This is a guest post by Brian Stubbs.<\/p>\n
The faith, feats, and divine protection of the 2,000 stripling warriors is a favorite episode for many readers of The Book of Mormon.\u00a0 Yet a number of less-than-obvious details may muster even more admiration.\u00a0 The people of Ammon were called Anti-Nephi-Lehi (Alma 23:16-17), likely meaning \u2018those of Nephi-Lehi\u2019 (Book of Mormon Onomasticon, online; Changes in Languages from Nephi to Now<\/em>, Stubbs 2020, 101). The original adults covenanted never to kill again and were given protection within Nephite territories. With time, the Nephite burdens of war led to 2,000 Ammonite youths, teenage sons who had not entered into such a covenant, to volunteer for service.\u00a0 These 2,000 striplings asked Helaman, the son of Alma the younger, to lead them (Alma 53:19).<\/p>\n From Middle English, the word stripling<\/em><\/strong> basically means \u2018skinny teenager\u2019; its dictionary definitions include \u2018youth\u2019, \u2018adolescent\u2019, \u2018boy\u2019, \u2018young man\u2019, \u2018teenager\u2019, etc.\u00a0 In earlier English, the -ling<\/em> suffix referred to one of the category or quality of the preceding stem: compare yearling (one-year-old), underling (one serving under), hireling (one hired), earthling (one of earth).\u00a0 It also often referred to the young of whatever species: duckling (young duck), gosling (young goose).\u00a0 So stripling<\/em> means one like a strip, a long narrow or slender youngster, not yet a fully filled out adult, though some of us overshoot the filling out part.\u00a0 Perhaps only as a matter of interesting trivia, stripling warriors<\/em> is one of our designations. In the text, stripling<\/em> occurs only twice: stripling soldiers<\/em> (Alma 53:22) and stripling Ammonites<\/em> (Alma 56:57), but 16 times in chapter headings and the indices.<\/p>\n Another frequent topic of conjecture is \u2018How old were they?\u2019 \u00a0A range of ages, no doubt. Furthermore, whatever their ages when they began, they were 5 or 6 years older when the war ended.\u00a0 Helaman and his 2,000 began their service in the 26th<\/sup> year of the reign of the judges (Alma 56:9) and the war ended at the end of the 31st<\/sup> year (Alma 62:38-9).\u00a0 So a 15-year-old at the beginning would have been 20 or 21 at war\u2019s end.\u00a0 And a people who appointed 15-year-old generals (Mormon 1:15, 2:1) likely had 14-year-olds and maybe younger among their \u2018striplings\u2019. \u00a0The people of Ammon were settled in the Nephite land of Jershon in the 15th<\/sup> year of the reign of the judges (Alma 28:1-7) or 11 years before the striplings started their military service.\u00a0 If most two- to eight-year-olds did not take the oath by the move to Jershon, then they would have been 13 to 19 when the striplings were organized.\u00a0 Helaman once called them \u201cmy little sons\u201d (Alma 56:30). \u00a0How little were they? \u00a0That phrase and the word stripling<\/em> both argue against anything resembling physiques depicted in the Arnold Friberg paintings.\u00a0 And I doubt that Helaman had a horse either, but he likely did the same running and hand-to-hand fighting on foot that his \u201csons\u201d did, which may explain why he died young (addressed below). \u00a0It is also possible that \u2018little\u2019 was more a term of endearment than a description of size.\u00a0 Nevertheless, whatever their sizes (also a range, no doubt), they were \u201cexceedingly valiant for courage, and also for strength and activity.\u201d Thus, they were strong youngsters, noted for endurance and energy.<\/p>\n The narrative of the stripling youths begins in Alma chapter 56.\u00a0 Helaman writes a letter to Moroni in the 30th<\/sup> year of the judges (Alma 56:1), explaining how he and the 2,000 Lamanite young men began their military service in the 26th<\/sup> year of the judges.\u00a0 That means Helaman and Moroni, though fighting on the same side, had not crossed paths in four years<\/em><\/strong>!\u00a0 During their service, Helaman and his sons had participated in many battles, a few being described in the text.\u00a0 Nevertheless, the first is detailed and deeply moving. In the Antipus-Helaman theater of the war, Antipus\u2019 plan was that Helaman and his 2,000 should march by the city of Antiparah to lure out the strongest army of the Lamanites.\u00a0 Then after the large Lamanite army began chasing the 2,000 boys, Antipus would lead the rest of the Nephite army after the Lamanites to catch up and surround them from both front and back.\u00a0 The plan worked, mostly, though it may have taken longer than expected\u2014three days!<\/p>\n Helaman is probably correct in supposing that the Lamanite army hoped to dispatch the 2,000 boys before Antipus\u2019 main army could catch up and thus not be surrounded (Alma 56:37).\u00a0 One question is whether this line of pursuing groups were walking or running.\u00a0 We look at the language and see both \u2018march\u2019 (usually walk) and \u2018flee\u2019 (usually run): 56:36 we did flee<\/em><\/strong> before them; 56:37 army of Antipus pursuing<\/em><\/strong> them with their might<\/em><\/strong>; 56:38 Antipus did speed the march<\/em><\/strong> of his army; 56:39 before dawn the Lamanites were pursuing<\/em><\/strong> us; we took our march into the wilderness; 56:40 we did flee all that day<\/em><\/strong> until it was dark (12 or more hours of fleeing?); 56:41 when the light of the morning came we saw the Lamanites upon us, and we did flee<\/em><\/strong> before them.\u00a0 But not far into the morning of the 3rd<\/sup> day of fleeing\/marching, the Lamanite army was no longer chasing the boys.\u00a0 The terrain must have prevented seeing very far back, because they could not see whether Antipus had caught up with them or whether the Lamanites had set a trap for the boys to return.\u00a0 So Helaman asked what they would do, and he summarized their famous response: \u201cFather, our God is with us, and he will not suffer that we should fall; then let us go forth \u2026 lest they should overpower the army of Antipus\u2026\u201d they did think more upon the liberty of their fathers than they did upon their lives; yea, they had been taught by their mothers, that if they did not doubt, God would deliver them, [saying] \u201cWe do not doubt our mothers knew it\u201d (Alma 56:46-8).<\/p>\n Let me pause the narrative here to talk about pace\u2014walking fast or jogging?\u00a0 I must guess a mixture of the two, an alternation of jog-walk.\u00a0 We do not know the time of year nor the latitude nor the exact length of daylight at that time and place, but say 11 to 14 hours of a walking-fast-with-jogging mix each day.\u00a0 As for pace, three mph is a brisk walk for most people. Add a little jogging to the mix and four mph seems likely, possibly five mph, depending on ratio of the walk-jog mixture, but probably not more than five mph.\u00a0 I \u201cused to be\u201d a runner.\u00a0 Eight miles in an hour (8 mph) was my usual (comfortable) workout (7 \u00bd-minute miles); if I pushed it, I could run 10 miles in an hour (6-minute miles), but that was carrying nothing and it only lasted an hour. In my 30s, I ran a marathon near 3 hours; in my 60s I mostly jogged a marathon in 5 \u00bd hours (with walking mixed in the last third). In contrast to this amateur jog-along, many Native-Americans are remarkable runners. The Tarahumara (a Uto-Aztecan people in the mountains of northwest Mexico) frequently run 100-mile races or more. \u00a0Many Navajos are great runners. Geronimo (an Apache) is said to have been able to run 300 miles in 3 days. However, not all in a sizable group would be so capable; in fact, any sizable group should have a few stragglers, says the slower slope of any bell-curve. On the other hand, running for one\u2019s life may motivate stragglers to \u201cchange\u201d!\u00a0 Early dawn (visibility) starts about a half hour before sunrise and dusk lasts a half hour after sunset.\u00a0 So even if the sun was up only 12 of 24 hours, a 13-hour day at four mph equals 52 miles\u2014two marathons!\u00a0 Variables like daylight being an hour or two longer and \/ or at a little faster pace may have brought the days\u2019 miles closer to 60.<\/p>\n In addition, they were likely carrying things. Alma 56:30 says they passed by Antiparah \u201cas if we were carrying provisions to a neighboring city.\u201d So they were likely carrying some provisions, though they may have thought this ploy would be accomplished in a day, so they may not have been carrying much. In other battles \/ campaigns, the soldiers pitched their tents at night (Alma 51:32 and 58:13, 17). If the 2,000 had tents or sleeping blankets, they were certainly not like today\u2019s lightweight synthetic miracles. However, it may be that they were not encumbered with tents, blankets, chuck wagons, etcetera, but only carried a little food and their weapons and slept in the open, this trip.\u00a0 And when did they eat?\u00a0 No time for breakfast when the Lamanites are upon you at first light.\u00a0 \u201cFleeing\u201d at the first-light sight of the charging army cancelled breakfast, unless they grabbed a piece of jerky to \u201ceat on the run\u201d! \u00a0And no lunch break. They likely ate after dark and caught up on hydration.\u00a0 An all-day run-walk would have one perspiring profusely, yet daytime water stops (while crossing a stream?) were undoubtedly brief. And we will skip pondering potty-stops.<\/p>\n To top it off, that intensity of exertion lasted two and a half days\u2014feasibly the exertion equivalent of five marathons in two and a half days. \u00a0The first day of marching likely started sometime in the morning.\u00a0 Then they \u201cdid flee\u201d all that second day. The third day consisted of less fleeing, but a huge battle of hand-to-hand combat, more intense exertion than jogging.<\/p>\n During that third morning, Antipus had caught up with the Lamanite army, and a terrible battle had commenced. Because the army of Antipus\u2019 had run-walked two and a half days in their effort to catch up, they were exhausted.\u00a0 Due to that exhaustion, Antipus had been slain and many of his leaders. The Nephite army was giving way and in full retreat, being pursued by the Lamanite army, when Helaman and his 2,000 lit into them from behind, fighting \u201cas if with the strength of God; yea, never were men known to have fought with such miraculous strength\u201d (Alma 56:56).\u00a0 When the whole Lamanite army turned to deal with Helaman\u2019s striplings, the other Nephite army took courage and came back to surround the Lamanites.\u00a0 The ferocity of the striplings\u2019 strength frightened the Lamanites such that they surrendered.<\/p>\n I am moved by the selflessness of Antipus. He was concerned for those boys. Antipus and his army had to do a faster pace\u2014a greater distance in the same time\u2014than the Lamanite army in order to catch up with them. \u00a0For two and half days, he hurried after the enemy army, at who knows what pace, fearing more for the lives of the youths than for his own life.\u00a0 In fact, Antipus basically gave his life to save the boys.\u00a0 Not unlike how leaders and parents today give their lives to save our boys and girls.\u00a0 Not in physical combat, but in work, sacrificing time, emotional effort, thought, planning, care and concern to do what needs to be done for the good of our youth.\u00a0 Whether giving one\u2019s life in death as a martyr or giving one\u2019s life in years of effort \/ sacrifice \/ service to save others, both are the giving of life to give others life, or a better life.<\/p>\n We also read that in a subsequent battle, again not one soul was lost, but 200 fainted for loss of blood \u201cand neither was there one soul among them who had not received many wounds\u201d (Alma 57:25). If each one had received many wounds, that means that most of them kept fighting through their wounds.\u00a0 While a few wounds might hit only bone, most wounds would affect muscle or tendons useful to movement and strength.\u00a0 To fight with miraculous strength after receiving a few wounds\u2014I am impressed. Furthermore, many of them had suffered the pains of death.\u00a0 When one faints for loss of blood, there is no more pain, unless one survives to continue living. After reading numerous accounts of near-death experiences of those who visit the other side and then must undergo a painful return (usually reluctantly, wishing to stay in paradise), one might wonder if giving one\u2019s life as a martyr is easier in ways than giving one\u2019s life or years in continuing living and serving. \u00a0The privations from so many years of strenuous exertion, wounds, and hunger may have contributed to Helaman\u2019s early death.<\/p>\n Helaman started leading the 2,000 in the 26th<\/sup> year of the reign of the judges (Alms 56:9). The war finally ended in the 31st<\/sup> year of the reign of the judges, so Helaman and those young men fought and labored five to six years, running, fighting, bleeding, building fortifications, sometimes suffering from lack of nourishment, and likely dealing with wounds that made daily life more difficult or painful.\u00a0 Then Helaman died in the 35th<\/sup> year of the reign of the judges (Alma 62:52), only four years after the war ended. Moroni died the next year in the 36th<\/sup> year (Alma 63:3). It appears that Helaman may have died in his 30s. Alma instructed his son Helaman, then \u201cin his youth\u201d (Alma 36:3 and 37:35), in about the 18th<\/sup> year of the reign of the judges. So how old was Helaman when \u201cin his youth\u201d as Alma describes?\u00a0 17?\u00a0 Less?\u00a0 More?\u00a0 A people appointing 15-year-old generals (Mormon) seems to expect young people to grow up fast. Helaman was probably between 15 and 20 when \u201cin his youth\u201d in the 18th<\/sup> year of the reign of the judges. That would put him about age 32 to 39 at his death.\u00a0 Moroni is introduced in the 18th<\/sup> year of the reign of the judges and the record states that he was put in charge of the Nephite armies at age 25 (Alma 43:16-17). Now that charge could have been given him that year or earlier. If 25 when introduced into the narrative, then Moroni died about 43.\u00a0 If he turned 25 a few years earlier, then he may have been late 40s when he passed away.\u00a0 Either way, Helaman seems to have passed in his 30s and Moroni in his 40s. Thus, they both died relatively young, perhaps due to the severity of exertion and exhaustion in 6 years of hand-to-hand combat peppered with multi-marathon days, and sometimes subject to insufficient nourishment, or perhaps debilitating wounds.<\/p>\n Exertion unto death brings to mind the Greek runner from Marathon to Athens. When young, I used to think that Pheidippides (the Greek runner) was something of a wimp to drop dead after running 26 miles; after all, these days old people, children, and all manner of non-athletes run the 26-mile marathon and very few die.\u00a0 They might feel like they\u2019ll die, but few do.\u00a0 However, I later learned the fuller account. Pheidippides was first sent on a four-day, 300-mile run to recruit more troops, returned to fight hand-to-hand combat a day or two, and then ran the 26 miles from Marathon to Athens to announce the victory, followed by his collapse. That changed my opinion of Pheidippides from \u2018wimp\u2019 to \u2018superman\u2019.\u00a0 Dying after running 326 miles or 12 marathons in succession, with some hand-to-hand combat mixed in, is so much more understandable!\u00a0 Nearly superhuman! Yet Helaman and his 2,000 did about half that for the one battle detailed in Alma!\u00a0 What details filled the other five years of fighting? My changed view for Pheidippides from unimpressed to utmost awe after learning the details is a lesson for all: misjudging is usually due to a lack of the facts.<\/p>\n The Ammonites were so faithful and Samuel the Lamanite such a remarkable prophet that we might reasonably wonder: was Samuel of the people of Ammon? Or possibly descended from one of the 2,060? The first seems probable; the second possible. After the war ended in the 31st<\/sup> year of the judges, the 2,060 young men returned to their people and many probably started families.\u00a0 Samuel the Lamanite, who came 55 years later and preached to the people of Zarahemla in the 86th<\/sup> year of the judges (Helaman 13:1-2), could have been a son (age 40-60) or a grandson (20s or 30s) of one of the sons of Helaman.\u00a0 If Samuel was old (70s), it is only remotely possible that Samuel was one of the striplings himself, though that seems unlikely.\u00a0 Too familiar with being 70, I picture my peers trying to climb onto a wall of any size and such a spectacle would likely leave the rock-throwers helpless with laughter, not consistent with the tense drama in the text.\u00a0 Of course, we may not be able to compare us suburban softies to the saints of Samuel\u2019s day; nevertheless, the fact that he did successfully flee from them when they tried to lay hands on him (Helaman 16:7) also suggests a more agile and fleet-of-foot fellow than is likely for an older man.<\/p>\n Setting conjectures of Samuel\u2019s ancestry aside, the stripling sons of Helaman were a group of remarkable individuals, both physically and spiritually.\u00a0 As well, Helaman was a faithful father to them, and his sacrifices for them were undoubtedly more numerous than the few mentioned in the text. He did the same running and fighting that they did, and died four years later. And may Antipus be ever honored for his three-day race to exhaustion and death in his selfless concern to save the boys!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" This is a guest post by Brian Stubbs. The faith, feats, and divine protection of the 2,000 stripling warriors is a favorite episode for many readers of The Book of Mormon.\u00a0 Yet a number of less-than-obvious details may muster even more admiration.\u00a0 The people of Ammon were called Anti-Nephi-Lehi (Alma 23:16-17), likely meaning \u2018those of Nephi-Lehi\u2019 (Book of Mormon Onomasticon, online; Changes in Languages from Nephi to Now, Stubbs 2020, 101). The original adults covenanted never to kill again and were given protection within Nephite territories. With time, the Nephite burdens of war led to 2,000 Ammonite youths, teenage sons who had not entered into such a covenant, to volunteer for service.\u00a0 These 2,000 striplings asked Helaman, the son of Alma the younger, to lead them (Alma 53:19). From Middle English, the word stripling basically means \u2018skinny teenager\u2019; its dictionary definitions include \u2018youth\u2019, \u2018adolescent\u2019, \u2018boy\u2019, \u2018young man\u2019, \u2018teenager\u2019, etc.\u00a0 In earlier English, the -ling suffix referred to one of the category or quality of the preceding stem: compare yearling (one-year-old), underling (one serving under), hireling (one hired), earthling (one of earth).\u00a0 It also often referred to the young of whatever species: duckling (young duck), gosling (young goose).\u00a0 So stripling means […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10404,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-43972","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-book-of-mormon"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43972","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\/10404"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=43972"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43972\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":43974,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43972\/revisions\/43974"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43972"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=43972"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=43972"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}