Nephic Test

I wonder if Nephi did the wrong thing by killing Laban.

Okay, so if you're familiar with the story from the Book of Mormon, you can skip to the next part. If you're unfamiliar, here's the quick version, taken from 1 Nephi chapters 3 and 4: A prophet, Lehi, told his son, Nephi, to go with his brothers and retrieve a genealogy from a man in Jerusalem named Laban. (Lots of proper nouns, I know. Bear with me.) Laban is a bit of a dirt bag and, after Nephi and his brothers try to reason with him, he steals their money and tries to kill them. A little later, Nephi sneaks into Jerusalem at night, and finds Laban, drunk and asleep.

And I was led by the Spirit, not knowing beforehand the things which I should do. Nevertheless I went forth, and as I came near unto the house of Laban I beheld a man, and he had fallen to the earth before me, for he was drunken with wine. And when I came to him I found that it was Laban. And I beheld his sword, and I drew it forth from the sheath thereof; and the hilt thereof was of pure gold, and the workmanship thereof was exceedingly fine, and I saw that the blade thereof was of the most precious steel. And it came to pass that I was constrained by the Spirit that I should kill Laban; but I said in my heart: Never at any time have I shed the blood of man. And I shrunk and would that I might not slay him. And the Spirit said unto me again: Behold the Lord hath delivered him into thy hands. Yea, and I also knew that he had sought to take away mine own life; yea, and he would not hearken unto the commandments of the Lord; and he also had taken away our property. And it came to pass that the Spirit said unto me again: Slay him, for the Lord hath delivered him into thy hands; Behold the Lord slayeth the wicked to bring forth his righteous purposes. It is better that one man should perish than that a nation should dwindle and perish in unbelief. (emphases mine)

I know that's a lengthy quote, but it establishes the whole logic of the event. Nephi, a young prophet, has his chance to accomplish his goal, but only through the shedding of blood. The Spirit of the Lord tells Nephi to kill. A couple of verses later, Nephi strikes off Laban's head, steals the corpse's clothes, and impersonates the dead man. This allows him to trick the servants of Laban into giving him the plates of brass (where his genealogy and other scriptures are kept), which he takes back to his father, Lehi, as requested.

This is one of many images I found about 1 Nephi 4. Interestingly, most of them have Laban's cape, blood red, pouring over the ground, almost as if to say he were already dead. (Source)

The Nephic Test

In the Old Testament, Abraham is asked to sacrifice Isaac (Genesis 22). This story, more familiar to a mainstream audience than the one sketched above, has a happy ending. In verse 14, it says, "And Abraham lifted up his eyes, and looked, and behold behind him a ram caught in a thicket by his horns: and Abraham went and took the ram, and offered him up for a burnt offering in the stead of his son." In other words, the request of God to Abraham to sacrifice Isaac was merely a test. Abraham was willing to "go all the way", as it were, and was stopped. 

Truman G. Madsen once asked Hugh B. Brown:

Why was Abraham commanded to go up on that mountain (traditionally Mount Moriah in Jerusalem) and offer as a sacrifice his only hope for the promised posterity? President Brown wisely replied, "Abraham needed to learn something about Abraham."

The Abrahamic test was to go up the mountain and be willing to kill. He passed the test and managed to keep his son--as Madsen points out, the "promised posterity" and the focus of all Abraham's hopes.

The question, then, I have about Nephi is whether or not he failed the test, that he did the wrong thing.

As I quoted above, the Spirit told Nephi to kill--much like Abraham. But unlike Abraham, Nephi goes forward with the murder. The rationalization is surprising to me. Here, again, are his four arguments for killing a defenseless drunk:

1.  Behold the Lord hath delivered him into [my] hands. 
2. Yea, and I also knew that he had sought to take away mine own life; 
3. yea, and he would not hearken unto the commandments of the Lord; 
4. and he also had taken away our property.

According to the last moment before Nephi kills, the Spirit says, "It is better that one man should perish than that a nation should dwindle and perish in unbelief." If it's right for Nephi to kill in the name of God, the three subsequent rationalizations are immaterial. (It also raises the question of if God commands what is right, or what is right is what God commands, but I'm going to set that aside for now.) God's desire for a dead Laban wouldn't need any thoughts from Nephi, which are what points two through four are--his thoughts, not the words of the Spirit. 

There's something that bothers me here, and a lot of it is the idea of a prophet violating the seventh commandment, as though there's an asterisk to it. I suppose that you could claim that God can change the rules as He sees fit, but that certainly doesn't jive with the idea that God "is the same yesterday, and today, and forever" (Hebrews 13:8). 

And that leads to other questions. Suppose Nephi were of a stronger moral disposition. What if he were to say, "I will not shed the blood of another man. I forgive him his trespasses against me" and didn't pick up the sword? What if he were like Joshua, who was told by an angel to let him go, but refused, saying, "I will not let thee go, except thou bless me" (Genesis 32: 26)? 

What if he were more like a different Book of Mormon prophet, the brother of Jared? This man was told everything to do in order to prepare special barges for his people, but was not told how to illuminate the passageway. As described in Ether chapters 2 and 3, the brother of Jared is given a problem and uses his own ingenuity and faith to solve the problem. He discovered an alternative on his own. 

What if he were more like his descendants, the people of Limhi, who escape from bondage by getting their guards drunk and then slipping into the night (Mosiah 22)? 

What if he were more like the pacifistic Anti-Nehi-Lehies who preferred death over taking up their weapons and killing their brethren (Alma 24)?

God's abilities to make his plans come to pass can't be frustrated by men (see Doctrine and Covenants 3:1), so Nephi saying, "No, I won't kill. There must be another way" wouldn't mean that Nephi's people would have been without the brass plates or that the Book of Mormon would never have been created. To assume that puts those in the past into a category of historical determinism that's at odds with Mormon doctrine of universal agency. 

So did Nephi do the wrong thing?

Let me put it this way: Can we sin our way into heaven? 

It should be clear that I disagree with Nephi's action. I find it problematic (to say the least), but I also find it instructive. Too often, those who have authority--whether it's political or religious--are not expected to live up to the most fundamental and basic human morals. History is replete with examples, but there's a pernicious tendency within my own culture of putting Church leaders into such positions of infallibility and demigodhood that even when they make mistakes, they aren't seen as mistakes (e.g. Blacks in the priesthood), but effects of the times, or any other rationalization. Not everything that a prophet utters is prophetic, and not every action is one done through the fatalistic, simply because that person is a prophet. Heck, just look at Jonah.

In the way God always can, though, there's still something to learn. Despite Nephi's mistake, God still uses the boy--imperfect and a failure--to accomplish great things. Nephi laments in the famous "psalm" of 2 Nephi 4 about his weaknesses, his trials, and his sins. Though God may have forgiven Nephi for not killing in the name of God, Nephi, perhaps, still laments his own weakness in not finding another way. 

I take a different lesson from the Nephic test: Not that we should always obey God, no matter what, but that God is always willing to use imperfect people to do His work. 

Indeed, that's all He has to work with.