Scripture Central offers a discussion of the term "ceremony" that appears in Mosiah 19. The discussion includes Royal Skousen's proposal that the term is a scribal error, along with speculation by other LDS scholars about possible meanings.
Here's the passage.
22 And it came to pass that they were about to return to the land of Nephi, and they met the men of Gideon. And the men of Gideon told them of all that had happened to their wives and their children; and that the Lamanites had granted unto them that they might possess the land by paying a tribute to the Lamanites of one half of all they possessed.
23 And the people told the men of Gideon that they had slain the king, and his priests had fled from them farther into the wilderness.
24 And it came to pass that after they had ended the ceremony, that they returned to the land of Nephi, rejoicing, because their wives and their children were not slain; and they told Gideon what they had done to the king.
(Mosiah 19:22–24)
Here's the link to the discussion at Scripture Central:
The speculation in that discussion is fine. People can believe whatever they want. My peer review is below.
One thing the scholars didn't consider, however, is how Jonathan Edwards used the term "ceremony."
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In Mosiah 19, the passage quoted above relates a meeting between the "men of Gideon" and "the people" who had killed King Noah and tried to kill his priests. The two groups met and exchanged their respective news.
After each side had related their accounts, the text says they "had ended the ceremony."
Here's a passage from Jonathan Edwards' 1808 edition, on sale in the Palmyra bookshop Joseph visited weekly, that uses "ceremony" in this sense.
"When a multitude meet on any occasion of temporal rejoicing, freely and cheerfully to converse together, they are not wont to observe the ceremony of but one speaking at a time, while all the rest, in a formal manner, set themselves to attend to what he says; that would spoil all conversation, and turn it into the formality of set speeches..."
1808 edition, Kindle location 20957 [This passage does not appear in the Yale database.]
Mosiah 19 describes two groups interactive with "but one speaking at a time," which Edwards describes as a "ceremony."
In my view, this is a perfectly valid, normal, and even expected use of the term by Joseph Smith as he translated the plates. It further corroborates what Joseph and Oliver said all along, such as this:
I obtained them and the Urim and Thummim with them, by the means of which I translated the plates and thus came the Book of Mormon.
(Elders’ Journal I.3:42 ¶20–43 ¶1)
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Peer review of Scripture Central's article on "Ceremony."
Original in blue, my comments in red.
Why is a “Ceremony” Mentioned After King Noah is Executed?
This is a misleading title because the "ceremony" is mentioned after the two groups share their respective news, not after King Noah was executed. To be sure, chronologically King Noah was executed before the groups met, but in the interim, the people tried to kill the priests, who fled, and then at some unspecified later point, the people met the men of Gideon, exchanged news, and then "ended the ceremony." Thus, the "ceremony" concluded once they exchanged views, not after the people killed King Noah.
So why this title? Apparently this title was chosen because it supports one of the theories promoted by Scripture Central.
Recommendation: Change the title to "Why is a "Ceremony" Mentioned after two groups of people exchange accounts of their experiences?
Post contributed by Scripture Central
“And it came to pass that after they had ended the ceremony, that they returned to the land of Nephi, rejoicing, because their wives and their children were not slain” Mosiah 19:24
The Know
As prophesied by Abinadi (Mosiah 17:18), King Noah was put to “death by fire” by some of his own people. They turned on Noah and his priests in the wilderness when he commanded them to stay with him, and prohibited them from returning to the land of Nephi to avenge the presumed deaths of their wives and children (Mosiah 19:19–20).
So far, so good.
As the people were on their way back to the land of Nephi, they met the “men of Gideon,” and explained to them “that they had slain the king” (Mosiah 19:23), and then it says “after they had ended the ceremony, that they returned to the land of Nephi, rejoicing because their wives and their children were not slain” (Mosiah 19:24, emphasis added).
The sentence omits the first part of the exchange, that the "men of Gideon told them all that had happened to their wives and their children." And specifically, the text says "they were about to return to the land of Nephi," which could mean either that they hadn't started yet or they had approached the border of the land of Nephi.
The use of the word ceremony here is somewhat puzzling, as seemingly nothing ceremonial is described as occurring.
To the contrary, the exchange of news fits Jonathan Edwards' use of the term "ceremony" because here, both sides specifically "observe[d] the ceremony of but one speaking at a time."
Royal Skousen, editor of the Book of Mormon Critical Text Project, believes ceremony may be a scribal error made when the text was copied over from the Original Manuscript to the Printer’s Manuscript.
This is plausible if, as I have proposed, Emma wrote the Book of Mosiah and Oliver copied it from her handwriting. It wouldn't make sense if Oliver was copying his own handwriting, though.
If Oliver was copying Emma's handwriting, this could be another scribal error comparable to Oliver writing Helaman instead of Helam (which he later corrected by crossing out the last two letters).
Instead, he argues, it could have been the word sermon, which in Old English could refer to a conversation like the one between the men of Gideon and people who slew Noah (Mosiah 19:23). The Original Manuscript for Mosiah 19 has not survived, but Skousen hypothesizes that sermon may have been misspelled as cermon, and that Oliver Cowdery then miscopied it into the Printer’s manuscript as cerimony (his misspelling of ceremony).1
Royal's explanation seems contrived as a way to project "Old English" onto the manuscript. He assumes that Oliver couldn't read his own handwriting on the Original Manuscript, or made the spelling/word choice error on the Original Manuscript as well without Joseph noticing. Royal makes the implicit assumption that the word should have been "sermon," that Oliver misspelled "sermon" as "cermon" on the Original Manuscript, and then further misspelled the word as "cerimony" when he copied the Original Manuscript.
Another explanation is that Joseph dictated "ceremony" in the sense that Jonathan Edwards used the term, Emma wrote it as either "cerimony" or "ceremony," and then Oliver copied it as "cerimony." In other words, the translation was correct all along.
Others, however, believe that there are appropriate ceremonial contexts alluded to in this passage.2 John A. Tvedtnes believed it was referring to a washing ceremony intended to ritually purify a “manslayer.”3 Drawing on evidence from the Bible and the ancient Near East, Tvedtnes argued “that the ‘ceremony’ of Mosiah 19:23–24 is one of purification associated with the onset of the fall festivals of the month of Tishre, at which time citizen soldiers in the ancient Near East returned home to engage in the fall harvest.”4
Tvedtnes' theory is possible, but the passage suggests nothing of sort. The text simply explains that two groups listened to each other as they exchanged news. There is no fall harvest or mention of washing, etc., so Tvedtnes simply infers additional information to fit his theory.
This possibility works well, since these men were returning from a military movement and the killing of their king. They returned with “rejoicing” (Mosiah 19:24), which could well have involved abundant offerings of thanksgiving, particularly on the recent conclusion of the celebration of Pentecost.5
They were rejoicing specifically because their wives and their children were still alive, not because they had killed the king or were victorious warriors.
Alternatively, John L. Sorenson has argued that the Nephites apparently had a standard “execution ceremony” that accompanied executions like that of Noah, as evidenced by the ceremonial speech or actions mentioned in connection with the executions of Nehor (Alma 1:15) and Zemnarihah (3 Nephi 4:28–33).6
This is even more attenuated than the Tvedtnes theory because the text says they ended the ceremony after exchanging news, not after killing King Noah.
Ceremonial details are most clear in the execution of Zemnarihah, which John W. Welch said was “one of the most complete accounts of an execution ceremony found in any ancient record.”7 Welch has shown that the account “closely followed ancient customs of ceremony and law.”8 After Zemnarihah was “hanged upon a tree … they did fell the tree to the earth.” All the people who witnessed the hanging ceremonially cried out,9 invoking God’s protection upon the people and a simile curse upon their future enemies, and they then praised and thanked God (3 Nephi 4:28–32).10 The execution of Nehor is less detailed, but the mention of a forced confession “between the heavens and the earth” is strongly suggestive of the normal use of some kind of ceremony or rite of execution.11
The Nehor and Zemnariahah accounts describe different procedures, which suggests the absence of a particular ceremony. After Zemnariahah's death, the people seemed to be celebrating not his specific death but the end of the war, like a V-Day celebration. Nehor simply confessed and then "suffered an ignominious death," which connotes personal shame and disgrace, with no public celebration. As such, it is the exact opposite of Zemnariahah's elaborate public execution, which represented the end of the war.
[Note: "ignominious" is a non-Biblical term that appears just this one time in the latter-day scriptures. Edwards used the phrase "ignominious death" and related phrases several times, usually to describe the death of Christ but also his followers; e.g., "becoming obedient unto death, even that ignominious and accursed death of the cross, that he might cleanse the souls of his disciples from their guilt and spiritual pollution." When read in this context, Nehor's "ignominious death" after his confession could be seen as "cleansing his soul" as a sort of blood atonement, having been convicted of murder.]
No such confession or rituals of joyous exclamation occurred in the case of the killing of King Noah.
Exactly, which is why the term "ceremony" is unrelated in time or context to the death of the King in the text.
Perhaps because the priests of Noah had fled, the insurrection was incomplete, and the men were still uncertain about their fate when they “met the men of Gideon” (Mosiah 19:22). At that point, a cause for celebration and the ceremonial conclusion of the death of their tyrant king was certainly in order.
If they were supposed to celebrate the death of the king, the escape of the priests would not void the celebration.
In addition, Brant A. Gardner has suggested several other possibilities that were appropriate at this time, including “a ceremony of greeting,” or perhaps “a ceremony of surrender” to Gideon’s men, or a truce which allowed two groups to reunite and converse safely, realizing there was no longer any hostile intent.
This is possible, but the ceremony came after the exchange of news and the text neither states nor implies there was any surrender.
Gardner also suggested that this word could be referring to “the ‘ceremony’ of formal submission to the Lamanites,” which would allow these men who had deserted with King Noah to agree to the terms of the treaty already entered into with the Lamanites by Limhi and Gideon (set forth in Mosiah 19:15).
Again, possible, but not even hinted at in the text.
This was then formalized by “an oath” upon their return to the city of Nephi, as described in Mosiah 19:25.12
The "oath" took place later in a different place under different circumstances, not during the "ceremony" mentioned in the text.
The Why
The exact nature of “the ceremony” in Mosiah 19:24—whether it be a purification ceremony (as suggested by Tvedtnes) or the delayed completion of an execution ceremony (as suggested by Sorenson), or something else entirely—cannot be conclusively determined at this time.
True, but the usage of the term "ceremony" in this passage fits Joseph's specific environment because of the way Jonathan Edwards used the term.
Indeed, for some, the reference to “the ceremony” in Mosiah 19:24 appears to be one of those “strange and puzzling things” that Hugh Nibley said the Book of Mormon is full of.13 To Nibley, however, “it is just the fantastic and incongruous which opens the door to discovery.” He took each curiosity as “a broad hint that new knowledge is awaiting.”14 So it is with the puzzling reference to “the ceremony” in Mosiah 19:24.
It's not very puzzling when we see how Edwards used the term.
While it is possible that this is a scribal error, as proposed by Skousen, scholars like Tvedntes and Sorenson have shown that there are hints of new knowledge to be discovered by exploring several possible ceremonial and covenantal contexts standing behind Mosiah 19:24. When this reference is brought into context with other passages describing executions of wicked enemies in the Book of Mormon, it becomes clear that there is customarily a ceremony involved, and one would especially expect that the execution of a wicked king would have been no different.
What is clear is that when a war ended with Zemnarihah's execution, the people celebrated, as people usually do at the conclusion of a war. The deaths of other people in the text had no such ceremonies.
When biblical and ancient Near Eastern contexts are considered, the appropriateness in this multi-party passage of many aspects of ritual purification ceremonies becomes enlighteningly clear. What at first seemed puzzling is illuminated by several plausible settings and backgrounds after a little exploration.
That may be true for some readers. In my view, however, these alternative speculations are not only unstated by the text, but are not even implied. Plus when considered together, they are confusing and self-contradictory.
Whatever the possible meanings of “the ceremony” might be in Mosiah 19:24, the word would not have been included in this ancient record unless it stood for some very significant things.
Unless Joseph used the term to simply mean each side listened to the other and then left when the exchange was over.
And thus, behind this one word, one can detect the solemn importance of several things: Of protecting wives and children, of purification, of brotherly reconciliation and reunification, of covenantal submissiveness, and of giving thanks and praise to God.
We can read into the text whatever we want, but sometimes such apologetics makes the account less credible.
As Nibley once said, “the Book of Mormon is tough; it thrives on investigation.”15 Those who are willing to take it seriously—even when it at first seems strange or puzzling—will often find that new knowledge awaits if they will dig a little deeper into this rich and thoroughly rewarding book of scripture.
Agreed. But hopefully we avoid making assumptions and inferences that detract from the plain meaning of the scripture.
