Alma introduced baptism to the Nephites

The first account of Nephites practicing baptism is at the Waters of Mormon, where Alma baptized himself and his followers. Alma had fled from the Lehi-Nephi group founded by Zeniff and later led by Noah and then Limhi. This group had broken off from the main Nephite-Mulekite group in Zarahemla c. 200 BC, and the two groups had no contact until c. 120 BC, when both Alma's group and the main Lehi-Nephi group under Limhi went to Zarahemla and united with the main Nephite-Mulekite group ruled by Mosiah II.

It was during this 80-year separation that the both the baptisms at the Waters of Mormon (c. 147 BC) and King Benjamin's address at Zarahemla (c. 124 BC) occurred.

The estimated dates I'm using are those provided by the CJCLDS in their current edition of the Book. I'm not vouching for their accuracy; I include them only to establish the sequence of events. Here's a simple diagram of that sequence, without dates and not to scale:

For convenience, I will refer to the groups that came together under Mosiah II as the Nephites (the main Zarahemla group, a mixture of Nephites proper and Mulekites), the Zeniffites, and the Almaites.

With this background in mind, we return to Alma at the Waters of Mormon. When Alma performed his first baptism, he also baptized himself (Mosiah 18:14-15), which implies that he had not been baptized before. Alma was a Zeniffite priest, and if priests were not baptized it seems unlikely that anyone was. Another possibility is that Alma had been baptized but no longer considered a baptism performed by the corrupt priests of Noah to be valid and therefore had to do it again. Against this we have the fact that Alma claims to baptize "having authority from the Almighty God" (Mosiah 18:13), and it would seem that this declaration of authority could only refer to his status as an ordained Zeniffite priest. He apparently considered Zeniffite priests to have legitimate authority to perform religious ceremonies, even though their teachings and practices had become corrupt. From all this we conclude that the Zeniffites almost certainly did not practice baptism. Alma was either innovating or else restoring an earlier Nephite practice which the Zeniffites had abandoned.

While Joseph Smith would later make it an article of the Mormon faith that baptism is "for the remission of sins" (A of F 4), Alma says nothing about that. His baptism had two functions. First, it marked a covenant with God to "serve him and keep his commandments" (Mosiah 18:10) "until you are dead as to the mortal body" (Mosiah 18:13). Second, baptism was a way to "come into the fold of God, and to be called his people" (Mosiah 18:8), and those who were baptized "were called the church of God, or the church of Christ, from that time forward. And it came to pass that whosoever was baptized by the power and authority of God was added to his church" (Mosiah 18:17). 

Some decades later, King Benjamin in Zarahemla, with no knowledge of Alma or the Zeniffite group from which he had come, would do with his people something very similar to what Alma had done at the Waters of Mormon. After listening to Benjamin's address, his subjects say that they

are willing to enter into a covenant with our God to do his will, and to be obedient to his commandments in all things that he shall command us, all the remainder of our days (Mosiah 5:5)

This is the same covenant that was made by baptism at the Waters of Mormon -- to obey God's commandments until death. If Alma's baptism was an existing Nephite practice and not an innovation, we would expect that Benjamin would at this point instruct his subjects to be baptized. Instead, he says

Ye have spoken the words that I desired; and the covenant which ye have made is a righteous covenant. And now, because of the covenant which ye have made ye shall be called the children of Christ (Mosiah 5:6-7)

He twice speaks of "the covenant which ye have made." To publicly announce their willingness to make the covenant is to make the covenant. No further ceremony is required. The covenant was made by a large crowd of people as they were gathered to hear Benjamin speak. If they had all been baptized then and there, it would have been a major event and have taken quite some time. From the fact that no such action is mentioned, we can be pretty confident that it didn't happen. Just as those who make Alma's baptismal covenant are thenceforth "called the church of God, or the church of Christ," those who make Benjamin's non-baptismal but otherwise identical covenant are thereafter "called the children of Christ."

Benjamin's people made exactly the same covenant as Alma's, and with the same result. If baptism were the established way of making such covenants among the Nephites, the story of Benjamin's people would include baptism, but it doesn't. We therefore conclude that baptism was introduced by Alma, and that the Nephites did not practice it before.

In around 120 BC -- approximately four years after Benjamin's people had made their covenant -- the Zeniffites (under King Limhi) and the Almaites both come to Zarahemla and join the main Nephite body under Benjamin's successor, Mosiah II. The Almaites have all been baptized, made the associated covenant, and become known as the "church of Christ." In the main Nephite body, "there was not one soul, except it were little children, but who had entered into the covenant and had taken upon them the name of Christ" (Mosiah 6:2), though they had done so under Benjamin and without the rite of baptism. As for the Zeniffites, we are quite confident that they were not baptized, and there is no record of their having made any equivalent covenant.

After this union of the three groups, Mosiah "caused that all the people should be gathered together" (Mosiah 25:1), and Alma addressed them all. "And Alma did speak unto them, when they were assembled together in large bodies, and he went from one body to another, preaching unto the people repentance and faith on the Lord" (Mosiah 25:15). The Zeniffites (Limhi's people) responded to this preaching by being baptized:

And it came to pass that after Alma had taught the people many things, and had made an end of speaking to them, that king Limhi was desirous that he might be baptized; and all his people were desirous that they might be baptized also. Therefore, Alma did go forth into the water and did baptize them; yea, he did baptize them after the manner he did his brethren in the waters of Mormon; yea, and as many as he did baptize did belong to the church of God; and this because of their belief on the words of Alma.

And it came to pass that king Mosiah granted unto Alma that he might establish churches throughout all the land of Zarahemla; and gave him power to ordain priests and teachers over every church (Mosiah 25:17-19).

Only the Zeniffites are baptized at this point. There is no record of any of the Zarahemla Nephites wanting to be baptized after hearing Alma preach. From the language of v. 19, we might conclude that Alma's movement remained a minority sect and that most of the Nephites did not join, though Mosiah tolerantly "granted unto Alma that he might establish churches."

However, we are told that during the reign of Mosiah, those who did not belong to Alma's church "were not half so numerous as the people of God" (Mosiah 26:5). We don't know how big the Zeniffite group was, but they can scarcely have had twice the population of the main Nephite body, so we must assume that most of the Zarahemla Nephites did join Alma's movement. The most logical conclusion is that, since the purpose of baptism is to covenant lifelong obedience to God and to become his people, and since the Nephites had already done that, there was no need for them to do it again by being baptized. They had in effect made the baptismal covenant, but had done so before baptism became established among them as the way to make such covenants, and they were therefore "grandfathered in."

This is confirmed by the nature of the group that did not belong to the church.

Now it came to pass that there were many of the rising generation that could not understand the words of king Benjamin, being little children at the time he spake unto his people; and they did not believe the tradition of their fathers. . . . And they would not be baptized; neither would they join the church (Mosiah 26:1, 4).

It was explicitly stated that all of King Benjamin's subjects except "little children" entered into his baptism-equivalent covenant. It was only among this "rising generation" that some refused to be baptized because they were the only Nephites who were expected to be baptized. Those who had been of age in Benjamin's time had already done something that was counted as being in effect baptism and were not expected to do it again.

I will have more to say in a later post about the rising generation's specific reasons for not wanting to be baptized. Here I just cite their refusal as evidence that baptism was only expected of those who had not covenanted under Benjamin.

I think I've made a pretty strong case that Alma and Benjamin independently introduced the idea of making a covenant and becoming the people of Christ, that only Alma's version of this covenant involved baptism, and that baptism was not practiced by the Nephites before Alma brought it to them.

Against this conclusion, we have 2 Ne. 9 and 2 Ne. 31, where the need to be baptized is taught by Jacob and Nephi, long before Alma. This, too, will be a subject for another post.

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.

Lehi, Nephi, and the pillar of fire that "dwelt upon a rock": A case study of hard-to-define biblical parallels

The 200th anniversary of Moroni's first appearance to Joseph Smith seems as good a day as any to start a blog on the Book of Mormon, and the very beginning is as good a place as any to start.

One of the first things we are told about the prophet Lehi -- just two verses after the first mention of his name -- is that he saw a pillar of fire which "dwelt upon a rock before him."

Wherefore it came to pass that my father, Lehi, as he went forth prayed unto the Lord, yea, even with all his heart, in behalf of his people. And it came to pass as he prayed unto the Lord, there came a pillar of fire and dwelt upon a rock before him; and he saw and heard much; and because of the things which he saw and heard he did quake and tremble exceedingly (1 Ne. 1:5-6).

This is such an odd turn of phrase -- to dwell is to live in a place, not the sort of verb that would normally take a pillar of fire as its subject -- that I wondered if there was any biblical precedent for it. Putting dwelt rock into the search box on a Bible site, I found the words occur together only once in the King James Bible -- just one verse before the first biblical occurrence of the name Lehi! (The two other occurrences are later in the same chapter.)

And [Samson] smote them hip and thigh with a great slaughter: and he went down and dwelt in the top of the rock Etam. Then the Philistines went up, and pitched in Judah, and spread themselves in Lehi (Judg. 15:8-9).

That's a bit of a coincidence, right? But there's more. The Book of Mormon verses I have quoted above are among the first in the First Book of Nephi -- just a few verses after the famous opening line "I, Nephi, . . ." (1 Ne. 1:1). This name, Nephi, occurs only once in the King James Bible, in the apocryphal book of 2 Maccabees. Check out the context:

Now when the sacrifice was consumed, Neemias commanded the water that was left to be poured on the great stones. When this was done, there was kindled a flame: but it was consumed by the light that shined from the altar. . . . And Neemias called this thing [i.e. the "water"] Naphthar, which is as much as to say, a cleansing: but many men call it Nephi (2 Macc. 1:31-32, 36).

So in the King James Bible, the name Lehi is juxtaposed with the phrase "dwelt in the top of the rock," while Nephi (naphtha in modern translations) is the name given to a liquid that "kindled a flame" "on the great stones." In the first six verses of the Book of Mormon, the characters Nephi and Lehi are introduced, and there appears "a pillar of fire and dwelt on a rock."

Once we have noticed a possible link between 1 Nephi 1 and the story of Samson in Judges, further possible connections suggest themselves. "Pillar of fire," for example is most closely associated with the Exodus, but Judges 16, just one chapter after the Lehi references, tells the famous story of Samson between the pillars, bringing down the temple of Dagon. Shortly after Lehi sees the pillar of fire, he is "filled with the Spirit of the Lord" (1 Ne. 1:12). Judges is the biblical book where the phrase "spirit of the Lord" first appears, most often in connection with Samson's supernatural strength. In one verse, we even have it juxtaposed with Lehi and fire:

And when he came unto Lehi, the Philistines shouted against him: and the Spirit of the Lord came mightily upon him, and the cords that were upon his arms became as flax that was burnt with fire, and his bands loosed from off his hands (Judg. 15:14).

Are there further connections in the "Nephi" chapter of 2 Maccabees, too? Possibly. Here is part of the prayer of the priests after using this curious "water" (later named Nephi) to ignite their offering:

And the prayer was after this manner; O Lord, Lord God, Creator of all things, who art fearful and strong, and righteous, and merciful, and the only and gracious King, the only giver of all things, the only just, almighty, and everlasting, thou that deliverest Israel from all trouble, and didst choose the fathers, and sanctify them . . . (2 Macc. 1:24-25).

And here is the prayer of Lehi, just after seeing the pillar of fire and being filled with the spirit of the Lord:

And it came to pass that when my father had read and seen many great and marvelous things, he did exclaim many things unto the Lord; such as: Great and marvelous are thy works, O Lord God Almighty! Thy throne is high in the heavens, and thy power, and goodness, and mercy are over all the inhabitants of the earth; and, because thou art merciful, thou wilt not suffer those who come unto thee that they shall perish! And after this manner was the language of my father in the praising of his God; for his soul did rejoice, and his whole heart was filled, because of the things which he had seen, yea, which the Lord had shown unto him (1 Ne. 1:14-15).

The similarities here are less impressive -- how surprising is it that two different scriptural texts should call the "Lord God" "merciful" and "almighty" and also use the phrase "after this manner"? -- but still possibly relevant in the context of the much more striking Nephi-fire-rock parallels.

A much more obvious parallel with Lehi's prayer can be found in Revelation:

And they sing the song of Moses the servant of God, and the song of the Lamb, saying, Great and marvellous are thy works, Lord God Almighty; just and true are thy ways, thou King of saints (Rev. 15:3).

But isn't it a curious coincidence that this is called "the song of Moses"? Here is the end of the prayer in 2 Maccabees, just one verse before the flames on the great stones:

Plant thy people again in thy holy place, as Moses hath spoken. And the priests sung psalms of thanksgiving (2 Macc. 1:30).

There is nothing about Moses or singing in 1 Nephi 1, but the idea is that this parallel might have brought Revelation 15 into an associative network linked to the name Nephi.

I'm sure I could bring more Bible passages into the network if I kept going with this -- it almost reminds me of rummaging around for puns and allusions in Finnegans Wake (one of the pastimes of my ill-spent youth) -- but there's really no need. In fact I probably should have stopped sooner than I did, since mentioning looser connections probably weakens the overall effect. Focus on the links mentioned in the post title -- Lehi, Nephi, fire on a rock, "dwelt" on a "rock" -- which, I think, are much too specific to dismiss. And understand that this is just a case study. There's nothing special about the Book of Mormon's opening verses; the whole book is full of this sort of thing.

So how are we to interpret such links?

First, far be it from me to say "It can't possibly be a coincidence!" Those who read my other blog, particularly the posts tagged with "The highway is for gamblers," know that seemingly impossible coincidences do happen, and do appear to be genuine coincidences, and that I seem to be particularly good at noticing them. Still, these aren't the sort of promiscuous everything-is-connected-to-everything coincidences that I half-jokingly attribute to the "synchronicity fairies." There's a clear and pervasive pattern of links between the Book of Mormon and one specific text: the King James Bible -- and it's not just a matter of passages that quote or seem to plagiarize that book (though of course there's that, too), but of diffuse "associative network" links of the type highlighted in this post. It wouldn't make any sense to say that the opening of the Book of Mormon was copied from, or inspired by, the books of Judges and 2 Maccabees -- the stories couldn't be more different -- and yet some sort of relationship is clearly there. What to make of it?

Joseph Smith was of course very familiar with the King James Bible, so if we take the skeptical view that he was the author of the Book of Mormon, the influence of the Bible on that text is not hard to explain. The specific form that influence takes in the present example (and others like it) is still somewhat perplexing, though. If someone wants to say that Smith based Alma the Younger's conversion on that of Saul, cribbed the Sermon on the Mount because he didn't know what else to make Jesus teach, and copied out chapter after chapter from Isaiah as filler, okay, that sort of thing makes perfect sense. It's also perfectly reasonable to say that he named Lehi and Nephi by flipping through the index of proper names in the back of his Bible and choosing a couple of lesser-known ones more or less at random. Then he takes the pillar of fire from Exodus and makes it Lehi's burning-bush equivalent. Sure, I'm still with you. "And then," he thinks, "and then I'll say that the pillar of fire dwelt on a rock, just like Samson dwelt in the top of the rock Etam just before the Philistines pitched in Judah and spread themselves in Lehi!" No, sorry, that's not how people think. That's not what an allusion to, or a crib from, the story of Samson looks like -- not a human-readable one, anyway. It's more like what you might expect if you asked ChatGPT to crank out a book like the Bible. A human could do it, of course, but I refuse to imagine Joseph Smith poring over Judges and Maccabees and Revelation like Joyce over his Scribbledehobble notebooks, crossing out each little phrase as he manages to work it into his text -- not in a witty way like Joyce, but just at random, for no reason whatsoever. Hypothesis rejected.

If we reject the Scribbledehobble theory, then maybe there's the International Space Shovel theory. As a very young child, I once wrote a sci-fi story in which among the items of an astronaut's equipment was a shovel thus designated, just because it seemed like an astronaut ought to have such a thing. Only years later did I consciously realize that shovel sounds a lot like shuttle, and that we often heard in the news back then about the space shuttle visiting the International Space Station. Nothing like that had consciously crossed my mind when I gave the astronaut his shovel, and yet I feel certain that that, subconsciously, is where the name came from and why it "sounded right." That the names Lehi and Nephi could have subconsciously primed Smith's Bible-saturated mind to think of of fire dwelling on a rock, and the Spirit of the Lord, and all the rest -- just as you might compose a melody at the piano, going with what "sounds right" and completely unaware that what you're actually playing is "Stewball Was a Racehorse" or "He's So Fine" -- that I guess I can believe.

On this blog, though, our working hypothesis is that Joseph Smith was not the author of the Book of Mormon, but rather that the text under consideration is, to a significant extent, a supernaturally produced translation of something written by Nephi himself -- who, living in the 6th century BC, may have had access to something like the Book of Judges but certainly not to Maccabees or Revelation.

Okay, what now?

There's still some space for the International Space Shovel effect, but only to a very limited extent before it raises serious issues. It might explain why Smith chose to write that the fire dwelt on a rock, for example, rather than stayed or abode or some other translation of roughly equal validity. For the specific phraseology Smith chose, sure, he was obviously influenced both consciously and unconsciously by the King James Bible. What about the actual events in the story, though? Did Lehi actually see fire on a rock, just like the nephi story in Maccabees -- or did he maybe just see a bright light or something in the original, with the story becoming contaminated with Bible-derived details as it passed through the mind of Joseph Smith? Did Lehi actually praise God specifically for his great and marvelous works, and call him almighty, or did some other words of praise, originally quite different in their specifics, take that form due to the furniture of their translator's mind? Or maybe Lehi really did see a fire on a rock, and the associative contamination went the other way, causing a proper name which might have been otherwise rendered to take the precise form Nephi.

We have little understanding of the method by which the English Book of Mormon was produced. Apparently Joseph Smith would stare into his seer-stone or through the Nephite spectacles, "see" lines of text, and read them off to his amanuensis. And this wasn't just some sort of supernatural "technology" that anyone could use; Oliver Cowdery tried and failed. A seer-stone is no use without a seer, one who "has wherewith that he can look . . . it is a gift from God" (Mosiah 8:13). The stone itself is only a tool, "a means that man, through faith, might work mighty miracles" (v. 18). Joseph Smith wasn't just taking dictation; his mind -- clairvoyant but by no means a passive receptacle -- played an essential role. As Orson Scott Card puts it in his allegorical poem about Alvin and Verily (Joseph and Oliver) and their magical Golden Plow (plates),

"It's us that makes it go," he says, and grins.

Now Alvin laughs, a-settin on the ground:

"Maybe it goes a little widdershins,

But it gets around!"

In trying to imagine what Smith's experience as a seer was like, I naturally turn to the nearest thing in my own experience: remote viewing. I know that's a bit like trying to understand the mathematical mind of Newton by introspecting on how I memorized my times tables in elementary school, but it's what I've got. Even when clairvoyant images are very much on target, they present themselves to the viewer inextricably mixed with non-clairvoyant content from his own mind. See, for example, my post "Snail on shingles." The target image was this:

And what I "saw" was this (the numbers are the "target coordinates," written down as a way of triggering the vision):

Most of this image -- the snail shell, the dark surface slanting in the direction shown -- clearly came from the target, but the incorrect details seem to have been filled in by my mind, based on its experience that a dark slanting surface is likely to be a gable roof with asphalt shingles. But when I was doing the viewing, the whole thing, shingles and all, presented itself as "given." There was no possible way for me to know -- short of checking the target image itself after the fact -- which elements were truly clear vision and which were contamination. Could something similar have been true of the lines of text that presented themselves to the seeing eye of Joseph Smith?

If something like this is true, it has far-reaching implications. Should it be a rule of thumb that the more biblical a Book of Mormon passage is, the more suspect it is? Take for example Lehi and Nephi's prophecies about John the Baptist (1 Ne. 10:7-10, 11:27), jaw-droppingly detailed for something supposedly written in the 6th century BC, but also containing not one single detail not found in the New Testament. Should we assume that these details are pretty much all "contamination" from Joseph Smith's own knowledge, and that whatever the real Nephi may have foreseen of John and his work was likely as vague and fragmentary as the corresponding hints in the Old Testament? (I have other theories about this, to be discussed when this blog reaches those chapters, but the contamination theory has a lot going for it.) Or what about Jesus' sermon at Bountiful, most of which is virtually identical to the Sermon on the Mount as recorded in Matthew? Jesus could obviously have given essentially the same sermon to two different audiences, so should we see the Book of Mormon as evidence of the reliability of Matthew -- that the Sermon on the Mount at least is a near-perfect transcript of what Jesus actually said? Or should we dismiss the whole thing as obvious contamination and focus instead on the least biblical sayings of Jesus as those most likely to reflect the actual text on the Golden Plates? What about whole events that might be biblical contamination? Did the priests of Noah really kidnap dancing girls just like the Benjamites in Judges? Did the daughter of Jared really dance for decapitation just like the daughter of Herodias? Did Aminadi really read supernatural handwriting on the wall of the temple? Should these whole story elements be bracketed as unreliable? It should be obvious that a lot -- like a lot -- hangs on these interpretive judgments.

There's also the question of whether biblical contamination should be seen as a bug or a feature. Why, after all, did God see fit to reveal the Book of Mormon through clairvoyant visions in a seer-stone, rather than having the plates discovered and translated in the usual way, the same way every other ancient text has been translated? Presumably because a scholarly translation would have been significantly different from the text Smith produced, and because it's better for us to have Smith's version -- despite the contaminations, or precisely because of them? God must surely have had some compelling reason for having the Book of Mormon translated in such an extraordinary manner.

I'm not even going to attempt to settle all these questions yet. I just want to lay them all out at the beginning and keep them in the back of my mind as I proceed with the rest of the Book of Mormon.