The first passage from Malachi that seems to be referenced in the Small Plates is Malachi 3:1.
Behold, I will send my messenger, and he shall prepare the way before me: and the Lord, whom ye seek, shall suddenly come to his temple, even the messenger of the covenant, whom ye delight in: behold, he shall come, saith the Lord of hosts (Mal. 3:1).
Here are the alleged references to this in the Book of Mormon:
And it came to pass that I, Nephi, said unto my father: I will go and do the things which the Lord hath commanded, for I know that the Lord giveth no commandments unto the children of men, save he shall prepare a wayfor them that they may accomplish the thing which he commandeth them (1 Ne. 3:7).
And when the day cometh that the wrath of God is poured out upon the mother of harlots, which is the great and abominable church of all the earth, whose founder is the devil, then, at that day, the work of the Father shall commence, in preparing the way for the fulfilling of his covenants, which he hath made to his people who are of the house of Israel (1 Ne. 14:17).
And I will also be your light in the wilderness; and I will prepare the way before you, if it so be that ye shall keep my commandments; wherefore, inasmuch as ye shall keep my commandments ye shall be led towards the promised land; and ye shall know that it is by me that ye are led (1 Ne. 17:13).
In two of these three passages, the only link to Malachi is some form of the expression "prepare the way." However, this expression is found in multiple parts of the Bible, not only in Malachi, and cannot by itself be considered a quotation from or allusion to Malachi.
Thou shalt prepare thee a way, and divide the coasts of thy land, which the Lord thy God giveth thee to inherit, into three parts, that every slayer may flee thither (Deut. 19:3).
So Jotham became mighty, because heprepared his ways before the Lord his God (2 Chr. 27:6).
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).
And shall say, Cast ye up, cast ye up, prepare the way, take up the stumblingblock out of the way of my people (Isa. 57:14).
Go through, go through the gates; prepare ye the way of the people; cast up, cast up the highway; gather out the stones; lift up a standard for the people (Isa. 62:10).
Only in 1 Ne. 14:17 is there a connection beyond the apparently common phrase "prepare the way." That verse also includes a "covenant" reference, as does Mal. 3:1. It also includes "the day cometh," which (in precisely that wording) occurs in the King James Version only in Mal. 4:1. However, similar expressions such as "the day of the Lord cometh" (Isa. 13:9, Joel 2:1, Zech. 14:1) are found elsewhere in the Bible. None of the three phrases highlighted in 1 Ne. 14:17 is really distinctive to Malachi. I suppose finding all three together in one verse is some evidence of the influence of Malachi, but it's very far from being a smoking gun.
Overall, I think we can dismiss this group of alleged allusions. They do not constitute strong evidence that the authors of the Small Plates knew Malachi.
2. Cursed with a curse
The next alleged allusion is also very weak:
Ye are cursed with a curse: for ye have robbed me, even this whole nation (Mal. 3:9).
For behold, in that day that they shall rebel against me, I will curse them even with a sore curse, and they shall have no power over thy seed except they shall rebel against me also (1 Ne. 2:23).
The expression "curse with a curse" is not unique to Malachi. In fact, there is an even better match for Nephi's wording elsewhere in the Old Testament:
And, behold, thou hast with thee Shimei the son of Gera, a Benjamite of Bahurim, which cursed me with a grievous curse in the day when I went to Mahanaim: but he came down to meet me at Jordan, and I sware to him by the Lord, saying, I will not put thee to death with the sword (1 Kgs. 2:8).
The same Hebrew word translated as "grievous" in 1 Kgs. 2:8 is rendered "sore" in Micah 2:10, so this is essentially the same expression used by Nephi. I don't think Nephi was particularly alluding to Kings, either; more likely, this was just a common expression. So this parallel, too, can be dismissed as evidence for the influence of Malachi.
3. Stubble, the Sun of righteousness, and calves of the stall
The only real smoking-gun links to Malachi are references to this one passage:
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 daythat cometh shall burn them up, saith the Lord of hosts, that it shall leave them neither root nor branch. Butunto you that fear my name shall the Sun of righteousness arisewith healing in his wings; and ye shall go forth, and grow up as calves of the stall (Mal. 4:1-2).
And here are the Small Plates passages that appear to references it:
And when the day cometh that the wrath of God is poured out upon the mother of harlots, which is the great and abominable church of all the earth, whose founder is the devil, then, at that day, the work of the Father shall commence, in preparing the way for the fulfilling of his covenants, which he hath made to his people who are of the house of Israel (1 Ne. 14:17).
For behold, saith the prophet, the time cometh speedily that Satan shall have no more power over the hearts of the children of men; for the day soon cometh that all the proudand they who do wickedly shall be as stubble; and the day cometh that they must be burned (1 Ne. 22:15).
For the time speedily shall come that all churches which are built up to get gain, and all those who are built up to get power over the flesh, and those who are built up to become popular in the eyes of the world, and those who seek the lusts of the flesh and the things of the world, and to do all manner of iniquity; yea, in fine, all those who belong to the kingdom of the devil are they who need fear, and tremble, and quake; they are those who must be brought low in the dust; they are those who must be consumed as stubble; and this is according to the words of the prophet. And the time cometh speedily that the righteous must be led up as calves of the stall, and the Holy One of Israel must reign in dominion, and might, and power, and great glory (1 Ne. 22:23-24).
Behold, they will crucify him; and after he is laid in a sepulchre for the space of three days he shall rise from the dead, with healing in his wings; and all those who shall believe on his name shall be saved in the kingdom of God. Wherefore, my soul delighteth to prophesy concerning him, for I have seen his day, and my heart doth magnify his holy name (2 Ne. 25:13).
Wherefore, all those who are proud, and that do wickedly, the day that cometh shall burn them up, saith the Lord of Hosts, for they shall be as stubble. And they that kill the prophets, and the saints, the depths of the earth shall swallow them up, saith the Lord of Hosts; and mountains shall cover them, and whirlwinds shall carry them away, and buildings shall fall upon them and crush them to pieces and grind them to powder. 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 they shall be as stubble, and the day that cometh shall consume them, saith the Lord of Hosts. O the pain, and the anguish of my soul for the loss of the slain of my people! For I, Nephi, have seen it, and it well nigh consumeth me before the presence of the Lord; but I must cry unto my God: Thy ways are just. But behold, the righteous that hearken unto the words of the prophets, and destroy them not, but look forward unto Christ with steadfastness for the signs which are given, notwithstanding all persecution—behold, they are they which shall not perish. Butthe Son of righteousnessshall appear unto them; and he shall heal them, and they shall have peace with him, until three generations shall have passed away, and many of the fourth generation shall have passed away in righteousness. (2 Ne. 26:4-9).
With the exception of 1 Ne. 14:17, already discussed, these are undeniable instances of highly distinctive phrases from Malachi. However, they all come from that one brief passage, raising the possibility that in that passage Malachi himself was quoting some earlier prophet. That possibility was raised in the comments on my last post, but my first reaction was to consider it unlikely since several different parts of Malachi were quoted. That turns out not to be the case, though. It's really just that one passage.
During the visit of the resurrected Jesus to the people at Bountiful, he recites part of the Book of Malachi to them, citing it by name:
And it came to pass that he commanded them that they should write the words which the Father had given unto Malachi, which he should tell unto them. And it came to pass that after they were written he expounded them. And these are the words which he did tell unto them, saying: Thus said the Father unto Malachi -- . . . (3 Ne. 24:1).
Jesus then proceeds to quote Chapters 3 and 4 virtually verbatim from the King James Version of Malachi (which together comprise Chapter 3 in the original Hebrew). After the quotation, he explicitly states that this is material which the Nephites had not had before:
And he saith: These scriptures, which ye had not with you, the Father commanded that I should give unto you; for it was wisdom in him that they should be given unto future generations (3 Ne. 26:2).
We should therefore understand that (a) the Nephites only had Malachi 3-4, not the entire book, and (b) they only had it after the visit of Jesus. How well does the actual text of the Book of Mormon fit with those two points? Here, from a paper by Colby Townsend, is an exhaustive list of Malachi material in the Book of Mormon:
1 Ne. 2:23 references Mal. 3:9
1 Ne. 3:7 references Mal. 3:1
1 Ne. 14:17 references Mal. 3:1, 4:1
1 Ne. 17:13 references Mal. 3:1
1 Ne. 22:15 references Mal. 4:1
1 Ne. 22:23-24 references Mal. 4:1-2
2 Ne. 25:13 references Mal. 4:2
2 Ne. 26:4 references Mal. 4:1
2 Ne. 26:6 references Mal. 4:1
2 Ne. 26:9 references Mal. 4:2
Alma 45:13, 14 references Mal. 4:5
Ether 9:22 references Mal. 4:2-3
Many of these are undeniably quoting Malachi, with highly distinctive phrases reproduced word-for-word in the same order. Others are just occurrences of short phrases such as "he shall prepare ... way" and "curse[d] ... with a ... curse," which aren't exactly smoking guns. Even by Townsend's broad, inclusive standard for what counts as an allusion, though, notice that not a single reference to Malachi 1 or 2 appears on his list; 100% of the Malachi material in the Book of Mormon is from Malachi 3 and 4, the two chapters we know the Nephites had. So that checks out.
The problem, though, is where in the Book of Mormon this Malachi material occurs. The only Malachi quotation that occurs in a reasonable place, in a text written after the visit of Jesus, is the one in Ether, which was written by Moroni centuries after Jesus. (It is problematic in its own way, though, since it refers to "the Son of Righteousness." See my 2013 post on that phrase.) All 11 of the others are, if we take the text as face value, anachronisms.
The supposed Malachi quotation in Alma can be dismissed, I think. It uses the phrase "great and dreadful day," which in the King James Version occurs only in Malachi 4:5. However, the exact same Hebrew phrase is also found in the Book of Joel, where it is translated "great and terrible day" (Joel 2:31). Joel was written in the 9th century BC, long before Lehi left Jerusalem, and would have been available to the Nephites. The use of "dreadful" rather than "terrible" in the translation presumably shows the influence of Malachi, but there is no reason to think the original text was referencing Malachi rather than Joel.
That leaves those 10 quotations -- several of which are undeniably dependent on Malachi -- in the first two Books of Nephi. Since Nephi supposedly wrote this material about a century before Malachi and six centuries before Christ, what are we to make of these quotations?
One option is just to add them to the list of "hard-to-define biblical parallels" which somehow found their way into the English translation even though they couldn't have been present on the Plates. I find this unsatisfactory because it fails to explain (a) why only Chapters 3 and 4 are referenced and (b) why there are lots of Malachi references in 1 and 2 Nephi but none in the pre-Christ portion of the Book of Mormon proper (Mosiah, Alma, Helaman, and the early chapters of 3 Nephi).
Another option, for those who believe Joseph Smith made up the Book of Mormon, is that Smith got confused about chronology. After losing the 116 pages, Smith first dictated from Mosiah to the end of the book and then went back and dictated the "Small Plates" portion from 1 Nephi to Omni. Thus, although 1 and 2 Nephi are set before the visit of Jesus, Smith dictated them after dictating the visit of Jesus. Perhaps after dictating the Malachi material in 3 Nephi, he started freely including Malachi in the book and carelessly forgot to stop doing so when he went back and dictated the "Small Plates." In my opinion, it is not remotely plausible that Smith could have been so careless. He clearly spelled out in 3 Nephi that the Nephites didn't have Malachi until the coming of Jesus, and then just carelessly included it anyway (but still carefully including only Chapters 3 and 4), not just once but 11 times? This is pushing the Joseph Smith idiot-savant theory to its breaking point. Dictating 3 Nephi would have made Joseph Smith more aware of the need to keep Malachi out of the pre-Christ portion of the book, not less so.
My own tentative conclusion is that the Malachi problem shows the Small Plates are Nephite pseudepigrapha. Although they are written in the voices of Nephi, Jacob, and other early prophets, they were in fact composed sometime after the visit of Jesus Christ. As I mentioned in my last post, the Small Plates were just "found" by Mormon centuries after Christ, and we know nothing of their provenance. There is no obvious reason to assume they were authentically ancient when Mormon "found" them, and several reasons to doubt this (which I may lay out in another post). But the translation of the Small Plates also has rather dodgy history, right? If they weren't actually written by Nephi and company, why assume they were the work of later Nephites rather than of a panciked Joseph Smith trying to undo the damage done by the loss of the 116 pages? Because of Malachi, that's why. Joseph Smith would have had no reason to suddenly start quoting Malachi when he invented the "Small Plates" text, nor to carefully restrict himself to Chapters 3 and 4. The pattern we observe points to post-Christ Nephites, not Joseph Smith.
One tangentially related note before I wrap this up: The account of Jesus dictating Malachi 3-4 to the Nephites suggests a possible explanation for other anachronistic Bible quotations in the Book of Mormon, such as Moroni's extended quotation from 1 Corinthians (Moro. 7, cf. 1 Cor. 13). If Jesus could bring the Nephites scriptures that were written after Lehi left Jerusalem, then other heavenly messengers could have done the same. We know (see 3 Ne. 28) that the Three Disciples traveled among both the Jews and the Gentiles, and that they "ministered unto" Mormon. Mormon lived in the 4th century AD, long after the books of the New Testament had been written, and it seems probable that the Three Disciples would have delivered some of the content of those books to him in the same way that Jesus delivered the words of Malachi at Bountiful.
Mormonism and polygamy are so closely connected in the popular mind that I suppose it comes as a bit of a surprise to first-time readers that the Book of Mormon contains an impassioned diatribe against the practice:
But the word of God burdens me because of your grosser crimes. For behold, thus saith the Lord: This people begin to wax in iniquity; they understand not the scriptures, for they seek to excuse themselves in committing whoredoms, because of the things which were written concerning David, and Solomon his son.
Behold, David and Solomon truly had many wives and concubines, which thing was abominable before me, saith the Lord.
Wherefore, thus saith the Lord, I have led this people forth out of the land of Jerusalem, by the power of mine arm, that I might raise up unto me a righteous branch from the fruit of the loins of Joseph.
Wherefore, I the Lord God will not suffer that this people shall do like unto them of old.
Wherefore, my brethren, hear me, and hearken to the word of the Lord: For there shall not any man among you have save it be one wife; and concubines he shall have none;
For I, the Lord God, delight in the chastity of women. And whoredoms are an abomination before me; thus saith the Lord of Hosts.
Wherefore, this people shall keep my commandments, saith the Lord of Hosts, or cursed be the land for their sakes.
For if I will, saith the Lord of Hosts, raise up seed unto me, I will command my people; otherwise they shall hearken unto these things.
For behold, I, the Lord, have seen the sorrow, and heard the mourning of the daughters of my people in the land of Jerusalem, yea, and in all the lands of my people, because of the wickedness and abominations of their husbands.
And I will not suffer, saith the Lord of Hosts, that the cries of the fair daughters of this people, which I have led out of the land of Jerusalem, shall come up unto me against the men of my people, saith the Lord of Hosts.
For they shall not lead away captive the daughters of my people because of their tenderness, save I shall visit them with a sore curse, even unto destruction; for they shall not commit whoredoms, like unto them of old, saith the Lord of Hosts.
And now behold, my brethren, ye know that these commandments were given to our father, Lehi; wherefore, ye have known them before; and ye have come unto great condemnation; for ye have done these things which ye ought not to have done.
Behold, ye have done greater iniquities than the Lamanites, our brethren. Ye have broken the hearts of your tender wives, and lost the confidence of your children, because of your bad examples before them; and the sobbings of their hearts ascend up to God against you. And because of the strictness of the word of God, which cometh down against you, many hearts died, pierced with deep wounds.
[. . .]
Behold, the Lamanites your brethren, whom ye hate because of their filthiness and the cursing which hath come upon their skins, are more righteous than you; for they have not forgotten the commandment of the Lord, which was given unto our father[s] -- that they should have save it were one wife, and concubines they should have none, and there should not be whoredoms committed among them.
And now, this commandment they observe to keep; wherefore, because of this observance, in keeping this commandment, the Lord God will not destroy them, but will be merciful unto them; and one day they shall become a blessed people.
Behold, their husbands love their wives, and their wives love their husbands; and their husbands and their wives love their children; and their unbelief and their hatred towards you is because of the iniquity of their fathers; wherefore, how much better are you than they, in the sight of your great Creator? (Jacob 2:23-25, 3:5-7)
The verse I have bolded is the "escape clause." It is almost universally understood to mean that if the Lord decides to "raise up seed unto" him -- meaning to have his people reproduce more prolifically -- he "will command" them to practice polygamy; "otherwise they shall hearken unto these things" -- meaning everything else Jacob has just said about polygamy, namely, that it is one of the "grosser crimes," an "abominable" excuse for "committing whoredoms."
Notice how glaringly out of place this is in the context of the surrounding verses. Before and after the escape clause, Jacob is fulminating against polygamy as an unadulterated evil -- but then in the middle of this denunciation he pauses to mention parenthetically that actually the Lord might command it sometimes and in that case it's fine?
What possible rhetorical motivation could there be for such an aside? If some modern Christian preacher against polygamy inserted some such escape clause into his sermon, we would assume its purpose was to excuse the various biblical worthies -- Abraham, Jacob, Moses, David, Solomon -- who had more than one wife. Jacob in the Book of Mormon, though, despite being named after one of these biblical polygamists, clearly does not shy away from condemning them. He states unequivocally that the polygamy practiced by David and Solomon "was abominable." In any case, the excuse he gives -- that polygamy is okay if God commands it -- wouldn't exonerate anyone in the Bible, since nowhere in the Bible is anyone ever commanded to practice polygamy.
2. An interpolation?
If Jacob's sermon were a biblical text, I would be extremely confident in calling the escape clause an interpolation, and I'm sure this opinion would be virtually universal among critics: It clearly doesn't belong there but was added later by someone who wanted to practice polygamy.
It would be tempting to conclude the same thing about the Book of Mormon text: It originally condemned polygamy with no exceptions but was then modified (by Joseph Smith later in life, or perhaps by Brigham Young) to allow it in some cases. Unlike the patriarchs and kings of the Bible, Mormon leaders did claim that God had commanded them to practice polygamy, and the so the escape clause would appear to be tailor-made to justify them. The problem is that the escape clause was there from the beginning. I don't believe the original manuscript for this part of the book has survived, but certainly the escape clause is already there in the first published edition.
If we still want to see the escape clause as an interpolation, we have following options:
1. Joseph Smith modifying his own work. For the skeptic, who sees the entire text as the work of Joseph Smith, it's hard to explain the inclusion of both the anti-polygamy sermon and the escape clause. If Smith had intended to practice polygamy, why write the anti-polygamy sermon in the first place? If he did not intend to practice polygamy, why put in the escape clause? It must be that he was originally against polygamy but later changed his mind.
If the escape clause had been added later in Smith's career, it would be relatively easy to explain. Perhaps he began writing the Book of Mormon with relatively pure motives (some version of Dan Vogel's "pious fraud" theory), but once he began to amass a cult following, he was corrupted by power, wished to take advantage of his position for his own sexual gratification, and modified the text accordingly.
The problem is that the escape clause was already there in the first edition, so Smith's second thoughts on the total polygamy ban must have come just a few weeks or months after the original anti-polygamy sermon had been dictated. This would also have been before the Book of Mormon was published, before he had founded a church, and therefore presumably before he was subject to the temptations a successful cult leader is heir to. It's hard to account for the change in that time frame.
2. Joseph Smith modifying revealed material. In this scenario, the text of the Book of Mormon was revealed to Joseph Smith as claimed (not created by him), but he added the escape clause himself, either during the dictation or shortly thereafter. This would mean Smith was both a genuine prophet, producing the Book of Mormon by supernatural means, and at the same time a bit of a scoundrel, daring to tamper with holy writ in the service of his own ulterior motives. This may seem far-fetched, and certainly it doesn't fit well into the usual "prophet or con man" dichotomy, but I don't think it's entirely implausible. It wouldn't be the first time substantial spiritual gifts coexisted with a pretty serious dark side. In fact, the mainstream LDS view of Smith -- that he was a true prophet who also practiced polygamy and lied about it -- implies a similar view of his character.
3. God modifying Jacob. If we take the view that Mormon polygamy really was commanded and justified by God, then perhaps God himself added the escape clause as he was revealing Jacob's words to Joseph Smith. The higher law of polygamy had not been revealed to Jacob, who therefore spoke from his limited understanding. Since God planned to command Smith later to practice polygamy, he added the escape clause to make it easier for the Prophet to accept this future commandment.
4. Later Nephites modifying Jacob. Because the pre-Mosiah books of the Book of Mormon were not abridged by Mormon, it is easy to assume that they contain the unedited words of Nephi, Jacob, and the others. In fact, though, we know virtually nothing of the provenance of the "small account." All Mormon says is this:
I searched among the records which had been delivered into my hands, and I found these plates, which contained this small account of the prophets, from Jacob down to the reign of this king Benjamin, and also many of the words of Nephi (W of M v. 3).
He just "found" them, some 900 years after the time of Jacob? This is obviously suspect, just as suspect as Hilkiah happening to "find" the previously unknown Book of Deuteronomy in the Temple one day. I've sometimes entertained the possibility that the Small Account, though included by Mormon in good faith, was actually late Nephite pseudepigrapha, not the authentic writings of Nephi and Jacob. This would account for some of the Small Account's perplexing features, such as the dated prophecies of the coming of Christ, which seem to have been unknown to later Nephites, and the quotations from Malachi 3 and 4, which the Nephites had access to only after the coming of Christ.
Another possibility, though, is that the Small Account contains a a core of authentic early Nephite texts, but with many additions and alterations by the many generations of record-keepers through whose hands it passed. We know that some later Nephites (King Noah and his people at the very least) did practice polygamy, so perhaps the escape clause was added by later Nephites to an otherwise authentic sermon by Jacob in order to justify such things.
I think this idea is worth pursuing, and that it may be worthwhile to read the whole of the Small Account with an critical eye out for passages which may be later interpolations.
3. Jeremy Hoop's alternative reading of the escape clause
The proximate inspiration for this post was this video from Jeremy Hoop:
Hoop's position is that Joseph Smith never taught or practiced polygamy, and that the Book of Mormon makes no allowances for it, either. He therefore has to reinterpret the escape clause so that it is not an escape clause after all. His reading is ingenious and, I think, not impossible.
Although the meaning of the escape clause seems obvious when we read it in the light of the later Mormon practice of polygamy, the verse itself is actually rather ambiguous. It reads, recall,
For if I will, saith the Lord of Hosts, raise up seed unto me, I will command my people; otherwise they shall hearken unto these things (Jacob 2:30).
The standard reading hinges on two questionable assumptions: (1) that "command my people" means "command my people to practice polygamy," and (2) that "these things" means Jacob's denunciation of polygamy. Hoop questions both of these.
First, what does "command my people" mean? Well, this is what immediately precedes the escape clause:
Wherefore, my brethren, hear me, and hearken to the word of the Lord: For there shall not any man among you have save it be one wife; and concubines he shall have none; For I, the Lord God, delight in the chastity of women. And whoredoms are an abomination before me; thus saith the Lord of Hosts. Wherefore, this people shall keep my commandments, saith the Lord of Hosts, or cursed be the land for their sakes (Jacob 2:27-29).
The "commandments" referenced immediately before "command my people" are clearly commandments not to practice polygamy. The fact that v. 30 begins with for (rather than nevertheless) implies that it is explaining more about these same commandments, not introducing the possibility of diametrically opposite commandments in the future.
What about "these things"? As Hoop points out, this is the only reference to "things," plural, before the escape clause:
This people begin to wax in iniquity; they understand not the scriptures, for they seek to excuse themselves in committing whoredoms, because of the things which were written concerning David, and Solomon his son (Jacob 2:23).
In Hoop's reading, the Lord is saying, "I will command my people not to practice polygamy. If I did not explicitly so command them, they would hearken unto the things which are written concerning David and Solomon and excuse themselves in committing whoredoms."
Two possible grammatical objections: First, we normally read will as having a future reference. "I will command my people" is naturally understood to refer to a possible future commandment, not to a commandment already "given unto our fathers." Second, in modern usage, except with a first-person subject, shall typically has an imperative meaning (as in "Thou shalt not kill" or "Congress shall make no law").
The second objection is easily dealt with. The Book of Mormon contains many instances of "they shall" which are clearly predictions rather than commands -- for example "they shall rebel against me" (1 Ne. 2:23), "they shall dwindle in unbelief" (2 Ne. 1:10), and many others.
Non-future use of auxiliary will is on shakier ground. It's possible in theory, but I can't find any clear examples in the King James Bible or elsewhere in the Book of Mormon.
What about "raise up seed unto me"? Doesn't that mean increasing the birthrate among the righteous? And isn't that goal better served by commanding polygamy than by banning it?
For Jeremy Hoop's take on that, we will have to turn to another ingenious element of his argument: connecting Jacob's sermon with Abinadi's.
4. Jacob's sermon as context for Noah and Abinadi?
When the wickedness of King Noah is introduced, it is clear that polygamy is one of his chief sins:
For behold, he did not keep the commandments of God, but he did walk after the desires of his own heart. And he had many wives and concubines. And he did cause his people to commit sin, and do that which was abominable in the sight of the Lord. Yea, and they did commit whoredoms and all manner of wickedness (Mosiah 11:2).
The language here is very similar to Jacob's sermon. Polygamy is "abominable" and means committing "whoredoms." In practicing polygamy, Noah "did not keep the commandments of God" -- so, as in Jacob 2, the commandment is not to practice polygamy.
Later, in preaching to Noah and his people, Abinadi quotes extensively from Isaiah, including a passage about how the Messiah "shall see his seed" (Isa. 53:10). He then expounds at length on what that means, emphasizing that the "seed" are not biological offspring:
And now what say ye? And who shall be his seed?
Behold I say unto you, that whosoever has heard the words of the prophets, yea, all the holy prophets who have prophesied concerning the coming of the Lord -- I say unto you, that all those who have hearkened unto their words, and believed that the Lord would redeem his people, and have looked forward to that day for a remission of their sins, I say unto you, that these are his seed, or they are heirs of the kingdom of God.
For these are they whose sins he has borne; these are they for whom he has died, to redeem them from their transgressions. And now, are they not his seed?
Yea, and are not the prophets, every one that has opened his mouth to prophesy, that has not fallen into transgression, I mean all the holy prophets ever since the world began? I say unto you that they are his seed (Mosiah 15:10-13).
Why does Abinadi spend so much time on this seemingly minor question of Isaiah interpretation? Why, in calling a corrupt king and his court to repentance, is it so important to clarify what exactly is meant by the prophecy that "he shall see his seed"?
Jeremy Hoop connects the dots and proposes that Noah and his priests had Jacob's anti-polygamy sermon, accepted it as scripture, and tried to justify their own practice of polygamy in precisely the same way that the Mormons would do centuries later: by invoking (and, Hoop would say, misinterpreting) the "escape clause": The Lord sometimes commands polygamy "if I will . . . raise up seed unto me." Mosiah's exegesis of Isa. 53:10 is an implicit critique of this excuse. His whole point is that raising up "seed" unto the Lord -- for he has earlier identified Isaiah's Messiah as "God himself" (Mosiah 15:1) -- has nothing to do with literal baby-making and is therefore no justification for the practice of polygamy.
This is an extremely clever reading, and I'm half convinced. On the one hand, it's quite a coincidence that Abinadi, in preaching to wicked polygamists, would hammer home this point about the Lord's "seed," the very same language that appears in Jacob's escape clause. On the other hand, it's hard to see why Abinadi would not make the connection explicit in his preaching. In fact, although the scene is set with the information that Noah and his priests are polygamists, nothing in Abinadi's preaching addresses polygamy directly. Does he expect his audience to connect the dots themselves? -- "Hey, if the seed of the Lord is not literal, that implies that our reading of the polygamy escape clause is wrong!" I would expect much more directness from Abinadi.
If Hoop is right -- if Jacob's sermon (with the escape clause) was known and accepted as scripture by Noah and his priests -- that has important implications for the status of the Small Account. As far as I know, the only place where the Book of Mormon proper appears to quote from the Small Account is in Alma's words to his son Helaman:
Yea, methought I saw, even as our father Lehi saw, God sitting upon his throne, surrounded with numberless concourses of angels, in the attitude of singing and praising their God (Alma 36:22).
This is the same language used by Nephi in his account of Lehi's Jerusalem vision:
[H]e thought he saw God sitting upon his throne, surrounded with numberless concourses of angels in the attitude of singing and praising their God (1 Ne. 1:8).
The exact match with Nephi's wording, even down to "he thought he saw," strongly suggests that this is a direct quote from the Small Account. It's not quite a smoking gun, though, since Lehi's Jerusalem vision is of such central importance that it would surely have been included on the main Plates of Nephi as well, possibly even with the same wording. Even in this more secular history, you can't very well tell the story of Lehi without mentioning that vision.
Jacob's sermon, on the other hand, is of no particular historical significance but is included for spiritual reasons only. It was thus likely recorded only in the Small Account. If Hoop's reading of Abinadi is correct, it is strong evidence that some version of the Small Account was not only known to the post-Mosiah Nephites but accepted by them as authoritative scripture.
