Chapter 6: "Do as I'm Doing"

 

Chapter Summary:

Jacob recounts Jewish history: The Babylonian captivity and return; the ministry and crucifixion of the Holy One of Israel; the help received from the Gentiles; and the Jews’ latter-day restoration when they believe in the Messiah. About 559–545 B.C.

 

 

 

 

 

 

One of the methods bible scholars use to determine that the book of Isaiah was most likely written by three authors is through an analytical technique distinguishing authors' voices or writing styles. Mormons claim to use a similar technique to show that each book in the Book of Mormon was written by a unique author, rather than just Joseph Smith.

 

I am not an expert in either case. I am, however, baffled by the Mormon claim that this method positively affirms multiple-authorship for their holy book, especially since they also deny the multiple authorship theory of Isaiah due to its problematic implications for the Book of Mormon's citations of Isaiah. More on this later.

 

Growing up in the church I felt like the Book of Mormon dragged on and on, in part due to the fact that the same ultra-dry writing style is used throughout the book. You would think that at least one of the dozen or so proposed authors in the Book of Mormon would know a thing or two about adjectives, metaphors or jokes. 

 

In this chapter, Nephi hands the prophet-king torch to his younger brother, Jacob. Why Nephi didn't just put the first five chapters of the second book of Nephi in the first book of Nephi, thus allowing Jacob to have his own book, is beyond me. Actually, I skipped ahead and noticed that Jacob does get his own book, after 2 Nephi; a meager 7 chapters. Surprisingly, Jacob gets more writing space in Nephi’s second book than in his own, and that’s not even counting the several chapters Jacob uses to pad Nephi’s second book with more quoted chapters from Isaiah. Jacob actually writes more in the second book of Nephi than Nephi! Chew on that!

 

The first thing I noticed about this handoff is that Jacob sounds exactly like Nephi. Let's compare the first verse of the first book of Nephi with Jacob's first verse:

 

1 Nephi 1:1: "I, Nephi, having been born of goodly parents, therefore I was taught somewhat in all the learning of my father; and having seen many afflictions in the course of my days, nevertheless, having been highly favored of the Lord in all my days; yea, having had a great knowledge of the goodness and the mysteries of God, therefore I make a record of my proceedings in my days."

 

2 Nephi 6:2: "Behold, my beloved brethren, I, Jacob, having been called of God, and ordained after the manner of his holy order, and having been consecrated by my brother Nephi, unto whom ye look as a king or a protector, and on whom ye depend for safety, behold ye know that I have spoken unto you exceedingly many things."

 

To me, both verses read strikingly similar. The first line in each uses almost the exact same structure: "I, [name], having been [description of qualifications to write scripture], etc." They are not exactly the same, sure, but they sound close enough that had they not first said their names I would not have been able to distinguish different authors for the two verses, layman though I am. So, which seems more plausible: that Nephi and Jacob (and every other Book of Mormon author) really are equally dry, uninteresting, poor writers, or that Joseph Smith wrote both accounts in what he assumed to be authoritative sounding old-English from the King James Version of the bible?

 

To make matters worse for Mormons advocating multiple-authorship, the first thing Jacob does is quote some of the exact same verses from Isaiah that Nephi quoted. As I pointed out when Nephi quoted Isaiah, bible scholars say that all chapters in Isaiah after chapter 39 were not written by Isaiah and were written after Nephi's family left Jerusalem and could not be in the brass plates or the Book of Mormon if those records are authentic. The very first verses Jacob cites are from chapter 49 of Isaiah.

 

Jacob goes on to "prophecy" about the Jews and Gentiles just like Nephi did, and with the same language. Jacob claims that god showed him the destruction of Jerusalem, just like Lehi did. He predicted that the Jews would return to Jerusalem, the faithful would recognize the messiah (Jesus) when he comes the first time. The second time the messiah comes, the faithful Jews will be redeemed, but not until after a long history of moving about and being hated and scourged. All of this is easily explained as just more retro-fitted prophecy--again, just like the writings of Nephi.

 

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