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The Council Of The Gods


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This post is a continuation of the following.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0HYpGHXagBA&feature=related

Abraham 4:1

And then the Lord said: Let us go down. And they went down at the beginning, and they, that is the Gods, organized and formed the heavens and the earth.

Joseph Smith taught that God looks like a man, has a Wife and that multiple gods exist and that they are the literal offspring of God and His Wife. The "Gods" are presented in a grand council.

TBM's use this fact, that Mormonism is the only Abrahamic religion that hold's to this theology, as evidence that Joseph Smith really did restore knowledge that was lost, the original patriarchal faith.

Critics will say that this isn't evidence of Joseph's prophetic ability at all but rather that he got this knowledge from studying Hebrew, presumably with Seixas. They cite the following passage from the Sermon in the Grove:

The head God organized the heavens and the earth. I defy all the world to refute me. In the beginning the heads of the Gods organized the heavens and the earth. Now the learned priests and the people rage, and the heathen imagine a vain thing. If we pursue the Hebrew text further, it reads, "Berosheit baurau Eloheim ait aashamayeen vehau auraits"—"The head one of the Gods said. Let us make a man in our own image." I once asked a learned Jew, "If the Hebrew language compels us to render all words ending in heim in the plural, why not render the first Eloheim plural?" He replied, "That is the rule with few exceptions; but in this case it would ruin the Bible." He acknowledged I was right. I came here to investigate these things precisely as I believe them. Hear and judge for yourselves; and if you go away satisfied, well and good.

How the idea that monotheistic, philosopher's God believing Jews taught Joseph about the plurality of gods can be spun from this quote is unclear. Clearly, this revelation didn't come in a vacuum. He was studying Hebrew and did understand that the suffix "-im" signifies a plurality. However, Joseph Smith claimed divine revelation as his source for understanding the truth behind the council of the gods.

I shall comment on the very first Hebrew word in the Bible, Berosheit. I want to analyze the word; baith--in, by, through, and everything else. Rosh--the head. Sheit--grammatical termination. When the inspired man wrote it, he did not put the baith there. A man, a Jew without any authority, thought it too bad to begin to talk about the head. It read first, "The head one of the Gods brought forth the Gods"; that is the true meaning of the words. Baurau signifies to bring forth. If you do not believe it, you do not believe the learned man of God. No man can teach you more than what I have told you. Thus the head God brought forth the Gods in the grand council. I will simplify it in the English language. Oh, ye lawyers and ye doctors who have persecuted me, I want to let you know that the Holy Ghost knows something as well as you do. The head God called together the Gods, and they sat in grand council. The grand councilors sat in yonder heavens and contemplated the creation of the worlds that were created at that time. When I say doctors and lawyers, I mean the doctors and lawyers of the scripture. I have done so hitherto to let the lawyers flutter and everybody laugh at them. Some learned doctor might take a notion to say, "The scriptures say thus and so and are not to be altered." But I am going to show you an error. I have an old book of the New Testament in the Hebrew, Latin, German, and Greek. I have been reading the German and find it to be the most [nearly] correct, and to correspond nearest to the revelations I have given for the last fourteen years. It tells about Jachobod the son of Zebedee. It means Jacob. In the English New Testament it is translated James. Now if Jacob had the keys, you might talk about James through all eternity and never get the keys. In the 21st verse of the fourth chapter of Matthew, the German edition gives the word Jacob instead of James. How can we escape the damnation of h*** except God reveal to us? Men bind us with chains. Latin says Jachobod means Jacob; Hebrew says it means Jacob; Greek says Jacob; German says Jacob. I thank God I have got this book, and I thank him more for the gift of the Holy Ghost. I have the oldest book in the world, but I have the oldest book in my heart. I have all the four testaments. Come here, ye learned men, and read if you can. I should not have introduced this testimony were it not to back up the word Rosh, the head, Father of the Gods. I should not have brought it up except to show that I am right.

When we begin to learn in this way, we begin to learn the only true God and what kind of a being we have got to worship. When we know how to come to him, he begins to unfold the heavens to us and tell us all about it. When we are ready to come to him, he is ready to come to us.

Now I ask all who hear me why the learned men who are preaching salvation say that God created the heavens and the earth out of nothing. The reason is they are unlearned. They account it blasphemy to contradict the idea; they will call you a fool....The Holy Ghost within me comprehends more than all the world, and I will associate with him. The word create came from the word baurau; it does not mean to create out of nothing; it means to organize, the same as a man would organize materials to build a ship. Hence we infer that God had materials to organize the world out of chaos--chaotic matter, which is element, and in which dwells all the glory. Element had an existence from the time He had. The pure principles of element are principles that can never be destroyed; they may be organized and reorganized but not destroyed.

Three things to note here.

1)Joseph admits that he studied Hebrew.

2)Joseph "restores" the original wording of the creation account and provides a back story for how the current wording came to be used,a back story and restoration that can't be derived from the Hebrew Bible.

3)Joseph invokes the Holy Ghost as the source of this knowledge.

Edited by Pedro A. Olavarria
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1. Joseph Smith didn't "restore knowledge" he merely came to the same conclusion as some ancient Israelites and Canaanites. At best, he shared similar "beliefs" but it begs the question to say this was "knowledge" about God.

2. We don't know that God's prophets believed this at all. This assumes Moses actually wrote the Pentateuch we have today, which more and more scholars doubt. Usually, the same scholars who tell us the Old Testament is polytheistic are the same scholars who reject most theological claims about the construction of the Bible, as they further distance the end product from the proclaimed authors.

3. Joseph Smith may have claimed to have been inspired by the Holy Ghost while interpreting scripture, but this also begs the question and flies in the face of facts that undermine it. Particularly, the fact that he never came across this knowledge until he studied Hebrew. Coincidence? If you show me your driver's license, I can claim to know your name and address through psychic abilities. But we both know that this knowledge came from looking at your driver's license. Where was the Holy Ghost when he was providing his "inspired" translation of the Book of Moses? There is no mention of plurality of Gods, even though it covers the same creation story. Joseph Smith used the Hebrew to justify his beliefs, making it obvious that the Holy Ghost wasn't needed.

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Where was the Holy Ghost when he was providing his "inspired" translation of the Book of Moses? There is no mention of plurality of Gods, even though it covers the same creation story. Joseph Smith used the Hebrew to justify his beliefs, making it obvious that the Holy Ghost wasn't needed.

You are arguing from silence. The Book of Moses is part of the Joseph Smith Translation of the Bible, parts of which were inspired.

As for the Book of Moses not containing the "plurality of Gods" doctrine, critics need to stop taking that concept out of context, and start trying to understand what we actually mean by it.

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I'm just amazed at how much Joseph Smith knew when he had no formal education, worked many hours a day just to help sustain the family farm and/or was busy translating the plates and organizing a church. And there certainly must have been lots of libraries on the frontier where he had access to all those scholarly works which he stole ideas from.

And wasn't the Book of Moses translated in 1830 and 1831 and the Book of Abraham in 1835? But the learning of Hebrew wasn't until 1836; prior to that time Joseph was studying Hebrew sporadically on his own but formal training didn't begin until 1836.

the Hebrew link

formal study

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You are arguing from silence. The Book of Moses is part of the Joseph Smith Translation of the Bible, parts of which were inspired.

It isn't an argument from silence at all. The fact is Joseph Smith wasn't "inspired" to teach a plurality of Gods when he produced the Book of Moses. He was only "inspired" to teach this after having learned Hebrew. That is my argument, and it is perfectly sound based on what we know.

As for the Book of Moses not containing the "plurality of Gods" doctrine, critics need to stop taking that concept out of context, and start trying to understand what we actually mean by it.

I know exactly what "we" mean by it, but that isn't the issue. The issue is when this doctrine became part of Joseph Smith's theology psyche. It occured only after he learned Hebrew and started justifying it through an elementary translation of the word Elohim.

I'm just amazed at how much Joseph Smith knew when he had no formal education, worked many hours a day just to help sustain the family farm and/or was busy translating the plates and organizing a church.

You're leaping all over the timeline . What you describe is Joseph Smith the teenager, not Joseph Smith the adult Hebrew student who sought out numerous books for his "school of the prophets."

And there certainly must have been lots of libraries on the frontier where he had access to all those scholarly works which he stole ideas from.

We know Joseph Smith obtained numerous scholarly works. This isn't even disputable, really. The works of Flavious Josephus, for example, was quoted by Oliver Cowdery in the Times and Seasons. Josephus is the same guy apologists use to draw parallels between the Book of Abraham and the Ancient world. Whenever I point out that Joseph had access to Josephus, I'm usually told he was an ignorant farmboy who would have never been able to read or comprehend such a book. But truth can be stranger than fiction. In 1974 Kenneth Godfrey published in BYU Studies "A Note on the Nauvoo Library and Literary Institute," and provided a list of books Joseph Smith had donated from his personal collection:

Apochryphal Testament

[William] Beaumont[']s Experiments [and Observations on the Gastric Juice]

[James Arlington] Bennett[']s [The American System of Practical] Book Keeping, 2 copies

Book of Mormon

[James] Brown's [An] Appeal, [from the British System of] gram[mar]

[James] Brown[']s [An] English Syntascope

[John Brown] Dictionary of the Holy Bible

Bruns' Travels

Catholic Manual

Catholic Piety

[A.B. Cleveland] Studies in Poetry & Prose

[John F. Dennett] Voyages & Travels of Ross[,] Perry & others

[Orville Dewey] Old World & the New, vol 1st

[Thomas] ****[']s Philosophy [of a Future State]

[Philip] Doddrige[']s Sermons

[benjamin Drake] Life of Tecunseh

Epicureo

[Hiram] Gillmore[']s Lectures [on Christianity]

[Charles A. Goodrich] History of the United States

[James] Hervey[']s Meditations [and Contemplations]

Krumanacher[']s Works

Merrills Harmony

Metropolitan[: A Monthly Journal of Literature, Science, and the Fine Arts]

[John Lawrence] Mosheim[']s Church History, 1 Vol

[Joel] Parker[']s Lectures on Universalism

[Parley P. Pratt] Millen[n]ium & other Poems [1840]

Reld & other Travels

[Charles] Rollin, 2 Vol

Sanders Discourse

[Walter] Scott[']s Poetical Works, in 5 vols

Incidents of Travel in Yucatan, by [John L.] Stephens 2 Vo[ls]

[John L.] Stephens Travels in Central America, 2 Vo[ls]

[Henry Philip Tappan] Review of Edward[']s On [the Freedom of] The Will

Times and Seasons 1 2 3 Vol also Vol 1 & 2

[Francois M.A. Voltaire] Historie de Charles [XII]

[samuel] Whelpley[']s Compend[ium] [2 copies?]

[samuel Wilcox] Home Physician

Suddenly Joseph Smith doesn't look like an unread, ignorant farmboy, huh? And these are only the books he donated. His collection is probably more extensive than what is in this list.

And wasn't the Book of Moses translated in 1830 and 1831 and the Book of Abraham in 1835? But the learning of Hebrew wasn't until 1836; prior to that time Joseph was studying Hebrew sporadically on his own but formal training didn't begin until 1836.

No. Chapter four of the Book of Abraham was produced in 1842. There is no reason to believe much of anything beyond the first two chapters were produced in 1835-1836.

Edited by Xander
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It actually doesn't bother me that there were outside influences to Joseph's revelations. I think it fits the requirement of "studying it out in your mind." One could argue that God led Sexias to teach JS so he could know enough to translate the Book of Abraham.

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1. Joseph Smith didn't "restore knowledge" he merely came to the same conclusion as some ancient Israelites and Canaanites. At best, he shared similar "beliefs" but it begs the question to say this was "knowledge" about God.

Clarity is more important than agreement. Yours is a fair assessment.

However, Joseph was the first "Abrahamic" believer in more than 2,000 years to believe in God, His Wife and Their sons that filled the council of gods. This was the view that predated the strict monotheism of the Bible. Joseph was the first to bring it back. Whether or not he was a prophet, or scholar/lucky guesser is another issue.

2. We don't know that God's prophets believed this at all. This assumes Moses actually wrote the Pentateuch we have today, which more and more scholars doubt. Usually, the same scholars who tell us the Old Testament is polytheistic are the same scholars who reject most theological claims about the construction of the Bible, as they further distance the end product from the proclaimed authors.

I don't believe Moses wrote the Pentateuch we have today either. It's pretty obvious that he didn't

3. Joseph Smith may have claimed to have been inspired by the Holy Ghost while interpreting scripture, but this also begs the question and flies in the face of facts that undermine it. Particularly, the fact that he never came across this knowledge until he studied Hebrew. Coincidence?

Not a coincidence at all.

If you show me your driver's license, I can claim to know your name and address through psychic abilities. But we both know that this knowledge came from looking at your driver's license.
And yet, Jews and Christians have been looking at the same licence for 2K years, in Hebrew, and have consistently gotten a different name and address. Joseph's interpretation of the license is most like that of the DMV worker who produced it.
Where was the Holy Ghost when he was providing his "inspired" translation of the Book of Moses? There is no mention of plurality of Gods, even though it covers the same creation story. Joseph Smith used the Hebrew to justify his beliefs, making it obvious that the Holy Ghost wasn't needed.

Whatever the Book of Moses is, it is not the original creation story. Joseph admits as much with the quote form the OP.

I see what your saying, but that doesn't explain how El(ohiem),His human form, His Wife and Their Sons in the council, were all derived from Joseph's etymological musings and how that excludes divine revelation.

People looked at the same text for thousands of years and came to different conclusions, just like the rabbi in the video.

Edited by Pedro A. Olavarria
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It actually doesn't bother me that there were outside influences to Joseph's revelations. I think it fits the requirement of "studying it out in your mind." One could argue that God led Sexias to teach JS so he could know enough to translate the Book of Abraham.

Or at least open his mind to the correctness of it's contents. Through an etymological study of the the word elohiem, he decided that the -im suffix should apply to "God" as plural "Gods", just as it applies to everything else.

Kevin and I don't disagree that this was the spark that lit the fire. We just disagree on the fuel that kept the fire going. I say the fuel was the Holy Ghost.

This would also explain why Christians, Muslims and Jews never came to the same conclusions via the same evidence, and why the rest of the world didn't see it until Ras Samra and Ugarit.

Edited by Pedro A. Olavarria
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Kevin,

Correct me if I'm wrong, but this is how I see our positions:

Kevin

The Council of God's was totally the product of Joseph's Hebrew study.

Pedro

The Council of God's was the product of revelation that was sparked by Joseph's Hebrew study.

The Gods were part of the ancient Israelite/Canaanite religion that predated the writing of our Bible. Monotheism was a product of the exile.

If a historical Abraham actually wrote a book, we would expect that book to have the theology that predated the Bible's monotheism.

Edited by Pedro A. Olavarria
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Clarity is more important than agreement. Yours is a fair assessment. However, Joseph was the first "Abrahamic" believer in more than 2,000 years to believe in God, His Wife and Their sons that filled the council of gods.

More accurately, he was the first person who believed this, who started his own Church. How do we know what billions of other "Abrahamic" believers interpreted from the Bible over the past two thousand years? Secondly, we don't really know that this is something Abraham or Moses believed. The Bible is clearly a collection of documents that have been redacted for the express purpose of removing heretical doctrines, not least of which is the adoration of Asherah. But that it and of itself is not a good reason to believe Abraham and Moses believed God has a wife and children. But if they did, then they most certainly held a corrupt Ugaritic form of this theology that wouldn't resemble Mormonism much anyway. I have trouble connecting Joseph Smith's concept of Heavenly Mother, with the Asherah.

This was the view that predated the strict monotheism of the Bible

Yes, but older doesn't mean truer. These folks were lambasted for believing in other gods. It is hard to overlook this. Jesus Christ himself quoted the Shema as being the true doctrine (Deut 6:4) so if Mormon apologists want to ride on the coat tails of liberal scholars and insist Deuteronomy was tinkered with by corrupt priests, then they're going to have to throw Jesus under the bus with them.

Joseph was the first to bring it back.

That doesn't make it true.

Whether or not he was a prophet, or scholar/lucky guesser is another issue.

He wasn't a lucky guesser at all because he never claimed a Heavenly Mother was taught in the Bible. Had he explicitly pointed to the Asherah passages as references to God's wife, more than a century before Bible scholarship had made that connection, then maybe you'd have something to work with.

I don't believe Moses wrote the Pentateuch we have today either. It's pretty obvious that he didn't

So who were these people who believed in Asherah? Is it really enough to say they were "Ancient Israelites"? This belief wasn;'t created in a vacuum. Ancient Israelite religion was essentially a subset of Canaanite religion. It should be clear why they believed in multiple gods and attributed to them anthropomorphic qualities. More accurately, they were primarily zoomorphic in nature. El the most high was thought to be a bull, which is the whole point behind the golden calf.

And yet, Jews and Christians have been looking at the same licence for 2K years, in Hebrew, and have consistently gotten a different name and address

That is because they were constrained by theological doctrine. Joseph Smith didn't have that restriction enforced upon his interpretation.

Joseph's interpretation of the license is most like that of the DMV worker who produced it.

Not exactly. According to Joseph Smith, Elohim is God's name whereas according to the Bible, it is El.

Whatever the Book of Moses is, it is not the original creation story. Joseph admits as much with the quote form the OP.

Whatever it is, he wasn't "inspired" to read "gods" until he learned of it from Hebrew.

I see what your saying, but that doesn't explain how El(ohiem),His human form, His Wife and Their Sons in the council, were all derived from Joseph's etymological musings and how that excludes divine revelation.

It excludes divine revelation for the simple reason that he claimed it was true because God told him so, not because it was biblical. As I said before, just because some of the Israelites believed in some of the older elements of Akkadian, Canaanite, Hittite and Sumerian mythologies, doesn't make it the "orginal biblical message from God." If anything, it seems the Bible spent a great deal of time trying to correct this primitive understanding of heaven. The Ancient Israelite mythology only resembles modern Mromon theology in a superficial manner. God was El and he only had seventy sons who were sent to the earth to rule over specific tribes. God wasn't "elohim" who had tens of bllions of sons and daughters who were preparing to come to earth as mortal beings, as in Mormon doctrine.

People looked at the same text for thousands of years and came to different conclusions, just like the rabbi in the video.

Yes, but the interpretation is very elementary and it is rejected by most experts because of theological commitments along with the fact that the Bible emphasizes monotheism in so many areas. They were using monotheistic scriptures to interpret the blatant polytheism in the elohim verses. But this doesn't change the fact that any first year Hebrew student would learn that Elohim is the plural form for God.

Edited by Xander
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And there certainly must have been lots of libraries on the frontier where he had access to all those scholarly works which he stole ideas from.

From 1826 to 1828, Josiah Priest's The Wonders of Nature and Providence Displayed was checked out numerous times from the Manchester Rental Library, located five miles from Joseph's home. It contains a condensed version of View of the Hebrews.

And wasn't the Book of Moses translated in 1830 and 1831 and the Book of Abraham in 1835? But the learning of Hebrew wasn't until 1836; prior to that time Joseph was studying Hebrew sporadically on his own but formal training didn't begin until 1836.

We've been over this before.

Edited by Mortal Man
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More accurately, they were primarily zoomorphic in nature. El the most high was thought to be a bull, which is the whole point behind the golden calf.

They were not zoomorphic at all, although they did perceive the gods as having qualities of certain animals. The people of the Levant and Mesopotamia saw the gods as anthropomorphic. The majority of small statues rendered of Baal and El have all been anthropomorphic in nature. Even the Egyptians, who personified their deities in animalistic form used these forms as means of conveying their power. It was'nt the animal, but the power behind the animal that was worshiped.

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They were not zoomorphic at all, although they did perceive the gods as having qualities of certain animals. The people of the Levant and Mesopotamia saw the gods as anthropomorphic. The majority of small statues rendered of Baal and El have all been anthropomorphic in nature. Even the Egyptians, who personified their deities in animalistic form used these forms as means of conveying their power. It was'nt the animal, but the power behind the animal that was worshiped.

You essentially employed a standard Evangelical counter-argument to the claims that God was anthropomorphic. His "Hand" represented his power, his "eyes" represented his omnipresence, etc etc. But the Ugaritic gods were most certainly zoomorphic in many cases, and not only in a metaphorical sense. El was no exception, as he and Yahweh both were considered Bulls.

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More accurately, he was the first person who believed this, who started his own Church. How do we know what billions of other "Abrahamic" believers interpreted from the Bible over the past two thousand years?

Well for one thing where is the evidence? But in any case even if others reached the same conclusion that doesn't make the the fact that Joseph made it any less important for the church. No doubt many men seeking inspiration saw the truth before. Truth isn't exclusive to one person or one group. The church itself has never claimed that. They do claim authority from God is exclusive. Besides which, Joseph didn't start his own church based on the Council of Gods but on a vision from God and the Book of Mormon plates. Much knowledge was added later.

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From 1826 to 1828, Josiah Priest's The Wonders of Nature and Providence Displayed was checked out numerous times from the Manchester Rental Library, located five miles from Joseph's home. It contains a condensed version of View of the Hebrews.

So you have the library card showing Joseph is the one who checked it out? In any case what difference would that make to having further knowledge revealed to Joseph. He always asked a question before receiving further revelation and certainly reading something like this would have caused the prophet who was always curious to ask further questions of the Lord. Sometimes I think he regretted asking the question, such as in the case of Abraham's wives, but it seems he always got answers even if not what he wanted.

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You essentially employed a standard Evangelical counter-argument to the claims that God was anthropomorphic. His "Hand" represented his power, his "eyes" represented his omnipresence, etc etc. But the Ugaritic gods were most certainly zoomorphic in many cases, and not only in a metaphorical sense. El was no exception, as he and Yahweh both were considered Bulls.

I am certainly no EV type and minimally a LDS type, but the truth be told in that the ancient Levantine while alive in animal representation of their gods certainly did not worship that as such, but simply used the animal motifs to better symbolize that which they couldn't see.

In many cases, the anthropomorphic form

was applied to deities whose original identities

and roles were abstract or not easily symbolized

in the natural world (fig. 5). Thus the so-called

“cosmic” gods and goddesses of the heavens

and earth such as Shu, god of the air or light,

and Nut, goddess of the sky, were generally

anthropomorphic in form, as were

“geographic” deities, i.e., deities representing

specific topographical and geographic features

or areas such as mountains, cities, estates, and

temples (fig. 6). Though in some cases

attributes—such as blue skin for the marsh

gods and for Hapi, god of the Nile

inundation—might be given to these deities,

Anthropomorphic Deities Author: Wilkinson, Richard H., University of Arizona, Egyptian Expedition, printed in the Encyclopedia of Egyptology, UCLA.

While this applies directly to Egyptian gods it also applies to Mesopotamian deities. In my opinion, it shows the median transition from an animistic culture to that of full-blown monotheism.

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Well for one thing where is the evidence?

You want me to present evidence for what? Pedro is the one making wild claims, insisting that billions of Abrahamic believers never made this connection. The guy in his video already did. I'm not obligated to prove him wrong with evidence, he is obligated to justify his remarks with evidence. That's how burden of proof works. You don't get to make wild claims and then say "prove me wrong."

But in any case even if others reached the same conclusion that doesn't make the the fact that Joseph made it any less important for the church.

No one is denying its importance to the Church. All I am saying is that we know where Joseph Smith got this from. He claimed it is what the Hebrew says, so there is no reason to believe it was revelation. It makes no sense to say this anyway, since one would expect a true revelation to involve biblical truths. Joseph Smith got it all wrong with the name of God, calling him Elohim, not El.

No doubt many men seeking inspiration saw the truth before.

Sigh... any first year Hebrew student will learn that elohim is the plural for God. No divine revelation required.

Truth isn't exclusive to one person or one group

??

. The church itself has never claimed that. They do claim authority from God is exclusive. Besides which, Joseph didn't start his own church based on the Council of Gods but on a vision from God and the Book of Mormon plates. Much knowledge was added later

Joseph Smith was constantly changing his theology. The question of plurality of gods is something he raised in 1839 as indicated in the D&C. This is further proof that chapter four of the BoA wasn' produced in 1835 as Schryver and Gee insist. Joseph Smith constantly borrowed ideas from other sources, including the list of books I presented from his collection.

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In many cases, the anthropomorphic form

was applied to deities whose original identities

and roles were abstract or not easily symbolized

in the natural world (fig. 5).

Bingo. The problem with the way in which apologists approach this is that they want to say "Look, the Ancient Israelites believed multiple gods exist and that Yahweh had a wife! This is proof of an apostasy, just as Joseph Smith said, and this sacred truth was lost. The original Bible authors actually believed in the Mormon doctrine of a Heavenly Mother!"

You want to "go back" only so far as the data can be considered parallel to a Mormon belief, but you don't go back far enough to understand where these beliefs actually come from. If you go back far enough, you'll see that they do not derive from divine revelation nor did the Israelites ever claim that they did. Rather they derive from the myths of Israel's prehistory. So if the Ancient Israelites had a correct understanding of Heaven, in that it consisted of many gods and a mother, where do you think they got this knowledge? Apologists don't even ask that question using the same scholarship because to do so would undermine the points you're trying to make. Instead, you leave it up to the readers to infer that "older" means "closer to what the original Bible authors believed," which means these were the doctrines of Abraham, Moses, Adam, etc. But none of this is really supported by the pool of scholarship apologists love to draw from. I'll go ahead and say it. LDS apologist are misusing biblical scholarship for this purpose, and it will eventually come around to bite them in the rear.

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From 1826 to 1828, Josiah Priest's The Wonders of Nature and Providence Displayed was checked out numerous times from the Manchester Rental Library, located five miles from Joseph's home. It contains a condensed version of View of the Hebrews.

So it is your theory that JS checked this book out numerous times? Do you have any real evidence for this. Say, perhaps, eye witness accounts that he ever read this book?

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Unfortunately, he misses an easy extra credit point by referring to the Holy Ghost as "him" rather than "her."

The Gnostic conflation of Sophia (Wisdom) with the Holy Ghost doesn't mean Joseph missed the mark, especially since Wisdom terminology was often connected with Christ Himself in the New Testament. The work of Margaret Barker indicates to me that the feminine aspects of Sophia are left over from early Israelite belief in a goddess.

When we look at other early Christian writings like The Ascension of Isaiah, we find find Isaiah ascending through the various heavens until he sees Christ and a "glorious one who was like Him." When Isaiah asks his angelic guide who this figure is, the angel answers, "Worship him, for he is the angel of the Holy Spirit..." Not only is this figure anthropomorphic, but male.

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The Gnostic conflation of Sophia (Wisdom) with the Holy Ghost doesn't mean Joseph missed the mark, especially since Wisdom terminology was often connected with Christ Himself in the New Testament. The work of Margaret Barker indicates to me that the feminine aspects of Sophia are left over from early Israelite belief in a goddess.

When we look at other early Christian writings like The Ascension of Isaiah, we find find Isaiah ascending through the various heavens until he sees Christ and a "glorious one who was like Him." When Isaiah asks his angelic guide who this figure is, the angel answers, "Worship him, for he is the angel of the Holy Spirit..." Not only is this figure anthropomorphic, but male.

And while not explicitly depicted as anthromporphic, the Holy Ghost is a male figure in Sefer Yetzirah, fulfilling a similar function to the Logos.

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It makes no sense to say this anyway, since one would expect a true revelation to involve biblical truths. Joseph Smith got it all wrong with the name of God, calling him Elohim, not El.

Sigh... any first year Hebrew student will learn that elohim is the plural for God. No divine revelation required.

Elohim is not only the plural, but in many cases it means God Almighty or "God of Gods". When used with singular verbs it is used singularly and in plurality with plural verbs. It depends on the context.

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Joseph Smith was constantly changing his theology. The question of plurality of gods is something he raised in 1839 as indicated in the D&C. This is further proof that chapter four of the BoA wasn' produced in 1835 as Schryver and Gee insist. Joseph Smith constantly borrowed ideas from other sources, including the list of books I presented from his collection.

All religious beliefs go through an evolutionary change. In regards to the books you presented. Ownership of a book does not necessarily mean he read them let alone assume that these books contained evidences for his thoughts and theology. I will retract this statement, of course, if you can show me where his theology was "borrowed" from his donated library.

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Bingo. The problem with the way in which apologists approach this is that they want to say "Look, the Ancient Israelites believed multiple gods exist and that Yahweh had a wife! This is proof of an apostasy, just as Joseph Smith said, and this sacred truth was lost. The original Bible authors actually believed in the Mormon doctrine of a Heavenly Mother!"

You want to "go back" only so far as the data can be considered parallel to a Mormon belief, but you don't go back far enough to understand where these beliefs actually come from. If you go back far enough, you'll see that they do not derive from divine revelation nor did the Israelites ever claim that they did. Rather they derive from the myths of Israel's prehistory. So if the Ancient Israelites had a correct understanding of Heaven, in that it consisted of many gods and a mother, where do you think they got this knowledge? Apologists don't even ask that question using the same scholarship because to do so would undermine the points you're trying to make. Instead, you leave it up to the readers to infer that "older" means "closer to what the original Bible authors believed," which means these were the doctrines of Abraham, Moses, Adam, etc. But none of this is really supported by the pool of scholarship apologists love to draw from. I'll go ahead and say it. LDS apologist are misusing biblical scholarship for this purpose, and it will eventually come around to bite them in the rear.

With your reference of implying that I am part of the great lumpen of apologists you might want to reconsider that rejoinder. Frankly, I think Mormonism reflect some elements of OT thought, but not all. The inclusion of a belief in a "Mother in Heaven" something I would disagree with simply because I think the term is vague and unspecific and reflects a movement towards the anthropomorphism of God. I think the evidence that is in shows the ancient Jews reflected God's creative abilities in a feminine manner, hence the inclusion of Asherah. With all human things Asherah slowly evolved from pseudo-deity to mental construct in much the same was as Philo of Alexandria developed the concept of Neoplationism into a rationale for trinitarianism. You state that you don't believe that the Jewish theology didn't " derive from divine revelation nor did the Israelites ever claim that they did". Obviously you have never read Amos 3:7 (3:7 Certainly the sovereign Lord does nothing without first revealing his plan to his servants the prophets.) which shows the methodology the Jews believed in. Again, you are negating the prophetic nature of Jacob, Abraham, Joseph, and Moses, etc. They never received revelation from God?? If at the heart of this you are denying that the belief in a feminine aspect of God's character and attributes is not present as part of revelation then how would you explain the constant references to the creative power of Hokhma or Wisdom? Reference to "Her" is replete throughout the OT.

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