Walter

Nephi’s killing of Laban: indeed, the distinction between moral and legal is far from easy, especially when confronted with a power figure who has done one wrong. The argument that Nephi’s act was not revenge since he took so much time in pondering, is a good one (even if revenge does illustrate the distinction between socially acceptable, moral and legal).
The notion that an inspiration or revelation is truly remarkable when it induces action against the current cultural norms – especially beyond current norms – is strong and valid, and might well be a yardstick that we should use more.

http://quoteinvestigator.com/2015/02/15/hidden-cat/

http://quoteinvestigator.com/2015/02/19/philo-cat/

In at least the second of these you’ll see what some have thought was meant as well as an application to religious knowledge —

In a 1931 book titled “Since Calvary: An Interpretation of Christian History” by the comparative religion specialist Lewis Browne. The sharpest barb was aimed at a set of religious individuals called Gnostics:

“Someone has said that a philosopher looking for the ultimate truth is like a blind man on a dark night searching in a subterranean cave for a black cat that is not there. Those Gnostics, however, were theologians rather than philosophers, and so—they found the cat!”

Now you have eliminated any uncertainty, by reading the story to include Nephi’s “family and clan is going to be killed [no “probably” about it] by someone whose sole purpose of the violence is for political and personal power.” That reading [again unsupported by the text, in my view, but possible because of the many things not included in the text] might support invoking a moral right to defend life and family quite without regard to the purpose of the threatened violence. But Nephi’s reported thoughts and behavior in considering whether to slay Laban do not suggest any present fear or any anticipation that his family and clan were going to be killed at Laban’s urging if he did not defend them by slaying Laban. Instead, not only was there no immediate threat to Nephi, but 1 Ne 4:11 has Nephi cogitating on Laban’s past attempt, the fact that Laban was a wicked person, and the fact that Laban had stolen the family’s property, all as if punishment were the justification and not defense. Verses 12 and 13 have Nephi directed by the Spirit to act for the Lord in slaying the wicked for the Lord’s “purposes,” the one of which that is mentioned it to prevent a nation from dwindling and perishing in unbelief. While there may have been unreported facts that would make possible a defense of life and family argument in favor of the morality of Nephi’s action, supporting a claim of morality apart from direction of the Spirit and the Lord’s partly disclosed purposes was not a concern of the story writer as we have received it. The text does not support a conclusion that Nephi took Laban’s life in defense of his own or his family’s, though that may be possible.

I forgot to mention a recent book by Elizabeth W. Goldstein called “Impurity and Gender in the Hebrew Bible” as well as her contribution to “Current Issues in Priestly and Related Literature: The Legacy of Jacob Milgrom and Beyond”. Her article is titled, “Women and the Purification Offering: What Jacob Milgrom Contributed to the Intersection of Women’s Studies and Biblical Studies” that would be a little more on point to my comments and I think make excellent supplement to Jay’s work, particularly as to the Levitical treatment of women.

But what happens when circumstances are not normal? What happens when the judges will not judge righteously? Or if there is really no time even to determine what legal action is possible?

If a man came to kill my wife and children I would kill him. I would consider it both moral and ethical, and quite frankly would not care what the law said. In truth, basic human rights trump laws. And the most basic human right is defense of one’s life and family.

Further, in the day and culture of Nephi’s time I do not think you would get a person in the city, knowing all the facts, who would morally disagree with Nephi’s actions. They might semantically disagree, citing law and procedure, but in the end in that day and culture all would recognize the moral right of Nephi to defend his life and his family’s life, even by killing Laban.

It seems you have provided reasons why Laban’s death was legally justified, but not that Nephi’s bringing about that death. If I understand your theory of morality in this context correctly, it is that homicide, theft, and obtaining another’s property by deception, are moral if the killer/thief understands that it is probably a matter of his family clan’s survival [and implicitly, where the victim of the theft has previously stolen more than equivalent value from the family of theif in question]. This does not seem to be consistent with either scripture or traditional ethical theories, though it has been a long time since I read ethics with any degree of seriousness. I still do not see how one successfully deals with the question of morality of Nephi’s actions without a theory that whatever God, through the spirit, tells you to do is moral. That theory then invokes the question [for both the actor and an observer] how one knows that it was God who told you to do it. Maybe you have some moral principle in mind that I have not discerned from your comment.

I did not say that the whole Genesis story is an integrated narratological book (but then again, depending on how you define that phrase, Genesis might as well be an integrated narratological book). There are separate stories that are stitched together, and it is the stitching that is interesting. Robert Altar shows just how “stitched” together the first half of Genesis is using his literary analysis. The stories of creation, flood, and fire are integrated and they do point to each other. The destruction of the Tower of Babel is yet another world destruction by wind (by late traditions). But the juxtapositions between stories are often “stitched” using motifs that tie separate stories into a unified philosophical and theological vision. It is quite brilliant really. So my pointing out how and when Abraham is introduced in the text is still relevant.

I absolutely love your SS take on Abraham. I will use it in the future. And I will reference you. (Or maybe you don’t want me to, either way).

I again disagree on the Nephi-Laban issue. Laban stole all of Nephi’s property and attempted to murder Nephi and his brothers. Nephi had done nothing except offer to purchase the plates. Both these crimes in the legal code of the day would lead to severe punishment including a death sentence. Laban’s life, by the law of the land, is forfeit.

There is a difference between legal and moral. Often, in any society, the more complex and convoluted the legal system is the wider the chasm between law and morality. Law can become incredibly arbitrary, and as such, that which is legal is secondary to that which is moral. Nephi, in the end, would have no legal recourse in a system where Laban was connected with the rulers and judges and Nephi was not. Also, technically, it is also true that a person could not take the law into their own hands. As such, Nephi’s action was legally justified, but illegal in execution. I would state that his action however, is moral. Laban already attempted to murder him, and Nephi innately understood that Laban would probably chase them down in the wilderness now that he knows where Lehi is. It is a matter of self-survival of his entire family clan. I do not see Nephi’s action as revenge. If it were revenge than Nephi would not have shirked the killing. Nephi slays Laban out of moral necessity.

Of course, people can disagree with this viewpoint. In such a difficult passage, like that of Abraham, discussion, doubt, and argument are necessary. In both these cases it is often taught in SS as principles of sheer obedience. It is good to wrestle with these stories and their moral, legal, and theological implications.

I’m glad you asked these questions of your class and that they responded admitting their “problems with the story”. The Aqedah should cause us problems for other reasons, primarily that all of us will have to go through some type of “Abrahamic sacrifice”. Elder Neal Maxwell said as much in an interview and pointed out that the nature of the sacrifice will be individualized to each.

I agree that Laban’s death was not a sacrificial cleansing, but I agree with Jack Welch’s analysis (along with others).

Isn’t that one of the key arguments for what constitutes E in those passages? So I think this tells us less than it appears at first glance.

Almost all sacrifices in Genesis are in E, that is those sacrificies that are not done inside the temple, through the established priestly line. Abraham’s is the culmination, or maybe the short-cut sacrifice among these.

Your second question is the whole Genesis story as one editorial whole, with a general P message. P has the last word in editing, but you might overrate the narratological integration of the whole book, I think. It still has the feel of a patchwork, with P doing the stitches, which nudge the stories in a certain direction, covenant surely, but on the other hand those scribes/editors were too reverent of the received texts and tales too change too much in them. If they would have done so, there would not be so many contradictions, doublures and open ends. Also the stories do not speak to each other. do not cite each other. But I agree with your general covenant theme.

In Sunday School I would aim at raising questions more than giving answers: so I would spell out the quandary in Abraham’s story (anti human sacrifice, esp. through Book of Abraham), pro-family, contra earlier promises etc) point at A’s negotiating with the three messengers, point at Moses negotiating for the survival of his people, point at the possibility of ‘inspiration from the wrong source’ and then look at the story again. The prophetic and priesthood responsibility no. 1 is to stand before your people: even if obedience may be laudable, another reaction might have been better. I did, in fact, and people repsonded with : “I Always had a problem with this story’.

Nephi’s killing of Laban, legal or not? Not legal, I think in that day and age (citizens killing each other, kinsmen killing each other, is nowhere legal) but a socially acceptable transgression of law. Like the stereotypical Texan shooting his wife and her lover in flagrante delicto. Not legal, but forgiveable (so I have heard, bear with me). It was an act of revenge also (they were robbed and chased away) and as such also an escalation. Revenge is never legal and often socially acceptable. The comparison with sacrifice does not hold up: Laban was not given to the Lord, his blood was not cleansing etc. He stood in the way and had made his jural position weak by prior actions.

In the received story, Abraham struggled with more than the brutality of what he was asked to do. Arguably within the culture of his time, human sacrifice to appease the god(s) so that they would bless the land with fruitfulness might be said to show that it was better that one man should die than that an entire nation should succumb to famine.

Is there a way to provide a brief explanation of the morality of Nephi’s action that might satisfy those moderns who do not, as yet, see it as moral?

By the laws of the land Laban’s life was forfeit. Nepal’s action was both legal and moral, though Nephi struggled with the brutality of the deed. Abraham also struggled with the brutality of what he was asked to do, and we could argue the cultural norms as to the legal and moral context of his culture. Child sacrifice is outside of my box and I cannot figure how anyone ever thought it to be moral. Ever.