Are the Scriptures implicit or explicit? – Part II

Continued from the previous post, regarding the way we should read the scriptural record that was written with explicit language for our benefit and understanding. To try and find something wrong with Mormon and Moroni’s abridgements is to miss the entire point of the value of the scriptural record. As an example, Martin Harris, one of the scribes Joseph used to record the writing on the plates, gave a first-hand account of how Joseph performed this translation. Said Harris: “By aid of the Seer Stone, sentences would appear and were read by the Prophet and written by Martin, and when finished he would say ‘written;’ and if correctly written, the sentence would disappear and another appear in its place; but if not written correctly it remained until corrected, so that the translation was just as it was engraven on the plates, precisely in the language then used” (CHC 1:29).
    When academicians, who consider themselves smarter and more knowledgeable than the rest of us start telling us that Joseph Smith or his scribes made mistakes, or provided in accurate translations, we ought to stop and consider the above statement by Martin Harris, one of the scribes involved in the actual translation.
    Secondly, it seems funny how, when Joseph Smith was confronted with words he did not understand, that rather than try to find an English word that would suffice, as almost all scholars and theorists claim he did specifically with the animals he found, he simply used the original Nephite or Jaredite name that Mormon or Moroni used.

This is seen in his use of cureloms land cumoms in the same sentence with other animals, such as horses, asses and elephants (Ether 9:19); or using neas and sheum in the same sentence with other grains of corn and wheat and barley (Mosiah 9:9), or with the twice used ziff when encountering a decorative metal, in the same sentence as other metals, such as gold, silver, copper, brass, and iron (Mosiah 11:3,8).
    One would think that if Joseph Smith was in the habit of substituting names of animals he knew, that he would have done so with the curelom land cumom, animals that were somewhat like horses, as they could be ridden; the oxen, since they were beasts of burden; or deer as many suggest, since they were useful to man. However, Joseph did not do this because he did not now what animals these were, any more than he knew what grains neas and sheum were or metal ziff was.
    It is interesting that in the very same verse, and in the directly following sentence, Nephi states: “And we did find all manner of ore, both of gold, and of silver, and of copper,” another clearly stated and explicit statement, which, by the way, no theorists questions. Everyone agrees that the Land of Promise had gold, silver and copper in abundance. Yet, most claim that the animals listed were not really the animals intended, but some other type of animal. It should also be noteworthy that when Moroni mentioned the cureloms and cumoms, he listed them along with “horses, and asses, and elephants—three of the same animals Nephi mentioned that they found 1600 years later. Or, stated differently, the Jaredites, with a completely different language than that of the Nephites (or an original form), named some of the same animals that Ether had earlier named, and were translated the same. So where is the error?

The problem lies in the fact that modern historians and scholars are embarrassed over the fact that no such animals have yet been found in their areas of the Land of Promise, so they try to adjust Joseph Smith’s translation to fit what they consider an error. However, there was no error in translation of either the Jaredite or Nephite records. The point is, we need to learn to take the scriptures in context, and not add to, delete, or change the meaning of words and phrases.
    In addition, we also need to avoid conflating the scriptures, that is, not place non-stated facts into the scriptural record as facts, or even possibilities just because they are in a theorist’s Land of Promise, though not mentioned in any way within the scriptural record. Take as an example:
• Beginning with Hugh Nibley, and continuing through John L. Sorenson and almost all other present Mesoamerican theorists, it is the claim that other people occupied the Land of Promise before Lehi (other than the Jaredites) and that they were there when Lehi landed. While some claim that there is ample evidence of this, there is simply not a single word or mention of anyone else in the entire scriptural record or even suggestion through over 520 pages from eighteen writers who recorded information in the Book of Mormon, with the major writers, such as Nephi, Jacob, Mosiah, Alma, Helaman, Mormon, Ether or Moroni completely oblivious to anyone else in the land as seen in their not mentioning a single word about anyone in all their writings.
• Another point used as “ample evidence,” was the building of Nephi’s temple. It took 30,000 builders, 80,000 hewers of stone and 70,000 transporters, or about 180,000 men overall (1 Kings 5:13) a total of 7 years 6 months to build Solomon’s Temple (1 Kings 6:38), and theorists claim that manpower would have far exceeded the Nephite population and that others had to have been involved.
    However, all that is said in the scriptural record about the temple is: “I, Nephi, did build a temple; and I did construct it after the manner of the temple of Solomon save it were not built of so many precious things; for they were not to be found upon the land, wherefore, it could not be built like unto Solomon's temple. But the manner of the construction was like unto the temple of Solomon; and the workmanship thereof was exceedingly fine” (2 Nephi 5:16). Jacob mentioned teaching Nephites in the temple (Jacob 1:17; 2:2,11), as did king Benjamin (Mosiah 1:18;2:1), in which the people pitched their tents round about outside the temple wall (Mosiah 2:5-7).

King Limhi also spoke at the temple to those Nephites who returned to the city of Nephi (Mosiah 7:17). Around 155 BC, king Noah’s workmen did all manner of fine work within the walls of the temple, of fine wood, and of copper, and brass, and seats of pure gold and built a breastwork (low protective balustrade railing), and also a tower near the temple (Mosiah 11:10,12). In all of this, there is not a single mention of the size, scope, manner of construction, or appearance of the temple.
    The point is, the temple could have been built after the manner of Solomon’s Temple, but nowhere near the size and scope of that Jerusalem temple. It could have been and no doubt was much smaller, like we see such variance in size today—Salt Lake Temple has 253,000 square feet; Los Angeles 190,614; Washington DC 160,000, Jordan River 148,336. In fact, there are 14 temples over 100,000 square feet in size; 10 temples between 50,000 and 100,000; and 75 temples under 20,000 square feet, with the three smallest temples being Taipei, Taiwan at 9,945 square feet, Peru at 9,600, and the smallest Colonia Juárez Chihuahua, Mexico, at only 6,800 square feet.

    Obviously, size of a temple is not an important criteria, other than, perhaps, to meet the present and future traffic needs of temple goers in a given area. What evidently is important is that it has the parts within that enable it to be a dedicated temple and perform the sacred rites associated with temple work. Thus, the size of Nephi’s temple was not an important factor, but that it possessed the parts within that were important. Consequently, a much smaller force could have built a much smaller temple, with local materials that did not have to be brought from far off locations like Solomon’s Temple, which wasted time, energy and effort of those workers.

Left: The magnificent temple of Solomon; Right; The first temple built in the modern era—Kirtland was built by Joseph Smith and the early Saints. There is no comparison in the construction and size of these two temples, but each served the purpose for which temples are built

In the case of Nephi’s temple, he does not say when it was started other than after they settled in the area called the Land of Nephi, nor how long it took to build or when it was finished. If Nephi was about 30-32 when he arrived in Bountiful, after 8 years in the wilderness, he would have been about 32-34 when arriving in the Land of Promise, and about 34-36 when settling in the Land of Nephi, giving him about 40 years to finish the temple and have it completed in his lifetime.
    However, the point is that it is not being suggested it took 30-40 years to build Nephi’s temple, or that it was finished but added to over the years and expanded, as was the Salt Lake Temple when first built, but that logical and reasonable explanations show where very large numbers were not needed to build Nephi’s temple even though he claimed it was built like Solomon’s, which likely meant it had the internal workings that made it a temple where sacred rites could properly be held and conducted.
(See the next post,” Are the Scriptures implicit or explicit? – Part III,” for more of these points that theorists like to present to cloud the issue of a simple understanding of the scriptural record)