I’d add that if we take seriously Nephi fitting his history into the archetypes of these earlier figures then it’s hard not to see the murmuring in light of the children of Israel in the 40 year journey or Joseph’s brothers upset at Joseph. How much of that is a literary feature, how much is how he actually saw Laman and Lemnuel at the time, and how much is just unfair isn’t clear. However it does suggest that we should tread cautiously and that Nephi might be fitting things to a pre-existing narrative rather than trying to be fair in a more objective fashion.

I see, correctly or incorrectly, this pattern repeated through the Old and New Testament, the Book of Mormon, and LDS church history. Inheritance is a persistent human claim, though the examples I have seen in biblical narratives show inheritance as problematic at best. One of the ideas I was raised with was the United States promised a new political tradition that rejected inheritance, so I view human inheritance (material inheritance) as ultimately destructive of self and others.

For me, the sons of Ishmael saw themselves as having fulfilled their obligation to the mitzvot to “honor thy father and thy mother,” and felt they did not owe Lehi this same. Nephi was loyal to Lehi on at leat two levels, as son and as one who recognized Lehi as a prophet of God. Laman and Lemuel persistently sought reason to disobey Lehi despite their obligation under the mitzvot.

I agree with you this is a political dilemma for the group, but Nephi appropriately asserts his father’s authority, if not as the next patriarch of the clan, then as the one elder male still heeding God’s instructions and receiving revelation from God, and therfore qualified to lead.

I know some sophisticated people like to think of Nephi as petty, self-serving, and self-aggrandizing, and Laman as the pitiful object of a younger brother’s unrighteousness coup, and like to say we only hear one side of the story (Nephi’s), and Nephi obviously wrote to justify and cover his own faults. I think this is a perverse way to approach it.

Of course the record only touches on a few facts and happenings — that’s the nature of a record. I think Nephi carefully (not maliciously) selected events that would help others understand the story of faith (not justify his own unrighteousness).