Laying to rest another Abraham parallel

[_CaliforniaKid]

The thread over on MADB about this is shaping up to be pretty interesting. Why oh why did I start it?? I'm supposed to be writing a paper right now!!

[_cosmo junction]

Chris - what do you make of the comparisons of the Book of Abraham to the Apocalypse of Abraham?

Have you come across this argument before, and if so, can you point me to your response or to a resource which speaks to the subject?

Hi Cosmo,

In the mirror thread to this one over on MADB I have offered some comments on the subject:

http://www.mormonapologetics.org/index. ... 29505&st=0

The apologists there have for the most part insisted on misunderstanding me, so hopefully you'll be able to make sense of it. I also had a discussion with Gaz about the Apocalypse here on MDB, starting about halfway down this page:

http://mormondiscussions.com/discuss/vi ... c&start=42

That was very interesting and helpful, Chris, thanks for taking the time to point this out to me.

[_Coggins7]

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.

This argument has been throughly dismantled at MAD under the heading Answering Another Alleged Parrallel. In point of fact, the parrallel, seen through a more dispassionate intelelctual lense, without an overarching prexisting bias against LDS intgerpretaions, preserves the parellel nicely. The entire argument is interesting, especially the manner in which the author attempts to torture the evidence unitl it confesses and grasp at straws by quibbling over very peripheral textual issues.

Nice try, but the crashing and burning could not be avoided in any case.

[_Coggins7]

Here's Willl Schryver's excellent deconstruction of Chris Smith's case regarding Abraham as an evengelist using primary sources as compiled in Traditions of the Early Life of Abraham:, one of the compiliers being the hated, reviled, and yes, feared, John Gee:

Sorry Chris, but you need to do your homework better before you start making such sweeping and absolutist conclusions about these things. Here’s just a sample of the things that Tvedtnes, Hauglid, and Gee assembled in their fabulous collection Traditions of the Early Life of Abraham:


In the 7th chapter of the Apocalypse of Abraham, Abraham undertakes to elucidate true doctrine to his father. It is an evangelistic speech.

In the 22nd chapter, we read of the divine council, of a “spiritual” creation, and of the preexistence of the souls of men:


QUOTE
1. And I said, “Eternal, Mighty One! What is this picture of creation?”

2. And he said to me, “This is my will with regard to what is in [the council] and it was good before my face. And then, afterward, I gave them a command by my word and they came into existence. Whatever I had decreed was to exist had already been outlined in this and all the previously created [things] you have seen stood before me.”
3. And I said, “O sovereign, mighty and eternal! Why are the people in this picture on this side and on that?”

4. And he said to me, “These who are on the left side are a multitude of tribes who existed previously … and after you some (who have been) prepared for judgment and order, others for revenge and perdition at the end of the age.

5. Those on the right side of the picture are the people set apart for me of the people with Azazel; these are the ones I have prepared to be born of you and to be called my people.”
extract from the translation by R Rubinkiewicz, in The Old Testament Pseudipigrapha, ed. James H. Charlesworth (New York: Doubleday, 1983), 1:689-709)


Rabbinic commentaries interpret the passage to which you refer above (regarding Abraham as an evangelist) consistent with the idea that Abraham was a missionary in Haran:


QUOTE
… why does the Scripture say: “And the persons that they had made in Haran …”? To teach you that Abraham our father, may he rest in peace, made the men proselytes and Sarah his wife made the women proselytes, as Scripture says: “And the persons that they had made in Haran …”

Extracts from Abot de Rabbi Nathan, Judah Goldin, trans., The Fathers according to Rabbi Nathan, (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1955), 52, 68, emphasis mine



QUOTE
Abram took Sarai his wife, and Lot his brother’s son, and all the possession which they had acquired, and all the persons whom they had converted in Haran, and they went forth to go to the land of Canaan.
Targum Jonathan, Michael Maher, trans., Targum Pseudo-Jonathan: Genesis (Collegeville, Minn.: Liturgical, 1992), 62, emphasis mine



QUOTE
And Abram took Sarai his wife and Lot, his brother’s son, and all their wealth which they had acquired and the souls they had converted.

Targum Neofiti 1, Martin McNamara, trans., Collegeville, Minn.: Liturgical, 1992, 95, emphasis mine



QUOTE
And Abram took his wife Sarai, and Lot his brother’s son, and all their possessions which they had acquired, and the persons whom they had subjected to the Law in Haran, and they set out to go to the land of Canaan, and they came to the land of Canaan.

The Targum Onqelos to Genesis, Bernard Grossfeld, trans., (Wilmington, Del.: Glazier, 1988), 63, emphasis mine


There are more citations I could give, but in the interest of time I will only add this final one that also touches upon the pre-existent nature of the souls of men – specifically Abraham:


QUOTE
And when Abraham our father understood, formed, permuted, probed, thought and was successful, the Blessed Holy One revealed Himself to him, declaring to him, “Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you, and before [you] emerged from the womb, I sanctified you. I have made you a prophet for the nations.

from Sefer Yetzirah, Aryeh Kaplan, trans., (York Beach, Maine: Weiser, 1990); Saadia Version 8:5

[_CaliforniaKid]

Coggins,

All I can say is, please read my posts as well as the apologists'. Thanks,

-Chris

[_Coggins7]

It should be noted that part of this debate involved claims disregarding the importance of the doctrine of preexistence parellels in the Book of Abraham and ancient text discovered since that time, and hence, the other doctrinal references.

[_Runtu]

Coggins,

All I can say is, please read my posts as well as the apologists'. Thanks,

-Chris

I thought your response to Will's post was well done. I guess Cogs didn't read that.

[Dr. Sunstoned]

All Smith does is recycle the same semantic and textual quibbles over and over and over again. The weight of the evidence is utterly on the apologetic side. I've read the entire thread, and nothing has changed. This was only a snippet. Smith's argument was suitably dismantled by some others there as well. lts about a three or four page thread.

Smith dismisses the clear meaning of ancient texts and of known rabbinic commentary in favor of his own eclectic revisonism. If any of this had actually been settled folks, the debate wouldn't be going on at all. Each side approaches the evidence with its own bias and with very impergfect historical evidence. However, as usual, the critic finds he needs to retreat deeper and deeper and deeper into the splitting of finer and finer hairs as time goes on. to keep their case afloat. That's what we see in most of these arguments.

[_Runtu]

All Smith does is recycle the same semantic and textual quibbles over and over and over again. The weight of the evidence is utterly on the apologetic side. I've read the entire thread, and nothing has changed. This was only a snippet. Smith's argument was suitably dismantled by some others there as well. lts about a three or four page thread.

Cogs, I read the entire thread too and came to different conclusions. It's not a semantic quibble to suggest that Joseph's understanding comes from a later misreading of the earlier texts. That means that Joseph's "scripture" could be considered anachronistic. Nothing I saw from Will et al. undoes the anachronism. They just place the misreading with someone earlier than Joseph, but as Chris correctly pointed out, the anacrhonism is still there.

[_Coggins7]

Cogs, I read the entire thread too and came to different conclusions. It's not a semantic quibble to suggest that Joseph's understanding comes from a later misreading of the earlier texts. That means that Joseph's "scripture" could be considered anachronistic. Nothing I saw from Will et al. undoes the anachronism. They just place the misreading with someone earlier than Joseph, but as Chris correctly pointed out, the anacrhonism is still there.

Go back and read the thread again Runtu. Smiths opponents here leveled his arguments for what they were: attempts to force rather unambiguous ancient parelless and rabbinic support for those parellels into a standard, formatted, and fixed anti-Mormon tmeplate that assumes a priori that the Book of Abraham and all things Mormon are fraudulent. That argument does not stand up to critical scrutiny, as this thread makes perfectly clear, despite Smiths yeoman effoert to make it appear so.