As LDS’s we acknowledge and raise our hands to accept 15 men as Prophet, Seers, and Revelators, and especial witnesses of Jesus. When one reads the definition of each of these things in our scriptures, it’s quite mind-boggling what these titles represent. These men are fully aware of how the faithful look on them, in any testimony meeting you will hear how – particularly the president of the Church – has absolute direct communication with God and angels. The question then becomes that, no matter what their good intentions or motivations are, if these 15 men are not Prophets, Seers, and Revelators in every sense that the scriptures state, are they being “righteous” to present themselves as such.

4 And it came to pass that I, Nephi, did exhort my brethren, with all diligence, to keep the commandments of the Lord.
5 And it came to pass that they did humble themselves before the Lord; insomuch that I had joy and great hopes of them, that they would walk in the paths of righteousness.

This is the type of kind, yet firm, dialogue towards a loved one that brings the end result even if it was just temporary. It says that Nephi had great joy for them. So, I am not quite sure where Nephi unhumbly is getting after his brothers. The text actually makes the opposite case.

However, if I can appreciate the narrative of Joseph and his older brothets and their relationship with their father/prophet, certainly that gives me a framework for understanding Nephi and Sam and Laman and Lemuel.

Older brothers, performing their ranching duties as expected, but along comes the “dreamer” and upstart Joseph, who gets a technicolor dreamcoat even, and tells them he will rule over them, the elder brothers.

This has all happened before, and it will all happen again, espescially as Lehi is descended from Joseph, notJudah. Is it so surprising the family “curse” of envy and political wrangling still shows up through the succeeding generations?

Laman and Lemuel didn’t eventually take the option to sell Nephi off, they went with their first imclination: Let’s kill him, and follow in the footsteps of Cain.

The forgotten man in this equation seems to be Lehi. He does not seem to have been a leader. That he was a righteous man is not in question. That he was a man that loved his children passionately is also evident in the words that Nephi spoke. Yet it was Nephi that had to stand up to his brothers on several occasions when his father, the head of the household, seemingly remained silent. It seems that a youthful Nephi was forced by circumstances beyond his control to accept a leadership role that God conferred upon him, and this sooner maybe than it should be because of his father’s seemingly retiring nature. It was the father that was the titular leader of the clan who should have been stepping in and controlling the narrative. But he appears to be more like Eli in the Old Testament, a righteous man but for some reason loath to try to control the unrighteous actions of his two oldest children. It does not appear that Lehi was physically ailing or frail as he fathered two more children during the trek to Bountiful.

Nephi’s words can seem unhumble to some. He maybe could have approached things a little differently (and just may have done so at first, but it just not be included in the narrative) but he was in an on-the-job-training type of situation. However, when one looks back on the different prophets that have addressed their contemporaries, calling them to repentance, their words were probably not viewed as being very humble to those that were on the receiving end. I imagine that the Sadducees and Pharisees did not appreciate Jesus’ words when he called them a generation of vipers, and I doubt that the priest’s of Baal found Elijah very humble when he was mocking them as they entreated Baal to fire up their sacrifice for them. Nephi’s words seem pretty benign compared to those two examples.

Glenn