Introduction

The Book of Mormon represents the product of a society and culture that derived from the ancient kingdom of Judah. This means the people lived and practiced a distinctive version of the worship of Jehovah, including living the law of Moses (see, e. g., 2 Nephi 5:10). The Book of Mormon presents, in many ways, a hybrid text in the sense that the Nephites lived the rituals of the law of Moses and preached about salvation through Jesus Christ. In fact, the book is explicitly Christocentric, both in terms of the content created by its authors and in the explicit reason for its compilation. The title page, presumably written by Moroni, the final author in the book, tells the reader that the book was written “to the convincing of the Jew and Gentile that Jesus is the Christ, the Eternal God.” For the majority of the book, the Nephites (and to a lesser extent the Lamanites)[1] lived under the law of Moses, with its attendant purity and sacrificial laws, as can be seen by Jesus’s explicit ending of those laws in 3 Nephi 15:2–10. Although it is possible to view belief in Jesus Christ and living the law of Moses as separate and unrelated notions, the Book of Mormon makes it clear that this was not the case. For many of the book’s authors, the scriptures and stories recorded in what are now the first five books of the Bible helped point people to the worship of Jesus.

Nephi tells us that one reason the Lord sent him and his brothers to obtain the brass plates was to give Lehi’s family and posterity access to the law of Moses. In 1 Nephi 4:15–16 we read, “Yea, and I also thought that they [Nephi’s seed] could not keep the commandments of the Lord according to the law of Moses, save they should have the law. And I also knew that the law was engraven upon the plates of brass.” Nephi’s statement has a number of implications for the study of religion and scripture in both the Book of Mormon and the Bible. In his visionary expansion of his father’s dream, Nephi saw a book that came “out of the mouth of a Jew,” and he learned from his angelic interlocutor that this book was a “record like unto the engravings which are upon the plates of brass, save there are not so many” (1 Nephi 13:23). From the context, it is possible to connect that book with our present-day Bible. The scriptures that the Lehites brought out from the Old World have continuity, therefore, with our own received scriptures, but they are not necessarily the same thing. There is value in exploring the connections and the discontinuities between the brass plates and our received Bible. This exploration shows that although the Nephites definitely had access to a version of the law of Moses, it did not necessarily look like our current Bible.

For the purposes of this study, I will focus on Nephi’s statement that “the law was engraven upon the plates of brass.” This statement means that the Nephites had access to the law of Moses through a scriptural medium that was extant in some form in the seventh century BC. We have some clues about the form of the material on the brass plates from Lehi’s brief description.[2] In 1 Nephi 5:11, Lehi discovers that the brass plates “contain the five books of Moses, which gave an account of the creation of the world, and also of Adam and Eve, who were our first parents.” I will examine this verse in greater depth later in this paper, but for our present purposes, it is worth noting that once again we have evidence that the brass plates contained the law of Moses, including some of the narrative passages in what is now in the first few chapters of Genesis.

My aim in this study is to explore what the Book of Mormon tells us about the use of the law of Moses and the first five books of the Bible among the Nephites and the Lamanites. There are ways of understanding Nephite use of the Law (understood broadly as all the material in the first five books of Moses) that are compatible with the historical claims and the stated message of the Book of Mormon. The Book of Mormon draws on elements across all the sources proposed by scholars for the composition of the Pentateuch, suggesting that the Nephite authors and editors had access to versions of many of the materials that are collected in their final form in our current Bible.

First I will examine some of the complexities that scholarship has uncovered in the history of the Pentateuch’s composition. These can raise questions about authorship and editing, and some of them can be used to challenge claims of historicity in the Bible and in the Book of Mormon, although that is not a necessary reading of either scholarship or scripture. I will begin by briefly describing the scholarly reconstruction of the Pentateuch’s composition as well as the implications this has for Mosaic authorship. I will follow with a discussion of the various ways that Latter-day Saint writers have understood this data, especially in connection with the Book of Mormon. Finally, I will examine specific examples of how Pentateuchal criticism and the Documentary Hypothesis can give insight into the important historical and spiritual messages of the Book of Mormon.

Pentateuchal Criticism and the Documentary Hypothesis

For more than a century, biblical scholarship has probed examples of sources and editing related to the formation and the composition the first five books of the Bible.[3] The classic formulation of how the first five books of the Bible were created is Julius Wellhausen’s Prolegomena to the History of Israel.[4]

Wellhausen’s articulation of what is now called the Documentary Hypothesis postulated the existence of four main sources that he placed into an evolutionary framework tracking the history of religion in ancient Israel.[5] The four sources in the Documentary Hypothesis are usually abbreviated as JEDP. The earliest source was called the Yahwist source (the letter J being the first letter of Yahweh[6] in German). Wellhausen claimed it represented an early stage of Israelite religious thought and characterized it by the use of the divine name Yahweh. The second was called the Elohist source and was roughly contemporaneous with the Yahwist source. Unlike the other three sources, which originated in Judah, it was associated with traditions deriving from the northern tribes, such as the Josephite tribes of Ephraim and Manasseh. Its abbreviation was E and was characterized by a preference for Elohim as a divine name. The next strand was the Deuteronomist source, abbreviated as D, which was associated with the laws found in the book of Deuteronomy, especially those on the centralization of the sacrificial system in one location. The final strand was the Priestly source. Wellhausen characterized it as the most “Jewish” of the sources, which for him meant movement away from true religion.[7]

Wellhausen’s articulation and dating of these four sources represented a watershed for thoughts on the authorship of the biblical books composing the Pentateuch. There was an initial backlash against the Documentary Hypothesis, but it has since come to be the standard way of explaining how the various parts of the Pentateuch came together. The argument is that each of the four strands represents a relatively consistent, self-contained composition that a proposed later editor and redactor used in the creation of the books of Genesis through Deuteronomy.[8] The specific reconstructions vary greatly, which should make us cautious about making this point too strongly, but the idea of the first five books of the Bible representing a composite, redacted work has general acceptance in the scholarly world.[9] Even as scholars work through the various individual issues, the broad contours of Wellhausen’s reconstruction continue to shape the debate.

Although this is the general consensus of the scholarly world, there is, of course, scholarly disagreement, largely coming from European[10] and Israeli[11] scholarship.[12] These disagreements are partly why even some proponents of the Documentary Hypothesis are reluctant to use its evidence to make historical claims (a wise caution in many ways).[13] Despite disagreements about specifics, the evidence adduced by scholars in discussing the use of sources in creating the Pentateuch is worth examining because it can be compelling.[14] There really are different versions of various laws (e.g., those pertaining to slavery) in the different books of the Bible.[15] The mountain where Moses received the law is called by two different names in different places in the Bible.[16] Examples like this can be multiplied, as will be seen later in this study. It is useful, therefore, to be familiar with these arguments and discussions and to think about how they interact with the distinctive and important claims of the Restoration.

All this has implications for the reading and understanding of the Book of Mormon because historical-critical questions and the Documentary Hypothesis in particular often assume that the final form of our biblical books Genesis through Deuteronomy comes about after the Babylonian exile. This generally refers to the process of bringing the text together as we have it, rather than the composition of the various units that constitute it. The exile ended in 538 BC when the Persian king Cyrus allowed the exiled Judahites to return to Jerusalem, an event that places the final form of the Pentateuch after Lehi and his family left Jerusalem around 600 BC.[17] This means that the statements about the brass plates containing the law of Moses and the five books of Moses must inform our perspective on the final composition of these biblical materials. If we take at face value the standard dates that many scholars adduce for the final composition or compilation, then references in the Book of Mormon cannot refer to the five books of Moses as they appear in our current Bible. For some, this could militate against some of the historical claims put forth by the Book of Mormon.[18] This is not, however, a necessary position.[19] The complexity of the scholarly discussions of the sources shows that although there is a general scholarly consensus about their use in the creation of scripture in general and the Pentateuch specifically, the outlines of that re-creation vary. This means there are possibilities for understanding those sources that do not inherently preclude Book of Mormon historicity.

Redaction and Editing in the Scriptures: Mosaic Authorship

As noted above, Israeli and Jewish scholarship tends to date the sources and much of the composition of Genesis through Deuteronomy earlier than do some of the more traditional scholarly readings of the text. In light of this, it is possible to accept some of the ideas and evidences of source-critical readings without calling into question either the historical Moses or the historicity of the Book of Mormon. Daniel L. Belnap, for example, has noted, “Like the Book of Mormon, the Bible in its current form is best understood to consist of original authorial writings as well as redacted text, the latter having earlier been edited or commented on by later editors.”[20] Belnap’s observation is a reminder that the complexities behind the creation and composition of the scriptures do not mean that they should be rejected out of hand. Neither does it mean that the observations leading to discussions of the complexities should be ignored.

In The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, numerous Restoration scriptures, including the Book of Mormon and Joseph Smith’s “New Translation” of the Bible, assume the existence of a historical Moses who is associated with a law given by God. These scriptures do not claim that Moses wrote every word in the “five books of Moses.” Moses can be a historical prophet, and the books in the Bible authentic records of God’s doings, without requiring that Moses composed every word in the books as we now have them.

This is an important distinction because, as noted above, there are clear interpretive difficulties that a reader of the biblical text is faced with. The book of Genesis, for example, contains numerous examples of stories that seem to have internal inconsistencies (such as how Joseph gets out the pit and into Egypt)[21] or different details (such as the number of animals that Noah takes into the ark).[22] These kinds of difficulties are what source-critical studies and the Documentary Hypothesis try to address. Acknowledging these differences in the text does not need to be an excuse to reject the Bible or biblical authority, however, but a chance for us to reflect on “how merciful the Lord hath been” (Moroni 10:3). Like the Book of Mormon, the five books of Moses seem to include material that has come down to us through a sometimes complex process of redacting and editing. This process shows the Lord’s hand in bringing his children scripture.

It is interesting to note that although Nephi clearly accepts the authority of the law he received on the brass plates and its fundamental Mosaic authority, there is a possibility for non-Mosaic authorship in his received tradition. First Nephi 19:23 is Nephi’s famous verse about likening the scriptures: “I did read many things unto them which were written in the books of Moses; but that I might more fully persuade them to believe in the Lord their Redeemer I did read unto them that which was written by the prophet Isaiah.” Here Nephi writes about reading things written in the books of Moses without stating they were written by Moses. Contrast this with his statement that he read what was written by the prophet Isaiah. In other words, Nephi seems to ascribe authorship here to Isaiah here in a way he does not for his Mosaic material.

As we think about the arguments for and against Mosaic authorship, it is worth remembering the earlier discussion about the roles that editors and redactors played in the creation of the scriptures. This becomes especially clear through examining what the books of Genesis through Deuteronomy actually claim about authorship. One of the gravest errors that modern readers of ancient scriptures can fall into is to try to make the scriptures do or say something they were not intended to do or say. In this context, it is worth noting that none of the books of the Pentateuch claim that Moses wrote them. In fact, they make no claims about authorship at all.[23] Moses does not appear in Genesis at all—he first appears as a baby in Exodus, and his death is recorded in Deuteronomy.[24] In all places in the scriptures, Moses appears in the third person. The Pentateuchal books are about Moses (at least Exodus through Deuteronomy) but do not claim to be written by him.[25] None of this, however, should be construed to suggest that for Latter-day Saints the Pentateuch, or law, does not legitimately derive from God and Moses and so does not carry divine authority.[26] It is my view that the original words of Moses (and of the Lord to Moses on Sinai) could have been edited, compiled, and redacted in a manner similar to that of the Book of Mormon.[27] Just as acknowledging Mormon as the redactor of the book of Mosiah does not diminish the authority of King Benjamin or the converting power of his message, acknowledging the role of sources and redaction does not diminish the importance or power of the Bible’s covenant message.

The Nephites and the “Sources”

Although in general, members of the Church of Jesus Christ have not engaged much with the Documentary Hypothesis and related questions in connection with the Book of Mormon,[28] there have been a few attempts to engage with the scholarly construct as a whole, as well as a few more to show the influence of one biblical book or another on the Book of Mormon.[29] One of the first to even attempt something like this was John L. Sorenson, who suggested that the material in the brass plates best represented E, since its northern origins fit well with the Lehites’ Josephite roots.[30] Although Sorenson is not primarily a biblical scholar himself, his work represented an attempt to explore Book of Mormon materials in the light of biblical scholarship on the Pentateuch.[31] Although his book is not primarily about the Book of Mormon, David Bokovoy does include a chapter in it on source and historical criticism for Latter-day Saints.[32] A. Keith Thompson gives a brief overview of the scholarship and comes to conclusions very similar to those suggested in this essay.[33]

There is a strand of Latter-day Saint scholarship on the Book of Mormon that has focused on a proposed foundation for Book of Mormon religion in Deuteronomistic thought and law. Neal Rappleye has argued that the difficulties between Lehi and his eldest sons derived from the Deuteronomistic reforms.[34] Taylor Halverson has argued that Deuteronomy 17:14–20 underscores the Nephite ideology of kingship.[35] Indeed, the anonymous authors of a Book of Mormon Central KnoWhy article suggest that the preponderance of Deuteronomic language in the Book of Mormon is evidence for its authenticity.[36] Some of the evidence explored by Book of Mormon Central is useful, but much of it is not unique to Deuteronomy or Deuteronomistic language, which somewhat limits its usefulness. This is yet another reminder to be cautious with statements about the texts used in the scriptures.

A close examination of the various uses of the law of Moses shows that the Book of Mormon draws on material from all four of the proposed sources. This has implications for how the Nephites understood and employed the Law. It is worth noting, as we think about these things, that Joseph Smith would have been unaware of the Documentary Hypothesis, as it was not yet available in English during the translation of the Book of Mormon. Because we do not have access to either the original proposed sources or the brass plates, any conclusions herein about how various sources play out are tentative and subject to revision as we receive more data.

Tradition Families

It is possible, therefore, to approach material from the first five books of Moses in the Book of Mormon with an idea that their ancient arrangement could differ from their current appearance in our Bible. That is to say, although I will be referencing scriptures by our current books, I am not claiming that the Nephites had the books in the forms that we have them. We do not know in what forms the Nephites had these books since none of the Nephite authors make this clear. Also, it is very possible that the standard dating of the various source strands in the Documentary Hypothesis is incorrect and that the Nephites did possess the version of the biblical law we now have, but that is not necessary to my argument. All that is necessary is that the Nephites were in possession of a version of the law of Moses that Nephi can characterize as “the five books of Moses” and that the laws in this version may be associated with one strand or another of biblical law.

Without our having access to the brass plates, it is impossible to come to a definite conclusion about how the law of Moses appeared among the Nephites in either its legal or literary aspects. However, a close comparison of the received text of the Book of Mormon with the biblical text shows that the Nephites followed a variety of biblical laws in their living of the law of Moses. As we will see, the Book of Mormon draws from all the Pentateuchal sources identified by biblical scholars. Therefore, without making any specific statement about the various versions of source-critical or historical-critical readings, I will draw on the broad contours of the Documentary Hypothesis (including the traditional symbols for the reconstructed sources) for my own reconstruction of the tradition families appearing in the Book of Mormon.

Biblical scholarship identifies four main law codes that make up our current Pentateuch.[37] These are the Covenant Code, found in Exodus 20:19–23:33; the Priestly Code, which biblical scholars believe was the basis for a large portion of the Law, especially in Leviticus and Numbers; the Deuteronomic Code, especially Deuteronomy 12–26; and the Holiness Code, found in Leviticus 17–26. Scholars have identified these codes on the basis of their generally self-contained nature and their occasionally contradictory laws. All these law codes, along with additional material, are reflected in the law of Moses as it is contained in the canonical Bible as we have received it today. Moreover, that material from all the law codes also appears in the Book of Mormon.

Each law code makes no distinction between legal and religious affairs since these were the same thing in ancient Israel. The Covenant Code was concerned with the regulation of the people of Israel and their interactions with one another and the ritual laws.[38] It is likely the oldest of the four law codes. The Deuteronomic Code, which refers to laws associated with the book of Deuteronomy, is characterized by a focus on the centralization of the Israelite cult[39] and a focus on a theology of the holy land.[40] Many aspects of the Deuteronomic Code have strong resonances with Book of Mormon theology and doctrine. The Holiness Code and the Priestly Code are closely related and deal with interests that seem to derive from the issues of the ancient priestly class.[41] They concern sacrificial laws and ritual impurity, and the Holiness Code in particular concentrates on notions of holiness, understood as being set apart for God.

At this point it is helpful to refer to tradition types and to designate each one with a letter. Accordingly, something coming from the Covenant Code is a C-type tradition, while something coming out of the Deuteronomic Code would be a D-type tradition. Likewise, the Holiness Code presents H-type traditions and the Priestly Code P-type traditions. Speaking in terms of tradition families helps protect us from overstating what the Book of Mormon claims about the history of the composition of the Hebrew Bible. In terms of their associations with the traditional sources of the Documentary Hypothesis, biblical scholar Joel Baden connects the Covenant Code with the Elohistic (E) source, the Deuteronomic Code with the Deuteronomic (D) source, and the priestly laws (both the Holiness Code and the Priestly Code) with the Priestly (P) source.[42]

Altar Laws and Temples in the Book of Mormon

Because the Book of Mormon is primarily a narrative text and the Nephites (and especially Mormon) rarely make explicit how or where they are living the law of Moses, it is necessary to tease out from the text potential instances of the law of Moses being lived. However, because the various law codes have places where they disagree with each other on legal topics such as slavery, it is possible to suggest from how the Nephites use a given law places where they seem to be using one version or another of the Law.

The first reference to the law of Moses in the Book of Mormon is one such instance, although it is not explicit. When Lehi and his family leave Jerusalem, they travel three days into the desert and Lehi builds “an altar of stones” (1 Nephi 2:7). He then offers sacrifice on this altar. This ritual activity is a powerful statement about the relationship between the Nephites and the law of Moses. Nephi specifies that the altar is built of stones, which seems to accord with the command in Exodus 20:25 that states, “And if thou wilt make me an altar of stone, thou shalt not build it of hewn stone: for if thou lift up thy tool upon it, thou hast polluted it.” This is a C-type tradition that allows for building an altar for sacrificial worship in numerous places, a view that goes against the D-type tradition in which the Lord rejects the practice of having multiple places of worship and chooses only one place to put his name. The stipulation of centralized worship is a distinctive element in the Deuteronomic Code and, more broadly, in the reconstructed Deuteronomic source.[43] Deuteronomy 12:5 commands the Israelites, “But unto the place which the Lord your God shall choose out of all your tribes to put his name there, even unto his [dwelling place shall you] seek, and [there you shall] come.” Later in that chapter, the Israelites are expressly forbidden from offering sacrifice outside the “place” (Deuteronomy 12:13–14). By Lehi’s time, the Judahites seem to have understood Jerusalem as “the place” that God chose out of the tribes, as signified by the temple in Jerusalem (see the condemnation of the Judahite king Manasseh in 2 Kings 21:4). Lehi’s building of an altar at a location that was three days’ journey outside Jerusalem is a clear prioritization of a C-type tradition over the D-type. This example is an especially cogent one if, as is generally assumed, D-type traditions were the dominant tradition in Judah in the seventh century BC.[44]

The Nephites seem never to have construed their temples as a single place for the Lord to be and for them to offer sacrifice. After the Nephites and the Lamanites separated, Nephi built a temple “after the manner of the temple of Solomon” (2 Nephi 5:16). As a Solomonic-style temple, it would have been a place for animal sacrifice. Even here, the temple in the land of Nephi (although important in the Book of Mormon narrative) was not the only temple among the Nephites. After Mosiah₁ joined the people of Zarahemla, we find his son Benjamin giving his farewell speech and at a temple there. Mosiah 2:3 makes clear that this temple was also a place where sacrifice happened, since the people took from “the firstlings of their flocks, that they might offer sacrifice and burnt offerings according to the law of Moses.” This shows that the law of Moses as practiced by the Nephites did not forbid sacrifice outside the Jerusalem temple. It is possible that the Nephites applied Deuteronomy 12:5—“the place which the Lord your God shall . . . put his name”—to Zarahemla, but that identification would make the temple in Bountiful, where the risen Jesus appeared to the people, problematic. Thus it is clear that the Nephites did not centralize the location of their cult and sacrifices in the way that Deuteronomy commands, perhaps suggesting that the D-type tradition now found in Deuteronomy 12 was not known among the Nephites. In any case, it was not operative among them.

Slaves to God

Slavery laws, especially those on how to treat Israelite slaves, are one of the clearest examples of where the various biblical law codes present differences.[45] They also have clear connections with certain aspects of slavery as practiced among the Nephites, as will be seen below in an analysis of King Benjamin’s speech (which has as its core an H-type tradition, as is currently found in our book of Leviticus).[46] The traditions preserved in the current biblical books of Exodus, Deuteronomy, and Leviticus all present variations on the relationship between Israelites and slaves. The places where these laws differ only govern the making of Israelites into slaves of other Israelites. All three law codes permit Israelites to make non-Israelites into slaves (and they are encouraged to do so in the law in Leviticus).

Exodus 21:1–11, attributed to the Covenant Code, allowed Israelites to be enslaved to other Israelites, but they are to be freed after seven years. This tradition required the freeing of a slave without giving him any funds or remuneration, including any wife or child he may have had while a slave, since these remain the property of the master (see vv. 3–4). The slave had the choice to remain a slave out of love for his master (and presumably for his wife and children), at which point his ear was “bore[d] . . . with an awl,” and he remained a slave for the rest of his life (see vv. 5–6).

This C-type tradition in Exodus is closely related to the D-type tradition, now preserved in Deuteronomy 15:12–17. As with Exodus, the Israelite slave was to serve for only a limited time, in this case six years. The D-type tradition differed from the C-type primarily in how it treated the Israelite slave after the allowed six years were fulfilled. This tradition stated that the Israelite slave should be sent away with property, furnished “liberally” (v. 14). Thus, although the slave was not compensated during his service, he was to be compensated with gifts and property after his service. As in the C-type tradition, the slave could choose to stay and become a slave for the rest of his life, in which case his ear was bored with an awl.

The H-type tradition now found in Leviticus 25:39–46 is the most different. This law forbade Israelites from making slaves of other Israelites. In some ways this was a legal fiction, because this law still allowed Israelites to purchase Israelite debtors to serve not as slaves but as hired servants (see v. 39). As in the laws in the C- and D-type traditions, this type of “non-slave” was released from his obligation in the seventh year. This H-type tradition seems, therefore, to be parallel to those laws, but in the view of the tradents of this particular law, Israelites were not the slaves of other Israelites but semipermanent hired laborers. This is something of a distinction without difference, but it has two underlying ideological connections that have intriguing implications for Nephite (and Mulekite) society under King Benjamin.

The first is that the tradition made a strong distinction between Israelites and non-Israelites. After prohibiting Israelite debt servitude, the law states, “Both thy bondmen, and thy bondmaids, which thou shalt have, shall be of the heathen that are round about you; of them shall ye buy bondmen and bondmaids. Moreover of the children of the strangers that do sojourn among you, of them shall ye buy, and of their families that are with you, which they begat in your land: and they shall be your possession” (Leviticus 25:44–45). Non-Israelites, therefore, could be made slaves, and what is more, they not only did not go free in the seventh year but were inheritable and passed down to children as property (see v. 46). This idea may be reflected in Benjamin’s language when he said he had not suffered his people to “make slaves one of another” (Mosiah 2:13), leaving open the possibility of making slaves of non-Nephite peoples.[47]

The other evidence that a tradition like that found in Leviticus 25 informed Benjamin’s legal thinking on slave laws is in the ideological reasoning behind the legal fiction that Israelites could not make slaves of other Israelites. In Leviticus 25:42 Yahweh gives this rationale: “For they are my servants, which I brought forth out of the land of Egypt: they shall not be sold as bondmen.” The King James Version masks the issue here slightly, for the words translated as “bondmen” and “servants” in this verse derive from the same word meaning “slave.” The idea here is clear: the reason Israelites could not be made slaves is that they were already slaves to Yahweh, bought in the Exodus and bound to him by covenant. This is suggested in Benjamin’s repeated emphasis on his people as servants/slaves of God, as in Mosiah 2:16–20. This shows that Benjamin’s mention of the slavery law is not simply a one-off statement but an idea that permeates his speech and his understanding of the relationship between humanity and the Lord. The famous statement “When ye are in the service of your fellow beings ye are only in the service of your God” is not just a beautiful statement about how we are treat other people; it is grounded in the H-type tradition that covenant Israel is already bound to the service of God.

The repeated emphasis on servants and slavery in King Benjamin’s speech seems to derive from the presence of this tradition among the Nephites and the people of Zarahemla. In Mosiah 2:21, Benjamin once again makes it clear that his people are to understand themselves as God’s servants: “I say unto you that if ye should serve him who has created you from the beginning, and is preserving you from day to day, by lending you breath, that ye may live and move and do according to your own will, and even supporting you from one moment to another—I say, if ye should serve him with all your whole souls yet ye would be unprofitable servants.” Such statements make it clear that the idea of being servants or slaves of God is at the core of Benjamin’s speech and message.

Prospering and a Question of Sources

One difficulty facing readers looking to understand the material on the brass plates is that sometimes a law or tradition reflected in the Book of Mormon has a parallel version in one or another of the law codes or sources. This is visible very early in the Book of Mormon. When Lehi and his family are in the wilderness, in the valley of Lemuel (as named by Lehi), Nephi seeks his own revelation and confirmation, which he receives (see 1 Nephi 2:16). The Lord then blesses Nephi in language that comes from the law of Moses, especially from D-type traditions: “Inasmuch as ye shall keep my commandments, ye shall prosper, and shall be led to a land of promise” (v. 20). This is strongly reminiscent of Deuteronomy 5:33, which reads, “Ye shall walk in all the ways which the Lord your God hath commanded you, that ye may live, and that it may be well with you, and that ye may prolong your days in the land which ye shall possess.” The wording also in continuity with the H-type tradition, now found in Leviticus 26: “If ye walk in my statutes, and keep my commandments, and do them, then I will give you rains in due season, and the land shall yield her increase, and the trees of the field shall yield their fruit” (vv. 3–4). A key component of the law of Moses was that keeping its commandments would bring blessings to the land.

The reverse is also true—the law of Moses promises curses on those who do not keep the commandments and the statutes laid out in it. Deuteronomy 28:15 warns, “But it shall come to pass, if thou wilt not hearken unto the voice of the Lord thy God, to observe to do all his commandments and his statutes which I command thee this day; that all these curses shall come upon thee, and overtake thee.” Likewise, the law in Leviticus 26, with its blessings, also has its reversals: “But if ye will not hearken unto me, and will not do all these commandments; and if ye shall despise my statutes, or if your soul abhor my judgments, so that ye will not do all my commandments, but that ye break my covenant: I also will do this unto you; I will even appoint over you terror, consumption, and the burning ague, that shall consume the eyes, and cause sorrow of heart: and ye shall sow your seed in vain, for your enemies shall eat it” (vv. 14–16). Both of these legal traditions presume that there are specific blessings (including blessings of prosperity associated with land inheritance) that come from obedience and specific curses that come from disobedience. This is reflected in the Lord’s promise to Nephi, “Inasmuch as thy brethren shall rebel against thee, they shall be cut off from the presence of the Lord” (1 Nephi 2:21). This is reiterated with curse language a few verses later: “For behold, in that day that they shall rebel against me, I will curse them with a sore curse, and they shall have no power over thy seed except they shall rebel against me” (v. 23).

This is another example of why it is important to be cautious in making strong claims about the material on the brass plates. Although the continually repeated Nephite statement about keeping the commandments and prospering has resonances with Deuteronomy, and so could reflect a D-type tradition strand, it is also reminiscent of a similar statement now found in Leviticus, reflecting an H-type tradition. Without more data, it is impossible to say whether this distinctive element in Nephite thinking derived from a D- or H-type tradition. Such uncertainty should encourage caution lest we overstate what we can reconstruct from the brass plates.

Narrative Elements in the Book of Mormon

Although examples of legal traditions and lived religion relating to Mosaic law are easier to see in the Book of Mormon, there are numerous places where the Nephites reference narratives from the brass plates that parallel stories we have in our current Bible. Some, like the story of Adam and Eve and the Fall, undergird large parts of the doctrine taught by Book of Mormon authors. Other narratives seem to be quoted primarily as part of making a larger point. These narrative quotations and allusions do not fit neatly into the various law codes but are still germane to the question of the role and bearing that source-critical elements could have on the Book of Mormon.

According to its title page, a primary purpose of the Book of Mormon is to convince “Jew and Gentile that Jesus is the Christ.” Part of how it does this is through a reasoned and careful discussion of humanity’s fallen nature.[48] This means the experience of our first parents in the garden plays a much larger role in the Book of Mormon than it does in the Hebrew Bible. As an example of this, the name Adam appears in hardly any clearly identified contexts in the Hebrew Bible outside the narratives in Genesis and a genealogical list in 1 Chronicles.[49] We may contrast this with the regular use of the name Adam in the Book of Mormon, where it appears twenty-six times. Indeed, in the Hebrew Bible the story of Adam and Eve is never explicitly mentioned outside Genesis, while it is a point of constant reference in the Book of Mormon, reminding us that Nephite authors employed the scriptures they had received according to their own theological and doctrinal needs and goals. According to most reconstructions, the experience in the Garden of Eden is assigned to the J (or Yahwistic) source, showing once again that the Nephites seem to have been drawing on concepts across the putative sources.

An intriguing example shows that use of the biblical text is not automatic in the Book of Mormon, although it is clear that its authors drew on the brass plates, which apparently contained a variety of texts from all across the tradition families. Both Lehi and Alma₂ quote from what is now Genesis 3:5: “For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.” In Hebrew it is possible to translate the word ordinarily translated as “God” as “gods,” because although it is construed as singular, it is formally marked as a plural noun. This means that there was a choice available to the translator of Genesis 3:5. In any event, KJV Genesis 3:5 has construed the word as plural—thus Adam and Eve will be “as gods.” In 2 Nephi 2:18, however, Lehi appears to construe the word as singular. The relevant portion reads, “Wherefore, he said unto Eve, yea, even that old serpent, who is the devil, who is the father of all lies, wherefore he said: Partake of the forbidden fruit, and ye shall not die, but ye shall be as God, knowing good and evil” (emphasis added). So Lehi indicates that the serpent told Eve that she and Adam would be as God, rather than being “as gods.”[50] In quoting from this same verse, Alma₂ says, “Wherefore, he gave commandments unto men, they having first transgressed the first commandments as to things which were temporal, and becoming as gods, knowing good from evil, placing themselves in a state to act, or being placed in a state to act according to their wills and pleasures, whether to do evil or to do good” (Alma 12:31; emphasis added).[51] Although Lehi and Alma₂ are drawing on the same tradition, which is putatively J, they employ it for different purposes. This shows that the Nephites were as familiar and free with their literary heritage from the brass plates as they were with the legal sources behind the law of Moses.

As noted previously, John L. Sorenson suggested that the brass plates were largely derived from the E source. Although that is not supported by the legal evidence (since there is much legal material in the Book of Mormon that does not come from E), there are some intriguing elements to this hypothesis in the literary material. E is traditionally characterized by a focus on stories from the northern kingdom, especially the Josephite tribes. Because the brass plates identify the Lehites as descendants of Joseph (see 1 Nephi 5:14) and suggest that the record was a Josephite record (see v. 16), we should not be surprised to see elements of a northern and Josephite focus in the Book of Mormon. Scholars connect narrative elements such as the binding of Isaac and the associated promise in Genesis 22:18 that in Abraham’s seed all nations of the earth will be blessed (quoted in 1 Nephi 15:18; 22:9; 3 Nephi 20:25)[52] with the proposed E source. Even stories like the striking of the rock (see 2 Nephi 25:20)[53] and the bronze serpent (referenced in 1 Nephi 17:41; 2 Nephi 25:20; Helaman 8:15) are associated by scholars with E.

In many cases, references in the Book of Mormon are vague enough that it is difficult to associate a story with one of the reconstructed sources. For example, the story of Noah and the Flood has long been one of the narratives in Genesis used to explain the process of redaction of sources in the Pentateuch.[54] Scholars have suggested that the Noah story as it appears in our present Bible derives from a combination of versions in J and P. Although the Book of Mormon mentions Noah and the ark, there is not sufficient detail to determine which source (if even either of them) is being referenced. In his remarks to his fellow citizens at Ammonihah, Amulek tells the people, “Yea, and I say unto you that if it were not for the prayers of the righteous, who are now in the land, that ye would even now be visited with utter destruction; yet it would not be by flood, as were the people in the days of Noah, but it would be by famine, and by pestilence, and the sword” (Alma 10:22). All that can be ascertained from this verse is the Nephites had access to a tradition that the people in the days of Noah were destroyed by a flood. The presence of the tradition or narrative does not yield any clues about the composition or form of those narratives.

Conclusion

Knowledge of the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon is not dependent on scholarly discussions one way or the other, but on revelation from a loving Heavenly Father. This observation does not mean, however, that we can or should automatically throw out scholarly discussions about the various books in our scriptural canon. The Lord reminded Oliver Cowdery that revelation comes to the mind and heart (See Doctrine and Covenants 8:2). Belief in revelation in no way negates the ability of members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to also learn certain kinds of truth through observation and scholarship. It becomes important, therefore, to recognize those elements that properly come through revelation and those that allow space for thinking through things in a scholarly manner.

The existence of the historical figure of Moses and the covenant-making experience of Israel on Mount Sinai are central to the claims of many scriptures. Less central is a claim that Moses sat down and wrote the entire first five books of the Old Testament as we currently have them, and indeed such a claim pushes against much scriptural evidence to the contrary. The Book of Mormon assumes the existence of Moses and especially of the covenant between Jehovah and Israel. That covenant is a central theme of the Book of Mormon. How that covenant was recorded, both for us now and on the ancient brass plates, is not a central concern. Yet it is clear that the ancient Nephites lived the Sinai covenant and the law of Moses as they understood them from texts found in the brass plates. Thus there is value in thinking about and talking about what those texts could have said and how they could have been arranged.

Whether the various claims about the sources and composition of the different books in the Bible are tenable is a question that scholars and students of the scriptures should profitably pursue. Although redaction and the use of sources in creating the Pentateuch has a broad scholarly consensus, a consensus can still be wrong, and even a broad one is not monolithic. This means that it is vital for Latter-day Saint students of scripture to weigh the relative strengths of these scholarly explorations without feeling obligated to base their conclusions on the implications of one source-critical argument or another.

Scholarly reconstructions of the Pentateuch’s composition can have bearing on discussions about the historicity of the Book of Mormon, but they cannot be used to either confirm or deny its historicity. Used judiciously, however, they can enhance our understanding of both the Book of Mormon and the Bible. The evidence presented herein that the Nephites lived the law of Moses shows the importance of probing the relevant background and context of both the Bible and the Book of Mormon in a search for greater understanding.

Notes

[1] The Lamanites converted by the sons of Mosiah kept the law of Moses after their conversion (see Alma 25:15–16). Additionally, the Amalekites, who were members of the order of Nehor and built synagogues in which to worship God, presumably lived some version of the law of Moses. See Alma 21:4–6 and 22:7.

[2] See A. Keith Thompson, “The Brass Plates: Can Modern Scholarship Help Identify Their Contents?,” Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship 45 (2021): 81–114. Thompson makes many useful observations that have continuity with my suggested approach to the brass plates and to Latter-day Saint scripture in general.

[3] See Joel Baden, The Composition of the Pentateuch: Renewing the Documentary Hypothesis (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2012), 13–33.

[4] Wellhausen’s primary innovation was not in identifying sources but in using them to reconstruct a religious history of ancient Israel. See Richard Elliot Friedman, Who Wrote the Bible? (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1989), 24–27. On source criticism generally, see Pauline A. Viviano, “Source Criticism,” in To Each Its Own Meaning: An Introduction to Biblical Criticisms and Their Application, ed. Steven L. McKenzie and Stephen R. Haynes (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox, 2007), 35–57.

[5] An instructive discussion is found in Thompson, “Brass Plates,” 85–88.

[6] Yahweh is the usual scholarly reconstruction of the name of the God of Israel, more familiar to Latter-day Saints in the form Jehovah.

[7] The famous Rabbi Solomon Schecter gave a speech entitled “Higher Criticism—Higher Anti-Semitism.” The full text of the speech is available in Schecter, Seminary Address and Other Papers (New York: Arno Press and New York Times, 1968), 35–39. Schecter’s speech is a specific repudiation of Wellhausen. See also David Nirenberg, Anti-Judaism: The Western Tradition (New York: Norton, 2013), 454–55.

[8] See Baden, The Composition of the Pentateuch, 27–33; and Friedman, Who Wrote the Bible?, 22–24.

[9] Individual scholars will agree or disagree with specific parts. For example, the existence of E as a separate source is disputed. See David M. Carr, The Formation of the Hebrew Bible: A New Reconstruction (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011). Jan G. Gertz et al., eds., The Formation of the Pentateuch: Bridging the Academic Cultures of Europe, Israel, and North America (Tübingen, Germany: Mohr Siebeck, 2016), provides a collection of specialist perspectives that focus on the various scholarly questions about the formation of the Pentateuch. Although all the scholars certainly agree on the use of sources in the formation of the first five books in the Bible, they take a wide variety of approaches to solving specific questions. As an indication that these questions are hardly settled, Gertz et al.’s book runs over a thousand pages, not including indexes.

[10] European scholarship put forth what is known as the Fragmentary Hypothesis, as it focuses on very small units within the Pentateuchal texts. For an overview of this scholarship, see Baden, Composition of the Pentateuch, 53–67.

[11] Although the speech by Schecter, referenced in note 7, illustrates some of the difficulties that Judaism faced in accepting the Documentary Hypothesis, it was eventually largely accepted within Jewish scholarship, especially as Yehezkel Kaufmann articulated it. Kaufmann expressed a version of the composition of the Pentateuch that placed many of the sources, especially the Priestly material early. For a discussion of Kaufmann’s influence on Jewish biblical scholarship, see Job Y. Jindo, Benjamin D. Sommer, and Thomas Staubli, “Introduction,” in Yehezkel Kaufmann and the Reinvention of Jewish Biblical Scholarship, ed. Job Y. Jindo, Benjamin D. Sommer, and Thomas Staubli (Fribourg, Switzerland: Academic Press, 2017), ix–xvii. In general, Jewish scholarship on the Pentateuch and the Documentary Hypothesis has placed the Priestly material earlier than have scholars coming out of the largely Protestant tradition of biblical scholarship. Umberto Cassuto was probably the most vehement Israeli scholar opposed to the Documentary Hypothesis, as shown in his The Documentary Hypothesis and the Composition of the Pentateuch: Eight Lectures by U. Cassuto, trans. Israel Abrahams (Jerusalem: Shalem, 2006). Cassuto argues for the essential unity of the Torah. See the discussion in Baden, Composition of the Pentateuch, 40–41.

[12] For a discussion of the usually muted and often hostile Latter-day Saint response to “higher critical” (meaning source-critical and historical-critical approaches) to the Bible, see Phillip Barlow, Mormons and the Bible: The Place of Latter-day Saints in American Religion (New York: Oxford University Press, 1991), 103–47.

[13] See Baden, Composition of the Pentateuch, 247.

[14] On this point from a Latter-day Saint perspective, see David Rolph Seely, “We Believe the Bible as Far as It Is Translated Correctly: Latter-day Saints and Historical Biblical Criticism,” Studies in Bible and Antiquity 8, no. 3 (2016): 64–87.

[15] See my discussion herein under the heading “Slaves to God.”

[16] E.g., Exodus 34:2 calls the mountain Sinai, while Deuteronomy 5:2 calls it Horeb. Traditionally, Horeb is associated with the Deuteronomist strand, and Sinai is associated with the Yahwist and the Priestly strands.

[17] The Book of Mormon begins in “the first year of the reign of the reign of Zedekiah, king of Judah” (1 Nephi 1:4). This can be dated with some accuracy to 597/598 BC. The Book of Mormon therefore begins in that year. See David Rolph Seely and S. Kent Brown, “Jeremiah’s Imprisonment and the Date of Lehi’s Departure,” Religious Educator 2, no. 1 (2001): 15–32. Randall P. Spackman discusses the implications of the ancient Israelite calendar on the Book of Mormon in a pair of essays published in the 1990s. See Randall P. Spackman, “Introduction to Book of Mormon Chronology: The Principal Prophecies, Calendars, and Dates,” FARMS Preliminary Studies (Provo, UT: Foundation for Ancient Research and Mormon Studies, 1993); and Spackman, “The Jewish/Nephite Lunar Calendar,” Journal of Book of Mormon Studies 7, no. 1 (1998), 48–59.

[18] See David Bokovoy, Authoring the Old Testament: Genesis–Deuteronomy (Salt Lake City: Greg Kofford Books, 2014), 214. See also Thompson, “Brass Plates,” 87.

[19] See Kevin L. Barney, “Reflections on the Documentary Hypothesis,” Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 33, no. 1 (2000): 57–99.

[20] Daniel L. Belnap, “The Law of Moses: An Overview,” in Blumell, New Testament: History, Culture, and Society, 19–34.

[21] See Genesis 37:27–28 and the discussion in Joel S. Baden, Composition of the Pentateuch, 35–44.

[22] Compare Genesis 6:19–20 with 7:2–3. See Baruch J. Schwartz, “The Flood Narratives in the Torah and the Question of Where History Begins,” in Shai le-Sara Japheth: Studies in the Bible, Its Exegesis and Its Cultural Environment, ed. Moshe Bar-Asher et al. (Jerusalem: Bialik, 2007), 139–54.

[23] The titles at the beginning of the books Genesis through Deuteronomy, identifying them as the “First Book of Moses,” “Second Book of Moses,” and so forth, are not original to the scriptural books and are an editorial choice by the translators of the King James Version of the Bible.

[24] See the remarks by Steven C. Harper, “How I Became a Seeker,” Brigham Young University Devotional, June 8, 2021, https://speeches.byu.edu.

[25] It is perhaps worth noting here that Moses 1, which is a visionary preface to Joseph Smith’s New Translation of Genesis, also uses third-person pronouns. Moses 1 is also about Moses but does not claim he wrote it. Moses 1:40–41 does state that he wrote something, but the complete nature of that writing is left unstated. Nor is it stated that the Book of Moses (JST Genesis) is that writing.

[26] I should make clear that I accept the historicity of Moses and especially of the Sinai Covenant. I also believe that the Bible as we currently have it represents the end point of a long process of redaction and editing.

[27] For a discussion of redaction in the Book of Mormon, see Grant Hardy, Understanding the Book of Mormon: A Reader’s Guide (New York: Oxford University Press, 2010), 121–51.

[28] It is perhaps noteworthy that undergraduates wrote two of the contributions to the discussion. See Colby J. Townsend, “Appropriate Adaptation of J material in the Book of Mormon” (bachelor’s thesis, University of Utah, 2016); and Allen Kendall, “The Deuteronomic Contribution to the Brass Plates,” BYU Religious Education Student Symposium, 2016 (Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University, 2016).

[29] Kevin Barney’s article contains a useful overview of the discussion on these scholarly issues in general, as well as some of his own suggestions. See Barney, “Documentary Hypothesis,” 57–71.

[30] See John L. Sorenson, “The ‘Brass Plates’ and Biblical Scholarship,” Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 10, no. 4 (1977): 31–39.

[31] There are places where Sorenson’s lack of knowledge misled him. For example, he identified God Almighty (Heb. El Shaddai) as a term distinctive to E (presumably because of the El element), citing its instances in the Book of Mormon as potential evidence for E on the brass plates. As it is usually reconstructed, most examples of God Almighty appear in sections associated with P rather than E. On the main, however, Sorenson’s contribution remains a positive one, if nothing else because of his willingness to engage with the material.

[32] See Bokovoy, Authoring the Old Testament, 191–214. Bokovoy’s book is generally useful for Latter-day Saints interested in the topic of historical- and source-critical approaches, although he does overstate the data or the consensus in a number of places. For a discussion of these points, see Alex Douglas, review of Authoring the Old Testament: Genesis–Deuteronomy, by David Bokovoy, Studies in Bible and Antiquity 8 (2016): 229–38, especially the discussion on pp. 234–37. Perhaps tellingly, Douglas praises Bokovoy’s handling of the comparative Mesopotamian material, which is one place where I find Bokovoy is most apt to overstate the data.

[33] See Thompson, “Brass Plates,” 91–92.

[34] See Neal Rappleye, “The Deuteronomist Reforms and Lehi’s Family Dynamics: A Social Context for the Rebellions of Laman and Lemuel,” Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship 16 (2015): 87–99.

[35] Taylor Halverson, “Deuteronomy 17:14–20 as Criteria for Book of Mormon Kingship,” Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship 24 (2017): 1–10.

[36] Book of Mormon Central team, “How Is the Use of Deuteronomy in the Book of Mormon Evidence for Its Authenticity? (1 Nephi 4:34),” April 27, 2018, https://bookofmormoncentral.org/. https://knowhy.bookofmormoncentral.org/knowhy/how-is-the-use-of-deuteronomy-in-the-book-of-mormon-evidence-for-its-authenticity.

[37] See Belnap, “Law of Moses,” 20–21.

[38] Daniel Belnap discusses the Covenant Code in his study “Law of Moses,” 21–23.

[39] Although the word cult can be used in a pejorative sense to refer to a religion that one disapproves of (a meaning that Latter-day Saints can be sensitive to), it can also be used to mean the rituals and ceremonies of a religious group. It is in that sense that it is used in this essay.

[40] See Belnap, “Law of Moses,” 27–30.

[41] See Belnap, “Law of Moses,” 23–27. Belnap does not differentiate between the Priestly Code and the Holiness Code, noting in his endnotes that the dating of Leviticus 17–26 (what I call the Holiness Code) and Leviticus 1–7 (what I characterize as part of the Priestly Code) is “complicated.” See Belnap, “Law of Moses,” 33n18. For my own dating and differentiation, I am generally following the schema laid out in Jacob Milgrom, Leviticus 1–16 (New York: Doubleday, 1991), 13–35.

[42] See Baden, Composition of the Pentateuch, 26–7. This is the usual consensus in scholarship concerning the Documentary Hypothesis. As with most scholarly discussions, there are disagreements.

[43] David Seely talks about the Deuteronomic altar law, including offering a potential solution to the Lehites not following the Deuteronomic altar law in his article “Lehi’s Altar and Sacrifice in the Wilderness,” Journal of Book of Mormon Studies 10, no. 1 (2001): 62–69, 80.

[44] This is part of the assumption behind Book of Mormon Central’s KnoWhy article on the importance of Deuteronomy, “How Is the Use of Deuteronomy in the Book of Mormon Evidence for Its Authenticity?” (see note 36).

[45] For a general discussion of Israelite slave laws, see Ze’ev Wilhelm Falk, Hebrew Law in Biblical Times: An Introduction (Provo, UT: Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship, 2001), 114–18.

[46] For a further discussion of slavery in the Book of Mormon, see Gregory R. Knight, “Slavery in the Book of Mormon,” Studia Antiqua 3, no. 2 (2003): 91–106; and James Moss, “Slavery in the Book of Mormon,” Studia Antiqua 3, no. 2 (2003): 51–90.

[47] This point leads to one of the questions about how the Nephites understood Israel and the covenant. Nephites would be covered by the Sinai covenant, certainly, but would Mulekites? Mosiah 1:10, which speaks of “the people of Zarahemla and the people of Mosiah which dwell in the land,” suggests that in Benjamin’s day the Nephites and Mulekites were not a completely united people, something that seems to stand behind much of Benjamin’s speech. Did the two peoples have differing interpretations of their Mosaic identity, which created friction regarding the slave laws, causing Benjamin to rule that they could not make slaves “one of another”?

[48] See Avram R. Shannon, “God of Law/Law of God: The Law of Moses in Alma’s Teachings to Corianton,” in Give Ear to My Words: Text and Context in Alma 36–42 (Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University; Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2019).

[49] Part of the difficulty here is that adam is a Hebrew word that means “the human” or “humanity,” so it can be difficult to determine whether a reference is to Adam as an individual or to humanity in general. This is complicated by the fact that Adam is often a type for all of humanity. There is a possible reference in KJV Job 31:33, which reads, “If I covered my transgressions as Adam, by hiding mine iniquity in my bosom . . .” The NRSV reads, “If I have concealed my transgressions as others do, by hiding iniquity in my bosom . . .” Please note that this is not a settled case. The New Jewish Publication Society translation, which was produced by Jewish scholars for a Jewish audience, reads, “Did I hide my transgressions like Adam, bury my wrongdoing in my bosom . . . ?” This is intriguing because the fall of Adam and Eve has less theological weight in Judaism than it does in Christianity. See Kaufmann Kohler and Emil G. Hirsch, “Fall of Man,” in The Jewish Encyclopedia (New York: Funk and Wagnalls, 1901–1906), 5:333–35. See also “Judaism’s Rejection of Original Sin,” Jewish Virtual Library, https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/judaism-s-rejection-of-original-sin. Similar issues attend Hosea 6:7, which does not reference Adam in the KJV but does in some other translations.

[50] The use of the archaic English plural pronoun ye means that the serpent is still referring to both Eve and Adam, rather than simply to Eve.

[51] As an incidental point, this has implications for the underlying language of the Book of Mormon. This translation choice derives from the Hebrew text, which suggests that both Lehi and Alma₂ had access to and could understand something like the Hebrew text. On the language of the brass plates, see Brian D. Stubbs, “Book of Mormon Language,” in Encyclopedia of Mormonism, ed. Daniel H. Ludlow (New York: Macmillan, 1992), 1:179–81.

[52] KJV Genesis 22:18 has “and in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed; because thou hast obeyed my voice.” The Book of Mormon consistently changes nations to kindreds. This is likely a translational reflex under the influence of Acts 3:25, which quotes Genesis 22:18 and likewise renders nations as “kindreds.” Both cases could also be a reflection of the parallel verse in Genesis 12:3, which has “families” being blessed through Abraham. See the discussion in Royal Skousen, Analysis of Textual Variants in the Book of Mormon, part 6, 3 Nephi 19–Moroni 10, 2nd ed. (Provo, UT: FARMS and Brigham Young University Studies, 2017), 3591–92. Skousen is here discussing 3 Nephi 20:25 and does not address the possibility of similar influence in the 1 Nephi passages.

[53] This could be a reference to Moses striking the rock in anger, as recorded in Numbers 20:7–11, which scholars usually associate with P. However, the reference in 2 Nephi seems to be a positive one, so I associated it with the story in Exodus 17:5–6.

[54] See Baden, Composition of the Pentateuch, 187–90.