This post is part of a series of reflections on I Nephi. If you’re interested, the introduction to the series is here. To peruse earlier entries, click the authors tab at the top of the page and then click on my name. I welcome your own thoughts on these specific verses (or on my reflections) in the comments below.
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My typical reaction in reading this vision (or, as more often is the case, segments of the vision) and Nephi’s sermonizing and exhortations is to rejoice. This confrontation Nephi has with Laman (et al) pulls me up short, though. My typical reaction is too easy. In part—of course—because my typical perusal presents me with the fictional TV version. I’m not there, this isn’t my life, I’m not in a parent-imposed exile, suffering and watching my family suffer, and I’m not being asked by (er, demanded of) my younger brother to reinterpret the entirety of my religious understanding. Viewed in this more holistic context, it’s not terribly difficult to see why and how this conversation is “hard” for Nephi’s brothers.
Reading this vision and dialogue and then rejoicing with Nephi as I typically do has the potential to blind us to both the complexity and gravity of the vision (it’s certainly not meant to be, nor is it portrayed as a fairytale—though I know I’ve sometimes read it that way). It can also blind us to the diversity of experience in hearing the word of God. Some of my students are already (unreflectively) disposed to enjoy philosophy. Others are the opposite. Ought I to condemn or penalize my students who aren’t already disposed to enjoy the subject? As educators, we often do just that, though typically we agree that such condemnation of these students is wrong.
Now I hear a variation on Plato/Socrates: Are the commands of God good because God commands them, or does God only command good things? Are Nephi’s declarations here hard—in and of themselves hard—or is it only the bearing of them (or perhaps the bearing of them by the wicked) that is hard? It’s clear that Nephi takes the latter interpretation; it’s pretty clear that Laman and his brothers take the former.
On a related note, I have to ask: Nephi, did you know going into the conversation that it was going to be a hard one? You seem to imply as much. If so, I’m not sure what I think of your tactics (I know my mother is unimpressed). I sometimes enter into conversations with my loved family members (or sometimes with my fellow saints, or neighbors or co-workers or students) that I know will be hard, or which they will experience as hard. How ought this to impact my approach? Did knowing make a difference to Nephi, did it change his approach?
Nephi’s recommended strategy for one who experiences the things of God as hard, is to soften one’s own heart. The recommendation strikes me as a bit glib and rather un-empathetic. The quintessential characteristic of a hard heart is that the one possessing it neither wants to soften their heart, nor feels that such softening is needed (rather, it’s the external variables that need to change). As stated, Nephi’s counsel reads like a version of “You’d be a lot happier if you weren’t so unhappy.” But there’s also obviously something to this. I can agree with Laman that there’s something objectively hard about Nephi’s claims and still agree with Nephi that the solution is a softening of the hearer’s heart. Figuring out how to soften one’s heart in order to be receptive to God’s commands and revelations is critical—this is the unavoidable element of repentance. In order to repent, however, I need to see my need for repentance; or I need to see that the word I’m getting is in fact from God. I need at least that level of revelation, that portion of grace. Just as Laman did.
Which is one of the reasons why Laman and his overall reaction resonates so deeply with me. I don’t struggle with the exhortation to keep the commandments. I don’t struggle with the legitimacy of the commandments (however much I much my mortal soul might struggle with actually keeping them). Like Laman here (or so it seems to me), I feel genuinely humble and grateful for the commandments, for the life they create for me. It’s when my brother Nephi (un-humbly) declares that my keeping of the commandments isn’t nearly enough—that in addition my soul must feel and see and be a certain way, that I need to accept others’ (usually confused and inconsistent) interpretations of the commandments and revelations and doctrines—this is when tensions arise and I feel alienated. And when I do the same to others, when I play Nephi to their Laman, I’ve no doubt it has the same affect.
I am thus also grateful for the commandments and the great mediating, unifying affect they have on our lives when we approach them as a people in the way that Alma framed it to his sons, and as we see it so commonly through the Book of Mormon: Inasmuch as we keep the commandments of God, we shall prosper as a people. Commandments and the primary call for obedience to them is a mercy. Commandments are a great blessing, and if we keep them with an eye single to God, God blesses us with “commandments not a few” (D&C 59:4).
One final note on the temporal passage at the end of the chapter. All these things happened—all of them and whatever that entails which is surely far more than the dream and the conversation we have recorded here—took place in the Valley of Lemuel. They were there for sometime. Perhaps just long enough for them to minimally unify and shift their understanding so that they could undertake the physical and spiritual journey—fulfilling commandments—as directed by the heavens.
There are a few things that we have to remember here. The story that Nephi narrates is a bare bones affair. There is so much more to the story and the conversations that he necessarily leaves out. Nephi was thrust into a situation that he did not really ask for. I have seen many people comment negatively on Nephi (who admitted to having a score of weaknesses, however murmuring against the commandments of God was not one of them) and point out the primogeniture context of Laman’s rebellion. But it was the angel that appeared to the group when Laman and Lemuel were beating Nephi and Sam who told Laman and Lemuel that Nephi had been chosen to rule over them because of their wickedness. Had Laman and Lemuel been left in charge, we would not be having this conversation.
The forgotten man in this equation seems to be Lehi. He does not seem to have been a leader. That he was a righteous man is not in question. That he was a man that loved his children passionately is also evident in the words that Nephi spoke. Yet it was Nephi that had to stand up to his brothers on several occasions when his father, the head of the household, seemingly remained silent. It seems that a youthful Nephi was forced by circumstances beyond his control to accept a leadership role that God conferred upon him, and this sooner maybe than it should be because of his father’s seemingly retiring nature. It was the father that was the titular leader of the clan who should have been stepping in and controlling the narrative. But he appears to be more like Eli in the Old Testament, a righteous man but for some reason loath to try to control the unrighteous actions of his two oldest children. It does not appear that Lehi was physically ailing or frail as he fathered two more children during the trek to Bountiful.
Nephi’s words can seem unhumble to some. He maybe could have approached things a little differently (and just may have done so at first, but it just not be included in the narrative) but he was in an on-the-job-training type of situation. However, when one looks back on the different prophets that have addressed their contemporaries, calling them to repentance, their words were probably not viewed as being very humble to those that were on the receiving end. I imagine that the Sadducees and Pharisees did not appreciate Jesus’ words when he called them a generation of vipers, and I doubt that the priest’s of Baal found Elijah very humble when he was mocking them as they entreated Baal to fire up their sacrifice for them. Nephi’s words seem pretty benign compared to those two examples.
Glenn
One, we certainly tend to perceive Nephi and the conflict with his brothers not in their context, but in ours. We do not actually put ourselves in their time and place, but rather transport them to our time and place. In part, this may in part be due to the uncertainty of time and place as it applies to the Book of Mormon. We may be stumbling over our own personal issues with historicity.
However, if I can appreciate the narrative of Joseph and his older brothets and their relationship with their father/prophet, certainly that gives me a framework for understanding Nephi and Sam and Laman and Lemuel.
Older brothers, performing their ranching duties as expected, but along comes the “dreamer” and upstart Joseph, who gets a technicolor dreamcoat even, and tells them he will rule over them, the elder brothers.
This has all happened before, and it will all happen again, espescially as Lehi is descended from Joseph, notJudah. Is it so surprising the family “curse” of envy and political wrangling still shows up through the succeeding generations?
Laman and Lemuel didn’t eventually take the option to sell Nephi off, they went with their first imclination: Let’s kill him, and follow in the footsteps of Cain.
I am sure Nephi was being as kind and humble as a prophet should be fir we read in these same verses-
4 And it came to pass that I, Nephi, did exhort my brethren, with all diligence, to keep the commandments of the Lord.
5 And it came to pass that they did humble themselves before the Lord; insomuch that I had joy and great hopes of them, that they would walk in the paths of righteousness.
This is the type of kind, yet firm, dialogue towards a loved one that brings the end result even if it was just temporary. It says that Nephi had great joy for them. So, I am not quite sure where Nephi unhumbly is getting after his brothers. The text actually makes the opposite case.
This is very good and brings out well what you’ve alluded to: what is righteousness (good)? On the surface, this lecture in Nephi 16 seems absolutely appropriate. After all, Nephi is “righteous” and Laman and Lemuel are “unrighteous”, as we learn in “I will go, I will do…”. But what we also have is a man who has murdered – beheaded! – another person who was passed out, stolen property, and kidnapped another person — lecturing two individuals who, although they have threatened to do bad stuff, have done none of those things. Their basic crime is whining because their father (with family) has left his home in Jerusalem for a terrible life in the wilderness and not recognizing their younger brother as their leader. (yes, the above is a simplification, but you get my point).
As LDS’s we acknowledge and raise our hands to accept 15 men as Prophet, Seers, and Revelators, and especial witnesses of Jesus. When one reads the definition of each of these things in our scriptures, it’s quite mind-boggling what these titles represent. These men are fully aware of how the faithful look on them, in any testimony meeting you will hear how – particularly the president of the Church – has absolute direct communication with God and angels. The question then becomes that, no matter what their good intentions or motivations are, if these 15 men are not Prophets, Seers, and Revelators in every sense that the scriptures state, are they being “righteous” to present themselves as such.