After Lehi's vision of and subsequent sermon on the two trees, there follows Nephi's obviously parallel and yet significantly different experience. Again it is a question of two trees, and many of the same imagery can be found in Nephi's experience, but little else can ultimately be said to tie the two visions together. Indeed, there seems to be some evidence that Nephi saw less of Lehi's dream of the tree of life than he saw of Lehi's initial visions recorded in 1 Nephi 1. All these details, of course, have to be sorted out in the proper order.
Nephi, however, was given to have the visions and revelation for himself. It is an emphatic point in the text: not only does the Spirit erupt in praises when he hears that Nephi believes and yet wants to see for himself, but when Nephi confronts his unbelieving brothers in 1 Nephi 15 at the close of the account of the visions, he finds that they have not "inquired of the Lord" to know for themselves the meaning of the dreams and visions (1 Nephi 15:8). The record of Nephi's experience thus opens and closes on the same note: revelation is open to all who would receive it, regardless of hierarchical position. And this point is not without textual significance: if chapters 1-7 of 1 Nephi establish the possibility of the fulfillment of the Lehitic covenant as well as the reality of the conflict between Nephi and his brothers, the intertwining of Lehi's dreams and visions with Nephi's, paired with Laman and Lemuel's refusal to seek out the same revelations themselves, is a sort of final confirmation of the Lehitic covenant and the rift between what will become the Nephites and the Lamanites.
Whence, then, this second vision? Notice that it parallels in significant ways especially the second vision of Lehi in 1 Nephi 1: Nephi witnesses the opening of the heavens and the descent of an angel out of the midst of the council who comes to stand before him (1 Nephi 11:13-15 and 1 Nephi 1:8-9), thereafter witnessing the Messiah (1 Nephi 11:16-28 and 1 Nephi 1:19) who is soon followed by twelve others who are "carried away . . . from before [Nephi's] face" (1 Nephi 11:29 and 1 Nephi 1:10-11) while the Messiah remains present in the vision (1 Nephi 11:30-36 and 1 Nephi 1:11). Following the pattern still, Nephi's vision goes on to detail the emergence of a book, namely the Book of Mormon, that provides the prophetic knowledge necessary to fulfill the covenants that had been made to the ancients (1 Nephi 13-14 and 1 Nephi 1:12+). This almost perfect series of parallels cannot be coincidental. (There are some oddities about Lehi's discourses that suggest this further: Lehi speaks in 1 Nephi 10 about the Baptist but without ever having explained that he had seen him in vision; Nephi's vision of the Baptist in 1 Nephi 11 may well suggest that Lehi had seen/read about the Baptist in his vision of 1 Nephi 1.)
But this is not all: 1 Nephi 12, just as 1 Nephi 11, seems to recount the visionary experiences of 1 Nephi 1 all over again. After seeing massive destruction among the Nephites and Lamanites, Nephi watches an unfolding of the very same pattern recorded in 1 Nephi 11: "I saw the heavens open, and the Lamb of God descending out of heaven; and he came down and showed himself unto them. And I also saw and bear record that the Holy Ghost fell upon twelve others" (1 Nephi 12:6-7). Again with the descent, and again with the twelve followers. Moreover, the One and twelve are followed, exactly as in 1 Nephi 11, by severe destructions and a threat to the covenant, though it is this time the Nephites and Lamanites who are destroyed rather than the Jews.
1 Nephi 11-12 would seem, then, to be a kind of double revelation of Lehi's second vision in 1 Nephi 1: it is only after this One and twelve pattern is repeated twice that there is the emergence, precisely as in 1 Nephi 1, of a book (in 1 Nephi 13-14). This doubling of what Lehi saw in 1 Nephi 1, actually, turns out to complicate that textual emergence: not one but two books make up the story in 1 Nephi 13-14 (the Bible and the Book of Mormon). In other words, not only is the witnessed vision of the descent and ministry of the One and the twelve doubled in Nephi's experience, but so is the delivery of the book: two books circulate in Nephi's vision, whereas only one did so in Lehi's.
This doubling of Lehi's experience might at first seem quite odd, but it must be recognized that there is a kind of doubling at work in Lehi's own teachings in 1 Nephi 8-10: though his dream seems only to have involved one tree, his teachings to Laman and Lemuel actually speak of two trees. (And one need look no further than Ezekiel 37 for a text in which trees and books are equated: two trees may well imply two books.) Lehi's doubling of the tree gives way to Nephi's doubling of the book.
But it is this emphasis on the book that is, in the end, particularly helpful about this way of approaching 1 Nephi 11-15: 1 Nephi 13-14 would seem specifically to be best read as a story of the emergence of a text that, through its intertwining relationship with another, "earlier" text, recasts the meaning of the whole history of the world. What must follow, then, is a reading of this vision of 1 Nephi 13-14 with an eye to that strange relationship between two texts.
The structure of 1 Nephi 13 is simply fascinating (it seems to me that the breaks imposed on Nephi's vision are actually quite well done: chapters 11, 12, 13, and 14 are nicely divided). In essence, this chapter tells the same story three times over, first in verses 1-20, second in verses 21-33, and third in verses 34-42. The first telling of the story tells it as if it were a kind of supplement to the stories of chapters 11 and 12: chapter 11 tells the story of the Old World, chapter 12 tells the story of the New World, and verses 1-20 of chapter 13 tells the story of the world in between, that is, of Europe. There is, then, a kind of triangulation at work in the first part of 1 Nephi 13: Old World (1 Nephi 11), New World (1 Nephi 12), In-Between World (1 Nephi 13:1-20).
This story of In-Between World is quite familiar: Nephi sees "many nations and kingdoms" (1 Nephi 13:2), the "nations and kingdoms of the Gentiles" (1 Nephi 13:3), among which is constructed the "great and abominable church" (1 Nephi 13:6). The whole of the Gentile nations are soon overspread by this corrupt church, but first one and then many Gentiles are "wrought upon" by the Spirit of God to leave Gentile Europe and sail to the New World (1 Nephi 13:12-13). Wielding the "wrath of God" (1 Nephi 13:14), these particular Gentiles "obtain the land [the New World] for their inheritance" (1 Nephi 13:15), soon finding themselves at war with "their mother Gentiles" (1 Nephi 13:17). The Gentiles in the New World, however, are "delivered by the power of God out of the hands of all other nations" (1 Nephi 13:19). Nephi's description of this rather long stretch of uninterrupted vision ends with this note: "And it came to pass that I, Nephi, beheld that they did prosper in the land; and I beheld a book, and it was carried forth among them" (1 Nephi 13:20).
The story, in a word: a relatively small group of Gentiles are (divinely!) subtracted from the dialectical political history of Europe, inheriting the New World and carrying with them a book. The mention of the book only comes at the very end of this first telling, almost as an afterthought. But the effect is unmistakable: the entire work of subtraction aims at isolating this people of the book, this Gentile group in the New World that is singularly dedicated to the text they carry with them, though Nephi says nothing to this point of the provenance of the book.
The story is then told a second time, and in an important way: the story of the In-Between World is recast as a story of the Old World (1 Nephi 13:1-20 is now viewed through the lens of 1 Nephi 11). In this retelling, the entire story is a question of the book the New World Gentiles carry with them. The emphasis is quite clearly on "the covenants of the Lord" contained in the book (1 Nephi 13:23). The book, with its covenants quite on display, comes from the Jews through the hands of the great and abominable church and then "across the many waters" with the escaped Gentiles. The pathway the book travels causes the loss of "many plain and precious things" (1 Nephi 13:28), things that would seem primarily to concern the "many covenants of the Lord" (1 Nephi 13:26). The result is that the New World Gentiles "stumble, yea, insomuch that Satan hath great power over them" (1 Nephi 13:29). But because of a covenant that has been subtracted from the book they carry, these very Gentiles will receive "the plain and most precious parts of the gospel of the Lamb which have been kept back by that abominable church" (1 Nephi 13:32).
This second telling of the story is quite clearly a recasting of the first telling in terms of 1 Nephi 11: the Old World war of all of Israel against the faithful twelve is what results in the formation of the corrupt church, and the truths of the covenant are taken from the book the apostles had passed along to the Gentiles. The reception of the book among "the house of Israel" scattered all about the New World (1 Nephi 13:33) is entirely a question of the covenants made in the Old World.
But so soon as this second telling of the story comes to its close, the same story is told all over again, but now inflected by the story of the New World as told in 1 Nephi 12. That is, as 1 Nephi 13:21-33 is a retelling of 1 Nephi 13:1-20 in terms of 1 Nephi 11, 1 Nephi 13:34-42 is a retelling of 1 Nephi 13:1-20 in terms of 1 Nephi 12. And if the second telling of the story, inflected by 1 Nephi 11, tells the story of the Old World book (namely, the Bible), then the third telling of the story, inflected by 1 Nephi 12, should tell the story of the New World book (namely, the Book of Mormon). And that is precisely what one finds in 1 Nephi 13:34-42.
The destruction of the Nephites is recounted briefly, but this time it is a question of something being left behind, "these things," as the angel calls them (or as Nephi inserts into the angel's diction), that are "hid up, to come forth unto the Gentiles, by the gift and power of the Lamb" (1 Nephi 13:35). Nephi's small paltes, along with "other books," then come forth "unto the convincing of the Gentiles and the remnant of the seed of [the Lamanites], and also the Jews who were scattered upon all the face of the earth, that the records of the prophets and of the twelve apostles of the Lamb are true" (1 Nephi 13:39). This results in the construction of an almost eschatological unity: "for there is one God and one Shepherd over all the earth" (1 Nephi 13:41).
One story, three tellings: the In-Between World joins the Old and New Worlds into a single history by making that history the intertwining of two scriptural texts. And this then hands the reader over to 1 Nephi 14.
Much of chapter 14 is relatively straightforward. Drawing on chapter 13's introduction of the Gentiles into the story, chapter 14 lays out a sharp dichotomy that faces that singular group: they can "hard not their hearts" (1 Nephi 14:2), or they can "harden their hearts" (1 Nephi 14:6). Twice the text goes on the highlight the sharp distinction: it is "a work which shall be everlasting, either on the one hand or on the other" (1 Nephi 14:7); and it will result in there being "save two churches only; the one is the church of the Lamb of God, and the other is the church of the devil" (1 Nephi 14:10). This dichotomy itself then leads to confrontation: "the great mother of abominations did gather together multitudes upon the face of all the earth, among all the nations of the Gentiles, to fight against the Lamb of God" (1 Nephi 14:13). But eventually, "the wrath of God is poured out upon the mother of harlots," such that "the way" is prepared "for the fulfilling of [the Father's] covenants, which he hath made to his people who are of the house of Israel" (1 Nephi 14:17).
Interestingly, it is precisely as this mention of the covenant's fulfillment is introduced that the vision comes to a rather sudden close, or rather takes a rather sudden turn. Nephi is commanded to look, and he is shown the Revelator, "one of the twelve apostles of the Lamb" (1 Nephi 14:20). The remainder of the chapter is a kind of rehearsal of all that had been explained in chapter 13: John writes Nephi's vision "in the book which [Nephi] beheld proceeding out of the mouth of the Jew," things which had originally been "plain and pure, and most precious and easy to the understanding of all men" (1 Nephi 14:23). And this connection between Nephi's vision and the Apocalypse is of signal importance for the meaning of the entirety of the text under consideration here. Nephi's vision is not to be written in its entirety, but that is perhaps because "these things" are primarily to point the way back to the "book" that came forth from the Jews. That is, Nephi's vision is to send us back to the Book of Revelation.
With that, things wrap up, and Nephi is left to discuss the whole situation with his brothers, who characteristically have not sought out the revelation Nephi has dared to seek. And thus, more or less, this part of the story comes to an end.
The two visionary sequences of 1 Nephi 8-10 and 1 Nephi 11-15 together pave the way from the initial introduction and clarification of the Lehitic covenant in 1 Nephi 1-7 to the actual journey to the promised land in 1 Nephi 16-18. And what has it added? At least this: the Lehitic covenant is now given to fit within the broader Abrahamic covenant, the covenant made by the Father to Israel. And how does that fitting-into work? Quite simply: one book points to another, intertwines itself with another, and so clarifies the covenantal purposes of that other, fundamental text. The Book of Mormon, with its eminently covenantal purposes, is given to the Gentiles precisely to clarify the meaning of the Bible that they themselves carry about: the "book of the Jews" is a book about covenant, but about a covenant that cannot be understood without the Book of Mormon that must be taken to the (still scattered) Lamanites.
With that understanding, the story can go on.
The structure of 1 Nephi 13 is simply fascinating (it seems to me that the breaks imposed on Nephi's vision are actually quite well done: chapters 11, 12, 13, and 14 are nicely divided). In essence, this chapter tells the same story three times over, first in verses 1-20, second in verses 21-33, and third in verses 34-42. The first telling of the story tells it as if it were a kind of supplement to the stories of chapters 11 and 12: chapter 11 tells the story of the Old World, chapter 12 tells the story of the New World, and verses 1-20 of chapter 13 tells the story of the world in between, that is, of Europe. There is, then, a kind of triangulation at work in the first part of 1 Nephi 13: Old World (1 Nephi 11), New World (1 Nephi 12), In-Between World (1 Nephi 13:1-20).
This story of In-Between World is quite familiar: Nephi sees "many nations and kingdoms" (1 Nephi 13:2), the "nations and kingdoms of the Gentiles" (1 Nephi 13:3), among which is constructed the "great and abominable church" (1 Nephi 13:6). The whole of the Gentile nations are soon overspread by this corrupt church, but first one and then many Gentiles are "wrought upon" by the Spirit of God to leave Gentile Europe and sail to the New World (1 Nephi 13:12-13). Wielding the "wrath of God" (1 Nephi 13:14), these particular Gentiles "obtain the land [the New World] for their inheritance" (1 Nephi 13:15), soon finding themselves at war with "their mother Gentiles" (1 Nephi 13:17). The Gentiles in the New World, however, are "delivered by the power of God out of the hands of all other nations" (1 Nephi 13:19). Nephi's description of this rather long stretch of uninterrupted vision ends with this note: "And it came to pass that I, Nephi, beheld that they did prosper in the land; and I beheld a book, and it was carried forth among them" (1 Nephi 13:20).
The story, in a word: a relatively small group of Gentiles are (divinely!) subtracted from the dialectical political history of Europe, inheriting the New World and carrying with them a book. The mention of the book only comes at the very end of this first telling, almost as an afterthought. But the effect is unmistakable: the entire work of subtraction aims at isolating this people of the book, this Gentile group in the New World that is singularly dedicated to the text they carry with them, though Nephi says nothing to this point of the provenance of the book.
The story is then told a second time, and in an important way: the story of the In-Between World is recast as a story of the Old World (1 Nephi 13:1-20 is now viewed through the lens of 1 Nephi 11). In this retelling, the entire story is a question of the book the New World Gentiles carry with them. The emphasis is quite clearly on "the covenants of the Lord" contained in the book (1 Nephi 13:23). The book, with its covenants quite on display, comes from the Jews through the hands of the great and abominable church and then "across the many waters" with the escaped Gentiles. The pathway the book travels causes the loss of "many plain and precious things" (1 Nephi 13:28), things that would seem primarily to concern the "many covenants of the Lord" (1 Nephi 13:26). The result is that the New World Gentiles "stumble, yea, insomuch that Satan hath great power over them" (1 Nephi 13:29). But because of a covenant that has been subtracted from the book they carry, these very Gentiles will receive "the plain and most precious parts of the gospel of the Lamb which have been kept back by that abominable church" (1 Nephi 13:32).
This second telling of the story is quite clearly a recasting of the first telling in terms of 1 Nephi 11: the Old World war of all of Israel against the faithful twelve is what results in the formation of the corrupt church, and the truths of the covenant are taken from the book the apostles had passed along to the Gentiles. The reception of the book among "the house of Israel" scattered all about the New World (1 Nephi 13:33) is entirely a question of the covenants made in the Old World.
But so soon as this second telling of the story comes to its close, the same story is told all over again, but now inflected by the story of the New World as told in 1 Nephi 12. That is, as 1 Nephi 13:21-33 is a retelling of 1 Nephi 13:1-20 in terms of 1 Nephi 11, 1 Nephi 13:34-42 is a retelling of 1 Nephi 13:1-20 in terms of 1 Nephi 12. And if the second telling of the story, inflected by 1 Nephi 11, tells the story of the Old World book (namely, the Bible), then the third telling of the story, inflected by 1 Nephi 12, should tell the story of the New World book (namely, the Book of Mormon). And that is precisely what one finds in 1 Nephi 13:34-42.
The destruction of the Nephites is recounted briefly, but this time it is a question of something being left behind, "these things," as the angel calls them (or as Nephi inserts into the angel's diction), that are "hid up, to come forth unto the Gentiles, by the gift and power of the Lamb" (1 Nephi 13:35). Nephi's small paltes, along with "other books," then come forth "unto the convincing of the Gentiles and the remnant of the seed of [the Lamanites], and also the Jews who were scattered upon all the face of the earth, that the records of the prophets and of the twelve apostles of the Lamb are true" (1 Nephi 13:39). This results in the construction of an almost eschatological unity: "for there is one God and one Shepherd over all the earth" (1 Nephi 13:41).
One story, three tellings: the In-Between World joins the Old and New Worlds into a single history by making that history the intertwining of two scriptural texts. And this then hands the reader over to 1 Nephi 14.
Much of chapter 14 is relatively straightforward. Drawing on chapter 13's introduction of the Gentiles into the story, chapter 14 lays out a sharp dichotomy that faces that singular group: they can "hard not their hearts" (1 Nephi 14:2), or they can "harden their hearts" (1 Nephi 14:6). Twice the text goes on the highlight the sharp distinction: it is "a work which shall be everlasting, either on the one hand or on the other" (1 Nephi 14:7); and it will result in there being "save two churches only; the one is the church of the Lamb of God, and the other is the church of the devil" (1 Nephi 14:10). This dichotomy itself then leads to confrontation: "the great mother of abominations did gather together multitudes upon the face of all the earth, among all the nations of the Gentiles, to fight against the Lamb of God" (1 Nephi 14:13). But eventually, "the wrath of God is poured out upon the mother of harlots," such that "the way" is prepared "for the fulfilling of [the Father's] covenants, which he hath made to his people who are of the house of Israel" (1 Nephi 14:17).
Interestingly, it is precisely as this mention of the covenant's fulfillment is introduced that the vision comes to a rather sudden close, or rather takes a rather sudden turn. Nephi is commanded to look, and he is shown the Revelator, "one of the twelve apostles of the Lamb" (1 Nephi 14:20). The remainder of the chapter is a kind of rehearsal of all that had been explained in chapter 13: John writes Nephi's vision "in the book which [Nephi] beheld proceeding out of the mouth of the Jew," things which had originally been "plain and pure, and most precious and easy to the understanding of all men" (1 Nephi 14:23). And this connection between Nephi's vision and the Apocalypse is of signal importance for the meaning of the entirety of the text under consideration here. Nephi's vision is not to be written in its entirety, but that is perhaps because "these things" are primarily to point the way back to the "book" that came forth from the Jews. That is, Nephi's vision is to send us back to the Book of Revelation.
With that, things wrap up, and Nephi is left to discuss the whole situation with his brothers, who characteristically have not sought out the revelation Nephi has dared to seek. And thus, more or less, this part of the story comes to an end.
The two visionary sequences of 1 Nephi 8-10 and 1 Nephi 11-15 together pave the way from the initial introduction and clarification of the Lehitic covenant in 1 Nephi 1-7 to the actual journey to the promised land in 1 Nephi 16-18. And what has it added? At least this: the Lehitic covenant is now given to fit within the broader Abrahamic covenant, the covenant made by the Father to Israel. And how does that fitting-into work? Quite simply: one book points to another, intertwines itself with another, and so clarifies the covenantal purposes of that other, fundamental text. The Book of Mormon, with its eminently covenantal purposes, is given to the Gentiles precisely to clarify the meaning of the Bible that they themselves carry about: the "book of the Jews" is a book about covenant, but about a covenant that cannot be understood without the Book of Mormon that must be taken to the (still scattered) Lamanites.
With that understanding, the story can go on.
1 comment:
JOE--I know you post on lots of different blogs, but DON'T stop this one! I'm going to get several people to read the BOM and go through your blog, i was just waiting until you got a little further. I believe you are one of the most promising young scholars out there--seriously. I'm not the only one who is awed by your insight. Please keep it up!
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