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| − | [[The Book of Mormon]] > [[Alma]] > [[Alma 1|Chapter 1]] | + | #REDIRECT [[Alma 1]] |
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| − | == Questions ==
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| − | * v. 12: To what group does “this people” refer? Is Alma saying that this is the first case of priestcraft since Lehi’s colony arrived? Why would priestcraft result in the destruction of the people? Do we have priestcraft among us today? Outside the Church? In it?
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| − | * vv. 12-13: Why does Alma reason from collective, corporate consequences and responsibilities, and not (as modern American law would do) from Gideon's individual right to live?
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| − | * vv. 13-14: What is Alma’s justification for the death penalty?
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| − | * v. 14: What does the last part of v. 14 mean: “[the law] has been acknowledged by this people; therefore this people must abide by the law"? How do we acknowledge our laws? Why does Alma need to ground even the rule of law in the people's collective acknowledgement, rather than taking it as given? (Is he establishing a constitutional precedent? Was the rule of law itself somewhat novel?)
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| − | * v. 15: Why do you think ancient peoples felt it was important for a criminal given the death penalty not only to die but to suffer an ignominious death?
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| − | == Lexical notes ==
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| − | ===Verse 15===
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| − | * ''Ignominious'' Today's [http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/ignominious definition of this word], something like "shameful" in this context, is the same as [http://machaut.uchicago.edu/?resource=Webster%27s&word=ignominious&use1828=on the meaning cited in Webster's 1828 dictionary].
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| − | == Exegesis ==
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| − | * v. 14: Alma feels he has to argue for the rule of law. Judging by Mosiah 29:11, 15, 22-23, they seem to have had laws during the reigns of the kings -- but laws that existed at the kings' pleasure. The rule of the king had been primary, not the rule of law. With Mosiah newly dead, Alma takes pains to emphasize that the law both remains and rules.
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| − | * v. 14: Alma grounds the rule of law in the people's acceptance of it, not in the authority of his office as chief judge. This is a distinct break from the old ways described in Mosiah 29:22-23.
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| − | === Alma's Political Error ===
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| − | However just the execution of Nehor may have been, it proves to be politically catastrophic. In the wake of the execution, an uprising of followers of Nehor occurs that extends throughout the Book of Alma into the Book of Helaman and that kills tens of thousands. This uprising is fairly predictable. Influenced by Alma the Elder who had learned the bad effects of mixing church and state in Noah’s kingdom (something that could not have been learned in the kingdom of Benjamin and Mosiah), Mosiah tried to separate religion from government. But while he formally separated church and state by vesting civil authority in the Chief Judge and religious authority in a High Priest, he fatally undercut his own reform by favoring the appointment of Alma the Younger as the first Chief Judge. Since Alma also inherited from his father the office of High Priest, civil and religious authority once again came to be vested in the same person.
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| − | Alma executes Nehor, a rival religious leader, acting in the office of Chief Judge. But this execution surely appeared to Nehor’s followers to be an unjust exercise of state power by the High Priest to suppress the rise of a competing religion. People of Mulekite heritage would be especially likely to perceive injustice in this execution. Nehor appears to be a Mulekite (with possible Jaredite heritage as well). Alma, on the other hand, is a pure-blooded Nephite whose heritage lay in the Land of Nephi rather than in Zarahemla where Nephites and Mulekites have mixed. Alma executes Nehor because he killed Gideon, another pure-blooded Nephite who was a military hero in the Land of Nephi. Gideon was a feisty man and, though aged, probably drew his weapon in the confrontation with Nehor. But Alma whose family is connected by ethnic heritage, personal history, and religion to Gideon judges the death of Gideon to be a crime. Clearly Alma was not a disinterested party in this trial and was surely not perceived to be by the followers of Nehor.
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| − | Evidence suggests that when Mosiah ended the monarchy, some of the descendants of Zarahemla, the last Mulekite king, felt they had a legitimate claim on power in light of their Davidic heritage. Alma seems to have stoked the revanchist passions of these Mulekite kingmen by executing their religious leader (see exegesis on [[Alma 1:1|Alma 1:1]]). So however just the execution may have been (and Alma’s personal rectitude makes it likely that appearances notwithstanding, it was just), this act was politically maladroit. A politician more deeply skilled than Alma probably would have avoided creating this casus belli by minimizing Nehor’s punishment based on some technicality. At a minimum, a more adroit politician would have avoided a forced confession and an especially ignominious execution tailor made to dishonor a political and religious opponent and, thus, stir up his followers. However unjust it might have been to Gideon to let Nehor off lightly, it may have saved tens of thousands of lives. And Gideon was a man who, like Nephi, would have understood that it is generally better that one man should perish than that a nation should dwindle and, ultimately, perish ([[1 Ne 4:13|1 Nephi 4:13]]) through endless war.
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| − | === Verse 12: More on Alma's Political Error ===
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| − | Nehor has, presumably, committed murder by killing Gideon (though Gideon probably drew his own weapeon which complicates that issue [ [[Alma 1:9|see exegesis on verse 9]] ]). But in this verse, Alma focuses more on the issue of priestcraft than on the murder. Since Alma, as High Priest, is the head of a rival religion, this emphasis in the text on Nehor's crime being priestcraft could easily lead Nehor's followers to conclude that their leader has been executed by his religious opponent because of his religious views and practices. See the exegesis above on Alma's political error.
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| − | === Verse 14 - 15: Rule of Law or Rule of Man ===
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| − | Alma tries in verse 14 to depersonalize his execution of Nehor, framing it as a disinterested enforcement of the law handed down by Mosiah and agreed to by the people (see exegesis on verse 1). This claim was probably not persuasive for Nehor's followers, and it is undercut in verse 15 by the suggestion that Nehor "was caused" to confess errors, i.e., was forced to say something he didn't believe before "he suffered an ignominious death," i.e., was dishonored in the mode of his death. The compelled confession and ignominious mode of execution undercut the suggestion of a depersonalized rule of law in verse 14.
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| − | === History is Written by the Victors===
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| − | Here is an interesting thought experiment. Suppose it had been a younger Gideon who had been traveling and that he had met Nehor in Ammoniah. Suppose that after a heated theological exchange Nehor had started the swordplay but Gideon had prevailed and then Gideon was taken before a local Order of Nehor judge. Suppose the events were then described by a pre-conversion Zeezrom. With minor changes it could be the same story with only the names reversed.
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| − | == Related links ==
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| − | * ''Click the edit link above and to the right to add related links''
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| − | ----
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| − | {|
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| − | | [[Alma 1:6-10|Previous (Alma 1:6-10)]] || || [[Alma 1:16-20|Next (Alma 1:16-20)]]
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| − | |}
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