Pre-christian Christianity In The Book Of Mormon

[consiglieri]

One of the striking things about the Book of Mormon is it features Christianity before Jesus.

King Benjamin, living over 100 years before Jesus' birth, prophecied as follows:

Mosiah 3:3 And he (the angel) said unto me: Awake, and hear the words which I shall tell thee; for behold, I am come to declare unto you the glad tidings of great joy.

4 For the Lord hath heard thy prayers, and hath judged of thy righteousness, and hath sent me to declare unto thee that thou mayest rejoice; and that thou mayest declare unto thy people, that they may also be filled with joy.

5 For behold, the time cometh, and is not far distant, that with power, the Lord Omnipotent who reigneth, who was, and is from all eternity to all eternity, shall come down from heaven among the children of men, and shall dwell in a tabernacle of clay, and shall go forth amongst men, working mighty miracles, such as healing the sick, raising the dead, causing the lame to walk, the blind to receive their sight, and the deaf to hear, and curing all manner of diseases.

Such detailed prophecies of the expected Messiah have provoked criticism of the Book of Mormon.

Surprisingly, the Dead Sea Scrolls contain fragments from a book that has come to be known as the Messianic Apocalypse, dated to 200 B.C., and which contains the following passage which sounds a lot like what King Benjamin had to say:

4QMessianic Apocalypse (4Q521)

Frag.2 co. II [for the heav]ens and the earth will listen to his Messiah, [and all] that is in them will not turn away from the holy precepts. Be encouraged, you who are seeking the Lord in his service ! . . . Will you not, perhaps, encounter the Lord in it, all those who hope in their heart? For the Lord will observe the devout, and call the just by name, and upon the poor he will place his spirit, and the faithful he will renew with his strength. For he will honour the devout upon the throne of eternal royalty, freeing prisoners, giving sight to the blind, straightening out the twisted. Ever shall I cling to those who hope. In his mercy he will jud[ge,] and from no-one shall the fruit [of] good [deeds] be delayed, and the Lord will perform marvellous acts such as have not existed, just as he sa[id] for he will heal the badly wounded and will make the dead live, he will proclaim good news to the meek, give lavishly [to the need]y, lead the exiled and enrich the hungry.

Florentino Garcia Martinez, The Dead Sea Scrolls Translated, p. 394.

Neither Joseph Smith nor King Benjamin had access to the Dead Sea Scrolls. It would seem, then, that King Benjamin and the author of the Messianic Apocalypse may have been drawing on a common fund of Messianic prophecies; prophecies that were fulfilled in the life and ministry of Jesus of Nazareth.

All the Best!

--Consiglieri

[urroner]

sig, you are sooooooooo wrong buddy. Joseph Smith had access to the Dead Sea Scrolls. They were located in the local Palmyra Public Library.

sig, you have truly disappointed me in seeking to teach those vile lies. Everybody knows that the local Palmyra Public Library was a vast repository of ancient and future manuscripts and that JS was well read and proficient, not only in English, but in a multitude of non-English languages, several extinct.

[Que]

One of the striking things about the Book of Mormon is it features Christianity before Jesus.

I have always felt that one of the reasons for Joseph Smith receiving the Pearl of Great Price was to show the world that Christianity began before the world was, and has been revealed from the beginning.

Moses 5:6-7 And after many days an angel of the Lord appeared unto Adam, saying: Why dost thou offer sacrifices unto the Lord? And Adam said unto him: I know not, save the Lord commanded me. And then the angel spake, saying: This thing is a similitude of the sacrifice of the Only Begotten of the Father, which is full of grace and truth.

Adam's baptism, reception of the Holy Ghost, etc. are, in my intuitive thought, the norm for believers at all times, rather than the post-Christ innovation that the Christian world in general would have us believe. Why did the people at John the Baptist's time accept his baptism? Maybe those "ritual washings" (that Biblical scholars would have us believe were totally unlike the Christian baptism) were familiar to them after all... Like Justin telling Typho - not "we have baptism and you don't neener neener neener", but rather "our baptism has the power to lead to salvation through Christ and yours doesn't..."

Why did Jews of Christ's time accept the priesthood of Christ and his Apostles? Maybe because the Royal Priesthood (1 Peter 2:9)(eg., the same as King Melchizedek, King Solomon, Christ heir of David, etc.) was understood to be separate from the levitical, and just as valid?

It is my feeling, based on nothing more than male intuition, that we will continue to find out over time that prophets before Christ knew Christ.

Yes, my wife says that there is no such thing as male intuition. So for what its worth...

Q

[consiglieri]

There are a number of pre-Christian Jewish writings, such as the Testament of the Twelve Patriarchs, which contain detailed prophecies of Christ's mortal ministry.

It has been the knee-jerk reaction of the scholars to label these as interpolations in the text from a Christian copyist.

But with such passages as these from the Dead Sea Scrolls, where no Christian copyist could have been involved, that position is slightly weaker now.

All the Best!

--Consiglieri

[Rommelator]

There are a number of pre-Christian Jewish writings, such as the Testament of the Twelve Patriarchs, which contain detailed prophecies of Christ's mortal ministry.

It has been the knee-jerk reaction of the scholars to label these as interpolations in the text from a Christian copyist.

But with such passages as these from the Dead Sea Scrolls, where no Christian copyist could have been involved, that position is slightly weaker now.

All the Best!

--Consiglieri

Don't forget the Testament of Joseph as well.

http://farms.byu.edu/publications/bookscha...&chapid=628

[MormonMason]

One thing of interest was the organizational structure of the Essenes. At a time I had come to doubt that the Essenes were those of the Dead Sea Scroll community because of the divergence of the kinds of writings found there. After stydying the issue for some time I have come to the conclusion that they indeed were the Essenes. The divergence in the writings is easily explained in texts written about them by others, such as Josephus. They had a tendency to be eclectic, according to these accounts, collecting a diversity of ancient writings and choosing out of them what was of interest to them for their purposes, and having lists of angels. This is a perfect fit with their views and with what has so far been found in the scrolls.

As an aside, we know that they had a ruling council composed of a certain number of men, three of which were Priests and a number of twelve laymen. These numbers have been disputed as representing a council of twelve men which included three Priests, or even have been disputed to the point of rejecting the view because of other mentions of a necessary quorum of men, three of which had to be Priests.

Last week I was reading in the Dead Sea Scrolls and have come to the conclusion that the number for the leadership cannot any longer be disputed. In a document that was a document containing information regarding the rules of the community and so forth, it clearly says that there is a community of truth and that it is fully operating when it has "a council of fiftee[n men]" at its head. This means that there would have to have been the three Priests and Twelve laymen, making in all fifteen who were to direct the affairs of the Essene community which was scattered throughout Palestine, and some of who lived in the desert while others lived in cities.

This organizational structure is reminiscent of our current First Presidency and Quorum of the Twelve. The local communities and congregations, on the other hand, had the Overseer (roughly equivalent to Bishop), an instructor and a council of ten men, three of which had to be Priests.

[ERMD]

Isaiah discussed Christ in great detail as well.

[Que]

In his mercy he will jud[ge,] and from no-one shall the fruit [of] good [deeds] be delayed

and

"a council of fiftee[n men]"

Would someone do me a favor and explain the convention of enclosing all or parts of these words in brackets? In a word set such as "fiftee[n men]" does that mean that all of the hebrew (or other language) word is missing so they fill in from context and then show the fill-in with the brackets? Would fiftee[n] be different from fif[teen]?

Sorry - don't mean to derail the thread but I am curious and wonder if others may want to know too?

Thanks - Q

[jadams_4242]

I have always felt that one of the reasons for Joseph Smith receiving the Pearl of Great Price was to show the world that Christianity began before the world was, and has been revealed from the beginning.

Adam's baptism, reception of the Holy Ghost, etc. are, in my intuitive thought, the norm for believers at all times, rather than the post-Christ innovation that the Christian world in general would have us believe. Why did the people at John the Baptist's time accept his baptism? Maybe those "ritual washings" (that Biblical scholars would have us believe were totally unlike the Christian baptism) were familiar to them after all... Like Justin telling Typho - not "we have baptism and you don't neener neener neener", but rather "our baptism has the power to lead to salvation through Christ and yours doesn't..."

Why did Jews of Christ's time accept the priesthood of Christ and his Apostles? Maybe because the Royal Priesthood (1 Peter 2:9)(eg., the same as King Melchizedek, King Solomon, Christ heir of David, etc.) was understood to be separate from the levitical, and just as valid?

It is my feeling, based on nothing more than male intuition, that we will continue to find out over time that prophets before Christ knew Christ.

Yes, my wife says that there is no such thing as male intuition. So for what its worth...

Q

Well you can just tell her that its the spirit!

[MormonMason]

and

Would someone do me a favor and explain the convention of enclosing all or parts of these words in brackets? In a word set such as "fiftee[n men]" does that mean that all of the hebrew (or other language) word is missing so they fill in from context and then show the fill-in with the brackets? Would fiftee[n] be different from fif[teen]?

Sorry - don't mean to derail the thread but I am curious and wonder if others may want to know too?

Thanks - Q

No problem. I wouldn't really call it a derailment as much as an asking for an explanation for something I often take for granted.

Indeed the brackets enclosing parts of words means that a letter or more is missing from the Hebrew/Aramaic/Greek of a line of text. "fiftee[n]" would be different from "fif[teen]" because it would indicate that more of the word(s) is (are) missing.

It might also make things more difficult because in Hebrew "fifteen" actually is composed of two words joined by a conjunction, represented in English as "five and ten" or something like. Not long after biblical times Jews began using letters to represent numeric values but that does not usully help us with the Dead Sea Scrolls, which were written the old way.

"Fiftee[n]" actually shows enough of the Hebrew to show that the two words are there and there is enough to see that fifteen is an option. The word "fif[teen]" on the other hand may be five or fifteen or five hundred or five thousand, all of which would have to be examined to be sure there is a proper restoration of the missing text that will fit in the space allowed by the remaining text.

When more than a few letters are enclosed in brackets, it usually indicates that entire words are missing from the line and that these have been replaced by conjecture and/or restored based upon a number of factors such as line size, column size, letter size, letter spacing, text compared and extracted from other manuscripts of same or like text, etc.

When you see things like [ . . . ] it usually means that too much text is missing to be restored. When you see things like [blank] or [vacat] it means that there are empty spaces there, ink flaked off or damaged beyond readability to the point that ink is not visible, or pieces may be missing from the manuscript itself.

Hope this helps.

[MormonMason]

I needed to make a quick correction to my posts above and add a little information while I am here. I had forgotten the place where the bracketed text left off in the English translation I had read. I could not remember the ID of the text so went by memory when I initially posted this information. Chalk it up to getting old and Senior Moments! I found the text this morning and the brackets instead of "fiftee[n men]" should be "fifte[en men]" (two letters are missing from the words for "fifteen" rather than one). For context, here is the entire quote from the text:

When there are fifte[en men] in the party of the Yahad [as God presagedby means of his servants] [the pr]ophets, then shall the party of the Yah[ad truly] be established [as an eternal planting, true witnesses, and the elect of] God's will, and a soothing aroma to atone for the [l]and, an of[fering. . .]

‎("Portions of Sectarian Law," in Wise, Abegg and Cook, The Dead Sea Scrolls: A New Translation, Revised Edition [2005, New York: HarperSanFrancisco/HarperCollins], 360)‎

I used the translation above for the purposes of this forum's English readers because, for some inexplicable reason, the Dead Sea Scrolls Reader translation has the brackets in places where I would not have put them simply for the fact that the letters they mark with brackets are intact or there are more letters intact than that translation's brackets imply! Garcia-Martinez has the same thing in the translation as well. (O, the joys of not having to rely on an English translation!)

However, as will be seen in the image of the portion of this scroll I am now posting, the last letters of the word Yahad or community are intact, whereas "in the Council of" has damaged letters which actually can be reconstructed accurately from the remains of the letters! This also clearly can be seen by comparing the remains of the word for "community" or "yahad," and the word for "council of" or "party of" in the very next line to the previous line that assures the reconstruction of the damaged letters.

The relevant lines I was discussing, particularly the number of men, are on the original scroll as follows (I have underlined the words for "fifte[en]" with a red line, the word for "Community" or "Yahad" in blue, and "in the Council of" in green):

(‎4Q‎265 fragment 7 [originally called 4QSD but now callled 4QMiscellaneous Rules]‎‎:7-9‎)

Hope this information is helpful and not confusing!

[Que]

Hope this information is helpful and not confusing!

Thanks - I appreciate the explanation and even more I appreciated the photo to illustrate... Q

[MormonMason]

Thanks - I appreciate the explanation and even more I appreciated the photo to illustrate... Q

No problem. I thought you might appreciate the photo. That is why I came back to edit the post and add the photo later. I have photos of all of the Scrolls of which I am aware, several facsimile editions, preliminary editions of Cave 4 manuscripts and the first publication of the Temple Scroll, several different English translations of the Scrolls, and also have them on Microfiche--if you can believe that. I guess you could say I am just a Dead Sea Scrolls nut!

I also hope I illustrated the problems inherent in English translations of ancient texts, particularly when they are damaged. If there is anything else initially not clear, please do not hesitate to ask for clarification.