Continuing with Chadwick’s article sent to us by one of our
readers, the “comments” are Chadwick’s writing regarding his belief in where
Lehi’s home and property were located, the “response” is our reply mostly based
on the scriptural record.
Comment: “Certainly,
however, their expertise in metalworking suggests this had been their primary
vocation in Jerusalem.”
Response: You have to love writers who claim something
unprovable, and sometimes, in opposition to the scriptural record, to be a
fact, then use it upon which to claim another fact. There is no suggestion at all in the
scriptural record, or anything Chadwick has claimed, to support the idea that
Lehi was a metallurgist by trade or profession, and no certainty at all that
Nephi was, other than he might have known how to forge tools, and later make
swords—which is done by a blacksmith, and not necessarily a talented one (it might be noted that most farmers would have known how to forge simple working tools out of necessity).
Comments: “Their
standard of living would have been comfortable by itself since metalworking was
a respected middle-class occupation.”
Response: The middle class do not acquire gold, silver,
riches, and precious things, in quantities that were “exceedingly great” (1
Nephi 3:25), working a trade. Such a thought is ludicrous. The best we can say
with any certainty, is that Nephi may have known blacksmithing—which history
has shown us was an honorable profession, but certainly not one that brought such wealth at all to a man.
Comment: “When the
rental monies Lehi was presumably able to collect from Samaritans living on and
farming his land of inheritance are factored in (income which Lehi's father and
grandfather would not have enjoyed, but which became available by the time Lehi
was an adult), the combined wealth probably placed Lehi's family in an economic
situation approaching Jerusalem's upper class. Thus it is no surprise to read
that, in addition to gold and silver, Lehi had possessed "precious
things" (1 Nephi 2:4; 3:22) and "all manner of riches" (1 Nephi
3:16).”
Response: Keep in mind that this so-called extra income is
coming from a source that we do not know existed, and most likely was the very
land upon which Lehi was living upon at
Jerusalem. As for becoming Israel’s upper class, again, we have no idea from
what source Lehi earned his wealth, but being a landlord over farmland and
working with metal is hardly professions that lead to “exceedingly great"
wealth. What we do know, and all that we know, is that Lehi had “exceeding
great” wealth of gold, silver, riches and precious things.
Comment: “Lehi's house
at Jerusalem was probably a large version of the typical pillared or four-room
style with as much as 2,000 square feet of living space on two floors,
representative of a family with considerable means in his day. Although the
Mishneh area had begun as a refugee settlement in the eighth century BC and
Lehi's grandparents would likely have plied their presumed metalsmithing trade
in the courtyard of their own four-room house, the nature of the Mishneh
changed in the eighty years between the completion of Hezekiah's wall in 701 BC
and Josiah's Passover festival of 622 BC (by which time Lehi was likely a young
father). By then the Mishneh had evolved into a rather upscale neighborhood
[which] fact led Avigad to conclude that "the Mishneh was probably a well-to-do
residential quarter.”
Response: We don’t know that Lehi had anything to do with
Mishneh, nor his parents or grandparents. That is simply Chadwick’s scenario. What
we do know is that Lehi lived all his days at
Jerusalem (1 Nephi 1:4). Once again, there was no room inside the city at any
time to farm. Yet, Chadwick seems to overlook one very important clue in
Nephi’s writing:
When Lehi
left Jerusalem, he had sufficient seed with him for the colony to plant and
provide food for their survival in the New World. He didn’t take his gold and
wealth, because he knew he was going to a new land the Lord had promised him.
If he lived inside Jerusalem as Chadwick claims, and had his wealth buried
somewhere in the land of Manesseh far to the north, why would he have seed of every kind when
leaving Jerusalem?
For Nephi said, “we did put all our
seeds into the earth, which we had brought from the land of Jerusalem” (1 Nephi
18:24). Note he did not say from the land of Manasseh, or the city of
Jerusalem. He brought it from the Land of Jerusalem where his residence was
located, where he did some farming, and where he had room for tents and
donkeys, and also where he had seeds—one of the most important things he
brought to the New World.
Comment: “Lehi's relative
wealth would have placed him at home in such a quarter. But upscale
neighborhoods, even in ancient settings, tended to eschew industrial or heavy
commercial operations in their midst. The relatively small plot of city
property in the Mishneh that Lehi probably inherited from his father, or that
he acquired nearby, was of adequate size for a comfortable four-room house but
was no longer a place where smithing could be carried on as it had been in his
grandfather's day.”
Response: We have no idea what Lehi’s grandfather did to
earn a living. Chadwick makes an enormous amount of assumptions without one
shred of scriptural support. Besides, any smithing that could have been done
inside the city walls of Jerusalem would have been scant, indeed. It certainly
would not have provided any sizeable income. Yet Lehi had such an income that
produced great wealth by the time he was about 50 years old or so and left
Jerusalem. In addition, under Chadwick's scenario, families of the time were large, rather than small, and there is no indication that what Lehi would have inherited would have been sizable after being divided between the sons (his brothers).
Comment: “The question
then becomes: If Lehi and his sons were indeed metalsmiths, where in Jerusalem
did they conduct their metalworking and marketing operations? The answer may be
that they did so in the other Jerusalem quarter previously mentioned—the
Makhtesh.”
Response: The wordage “if
Lehi and his sons” should be duly noted. This is all assumptive and we need to
keep in mind that the scriptures are not open to private interpretation. That
is, we cannot look at something written, then create an entire lifestyle,
occupation and income out of it when there is not a single suggestion to back
it up. Nowhere does it say Lehi was involved in metallurgy, let alone his
parents and grandparents, who are not mentioned in any way, let alone where
they lived. Nor is it mentioned that Lehi had ancestral property in the land of
Manasseh. However, the fact that nothing is mentioned or even suggested about
any of this, does not stop Chapwick from creating it and trying to convince
us that such existed.
Other suggestions of Lehi’s occupation, especially that
suggested by Hope and Lynn Hilton regarding Lehi and his sons traveling down to the
king’s highway where they waited for the soft-footed camel caravans and traded with them
(or bought outright) goods to carry back on donkeys and sell to the merchants in Jerusalem where the
caravans did not go, are far more believable and consistent with the scriptural
record than that of Chadwick's suggestions--besides answering the question why Lehi had tents, donkeys, and traveling equipment when he fled into the wilderness with his family (and living outside Jerusalem and farming answers why he had seeds of every kind); none of which is answered by living inside Jerusalem and being a metalsmith.
Comment: “It is
entirely possible that while Lehi's upscale home was located in the Mishneh,
his metalsmithing shop, where he also likely marketed his work, was in the
Makhtesh quarter of Jerusalem among the merchant people and "they that
bear silver" mentioned in Zephaniah 1:11. This is admittedly conjecture,
but it is at least plausible.”
Response: Interesting, Chadwick now introduces three entirely different places for
Lehi's property--a resaidence inside Jerusalem and a land of inheritance in the land of
Manasseh, and now he is introducing a third area, that of his workshop
elsewhere in Jerusalem. But while we are
dealing with conjecture (that is, guessing), perhaps it should
be noted that when discussing blacksmithing or metallurgy, according to
Jerusalem William J. Hamblin ("Sacred Writings on Bronze Plates in the
Ancient Mediterranean"), the first labor unions were formed among ancient
Phoenician blacksmiths who united themselves into guilds to protect their
secrets. Of all the smiths in the ancient world, none were more acclaimed for
their secrets than the Phoenicians living along the northeast coast of the
Mediterranean Sea in what is now Lebanon. Phoenician blacksmiths refined the
art of steel making, a secret they kept closely guarded and one that garnered
them a great deal of wealth. King Solomon hired blacksmiths from Sidon, a
famous port city along the Mediterranean coast, to assist him in building the temple.
In fact, before that in the days of King Saul, the Philistines put a ban on Hebrew
blacksmiths: "Now there was no smith found throughout all the land of
Israel: for the Philistines said, Lest the Hebrews make them swords or
spears" (I Samuel 13:19). The Philistines required the Hebrews to bring
their coulters and mattocks to the vicinity of Ramle to be sharpened, and this
district in the Valley of Ajalon for many years afterward came to be known as
the Valley of Smiths. Whether there were smiths in Lehi’s time, or that of his
grandparents, is not known, blacksmithing and metal works may not have been known in
Israel during their time.
(See the next post, “Where did Lehi Live Before Departing
into the Wilderness? Part XIV,” for more of Chadwick’s comments regarding where
Lehi lived before he and his family went into the wilderness)
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My thoughts:
ReplyDelete1: Lehi probably did not live in the portion of the land appointed to Manasseh, because they only learned they were OF the tribe of Manasseh after perusing the brass plates. You'd think that would be a bit obvious if they'd been there all along.
2: Israel almost certainly had metalsmiths by Nephi's time, which was 400 years after the verse in 1st Samuel. However, when Zedekiah was implanted as king (see 1st Nephi 1), the king of Babylon carted off all the rich people AND craftsmen. I wish Nephi had mentioned how they escaped deportation at that time. It might also explain why Laban was so eager to get his hands on their gold if that sort of wealth was rare by then.