Posted on 02/08/2010 9:05:28 AM PST by greyfoxx39
On the day the restored Church was organized, 6 April 1830, the Lord revealed details about the calling of Joseph Smith:
Behold, there shall be a record kept among you; and in it thou shalt be called a seer, a translator, a prophet, an apostle of Jesus Christ, an elder of the church through the will of God the Father, and the grace of your Lord Jesus Christ, Being inspired of the Holy Ghost to lay the foundation thereof, and to build it up unto the most holy faith. (D&C 21:1-2)
What fascinates me is not just the variety of callings, but the fact that they are listed in chronological order. Joseph first became a seer (meaning “one who sees”) when the Father and the Son appeared to him in the spring of 1820. He next received the calling of translator, commissioned to translate the Book of Mormon, a process that began in 1827. During the course of that translation, he began receiving revelations for his own mission as well as for others who had come to believe in the work, thus making him a prophet. In the summer of 1829, he and Oliver Cowdery received the keys from Peter, James, and John, and became thereby apostles. On the day the Church was organized, Joseph was ordained to be the first elder of the Church and Oliver Cowdery the second.
A few weeks before his death, the prophet Joseph addressed the Saints in Nauvoo, declaring:
Every man who has a calling to minister to the inhabitants of the world was ordained to that very purpose in the Grand Council of heaven before this world was. [1] I suppose that I was ordained to this very office in that Grand Council. It is the testimony that I want that I am God's servant, and this people His people. The ancient prophets declared that in the last days the God of heaven should set up a kingdom which should never be destroyed, [2] nor left to other people; and the very time that was calculated on, this people were struggling to bring it out... I calculate to be one of the instruments of setting up the kingdom of Daniel by the word of the Lord, and I intend to lay a foundation that will revolutionize the whole world. (History of the Church 6:364-5)
Brigham Young similarly said:
Should not this thought comfort all people? They will, by-and-by, be a thousand times more thankful for such a man as Joseph Smith, junior, than it is possible for them to be for any earthly good whatever. It is his mission to see that all the children of men in this last dispensation are saved, that can be, through the redemption. You will be thankful, every one of you, that Joseph Smith, junior, was ordained to this great calling before the worlds were. I told you that the doctrine of election and reprobation is a true doctrine. It was decreed in the counsels of eternity, long before the foundations of the earth were laid, that he should be the man, in the last dispensation of this world, to bring forth the word of God to the people, and receive the fulness of the keys and power of the Priesthood of the Son of God. The Lord had his eye upon him, and upon his father, and upon his father’s father, and upon their progenitors clear back to Abraham, and from Abraham to the flood, from the flood to Enoch, and from Enoch to Adam. He has watched that family and that blood as it has circulated from its fountain to the birth of that man. He was foreordained in eternity to preside over this last dispensation... [God] foreknew what Joseph, who was sold into Egypt, would do. Joseph was foreordained to be the temporal saviour of his father's house, and the seed of Joseph are ordained to be the spiritual and temporal saviours of all the house of Israel in the latter days. Joseph's seed has mixed itself with all the seed of man upon the face of the whole earth. The great majority of those who are now before me are the descendants of that Joseph who was sold. Joseph Smith, junior, was foreordained to come through the loins of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, and so on down through the Prophets and Apostles; and thus he came forth in the last days to be a minister of salvation, and to hold the keys of the last dispensation of the fulness of times. (Journal of Discourses 7:289-90)
Because of his foreordination, Joseph Smith’s calling was revealed to ancient prophets. One of these was Joseph, the son of Jacob (renamed Israel), who had been sold into Egypt and rescued his family during a time of famine. A descendant of this Joseph was the prophet Lehi, who recited his ancestor’s prophecy while blessing his own son, also named Joseph:
Wherefore, Joseph truly saw our day. And he obtained a promise of the Lord, that out of the fruit of his loins the Lord God would raise up a righteous branch unto the house of Israel; not the Messiah, but a branch which was to be broken off, nevertheless, to be remembered in the covenants of the Lord that the Messiah should be made manifest unto them in the latter days, in the spirit of power, unto the bringing of them out of darkness unto light — yea, out of hidden darkness and out of captivity unto freedom. For Joseph truly testified, saying: A seer shall the Lord my God raise up, who shall be a choice seer unto the fruit of my loins. Yea, Joseph truly said: Thus saith the Lord unto me: A choice seer will I raise up out of the fruit of thy loins... And unto him will I give commandment that he shall do a work for the fruit of thy loins, his brethren, which shall be of great worth unto them, even to the bringing of them to the knowledge of the covenants which I have made with thy fathers... And he shall be great like unto Moses, whom I have said I would raise up unto you, to deliver my people, O house of Israel. And Moses will I raise up, to deliver thy people out of the land of Egypt. But a seer will I raise up out of the fruit of thy loins; and unto him will I give power to bring forth my word unto the seed of thy loins... And his name shall be called after me; and it shall be after the name of his father. (2 Nephi 3:5-7, 9-11, 15)
This great prophecy is also found in the Joseph Smith translation of Genesis 50:24-38, which contains the words uttered by Joseph on his deathbed. The promise is twofold: 1) God will send a prophet named Moses to deliver Israel from Egyptian bondage, and 2) in the last days, God will call a prophet named Joseph, a descendant of Joseph of old, to bring the people to power and light. This latter-day prophet is Joseph Smith, who bore the same first name as his father.
Moses and Aaron
Joseph’s prophecy of Moses is confirmed in Jewish tradition, notably in two of the second-century A.D. targumim or translations of the Bible into Aramaic. [3] In a lengthy addition to Genesis 40:12, Targum Neofiti has Joseph interpreting the three branches of the butler’s dream as follows: “The three branches are the three fathers of the world: namely; Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the sons of whose sons are to be enslaved in the slavery of the land of Egypt and are to be delivered by the hands of three faithful leaders: Moses, Aaron, and Miriam, who are to be likened to the clusters of grapes.” [4] Similarly, the Babylonian Talmud has Rabbi Eleazar explaining that “The ‘vine’ is the world, the ‘three branches’ are [the patriarchs] Abraham, Isaac and Jacob,” with Rabbi Joshua correcting him by saying, “The ‘vine’ is the Torah, the ‘three branches’ are Moses, Aaron and Miriam” (TB Hillun 92a). While the Book of Mormon has Joseph prophesying of Moses and of one of his own descendants, also to be named Joseph, the Joseph Smith translation (JST) of Genesis 50:35, confirms that Joseph also prophesied of Aaron as Moses’ companion, saying, “And I will make a spokesman for him, and his name shall be called Aaron.” [5]
From the account in Genesis 50:24-25, it is clear that Joseph was aware that the Israelites would someday leave Egypt, though he says nothing in the biblical account about the bondage they would endure in the meanwhile. But Pirqe de Rabbi Eliezer 48, citing the Genesis passage, has Joseph prophesying the bondage of the Israelites and their deliverance by God. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on Genesis 50:24 has Joseph telling his family, “Behold you will be enslaved in Egypt, but do not make plans to go up out of Egypt until the time that two deliverers come and say to you, ‘The Lord surely remembers you’” (see Exodus 2:24; 6:5). [6] This suggests that he knew about the coming of Moses and Aaron to liberate Israel and confirms Joseph Smith’s addition to Genesis 50:24-25. Significantly, the additional material in the Targum is in precisely the same place where the JST has the prophecy, just after Genesis 50:24.
The Calling of Joseph Smith
The identification of Joseph Smith as the “choice seer” of the lineage of Joseph seems to be confirmed in a patriarchal blessing given to the Prophet by Oliver Cowdery on 22 September 1835 and recorded on 3 October 1835 by Oliver, in which we read of Joseph that
like Moses of old, shall he hear the voice, saying, I am the God of thy fathers Abraham, Isaac and Jacob... Thus shall he be honored of the Lord, and thus shall it be recorded of him, that the generation to come may bless his name, in Israel, saying, “The Lord make thee as Joseph the Seer, who was of the house of Ephraim the brother of Manasseh. The Lord do thee good, and bring peace and blessings among thy house, as he brought them upon the house of Joseph the Seer, who was raised up of a choice vine from the stem of Jacob through the root of Joseph, even that Joseph who was separated from his brethren; for like Joseph of old shall he be... By the keys of the kingdom shall he lead Israel into the land of Zion, while the house of Jacob shouts in the dance and in the song... He shall be a law giver to Israel, and shall teach the house of Jacob the statutes of the Most High... The records of past ages and generations, and the histories of ancient days shall he bring forth. [7]
The reference to the vine and root reflects the prophecy in Isaiah 11:1-10. A latter-day revelation known as D&C 113:1-6 suggests that the Isaiah passage refers to three separate individuals who will play an important leadership role in the last days. It explains the stem, the rod, and the root of Jesse (king David’s father) as being, respectively, “Christ... a servant in the hands of Christ, who is partly a descendant of Jesse as well as of Ephraim, or of the house of Joseph... [and] a descendant of Jesse, as well as of Joseph, unto whom rightly belongs the priesthood, and the keys of the kingdom, for an ensign, and for the gathering of my people in the last days.” [8] It is likely that one of the latter two is Joseph Smith. [9]
The Messiah of Joseph
A number of Latter-day Saint writers have drawn a comparison between the life and calling of Joseph Smith and the Jewish tradition of a messiah to be descended from Joseph and his son Ephraim. [10] The Hebrew term from which we get the word messiah means “anointed.” In ancient Israel, the kings [11] and high priests [12] were regularly anointed, and there are even references to the anointing of prophets. [13]
In Jewish lore, the Messiah of Joseph is to begin the gathering of the tribes, to greet Elijah upon his promised return, and is destined to be a military leader who dies in combat. [14] In view of the prophecy in 2 Nephi 2:6-21, Joseph Smith seems to fit this description. [15] In 1836, he received the keys of the gathering of Israel from Moses and the sealing power from Elijah (D&C 110), who was to precede Christ’s second coming to earth (Malachi 4:5-6). [16] A lieutenant-general and commander of the Nauvoo Legion, he was slain by a mob comprising mostly Illinois and Missouri militiamen.
In the late 1970s, while teaching with the Brigham Young University Jerusalem program, I was invited to give a series of lectures (in Hebrew) on the subject of Mormonism at the University of Haifa. In one of the lectures, I displayed a chart outlining Joseph Smith’s major accomplishments. I intended to speak about each item on the list and, at the end, suggest that Joseph Smith fit the qualifications for the Messiah of Joseph expected by the Jews. But that turned out to be unnecessary. By the time I got through the top third of the list, I heard whispering among a group of orthodox Jewish students in the audience. They were saying, mashiah ben Joseph, “Messiah the son of Joseph.” [17]
According to Midrash Rabbah Genesis 84:8‑10, Joseph prophesied that his descendant, the Messiah of Joseph, would abolish idolatry in Israel. Yelammedenu 20 indicates that Rachel prophesied that Joseph would be the ancestor of the Messiah who would arise at the end of days. [18] “Messiah the son of Joseph” is briefly mentioned in the rabbinic text Tanna debe Eliyahu (Eliyahu Rabbah 98), written some time between the third and the ninth centuries A.D., while the medieval Zohar Genesis 25b speaks of “the first Messiah” and “the second Messiah.” The Babylonian Talmud notes that at the death of the Messiah of Joseph, the Messiah son of David will ask God to restore him to life (Sukkah 52a). [19]
The following passage declares that the four craftsmen seen by Zechariah (Zechariah 1:20) [20] were “The Messiah the son of David, the Messiah the son of Joseph, Elijah and the Righteous Priest” (Sukkah 52b). [21] Elijah, in Jewish tradition, is to return to earth as a forerunner of the Messiah son of David. The “righteous priest” may be the Messiah of Aaron mentioned in some of the Dead Sea Scrolls, sometimes alongside the Messiah son of David. [22] This reminds us that John the Baptist was a type of Elijah (Greek form Elias) who became Christ’s forerunner when he first came in mortality. [23]
From the Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs, we have indications that a messiah would descend from Joseph. [24] For example, the Armenian version of Testament of Joseph 19:8 notes that the virgin who would bear the Messiah would be “wearing a multicolored stole,” [25] which seems to refer to Joseph’s “coat of many colors” (Genesis 37:3). The tie between Joseph and the Messiah is reinforced in Testament of Benjamin 3:8, where Jacob declares to Joseph, “Through you will be fulfilled the heavenly prophecy concerning the Lamb of God, the Savior of the world, because the unspotted one will be betrayed by lawless men, and the sinless one will die for impious men by the blood of the covenant for the salvation of the gentiles and of Israel and the destruction of Beliar and his servants.” [26]
In the blessing recorded in Genesis 49:24, Jacob said of Joseph, “from thence is the shepherd, the stone of Israel.” This sounds very much like a messianic declaration, for Christ is both the good shepherd (John 10:11) and the stone of Israel (1 Corinthians 10:4). Indeed, in D&C 50:44, Jesus is called “the good shepherd, and the stone of Israel.” The Genesis passage may have given rise to the concept of the “messiah of Joseph” among Jews and Samaritans. [27]
In Jewish tradition, the messiah of Joseph is to be a descendant of Joshua, himself of the tribe of Ephraim, Joseph’s son (see Numbers 13:8, 16; 1 Chronicles 7:22-27), and will, like Joshua, be a military leader. Targum Pseudo-Jonathan on Exodus 40:11 speaks of Joshua and “the Messiah, the son of Ephraim, who will be descended from him, and through whom the house of Israel is to be victorious over Gog and his associates at the end of days.” [28]
In the pseudepigraphic 3 Enoch 45:5, the angel Metatron (who had been Enoch in mortality) told Rabbi Ishmael, “And I saw: the Messiah the son of Joseph and his generation, and all that they will do to the gentiles. And I saw: the Messiah the son of David and his generation, and all the battles and wars, and all that they will do to Israel whether for good or bad. And I saw: all the battles and wars which Gog and Magog will fight with Israel in the days of the Messiah, and all that the Holy One, blessed be he, will do to them in the time to come.” [29] Some commentators have suggested that the large buffalo seen by Enoch was the Messiah of Joseph (1 Enoch 90:38). [30]
Zohar Numbers 194b speaks of a dragon named “Shiryah, who is destined to come with the Messiah of Ephraim, and who will wreak vengeance on other nations; and then it will be time to expect the deliverance of Israel.” [31] According to the Babylonian Talmud (Baba Batra 123b), Rome will be delivered only into the hand of a descendant of Joseph. Several medieval Jewish texts indicate that the Greek empire would fall through the tribe of Levi, while the Roman empire would fall through the tribe of Joseph. [32] Midrash Rabbah Genesis 99:2, commenting on the animal imagery of Benjamin, Judah, and Joseph in the blessings pronounced on them by their father Jacob (Genesis 49:9, 22, 27), [33] identifies the lion as Babylon, which fell through the hands of Daniel of Judah; [34] the wolf as Media, over which Mordecai of Benjamin became a ruler; [35] while the bull is the horned beast representing the latter-day kingdom of evil that Joseph will subdue before the messianic era.
One passage (Midrash Rabbah Numbers 14:1) surprisingly says that there will be both a “Messiah who is to spring from the sons of Manasseh” and a “Messiah anointed for war who will be descended from Ephraim,” in addition to “the Great Redeemer who is to be a descendant of the grandchildren of David.” [36]
The Samaritan Tradition
The Samaritans, who claim to be descendants of Joseph and (in the case of their priests and Levites) Levi, also have a tradition about a messiah-type leader who will come in the latter days. The divinely-appointed Ta’eb or Taheb is to be a reborn or returned Joshua. [37] A Samaritan midrash (British Museum Samaritan manuscript Or. 3393) understands the title Ta’eb to be “he who repents” or “he who makes to repent.” [38] The word really means “returner,” but is understood (as is its cognate in Hebrew) in the sense of one who “repents,” that is, returnd to God.
A Samaritan poem attributed to Abisha ben Pinhas (fourteenth century A.D.), but incorporating older traditional Samaritan material, says of the promised deliverer, “When the Taheb groweth up, his righteousness shall be revealed. The Lord shall call him and teach him his laws. He shall give him a new scripture and clothe him with prophecy.” [39] In the early third century A.D., the Christian theologian Origen wrote that “Dositheus the Samaritan, after the time of Jesus wished to persuade the Samaritans that he himself was the Messias prophesied by Moses” (Against Celsus 6.2).
Conclusions
From the evidence we have examined here, it is clear that early Jewish tradition has Joseph prophesying of the coming of Moses and Aaron and of one of his own descendants who came to be known as the “Messiah of Joseph.” These traditions support the Book of Mormon and JST of Genesis 50 regarding Joseph’s prophecy about these same individuals.
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Ping
Oh, good grief.
Greater than Jesus, the same as Moses, prophet, Messiah, - I am going to lose my breakfast.
Obviously ‘Christians’ don’t believe in the God of the old Testament.
Well well....huh?
These cult threads do get old.
Amazing how the Mormon prophet resembles the Islamic prophet. Both were polygamists. Both brought in new scriptures to re-interpret and supersede the bible.
Mormoninfo.org
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The ancient prophets declared that in the last days the God of heaven should set up a kingdom which should never be destroyed,
____________________________________________
So Jesus is just an “ancient prophet” to the mormons ???
on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hell shall not prevail against it. Matthew 16:18
And he will reign over Israel forever; his Kingdom will never end!” Luke 1:33
Typical cognitive dissonance answer.
***Oh, good grief.
Greater than Jesus,***
Yeah, but was Joe more popular than the BEATLES?;-D
Yep. That is why I like to jump to the end : )
Hey there; ATHEIST!
Doncha got nothin’ better to do than hang out in these RELIGIOUS threads?? ;^)
CHOICE has killed over 45,000,000 Americans.
I just have too much fun on these hypocritical Religious threads Elsie. Trading today is depressing, so I look for a little entertainment wherever I can find it.
"The narcissist is described as being excessively preoccupied with issues of personal adequacy, power, and prestige.[2] Narcissistic personality disorder is closely linked to self-centeredness."
Wouldn’t want to be like those disgusting polygamists like that Jacob/Israel guy either! Blech. /s
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