1 Nephi 19-21 and Isaiah - "A New Beginning"

[David T]

I've been going through Margaret Barker's commentary of Isaiah in Eerdman's Commentary on the Bible, and reading up on Isaiah 48-49 just happened to coincide with my reading of the citations of those chapters in 1 Nephi 20-21. It actually gave me a brand new and exciting perspective on why they may have been cited.

Barker writes from the premise that the author is Deutero-Isaiah, in some cases re-working older material, but in these particular chapters, she makes the insight that they are declaring a New Mythology. Her thought is that he is declaring that the Former Things relates to the older Israelite Mythology, which has now been fulfilled in the events of History due to wickedness, and that the New History was about to begin (see Isaiah 48:3-7).

It follows on the heals of the (un-cited in the Book of Mormon) Isaiah 33, which has the following commentary by Barker:

The next section (43:22-28) also moves forward from the old ways. Implicit is the people's accusation that the LORD had failed them and allowed them to suffer the disaster of defeat and exile. The response to the accusation is cast in terms drawn from the old Atonement ritual. The text is difficult, and 1QIsa(a) has several different readings of v.23. The gist, however, is the contrast between v.23b and v.24b "The LORD has not made Israel [singular] serve him with offerings or wearied him with incense." (v23b), "but Israel has made the LORD his servant with his sins and wearied him with his iniquities." This is servant terminology; the LORD was the Servant who bore the sins and was wearied with iniquity, and those who should have borne them, the mediators, the princes of the sanctuary, failed through their own sin (v.27). They were profaned and driven out, and Israel, as a result, was destroyed. the LORD himself therefore takes the role of the sin bearer (v.25) and performs the Great Atonement (cf. Ezekiel 34 where the evil shepherds are judged and the LORD himself becomes the shepherd of his people.)

In the times of the former things, the high priest, the prince of the sanctuary, had borne the sin of the people. He wore the sacred name on his forehead, and this enabled him to bear (i.e. forgive, the same Hebrew word) the sin of Israel (Exod 28:36-38). But, says the prophet, the "mediators" (NRSV "interpreters," but this meaning is not appropriate here) themselves rebelled, as did the angels who fell from heaven, and they were profaned. Ezekiel 28 gives a parallel account of the demise of the ancient high priesthood, now in the form of an oracle against Tyre, but originally, as can be seen from the vestments of the heavenly figure, describing the high priest in Jerusalem (v.13; cf. LXX Exod 28:17-20). The prince or king (vv. 2, 11) was a heavenly figure who walked in the mountain garden of God (v.13), but his wisdom made him proud, and so he was cast out, and became mortal (cf. Isa 14:12-20). All the words used to describe the punishment of the prince-king are translations of the word hll, which Isa 43:28 renders "profaned." Ezekiel's prince was "defiled" (Ezek 28:7), "met a violent death" (Ezek 28: 8, "was wounded" (Ezek 28:9), "cast out as profane" (Ezek 28:16), and "profaned" (Ezek 28:18). He became mortal.

Deutero-Isaiah describes the mediator as the first ancestor, Adam, showing how the two Eden stories from the OT relate to each other. The more familiar version in Genesis 2-3 grew out of an older temple myth about the royal high priest in the heavenly mountain garden, represented in Jerusalem by the temple. Adam, who had walked in the garden of the LORD, was remembered as the sanctuary priest; as he left Eden he offered the special blend of incense which could only be used in the sanctuary (Jub 3:27; cf. Exod 30:34). Here is yet another example of the democratization of the old cult; Adam, formerly the Man figure (the Son of Man) in the heavenly sanctuary who rebelled against God, has become Everyman.

Deutero-Isaiah's "new things" were a cult without such a mediator figure; the LORD himself, who gave his glory to no other (Isa 42: 8, would no longer be represented in the temple by the High Priest. He himself would perform the great atonement and blot out his people's transgressions (43:25)

Okay, now compare this with the context of Nephi's citation of this. It is immediately after their exile in the Wilderness, and arriving in the New World, and being commanded to begin a brand new set of Modern scriptures to document this New Era. It is at the very end of the First Book of Nephi. The beginning of The Second Book of Nephi begins (in chapter 2) with a New Interpretation of the Adam story by the Patriarch/Prophet, making Adam become even more firmly routed and interpreted as the 'Every Man'. Compare also the development in Atonement theology by Nephi and his successors that make strong professions that God himself will perform the Atonement.

The fit in theme and content kind of blew me away unexpectedly as I was reading this.

[Kevin Christensen]

Very interesting observations.

Kevin Christensen

Pittsburgh, PA