{"id":47216,"date":"2024-05-22T05:34:00","date_gmt":"2024-05-22T11:34:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/?p=47216"},"modified":"2024-05-21T13:38:36","modified_gmt":"2024-05-21T19:38:36","slug":"nephite-succession-crisis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/2024\/05\/nephite-succession-crisis\/","title":{"rendered":"Nephite Succession Crisis"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

This is PART 4 of 6 of an exclusive series for <\/em>Times & Seasons on \u201cThe Tribes that Greeted the Lehites\u201d by Mike Winder. <\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Read Part 1 \u201cA Land of Many Tribes\u201d <\/em><\/strong>HERE<\/a>. Part 2 \u201cLehi\u2019s Thanksgiving\u201d <\/em><\/strong>HERE<\/a>. Part 3 \u201cAll Those Who Would Go with Me\u201d <\/em><\/strong>HERE<\/a>.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

It was a coup (or divine providence) that Nephi and his brothers Jacob and Joseph were able to assert themselves as religious leaders in this new land, spiritually guiding thousands who were already in the Americas. Emerging as the political leaders of this large, mostly non-Jewish People of Nephi was trickier. Nephi\u2019s inspired leadership, however, was a tour de force.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Not only did many Native Americans accept his religion, but they believed in his political leadership. \u201cWe lived after the manner of happiness\u201d it was said of the people under Nephi\u2019s guidance of successful agriculture and construction (2 Nephi 5:27). The prosperity led them to clamor that Nephi become their king, which he reluctantly agreed to do (5:18). King Nephi utilized the sword of Laban as a template to make more swords (5:14), personally lead his people in defending their land from the Lamanites (5:34), and was hailed as the Nephite protector that they looked to for their safety (2 Nephi 6:2). The people \u201cloved Nephi exceedingly,\u201d and seemed to revere him as a father figure who was almost larger than life\u2014not unlike early Americans did of George Washington (Jacob 1:10).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After years of Nephi\u2019s reign, and as he was clearly aging and slowing down, the Nephites had a real question on who would succeed him. Often in the Book of Mormon, the roles of political \u201cruler\u201d and religious \u201cteacher\u201d were separate (think King Mosiah and Alma the High Priest), but in Nephi these two roles had been embodied in one unique man (2 Nephi 5:19). Nephi was literally prophet\/priest and king.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To succeed Nephi, however, it was determined to have Nephi\u2019s younger brother Jacob inherit the role of religious leader and recordkeeper (Jacob 1:8), but to recognize a separate leader as the political authority. In traditional patriarchal lines of succession, the next king would have simply been one of Nephi\u2019s sons, or maybe a younger brother. But this isn\u2019t what happened. Jacob wrote:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now Nephi began to be old, and he saw that he must soon die; wherefore, he anointed a man <\/em>to be a king and a ruler over his people now, according to the reigns of the kings. (Jacob 1:9, emphasis mine)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jacob didn\u2019t write \u201cwherefore, he anointed his son Bob to be a king\u201d or \u201che anointed our brother Sam to be a king,\u201d but instead wrote nondescriptly that \u201che anointed a man.\u201d This appears that Nephi had no sons (although we know that he had children per 1 Nephi 18:19, perhaps they were all daughters), or that none of his sons were alive at that time (King Nephi\u2019s sons may have perished as princely captains in the many battles with the Lamanites). If the kingly succession of Nephi was to be among the Lehites, Keith Allred makes a compelling case<\/a> that it was likely Sam. However, I believe that passing the crown to a non-Lehite member of the People of Nephi makes more sense.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Consider, if most of the thousands of Nephites were Native Americans already in the Promised Land before Lehi arrived, elevating one of their chiefs to be king of the people would have been the most logical path. The common bond of those who followed Nephi when they split from the Nephites were those who \u201cbelieved in the warnings and the revelations of God\u201d (2 Nephi 5:6). This means that the Amerindians would have sustained Jacob as the new religious leader with ease, but would not have necessarily desired to keep the throne among these strangers from across the great waters. The larger faction of the Nephites with indigenous heritage would likely have clamored to keep control. Jacob may have been somewhat hurt by this\u2014it\u2019s hard growing up in the shadow of a legendary big brother and not having all that he had\u2014and didn\u2019t even deign to list the name of Nephi\u2019s kingly successor in his spiritual record on the small plates of Nephi. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

What was notable, however, was that the kings thereafter carried on the name-title of Nephi.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

Wherefore, the people were desirous to retain in remembrance his name. And whoso should reign in his stead were called by the people, second Nephi, third Nephi, and so forth, according to the reigns of the kings; and thus they were called by the people, let them be of whatever name they would. (Jacob 1:11)<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

This is similar to the Roman emperors who came after the great Julius Caesar, who utilized the name of Caesar as interchangeable with their title as emperor (Caesar Augustus, etc.). The local names for the title of Caesar even continued as \u201cKaiser\u201d among the Germans and \u201cTsar\u201d among the Russians. It\u2019s also not unusual for leaders to adopt new names tying them to past great leaders upon ascending to a throne (i.e., Karol J\u00f3zef Wojty?a became John Paul II upon becoming pope, Charles Philip Arthur George became Charles III upon becoming king of England). King Nephi II and his successors kept the secular history on the large plates of Nephi (Jarom 1:14).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Matthew Bowen points out<\/a> that the name \u201cNephi\u201d meant \u201cgoodly\u201d as in fine, of quality, and \u201cgood, fair\u201d as in of character or repute, according to the Syro-Palestinian form of the common Egyptian name nfr<\/em> during the Late Period. As Native American leaders would have learned that the name Nephi had these positive meanings, they, too, would want to associated themselves with that special name-title. After all, they considered themselves the \u201cgood guys\u201d in contrast to the Lamanites. No wonder the line of kings would want to be known as The Nephi, or The Good for their people.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jacob refers to the large multicultural population simply as Nephites, not as an ethnic descriptor, but as a political identifier. \u201cThose who are friendly to Nephi I shall call Nephites, or the people of Nephi, according to the reigns of the kings,\u201d he wrote (Jacob 1:14). Hugh Nibley wrote that the descriptors Lamanites <\/em>and Nephites <\/em>were \u201cto designate not racial but political (e.g., Mormon 1:9), military (Alma 43:4), religious (4 Nephi 1:38), and cultural (Alma 53:10, 15; 3:10\u201311) divisions and groupings of people. The Lamanite and Nephite division was tribal rather than racial, each of the main groups representing an amalgamation of tribes that retained their identity (Alma 43:13; 4 Nephi 1:36\u201337).\u201d (Hugh W. Nibley, Since Cumorah<\/em>. 2nd ed. (The Collected Work of Hugh Nibley 7;<\/em> Salt Lake City: Deseret Book and FARMS, 1988), 216.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Even if the new king was not him, Jacob could at least take comfort that the group he had spiritual stewardship over still retained the name of his elder brother. And when Jacob says \u201cthose who are friendly to Nephi\u201d he means not just friendly to his elder brother, but also friendly to the Nephi who came after him, and the Nephi who came after him, \u201caccording to the reign of the kings.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

Mike Winder is the author of 14 books, including his newest, <\/em>Hidden in Hollywood: The Gospel Found in 1001 Movie Quotes<\/em><\/a>. Illustration by Image Creator from Microsoft Designer with prompts from the author.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It was a coup (or divine providence) that Nephi and his brothers Jacob and Joseph were able to assert themselves as religious leaders in this new land, spiritually guiding thousands who were already in the Americas. Emerging as the political leaders of this large, mostly non-Jewish People of Nephi was trickier. Nephi\u2019s inspired leadership, however, was a tour de force.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10404,"featured_media":47217,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[28,1058],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-47216","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-book-of-mormon","category-guest-bloggers"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/Nephite-Succession-Crisis.png","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47216","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=47216"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47216\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":47219,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47216\/revisions\/47219"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/47217"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=47216"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=47216"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/timesandseasons.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=47216"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}