To see the context for this and other questions in this series, please see the introduction, parts 1, 2, 3, and 4.
What about the Sermons in the Book of Mormon?
The Book of Mormon is many things.
It is a religious history of (primarily) the Nephite people (with a lot of war
chapters thrown in). But a significant number of pages are also devoted to
sermons delivered by various prophets. In this regard, the book is very
different from the Old Testament. There is some preaching in the Old Testament.
For instance, some scholars have viewed the entire book of Deuteronomy as a
series of three sermons: (1) Chapters 1–4
focus on a historical review and a subsequent exhortation; (2) chapters 4–26 call the people to
covenant loyalty, expound the covenant law, and explain covenant renewal; and
(3) chapters 27–30 lay
out possible blessings and curses for Israel, and end with a concluding
challenge.1 Also, Joshua’s farewell address in Joshua 23–24 addresses the nation
at Shechem, recounts God’s faithfulness and challenges the people to choose
whom they will serve. Some scholars also consider Solomon’s dedicatory prayer
at the temple and Ezra’s reading of the law in Nehemiah 8 as sermons. But when
compared with, say, Jacob’s sermon in 2 Nephi 6–10; King Benjamin’s farewell address (Mosiah 2–5); Abinadi’s preaching
to King Noah and his priests (Mosiah 13–15);
Alma’s sermons in Zarahemla (Alma 5), Gideon (Alma 7), Ammonihah (Alma 9, 12,
13), and Antionum (to the Zoramites, Alma 32–33); or Samuel the Lamanite’s preaching from the
city wall in Helaman 13–15,
there are significant differences. These Book of Mormon sermons are basically
well-prepared theological treatises, most dealing with the life and atonement
of Jesus.
In this regard, they are more
similar to sermons of Stephen or Peter or Paul in the book of Acts, but there
are also significant differences. The New Testament preachers are speaking
after Jesus’s death and resurrection and are witnesses of his life and mission.
The Book of Mormon preachers mentioned above are speaking before Jesus was ever
born and are laying out fairly involved theological arguments addressing
doctrines that would take centuries to coalesce in the Old World. In this
respect, the Book of Mormon prophets were far more advanced in their theology
than their later New Testament counterparts. Indeed, as I’ve explored
elsewhere,2 atonement theology in the Book of Mormon reflects
explanations that developed many centuries after the New Testament accounts
were written.
As I discussed in question #5 of
this series, “there are doctrines in the Book of Mormon that are taught
explicitly, and there are doctrines that can be inferred from events described
in the narrative. Sometimes these explicit and implicit doctrines do not square
with each other.” I then gave three examples. Most of these explicit doctrines
are taught in sermons or sermon-like preaching, while the implicit doctrines
show up in the narrative history. I raised the question, based on Royal
Skousen’s critical text work, whether these formal, explicit doctrines are the
result of the Book of Mormon translation being what Skousen calls “a creative
and cultural translation of what was on the plates, not a literal one.” I then
asked whether these explicit doctrines were perhaps added by the translator,
whoever that was, and were not on the plates. This is very possible and makes
sense when considered in conjunction with another question I raised earlier.
In question #9 of this series,
about the ubiquity of scriptures in the Book of Mormon, I explained the
difficulty of writing and the low level of literacy in the ancient world.
Writing materials were very expensive, and, as a result, the ability to read
and write was rare. By some scholarly estimates, literacy in ancient Israel was
as low as 3 percent, but perhaps as high as 7.7 percent. But in the Book of
Mormon, we have several lengthy and rather complex theological sermons, which
raises obvious questions. Who, for instance, recorded these sermons? And what
did that person write with and on? We have almost no evidence of writing
methods or materials in the Book of Mormon, except for engraving on plates, and
this was a tedious process used (we can assume) exclusively by historians who
were recording events and dialogue long after the fact on a medium intended to
preserve the text for centuries. But we have no evidence in the book for what medium
people such as captain Moroni used to write epistles to his enemy or to the
chief judge.
Joseph Smith’s King Follett
discourse provides a lesson in caution regarding our assumptions about Book of
Mormon sermons. There were no shorthand takers in Nauvoo like George Watt, who
later recorded many of the sermons of Church leaders in Utah, and even Watt’s shorthand
notes were later expanded into a final publishable text. For the King Follett
sermon, by contrast, we have four different long-hand accounts of Joseph’s speech,
and they are varyingly incomplete and quite different from each other with some
overlap. Several ambitious scholars (or Church leaders such as Joseph Fielding
Smith) have taken these four long-hand records and created amalgamations, but
the final product of their efforts do not agree on a single final text.
Consequently, we really have no idea what, exactly, Joseph Smith said on that
memorable April day.
Most Book of Mormon sermons did
not occur in a setting like Joseph Smith’s King Follett discourse. Perhaps
someone was taking notes, but more likely either a listener or the speaker
himself wrote down from memory what he said in the days or weeks after the
address. We know, for instance, that Alma hid from King Noah’s servants and
“being concealed for many days did write all the words which Abinadi had spoken”
(Mosiah 17:4). Abinadi, of course, quoted a fair chunk of Old Testament text in
his preaching to King Noah and his priests, so we must ask if Alma had that
record with him in hiding or if he added those details later, perhaps in
Zarahemla, where he would have had access to the brass plates of Laban.
Nevertheless, we are told that Alma recorded “all the words of Abinadi,” or at
least what he could remember of them, and we know how unreliable memory is.
Alma’s son Alma gave many sermons
in different Nephite cities. He apparently did not have a scribe with him, so
he must have tried to record later, as accurately as he could, the words he (and
sometimes Amulek) had spoken to these various audiences. And he had much to
distract him from simply going home and writing this down while it was all
fresh in his mind. For instance, he was locked up in prison for several days,
was tortured, and then witnessed the burning of those who believed his words.
I think we must assume that, at
best, what we have in the Book of Mormon is a later reminiscence of the sermons
that were given. None of these were like today’s general conference talks that are
written in advance and then spoken in a formal televised presentation. (And I
know from being involved in postconference Monday morning editing sessions at
Church magazines that the written talks have to be reconciled with what is
actually spoken from the pulpit. We called these discrepancies “pulpit changes.”
Some were from bad teleprompter reading, but some were very intentional. Maybe
I’ll do a post on this experience sometime.) The Book of Mormon sermons were also
not like Brigham Young’s extemporaneous speeches that were recorded in Pitman
shorthand by George Watt, then later expanded and massaged into final form, and
(we assume) approved and perhaps edited by Brigham. They were not even like Joseph
Smith’s King Follett discourse, where four separate scribes took long-hand
notes that were later amalgamated into an approximation of what Joseph had
spoken. So, we must ask, how close are the Book of Mormon sermons and preaching
to what was actually spoken by the prophet in question? Probably not very.
And of course there is the
possibility that these sermons, as Royal’s work shows is very possible, were
simply added later by the translator, whoever that was. One thing I’m quite
sure of is that Joseph Smith did not simply cook up these sermons in his head
and dictate them to his scribes. Joseph may have been bright, but his language
skills were nowhere advanced enough to pull that off. The complexity of the
Book of Mormon text is far beyond Joseph’s meager abilities at that young age.
That explanation, which many skeptics have employed, is really just a lazy
attempt at explaining away a very complex book.
So, what are we to make of these rather
sophisticated theological sermons that we find regularly in the Book of Mormon?
I tend to lean toward the theory that they were added by whoever concocted the
final English text that was revealed to Joseph through the infamous stone in
the hat. And how that happened is another question altogether.
__________________
1. See
Pastor Nicoletti, “From Mountain to Mission,” Presbyterian Church, September 5,
2021, https://www.faithtacoma.org/deuteronomy-nicoletti/from-mountain-to-mission-deuteronomy-11-8.
2. Roger
Terry, “Getting the Cosmology Right,” Dialogue 54, no. 4 (2021): 71–98.
