In Mormon circles, being compared to Laman and Lemuel is never a good thing, but let me begin by confessing that I am a bit more sympathetic to Nephi’s rebellious older brothers than many Latter-day Saints. When I read 1 Nephi, Laman and Lemuel do not appear to be unredeemably wicked figures; instead, they seem like fairly orthodox Jews of the time.
They are skeptical of Lehi’s prophecies of the destruction of Jerusalem, but to be fair, theirs was a scriptural, conservative, mainstream position; many faithful Jews interpreted a few passages from 2 Samuel, Psalms, and Isaiah as assurances from the Lord that Jerusalem would never be conquered (scholars refer to this belief as “Zion Theology”), and several of Lehi’s prophecies came through what was regarded as the least reliable mode of revelation: dreams. Even though Laman and Lemuel complain continuously—at least in Nephi’s telling of the story—they nevertheless always end up doing what Lehi asks of them, from returning to Jerusalem twice, to living in the wilderness for eight years, to building a ship, to getting on board that home-made boat to cross the ocean (an act which takes more courage and faith than many of us might assume).
When Nephi wants to accuse his brothers of wrongdoing, he doesn’t mention idolatry or sabbath-breaking or adultery or theft; rather, the worst that he can come up with is “speaking with much rudeness” (1 Ne. 18:9). It is true that Nephi several times describes Laman and Lemuel as would-be murderers, but they seem to be rather half-hearted assassins. In the decade or more that they lived in close proximity with Nephi, they certainly don’t kill him, or even wound him seriously (their beating of him in a cave outside of Jerusalem left him healthy enough to immediately return to the city and deal decisively with Laban). And as we shall see, there was scriptural justification for Nephi’s older brothers to deal even more harshly with him.
The Theological Background of 1 Nephi
This fall I had the opportunity in the fortieth annual Sperry Symposium at BYU where I heard an engaging presentation by Heather Hardy (yes, I’m married to her, so I could hardly have missed her talk). She pointed out that Lehi’s early discourse to his family actually had two parts: the famous dream of the tree in 1 Nephi 8, and then prophecies in 1 Nephi 10 concerning the future of the house of Israel and the Gentiles. In fact, there is an allegory of an olive tree at 10:12-14 (probably derived from Zenos’ teachings) that counterbalances the allegory of the tree of life, and when Nephi’s brothers ask him about the meaning of their father’s words, their first question is about the olive tree rather than the earlier tree, the iron rod, or the river of water (1 Ne. 15:6-20).
Heather suggested that the two parts of the discourse represent two distinct modes of salvation. The first, which is focused on the choices that individuals can make to grasp the iron rod and come to Christ, can be thought of as “the plan of salvation” (though without the details of the pre-existence and the three degrees of glory that were revealed to Joseph Smith in this dispensation). The second aspect of salvation concerns God’s dealings with his children at the level of entire peoples and nations over long time spans. This communal type of redemption can be referred to as “salvation history,” to borrow a term from biblical scholarship. Of course, Christ is at the center of both. As Nephi later learns, the tree in Lehi’s dream is representative of the Lamb of God who was born of a virgin, while Lehi explicitly connects his prophecies of Israel scattered and gathered to a Messiah who would come in six hundred years.
As saints in the latter days, we are accustomed to thinking of salvation in terms of missionary work—people accept the truth one by one as they make sacred covenants, with matters of nationality, ethnicity, and race being largely irrelevant to the plan of salvation. But this universally accessible version of God’s dealing with the world is not predominant in the Old Testament, where the priesthood was restricted by lineage, tribal affiliation outweighed personal choice, religious affiliation was mainly determined by cultural inheritance, and God rewarded or punished nations collectively. Hebrew prophets spoke primarily in terms of salvation history.
New Revelation
Heather further noted two interesting patterns in the Small Plates. First, all of the major discourses include both aspects of salvation, usually in separate sections rather than intermingled, with the more familiar teachings about salvation history coming before plan of salvation doctrines (1 Ne. 8-10 is the only exception). And second, when Lehi, Nephi, and Jacob preach salvation history, they tend to quote scripture, but when they are talking about how individuals can come to Christ, they seem to treat these truths as new revelations that have come through dreams, visions, angels, or the voice of the Lord. At one point Heather projected on the screen a list of all the Brass Plates scriptures that were cited by Lehi and his two sons, and of the 417 total verses, 409 were illustrations of salvation history while only 8 clearly spoke of personal salvation.
Sometimes critics complain that Lehi and his family don’t sound like Jews in the fifth century BC because their understanding of Christ’s mission is much too detailed and precise. But that is exactly the point. Because Lehi’s family was faithful enough to leave behind the things that had given their faith focus—the Promised Land, the holy city of Jerusalem, the temple, and the Levite priesthood—God blessed them with a clearer knowledge of the plan of salvation than was had by nearly anyone else in the Old World.
Laman and Lemuel were rather wary of all this. They believed what was in the Brass Plates (which is why Lehi and Nephi so often cited scriptures in their teaching) and the Law of Moses, but they seem to have been uncomfortable with the idea of personal revelation and talk about a Son of God, a Mediator, or a Messiah. Who exactly was this figure, and how was he connected to the God of Israel? The questions would have been delicate in 600 BC because the book of Deuteronomy (which had been thrillingly rediscovered in Lehi’s lifetime) had spoken definitively:
Ye shall not add unto the word which I command you, neither shall ye diminish ought from it . . . the Lord he is God, there is none else beside him. (Deut 4:2, 35)
If thy brother, the son of thy mother . . . entice thee secretly, saying, Let us go and serve other gods, which thou has not known, thou, or thy fathers . . . thou shalt not consent unto him, nor hearken unto him; nether shall thine eye pity him, neither shalt thou spare, neither shalt thou conceal him: but thou shalt surely kill him. (Deut. 13:6-9)
How might Laman and Lemuel have likened this scripture to the situation in their own family?
In the next generation, Sherem also responds negatively to what he perceives as doctrinal innovations on the part of Jacob, Nephi’s brother:
I have heard and also know that though goest about much, preaching that which ye call the gospel, or the doctrine of Christ.
And ye have led away much of this people that they pervert the right way of God, and keep not the law of Moses which is the right way; and convert the law of Moses into the worship of a being which ye say shall come many hundred years hence. And now behold, I, Sherem, declare unto you that this is blasphemy. (Jacob 7:6-7)
A Major Fault Line in Nephite Civilization
Similar patterns continue throughout the Book of Mormon. When King Benjamin prophesies of Christ’s future ministry and the atonement, he attributes this information to an angel. The priests of Noah accept the authority of the Law of Moses (even if they don’t live it themselves), but they are offended at Abinadi’s message that “God himself shall come down among the children of men” and make possible the resurrection and final judgment of individuals. Although Abinadi does cite Isaiah 53, he adds a lot of new details to Isaiah’s words. The inhabitants of Ammonihah and of Antionum (the Zoramites) are religious, but they reject the new revelations about the coming of Christ, the atonement, the resurrection, and the last judgment. Corianton has questions for his father Alma about resurrection and justice for individual sinners, and Alma is able to answer because “it has been made known unto me by an angel (Alma 40:11).
Throughout Nephite history, there is a division between those who accept the new revelations of the record-keeping prophets and join a church that looks forward to the coming of Christ, with its promise of atonement, resurrection, and judgment in the next life, and those who reject those innovations and give thanks to the God of the Brass Plates that “thou hast elected us, that we may not be led away after the foolish traditions of our brethren, and which doth bind them down to a belief of Christ, which doth lead their hearts to wander far from thee, our God. And again we thank thee, O God, that we are a chosen and a holy people” [collective salvation!] (Alma 31:17-18).
Mormon describes the origin of the term “Christian,” at the time of Captain Moroni, as follows: “For thus were all the true believers of Christ, who belonged to the church of God, called by those who did not belong to the church” (Alma 46:14). Nephite believers had not heretofore called themselves Christians? This seems to indicate that they considered their doctrines to be in continuity with the scriptures, while outsiders regarded them as unwarranted additions. Later on, after Christ’s visit to the New World and the subsequent apostasy, those who were “true believers in Christ” were called Nephites, while “they who rejected the gospel were called Lamanites” (4 Ne. 1:36, 38).
A Parable for Modern Times
After 1600 words, it’s time to explain the title. The attitude of Laman and Lemuel to the new revelations of a coming Messiah and personal salvation would be mirrored many centuries later by the reaction of modern Christians to Joseph Smith’s claims of new revelations and additional truths about the nature of God and salvation. Most evangelicals are decent people who care deeply about religion and the Bible.
The idea of new, additional scripture makes them nervous, and they can justify their concerns as conservative, mainstream, and scriptural. (It is not entirely unreasonable to cite Rev. 22:18, though Mormons would point out that the warning against “any man [who] shall add unto these things” refers to the book of Revelation rather than the Bible as a whole, and in any case, there is no proscription about God adding to his word.)
When they hear about a Jesus who appeared in the Americas and who is not “of one substance with the Father” (a line from the Nicene Creed), they wonder if this is really the same God they worship, though Latter-day Saints are quick to claim that the Christ at the center of their faith is indeed the historical Jesus of the New Testament. Christian monotheism is more complicated than Jewish monotheism—hence the need for the creeds—and LDS monotheism is even more complicated. When they hear of the pre-existence, temple ordinances, the celestial kingdom, and eternal progression, many contemporary Christians view such ideas as un-biblical innovations, though Mormons might respond, “Isn’t it wonderful that God has revealed more of his plan of salvation to modern prophets?”
Traditional Christians have a right to be skeptical when they learn the details of our faith (the claims of the Restoration are indeed astounding), but our answer is “Why don’t you pray and ask God what he has to say about it?” With Nephi, we ask, “Have ye inquired of the Lord?” And if the response is “We have not; for the Lord maketh no such thing known unto us,” they are following an ancient precedent (1 Ne. 15:8-9). Again, it seems to me that Laman and Lemuel were not truly wicked; they were just content with the traditions of their fathers and were unwilling to make room for additional truths. Nephi’s testimony, on the other hand, is that “he that diligently seeketh shall find; and the mysteries of God shall be unfolded unto them by the power of the Holy Ghost, as well in these times and in times of old, and as well in times of old as in times to come” (1 Ne. 10:19).
Special Bonus Trivia for Anyone Who Made It to the End of This Essay:
A few weeks ago Senator John McCain, suggesting that there might be ways to circumvent the automatic budget cuts that are scheduled to take effect if deficit “super committee” fails in its task, used the unusual phrase “sequestration is not engraved on golden tablets” (you can hear it at 1:25 in this clip. In her recap, the commentator reverts to the more familiar, and more expected, “written in stone,” but perhaps McCain’s metaphor is an indication that his LDS constituents in Arizona are more influential than they might think.
Grant Hardy is the editor of The Book of Mormon: A Reader’s Edition (University of Illinois Press, 2003) and the author of Understanding the Book of Mormon: A Reader’s Guide (Oxford University Press, 2010). His most recent publications include the Oxford History of Historical Writing, Vol. 1 and Great Minds of the Eastern Intellectual Tradition, a 36-lecture cd/dvd course produced by the Great Courses. Hardy is a professor of History and Religious Studies at the University of North Carolina—Asheville.
