Comments on: Nephi’s Abrahamic Trial – Reading Nephi – 15:1-11 part II

By: Kurt

Kurt — Tue, 12 Sep 2017 22:31:45 +0000

James, I seemed to get something new out of your comment. That is some sore irony that I hadn’t considered before. Thanks for the insight!

By: Rob Osborn

Rob Osborn — Tue, 12 Sep 2017 21:05:55 +0000

James,
Its not his brothers posterity wiping out his posterity that bothers him but rather that all of their seed- both his and his brothers seed dwindling in disbelief leading to destruction that bothers him.

By: James Olsen

James Olsen — Tue, 12 Sep 2017 20:06:29 +0000

Knowing your posterity’s going to get wiped out is hard, it’s true. The variable relevant to thinking of this as an Abrahamic trial (which I may not have been clear on above) is God’s commanding Nephi to do something (lead his family to a new “promised land”) in order to fulfill his covenant with God that (to all appearances) will directly lead to the dissolution of the covenant as Nephi understands it (the genocide of his posterity). The fact that he’s immediately thereafter thrown into having to teach his brothers is an added twist of the knife.

By: Kurt

Kurt — Tue, 12 Sep 2017 00:32:25 +0000

I used to think something along the same lines until one day I realized I wasn’t thinking far enough into Nephi’s vision. He certainly has a lot weighing him down – to say the least. But much of his vision isn’t written and includes his posterity in what is still the future to us. There is bound to be great enjoyment associated with that portion of his posterity who remains true and faithful to the very end. Though even with this he is still greatly weighed down afterward.

By: Rob Osborn

Rob Osborn — Mon, 11 Sep 2017 18:28:09 +0000

I agree with Clark. I see Nephi as seeing the righteous covenant part of his people as being destroyed but that his and his brothers seed continue but becoming all a dark and loathsome people who are discovered by the early European explorers and then being smitten by the Gentiles, driven from place to place and then at some time after that being restored to the truth.

I think the hard part for Nephi is that their seed utterly turn away from God.

By: Clark

Clark — Mon, 11 Sep 2017 15:53:58 +0000

BTW – did you mean verses 12-36 in your title?

When I read these passages what strikes me more now than it did in the past is things like verse 13. “… remnant of our seed…” While that might just be a general phrase to imply he’s talking of Lehi’s descendants, it’s interesting that it can also be read as implying Nephi understood some of his descendants would survive the destructions at the the time of Moroni. Or at minimum at this time he doesn’t distinguish between his seed and Laman’s. You see this even in 2 Nephi 26:15 as well. “After my seed and the seed of my brethren shall have dwindled in unbelief, and shall have been smitten by the Gentiles…”

Something to keep in mind for those who assume the Nephites were utterly destroyed to a person.

It’s also worth noting that when Nephi starts quoting and expanding on Isaiah later in 1 Nephi much of what he is focused on are those passages related to his comments in this chapter.

Regarding your main point about an Abrahamic test, I’m not sure it works. First off I don’t see Nephi struggling about going to the new world, the way Abraham struggled with his command. Secondly many of Nephi’s writings are more about restoration.