Seeing the bodies of spirits

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Enoch perhaps had a similar experience:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Hollow pillars of light or fire

Ritchie Valens put this in my mind. When you don't speak Spanish, even a common Spanish word has relatively few mental associations, so for me the word arriba is associated with (1) "La Bamba," (2) Speedy Gonzales, and (3) the Spanish translation of Joseph Smith's 1838 account of his First Vision. This last is something I heard recited every week by my Spanish-speaking colleagues when I was a Mormon missionary. I never actively tried to memorize it, but I heard it so many times that to this day I can still recite it verbatim:

Vi una columna de luz, más brillante que el sol, directamente arriba de mi cabeza; y esta luz gradualmente descendió hasta descansar sobre mí. . . . Al reposar sobre mí la luz, vi en el aire arriba de mí a dos Personajes, cuyo fulgor y gloria no admiten descripción. Uno de ellos me habló, llamándome por mi nombre, y dijo, señalando al otro: "Éste es mi Hijo Amado: ¡Escúchalo!"

The ellipsis is not mine. The missionaries memorized a slightly edited version of what Smith wrote, removing the reference to the demonic attack he experienced immediately before the vision. Here's the original English:

I saw a pillar of light exactly over my head, above the brightness of the sun, which descended gradually until it fell upon me. . . . When the light rested upon me I saw two Personages, whose brightness and glory defy all description, standing above me in the air. One of them spake unto me, calling me by name and said, pointing to the other -- This is My Beloved Son. Hear Him! (JS-H vv. 16-17)

Despite the clear description of "a pillar of light exactly over me head," artwork tends to show the light as being located in front of Smith and not really in the form of a pillar with clear boundaries. This is probably the best known artistic depiction:

This is one of the few that shows Smith himself inside the pillar of light, as described:

The strangest feature of this pillar of light is that it "descended gradually until it fell upon" Smith. This means it was not at all like a beam of light shining down from the heavens, which would instantaneously (in a nanosecond per foot traversed) reach the ground, but was more like a moving object with a particular shape -- apparently that of a cylinder -- and a clearly defined bottom (and so perhaps also a clearly defined top?). When the pillar first appeared, the bottom of it was still high above Smith, and then it gradually descended until it reached him.

It was not until the pillar of light rested on Smith that he was able to see the two Personages, who were presumably (but are not said explicitly to have been) inside the pillar. One possible explanation of this would be that the "walls" of the pillar radiated brilliant light in one direction only, namely outward. Since the pillar was "above the brightness of the sun," it would of course be impossible for anyone looking into it from outside to see anything at all. The inside of the pillar must have been considerably less bright. Otherwise, he still wouldn't have been able to see anything -- and it's hard to imagine the two Personages being so bright as to be notable for their "brightness and glory" even against a background that was brighter than the sun.

This idea of a hollow pillar of light which can have people inside it also appears in the Book of Mormon:

And it came to pass that Nephi and Lehi were encircled about as if by fire, even insomuch that they durst not lay their hands upon them for fear lest they should be burned. Nevertheless, Nephi and Lehi were not burned; and they were as standing in the midst of fire and were not burned. And when they saw that they were encircled about with a pillar of fire, and that it burned them not, their hearts did take courage. For they saw that the Lamanites durst not lay their hands upon them; neither durst they come near unto them, but stood as if they were struck dumb with amazement (Hel. 5:23-25).

Nephi and Lehi were not in the fire but "encircled about" by it. The fire apparently had the form of a hollow cylinder. Those in the center were not burned, but those on the outside were afraid they would be if they got too close. Thus, as with Joseph Smith's pillar of light, the radiant energy seems to be directed only outward. It seems likely that the Lamanites could not actually see Nephi and Lehi at this point, just as Smith could not see the Personages inside the pillar until he, too, was inside it.

Later in the same chapter, the Lamanites repent and find themselves inside a pillar of fire with Nephi and Lehi:

And it came to pass that when they cast their eyes about, and saw that the cloud of darkness was dispersed from overshadowing them, behold, they saw that they were encircled about, yea every soul, by a pillar of fire. And Nephi and Lehi were in the midst of them; yea, they were encircled about; yea, they were as if in the midst of a flaming fire, yet it did harm them not, neither did it take hold upon the walls of the prison; and they were filled with that joy which is unspeakable and full of glory (Hel. 5:43-44).

In the past, I visualized each person being encircled about by his own pillar of fire, but now I think the most natural reading is that there was a single pillar of fire encircling them all. From the fact that nothing was burned, not even "the walls of the prison," I take it that this was more properly a pillar of light, like Smith's, called "fire" because they didn't know what else to call it.

The other main scriptural account of Beings inside a pillar is in Exodus, where the Lord is sometimes in a "pillar of fire" and sometimes in a non-radiant "pillar of cloud":

And the LORD went before them by day in a pillar of a cloud, to lead them the way; and by night in a pillar of fire, to give them light; to go by day and night: He took not away the pillar of the cloud by day, nor the pillar of fire by night, from before the people (Ex. 13:21-22).

It is understood that the people didn't actually see the Lord himself when he was in the pillar. As with Joseph Smith, what was inside the pillar could not be seen from outside it.

The Lord could see out of the pillar, though:

And it came to pass, that in the morning watch the LORD looked unto the host of the Egyptians through the pillar of fire and of the cloud, and troubled the host of the Egyptians (Ex. 14:24).

It is strongly implied that Moses went inside the pillar when he saw God face to face:

And it came to pass, as Moses entered into the tabernacle, the cloudy pillar descended, and stood at the door of the tabernacle, and the Lord talked with Moses. And all the people saw the cloudy pillar stand at the tabernacle door: and all the people rose up and worshipped, every man in his tent door. And the LORD spake unto Moses face to face, as a man speaketh unto his friend. And he turned again into the camp: but his servant Joshua, the son of Nun, a young man, departed not out of the tabernacle (Ex. 33:9-11).

It's not entirely clear that Moses was inside the pillar, as he "entered into the tabernacle," while the pillar "stood at the door of the tabernacle." However, the people saw only the pillar, while Moses himself probably saw the Lord, and the best explanation is that Moses was inside the pillar with him.