{"id":34246,"date":"2015-10-25T18:37:31","date_gmt":"2015-10-25T23:37:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/?p=34246"},"modified":"2015-10-25T18:40:46","modified_gmt":"2015-10-25T23:40:46","slug":"reading-nephi-43-19-part-ii","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/2015\/10\/reading-nephi-43-19-part-ii\/","title":{"rendered":"Reading Nephi – 4:3-19 (part II)"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"068-068-the-liahona-full\"<\/a>So is this my contemporary sensibilities, my modern moral compass set in a fantastically different, less physically grueling and brutal world that recoils from Nephi\u2019s terrifying justification? Undoubtedly\u2014although that in itself certainly makes it no less right. But the text itself and Nephi\u2019s manner of disclosing and addressing this event offers evidence that something was rotten in Nephi\u2019s Denmark.<\/p>\n

First, it is conspicuous that Nephi deals with it at all, and even more conspicuous that he deals with it at length. His brothers weren\u2019t there. The event is decades old. Relating the narrative as he does won\u2019t contribute to Nephi\u2019s implicit goal of justifying his theocratic reign\u2014quite the opposite, the whole narrative is defensive in nature. Why go into at all? The story about his faith and perseverance being the variable that made the difference in gaining the sacred record is the critical point. Murdering Laban is a distraction. Why not skip over it altogether? His brothers weren\u2019t there. No one was there. Laban\u2019s passed out drunk. Why not simply describe his stealing Laban\u2019s clothes and leave it at that? (I also wonder why he didn\u2019t just leave Laban naked or perhaps tie him up. Did the situation not allow it?)<\/p>\n

I think Nephi dwells on the murder at length because it was a significant issue well down the road (as murders often are). This is one of the reasons for writing 1 Nephi in the first place. The murder is such a conspicuous event, that I suspect it was central to the anti-Nephi campaign that I can\u2019t help but see wound completely through the story. At some point it became known, and whether then or years later in the Americas, it became an issue. Perhaps the youthful and indiscreet Nephi bragged about it: \u201cWhen Laman went for the plates, Laban nearly killed him. But when I went for the plates, God delivered Laban into my hands and I smote him!\u201d Perhaps the blood and gore were conspicuous once the sun rose (I\u2019ll confess\u2014I always wonder morbidly about the clothes; decapitating someone is messy business; how could he then dress in Laban\u2019s clothing? and what did he then do with the body? the messiness calls out for explanation). Perhaps he was haunted and later confessed. Perhaps the news of it was everywhere when they went back for Ishmael\u2019s family, making it impossible for Nephi to hide the fact. Maybe Nephi was simply candid in telling his brothers and parents what happened, and this candor was later used against him.<\/p>\n

I also wonder at Nephi\u2019s own dialogic narrative. Again, if we take the record at face value, then this is a decades later recreation of whatever went through Nephi\u2019s head at the time of the event. There are certain cherished, life changing conversations I\u2019ve had, and relaying them now I think I get main points right, but certainly not the specifics. What tends to happen is that the narrative changes and gets codified in order to emphasize whatever it is that\u2019s important to me. This is natural\u2014and unavoidable. So it\u2019s important to remember that we\u2019re not getting an actual transcript of Nephi\u2019s dialogue with the Spirit.<\/p>\n

Additionally, even assuming a radically different and more violent culture, this was an event that would\u2019ve filled Nephi\u2019s blood with enough cortisol to cast doubt on not only an accurate recreation of his conversation with the Spirit, but probably the full details of the event itself\u2014even if he\u2019d written it the next day. This is a narrative that Nephi\u2019s worked at and polished. He explicitly draws upon Deuteronomy for his justification\u2014which he likely would not have even known prior to getting and studying the plates (and there\u2019s no telling how much time passed before he had access to the record he stole). This passage emphasizes Nephi\u2019s own \u201cshrinking\u201d from the act before offering a simplistic and barbaric set of excuses for the murder\u2014blaming God in the same way certain folks love to blame the devil. At any rate, my cynicism isn\u2019t necessary to my point: Nephi gives us a much later and carefully crafted narrative that emphasizes why his act was ok<\/em>. This is fact that all of us have to wrestle with, whatever we think of the event itself. Nephi\u2019s emphasis in the story only makes sense in response to the obvious point that his act was certainly not.<\/p>\n

I almost hate to mention it, but at this point I can\u2019t help but reread Nephi\u2019s earlier faithful, scriptural contextualizing (e.g., vs. 1-3). Rather than an inspiring model it now shows up as intentional rationalizing, priming, and manipulation.<\/p>\n

Nephi, you were indeed like your hero Moses: an outright murderer, called by God to stand as a prophet. But I far prefer Moses\u2019s unvarnished, unjustified narrative to your careful politicking.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

So is this my contemporary sensibilities, my modern moral compass set in a fantastically different, less physically grueling and brutal world that recoils from Nephi\u2019s terrifying justification? Undoubtedly\u2014although that in itself certainly makes it no less right. But the text itself and Nephi\u2019s manner of disclosing and addressing this event offers evidence that something was rotten in Nephi\u2019s Denmark.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":122,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[55],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-34246","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news-politics"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34246","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/122"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34246"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34246\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":34250,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34246\/revisions\/34250"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34246"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34246"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34246"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}