Something that seems to be missed, from time to time, is how similar Nephi and his brothers were.
Both expected that God would find a way to save the righteous.
It is easy to forget that Jerusalem faced destruction before and was promised deliverance. When the king refused to ask for a sign to confirm that, he was told:
https://www.biblegateway.com/verse/en/Isaiah%207%3A14
Therefore the Lord Himself shall give you a sign: Behold, a virgin shall conceive and bear a Son, and shall call His name Immanuel.
That is the event which occurred with Assyria. The prophets attributed it to the angel of death protecting the city, the other side claimed that mice had killed hundreds of thousands.
Isaiah was the Court prophet to Hezekiah. See [Isaiah and Isaiah]. He founded a school of prophets or a tradition, whose writings supplemented his own. Their writings, which were written over time, eventually became part of the Book of Isaiah in the Bible.
A major difference between Jeremiah and Isaiah was that Jeremiah was an outsider, Isaiah was an insider. Isaiah’s call to repentance succeeded, Jeremiah was left to weep at the people’s failure to fully heed him.
To quote from the Wikipedia entry:
According to Jeremiah 1:2–3, Yahweh called Jeremiah to prophetic ministry in about 626 BC,[12] about five years before Josiah king of Judah turned the nation toward repentance from idolatrous practices (2 Kings 22:3-13). According to the Books of Kings, and Jeremiah, Josiah’s reforms were insufficient to save Judah and Jerusalem from destruction, because of the sins of Manasseh, Josiah’s grandfather,[20] and Judah’s return to idolatry (Jeremiah 11:10ff.).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeremiah#Calling
This difference in the way they looked at the facts is what led to the difference between the brothers. The older brothers felt that the kingdom had turned towards repentance and would be saved again (and we have writings that show that many in Jerusalem believed that).
Lehi, Jeremiah and Nephi believed that the City had turned to sin and that God would not save them. Nephi’s brothers also appear to have believed that they were righteous and that, as a result, God would save them without their having to flee into the wilderness.
The real question that an outsider should have in applying the lesson of the conflict to themselves is how to tell the false prophets from the true ones, and how to determine which is the word of God.
I know, the popular approach right now is to find reasons to assert that the author is superior to Nephi and to find various criticisms of him. However, I think the more important message to take away from the conflict between Nephi and his brothers is that often a conflict comes not because of differences in beliefs or theology or world view, but instead comes from application and interpreting the facts.
Not to mention, that just because the Lord finds a way does not mean that people will escape death or sorrow (consider that Jeremiah ended up writing Lamentations and was carried away to Egypt and murdered there).
- What do you think?
- What to you take away from the conflict between Nephi and his brothers?
- What does it mean so say that “the Lord will find a way”?
- How easy is it to become self-righteous or to decide that someone else is self-righteous and you are in the right?
- How do you decide who is being self-righteous when you differ with someone else’s conclusions? Is it possible for both sides to be wrong or both sides to be right?
I think we all grew up in the Church believing that we were more like Nephi but in reality most of us are probably more like Laman and Lemuel. And by “us” I don’t just mean readers of wheatandtares. I mean most members.
I would like to know what references we have on the people at Jerusalem at the time. Not up enough on my bible studies to find such info. What writer says/thinks they are righteous? After the destruction it is sure writers will blame it on unrighteousness/punishment, that’s their world view. (Kings/Jeremiah/Ezekiel?) Do we have a sure enough context/information to really make a decision from 2,500 years after it all transpired? Take Salt Lake City for an example. Who’s to judge if it is a righteous city or not? Does a population of, lets say 50% practicing Mormons make it a righteous city?
In Australia we are still going through a climate emergency. Most members, because of our opposition to gay marriage, are listening to right wing media, and are climate deniers.
Lehi, Jeremiah and Nephi believed that the City had turned to sin and that God would not save them. Nephi’s brothers also appear to have believed that they were righteous and that, as a result, God would save them without their having to flee into the wilderness.
The general consensus was the Lord would intervene whether your climate denial contributed to the problem or not.
I thought this applies.
After 4 months of fires the area presidency called for a fast day for rain. Within a week it started to rain, (we did it) but it has now become an extreme rain with widespread flooding.
Overnight in a tourist area close to us they had 700mm (28in)of rain, and lots of flooding,
We still have a climate emergency but not sure how many are still climate deniers.
On the people at Jerusalem—we have in the Bible itself accounts of those who insisted they were righteous, including the collegium of court prophets.
We have contemporary records as well (or how we know that many at Jerusalem used Egyptian scripts and writing at the time of Lehi).
So. The Bible (multiple accounts in Kings, Chronicles, etc.), correspondents and writers of the time whose papers have been found, etc.
The Book of Mormon account is consistent with all of those.
We don’t just have to rely on Jeremiah or Lamentations for the discussion of the disagreement.
Geoff, no Trump reference.
Please repost.
Hours before I read this, I was thinking about 2 Nephi 9:28-29, especially “to be learned is good if they hearken unto the counsels of God.” While I’ve often heard this verse refer to learning as secular education, today that struck me as odd. Literacy as we know it would have had very low rates in the setting of the Book of Mormon and at the time of the revelation of the Book of Mormon to Joseph Smith. On top of that, there would be little use for literacy in the New World, where the families of Lehi and Ishmael are living off the land. Joseph Smith’s criticism valuing the learning of the clergy over revelation came to mind, and I thought that perhaps Jacob was referring to religious learning. I wondered if Laman and Lemuel interpreted scripture differently to Nephi and Jacob. Just because they didn’t understand Lehi’s vision doesn’t mean they weren’t people of the book.
Good reflections. Thank you.
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