Nephi And His Asherah

[Robert F. Smith]

The issue is that the topics of temple ritual, Heavenly Mother, whatever are equally opaque in the BOM as they are in the Bible. You and Jeremy Orbe-Smith both referred to plain and precious, while supporting the Asherah concept in the BOM. I maintain this concept is equally opaque in the BOM.

My point was that once "plain and precious" have been removed, you're not going to see "plain & precious" anymore. It is logically going to be opaque. Aside from that, I don't know what you mean by my "supporting the Asherah concept in the BOM" (I did no such thing), any more than Abraham supported the Mother Goddess in Egypt and throughout the ancient Near East in his own time. We have no hint of him worshiping the strange, idolatrous gods he mentions in the Book of Abraham, and indeed their priests attempt to use Abe as a human sacrifice. That does not stop Abe from using Egyptian deities and symbolism to tell his story and to describe God, the Holy Ghost, etc. (see the three facsimiles).

Nor is the Book of Mormon shy about using arcane and esoteric symbolism to tell about God and his exploits, e.g., the mythical sea-monster Rahab is part of the Creation Story, and we find it being used figuratively at 2 Nephi 8:9 ǁIsaiah 51:9 ǁ”dragon”; cf. Isaiah 27:1, Isaiah 30:7 (LXX has Rabab), which parallel Leviathan/Lotan, which the LDS Bible Dictionary says is "symbolic." The LDS Bible footnote to Isa 27:1 says "a legendary sea monster representing the forces of chaos that opposed the Creator."

The name Asherah does not occur in the Book of Mormon, and whether Dan Peterson, JeremyOrbe-Smith, and others are correct to find figurative references therein to the same divine Mother which Eliza R. Snow saw fit to sing about (and which many of us appreciate so much) remains a matter of dispute -- unproven, but rather interesting and not necessarily blasphemous. I consider it a lovely mystery which should be dealt with very carefully, if at all.

[Robert F. Smith]

Robert F. Smith, on 04 July 2012 - 05:25 PM, said:

Bokovoy, David, "Temple Imagery in the Book of Mormon," 4-part BYU Education Week lectures for 2011, which I summarized here on MDDB.

Do you have a link to this? I was there, but I've forgotten the details.

Go to http://www.mormondialogue.org/topic/55349-bokovoy-on-temple-imagery-in-the-book-of-mormon/ , and see posts 1, 4, 8, and 13 for my summaries.

[Robert F. Smith]

The issue is that the topics of temple ritual, Heavenly Mother, whatever are equally opaque in the BOM as they are in the Bible. You and Jeremy Orbe-Smith both referred to plain and precious, while supporting the Asherah concept in the BOM. I maintain this concept is equally opaque in the BOM.

I wouldn't say that they "are equally opaque." I think that some things are more easily discerned than others. You really need to attend a David Bokovoy presentation with Power Point on temple symbolism in the Book of Mormon, or read Joe Spencer's book, An Other Testament. Then report back to us on how opaque they still are and why. Even Nibley was surprised when he spotted it 45 years ago. We live in a very different world today, a world bereft of ancient symbolism.

[robuchan]

I wouldn't say that they "are equally opaque." I think that some things are more easily discerned than others. You really need to attend a David Bokovoy presentation with Power Point on temple symbolism in the Book of Mormon, or read Joe Spencer's book, An Other Testament. Then report back to us on how opaque they still are and why. Even Nibley was surprised when he spotted it 45 years ago. We live in a very different world today, a world bereft of ancient symbolism.

And couldn't a clever LDS scholar find the same stuff in the Bible?

[volgadon]

And couldn't a clever LDS scholar find the same stuff in the Bible?

So much for actually looking at the link.

[Ron Beron]

I wouldn't say that they "are equally opaque." I think that some things are more easily discerned than others. You really need to attend a David Bokovoy presentation with Power Point on temple symbolism in the Book of Mormon, or read Joe Spencer's book, An Other Testament. Then report back to us on how opaque they still are and why. Even Nibley was surprised when he spotted it 45 years ago. We live in a very different world today, a world bereft of ancient symbolism.

Having read some Jung and Campbell I cannot agree more with the fact that we have ignored the use of symbols and archetypes in our daily lives, despite having them all around us. It is no wonder, therefore when we are confronted with the symbolism some evident in the scriptures and other ancient texts that depend so heavily on symbolism.

[robuchan]

So much for actually looking at the link.

You guys need to apply Ben McGuire's parallelomaia to yourselves.

[volgadon]

You guys need to apply Ben McGuire's parallelomaia to yourselves.

At the very least, your propensity for cheap insults indicates thrift. Not a bad quality. "And couldn't a clever LDS scholar find the same stuff in the Bible?" This remark indicates that you haven't looked at the link, since David Bokovoy applied the what is found in the Bible to the Book of Mormon text.

[Benjamin McGuire]

We certainly resurrected an old thread, didn't we ...

And since my name was brought up, let me throw my two cents out there.

inquiringmind reopened this thread with this question:

Was there ever a legitamite place for Ashtoreth worship in the religion of Israel?

This is an odd sort of question right? After all, Israelite religion changed over time. One of the practices that was not only accepted as a part of Israelite religion, but was also encoded in Mosaic Law was the use of Terraphim - household idols. Obviously that practice was phased out over time, and was eventually rejected. Was it legitimate? It would seem so - but not consistently. Israelite religion (if we want to use that notion) covers a period of time from Moses through Solomon. After that, we have the divided kingdom - and within the divided kingdom, there are some likely significant differences in religious observances (in Isaiah, we see some recognition of the fragmented state of what we might term Israelite religion).

What we do know about Asherah worship in the Israelite cult was that it happened. It was a part of the popular religion in Israel. It was apparently widely practiced. I say this with a bit of a caveat of course, and that caveat is that we only loosely connect the traditions with the female divine with Asherah (it becomes a useful descriptor in some ways - but it isn't necessarily entirely accurate - as the identification of the female divine in Israelite religion isn't one that we find in an onomasticon. And there are several potential theories (Judith Hadley is almost necessary reading on this subject).

So, independent of the rather subjective notion of legitimacy, we certainly do find the worship of Asherah in Israelite religion (although again, its debated what this means).

Then we have the Josian reform. I am largely in disagreement with Bob Crocket's point of view over the issue of the reform - but not so much when we get to the ramifications of the reform for theology. The Book of Mormon does not (in my view) adopt a Josian reform position and seems to speak against it. It regularly uses northern texts (including its apparent use of the northern source of Samuel). It does not favor the Davidic monarchy (particularly in Jacob we see some of these attacks - although, the use of proto-Deuteronomy in particular is not favorable to the Davidic monarchy, and the kingship codes of Deuteronomy 17 are alluded to with some regularity - and they represent a censure on David). Then we have the rejection of the Davidic king in the person of Zarahemla, and potentially the entire reframing of the Nephite departure in terms of a new Exodus, which could well be part of a metaphoric understanding of the end of Deut. 28 (this is sometimes interpreted as a way for God to start over so to speak - a theme certainly visible in the Book of Mormon in the portrayal of a new Exodus, a new promised land, and so on). Then there is the repeated use of Deuteronomy 18 - in reference to the prophets.

The Book of Mormon also really favors the northern theology in other ways (and not just in its treatment of the monarchy). One of the most profound of these in the Book of Mormon is the theology of the presence. Gone is the southern emphasis - first on the ark of the covenant and then on the temple. It is replaced by the idea of the presence of God within the community. Noticeably absent is any reference to the Ark of the Covenant, and completely missing is the Josian notion of the dwelling place of God in the temple - this is replaced as it was in the northern texts with a name theology (and this is further developed over time in the Book of Mormon) - with the presence of God being (for lack of a better term at the moment) in heaven. Along with this is the obvious rejection of the cult centralization in Jerusalem. All in all, it makes an interesting issue. But the point for me is that the Book of Mormon does not adopt a Josian reform position - and instead opposes it in several theological ways. This seems to follow the expectations we get based on the texts own narrative.

Now, in a nod to Bob, I also don't believe that our own doctrine of a heavenly mother has anything to do with Asherah veneration in the Old Testament. It is based an something else entirely. Interestingly enough, there seems to have been a shift in Israelite/Jewish theology with the removal of the Asherah in which the void that is left is filled by a more ambiguous Wisdom figure. The veneration of Wisdom continues with a salvation narrative that exists outside of the Law of Moses, particularly in the wisdom texts including Psalms and Proverbs - and this gets used in the New Testament as Jesus is first described as a servant of this Wisdom, and later as the personification of Wisdom (not an entirely new development as we find similar imagery used in Sirach) - a salvation apart from the Law of Moses, which was a natural expansion for Jewish followers of Jesus. I think that if we want to view Asherah theology as a cultural phenomenon, even if we have a Lehi rejecting the Josian reforms (which were far more expansive than just the removal of the Asherah), the Book of Mormon does not create or use an Asherah theology, but perhaps has instead likewise adapted it to something else which is more in line with the theology that it presents. What is interesting for us is the development of these ideas fitting perhaps that time frame when Lehi is departing, and matching an ongoing debate within the Jewish culture over the issue of these reforms - a debate which had not gone away by the time of Lehi's departure.

Finally, for Robuchan:

You guys need to apply Ben McGuire's parallelomaia to yourselves.

I think that rather than lumping everything together, the best way to work is to start with the strongest arguments, don't you? The entire book of Jacob is framed by Psalm 95 - a temple Psalm placed within a temple context (mentioned in the link). There, it isn't so much a work in parallels as it is an obvious reuse of Old Testament material within a specific context that is both shaped by the sources Jacob uses, and which shapes a (re)interpretation of those same sources within a Nephite society. By obvious, I mean that it quotes it. In this way we aren't simply engaging in parallelomania, but instead working with an interpretive framework that has some justification within the text.

There are of course two parts to this discussion. The first is identifying what the sources are. In my case, from a believer's standpoint, I am quite interested in how the Book of Mormon uses the scripture that it quotes, alludes to, reinscribes, and so on. The second part is to analyze those sources for patterns.

Ben M.

[Robert F. Smith]

And couldn't a clever LDS scholar find the same stuff in the Bible?

Or a Methodist scholar like Margaret Barker. She believes that, despite the revisionist efforts of the Deuteronomistic School, some of it is still there in opaque form. In other cases it is transmitted sub rosa and surfaces in such texts as the Book of I Enoch (Ethiopic Enoch), which remains part of the Scriptural Canon in some traditions, and in the New Testament. You'll have to judge for yourself whether she successfully makes her case, or whether you can find such instances for yourself in the Bible. The point is that, as an outsider, she has carefully read the Book of Mormon and states unequivocally that it contains what she defines as the pre-exilic view.

[Robert F. Smith]

You guys need to apply Ben McGuire's parallelomaia to yourselves.

Yes, and everyone needs to apply the same standards of examination to the claims that are made. In David Bokovoy's case, he cites the big guns in non-Mormon biblical scholarship and follows their example. His application of various sacred motifs discerned by them (temple, council in heaven, etc.) to the Book of Mormon is systematic rather than loose and coincidental. He learned how to do this through much reading and through the demanding doctoral training he successfully completed at Brandeis.

If you have a chance, you ought to come to Bokovoy's upcoming lectures at the BYU Education Week in Provo August 14-17 this year. He will speak about the Council of the Gods for four days, and he will no doubt do so with his usual good humor and contagious enthusiasm.

[Kevin Christensen]

You guys need to apply Ben McGuire's parallelomaia to yourselves.

How about doing so with specific application, rather than lableling and hand waving dismissals? I always find Ben's work most enlightful and useful:

Hayes offers seven specific questions that can be used to test the presence of literary reliance (intentional or as an “echo”) between texts[13]:

1) Availability: Was the source of the alleged reference available to the author and/or the original reader?

2) Volume: How extensive is the explicit repetition of words or syntax (or other indicators)? How prominent is the material in the source text? How much rhetorical stress does the reference receive in the borrowing text?

3) Recurrence: How often does the author cite or allude to the same source?

4) Thematic Coherence: How well does the alleged parallel fit into the argument that the alluding text is developing?

5) Historical Plausibility: Could the author have intended the alleged meaning? Would his readers have understood it?

6) Historical Interpretation: Have others seen the same relationship?

7) Satisfaction: Does the proposed reading make sense?

The one element from Dowd’s list not covered here is that of distinctiveness (or uniqueness). When material can be found in multiple sources, reliance can only be demonstrated by showing that the material in the text in question only occurs “in a form which one would not have used them had it not been for a knowledge of their occurrence in this particular form in another source.”[14]

From Ben McGuire at:

http://solomonspalding.com/SRP/parallels.htm

Ben was dealing with claims that Joseph Smith had relied upon specific known texts in the creation of the Book of Mormon, and his essay demonstrates that evidence for dependence is very weak.

When I'm comparing the Book of Mormon with Margaret Barker's work on the First Temple, I'm acknowledging the Bible as a known specific text, but looking a constellation of ideas, reconstructed in Barker's case from texts that for the most part emerged after Joseph Smith translated the Book of Mormon. How would Ben's use of computer searches for comparing instances of English phrases help to evaluate that? One thing that is quite helpful to me is to consider that the things that Alexander Campbell complains about as being most obviously wrong about the Book of Mormon, such as pre-Christian knowledge of Christ, and Temple building, turn out to be remarkably on target in light of the later research and sources that Barker employs. So her evaluation of the Book of Mormon is very different than his.

In my essay in Glimpses of Lehi's Jerusalem, I offered this as my method for evaluating the significance of parallels between Margaret Barker's reconstruction of the First Temple and the Book of Mormon.

In order to be significant, any parallels that we find should appear as part of a woven fabric rather than as isolated instances. Any differences should have valid explanations in terms of reasonable historical factors and the nature of available sources. If there is no truth to either account, we should expect the views to have little or nothing in common. If one is accurate and the other false, we should also expect their accounts to have little or nothing in common. If both are accurate, they ought to demonstrate elaborate convergence, which indeed they do.

FWIW

Kevin Christensen

Bethel Park, PA

[robuchan]

How about doing so with specific application, rather than lableling and hand waving dismissals? I always find Ben's work most enlightful and useful:

From Ben McGuire at:

http://solomonspaldi...P/parallels.htm

Ben was dealing with claims that Joseph Smith had relied upon specific known texts in the creation of the Book of Mormon, and his essay demonstrates that evidence for dependence is very weak.

When I'm comparing the Book of Mormon with Margaret Barker's work on the First Temple, I'm acknowledging the Bible as a known specific text, but looking a constellation of ideas, reconstructed in Barker's case from texts that for the most part emerged after Joseph Smith translated the Book of Mormon. How would Ben's use of computer searches for comparing instances of English phrases help to evaluate that? One thing that is quite helpful to me is to consider that the things that Alexander Campbell complains about as being most obviously wrong about the Book of Mormon, such as pre-Christian knowledge of Christ, and Temple building, turn out to be remarkably on target in light of the later research and sources that Barker employs. So her evaluation of the Book of Mormon is very different than his.

In my essay in Glimpses of Lehi's Jerusalem, I offered this as my method for evaluating the significance of parallels between Margaret Barker's reconstruction of the First Temple and the Book of Mormon.

FWIW

Kevin Christensen

Bethel Park, PA

My son wrote a journal entry about his bike trip to the grocery store. There's no doubt in my mind you could read it and instantly identify parallels with ancient temple ritual hidden in the Old Testament. You could probably even get Margaret Barker to sign off on it.

[Ron Beron]

How about doing so with specific application, rather than lableling and hand waving dismissals? I always find Ben's work most enlightful and useful:

From Ben McGuire at:

http://solomonspaldi...P/parallels.htm

Ben was dealing with claims that Joseph Smith had relied upon specific known texts in the creation of the Book of Mormon, and his essay demonstrates that evidence for dependence is very weak.

When I'm comparing the Book of Mormon with Margaret Barker's work on the First Temple, I'm acknowledging the Bible as a known specific text, but looking a constellation of ideas, reconstructed in Barker's case from texts that for the most part emerged after Joseph Smith translated the Book of Mormon. How would Ben's use of computer searches for comparing instances of English phrases help to evaluate that? One thing that is quite helpful to me is to consider that the things that Alexander Campbell complains about as being most obviously wrong about the Book of Mormon, such as pre-Christian knowledge of Christ, and Temple building, turn out to be remarkably on target in light of the later research and sources that Barker employs. So her evaluation of the Book of Mormon is very different than his.

In my essay in Glimpses of Lehi's Jerusalem, I offered this as my method for evaluating the significance of parallels between Margaret Barker's reconstruction of the First Temple and the Book of Mormon.

FWIW

Kevin Christensen

Bethel Park, PA

I have been looking at first temple theology and was wondering if you ran across any examples of messianic movements at that time?

[Ron Beron]

My son wrote a journal entry about his bike trip to the grocery store. There's no doubt in my mind you could read it and instantly identify parallels with ancient temple ritual hidden in the Old Testament. You could probably even get Margaret Barker to sign off on it.

Only if he did it 3000 years ago.

[Kevin Christensen]

My son wrote a journal entry about his bike trip to the grocery store. There's no doubt in my mind you could read it and instantly identify parallels with ancient temple ritual hidden in the Old Testament. You could probably even get Margaret Barker to sign off on it.

Seriously? That would be something.

Kevin Christensen

Pittsburgh, PA

[Kerry A. Shirts]

I wouldn't say that they "are equally opaque." I think that some things are more easily discerned than others. You really need to attend a David Bokovoy presentation with Power Point on temple symbolism in the Book of Mormon, or read Joe Spencer's book, An Other Testament. Then report back to us on how opaque they still are and why. Even Nibley was surprised when he spotted it 45 years ago. We live in a very different world today, a world bereft of ancient symbolism.

That's good since its progress! We should not have to remain in the ancient tribal mentalities and philosophies. They were useful for their time, but not ours.

[Kerry A. Shirts]

My son wrote a journal entry about his bike trip to the grocery store. There's no doubt in my mind you could read it and instantly identify parallels with ancient temple ritual hidden in the Old Testament. You could probably even get Margaret Barker to sign off on it.

LOL! Well........ me thinks you might be pushing that one just a wee bit......

[Calm]

That's good since its progress! We should not have to remain in the ancient tribal mentalities and philosophies. They were useful for their time, but not ours.

Unfortunately, most people nowadays are clueless when it comes to speaking about modern symbols and feel uncomfortable even though they are surrounded by them.

[robuchan]

Unfortunately, most people nowadays are clueless when it comes to speaking about modern symbols and feel uncomfortable even though they are surrounded by them.

It's because most symbols are so common that they are used frequently with no intention of making a connection to a symbolic meaning.

"Tie a Yellow Ribbon Round the Old Oak Tree" is not Tony Orlando's attempt to asianize the Mother in Heaven doctrine.

[Benjamin McGuire]

"Tie a Yellow Ribbon Round the Old Oak Tree" is not Tony Orlando's attempt to asianize the Mother in Heaven doctrine.

Of course not - but then the Book of Mormon gives us some very specific things doesn't it - it tells us that the elements of the vision are symbolic and representations, it tells us that the tree is in fact the Tree of Life (with much of what goes along with that), and so on. So do you believe that your own comparison here is useful or helpful or even remotely accurate?

Ben M.

[Ron Beron]

'robuchan'

It's because most symbols are so common that they are used frequently with no intention of making a connection to a symbolic meaning

Or they are used so frequently with no recollection of their original meaning or intent, but yet, used because they strike a familiar chord.

"Tie a Yellow Ribbon Round the Old Oak Tree" is not Tony Orlando's attempt to asianize the Mother in Heaven doctrine.

asianize...??

[ANACO]

'robuchan'

Or they are used so frequently with no recollection of their original meaning or intent, but yet, used because they strike a familiar chord.

asianize...??

Not sure what was meant about asianize.

There is a Japanese Festival of the Suwa-taisha shrine called ONBASHIRA-SAI held every 7 years.

See this youtube video at approx. 5:00 minutes.

A local rabbi in Japan is asked about it. He pulls out the Bible and the video continues:

"In ancient Israel there was the same thought. People believed a deity dwells in wooden pillars.

What is the diety that dwells in the wooden pillar?"

The name of the deity is goddess Asherah.

The Japanese word for pillar "hashira" originated from Asherah.

This notion of Asherah is not unique to LDS Apologists.

To apply it to the Book of Mormon and Lehi's and Nephi's vision of the Tree of Life and of the Mother of our Savior, is really quite odd.

It's downright disrespectful, in my opinion.

http://www.aisf.or.j...a/h/hashira.htm Hashira

Edited July 7, 2012 by ANACO

[robuchan]

Of course not - but then the Book of Mormon gives us some very specific things doesn't it - it tells us that the elements of the vision are symbolic and representations, it tells us that the tree is in fact the Tree of Life (with much of what goes along with that), and so on. So do you believe that your own comparison here is useful or helpful or even remotely accurate?

Ben M.

Yes, I think it's equally viable. Finding Asherah in Nephi's vision is looking beyond the mark that's beyond the mark.

[Kevin Christensen]

I have been looking at first temple theology and was wondering if you ran across any examples of messianic movements at that time?

The point of First Temple theology is that the anointed High Priest who entered the Holy of Holies once a year on the Day of Atonement was what they concieved of as the Messiah, which means anointed.

But I doubt if that's what you had in mind. The closest thing in the direction of a national savior political figure would have been King Josiah himself. Marvin Sweeny's book on the topic is called King Josiah of Judah: Lost Messiah of Israel.

Best,

Kevin Christensen

Bethel Park, PA