Angel Moroni

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This article is about a prominent angel within the Latter Day Saint movement. For the mortal person described in the Book of Mormon whom adherents generally believe was the same person as the angel Moroni, see Moroni (prophet). For other people and things with the same name, see Moroni.

Bern Switzerland Temple Statue of Angel Moroni

The Angel Moroni IPA: /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.

1 Angel's name and identity
2 Description
3 Appearances to Joseph Smith and others
4 Mortal life of Moroni the prophet
5 Theological significance
6 Theorized origin of the name
7 Notes
8 References
9 External links

[edit] Angel's name and identity

Smith provided two conflicting identifications for the angel who appeared to him in 1823 and directed him to the golden plates. The first name Smith provided for this angel was Moroni.^[1] 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 (Smith et al. 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 (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." (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 (Smith 1838a, p. 7). Smith identified the angel as "Nephi", which is the name of the Book of Mormon's first narrator (Smith 1838a, p. 5). Smith's 1838 identification as "Nephi" was repeated when the 1838 history was published in 1842 in Times and Seasons, which Smith edited himself (Smith 1842, p. 753), and in Millennial Star (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" (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 (Richards 1851, p. 41). It was also repeated in 1853 when Smith's mother Lucy Mack Smith published a history of her son (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" (Whitmer 1888, p. 621).

Nevertheless, based on Smith's statement that the angel was "Moroni", most Latter Day Saints view Smith's identification of the angel as Nephi as a mistake. 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".^{[citation needed]} The Community of Christ publishes the original story, including the identification of "Nephi", but indicates "Moroni" in a footnote.^{[citation needed]} Foundation for Apologetic Information & Research has information on this issue on its wiki.

[edit] 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" (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. (Salisbury 1895, p. 11).

[edit] 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) as the Book of Mormon, Smith turned the plates back over to Moroni.

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 said they saw Moroni include Mary Whitmer (who called him "Brother Nephi"), Emma Hale Smith, Hyrum Smith, Luke S. Johnson, Zera Pulsipher, W. W. Phelps, John P. Greene and his wife Rhoda, John Taylor, Oliver Granger, and Heber C. Kimball, Lucy Harris, and Harrison Burgess.

[edit] Mortal life of Moroni the prophet

Main article: Moroni (Book of Mormon prophet)

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

[edit] Theological significance

Angel Moroni USVA headstone symbol

Because of his instrumentality in the restoration of the gospel, Moroni is commonly identified by Latter-day Saints as the angel mentioned in Revelation 14:6, "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.

[edit] 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.^[2] 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.^[3]

Latter-day Saint apologists have argued 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.^[4]

[edit] Notes

^ 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 (Smith 1832, p. 4).
^ 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.
^ Prior to 1830, most maps and gazetteers referred to the Comoros as "Comora". The 1830 first edition of the Book of Mormon printed the name "Cumorah" as "Camorah".
^ FAIR LDS Wiki, Comoros Islands and Moroni.