Why Did the Nephites Have Temples? – Part II

Continued from the previous post, regarding the use of the name Aminadi by Mormon and what Amulek said about the “writing on the wall” incident and what it tells us about the Nephite temple.
    In the incident of Aminadi interpreting the writing on the wall of the temple, Amulek’s brief description of the event, the ancient prophet Aminadi appears as a man of wisdom like the Biblical seers Joseph and Daniel, whose lives share a common storyline. In each, a king seeks the meaning of a supernatural manifestation, and after his wise men cannot interpret it, the correct interpretation is revealed to a captive Hebrew prophet, and in the case of Daniel, the comparison to Aminadi is quite clear.
    The details in Lapham’s narrative, beautifully embodies the Book of Mormon’s complex use of Exodus typology and other events of the Hebrew Bible—namely, the narrative of the Nephites finding the Jaredite interpreters.
    In Lapham’s account of the scriptural record, the story of the Nephites finding the Jaredite interpreters is definitely an Exodus typology. The fact that they suddenly appear without explanation in the narrative possessed by King Mosiah II, before Limhi’s people find the twenty-four Jaredite plates, shows a prior mentioning of the obtaining of these interpreters not currently found in the Book of Mormon. In fact, how the Nephites acquired the Jaredite interpreters is never described and raises a question among several scholars, which is not answered in the record. So how did the interpreters or Urim and Thummim given to the brother of Jared get to the Nephites?

Martin Harris took the first 116 pages translated from the Book of Lehi to show to his family (and others) to prove their authenticity to stem the tide of criticism that was levied at him by family and friends to continually criticize him 

After all, the available Book of Mormon text tells us that before the Nephites found the 24 Jaredite plates, they had already acquired the interpreters (Mosiah 8:6-14). How did they obtain them? While that is scripturally unknown, Jospeh’s father detailed to Fayette Lapham how one of the ancient Nephites was led to the Jaredite interpreters in the promised land by the Liahona, evidently taking this narrative from the lost 116 pages, for the current Book of Mormon has no such story.
    According to Lapham’s account given him by Joseph Smith, Sr., sometime after Lehi landed in what became known as the New World, they were traveling (probably during Nephi’s flight northward away from his brothers in the Land of First Inheritance—2 Nephi 5:6-7, or the later events there), being led by the Liahona. Lapham recounted that the Liahona led them to this strange object, and the person who found it did not know what it was. So they took it into the temple to inquire what it was. Immediately the voice of the Lord asks him a question, presumably from behind the veil covering the Holy of Holies where the Lord’s presence was understood to dwell.
    Lapham claims that in the Joseph Smith, Sr. narrative, the finder of the interpreters—probably Mosiah I—took the interpreters into a “tabernacle” or portable temple to inquire of the Lord how to use them. When Mosiah I entered the tabernacle, the Lord asked, “What is that in your hand?” Mosiah responded that he “did not know, but had come to inquire,” and the Lord revealed the answer. Then, as now, the temple was a place to converse with the Lord and seek to enter His holy presence.
    So the Lord tells Mosiah to take this object and put it on his face, and then to cover his face with animal skins. And when he does that, he is able to see thing supernaturally—it was the interpreters. At that point the Liahona actually stopped working, and the Liahona, which had led them to the interpreters, is actually now replaced by the interpreters.
    While Lapham’s story cannot be currently verified, if true it would explain not only how the Nephites get the interpreters, but also why the military expeditions in the book of Alma never uses the Liahona for guidance, but inquires of the Prophet for answers and guidance (Alma 16:5-6). In addition, in Joseph Smith, Sr’s account, he described a “great feast,” a religious festival, in Jerusalem at the time of Lehi’s departure and gave this as the reason for Laban’s drunkenness. This fits Nephi’s account that Laban had been “out by night” with “the elders of the Jews” (1 Nephi 4:22). Other details in Nephi’s account allow identification of the festival and its connection with the redeeming work of the Savior. Seen in this light, the first story in the Book of Mormon, that of Lehi’s temporal deliverance, is a “type” for the redemption of the world. From its very start at the beginning of the lost 116 pages, the Book of Mormon is a testament of Christ.

It should be noted that Lapham’s recounting of the incident is full of Biblical inference—the question: “What is that in your hand?” is found in the story of Moses (Exodus 4:2), where Moses is at the burning bush on Sinai where he received his prophetic calling. The veiling of his face occurred when Moses came down off the mount and his face glowed from the presence of God—whereupon he veiled his face so that the others would not encounter that glory that was reflected from him (Exodus 34:29-30,33-35).
    The animal skins, particularly badger skins, are explicitly said in the books of Moses to be needed to handle some of the sacred objects. In fact, badger (KJV) or violet (Douay) skins were used for the outer covering of the Tabernacle, the Ark of the covenant, and various items used within the Tabernacle (Numbers 4:5-15). In addition, one of the veils of the temple was actually to be made from badger skins.
    We might compare this with the story of the Brother of Jared getting the interpreters in the first place from the Lord (Ether 4:5). After the Brother of Jared melted sixteen stones from the rock on mount Shelem, a conversation ensues between him and the Lord, which resulted in the “veil” being taken from Brother of Jared (Ether 3:19-20) and he is admitted into the Lord’s presence, where he is told that he is redeemed from the Fall. This same theme of receiving the interpreters and talking with the Lord through the veil is present in both the story of the Brother of Jared and the story recounted to Fayette Lapham by Joseph Smith, Sr. That is, the talking to the Lord through the veil, testing through asking questions and man answering them, and ultimately taking on the attribute of divine sight and entering the presence of the Lord appears in both the Bible and the Book of Mormon.
    Thus, the story of Aminadi, in the temple, with the story of Joseph, Sr. apparently about Mosiah are not about sacrifice, but about the revelation of higher knowledge and learning how to come into the presence of God, accessing knowledge from Him and becoming like Him.

It might also be recounted that it has long been known that Joseph Smith’s wife, Emma Hale Smith, scribed for a portion of the translation. In fact, her son, Joseph Smith III, states that his mother told him that “She wrote for Joseph Smith during the work of translation, as did also Reuben Hale, her brother, and O. Cowdery; that the larger part of this labor was done in her presence, and where she could see and know what was being done; that during no part of it did Joseph Smith have any manuscripts or Book of any kind from which to read, or dictate, except the metallic plates, which she knew he had (Joseph Smith III, letter to James T. Cobb, 14 February 1879, Letterbook 2, pp. 85-88, Library-Archives, Community of Christ; also in Vogel, Early Mormon Documents, 1:544).
    It was apparent, too, that Joseph could see the spelling of names on the seer stone or interpreters and when he said the name, the scribe wrote it and read it back for correction. Thus, the Joseph had something with him from which he was dictating and against which he could check what his scribes had written. The witnesses are unanimous that he did not have any books, manuscripts, or papers with him during the translation process, a process that involved lengthy periods of dictation, sometimes lasting many hours.

Verifying this, a correspondent from the Chicago Times interviewed David Whitmer (left) on 14 October 1881 and got essentially the same account: "Mr. Whitmer emphatically asserts as did Harris and Cowdery, that while Smith was dictating the translation he had no manuscript notes or other means of knowledge save the seer stone and the characters as shown on the plates, he being present and cognizant how it was done” (Chicago Times, 17 October 1881, as given in Cook, David Whitmer Interviews, p76; Whitmer's reply to J. W. Chatburn, as reported in Saints' Herald vol.29, 15 June 1882, and reproduced in Cook, David Whitmer Interviews, 92).
    During her scribing, Emma states that “Joseph could not pronounce the name ‘Sariah’ and one time, where it speaks of the walls of Jerusalem, he stopped and said, 'Emma, did Jerusalem have walls surrounding it?' When I informed him it had, he replied, 'O, I thought I was deceived.'”(In the Briggs and Etzenhouser interview, Saints' Herald 31, June 21, 1884, as given in Cook, David Whitmer Interviews, pp126-27; Chicago Tribune, 17 December 117, p885, as given in Cook, David Whitmer Interviews, p174; Whitmer also mentioned the walls-of-Jerusalem incident in a conversation with M. J. Hubble, on 13 November 13, 1886, as given in Cook, David Whitmer Interviews, p211).
    Now, since both the name Sariah and Jerusalem’s walls appear early in the Book of Mormon. In fact, the handwriting when Sariah’s name is first used in 1 Nephi is not Emma’s but Oliver Cowdery’s, and the handwriting when Jerusalem’s walls are first mentioned in 1 Nephi is also not Emma’s and is likely that of one of the Whitmer brothers. Thus, since it is known from the handwriting on the original Book of Mormon manuscript that Emma did not scribe for 1 Nephi, this means that Emma assisted Joseph at the beginning of Lehi’s story in the lost 116 pages and was thus his first scribe in the work of translation.
(See the next post, “Why Did the Nephites Have Temples? – Part II, for more on the purpose of the Nephite temple beyond offering sacrifices)