Circle Squared
A Textual Analysis of the Book of Mormon
Chapter 19: "Jibbery-Jew"
Chapter Summary:
Nephi makes plates of ore and records the history of his people--The God of Israel will come six hundred years from the time Lehi left Jerusalem--Nephi tells of His sufferings and crucifixion--The Jews will be despised and scattered until the latter days, when they will return unto the Lord. About 588–570 B.C.
Finding ore (copper, silver and gold), Nephi makes metal plates for the purpose of recording his family's history. Keep in mind that no archaeological evidence supports the smelting of these metals by any one living in either of the American continents during this time period. By its self, this fact may not be very damning to the Book of Mormon's truth claims, but metallurgy is only one of several anachronisms in the Book of Mormon, and all together the long list of contradictions with the historical record casts serious doubts on the book's historical accuracy.
Nonetheless, Nephi goes on to explain why he is writing two separate books: "the record of my father, and the genealogy of his fathers, and the more part of all our proceedings in the wilderness are engraven upon those first plates of which I have spoken; wherefore, the things which transpired before I made these plates are, of a truth, more particularly made mention upon the first plates."
"...the more plain and precious parts of them, should be written upon these plates; and that the things which were written should be kept for the instruction of my people, who should possess the land, and also for other wise purposes, which purposes are known unto the Lord."
Remember that the first 116 pages of the Book of Mormon were lost when Martin Harris showed them to his wife. These first pages were supposed to be the book of Lehi, written in his own words exactly as this book is written from Nephi's perspective. Now, in chapter 19, Nephi explains that he is writing the same part of the story that Lehi wrote beforehand (clerical redundancies?), but with less detail and a focus on more spiritual matters than Lehi's account.
Mormons view this account as god knowing in advance that the first 116 pages would be stolen and potentially used to mar Joseph's reputation and undermine the veracity of the Book of Mormon, and that god prepared a way--thousands of years in advance--for Nephi to preserve the record. Isn't god smart? Or perhaps Joseph figured out a way to salvage the beginning of the story without redoing the book of Lehi, which if he had tried to "translate" a second time surely would have exposed him as a charlatan. Which seems more likely?
Why didn't god have the foreknowledge to prevent Joseph from losing the book of Lehi in the first place? Nephi explains a few times in the Book of Mormon that making the metal plates and engraving words on them is extremely cumbersome and time consuming. Why would god waste Lehi's and Nephi's time like this? In order to outsmart skeptics two thousand years in the future? Really?
Not that this next point is particularly important, but since Nephi brings it up here I may as well comment on the fact that the two books which he writes (1 Nephi: retelling Lehi's book about leaving Jerusalem with a focus on spiritual things; 2 Nephi: telling of Nephi's reign as king in America, the division between his house and the house of his brothers with a focus on the wars and history of his people) read very similarly to one another. It is almost as though they were originally written as a continuous narrative with no significant shift in tone or focus.
Nephi takes the time and uses precious little space on his plates to distinguish the differences between the two books, but I do not notice a significant difference in focus (spiritual vs historical) between the two books. To me they read exactly the same way with the same balance and focus of spiritual and historical matters. So why waste time and space pointing out the differences if there aren't any? Perhaps it was Joseph's intent to create a greater difference between the books in order to play up the assertion that one was a "spiritual refocus" of Lehi's account, but limitations as a writer prevented him from doing so.
In typical Christian self-loathing, Nephi posits a catch-all excuse for any errors in his record (which is supposed to be the most correct book ever written and guided by god both in the writing by Nephi and in the translation by Joseph): "And now, if I do err, even did they err of old; not that I would excuse myself because of other men, but because of the weakness which is in me, according to the flesh, I would excuse myself."
It is a common tactic of Mormons, and I assume other religious groups as well, to blame anything in the bible deemed offensive by modern standards, or any harsh or contradictory material which is difficult to understand or to rationalize to be merely mistranslations on the part of biblical scribes. The originals were perfect, but through the imperfect process of translation over thousands of years some things are lost or misconstrued during this process.
This was touched upon in a previous chapter. The problem with this argument is that we have no idea whatsoever how close to the original documents our current translations of the bible are. Without the originals to compare current copies to, how could anyone know how well they were preserved or if any of the offensive material in the bible is not in the original? This is an excuse, an ad hoc rationalization of the lowest grade.
This apologetic does not help those who use it in their favor and it seems to be applied arbitrarily and only in instances when the person using the argument is made uncomfortable by the discussion. This is no different in my mind than the argument that all difficult to explain questions or questions with unsatisfying answers will one day be revealed and will be answered to the satisfaction of all. This "day of great explanation" may come after death while mingling with people of likeminded gullibility in heaven. Even as a believer, this rationale sat uneasy with me.
Verse 10 contains a long list of "prophecies" about the future life of Jesus, and his torture and crucifixion. Very specific prophecies. The kind of prophecies that many people misappropriate to the book of Isaiah in an attempt to point to Jesus as a clear candidate for the Jewish messiah. You need only to ask a Jewish scholar how well Jesus fulfills messianic prophecies and you will find Jesus was nothing like what the ancient Jews thought their messiah would be, and virtually none of the "prophecies" Christians point to in Isaiah are about their messiah. Why would the views of Nephi, purportedly an ancient Jew, concerning the messiah match more closely to common Christian views of the book of Isaiah and Jesus during Joseph Smith's day and age rather than those of every other Jew in Nephi's day and age?
And the fact that Nephi justifies his predictions by citing prophets and books ("to be lifted up, according to the words of Zenock, and to be crucified, according to the words of Neum, and to be buried in a sepulchre, according to the words of Zenos"), which as far as I can tell are completely fictional, is very revealing of the apparent fraud of the Book of Mormon. At the very least, we do not have the records of these prophets. If at some point we were to find such documents confirming the existence of these men and their predictions, similar to the Dead Sea Scrolls confirming some parts of the bible, it would be amazing evidence in support of the Book of Mormon's truth claims. I wonder if we will need to wait as long for the surfacing of such documents as we had to wait for the emergence of the Dead Sea Scrolls.
The end of the rather lengthy verse 10 contains another reference to the lesser Book of Mormon claim that Polynesians, like Native Americans, are Jews: "...which should be a sign given of his death unto those who should inhabit the isles of the sea, more especially given unto those who are of the house of Israel."
Verse 11 and most of verse 12 predict various natural calamities will occur as a sign of god's anguish by Jesus' death. As discussed in other chapters, this is primitive thinking based on scientific ignorance of natural phenomena. But the end of verse 12 contains a testable claim. It is recorded in the New Testament that various earthquakes and storms happened at the time of Jesus' death, but these seem to be described as a localized events. Verse 12 claims that these catastrophic events occurred around the world and specifically the isles of the sea: "many of the kings of the isles of the sea shall be wrought upon by the Spirit of God, to exclaim: The God of nature suffers."
All we need to do now, which would lend significant weight to the historical claims of the Book of Mormon, is to find multiple independent sources of kings of various islands around the world making this statement at this exact point in time due to various earthquakes and storms in their specific areas. Do this, Mormon scholars, and I will reconsider everything I know and believe about Mormonism. Barring this or similar historical and independent confirmation of a prediction made in the Book of Mormon, I have no reason to take it seriously as a historical document.
The next few verses contain a description and implied justification for anti-Semitic persecution and prejudice against Jews: "And because they turn their hearts aside, saith the prophet, and have despised the Holy One of Israel, they shall wander in the flesh, and perish, and become a hiss and a byword, and be hated among all nations."
This anti-Semitic view, although not as extreme, is strikingly similar to justifications Hitler used to convince his countrymen to commit genocide against Jews. And before I am accused of making unfair comparisons, I can recall several instances of believing Mormons making the connection themselves, and one person in particular making the following statement during an intermission at a concert for a BYU production I attended 2 years ago: "You know, if you think about it, the Jews deserved the holocaust. They killed their lord and savior."
To be as fair as possible, most of the Mormons I know are not anti-Semitic. They may pity the plight of Jews, but also wish them success in the middle-east as it is a sign of end times and the second coming of Jesus (their words, not mine).
Assuming that these events actually happened, and the Jews who killed Jesus are guilty of murdering their savior and messiah, any punishment which would be warranted for their crimes would be theirs alone to bear. Why would god allow this punishment to carry out for thousands of years thereby affecting generations of innocent people? And all of this for committing a "crime" necessary for the salvation of all mankind. That's right, this unforgivable crime worthy of cross-generational punishment was absolutely essential to god's plan to save everyone from his own wrath. Without this crime, all of mankind would be damned forever. If anything, god should have thanked them and given them a reward for pulling the trigger on a crucial element of his own plan.
The remainder of the chapter is an admonition for the Jews to return to their covenants with god, and for Nephi's family to read the brass plates and to relate what they read from scriptures to their lives. It is as mundane as it is skippable.