The Book of Mormon, the Zohar, and the various “Karaites”

The book of Mormon, which is a book that was produced or discovered in America, and its followers believe to be a revelation from God, and part of the Christian Canon. The Church of Latter day Saint accept the book, and are also known as Mormons.

It is not my business to tell Christians what to believe in. There are certain patterns here that reflect what happened in the Jewish world. Firstly, most Christians reject the Mormon book. Second, it is a book that nobody had heard of until it was published by a Mr Joseph Smith, in 1830.

This story is a very familiar one if we know about the history of the Zohar. The Zohar also came about, out of nowhere, and faced initial opposition by many rabbis, but was gradually accepted by mainstream rabbinical orthodoxy. It was rejected, however, by certain rationalist circles within Orthodoxy, however, these remained in the minority. So the first difference is that Mormon was accepted by a minority, whereas the Zohar was accepted by a larger group, which eventually became a majority. This majority persecuted the Jewish minority, which opposed it, even murdering

some of its leaders, such as Rabbi David Kapach of Yemen, and the attempted murder of his son, R' Yosef Kapach. It is ironic that the Kapach dynasty were the greatest expositors of the work of Maimonides, and the same Maimonides gave legal carte blanche to such religious bloodshed of “heretics”.

In a sense, the opponents of the Zohar and Kabbalah literature were “Karaites” vis a vis the “oral law”, which they considered only to be contained within the Talmud. Similarly, the Christian “Karaites” only accepted the New Testament, and rejected later works.

There are several ways that Mormons might, and probably do, argue for the “truth” of the book of Mormon. They claim that there were several witnesses to the founding of the book. Hence it could not be a forgery. They might also benefit from staying at a Yeshiva, such as Ohr sameach, where they will come across the “Kuzari Argument”. http://tanakhemet.blogspot.co.uk/2014/12/kuzari-principle-is-false-admits-its.html

With this principle, endorsed by an “orthodox rabbi”, they can claim that the acceptance of the Book of Mormon, not only by the Church, but also by the native Americans (as is testified in the book itself) would prove it to be true, since so many people would not have accepted it if it were false.

The rabbis might counter this criticism by saying that the Oral Law enjoys unanimous acceptance, and the Zohar is nearly unanimously accepted. And this is correct, just like the book of mormon is unanimously accepted, by Mormons. They can also say, as ben Chaim does, that the Sadducees were latecomers, and that the Pharisees were there all along. This is highly problematic, since Josephus states that they were only a sect of 6000 at his time, and the TNK rules out any additional body of Torah law, which is what the oral law is. Not to mention the many violations of Torah by the oral law. The common thread here is one of anachronism. The book of Mormon, as well as the oral law (and Zohar) are not historically or logically consistent with the canon they claim to be part of. The fact that each group has followers who believe it is useless, other than as a tool for psychological manipulation.