Difference between revisions of "Detailed response to CES Letter, Scriptures"

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====1 Nephi 4====
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=="that Laban would send his servants after Nephi and his brothers is ridiculous considering that the same God who had no problem lighting stones and taming swarms of bees"==
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{{CESLetterItem
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{{CESLetterItemShort
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|claim=The author states, "The Lord commands Nephi to murder (decapitate) Laban for the brass plates.  Never mind that Laban was drunk and defenseless.  The argument that Laban would send his servants after Nephi and his brothers is ridiculous considering that the same God who had no problem lighting stones and taming swarms of bees (Ether 2-3) for the Brother of Jared can also preserve Nephi."
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|claim=The Lord commands Nephi to murder (decapitate) Laban for the brass plates.  Never mind that Laban was drunk and defenseless.  The argument that Laban would send his servants after Nephi and his brothers is ridiculous considering that the same God who had no problem lighting stones and taming swarms of bees (Ether 2-3) for the Brother of Jared can also preserve Nephi.
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|answer=
 
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{{Church answer
 
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|link=http://www.lds.org/ensign/1976/09/i-have-a-question?lang=eng
 
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|title=I Have a Question
 
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|author=Jeffery R. Holland
 
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|publication=Ensign
 
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|date=September 1976
 
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|summary=It is wrong to assume that Nephi in any way wished to take Laban’s life. He was a young man, and despite a 600 B.C. world full of tensions and retaliations, he had never “shed the blood of man.” (1 Ne. 4:10.) Nothing in his life seems to have conditioned him for this task. In fact the commandments he had been taught from childhood declared, “Thou shalt not kill”; and he recoiled, initially refusing to obey the prompting of the Spirit. . . .
 
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Laban, lying before Nephi in a drunken stupor, has not been guiltless in his dealings with Lehi’s family. In what little we know of the man, Laban has at least: (1) been unfaithful in keeping the commandments of God; (2) falsely accused Laman of robbery; (3) coveted Lehi’s property as a greedy, “lustful” man; (4) stolen that property outright; and (5) sought twice to kill Nephi and/or his brothers. He was, by the Holy Spirit’s own declaration, a “wicked” man delivered unto Nephi by the very hand of the Lord.
 
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*{{antispeak|speaking for God}}
 
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*{{Incorrect}} The author claims that God did not act to "preserve Nephi". The Lord ''did'' preserve Nephi and his brothers from being killed by Laban....twice.
 
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*God is not a magician who waves his wand and removes all obstacles. He expects us to do as much as we can. For example, God could have caused Laban to have had a heart attack, or cirrhosis of the liver, and died before Nephi got there, but that is simply not how God works.
 
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*If Joseph were making the story up, then why not just have Nephi just find Laban already dead in the street? Nephi's account actually seems to have been written to deliberately provide all the proper legal justification for the act, according to ancient Israelite law. This may not appease the ethical concerns, but, the point is, how did Joseph Smith know ancient Israel law so well? This is evidence that it was written by someone familiar with the legal code of that time and place.
 
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|quote=
 
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*Hugh Nibley recalled offers an interesting story about the way Middle Eastern culture would view this event which places it in a different context:
 
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<blockquote>
 
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When in 1946 this writer composed a little treatise called ''Lehi in the Desert'' from limited materials then available in Utah, he had never knowingly set eyes on a real Arab. Within the last five years Aneze tribesmen and citizens of Mecca, including even guides to the Holy Places, have been his students, in Provo, of all places, while Utah has suddenly been enriched with a magnificent Arabic library, thanks to the inspired efforts of Professor Aziz Atiya of the University of Utah. As if it were not enough for the mountain to come to Mohammed, those sons of the desert who came to Provo found themselves taking a required class in the Book of Mormon from [me]. Naturally [I] was more than curious to see how these young men would react to the Book of Mormon treatment of desert themes, and invited and even required them to report frankly on their impressions. To date, with only one exception, no fault has been found with Nephi on technical grounds. The one exception deserves the attention of all would-be critics of the Book of Mormon.
 
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<br><br>
 
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It was in the first class ever held in "Book of Mormon for Near Eastern Students," and the semester had barely begun when of course we ran smack into the story of how Nephi found Laban dead drunk in a dark alley and cut off his head &mdash; a grisly tale that upsets Nephi himself in telling it. As we rehearsed the somber episode, I could detect visible signs of annoyance among the Arab students &mdash; whispered remarks, head-shakings, and frowns of dissent. Finally, toward the end of the hour, a smart young man from Jordan could hold out no longer. "Mr. Nibley," he said, plainly speaking for the others, "there is one thing wrong here. It doesn't sound right. Why did this Nephi wait so ''long'' to cut off Laban's head?" Since I had been expecting the routine protests of shock and disgust with which Western critics react to the Laban story, I was stunned by this surprise attack &mdash; stunned with a new insight into the Book of Mormon as a message from another age and another culture.{{ref|nibley1}}
 
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</blockquote>
 
 
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{{:Book of Mormon/Nephi's killing of Laban/Was it "cold blooded murder"}}
  
 
====Exodus 12:12====
 
====Exodus 12:12====

Revision as of 13:45, 15 May 2014

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Response to "Scriptures Concerns & Questions"


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"that Laban would send his servants after Nephi and his brothers is ridiculous considering that the same God who had no problem lighting stones and taming swarms of bees"

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The killing of Laban in the Book of Mormon


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Exodus 12:12

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Deuteronomy 21:18-21

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Numbers 21:5-9

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"I’m asked to believe in not only a part-time racist god and a part-time polygamous god but a part-time psychopathic schizophrenic one as well"

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== Notes ==

  1. [note] Hugh W. Nibley, An Approach to the Book of Mormon, 3rd edition, (Vol. 6 of the Collected Works of Hugh Nibley), edited by John W. Welch, (Salt Lake City, Utah: Deseret Book Company; Provo, Utah: Foundation for Ancient Research and Mormon Studies, 1988), xii.
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