“I Am Not Learned”

This post should be more fun than my more recent ones. From my last post you know I’m very interested in unraveling 2 Ne 27. In that chapter we are told of a book that is sealed and certain words from that book (but NOT the book itself) are to come forth.

Mormons typically read that chapter as describing the advent of the Book of Mormon, an interpretation I strongly rejected for the past several years, but which I now think maybe isn’t the craziest idea even if it’s not a perfect fit. I have not yet formed a firm conclusion about the book described by Nephi, but I don’t think the Mormons are without good reasons for their reading of that chapter.

2 Ne 27 tells of a book going to “a man” who then delivers the “words of the book” to another person. And that person takes the words of the book to “the learned”. The learned is referred to in both the singular and plural forms in that chapter. For example, the learned are reported as saying “bring hither the book and I will read [the words]” but then Nephi says “they” will say this for “the glory of the world and to get gain”.

So this is either a typo on the part of Nephi/the translators OR Nephi is saying that some group of “learned” will individually all say the same phrase: “bring hither the book and I will read”. Perhaps the words of the book are offered in a group setting and the offer to read the words is made one by one with each person rejecting the offer using the same statement. Or perhaps this offer is made one at a time to several learned people in different places/times and they all individually give him the same answer. Could happen either way, in which case Nephi’s recounting would be accurate.

\\By the way, this part doesn’t match well with the Charles Anthon claim made by Mormons. By all accounts, Anthon was the only person who rebuffed Martin Harris so there is no “they” in the story recounted by Harris. In reality most of the learned/not learned story doesn’t match up well to the Mormon accounts.

Also, Anthon was not an expert on Egyptian by any stretch so he was wholly incapable of reading the words Harris shared with him, much less the book from which the “caractors” came, sealed or no.\\

At any rate, Nephi says that after this event God delivers “again” the book and the words to the not learned.

\\This also doesn’t match the BoM tale b/c Joseph didn’t have the plates taken away until after Harris returned from seeing Anthon and the two of them translated 116 pages of Lehi’s record, which were then lost by Harris.\\

It’s odd to me that the man would need the book and the words delivered to him again. He already has them when the second person sets out to confront the learned so why does he need them delivered to him again?

Regardless of the answer to that question, this man to whom God delivers the book and the words “again” utters a strange phrase.

“And the man that is not learned shall say: I am not learned.“

That’s a weird thing to say, right? That’s not something you hear in everyday speech, that’s for sure.

Want to know something wild? In the preface to the Silmarillion, Christopher Tolkien quotes a letter by his father in which JRR Tolkien literally says the words “I am not learned”. Granted, it’s part of a larger sentence in which he says

“I am not ‘learned’ in the matters of myth and fairy-story, however, for in such things (as far as known to me) I have always been seeking material, things of a certain tone and air, and not simple knowledge.”

But still, he says the exact words Nephi quotes. I’ve been down quite a rabbit hole lately trying to see if I could make Tolkien this “not learned” man from 2 Nephi 27. In the end, I don’t know if it quite fits, but I’ll share what I learned anyway.

The Red Book of Westmarch

Tolkien claimed the tales he wrote were “translated” by him from the Red Book of Westmarch. I’m borrowing the below quote from Tolkien Gateway:

In the first edition of The Fellowship of the Ring, Tolkien’s foreword claimed he had translated the Red Book from the original Westron into English, and that claim is still implied in later editions of The Lord of the Rings, notably in Appendix F, part II “On Translation”. It therefore must be supposed that copies of the book survived through the Later Ages. Tolkien says nothing about how he gained access to one or more copies of the Red Book and how he learned Westron and other languages of Arda.

The Red Book is the book you see Bilbo writing at the beginning of the LoTR and Hobbit movies. Now granted, this claim by Tolkien is considered by people more sane than me to simply be an in-universe literary device to explain the origin of Tolkien’s stories. Tolkien was not the first author to use such a device for storytelling, so it’s entirely plausible he merely made up that detail along with the rest of it.

But on this blog we don’t trouble ourselves with sane explanations and instead we assume Tolkien meant it when he said he translated an ancient record, not unlike Joseph Smith, I might add.

So what is this Red Book? Well it contains Bilbo’s writings, essentially his tale of the Hobbit, but a great deal more than that. When Bilbo retired to Rivendell he spent his time writing his story AND adding on “translations from the Elvish” from records in Rivendell. In other words, he recorded words from another book you might say. Later, Frodo added to the same Red Book his tale which is the Lord of the Rings. The Red Book was passed to Sam, then his daughter Elanor, both of whom added on.

Apparently there were many other things added over time like some Hobbit genealogy, poems, songs, and the like. Supposedly the original Red Book “has not been preserved”, but there were many copies made of it, all but two of which excluded the “translations from the elvish” since such things did not interest hobbits. I’ll now quote from the Prologue to The Lord of the Rings:

The original Red Book has not been preserved, but many copies were made, especially of the first volume, for the use of the descendants of the children of Master Samwise. The most important copy, however, has a different history. It was kept at Great Smials, but it was written in Gondor, probably at the request of the great-grandson of Peregrin, and completed in S.R. 1592 (F.A. 172). Its southern scribe appended this note: Findegil, King’s Writer, finished this work in IV 172. It is an exact copy in all details of the Thain’s Book in Minas Tirith. That book was a copy, made at the request of King Elessar, of the Red Book of the Periannath [periannath means “hobbits”], and was brought to him by the Thain Peregrin when he retired to Gondor in IV 64.

The Thain’s Book was thus the first copy made of the Red Book and contained much that was later omitted or lost. In Minas Tirith it received much annotation, and many corrections, especially of names, words, and quotations in the Elvish languages; and there was added to it an abbreviated version of those parts of The Tale of Aragorn and Arwen which lie outside the account of the War. The full tale is stated to have been written by Barahir, grandson of the Steward Faramir, some time after the passing of the King. But the chief importance of Findegil’s copy is that it alone contains the whole of Bilbo’s ‘Translations from the Elvish’. These three volumes were found to be a work of great skill and learning in which, between 1403 and 1418, he had used all the sources available to him in Rivendell, both living and written. But since they were little used by Frodo, being almost entirely concerned with the Elder Days, no more is said of them here.

Alright, so that’s a pretty messy history for the Red Book but what’s of interest to me is these “translations from the Elvish” that Aragorn thought was so important to get right before he died. Tolkien never explicitly says this, but it’s thought by some that the Silmarillion comes from that part of the Red Book. In the end there were only 2 correct and complete copies of the Red Book, one called the Thain’s Book, kept in the Shire, and the other kept in Gondor. These two copies alone (not even the original Red Book!) has all the pertinent information include the Elvish translations along with corrections by Aragorn and some of his own tale.

Does this Red Book fit 2 Nephi 27? Not exactly, no, although I tried my very hardest to make it fit and in some ways it is very close. You have multiple situations where a person delivers the “words of the book” to someone else. Bilbo gets words of a book in Rivendell, which he calls “translations from the Elvish”. He writes them and later gives those words to Frodo, who gives them to Sam, who gives them to Elanor, and on down the line.

Then you’ve got Peregrin delivering a copy of the Red Book to Aragorn who ensures that a new copy is made with corrections, and most importantly, the Elvish translations missing from all the other copies (besides the original Red Book that is now lost).

If JRR Tolkien is Frodo reborn like Bill posits, you then have a pretty clean fulfillment of the following verse from 2 Nephi 27 when, in our age, Tolkien supposedly receives the Thain’s book and translates it:

the Lord God will deliver again the book and the words thereof to him that is not learned; and the man that is not learned shall say: I am not learned.

That would solve the riddle of why the book and words need to be delivered “again” after the learned reject the words. Frodo gets “the book and the words thereof” again when he is reborn as JRR Tolkien and acknowledges that he is “not learned” just like Nephi said he would.

But what doesn’t fit? Quite a bit. I can’t find any indication of the first part of Nephi’s prophecy where the words of the book are offered to the “learned” who instead demand the sealed book itself.

I also can’t find any indication that what Bilbo translated from the Elvish is considered a “sealed” book. If I understand Bill’s thinking, the moon stone or sun stone (palantiri) of Gondor could be this sealed book Nephi speaks of. But we can’t place either of those in Rivendell for Bilbo to use for his “translations”. We’d have to assume whatever record Bilbo uses somehow checks off all those boxes of being “sealed”, having been previously offered to some “learned”, etc. And I really don’t like having to assume all that.

The Learned

There is more, though. In elvish there are a few very interesting tie ins to the word “learned”. Look it up on eldamo and you get some really intriguing connections. One is “istima” and “istui” and “istyar” which are all the same base as “istar” which refers to wizards (Gandalf, Saruman, et al).

We also get Nólimon who was a very learned and wise early king of Numenor. That name is almost identical to Nólome which is another name for Finwe. And of course the “nol” is related to Noldor, which are the elves of Finwe’s house. Noldo means “one of the wise folk” or we might say, the Learned.

Those words give us a lot of options. The istar reference makes me think of Saruman and Gandalf both possessing the same palantir, which could be a book. Saruman would definitely fit the way the “learned” is described by Nephi and the more humble Gandalf fits one who is humble and recognizes his wisdom is limited. Saruman would certainly try to get a book for “the glory of the world and to get gain”. But I’m not aware of any story involving him that would be a great fit with Nephi’s words.

I know Saruman greedily hoarded lore and I am sure he would covet any records Rivendell had to offer. It’s not hard to imagine Saruman the Learned wanting Elrond’s records and Elrond instead offering to Saruman “the words of the book” with Saruman instead demanding the book/records themselves. But again, I’m not aware of any report to that effect. I have to assume/imagine it, which I don’t like.

The Finwe connection is intriguing but I think Finwe isn’t likely to do anything for “the glory of the world and to get gain”. However I think some of his people certainly would and I could see them demanding the actual book rather than just the words, thinking they are entitled to it.

Bill sees Pengolodh or other loremasters as good candidates for this type of behavior and I can’t say I disagree. Loremasters are probably textbook “learned”.

So bottom line, the Red Book is for me a tantalizing possibility as the “words of the book” mentioned by Nephi but it’s just not clean enough to be a perfect fit so I can’t fully embrace the idea yet. But man I really want to! I’d have to make some leaps and assume there is a fair amount of missing context around that book and the records from which Bilbo translated the elvish.

One other thought I want to point out is I think it’s very possible Nephi’s prophecy from that chapter was not an entirely future event from his perspective. He is, after all, quoting and interpreting Isaiah, which would have pre-dated him. Isaiah himself may have been quoting someone else for all we know (Rumil?). My point is, it could be that part of that prophecy was already fulfilled when Nephi was writing it and it’s the part after the book and the words are delivered “again” that was a yet-future event from his perspective.

Lastly, of interest to me is that on Bill’s private blog, he just today published a post that divines references to a “Red Book” from some movie scenes. In his case he is referring to something besides the Red Book of Westmarch but the coincidence is too precise to ignore. I have been in this rabbit hole for a couple weeks, something he would have no way of knowing. I began this post yesterday and it was complete except for these last few paragraphs before I read his post from today. He and I are both deep in thought about a “Red Book” apparently.