Ostler opens the first chapter of The Problems of Theism and the Love of God with exactly the right question: “It is commonplace in Christian theology to start from metaphysical concepts, such as the notion that God is a perfect being or that God is the metaphysical explanation of all existence. … What if, instead, we started from the most basic commitment of Jesus’s teachings—that God is the type of being who can enter into loving relationships of mutual reciprocity and intimate self-disclosure with us?” (pp. 1-2). I couldn’t agree more with Ostler that “such an approach [is] the appropriate starting place for Mormon ‘theology’” (p. 2).

That said, let me dedicate this post to outlining what I believe will be the difference between my own thinking about love and Ostler’s. I’ll let Adam speak for himself, but I suspect that he largely shares my position.

As is the case in The Attributes of God, The Problems of Theism and the Love of God attempts to think relationships starting from Martin Buber’s distinction between “I-Thou” and “I-It” relationships. But whereas in The Attributes of God this was a relatively minor point, mentioned only on occasion and in the course of doing philosophical work on other questions, it is the official starting point in The Problems of Theism and the Love of God. And I think there are some major problems with this starting point.

My worry about Buber is his Kantian grounding. Ostler himself identifies this grounding: “Immanuel Kant elucidated an ethical imperative that arises in human relationships: We must never treat persons as mere means, as mere objects, but always also as ends in and of themselves. The reason for this imperative is that if we use persons merely to accomplish some other purpose, then we have subordinated a person having absolute value to some ‘thing’ else less valuable. Buber’s view of persons also arises out of the commitment that, when persons are used, they cease to be persons and become mere things for us” (p. 15). There are reasons—good reasons—to be critical of Kant’s basic conception.

The question that has been—and has again and again to be—put to Kant is this: Whence the “absolute value” of persons? Kant, of course, had an answer to this, but it’s an answer few philosophers would be likely to agree with: the presence of rationality. If that answer is to be rejected, both because rationality has been shown to be far more conditioned and constructed than Kant was willing to allow and because it isn’t clear why rationality should be regarded as an end in itself, what is to takes its place as the guarantee of the “absolute value” of persons? The implicit Buberian answer to this question is, I think, clearly at work in Ostler’s thought: particularity or uniqueness. In Ostler’s words: “What I bargain for in a covenant relationship is you as the person that you are” (pp. 12-13); “It is you as the very person you are in your uniqueness that I desire to engage in mutual fellowship” (p. 14); “No one else can take your place for me because it is you as a person that I relate to” (p. 15). If it isn’t the other’s share in rationality, which is an end in itself, that obligates me ethically to her, it would seem that it’s her not-being-anyone-else, her particularity.

This answer is just as philosophically problematic as Kant’s. First, it isn’t clear why particularity or uniqueness—put most radically: unsubstitutability—should make something lovable. Second, and more important in my eyes, some kind of account needs to be provided justifying the supposed unsubstitutability of individual persons.

Now, I should note that one thinker—who was, it’s worth noting, an important critic of Buber, despite being influenced profoundly by him—has attempted to respond quite fully to these two problems: Emmanuel Levinas. And it seems to me that Levinas’ answers to these questions are not only consistent but compelling. But I wonder whether Levinas’ answers to these questions can be adopted by the Latter-day Saint. Jim Faulconer is the resident Mormon Levinasian if there is one, and he himself has pointed out the difficulties of accepting Levinas directly into Mormon theology—pointing out the likely necessity of tempering Levinas’ theism with a bit of Heidegger’s “paganism.” I’ll leave to Faulconer the task of addressing these difficulties—my own philosophical itinerary takes me elsewhere. For now I’m content just to agree that there are problems with adopting Levinas uncritically.

Another thinker—one whose thought has sometimes, quite problematically, been equated with that of Levinas!—has addressed this whole business in a rather different way: Jacques Lacan. Lacan’s entire project can be understood as an attempt to account for, precisely, the passage from the “I-It” to the “I-Thou” relationship—as an attempt to explain Freud’s famous formula: wo Es war, soll Ich werden; “where It was, there I come to be.” But rather than attempting thereby to justify the Buberian conception of the absolute value of unsubstitutable persons, Lacan aimed only to account for it.

I won’t go into the details of Lacan’s account here, but I’ll state his—in my book crucial—conclusions: the “I-Thou” relationship is ultimately the imaginary (read that: image-inary) side-effect of the inconsistent symbolic structure of discourse. The Buberian picture—even once it has been qualified and clarified by Levinas—is ultimately a distracting reflection of much more deeply rooted matters.

Now, let me be quite clear (I know I’m never clear, but I’m trying hard here). To agree with Lacan on these points is not to reject the possibility of love. Rather, it’s to claim that any account of love will have to begin from something other than the Buberian “I-Thou” relation. Love is something other than a kind of face-to-face affirmation of each other’s intrinsic value. If we’re going to get off the ground with love, with love in all its philosophical complexity, we’re going to have to provide a rather different account of it.

Now let me be quite clear about another point. I don’t mean here to say that Ostler’s account is simply wrong, or that it’s unsophisticated. As I’ve already pointed out, I think that the Buberian conception of things can be fleshed out in philosophical rigor, as it has been in Levinas’ work. My concern is that I’m not sure that the resulting picture is ultimately reconcilable with Mormon theological presuppositions. It seems to me that Ostler can indeed embrace a Buberian conception of love, but I wonder what Mormon commitments he’ll have to give up along the way. (One quick example: I suspect it’s largely because the Buberian conception has become so widely accepted that Latter-day Saints are more prepared today simply to dismiss early Mormon polygamy than they were in previous eras of Mormon history. I don’t know that Mormon polygamy could make sense in a Buberian picture. That’s to say neither that polygamy has to be defended nor that some such incommensurability is reason enough to dismiss the Buberian picture. I mean only to illustrate here, and then only between parentheses.)

Obviously, there’s a good deal more to be said about all that, and I’m already out of space (and time!). Just as obviously, I have the responsibility to say something about what I take love to be, and I’m still already out of space (and time!). As a result, all I’m offering here is a kind of preliminary criticism, preparatory to a much more robust engagement—one that will likely have to take place at a later date.

Our ward has brought in a bunch of single females into the baptism font recently and the trajectory has been almost identical for all of them:

Phase One:  Missionaries love me. I feel the pull of the truth and the Lord’s love.  Church members are coming over in droves to listen to me talk for 90 minutes about the inside of my dog’s ear if I want to, waiting to get a niblit of gospel teaching into the conversation. I love the church.

Phase Two:  Excited, everyone showed up at my baptism and I’m willing and eager to learn a new life with new friends and the ward family I was welcomed into.  This is gonna be so great.  The Church is true.

Phase Three:  They are now letting me know that the Jesus I shared my love for doesn’t want me alone and won’t let me hang around unless I’m married and my chances of that are slim to none.  I explained I had a horrible marriage, divorce, abuse situation, etc but they summarily dismiss that and insist on family as the ultimate reason to exist and praise Jesus. Redemption and repentance are important but only as paths to get to family.  Not to live with the Savior, but to live with my family.  I sit in sacrament meetings all about forever families, but I can’t be sealed to my own children.  The “it will come later” explanation seems the same sort of mystery that they said wasn’t good in my old church.  But people are nice and seem devoted, at least to their own family.

Phase 4: This is very differerent than my first month here.  They don’t know I’ve gone back to my old church to visit.  Everyone here is too busy protecting time with their own insulated families.  We had prayer circle on Wed and I loved it.  I felt like a real family of worshipers again.  No one from the new church comes to talk or listen anymore, missionaries stopped coming and the assigned teachers don’t seem to have a genuine interest in anything but the magazine they read from.  They don’t come other than that.  I thought all that was the beginning of new friendships but I guess not.  I don’t know what happened.  We had such a good time talking last month.  I have friends at my (old) church without even trying.  They seem to need friends too so we all have that common support for each other.  They have families too but are more open with their time.

Musings:

Maybe the baptisms serve to help us not have so many to do in the millenium but they don’t seem to be much more than that.  While I don’t want to be the socially favorite church, it sure seems like investigators don’t understand what they are getting into and either don’t have the motivation or don’t have the skills to withstand the isolation we put them through as singles.

While Sis Beck talked about the women flooding into the church as we found our vision of RS, I don’t think she meant they would come for 4 month stints and leave.  It’s so frustrating and heartbreaking.  The ones most attracted are those that need a community and think they’ve found it as the missionaries are so very attentive.  Then they get suddenly ignored.

So solutions?  Still pondering what to do.  Reading through some RS histories to try to get some ideas.  [She here names a few women in her ward who do a good job maintaining relationships with singles.]  Some friends from Utah do it well.  It’s far more rare than it should be.  And mothers/families suffer from the consequenses of being so isolated from others and overly insulated as a family.

When I was new to the church, I was convinced the choirs needed robes.  I’ve since realized that was just my own wish for something familiar in an unfamiliar religionworld.  Is this just a choir robe issue or do we really need to be more of a community?  Will a community distract from our duties and abilities to care for our families?

“No success will compensate for failure in the home.”  If I hear that quote one more time over the pulpit… I may scream.  I don’t think they were talking about saying no to callings or spending time with new members.  I can come up with example after example of pioneer stories that WE promote in our talks and lesson, about people inviting refugees into their home nad having all their kids die of smallpox.  Of wagon company members sharing food with others and suffering terribly.  Missionaries going on 3 yr missions, leaving women and children, sick and pregnant behind.  The list of overdramatic stories we love are rife with sacrificing for others.

Rachael describes tragedy as a situation in which something precious must be lost or given up in the process of securing something else precious, where there is an “irreconcilable conflict between Good and Good,” because both goods cannot be realized. I think she is right that tragedy in this sense is an essential element of Mormon cosmology, and that this role for tragedy is part of what makes Mormonism a radical departure from traditional Christianity.

Perhaps the most important tragedy is that in order to develop spiritually and fully partake of the glory of our Father in Heaven, we have to enter a realm of spiritual uncertainty, ignorance and weakness, and exercise moral agency in a context where grave sin is possible. As a result, many of us will depart from the path of salvation, perhaps permanently. This is a deeply non-traditional view in a few ways, and perhaps what is most non-traditional about it is its incorporation of tragedy–indeed, multiple dimensions of tragedy.

First, the idea that there is something good that Adam and Eve achieve through the Fall, and that we achieve in following them, is an uneasy idea in conventional Christianity. That we must give up innocence and the presence of God in order to achieve spiritual progress is itself a tragic notion. Second, the idea that to allow spiritual progress and the choice of exaltation, God must also open up the possibility of our choosing eternal damnation, and that some will almost certainly choose it, is tragic. Third, some traditional accounts, like that of Augustine, suggest that God’s plan is equally realized whether we are saved or damned, because when we are saved it reflects his mercy (and our purification from sin in some sense), and when we are damned it reflects his justice (and our guilt). However, in the Mormon view, the punishment of the wicked is something that is not in any way pleasing to God. He weeps for those whom Satan claims. Hence God’s justice is also tragic. God’s plan is shot through with tragedy in (at least) these three key ways.

I agree with Rachael about Mormons’ tendency (often) to avoid and deny tragedy, rather than face and deal with it. It is understandable that we do this, given human nature, the tendency of historical Christianity (which is always there as a cultural influence) to avoid tragedy, and the presence of other teachings in Mormonism that facilitate the avoidance of tragedy, depending on how they are interpreted. It is paradoxical, though, given how thoroughly tragic our cosmology is, and ultimately I think we are unfaithful to our prophetic inheritance if we do not take to heart the tragic dimensions of our theology. Thus far I fully agree with Rachael, though I have expanded on her themes in some ways of my own.

Rachael loses me, though, when she offers some doctrinal solutions to help us “handle tragedy without compromising Mormonism’s profound commitment to joy.” I think there is something promising here, but I am not sure how it is supposed to work, and I worry that her solutions might involve eliminating tragedy rather than accepting and dealing with it. Like some others who comment on her thread, I’d love to see her clarify what she has in mind and am looking forward to her promised sequel. For now, I’ll explain where my questions lie.

First Rachael points to the idea that our experiences, including suffering, will turn to our good. Certainly this is a key part of the Mormon picture, and part of why we must, tragically, spend time in mortality, away from God. But if our suffering all turns to our good, do we risk nullifying the suffering? I especially worry that we are thinking tragedy will ultimately be done away, like death will be, and if that is what we think, it seems we are ultimately not accepting it. I am particularly nervous about the way LDS sometimes seem to brush off the idea that there was something wrong with Adam’s and Eve’s choice to eat the forbidden fruit, which made experience of good and evil possible, and instead simply describe it as the right choice. Even as Nephi is explaining why it was necessary, he still calls it a transgression. If we make their choice too wholly and simply good, I think we are missing something and again, talking ourselves out of tragedy.

Next, Rachael points to the hope for universal salvation. This is certainly a reassuring idea. It makes the tragedy of leaving the presence of God and enduring ignorance and sin more acceptable. Yet isn’t it a bit too reassuring? If we maintain universal salvation, aren’t we still minimizing the possibility of another, very important tragedy? To me, there is a big difference between saying that God wants and hopes for and seeks salvation for all, and saying that he will succeed. I suppose there is an element of tragedy left so long as some people take a long time, and both suffer and inflict a lot of pain along the way before coming around to accept salvation. Still, the depth of the tragedy is drastically reduced. It becomes ephemeral, from an eternal standpoint, and so I worry that we are talking ourselves out of tragedy.

Also, I just wonder if we aren’t kidding ourselves to paint the rosy picture of universal salvation. In scripture I see God expressing the hope for all to be saved, a hope that applies to each of us, but not in any clear way the teaching that all actually will be saved. Moreover, the hope, for me, is part of the tragedy, so I affirm the hope . . . but I am not sure that my hope will be fulfilled, and if I were, I’m not sure it would still be hope! A lot of the urgency of the hope would seem to dissipate, and along with it, the sense of tragedy.

Finally, Rachael refers to the response of weeping in love, exemplified by Mormon and Enoch, and by God. I’m not sure how she means this to resolve the tension between tragedy and joy exactly, either. I am hoping she will write more. To me, though, this is the most important and, if I understand it, insightful part of her post.

It seems to me that one of the conclusions we must draw from a tragic conception of the universe is that sorrow is inevitable, and hence that we should not try to avoid it. This is not to say that we should not avoid it in any way. There are many things that lead to unnecessary sorrow, and we should avoid these as far as we can. Also, some things are not as sorrowful as we may think, when understood in eternal perspective, and we should avail ourselves of the comfort of that perspective where appropriate. Still, we should not expect or try to avoid sorrow entirely, and in fact, we should expect an enormous amount of sorrow if we follow in God’s footsteps. Perhaps we should even expect infinite sorrow, accompanying, though not surpassing the infinite joy of exaltation and reunion with God.

The trick is to accept that sorrow for some things is good and right, and part of the divine life. If loss is inevitable, it is only right that we should feel sorrow. Sorrow does not indicate a lack of faith in God’s plan, or a failure to appreciate his perspective. In fact, God himself feels enormous sorrow over the suffering of his children, especially their suffering due to sin, including their own sins. Proper sorrow, I suggest, is not opposed to joy, but is an element of it.

Part of a faithful response to God’s plan, then, is to accept the sorrow that comes from appreciating and seeing its tragic dimensions. Rather than fighting it, as Enoch initially seems to do, we should recognize that certain kinds of sorrow are part of holiness, and that in allowing this sorrow to wash over and through us, by weeping with God, we become more pure and grow closer to—not bliss, perhaps, but—the serenity and joy of heaven.

1 Now when Mosiah had done this he sent out throughout all the land, among all the people, desiring to know their will concerning who should be their king.

Once again I am surprised at the outsized role the concept of “desire” plays in the BoM.

Note that the people’s will plays into who will be the king.  Could you then make the case that “king” isn’t the best translation then?

Obligatory Monty Python reference:

King Arthur:  I am your king.
Peasant Woman:  Well I didn’t vote for you.
King Arthur:  You don’t vote for kings.

 2 And it came to pass that the voice of the people came, saying: We are desirous that Aaron thy son should be our king and our ruler.

What do you make of the “voice of the people”?  (I suspect that not every single literal one of them agreed, or said these exact words.)

Desire, again.

Are “king” and “ruler” two separate things or two ways of saying the same thing?

 3 Now Aaron had gone up to the land of Nephi, therefore the king could not confer the kingdom upon him; neither would Aaron take upon him the kingdom; neither were any of the sons of Mosiah willing to take upon them the kingdom.

Why would the people want someone who had no interest in the job?  What does this say about them?

Why mention that the other sons don’t want it when the people didn’t want the other sons?

This isn’t new information; it was covered in the middle of ch28.  But we got a little sidetracked there when Mosiah2 turned his attention from the next-king problem to the records, with some details of Mosiah translating the Jaredite record and giving the plates to Alma.  What this means is that the story of that translation is sandwiched in between discussions of the succession crisis.  How might we read the story of the translation of the Jaredite records differently in that context?  How might we read the story of the succession problem differently in that context?  (One thought is that Mosiah2 was horrified by record of leadership among the Jaredites, but that doesn’t quite make sense of v1 in this chapter when he asks the people which king they want next.)

 4 Therefore king Mosiah sent again among the people; yea, even a written word sent he among the people. And these were the words that were written, saying:

Is it significant that it was a written request?  (Note that we get that idea not just mentioned but repeated in this verse.)

 5 Behold, O ye my people, or my brethren, for I esteem you as such, I desire that ye should consider the cause which ye are called to consider—for ye are desirous to have a king.

Is this the first we get of Mosiah2′s direct speech (writings)?

Desire x2 here.

The last line seems not entirely accurate to me.  This isn’t the OT, where the people are the driving force behind wanting a king.  Here, Mosiah asked them not whether there should be a king, but who the king should be.  So is the reconsideration of the idea of even having a king based on the fact that they wanted someone to be a king who is not available?  (In other words, if Aaron had been willing to come home and be king, would none of this change of government ever have happened?)  Did Mosiah not realize that Aaron would say no?  (But how is that possible when Mosiah 28:10 says, “Now king Mosiah had no one to confer the kingdom upon, for there was not any of his sons who would accept of the kingdom.”?)  So:  Why does this chapter begin with Mosiah asking them who they want when Mosiah knows full well that his sons have already said they won’t serve?  (Did Mosiah think that the “voice of the people” would sway his son[s] into reconsidering?)

6 Now I declare unto you that he to whom the kingdom doth rightly belong has declined, and will not take upon him the kingdom.

Is it significant that Mosiah uses an elaborate circumlocution in order to avoid saying his son’s name?

Was it right or wrong for Aaron to decline?

Is it possible this verse is referring to a son other than Aaron?

How do you reconcile the idea of the kingdom “rightly belonging” to someone with the idea of Mosiah2 seeking the voice of the people “concerning who should be their king”?  (Is there any analogy to modern practices of sustaining callings?)

 7 And now if there should be another appointed in his stead, behold I fear there would rise contentions among you. And who knoweth but what my son, to whom the kingdom doth belong, should turn to be angry and draw away a part of this people after him, which would cause wars and contentions among you, which would be the cause of shedding much blood and perverting the way of the Lord, yea, and destroy the souls of many people.

Why would contentions arise if Aaron was totally clear about not wanting to be king?

This verse sketches an odd scenario:  Would you really worry that a kid who had very publicly turned down the throne would later pitch a fit and cause a civil war?

Note the sequence of shed blood -> pervert ways of the Lord -> destroy souls.  What might you learn from this sequence?

I hate to cast aspersions on Mosiah2′s motives, but I think it is worth remembering that he took over from his father without a peep.  One wonders what he makes of his kids’ different choices and whether any part of his letter here is reactionary.  (It is worth noting that he is going to introduce an entirely new form of government in order to avoid a specific set of problems, but those problems end up happening anyway.)

 8 Now I say unto you let us be wise and consider these things, for we have no right to destroy my son, neither should we have any right to destroy another if he should be appointed in his stead.

So when Simon was about five, he came to me and seemed very angry with me and said something like:  ”Nathan’s making me mad.  And he’s going to keep making me mad.  And then I’m going to hit him.  And then you are going to send me to time out for NO REASON!”  I see the same thing happening here:  Mosiah is concerned that “we” will destroy his son, when his son (1) chose to refuse the throne and (2) would choose to cause a civil war to get it back.  How is that “we” destroying his son and not his son destroying himself?

At this point, one wonders why Mosiah solicited the “voice of the people” in the first place if he wasn’t going to go along with it.

 9 And if my son should turn again to his pride and vain things he would recall the things which he had said, and claim his right to the kingdom, which would cause him and also this people to commit much sin.

Webster 1828 recall:

1. To call back; to take back; as, to recall words or declarations.

2. To revoke; to annul by a subsequent act; as, to recall a decree.

3. To call back; to revive in memory; as, to recall to mind what has been forgotten.

4. To call back from a place or mission; as, to recall a minister from a foreign court; to recall troops from India.

Er, is this a “no confidence” vote in the genuineness of his son’s repentance?  And why was he offering the kid the throne in the last chapter if he felt this way?

Does this verse imply that only a wicked person would want to be king?  It seems to, inasmuch as it suggests that unrighteousness would lead the son to the throne, but that sounds like an odd thing for the kid of king Ben to think about a king.

Brant Gardner:

In Zarahemla, we have four known peoples who have had a king tradition of their own, the Nephties, Zarahemlaite/Mulekites, Limhites, and Almaites. Any one of those groups would have within them kin groups that would remember that they had once been in a royal lineage, and might elect to assert that lineage to elevate one of their own to the throne. With the contentions that we have seen lie so close to the surface of Zarahemlaite society already, Mosiah’s fear for outright civil war if there is a contested succession would appear to be quite legitimate.  Citation

 10 And now let us be wise and look forward to these things, and do that which will make for the peace of this people.

Note the words “look forward,” used, I think, in a much more literal sense than the way we mean “looking forward in a good way.”  His scenario here about his son causing a civil war after backsliding seems . . . a bit tenuous, but the one thing that we know about Mosiah2, repeated more than once, is that he is a seer.  He can translate ancient records, and he just did in the last chapter.  So I wonder if maybe we should just trust his judgment on this one.  Perhaps the process of translating the Jaredite record led him to these very concerns, and he wants his people to “look forward” in the sense of being seers of the risks of giving the kingdom to someone other than the person legally entitled to it.

Note that v8 also had the idea of “being wise.”  Why do you think Mosiah mentions that twice?  (Note the idea of “wise” men as judges in the next verse–is he making a link between wise people and wise judges?  Is he suggesting that they should rule themselves?)

 11 Therefore I will be your king the remainder of my days; nevertheless, let us appoint judges, to judge this people according to our law; and we will newly arrange the affairs of this people, for we will appoint wise men to be judges, that will judge this people according to the commandments of God.

So with this verse, the BoM inverts the order of biblical history, which went from judges to kings.

In our view, judges have a judicial role (obviously) and kings have an executive role.  However, there is ample evidence in the book of Judges that those judges also had an executive role (for example, Deborah leads people into battle).  Can you determine what these BoM judges did?

Is there necessarily a decentralizing of power with judges?  Is that a good thing?  (In the book of Judges, it is a problem, because everyone walks after their own path [in a bad way].  Of course, they think kings are bad, too, so there’s pretty much no winning.)

If the judges are judging “according to the commandments of God,” then is there really any separation of civil and religious authority, even if the high priest is separate from the judges (which he won’t be with Alma, but that’s another story).

This verse has “according to our law” and “according to the commandments of God.”  How do those two phrases relate?

Brant Gardner points out that the move from kings to judges elevates the role of the law, because the king can just make stuff up (and claim it is the will of God), but a judge has to judge according to a pre-determined law.  (What I find murky about this is that a judge [according to that definition] just can’t fulfill all of the requirements of a king:  How does foreign policy work?  What about new situations that the law hadn’t anticipated?  How’d they set their budget?)

Mosiah2 seems to think that the existence of laws makes a king more trouble than he is worth.  But that just doesn’t seem right, and history (as we’ll see in the next few chapters–it only takes about 4 years and 3 chapters for this government to implode) seems to prove that his idea was wrong.  How are we supposed to read this chapter, then?  Mormon meticulously preserved Mosiah2′s letter to the people outlining the rationale for a change in government, but are we supposed to nod along as we read, or are we supposed to see the seeds of destruction being planted?  Or something in between?  Or both?  In my more cynical moments, I could read this as a testament to the futility of any political system in a fallen world.

Byron R. Merrill traces the history of Nephite kings:

The only four kings over the main body of Nephites of whom we have any particular knowledge are Nephi, at the very beginning of the monarchy, and Mosiah I, Benjamin, and Mosiah II, the last three kings before the reign of the judges ended the tradition of kingship among the Nephites. These men were prophets as well as civic leaders, largely providing for their own needs instead of burdening the people, and thus serving God by serving his children (2 Nephi 5:14–18; Mosiah 2:12–14; 6:7; 29:14, 40). That other men of similar spiritual stature served as kings during the period between the reigns of Nephi and Mosiah I, a span of over 200 years, is indicated by Jarom’s comment: “Our kings and our leaders were mighty men in the faith of the Lord” (Jarom 1:7). With that heritage, it is easy to understand why the two contemporaries Mosiah II and Alma both counseled that if it were possible to always have just men as kings, it would be well to have a king (Mosiah 23:8; 29:13). Citation

I include that quote because it is worth remembering that the Nephites have had a positive and long track record with their kings.  Now perhaps they were influenced by the train wreck of Noah, but what country would change when things have been going basically pretty well just because some renegades living next door had a bad experience with their own king?  It doesn’t make sense.  One possibility is that Mosiah2 has some qualms about the genuine-ness or stickiness of Aaron’s repentance.  (After all, that is how he introduces the issue of a problem with a king.)  It seems unsavory to me that he would doubt his own son’s repentance, but there you go.

Does it surprise you that Mosiah goes to such great lengths to set out a rational set of reasons for why they should switch governments, instead of just announcing, from his authority as king and/or via religious authority, that this is what they should be doing?  (Does his appeal to reason suggest that the change in government was not divinely inspired?)

 12 Now it is better that a man should be judged of God than of man, for the judgments of God are always just, but the judgments of man are not always just.

It sounds like he is about to point out the weaknesses of having (human) judges, but that isn’t where he goes with this . . .

Because the context is human judges, it is easy to lose the fact that he is pointing out that God is always a just judge.  This is a basic concept, but very important.

Is it possible to always be judged of God?

What are the broader implications of this verse?  (I think one is that he is implying that there is no automatic translation of the judgments of God into the human realm–they are always mediated by flawed human beings.)

 13 Therefore, if it were possible that you could have just men to be your kings, who would establish the laws of God, and judge this people according to his commandments, yea, if ye could have men for your kings who would do even as my father Benjamin did for this people—I say unto you, if this could always be the case then it would be expedient that ye should always have kings to rule over you.

Remember that the set-up here was that, in ch28, he offered his sons the kingship and got turned down.  In this chapter, he sought the “voice of the people” and then told them “nah, you don’t really want that.”  It’s weird.

How did he make the shift in v12 from judges to kings in this verse? (It seems as if one way of relating v12 to v13 is that a king is capable of transmitting the judgments of God, but another type of ruler is not.  Is this accurate?  Does it suggest that kings have a bit 0′ divinity in them?)

Again, given that the Nephites have had a history of righteous kings, this verse feels like a big ol’ slap in the face to his son Aaron.  (It’s a good thing that Aaron is on a mission and not reading this, because a rough translation is, “I seriously doubt my son can do as good of a job as my dad did.”) I’m having a hard time getting past the idea that Mosiah2 doesn’t really believe that his son’s repentance is genuine.

Note how similar this verse is to Mosiah 23:8:  ”Nevertheless, if it were possible that ye could always have just men to be your kings it would be well for you to have a king,” which is Alma1 speaking.  Given that Mosiah didn’t come by his anti-monarchy ideas from his dad (!), one wonders if he has gotten them from Alma.  One also wonders if they are actually the right thing for his society (given how spectacularly disastrous their adoption is), or if Mosiah is making a mistake here in importing ideas that might have been beneficial/inspired for a community emerging from the post-King-Noah chaos, but not right for a community with a lengthy history of decent kings (Of course, this doesn’t address the issue of who the next king would have been, given that the sons of Mosiah and, we can presume, Alma2 wouldn’t accept the gig.  That’s a problem.  But it isn’t the problem that Mosiah is concerned about–he’s concerned about his son changing his mind and causing a civil war.)

Why didn’t God raise up someone who could be a decent king for them in this generation?

 14 And even I myself have labored with all the power and faculties which I have possessed, to teach you the commandments of God, and to establish peace throughout the land, that there should be no wars nor contentions, no stealing, nor plundering, nor murdering, nor any manner of iniquity;

 15 And whosoever has committed iniquity, him have I punished according to the crime which he has committed, according to the law which has been given to us by our fathers.

 16 Now I say unto you, that because all men are not just it is not expedient that ye should have a king or kings to rule over you.

“All men” is a lovely euphemism for the fact that he is mainly talking about his son here!

Why “king or kings”?

 17 For behold, how much iniquity doth one wicked king cause to be committed, yea, and what great destruction!

This verse (and, obviously, v18) suggest that Mosiah’s thinking about monarchy was deeply affected by the experience of their renegade brethren with Noah.

 18 Yea, remember king Noah, his wickedness and his abominations, and also the wickedness and abominations of his people. Behold what great destruction did come upon them; and also because of their iniquities they were brought into bondage.

But, we want to object, this is a fruit of the poisonous tree.  Had Zeniff not caused a civil war and stormed off in a huff, they never would have had a wicked king–they would have been home safe and snug with good old Ben.  Wasn’t the real problem defecting from a functioning society because you thought the Lamanites were not-so-bad?

 19 And were it not for the interposition of their all-wise Creator, and this because of their sincere repentance, they must unavoidably remain in bondage until now.

This is the only time the word “interposition” is used in the scriptures.

My theory that Mosiah2 is suspicious of the genuine-ness of his son’s repentance is, I think, added to by the reference to “sincere repentance” in this verse.

 20 But behold, he did deliver them because they did humble themselves before him; and because they cried mightily unto him he did deliver them out of bondage; and thus doth the Lord work with his power in all cases among the children of men, extending the arm of mercy towards them that put their trust in him.

Do v19-20 refer to Limhi’s people as well as Alma’s?

 21 And behold, now I say unto you, ye cannot dethrone an iniquitous king save it be through much contention, and the shedding of much blood.

Was this really true of Noah?  Is it really not true of a bad judge?

 22 For behold, he has his friends in iniquity, and he keepeth his guards about him; and he teareth up the laws of those who have reigned in righteousness before him; and he trampleth under his feet the commandments of God;

What’s to stop a judge from doing the same thing?

 23 And he enacteth laws, and sendeth them forth among his people, yea, laws after the manner of his own wickedness; and whosoever doth not obey his laws he causeth to be destroyed; and whosoever doth rebel against him he will send his armies against them to war, and if he can he will destroy them; and thus an unrighteous king doth pervert the ways of all righteousness.

 24 And now behold I say unto you, it is not expedient that such abominations should come upon you.

 25 Therefore, choose you by the voice of this people, judges, that ye may be judged according to the laws which have been given you by our fathers, which are correct, and which were given them by the hand of the Lord.

Will there be any mechanism for the creation of new laws?

Are these strictly religious laws, or are they also secular?  (Can secular laws be “correct?”)

Ryan W. Davis:

Mosiah’s new regime is not a democracy as the term is understood in contemporary society. Unlike American democracy, there is no legislative branch. By modern standards, other nondemocratic elements include that the chief judge is not apparently limited in his term of office and that judges not only govern but also “reign,” to point out a few examples (see Alma 1:2; 60:21). And although political dynasties do occur in democratic states, the anticipation of familial succession seems especially strong in Nephite governance. Further, it is unclear whether the “voice of the people” implies democratic choice in creating the set of possible political options or only in choosing among a set arranged by leaders.  Citation

 26 Now it is not common that the voice of the people desireth anything contrary to that which is right; but it is common for the lesser part of the people to desire that which is not right; therefore this shall ye observe and make it your law—to do your business by the voice of the people.

NB “desire.”

What (if anything) does his statement about the voice of the people usually desiring the good say about our society today?  What does it say about minority rights/desires?

Again, I am curious if “voice of the people” is a technical term.

Irony alert:  the whole point of this letter is that the “voice of the people” has desired something that is not right and he, the monarch, is trying to talk them down.

Probably the most surprising thing about this verse is that it locates the check on judges not with the church hierarchy, but with the people, even while acknowledging the fallibility of the people (and not providing a corrective mechanism for that fallibility, other than destruction!).  Why do you think that these verses didn’t direct them to consider the voice of the high priest or the elders?

Is Mosiah2 right about this?  It seems that we are repeatedly warned in scriptures about the evils of a people or a society.  Shouldn’t his knowledge of things under King Noah have shown him that it is entirely possible for virtually everyone in a society to want the wrong thing?

Harold B. Lee:

Those who have served as public officials soon learn that there is always the imperative necessity of deciding whether or not demands on a controversial issue are being made by a well-organized loud minority or by a greater majority of those who might be less vocal but whose cause is just and in accordance with righteous principles. Always we would do well to reflect upon the counsel of a wise king of ancient times: “Now it is not common that the voice of the people desireth anything contrary to that which is right; but it is common for the lesser part of the people to desire that which is not right; therefore . . . do your business by the voice of the people.”  Let this counsel of that wise ancient king be our counsel to our Church members and the honorable of the earth everywhere. Be alert and active in your business and political interests. The great danger in any society is apathy and a failure to be alert to the issues of the day, when applied to principles or to the election of public officials.  Apr 72 GC

Delbert L. Stapley:

As in past ages, men will continue to arise to plague the work of God, for this is the intent of Satan and ever has been since the beginning of man on the earth. There are infallible guiding principles found in the revelations and in the historical records of the Lord’s dealings with his people for their guidance and protection. Here is a very important one given in this last dispensation to the Prophet Joseph Smith. The Lord gave it as a guiding admonition to his people. Said he:

“And all things shall be done by common consent in the church, by much prayer and faith, for all things you shall receive by faith” (D&C 26:2).

If the members of the Church will follow this counsel and act together in prayer and true faith, the Holy Ghost will not permit them to yield to the influence of error and false teachings of those who seek to overthrow the work of God. The great Nephite prophet, Mosiah, warning his people against kingcraft, counseled them concerning the manner in which judges to govern them should be selected, and wisely advised:

“Now it is not common that the voice of the people desireth anything contrary to that which is right; but it is common for the lesser part of the people to desire that which is not right; therefore this shall ye observe and make it your law—to do your business by the voice of the people” (Mosiah 29:26).

All wavering and disaffected individuals should remember the safeguards to faith and testimony given by the Lord through revelation, and, recognizing and working through constituted channels of priesthood authority, submit their views or claims and be willing to abide by the voice of the people, who, conforming to the above-quoted revelation, are to decide the matter after exercising much faith and prayer. If they would do this before permitting themselves to follow a deviating or contrary course, and manifest the faith to abide by the voice of the Saints, they would not go astray nor depart from the right way, and their souls and those of their posterity would, through obedience to the commandments, be saved in the kingdom of God.  Oct 59 GC

I find it interesting that he applied these verses to matters within the Church, not just political matters.

27 And if the time comes that the voice of the people doth choose iniquity, then is the time that the judgments of God will come upon you; yea, then is the time he will visit you with great destruction even as he has hitherto visited this land.

I think you could read this verse as saying that either the “voice of the people” will lead you to righteousness or to destruction, and either is fine.  But shouldn’t we want some “voice” leading the people back to righteousness?  I guess I am just surprised that the son of King Ben could write this letter.

So . . . what does this verse say to you about government in modern societies?

 28 And now if ye have judges, and they do not judge you according to the law which has been given, ye can cause that they may be judged of a higher judge.

Who is the “ye” in this verse?  How precisely would the appeals process work?

It seems sort of odd to me that we were not introduced to the idea of levels of judges (“higher judge”) until we need them for appeal.

 29 If your higher judges do not judge righteous judgments, ye shall cause that a small number of your lower judges should be gathered together, and they shall judge your higher judges, according to the voice of the people.

This strikes me as something of a circular firing squad (and about as likely to be successful)–if the lower judges didn’t get it right, and the higher judges didn’t get it right, then why would the lower judges judging the higher judges get it right?  And how exactly does “the voice of the people” fit in to this system?

 30 And I command you to do these things in the fear of the Lord; and I command you to do these things, and that ye have no king; that if these people commit sins and iniquities they shall be answered upon their own heads.

Wait–this chapter begins and ends with the importance of “the voice of the people,” but now he’s commanding them here to do something contrary to the voice of the people?  (“Help, help, [they're] being oppressed!”)

 31 For behold I say unto you, the sins of many people have been caused by the iniquities of their kings; therefore their iniquities are answered upon the heads of their kings.

General thought:  the idea that the Lord is the king is fairly well established in the OT, and is part of the basis for the prophetic distaste for earthly kings.  Given that that argument fits Mosiah’s context so very well, one wonders why he does not resort to it.

 32 And now I desire that this inequality should be no more in this land, especially among this my people; but I desire that this land be a land of liberty, and every man may enjoy his rights and privileges alike, so long as the Lord sees fit that we may live and inherit the land, yea, even as long as any of our posterity remains upon the face of the land.

What inequality?  Does “inequality” refer to the dynamic in v31?  Is that what “inequality” always means in the BoM?

Wouldn’t the presence of judges (and “higher judges”) reproduce inequality?  If not, why not?

Desire x2.

Brant Gardner:

It is very interesting that Mosiah declares that “this inequality should be no more in this land, especially among this my people.” He appears to make a distinction between this land and my people. It is possible that he is referring to the presence of this mode of kingship in other locations, and that he wishes it were removed from other cities as well as from his own people. Citation

 33 And many more things did king Mosiah write unto them, unfolding unto them all the trials and troubles of a righteous king, yea, all the travails of soul for their people, and also all the murmurings of the people to their king; and he explained it all unto them.

What a whiner!  I don’t remember Ben complaining about any of this.  Ben thought he was serving them and God by being a good, humble king.

I think it is interesting that Mormon gives us a summary, and not the direct text, of Mosiah’s whining here.

 34 And he told them that these things ought not to be; but that the burden should come upon all the people, that every man might bear his part.

OK, three dozen verses ago, he seemed content to put this burden on someone.  (Remember how the chapter began by him asking the voice of the people regarding who the next king should be?)  Has he had a mid-chapter change-of-heart?  If so, what caused it?  Or was the initial request a set-up?

 35 And he also unfolded unto them all the disadvantages they labored under, by having an unrighteous king to rule over them;

Once again–this is his son we’re talking about here!  The missionary!

 36 Yea, all his iniquities and abominations, and all the wars, and contentions, and bloodshed, and the stealing, and the plundering, and the committing of whoredoms, and all manner of iniquities which cannot be enumerated—telling them that these things ought not to be, that they were expressly repugnant to the commandments of God.

Wait, have these people never read the book of Judges?  Because having judges didn’t spare them from any of this.

 37 And now it came to pass, after king Mosiah had sent these things forth among the people they were convinced of the truth of his words.

So much for the usefulness of “the voice of the people”!  I’m just completely overwhelmed at how this chapter collapses in on itself as the voice of the people, which wanted the wrong thing, is thrown under the bus by the dictatorial king, who wants the right thing.  It’s making my head hurt.

Interesting to compare this letter (which, according to this verse, seems to have been effective) with, say, Paul’s letters, where the sense is that no one listened to him.

 38 Therefore they relinquished their desires for a king, and became exceedingly anxious that every man should have an equal chance throughout all the land; yea, and every man expressed a willingness to answer for his own sins.

What do you make of the linkage between form of government and responsibility for sin in this verse?

In keeping with our examination of the theme of desire, I’m fascinated by the idea of them “relinquishing” a desire.

39 Therefore, it came to pass that they assembled themselves together in bodies throughout the land, to cast in their voices concerning who should be their judges, to judge them according to the law which had been given them; and they were exceedingly rejoiced because of the liberty which had been granted unto them.

Irony alert:  they were granted liberty by a good king.

 40 And they did wax strong in love towards Mosiah; yea, they did esteem him more than any other man; for they did not look upon him as a tyrant who was seeking for gain, yea, for that lucre which doth corrupt the soul; for he had not exacted riches of them, neither had he delighted in the shedding of blood; but he had established peace in the land, and he had granted unto his people that they should be delivered from all manner of bondage; therefore they did esteem him, yea, exceedingly, beyond measure.

Argh!  Again!  I swear Mormon is playing with us here–pitching out the kingship system was supposed to make everyone bask in their liberty and equality, but what’s the very first thing that happens?  They get all gushy over their king!  This text is enacting precisely the opposite of what it is saying.  The whole point of getting rid of kings is so that everyone would be equal, but the very first thing they do with their new-found freedom is to “esteem [the king] more than any other man . . . exceedingly, beyond measure.”  This is CRAZY!

41 And it came to pass that they did appoint judges to rule over them, or to judge them according to the law; and this they did throughout all the land.

 42 And it came to pass that Alma was appointed to be the first chief judge, he being also the high priest, his father having conferred the office upon him, and having given him the charge concerning all the affairs of the church.

Skousen omits “first” here.

Once again, I ask how much we are really protecting against abused of power by conjoining religious and civil authority.

Note that the first act of this newly-expanded “voice of the people” is to (re)conjoin civil and religious authority.

43 And now it came to pass that Alma did walk in the ways of the Lord, and he did keep his commandments, and he did judge righteous judgments; and there was continual peace through the land.

We really need to ask:  Would this have been any different had he been named king instead of chief judge?

 44 And thus *commenced the reign of the judges throughout all the land of Zarahemla, among all the people who were called the Nephites; and Alma was the first and chief judge.

 45 And now it came to pass that his father died, being eighty and two years old, having lived to fulfil the commandments of God.

 46 And it came to pass that Mosiah died also, in the thirty and third year of his reign, being sixty and three years old; making in the whole, five hundred and nine years from the time Lehi left Jerusalem.

Skousen omits “old” here.

 47 And thus ended the reign of the kings over the people of Nephi; and thus ended the days of Alma, who was the founder of their church.

CHAPTER 1

1 NOW it came to pass that in the first year of the reign of the judges over the people of Nephi, from this time forward, king Mosiah having gone the way of all the earth, having warred a good warfare, walking uprightly before God, leaving none to reign in his stead; nevertheless he had established laws, and they were acknowledged by the people; therefore they were obliged to abide by the laws which he had made.

General comment on the book of Alma from the Feast wiki:

Events in the Book of Alma are covered in more detail than those in other periods of Book of Mormon history. There are 2,065 words per year in Alma whereas there are only 5 per year in 4 Nephi. Apparently, in Mormon’s view, the events treated in Alma are of special relevance to us, the intended audience of the book. Presumably, the Book of Alma is so important because it recounts the years that lead up to the coming of Christ in the New World. That first coming in the Americas is the best analog we have for the Second Coming of Christ. In both cases, the Lord comes in power to usher in an extended period of righteousness and peace. Mormon, presumably, thinks this account of the last days before Chrit’s arrival in power in the New World has special value for the last few generations who live in the period that leads up to the Second Coming of the Savior.

“Warred a good warfare” sounds borrowed from Paul’s “fight the good fight,” but, if anything, more literal and less metaphorical.  How literally do you read it?

Is “leaving none to reign in his stead” a good thing?  That language makes it sound like an accident, but we know it was definitely deliberate.  The “nevertheless” that follows it suggests that it may not have been a good thing.

More on the laws of Mosiah here.

Brant Gardner:

When the people of the land of Zarahemla agreed to abandon kingship for the rule of judges they were signaling a major change in their understanding of their relationship to those who ruled over them. One of the ways they used to emphasize this complete change in their social structure was to accompany this new government with a completely new count of years. Rather than continue with the count of years since the departure from Jerusalem, they begin a completely new count that dates years from the first year of the reign of the judges. According to the Nephite-year-to-modern-year correlation used in this commentary, the reign of the judges begins in 92 BC. The social implications of resetting the year should not be missed. There was no compelling reason for the people of Zarahemla to change the way they ordered their conception of time. Nevertheless, they made a change so complete as to discard a mode of counting years and establish a new one. Such calendric manipulations are not made upon whimsy, as the way years are conceived partially orders our perception of the world. Citation

2 And it came to pass that in the first year of the reign of Alma in the judgment-seat, there was a man brought before him to be judged, a man who was large, and was noted for his much strength.

(I’m going to start calling him Nehor, even though we won’t get his name until the end of the story, and I don’t think that that is accidental, but it is too awkward not to name him.)  Why is the first thing that we need to know about Nehor his physical strength and size?  (It comes into play later in his story with Gideon, but doesn’t seem immediately relevant to his false preaching.)  So this very curious thing happens:  we need his name now, but we don’t get it until the end of the story.  We don’t need to know how strong and big he is until later, but we learn that now.  Is Mormon playing with us and, if so, to what effect?

What is the point of v3-8, given that the crime of murder happens in v9?  (In other words, Mormon could have very easily told this story and omitted those verses; why were they included?)

 3 And he had gone about among the people, preaching to them that which he termed to be the word of God, bearing down against the church; declaring unto the people that every priest and teacher ought to become popular; and they ought not to labor with their hands, but that they ought to be supported by the people.

What does “bearing down” suggest to you about false preachers?

Dallin H. Oaks:

A gospel teacher does not preach “to become popular” (Alma 1:3) or “for the sake of riches and honor” (Alma 1:16). He or she follows the marvelous Book of Mormon example in which “the preacher was no better than the hearer, neither was the teacher any better than the learner” (Alma 1:26). Both will always look to the Master. Oct 99 GC

So the BoM makes a huge deal about priests laboring “with their own hands.”  But note that what Nehor is proposing here is not just that they go on the church payroll, but that they get paid according to how popular they are.  (Which, incidentally, is the way it works out with many ‘celebrity’ preachers today and, one might add if one were brave, LDS teachers/leaders/preachers who make money from speaking/writing.)

Webster 1828 popular:

1. Pertaining to the common people; as the popular voice; popular elections.

2. Suitable to common people; familiar; plain; easy to be comprehended; not critical or abstruse.

3. Beloved by the people; enjoying the favor of the people; pleasing to people in general; as a popular governor; a popular preacher; a popular ministry; a popular discourse; a popular administration; a popular war or peace. Suspect the man who endeavors to make that popular which is wrong.

4. Ambitious; studious of the favor of the people.

[This sense is not used. It is more customary to apply this epithet to a person who has already gained the favor of the people.]

5. Prevailing among the people; extensively prevalent; as a popular disease.

6. In law, a popular action is one which gives a penalty to the person that sues for the same.

[Note. Popular, at least in the United States, is not synonymous with vulgar; the latter being applied to the lower classes of people, the illiterate and low bred; the former is applied to all classes, or to the body of the people, including a great portion at least of well educated citizens.]  Note that the material in the brackets is from Mr. Webster, not from me!

I think most people think #3 is the definition of “popular.”

What I find so interesting about Nehor’s position here is that it is nicely aligned with Mosiah2′s plan for the government, where instead of a king hoarding (and probably misusing) power, it belongs to “the voice of the people.”  Nehor is here suggesting that precisely the same principle be applied to preachers and teachers, which, given the overlap in Zarahemla civic/religious structure, is really not a leap at all.  So I think analysis of this story needs to go much deeper than “paying priests is bad” to tease out what precisely was wrong about Nehor’s suggestion, and how it might have seemed to be a natural outgrowth of Mosiah’s reforms.

 4 And he also testified unto the people that all mankind should be saved at the last day, and that they need not fear nor tremble, but that they might lift up their heads and rejoice; for the Lord had created all men, and had also redeemed all men; and, in the end, all men should have eternal life.

Will all mankind be saved at the last day?  Should people fear and tremble?  Should people lift up their heads and rejoice?  Has the Lord redeemed all people?  Will all people have eternal life?  The reason that I turned all of Nehor’s statements into questions is that I think his intermixing of truth and error is fascinating and subtle.  Mostly, he’s taken absolutely true things and decontextualized them to make them misleading.  This seems to me to be a huge danger that we should be aware of today.  It isn’t as simple as “making a false statement;” it is more like uprooting a true statement and presenting it in a false way.

Irony:  Nehor is a preacher of salvation and eternal life and rejoicing and the Lord as creator.

There may be a link between the rise of Nehor and the new system of government.  Note that some of Nehor’s key ideas are that all mankind should be saved and that all men are redeemed and that all should have eternal life.  I think we can say that he has taken this whole equality idea just a little too far.  We can see the same twisting in v2, where the idea that priests should be popular could be based on the idea that people have an increased responsibility for themselves (now that their is no king) and that part of that responsibility is supporting their priests.  (And you are probably tired of me beating this drum, but I’m still toying with the idea that Mosiah2′s governmental innovations were a mistake, and that the rise of Nehor is some evidence for that.)

Is there a link between the false ideas he preaches or is it just a grab bag?  (That is to say, is there something about popular preachers that is somehow linked to the idea of universalism?)

L. Tom Perry:

Nehor’s words appealed to the people, but his doctrine, while popular to many, was incorrect. As we face the many decisions in life, the easy and popular messages of the world will not usually be the right ones to choose, and it will take much courage to choose the right. Oct 93 GC

D. Todd Christofferson:

On the surface such philosophies seem appealing because they give us license to indulge any appetite or desire without concern for consequences. By using the teachings of Nehor and Korihor, we can rationalize and justify anything. When prophets come crying repentance, it “throws cold water on the party.” But in reality the prophetic call should be received with joy. Without repentance, there is no real progress or improvement in life. Pretending there is no sin does not lessen its burden and pain. Suffering for sin does not by itself change anything for the better. Only repentance leads to the sunlit uplands of a better life. And, of course, only through repentance do we gain access to the atoning grace of Jesus Christ and salvation. Repentance is a divine gift, and there should be a smile on our faces when we speak of it. It points us to freedom, confidence, and peace. Rather than interrupting the celebration, the gift of repentance is the cause for true celebration. Oct 11 GC

5 And it came to pass that he did teach these things so much that many did believe on his words, even so many that they began to support him and give him money.

Interesting that they are supporting a (wicked) cause that is against their own economic self-interest (because they are better off if they don’t have to pay their preachers, but the preachers are self-supporting).

Brant Gardner:

This verse contains a clear translation error. The people of Zarahemla clearly provided Nehor support so that he did not have to work, but Joseph Smith translated this support as “money.” The use of money as a medium of exchange was not known in Mesoamerica. Even though the original Nephites would have known of money, it is unlikely that they would have instituted a monetary system early in their community as there was nothing to give it value. Money has value only because we agree that it has value. In the types of communities known in Mesoamerica, there was little to “buy” in many cases. Barter was the means of exchange, and the support Nehor received would have initially been subsistence that he didn’t provide with his own hands. However, it is also clear that he was provided with more than simple necessity. He was supplied with some type of surplus. Nehor was able to turn his “support” into the trappings of wealth. It is in this sense that Joseph translated “money.” Nehor was able to “buy” the trappings of wealth. While the word is technically incorrect, the connotation is correct. Citation

If Gardner is right about that, then it may be that was he was given was the fine clothing described in the next verse.

 6 And he began to be lifted up in the pride of his heart, and to wear very costly apparel, yea, and even began to establish a church after the manner of his preaching.

I find in intriguing that pride wasn’t a problem *before* this.

Do you conclude from this verse that wearing expensive clothes is an outward manifestation of pride?

Given that this church he establishes requires people to do something that is against their own economic self-interest, why would it have been appealing to people?

7 And it came to pass as he was going, to preach to those who believed on his word, he met a man who belonged to the church of God, yea, even one of their teachers; and he began to contend with him sharply, that he might lead away the people of the church; but the man withstood him, admonishing him with the words of God.

8 Now the name of the man was Gideon; and it was he who was an instrument in the hands of God in delivering the people of Limhi out of bondage.

Once again, we get this odd thing where we aren’t given Gideon’s name when we would have expected it, in the middle of v7, especially since we have been introduced to him before.

What does the image of “an instrument in the hands of the Lord” suggest to you?

The “it was he . . . ” seems a little gratuitous, given that we should, I think, be able to remember what happened in Mosiah 22–it wasn’t that long ago.  But characterizing Gideon’s actions there (which, frankly, seemed like a somewhat odd plot, especially given the parallels with the way that Alma’s people escape–they didn’t have to get anyone drunk, God took care of it for them) as being an instrument in God’s hands is quite the gloss on that story.  Why do we get that gloss here and not before?

9 Now, because Gideon withstood him with the words of God he was wroth with Gideon, and drew his sword and began to smite him. Now Gideon being stricken with many years, therefore he was not able to withstand his blows, therefore he was slain by the sword.

We were introduced to Gideon in Mosiah 19:4:

And now there was a man among them whose name was Gideon, and he being a strong man and an enemy to the king, therefore he drew his sword, and swore in his wrath that he would slay the king.

Is this a “he who lives by the sword, dies by the sword” moment?

They start with a verbal battle, but when Nehor seems to be losing, he switches to a physical battle.  Gideon wins the verbal but loses the physical battle; Nehor is the reverse.

 10 And the man who slew him was taken by the people of the church, and was brought before Alma, to be judged according to the crimes which he had committed.

Skousen reads “crime” here.

This verse is quite awkward because it doesn’t use Nehor’s name.  One suspects at this point, given that awkwardness, that the lack of a name is deliberate for some reason.  What effect does it have on the audience?

 11 And it came to pass that he stood before Alma and pleaded for himself with much boldness.

Was he pleading just because he was desperate?  Or did he have some reason to think he might be treated leniently?

 12 But Alma said unto him: Behold, this is the first time that priestcraft has been introduced among this people. And behold, thou art not only guilty of priestcraft, but hast endeavored to enforce it by the sword; and were priestcraft to be enforced among this people it would prove their entire destruction.

What does this verse (and the preceding story) teach you about the definition of “priestcraft”?

Why would priestcraft be so destructive?

This verse is Alma explaining why Nehor shouldn’t be treated leniently . . . why is that entirely necessary given that he just murdered someone?

Is this really the first time priestcraft is introduced?  On the one hand, that’s a pretty good record.  On the other hand, I can’t help but noting that the first time it is introduced is in the first year of the judges.  Did the shift from kings to judges make priestcraft more likely?  If so, why?

One would have suspected that Alma would have been focused on the murder, but instead Alma leads off with a discussion of priestcraft.  Why?

 13 And thou hast shed the blood of a righteous man, yea, a man who has done much good among this people; and were we to spare thee his blood would come upon us for vengeance.

How literally do you take the idea of blood seeking vengeance?

 14 Therefore thou art condemned to die, according to the law which has been given us by Mosiah, our last king; and it has been acknowledged by this people; therefore this people must abide by the law.

Does this mean that they aren’t really following the law of Moses anymore?

Do the last two phrases imply that there was a formal, explicit social contract?

 15 And it came to pass that they took him; and his name was Nehor; and they carried him upon the top of the hill Manti, and there he was caused, or rather did acknowledge, between the heavens and the earth, that what he had taught to the people was contrary to the word of God; and there he suffered an ignominious death.

What effect does it have on the reader not to get Nehor’s name until the story is almost over?

In the Bible, to know someone’s name is to have some control over them.  (This explains some of the odder elements of the stories involving Jesus and demons.)  In this case, we don’t get Nehor’s name until the people have “taken him.”  We are at quite a distance from biblical culture here, but I wonder if there is something going on here with us not getting Nehor’s name (when it was pretty darn awkward to tell the entire story without using it) until Nehor was taken in control by the people.

Brant Gardner:

Nehor was the main city in the land of Nehor described in the Book of Ether (Ether 7:4,8). Thus Nehor is a Jaredite name. Nehor appears to be old enough that his naming would have preceded Mosiah’s translation of the record of Ether (recorded in Mosiah 28:11-18). Had he been named after the translation, we might suppose that he could have been named for the city because of the translation. Since this does not appear to be the case, he must have received his name through some other connection to the Jaredite culture and lands. While a name in and of itself does not clearly indicate an affiliation, it is likely that Nehor’s differences in religion have something to do with outside influences coming from the Jaredite regions. Citation

If Gardner is right about that link, then that may explain the reason for withholding Nehor’s name until the end of the story–it would answer the looming question of “where did this guy come from?” in a most dramatic way.

Is there any link between the idea of “acknowledging” the law in the previous verse and Nehor’s acknowledgement in this verse?

What does “between the heavens and the earth” mean?

I want gory details on his ignominious death!

This is the only time “ignominious” is used in the scriptures.

Spencer W. Kimball:

The antediluvians were a law unto themselves and locked doors against themselves. Jonah, in his egotism, took offense when the repentance of Nineveh rendered unnecessary the fulfillment of his prophecy (Jonah 4:1-3). Judas fought against God (Luke 22:3) and suffered the buffetings of Satan (D&C 104:9). Sherem with his learning, his eloquence and his flattery, sought to turn away people from the simple faith, and he died in remorse and humiliation (Jacob 7:17-20). Nehor tried to advance his own cause, increase his popularity, and lead a following with his criticisms and flatteries, and came to ignominious death (Alma 1:15). Korihor, with his teachings of intellectual liberty and his rationalizations, followed his temporary popularity with begging in the streets (Alma 30:58-59). The Jonahs and Almas and Korihors live on and undertake cover their sins, gratify their pride, and vain ambitions (D&C 121:37). They grieve the Spirit of the Lord, withdraw from holy places and righteous influences, and in the words of the Savior: Behold, ere he is aware, be is left unto himself, to kick against the pricks, to persecute the saints and to fight against God (D&C 121:38).  Apr 55 GC

(Mostly I included that SWK statement because [1] ‘antediluvian’ is one of my favorite words and [2] he doesn’t white-wash Jonah like most LDS readers do.)

Does this sound like a coerced confession to you?

16 Nevertheless, this did not put an end to the spreading of priestcraft through the land; for there were many who loved the vain things of the world, and they went forth preaching false doctrines; and this they did for the sake of riches and honor.

Should we have expected his death to put an end to priestcraft?

What do you conclude from the fact that a public confession and execution was not enough to end priestcraft?

Why would loving the vain things of the world correlate with spreading priestcraft?  What are the vain things of the world?  (Are they riches and honor?  Isn’t honor usually a good thing?)

So does this mean that Alma was wrong in v12?

In what ways is what Nehor preaches “vain”?

Given that the execution of Nehor didn’t stop his ideas, what is the moral of the story?  Was executing him the right thing to do?  Why was his story included in the record?  Was there something that they could have done to stop priestcraft?  If so, what?  Contrast with the story of Sherem, where a religious figure (and not a judge, applying the law) dealt with the situation.  There was more divine intervention there (at least in the record that we have), and what seems like genuine contrition (see Jacob 7:18f) (as opposed to Nehor, where it feels forced).  And note the conclusion to that story:  not more dissent, but “it came to pass that peace and the love of God was restored again among the people; and they searched the scriptures, and hearkened no more to the words of this wicked man.”  In other words, I think it is safe to say that the resolution to the Sherem story is far superior to that of the Nehor story.  Sherem wasn’t executed via legal mechanism, he dies according to the will and act of God.  I think you can compare the Nehor and Sherem story and easily conclude that the religious solution to heresy is far superior in its effects than the legal solution.  So, again, are we supposed to conclude that Mosiah2′s legal reforms were a bad idea?

Did the Nephite policy of not paying priests (but requiring them to earn their own money through other labor) open the door to problems of seeking riches that might have been avoided if they’d all been boringly, predictably, middlingly, on the church payroll?

In what ways would their false preachings have brought them honor?

So the BoM doesn’t like market economics applied to priests.  I don’t think anyone would disagree with that; but the more interesting question to me is this:  What else should we not be monetizing?  (Can’t wait to read this.)

 17 Nevertheless, they durst not lie, if it were known, for fear of the law, for liars were punished; therefore they pretended to preach according to their belief; and now the law could have no power on any man for his belief.

A question to ponder, but not to ask in Sunday School:  What laws do we have that could be considered as punishing someone for their beliefs?

I think this verse implies that they could preach things contrary to the Nephite church as long as (and only as long as) they genuinely believed those things.  How might this have worked?  I think this verse is saying that if the law could show that they preached things that they knew to be false, they’d be toast.  But if they preached things that they pretended to believe, they were fine.  This strikes me as weird, since it locates the violation of the law in the (dis)belief of the preacher, which strikes me as a difficult and subjective case (on both sides) to have to make in front of a judge.

 18 And they durst not steal, for fear of the law, for such were punished; neither durst they rob, nor murder, for he that murdered was punished unto death.

Is the implication that they wanted to steal or rob?

Are stealing and robbing two different things in this verse?

Do v17-18 picture a society where the “letter of the law” was followed but evil was allowed to flourish because people were just following the letter of the law?  It seems to me that if this reading is correct, then it is quite the indictment of Mosiah2′s reforms that placed the law and not the king at the center of their society.  Brant Gardner provides an opposing view:

Mormon finishes with these two affirmations of law. These should be seen in contrast to the continuation of the pressures towards priestcraft in verse 16. What Mormon is doing is noting that law did not cure the priestcraft, but that law was applied for greater order. It is as if he is contrasting the failure on the one hand with successes on the next. Also implicit in Mormon’s argument is that the ideas of priestcraft were not against the law.  Citation

 19 But it came to pass that whosoever did not belong to the church of God began to persecute those that did belong to the church of God, and had taken upon them the name of Christ.

(How) is this related to the verse before it?

Why would non-members persecute members?  (Is it specifically related to the false teachings in some way?)

Given that we already know that church members have taken Christ’s name, what does that phrase accomplish in this verse?

 20 Yea, they did persecute them, and afflict them with all manner of words, and this because of their humility; because they were not proud in their own eyes, and because they did impart the word of God, one with another, without money and without price.

I love the idea of being afflicted with words!

Why would their humility make them a target of persecution?

 21 Now there was a strict law among the people of the church, that there should not any man, belonging to the church, arise and persecute those that did not belong to the church, and that there should be no persecution among themselves.

How might we be guilty of persecuting those who do not belong to the church?

Does this “law” mean a law through the legal system, or the law of the church?  What are the implications of a civil law that prevented persecution of non-members?

 22 Nevertheless, there were many among them who began to be proud, and began to contend warmly with their adversaries, even unto blows; yea, they would smite one another with their fists.

I think, based on v21, that this verse is describing something that is happening within the church.

Again, does this activity suggest that their legal regime was insufficient?  Note that even church members ended up participating in physical violence here.

Do you take Mormon’s abridgment as objective fact, or do you suspect that he or his source(s) would have placed Nephite participation in violence and persecution in the best possible light?

 23 Now this was in the *second year of the reign of Alma, and it was a cause of much affliction to the church; yea, it was the cause of much trial with the church.

Wow!  That happened fast!

Are affliction and trial two separate things or two ways of saying the same thing?

 24 For the hearts of many were hardened, and their names were blotted out, that they were remembered no more among the people of God. And also many withdrew themselves from among them.

Skousen thinks “remembered” should be “numbered.”

The second sentence seems to be describing something different from the first sentence.  What is the distinction between the two groups?

 25 Now this was a great trial to those that did stand fast in the faith; nevertheless, they were steadfast and immovable in keeping the commandments of God, and they bore with patience the persecution which was heaped upon them.

In what ways would what was described in v24 be a trial to the saints?

Usually the image is “walking with God” but here it is “steadfast and immovable.”  Interesting inversion.  Maybe this was chosen because other people are walking out of the church and this group is staying firmly in place.

 26 And when the priests left their labor to impart the word of God unto the people, the people also left their labors to hear the word of God. And when the priest had imparted unto them the word of God they all returned again diligently unto their labors; and the priest, not esteeming himself above his hearers, for the preacher was no better than the hearer, neither was the teacher any better than the learner; and thus they were all equal, and they did all labor, every man according to his strength.

Note that the frequent BoM theme of priests laboring is shown here to be motivated by a desire to maintain equality (not, as we might think, to avoid corruption or burdening the church members).  Implications?

I think it is safe to say that the BoM hits us over the head with the idea that (1) inequality is really bad and (2) the chief source of inequality stems from the improper relationship to labor/wealth.  What conclusions and modern applications might we draw from this?

 27 And they did impart of their substance, every man according to that which he had, to the poor, and the needy, and the sick, and the afflicted; and they did not wear costly apparel, yet they were neat and comely.

Note again the emphasis given to clothing as an indicator of equality.

I’m curious about a possible relationship between the Lamanite “mark” and the mark of costly apparel.  How might they be related and what could we learn from that?

Susan W. Tanner:

The pleasures of the body can become an obsession for some; so too can the attention we give to our outward appearance. Sometimes there is a selfish excess of exercising, dieting, makeovers, and spending money on the latest fashions (see Alma 1:27). Oct 05 GC

Brant Gardner:

Mormon is continuing his descriptions of the good things about the Nephite church. Notice that the very specific “good things” are defined economically. When these good things are contrasted with the “bad things” of the non-churchmen, the differences will continue to be defined economically rather than theologically. No matter what else Mormon is telling us, he is highlighting the fact that the major controversy between churchmen and non-churchmen was a particular attitude towards a social system of economics. The churchmen advocated an egalitarian society, and the non-churchmen advocated a stratified society. Citation

 28 And thus they did establish the affairs of the church; and thus they began to have continual peace again, notwithstanding all their persecutions.

 29 And now, because of the steadiness of the church they began to be exceedingly rich, having abundance of all things whatsoever they stood in need—an abundance of flocks and herds, and fatlings of every kind, and also abundance of grain, and of gold, and of silver, and of precious things, and abundance of silk and fine-twined linen, and all manner of good homely cloth.

What does this verse tell us about the bad kind of costly apparel?  (Or:  is it OK to wear silk and fine-twined linen, or is that part of the problem?)

I think it is possible to read this verse as saying that “having abundance of all things whatsoever they stood in need” is the definition of “rich.” (This could perhaps be distinguished from their larger cultural view of wealth, as having the ability to wear costly clothes.) Is that the case?  If so, how might that impact our reading of the idea of wealth in the BoM?

James E. Faust:

We recognize that the process of establishing the Lord’s church encompasses much more than baptizing people. In the first chapter of Alma in the Book of Mormon we find an instructive sequence of events outlining the way by which the Lord’s church is established. Beginning with verse 26 we read: “The priests left their labor to impart the word of God unto the people. … And when the priest had imparted unto them the word of God they all returned again diligently unto their labors; … and thus they were all equal, and they did all labor, every man according to his strength. And they did impart of their substance, every man according to that which he had, to the poor, and the needy, and the sick, and the afflicted; and they did not wear costly apparel, yet they were neat and comely” (Alma 1:26–27). Let us take note of this process: First, the doctrines are taught (see Alma 1:26). Second, members esteem each other as themselves (see Alma 1:26). Third, they all labor; they work and earn that which they receive (see Alma 1:26). Fourth, they impart of their substance to the less fortunate; they serve one another (see Alma 1:27). Fifth, they discipline their own appetites while at the same time caring appropriately for their own needs (see Alma 1:27). Now, listen to the declaration of the prophet: “And thus they did establish the affairs of the church. … And now, because of the steadiness of the church they began to be exceeding rich, having abundance of all things whatsoever they stood in need” (Alma 1:28–29). This mighty change happened, not because the people were given things, but rather because they were taught and began to help themselves and to care for those who were less fortunate. It was when they gave of themselves in the Lord’s way that their circumstances began to improve. This process of establishing the Church can apply anywhere. Oct 79 GC

 30 And thus, in their prosperous circumstances, they did not send away any who were naked, or that were hungry, or that were athirst, or that were sick, or that had not been nourished; and they did not set their hearts upon riches; therefore they were liberal to all, both old and young, both bond and free, both male and female, whether out of the church or in the church, having no respect to persons as to those who stood in need.

Note that they are following King Ben’s counsel not to judge people who are needy.

Usually, prosperous people have a problem with wealth but here we are specifically told that they did not set their hearts upon riches.  Are there any indications in the text as to how they were able to accomplish this?

I love how the climax of their wealth is not “stuff” but the ability to care for everyone who needs it.

 31 And thus they did prosper and become far more wealthy than those who did not belong to their church.

Note the “thus”:  the reason they became wealthy was because they were giving their wealth away.  This is a nice parallel to Psalm 72, which posits the peace, stability, and overall success of Israel as the outgrowth of the king’s actions in caring for the poor (discussion here).

 32 For those who did not belong to their church did indulge themselves in sorceries, and in idolatry or idleness, and in babblings, and in envyings and strife; wearing costly apparel; being lifted up in the pride of their own eyes; persecuting, lying, thieving, robbing, committing whoredoms, and murdering, and all manner of wickedness; nevertheless, the law was put in force upon all those who did transgress it, inasmuch as it was possible.

We can imagine how idolatry or wearing costly clothing would deplete their riches, but what is the relationship to sorcery, babblings, etc.?  I think this verse is fascinating when read in conjunction with v31, because it in effect is saying:  if you want to be wealthy, don’t do these things.  And many of “these things” have no obvious economic impact.

Note the final line:  once again, I feel that Mormon or his source is implicitly criticizing the legal regime established by Mosiah2 because of the system’s tepid ability to respond to social problems.

 33 And it came to pass that by thus exercising the law upon them, every man suffering according to that which he had done, they became more still, and durst not commit any wickedness if it were known; therefore, there was much peace among the people of Nephi until the fifth year of the reign of the judges.

CHAPTER 2

1 And it came to pass in the commencement of the *fifth year of their reign there began to be a contention among the people; for a certain man, being called Amlici, he being a very cunning man, yea, a wise man as to the wisdom of the world, he being after the order of the man that slew Gideon by the sword, who was executed according to the law—

Why “their reign” and not “his reign?

Does “after the order” mean that Nehor wasn’t a lone wolf?  If so, why are we not learning that until now?  (The natural order of things would have been to have introduced the idea of an “order” when Nehor introduced it and not wait until after his story is over to mention it.)

“Who was executed”–we know that.  Why repeat it?

“The man that slew Gideon” is a lot more work to write than “Nehor.”  Why do you think Nehor’s name is left out?  (Is that at all related to the fact that Nehor was not named until, awkwardly, the very end of his story?  It is hard to escape the idea that the [un]naming of Nehor has some fairly weighty significance.)

2 Now this Amlici had, by his cunning, drawn away much people after him; even so much that they began to be very powerful; and they began to endeavor to establish Amlici to be a king over the people.

Note that this is the second time in as many verses that we are told about his cunning.  What are we to learn from that?

So–does this mean that all of Mosiah2′s planning was for naught, since even having judges didn’t save them from plotters who would be king?  (And it has only been five years!)

I would have expected Amlici to be seeking religious authority, since Nehor was concerned with religious, not civil, issues and Amlici was just described as being “after the order of [Nehor].”  But this verse shows Amlici seeking civil authority.  What gives?

What kind of power did they have?  Where did they get it and how was it manifest?  (And how does their quick and disturbing rise to power relate to the recent switch away from having kings, which was justified in terms of potential abuse of power?)

What does this verse tell us about cunning?  What should our attitude toward it be?  How can we recognize it?

3 Now this was alarming to the people of the church, and also to all those who had not been drawn away after the persuasions of Amlici; for they knew that according to their law that such things must be established by the voice of the people.

Again I am curious about the tension between their laws from their fathers and the voice of the people.

Does the last line mean that it would have been OK to have a king had it been the will of the voice of the people?

4 Therefore, if it were possible that Amlici should gain the voice of the people, he, being a wicked man, would deprive them of their rights and privileges of the church; for it was his intent to destroy the church of God.

So . . . does this mean Mosiah2 did a bad job of setting up the government?  After all, if they had a king, then they wouldn’t have to worry about Amlici amassing power via the voice of the people here.  Note that the first mention of the “voice of the people” is Mosiah 7:9, which is Zeniff, who we know was at best over-zealous and at worst a civil-war-starting crazy dude.  (But to be fair, Mosiah 2:11 implies that Ben was chosen by the voice of the people without using those exact words.)  Of course, this raises the question of what exactly Mosiah2′s reforms would accomplish if they had already been selecting their leaders by the voice of the people.  Brant Gardner examines the evidence for how the voice of the people functioned in Nephite society here.

5 And it came to pass that the people assembled themselves together throughout all the land, every man according to his mind, whether it were for or against Amlici, in separate bodies, having much dispute and wonderful contentions one with another.

What does “in separate bodies” mean:  just that for practical reasons they had to have many small confabs, or that the “pro” and “anti” Amlici groups met separately?

Does “wonderful” mean these contentions were good, or that they caused wonder?

6 And thus they did assemble themselves together to cast in their voices concerning the matter; and they were laid before the judges.

I’m curious about “voices” (especially voices that can be “cast in”), since “the voice of the people” has been something of a technical term, but always singular, as it is in the next verse.

7 And it came to pass that the voice of the people came against Amlici, that he was not made king over the people.

8 Now this did cause much joy in the hearts of those who were against him; but Amlici did stir up those who were in his favor to anger against those who were not in his favor.

Doesn’t this verse prove that Mosiah2′s effort to establish a “no kings = no contention” government has just failed?

9 And it came to pass that they gathered themselves together, and did consecrate Amlici to be their king.

10 Now when Amlici was made king over them he commanded them that they should take up arms against their brethren; and this he did that he might subject them to him.

11 Now the people of Amlici were distinguished by the name of Amlici, being called Amlicites; and the remainder were called Nephites, or the people of God.

12 Therefore the people of the Nephites were aware of the intent of the Amlicites, and therefore they did prepare to meet them; yea, they did arm themselves with swords, and with cimeters, and with bows, and with arrows, and with stones, and with slings, and with all manner of weapons of war, of every kind.

What made the Nephites aware of their intents?  (It seems to be the taking on of a new name . . . very interesting.)

Why was it important to Mormon that we get a weapons catalog here?

13 And thus they were prepared to meet the Amlicites at the time of their coming. And there were appointed captains, and higher captains, and chief captains, according to their numbers.

Interesting that their military organization is parallel to their civic one (X, higher X, chief X, where X can be judge or captain, but note in v16 that there is more than one chief captain), but not their religious one (where we have teachers, elders, priests, and a high priest).

14 And it came to pass that Amlici did arm his men with all manner of weapons of war of every kind; and he also appointed rulers and leaders over his people, to lead them to war against their brethren.

15 And it came to pass that the Amlicites came upon the hill Amnihu, which was east of the river Sidon, which ran by the land of Zarahemla, and there they began to make war with the Nephites.

Skousen reads “up upon” here.

16 Now Alma, being the chief judge and the governor of the people of Nephi, therefore he went up with his people, yea, with his captains, and chief captains, yea, at the head of his armies, against the Amlicites to battle.

What does “governnor” mean here–is it a title or a description?

Interesting that he isn’t the chief captain.

Does “at the head of his armies” mean that the chief captain(s) was the head of the army, or that Alma was?  (I think it is interesting in v29 it is Alma taking on the enemy leader and not one of the chief captains.)

17 And they began to slay the Amlicites upon the hill east of Sidon. And the Amlicites did contend with the Nephites with great strength, insomuch that many of the Nephites did fall before the Amlicites.

18 Nevertheless the Lord did strengthen the hand of the Nephites, that they slew the Amlicites with great slaughter, that they began to flee before them.

Skousen reads “a great slaughter” here.

The point seems to be that the Nephites are losing (v17) until the Lord intervenes.  What should we learn from this?

19 And it came to pass that the Nephites did pursue the Amlicites all that day, and did slay them with much slaughter, insomuch that there were slain of the Amlicites twelve thousand five hundred thirty and two souls; and there were slain of the Nephites six thousand five hundred sixty and two souls.

I think that there might be a moral here that even when the Lord is fighting your battles for you, you still have to fight your own battles.

Why do you think Mormon wanted us to know the death tallies here?

Brant Gardner:

What makes these numbers most fascinating is that they appear to be interrelated. Using numerals instead of words, we have 12,562 and 6,532. There are comparisons that are difficult to explain between the two. First, there is 12,000 versus 6,000. Whatever we might think of the 12 and the 6, the very fact that one is precisely twice the other is suspicious. On top of the precise doubling of the thousands, and have an absolute match in the hundreds, with both having 500. In the final set of numbers, there is a difference, but a fascinating one. In the tens column we again have a doubling, and then in the ones column an exact match. The gross match is then described as doubled/exact/doubled/exact. The more exact pattern, from the larger to the smaller number, is: halved/exact/doubled/exact. This most specific set of counts in the Book of Mormon is highly suspicious, and appears to be a created number. Citation

Gardner also posits a relationship between this and Mesoamerican number systems, but I dunno.

20 And it came to pass that when Alma could pursue the Amlicites no longer he caused that his people should pitch their tents in the valley of Gideon, the valley being called after that Gideon who was slain by the hand of Nehor with the sword; and in this valley the Nephites did pitch their tents for the night.

Does this verse imply that the location is significant?  (I suspect that the explanation of why it was called after Gideon and who Gideon was–which we already know!–implies that it is significant.)

Why couldn’t he pursue them any longer?

Note that Nehor is named this time; that’s unusual for him.  Why might this be?

21 And Alma sent spies to follow the remnant of the Amlicites, that he might know of their plans and their plots, whereby he might guard himself against them, that he might preserve his people from being destroyed.

I’m curious about the idea of spies in the BoM.  Remember that Zeniff was a spy, and his (mis)interpretation of what he saw when spying leads to an unimaginable calamity.

Is there a moral to be drawn from the idea of sending spies if we read allegorically?  (Crazy idea for a short story:  a little department of the church that sends its employees into strip clubs and porn websites so they can be aware of what the enemy is doing.  Haha.)

22 Now those whom he had sent out to watch the camp of the Amlicites were called Zeram, and Amnor, and Manti, and Limher; these were they who went out with their men to watch the camp of the Amlicites.

Why do we need to know the names of the spies?  (This is the only time they show up in the record, but Manti will be a hill and Amnor a unit of measurement later on.)

23 And it came to pass that on the morrow they returned into the camp of the Nephites in great haste, being greatly astonished, and struck with much fear, saying:

Echoes of the spies sent to Jericho here?  Echoes of Zeniff’s spying mission?

Was fear the right reaction to have?  After all, the Lord is helping them?  Is the point that they mess up?  Why was their emotion recorded in the first place?  Or is the point that they are valiant in that they didn’t succumb to Lamanite charms the way that Zeniff did?

24 Behold, we followed the camp of the Amlicites, and to our great astonishment, in the land of Minon, above the land of Zarahemla, in the course of the land of Nephi, we saw a numerous host of the Lamanites; and behold, the Amlicites have joined them;

Is there a “moral of the story” to the idea that the Amlicites joined the Lamanites?  (It seems to me that in some ways, the BoM is one big long winnowing, as more and more people peel away from the righteous remnant and choose to join the Lamanites.)  How might this be relevant to our day?

25 And they are upon our brethren in that land; and they are fleeing before them with their flocks, and their wives, and their children, towards our city; and except we make haste they obtain possession of our city, and our fathers, and our wives, and our children be slain.

But note that these Nephites (even though they have to risk their lives to spy on them, and they are their military enemies) haven’t disowned the Amlicites, but still call them “our brethren.”

Is there a moral to be drawn from this–perhaps something about leaving Zarahemla insufficiently defended?

Fathers, wives, and children is an interesting grouping–it is usually wives and children.  And why the heck don’t they mention their mothers?

Do you find it odd that the Lamanites would so willingly accept the Amlicites, especially when, to all observers, the Amlicites would have looked as if they were prepared to go to battle against the Lamanites?

Brant Gardner writes, “The ethnic identity of the Amlicites apparently held no inherent impediment for joining with the Nephites,” which is very interesting food for thought when thinking about all this business of “marks” and “curses” that we are about to read.

Brant Gardner:

Sorenson suggests that this meeting was planned beforehand, and that the Amlicite attack on the East side of the Sidon was calculated to draw the Nephite army off away from Zarahemla, and thus leave it more vulnerable from the main Lamanite attack on the West side of the Sidon (Sorenson 1985, p. 196). While there is no direct hint at collusion between the Amlicites and the Lamanites in the text itself, the particulars of the Amlicite attack make this scenario quite plausible, and perhaps best explains how the Amlicites could come upon the Lamanite army in full battle regalia and be accepted so quickly.  Citation

26 And it came to pass that the people of Nephi took their tents, and departed out of the valley of Gideon towards their city, which was the city of Zarahemla.

Is it significant that they are called “the people of Nephi” and not called some military designation here?  (“The armies of Nephi” or something seems to make more sense.)

We already know that their city was the city of Zarahemla–why mention it?

27 And behold, as they were crossing the river Sidon, the Lamanites and the Amlicites, being as numerous almost, as it were, as the sands of the sea, came upon them to destroy them.

“The sands of the sea” is frequently used to describe the extent of Abraham’s posterity.  Is that meaning alluded to here?  Also, the last number we got was a very specific death count.  How does that relate to this very imprecise count?

28 Nevertheless, the Nephites being strengthened by the hand of the Lord, having prayed mightily to him that he would deliver them out of the hands of their enemies, therefore the Lord did hear their cries, and did strengthen them, and the Lamanites and the Amlicites did fall before them.

This is the second time in this passage that we hear of the hand of the Lord strengthening them.  What I find interesting is that the spy mission and its results are not described in terms of divine intervention, but are sandwiched in between references to that intervention.

I think the right way to read v28 is as a pre-summary of the material in v29-38.  If this is correct, why would Mormon have wanted us to have this summary (and interpretation) of events before we read the story itself?  Also, this summary suggests a very general thing (“deliver them,” “strengthen them,” “fall before them”) but what is actually narrated is a one-on-one story of Alma.  Why do you think this summary is more corporate but the narrated experience is more personal?

29 And it came to pass that Alma fought with Amlici with the sword, face to face; and they did contend mightily, one with another.

Is it significant that the leaders are going mano a mano here?

The sword of Laban functioned for many generations as a symbol of Nephite kingship.  There is reference to a sword here, but not the sword of Laban.  It is wielded by the Nephite leader, who is not a king.  What’s going on here?

If we want to read metaphorically, I find it most interesting that what the Lord has done for Alma is strengthen him (v28, v31), not fight his battles for him or find a way to help him avoid his battles.

30 And it came to pass that Alma, being a man of God, being exercised with much faith, cried, saying: O Lord, have mercy and spare my life, that I may be an instrument in thy hands to save and preserve this people.

Skousen reads “protect” instead of “preserve” here.

Throughout this entire section of the BoM, the phrase “instrument in the hands of God” is frequently used.  What does that metaphor suggest to us about how we should view our lives?

Are “save” and “preserve” to different things or two ways of saying the same thing?

31 Now when Alma had said these words he contended again with Amlici; and he was strengthened, insomuch that he slew Amlici with the sword.

In what situations might you want to model Alma’s prayer here?

Are you bothered by the fact that the answer to Alma’s prayer was his ability to kill someone?  (But note that he didn’t pray for Amlici’s death; he prayed that his own life would be spared.  This may be an important key to understanding warfare in the BoM.)

Note that Alma asked for his life to be preserved and what he got was strength.

32 And he also contended with the king of the Lamanites; but the king of the Lamanites fled back from before Alma and sent his guards to contend with Alma.

Does this text encourage you compare Amlici and the king of the Lamanites?  If so, what do you conclude and what should you learn from this?

Is the point of this just to show that the Lamanite king was a wimp (and, if so, what should we learn from that?) or is there more going on here?

33 But Alma, with his guards, contended with the guards of the king of the Lamanites until he slew and drove them back.

34 And thus he cleared the ground, or rather the bank, which was on the west of the river Sidon, throwing the bodies of the Lamanites who had been slain into the waters of Sidon, that thereby his people might have room to cross and contend with the Lamanites and the Amlicites on the west side of the river Sidon.

I’m having a hard time figuring out what is happening in this verse–is he saying that they crossed the river on a bridge of corpses (ew), or is he saying that he put the bodies into the river so the bank would be unencumbered so they could approach the river?  (See 3:3 for, maybe, support for this idea.) The fact that the ground cleared and the battle occur on the west side of the river sounds as if he cleared the bodies so there would be room to fight–is that right?  Either way, why was this material included in the record?

35 And it came to pass that when they had all crossed the river Sidon that the Lamanites and the Amlicites began to flee before them, notwithstanding they were so numerous that they could not be numbered.

Why would they flee if they had superior numbers?

I assume the “they” that crossed in the first phrase were Nephites.  If so, it suggests that crossing the river was the turning point of the battle, which suggests that moving the bodies was the cause of the turning point of the battle.  Are we to learn something from this and, if so, what?

36 And they fled before the Nephites towards the wilderness which was west and north, away beyond the borders of the land; and the Nephites did pursue them with their might, and did slay them.

37 Yea, they were met on every hand, and slain and driven, until they were scattered on the west, and on the north, until they had reached the wilderness, which was called Hermounts; and it was that part of the wilderness which was infested by wild and ravenous beasts.

We also learned that the area near the waters of Mormon was infested with wild beasts–is there a connection here?

Should you be reading this (especially the references to wilderness and scattering) metaphorically?

Brant Gardner:

Mormon’s description of what happened to the army does not appear to be a first hand account, but rather one that is made of conjecture. His evidence for those who died by being devoured is the bones which have been found. When those bones were found is a question, but certainly it was not during the pursuit, but some time later. What we have with [sic] Mormon’s relation is second hand information and inference. The bones that are found are presumed to relate to this incident, but there would be little clear evidence for that fact. This type of “historical” recording is very typical of ancient writers. The supposition is easily taken as declaration of fact, a presumption that would not pass modern historical practices.  Citation

38 And it came to pass that many died in the wilderness of their wounds, and were devoured by those beasts and also the vultures of the air; and their bones have been found, and have been heaped up on the earth.

Why was this included in the record?

CHAPTER 3

1 And it came to pass that the Nephites who were not slain by the weapons of war, after having buried those who had been slain—now the number of the slain were not numbered, because of the greatness of their number—after they had finished burying their dead they all returned to their lands, and to their houses, and their wives, and their children.

Note here.

In the last chapter, we got the number of the slain.  It sounded terrible.  In this case, we find out that the numbering was actually suggestive of the fact that the slaughter was not as terrible.

Note that the “fathers” drop out here–in the last chapter, they wanted to protect fathers, wives, and children.  Is the change significant?

Brant Gardner points out that this verse implies that they did not have a standing army.  In what ways might this be significant?

2 Now many women and children had been slain with the sword, and also many of their flocks and their herds; and also many of their fields of grain were destroyed, for they were trodden down by the hosts of men.

Does it surprise you that they left the homeland undefended?  Does it surprise you that the Lord intervened so they would win the battle, but didn’t protect the civilians back home?  What are we to learn from this?

3 And now as many of the Lamanites and the Amlicites who had been slain upon the bank of the river Sidon were cast into the waters of Sidon; and behold their bones are in the depths of the sea, and they are many.

Why was this included in the record?  (The multiple references to this seem to suggest some importance, but for the life of me, I cannot figure out what that might be.)

4 And the Amlicites were distinguished from the Nephites, for they had marked themselves with red in their foreheads after the manner of the Lamanites; nevertheless they had not shorn their heads like unto the Lamanites.

Is this a new practice after the battle (and the Nephites are, perhaps, only finding out about it now either as a result of the battle or of the handling of the corpses) or something they had been doing before?

What does it suggest about the Amlicites to say that they adopted one of the Lamanite markers but not the other?

What might a red mark on the forehead have symbolized?  What might a shorn head have symbolized?  Why aren’t we told?

Does this verse (and the following discussion) apply only to the dead bodies?  Or does it apply to the entire culture, but was brought to mind by the handling of the dead bodies in v3?  (Perhaps this is when these Nephites learned of these differences, if they hadn’t already noticed them in battle.)  More generally, what is the link between v3 and v4?

Presumably (and as v6 suggests), the Lamanites had darker skin than the Nephites.  Remember that the Amlicites were Nephites about ten minutes ago, but have now joined the Lamanites.  So it is interesting that they choose to identify with the Lamanites through this red mark.  But their skin colors would have been different.  If you saw the battle, you would have seen Nephites (no red mark, light[er] skin), Amlicites (red mark, light[er] skin), and Lamanites (red mark, darker skin).  So the “deciding factor” in identification was the red mark, not the darker skin.  I find that interesting, because it wasn’t the mark the Lord put on anyone but one that they chose to take upon themselves (and why, by the way, did the Lamanites choose this mark?) that becomes the main identifier.

5 Now the heads of the Lamanites were shorn; and they were naked, save it were skin which was girded about their loins, and also their armor, which was girded about them, and their bows, and their arrows, and their stones, and their slings, and so forth.

Skousen reads “a skin” here.

This reminds me of the time I picked up one of my kids from a playdate and asked, “Have you eaten anything?”  ”No . . . just a hamburger.  And a hot dog.  And three cookies.”  So:  What is accomplished here by saying that they were naked, when they weren’t really naked?  Is there a relationship between their “nakedness” and their shorn heads?  In the Bible, nakedness is associated with innocence (before the fall) or shame (after the fall)–are either of those meanings here?

Mosiah 10:8 also lumps nakedness with a catalog of military gear–why link these two things together?

6 And the skins of the Lamanites were dark, according to the mark which was set upon their fathers, which was a curse upon them because of their transgression and their rebellion against their brethren, who consisted of Nephi, Jacob, and Joseph, and Sam, who were just and holy men.

So we are now talking about three marks:  red forehead, shorn heads, and dark skin.  How do these relate?  How are they different?

It is very difficult to talk about a curse that takes the form of darkened skin.  Given that the BoM was written “for our day,” what is this material doing here and what should we learn from it?

Previously, leadership was seen to belong to Nephi; why do you think Jacob, Joseph, and Sam are also mentioned here?  Perhaps more significantly, why are we reminded that they were “just and holy” men here?

Is “transgression” the same thing as, or different from, sin in this verse?

Is the reference to “skins” in this verse related to the reference to “skin” in the previous verse?

7 And their brethren sought to destroy them, therefore they were cursed; and the Lord God set a mark upon them, yea, upon Laman and Lemuel, and also the sons of Ishmael, and Ishmaelitish women.

From this book:

6 A And the skins of the Lamanites were dark,
B according to the mark which was set upon their fathers,
C which was a curse upon them
D because of their transgression and their rebellion against their brethren,
E who consisted of Nephi, Jacob, and Joseph, and Sam,
E who were just and holy men.
7 D And their brethren sought to destroy them,
C therefore they were cursed;
B and the Lord God set a mark upon them,
A yea, upon Laman and Lemuel,

What’s interesting about that chiasmus is the shift in the word “brethren.”  In the D line, brethren refers to the Nephites, but in the D’ line, it refers to the Lamanites.  But, significantly, both groups are described as “brethren” to each other.  It is a sad little thing.

The logic of this verse is a little hard to follow, especially with all of the pronouns where we might have appreciated nouns.  I think that the “their brethren” means Laman and Lemuel and the first “them” is the Nephites.  The people who get the mark are the Lamanites, and they get it from God because they tried to destroy the Nephites.

What is accomplished by mentioning Ishmael and the women?  (And isn’t it interesting that that poor guy got dragged to the new world just to see his descendants cursed?)

8 And this was done that their seed might be distinguished from the seed of their brethren, that thereby the Lord God might preserve his people, that they might not mix and believe in incorrect traditions which would prove their destruction.

The one main story of mixing that we have had up to this point is there the priests of Noah (who, being descended from the Nephites that followed Zeniff, would not have had the curse) stole Lamanite girls and married them.  So . . . did the curse not work then and, if not, why not?  (In other words, why did the priests of Noah “mix” with the daughters?)

Implicit in this verse is the importance of not “mixing” (Is that just marriage, or is it broader? I think this verse is broad, but v9 points to marriage.)  Also implicit is the idea that otherwise righteous people might be tempted beyond that which they could bear to “mix,” but that a physical mark would stop them from so doing.  Do you agree with my analysis and, if so, what does it teach you about humans and about God?

So in the OT, the concern is always that a son will marry a pagan woman, because the assumption is that the wife’s beliefs/practices will become the children’s.  In the BoM, we don’t hear about that–we hear that an entire group has a visible mark so that there will be no intermarrying.  What does this difference tell us about the old world and new world cultures?  What else might we learn from it?

Note that the emphasis here is on belief (“believe in incorrect traditions”) and not practice (“commit sinful acts” or whatever).  What might we learn from this?

This verse sorta sounds as if beliefs were a sexually transmitted virus (i.e., something you might unwilling pick up from someone you are in an intimate relationship with, not something you choose one way or the other).  What are the consequences of thinking about beliefs in this way?

9 And it came to pass that whosoever did mingle his seed with that of the Lamanites did bring the same curse upon his seed.

Shouldn’t he also have brought that curse upon himself?

10 Therefore, whosoever suffered himself to be led away by the Lamanites was called under that head, and there was a mark set upon him.

This verse suggests that the mark didn’t only go to the person’s children (which is covered in v9), but went to the person who followed the Lamanites.  Does this imply that the mark was not simple “race,” since, we would presume, one’s race would not change in this situation?  (Or did it?  Does this verse assume divine intervention to darken the skin of anyone who followed the Lamanites?)

11 And it came to pass that whosoever would not believe in the tradition of the Lamanites, but believed those records which were brought out of the land of Jerusalem, and also in the tradition of their fathers, which were correct, who believed in the commandments of God and kept them, were called the Nephites, or the people of Nephi, from that time forth—

Now, we used to define “Nephite” as followers of God and “Lamanite” as “everyone else,” but here, we begin the definition of Nephites with a negative (“whoever would not believe . . .”).  What is accomplished by this?

It seems that this verse sets up a four-part Nephite statement of faith:

1.  did not believe Lamanite tradition

2. believed Jrsm records

3. believed traditions of their fathers

4. believed in the commandments and kept them

What can you learn from that list?  In what ways would, for example, 2 and 4 be different?  Of what would 3 have consisted if it wasn’t the same thing as 2 and 4?

12 And it is they who have kept the records which are true of their people, and also of the people of the Lamanites.

Notice how very central the records are to what is happening in v12.  The records and the foundation and delineation of their societies.

13 Now we will return again to the Amlicites, for they also had a mark set upon them; yea, they set the mark upon themselves, yea, even a mark of red upon their foreheads.

This verse acknowledges that v5-12 have been something of a digression from the main story line.  Why was this digression inserted?  What does the sad story of the Amlicites have to do with the curse–they aren’t part of the curse (they didn’t have children with Lamanites, they just died with them) and they choose themselves to take on a Lamanite mark (and a different one from the curse) themselves before they die. Mormon (or his source) seems to be making a link between the mark of the Amlicites and that of the Lamanites, but what exactly is that link–and why isn’t it explained to us?  (One theory:  by putting a mark in their own forehead, the Amlicites were taking the Lamanite curse on themselves. I think v18 supports this.  What is interesting about that is that it is an entirely different mark than the one that the Lord put on the Lamanites.  It also has a slightly different function–it identifies the Amlicites for purposes of battle, not for marriage.)

I’ve never met a member of the church who wasn’t made a little squirmy by these verses (and other discussions of the curse/dark skin) in the BoM, and yet we know the BoM was written “for our day.”  What do you do with this material?  What is the message in it for us?  Is there anything palatable and useful that can be drawn from it?  Is it as ugly as it seems?

So was this mark “set upon them” or did they “set the mark upon themselves”?  Or what?

The Lamanite mark is dark skin; the Amlicite mark is a red forehead.  What to make of this?

14 Thus the word of God is fulfilled, for these are the words which he said to Nephi: Behold, the Lamanites have I cursed, and I will set a mark on them that they and their seed may be separated from thee and thy seed, from this time henceforth and forever, except they repent of their wickedness and turn to me that I may have mercy upon them.

Is the suggestion here that the mark is something that people set upon themselves?  (This would fit nicely with the idea from Ben’s speech that hell is entirely self-selected and self-inflicted and internal.)

What does “forever” mean in this verse?  Does it mean that this verse should be applied to our lives in some way?

Interesting that we don’t have this statement to Nephi recorded in Nephi’s own writings.  How did it end up here and not there?

15 And again: I will set a mark upon him that mingleth his seed with thy brethren, that they may be cursed also.

16 And again: I will set a mark upon him that fighteth against thee and thy seed.

Why the triple repetition here?  Triple repetition, especially when it is clearly signposted as such, is a huge, huge deal.  What made the concept of the mark worth mentioning three times?

There’s an interesting shift from v15 (mingling seed) and v16 (fighting against seed).  These things would seem to be opposites (love and war! life and death! sex and battle!), but here, they have precisely the same consequence.  Why is that?

17 And again, I say he that departeth from thee shall no more be called thy seed; and I will bless thee, and whomsoever shall be called thy seed, henceforth and forever; and these were the promises of the Lord unto Nephi and to his seed.

This feels very much like the “punchline” to the entire Amlicite story, but what’s weird about it is that we didn’t have this revelation from the Lord to Nephi until this moment.  What effect does it have on the reader to get it now?

18 Now the Amlicites knew not that they were fulfilling the words of God when they began to mark themselves in their foreheads; nevertheless they had come out in open rebellion against God; therefore it was expedient that the curse should fall upon them.

But . . . if God was giving the curse, and the curse was darker skin, and the point was to avoid intermarrying, then how does a self-inflicted, red-forehead, battle-identifying mark fulfill the words of God?  Since it apparently does fulfill the curse, then what does this verse teach us about the curse?

Is it only “bad guys” who can fulfill prophesy without knowing that they are doing it?  In what other situations might this happen?

19 Now I would that ye should see that they brought upon themselves the curse; and even so doth every man that is cursed bring upon himself his own condemnation.

Direct address is very rare in the scriptures.

Note what a huge point Mormon (presumably) is making here of making sure we know that the Amlicites brought the mark upon themselves.  This reminds me of the teachings about “hell” that we’ve gotten:  hell is an internal state that you bring upon yourself when you know what you have given up.

Ah, I love these explanatory verses from Mormon–if only the author of Genesis had similarly made our lives easy by explaining the point of the story!  In this case, it appears that the entire point of the Amlicite story is to show that people curse themselves.

20 Now it came to pass that not many days after the battle which was fought in the land of Zarahemla, by the Lamanites and the Amlicites, that there was another army of the Lamanites came in upon the people of Nephi, in the same place where the first army met the Amlicites.

21 And it came to pass that there was an army sent to drive them out of their land.

22 Now Alma himself being afflicted with a wound did not go up to battle at this time against the Lamanites;

23 But he sent up a numerous army against them; and they went up and slew many of the Lamanites, and drove the remainder of them out of the borders of their land.

24 And then they returned again and began to establish peace in the land, being troubled no more for a time with their enemies.

25 Now all these things were done, yea, all these wars and contentions were commenced and ended in the *fifth year of the reign of the judges.

26 And in one year were thousands and tens of thousands of souls sent to the eternal world, that they might reap their rewards according to their works, whether they were good or whether they were bad, to reap eternal happiness or eternal misery, according to the spirit which they listed to obey, whether it be a good spirit or a bad one.

Is this verse suggesting that one’s works determine one’s eternal destiny?

Does this verse provide a scriptural gloss to the popular image of a little angel on one shoulder and a little demon on the other?

This verse described one year when tens of thousands of people die.  But the previous verse said that it was a time of peace.  So . . . does this verse backtrack?  (And, if so, why is the text structured so oddly?) Or was there a plague or natural disaster or something? (Then why not explain that?) Or is the population so large that 10s of 1000s is the normal mortality?  (But then why mention it if it were the norm?)

Mormons pride themselves on a multi-level heaven; how do you reconcile that idea with this binary verse?

27 For every man receiveth wages of him whom he listeth to obey, and this according to the words of the spirit of prophecy; therefore let it be according to the truth. And thus endeth the fifth year of the reign of the judges.

What does the idea of “wages” suggest to you about eternal rewards?

CHAPTER 4

1 Now it came to pass in the *sixth year of the reign of the judges over the people of Nephi, there were no contentions nor wars in the land of Zarahemla;

2 But the people were afflicted, yea, greatly afflicted for the loss of their brethren, and also for the loss of their flocks and herds, and also for the loss of their fields of grain, which were trodden under foot and destroyed by the Lamanites.

3 And so great were their afflictions that every soul had cause to mourn; and they believed that it was the judgments of God sent upon them because of their wickedness and their abominations; therefore they were awakened to a remembrance of their duty.

Does the fact that they stopped mourning surprise you?  (If anything, I think they might be mourning more!)

Were they right about it being the judgments of God?

What does “awakened” suggest to you about what happened to them here?

4 And they began to establish the church more fully; yea, and many were baptized in the waters of Sidon and were joined to the church of God; yea, they were baptized by the hand of Alma, who had been consecrated the high priest over the people of the church, by the hand of his father Alma.

Remember that the last time Alma, the river Sidon, and bodies were mentioned, Alma was putting dead Lamanite bodies into the river.  I suspect these verses are related, but how?  What is the point?

5 And it came to pass in the *seventh year of the reign of the judges there were about three thousand five hundred souls that united themselves to the church of God and were baptized. And thus ended the seventh year of the reign of the judges over the people of Nephi; and there was continual peace in all that time.

6 And it came to pass in the *eighth year of the reign of the judges, that the people of the church began to wax proud, because of their exceeding riches, and their fine silks, and their fine-twined linen, and because of their many flocks and herds, and their gold and their silver, and all manner of precious things, which they had obtained by their industry; and in all these things were they lifted up in the pride of their eyes, for they began to wear very costly apparel.

Does pride in the BoM focus on clothing because that was one of the few avenues that they had for displaying social status, or is there something special about clothing?

Note that it was only two years ago that they were suffering from a war-induced famine–this is a remarkably quick turn-around.  In fact, all of the events of the reign of the judges seem to happen remarkably quickly.  Why might this be?

Virtually every time clothing is criticized in scripture, it is because of cost, not modesty (using the modern sense of modesty, not the broader sense).  What should we learn from this?

So we have industry -> accumulating good stuff -> pride.  What should we learn from this progression?  (The cynic would say:  industry is the start of bad stuff.  Better to watch Netflix.)

The beginning of this verse seems to suggest that they were proud because of their nice stuff; the end seems to suggest that their pride caused them to accumulate nice stuff.  Which way is the arrow pointing?

7 Now this was the cause of much affliction to Alma, yea, and to many of the people whom Alma had consecrated to be teachers, and priests, and elders over the church; yea, many of them were sorely grieved for the wickedness which they saw had begun to be among their people.

We’ve heard a lot about priests and teachers, but I think this is our first reference to “elders” in Alma’s church.  Is this just a result of the randomness of the record, or is it significant that they are introduced in this context?

What do you think of “grief” as a response to wickedness?  (Is that our usual response?)

Nice irony that “affliction” was used in v3 to describe how the people felt about the famine but is used here to describe how the church leaders felt about wealth (=the inverse of a famine).  Another point of comparison is that the famine caused mourning and here the leaders are grieving.

8 For they saw and beheld with great sorrow that the people of the church began to be lifted up in the pride of their eyes, and to set their hearts upon riches and upon the vain things of the world, that they began to be scornful, one towards another, and they began to persecute those that did not believe according to their own will and pleasure.

How does being scornful stem from pride?  In what ways are people scornful today?  Is it every OK to be scornful?

What work is “according to their own will and pleasure” doing in this verse?

9 And thus, in this eighth year of the reign of the judges, there began to be great contentions among the people of the church; yea, there were envyings, and strife, and malice, and persecutions, and pride, even to exceed the pride of those who did not belong to the church of God.

Note that church members were more prideful than those outside of the church.

Are you surprised at how quickly this all happened?

10 And thus ended the eighth year of the reign of the judges; and the wickedness of the church was a great stumbling-block to those who did not belong to the church; and thus the church began to fail in its progress.

What should we learn from this verse?  How might this happen today?

Does this verse define the “progress of the church” in terms of how well the church appeals to non-members?

What does the image of a stumbling-block suggest to you?

Do you believe Mormon here?  It seems equally (if not more) likely that the progress of the church was slowed by the fact that their wealth made them less receptive to the gospel than a famine did.

11 And it came to pass in the *commencement of the ninth year, Alma saw the wickedness of the church, and he saw also that the example of the church began to lead those who were unbelievers on from one piece of iniquity to another, thus bringing on the destruction of the people.

What does “piece” suggest to you about iniquity?

Note that the church members were setting an example (although in this case a bad one!) for those outside the church.

12 Yea, he saw great inequality among the people, some lifting themselves up with their pride, despising others, turning their backs upon the needy and the naked and those who were hungry, and those who were athirst, and those who were sick and afflicted.

Does this verse teach that great inequality is a sin?

13 Now this was a great cause for lamentations among the people, while others were abasing themselves, succoring those who stood in need of their succor, such as imparting their substance to the poor and the needy, feeding the hungry, and suffering all manner of afflictions, for Christ’s sake, who should come according to the spirit of prophecy;

14 Looking forward to that day, thus retaining a remission of their sins; being filled with great joy because of the resurrection of the dead, according to the will and power and deliverance of Jesus Christ from the bands of death.

15 And now it came to pass that Alma, having seen the afflictions of the humble followers of God, and the persecutions which were heaped upon them by the remainder of his people, and seeing all their inequality, began to be very sorrowful; nevertheless the Spirit of the Lord did not fail him.

16 And he selected a wise man who was among the elders of the church, and gave him power according to the voice of the people, that he might have power to enact laws according to the laws which had been given, and to put them in force according to the wickedness and the crimes of the people.

Notice the interplay of the voice of the people and Alma’s choice–what does that tell you about how things were being run?

17 Now this man’s name was Nephihah, and he was appointed chief judge; and he sat in the judgment-seat to judge and to govern the people.

It would have been more natural to give his name in v16.  Why don’t we get his name here?

Do v16-17 imply that Mosiah2′s reforms needed, well, reform?  That is, Mosiah pictures laws from the fathers sufficient for governing, but here, Nephihah is given the authority to enact new laws (v16).  Note that Mosiah’s system lasted less than 10 years, and virtually every year was horrid, with things moving at an unbelievably fast pace.

Are judging and governing two separate things?

18 Now Alma did not grant unto him the office of being high priest over the church, but he retained the office of high priest unto himself; but he delivered the judgment-seat unto Nephihah.

Does this action imply that Mosiah2′s plan of uniting chief judge + chief priest was not a great idea?  (Or is the message here that different times require different church/civic organizations in order to work most effectively?)

Is there a lesson about the separation of church and state here?  Why do you think this change of government was included in the record?

19 And this he did that he himself might go forth among his people, or among the people of Nephi, that he might preach the word of God unto them, to stir them up in remembrance of their duty, and that he might pull down, by the word of God, all the pride and craftiness and all the contentions which were among his people, seeing no way that he might reclaim them save it were in bearing down in pure testimony against them.

What does “stir up” suggest to you?

What does “bearing down” suggest to you?

Why use “pure” to modify “testimony”?

This verse (and the next one) implies that the reason for making the chief judge separate from the high priest is so he (Alma) could focus on the church and that the civil matters were a distraction to him.  If this is the case, then how do we reconcile the frequent admonitions in the BoM that priests should labor with their own hands–wouldn’t that also be a huge distraction?

20 And thus in the commencement of the ninth year of the reign of the judges over the people of Nephi, Alma delivered up the judgment-seat to Nephihah, and confined himself wholly to the high priesthood of the holy order of God, to the testimony of the word, according to the spirit of revelation and prophecy.

What is “the holy order of God” in this verse–is it the same as the high priesthood?

General thoughts:

(1) I’ve always thought that Gideon deserved a Best Supporting Actor award.  He’s never the protagonist, but he keeps showing up and quietly doing amazing things.  See Mosiah 19:4-8, 20:16-18, 22:3-9; Alma 1:8-9.

(2) Nephite government.  There’s an awful lot of ink spilled in this section about their form of government, its merits and drawbacks, and its consequences.  (An interesting article on this here.) Noel B. Reynolds wrote this:

Alma₂ became the first chief judge and served simultaneously as high priest, governor, and military chief captain. Because these offices required the approval of the people, who had rejected monarchy, critics have tended to confuse the Nephite system with the democracy of the United States. However, there was no representative legislature, the essential institution in American republican ideology. Also, the major offices were typically passed from father to son, without elections (Bushman, pp. 14—17); “the voice of the people” is reported many times as authorizing or confirming leadership appointments and other civic or political actions.  Citation

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

1 And now king Mosiah caused that all the people should be gathered together.

2 Now there were not so many of the children of Nephi, or so many of those who were descendants of Nephi, as there were of the people of Zarahemla, who was a descendant of Mulek, and those who came with him into the wilderness.

Skousen reads “Muloch” instead of “Mulek” here.

Why did Mormon think that we should know this?  Isn’t it sort of inside baseball?  (Same with v3.)

Brant Gardner has some interesting thoughts here on why their would have been a population difference between the Lehites and the Mulekites when they both left at roughly the same time, and then why that information might matter enough to make it worth mentioning.

3 And there were not so many of the people of Nephi and of the people of Zarahemla as there were of the Lamanites; yea, they were not half so numerous.

One wonders if the point of all of the census-reporting is a subtle hint that some groups had been intermarrying with local populations, and others (namely, the Nephites) not as much.

4 And now all the people of Nephi were assembled together, and also all the people of Zarahemla, and they were gathered together in two bodies.

This strikes me as a bad omen, that these people are still very much divided.  (Spoiler alert:  I wonder if the creation of “churches,” a new thing, that happens in this chapter, has anything to do with the continuing divisions of the people.  Perhaps the “church” entity is meant to displace the ethnic/social identity to which they have been clinging.)

5 And it came to pass that Mosiah did read, and caused to be read, the records of Zeniff to his people; yea, he read the records of the people of Zeniff, from the time they left the land of Zarahemla until they returned again.

Skousen reads “until the time they returned again.”

Usually in the BoM, we get “X, or Y,” which I take to mean, “I wrote X, realized it wasn’t quite right, but you can’t erase on these darn plates, so I’ll write Y to clarify.”  But that isn’t quite what we have here–we have “did read, and caused to be read.”  It isn’t an “or,” so I don’t think it is a correction by a writer/redactor who wanted to make clear that he (=Mosiah) personally didn’t read it.  Perhaps it is meant to allude to a Ben-style situation where there were so many people that they couldn’t all hear him.  (That would be very interesting, given that we just got a lecture on how small their numbers are.)  (For all we know, he’s reading this from Ben’s tower.  But the text doesn’t point that out.)

Can you discern a motive here?  Is this just an interesting bit of history?  Or were they to learn a moral lesson from the record of Zeniff?  (I commented in the notes on the Zeniff section that the moral is much harder to derive than it is in other sections of the BoM.  Perhaps that is because Mormon’s guiding hand is not as heavy in that section?  I don’t know.)

In the OT, the only thing that gets read to groups is the Law (am I forgetting anything?).  Is it significant that all of the people are brought together to hear the story of some neighbors (and new immigrants)?

6 And he also read the account of Alma and his brethren, and all their afflictions, from the time they left the land of Zarahemla until the time they returned again.

Wait–when were Alma and his brethren in the land of Zarahemla?  (This article offers two possible explanations for this phrase.)

I do suspect that the way the material is structured as “the record of Zeniff” and “an account of Alma” that the purpose of the reading is that we’d compare the two, and learn from the experiences of one group that was slow to focus on the Lord and another that was better sustained in their trials because of their righteous choices.

7 And now, when Mosiah had made an end of reading the records, his people who tarried in the land were struck with wonder and amazement.

Really?  I’ve read (Mormon’s abridgment of) that record, and that wasn’t my reaction . . .  (Later, when they hear the Jaredite record, they mourn.)

8 For they knew not what to think; for when they beheld those that had been delivered out of bondage they were filled with exceedingly great joy.

Why didn’t they know what to think?  Is that the reaction that we should have when we read this section of Mosiah?

How does not knowing what to think relate to being filled with joy?  (Or the wonder and amazement of the previous verse?) Is that a contradiction (=they did know what to think)?  Or does it suggest that joy and confuzzlement can coexist?

9 And again, when they thought of their brethren who had been slain by the Lamanites they were filled with sorrow, and even shed many tears of sorrow.

I love this–these are people who didn’t follow Mosiah1, or left after the civil war that Zeniff caused, and they are brethren, and their loss is mourned.  No schadenfreude here.

So from v7-9, their reactions are:  wonder, amazement, not knowing what to think, major joy, and sorrow.  Are these people just melodramatic, or what?  And, given the highly compressed nature of this record, why do we get this panoply of emotions?  What are we supposed to take from it?  (And note that their next thought, if not emotion, is the goodness of God in v10.)

10 And again, when they thought of the immediate goodness of God, and his power in delivering Alma and his brethren out of the hands of the Lamanites and of bondage, they did raise their voices and give thanks to God.

Does this verse imply that God didn’t help Limhi’s people?

11 And again, when they thought upon the Lamanites, who were their brethren, of their sinful and polluted state, they were filled with pain and anguish for the welfare of their souls.

This is even better than v9–they have been separated from the Lamanites for 500 years, but still consider them their brethren.  (You could make a nice application here by thinking about how we are all, ultimately, God’s children.)  And they still care about them, a lot.

Are “sinful” and “polluted” two different things or two ways of saying the same thing?

Are “pain” and “anguish” two different things or two ways of saying the same thing?

I’m struck by the balance of sinful/polluted and pain/anguish:  Are these pairs (and/or the items constituting them) related in some way?

Notice the structure in v8, v9, v10, and v11:  each verse introduces a topic (those delivered, brethren slain, goodness of God, the Lamanites) and then gives a reaction to is (joy, sorrow, gratitude, pain).  What can you learn from this pattern?  (So maybe the part about not knowing what to think is that they didn’t know how to reconcile all of these conflicting emotions in to one overriding emotion.  And that’s rather grand of them, not to just brush off the loss of some people in their joy over other people).

Grant Hardy:

If one tries to imagine this scene, the importance of Mormon’s editing becomes obvious. The people were undoubtedly moved by what they had heard. Yet are we to suppose that the people in unison thought of each of these things in turn, with one voice weeping and then praising as if on cue? (Remember that this behavior was described as occurring after the reading had finished.) Or is it more probable that some shed tears while others rejoiced, each reflecting individually on the great events that had been recounted? The reactions of crowds are difficult to describe. Here, though Mormon apparently took a few liberties with the actual event, he established a vivid sense of the emotions that the people must have felt. Perhaps more importantly, Mormon’s account is itself moving. Note how it shifts back and forth from joy in verse eight to sorrow in verse nine, to praise in verse ten, and back to pain and anguish in verse eleven. In each case, the pains of the disobedient contrast sharply and immediately with the joys of the obedient. The exposition of God’s justice is clear, simple, and concise, and it owes its striking form to Mormon’s editorial hand. Citation

Sidenote:  I’d happily sell my firstborn if Grant Hardy would write a verse-by-verse BoM commentary.  (Heck, I’d throw in the other two kids if I had to.)

12 And it came to pass that those who were the children of Amulon and his brethren, who had taken to wife the daughters of the Lamanites, were displeased with the conduct of their fathers, and they would no longer be called by the names of their fathers, therefore they took upon themselves the name of Nephi, that they might be called the children of Nephi and be numbered among those who were called Nephites.

Wait–what?  What happened here?  This is huge!  Why do we not hear about it in any detail?  Whassup, Mormon?

Brant Gardner:

This is the first time we learn of children of Amulon being among those who arrive in Zarahemla. Not only is this the first time we are made aware of them, Mormon neglects to tell us whether they arrived with Limhi or Alma.  Citation

What effect does it have on the reader to have these people come, textually, out of nowhere?

It’s worth noting again that by this point, “Nephite” and “Lamanite” are cultural and religious distinctions, but not ethnic ones.

Does this verse imply that the children of Amulon did not know their history until Mosiah2 read the records, or is v12 introducing an entirely new topic?

Methinks those Lamanite daughters purified this line of the wickedness of Noah’s priests.

Brant Gardner points out that these “children of Amulon and his brethren” may be the children born *before* the escape with the dancing Lamanite daughters and abandoned in the battle with the Lamanites.

13 And now all the people of Zarahemla were numbered with the Nephites, and this because the kingdom had been conferred upon none but those who were descendants of Nephi.

Was there something wrong with conferring the kingdom to a descendant of Zarahemla?

Is this numbering a new thing?  Does it suggest that the divisions highlighted at the beginning of the chapter have been overcome?  If so, did the reading of the Zeniff and Alma records have anything to do with that?  (I find it interesting that the reading of the records is sandwiched by references to the political situation of who is numbered with who in Zarahemla.)

Is there a relationship between v12 and v13?  That is, did the numbering of Amulon’s people with the Nephites somehow (how, exactly?) lead to the people of Zarahemla wanting to be numbered among the Nephites?

How does the first part of this verse relate to the second part?  That is, what is it about conferring the kingdom on descendants of Nephi that would make the Zarahemla-ites want to be numbered with the Nephites?  (Did they sense some kind of protection in that?  Or, per the example in v12, some element of making a righteous choice to identify that way?)

14 And now it came to pass that when Mosiah had made an end of speaking and reading to the people, he desired that Alma should also speak to the people.

Note that he actually finished speaking/reading in v7.  What is the result of repeating that information here?

Do you read this chapter differently if the reading of the record of Zeniff and of Alma was for the purpose of introducing Alma to the people, as happens in this verse?  In what ways would a reading of the record be a different introduction to Alma than other possible introductions that we might imagine?

15 And Alma did speak unto them, when they were assembled together in large bodies, and he went from one body to another, preaching unto the people repentance and faith on the Lord.

I wonder if it was difficult for the audience to accept Alma–an outsider, an upstart, culturally different, and without the same depth of knowledge or years of religious experience and leadership (esp. Mosiah2, presumably) that they had.

16 And he did exhort the people of Limhi and his brethren, all those that had been delivered out of bondage, that they should remember that it was the Lord that did deliver them.

This is very interesting, because I think Mormon really wanted us to compare the Alma and Limhi escape-from-bondage stories and to conclude that the Lord helped Alma’s people more than the Lord helped Limhi’s people precisely because they trusted in the Lord more.  (For example, Alma’s people didn’t have to get their guards drunk–the Lord took care of that.)  So now, what do we make of Alma telling them that they should remember that the Lord got them out of bondage?

Interesting that the first thing we learn about Alma’s preaching is faith and repentance in the previous verse, but the next thing is a message delivered particularly to Limhi’s people.

Who else had been delivered out of bondage besides Limhi and his people?  Well, an obvious answer is Alma’s people.  One wonders why they were not specifically mentioned in this verse and just included in the “all others” umbrella.

Grant Hardy:

Two assumptions about this passage seem reasonable: Limhi and his brethren made up one of these large bodies of people, and Mormon had access to records of Alma’s words to each of these groups. Mormon mentioned general preachings of repentance and faith, but the only specific instruction he recounted was the exhortation to Limhi’s people to remember that the Lord was responsible for their deliverance. Why is this detail so important that it alone received attention when so much else was left out? This editorial choice is especially puzzling when we recall that Limhi’s people had freed themselves by getting their Lamanite guards drunk (see Mosiah 22). We even know the name of the man who concocted the scheme—Gideon. We also remember the conference in which Ammon and Limhi “began to consult with the people how they should deliver themselves out of bondage” (22:1). Their liberation seemed to be the result of sheer cunning—chapter twenty-two does not mention God once. And yet in chapter twenty-five, Mormon’s editing stressed that, despite appearances, God delivered Limhi’s people just as much as he did Alma’s people (who had made a miraculous escape, recorded in Mosiah 24:16-25). Of course this is precisely the point behind Mormon’s editing—no matter what we may think about our own resourcefulness, decisiveness, and timing, God is still in charge. Mormon tended to interpret political and historical events in spiritual terms, and this inclination is evident in his editing as well as in his direct “thus we see” comments. Citation

17 And it came to pass that after Alma had taught the people many things, and had made an end of speaking to them, that king Limhi was desirous that he might be baptized; and all his people were desirous that they might be baptized also.

This is a little a weird, because it makes it sound like a new desire, when we know that they had this desire before.  A more interesting question is why the desire wasn’t manifest before this time (especially because the Limhi people landed in Zarahemla at least awhile before Alma’s people did).  Is there something about the preceding verses that (re)triggered their desire for baptism?

18 Therefore, Alma did go forth into the water and did baptize them; yea, he did baptize them after the manner he did his brethren in the waters of Mormon; yea, and as many as he did baptize did belong to the church of God; and this because of their belief on the words of Alma.

“Words of Alma” as opposed to “words of the Lord” makes me a little nervous here.

Note that the result of baptism here is belonging to the the church of God.  (That is, it is primarily described in terms of its communal, not individual, effects.)  This supports my thinking from the last set of notes that Alma’s innovation is in community-formation.  Religion is starting to be independent of politics/society, we might say in modern terms.

19 And it came to pass that king Mosiah granted unto Alma that he might establish churches throughout all the land of Zarahemla; and gave him power to ordain priests and teachers over every church.

This is a little weird–why didn’t they have churches before this?  (Does v20 answer the question?) (Did they have priests and teachers?)

What do you make of the fact that the king is in charge of the church?  Is that a good thing?

Brant Gardner:

The separation of realm of influence now extends to Mosiah himself. Mosiah grants to Alma the power to ordain priests and teachers over each “church.” Effectively this diminishes the regnal power of Mosiah, as he is now removed from an essential role in the religious institution of his society. While Mosiah would certainly be titularly the head of the “church,” he was no longer the effective leader of it. That position passed to Alma. Citation

20 Now this was done because there were so many people that they could not all be governed by one teacher; neither could they all hear the word of God in one assembly;

But it was also true during Ben’s time that all the people couldn’t hear the word of God in one assembly, but they didn’t create churches then.

I don’t want to attack the memory of dear old Ben, but given the problems that arise with the rising generation that doesn’t believe him, and the actions taken in this verse, one wonders if administration just wasn’t his strong suit (remember all that bumbling about the people not being able to hear him?) and the lack of structure for the church was a problem that Alma (not Mosiah2) was uniquely capable of solving.  (I’m probably too mean.  But I think it is useful to recognize that all human leaders have weaknesses.)  One wonders, then, what it is about Alma’s background (in the courts of Noah of all people!) that gave him this organizational ability.  (Perhaps you’ll say that it wasn’t Alma but God.  Fine, but then why didn’t Ben or Mosiah2 clean house under God’s guidance?)

21 Therefore they did assemble themselves together in different bodies, being called churches; every church having their priests and their teachers, and every priest preaching the word according as it was delivered to him by the mouth of Alma.

Once again, I note that in the OT, priests do temple rituals.  Now in the BoM, their role seems different.

What the heck happened to the legitimate authority of Mosiah2?  This is Ben’s kid, duly authorized, but you’d get the impression here that the situation in Zarahemla was a complete apostate mess until Alma showed up.

22 And thus, notwithstanding there being many churches they were all one church, yea, even the church of God; for there was nothing preached in all the churches except it were repentance and faith in God.

What does this verse tell you about what the word “church” means (and doesn’t mean) in the BoM?

I think the second phrase is a most interesting definition of what it means to be “one church.”

Were they teaching the law of Moses?

23 And now there were seven churches in the land of Zarahemla. And it came to pass that whosoever were desirous to take upon them the name of Christ, or of God, they did join the churches of God;

Seven is one of the most frequently used numbers in the scriptures as a symbol.  (It is a symbol for completeness.)  Could that be its meaning here?  Could it be related to the seven churches to which John sent his revelation?

24 And they were called the people of God. And the Lord did pour out his Spirit upon them, and they were blessed, and prospered in the land.

What does the phrase “pour out” suggest to you about the Spirit?

Are being blessed and prospering the result of having the Spirit?

Are “blessed” and “prospered” two different things or two ways of saying the same thing?  What does prospered mean?

CHAPTER 26

1 Now it came to pass that there were many of the rising generation that could not understand the words of king Benjamin, being little children at the time he spake unto his people; and they did not believe the tradition of their fathers.

There was no chapter division here in the 1830 BoM.  What is the relationship of this verse to the material in the verse before it?  (It is quite jarring if you read it without the distance that the chapter division creates.)

It seems to me that “being too young to hear Ben” is not a sufficient cause for “not believing parents.”  What else might be going on here?  (One possibility:  there was civil unrest–perhaps a civil war–caused by Zeniff’s desire to leave.)

I’m curious about the present tense of “could not understand,” when the verse is clearly describing something that happened in the past of the story.  Perhaps accidental, but perhaps it is suggesting that their problem is not that they were young when Ben gave the talk (presumably others were, who now believe his words), but that they chose not to understand the talk (now).

Usually “traditions of the fathers” is a negative thing in the BoM, so it is interesting to me that it is positive here.

I’m curious about the semantic shift from “the words of king Ben” to “the traditions of their fathers.”  Is that two ways of saying the same thing?  Two different things?  How are those things related?

Remember that Ben is no longer king; his son is.  Why is Ben’s discourse mentioned when it is old news?

So is this a big old parental fail that their parents hadn’t taught them what Ben taught?

Is “fathers” literal here (therefore meaning the people in Ben’s audience) or more metaphorical (=the prophetic tradition, which would include Ben and may or may not include their biological fathers)?

2 They did not believe what had been said concerning the resurrection of the dead, neither did they believe concerning the coming of Christ.

Why single out these two items?  (My thought:  these seem, in a sense, sort of ‘how many angels can dance on the head of a pin,’ in that they have no direct impact on their lives, but have to do with future [to them] events.  Of course, that would then be precisely the point of the passage:  that what we believe about future events [such as the Second Coming and judgment] absolutely does impact our lives in the present.)

3 And now because of their unbelief they could not understand the word of God; and their hearts were hardened.

What is it about not believing about the resurrection and incarnation that would lead them to not understand “the word of God”?  What precisely is the cause and effect described in v2-3?

I find this verse fascinating, because it suggests that faith (and the lack thereof) impact our ability to understand things.  (This is maybe obvious, but we act like it isn’t sometimes.)

Does this verse suggest that they wanted to understand the word of God, but couldn’t?  (I don’t think they wanted to, but then why bring it up?)

Who hardened their hearts?  Are you surprised to see heart-hardening as the result of disbelief instead of the cause of disbelief?  What might this imply?

If you think about the biblical meaning of hearts as minds, this verse makes perfect sense:  they didn’t believe, they couldn’t understand, and their minds were closed.

Brant Gardner suggests that, because this apostasy developed so quickly and because it is the same as other BoM apostasies, it seems to have the same source:  outside influence.  These kids appear to be succumbing to the non-messianic beliefs of people they know (as do other apostate BoM groups).  Once again, we see more evidence for interaction with native people suggested but not directly mentioned in the text.

4 And they would not be baptized; neither would they join the church. And they were a separate people as to their faith, and remained so ever after, even in their carnal and sinful state; for they would not call upon the Lord their God.

Does this verse affirm or deny the idea (suggested before) that being baptized and joining the church are the same thing?

What do you make of the “ever after,” since this is not literally true?

So:  What went wrong here?  What is the moral of the story for the apostasy of these people–what is the warning to us?  Does the text give you any clues?

5 And now in the reign of Mosiah they were not half so numerous as the people of God; but because of the dissensions among the brethren they became more numerous.

Does this verse have any relation to the material about Nephite v. Lamanite numbers at the beginning of ch25?

Does “among the brethren” mean dissension within the church?  (Note that, in the Bible at least, brethren is nothing more than the plural for brothers [or brothers and sisters].)  Is Mormon attributing this episode of apostasy to conflict within the church and/or its leadership?

Is this verse suggesting that an apostasy that began with the children filtered upward [in age]?  If so, how might that happen today?

6 For it came to pass that they did deceive many with their flattering words, who were in the church, and did cause them to commit many sins; therefore it became expedient that those who committed sin, that were in the church, should be admonished by the church.

What would be some modern examples of this?  How does flattery lead to deception?  (Note that it is of people in the church–is there anything that might make church members particularly susceptible to flattery?)

Who is the “they”–the children who started this or the brethren?

Does this verse describe the dissensions that are mentioned in v6, or does it describe the result of those dissensions?

Think about the flattery -> deception -> sins sequence that this verse sets up.  What might we learn from that?  How might that happen today?

Note that the kids did not object to a practice but to a belief.  But here, that unbelief has led to action.

In what situations should sinners be (or not be) admonished by the church?  (I’d like to point out that sacrament meeting would be a lot more interesting if we got to listen to the bishop admonish specific people [but not me] for their sins.)

7 And it came to pass that they were brought before the priests, and delivered up unto the priests by the teachers; and the priests brought them before Alma, who was the high priest.

This verse suggests that the priests have a higher rank than the teachers; it also suggests that the teachers had a role in church discipline and didn’t just teach.

What should we gain from this chain-of-command verse?  Should the teachers have just taken the apostates straight to Alma?

I think this verse goes in a non-chronological order:  Did they go to the teachers or the priests first?  I think they started with the teachers and then they were delivered up to the priests.  This is interesting because it suggests that the teachers were not just Spewers of True Doctrine, but were taking the spiritual temperature of their flock and therefore knew that there was a problem with their belief/practice, and then turned them over to the priests.

8 Now king Mosiah had given Alma the authority over the church.

9 And it came to pass that Alma did not know concerning them; but there were many witnesses against them; yea, the people stood and testified of their iniquity in abundance.

Skousen reads “Alma did know” here.

Skousen reads “for there” instead of “but there” here.

Why didn’t Alma know about them?  Does this suggest some neglect on his part?  (Pretty amazing to think of this big apostasy and him not knowing.)

10 Now there had not any such thing happened before in the church; therefore Alma was troubled in his spirit, and he caused that they should be brought before the king.

Really–apostasy hadn’t happened before?

So the king is the religious superior to the high priest?  Interesting . . .

11 And he said unto the king: Behold, here are many whom we have brought before thee, who are accused of their brethren; yea, and they have been taken in divers iniquities. And they do not repent of their iniquities; therefore we have brought them before thee, that thou mayest judge them according to their crimes.

I find it interesting that the issue here is sin, not disbelief.  The story was introduced with Mormon’s gloss that the underlying issue was their disbelief.

Why do you think Mormon wasn’t more specific about exactly what these people had done?

12 But king Mosiah said unto Alma: Behold, I judge them not; therefore I deliver them into thy hands to be judged.

Was this the right or wrong thing to do?  (Was Alma right or wrong to turn the apostates over to the king?)

Is it right to say that Alma thought the issue was civil, so he handed them over to Mosiah, while Mosiah thought the real issue was religious, so he punted them back to Alma?  (Is this not, perhaps, part of [or similar to] the dissension among the brethren in v5?)

13 And now the spirit of Alma was again troubled; and he went and inquired of the Lord what he should do concerning this matter, for he feared that he should do wrong in the sight of God.

How do you read Alma’s troubled spirit?  Is it the Lord’s way of telling him that he’s messing up?  That he has work to do?  Or just that the whole situation is sad?

Shouldn’t he have inquired of the Lord before all this?  Is this story meant to suggest a learning experience for Alma as a newish high priest (over all of these Zarahemla people, anyway) who doesn’t quite know how to do things?  (Was that the point of v10–that Alma had never had to deal with this before?)

14 And it came to pass that after he had poured out his whole soul to God, the voice of the Lord came to him, saying:

15 Blessed art thou, Alma, and blessed are they who were baptized in the waters of Mormon. Thou art blessed because of thy exceeding faith in the words alone of my servant Abinadi.

Remember that, at this point, Alma is the high priest for a lot more people than just those who were baptized at the waters of Mormon–at least the Limhites and presumably other people from Zarahemla.  Why would the Lord single out the waters of Mormon people at this point?

Does “words alone” mean that Alma wasn’t overly swayed by Abinadi’s martyrdom, or does it mean that Alma had no other person’s words to convert him?  (What about the Isaiah record that Alma had access to?  Don’t those words count?  Were they not part of his conversion?  What about the idea that the truth is established by two or three witnesses–why didn’t that apply to Alma?  Wouldn’t Ben’s words be a part of Alma’s faith by this point?)  (See the next verse for more on this.)

Note how long it takes the Lord to answer Alma’s question, and everything the Lord does before actually answering the question.  I think it is very significant that the Lord doesn’t lead with, “You really screwed up by allowing this huge apostasy to happen because you didn’t know your people very well and then trying to dump it all in Mosiah’s lap.”  (Although it appears that Alma did in fact do those two things.)  The Lord leads with reassuring Alma of his worth and recognizing his faith.

16 And blessed are they because of their exceeding faith in the words alone which thou hast spoken unto them.

I suspect the phrase “words alone” is related to the same phrase in the previous verse, but I am not entirely sure how.  One thing it seems to be doing is suggesting that Abinadi : Alma :: Alma :: Alma’s people.

17 And blessed art thou because thou hast established a church among this people; and they shall be established, and they shall be my people.

Note again that the same kind of syllogism is developed:  Alma establishes a church among the people, the people shall be established.  Is this related to believing on “words alone” in the previous two verses?  (And, again, why the emphasis on “words alone”:  was this not a day of miracles?)

Brant Gardner:

Perhaps the recent events had raised some question in Alma’s mind about the wisdom of the churches since they appear to have engendered divisions as a side effect. The Lord may be allaying those fears by telling Alma that his establishment of the church is accepted.  Citation

18 Yea, blessed is this people who are willing to bear my name; for in my name shall they be called; and they are mine.

What does the word “bear” convey that another word (honor, carry, be called by, etc.) might not?  Why is the idea of bearing the Lord’s name a good metaphor for, um, whatever it is a metaphor for?  (What is it a metaphor for?)

19 And because thou hast inquired of me concerning the transgressor, thou art blessed.

Does “transgressor” imply that the issue is behavior and not belief?

Why is “transgressor” singular here?

Note that the structure of the Lord’s speech so far has been to list things for which Alma is blessed.  And Alma’s question falls right into that list of blessings–it isn’t treated as a separate thing.

You know that expression “it’s always easier to ask forgiveness than permission”?  It might be true at work, but it isn’t the Lord’s way.  Here, Alma is called blessed for asking what to do.  I think one of the vast unexplored frontiers of pride afflicts leaders (which is all of is, in some sphere or another) who assume that they know what to do instead of asking the Lord what they should be doing.

20 Thou art my servant; and I covenant with thee that thou shalt have eternal life; and thou shalt serve me and go forth in my name, and shalt gather together my sheep.

What does the metaphor of sheep suggest to you about what Alma should do as a leader?

Jim F.:  ”Three things occur in this verse: the Lord calls Alma his servant; the Lord covenants that Alma will have eternal life; and the Lord says that Alma will serve him. (This rhetorical pattern, a cousin of chiasmus, is called inclusion.) How are these things connected to one another? Why is the covenant “sandwiched” between the descriptions of Alma as a servant—what does the arrangement tell us? What is a covenant? (It is more than a contract or mutual promise.) What does this covenant mean? What does it mean to have eternal life?”

Note the structure here:  the Lord mentions a bunch of things for which Alma is blessed, with the last item on the list being asking about the church discipline hot potato.  Then immediately after, the Lord covenants with Alma.  So:  What is the relationship between v19 and v20, which is another way of saying:  what is the relationship between Alma asking his question and Alma being offered this covenant?  (I would guess that Alma’s willingness to ask the Lord for guidance was the indicator of his readiness to enter into this covenant.)

I’m trying to get my mind around the relationship of the parts of this verse, which I see as:

(1) thou are my servant

(2) thou shalt have eternal life

(3) thou shalt serve me

(4) [thou shalt] go forth in my name

(5) [thou shalt] gather my sheep

Is (1) just an intro?  Do (4) and (5) explain what (3) is?  Or does Alma do three things (3, 4, and 5) in order to get (2)?  Or are there other ways of understanding the relationship of the parts of this covenant?

Does the “gather my sheep” part of this covenant relate in any way to the fact that Alma’s question that prompted the Lord’s statement was about what to do with apostates? (Save thoughts on this for the next verse.)

21 And he that will hear my voice shall be my sheep; and him shall ye receive into the church, and him will I also receive.

I think the point of this is to explain who is to be gathered, per v20.

What does “hearing his voice” suggest about our relationship to the Lord?

I think most of us secretly hate being compared to sheep.  Why do the scriptures do this so often?  What can you do to be more sheep-like?

Note that the Lord receives whoever Alma receives into the Church.  What should we learn from this?

22 For behold, this is my church; whosoever is baptized shall be baptized unto repentance. And whomsoever ye receive shall believe in my name; and him will I freely forgive.

What does “unto repentance” mean?  (I would have picked a different preposition.)

Would you read this verse differently if there were a colon instead of a semi-colon after church?  (Woohoo!  That multi-tens-of-thousands-of-dollars English BA is really paying off now, Mom and Dad!)

Does “this is my church” relate to the material before it in v21 or the material after it in v22?

Note that v21 said that whoever Alma received, the Lord would receive.  (What does “receive” mean in this context?)  Here, whoever Alma receives will be freely forgiven.  What is the relationship of all of these ideas?

Does being received by Alma cause the believing on Jesus’ name?  (That doesn’t sound quite right, but I’m trying to figure out how “shall believe in my name” fits in to the train of thought here.)

Brant Gardner:

The Lord uses the word “sheep” here. In a New World context this would be rather out of place. While one may discuss what other animal might be meant by “sheep” in some verses, the “sheep” here are clearly humans. This is a literary device, not a specific animal. It may or may not have been the precise word Alma understood, but it is the term used for similar meaning in the New Testament, and therefore is used here. It is understandable in its imagery, even though the imagery is more modern than ancient in this context. Citation

23 For it is I that taketh upon me the sins of the world; for it is I that hath created them; and it is I that granteth unto him that believeth unto the end a place at my right hand.

Skousen reads “in the end” here.

Note how this verse relates to v22 (the “for” here encourages us to read it as “the reason for” the conclusion to v22).

What does “taking” sins suggest about sin?

Why does the Lord mention that He created people here?  (In other words, how is that idea related to taking on the sins of the world?)

The obvious antecedent of “them” is “sins of the world,” but that doesn’t quite work.  (I presume that the them is all the people from v22.)

What does the place at the right hand symbolize?

24 For behold, in my name are they called; and if they know me they shall come forth, and shall have a place eternally at my right hand.

What does it really mean to “know” the Lord?

The idea of being called by someone else’s name is . . . weird.  What does it suggest about our relationship to the Lord?

Compare with v23:  both verses end the same way, but this verse adds “eternally.”  Is that change significant?  What does the paralleling of “believe unto the end” (v23) and “know me” (v24) suggest about those two ideas?

25 And it shall come to pass that when the second trump shall sound then shall they that never knew me come forth and shall stand before me.

How literally do you take the second trump?  What might it symbolize?

26 And then shall they know that I am the Lord their God, that I am their Redeemer; but they would not be redeemed.

Is the “knowing” in this verse the same as the “knowing” in v25?

27 And then I will confess unto them that I never knew them; and they shall depart into everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels.

What is the relationship between the Lord’s (not) knowing them and their (not) knowing the Lord?  Why is knowledge the metaphor used here for the covenant relationship?

It is, of course, not literally true that the Lord did not know them.  (A cynic might even say that this statement is a lie.)  What is the Lord accomplishing by describing his relationship to the people who refused redemption in this way?

Previously, in Ben’s speech, we saw that the fiery (It just struck me how weird it is that fire become fiery–how does the ‘e’ get on the other side of the ‘r’?) description of hell was metaphorical.  Is that the case here?

28 Therefore I say unto you, that he that will not hear my voice, the same shall ye not receive into my church, for him I will not receive at the last day.

I think it is safe to say that this verse assumes that the church should be a template, at least in some ways, for the afterlife.

Notice how the Lord has presented the policy on apostates not as some discrete “policy,” but as the logical conclusion (seriously, note how carefully controlled the logic is in this passage) of doctrine concerning the final judgment, which is based on covenant-keeping.  Sometimes I see some LDS make a firm distinction between “doctrine” and “policy” (usually this is done to avoid stigma for any unfortunate past policies, or to minimize the importance of current policies perceived to be unsavory), but this passage suggests, I think, that policies should be firmly rooted in doctrine and treated as such.

For what is “hearing his voice” a metaphor?

Note how thoroughly the sheep-shepherd imagery imbues this passage.  Why do you think the Lord chose to use a metaphor, and why this one?

29 Therefore I say unto you, Go; and whosoever transgresseth against me, him shall ye judge according to the sins which he has committed; and if he confess his sins before thee and me, and repenteth in the sincerity of his heart, him shall ye forgive, and I will forgive him also.

Does “according to the sins” mean that beliefs are not a problem? (Or is lack of belief a sin?)  I’m still trying to work through the implications of the fact that this story begins by pointing out that these people did not believe, but then pivots to talking about their sins and not about their lack of belief.

This verse implies that a dual confession (=before the Lord and before the high priest) is required as is a dual forgiveness.  Why might this be so?

What is “go” doing in this verse?

What do you make of “transgress against me” as opposed to “transgress against the law”?

As we get the answer to Alma’s question, we see how far out of line the idea of turning people over to the king was:  this is a matter with eternal consequences, patterned after eternal realities.  It is not a political or civil matter.

Given that the Lord has framed the church as a template for the heavenly realm in this answer, what should that teach us about the church?  About heaven?  What other church policies might we intuit from this passage, besides those related to excommunication?

When we talk about sins being forgiven, we usually think about our sins.  Think about a pedophile’s or a terrorist’s sins and then reread this verse.

30 Yea, and as often as my people repent will I forgive them their trespasses against me.

The cynic asks:  How is this not a license to sin?

31 And ye shall also forgive one another your trespasses; for verily I say unto you, he that forgiveth not his neighbor’s trespasses when he says that he repents, the same hath brought himself under condemnation.

Shouldn’t it be “one another their trespasses”?

What are we to do about the problems that can arise when someone lies about having repented?

In the NT, “verily I say unto you” is sort of a technical phrase meaning something like, “listen up, this is really important!”

Note that forgiving gives us an opportunity to be literally Christ-like.

Note that we have to take our neighbor at her word when she says that she repents.  That’s kind of scary.

What do you make of the word “neighbor” (as opposed to friend or church member or fellow child of God or whatever) in this verse?

32 Now I say unto you, Go; and whosoever will not repent of his sins the same shall not be numbered among my people; and this shall be observed from this time forward.

So I’m fascinated by the fact that Alma approached the Lord with the question, “Who is supposed to deal with apostates?”  And the Lord gave him v15-31 before answering his question.  It would probably be a good idea to review those verses and consider why the Lord told all that to Alma instead of just sticking to v32.  Also, notice how (not just what) the question was answered–what do you see in the Lord’s answer that you might want to use as a pattern?

Also, why didn’t Alma have this information before he needed it?  Now that we know this, it looks like there was a lot of bumbling from teacher to priest to high priest to king and back to high priest when it should have just been the high priest.  Also, doesn’t it kind of make Alma look bad that he wanted to pawn off on Mosiah2 something that the Lord wanted him (Alma) to do?  And why didn’t Alma ask the Lord for direction before to sent them to Mosiah2?

This is the second “go” statement:   How does it relate to the first?

What does the idea of “numbering among people” suggest?  (It seems we have switched from a sheepfold to a census or list or some sort.)

Is this only supposed to apply to big, fat, hairy sins?  (Because it doesn’t say that.  It actually says anyone who won’t repent.)

Why do you think the Lord chose to wait to give Alma this information until (1) after there was a crisis and (2) after Alma asked about it, instead of putting it in the handbook Alma got when he was given this calling?  In what situations might the Lord do the same thing with us?  (And is this fair?)

33 And it came to pass when Alma had heard these words he wrote them down that he might have them, and that he might judge the people of that church according to the commandments of God.

Why did we need this verse in the record?

Honestly, did Alma think he might forget this?

34 And it came to pass that Alma went and judged those that had been taken in iniquity, according to the word of the Lord.

35 And whosoever repented of their sins and did confess them, them he did number among the people of the church;

Wouldn’t they already have been numbered among the people?

36 And those that would not confess their sins and repent of their iniquity, the same were not numbered among the people of the church, and their names were blotted out.

“Blotted out” suggests the image of a book with the names of church members in it, with names removed.  What can this image teach us about the Church?

37 And it came to pass that Alma did regulate all the affairs of the church; and they began again to have peace and to prosper exceedingly in the affairs of the church, walking circumspectly before God, receiving many, and baptizing many.

Webster 1828 circumspectly:

Cautiously; with watchfulness every way; with attention to guard against surprise or danger.

Are “receiving” and “baptizing” two different things or two ways of saying the same thing?

38 And now all these things did Alma and his fellow laborers do who were over the church, walking in all diligence, teaching the word of God in all things, suffering all manner of afflictions, being persecuted by all those who did not belong to the church of God.

39 And they did admonish their brethren; and they were also admonished, every one by the word of God, according to his sins, or to the sins which he had committed, being commanded of God to pray without ceasing, and to give thanks in all things.

A talk from Elder Oaks stemming from the admonition to “give thanks in all things” in this verse.

Notice how careful this verse is to point out that the leaders of the church needed, and received, correction.

CHAPTER 27

1 And now it came to pass that the persecutions which were inflicted on the church by the unbelievers became so great that the church began to murmur, and complain to their leaders concerning the matter; and they did complain to Alma. And Alma laid the case before their king, Mosiah. And Mosiah consulted with his priests.

Does murmuring strike you as an odd reaction to persecution?  I think murmuring usually happens in the scriptures when you don’t like what a leader did.  Is there some implication that they didn’t like Alma’s excommunication policy and perhaps they saw a link between it and the persecutions?  Total speculation alert, but I am wondering if there was a faction that thought everyone should just be kept in the church, because if they were kicked out, then they’d fight the church, but if they were in the church, then they wouldn’t fight the church.

I see a fascinating parallel with the last chapter, where Alma also turned an issue over to Mosiah.  (Of course, we later learn that the Lord wanted Alma to handle that issue himself.)  Here, Alma is again turning a problem over to Mosiah–but this time, the problem is persecution (or church members complaining about persecution).  Are you surprised that Alma didn’t ask the Lord what to do about this?

Are murmuring and complaining two different things in this verse, or two ways of saying the same thing?

Are they right to murmur/complain about this?

Now, the last time Alma took something to Mosiah, it didn’t turn out well.  Does that incident predispose us to expect the same here?

Notice what happened:  Alma went to Mosiah and Mosiah went to his priests.  But Alma is a high priest.  So are they just playing hot potato, or what?

2 And it came to pass that king Mosiah sent a proclamation throughout the land round about that there should not any unbeliever persecute any of those who belonged to the church of God.

3 And there was a strict command throughout all the churches that there should be no persecutions among them, that there should be an equality among all men;

What is the relationship that this verse is suggesting because equality and persecution?  What does equality mean in this verse?  Does the phrase “that there should be equality” apply just to v3, or also to v2?

Note that, while v2 is concerned without people outside the church persecuting those within the church, that this verse is concerned about people within the church persecuting other people within the church.  How might that happen today?

4 That they should let no pride nor haughtiness disturb their peace; that every man should esteem his neighbor as himself, laboring with their own hands for their support.

Does this verse answer the question about what equality means above?

The BoM places a huge emphasis on laboring with one’s own hands.  Is this about the virtues of manual labor, self-sufficiency, or something else?  How is it relevant today?  (How does it apply to SAHMs?)

What is the link between the material in this verse and the problem of persecution?  (I suspect that the persecution had a socio-economic as well as a religious component based on this verse.)

5 Yea, and all their priests and teachers should labor with their own hands for their support, in all cases save it were in sickness, or in much want; and doing these things, they did abound in the grace of God.

The idea of priests laboring is such a theme in the BoM . . . I am half wondering if the issue isn’t so much that they would be moochers as that priests/teachers need to be connected to the “real world” of employment (farming, whatever).  There are problems that arise when priests/teachers are insulated from the “real world” because they don’t have to work in it (especially with the people in it) (and, yes, I am concerned about how this might apply to full-time CES people).

6 And there began to be much peace again in the land; and the people began to be very numerous, and began to scatter abroad upon the face of the earth, yea, on the north and on the south, on the east and on the west, building large cities and villages in all quarters of the land.

So in this case, a king passing a law ending religious persecution had a good outcome.  What is the moral of this story?

7 And the Lord did visit them and prosper them, and they became a large and wealthy people.

8 Now the sons of Mosiah were numbered among the unbelievers; and also one of the sons of Alma was numbered among them, he being called Alma, after his father; nevertheless, he became a very wicked and an idolatrous man. And he was a man of many words, and did speak much flattery to the people; therefore he led many of the people to do after the manner of his iniquities.

Interestingly, there isn’t much idolatry in the BoM.  Do we have any indication from his background or from the situation in Zarahemla as to why idolatry would appeal to Alma2?

How would you respond to the cynic who suggests that this verse implies that parenting doesn’t matter?

Brant Gardner:

The “wicked” might lead us to think of any number of possible sins, but why is Alma the Younger “idolatrous?” Clearly to be guilty of that sin he is not only an unbeliever in the Nephite religion, but is apparently abeliever in an idolatrous religion. In the context in which we have been viewing these events, Alma the Younger has adopted the idolatrous “outside” religion. Having adopted that position, he actively encourages others to follow his lead. Citation

9 And he became a great hinderment to the prosperity of the church of God; stealing away the hearts of the people; causing much dissension among the people; giving a chance for the enemy of God to exercise his power over them.

Remember that in the OT, hearts usually means minds.

What do you learn about Satan from this verse?

10 And now it came to pass that while he was going about to destroy the church of God, for he did go about secretly with the sons of Mosiah seeking to destroy the church, and to lead astray the people of the Lord, contrary to the commandments of God, or even the king—

I find it interesting that our last references to secrecy were about Alma1 hiding from Noah to build up the church, but here Alma2 goes about secretly to tear it down.  Is this just an ironic reversal, or what?

What work is “or even the king” doing in this verse?

11 And as I said unto you, as they were going about rebelling against God, behold, the angel of the Lord appeared unto them; and he descended as it were in a cloud; and he spake as it were with a voice of thunder, which caused the earth to shake upon which they stood;

What happened to “faith precedes the miracle”?  Does it strike you as odd that wicked people would see an angel?

Why don’t all wicked people see an angel?

What work is “as it were in a cloud”  doing in this verse?  What does that even mean?

Note that, in Paul’s conversion, the Lord comes in light; here, it is a cloud.  Is that a significant difference?

Why the voice of thunder?  (And now I’ve got that song in my head.)

What is the earth shaking supposed to do to Alma2 and the sons of Mosiah?

I’m thinking that the cloud/thunder/earthquake is meant to suggest natural phenomenon, but that is kind of weird in a verse about an angelic visitation.  What’s going on here?

So not only does this conversion story have many parallels to Paul’s in content, but also in form, in the sense that the NT has multiple accounts of it and the BoM has multiple accounts of Alma’s. Note that we also have multiple accounts of the First Vision.  (Do you consider that a conversion narrative?  It is missing the element of hostility to the church that Alma and Paul had.)  How might this be significant?

12 And so great was their astonishment, that they fell to the earth, and understood not the words which he spake unto them.

Why couldn’t they understand him?

13 Nevertheless he cried again, saying: Alma, arise and stand forth, for why persecutest thou the church of God? For the Lord hath said: This is my church, and I will establish it; and nothing shall overthrow it, save it is the transgression of my people.

There are obvious parallels here to Paul’s experience.  What can you learn from comparing the two?  Why do you think there was such dramatic intervention in these cases but not others?

Note that we are not given the angel’s first words, the words that they didn’t understand.  Why is that?  Is it safe to assume those words were identical to this verse?

What is the point of “arise and stand forth”?

Does “why are you persecuting the church” seem like an odd opener to you?  (As if there were anything that Alma could say that would make the angel respond with, “Oh, well, in that case, OK.  Carry on.  Good day, then.”)  Why does the angel ask this question?  Why not just say “Stop persecuting the church!”?

I find the idea that transgressions could overthrow the church intriguing.  It suggests that they are powerful.

14 And again, the angel said: Behold, the Lord hath heard the prayers of his people, and also the prayers of his servant, Alma, who is thy father; for he has prayed with much faith concerning thee that thou mightest be brought to the knowledge of the truth; therefore, for this purpose have I come to convince thee of the power and authority of God, that the prayers of his servants might be answered according to their faith.

It is worth noting that even someone like Alma1 could end up with a totally wayward child.

What do you take from the fact that the angel conceives of convincing Alma2 of the power and authority of God as the solution to his problem?

Howard W. Hunter:

If a parent has made what could be considered an error—or, on the other hand, has never made a mistake, but still the lamb has wandered from the fold—in either case there are several thoughts I would like to share with you. First, such a father or mother is not alone. Our first parents knew the pain and suffering of seeing some of their children reject the teachings of eternal life. (See Moses 5:27.) Centuries later Jacob came to know of the jealousy and ill feelings of his older sons toward his beloved Joseph. (See Gen. 37:1–8.) The great prophet Alma, who had a son named Alma, prayed at length to the Lord regarding the rebellious attitude of his son and no doubt was overwhelmed with concern and worry about the dissension and the wickedness his son was causing among those who were within the Church. (See Mosiah 27:14.) Our Father in Heaven has also lost many of his spirit children to the world; he knows the feelings of your heart. Oct 83 GC

Boyd K. Packer:

He was struck down by an angel, not because he deserved it but because of the prayers of his father and others (see Mosiah 27:14). Apr 06 GC

15 And now behold, can ye dispute the power of God? For behold, doth not my voice shake the earth? And can ye not also behold me before you? And I am sent from God.

Here’s the thing:  if a little celestial fireworks are all it took to get Alma2 to repent, then do you assume that Alma2 has never seen a miracle before?  By which I mean:  it seems hard to imagine Alma2 in this situation if he had grown up ‘feeling the spirit’ and seeing the Lord’s power.

So the set-up here is that a little angelic appearance would convince Alma of the truth.  But:  When we read the story of Laman and Lemuel being visited by an angel and not reforming, we take that story as evidence of the fact that miracles do not produce belief.  So how might we resolve this paradox?

16 Now I say unto thee: Go, and remember the captivity of thy fathers in the land of Helam, and in the land of Nephi; and remember how great things he has done for them; for they were in bondage, and he has delivered them. And now I say unto thee, Alma, go thy way, and seek to destroy the church no more, that their prayers may be answered, and this even if thou wilt of thyself be cast off.

What is remembering the recent captivity supposed to do for/to Alma?

What does “cast off” mean here?  (There is some debate by scholars as to whether, in the OT, it means death, excommunication, eternal punishment, disinheritance, etc.)

17 And now it came to pass that these were the last words which the angel spake unto Alma, and he departed.

Why is the message targeted so specifically at Alma and not really at the people with him?

What is the point of this verse?

18 And now Alma and those that were with him fell again to the earth, for great was their astonishment; for with their own eyes they had beheld an angel of the Lord; and his voice was as thunder, which shook the earth; and they knew that there was nothing save the power of God that could shake the earth and cause it to tremble as though it would part asunder.

There’s something about this story that seems . . . unbiblical . . . to me.  I just don’t like the idea of Alma converting because of a magic show as it were.

19 And now the astonishment of Alma was so great that he became dumb, that he could not open his mouth; yea, and he became weak, even that he could not move his hands; therefore he was taken by those that were with him, and carried helpless, even until he was laid before his father.

Are the muteness and weakness literal?  Symbolic?  What might they represent?

20 And they rehearsed unto his father all that had happened unto them; and his father rejoiced, for he knew that it was the power of God.

Why do you think the people with Alma (who are always narrated as having precisely the same reaction as Alma) do not have the physical consequences of the visitation that Alma has?

21 And he caused that a multitude should be gathered together that they might witness what the Lord had done for his son, and also for those that were with him.

22 And he caused that the priests should assemble themselves together; and they began to fast, and to pray to the Lord their God that he would open the mouth of Alma, that he might speak, and also that his limbs might receive their strength—that the eyes of the people might be opened to see and know of the goodness and glory of God.

What does the fasting in this verse tell us about the practice of fasting?

If Alma’s muteness and weakness are the result of divine intervention, should they be praying for them to end?

I find it interesting that we hear about Alma’s mouth (makes sense), Alma’s limbs (also makes sense), but then the people’s eyes (seems to come out of nowhere).

Brant Gardner:

In the context of the Book of Mormon, Alma the Younger has been fighting against the church, and particularly against the coming atoning Messiah. The prophecies of that Messiah are that he will die and be resurrected. In a very dramatic fashion, Alma the Younger becomes the visual symbol of that coming atoning Messiah. Alma the Younger, symbolically dead, will be resurrected to life. As with the atoning Messiah, where the pre-death being was mortal and subject to the world (as Alma had proved to be) the post-resurrection being would be God. While Alma was certainly not resurrected to the status of god, his transformation was still tremendous, and the new person was a powerful advocate for the church he had once persecuted.  This possible resurrection theme places a context to this particular difference between the experiences of Alma the Younger and Saul. Where Saul is blinded (perhaps symbolic of his prior refusal to “see” the reality of Jesus as Savior), Alma is debilitated. Symbolically, Alma the Younger also underwent an experience that was highly symbolic, but in Alma’s case, most directly related to the nature of his particular apostasy. Citation

23 And it came to pass after they had fasted and prayed for the space of two days and two nights, the limbs of Alma received their strength, and he stood up and began to speak unto them, bidding them to be of good comfort:

Is the timing of the fast symbolic?

What do you make of the fact that the scriptures usually (always?  almost always?) link fasting and prayer?

Where does the “good comfort” message come from?

What do you learn about fasting from this verse?

24 For, said he, I have repented of my sins, and have been redeemed of the Lord; behold I am born of the Spirit.

What does “born of the Spirit” imply?

I’m interested in the repented–redeemed–born pattern here . . . what could we learn from it?

25 And the Lord said unto me: Marvel not that all mankind, yea, men and women, all nations, kindreds, tongues and people, must be born again; yea, born of God, changed from their carnal and fallen state, to a state of righteousness, being redeemed of God, becoming his sons and daughters;

Note gender-inclusive language in this verse (twice).

Do you read this verse to suggest that Alma had been marveling that people needed to be born again?

We hear the phrase “born again” so frequently in our culture that it can become disassociated from its meaning.  What is accomplished by describing the repentance/redemption process in terms of birth imagery?

What does this verse teach you about the Fall?

James E. Faust:

A rebirth out of spiritual adversity causes us to become new creatures. From the book of Mosiah we learn that all mankind must be born again—born of God, changed, redeemed, and uplifted—to become the sons and daughters of God. Apr 79 GC

Dallin H. Oaks:

The question of whether a person has been saved is sometimes phrased in terms of whether that person has been “born again.” Being “born again” is a familiar reference in the Bible and the Book of Mormon. As noted earlier, Jesus taught that except a man was “born again,” of water and of the Spirit, he could not enter into the kingdom of God. The Book of Mormon has many teachings about the necessity of being “born again” or “born of God.”As we understand these scriptures, our answer to whether we have been born again is clearly “yes.” We were born again when we entered into a covenant relationship with our Savior by being born of water and of the Spirit and by taking upon us the name of Jesus Christ. We can renew that rebirth each Sabbath when we partake of the sacrament. Latter-day Saints affirm that those who have been born again in this way are spiritually begotten sons and daughters of Jesus Christ. Nevertheless, in order to realize the intended blessings of this born-again status, we must still keep our covenants and endure to the end. In the meantime, through the grace of God, we have been born again as new creatures with new spiritual parentage and the prospects of a glorious inheritance. Apr 98 GC

26 And thus they become new creatures; and unless they do this, they can in nowise inherit the kingdom of God.

What does “new creatures” suggest to you?  Is there any relation to the creation?

What does the “inherit” language suggest to you about the kingdom of God?

Brant Gardner points out that Alma’s experience here is not connected to baptism (we usually connect baptism and being born again).  What are the implications of this?

Corbin T. Volluz points out that this passage uses multiple synonyms for the same concept:

• “Redeemed of God”;
• “Born of the Spirit”;
• “Born of God”;
• “Born again”;
• “Becoming [God's] sons and daughters”; and,
• “Becom(ing) new creatures.”  Citation

27 I say unto you, unless this be the case, they must be cast off; and this I know, because I was like to be cast off.

I’m curious about the relationship of knowledge and experience in this verse.

28 Nevertheless, after wading through much tribulation, repenting nigh unto death, the Lord in mercy hath seen fit to snatch me out of an everlasting burning, and I am born of God.

What does “wading” imply to you?

What does “repenting nigh unto death”?

What does “snatching” suggest?

Is the “everlasting burning” literal or figurative?

Is being born of God (this verse) the same as born of the Spirit (v24)?

Does this verse provide a definition of what it means to be born of God?

29 My soul hath been redeemed from the gall of bitterness and bonds of iniquity. I was in the darkest abyss; but now I behold the marvelous light of God. My soul was racked with eternal torment; but I am snatched, and my soul is pained no more.

Webster 1828 gall:

1. In the animal economy, the bile, a bitter, a yellowish green fluid, secreted in the glandular substance of the liver. It is glutinous or imperfectly fluid, like oil.

2. Any thing extremely bitter.

3. Rancor; malignity.

4. Anger; bitterness of mind.

Why are “bonds” a good metaphor for the results of iniquity?

Webster 1828 abyss:

1. A bottomless gulf; used also for a deep mass of waters, supposed by some to have encompassed the earth before the flood.

2. That which is immeasurable; that in which any thing is lost.

3. In antiquity, the temple of Proserpine, so called from the immense treasures it was supposed to contain.

4. In heraldry, the center of an escutcheon.

Webster 1828 racked:

1. Tortured; tormented; strained to the utmost.

2. Drawn off, as liquor.

Boyd K. Packer:

The prophets teach how painful guilt can be. As I read what they have said, be prepared for very strong words. Even so, I will not read the strongest things they have said. The prophet Alma, describing his feelings of guilt, said, “I was racked with eternal torment, for my soul was harrowed up to the greatest degree and racked with all my sins.” The prophets chose very graphic words. Racked means “tortured.”Anciently a rack was a framework on which the victim was laid with each ankle and wrist tied to a spindle which could then be turned to cause unbearable pain. A harrow is a frame with spikes through it. When pulled across the ground, it rips and tears into the soil. The scriptures frequently speak of souls and minds being “harrowed up” with guilt. Torment means “to twist,” a means of torture so painful that even the innocent would confess. The prophets speak of the “gall of bitterness”and often compare the pain of guilt to fire and brimstone. Brimstone is another name for sulfur. King Benjamin said that those who are evil will be “consigned to an awful view of their own guilt and abominations, which doth cause them to shrink from the presence of the Lord into a state of misery and endless torment.” The Prophet Joseph Smith said: “A man is his own tormentor and his own condemner. … The torment of disappointment in the mind of man [or woman] is as exquisite as a lake burning with fire and brimstone.” That lake of fire and brimstone, ever burning but never consumed, is the description in the scriptures for hell. Suppose there was no cure, no way to ease spiritual pain or to erase the agony of guilt. Suppose each mistake, each sin, was added to the others with the racking, the harrowing up, the torment going on forever. Too many of us needlessly carry burdens of guilt and shame.  Apr 01 GC

30 I rejected my Redeemer, and denied that which had been spoken of by our fathers; but now that they may foresee that he will come, and that he remembereth every creature of his creating, he will make himself manifest unto all.

Skousen reads “but now I know that they may foresee” here.

Who is the “they” who are foreseeing in this verse?  This verse doesn’t make sense to me on a grammatical level:  I think he is saying that he no longer rejects his Redeemer because “they foresee.”  But they (assuming this means prophet) *always* foresaw Christ, it was just that Alma wouldn’t recognize that.  So how exactly does this verse work?

Is it literally true that Christ will manifest himself unto every creature?

31 Yea, every knee shall bow, and every tongue confess before him. Yea, even at the last day, when all men shall stand to be judged of him, then shall they confess that he is God; then shall they confess, who live without God in the world, that the judgment of an everlasting punishment is just upon them; and they shall quake, and tremble, and shrink beneath the glance of his all-searching eye.

Is there a relationship between the quaking and trembling here and those things in the angelic visitation?

32 And now it came to pass that Alma began from this time forward to teach the people, and those who were with Alma at the time the angel appeared unto them, traveling round about through all the land, publishing to all the people the things which they had heard and seen, and preaching the word of God in much tribulation, being greatly persecuted by those who were unbelievers, being smitten by many of them.

33 But notwithstanding all this, they did impart much consolation to the church, confirming their faith, and exhorting them with long-suffering and much travail to keep the commandments of God.

34 And four of them were the sons of Mosiah; and their names were Ammon, and Aaron, and Omner, and Himni; these were the names of the sons of Mosiah.

It is somewhat odd to name people after the major event in which they are participants.  Why do you think Mormon did so here?

35 And they traveled throughout all the land of Zarahemla, and among all the people who were under the reign of king Mosiah, zealously striving to repair all the injuries which they had done to the church, confessing all their sins, and publishing all the things which they had seen, and explaining the prophecies and the scriptures to all who desired to hear them.

We know that Zeniff’s “overzealousness” was bad.  Is “zealous” good here?

Interesting–where/how did they get this knowledge of the scriptures?

We don’t get too many pictures of restitution for sins in the scriptures, so this is a nice one.  (It is also a great picture of humility.)

36 And thus they were instruments in the hands of God in bringing many to the knowledge of the truth, yea, to the knowledge of their Redeemer.

Gideon was described also as an instrument in the hands of God.  What does that image suggest?

37 And how blessed are they! For they did publish peace; they did publish good tidings of good; and they did declare unto the people that the Lord reigneth.

CHAPTER 28

General thoughts:

(1) This chart compares the three BoM accounts of Alma’s conversion.  I think it would be worthwhile to study the similarities and differences in depth.  This article is also useful.  Why would three accounts of the same event have been included in a record that frequently reminds us of how very little it had space to include?

(2) This chart shows the famous chiasmus in Alma 36. (Article here.) My sense is that LDS scholars have generally been more concerned with the apologetic than the literary uses of chiasmus; I am more interested in the latter.  In that vein, I think it significant that the focus of this chiasmus is on crying to Christ.  It would be easy, I think, in reading this to focus on the angel, because that is outside of normal experience.  But that isn’t the focus of this story as written–this story is focused on calling out to Christ.  (Also note what isn’t at the center:  pain, fear, etc.) Also note that calling on Christ is literally surrounded by being harrowed up–I think that is also very telling.  Other notes on the structure:

–verses 1 & 30

–Alma’s word is associated with the Lord’s word.

–‘Keep the commandments’ is big picture.

–verses 2 & 28?29

–Notice link between knowing and doing

–What’s the point of remembering the captivity and liberation?

–Alma is associating his own release from sin with the historical release from sin, thereby teaching something about how to read the scriptures

–verses 4?5 & 26

–point about how we know what we know

–notice 4-5 are personal, but 26 shows how anyone can do this; this is important

–verses 6 & 24

–notice complete shift in attitude

–verses 10 & 23

–Ask: what’s the symbolism here?

–verses 14?15 & 22

–thoughts of being in presence of God

–this may a be good personal worthiness interview question . . .

–verses 16 & 20

–Ask: do you have this attitude that your joy will ultimately exceed your pain?

(3) Note that the structure of these lessons means that we lose the context of Alma 36, which is that Alma is about to hand over the plates to his son Helaman.  Do you read it differently in that context?

(4) I can’t convince myself to get interested in this, but maybe someone else will find it helpful.

(5) The cynic says:  It is a good thing that some of the kids who listened to Ben’s speech went apostate, because otherwise we never would have gotten Alma’s powerful conversion story and the record of it.  Response?

(6) Can you make any interesting comparisons between the conversion processes of Alma1 and Alma2?

(7) The heading before Alma 36 reads “The commandments of Alma to his son Helaman.  Comprising chapters 36 and 37.”  In what way might we read Alma 36 as “commandments”?

Charity by Bouguereau

Mother’s Day is a bit like Christmas time in terms of the mass solicitations sent out from various NGOs. To be honest, these are perhaps the only mass emails that I don’t mind. And I frankly agree with their general point: what better way to wish your own mother a Happy Mother’s Day than by contributing to another mother in her name? Also on the bright side, many organizations get matching funds during the Mother’s Day fundraising.

Anyway, while I’m certainly a believer that NGOs alone can’t fix these problems, I’m also a huge believer in the good that NGOs do. It’s another way of our pooling our resources (financial, knowledge, political, etc.) together in order to make a much bigger impact than we ever could alone. So for this Mother’s Day, I’m going to highlight some organizations that I consider gift worthy on behalf of my own mother (and yours).

(For the skeptics and for those interested in accountability, you can check out these organizations at places like charitywatch.org where those large/old enough to be ranked all rank very high.)

Catholic Relief Services (here’s my bit of holy envy – how I wish we had the equivalent)

Partners in Health (I’ve mentioned them in past posts, but they’re worth mentioning again – an amazing organization)

Somaly Mam Foundation (works with both the survivors and current victims of sexual trafficking and exploitation, started and ran by a survivor)

Room to Read (committed to increasing literacy and assisting girls to graduate from secondary school in Asia and Africa)

Family Care International (dedicated to making pregnancy and childbirth safer)

Women for Women International (a long time family favorite)

I’d love to hear from you about organizations – particularly those working to improve women’s lives – that you find worthy.

Happy Mother’s Day to all of you, and especially to our Heavenly Mother. May we remember and honor Her in word and in deed.

3) How does the translator resolve ambiguities on the word-level?
Hebrew writing did not indicate doubled letters (which are significant) or vowels until the 8th/9th century AD*, when Jews who had memorized the pronunciation of the traditional text came up with a system (three, actually) of indicating the pronunciation in the text with marks above, below, and inside the consonantal text. That, again, is a thousand-year gap. Scholars vary in how much weight to give the vowel-pointing (niqqudot, or just "pointing"), but at times, greater sense can be made of a text by repointing a word or two. If we have GDSNWHR in God's appearance to Moses, and the tradition said "GoD iS NoWHeRe" we might consider that a bit odd for a believing Israelite to say, particularly as God was there appearing to him. A scholar might repoint or redivide as "GoD iS NoW HeRe" since it fits the context better.  Just as BT in English could give us BuTT, BiT, BaT, ByTe, BuT or BeT, many words vary only in their pointing. (For an LDS example, Don Parry's BYU Studies article "Temple Worship and a Possible Prayer Circle in Psalm 24" repoints dor "generation" as dur "circle." He also discusses the history of pointing.)

One of the more common (and complex) examples involves debating whether lo "to him" or lo' "not" is the correct reading. There's also the difficult case of lo'  meaning "no, not" (originally l?' ) and lo' meaning "indeed, certainly" (originally lu'), since they look exactly the same in Biblical Hebrew (references here).

Here's what a text looks like without pointing, although technically, there should be no dot over the right-most branch of the pitchfork letter. Sin (?) and shin (š) are distinguished only by the location of the dot.

Same text WITH pointing.

Same text with the pointing AND accents indicating how to "sing" the text (which is what the "cantor" does in a modern synagogue).

Let's assume the traditional pointing is largely accurate (as it probably is in most cases), and raise another issue. We look to a word's usage to determine meaning. The more usages we find, the more contexts we have to help us.  However, the Old Testament does not have a lot of words (<7000, many of them related to each other), and many words have multiple meanings.  Add to the small sample size the fact that usage (and therefore meaning) shifts over time, and sometimes it's quite difficult to know just what a word means in a given passage. We can't willy-nilly assume a legal or technical usage will have the exact same meaning in a narrative usage hundreds of years later.  If a word is rare, we then turn to the versions as well as comparative Semitics; does a similar word exist in (to pick a few) Aramaic, Ugaritic, Arabic or Assyrian/Babylonian? Do the usages there shed any light on its usage in the Old Testament? (I've written before about some Ugaritic examples, and this Ensign article from 1983 gives some as well.) Poetic texts tend to use rarer vocabulary and use it in less concrete ways. Job is arguably the most difficult text in the Hebrew Bible, with a high concentration of hapax legomena (words that occur only once and nowhere else) and many other rare words. The bottom line is, even with years of scholarship, the versions, excellent lexicons, Jewish tradition, etc., sometimes we just don't know what a word really means in a particular case. For Jews, that has serious implications. When you read through the list of animals that aren't kosher in Leviticus 11, look down at the bottom of the page of the Jewish Study Bible and note that we're really not sure what birds these refer to.  But again, translations have to say something, and good scholarship recognizes and admits its own uncertainty.

At both the word level and higher, the structure of Hebrew lends itself to ambiguity, multiple meanings, puns, allusions, etc. It's great for poetry, but this also makes it infuriatingly difficult at times both to understand and to translate. I recall one of my professors saying that every word has at least four meanings- the primary meaning, its opposite, something having to do with sex, and something having to do with camels. He exaggerated, but not much. Arabic is even worse than Hebrew in this regard, and though my Arabic poetry exam suffered a bloodbath of red ink, somehow I still had an A.

* Hebrew originally began being purely consonantal, being based on a rebus principle. Then, the semi-vowels y and w (and perhaps h) began to be used to indicate some long vowels at the end of a word. Yet later, but still in the pre-NT period, they were used to indicate long vowels inside a word. For example, David's name, daw?d in pre-exilic texts is written DWD (w being consonantal there), but in post-exilic texts DWYD. The DSS continue this trend, and began using them sporadically to represent certain short vowels, but we don't find that usage in the MT, to my knowledge.

2) How does the translator parse the mechanics (syntax, etc.) and disambiguate the text on the sentence and paragraph level?
(NB: This is a very simplified presentation of complex subjects.)

Biblical Hebrew is very different from English. Like many other ancient languages, it has no formal punctuation, no capitals, and word order can vary. Consequently, it’s not always easy to figure out if this word belongs to end of this phrase or the beginning of that one. Sometimes it’s hard to tell where one sentence ends and another begins particularly since the word “and” functions in multiple ways and is used more frequently then English. Translators have to decide where the breaks are in the text, and then how to represent that in English.

(As a side note, several FARMS papers have discussed this in terms of the Book of Mormon’s awkward English syntax, with its endless run-on sentences and sometime unclear subjects. See here, here, and here.)

Another way Hebrew differs from English that may affect the translation is that it has only two verb “conjugations.” Whereas English makes liberal use of words to indicate tense and mood, Hebrew does not grammatically indicate tenses such as future, past, present, let alone those nightmare tenses like future perfect. This is not to say Israelites didn’t think about time or any such nonsense; what we indicate grammatically, they indicate syntactically and less explicitly. (Scholars argue over whether written Hebrew reflected spoken Hebrew.) This, again, means translators must both decide what it means and how to represent that in English. The lack of grammatical tense explains why one translation may put a verse in the past tense, another in the future and another in the present.

Beyond mechanics, poetry is tough. It’s often less concrete and more elliptical. For example, like Spanish, Hebrew doesn’t need pronouns with verbs; one can simply use the conjugated  masculine singular verb “ate” instead of “he ate”; lacking an explicit subject, translators must decide if the subject is new and assumed (he? it? God?) or if the verb’s subject is something from the previous phrase. Ambiguities of this nature occur more often in poetry. Based on their understanding, translators must make decisions about what the text is saying and how best to convey it.  Translators must say *something.* Based on an outdated view of translation, the KJV uses italics to indicate words added by the translators to round out or completely communicate what they thought the text was saying.

For a good short intro to Hebrew poetry, see Kevin Barney’s award-winning Ensign article here.

I’ve divided these into four semi-artificial headings, too long to all go in one post.

1) What are they translating from, and (1a) how much is the translation influenced by the versions?

Translators must choose a base text from which to translate.  Until the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls (DSS), the best manuscripts of the Old Testament were medieval, i.e. very late and far removed. This traditional Hebrew text is called the Massoretic text, or MT. Scribes copied biblical texts by hand for generations and as with all human endeavors, errors crept in by nature as well as by intention. That is, on occasion scribes would “correct” a text as they thought it should read (e.g. if you’re reading a story about a dog chasing a man, the dog catches him, and the man bites the dog,  and then the man goes to the hospital, you would reasonably assume that it was the dog that bit the man, not the other way around, and “correct” the text.) Scribes also sometimes made changes in pronunciation (to make sure Yahweh was pronounced as Adonai) or bowdlerized the text a little, or made theological changes. Errors are relatively common, obvious corrections much less so. When translators come across a man-bites-dog passage, they may well check the DSS. Whether they ultimately decide to use the MT or the DSS  or both as the basis of the translation is a philosophical decision. Using a different base text will result in differences in the translation.

1a) Ancient translations of Hebrew are called “versions.” These include the Greek translation(s), known as the Septuagint or LXX,  Aramaic translations known as Targums or targumim, and others in Latin, Syriac, etc. In several cases, our mss of these versions predated our oldest Hebrew texts, making the translation older than the original. (The DSS have closed the gap considerably.) In difficult or ambiguous passages, translators often consult the versions because they show how the ancient translators understood the text, and sometimes attest to a different underlying text. ( One classic example is Deu 32:8-9, in which the MT was “corrected” to sound monotheistic, but the versions preserved an older text that was then confirmed by the DSS.) You can also buy translations just of the versions, such as the recent and freely-available New English Translation of the Septuagint (NETS)

A good Bible will often include footnotes saying something like “other manuscripts read X” or “Hebrew uncertain.” The NET Bible often explains its translation in terms of the base text. How much weight should be given to the versions and under what circumstances are questions of translation philosophy that can affect the translation.