As I focused on keeping myself open to the promptings of the Spirit, I started to understand logically where my frustration with the text of 1 Nephi 4 was coming from. I came up with a list of explanations, and tried my best to explicate each one, recording why I found the first four explanations unacceptable before arriving at the fifth one. Briefly, I’ll recreate that here.
Explanation #1: God is a changeable God
I took for
my assumption in this and other explanations that God desires all His children
to return and live with him, even children as unreachable as Laban. As such,
God sees life as sacred--the longer life extends, the more chances we have to
repent and return to his way. The more chances we have to exercise our agency
to do what is right, the greater the likelihood that we will eventually turn to
him. Granted, this result does not occur as often as he would like, but the
fact remains that life and the ensuing opportunities for agency are sacred.
From there it follows that murder or any other artificial shortening of human
life is sinful and contrary to the God’s plan. It is from this feeling that
commandments like “Thou shalt not kill,” Christ’s “Turn the other cheek,” and
the repeated Book of Mormon lessons on the risks of offensive warfare
originate.
One might
argue that the laws given from God to man also apply to the lawgiver, God,
himself. I will discuss that further in the second explanation below.
If that
assumption is granted, one possible explanation that justifies Nephi’s murder
of Laban is that God has matured. From rough and barbarous Old Testament
beginnings when the slaughter of ancient tribes with prior claims to the
promised land was not only sanctioned but commanded, the omnipotent being
actually matured in knowledge. This explanation would have us believe that God
learned lessons from the massacres and tragedies of the first several thousand
years of godhood. It might even see the Babylonian captivity as a chance for
God to ponder and rethink his strategy so that, by the time Palestine saw the
rise of Jesus Christ, a new and improved message, the gospel 2.0, was ready for
a new jump start. Perhaps we could even ascribe the rapid ascent of
Christianity throughout the Western world as evidence that God had finally
struck on the nimble, almost counterintuitive strategy that would finally lead
his people to cultural hegemony.
This
explanation is unacceptable for a number of reasons. Not only is the
changeability of God’s knowledge and ability rejected in multiple books of
scripture, it strikes at the very nature of deity. The omniscient Father
becomes a guess-work tinkerer.
A God who
lacks omniscience and a divine plan for our existence isn’t a God worth
worshiping. Rather, it makes him a God worth ignoring. I already had reasons to
stop believing. If this were the only explanation I could find, then my
quandary was over, and my spiritual life with it. But it’s not the only explanation
I could find. So, instead of ascribing Nephi’s crime to an imperfect tutor
giving imperfect commands, I decided to make God’s omniscience and deliberate
nature my second assumption.
Explanation #2: I don’t know God as well as I think I do
If I make these
two assumptions (First, that God loves all his children and second, that he is
omniscient and deliberate), then there’s a new problem to confront. If an
omniscient, loving, and deliberate God gave Nephi the command to kill Laban,
then perhaps I don’t understand God’s will, plan, or nature as well as I
thought. If that’s the case, I would need to somehow delve into an apologetic
discourse of how it’s ok to kill people sometimes.
I reject
this possibility outright. I hold fast to the teaching of turn the other cheek,
of Christian pacifism, and of only bearing arms to defend homes and families. I
think it’s quite clear throughout scriptural teaching, from Christ’s act of
compassionate healing in the Garden of Gethsemane after Peter’s burst of
violence to Mormon’s refusal to lead a blood-thirsty army, that killing and
violence do not receive divine sanction. In fact, even in the Old Testament,
the intricate ceremonies and policies to prevent or expatiate the shedding of
blood lead to this conclusion.
Perhaps
this is me making God in my own, pacifistic image. Perhaps. But this is the God
I choose to worship, the God I believe created the world and gave us our divine
nature. And if his nature is instead to jealously incite his children to
violence against each other, then I reject him. But I don’t want to reject him,
and I don’t think the problem lies with God. The possibility that rises up
next, then, is that perhaps I need to reject Nephi.
Explanation #3: Nephi lies
If God is
an unchangeable, just, loving, deliberate, and omniscient God unwilling to give
capital punishment commands to his children, then the next possibility is to
question the integrity of Nephi’s account. There are two lies Nephi could have
told.
Potential Lie #1: That he killed
Laban.
If Nephi
lies about killing Laban, that raises the possibility that either Laban was
never even part of the picture or that Nephi did meet Laban but stole his
raiment without ending his life. The first possibility is remote, since Nephi
does use his Laban-look-alike ability to obtain the brass plates and, if you
remember, scares the snot out of his brothers (and then Zoram). So Nephi got
the clothes from somewhere on the dark streets of Jerusalem, and stealing them
from Laban is more likely than Nephi boldly breaking into Laban’s home, finding
his wardrobe, playing dress up, and escaping without anyone seeing or hearing
him.
So why lie
about killing Laban? Perhaps Nephi feels compelled to lie about Laban’s demise
to quiet the fears of his family or ensure that Zoram accompanies them to the
wilderness rather than return to Jerusalem and raise the alarm before the
brothers can successfully distance themselves from the city.
Potential Lie #2: That he heard a
voice telling him to kill Laban.
A second
lie that could work in conjunction with the first is the aspect of the story
involving divine injunction. A divine stamp of approval, evidence that Lehi’s
original instruction to leave Jerusalem was still valid, would have pleased
Lehi as Nephi retold the story.
Just as
easily, however, Nephi could be scrambling for a justification for a violent
act done in the heat of the moment. Adopting the language of his prophetic
father would not have been much of a stretch. Nephi is adept, as we see
throughout his narrative, at convincing others to do and believe things they’re
not inclined to do or believe: to untie him, build a ship with him, and start a
colony with him.
One other
potential explanation in conjunction with his potential lie about killing Laban
is that he adds in a divine element to make his story sound better, to allay
suspicion about his ability to cold-bloodedly kill Laban. Haven’t you ever
embellished your account to misdirect attention away from the central mistruth?
Especially when you’re the youngest of a rough group of brothers?
These
possibilities are potential explanations, but while they may have improved
Nephi’s prophetic reputation with his contemporaries, they do little to
recommend him to a more sensitive and more detached generation of thinkers.
What’s more, the starkness of deliberate dishonesty tarnishes Nephi’s prophetic
mantel beyond redemption. If you’ll remember, Moses is prevented from entering
the Promised Land because he failed to give adequate credit to God when he
struck a rock to produce water (for the second time). What do you think God
would do with a prophet who created new commandments that didn’t actually
originate from the heavens?
Finally,
and I admit that I’m now departing from logic and going by feel, artfully lying
Nephi doesn’t mesh well with the rest of his account. Yes, it is his account,
so he could manipulate the story however he saw fit, but deceiver Nephi doesn’t
mesh well with tormented Nephi of 2 Nephi 4. If Nephi thought it worth baring
his soul to his readers in that chapter, why would he choose to perpetuate a
lie years after its exigency had disappeared? Much like the first explanation,
I reject this not because I can prove it, but because I’m hoping for an
explanation that both makes sense and establishes faith.
The final 2 explanations to be continued on Wednesday.
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