Alma 14:1-5

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The Book of Mormon > Alma > Chapter 14

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Questions

Verse 1

  • Is it safe to assume Mormon is narrating here?
  • What did the people repent of?
  • Belief and repentance are often paired together as the response to preaching, and it's common for baptism to be included as well (as in Helaman 16:5). In Alma 8:10, "labored much in the spirit, wrestling with God in mighty prayer... that he might baptize them unto repentance." With such an intense focus on baptism at the beginning of this story, why is it noticeably left out in the end?
  • Instead of being baptized, it says they searched the scriptures. Are there any other scriptures where belief (or faith), repentance, and scripture study are mentioned together like this?
  • How accessible would the scriptures have been to the people?
  • What can be said about the focus on scriptures in Alma 14 (especially in verses 1 and 8)?
  • Most of Alma and Amulek's preaching seems more theological than devotional. Why did this motivate the people to repent? What does this tell us about preaching?

Verse 2

  • They were already angry with Alma before he rebuked Zeezrom (Alma12:3). Is the main reason for their anger that Alma and Amulek had spoken against their law or is that just something to pin them on? Are they primarily angry about being told to repent or be destroyed? Is there anything in Alma's theology that is upsetting to them?
  • How does this verse tie to other BoM scriptures that use the word "plainness"?

Verse 3

  • Since we are told in v2 that the people were angry with Alma and angry with Amulek, why are we told here that they were "also angry with Alma and Amulek"? Is there a way to punctuate this verse to make it more clear?
  • Does "put them away privily" refer to secret assassination? Is this the first instance of a secret combination in Nephite history?

Lexical notes

  • Verse 3: Privily means privately or secretly [1].

Exegesis

Chapter Breaks

Alma 14 was part of a much larger "unit" in the original (1830) edition of the Book of Mormon. The story of Alma's preaching at Ammonihah was broken up into the following chapter breaks in that edition: 

  1830 Chapter VI -- 1981 8:1-32
  1830 Chapter VII -- 1981 9:1-34
  1830 Chapter VIII -- 1981 10:1-11:46
  1830 Chapter IX -- 1981 12:1-13:9
  1830 Chapter X -- 1981 13:10-15:19
  1830 Chapter XI -- 1981 16:1-21

It might be noted that what is now chapter 14 fell within the largest "chunk" of the Ammonihah story, stretching—somewhat awkwardly—from halfway through Alma's sermon about the high priesthood (13:10) to Alma and Amulek's settling again in Zarahemla (15:18-19). At least two effects of the chapter's being caught up in a larger "unit" deserve mention. First, the harrowing narrative that brings in the action in Ammonihah itself to a close (chapter 14 now) cannot be separated from the narrative that reports the aftermath in Sidom (chapter 15 now). Second, the narrative reporting the responses of the people in Ammonihah (chapter 14 now) cannot be separated from the last part of Alma's speech, that part, namely, in which he discusses Melchizedek and makes his final exhortations (13:10-31 now). However chapter 14 is read, it seems it is crucial to keep a close eye on the twenty-two verses that precede it and the whole chapter that follows it.

Verse 1

In the vein of the Greek word, metanoeo, often translated as repentance in the New Testament, these converts are moved to search the scriptures to understand the new point of view that they have adopted in response to Alma's words, by the same spirit that moved them to repent.

Alma 13:31 says Alma spoke many more words which Mormon chose not to record. It could be that the part of his speech that was omitted was more directly focused on the people and less focused on theology. Maybe it was this part of his speech that actually motivated the people to repent.

This verse originally read "And it came to pass that after he had made an end of speaking . . . ." Joseph Smith himself removed the word "that" when preparing the 1837 edition. The change makes relatively little difference in meaning. Interestingly, Joseph also replaced "he" (in "after he had made an end of speaking") with "Alma" at the same time, but the printer of the 1837 edition missed the change, and it has never appeared in a printed edition of the Book of Mormon.

Verses 2

These people seem to be angry with Alma and Amulek for at least two reasons. First, "the guilty take the truth to be hard because it cutteth them to the very center" (1 Ne 16:2). Second, they were angry with Alma because he had confounded one of their own, perhaps even one whom they had covenanted to uphold by wicked secret combination. So, they seek to put them away, but in their accusations and related actions we find hints of apostasy and even self-justification. When their attempt fails to simply put [Alma and Amulek] away privily, they attempt to self-righteously find justification for punishing them with death and even invoke what they interpret as a contradiction of their beliefs: "that [God]...should send his Son among the people, but he should not save them". They seem to think that they are actually in the right!

When setting up the system of judges, King Mosiah assured his people that "it is not common that the voice of the people desireth anything contrary to that which is right." Now, only 10 years later, the majority of this city is complicit in sin, and as Mosiah prophesied, God will visit them with great destruction.

Verse 3

The word "and," positioned before "because" in this verse, appears in the printer's manuscript of the Book of Mormon only as an insertion after the fact. It is possible that the verse was originally miscopied from the original manuscript (the original is no longer extant for this chapter), or it could be that Oliver Cowdery added "and" to make better sense of the grammar of the verse. If the latter is the case, it should be noted that Oliver could just as well have added the "and" before the last clause of the verse to make better sense of the grammar, and the verse would have had a different meaning. As the verse reads now, the painfully plain testimony of Alma and Amulek serves to explain the desire to "put them away privily." Had the "and" been inserted before the final clause of the verse, the painfully plain testimony of Alma and Amulek would have served to explain first and foremost the emotion (anger) experienced by the Ammonihahites. This difference is slight, but perhaps significant.

In "they sought", the word "they" is still tied to "the more part of [the people]". However it wouldn't make sense for the more part of the people to seek to put Alma and Amulek away privily. It wouldn't be a private conspiracy if the public is all in on it. This suggests that all the "they's" refer to the actions of a few people, but that their actions represent the attitude of the people.

Verse 4

"...they did not" probably means they did not put Alma and Amulek away privily. The rest of the verse sounds less like an organized conspiracy and more like a mob. The "they" (v.3) that was seeking to put them away is different from the "they" (v.4) that bound them and took them to the judge. So maybe what's happening here is that the organized conspiracy was undermined by the more immediate action of the mob. Also, Alma 8:31 foretells that it wouldn't be possible for any man to slay them. Perhaps, we're meant to understand that the secret plans in verse 3 were thwarted by God.

Verse 5

A couple of significant textual variants appear in verse 5.

First, it has been suggested (see links below) that the word "the" appeared before "judges" in the original manuscript, which is no longer extant. (See the link to find the full justification for this idea.) If the proposed emendation is correct, then it is only the lawyers who are qualified as theirs, the people's, while the judges are the judges of the land.

Second, the word "of" in the phrase "and also of all the people that were in the land" was not originally in the text. It seems to have been (accidentally?) added by the printer of the 1837 edition, without any direction from Joseph Smith. Significantly, it changes the meaning of the text. Without the "of," the passage explains that Alma and Amulek were accused of reviling against (1) the law, (2) the people's lawyers, (3) the judges of the land, and (4) all the people there. With the unwarranted "of," the passage explains that Alma and Amulek were accused of reviling against (1) the law, (2) the people's lawyers, and (3) the judges, who are described, awkwardly, as being both "of the land" and "of all the people that were in the land." (Note that both of these description assume the proposed emendation from above.) It seems clear that the "of" should never have been inserted.

Third, the words "Now this" in the last sentence of the verse originally appeared as "And it came to pass that it," the change being made by Joseph Smith himself in preparation for the 1837 edition. This was, it should be noted, one of several "it came to passes" that Joseph removed from this chapter for the 1837 edition. It is worth noting these deletions because the phrase, despite being removed for good reasons, may be narratively significant.

Power Structures

In verses 2 and 5, Alma and Amulek are accused specifically with "revil[ing] against their law and also against their lawyers and judges." In verse 2, the people single out Amulek with concern that he "had lied" unto them, and the word "testify" (with its variants) is repeated four times in v. 3-5, with the word "witness" being repeated another four times in the verses that follow (v. 5-11). There are a number of clues in this text to suggest that the key issue at hand is a confrontation between power structures. Later in the chapter, Alma and Amulek are interrogated by members of the social, educated elite, "many lawyers, and judges, and priests, and teachers" (v. 18), and are again accused of "condemn[ing] our law."

In conjunction with other key phrases throughout the rest of the chapter (see below), the picture that emerges may be something like this: Alma and Amulek begin preaching, which the wicked immediately perceive as a threat to their established power structure. It is telling, as ever, that it is precisely the lawyers who react most vehemently to their sermon. The lawyers react violently and incite the elite to believe that Alma and Amulek are directly attacking the established power structure, and the upper class rallies to bully the two itinerant preachers into submission.

Related links


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