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Textual, Historical, and Theological Notes on 1 Nephi 1:18–20

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Textual, Historical, and Theological Notes on 1 Nephi 1:18–20 Potent Messianism: Textual, Historical, and Theological Notes on 1 Nephi 1:18–20 Joseph M. Spencer According to a reading I will defend in this essay, it appears that Lehi, when he “went forth among the people and began to prophesy” (1 Nephi 1:18), addressed two distinct prophetic messages to his Jerusalem audience.1 The first of these messages concerned things then present: Lehi is said to have testified of the “wickedness” and “abominations” of his contemporaries (v. 19). But the second message concerned things then still in the future: Lehi preached of the coming of “a messiah” as well as “the redemption of the world” (v. 19). Further, as I will sug- gest, these two distinct prophetic messages seem to have sparked two similarly distinct responses. When told of their wickedness, those at Jerusalem responded with mockery; when told of messianic redemption, they responded with anger. In fact, they “sought [Lehi’s] life, that they might take it away” (v. 20). Direct prophetic accusation provoked only laughter and derision, but abstract and largely theological prophetic talk provoked murderous rage. 1. Like others in this volume, I draw all quotations of the Book of Mormon from Royal Skousen’s The Book of Mormon: The Earliest Text (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2009), though, where it seems to me helpful to do so, I replace Skousen’s suggested punctuation of the text with my own. 47 48 Joseph M. Spencer In the first section of this paper, I will defend the above reading at the exegetical level. However, if the narrative of 1 Nephi 1 does, in fact, distinguish between Lehi’s accusatory preaching and his prophetic message, and if the same narrative presents blithe mockery and violent anger as distinct respective responses to these two sorts of prophetic preaching, then verses 18–20 are odd. One would expect that con- frontation and accusation would invite anger and violence, while talk of some distant messianic redeemer would provoke little more than laughter. Today, to be sure, we mock wild-eyed figures that announce the world’s end and reserve our political rage for those who oppose and accuse us. But historical study of the political climate of the late sev- enth and early sixth centuries before Christ helps to clarify why talk of messianic redemption—especially in Lehi’s indefinite formulation: “a messiah,” rather than “the Messiah”—might have been regarded with violent suspicion in the place and time of Lehi’s preaching. It may be that, historically speaking, there is nothing at all surprising about what verses 18–20 claim. Such seems to me the upshot of the best historical research on preexilic Judean politics and religion. In the second section of this paper, therefore, I attempt to explain the basic narrative of Lehi’s preaching by looking to history. However, if history can help to clarify the basic stakes of the narra- tive report of verses 18–20—clarifying for modern readers what would have seemed natural in ancient times—it must be said that this only sets the stage for genuine theological reflection. In a book intentionally directed to readers living after the rise of secularism, when messianic talk is universally regarded with skepticism, it is necessary to go at least one step beyond historical reflection. If part of what makes scripture scripture is the way it reorganizes history according to patterns that outline a life lived faithfully before God, it is necessary to consider the theological measure of Lehi’s messianic preaching. What could talk of an indefinite, singular messiah—Lehi’s talk of “a messiah” rather than of “the Messiah”—mean for the modern reader? In what way, if any, is this brief report on Lehi’s preaching relevant? Sustained reflection on Lehi’s prophetic gesture helps to produce a crucial theological recon- ceptualization of the messianic, laying the groundwork for a notion that I will call “potent messianism.” In a third and final part of this Potent Messianism 49 paper, therefore, I outline a theology of potent messianism, a thinking of the singular messiah. Textual matters The basic interpretation of 1 Nephi 1:18–20, from which I take both my historical and my theological bearings, is not currently represented in secondary literature on the Book of Mormon. In fact, so far as I have been able to find, only one author has even hinted at the possibility that Nephi means to distinguish between two sequences or subjects of prophetic preaching and two respective responses to such preaching.2 To a certain extent, this lack in the literature seems to be a consequence of the fact that close interpretive study of the Book of Mormon is largely nascent, not yet a discipline in its own right. However, other forces may also be at work. As I read and reread this passage in current and recent editions of the Book of Mormon, I suspect that this lacuna in interpre- tation is largely due to the modern textual apparatus through which 1 Nephi 1 is today presented. More specifically, the current chapter and verse breaks in this case divert the reader’s attention from a theologi- cally crucial implication of the text. There is in fact much to learn from paying close attention to the logic of the current chapter and verse breaks in the Book of Mormon. They were introduced into the text in the 1870s by Orson Pratt, who was given the task of producing an edition of the Book of Mormon that looked more like the Bible and that could be referenced more eas- ily.3 Before Pratt’s work on the text’s apparatus, the Book of Mormon was printed in simple, unnumbered paragraphs, which appeared in chapters that were generally much longer than the chapters in more recent editions of the book.4 Royal Skousen has shown that the original 2. See Hugh Nibley, An Approach to the Book of Mormon, 2nd ed. (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book and FARMS, 1979), 40. 3. For a short overview of Pratt’s work, see David J. Whittaker, “ ‘That Most Im- portant of All Books’: A Printing History of the Book of Mormon,” Mormon Historical Studies 6 (Fall 2005): 116–17. 4. It should be noted that the Community of Christ—and before it, the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints—retained the original chapter breaks in 50 Joseph M. Spencer pre-Pratt chapter breaks were part of the dictated text of the Book of Mormon and were apparently intended elements of the text.5 When Pratt set to work both imposing shorter chapter lengths on the text and inserting relatively natural verse divisions into the text, he was faced with an essentially interpretive task. The chapter breaks and verse divi- sions that appear in current and recent editions of the Book of Mormon thus tell us something about how at least one close reader—perhaps the nineteenth-century’s most dedicated student of the Book of Mormon— made sense of the text. Studying them closely also reveals how verses and chapters might have been divided differently. These considerations are doubly relevant to the interpretation of 1 Nephi 1:18–20. First, it should be noted that what is now 1 Nephi 1 was originally only a part—a relatively small part—of a longer chapter. What was in Joseph Smith’s dictation “Chapter I” of “The First Book of Nephi” is now 1 Nephi 1–5, a complicated narrative that begins with Lehi’s inaugural vision of a prophecy-inspiring record (the heavenly book) coming down to him from God’s presence and ends with Lehi’s subsequent experience of a prophecy-inspiring book (the brass plates) coming down to him from Jerusalem. When Orson Pratt decided to break this originally integral story into five parts—each of today’s first five chapters of 1 Nephi—he presumably felt he had found rela- tively natural breaks in its complicated narrative. One might suggest, however, that it would have been more natural to conclude 1 Nephi 1 with what is now verse 17, so the story of Lehi’s preaching in verses 18–20 would have served chiefly as an introduction to the story of Lehi’s departure into the wilderness.6 Pratt’s decision to place verses 18–20 in chapter 1, however, distances Lehi’s preaching and Jerusalem’s their printings of the Book of Mormon, even after they too introduced versification into the volume. Recent republications of pre-Pratt editions of the Book of Mormon are also available, most accessibly in Joseph Smith Jr., The Book of Mormon, ed. Laurie Maffly-Kipp (New York: Penguin, 2008). 5. See Royal Skousen, Analysis of Textual Variants of the Book of Mormon, 6 pts. (Provo, UT: FARMS, 2004–2009), 44. 6. In fact, a host of textual connections between 1 Nephi 1:1–3 and 1 Nephi 1:16–17 suggests that what is now 1 Nephi 1:1–17 forms a kind of coherent textual unit, some- thing that can be taken independently of the rest of 1 Nephi 1–5. Potent Messianism 51 reaction to it from the subsequent commandment to leave the city. That decision, importantly, makes verse 20 the conclusion of what is now the opening chapter of the Book of Mormon, a fact that has rather heavily influenced interpretation of both Nephi’s writings and the Book of Mormon as a whole. Nephi’s reference in that concluding verse to the Lord’s tender mercies assisting in the deliverance of the faithful has been taken as a kind of thesis statement both for Nephi’s record and for the Book of Mormon as a whole.7 A second point of importance here concerns the verse divisions Pratt imposed on the text today known as verses 18–20, regardless of whether the passage should be included with chapter 1 or chapter 2.
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