Nibley - Timeless...Nibley on the Timely and the Timeless 172 Joseph Smith Enoch Aramaic Enoch Moses 6:39 When they heard him, . . . fear cameon all them that heard him. 4QEnGiantsb

Long before the Dead Sea Scrolls were found, Robert Eisler calledattention to the existence of societies of ancient sectaries, including theearly Christians, who fled to the desert and formed pious communitiesthere, after the manner of the order of Rekhabites (Jeremiah 35). More re-cently, E. Käsemann and U. W. Mauser have taken up the theme, andthe pope himself has referred to his followers as “the Wayfaring Church,”of all things. No aspect of the gospel is more fundamental than thatwhich calls the Saints out of the world; it has recently been recognizedas fundamental to the universal apocalyptic pattern, and is now recog-nized as a basic teaching of the prophets of Israel, including the Lord Him-self. It is the central theme of the Book of Mormon, and Lehi’s peoplefaithfully follow the correct routine of flights to the desert as their storiesnow merge with new manuscript finds from the Dead Sea and elsewhere.And while many Christian communities have consciously sought to imi-tate the dramatic flight into the wilderness, from monastic orders to Pil-grim fathers, only the followers of Joseph Smith can claim the distinctionof a wholesale, involuntary, and total expulsion into a most authenticwilderness.

Now, the Book of Mormon is not only a typical product of a reli-gious people driven to the wilds—surprisingly we have learned since

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1950 that such people had a veritable passion for writing books and keep-ing records—but it actually contains passages that match some of theDead Sea Scrolls almost word for word. Isn’t that going a bit too far?How, one may ask, would Alma be able to quote from a book writtenon the other side of the world among people with whom his own had lostall contact for five hundred years? Joseph Smith must have possessedsupernatural cunning to have foreseen such an impasse, yet his Book ofMormon explains it easily: Alma informs us that the passages in ques-tion are not his, but he is quoting them directly from an ancient source,the work of an early prophet of Israel named Zenos. Alma and the authorof the Thanksgiving Scroll are drawing from the same ancient source.No wonder they sound alike.

If all the Dead Sea Scrolls that are now known to scholars buthave not yet been published were to go through the press atthe same rate that the others have, we might well be talkingabout new Dead Sea Scrolls for at least two centuries to come.

This is about some scrolls and some readings hitherto quite un-known to the public.

The first is the Enoch Scroll, which became accessible notlong ago. I want to call attention to just one item which caught myattention. In the Joseph Smith book of Enoch is an episode thatstands out conspicuously for the strangely intimate twist it givesto the story. That is when out of the blue comes “a man . . . whosename was Mahijah,” who asks Enoch point-blank, “Tell us plainlywho thou art, and from whence thou comest?” (Moses 6:40). Thistriggers Enoch’s great sermon in response, in which he reads to thepeople from the book of Adam and puts them to shame for theirsins. As far as I know, the episode is not found in the Ethiopian,Old Slavonic, Hebrew, or Greek Enoch text, so I was brought upwith a start when, upon reading the final fragments of the newlypublished Aramaic Enoch from the Dead Sea Scrolls, the nameMHWY started popping up repeatedly. Before telling the story ofMHWY from Qumran, a word about the name is in order.

It is, of course, the MHWY-EL of Genesis 4:18, where theother Enoch’s grandfather is given the name appearing in our King

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James Bible as Mehujael. This is not our hero, whose name lacksthe -el ending; on the contrary, he belongs to the Cainite branch ofthe family, which would make the Sethite missionary Enoch analien to his people. In the Joseph Smith Enoch, both forms of thename appear, Mahijah and Mahujah (Moses 6:40; 7:2), which shouldnot be surprising; for in Semitic languages the consonants abide,as everyone knows, while the vowels undergo all manner of vicis-situdes; and of all the vowels the w and the y are the most active.(One need mention only such obvious examples as the Hebrewyeled and Arabic walad, “boy,” or the way the w and y constantlysupplant each other in Egyptian participles, depending on timeand place of writing.) The name MHWY is written exactly the samein the Qumran texts as in the Hebrew Bible. In the Greek Septu-agint it is Mai-el (the Greeks, having letters for neither h nor w,could end up with Ma[hu]y[ah] as Mai); the trace of the waw is pre-served in the Latin Vulgate: Mavia-el; but in both cases the semi-vowel waw is weakened, and the y sound dominates. Mahujahand Mahijah obviously have the same root. The Ma- prefix maydenote the place of an action or in derived forms of the verb theperson acting, reminding us that it was “upon the place Mahu-jah” that Enoch inquired of the Lord and received his missionaryassignment in a glorious theophany (Moses 7:2), while the manwho boldly put the questions to Enoch himself was Mahijah, theasker. And, since we are playing games, what the Ma- most stronglysuggests is certainly the all-but-universal ancient interrogative,Ma, who? or what? so that the names Mahujah and Mahijah bothsound like questions to the student of Semitics. In the newly dis-covered texts from Ebla (Tel-Mardikh), the same names are writ-ten with Ma- (Amorite) and Mi- (Phoenician-Hebrew).

But the important thing about MHWY in the Aramaic Enoch—by far the oldest Enoch text so far known—is what the man does.Let me read you some parallel passages, following the translationof Professors Milik and Black, so that you won’t think I have beenloading the dice to come out this way.

The presence of Enoch was a disturbing one, “a strange thingin the land,” and in the Joseph Smith version, “a wild man hathcome among us.” And so this is what we get (emphasis added):


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Joseph Smith Enoch Aramaic Enoch

Moses 6:39 When they heardhim, . . . fear came on all themthat heard him.

4QEnGiantsb 1.20 [Thereupon]all the giants [and the nephilim]took fright,

Moses 6:40 And there came aman unto him, whose namewas Mahijah, and said untohim: Tell us plainly who thouart, and from whence thoucomest?

and they summoned Mahawai[Mahujah] and he came to them.And the giants asked him andsent him to Enoch . . . sayingto him: Go then . . . and underpain of death you must . . . lis-ten to his voice; and tell himthat he is to explain to you andto interpret the dreams.

So here comes Mahujah-Mahijah to Enoch, representing adisturbed constituency, to ask the holy man just what the situa-tion is. That MHWY was sent “under pain of death” shows thatnot only the dreams but the presence of Enoch was a cause ofdread. In reply the messenger learns that Enoch comes from aspecial and holy place:

Moses 6:41 And he said untothem: I came out from . . . theland of my father, a land of righ-teousness unto this day.

4QEnGiantsc (Ohyah, followingMHWY’s report): My accusers. . . dwell in [heaven]s, and theylive in holy abodes, . . . they aremore powerful than I.

Enoch tells the man about a revelation and call he receivedas he traveled in the mountains on a missionary journey. The jour-ney here seems to be transferred to MHWY himself, who crossesthe deserts on high to behold Enoch and receive an oracle fromhim, while in the Joseph Smith version Enoch himself makes sucha journey to receive instructions from God:

Moses 6:42 And . . . as I jour-neyed . . . by the sea east, Ibeheld a vision; and lo, theheavens I saw.Moses 7:2–3 As I was journey-ing, . . . I . . . went up on themount; . . . I beheld the heav-ens open.

4QEnGiantsb [MHWY . . . roseup into the air] like the whirl-winds, and he flew . . . andcrossed Solitude, the greatdesert. . . . And he caught sightof Enoch, and he called to himand said to him: An oracle.



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It is in reply to Mahijah-MHWY that Enoch refers the peopleto an ancient book which he bears with him, having according tosome sources (Jubilees, XII Patriarchs) copied it with his ownhand from heavenly tablets:

Moses 6:45–46 [Enoch said],We . . . cannot deny, . . . for abook, of remembrance we havewritten among us, according tothe pattern given by the fingerof God, . . . in our own lan-guage.

4QEnGiantsa 7–8 To you,Mah[awai . . .] the two tablets. . . and the second has not beenread up till now. The boo[k of. . .] the copy of the secondtablet of the E[pistle . . . written]by Enoch, the distinguishedscribe’s own hand . . . and theHoly One, to Shemîhazah andto all [his] com[panions].

The teachings of the book (from Adam’s time in the JosephSmith version) strike home, and the hearers are overcome:

Moses 6:47 And as Enochspake forth the words of God,the people trembled, and couldnot stand in his presence.

6Q8a Ohya and he said toMahawai: And [I (?)] do nottremble. Who showed you all(that) tell [us (?)]. . . . And Ma-hawai said: . . . Baraq’el, myfather, was with me.4QEnGiantsa Frg. 4 Ohyahsaid to Ha]hyah, his brother.. . . They prostrated themselvesand began to weep before[Enoch (?)].

The name Baraq’el is interesting in this context since JosephSmith was designated in the Doctrine and Covenants both as Enochand as Baurak Ale (e.g., D&C 78:9; 103:21–22). Next comes a re-sounding declaration of general depravity, which in two verses ofthe Joseph Smith text powerfully sums up the same message inthe longest of the Aramaic Enoch fragments:

Moses 6:48–49 And he saidunto them, . . . we are madepartakers of misery and woe,. . . carnal, sensual, and devil-ish, and are shut out from thepresence of God.

4QEnGiantsa Frg. 8 (the long-est fragment) The depravityand misery of the people isdescribed. Their petition is re-jected: God has cast them out.All is for the worst.



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But then, interestingly enough, both the Qumran and theJoseph Smith sermons end on a note of hope that is not found inthe other versions of the book of Enoch:

Moses 6:52 If thou wilt turnunto me, . . . and repent, . . . ask-ing all things in his name, . . .it shall be given you.

4QEnGiantsa Frg. 8 (closingline) And now, loosen yourbonds [of sin?] which tie [you]up . . . and begin to pray.

Now comes what I consider an important theological note.Enoch tells how the Lord told Adam of the natural inclination tosin that came with the Fall. This is converted in the Aramaic ver-sion to a denunciation of the wicked people of Enoch’s day, whodid indeed conceive their children in sin, since they were illegiti-mate offspring of a totally amoral society:

Moses 6:55–57 Inasmuch as thychildren are conceived in sin, evenso . . . sin conceiveth in theirhearts. . . . Wherefore teach itunto your children, that allmen, everywhere, must repent.

4QEnGiants 8 Let it be knownto you that, . . . and your worksand those of your wives [. . .]themselves [and their] childrenand the wives of [their chil-dren] by your prostitution on theearth. And it befell you.

Next, the wicked move against Enoch and his people in forcebut are themselves forced to acknowledge the superior power sup-porting the patriarch:

Moses 7:13 And . . . he [Enoch]led the people of God, and theirenemies came to battle againstthem; and he spake the wordof the Lord, and the earthtrembled.

4QEnGiantsc (Ohyah the enemyof Enoch) By the strength ofmy power, [I had attacked] allflesh and I have made war withthem; . . . they live in holyabodes, and . . . they are morepowerful than I.

And then comes that striking passage, so surprisingly vindi-cated in other Enoch texts, of the roaring lions amidst scenes ofgeneral terror:

Moses 7:13 And the roar of thelions was heard out of the wil-derness;

4QEnGiantsc [Thereupon . . .]the roaring of the wild beastscame and the multitude of thewild animals began to cry out.



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and all nations feared greatly. And Ohyah spoke . . . : Mydream has overwhelmed [me . . .and the s]leep of my eyes [hasfled].

Finally comes the prediction of utter destruction and theconfining in prison that is to follow:

Moses 7:37–38 These shall suf-fer. . . . These . . . shall perish inthe floods; and behold, I willshut them up; a prison have Iprepared for them.

4QEnGiantsa Frg. 7 ThenOhyah [said] to Hehya[h, hisbrother. . . . ] Then he (i.e.,God?) punished . . . [the sons]of the Watchers, the giants, andall [their] beloved ones will notbe spared; . . . he has imprisonedus and you, he has subdued[tqaf, “seized, confined”].

Among new Dead Sea Scrolls we may number those foundin 1966 not at Qumran but in the all but inaccessible caves thatline the precipitous walls of the Nah. al H. ever, or, as we would say,the “Heber Valley.” Instead of a deep valley it is a deep gorge, likeRock Canyon in Provo, Utah; it is the next canyon just south of theEn Gedi, where people bathe in the Dead Sea today. In those cavesJews fleeing from the Romans in the time of Bar Kochba holed upwith their families and their most precious portable possessions.A cave in the side of a cliff that can be approached only by oneman at a time is easy to defend; and the Romans did not botherto attack them there but simply set up camps on the flat mesas oneither side of the canyon, from which they could look right downinto the caves and make sure that no one escaped. Thus trapped,the poor Jews perished miserably in their hideouts; refusing tosurrender, they left behind not only all matter of artifacts, kitchen-ware, clothing, baskets in excellent condition, shoes, and so on,but a priceless harvest of their personal papers and books. Thesethrow a great deal of light on practices described in the Book ofMormon.

For what these people were doing in fleeing from the farmsand cities of Judea, as digging in these very caves has shown, wasexactly what had been done at other times when the land wasoverrun by foreign armies. The evidence goes clear back to mys-terious bronze vessels hidden there about 3000 BC, supposedlyby people fleeing from the armies of the first king of Egypt! I will


be quoting from the review of Professor Yigael Yadin’s book BarKochba on the subject.

First of all, there is something almost alarmingly literal aboutthese “voices from the dust.” For these documents were deliber-ately buried in the deep dust of the cave floors and came forth inchoking clouds of dust—the finders had to wear masks: “For thosewho shall be destroyed shall speak unto them out of the ground,and their speech shall be low out of the dust, and their voice shallbe as one that hath a familiar spirit; for the Lord God will giveunto him power, that he may whisper concerning them, even asit were out of the ground; and their speech shall whisper out ofthe dust” (2 Nephi 26:16). They have not survived accidentally, asmost other ancient writings have, but were hidden away on pur-pose; nor were they simply left behind or misplaced or forgottenby people who moved on and lived out their lives elsewhere—thepeople who left these records died soon after they buried themand died on the spot, the victims of a savage religious war. “Forthose who shall be destroyed shall speak unto them out of theground” (2 Nephi 26:16). What do these records contain? Accountsof contemporary affairs in private letters, legal documents, mili-tary and civil correspondence, or, in the words of the Book of Mor-mon: “For thus saith the Lord God: They shall write the thingswhich shall be done among them. . . . Wherefore, as those whohave been destroyed have been destroyed speedily” (2 Nephi26:17–18).

Not only all their letters and legal papers, but their house-hold effects and their bones were left behind in the caves, for thesimple reason that they did not have time to escape. As to theirdestroyers, “Nothing remains here today of the Romans save aheap of stones on the face of the desert,” writes Yadin, “but herethe descendants of the besieged were returning to salvage theirancestors’ precious belongings.” Again the Book of Mormon: “Andthe multitude of their terrible ones shall be as chaff that passethaway” (2 Nephi 26:18).

With the Dead Sea Scrolls we have something new underthe sun; even if they simply repeated what we already know, theirprincipal contribution would be the same—a new dimension ofreality to our religion. It has been a long time since scholars asked,“Are there really such things as this? Did this really happen?”They have learned to be content with the easy assumption that itreally makes no difference in dealing with spiritual, allegorical,moral emblems whether or not there is a physical reality to our


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stories. The most shocking thing that Joseph Smith brought be-fore the world was the announcement that things men had beentalking about for centuries were literally true and would have tobe viewed as such. The Restoration of the gospel brought a newreality but found few believers—it was more comfortable the oldway, when you could take things just as you wanted them.

But with the scrolls from the caves, the reality of things hitsus in the face with a shock. How often does it happen that docu-ments thousands of years old have been dug up by the very de-scendants of the people who wrote those documents, who couldactually read them on the spot, not referring them to pendanticdecipherment in distant studies and laboratories, but readingthem right off as messages from their own grandparents? “Wefound that our emotions were a mixture of tension and awe,” writesProfessor Yadin, “yet astonishment and pride at being a part ofthe reborn State of Israel after a Diaspora of 1,800 years.”1 Com-pare this with Nephi’s moving lines: “And it shall be as if the fruitof thy loins had cried unto them from the dust, . . . even aftermany generations have gone by them” (2 Nephi 3:19–20).

Nothing illustrates this better than Ezekiel’s dry bones. Thequestion in Ezekiel 37:3 is, “Can these bones live?” And the an-swer is, Yes, when “the stick of Ephraim, [for Joseph] and for allthe house of Israel,” is joined “with the stick of Judah,” “one toanother into one stick; and they shall become one in thine hand”(Ezekiel 37:16–19). I once wrote a series of articles on the ancienttally sticks. The true tally stick was a staff (originally an arrowshaft) on which the contract and names of the contracting partieswere written. The staff was then split down the middle; and onehalf, called “the stock,” was kept by one of the parties, while theother, “the bill,” was held by the other. When the time came tosettle the contract, the two parties would present their halves ofthe stick to the king. If they matched perfectly, it was plain thatneither party had attempted to tinker with the document, and allconditions having been met, the two halves, joined together againto make one, would be bound with string in the king’s hand andlaid away in the archives. The oldest known tallies are writtenin Latin and, surprisingly, in Hebrew. Are such the “sticks” towhich Ezekiel refers? They are. The Bar Kochba cave has nowproduced no fewer than twenty-three examples of this techniquein those letters of “the type commonly known as ‘double deeds’or ‘tied deeds,’” whose use “is a very old and known practice inthe ancient world.”2 The idea was to write the same contract twice,


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once very small; roll it into a tight cylinder; sew it closed; and signit over with the participants’ signatures, not to be opened untilthe final settlement—plainly the technique of the tally stick.

So here the Dead Sea Scrolls confirm our own interpretationof what the sticks of Ephraim and Judah were: matching docu-ments to be brought together and placed side by side to make onebook at that particular moment when God would set His hand toresurrecting the dry bones of dead Israel. The word of the Lordassures us now that it is indeed “Moroni, whom I have sent untoyou to reveal the Book of Mormon, containing the fulness of myeverlasting gospel, to whom I have committed the keys of therecord of the stick of Ephraim” (D&C 27:5). It is specifically withthe bringing forth of these documents that the work of the lastdays is to start moving. Moroni, who brought the book again,sealed it up anciently with the prophecy that when its word shallbe “like as one crying for the dead, yea, even as one speaking outof the dust” (Moroni 10:27); then shall the invitation go forth tothe Jews: “Awake, and arise from the dust, O Jerusalem, . . . enlargethy borders forever, that thou mayest no more be confounded”(Moroni 10:31). Which is exactly what they are doing today: theonly way they can keep from being “confounded” is to have de-fensible borders.

In 1948 the world turned a corner. Overnight modern Israelbecame a reality, and so did ancient Israel. The Battle Scroll appearedjust at the moment that Israel was called to arms and, accordingto Yadin, had not only a moral but even a practical value in thatgreat crisis. Suddenly scriptures became “relevant.” In the sameyear the oldest Jewish library and the oldest Christian librarywere discovered: both were threatened with destruction; both werechallenged as hoaxes; both became the object of political and reli-gious rivalries and deadlocks; both were viewed as the work ofirresponsible and fanatic sectaries. Yet through the years there hasbeen a growing respect for both the Nag Hammadi and the Qum-ran writings, both because of their impressive spiritual content andalso the number of other pseudepigrapha that are being discov-ered or rediscovered to confirm their proximity to the authenticJudaism and Christianity that flourished in the days before the Jew-ish and Christian doctors of Alexandria changed everything.

To me this seems to be an obvious sequel to what happened in1830, when another book appeared from the dust and another Israelwas established. There are three main parts to the Restoration, aswas made clear in a revelation given a year later: “But before the


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great day of the Lord shall come, Jacob shall flourish in the wilder-ness, and the Lamanites shall blossom as the rose. Zion shall flour-ish upon the hills and rejoice upon the mountains, and shall beassembled together unto the place which I have appointed” (D&C49:24–25). And the three shall combine their records, for “it shallcome to pass that the Jews shall have the words of the Nephites, andthe Nephites shall have the words of the Jews; and the Nephitesand the Jews shall have the words of the lost tribes of Israel; andthe lost tribes of Israel shall have the words of the Nephites and theJews. And it shall come to pass that my people, which are of thehouse of Israel, shall be gathered home unto the lands of theirpossessions; and my word also shall be gathered in one. And Iwill show unto them that fight against my word and against mypeople, who are of the house of Israel, that I am God, and that Icovenanted with Abraham that I would remember his seed for-ever” (2 Nephi 29:13–14).

The Dead Sea Scrolls bind the Old Testament and the NewTestament together as nothing else, and almost all the scrolls sofar published show remarkable affinity to the Book of Mormon,as well as the restored Church. Why should this be? Or am I justimagining things? The proper cure for “parallelomania” is not toavoid parallels but to explain them: every parallel has a properexplanation, even if it is only mere coincidence or illusion. Thereare marks on rocks that sometimes look like writing or like fos-silized plants; these are not to be ignored even though they oftenturn out to be misleading, because once in a while they really aretrue writing and true fossils. Resemblances between the Bible andthe Book of Mormon are not hard to explain; far from being evi-dence of fraud, they are rather confirmation of authenticity. If theBook of Mormon is what it purports to be, we should expect tofind a strong biblical influence in it. Its prophets sould like thoseof the Old Testament because they studied and consciously quotedthe words of those prophets, and all prophets moreover are pro-grammed to sound alike, being called for the same purpose undermuch the same conditions.

But the Book of Mormon goes far beyond such generalitieswhen it takes us into worlds hitherto undreamed of, namely thosesocieties of desert sectaries, Jewish and Christian, which since thediscovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls and Nag Hammadi documentshave come to life in our histories and commentaries. The Book ofMormon deals with both types of religious community, for 3 Nephigives us the Christian version, as other books do the Jewish. The


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presence of Jewish colonies that look strangely Christian has beendisturbing to both conventional “normative” Judaism and con-ventional Christianity, and has already called for drastic revisionsof doctrine and liturgy.

In the Dead Sea Scrolls we learn of the peculiar way of lifeof the sectaries of the desert, whose Rekhabite tradition goes backto Lehi’s day and long before, and survives long after, as is veryapparent from the 2nd Sura of the Qur’an. The people of Lehiwere rooted in this tradition. When John Welch was studying atDuke University years ago, he was struck by the strong resemblancebetween the story of Lehi and the writing of Zosimus, a Greek ofthe third century AD.3 What would a Greek know about Lehi al-most a thousand years after? Zosimus was looking for the modelsociety of the saints, and he attempted to find it in the desertamong the Rekhabites—that is the common tradition; I pointedout long ago that Lehi was in the proper sense a Rekhabite andcertainly acquainted with the pious sectaries of Jeremiah 30. Thewriting of Zosimus shows that we are dealing with a pervasiveand persistent pattern. Since the rise of “patternism” in the 1930s,scholars have come to recognize all manner of common religiousforms and stereotypes throughout the world. But it is importantto remember that Joseph Smith in his day was running in an openfield, a boundless plain where there was nothing to check or restrainhim. Fawn Brodie saw in the Book of Mormon only the productof a completely untrained, unbridled, undisciplined imaginationthat ran over like a spring freshet, as she put it. A hundred andforty years ago, Joseph Smith might have gotten away with it, butnow surely comes the day of reckoning! And it is not he but thecritics who are confounded.

The Book of Mormon is, as it often reminds us, a selectivehistory. It deals with small groups of pious believers, intenselyconservative by nature and tradition; consciously identifyingthemselves with their ancestors, Israel, in the wilderness long ago(see 1 Nephi 19:23). It was this characteristic tendency of the sec-taries to identify themselves with earlier trials and tribulations ofIsrael that at first made the Dead Sea Scrolls so hard to date: thesame situations seem to occur again and again through history, sothat the Kittim of the scrolls might be the Egyptians, Assyrians,Babylonians, Greeks, or Romans. Though carrying on in the NewWorld, the Book of Mormon people preserve their ancient culturefor centuries, which should not surprise us—do not the present in-habitants of America speak the English, Spanish, and Portuguese


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and preserve the customs of the Old World after four hundredyears? With this strong cultural carryover, the Nephites are awareof being special and apart—as the sectaries always are—“a lone-some and solemn people” (Jacob 7:26) is the moving expression ofNephi’s brother. And strangely enough, they are peculiarly boundto the written word, as are the people of Qumran. One of the mostimportant discoveries of the Book of Mormon was the process andtechniques of recording, transmitting, concealing, editing, trans-lating, and duplicating ancient writings. Here is something theworld refused to see in the Bible, the most sealed of books, but ithas been thoroughly vindicated in the Dead Sea Scrolls.

Of many striking parallels, I would like to speak of one herethat goes to the root of things. It is an episode that opens in theBook of Mormon in the middle of the second century BC with “aman whose name was Abinadi,” in deep trouble with the estab-lishment. In the Old World we find about the same time a certain“Teacher of Righteousness” in much the same fix: his story is toldin the Manual of Discipline, the Damascus or Zadokite Fragment,the commentary on Habakkuk, and the Thanksgiving Hymns fromQumran. He is being given a bad time by certain corrupt priestswho are in the saddle. In the Book of Mormon we find themcross-examining the righteous man as they sit at a special tribu-nal with comfortable seats:


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1QH 4:9–10 The common for-mula is lying speakers and vainseers [melitsey kazav w-khozeyremiyah].

Mosiah 11:11 That they [thepriests] might rest their bodies. . . while they should speaklying and vain words to hispeople.

1QH 4:7 But they lead thypeople astray by speakingsmooth things to them, practi-tioners of vain rhetoric [mel-itseremiyah, preachers of deceit].1QH 4:20 They are men ofdeceit [mirmah] and seers wholead astray [khozey ta)ut]. 1QH 4:15–16 In their insolencethey would sit in judgment onthee [investigate, persecute: yid-reshu ka] . . . from the mouthsof lying prophets led astray byerror.



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Mosiah 11:19 They . . . did de-light in . . . shedding . . . theblood of their brethren, and thisbecause of the wickedness oftheir king and priests.

CD 1:20 And they took the of-fensive [yagudu] against the lifeof the Righteous One and allwho walked uprightly [per-fectly]; they hated in theirhearts, and pursued them withthe sword and rejoiced in con-troversy.CD 19:3–7 The princes ofJudah . . . have transgressed ina bond of conspiracy [tshuvah].. . . In vengeance and wrath,every man against his brother,and everyone hating his neigh-bor, . . . greedy for gain.

Mosiah 11:26 They were wrothwith him and sought to takeaway his life; but the Lord de-livered him out of their hands.

1QH 2:21–23, 32–35 The ruth-less ones sought my life . . . agang of no-goods [sodh shawe’],a conspiracy of Belial. But theyknew not that my security[ma) amadhi] rested on Thee, andthat through thy mercy is mysoul delivered. . . . They soughtto take away my life . . . and shedmy blood, . . . but Thou Godhast helped the weak and suf-fering out of the hand of theone who was stronger than he.

Mosiah 11:28 Abinadi . . . hassaid these things that he mightstir up my people to anger onewith another, and to raise con-tentions among my people;therefore I will slay him.

1QH 2:14 I became a man ofcontroversy [’ish riv, “a trouble-maker”] to the preachers oferror.(Cf. Joseph Smith—History1:20: I was destined to prove adisturber and annoyer of his[Satan’s] kingdom.)



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Mosiah 12:1 After the space oftwo years . . . Abinadi cameamong them in disguise, thatthey knew him not, and beganto prophesy.

1QH 4:8–9 For they drove meout of my land, like a bird fromits nests, and all my friends andrelatives, they turned againstme. (Cf. Odes of Solomon 42.)

Next Abinadi uses an interesting figure, combining two ele-ments of fire and weaving, as the Damascus text also does, but ina quite different combination:

Mosiah 12:3 The life of kingNoah shall be valued even asa garment in a hot furnace.

CD 2:5 For those who stub-bornly oppose [God] there shallbe violence and overpoweringof great terror by the flame offire.CD 5:13–14 They are playingwith fire and throwing sparksaround [or setting fires]. . . .Their weaving is a flimsy thing,the weaving of spiders.

Here both prophets are borrowing from Isaiah 50:9, 11: “Whois he that shall condemn me? lo, they all shall wax old as a gar-ment; the moth shall eat them up. Behold, all ye that kindle a fire,that compass yourselves about with sparks; walk in the light ofyour fire, and in the sparks that ye have kindled.” The idea is thatthose who have foolishly started such fires will themselves perishby them. In the Zadokite Fragment the precarious position of thepersecutors is compared with playing with fire and a flimsy weav-ing of spiders. Abinadi combines the images with characteristicwit: Noah himself is the flimsy garment in the hot fire, to sufferthe very death he is inflicting on Abinadi. In the next verses heemploys figures also found in the scrolls:

Mosiah 12:10 He [Abinadi] . . .saith that thy life shall be asgarment in a furnace of fire. Mosiah 12:12 And again, hesaith thou shall be blossoms ofa thistle, which . . . the windbloweth.

1QH 7:20–21 Thou . . . scat-tereth the remnant of the menwho fight against me like chaffbefore the wind [cf. Psalm 1].



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Mosiah 12:19 [The priests]began to question him, thatthey might cross him, . . . toaccuse him; . . . but . . . to theirastonishment, . . . he did with-stand them in all their ques-tions and did confound themin all their words.

IQH 2:29–33 They spread a netto catch me, but it caught theirown foot. . . . Thou deliverestme from the spite of the mani-pulators [rhetoricians] of lies,from the council of those whoseek smooth things; . . . thouhas rescued the soul of the PoorOne whom they desired to de-stroy because of his service tothee.1QH 14:14 I was zealousagainst . . . the deceitful men,for all who are near to Theeresist not thy mouth . . . norchange thy words.

Mosiah 12:25–26 [You] pretendto teach this people. . . . If yeunderstand these things yehave not taught them; there-fore, ye have perverted theways of the Lord.

1QH 2:15–16 I became an ac-cusing spirit [of qinah] againstall who taught smooth things;and all the men of false teach-ing [remiyah, “deception, illu-sion”] stormed against me.

Mosiah 12:27–29 Ye have notapplied your hearts to under-standing, . . . and they said: Weteach the law of Moses. . . . Ifye teach the law of Moses whydo ye not keep it? Why do yeset your hearts upon riches? Whydo ye commit whoredoms andspend your strength withharlots?

CD 8:4–8; 19:15–20 They pro-fessed to be in the covenant ofrepentance. But they have notdeparted from the way of theapostates, but have wallowedin the ways of whoredoms, andgodlessness. . . . Everyone hasdeserted his family for im-moral practices, zealous in theacquisition of wealth and prop-erty, every man doing what isright in his own eyes, confirm-ing the people in their sins [cf.Alma 30:17].



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Mosiah 12:33 I know if ye keepthe commandments of God yeshall be saved, yea, if ye keepthe commandments which theLord delivered unto Moses inthe mount of Sinai.Mosiah 12:37 Have ye done allthis? . . . And have ye taughtthis people that they shoulddo all these things? I say untoyou, Nay, ye have not.

1QH 4:9–12 The preachers oflies and seers of illusions con-trive devil’s tricks against meto make me exchange the Lawwhich thou hast engraved inmy heart for the smooth thingsthey teach to the people. Theywho shut up the drink ofknowledge from the thirstingones to give them vinegar, toturn them to false teachingsthat they fall into your nets!

Then comes a long sermon to the wicked priests in whichAbinadi chides them with their indifference to the scriptures andlays it on with a caustic tongue, showing himself well-versed inthe ancient writings: “And now I read unto you the remainder of thecommandments of God, for I perceive that they are not written inyour hearts; I perceive that ye have studied and taught iniquitythe most part of your lives” (Mosiah 13:11). Like the Teacher ofRighteousness, Abinadi sees in the law a preparation for the Mes-siah to come. Professor Frank Cross called the Qumran commu-nity “the church of anticipation.”

Mosiah 13:27 I say unto youthat it is expedient that yeshould keep the law of Mosesas yet; but I say unto you, thatthe time shall come when itshall no more be expedient tokeep the law of Moses.

1QS 9:9–11 And from no pre-cept of the Law [torah] shallthey depart, . . . until there shallcome the Prophet and the Mes-siah of Aaron and Israel.

Mosiah 13:30–32 Thereforethere was a law given, . . . a lawof performances and of ordi-nances, . . . which they were toobserve strictly from day today. . . . But behold . . . all thesethings were types of things tocome. . . . And now . . . they didnot all understand the law; andthis because of the hardness oftheir hearts.

CD 12:21 And according tothis rule shall they walk eventhe seed of Israel; . . . and thisis the way [serekh] of living forthe camp, by which they walkin the time of the wicked, untilthe Anointed One [Messiah] ofAaron arises.



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Mosiah 13:33 Did not Mosesprophesy . . . concerning thecoming of the Messiah, andthat God should redeem hispeople? Yea, and even all theprophets who have prophesiedever since the world began—have they not spoken more orless concerning these things?

1QS 1:3 . . . as was commandedby the hand of Moses and bythe hand of his servants theprophets.1QS 9:4–5 . . . to atone for thesins . . . to please God in theland more than the flesh ofburnt offerings and the fat ofsacrifices: the heave-offering ofthe lips for a mishpat, like thesacrificial odor [ke-nikhoakh],the offering acceptable to him.

Being perfect in the way means keeping the covenents onehas made; the expression is found at the opening of the book ofLuke, where we find the parents of John the Baptist followingprecepts like these:

Mosiah 15:10–11 And who shallbe his seed? . . . Whosoever hasheard the words of the pro-phets . . . and believed that theLord would redeem his people,and have looked forward tothat day, . . . these are his seed,or they are the heirs of thekingdom of God.

1QSb 3:2–5 May he lift up hisface upon all thy assembly andplace upon thy head the crown.. . . In eternal glory and sanc-tify thy seed with eternal glory. . . and give thee peace and thekingdom [malkuth, kingship].1QS 5:21–22. A covenant of theChurch to establish forever thekingship of his people.

Mosiah 15:26 Behold, and fear,and tremble, . . . ye . . . thathave known the command-ments of God, and would notkeep them.

1QS 2:26–3:1 For his soul hasturned away and departedfrom the knowledge [counsel]of the ordinances [mishpat. im]of truth; he did not remain firmin his dedication [changing ofhis life].

Mosiah 16:1–3 The time shallcome when all shall see thesalvation of the Lord. . . . Andthen shall the wicked be castout, . . . and the devil haspower over them.

CD 20:26 When the glory ofGod is openly revealed to Isra-el, then shall all the evildoersof Judah be cast out from themidst of the camp and thepeople.



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During the trial of Abinadi, Alma, one of the priests of Noahwho had been converted by the teaching of the holy man, pleadedon his behalf, and being in danger of his own life (Mosiah 17:2),withdrew from circulation while he could put everything downin writing. The name of Alma, incidentally, has turned up in oneof the newly discovered scrolls. In 1966, Professor Yadin founddeeply buried in the floor of the Cave of Manuscripts the deed toa farm. Today the visitor entering the Shrine of the Book of Jeru-salem will find the very first display on his left hand to be thisdeed, a strip of papyrus mounted on glass with a light shiningthrough; and there, written in a neat and legible hand, is the name“Alma, son of Judah”—one of the owners of the farm. This de-serves mention because the critics have always made great fun ofthe name of Alma (both Latin and feminine), comically out of placeamong the ancient Jews.

Mosiah 17:3–4 The king . . .caused that Alma should becast out . . . and sent his ser-vants after him that they mightslay him. But he fled from be-fore them and hid himself thatthey found him not. And hebeing concealed for many daysdid write all the words whichAbinadi had spoken.

1QH 5:5–13 I praise thee Lordfor thou didst not desert mewhen I was among the people. . . and didst not leave me inmy secret affairs, but savedmy life out of the pit . . . in themidst of lions. . . . Thou didsttake me to a place removedamong the fisherfolk and hun-ters. . . . Thou didst hide me, OGod, from the children of men,and hid thy law in me, until thetime that thy help should berevealed to me. . . . Thou didstpreserve the life of the PoorOne in the place of lions.

This is something of a standard situation—preparation for aholy mission by a retreat into the wilderness; we see the samethings in the cases of Ether, Moroni, Lehi and his sons, of Moses,John the Baptist, and the Lord Himself. The wilderness motif ispreparation for the more ambitious Rekhabite motif, about whichRobert Eisler wrote so learnedly many years ago. Alma came outof hiding, to do his work among the people; and in the Hodiyotwe see the leader building up just such a following in the towns:



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Mosiah 18:1–3 Alma . . . wentabout privately among thepeople . . . to teach the wordsof Abinadi. . . . And he taughtthem privately.

1QH 4:23–25 Thou hast notkept hiding for shame all thosewho permitted me to visit [orinstruct] them, who came to-gether in a church [yah. ad] of thycovenant to listen to me, andto follow the ways of thy heart.They rallied to my defense asa group of Saints.

And now comes the New World Qumran:

Mosiah 18:4 And . . . as manyas did believe him did go forthto a place which was calledMormon, . . . being in the bor-ders of the land . . . infested bytimes or at seasons by wildbeasts. (Note: This is not the howlingwilderness, but the midhbar, theplaces where desert and culti-vation or grazing infringe uponeach other; the next verse showsthat it was a desert terrain.)

CD 6:4–8 The volunteers fromthe people are those who bearthe staff [cf. of wanderingMoses] and the Fountain [orspring] is the Law, . . . and theyare the inhabitants of Israelwho depart from the land ofJudah and dwell in the land ofDamascus as strangers. . . . Thestaff is the one who teachesthem the Law, as Isaiah says.

Mosiah 18:5 Now, there was inMormon a fountain of purewater, . . . there being near thewater a thicket of small trees[like Ain Feshka?], where[Alma] did hide himself in thedaytime from the searches ofthe king.

1QS 8:13–16 At the fulfillmentof these signs they shall sepa-rate themselves from dwellingin the midst of a perverse peo-ple, and go forth into the desertto prepare a way for Him. . . .Even by the study of the Lawas it was given to Moses accor-ding to what has been revealedfrom time to time as it wasshown to the prophet throughthe Holy Ghost.

1QS 9:18–20 . . . to lead andinstruct [lehinkhotam] in knowl-edge and so give them under-standing in the hidden wonders

Mosiah 18:6–8 As many as believed him went thither tohear his words. And . . . aftermany days there were a goodly



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and truth[s] in the midst of themen of the Church; to walkeach one blamelessly [perfect]with his neighbor in all that hasbeen revealed to them in thistime of preparing the way inthe wilderness, and to instructthem in all that must be doneat this time.

number gathered together at theplace of Mormon, to hear thewords of Alma. . . . And he didteach them, and did preachunto them. . . . And . . . he saidunto them: . . . as ye are . . .willing to bear one another’sburdens.

Such communities were not without precedent in Israel. Therewere fraudulent prophets and quacks who led such groups intothe wilderness.4 The Dead Sea Scrolls have a good deal to say aboutsuch ambitious would-be Moseses. There is one instance in theearly Christian literature which is interesting because it tells of oneimpostor who led his people to a place of filthy water—remindingus of Ignatius’s charge that the apostate leaders of his day are giv-ing the thirsting people poison to drink.5 So too we read in CD 1:14:“The man of deception [latson—the phony] arose who preachedlying waters to Israel and led them astray in the pathless desert,away from the paths of righteousness.” In 1QH 2:16 the RighteousTeacher tells how “all the men of falsehood [remiyah] stormedagainst me like a mass of mighty waters.” In 1QH 2:12, “The assem-bly of the wicked rushed upon me like a stormy sea, whose wavescast up all manner of mud,” and in 1QH 2:13, “filth.” This is the“filthy water” of Nephi’s vision, an image found also in the desertArab poets. What could be worse to one dying of thirst in thedesert than to be led to waters that could not be drunk!

Mosiah 18:8–10 [Alma says],here are the waters of Mormon.. . . What have you againstbeing baptized in the name ofthe Lord, as a witness . . . thatye have entered into a coven-ant, . . . that ye will serve himand keep his commandments?

1QS 3:8–10 [In baptism] he sub-mits his soul in all humility toevery commandment of God, . . .[after which] he applies him-self to walking carefully [per-fectly] in all the ways of Godas he commanded for the speci-fied time and conditions inturning aside to the right orthe left.

Mosiah 18:13 . . . as testimonythat ye have entered into acovenant to serve him.

1QS 3:11–12 Then he will trulybe a covenant member of God’seternal church.



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Mosiah 18:8–9 . . . willing tobear one another’s burdens,that they may be light; . . . andwilling to mourn with thosethat mourn; yea, and comfortthose that stand in need ofcomfort.

1QS 2:24–25 For all shall beunited in one true church [one-ness of truth], and in becominghumility, and love of mercy andfair dealing [dealings of righ-teousness] each man with hisneighbor.1QS 5:24–25 . . . to be perfecteach in supporting his fellow intruth and humility and love ofmercy towards all.

Mosiah 18:8–9 As ye aredesirous to come into the foldof God, and to be called hispeople,

CD 4:2–4 The sons of Zadokare following the patterns: Thepriests are penitent Israel whohave left the Land of Judah[and they are the Levites], . . .they are the elect of Israel whowill be called up by name inthe last days.

and to stand as witnesses ofGod at all times and in allthings, and in all places . . .even until death,

1QS 1:17–18 And not to turnaway from him out of any fearor terror or any burning thatmay threaten in the govern-ment of Belial.

that ye may be redeemed . . .and be numbered with thoseof the first resurrection, that yemay have eternal life.

1QH 6:7–9 I was comfortedamidst all the raging of thepeople gathering together. ForI know that after a time thouwilt raise up the Living One inthe midst of thy people, and aremnant in thine inheritance,and purify them with the puri-fication of forgiveness, for alltheir deeds. They trust on thee.

1QH 6:13–14. And there is nogo-between [melitz benayim,“servant, representative”] forthy Saints, . . . for they answerin the presence of thy glory

2 Nephi 9:41–43 The keeper ofthe gate is the Holy One ofIsrael; and he employeth noservant there. . . . And whosoknocketh, to him will he open;



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and become thy princes in aneternal inheritance.

. . . [to give them] . . . that hap-piness which is prepared forthe saints.

The 1QH 6:25–28 here uses the same language as the Shep-herd of Hermas: “O God thou layest a foundation upon a Rock,. . . according to the true rule and plummet [made] of thy chosenstones, . . . and none stumbles, who walketh hence. For no strangerwill enter into its gates, protective gates, . . . whose strong boltscannot be forced.” These verses plainly refer to the mysteries ofgodliness both in the Book of Mormon and the Qumran texts (cf.2 Nephi 9:42–43). When I first visited Qumran, in 1966 (Dr. JosephSaad, Vontella Kimball, Moses Kader, and I were the only personson the site, for it was during a time of troubles), Christian andJewish scholars vigorously denied that the tanks, basins, and waterconduits connecting them had anything to do with baptism orritual ablutions; but last year our group visiting the place notedwith interest that the Israeli authorities had put up signs desig-nating such places as meant for ritual ablutions. The baptism ofAlma is the old Jewish baptism, strictly an ordinance of purifica-tion and initiation with no mention of death and resurrection.

Mosiah 18:10 . . . baptized . . . asa witness . . . that ye have en-tered into a covenant, . . . thatye will serve him and keep hiscommandments, that he maypour out his Spirit more abun-dantly upon you.

1QH 14:17–18 Thine abundantgoodness have I recognized byan oath, not to sin against theeor to do anything that is evil inthine eyes. And so I have joinedin the fellowship of all whoshare my faith [sodh].

Mosiah 18:11 [Alma put theproposition before all the peo-ple gathered]; when the peoplehad heard these words, theyclapped their hands for joy, andexclaimed: This is the desire ofour hearts.

1QS 1:19–20 And all those desi-ring to enter into the covenantshall say after them [the Levitewho preaches repentance andthe Priest who proposes thenew covenant] Amen! Amen!

Reference to baptism has naturally caused a good deal ofdiscussion among Christians and Jews alike. It is plain from thescrolls that there were both an intiatory baptism and frequent rit-ual washings:



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Mosiah 18:10–13 . . . being bap-tized . . . that he may pour outhis Spirit. . . . O Lord, pour outthy Spirit upon thy servant. . . .May the Spirit of the Lord bepoured out upon you; and . . .grant unto you eternal life,through the redemption ofChrist, . . . prepared from thefoundation of the world.

1QS 3:4–5 (Introductory admo-nition): [The backsliders fromthe covenant] shall not be puri-fied and cleansed by the watersof niddah [removal of ritual im-purity] nor sanctified by thewater of the running streams,nor cleansed by the waters ofwashing, [bathing; rakha-ts].

Now we come to the organization of Alma’s church—Jewishin some respects, early Christian in others. The writers of the scrollscall their organization a yah. ad, the word meaning simply “oneness.”Some would translate it as “unity,” others as “community,” othersas “oneness.” Georg Molin, the eminent Roman Catholic student ofthe scrolls, insists that the usage and context of the word requiresit to be translated simply as “church,” while the name the peoplegave to themselves, according to him, was “Latter-day Saints.”6 Theemphasis on oneness is a reminder that these churches in the wil-derness thought of themselves as little scale models of Enoch, Cityof Zion, so called “because they were of one heart and one mind”(Moses 7:18):

Mosiah 18:21 He [Alma] com-manded . . . that there shouldbe no contention one with an-other, but that they should lookforward with one eye, havingone faith and one baptism, hav-ing their hearts knit together inunity and in love one towardsanother.

1QS 5:25–26 No one shall speakto his brother in anger or peev-ishness, or haughtily [with stiffneck] or with any unkind feel-ing [qinah], but everyone shalladmonish his fellow in truth,humility and and in loving-kindness.1QS 1:3–9 And to love all theChosen . . . and to love all theSons of Light in the quorum[council, brotherhood; ) etsath]of God.

As to organization:

Mosiah 18:17 And they werecalled the church of God, or thechurch of Christ [Messiah]. . . .

1QSa 2:11–12, 17–23 This isthe assembly of the men ofthe name, the meeting of the



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And . . . whosoever was bap-tized by the power and author-ity of God was added to hischurch.

council of the church [yah. ad]whenever God causes the Mes-siah [Anointed One, Christ] tobe born among them. . . . Andwhenever they come togetherfor the table of the church[yah. ad, “unity”] or to drink thenew wine, and the table of theyah. ad is set, and the new wineis mixed for drinking, no oneshall put forth his hand towardthe bread and wine at first be-fore the Priest, for he must blessthe first-fruits of the bread andwine; and he takes the breadbefore them, and after that theMessiah of Israel puts forth hishand on the bread; and afterthat, all the assembly of thechurch shall bless [or be blessed,served], each in order of hisoffice [dignity], . . . and this ishow they shall do it on everyformal occasion [ma’rakhah],when as many as ten cometogether.(If this sounds disturbinglyChristian, it is no more so than1QS 8:1: “In the council of thechurch there shall be twelvemen, and three priests, per-fectly instructed in all that hasbeen revealed.”)

Mosiah 23:14 Trust no one tobe your teacher nor your minis-ter, except he be a man of God,walking in his ways and keep-ing his commandments.

1QS 8:1–2 . . . in the entireTorah, to act in truth and jus-tice and judgment and love ofmercy, walking in humilitywith their brethren.

Mosiah 23:16 Alma was theirhigh priest . . . [and] founderof their church.



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Mosiah 23:17 None receivedauthority to preach or to teachexcept it were by him fromGod. Therefore he consecratedall their priests and all theirteachers.

1QS 6:3–4; 7:1–2 Ten men shallnot meet without a priest topreside. . . . There must neverbe a priest failing to teach theword of God.1QS 6:6 And there shall not bemissing in any place wherethere are as many as ten mena doresh [reader, expounder] inthe Torah, whether by day ornight.1QS 2:19–23 The priests shallenter [or move on] first of all,. . . the Levites come next, andall the people in third place, . . .for thousands and hundredsand fifties, and then tens, sothat every man may know hisplace in the church of God forthe doctrine of the eternities. 1QS 6:8–10 The priests sit inthe first place, the elders in thesecond and then all the otherpeople each according to hisdignity. And they shall be con-sulted concerning the law andall the decisions whatsoeverthat come before the congrega-tion, so that every member . . .may place his knowledge at thedisposal of all. 1QSa 1:24 All things are direc-ted by the Sons of Zadok thepriests.CD 13:2–3 In a place of tenpeople there must be a priestlearned in the Book of Haggai,and all must follow his instruc-tions. If he does not knowenough, a Levite.



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Mosiah 18:19 [The priests]should teach nothing save itwere . . . [what Alma] hadtaught, and which had beenspoken by the mouth of theholy prophets.

1QS 9:7 Only the Sons ofAaron shall decide matters oflaw and property and adminis-ter the affairs of the society.1QS 2:1 The priests shall blessall the active members [menwho share the lot] who are ingood standing [who are walk-ing perfectly].

Mosiah 18:23. They should ob-serve the sabbath day, . . . andalso every day they should givethanks.

CD 10:14–12:6. Anyone whodesecrates the Sabbath or thespecial day (mo) adhoth) is puton probation for seven years,before he is permitted againto attend all the meetings.

Mosiah 18:25 And there wasone day in every week thatwas set apart that they shouldgather themselves together toteach the people, and to wor-ship the Lord their God, andalso, as often as it was in theirpower, to assemble themselvestogether.

1QS 6:7–8 The entire congrega-tion shall watch together for athird of every night, to read inthe book, discuss the Law, andsing hymns together.

Mosiah 18:24–26 The priests . . .should labor with their ownhands for their support. . . .And the priests were not todepend upon the people fortheir support; . . . for their laborthey were to receive the graceof God, that they might . . .teach with power.

1QS 6:2 And the small shallheed the superior regardingwork and property [mammon,“business”] and they shall eattogether.CD 13:11 And everyone whojoins the community shall beexamined for his past activi-ties, his knowledge and skills,his physical capacity, his en-ergy, and his possession. [Allcontribute these.]



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Mosiah 18:27–28 The people ofthe church should impart oftheir substance, every one ac-cording to that which he had.. . . They should impart of theirsubstance of their own free will. . . to those priests that stoodin need, . . . and to every needy,naked soul.

1QS 6:19–20 Anyone acceptedinto the community shall turnover his property agreeable tothe priests and the congrega-tion, and receive a receipt fromthe official in charge.1 QS 7:6–7 Anyone carelesswith the common propertymust replace it.

Mosiah 18:29. And they didwalk uprightly before God,imparting to one another bothtemporally and spiritually ac-cording to their needs and theirwants.

CD 13:7–10. The overseer of theCamp shall direct the gener-ality in the works of God, andteach them about the wonder-ful things he has done, . . . andhave compassion like a fatherwith his children, saving themfrom their erring ways as aShepherd his sheep . . . thatthere be no oppressor or smiterin his group [) adhatho].CD 14:12–14. The grain [shkar]from at least two days a monthshall be placed in the hands ofthe Overseer and the judges, . . .for the support of the widows,the ailing and the poor andaged. [In the Pastor of Hermasthe rule is one day’s income amonth.]

As he sums up the achievements of this holy band, strugglingto be real saints, and to a degree succeeding, the author of our ac-count breaks out into an ecstatic little hymn of joy. The author ofwhich account? Of both! The author of Mosiah 18:30 precedes thehymn with a satisfying summary to his story: “And they did walkuprightly before God, imparting to one another both temporallyand spiritually” (Mosiah 18:29). The writer of the ThanksgivingHymns prefaces this particular one with an account of the wickedworld in which he lived, but then he sees the community in thedesert as a light shining all the more brightly by contrast:



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1QH 6:11–13 The people of thycounsel in the midst of those ofthe world [the bne adam], tellingfor endless generations thy mar-vellous things and meditatingupon thy greatness withoutceasing, . . . for thou sendestthy glory to all the men of thycounsel, sharing a common lotwith the angels of thy presence.1QH 6:5–8 From the world ofshaw [vanity] and khamas [vio-lence], . . . God will establish anew life for his people, the rem-nant who will be heirs.1QH 6:13–18 Everyone whoaccepts his counsel receiving acommon share with the angelsof the presence [cf. the Zion ofEnoch motif]. There is no “gobetween” between the HolyOne and the Saints [cf. 2 Nephi9:41]. . . . They are like a con-gregation of princes sharing inthe eternal glory of the pres-ence. . . . Blossoming fruit for-ever, putting forth shoots tobear foliage in endless planting[renewal], to cast their shadeover the earth, . . . until . . . theirroots reach to the foundationsof the earth [tehom]: they strikethe cosmic waters, and all thestreams of Eden water them. . . .And [it] has become the placeof springs of light for an un-failing fountain that knows noceasing. [Then the account goesback to the wicked.]



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After this brief, happy vision of the community as a well-watered garden, an oasis in the desert, the poet plunges back intothe dreary and wicked world. But the most remarkable parallel toAlma’s hymn is No. 8 of the Thanksgiving Hymns from Qumran:The Book of Mormon hymn is divided into two stanzas, the firstabout the waters of Mormon, the second about the trees of Mor-mon. IQH 8 emphasizes the same dependence of the water andthe trees on each other:

Mosiah 18:30 And . . . all thiswas done in Mormon, yea, bythe waters of Mormon, in theforest that was near the watersof Mormon; yea, the place ofMormon, the waters of Mor-mon, the forest of Mormon,how beautiful are they to theeyes of them who there cameto the knowledge of their Re-deemer; yea and how blessedare they, for they shall sing tohis praise forever.

1QH 8:4–6 I praise the Lord,for Thou didst bring me to aplace of water in a dry land, toa fountain of water in a parchedland, and to a water of a gar-den, . . . a growth [planting] ofjunipers, poplars and cedars;along with thy glory, trees oflife are hidden amidst secretsprings in the midst of all thetrees, by the water, and theyshall bring forth shoots for aneternal planting to salvation.

Even without the last line and the formal word of conclu-sion—“forever”—it would be plain that the Book of Mormon versesare a hymn with a melody hovering about the word Mormon. Inboth songs the imagery is that of the wanderer in the desert savedby the water of life and the tree of life, saved from spiritual death tofind redemption and salvation. As might be expected, the trees andthe water give knowledge—life-giving knowledge—as sustenance.

1 Nephi 2:9 (Lehi’s song qasida,in the desert): O that thou migh-test be like unto this river, con-tinually running into the foun-tain of all righteousness! [cf. Ether8:26].

1QS 10:9–14 I will sing andplay . . . to . . . the Most High,the fountain of my good, thesource of my well-being, foun-tain of knowledge, a flowingspring of holiness. . . . I willpraise him at my going outand coming in.

Even the end of the colony is much the same in the two sto-ries. Neither Qumran nor the waters of Mormon were unknownto the king’s men (Noah’s in one case, Herod’s in the other); after



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all, the places were not too far out in the wilderness—numbers ofpeople streamed out to them, and one spy alone could find out orsuspect all that was necessary. What happened in the Book of Mor-mon suggests quite sensibly what could have happened at Qum-ran, with a jealous monarch keeping the place under surveillanceuntil he decided it would have to go.

Mosiah 18:32–33 The king . . .sent his servants to watch them. . . and . . . said that Alma wasstirring up the people to rebel-lion against him; therefore hesent his army to destroy them.

So they had to move on—but they were used to that, for thatis the Rekhabite tradition: Israel is ever “das wandernde Gottes-volk,” God’s Wandering People—indeed the present pope of Romeis partial to the title “Wayfaring Church” to describe his own flock.

Mosiah 18:34–35 And . . . Almaand the people of the Lord . . .took their tents and their fami-lies and departed into the wil-derness. And they were in num-ber about four hundred andfifty souls.(Then they repeat OperationFlight into the Wilderness.)Mosiah 23:1–5 Now Alma . . .made it know to his people,therefore they gathered togethertheir flocks, and took of theirgrain, and departed into thewilderness. . . . And they fledeight days’ journey into the wil-derness. And they came to . . .a very beautiful and pleasantland, a land of pure water. Andthey pitched their tents, andbegan to till the ground, andbegan to build buildings; yea,they were industrious, and didlabor exceedingly.

CD 6:3–8 They went into thedesert [Numbers 21:8] to dig awell, that is, to study the Law,namely the noble ones withthe staff, that of Israel who hadrepented [“been converted,”shuv]; and they departed fromthe land of Judah and so-journed in the Land of Damas-cus [a land that was strange].God has called them princesbecause they sought after him,. . . and the Staff [their leader]is he who studies the Law [cf.Isaiah 54:16], . . . an implementin the hands of God to bringabout his purposes.



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It would be easy to supply many times more such parallelsbetween the Book of Mormon and the other ancient records. If thelatter are authentic (and both the Qumran and the Enoch writingswere once challenged as late forgeries), it is hard to see how wecan brush aside the Joseph Smith production as nonsense. Even ifevery parallel were the purest coincidence, we would still have toexplain how the prophet contrived to pack such a dense succes-sion of happy accidents into the scriptures he gave us. Where theworld has a perfect right to expect a great potpourri of the mostoutrageous nonsense, and in anticipation has indeed rushed tojudgment with all manner of premature accusations, we discoverwhenever ancient texts turn up to offer the necessary checks andcontrols, that the man was astonishingly on target in his depictionof general situations, in the almost casual mention of peculiaroddities, in the strange proper names, and countless other unac-countable details. What have Joseph Smith’s critics really knownabout the true nature of those ancient societies into which hisapocalyptic writings propose to take us? As the evidence accumu-lates, it is not the Prophet but his critics who find themselves witha lot of explaining to do.


NOTES

1. Yigael Yadin, Bar-Kochba (New York: Random House, 1971), 253.

2. Yadin, Bar-Kochba, 229–30. For the earlier articles by Nibley, seechapter 1.

3. John W. Welch, “The Narrative of Zosimus and the Book of Mor-mon,” BYU Studies 22, no. 3 (1982): 311–32.

4. Robet Eisler, Iesous Basileus ou Basileusas (Heidelberg: Winter, 1929),2:171.

5. Ignatius, Epistle to the Ephesians 7; Epistle to Polycarp 3.

6. Georg Molin, Die Söhne des Lichtes (Vienna: Herold, 1954), 146.


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Nibley - Timeless...Nibley on the Timely and the Timeless 172 Joseph Smith Enoch Aramaic Enoch Moses 6:39 When they heard him, . . . fear cameon all them that heard him. 4QEnGiantsb