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Reading the Records of Zion – Abraham and the Patriarchal Records in Haran
Chapter 3, part 1 of The Blessings of Abraham:  Becoming a Zion People
By E. Douglas Clark

Seek not for riches but for wisdom, and behold, the mysteries of God shall be unfolded unto you, and then shall you be made rich. Behold, he that hath eternal life is rich.  –Doctrine and Covenants 6:7

Precious Patriarchal Records

“I have found it written in the books of my forefathers.” ^[1] These words from Jubilees, spoken by the dying Abraham to his beloved Isaac, point to the profound effect of the patriarchal records on the life of Abraham, who first read them in Haran.

What he read in those records made a deep and indelible impression, changing the course of his life and the course of history. Those records gave him his bearings, guiding and shaping his life, informing his remarkable ministry, and providing the blueprint of what he would spend the rest of his life building and seeking and becoming.

It would be difficult to overstate the importance of those records for understanding the life of Abraham. “Everything I have obtained has been only because I occupied myself with Torah and God’s precepts,” Abraham is reported to have once said. ^[2]

The Book of Abraham gives significant but compressed glimpses of what Abraham read in the records, glimpses that are fortunately amplified by other passages of restored scriptures like our Book of Moses and Doctrine and Covenants 107. In addition, we now have a host of ancient writings dealing with Adam and Enoch and their era, many of which sources purport to have been written by those very patriarchs.

And although such sources are, says Nibley, “copies of copies,” yet “we cannot escape the impression that they have a real model behind them.” ^[3] This is especially so when we see numerous convergences between latter-day scripture and the newly discovered ancient writings, ^[4] which often elaborate on matters more concisely mentioned in latter-day scripture. We can thereby form some idea of what Abraham read in those records, providing us with a mental map of what Abraham learned from the records of his fathers.  That map is key to understanding Abraham.

Abraham himself recounts in the Book of Abraham that “the Lord my God preserved in mine own hands,” while still in Ur, “the records of the fathers, even the patriarchs” (Abr. 1:31). Jubilees similarly tells of Abraham having the “books of his fathers” ^[5] or “forefathers,” including the words of Enoch and Noah. ^[6]

A Muslim source relates that when Abraham opened the chest of Adam, he found books written by Adam, Seth, and Enoch ^[7] – men who our Book of Moses also mentions as record keepers (see 6:5-6; 6:46). An early Christian work called the Book of the Bee further tells that Abraham also received a wooden staff originally owned by Adam, who had cut it from the tree of good and evil. ^[8]

The tradition that these earliest sacred records were kept in a chest raises the tantalizing possibility that what Abraham had may have been essentially an ark of the covenant like that to be built centuries later by Moses, for that later ark would likewise be wooden chest housing the sacred records. ^[9] And as the later ark would serve as God’s throne in the portable tabernacle and finally in the temple, so the chest that Abraham had may have served the same function in the temples that tradition credits him with building.

Speaking of the sacred records had by Adam, the Book of Moses mentions that some were written by the finger of God (Moses 6:46). Jewish tradition similarly tells that the original Torah had “been written with the finger of consuming fire,” ^[10] apparently the same heavenly book given to Adam and subsequently handed down to Abraham, ^[11] and perhaps including what George Syncellus reports as the heavenly book given to Seth and handed down through the generations. ^[12]

But it is Enoch, builder of the city of Zion, who stands out in apocryphal literature and our Book of Moses as “the greatest transmitter of records,” ^[13] the preeminent and prolific “scribe of righteousness” ^[14] whose writings were quoted so heavily in early Jewish and Christian sources and now predominate in our modern collection of apocryphal texts. ^[15] The patriarchal records that Abraham now gazed upon with wonder were what Mesopotamian tradition called “the Tablets of Destiny, the Tablets of Wisdom, the Law of Earth and Heaven, the Tablets of the Gods, … the Mystery of Heaven and Earth … They contain supreme wisdom.” ^[16] They were the records of Zion.

But they were written in a strange language long since extinct, the original “language of the creation.” ^[17] How was Abraham to read them? The Book of Abraham mentions a Urim and Thummim in Abraham’s possession that God had given him in Ur (Abr. 3:1), where Abraham had also received the records of the fathers (Abr. 1:31). That the Urim and Thummim was found with the records is suggested by the Jewish tradition insisting that Abraham possessed the same precious shining stone that Noah had once had. ^[18]

The scenario fits precisely the pattern of what Joseph Smith received, not only the ancient sacred records written in a dead language, but also the divinely-prepared means to translate them.

Such sacred implements, as seen in the case of Joseph Smith, are reserved for those chosen seers who themselves are divine instruments to bring forth God’s word to the world. Jubilees further tells that God sent an angel who tutored Abraham in the lost language so he could decipher the books, and who “explained to him everything he could not understand.” ^[19] One is again reminded of the experience of Joseph Smith, who after being visited by Moroni was divinely tutored in the history of the inhabitants of the ancient Americas[20] The angel that tutored Abraham was, says Jubilees, the very angel of the presence, a point emphasized by Byzantine chronographers as well. ^[21] Enoch, the greatest author and compiler of the sacred records that Abraham now held in his hands, had come to teach Abraham all about them.

Even with angelic assistance, the process still called for careful concentration on Abraham’s part. Speaking of the Torah that Abraham perused, the learned medieval Jewish sage Nachmanides stated that Abraham “occupied himself with its study and the reason for its commandments and its secrets.” ^[22] One thinks immediately of Abraham’s descendant Nephi, whose soul delighted in the scriptures and whose heart pondered them continually (2 Ne. 4:15).

What Abraham Learned about Enoch’s Heavenly Vision and Earthly Heritage

Abraham would further have read how Enoch was “granted access to all manner of heavenly mysteries regarding the governance of the cosmos and the progression of terrestrial history.” ^[23] From his privileged station of being “high and lifted up,” Enoch saw “all the nations of the earth … before him” (Moses 7:23-24), and was even taken on a tour to the ends of the earth, to the north, west, south, and east. ^<[24] He then saw future history unfold before his eyes, as we can now read in the Book of Moses (7:23-69) and the apocryphal Enoch literature. ^[25]

For at least some of this vision it is Michael who acts as Enoch’s guide and tutor. ^[26] Enoch saw the fate of the wicked ones perishing in the Flood, that they would “suffer” and be “shut … up [in] a prison” (Moses 7:37-38), ^[27] while the heavens wept over them (7:28-31) and Enoch himself wept (7:41, 44). ^[28] These passages apparently had a profound effect on Abraham, who, as would later be said of the sons of King Mosiah, “could not bear that any human soul should perish” (Mosiah 28:3).

Enoch also heard mother earth “mourn” and lament the wickedness of her children (Moses 7:48-49) against whom she “made accusation,” ^[29] and he began to pray for mercy for the earth and for his posterity (7:50). The Lord “could not withhold; and he covenanted with Enoch, and sware unto him with an oath” and “sent forth an unalterable decree” to preserve and protect his posterity, adding: “Blessed is he through whose seed Messiah shall come; for he saith – I am Messiah, the King of Zion” (7:51-53).

Enoch saw the Flood and Noah being saved on the ark (Moses 7:42-43), ^[30] and he saw “generation upon generation” (7:23-24) as he heard the earth groan from Noah down through the future history of the kingdoms of Israel and Judah. ^[31]   He also “saw the day of the coming of the Son of Man, even in the flesh; and his soul rejoiced, saying: The Righteous in lifted up, and the Lamb is slain from the foundation of the world” (7:47).

The scene continued to unfold until Enoch beheld the last days and was told that “another generation will arise, the last of many … And I will raise up for that generation someone who will reveal to them the books in your handwriting and those of your fathers.” ^[32] The modern-day translator of this passage in 2 Enoch comments that “the context requires the introduction of an authoritative teacher along with the restitution of the books of Enoch, to provide for the needs of the faithful in the end-time.” ^[33]

It appears, in other words, that Enoch saw the raising up of Joseph Smith, through whose instrumentality God would restore lost writings of Enoch. Enoch further beheld “righteousness” come “down out of heaven” and “truth” come “forth out of the earth, to bear testimony of [the] Only Begotten” (Moses 7:62).

He saw, in other words, the restoration of divine authority and the coming forth of the Book of Mormon, ^[34] and then saw “righteousness and truth … sweep the earth as with a flood, to gather out [the] elect from the four quarters of the earth” to build “Zion, a New Jerusalem,” in preparation for the glorious coming of the Lord and his descent with Enoch’s city of Zion (7:62-65). As Enoch tells in 3 Enoch, “the Holy One … will reveal his Great Arm … to the nations of the world,” ^[35] and “at once Israel shall be saved from among the gentiles and the Messiah shall appear to them and bring them up to Jerusalem with great joy. Moreover, the kingdom of Israel, gathered from the four quarters of the world, shall eat with the Messiah.” ^[36] Through that turbulent time of massive destruction and change, as Enoch wrote, the Lord “will preserve the elect, and kindness shall be upon them.” ^[37]

Kindness was in fact one of the Lord’s unchanging qualities, as Abraham read in a passage recording that Enoch told the Lord, “Thou art merciful and kind forever” (Moses 7:30). Abraham would also have read that kindness is one of the traits of God’s people, “the righteous,” they “who suffer every kind of tribulation in this life,” ^[38] and “who carry out righteous judgment, and who give bread to the hungry, and who cover the naked with clothing, and who lift up the fallen, and who help the injured and the orphans.” ^[39] For such, the Lord told Enoch, is prepared a glorious paradise. ^[40]

These passages appear to have exercised a profound influence on Abraham, for they offer a perfect description of the future course of his life. And surely he could not have failed to recognize the prophecy of his own life when Enoch had foretold that one of his descendants “shall be chosen as a plant of righteous judgement; and his posterity shall come forth as a plant of eternal righteousness.” ^[41]

Abraham also learned that his future ministry required the authority originally possessed by Enoch, whose firstborn son, Methuselah, “was not taken, that the covenants of the Lord might be fulfilled” (Moses 8:2). Abraham would have read of Noah’s ministry to the hardened generation of the flood (8:18-25) and of his clearly inviting them to believe in Jesus Christ, to repent of their sins, to be baptized in his name, and to receive the Holy Ghost (8:24).

Abraham would have further read of God’s covenant with Noah following the Flood. The sign of the covenant was the rainbow, as we read in Genesis 9:12-17, but the covenant encompassed far more than God’s promise never again to flood the earth with water. We learn in the Joseph Smith Translation of Genesis that the covenant to Noah was actually a renewal of the covenant to Enoch, as God told Noah: “And the bow shall be in the cloud; and I will look upon it, that I may remember the everlasting covenant, which I made unto thy father Enoch; that, when men should keep all my commandments, Zion should again come on the earth, the city of Enoch which I have caught up unto myself.”

And “when thy posterity shall embrace the truth, and look upward, then shall Zion look downward, and all the heavens shall shake with gladness, and the earth shall tremble with joy; and the general assembly of the church of the first-born shall come down out of heaven, and possess the earth, and shall have place until the end come” (JST Gen. 9:21-23).

Abraham would also have read how the patriarchal authority continued to pass down in orderly succession from Noah to his son Shem, and down through the patriarchal line, providing Abraham with, as he tells in the Book of Abraham, a “chronology running back from myself to the beginning of the creation” (1:28).

In that genealogy he discovered that he himself was in the chosen patriarchal line with the right to be ordained to the patriarchal priesthood. In his own words, he was “a rightful heir” holding “the right belonging to the fathers,” even “the right of the firstborn, or the first man, who is Adam” (Abr. 1:2-3), he who exercised “the first patriarchal reign,” even as it would later be exercised by Noah (1:26). It was Abraham’s right, in other words, to be ordained to the patriarchal priesthood to establish and preside over Zion for the benefit of all mankind.

All he needed was the gospel ordinances and his ordination. The question was, from whom? Generations of his patriarchal forefathers had been unworthy to receive their ordination, having turned to idolatry.  But if Abraham was to build Zion, he would need to receive the power and authority to do so.