Alma 32:1-5

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The Book of Mormon > Alma > Chapter 32

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Questions

  • What is the significance of the "yea" in verse 1? Why does it separate the paired mention of synagogues and houses from the solitary mention of the streets? How does this anticipate or even interpret in advance the situation that is about to be presented to Alma?
  • How should one read the fact that Alma and his companions are admitted into the synagogues to teach, while the poor class who actually built the synagogues are cast out. Is there an irony at work here?
  • What should be read into the exclusion of the poor class from the act of worship? How is this political? How is this not political? We're they essentiall excommunicated?
  • What should be read into the imagery of silver and dross in verse 3? What does this image imply about natural and unnatural states? Do the Zoramites not understand the poor class to be somehow necessary?
  • What kind of a setting is described in verse 4? How formal or official was this setting? How formal is the group that approaches him with their question?
  • What is significant about the active thrust of the question asked to Alma in verse 5? That is, what should be read into the fact that the poor want to know what they should do? How might Alma take advantage of this kind of a question? How might such a question make it difficult for him to teach them what he would like to teach them?
  • How should the ironic use of the word "abundantly" be understood, especially as it is paired with "labor"? Is one justified in reading Marxism into the rhetoric of the speaker?
  • How should the question of "place" be read? What of a dialectics of inside and outside here, of the shade-haunted space that is the threshold of the synagogue? Again, how political or non-political is this theme?
  • In verse 5 the poor tell Alma that they have no place to worship because they have been cast out of the synagogues. Alma 31:14 tells us that the Zoramites believed they had to go to the Rameumptom to worship. Why might the Zoramites' church leaders have wanted the people to believe that they they could only worship God on the Rameumptom?

Lexical notes

Verse 2

  • "Poor in heart." This phrase is little used in the scriptures. The only other occurrence is 2 Ne 28:13. Understanding the meaning of this phrase then largely depends upon interpreting it according to its context here. Unlike humility, being poor in heart is not praised as a virtue--we don't see anything here which suggests we should strive to be poor in heart. Instead, poor in heart is a description of the feelings of these people. It is the feelings that come to people who are "esteemed by their brethren as dross" (verse 3) and, essentially, accept that view for themselves. This is not the same as the humility of Moses who recognizes that all mankind is nothing compared to God. Instead this is to see oneself as worthless in a world where there are two types of people--the elect and the worthless (Alma 31:17). Note that for the Zoramites, the act of praying in their synagogue is tied to their definition of election. This prayer may have been, in their view, the single ordinance necessary and sufficient for salvation. The downcast feelings of the "poor in heart" are the feelings of those who are prevented from taking part in that ordinance. Alma rejoices in their lowliness of heart only in so far as it leads them to humility and then repentance (verses 12-13).
  • "Streets." If the word here for "streets" has any relation to the Hebrew word chuwts, which means "outside or street" and probably comes from a root meaning "to sever," then this may signal the beginning of an interesting temple type of theme at work in this narrative. That is, Alma and Amulek end up being themselves cut off or thrown outside of the Zoramites' temples (i.e. synagogues and houses), analogous to Man being cut off from the Lord's presence in the Garden of Eden. The word of the Lord, through Alma and Amulek, thus comes to those who have been cut off (cf. "cast off" in v. 2) by those who were rejected, and we might thus read Alma's sermon on the seed as a riff on the atonement theme of the common four-fold pattern of creation, fall, atonement, and veil (in which case the partaking of the fruit at the end of this chapter would match up with the veil, or entering the Lord's presence). Alma and Amulek, in this sense, however, would be more like a Christ or scapegoat figure, who are rejected by the world and received by those "in the wilderness" so-to-speak.

Verse 3

  • "Dross." is defined in Webster's 1828 Dictionary as "The recrement or despumation of metals; the scum or extraneous matter of metals, thrown off in the process of melting." The third definition is even more telling, "Waste matter; refuse; any worthless matter separated from the better part; impure matter."

Verse 5

  • "With our own hands." This phrase is used in Isa 2:8, as well as other passages in LDS scripture, in a negative context, referring to idolatrous worship of "work of their own hands." This statement may betray an underlying attitude among the Zoramite poor that is related to Alma's later accusation that, at least a good number of them, are compelled to be humble (cf. vv. 14ff).
  • "What shall we do?" This exact phrase is used in Jacob 5:33 and Hel 5:40, as well as in verse 9 of this chapter. Other passages in LDS scripture where this exact phrase is found can be found here. It seems this phrase is typically used to describe those who are humbly seeking to learn the will of God or who are awaiting further light and knowledge. This phrase, in particular, seems to offer important first evidence of the humility had among the Zoramite poor.

Exegesis

Verse 1

  • The first verses of this chapter, while clear enough in content, are somewhat ambiguous narratively: do they describe the entire story that is about to be told, or do they narrate events that occur before the story about to be told? That is, when verses 1-2 find the missionaries preaching and finding success among the poor, is one to read in the remainder of the story a fleshing out of these first details—a kind of going back to the beginning to tell how it all happened—or a continuation of the story (some success with the poor was followed by the event about to be described)? At least one aspect of this first verse would seem to point to the latter of these two options, would suggest, that is, that the missionaries had already begun to have success with the poor before the event that is detailed in the remainder of the chapter. How that is can only be explained at some length.
  • The "yea" and "even" in this verse sounds as if preaching in the streets was only a last resort after they had been rejected from synagogues and houses.

Verse 2

The actual use of the word "class" here is of some significance: the word only appears in the scriptures in translations and revelation provided by Joseph Smith. It in fact only appears twice in the Book of Mormon: here and 4 Ne 1:26. This other instance is helpful for interpretation here, since it describes the falling apart of Nephite utopia as class-structure comes into being. The perhaps Marxist ring of the word should not be missed: while every civilization has had its poor, the Zoramites are strikingly "modern" in that they have a poor class. This deserves much further attention.

Verse 3

  • While the "therefore" that opens this verse makes perfect sense, the second "therefore" in the verse seems curious. It seems the most natural way to interpret the grammar here is in terms of the poor being poor because they were cast out of the synagogues. The meaning implied by this reading, however, runs counter to the way we would probably expect to read this verse. That is, it would seem more natural to read the causation the opposite way: the poor were cast out of the synagogues because they were poor. Possible interpretations include the following: (1) "Poor" in this case might be taken to mean "poor in heart." One criticism of this reading is that if this were indeed the intended meaning, then it seems curious that the last phrase of the verse, "poor in heart," has an explicit modifier, whereas the first use of the phrase does not. If this were the intended meaning, it seems this order should be reversed. (2a) "Poor" might be taken here as a condition imposed upon the poor by the gaze of the wealthy, as more of a social class, emphasizing the "socio" aspect of their socio-economic position, rather than their economic status. (2b) "Poor" might be taken as referring to the economic status of the poor and the reason the poor are poor is a result of their being relegated to a lower social class. (3) "Therefore" might be chalked up to a mistake in translation.
  • It is interesting here that the poor are esteemed as filthiness. This would further suggested that the rich are esteemed as clean because of their riches and the idea highlights the worldliness of the people, who did not judge as the Lord does.

Verse 4

Onidah was, or at least became within a few years, "the place of arms." Given the military setting of the Zoramite city—and the likely military position of their "leader," Zoram—it seems best to understand Onidah to be a place of some military importance, perhaps the headquarters of the (as yet) Nephite military. That Alma is addressing an entire multitude there (verse 7 makes quite clear that an entire multitude of the wealthy were gathered listening to him) would appear, then, to be of some significance: Alma is likely preaching in some kind of official setting. This sudden appearance of the multitude of the poor would then have been a major disturbance, perhaps a planned one, given the rhetoric of the "foremost" of them in verse 5.

Verse 5

If one takes the apparent formality of the title "foremost" and the still more apparent formality of the term "brethren" in the appeal made to Alma, it becomes possible, perhaps, to detect a hint of formal organization on behalf of the poor here. Rather than being faced with hungry crowds who have suddenly united in their humility and so confronted Alma, the text presents an organized, perhaps militant, group, one that makes its appeal with formal rhetoric and perhaps in a rather public, dramatic manner (while Alma is speaking, according to appointment, to the military elite).

The fact that one person is explicitly mentioned as representing the group of people here seems to echo the organizational structure outlined in Mosiah 18:18 where there is one priest ordained to be in charge of "every fifty of their number." This, coupled with Jacob's description in Jacob 1:19 about the responsibility he felt, "answering the sins of the people upon [their] own heads," might point to a kind of mind set that carried over to the Zoramite poor of one person (typologically, the high priest) representing a group. Moreover, the one representative of the poor who is here petitioning on behalf of his brethren, seems to echo the covenant to "bear one another's burdens" given in Mosiah 18:8ff. The familiarity with scripture that Alma presupposes amongst the poor suggests that links to these previous teachings among the Nephites may not be wholly unfounded.

The usually benign reading of the foremost Zoramite's words is perhaps unsettled by the inclusive/exclusive use of the phrase "our God" in this verse. It would seem that he is trying to draw—however subtle—a distinction between the god of the Zoramites and the God of Alma. If this strengthens the remarkably political, perhaps even Marxist, reading of this passage, it remains to be worked out to what extent this difference in gods is understood by the Zoramites to be of significance and to what extent Alma dismisses the difference entirely. This question is perhaps especially important given the political position gods had generally in the ancient world.

Related links

  • See Alma 32, a post by Clark at his blog, Mormon Metaphysics. Note also the link to the pdf file of Jim F.'s notes on the chapter.

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