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I just started reading the Book of Mormon with my wife, she’s never read it cover to cover. The story of Nephi killing Laban was never a problem for me. I guess because I’ve heard it since I was a boy, and at that age, it was the coolest story next to Ammon cutting off the thieves’ arms. The rationale about it being better for one man to die than for a nation to dwindle in unbelief made enough sense to me that I didn’t get caught up on it. More than anything else I try to consider the idea that he was led without knowing beforehand what he would do and that God always prepares a way. But the idea that the Spirit would command Nephi to kill Laban really bothered my wife. The more I’ve thought about it, the more it puzzles me. How do you interpret the story? Do you see any valuable teachings there? I see the story as setting a bad precedent. I remember a testimony being told over the pulpit where the person testified that the spirit told them to lie about having paid the rent. They got away with one and didn’t have to pay the rent that month, a monetary blessing from the lord. I suppose it’s possible that the spirit did tell them to lie to their landlord but things get tricky once we have faith promoting stories where we attribute morally questionable promptings as having come from the spirit. When you’re god there are plenty of ways to ensure that one person doesn’t cause a nation to dwindle in unbelief. Memory wipe Laban. Open everyone’s eyes to how crazy Laban was being, turn the people against Laban’s behavior. Leave town, never come back, if anyone tries to follow make the Red Sea close on them. Etc. Personally I’d have lots of trouble being god’s hit man.
After rereading the account there’s probably a case for Nephi misinterpreting internal monologue as the voice of the spirit. There’s a back and forth, I’ve never killed, but he did steal my stuff and try to kill me. The
lorddid deliver him into my hands… Verse 11 is interesting:
1 Nephi 4:11 wrote:And the Spirit said unto me again: Behold the Lord hath delivered him into thy 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. When listing the justifications it’s all coming from Nephi, not the spirit. Yea, and
Ialso knew… Taking the narrative at face value, I’ve heard justifications that this was a teaching moment for Nephi. Perhaps it was so difficult for him to consider killing someone that it would have been impossible for him to defend himself and his family in the new world against his own brothers, so god used Laban to bridge the gap from where Nephi was to where he needed to be. In other words it was easier to kill Laban because he wasn’t family and Nephi had his own personal justifications to help him make the final decision. Once that was done it was much easier to defend himself against his own family, he had already had to make a life or death decision.
The BoM also says Nephi shrunk from the suggestion he should kill Laban, but eventually did it anyway. Sounds a lot like Joseph Smith shrinking from the idea of plural marriage, but being commanded to do it anyway (using the story that an angel drew a sword and told him to do it). It makes it sound like it’s an obedience exercise, and not the cravings of a natural man.
I don’t like this story; it creates a loophole that extremists and even well-meaning people who misinterpret spiritual “feelings” can use to literally justify/get away with murder!
I would like to add this — the murder seems easy to take since it happened hundreds of years ago. How would you react to this scripture if a prophet had written it as his own life experience just yesterday? In know, let’s not judge the people of yesterday by the standards of today — but when deciding if i would do a similar thing because its justified by scripture, I ask myself that question.
Being that I don’t believe Nephi was a real person, the take away for me, or how I would teach this to my kids, is that we all have to make our own choices sometimes. Don’t shirk away from what your internal voice tells you is right (this gets back to the Abrahamic test thread where some postulated that perhaps Abraham failed the test by being willing to sacrifice his son, yet was blessed for his obedience anyway). And sometimes we don’t make the right one, but grace is sufficient for all, even for those make pretty bad decisions. I see the story of Nephi killing Laban as Nephi’s justification for his action. By that, I don’t mean at all that I see the action as wrong, and I don’t mean at all that I see it as uninspired. I just see it as a man far removed from the actual event trying to explain to others who weren’t there why he did something so out of the ordinary and, to most people, including himself, repugnant. Frankly, if Nephi was committed to getting the plates and not getting his family killed in the process, chopping off Laban’s head as he lay defenseless in the street might have been his only option. He’d tried everything else, and he’d been robbed and threatened with death or imprisonment. Now, here he was, following his instincts and promptings, and there was Laban – so drunk he was passed out.
Nephi had two choices if he felt he had to get the plates of brass:
1) Do what he did without killing Laban.
That might have been possible, but it would have been very risky. When Laban woke up naked, returned to his home and discovered the plates gone, he would know exactly what had happened – no doubts whatsoever. He would have raised a force to pursue Nephi and his family, almost surely found them, and wiped them out. With Nephi’s family having only a day or less lead time, that is the only logical outcome.
I think that is vital to understand, especially when trying to understand why he killed Laban.
2) Kill Laban – and do it by chopping off his head.
Laban was a drunk. This probably wasn’t a rare occurrence, meaning when his body was discovered and identified most people would probably say, “It finally happened. I told him he’d be sorry at some point.” There is a good chance nobody would associate this death with Nephi and his family, since a man like that had to have had enemies – and taking Zoram with them easily could have shifted the focus of the investigation onto him. Even if Nephi and his brothers were considered, it wouldn’t be the immediate assumption – and I really think it probably didn’t cross anyone’s minds, given all the other possibilities.
Also, by chopping off Laban’s head (and, presumably, by hiding it away from the body), the identification process would take longer – perhaps much longer. That would give Nephi’s family more time to make their escape, thus greatly increasing the likelihood that they actually would escape – even if they were pursued eventually.
3) In other words, I see Nephi’s actions as the result of his logical conclusions in the moment – his intellectual rationalization for doing something he would never have considered doing previously.
Assuming he was the type of visionary person he describes in his record, I also see him justifying his actions in religious terms – and attributing his thought process to inspiration. (I’m not saying it wasn’t. I’m sticking purely to a logical analysis right now.) I have a bit of a problem justifying murder to get the plates, but so did Nephi, based on his own words. Therefore, in order to follow through with his plan to obtain the plates, he had to construct an argument that was legal (verse 11 says it really wasn’t murder), philosophical (verse 13 makes it a “humane” decision to sacrifice one person for the good of a larger group) and religious (verses 14-17 solidify it as keeping the commandment of God). It’s also important, I think, to remember that the account probably was written LONG after the fact, after Nephi had decades to hone his reasoning. I’m not saying it would have been intentional, but we all know that such memories get shaped over time.
I can’t reject the legal argument, if I remove myself from our modern outlook and put myself in his shoes in that culture; the philosophical argument was solidly part of his culture, and we even use it now in times of warfare (or, for example, in the case of an abortion to save the life of the mother, who, by living, can “save” her family in very practical terms – or when we excommunicate someone who truly is stirring up active and virulent apostasy within the Church, like someone who is trying to recruit for a polygamous sect among a congregation); the command aspect is the most “iffy”, in my opinion – especially since he personally didn’t receive the command but was trusting that his father had received it from God. That final aspect is what I think fits the Abraham and Isaac situation the most closely – a son trusting his father to the extreme.
When I read 1 Nephi 4, I see someone who had an objective in mind and had to figure out how to justify accomplishing that objective in a way that he had never considered previously. In other words, he didn’t go into the excursion to get the plates thinking he might have to kill someone. The thought probably never crossed his mind. Faced suddenly with the realization that, if he REALLY was serious about getting the plates, the best course of action was going to be killing Laban, he took the time to construct a legal, philosophical and religious argument for doing so.
In that sense, if God really did want them to have the plates, Nephi did what he thought he had to do to get them – and he only had a minute or two to decide. I might not like what he did in theory, but I can’t condemn or even judge him for a quick decision in a time of great stress – especially from the luxury of almost forty years of reading his account.
Finally, in reading the rest of his account, I think that decision haunted him all his life, despite his justification for it – and I think that might be the greatest lesson we can take from it.
Unknown wrote:I just started reading the Book of Mormon with my wife, she’s never read it cover to cover. The story of Nephi killing Laban was never a problem for me. I guess because I’ve heard it since I was a boy, and at that age, it was the coolest story next to Ammon cutting off the thieves’ arms. The rationale about it being better for one man to die than for a nation to dwindle in unbelief made enough sense to me that I didn’t get caught up on it. More than anything else I try to consider the idea that he was led without knowing beforehand what he would do and that God always prepares a way. But
the idea that the Spirit would command Nephi to kill Laban really bothered my wife.The more I’ve thought about it, the more it puzzles me. How do you interpret the story? Do you see any valuable teachings there?This is one of several examples that make me glad that I can simply interpret the BoM as a 19th century work of fiction instead of feeling like I need to believe this anymore because of what it would mean in terms of the big picture including the following points.
1. The general idea seems to be that whatever God supposedly says is automatically right.If you think about it, basically murdering someone mostly to steal their property without getting caught is something that would be almost universally condemned as immoral regardless of specific culture, religious beliefs, etc. But here we are supposed to believe that God directly commanded Nephi to ignore this as well as his own specific commandments against this and make a special exception in this case. If it was all that important to get the plates then why didn’t God kill Laban himself or provide a cleaner solution instead of sending mixed messages like this? I’m sorry but I would take most people’s natural moral instincts and established laws and cultural norms in spite of any limitations or inconsistencies over some lone individual claiming that God gave them special permission and instructions to break the rules any day of the week.
2. This would mean that God supposedly thinks it is very important for people to have a relatively specific set of beliefs.Assuming God exists, it makes much more sense to me that he doesn’t care that much what people believe because if he did then it seems like he would have made it easier for honest truth-seekers with the best possible intentions to recognize and agree on the same correct beliefs instead of what we actually see with religious beliefs all over the map that people have, quite often due to no fault of their own and in many cases simply due to which family they were born into.
As far as discussing this with TBMs that might be troubled by this story I’m not sure what the best approach would be but I’m not sure it is worth worrying about all that much because how often does God actually tell people to kill someone and take their stuff in an unmistakable way? Even if you want to assume the story is true or inspired it’s not like it is a general commandment or expectation that directly applies to everyone, it was basically presented as a unique case and an unusual exception to the norm.
Old-Timer wrote:I see the story of Nephi killing Laban as Nephi’s justification for his action. By that, I don’t mean at all that I see the action as wrong, and I don’t mean at all that I see it as uninspired. I just see it as a man far removed from the actual event trying to explain to others who weren’t there why he did something so out of the ordinary and, to most people, including himself, repugnant…..
The most compelling argument you made was that if he let Laban live, Laban would have pursued Nephi and his family and wiped them out. My question is this — where is God in all this??? If God wants the next nation in South America to prosper — why would he put the onus on Nephi to kill someone, break the 10 commandments, and cast doubt on whether he was a prophet in the first place?
If truly God was behind it, it would have been a miraculous story, faith promoting, and supportive of Nephi as a wise prophet, if God whispered in his ear “drag Laban into the shadows, and bind his mouth and hands and feet, and on the morrow, I will deliver you and your family out of this area so you can never be found”…
I feel that if God is a just God, he would use his power to allow his servants to achieve righteous goals, righteously, rather than “inspiring them” to commit heinous crimes that are unnecessary given God’s matchless power.
Quote:My question is this — where is God in all this???
In Nephi’s head, as he attributed it to being “constrained by the Spirit”.
Old-Timer wrote:2) Kill Laban – and do it by chopping off his head.
People are usually quick to point out that Laban’s clothes would have been blood soaked and that would have ruined the disguise. The ordering is suspect and what’s more the ordering is actually given in detail:
Quote:And
after I had smitten off his headwith his own sword, I took the garments of Laban Should have taken the clothes off first. I guess it doesn’t say took off, meaning he “took” the already removed garments of Laban. Still it stands out.
I also think it’s just as plausible for Laban to lead a manhunt for Nephi as it would have been for the authorities to lead a manhunt.
If Nephi surreptitiously obtained the plates via the disguise and left Laban living who knows how long it would have taken Laban to notice that the plates were missing. Of course Nephi would second guess himself with those same sorts of questions. It’s all speculative.
I agree with SunbeltRed in that I don’t see it as having been a literal event. It certainly makes it easier to look at the story as a narrative with a little slop in it as opposed to taking what is written to be unadulterated truth. That slop can come from Nephi’s faulty memory, it can come from whoever the author was not thinking through all the implications. My point is that I have to tell myself that there’s some slop in the story for parts of the narrative to make more sense.
Quote:I agree with SunbeltRed in that I don’t see it as having been a literal event. It certainly makes it easier to look at the story as a narrative with a little slop in it as opposed to taking what is written to be unadulterated truth. That slop can come from Nephi’s faulty memory, it can come from whoever the author was not thinking through all the implications. My point is that I have to tell myself that there’s some slop in the story for parts of the narrative to make more sense.
Yeah, I agree with this viewpoint as well. I don’t think it actually happened, but was a story with a moral, written by Joseph Smith. To me this is a troubling twist on the excuse that some people use when they make a mistake and they say, “The devil made me do it.” I think Satan is blamed for more of people’s sins than he is actually responsible for, but he becomes a convenient scapegoat. However, in this situation, Nephi used the excuse, “God made me do it.” Hmmm… Sounds like Joseph Smith’s excuse for practicing polygamy. But, then, even in the Old Testament, God commanded Joshua to destroy entire cities down to the last man, woman, child, and animal. I tend to view most of the Old Testament as being symbolic stories, but I guess you could use that as another example of God commanding someone to do something that we would consider to be morally questionable, at the very least.
My comments were from the point of view of trying to talk with someone who takes the story literally. Change the perspective, and the response changes – but, to talk with people who believe in the absolute historicity of the book, you have to take the account seriously and discuss it in that light. Going through that exercise (reading it slowly and carefully and thinking about all the implications within it) also is useful outside of the context of a literal interpretation – as it allows you to understand the actual story and not just what other people have assumed or taught about it. I believe the story is MUCH more complex and compelling than most members realize, specifically because most members think they know the moral of the story before they read it and, therefore, don’t read it to understand everything it can teach.
It also helps to have some experience with chopping off heads, and I don’t mean that facetiously. The bloody clothes aspect doesn’t bother me in the slightest, for two reasons: 1) It was said to have happened at night, which gives a degree of cover to blood on clothes; 2) If someone is lying down, particularly if that person is tilted downward to any degree, severing their head easily could produce no large amount of blood on the clothing. I grew up in farm and dairy country, so my experience is with the killing of animals, but the story is not ridiculous or even a stretch in that regard.
Anyway, the thread doesn’t need to spiral away from the point of the post by moving into arguments about bloody clothes. My main point is that there is a solid way to discuss this story with a believing literalist without dismissing that perspective – and still question whether or not Nephi actually was commanded by God to kill Laban.
Thanks Ray! Good perspective, and important to think about how to interact with these stories with those who have a more literal belief.
Some apologist resources teach that there are at least 7 reasons why Nephi’s killing of Laban would be legally justified using the legal code of the time. I don’t remember what these reasons are, but I don’t have a hard time believing that given that the legal system of 600 BC would be incredibly different than our legal system today. Now, I admit that it begs the question of why God (whose Truth and Reason are eternal and unchanging) would command the killing, but legally I think Nephi probably would be justified if it were an actual event.
Frankly there are many more troublesome LDS doctrines than Nephi/Laban for me personally. Sometimes God seems to hold Himself to the legal standards of the time / place rather than His own.
What bothers me is God could have taken care of this himself – Laban was drunk off his butt. Have him fall in a way that breaks his neck and then have Nephi find him. Isn’t that a miracle enough? Why did he have to cut his head off? Why not just strangle him?
In order to come to terms with many things that came up in my faith crisis, I have had to shift to a belief that God has great respect for free agency of individuals and will seldom interfere with this free agency. But it seems in this case Laban was bad enough that he had to be killed. If that was the case, why wasn’t Hitler made to perish rather than 6 million jews – not to mention the total of 50 million deaths from WWII? And why did over 2 dozen assassination attempts all failed?
If, for a moment, we can ignore the killing aspect of the story, perhaps one lesson is that while we live by rules, there are exceptions to the rules.
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