Part 12 (1/2)
To bring the story down to a comparatively recent date, and account for the finding of the plates by Smith, the Book of Mormon was written by the ”author.” This subdivision is an abridgment of the previous records.
It relates that Mormon, a descendant of Nephi, when ten years old, was told by Ammaron that, when about twenty-four years old, he should go to the place where the records were hidden, take only the plates of Nephi, and engrave on them all the things he had observed concerning the people. The next year Mormon was taken by his father, whose name also was Mormon, to the land of Zarahemla, which had become covered with buildings and very populous, but the people were warlike and wicked.
Mormon in time, ”seeing that the Lamanites were about to overthrow the land,” took the records from their hiding place. He himself accepted the command of the armies of the Nephites, but they were defeated with great slaughter, the Lamanites laying waste their cities and driving them northward.
Finally Mormon sent a letter to the king of the Lamanites, asking that the Nephites might gather their people ”unto the land of c.u.morah, by a hill which was called c.u.morah, and there we would give them battle.”
There, in the year 384 A.D., Mormon ”made this record out of the plates of Nephi, and hid up in the hill c.u.morah all the records which have been entrusted to me by the hand of the Lord, save it were those few plates which I gave unto my son Moroni.”* This hill, according to the Mormon teaching, is the hill near Palmyra, New York, where Smith found the plates, just as Mormon had deposited them.
* Hyde gives a list of twenty-four additional plates mentioned in this Bible which must still await digging up in the hill near Palmyra.
In the battle which took place there the Nephites were practically annihilated, and all the fugitives were killed except Moroni, the son of Mormon, who undertook the completion of the ”record.” Moroni excuses the briefness of his narrative by explaining that he had not room in the plates, ”and ore have I none” (to make others). What he adds is in the nature of a defence of the revealed character of the Mormon Bible and of Smith's character as a prophet. Those, for instance, who say that there are no longer ”revelations, nor prophecies, nor gifts, nor healing, nor speaking with tongues,” are told that they know not the Gospel of Christ and do not understand the Scriptures. An effort is made to forestall criticism of the ”mistakes” that are conceded in the t.i.tle-page dedication by saying, ”Condemn me not because of mine imperfection, neither my father, because of his imperfection, neither them who have written before him” (Book of Mormon ix. 31).
Evidently foreseeing that it would be asked why these ”records,” written by Jews and their descendants, were not in Hebrew, Mormon adds (chap.
ix. 32, 33):--
”And now behold, we have written this record according to our knowledge, in the characters which are called among us the reformed Egyptian, being handed down and altered by us, according to our manner of speech.
”And if our plates had been sufficiently large, we should have written in Hebrew; but the Hebrew hath been altered by us also; and if we could have written in Hebrew, behold, ye would have had no imperfection in our record.”
Few parts of this mythical Bible approached nearer to the burlesque than this excuse for having descendants of the Jews write in ”reformed Egyptian.”
The secular story of the ancient races running through this Bible is so confused by the introduction of new matter by the ”author”* and by repet.i.tions that it is puzzling to pick it out. The Book of Ether was somewhat puzzling even to the early Mormons, and we find Parley P.
Pratt, in his a.n.a.lysis of it, printed in London in 1854, saying, ”Ether SEEMS to have been a lineal descendant of Jared.”
*Professor Whitsitt, of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, Louisville, Kentucky, in his article on Mormonism in ”The Concise Dictionary of Religious Knowledge, and Gazetteer” (New York, 1891), divides the Mormon Bible into three sections, viz.: the first thirteen books, presented as the works of Mormon; the Book of Ether, with which Mormon had no connection; and the fifteenth book, which was sent forth by the editor under the name of Moroni. He thus explains his view of the ”editing” that was done in the preparation of the work for publication:--
”The editor undertook to rewrite and recast the whole of the abridgment (of Nephi's previous history), but his industry failed him at the close of the Book of Omni. The first six books that he had rewritten were given the names of the small plates.... The book called the 'Words of Mormon' in the original work stood at the beginning, as a sort of preface to the entire abridgment of Mormon; but when the editor had rewritten the first six books, he felt that these were properly his own performance, and the 'Words of Mormon' were a.s.signed a position just in front of the Book of Mosiah, when the abstract of Mormon took its real commencement....
”The question may now be raised as to who was the editor of the Book of Mormon.... In its theological positions and coloring the Book of Mormon is a volume of Disciple theology (this does not include the later polygamous doctrine and other gross Mormon errors). This conclusion is capable of demonstration beyond any reasonable question. Let notice also be taken of the fact that the Book of Mormon bears traces of two several redactions. It contains, in the first redaction, that type of doctrine which the Disciples held and proclaimed prior to November 18, 1827, when they had not yet formally embraced what is commonly considered to be the tenet of baptismal remission. It also contains the type of doctrine which the Disciples have been defending since November 18, 1827, under the name of the ancient Gospel, of which the tenet of socalled baptismal remission is a leading feature. All authorities agree that Mr. Smith obtained possession of the work on September 22, 1827, a period of nearly two months before the Disciples concluded to embrace this tenet.
The editor felt that the Book of Mormon would be sadly incomplete if this notion were not included. Accordingly, he found means to communicate with Mr. Smith, and, regaining possession of certain portions of the ma.n.u.script, to insert the new item.... Rigdon was the only Disciple minister who vigorously and continuously demanded that his brethren should adopt the additional points that have been indicated.”
Very concisely, this Bible story of the most ancient race that came to America, the Jaredites, may be thus stated:--
This race, being righteous, were not punished by the Lord at Babel, but were led to the ocean, where they constructed a vessel by direction of the Lord, in which they sailed to North America. According to the Book of Ether, there were eight of these vessels, and that they were remarkable craft needs only the description given of them to show: ”They were built after a manner that they were exceeding tight, even that they would hold water like unto a dish; and the bottom thereof was tight like unto a dish; and the sides thereof were tight like unto a dish; and the ends thereof were peaked; and the top thereof was tight like unto a dish; and the length thereof was the length of a tree; and the door thereof, when it was shut, was tight like unto a dish” (Book of Ether ii. 17). This description certainly establishes the general resemblance of these barges to some kind of a dish, but the rather careless comparison of their length simply to that of a ”tree” leaves this detail of construction uncertain.
Just before they embarked in these vessels, a brother of Jared went up on Mount Shelem, where the Lord touched sixteen small stones that he had taken up with him, two of which were the Urim and Thummim, by means of which Smith translated the plates. These stones lighted up the vessels on their trip across the ocean. Jared's brother was told by the spirit on the mount, ”Behold, I am Jesus Christ.” A footnote in the modern edition of this Bible kindly explains that Jared's brother ”saw the preexistent spirit of Jesus.”
When they landed (somewhere on the Isthmus of Darien), the Lord commanded Nephi to make ”plates of ore,” on which should be engraved the record of the people. This was the origin of Smith's plates. In time this people divided themselves, under the leaders.h.i.+p of two of Lehi's sons--Nephi and Laman--into Nephites and Lamanites (with subdivisions).
The Lamanites, in the course of two hundred years, had become dark in color and ”wild and ferocious, and a bloodthirsty people; full of idolatry and filthiness; feeding upon beasts of prey; dwelling in tents and wandering about in the wilderness, with a short skin girdle about their loins, and their heads shaven; and their skill was in the bow and the cimeter and the ax” (Enos i, 20). The Nephites, on the other hand, tilled the land and raised flocks. Between the two tribes wars waged, the Nephites became wicked, and in the course of 320 years the worst of them were destroyed (Book of Alma).
Then the Lord commanded those who would hearken to his voice to depart with him to the wilderness, and they journeyed until they came to the land of Zarahemla, which a footnote to the modern edition explains ”is supposed to have been north of the head waters of the river Magdalena, its northern boundary being a few days' journey south of the Isthmus”
(of Darien). There they found the people of Zarahemla, who had left Jerusalem when Zedekiah was carried captive into Babylon. New teachers arose who taught the people righteousness, and one of them, named Alma, led a company to a place which was called Mormon, ”where was a fountain of pure water, and there Alma baptized the people.” The Book of Alma, the longest in this Bible, is largely an account of the secular affairs of the inhabitants, with stories of great battles, a prediction of the coming of Christ, and an account of a great migration northward, and the building of s.h.i.+ps that sailed in the same direction.
Nephi describes the appearance of Christ to the people of the western continent, preceded by a star, earthquakes, etc. On the day of His appearance they heard ”a small voice” out of heaven, saying, ”Behold my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased, in whom I have glorified my name; hear ye him.” Then Christ appeared and spoke to them, generally in the language of the New Testament (repeating, for instance, the Sermon on the Mount*), and afterward ascended into heaven in a cloud. The expulsion of the Nephites northward, and their final destruction, in what is now New York State, followed in the course of the next 384 years.
* In the Mormon version of this sermon the words, ”If thy right eye offend thee, pluck it out and cast it from thee,” and ”If thy right hand offend thee, cut it off and cast it from thee,” are lacking. The Deseret Evening News of February 21, 1900, in explaining this omission, says that the report by Mormon of the ”discourse delivered by Jesus Christ to the Nephites on this continent after his resurrection from the dead... may not be full and complete.”