The other way to read it (and this would fit with Mosiah 15 and D&C 93) is in terms of constriction. This is a big deal in later Jewish thought as well, especially mystical traditions. It’s the idea of God constricting his glory such that there is a space where it isn’t fully manifest. There’s then a kind of process of filling this created space. One should be careful here though since the Jewish idea of tzimtzum or this constriction is fairly late and almost certainly arises out of a platonic conception. Still within the scriptures (D&C in particular but also the Book of Mormon) there are metaphors similar to tzimtzum in various places.

I’m not sure I follow you on why incarnation/condescension flies in the face of Joseph’s theology or the D&C. Condescension does not, to me, necessarily mean regression, so I don’t see it as inconsistent with your point that Jesus birth was progress toward exaltation. But even assuming that it is inconsistent, I guess my more fundamental question is why that needs to dictate how we read Nephi. Reading Nephi in terms of Joseph’s theology or his revelations in the 1830s and 40s doesn’t seem any less anachronistic than reading it in terms of New testament and post new testament theology.

James, I suspect Nephi’s presentation of Lehi’s vision in 1 is highly colored by his own visions and the development of a proto-Christology. Likewise I think that at least in a few places the translation is loose and possible with midrash-like expansions. So that could color those texts as well. To me it seems undeniably Christ, if only because of the parallel between 1 Ne 1:10 and 1 Ne 11:29. That said it does seem, as others pointed out, that Nephi’s vision is a little less symbolic than Lehi’s. I’m still not quite sure what to make of this. Did he have the symbolic vision with explanation but left out the symbolism since he’d already covered it? I don’t know but 11:6 strongly suggests he did see them. “…thous shalt behold the things which though has desired…after thou hast beheld the tree…thous shalt also behold a man descending out of heaven…” Now this could be read two ways. The also might just mean in addition to the tree modifying what Nephi sees or it might mean like his father modifying father and son. I favor the latter reading but acknowledge it’s ambiguous.

Regarding the woman, the parallels to the woman in the wilderness in Revelation is always the parallel I see. Parallel 1 Ne 11:19 and Revelation 12:6 with the woman being carried away. That said I also think it Mary, Jesus’ mother. It seems like some images are the same but are being repurposed. (Not surprising given how Nephi reads say Isaiah on multiple layers) But there’s also a certain tradition that the ordering of verses in Revelation may be mixed up a bit. (I’ll see if I can’t find some notes on that later)

Seeing this as Heavenly Mother is interesting and I think in some ways that might work. Especially when you consider the Wisdom tradition which often was an anthropomorphized woman as Wisdom. I don’t know off the top of my head the dating of Proverbs, especially the heavenly mother like motif. I should look that up as I’m sure that’s part and parcel of that whole Deuteronomistic controversy. There’s also interestingly a connection with Egyptian wisdom literature as well (Ma’at as I recall). Certainly there was the idea that YHWH had an Asherah.

The problem is of course that the reconstruction of the pre-exilic context perhaps relies too much on surrounding nations (Canaanites and Egyptians) and then the later uses especially in the mystical tradition are too platonic. (This quasi-anthropomorphizing divine attributes becomes a big deal in Kabbalism in the medieval era for instance but is also a big deal with the gnostics)

Reading this as heavenly mother though seems to go against verse 18. “the mother of the [Son of] God after the manner of the flesh.” The question of whether that reference to flesh is to a fleshly heavenly realm or to a kind of mortality. I think it’s mortality given that the rest of the description clearly is of Jesus’ mortality and possibly is even expanded by God/Joseph to incorporate the NT texts and knowledge.

Don’t get me wrong. There is a definite Jewish tradition of making parallel readings such that what is on earth is paralleled in heaven and vice versa. This is big in the later Kabbalistic tradition for instance and is one way events on earth can affect events in heaven. (And quite opposite to the more philosophical absolutist conception of God as an unmoved mover) Whether Nephi is doing that kind of layering isn’t clear to me.

Regarding the theology of condescension I confess I don’t see the problem. Perhaps you could unpack what you mean by it? I think you’re bringing in some assumptions I might not share.

Regarding what Nephi saw, it’s not just the tree. Look at verse 25. He sees the rod of iron, the fountain of living waters, He also sees in verse 35 the tall and spacious building. In 12:16 he sees the fountain of filthy water and in 18 the depths and gulf.

I should note that the geography Nephi describes actually has quite a few parallels in the pseudepigrapha. I used to have some extensive notes on that but unfortunately lost them in a basement flood. (I know scan everything in)

I think another important component of this vision, that needs to be kept in mind for all of it, is that it is one of several distinctly Latter-day Saint all-encompassing visions, where Nephi essentially sees everything that will ever happen in the history of the world. Moses and the Brother of Jared have similar experiences. I think that needs to be kept in mind. At the end of what he records of his vision, Nephi even specifically name-drops John’s New Testament Revelation, saying he saw the same thing. So I think we have to assume Nephi had at least a New Testament-level Christology, since he specifically saw John’s Revelation, which has a fully-developed Christology. At this point, according to the text, Nephi’s knowledge is at what I would term an anachronistic level—he knows things that do not fit into his historical period at all. Unless you want to dispute the literalness of the text, I feel that needs to be taken into account.

That said, as I mentioned at the beginning, I doubt Lehi’s vision in 1 is quite like our NT readings. I don’t think the text of 1 makes clear that it was Jesus—it certainly could’ve been, but there are other possibilities as well. And if it was Jesus, I think it’s clear that Lehi’s understanding would’ve been far removed from a NT or a contemporary reading.

Ultimately, we need a connection or a way of bridging these visions with the NT; and so yes, we can go too far in either direction, and perhaps I go too far in the anti-incarnation direction. But I want to resist our equating these things. Needing an ultimately coherent relationship between these visions and the NT doesn’t mean that we have something “pretty darn close” to creedal Christian theology.

JKC (#9): I struggle to see it as you do. His vision wasn’t of a NT Mary, but of a woman who was the earthly manifestation of Heavenly Mother. Having a theology of a Heavenly Mother who is the mother of God (you and Clark are right, the original text of vs. 18 says “God” not “Son of God”) and an earthly woman who is earthly parallel ? incarnation theology. What’s more, taking condescension of God to = Jesus descending from Godhood “down” to mortality—that is, seeing Jesus’s jaunt into mortality as a condescension—flies in the face of D&C and Joseph’s theology (even though folks like Elder McConkie liked to talk that way). Jesus’s mortal birth—just as all of our mortal births—is progress, and ultimately a means to exultation. As Christ himself testifies, he came to suffer and fulfill God’s plan and in doing so was exalted and received all that God had. Later incarnation theories skew the picture.

But here we’ve gone and gotten ahead of ourselves…but since we have I’ll say one more thing: I confess I’m baffled by what the condescension of God is, and all of this and all of Nephi’s vision don’t help me better understand. My best guess is that condescension’s an awkward word and that what’s really being expressed is that there is a grand parallel between the Gods and what is wrought in the heavens, and we mortals (including Mary and Jesus) and what is wrought here.

I think the biggest reason why I Nephi 11 reads to us today as something “very close” to a NT/post-NT understanding of Christology has much more to do with us today and how our eyes see the text than it does with the text itself (though maybe you’re right that it also has to do with Joseph, and Clark is certainly right that all of the NT quotations are an important influence).

Your parallel of Matthew-Isaiah and Mormon-Nephi/Abinadi/Alma is fascinating.

JKC #11: Completely agree with our distorting Abinadi with our current doctrine of the Godhead. I think Lehi had a different messianic understanding than Nephi who had a different one than Abinadi (even if Abinadi received his understanding by reading Nephi; which seems plausible), who had a different understanding than Alma. Rather than helping us have less contention over doctrine by bringing us closer to o/Orthodoxy, however, I think the BofM can help us overcome our contention by showing us that prophets who are prophets in every sense of the word and who have divine visions nonetheless have different understandings of God. If we were more comfortable with that fact, we’d have a lot less contention stemming from disagreement.

Clark #12: “the text blurs the distinction between God and Man in ways that I think a lot of historians simply neglect seeing that primarily as a later Nauvoo innovation. But really it’s pretty key in the Book of Mormon in numerous places.” Amen.

mirrorrorrim: I hadn’t noticed that the tree is the only thing Nephi actually describes seeing. Thanks for pointing that out.

I’m not sure that Nephi is more sure about the future than Lehi. I suspect that Nephi (particularly at the point of writing this stuff) was far less shaken/upset by Laman’s & Lemuel’s apostasy than Nephi was. At least in the text, Nephi’s never terribly broken up by the family split, while Lehi clearly is.

I also wondered, after reading 1 Nephi 8-14, whether Lehi had his dream explained to him in the same way Nephi did, since 1 Nephi 10 has Lehi relating much of the same future history that Nephi sees as part of his vision. I tend to believe that he did, but the way Chapters 8-10 are structured, an indeterminate length of time passes between Chapter 8 and Chapter 10. To me, it seems likely that Lehi received just the initial dream at first, then later, before Chapter 10, received further prophecies to help him understand it. He did not, however, understand all the things Nephi did about his own dream—the Spirit of the Lord is explicit about the fact that Lehi missed the dirty nature of the water. I have the feeling that Nephi’s vision was not only a comprehensive explanation of things that Lehi received piecemeal, but also that it went far beyond what Lehi received at that time. After their respective visions, Nephi seems a lot more sure about the future than Lehi is.

I think, in addition to the voice in 3 Nephi, you might also add the statements in 3 Nephi where Jesus speaks of commandments given to him by the Father, and of returning to the Father. Not conclusive, but I think it does support the distinction.

I think you are right that the creeds are significant, at least historically significant, where they go beyond scripture, and I’m not saying that the Book of Mormon follows them where they go. But I also don’t think that the creeds are insignificant where they are following scripture, because they are not just repeating scripture, but distilling which parts of scripture are the ones that are the church was deciding were the ones that mattered most in a particular context, and either ignoring or reinterpreting seemingly contrary passages. So where the Book of Mormon seems to take similar views, I think it is fair to say that it is compatible with parts of the creeds–more parts that most saints usually assume anyway. Of course, I don’t want to overstate the point, because the points of difference often happen to be the points of most contention to the creedal churches. (But of course, they are also the least scripturally supported points as well.) Maybe what I’m really saying is that our over-emphasis on differences between Book of Mormon theology and creedal theology has more to do with widespread ignorance of what creedal theology really says than with our misinterpreting the Book of Mormon. But that’s a totally different issue. And again, I don’t want to overstate the similarity, because the differences are not only real but significant.

Thanks, James, by the way for indulging this somewhat off topic discussion and not shutting us down. :)

Now one can push the unity even stronger such that we’re getting pretty darn close to the more Augustinian conception of the distinction between the person (hypostasis) and essence (ousia). Certainly Orson Pratt does that (although with the revelation on matter he transforms a basically neoplatonic conception into this very weird combination of Priestly atoms and a more Stoic view of fire).

One thing about the creeds, ignoring the place politics played into them (which was a lot) is that they are pretty vague. That is they don’t really clarify what they mean by the terms. That said I confess I just don’t see the Book of Mormon as really terribly similar to the Athanasian Creed. The emphasis if nothing else is completely different. I do think Mormon theology is more compatible with the Athanasian Creed than most people suppose. But that’s really a different issue. A key issue is the distinction between the Father and Son which the Book of Mormon really doesn’t address well. (Beyond perhaps the voice issue introducing Jesus in 3 Nephi)

An other thing to keep in mind is that all these creeds are trying to reconcile verses of scripture. Given that the translation of the Book of Mormon often quotes or paraphrases NT passages it’s unsurprising this allows people to see elements of the Trinity. However where the Trinity is significant is where it goes beyond the scriptural text. It’s true the Book of Mormon recognizes three figures (father, son, holy ghost) but that’s really not the Trinity.

You’re absolutely right on platonism. My offhand, oversimplified comment may have suggested too strongly otherwise. What I really mean to suggest is that B of M theology about the nature of the godhead gives a speculative hyopthetical idea of what roman christianity may have developed without the influence of the whole cultural milieu that surrounded it, including, but not limited to platonism. But even then, B of M christianity likely had other philosophical influences that we just don’t know about. Your point about christianity influencing platonism is a good one, which I think might explain in part why we see some things in the Book of Mormon that look like orthodox trinitarianism, but really aren’t. (Like such an emphasis on the one-ness of the godhead).

You’re not wrong about the similarities to Orthodox Christianity, but in my comment, I meant orthodox (lowercase), referring primarily to the early creeds and pre-creedal theologies. My comment is simply this: I think the theology of the Book of Mormon is closer to the very early creeds than we sometimes read it to be, and even to the post-Nicene creeds, though there are still very important differences. I totally disagree with those who say that the Book of Mormon is modalistic, but I do think it is something approaching trinitarian in important ways, even though it is not totally there.

Thanks for the tips on sources. I’ll have to check those out.

The way I usually hear Mosiah 15 describe is that in terms of the being of the Father (not being in a static sense but literally the way of behaving – more the form in a Aristotilean sense) the Son subsumes his way of being to that of the Father. It’s more than divine investiture of authority but a shared way of life. This is then our goal. This is also different from modalism as well as Trinitarianism since both of those adopt a certain metaphysical stance I think alien to the text.

While I raise the merkabah parallels I simultaneously think that only gets us so far as it avoids fundamental questions about ontology. (And ultimately I don’t think we can read those into the text) But the relationship between YHWH and Metatron in places like 3 Enoch seems to me very, very similar to the relationship between Christ and the Father or the Spirit of God.

I’d be careful about seeing too much of Plato as the problem btw. That’s both because Platonism itself can be seen in a variety of ways but also because the key views of creedal Christianity really transforms Platonism in extremely significant ways. (Creation ex nihilo being one example, the nature of a soul being an other)

I do think we have a lot of similarities to eastern Christianity in all this. While critics justly note that Mormons de-contextualize the meaning of say eastern deification, there is a real sense in which the eastern tradition here is very similar to the Mormon view. Especially in the Book of Mormon. That doesn’t mean the big divide of creation ex nihilo isn’t a big gap though. That gap just doesn’t appear present in the Book of Mormon. If anything the text blurs the distinction between God and Man in ways that I think a lot of historians simply neglect seeing that primarily as a later Nauvoo innovation. But really it’s pretty key in the Book of Mormon in numerous places.

For some good sources on this aspect of Merkabah I think Blake Ostler’s first volume of theology, The Attributes of God is the place to go. While I fundamentally disagree with Blake on some key issues it remains the best work of theology in Mormon studies and is a must read IMO.

Some other good (short) places I found are the following: First Charlesworth’s explanation in his pseudepigrapha collection. Segal’s two powers discussion. Note that most of this is after Christ and there are various issues of the Jewish rabbis trying to distance themselves from very Christian elements in their traditions. The dating of the texts is still controversial. For instance are the very obvious platonic elements coming from the hellenistic tradition (as with say Philo) or do they pre-date gnosticism? Scholem, while very dated (he wrote in the 40’s and 50’s) argues the ideas originate in gnosticism and the platonism of late antiquity. Others, primarily arguing for a much earlier Jewish mystic tradition see it as in middle antiquity and before gnosticism. (Tishby is a good example there) As I said all the texts are typically post-exilic and typically from around 200 BC – 600 AD.

“I tend to think that the views of God in the Book of Mormon are more complex than they appear at first glance. Trying to understand them in terms of the NT or 19th century Protestant theology tends to distort them.”

Completely agree. For that matter, I think trying to understand them in terms of our current godhead doctrine distorts them also. I for one have never found our standard apologetic on Abinadi’s discourse on the Father and the Son to be very convincing. (Not that I necessarily have a better answer myself!) I have found that for me, personally, the most fruitful and interesting way to read the Book of Mormon on the nature of God is to read it as a counterpart to the trinity theology of early christianity, almost a look at what that theology may have looked like without so much platonist influence. But I find it so interesting that though Christian theology apparently develops in slightly different ways in both hemispheres, they emphasize many of the same key points, (but they are not always the points that we often emphasize in church teachings–the Book of Mormon emphasizes the unity of the Godhead a lot more than we do). And though it is certainly anachronistic, I also find it productive to read the Book of Mormon as if in dialogue with the theology of the reformation, and often reach similar conclusions (not the same, but hitting some of the same key points)

I sometimes wonder if this these kinds of readings might reveal a sort of mormon version of a “mere christianity” that is actually closer, at least in emphasis, if not in substance, to orthodox Christianity than our current presentation of the gospel in the missionary lessons. And if that might be the way that the Book of Mormon might fulfill it’s purpose to “establish my gospel, that there may not be so much contention . . . concerning the points of my doctrine” (Section 10, verse 63.)

But that’s almost definitely reading too much into it.

I would probably find reading the Book of Mormon in terms of merkabah texts, as you have metioned here, to be fruitful also, but I just don’t have the background knowledge.

How anachronistic this is, is debatable. I don’t think having an idea of God being man is necessarily a problem. While dating the various merkabah texts and their particular theologies is problematic – and I think all date to after the exile – there is that sense of Metatron that is significant.

I tend to think that the views of God in the Book of Mormon are more complex than they appear at first glance. Trying to understand them in terms of the NT or 19th century Protestant theology tends to distort them. So in that I agree completely with James. But I think we can go too far the other direction too.

Clark, I’m not sure that we can say that the vision of the baptism is the sole point where the condescension of God occurs. The angel’s exclamation “look and behold the condescension of God!” suggests that the baptism (and subsequent ministry) qualifies as the condescension of God, but the angel’s previous question “knowest thou the condescension of God” in the middle of the vision of the virgin birth suggests, I think, that the virgin birth is also the condescension of God.

And I’m not necessarily using “incarnation” in the technical sense that it takes on in the creeds, I’m using it simply to mean the idea that God was born of a virgin and thus took on himself mortal flesh and blood.

In any case, I agree, James, that such a focus on the divinity of Christ/the incarnation of God does seem anachronistic in the sense that it is much more a New Testament Christian idea than an Old Testament idea. But I also think Clark is right that text supports something very close to the incarnation. Maybe that’s due to Mormon’s editing (I think we usually assume, not unreasonably, that the small plates that Joseph had were physically the plates made by Nephi, but that’s not necessarily true, they could have been a copy that was redacted and perhaps expanded by Mormon. Though the lack of Mormon speaking in the first person in the small plates is an obstacle to that reading.). Maybe it’s due to Joseph’s translation. Maybe it’s due to the fact that the vision itself revealed the incarnation (in the non-technical sense) to Nephi, which profoundly changed his understanding of God. Maybe some combination of all three. I tend toward the third, simply because I think the emphasis that Abinadi and Alma give to the idea that God would become man trace back to Nephi’s vision. Though given that Mormon explicitly says on the title page that one of his purposes is to prove that Jesus is God, I could see a case that could be made for Mormon giving these teachings by Nephi, Abinadi, and Alma an anachronistic emphasis, similar to the way that Matthew gives an anachronistic reading to the prophecies of Isaiah and others.

Put simply: I agree that it is anachronistic, but I think the text supports it; the text itself is anachronistic in that sense, and just as the theological turning point in the Bible from old testament to new testament is the virgin birth, the theological turning point in the Book of Mormon from old testament to new testament-type theology is the revelation to Nephi of the condescension of God, of which the virgin birth is a major part.