Textual Critism Of The Bom

[Mola Ram Suda Ram]

So John W and I have quite the talk about this. I figure I would open it up to this.

John said the BoM has it like this 1 3 2

Zak asked

Can you give an example?

It is an Abridgment after all... with Mormon doing the summarization.

Lets go.

[Mola Ram Suda Ram]

lets start here.

From By H. Michael Marquardt http://www.irr.org/mit/marquardt-bom1a.html

Alma 12 and 13 provide a good example of this in their use of the New Testament Epistle to the Hebrews. Hebrews employs Genesis 14:18-20 together with Psalm 2:7 and 110:4 to establish that the Messiah holds a priesthood higher than that of the Levitical priesthood, and that this priesthood "after the order of Melchisedec" superseded and abolished the Levitical priesthood (Heb. 5:5-10; 6:20; 7:1-12). ("Melchizedek" is the spelling in Old Testament and contemporary LDS usage.) The Book of Mormon builds on this New Testament interpretation and adds its own misinterpretation to create an entire order of priests "after the order of the Son" (Alma 13:9), "being a type of his order" (v. 16), of whom Melchisedec is but the leading example (v. 19). Furthermore, Hebrews's interpretation of Melchisedec's name and title ("King of righteousness ... King of peace") is expanded into an imaginary historical situation in which Melchisedec successfully calls his people to repentance and thus to righteousness and peace. This material is then worked together into a systematic doctrinal exposition that utilizes other New Testament phrases from such sources as the Gospels, 1 Corinthians, and Revelation. (Compare Alma 13:9, 13, 22 with parallel phrases in John 1:14; Matt. 3:8; Luke 2:10; and Alma 12:20; 13:28 with 1 Cor. 15:51-53;10:13; also Alma 12:14, 16, 17, and 13:11 with Rev. 6:16; 20:5-6, 14-15; 19:20; 14:10-11; 20:10, and 7:14.)

Ill be happy to give an answer I want to see who thinks what first.

[Uncle Dale]

lets start here.

From By H. Michael Marquardt http://www.irr.org/mit/marquardt-bom1a.html

Alma 12 and 13 provide a good example of this in their use of the New Testament Epistle to the Hebrews. Hebrews employs Genesis 14:18-20 together with Psalm 2:7 and 110:4 to establish that the Messiah holds a priesthood higher than that of the Levitical priesthood, and that this priesthood "after the order of Melchisedec" superseded and abolished the Levitical priesthood (Heb. 5:5-10; 6:20; 7:1-12). ("Melchizedek" is the spelling in Old Testament and contemporary LDS usage.) The Book of Mormon builds on this New Testament interpretation and adds its own misinterpretation to create an entire order of priests "after the order of the Son" (Alma 13:9), "being a type of his order" (v. 16), of whom Melchisedec is but the leading example (v. 19). Furthermore, Hebrews's interpretation of Melchisedec's name and title ("King of righteousness ... King of peace") is expanded into an imaginary historical situation in which Melchisedec successfully calls his people to repentance and thus to righteousness and peace. This material is then worked together into a systematic doctrinal exposition that utilizes other New Testament phrases from such sources as the Gospels, 1 Corinthians, and Revelation. (Compare Alma 13:9, 13, 22 with parallel phrases in John 1:14; Matt. 3:8; Luke 2:10; and Alma 12:20; 13:28 with 1 Cor. 15:51-53;10:13; also Alma 12:14, 16, 17, and 13:11 with Rev. 6:16; 20:5-6, 14-15; 19:20; 14:10-11; 20:10, and 7:14.)

Ill be happy to give an answer I want to see who thinks what first.

Mike's a good head and he's said some interesting things here about the direction of textual development.

Of course LDS apologists have looked into this sort of thing and presented their own explanations. Those

explanations go over OK among believing Mormons -- but, I think not so well among outsiders, who

tend to see textual dependence in the latter day scriptures, that is direct (rather than an indirect use of

language, co-dependence upon a third, lost source, supernatural transfer of textual elements, etc.).

Mike speaks of "misinterpretation to create an entire order of priests;" but in this conclusion he has not

dug very deeply into Maccabean theocracy and Qumranim concepts of Melchisedec and priesthood.

While I reject the notion of supernatural transfer of textual elements, or co-dependence upon lost

sources, I do think that an argument can be made for the development of a Melchisedec priesthood

for the Maccabean priest-kings (who were not of Zadokitte lineage, and therefore presumably could

not gain the High Priest's office, without some special claim or enhancement of the religion).

Later in history, we have the story of James the Brother of Jesus serving temporarily as the High Priest

in the Jerusalem Temple, shortly before its destruction. If that tradition has any basis in historical fact,

James' tenure could not have been based upon Levitical (let alone Zadokite) lineage. However, a claim

for a High Priest after the order of Melchisedec would have allowed James to gain the office -- if only as

a temporary claimant during the period of disorder prior to the Temple's destruction.

I am not saying that my speculations are established historical facts -- nor that they support the LDS

concept of a higher priesthood; but I am saying that it is the sort of material that Mike has ignored, and

which might be consulted in support of SOME of the LDS notions for a priesthood based on Melchisedec.

UD

,

[grego]

The Book of Mormon builds on this New Testament interpretation

How's that?

-=-=-=

What do we do about that JST part on Melchizedek?

-=-=-=

And wasn't there something new found about Melchizedek that fit in quite well with the BoM?

[jadams_4242]

What do we do about that JST part on Melchizedek?

Hey! that doesnt count.

[Mola Ram Suda Ram]

From John Ws Post

"Mormons naturally developed a view of the past which held that the gospel of Christ as preached in the New Testament had been preached to all men since the beginning of the world and that whenever God's church had existed on earth, it had enjoyed the same gifts as the apostolic church. The order set up in Jesus' day was thus projected both backward to Adam and forward in time to the Mormons themselves and on beyond to the Millennium. This much was accepted by all Mormons, although individuals might differ somewhat as to details and implications of the idea" ("Mormonism and the Bible, 1832-1838," Senior Honors Project Summary, University of Utah, Aug. 1972, 4-5).

This view finds support in latter-day scripture, which asserts that in all dispensations, the Lord has revealed "all things, even from the beginning until the time that he should come in his glory" (3 Nephi 26:3). Thus it is natural that the details of coming events would be known to ancient prophets.

A more recent theory is Blake Ostler's idea "of the Book of Mormon as Joseph Smith's expansion of an ancient work by building on the work of earlier prophets to answer the nagging problems of his day. In so doing, he provided unrestricted and authoritative commentary, interpretation, explanation, and clarifications based on insights from the ancient Book of Mormon text and the King James Bible (KJV). The result is a modern world view and theological understanding superimposed on the Book of Mormon text from the plates" ("The Book of Mormon as a Modern Expansion of an Ancient Source," Dialogue, Spring 1987, 66). Ostler's ideas free us from a rigid, chronological view of textual construction and allow us to view the Book of Mormon in a more expansive way.

I think this in a nut shell explains the supposed inconsitancies of the textual critisism. 2 ways of looking at it.

Thanks for the post John.

[Kevin Christensen]

Regarding Melchizedek, I recently went through several LDS papers to compare with with Margaret Barker's presentation at SBL in November.

The most important LDS approaches have been Welch's long and detailed look at Alma 13 in By Study and By Faith, James Duke's JBMS 5:1 essay, David Wright's debunking approach in New Approaches, and responses to Wright by Welch and Tvedtnes in the RBBM 6:1. Wright has claimed that while the best LDS apologetic would involve Alma 13 and Hebrews drawing on a similar text, that while the traditions Hebrews draws upon are older than the New Testament they did not go back 700 years, and did not go back to a single source. Barker's the Older Testament begins her case that the Melchizedek traditions do go back 700 years from Hebrews, and do center in a single source: the Temple.

Margaret has been able to follow through on the significance of the Qumran text for understanding Hebrews more than anyone else. For LDS, the key theme is that Melchizedek is associated with the First Temple priesthood, which means that the Book of Mormon comes from exactly the right time and place to be interested. Until the SBL essay is published, see her discussion of The High Priesthood in The Hidden Tradition of the Kingdom of God, and The Risen Lord.

Ostler has revised his view of what needed to be "expanded" in the 20 years since he wrote his essay. (See the quote in my FR 16:1 essay. I think his general discussion of translation remains valuable. But his identifications of expanded passages should not be taken as definitive.

And finally, for those who like to explain Alma 13 as merely a cobbling together of a few anachronsitic Biblical phrases, Welch's note 54 has this interesting observation: "John Maddox, with the aid of computers, has identified 145 exact phrases, four words or longer, that appear in the Bible and also in Alma 12-13. This number would greatly increase if phrases were counted that differ from each other only by one word. These phrases are found in virtually all books of the Old and New Testaments. Only seven of these 145 biblical expressions are unique to the Epistle to the Hebrews, but often even they differ from phrases in other parts of the Bible by only a word or two."

He argues "Are we to conclude some special affinity between the Epistle to the Hebrews and Alma 12-13 when at the same time Alma 12-13 draws on numerous other books of scripture as well? Moreover, are we to assume that Joseph flipped back and forth from page to page in his Bible, first drawing out this, then that, eloquent turn of phrase? Or is it not more logical to assume that these phrases were simply a part of his working translation vocabulary?"

"Although I cannot put my finger on the place in the Loeb Library's translation of one of the orations of Cicero, I remember reading that translation many years ago and running across a statement in one of Cicero's writings to the effect that we now see only through a glass darkly. My interest perked up immediately. Since the rhetoric of Cicero was famous throughout the Roman Empire for over a century before Paul's time, I wondered if this could be the place where Paul had learned this idiom, which he uses in 1 Corinthians 13:12. But I looked to the Latin text in vain. The Latin simply said something to the effect that human knowledge is incomplete and vague. While the English translation conveyed the meaning accurately, especially to someone familiar with the New Testament idiom, it was not a literal word for word translation of the Latin. I imagine that something similar may well have taken place as Joseph Smith translated the Book of Mormon. Phrases such as those used by Wright to prove his point may be perfectly appropriate translations without necessarily being the kind of translations that he has assumed." (Welch, RBBM 6:1)

Kevin Christensen

Pittsburgh, PA