Avraham Gileadi

Early life and education

Gileadi was born in 1940 in the Netherlands during World War II. In the course of the war, his father served in the Dutch resistance whose local chapter helped a New Zealand pilot escape to England. After the war, many emigrated from war-torn Europe to new lands of opportunity. Although his father prospered, idealism led him to emigrate to New Zealand.

In New Zealand, Avraham Gileadi went through a period of introspection, reevaluating his priorities and internalizing spiritual principles. After becoming religiously active and involved, he yet "sensed a lack of spiritual fulfillment." Israel's history in the Old Testament became the focus of his attention. He recognized what he believed to be "a partial fulfillment of prophecy in the modern State of Israel," which led to his desire to participate in it.

In 1968, Gileadi left New Zealand to settle in Israel, where he lived five years. Life in Israel soon involved him deeply in the Old Testament and its religious ties to Judaism. He states that "Judaism attracted me because of the unique manner in which the Jews view the Law and the Prophets. Among the Jews, I felt a depth of understanding that, as a Gentile, I had not hitherto known." In Israel, he settled in Jezreel. His studies in Israel also took him to an orthodox religious kibbutz, at which time he was formally received into the Jewish faith and became an Israeli citizen. The climax of his life as an orthodox Jew came when he studied at Yeshivat Hatfutzot, a rabbinic school in Jerusalem. While visiting a library in Israel, the librarian handed him a copy of the Book of Mormon and suggested he read it. Gileadi took the book to be polite and studied it out of curiosity, which led to his conversion to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. He was baptized a member of the LDS Church in the Pool of Siloam, where the Bible records Jesus healing a blind man by having him wash his eyes in the pool (John 9:5-7). In 1973 Gileadi moved to the United States, where he married and raised a family of nine children.

Gileadi received academic degrees from Brigham Young University: a B.A. in University Studies (1975), a M.A. in Ancient Scripture (1977), and a Ph.D. in Ancient Studies (1981) with Hugh Nibley as chair. During his academic years, Gileadi taught Hebrew, Religion courses, and an Honors Philosophy class in the literary analysis of the Book of Isaiah. He also sought out and studied with Professor R. K. Harrison, a renowned Old Testament scholar of Wycliffe College, University of Toronto, Canada, who was noted for his conservative theological position.

Being fluent in Hebrew, Gileadi worked with the Hebrew Masoretic Text, the Dead Sea Scroll of Isaiah, and the Septuagint Version to provide a translation of the Book of Isaiah intelligible in English that remains true to the Hebrew. He used lexical tools constantly in order to catch every nuance of meaning in the original language, finishing his translation of Isaiah during his Ph.D. program.

Academic career and church discipline

Gileadi was hired by BYU to produce footnotes clarifying translation problems in the Hebrew prophets for the LDS edition of the Bible, and he revised the Hebrew translation of the Book of Mormon for the Church's Translation Division. In 1981 he completed Ph.D. in Ancient Studies from Brigham Young University, under the supervision of Hugh Nibley, with a dissertation entitled "A Bifid Division of the Book of Isaiah."

In 1988 Gileadi published The Book of Isaiah: A New Translation with Interpretive Keys from the Book of Mormon, followed in 1991 by The Last Days: Types and Shadows from the Bible and the Book of Mormon. Prominent LDS scholars including Hugh Nibley, Truman G. Madsen and Ellis Rasmussen praised his work, but his argument (present in both books and developed at length in the second) that the Isaiah prophesies pointed to a human "Davidic king" who would emerge in the last days, apart from Jesus Christ, was controversial. A reviewer in the Review of Books on the Book of Mormon, while praising Gileadi's erudition and the beauty of his translation, noted that Gilead's "[...] interpretation of Isaiah [...] diverges widely from previous Latter-day Saint commentary on Isaiah, including that of Bruce R. McConkie." Further, the reviewer contrasted McConkie's commentary in The Millennial Messiah with Gilead's interpretation of Isaiah. The Last Days was pulled from the shelves by its publisher, LDS-owned Deseret Book.

In September 1993, Gileadi was disciplined by the LDS Church and excommunicated along with five others, a group known as the September Six. However, the church afterwards reversed its disciplinary action against him and he was rebaptized into the church in 1996, later telling the Salt Lake Tribune: "In my case — not a single charge was true or supported by evidence — and all mention of it was expunged from the church’s records."

Today, Gileadi continues to research the writings of Isaiah and related scriptural texts. Gileadi is the author of ten books, a majority of them on the Book of Isaiah.