Argument as to when man was created, reconciling the apparent discrepancies in Genesis 1 and 2 and the Pearl of Great Price

A series of handouts prepared in the fifties and early sixties for distribution to various audiences.
“Years ago, it was my custom to communicate to the General Authorities in an occasional brash and self-appointed newsletter (called a ‘G-2 Report’) items of interest dealing with new discoveries which I considered significant. My boldness was not ill-received.” —Quoting a letter from Nibley to Elder Bruce R. McConkie, 2 October 1979.

“Now for this cause I know that man is nothing, which thing I never had supposed.” So lamented Moses in utter humility after seeing in vision the complexities of the planet Earth and her countless inhabitants. Shortly thereafter Moses was to see once again the earth and her. Imagine, however, his profound astonishment when, in answer to his plea for an explanation, the Lord revealed himself to Moses and told him of even more wondrous creations. “And worlds without number have I created. . . . For behold, there are many worlds that have passed away by the word of my power.” Other heavens and earths had already expired. New heavens, star systems with inhabitable planets, would be born in the distant future. Moses would surely have felt even more insignificant had not the Lord reassured him with his presence and the counsel that “all things are numbered unto me.”

This article will join the procession of articles dealing with the problem of scriptural change and its impact upon LDS theology. There will be concern to explain the nature of the material undergoing change, the historical, situations in which these changes occurred, and the impact of these facts upon a concept of revelation. As it is in the book of Moses that the most important changes have occurred, an explanation of how and why these changes were made in this text should satisfy the reader.

Pointed social commentary concerning the state of the natural environment.

The essays in this volume address key aspects of Israelite religious development. Cross traces the continuities between early Israelite religion and the Canaanite culture from which it emerged; explores the tension between the mythic and the historical in Israel’s religious expression; and examines the reemergence of Canaanite mythic material in the apocalypticism of early Christianity and the Dead Sea Scrolls.

Reprinted in Enoch the Prophet, The Collected Works of Hugh Nibley 2. 91–301.
A discussion of the worldview and scenario of the Hopis. Editor’s note: With the October 1975 issue, the Ensign began a series on the book of Enoch authored by Hugh Nibley. As Part 1 recounts, early Christian writers knew and respected the book of Enoch, but biblical scholars neglected it in scorn after the excitement of the Reformation was over. However, James Bruce, exploring the sources of the Nile in 1773, brought back three copies. Part 2 describes the critical response—or lack of it—to these documents and then turns to examining the four versions of the book of Enoch against which Joseph Smith’s writing must be judged.

Reprinted in Enoch the Prophet, Collected Works of Hugh Nibley vol. 2.
Discusses the book of Enoch and its relationship with the Pearl of Great Price.

The Enoch Scroll of the texts from Qumran Library Cave 4 has provided parts in Aramaic among the Dead Sea Scrolls discovery between 1947 and 1956. Contents: Aramaic Book of Enoch, Astronomical Book, Book of Watchers, Book of Dreams, Book of Giants, Enochic Writings. NOTE: The Book of Enoch w/ Aramaic fragments from Milik, see The Dead Sea Scrolls Study Edition, Florentino García Martínez, Eibert J.C. Tigchelaar, 1999

Reprinted in Enoch the Prophet, Collected Works of Hugh Nibley vol. 2.
Discusses the book of Enoch and its relationship with the Pearl of Great Price.

Joseph Smith taught that the first principle of revealed religion is to know for a certainty the character of God, and his reaffirmation of Deity as the loving, personal Father of the scriptures stands in conspicuous contrast to the confusion and obscurity of traditional and modern theologies. Just as the orthodox doctrine of an incomprehensible God who creates ex nihilo is clearly odds with the prophetic proclamation in both the Old and New Testaments, by the same measure the Latter-day Saint conception of divine creation in terms of the organization of eternal man provides a remarkable commentary on Joseph Smith’s claim to be a prophet of the Living God and on his work in the restitution of all things.

In most forms of Gnosticism secret oral tradition is often associated with accounts of the creation of the world, the experiences of Adam and Eve in the Garden, and the fall of man. It is usually in this creation setting or in a temple or on a mountaintop that Gnosticism places the revelation of the esoteric mysteries and the knowledge needed to thwart the archontic powers and return to God.
Gnosticism is primarily concerned with the questions, Who am I? Where am I from? and What is my destiny? That the answers to these questions are often associated with the creation, the Garden, and the fall of man is probably due to the Gnostic presupposition that the end of all things is to be found in their beginning. Of those documents which manifest this concern, the Nag Hammadi Apocalypse of Adam is perhaps the prime example.

Reprinted in Mormonism and Early Christianity, The Collected Works of Hugh Nibley vol. 4, 45–99. Also reprinted in LDS Views on Early Christianity and Apocrypha: Articles from BYU Studies, Salt Lake City: Deseret Book.
Draws upon a host of sources and shows certain parallels between an early Christian form of prayer and that of the Latter-day Saint prayer circle.

Reprinted in Old Testament and Related Studies, The Collected Works of Hugh Nibley 1. 87–114.
An address given at the BYU Women’s Conference, 1 February 1980.

Ten prominent Church scholars presented at the symposium on the Joseph Smith Translation of the Bible. Their in-depth study of the Joseph Smith Translation and related scriptures clarifies the Bible from Genesis to Revelation and show how Joseph Smith restored many plain and precious truths to that holy book. This volume brings together those addresses, illuminating this inspired translation as perhaps no other book had done.

The Lord has told us that many things in the Apocrypha are true and many false. The fascination that apocryphal writings generally hold for Latter-day Saints was recognized in a 1983 BYU symposium on this topic addressed by fifteen scholars representing a wide range of expertise. Those addresses are collected in this book.

When I was invited to participate in this symposium on the subject of apocryphal literature, my first inclination was to decline. This was a conference for experts trained in the biblical languages. But after some reflection, I changed my mind because I think there is a place for variety, and there might even be an advantage in having a paper from a nonlinguistic point of view. And so, although I do not know Greek or Hebrew, I have had considerable exposure to Church history, and I am familiar with the formation of several books of scripture and non-scripture. This is especially true as pertaining to the books that are used by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (hereinafter labeled the LDS Church) and the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (hereinafter called the RLDS Church). And I think there are some parallels between the development of books in the Church anciently and development of books in the Church in modern times.

The book of Moses is the first of several documents in the collection of sacred writings published as the Pearl of Great Price. Although this material is currently labeled “Selections from the Book of Moses,” it was not always specified by that name, nor has the content of the material always been exactly as it is today. A quick look at its origin, development, and content can help us more fully appreciate what the book of Moses is, how it came to be, and why it is a unique witness for Jesus Christ.

Dr. Hugh W. Nibley, professor emeritus of ancient scriptures at Brigham Young University, gave the following twenty-six lectures in an honors class on The Pearl of Great Price. This class was videotaped in the Maesar Building during winter semester 1986 and the text was then transcribed and is included here in this book.

Originally presented as a talk given on 1 April 1980 at Brigham Young University.
A controversial examination of evolution and the Latter-day Saint view on creation and the various roles of Adam.

There is a striking example of a “narrative” type call in the prophetic commission of Enoch in Moses 6:23–36. This study considers the elements of the narrative call pattern; those elements of this form found in the prophetic commission of Enoch are examined and compared with the biblical narrative call passages.
The report of the prophetic vocation of Enoch in the book of Moses accords with impressive consistency with the call narratives in the Bible. All of the elements of the prophetic call pattern isolated and examined by Habel in the calls of Moses, Gideon, and Jeremiah are also found in the Enoch passage; with one minor exception, the order of the elements in the vocation of Enoch is the same as in the call accounts recorded in the Bible. This additional authenticating detail places Enoch more securely in the tradition of the prophets and the book of Moses more firmly in the form and tradition of the prophetic literature.

In this paper I intend to deal primarily with the element of deception in the production and employment of apocryphal literature, particularly as it is revealed by the devices of pseudonymity and pseudepigraphy. I am defining pseudonymity here as an author’s intentional adoption of another persona, not merely as a pen name but as an assumed identity. Thus the Testament of Solomon is pseudonymous because the author has clearly adopted the persona of Solomon and speaks, as Solomon, in the first person. On the other hand, Huckleberry Finn would not be pseudonymous by my definition even though Samuel Clemens used the nom de plume Mark Twain, because Clemens did not adopt a persona other than his own; that is, we may assume that Clemens did not return royalty checks made out to Mark Twain, but rather cashed them unashamedly. Sam Clemens was Mark Twain, and there was no real possibility of confusing one person for the other.

Published as Ancient Documents and the Pearl of Great Price.
Dr. Hugh W. Nibley, professor emeritus of ancient scriptures at Brigham Young University, gave the following twenty-six lectures in an honors class on The Pearl of Great Price. This class was videotaped in the Maesar Building during winter semester 1986 and the text was then transcribed and is included here in this book.

Originally published as an article in BYU Studies in 1978.
Draws upon a host of sources and shows certain parallels between an early Christian form of prayer and that of the Latter-day Saint prayer circle.

Perhaps no doctrine has had greater impact on Latter-day Saint theology than the doctrine of preexistence, or the belief in the existence of the human spirit before its mortal birth. Fundamental concepts such as the nature of man as an eternal being, his singular relationship as the offspring of Deity and concomitant brotherhood with all mankind, the talents and privileges with which he is born into the world, and his potential godhood are all inextricably connected to the doctrine of preexistence. This distinctive LDS doctrine was not immediately comprehended by the early Saints in the more fully developed form in which it is understood today.
Like many of the other teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, it was revealed line upon line and adapted to the Saints’ understanding. Moreover, there was a natural tendency to view initial teachings on preexistence in light of previously held beliefs until greater clarity was given to the doctrine. This study traces the early development of the doctrine by examining chronologically the revelations and recorded sermons and writings on preexistence by the Prophet Joseph Smith in light of contemporary commentary by his associates. Seeing how early Saints perceived preexistence enhances our own understanding of the doctrine and leads to a greater appreciation of our theological heritage.

“For behold, this is my work and my glory—to bring to pas the immortality and eternal life of man.” This profound doctrinal statement is one of many contained in the Pearl of Great Price, the smallest of the standard works and the last to be canonized. Studying that scripture in depth adds immensely to our understanding of the Lord’s eternal plan. Comprising addresses delivered at a symposium on the Pearl of Great Price, this book combines the insights and testimonies of thirteen gospel scholars. All things were created to bear witness of God. As here shown, the Pearl of Great Price does that in many ways.

This second of two volumes of essays honoring Hugh Nibley includes scholarly papers based on what the authors have learned from Nibley. Nearly every major subject that Dr. Nibley has encompassed in his vast learning and scholarly production is represented here by at least one article. Topics include the sacrament covenant in Third Nephi, the Lamanite view of Book of Mormon history, external evidences of the Book of Mormon, proper names in the Book of Mormon, the brass plates version of Genesis, the composition of Lehi’s family, ancient burials of metal documents in stone boxes, repentance as rethinking, Mormon history’s encounter with secular modernity, and Judaism in the 20th century.
Are there indirect evidences of distinctive contents of the brass plates? Can we learn anything about the plates and their contents through an examination of indirect textual evidence in the Book of Mormon?

In Temple and Cosmos, Brother Nibley explains the relationship of the House of the Lord to the cosmos. In Temple, the first part of the volume, he focuses on the nature, meaning, and history of the temple, discussing such topics as sacred vestments, the circle and the square, and the symbolism of the temple and its ordinances. In the second part, Cosmos, he discusses the cosmic context of the temple-the expanding gospel, apocryphal writings, religion and history, the genesis of the written word, cultural diversity in the universal church, and the terrible questions: Where did we come from? Why are we here? and Where are we going?
This lecture was originally accompanied by slides. It was circulated in two different editions in 1986 and 1987 and was available in a much expanded version, including illustrations, in 1988.

These comments by Nibley are excerpted from a FARMS videocassette entitled “The Dead Sea Scrolls: A New Era Dawns.”
It contains material recorded in connection with a National Interfaith Conference on the Dead Sea Scrolls, 20 November 1992 in the Kresge Auditorium of Stanford University.

The Garden of Eden pericope (Genesis 2-3) contains a number of powerful symbols that are related to and represent archetypal depictions of subsequent Israelite temple systems. In a cogent manner, the Garden of Eden, as it is referred to throughout the Bible, Pseudepigrapha, and rabbinic writings, served as the prototype, pattern, and/ or originator of subsequent Israelite temples, “a type of archetypal sanctuary.” The garden was not a sanctuary built of cedar or marble, for it is not necessary for a temple to possess an edifice or structure; but rather it was an area of sacred space made holy because God’s presence was found there. Mircea Eliade has stated that the Garden of Eden was the heavenly prototype of the temple, and the Book of Jubilees 3:19 adds that “the garden of Eden is the Holy of Holies, and the dwelling of the Lord.” This essay will examine these claims.

Papers presented at the BYU Symposium ‘As Translated Correctly’: Joseph Smith’s Translations of the Bible, January 13–14, 1995

Joseph Smith spent Sunday afternoon, April 7, 1844, in a grove behind the Nauvoo Temple. There he gave a funeral sermon, which lasted for over two hours, dedicated to a loyal friend named King Follett, who had been crushed by a bucket of rocks while repairing a well.1 Known today as the King Follett Discourse and widely believed to be the Prophet’s greatest sermon,2 this address was Joseph’s most cogent and forceful presentation of his Nauvoo doctrine on the nature of God, including the ideas of a plurality of Gods and the potential of man to become as God.3 Several times in the first part of the discourse, Joseph expressed his intention to “go back to the beginning” in searching out the nature of God, and a little before midway through the sermon, he undertook a commentary on the first few words of the Hebrew Bible in support of the speech’s doctrinal positions.

Since their initial discovery in 1947, the ancient scrolls found in caves near the Dead Sea have stirred public curiosity. For Latter-day Saints, whose scriptural tradition speaks of sacred records to come forth in the last days, the Dead Sea Scrolls naturally give rise to questions such as:
— Are there references to Christ or Christianity in the scrolls?
— Do the scrolls contain scripture missing from the Bible?
— Is the plan of salvation attested in the scrolls?
— Do the scrolls refer to Joseph Smith or other latter-day figures?
The Dead Sea Scrolls: Questions and Responses for Latter-day Saints succinctly deals with these and other questions on topics of particular interest to LDS readers. These topics are based on actual questions that Latter-day Saints have asked the authors as they have taught classes at Brigham Young University, shared their research at professional symposia, and spoken in other settings.

An essay published posthumously in which England wrestles with what he believed to be a disturbing trend in Mormonism away from what he saw as Joseph Smith’s and Brigham Young’s doctrine of God as a personal being engaged with us in a tragic universe not of his own making and toward a more absolutistic God similar to the teachings about deity held by Evangelical Christianity.

Since the beginnings of the Church, those who participated in the Restoration were commanded to keep a history. Latter-day Saints have an abiding interest in the history of God’s dealings with this earth. Similarly, we reverence the history in scripture because our faith is grounded in events that have taken place in the time and space of this earth. Historicity is the study of the authenticity of recorded past events. This significant compilation addresses the issue of historicity as it relates to the scriptures that Latter-day Saints accept as the word of God. With articles from Elder Dallin H. Oaks, Robert J. Matthews, Robert L. Millet, and more, this book provides an inspiring and more complete picture of the necessity for the historical nature of the Latter-day Saint canon.

In 1828, the H. and E. Phinney Company in Cooperstown, New York, published a quarto-size edition of the King James Bible. This is the version that Joseph Smith, founder of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, used in his work when he created a new translation of the Bible. Here the author examines Joseph Smith’€™s marked-up copy of the Phinney Bible as an artifact important to Mormonism’€”some of Smith’€™s corrections and additions appear in footnotes of the Bible that Mormons use today. The author notes that the Phinney Bible’s updated language is more modern than the version of the Bible Latter-day Saints officially use (the King James), and the modernization may or may not have influenced Joseph Smith’€™s word choice in creating his translation. The author also gives biographical information on the Phinneys, describes how their Bible may have made its way into Joseph Smith’€™s hands, briefly traces the history of the English Bible in America, and describes the printing process employed by the Phinneys.

While some may argue that gospel truth is separate from historical truth, the gospel cannot be true unless it is also historical. This means that events such as the Creation, Fall, Atonement, and Restoration all truly took place in an identifiable time and place, even if that time and place are not known to us. If these or any gospel events were not historically true, God could not render a righteous judgment on any person.

An essay published posthumously in which England wrestles with what he believed to be a disturbing trend in Mormonism away from what he saw as Joseph Smith’s and Brigham Young’s doctrine of God as a personal being engaged withus in a tragic universe not of his own making and toward a more absolutistic God similar to the teachings about deity held by Evangelical Christianity.

The book of Moses is an extract from Joseph Smith’s New Translation of the Bible. It was revealed to the Prophet in 1830 and in early 1831, not long after the organization of the Church. This article is a brief introduction to the origin of the book of Moses and the Bible translation from which it derives.

Since 1996, researchers from Brigham Young University—with the assistance of new photographs, scanned images, and much hands-on examination of the documents—have been engaged in a careful study of the text written on the original manuscripts of the Joseph Smith Translation of the Bible. The work has yielded the publication of a large facsimile transcription of all the original manuscript pages and much new information about how Joseph Smith prepared the text. Among the many new discoveries resulting from this research is an enhanced understanding of the sequence and chronology of the Prophet’s work.

In Why Bad Things Happen to Good People, Rabbi Harold Kushner provides an insightful reading of the creation story in Genesis. He argues that the creation has not yet ended, that we are still somewhere in “day six,” and that “pockets of chaos remain.” For me, as a Latter-day Saint, this argument is very interesting because this reading is even more a propos of the creation account in the Book of Moses than it is of the account in Genesis.

The latter-day restoration of the gospel included the restoration of much significant truth to the Bible. It brought about the restoration of biblical history that had been lost and the restoration of biblical texts that had been changed or omitted or were in need of clarification. More important, it included the restoration of biblical doctrine that had been either removed, distorted, or simply misinterpreted by a world that did not enjoy the fulness of the gospel.
Shortly after the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saint was organized, the Prophet Joseph Smith was instructed by the Lord to undertake a careful reading of the Bible to revise and make corrections in accordance with the inspiration that he would receive. The result was a work of profound significance for the Church that included the revelation of many important truths and the restoration of many of the “precious things” that the Book of Mormon prophet Nephi had foretold would be taken from the Bible (1 Ne. 13:23–29). In June 1830 the first revealed addition to the Bible was set to writing. Over the next three years, the Prophet made changes, additions, and corrections as were given him by divine inspiration while he filled his calling to provide a more correct translation for the Church. Collectively, these are called the Joseph Smith Translation (JST), a name first applied in the 1970s, or the New Translation, as Joseph Smith and others in his day referred to it.

In 1979, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints published its edition of the King James Version of the Bible. The Scriptures Publication Committee decided to include portions of the Joseph Smith Translation in the new edition. For the first time, Latter-day Saints had access to Joseph’s inspired work in their own personal scriptures. Many Latter-day Saints may be unaware that the efforts to include the JST material in the new edition of the Bible were pioneered by Robert J. Matthews, former dean of Religious Education at Brigham Young University. Beginning in 1953, Brother Matthews began a letter-writing campaign to the RLDS Church (now called the Community of Christ), requesting permission to study the original JST manuscripts. Through his sustained efforts, the RLDS Church gave Brother Matthews permission to examine the manuscripts.

Teachers should eagerly anticipate the lesson when their students will learn about the Fall of Adam and Eve. This doctrine is one of three great doctrinal topics that all Latter-day Saints should understand. According to Elder Bruce R. McConkie, “These three are the very pillars of eternity itself. They are the most important events that ever have or will occur in all eternity. They are the Creation, the Fall, and the Atonement.”

Later this year, the Religious Studies Center will publish a volume called Joseph Smith’s New Translation of the Bible: Original Manuscripts, edited by Scott H. Faulring, Kent P. Jackson, and Robert J. Matthews. To help readers understand the scope and purpose of this project, the Religious Educator held the following interview with two of the editors.

After all these years, it comes as a surprise for me to learn that the book of Moses appeared in the same year as the publication of the Book of Mormon, the first chapter being delivered in the very month of its publication. And it is a totally different kind of book, in another style, from another world. It puts to rest the silly arguments about who really wrote the Book of Mormon, for whoever produced the book of Moses would have been even a greater genius. That first chapter is a composition of unsurpassed magnificence. And we have all overlooked it completely. The Joseph Smith controversy is silly for the same reason the Shake­speare controversy is silly. Granted that a simple countryman could not have written the plays that go under the name of Will Shakespeare, who could? If that man is hard to imagine as their author, is it any easier to imagine a courtier, or a London wit, or a doctor of the schools, or, just for laughs, a committee of any of the above as the source of that mira­culous outpouring? Joseph Smith’s achievement is of a different sort, but even more staggering: he challenged the whole world to fault him in his massive sacred history and an unprecedented corpus of apocalyptic books. He took all the initiative and did all the work, withholding noth­ing and claiming no immunity on religious or any other grounds; he spreads a thousand pages before us and asks us to find something wrong. And after a century and a half with all that material to work on, the learned world comes up with nothing better than the old discredited Solomon Spaulding story it began with. What an astounding tribute to the achievement of the Prophet that after all this time and with all that evidence his enemies can do no better than that! Even more impressive is the positive evidence that is accumulating behind the book of Moses— which includes fragments from books of Adam, Noah, and Enoch; for in our day ancient books that bear those names are being seriously studied for the first time in modern history, and comparison with the Joseph Smith versions is impressing leading scholars in the field. But even without external witnesses, what a masterpiece we have in that first chapter of the book of Moses! Consider the below.

The essays in this volume, including four on today’s world, were selected by a panel of Hugh Nibley’s colleagues. They are singular in their penetration, their originality, and their vitality. Reaching from the apocalyptic visions of original “treasures in heaven” down to the climax of history, they are more than mind-stretching. The delight of Nibley’s brilliant and sometimes biting prose style imparts a sense of the agelessness of what he calls the “three-act play” of human existence. Written specially for this book, the author’s own “intellectual autobiography,” together with his introductory paragraphs for the various chapters, complete the work of making the book a fitting and permanent record of one of the past outstanding historians
Ever since the days of the Prophet Joseph, presidents of the Church have appealed to the Saints to be magnanimous and forbearing toward all of God’s creatures. But in the great West, where everything was up for grabs, it was more than human nature could endure to be left out of the great grabbing game, especially when one happened to get there first, as the Mormons often did. One morning, just a week after we had moved into our house on Seventh North, as I was leaving for work, I found a group of shouting, arm-waving boys gathered around the big fir tree in the front yard. They had sticks and stones, and in a state of high excitement were fiercely attacking the lowest branches of the tree, which hung to the ground. Why? I asked. There was a quail in the tree, they said in breathless zeal, a quail! Of course, said I, what is wrong with that? But don’t you see, it is a live quail? A wild one! So they just had to kill it. They were on their way to the old B. Y. High School and were Boy Scouts. Does this story surprise you? What surprised me was when I later went to Chicago and saw squirrels running around the city parks in broad daylight; they would not last a day in Provo. Like Varro’s patrician friends, we have taught our children by precept and example that every living thing exists to be converted into cash, and that whatever would not yield a return should be quickly exterminated to make way for creatures that do. (We have referred to this elsewhere as the Mahan Principle; Moses 5:31.) I have heard influential Latter-day Saints express this philosophy. The earth is our enemy, I was taught does it not bring forth noxious weeds to afflict and torment man? And who cared if his allergies were the result of the Fall, man’s own doing? But one thing worried me: if God were to despise all things beneath Him, as we do, where would that leave us? Inquiring about today, one discovers that many Latter-day Saints feel that the time has come to put an end to the killing.

The more we are acquainted with the life and ministry of the Prophet Joseph Smith, the more evident it becomes that Elder John Taylor did not overstate reality when he said that “Joseph Smith, the Prophet and Seer of the Lord, has done more, save Jesus only, for the salvation of men in this world, than any other man that ever lived in it” (D&C 135:3). This passage goes on to specify that it was the abun­dance of revelation and scripture given Joseph Smith that particularly qualified him for such a lofty epithet.

Discussions on the Pearl of Great Price — The Ministry of Enoch
Brigham Young University professors discuss the ministry of ancient prophets.

Discussions on the Pearl of Great Price — The Premortal Life/Canning/Boarding House
BYU religion faculty members discuss the doctrines found in the Pearl of Great Price about the premortal life.

Discussions on the Pearl of Great Price — Obedience and Sacrifice/The Bicycle
Members of BYU\'s religion department discuss docrtines and themes of obedience and sacrifice found in the Pearl of Great Price.

Discussions on the Pearl of Great Price — Atonement and Rebirth
Listen as religion faculty from Brigham Young University discuss the doctrines and themes of Atonement and rebirth that are found in the Pearl of Great Price.

Latter-day Saint scholars Hugh W. Nibley and John A. Tvedtnes have discussed at length how a staff, rod, and sword came to be commonly identified with the word of God in the ancient Near East. The evidence they cite from the Bible, the earliest Hebrew commentators, modern biblical scholarship, and elsewhere affirms Nephi ’s unambiguous assertion that the “word of God” is a “rod.”

On two occasions while he worked on his New Translation of Genesis in 1830, the Prophet Joseph Smith dictated to his scribe Oliver Cowdery a word combination that in English is awkward and umgrammatical, though in the Hebrew it is not: “Behold I.” The first occurrence reads, “Behold I am the Lord God Almighty.” The second reads, “Behold I send me.” Both passages are in the Book of Moses in the Pearl of Great Price, but “Behold I” is not found in either of those passages today because, after the time of Joseph Smith, each was edited out of the text . .

Selections from the Book of Moses in the Pearl of Great Price is the Joseph Smith Translation (JST) of Genesis 1:1–6:13, the beginning pages of the New Translation. The material in it was revealed between June 1830 and February 1831. In some ways, the Book of Moses can be considered the most significant part of the JST, because it has contributed more distinctive Latter-day Saint doctrine than any other part of that work. It has stood since the beginning of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints as one of the doctrinal cornerstones of the Restoration and as an enduring testimony to the divinely inspired work of Joseph Smith.

The following is a transcription of the Book of Moses, Genesis 1:1–6:13, from Old Testament Manuscript 2 (OT2), Joseph Smith’s final draft of his New Translation of Genesis. It is found on pages 1–27 of that manuscript. The Prophet first dictated this part of Genesis between June 1830 and February 1831. Oliver Cowdery, John Whitmer, Emma Smith, and Sidney Rigdon assisted him as scribes. In the original dictated manuscript, Old Testament Manuscript 1 (OT1), the Book of Moses material is found on pages 1–21. The present manuscript (OT2) is a copy of the original, made by John Whitmer in March 1831. With very few exceptions, OT2 was the document on which Joseph Smith continued to refine the translation. He added to it numerous insertions and corrections, dictating them primarily to his scribe Sidney Rigdon. The present transcription preserves carefully the words of the manuscript, including words inserted after the original writing. Unless otherwise noted, the handwriting is that of John Whitmer.

The Lord told Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery, “Look unto me in every thought” (D&C 6:36). In the ordinance of the sacrament we covenant each week to “always remember him,” that we “may always have his Spirit” to be with us (D&C 20:77). The Book of Mormon testifies that “all things denote there is a God; yea, even the earth, and all thing that are upon the face of it” (Alma 30:44). Thus, God has given all things as a type or representation of Christ to help us remember Him (see 2 Nephi 11:4; Helaman 8:24). The key to understanding the things of God is to see Christ in them, including His creations.

Review of Scott H. Faulring, Kent P. Jackson, and Robert J. Matthews, eds. Joseph Smith's New Translation of the Bible: Original Manuscripts.

Terryl Givens has set Joseph Smith in the religious and cultural context of his time and raised many important issues. I should like to take a few of these issues and set them in another context, that of preexilic Jerusalem. I am not a scholar of Mormon texts and traditions. I am a biblical scholar specializing in the Old Testament, and until some Mormon scholars made contact with me a few years ago, I would never have considered using Mormon texts and traditions as part of my work. Since that initial contact I have had many good and fruitful exchanges and have begun to look at these texts very closely. I am still, however, very much an amateur in this area. What I offer can only be the reactions of an Old Testament scholar: are the revelations to Joseph Smith consistent with the situation in Jerusalem in about 600 BCE? Do the revelations to Joseph Smith fit in that context, the reign of King Zedekiah, who is mentioned at the beginning of the First Book of Nephi, which begins in the “first year of the reign of Zedekiah” (1 Nephi 1:4)? Zedekiah was installed as king in Jerusalem in 597 BCE.

Referring to ancient and long-lost scripture that Joseph Smith restored, Wilford Woodruff declared it to be part of “the rich treasures that are revealed unto us in the last days.” One such treasure is Moses chapter 1, a scriptural jewel we have hardly begun to appreciate but whose luster has become more apparent in light of various ancient texts and traditions that have emerged since Joseph Smith’s day. So striking are the parallels as to recall Joseph’s own prophecy that “the world will prove Joseph Smith a true prophet by circumstantial evidence.”

No abstract available.

When Alma the Younger returned to Zarahemla following his mission to the Zoramites, “he caused that his sons should be gathered together, that he might give unto them every one his charge, separately, concerning the things pertaining to righteousness” (Alma 35:16). The Book of Mormon contains a significantly larger amount of counsel from Alma to his wayward son Corianton than to Helaman and Shiblon.
Within Alma’s teachings, we discover a concise explanation of the Fall of Adam and three elements necessary to reclaim each individual from the Fall, namely, death, the Atonement, and the Resurrection. This chapter will discuss the Fall of Adam and these three elements in Alma’s teachings to Corianton and also in the inspired teachings of modern apostles and prophets. This chapter will conclude that we can control only one of the three elements necessary to reclaim mankind from the Fall: whether we use the Atonement to repent of our sins and forgive others.

We invite all to inquire into the wonder of what God has said since biblical times and is saying even now.

The seventh chapter of the Book of Moses portrays Enoch’s vision of the history and future of the world within a specific literary framework. The text, coming from the Joseph Smith Translation of the Bible, outlines three periods of time: (1) the days of Noah, (2) the meridian of time, and (3) the last days. The portrayal of each of these time periods contains five similar characteristics. Szink also compares this text with accounts in the Bible and other nonbiblical sources to further understand the vision and the significance of its framework. By presenting the three periods in a literary art form, the author has created a complex beauty that reflects and reinforces the content of the vision.

While the first chapter of the book of Moses is often understood as introductory to the rest of the book, the chapter itself is an inclusive text centering on Moses’s transformation through three separate encounters with supernatural beings. In each encounter he is taught something of the meaning of truth and experiences the power that the comprehension of truth brings. His example is particularly instructive in light of the doctrine that “truth is knowledge of things as they are, and as they were, and as they are to come” (D&C 93:24).

While the first chapter of the book of Moses is often understood as introductory to the rest of the book, the chapter itself is an inclusive text centering on Moses’s transformation through three separate encounters with supernatural beings. In each encounter he is taught something of the meaning of truth and experiences the power that the comprehension of truth brings. His example is particularly instructive in light of the doctrine that “truth is knowledge of things as they are, and as they were, and as they are to come” (D&C 93:24).
The first section of Moses 1 contains Moses’s encounter with God (see vv. 1–11). Second is his confrontation with the adversary (see vv. 12–23). The third and final section records his meeting with God (see vv. 24–41). In these three encounters, Moses becomes a type for all who seek to understand things as they really are.

In November 2004 the Religious Studies Center at Brigham Young University published a facsimile transcription of all the original manuscripts of the Joseph Smith Translation of the Bible. [1] I was privileged to be one of the editors of the project and worked with those manuscripts in preparing the publication. A facsimile transcription seeks to reproduce in print—as much as is humanly and typographically possible—the writing found on a handwritten document. Thus the transcription includes the writers’ original spelling, grammar, punctuation, line endings, omissions, errors, insertions, and deletions. The purpose of the publication is to provide scholars and lay readers with an accurate reproduction of the text as found on Joseph Smith’s original manuscripts. Its importance is in the fact that those documents had never been made public before but were stored in archives that were only available for study to a limited number of researchers.

The so-called Genesis Apocryphon (1Q20) from Qumran Cave 1 has suffered from decades of neglect, due in large part to its poor state of preservation. As part of a resurgent scholarly interest in the Apocryphon, and its prominent position among the Aramaic Dead Sea Scrolls, this volume presents a fresh transcription, translation, and exstenive textual notes drawing on close study of the original manuscript, all available photographs, and previous publications. In addition, a detailed analysis of columns 13-15 and their relation to the oft-cited parallel in the Book of Jubilees reveals a number of ways in which the two works differ, thereby highlighting several distinctive features of the Genesis Apocryphon. The result is a reliable text edition and a fuller understanding of the message conveyed by this fragmentary but fascinating retelling of Genesis.

Many parents, as they have labored through the process of raising a teenager, may have wondered at times if Satan’s idea of destroying agency was such a bad idea. However, most parents have learned from experience that trying to control a child’s decisions, even in the right direction, can often result in the child’s rebellion. Very few, if any, like to be forced to do something, even if it is good. Having the right to live according to our personal desires and to exercise our agency, even if what we choose is not wise or good for us, is very precious to us. We prize our moral agency so highly that any attempt to undermine, circumvent, manipulate, control, or eliminate it often leads to conflict. These battles have spanned heaven and earth and have included both individuals and great assemblies.

This documentary film outlines the development of the 1979/1981 editions of the LDS Bible and Book of Mormon. Deepen your appreciation for the massive effort made to create the Topical Guide, Bible Dictionary, Joseph Smith Translation, footnotes, maps, and more. Listen to those who worked on the project over 30 years ago and hear their inspired experiences.

Today the modernist view of history in which texts only represent events is so predominant that most Latter-day Saints automatically apply it to the question of scriptural historicity. Unfortunately, historical scholarship rarely lines up with our understanding of scripture as well as we would like. Problems arise when we use modernist tools to examine scripture written by premoderns, who considered their writing not as mere representation but as incarnation—an embodiment of the symbolic ordering of the world. The premodernist reading of the scriptures more accurately reflects Latter-day Saint beliefs: whereas modernism would use reason to understand history (and thus the Divine in history, i.e., scripture), premodernism uses divinely revealed scripture as well as ritual, ritual objects, and ritual language to give order to history. Instead of examining scripture as just another element of history, premoderns consider scripture to be the defining element in history.
The historicity of scripture is important to most Christians and especially to Latter-day Saints. [1] Christians disagree among themselves about how to understand scriptural history, but few deny that, in some important sense, Christian scripture is historical. However, given the challenges to scriptural history, challenges that are especially strong for Latter-day Saints who take the Book of Mormon to be historical, what are we to make of the claim that scriptures are history? Given those challenges, is it possible to understand scripture as literal history? The answer to that question—positive, I will argue—lies in answering the question of what we mean by history.

Longer version of an invited presentation originally given at the 2009 Conference of the European Mormon Studies Association, Turin, Italy, July 30-31, 2009

A practice that was eventually condemned by the church because of its Jewish affinities—being found, for example, in the Testaments of Abraham and Job and in the writings of Philo—the prayer circle has a long and complex history in Christian practice. This practice was considered one of the “ mysteries” and therefore was protected from all who weren’t initiated. For the initiated participants, this was a very sacred practice, which demanded unity between all those involved. The prayer circle, generally referred to as a “ dance,” often included hymns, prayers for the living and the dead, and gestures that would prepare the participants for heavenly visitations.

Some believe Adam and Eve’s partaking of the fruit of “the tree of knowledge of good and evil” (Genesis 2:9) to be the cause of all that is evil and tragic in the world today. Others believe our first parents merely to be mythical beings whose existence is only a metaphor used to explain mankind’s existence. The doctrines of the restored gospel concerning the historical reality of Adam and Eve and the doctrine of the Fall provide a wealth of understanding concerning the purposes of adversity and opposition and the vital need for the Atonement of Jesus Christ.