Book of Mormon/As a "familiar spirit"

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Criticism

Critics ask why, if the words "familiar spirit" in Isaiah 29:4 refer to the Book of Mormon (as used in 2 Nephi 26꞉16, why does "familiar spirit" always refer to occult practices such as channeling and necromancy everywhere else in the Old Testament?

Source(s) of the Criticism

• Tower to Truth Ministries, "50 Questions to Ask Mormons," towertotruth.net (accessed 15 November 2007).

Answer

The comparison does not say that the Book of Mormon is a familiar spirit, but that the message from the Book of Mormon would be comparable, or like such a spirit.

The Book of Mormon verse also emphasizes that the power to translate the Book of Mormon comes from God, not from channeling or necromancy:

Critics also ignore that the Book of Mormon also speaks negatively about appealing to actual "familiar spirits," in Template:2.

Misunderstanding the ancient setting

The critics also seem ignorant of the Bible writers' beliefs about "familiar spirits." Such spirits represented the dead, who had passed on and yet could give a message of importance to the living. The NET Bible translation renders this verse as

"Your voice will sound like a spirit speaking from the underworld."

Thus, the Book of Mormon, being a record from a fallen Christian civilization, would be "as if" the dead spoke, since those who are now dead can speak to us. (All writing from another time does this—it allows the dead to speak to us. Matthew and Paul speak to us "as if" from the dead in the Bible; Shakespeare speaks to us through his plays.)

Conclusion

This doesn't mean that Isaiah was only referring to the Book of Mormon, or that he was particularly thinking about it at all. Nephi simply used the imagery and language of Isaiah, and adapted it to make his point. This was common practice in the ancient world.

One wonders how young Joseph Smith knew that.