This post continues the discussion of possible explanations behind Nephi's murder of Laban.
Explanation #4: Nephi tells the truth
On the
other hand, Nephi could be telling the truth. He did kill Laban and he did hear
a voice that clearly commanded him to take Laban’s life. Of course, if we
continue to assume God’s omniscient love and care for his children, that only
leaves the possibility that Nephi hearing voices means he’s become slightly
unhinged, allowing his subconscious to take the form of divine command. A
mentally unstable Nephi does little to improve his prophetic image in our mind,
either. Enough said.
Explanation #5: Nephi does what any righteous but imperfect man
would do with imperfect influences of fear, faith, stress, and ingenuity.
Based on my
two assumptions about the nature of God and the internal evidence of the Book
of Mormon taken as a whole (not to mention my gut), I believe that none of
these first four interpretations of events really gets at what happened. I do
not believe Nephi deliberately fabricated aspects of this story. In fact, I
believe he tells precisely what happened. The divine words from God really did
ring in his ears and whisper to his heart. However, when we look closely at
Nephi’s account, we identify a distinct and realistic possibility that would
allow a command from an omniscient and loving Father to translate into a
heinous and bloody act of murder.
The key
here is the distance between what God commanded and what Nephi interpreted/performed. I
believe this distance is perhaps the most crucial principle to understand when
it comes to learning to follow a living prophet.
Let’s pause
here to contrast the communication between people that is found in 1 Nephi 4
with the communication between God and Nephi. Look closely at the potential for
the types of miscommunication possible when specific words are used, as this
will provide a significant contrast when we look more closely at how God
communicates with his prophets.
In the
first three verses of the chapter, Nephi stirringly attempts to inspire his
brothers to take a third, dangerous trip into the streets of Jerusalem. One
phrase that has personal and doctrinal significance for me occurs in verse 2:
“Therefore let us go up; let us be strong like unto Moses; for he truly spake
unto the waters of the Red Sea and they divided hither and thither, and our
fathers came through out of captivity, on dry ground, and the armies of Pharaoh
did follow and were drowned in the waters of the Red Sea.”
In this
verse, Nephi models the very behavior that he will specifically counsel readers
of future generations to do further on in his writings. He models how to apply
scriptures from faraway times and places to immediate, personal situations.
Nephi looks to the ancient actions of Moses to gain insight into what he must
do, dusty, tired, recently relieved of his inheritance at spear-point, and with
a group of less-than-motivated traveling companions who respect his opinion
about as much as you would respect the inconvenient opinion of your own
overbearing younger brother in times of crisis.
Significantly,
verse 4 shows us what happens as a result of Nephi’s exegesis. “Now when I had
spoken these words, they were yet wroth, and did still continue to murmur; nevertheless they did follow me up until we came without the walls of Jerusalem.”
Nephi’s rhetorical flourish succeeds in inspiring movement towards the
objective, but he fails to communicate powerfully enough to change the thoughts
and feelings of his brothers. Now, consider for a moment all the reasons Nephi
hasn’t successfully communicated the motivation he felt upon contemplating the
bravery and strength of biblical Moses to his brothers’ hearts.
First, we
might assert that these brothers were incapable of feeling such inspiration
because of their wickedness. This may contribute a small part, but keep in mind
that Laman and Lemuel had obeyed their father in every commandment thus far.
They were obedient, if not fully committed.
More
importantly, we should take into account their humanity: two failures, coupled
by sleepless nights awaiting what seemed like an inevitable assassin’s blade
from Laban’s household guard and the accompanying fatigue, irritability, and
clouded judgment that accompany fear, failure, and fatigue.
Going even
further, the system of human language is inherently flawed, unable to precisely
communicate the speaker’s intended meaning to his audience. Nephi’s use of
figurative metaphor “strong like unto Moses” is fraught with miscommunicative
possibilities as it moves from his mouth to the ears of Laman, Lemuel, and Sam.
Perhaps the listeners have not read the text alluded to as recently or as
fervently as Nephi has. Perhaps they have read it more recently, and have come
to a different interpretation of Moses’ strength. All listeners have different
experiences that inform their understanding of the word “strength.” Add in
lisps, homonyms, dirt in ears, windy Jerusalem nights, and you can quickly see
how even attentive listeners can so easily interpret a speaker’s word
differently than the speaker intends.
And yet,
despite all that, the brothers follow Nephi. Even with imperfect means, the
right choice almost magically occurs.
Now, you
may be thinking, what about a perfect communicative means? What about
communicating through the Spirit? Indeed, truth and knowledge delivered by
divine means avoids many of the communicative difficulties found in written and
spoken language. The Spirit communicates directly to the spirit, mind, and
heart of the listener, depending on the scriptural reference used. But, as we
will see, even perfect communication risks corruption when filtered through
imperfect intellect or inclination.
The final post of Misreading 1 Nephi 4 will be posted on Friday.
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