The Lamb of God and the Chosen Vessel: A Prophetic Lineage in the Adventist Tradition

Abstract

Joseph Smith and Matthew Philip Gill claimed both continuity with previous tradition and departed from it in innovative ways. After being in a quandary about which contending itinerant preachers might have the truth, Smith saw both God the Father and his Son in a vision. But he also experienced a visit from the angel Moroni, previously unknown in the Christian tradition. Similarly, in his visionary experience Gill interacted with the angel Raphael and the apostles Peter, James, and John, John the Baptizer, and Joseph Smith himself. But Gill also saw the prophet Jeraneck, who like Moroni had been unknown until Gill encountered him. Both of the previously unknown angels played a crucial role; Moroni and Jeraneck led those who beheld them to the discovery of new books of scripture which supplemented the story of the Bible and, in Gill’s case, the Bible and the Book of Mormon. Smith’s and Gill’s charismatic claims to new visions of the meaning of familiar scriptures initially found audiences sufficient to support and extend their claims to prophetic status. Joseph Smith’s church has developed into a significant world-historical force, while at present Gill’s movement remains only a tiny band of the faithful. Both show, however, how the claim to prophetic authority that codifies itself in a new scriptural text can form the core of a new religious movement. Similar dynamics come into play in the various permutations of the Davidian Adventist movement, whose most notorious representative has been David Koresh, the pivotal figure in a deadly clash between a group of Bible students and agents of the US Federal Bureau of Investigation in February, March, and April of 1993.