I just finished this book and would like to leave some thoughts to this great review.
My first thoughts were how this applied to Mormonism through the BOM and JST.
Euhemerus wrote:SamBee wrote:I would love to see Ehrman's analysis of the JST Bible. I suspect he would dismiss it as not that great a translation.
The JST isn't a translation of the existing manuscripts, it's either supposedly an explanation of what's really meant, or a revelation of what the original said, IMHO.
That's correct. I thought I made that clear. That's why I think Ehrman would find it unimpressive. Joseph was not being a textual critic but a revelator.
Essentially JS carried over the scribal errors or additions over to the parallel BOM verses and failed to ferret them out in the JST. Let's look at an example:
The ending of the Lord's Prayer as found in 3 Nephi 13:13 reads "For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever. Amen." This phrase, called the doxology, is missing from early manuscripts of Matthew 6:13 but is included in the King James Version of the Bible. Most scholars believe it was added between 70AD and 400AD. Why did JS add it to the BOM story if it wasn't found in the earliest text of Matthew? FAIR reasons that perhaps the doxology was spoken by Jesus and was inadvertently left out by Matthew or perhaps Jesus did not use the doxology in Israel but did when he repeated his words in the Americas. I find it to be a mind bending coincidence that the addition of the doxology by well meaning scribes many decades (possibly centuries) after the death of Jesus could actually be a restoration of Jesus' original words (in either continent.)
I have my own semi-plausible justification of this phenomenon.
1) Perhaps JS recorded from visionary experiences that he saw in his mind’s eye and had to use his own wording (heavily influenced by his available environment [that included the KJV of the Bible]) to describe it. Lucy Mack Smith reported that JS told the Smith families amazing stories of the ancient inhabitants (as though he had lived among them) before he was allowed to take possession of the plates. That knowledge could have come from yearly tutorial sessions that JS had with Moroni, Nephi, and other angels or he could have traveled in vision/dream to the time and place of the Nephites and witnessed events unfold with his own eyes. Later when he had the task of writing it down, he would describe it in words that he was familiar with - the wording and phrasing of the KJV of the Bible complete with centuries of transcription errors and alterations.
2) It is also possible that JS recognized that a particular passage was quoting from the bible and then looked it up to quote word for word – thus including the mistakes and errors of the KJV in the quotation. This might have been a shortcut from receiving the entire passage from revelation. This also could stem from a desire to harmonize the Biblical and LDS accounts. If the BoM versions of the scriptures differed from the biblical account this might have been a stumbling block to new converts and given fodder to JS's critics.
I should note that neither of these theories account for JS claiming to see actual words and phrases from the peepstone in the hat. If the wording is not of Joseph but instead comes from the peepstone then we are again stuck wondering why the ancient American record contains errors that are known to have come from the manuscript history in the eastern continent at a later date (i.e. 70AD - 400AD)
However given that I have at least plausible explanations for how this
could have happened, I am content to lay this issue of anachronistic phrasing on the shelf. It does not bother me too terribly much at this point.
My much bigger issue is JS seems to retroactively inserting 19th century Christianity into ancient texts. The BOM is not a very good handbook for modern Mormon beliefs (our beliefs and teaching have evolved mightily since the time it was written). The BOM is not a very good handbook for pre-christian beliefs precisely because it injects 19th century Christian beliefs into time periods where they do not belong. The BoM is entirely too Christian for its supposed ancient origen! Ehrman spends a fair amount of time discussing changes that were made to the biblical text in order to make Jesus seem more in control, more fully divine, more believable as a Savior of the world (the original gospel of Mark paints Jesus in the most human light as a tragic figure). JS continues in this tradition by adding a parallel work where Jesus is unquestionably divine.
Was Jesus divine? Is He a demi-god? Is He God? The writing in the gospels is somewhat ambiguous on this point and gives plenty of room for contradictory interpretations. One theory that eventually became orthodox was the doctrine of the Holy Trinity. Some bible translators were so motivated in their search for evidence of the Trinity in the bible that they literally added it into 1 John 5:7-8. All that fuss over two tiny verses. JS went two giant leaps further and added the doctrine of the Trinity and the Godhood of Jesus into the narrative over and over again:
2 Nephi 11:7 “For if there be no Christ there be no God; and if there be no God we are not, for there could have been no creation. But there is a God, and he is Christ, and he cometh in the fulness of his own time.”
2 Nephi 31:21 ".And now, behold, this is the doctrine of Christ, and the only and true doctrine of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, which is one God, without end. Amen.”
Alma 11:44
3 Ne. 11:27
3 Ne. 11:36
3 Ne. 20:35
3 Ne. 28:10-11
Morm. 7:7
Morm 3:21 "Jesus, whom they slew, was the very Christ and the very God."
D & C 20:28 "Which Father, Son, and Holy Ghost are one God, infinite and eternal, without end. Amen."
JST Luke 10:22 “And no man knoweth that the Son is the Father, and the Father is the Son, but him to whom the Son will reveal it”
JST 1 Tim. 2:4 “which is in Christ Jesus, who is the only begotten Son of God, and ordained to be a Mediator between God and man; who is one God and hath power over all men”
The original 1830 copy of the BoM was even more explicit in emphasizing Godhood.
And he said unto me, Behold, the virgin whom thou seest is the mother of God, after the manner of the flesh.(1830)
And he said unto me, Behold, the virgin whom thou seest is the mother of the Son of God. (1 Nephi 11:18) (1837 and current version)
And the angel said unto me, behold the Lamb of God, even the Eternal Father! (1830)
And the angel said unto me, behold the Lamb of God, even the Son of the Eternal Father! (1 Nephi 11:21) (1837 and current version)
These last records…shall make known to all kindreds, tongues, and people, that the Lamb of God is the Eternal Father and the Savior of the world. (1830)
These last records…shall make known to all kindreds, tongues, and people, that the Lamb of God is the Son of the Eternal Father and the Savior of the world. (1 Nephi 13:40) (1837 and current version)
In summary, the divine nature of Jesus was not exactly clear in the original bible manuscripts. This prompted some bible translators and transcribers to make alterations to clarify, emphasize, or just insert the divinity of Jesus into the narrative. JS created a parallel story that clarified, emphasized, and inserted the divinity of Jesus into the narrative times 10.
In "Misquoting Jesus" Ehrman gives an overview of the historical environment in which many of the manuscript changes were being made. It was their way of adapting the scriptures to their current environment. Many of the alterations were expedient to fight against divergent "heretical" interpretations. JS appears to have done this in his parallel work of the BoM as well. In the day of JS there were many strong differences of opinion on issues that the bible did not seem to clarify. The BoM staked a theological position on almost all of these 19th century "controversies."
Antebellum Clergyman Alexander Campbell wrote of this trend in his critical review of the Book of Mormon in 1831:
This prophet Smith, through his stone spectacles, wrote on the plates of Nephi, in his book of Mormon, every error and almost every truth discussed in New York for the last ten years. He decides all the great controversies;—infant baptism, ordination, the trinity, regeneration, repentance, justification, the fall of man, the atonement, transubstantiation, fasting, penance, church government, religious experience, the call to the ministry, the general resurrection, eternal punishment, who may baptize, and even the question of free masonary [sic], republican government, and the rights of man (Millennial Harbinger, February 1831, p. 93).
This to me is much more difficult to surmount. Sure, Joseph might have applied a 19th century term such as "compass" or "steel" to describe an ancient tool or material of similar purpose. Sure, Joseph might have pulled KJV bible passages (complete with errors) into the BoM "translation". But now we are talking about themes and content. Is it reasonable to suppose that ancient Nephites just happened to have all the answers to the questions that vexed the antebellum religious communities in the 1800's? This leads me to conclude that the BoM was written in and for the people of the 1800's. I personally believe that JS (aided by inspiration and other sources) developed the BoM.
"It is not so much the pain and suffering of life which crushes the individual as it is its meaninglessness and hopelessness." C. A. Elwood
“It is not the function of religion to answer all the questions about God’s moral government of the universe, but to give one courage, through faith, to go on in the face of questions he never finds the answer to in his present status.” TPC: Harold B. Lee 223
"I struggle now with establishing my faith that God may always be there, but may not always need to intervene" Heber13