Abomination of Desolation: Ezekiel's and Daniel's Prophecies of the Last Days

By Monte S. Nyman

Reviewed by Thom Duncan
On 10/24/2006

Cedar Fort, Inc., 2006 Softcover:
150 pages
ISBN: 1-55517-920-7 Price: $11.99

There were two reasons why I was anxious to review this book. I took a class on the Book of Mormon from the venerable Monte S. Nyman, former director of Book of Mormon Studies in BYU's Religious Studies Center (now retired since 1996) way back in 1972. I invited him to attend the premiere of my first play, A Sceptre, A Sword, A Scented Rose (about King Lamoni and Ammon the Son of Mosiah); his cryptic review before the entire class, given through a cheerful, almost impish smile, will live forever in my memory: "I now know what happened in the sealed portion of the Book of Mormon." So, first reason: I wanted to return the favor of a review to a beloved teacher. The second reason: I have been a big fan of Last Days literature, scriptural, scholarly, or fictional ever since I first read (in my pre-LDS days) a novelized version of the Protestant Rapture.

The Abomination of Desolation, clearly written for the adult LDS reader, provides an orthodox view of LDS teachings dealing with these two prophets: Daniel's prophecy about the latter-day kingdom of God, Ezekiel's reference to the two "sticks," and other important future events of importance to LDS students of the Last Days. Drawing mostly from the writings themselves, thankfully reproducing long passages to help in understanding the context, Brother Nyman also (though not as frequently and not as copiously) uses the commentary of latter-day general authorities from Joseph Smith and Orson Pratt to Bruce R. McConkie. The format of the book, broken down into seven chapters including an introduction and an appendix, makes for fairly easy reading: Nyman presents a lengthy quote from, for example, Ezekiel 34:11-16, and then provides a half page of comment. The book approaches a commentary both in depth as well as format. Sadly, the lack of an index lessens the book's worth as a study aid.

Nothing new is revealed within the book's pages. Ezekiel's sticks still refer to the Bible and the Book of Mormon, and Nyman does not concern himself with addressing recent attempts (even by some LDS scholars) that give a different understanding of the significance of the sticks. The lack of any earth-shattering insight into two of the most significant books of Old Testament prophecy does not mean it is lacking in thought-provoking details -- Nyman's section on the Battle of Gog and Magog being a prime example, wherein he allows for the possibility of mankind's being able to avoid this devastating war by diligently heeding the words of the latter-day prophets. As far as I know, this idea that righteousness can alter the prophesied events of the end of the world is a decidedly LDS one.

In general, Nyman's commentary treats Ezekiel's and David's prophecies with scholarly respect and rather conservative interpretations, "conservative" meaning that he remains wisely non-specific regarding some issues. For example, he makes no attempt to place the battle of Gog and Magog in time or place. In a few places, however, he drops his scholarly tone and becomes once again a BYU professor of religion when he provides an overly specific and thus incomplete interpretation of some passages. Case in point: while presenting his comments on Daniel's prophecy of the stone cut out of the mountain without hands (generally interpreted as a symbol for the coming for of the church in the latter days), he weakens what has all the promise of becoming an erudite and informative exegesis by unnecessarily limiting the meaning of the passage "other people" in Ezekiel 2:44: " . . . and the kingdom shall not be left to other people . . ." to refer to only apostates from the church.

It is topic matter like the above that places this book more in the genre of faith-promoting literature than in the realm of qualified intellectual research. Its scholarly trappings aside, Abomination of Desolation is meant more as a presentation of orthodox LDS doctrine than a legitimate exploration of Old Testament apocalyptic scripture.


Copyright 2006