Joseph Smith and the Translation of Words of Fundamental Doctrinal Significance: A Quest for Purity of Meaning

Where the salvation of the human family is at stake, neither scholarly "translation" nor scholarly bafflement will do. The difference between all others who translate from dead languages and the Prophet Joseph is that living touch with living mind, with living idea, with gospel truth, which requires neither dictionary nor grammar. The God of Abraham is not the God of the dead but of the living. Joseph translated the languages of the Living, and with living tongues of fire.

Not that the merely human endeavor deserves despite. Joseph Smith studied Greek, Hebrew, and German; he also pondered and preached from Elias Hutter's old polyglot New Testament (Nuremberg, 1602): Hebrew, Greek, Latin, German. A convert had given Brother Joseph the Testament in Nauvoo, and he seemed to treasure it in the same way he treasured the papyri. He naturally tried his hand as student translator, and even at emending unclear places (an irresistible game for any student of Biblical languages). And he made his mistakes, as all students must. But even while wrapped in study, he sought the further inspiration of God.

Study weds faith in the journal entry of 19 January 1836: "Spent the day at school; the Lord blessed us in our studies. This day we commenced reading in our Hebrew Bibles with much success. It seems as if the Lord opens our minds in a marvelous manner to understand His word in the original language." A breathtaking prayer follows: "And my prayer is that God will speedily endow us with a knowledge of all languages and tongues" (see Joseph Smith Papers: Journal I:164). "All languages" evokes Mosiah's "all records which are of ancient date"; it also points to the Prophet's powerful desire to bring the Gospel to all people.

The Nauvoo discourses show several translations, emendations, or transcendent explanations of Greek, Hebrew, and even German words and phrases. "Salvation" we always understand to be a matter of heaven and hell; yet "salvation," "heaven," and "hell" bear interpretive cargoes of connotation and comment. Joseph sought to set words free. 

He wondered about the origin of paradise: "find the origin of Paradise--find a needle in a hay mow" (11 June 1843, Willard Richards report, The Words of Joseph Smith, 211). The word comes from either the Avestan pairidaeza or Old Persian paradayadam or paridaidam, but Joseph didn't need to know that to translate. Knowledge of Persian, could he have attained to that grace, would have availed nothing. Translation required translation: Joseph, like Paul, knew a man who had been caught up to the spiritual world--and that rapture more than sufficed. Paradise signified "a world of spirits," not heaven, as the divines would have it (Roland Kent, Old Persian: Grammar, Texts, Lexicon [1950], 195: Av. an enclosure, walled garden; OP "perhaps 'pleasant retreat'"; "that which is beyond or behind the wall"; Gr paradeisos "park").

Words like paradise and hell--and perhaps a dozen other English words in the Authorized Version--with all their accumulated signatures, were, at essence, made-up words: "a modern word," he says. They were signifiers pointing to nothing a seer might glimpse yonder. "Five minutes" scanning heaven would overthrow all dusty books, he claimed. Uninspired translators foisted such words on the language, and in the language they were destined to remain as stumbling blocks to truth.

To get at inspired translation requires cutting new channels of thought. "You must study it out in your mind," while waiting on the Lord (Doctrine and Covenants 9). We encounter Sheol, a word which the eager Hebrew student translates, well, Sheol. . . or grave or pit. "Sheol--who are you? God reveals. means a world of spirits--I don't think so says one. Go to my house I will take my lexicon" (211). We go with Joseph and look at his lexicon: "the lower world, the region of ghosts, the orcus or hades of the Hebrews" (Josiah W. Gibbs lexicon; see Journals I:107 n. 159). Note the marriage of lexicon and revelation, "by study and also by faith" (Doctrine and Covenants 88). "A world of spirits," in place of grave or pit, may not seem an earthshaking translation of Hebrew Sheol, but it opens onto a brave new world. Sheol is not hell; Paradise not heaven--both signify another place along the way to immortality and eternal life. Joseph saw Sheol, knew Sheol--and that seeric certainty, now confirmed by the lexicon, is what he translates for his auditors. It remains for us to wrestle with the implications. 

And note how such concern for Hebrew words of fundamental doctrinal significance, words to be grasped in their purity, matches the attention he gives to the Hebrew words in Book of Abraham Chapter 3 and in the explanations of the Abraham facsimiles. For Brother Joseph, use of a lexicon serves to carry the seeker beyond translation by tradition; it's a first foray into a purer realm of language, a realm free from the splintered light show of learned commentary, a realm where signifiers point at what seers saw--then God reveals.

Many Germans congregated at the grove where he preached. But that only encouraged Joseph to translate Luther's Bible in startling new ways. He would boldly ask his German hearers to weigh-in, even on his pronunciation, and they would respond.

Joseph never claimed mastery of German, though he daringly read from the Hutter polyglot before thousands; neither did he fuss over the possibility of contradiction from some crotchety grammarian. There is some fun in it all--yet, without hesitation, he shared his surmisings about this or that verse. He is clear, when so discoursing, about the two-step act of prophetic translation; even when the second, spiritual step, interwoven as it is with sessions of prayerful thought, can neither be reached nor replicated, unless his listeners also work by faith.

The method remains mysterious, as mysterious as thought itself, though the result of such translation recalls the lost-wax technique of casting precious metal objects. The treasured wonder alone remains, a substantial idea that can be weighed, tested, admired. The Prophet simply could not rest with the fragmentary knowledge and imaginary flights of scholarship; he sought greater light and knowledge; worked at it until he got it; then shared his revelations and translations with a spiritually thirsting world (see Neal A. Maxwell, "How Choice a Seer," October Conference 2003; For the Hutter polyglot, see http://bit.ly/18s941p).

The Title Page of the Book of Mormon and the Translation of the Book of Abraham

Joseph Smith describes the title page of the Book of Mormon as "a literal translation," even "a genuine and literal translation," of the last unsealed gold plate. In only one other instance does the Prophet specify the original locus of a particular place in scripture: Abraham Chapter 3 derives "from the papyrus now in my house." In other words, Visit my house, and I'll be glad to show you the very hieroglyphs I translated. And note how Joseph, when speaking of the particular gold plate that serves as title page, correlates one plate to one page. Other plates may translate into three or four pages of English, but the point remains: Here is no mystical, pre-decipherment "reading" of hieroglyphs as Symbol, wherein each sign contains of itself sufficient capacity to supply many sentences of esoterica. No. Joseph Smith has been lambasted for, supposedly, believing a single hieroglyph in Egyptian could stand for many words, even paragraphs, in English. That may describe Athanasius Kircher; Joseph Smith can speak for himself. Joseph, who compares the Egyptian writing on the last plate to "all Hebrew writing in general," sees all hieroglyphs, formed or reformed or whatever, as a "running" script. That's his word. "Running": nothing could be more clear (Teachings of Presidents of the Church: Joseph Smith, 60-61).

We accordingly see Joseph Smith at pains to supply the right adjectives. "The English version" "of the very last leaf" of "the original Book of Mormon" is a "genuine and literal translation" from the Egyptian hieroglyphs. The Book of Abraham aims to be "a correct translation." Further, the English version of the Book of Mormon title page "is not by any means a modern composition, either of mine or of any other man." Some wonder whether Joseph Smith himself composed the Book of Abraham solely as an inspired vehicle for introducing a transcendent doctrine--a symbolic link to a symbolic rather than an historical past. Those few so supposing would describe prophetic "trans-lation" as an ingenious re-imaging or re-imagining of the ancient scriptural heritage--a justifiable theological enterprise--and, by so describing, think to detach and thus save inspired comment and composition from the imperatives of scholarship. It doesn't take much imagination, though, to hear the Prophet's frank response: Neither is the Book of Abraham "a modern composition, either of mine or of any other man who has lived or does live in this generation."

As for the revealed explanations of the three Book of Abraham facsimiles, these, too, are not a composition "of any other man who has lived or does live in this generation"--the imprimatur of Joseph the Seer lies powerfully upon them.

Great Inequality: Alma Chapter 4:12-14

A distinct, and distinctly poetic, section in Alma Chapter 4, introduced by verse 11 but which properly comprises verses 12-14, begins with the statement: "Yea, he saw great inequality among the people," and ends with a forward look to "the will and power and deliverance of Jesus Christ." We can name this little section: "Yea, he saw great inequality among the people."

12 Yea, he saw great inequality among the people, some lifting themselves up with their pride, despising others, turning their backs upon the needy and the naked and those who were hungry, and those who were athirst, and those who were sick and afflicted.

13 Now this was a great cause for lamentations among the people, while others were abasing themselves, succoring those who stood in need of their succor, such as imparting their substance to the poor and the needy, feeding the hungry, and suffering all manner of afflictions, for Christ’s sake, who should come according to the spirit of prophecy;

14 Looking forward to that day, thus retaining a remission of their sins; being filled with great joy because of the resurrection of the dead, according to the will and power and deliverance of Jesus Christ from the bands of death.

Anyone reading that first sentence in verse 12 today might recall something or other said by Bernie Sanders (or anybody else) in the 2016 presidential campaign. "Great inequality among the people" describes our own condition. But America's in the midst of a troubled political campaign, a campaign that evokes those described in Alma Chapter 2 or Helaman Chapter 1, so I hate to weigh in. You read those chapters--then just stick around for 2020 or 2028. In the midst of "great disputations" we go.

Where did all these people in needy Zarahemla come from? The first three chapters of Alma make it clear: a swift and terrible civil war had also led to a foreign invasion. By war's end, flocks and farms were left desolate; there was many a widow and many an orphan. These displaced and dispossessed flocked into the capital parts of the country, and were likely to be seen on every street corner in Zarahemla. Today I think of the lovely, the urbane, the literary, the moral, the pious, that stream from war-torn Syria. I liken Alma's words to our day in the history of the Church.

In Alma's book everyone's continuously on the run, war is perennial, and inequality and inequity--and iniquity--are principal themes.

How does Alma take up the theme? In various ways. But in chapter four, Alma summons an array of verbs that contrast how different types of people address inequality. He clearly gives us two groups of people; I don't mean to say the haves and the have nots, rather the give nots and the givers. Yet Alma's dynamic verbal description of how different people address inequality goes beyond two distinct or stereotyped groups: he's looking for verbs that cover the ground attitudinally, and he also gives us various little verbal pictures of service.

The second group, the givers of various sorts, are both more active and thus also more alive--they feel more of both pain and joy; the first group remains hauntingly distant: they stand and turn, but the one emotion is that of despite. Despite knows neither sorrowing, suffering, nor joy. Despite may not indeed be an emotion at all, but only a stance. To despise is to pretend to feel or to think something; but, you've turned away now, so we'll never know if a fluttering of the heart shows any life or not.

An array of verbs thus marches past us in Alma's three verses:

lifting (themselves up), despising, turning (their backs), abasing (themselves), succoring, imparting, feeding, suffering (for Christ's sake), looking forward, retaining (a remission of their sins), being filled (with great joy).

Those who lift themselves up contrast nicely with those who abase themselves. Lifting themselves up and turning--Who are these? Approached by the poor--these could be lesser judges or the like, who sit at the gate--they stand to show their glitter and glory, and despite, then turn and walk away. Maybe they do not stand as tall as they think; thus they turn and slink away. But all the needy see is total rejection. Fast comes the sinking feeling in the stomach. There were great lamentations among the people, for these were not street beggars, but those about to perish--the orphans of war.

The other group does not stand on approach, it kneels or bows in greeting--and then runs (suc-cor) to the aid. Here the suffering is shared. There's going to be a price for serving the needy. As you impart, you drain yourself away--you must come to hunger. Abasing, succouring, imparting, feeding--the verbs are very active here, and lend pictures to the mind. But passive "suffering" also inevitably follows. And there's a second reason for suffering: Though they have stood up and turned and walked away, the despisers are never far off, and are ever going to harass and harangue both the have nots and the give alls.

The verbal train also shows that feeding and clothing the poor is never going to be sufficient--the burden will be too great: for the poor ye have always with you--which also means that help from most members of society is never forthcoming. Looking forward is the only solution. So the verbs continue: looking forward while yet serving, and serving so unceasingly that the heart is ever more and more being filled with great and greater joy, as we all await both the salvation of the poor and the all-rectifying resurrection of the dead by the will and power and deliverance of Jesus Christ.

Doctrine and Covenants 56:18-19 promises that the poor "shall see the kingdom of God coming in power and great glory unto their deliverance; for the fatness of the earth shall be theirs. For behold, the Lord shall come, and his recompense shall be with him, and he shall reward every man, and the poor shall rejoice."

Alma 4:12-14: Yea, he saw great inequality among the people

A distinct and distinctly poetic section in Alma Chapter 4, introduced by verse 11 but which properly comprises verses 12-14, begins with the statement: "Yea, he saw great inequality among the people," and ends with a forward look to "the will and power and deliverance of Jesus Christ." We can name this little section: "Yea, he saw great inequality among the people." 

These are the words of the Lord:

12 Yea, he saw great inequality among the people, some lifting themselves up with their pride, despising others, turning their backs upon the needy and the naked and those who were hungry, and those who were athirst, and those who were sick and afflicted.

13 Now this was a great cause for lamentations among the people, while others were abasing themselves, succoring those who stood in need of their succor, such as imparting their substance to the poor and the needy, feeding the hungry, and suffering all manner of afflictions, for Christ’s sake, who should come according to the spirit of prophecy;

14 Looking forward to that day, thus retaining a remission of their sins; being filled with great joy because of the resurrection of the dead, according to the will and power and deliverance of Jesus Christ from the bands of death.

Anyone reading that first sentence in verse 12 today might recall something or other said by Bernie Sanders (or anybody else) in the 2016 presidential campaign. "Great inequality among the people" describes our own condition. But America's in the midst of a troubled political campaign, a campaign that evokes those described in Alma Chapter 2 or Helaman Chapter 1. Read those chapters--then just stick around for 2020 or 2028. In the midst of "great disputations" we go.

Where did all these people in needy Zarahemla come from? The first three chapters of Alma make it clear: a swift and terrible civil war had also led to a foreign invasion. By war's end, flocks and farms were left desolate; there was many a widow and many an orphan. These displaced and dispossessed flocked into the capital parts of the country, and were likely to be seen on every street corner in Zarahemla. Today I think of the lovely, the urbane, the literary, the moral, the pious, that stream from war-torn Syria. I liken Alma's words to our day in the history of the Church.

In Alma's book everyone's continuously on the run, war is perennial, and inequality and inequity--and iniquity--are principal themes.

How does Alma take up the theme? In various ways. But in Chapter 4, Alma launches into an array of verbs that contrast how different types of people address inequality. He clearly gives us two groups of people; I don't mean to say the haves and the have nots, rather the give nots and the givers. Yet Alma's dynamic verbal description of how different people address inequality goes beyond two distinct or stereotyped groups: he's looking for verbs that cover the ground attitudinally, and he also gives us various little verbal pictures of service.

The second group, the givers of various sorts, are both more active and thus also more alive--they feel more of both pain and joy; the first group remains hauntingly distant: they stand and turn, but the one emotion is that of despite. Despite holds neither sorrowing, suffering, nor joy. Despite may not indeed be an emotion at all, but only a stance. To despise is to pretend to feel or to think something; but, you've turned away now, so we'll never know if a fluttering of the heart shows any life or not.

An array of verbs thus marches past us in Alma's three verses:

lifting (themselves up), despising, turning (their backs), abasing (themselves), succoring, imparting, feeding, suffering (for Christ's sake), looking forward, retaining (a remission of their sins), being filled (with great joy).

The group that lifts themselves up contrasts nicely with that which abases themselves. Lifting and turning: Approached metaphorically by the poor--these could be lesser judges or the like, who sit at the gate--they stand to show their glitter and glory and despite, then turn and walk away. Maybe they do not stand as tall as they think. Thus they turn and slink away. But all the needy see is Total rejection. Fast comes the sinking feeling in the stomach. There were great lamentations among the people, for these were not street beggars, but those about to perish--the orphans of war.

The other group does not stand on approach, it kneels or bows in greeting--and then runs (suc-cour) to the aid. Here the suffering is shared. There's going to be a price for serving the needy. As you impart, you drain away part of yourself--you come to hunger, too. Abasing, succouring, feeding --the verbs are very active here, and lend pictures to the mind. But passive "suffering" inevitably follows. And there's a second reason for suffering: Though they have stood up and turned and walked away, the despisers are never far off, and are ever going to harrass and harangue both the have nots and the give alls.

The verbal train also shows that even feeding the poor and clothing the poor is never going to be sufficient--the burden will be too great: for the poor ye have always with you--which also means that help from most members of society is never forthcoming. Looking forward is the only solution. So the verbs continue: looking forward while yet serving, and serving so unceasingly that the heart is ever more and more being filled with great and greater joy, as we all await both the salvation of the poor and the all-rectifying resurrection of the dead by the will and power and deliverance of Jesus Christ.

In like manner, Doctrine and Covenants 56:18-19 promises that the poor "shall see the kingdom of God coming in power and great glory unto their deliverance; for the fatness of the earth shall be theirs. For behold, the Lord shall come, and his recompense shall be with him, and he shall reward every man, and the poor shall rejoice."

None to Give Room for Them in The Inns (Joseph Smith Translation Luke 2:7)

Perhaps you, like me, have sensed Christmas wonder in the wording of Joseph Smith Translation Luke 2:7. The inspired translation speaks of inns in the plural:

And she brought forth her firstborn son, and wrapped him in swaddling clothes, and laid him in a manger; because there was none to give room for them in the inns.

The KJV reads:

And she brought forth her firstborn son, and wrapped him in swaddling clothes, and laid him in a manger; because (dioti) there was no (ouk en) room (topos) for them (autois) in the inn (en toi katalumati; in the lodging).

The inspired fullness echoes Nephi's new prophetic reading of Isaiah 50:2:

Wherefore, when I came, was there no man? when I called, was there none to answer? (KJV)

Wherefore, when I came, there was no man; when I called, yea, there was none to answer (2 Nephi 7:2).


That prophetic echo--dispensationally bridging Joseph Smith and Luke and Nephi and Isaiah--resounds even more clearly in the Greek phrase ouk en of both LXX Isaiah 50:2 and Luke 2:7 (ouk en, lit. not + it was: there was none, or there was not: dioti ouk en autois topos en toi katalumati).

In that Christmas wonder, you have certainly also sensed Luke's point about Christ's rejection and humility. If Joseph and Mary had gone from inn to inn and found rejection, for whatever reason, at every place, then that is rejection indeed. Truly there was no place for Christ, no place in the inn, no place in any inn anywhere.

"There was none to give."

We need a little giving, and that said, it wouldn't take much to slide a little didonai in place: dioti ouk en autois didonai topos en toi katalumati (for there was none to give them, or yield to them, place in the inn; cf. Luke 14:9).

The wonder of Christmas is not found, of course, in the moment of rejection--really, the round of rejection--it is found at the moment when Mary laid "her firstborn son" in the manger. There He rests, and there the shepherds--angel-stunned--find him.


Notes


The KJV, a rougher take on the Hebrew of Isaiah 50:2 than what we find in 2 Nephi 7:2 reads:

Wherefore, when I came, was there no man? when I called, was there none to answer?

I might translate:

Why was it, when I came, there was no man; when I called, there was no responder?

Or:

Why was there no man, when I came; no one responding, when I called?


Elder Bruce R. McConkie, responding to both the KJV and the JST says: "It was the traveling hosts of Judah generally, not just an innkeeper or an isolated few persons, who withheld shelter from Joseph and Mary. Though her state was apparent, the other travelers--lacking in courtesy, compassion, and refinement--would not give way so she could be cared for more conveniently and commodiously. This rude rejection was but prelude. . ." (Doctrinal New Testament Commentary 1:92)

Professor S. Kent Brown shares the following:

http://www.byunewtestamentcommentary.com/what-do-we-know-about-the-inn-at-bethlehem/

Laban the White and the Wizardry of Allusion

Laban first comes to us in a grammatical nexus that shows possession. Lehi tells Nephi "Thou and thy brothers should go unto the house of Laban, and seek the records." Laban "has" the records; he "keeps" the records. Nephi's breathless account speaks many times of the house of Laban, as well as the servants of Laban, including Zoram, the servant of Laban, of the hands of Laban (those rapacious hands), the garments of Laban, the treasury of Laban, and even the voice of Laban. Indeed throughout the Book of Mormon, we meet the sword of Laban. Nephi, wearing the garments of Laban, and his armor and "his sword," goes to the treasury of Laban, and craftily speaking in the voice of Laban commands the servant of Laban to bring the records. 

As a personal name in the Hebrew Bible, Laban appears only in the patriarchal narratives (as the nephew of Abraham). He is the kind of relative that helps you one minute and tricks you the next. Rebekah is a beauty: "And Rebekah had a brother, and his name was Laban." There's always a catch.  

Besides the little sister, Genesis gives us Rachel, the daughter of Laban, the sheep of Laban, Laban's flocks, the flock of Laban, Laban's cattle, and Laban's sons. We also behold "the countenance of Laban," an inconstant countenance--like "th'inconstant moon." 

Nephi's Laban, who is a famous kinsman, also commands his tens of thousands and his fifty, that last battalion being, says Hugh Nibley, Jerusalem's "permanent garrison." While there is room for comparison between Genesis and 1 Nephi, Laban, the military strongman, is his own man set in his own time. What Nephi gives us in Laban is "an eloquent commentary of the ripeness of Jerusalem for destruction" (Hugh Nibley, Lehi in the Desert, 96-98). 

Though Nephi's vividly narrated encounter with his own kinsman need not be read in light of distant Jacob's encounter with his crafty father-in-law, the Laban of Nephi shares something of his namesake's character. Nephi doesn't drop literary allusions to the patriarchal schemer; he doesn't really need to: the name alone evokes the man. The Encyclopaedia Judaica sums things up nicely--or not so nicely: "Laban cheated Jacob." "Laban emerges as a greedy and crafty man" (EJ 12:406-407). He chases people down in pursuit of his stolen property--or is it their property? So, too, Laban cheated Nephi. Book of Mormon Laban emerges as a greedy man, who, like Rebekah's welcoming brother, exhibits something of that easy, lulling hospitality mingled with craft. As his name is, so is he (1 Samuel 25:25).

Hugh Nibley speaks of "the pompous Laban": "He was a large man, short-tempered, crafty, and deceitful, and to the bargain cruel, greedy, unscrupulous, weak, and given to drink" (Lehi in the Desert, 97). Crafty? Laban invited Lehi's sons into his house on two occasions; they sat and talked in cousinly comfort before he sprung the trap. Here is craft, disguised by a pleasant, urbane manner--he duped the cousins twice--and unmasked in a sudden, overt violence: Laban blazes with anger, lusts after property, issues accusation and sentence; then, sends others to do the chasing. In his wrath, no matter how cleverly wrought, he remains as much Nabal as Laban--a fool and a lazy drunkard, seated and shouting orders. 

Laban ("white," or even "exceedingly white"), say the rabbis, signifies "shining in wickedness" (EJ 12:407). Shining in wickedness, perhaps an angel of light, Nephi's Laban may be, but he is decidedly not a bride-switcher: that takes a truer duplicity. Crafty Laban ultimately meets his match in Jacob the trickster. Practical Nephi is no trickster: he finds Laban dead drunk in the streets and lops his head off with his own sword. 

Nephi's justification for his violence points a careful reader to the story of David and Nabal, that Nabal who brashly denies David and his band of wilderness brothers their polite request for hospitality. Hospitality makes for a delicate thing, a point of honor, in all three stories, and Rashi famously takes Laban as anagram of Nabal (fool). Whether Nephi ever thought of these things is beside the point; Scripture invites intertextual reading at every turn of the page, and the wise student keeps his eyes open for both comparison and difference. (The article to read is Alan Goff, "How Should We Then Read? Reading the Book of Mormon after the Fall," FARMS Review, 21/1 (2009): 137-78.) 

According to Professor Goff: "If we are going to see in the Nephi/Laban story an allusion, we must grant that the record is textually sophisticated and view the connection as intentional rather than incidental. Allusion presupposes intention, as 'an inadvertent allusion is a kind of solecism.' I assert that the connections between the Laban story in the Book of Mormon and the Laban/Nabal stories in the Bible are intentional and that the ideal reader of the book will recognize the allusions."

I like what Brother Goff is saying because I enjoy reading Robert Alter, James Sanders, and Michael Fishbane, though I'm just as sure Nephi had no such aim in mind: he's telling us what happened to him one night in Jerusalem. And I have no idea whether "an inadvertent allusion" can or cannot be; neither am I sure how any allusion may register "a kind of solecism." Nephi knew God had delivered Jacob, Joseph, and Moses, and, true, he came to see his deliverance as being like that of the fathers; he speaks to his brothers about Moses in the wilderness so often that the reader wonders whether Nephi saw his own desert encampments as proximate the very places where "Israel's tents [did] shine so bright." Such identification with tenting Israel goes beyond allusion, as Noel Reynolds and others have noted. Even so, the idea that Nephi intentionally and artistically worked a filimentary allusiveness into his narrative runs contrary to his forthright nature and style. Ask Laban.

I spent a lot of time in Robert Alter's books--once upon a time. I recommend them, but the magic wears off readily. It's life itself, especially the life of old Jerusalem, that runs deep and gives us books in the running brooks, sermons in stones, and good in everything. And the written record of the race, especially Scripture, comes a running brook. Culture does its own work: it weaves its own patterns, some of startling complexity. A divine purpose stands over all. The Book of Mormon came first to a people drenched in Bible story, as Nephi himself noted (1 Nephi 12-13). And to these plain Puritan folk, Joseph Smith's neighbors, Nephi offers a plain narrative; the manifold gems studding his work solely, though tellingly, reflect the rich cultural heritage of one who walked in a land of prophets and kings. 

Hugh Nibley saw in Laban the Levantine governor, Zakar-Baal, arrogantly receiving "as he sat in his house." We might catch glimpses of Laban elsewhere, but we find him "in his house" only in a particular cultural milieu. Nephi's Laban, in thumbnail sketch, passes the high test of what Nibley calls the "peculiar" and the "specific" (see Since Cumorah, Chapter 9 n. 80). For diligent readers, everything goes into the mix; even so, guiding principles such as the peculiar and the specific ought to control what we ultimately say about the Book of Mormon.

Nephi does note likenesses, quotations, and allusions everywhere in the prophetic word: Isaiah, Zenos, Neum. Nephi was learned, "somewhat," he says--it could get worse, he's telling us--in all "the learning of the Jews." 1 Nephi 22 thus affords a rich prototype of what may be found in rabbinic commentary. 

Alan Goff offers students of the Book of Mormon the keys to the "treasury of Laban." Once the records are in our own hands, and one in our hands with the blessed Bible, we turn the pages as led or as we will. 



Of one thing we may be sure, the sons of Lehi must have been asleep at the switch to parade so much of gold, silver, and precious things before the eyes of Laban. It was their second appeal to their uncle's better angel; they already knew of his touchiness and imperious anger--he had "thrust" Laman from his house--yet they somehow never suspected his rapaciousness or his alcoholism. 

We must turn to cultural folkways to explain the surprising attempt to dazzle Laban with the family wealth. Such naivete only reveals the brothers' own touchiness in honor, a touchiness born of "goodly parents": they were trying to prove a point of honor. Laban likely owed Lehi a gift or two for past favors, and Laman, who had first politely requested the records from Laban, was not, as accused, "a robber"; the brothers, though amazed at Laban's lack of cultivation in the games of reciprocity, were willing to pay an exorbitant price to show good faith. But the old ties of kinship meant nothing to Laban: killing and taking was his way.

So why Laban--that unexpected name? For that, we need not repair to the patriarchs nor to the moon, but simply to the moment of birth. Surprised at such an "exceeding white" and large baby, the parents hit on Laban. The Chinese favor the baibai pangpang, the baby born to prosperity and beauty: white white fat fat. But Laban's whiteness, though not leprous, was rather an oddity. "Milky," "chalky," the parents must have muttered. The voice, too, had its unique quality, a timbre of command: the voice of Laban. The whole episode comes to a head--Laban's head--in the dream of a Jerusalem night. The surprising whiteness of the countenance of Laban is now no concern to Nephi: the garments of Laban, the sword of Laban--that shining sword of fine steel, with brilliant golden hilt--the voice of Laban, these suffice to work the trick. 

The Mystery of Identity in Book of Abraham Facsimile 2 And The Eclipsing Binary Star, Algol, in New Findings from Helsinki University

December 24, 2015

The round Egyptian hypocephalus, really a circle within a circle, represents both the solar pupil and the solar iris (the hypocephalus rim). Being the Eye of Re, it encompasses all that the sun sees and all that he governs as he rounds the universe and sets its boundaries. Within its compass--yet opposites sharply demarcated within the pupil--appear reflected the topsy-turvy realms of night and day, darkness and light, the netherworld and the sidereal heavens.

Which brings us--perhaps--to Algol, an eclipsing binary star. . .

"In this eclipsing binary, the dimmer star partially covers the brighter star with a period of 2.867 days." "These eclipses, says Lauri Jetsu, "last about ten hours and they can be easily observed with unaided eyes" (Renu Rangela, "Ancient Egyptian documents may carry records of important astronomical events," Ibtimes, 21 December 2015).

A team of scientists and egyptologists at Helsinki, in an intriguing though not convincing study, now "present evidence indicating that the period of Algol was 2.850 days three millennia ago. For religious reasons, the ancient Egyptians have recorded this period [along with the lunar period] into the Cairo Calendar (CC) [a register of lucky and unlucky days], which describes the repetitive changes of the Raging One" (Lauri Jetsu, et al., "Did the Ancient Egyptians Record the Period of the Eclipsing Binary Algol--the Raging One?"The Astrophysical Journal, 773:1 (10 August 2013), Abstract; the latest article is L. Jetsu, S. Porceddu, "Shifting Milestones of Natural Sciences: the Ancient Egyptian Discovery of Algol's Period Confirmed," PLoS ONE, 10 (12), 17 December 2015).

"We show that n ≈ 200 good prognoses would induce PMoon and PAlgol in CC, even if the remaining n ≈ 700 good and bad prognoses had aperiodic origins (Leitz 1994; e.g., diseases, floods, feasts, winds)" (L. Jetsu, 2013, 1).

In other words, not only did the Ancient Egyptian scribes discover and measure the period of Algol (if not its binary nature), they also paired the symbolism of the lunar cycle with that of the star and applied both to the workings of the Calendar. Measure and analogy were no small thing for the Egyptians. The priesthood held as sacred duty "the measurement of time by observing stars while they conducted the proper nightly rituals that kept the Sun safe during its journey across the underworld. The timing of these rituals was important, because it had to appease the terrible guardians, who opened one gate of the underworld at each hour. The Sun was reborn at the 12th hour, but only if Ancient Egyptian Scribes performed the rituals absolutely right. The risk that the Sun would never rise again was imminent" (L. Jetsu, 2013, 10-11, italics added). There comes to mind a classic scriptural moment of astronomical observation and its subsequent portrayal in the form of a cosmic circle or sphere: "And I saw the stars" (Book of Abraham 3:2).

We return to the round hypocephalus, which itself depicts the moment of sunrise at the morn of creation. The Latter-day Saint reader will here recall how the Prophet Joseph Smith's Explanation of the hypocephalus begins with "the measurement of time"; even "the measurement of celestial time" "according to the measurement of the earth" (which varies by season, note the Helsinki scientists, as the days and nights wax and wane). It is the moment in which the celestial kicks off the earthly time clock. The Prophet further discerns "numerical figure[s]" in the mythological representation of the stellar firmament "answering to the measurement of the time" of a great star, which then perfectly accords with the "revolution" and "measuring of time" of another, like, star. Hugh Nibley sorts the Prophet's "brief explanation" under the following headings: Cosmology, Measurement and number, Transmission of power or energy, Hierarchy or dominion (intelligence and purpose), Ordinances and procedures (Hugh Nibley and Michael Rhodes, One Eternal Round, 240, 244ff., 256). Ritual procedure thus accords with cosmic measurement to ensure the continuing downward flow of divine power--that's the Egyptian picture and that's the Egyptian practice.


Where does the eclipse come in? Hugh Nibley gives us a lead in his commentary on the Book of Breathings, or Sensen Document, this last a ritual serving to unite (snsn) the deceased with his solar father, which is also analogous to the reunion of the solar Ba-spirit and the Osirian corpse:

That he might enter the horizon along with his father Re;
To cause his Ba to appear in glory in heaven
(and) in the disk (itn) of the Moon
that his corpse might shine in (or as) Orion
in the womb (or body) of Nut (ll. 2-3)

The Egyptian verb that describes the fusing of the Ba-spirit of the king with Re is hnm: and "one wonders," says Nibley, "if the meeting or fusing (hnm) of the disks [in the above and related passages] could be anything but an eclipse" (Nibley, The Message of the Joseph Smith Papyri: An Egyptian Endowment, 83)?

Note the following phases of funerary ritual, which also mark phases of fusing, as that which is celebrated on earth matches, in timed precision, what unfolds in heaven (cf. Moses 6:63 = Hugh Nibley, Michael Rhodes, One Eternal Round, 256).

1) "In the darkest moment of the royal funeral in the deepest and darkest of chambers, the restoration process begins to take place, with the Ba assuming the most tenuous of forms, that of smoke provided by scented candles"(Nibley, Message, 82).

2) "The rites of royal burial ended exactly at sunrise, when the Ba of the dead king joined his father on the horizon" (81). This last is also "The meeting of Re and Osiris in their astral aspects" (Philippe Derchain on the secret ceremony of the Uniting of Re and Osiris in the House of Life = Nibley, Message, 83). Note, then, the left-hand panel of the hypocephalus, the last line of which ends with the prayer: May the Ba of Sheshonq be caused to live! According to the Prophet Joseph, that same line contains things "to be had in the temple of God," that is, things pertaining to a royal etiquette or royal secret set in motion by the workings of sacred ritual in a sacred sanctuary.

The discerning reader will draw the connection between the dim star--the ghoul of Algol, as the Arabs have it--and the scented smoke (or between the darkened moon and the scented smoke). Here is the Ba of Re on the shadowy night journey to join its corpse, in the form of Osiris, the god of the underworld. The Egyptian scribes who penned the Amduat (the Book of What is in the Underworld) do picture the night sun as traversing, at once, both underworld and stellar expanse (in the form of a star). As for the sunrise, Cannot the event also be figured in the bright star of Algol, as it emerges from eclipse? Would it were true! What a find that would be!

The scenario would certainly evoke the appearance of glory in the disk (itn) of the moon--another eclipse, says Nibley. The disk of the sun and the disk of the moon both figure the place and moment of hnm. Meeting in one disk, or meeting in one star or in a single constellation, so signifies the fusing of two (or more) Ba-spirits. Thus the Ba of Isis famously is the star Sothis (Sirius); that of mighty Horus, the constellation Orion. Hugh Nibley sums it up: "The idea that the Ba of one exalted being may unite with that of another is the ultimate expression of the mystery of identity" (Message, 82).

And of all identities, that of Re and Osiris is the most paradoxical; the ceremony that works the meeting in the House of Life thus becomes the most prohibitive, the most mysterious, and the most sacred event in the Egyptian view of the universe (Papyrus Salt 825). The Egyptian hypocephalus thus hardly embraces the run-of-the-mill funerary, as critics of Joseph Smith trumpet. Neither is the gist of the matter, as the Helsinki scientists describe it, the daily return of the sun on the horizon--things are much more fraught with moment than that! The purpose of the ceremony is to work the unity of the sun with its own dark twin and thus to effect the continuation of all life, despite all death, as manifest in Re-Osiris, the ultimate and ineffable power of the universe.

The work at Helsinki, despite its cargo of statistics, remains unproved (see links and the brief, dismissive comments in Electronic Egyptian Forum News 905). Grasp of the intricacies of Ancient Egyptian religion appears tenuous. One might also hope for the discovery of a second reference to Algol, or to its period, in the textual corpus. Still, all such work ought to be encouraged. As Professor Barry J. Kemp points out, students of Egyptian may stumble across ideas and connections very much in line with the sort of thinking pursued by the ancient scribes (Kemp, Ancient Egypt: Anatomy of a Civilization). The ancient tradition lives on in such discoveries, though we must tread with care.

To identify Algol with Horus, the living king, or with the Eye of Horus, in "his" (read, her) benign and wrathful aspects, intrigues, though it also falls short of the textual evidence. Not that the Calendar holds no surprises. Fascinating is the description of Re viewing the world through the Eye of Horus, as if through a special instrument, or, as described in other places, through a special messenger traversing the expanses (cf. the Explanation of Facsimile 2, no. 7; or even Abraham 3:2). He then invites the "great ones" (wr.w) to see what he has therewith seen. They cower before the flaming wrath of the Eye in the presence of Re. Fascinating, but what has it to do with Algol? Nothing. Besides, it is Sirius in her (read, his) form as Horus Sopdet that flares as the "raging one."

The formulas and the theories equating Algol and royal Horus do not take into full consideration the Egyptian fondness for analogy, multiplicity, fusion, and, well, fuzziness. Like anything else in the Egyptian cosmos, Algol cannot be boxed into a sole star. Neither can Horus: various planets, famously including red Mars, all take the name of Horus. In this case, we speak principally of Horus the Eldest, the prehistoric falcon that encompasses the universe in his revolutions. Horus the child and royal Horus, though tethered to the Eldest in a manner not altogether clear, come into a different story.

According to the Coffin Texts (VII 491h), Horus the Eldest paradoxically stands both in the middle (Hrj-jb = "over the heart") of the stars in the northern hemisphere and also in the middle of all the southern stars. The wording is: "in the middle of the stars of the upper region and of the opposing lower region," a view of the cosmos something recalling the schema of the opposing halves of the spherical hypocephalus. The four Sons of Horus the Eldest also make their appearance in the heavens, one of whom appears as the red star, Dosh-iati-imi-hawt-ins, the One whose two eyes are red, who dwells in the House of Scarlet, that is, the Horizon (for Horus Smsw, see Bernard Mathieu, "Les enfants d'Horus, theologie et astronomie," ENIM 1 (2008), 7-14).

For the Latter-day Saint reader, the Eldest Star standing "over the heart" evokes Kolob as "Heart Star" (qrb; Kolob is fig. 1 in the hypocephalus). Dosh-iati-imi-hawt-ins evokes Enish-go-on-dosh (fig. 5: the Hathor cow), both a star and also the sun, according to the Egyptians--so Joseph Smith. "Said by the Egyptians to be the sun." The four-headed ram that the Prophet names Kolob, and which Daniel Klotz terms the Cosmic Amun, likewise "depicts [both] the creator god in its most powerful manifestation, and thus also the sun at the peak of its glory," according to the very latest study (Gyula Priskin, "The encounter between the sun and the moon on hypocephali," Birmingham Egyptology Journal 2015 (3:24-41), 26). We, here, recall the configuration of the hypocephalus as a circle within a circle, pupil and iris, the dark pupil and the blazing iris or corona. Do we see a solar eclipse here as well?

Kolob and Enish-go-on-dosh make up the dominant celestial figures in their respective, and inverse, hemispheres on the hypocephalus (see Explanation of Facsimile 2 of the Book of Abraham). Enish-go-on-dosh appears just below the red horizon. The n in go-on-dosh, as far as that goes, hints at the Egyptian imi, thus imi-dosh, as the one who is in the dosh, or red horizon, or even the hw.t dSr, the house of red--again, inside the horizon. I suggest transcribing Enish-go-on-dosh as insi.t q3j.t imi dSr.wt, the Exalted Scarlet One, that is the Scarlet Eye, who is in her Red Resplendence.

Lovely Hathor, the Feminine Sun at Dendera, takes the epithet 'n.t x'w, the One who is beautiful [on-] in her manifestations [-go = x'w?], that is, in her manifestations as the solar Eye. Other readings for Enish-go-on-dosh (again, the Hathor cow on the hypocephalus), spring to mind. Consider ond- dosh(t): 'n.t or 'jn.ty dSr.ty (the One whose Wedjat Eye is red--with anger). 'n.t dSr(.ty) also much recalls the divine epithet dSr or dSr.ty ir.ty (dosht-iat) attached to one of the sons of Horus, as we have seen.

I favor reading Enish-go-on-dosh as either the Red Solar Eye (jns.t) or as the Living Solar Eye ('nx.t; 'nsh.t) in her exaltations (-go = q3j.t), even the Beautiful Eye in her Red Resplendence ('n.t dSr.wt). Enish-go-on-dosh, a fused name, thus signifies the conceptual unity of the Solar Eye at the powerful moments of both sunrise and sunset.

Of one thing we may be sure: Egyptian cosmology is more than what the handbooks tell.

"And he brought him forth abroad, and said, Look now toward heaven, and tell the stars, if thou be able to number them" (Genesis 15:5). Abraham's is an expanding universe.

So where does Algol, a blue star, fit in? The keen-eyed Egyptians could not have failed to spot the ghoulish star. The question remains Whether it signified? Perhaps Algol, like Sirius, like Orion, like the moon, may yet unfold as "ultimate expression of the mystery of identity."

Now to find the Egyptian name for the star!

http://epod.usra.edu/blog/2012/08/contrasting-star-colors-in-perseus.html