A Fair Treatment of the Slaying of Laban

 

Tyler J Perry

“Thou shalt not kill.” – Exodus 20:13

“Slay him, for the Lord hath delivered him into thy hands.” – 1 Nephi 4:12

“That which is wrong under one circumstance, may be, and often is, right under another. God said, ‘Thou shalt not kill’; at another time he said, ‘Thou shalt utterly destroy.’” – “The Happiness Letter” [1]

“For God is not the author of confusion, but of peace, as in all churches of the saints.” – 1 Corinthians 14:33

“Behold, mine house is a house of order, saith the Lord God, and not a house of confusion.” – Doctrine and Covenants 132:8

INTRODUCTION

In my first mission area, I tracted into the home of a man, who, to my recollection, was an Adventist minister. He was cordial and accepted our invitation to read the Book of Mormon. We set a date to return and check in with his progress. At the time of the appointment, we sat down together and discussed his reading.

He had started from the beginning of 1 Nephi. His first objection I, to this day, find silly. He pointed out that the text of 1 Nephi is written in the first person, and he could not think of a place where anyone in scripture spoke in the first person except Satan. I know that he must have been aware of the writings of the Psalmist and of Paul, or even of the author of Luke-Acts, each of whom write in the first person for at least a portion of their writings.

The second objection is more salient. In 1 Nephi 4, Nephi, claiming to be led by the Spirit, finds the drunk, passed out Laban laying out in the streets of Jerusalem. Nephi believes that he is commanded by God to kill Laban, and he uses Laban’s own sword to decapitate him. He then dresses in Laban’s clothes, matches Laban’s mannerisms, and deceives Laban’s own servant into turning over the plates of brass. This violent and brutal account of murder, masquerade, deception, and impressment did not sit well with my Adventist contact.

Truth be told, it did not sit well with me.

Imagine my surprise (or unfortunate lack thereof) when my devout and well-intention Priesthood leader, only a few days before this writing, used the account of Nephi as an example of the divinely inspired moral relativism of the Mormon tradition. “Maybe Nephi sinned,” the leader offered in a tone that suggested that such a claim would be absurd. “I would say that he did,” I answered.

Am I the one with the absurd foundation for believing that murder, even in the case of Nephi, is wrong?

If the reader were inclined to consult apologetic resources on this subject, they would find a fair amount of discourse on the subject of the ethical and textual criticisms lofted against the text. I imagine that Elder Tyler Perry would have found comfort in the defense provided there. Nevertheless, today, I find the defense provided by Mormon apologists to be weak.

FINDING LABAN

The problem that apologists have is that the story of Nephi killing Laban does not make sense. In 1 Nephi 3:25-27, we learn that Laban was a wealthy enough individual that he had servants at his command. Armed servants, no less, who he could command to murder young men so he could take their property as his own. Even in pre-Captivity Jerusalem, this is a bold move that suggests Laban wielded a great deal of power and influence. Only a few verses later, in 1 Nephi 3:31, we learn that Laban has the reputation, perhaps only recently earned in the mind of Laman, of being able to command, or even slay, fifty men. I feel that it would be safe to describe this as a bit of an exaggeration on Laman’s part. Yet, it would be prudent for our study to recognize that Laban did have multiple armed servants at his command.

Further still, Laban possessed a steel sword (1 Nephi 4:9) in an age when steel blades would have been rare and reserved only for the rich and powerful. The pure gold hilt would have undoubtedly fetched a fine price, and Laban carried it around in his Late Bronze/Early Iron Age pocket.

As night descended on Jerusalem, Nephi snuck his way into Jerusalem and made his way up to the house of Laban. When “[Nephi] came near unto the house of Laban” he saw a drunk man passed out in the street. Nephi approached the man, who was on the street, alone, near the house of Laban, and, you can imagine his surprise, it was Laban himself (1 Nephi 4:7-8).

Only a few verses prior, we see that Laban is a powerful man in pre-Captivity Jerusalem, who has armed servants at his command. We learn from Biblical and Book of Mormon sources that there was a great deal of sexual promiscuity in the city (Jeremiah 5:7-8; 9:2; Jacob 2:31). It strains credulity to believe that Laban, a super wealthy man with armed servants at his command would find himself alone on the street outside his own home after a night of drunken revels [2], most probably seeking the company of sexual partners in an era of sexual promiscuity.

BY YOUR COMMAND

In the next part of the story, Nephi hears the Spirit of the Lord go full Sheev Palpatine (or Shia LeBeouf), commanding him to use slay Laban.

The same God who gave a prohibition on killing is supposed to have commanded Nephi to murder a man so drunk that he has passed out in the street outside of his own home. The apologetics offered on whether Nephi was just listening to a voice in his head do not explain the textual evidence of the Book of Mormon. Apologists note that Nephi’s protests were uttered “in [his] heart”, which they contend the devil could not hear, nor would Nephi confuse the Spirit for his own thoughts because he had just seen an angel. After all, we know how well modern Apostles are able to distinguish between their own thoughts and the Spirit [3].

This defense is unsupported by the textual evidence. The entity called the Spirit, at no point, addresses Nephi’s thoughts. It commands Nephi to slay Laban. Nephi hesitates. It commands Nephi again. Nephi hesitates. It makes a reasoned case to slay Laban. Nephi convinces himself. Nephi kills Laban. Verses 10 through 18 play out as such. The textual evidence does not adequately rule out a demonic source, under LDS theology, not does it rule out the idea that it was all Nephi’s own thoughts. The below table shows that very little is changed in the context or meaning of these events if we have Satan or Nephi’s own thoughts take the role of the Spirit in the original. I can even imagine the Satan of this story claiming to be doing that which was done in other worlds.

Original	Satan	Nephi’s Thoughts
10 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. 11 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. 12 And it came to pass that the Spirit said unto me again: Slay him, for the Lord hath delivered him into thy hands; 13 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. 14 And now, when I, Nephi, had heard these words, I remembered the words of the Lord which he spake unto me in the wilderness, saying that: inasmuch as thy seed shall keep my commandment, they shall prosper in the land of promise. 15 Yea, and I also thought that they could not keep the commandments of the Lord according to the law of Moses, save they should have the law. 16 And I also knew that the law was engraven upon the plates of brass. 17 And again, I knew that the Lord had delivered Laban into my hands for this cause—that I might obtain the records according to his commandments. 18 Therefore I did obey the voice of the Spirit, and took Laban by the hair of the head, and I smote off his head with his own sword.	10 And it came to pass that I was constrained by Satan 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. 11 And Satan 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. 12 And it came to pass that the Satan said unto me again: Slay him, for the Lord hath delivered him into thy hands; 13 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. 14 And now, when I, Nephi, had heard these words, I remembered the words of the Lord which he spake unto me in the wilderness, saying that: inasmuch as thy seed shall keep my commandment, they shall prosper in the land of promise. 15 Yea, and I also thought that they could not keep the commandments of the Lord according to the law of Moses, save they should have the law. 16 And I also knew that the law was engraven upon the plates of brass. 17 And again, I knew that the Lord had delivered Laban into my hands for this cause—that I might obtain the records according to his commandments. 18 Therefore I did obey the voice of Satan, and took Laban by the hair of the head, and I smote off his head with his own sword.	10 And it came to pass that I was constrained by a thought 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. 11 And I thought unto myself 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. 12 And it came to pass that I thought to myself again: Slay him, for the Lord hath delivered him into thy hands; 13 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. 14 And now, when I, Nephi, had heard these words, I remembered the words of the Lord which he spake unto me in the wilderness, saying that: inasmuch as thy seed shall keep my commandment, they shall prosper in the land of promise. 15 Yea, and I also thought that they could not keep the commandments of the Lord according to the law of Moses, save they should have the law. 16 And I also knew that the law was engraven upon the plates of brass. 17 And again, I knew that the Lord had delivered Laban into my hands for this cause—that I might obtain the records according to his commandments. 18 Therefore I did as I had thought to myself, and took Laban by the hair of the head, and I smote off his head with his own sword.

 

HIS HEAD FELL OFF

A content warning for this next part: I will have a graphic discussion on decapitation.

The next challenge this story faces with holding any credibility as being a reliable recounting of actual events lies in Nephi’s cosplay as the newly decapitated Laban. The obvious problem is that head and neck wounds tend to be a bit bloody. If the apologist is to be believed, however, the true believer does not have much cause for concern with this line of reasoning because stab wounds do not necessarily bleed very much. There are several biomechanical reasons for this, and it was part of my emergency medical technician training for victims of puncture wounds to keep the object in place and stabilized to minimize the risk of internal bleeding or secondary damage to internal tissues.

There is a small problem with this defense. Nephi did not stab Laban. He cut off his head. We are dealing with a laceration, in this case, not a puncture wound. The biomechanical and physiological implications of this type of wound are incredibly different from the “stab” defense offered by our otherwise fair and balanced Mormon apologists. In fact, cutting the carotid arteries and the jugular veins is likely going to result in a great deal of bleeding, not to mention the effects that gravity would have on the blood stored in Laban’s severed head.

Nephi decapitated Laban by pulling Laban up by the hair of his head. He then cut off Laban’s head, apparently with a single stroke of Laban’s sword. From the neck down, Laban, already passed out from his drunken revels, would have gone immediately, completely limp. Nephi likely would have jostled Laban’s head a bit in the process. The effect of this is a small swing to Laban’s head over his torso as blood sprays from the lower part of his neck and spills out from the bottom of his head. This gruesome scene would have left Nephi covered in blood, and Laban’s clothes would also be covered by a not insignificant amount of blood.

I’M SURE THAT WILL WASH OUT

Assuming Nephi, someone who had never taken a human life before, spent a moment to contemplate what he had just done before stripping Laban of his clothes. The blood around Laban’s severed neck would have pooled and spread, bathing at least some portion of the garments around Laban’s shoulders in blood. This is an important point to note, since Nephi makes mentions of putting on Laban’s garments in verse 19, which is what the servant of Laban, along with the sword that Nephi has “girded about [his] loins”, uses to identify Nephi as Laban in verse 21. Apologists make a fair point about bronze age armor being easy to clean well enough to hide blood at night, but the armor is only mentioned as being girded about his loins in verse 19, the language echoed in verse 21 regarding the sword. In other words, Laban was wearing very little armor, and it was the garments that served as the more prominent feature. These very garments would have spent some time soaking up Laban’s blood. It is hard to imagine that these garments, if given sufficient light to be used for the purpose of identification, would not have been an obvious piece of evidence of the murder that had just taken place outside Laban’s home.

Apologists lean on the idea that because it was night, it would have been difficult to see the clothing that Nephi wore, and therefore he could have passed Laban’s servants quickly and they would have assumed he was Laban because of the quick glimpses they would catch of his clothes. There are two problems with this proposal. The first is the prolonged time that Nephi spends with Zoram. Zoram is shown to be familiar with Laban and his itinerary, specifically referring to the fact that Laban was supposed to be out with the elders of the Jews. Yet, Zoram does not notice the blood or any variation in Laban’s behavior as Nephi poses as Laban in blood-soaked clothes. This is a problem for the “short glimpse” piece of the apologetic defense but does not eliminate the “low light” argument.

The “low light” argument is summarily defeated in verse 28, when Nephi’s brothers see Nephi posing as Laban, and, from their place outside the city walls where the light is going to be even worse because of the lack of city lights, they identify Nephi as Laban and flee from his presence. There also had to be enough light that, whatever the distance between them, Nephi could identify his brothers as they fled. This would only require a silhouette of the three, but apologists are quick to note just how dark the nights could be when it works in their favor. It would be even darker away from the city walls. This represents a significant challenge to the “low light” defense that the text does not overcome.

CONCLUSION

When my priesthood leader tried to use the story of Nephi as an example of the moral relativism of God Almighty, I experienced a great deal of empathy for that Adventist whose home I had sat in over a decade before. His first objection to the Book of Mormon was silly, but Nephi killing Laban, and this being considered a righteous act commanded by a loving, all-powerful God is a morally abhorrent position to take. If you believe in the concept of sin, Nephi sinned. If you believe in simple morality, Nephi committed a heinous and immoral act. And if you believe that God commanded this murder, then Nephi was “just following orders” given by an immoral and capricious God.

That is both the God we were taught to believe in and not at all the God we were taught to believe in as Mormons. God is blamed for everything morally reprehensible done by prophets, such as the priesthood and temple ban, supporting California 2008 Proposition 8, and the I’m a Mormon campaign [4]. God is also the source of all goodness and truth. I would call it blasphemy, but 1 Nephi 4 forces a literal believer into the position of thinking that a loving God finds the decapitation of a drunk, unconscious person (and one that is destined for torment in spirit prison) a morally acceptable thing to do.

God calls prophets to reveal his Gospel, but to the descendants of a visionary man like Lehi and a righteous man like Nephi (who would receive visions given to past and future prophets [see 1 Nephi 11-14]), the Lord could only reveal his teachings through blood and steel. If we take the position of the literal believer, then this was the outcome to which Nephi was constrained by the will of the almighty God. The Being who supposedly created Laban and loved him left him to die at the hands of Nephi, who would forever have to carry the trauma of having slaughtered an unconscious man at the urgings of an invisible and malicious loving God.

I have some questions about that narrative.

 

FOOTNOTES

[1] There is a lot to unpack when referencing the “Happiness Letter”, but it should be noted that its opening line is often cited in General Conference, and that the intent of the letter was to manipulate Nancy Rigdon into becoming one of his polygamous wives. This is an excellent example of a pattern of double speak that is often used by modern church leaders.

I also want to note that the language used in the “Happiness Letter” could be used to justify accepting things like same-sex marriage. The Brethren willfully choose to take strict, conservative, dogmatic views on the topic, rather than pushing the boundaries of acceptance of all of God’s children and allowing God to be the one to decide whether to accept or reject His own children. In other words, despite the language here providing a justification for gay marriage being wrong for straight people but right for gay people, or the language of the Family Proclamation regarding “individual accommodation” providing justification for allowing gay people to marry, the Brethren choose to hold bigoted and homophobic views and teachings.

[2] In 1 Nephi 4:22, Zoram starts talking to Nephi, who he believes to be Laban, about the “elders of the Jews… knowing that his master, Laban, had been out by night among them”. This is a strange textual assertion at this point, considering Laban was passed out because of his drunkenness. It would seem that Laban had been out partying with the old men of Jerusalem, which will be a source of confusion for Zoram when Nephi refers to his older brothers outside the city in verse 24. Zoram continues to talk about the elders all the way out to verse 27, when he discovers that he has been deceived.

The reader appears to be directed to draw the conclusion that Laban and the Jewish elders would often gather for meetings in the night, and that this was well known among the servants of Laban, or at least to the ones who Laban trusted well enough to give the keys to his treasury, but who he did not know so well that they could not immediately detect an imposter who was covered in his blood. Zoram’s apparent obsession with this point seems to suggest that it was known that Laban had a unique relationship with the elders.

This creates a narrative problem. It was known by the servants of Laban that he was going to meet the elders at night. City streets at night, especially for a man as ostentatiously wealthy as Laban, would have been dangerous without escort or protection. Laban was in the company of the elders for a time but became so drunk that he would pass out before reaching his home. It was not until he was near his own home, where his armed servants were apparently waiting for him, that Laban passed out. Are we to believe that none of Laban’s friends thought to ensure he had an escort on his journey back home? What activities was Laban engaged in with the elders that would have resulted in that much drinking?

I can picture a Ryan George “Pitch Meeting” for this story.

Producer: Oh, I imagine getting treasure from a guy who can command or kill fifty people is going to be difficult.

Writer: Actually, it’s going to be super easy, barely an inconvenience.

P: Oh, really?

W: Yeah, he’s just gonna cosplay as Laban and trick his servant into giving him the records.

P: How does he do that?

W: Well, you see, he finds Laban passed out drunk in the street, all alone with no armed servants around or anything.

P: He’s going to find the wealthy, powerful man with the armed security detail just passed out in front of his house, completely alone?

W: That’s what we’re going with.

P: I don’t know man, seems a like it should be a bit more difficult to find the wealthy, powerful man with the armed security detail, you know, the one you just said could command or kill fifty dudes just a page ago.

W: Yeah, well, we just say that the Spirit of God led Nephi to Laban, so it all makes sense.

P: Oh, really?

W: Anyway, so then Nephi hears the Spirit command him to cut off Laban’s head.

P: The Spirit of God, you mean that thing that’s supposed to lead people to do good things?

W: Yup.

P: The thing that testifies of truth and of Jesus Christ?

W: Yup.

P: The thing that Jesus Christ, the Savior of the world, called the Comforter?

W: That’s the one.

P: Oh, a very bloodthirsty Comforter.

W: Then, after Nephi cuts off Laban’s head, he puts on his clothes and pretends to be Laban.

P: Wait, wouldn’t the clothes just be soaked in blood? I mean, that would make it really easy for one of Laban’s servants to realize that something was wrong if some guy pretending to be their boss was dressed in his blood-soaked clothes, right?

W: Well, it’s nighttime, so no one sees the blood.

P: Then, why did Nephi put on Laban’s clothes?

W: So he could pretend to be Laban.

P: But they can’t even see his clothes well enough to notice the blood stains that would just absolutely be covering them right now.

W: Listen, sir, I’m gonna need you to get all the way off my back about this whole bloody clothes thing.

P: Oh, well let me get off that thing. So, what happens next?

W: Well, Laban has this servant, Zoram, right?

P: Okay…

W: And he has the key to the Laban’s treasury, which is where Laban keeps the brass plates. And Nephi just kinda walks up to him and pretends to be Laban so that Zoram will open the treasury and give him the brass plates.

P: And Zoram just believes him and doesn’t ask any questions about why his drunkard boss wants this heavy book of scriptures? Or find this at all suspicious?

W: No, because Zoram knows that Laban was supposed to be out with the Jewish elders at night, so he doesn’t think this is suspicious at all.

P: Zoram knows Laban’s nightly itinerary and has a key to Laban’s treasury, but he can’t recognize Laban’s voice enough to know that the person talking to him isn’t Laban?

W: I guess Nephi is just really good at cosplay.

P: Fair enough. So, then what happens?

W: Well, Nephi gets the record from Zoram, and then he orders Zoram to follow him out to the city where his brothers are, and Zoram thinks he’s talking about the church brothers!

P: Don’t Jewish people have synagogues, not churches?

W: Oh, whoops!

P: Whoopsie!

W: Anyway, so Nephi and Zoram leave the city together and Nephi’s brothers think Laban has killed Nephi because Nephi is so good at cosplay that he just looks and sounds and walks and talks and acts perfectly like Laban.

P: And he’s also covered in blood, which they probably think is Nephi’s.

W: But mostly the cosplay thing. Anyway, they’re about to run away, but Nephi breaks character and calls out to them, so they stop running away.

P: Oh, well, that’s good.

W: But then Zoram realizes that Nephi isn’t Laban, so he gets scared, and he tries to run away so he can alert Laban’s other servants about the murder.

P: Oh no.

W: Yeah, but Nephi is like super strong, like he is just absolutely jacked and strong, like I cannot begin to tell you just how big and strong Nephi is.

P: I’m starting to feel a little uncomfortable with how much you are focusing on how strong this probably teenage boy is.

W: And so, Nephi just grabs Zoram and stops him from running away.

P: Wow, wow, wow… wow.

W: And then they convince Zoram to go to the wilderness with them and join their little clan. And that’s the end of the story, so what do you think?

P: I think it’s a fun, faith-promoting story about how God always has a good plan for every situation.

W: Yeah.

P: And now, we should be all done with Jerusalem, right? No more reason to ever go back there, right?

W: It would be pretty silly if God had them go back out into the wilderness only to have to go back to Jerusalem because they forgot something!

Article Headline Splash Page: 1 Nephi 7 – Nephi and his brothers return to Jerusalem to get wives!

[3] Elder Bednar asserts that “if it invites and entices to do good” we can reasonably assert that the thought is of God. Nephi was “constrained” to murder Laban. Was this good? Perhaps this is the greatest evidence that God had nothing to do with this story because, if God is not the author of confusion, and this story is confusing as hell to make sense of, God could not be the author of it.

[4] The truest of victories for Satan.