Talk:1 Ne 8:2-9

Lehi's parenting question

I like the question about Lehi's parenting, but I think many might find the question... well, irreverent, for the following reason. Lehi was a prophet, and although that doesn't make him infallible, in this particular interest it begs the question: why did God give Lehi this vision about his sons? Should Lehi have kept the vision to himself? Should've he told Laman and Lemuel about the vision but left out the part about Nephi and Sam partaking of the fruit?

I don't think the answer to any of these questions is obvious. Of course I think parents need to be careful about driving rebelious kids further away from the path of righteousness, but I'd be hesitant to accuse the prophet Lehi of doing this simply b/c he told them about a (presumably divinely-inspired) vision he had. Furthermore, I don't think one can tell from the text whether Lehi helped or hindered Laman and Lemuel by telling them about his vision where Nephi and Sam partook of the fruit but Laman and Lemuel didn't. I'd be inclined to give Lehi the benefit of the doubt b/c he was inspired in so many other ways. And so I'd say one important lesson we can learn from Lehi and Laman and Lemuel is that even righteous parents can have children that rebel.

I'm leaving the question the way it is for now b/c I'm not settled on a way to improve it and I do think it raises some good issues to think about. Mainly, I just think the question should be less leading in its tone.... --RobertC 21:44, 7 Sep 2005 (CEST)

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Hi Rob and all, I removed the second part of this question: "What can we learn about parenting from the example of Lehi and his children?" Given the first part of the question, I felt like the 2nd part was suggesting that what we should learn is not to compare our children unflatteringly to other children of ours. But I don't see in the text where we can learn this from the scriptures. Is there some verse that suggests that what Lehi did in comparing his sons was bad for them?--Matthew Faulconer 09:18, 9 Sep 2005 (CEST)

I like this change--it still raises the interesting question, but without the problem in tone.... --RobertC 14:54, 9 Sep 2005 (CEST)

who lead us question

I don't think I understand the question:

• V.5 As members of the church, who leads us to the tree?

I'm not sure I see therelation to verse 5. My understanding of these verses is that the "man dressed in white here" doesn't actually lead Nephi to the tree. In that reading, I'm not sure how to make sense of the question. I can't make sense of it because it seems to be asking me to draw a comparison in our lives to something in the scriptures that I am not seeing there at all. --Matthew Faulconer 05:30, 11 Dec 2005 (UTC)

wandering

"Lehi finds himself in a dark and dreary waste where he wanders around for hours. He wanders around for hours" -- I'm not sure that "wander" is the right word to use for the exegesis of this verse. Because the two definitions that would be applicable to this are "To travel over without a certain course" and "to ramble here and there without any certain course or object in view" according to the 1828 dictionary. Lehi is not wandering, but following, thus having a certain course..it is merely unknown to himself where they are going. The words used by him were "followed" and "traveled". --document 20:12, 30 December 2009 (CET)