Blogging Through the Book of Mormon

11:1-20 – We make a weird transition here from the people being furious with Amulek, and vowing in their hearts to hold his words against him, to setting forth the Nephite currency. There really is no good transition into the topic. We learn that “it was in the law of Mosiah that every man who was a judge of the law… should receive wages according to the time which they labored to judge those who were brought before them to be judged.” I know that the standard for church leaders is for them to administer the church but labor with their own hands for their support, but there’s an interesting separation of church and state here because, Mosiah recognized that in order to administer in the government, those civil servants had to be compensated for their time. This indicates that the Nephite society was evolved enough to move from the basic hunter gatherer, everyone fends for themselves society into a more advanced system of barter and trade, and professionals, including the administration...

10:12-16 – Now we transition from the words that Amulek spoke to the narrative of Mormon. Sometimes I wonder if it would be helpful to color code the narrative parts and the actual speaking parts. After we first here from Amulek “the people began to be astonished, seeing there was more than one witness who testified of the things whereof they were accused.” When Alma first began speaking to the people in chapter 9, the people refused to believe because there was “no more authority than one man among this people, to declare unto them the truth of such great and marvelous things.” But here now that Amulek, one of them, who lived the same lifestyle as them until just recently, is a second witness, they were astonished. But despite their amazement, “there were some among them who thought to question them, that by their cunning devices they might catch them in their words, that they might find witness against them, that they might deliver them to their judges that they might be judged accor...

10:1-4 - We are introduced to Amulek, as he introduces himself to the people of Ammonihah. Amulek is a very interesting person and introduces us to a whole new writing style and speech pattern. Before we get too much into the content, there are a few examples of his different style that I would like to discuss. First even just within the first 11 verses he uses words and phrases that we haven't seen before. Just as a disclaimer here, there are a few instances where Mormon uses some of the same new words during his own written account, and I'm not going to attribute them to a specific writing style, because as the abridger of so many hundreds of records, he was surely introduces to new words, phrases and speech patterns and this no doubt influenced his own writing style and speech patterns, so when I say that it was only _____ and Mormon who used those words or phrases, I'm accounting the initial speaker as the only one who had used them. The first word used that we see no w...

9:12-19 - Alma leads here with the “carrot and the stick” approach that we’ve talked about before. When I first read verse 12, especially in the light of their previous rationalizing statements, Alma tells them “Behold, now I say unto you that he commendeth you to repent; and except ye repent, ye can in nowise inherit the kingdom of God.” I read that and I thought that “they don’t care about inheriting the kingdom of God, they just want to be wild.” But then we get to the next part where he continues “But behold, this is not all-he has commanded you to repent, or he will utterly destroy you from off the face of the earth; yea, he will visit you in his anger,” and here’s the stick. I think that there is a subtle example here of the different motivators. Surely God does not like to motivate out of fear, yes, he will be destroy, but he really really really tries to avoid that at all cost, and there are so many examples of God “cutting off the snake’s head,” figuratively, where he will des...

9:1-7 - Alma goes out with Amulek and starts teaching the people after many days of prayer, fasting, and preparation. It's interesting the reception that they receive, because the  people of Ammonihah "began to contend with me." Their arguments were: 1. Why should we believe just one man? 2. Why should we believe any of the outrageous things that you say "although he should preach unto us that the earth should pass away." 3. We won't believe anything that you if you say that our city will be destroyed in just one day. 4. We don't believe that God would only send one man to give us a message. Their reaction is really kind of bizarre. They don't want to repent, I can understand that, they don't want to give up the lifestyle that they are leading, but they don't say that, what they say implies "well, if there were two of you, we would believe," or "if your arguments were more reasonable, then we would believe." But aga...

8:21-26 – Yesterday we had just met a citizen of Ammonihah, a man who had been commanded by an angel in a vision to receive Alma into his home. I wonder if in the ancient language of the Nephites, if it was standard to spend much time describing a person and what they did before naming them. We’ve seen this many times throughout the Book of Mormon, with Amulek, Nehor, Gideon, etc. What he says and does is detailed in 3 verses before Mormon gives us his name. Sometimes it will introduce the person in the beginning of the account saying something like “and this man’s name was…” then going into the story. But not here, it would be really interesting to look into ancient Egyptian, Hebrew, and Arabic and see if there are any similarities there. Also interesting to me is the fact that, even though Amulek confesses that he knows that his guest is “a holy prophet of God,” Alma doesn’t introduce himself or explain his mission until after he “ate bread and was filled.” I wonder why that was; if ...

8:14-18 – We left Alma as he was going to Aaron from the city of Ammonihah, having been rejected and abused there, but “while he was journeying thither, being weighed down with sorrow, wading through much tribulation and anguish of soul, because of the wickedness of the people who were in the city of Ammonihah, it came to pass while Alma was thus weighed down with sorrow, behold and angel of the Lord appeared unto him.” Like we talked about yesterday, Alma’s desire to baptize people wasn’t to build up his own following, status, or power, but it was because he wanted to help other people experience the change of heart and peace and joy that he himself felt. And if we look at it from that stand point, and also because he knows what awaits people who refuse to repent, and he himself experiencing great pain and anguish for his own sins, we can see that he was sorrowing and weighed down because of what waits for them and what he knows they can have if they would only repent. The IM says “af...

8:1-13 – Alma leaves Gideon after having a very successful mission. The people were righteous to begin with so because they didn’t have to spend so much time crying repentance, Alma was able to teach “the people of Gideon many things which cannot be written, having established the order of the church.” When we strive with all our hearts to keep the commandments of God, then we are more open and able to receive further instruction because we don’t have to spend so much time being admonished to keep the commandments in the first place. It’s interesting, because I was talking with a friend about this concept last night, and it might seem like it doesn’t connect, but a lot of friends of mine have been posting all over FB all the movies that they’ve been watching and they are mostly rated R, and the prophets have advised us to not watch R rated movies, so I don’t. But when I see my friends doing that, it makes me sad, and it occurred to me that when we can’t even keep the simple commandment...