Pioneer Jacob Gibson and family, responding to the call of Church leadership to leave the fractious Latter-day Saint branch in the Delaware Valley and come to Nauvoo, journeyed with a small company, which included Jedediah M. Grant, "and arrived about the [blank] of May [1844], all hearty and happy. The Prophet and others came down to the boat on our arrival. Then for the first time I saw him of whom I had [heard] so much."
After a few days Jacob Gibson met the Prophet again. "We then traveled round and seen the place. I was much pleased. Met a number of our old brethren and sisters, went down to the Mansion House, was introduced to the Prophet. He spoke very pleasant, turned and took a look in my face and remarked 'From Phila [Philly]' and 'Brethren stick to me or by me and you shall alway have light.' Which saying I have often proved true."
Jacob Gibson's encounter with a living prophet of God matches the stories told by so many others. Very pleasant talk suddenly meets the prophetic moment--a turn, a look full in the face, a pregnant comment or question (Philadelphia was a fractious branch)--followed by an invitation, in scriptural idiom, to come unto Christ.
"Brethren, stick to me, and you shall alway have light":
"Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world. Amen" (Matthew 28:20).
"Thy word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path" (Psalm 119:105).
"I have inclined mine heart to perform thy statutes alway, even unto the end" (Psalm 119:112: the wording clearly dependent on the translation of Matthew 28:20).
Brother Joseph's earnest words reflect no egotism; they reflect the revelations of the Lord:
"Therefore be diligent; stand by my servant Joseph, faithfully, in whatsoever difficult circumstances he may be for the word's sake" (Doctrine and Covenants 6:18, revelation to Oliver Cowdery).
"Again, let my servant John C. Bennett help you. . . and stand by you, even you my servant Joseph Smith, in the hour of affliction" (Doctrine and Covenants 124:16).
Yet in the swirl of circumstance, Oliver failed to stand by; in Nauvoo's hour of affliction, Bennett betrayed the Prophet's trust.
What the Lord says unto one He says unto all: "Stand by my servant Joseph" (see Doctrine and Covenants 93:49). And what the Lord says of one prophet, He says of all the prophets. Here is counsel not for one time and place--Joseph and Nauvoo--, but for all the seasons of mortality. As President Dieter F. Uchtdorf, Second Counselor in the First Presidency, teaches, we have the opportunity to become "Saints for All Seasons."
General Conference never stops coming round and, as it does, it marks the times and seasons of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. At times, like Gibson's little company, we feel "all hearty and happy," but, inevitably, there also come "difficult circumstances" "for the word's sake." Then, "in an hour when ye think not," comes the moment of trial (see Luke 12:40). Less than two months after the arrival, "all hearty and happy," came the appointed hour of Martyrdom. And so roll on the times and seasons of the Latter-day Saints.
At this season, sometime light, sometime dark, we look to the living Prophet of God, Thomas S. Monson. Conference time is here again; and again, as always, the Prophet will teach and testify to us "whatsoever things the Lord [will] put into his heart" (Helaman 13:4). And, as always, "sticking by" the Prophet will be counselors in the First Presidency, Henry B. Eyring and Dieter F. Uchtdorf. We will also be blessed with their counsel. Neither Christ nor his prophets have abandoned the Saints: "Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world. Amen" (Matthew 28:20).
Why a Prophet? Why the need for the bright sunlight? "Without visible landmarks, human beings tend to walk in circles. Without spiritual landmarks, mankind wanders as well" (Dieter F. Uchtdorf, First Presidency Message: "Walking in Circles," Ensign, June 2013). It is not with arrogant tone, but with an earnest look turned to the face of each child of God, that the words are spoken: "Stick to me, and you shall always have light."
"Mists of darkness," in every season, press in upon the journeying Saints. We look to God's Prophet for light in our crowded moment. Yet he himself even now passes through "the hour of affliction." We have lost our beloved sister, Frances Beverly Monson.
Now is the time, now, as never before, "to stand by my servant Thomas Spencer Monson." Now is the time to forget about ourselves, to forgo selfishness, to diminish our own sense of need. Now is the time for the meekness of a child. At this conference time, may we all sing with one voice, "as the children's prayer": "We Ever Pray for Thee, Our Prophet Dear."
"As the advancing years furrow thy brow/, Still may the light within shine bright as now."
And it does so shine, and it will.
Brothers and Sisters, stick to the Prophet, and you shall always have light.
Oliver Cowdery, after a decade of darkness, returned to Christ. The Gibson family, though tested in the blinding "mists of darkness," "stuck to," and crossed the plains under the sacred leadership of Wilford Woodruff and, thereby, found the light: "we [got] in to the vally on 14 of Octobr [1850] glad and thankfull to God." Some of my own family also came to Zion in that bright company.
Notes
President Thomas S. Monson, Sunday Morning Conference Address, October 2013
http://www.lds.org/general-conference/2013/10/i-will-not-fail-thee-nor-forsake-thee?lang=eng
President Monson's opening remarks, October 2013
http://www.lds.org/general-conference/2013/10/welcome-to-conference?lang=eng
For more about modern prophets, please see "Honoring God's Living Prophets":
http://valsederholm.blogspot.com/2010/03/john-bernhisel-lived-at-prophets-home.html
Philadelphia Saints: Stephen J. Fleming, "Discord in the City of Brotherly Love: The Story of Early Mormonism in Philadelphia," MHS, Spring 2004. Jedediah M. Grant later served as second counselor to Brigham Young in the First Presidency. His son, Heber Jeddy Grant, was a prophet of God.
Arrival in Nauvoo: Mark McConkie, Remembering Joseph, CD-Rom, "Jacob Gibson," gives a rough transcription based on the typescript copy of The Book of the Generations of Jacob Gibson 1849-1881, Church History Library. McConkie, following the typed copy, reads: "looked a look in my face," which should read "took a Look in my face." An early editor within the Gibson family, smooths out the phrase: "giving me an earnest look."
An examination of both the manuscript and the typescript copy (MS 4704) shows some differences. There are also handwritten changes made in the typescript, written above the typed line; words have also been underlined by the same hand.
"We then traveled around and saw the place. . . went down to the mansion house, and were introduced to the Prophet, who spoke very pleasantly and turned and looked a look in my face [giving me an earnest look], and remarked "From Philadelphia?" and said [also adding], 'Brethen stick to me or by me, and you shall always have light.' Which saying I have often proved true."
The manuscript journal of Jacob Gibson (Book of the Generations of Jacob Gibson, MS 1493) reads:
"we then travld round and Sean the Place I was much Pleased met a number of our old Brethern and Sisters went down to the mantion House was introdust to the Profit he Spoke verry pleasant turnd and took a Look in my face and remarkt from Phila and Said Brethren Stick to me or By me and you shall alway have Light. which I have often proved trew."
When quoting Gibson in the above essay, I added light punctuation and corrected spelling.
"Saints for All Seasons": First Presidency Message: President Dieter F. Uchtdorf, Ensign and Liahona Magazines, September 2013; "Walking in Circles," June 2013.
"We Ever Pray for Thee":
http://www.lds.org/music/library/hymns/we-ever-pray-for-thee?lang=eng
Pioneer Overland Travel Website (history.lds.org), Trail except, Jacob Gibson, Book of the Generations of Jacob Gibson 1849-1881). Wilford Woodruff later became President of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, even a prophet of the Lord. My own ancestors in that company: Sarah Brackett Carter Foss, Rhoda Harriett Foss.
Tuesday, October 1, 2013
Friday, September 27, 2013
"In Their Ships They Came"--Enlarging Our Memories through the Book of Mormon
"Though it be jade it falls apart, though it be gold it wears away"--what then of books, so easily set aside?
Yet I will recall with joy a book of Nahuatl poetry and a king who sang of the ephemeral nature of life on earth, a place we never felt to be our true home anyhow: "Somewhere else is the place of life. There I want to go, there surely I will sing. . ."
The title escapes me now; the author--who could dispute the matter?--Miguel Leon-Portilla.
I had forgotten Leon-Portilla until just the other day when, on a quest for American lore, I pulled a little book from the stacks: Los antiguos mexicanos a través de sus crónicas y cantares (1961). .
Sus cantares: I found myself swept away by a brisk measure of song, and swept out to sea:
Llegaron, vinieron. . .
Por el agua en sus barcas vinieron.
They arrived, they came. . .
Over the water in their ships they came,
in many groups.
And it was there they arrived, at water's edge,
on the north coast.
And that very place where they beached their ships
is Panutla,
which means: the place where one goes over the waters,
and we still call it Panutla today.
The song of the sea runs on--I have neither the right nor the skill to put into English what Leon-Portilla so finely puts into Spanish. . .
A footnote leads us to the original Nahuatl, the language of the Mexica: Sahagun's Codice Matritense de la Real Academia. Sahagun's Aztec students recorded the verses.
Sahagun, the Florentine Codex. . . I had heard these names all my life. Just months ago I first held in my hands the volumes of the Codex; still I knew nothing of the Matritense.
The latter codex, in two folio volumes, is housed in Madrid's Real Biblioteca. There is no need to visit the palace library today: La Biblioteca Digital de Mexico proffers a digital image. On folio 191, recto et verso, penned in Nahuatl with a ready hand, the words of the poets appear. These words, we are told, all have to do with the archaic, a "distant time, which nobody now can tell, nor nobody now remember."
"Trailing clouds of glory," their "life's Star" came long, long ago from another home: seas and skies commingle into "this great deep."
Emergence and Migration sum up the American story from the beginning of time--and forever after. The Book of Mormon relates the tale of "a lost and fallen people," in fact whole nations, who, as "wanderers in a strange land," seem constantly to find themselves in the act of getting lost in the American labyrinth before being discovered all over again by yet another wandering band.
"Because we shall not live here, we shall not remain here. We shall go in search of a land."
The Toltecs and the Mexica, "born at sea," are "Those who glitter with the glory of the hummingbird."
"What seas what shores what grey rocks and what islands/ What water lapping the bow."
Anything more? Yes, they came to an in-between place, a paradisaical land they called Tamoanchan. Golden Tamoanchan was no lasting city. There the lovely Xochiquetzal (Precious Flower) once tore "a floral spray" from a forbidden tree and, for the deed, "was cast out of Tamoanchan" (Burr Cartwright Brundage, The Phoenix of the Western World: Quetzalcoatl and the Sky Religion, 41). Bountiful Tamoanchan remains nature's "hardest hue to hold."
Nezahualcoyotl and Robert Frost impart one song:
"Nothing gold can stay."
Can anything stay? A trace of the song persists in the Codice Matritense: "the traditions of their fathers," "a small degree of knowledge," a scent on the breeze, "What images return."
Yet the book itself, says Jacob, "must perish and vanish away":
"Though it be jade it perishes, though it be gold it vanishes away."
"Take these plates." Take up their imperative. Plates of gold "must retain their brightness"--and, brightly, "enlarge the memory."
"But whatsoever things we write upon anything save it be upon plates must perish and vanish away; but we can write a few words upon plates, which will give our children, and also our beloved brethren, a small degree of knowledge concerning us, or concerning their fathers—" (Jacob 4:2).
"Take these plates."
Notes
"Though it be jade": attributed to King Nezahualcoyotl; Miguel Leon-Portilla (ed.), Native American Spirituality: Ancient Myths, Discourses, Stories, Doctrines, Hymns, Poems, 241 (from Collection of Mexican Songs [Cantares Mexicanos], National Library of Mexico, fol. 17. r.). In Book of Mormon idiom we might say: Though it be jade it perishes, though it be gold it vanishes away.
"Somewhere else is the place of life", Nahuatl poem, Miguel Leon-Portilla, Pre-Columbian Literatures of Mexico, 86.
Seafaring Narrative: Miguel Leon-Portilla, Los Antiguos Mexicanos, 21-22.
The same day I found Leon-Portilla's little book, I had, by coincidence, been reading Hugh Nibley's comments about the Mexica sea crossing, as found in similar records. I had often read these comments but had never yet done any independent searching. (I still recommend Hugh Nibley, The World of the Jaredites, Appendix One).
Then just yesterday I opened with joy Professor John Leon Sorenson's hefty new tome, Mormon's Codex. I quickly turned to the chapter on transoceanic crossings to early America and found six pages of primary sources from Mesoamerica detailing legendary voyages of origin. Six pages--astonishing! I wished to see what Sorenson had to say about Leon-Portilla and the Codice Matritense, and unsurprisingly, Sorenson reproduces on page 163 the very story found in the Matritense, though here rendered in the narrative prose translation provided by Leon-Portilla, "Pre-Hispanic Literature," in Handbook of Middle American Indians, Gordon F. Ekholm and Ignacio Bernal (eds.), 10:455. (Whether the narrative should be considered Nahuatl prose or poetry remains to be seen; I wish to look more deeply into the question.)
A reference to the same article, "Pre-Hispanic Literature," can also be found in John L. Sorenson's and Martin H. Raish's two volume bibliography, Pre-Columbian Contact with the Americas across the Ocean. I have also now read Sorenson's still valuable 1955 article on the same theme; he does not yet mention the Matritense, but what a wealth of other material!
Codices matritenses de la Real Biblioteca, fol. 191 r. and v.
http://bdmx.mx/sahagun_matritenses_1.php.
"Because we shall not live here," Codice Matrilense (Leon-Portilla, 23), said of the place Xomiltepec, where they arrived after leaving Tamoanchan. Leaving Xomiltepec, they traveled to Teotihuacan.
Burr Cartwright Brundage, The Phoenix of the Western World: Quetzalcoatl and the Sky Religion, 41.
Robert Frost: "Nothing Gold Can Stay"
Nezahualcoyotl: Nahuatl songs, recorded after the Spanish Conquest, and attributed to King Nezahaulcoyotl. We don't know whether the king wrote the songs or whether they serve to memorialize him.
"wanderers in a strange land": Alma 13:23; Alma 26:36; Jacob 7:26
"Trailing clouds of glory"; "life's Star": Wordsworth, "Ode: Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood"
"this great deep": Ether 2:25
"born at sea": "called Marina because I was born at sea"; Shakespeare, Pericles
"glitter with the glory of the hummingbird" = "death" (and also = Huitzilopochtli, the patron god of the Mexica (Hummingbird of the South), who led them from Aztlan to the Valley of Mexico): T.S. Eliot, "Marina"
"the traditions of their fathers": Book of Mormon, passim
"a small degree of knowledge": Jacob 4:2
"What images return": T.S. Eliot, "Marina"
"What seas what shores": T.S. Eliot, "Marina"
"no lasting city": Hebrews
"Take these plates": Jacob 7:27
"must retain their brightness": Alma 37:5
"enlarged the memory": Alma 37:8
Additional Notes
1) And then there is South America. A study released just this year shows a genetic match between Japan, Korea, and a portion of the population of coastal Ecuador. The explanation? The authors point the reader back to Dr. Betty J. Meggers's research linking Japan's Jomon Culture with the ancient Valdivia Culture of coastal Ecuador. It seems Jomon fishermen did cross the Pacific long, long ago. They too came.
2) I would also point the curious to the online essays of Ronald A. Barnett, especially "Reinventing the Aztecs." Barnett tackles the tough questions that Amos Segara, John Bierhorst (a genius), Gertrudis Payas, etc., have raised about the interpretation of Nahua poetry and philosophy, particularly as that has been mediated by Angel Maria Garibay and his student Miguel Leon-Portilla (see Payas, Meta 49:3 (2004), 544-561). Of course we do not know whether King Nezahualcoyotl composed the poems attributed to him but recorded after the Conquest, nor can anybody fully sort out their meaning and purpose (see Jongsoo Lee, The Allure of Nezahualcoyotl, and especially, his quotations of Louise Burkhart). Riveting remain the words Non Nezahualcoyotzin, ni cuicanitl (I am Nezahualcoyotl, I am the singer).
Whether the colonial era Nahuatl and Spanish records represent the true intellectual and religious history of the Mexica culture may be debated forever. These are voices from the dust and the record perishes at the touch. The Book of Mormon shines brightly--"the most correct book on earth."
Yet I will recall with joy a book of Nahuatl poetry and a king who sang of the ephemeral nature of life on earth, a place we never felt to be our true home anyhow: "Somewhere else is the place of life. There I want to go, there surely I will sing. . ."
The title escapes me now; the author--who could dispute the matter?--Miguel Leon-Portilla.
I had forgotten Leon-Portilla until just the other day when, on a quest for American lore, I pulled a little book from the stacks: Los antiguos mexicanos a través de sus crónicas y cantares (1961). .
Sus cantares: I found myself swept away by a brisk measure of song, and swept out to sea:
Llegaron, vinieron. . .
Por el agua en sus barcas vinieron.
They arrived, they came. . .
Over the water in their ships they came,
in many groups.
And it was there they arrived, at water's edge,
on the north coast.
And that very place where they beached their ships
is Panutla,
which means: the place where one goes over the waters,
and we still call it Panutla today.
The song of the sea runs on--I have neither the right nor the skill to put into English what Leon-Portilla so finely puts into Spanish. . .
A footnote leads us to the original Nahuatl, the language of the Mexica: Sahagun's Codice Matritense de la Real Academia. Sahagun's Aztec students recorded the verses.
Sahagun, the Florentine Codex. . . I had heard these names all my life. Just months ago I first held in my hands the volumes of the Codex; still I knew nothing of the Matritense.
The latter codex, in two folio volumes, is housed in Madrid's Real Biblioteca. There is no need to visit the palace library today: La Biblioteca Digital de Mexico proffers a digital image. On folio 191, recto et verso, penned in Nahuatl with a ready hand, the words of the poets appear. These words, we are told, all have to do with the archaic, a "distant time, which nobody now can tell, nor nobody now remember."
"Trailing clouds of glory," their "life's Star" came long, long ago from another home: seas and skies commingle into "this great deep."
Emergence and Migration sum up the American story from the beginning of time--and forever after. The Book of Mormon relates the tale of "a lost and fallen people," in fact whole nations, who, as "wanderers in a strange land," seem constantly to find themselves in the act of getting lost in the American labyrinth before being discovered all over again by yet another wandering band.
"Because we shall not live here, we shall not remain here. We shall go in search of a land."
The Toltecs and the Mexica, "born at sea," are "Those who glitter with the glory of the hummingbird."
"What seas what shores what grey rocks and what islands/ What water lapping the bow."
Anything more? Yes, they came to an in-between place, a paradisaical land they called Tamoanchan. Golden Tamoanchan was no lasting city. There the lovely Xochiquetzal (Precious Flower) once tore "a floral spray" from a forbidden tree and, for the deed, "was cast out of Tamoanchan" (Burr Cartwright Brundage, The Phoenix of the Western World: Quetzalcoatl and the Sky Religion, 41). Bountiful Tamoanchan remains nature's "hardest hue to hold."
Nezahualcoyotl and Robert Frost impart one song:
"Nothing gold can stay."
Can anything stay? A trace of the song persists in the Codice Matritense: "the traditions of their fathers," "a small degree of knowledge," a scent on the breeze, "What images return."
Yet the book itself, says Jacob, "must perish and vanish away":
"Though it be jade it perishes, though it be gold it vanishes away."
"Take these plates." Take up their imperative. Plates of gold "must retain their brightness"--and, brightly, "enlarge the memory."
"But whatsoever things we write upon anything save it be upon plates must perish and vanish away; but we can write a few words upon plates, which will give our children, and also our beloved brethren, a small degree of knowledge concerning us, or concerning their fathers—" (Jacob 4:2).
"Take these plates."
Notes
"Though it be jade": attributed to King Nezahualcoyotl; Miguel Leon-Portilla (ed.), Native American Spirituality: Ancient Myths, Discourses, Stories, Doctrines, Hymns, Poems, 241 (from Collection of Mexican Songs [Cantares Mexicanos], National Library of Mexico, fol. 17. r.). In Book of Mormon idiom we might say: Though it be jade it perishes, though it be gold it vanishes away.
"Somewhere else is the place of life", Nahuatl poem, Miguel Leon-Portilla, Pre-Columbian Literatures of Mexico, 86.
Seafaring Narrative: Miguel Leon-Portilla, Los Antiguos Mexicanos, 21-22.
The same day I found Leon-Portilla's little book, I had, by coincidence, been reading Hugh Nibley's comments about the Mexica sea crossing, as found in similar records. I had often read these comments but had never yet done any independent searching. (I still recommend Hugh Nibley, The World of the Jaredites, Appendix One).
Then just yesterday I opened with joy Professor John Leon Sorenson's hefty new tome, Mormon's Codex. I quickly turned to the chapter on transoceanic crossings to early America and found six pages of primary sources from Mesoamerica detailing legendary voyages of origin. Six pages--astonishing! I wished to see what Sorenson had to say about Leon-Portilla and the Codice Matritense, and unsurprisingly, Sorenson reproduces on page 163 the very story found in the Matritense, though here rendered in the narrative prose translation provided by Leon-Portilla, "Pre-Hispanic Literature," in Handbook of Middle American Indians, Gordon F. Ekholm and Ignacio Bernal (eds.), 10:455. (Whether the narrative should be considered Nahuatl prose or poetry remains to be seen; I wish to look more deeply into the question.)
A reference to the same article, "Pre-Hispanic Literature," can also be found in John L. Sorenson's and Martin H. Raish's two volume bibliography, Pre-Columbian Contact with the Americas across the Ocean. I have also now read Sorenson's still valuable 1955 article on the same theme; he does not yet mention the Matritense, but what a wealth of other material!
Codices matritenses de la Real Biblioteca, fol. 191 r. and v.
http://bdmx.mx/sahagun_matritenses_1.php.
"Because we shall not live here," Codice Matrilense (Leon-Portilla, 23), said of the place Xomiltepec, where they arrived after leaving Tamoanchan. Leaving Xomiltepec, they traveled to Teotihuacan.
Burr Cartwright Brundage, The Phoenix of the Western World: Quetzalcoatl and the Sky Religion, 41.
Robert Frost: "Nothing Gold Can Stay"
Nezahualcoyotl: Nahuatl songs, recorded after the Spanish Conquest, and attributed to King Nezahaulcoyotl. We don't know whether the king wrote the songs or whether they serve to memorialize him.
"wanderers in a strange land": Alma 13:23; Alma 26:36; Jacob 7:26
"Trailing clouds of glory"; "life's Star": Wordsworth, "Ode: Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood"
"this great deep": Ether 2:25
"born at sea": "called Marina because I was born at sea"; Shakespeare, Pericles
"glitter with the glory of the hummingbird" = "death" (and also = Huitzilopochtli, the patron god of the Mexica (Hummingbird of the South), who led them from Aztlan to the Valley of Mexico): T.S. Eliot, "Marina"
"the traditions of their fathers": Book of Mormon, passim
"a small degree of knowledge": Jacob 4:2
"What images return": T.S. Eliot, "Marina"
"What seas what shores": T.S. Eliot, "Marina"
"no lasting city": Hebrews
"Take these plates": Jacob 7:27
"must retain their brightness": Alma 37:5
"enlarged the memory": Alma 37:8
Additional Notes
1) And then there is South America. A study released just this year shows a genetic match between Japan, Korea, and a portion of the population of coastal Ecuador. The explanation? The authors point the reader back to Dr. Betty J. Meggers's research linking Japan's Jomon Culture with the ancient Valdivia Culture of coastal Ecuador. It seems Jomon fishermen did cross the Pacific long, long ago. They too came.
2) I would also point the curious to the online essays of Ronald A. Barnett, especially "Reinventing the Aztecs." Barnett tackles the tough questions that Amos Segara, John Bierhorst (a genius), Gertrudis Payas, etc., have raised about the interpretation of Nahua poetry and philosophy, particularly as that has been mediated by Angel Maria Garibay and his student Miguel Leon-Portilla (see Payas, Meta 49:3 (2004), 544-561). Of course we do not know whether King Nezahualcoyotl composed the poems attributed to him but recorded after the Conquest, nor can anybody fully sort out their meaning and purpose (see Jongsoo Lee, The Allure of Nezahualcoyotl, and especially, his quotations of Louise Burkhart). Riveting remain the words Non Nezahualcoyotzin, ni cuicanitl (I am Nezahualcoyotl, I am the singer).
Whether the colonial era Nahuatl and Spanish records represent the true intellectual and religious history of the Mexica culture may be debated forever. These are voices from the dust and the record perishes at the touch. The Book of Mormon shines brightly--"the most correct book on earth."
3) There number over one million Latter-day Saints in Mexico and Central America. No household throughout the length and breadth of Latin America should long remain without a copy of the Book of Mormon. No effort should be spared in making the book generally available; besides, gone forever is the notion that the extant record of ancient America, whether written or material artifact, lends no witness to the Book of Mormon, itself Another Testament of Jesus Christ.
Wednesday, August 28, 2013
The Living Abraham and His Book (Book of Abraham in the Pearl of Great Price)
As touching Abraham and his book, translated through the instrumentality of the Prophet Joseph Smith:
Have ye not read that which was spoken unto you by God, saying,
I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob? God is not the God of the dead, but of the living (Matthew 22:31-32).
The living Abraham holds the keys of the Book of Abraham (cf. Doctrine and Covenants 27:5; 110:12). To diminish the Book of Abraham is thus to diminish Abraham, a god who "hath entered into his exaltation and sitteth upon his throne" (Doctrine and Covenants 132:29; 37) and, ultimately, to "diminish the purposes" of the God of Abraham, the God of the living. Neither need we redefine Abraham; his years exceed ours (cf. Elder M. Russell Ballard, 20 August 2013, "Let Us Think Straight").
At a distance, now, of millennia, we strain myopically at Abraham's day, but his own memory continues an unbroken mirror. As we read in the book of memory, that day again swims into mortal ken as places, people, events, and, most importantly, covenants, long since forgotten but, nevertheless, real.
Latter-day Saints have long since (in 1880 and again in 1890) taken upon themselves a covenant to reverence the Book of Abraham as scripture. For the Saints, there is no more need to revisit the genuineness of the writings of Abraham than there is to revisit the reality of the exalted Abraham himself. The Book of Abraham comes to us clothed in purity as a translated record of the living father of the covenant people. Abraham is a living prophet, and the Book of Abraham, a true record of his revelations, covenants, ministry, and teachings.
Indeed, the visions of Adam, Enoch, Abraham, Moses, and Joseph Smith, as attested in unprecedented first-person directness in the Pearl of Great Price, anchor the doctrine of a personal God: "Thus I, Abraham, talked with the Lord, face to face, as one man talketh with another" (Abraham 3:11). We must remove our own shoes on holy ground, and lift our own eyes to God, lest we be found "walking in darkness at noon-day" (Doctrine and Covenants 95:6).
The doctrine is simple: God is God; Abraham is Abraham; covenants are covenants; and scripture is scripture (see Matthew 5:37). And why should Abraham's book prove to be any less iconoclastic than the prophet himself, who, in his day, toppled the learned pretense and wavering consensus of men? The Book of Abraham serves as a compass pointing to true north; we take our bearings by it in both time and eternity and, by this means, avoid the errors inherent in the never-settled, ever-shifting theories of men. Otherwise, Abraham's record, instead of a guiding landmark, becomes just one more instance of "meaningless, decorative masses that have no purpose but to break up the flatness of the horizon" (see President Dieter F. Uchtdorf, "Walking in Circles," First Presidency Message, Ensign, June 2013).
President Boyd K. Packer teaches us to examine and to weigh the learning of men in the clear morning light of gospel and scriptural truth--not the other way round. As we do so, the truth will shine fair as the sun, clear as the moon, and terrible as an army with banners. Errors in our understanding of history, language, and letters will take flight as we raise high those bright banners to the glory of God. Then lasting intelligence will be ours.
Notes
St Paul adds:
"They which are of faith, the same are the children of Abraham." Faith is required to receive the powerful doctrines found in the Book of Abraham.
"They which be of faith are blessed with faithful Abraham"; they are also blessed with the book he left to his faithful posterity.
Have ye not read that which was spoken unto you by God, saying,
I am the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob? God is not the God of the dead, but of the living (Matthew 22:31-32).
The living Abraham holds the keys of the Book of Abraham (cf. Doctrine and Covenants 27:5; 110:12). To diminish the Book of Abraham is thus to diminish Abraham, a god who "hath entered into his exaltation and sitteth upon his throne" (Doctrine and Covenants 132:29; 37) and, ultimately, to "diminish the purposes" of the God of Abraham, the God of the living. Neither need we redefine Abraham; his years exceed ours (cf. Elder M. Russell Ballard, 20 August 2013, "Let Us Think Straight").
At a distance, now, of millennia, we strain myopically at Abraham's day, but his own memory continues an unbroken mirror. As we read in the book of memory, that day again swims into mortal ken as places, people, events, and, most importantly, covenants, long since forgotten but, nevertheless, real.
Latter-day Saints have long since (in 1880 and again in 1890) taken upon themselves a covenant to reverence the Book of Abraham as scripture. For the Saints, there is no more need to revisit the genuineness of the writings of Abraham than there is to revisit the reality of the exalted Abraham himself. The Book of Abraham comes to us clothed in purity as a translated record of the living father of the covenant people. Abraham is a living prophet, and the Book of Abraham, a true record of his revelations, covenants, ministry, and teachings.
Indeed, the visions of Adam, Enoch, Abraham, Moses, and Joseph Smith, as attested in unprecedented first-person directness in the Pearl of Great Price, anchor the doctrine of a personal God: "Thus I, Abraham, talked with the Lord, face to face, as one man talketh with another" (Abraham 3:11). We must remove our own shoes on holy ground, and lift our own eyes to God, lest we be found "walking in darkness at noon-day" (Doctrine and Covenants 95:6).
The doctrine is simple: God is God; Abraham is Abraham; covenants are covenants; and scripture is scripture (see Matthew 5:37). And why should Abraham's book prove to be any less iconoclastic than the prophet himself, who, in his day, toppled the learned pretense and wavering consensus of men? The Book of Abraham serves as a compass pointing to true north; we take our bearings by it in both time and eternity and, by this means, avoid the errors inherent in the never-settled, ever-shifting theories of men. Otherwise, Abraham's record, instead of a guiding landmark, becomes just one more instance of "meaningless, decorative masses that have no purpose but to break up the flatness of the horizon" (see President Dieter F. Uchtdorf, "Walking in Circles," First Presidency Message, Ensign, June 2013).
President Boyd K. Packer teaches us to examine and to weigh the learning of men in the clear morning light of gospel and scriptural truth--not the other way round. As we do so, the truth will shine fair as the sun, clear as the moon, and terrible as an army with banners. Errors in our understanding of history, language, and letters will take flight as we raise high those bright banners to the glory of God. Then lasting intelligence will be ours.
Notes
St Paul adds:
"They which are of faith, the same are the children of Abraham." Faith is required to receive the powerful doctrines found in the Book of Abraham.
"They which be of faith are blessed with faithful Abraham"; they are also blessed with the book he left to his faithful posterity.
Tuesday, August 20, 2013
A Shurr Thing: Jaredite King Amgid (Am-gid), a large and mighty man (Book of Mormon: Ether 10: 31)
Book of Ether Chapter 10 yields Jaredite names a-plenty, including the pair Amnigaddah and Amgid:
31 And he begat Heth, and Heth lived in captivity all his days. And Heth begat Aaron, and Aaron dwelt in captivity all his days; and he begat Amnigaddah, and Amnigaddah also dwelt in captivity all his days; and he begat Coriantum, and Coriantum dwelt in captivity all his days; and he begat Com.
32 And it came to pass that Com drew away the half of the kingdom. And he reigned over the half of the kingdom forty and two years; and he went to battle against the king, Amgid, and they fought for the space of many years, during which time Com gained power over Amgid, and obtained power over the remainder of the kingdom.
Amgid serves up a perfect name for a Jaredite king. The Jaredites were forever led, you will recall, by large and mighty men. Ancient Nimrod, the prototype, was a "mighty hunter" (2:1); the Brother of Jared, "a large and mighty man" (7:8); "there arose another mighty man" (11:17)--then another; all being "large and mighty men as to the strength of men" (15:26); even "two millions of mighty men" (15:2).
Amgid was tough, but Com, who "gained power over Amgid," was even tougher. Com something suggests Proto-Semitic *qm, stand; standing. (Hebrew qwm is a different root, says Professor Stefan Weninger.) The one who stands up fits a king who will one fine day--after a vasty "space of many years"--reunite his fathers' kingdom. And Com, after all, in the fight with Amgid, was the last man standing.
Amgid was tough, but Com, who "gained power over Amgid," was even tougher. Com something suggests Proto-Semitic *qm, stand; standing. (Hebrew qwm is a different root, says Professor Stefan Weninger.) The one who stands up fits a king who will one fine day--after a vasty "space of many years"--reunite his fathers' kingdom. And Com, after all, in the fight with Amgid, was the last man standing.
Amgid, then? The (Proto-)Semitic root *gid signifies tendon or sinew--and Amgid accordingly evinces a Semitic presence in Archaic America. Am-gid is a perfectly good Semitic name, and startlingly apt for a Jaredite king: People of Sinew, that is, tough, muscular people, "large and mighty men." Amnigaddah (am-ngd), in like manner, suggests a Am-nigaddah, a people strong of breast (or breast-and-neck). That Amgid and Amnigaddah should occur on a single page of the Book of Ether should startle the complacent reader (for ngd, see p. 56 of https://jolr.ru/files/(32)jlr2010-3(43-78).pdf).
Notes--and the Valley of Shurr
Stefan Weninger, The Semitic Languages: An International Handbook, 215 (6.1.5): "Tendon, sinew: PS *gid-". Akkadian attests gidu, North West Semitic: Ugaritic, gd; Hebrew, gid; Syriac, gyada. The Arabic, zid, neck, "is related with a meaning shift."
The suggested reading in The Book of Mormon Onomasticon Project is incorrect: "people of fortune" (gad), has the wrong vowel, matches a later cultural setting, and also likely comes from the root gdd.
8.3.5 "PWS *'amm- is also attested with more general meanings such as 'relatives, clan, people." Is Amgid, then, a Proto West Semitic name? CAD G yields the archaic (Ur III) Personal Name, Gidanu, "probably West Semitic," although the editors avoid a link with Akkadian gidu, sinew. No matter. Whatever Gidanu may signify, the early name yet evokes Jaredite Amgid.
Am-nigaddah, n-g-d, a people who stands out, a distinguished people.
The Valley of Shurr (Ether 14:28): Shurr recalls two roots, to be narrow; belly, navel. Shurr, where Coriantumr's vast army tents may be pictured as a narrow place--the tents spread along a long, narrow valley, rather than clumped in one body out in the open. The army takes a breather in the valley, then quickly gathers to a more secure place, a large nearby hill, called Comnor (read Comron), which signifies Place of Rampart, Rampart Hill. Comron matches Nephite Cumorah (also Rampart). Now safe and snug on Rampart Hill, Coriantumr sounds a trumpet as invitation to battle.
Proto-Semitic *shurr- is attested in Hebrew as Shor. The Valley of Shurr, like the Palestinian hill, Tabor (navel), may also be pictured as a centerplace of the Jaredite world, a navel of the universe--a place of panegyris, tenting, or gathering. Shurr also suggests king. I still like my first guess: the Valley Shurr signifies a Long and Narrow Valley, tucked to one side a long, slanting Rampart Hill. At any rate, Shurr, with its strange double r, reflects linguistic and cultural realities the Prophet Joseph Smith knew nothing about (Weninger, 217, 6.1.4).
Notes--and the Valley of Shurr
Stefan Weninger, The Semitic Languages: An International Handbook, 215 (6.1.5): "Tendon, sinew: PS *gid-". Akkadian attests gidu, North West Semitic: Ugaritic, gd; Hebrew, gid; Syriac, gyada. The Arabic, zid, neck, "is related with a meaning shift."
The suggested reading in The Book of Mormon Onomasticon Project is incorrect: "people of fortune" (gad), has the wrong vowel, matches a later cultural setting, and also likely comes from the root gdd.
8.3.5 "PWS *'amm- is also attested with more general meanings such as 'relatives, clan, people." Is Amgid, then, a Proto West Semitic name? CAD G yields the archaic (Ur III) Personal Name, Gidanu, "probably West Semitic," although the editors avoid a link with Akkadian gidu, sinew. No matter. Whatever Gidanu may signify, the early name yet evokes Jaredite Amgid.
Am-nigaddah, n-g-d, a people who stands out, a distinguished people.
The Valley of Shurr (Ether 14:28): Shurr recalls two roots, to be narrow; belly, navel. Shurr, where Coriantumr's vast army tents may be pictured as a narrow place--the tents spread along a long, narrow valley, rather than clumped in one body out in the open. The army takes a breather in the valley, then quickly gathers to a more secure place, a large nearby hill, called Comnor (read Comron), which signifies Place of Rampart, Rampart Hill. Comron matches Nephite Cumorah (also Rampart). Now safe and snug on Rampart Hill, Coriantumr sounds a trumpet as invitation to battle.
28 And they pitched their tents in the valley of Corihor; and Coriantumr pitched his tents in [throughout the length of?] the valley of Shurr. Now the valley of Shurr was near the hill Comnor [Comron: so Royal Skousen]; wherefore, Coriantumr [just as quickly as he could] did gather his armies together upon the hill Comnor [Comron], and did sound a trumpet unto the armies of Shiz to invite them forth to battle.
29 And it came to pass that they came forth, but were driven again; and they came the second time, and they were driven again the second time. And it came to pass that they came again the third time, and the battle became exceedingly sore.
Proto-Semitic *shurr- is attested in Hebrew as Shor. The Valley of Shurr, like the Palestinian hill, Tabor (navel), may also be pictured as a centerplace of the Jaredite world, a navel of the universe--a place of panegyris, tenting, or gathering. Shurr also suggests king. I still like my first guess: the Valley Shurr signifies a Long and Narrow Valley, tucked to one side a long, slanting Rampart Hill. At any rate, Shurr, with its strange double r, reflects linguistic and cultural realities the Prophet Joseph Smith knew nothing about (Weninger, 217, 6.1.4).
Friday, August 9, 2013
What Does The Book of Mormon Name "Cumorah" Signify? Cumorah's Redoubt; Cumorah's Olivepress
I
"I am going to Cumorah" is what the old man, turning down a ride in their wagon, said to Joseph, Oliver, and David.
(https://contentdm.lib.byu.edu/digital/collection/MStar/id/27175)
Hugh Nibley points us a road to Cumorah. In a marginal note--just two words--about Mormon's description of Cumorah as "a land of many waters, rivers, and fountains," Nibley writes "spots"; "rock-pits." A few verses down comes another note: "Redoubt; Armaggeddon; Flanders." It is as though Sargeant Nibley were scouting the area for Mormon, prior to the final battle. Something about the pockmarked, spotty nature of the landscape: rock-pits, fountains, and the criss-cross of watercourses, made of Cumorah, for Nibley, the perfect redoubt. (See his annotated Book of Mormon, one of many, BYU Ancient Studies Library, Hugh Nibley, BX 8622.1 A1 1963b, copy dated 7/5/78.)
Professor Hoskisson also notes in passing (2004) an ancient Syrian place name Kamaru and, following Jean-Marie Durand, suggests it represents an Amorite name deriving from the same root as Akkadian kumara. As Michael C. Astour tells us, Kamaru occurs (up to three times) in ancient Syria--and it persists to this day in the place name Kimar, Syria, just east of the Afrin River (see Michael Astour, "Semites and Hurrians in Northern Transtigris," etc.).
I now turn to James E. Hoch's startling book, Semitic Words in Egyptian Texts of the New Kingdom and Third Intermediate Period. Here's what caught this reader's attention in 2011:
A list of place names recorded in the Nubian temple of Amarah West gives us the Syrian Ginta ku-ma-ra, the Winepress of Kumara (or Kumarah). You cannot get any closer to Cumorah than the clear and consistant hierogyphic "group writing," developed by the Egyptian scribes to vocalize Semitic words and names, that expresses West Semitic Ginta Kumara, that is, Gath Kumara (see James E. Hoch, Semitic Words in Egyptian Texts, 293, #425 = K. A. Kitchen, Ramesside Inscriptions II, 217, no. 98, Dynasty XIX; for II, 217, Scroll down to page 246: https://archive.org/details/KennethA.KitchenRamessideInscriptionsVol2 ).
A list of place names recorded in the Nubian temple of Amarah West gives us the Syrian Ginta ku-ma-ra, the Winepress of Kumara (or Kumarah). You cannot get any closer to Cumorah than the clear and consistant hierogyphic "group writing," developed by the Egyptian scribes to vocalize Semitic words and names, that expresses West Semitic Ginta Kumara, that is, Gath Kumara (see James E. Hoch, Semitic Words in Egyptian Texts, 293, #425 = K. A. Kitchen, Ramesside Inscriptions II, 217, no. 98, Dynasty XIX; for II, 217, Scroll down to page 246: https://archive.org/details/KennethA.KitchenRamessideInscriptionsVol2 ).
The first element, Ginta, says Hoch, appears variously in the Amarna Letters (royal Egyptian correspondence that documents many Syro-Palestinian place names) as Gimtu-, Ginti-, or Giti, which corresponds to Hebrew and Ugaritic, gt or gath, a winepress. As for Kumara, the consonant-cum-vowel syllabic "group writing" is very clear: Gardiner's sign list D28, "arms extended," Hoch, 511, /ku/; Aa15 and D38, "unclassified sign" plus "forearm with hand holding a rounded loaf," Hoch, 508, /ma/ (listed as ma4); D21, "mouth," Hoch, 509, /ra/: ku-ma-ra. (Hoch, #425, Ginta Kumara is the first example listed under Ginta; the "sign groups" for Semitic names are listed in Hoch, 506-512).
Kumarah or Cumorah, as a vineyard, perfectly matches "a land of many waters, rivers, and fountains."
And where was Ginta Kumara?
A second Kumara--if not the very same place--lies in ancient Hurrian country, according to the Great North Syrian List of Thutmose III (and other lists): "k-m-r- (ka-m-r-w)," Michael C. Astour, "Place-Names from the Kingdom of Alalah in the North Syrian List of Thutmose III: A Study in Historical Topography," Journal of Near Eastern Studies (1963, 22:4), 230. The place, "still called Kimar," lies "in the Gebel Sim'an, east of the Afrin River," Michael C. Astour, "Semitic Elements in the Kumarbi Myth: An Onomastic Inquiry," Journal of Near Eastern Studies (1968 27:3), 173. As Professor Astour reminds us, the name of the Hurrian god Kumarbi means "(He) of Kumar."
Professor Astour tells us just what the Syrian place name means. The noun kumaru, kuwaru, etc., which signifies generally a construction of earth, specifically refers to a ramp or rampart (buttressing a city or city gate), a redoubt, or a dike. Such an embankment may also have agricultural uses, that is, the protective wall of a garden (think of the Persian paradeisos). Consider the following theophoric name: 'Ammukumarra, "'Ammu is a rampart." A like epithet speaks to "Teshub, the lord of the kamaru of the city of Irrite" (Michael Astour, "Semites and Hurrians in Northern Transtigris," Ernest R. Lacheman Festschrift, 26). (Think of Gilgamesh and the wall of the city Uruk.) Note, again, the ending in -a: Ginta Kumara, 'Ammukumarra: that's where the Amorite, or West Semitic element, surfaces. Book of Mormon Cumorah properly shows the West Semitic, rather than the East Semitic, that is, Akkadian, ending.
Beetling embankments, ramparts, and dikes: all these may serve for defensive earthworks, heaped up by men. Of superior worth would be a place where nature herself, in a riot of fountains and pits, rivers and embankments and escarpments, dikes and ditches--all criss-crossed and confounding--and rocks of all sizes everywhere, builds for man a place of redoubt--like Flanders. The whole makes for a natural beehive of military preparation, and, to be sure, the editors of the CAL (Comprehensive Lexicon of Aramaic) see in the Syriac word for beehive (kwr) a trace of the same Akkadian kmr in its sense of walling (brick wall and so on).
And where was Ginta Kumara?
A second Kumara--if not the very same place--lies in ancient Hurrian country, according to the Great North Syrian List of Thutmose III (and other lists): "k-m-r-
Professor Astour tells us just what the Syrian place name means. The noun kumaru, kuwaru, etc., which signifies generally a construction of earth, specifically refers to a ramp or rampart (buttressing a city or city gate), a redoubt, or a dike. Such an embankment may also have agricultural uses, that is, the protective wall of a garden (think of the Persian paradeisos). Consider the following theophoric name: 'Ammukumarra, "'Ammu is a rampart." A like epithet speaks to "Teshub, the lord of the kamaru of the city of Irrite" (Michael Astour, "Semites and Hurrians in Northern Transtigris," Ernest R. Lacheman Festschrift, 26). (Think of Gilgamesh and the wall of the city Uruk.) Note, again, the ending in -a: Ginta Kumara, 'Ammukumarra: that's where the Amorite, or West Semitic element, surfaces. Book of Mormon Cumorah properly shows the West Semitic, rather than the East Semitic, that is, Akkadian, ending.
Beetling embankments, ramparts, and dikes: all these may serve for defensive earthworks, heaped up by men. Of superior worth would be a place where nature herself, in a riot of fountains and pits, rivers and embankments and escarpments, dikes and ditches--all criss-crossed and confounding--and rocks of all sizes everywhere, builds for man a place of redoubt--like Flanders. The whole makes for a natural beehive of military preparation, and, to be sure, the editors of the CAL (Comprehensive Lexicon of Aramaic) see in the Syriac word for beehive (kwr) a trace of the same Akkadian kmr in its sense of walling (brick wall and so on).
Nature walls off Cumorah and her hill--Mormon has the advantage.
For the ruins of palatial Tell Ain Dara, our Syrian Kumara towering over the paradisaical Afrin Valley, see http://romeartlover.tripod.com/Deinair.html. Tell Ain Dara, Gath Cumorah, Ginta Ku-ma-ra, Rampart and Winepress and Paradise, Semitic names vocalized in Egyptian hieroglyphs, a kind of "reformed Egyptian" for that special purpose--these are the things that catch one's attention.
II
In an earlier essay (published in 201o), I link Cumorah with a rare Hebrew, Aramaic, and, perhaps, Ugaritic verb kmr, which variously expresses darkness, gloom, blackness. Professor Hoch thinks kmr to be a by-form of the verb kmh (Semitic Words in Egyptian Texts).
While the link isn't convincing, it does call to mind the Egyptian name for the fertile Nile Valley, Km.t, the black land. Again consider the Syrian place name, Gath Kumara (the winepress or olivepress of Kumara). The names of West Semitic presses and vineyards often bespeak blessing and fertility. The Bible gives us Gath Rimmon (Persimmon Winepress) and Gethsemane, which last evokes the fatness of the olive and the purity and brakhah--the blessed nature--of its oil. Gath Kumara fairly sings of fertile soil, and much calls to mind a like West Semitic root, krm, vineyard (Vineyard Winepress; Orchard Winepress). As Gath Kerem, so Gath Kumara. Indeed, Gath Kumara yields inherent possibilities for plays on words: the Gath Kumara thus corresponds to the Gath Kerem, the Wine Press of the Hilltop Vineyard, as we might translate the place name. A play on words certainly arises in Isaiah's Song of the Vineyard: the Kerem is planted in a qeren (horn), "a even the Qeren ben Shamen, or "a very fruitful hill" (Isaiah 5:1). But Qeren ben Shamen, though often rendered as "a hillside rich in oil," that is, "fertile," first registers the "horn of rich olive oil," a cornucopia. In Zenos's allegory of the Olive Tree in Book of Mormon Jacob 5:43, we find such a qeren as symbolic of Lehi's land of promise: "I did plant in a good spot of ground; yea, even that which was choice unto me above all other parts of the land of my vineyard." Much of the vineyard consisted of poor and yet poorer soil, about which the keeper of the Vineyard's owner complained incessantly; the children of Lehi were tucked away into a qeren.
II
In an earlier essay (published in 201o), I link Cumorah with a rare Hebrew, Aramaic, and, perhaps, Ugaritic verb kmr, which variously expresses darkness, gloom, blackness. Professor Hoch thinks kmr to be a by-form of the verb kmh (Semitic Words in Egyptian Texts).
While the link isn't convincing, it does call to mind the Egyptian name for the fertile Nile Valley, Km.t, the black land. Again consider the Syrian place name, Gath Kumara (the winepress or olivepress of Kumara). The names of West Semitic presses and vineyards often bespeak blessing and fertility. The Bible gives us Gath Rimmon (Persimmon Winepress) and Gethsemane, which last evokes the fatness of the olive and the purity and brakhah--the blessed nature--of its oil. Gath Kumara fairly sings of fertile soil, and much calls to mind a like West Semitic root, krm, vineyard (Vineyard Winepress; Orchard Winepress). As Gath Kerem, so Gath Kumara. Indeed, Gath Kumara yields inherent possibilities for plays on words: the Gath Kumara thus corresponds to the Gath Kerem, the Wine Press of the Hilltop Vineyard, as we might translate the place name. A play on words certainly arises in Isaiah's Song of the Vineyard: the Kerem is planted in a qeren (horn), "a even the Qeren ben Shamen, or "a very fruitful hill" (Isaiah 5:1). But Qeren ben Shamen, though often rendered as "a hillside rich in oil," that is, "fertile," first registers the "horn of rich olive oil," a cornucopia. In Zenos's allegory of the Olive Tree in Book of Mormon Jacob 5:43, we find such a qeren as symbolic of Lehi's land of promise: "I did plant in a good spot of ground; yea, even that which was choice unto me above all other parts of the land of my vineyard." Much of the vineyard consisted of poor and yet poorer soil, about which the keeper of the Vineyard's owner complained incessantly; the children of Lehi were tucked away into a qeren.
Cumorah, the Fruitful Land, the Cornucopia, so much as Protective Rampart of the same, thus bookends nicely with the Book of Mormon Land Bountiful (perhaps reflecting the Semitic root ts-m-r, Tsumar), being respectively the north and south boundaries (rampart as boundary?) of the Land Northward in the Book of Mormon, even Kumar and Tsumar (see F. Grondahl, Die Personennamen der Texte aus Ugarit, 199: ts-m-r, "fruchtbar sein"; the Prophet Joseph Smith is on record as naming fruitful Zion, Zomar). Worthy of note is another Book of Mormon hill, the Jaredite Comron, Place of Comr. . . (Ether 14: 28-29; the Printer's Manuscript names the hill Comron, not, as in our editions, Comnor: Royal Skousen, Analysis of Textual Variants of The Book of Mormon 6:3874; The Book of Mormon Onomasticon, q.v., "Cumorah," also suggests an etymological link between Cumorah and Comron, though no conclusion is reached.
If kmr is a by-form of kmh, and if both evoke Km.t, could not Gath Kumara at least connote the black, fertile soil? After all, Kumarbi, he of Kumar, is an earthy, chthonic, fertility deity for the ancient Hurrians (in upper Mesopotamia), and his mythology speaks of a descent into the "dark, dark earth." As for Pomegranate Wine Press, the pomegranate with its abundant seeds becomes, like the fertile black humus, a symbol of fruitfulness par excellence. In the palace garden of Ashurnasirpal III pomegranates and vines richly intertwine (see E. Cook, AJA 108, 56).
That said, Michael Astour, and others, correctly assign the Syrian place names built on the root kmr to the semantic field of kumaru, to heap up, pile. Kimar, ancient Kumaru, is thus Rampart or Ramp, the place of the Embankment--just east of the Afrin river. Gath Kumara, if the same place, is thus the Winepress of the place Rampart, the (brick) Walled Winepress, or the like. Any other associations with beehives or the black soil (the rich loam piled up about the river banks, etc.), if made at all, would have been secondary, but the association remains natural and inescapable.
Alexander Militarev, an adventurous lexicographer, links Egyptian km, kmm, Km.t with a West Semitic root for darkness, gloom, blackness ('km), but, here, we find ourselves in by-paths: is the "original" root km? or 'km? or kmr? Or is kmr also a by-form of 'km, and therefore to be linked etymologically with Egyptian km and Km.t? Here is a language confounded and contorted into by-forms and shades of meaning. As early as the 19th century, scholars linked, though weakly, km with some of these same Semitic forms. Hoch has it right: the root has taken on affixes (an -r extension), owing perhaps to dialect or confusion with another verb. Kmr, km, 'km: these likely do not all derive from the same root, but no matter--babel language has thrown them together. The semantic field--and the symbolic--has overlapped since the earliest times.
We cannot know just what came to the ordinary Nephite's mind, when he heard the name Cumorah, but some mind linked name and nature's fortress. We have only a fragment of the Hebrew spoken by the ancients: Biblical Hebrew, much of it poetic, classical, does not yield enough material to provide answers to questions about Semitic roots like kmr.
Yet Mormon tells us what the place Cumorah was like, and does so in terms suggestive of the West Semitic name Kumaru. Yet we may imaginatively perceive a link between the kum of Cumorah and that of Km.t (Kumat or Kamat). (The Greek word for mound is likewise kom.) Ramps and mounds are heaped-up of piles of black earth. And the Nile Valley, after each inundation, runs all a-dot with little black mounds, each awaiting the touch of life. Black earth spells germination, a semiotically rich theme belonging to the common Afro-Semitic "encyclopaedia." Kmr signifies black heaps of fertile soil, so well as ramparts, dikes, and ruined mounds.
While Professor Astour explains the place name Kumaru in light of Akkadian kumaru (to throw down and thus heap up, etc.), the Sumerian lexeme answering to kumaru yields GUR-GUR, which refers to the tallying up of a sum: you heap up, and then you total the gain. So why not associate Hurrian Kumaru with the high-yield Kumat, or Black Land? "Every spring," explains Professor Ronald J. Leprohon, "the Nile flood would subside and what first emerged from the water were triangular-shaped islands of rich black earth. These little mounds represented the promise of new life, which led to the notion that all creation must have begun exactly the same way" ("Egyptian Religious Texts," Egyptology Today (ed) R. H. Wilkinson, 231). Such ideas need not be exclusively Egyptian, and Kumarbi's center place may thus be another Black Land, another place of beginning where life stirs into being. Similar little mounds do indeed appear in the Mesopotamian record, but here the theme is not "the promise of new life," but annihilation: "as if the flood had devastated them, I [Sargon] piled up (his cities) into ruin mounds [u-kam-mi]" (CAD K 114).
That said, Michael Astour, and others, correctly assign the Syrian place names built on the root kmr to the semantic field of kumaru, to heap up, pile. Kimar, ancient Kumaru, is thus Rampart or Ramp, the place of the Embankment--just east of the Afrin river. Gath Kumara, if the same place, is thus the Winepress of the place Rampart, the (brick) Walled Winepress, or the like. Any other associations with beehives or the black soil (the rich loam piled up about the river banks, etc.), if made at all, would have been secondary, but the association remains natural and inescapable.
Alexander Militarev, an adventurous lexicographer, links Egyptian km, kmm, Km.t with a West Semitic root for darkness, gloom, blackness ('km), but, here, we find ourselves in by-paths: is the "original" root km? or 'km? or kmr? Or is kmr also a by-form of 'km, and therefore to be linked etymologically with Egyptian km and Km.t? Here is a language confounded and contorted into by-forms and shades of meaning. As early as the 19th century, scholars linked, though weakly, km with some of these same Semitic forms. Hoch has it right: the root has taken on affixes (an -r extension), owing perhaps to dialect or confusion with another verb. Kmr, km, 'km: these likely do not all derive from the same root, but no matter--babel language has thrown them together. The semantic field--and the symbolic--has overlapped since the earliest times.
We cannot know just what came to the ordinary Nephite's mind, when he heard the name Cumorah, but some mind linked name and nature's fortress. We have only a fragment of the Hebrew spoken by the ancients: Biblical Hebrew, much of it poetic, classical, does not yield enough material to provide answers to questions about Semitic roots like kmr.
Yet Mormon tells us what the place Cumorah was like, and does so in terms suggestive of the West Semitic name Kumaru. Yet we may imaginatively perceive a link between the kum of Cumorah and that of Km.t (Kumat or Kamat). (The Greek word for mound is likewise kom.) Ramps and mounds are heaped-up of piles of black earth. And the Nile Valley, after each inundation, runs all a-dot with little black mounds, each awaiting the touch of life. Black earth spells germination, a semiotically rich theme belonging to the common Afro-Semitic "encyclopaedia." Kmr signifies black heaps of fertile soil, so well as ramparts, dikes, and ruined mounds.
While Professor Astour explains the place name Kumaru in light of Akkadian kumaru (to throw down and thus heap up, etc.), the Sumerian lexeme answering to kumaru yields GUR-GUR, which refers to the tallying up of a sum: you heap up, and then you total the gain. So why not associate Hurrian Kumaru with the high-yield Kumat, or Black Land? "Every spring," explains Professor Ronald J. Leprohon, "the Nile flood would subside and what first emerged from the water were triangular-shaped islands of rich black earth. These little mounds represented the promise of new life, which led to the notion that all creation must have begun exactly the same way" ("Egyptian Religious Texts," Egyptology Today (ed) R. H. Wilkinson, 231). Such ideas need not be exclusively Egyptian, and Kumarbi's center place may thus be another Black Land, another place of beginning where life stirs into being. Similar little mounds do indeed appear in the Mesopotamian record, but here the theme is not "the promise of new life," but annihilation: "as if the flood had devastated them, I [Sargon] piled up (his cities) into ruin mounds [u-kam-mi]" (CAD K 114).
Mormon's Cumorah speaks to ruin, even annihilation.
The Sumerian lexicon also yields KUM (to be, become hot, heat), a word likely to be a Semitic loan-word; it's a shared word anyhow. How to bridge the gap between Egyptian Kuma and Sumerian KUM, between black and hot? Lamentations 5:10 speaks of faces "hot like an oven" (nikmaru), and some have translated the word as scorched, blackened. Hot as an oven; black as an oven, it is all the same. Blackness absorbs heat. Afroasiatic Km, together with its by-forms kmr and 'km, signifies heat. Heat, gloom, sadness, darkness, blackness all come together in an original root, kum. For Job, a very trying day, a day in which everything piles on, is a kamirirey yom--not just kmr but kmr-r.
Cumorah, with its many waters, rivers, and fountains, calls up Spring's fertility, a black land like the Egyptian Kumat, as km.t was likely pronounced. (For the vocalization of Egyptian km.t, see Antonio Loprieno, Ancient Egyptian: A Linguistic Introduction, 42, 88. Egyptians referred to themselves as the Ramats ni Kumat (the people of Kumat), or even as the Kumut). Where such a link between ku-ma-ra and the black earth may not be linguistically sound, we may yet term it semiotically suggestive, part of a shared connotative encyclopaedia, somewhere on the other side of denotation and dictionary. Matching dictionary and the denotative would be Cumorah the Redoubt, the Rampart Land, "serving," as Shakespeare would have it, "in the office of a wall." In other words, Cumorah denotes a Rampart, a stronghold, "this fortress built by Nature for herself"; it may also connote a land rich in promise.
III
Is a New York Cumorah a rampart too far?
The search for Cumorah will be facilitated so well by the meaning of the name as by Mormon's description of the land and the hill that bear the name. And until those who seek Cumorah identify a place that better matches the linguistic and narrative evidence, a study of New York antiquities can still serve up surprises.
E. G. Squire's study of the native antiquities of New York, whether Huron or a bit older, comes chock full of details about how First Nations threw up earthworks and dug ditches in tandem with the natural defenses found in springs, spits, pits, bays, fissures in the limestone, etc. Squire's descriptions astonish. The natural defenses are already sufficiently strong to require but little in the way of the works of men: some ditches for palisades, earthen gates and ramparts--these last, large but not spectacular--and so forth.
Even for the reader who situates Cumorah in Mexico (and as Hugh Nibley reminds us, Anahuac, that is the Valley of Mexico, does signify waters), Squire's study will prove indispensable in setting forth the proper Cumorah terrain (Ephraim G. Squire, Antiquities of New York, 1853). Western New York, anyway you slice it, has always been good Cumorah land. Nibley argued that a New York setting for Cumorah was not a bridge too far; he also saw the merit in a Mesoamerican or Peruvian setting, provided Cumorah's hill remained a hill, and not some ridiculous mountain, upon which no armies could be arranged in battle formation. That's how Hugh Nibley saw it. Now we also see Cumorah in Syria.
And Syria today sadly sees Cumorah.
Notes
Curiosity about Zarahemla, the land of Nephi, or the narrow neck of land comes with the reading. Hugh Nibley once answered a direct question about the location of the city of Zarahemla with some specific indications. I don't know what startled me more: that I would ask so directly or that such specificity would be immediately forthcoming.
The Sumerian lexicon also yields KUM (to be, become hot, heat), a word likely to be a Semitic loan-word; it's a shared word anyhow. How to bridge the gap between Egyptian Kuma and Sumerian KUM, between black and hot? Lamentations 5:10 speaks of faces "hot like an oven" (nikmaru), and some have translated the word as scorched, blackened. Hot as an oven; black as an oven, it is all the same. Blackness absorbs heat. Afroasiatic Km, together with its by-forms kmr and 'km, signifies heat. Heat, gloom, sadness, darkness, blackness all come together in an original root, kum. For Job, a very trying day, a day in which everything piles on, is a kamirirey yom--not just kmr but kmr-r.
Any relation to Akkadian kumaru? Who can say?
Again, I can't make a lexical connection, but it's easy to see how semantic and symbolic fields might overlap. In West Semitic one of the meanings of kmr and 'km has to do with the heat necessary for the germination of plant life in the dark earth. Which brings us back to the greatest Hurrian god, Kumarbi, he of Kmr, the chthonic rampart god. A blade of wheat is his symbol. Does Syrian Kumaru, then, signify rampart? or black earth? or both?
Again, I can't make a lexical connection, but it's easy to see how semantic and symbolic fields might overlap. In West Semitic one of the meanings of kmr and 'km has to do with the heat necessary for the germination of plant life in the dark earth. Which brings us back to the greatest Hurrian god, Kumarbi, he of Kmr, the chthonic rampart god. A blade of wheat is his symbol. Does Syrian Kumaru, then, signify rampart? or black earth? or both?
Cumorah, with its many waters, rivers, and fountains, calls up Spring's fertility, a black land like the Egyptian Kumat, as km.t was likely pronounced. (For the vocalization of Egyptian km.t, see Antonio Loprieno, Ancient Egyptian: A Linguistic Introduction, 42, 88. Egyptians referred to themselves as the Ramats ni Kumat (the people of Kumat), or even as the Kumut). Where such a link between ku-ma-ra and the black earth may not be linguistically sound, we may yet term it semiotically suggestive, part of a shared connotative encyclopaedia, somewhere on the other side of denotation and dictionary. Matching dictionary and the denotative would be Cumorah the Redoubt, the Rampart Land, "serving," as Shakespeare would have it, "in the office of a wall." In other words, Cumorah denotes a Rampart, a stronghold, "this fortress built by Nature for herself"; it may also connote a land rich in promise.
III
Is a New York Cumorah a rampart too far?
The search for Cumorah will be facilitated so well by the meaning of the name as by Mormon's description of the land and the hill that bear the name. And until those who seek Cumorah identify a place that better matches the linguistic and narrative evidence, a study of New York antiquities can still serve up surprises.
E. G. Squire's study of the native antiquities of New York, whether Huron or a bit older, comes chock full of details about how First Nations threw up earthworks and dug ditches in tandem with the natural defenses found in springs, spits, pits, bays, fissures in the limestone, etc. Squire's descriptions astonish. The natural defenses are already sufficiently strong to require but little in the way of the works of men: some ditches for palisades, earthen gates and ramparts--these last, large but not spectacular--and so forth.
Even for the reader who situates Cumorah in Mexico (and as Hugh Nibley reminds us, Anahuac, that is the Valley of Mexico, does signify waters), Squire's study will prove indispensable in setting forth the proper Cumorah terrain (Ephraim G. Squire, Antiquities of New York, 1853). Western New York, anyway you slice it, has always been good Cumorah land. Nibley argued that a New York setting for Cumorah was not a bridge too far; he also saw the merit in a Mesoamerican or Peruvian setting, provided Cumorah's hill remained a hill, and not some ridiculous mountain, upon which no armies could be arranged in battle formation. That's how Hugh Nibley saw it. Now we also see Cumorah in Syria.
And Syria today sadly sees Cumorah.
Notes
Curiosity about Zarahemla, the land of Nephi, or the narrow neck of land comes with the reading. Hugh Nibley once answered a direct question about the location of the city of Zarahemla with some specific indications. I don't know what startled me more: that I would ask so directly or that such specificity would be immediately forthcoming.
On the other hand, I also heard Brother Nibley say on more than one occasion, "I wouldn't touch Book of Mormon geography with a forty-foot pole." Did he place any value on John Sorenson's Mesoamerican research, a Mesoamerican approach to the Book of Mormon? Yes. Brother Nibley praised and recommended his work to students. Where a question remains open, we might profit from any thoughtful study.
I greatly prize my own copy of John Sorenson's last book, Mormon's Codex. There is so much in the book that calls to mind the Book of Mormon. On the other hand, everywhere we turn the Book of Mormon swims into ken, from news reports to ancient place names in Syria. Even thumbing through a Greek lexicon presents surprising correspondences to Book of Mormon thought. Scripture is resonant.
So what about the "forty-foot pole"?
An overmuch concern with Book of Mormon geography in the Americas, beyond noting the internal consistency of geographic reference within the book, lies outside intelligent endeavor. Determined argument on such matters becomes the mark of the huckster or the fanatic and hardly speaks to spiritual or social refinement.
Notes
"I am going to Cumorah": Joseph F. Smith, Orson Pratt, Interview with David Whitmer, 1878 Millennial Star
Paul Y. Hoskisson, "What's in a Name: Cumorah," The Journal of the Book of Mormon
The Book of Mormon Onomasticon Project (BYU, Neal A. Maxwell Institute), q.v. "Cumorah"
Michael Astour, Journal of Near Eastern Studies
An overmuch concern with Book of Mormon geography in the Americas, beyond noting the internal consistency of geographic reference within the book, lies outside intelligent endeavor. Determined argument on such matters becomes the mark of the huckster or the fanatic and hardly speaks to spiritual or social refinement.
Notes
"I am going to Cumorah": Joseph F. Smith, Orson Pratt, Interview with David Whitmer, 1878 Millennial Star
Paul Y. Hoskisson, "What's in a Name: Cumorah," The Journal of the Book of Mormon
The Book of Mormon Onomasticon Project (BYU, Neal A. Maxwell Institute), q.v. "Cumorah"
Michael Astour, Journal of Near Eastern Studies
Monday, August 5, 2013
Joseph Smith and Hannibal: Mount Hanabal in Joseph Smith Translation Genesis 14:10
The Prophet Joseph Smith left for the benefit of the Saints not one but two books of Abraham. The first appears in the added words, phrases, sentences, and even paragraphs of the New Translation of Genesis. The second came to light from a roll of papyrus, written in hieratic script and purporting, in its title, to be The Book of Abraham, Written by His Own Hand upon Papyrus. Like the gold plates of the Book of Mormon, the record on papyrus, scribal copy though it be, becomes a tangible earnest of the resurrection of the dead. Together, these two offerings yield startling details, stories, and revelations not found in the Holy Bible and set forth the covenant of the priesthood God made with the fathers.
Among the many easily missed details Brother Joseph added to the ancient story of Abraham is the place name Hanabal, a name which could refer to one or several of the Mountains of Moab--perhaps Jebel Shihan, with its high ruins and caves. A stele depicting a form of Ba'al wearing Egyptian accoutrements was found just to the west of Shihan. Another candidate is Bemot Ba'al, the High Place of Ba'al, to which "Balak took Balaam" (Numbers 22:41). The mountain towers out of nowhere in Joseph Smith Translation Genesis 14:9--a verse not found in the footnotes of the current LDS edition of the Holy Bible.
The story begins with KJV Genesis 14:10:
Among the many easily missed details Brother Joseph added to the ancient story of Abraham is the place name Hanabal, a name which could refer to one or several of the Mountains of Moab--perhaps Jebel Shihan, with its high ruins and caves. A stele depicting a form of Ba'al wearing Egyptian accoutrements was found just to the west of Shihan. Another candidate is Bemot Ba'al, the High Place of Ba'al, to which "Balak took Balaam" (Numbers 22:41). The mountain towers out of nowhere in Joseph Smith Translation Genesis 14:9--a verse not found in the footnotes of the current LDS edition of the Holy Bible.
The story begins with KJV Genesis 14:10:
1 And it came to pass in the days of Amraphel king of Shinar, Arioch king of Ellasar, Chedorlaomer king of Elam, and Tidal king of nations;
2 That these made war with Bera king of Sodom, and with Birsha king of Gomorrah, Shinab king of Admah, and Shemeber king of Zeboiim, and the king of Bela, which is Zoar.
8 And there went out the king of Sodom, and the king of Gomorrah, and the king of Admah, and the king of Zeboiim, and the king of Bela (the same is Zoar;) and they joined battle with them in the vale of Siddim;
9 With Chedorlaomer the king of Elam, and with Tidal king of nations, and Amraphel king of Shinar, and Arioch king of Ellasar; four kings with five.
10 And the vale of Siddim was full of slimepits [JST OT Manuscript 1 has: was filled with slime pits]; and the kings of Sodom and Gomorrah fled, and fell there; and they that remained fled to the mountain.
To the last verse, the Prophet adds:
and they that remained fled to the mountains [with the s crossed out] which is called Hanabal. (Old Testament Manuscript 2, p. 640),
or,
to the Mountain [note the capital letter] which was called [Hanable: crossed out] Hanabal (Old Testament Manuscript 1, p. 125).
In an earlier essay, posted on 21 June 2010, I suggested deriving the name from the root n-b-l. Ha-nabal (even Har-nabal) could signify either The Lofty, the Elevated, or Mount Lofty, Mount Eminent, and so forth. I no longer subscribe to that view.
The name of Mount Hanabal clearly combines the root h-n-n (to be gracious, graced) and the epithet Ba'al (master, husband). The author of Genesis 14, after all, had a "predilection for composite place names," and the like (Michael C. Astour, "Hazazon-Tamar", Anchor Bible Dictionary, III, 86). Though I did, in my first try, briefly compare Hanabal to the name of the Carthaginian general Hannibal, the name of another odd mountain known to the patriarchs, Lubar (in Jubilees and the Genesis Apocryphon), threw me off track. Lubar, nevertheless, has its own fascinating etymology. . .
Hanabal signifies Ba'al is gracious, or Ba'al graces, even as the Hebrew name Hananiah signifies Jehovah is gracious. The Old Testament does twice attest Ba'al-Hanan (the Akkadian Ba'al ha-nu-nu), Ba'al has shown mercy: Ba'al Hanan names a king of Edom (Genesis 36:38; see Ernst Axel Knauf, "Baal-Hanan," Anchor Bible Dictionary I 551-2). A list of personal names from Ebla yields Hanna-Il, "God (Il or El) is gracious" (#792). Also from Ebla: Har-Ba'al, Harra-Ba'al, Ba'al is a Mountain (see Cybernetica Mesopotamica: Ebla PNs).
Ba'al is a Mountain also reminds me of Mount Lubar. Might not Lubar derive from Ilu-Ba'al, a combination of the two divine names Ilu and Ba'al? If so, Lubar could then be read as Ba'al is (my) God. Lubar is leading me off track again. . . Delitzsch derives Lubar from the Alborz Mountains of Persia (The Jewish Encyclopedia, 1906, "Noah"). The derivation doesn't go far enough. In the Encyclopaedia Iranica entry for "Alborz," we read that the Hara berezaiti in Avestan texts (later shortened to Harborz) names a vast cosmic mountain or mountain range stretching from horizon to horizon; the connection with the Persian range dates to later times. Lubar is a kind of cosmic mountain for Noah and his sons. Can Lubar really derive from Hara berezaiti? It can.
Ba'al is a Mountain also reminds me of Mount Lubar. Might not Lubar derive from Ilu-Ba'al, a combination of the two divine names Ilu and Ba'al? If so, Lubar could then be read as Ba'al is (my) God. Lubar is leading me off track again. . . Delitzsch derives Lubar from the Alborz Mountains of Persia (The Jewish Encyclopedia, 1906, "Noah"). The derivation doesn't go far enough. In the Encyclopaedia Iranica entry for "Alborz," we read that the Hara berezaiti in Avestan texts (later shortened to Harborz) names a vast cosmic mountain or mountain range stretching from horizon to horizon; the connection with the Persian range dates to later times. Lubar is a kind of cosmic mountain for Noah and his sons. Can Lubar really derive from Hara berezaiti? It can.
When looking for derivations, we mustn't expect exact matches. Shouldn't we demand of Joseph Smith the spelling Hananabal in place of Hanabal? Consider Hannibal and Hamilcar of Carthage: here we find West Semitic names in Latin texts and Latin forms. Today we might justifiably spell Hannibal in a variety of ways: Hananibal, Hananibal, Hananabal, Hannabal, even Anibal (as in Spanish). Joseph Smith's Hanabal (or even the odd Hanable) sufficiently signals Hannabal or, just so well, Hananabal. Joseph Smith gives us only one n, it is true, but the consonant is long. (Semitic languages have long consonants.)
How have students understood the name Hannibal? Hannibal may signify "Ba'al has been gracious (in providing me with a son")--that's Hamilcar speaking; others read "Ba'al is gracious." John Huehnergard, "Semitic Roots," in The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, 5th edition, suggests Hann-i-bal, "my grace is Baal."
How have students understood the name Hannibal? Hannibal may signify "Ba'al has been gracious (in providing me with a son")--that's Hamilcar speaking; others read "Ba'al is gracious." John Huehnergard, "Semitic Roots," in The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, 5th edition, suggests Hann-i-bal, "my grace is Baal."
Why the name of a mountain? One has only to consider the home of Ba'al Hadad on Mount Zaphon, just north of Latakia. Zaphon was Ba'al Hadad's Olympus, but, for the Canaanites, other mountain tops also reflected that central home. Hadad's thunder reverberated from peak to peak. And then there's the name from Ebla: Har(ra)-Ba'al.
We return to the stele found "in the vicinity of Jebel Shihan [Mount Shihan]," another candidate for our Hanabal: "The Rujm al-'Abd figure with its downward-thrusting spear, cap with streamer, and accompanying lion fits iconographic features used to identify the Canaanite god Ba'al, especially when fused with Seth as the slayer of Apophis the serpent in Egyptian art" (Bruce Edward Routledge, Moab in the Iron Age: Hegemony, Polity, Archaeology, 180). Again: "Some scholars have speculatively identified this figure as the god Kemosh, a suggestion that cannot be completely discounted, as local deities were frequently represented as the hypostasis of Ba'al as storm god" (180; illustration of stele on page 179). The Rujm al-'Abd figure, which blends Egyptian and Canaanite iconography in violent aspect (and note the lion!), might as well be called Facsimile 4 of the Book of Abraham.
And any reader familiar with the hill at the head of the plain of Olishem, the place of Elkenah's sacrifical altar in Abraham 1, will wish to visit the hilltop stele of Ramesses the Great, which overlooks an obscure Syrian village. The stele shows the pharaoh offering a figurine of Ma'at to a divinity sporting a bizarrely horned Osirian Atef Crown. An accompanying legend yields: Ilu (El) k-n-a Zaphon, which both Giveon and de Moor read as El qny Zaphon (El Creator of Zaphon). While the transliteration and meaning of the sequence k-n-a is disputed, it does recall "the god of Elkenah" in the Book of Abraham. Or what to make of the many bronze figurines of El, accoutred in "the manner of the Egyptians" and in the pose of a smiting god? So accoutred, the priest of Elkenah, who was also priest of Pharaoh, sought to slay Abraham upon the altar (Kitchen, Ramesside Inscriptions II, 263.)
Because people are constantly casting aspersions on the Prophet's Book of Abraham, Latter-day Saints might consider a standard response. One response would be to invite all to see in the Joseph Smith Translation yet another restored Book of Abraham. Criticize Abraham's works and watch how, like his seed, they multiply. More scripture from father Abraham is forthcoming.
Nephi has another response: "But behold, there are many that harden their hearts against the Holy Spirit, that it hath no place in them; wherefore, they cast many things away which are written and esteem them as things of naught" (2 Nephi 33:2). Cast out the pearl of great price, then where will you be?
Learned posturing borders on imposture:
"Because thou sayest, I am rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing; and knowest not that thou art wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked:
I counsel thee to buy of me gold tried in the fire, that thou mayest be rich; and white raiment, that thou mayest be clothed, and that the shame of thy nakedness do not appear; and anoint thine eyes with eyesalve, that thou mayest see" (Revelation 3: 17-18).
None of us sees very well in the mortal state--and we must walk by faith--still, what evidence we do have for the divine Book of Abraham shows that it deserves a second look.
Because the scriptures revealed through the Prophet Joseph Smith give us many a mountain and hill heretofore unknown: Shelem, Hanabal, Potiphar, Cumorah, etc., we should take that second look from a lofty perspective. From a cosmic vantage point, we may see all heights and depths.
Yet before we consider Joseph Smith as linguist (or as student of early Canaanite religion), let's taste of his prophetic irony:
10 And the vale of Siddim was full of slimepits [JST OT Manuscript 1 has: was filled with slime pits]; and the kings of Sodom and Gomorrah fled, and fell there; and they that remained fled to the mountain,
which is called Hanabal (Old Testament Manuscript 2, p. 640),
which is, being interpreted, Ba'al is gracious.
Some final words
Abraham holds the keys of the Book of Abraham. To diminish the Book of Abraham is thus also to diminish Abraham, a god, who "hath entered into his exaltation and sitteth upon his throne" (Doctrine and Covenants 132), and, ultimately, to challenge and to diminish the purposes of the God of Abraham, the God of the living. Neither need we redefine Abraham; his years exceed ours.
Latter-day Saints have long ago (1880 and 1890) taken upon themselves, by obligation, a covenantal promise to reverence the Book of Abraham as scripture. For the Saints, there is no more need to revisit the genuineness of the writings of Abraham than there is to revisit the reality of the exalted Abraham himself. The Book of Abraham comes to us clothed in purity as a translated record of the living father of the covenant people. Abraham is a living prophet, and the Book of Abraham, a true record of his revelations, covenants, ministry, and teachings.
The doctrine is simple: God is God; Abraham is Abraham; covenants are covenants, and scripture is scripture. The Book of Abraham serves as a compass pointing to true north; we take our bearings by it in both time and eternity and, by this means, avoid the errors inherent in the never-settled, ever-shifting theories of men.
As President Boyd K. Packer teaches, we are to examine and scrutinize, yes, critique, the learning of men from the perspective of gospel and scriptural truth--not the other way round. As we do so, the truth will shine fair as the sun, clear as the moon, and terrible as an army with banners. Errors in our understanding of history, language, and letters will take flight as we raise high those bright banners to the glory of God. Then intelligence will be ours.
NOTES
1) The text of JST Genesis 14, transcribed according to accepted standards, appears in Joseph Smith's New Translation of the Bible: Original Manuscripts, Scott Faulring, Kent Jackson, Robert Matthews (eds). The introduction to the volume, with its explanations of the various manuscripts of the JST, are invaluable. I further recommend "The Doctrinal Restoration," the transcript of a talk delivered by Elder Bruce R. McConkie, The Joseph Smith Translation, Monte S. Nyman and Robert S. Millet (eds).
Other useful editions of the JST include Joseph Smith's "New Translation" of the Bible (Independence, Missouri, 1970), which I studied as a young child and of which I'm fond, and The Bible Corrected by Joseph Smith, Kenneth and Lyndell Lutes (eds), which shows the changes with more clarity. Neither is a perfect edition, and both perpetuate errors. Other editions are available, given that Latter-day Saints never tire of publishing the same things over and again.
2) Geography of the Pentapolis: J. Simons, The Geographical and Topographical Texts of the Old Testament, 222-229; Neballat: Simons, p. 390.
Of Jebel Shihan: it "overlooks the Wadi al-Mujib (the Arnon) and the Dead Sea. It rises to 965 meters above sea level, and its summit is occupied by ruins and caves [a place of refuge]," Online Article: "The Karak District in the Madaba Map," by Fawzi Zayadine, part of the study, Jordan: the Madaba Mosaic Map, on the Franciscan Cyberspot. Ba'al's Mount Zaphon itself is not so very much higher: ca. 1500 meters.
Saturday, August 3, 2013
Omer, King; Emer, Witness (The Book of Ether Testifies of Jesus Christ)
Chapters eight and nine of the Book of Ether yield, in a sweep of narrative and admonitory commentary, the "exceedingly many days" of Omer, the son of Shule, "which were full of sorrow." Here we see the dancing "daughter of Jared"; we see enamored Akish, who turned, with the turn of a foot, from close friendship for Omer, to found a secret association in "the house of Jared" in order to kill Omer and take away his kingdom.
Like Lehi, Omer dreamed a dream "that he should depart out of the land" and "traveled many days" with his family. "He pitched his tent" in "a place which was called Ablom, by the seashore." (And, perhaps, "by" New York City.) There he lived, in exile, until civil war engulfed the kingdom of Akish, "Wherefore, Omer was restored again." He lived long enough to beget an heir, Emer. After anointing Emer "to be king to reign in his stead," Omer "saw peace in the land for two years, and he died." Emer "did prosper exceedingly" and "saw peace"; "yea, and he even saw the Son of Righteousness, and did rejoice and glory in his day; and he died in peace."
What does Omer signify? According to a glossary of Semitic roots, prepared by John Huehnergard for the 5th edition of the American Heritage Dictionary, the Central Semitic verbal root 'mr [ayin-mem-resh] signifies "to live, dwell, build." As a noun, *'umr is Life. Professor Huehnergard goes on to say that Israelite King Omri (my life) bears a shortened form of the name Omriyah (Jehovah [is] my life = Hebrew *'omer ~ *'umr, life). Here we recall the Arab caliph, Omar. (The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, 5th ed., "Semitic Roots": "Proto-Semitic Language and Culture; Semitic Roots.")
Life begets Life, and that new Life lives to see The Light and the Life of the world.
That Omer and Emer bear ancient Semitic names, which trace back to early Proto-Semitic rootage, attests to the truth of the Book of Mormon. But the Book of Mormon, through its many testimonies, all the more importantly attests to the reality of the Son of Righteousness, even Jesus Christ! It is that second attestation--the manner in which the Book connects the reader to Christ--that brings testimony not only unto, but into the heart.
Emer, who shall live ("he shall live" - with "e" as third person verbal prefix), both lives and prospers as he builds upon his father's heritage. And, unique among kings and captains of the earth, he lives to see the Son of God. Emer thus becomes a witness of Him who shall live "in his day," and who shall live forevermore.
The root that underlies Emer, ayin-mem-resh, also invokes--at least to the modern reader--aleph-mem-resh ("to see, know, make known, say"). The anointed King who "shall live," shall also see, know, and make known. Perhaps Emer signifies sight, after all. Huehnergard also gives the Proto-Semitic verb for anoint, that is, the same ancient root known to Ether. M-sh-h likewise names Christ, the Messiah.
Ether, after bearing testimony of the glory and rejoicing--and the longed-for peace--quietly moves on. Yet even in the quick passing of a single, light-bearing verse, with Abraham as co-witness, who also, in his day, saw His day, we receive in the Holy Ghost Another Testament of Jesus Christ.
Like Lehi, Omer dreamed a dream "that he should depart out of the land" and "traveled many days" with his family. "He pitched his tent" in "a place which was called Ablom, by the seashore." (And, perhaps, "by" New York City.) There he lived, in exile, until civil war engulfed the kingdom of Akish, "Wherefore, Omer was restored again." He lived long enough to beget an heir, Emer. After anointing Emer "to be king to reign in his stead," Omer "saw peace in the land for two years, and he died." Emer "did prosper exceedingly" and "saw peace"; "yea, and he even saw the Son of Righteousness, and did rejoice and glory in his day; and he died in peace."
What does Omer signify? According to a glossary of Semitic roots, prepared by John Huehnergard for the 5th edition of the American Heritage Dictionary, the Central Semitic verbal root 'mr [ayin-mem-resh] signifies "to live, dwell, build." As a noun, *'umr is Life. Professor Huehnergard goes on to say that Israelite King Omri (my life) bears a shortened form of the name Omriyah (Jehovah [is] my life = Hebrew *'omer ~ *'umr, life). Here we recall the Arab caliph, Omar. (The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, 5th ed., "Semitic Roots": "Proto-Semitic Language and Culture; Semitic Roots.")
Life begets Life, and that new Life lives to see The Light and the Life of the world.
That Omer and Emer bear ancient Semitic names, which trace back to early Proto-Semitic rootage, attests to the truth of the Book of Mormon. But the Book of Mormon, through its many testimonies, all the more importantly attests to the reality of the Son of Righteousness, even Jesus Christ! It is that second attestation--the manner in which the Book connects the reader to Christ--that brings testimony not only unto, but into the heart.
Emer, who shall live ("he shall live" - with "e" as third person verbal prefix), both lives and prospers as he builds upon his father's heritage. And, unique among kings and captains of the earth, he lives to see the Son of God. Emer thus becomes a witness of Him who shall live "in his day," and who shall live forevermore.
The root that underlies Emer, ayin-mem-resh, also invokes--at least to the modern reader--aleph-mem-resh ("to see, know, make known, say"). The anointed King who "shall live," shall also see, know, and make known. Perhaps Emer signifies sight, after all. Huehnergard also gives the Proto-Semitic verb for anoint, that is, the same ancient root known to Ether. M-sh-h likewise names Christ, the Messiah.
Ether, after bearing testimony of the glory and rejoicing--and the longed-for peace--quietly moves on. Yet even in the quick passing of a single, light-bearing verse, with Abraham as co-witness, who also, in his day, saw His day, we receive in the Holy Ghost Another Testament of Jesus Christ.
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