Laban's death defies logic and reality

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_angsty
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Re: Laban's death defies logic and reality

Post by _angsty »

Mooseman wrote:And you never once asked "how come the gospel was one way in the Book of Mormon and so NOT that way today"?


I missed the regular classes in Primary, YW, Relief Society & Seminary where they taught that you were supposed to think critically about the contents of the Book of Mormon. I was just in the practice of reading, praying, and feeling. Logic, being a 'philosophy of men' was not mingled with my scripture study.
_Abaddon
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Re: Laban's death defies logic and reality

Post by _Abaddon »

Racer wrote:4. Nephi was commanded to kill Laban because according to God it is better to let one man perish than let a nation dwindle and perish in unbelief (1Nephi 4:13). If this was the case, why didn't God command Nephi to kill Laman and Lemuel? Because of the Lamanites, didn't the Nephites get wiped out and a whole nation perished and dwindled in unbelief? So, in the end killing Laban didn't prevent a nation from perishing and dwindling in unbelief. Didn't God forsee this? Oops, so much for omnipotence.


Oooh, that's a very good point.

(by the way, change your profile pic back...haha)
_just me
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Re: Laban's death defies logic and reality

Post by _just me »

angsty, you are 100% awesomeness. Just wanted you to know.
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_sock puppet
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Re: Laban's death defies logic and reality

Post by _sock puppet »

just me wrote:
angsty wrote:It is genuinely disturbing that children are taught these stories from a young age. It's disturbing that they are taught to celebrate and aspire to the kind of "faith" that is willing to manifest behavior that is essentially indistinguishable from murderous psychopathology.


So true!!!

They teach the Laban crap to kids now? Never heard about it in all my primary, sunday school and priesthood classes until I was 14 years old--in seminary.
_moksha
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Re: Laban's death defies logic and reality

Post by _moksha »

According to Dr. Daniel C. Peterson:

The justification given in 1 Nephi 4:13 for the slaying of Laban—"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"—now seems to reflect a principle of Jewish law that goes back to Lehi and Nephi's own specific time. The prime biblical example is found in 2 Samuel 20, where King David and his general, Joab, were seeking the life of Sheba. Sheba took refuge in the city of Abel, and Joab, besieging the city, demanded that the city hand him over. Instead, the people of Abel executed Sheba themselves, and Joab withdrew. This episode became an important legal precedent for killing an individual in order to preserve a group. Ancient Jewish documents report that the story of Sheba and Joab was used to justify turning Jehoiakim, king of Judah, over the Nebuchadnezzar. Zedekiah became king of Judah just a few months later, and 1 Nephi opens in the first year of Zedekiah's reign.


However, there is no analog in the Bible that says, "Murderous means justify the ends sayeth the Lord", although this may implied in Article of Faith #13.
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_sock puppet
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Re: Laban's death defies logic and reality

Post by _sock puppet »

moksha wrote:According to Dr. Daniel C. Peterson:

The justification given in 1 Nephi 4:13 for the slaying of Laban—"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"—now seems to reflect a principle of Jewish law that goes back to Lehi and Nephi's own specific time. The prime biblical example is found in 2 Samuel 20, where King David and his general, Joab, were seeking the life of Sheba. Sheba took refuge in the city of Abel, and Joab, besieging the city, demanded that the city hand him over. Instead, the people of Abel executed Sheba themselves, and Joab withdrew. This episode became an important legal precedent for killing an individual in order to preserve a group. Ancient Jewish documents report that the story of Sheba and Joab was used to justify turning Jehoiakim, king of Judah, over the Nebuchadnezzar. Zedekiah became king of Judah just a few months later, and 1 Nephi opens in the first year of Zedekiah's reign.


However, there is no analog in the Bible that says, "Murderous means justify the ends sayeth the Lord", although this may implied in Article of Faith #13.


So god's morality--what he will and won't command--is dependent on the mores of the time and place of the people being commanded?

Really, DCP?

If so, that really condemns Mormonism. After all, the Mormon god had to be dragged, kicking and screaming into the mores of the late 20th Century regarding racism, and is still way behind the curve on gender rights and sexual orientation rights.
_MCB
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Re: Laban's death defies logic and reality

Post by _MCB »

is still way behind the curve on gender rights and sexual orientation rights.
And even further behind the curve on judging people by their ancestry. Racism still exists in Mormonism. It just shifts its shape. Mormon royalty still exists.
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_Darth J
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Re: Laban's death defies logic and reality

Post by _Darth J »

Mooseman wrote:
I think I hate Tannerisms more than even atheist BS. It is all BS a bunch of spiritual politics seeking only to demonized the other side.


What I hate is putting words in people's mouths and then arguing about things they didn't say.

Nephi was no idiot. Beheading would tend to make the Jews think it was a barbarian and not one of their own. NO?


Even assuming, for whatever reason, that the conclusion would be "No Israelite would murder someone this way!" it really does nothing to explain the plausibility of the Book of Mormon account or why killing Laban was necessary within the parameters of the story.

Nephi wanted to spare Laban's clothes and could have facilitated that quite easily curbing Laban's neck. He even might have killed him before taking his head and reduced the blood pressure first with a throat cut. We do not have to imagine always in the stupidest way possible.


No, we don't have to imagine the stupidest way possible, but thanks for going the extra mile and doing so anyway.

There is an immense amount of arterial spray when a person's throat is cut, so your "bleed him out" idea solves exactly nothing about the problem of Nephi using blood-soaked clothes to disguise himself. And if Nephi just cut his throat, which the Book of Mormon never says, then there is no reason to cut off his head, too. Laban would have been dead within seconds.

But instead of your ninja fantasies, let's look at what 1 Nephi 4 actually says:

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.

19 And after I had smitten off his head with his own sword, I took the garments of Laban and put them upon mine own body; yea, even every whit; and I did gird on his armor about my loins.


Grabbing the hair of a prostrate unconscious man and swinging a sword with your other arm is going to involve hacking. It is not plausible that mighty Nephi could have severed the neck of a flaccid victim with just one stroke. There would have been a huge mess all over the place, particularly over the clothes that Nephi put on afterward to disguise himself.

The angel that rebuked Laman and Lemuel for smitting their brother with a rod told Nephi that the Lord would DELIVER Laban. In the parlance of the day that means the Lord intended for Laban to be killed.


No, "deliver" does not mean "he needed killin'" in biblical parlance. http://www.bible-history.com/isbe/D/DELIVER/

You're also emphasizing the moral problem. Let's just say the Lord did intend for Nephi to turn Laban into a Pez dispenser. You're conceding that the Mormon God is an arbitrary sociopath. There's nothing in the story that requires Laban to be killed. The premise that Laban would come after them if he lived doesn't work, because there were many other servants of Laban who saw Nephi and his brothers trying to get the brass plates and being run off. So all of a sudden Laban turns up dead and the brass plates are missing. Gee, whom to suspect?

Taking Laban's head would not cast suspicion on the Lehi's sons as it would appear he was killed for his sword of pure gold and clothes.


Yes, I'm sure ancient Jerusalem was fairly littered with naked headless bodies until the authorities could finally put an end to the crime wave of murder-for-clothing. Good thinking, Nephi! It's the perfect frame job!

Of course, the brass plates would have been missing, and Nephi and his brothers had just barely been rebuffed trying to get them. But maybe nobody would have notice the brass plates missing----but then if nobody would have noticed, there's no reason to kill Laban.

We have no details as to if Nephi hid or disposed of the body either.


Congratulations on spotting another plot hole.

Why would a just God kill Laban? The Lord is under no obligation to preserve the wicked who seek to slay the righteous.


Obviously, passed-out drunk Laban was a clear and present danger to Nephi's life. Of course, if the Lord can just off the wicked at his leisure to protect the righteous, why not have Nephi kill Laman and Lemuel?

And Laban would have pursued Nephi to the ends of the earth had he lived.


Wouldn't he, you know, need to know where they were for that to be effective? But why wouldn't the authorities, with the naked headless body of a prominent citizen, a missing set of brass plates, and an obvious set of suspects, have been interested in pursuing mighty, hunky Nephi and his brothers?

Let's see, what other junk logic (bile) have you spleened (written) on the page?

The Brass Plates are far from finished in their saving the nations. Lehi prophesied that these same plates would remain bright and all nations, kindreds, and tongues and his own seed would have them, and perhaps read upon the very house tops, unto the convincing of all that Jesus Christ is Lord. The prophets on the Brass Plates made very specific and detailed prophecies of Christ. Since Lehi's prophecy has NOT been fulfilled yet it is still coming. And precisely what the House of Israel needs to begin to gather in from their long dispersion and become the people of the living God in truth before he comes again.


This isn't relevant to the plot holes in the Laban story. Oh, unless you want to talk about the additional plot hole that the Torah as purportedly contained on the brass plates didn't exist yet in 600 B.C.

Oliver Cowdery was told that he would be allowed to bring forth hidden wisdom and treasures of great worth. He was a Second Witness with Joseph Smith but he failed and another is to take his place. Eventually.


It's unfortunate that Oliver Cowdery was supposedly present when Elijah restored the sealing power in the Kirtland Temple, but he wasn't privy to all these apologist theories about how the Fanny Alger affair was a wonderful thing.

So you can expect a prophet to stand up in the last days with the Brass Plates in hand to show them and not keep them secret but allow them to be hands on evidence that the Book of Mormon is true and that the gospel of Jesus Christ is true and that the Lord has set his hand a second time to gather in his people.


We have what's on the brass plates, remember? The Torah? Including the post-exile parts that Nephi quotes even though they would not have been written yet?
_just me
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Re: Laban's death defies logic and reality

Post by _just me »

Mooseman wrote:
angsty wrote:
What can I say? I was brought up in a deeply observant family. It's a hard habit to break.


And you never once asked "how come the gospel was one way in the Book of Mormon and so NOT that way today"?


Did you? What's your story, moose?
~Those who benefit from the status quo always attribute inequities to the choices of the underdog.~Ann Crittenden
~The Goddess is not separate from the world-She is the world and all things in it.~
_ludwigm
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Re: Laban's death defies logic and reality

Post by _ludwigm »

Darth J wrote:
Mooseman wrote:Oliver Cowdery was told that he would be allowed to bring forth hidden wisdom and treasures of great worth. He was a Second Witness with Joseph Smith but he failed and another is to take his place. Eventually.

It's unfortunate that Oliver Cowdery was supposedly present when Elijah restored the sealing power in the Kirtland Temple, but he wasn't privy to all these apologist theories about how the Fanny Alger affair was a wonderful thing.

The Kirtland Temple event?
Oops! I remember, that was when the four most important person of the Bible formed the line behind the scene, then marched in after each other:
- The Lord
- Moses
- one of the KJV's translation errors
- Elijah

Who was the stage-manager? Or did play The Four a dress rehearsal before the big day, when they should have appeared - obeying the command ..er.. I think the solemn and silent prayer?
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