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Christianity
in the Pre-Christian Book of Mormon
Book of Mormon Anachronisms Part 5
By Michael R. Ash
Editor's Note:
The following article is courtesy of FAIR, a non-profit organization
dedicated to providing well-documented answers to criticisms of
LDS doctrine, belief and practice. FAIR can be found online
at http://www.fairlds.org/.
In addition to horses, elephants,
wheat and silk, and the use of metals, some critics have claimed
that Book of Mormon could not have practiced Christianity in the
centuries before the birth of Christ.
Most
of the Book of Mormon takes place prior to the coming of Christ,
yet the Nephite scripture includes what many believe are uniquely
Christian doctrines and terminology. This paper explores the
accusation that the Book of Mormon — if authentic — should not
be using Christian terms and ideas in a pre-Christian text.
There
are three important factors to note in an attempt to understand
this issue:
(1) We know
from modern scripture that the Gospel was revealed to Adam and
other pre-Christian prophets. Just as the Lord restored the fullness
of the gospel through Joseph Smith, so likewise, Jesus restored
teachings to His Church that had previously been taught prior
to the apostasy of the Jews. The same thing had happened centuries
before with Adam, Enoch, Noah, Abraham, and Moses — each of whom
restored truth to their dispensation (the ancient Apocalypse of
Adam, claims that Adam was baptized).1
While
basic Gospel principles have been taught through various dispensations,
we should not expect that the Book of Mormon Church exactly resemble
the New Testament Church, nor that they exactly resemble the modern
LDS Church. New revelations and insights have been given to the
modern Church that these other churches may not have had.
It’s
also important to note that since all other Gospel dispensations
have ended in apostasy, that some of the basic Gospel principles
might have disappeared or become corrupted. And just as other
non-LDS Christians retained many truths, so likewise when Jesus
restored the gospel, contemporary Jews believed authentic doctrines
that had been revealed to their ancestors ages ago (although some
of these teachings had also become corrupt).
(2)
Mormon, who edited and abridged most of the Book of Mormon, lived
after the visitation of Christ. His Christian understanding and
hindsight would certainly have influenced his retelling of events.
(3)
Joseph Smith “translated” the plates into the common scriptural
vernacular of his day — King James English. He, like Mormon, would
have translated the text into familiar concepts and terminology.2
For
example, some detractors have criticized the Book of Mormon for
using the French word “adieu” (Jacob 7:27), claiming that surely
the Nephites didn’t speak French! No, and neither did they speak
English, and yet we have an English translation. Joseph used the
terms in his vocabulary to convey the intended meaning of the
Book of Mormon text.
The same thing is true for the Book of Mormon’s use of the word
“Christ.” Whereas pre-Christian Lehites would not have been familiar
with such a term, “Christ” correctly connotes a particular person
to a modern audience.
Baptism
Many
critics have charged the Book of Mormon with fraud for claiming
that the Nephites were baptized by immersion for the remission
of sins centuries before the coming of Christ. Today, however,
we find that many supposedly unique Christian doctrines had roots
in early Judaism (it is also interesting to note that a form of
baptism was known and practiced in ancient Mesoamerica).3
Shortly
after the Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered, an article in Time
magazine noted that the most “startling disclosure” of the
documents was that “the sect possessed, years before Christ, a
terminology and practice that have always been considered uniquely
Christian… They believed in redemption and in the immortality
of the soul… Many phrases, symbols and precepts similar to those
in Essene literature are used in the New Testament, particularly
in the Gospel of John and
the Pauline
Epistles.”4
For many
years most scholars claimed that “baptism” — as Christians understand
it — was unknown prior to New Testament times. Some scholars conceded
that the Jews practiced a type of baptism but they made great
efforts to point out that the Jewish baptism was a ritual washing
and it was very different from the unique Christian baptism.
Although
acknowledging the existence of baptism outside of and older than
Christianity, one non-Mormon scholar wrote:
Different
reasons have been sought to explain what John meant by the baptism
that he administered: a unique baptism, by immersion and involving
moral undertaking.5
The Dead
Sea Scrolls presented scholars with a wealth of information concerning
ancient Jewish practices. Interestingly, a number of large water
basins were discovered at Qumran (the location of the Dead Sea
Scroll community).
Nibley
recalls that when he first visited Qumran in 1966, “Christian
and Jewish scholars vigorously denied that the tanks, basins and
water-conduits connecting them had anything to do with baptism
or ritual ablutions [Jewish baptism]....”6
Likewise,
one non-Mormon scholar, writing in the Biblical Archaeology Review
(BAR) noted:
Strangely
enough, although a large number of water installations were found
[at Qumran] during the seven-year course of the excavations, none
was originally identified as a miqveh [the word for the
Jewish baptisms]. Instead, they were regarded as ordinary baths
or as cisterns for the collection of water in this arid area.7
Thanks
to further findings, however (both in the writings of the Qumranian
sect and by the discoveries of archaeologists), we now know that
the pre-Christian Qumranians were
practicing
a ritual not unlike Christian baptism. La Sor, writing for the
BAR, noted that as late as 1973 one renowned Bible scholar — while
recognizing that the cisterns were “baths” — was still unsure
as to their ritual significance. Five years later, this same Bible
scholar believed that evidence did, in fact, suggest that the
baths were “intended for the ceremony of ritual immersion.”8
Another
non-Mormon scholar has noted:
The
discovery that the Qumran sect practiced baptismal rites is nothing
new; so too did most Jewish sects in the New Testament period.
What is new is that these rites were practiced in relation to
a movement of repentance, of entry into a new Covenant (and a
new Covenanted Israel, the sect itself) in preparation for an
impending divine judgment.9
It was
becoming clear that Christian baptism for the cleansing of sins,
by immersion, did not begin in the New Testament. As La
Sor explains:
Until
the discoveries of modern archaeology, we knew about ancient Jewish
ritual immersion baths only from literary texts. Now, however,
archaeology has provided us with numerous examples of Jewish ritual
immersion baths, called miqva’ot (singular, miqveh),
dating to the late Second Temple period, prior to and during the
time when John the Baptist lived. These miqva’ot undoubtedly
provided the background for Christian baptism....10
La Sor
adds that a 1984 study by Bryant G. Wood of the University of
Toronto “has shown rather conclusively that some of the water
installations at Qumran were indeed miqva’ot.... The importance
the Qumranites attached to purificatory rites and water ablutions
is now documented in the Temple Scroll.... almost surely these
Jewish miqva’ot provided the background for Christian baptism.”11
In addition
he notes that “complete immersion was required,” and then he quotes
from one ancient text:
Whosoever
immerses himself must immerse his whole body.... Even the hair
must be totally immersed.... For immersion to be valid, no part
of the body’s surface may be untouched by water.”12
Pre-Christians
practiced baptism, by immersion, for the remission of since and
covenantal entrance into a community of believers, just as the
Book of Mormon reveals.
For
more details on this topic see http://www.mormonfortress.com
or http://www.fairlds.org.
Written by Michael R. Ash for the Foundation for Apologetic Information
and Research (FAIR),Copyright
© 2003. www.fairlds.org.
1 Apocalypse
of Adam 3-5, as cited in Blake Ostler, “Clothed Upon: A Unique
Aspect of Christian Antiquity,” BYU Studies v22:1 (Provo:
BYU, Fall 1982), 39.
2 See
Blake Ostler, “The Book of Mormon as a Modern Expansion of an
Ancient Source,” Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 20
(Spring 1987): 66-123
3 John
L. Sorenson, “Digging into the Book of Mormon: Changing Understanding
of Ancient America and Its Scripture,” Ensign (September
1984), 60.
4 Quoted
in Hugh Nibley, “More Voices from the Dust”, Instructor (March
1956), 71.
5 J.J.
Von Allman, A Companion to the Bible (New York: Oxford
University Press, 1958), 31; italics added.
6 Hugh
Nibley, Nibley qn The Timely And The Timeless (Provo, Utah:
Religious Studies Center, BYU, 1978), 177.
7 William
Sanford La Sor, “Discovering What Jewish Miqva’ot Can Tell Us
About Christian Baptism,” Biblical Archaeology Review (January/February
1987), 55.
8 Ibid.,
55-56.
9 Matthew
Black, The Scrolls And Christian Origins (New York: Charles
Scribner’s Sons, 1961), 97.
10 La Sor, 52.
11 Ibid.,
57.
12 Ibid.,
52, 54.
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