Angel Moroni

The Angel Moroni (IPAEng|mɒˈroʊnaɪ) is an angel that Joseph Smith, Jr. said visited him on numerous occasions, beginning on September 22 1823. The angel was the guardian of the golden plates, which Smith said were buried in a hill near his home in western New York, and which he said were the source material for the Book of Mormon. Moroni is an important figure in the theology of the Latter Day Saint movement, and is featured prominently in Mormon architecture and art. Three Witnesses besides Joseph Smith said they saw Moroni in 1829 visions, as did several other witnesses who each said they had their own vision.

Moroni is said to be the same person as a Book of Mormon prophet-warrior named Moroni, who was the last to write in the golden plates. The book says that Moroni buried them before he died after a great battle between two pre-Columbian civilizations. After he died, he was resurrected, became an angel, and was tasked with guarding the golden plates, and with eventually directing Joseph Smith to their location in the 1820s. According to Latter Day Saint movement theology, Moroni still has the plates and several other Book of Mormon artifacts in his possession.

Angel's name and identity

There have been two conflicting identifications for the angel who appeared to Smith in 1823 and directed him to the golden plates. The first name Smith provided for this angel was "Moroni". [In Smith's 1832 history, he said he was visited by "an angel of the Lord", who mentioned the Book of Mormon prophet "Maroni" as the last engraver of the golden plates; however, Smith's account did not say whether or not the angel was referring to "himself" as Moroni Harv|Smith|1832|p=4.] In 1835, while preparing the first edition of the Doctrine and Covenants, he made additions to an earlier revelation regarding sacramental wine, and indicated a number of angels that would come to the earth after the Second Coming and drink wine with Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery Harv|Smith|Cowdery|Rigdon|Williams|1835|p=180. Among those angels, the revelation listed "Moroni, whom I have sent unto you to reveal the book of Mormon, containing the fulness of my everlasting gospel; to whom I have committed the keys of the record of the stick of Ephraim" (id.). Around this time, Oliver Cowdery was writing a history of Joseph Smith in which he identified the angel as the prophet Moroni from the Book of Mormon Harv|Cowdery|1835|p=112. In July 1838, Smith wrote an article for the church periodical "Elders' Journal", in the form of questions and answers, that stated the following::"Question 4th. How, and where did you obtain the book of Mormon?:"Answer. Moroni, the person who deposited the plates, from whence the book of Mormon was translated, in a hill in Manchester, Ontario County, New York, being dead, and raised again therefrom, appeared unto me, and told me where they were; and gave me directions how to obtain them." Harv|Smith|1838b|pp=42–43.

However, on May 2 1838, a few months before Smith's statement in "Elders' Journal", Smith began dictating a church history that included a detailed account of his visits from the angel Harv|Smith|1838a|p=7. Smith seems to have identified the angel as "Nephi", which is the name of the Book of Mormon's first narrator Harv|Smith|1838a|p=5. Smith's apparent 1838 identification as "Nephi" was left unchanged when the 1838 history was published in 1842 in "Times and Seasons", which Smith edited himself Harv|Smith|1842|p=753, and in "Millennial Star" Harv|Pratt|1842|p=53. In the latter, an editorial referred to the 1823 vision and praised "the glorious ministry and message of the angel Nephi" Harv|1842|p=71. After Smith's death, the identification as "Nephi" was repeated when The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints published its first edition of the Pearl of Great Price Harv|Richards|1851|p=41. It was also repeated in 1853 when Smith's mother Lucy Mack Smith published a history of her son Harv|Smith|1853|p=79.

As a further complication, Mary Whitmer, mother to one of the Three Witnesses and four of the Eight Witnesses, said she had a vision of the golden plates, shown to her by an angel whom she always called "Brother Nephi" Harv|Whitmer|1888|p=621, who may or may not have been the same angel to which Smith referred.

Nevertheless, based on Smith's statement that the angel was "Moroni," and based on both prior and later publications, most Latter Day Saints view Smith's 1838 identification of the angel as Nephi as a mistake, perhaps on the part of the transcriber or a later editor. [See FAIR Wiki, [http://en.fairmormon.org/Nephi_or_Moroni Nephi or Moroni] .] In the version of Smith's 1838 history published by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, as well as the portion canonized by that denomination as the Pearl of Great Price, the name "Nephi" has been changed by editors to read "Moroni". [ [http://scriptures.lds.org/js_h/1/33#27 Joseph Smith—History, v.27] ] The Community of Christ publishes the original story, including the identification of "Nephi", but indicates "Moroni" in a footnote.Fact|date=June 2007

Description

Descriptions of the angel Moroni vary. In one of Joseph Smith's histories, he said "He had on a loose robe of most exquisite whiteness. It was a whiteness beyond anything earthly I had ever seen.… His hands were naked and his arms also a little above the wrists.… Not only was his robe exceedingly white but his whole person was glorious beyond description" Harv|Smith|1838. According to Smith's sister Katharine, the angel "was dressed in white raiment, of whiteness beyond anything Joseph had ever seen in his life, and had a girdle about his waist. He saw his hands and wrists, and they were pure and white. Harv|Salisbury|1895|p=11.

Joseph Smith described Moroni as an angel of light.Fact|date=September 2008 Until 1979, the introduction page of the Doctrine and Covenants stated that "Joseph Smith received visitations from Moroni, an angel of light".Fact|date=September 2008 Some ChristiansWho|date=September 2008 view this description as an evidence that Moroni is in fact Lucifer or one of his fallen angels, since Paul states in bibleverse|2|Corinthians|11:14–11:15|31 that Satan masquerades himself as an angel of light. In addition to the Bible, other Latter-day Saint scriptures refer to the devil transforming himself into (or "nigh unto," meaning similar to or having the appearance of) "an" angel of light, [See LDS.org, [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/search?search=angel+of+light&do=Search a search of LDS scriptures for "angel+of+light"] .] indicating that the devil mimics God's angels who could also be described using the same terminology. Latter-day Saint apologists point to the apostle John's instructions on how to test spirits to know "whether they are of God" ( [http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1%20john%204:1-4:3;&version=9; 1 John 4:1-3] ), and Moroni's revelations to Joseph Smith pass the test of " [confessing] that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh." [See FAIR Wiki, [http://en.fairmormon.org/Moroni_as_an_angel_of_Satan Moroni as an angel of Satan] .]

Appearances to Joseph Smith and others

Joseph Smith, Jr. (who would later become the founder of the Latter Day Saint movement) said that on the night of September 21, 1823, Moroni appeared to Smith and told him about the Golden Plates that were buried (in a stone box) a few miles from Smith's home; visited Smith various times over the course of the next six years; and after Smith translated a portion of the writing on the plates (either one-third or two-thirds; accounts vary)Fact|date=September 2008 as the Book of Mormon, Smith turned the plates back over to Moroni. [See [http://scriptures.lds.org/js_h/1/60#60 Joseph Smith—History 1:60] .]

In addition to Joseph Smith, several other early Mormons said they had visions where they saw the angel Moroni. Three Witnesses said they saw the angel in 1829: Oliver Cowdery, David Whitmer, and Martin Harris. Other early Mormons who said they saw Moroni include Emma Hale Smith, Hyrum Smith, Luke S. Johnson, Zera Pulsipher, W. W. Phelps, John P. Greene and his wife Rhoda, John Taylor, Oliver Granger, Heber C. Kimball, Lucy Harris, and Harrison Burgess. Mary Whitmer may also have seen Moroni, although she referred to the angel she saw as "Brother Nephi."

Mortal life of Moroni the prophet

According to the Book of Mormon, Moroni was the son of Mormon, the prophet for whom the Book of Mormon is ostensibly named. He may have been named after Captain Moroni, a much earlier Book of Mormon figure. Before Mormon's death in battle, he passed the golden plates to Moroni. Moroni then finished writing on the plates and concluded his record, presumably burying them in the hill Cumorah in western New York.

Theological significance

Because of his instrumentality in the restoration of the gospel, Moroni is commonly identified by Latter-day Saints as the angel mentioned in sourcetext|source=Bible|version=King James|book=Revelation|chapter=14|verse=6, "having the everlasting gospel to preach unto them that dwell on the earth, and to every nation, and kindred, and tongue, and people."

The image of the angel Moroni blowing a trumpet is commonly used as an unofficial symbol of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Moroni appears on the cover of some editions of the Book of Mormon, and statues of the angel stand atop many LDS temples, most statues facing eastward. The image of Moroni is a registered trademark of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Theorized origin of the name

Some scholars have theorized that Smith became familiar with the name "Moroni" through his study of the treasure-hunting stories of Captain William Kidd. [See, e.g., Ronald V. Huggins, "From Captain Kidd's Treasure Ghost to the Angel Moroni: Changin "Dramatis Personae" in Early Mormonism", "Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought", 36:4 (Winter 2003) pp. 17-42.] Because Kidd was said to have buried treasure in the Comoros islands, and Moroni is the name of the capital city and largest settlement in the Comoros, it has been suggested that Smith borrowed the name of the settlement and applied it to the angel who led him to buried treasure—the golden plates. Complementing this proposal is the theory that Smith borrowed the names of the Comoros islands and applied them to the hill where he found the golden plates, which he named Cumorah. [Prior to 1830, most maps and gazetteers referred to the Comoros as "Comora" (but notably do not contain any mention of the name Moroni). The 1830 first edition of the Book of Mormon printed the name "Cumorah" as "Camorah".]

Latter-day Saint apologists have reasoned that this line of argument commits the logical error of appeal to probability; they also point out that it is unlikely that Smith had access to material which would have referred to the then-small settlement of Moroni. [See FAIR Wiki, [http://en.fairmormon.org/Comoros_Islands_and_Moroni Comoros Islands and Moroni] .]

Notes

References

#Citation
last=Cowdery
first=Oliver
author-link=Oliver Cowdery
title=Letter VI to W.W. Phelps, Esq.
journal=Latter Day Saints' Messenger and Advocate
volume=1
issue=7
pages=108–112
year=1835
url = http://www.centerplace.org/history/ma/v1n07.htm#108
#Citation
last1=Pratt
first1=P.P.
author1-link=Parley P. Pratt
last2=Ward
first2=Thomas
title=History of Joseph Smith; Editorial Remarks
periodical=Latter Day Saints' Millennial Star
year=1842
date=August 1842
volume=3
issue=4
pp=53–54; 70–72
url=http://contentdm.lib.byu.edu/cgi-bin/docviewer.exe?CISOROOT=/MStar&CISOPTR=20948 .
#Citation
editor-last=Richards
editor-first=Franklin D.
editor-link=Franklin D. Richards
title=
place=Liverpool
publisher=Richards
year=1851 .
#Citation
last=Salisbury
first=Katharine Smith
year=1895
contribution=An Angel Told Him
date=April 10 1895
editor-last=Walker
editor-first=Kyle R.
title=Katharine Smith Salisbury's Recollections of Joseph's Meetings with Moroni
journal=BYU Studies
volume=41
issue=3
publication-date=2002
pages=4–17
url=https://byustudies.byu.edu/shop/PDFSRC/41.3Walker.pdf .
#Citation
last=Smith
first=Joseph, Jr.
author-link=Joseph Smith, Jr.
chapter=History of the Life of Joseph Smith
year=1832
chapter-url = http://en.wikisource.org/w/index.php?title=History_of_the_Life_of_Joseph_Smith&oldid=314384
editor-last=Jessee
editor-first=Dean C
editor-link=Dean C. Jessee
title = Personal Writings of Joseph Smith
place = Salt Lake City
publisher = Deseret Book
publication-year = 2002
isbn=1-57345-787-6
url=http://deseretbook.com/personalwritings .
#Citation
last1=Smith
first1=Joseph, Jr.
author1-link=Joseph Smith, Jr.
last2=Cowdery
first2=Oliver
author2-link = Oliver Cowdery
last3=Rigdon
first3=Sidney
author3-link = Sidney Rigdon
last4=Williams
first4=Frederick G.
author4-link=Frederick G. Williams
title=
place=Kirtland, Ohio
publisher=F. G. Williams & Co
year=1835
url=http://www.irr.org/mit/BOC/default.html .
#Citation
last=Smith
first=Joseph, Jr.
author-link=Joseph Smith, Jr.
title=Editor's note
journal=Elders' Journal of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints
volume=1
issue=3
date=July 1838
year=1838a
url=http://www.solomonspalding.com/docs/eldjur03.htm .
#Citation
last=Smith
first=Joseph, Jr. et al.
authorlink=Joseph Smith, Jr.
date=May 2, 1838–1842
year=1838b
chapter=History of the Church, Ms. A–1 (LDS Church Archives, Salt Lake City)
editor-last=Jessee
editor-first=Dean C
editor-link=Dean C. Jessee
title = Personal Writings of Joseph Smith
place = Salt Lake City
publisher = Deseret Book
publication-year = 2002
isbn=1-57345-787-6
chapter-url = http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/History_of_the_Church_%281838%29 .
#Citation
last=Smith
first=Joseph, Jr.
author-link=Joseph Smith, Jr.
title=History of Joseph Smith
journal=Times and Seasons
volume=3
issue=12
pages=753–54
year=1842d
date=20 March 1842
url=http://www.centerplace.org/history/ts/v3n12.htm#753 .
#Citation
last=Smith
first=Lucy Mack
author-link=Lucy Mack Smith
title=Biographical Sketches of Joseph Smith the Prophet, and His Progenitors for Many Generations
place=Liverpool
publisher=S.W. Richards
year=1853
url=http://relarchive.byu.edu/19th/descriptions/biographical.html .
#Citation
last=Whitmer
first=John C.
title=The Eight Witnesses
periodical=The Historical Record
publisher=Andrew Jenson
place=Salt Lake City
date=October 1888
year=1888
p=621 .

External links

*The text of sourcetext|source=Book of Mormon|book=Moroni at Wikisource.
* [http://www.lightplanet.com/mormons/book_of_mormon/people/moroni_2.html Moroni, the Son of Mormon] in the "Encyclopedia of Mormonism"
* [http://www.lightplanet.com/mormons/basic/bom/people/moroni_2_angel_eom.htm Angel Moroni] in the "Encyclopedia of Mormonism"
* [http://scriptures.lds.org/inm/moroni2 References to Moroni²] in the index to the LDS edition of the "Book of Mormon".