

"I nourished my vineyard, and pruned it, and dug about it" (Jacob 5:76)

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B. Luke 13 and 2 Zenos

1. Both are about a fruit tree (not a grapevine) in a vineyard. There are no other references in scripture to anything other than grapes being grown in a vineyard.

"A certain man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard" (Luke  13:6)

 

"like unto a tame olive tree, which a man took and nourished in his vineyard" (Jacob 5:3)

2. Both refer to the unfruitful trees as "cumbering the ground." The verb cumber is not to be found elsewhere in scripture, except in Luke 10:40 ("Martha was cumbered about much serving"), where it is a different word more literally translated as "distracted."

"cut it down; why cumbereth it the ground?" (Luke 13:7) 

 

"that they may not cumber the ground of my vineyard" (Jacob 5:9)

"all sorts of fruit did cumber the tree" (Jacob 5:30)

"I also cut down that which cumbered this spot of ground" (Jacob 5:44)

"Let us go to and hew down the trees . . . that they shall not cumber the ground of my vineyard" (Jacob 5:49)

"and the bad be hewn down . . . that they cumber not the ground of my vineyard" (Jacob 5:66)

3. Both have the owner of the vineyard "dig about" and "dung" the unfruitful trees. "Dig about" is to be found nowhere else, except in Job 11:18. Dung as a verb is found nowhere else.

"I shall dig about it, and dung it" (Luke 13:8)

 

"I will prune it, and dig about it" (Jacob 5:4)

"he pruned it, and digged about it" (Jacob 5:5)

"And the Lord of the vineyard caused that it should be digged about" (Jacob 5:11)

"Let us prune it, and dig about it" (Jacob 5:27)

"I have digged about it, and I have pruned it, and I have dunged it" (Jacob 5:47)

"dig about the trees" (Jacob 5:63)

"Wherefore, dig about them, and prune them, and dung them" (Jacob 5:64)

"I nourished my vineyard, and pruned it, and dug about it, and dunged it" (Jacob 5:76)

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C. Romans 11 and 2 Zenos

1. Both passages juxtapose firstfruit (or first fruit) with root and branches. Neither of these latter words is juxtaposed with firstfruit anywhere else in scripture

For if the firstfruit be holy, the lump is also holy: and if the root be holy, so are the branches (Romans 11:16)

I have preserved the roots and the branches of the first fruit (Jacob 5:60)

2. Both speak of branches being broken off and the branches of a wild olive tree being grafted in.

"And if some of the branches be broken off, and thou, being a wild olive tree, wert graffed in among them" (Romans 11:17)

"they came to the tree whose natural branches had been broken off, and the wild branches had been grafted in" (Jacob 5:30)

3. Both refer to "sparing" the tree or its branches.

For if God spared not the natural branches, take heed lest he also spare not thee (Romans 11:21).

But, behold, the servant said unto the Lord of the vineyard: Spare it a little longer. And the Lord said: Yea, I will spare it a little longer, for it grieveth me that I should lose the trees of my vineyard (Jacob 5:50-51).

4. Both refer to "the natural branches" of the olive tree being grafted "in again."

And they also, if they abide not still in unbelief, shall be graffed in: for God is able to graff them in again. For if thou wert cut out of the olive tree which is wild by nature, and wert graffed contrary to nature into a good olive tree: how much more shall these, which be the natural branches, be graffed into their own olive tree? (Rom. 11:23-24)

And the branches of the natural tree will I graft in again into the natural tree; And the branches of the natural tree will I graft into the natural branches of the tree; and thus will I bring them together again, that they shall bring forth the natural fruit, and they shall be one (Jacob 5:67-68).

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D. Other related texts

In 1 Nephi 10, Lehi gives a brief version of the olive tree allegory. There is no reference to wild branches or wild fruit, only to the natural branches being broken off and scattered and then later grafted back in. Most of what is in this summary can be found in Romans 11, with the exception of the "house of Israel" reference (as in Isaiah 5 and 2 Zenos) and the mention of the broken branches being scattered in many places (as in 2 Zenos).

Yea, even my father spake much concerning the Gentiles, and also concerning the house of Israel, that they should be compared like unto an olive tree, whose branches should be broken off and should be scattered upon all the face of the earth.

Wherefore, he said it must needs be that we should be led with one accord into the land of promise, unto the fulfilling of the word of the Lord, that we should be scattered upon all the face of the earth.

And after the house of Israel should be scattered they should be gathered together again; or, in fine, after the Gentiles had received the fulness of the Gospel, the natural branches of the olive tree, or the remnants of the house of Israel, should be grafted in, or come to the knowledge of the true Messiah, their Lord and their Redeemer (1 Ne. 10:12-14).

In 1 Nephi 15, Nephi comments on these words of Lehi, explaining them to Laman and Lemuel. This explanation also says nothing about the wild branches or wild fruit. The main thing it that distinguishes it from 1 Ne. 10 is that it mixes vine and olive symbolism, as only 2 Zenos does, speaking of "the true vine" as apparently interchangeable with "the true olive tree."

And they said: Behold, we cannot understand the words which our father hath spoken concerning the natural branches of the olive tree, and also concerning the Gentiles.

Behold, I say unto you, that the house of Israel was compared unto an olive tree, by the Spirit of the Lord which was in our father; and behold are we not broken off from the house of Israel, and are we not a branch of the house of Israel?

And now, the thing which our father meaneth concerning the grafting in of the natural branches through the fulness of the Gentiles, is, that in the latter days, when our seed shall have dwindled in unbelief, . . . they shall come to the knowledge of their Redeemer and the very points of his doctrine, that they may know how to come unto him and be saved.

And then at that day will they not rejoice and give praise unto their everlasting God, their rock and their salvation? Yea, at that day, will they not receive the strength and nourishment from the true vine? Yea, will they not come unto the true fold of God?

Behold, I say unto you, Yea; they shall be remembered again among the house of Israel; they shall be grafted in, being a natural branch of the olive tree, into the true olive tree (1 Ne. 15:7, 12-16).

This mention of "the true vine" (there are no "true" trees or vines in 2 Zenos) brings in John 15 as yet another possibly related text. This refers to "withered" branches (mentioned four timed in 2 Zenos) and unfruitful branches being "cast . . . into the fire" and "burned" (mentioned 11 times in 2 Zenos). Branches that bear no fruit "he taketh away," which seems different from casting them into the fire and may refer to the brances being grafted into other trees scattered around the vineyard, as in 2 Zenos.

I am the true vine, and my Father is the husbandman.

Every branch in me that beareth not fruit he taketh away: and every branch that beareth fruit, he purgeth it, that it may bring forth more fruit. . . .

Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine; no more can ye, except ye abide in me.

I am the vine, ye are the branches: He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit: for without me ye can do nothing.

If a man abide not in me, he is cast forth as a branch, and is withered; and men gather them, and cast them into the fire, and they are burned (John 15:1-2, 4-6).

In Alma 16, Mormon again references this "true vine" and specifically mentions grafting.

That they might not be hardened against the word, that they might not be unbelieving, and go on to destruction, but that they might receive the word with joy, and as a branch be grafted into the true vine, that they might enter into the rest of the Lord their God (Alma 16:17).

In Alma 13, Alma perhaps references 2 Zenos with his reference to "all parts of our vineyard."

[W]e are thus highly favored, for we have these glad tidings declared unto us in all parts of our vineyard (Alma 13:23).

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E. How are all these texts related?

Our preferred solution -- the simplest one under the assumption that the Book of Mormon is basically legit -- would be that 2 Zenos is the oldest text, that all the others are influenced by it, and that this is sufficient to account for parallels between the Book of Mormon and certain New Testament texts.

I think this works for our main texts. Consider the central image in each:

• 2 Zenos: an olive tree in a vineyard
• Isaiah 5: a vineyard
• Luke 13: a fig tree in a vineyard
• Romans 11: an olive tree

If 2 Zenos is the original, each of the others takes one aspect (vineyard, tree in vineyard, olive tree) of its more complex image. If the biblical texts came first and Joseph Smith created the 2 Zenos text, he took three different allegories about three different crops and combined them into a single integrated story -- which is not impossible to do, of course, but is more difficult and unlikely than the reverse. Were it not for the Luke 13 text, I would have said that Zenos's incongruous olive tree in a vineyard was evidence of a story cobbled together from two different sources, one about an olive tree and the other about a vineyard -- but the parable in Luke about a fig tree in a vineyard shows that perhaps vineyards with crops other than grapes are not so incongruous after all.

The main sticking point is the "true vine" language used in John 11, 1 Nephi 15 (which also has "true olive tree"), and Alma 16. Mormon may have had access to the New Testament, which potentially explains Alma 16, but 1 Nephi 15 -- the words of Nephi, unedited by Mormon -- cannot be explained in that way. I also don't think it works to assume that the "true vine" comes from 2 Zenos. Unlike the 1 Zenos fragments in 1 Nephi 19 -- which are obviously just that, fragments of a larger text -- Jacob 5 seems to be a complete Zenos text quoted in its entirety. At present, I have no good explanation for the "Johannine" language in 1 Nephi 15 other than the sort of "contamination" discussed in "Lehi, Nephi, and the pillar of fire that "dwelt upon a rock": A case study of hard-to-define biblical parallels."

The Twelve Tribes against the Twelve Apostles

The first part of Nephi's high mountain vision deals with the conception, birth, baptism, ministry, end execution of Jesus Christ -- the resurrection is, strangely, omitted -- and presents no real problems. It is consistent with the stories we have in the New Testament. After Christ's execution on the cross, though, things get a little confusing:

And I, Nephi, saw that he was lifted up upon the cross and slain for the sins of the world.

And after he was slain I saw the multitudes of the earth, that they were gathered together to fight against the apostles of the Lamb; for thus were the twelve called by the angel of the Lord. And the multitude of the earth was gathered together; and I beheld that they were in a large and spacious building, like unto the building which my father saw.

 

And the angel of the Lord spake unto me again, saying: "Behold the world and the wisdom thereof; yea, behold the house of Israel hath gathered together to fight against the twelve apostles of the Lamb."

And it came to pass that I saw and bear record, that the great and spacious building was the pride of the world; and it fell, and the fall thereof was exceedingly great.

 

And the angel of the Lord spake unto me again, saying: "Thus shall be the destruction of all nations, kindreds, tongues, and people, that shall fight against the twelve apostles of the Lamb" (1 Ne. 11:33-36).

This can be seen as a reference to the fact that the early church was persecuted. What is strange is the angel's insistence that "the house of Israel hath gathered together to fight against the twelve apostles of the Lamb." In the history we know, it was primarily the Romans that persecuted the early Christians, and though the Jews also participated, it certainly wasn't the gathered House of Israel, a term which always refers to all Twelve Tribes being reunited, as in the LDS Article of Faith, "We believe in the literal gathering of Israel and in the restoration of the Ten Tribes" (A of F 10). The Ten Tribes disappeared in the eighth century BC and remain "lost" to this day. James, one of the apostles against whom these gathered tribes are supposed to be fighting, addresses his epistle "to the twelve tribes which are scattered abroad" (James 1:1).

Furthermore, elsewhere in the Book of Mormon, Jesus himself seems to say that the tribes will not be gathered until they accept him as their Redeemer:

And I command you that ye shall write these sayings after I am gone, that if it so be that my people at Jerusalem, they who have seen me and been with me in my ministry, do not ask the Father in my name, that they may receive a knowledge of you by the Holy Ghost, and also of the other tribes whom they know not of, that these sayings which ye shall write shall be kept and shall be manifested unto the Gentiles, that through the fulness of the Gentiles, the remnant of their seed, who shall be scattered forth upon the face of the earth because of their unbelief, may be brought in, or may be brought to a knowledge of me, their Redeemer.

And then will I gather them in from the four quarters of the earth; and then will I fulfil the covenant which the Father hath made unto all the people of the house of Israel (3 Ne. 16:4-5).

If the House of Israel is not gathered until after they accept Christ, why would they have "gathered together to fight against the twelve apostles"?

One possible interpretation is that the gathering in Nephi's vision is figurative. The tribes weren't literally gathered together any more than they were literally in a single "large and spacious building." Rather, the apostles went out into the world, meeting hostility wherever they went -- tradition has it that Matthew was killed in Ethiopia, Bartholomew in Armenia, Andrew in Greece, Thomas in India, and so on -- and in this way the Twelve Tribes, while still physically "scattered abroad," were figuratively "gathered" or united in their fighting against the apostles.

Another possibility is that "after he was slain" means thousands of years after he was slain (or just that Nephi saw this after he saw Jesus slain, which may or may not correspond to historical chronology). The fight may be still in the future, after the promised "literal gathering of Israel" -- which would mean the "twelve apostles" must be someone other than the biblical figures to whom that term usually refers, but this is hardly a problem for Mormons, who already accept that many different groups of twelve men can be and have been called by that title.

It is even possible that Nephi's use of the term has no reference to Jesus' disciples during his mortality at all. Notice how the Twelve are first introduced in the vision:

And I looked and beheld the Redeemer of the world, of whom my father had spoken; and I also beheld the prophet who should prepare the way before him. And the Lamb of God went forth and was baptized of him; and after he was baptized, I beheld the heavens open, and the Holy Ghost come down out of heaven and abide upon him in the form of a dove. And I beheld that he went forth ministering unto the people, in power and great glory; and the multitudes were gathered together to hear him; and I beheld that they cast him out from among them.

And I also beheld twelve others following him. And it came to pass that they were carried away in the Spirit from before my face, and I saw them not.

And it came to pass that the angel spake unto me again, saying: Look! And I looked, and I beheld the heavens open again, and I saw angels descending upon the children of men; and they did minister unto them.

And he spake unto me again, saying: Look! And I looked, and I beheld the Lamb of God going forth among the children of men. And I beheld multitudes of people who were sick, and who were afflicted with all manner of diseases, and with devils and unclean spirits; and the angel spake and showed all these things unto me. And they were healed by the power of the Lamb of God; and the devils and the unclean spirits were cast out (1 Ne. 11:27-31).

First Nephi sees scenes from the life of Jesus. Then he sees "twelve others following him" -- which may mean coming after him in time -- and these are then "carried away in the Spirit" so that he no longer sees them. Rather than this referring to anything that happened to the apostles themselves, I think this may just mean that this part of the vision ended, and he went on to the next scene. The next scene is "angels descending upon the children of men" -- When did this happen? It could have been any time -- and then the scene changes back to the life of Jesus. The Twelve are explicitly removed from the scene before this, and there is no mention of their appearing in the subsequent scenes of Jesus' life. This is consistent with the possibility that they are not contemporaries of the mortal Jesus.

If the Twelve Apostles in the vision are not the familiar New Testament characters, who might they be?

It's interesting that immediately after seeing the Twelve "carried away in the Spirit," Nephi sees angels descending and ministering. The number of angels is not specified, but could it be the same Twelve, now translated or resurrected beings? This brings me back to my 2023 post "Who were the 13 luminous beings Lehi saw in his Jerusalem vision?" This, you will recall, is what Lehi saw in that vision:

And it came to pass that he saw One descending out of the midst of heaven, and he beheld that his luster was above that of the sun at noon-day.

And he also saw twelve others following him, and their brightness did exceed that of the stars in the firmament. And they came down and went forth upon the face of the earth (1 Ne. 1:9-10).

In that post, I pointed out the identical language used in the two visions -- "twelve others following him" -- but thought the Twelve seen be Lehi couldn't be the apostles seen by Nephi because they descended from Heaven and didn't seem to be ordinary mortals. Now, though, I see that Nephi's vision does suggest that the Twelve Apostles may have been carried off to Heaven and then descended again as "angels."

What is meant by these angels "descending upon the children of men"? This unusual language is only found in other place in scripture:

And he [Jesus] saith unto him [Nathanael], Verily, verily, I say unto you, Hereafter ye shall see heaven open, and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of man (John 1:51).

Here the angels both ascend and descend -- just as in Nephi's vision, if the Twelve are in fact the same beings as the angels. In my 2019 post "Notes on John 1," I had this to say about that verse of the Gospel:

"The angels of God ascending and descending" certainly sounds like a reference to Jacob's dream -- "And he dreamed, and behold a ladder set up on the earth, and the top of it reached to heaven: and behold the angels of God ascending and descending on it" (Genesis 28:12) -- with the Son of man playing the role of the ladder.

The use of "descending upon" makes sense in John 1 because Jesus is metaphorically Jacob's Ladder. What does it mean in Nephi's vision, where the angels descend not upon a singular Son of Man but "upon the children of men"?

The only other "descending upon" in scripture refers not to angels but to the Spirit at the baptism of Jesus:

And straightway coming up out of the water, he saw the heavens opened, and the Spirit like a dove descending upon him (Mark 1:10).

One likely interpretation of this is that the Spirit of God entered Jesus at this point, making him fully divine. Could Nephi mean something similar, with angelic spirits entering the bodies of mortals?

In my post on Lehi's Jerusalem vision, I proposed that the twelve star-like beings he saw descending out of heaven might be the patriarchs of the Twelve Tribes. Could it be these same patriarchs, as glorified "angels," that "descend upon" or enter the Twelve Apostles? Later in Nephi's vision he is told:

Thou rememberest the twelve apostles of the Lamb? Behold they are they who shall judge the twelve tribes of Israel (1 Ne. 12:9).

This would certainly make sense if the Twelve Apostles are in some sense the Twelve Patriarchs.

In my post on Lehi's Jerusalem vision, I noted that each of the Twelve Tribes is associated with a holy book and even used language suggesting that each book almost embodied one of the patriarchs:

If Joseph -- in the form of the book kept by his tribe, the plates of brass -- will go forth unto all nations, what of the other 11 starry beings who also go forth? Well, according to Nephi's later prophecies, each of the other tribes will also produce a holy book, and these, too, will go forth to the world.

And this brings me to the symbol of the Cherubim, or the Four Living Creatures -- who symbolize both the Twelve Tribes of Israel (see "The Throne and the World" for details) and, by a later tradition, the authors of the four canonical Gospels. And this reminds me of my own 2024 vision, recorded in "Étude brute?", in which I was shown a book and told

This book is the Cherubim. Not the Book of the Cherubim, but the Cherubim themselves.

Well, this post has certainly raised more questions than it has answered. I'm just thinking aloud and welcome comments.

What did Alma know, and when did he know it?

At the very beginning of Nephite history, Nephi himself prophesied that Jesus would come 600 years from the time Lehi left Jerusalem:

"Yea, even six hundred years from the time that my father left Jerusalem, a prophet would the Lord God raise up among the Jews -- even a Messiah, or, in other words, a Savior of the world" (1 Ne. 10:4).

"And behold he cometh, according to the words of the angel, in six hundred years from the time my father left Jerusalem" (1 Ne. 19:8).

"For according to the words of the prophets, the Messiah cometh in six hundred years from the time that my father left Jerusalem; and according to the words of the prophets, and also the word of the angel of God, his name shall be Jesus Christ, the Son of God" (2 Ne. 25:29).

However, when Alma the Younger is preaching an Ammonihah circa 82 BC, he appears to be unaware of this prophecy, as he says they "know not how soon" Christ will come:

And now we only wait to hear the joyful news declared unto us by the mouth of angels, of his coming; for the time cometh, we know not how soon. Would to God that it might be in my day; but let it be sooner or later, in it I will rejoice (Alma 13:25).

The skeptical explanation for this discrepancy goes something like this: According to the well-established theory of Mosiah priority, Joseph first dictated the lost 116 pages, then continued dictating from Mosiah 3 (now Mosiah 1, as the first two chapters were lost) to the end of the book, and finally went back and dictated from 1 Nephi to Words of Mormon. By the time he dictated the "small plates" books, Joseph Smith no longer remembered many of the details from the lost 116 pages, but he was worried that the pages might resurface at any time and didn't want there to be any discrepancies. That is why the "small plates" books give so few historical details and name so few of the characters. To pad out this section and make up for the lack of any detailed history, Joseph Smith filled the small plates with lots of prophecies, including Nephi's detailed visions of the future. The problem was that he didn't know he would later be creating these visions for Nephi at the time he dictated "large plates" books like Alma, and so the characters in that part of the book are inexplicably ignorant of what Nephi prophesied.

The only believing explanation I have encountered is simply that, for whatever reason, the contents of the small plates were just not common knowledge among the later Nephites. In support of this, we have Mormon circa AD 385 speaking of the small plates as if they were some obscure document buried in the archives, which he had not known about before:

And now, I speak somewhat concerning that which I have written; for after I had made an abridgment from the plates of Nephi, down to the reign of this king Benjamin, of whom Amaleki spake, 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).

So it appears that, whatever the reason may be, Alma the Younger did not have access to the small plates. One problem with this assumption, though, is that in his words to his son Helaman circa 74 BC he appears to quote from them directly:

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; yea, and my soul did long to be there (Alma 36:22).

The passage in boldface is a 20-word verbatim quote from the small plates:

And being thus overcome with the Spirit, he was carried away in a vision, even that he saw the heavens open, and he 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).

If we want to maintain that Alma really didn't have the small plates, I guess the explanation must be that this passage was also in the lost 116 pages.

For the believer, the large plates, believed to have started with a Book of Lehi, would surely have contained an account of Lehi's Jerusalem vision, and Nephi's own account of that vision would likely have quoted some of his father's language directly. Alma wasn't quoting Nephi; rather, both Alma and Nephi were quoting Lehi.

For the skeptic, it is unlikely that Alma's quote would match the language of the lost 116 pages exactly, since Joseph Smith didn't have those pages when he wrote Alma. But when he was writing the replacement text ("small plates"), Smith referred to Alma and made sure to make Lehi say what Alma had said he'd said. If Smith was doing this, though, he wasn't very consistent about it. For example, Alma claimed that Lehi and Nephi called the ball Liahona (Alma 37:38), but Smith apparently forgot to include that word in the replacement text.

I've been familiar with the above arguments for some time. However, not until my umpteenth rereading of Alma just today did I notice another highly relevant passage. This is Alma addressing his son Corianton circa 74 BC

And now, my son, this was the ministry unto which ye were called, to declare these glad tidings unto this people, to prepare their minds; or rather that salvation might come unto them, that they may prepare the minds of their children to hear the word at the time of his coming (Alma 39:16).

Here Alma starts to say that Corianton is to prepare the minds of the people to hear Christ when he comes, but then he corrects himself and says that no, actually, it's to help them prepare their children to hear Christ when he comes. This implies that Alma knows Christ is not coming soon enough for people who are adults in 74 BC to hear him themselves but is coming soon enough for those people's children to hear him. In other words, he appears to know the date of Christ's coming with considerable precision, and this is in stark contrast to what he had said just eight years earlier -- when he said "we know not how soon" Christ will come and seemed to entertain the possibility that it would be in his lifetime.

So in 82 BC, Alma doesn't know when Christ is coming -- but then in 74 BC he (1) appears to quotes verbatim from 1 Nephi and (2) suddenly does know when Christ is coming. This strongly suggests to me that at some point between those two dates, Alma gains access to the small plates and becomes familiar with their contents.I'm going to have to go back through the relevant portion of the Book of Mormon with that hypothesis in mind and see if I can find any hints of exactly when and how that might have happened.

Further evidence for the Zenos theory

My recent dream about how "There's no Second Isaiah" (see my post "In New York, about the only garbage they won't pick up is sunglasses") prompted me to look into the evidence that the Book of Isaiah had a single author, in contrast to the mainstream position -- usually presented as an established fact -- that chapters 40-66 are by a much later author or authors. So I got an electronic copy of The Indivisible Isaiah: Evidence for the Single Authorship of the Prophetic Book (1964) by Rachel Margalioth and started reading it.

Much of Mrs. Margalioth's method consists of finding distinctive words and expressions that are found in both parts of Isaiah (1-39 and 40-66) but in the writings of no other prophet. The sheer number and specificity of these parallels in style and word choice does indeed make it hard to avoid the conclusion that the book is the work of a single author. As Mrs. Margalioth writes:

This indicates not only a uniformity of style, but also to a uniform trend of thought. This reveals the innermost recesses of human thinking wherein idea and language are woven into one web, and there can be no room for a stranger. This is the style of a man which is the man himself. Our [Jewish] sages must have meant just this when they declared that no two prophets speak in identical style (p. 42).

This got me thinking about Zenos, the otherwise unknown prophet whose work is quoted in three parts of the Book of Mormon. Since these three texts differ greatly in genre and style, it is reasonable to assume that they are quoting three separate Zenos documents rather than a unified "Book of Zenos." For ease of reference, I will give them names:

• 1 Zenos (fragments of which are quoted or paraphrased in 1 Ne. 19:10-17): a prophecy about the distant future, mot notably including the death and resurrection of a Jesus-like figure
• 2 Zenos (quoted in Jacob 5): an extended allegorical story about olive trees
• 3 Zenos (quoted in Alma 33:4-11): a short, psalm-like composition on the subject of answered prayers

That's a pretty small sample -- 102 verses in total, compared to the 1,292 verses of the Book of Isaiah -- but I thought it might be worthwhile to check to see if any of the three Zenos texts share any distinctive wording not found elsewhere. If they do, that would be consistent with Zenos being a real person.

I found no such parallels, which is perhaps not entirely surprising given how short all but one of the texts are.

I did find something else, though. In my 2024 post "Zenos was quoted by Joel, Nephi, Alma, Malachi, and Paul," I propose -- building on the work of a Redditor who goes by Stisa79 -- that several other texts in both the Bible and the Book or Mormon also quote or allude to 1 Zenos. I establish this by showing that these uncredited Zenos quotations share distinctive language with the 1 Zenos fragments in 1 Ne. 19 and with each other. One of my commenters then found a paper by Quinten Barney using a similar method to show that two other texts might be influenced by 1 Zenos. I found additional links connecting these two to the texts I had found. I've been meaning to write an exhaustive post about all the scriptural texts that likely quote or allude to 1 Zenos, but I got bogged down in the sheer volume and complexity of all the links I would have to document, and so I haven't finished it yet. Anyway, my current list of texts likely influenced by 1 Zenos is:

• Joel 2
• Malachi 4 (discovered by Stisa79)
• Matthew 23-24 (discovered by Quinten Barney)
• 1 Corinthians 3
• 1 Nephi 22 (discovered by Stisa79)
• 2 Nephi 25-26 (discovered by Stisa79)
• Alma 45
• Helaman 13-15 (discovered by Quinten Barney)

Although I didn't find any direct linguistic links between the 1 Zenos fragments and 3 Zenos, I did find links between 3 Zenos and two of the texts in the above list, which I believe to have been influenced by 1 Zenos. Here are the relevant verses:

Yea, and thou hast also heard me when I have been cast out and have been despised by mine enemies; yea, thou didst hear my cries, and wast angry with mine enemies, and thou didst visit them in thine anger with speedy destruction (Alma 33:10, explicitly quoting 3 Zenos).

And they shall be visited with thunderings, and lightnings, and earthquakes, and all manner of destructions, for the fire of the anger of the Lord shall be kindled against them, . . . And when these things have passed away a speedy destruction cometh unto my people; for . . . when the Spirit ceaseth to strive with man then cometh speedy destruction, and this grieveth my soul (2 Ne. 26:6, 10-11, with strong links to 1 Zenos). 

Yea, I will visit them in my fierce anger, and there shall be those of the fourth generation who shall live, of your enemies, to behold your utter destruction; and this shall surely come except ye repent, saith the Lord; and those of the fourth generation shall visit your destruction (Hel. 13:10, with strong links to 1 Zenos).

Alma 33:10 and Hel, 13:10 are the only verses in all scripture to include the words {enemies, visit, anger, destruction}. With the exception of enemies, the words even occur in the same sequence in both texts.

The phrase "speedy destruction" occurs twice in 2 Ne. 26:10-11, once in Alma 33:10, and nowhere else in scripture. Both passages also include visit and anger.

This obviously falls far short of the sheer volume of parallels connecting the two parts of the Book of Isaiah, but I still think it counts as a little more evidence in favor of the reality of Zenos.

I haven't yet done any intertextual study of Jacob 5 (2 Zenos), more because it's really long and boring than for any more respectable reason. Once I do that, I'll try to put together a single article covering the Zenos text exhaustively.