Blogger of Jared

24 And there stood one among them that was like unto God, and he said unto those who were with him: We will go down, for there is space there, and we will take of these materials, and we will make an earth whereon these may dwell;

27 And the Lord said: Whom shall I send^•? And one answered like unto the Son of Man: Here am I, send me. And another^• answered and said: Here am I, send me. And the Lord said: I will send the first.

So speaks some of the most oft-quoted, oft-debated and oft-misunderstood writings in all of LDS canon. Not to say that I am the conquering hero who understands all the depth of these scriptures. No, I’m too simple-minded for that. I do have one pet peeve though about what I perceive to be a commonly held misunderstanding of two phrases here:

1. “…one among them that was like unto God” (abbr. LUG)
2. “…one answered like unto the Son of Man” (abbr. SOM)

The LDS footnotes pronounce that both LUG and SOM refer to the pre-mortal Savior, Jesus the Christ. Let’s take a look at that.

In this scenario I like to imagine Abraham sitting in a big movie theater (this movie theater is actually the Urim and Thummim but a movie theater is funnier, especially if you imagine him in those big 3-D glasses). He’s got a bucket of popcorn in one hand, a large root beer (Abraham is a good Mormon) in the other.

Now, sitting next to Abraham is the Lord who, fortunately for Abraham has already seen this particular movie. In fact, he directed it. It’s like having Steven Spielberg next to you pointing out all the important nuances of Schindler’s List. Seriously, this is like a Visa commercial in the making; Popcorn: Seven dollars, Movie Tickets: Ten Dollars, Having the Lord narrate as the entire pre-mortal experience unfolds before your very eyes: priceless.

So as Abraham is relating this experience to us, he notes the presence of two people (among others): LUG and SOM.

The characteristics of LUG are:

• Is described as like unto God
• Stands among the noble and great ones
• Gives direction to the noble and great ones
• Says “We will go down”
• Oversees the creation of an earth
• Teaches the noble and great ones of the Plan of Salvation

The characteristics of SOM are:

• Volunteers and is accepted by God to be sent somewhere
• Is chosen over a second who subsequently leaves the presence of God

Let’s determine who SOM is first since there much less controversy about his identity:

“like unto the Son of Man…”

Notice the capitalization here. Why are Son and Man capitalized? Since when does “man”kind earn a capitalization? The best way to get an idea of what’s going on here is probably to look at different scriptural usages in context. So I did. There are a lot of scriptures with the phrase “son of man” (250 according to LDS.org). The usage seems to break down as follows:

1. son of man = man/womankind in general

Job 25:6 How much less man, that is a worm? and the son of man, which is a worm?.

1. Son of man = Prophets (including the Savior)

Daniel 7:13 I saw in the night visions, and, behold, one like the ^aSon^• of man came with the ^bclouds^• of heaven, and came to the Ancient of days, and they brought him near before him.

1. Son of Man = The Savior exclusively

D&C 122:8 The ^aSon of Man hath ^bdescended^• below them all. Art thou greater than he?

Fair enough… so SOM is Jesus Christ (More concisely from the Bible Dictionary: “A title that Jesus Christ used when speaking of himself (Luke 9: 22; Luke 21: 36). It meant the Son of the Man of Holiness. Man of Holiness is one of the names of God the Father. When Jesus called himself the Son of Man, it was an open declaration of his divine relationship with the Father. This title is found frequently in the Gospels. Latter-day revelation confirms the special meaning and sacredness of this name of the Savior (D&C 45: 39; 49: 6, 22; 58: 65; Moses 6: 57).”

Now that SOM is resolved, lets move on to LUG

“like unto God”

Knowing that SOM is Christ seemingly rules out LUG as Christ. If we go back to my story about Abraham and consider that he was writing down his description of the movie he was watching, it seems questionable that he would describe Christ one way only to use an entirely different (and more specific) title just a few sentences later in the narrative. Why wouldn’t he say something like “So then, that guy I was telling you about who was like unto God comes over and says ‘Here am I, send me’”

Two different characters : two different descriptors seems to be the simpler and more obvious explanation (see: Occam’s razor).

So having eliminated Christ, lets look at other characters that might match the description:

There doesn’t seem to be any abnormal capitalization so there’s no clues there. Since the scriptures offer no other usage of the LUG descriptor, we have to move to some outside sources.

Consider the definition of Michael: The given name Michael or Micha’el (מִיכָאֵל / מיכאל “who is like God?” or “likened unto God”. (Coincidentally this definition of the name Michael can also be found in the LDS Bible Dictionary)

The Talmud tradition rendered his name as meaning “who is like El (God) (but literally “El’s Likeness”)” (compare the late prophet Micah), but according to Rabbi Simeon ben Lakish (230-270 CE), all the specific names for the angels were brought back by the Jews from Babylon, and many modern commentators would agree. Michael is one of the principal angels in Abrahamic tradition; his name was said to have been the war-cry of the angels in the battle fought in heaven against Satan and his followers.

This is obviously not definitive but there does seem to be an extremely strong tie between Michael, Abraham and the description of being “like unto God”.

With no other ties between Christ and the LUG title besides the vague explanation that Christ literally is “like God”, let’s explore Michael a bit more based on the six characteristics of LUG that we extrapolated earlier:

1. Stands among the Noble and Great ones: No scriptural insight
2. Gives direction to the noble and great ones: The role of Michael as a commander or leader of hosts in the pre-mortal existence is well established in the scriptures (see: D&C 88:113)
3. Says “We will go down”: This characteristic speech pattern is well worn in the temple depiction of the 6 creative periods and is used solely by Michael.
4. Oversees the creation of an earth: Although Christ is recognized as “The Creator”, we know (again, from the Temple) that as God, the Father delegated to Christ, so also did Christ delegate to Michael. In this sense, Michael was largely responsible for the creation of this earth. Latter-day commentary also supports the concept that although the atonement of Christ was applicable to many earths, Michael alone holds the title of Father of Mankind for this particular earth.
5. Teaches the noble and great ones of the Plan of Salvation: No scriptural insight

Major Objections:

1. Micah means ”One who is like YHWH” which weakens the name/definition link.

Rebuttal: Micah is simply a root form of Micha-El (see above) and since there are no other strong ties linking Micah to LUG, he can be eliminated as a suspect.

1. The footnotes in the scriptures denote LUG as Jesus Christ.

Rebuttal: The footnotes were written by committee and as such are not part of LDS canon. They are merely study helps and are not infallible.

1. Latter-Day prophets and scholars have declared LUG to be Jesus Christ

Rebuttal: All the commentary that I can find eventually traces its roots back to Bruce R. McConkie. Although a scholar in his own right and a mighty apostle of the Lord, McConkie’s publications were by and large a product of his own opinion and were often found to be replete with errors. (The first published edition of Mormon Doctrine was returned to McConkie by the First Presidency with 1,067 notated doctrinal inaccuracies.)

Perhaps though, I am wrong. I would be glad to hear of it.