The Letters from Lachish

[Solon]

A few months ago, the board hosted a discussion about the historicity of the Book of Mormon, the historiography of 1 Nephi, and the role of innovation in historical tradition.

http://cougarguard.com/forum/showthread.php?t=7999
http://cougarguard.com/forum/showthr...77213#poststop

The Lachish letters are the closest written records to Lehi/Nephi's time/place that we have.

From 1935 to 1938, British excavators at Tel Lachish, a site in ancient Israel, discovered 18 broken potsherds (called ostraka) on which were preserved fragments of several letters written in ink. These letters, written near the time of the destruction of Lachish in ca. 587 BCE, represent the only surviving examples of Classical Hebrew prose. The letters were published in Lachish I by Harry Torczyner in 1938. See JSTOR for a review that appeared soon after publication. (Scroll to the bottom of the page.)

http://www.jstor.org/view/00224189/ap040088/04a00260/0

LDS apologists, particularly Hugh Nibley, have tried to tie these letters to the story of Lehi and other components of the Book of Mormon, since the letters date from the purported time of Lehi, Nephi, and family. Nibley published at least two articles relating the Book of Mormon to the Lachish letters, in addition to a more accessible article that appeared in the Ensign in December, 1981.

See Hugh W. Nibley, "Two Shots in the Dark," part i., "Dark Days in Jerusalem: The Lachish Letters and the Book of Mormon (1 Nephi)," in Book of Mormon Authorship: New Light on Ancient Origins, ed. Noel B. Reynolds (FARMS Reprint Series; Provo, UT: FARMS, 1996 [reprint of 1982 ed.]) 104.

Here's the Ensign article:
http://www.lds.org/ldsorg/v/index.js...____&hideNav=1

Nibley’s best point draws a connection between name forms in the letters and name forms in the Book of Mormon, and he makes less solid (in my opinion) points about writing surfaces and the role of Egyptian scribes in official Israelite correspondences.

In the Ensign article, Nibley relied heavily on Torczyner’s interpretation that the writer of the letters was in trouble for overstepping his bounds and reading his superiors’ mail. Indeed, Nibley went so far as to assert that the potsherds were kept in the guardhouse because they were going to be used as evidence in an upcoming court-martial. Subsequent scholarship has fairly persuasively argued that the sherds were most likely drafts of letters discarded by scribes after use [the simplest point being that 5 of the sherds came from the same pot, most likely indicating that the letters were written over a short span of time].

See Baruch Halpern’s review for a summary (you probably need JSTOR access; scroll to the bottom of the page):
http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=000...3E2.0.CO%3B2-2

In the 1990s, Dr. Thomas Finley presented a critique of Nibley’s use of the letters to demonstrate Book of Mormon connections.

You can read his arguments at: http://www.irr.org/mit/nibley.html

Okay, you ask – so what? It’s a nice debate.

These letters represent the closest match to anything written in the Hebrew language at the time of Lehi/Nephi in ancient Israel. Regardless of the debate over name endings, Egyptian scribes, deleth plates, or whatever, the form and content of these letters are very much at odds with anything found in the Book of Mormon (in my professional opinion).

I give you as example the third letter (also the longest). The translation comes from David Ussishkin, editor, The Renewed Archaeological Excavations at Lachish (1973-1994), vol. 4 (Tel Aviv: 2004), pp. 2100-2102.

1. Your servant Hosha’yahu has sent to
2. report to my lord (Ya)’ush. May YHWH let
3. my lord hear tidings of peace
4. and tidings of good! And now, open,
5. please the ear of your servant about the letter which
6. you sent to your servant yesterday evening. For the heart
7. of your servant has been sick since you sent (it) to your servant,
8. and my lord said: ‘You do not know
9. how to read a letter!’ As <Y>HWH lives, no one has ever tried
10. to read me a letter! Moreover,
11. whenever any letter comes to me, if
12. I read it, then I (can) repeat it
13. to the smallest detail. And to your servant it has been told:
14. ‘Down went the commander of the army
15. Konyahu son of Elnatan to go
16. into Egypt’. And
REVERSE
17. Hodawyahu son of Ahiyahu and
18. his men he sent to take from here.
19. And the letter of Tobyahu, servant of the king, addressed
20. to Shallum son of Yada’ from the prophet:
21. “Beware!”, your ser<v>ant sent it to my lord.

This letter is extremely cumbersome in style and struggles to provide more than rudimentary narrative description. The other letters, while fragmentary, nevertheless are highly formulaic with salutations and oaths. While I recognize that translation can add to or detract from style, I find it hard to accept these letters as contemporaneous with Book of Mormon writing. The closest thing to the tedious repetitions and primitive structure in these letters to be found in the Book of Mormon is "And it came to pass." Otherwise, Nephi's first-person account is filled with his personal thoughts, causality, and historical perspective - all anachronistic to 6th century historiography.

While I don't think the Lachish letters disprove the Book of Mormon, they certainly do not support it (IMO), Nibley's ideas notwithstanding.

If someone chooses to believe the BoM for personal religious reasons as a result of personal religious experience, I think that's great. I continue to be skeptical, however, of all arguments I've read that draw historical parallels.

I can't prove it, but it seems to me that the church has shied away from these types of historical connections over the past 10 years or so. The church pushes no agenda (as far as I know) with the NWAF's archaeological digs in Meso-America, nor does it include photo plates of Mayan temples in the front matter of the Book of Mormon any longer. Even FARMS seems to be more focused on Bible problems than BoM ones. Commendable.