BBrriigghhaamm YYoouunngg UUnniivveerrssiittyy BBYYUU SScchhoollaarrssAArrcchhiivvee Faculty Publications 2017-03-01 UUnnddeerrssttaannddiinngg tthhee AAbbrraahhaammiicc CCoovveennaanntt tthhrroouugghh tthhee BBooookk ooff MMoorrmmoonn Noel B. Reynolds Brigham Young University - Provo, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/facpub Part of the Biblical Studies Commons, Christianity Commons, and the Mormon Studies Commons BBYYUU SScchhoollaarrssAArrcchhiivvee CCiittaattiioonn Reynolds, Noel B., "Understanding the Abrahamic Covenant through the Book of Mormon" (2017). Faculty Publications. 1817. https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/facpub/1817 This Working Paper is brought to you for free and open access by BYU ScholarsArchive. It has been accepted for inclusion in Faculty Publications by an authorized administrator of BYU ScholarsArchive. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Understanding the Abrahamic Covenant through the Book of Mormon Noel B. Reynolds L atter-day Saint discourse concerning Abraham and the blessings and covenants given to him by the Lord is distinguished by its reliance on the restoration of ancient scriptures and other revelations given to Joseph Smith. The revival of scholarly interest in Abraham in recent decades provides a timely opportunity to explore the contemporary findings of biblical scholars from a Latter-day Saint perspective—which, in turn, invites an in-depth exploration of how the Lord’s covenants with Abraham were understood by the Nephite prophets in the Book of Mormon, how their perspectives compare with contemporary biblical scholarship, and how the Nephite perspective may modify or expand standard Latter-day Saint approaches to understanding the Abrahamic covenant. This essay identifies three interrelated streams of covenant discourse in the Book of Mormon—each defined by its respective focus on the (1) Lehite covenant, (2) Abrahamic covenant, or (3) gospel cov- enant. Though these three streams of covenant discourse are closely related, each is distinct in purpose. Nephite prophets integrated these three in unique ways to develop one larger understanding of God’s use of covenants to bring salvation to the world. While most scholars since Eichrodt1 recognize God’s covenant given to Abraham as the central theme of the Hebrew Bible, their views on the meaning of that covenant and its long-term implications for the 1. Walther Eichrodt’s 1933 two-volume study of Old Testament theology was widely influential. After it evolved through six German editions, it was published in an English translation. See especially the opening chapters of BYU Studies Quarterly 57, no. 3 (2018) 39 40 v BYU Studies Quarterly descendants of Jacob and the nations of the world continue to vary widely. Not only do Jewish and Christian interpretations of the covenant differ dramatically, but interpretations within each of those major frame- works also display wide ranges of both agreement and disagreement. Interpretive Approaches of Bible Scholars A major development in the methodologies used by Old Testament scholars in the last half century has inspired several fresh and help- ful approaches to the ancient theme of the Abrahamic covenant. For example, Jon D. Levenson of Harvard University has published a mono- graph challenging the widely assumed characterizations of Jewish understandings of the Abrahamic covenant as commonly compared to those of Christian traditions.2 Heidelberg University’s Rolf Rendtorff published an interpretation of God’s covenant with Israel—an interpre- tation based on a holistic analysis of the entire Pentateuch.3 Yale’s Joel Baden has produced the most recent study, published in 2013, which acknowledges the preceding two centuries of historical criticism while recognizing the contributions of the more recent approaches.4 How- ever, my own approach in this essay is influenced more by the work of Australian evangelical scholar Paul R. Williamson and the University of Durham’s R. W. L. Moberly, who is one of the most widely respected interpreters of this Genesis material today, though I do not discuss them directly here.5 Eichrodt, Theology of the Old Testament, vol. 1, trans. J. A. Baker (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1961). 2. In his book Inheriting Abraham, Levenson demonstrates effectively that Jewish interpretations have long seen Abraham’s having universal influence for good in the world as a fulfillment of part of the promise to Abraham. Jon D. Levenson, Inheriting Abraham: The Legacy of the Patriarch in Judaism, Christi- anity, and Islam (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2012). 3. Rendtorff ’s original Die “Bundesformel”: Eine exegetisch-theologische Untersuchung was published in Stuttgart in 1995 by Verlag Katholisches. It was translated into English and published three years later as Rolf Rendtorff, The Covenant Formula: An Exegetical and Theological Investigation, trans. Margaret Kohl (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1998). 4. Joel Baden, The Promise to the Patriarchs (New York: Oxford University Press, 2013). 5. Paul R. Williamson, Abraham, Israel and the Nations: The Patriarchal Promise and Its Covenantal Development in Genesis, Journal for the Study of the Old Testament Supplement Series 315 (Sheffield, Eng.: Sheffield Academic Understanding the Abrahamic Covenant V 41 In the twentieth century, most scholarly effort to understand the Abrahamic covenant accepted the late-nineteenth-century documen- tary hypothesis and interpreted the variations in the wording of biblical passages related to the covenant of Abraham as a natural outcome of the presumed process through which our current Genesis was formed— namely, through the merger of several earlier documents containing their own versions of related materials.6 This approach, however, tends to minimize the possible significance of differences in wording and to assume that ancient Israel understood all these passages as saying com- patible things. Though most Latter-day Saint commentators have main- tained some distance from the documentary hypothesis, they too have tended to gloss over differences in wording in these Genesis passages. But a growing number of scholars are looking ever more carefully for meaningful explanations of those differences that would enable a more precise understanding of God’s covenant(s) with Abraham.7 As a result, the documentary approach has lost much of its earlier influence.8 In contrast, Williamson, after a detailed analysis of the biblical texts and the leading scholarly attempts to interpret and reconcile these texts, pro- poses that the Abraham narrative is bound together by two major promissory themes: Abraham as the physical progenitor of a “great nation,” and Abraham as the spiritual benefactor of “all the nations of the earth.” The establishment of the “great nation” is the primary focus up to and including the covenant established in Genesis 15. From this point on, however, attention is chiefly paid to the “seed” through whom Abraham will mediate blessing to “many nations.” This emphasis culminates in the establishment of an eternal covenant (in Press, 2000); R. W. L. Moberly, The Theology of the Book of Genesis (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009). 6. A well-informed explanation of this complex history of biblical interpre- tation can be found in Thomas Römer, “The Narrative Books of the Hebrew Bible,” in The Hebrew Bible: A Critical Companion, ed. John Barton (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2016), 121–24. 7. I have discussed these various approaches and the points of scholarly disagreement in much greater detail in a working paper titled “All Kindreds Shall Be Blessed: Nephite, Jewish, and Christian Interpretations of the Abraha- mic Covenant,” All Faculty Publications, BYU ScholarsArchive, June 26, 2017, http://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/facpub/1915/. 8. An excellent review of the best scholarly work on biblical covenant can now be found in Scott W. Hahn, Kinship by Covenant: A Canonical Approach to the Fulfillment of God’s Saving Promises (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2009). 42 v BYU Studies Quarterly Gen. 22) that will be perpetuated exclusively through the special “seed” who will descend from Abraham through Isaac.9 While the Old Testament writers mostly interpreted the blessings of the Abrahamic covenant in terms of a promised land and God’s repeated deliverance or future glorious restoration of remnants of his chosen people (who lived in the highly problematic geopolitical crossroads of Palestine), Christian writers followed the lead of the New Testament by seeing Jesus Christ as the fulfillment of these promises to Abraham. The Christianization of the world provided these writers an attractive way to explain how Israel blesses all the families of the earth. As one pro- ponent of this view concluded, “It is apparent that all the references to Abraham in the NT epistles reflect a common, and distinctively Chris- tian, interpretation of the Genesis narrative Although the Genesis narrative does not identify this future king, the NT writers share the belief that he is Jesus Christ, the son of David. Clearly, these basic ideas influenced significantly the soteriology of the early church and its view of the nature of Jesus Christ’s mission to the world The NT under- standing of the Abraham narrative is derived from a careful exegesis of the Genesis text.”10 In another example, a Christian scholar produced a detailed study of the remnant prophecies (that is, prophecies related to the restoration or gathering of Israelite peoples who have been lost or scattered) of the Old Testament and argued that these prophecies would be fulfilled through the Christian Church.11 In comparison to traditional Christian interpretations, the Book of Mormon perspective on the Abrahamic covenant is both clear and 9. Williamson, Abraham, Israel and the Nations, 258–59. 10. T. Desmond Alexander, “The Abraham Narrative and the New Tes- tament Understanding of Justification by Faith,” in He Swore an Oath: Bibli- cal Themes from Genesis 12–50, ed. Richard S. Hess, Gordon J. Wenham, and Philip E. Satterthwaite, 2d ed. (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Tyndale House, 1994), 28. The linguistic evidence for interpreting seed in Genesis as a unique male descendant is presented in T. Desmond Alexander, “Further Observations on the Term ‘Seed’ in Genesis,” Tyndale Bulletin 48, no. 2 (1997): 364–68. In con- trast, Joel N. Lohr has argued that the Christian habit of reading Paul’s inter- pretation of these Genesis promises into scholarly treatments of Genesis is not grounded in the accepted best practices for Old Testament scholarship. Lohr, “Abraham the Missionary? The Call of Abraham in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam,” Journal of Interreligious Studies 13 (Winter 2014): 67–71. 11. J. C. Campbell, “God’s People and the Remnant,” Scottish Journal of The- ology 3 (March 1950): 78–85. Understanding the Abrahamic Covenant V 43 unique. The Book of Mormon repeatedly anticipates the fulfillment of the Abrahamic covenant in the last days, but traditional Christianity, rather than serving as the means for that fulfillment, becomes a signifi- cant part of the problem because it harbored influences through which many of the most “plain and precious parts” of Christ’s gospel were lost. The Nephite prophets in the Book of Mormon describe the last days as a time when all the branches of Jacob’s descendants will be scattered and lost from the true Abrahamic religion and, similarly, all the branches of original Christianity will be confused and divided in competition with one another. The “remnant prophecy” proclaimed throughout the Book of Mormon foretells a divine restoration of Christ’s gospel, which will come to the Gentiles first, and that will signal the onset of the last days. A new Gentile church will emerge that will enable the remnants of Joseph, Judah, and the lost tribes of Israel to recognize Jesus Christ as their promised Messiah and believe in him and his gospel. The lost pro- phetic writings from the branches of Jacob’s descendants will be rediscov- ered and convince both Gentiles and Jews that Jesus Christ was and is the Messiah. In other words, these prophetic writings from these branches of ancient Israel—especially the Book of Mormon, from the lineage of Joseph—will be the primary instruments through which Abraham’s seed will bless the nations, leading in turn to the restoration of the house of Israel to their god and to their promised lands. Covenant Discourse in the Book of Mormon The notion of binding covenants or promises permeates prophetic dis- course in the Book of Mormon and surfaces in a variety of contexts.12 Instances range from the covenants men make with each other in pursuit of different ends (good or evil) to the promises offered by God to his people for their security and prosperity on this earth and for their eternal blessings hereafter. Prominent among these covenants is the promise given to all who come to dwell in the promised land—if they keep the commandments of God, they will prosper in the land. Conversely, the prophets consistently warn the wicked that if they will not repent, they will be destroyed. The call 12. In his contribution to the 2003 Sidney B. Sperry Symposium, Victor Ludlow surveyed the concept of covenant in the Book of Mormon generally and provided several helpful insights. See Victor L. Ludlow, “Covenant Teach- ings in the Book of Mormon,” in The Fulness of the Gospel: Foundational Teach- ings from the Book of Mormon (Provo, Utah: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University; Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2003), 225–45. 44 v BYU Studies Quarterly to repentance is simply an invitation to return and recommit to the original covenant of obedience. All Book of Mormon writers recognized that the full manifestation of the covenants God offered to his children on earth was only articulated in the gospel of Jesus Christ, by which all men and women are invited to come unto him and receive eternal life. While the Book of Mormon understanding of God’s covenant with Abraham has been well and accurately summarized in various reference works, I have undertaken this essay in the belief that there is even more to be learned from a detailed examination of the Book of Mormon references to the Abrahamic cove- nant in their various contexts.13 The Book of Mormon—from the writings of its first prophets to the very end—maintains three related but distinct streams of covenant discourse—each grounded in its own specific covenant. All three are embedded in prophecies that feature an if/then and if not/then structure. All three are intimately connected to the Book of Mormon itself and its long-term mission (as will be explained in detail below). Furthermore, all three are featured in the teachings of multiple Nephite prophets and in the teachings of Jesus Christ himself to the Nephites. The first of these streams of covenant discourse derives from the Lord’s promise to Lehi and his successors that if they are obedient, the Lord will give them a chosen land of liberty in which they will prosper as a people. The sec- ond stream of covenant discourse features a version of the Abrahamic covenant, focused on Jacob’s son Joseph as the ancestor of Lehi, that emphasizes (1) the promise to the house of Israel that it will ultimately be gathered in peace and righteousness to its promised homeland, and (2) the promise received originally by Abraham (which does not reap- pear much in the Bible) that all the kindreds of the earth would be blessed through his seed. The third stream of covenant discourse is grounded in the universal covenant the Father offers to all his children, regardless of Abrahamic descent, that if they accept his gospel and come unto him, they will receive eternal life.14 13. Two of the best summaries are in Ellis T. Rasmussen, “Abrahamic Cov- enant,” in Encyclopedia of Mormonism, ed. Daniel H. Ludlow, 4 vols. (New York: Macmillan, 1992), 1:9–10; and Stephen David Ricks, “Abrahamic Covenant,” in Book of Mormon Reference Companion, ed. Dennis L. Largey (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2003), 25–26. 14. This paper will not examine the ancient idea of covenant itself, which has been developed in a sequel effort by the author. See Noel B. Reynolds, “The Covenant Concept in the Book of Mormon,” All Faculty Publications, Understanding the Abrahamic Covenant V 45 The Book of Mormon, produced by Lehi and his prophet successors, was destined to become the primary means in the last days by which the fullness of Christ’s gospel would come first to the Gentiles and then to the lost and scattered tribes of Israel and would help gather them in— becoming in that process a blessing to all nations.15 The three covenants are thus interrelated and unified: the Lord’s covenant to Lehi resulted in the remnant of Joseph, Lehi’s descendants, who created the record that contains a complete account of gospel, the new covenant of Jesus Christ, which will in turn become the means of fulfilling the Abrahamic cov- enant, which promises that through Abraham all nations will be blessed. That unifying vision of the three covenants was given to Lehi and Nephi, was rearticulated by Jesus in his visit to the Nephites, and provided the overarching structure for the final teachings and prophecies of Mormon and Moroni at the end of the record. Covenant Discourse 1: The Lehite and Jaredite Covenants The most obvious covenant discourse in the Book of Mormon centers on the promise God made first to Lehi, then to Nephi, and subsequently to their successors. This covenant is cited frequently throughout the writings of Nephite prophets, covering a period of a thousand years, and is alluded to even more often. It is the promise to Lehi and his descen- dants that if they will keep the commandments of God, they will be led to and prosper in the promised land—a land of liberty. This promise is cited repeatedly to (1) call the wicked to repentance and (2) explain the blessings of peace that are given to the righteous at various points in Nephite/Lamanite history. One first encounters the Lehite covenant, not as it was given to the prophet Lehi, but as it was given to his young son Nephi. Though Nephi tells the reader he will “not make a full account” of the “many things which he [Lehi] prophesied and spake unto his children” (1 Ne. 1:16), Nephi does soon after present the covenant in the form the Lord gave BYU ScholarsArchive, August 20, 2018, https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/ facpub/2176/. 15. It is worth noting that the revelations of the Restoration do not contain any detailed exposition of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Instead they state five times that the Book of Mormon contains the fullness of the everlasting gospel or “all those parts of my gospel” that the Nephite prophets had prayed would be preserved and given to the Gentile nation. See Doctrine and Covenants 20:9; 27:5; 42:12; 135:3; and 10:46. 46 v BYU Studies Quarterly it to him: “And inasmuch as ye shall keep my commandments, ye shall prosper and shall be led to a land of promise, yea, even a land which I have prepared for you, a land which is choice above all other lands” (1 Ne. 2:20).16 Only two chapters later, Nephi remembers this as a promise to his own descendants: “inasmuch as thy seed shall keep my command- ments, they shall prosper in the land of promise” (1 Ne. 4:14). Nephi also quotes a later version of this covenant that was expanded by the Lord to focus on its role in establishing the faith of Lehi’s family in the Lord: For he saith: I will make that thy food shall become sweet, that ye cook it not. And I will also be your light in the wilderness. And I will prepare the way before you if it so be that ye shall keep my commandments. Wherefore inasmuch as ye shall keep my commandments, ye shall be led towards the promised land. And ye shall know that it is by me that ye are led. Yea, and the Lord said also that after ye have arriven to the promised land, ye shall know that I the Lord am God and that I the Lord did deliver you from destruction, yea, that I did bring you out of the land of Jerusalem. (1 Ne. 17:12–14, emphasis added) Later, Nephi incorporates a much longer version of this covenant into his text as part of his father’s final instructions and blessings to his family (see 2 Ne. 1:3–12).17 Lehi presents it both as a promise given to him personally and as a universal promise that applies to anyone “which the Lord God shall bring” (2 Ne. 1:9): “We have obtained a land of prom- ise, a land which is choice above all other lands, a land which the Lord God hath covenanted with me should be a land for the inheritance of my seed. Yea, the Lord hath consecrated this land unto me and to my chil- dren forever, and also all they which should be led out of other countries by the hand of the Lord” (2 Ne. 1:5, emphasis added). In appending a brief account of the Jaredites (which was discovered and translated much later in Nephite history) to his father’s abridg- ment of the Nephite records, Moroni learned that the brother of Jared had received a similar promise from the Lord before he brought his people from the Tower of Babel to the New World. Moroni used that understanding to interpret and explain the ups and downs of the Jar- edite experience. He quoted Jared himself anticipating the blessing of a 16. All quotations from the Book of Mormon are taken from Royal Skou- sen’s 2009 critical text—The Book of Mormon: The Earliest Text (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University), which provides the most accurate version of Joseph Smith’s original translation. 17. Verse 9 reads, “I Lehi have obtained a promise.” Understanding the Abrahamic Covenant V 47 promised land when he sent his brother to “inquire of the Lord” where to take their group: “And who knoweth but the Lord will carry us forth into a land which is choice above all the earth. And if it so be, let us be faithful unto the Lord, that we may receive it for our inheritance” (Ether 1:38). The Lord heard their prayers and said: “I will go before thee into a land which is choice above all the land of the earth. And there will I bless thee and thy seed and raise up unto me of thy seed, and the seed of thy brother . . . a great nation. And there shall be none greater . . . upon all the face of the earth” (Ether 1:42–43). While the requirement of faithfulness to the commandments is recognized in Jared’s proposed prayer to the Lord, it is not explicitly included in this version of the Lord’s response. It does, however, become the focus in Moroni’s second version of the Lord’s answer: “And he [the Lord] had sworn in his wrath unto the brother of Jared that whoso should possess this land of promise, from that time henceforth and forever, should serve him, the true and only God, or they should be swept off when the fullness of his wrath should come upon them” (Ether 2:8). By my count, the Nephite/Jaredite covenant formula of (1) keeping the commandments, (2) receiving a promised land, and (3) prospering in that land is repeated eighty times in the Book of Mormon in either a positive (thirty-eight times) or a negative (forty-two times) construction.18 Many of these statements invoke the simplest version of this formula, while others expand to elaborate or make the meaning more specific. Lehi, for example, attached a promise of liberty to the explicit covenant language of blessing and cursing. The universal implication of this covenant was also clear to Lehi since it included no requirement of Abrahamic descent: “Wherefore this land is consecrated unto him whom he shall bring. And if it so be that they shall serve him according to the commandments which he hath given, it shall be a land of liberty unto them; wherefore they shall never be brought down into captivity. If so, it shall be because of iniquity; for if iniquity shall abound, cursed shall be the land for their sakes. But unto the righteous it shall be blessed forever” (2 Ne. 1:7). 18. Positive versions include 1 Nephi 2:20; 4:14; 14:1–2; 17:13; 2 Nephi 1:7–8, 9, 20, 32; 3:2; 4:4; Jarom 1:9; Mosiah 1:7; 2:22, 31; Alma 9:13; 36:1, 30; 37:13; 38:1; 48:15, 25; 50:20; 62:51; Helaman 3:20; 4:15; 7:24; 12:1; 3 Nephi 5:22; 10:6; Ether 1:38, 42–43; 2:7, 9, 10, 12; 7:26; 9:16, 20; and 13:2. Negative versions occur in 2 Nephi 1:10, 20; 4:4; 5:20; Jacob 3:3; Jarom 1:10; Omni 1:6; Alma 9:13, 14, 18, 24; 36:30; 37:13, 22, 25, 26, 31; 38:1; 45:16; 50:20; Helaman 7:28; 13:7, 23; Mormon 1:17; 3:15; Ether 2:9, 10, 15; 7:23; 9:20, 28; 11:1, 6, 12; and 14:1.