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Pre-Roman, Pre-Carthigian References to Crucifixion or The Cross
The mention of crucifixion or the cross almost anywhere in the Book of Mormon (aside from 3 Nephi) is anachronistic because the documented evidence for crucifixion comes from the 6th and 5th centuries, after Lehi left Jerusalem (and centuries before there was an Ancient Rome, and before that empire copied Carthage and employed the practice to punish criminals). The New World prophets could not have had a verb for crucifixion (“to make a cross”) when the practice had not been invented yet, and the noun of the cross would have meant nothing in the New World until the Christian era, marking this all as evidence of text produced in the Christian era, almost by definition.
For comparison, the only remotely plasubile mention of anything remotely like crucifixion in the entire Old Testament is Deut. 21:22–23 which refers “to hanging the corpse of an executed criminal on a tree, possibly as a form of deterrence.” “The earliest section of the Book of Deuteronomy is widely believed to have been composed in Jerusalem in the 7th century BCE. Beginning with Paul the Apostle (writing in Galatians 3:13), some [Christian era] authors have interpreted the text in Deuteronomy 21:22–23 as an allusion to crucifixion.”
Two mentions in the Book of Mormon that are not (supposedly) pre-Christian, so are plausible:
- 3 Ne. 12:30 (another use of cross, but certainly would not be anachronistic, if Jesus says it like a week after he was crucified:) “For it is better that ye should deny yourselves of these things, wherein ye will take up your cross, than that ye should be cast into hell.”
- 3 Ne. 27:14 (another use of cross, but certainly would not be anachronistic, if Jesus says it like a week or a month after he was crucified:) “And my Father sent me that I might be lifted up upon the cross; and after that I had been lifted up upon the cross, that I might draw all men unto me, that as I have been lifted up by men even so should men be lifted up by the Father, to stand before me, to be judged of their works, whether they be good or whether they be evil.” (cf. Jn. 12:32—34)
The rest are pre-Roman and hence pre-Christian, or refer to later developments in the Old World that Lehi would not have known about when he left Jerusalem c. 600 BCE.
- 1 Ne. 11:33 Nephi “saw that he [Jesus] was lifted up upon the cross and slain for the sins of the world.” Actually Jesus was slain for rebellion (the placard said something like King of the Jews, though accounts disagree), not for the sins of the world—this is not mentioned in the synoptic Gospels; that was added later by John, Paul, etc.
- 1 Ne. 19:10 Nephi paraphrases Neum (fantasy Old World prophet) “to be crucified, according to the words of Neum.”
- 1 Ne. 19:13 Nephi quotes Zenos (fantasy Old World Prophet), “And as for those who are at Jerusalem, saith the prophet [Zenos], they shall be scourged by all people, because they crucify the God of Israel, and turn their hearts aside, rejecting signs and wonders, and the power and glory of the God of Israel.”
- Ne. 6:9 Nephi says, “And he also has shown unto me that the Lord God, the Holy One of Israel, should manifest himself unto them in the flesh; and after he should manifest himself they should scourge him and crucify him, according to the words of the angel who spake it unto me.”
- 2 Ne. 9:18 “the righteous, the saints … who have endured the crosses of the world, and despised the shame of it.”
- 2 Ne. 10:3–5, first explicitly mentions the canard that Christ is the name of Jesus, which makes no sense: Christ is English that translates a title, from Greek, which translates Messiah or “annointed” from Hebrew—the full name would be more like “Jesus the christ”, e.g. “Jesus the annointed”, not Jesus H. Christ or whatever. Then 2 Ne. 10:3 continues that Jesus ”should come among the Jews, among those who are the more wicked part of the world; and they shall crucify him—for thus it behooveth our God, and there is none other nation on earth that would crucify their God. For should the mighty miracles be wrought among other nations they would repent, and know that he be their God. But because of priestcrafts and iniquities, they at Jerusalem will stiffen their necks against him, that he be crucified.” This also repeats longstanding anti-Semitic Christian tropes that only the Jews would be wicked enough to crucify their God, not an idea unique to the Book of Mormon. (TODO more historical notes on the history of this, see Spanish Inquisition, fake Protocol for the Elders of Zion, etc., etc. ad nauseum.)
- 2 Ne. 25:13 Nephi says “Behold, they [the Jews] will crucify him; and after he is laid in a sepulchre for the space of three days he shall rise from the dead.”
- Jacob 1:8 desires that “all men would believe in Christ, and view his death, and suffer his cross and bear the shame of the world.”
- Mosiah 3:8–9: More Christ as name canard: “And he shall be called Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the Father of heaven and earth, the Creator of all things from the beginning; and his mother shall be called Mary. And lo, he cometh unto his own, that salvation might come unto the children of men even through faith on his name; and even after all this they shall consider him a man, and say that he hath a devil, and shall scourge him, and shall crucify him.”
- Mosiah 15:7 “Yea, even so he shall be led, crucified, and slain, the flesh becoming subject even unto death, the will of the Son being swallowed up in the will of the Father.”
- Alma 39:9 “I would that ye should repent and forsake your sins, and go no more after the lusts of your eyes, but cross yourself in all these things; for except ye do this ye can in nowise inherit the kingdom of God. Oh, remember, and take it upon you, and cross yourself in these things.” (Like a Roman Catholic, a reference to making the sign of the cross over oneself.)
- Ether 4:1 This one amongts the Jaredites predates the introduction of crufixion anywhere in the world by at least a thousand years. “And the Lord commanded the brother of Jared to go down out of the mount from the presence of the Lord, and write the things which he had seen; and they [the words] were forbidden to come unto the children of men until after that he [Jesus] should be lifted up upon the cross.” In other words the prophecy could not be revealed until after it could be used as proof that it correctly predicted the future, but fortunately the Book of Mormon lets us know about it after the fact, long after the New Testament was written and the whole world has known about Jesus for over a millenium. Also, the juicy bits in the sealed portions of the vision of the Brother of Jared are not included in the Book of Mormon anyway, see Missing Writings / Glorified Omissions Trope.