Introduction and Welcome Back to David Bokovoy

John Dehlin [00:00:00] Hey, everyone, it's John. I want to announce a really exciting series of episodes. First, I want to introduce a name to you that many of you will be familiar with, but many of you will not. David Bacavoy is one of the most important interviews I've ever done on Mormon stories. Definitely top 10. David Bacavoy, you know, raised Mormon in San Diego. He has a master's from Brandeis University in Jewish Studies and a PhD in Hebrew Bible and the Ancient near east, also, also from Brandeis. But what's really interesting about David is in addition to being a true Bible scholar, raised Mormon, he also worked in the church education system for many, many years, both as a seminary and institute teacher, specifically teaching institute at Harvard and mit, and then later moving to Utah and positioning himself to become a professor of Hebrew and ancient near east at BYU when his career was derailed. And it's a fascinating story. David is a brilliant, special human and again, one of the most important interviews I've ever done. Now, when I interviewed Dave, I don't know, six or seven years ago, it was at a time when I was chopping up interviews into one hour segments. So I did a series on his Mormon story, which was chopped up in, I think, four segments. And then I did a series on applying higher scriptural criticism to Mormon scripture, to the Old Testament, New Testament and Book of Mormon. And that was, I don't know, three or four segments as well. It's been long enough that many of you who listen today will not have heard or seen my interviews with David Bacavoy. Plus their numbers are just really low given that they were chopped up and released a long time ago. So we're doing something kind of special and hopefully it'll be something new that we do in the coming year or two.

David Bokovoy [00:02:05] So.

John Dehlin [00:02:05] So this is sort of a resurrecting a few old episodes that are really important to make sure you get a chance to experience some of our, honestly most valuable content of all time. And then secondly, we're doing a Where are they Now? Series where we're gonna be bringing people back who you knew and loved just to see what they're up to. So this David Bacavoy Week on Mormon Stories, he jokingly calls it Shark Week. It's gonna be a four part series. It's gonna be, number one, a composite single episode of his entire Mormon story when he first released it. It's a must. Listen, I promise you, it's brilliant. Part two is going to be David's, you know, three or four Part interview, all on higher criticism in Mormon scripture. I promise you're not going to want to miss it if you don't understand. But Bible historicity, Old Testament historicity, New Testament historicity, and Book of Mormon historicity, you don't want to miss that second episode. A third episode is brand new. Margi and I interviewed David Bachavoy this week where he's going to be kind of giving us an update on where his life is now. He's going to touch on mental health, on adhd, depression, he's going to talk about marriage, he's going to talk about psychedelics, he's going to talk about his work in the prison system. It's just a lovely, beautif inspiring interview. And basically the third episode is going to be about finding healing and joy after Mormonism. And then the fourth episode we just recorded yesterday with Gerardo is going to be David sharing his research on the Book of Isaiah as it relates to Mormonism and specifically the Book of Mormon. He's going to talk about Avram Gileadi and the one mighty and strong Davidic servant doctrine that comes out of Isaiah into Mormonism that has been really impacting the prepper movement. But most importantly, he's gonna be talking about, you know, proto Isaiah, Deutero Isaiah and Trito Isaiah and how parts of Isaiah that shouldn't appear in the Book of Mormon do appear in the Book of Mormon. And from a very technical academic perspective, he's gonna help us understand why that's a problem and, and why in his view, that impacts Book of Mormon historicity more than even DNA evidence or some of the other scientific evidence that's out there. It's a don't miss episode. This is a four part series. Welcome to David Bacavoy week on Mormon Stories and we hope you enjoy it and please give us your feedback to let us know if you want us to do more episodes like this. Thanks everybody. Enjoy these episodes and we'll see you all again soon on Mormon Stories. Hello everyone and welcome to another edition of Mormon Stories podcast. I'm your host, John Dehlin. We are broadcasting to you live today from our new, I'll call them the Holly Alden Mormon Story Studios. We have a new office building. We needed more space, so a generous donor, Holly Alden, a dear friend, donated some extra money to allow us to sign a new lease in a new facility with, with more space. We haven't decorated yet. We have plans to actually make it look spiffy and nice and we're just super excited about it. So we're broadcasting to you live today. It is December 3, 2018. And as always, we are super excited for today's guest who's returning. His name is Dr. David Bacavoy. And we just got done interviewing, doing four good hours with David Bacavoy. Just a week or two ago, a very popular and important episode where David talked to us about his life growing up in Southern California, ultimately studying, you know, different languages, including Hebrew, which led him to Brandeis University, where he ultimately obtained both the Master's and a PhD focusing on the Bible and specifically Old Testament stuff. And he ended up being the chaplain at Harvard Teaching Seminary and Institute, working for CES and Teaching Seminary Institute to students at mit, at Harvard, at Wellesley Smith. Was that the other one? Yeah, yeah.

David Bokovoy [00:06:40] Berklee School of Music.

John Dehlin [00:06:41] Yeah, that's right. A bunch of cool people. The Mashing Dragons guys went to Berkeley School of Music. I don't know if you would have run into those guys. At least two of them did, or three. Anyway, that led to a 18 year career with CES where he taught Seminary Institute and ultimately came back to Utah and has been teaching seminary there. Epic story about how he had designed and architected his whole life around teaching at BYU as a professor there, how that didn't work out. And it was a super tragic but also uplifting story about how that did and didn't come to be. And ultimately what led David to leave his position with ces. And now he's working for Salt Lake Community College in the prison system there, providing university level education to inmates in the Utah prison system. Did I get that right?

David Bokovoy [00:07:38] That's exactly right, yeah.

John Dehlin [00:07:39] All right, so why are we having him back? We're having him back because we've only scratched the surface of David Bacavoi's brilliance. And what we are going to focus on today begins with this book. This book is called Authoring the Old Testament Genesis Through Deuteronomy. And it's published by Greg Coford books, GregCofford.com that's coferred with two Fs. And it's basically David Bacavoy applying higher criticism, which we'll be talking about, which is an approach to looking at the text of Scripture very meticulously, almost scientifically and very seriously to really understand the origins of Scripture, where they come from, what is true, what is factual, what might be problematic, contradictions, etc. It's a method that was developed, as we discussed in our last episode in the 19th century, coming out of Germany. Is that Right. But it's, you know, if anybody anywhere is studying ancient scripture in academics, they're applying something called higher criticism to that process. So this book is David's attempt to apply higher criticism to the Old Testament, but his expertise doesn't end there. David Bacavoy, in this book, does not just apply higher criticism to the Old Testament, but he also applies it to the Book of Moses, that is Mormon scripture, the Book of Abraham, and the Book of Mormon. And he also has insights about the New Testament and the Doctrine and Covenants that are all relevant. So think of today's episode as really looking at the text of all Mormon scripture and trying to understand what's reliable, what's not reliable, what's literal, what's problematic, what's contradictory, and what value we can still derive from Mormon scripture in spite of, or maybe even because of the flaws or contradictions or problems.

David Bokovoy [00:09:49] I love that.

John Dehlin [00:09:49] How does that sound?

David Bokovoy [00:09:51] And I love the way he expressed that in the end. Not in spite of, but because of.

John Dehlin [00:09:56] That was a stretch. Is that true?

David Bokovoy [00:09:58] And that's really. I think what I was trying to articulate in the book is that very idea. So thank you so much. That was a beautiful summary.

John Dehlin [00:10:05] Okay.

David Bokovoy [00:10:06] Very kind and generous.

John Dehlin [00:10:07] Yeah. Now, we are live streaming this on Facebook Live and we already have gathered dozens and dozens of questions from you because we let people know we were doing this interview before beforehand. I have captured all of those questions and we'll be already asking those. But if any of you have stories or questions that you want to share, please share them on the Mormon Stories Podcast, Facebook Live Stream, and I'll incorporate them as it makes sense. But welcome to everyone who's joining us on Facebook Land. It would mean a lot to me if you would right now go to your Facebook page or Instagram or blogs or groups or whatever and say, hey, there's this amazing biblical scholar, David Bacavoi, who's on Mormon Stories. Tune in live right now. Share it with everyone you can. And if you're listening to this asynchronously after it's been live recorded, please share it as well, because David's wisdom and scholarship will benefit everyone. Non believer believers, semi believer, quasi believer, pseudo believer, Jew, gentile alike will benefit from the wisdom of David Bacavois. So please share this right now, everywhere you can.

David Bokovoy [00:11:23] Will you speak at my funeral?

John Dehlin [00:11:25] I will.

David Bokovoy [00:11:26] Thank you.

John Dehlin [00:11:27] That'd be an honor. All right, David Bachavoy. So welcome back. How's the feedback been from your first four hours with us on Mormon Stories? Do to want. You want to share that really quick?

David Bokovoy [00:11:38] Yeah. Thank you so much. It's been incredibly positive. I am just so grateful to everyone that has reached out and expressed support and has shared their own journey with me a little bit. I've just received so much feedback that has been incredible. I haven't even been able to respond to everything at this point. So if I, if you sent me a kind message and I haven't responded yet, I will do so eventually and get to it. But I was especially grateful to, to those who, you know, through that, through my experience, were able to kind of see it as part of their own life, their own journey, and to see what were some positive things that they could take out of their LDS experience. Mormon scripture, just based upon that conversation, that they're, you know, an ability to see some goodness come out of it. I was thrilled with that sort of response. Thank you. Thank you for that opportunity.

John Dehlin [00:12:31] Excellent. Well, it's our honor and our privilege. Okay, so let's dive in. Okay. And what we're going to be covering today again is Old Testament. This is the order we're going to go in. Old Testament, Book of Moses, Book of Abraham, So Old Testament, two Mormon scriptures, then we're going to come back to New Testament, then we're going to do Book of Mormon, and then we're going to end with Doctrine and Covenants. And of course, we can freeform as well. But those are all the scriptures we're going to tackle in the next two and a half hours. But we begin with the Old Testament. Now, before we jump into higher criticism, I think it's cool to start with assumptions that Mormons have. Now. I'm going to just guess that most Mormons haven't really thought about, you know, who authored the Old Testament. I think they just sort of think Genesis, God wrote it, or who knows who wrote it, but it's God's word. And so we've got Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus 2. And probably most Mormons have never read the Pentateuch, the first five books of the Old Testament, at least cover to cover. So of course, since they haven't read it, they haven't done a lot of thinking about it. For those who have done a little bit of thinking about it or read a little bit about it, I'm sure that they, they assume what many assume, which is the first five books of the Old Testament were written by Moses. So it's Moses telling the story of Adam and Eve, it's Moses telling the creation stories, Moses telling the story of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob and all that stuff. Wait a minute. Moses couldn't have told the story of Isaac, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob because he came before. So it's Moses telling the story up until the point that he dies and then, you know, the prophets, the subsequent prophets after Moses take off from there. Also, I'm sure that Mormons are believing that Adam and Eve were literal historical figures that lived around 6,000 years ago, that, you know, Noah was a historical figure, that the flood really happened, and that all of those figures, including Moses, that there was a Moses, that there was a literal Israel, that Moses had followers, that Moses really went to Egypt, that Moses really led the children of Israel in bondage out of Egypt, and that set up what ultimately became the story of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, leading to David and all the new children, New Testament stuff. So I'm just going to say that that's probably some core assumptions. What would you add to what you expect some core Mormon assumptions would be both about the story and about the Scripture, so that we can then begin to deconstruct or look at more intensely the narrative.

Mormon Assumptions About the Old Testament

David Bokovoy [00:15:02] Oh, I think you expressed it very well. As we discussed last time, even the Book of Mormon itself refers to the first five books of the Hebrew Bible or the Christian Old Testament as the Books of Moses. That is a tradition, as I discuss in the Book Author in the Old Testament. However, that emerges much later on in history. Those books themselves never identify Moses as the author. In fact, if we consider, for example, the fifth book of the Pentateuch, the Book of Deuteronomy, not only does it narrate Moses's death, but it also refers to him in the third person and is clearly written from the perspective of an audience that exists on the other side of the River Jordan, already established in the land of Canaan. So just if a reader goes through carefully, without even any absolute training in higher criticism, it becomes all sorts of questions emerge as to, you know, yeah, indeed, who did this material stem from? I think, though, an additional thing that we should add to a traditional Latter Day Saint assumption regarding this material is that it is indeed the inspired word of God. If you think about that great article of faith, we believe the Bible to be the word of God as far as it is translated correctly. And by translated, Latter Day Saints aren't referring necessarily to, oh, the King James translation or the NIV translation or whatever the translation might be, but rather interpreted, transmitted perhaps is a better term to describe what Latter Day Saints are referring to. A belief that although inspired, there is corruption, there is error, that is found there in the text. Perhaps we should add that point.

John Dehlin [00:16:46] Okay, all right, all right. So we got the basic Mormon assumptions down in terms of what people are thinking. So when we. So let's just jump right to it. When we look at. Well, well, let's back up. Okay, what tell. Introduce to our listeners again sort of a little bit of the history of higher criticism. And in it you talk about one of the main authors and one of the main books that did the groundbreaking work to sort of bring higher criticism into the minds of scholars, I think in the 19th century. Right, yeah, yeah.

The Documentary Hypothesis and Higher Criticism

David Bokovoy [00:17:24] 1878 was the first, first publication of the synthesis of the documentary hypothesis by a German Protestant scholar by the name of Julius Wellhausen.

John Dehlin [00:17:33] Before you talk about that, talk about privileged texts so that we can understand the old way of looking at the scripture to contrast it with kind of his approach.

David Bokovoy [00:17:42] Okay, yeah, sure. Well, up until the time, up until the 19th century, it was very common for readers of the Bible to treat the book as a privileged text. And what I mean by that is a book that isn't written or interpreted like a regular book would be. So in a book, if there are spelling errors, if there are grammatical problems, if there are, you know, if there are inconsistencies, for example, between an author's thesis versus some of the argumentation that is laid out later on, we have skills that we use to identify those and to, to take seriously those challenges, those issues. Well, the Bible is filled with inconsistencies. It's filled with. If we talk the Hebrew Bible or the Christian Old Testament, we have two different flood stories that have been blended together with inconsistencies. We have two different creation accounts that open up the book of Genesis, again with inconsistencies. But then some of the stories are told told twice as well. How Jacob gets his name, how Abraham, you know, you know, the sister wife motif, you know, a lot of these stories are repeated with some crucial differences and inconsistencies, not to mention just the theology. I like to tell students that in reality there is not a single biblical perspective on any topic of import. And that includes the very nature of God. There are books like the book of Deuteronomy, as I discuss in my, in my book author in the Old Testament, that which present God as non anthropomorphic. He doesn't have a human body. You cannot see him. You and, and the authors make clear that Moses, Israel were unable to see God because God has no form. It's a view that develops later on in Israelite and Jewish theology. That appears in that book, which I then contrast with earlier theological portrayals of God where he will literally sit down with Joshua and some of the elders up on the Mount Sacred mountain and, and consume a meal. Or God is so anthropomorphic and human like in the second creation story, which begins in Genesis chapter 2, verse 4b. And biblical scholars will do that, will divide verses into half because sometimes that versification process does not match what we actually see happening in terms of textual divisions. So the second creation account begins in Genesis 2.4b. And in that one, God is so human like that he literally walks around in the cool of the day when a man would walk around because he doesn't want to get too hot in the garden. Compare and contrast that image with God versus what we see in Deuteronomy or even in Genesis Chapter Chapter 1, where God is transcendent and just speaks the words of creation and then the acts obey and follow. So what is godlike? Well, it depends from a biblical perspective. Well, it depends upon which biblical source we're discussing. And so there are inconsistencies and doublets found throughout the text. And historically religious readers would see that and find creative ways to harmonize or explain those challenges. That's what I mean by a privileged text. Rather than treating it in a scientific manner and identifying those inconsistencies in the way that critical scholars would do today, the tradition was to harmonize and to fill in the gaps so that it was one smooth, pristine record or privileged text.

John Dehlin [00:21:23] Yeah. For me, the best example that I can think of is when I was reading the New Testament semi critically as a seminary student in high school. And I may have mentioned this before, I noticed two big problems. I noticed that the sign above Jesus head had different words in all four of the Gospels. You know, when he was crucified, the sign, it was here, like King of the Jews, here lie He. He who saith is the King of the Jews. You know, every sign was different. I'm like, that's weird. Why couldn't they get that right? Like that. That's a pretty simple thing. Why couldn't they get that right? But then the one that was more problematic for me is I was reading about the suicide of Judas Iscariot.

David Bokovoy [00:22:04] Yes.

John Dehlin [00:22:05] And there's, there's one verse where he hangs himself and that, that is pretty clear. He hangs himself. Then there's another one where he's running along a field and he like trips and he. And he. And he disembowels and his. Yeah, like he falls on A stone or his bowels gush out.

David Bokovoy [00:22:21] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:22:21] And I'm like, wait a minute. That's two very clear different stories. Yeah. So I actually went, I think I went to my seminary teacher and maybe I went to a Baptist preacher. And I'm like, how do you make sense of this? And they're like, oh, oh, that's easy. This is what happened. He hung himself, but then the rope broke.

David Bokovoy [00:22:37] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:22:38] And then he fell at a rock.

David Bokovoy [00:22:39] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:22:39] And his bowels gushed out.

David Bokovoy [00:22:40] Very so common way of harmonizing. So it's, it can't be treated as a real book that has different stories in it that need to be interpreted individually and, and on their own accord, but rather harmonized so that it's consistent, unified and telling. One view about God. That's why this concept, again, to just emphasize when we get online or social media and people like to have debates and like, well, what is the biblical view of social justice? Or what is the biblical view of God? What is the biblical view of marriage? What is the biblical view of homosexuality? There is none. There are multiple views. And we're talking about the Hebrew Bible right now. The Hebrew Bible is more of a library than a book. The material in the Hebrew Bible was composed over a thousand year time period from approximately 12,000 BCE to 200 BCE. So about a thousand years. Now think about how much Mormonism has changed in the course of 200 years. I mean, just cultural religious constructs exist in a perpetual state of flux. Just, that's just the reality of human existence. And we see that certainly within Mormonism. I mean, even Mormonism has changed dramatically over the past 10 years. So imagine a thousand year old period. We're talking about incredible development theologically, socially. And that's an important point to make for students of the Bible.

John Dehlin [00:24:09] So before we talk about Julius Wellhausen, I was surprised to learn that some of the men we kind of think of as our founding fathers in the United States were highlighting problems with the Bible even in the 18th century.

David Bokovoy [00:24:23] Yes.

John Dehlin [00:24:23] Do you want to talk about that? Really? Thomas Paine and do you talk about that as a, as a precursor?

David Bokovoy [00:24:28] Sure. You know, it really, this idea of actually taking a scientific approach to Scripture does not begin with the Protestants in the 19th century, as I discuss in my book, that really is a product of the Enlightenment. So we talk about Thomas Paine and you know, the Age of Reason. And I talk about Spinoza, who was a very important Jewish thinker during the Enlightenment time period that came to this conclusion that the Bible should be read scientifically, that we can observe it the way we observe natural phenomena. And that those seeds were planted then in terms of pointing out challenges or problems in the text that were then picked up in the 19th century by German, specifically Lutheran, ministers, who began to take a. An academic approach about the same time as Joseph Smith into identifying those issues. Eventually those views will then be synthesized and put together. In 1878 is really the first publication of that by a German Protestant scholar by the name of Julius Wellhausen. And that is the creation then of the documentary hypothesis, or. Or at least the synthesis, I should say. Sorry, documentary hypothesis existed before that, but the synthesis was done there with Wellhausen at that time period.

John Dehlin [00:25:50] And the book is prologomena. How do you pronounce that?

David Bokovoy [00:25:53] Yeah, prolegomena.

John Dehlin [00:25:55] Prolegomena to the history of ancient Israel.

David Bokovoy [00:25:57] Yeah. Which is. And that term just simply means a critical introduction.

John Dehlin [00:26:01] Okay.

David Bokovoy [00:26:01] Is what that means.

John Dehlin [00:26:02] So again, higher criticism means taking the text at face value. Well, how would you summarize higher criticism?

David Bokovoy [00:26:10] Yeah, so higher criticism just recently has started to become a. A term that biblical scholars avoid using because it's. It's sometimes misunderstood than by the general public. And what that means, scholars traditionally would refer to higher criticism and its opposite, lower criticism. And my book, Author in the Old Testament, deals with this higher criticism, where we're looking for the sources that were used to produce the biblical books. Lower criticism is an effort that scholars take to find the original form of a canonized text. And. And what is the best reading, whether it's a gospel account or whether it's the book of Deuteronomy, to try and identify the best reading that reflects the way that it originally existed. So those are the two terms that are used. And yet, as I mentioned, higher criticism is starting to become a little bit less popular. And a synonym for that that is often used is just historical criticism, because not only then are we identifying the sources that went into the development of the biblical books, but we're attempting to read those books independent of any contemporary religious, political, or social agenda, but instead to identify what an ancient author would have thought and how that material would have been interpreted in its original sitzenleben, which is a German term meaning setting in life. And so a lot of the terms, because this was developed by German scholars in the 19th century, a lot of the terms, terms that we still use to identify these elements, and this effort that is done in biblical scholarship, they still use a lot of German phrases. And zitzen leben would be one of them.

John Dehlin [00:28:03] We're setting in line okay, so you. You made reference to this a little bit in our introduction. So again, tell us some of the main obvious triggers. You know, we would think, okay, well, let's see. If Moses wrote the Old Testament, then basically he came down from Mount Sinai and had a journal, and he pulled out his little pad and he wrote down what happened. And each day as he was traveling with the children of Israel, he'd sit down and write some things. And at some point in his life, he abridged all that, and he put together what was the Pentateuch by Moses, and he gave that to his son before he died. And then that was passed down. And then when Abraham, Isaac and Jacob were tooling around, you know, they had a copy of what Moses had written and then they added to it. And over time, we got the Old Testament, right. Yeah, that's clearly how it happened, right?

David Bokovoy [00:29:01] Not so much, but I think that's the typical assumption. Yes.

John Dehlin [00:29:05] Okay, so what is it about the Pentateuch? And let's go to Genesis. You already made reference to this, but let's dig a little bit deeper. What is it about just a few main obvious things or problems in the Old Testament in the Pentateuch that give us a clue that that's not how it happened?

David Bokovoy [00:29:23] Okay, good. Well, yeah, let's build on that. That's good. And I did bring my. My quad here so that I could. I figured it's like we're having, like, a family home, evening Sunday school discussion,

John Dehlin [00:29:33] and I pull it up and show the audience, I haven't seen one of those in a while. Who brought that in here?

David Bokovoy [00:29:40] Yeah, well, I figured. I knew you wanted to talk Scripture, so I figured I'd better be prepared. And I. You know, it's funny. People usually ask me, and I don't mean to sound cocky or anything, but people even ask me, what translation of the Bible do you use? And I'm like, well, I don't. You know, I don't. I look at the original material. But I. You know, when talking to an LDS audience or Sunday school or something like that, or certainly when I taught seminary, it. It's always this. Some. This guy. But anyway, opening up then to Genesis chapter one, just the very beginning. Notice that at the very first verse, in the beginning, God created the heaven and the earth. And that verse begins. And heaven and earth is technically known as merismus, meaning two opposite words that describe a totality. So, you know, it's not just heaven and earth. It's the entirety of the cosmos, the entirety of the universe. Another example, you know, good and bad. You know, Adam and Eve partake of the fruit that will grant them a knowledge of good and bad. Not just good and bad, but they'll become like the gods, knowing a totality of something that's called Merismus. Jesus is alpha and omega, beginning in the end. Well, it starts off with this reference and then the first thing to note is it's. What is the term that is being used there to describe divinity? Well, the King James uses God. It's the Hebrew noun Elohim. And all throughout this account, it's God said. And then the events transpire. The event, though the. The actual story clearly concludes in Genesis, chapter 2, verse 4, the A. The first half of it, where notice then the. The statement is made. These are the generations of the heaven and the earth when they were created. So that's called inclusium, where an author will take phrases, words from the beginning of a text and use them to conclude that, to show that we're done. You know, it's kind of like. I mean, it's very common. It's like, you know, we do it in the same of, you know, an argumentation essay where we state the thesis and then return to it at the very conclusion. It's. It creates closure is the technical term for that.

John Dehlin [00:31:42] Well, you would think that at the end of chapter one with the last verse would. Would be.

David Bokovoy [00:31:45] Yeah, so somebody. So much longer. And they, as I mentioned, they really don't reflect.

John Dehlin [00:31:50] Moses didn't break what he wrote into chapters.

David Bokovoy [00:31:52] I know.

John Dehlin [00:31:53] Or verses. And I know he didn't.

David Bokovoy [00:31:54] Okay, but so it's.

John Dehlin [00:31:56] Someone did. I did that later.

David Bokovoy [00:31:57] Yeah. And so we have to. That's one of the things that we learned when we read the Bible critically. And let's define that term. I'm not using in the sense of criticizing or critiquing. It's to be critically minded. It's to be, you know, to step outside of our own purpose, personal agenda and to. To try and control our bias. Nobody can overcome bias, but to recognize what bias we're bringing into a text and try to wreck. Try to try to identify that critical from that sense of the expression. Well, if we think about that first story of where God creates the order is really plants. Then God creates the animals and then he creates man and woman at the same time. And that's the famous 26 and 27. Right, those verses. God said, let us create man in our image, in the image of God. He created them male and female. And there's the story Then, though, once that is concluded in Genesis chapter 2, verse 4a, a second creation story begins in the day that the Lord God made earth and the heavens, every plant of the earth before it was in the earth, and every herb of the field before it grew and so forth. Well, the first thing to note is now all of a sudden, a new name is being used for divinity. Now it's Lord, capital L, O, R, D, which is a translation of the Tetragrammaton, or the divine name Yahweh, which we render as Jehovah. And that is used. And not only is the portrayal of Jehovah, as I mentioned, very anthropomorphic, but it's. It's different than what we see in Genesis chapter one. And the order of creation is very much different. So In Genesis chapter 2, 2 instead of like we see in 1, where the order was plants, animals, man and woman, same time man is created first before anything grows, and then the plants come, and then the animals come. Because God is like, well, this. This man needs a helper. Let's make the animals for it. But none of the animals work. See, in this view, God doesn't even have a plan or an agenda. He's just kind of figuring things out. He just wants a helper, really take care of this beautiful garden. And then the animals don't work. And so then he creates the woman from the rib. And so scholars looked at these sorts of things and asked, how come? Why? And what we started to notice is that that the text that used the term Elohim versus those that used the divine name Yahweh had a lot of similar agendas and theological portrayals. And not only that, but we could start to combine them together. And once they were combined together, they read consistently and told a consistent version of creation and the rise of Abraham and the covenant community. So that led to the observation that is universally accepted by biblical scholars today, that the Book of Genesis, this is comprised of separate historical sources that have been amalgamated or edited to be together by someone we refer to as a redactor.

John Dehlin [00:34:58] Okay. And that's the documentary hypothesis.

David Bokovoy [00:35:00] Exactly.

John Dehlin [00:35:01] That they're actually. It's assumed that maybe there are four texts that were woven together by different authors or groups of authors to then. To then comprise what we have as the Pentateuch.

David Bokovoy [00:35:16] Yes.

John Dehlin [00:35:17] Which is the first five books of the Old Testament.

David Bokovoy [00:35:18] In the traditional documentary hypothesis, as articulated by Wellhausen and as believed by the majority of biblical scholars, certainly in North America and in Israel, that is the basic model. Now, that has been questioned in Recent years by European scholars who have tried to argue that, well, perhaps there aren't four documents, perhaps, you know, there are only two, and the rest are fragments that have been added or supplements to those narratives. So there is some debate in the academy as to, you know, how many sources, how do they relate to one another. But there is not a debate that we are dealing with separate historical sources that, that contradict one another and that react to one another on occasion. You certainly see that in the flood story as well.

Why Moses Didn't Write the Pentateuch

John Dehlin [00:36:10] Okay, so, so before we dig into the documentary hypothesis and the different sources, what are other, you know, for, for a skeptical, let's just say an orthodox believing Mormon, that's like no way Moses wrote the old test, the Pentateuch period. What are some other glaring problems, including what you made reference to earlier about Moses demise, that, that make it pretty much a locked case that Moses didn't write the Pentateuch.

David Bokovoy [00:36:39] Okay, well, one being that, and I mentioned this in the book, is that these, these sources we know were more composed in Hebrew. Can tell when, you know, by wordplays and puns and, and conjugations and things like that, what was the original language that something was, was composed. And even if we're dealing with all we have left is a translation. Scholars do this all the time with ancient sources that exist only in translation. We're able to then go back and identify, well, what was it, what was it originally written in? And it's a very technical process, but it's very effective as a tool. And these sources were written in Hebrew, but Hebrew did not exist as a written language at the time that Moses would have lived.

John Dehlin [00:37:23] So what year, around what century do you think Moses would have lived?

David Bokovoy [00:37:27] You know, I, you know, it's, it's difficult to say and to put any, any dates and specifics because we really do not have any historical evidence that Moses walked the face of the earth other than the fact that what you have in, in, in Genesis and, sorry, not in Genesis but in, in Exodus and then in Deuteronomy. So anyway, by the time that Moses would have existed, you know, in the 1314, somewhere around there, depending on how people want to date him with the Hyksos, who were a Semitic people that came in and conquered Egypt, Hebrew didn't exist at that time as a written language.

John Dehlin [00:38:03] So give us a rough millennia that Moses would have existed.

David Bokovoy [00:38:06] So, and I'd say, you know, well, the conquest supposedly happens around. We have a reference to the tribe of Israel and the Merneptah stele. So we're talking, you know, 1300 or

John Dehlin [00:38:20] so 1300 years before Jesus is somewhere

David Bokovoy [00:38:23] around there that would probably date Moses somewhere around that time.

John Dehlin [00:38:26] 1300 years before Jesus. BC do you call it BC? BCE BCE meaning what?

David Bokovoy [00:38:31] BCE before the common era.

John Dehlin [00:38:33] Before the Common era. Common era would be when Jesus was born.

David Bokovoy [00:38:36] Yeah. So we still use the reference to Christ which is the way westerns have. Westerners have traditionally understood human history, but scholars try to not privilege Christianity over Judaism or you know, non belief in Jesus. And so yeah, we use the terms BCE and ce the common era now to refer to what traditionally was known

John Dehlin [00:39:00] as BC or AD okay, so you're saying Hebrew didn't exist as far as we know it. 1300 BCE?

David Bokovoy [00:39:08] No, no.

John Dehlin [00:39:09] Why not?

David Bokovoy [00:39:10] Because we can document how it evolves as a written language from Canaanite scripts and we understand how this, this process took place historically. And as I document in the book, it's just, it's something that you know, and we can date, then we can tell when these sources were written based upon an internal examination of the Hebrew. My book goes into that as well. See you're again, since we're talking a thousand year time period that this material was composed, think how English has evolved over the years. I mean, if you're talking a thousand years from right now, go back a thousand years into English, you're talking Beowulf.

John Dehlin [00:39:53] We can't even understand it. No.

David Bokovoy [00:39:54] And so you know, and you can tell therefore more or less when something was written based upon the style of the English grammar. We can do that with Hebrew. We can see that and see state specific portions of it to a time period based upon its relationship to other Canaanite languages.

John Dehlin [00:40:12] So what are the earliest languages and the time periods for those earliest languages that we actually have in written form in that area of the world?

David Bokovoy [00:40:22] Well, there are other. So you know, and I. One thing I talk about in the book then, and this will connect with the book of Abraham and why, you know, one of the reasons why Abraham couldn't have writ that. I mean, if Abraham would have had a written language since he came out of Ur, which was a Sumerian city state from Mesopotamia and he. We should talk about that for a minute because BYU scholars have tried to argue that he came from the northern Syrian section up there because it connects better with the book of Abraham, but that really destroys everything that were happening. So we see happening in the Bible. I One of the things I talk about in the book is that without Babel there would be no Bible. And I didn't, I Didn't make that up by any stretch. It's a famous statement meaning that Babylon had a tremendous influence on the development of this material. Genesis 1 was clearly influenced by Enuma Elish.

Babylonian Influence and Egyptian Evidence in the Bible

John Dehlin [00:41:21] What is that?

David Bokovoy [00:41:22] Enuma Elish? It's a Babylonian story of cosmic kingship. How Marduk, the chief God of Babylon became the ultimate ruler of the universe. And it has a creation story and that has influenced Genesis chapter one.

John Dehlin [00:41:34] So the, the, the time period of Babylon was around what millennia.

David Bokovoy [00:41:38] So we're talking. Depends on which Babylon we're talking about. So writing emerges in southern sumeria in Mesopotamia, 3200 BCE.

John Dehlin [00:41:52] Okay. And that's getting close to when we think Adam and Eve walked the face of the earth.

David Bokovoy [00:41:56] So that's when writing is and that's when we really marked in the dawn of civilization. 3200 BC.

John Dehlin [00:42:01] That's before it appears in China.

David Bokovoy [00:42:03] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:42:04] Okay.

David Bokovoy [00:42:04] It appears it's the first is a cuneiform or wedge shaped writing that the Sumerians develop and then that is adopted by Semitic speaking people and it becomes the system of cuneiform that is used to write the famous code of Hammurabi which has a. Which the code of Hammurabi, as I talk about in my book, had a direct influence upon the legal formula of the covenant collection or covenant code which begins in Exodus chapter 21. The vassal treaties, the Assyrian vassal treaties that the Israelites were forced to sign and to agree to by their Assyrian conquerors and influenced the book of deuteronomy. Genesis chapter 2. The story of Adam and Eve has been influenced by traditions that we see appearing in the famous Epic of Gilgamesh from ancient Babylon. The flood stories come from Babylon, from Noah are in. Those are influenced by the Babel Mesopotamian versions. The Tower of Babel is a polemic against Babylonian ziggurat worship. I mean without this Babylonian influence, that material in the Bible would not exist.

John Dehlin [00:43:14] So you're basically saying Genesis is Babylonian fan fiction, Is that what you're saying?

David Bokovoy [00:43:20] You know, I certainly wouldn't use that term.

John Dehlin [00:43:23] It's a riff on long existing myths and stories.

David Bokovoy [00:43:28] Absolutely.

John Dehlin [00:43:29] A creation story, a story of Adam and Eve, a story of a flood. It wasn't that some dude named Moses talked to God and wrote those stories. It was that for millennia there had been handed down stories or existing on a wall somewhere, on a scroll somewhere, stories about God, stories about a creation, stories about an original woman and man who began mankind, story about a global flood and that they just get passed down and. And the Pentateuch becomes a version of those myths from originating in Babylonia, written in Hebrew. With a twist. Yes, with a modern twist, around 1800 BCE or whenever they were.

David Bokovoy [00:44:16] Good. I would use the term actualize or actualization. So in other words, you have these Israelite scribes that are being trained in cuneiform writing so. So that they can communicate with their. With their overlords, and they. They have exposure to these traditions, these actual texts, and they will take them then and put them into their own religious viewpoint and usurp the information and. And make it consistent then with their theological perspectives and an understanding of their origin. So it's. It's actualization. It's taking these things from a dominant, supreme superior culture and then using that to create their own story of origin.

John Dehlin [00:44:58] Okay, so where did the. If. If the original scrolls or manuscripts that. That. The earliest version of the Old Testament or the Pentateuch that exists. Right. If that wasn't written by Moses. Right. If it was written by these scribes, as you say.

David Bokovoy [00:45:18] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:45:18] Where did they get the idea that there ever was a Moses?

David Bokovoy [00:45:21] Oh, it's a great question, I tend. Okay. And this connects with a question that I think a lot of your listeners, I've seen this question, you know, ask them about the Exodus and, you know, what happened and things like that.

John Dehlin [00:45:38] So Egyptians don't have any. Oh, this dude named Moses came off in a little basket down the river and somebody plucked him out of the river and the pharaoh raised this dude named. There's no. Is there any Egyptian evidence for the story of Moses?

David Bokovoy [00:45:54] No, not any Egyptian evidence. Not in Egyptian.

John Dehlin [00:45:57] No.

David Bokovoy [00:45:57] No.

John Dehlin [00:45:58] Even though he. He punked the pharaoh and brought all these plagues and stole a bunch of his slaves away.

David Bokovoy [00:46:05] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:46:06] Egypt never bothered to write about that.

David Bokovoy [00:46:08] No.

John Dehlin [00:46:08] Okay.

David Bokovoy [00:46:08] No.

John Dehlin [00:46:09] And they did write about stuff, right?

David Bokovoy [00:46:10] Oh, yeah, absolutely. This is it. This is one of the. The points that people make. Now scholars will look in the text itself to try and find some evidence that perhaps it preserves an authentic memory. The very name Moses itself, without the theophoric or divine element that we see in traditional Egyptian names like Ramses, Ra almost say, you know, Moses literally in Egyptian means born of. And then you have the theophoric or divine element born of Ra, Ramses or Thutmose or Kamose or, you know, these divine elements are placed there. So there are elements that scholars have identified that tend to say, oh, maybe it's based upon some authentic memories. But in terms of Egyptian evidence, no, I'm not aware of any that would sustain the narratives. And I state that, John, in The plural, intentionally. Because there actually are multiple versions of the Exodus story that are found, not just the one that we see. See, in Exodus, we have them in the Psalms, we have other references, and they're not all internally consistent in terms of what plagues took place and the order and the sequence. So that tells us that we're probably not dealing with history as we would understand it when we are reading that material in the Bible. I believe there was a Moses. I believe there was a Moses. I do believe that the children of, that there were Israelites who were slaves in, in, in Egypt. I do believe that. It's, it seems illogical to me as an, as a student of the ancient, of ancient history to have a community make up an origin myth where our ancestors were a bunch of slaves. One of the, you know, you just wouldn't typically see that if we're going to make up an origin myth, we came from these great heroes or warriors or the gods.

John Dehlin [00:48:02] Yeah, right.

David Bokovoy [00:48:02] But to say, oh, our ancestors used to be slaves and we got out of Egypt, you know, that, that's, that's number one is historically we know that took place and just makes sense. So I'm convinced an Exodus out of Egypt took place, but I am also convinced that the versions that are found in the Hebrew Bible are not historical and that they are, you know, highly mythic portrayals of something that took place at a much smaller level and was not nearly as grandiose as the versions that we encounter in the Bible would indicate.

John Dehlin [00:48:34] Now, to be fair, there are Jewish rabbis that doubt the existence of Moses who would have been the founder of their religion.

David Bokovoy [00:48:42] Sure.

John Dehlin [00:48:43] So even though you tend to think that there are credible, wise, even Jewish scholars who would have all the incentive in the world to believe in a historical Moses who actually kind of go, I don't think there's enough evidence to really come down on that side. Is that fair to say?

David Bokovoy [00:48:58] Oh, absolutely. And I, and I.

John Dehlin [00:49:00] So it's not a foregone conclusion. No.

David Bokovoy [00:49:02] And I, and I, and that's what I, it's, it's really just based upon. And I fully acknowledge there, we do not have any evidence outside of the Bible for Moses existence. Now, that is some evidence, though it shouldn't be thrown out. I mean, that they are preserving some memories of the past, even though they certainly have been embellished.

John Dehlin [00:49:25] Okay, okay. So again, for whatever scribes we attribute to the Pentateuch and other sources about the Exodus story and Moses, are you saying that it was just handed down as oral tradition and then not Entirely.

David Bokovoy [00:49:41] There certainly are oral traditions that are used and found in the Book of Genesis, but some of it is literally. Or literally. They're literally taking earlier Babylonian, Mesopotamian sources

John Dehlin [00:49:57] that don't exist now that aren't.

David Bokovoy [00:49:59] Oh, that do exist.

John Dehlin [00:50:00] Okay.

David Bokovoy [00:50:00] And. And rewriting that to. Changing those to make their Israelite versions.

John Dehlin [00:50:06] Oh, wow. So they've tied the earliest Old Testament texts to other existing portions of them. Texts that come out of Samaria.

David Bokovoy [00:50:15] Yeah. For example, the. The Covenant Code or the.

John Dehlin [00:50:18] Those are the things you talked about.

David Bokovoy [00:50:20] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:50:21] You're saying the texts are too similar, the ideas are too similar to not make that connection.

David Bokovoy [00:50:26] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:50:27] Okay.

David Bokovoy [00:50:27] And I provide lots of evidence for that in the book.

John Dehlin [00:50:30] And what do you call that? That's. Is that plagiarism? Is that pseudepigrapha? Is that just, like I said, fanfiction?

David Bokovoy [00:50:36] Actualization?

John Dehlin [00:50:37] And again, what does that term mean?

David Bokovoy [00:50:38] That means that they are actualizing. They're taking something that existed in a previous source or material and making it relevant for their own religious understandings.

John Dehlin [00:50:47] You said that before, but now.

David Bokovoy [00:50:49] And see, that ties into. And that's what Joseph Smith is doing.

John Dehlin [00:50:52] Right?

David Bokovoy [00:50:53] That's exactly.

John Dehlin [00:50:54] Is that all scripture?

David Bokovoy [00:50:55] Yeah, that's what Joseph Smith is doing. He's. It's the same process that we see happening in the Hebrew Bible, in the New Testament, in the Jewish, you know, the writings of Josephus, the Jewish historian. It's taking these. These sacred sources and actualizing them, making them relevant for their contemporary religious community. That is the production of Scripture.

John Dehlin [00:51:15] Okay, I'm getting it. Okay, so. So thank you for your patience. Now.

David Bokovoy [00:51:21] You're great.

Ancient Manuscripts and the Dead Sea Scrolls

John Dehlin [00:51:21] So, okay, so where are the earliest manuscripts that make up, you know, the Pentateuch? Are they sitting in a museum somewhere? What are they called? Where are they?

David Bokovoy [00:51:35] Our earliest manuscripts will be the Dead Sea Scrolls. And that's why that material is so important to us, because that gives us our earliest versions on record. But unfortunately.

John Dehlin [00:51:45] So these were found where and when?

David Bokovoy [00:51:47] In the Dead Sea scroll region in the hills of Judea. You know the famous story about the little shepherd boy. Boy who threw up A. The 1940s. Threw up a rock and it. He hurts the shattering of pottery and went up and there were all of

John Dehlin [00:52:03] these scrolls that were in the, what, 40s, 1940s. 1940s, yeah.

David Bokovoy [00:52:07] I'm trying to remember the exact.

John Dehlin [00:52:09] We've had Bibles. We've had Bibles for a couple millennia.

David Bokovoy [00:52:11] Oh, sure.

John Dehlin [00:52:12] But you're just saying this is the earliest known text ever discovered.

David Bokovoy [00:52:17] Of that. Of that. Yes, of that material. And they, and we should note that they even that material is not a Bible. The concept of a book, you know, bringing all this material together and putting it in a book, that is a medieval notion or creation of bringing things together like that.

John Dehlin [00:52:37] So you're saying Lehi didn't have a triple combination in 600 B.C.

David Bokovoy [00:52:41] no. And it is even more difficult for the Book of Mormon, unfortunately, because. Or challenging through for traditional understandings or perceptions because not only with the Pentateuch, those five books have to exist as a bound book, but they'd have to be bound with the other material, including Isaiah, which we discussed in the previous podcast, beginning with chapter 40. That material hadn't even been written yet.

John Dehlin [00:53:08] And we'll come back to that. But just this idea that there was no Old Testament pre Jesus and the Jews were, you know, we know there were Jews hundreds of years before Jesus. Individual scrolls, they weren't walking around with their version of the Old Testament or their right.

David Bokovoy [00:53:23] Not. Okay, it's a little bit more complicated than that. But going back to then, the Book of Mormon, that material, not only did that material not exist, but it would have had to have been translated according to the Book of Mormon into Egyptian, remember, because it's written on, you know, the plates of brass in Egyptian.

John Dehlin [00:53:43] And we'll, we'll come back to the

David Bokovoy [00:53:44] book and it's like. And, but that's, but I'm just saying. Is that. So not only would that material for the Book of Mormon's traditional assumption have to exist, but a translation of it would have to exist into Egyptian. And as a historian, I just can't, I can't find any way that that would.

John Dehlin [00:54:00] Right.

David Bokovoy [00:54:00] Mesh with the data. It's just, it's just, it's, it presents a significant challenge.

John Dehlin [00:54:05] And just, and again, from a Mormon point of view, we're like, okay, Genesis was written and then when Exodus was written, they were combined and they'd walk around with their little two books and then three books and then four or scrolls. Basically. You're just challenging this idea that.

David Bokovoy [00:54:20] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:54:20] That, that, that scripture in an ancient way sort of was managed and used as we would use it today with our quad.

David Bokovoy [00:54:30] Yeah, I mean we will see, see translations of that sacred material and it put together. But that'll be part of the Septuagint, which is a, which is a Greek translation done in Alexandria, Egypt, you know, a couple centuries before Jesus is born.

John Dehlin [00:54:45] Okay. So it's not a couple hundred years before Jesus that we start to see this notion of, of a book.

David Bokovoy [00:54:51] Yeah. And translation too.

John Dehlin [00:54:54] Okay.

David Bokovoy [00:54:54] Into a. Into a language other than Hebrew or Aramaic. The case might be.

John Dehlin [00:54:58] Okay, so the Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered in the mid-1900s. And what are they?

David Bokovoy [00:55:07] They're compilation of the combination of different sources. Some of it is the own writings of the Essene community that exist there at Qumran and how, you know, their own sectarian viewpoints and perspectives, which are very important for scholars to understand. Jesus. Jesus and the Judaisms that existed during his time period. And as I mentioned, some of them are. They're biblical materials. All of the biblical books have been found there with the exception of the book of Esther. For some reason, they didn't like Esther.

John Dehlin [00:55:41] Now you're talking Old and New Testament.

David Bokovoy [00:55:43] No, I'm just talking Old Testament.

John Dehlin [00:55:44] Old Testament. Okay.

David Bokovoy [00:55:45] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:55:45] So there's something like a Genesis in the Dead Sea Scrolls. Something like an Exodus, Leviticus. And do they have a title? They're written in what language? Hebrew languages.

David Bokovoy [00:55:55] Hebrew.

John Dehlin [00:55:56] Okay. They're all in Hebrew. Now how did we have. When did the. When did the King James Bible come on the scene?

David Bokovoy [00:56:02] 1600s. Right.

John Dehlin [00:56:03] Okay. How did we get a King James Bible when the Dead Sea Scrolls hadn't been discovered yet?

David Bokovoy [00:56:08] Because manuscripts. It included an Old Testament of copies. So there's okay, copies of copies of copies of copies. Copies had been preserved. And so that was prior to the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls. That was a criticism that people raised. It's like, how accurate is this information system? All we have are copies of copies of copies of copies. And it turns out. And that ties into what we were talking about in terms of lower criticism. The Dead Sea Scrolls have been very important for lower criticism, trying to understand how a text existed in its original form. And some of those are really exciting discoveries. One of my favorites is Deuteronomy 32. For quite some time, scholars viewed some of the passages that were there as. That have. As with a reference to God creating the world and organizing humanity according to the number of the children of Israel. The children of Israel. And scholars started. They're like, wow, that doesn't make sense. I bet a later scribe changed that. It probably said something like the sons of God, meaning the divine beings, as if they're multiple gods. And yet a later Jewish redactor was. Or editor was kind of like, that doesn't seem to work theologically with monotheism. So let's change it. And that was kind of speculated. And then when the Dead Sea Scrolls were found in the earliest version of Deuteronomy was uncovered. Sure enough, it sustained the scholarly hypothesis and that earliest version doesn't refer to the children of Israel, but refers to the. The gods of the universe.

John Dehlin [00:57:36] Okay.

David Bokovoy [00:57:37] It's a cool. So that's kind of an idea of lower criticism and how it is important.

John Dehlin [00:57:42] Okay, so the Dead Sea Scrolls are the earliest versions that we have that we have of the Pentateuch and the books that follow.

David Bokovoy [00:57:50] And those are copies of copies as well, though.

John Dehlin [00:57:53] But. But we. We date them to about what time?

David Bokovoy [00:57:56] Oh, it varies, but, you know, a couple. It depends upon the particular source. But you. You know, generally speaking, a couple hundred years before Christ.

John Dehlin [00:58:04] Okay, so that's. That's pretty good.

David Bokovoy [00:58:06] Pretty good. Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:58:08] But still probably a thousand years after.

David Bokovoy [00:58:11] Yeah, I mean, the material varies, different days.

John Dehlin [00:58:15] Okay, so. So all right, so let's jump now into the documentary hypothesis, then, and talk a little bit more in depth about it. So we've got these Dead Sea scrolls, and as you read them, let's go back to this idea that there are different voices or different strains. And let's talk about P, J, E and D and how they relate, because these scrolls. Do we know who wrote the Dead Sea Scrolls? Is there, you know, is there someone's name at the bottom that says, I wrote these? Are they multiple scrolls, like in a library? What are they?

David Bokovoy [00:58:46] Well, I mean, some of them, they can be multiple scrolls, but that's one of the reasons scrolls are hard to work with. So one of the reasons why some of the biblical books are divided up into, like, First Chronicles, Second Chronicles, or First Kings, Second Kings is because they were written on scrolls. And a scroll eventually becomes so big and wieldy that it, you know, you cannot longer use it and function. So they would split up biblical books into separate scrolls. And that's why you have First Kings, Second Kings, First Chronicles, Second Chronicles.

John Dehlin [00:59:18] Okay, so basically, each book that we think about is its own scroll. There's a Genesis scroll, there's an Exodus

David Bokovoy [00:59:24] scroll existed like that.

John Dehlin [00:59:25] There's a Leviticus scroll.

David Bokovoy [00:59:26] There would have been in history. Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:59:28] Okay. But in the Dead Sea Scrolls, not necessarily.

David Bokovoy [00:59:31] Well, yeah, no, the Dead Sea Scrolls have that material too.

John Dehlin [00:59:33] As scrolls, as. As individual scrolls.

David Bokovoy [00:59:35] Yeah.

John Dehlin [00:59:36] Okay. Okay.

David Bokovoy [00:59:37] Sorry, I didn't understand that.

John Dehlin [00:59:38] No. Okay, cool. No, that's good. So, okay, so as, as. As. As scholars are looking at those scrolls, tell us how the documentary hypothesis emerges and what the main authors are for the Pentateuch.

The Four Sources of the Pentateuch Explained

David Bokovoy [00:59:55] Okay. The documentary hypothesis emerges not from the scrolls, but actually just from the biblical books themselves. So there isn't any archaeological evidence to sustain or support the documentary hypothesis, but because it's not an archaeological issue. Instead, it is a. It's a literary issue, a literary historical issue that makes sense of the inconsistencies and discrepancies and repetitions that we encounter when reading the first five books. So that first creation narrative is associated with the priestly material in the Pentateuch. And scholars will use the. The term P than to describe that Genesis 1 source.

John Dehlin [01:00:40] And so priestly material would be characterized as what?

David Bokovoy [01:00:43] Well, the theological view of God is that God is transcendent and that he has an absolute plan in mind. But also the priestly view is really concerned with. Well, I can show you this. Maybe we should just jump to the flood narrative itself. I'll turn over here. So the flood story of Jonah, or, sorry, of Noah, you know, he's mentioned in chapter five, and then it starts in. In chapter six and the story is told. And if I move, then I'll just move to chapter seven in the King James. And we read, the Lord said unto Noah, come thou and all thy house into the ark. For thee have I seen righteous before me in this generation. Then verse two. Of every clean beast thou shalt take to the by sevens, the male and the female, and of beast and are not clean by two, the male and his female, and also fouls. So according to the account right here, how many types of animals did Noah bring into the. Into the ark? Did we catch that?

John Dehlin [01:02:00] No.

David Bokovoy [01:02:00] Every clean beast thou shalt take to the seven.

John Dehlin [01:02:04] I got seven, but.

David Bokovoy [01:02:05] And the unclean two. Okay, clean means that is something that you could offer as a ritual sacrifice. Okay, so the reason, according to this account, why does he need to bring

John Dehlin [01:02:16] seven of the clean to do the priestly stuff? So he doesn't sacrifice.

David Bokovoy [01:02:19] Exactly. He doesn't excuse. Distinguish a species.

John Dehlin [01:02:21] So two of everything that is not

David Bokovoy [01:02:23] clean, you can't offer sacrifice.

John Dehlin [01:02:25] But seven of the clean. So they could do their religious rituals on the ark.

David Bokovoy [01:02:29] And that's exactly what he does at the end. He offers a sacrifice at the end.

John Dehlin [01:02:32] And a priest would care about that.

David Bokovoy [01:02:34] You would think. You would think. But no, actually, let me say it right. A priest would care deeply about this, which is why if we jump into is we. If we jump later on in the account, what's going to happen here is if we notice then verse seven. Same. I'm in still in chapter seven, verse seven. Now, Noah went in and his sons and his wife. So he goes into the ark, right? And because the waters of the flood had come, verse 8. And of clean beast and of beasts that are not Clean and of fowls and of everything that cross creepeth upon the earth. There were, there went in two and two unto Noah into the ark, the male and the female, as God had commanded.

John Dehlin [01:03:20] So there's no more seven for the clean beast.

David Bokovoy [01:03:22] Exactly. Okay, there's an inconsistency. Did he take two or did he

John Dehlin [01:03:26] take two and seven or two? Exactly. Okay.

David Bokovoy [01:03:29] All right. Well, it actually makes perfect sense when you start to combine the sources together and think about the theological concerns that draw drive the creation of the. Of the document. So yes, John, priests were deeply concerned with sacrifices. One of the things that happens in P is that Aaron in the story of the Exodus is elevated constantly. It's never just Moses did this and Aaron did this. And Aaron is the spokesman because the priest traced their power through Aaron.

John Dehlin [01:04:01] Aaronic priesthood, Aaronic priest, He was Moses's sidekick. Yeah, right.

David Bokovoy [01:04:05] So they elevate him in that material. But the one thing that the priests want to make sure happens is that sacrifice never transpires in Israel's past until that priesthood is given to Aaron and his descendants. So the priestly author knew that earlier tradition that I quoted at the beginning of Genesis where Yahweh, the Lord, notice it's an E in a different divine name, tells him, go and bring seven of the clean, the ritually fit animals for sacrifice and offer sacrifices there. A priest read that and said, no, no, it could not. He didn't have the priesthood. So that's why they react to this and they specify. And they don't just say he brought two of every animal. They're like, no, no, no, he brought two of every beast, two of the clean and two of the unclean. Because they want to counter that viewpoint, because they want sacrifices only to be associated with their priestly authority. And so those are the types of things that the documentary hypothesis help us to identify and make sense of as we read through this material Critically.

John Dehlin [01:05:12] So the 2 and the 7, the earlier verses would have been P. So

David Bokovoy [01:05:16] the earlier one would have been J. Because according to Jehovah, the Yahwistic source, or Jesus, Jehovah, the Lord term that is used there, sacrifices began early in human history. In fact, that's J source is going to have the story of, of, of. Of Cain and Abel and how they offer sacrifices and offerings to God and how they call upon the name Yahweh and Jehovah and how they do this. And so from A J's perspective, their Jay's concerned with ritual and purity and sacrifice and things like that as well. Well, but sacrifice takes place early in Israelite history from a priestly perspective, you know, you're in P if there's no sacrifice happening until that priesthood is given to Aaron and his descendants.

John Dehlin [01:06:02] Okay, so the later the 2, 2 and the 2, that was P. Yes. Okay, so now you just gave us an example of J, the yistic source, and P, the priestly source.

David Bokovoy [01:06:13] Yes.

John Dehlin [01:06:14] Okay. All right, so that's. Those are examples of P and J. Tell us about E and D. Okay,

David Bokovoy [01:06:22] so E is the most controversial source. I'm convinced that E is an independent documentary tradition. Some wonder if it's maybe just fragments and things like that. It didn't exist. But I think, in fact, I, based upon a lot of evidence, I think E is, from my perspective, is the earliest of the material. And that really begins in Genesis chapter 15 with the story of Abraham. And so E does not include the creation story. It doesn't have anything about Noah or about, you know, anything up until the time you get to the actual Israelite story. And scholars will actually link that with the priestly source that appears in Numbers 23, Verse 9. And in Numbers 23, Verse 9, I won't turn to it, but it's states in essence that the children of Israel are to be counted and to understood and the, you know, above and set apart then from all other nations. And that's. It tends to explain why their focus is really not in anything that is just not specifically Israelite. Any of that pre Israelite material is not found there. And that E source then begins in Genesis chapter 15. Another interesting thing about E is that God, when he typically appears, appears in dreams in the Eloistic tradition. And Genesis chapter 22, the famous story of the Aeda, the binding of Isaac upon the altar, is part of that E strand. So Genesis 22 begins and Abraham, God calls Abraham and says, abraham, take now thy son, thine only son Isaac, whom thou lovest, and get thee into a mountain and offer him as offering, I'm on the mountains, I will show thee. Well, how did God appear? Some people kind of wonder that. I mean, did God was a physical manifestation, like sacred grove experience? Was it, you know, were they walking along and talking and having this conversation? The text is silent. But because that story is presented in the Eloist source, in the E source, based upon the pattern, we'd have to assume that it was a dream that God appeared to him, whereas he typically does. And in divine manifestations in that narrative, in that tradition comes in the context of a dream and tells him to sacrifice Isaac. So that's a little bit about E.

John Dehlin [01:08:36] Okay, so what I wrote down in my notes, E refers to God as Elohim. Focuses on Israel as a people.

David Bokovoy [01:08:44] Yep.

John Dehlin [01:08:45] Focuses on the north.

David Bokovoy [01:08:46] Yes, it stems from the north and its, its origins.

John Dehlin [01:08:49] North of what?

David Bokovoy [01:08:50] North, Sorry, that. Remember, if you remember your biblical history, there's a northern kingdom of Israel and a southern kingdom of Judah and the

John Dehlin [01:08:57] northern kingdom, northern 10 tribes. And then the southern two tribes were

David Bokovoy [01:09:00] destroyed in 721 BCE by the Assyrians. Well, prior to that destruction, the north was much more powerful and much more. It was much, much stronger than the south. And they are the ones that have the scribal traditions that really kind of start the process going with the creation of the Eloist tradition from my perspective. And then that's taken down into the south by some of the escapees from that monumental crisis. And then they tend to produce the narratives and. And the books, as they will appear, are then produced in the southern kingdom of Judah.

John Dehlin [01:09:35] So at some point Israel had a schism where there was a northern and a southern. And the northern ended up getting carried away or defeated by the Assyrians. By the Assyrians.

David Bokovoy [01:09:45] Become the lost 10.

John Dehlin [01:09:46] Which were the lost 10 tribes. They probably just got killed or assimilated, right?

David Bokovoy [01:09:49] Precisely.

John Dehlin [01:09:50] They're not in the northern ice caps, the polar ice caps. Like I was taught in seminary or taken on to space to a different. They were just, I've heard, assimilated.

David Bokovoy [01:10:01] I've heard all those growing up. And yeah, they were just, they just assimilated into the, into the local population

John Dehlin [01:10:09] and they referred to God as Elohim. They lived more in the North, Northern 10 tribes. And like you said, they focus on prophecy, on dreams and visions and indirect communication with God.

David Bokovoy [01:10:20] Yes.

John Dehlin [01:10:21] So you know that if prophet is not like, hey, God, give me a ham sandwich, not a direct communication, then you have a good clue that that might be E that's speaking.

David Bokovoy [01:10:32] Exactly.

John Dehlin [01:10:33] Is that right?

David Bokovoy [01:10:34] As opposed to what we saw in the J source, which. Which includes the story of Adam and Eve where God talks to them, walks in the cool of the day. And in the J version of the flood narrative, God himself will literally shut the door of the ark after Noah and his family enter into the boat.

John Dehlin [01:10:49] So in the J Source, God's a dude.

David Bokovoy [01:10:51] He is absolutely an anthropomorphic duke. Yeah, very much so.

John Dehlin [01:10:56] And that's important, right, for Mormons. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Yeah. But E is a less personal God, a non anthropomorphic God.

David Bokovoy [01:11:04] Exactly.

John Dehlin [01:11:04] Now something that bringing my Mormonism in for A second. I remember reading that, first of all, Elohim is like, oh, don't use that word. That's the name we give God in the temple. God the Father in the temple. But it's not some Mormon sacred temple word, although it's in the temple narrative. Elohim comes from the Old Testament, just like Jehovah does.

David Bokovoy [01:11:25] Yeah, yeah. In fact, it's a fun word because it's actually an abstract concretized plural verb, noun. Sorry.

John Dehlin [01:11:34] In other words, God's not God exactly.

David Bokovoy [01:11:36] The E on Hebrew nouns is like adding an S or an es in English. The actual base to it is Eloah, which is a direct Hebrew cognate with the Arabic and also a Semitic word, Allah. So, yeah, it's. That's. Yeah. And it creates some confusion. Confusion for some text. Most of the text we can tell. And this is interesting. So for example, if you go to Genesis chapter one, which is P, and it uses Elohim God. Joseph Smith plays with that a lot. And Joseph Smith, you know, in his Nauvoo sermons, he's like, you know, I. Oh, he says, I asked. Oh, he says, I. It's terrible, I think, but, you know, you understand, it's 18 19th century language. He said, I asked some old Jewish Jew, why not render the noun Elohim gods in the plural there? And he said, oh, that would ruin the whole Bible. I'm sure you remember that discussion for Joseph Smith. Well, wish I could have had that conversation with Joseph and just explained.

John Dehlin [01:12:38] What would you have told Joseph?

David Bokovoy [01:12:39] I would have been like. I would have been like Joseph. No, no, it's actually you can tell because of the grammatical constituents that surround it. So in other words, because the. The verb is create is third person masculine singular, bara, you'd know it's not a plural verb or the adjectives that surround it. And so we can almost always tell in the Bible whether the author wanted to use gods like thou shalt have no other gods before me in the Ten Commandments, or whether he meant God singular, but was using that abstract concretized plural form like divinity or godhood or something like that as a. As a proper name. So you can almost tell. There are some cases where you cannot tell. And one of the most interesting ones, I think is in fact Genesis 1:26 27, where God says, let us notice he's speaking in the plural there. To his divine counsel, Let us make man in our image after our likeness. And then it says, and in the image of Elohim, he created them male

John Dehlin [01:13:37] and female yeah, that makes you think God's up there talking to somebody. Right.

David Bokovoy [01:13:40] And he was, he was from an ancient Israelite perspective. He has a divine council of other gods and goddesses and he converses with them. And in that everyone translates it as the good King James Bible does. In the image of God, he created them male and female, but in reality it's the image of Elohim. In the image of gods, he created them male and female. Female. It could be rendered either way. And the, and I argue, and actually my dissertation, that you have to take it as gods, meaning that he created the male in, in his image in the image of masculine gods and the female in the image of. Of female gods.

John Dehlin [01:14:19] So ancient Jews believed in male and female divinity.

David Bokovoy [01:14:22] Absolutely.

John Dehlin [01:14:23] That's kind of cool.

David Bokovoy [01:14:24] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:14:25] So that didn't originate from Joseph?

David Bokovoy [01:14:26] No, no.

John Dehlin [01:14:28] I mean, a mother in heaven, basically.

David Bokovoy [01:14:29] No, absolutely not. I mean, they're just. I just. Joseph Smith's ability to capture ancient theological constructs and produce scripture is incredible. I mean, it just. And I've written extensively about it and I hope to do so in the future because. And it's just, it's, it's just really amazing what he was able to do and what he was able to see and accomplish. That doesn't mean, that doesn't prove that it's historical. It doesn't prove that it's inspired even. But the fact is he was astute. He was very astute and in his understanding of scripture, a theological genius.

John Dehlin [01:15:04] And he was trying to read Hebrew. Right? He's trying to study this stuff. Yeah, like much more than the average Mormon. Like he was taking the text seriously.

David Bokovoy [01:15:11] Oh yeah. His statements about studying with Joshua Statius, how he says in one quote, my soul delighteth in learning to read the word of God and its original language. And I hope that God will open up our hearts so we can learn all languages and things like that. Joseph Smith really was fascinated by the ancient world and he tried to incorporate that into his theology and in his scripture. And he did so in some remarkable, extraordinary ways.

John Dehlin [01:15:39] Okay, really quickly, I remember my Mormonism being taught that. Well, is it Elohim or is it Jehovah? It's both. It's Elohim is God the Father and Jehovah is Jesus in his pre incarnated form as God's right hand man, so to speak, and his son.

David Bokovoy [01:15:58] Yes.

John Dehlin [01:15:58] Is there any backing for that in the Old Testament? Does that make sense?

David Bokovoy [01:16:03] No, no, it doesn't. We cannot apply that to the Old Testament.

John Dehlin [01:16:08] Why not?

David Bokovoy [01:16:09] How do you Know, because Latter Day Saints really first start to formulate that. Well, the first time that viewpoint is really canonized that Elohim is God the Father and Jehovah is the premortal Jesus is in 1915, by the first presidency of the church, first presidency of the Church will issue an official declaration and say we designate the term Elohim as a reference to God the Father and Jehovah. Premortal Jesus.

John Dehlin [01:16:35] But didn't the temple ceremony pre1910 or whatever? It did use that Temple Jehovah, Michael, blah, blah, blah.

David Bokovoy [01:16:41] There were other changes to too. I mean, with Adam and you know, bail ceremony and you know, which one is which God becomes very confusing when we get back into Mormon history, which actually ties into the fact that there are. Well, in the Kirtland prayer and the Doctrine and Covenants for the dedication of the Temple, Joseph Smith uses the term Jehovah clearly in reference to God the Father. So the way I look at it is 1915. Really. That's when the first presidency of the Church comes out and states, all right, let's get on board. Let's all be consistent now and use the same terminology. To avoid some of the confusion that we've had in the past, we have early LDS hymns that use Jehovah for God the Father, the Adam God stuff gets even more messy. So in 1915, that really then is kind of canonized in the sense of let's all use the same type of terminology so that we aren't confused and that's what happens there. But we cannot retroactively go back and apply that to Joseph Smith's revelations, let alone back into the Hebrew Bible and think, okay, it's, it's Jehovah or the Lord, therefore this means Jesus. You can't do that. It's just not. It's. That's anachronistic.

John Dehlin [01:17:52] And I'm going to be repeating my question and I may be asking you something you don't know, but I just want to get really clear on this. In the Mormon Temple ceremony, there's Elohim speaking and he's saying Jehovah, Michael, let's go down, you know, and let's. Let's organize the earth. And he's clearly, it's Elohim speaking to Jehovah, the underling. Was that structure in the Mormon temple ceremony pre 1900s?

David Bokovoy [01:18:16] Yes.

John Dehlin [01:18:17] So there was a differentiation between Elohim and Jehovah.

David Bokovoy [01:18:22] Yes.

John Dehlin [01:18:22] You're just saying it was never specified who Jehovah Jehovah was.

David Bokovoy [01:18:27] It was in the 1800s universal universally in LDS hymns, in LDS writings, in prophetic discourse until that time period.

John Dehlin [01:18:38] And you're saying even Joseph Smith's, who he attributed the term Elohim or Jehovah to, you're saying it changed for Joseph Smith over his lifetime or was not consistent?

David Bokovoy [01:18:48] Well, those terms are used interchangeably for God in, in the Hebrew Bible, and they're used interchangeably in Joseph's writings and Eliot's discourse prior to that point of 1915. And it's at that point then when you start to see really consistency is all I'm saying with that. But the name Yahweh or Jehovah is actually a third person masculine singular inflected form of the Hebrew root Hawa or to be. And third person masculine singular meaning that is he is. And it's vocalized with an ae vowel pattern. Sorry to be technical, but it's very ae vowel pattern which creates a. Which is a he, verbal conjugation that makes it causative and nuanced. So it's probably not so much he is as much as he causes to be. He causes.

John Dehlin [01:19:37] It's a prime mover. It's a moving force that they've given a masculine.

David Bokovoy [01:19:41] Sure. So for lack pronouns like creator is what it means. So I mean, even theologically for Latter Day Saints, would it be acceptable to call God the Father the Creator from an orthodox Latter Day perspective? Of course, because he's the architect of the plan. It's his plan, and Jesus is the Creator underneath Him, and he's the Creator of our spirits. So Jehovah's perfectly fine theologically to use for God the Father from that perspective, as would Elohim be. So I just.

John Dehlin [01:20:10] Yeah, okay. All right. So we've talked about P, we've talked about J, and we've talked about E. And, and those are for. For you and for pretty much all biblical scholars, very clear voices running through the Pentateuch and the Old Testament. Let's talk about D. Cool.

Deuteronomy, Leviticus, and Textual Doublets

David Bokovoy [01:20:28] So D actually is Deuteronomy, and it is that fifth and final book of the Pentateuch. And it is remarkably distinct from what we see happening in other places theologically. I like to oh, what I do in the book. They're author in the Old Testament, I jump in and I try to show the altar laws. So for example, you have altar laws in Exodus, chapter 20, verse 24, where it says, you know, every place that the Lord God places His name, you may offer a sacrifice to in essence. Right. And then in Deuteronomy it tells you takes that it takes that tradition which is earlier and changes it in chapter 12, verses 13 through 14. And it says every place where you cannot offer a sacrifice. Every place. But it has to be the place that God has chosen, which is Jerusalem.

John Dehlin [01:21:17] So Deuteronomy is contradicting previous books.

David Bokovoy [01:21:20] Precisely.

John Dehlin [01:21:20] Very clearly.

David Bokovoy [01:21:21] Very absolutely revising that. So that you. Now then when you read those earlier sources, you'll think about Deuteronomy's agenda, which was the centralization of ritual sacrifice in Jerusalem at the temple there.

John Dehlin [01:21:37] It's kind of Israeli correlation.

David Bokovoy [01:21:39] Yeah, exactly. That's exactly. I love it. Yeah, sure.

John Dehlin [01:21:43] They're basically saying, let's systematize this and corporatize it in a solid structure, integrated, centralized.

David Bokovoy [01:21:50] And that's the book of Deuteronomy.

John Dehlin [01:21:52] Okay. And, and I have here, it's Moses, last speech. It talks about the rise of Israel. There's little narrative or story, lots of sermons. Again, it's very northern. It has prophecy. God has no physical body and God can't be seen in physical form. That's what I wrote in my notes about. Excellent. Is that right?

David Bokovoy [01:22:15] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:22:15] Okay.

David Bokovoy [01:22:16] Yep.

John Dehlin [01:22:17] And so those are the four. That's the documentary hypothesis.

David Bokovoy [01:22:21] Yeah, the traditional model of it.

John Dehlin [01:22:24] And there's a really good graph on page 71 of this book by Greg Coford, authoring the Old Testament by David Bachavoy. 71. It's got the four columns with the four authors and sort of how things are similar and different across various dimensions. It's a very useful graph.

David Bokovoy [01:22:43] Good. Yeah, thank you.

John Dehlin [01:22:45] Okay, so what else is worth talking about in the Old Testament? I, I talk, I've got in here.

David Bokovoy [01:22:53] Everything is worth talking about in this test.

John Dehlin [01:22:55] I've got anachronisms, doublets, redundancies, discrepancies. There's a really cool thing about slavery and how the rules for slaves change. If you were to kind of give some just final, you know, elements of important or interesting higher criticism as it applies to the Old Testament. What would you mention?

David Bokovoy [01:23:16] Let's. I think we covered the Pentateuch really well. I would, I would say that then it also has implications for other books. We've talked a lot about Isaiah and we should put a link, I think I did a, a two part essay in response to an apologetic piece that was published denying the legitimacy of deutero or second Isaiah as a, as a, as something that's happening in the text. And I responded to that and it laid it out for a general audience why apologists, when they try to make that argument, are just unfortunately missing all of the evidence that is out there. And we put a link to that, maybe to our readers. It was rational faith. I think I did that.

John Dehlin [01:23:56] So I guess it suffices to say, buy this book because this book and read it because this book highlights, you know, we care about anachronisms in the Book of Mormon, we care about redundancies and discrepancies in the New Testament. The Old Testament's got it too. Give the example of slavery and some of the, some of the varying.

David Bokovoy [01:24:16] So I, Yeah, so that's one of the things. And I mentioned this. I had to throw that in there right in the beginning of the book because as I mentioned in our previous discussion, I went in to study at Brandeis and I said, I'll never buy into the documentary hypothesis.

John Dehlin [01:24:33] Right, Famous last words.

David Bokovoy [01:24:34] Yes, exactly. And then I. My very first class that I sat in was a course on ancient Near Eastern and biblical laws. And we were, we just lined up the different slave laws that appear in the Pentateuch and compared and contrasted them. And we could, I could see that if you just. It was the first time I ever looked critically and carefully at that material, that there were major interviews, there are major discrepancies and that. And it couldn't have been written by a single author. It just. The light bulb went off on my, in my mind and I realized that means that these are separate historical traditions that are found there. And once I allowed for that and was only a couple of weeks in, that just opened up my whole world where I realized, well, if I'm going to allow for separate historical, historical sources, and that's the only way to make sense of the inconsistencies found in slave laws and how they're addressed, not to mention other laws.

John Dehlin [01:25:26] So what are some slave discrepancies?

David Bokovoy [01:25:28] So, for example, are we talking how many years that a slave can be held in bondage versus then when the slave is freed, this. How, how does it compare to a, A, a daughter versus a son? These sorts of things are set up and lined up differently so that you could not, you could not govern a society when it comes down to, based upon those inconsistencies and discrepancies which are reacting to one another, which is the way that I think most people have traditionally looked at that material, that these were the laws that were set up by God to govern our, our political existence.

John Dehlin [01:26:06] So like in one version, you can keep a slave for what, seven years and then you have to set them free.

David Bokovoy [01:26:12] Yes.

John Dehlin [01:26:13] And you do or you don't compensate them.

David Bokovoy [01:26:15] Yes.

John Dehlin [01:26:15] That was the first.

David Bokovoy [01:26:16] Yep.

John Dehlin [01:26:17] Which one? You do or you don't?

David Bokovoy [01:26:18] That. You don't.

John Dehlin [01:26:19] You don't. So it's seven years, you don't compensate them. And what happens to their spouse and

David Bokovoy [01:26:23] kids that then they go free.

John Dehlin [01:26:26] Okay, that's the. That's, let's say version one.

David Bokovoy [01:26:28] Yeah. And then another they will not go for.

John Dehlin [01:26:31] Is it still seven years? Other version.

David Bokovoy [01:26:33] Yeah. I'd have to look at them, see which ones we were looking at. But there are lots of discrepancies like that. Do you. Different years, you let a daughter, One of them will say you. The daughter has to go out free. Another one will say, the daughter cannot go out free. She has to stay there and remain the property of her new owner. I mean, they're just.

John Dehlin [01:26:48] And in one version you compensate them when you let them go, but in another one, you don't compensate them and their kids are yours versus they're not. And it's. It's just clear discrepancies. Yeah.

David Bokovoy [01:26:57] And it's been a little while since I've looked at it.

John Dehlin [01:26:58] That's okay. What's a doublet? Tell us what a doublet is.

David Bokovoy [01:27:00] So doublet is like when there are two different versions of a story for two different versions, for example, how Jacob got his name changed to Israel. Two different versions about, you know, about. About taking. About Moses taking water out of a. Out of a rock.

John Dehlin [01:27:17] You know, and they have different details. So it's the same story told in two different ways.

David Bokovoy [01:27:22] Exactly. And so.

John Dehlin [01:27:24] And you're saying the creation narrative is another example.

David Bokovoy [01:27:26] Exactly. And we'd expect a little bit of that, perhaps maybe a different focus or something. But when it keeps happening over and over again and the, and the. And the inconsistency consistencies are consistent within that documentary strand, it provides really compelling evidence that makes sense that we are dealing with separate historical traditions.

John Dehlin [01:27:46] So redundancies suggest multiple authors. These doublets that are consistent in the differences of details represents multiple, you know, provides evidence for the documentary hypothesis.

David Bokovoy [01:27:59] Exactly.

Anachronisms and Problems in the Old Testament

John Dehlin [01:28:00] Talk about anachronism. You wouldn't really think. You think we all, you know, progressive post Mormons, we think about anachronisms all the time in the Book of Mormon.

David Bokovoy [01:28:09] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:28:10] Do. How does the Old Testament have anachronisms?

David Bokovoy [01:28:12] Oh, sure, yeah. Tons of them. One of the most famous ones that scholars refer to is Abraham's wealth. And you know that he has camels. That's one that scholars will refer to. And there's. It's debated. People try to argue that, oh, Abraham lived during a time Period when the camel was domesticated. But the general consensus is that Abraham would have lived in a time period without that or reference to the Armenians or different groups of people that we know did not exist during that time period, but are found mentioned there or references then looking back and saying, you know, this happened when the Canaanites did this or that, you know, showing that it's out of time period, that it would historically would not have been written by somebody during Moses era.

John Dehlin [01:28:55] Yeah. Something that you write that's really interesting is how the chronology and changes that are made follow this pattern of the writings written later, often incorporating what was known before, but then making the change. And so the later change always shows an understanding of the earlier writing. Yes, Talk, talk about that really quick and why that's important.

David Bokovoy [01:29:23] That shows that, that some of this material was already deemed sacred scripture in the Judean community. And therefore later scribes who want. They couldn't just throw out that older sources. It was easier than to just change the way that people read those sources by giving it a new lens. And that especially happens in Deuteronomy. As I point out in the book,

John Dehlin [01:29:48] as they're trying to correlate Jewish religious practice, they know that they've got these old documents that they have to deal with that may contradict the way that things are done at the time of Deuteronomy. So they want to sort of massage them and append things to them to try and be consistent with previous scripture, but then make the change so that it doesn't look like they're making it up as they go along.

David Bokovoy [01:30:12] Exactly. Yeah. That happens a lot.

John Dehlin [01:30:15] It happens in Mormonism today.

David Bokovoy [01:30:16] Exactly. I don't know. That's a very good point. And that's why in the book and you pointed this out, I mean, it was very difficult for me to decide to write this book. John. I, I, my, the acquisition editor, my good friend Lloyd Erickson, came to me and asked me if I would write the book. And I said, sure, I'll do it, but sometime. But I didn't plan on writing it at that point in my career. Career. Because the only thing I figured it would do would be to hurt me. Okay.

John Dehlin [01:30:44] Because at the time you're in ces,

David Bokovoy [01:30:45] I'm in ces and to write it, even though I would always, as I always do, even when I express criticism or concern, it's always in the context of wanting to uplift and to make the community, to make the church, to make, to help individuals, help us be better. I never express criticism just to Tear down or. Or to be negative. That's not part of my nature. But anyway, I knew that writing about these sorts of things, especially as a professional religious educator, could be disconcerting to some individuals, and it certainly has been so. It wouldn't help my career in church education. And if I decided to leave church education and pursue a job as a critical biblical scholar, to have written a book that was so filled with Mormonism, to helping Mormons make sense of this material and to understand how they could then be religiously active in their community while still believing in the scholarly views that I expressed there in the book, that wouldn't help me with a secular academic position either. So all the book could ever could do for me in my career would be to hurt me. Is I really. The way I looked at it. So I thought, I'll write it, but I'll write it at the end of my career. And then my friend Lloyd, we kept talking about it and I, I'm like, man, this is so important because I already shared, you know, when I went and first started studying these things, I was told, you'll lose your testimony. We've never had a. A Latter Day Saint pass through a program and learn this material and study this and come out a believer. I was told, do anything in except for Bible. And I had really the whole book. Then once I decided that I was going to do it because I wanted to help people, I wanted to help Latter Day Saints know they didn't need to fear this material, that they could make sense of their religious convictions in light of this and that their ways of understanding it. Not that I had all the answers, but things that I had labored with for years and years and years that I knew could help some people. Once I decided, okay, I'm going to do it, I'm just going to do it because I want to help. It needs to be written. And once I did it, I wrote the book in just a matter of weeks because it just poured out of all this stuff I've been thinking about and wanting to offer and help the community with.

John Dehlin [01:33:05] What you're saying someone who's really bright, who cares passionately about something, can write a really intense, thoughtful book in a matter of weeks?

David Bokovoy [01:33:13] Well, I mean, this stuff I've been dealing with for years. Years. So it just, it just, it was really.

John Dehlin [01:33:18] I'm joking, but it refers to the creation of the Book of Mormon. Oh, okay. Right.

David Bokovoy [01:33:21] I didn't catch it. Sorry.

John Dehlin [01:33:23] No, I'm just saying. Yeah, yeah, right. A lot of people, well, how could the book so amazing. Have been authored in.

David Bokovoy [01:33:27] Oh, yeah.

John Dehlin [01:33:28] In a matter of weeks. Right?

David Bokovoy [01:33:29] Yeah. It's easy to, as we talked about last time as an historian, understand the creation of the Book of Mormon from a historical perspective. But in terms of my book, it was like. It was therapeutic. It was like, oh, I'm just getting this. Here's how I see it. Do with it what you will. I hope it helps people. And. And I'm very pleased when it does because even people that are not religious, and I tell my students this now all the time as I teach it Slick. Or at Utah State University or I taught at the U. Places where I've taught. Even if you're not religious, the reality is you people should understand the Bible because the Bible is used in our society. Society. Jesus is invoked in our society, you know, on the floor of the US Senate and by politicians left and right and used to justify economic and social issues of today. So everyone in our society, I believe, should have a basic understanding of the Bible and how scholars interpret its development and Jesus as well.

John Dehlin [01:34:27] Agreed. All right, let me go into just some general questions about the Old Testament. Okay. From myself and from listeners, and then we'll move on to the book of Moses.

David Bokovoy [01:34:36] Sure.

John Dehlin [01:34:36] Is that all right?

David Bokovoy [01:34:37] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:34:37] Okay. My biggest question was, isn't the idea of a chosen people kind of racist? Like God chooses Abraham, Isaac and Jacob to then have this royal lineage that leads to David and then ultimately leads to Jesus? Like, we usually think about, you know, Judaism as being the victims of racism, which they have been. And we're not going to deny that. But when I think about this idea of God's chosen people, I'm already offended. What are your thoughts about that?

David Bokovoy [01:35:15] Yeah, there's definitely.

John Dehlin [01:35:17] Because there's Chinese people, Asians, Native Americans, there's like all different people on the earth that aren't coming out of the loins of. That's even a little bit distasteful. The loins of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and Daniel.

David Bokovoy [01:35:30] Right.

John Dehlin [01:35:30] David.

David Bokovoy [01:35:32] You know, I mean, am I going to answer as a historian or I'm going to answer theologically?

John Dehlin [01:35:36] Both.

David Bokovoy [01:35:36] Okay. As a historian. It's just I don't think we can escape. Humans can escape that. Americans nationalism. We see ourselves as, you know, every

John Dehlin [01:35:48] civilization is part of their lives, you know.

David Bokovoy [01:35:50] Yeah, exactly. And this is their. I see the Bible as their. The as ancient as a group of ancient Israelites understanding of their place in the universe and their relationship to the divine. And I see it that way.

John Dehlin [01:36:04] Now.

David Bokovoy [01:36:04] That's not to deny that there are some awful racist perspectives that appear manifested in the Bible. I mean, they are there. And we can talk about, for example, the commandment to eradicate all of the king Canaanites, men, women and children, enslave their, their women and destroy the beast of their community that you see in places like Joshua and other accounts. It's horrific and, and, and, and problematic. But then there are other portions of the Bible that react to that, like the book of Jonah. The book of Jonah is a reaction to that theological perspective because, you know, here you have a. The enemies of ancient Israel, the Canaanites, are not given a chance to repent or change their ways. God doesn't send missionaries or prophets or anyone in there to try and change them and give them a chance to say, hey, if you want to stay here in the land of Canaan, this is Jehovah's sacred land, you're gonna have to worship him and present these rituals. And if you don't do this and we're going to eradicate you, they weren't even given a chance. And that's deeply troublesome to a lot of modern readers and it was to ancient readers as well. So part of what the book of Jonah is doing is reacting to that. And so you now, you take the, the enemies of Israel who are even worse, the Assyrians, and you have a God that is so gracious and concerned about them that he sends a prophet before he destroys the prophet, gives a false prophecy because Jonah just goes in and says, this city is going to be destroyed in three days. And then, you know, the king is like, no, maybe we can do something perhaps, who knows, we can change God's mind. And then Jonah is so angry because he says, that's why I wouldn't come here, because I knew that you're a gracious, a kind and forgiving God and that you would give them this opportunity. Part of what that story is doing theologically is reacting to some of the things that we see happening in the Book of Joshua and other sources. And so rather than inter. And I encourage religious readers who still revere the Bible to look at it that way and to see what's on, going, going on. And therefore, rather than viewing Scripture as a manual that perfectly defines God's nature and who he is, will. Yeah. For us, see it as a springboard to your own personal enlightenment of your understanding of yourself and your relationship to these texts, to the divine, to love whatever it is and, and recognize that if there are portions of it that offend you, there'll be other portions of it that you will like, but even the portions that. That offend you or that you think are not, are not okay because they're racist or ethnocentric or what have you. We learn from that. And therefore the book becomes incredibly valuable to all people who take it seriously.

John Dehlin [01:38:42] So it becomes kind of a mirror to our better and our lesser angels.

David Bokovoy [01:38:45] Precisely.

John Dehlin [01:38:46] So that we can sort of use that spectrum of good versus evil and neutrality as an influence. Influencer to help us choose.

David Bokovoy [01:38:56] Precisely.

John Dehlin [01:38:56] Good. Good.

David Bokovoy [01:38:57] And that's how. And that's how I see scripture. It's like I was asked the question. I was given a presentation recently, and people asked. Somebody asked me about DNC Section 132 and asked if I thought it should be taken out of the LDS canon. And I said, absolutely not. And I know, and I mean, don't get me wrong, I mean, there's some really hard, awful statements in section 132 about women. And, and I can understand and am sensitive to those who say, oh, this is not healthy. Perhaps this shouldn't be part of the LDS canon. I get it. Trust me, I understand. But at the same time, that's just. I don't want to do that. As somebody who looks at it, I'm like, I want the good and the bad that is in there, and I don't want to cover it up. I want to learn from the bad. I want to learn from section 132. I think religious people should learn from that and that this is something that happened in the past and we better guard ourselves in the present, that we do not abuse our position, our religious authority, and take advantage of those who are vulnerable.

John Dehlin [01:39:54] Okay. So the benefit of awful stuff in the scriptures is that we can have a record of bad things that have happened and sort of a cautionary tale. Sure to say, stay away from this kind of stuff. It's bad. Yeah, don't do it.

David Bokovoy [01:40:10] Let's avoid it.

John Dehlin [01:40:11] Let's avoid it.

David Bokovoy [01:40:12] Let's avoid. Avoid the, the, you know, the ethnocentric viewpoint that is manifest in Genesis and other places about Canaanites where they're just hypersexualized and awful vermin, basically. Yeah. Realize that that is a. That is something that has plagued humanity

John Dehlin [01:40:27] throughout the generations, but don't attribute that to God. See, that's the thing. This is. The scriptures are attributing these heinous things, including polygamy, including genocide, to God.

David Bokovoy [01:40:38] Yes.

John Dehlin [01:40:38] Is that where the scriptures get it wrong?

David Bokovoy [01:40:40] Yes, because that is their interpretation. That is, that is their Interpretation based upon their experiences and they're looking back at the past of who God was and what he wanted from them.

John Dehlin [01:40:50] So anytime scripture is written according to David Bachavoy, it's not God speaking, it's the writer writing down what they think. God's mind and will is not actually God's mind and will. Is that right? Is that fair?

David Bokovoy [01:41:08] I wouldn't want to say any every time.

John Dehlin [01:41:12] Okay.

David Bokovoy [01:41:12] I don't know that I would want to say every time.

John Dehlin [01:41:16] I, I often. Oh, I'd say majority.

David Bokovoy [01:41:20] I mean, let me think this through. Okay, I'll say every time.

John Dehlin [01:41:25] Why were you hesitating?

David Bokovoy [01:41:26] I. Well, I just, I don't.

John Dehlin [01:41:27] You want to leave room for the divine?

David Bokovoy [01:41:28] I don't. Yeah. I don't want limitations on God.

John Dehlin [01:41:31] Okay.

David Bokovoy [01:41:31] You know, and I.

John Dehlin [01:41:32] God could be speaking.

David Bokovoy [01:41:33] Yeah. I don't want to put any limitations on God. But in the reality, the way I do see it is that I don't think any revelation or inspiration, I don't think it's possible, you know, assuming that there is such thing, that reality that it takes place, if that is the reality that takes place, it would always pass through a weak human vessel. And I see that's one of the great things about the Book of Mormon from my perspective, is it teaches Christians how to read scripture. Because here's the Book of Mormon and in the very title page, very beginning, it allows for the possibility of mistakes. So on the one hand, this book presents itself as the most inspired, most correct book that has ever been created. A man and woman could get near to God through this book, more so than any other book. But then its very title page allows for errors. And then every author reminds you, or authorial voice, which we should say. Right. Narrative voice reminds you. This is my perspective. I have weaknesses, I have these issues, I have problems. And so on the one hand, what the Book of Mormon is doing is it's calling, I think people to recognize that any inspired text is going to have human imprint. It's impossible to escape it. And therefore part of what we should do to read Scripture is not just interpret it as a manual for God, but to realize that this is people's interpretations of the divine and they don't always get it right.

John Dehlin [01:42:54] Okay, so a. More. Let's just say a Fowler Stage 4 approach or Fowler Stage 5 approach to scripture is Old Testament, New Testament, Book of Mormon, whatever. Every verse you read, you're not reading God's will, you're reading through the filter of a mortal who is doing their best to ascertain God's will. And so you always have to have a grain of salt with everything you read in the scriptures.

David Bokovoy [01:43:19] I, I see it that way.

John Dehlin [01:43:21] Yes, Things could be false and evil and wrong, but presented as true and good, and they're still wrong. Yeah, right.

David Bokovoy [01:43:29] I absolutely.

John Dehlin [01:43:29] And it's scripture.

David Bokovoy [01:43:30] I absolutely see it that way. I don't. But the reason I hesitated, even though I see it that way, is I'm not gonna put any limitations on the divine, what can't happen. But, but yeah, I, it all passes through human vessels. I mean, this, that's this notion of that we say it, you know, that's so famous for seminary institute teachers to like step back and they'll say, okay, I'm gonna give you the gospel according to brother McConkey or something like that. You know, I mean, or this is, this is my take on it. Well, I don't think you even need to say that because it's always your take on it. Right, right. It's always your spin. It's your perspective. There's no such thing as I, in my perspective, Perspective, pristine, absolute revelation that does not pass through weak human vessels.

John Dehlin [01:44:11] Got it. Okay. Yeah. That's a very different way than we've been taught to read scripture.

David Bokovoy [01:44:18] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:44:18] And it, I guess what's, what's important about that is it allows us to look at the scriptures with new eyes. Because if it's not, if you have this totalistic view or this absolute, that it's either every word written by God or it's a fraud, then you throw it all out and say, scriptures are garbage, we have nothing to learn from them. Better just to look to Oprah or Dr. Phil or Brene Brown or whoever, the modern, wisest, noblest, or even modern science. But your reading says, hey, let's look at the history of civilization as reflected in scripture and see what topic time worn lessons over centuries and millennia, good and bad, we can glean from this human history.

David Bokovoy [01:45:03] Absolutely. And I do the same thing with all world traditions and faith. The Quran, Islam, same thing.

John Dehlin [01:45:11] So for you, those scriptures all tend to be on the same level.

David Bokovoy [01:45:19] Yeah, I suppose. Yeah. I think that they are reflections of people's interaction with the divine and that they have good things in them and they have terrible things in them and that we as humanity should understand what is in them historically, critically, and then use that as a springboard for further enlightenment.

John Dehlin [01:45:37] Got it. Okay. So going back to this idea of God's chosen pure blood, and they talk about blood, you know, when you get to the book of Mormon and Joseph Smith, like Joseph Smith, I'm taught through. Like the McConkies believed that Joseph Smith. Joseph Smith believed that he was a literal descendant of Jesus. He wanted the blood of Israel in him. And that's all these patriarchal blessings are literally in Mormonism, about discerning your blood lineage. And of course, the Book of Mormon is all about God's chosen Israelites versus the Gentiles. Right. And. And the pure blood of Israel being in the Native Americans. So, like, this idea of God's chosen people is very central to Mormon doctrine and theology of Mormon scripture. And so that's all just to say that it seems to be this idea of a literal chosen people with the blood of Israel being so central to Mormonism. Now, going back to it, you know, does David Bacavoy believe that if there's a God, that God came down and picked the descendants, the blood descendants of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob to be his chosen people? What do you think about that? As a human. As a.

David Bokovoy [01:46:53] No, no, I wouldn't. No. If they're. I don't. Going back to what. I don't. I have a hard time with an intervention as God, except as it is. So, no, I see that, as is their perspective of their relationship.

John Dehlin [01:47:08] Plus, would God be choosing favorites? Sorry, Chinese people. You're not part of my chosen lineage. Right. Sorry, Native Americans.

David Bokovoy [01:47:16] Sorry, Africans.

John Dehlin [01:47:18] You're not part of my chosen lineage. Right.

David Bokovoy [01:47:20] Chosen, but I mean, chosen to do what? Right, I mean, chosen to be the

John Dehlin [01:47:24] priesthood yet, but to bear the priesthood.

David Bokovoy [01:47:27] But it would be chosen to serve. Right? Chosen to serve.

John Dehlin [01:47:30] But everyone's chosen to serve. Right.

David Bokovoy [01:47:31] Yeah. I'm just saying ways that it's been interpreted or understood. I'm not saying.

John Dehlin [01:47:36] But for you, that. Just that idea of a God. I mean, for me, I guess what I'm trying to project on you, what is bothersome to me, and I just don't like the idea of God having chosen people.

David Bokovoy [01:47:46] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:47:47] Because that leads to tribalism and it leads to, you know, pride. It leads to.

David Bokovoy [01:47:53] Yeah, I see that.

John Dehlin [01:47:55] Genocide or, you know, elitist, all that stuff. Right.

David Bokovoy [01:47:58] Sure, I see that. And I, I'm. That's, you know, I'm a humanist from the perspective. I, you know, I want humanity to unify and not that I want to see humans, like, eradicate tribalism because it's

John Dehlin [01:48:12] how we protect each other.

David Bokovoy [01:48:14] Exactly.

John Dehlin [01:48:14] And order society.

David Bokovoy [01:48:16] And I love. And I love, you know, individual cultures, and I think it's more learning to. Learning to appreciate the beauty that are found within each culture. Within each group, within each tradition, like

John Dehlin [01:48:27] the symphony of the flute and the

David Bokovoy [01:48:29] violin and trying to say, oh, let's all be one.

John Dehlin [01:48:32] Right.

David Bokovoy [01:48:32] But not in that sense. But.

John Dehlin [01:48:34] But the. But the violin isn't better than the viola isn't better than the tuba isn't better than the percussion section.

David Bokovoy [01:48:39] That's how I see humanity.

John Dehlin [01:48:40] Yeah. We're all standing shoulder to shoulder.

David Bokovoy [01:48:41] Yeah. So I think you and I are. I. Yeah. On the same page on that.

John Dehlin [01:48:45] Yeah. I remember hearing one thing from a podcast long ago. There's never been a civilization that received the revelation from the divine that those other guys were God's chosen people. In other words, every civilization thinks of the chosen people. Sure. Right.

David Bokovoy [01:48:59] Of course.

John Dehlin [01:48:59] And that the other guys are.

David Bokovoy [01:49:00] Of course.

John Dehlin [01:49:01] Of course. And that's what. That's what's happening in the Old Testament.

David Bokovoy [01:49:04] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:49:05] For. For you, Absolutely. Okay. I think that's important as.

David Bokovoy [01:49:08] As a whole. But then there are times where we see where, like for example, Jonah, where it's like, no, God is bigger, bigger than that. Nineveh is important to him. And even these people that did horrible things historically to the Israelites, God still cares about him and he's universal. So there are different views that are found there.

John Dehlin [01:49:29] And so this is something that I think many progressive and post Mormons don't really make. The connections we always talk about, is polyandry a smoking gun? Is, you know, is the Book of Mormon anachronisms or DNA in the Book of Abraham, is that a smoking gun? All of Joseph's doctrine and theology rests on the Old Testament. But if Adam and eve didn't exist 4,000 years ago and weren't the first humans, if there was no global, truly global flood, if there was no Tower of Babel. Right. If there may or may not have been a Moses, and if instead Genesis comes from Babylonian myth rewritten and what is the word used again?

The Book of Abraham and LDS Priesthood History

David Bokovoy [01:50:15] Actualized.

John Dehlin [01:50:15] Actualized for the people who wrote it. And then if there is no true God's chosen people and blood of Israel, isn't that a little bit of a smoking gun to the absolutist truth claims of sort of fundamentalist orthodox Mormonism?

David Bokovoy [01:50:32] Yeah, I would say so.

John Dehlin [01:50:34] That's why isn't it the ultimate original smoking gun?

David Bokovoy [01:50:37] That's why I was hesitant to write the book, because even exposing people to these ideas,

John Dehlin [01:50:45] it's the foundation. The Old Testament is the foundation.

David Bokovoy [01:50:49] But what I wanted to do in the book is to say there are ways that you can still make sense of your spiritual convictions regarding Mormonism, not that I have all the answers, scriptures, but here's what works for me.

John Dehlin [01:51:01] There's still truth and beauty and wisdom and even history in the Scripture.

David Bokovoy [01:51:07] And we can see that. For example, what I. The way I articulated is that I see Joseph Smith not only reflecting the same sort of creation of Scripture happening and actualization of patriarchs and priesthood and Old Testament themes for his religious community that happened time and time again in the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament Testament. But it's more than that for me. To me, Joseph Smith was an astute observer of everything around him. He was an astute observer of scripture, of messianic rituals, of, you know, of Indian folklore, of all of these sorts of things. And what does he do? He imitates in the creation of Scripture. He imitates God's creative process as he understood it. Joseph Smith steps forward and he says there is no such thing as creation ex nihilo, even though most Christians and Jews believe in it. God does not create Adam, nothing. He organizes from chaos. And I see Joseph Smith then is reflecting that in the creation of his theology and his scripture. He is just trying to understand Egyptian documents and learning Hebrew and taking all of these resources into the creation of Scripture that actualizes priesthood, that actualizes temple and patriarchs and all of these things from the Hebrew Bible and makes it relevant for the spiritual lives of his community. That's fundamentally what a prophet does in many respects. So that's what I articulate in the book. And it, it causes a shift of paradigm. But I think Mormonism can handle it. I think. I think people can handle it. And, and it's not. It's. I, I just, I remember I had a conversation with some church administrators at one point, and they were concerned, they were very concerned with critical biblical scholarship and the way we've articulated it now. And I could understand those concerns. But in their statement, they said something like, oh, this is. This is dangerous. It's not something that you should do. It's very different than studying actually the scriptures, the way that you study the scriptures, the way we should read it, first enlightenment. And I said, I, I absolutely, I respect your views, but I absolutely disagree. I'm more with Joseph Smith when he said that Mormonism is a religion that seeks to embrace all truth, let it come from whatever source it may. I said, if there is truth in historical, critical biblical scholarship, truth about the Scriptures and how they developed, it's something that Mormonism should tackle, that it should understand and that we should. We should embrace in our understanding of that sacred writ and Our relationship to one another and the world and divinity. That's been my perspective, what I try to articulate in the book, a couple

John Dehlin [01:53:47] other questions about the Old Testament. So in Mormonism, it's a. It's a restoration tradition, which means that Joseph and probably contemporaries and probably predecessors to Joseph had this idea, no, let's go back and see what rituals and traditions, you know, were going on in the Old and New Testament, and let's restore them because they've been lost. And so this idea of restoring the plain and the precious truths and, you know, even polygamy comes out of probably Joseph thinking, well, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob did that. So we gotta restore all things, because if it was righteous for those prophets to do it, it must be righteous for these prophets to do it. So it's just the idea of a restoration. So we often think about, well, we have the ironic and the Melchizedek priesthood, and Aaron is an Old Testament figure, and Melchizedek is an Old Testament figure. So Joseph must have, you know, tapped into the way priesthood was organized back pre Jesus. Right, With a lower and an upper priesthood. And this has even led people to think, and I think even McConkeys believe this, that they were doing baptisms, pre Jesus, baptisms by immersion. Some have even said that there were, you know, temple or celestial ceilings prior to Jesus. Right. But let's just go to something very basic, which is something one of our listeners wrote in to ask. And they basically said, he says, I'm in the middle of a naked Mormonism podcast episode where he breaks down Joseph Smith's claim, claim of priesthood lineage in the Old Testament. He rips it apart. Can you talk about why there would be concerns about Joseph's claim of restoring an upper and a lower priesthood and why that may or may not be consistent with the Old Testament?

David Bokovoy [01:55:30] Sure. My understanding has always been a restoration. I shouldn't say always, but my understanding as a committed believer has always been much more nuanced than that. Obviously, you know, and I would Refer canonically to DNC Section 121, which talks about the time, the fullness of times. And Joseph Smith's revelation in verse 27 states that this is a time which our forefathers have awaited with anxious expectation to be revealed in the last times which their minds were pointed to by the angels as held in reserve for the fullness of their glory. A time, time to come in which nothing shall be withheld. And it goes on and starts to explain that a lot of Joseph Smith's revelations give Us the indication that it's his revelations are not just restoring something that once existed, literally whether, but it's also adding on to and giving things that were never understood, but that Joseph Smith through his ministry is going to provide us with greater clarity on. So I think it's a. And I would see it as a combination of both. I, I have written extensively about how incredible Joseph Smith's ability to tap into certain theological constructs that were forgotten by biblical scholars until the historical critical method came about. And yet they're found in his theology, they're found in his revelations. There are things like that. And I, in a sense it is restoring truths or I should say ideas or constructs that were once lost and forgotten. We certainly see that happening. But does that mean that, you know, the traditional understanding of Mormonism with priesthood and, you know, was there an Aaronic

John Dehlin [01:57:09] and a Melchizedek priesthood in the Old Testament or anything like it?

David Bokovoy [01:57:14] We don't really have a Melchizedek priesthood in the, in the, in the Old Testament, you have certainly Aaronic priesthood.

John Dehlin [01:57:19] Meaning what?

David Bokovoy [01:57:20] Meaning the authority of God to officiate and offer and sacrifices and ritual and things like that. That's certainly there. Melchizedek is mentioned, but he's just simply the King of Jerusalem or Salem, a priest. But so far as like Melchizedek priesthood and the way that priesthood is understood in the LDS Church today, just to cut to the chase. No, we don't find that articulated precisely that way in the Hebrew Bible. No.

John Dehlin [01:57:47] So we almost want to think that Abraham put, puts his hands on Isaac and bestows the Aaronic priesthood and then Isaac does it to Jacob and Jacob does it to.

David Bokovoy [01:57:57] That's certainly anecdotal.

John Dehlin [01:57:58] And that, that gives them the right to do this subset of rituals and ordinances. But then there's a higher version and there's a Melchizedek thing and they're doing the higher stuff maybe with the temple and maybe there were temple ceremonies going on in Solomon's Temple.

David Bokovoy [01:58:13] No, no.

John Dehlin [01:58:15] What I mean, isn't that the idea of the restoration that. I mean, I remember drawing my priesthood lineage back to Joseph Smith. Right. And wasn't Joseph Smith restoring what John the Baptist and Peter, James and John gave to him through the laying on of hands that would only then assume that. And I think as you look at paintings that the Mormon Church has produced from the Old Testament, you would see prophets with their hands on the heads of other prophets, but bestowing priesthood.

David Bokovoy [01:58:43] Sure. I, it's, it's the way that it's traditionally been understood and the past has been. And it's. It's a story about the past. It's a story about the past that makes the past relevant for the current lives of the religious community. But is that a reflection of what we see happening in the Bible? No.

John Dehlin [01:59:01] Is there ordination of priesthood at all?

David Bokovoy [01:59:04] Yeah.

John Dehlin [01:59:04] What is it like?

David Bokovoy [01:59:06] Well, you see laying on of hands and you, you see authority to administer passed on. We see that happening with Moses and Aaron and the priest, but it's a different.

John Dehlin [01:59:17] How's it different?

David Bokovoy [01:59:18] Well, it's different in the sense that, you know, this idea of that it's connected with the church, that it's bestowed upon all worthy males, that it's something that allows people to act in the, you know, a special capacity in the name of God. In that sense, that's very different than what you see as an authority to administer rituals, to clean the temple and to receive certain opportunities in connection with. With temple worship and sacrifice that you see in the Hebrew Bible. Yeah, it's just not the same thing.

Elijah, Elias, and Old Testament Monotheism

John Dehlin [01:59:50] Okay, somebody writes, can you address the Elijah Elias problem? Do you know what they're referring to? Tell our listeners what the Elijah and Elias problem.

David Bokovoy [02:00:02] So, okay, so in Joseph Smith's Revelations, Elijah and Elias are identified as two separate beings, but Elias is simply the Greek form of saying Elijah. And it's one's New Testament, one's from the Hebrew Bible. And so they're not. And this is especially problematic, I guess, in the. In the Revelation where Joseph Smith talks about the different beings who have appeared to him in connection with purestone of priesthood keys in the Kirtland Temple, and that they're the same. They historically would have been the same person. I mean, I don't know what else to say other than that.

John Dehlin [02:00:38] So in Joseph's mind, both Elijah and Elias appear to him as separate beings. But in your study of the Old

David Bokovoy [02:00:46] Testament, at least in the story that. The narrative as he tells it.

John Dehlin [02:00:48] Yeah, but in your study of the

David Bokovoy [02:00:51] Old Testament, you were talking the same. The same person, same dude, just different forms of the name.

John Dehlin [02:00:55] Okay. Different roots or different Hebrew and verse.

David Bokovoy [02:01:00] Hebrew is Eliyahu, Elijah is Eliyahu, which means Jehovah is my God, and Elias is just the Greek form of Eliyahu, same individual. Okay, that's what they're getting at there.

John Dehlin [02:01:10] Okay. Another listener wrote in. I've read that scholars don't read the Malachi tithing verses like Mormons. What's the scholarly take on Malachi and tithing?

David Bokovoy [02:01:22] Okay, so, yeah, there are lots of Differences on that. One of the interesting things, I think the most interesting thing to point upon that is this idea that God will open up the window of heaven and pour down a blessing upon his community if they tithe and do this. Well, that whole idea. Idea is actually. You can see it reflected in the flood narrative. How did God, in one of the flood narratives, flood the earth? Well, he opens up the windows of heaven. And the idea behind this, you can see in Genesis chapter one, the firmament, which is the way it's translated in the King James translation of the Bible. The firmament is really just a plastic dome. That is the best way to describe it, that that's keeping the water up above from falling down on top of us. I used to do this, John, all the time in San Diego. I would lie on the beach and it'd be. There wouldn't be a cloud in the sky or whatever, you know, just a blue. And I'd look up and I like, man, it's like water. And I would even have this imagination, this image of like, oh, if you flipped it over and there was no gravity, I would fall into the sky, which would be like falling into the water. Ancient people looked at the world that way too, and it made sense to them that there was water up there because water comes down. So God must open up a window and allow for the water to pour down and flood the earth or to provide crops, in this case, with Malachi, as it might be. And it's based upon an ancient view of the cosmos which we know today is not. Is not correct. There's not a firmament up there that also connects ultimately with Genesis chapter one, and it explains why animals are created on certain days. So if you think about the order of creation in Genesis chapter one, it's really fun. On the first day, God creates the lights. Then three days later, on day four, he creates the things that pertain to that sphere. So he creates the sun, the moon, the stars. Day two, he divides the waters from above, the watt versus the waters below by putting in that firmament, that plastic dome. And then three days later, on day five, he creates the things that pertain to that sphere. Fish and birds. And people wonder why birds? Well, because they think there's water up above. And like Malachi, he'll open up a window and pour down that water if you pay your tithes. And then on day three, creates the land. And then on day six, three days later, he creates the he humans and the animals. So it shows that there's structure that God has A plan in mind that everything is orderly, which is very different than what we see. The God, the portrayal of God in Genesis chapter two, when he just figured, oh, let's create animals, let's create whatnot. So every one of these texts, including the one on Malachi and the pain of tithes and what that meant, have a different meaning when looked at historically and critically, contextually, versus the way that Latter Day Saints use that material today. That's just every text. Every text. And that would just be another example of it.

John Dehlin [02:04:31] So there. There wasn't some. So first of all, Malachi was a king, not a prophet.

David Bokovoy [02:04:37] Well, Malachi. We don't know who Malachi was. We don't even know what the book was named. The term mallet, the term Malachi is. Is literally my messenger. The I is the first person common singular pronominal suffix on nouns. Malak, my malak, my messenger. And the title for that actually comes from like, chap. It's hard. It's confusing because the chapters are different in English versus Hebrew, I think it's like chapter three, he says, I will behold, I will send my messenger. I will send Malachi. And. And so we don't know who Malachi was. We don't know the name Malachi literally comes from that text. And so that was added to. We don't know who wrote the book.

John Dehlin [02:05:16] Okay, but in there, there's some instruction to give money to who tied to

David Bokovoy [02:05:24] the poor and the needy.

John Dehlin [02:05:25] Not. Was it to the church?

David Bokovoy [02:05:27] No, there's no church.

John Dehlin [02:05:28] There's no church in the Old Testament.

David Bokovoy [02:05:30] No, no church. Jesus didn't even establish a church. So.

John Dehlin [02:05:35] So the. So saying that interpreting Malachi to mean give 10% of your gross or net income to the church.

David Bokovoy [02:05:43] I'm not saying it's wrong. People can actualize. Like Joseph Smith. That's what the LDS Church is doing. They're actualizing it, but suggesting that that's what that text meant historically and what the author intended. No, it's not what he meant or intended.

John Dehlin [02:05:56] So.

David Bokovoy [02:05:56] But that doesn't make it wrong. It just makes it different. The way different communities use religious text. We see the same thing happening in the New Testament. For example, you know, especially in Matthew, the Gospel of Matthew, that author will quote from the Hebrew Bible a total of 14 times because Matthew loves the number 14. That's the text that will have 14 generations. 14 generations. And he budgets the information to line Christ up constantly with 14 generations. And he quotes from the Old Testament 14 times. And that's because number 14 is the symbolic number of David. And he's linking Jesus with David as king and there. And what he quotes from the Old Testament, he will quote out of context. He'll say Isaiah. His first one is, you know, reference to Isaiah. Therefore a virgin shall conceive and bear a child and call his name Emmanuel. Well, if you go historically, was Isaiah talking about Jesus? Was he talking about. No, not at all. You can read it. It doesn't make sense to even refer it to Jesus. He's talking about probably Hezekiah, because the text itself, if you look at the prophecy is before this chosen child learns to distinguish good and bad, my prophecy will be fulfilled that you should not link yourself. Isaiah states to the southern king with powers in the north. And so if it's Jesus, it doesn't work as a prophecy. So what happens then is that Matthew takes that, or the author of Matthew takes that out of context and gives it actualization and new meaning for his religious community and links it with Jesus. That's what the Dead Sea scroll community does, is what Josephus did, what Joseph Smith does. It's what the latter, the Church, Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints does today. And I have no issue with that as long as we are not covering up what the original meaning was of the text, which time and time again happens, unfortunately in LDS curriculum.

John Dehlin [02:07:49] So that's something Mormons don't really even consider that applying Isaiah to Jesus is probably a misapplication.

David Bokovoy [02:07:56] No, definitely.

John Dehlin [02:07:57] I mean, because there's Handel's Messiah. Right. And what's that quoting from?

David Bokovoy [02:08:01] Yeah, you know, various portions of Handel's Messiah quotes from Isaiah, but also from the Psalms.

John Dehlin [02:08:07] And lots of, I mean, Christmas is coming up. Are you going to dash our, our Christmas hopes that, that this, the Isaiah and the Psalms were actually prophesying of Jesus? Is that what you're doing?

David Bokovoy [02:08:17] I, I, I, if that's what our hopes are based in, then yeah, I guess I would dash that.

John Dehlin [02:08:21] But it's because for you, that's anachronistic or it's technically not really possible that, that Isaiah was prophesying Jesus.

David Bokovoy [02:08:30] We can look, it just, it doesn't make any sense that way if you read it. And that's why Isaiah so, so confusing to Latter Day Saints because we pick these verses and we'll say, okay, this, we got it. That's about Jesus. But then you read everything around it. You're like, how the hell? What does that do with Jesus about Jesus? You know, it's like, that doesn't work, man. It doesn't make any Sense and everybody gets all confused. Well it's because just look at what the text is doing. Put it in its historical context. If we do that, and that's my issue John is if we do that, that's what I think should happen first. First we should look at the original authorial intent as far as we can decipher it, how it functioned in its original zitzen Leben or setting in life and then actualize it, then try to make it relevant to the religious needs of the, of the community. If we ignore that which unfortunately happens too frequently in our faith community, then we miss the opportunity to understand how those people saw the world, how they understood divinity and to learn from it because their experiences are so different than ours. And so we ought to learn from them and let them give us a message before we then seek to actualize. And that's what I try to lay out in the book and try to do.

John Dehlin [02:09:41] You heard our first serum Mormon stories. David Bacavoy ruins Christmas.

David Bokovoy [02:09:45] We can work well. Yeah. Well Jesus a little more or we can ruin it even further. Jesus was not born in Bethlehem, born in Nazareth. I'm, I, I'm quite confident that that's the case. But, but I love the Christmas story. I love it. And it's just, it's as a, it as we talked about with the cognitive revolution, Homo sapiens created a brain that could create fiction, to create myth that could and that we could then believe in the principles, the ideas behind it and cooperate together, do extraordinary things.

John Dehlin [02:10:20] That's evolved Harari. Right. And sapiens. Have you read that?

David Bokovoy [02:10:23] Oh yeah.

John Dehlin [02:10:23] It's a wonderful book. I love read Sapiens talks about the power of myth.

David Bokovoy [02:10:27] Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:10:27] How myth is what's allowed us to transcend Dunbar's law, which is sort of this limit of us being able to work in civilizations around 100, 150, as mammals, as primates. That's kind of a limit. You know, gorillas and monkeys all have this sort of limit of how big their, their group can grow until there's some sort of fraction and separation. It's the power of myth that has allowed humans to cooperate at a level of a million different people contributing to the creation of the atomic bomb, which is just one example of many. Just the idea of currency is a Myth. You know, a $1 bill isn't inherently more valuable than a hundred dollar bill. What makes them difference in value is that we all agree that a hundred dollar bill is worth 100 times more than a dollar bill. And that's myth. We're all agreeing to a certain set of symbols, stories, heroes, whatever it is, teachings, principles. And as soon as we can share those things in common, we can trust each other more than we normally would. We can identify with each other, we can feel connected with each other, and we can collaborate at the level of hundreds or thousands or tens of thousands or millions, in the case of Mormonism, to do great work. So the myth. Myth, Harari. Is that how you pronounce his name? Myth, he would argue, is sort of the defining crowning characteristic that distinguishes the human Homo sapiens, you know, from every other mammalian species or other.

David Bokovoy [02:12:02] Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:12:02] Is that right?

David Bokovoy [02:12:02] Absolutely.

John Dehlin [02:12:03] Is that what you're saying?

David Bokovoy [02:12:03] Yeah. And that's how I. Scriptures have brought us.

John Dehlin [02:12:06] They've got us to the dance, they brought us here.

David Bokovoy [02:12:09] That's. And that's how I've seen scripture and religion for a long time and, and why I was able to, you know, make sense of it and, and speed. Completely devoted as somebody who had shifted paradigms obviously quite a bit extensively over, over. Over a lifetime of study.

John Dehlin [02:12:27] Right.

David Bokovoy [02:12:28] That's how. And I. That's how I see religion. It's how I see it all.

John Dehlin [02:12:33] A few final questions about the Old Testament, just from listeners. How do you make sense of. Okay, you mentioned Heavenly Mother. Is there anything else you want to say about. Somebody's asking about Asherah? Anything that you want to say about Heavenly Mother in the Old Testament than what you said?

David Bokovoy [02:12:56] Yeah, my dissertation topic, I might. The title of my dissertation is Yahweh as a Sexual Deity in Jay's Prehistory. And what I. And I. So I deal a lot with Asherah, the female goddess or consort, who's Ashura. Many Israelites believed that Yahweh, their, their God had a, A. I, I would, I would hesitate to use the term wife because that implies, implies a lot of things that I don't know that they necessarily thought in those terms, but definitely a consort, a female divinity, a heavenly mother type figure. And she is alluded to all throughout the Hebrew Bible in places. And that's what I, what I wrote my dissertation on, in essence.

John Dehlin [02:13:43] So what's going on in the theology of Jews? That God has a partner that's female?

David Bokovoy [02:13:48] Yeah.

John Dehlin [02:13:48] Are they, are they, are they monotheists? Are they polytheists? Well, you kind of think of Judaism as one of the first monotheistic religions.

David Bokovoy [02:13:54] Yes, definitely.

John Dehlin [02:13:55] How does that all square?

David Bokovoy [02:13:56] Well, ancient Israelites were not monotheist. And they weren't. They were not. And so there are, you know, references to the gods and their Council and the divine beings who governed the universe. All throughout the Hebrew Bible, where most scholars would see monotheism emerge is in text like Psalm 82, which tells the other gods of the universe to sit down and to die like men because they're not doing their job effectively. And Jehovah, the God of, of the Israelites, is going to take over and just be the one God. So you start to see in the later text of the Hebrew Bible a movement towards monotheism. But that is not the majority perspective that is found in the Hebrew Bible. Scholars will use the term monolatry, and they'll use henotheism to describe it. A belief in the existence of literal gods and goddesses, but focusing their attention on one that's more what we see happening in the Hebrew Bible.

John Dehlin [02:14:54] Interesting. And so just like we see Joseph's theology, even around God, changing from 1830, when the book of Mormon was written, to the Nauvoo time period, where it's a council and it's, we can become gods. We see that in the Old Testament, even the Israelites had significant transformation in their own theology about God.

David Bokovoy [02:15:16] Absolutely.

John Dehlin [02:15:17] That's interesting.

David Bokovoy [02:15:18] And we'd expect to see that because we're talking a thousand years, but that material is written.

John Dehlin [02:15:22] Right, Right.

David Bokovoy [02:15:23] So, yeah, definitely.

John Dehlin [02:15:24] Interesting. That's so cool.

David Bokovoy [02:15:26] All right.

John Dehlin [02:15:26] I'm glad we asked that. Well, I'm sure you have sympathies with the idea that having both a male and a female version of God or gods can be really cool, especially for women and men out there that, that want to see themselves in the divine.

David Bokovoy [02:15:40] Right, Absolutely. I. I love it. I think it's. I think it's beautiful. It's like going back to what I was talking about, Genesis 1:26 through 27. The only way in my mind to make sense of that is in the image of gods. He created the male and female. Right, Elohim.

John Dehlin [02:15:56] Right, right. Yeah, Very cool. All right, really quick. How do you make sense of polygamy in the Old Testament? Any quick commentary on that? And then as it applies to Joseph's

Polygamy and Sexuality in the Old Testament

David Bokovoy [02:16:09] practice of polygamy, I mean, it's very clear that it doesn't work, right?

John Dehlin [02:16:13] What?

David Bokovoy [02:16:14] Polygamy?

John Dehlin [02:16:15] What do you mean? Well, I mean, look, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, they're all doing it, right?

David Bokovoy [02:16:18] But look at all the conflicts between. In their families because of plural marriage.

John Dehlin [02:16:22] Is God ever commanding polygamy in the, the Old Testament of the prophets?

David Bokovoy [02:16:27] No, no, we don't. We don't see that.

John Dehlin [02:16:28] There's no doctrinal polygamy. In the Old Testament?

David Bokovoy [02:16:31] No, I mean, he does command it in some. In the legal forms, because, you know, in the. Where you see it, I guess commanded will be the law of lever. It where a. A man, a woman's husband will die, and God commands that she be taken as the wife of his brother. Well, that allows for polygamy then, and presents it as a commandment. That's really the closest that you'll see to it. And the reality is, I mean, an argument could be made that it was a cultural tradition of the time period, but the authors of the Hebrew Bible recognized that it didn't work. Because the reality is, every time that. I mean, it's just. Look at all the fam. It's one story of family contention and problem after another because of the. Because of plural marriage and the different sons who stem from different wives, whether it's Esau and Isaac or Joseph and his siblings. I mean, really, if you look at it carefully, it seems to me like plural marriage, although a cultural tradition, the message of the Hebrew Bible is this doesn't work out so well.

John Dehlin [02:17:33] It leads to family strife. Yeah. And again, with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, there's no point in the Old Testament where God is like, behold, Abraham, I. I present to you an angel with a flaming sword that will compel you against your will and your better nature to take upon you a second and a third and a 56th wife.

David Bokovoy [02:17:51] We don't see that happening.

John Dehlin [02:17:53] No, no, not. So how does it happen? How does it happen that Abraham, Isaac and Jacob take on extra spouses?

David Bokovoy [02:17:59] It's part of their cultural tradition, at least as it's portrayed in the book of Genesis. I mean, in the case of, you know, in the case of Hagarth, the, you know, concubine, which is just a wife of a lower stand, you know, status. That was Sariah's idea. She's the one that's like, look, we're not having a child. And God said it was just practical. Let's do this.

John Dehlin [02:18:18] She's feeling bad. I'm not able to bear you a

David Bokovoy [02:18:20] son doesn't come from God, at least in that narrative.

John Dehlin [02:18:23] Right. So a concubine and just the idea of a lower spouse, that's not fun for anybody either, right?

David Bokovoy [02:18:28] Of course not.

John Dehlin [02:18:29] Of course not. Okay, so for you, the Old Testament is not a resounding endorsement of polygamy as being living from God?

David Bokovoy [02:18:37] No, I'd see it. I mean, if anything, it's kind of the opposite.

John Dehlin [02:18:41] It's a condemnation.

David Bokovoy [02:18:43] It seems to be.

John Dehlin [02:18:44] You read the Old Testament as a condemnation of polygamy in a sense.

David Bokovoy [02:18:46] I mean, you never see him come out and say, no, you can't do this. This is bad. But I mean, if you read, you know, against the grain. Right. Isn't that kind of the message? I certainly see that.

John Dehlin [02:18:56] Got it. Last question. What do you make of the statements in the Old Testament that have been associated with homosexuality, same sex attraction? What do you make of that?

David Bokovoy [02:19:05] Good. Okay. It depends on which ones we're talking about. A big one of concern that I have is the story of Lot and this destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. At the time the newest seminary curriculum came out on that story a few years ago, I was really concerned and I wrote to the powers that be and tried to get them to understand that portraying that story as a condemnation of homosexuality is not only an incorrect reading of the text and its meaning, but it's incredibly dangerous. And then I started blogging about that as well, and I got into quite a bit of trouble over that. But the reality is that story, for example, it just. First of all, it's a story of rape. It's not a story of homosexuality.

John Dehlin [02:20:07] Sodom, the Sodom story. Yeah, that we get sodomy.

David Bokovoy [02:20:10] And yeah, the angels or messengers from God come to this city and are looking for one righteous person. And all it says, all of the men, all of the people of Sodom, male and female, females. So it's not just even men. They want to come in and they want to have relations with those messengers against their will, have sex, have sex with those women against their will. It is a story of rape. It is a story of inhospitality, which was a way it's interpreted later on in the prophetic material of the Hebrew Bible. It has nothing to do with homosexuality whatsoever. And yet even, even in our footnotes that we look, it's just, you know, the sin of Sodom is homosexuality, and it's used that way. And it's a misreading of and misrepresentation of what's transpiring there. And, you know, when I, when I taught it in seminary, I corrected that. And I had gay students. I had one gay student. I'll never forget he. He'd shared with the class. As we started talking about this, he said, I am gay and I am Mormon. And people ask me why I'm Mormon. It's because I find God here in this church, he said. But I've been told by, I've been asked, you know, why do you go to church? I've even Been asked, why don't you just kill yourself? You don't belong here, and you don't belong anywhere. And he said, it's where I find God. And so I had experience lots of experiences like that in the seminary and institute classroom. I felt like I was supposed to be there to help students with who were either LGBT themselves or had LGBTQ family members or friends understand these texts in a way that would allow them to love LGBT people and welcome them into fellowship. And I still believe strongly that that's the way that the LDS church and community needs to evolve.

John Dehlin [02:22:03] So are there verses? You know, was. Was there Judaic law that there wasn't forbidding of? Well, one of the problems. Men to lie together.

David Bokovoy [02:22:12] Yes, you've got that. Of course, the prohibition. Not female relations, but you have a prohibition.

John Dehlin [02:22:17] Lesbianism isn't forbidden.

David Bokovoy [02:22:19] No. In the Old Testament, they were concerned with men, and. And the concern was not on homosexuality even there from. I mean, the idea of homosexuality is more a modern construct in the sense of recognizing that people's sexual identity is fundamental to who they are as a human being. Like a friend of mine, I remember we were talking about my daughter, and he's like. And he was very kind and loving, and he said about it. But he said, oh, you're so supportive and so loving. I bet you wish, though, I'm sure you wish, though, that your daughter wasn't gay so that she wouldn't have to live a difficult life. It's more difficult being a gay person in our civilization. He meant it in the them in the kindest, most respectful, loving way. But I had to correct that and say, oh, no, I absolutely do not wish that, because being gay, being a homosexual, is not just simply about sexual intercourse. It's a fundamental part of who that person is as a human being. And so.

John Dehlin [02:23:16] And it's who they want to vacation with. It's who they want to build a life with. It's who they want to wash dishes with. It's who they want.

David Bokovoy [02:23:21] And I would never walk the dog with.

John Dehlin [02:23:22] It's who they want to.

David Bokovoy [02:23:23] I would never huddle up with when

John Dehlin [02:23:24] they're watching a TV show.

David Bokovoy [02:23:25] No, I would never change that about my daughter or any other my LGBTQ friends and people that I love. Never. I think it's a beautiful. I personally believe that it is, you know, that it is a beautiful way of filling the world with more love. I mean, how boring would the world be if the only type of love that existed was heterosexual love? No, we need as much love as we we can possibly fill this planet with. And so I, it is a. To me, it's a. It's, it's something that comes from God and it's a good thing now there. So that mandate that you have in the Hebrew Bible about. It's really the concern is not homosexuality because they didn't, they didn't think about homosexuality as part of someone's identity and who they were as a human being. They were literally thinking about an act which from their perspective, crossed the bounds of what was supposed to exist within nature. And the whole reason, it's this whole reason why they. You can't eat certain types of fish in the book of Leviticus because if it doesn't, if it lives in the ocean, but it doesn't act like a fish, then it's not something that is superstition, right? Yeah, that. It's something that is unclean. And, and so having, you know, gay sex or something like that is really in the same line. It's, that's, that, that's why they're formulating it that way. It's because it's, you know, not acting like a fish or the way it's supposed to. Fish is supposed to act or not acting like the way that a animal is supposed to act.

John Dehlin [02:24:50] And so if you're going to basically try to apply the Old Testament prohibitions on homosexuality to people today, you're going to also have to accept what other prohibitions to be consistent. Give us just a list of 10.

David Bokovoy [02:25:05] Mixing of old and mixing wicks and a wool. What types of, you know, you can, you know, your dairy and your, your cheese and your meats.

John Dehlin [02:25:13] No cheeseburgers.

David Bokovoy [02:25:14] I mean, just the list goes on.

John Dehlin [02:25:17] But I like, like menstruation with women. What is it?

David Bokovoy [02:25:19] There are lots of them. Lots of them. But the, it's part of the priestly mindset that there were, there was order and structure. We see that in Genesis chapter one. And humans need to maintain that order. So when things aren't functioning in the order that they understood it, they labeled it as unclean or something to avoid. And so that's how they see. That's how they see sexual intercourse between men in the same way that they see the problems with like a dolphin, because dolphin lives in the, in the, in the water, acts like a fish, but it's not a fish. So you can't eat a dolphin.

John Dehlin [02:25:52] Right.

David Bokovoy [02:25:52] And that's why, that's the whole reason it's unclean. It has nothing to do with, you know, it's just, it's not functioning. No, it's the way they understand. Understood the world.

John Dehlin [02:26:00] The world at the time. And so if you're going to say up, Old Testament says no homosexuality. You can't eat shrimp, you can't eat, you know, any shellfish. You know, you. On the Sabbath. There are also, you know, you get killed if you violate the Sabbath. Like, yeah, there's a hundred different or a thousand different Old Testament prohibitions that you're also going to have to incorporate if you're going to hold modern people to Israeli standards.

David Bokovoy [02:26:27] And you have to realize that they weren't talking about homosexuality in the way that we use the term. They're literally just talking about a sex act. And when we use the term homosexuality in our contemporary culture, we mean something much more than just sex.

John Dehlin [02:26:41] All right, let's move to New Testament.

David Bokovoy [02:26:45] Yeah, let's do that. Just for. And I think what I'll do for that is because I, as I've mentioned, I. I love historical Jesus studies. In fact, I finished my dissertation in 2012, and I've done a couple of little publications on Hebrew Bible topics since then. But 99% of my research since 2012 has all been on historical Jesus.

John Dehlin [02:27:09] Maybe we need to have you back to have that episode.

David Bokovoy [02:27:11] Hey, that'd be fun.

The Historical Jesus and New Testament Christology

John Dehlin [02:27:12] Would you do that?

David Bokovoy [02:27:12] Oh, yeah. I taught historical Jesus for about three years at Utah State University and loved it.

John Dehlin [02:27:17] Let's capture some of that learning.

David Bokovoy [02:27:18] Yeah, it's a wonderful topic. And as I've mentioned before, I have this deep love for Jesus. Well, the. The first time I'll share this story, because it is Mormon stories, first time I was ever exposed to historical Jesus analysis and a historical critical reading of the New Testament was at Brandeis when I was working on my master's. We had a visiting scholar by the name of E.P. sanders, very famous New Testament historian, Ed Sanders. And he came to Brandeis to teach for a semester. And I was thrilled. So I jumped into his classes and took those. And those were my first. That was my first exposure to a critical reading in the New Testament. And that was actually harder for me. And this is not. I was not atypical of this. I know a lot of Hebrew Bible scholars who have Christian backgrounds and they're very critical readers of the Hebrew Bible, but they don't even want to touch critical New Testament studies because that's. That takes it. That's a lot more difficult.

John Dehlin [02:28:28] Too sacred.

David Bokovoy [02:28:28] Too sacred for them. I shouldn't say no a lot. I know a few that are like that, but that's harder because that cuts to the core. I mean, it's one thing.

John Dehlin [02:28:38] It's one thing to mess with Moses. It's another thing to mess with Jesus.

David Bokovoy [02:28:42] It is. It is. Even for Latter Day Saints. Of course.

John Dehlin [02:28:45] Especially at Latter Day Saints.

David Bokovoy [02:28:46] Yeah. And it's just so I remember John, the first time I sat in this class, and I was loving it, but I also felt dirty. Yeah, I did. And quite threatened by it. I remember there. And there was one in particular. He started exposing us to this idea that was written about by John Dominique Crossan, who was a famous New Testament scholar about Mark's Gospel and the invention of the pericope concerning Barabbas. And it fit too perfectly from his perspective to have actually be a reflection of historical events. The Gospel of Mark is a wartime gospel. It's written about 68 or so CE, so right when the Jews are revolting against Rome. And it incorporates a lot of those themes and into the. Into the account.

John Dehlin [02:29:37] And again, CE is common era, meaning translate that into AD for those who lived a long time ago.

David Bokovoy [02:29:43] So, and then cross. And then I learned in, in. In Sanders course, he makes the argument that, okay, first of all, it's Passover. It's a really volatile time period, and the Romans are there in Jerusalem to ensure the peace. If there was really, there's no way that that Pilate, knowing everything we know about him historically, would have released a man who was a violent robber, a zealot fighting against Rome. He never would have released them. And then we have no evidence of such a, you know, event happening at trials of crucifixion whatsoever. So it's inconsistent historically with what we know to be true of the past. But it also fits the narrative because bar is Aramaic for son and Abbas Father. So you have a choice for the Jewish people, the congregation, to choose the real Son of the Father, who, from Mark's perspective, became the Son of the Father at his baptism. Or you have this violent, revolutionary Son of the Father, Barabbas. And Jerusalem ultimately chooses the way of violence and the way of the Zealot and revolution instead of going with the Son of the Father who wanted peace. And so they chose the way of the Zealot as opposed to the way of peace. And I remember I heard that for the first time. I'm like, oh, crap, that makes so much sense. And it felt dirty. I felt bad. I just. It really bothered me because you're messing with the Jesus story, and I love Jesus so much. And it was really hard for me at first, but then I just let it simmer for a while. And the more I did, I was like, you know what? It just really makes a lot of sense. It's probably what took place otherwise. It does. And then once I allowed for that, even as a believer in Jesus, I looked at it and I thought, how awesome is that? That it's okay? So it's not history, but it is a beautiful theological presentation about the past that illustrates a very significant point. Every one of us has a choice. Are we going to go with the powers of the world that try to overcome through violence and through worldly power? Are we going to try and make a difference by, you know, going against that grain? So it's a beautiful theological message, but it took me a long time to get there before I was ready to, to, to do that. And then. So that must have been in 1998. I guess it would have been 1998. And. And then as the years went on, it just became this huge passion of mine that I've developed that I've devoted a lot of attention and time towards, more so than the Hebrew Bible, even since finishing my dissertation in 2012. But I, I guess maybe more of an example then of how that relates, because we're really. We're concerned about how does that relate to Mormon scripture.

John Dehlin [02:32:33] Right, right, right.

David Bokovoy [02:32:34] So. And I can illustrate that by talking, returning to a conversation that we had earlier where I talked about the historical development of Christology that is very, very clearly marked in the texts that are found in the New Testament, from the rituals and hymns that are embedded in the epistles that reflect the earliest Christological view held by followers of Jesus, that Jesus became the Son of God at his. At his death and through his resurrection to the new theological Christology that we see Mark present, which. No, Jesus Christ. Jesus became the special Son of God who God chose as the Son of God. Whatever that meant, means something different for each source at his baptism. And that. And then Matthew and Luke, which come next in line, historically pushed that to the virgin birth. No, he was the Son of God at birth. And then John's Gospel, which is the latest written at the end of the first century, John is the one that starts off in the beginning was the Word. The Word was with God. The Word was God. Verse 14, the word was made flesh and dwelt among us. And all throughout the Gospel of John, Jesus is God. I mean, he says, I am the great. I am. I am the bread of life. I am this. He talks about himself in his divinity constantly.

John Dehlin [02:33:57] So the later the gospel was written, the earlier they're claiming Jesus became the Son of God. Is that right? In his life, yeah. So in Christology would be the study of figuring out when Jesus became the son of God.

David Bokovoy [02:34:12] Yeah. The view of Christ and Messiah and what that means because they were all

John Dehlin [02:34:18] looking for a Messiah.

David Bokovoy [02:34:19] No, actually probably most Jews were not looking for a Messiah at the time of Jesus.

John Dehlin [02:34:25] Really?

David Bokovoy [02:34:25] Yeah, most Jews probably were not. But those who were looking for a Messiah had different viewpoints. We see that from the Dead Sea scroll community. We see it from other sources. Some believed that this Messiah would come and restore proper priesthood, ordinances and rituals in the temple that they believed were corrupted. Others believed that the Messiah would be a conquering hero and liberate the Jewish people from Rome. Whatever the viewpoint that Jewish groups held about the Messiah, the one thing that they held, the one common denominator was that the Messiah would come and be a figure of great power and grandeur. One thing that none of them believed was that the Messiah would come and suffer and be conquered by Rome and executed as a political insurrectionist. Nobody believed that. And so that's actually a very important piece of historical information. Why scholars, historians say, well, Jesus was real because he didn't meet the expectations that everybody had. The Jewish community had to actually go to their Hebrew Bible text and find typology and symbolism things that they felt alluded to the concept of a suffering Messiah because none of them believed that that would transpire. And so that is actually pretty strong evidence for his the fact that he was a real person who lived and walked on the face of the earth. Because no one's going to make up a myth about someone who fails to meet every expectation and flies in the face of everything that people believed at the time concerning the Messiah. I mean there's other pieces of evidence as well. But the thing to note about that for Mormon scripture is how Joseph Smith then how his Revelations run into direct conflict with the New Testament. Because of historical criticism, we could look at it in terms of the Book of Mormon and the fact that Matthew, for example, the Sermon on the Mount. Scholars are convinced that Jesus never gave that sermon. It was is the author of the account. It's an amalgamation of different things that Jesus supposedly said at time that are put into that form. Yet Jesus appears in the Book of Mormon re giving that, that sermon word for word in a way that would not have made sense to people of ancient America because so many of the themes are connected with first century Palestine and Jewish life at that time period. So those are challenges that his Scripture Faces. But this one in particular, I'll show this because this is so interesting. I think so in section for our audience will probably remember that in DNC Section 93, the LDS Doctrine and Covenants, Joseph Smith restores lost writings from John, the author of the Book of John. Well, I'll notice for example, verse 8. I'm in DNC 93, verse 8. Therefore, in the beginning the Word was and he was the Word, even the messenger of salvation, the light and the redeemer of the world, the spirit of truth. You'd think you were reading from the Gospel of John. There's. It's all Johannine language. Who came into the world because the world was made by him, and in him was the life of men and the light of men, worlds were made by him. This is all Johannine. John's literature really wants to emphasize this idea of contrast between light and dark. And then we read first person and I, John, bear record that I beheld his glory as the glory of the only begotten of the Father. And then move down to verses 12 and 13. In Joseph Smith's Revelation I, John, saw that he, Jesus, received not of the fullness at the first, but received grace for grace. And he received not of the fullness at first, but continued from grace to grace until he received a fullness. And thus meaning, therefore, meaning because he did not receive a fullness at first, but he received it a little bit by a little bit here and grew and grew. He was called the Son of God, and I underline called the Son of God because he received an odd of the fullness at first.

John Dehlin [02:38:28] That's very different than what Mormons are taught, John. That's alarming.

David Bokovoy [02:38:33] Oh, John. The fact of the matter is the author of the Gospel of John would have been so offended by this language.

John Dehlin [02:38:39] Right?

David Bokovoy [02:38:40] Because that's the gospel where Jesus wasn't called the Son of God. Jesus was the Son of God from the beginning. He didn't receive grace for grace. It was all from the beginning.

John Dehlin [02:38:49] What was that again? What was that?

David Bokovoy [02:38:50] That was DNC section 93, verse 14. That's presented as if it's John's language. But John would never have said that. Mark could have said something like that, that he was called the Son of God at his baptism. But even Luke and Matthew would have struggled a little bit with that because he's born as the Son of God. This idea here reflects a theology, a Christology that is completely antithetical to the to what the author of the Gospel of John would have written. There's no way he could have been responsible for any of this material. Yet it's presented that way in Joseph Smith's revelation. That presents a significant challenge for traditional believers once they're exposed to higher criticism in the New Testament and to see how that affects Mormon scripture.

John Dehlin [02:39:33] And I would imagine that Joseph Smith just had this idea of eternal progression that even Jesus progressed. Is that. How do you make sense of.

David Bokovoy [02:39:41] Sure. That it's a reflection of Joseph Smith's theory, theology. Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

John Dehlin [02:39:46] But he's attributing it to John.

David Bokovoy [02:39:47] Yeah. This is received in 33. John would.

John Dehlin [02:39:50] John would have flipped in his grave, you're saying.

David Bokovoy [02:39:51] Yeah, exactly. Because he was called the Son of God. You see that there? No. Yeah. So. But that it. Joseph Smith does this all the time. He receives. He authors revelation in the first person for ancient prophetic figures of the past and, and writes what they should have said or would have said from his. Joseph Smith's perspective if they had been given a chance with the fullness of the perspective that he felt that he was. He had obtained at that time.

John Dehlin [02:40:22] Okay. All right.

David Bokovoy [02:40:24] So I, I mean, I, I think. And we could do. We could do hours on the New Testament, but I think that's just semesters. Yeah, certainly. But just. I think that's a good, quick illustration of how Joseph Smith's revelations are impacted through higher criticism in the New Testament. And it's all over the place.

John Dehlin [02:40:41] And I want to refer listeners to the Bart Ehrman episode where we talk about this, but just as a second witness. Out of the mouth of two or three witnesses, all truth will be established. Does the New Testament have contradictions and acronyms all the same problems that we ascribe to Book of Abraham, Book of Mormon and Old Testament now, and Book of Moses?

Contradictions in the Gospels and Joseph Smith's Bible Translation

David Bokovoy [02:41:03] Absolutely. All we have to do is just. I would invite our listeners to do is just line up the resurrection story in the four Gospels and just look at the differences, look at the contradictions, look at the problems. For many, many years, the Bible is treated as a privileged text. And so those were all even by.

John Dehlin [02:41:21] Even by scholars, Christian scholars. Right.

David Bokovoy [02:41:23] Harmonized to make sense instead of actually just taking the words, making the words mean actually what they say on the text.

John Dehlin [02:41:30] And, and Ermine talked about this. But who's at the. Who's at the tomb when you know, when it's rolled back and who Jesus talks to and what he says, it's. It's.

David Bokovoy [02:41:42] It all changes.

John Dehlin [02:41:43] It's not just, you know, different points of view. It's not just some things are Left out and other things are included. It's contradictory information, is that right?

David Bokovoy [02:41:53] Absolutely. And you can.

John Dehlin [02:41:56] Mutually exclusive information.

David Bokovoy [02:41:57] Yeah. So. Well, a great illustration of that. And we. You were kind of talking about this, you know, in, in the, the market account of the crucifixion. Jesus starts to doubt himself at the end, right. He's like, you know, calling upon his father and you know, and my God, my God, why have you forsaken me? And this fits into all of Mark's themes that are found. It's so perfect for Mark where no one understands who Jesus is in Mark, except for Mark the author. You, the reader know, the demons know who he is. Right. But none of his disciples, his family doesn't know who he is. Even Jesus doubts himself at the very end. Well, Matthew and Luke used Mark to create their gospel narratives. And what do they leave out? Jesus making that assertion. My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Because that was uncomfortable to them to have Jesus doubt at the end when he's going full well, knowing what he's supposed to do, to suffer and die. So you see those sorts of changes and grow that sort of growth theologically. And it's, I think it's exciting to see it. And for a traditional believer, yeah, it causes challenges, but at the same time, that's my whole argument always was, you know what? Mormonism has all of the tools necessary to be able to handle stuff like this. It really does. With the scriptures and looking at it, it's just if you know it can handle it. Granted, it's going to cause some serious stretching and the eradication of traditional paradigms of truth, but it's got the skills. It can handle it.

John Dehlin [02:43:32] Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Really quickly, why didn't your book cover the Joseph Smith translation of the New Testament? Any, any reason why you left that

David Bokovoy [02:43:43] out of the New Testament?

John Dehlin [02:43:44] Yeah, just a translation of the, the.

David Bokovoy [02:43:47] It's supposed to be a series and this was volume one. And but I mean, you cover Book

John Dehlin [02:43:53] of Moses, Book of Abraham, Book of Mormon. Oh, you would think you would throw in the Joseph Smith translation.

David Bokovoy [02:43:59] I see. Well, I kind of linked to Joseph Smith translation with the book of Moses since it was part of that. Okay, that's kind of. I was thinking in those terms.

John Dehlin [02:44:07] But he, there's. He rewrote parts of the New Testament, right?

David Bokovoy [02:44:10] Yeah. And there. It certainly extends the revisions that Joseph Smith does will extend beyond the first five books. But since I was mainly concerned with, I, I just. Book of Moses would kind of covered what I was most concerned with.

John Dehlin [02:44:23] Oh, because it was Old Testament. Because the book is about Old Testament.

David Bokovoy [02:44:25] Okay.

John Dehlin [02:44:26] I, and I asked, I told you I was going to make reference to this, Some, some scholarship that some of my Mormon stories listeners won't know that, that I have here. Really. Released March 16, 2017 by a BYU undergrad named Haley Wilson and a BYU professor named Tom and Weyment, who's a professor of ancient scripture. This is an article that the BYU published called a Recently Recovered Rethinking Joseph Smith's Bible Translation. And in it, what we find, find is that these scholars have identified large portions of the Joseph Smith translation which we all assumed came from God was Joseph's, you know, divinely inspired correction of parts of the New Testament that he viewed as, you know, that God viewed as inaccurate. We find were likely plagiarized right out of a source called Adam Clark's Holy Bible containing the Old and New Testaments, which it writes was a mainstay for Methodist theologians and biblical scholars and was one of the most widely available commentaries in the midnight 1820s and 1830s in America. So we all know that, you know, the Book of Mormon has problems, the Book of Abraham has problems. You know, now we know the Book of Moses has problems, and of course the Old Testament, New Testament have problems. Now we know that that large portions of the Joseph Smith translation was apparently plagiarized from just a common biblical commentary that Joseph Smith clearly had access to do. Do you have any comments on that? I know that's not anything you've written about.

David Bokovoy [02:46:07] No, but I. Yeah, but I've read the scholarship and, and Tom Wayman is a wonderful scholar and a great person and we're starting to see people a lot more open to, even within the mainstream of the church to these sorts of ideas. It's going to have to happen.

John Dehlin [02:46:24] And I just want to make a shout out to Haley because Haley was an undergraduate scholar who discovered this. It wasn't Thomas that discovered this, it was Haley. Oh, yeah, yeah. And she's now at Notre Dame getting her at least her master's degree. And I just want to give her a shout out because she's like a modern day scholar hero, at least to me.

David Bokovoy [02:46:45] That's awesome.

John Dehlin [02:46:46] And this is an important piece of the puzzle.

David Bokovoy [02:46:48] Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. And one of my former students, Cody Townsend Kobe, is doing incredible work on this as well and showing and documenting all of the phrases from the New Testament that and other sources and of scripture that appear in Joseph Smith's revelation and tracking that down and where he's taking that from the sources. A lot of cool stuff is coming out right now.

Transcript © 2026 John P. Dehlin. All rights reserved. Brief quotations are welcome with attribution and a link to mormonstories.org; all other use requires written permission.