Comments on: Is Christ in the Old Testament?

By: Kade

Kade — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 06:55:23 +0000

TT, sorry for being so late to the comments. If you get a moment maybe you could respond to my reactions. First, it seems to me that not only is the BOM messianic tradition more robust and specific, but quite different than that of the NT tradition as the messianic expectation and realization of the BOM seems to me all along to align more closely with a “clouds of glory” messiah than a suffering servant personified in Jesus of Nazareth.
Second, while there is messianic expectation in the BOM, I think that it might be possible to reject the historical christocentrism of the BOM and it still be relevant. I guess where I’m coming from is that lately as I have been reading the BOM, I have attributed the few prophecies on the small plates to expansions of JS and the prophecies on the large plates to early American Christian reworking/interpretation or expansion. While I don’t necessarily see a “Jesuscentric” system of worship, I still am fascinated by a text which demonstrates a people with a messianic expectation and their devotion to their God (though I don’t know if 6th century BCE is too early for that).
In short, I suppose that to me christocentrism of the BOM isn’t necessarily there either, if we allow for layers. The value to me of the OT and the BOM is ours/early Christian/latter-day translator interpretation, and I hope to take the road to Emmaus often.

By: Roger

Roger — Sat, 05 Dec 2009 03:03:52 +0000

Jupiterschild,
Thanks for that answer. It’s more satisfying than outright rejection of the Deutero-Isaiah hypothesis.

By: jupiterschild

jupiterschild — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 17:28:38 +0000

Blake, right, and I see now that I should have made it more explicit that in the end I agreed with your overall point.

Roger, you are right, this is one of the central issues in the use of Isaiah in the Book of Mormon. I don’t think it’s likely that Deutero-Isaiah was authored in the pre-exilic period. (It is interesting to note, however, that Trito Isaiah is never quoted in the Book of Mormon. What that means is another story, as is whether there is in fact a trito-Isaiah). I don’t think the exilic or post-exilic origin of II-Isaiah need be terribly vexing, however. I think of it probably like Blake, that we should think of the quotations of II-Isa like JS’s anachronisms in the Book of Abraham: the translation is not academic, literal, but is something else. Same probably goes for the use of Paul in the Book of Mormon.

By: Roger

Roger — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 15:53:22 +0000

As Blake mentions earlier, Isaiah 53 may be authored by Deutero-Isaiah. How would we explain Abinadi’s access to this material, given that Deutero-Isaiah is thought to have written near the end of the Babylonian exile? Do we reject the Deutero-Isaiah explanation, or do we place the authorship in the pre exilic period? Or something else?

By: Blake

Blake — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 05:40:16 +0000

Jupiter’s child: You’re probably right that “chapter division” isn’t quite what she scribe of 1QIsaa had in mind — I’m not even sure that they had a notion of chapters like we do. However, there is a subject-matter break as you acknowledge. It may have felt natural to Abinadi to break the chapter here when speaking of the God himself who would come in flesh — stark notion that! My point was simply to acknowledge that I could be wrong in arguing that the chapter break in Mosiah 15 beginning with Isaiah 53:1 as the starting point isn’t a foolproof sign of either expansion or anachronism (tho the fact that it is the KJV translation that is used must surely be as at least a sign of using that later source as at least a part of the text being considered).

By: TT

TT — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 02:08:59 +0000

Thanks all for the excelllent comments.

J. Madsen, I like you suggestion for the significance of the Emmaus story.

Blake, I agree that Paul provides a model for how to interpret the OT through the lens of Christ.

Manuel, I think that you raise an important point about the perceived difference between the God of the OT and the God of the NT. I am not sure that I agree with such a division, but it is one that many readers feel. Maybe someday I will post on it!

Kiskillili,
I totally agree that the authority of the OT for LDS does not rest exclusively on a Christological presence in the OT. In fact, I am of the opinion that a text is authoritative as long as one says that it is. I love your suggestion about the central place of the church in LDS readings of the OT.

Steve,
I am not sure that I agree with your first paragraph, or understant your second, but I appreciate your point.

Confutus,
Yes, we know that there are “books” and “letters” mentioned in the Bible, but this is not the same as have “scriptures.” Your original claim was that “There are named sources in the OT and letters from Paul and the apostles which we no longer have. Many records that the Jews of Palestine had were destroyed along with the temple in AD 70.” While we might admit that there were many books from antiquity that we no longer possess, but your claims that Paul and the apostles had authoritative texts is not supported by the NT.

jupiterschild,
Thanks for the excellent analysis!

By: jupiterschild

jupiterschild — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 21:09:38 +0000

I don’t think Blake is right about seeing a clear chapter division in the DSS (1QIsaa) at 52:15. There does appear to be a line break between (the currently numbered) 52:15 and 53:1, but this type of break is not the most significant type of break in this scroll. There is a much larger line break between 52:12 and 52:13, right at the place where most modern commentators would see the “real” chapter division to be. In addition, in 1QIsa a, the so-called “Great Isaiah Scroll”, there is an added clause at the end of v. 12 (=”He is called the God of all the earth.”) In my opinion this heightens the finality of v. 12 vis a vis 13. Any case, it seems unlikely that what Blake is pointing to is a chapter division, but is rather a marker of a literary shift, much the way we use paragraphs.

Further, If you move down ten or so lines from the spot Blake points to, there is a much greater space between our 53:8 and 9. That is, not only is there a line break at the end of 8, but 9 is indented (it looks like the beginning of a new paragraph according to modern typesetting convention). Still further, if you move to the previous column, you find a line break similar in size to that between 52:15 and 53:1 at the juncture between 52:6 and 52:7. And (non-chapter division examples) could be multiplied (see also 51:16-17).

What does this mean? I’m not sure, but it at least means we can’t call all line breaks chapter divisions. It most likely means that a qumran scribe saw some sort of literary division between 52:15 and 53:1, but the fact that it is not the largest graphic division possible also suggests that it’s wrong to call this a chapter boundary.

I think that the reason for the current situation is that the modern chapter divisions use similar (literary) criteria for the break as the Qumran scribes. The person responsible for the division adopted by the KJV (erroneously?) saw a stronger break between 52:15-53:1 than did his Qumran counterpart, who in my opinion saw a larger break between 52:12-13.

As for the larger problem, I don’t think these divisions say much about the Book of Mormon’s authenticity or proper use of Isaiah. I suppose it could indicate something in the context of other uses of Isaiah (such as in 2 Nephi 12-24, which also is a strange excerpt), but it is far from clear. While it is true that this servant song (52:13-53:12) is the most frequently quoted OT passage in the NT, it doesn’t necessarily mean that the NT or even Qumran represents “the” “true” division. It is one reading of the text. Neither does it mean that JS simply relied ignorantly on the KJV divisions in his translation.

By: CJ Douglass

CJ Douglass — Thu, 03 Dec 2009 05:21:30 +0000

Is it not curious that Jesus never quotes from any of the Mormon documents but does quote from the OT?

Steve – Why would Jesus quote from scripture the Jews had never laid eyes on?

By: Confutus

Confutus — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 05:15:08 +0000

Duane Christensen, in the October 1998 Biblical Review. lists 23 books that are mentioned in the Bible. Some of these may be references to the same book, and some of them may be references to books that are in the Bible, but there is little question that some are no longer extant.

There is also with little question a letter from Paul to the Corinthians (preceding 1 and 2 Corinthians in our NT), and an epistle to the Laodiceans, which are mentioned that we do not have.

By: Steve

Steve — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 03:59:08 +0000

One fatal problem in much of what has been written in the post and comments is that Jesus Christ himself is the interpretative key to understanding the OT. Jesus’ works and teaching were legitimized or founded upon the OT. It is more of an issue of typology than simply a reading back into the OT. The OT looked forward to a coming Messiah, the Son of man, The Prophet, the Suffering servant. These types were fulfilled in Jesus: his life, works and teaching. They all find fulfillment in Jesus Christ.
The problem with conceptions of a knowledge of Jesus before his coming as represented in the NT (statements appearantly made by the BoM) is that they undermine the coherency of the OT and NT. Both testaments find their center in Jesus of Nazareth. Is it not curious that Jesus never quotes from any of the Mormon documents but does quote from the OT?