The Evangelical Dictionary of World Religions

BÁB. Siyyid ‘Ali-Muhammad, who would come to be known as the Báb (Arabic for “gate”; pronounced “bob”), was born in 1819 in Iran. In 1844 and thereafter, he made a number of claims about himself, including the claim that he was the “point” of a new revelation from God, one that would supersede the revelation given to Muhammad. This claim brought the Báb into direct conflict with orthodox Islam since one of the central claims of historic Islam is that Muhammad was the final prophet, who would never be superseded. Due to the Báb’s unorthodox claims, as well as to the Bábi (as the followers of the Báb had come to be called) tendency to militancy, intense opposition arose against the Báb and his followers from Shi‘ite clergy and from government officials. In the end, the Báb himself was sentenced to death by firing squad by Iranian prime minister Mirza Taqi Khan, with the collaboration of Shi‘ite leaders. The principal writing to come from the Báb was the Bayan, in which he delivered to his followers the revelations for doctrine and life that he claimed had been committed to him by God. The Bayan also contains predictions of a future prophet who would supersede the Báb and the Bayan itself, bringing in a new religious dispensation. This prophet is referred to as “he whom God will make manifest.” Many followers of the Báb came to see the Bábi leader Bahá’u’lláh, who claimed the role, as this promised one. Though Bahá’u’lláh’s claim did not go completely unrivaled, eventually the majority of the Báb’s followers gave their allegiance to him as the promised messenger foretold by the Báb, and these followers were known as Bahá’ís from that time on. Bahá’ís consider the Bábi religion to be a separate religion from Bahá’í, and the Báb is honored as one of the nine great manifestations, including Krishna, Zoroaster, and so on.

Bibliography. J. R. Gaver, The Baha’i Faith: Dawn of a New Day; W. S. Hatcher, The Baha’i Faith: The Emerging Global Religion; W. M. Miller, The Baha’i Faith: Its History and Teachings; P. Smith, The Babi and Baha’i Religions: From Messianic Shi‘ism to a World Religion; Smith, The Baha’i Religion: A Short Introduction to Its History and Teachings.

M. C. Hausam

BAHÁ’Í. Bahá’í (from the Arabic bahá’, meaning “splendor”), most often referred to as “the Bahá’í Faith,” is a monotheistic religion that emphasizes the unity of all religious faiths. It is officially known as the Bahá’í International Community and is overseen by the Universal House of Justice, though many splinter and subgroups also claim to represent the official Bahá’í Faith.

History. In 1844 in Persia (modern-day Iran), Mirza Ali Muhammad (1819–50) publicly announced that he was the Báb (gate) and a manifestation of God. He also proclaimed that his mission was to pave the way for a coming world teacher who would unite the nations of the world and lead humanity to a new era of global peace. When the government of Persia realized that the Báb was gathering to himself a sizable following, it denounced the fledgling movement, imprisoned him, and finally put him to death in 1850. In 1863, one of the Báb’s most loyal disciples, Mirza Husayn Ali (1817–92), declared himself to be the divine manifestation of which the Báb had spoken and gave himself the title Bahá’u’lláh (the glory of God). Soon thereafter a large majority of the Báb’s former followers pledged their allegiance to Bahá’u’lláh. Bahá’u’lláh spent much of his time writing a massive corpus expounding the teachings of the Bahá’í Faith. When he died in 1892, his eldest son, Abbas Effendi (1844–1921), also known as ‘Abdu’l-Bahá (servant of Baha), became the new leader of Bahá’í. Unlike his predecessors, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá never claimed to be a divine manifestation, but he did maintain that only he was authorized to interpret the writings of Bahá’u’lláh and that his writings had the same authority as Bahá’u’lláh’s. He spent almost thirty years promoting the Bahá’í Faith in North America and Europe before his death in 1921. At this time, Shoghí Effendí (1897–1957)—the oldest grandson of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá—assumed leadership of the organization, taking on a new position called the Guardianship. During his tenure, he focused mainly on administrative affairs. Shoghí Effendí died in 1957, and since then the Universal House of Justice has overseen all matters of importance to the Bahá’í International Community.

However, within a few years after Shoghí Effendí’s death, the Bahá’í community splintered into seven sects (besides the mainstream, parent group, which remains by far the largest): the Orthodox Bahá’í Faith, Bahá’ís under the Provisions of the Covenant, The House of Mankind and the Universal Palace of Order, the Orthodox Bahá’í Faith under the Regency (Tarbiyat Bahá’í Community), the Charles Mason Remey Society, Bahá’ís Loyal to the Fourth Guardian, and Independent Bahá’ís (Unenrolled Bahá’ís). Each of these groups claims to be the only true successor of Shoghí Effendí and thus the only true defender of the Bahá’í Faith. In turn some of these sects further split over disagreements about the succession of leadership and their own competing claims to succession. Over time some of these sects, such as the Charles Mason Remey Society, have ceased to exist as organized bodies, though they continue as informal groups or in the writings and figures of their leaders.

Official Bahá’í sources (those affiliated with the Universal House of Justice) indicate that presently there are about 6,000,000 members worldwide, including about 140,000 in the US. However, other sources estimate 1,000,000 worldwide and 28,000 in the US. Sizable Bahá’í groups have been established in approximately 235 different regions of the world. The organization’s international headquarters is located in Haifa, Israel; the US headquarters is located in Wilmette, Illinois.

Basic Teachings. The three most fundamental doctrines of the Bahá’í Faith are the oneness of God, the oneness of religion, and the oneness of humanity. Ultimately, then, there is only one true religion: that which God has revealed to humanity through a series of divine manifestations. According to Bahá’í, each of these manifestations spoke truly concerning the will of God for the human race during the stage of history in which he taught. However, God’s revelation is ongoing and progressive; thus later disclosures of the divine will supersede earlier ones. Bahá’u’lláh is the most recent divine manifestation, and Baha’i is the system of religion that currently pronounces the will of God to the world.

Scripture and Authority. The Bahá’í scriptures consist of the writings of the Báb, Bahá’u’lláh, and ‘Abdu’l-Bahá. Included among these writings are The Most Holy Book, The Book of Certitude, and The Seven Valleys. Before he died, Bahá’u’lláh chose ‘Abdu’l-Bahá to become the next authoritative interpreter of the Bahá’í scriptures. After the death of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, Shoghí Effendí assumed this role. Bahá’í teachers often cite the Bible as well, though giving it different meanings than orthodox Jewish or Christian interpreters. In what appears to be a paradox, adherents of Bahá’í assert the authority of the sacred texts mentioned above while at the same time holding to a strong doctrine of intellectual autonomy. On this view, genuine faith involves independently searching for truth, free from the shackles of superstition and religious tradition. Anyone who desires to become a member of the Bahá’í community, then, must be willing to forsake any reliance on previous prophets; one cannot see the truth of the Bahá’í Faith without doing so.

God and Creation. Bahá’í theology contains several uneasy tensions in its understanding of God and his created world. God is so utterly transcendent that his divine nature cannot be understood. Nevertheless, his attributes have been adequately revealed in his divine manifestations by means of a long line of religious leaders through the ages. These include Adam, Noah, Abraham, Salih ibn Tarif, Hud, the unnamed founder of the Sabaean religion, Moses, Zarathushtra, the Buddha, Jesus Christ, Krishna, Muhammad, the Báb, and Bahá’u’lláh. These various manifestations are given power and wisdom by the primal will, a special life force sent by God. Though God is the source of the universe, he did not create it out of nothing. Instead, from eternity past, the universe has emanated from God. Because God is inactive and unchanging, he is unable to relate personally to his creation. Moreover, his transcendence renders him incapable of manifesting himself fully. Yet his human manifestations express (in a limited way, in the created world) his attributes to his human creatures.

Humankind and Sin. The entire human race is one, which means no particular class of people is superior to any other human group. Ontologically speaking, all mankind is the same (human), which logically means ontological equality. Prejudice in any form is evil and presents a major obstacle to ushering in global peace and justice. Women and men are moral and intellectual equals. This strong emphasis on equality among persons is seen in the fact that the Bahá’í Faith has no clergy, sacraments, or rituals. Each person possesses an immortal soul. There is a Pelagian element to the Bahá’í understanding of the nature of humans. Human beings are not sinful by nature, nor are they basically evil. Their various abilities are given to them by God to be used for the promotion of spiritual growth. Evil is the privation or absence of good or imperfection. The devil does not exist in the form of an evil spirit. Rather, the image of the devil symbolizes the lower nature of humans.

Salvation and Afterlife. Bahá’í soteriology is pluralistic. In every period of history, salvation is attained by believing in and obeying the divine manifestations that God has sent at that time. Only religions that have been revealed have the potential to save people from their imperfections. People are given the opportunity to be delivered from their bondage to the lower nature, achieve their spiritual potential, and be united with God through these divine manifestations. After death the soul detaches from the body and makes a journey through the “spirit world,” a strange dimension of the universe that is without space or time. Jesus Christ never will return to earth. Bahá’u’lláh was the “return of Christ” in a spiritual sense. Heaven and hell are not literal places but rather symbolize nearness to God and distance from God, respectively. Heaven is the result of making spiritual progress, while hell is the consequence of failing to make spiritual progress.

Other Teachings. In addition to the beliefs and practices mentioned above, the Bahá’í Faith has a number of others that make it distinctive:

1. The Universal House of Justice. Though not established until 1963, such an institution had been intended by Bahá’u’lláh to serve as the legislative authority of the worldwide Bahá’í community. Consisting of an elected nine-member tribunal of judges, its duties include the administration of international affairs and overseeing various Bahá’í properties and holy sites. Bahá’u’lláh vested it with the authority to make binding decisions concerning any important issue on which the Bahá’í scriptures are silent.

2. A Global Commonwealth. Central to the Bahá’í Faith is the hope of establishing a global commonwealth. This is envisioned as a fraternity of nations that would work together to resolve disputes among various countries and thereby achieve lasting world peace. In this scenario, international leaders would consult with one another regularly so as to bring about political stability on a global scale. Institutions critical to the success of this commonwealth would include an international executive power, a world legislature, and a world court. Its top priorities would be compulsory education for every citizen, establishing a universal language, and rectifying economic inequalities.

3. The Unity of Science and Religion. Because truth and reality are one, science and religion are in complete concord. Something that is true in the sphere of science must be true in the sphere of religion, and vice versa. The manner of discovering truth in these two spheres differs, however. Truths of science are discovered by means of empirical investigation, whereas the truths of religion are revealed by God through his manifestations. Alleged contradictions between science and religion stem either from human error or from closed-mindedness.

Bibliography. Bahá’í International Community, The Bahá’í Faith: The Website of the worldwide Bahá’í Community, http://www.bahai.org/; Bahá’u’lláh, Gleanings from the Writings of Baha’u’llah, trans. Shoghí Effendí, rev. ed.; J. R. I. Cole, Modernity and the Millennium: The Genesis of the Baha’i Faith in the Nineteenth-Century Middle East; J. E. Esslemont, Baha’u’llah and the New Era: An Introduction to the Baha’i Faith, 5th ed.; W. S. Hatcher and J. D. Martin, The Baha’i Faith: The Emerging Global Religion; M. Momen, The Baha’i Faith: A Short Introduction.

S. J. Rost

BAHÁ’U’LLÁH. Bahá’u’lláh (1817–92), born Mírzá Ḥusayn-‘Alí Núrí (Persian), was the founder of the Bahá’í religion. The title Bahá’u’lláh means “the glory of God.” Bahá’ís recognize Bahá’u’lláh as “the Judge, the Lawgiver and Redeemer of all mankind, as the Organizer of the entire planet, as the Unifier of the children of men, as the Inaugurator of the long-awaited millennium, as the Originator of a new ‘Universal Cycle,’ as the Establisher of the Most Great Peace, as the Fountain of the Most Great Justice, as the Proclaimer of the coming of age of the entire human race, as the Creator of a new World Order, and as the Inspirer and Founder of a world civilization” (Effendí, 93–94). They believe that he is the great unifier of all major world religions and was referenced by Jesus Christ as the “Comforter” who would come after him (John 14:26; 15:26 KJV).

Bahá’u’lláh was born in 1817 into one of the ruling families of Persia, a wealthy family that could be traced genealogically to the royal dynasties of Persia’s imperial history. He rejected his privileged lineage and became a seeker of religious truth. Though some histories record that he was raised as a Muslim, Bahá’í teaches that his father was a political officer but not one of the Islamic ulema (scholars). He had distinct political influence but was not a particularly educated man.

In 1844, when Bahá’u’lláh was twenty-seven years old, a mystic named Báb made a startling declaration in Persia (modern Iran). He said that he was a forerunner for a coming messiah and was the “messenger of God” who prepared the people for the coming of Bahá’u’lláh. The title “the Báb” means “the gate.” His followers were called Bábís. He quickly garnered a following, which was persecuted by the indigenous Islamic leadership. After six years of persecution, Báb was killed, along with over twenty thousand of his followers.

Following Báb’s death, Bahá’u’lláh assumed the leadership of the fledgling movement. In 1863, he began to spread the religion but was banished several times from cities and regions where he was proclaiming his religion. These banishments had the unforeseen consequence of aiding in the spread of the new religion. In Baghdad, he proclaimed himself to be the “One promised by the Báb.” Exiled from Baghdad for heresy, he went to Constantinople, Adrianople, and Acre (in northern modern-day Israel). While in Acre, Bahá’u’lláh wrote a series of letters exhorting all national leaders of the period to lay down their weapons and pursue world peace. He also predicted a coming time of the unification of all humanity and the rise of a singular global society.

Bahá’u’lláh died in 1892 and is buried at Bahji, just north of Acre. By the time of his death his teachings had begun to spread throughout the region. Today the Shrine of Bahá’u’lláh is the center of Bahá’í worship, and the world headquarters of the Bahá’í Faith is located in nearby Haifa, Israel. Through Bahá’u’lláh, the Bahá’ís believe their religion and teachings have abrogated all other religious systems.

Bibliography. ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, Some Answered Questions (1908); “Bahá’u’lláh (1817–1892)—Founder of the Bahá’í Faith,” The Bahá’í Faith website, http://info.bahai.org/bahaullah.html; Shoghí Effendí, God Passes By.

T. J. Demy

BAPTISM, CHRISTIAN. Christian baptism is one of the two ordinances or sacraments that the Lord of the church has instituted for the life and health of the church until the end of the age, and as such, it is to be practiced today in obedience to the Lord (Matt. 28:18–20). In the Great Commission and the rest of the New Testament, the purpose of baptism is at least twofold: a sign of initiation and entrance into the Messiah’s community, the church, and a graphic declaration of faith and surrender to the lordship of Jesus Christ. The New Testament writers cannot conceive of a disciple who has repented of sin and believed in Christ who has not also been baptized into the name of the Triune God. In fact, this understanding is borne out by the book of Acts. From Pentecost on, all those who repented of their sins and believed the gospel were also baptized, thus publicly testifying to their faith in Jesus Christ (see Acts 2:41; 8:12–13, 36–39; 9:17–18; 10:47–48; 16:14–15, 31–33; 18:8; 19:5).

At the heart of the meaning and significance of Christian baptism, in contrast to Jewish proselyte baptism or even the baptism of John, is the fact that it signifies a believer’s union with Christ in his death, burial, and resurrection (Rom. 6:3–7; Col. 2:11–12) and all the saving benefits that are entailed by that union. For this reason, throughout the New Testament baptism is regarded as an outward sign or symbol that signifies an inward reality—namely, that a believer has entered into the realities of the new covenant that Christ Jesus inaugurated and sealed with his own blood on the cross. Therefore, when received in faith, baptism signifies Spirit-wrought regeneration (Titus 3:5), inward cleansing, renewal, and forgiveness of sins (Acts 22:16; 1 Cor. 6:11; Eph. 5:25–27), as well as the abiding presence of the Holy Spirit as God’s seal testifying and guaranteeing that the believer will permanently be kept secure in Christ (1 Cor. 12:13; Eph. 1:13–14). In fact, so close is the association between baptism and new covenant blessings in Christ that many have argued that in the New Testament, baptism functions as shorthand or by metonymy for the conversion experience as a whole. This is not to say that baptism effects regeneration or that baptism is necessary for salvation. Instead, the New Testament data assume that baptism always presupposes faith for its validity and that true saving faith leads to baptism even though faith and baptism do not enjoy the same logical status of necessity. It is therefore possible for a person to be savingly united to Christ apart from baptism, even though this is not the New Testament pattern (see Rom. 6:1–4; Gal. 3:26–27; Eph. 4:5; 1 Pet. 3:21).

While much of the biblical teaching outlined above would meet with the agreement of most evangelicals, debate still rages over the mode of baptism and whether infants, who are not capable of faith or who have not exercised faith, should be baptized. Ultimately the latter disagreement centers on larger issues over the relationship between the old and the new covenants and the amount of continuity and discontinuity between them. But even in the midst of these differences there is agreement that baptism testifies to the great gospel realities of union with Christ and all the glorious benefits of new covenant blessings.

Bibliography. N. Altman, Sacred Water: The Spiritual Source of Life; R. Arvigo and N. Epstein, Spiritual Bathing: Healing Rituals and Traditions from around the World; “Baptisms for the Dead,” http://www.lds.org/; G. R. Beasley-Murray, Baptism in the New Testament; D. Bridge and D. Phypers, The Water That Divides; G. W. Bromiley, “Baptism,” in Evangelical Dictionary of Theology, ed. W. A. Elwell.

S. Wellum and R. L. Drouhard

BAPTISM, NON-CHRISTIAN. Although baptism is usually associated with Christianity, numerous other religions practice ritual bathing or washing or use water for cleansing. In Judaism ritual bathing is prescribed as a means of purification. Before the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem, ritual bathing was required to enter the temple. Hindus believe bathing in the sacred rivers purifies the soul of sin (called Kumbha Mela). While Buddhism retains some tradition of ritual bathing, some Buddhists see it as unnecessary. Still others ritually bathe statues of the Buddha to purify them. In Islam the farid al-wudu is a ritual bathing required before prayer, and an immersion similar to the Jewish practice is prescribed in certain circumstances.

Some heretical sects of Christianity practice baptism as well. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church) teaches that baptism by an authorized individual holding the LDS priesthood is required for salvation. It teaches that such baptism is required for all people, no matter the time or place. Hence, LDS practices baptism for the dead. Those who have died without being baptized are given the chance to accept the “proxy” baptism in the afterlife. Jehovah’s Witnesses (JW) also practice baptism. It differs from orthodox Christian baptism in that the person wishing to be baptized must answer a lengthy series of questions before a council of JW elders. Also, people are baptized to identify them as “one of Jehovah’s Witnesses in association with God’s spirit-directed organization” (“Go and Make Disciples, Baptizing Them,” 21–25). Finally, baptisms are generally done at large conventions of JWs, which can mean someone waiting a long time to be baptized.

S. Wellum and R. L. Drouhard

BAPTISM IN THE HOLY SPIRIT, PENTECOSTAL VIEW OF. Pentecostals believe that baptism in the Holy Spirit is an event that happens in the life of a believer, empowering that person for a life of service and ministry. This experience initiates charismatic ministry that may include Spirit-empowered preaching and the miraculous spiritual gifts listed in 1 Corinthians 12. It is also often referred to as Holy Spirit Baptism, Baptism with the Holy Spirit, and sometimes Baptism of the Holy Spirit.

Differing Views. Most Pentecostals believe that Spirit-baptized persons will exhibit one or more of the miraculous gifts at different times in their life according to the needs of the church’s mission. A minority believe that a certain gift, such as miraculous healing, is given to an individual for the duration of the person’s life. Nearly all agree that Spirit baptism is to be sought not as an end of a mature Christian life but as the beginning of a mission-oriented life. Some Wesleyan-Holiness Pentecostals (sometimes called “third blessing” Pentecostals) dissent from this position, regarding Spirit baptism as an event after entire sanctification. Even those Pentecostals who deny that Spirit baptism is primarily about sanctification usually claim that the experience increases desire for the sanctified life and sensitivity to the Spirit.

Subsequent Experience of the Baptism of the Holy Spirit. Traditional Protestants usually associate the term baptism in the Holy Spirit with the initial acceptance of the Spirit that occurs when a person commits himself or herself to Christ. Pentecostals do not deny that the new Christian receives the Spirit, but they distinguish between this experience and the baptism in the Spirit. Spirit baptism happens at some time subsequent to conversion logically, though the events may occasionally happen so close in time as to be indistinguishable. Spirit baptism is not part of conversion to Christ for Pentecostals. It is a subsequent experience that directs and empowers a believer’s life toward Christian mission.

Initial Evidence. North American Pentecostals typically believe that the normal experience of baptism in the Holy Spirit will include the initial evidence of prayer in other tongues. The first Pentecostals believed that this was God’s empowering converts with a language that they had not learned so that they could preach the gospel to the unconverted in foreign missions. Soon afterward, Pentecostals began to understand tongues speech as an unknown “heavenly” language intended to increase the Spirit-baptized person’s faith that God can use him or her in miraculous ways. Usually North American Pentecostals, following several passages in the book of Acts (especially chapters 2, 10, and 19), believe that every Spirit-baptized person will speak in tongues. Pentecostals in Europe and the majority world often also speak in tongues, but they do not see the connection to Spirit baptism as essential.

Oneness Pentecostals. A minority of Pentecostals regard the Spirit baptism experience and tongues speech as essential to a person’s new birth experience. Oneness Pentecostals do not believe in distinct persons of the Trinity. They therefore regard baptism in the Holy Spirit as identical with conversion because one cannot receive Christ without receiving the baptism in the Holy Spirit (and also water baptism). Trinitarian Pentecostals, which are a majority, claim this is a heretical doctrine of the Godhead and a misappropriation of Spirit baptism.

Bibliography. H. D. Hunter, Spirit Baptism; R. Menzies, Empowered for Witness; A. D. Palma, The Holy Spirit; R. Stronstad, Charismatic Theology of St. Luke.

J. W. S. Gibbs

BAPTISM OF THE DEAD, CHRISTIAN. This practice is mentioned in 1 Corinthians 15:29 (RSV): “Otherwise, what do people mean by being baptized on behalf of the dead? If the dead are not raised at all, why are people baptized on their behalf?” It is the only Scripture in the New Testament referring to the practice. While some interpret this passage as referring to vicarious baptism for dead persons, there is no other historical evidence of its use in New Testament times.

There is reference to this practice in the late second century. It appears, however, that its practice largely was limited to heretical groups (Reaume, 459).

While most New Testament interpreters have tended to interpret this verse as referring to vicarious baptism for the dead, it is not assumed that its advantages included postmortem salvation. Some commentators postulate rather that it might have been a memorial vicarious rite for deceased Christians who had not been baptized. Other plausible interpretations include the notion that people were baptized due to the influence of deceased believers. It is also even possible that persons were understood to be baptized to take the place of dead Christians or to be reunited with the deceased at the resurrection (Reaume, 475). Most probably, 1 Corinthians 15:29 is referring not to vicarious baptism for the dead in order to fulfill an insufficiency in their confession and experience but to baptism of the living as the result of the witness and faithful testimony of now deceased or dead saints. If Paul is referring to vicarious baptism for the dead, he is not necessarily approving of the activity but rather questioning why they performed this baptism if they rejected the physical resurrection.

Bibliography. J. D. Reaume, “Another Look at 1 Corinthians 15:29, ‘Baptized for the Dead,’” in Bibliotheca Sacra.

R. P. Roberts

BAPTISM OF THE DEAD, MORMON. Among new religious movements, the practice is found in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and also the Church of Jesus Christ (Cutlerite), a breakaway Mormon group formed a few years after Joseph Smith’s death. It was instituted due to the claimed revelation delivered to Joseph Smith. Consequently there are five references to its practice in the LDS scripture Doctrine and Covenants (124:29, 33; 127:5–10; 128; 138:33). The entire section 128 is dedicated to this theme, having been recorded as a revelation given to Joseph Smith on September 6, 1842, at Nauvoo, Illinois. Among the elements of the rite elucidated here are the claims that it delivers salvific benefits for the dead; that it is a restored ritual of the early church as intimated by the words of Jesus to Peter in Matthew 16:18–19; that its sealing and salvific effect and the recording of these baptisms in LDS temples correspond to the book of life in Revelation 20:12; and that the LDS practice corresponds to the words of 1 Corinthians 15:29.

LDS Church publications further guide church practice by maintaining that Jesus “provided for everyone to hear the gospel.” He went, according to LDS interpretation of 1 Peter 3:18–20 and Doctrines and Covenants 138, to proclaim the LDS gospel to those in spirit prison. In like fashion, “righteous messengers” are empowered to “teach the gospel to all the spirits of people who have died.” This proclamation gives the dead an “opportunity to accept the gospel,” and once baptism is performed for them, they will be elevated to paradise with inevitable promotion to the celestial kingdom.

Bibliography. Smith, Gospel Principles.

R. P. Roberts

BAPTISM OF/WITH THE HOLY SPIRIT. See BAPTISM IN THE HOLY SPIRIT, PENTECOSTAL VIEW OF

BAR/BAT MITZVAH. The term bar (Aramaic) mitzvah (Hebrew) means “a son of the commandment.” The term bat (Hebrew) mitzvah means “a daughter of the commandment.” They are applied to a child when the child officially reaches puberty, which for a boy is assumed to be one day after his thirteenth birthday, for a girl one day after her twelfth birthday. The term bar mitzvah officially appears no earlier than the fifteenth century AD; however, the significance of that age was recognized from at least the second century. The ceremony of the bat mitzvah dates back only to the nineteenth century.

The ceremony is significant because at age thirteen the Jewish lad is officially considered an adult and is now responsible to fulfill the regulations of Judaism, which include both biblical and rabbinic law. Until the bar mitzvah (and later the bat mitzvah), the parents are thought to be responsible for the child’s sins, but after the ceremony the boy or girl becomes responsible for his or her own sins. By rabbinic law a Jewish service cannot be conducted until ten adult males are present. Once a lad has undergone his bar mitzvah, he can be counted in this number. The ceremony itself requires preparation. In traditional Orthodox Judaism, a boy undergoes four years of training before the bar mitzvah ceremony. Other forms of Judaism have much more limited time elements. The ceremony is also followed by a festival of celebration in the evening, which can be rather extensive. Since the Six-Day War in 1967, many bar mitzvahs occur at the Western (Wailing) Wall, and many American Jews even travel to Jerusalem for that purpose. It is with the bar mitzvah ceremony that the lad begins to wear the tefillin (phylacteries). The bat mitzvah is a more recent innovation, begun in the nineteenth century in France and Italy and later introduced to other countries, including the US. The ceremony tends to be less extensive, and in an Orthodox setting a girl is not allowed to stand up front to read the Law and the Prophets. Thus in many synagogues, at the time of a girl’s bat mitzvah it is her father or brother who is called to read the Torah rather than the girl herself. One of them preaches a special sermon, and a gift is presented to the girl. In other traditions, such as Reform Judaism, these limitations are not observed, and the girl will also stand before the congregation and do her own reading in her own prayer shawl.

See also CONFUCIANISM

Bibliography. P. Fu, “On Human Nature as Tending toward Goodness in Classical Confucianism,” in Chinese Foundations for Moral Education and Character Development, edited by Tran Van Doan, Vincent Shen, and George F. McLean; A. C. Graham, Disputers of the TAO: Philosophical Argument in Ancient China; D. Hinton, trans., Mencius; D. C. Lau, trans., Mencius; A. Waley, Three Ways of Thought in Ancient China, repr. ed.

H. W. House

BOOK OF MORMON. The Book of Mormon is one of the four “standard works” of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, which views it as a scriptural record translated by founder Joseph Smith Jr. from gold plates engraved by ancient prophets in the lands Europeans would later call the New World. In 1841 Smith stated, “I told the brethren that the Book of Mormon was the most correct of any book on earth, and the keystone of our religion, and a man would get nearer to God by abiding by its precepts, than by any other book” (quoted in the modern introduction to the Book of Mormon). That statement, implying that the Book of Mormon is more reliable than the Bible, is confirmed in the LDS scriptural text Articles of Faith, composed by Joseph Smith in 1843: “We believe the Bible to be the word of God as far as it is translated correctly; we also believe the Book of Mormon to be the word of God.” In 2010 the number of copies of the Book of Mormon in print reached 150 million, including complete versions in eighty-two languages.

Contents. The front matter of the Book of Mormon includes, among other items, two affidavits to the existence of the gold plates called the Testimonies of Three Witnesses and of Eight Witnesses as well as excerpts from Smith’s account of how he came to translate the Book of Mormon. The Book of Mormon, running about 275,000 words, is divided into fifteen books, all but two of which form a narrative running from about 600 BC to AD 421 (these dates appear at the bottom of nearly each page of the published Book of Mormon). This narrative recounts the history of two warring peoples, the Lamanites and the Nephites, who were descended from an Israelite family that left Jerusalem and sailed from Arabia to the Americas. The Book of Mormon also tells about two other migrations from the Middle East to the New World, one around the same time (the people of Mulek) and another many centuries earlier (the Jaredites).

The Book of Mormon divides into two groups of books, each group engraved on a different set of gold plates and written in the Americas after these Jewish refugees arrived there. The (small) Plates of Nephi include the first six books and have Nephi as their main author. The Plates of Mormon consist of the remaining nine books, of which Mormon is the primary author. These nine books begin with a short transitional book written by Mormon, followed by six books that (except for two closing chapters) are Mormon’s abridgment from a longer narrative on the (large) Plates of Nephi. Mormon’s son, Moroni, who appends two chapters to Mormon’s abridgment, is the author of the last two books and the one who buried the plates; he is also the angel, or resurrected being, who gave the gold plates to Joseph Smith. Thus the whole work is attributed to three main authors: Nephi, Mormon, and Moroni. Since Mormon composed about two-thirds of it, the whole is called the Book of Mormon. Following is a brief summary of the fifteen books.

1 Nephi and 2 Nephi (600–545 BC). Lehi takes his family from Jerusalem to Arabia shortly before the Babylonian exile and from there sails to the Americas. He and his son Nephi are prophets; Nephi’s brother Laman, however, rejects Nephi’s revelations, establishing the precedent for the wars between the Nephites and the Lamanites.

Jacob, Enos, Jarom, and Omni (544–130 BC). Nephi passes the gold plates to his brother Jacob, and from there the plates are passed from father to son, with each man serving as a prophet and writing briefly on the plates.

Words of Mormon (ca. AD 385). This is a short transitional book, the first book on the Plates of Mormon. In it Mormon explains that he has abridged the records from Lehi to Benjamin but has also included a shorter, parallel account on other plates of Nephi that he found, “for a wise purpose” that only the Lord knew. It is this shorter account that appears in the first six books. The significance of this information will be made clear below.

Mosiah, Alma, and Helaman (200–1 BC). These three books and the next two are all attributed to Mormon as his abridgment from the (large) Plates of Nephi. The three books give a detailed narrative covering the last two centuries BC, with an annual countdown to the birth of Jesus Christ (who is repeatedly named).

3 Nephi (AD 1–35). Mormon tells about the birth, death, and resurrection of Christ from the Nephite viewpoint. Following Jesus’s resurrection, he appears to the Nephites, preaches the Sermon on the Mount, chooses twelve Nephite apostles, and establishes the church in the Americas.

4 Nephi (AD 36–321). Mormon tells about the rise and fall of the Christian church in the Americas. The Nephites and the Lamanites all convert to faith in Christ, and the people enjoy three centuries of peace and prosperity, which end in an apostasy.

Book of Mormon (AD 322–421). This short book has the same title as the whole work. The Lamanites utterly defeat the Nephites at the hill Cumorah. Mormon hides plates on that hill, but to his son Moroni he leaves the plates containing the material summarized so far.

Ether (undated). Moroni abridges a set of twenty-four plates about the Jaredites, a people who left the tower of Babel and settled in the New World, where their civilization flourished and then disintegrated about the time that Lehi’s party arrived.

Moroni (AD 400–421). Moroni provides some final teaching before he seals up his father’s record, ending with a challenge to future readers to pray to know that the record is true.

Modern Discovery and Translation. According to Joseph Smith, an angel (whom he later identified as Moroni) appeared to him repeatedly from 1823 to 1827 to show him the gold plates and related materials buried in a stone box in a hill near Smith’s home in Manchester (bordering Palmyra), New York. According to the traditional account (JS-H 1:27–59), on September 22, 1827, Moroni allowed Smith to take custody of the plates, along with an apparatus for translating the plates called the interpreters (and later, after the publication of the Book of Mormon, called the Urim and Thummim).

Recently married and quite poor, Smith persuaded an older friend named Martin Harris, a prosperous farmer, to finance the work of translating and publishing the book contained on the plates. To encourage his support, Smith gave Harris a piece of paper on which he had copied from the plates characters described as Egyptian hieroglyphs and sent him in February 1828 to New York City to show them to some scholars for their opinion. One such scholar was Charles Anthon, a reputable classicist. According to Smith’s later account, Anthon declared that the characters were authentic and that a translation Smith had written underneath was accurate (JS-H 1:62–65). However, according to Anthon’s own account, the paper contained no translation, and the characters, though some of them resembled characters of various ancient languages, represented no coherent language or text. Nor could Anthon have verified a translation of a text that used Egyptian hieroglyphs since the Rosetta Stone had only recently been deciphered by European scholars and the knowledge derived from it had not yet reached the US. Although Anthon warned Harris that he was being defrauded, Anthon’s comparison of some of the characters to those of unrelated ancient languages was apparently enough to satisfy Harris. Years later the paper (or a copy of it), commonly called the Anthon transcript, surfaced in the possession of the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (now known as the Community of Christ). The paper shows no translation of the characters, and the characters themselves overall bear no discernible relation to Egyptian, Hebrew, or any other known language.

For about two months in the spring of 1828, Smith dictated a translation from the gold plates to Harris, with a curtain shielding him so that Harris could not see Smith or the plates. The two men produced a reported 116 pages of handwritten manuscript even as Harris’s wife, Lucy, repeatedly demanded to see the plates or at least the manuscript. After several denials of these requests, on June 14 Smith said that God had given permission for Harris to take the manuscript pages home. Within two weeks, someone had stolen the pages; they were never recovered, and the thief never identified. A common theory is that Lucy destroyed the manuscript.

When Harris informed Smith on July 1 that the pages were gone, Smith was at first distraught, and he reported that the angel had taken the plates and interpreters away. A week later, though, he issued his first modern revelation (known now as D&C 3), in which the Lord severely castigated Smith for letting Harris take the pages (despite the earlier claim of divine permission) and asserted that the Lord’s purposes would nevertheless be accomplished. In a follow-up revelation, Smith said that the Lord had foreseen that evil men would steal the pages in order to alter them so as to make Smith look like a fraud if he dictated a new translation of the same text from the gold plates. To circumvent this threatened deception, the Lord had inspired two parallel accounts of the same history: the longer narrative that Mormon had abridged and a shorter narrative that emphasized spiritual matters over historical details (D&C 10). This is the significance of the short book called the Words of Mormon: it forms a transition between the “spiritual” account from 1 Nephi through Omni on the (small) Plates of Nephi and Mormon’s abridged account of the events that followed Omni, an account that begins with Mosiah. The “wise purpose” for the inclusion of two accounts of the same period among the plates was that Smith would have a replacement account to translate after his first manuscript was stolen!

On September 22, 1828, Smith reported that the gold plates had again been entrusted to him to translate. Over the next six months, Smith dictated a translation of the plates occasionally to his wife, Emma, though how much is unknown. Up to this point, no one besides Smith had seen the plates. In March 1829, Smith issued another revelation announcing that three men would be permitted to be witnesses to the gold plates and that Martin Harris might be one of them if he repented (D&C 5). On April 7 Smith began dictating anew with Oliver Cowdery, a schoolteacher and new friend (see JS-H 1:66–67; D&C 6, 8, 9). Although no record of each day’s work was kept, what references exist to the contents of the translation on various days has led to general agreement among both LDS and non-LDS researchers as to the order of translation. It appears that Smith began the dictation approximately where the narrative of the 116 pages had left off, dictated Mosiah through Moroni, and then dictated 1 Nephi through Words of Mormon.

Although the gold plates were said to be in Smith’s possession again, the interpreters were not. According to reports from those who observed the translation work, Smith did not look at the plates while dictating the translation. Instead, he would place a “seer stone” (which he had used as a youth for treasure hunting) inside his hat, put his face into the hat to block all outside light, and dictate the text he claimed to “see” in this manner. The plates themselves were laid on the table or nearby wrapped in cloths, or kept in another part of the house, or even hidden outside the house somewhere. Smith would dictate a line of words at a time, wait for Cowdery to write those words and read them back, and move on if Cowdery’s text was correct.

Smith and Cowdery’s work on the translation proceeded much more rapidly than Smith’s work with Martin Harris a year earlier. In less than three months (April 7 through late June), they apparently produced a handwritten manuscript for the entire Book of Mormon. Again, no daily record was kept of the progress on the manuscript, and we know that Smith had dictated at least some pages to Emma earlier. Mormons commonly argue that the extreme rapidity of the dictation (equivalent to six to eight pages of the modern printed edition a day) makes any naturalistic theory of the book’s origin implausible. From an outsider’s point of view, on the other hand, the fact that Smith was able to generate text about three times faster with Cowdery than with Harris suggests that Cowdery, an educated man, had a more active role in the work than the men admitted.

In June 1829, as the work of translation neared completion, Smith arranged for select witnesses to view the gold plates (see D&C 17). Harris, Cowdery, and David Whitmer (in whose home Smith stayed during much of the translation work) reported that Smith took them to a secluded location in the woods, where after some intense prayer they were permitted to see the angel, who showed them the plates. (Harris, though, reported having his vision of the angel and plates separately from the other two.) “The Testimony of Three Witnesses” is vague as to the nature of this experience. Smith also showed the gold plates (without the angel) to eight other men, whose “Testimony of Eight Witnesses” affirms that they examined and even held the plates to verify their physical reality. All eight of these witnesses were members of the Smith or Whitmer family. The evidential value of the eleven witnesses has been a contentious issue ever since the Book of Mormon was published. Once the translation work was complete, Smith reported, Moroni took the gold plates back into his custody. It is therefore impossible for anyone to examine the plates or to decipher whatever text, if any, may have been written on them.

According to Smith and some of the witnesses, the gold plates altogether weighed about fifty to sixty pounds. The flat surfaces of the plates measured about six by eight inches, and the stacked collection measured about six inches high. However, a stack of gold plates of that size should weigh close to two hundred pounds. Mormon apologists usually explain this discrepancy by arguing that the plates were only gold in color, not in composition. Even if the plates weighed only fifty or sixty pounds, however, the weight raises other difficulties. For example, most Mormon scholars argue that Mormon and Moroni lived in Central America and that Moroni walked from there to upstate New York, where he buried the plates before his death. This means that Moroni would have walked some three thousand miles carrying fifty or sixty pounds of gold plates. Such a scenario seems highly implausible and even pointless, especially considering the fact that Smith never actually looked at the gold plates while dictating his translation.

The various issues just discussed lead to the question of the reality of the gold plates. On one side are Smith’s secretiveness about the plates, the controversial elements of the testimonies of the eleven men who claimed to have seen the plates, and the discrepancies concerning the plates’ dimensions and composition. These facts favor the view that Smith did not have a set of ancient gold plates. On the other side are the testimonies of the eleven men, reports of the plates wrapped up and sitting on the table, and the reported subterfuges of Smith to hide the plates from those who might try to steal them, all of which support the existence of the plates. Perhaps Smith at some point did have metal plates of some sort, but they were not gold and were not ancient documents written with Egyptian characters.

Once the translation was complete, Smith had Oliver produce a second handwritten manuscript by copying the dictation manuscript. These two manuscripts have become known as the Original (O) and the Printer’s (P) manuscripts. Only 28 percent of O is now extant, while P has survived essentially intact and is in the possession of the Community of Christ. According to LDS scholars, about one-sixth of the first printed edition of the Book of Mormon actually followed O rather than P. The first edition of the Book of Mormon was released on March 26, 1830, with an initial printing of five thousand copies. Eleven days later, Joseph Smith founded the Church of Christ (as he then called it) on April 6, 1830.

Editions. Two major new editions of the Book of Mormon were published during Joseph Smith’s lifetime. The most significant of these was published in Kirtland, Ohio, in 1837. Hundreds of grammatical and spelling changes were made to the text as well as some theologically significant revisions. The most interesting of these changes were the revisions of four references to Jesus in the first edition that had identified him as God the Father. For example, “the mother of God” was changed to “the mother of the Son of God” (1 Nephi 11:18); “the Lamb of God, yea, even the Eternal Father” was changed to say “even the Son of the Eternal Father” (1 Nephi 11:21; see also 1 Nephi 11:32; 13:40). These changes are known departures from the original manuscript (O) as well as the 1830 edition. In 1840, Smith published another edition with additional changes. While some of these changes represented corrections conforming the text to O, at least one famous change was a departure from it. In O as well as the 1830 and 1837 editions, 2 Nephi 30:6 said that a remnant of people descended from Lehi’s family would someday convert to faith in Christ and would thereby become “a white and delightsome people.” The 1840 edition changed these words to “a pure and delightsome people.” Subsequent editions, however, reverted to “white” until the 1981 edition.

In 1879 the LDS Church published a new edition of the Book of Mormon edited by apostle Orson Pratt. This edition introduced the chapter-and-verse system still used today. Significant new editions were published in 1920, edited by James E. Talmage, and in 1981, edited by a committee of LDS apostles led by Bruce R. McConkie.

The Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, which arose in the 1850s among Mormons who did not follow Brigham Young to Utah, published its own editions of the Book of Mormon. Its main edition was published in 1908 and continued to serve as the official RLDS version of the Book of Mormon for the rest of the twentieth century. It follows a different chapter-and-verse system than the LDS Church’s editions.

In the 1980s, Royal Skousen, an English-language scholar at Brigham Young University (BYU), began work on a comprehensive study of the “textual criticism” of the Book of Mormon, reviewing the O and P manuscripts and the printed editions from Joseph Smith’s lifetime in an effort to establish a more correct Book of Mormon text. His Critical Text Project culminated in The Book of Mormon: The Earliest Text (2009).

The Use of the Bible in the Book of Mormon. The most obvious source used in the Book of Mormon is the King James Version of the Bible (KJV), a point on which all non-Mormons and even some Mormons agree. Of the 239 chapters in the Book of Mormon, 27 duplicate most or all of 27 chapters in the Bible. These include the Ten Commandments (from Exod. 20), 21 chapters from Isaiah (Isa. 2–14; 29; 48–54), Malachi 3–4, and Matthew 5–7. Eighteen of these duplicated chapters appear in the first two books of the Book of Mormon, mostly in 2 Nephi. This means that two-thirds of the Bible chapters duplicated in the Book of Mormon happen to appear in the material Joseph Smith produced to replace the lost 116 pages.

A close comparison of these Book of Mormon chapters to the Bible confirms their dependence on the KJV. For example, of the 651 words in Isaiah 11–12 KJV, the Book of Mormon version differs in only two words (it omits “the” in 11:6 and changes “is” to “has” in 12:3). The Book of Mormon also retains most of the mistranslations in the KJV passages it quotes, such as “Lucifer” (Isa. 14:12 KJV; 2 Nephi 24:12).

Other Possible Sources. The most controversial view of the Book of Mormon’s origins is the “Spalding theory,” the hypothesis that it was based in large measure on a novel by an early-nineteenth-century writer, Solomon Spalding (also spelled Spaulding). According to this theory, Spalding (1761–1816) wrote an unpublished novel about the ancient inhabitants of America that was stolen by Sidney Rigdon and secretly passed to Smith, who then used it as the basis of the Book of Mormon. One common objection to this theory is that Rigdon did not even join the LDS Church until several months after it was founded and no hard evidence links Rigdon to Joseph Smith prior to late 1830. The Spalding or “Spalding-Rigdon” theory gained traction from a number of testimonies by individuals who had known Spalding and who said that the Book of Mormon was very similar to Spalding’s lost manuscript. However, a manuscript by Spalding discovered in 1884 turned out not to have any significant similarities to the Book of Mormon. Advocates of the theory since that discovery have argued that Spalding wrote a second unpublished novel that remains lost.

The dominant theory among non-Mormons today is that Joseph Smith was the true author of the Book of Mormon, perhaps with the help of Oliver Cowdery. Several considerations support this theory: Smith’s reported abilities as a storyteller, his evident familiarity with the KJV even as a youth (as he himself claimed in his 1832 autobiographical account), his reported lack of notes or other materials used in the dictation process, and the consistency of Book of Mormon doctrine with Smith’s earliest doctrinal views. Against this view, Mormons as well as some non-Mormons have objected that Smith did not have the ability to produce such a complex text. The force of this objection is at least somewhat blunted by the use of the KJV and other sources and by the possibility of an active role for Cowdery in the production of the text.

The most commonly cited possible source for the Book of Mormon other than the KJV Bible is View of the Hebrews, published in 1823 by a pastor named Ethan Smith (no relation) in Poultney, Vermont. Since Oliver Cowdery lived for several years of his childhood in Poultney, he may have been Joseph Smith’s connection to the book, although there is no hard evidence of Cowdery and Smith meeting before 1829 (when the general subject matter of the Book of Mormon was already established). B. H. Roberts, a noted Mormon leader and scholar, wrote a manuscript in 1927 listing eighteen parallels between the Book of Mormon and View of the Hebrews. This manuscript was part of a larger project in which Roberts addressed with unusual frankness many difficulties with the Book of Mormon in the hope that these difficulties could be definitively resolved. Ironically, one of the main objections to the argument is that many of the ideas in View of the Hebrews (especially about American Indians being the descendants of Israelites) were circulating widely in Joseph Smith’s day. Such an objection may weaken the case for direct dependence on Ethan Smith’s book, but it strengthens the case for an early-nineteenth-century origin of the Book of Mormon. LDS scholars have also pointed out numerous ways in which the two books differ from one another—but such an objection is logically invalid since the claim is not that the two books are identical but that one is significantly indebted to the other or at least reflects the same milieu.

The best explanation for the Book of Mormon is probably a complex one. Joseph Smith evidently made use of several sources, either directly and purposefully (as in his use of the KJV) or indirectly (as in his drawing on ideas attested in various books of the era, even if he never personally read them). He also likely had some help, with Oliver Cowdery being the most likely source of such assistance.

Book of Mormon Apologetics. Throughout the LDS Church’s history, Mormons have mounted arguments to defend the historicity of the Book of Mormon. The field of Book of Mormon scholarship is now far too complex (and LDS scholars far too prolific) to allow for a thorough review and assessment here. Instead, some key recent figures and issues will be briefly described, with only cursory critical responses. Book of Mormon scholarship and apologetics today derive especially if not primarily from the work of three BYU scholars: Hugh Nibley, John Sorenson, and John Welch.

Hugh W. Nibley (1910–2005) taught at BYU from 1946 until 1994 and produced an intimidating body of scholarship, mostly in defense of the Book of Mormon, the Book of Abraham, and LDS theology. Contemporary Book of Mormon apologetics really began with two lengthy series of articles by Nibley on the Book of Mormon published in 1952 as the book Lehi in the Desert and the World of the Jaredites. Nibley’s method was essentially a comparative approach, ransacking ancient literature far and wide for parallels to the Book of Mormon.

John L. Sorenson (1924–) founded the department of anthropology at BYU and later taught as professor of anthropology there from 1971 to 1985. The year he retired, Sorenson published An Ancient American Setting for the Book of Mormon, which argued for a “limited geography” theory that the Book of Mormon lands were restricted to ancient Mesoamerica, in what is now Guatemala and southern Mexico. That model, which Sorenson continued to develop in retirement (culminating in the book Mormon’s Codex), now dominates LDS academic scholarship and popular apologetics, although a minority of Mormons vigorously contend for other models.

One of the implications of Sorenson’s Mesoamerican model is that the Book of Mormon peoples never amounted to more than a very small part of the population of the Americas. This implication has been radically reinforced in LDS apologetics by the controversy over DNA and the Book of Mormon. The traditional LDS belief based on Joseph Smith’s teaching has been that Native Americans, especially those living in the US, are Lamanites. Modern advances in genetics have allowed scientists to confirm the conventional scientific view that Native Americans are descended from people who came from eastern Asia across the Bering Strait many thousands of years ago. Such a view is inconsistent with the idea that Native Americans are descended from Israelites. LDS scholars, however, argue that Israelite ancestry need not be expected to show up in DNA studies of Native Americans because the Lamanites were only a very small people restricted to the ancient Mesoamerican civilization. This apologetic salvages the plausibility of the Book of Mormon at the cost of abandoning Joseph Smith’s own teaching on the subject.

John W. Welch (1946–) published an article in 1969 arguing that the Book of Mormon contains significant instances of chiasmus (a literary feature in which a text forms a pattern like A-B-B-A or A-B-C-B-A). Welch argues that chiasmus was common in ancient Hebrew literature but was unknown to Joseph Smith, so its presence in the Book of Mormon suggests its authenticity. Several questions of relevance to this claim have been debated: whether Smith could not have known about this literary device, whether he might have used it without even realizing it, and the extent to which it can be found in his nontranslated writings (such as his revelations in the Doctrine and Covenants). In 1980 Welch, an attorney by training, became a professor of law at BYU. A year earlier, Welch had established the Foundation for Ancient Research and Mormon Studies (FARMS), which later became subsumed as part of the Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship.

Theology. Theologically, the Book of Mormon differs substantially from the later teachings of Joseph Smith reflected in later parts of Doctrine and Covenants as well as from the current official teachings of the LDS Church. For example, the Book of Mormon appears to affirm in very explicit terms a trinitarian theology, asserting repeatedly that the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost are “one God” (2 Nephi 31:21; Mormon 7:7). Some Book of Mormon statements even seem to err on the side of collapsing the personal distinctions within the Trinity, specifically several statements identifying Jesus as both the Father and the Son (Mosiah 15:1–5; Mormon 9:12; Ether 3:14). By contrast, toward the end of his life Smith was teaching that the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost were “three Gods” (in the “Sermon at the Grove” on June 16, 1844).

The Book of Mormon also explicitly teaches that God has always and eternally been God, “unchangeable from all eternity to all eternity” (Moroni 8:18; see also 7:22; Mosiah 3:5; Alma 13:7). In another 1844 sermon, the “King Follett Discourse,” Smith claimed to refute this idea: “We have imagined and supposed that God was God from all eternity. I will refute that idea.” These differences between Book of Mormon doctrine and Joseph Smith’s later theology reflect a shift in Smith’s thinking to an entirely different worldview in which Godhood is an open category into which our God himself entered and to which human beings may also aspire—another idea missing from the Book of Mormon.

Some distinctive elements of LDS theology appeared for the first time in the Book of Mormon. These include, perhaps most notably, the idea that Adam and Eve’s transgression was a good and necessary thing that made it possible for them to have children and experience the full joy God intended (see especially 2 Nephi 2:22–25).

Importance of the Book of Mormon. The Book of Mormon plays a primary role in Mormon evangelistic efforts. LDS missionaries encourage prospects to read the Book of Mormon and pray to receive a spiritual witness or testimony that it is the word of God (based on a statement in Moroni 10:4–5). Because the Book of Mormon’s doctrines differ in comparatively subtle ways from those of orthodox Christianity, people with Christian backgrounds are more likely to obtain a positive impression of Mormonism based on the Book of Mormon than if they were introduced first to Joseph Smith’s later doctrinal innovations. Once a person accepts the Book of Mormon as the word of God, however, it is a small step to accepting Joseph Smith as God’s prophet and the LDS Church as God’s only true and living church on the earth.

Bibliography. Pro: T. L. Givens, The Book of Mormon: A Very Short Introduction; G. Hardy, Understanding the Book of Mormon: A Reader’s Guide; D. H. Ludlow, ed., Encyclopedia of Mormonism, 4 vols.; H. W. Nibley, “Lehi in the Desert,” “The World of the Jaredites,” “There Were Jaredites”; R. Skousen, The Book of Mormon: The Earliest Text; J. L. Sorenson, An Ancient American Setting for the Book of Mormon; Sorenson, Mormon’s Codex; J. W. Welch, “Chiasmus in the Book of Mormon,” BYU Studies. Con: B. L. Metcalfe, ed., New Approaches to the Book of Mormon: Explorations in Critical Methodology; G. H. Palmer, An Insider’s View of Mormon Origins; D. Persuitte, Joseph Smith and the Origins of the Book of Mormon; D. M. Quinn, Early Mormonism and the Magic World View, rev. ed.; B. H. Roberts, Studies of the Book of Mormon, ed. B. D. Madsen; S. G. Southerton, Losing a Lost Tribe: Native Americans, DNA, and the Mormon Church; D. Vogel, Indian Origins and the Book of Mormon; E. M. Wunderli, An Imperfect Book.

R. M. Bowman Jr.

BOOK OF MOSES. The Book of Moses is the first book in the Pearl of Great Price, a collection of scriptural texts of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The full title as it appears in published editions today is Selections from the Book of Moses. It was produced by Joseph Smith as part of an inspired translation of the Bible and contains material understood to be restoration of lost portions of the early chapters of Genesis.

Origin and Editions. Shortly after publishing the Book of Mormon and forming the LDS Church in the spring of 1830, Joseph Smith Jr. began producing an inspired version, or “translation,” of the Bible, essentially a revision of the King James Version. He worked on Genesis from June 1830 to February 1831, producing a revision of Genesis 1:1–6:13. John Whitmer made a copy of the manuscript during the next several weeks; the original is commonly called OT1, and the copy OT2. When Smith returned to the work of revising the Old Testament, OT2 was the main document used, though he dictated some additional changes to Oliver Cowdery that were entered on OT1 and not copied on OT2. Additional handwritten copies of the text based on both OT1 and OT2 were also made by some early Mormons.

Although some small portions of the translation appeared in LDS newspapers as early as 1832, the revisions of the opening chapters of Genesis became widely known when British LDS leader Franklin D. Richards published his book The Pearl of Great Price in 1851. It included two lengthy extracts from the revision of Genesis, though not in canonical order and not with the same wording known today. Orson Pratt published a new edition of The Pearl of Great Price in 1878 that used the “Inspired Version”—the edition of Joseph Smith’s complete revision of the Bible published in 1869 by the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints—for the selections from Genesis. What is known today as the Book of Moses is Pratt’s selection from the Inspired Version (commonly known among the Salt Lake City–based Mormons as the Joseph Smith Translation) with relatively minor changes.

Contents. The Book of Moses contains eight chapters, which repeat the text of Genesis 1:1–6:13 largely as it appears in the King James Version though with various types of revisions and additions.

Moses 1 is entirely new material with no parallel in the Bible. In it Moses tells of God revealing himself to Moses and speaking of his “Only Begotten,” a title for Christ that appears twenty-five times in the book. After an encounter with Satan, who tries to persuade Moses to worship him, Moses hears again from God, who speaks to him about “worlds without number” beyond the earth and about his purpose “to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man” (1:33, 39).

Moses 2–4 for the most part closely parallels Genesis 1–3, with three notable exceptions. (1) Throughout Moses 2, God speaks in the first person (whereas in Genesis 1 God is spoken of in the third person), stating that he created everything by his Only Begotten, whom he addressed directly when saying, “Let us make man.” (2) Moses 3:5–9 amplifies Genesis 2:5–9 to explain that God had created everything spiritually in heaven before he had created them physically. (3) Moses 4:1–4, material with no parallel in Genesis, recounts Satan’s fall: he had offered to be God’s son and proposed a plan in which he would redeem all mankind without exception by destroying their “agency”; when his plan was rejected, he rebelled, becoming Satan, the devil.

Moses 5:1–6:25 contains Genesis 4:1–5:21 with three substantial new passages. The first of these passages (5:1–16a) tells about Adam and Eve hearing the gospel of redemption through the Only Begotten; Eve rejoices that had they not transgressed in Eden they would not have had children or known the joy of redemption and eternal life. Although Adam and Eve believed the gospel, their children loved Satan more than God. The second passage (5:24–31) tells about one such child, Cain, who was condemned and called Perdition. The narrative reports that Cain married one of his nieces and that he made a secret pact with Satan to kill Abel. The third passage (5:49–59) tells a similar story about Lamech, who killed Irad for revealing secrets of the pact with Satan.

By far the longest additions to Genesis come in Moses 6:26–28 and 7:1–67, an account of Enoch’s revelations and ministry that follows Genesis 5:21. God sent Enoch to call the wicked to repentance, preaching explicitly about “Jesus Christ” by name (6:52, 57; 7:50). Enoch explained that the gospel had first been preached to Adam, who was the first man to be baptized, and that baptism was to be done in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost (7:11). Enoch built a city named Zion that God took up to heaven to await the completion of the plan of salvation; he prophesied of the judgment of the flood, the coming of the Son of Man, and the future millennium.

The final section of the Book of Moses (7:68–69 and 8:1–25) parallels Genesis 5:22–6:13 and concerns the events leading up to the flood. One noticeable revision states that “it repented Noah” (Moses 8:25–26) that God had made the human race, rather than that God repented of having done so (Gen. 6:6–7). The text also includes additions in which Noah preached the gospel of “Jesus Christ, the Son of God” (see Moses 8:18–24).

Analysis. The Book of Moses may be described from a non-LDS perspective as a modern pseudepigraphic text—that is, a religious book attributed to a famous biblical figure but historically originating from many centuries after that figure. Like many ancient pseudepigraphic Jewish and Christian writings, the Book of Moses seeks to answer several questions raised by earlier Scriptures, in this case the opening chapters of Genesis. How was Moses able to write about creation when he wasn’t there? What about other planets that God made besides the earth? Who is the “us” to whom God spoke about making humans in his image? Is the serpent really Satan? If God made everything, where did Satan the devil come from? Would Adam and Eve have had children if they had not disobeyed God? If Jesus Christ is the only Savior, how were people in the Old Testament saved? Where did Cain get his wife? Why did Cain kill Abel? Who was Enoch and what was so special about him? Did God really repent of making the human race? These questions are the very ones that Christian readers in Joseph Smith’s time were commonly asking and that they continue to ask today. While some of these questions may have been of perennial interest throughout Christian history, at least one—the question about other worlds—reflects a distinctly modern concern. On the other hand, the Book of Moses does not address questions about Genesis that became pressing in the second half of the nineteenth century: Is the universe really billions of years old, and if so, how does this square with the six days of Genesis 1? Did animals and plants evolve from earlier living things? Did humans evolve from nonhuman animals? Thus the questions that the book answers and those that it does not are conspicuously consistent with an origin in the first part of the nineteenth century.

Conservative LDS scholars regard the Book of Moses as having been written by Moses himself. However, they also have compared the Book of Moses to ancient Jewish pseudepigraphic writings, noting parallels to those texts that they think provide some evidence for its antiquity. “For example, Adam and Eve were to offer sacrifices to God after being driven from the Garden (Moses 5:5–7; cf. Life of Adam and Eve, 29.4), and Satan rebelled against God and was expelled from heaven (Moses 4:3–4; cf. Life, 12–16)” (Taylor, 1:217). However, Life of Adam and Eve dates from no more than two thousand years ago, and the “parallels” to this and other works in the Book of Moses are just as easily explained as issuing from common Jewish and Christian interpretations of Genesis easily known to Joseph Smith. Most Protestants, for example, in Smith’s day as well as today, have believed that Satan rebelled against God and was expelled from heaven, and also that Adam and Eve offered sacrifices to God after leaving Eden.

Hugh Nibley mined the pseudepigraphic literature, especially texts attributed to Enoch, for parallels to the Enoch preaching of the Book of Moses. Some of these parallels are unremarkable, such as the expression “among the children of men,” while others in and of themselves seem more suggestive, such as a reference to Enoch weeping (Moses 1:41; 7:41; see Nibley, 149, 189). The sheer volume of parallels he adduced is overwhelming, but their quality is generally poor. Most importantly, the method of ransacking the wealth of ancient Jewish literature for scattered parallels is fallacious as a way of demonstrating the antiquity of a book known only since the nineteenth century. Given a large enough body of ancient writings that had some of the same kinds of purposes or interests as the Book of Moses, it is not surprising that an impressive list of parallels can be compiled. Such parallels can be good evidence that the Book of Moses fits the pattern of pseudepigraphic literature but not that it was written more than three thousand years before Joseph Smith.

The most striking parallels in the Book of Moses are not to such ancient pseudepigraphic works, which one may freely acknowledge Joseph Smith in 1830 and 1831 did not know, but to the New Testament, which he obviously did know. The Book of Moses contains explicit references to Jesus Christ, his atoning death, his resurrection, and baptism—and often expressed in language that clearly comes straight out of the New Testament. One verse nicely illustrates the point: “If thou wilt turn unto me, and hearken unto my voice, and believe, and repent of all thy transgressions, and be baptized, even in water, in the name of mine Only Begotten Son, who is full of grace and truth, which is Jesus Christ, the only name which shall be given under heaven, whereby salvation shall come unto the children of men, ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost, asking all things in his name, and whatsoever ye shall ask, it shall be given you” (Moses 6:52). This one verse weaves together wording easily recognized as coming from several New Testament verses (Matt. 7:7; John 1:14; 16:23; Acts 2:38; 4:12). Thus the best explanation for the origin of the Book of Moses is that it was composed in the early nineteenth century by Joseph Smith himself.

Bibliography. J. M. Bradshaw, In God’s Image and Likeness: Ancient and Modern Perspectives on the Book of Moses; K. P. Jackson, The Book of Moses and the Joseph Smith Translation Manuscripts; R. J. Matthews, “How We Got the Book of Moses,” Ensign; H. Nibley, Enoch the Prophet; B. T. Taylor, “Book of Moses,” in Encyclopedia of Mormonism, edited by D. H. Ludlow, 4 vols. (See also the bibliography for The Pearl of Great Price.)

R. M. Bowman Jr.

BOOK OF THE DEAD, EGYPTIAN. An extensive compilation of funerary texts, commonly known as the Book of the Dead, was written by Egyptian priests to provide information for the living regarding the afterlife and how to prepare for it. The title Book of the Dead was assigned to this collection by early Egyptologists who were the first to work with these texts. The collection describes how the ancient Egyptians viewed death and the afterlife and how individual Egyptians prepared for their transition from this world into the next life. It contains incantations, hymns, prayers, and spells, among other things. John Taylor, curator of an exhibition on the Book of the Dead at the British Museum, explains, “The Book of the Dead isn’t a finite text—it’s not like the Bible, it’s not a collection of doctrine or a statement of faith or anything like that—it’s a practical guide to the next world, with spells that would help you on your journey” (“What Is a Book of the Dead?”).

Egyptologist E. A. Wallis Budge states that “the Recensions of the great body of religious compositions, which were drawn up for the use of dead kings, nobles, priests, and others, and which form the Book of the Dead of the ancient Egyptians” (Book of the Dead, 1), consist of three recensions (critical editions of a text) of religious material. These recensions are the Heliopolitan Recension, the Theban Recension, and the Saite Recension.

The earliest recension, the Heliopolitan, was first used by priests (Fifth to the Twelfth Dynasties) who resided in the ancient Egyptian city of Heliopolis. In the Old Testament, Genesis 41:45 mentions Potiphera, priest of On, whose daughter Asenath became Joseph’s wife. Heliopolis, also known as On, was the third-largest city in Egypt, behind Thebes and Memphis. It was also known as the city of Ra, the Sun god, and was the center of his worship.

A second recension, the Theban, was reproduced on papyri and coffins and used from the Eighteenth to the Twenty-Second Dynasties.

The third and final recension was the Saite, the primary text used from the Twenty-Sixth Dynasty through the Ptolemic period. Budge points out that the Book of the Dead “has been usually given by Egyptologists to the Theban and Saite Recensions” (Book of the Dead, 3). Budge, however, considers the Book of the Dead to comprise the “general body of religious texts which deal with the welfare of the dead and their new life in the world beyond the Grave” (Book of the Dead, 3).

Bibliography. E. A. W. Budge, trans., The Book of the Dead: The Papyrus of Ani (1913); Marie Parsons, “The Book of the Dead: An Introduction,” Tour Egypt website, http://www.touregypt.net/boda.htm; J. Taylor, Journey through the Afterlife: Ancient Egyptian Book of the Dead; Taylor, “What Is a Book of the Dead?” (blog), https://blog.britishmuseum.org/what-is-a-book-of-the-dead/.

S. J. Rost and H. W. House

BOOK OF THE DEAD, TIBETAN. Taken from the Zab-chos zhi khro dgongs pa rang grol (a.k.a. Bar do thos grol), the Tibetan Book of the Dead, as it is known in English, forms one part of a larger work. A revelation of the master Karma Lingpa (1326–86), the entire work presents a complete path to liberation. The Tibetan Book of the Dead section presents information on the dying process and instructions for the dying person. This acts as a guide through the bardo and also as one of the main sources on the bardo teachings. The whole of the text is closely associated with the Secret Matrix Tantra, translated in the early period of Tibetan Buddhism. However, the idea of the forty-nine-day bardo period is well attested in much earlier Buddhist texts.

See also BARDO; TANTRA; TIBETAN BUDDHISM

Bibliography. Gyurme Dorje, The Tibetan Book of the Dead.

A. W. Barber

BRAHMA. In popular Hinduism, Brahma is a god who exists as part of a divine triad and represents the creative force of the universe. (The other two gods in this ensemble are Shiva, who signifies destruction, and Vishnu, who symbolizes preservation.) His consort is the goddess of learning, Saraswati. Brahma has often been identified with Prajapati, a Vedic deity. The diversity of Hindu mythology offers many differing accounts of Brahma’s origin. The Mahabharata depicts him being born from a lotus that protruded from the navel of Vishnu. According to the ancient Hindu legal text Manu Smriti, God manifested himself so as to dispel an encroaching, enveloping darkness, planting a divine seed that later became a golden egg from which Brahma was born. On another motif, Hindu mythology has it that Brahma originally had five heads, one of which was severed by Shiva to prevent his lustful gazes. Typical icons of Brahma display him with four heads, four faces, and four hands, either in a standing posture on a lotus or sitting on a swan. With each head, he continually recites one of the four Vedas. In other works of Hindu art, Brahma is portrayed riding a chariot drawn by seven swans. Although there are very few temples dedicated to Brahma as the main deity, he is prayed to in almost all Hindu rituals and is widely venerated. The best-known Brahma temple is in Pushbar, in Rajasthan.

See also HINDUISM; RAJA YOGA

Bibliography. L. Hodginson, Peace and Purity: The Story of the Brahma Kumaris; A Spiritual Revolution; V. Skultans, “The Brahma Kumaris and the Role of Women,” in Women as Teachers and Disciples in Traditional and New Religions; J. Walliss, The Brahma Kumaris as a “Reflexive Tradition”: Responding to Late Modernity.

P. Johnson

BRAHMANISM. Brahmanism is an ancient form of Vedic religion that continues to be practiced in India today. In many ways an incipient Hinduism, Brahmanism’s core teachings and practices can be traced to a group of texts that elaborate on the portion of the Vedic scriptures known as the Brahmanas (explanations for the Brahmins). Collectively, these commentaries function as a “user’s manual” for the performance of religious ceremonies by priests (Brahmins); they also describe adherents’ fundamental beliefs concerning Brahma, the world, the plight of human beings, and the means of liberation. However, adherents of Brahmanism hold to a spectrum of views concerning specific doctrines, making precise characterizations of “Brahmanism” elusive. This is further complicated by the fact that during the course of its historical development Brahmanism has often had a syncretistic relationship with other forms of Indian religion.

The worldview and worship practices that constitute Brahmanism began to form more than three thousand years ago. By about 600 BC, a highly inflexible caste system was in place in India that included a priestly caste of Brahmins. Brahmanism came into serious competition with various schools of Hinduism around AD 200, resulting in both polemical and constructive interactions that served to further shape Brahmanism’s doctrinal and ritual contours. Siddhartha Gautama (563–483 BC), the founder of Buddhism, argued persuasively against Brahmanic religion, maintaining that the Vedic scriptures were not authoritative, that the rituals of Brahmanism lacked power, and that the Brahmanic clergy neither instructed wisely nor possessed any holy prerogatives. He also strenuously opposed the caste system at the time, which granted the Brahmins a privileged position in Indian society. As a result of Gautama’s critiques and a number of concomitant cultural developments, the influence of Brahmanism swiftly declined and several competing sects of Hinduism flourished. During the twentieth century, British colonialism in India and the reinvigoration of Indian Buddhism spearheaded by B. R. Ambedkar (1891–1956) reduced the cultural impact of Brahmanism even further. In the late 1990s, a mere 12 percent of Hindus residing in the Upper Ganges considered themselves adherents of Brahmanism, and the percentages of Hindus identifying themselves in this way are even lower in other areas of India, in several cases lower than 3 percent.

The central sacred texts of Brahmanism are the first three Vedas, the Brahmanas, and parts of the Upanishads. The religious authority to interpret the holy books of Brahmanism and to perform its sacred rituals is held by the Brahmins, who utter powerful hymns said to originate with Brahma, who revealed it to the risis. Brahma—who is variously conceived of in polytheistic, henotheistic, monotheistic, and pantheistic terms—is the ordering principle of the cosmos and its ontological ground. Brahmanism admits of various understandings of the making of the world, the primary two of which are a theistic view according to which Brahma fashions eternally existing matter into a universe of differentiated objects and a pantheistic view wherein the world emanates from Brahma’s divine substance. In addition, some adherents subscribe to any of several creation myths. Popular notions of Brahma include a group of thirty-three gods (divided into three sets of eleven); a ruling triumvirate consisting of the deities Vayu (or Indra), Sirya, and Agni; and a pantheon of divine beings created by Brahma who are his personifications. More-philosophical concepts of Brahma often depict him as ubiquitous, transcendent, self-aware in such a way that all of reality is encompassed in his being, and surpassing the grasp of finite human intellect. Perhaps the most widely held view of Brahma is one according to which he is “embodied” variously as Brahma the Creator, Vishnu the Preserver, and Shiva the Destroyer. The relationship of human beings to Brahma also is not understood monolithically. Some views portray humans as creatures having the ability to become godlike; others describe the individual (Atman) and Brahma as being metaphysically discrete beings that nevertheless are capable of being fused in such a manner that their ordinary ontological dissimilarity is reduced. It is thought that an enduring self undergoes the cycle of death and rebirth and that distinguishing between finite persons and Brahma aids in the achievement of liberation, yet it is also (usually) maintained that Atman is ultimately identical with Brahma.

Escape from the cycle of death and rebirth has been the primary focus of Brahmanism in all but its earliest stages and forms. (Early Brahmanism featured an intricate structure of rituals that included sacrifices, prayers, and reading from the Vedic scriptures; here the priest was believed to be a conduit for mystical powers latent in the cosmos by his enactment of prescribed ceremonies, though the deceased were thought to remain within the realm of nature.) Later in the history of Brahmanism, the attainment of final release (moksha or mukti) from bondage to craving, ignorance, and illusion required possessing a flawless understanding of Brahma, which knowledge was obtainable by diverting the mind’s attention from things in the world to the divine reality. In this system, liberation is achieved through the insight that the self is identical with Brahma. Much of contemporary Brahmanism emphasizes good and evil deeds that result in corresponding rewards or punishments via the operation of the law of karma; adherents seek to avoid the sufferings of reincarnation by performing morally upright actions that will procure for them everlasting delight after their death. The postmortem destination of the wicked is believed to vary in accordance with the type and extent of ethical failing. The worst such existence consists in tremendous suffering in hell; lesser fates involve successive rebirths as sentient creatures until the attainment of liberation.

Modern Brahmanism involves sixteen sacramental rites (samskaras) that pertain to different stages of life: (1) Garbhadhan (performed after impregnation), (2) Punsavanam (performed during the second or third month of pregnancy), (3) Simantonnayana (performed between the fifth and eighth month of pregnancy), (4) Jatakarma (performed during childbirth), (5) Namakarana (the naming of the child), (6) Niskramana (done when the three- or four-month-old infant is taken out of the home), (7) Annaprashana (the first feeding of cereal at six months), (8) Chudakarma (the child’s first haircut, when he or she is at least a year old), (9) Karnavedha (the piercing of the child’s ears at the age of three to five years), (10) Upanayana (the appointment of a religious instructor to an eight-year-old boy), (11) Samavartana (performed when the child’s formal studies are completed), (12) Vivaha Samskara (the marriage ceremony), (13) Grihasthashrama (rites for overseers of households), (14) Vanprasthashrama (the renouncing of household life), (15) Sanyasashrama (ordination as a monk), and (16) Antyeshti (funeral ceremonies). Most practitioners of Brahmanism also engage in rituals concerning devotion to the fathers (pitris). These devotional acts—which prominently feature feast offerings known as sraddhas—are performed in the belief that they will enhance the happiness of deceased relatives and persuade those ancestors to support the flourishing and well-being of those still living. Finally, Brahmanic piety often includes vegetarianism (though the associated dietary restrictions vary in their severity).

See also ATMAN; BRAHMA; HINDUISM; KARMA; VEDAS

Bibliography. A. L. Basham and K. G. Zysk, The Origins and Development of Classical Hinduism; W. J. Coleville, Oriental Theosophy: Brahmanism and Buddhism, repr. ed.; J. C. Heesterman, “Vedism and Brahmanism,” in Encyclopedia of Religion, edited by Lindsay Jones, 2nd ed., vol. 14; H. Wayne House, Charts of World Religions; M. Monier-Williams, Brahmanism and Hinduism: Religious Thought and Life in India, repr. ed.; M. W. Myers, Brahman: A Comparative Theology.

S. J. Rost

BRANCH. In the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church), a branch (ordinarily) is the smallest organized group of church members, a congregation typically having fewer than two hundred members. Larger congregations are known as wards. Congregations are grouped into geographical units called either districts (for smaller groups) or stakes (for larger ones). LDS branches and wards generally fall under the jurisdiction of a district or stake president. Although the LDS Church does not require that branch presidents hold the office of high priest, a branch president must be an ordained elder in the Melchizedekian priesthood. Normally branches are formed primarily on the basis of geographical considerations, but demographic-based branches may be created for single adults, residents of nursing homes, those whose native language is not English, or prison inmates in cases where otherwise there would not be enough people to form a ward. For example, in the 1980s LDS Church authorities began organizing urban ethnic minorities into branches.

In 2000 there were nearly 26,000 LDS congregations (wards and branches) worldwide. By 2010 this number had increased to over 28,600 congregations, including more than 21,000 wards and about 7,600 branches.

Bibliography. Association of Statisticians of American Religious Bodies, Religious Congregations and Membership in the United States: 2000; B. P. Hales, “Statistical Report, 2010,” Ensign; D. H. Ludlow, ed., Encyclopedia of Mormonism, 4 vols.; D. G. Stewart, The Law of the Harvest: Practical Principles of Effective Missionary Work, http://www.cumorah.com/index.php?target=law_harvest; Temples of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints website, “Statistics: Church Units,” http://www.ldschurchtemples.com/sta tistics/units/; F. M. Watson, “Statistical Report, 2000,” Ensign.

S. J. Rost

BUDDHA, HISTORICAL PERSON OF. Siddhartha Gautama, also known as Sakyamuni, was a historical person who became the Buddha (enlightened one) and the founder of Buddhism. He lived in northern India sometime between the sixth and the fifth centuries BC. The son of King Suddhodana and Queen Mahamaya, he was thus of the warrior ruling caste within Hinduism.

Fact and fiction blur when texts recall the life of the historical Buddha, but a core of tradition exists, common to all Buddhism. “Buddha” is a title; “the Buddha,” when used without further qualifications, usually refers to the historical person of Siddhartha, the Buddha for this, the fourth aeon (kalpa). When Buddhists want to emphasize particularly that they are referring to that specific man in history, they refer to him as Sakyamuni, the “wise man of the Shakya tribe.” Innumerable Buddhas both past and future exist within a vast cosmology; hence Siddhartha Gautama is understood as “a Buddha” born into this world, after many previous lives, as recorded in the popular Jatakas. His life on earth is recorded in the Tripitaka (Pali, “three baskets”; the three sections of the Buddhist canon) and later commentaries.

Queen Mahamaya dreamed one night of a silver elephant entering her womb from the side. Hindu Brahman priests foretold a son who would become either a king or a Buddha. Passing through the village of Lumbini ten lunar months later, she gave birth on the full moon of Vesakha (May). The Buddhist patron-king Asoka in the third century BC commemorated this event by the erection of a pillar in Lumbini, which still stands. The boy was given the name Siddhartha, meaning “goal accomplished.” At sixteen Siddhartha married his cousin Yasodhara. Another tradition is that the wise sage Asita told the king that his son would be a great king if he remained in the palace but that if not, he would become a Buddha.

At twenty-nine Siddhartha was exposed to the “Four Sights.” When driving with his charioteer, he saw an old man, a sick man, and a corpse. His charioteer explained that all people were subject to old age, sickness, and death. On a fourth occasion, he encountered a Hindu ascetic and was impressed by his peaceful composure. Siddhartha decided to leave home and adopt this ascetic’s lifestyle in hope of finding serenity among all the instances of suffering he had observed.

Siddhartha left his sleeping wife and son one night to take up the life of a wandering Hindu ascetic—this was “The Great Renunciation.” He wandered throughout northern India, learning from various Hindu sages and always looking for truth. Unsatisfied with the attainments of these Hindu sages, Siddhartha flagellated himself with severe austerities that first alarmed and later impressed his band of five disciples. After doing this for some time without becoming convinced that self-mortification would lead to truth, he returned to a balanced diet.

He resolved then to sit beneath a pipal tree (known later as the Bodhi tree) one night until he experienced enlightenment. In deep meditation, he fought off Mara, the evil tempter, by his practice of the ten great virtues (paramitas) that he had perfected in previous lives (charity, morality, renunciation, wisdom, effort, patience, truth, determination, universal love, and equanimity). Continuing in meditation, Siddhartha gained knowledge of his previous lives, and then he attained the power to see the passing away of the rebirth of beings. Finally he realized the path to the end of suffering, namely, the Four Noble Truths: (1) existence is dukkha (or duhkha)—suffering; (2) dukkha is caused by tanha—desire/craving; (3) nirvana—liberation from dukkha and tanha—is possible; (3) the Eightfold Path is the means to this release—right view (or right understanding), right thought, right speech, right action, right living, right endeavor, right mindfulness, and right concentration.

Siddhartha experienced this enlightenment (or awakening) at age thirty-five, on the night of the full moon of Vesakha (the same date he had been born) at Bodhgaya, India. He then reassembled his original five ascetic disciples near Varanasi, a sacred city in Hindu culture; after some skepticism, they recognized him as a Buddha. Their skepticism was due to Siddhartha’s failure to attain enlightenment while an ascetic. How, they thought, could he have attained it without that rigor? Siddhartha argued that the Eightfold Path was a “middle way” between the extremes of Hindu asceticism and princely indulgence. This first sermon, called “Setting in Motion the Wheel of Truth,” occured at the deer park in Sarnath, where today a stupa commemorates the occasion.

Following this first sermon, the group of disciples continued to grow. The Buddha organized these disciples into a sangha, or community: one entered a sangha by taking refuge in the Buddha, the dharma (the Buddha’s “teaching” or “body of knowledge”), and the sangha. Eventually included in the sangha were a variety of relatives, princes, and laypeople, including the Buddha’s wife, Yasodhara. The Buddha eschewed the Hindu caste system and promoted a democratic ideal under the authority of the vinaya, or discipline, later canonized in the Tripitaka.

At eighty the Buddha predicted his own death within three months. His disciple Ananda requested instructions concerning the transfer of leadership. The Buddha replied that only the dharma would be authoritative, and the vinaya would regulate monastic life. Assembling various monks together at Kushinagar, the Buddha lay on his right side, and, on the full moon of Vasakha (the same night on which he had been born and on which he had attained enlightenment), experienced parinirvana, or death. According to some traditions, his devotees gathered his relics, mixed his ashes with flour paste, and distributed them widely; they are still used allegedly to empower stupas today.

The Buddha’s chronological life is a template for all Buddhists. They renounce worldly indulgence for a time (often later in life) of meditation and service. Alternatively, one family member (usually the oldest male) is given for a time to the sangha. Refuge-taking in the Three Jewels (Buddha, dharma, and sangha) remains the ceremony of initiation, and pilgrimages to the holy sites of the Buddha’s life are regarded as meritorious: Lumbini (birth), Bodhgaya (enlightenment), Sarnath (first sermon), and Kushinagar (death). Wesak (Vesakha) is the main Buddhist festival, celebrating birth, enlightenment, and parinirvana on the full moon in May.

The Buddha’s innovations include meditative innovations and equanimity. He built a lineage of teacher and disciple founded on affection and efficacy of teaching. Although some miracles are attributed to the Buddha, he continued to prioritize the teaching of the dharma. The life of Buddha was popularized in the West through Sir Edwin Arnold’s epic poem The Light of Asia (1908). Conrad Rook’s 1972 film version of Siddhartha was rereleased in 2002.

Bibliography. E. Arnold, The Light of Asia; S. Bercholz and S. Chodzin Kohn, eds., Entering the Stream: An Introduction to the Buddha and His Teachings; D. Burnett, The Spirit of Buddhism: A Christian Perspective on Buddhist Thought; D. S. Lopez Jr., Buddhism: An Introduction and Guide; J. Toula-Breysse, The Paths of Buddhism.

H. P. Kemp

BUDDHA, NAMES OF. There are many Buddhas in the Buddhist cosmology. The Indian prince Siddhartha Gautama Sakya, commonly called the Buddha in English, was a historic individual who received the epithet Buddha (awakened one / enlightened one). However, Buddhas have many other epithets. Siddhartha is also called Sakyamuni (Sage of Sakyas), but other Buddhas do not receive this title. A common list of ten epithets is often provided in texts. In addition to the above two, one reads Tathagata, a term that can be analyzed in two ways: “the thus gone one” (i.e., one who went to nirvana) or “the thus come one” (i.e., one who came out of compassion). Closely related to this is Sugata (well gone one). Arhat (worthy one), Anuttara (unsurpassed), and Anuttara Samyaksambuddha (unsurpassed complete awakened) are frequently encountered. Vidyacaranasampanna (one perfect in wisdom and good conduct), Lokavid (knower of the world), Purusadamyasarathi (charioteer of humans that need to be tamed), Sastradevamanusyanam (teacher of gods and humans), and Buddha Bhagavat (victorious Buddha) are also used.

Most Buddhist traditions provide a list of names of Buddhas who taught on earth, predated Sakyamuni, were prehistoric, but are generally considered by modern scholars as mythic. The Bhadrakalpika Sutra lists Krakucchanda, Kanakamuni, and Kasyapa. Other texts include Vipasyin, Dipamkara, and more. A “perfect complete Buddha” is one who reintroduces the eternal teachings by expressing them so as to fit them to the era, but only after the teachings of the previous Buddha are no longer accessible. Thus Sakyamuni taught only after humanity was once again lost in darkness. Further, all traditions claim that there will be a future Buddha, referred to as Maitreya or Ajita, who now is a bodhisattva teaching in the heavens and who will be born on earth, go through the practices to become a perfect complete Buddha, and reintroduce the teachings once Sakyamuni’s dispensation is lost. He once manifested himself in China and was called Budai, the “Happy Buddha” seen in Chinese restaurants.

The Mahayana tradition knows of many other Buddhas not recognized by the Theravada school, some of whom have become extremely popular over the centuries. It is held that by arduously engaging in the correct practices one can have visions of these Buddhas. Also, for those who are spiritually less developed, by making a karmic connection with one or another of these Buddhas, one can be reborn in their realm (somewhere in the universe) upon death and from there achieve one’s own nirvana. These realms, called “Buddha fields” in Sanskrit, were given the more poetic phrase “Pure Lands” in Chinese, and it is by this term that they are generally referred to in English.

Second only to Sakyamuni in popularity is Amitabha (Chinese, Omitofo; Japanese, Amida). This is no mere accident of history, as the Chinese emperors highly encouraged the rituals and teachings associated with this Buddha. Further, in East Asia, Amitabha became associated with ancestor worship, which guaranteed widespread appeal in China, Korea, Japan, and Vietnam. He also has a following in Nepal and Tibet, but in these traditions there is no ancestor worship.

The Buddha most popular after Sakyamuni in Nepal and Tibet is Aksobhya, who also has a Pure Land and is closely associated with the moment of enlightenment. His Pure Land is different in important ways from that of Amitabha, but in both excellent practice is possible and will lead to liberation from rebirth. Aksobhya is often confused with Sakyamuni, particularly in statue ware, although in paintings different colors are used to help distinguish them.

Another important Buddha recognized from Nepal to Japan is Vairocana. One of the great stone Buddha statues just outside the ancient capital of China is this Buddha. So, too, in the ancient capital of Japan, Nara, the giant bronze Buddha statue is Vairocana. In fact, that statue was a technological wonder, as it was the largest cast made for many centuries. The Shingon sect of Buddhism in Japan has Vairocana as its main focus. This Buddha is also significant in the massive Buddhist monument on Java called Borobudur. He also appears in numerous texts in Nepal and Tibet.

Bibliography. Paul Williams, Mahayana Buddhism: The Doctrinal Foundations.

A. W. Barber

BUDDHA, NINE ATTRIBUTES OF. Most basically, a Buddhist is one who believes in the so-called Triple Gem, expressed in the confession: “I take refuge in the Buddha; I take refuge in the dharma [Buddhist teaching of the right way of living]; I take refuge in the sangha [Buddhist community, which is understood slightly differently in each tradition].” The Triple Gem, in turn, is thought to consist in twenty-four “attributes”: nine associated with the Buddha, six with the dharma, and nine with the sangha.

Recitation of the attributes, along with the Triple Gem and the Five Precepts (abstaining from killing, from what is not given, from sexual misconduct, from telling lies, and from intoxicating drinks and drugs), make up the core of both home and (especially) temple devotional exercises (vandanas). Contemplating the attributes is supposed to free the mind of defilements (at least temporarily) and thus help prepare for understanding, while chanting the attributes is supposed to protect from danger or provide needed insight. Buddhists also typically regard the statue of Buddha as a symbol of the “nine attributes” and pay homage to the statue as a sign of respect for his being. Devotees often recite the attributes, creed-like, as a formula:

[The Buddha] is worthy of honor [araham], as free of all defilement;

he is the fully enlightened one [sammasambuddho], having discovered all ultimate realities;

he is perfect in knowledge and conduct [vijjacaranasampanno], possessing the three (or eight) types of knowledge and fifteen types of virtue;

he is the blessed one [sugato], the “perfect speaker” for the welfare of the world;

he knows the worlds [lokavidu], is omniscient;

he is the tamer of unruly men [anuttavo purisadamasirathi], as well as nonhuman beings;

he is the teacher of gods and men [sattha devamanussanam], leading them on the path of nirvana;

he is the enlightened one [buddho], especially regarding the “Four Noble Truths”;

he is the exalted one [bhagava]—that is, glorious.

Explanations of the nine attributes are drawn from the Theravada “scripture” known as the Tripitaka (Pali, Tipitaka), or the “three baskets.” Although the attributes differ notably from teacher to teacher or sect to sect, elaborations on the attributes often serve as a combination of catechism, ethics handbook, and guide to the veneration of the Buddha.

Such veneration characterizes the Buddhist tradition known as Theravada (doctrine of the elders) rather than the Mahayana (great vehicle) tradition. While Mahayana recognized other Buddhas in addition to the historical Buddha (Siddhartha Gautama), Theravada focuses on Sakyamuni, his manner, and a renunciative approach to his teachings, including the first eight attributes and his excellence of person (i.e., the ninth attribute, bhagavan, takes special note of his noble birth and incomparable physical appearance).

All the attributes are said to guide the faithful in right living (dharma). Contemplation of bhagavan, for example, will show the importance of proper dress, speech, and behavior for gaining respect from others. The attributes are sometimes divided into three groups: (1) the Buddha’s character qualities (attributes 1–3), (2) the Buddha’s teaching qualities (4–6), and (3) the Buddha’s leadership qualities (7–9).

In daily devotion, recitation of the nine attributes is usually preceded by the Triple Gem, followed by the threefold repetition of a Pali verse expressing qualities of the Buddha’s enlightenment: Namo tassa bhagavato arahato sammasambuddhassa (Reverence to the blessed one, the exalted one, the fully self-enlightened one). Devotions may also include recitation of the Five Precepts and homage to benefactors (notably the three “refuges,” parents, and teachers).

Bibliography. J. R. Carter and G. D. Bond, The Threefold Refuge in the Theravāda Buddhist Tradition.

C. R. Wells

BUDDHA, THREE BODIES OF. The “three body” (trikaya) doctrine of Mahayana Buddhism is usually associated with Asanga, the fourth-century founder of the Yogacara (ideas only) school, who attempted to reconcile the Buddha’s physical existence with his enlightenment. As the enlightened one, the Buddha is presumed to embody dharma (the right way of living). His essential Buddha nature, the “body of essence,” is therefore termed dharma-kaya (dharma body), which forms the basis for the other “bodies.” In some traditions, notably in Tibetan Buddhism, the dharma-kaya represents the primordial Buddha, beyond words or even intellectual conceptualization. (Some traditions add a fourth “body,” the svabhava-kaya, i.e., absolute reality.) As Siddhartha Gautama, the Buddha also lived historically as “body in the world” (nirmana-kaya)—that is, as “created body.” Finally, the Buddha nature (dharma-kaya) manifests itself in spiritual realms as the sambhoga-kaya (enjoyment body), invisible to the physical senses but accessible through meditation. This “body of bliss” varies according to spiritual location.

In contrast to the older, Theravada tradition, which recognizes only one earthly Buddha (nirmana-kaya) at a time and in which the term dharmakaya means the sum total of the dharma, Mahayana recognizes numerous Buddhas and Buddhas-to-be (bodhisattvas), experienced by way of the sambhoga-kaya and conceived as presiding over “buddha-fields” (Buddha-ksetra), or mystical realms of influence.

The triple body doctrine has its roots in the darshanic ideas and practices noted in some of the earliest Buddhist scriptures (i.e., ideas by which one enters into the spiritual power). The Mahayana tradition added new emphasis and further developed visionary meditational techniques to this approach to spirituality.

Bibliography. P. Harvey, An Introduction to Buddhism: Teachings, History and Practices; D. S. Noss, “The Trikaya or Triple Body,” in A History of the World’s Religions.

C. R. Wells

BUDDHISM. Buddhism is one of the world’s major religions, a development of the sramanic tradition, founded by Siddhartha Gautama Sakya. Gautama is said to have become enlightened and thus a Buddha. Buddhism is markedly different in beliefs and practice from Hinduism and is much more diversified. Followers of Buddhism range from atheists to polytheists, but all share the core beliefs Buddha taught, known as the Four Noble Truths and the Eightfold Path.

Buddhist Origins. In May 1956, Buddhists celebrated the twenty-five-hundredth anniversary of their founder’s birth, but the date is merely an estimate since biographies of the Buddha—mostly legendary and lacking historical points of reference—do not appear in writing earlier than about five hundred years after his death. The following details seem reasonably well-established:

1. The Buddha (born Siddhartha Gautama) was born about 566 BC into a noble family (his father was a “senator” in a democratic chiefdom called Kapilavastu, near the present Indian-Nepalese border, but is often depicted as being the king).

2. At the age of twenty-nine, he renounced his station and family (the “Great Renunciation”), which included a wife and a son to become a wandering ascetic.

3. He afterward experienced a radical religious transformation.

4. He spent the last forty-five years of his life teaching his new religion before he died at the age of eighty in Kushinagata, near his birthplace in northern India.

The traditional explanation for his religious transformation begins with the legend of the “Four Sights.” Although Siddhartha’s father attempted to shield him from suffering and sorrow, the gods intervened, assuming human shapes in order to awaken the prince to his destiny. On a certain day, Siddhartha saw a decrepit old man, a diseased man, and a corpse—“sights” that introduced him to decay, suffering, and death. Greatly disturbed, he saw the fourth “sight”—an ascetic wearing the yellow robe of a monk. Siddhartha resolved to pursue the ascetic path, believing he had found the answer to suffering. Six years after the Great Renunciation, however, Gautama determined that deliverance must come some other way. Tradition has it that he sat under a fig tree (now known as the Bodhi tree or Bo tree; in Sanskrit, bodhi means “knowledge” or “enlightenment”), determined not to arise until he attained enlightenment. Resisting the temptations of the god Mara, Siddhartha spent an entire night passing through stages of meditation, emerging at sunrise as the “enlightened [or ‘awakened’] one,” the Buddha, having grasped the Four Noble Truths.

At this point, according to tradition, Mara tempted the Buddha to enter immediately into pari (complete)-nirvana without proclaiming his newfound faith, but he refused. Instead, he made his way to the now-famous deer park and preached to five former colleagues. Now known as the first “turning of the wheel of the dharma” (teaching of the right way to live), this sermon set forth the Four Noble Truths and produced the first Buddhist converts. For the rest of his life, Gautama traveled throughout northern India, preaching and gathering followers into communities called sanghas.

Classic Buddhist doctrine is summarized by the Four Noble Truths: (1) “the noble truth of suffering” holds that suffering (dukkha/duhkha) is the inevitable condition of existence; (2) “the noble truth of the cause of suffering” holds that suffering results from desire, culminating in the desire for individual existence; (3) “the noble truth of the cessation of suffering” holds that suffering ends when this craving for existence ends, along with desires and appetites; and (4) “the noble truth of the path” comprehends the Noble Eightfold Path, which makes possible escape from the craving for existence, and thus enlightenment.

The Noble Eightfold Path consists in (1) right belief (of the Four Noble Truths, but including rejection of erroneous philosophies and unworthy attitudes), (2) right aspiration (indicated by firm resolve to seek liberation), (3) right speech (avoiding lying and other forms of hurtful speech), (4) right conduct (avoiding harmful practices, while rooting out harmful motivations and perfecting virtue), (5) right livelihood (living so as not to violate right speech or conduct); (6) right effort; (7) right attention; and (8) right concentration. These last three involve the practice of meditation (dhyana), deemed most helpful in the quest for enlightenment. The Eightfold Path thus actually reduces to three essentials: (1) wisdom (rules 1 and 2); (2) ethics (3–5); and (3) mental discipline (6–8).

Basic Concepts in Buddhism. Buddhism is best characterized as a religious tradition sharing in the Indian spiritual dialogue: it shares with the Hindu yogic tradition, Jainism, and other now nonexistent religions a preoccupation with suffering, and it places a similar high value on meditation and the role of wise teachers. Buddhism is actually less a “religion” than “a vast and complex religious and philosophical tradition” (Gethin, 1), loosely connected to certain basic concepts rooted in the Indian spiritual dialogue.

Buddhism shares the fundamental Indian religious belief in karma, the inexorable law of cause and effect, extended from the physical to the spiritual realm. Karma is inextricably bound to the law of rebirth (samsara) since it passes on for good or ill through successive generations. The goal is liberation (moksha) from this cycle.

Strictly speaking, however, because it rejects the soul theory, Buddhism denies the transmigration of souls. “Rebirth” is rather continuation of pure karma (by its sheer force) from one life into another—as in the Buddha’s traditional explanation that the light, but not the flame, of one candle passes to another. Further, in Buddhism the karma cycle can be broken by enlightenment. While Hinduism recognizes several paths of deliverance from karma/samsara, Buddhism emphasizes realization and detachment as the key.

Theistic Worship. Whereas Hinduism freely worships a vast assortment of gods, in Buddhism the gods are seen in a different light. In general, Buddhists recognize gods as existing and having extremely pleasurable lives that last for millennia but that also end; thus that particular being must be reborn. In India, the gods mentioned in Buddhist texts originate in the Indo-European pantheon. In China or Japan, for example, Buddhism also incorporates local gods. As the gods are also trapped in samsara, they need liberation as found in the Buddha’s teachings. The gods may help followers with mundane things, but they cannot help with the goal of nirvana; the Buddha’s teachings will guide one in those endeavors, but one must undertake the path oneself.

Dharma and Scripture. Like Socrates, Gautama purportedly wrote nothing; rather, it is said, he set in motion “the wheel of dharma.” Dharma, a term familiar in the religions of India, denotes the underlying reality of things. It is roughly equivalent to “philosophy” in the ancient sense of life ordered by right reason, but with emphasis on ways of guiding experience, rather than thought, or even action.

The “wheel of dharma” helps explain the fact that Buddhism has no concept of canonical scripture equivalent to that of Christianity, Judaism, or Islam. The nearest candidate is the Tripitaka (three baskets). Buddhists do not, however, regard the scriptures as revelatory, so teachings that agree with the Buddha’s dharma are deemed Buddha’s teachings whether they actually came from Sakyamuni or not. The scriptures are thought to illuminate the path of dharma. Not surprisingly, the vast Buddhist writings have undergone numerous changes (including additions, editing, variations) even up to the twentieth century—for example, because of massive troves of forgotten scriptures—making standardization across all traditions all but impossible; and different Buddhist schools in different regions regard different writings as authoritative.

Impermanence. According to one udana (inspired utterance), a disciple asked about conscious existence in nirvana. The Buddha answered that “there is . . . a domain where there is no earth, no water, no fire, no wind, no sphere of infinite space, no sphere of infinite consciousness, no sphere of either awareness or nonawareness; there is not this world, there is not another world, there is no sun or moon. I do not call this coming or going, nor standing, nor lying, nor being reborn; it is without support, without occurrence, without object. Just this is the end of suffering” (Udana 80). This text illustrates two distinctive Buddhist concepts—“no soul” (anatta) and “impermanence” (anicca). Buddhist philosophy is fundamentally pragmatic (the cessation of suffering), rather than positivistic (e.g., “paradise oriented”). This way of seeing the world is viewed by many outside observers as negative, but Buddhists see it otherwise. In the Buddhist view, suffering results from desire, and desire in turn results, by way of ignorance (avidya) and delusion (moha), from “attachment” (upadana), especially attachment to the self (Atman). The absolutized “self” grasps for material goods, privileges, experiences, identity, and the like, in order to give reality to itself. The delusion of selfhood, in other words, creates selfishness.

This delusion of selfhood is twofold: first, that the self as such exists; second, that objects of craving themselves possess permanence. Classical Buddhist thought resolves the first problem by denying real existence to the self (anatta). Words like “self,” “person,” “ego,” and “I” are thus merely conventional. The realization of impermanence (anicca) resolves the second problem. The “cessation of suffering” (nirvana) consists in the actualization of anatta and anicca; this is enlightenment.

Nirvana/Parinirvana. Enlightenment makes possible entrance into nirvana, or, more commonly, pari (complete)-nirvana, which denotes a “blowing out” or “extinguishing” (of suffering). Unlike English translations such as “he/she enters nirvana,” Buddhist texts generally employ a verbal idiom (e.g., “he/she parinirvana-s”) to emphasize the process of extinguishing the delusions and cravings of the self more than a resultant state (Gethin, 75). So while nirvana/parinirvana does imply an eternal state, it is also an event (the moment of enlightenment) and an experience (cessation of desire and suffering).

As in the udana, or inspired utterance, above, nirvana can be described only by way of negation; it lacks any moral content whatsoever. Nirvana constitutes the Buddhist answer to suffering, not moral evil. The Buddhist goal generally has no place for creation, fall, sin, atonement, judgment, or re-creation.

The Sangha. Buddhism has no counterpart to church, synagogue, or mosque. The Buddhist ideal is the sangha, or community, purportedly inaugurated by the Buddha himself to carry on the teaching of dharma. What constitutes the sangha differs by tradition. Theravadins include the monks primarily (there is no extant nun tradition in Theravada). The Mahayana Buddhists include Buddhas, bodhisattvas, monks, nuns, laymen, and laywomen in the greater community and distinguish each subgroup as necessary—for example, the monastic sangha and the bodhisattva sangha.

The rules of the monastic sangha and the model for the lay sangha are drawn largely from the Tripitaka’s Vinaya section, specifically two broad categories of ordination and four classes of monastics. Many Buddhist traditions also recognize ordination for specific, even brief periods; monks and nuns are generally free to leave at any time. Novice monks (samanera) or nuns (samaneri) keep the Ten Precepts, vowing to refrain from harming living creatures, taking what is not given, engaging in sexual activity, speaking falsely, using intoxicants, eating after noon, attending entertainments, wearing jewelry or perfumes, sleeping on luxurious beds, and handling gold and silver. Familiar to Westerners because of their shaved head and robe, fully ordained monks and nuns (who must be at least twenty years of age) take vows for more than two hundred rules. Except for the novice, the Tripitaka provides no criteria for establishing levels of progress.

Monks and nuns are expected to depend entirely on lay support for material needs (although in East Asia there are exceptions). Correspondingly, lay support of monks, nuns, and monasteries constitutes meritorious action, and the sanghas are considered beneficial to laypersons both as centers of religious teaching and as possible sources of merit.

The Traditions of Buddhism. Soon after Gautama’s death, according to tradition, five hundred monks convened the first Buddhist Council to establish the teaching of their master. (Three other councils followed in the next 250 years.) Meanwhile, the sanghas codified Gautama’s teachings and applied them to monastic life. These teachings, with many elaborations, circulated as separate oral “texts” until the first century BC, when they began to be written and collected. The collection is the Tripitaka (three baskets), consisting of (1) the Sutras (“discourses” of the Buddha), (2) the Vinaya (“[monastic] discipline”), and (3) the Abhidharma (“higher teaching,” or metaphysical theology).

Early Buddhism was more than doctrine and monastic rules; it also included such aspects as stupa worship. According to tradition, the Buddha himself authorized the building of mounds (stupas) over the relics or remains of holy persons, himself included. Often the center of a monastery, the stupa was supposed to radiate the merits of the person. In time earth-mound stupas gave way to the elaborate structures familiar in Buddhist lands today, and stupa worship includes music, incense burning, votive offerings, circumambulation (thought to produce merit), and other rituals.

Buddhism remained confined to the Ganges Valley of eastern India until the middle of the third century BC, when an Indian emperor named Ashoka embraced the new religion and sent missionaries (including his own son and daughter) across India and to Ceylon (Sri Lanka)—where Buddhism soon became the state religion—and as far away as Alexandria. From northern India, Buddhism spread across Central Asia into China, then into Korea, from which missionaries took Buddhism to Japan in the sixth century. Also from northern India and Nepal, it entered Tibet in the seventh century. And from eastern India, it spread into Southeast Asia before the modern era.

Buddhism today consists of three principal streams. Theravada (or “Southern”) Buddhism, with over one hundred million adherents, predominates in Sri Lanka and Southeast Asia. East Asia claims the greatest number of Buddhists by far—estimates range from five hundred million to more than a billion—most of whom follow some form of the Mahayana (great vehicle). Tibetan (also known as Tantric) Buddhism, the third stream, numbers some twenty million adherents. Mahayana Buddhism has fragmented into numerous schools, sects, and subsects, sometimes differing as much from one another as Christian denominations do. The forms of Buddhism known to most Westerners are derived from Mahayana.

Theravada Buddhism. Theravada, the “way of the theras” (elders), is the conservative wing of Buddhism. Disparagingly labeled the “narrow path” or “little vehicle” (Hinayana) by Mahayana Buddhists, Theravada embraces the goal of individual liberation, or arhatship (an arhat being one who achieves parinirvana). Arhatship is open only to monks, who accumulate merit and wisdom through rigorous discipline. Monks cannot, however, as in Mahayana, dedicate merit to others. Laypersons instead earn merit by supporting monks (and monasteries) and by other religious practices in order to attain rebirth to a higher order.

Theravada relies on the Tripitaka for authority, the 1956 Pali text (Tipitaka) being the most widely recognized version. There are also many commentaries on various texts in the Tripitaka, the most famous being the works of the fifth-century monk Buddhaghosa.

Most everyday Theravadins accept core Buddhist beliefs but freely incorporate non-Buddhist ideas, especially about the spirit world. Similarly, while the teaching denies the Buddha’s divinity, lay attitudes vary greatly.

For monks and laypersons, the Theravada path begins with a confession, the formula of the three “refuges”: (1) “I take refuge in the Buddha”; (2) “I take refuge in the dharma”; and (3) “I take refuge in the sangha.” Most laypersons would also vow to keep the first five of the Ten Precepts vowed by novice monks.

Mahayana Buddhism. From its beginnings (first century BC), Mahayana self-consciously distinguished itself from earlier establishments, and several differences may be observed. First, as to authority, Theravada acknowledges the Tripitaka, while Mahayana recognizes no codified “scripture”; rather, the sects choose which texts from the Tripitaka they will utilize.

In its teaching of the “Triple Body,” Mahayana postulates numerous cosmic Buddhas (sambhoga-kaya), teaching dharma in mystical realms called “Buddha-fields.” Many of these cosmic (“celestial”) Buddhas, as well as “Buddhas-to-be” (bodhisattvas), serve as objects of devotion. These beings form a pantheon characterized by numerous hierarchies and associations. In most Mahayana sects, the absolute (dharma-kaya) can have any number of historical manifestations; in principle, therefore, every person is a potential Buddha.

The bodhisattva concept in particular distinguishes Mahayana from Theravada. Whereas Theravadins idealize the arhat, Mahayana idealizes the being (sattva) who delays nirvana to aid others seeking enlightenment (bodhi). The bodhisattva path is in principle open to anyone; it begins with an aspiration for enlightenment, through meditation and acts of compassion. As aspiration grows to firm commitment, the disciple takes the vow of a bodhisattva, ideally in the presence of one thought to be spiritually advanced, who complements the vow with a “prediction” of future enlightenment. The bodhisattva then sets out on a career to realize the six primary and four secondary “perfections” (paramita), leading through ten stages of attainment (bhumis), marked by ever-increasing insight into reality and ever more earnest work on others’ behalf. At the tenth stage, the path of the bodhisattva melds into buddhahood.

However, whereas the Theravadin arhat escapes samsara, enters nirvana, and effectively disappears forever, the Mahayana bodhisattva/Buddha remain accessible. In Theravada nirvana opposes samsara, but in Mahayana they share the same ultimate reality, called sunyata (universal emptiness). Sunyata doctrine distinguishes between “conventional” truth, which includes such familiar ideas as karma, samsara, and nirvana, and “ultimate” truth, which comprehends the true nature of all things—sunyata. The bodhisattva transcends conventional truth and may be said, therefore, both to escape samsara and to utilize samsara for the sake of others (“in the world but not of the world” provides a rough analogy).

Mahayana Sects. The Theravada tradition is the only surviving sect out of more than eighteen related sects in ancient times, whereas Mahayana has given rise to numerous existing, divergent sects, beginning in India, developing in China, and many acquiring final form in Japan. The earliest Mahayana school is traced to the Indian monk Nagarjuna (second century AD), who systematized the doctrine of sunyata (see above) and founded the Madhyamaka (the school of “the middle path”), seeking to resolve the tension between “conventional” and “ultimate” truth. A century later, two brothers, Asanga and Vasubandhu, founded the Yogacara (“Mind [Yoga] Practice,” also known as vijnapti-matra, “ideas only”) school, which explained reality as stores of ideas in the mind (similar to Freud’s “unconscious”).

As a highly developed culture, with other religions already well established, China gave a distinctive cast to Buddhism, which Japanese culture developed still further. From the sixth century onward, several indigenous sects arose based on Indian teachings, notably Ch’an (Japanese, Zen), T’ien-t’ai (Japanese, Tendai), Chen-jen/Zhenren (Japanese, Shingon), Ching-t’u (Japanese, Jodo), and the native Japanese sect Nichiren.

Westerners are probably most familiar with Zen, the way of enlightenment by means of contemplation. Rinzai, the best known Zen school, uses puzzle statements, called koans (e.g., “what is the sound of one hand clapping?”), to break habitual patterns of thought and bring enlightenment suddenly. Soto Zen, by contrast, emphasizes “just sitting,” to empty the mind and open up enlightenment.

The founder of T’ien-t’ai (Tendai), Chih-i (AD 538–97), sought to harmonize the seeming diversity of Mahayana by claiming the Lotus Sutra as the Buddha’s final teaching. This “scripture” sets forth the principle of “skillful means,” according to which the Buddha employed apparently contradictory “ways” of teaching in order to rescue persons from illusion. The entire universe is conceived as participating in the Buddha nature; consequently, one may seek liberation by any number of means. Medieval Tendai exercised enormous influence on the development of all branches of Buddhism in Japan.

Chen-jen/Zhenren (Shingon) has roots in Indian tantrism (Chen-jen translates the Sanskrit word mantra), offering initiates a “shortcut” to enlightenment by way of esoteric prayers, rituals, symbols, and practices. Chen-jen established itself in Japan as Shingon-shu (true word sect) by adapting elements of traditional Shinto, especially linking Shinto deities with manifestations of the Buddha. (Shingon identifies the universe itself with the body of the Supreme Buddha, Vairocana.)

The most popular form of Buddhism in East Asia—and for Christians, the most fascinating, by far—is that of Ching-t’u (Jodo, or “pure land”) centered on the Buddha Amitabha (Japanese: Amida, “infinite light”), also known as Amitayus (infinite life). According to tradition, Amida was originally a king (later the bodhisattva dharmakara), who renounced his kingdom to pursue buddhahood. Over eons of time (kalpas) spent in practice, he was enabled to integrate all the excellences he had seen into a single “pure land” called sukhavati over which he presides. Owing to his extraordinary merit, he now provides rebirth into the pure land for those who make a karmic connection to him, primarily through ritual recitation of his name (nembutsu). Despite parallels with Christian faith, Jodo notably lacks any doctrine of sin or atonement.

An uncharacteristically exclusivist Mahayana tradition is Nichiren, named for its founder, a thirteenth-century Japanese priest with the power of a prophet. Trained in Tendai, Nichiren nevertheless severely restricted worship forms and insisted on repetition of the sacred formula (daimoku)—“Hail to the Lotus Sutra!”—as the means of actualizing unity with the Buddha. Through its lay-led subsect, Soka Gakkai, Nichiren Buddhism has exercised enormous political influence in Japan since the 1960s.

Tibetan Buddhism. Though patronized by kings and defined intellectually by Mahayana scholars, Tibetan Buddhism emerged as a distinctive Buddhist tradition under the influence of a Indian tantric adept named Padmasambhava in the eighth century (“first diffusion”). Like Chen-jen Tibetan tantrism encompasses a wide range of esoteric practices, including divination, magic, shamanism, radical yogic exercises, and eroticism, typically drawn from tantric texts and calculated to bring about moksha (liberation). The Tibetan Tripitaka consists of most of the same text found in the Pali Tripitaka, Mahayana sutras, tantras, and a large collection of commentaries, laudatory verses, and ritual texts. Tibetan Buddhism emphasizes the guru, who instructs pupils in the practice (sadhana) of tantras, many of which incorporate visualizations for gaining wisdom and power. Visualizations range from “seeing” certain Buddhas or bodhisattvas to “becoming” the body of a Buddha to experiencing primordial bliss through sexual union or profound insight. The diversity of the tantras and the special role of the master have produced countless tantric traditions.

Tibetan Buddhism remains formally tied to Mahayana through the use of sutras and the philosophy of the Madhyamaka and Yogacara schools. After the thirteenth century (“second diffusion” of Buddhism in Tibet), these orders developed doctrines of internal succession through a tulku, considered the reincarnation of a previous teacher. With the ascendancy of Gluk-pa, a tulku of that order, known as the Dalai Lama (ocean of wisdom), has served since 1612 as head of state in Tibet. Following the Chinese invasion of 1950 and the subsequent repression of Buddhist culture, the Dalai Lama has “ruled” in exile from India since 1959.

Buddhism in the West. In the wake of Alexander the Great, Greeks became aware of Buddhism, and at least one famously converted, and Marco Polo directly knew of it; however, Buddhism as a whole remained largely isolated from (and unknown in) the West until the nineteenth century. The effects of these contacts may be observed in the emergence of new religious groups (e.g., Theosophy), in literature (e.g., Emerson, Thoreau, the Transcendentalists) and psychology (e.g., Jung), in the study of “comparative religion,” in the translation of Buddhist texts, and in the transplantation of Buddhism itself to the West, especially after World War II.

The American Religious Identity Survey (ARIS) places the number of Buddhists in 2004 at about 1.5 million, or 0.5 percent of the US population (roughly the same as for Muslims), an increase of about 170 percent since 1960. The BuddhaNet website (sponsored by the Buddha Dharma Education Association) lists Buddhist centers in every state and every Canadian province. The appeal of Buddhism to Westerners doubtless has much to do with its generally tolerant, inclusive culture, its emphasis on moral achievement over doctrinal adherence, and its promise of psychological wholeness. The political plight of Tibet and the notoriety of the Dalai Lama (who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1989) have also helped create a favorable climate for Buddhism.

While most major traditions have migrated to the West, Zen Buddhism and Tibetan Buddhism certainly enjoy the widest currencies. First introduced by the Japanese roshi (master) Soyen Shaku at the World’s Parliament of Religions in Chicago (1893), Zen gained widespread popularity through the writings of D. T. Suzuki (1870–1966). Several Tibetan lamas representing different sects were teaching in the West in the 1960s and 1970s.

Another prominent version of Western Buddhism is Soka Gakkai, introduced to the US in 1960 as Nichiren Shoshu, although Soka Gakkai International (SGI) broke with the priest-controlled sect in 1991. SGI claims almost ninety US centers and twelve million adherents worldwide, but does not publish US membership statistics.

Organized in 1914, Pure Land Buddhism, known in the US as the Buddhist Churches of America (BCA), observes Sunday congregational worship and has adopted other “Christian” practices. The BCA claims over one hundred “temples, branch temples, fellowships and groups” and operates a ministry school in Berkeley, California, but membership (mostly ethnic Japanese) has declined precipitously in recent years.

Bibliography. D. Bentley-Taylor and C. B. Offner, “Buddhism,” in The World’s Religions, edited by Norman Anderson; D. Burnett, The Spirit of Buddhism: A Christian Perspective on Buddhist Thought; S. Collins, Selfless Persons: Imagery and Thought in Theravada Buddhism; E. Conze, Buddhist Wisdom Books; M. Eliade, A History of Religious Ideas; R. Gethin, The Foundations of Buddhism; D. Keown, Buddhism: A Very Short Introduction; R. C. Lester, “Buddhism: The Path to Nirvana,” in Religious Traditions of the World, edited by H. B. Earhart; J. B. Noss, Man’s Religions; R. N. Robinson, W. L. Johnson, and T. Bhikku, Buddhist Religions; D. T. Suzuki, Introduction to Zen Buddhism; J. I. Yamamoto, Buddhism, Taoism & Other Far Eastern Religions; R. Zacharias, The Lotus and the Cross: Jesus Talks with Buddha.

C. R. Wells

BUDDHIST CHURCHES OF AMERICA. The Buddhist Churches of America (BCA) is a Shin Buddhist organization (i.e., Jodo Shin-shu) affiliated with the Nishi Hongwan-ji sect in Japan. The BCA claims to be the oldest Buddhist organization in America. It is headquartered in San Francisco, having been organized to serve the religious needs of the Japanese immigrants who congregated in the city during the 1800s. It was originally called the Buddhist Missions of North America but changed to its current name in 1944 in an effort to curb hostility and gain acceptance in American society. The BCA fought for and gained the right to ordain Buddhist chaplains in the US military in 1987.