The Plain and Precious Things

As I've read through 1Nephi 13, I have wondered, “what are the plain and precious things which were removed from the Bible?” You can't tell from just reading the Bible because you don't know what isn't there that should be, so how do you tell? The Book of Mormon helps, but it's still not a clear voice on what is missing. While I was pondering on this a couple of days ago, I came across a lecture by Hugh Nibley which he gave in 1964 at BYU. It does give some interesting insights. Here is a link to an MP3 audio of the lecture. Here's the print version.

In it, Bro. Nibley said the scrolls of Qumran and the books of Nag Hammadi Library give the answer to that question. The Dead Sea Scrolls as the scrolls of Qumran are also known, were written and collected by residents of a small community known today as "Khirbet Qumran". While it is not known for certain which religious sect they were, most think they were Essenes: they were Jews. They taught the Jews at Jerusalem were in a state of apostasy, so they were trying to get back to a more pure adherence to Jewish law and scripture. 

The residents of Nag Hammadi were Christians. It is located in Egypt on the Nile River about fifty miles north of Luxor. The documents in question are dated from about the first to fourth century after Christ.

What Bro. Nibley did is compare what was taught in the texts from these sites with what we have in the Bible today. He identified at least these four things:

1. The doctrine of literal resurrection of the body after death and marriage that transcends death. While Paul touches on it in 1 Corinthians 15, and the Savior often refers to Himself as the "resurrection and the life," the people of Nag Hammadi taught the doctrine much more clearly. They were branded by the church at Rome as heretics for this and other teachings.

2. The coming apostasy and loss of God's authority. According the Nibley, the people at Nag Hammadi were branded as heretics by the church in Rome for their beliefs. Nibley said they "buried" their records, as the people of Qumran did, in anticipation of a time when those records would be valued again. The Book of Mormon has its own version of this tragic loss of priesthood authority. Here we have two witnesses separated by vast distances of the same event.

3. The Savior’s post-mortal ministry (40 days) to the Jews at Jerusalem. I found this particularly interesting. The account Nibley cites gives additional insight into the Nephite's request to do for them what the Savior did in Jerusalem. See 3 Nephi 17:12-24. There's no way Joseph Smith knew of this in 1829, yet the close parallel is striking, even breathtaking.

4.    The "Church of Anticipation," or a group of people who were expecting a soul saving Messiah as opposed to a militaristic Messiah who would free Israel from bondage. This was the whole focus of the community at Qumran. The Bible doesn't mention any such thing, but that's the dominant theme of the Book of Mormon: a people looking forward to the coming Savior and His atonement for them. The community of Qumran and the Dead Sea Scrolls are a clear Old World validation of this premise.

He touches on more than these items, but it is enough for me to answer the question: "what was taken out?"

1 Nephi 13-14 - The Apocalypse of Nephi

In these two chapters Nephi is shown the history of America to our day, the origins of the Bible and how it came to be what it is today, and an exposition on the great and abominable Church of the Devil. It ends with the tantalizing declaration that the rest of Nephi’s vision would be recorded by John the Apostle of Jesus Christ.

First a comment on that, while Nephi says no more about what he saw, he quotes a LOT of Isaiah in the rest of his record. He spoke of the future too. In my opinion, Nephi quoted Isaiah to say what he couldn't say himself. When he quotes him at length in the rest of his record, he did so with a clear recollection of what he saw in this vision. In other words, it all made sense because he saw how all the prophecies of Isaiah fit into the narrative he’d seen. So while he couldn’t say what he saw, he quoted Isaiah in a way to fit with what he’d seen. So, if you want to understand what Revelations has to say about our future, read the Isaiah passages and Nephi’s commentary on them in First and Second Nephi.

Another interesting point is the Angel’s declaration there are but two churches in the world. This struck me as odd because there are hundreds if not thousands of different churches in the world today. All preach their own brand of dogma and salvation. Yet, here in chapter fourteen, the Angel says there are but two. He then defines what God meant. All who are humble followers of Jesus Christ (note again there’s no mention of dogma or doctrine) are members of the Christ’s church. Everyone else is in the Devil’s church, the great and abominable one.

It should give members of the LDS church pause for reflection. While the only organization on the earth today where the ordinances of salvation can be authoritatively performed is the LDS church, its members of record do not have exclusive access to membership in “Christ’s church.” According to 1 Nephi 14: 10, membership in this “church” is determined by how you live, your devotion to Christ, and your commitment to being His disciple. The subtext is it’s possible to be a member of record but due to life choices not be a member of Christ’s church. That’s sobering, heavy doctrine, but I see no other way to read and understand that verse. It makes me wonder, “which church am I really in?”

3 Nephi 12 - The Second Witness

What I like most of 3 Nephi 12 is the “Nephite version” of the Sermon on the Mount. It’s similar, but different in key details. As I read it, I think this is the version He actually gave on that “mount” it’s just that by the time it was actually written down, some of these points had been lost in the repeated retellings.

This underscores the “why” of the Book of Mormon. It was written and revealed in our day to prove the truths contained in the Bible… to be that second witness. Jesus in his day, didn’t have the Old Testament we have now. What we have is based on the Masoretic Text while the scriptures He had were based, most likely, on the Septuagint which is a Greek translation of a much older Hebrew text that no longer exists. The oldest Masoretic Text was written some time in AD 900. The Septuagint dates back to a few hundred years BC. The Qumran record dates back to about AD 200 and matches the Masoretic Text very closely. The Isaiah in the Book of Mormon tracks closely to the Masoretic version but there are many differences… much to the delight of critics and consternation of the believers.

I digress… again. The point being like my eyesight, the Bible due to mistranslations (deliberate or otherwise) has over time gotten out of focus. The Book of Mormon, like my bifocals brings these truths back into focus and confirms the veracity of the Bible’s teachings. 

It is the second witness.