John Colton's blog

While browsing around my hard disk a couple of days ago, I ran across this review that I wrote in 2003, which I posted on the newsgroup soc.religion.mormon ("SRM" for short). Since it seems fairly relevant to the "Mormons and the Bible" topics that I've been writing about recently (documentary hypothesis and all that), I thought I'd post it here as well even though it's fairly lengthy. Since I haven't read the Sorenson article again since then, this review is mainly unchanged from my 2003 version.

"BoM" is short for "Book of Mormon". "BP" is short for "Brass plates". "OT" is short for "Old Testament". "DH" is short for "Documentary hypothesis". If there are any other abbreviations that are hard to figure out, let me know.

A summary of "The Brass Plates and Biblical Scholarship", by John Sorenson, found in Nephite Culture and Society, copyright 1997. The article is apparently based on an earlier Sorenson paper, published in Dialog, in 1977. Summary written by John Colton, April 2003.

Outline of my summary

1. Introduction
2. Brief intro to documentary hypothesis
3. Brief intro to the brass plates
4. Main point: brass plates likely from E document
5. Evidence of main point
    A. Influence of Northern Kingdom and tribe of Joseph
    B. Lack of mention of Davidic covenant
    C. Considerable attention to Abrahamic covenant
    D. Jacob is called "Jacob" rather than "Israel"
    E. The Jews are consistently branded as evil
    F. "E" source names of God occur in the BoM
    G. BoM focuses on events, rather than people
    H. The Book of Abraham (in Pearl of Great Price) does *not* contain "E" elements
6. Conclusion
7. My comments

And now, on with the fun!
___

1. Introduction

The topic on "What does the Book of Mormon imply about the documentary hypothesis" was brought up in a recent thread [on SRM, in 2003], and I was asked to summarize Sorenson's writing. This topic is something that I had wondered about ever since learning a little bit about the DH around 3 years ago. It seems clear that the Old Testament-type writings contained in the BoM might argue either for or against the DH. The LDS people I asked at the time were largely unaware of any analysis on the topic. It seemed like no one had thought of it, which greatly surprised me. I let the matter drop, but then coincidentally ran into this Sorenson article which dealt with precisely this topic. In this article, Sorenson takes the view of "Let's assume the BoM is correct; what does this imply about the DH?" Since I find this interesting, and apparently so does at least one other SRM poster, I'm posting this rather lengthy summary.


2. Intro to the DH

The documentary hypothesis was developed in large part by Julius Wellhausen in the late 1800s, although the concepts existed prior to Wellhausen, and have been modified to some extent since his time. Some form of this is accepted by most of today's Biblical scholars. The basic idea is that chunks of the Old Testament existed prior to their current form, and were compiled from these original "documents" into the current OT. There is a fair amount of internal evidence that this may be the case, but I’m not going to go into too much detail here. I'm unaware of any *external* evidence; i.e., people haven't actually found these original documents. Some of my first exposure to this concept was the book (written for a popular audience) Who wrote the Bible by Richard Friedman, who argues that the compilation into the current form took place around 600 BC. Some people (early LDS leaders, for example) feel that this challenges the authority and divinity of the Bible; such is not my feeling (nor that perhaps of current LDS leaders), but that's perhaps a subject for a different thread.

There are 4 main documents which have been identified, known by letters:
J: uses the name "Jehovah" for God
E: uses the name "Elohim" for God
P: emphasizes the importance of Priests
D: emphasizes the Deuteronomic law

I won't go into further differences between the documents, except for the evidence Sorenson identifies in point #5 below. I will say that this concept (which I tend to believe) helps explain some parts of the OT that I wondered about for a while, like why there are two seemingly contradictory accounts of Noah and the ark--the DH explanation is that one account came from J, one from E, and they were merged together into the current form. And, of course, these four documents may have been compiled from still earlier writings.

The 600 BC date is interesting from the BoM perspective, because that's very close to when Lehi left Jerusalem. Thus, if the DH (and this date) is correct, there is a fair chance that Lehi would have had one of the original documents, rather than the current version of the OT.


3. Intro to the brass plates

The "brass plates" are a scriptural record talked about in the Book of Mormon that Lehi and company brought with them out of Israel around 600 BC. From the start, it's apparent that these are not merely the OT, because for example, they contained the genealogy of Lehi's family-- something Lehi had not known prior to reading the BP, by the way. He found out he was a descendant of Joseph of Egypt, apparently through Manasseh.

Later in the BoM, differences between the brass plates and the OT become more noticeable, because the BoM mentions and quotes OT-era prophets from the BP who are not present in the OT: Zenos, Zenock, Ezias. Also mentioned is Isaiah, and Neum (who may be Nahum).

What we know about the content of the brass plates comes from (a) direct quotes in the BoM, like Zenos's allegory of the olive tree, (b) passing mention in the BoM, such as the one-line mention of Ezias, (c) what is *not* mentioned in the BoM (see eg. 5B below), and (d) societal influences on BoM authors and peoples. The last is not something I had thought about before, but of course is Sorenson's specialty. For example, BoM authors may choose to write a certain way because "that's how it was done in the BP" (see eg. 5G below).


4. Main point

I don't want to keep you in suspense: Sorenson's main point is that it seems likely that the brass plates included, or were derived from, the "E" document. Thus, rather than the DH arguing against the divinity of the Bible (as some early LDS leaders may have thought), the DH is actually supported not only by the Bible, but also by the BoM.


5. Evidence of main point- this is the bulk of Sorenson's article. I'll focus on the most compelling/interesting aspects.

A. Influence of Northern Kingdom and tribe of Joseph
(1) E has a strong North Kingdom slant. In fact, some believe that it was an official rewriting of J intended for the North, perhaps produced around 900 BC. Sorenson basically takes that as a given.
(2) Lehi's genealogy (tribe of Joseph) is clearly a NK link, even though Lehi lived in Jerusalem. See Lehi's blessing to his son Joseph, for his emphasis of this link. In fact, the BoM adds data on Joseph not found in the OT.
(3) Zenos says, "as for those who are at Jerusalem", and nowhere else mentions either the tribe of Judah or the city Jerusalem. Thus he likely was not located within the lands of Judah.
(4) 3 Nephi 10:16 implies Zenos and Zenoch were from the tribe of Joseph
(5) The emphasis on Egyptian tradition and language (witness the characters used in writing the BoM) is also consistent with Northern Kingdom heritage.

B. Lack of mention of Davidic covenant--As Sorenson writes, "The Book of Mormon virtually ignores the Davidic covenant, which is a J element. David is mentioned but six times (twice only incidentally in quotations from Isaiah). Two instances involved strong condemnation of David."

C. Considerable attention to Abrahamic covenant--"all 29 references to Abraham [in the BoM] are laudatory."

D. Jacob is called "Jacob" rather than "Israel"--J refers to Jacob as "Israel", rather than as "Jacob". The BoM, however, always calls him "Jacob", an E characteristic.

E. The Jews are consistently branded as evil-- This should come as no surprise to readers of the BoM, and again, is consistent with a work that originated outside the lands of Judah.

F. "E" source names of God occur in the BoM-- In particular, the BoM contains the names "Most High God" (Hebrew "El Elyon") six times, and "Almighty God" ("El Shaddai") eleven times. These are E source names.

G. BoM focuses on events, rather than people-- One difference between J and E is a tendency on J's part to give "remarkable characterizations of people", and a tendency on E's part to "focus on events". The BoM, like E, tends to give minimal treatment of characters, and instead typically describes the action. This may be because of the example of the BPs. Similarly, the BoM (in contrast to J) describes contacts with God through dreams and angelic ministers rather than through direct appearances of the Lord.

H. The Book of Abraham (in Pearl of Great Price) does *not* contain "E" elements-- Sorenson cites a not-yet-published work by Robert F. Smith, "A documentary analysis of the Book of Abraham", which shows that the BoA does *not* contain features of the E document, but features of J and P instead (unfortunately these features are not delineated). Thus, it's unlikely that Joseph Smith's personal writing preferences are just coincidentally similar to the E style.


6. Conclusion

Sorenson concludes that "There appears good evidence that the BoM contains elements which are congruent with what scholars on the OT distinguish as the E or Elohistic source." He views that as fitting in very well with the brass plates coming from a tribe of Joseph heritage, as is described in the BoM.


7. My comments

I don't really have the background to know whether everything Sorenson said about E was accurate, so I have to trust him on that. I do know the BoM quite well, however, and I was impressed that Sorenson was able to point out things that I hadn't thought of before, such as the lack of mention of the Davidic covenant, and the tribe of Joseph heritage of Zenos and Zenoch. In short, I do find the arguments presented by Sorenson to be persuasive, if not 100% convincing. Any one of the points above may be considered circumstantial, but taken as a whole they are fairly solid in my opinion. At any rate, it's interesting to think about.


The End

# posted by John Colton @ 8:14 AM