Mormon scholarship, apologetics, and evangelical neglect: Losing the battle and not knowing it?

Trinity Journal, Fall 1998 by Mosser, Carl, Owen, Paul

Mormons have taken a keen interest in the scrolls for several reasons. Foremost among these is their desire to portray early Christianity as a movement firmly rooted in apocalyptic Judaism. Nibley writes that,

This common tradition was not that of conventional Judaism, let alone Hellenistic philosophy; it was the ancient tradition of the righteous few who flee to the desert with their wives and children to prepare for the coming of the Lord and escape persecution at the hands of the official religion.45

Nibley posits a line of continuity between the desert sectarians represented by Lehi and his family (cf. 1 Nephi 2), the community at Qumran, earliest Christianity, and second-century Gnosticism. The argument is not that the Qumran Essenes were proto-Mormons, but simply that Mormonism has more in common with the apocalyptic belief system represented at Qumran than with that of Hellenized Christianity. Nibley continues:

Now with the discovery and admission of the existence of typical New Testament expressions, doctrines, and ordinances well before the time of Christ, the one effective argument against the Book of Mormon collapses.46

Elsewhere he points to ten parallels between the Qumran literature and the Book of Mormon. One example is given as follows:

For the first time we now learn of the ancient Jewish background of (1) the theological language of the New Testament and Christian apocrypha, (2) their eschatological doctrines, and (3) their organizational and liturgical institutions. All three receive their fullest exposition in 3 Nephi, where the Messiah himself comes and organizes his church on the foundations already laid for it.47

Nibley is not alone in pointing out parallels between the Qumran texts and Mormon scripture. William J. Hamblin complains that "the critics [of Mormonism] have never explained why we find close linguistic and literary parallels between the figure Mahujah in Dead Sea Scrolls Aramaic fragments of the Book of Enoch and Mahijah questioning Enoch in the book of Moses (Moses 6:40)."48 Gaye Strathearn suggests several points of contact between the Genesis Apocryphon (lQapGen) discovered at Qumran and the LDS Book of Abraham.49 Stephen E. Robinson points to numerous similarities between the Qumran community and the Latter-day Saints. He notes that the Qumranites wrote important information on metal, they believed in baptism(s) by immersion,5 their community was led by a council of twelve men with three governing priests, they had sacred meals of bread and wine administered by priests,51 and they believed in continuing revelation through a prophetic leader. He writes, "All of this leads to the conclusion that in many ways the Essenes may have been closer to the [Mormon] gospel than other Jewish sects."52

As with defenses of the Book of Mormon, more examples could be listed. In light of the growing participation of LDS scholars in Scrolls research we can be sure that many more parallels will be brought to our attention.

Mormon scholars have a related interest in the OT pseudepigrapha. Their involvement in pseudepigraphal studies can be seen in the two volume Old Testament Pseudepigrapha, edited by James H. Charlesworth.53 The dust jacket of the work states: Scholars, Bible students, professionals of all religious groups and denominations, and lay people-indeed, all those who can be signified as "People of the Book," Christians, Jews, Mormons, Muslims-will be interested in these translations.54