Laying to rest another Abraham parallel
Posted: Sat Nov 03, 2007 11:54 pm
I have from time to time commented on a number of the parallels people have drawn between the Book of Abraham and Abrahamic legends. Aside from the obvious methodological deficiency in using really late traditions to bolster a supposedly very ancient text, there is the problem that most of the things Joseph comes up with are based on a misreading of the Bible, a borrowing from Josephus, or a desire to harmonize contradictions: Greek, Muslim, and Medieval traditions frequently include the same elements for the same reasons. There is nothing about the Book of Abraham that screams, "I'm ancient"; in fact, much of it is clearly based on a modern, Christian, Newtonian worldview.
One of the parallels that is sometimes adduced to Abraham legends is Abraham's role as an evangelist in Haran. Since I don't think I've ever commented on this particular parallel before, I thought I'd take a moment to demonstrate why it is an anachronistic misreading of the King James Bible. The verse in the Book of Abraham that tells us Abe was an evangelist is found in 2:5:
And I took Sarai, whom I took to wife when I was in Ur, in Chaldea, and Lot, my brother’s son, and all our substance that we had gathered, and the souls that we had won in Haran, and came forth in the way to the land of Canaan, and dwelt in tents as we came on our way.
This is obviously just a revision of Genesis 12:15:
And Abram took Sarai his wife, and Lot his brother’s son, and all their substance that they had gathered, and the souls that they had gotten in Haran; and they went forth to go into the land of Canaan; and into the land of Canaan they came.
The word translated "souls" in English is probably better rendered "persons". The Hebrews conceived of humans as composed of a physical body and an inner spiritual principle. Where we read about "souls" in the Old Testament usually the word is nephesh, denoting the spirit. But Hebrew literature contains a literary device called synecdoche, in which a part stands for the whole. Nephesh is used this way on a number of occasions to refer to the whole person, and in fact is sometimes translated as such in the KJV. Genesis 12:5 is an example of synecdoche. The failure to understand synecdoche has led to longstanding confusion about the interpretation of this verse, wherein Abraham seems to have acquired "souls" or "spirits" in Haran. The Hebrew undoubtedly just means that he acquired a retinue of servants and laborers, but Christians, with their Greek ideas about the salvation of the spirit, have long read Genesis 12:5 through the lens of anachronistic "soul-saving" rhetoric. In so doing, they have transmogrified Abraham into an itinerant evangelist.
The Hebrews had no concept of "saving souls" in the modern/Western/Greek sense. Their vision of the afterlife, throughout most of their history, seems to have been that the righteous "rest with their fathers", while the morally dubious are condemned to a shadowy, passive existence as "shades" in the realm of Sheol. Even late in their history, when the hope of a resurrection entered Jewish thought, nobody would have spoken of it the salvation of "souls". They certainly would not have spoken of souls being "won" or "saved" in the present!
Joseph Smith's use of the image of soul-winning is distinctly Christian and singularly out of place in the world of ancient Judaism. It fits well, however, with historic Christian misreadings of the Old Testament text based on a failure to comprehend synecdoche.
One of the parallels that is sometimes adduced to Abraham legends is Abraham's role as an evangelist in Haran. Since I don't think I've ever commented on this particular parallel before, I thought I'd take a moment to demonstrate why it is an anachronistic misreading of the King James Bible. The verse in the Book of Abraham that tells us Abe was an evangelist is found in 2:5:
And I took Sarai, whom I took to wife when I was in Ur, in Chaldea, and Lot, my brother’s son, and all our substance that we had gathered, and the souls that we had won in Haran, and came forth in the way to the land of Canaan, and dwelt in tents as we came on our way.
This is obviously just a revision of Genesis 12:15:
And Abram took Sarai his wife, and Lot his brother’s son, and all their substance that they had gathered, and the souls that they had gotten in Haran; and they went forth to go into the land of Canaan; and into the land of Canaan they came.
The word translated "souls" in English is probably better rendered "persons". The Hebrews conceived of humans as composed of a physical body and an inner spiritual principle. Where we read about "souls" in the Old Testament usually the word is nephesh, denoting the spirit. But Hebrew literature contains a literary device called synecdoche, in which a part stands for the whole. Nephesh is used this way on a number of occasions to refer to the whole person, and in fact is sometimes translated as such in the KJV. Genesis 12:5 is an example of synecdoche. The failure to understand synecdoche has led to longstanding confusion about the interpretation of this verse, wherein Abraham seems to have acquired "souls" or "spirits" in Haran. The Hebrew undoubtedly just means that he acquired a retinue of servants and laborers, but Christians, with their Greek ideas about the salvation of the spirit, have long read Genesis 12:5 through the lens of anachronistic "soul-saving" rhetoric. In so doing, they have transmogrified Abraham into an itinerant evangelist.
The Hebrews had no concept of "saving souls" in the modern/Western/Greek sense. Their vision of the afterlife, throughout most of their history, seems to have been that the righteous "rest with their fathers", while the morally dubious are condemned to a shadowy, passive existence as "shades" in the realm of Sheol. Even late in their history, when the hope of a resurrection entered Jewish thought, nobody would have spoken of it the salvation of "souls". They certainly would not have spoken of souls being "won" or "saved" in the present!
Joseph Smith's use of the image of soul-winning is distinctly Christian and singularly out of place in the world of ancient Judaism. It fits well, however, with historic Christian misreadings of the Old Testament text based on a failure to comprehend synecdoche.