Evidence Fifty-Nine: The Difference Between Thieves and Robbers in the Book of Mormon and the Bible.©

101 Reasons Why I Believe Joseph Smith Was a Prophet of God:

Evidence Fifty-Nine: 

The Difference Between Thieves and Robbers in the Book of Mormon and the Bible.

Here is a simple little thing–the distinction between thieves and robbers as portrayed in the Book of Mormon. Research by John Welch and Kelly Ward, shows that anciently there was a difference between the two; robbers were generally in bands such as we find in the Book of Mormon, thieves were more like the one in your neighborhood or community. However, that same distinction didn’t exist in American jurisprudence at the time of Joseph Smith. Nor is it present in the King James Bible. So, how did he know to separate them? Ah, there’s the rub.  Here is an excerpt from Jack Welch’s 1992 book, Reexploring the Book of Mormon, which is a collection of updates on research on the Book of Mormon as published by the F.A.R.M.S. organization then at B.Y.U.

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Although there is only little difference between a thief and a robber in most modern minds, there were considerable differences between the two under ancient Near Eastern law. A thief (ganab) was usually a local person who stole from his neighbor. He was dealt with judicially. He was tried and punished civilly, most often by a court composed of his fellow townspeople. A robber, on the other hand, was treated as an outsider, as a brigand or highwayman. He was dealt with militarily, and he could be executed summarily.

The legal distinctions between theft and robbery, especially under the laws of ancient Israel, have been analyzed thoroughly by Bernard S. Jackson, Professor of Law at the University of Kent-Canterbury and editor of the Jewish Law Annual. He shows, for example, how robbers usually acted in organized groups rivaling local governments and attacking towns and how they swore oaths and extorted ransom, a menace worse than outright war. Thieves, however, were a much less serious threat to society.1

Recently studies have shown in detail how the ancient legal and linguistic distinctions are also observable in the Book of Mormon.

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The importance of this ancient legal tradition in the Book of Mormon is further enhanced by the fact that Anglo-American common law would have provided Joseph Smith with quite a different understanding of the legal definitions of the terms theft and robbery, inconsistent in many ways with usages found in the Book of Mormon.

Moreover, if Joseph Smith had relied on the language of his King James Bible for legal definitions of these terms, he would have stumbled into error, for that translation renders "thief" and "robber" indiscriminately. For example, the same phrase is translated inconsistently as "den of robbers" and "den of thieves" in Jeremiah 7:11 and Matthew 21:13. The same word (lestai) is translated sometimes as "thieves" (Matthew 27:38), other times as "robber" (John 18:40). But there was an ancient distinction between thieves and robbers that no translator should neglect, and over which Joseph Smith did not blunder.(1)

1 Bernard S. Jackson, Theft in Early Jewish Law (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1972).

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Interesting stuff!  One more bit of evidence that Joseph Smith was not the author of the Book of Mormon but its translator under the influence of the “gift and power of God.” A tidbit that adds to my belief that he was a prophet of God.

Let’s think together again, soon.

Notes:

1.  John W. Welch and Kelly Ward, “Thieves and Robbers,” in John W. Welch, ed., Reexploring the Book of Mormon, Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1992, 248-49.