Abraham, Thou Art One of Them

One of the worst things we can do when reading a text is assume that we know what it means. When that text is identified as scripture and we belong to a certain community of its interpreters, the risk of misinterpretation increases. As long as we have been a part of that community, we have been taught to read the scripture in a certain way--the way that serves best the needs of the community. There will be no community discussion of a text that places the needs of the individual reader before the interests of the community. When you attend church classes and read church manuals, you are being given the church view of what the scripture "must" mean.

Churches, however, evolve, and their interpretations of text evolve along with them. A late 19th century reading of Mormon scripture does not serve the needs of the 21st century church. Consider the Book of Abraham. This must be one of the most misunderstood texts in all of Mormondom. Why? Think of the circumstances of its production and eventual canonization.

When the Book of Abraham was included in the Pearl of Great Price, Joseph Smith had been deceased for seven years, and the church that sprang into being was that of the apostles of the old LDS Church, which was now under the leadership of the president of the Twelve, Brigham Young. When the Book of Abraham was canonized, many of the leaders of the LDS Church subscribed to the Adam-God doctrine--yes, doctrine--in which Adam was identified as God, the Father of Jesus Christ. This was Brigham Young's teaching, which he claims to have gotten from Joseph Smith. Be wary, however, because Brigham taught his own interpretation of what Joseph had taught him. Those teachings would inform how the Book of Abraham was interpreted.

After Adam-God was officially repudiated in the early 20th century, the Book of Abraham would be interpreted in light of the new, more mainstream LDS theology. The current LDS interpretations of the Book of Abraham will inform how members read the text now. If you are happy knowing that and nothing else, then that is fine for you. You may, however, be curious about the possibility that Joseph Smith had something quite different in mind when he translated the Book of Abraham in the mid 1830s and early 1840s. Chapters 3 & 4, which are what we are concerned with here, were produced in Nauvoo, and that can inform our understanding of what Smith meant. After all, Smith's theology was evolving, and his views in the early 1840s in Nauvoo were not identical to his teachings in Kirtland.

The passage I am currently most interested in is Abraham 3:22-24: 22: Now the Lord had shown unto me, Abraham, the intelligences that were organized before the world was; and among all these there were many of the noble and great ones; 23: And God saw these souls that they were good, and he stood in the midst of them, and he said: These I will make my rulers; for he stood among those that were spirits, and he saw that they were good; and he said unto me: Abraham, thou art one of them; thou was chosen before thou wast born.

24: And there stood one among them that was like unto God and he said unto those who were with them: We will go down, for there is space there, and we will take of these materials, and we will make an earth whereon these may dwell;

First, it is important to recognize that there were many intelligences, and that among all of them there were "the noble and great ones." This means that not all of the intelligences were noble and great. God stands among the noble and great ones, and he says that he will make these his rulers. Then he tells Abraham that he is one of those noble and great ones whom he will make his rulers. Finally, "one who is like unto God," being Michael (because that is what the name Michael means), tells some of the other noble and great ones that they will make an earth for other intelligences to dwell.

Modern Mormons like to imagine themselves in the number of "noble and great ones," but I think this is a mistake. From among those many intelligences, a limited number were "noble and great ones" among whom God stood. These were probably more advanced beings than many of the other intelligences for whom the earth would be made by Michael and his associates. And it is clear that Michael is, like Abraham but perhaps even more emphatically so, set apart from the rank-and-file intelligences, likely because he is already, as Smith had long thought, an exalted being.

Whether Abraham is exalted at this point is less clear. The text seems not to support that view, but I don't want to be hasty. It instead seems that the Book of Abraham, as a whole, is now being inflected in the direction of explaining how it is that Abraham would become exalted. He had not earned his exaltation before coming to the earth, but he was among those who were appointed to be "rulers" on earth, and he apparently passed whatever test was placed before him to receive the covenant that would lead to him becoming a being like Michael.

Another possibility, however, is that "the noble and great ones" were exalted beings, just not as exalted as God, and that they were appointed as rulers in the sense that angels are identified as rulers in various traditions. Perhaps it is the case that Michael is the leader of a group of exalted beings among whom one here finds Abraham. Where I think we run into trouble, if we are trying to contextualize this in terms of later Mormon theology, is that certainly the text is confusing regarding the differences between intelligences, souls, and spirits. The last two terms seem to be used interchangeably. We do not see Michael spoken of as an embodied being, unless that is what "like unto God" means here. And if that designation is what sets him apart, then it would stand to reason that Abraham might not be "like unto God" in that sense.

There are a lot of questions here, and that is OK. What we should not assume, in my view, is that the answers are necessarily clear.