Seek to bring forth and establish the cause of Zion (Doctrine and Covenants 6:6).
For Abraham, the scriptures would be a constant source of spiritual nourishment and refreshment, as will be seen later by his repeated reference to them in teaching his posterity. The scriptures “exalted and blessed him in his early years, and gave him hope in his latter years.” [1]
Even so, in those same scriptures Abraham learned that they by themselves were insufficient, that he needed the constant and immediate revelation that can come only from the Holy Ghost and the ordinances. “The circumstances of Abraham were different than those of Enoch and Noah,” explained John Taylor, “and if Abraham had the history of their times, as he unquestionably had … he would know that the revelations they received were not applicable to his case, but he needed revelation from God for his own guidance and direction.” [2]
Indeed, the patriarchal records themselves clearly taught that God could not be fully found except through the ordinances he had established, ordinances that brought direct revelation through the gift of the Holy Ghost. Joseph Smith stated that there is “no salvation between the two lids of the Bible without a legal administrator.” [3] Hence “reading the experience of others, or the revelation given to them, can never give us a comprehensive view of our condition and true relation to God.
Legally Authorized Administrator
Knowledge of these things can only be obtained by experience through the ordinances of God” [4] offered by “an administrator legally authorized from God.” [5]
By Abraham’s day, his people had for many generations been without any such legal administrator and the blessings that flow therefrom: the gospel, the priesthood, the ordinances, the church – in a word, Zion. “It was time,” says Nibley, “for God to speak with Abraham face to face, restore the covenants, and organize the church.” [6]
The Book of Abraham never tells who Abraham’s legal administrator was, but does recount that by the time Abraham left Haran, he had received the gospel ordinances and priesthood, as God speaks to him and refers to “this Gospel,” “this ministry and Priesthood,” and “thy Priesthood.” [7] A midrash says that Abraham kept the ordinances “and therefore became great.” [8]
Abraham’s conversation with God took place face to face, a privilege granted only after Abraham had learned that the God whom he sought was the premortal Jesus Christ, and only after receiving His ordinances and being cleansed by His blood, thus becoming His son (see Moses 6:59, 68), and only after continuing to seek this Jesus “earnestly” (Abr. 2:12) through prayer (2:6).
Baptism of Abraham
Neither Abraham’s seeking the Lord nor the Lord’s appearing to Abraham in Haran is reported in Genesis, but both are mentioned not only in the Book of Abraham but also in the Zohar: “When the Holy One observed his great yearning and pursuit after divine knowledge, he appeared unto him.” [9]
That the gospel was preached to Abraham was mentioned by the Apostle Paul (Gal. 3:8), while Joseph Smith emphasized that it was preached to Abraham “in the name of Christ” and with the same ordinances of baptism and receipt of the Holy Ghost that always accompany the true gospel. [10] The Talmud insists that the Fathers – the foremost among whom was Abraham – “were not admitted to the covenant except by … baptism, and propitiation by blood.” [11]
By “Abraham’s immersion” in water, says rabbinic tradition, “he becomes, in effect, reborn, changed, a new person.[12]
Early Judaism in fact looked to Abraham as “the prototype of the proselytes” because he “receive[d] the Spirit” and became a model of “the reception and indwelling of the Spirit,” [13] and thereafter “was possessed by the Holy Spirit at all times.”[14] An important Ethiopic source recounts that “Abraham was baptized with baptism, even as our Lord saith in the Book of the Covenant, He gave to Abraham the baptism of life and the right hand.'” [15]
In an early illustrated Christian manuscript of the Septuagint version of Genesis, in the picture of God commanding Abraham to leave Haran, Abraham sees a right hand being extended to him from above through a multicolored, rainbowlike arc, through which several rays of the sun are breaking forth. [16]
The picture is reminiscent of what the Pirke de Rabbi Eliezer says about the divine oath sworn to Noah when God gave him the sign of the rainbow: “He put forth His right hand, and swore to Noah.” [17] Abraham was receiving the ordinances that Noah had once received, in fulfillment of what the Lord had promised Abraham at Ur through the angel of the presence, that “I will lead thee by my hand … As it was with Noah, so shall it be with thee” (Abr. 1:18-19).
There were additional ordinances that Abraham would yet seek and receive, but he clearly had the beginning, including the first principles and ordinances of the gospel. Abraham was, as described by Epiphanius in the fourth century, “a follower of the gospel.” [18]
Abraham also received the patriarchal priesthood and robes, or, as Jewish sources attest, God granted to Abraham “to rule as king over the whole world” [19] and “conferred upon him the power of bestowing blessings” [20] along with the “high-priestly raiment in which God had clothed Adam,” raiment reserved for “the first-born males [who] officiated as priests.” [21]
Abraham’s patriarchal priesthood, according to Joseph Smith, included the authority to organize the church and administer the gospel and its ordinances to others. [22]
Patriarchal Lineage
From whom did Abraham receive his ordination to the patriarchal priesthood? Who was worthy to give him that ordination? Certainly not his idolatrous father: “Abraham … was … worthy of a blessing,” stated an early church father, “but … Terah could not bless.” [23] Nor apparently could Terah’s father, for as Abraham reports in the Book of Abraham, his “fathers” had “turned from their righteousness .
.. unto the worshiping of the gods of the heathen” (Abr. 1:5; see also 1:7, 30; 2:5).
In fact, the book of Jubilees reports that the three immediate generations of Abraham’s patriarchal forefathers – his father (Terah), grandfather (Nahor), and great-grandfather (Serug) – were all idolaters. [24] Terah repented for a short while, but had returned to his idolatry by the time Abraham left Haran, [25] apparently close to the time that Abraham received the gospel ordinances and his patriarchal ordination. [26]
And who of Abraham’s patriarchal ancestors was even alive when he left Haran? Such information can be calculated based on chronological data in Genesis providing the lifespan for each patriarch before Abraham and telling how old each was at the birth of his firstborn son, the next patriarch (see Gen. 11:10-26).
The difficulty comes in deciding which version of Genesis to use, for there are vast differences between the ancient versions on this chronological point. According to the chronology of the Masoretic (standard Hebrew) text, from which the King James was translated, the time from the Flood to Abraham’s birth was 292 years. This number differs radically from that found in most other ancient sources, which preserve a chronology more than three times as long – about a thousand years, as found, for example, in the Seputagint, the Samaritan Pentateuch, Josephus, Armenian apocryphal sources, [27] and a New Testament apocryphal source. [28]
The Masoretic chronology is further remarkable in that every one of Abraham’s patriarchal forefathers back through Shem is alive at Abraham’s birth, and only two (Nahor and Peleg) have died by the time he is sixty-two (when he leaves Haran), while several forefathers, including even Shem, actually outlive Abraham. [29] Only in this Masoretic chronology is Shem alive at the birth of Abraham. In the other chronologies, Shem is long since dead, and by the time Abraham is sixty-two, the only one of his patriarchal ancestors still alive is his father. (See appendix 1 for further comparison of chronologies.)
Why is the Masoretic chronology so much shorter? Some scholars have suggested that it was deliberately altered for the very purpose of portraying Shem as contemporary with Abraham, so that the rabbis could identify Shem with Melchizedek and therefore “remove the mystery surrounding” this man to whom their illustrious ancestor paid tithes and from whom he received the priesthood. [30]
By thus “being identified with Shem,” Melchizedek “was brought firmly inside the Jewish fold, and thus no priesthood was admitted outside Judaism.” [31] The identification of Shem with Melchizedek is unknown in early sources like Josephus [32] and the Genesis Apocryphon; [33] is refuted by various early Christian and Muslim sources telling that Melchizedek was not one of the patriarchs, [34] and telling who his parents were; [35] and appears impossible according to latter-day scripture. [36]
What all this suggests is that the Masoretic chronology was in fact deliberately shortened. [37] Using the other chronologies narrows down who it was that could have ordained Abraham to the patriarchal priesthood just before he left Haran. Only Terah was alive, but he had returned to his idolatry. Nor does it seem likely he ever had received the ordination himself.
And since priesthood and keys can be transferred to mortals only by beings with tabernacles of flesh and bone, [38] this leaves just one individual in the entire patriarchal line who could have given Abraham his patriarchal ordination, the only worthy patriarchal forefather still alive, he who had never died but had been translated: Enoch. [39]
Enoch and Abraham
That “Enoch … came … to confer with Abraham” [40] was in fact the opinion of a Flemish author cited in the early 1700s by the learned French abbey Dom Augustin Calmet. [41] Enoch’s initiating Abraham into the ordinances and giving him the priesthood may well have been the occasion alluded to by Clement of Alexandria when he wrote that “the region of God is hard to attain” but was “seen by Abraham afar off,” who was “forthwith initiated by the angel.” [42]
Jewish kabbalistic tradition directly attests that Abraham’s rabbi, or teacher, was none other than the angel Enoch. [43] Enoch’s extending the right hand to Abraham in the ordinances would further fit the context of the rainbowlike arc through which the right hand is being extended to Abraham on this occasion, as depicted in the early Christian illustration of the event; for, as we shall see in a later appearance of Enoch to Abraham, surrounding the person of Enoch was a rainbow.
That Enoch would be sent to restore authority on the occasion of the Lord’s appearing to Abraham seems very much like what happened in the Kirtland Temple in 1836, when angels restored lost authority, and the Lord also personally appeared to talk about the blessings that would flow to tens of thousands because of the authority bestowed that day (see D&C 110:1-16, especially verses 9-10). Once again, Abraham’s life foreshadowed that of his descendant Joseph Smith. [44]
If Enoch was indeed the one who ordained Abraham to the patriarchal priesthood and gave him the ordinances of “the baptism of life and the right hand,” [45] then the word of the Lord spoken years earlier to Abraham on the altar by the angel of the presence, Enoch, takes on added meaning: “I will lead thee by my hand, and I will take thee, to put upon thee my name, even the Priesthood of thy father” (Abr. 1:18).
It seems that it was Enoch himself who now literally extended his hand to Abraham in the ordinances and to confer the patriarchal priesthood authority. Zion above had descended to pass on its authority so that Zion might again be established below. In fact, this event may well have been a key part of the Lord’s purpose in translating Enoch, so he could return on this very occasion and transfer the long-lost authority and ordinances to Abraham for the reestablishment of Zion on earth. [46]
Kasher, Encyclopedia of Biblical Interpretation, 2:135, speaking of the Torah (in standard rabbinic tradition, Abraham kept the Torah even before it was revealed).
[3] . Ehat and Cook, Words of Joseph Smith, 235. Joseph Smith similarly stated that “salvation cannot come without revelation.” Galbraith and Smith, Scriptural Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, 182.
[4] . Galbraith and Smith, Scriptural Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, 365 (emphasis in original).
[7] . See Abraham 2:6-11, especially verse 9 (“this ministry and Priesthood”), verse 10 (“this Gospel”), and verse 11 (“thy Priesthood” and “the Gospel”).
[11] . Kerithoth 9a, translation in Taylor, The Teaching of the Twelve Apostles, 56, and see translation in Kerithoth 9a, Epstein, Babylonian Talmud: “immersion.“
[16] . Weitzmann and Kessler, The Cotton Genesis, 72 (and see plates 2 and 166): “The arc consists of an enormous quarter circle comprising concentric rings of dark blue, light blue, light magenta, green, and dark blue separated from one another by gold lines. Six gold rays emanate from the magenta band; the Hand issues from the light blue ring.”
[22] . For example, on August 27, 1843, Joseph Smith stated that “Abraham’s Patriarchal power is the greatest yet experienced in this church.” Ehat and Cook, Words of Joseph Smith, 245. See 245-47 and 303-305 for additional statements by the Prophet Joseph, and comments thereon, concerning the power and scope of Abraham’s patriarchal priesthood.
[24] . See Jubilees 11:1-16, in VanderKam, Book of Jubilees, 64-67; and Ginzberg, Legends of the Jews, 1:186, citing Jubilees. Also on Nahor, see Ginzberg, Legends of the Jews, 5:216-17 n. 48. Pseudo-Philo, however, claims that Serug and his sons did not go along with the idolatry. Pseudo Philo 4:16, in Jacobson, Liber Antiquitatum Biblicarum, 1:96; also noted by Ginzberg in Legends of the Jews, 5:208 n. 5.
[25] . At the age of sixty-two, according to the book of Abraham 1:30; 2:5, contradicting Genesis, which gives his age as seventy-five. The book of Abraham number is strikingly corroborated by the Byzantine monk Syncellus; see quotes and discussion in Adler, Time Immemorial, 189-91.
[26] . In making the covenant with Abraham just before he departs, the Lord speaks of “this ministry and Priesthood” and “this Gospel.” Abraham 2:9-10 (emphasis added).
[27] . Stone, Armenian Apocrypha, 83, 94, 120: the exact number varies between the sources as 942 or 944.
[28] . James, Apocryphal New Testament, 145: the Acts of Pilate has 1,137 years from the Flood to Abraham.
[34] . According to the Kitab alMajal, “Moses did not make mention of him [Melchizedek] in his book because he was genealogising (only) the patriarchs.” Bowker, Targums and Rabbinic Literature, 197 n. e.
[35] . See generally: Milik, Books of Enoch, 115; Bowker, Targums and Rabbinic Literature, 197 n.
e (quoting Kitab alMajal); Book of the Bee 21, in Budge, Book of the Bee, 33-34; Budge, Cave of Treasures, 152-53; and Combat of Adam and Eve with Satan 3.16, in Malan, Conflict of Adam and Eve with Satan, 164. The sources differ on who Melchizedek’s father was. For example, as noted in Bowker, the Book of the Rolls (Kitab alMajal) makes Melchizedek the son of the patriarch Salah. Likewise Milik notes that in the account of Pseudo-Athanasius, Melchizedek was said to be a grandson of Salah.
[36] . For several reasons. First, Genesis 11:10-11 tells Shem’s life span in the same manner as it tells the life spans of the subsequent patriarchs, implying that Shem died (a passage left unchanged in the Joseph Smith Translation), while JST, Genesis 14 tells that Melchizedek was translated. Second, a latter-day revelation in Doctrine and Covenants 84:14 states that “Abraham received the [Melchizedek] priesthood from Melchizedek, who received it through the lineage of his fathers, even till Noah,” which seems to require at least two generations between Melchizedek and Noah. And third, in Joseph F. Smith’s vision of the redemption of the dead, he saw among the host of righteous post-mortal spirits Shem (D&C 138:41), who would not have been there had he been translated. The revelation does not mention seeing Elijah or Enoch or Moses, who, like Melchizedek, had been translated.
[37] . Note also Speiser’s comment on the chronology of the Masoretic Text: “The statistics cited by [the Masoretic Text] do not commend themselves as the product of a dependable tradition. On this point, M[asoretic] T[ext], Sam[aritan Pentateuch], and LXX [Septuagint] have each their own detailed answers. One can see at a glance that M[asoretic] T[ext] is transparently schematic.” Speiser, Genesis, 80.
[39] . Enoch’s giving the ordinances to Abraham just prior to his departing Haran would also help explain Jubilees’ confusion over the giving of the covenant to Abraham in Haran: Jubilees claims that it was by mouth of the angel of the presence, whereas the book of Abraham expressly affirms that it came from the mouth of the Lord himself in a personal appearance. Jubilees may be preserving, in garbled form, a tradition that the angel of the presence was in fact involved, not as voice for the covenant but as the Lord’s agent in giving Abraham the ordinances and patriarchal ordination. See Jubilees 12:19-24, in VanderKam, Book of Jubilees, 72-73.
[41] . Calmet, An Historical . . . Dictionary, 3:372 (and see 2:177), citing a work by Henry Hulse, Enoch Redivivus (Amsterdam, 1706), stating that Melchizedek must have been Enoch who returned to confer with Abraham.
[43] . “The masters of the Kabbalah, of blessed memory, say that Abraham’s Rabbi, i.e., teacher, was the angel Zadkiel.” Harris, Hebraic Literature, 47, quoting Rabbi Menachem’s commentary on the Pentateuch at Exodus 3:5. “Zadkiel,” or “Sidquiel,” is one of the names of Metatron/Enoch. Odeberg, 3 Enoch, part 2, 174, number 5 within the note.
[44] . And if Enoch was indeed the one who ordained Abraham, then it seems possible that he may be the angel who came under the title of Elias to Joseph Smith in the Kirtland Temple (in which case all three messengers were translated beings).
[46] . Similarly, Elder Bruce R. McConkie observed that the purpose of the translation of Moses and Elijah was so they could return with tangible bodies of flesh and bones to confer priesthood keys on Peter, James, and John on the Mount of Transfiguration. See McConkie, Doctrinal New Testament Commentary, 1:400; and McConkie, Mormon Doctrine, 805.