top of page

Chapter 25: "Hard-Hearted Harbinger of Holy Haggis"

 

Chapter Summary:

Nephi glories in plainness--Isaiah’s prophecies will be understood in the last days--The Jews will return from Babylon, crucify the Messiah, and be scattered and scourged--They will be restored when they believe in the Messiah--He will first come six hundred years after Lehi left Jerusalem--The Nephites keep the law of Moses and believe in Christ, who is the Holy One of Israel. About 559–545 B.C.

 

 

 

 

 

Nephi is back. I guess he has plagiarized enough from Isaiah's droning stupors. And he jumps right in to his dichotomized love-hate relationship with the Jews.

 

On the one hand, Nephi thinks Isaiah's prophecies are awesome and totally worth reading (in to). But Nephi doesn't want to teach his people enough about Jewish culture to actually understand Isaiah, because the Jews are evil and rebellious.

 

This degradation of education in order to preserve belief is typical of many religious groups. Even while attending BYU (a Mormon university), I came across many people who stood by the mantra: should science and religion conflict, side with religion. I would usually went with: any apparent conflicts between science and my religion are based on incomplete information, and at some indeterminate future date the conflict will be resolved in such a way that both science and my religion can coexist peacefully. For me, this never happened.

 

Nephi's super perplexing problem (to teach, or not to teach) raises an interesting question: "Is it possible to understand Isaiah's prophecies without knowing so much about ancient Jewish culture that one would become corrupt and wicked?" If not, then what good are Isaiah's prophecies? If so, then what the crap is Nephi on about?

 

Add to this that Nephi requires that his people follow the law of Moses, which is all about strict obedience, and his whole argument flops to the ground like spaghetti flung against a wall by an irate toddler with no direction in life. The whole thing is preposterous.

 

Ultimately, Nephi's struggle is one with which religious zealots have toiled since the dawn of blind faith: education destroys superstition.

 

Nephi explains that he took the time to explain Isaiah's prophecies to his children, but he won't bother telling us. If we have the "spirit of prophecy" we will figure it out on our own. If not, then oh well.

 

Honestly, all this talk about Isaiah being plain to those with a certain mindset (bias?), and not writing any of it down seems like a cop out to me. Why would Nephi copy these whole chapters from the KJV book of Isaiah and paste them in the Book of Mormon? Perhaps Joseph Smith was trying to appeal to the already existent Christian notion that Isaiah was speaking about Jesus. Maybe.

 

Making his own bald assertion, or "prophecy", Nephi states that when Isaiah's prophecies do finally happen, everyone "shall know of a surety" that Isaiah's words are coming to pass. Basically, we will know it when it happens. But, as I pointed out in the previous chapter, Isaiah comes out and says that all these things happened before king Ahaz died. He gives no indication that any of his prophecies pertain to global events 2500 years in the future. Or maybe I just don't have the "spirit of prophecy".

 

Nephi includes a rare caveat for those who doubt his authenticity: "he that supposeth that [my words] are not [of worth], unto them will I speak particularly."

 

Unfortunately for doubters, however, Nephi proceeds to spell out aspects of Jesus' "future" life which would have been well known to any member of Joseph Smith's society. Not very compelling.

 

Most of what Nephi says for the rest of the chapter is not very interesting, as it could easily be explained away as yet another retrofitted prophecy which Joseph could have easily used to make the Book of Mormon appear prophetic. All of the "prophecies" in the book so far which look fulfilled fall into this category. All of the other "prophecies" which do not seem to be fulfilled yet, well, we may have to wait another two thousand years for something to happen which could possibly be construed to be fulfillment of prophecy.

 

As in other chapters (Nephi is somewhat of a broken record), Nephi talks about the scattering and gathering of Israel. It is not explicitly stated here, as in other parts of the book, that the Jews will be converted to Christianity before being gathered. This order of events, as I pointed out in previous chapters, is problematic for proponents of the claim that the Jews are being gathered right now in the state of Israel. To counter this, apologists will often deny the specified order of events and claim that the mass conversion of Jews to Christianity will happen immediately before Jesus' second coming.

 

Whichever is the case, despite Nephi's heavy-handed yearnings for doubters to believe him, there is no rational reason to suppose that either outcome is divine predicted. Ah, but Nephi has a solution for this petty quibble also: a bunch of dead guys said the same thing Nephi is saying, so you should totally believe him:

 

"19 For according to the words of the prophets, the Messiah cometh in six hundred years from the time that my father left Jerusalem; and according to the words of the prophets, and also the word of the angel of God, his name shall be Jesus Christ, the Son of God."

 

"28 And now behold, my people, ye are a stiffnecked people; wherefore, I have spoken plainly unto you, that ye cannot misunderstand. And the words which I have spoken shall stand as a testimony against you; for they are sufficient to teach any man the right way; for the right way is to believe in Christ and deny him not; for by denying him ye also deny the prophets and the law."

 

To my knowledge, no prophet outside of the Book of Mormon has ever specified the exact date of the Jewish messiah's birth (600 years after Isaiah), so I have no idea who these prophets are that Nephi refers to. Like everything else which appears to be prophetic in this cobbled-together book of fantasies, anyone in Joseph Smith's day would have known this.

 

And another thing, this idea that Nephi's words will stand as a testimony against doubters is fallacious and evil and one of the many reasons I do not respect religious beliefs. Revelation is necessarily first-person. Whatever prophecies a person may make--however accurate they may be--taking a person's word at face value is not virtuous, humble, or wise. It is gullibility.

 

There is nothing good about believing supernatural claims based on faith. It is the ultimate cop out, and people like Nephi or Joseph Smith or any number of religious zealots and leaders show their true colors when they extort and emotionally manipulate people in this way. They are charlatans. They are cowards. They are evil. 

 

[next] [previous] [top]

bottom of page