About Mormon

This week we start the Book of Mormon in the Book of Mormon. In it we learn of the utter destruction of the Nephites.  I think Mormon is the most tragic figure in all scripture.  I don't know how a man could endure what he endured and not be utterly crushed.  We actually don't know that much about his life.  He gives us the barest of outlines, and we are left to speculate on the rest.  Here are some speculations based on hints in the text. 

Mormon was only ten when Ammaron came to him and asked him to keep a record of what he saw. I hope someday to have a full account of how that all happened.  Why would Ammaron choose Mormon?  Was he a relative? Was he a student of Ammaron? I think we can deduct from the text that Mormon came from a prominent family.  He states that he "began to be learned somewhat after the manner of the learning of my people." (Mormon 1:2). In most ancient agrarian cultures, education and literacy are only available to the upper classes. It also seems that he was unusually intelligent. Why else would Ammaron single him out for such an important task at such a young age. 

Then at the tender age of 15 he was"visited of the Lord" (1:15).  Again, why so young? Of course there is precedence. David was probably about that same age when he killed Goliath, (see this link for justification for that assertion). Samuel was a boy of 12 when he heard the voice of the Lord (1 Sam 3). Later, Joseph Smith had his First Vision at age 14. The Lord is willing to call young people  into service as soon as they are willing and able.

Soon after his vision he became a military leader (Mormon 2:1). He modestly states he got the job because he was "large of stature" (ibid) but there must have been something else going on there. Some of the podcasters this week (Jack Welsh, and Lynn Wilson were two) suggested that he was likely the son of the previous commander, and that the position was hereditary.  That is how Alexander the Great came to lead his army at age 18. The text suggests that he had an academic education, but did he also understand warfare and strategy?  Apparently the Nephites thought he did. That fact that he was trained as a military leader and given an academic education further supports the idea that he was some kind of aristocracy, being raised to rule. 

So, he is the leader of the army and even though the people were wicked, under his leadership they had some success. During that time we presume he started reading the plates.  One should remember that when he was initially called at ten, he wasn't appointed to abridge the plates of Nephi, just to add an account of the things he saw in his day.  Perhaps his call to abridge the plates came when he was visited of the Lord at age 15.  He doesn't say.  We do get a sense that he has read the plates, or at least part of them, by the 46th year because he encourages his people with almost the exact speech Captain Moroni used, "for their wives, and their children, and their houses, and their homes." (2:23). 

Because of his inspired leadership, He was able to make a treaty with the Lamanites and had ten years of peace. (2:28) We know he preached to the people during this time and made military preparations (3:1), but I think we can also presume this is when he started his abridgment. There was also a time when he refused to lead the Nephites because of their wickedness. He most likely worked on the abridgment then as well.  Once he goes back to being a military leader, he moves the plates to protect them from the Lamanites (3:9).  After that he would not likely have had time to work on them as it is just war and preparations for war, at the end of which he gives the plates over to his son. 

There is a theme in the Book of Mormon that if you are righteous you will prosper in the land.  The text helps us understand that this is a promise made to groups, on individuals.  Mormon had a lifetime (perhaps 75 years) of life during which there where only short snippets of time that he prospered as an individual. He strove, suffered, grieved and died.  He had the satisfaction of knowing that his son Moroni was righteous and outlived him.  He had the hope that his great work, the abridgement of the history of his people, would someday come forth and bless Israelites and Gentiles alike, but his life was rough, by any standard.  He saw the death of almost all of his friends, and all of his people, men, women and children.  Almost worse, he saw them sink into vicious wickedness and open rebellion against God.  Sometimes it is terrifying that God can ask so much of some people.  We just have to have faith that Mormon's ultimate reward will compensate him for all he went through. 

Jesus' Second Intercessory Prayer

One of the podcasters (Jared  Halverson) compared Jesus' prayer in 3 Nephi 19, to the account of the Garden of Gethsemane in Matthew 26.  In both cases Jesus went a little way off and prayed (Matthew 26:39, 3 Nephi 19:19).  In both cases three times he comes back to check on his followers, then returned to praying. Brother Halverson compares the sleeping apostles in Matthew, to the receptive and attentive disciples of 3 Nephi 19.  

As I read 3 Nephi 19 it reminded me more the the "great intercessory prayer" recorded in John 17. In John 17 the Gospel writer records a prayer that Jesus gives right before going to the Garden.  It is often called the "Great Intercessory Prayer."  They have a lot of phrases and ideas in common.  Here is a list of some.

Jesus prays for those God has given him (3 Nephi 19:20, John 17:6)

Jesus prays for the ones who will believe on their word (3 Nephi 19:23, John 17:20)

Jesus prays for oneness among his disciples (3 Nephi, 19:23, John 17:22)

Jesus prays they may be purified/perfect (3 Nephi 19:29, John 17:23)

The heart-warming thing about comparing these two prayers is that when Jesus prayed in Jerusalem, his disciples didn't really understand.  He gave and showed the Jerusalem saints all that he could, but they were not ready to receive aa fullness. When he came to the Americas, the people who were at the temple at Bountiful were spiritually ready to receive him.  They didn't fall asleep, as the apostles did in Jerusalem. They instead prayed and were purified and shone like Jesus.  As a result, instead of being filled with sorrow, Jesus "did smile upon them" (v. 30).  It was a great experience for both the people at the temple, and for Jesus himself.

Sermon at the Temple

 In this week's chapters, Jesus teaches the people of Bountiful a version of the Sermon on the Mount.  Two of the podcasters I listened to talked about how this sermon can be seen as a temple ordinance.  In modern temple ordinances the participant beholds the creation of the world, the fall, and then progresses through the Telestial and Terrestrial to the Celestial glory where they are admitted into the presence of the Lord. I believe they have convinced me that that is what is happening here. 

The destructions that occur at the time of Jesus' death represent a kind of anti-creation.  Earth is returning to the unordered state it was in in the beginning of the creation. It is becoming "tohu va-vohu" without shape and void (Gen 1:2)  Cities are burned, buried, or drown.  Smooth ground is broken up, and darkness hangs over everything.  Then after the destruction, they hear the voice of the Lord through the darkness, just as in Gen 1:3.  

The time before the destructions represent the Telestial existence.  People, lead by the Gadianton Robbers, were breaking all of the 10 commandments; lying, murdering, steeling, etc. Even government had broken down (3 Nephi 7) and people willfully rebelled against God.  The destructions purify the people of the more wicked elements, and what we have left are the terrestrial people. They were spared because "ye were more righteous than they" (3 Nephi 9:13) but they still have a way to go, since Jesus completes the verse, "will ye not now return unto me, and repent of your sins, and be converted, that I may heal you?"

How are they to do it?  What do they need to do to repent?  The answer comes in the Sermon at the Temple, 3 Nephi 12-15.  They are given the Beatitudes, and then a section of  "Ye have heard that it hath been said by them of old time... but I say unto you..." and other sayings that are intended to move them from the Terrestrial to a Celestial frame of thought. 

After the sermon, Jesus is about to let them go home and rest, but they beg him to stay, so he goes around healing people. He also gives the 12 Disciples the Melchizedek priesthood.  All of these have modern temple analogs. 

It is not the most obvious correlation, and might be a bit of a stretch, but if we think of the temple ceremony as a symbolic progression from the Telestial to the Celestial, I think we can make an interesting case. Thanks to Jack Welsh and Bryce Dunford for talking about this idea on their podcasts this week.

Jesus at the Temple in Bountiful

 When I was a missionary, I had a older sister companion that taught that when Jesus had finished his ministry in Jerusalem, he came and taught the people in the Americas.  I called her into question.  Didn't Jesus appear to the Nephite's right after his crucifixion?  I was pretty adamant that Jesus visited the Americas the day after his resurrection while the people in Judea were sleeping. I kind of bullied her into accepting my timeline.  Years later I realized that she was right.  Jesus spoke to the people during the three days of destruction at the time of his death, but his visit to the temple Bountiful was some time, maybe months later.  Here are the scriptures that support this idea.  

The beginning of the sign:

3 Nephi 8:5 "And it came to pass in the thirty and fourth year, in the first month, on the 4th day of the month, there arose a great storm..."

Jesus' actual visit:

3 Nephi 10:18 "And it came to pass that in the ending of the thirty and fourth year, behold I will show unto that the people of Nephi who were spared, ...did have great favors poured out upon their heads, insomuch that soon after the ascension of Christ into heaven he did truly manifest himself unto them."

There are two schools of thought on this.  Some scholars think Jesus appeared to the Nephites after his ascension into heaven before the day of Pentecost. That would put it around 40 days after his crucifixion.  Others suggest that is was nearly a full year,  since Mormon said it was "in the ending of the thirty and fourth year" while his appearance was in the first month of that year. They think that his appearance was part of the High Holy Days observed by Jews at the end of the levitical calendar and that is why everyone was gathered at the temple. 

I favor the second explanation.  I think the people experienced the destructions at Jesus' death and then had to wait almost a year before they saw him appear in person.  Here are some reasons I think that. 

When Jesus spoke to the people out of the darkness he told them that "in me is the Law of Moses fulfilled" (9:17) and that they should "offer unto me no more shedding of blood; yea, your sacrifices and your burnt offerings shall be done away, for I will accept none of your sacrifices and your burnt offerings." (9:19)  This pronouncement entailed a major shift in how the people worshiped. Up to this time there were (presumably) coming to offer animal sacrifices to atone for sin and to be pronounced clean from defilement. The animal sacrifices were the main way that they worshiped.  

It makes sense to me that after all the destruction, the people would have gotten to work repairing the damage. A group of believers would have been tasked to not only clean up and repair the temple, but also to rework it to function without animal sacrifices.  This was no small task.  How would they know how to set up a new form of worship?  I would hope that some of the leaders, perhaps Nephi himself, received directions and supervised the work.  

When the people came to the temple "they were marveling and wondering one with another and showing each other the great and marvelous change which had taken place." This sentence makes sense, if it were only a day after the destruction took place, but if it were 40 days after the calamities, they would have already seen all the destruction, but they wouldn't have had much time to repair the temple. There wouldn't have yet been many changes that they could marvel at. But if they had been away from the temple complex for almost a year, and workers had repaired and transformed the temple for worship without blood sacrifice, a lot of things would have changed, and they truly may have wondered. 

One more thing that I thought was interesting. When Jesus appeared to the apostles after his resurrection, he showed them his "hands and his side" (John 20:20).  When Jesus appeared to the people at the temple of Bountiful, he told them to "thrust your hands into my side, and also that you may feel the prints of the nails in my hands and feet." (3 Nephi 11:14).  Why side first in the Americas?  It is totally possible that the Nephites did not practice crucifixion--It was kind of a Roman thing--so showing someone the wounds in your hands wouldn't have meant that you were resurrected from the dead.  People can survive hand wounds.  But the wound in the side would have been fatal no matter if you were in Jerusalem or the New World.  It is a small thing, but it suggests authenticity.  

So what does this all mean?  I think that the people of the New World, after all the destruction was done, had time to contemplate their experience and begin to make changes in their worship and lives.  I think they even actively started to transform their temple worship from animal sacrifices to some kind of ceremony more like what temple worship is like today.  It was when they were done with the major clean up and had started to transform their temple, that Jesus understood they were ready for his visit. Then once there, he showed the tokens of his death the way that would most clearly transmit his resurrected state. 

Samuel the Lamanite

 The Story of Samuel the Lamanite is one that is always a hit with children and teens.  In my primary class today I let a child stand on a chair while he read part of Samuel's speech. The visual image of Samuel standing on the wall as the Nephites below try to knock him off with stones and arrows is unforgettable. If you look past the drama of the scene, there are other aspects of interest that I noticed this week, both from my reading and from my podcasts.

First, as we have seen in the Old Testament and, to a lesser degree, in the Book of Mormon, the name is the message.  Samuel is a Hebrew, שְׁמוּאֵל, comes from two words, "shem", meaning name, and El, meaning God. Samuel in the Old Testament, is a prophet who hears God call his name (Samuel 3:2). In his speech, Samuel the Lamanite makes it clear God has called him by name to speak God's word, "Behold, I, Samuel, a Lamanite, do speak to you the words of the Lord." (13:5).  

Second, we don't really know much about Samuel.  The writer, presumably Helaman, but maybe Mormon, introduces him, simply, as "one Samuel, a Laminite" (13:2). He is not from Zarahemla, since it says "he came into the land Zarahemla" (13:2) and when he leaves the city, he flees to "his own country" (16:7).  So the question is, how did he come to be named Samuel.  That, as I have stated, is a very Hebrew name.  The Lamanites we have read about before this mostly don't have Hebrew sounding names, (e.g. Lamoni, Lehonti, Zerahemnah) so chances are that Samuel is a second generation convert.  He prophecies as 5 BC and he seems to be an adult at the time, so he could be a descendant of the people of Ammon, who were converted about 80 BC. Could he be one of the Stripling Warriors, who fought in 65 BC?  If he is, he is pretty old by ancient standards, but he might be one of their sons. If he is the child of one of the converts of Lehi and Nephi, he is quite young, because Lehi and Nephi had their success with the Lamanites in 30 BC. Whoever his parents are, he is well read in Nephite scripture.  He quotes Alma and seems to refer to the preaching of King Benjamin. 

The real question is why don't we know more about him.  The obvious reason might be that either Helaman, or Mormon didn't know more about him.  When they talk about Nephite leaders, they know from their own records who their parentage is, but Samuel is an outsider, and didn't stick around after the event.  How could they get to know his parentage?  Another less flattering idea is that either Helaman or Mormon had a touch of racial prejudice. Afterall, there is no other record in the Book of Mormon of the preaching of a Lamanite. Did they only include Samuel because the Lord urged them to in 3rd Nephi 23:9?  If they were a little prejudice, it is understandable.  Both men had spent much of their adult life at war with the Lamanites. It is hard to had high regard for those who are trying to kill you.

The most remarkable thing about Samuel's prophecies are their specificity.  Only in Samuel's prophecies do we get a measurable time frame within which a prophecy is to be fulfilled.  It isn't usually the Lord's way to be so exact in a prophecy.  I think the Lord was specific here because there was so much at stake.  We know from subsequent chapters that Samuel's warning about destruction was no idle threat. During the calamities at Jesus' death, Zarahemla is burned with fire. Other Nephite cities are buried under landslides or sunken into the sea. Samuel's words gave the people fair warning so that the Lord's ultimate judgements were just. (15:17)  It makes me think that if our modern prophets start slipping in definite time lines into their prophecies/predictions, we better watch out.

Lehi and Nephi in the Prison

This week we read about the sons of Helaman Jr., Lehi and Nephi.  Like Ammon and the sons of Mosiah, they bravely go into the lands of their enemies, the Lamanites, to preach repentance.  They are thrown into prison and we are told the Lamanites are planning on executing them (5:22).  What follows is reminiscent of both Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego from the Old Testament and the Day of Pentecost in the New Testament. They are encircled about with fire (v 23) while those around them are engulfed in darkness (v28). Those in darkness hear a voice calling them to repent (v. 29) When the Lamanites do call on Jesus, they are included into the circle of fire (v. 43) and receive a visitation of angels (v 28).

I did a whole post last year about the symbolism of fire on the Day of Pentecost. All the symbolism I mentioned there applies here as well. Some of the podcasts I listened to also mentioned that these events foreshadow Christ's coming to the Americas 60 years later. They hear a voice that is small but pierces them to the heart (v. 30).  They experience the mists of darkness and the earthquakes which appear again at Christ's visit (v.31)  They ultimately enjoy a visitation from angels and then are converted. 

Each culture has its own thesaurus of religious symbolism and God interacts with each culture in a way that they will understand.  Even though it has been 500 year since the first Lehi left Jerusalem,  the spiritual iconography of the Old Testament has clearly persisted up until this period, probably because they still viewed the story on the Brass Plates as their founding religious text.  (though the story of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego wouldn't have been on the brass plates because that story happened during the captivity, they would have understood the pillar of fire over the tabernacle.)  In this incident, the Lord pulls out all the stops to communicate that God's power is at work.

After their experience the Lamanites repent and become a more righteous people than the Nephites.  It begs the question, why doesn't the Lord do these kinds of spectacular miracles more often?  If they work to convert thousands to the Gospel, why not use them? People say it is because we need to learn to have faith.  So, didn't they also need to learn to have faith? Did God somehow impede their faith by giving them the spectacular experience?  The answer is that I don't know. We just have to trust that the Lord is wise.  He knows when a great miracle is the best choice, and when learning to endure in difficulty is the best choice.  

A few details from Alma

 I haven't written in a few weeks, and that is mostly because I haven't had any grand insights.  There are a few notes I want to make, though, so I won't forget them.  

The Name Isabel

Going back to Alma 39:3 we have one of the few women mentioned by name in the Book of Mormon.  Her name is Isabel, and she is a harlot.  When I have read this in the past, I had noticed that the name sounded like Jezebel from Kings 16 in the Bible.  Now that I have studied Hebrew a bit, I realize that it isn't "like" the Biblical name, it "is" the same name.  In ancient Hebrew there weren't any vowels, and the glottal i and j were represented by the same consonant. I think it is a good guess that Isabel was a title rather than a personal name. Just as a person 50 years ago might have called a hooker a "Jezebel" that is what Mormon is doing here. He is also calling the reader's mind to the fact that just as the Biblical Jezebel led Ahab away from the true worship of Jehovah, Isabel was leading souls away from their religious duties. 

Lamanite Identity

When the Stripling Warriors form ranks around Helaman and commit themselves to fight for the Nephite cause, they take upon them the identity of Nephites,  (Alma 55:16) In the very next chapter, Ammoron, the brother of the Nephite dissenter, Amalickiah, proclaims "And behold now I am a bold Lamanite." (Alma 54:24) and goes on to state the Lamanite cause, "behold, this war hath been waged to avenge their wrongs, and to maintain and to obtain their rights to the government; and I close my epistle to Moroni." We are clearly not thinking of biological identities any more.  The Stripling Warriors were Lamanite by birth, and Ammoron, if he truly is the biological sibling of  Amalickiah, was Nephite by birth.  Each group chooses their identity to meet their own needs. It seems clear that the Stripling Warriors truly accepted the religion and culture of the Nephites, and considered the lands of the Nephites as their native country.  They were fighting to defend their families and their home. Ammoron was just looking to wield power and to make the Lamanites do his fighting for him. I am guessing in his letter Ammoron is just repeating to Moroni the same lines he has used to stir up the Lamanites to anger so they are willing to go to battle against the Nephites yet again.