Mosiah 27:6-10

(Redirected from Mosiah 27:8)

Questions

Cities. Why is it important that Mormon mentions the building of cities and villages?

This verse says that Alma was idolatrous. What does that mean? Does Mosiah 28:4 explain this remark? Notice that there is no description in the Book of Mormon of what we usually think of as idol-worship. Does that mean that the Nephites didn’t have a problem with idol-worship or just that it isn’t mentioned? Why might it not be mentioned?
Alma leads people away by flattery, something mentioned frequently in the Book of Mormon in this connection. What kind of flattery might he be using? How would flattery get people to follow him in sin? Where might we see such flattery in our own lives?

Why do Alma the younger and the sons of Mosiah do what they do secretly? Why does it say that the king had forbidden what they are doing? It is against the law to persecute the saints, but is it against the law to flatter people into unbelief? Or might there be some connection between flattery and persecution? What might that be?

Cities. Apparently, before this time, all of the Nephites (consisting of the people of Mosiah, people of Zarahemla, and Alma and Gideon's recent emigrants from the Land of Lehi-Nephi, had all lived in the land of Zarahemla. But now, apparently the people are spreading out into new cities and villages. This will place a huge burden on the leaders in Zarahemla who might want to maintain some sort of rulership over the separate cities, and along with the change of heart in the sons of Mosiah (also recounted in this chapter), and probably served as the death knoll for the Mosiah-Benjamin-Mosiah egalitarian leadership style and nascent dynastic chiefdom. Anthropologically, when rank village or city societies become so large that they extend across several cities or villages, they become stratified into castes or ranks, and leadership becomes more powerful under a centralized and hereditary complex chiefdom. So, in a real sense, this chapter is recounting how the small Nephite society is thrust into a new level of complex politics (and political instability) due to the building of new cities and the loss of the presumed Nephite royal heirs.