Quote:
Originally Posted by SeattleUte
"12 And it came to pass that the Spirit said unto me again: Slay him, for the Lord hath delivered him into thy hands . .
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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."
Okay, so "the spirit" told Nephi to kill Laban. This was no mere prompting. "The spirit" had a "voice" that said, "Slay him, for the Lord hath delivered him into thy hands."
I understand a deistic God wholly disciplined in his refusal to intervene in the affairs of men (when I say men I mean women too), relying instead on men themselves to carry out the Providential plan (even as God, from his far removed perch, has a kind of omniscient confidence that things will work out fine in the end).
I understand a Gnostic God, limited and bound by natural laws in his ability to intervene in the affairs of men, but who, like a cunning lawyer, will negotiate those laws as best he can, to try indirectly to induce a desired result or reach a compromise with the Adversary.
I understand an omnipotent God, fully unfettered and unrestrained in his penchant to direct the affairs of men to achieve his desired ends; for example, parting the Red Sea and burying Pharoah's forces in an avalanche of water.
I assume the God who got Laban drunk and then sent a spirit to tell Nephi to behead drunken Laban with his own sword was operating on the third model. Why not just appear before before Laban--God himself or through an angel or a spirit--and command Laban to give up the plates or else (a la parting the Red Sea)? I bet he would have given them up. Getting Laban drunk and then telling Nephi he better do the dirty business of beheading Laban or else seems to me convoluted and lacking the directness and artistry and drama of parting the Red Sea and drowning Pharaoh's army. It also involves a gratuitous killing. Laban had his flaws, but he was not Stalin.
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I look at the the BoM, and of course this story, as a parable. I couldn't care less about the literalness of it. It's a great and deep story.
Laban is Nephi. The part of Nephi that is preventing Nephi from obtaining The Word (Christ). Laban is the natural man. You can't reason with your natural man (first attempt), or buy-off your natural man (be *really* obedient, etc), you have to do the most frightening thing possible, kill it, remove it's head. And he removed it with the cross (sword), the only way. Then Laban/Nephi (Nephi was both Laban and Nephi -he wore his clothes, spoke in his voice, but without only the menacing part of Laban), is easily able to just walk in and obtain the word (the Christ).