Insights: The Newsletter of the Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship
Article Title
The Book of Mormon and the Heavenly Book Motif
Keywords
Book of Mormon, Geo Widengreen, Heavenly Tablets
Abstract
The Book of Mormon has been dismissed with the assertion "you don't get books from angels ... it is just that simple." However, evidence from the ancient world indicates that many sacred works have been delivered to men by angels or other heavenly beings. Indeed, according to Orientalist Geo Widengren, "Few religious ideas in the Ancient East have played a more important role than the notion of the Heavenly Tablets or the Heavenly Books," which are "handed over [to a mortal] in an interview with a heavenly being" (Ascension of the Apostle and the Heavenly Book [Leipzig: Harrassowitz, 1950], 7).
Recommended Citation
McNeely, Brent E.
(1990)
"The Book of Mormon and the Heavenly Book Motif,"
Insights: The Newsletter of the Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship: Vol. 10:
No.
5, Article 3.
Available at:
https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/insights/vol10/iss5/3