Since Lehi & Co were Jewish/Israelite why doesn't the Book of Mormon contain a bunch of Jewish religious practices?

Yes, I know it is fiction - but still one would think the people would be observing a lot of the practices they grew up with and passing them on through the generations.

How much is missing when you start on them in the New World?

From a Jewish standpoint, this is a really good question.

To a very large extent, and by Christian standards, Judaism is not a "belief" religion--it is a "practice" religion.

As I have said here, many times before: No one Jewish CARES what another Jew does, or does not, believe.

Jews DO care about practice: tikkun olam ("repairing the world"--interpreted in usually very practical ways)....not using your mouth as a weapon against others (there are entire books written about this particular subject, called in Hebrew "lashon hara")....lighting Shabbat candles, etc.....BEING a mensch (a good and honorable person of caring and integrity)....actively working to make the world a better place....and becoming educated (both in a secular way, and in a "religious" way) to the higher limits of any given person's means and abilities.

So far as belief goes: No one cares, or asks (with the possible, rare, exception of rabbinical conversations with potential converts to Judaism, to screen out those who would convert to Judaism in order to damage the Jewish people from within, instead of having the intention of actually becoming an integral part of the Jewish family).



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 10/30/2019 01:32PM by Tevai.

To be fair, any Judaism in the Book of Mormon would be of a pre-exile nature. Most of what anyone recognizes as Judaism now was formed during and after the Babylonian exile.

Other than biblical sources, which are notoriously unreliable back that far, we don't know a lot about Judaism before the exile.

To be even fairer, the Book of Mormon assumes the historical validity of ideas and sources to which no reputable historian would give credence, such as the literality of the book of Genesis. We can criticize it for a lack of knowledge of Judaic practices, but it has far greater flaws than that.

> To be fair, any Judaism in the Book of Mormon
> would be of a pre-exile nature. Most of what
> anyone recognizes as Judaism now was formed during
> and after the Babylonian exile.

This is a very important point. Judaism proper did not exist until after the exile. The curious point about Mormonism is less that the BoM did not contain more Jewish practices and beliefs but rather that it purports to describe Jewish ideas at all. That egregious anachronism is highly problematic.

Yes, definitely missing. And Mormon apologists today don't get it right either.

Thanks again Tevai for looking into this one for me.
https://www.exmormon.org/phorum/read.php?2,2245444,2245444#msg-2245444

You just haven't looked hard enough.

https://www.fairmormon.org/answers/Question:_Should_the_Book_of_Mormon_describe_Jewish_customs_or_laws%3F

Excellent discussion of how the BoM is lacking in knowledge of Jewish practices:

http://utlm.org/newsletters/no74.htm#JEW%20OR%20PROTESTANT

Re: FAIRMormon-- "...highly reflective of ancient Hebrew religion...", "...strong evidence...", "...evidence of Hebrew influence..."

Typical apologetics: "If you turn it his way and squint, it looks sorta like ancient Jewish practice!" Bullseye for Joseoh Smith!

And it gets worse as they try to tie archeology to it.

To be fair, at least FAIR (intentional) got the timing right. If the BoM peoples left the Middle East at the times stated in that book, they would have taken Hebrew ideas to the Americas rather than Jewish ones.

But also missing from the entire western hemisphere...

Perhaps, more accurately, since the Book of Mormon is all about a literate (writing and reading) culture, that produced coins, did elaborate stonework, etc. and who populated vast swathes of territory in the western hemisphere, people should be literally tripping over semitic complexity, engravings, coins, symbols everywhere. There should be places where you can't dig a well without finding artifacts corresponding to artifacts found in the middle east.

But in that department the only thing the Mormon church can point to is a set of golden plates that Joseph Smith kept hidden under a cloth and/or in a box at all times and that was taken into heaven by an angel before anyone other than one of Joe's co-conspirators could ever have a look at it, and which was only seen with "spiritual eyes" (i.e. their imaginations) by even Joe's partners in crime.

Wally Prince Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> There
> should be places where you can't dig a well
> without finding artifacts corresponding to
> artifacts found in the middle east.

They are there but they are "slippery."

This is why Heavenly Father and Jesus after having a quick confab with Moroni decided to "lose" the first 116 pages of the BoM. They contained all the old Hebrew traditions which would prove the book to be true thereby eliminating the most important part of Mormonism---faith, aka believing that for which there is zero reason to believe, which is what the Mormon church is predicated on. It would not serve holy purposes to include actual verifiable facts. Defeats the whole purpose and would have meant that hiding all the horses and chariots and steel swords had been a waste of Celestial time: Peter, James, John. Let us go down. We will hide Nephite artifacts so that the world may know faith. Return and report--with graphs and charts. I can't find Lucifer anywhere to keep me up to date.


No doubt the lost pages included a description of Nephi's Bar Mitzvah, who was invited to the event, and a list of who gave the proper gift:


In Hebrew, the symbol chai represents life and the living. The numeric representation of this symbol is the numeral 18, so it is a tradition to give cash gifts in $18 increments at Bar Mitzvahs. For example, gifts of $18, $36 and $180 should all be considered and would be in accordance with this tradition.

Also included was Nephi's mother's recipe for Matzah Balls and Gfiltefish. As well as the proper way to polish a Menorah and which candles to use, and the proper way to circumcise.

50 of the pages explained how to make sure your Curelom was kosher and that Cummoms could never be kosher.

Besides, something had to go to make room for all the "and it came to pass's"

And the BOM had some Jewish practices like synagogues that Jews at the time would not have known about.

The earliest such assemblies outside the temple is thought to have begun is after the destruction of the Temple in 586 BCE, which Lehi & Friends missed out on thanks to Lehi's active nocturnal imagination.

I guess they were both inspired to come up with the same idea ;). Just like Nephi was inspired to adopt much of Paul's theology and language.

https://www.britannica.com/topic/synagogue