In Tents #48 He is Risen and Other Texts That Don’t Behave as Textual Critics Think They Do Part IX

In September, as the Isaiah lessons were approaching in Gospel Doctrine, I decided to read three translations of Isaiah, the Jewish Publication Society translation (which I found discarded somewhere on campus 30+ years ago), Avraham Gileadi’s The Apocalyptic Book of Isaiah, and David Rosenberg’s selections in A Poet’s Bible. I started with JPS because I wanted to see why scholars argue Isaiah was written by more than one writer (an argument used occasionally against the Book of Mormon, since some of the Isaiah chapters it quotes are said to have been written after 600 BC–after Lehi would have had access to them). I soon found I was getting through about 1 column of the introduction during my daily commute, since I was reading all the scripture citations. At that rate I wouldn’t even get to the text before the lessons began, so I switched to Gileadi.

Gileadi’s accompanying “Apocalyptic Key” is an explicit statement that this text doesn’t behave the way textual critics think it does. The day we started studying Isaiah in Old Testament Part II Rabbi Dr. Gileadi started the lesson by saying Isaiah works as a single unified text with an elaborate structure of parallels and echoes. It is not the work of more than one author. He begins “An Apocalyptic Key” by noting what ought to be obvious, that assigning Isaiah to more than one author fragments the text. That’s so obvious that we don’t think, until an Avraham Gileadi or a Robert Alter (see The World of Biblical Literature and The Five Books of Moses) points it out, that concentrating on the fragments means missing the overall literary structure–and not simply missing it but being unable to see it, since fragmenting a text precludes looking at it as a literary unity.

Gileadi acknowledges reasons to see the text as fragmented, Isaiah’s “three distinct historical settings, and its divided content of prophetic oracles and written discourses” (171), but doesn’t spend more time than that, preferring to spend time demonstrating the unity of the text. Along the way he presents a way to determine when to interpret historical passages as literal, figurative or apocalyptic. If a section about a historical figure doesn’t match the historical record we should interpret that section as apocalyptic. That is, part of the book’s structure is to see historical characters as types of characters who will appear on the scene in the last days, Cyrus, for example. Some of what we read about Cyrus doesn’t match the historical record, so we should read those parts as type-scenes of the latter days (see 194, 202).

Cyrus? How did his name get in there? Wasn’t Isaiah writing 150 years before Cyrus? One of Isaiah’s themes is exile and return, so Cyrus serves as a type of the means of return.

 Thus saith the Lord to his anointed, to Cyrus, whose right hand I have holden, to subdue nations before him; and I will loose the loins of kings, to open before him the two leaved gates; and the gates shall not be shut;
45:1

That saith of Cyrus, He is my shepherd, and shall perform all my pleasure: even saying to Jerusalem, Thou shalt be built; and to the temple, Thy foundation shall be laid.
44:28

But how is Cyrus’s name in a text written 150 years before him? Was his name part of the original, or inserted later by a scribe? Was it a gloss that got inserted into the text, as a modern scholar might gloss the prophecy of return with Balfour ?

Maybe it was a scribal substitution for a phrase like “my servant” from a scribe who felt that the prophecy having been fulfilled, it would be appropriate to supply the servant’s name. (Think about Martin Harris’s realization that his experience with Prof. Anthon had fulfilled an Isaianic prophecy.)

While I was pondering these questions I started preparing my Gospel Doctrine lesson, my last of the year, 47, Rebuilding the temple, and lo, the lesson brings up the very question, saying that according to Josephus Cyrus saw his name in Isaiah’s writings and wanted to live up to what had been written about him. What lovely serendipity.

We had a lively discussion about it in class, with the branch president president suggesting a midrash in which some of the Jews approached Cyrus, said it was time to return to Jerusalem and rebuild the walls, and the temple as well, and if you will sponsor this we will pray for you in the temple of our God.

He told me later he had been thinking, suppose a scribe showed Cyrus his name in the text. His natural reaction would have been to say, “And when was this copy of the text made?” But Ezra/Nehemiah doesn’t record any such skepticism, so there must have been something else at work, like the kind of respect for the Jews and their God we see in parts of Daniel and Esther and other places. Cyrus must have found appealing the prospect of prayers being said on his behalf in the temple.

I find this kind of engagement with scripture appealing, and worthwhile, but I’m also aware that to some people my suggestion that scribes might have altered a scriptural text for their political or religious ends is cavalier, disrespectful, even dangerous. Cavalier because it blithely assumes an all-powerful God couldn’t protect the scriptures, disrespectful because it implies that people entrusted with scriptures would misuse their office and God would allow it, dangerous because if God can’t protect his scriptures how can He be all-powerful, and if He’s not all-powerful how can he be deserving of an upper-case pronoun?

Even some Mormons might find my suggestions cavalier, though they’re solidly based in scripture and Mormon history. Consider this question. If I did not want to believe, could God force me to believe? I’m not asking would He force the issue by sending a angel to say, “If thou wilt of thyself be destroyed . . .” I’m asking if He has the power to force me to believe? For most Mormons the answer would be no, because God didn’t create that part of me that desires to believe. We are eternal beings and God is God not because he has the power to create ex nihilo and to re-anihilate what he took from nil, God is God because his vast love inspires other eternal beings to follow Him and His plans, and He has the knowledge and skill to carry out those plans, to accomplish them completely.

Suppose God doesn’t have the power to protect scripture. Suppose He doesn’t have the power to stop Martin Harris’s wife from burning the 116 pages, or her friends from preserving and altering the same (or Mark Hoffman from trying to reproduce them, and setting off his bombs and bombshells). Suppose He doesn’t have the power to stop Satan from destroying Job’s farm, family, and health. Suppose He doesn’t even have the power to resist the whirlwind that brings him into Job’s presence–or couldn’t ride a tornado much better than Pecos Bill. Does any of that frustrate His purposes?

If we see God’s declaration in D&C 3:1 as a statement of what His power means

The works, and the designs, and the purposes of God cannot be frustrated, neither can they come to naught

we can think of God’s power not as the power to control all creation but as power to restore–to restore the knowledge contained in those pages, to restore Job and his posterity, and to wipe away their tears.

The idea of restoration is prominent for Latter-day Saints, we call our dispensation The Restoration, and it was announced through restored texts, including the Books of Mormon, Abraham, and Enoch, a vision given to Moses, and that vision to Joseph Smith of a long-perished parchment with an enigmatic comment from John elaborating on John 22:21, but not definitively answering the question of whether John tarried or not.

In some ways, God’s desire to give new revelation means there are no definitive answers. There is always more,  temples of knowledge to build, build anew, and then build again. The desire of Truth to be known gives us much in common with other people who believe in revealed religion. Our ideas about truth being independent of a fixed text put us at some variance.

Our ideas about textual corruption and restoration give us a lot in common with textual and higher critics. Our insistence on the place of revelation in producing sacred texts creates some variance.

And our ideas about how sacred texts originate and get passed down give us tools for understanding textual problems that may not be available to either group, and that may allow us to close the variance between camps that may think of themselves at war with each other.

I hope to talk more about this next year. Note the indefinite, flexible pronoun, and have a happy New Year’s celebration.

Thine