The King Follet Discourse and the Zohar

[volgadon]

Over the next few posts I intend on amassing enough evidence to finally put to rest the claim that Joseph Smith used the Zohar as the basis for the statement in the King Follet Discourse about Genesis 1:1. Personally, I've already dealt with the conceptual differences in one of my blog posts (Joseph Smith and the Beginning), as did Bill Hamblin in his excellent review of Owens' url="http://maxwellinstitute.byu.edu/publications/review/?vol=8&num=2&id=229"]Joseph Smith and Kabbalah: the Occult Connection[.

I realise that this may not be enough for some, so perhaps a look at source material available to Joseph will help dissuade the reasonable that the Zohar had anything to do with the KFD.

The relevant passage in the Zohar is found in parashat bereishit, 1:15a.

Deep within the spark gushed a flow, splaying colors below, concealed within the concealed of the mystery of Ein Sof. It split and did not split its aura, was not known at all, until under the impact of splitting, a single, concealed, supernal point shone. Beyond that point, nothing is known, so it is called (Reshit), Beginning, first command of all.

The enlightened will shine like the (zohar), radiance, of the sky, and those who lead many to righteousness, like the stars forever and ever. (Daniel 12:3).

(Zohar), Radiance! Concealed of concealed struck its aura, which touched and did not touch this point. Then this beginning expanded, building itself a palace worthy of glorious praise. There it sowed seed to give birth, availing worlds. The secret is: Her stock is seed of holiness (Isaiah 6:13).

(Zohar), Radiance! Sowing seed for its glory, like the seed of fine purple silk wrapping itself within, weaving itself a palace, constituting its praise, availing all.

With this beginning, the unknown concealed one created the palace. This palace is called (Elohim), God. The secret is: (Bereshit bara Elohim), With beginning, ________ created God. (Genesis 1:1)

(Zohar), Radiance! From here all commands were created through the mysterious expansion of this point of concealed radiance. If created is written here, no wonder it is written: God created the human being in His image (Genesis 1:27).

The first sources to be considered are translations. The only translation of the Zohar to a European language available in print in Joseph's day was Christian Knorr von Rosenroth's Kabbala Denudata. Several of Joseph's acquaintances knew Latin, including Alexander Neibaur, the Jewish convert who according to the critics was Joseph's source for kabbalistic material. Even then the relevant passage is not, as far as I am able to tell, contained in von Rosenroth, the only extensive Zohar in translation texts being the Sifra de-Tziniuta, Idra Rabba and Idra Zuta.

The book itself was rare and valuable.

So even in the unlikely chance that Joseph had access to the book, he would not have found the relevant passage.

[Benjamin McGuire]

Actually, Joseph's translation of Genesis 1:1 has a very simple explanation.

I have in front of me copies of both the first and second edition of J. Seixas' Hebrew Grammars (published in 1833 and 1834 at Andover). Joseph Smith acquired one of these editions (although they used both I believe during the classes - as well as the small handbook they had printed up there in Kirtland for class use). Also, Joseph had acquired a Lexicon. I have a copy of that, as well. He owned the Gibbs (a translation of Gesenius) published in 1832. This was a student edition, and not the full version (published in 1824). Seixas references the larger 1824 Gibbs Lexicon. Joseph also owned one of the earlier edition of the Stuart grammar, but it doesn't seem to have been used much (if at all).

Seixas, in his 1834 edition, on page 85, explains the translation of Genesis 1:1

I am not going to try to approximate the Hebrew here, providing instead a basic transliteration (and I suspect I am going to butcher them since I am in a hurry with some other things this morning - but I will be following Seixas style).

be-ra-sheet in the beginning. For the prefix b see section 9, with the Note. For the termination eith see section 11. See Lexicon rosheith.

bau-rau he created see section 15.

e-lo-heem God; a sing. noun with a plur. form (eim see Section 11); see Lexicon elohim.

et see Sections 32, 71.

and so on.

So, for the first word. We have a prefix, a termination, and a note to reference the Lexicon. The entry in Section 9 dealing with the prefix b reads (with the Note):

In, with, by, over, among, when, throughout, for, through, against, on, to, under, etc.

Note. The Article (h) is frequently supplied after some of the above Prefixes; as be-ra-sheet in the beginning; ....

For the termination, we turn to section 11 titled Gender and Number of Nouns.

There, eet is listed as the sing. fem. (and lists berosheit as an example). However, this word is also raised in the notes to Section 11. In Note 10, rosh is noted as anomalous - with the plural roshim.

Finally, we turn to the lexicon. Now, when I said that Seixas references the much larger 1824 edition, it causes some difficulties here. Ra-sheet is not in the 1832 edition as a separate entry. It has an entry for Rosh. And it mentions rosheit as the plural of roshah. Both are on page 198. It is the entry for rosh that is the most interesting in this discussion:

Rosh a head; the best of its kind; a chief leader; a chief city, metropolis; the highest place, the first rank; the top or highest part, as of a mountain, pillar; the first, in number; the beginning; the sum, whole number; a company, multitude, host; a person, individual.

So, Joseph merely does what Seixas tells him (page 76) - he divests the first word of all of its adjuncts - the prefix, the termination, and comes up with the root Rosh. He then looks this up in the Lexicon.

So given this, we can take a look at the KFD:

I shall comment on the very first word in the Bible; I will make a comment on the very first sentence of the history of creation in the Bible, Berosheit. I want to analyze the word; Baith, in, by, through, in, 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, though 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.

There seems to me to be a parenthetical in there that doesn't translate through the notes - that is,

"the head one (of the Gods) brought forth the Gods." or rosh baurau elohim. That seems to me to be the simple explanation of what Joseph Smith was doing with the Hebrew of Genesis 1:1 - coming right out of the Seixas grammar - including his definition of the prefix baith, and his use of the phrase "grammatical termination".

Ben M.

[volgadon]

I'm looking at the available sources in order to thoroughly disprove the notion of borrowing.

[HiJolly]

I think Ben made a really good case that Joseph borrowed.

HiJolly

[volgadon]

You misunderstood me. My fault of course, i could have stated more clearly that I meant not borrowoed from the Zohar.

Even with that being said, this is a case of ,ethodology, rather than borrowing. Seixas provides only the mechanics to disserct the word, not the theology Joseph is using it to prove.

[Benjamin McGuire]

I suppose it does depend on the question you are asking - but, in the OP, you mention Owens' essay. Owens relies entirely on Zucker (not providing any evidence of having looked at the grammars himself). Given this, I think on some level he misunderstands Zucker, and in what he quotes there are certainly problems:

Louis C. Zucker, who published an insightful examination of Smith's study and use of Hebrew, notes that this translation deviates entirely from the interpretative convention Joseph had learned as a student of Hebrew in Kirtland. Joshua Seixas, the professor who had instructed Joseph and the School of the Prophets in early 1836, used in his classes a textbook he had written, Hebrew grammar for the Use of Beginners.135 In the Seixas manual (p. 85), this Hebrew text of Genesis 1:1 is given along with a "correct" word-for-word translation: "In the beginning, he created, God, the heavens, and the earth." Seixas would not have introduced in his oral instruction a translation entirely alien to the conventions of his own textbook. Zucker comments on Smith's strange translation of the verse: "Joseph, with audacious independence, changes the meaning of the first word, and takes the third word `Eloheem' as literally plural. He ignores the rest of the verse, and the syntax he imposes on his artificial three-word statement is impossible."136

In reality, Seixas, on page 85, provides a breakdown of the first Hebrew word that is identical to Joseph's, although Seixas does interpret it differently. So, Joseph is expanding on what he gets in Seixas, and he is certainly using what he learned in Seixas - and both of these points contradict Owens' statement. So Ownes, referencing Zucker:

In his next step of translation, Smith interprets Bereshith to become Rosh, the "head" or head God. As Zucker objected, orthodox standards of translations do not yield the word Rosh, or "head," from Bereshith.

And yet, this is more or less exactly what Seixas does. Seixas tells you to remove the prefix, to remove the termination, to find the root of the word. This is what Joseph does. And the root is rosh. Seixas suggests that you need to reed the entry in the Lexicon for ra-sheet - but then Joseph's lexicon doesn't have such an entry (although it has an entry for rosh). And of course, that entry refers to "the Head". In other words, I was responding more to the notion of Owens' essay than to your questions on Kabbalah.

Zucker made other mistakes as well (some of which occur because he only looked through the second edition of the text and not the first edition as well), but, in general, I think that my observations do explain what was going on there better than other proposals out there.

[Mortal Man]

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.

Who do you suppose is the "learned man of God"?

[wenglund]

Over the next few posts I intend on amassing enough evidence to finally put to rest the claim that Joseph Smith used the Zohar as the basis for the statement in the King Follet Discourse about Genesis 1:1.

When you say "the basis for the statement" are you referring to how exactly Joseph translated the first part of Gen 1:1, and/or the notion of a head God calling together a counsel of the Gods and affecting the creation? [Edit: I see where you answered this above when you indicated to Ben that you weren't referring to the mechanics of the translation, but the theology]

I ask because if it is the later [edit: apparently it is], then those critics positing the use of the Zohar or Kabbalah will need to explain how this notion [theology] was implicit in the prophet's inspired translation of Moses 2:1 (June, 1830, a decade prior to Neibaur joining the Church in England) and Abr 4:1 (July, 1835, months prior to even Siexas coming to teach Hebrew in Kirtland, and years before the King Follet Discourse in 1844).

Thanks, -Wade Englund-