The Road to Middoni: Misreading 1 Nephi 4 (Part VI)

This section concludes the analysis of Explanation 5.

As Nephi stands over drunken, prostrate Laban, the divine creator communicates with Nephi by means of the Holy Ghost. I will reproduce that exchange here for reference, beginning with Nephi’s discovery of Laban, verses 6-18 of 1 Nephi 4, bolding significant parts of the story which I will discuss further below.

“6. And I was led by the Spirit, not knowing before hand the things which I should do.

7. Nevertheless I went forth, and as I came near unto the house of Laban I beheld a man, and he had fallen to the earth before me, for he was drunken with wine.

8. And when I came to him I found that it was Laban.

9. And I beheld his sword, and I drew it forth from the sheath thereof; and the hilt thereof was of pure gold, and the workmanship thereof was exceedingly fine, and I saw that the blade thereof was of the most precious steel.

10. And it came to pass that I was constrained by the Spirit that I should kill Laban; but I said in my heart: Never at any time have I shed the blood of man. And I shrunk and would that I might not slay him.

11. And the Spirit said unto again: Behold the Lord hath delivered him into they hands. Yea, and I also knew that he had sought to take away mine own life; yea, and he would not hearken unto the commandments of the Lord; and he also had taken away our property.

12. And it came to pass that the spirit said unto me again, Slay him, for the Lord hath delivered him into they hands;

13. Behold the Lord slayeth the wicked to bring forth his righteous purposes. It is better that one man should perish than that a nation should dwindle and perish in unbelief.

14. And now, when I, Nephi, had heard these words, I remembered the words of the Lord which he spake unto me in the wilderness, saying that: Inasmuch as thy seed shall keep my commandments, they shall prosper in the land of promise.

15. Yea, and I also thought that they could not keep the commandments of the Lord according to the law of Moses, save they should have the law.

16. And I also knew that the law was engraven upon the plates of brass.

17. And again, I knew that the Lord had delivered Laban into my hands for this cause--that I might obtain the records according to his commandments.

18. Therefore I did obey the voice of the Spirit, and took Laban by the hair of the head, and I smote off his head with his own sword.” (1 Nephi 4: 6-18)

Suspend, just for a moment, the linear progression of events that Nephi recounts here. Despite his temporal perception and account, let’s find an alternative starting point for this story within Nephi’s account.

Let’s begin with the prior communication Nephi had received from the Lord. Verse 14. Nephi has received a promise from God while he meditated in the quiet of a faraway oasis. With little distraction, Nephi had sought the Lord’s will. And he received it. I don’t think it’s a stretch to say it’s this communication, in addition to Nephi’s filial respect for his father-prophet, that is the key to Nephi’s remarkable persistence in the face of such long odds. Ancient preoccupation with seed aside, Nephi was in this for his future family, a powerful motivator for anyone. And those two important “P” words, prosper and promise, have pushed many a person beyond perceived limits.

So that’s the first tool available to Nephi, heart pounding, fatigued, and frantic in the dark streets of Jerusalem: a memory of past revelation, a remembrance of past promise.

What are his other tools? His understanding of prophetic discourse contained in holy writ and his powers of logical reasoning.

Let’s learn a little about the scriptural references Nephi had to draw upon. At the time Nephi was growing up in Jerusalem, a remarkable flowering of religiosity was in full swing. Scholars call this the Deutoronomic Reform. In 622 B.C. priests in the temple announced that they had found a book containing the words of Moses. This book began a canonization of sorts that lasted for hundreds of years, spanning the Babylonian captivity and eventually weaving together 3-4 earlier strands of prophetic myth, legend, discourse, and law, with additions and a powerful conclusion coming from a new strand--the Deutoronomic, or “D” text.

This D text was significantly responsive to the political pressures of its time. Unlike the other strands which demanded tolerance for neighbors and forebearance in hasty judgment, the D text recounted a proto-nationalistic and exclusive Israel, an attitude that closely matched the political exigency of the time. Caught between powerful empires in Babylonia and Egypt, absorbing refugees from the de- (and then re-) populated northern kingdom of Israel, the priestly class turned to a sort of religious fundamentalism that demanded a newly stringent monotheism as the identity for the kingdom of Judah.

This strand would develop and significantly influence the versions of the stories in Joshua, Judges, Samuel, and Kings that we have today.

This is the strand that would have fueled the teaching in the synagogues and among families. This was the scripture that Nephi had access to as he used texts and holy stories to interpret the options in the situations he confronted in his own life. I won’t make a claim about the inspired nature (or not) of the D text. But it’s clear that the scriptures Nephi had access to were mediated through the larger societal fears and hopes of his period, and that the fears and hopes of this period had led to a fundamentalist understanding of what God would or would not allow his people to do in their quest to survive the harsh political climate of ancient Palestine.

So, when Nephi thinks about applicable scripture to guide him in his actions, he thinks of the D text. Check out the footnotes for one of Nephi’s first scriptural applications in verse 11 (“Behold the Lord hath delivered him into thy hands”) Where do they go? Deuteronomy 3:3, a fundamentalist account of a (highly unlikely) massacre of the people of Bashan, and 1 Samuel 17:46, where God delivers Goliath to David’s sling, both of which are products of the D strand of the Pentateuch.

Now, go back towards the beginning of the extended passage from Nephi. Notice that Nephi notices Laban’s (probably bronze) sword. Then his neurons start firing to find scriptures. He likely remembers the latest stories told by the elders and priests of ancient Israel’s chosenness and the lengths to which they were allowed to push the limits of violence and cruelty in their charge of nation-building.

The Spirit does start to whisper to Nephi’s heart. It communicates that the Lord has led Nephi here. Here is the solution to his problem. Here is the means by which Nephi can accomplish the commandment he’s received of the Lord. Except, the Spirit doesn’t say “Slay him.” That’s what Nephi hears, but the Spirit has made it not to perfect ears or perfect understanding, but a man’s ears and a man’s understanding. The imperfect scriptural texts, aided by the visual stimulus of the sword corrupt the Spirit’s message into “Slay him.”

But Nephi recognizes that this doesn’t feel right. He recoils, and rightly so, from an act that is so ungodly. He searches, in his rapidly firing neurons, for a memory of past light and knowledge. Or revelation with which he can compare this new, ghastly command.

Nephi remembers. He remembers the oasis, the stirring breeze, the inexpressible happines that accompanied the realization that God knew him and spoke to him and had something great in store for him.

It is in that moment of bliss that Nephi makes his human error. Rather than compare the two spiritual experiences, Nephi thinks. Not usually a bad thing to do. But his focus on God’s promise to him allows him to justify the violence that he had found in scriptural precedent.

He thought about how he needed the commandments found on the brass plates to make God’s promise come true.

He brought to mind another, logical fact, that brass plates were a sure bet. He knew they contained the commandments he needed.

And with that thought and that fact, Nephi produced counterfeit truth based on half truth. God really had delivered Laban into Nephi’s hands. But murder was not in the intended equation. Nephi knew something that was not altogether true, and he acted on it.

But before you judge Nephi too harshly, imagine a network featuring a central node. The central node is Nephi, and moving towards him are an overlapping, mashed together stampede of inputs. There is no stable hierarchy for these inputs. Nephi is not a computer with impeccable code driving the information transfer. He is imperfect and he is human. In a matter of seconds, Nephi’s brain is processing:

• The visual stimulus of Laban’s sword.
• The scriptural accounts of violence and nation-building prompted by Laban’s sword and Nephi’s cosmic view of his own posterity.
• The powerful influence of the Holy Ghost, whispering pure truth into his heart and mind.
• The indelible memory of past spiritual experience.
• The logical process that is sorting out Nephi’s options.
• The real environment of Nephi’s surroundings and the resultant stress.
• The fatigue, fear, excitement, and the natural human predisposition to violence.

In a matter of moments, Nephi must process this information and act. His action is not the best of all possible options, but it is the option that Nephi is able to undertake based on the sum of the information he processes. Just like his brothers, who made it to the walls of Jerusalem but failed to make the optimal choice of accompanying their brother all the way on his quest, Nephi’s decision is not optimal, but does get the job done.

Nephi does obtain the brass plates, he does use their contents to guide his family to righteousness, and the plates do play an important role in generations to come. Mathematically speaking, more good is probably accomplished at the relatively small price of one murder. But that does not make the action God’s will. God willed the outcome, and Nephi made that outcome happen. He just got there like a man, not an omniscient deity.

As the dust falls, Nephi, just like anyone after a moment of trauma, must sort through his memory to create a sensible timeline that categorizes neatly his experience. As he works through this process, Nephi identifies the different strands that worked together in this pivotal moment, and he truthfully relates the experience as he lived it. God spoke to him, he recoiled, he recalled the stakes, and made the decision to kill Laban.

If Nephi is an archetypal prophet, then we’re left with a very unhagiographic vision of prophets. Yet, the inescapable fact is that God talks to these imperfect, good men. In fact, he’s chosen them to lead us, guide us, and show us what we must do in this life to walk beside our Heavenly Father again one day. It’s much easier to believe a prophet’s imperfection only extends to inefficient teeth brushing, incorrigibly leaving socks on the floor, and sleeping in once a month. It helps us to not doubt a word the prophet says or a single action he performs. It keeps us safe.

But when we are faced with a contradiction like 1 Nephi 4 and we have the intellectual curiosity and the deep-seated sense of ethical truth-seeking that won’t allow us to forget or push doubts under the rug until the millennium, the burnished image of saintly prophets is no longer enough.

At that moment, we have a choice. We can either throw up our hands in despair that the stories our parents and missionaries told us (and probably believed) about prophetic near-perfection weren’t true or we can rely on our faith and ask the hard questions:

• How does the Lord communicate with imperfect prophets?
• How do imperfect prophets communicate with us?
• How are we supposed to follow communication steeped in human imperfection?
• Why does the Lord choose such a messy way to run his church and teach his children?

The rest of this book will attempt to answer these questions based on the insights I have received over the past decade from my own study and experiences and the study and experiences of the many wise men and women who have taught me precious and important lessons throughout my life.

The next section, which will begin posting next week, will look closely at how the Lord communicates with imperfect prophets (especially when they're not stressed out with life and death split-second decisions).