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The Book of Mormon > Alma > Chapter 13

Questions

Concerning the priesthood here in general

The priesthood seems to have come a long way since Mosiah 18:18. How have these developments come about, and what is their significance? What, especially, is the significance of the dissolution of the monarchy and its associated royal priesthood? How does the royal priesthood play into the understanding Alma here offers of the priesthood?

Verse 3

• Alma tells us that those called have "chosen good." Is this a reference to good choices in pre-mortality or is this good choices in mortality known to God through his foreknowledge?
• Alma states that men are called as high priests because of their "exceeding faith and good works." Are the criteria for calling high priests the same today?

Lexical notes

Verse 1

• Cite. Webster's dictionary in 1828 gives as the first definition of cite "To call upon officially, or authoritatively; to summon; to give legal or official notice, as to a defendant to appear in court, to answer or defend." This is about the same as the first definition given today by Merriam Webster (mw). The 4th definition given today by mw "to bring forward or call to another's attention especially as an example, proof, or precedent" might seem the most natural reading of the phrase "I would cite your minds forward to the time ...", but interestingly no similar definition is given in the 1828 version.

• Forward. In English the use of forward in relation to time indicates a temporal movement into the future. So, for example, when one looks forward to dinner one is awaiting the dinner that hasn't happened yet. "In Hebrew, the past is often described using words that mean "front" or "before." For example, qedem means both "in front" and "aforetime." This word also means "eastward"—since the sun comes from the east, the intertemporal connotation of facing east seems to be looking to the beginning or origin of time. See also paniym.

Brief explanation

Click the edit link above and to the right to add a brief explanation of the text

In-depth analysis

Verses 1-20: Why talk about the priesthood here?

A surface reading of Alma's discourse to the people of Ammonihah might suggest that the first twenty verses of Alma 13 are out of place in a longer call to repentance. What immediately precedes these verses discussing the priesthood presents an invitation to Alma's hearers to repent and so enter into the "rest of God" (see Alma 12:37). What immediately follows these verses presents what might be read as a still stronger invitation to repent (see Alma 13:21), and again with a sense of hope: "for the day of salvation draweth nigh." The similarity of the discussion on repentance before and after these twenty verses emphasizes the dissimilarity of the priesthood discussion in the middle.

So, why a discussion of the priesthood here?

• Alma's discussion of the priesthood provides support for his authority as a high priest to call the people of Ammonihah to repentance. Additional support for this reading.
• Alma's discussion of the priesthood isn't an interruption of his call to repentance but integral to it because it is a discussion of the blessings that come to those who repent. As noted above, Alma invites hearers to repent and enter into the rest of God. These verses suggest that to be ordained to the high priesthood is to enter into the rest of God. Additional support for this reading.

Verse 1

And again

In verse 1 Alma says, "And again, my brethren, I would cite your minds forward to the time when the Lord God gave these commandments unto his children." The "and again" suggests that he has already cited the people's minds to this time. Looking back, we see that he did this in Alma 12:30-32. In that case "the time the Lord God gave these commandments unto his children" refers to the time right after Adam and Eve left the Garden of Eden when God commanded them "that they should not do evil."

Cite your minds forward

This phrase has often confused readers of the Book of Mormon because in it Alma appears to invite his listeners to move forward to the past. The problem is all the more difficult because Alma goes on in the second verse to use the same word, "forward," to point to something apparently still future. Hence, while it might be suggested that because in the Hebrew idiom the past is in front of one one moves forward towards the past, such a reading would be inconsistent with the way Alma uses "forward" in verse 2. Some sort of contradiction between the "forward" of verse 1 and the "forward" of verse 2 seems inevitable.

It might be suggested that the point of departure for the minds Alma cites, however, is not the moment in which Alma is speaking to the people of Ammonihah, but rather the "first commandments" mentioned in Alma 12:31. In that passage, Alma makes reference not only to "first commandments," but also to "second commandments" (see Alma 12:37), and it might therefore be suggested that Alma is citing his hearers to move forward from the earlier, first commandments to the later, second commandments ("forward" here signifying, then, a temporal movement toward the future, just as, apparently, in verse 2) thus reconciling the difficulty between verses 1 and 2. However, a close reading of the entire passage (beginning with Alma 12:20) and how this first verse of Alma 13 picks up from that discussion seems to question such a reading. It is clear that throughout the passage "first" has reference to the "temporal" commandment that, being disobeyed, resulted in the surety of physical death. "Second," then, has reference to the "spiritual" commandments that bear the threat of a "second death." Verses 32-37 speak only and explicitly of these "second commandments" and not of the first. The consequence seems to be that when Alma 13:1 makes reference to "these commandments" (or more literally to the "time when the Lord God gave these commandments unto his children"), Alma is not inviting his readers to shift from the first to the second commandments: his hearers have already been hearing about these second commandments for six verses. Hence, reference to the two sets of commandments does not seem to reconcile the temporal difficulty.

The temporal difficulty: it might, in fact, be that the entire difficulty is ultimately the result of a missed difference between the modern and ancient understandings of temporality. Hebrew terms for temporal concepts are universally spatio-directional, are always--more important still--words tied to one's bodily situatedness in the world. While this might be read as suggesting that temporality was thought through the body or as fundamentally inseparable from space, it might also imply that the Hebrews did not think temporally. This might be confirmed by the fact that there is no past, present, and future tenses in Biblical Hebrew (rather, there are only the perfect, imperfect, and imperative tenses). Moreover, the word "time" as it appears throughout the Old Testament is a translation of a word that might best be rendered "event" or "happening." Whatever exactly the Hebrews thought of time, it is at least clear that it is at some distance from modern thinking, and this certainly suggests that the difficulty of "forward" in verses 1 and 2 here derives from a cultural misunderstanding rather than some implicit contradiction in the text.

But it remains to be said what Alma is trying to do in verse 1. As mentioned in the lexical notes above, the word "cite" had the meaning in Joseph Smith's day of a legal summons, of an order to present oneself in court to stand as a witness. In fact, the word "forward" in verse 1 is most simply read as a basic qualifier of the "citation" Alma performs: his hearers are "cited forward," are invited or summoned to step forward to present themselves at the scene of an event (the "time" or event in which Adam and Eve received commandments and orders of the priesthood from God). In other words, it appears that Alma invites the people of Ammonihah (!) to witness the primordial ordination scene, to be tried by its overwhelming presence/reality. If this is what Alma was trying to do, the "temporal" difficulty of verse 1 entirely disappears.

But this reading seems to ignore at least two difficulties. First, Alma does not cite his hearers, but their minds (which seems to suggest that "forward" should not be read spatio-directionally). Second, Alma's citation comes only after having already dwelt on the subject for--as pointed out above--six verses. Perhaps both of these objections should be dealt with at once. No modern concept like "mind" seems to have existed among the Hebrews, the closest equivalent being the Hebrew nphsh, which means something more like situatedness in the world or among things in general. Words etymologically related to "mind" suggest that even this word once meant something other than that mental, non-physical part of man that thinks on the world. As such, Alma's invitation might be read as a summons to one's entire being, one's entire existence in the world, and not just the physical body or just the non-physical thinking part of man. If this is a good reading, then the invitation is not redundant, nor is it canceled by the fact that Alma had already spent six verses discussing "the time when the Lord God gave these commandments unto his children." Rather, Alma takes six verses to set the stage, to establish the scene, to set the event in play, and then he invites his hearers to enter the drama, to be thrown into the world of Adam and Eve. Considering the temple themes that seem to pervade the remainder of chapter 13, this citation to bring one's entire being to the Adamic drama is highly significant.

Lord God

In this first verse we are told that the Lord God ordained priests "after the order of his Son." This suggests that the "Lord God" refers to the Father. This is consistent with how "God" is used at the end of Alma 12. Especially in verse 33 it seems that God refers to the Father since he explicitly talks about his "Only Begotten Son."

These commandments

As noted above "these commandments" seems to refer to the second commandments after Adam and Eve's transgression. See Alma 12:32.

Priests

It isn't clear what office in the priesthood today would correspond with what Alma calls priests here. Though in this verse Alma calls them priests, other verses tell us that these priests are ordained to a higher priesthod. Verse 6 tells us that they were ordained to the "high priesthood of the holy order of God." Alma 13:9 says they become high priests. Verse 14 gives Melchizedek as an example of one of these High Priests. This may suggest that by priest in verse 1 Alma means what we would call Elders or High Priests today. Another possible interpretation is that the ordination spoken of here corresponds to receiving temple ordinances.

Priests to teach these things

"These things" refers back to the commandments given (see 'These commandments' above). The fact that the priests are ordained to teach is an interesting departure from the picture that the Old Testament presents of the Levitical system of priests, where their primary function was to offer sacrifices. Even the mention of Melchizedek in verse 15 describes him as one who did "preach repentance." This may reflect a difference in the purpose from the Levitical priesthood and the higher priesthood spoken of here (see 'Priests' above). It may also reflect an earlier understanding of priesthood than that contained in our modern Bible, which was compiled into its present form long after Lehi left Jerusalem. In that case, this Book of Mormon account can be seen as the restoration of "plain and precious" teachings about the priesthood that didn't make it into later biblical scriptures.

Verse 2

This verse tells us that the manner of priesthood ordination can be used to help people know how to look forward to Christ for redemption. Consider three ways the manner of ordination may have helped people know how to look forward to Christ for redemption:

• 1. It may be that the ordination process included signs that would help people understand how Jesus Christ would be nailed to the cross. This would then be a way for them to identify Christ and his wounds when he appeared after the resurrection (3 Ne 11:14-15).
  2. It may be that Alma is trying to help the people understand how they can receive redemption from their sins despite the fact that Christ hadn't yet suffered for those sins. Under this view, Alma is saying that to understand how they could receive redemption before Christ suffered for their sins, they can look to the priesthood as a type or shadow. In like manner priests are called and prepared from the foundation of the world to their calling, so Christ was prepared from the foundation of the world to redeem his people. In both cases the plans were made at the foundation of the world based on choices that God, through his foreknowledge, knew would take place (see verse 5).
  3. The "manners" that are being compared here may be the actions one goes through in order to qualify for what is given. Perhaps Alma is saying that the process of qualifying for priesthood ordination is the same as the process of qualifying for redemption--as outlined in verse 3.

Verse 3

This verse could be interpreted in different ways. Some possibilities are:

• These priests were called and prepared in the pre-existence because of their faith and good works in this life according to the foreknowledge of God.
• These priests were prepared in the pre-existince because of their faith and good works in this life (according to the foreknowledge of God) and then called in this life after having been left to choose good or evil and then having chosen good and exercised faith.

Preparatory redemption

The very phrase, "preparatory redemption," seems to be paradoxical: a redemption implies some sort of completion, while preparatoriness implies a lack of completion. In other words, a "preparatory redemption" would be a completion that is marked with incompletion because it points towards another completion still to come. The word "preparatory" even hints that eventual completion will be of the same general character as the incomplete completion of the present: this redemption is to give way to a fuller, more real redemption eventually. But as soon as the issue is phrased this way, the difficulty disappears, or at least becomes part of a broader scriptural theme: redemption is always granted first in a preparatory manner and eventually in a complete manner. Perhaps the clearest parallel to Alma's phrase here is Paul's word to the Ephesians: "ye were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise, which is the earnest of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession" (see Eph 1:13-14). Paul speaks to the saints of having received a redemption of sorts, but one that is ultimately preparatory, separated from its eventual fulfillment ("redemption") by a promise, by hope.

This gap between two redemptions (the one promising or pointing towards the other) might well be read in terms of ritual as well: ordinances are dramatic enactments of a redemption still to come. Every ordinance might well be called a "preparatory redemption" in the same sense discussed immediately above. That some sort of ordinance--some sort of dramatic enactment of one's redemption--is what Alma might be talking about is further suggested (and greatly strengthened) by the fact that this "preparatory redemption" is there described as the that according to which and with which a "holy calling" was prepared. The implication seems to be that Alma is speaking of an ordinance that at once dramatically embodies one's redemption and issues a "holy calling" to the participant. What Latter-day Saints call the endowment might not be far from Alma's mind.

Verse 5

Same standing

Alma tells us that these priests were in the first place on the same standing with their brethren. We might wonder how they could be on the same standing as their brethren "in the first place" if they were called from the foundation of the world to a holy calling. If we interpret verse 3 as suggesting that the actual calling doesn't take place until this life, then the "same standing" could refer to the fact that none of them had yet been called. Another possibility is that this "same standing" refers to the time before they were called in the pre-existence. Finally, it could be that this same standing is not a specific time but a logical precedence. God through his foreknowledge knows who will do what and therefore who to call, but logically all are on the same standing as all could choose to do good. For all these interpretations, Alma's point seems to be that everyone was on equal footing to receive this calling.

Related links

• See an overview and verse by verse reading of Alma 13 by S. Kurt Neumiller and Brant Gardner.

• See James Duke's article The Literary Structure and Doctrinal Significance of Alma 13:1–9

• See a simplified reworking of the text by Steven Barton

• See an outline of Alma 13-16 here (from the Sunday School manual).

• For an explanation of Hebrew versus Greek thought, including the Hebrew thought on time noted in the lexical notes, see pages 146-147 in Appendix 2, Scripture Study: Tools and Suggestions Faulconer, J.E. (1999).

• See a short but incredible look at a possible transcription error (on Mormon's part--not Joseph's) in Alma 13 written by Grant Hardy (JBMS).