Talk:Mosiah 27:8-37

"His priests" (v. 1)

Interesting question, Matthew. I think Num 27:21 is a great place to study this issue, where there seems to be the first significant separation of church and state (Joshua is declared Moses's successor in temporal matters, but Joshua is only given "some" of Moses's power and is only granted the power through the priest Eleazar). Quite likely, there are also interesting passages to consider in 1 Samuel (chapters 8 and 12 are likely good ones to start with). Samuel seems intriguing in this sense since (I think) he was considered the last of the judges, but he was prophetic in a way that none of the other judges were. But then he's the one who institutes kingly rule in Israel, although he is strongly opposed to the idea. At any rate, I think there was a very important connection between the king and the priests in ancient Israel which Lehi's family brought to the New World. At the least, I think the king was viewed as God's annointed ruler over temporal affairs, whereas the priest was God's annointed in charge of spiritual affairs. I think this is hard for us Americans to have a real appreciation for b/c we don't think of our governing officials as having divine authority in any sense (although I guess we do believe in being subject to such governments--maybe it's not that different...). --RobertC 03:46, 28 Nov 2006 (UTC)

John Sorenson has a good article on some of these issues, called something like "Religious Movements Among the Nephites 200-1 B.C." Whatever it's called, it's in the book _Disciple as Scholar_ published by FARMS. But regardless of Sorenson's work on the subject, a couple of thoughts from my own head. I think that this relativization of priests points to the double governmental structure at work once Alma's church arrives in Zarahemla: Alma has priests under himself (as high priest) as well as Mosiah having priests under himself (as king). There are two very different priesthoods at work in Zarahemla at the time. (On the other hand, are Noah's priests named possessively as well?) One gets the sense that the two priesthoods may have been--with all the best feelings, we'll assume--rivals to some degree. Chapters 25-29 of Mosiah are profoundly concerned with reconciling the church and the kingdom. I really would be interested to take some time at some point to work out a careful analysis of Mosiah as a whole: it is a profoundly political book, and it really provides some ground for thinking about the nature of the Church today. --Joe Spencer 15:06, 28 Nov 2006 (UTC)

Perhaps there is a distinction to be made between courtly priests who perform rituals for the king, and priests who teach and perform saving ordinances for the people. We don't know a lot about the organization of the priesthood in Nephite society during its 1000 year history, but this passage does make you wonder if there is also a distinction between priesthood as we understand it--serving the people--and being a "priest unto God".--Rob Fergus 22:50, 28 Nov 2006 (UTC)

I like this a lot, Rob. I've been reading Cook and Ehat's Words of Joseph Smith lately, and your comment here offers a way of understanding some of what Joseph had to say towards the end of his life. Hmm... --Joe Spencer 16:21, 29 Nov 2006 (UTC)

Idolatry in the Book of Mormon (v.6-10)

I guess these questions were posted some time ago, but I've just come across them now. I think the broad question of idolatry in the Book of Mormon is an interesting one. Of Joseph's three translation projects, neither the Book of Mormon nor the JST seems to be too focused on questions of idolatry, though the Book of Abraham is saturatingly concerned with the question. That is, in itself, significant. Why does idolatry play such a small role in the Book of Mormon? Was it not often a concern? Does this open onto the ways of Nephite/Lamanite thinking? And what is one to make of the few references that are found? Especially the very few that are tied up with the Nephites. I'd like to look at this question in some greater detail. --Joe Spencer 00:43, 27 Nov 2006 (UTC)

I think this is an important question not only for understanding the Book of Mormon, but for understanding the Old Testament since the OT does talk a lot about idolatry. For example, if idolatry was a big problem in the Old World but not in the New World, how are we to understand the relevance of the Old World's problem with idolatry in our day and age? I'm inclined to think that, although there are many very interesting ways to relate the idolatry of the Old World to versions of idolatry in our present culture(s), there is often a tendency to reduce idolatry to materialism or something like that which I think is a bit dangerous (for reasons I can't quite put my finger on...). In Enos (somewhere) it says that the Lamanites did suffer from idolatry, but somehow it seems this didn't affect the Nephites as much, and it is (primarily) the Nephites' record that we have. Thus, I think an interesting question to consider is how and why the Nephites were able to avoid the same kinds of idolatry problems as they had in the Old World. Also, I think an important issue in all of this to consider is the curse of blackness (2 Ne 5:21), I would think this played an important role in the Nephites not being corrupted by the idolatry of surrounding peoples like the Israelites in the Old World--rather, the Nephites seem to have suffered more from internal problems. --RobertC 04:04, 28 Nov 2006 (UTC)

Good points, Robert. I too am uncomfortable with reductions of idolatry to materialism. I suppose I feel it is a way of pretending we do not suffer from that sin unless we're like Brother So-and-so, whereas we are, most of us, idolatrous most of the time. I'm interested by the international influence issue you bring up, and the dark skinned Lamanite sign helping idolatry to be avoided. What idolatry did exist among the Nephites may well have been a result of Jaredite influence (Nibley argues for a profound Jaredite influence, Sorenson as well; I'm not entirely convinced that it was so permeating as they argue). Is idolatry in the Book of Mormon more limited, then, than it is in the Bible; that is, is it defined more narrowly, and so it is hardly mentioned? I'm not sure where to begin with thinking about that. --Joe Spencer 15:10, 28 Nov 2006 (UTC)

I'm not sure why there isn't more discussion of idolatry in the Book of Mormon, though there is enough evidence to suggest that it wasn't unknown among the Nephites (Alma 7:7, Alma 17:5, Alma 31:1, etc.).--Rob Fergus 22:46, 28 Nov 2006 (UTC)

Joe, when you ask whether the BOM defines idolatry more narrowly than the Bible, what definition do you have in mind for the Bible? I know this a large topic, but I'd be interested in hearing what notion you have in mind. I was thinking here in terms of OT idols being defined quite narrowly--worshiping objects and spirits of gods that have personalities and supernatural powers (rather than anything like Marion's notion of idolatry...). I do think, however, that b/c this was a problem in Old Testament times, prophets warned about this and then built on this notion of idolatry as a springboard to other topics, so it is used perhaps in a more broad sense in the BOM, but because it was a problem in the narrow-definition sense first, not because the definition itself was really much different. So if this wasn't as much of a problem for Lehi's descendants (and for the latter-days), then it doesn't make as much sense to talk about things in terms of idolatry. In this sense, I'm not opposed to likening OT idolatry to modern day materialism, consumerism etc. since I think that is distinguishing characteristic of our modern society (esp. post-renaissance when the peasant class became considerably more wealthy)--and I think this may be why "pride" becomes the more common term in latter-day revelation, it is a term we simply relate to more easily from day-to-day experience than the term idolatry.... --RobertC 03:32, 29 Nov 2006 (UTC)

It seems to me that the limited view of idolatry in the OT is based on early historico-critical readings of OT development, models that are passing out of vogue now. On these views, the early patriarchs were all idolatrous--though later writers tried hard to obscure that in the text--and only with the Deuteronomistic (theologically, not necessarily socially) prophets is this early idolatry called into question. Margaret Barker's work, in fact, is a direct reversal of these claims: the "idolatry" of the patriarchs is precisely the true religion of Israel. But if one takes the OT canon as it presents itself (post-modernism again?), then one must deal at once with the "idolatry" of the patriarchs and the ravings against "idolatry" in the prophets. I think they can be reconciled wonderfully if one pays careful attention to how broad idolatry is in the OT. In that sense, I think that idolatry was not at all a question of object worship or of spiritism, but of something somewhat like--as you suggest--pride. Marion's discussion of the icon versus the idol is very valuable on this account, because the patriarchs were probably engaged in something like iconism (giving a fleshly locus to the non-fleshly God, rather than reducing the non-fleshly God to a fleshly object or worshipping the non-fleshly god tied to a fleshly object).

Connected with all of this, I think it is vital to recognize that the OT sort of works on the assumption that there are real gods behind the "idols" of the other nations. Isa 14:1ff is a good example of this: Babylon's god is assumed to be very real in that chapter. If the prophets believed that those gods were real (back to Ex 20:1ff), then their discussions of idolatry take on a wholly different meaning: worship the God of Israel specifically. This may well play into Joseph's statements about the relative powers of spirits beyond the veil, how they try to subject each other, etc.

Anyway, some disorganized thoughts here. Obviously, I'm thinking that idolatry in the Book of Mormon is far more limited: object worship or some such thing. Hmm... --Joe Spencer 16:19, 29 Nov 2006 (UTC)

While I'm not sure I can support it offhand in the text, Book of Mormon people would have probably been involved in or at least familiar the polytheistic religious practices of Mesoamerica--much more of a worshipping of many dieties other than the God of Abraham and Moses, than a worshiping of sacred objects, though these are also important. I think one of the fascinating things about Barkers work is that it makes us reconsider what we might expect to find in Mesoamerica if there were Israelite religion mixed in down there. If we are looking for post-Deuteronomistic religions, maybe we shouldn't be surprised not to find them there. But if the Israelite founders of Nephite and Lamanite societies were practicing more traditional "idolatrous" Isrealite religions, we have to ask what that would look like, especially if diffused through a thousand years of Mesoamerican history and contact with previous Jaredite/Olmec mythologies and religious cult practices. Interestingly, there is evidence that both Mesoamerican peoples and ancient Israelites and other Middle Eastern cultures held some similar cosmological views--earth created from body of destroyed crocodile type stuff, etc (see Olmec dragon reference near end of page here and Wikipedia entry about Leviathan. I haven't seen anyone else make this comparison, though surely someone has, but find it fascinating that the Olmec/Jaredites would have a creation myth that seems to come from their ancestral homeland in Babel. I think a comparison of "idolatry" in the Ancient Middle East and Mesoamerica may be the real comparative work that needs to be done to establish Old and New World connections via Jaredite and Nephite/Mulekite/Lamanite cultures.--Rob Fergus 20:28, 29 Nov 2006 (UTC)

I don't know whether anything has been published on Leviathan and the sea creature of the Olmecs, but when I was studying Ancient Mexico, the parallel certainly jumped out at me (as did a few other such parallels; I came across an Egyptian hieroglyph on the wall of a temple somewhere in the Yucatan). I wonder what Cyrus Gordon's work on the connections between the Old and New Worlds discusses. I haven't read it myself. --Joe Spencer 15:46, 30 Nov 2006 (UTC)