Are there contradictions between Nephi & Abinadi? Dr Joseph Spencer says Yes! He also makes the case that when Jesus quotes Isaiah in the Book of Mormon, it is really different than Abinadi, who is really different than Nephi. We’ll also discuss why Joe isn’t interested in the multiple Isaiah problem in the Book of Mormon. Check out our conversation…
Don’t miss our other conversations with Joseph: https://gospeltangents.com/people/joseph-spencer/
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Translation Order
GT 00:23 But I do want to go back to this idea of approaching the Book of Mormon from how Joseph Smith translated it.
Joseph 00:31 Yes.
GT 00:31 So we start with Mosiah.
Joseph 00:33 Yes.
GT 00:34 Go through to Moroni. Then Joseph Smith starts over to replace the lost 116 pages, where we get 1st and 2nd Nephi, as well as Jacob.
Joseph 00:46 Yes, Jacob, Enos, Jarom, Omni.
GT 00:47 Right. And then Words of Mormon, doesn’t that cover 100 years or something, like a long time?
Joseph 00:55 Yeah, well Omni especially. Then Words of Mormon just bridges.
GT 01:00 Bridges.
Joseph 01:00 Yeah.
GT 01:02 There’s a lot of people who would argue that Joseph’s, especially when we talk about Godhead theology, evolved over time. And so, I guess I’ll start with the traditional argument. And I know Don Bradley takes issue with this. But traditionally, a lot of people have looked, Steve Pynakker, my friend, has called it “the most Christian book there is.” Even Mike Austin at Snow College, I just talked to him. He says [that] one of the problems with biblical scholars, as opposed to the Book of Mormon, is we have the editor Mormon going through here, and being like, oh. Obviously, what Isaiah said, was talking about Christ. Whereas you don’t get that in the Bible, you have to read into it.
Joseph 02:04 Yep.
GT 02:04 Mike Austin has said [that] he appreciates that it’s so explicit in the Book of Mormon. Whereas, you have to make it up in the Bible.
Joseph 02:14 Right. That’s right. Yeah.
GT 02:17 And so once you get traditional [narrative.] I know, we’re not really supposed to talk about trinity, but I want to go there for a minute.
Joseph 02:25 Sure, sure.
GT 02:27 Even Community of Christ looks at the Book of Mormon [as] very Trinitarian. The traditional understanding has been, well, it wasn’t until we get to the Nauvoo period, where Joseph gets into the King Follett sermon, and we start expanding on the nature of God, and become a lot more Godhead theology and away from Trinitarian. So, would you agree or disagree with that argument?
Joseph 02:57 Yeah, there are two questions there really. There’s a question about what’s happening in the Book of Mormon. What does the Book of Mormon do with this question? Then there’s a question to ask about just the history of the Church from 1829 until 1844. So, if I’m asking the question just about the Book of Mormon, I don’t think we can actually make good sense of it on an evolutionary model, where Joseph’s working out his ideas in the Book of Mormon.
GT 03:21 Where he starts Trinitarian and becomes Godhead.
Joseph 03:24 Well, within the Book of Mormon, for the moment, right?
GT 03:25 Okay.
Joseph 03:26 So sometimes people will say, “Oh, what you have, especially if you read the Book of Mormon in dictation order is you can track how Joseph’s ideas develop while he’s doing this. I don’t think that actually works. It’s not just because I believe in the historicity of the Book of Mormon, which I do. It’s not just that. It’s that I think it actually doesn’t make sense of the text. So, for example, if you take this question of what looks like Trinitarianism, in the Book of Mormon, you would have to tell a story there where in Mosiah, he’s still got this idea of a dual nature, Christ: Christ as Father and Son, and so on. But by the time he gets to 3rd Nephi, he’s now got this, oh, here’s what the Father, Son and the Holy Ghost are doing. He’s not necessarily treating them as separate beings. But there’s a bigger, more complicated picture. The Holy Ghost as part of this, and the Father, Son, and the Holy Ghost make a triad. Some people have read that; “Oh, in Mosiah, he’s got one idea, by the time he gets to 3rd Nephi, he’s got another idea. Here’s why I think that doesn’t work, though. When you get to Ether, it sounds like Mosiah. Then when you get to 2nd Nephi, 31, it sounds like 3rd Nephi 11, again. So it seems to—
GT 04:29 It’s going back and forth.
Joseph 04:30 It seems like it’s going back and forth. So then you have to ask, why is it going back and forth? What’s happening here? One thing that’s very striking is in Mosiah, we’re in a pre-Christian context. This is presented as happening 150 years before Christ’s birth. The Book of Ether is going back to the Jaredites’ story, which is also, then, really early, way before the birth of Christ. [In] 3rd Nephi, of course, this is Christ himself after his resurrection talking. In 2nd Nephi 31, this is Nephi talking about what Christ will teach. So, the Book of Mormon is actually very consistent here. It’s suggesting that before Christ, you get a picture where God comes down in the flesh and is Father and Son. Then in 3rd Nephi, and 2nd Nephi 31, you get a picture in which, once Christ comes, we talk about Father, Son, Holy Ghost. So, I think the Book of Mormon, rather than suggesting an evolutionary development across its translation, or its production, is actually giving us a really consistent theological picture of a before Christ comes picture, and then after Christ comes picture. It’s not evolutionary. It’s alternating in order to spell out those two different pictures.
GT 05:36 Hmmm, very Interesting.
Joseph 05:38 Yeah, I probably ought to write something on that. I haven’t written that for publication anyway, but…
GT 05:43 Okay, so we’ll hear it in October at BOMSA?
Joseph 05:46 No, I already know what I’m doing in October; maybe next October. {both laughing}
Christ on Isaiah in 3rd Nephi
GT 05:51 All right. Well, did we cover everything with Abinadi there?
Joseph 05:59 It gives us a good sense. Right?
GT 06:00 Yeah.
Joseph 06:00 Yeah.
GT 06:02 Well, let’s dive more into the book. Tell us, I’m trying to remember where you went after Abinadi.
Joseph 06:08 Yes, so, I do two chapters on Abinadi where I look first at what Abinadi himself is saying so we can textualize his claims. Then [I did] a chapter where we put him in conversation with a larger history of how people go to Isaiah, that quaintness, quaint traditionality comes out of something. Then I do two chapters on 3rd Nephi, Christ.
GT 06:25 Okay.
Joseph 06:2 What did Christ do?
GT 06:26 Let’s dive into there.
Joseph 06:29 Yeah. So What’s so striking about 3rd Nephi, of course, I give a whole chapter to just sorting it out, all the data. What’s happening here? Is Christ talking about Isaiah? What parts of Isaiah, etc. But then I do a chapter where I put that in conversation with the history of how people have read Isaiah. What’s so striking after reading Abinadi, is that now it doesn’t look quaintly traditional at all. We go straight to the margins of Christianity where Abinadi looks like “oh, yeah, that’s stuff I’ve heard before. Though that sounds a little old fashioned.” Christ sounds like he’s talking about Isaiah on the fringe, like way out, the wacky people out there on the margins of society or something like that.
GT 07:07 Well, didn’t Isaiah walk around the streets naked?
Joseph 07:11 Yeah, fair enough. He did. {both laughing}
GT 07:12 We don’t talk about that in LDS Sunday School.
Joseph 07:15 We don’t. We probably should. It’s pretty extreme.
GT 07:19 He’s kind of a crazy guy.
Joseph 07:20 Yeah. So yeah, Christ is talking about him on the fringes, maybe makes some good sense. {Rick laughing} But yeah, if you put what happens in 3rd Nephi, with Isaiah, in conversation with how a 19th century person would have seen this, they would have said, “Yeah, Abinadi sounded mainstream. Christ sounds way out there.”
GT 07:40 Well, wasn’t Christ way out there.
Joseph 07:41 Yeah, amen. Right? Yeah, there is no question. But yeah, this is really something. He sounds like fiery Millennium kinds of things, apocalyptic kinds of things, where Abinadi is not sounding that way at all. This is within one project that Mormon writes. Mormon writes Mosiah through 3rd Nephi. So, within that one project, we go from one very traditional picture of Isaiah’s meaning, to a very radical picture.
GT 08:11 And so talk about why is Christ’s Isaiah is way more radical than Abinadi’s Isaiah?
Joseph 08:19 I don’t know if I know why. That’s a good question. In the book, I’m mostly just trying to figure out what is going on, not why he goes there. But at the very least, it seems this is part of the story. What Christ emphasizes in 3rd Nephi that Abinadi never emphasizes in Mosiah, is all these last days gathering, et cetera, et cetera. And this, he’s going to use Isaiah to explain all of that. Then we’re going to be talking about millenarian kinds of things, gathering of Israel, homelands of Israelite tribes and remnants, and so on. And so yeah, necessarily the kind of thing Christ is talking about all through his 3rd Nephi sermons, this is going to put us on the margins of Christianity. Most Christians are not going to want to talk about, well, where do we get Israel? How do we find them and gather them? That’s not 19th century American Christianity for the most part.
GT 09:08 Because that doesn’t come until the 20th century?
Joseph 09:11 Yeah, there’s some in the 20th century, for sure. There’s some in the 19th century, to be clear, but its margins. It’s fringy. That’s the kind of stuff you do if you’re a little bit weird. You’re a little bit out there.
GT 09:22 Well, I mean, does this show Joseph’s prophetic ability? maybe for those who don’t accept the divinity of the Book of Mormon, to say, well, I mean, it kind of does show, look. Christ believes in the gathering of Israel. In 1949, which is our history, but Joseph’s future, I mean, doesn’t that look like a prophecy fulfilled?
Joseph 09:49 If one takes that to be the fulfillment of that prophecy, then yeah, right. Though, I mean, various Latter-day Saints have had very different opinions about that. Is the establishment of the state of Israel, the fulfillment of promises about Israel’s gathering. Yeah, different Latter-day Saint leaders and writers have had very different opinions about that. Some are like, “Oh, look, it’s happening. Israel as a nation, this is the thing.” Others are like, yeah, that’s not the fulfillment. This is something else.
GT 10:16 Because, that’s, for me growing up, That was like, look. Israel in 1949 becomes a nation. This is a fulfillment of prophecy. Who were some of those that would reject that?
Joseph 10:27 Most vocal is Bruce R. McConkie.
GT 10:29 Oh, really?
Joseph 10:30 Yeah. He says, this is absolutely not what these scriptures are prophesying. And I’m not using Bruce R. McConkie here as an authority like boom, there it is. But it’s striking that someone that vocal is like, “Nah, no, that’s not what’s going on.” His evidence that he uses is to say, this is a secular state. This is not a spiritual gathering. Our scriptures tend to talk about a spiritual gathering and a turning to Christ and then a gathering physically. And he’s like, that’s not what’s happening here. So he actually reads all of Zionism and the establishment of the State of Israel as totally irrelevant.
GT 11:06 Oh, wow.
Joseph 11:06 That’s pretty interesting. Yeah.
GT 11:07 That’s in Mormon Doctrine?
Joseph 11:09 A couple of places. I don’t remember if he says it in Mormon Doctrine, itself. He might. But he certainly says it in a number of places.
GT 11:16 Well, that’s very interesting.
Multiple Isaiah Problem
GT 11:19 Well, that’s very interesting. I do remember hearing, I don’t know if this is a good transition point, but it’s going to be. On another podcast, and I can’t remember which one it was, I would name it, if I remembered. Maybe you’ll remember. We talked a little bit about the multiple Isaiah problem. You said that was very uninteresting.
Joseph 11:45 Yeah. It is very, very uninteresting to me.
GT 11:48 It’s not very uninteresting to a lot of people who look at Isaiah specifically. We can talk a little bit about multiple Isaiahs. But Isaiah 53 was written after, supposedly, according to scholarship…
Joseph 12:03 That’s the consensus, yeah.
GT 12:05 After Nephi would have left Jerusalem.
Joseph 12:08 Right. That’s the going claim. Yeah.
GT 12:11 And so, some will use this to say, “Well, how could Nephi get this for sure when it hadn’t been written yet?
GT 12:21 So some will reject the Book of Mormon. I will tell you about this. I talked to Sandra Tanner. We were talking about Hofmann forgeries, and I got into biblical forgeries. I said, so you would agree with the BYU guys that there was only one Isaiah? And she said, “Yes.” It was like, wow! I got Sandra to agree with BYU!
Joseph 12:43 Evangelicals. Yeah, biblical inerrancy. Right?
GT 12:4 But for a lot of people, I guess, especially those who maybe lose their testimony of the Book of Mormon over an issue like this. Because that would be very important to them. Why is that uninteresting to you?
Joseph 13:03 Yeah, I mean, for a couple of reasons. As Grant Hardy says, I think really correctly, for a religion that has angels and gold plates, we have a lot of possibilities theologically for explaining Isaiah. So let’s say the biblical consensus is 100% accurate” all of what’s called 2nd Isaiah, Isaiah 40 through 55, is exilic, and so would not exist in writing until after Nephi’s family has left Jerusalem. Grant Hardy says, “I mean, if you believe in plates and angels already, it’s not hard to say, ‘Well, God could bring some version of that the Nephi. God could give that to Joseph Smith. God could just override Joseph Smith and stick that in the text. There are all kinds of possibilities that one can explain it with theologically, if you’re already swallowing angels and plates.'” I think he’s right about that. I don’t think it’s a do or die kind of question for the Book of Mormon at all.
Joseph 13:52 I also think it’s uninteresting, because–so that one. I think it can be explained if one wants an explanation. But for two, I find it an uninteresting question, because it’s just taken up all the oxygen in the room on the question of Isaiah and the Book of Mormon. I mean, if I want to put it really baldly, one major reason to write this book, is to change the question we have about Isaiah in the Book of Mormon. Because this is the question we all have, or at least we have all had about Isaiah and the Book of Mormon. It’s just how do we explain this problem? It just seems to me, if that problem is unsolvable, because the two sides are going to take radically opposed positions, and there’s no common ground, then it’s uninteresting, simply because everyone’s minds are made up. Everyone moves on. And in the meanwhile, the Book of Mormon is doing all kinds of interesting things with Isaiah. So, my first question and the thing that really interests me is just what is it actually saying, intellectually, theologically, spiritually, about the meaning of Isaiah and its relevance In the modern world? For my money, that’s way more interesting. So, I recognize the problem. The problem is a real problem that’s got to be dealt with. Joshua Sears has recently written a very nice article, and a collection of essays called, They Shall Grow Together: the Bible in the Book of Mormon, edited by Charles Swift and Nick Frederick. But he’s got this nice article in there, where he just reviews the whole history of how people have made sense of the problem, hear the various positions, of how people have dealt with this. He’s laid it out, I think, very accurately and exhaustively. There are the positions people have taken. And they just go, yeah, one of those is fine with me, whatever. Now let’s actually ask how the Book of Mormon is reading Isaiah.
GT 15:41 Okay, and I guess to buttress your point a little bit, there are atheists who love to study the Bible. They believe it’s all myth, but yet they can come up with some of the most interesting interpretations. We look at letters of Paul. A lot of those can’t really be attributed to Paul. The first five books of Moses, a lot of people just write that off as myth. There’s no archaeological evidence for any of that stuff, until we get to say, David, and even that’s pretty scant.
Joseph 16:14 Pretty shaky.
GT 16:15 So, you can take a book that maybe you believe–even Chris Thomas. I tried to nail him down. “Hey, so how do you think we got the Book of Mormon?” He’s like, “I’m not touching that.”
Joseph 16:31 Good, Chris, good!
BOMSA Preview
GT 16:34 Some of the most interesting theological presentations, I’m going to make a big plug for BOMSA in a fall. You need to go. It’s in October in Logan, at Utah State. It’s fantastic, especially for those of you who love theology. Because you’ll get these amazing things. Matt Harris was there last year. Can you talk a little bit about who’s coming up this fall? You said, Chris.
Joseph 16:5 Yeah, we’ve got Chris. Chris will be at keynotes. And the other keynote will be Richard Saunders, who wrote this recent book on the 1920 edition of The Book of Mormon as a printing history. So those will be our two keynotes. We’ve got some special sessions. We’ve got a session planned on “The Book of Mormon For the Least Of These” that three volume series that’s just been completed by Margaret Olson and Fatima Saleh.
GT 17:25 Oh, really? She’s going to be there, Fatima?
Joseph 17:27 I know Margaret will be there. We’ll see if Fatima will be there.
GT 17:30 Oh, I need to get Fatima on. She’s awesome.
Joseph 17:34 Yeah, so we’ll have that. I don’t remember off top my head other things we’ve got. And then, of course, right now, we still have the call for papers is open. So, we’ll see what gets submitted.
GT 17:45 So what’s your website?
Joseph 17:48 It’s bomsa.org.
GT 17:51 Okay, so if you have a paper, Joe’s looking. {both chuckling}
Joseph 17:54 Yes, we are, always.
GT 17:58 Well, fantastic. All right. So I guess once again, you don’t need to believe. You could believe that the Book of Mormon is complete fiction and still pull out some great theological insights.
Joseph 18:11 Yeah, and some people have done some remarkable work along those lines. And there’s not only Chris. I’m thinking here of Avi Steinberg’s marvelous little book, The Lost Book of Mormon. He’s a secular Jew reading the Book of Mormon and finds some really amazing things. He’s mostly reading it in a literary vein, rather than a theological vein, but really something. Elizabeth Fenton, who’s a vice-president at BOMSA, is not a Latter-day Saint, has never been a Latter-day Saint, but reads the Book of Mormon and has written some very important things on the Book of Mormon and is a vice-president BOMSA. So yeah, there’s lots of people can do in that vein. With respect to Isaiah, one could read it in a totally secular vein and say all kinds of interesting things with Isaiah in the Book of Mormon. Of course, I’m doing it. I’m trying to read it in a secular vein, if you will, but also to read it in a theological and a very admitted, religious vein. But the least interesting question, if you’re really just trying to get your head around the book is going to be, “Well, how do we explain that one problem?”
GT 19:09 With Isaiah, yeah. Okay, so we’ve covered Abinadi. Have we covered Christ’s version of Abinadi speaking of Isaiah?
Joseph 19:20 Yeah, we haven’t done a lot of detail. But we’ve got the basic picture there. Yeah, he moves to the margins, if you will. But at least this is how my ideal reader would see it, they would see, “Oh, Abinadi sounds traditional. Christ has moved us right out there to the margins where the wacky stuff is going on,” as if Mormon’s project is tracing a development among the Nephites from very traditional readings of Isaiah to, “Whew, we’re way out there!”
Contradictions of Nephi & Abinadi
GT 19:45 Okay. And then is there another Isaiah before we come back to 2nd Nephi?
Joseph 19:51 Not a huge one. Yeah, in my book I focused primarily on Abinadi and Christ when I’m dealing with Mormon’s project. Once we get to the small plates, yeah, it’s all Nephi.
GT 19:59 Didn’t you say there was something in the Ether, though?
Joseph 20:02 That was about Trinitarian specifically.
GT 20:03 Oh, Trinitarian. Oh, sorry, that’s a big deal for me, so I like to talk about it. {both laughing} All right, so I would like to talk a little bit more about how Abinadi and 2nd Nephi, kind of contradict each other.
Joseph 20:21 Yeah.
GT 20:22 Because you know, we’re a correlated church. We don’t talk about contradiction.
Joseph 20:27 We need everything to be coherent. Yeah, so Nephi’s program, this is what the whole second half of my book spells out. Nephi’s program of interpretation here is one that he calls “likening.” And what I take him to mean there, and the whole argument is laid out in the book, I take him to mean that if you read Isaiah in the context of what he’s saying about Judah, what he is saying about ancient Judah, very specifically, that’s Isaiah’s own context. Then Isaiah’s spelling out a picture in which Israel is going to face down these massive disasters, but then be winnowed down to just a remnant, but then that remnant will be preserved and then can follow God and His full purposes. He talks about sealed books and some things like that. What I see Nephi doing is saying, “Oh, all that picture, he’s spelling out there is the same basic historical pattern that I’ve seen in vision happening with our own descendants in the last days.” So Lamanites in the last days, where they also get winnowed down to just a remnant. One portion of the population dies, the Nephites, and then Gentiles get involved just as with Jews back in Israel. But then a sealed book comes forth. And then there’s a gathering of this remnant, a restoration and Gentiles get involved in certain ways. So, Nephi seems to say, “Ah, what God is doing with Jews, according to Isaiah, is exactly what God is going to do with our own people in the last days.” You can put them side by side and liken them. That’s Nephi’s program. So, his whole purpose here is to just see big, massive historical patterns of God’s interactions with the covenant people, and then to trace what that’s going to mean in the last days. Abinadi just says, “Jesus. Jesus,” that’s all I’m seeing here. It’s sort of like in disposition. They’re just radically different. But as a result, also, what they’re finding there– I don’t think Nephi is like, “there’s no Jesus here.” But I don’t think he’s looking for Jesus. He’s looking for the story of the covenant.
{End of Part 2}
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