Coming to grips with BOM destruction caused by Jesus

[Maestrophil]

Trying to come to grips with the notion that Jesus, shortly after his Crucifixion causes massive death and suffering - even of innocent children.  I could understand the Earth reacting with cataclysmic events at teh death of her creator causing havoc and death, but 3 Nephi tells us Jesus did it:

 

3 Behold, that great city Zarahemla have I burned with fire, and the inhabitants thereof.

4 And behold, that great city Moroni have I caused to be sunk in the depths of the sea, and the inhabitants thereof to be drowned.

5 And behold, that great city Moronihah have I covered with earth, and the inhabitants thereof, to hide their iniquities and their abominations from before my face, that the blood of the prophets and the saints shall not come any more unto me against them.

6 And behold, the city of Gilgal have I caused to be sunk, and the inhabitants thereof to be buried up in the depths of the...

Any way, you get the idea without quoting more.  How are we supposed to be OK with this morally?  

(Underlining was done when I pulled up the scripture online for some reason - it is not mine to emphasize anything)

[Robert F. Smith]

2 hours ago, Maestrophil said:

Trying to come to grips with the notion that Jesus, shortly after his Crucifixion causes massive death and suffering - even of innocent children.  I could understand the Earth reacting with cataclysmic events at teh death of her creator causing havoc and death, but 3 Nephi tells us Jesus did it:

........................ How are we supposed to be OK with this morally?  

...........................

This is also a feature of the Bible, particularly of the OT.  Are the writers and editors putting words in God's mouth to account for what appear to be his mighty acts?  We already know that Mesoamerica is one of the most active volcanic and earthquake regions on the planet.  So, is it punishment or just bad luck?

[Maestrophil]

12 minutes ago, Robert F. Smith said:

This is also a feature of the Bible, particularly of the OT.  Are the writers and editors putting words in God's mouth to account for what appear to be his mighty acts?  We already know that Mesoamerica is one of the most active volcanic and earthquake regions on the planet.  So, is it punishment or just bad luck?

Exactly - If the BOM is supposed to be the most correct book, and the verses I mentioned are supposedly quoting Jesus Himself - why would the author do that if it were not literal versus passively stating "Then God made so and so happen" or something similar.  These passages make it clear Jesus is taking credit...  

[Calm]

51 minutes ago, Maestrophil said:

Exactly - If the BOM is supposed to be the most correct book, and the verses I mentioned are supposedly quoting Jesus Himself - why would the author do that if it were not literal versus passively stating "Then God made so and so happen" or something similar.  These passages make it clear Jesus is taking credit...  

does “most correct” equate to “all correct” in your view?

And is the book most correct if it accurately portrays the worldview of its authors, however mistaken that might be because they don’t understand geology or climate science?  Or is I most correct if it messes up the writer’s views/ideas, but presents God’s actions correctly?  Or is it most correct when it balances the two to teach principles?  Or something else?

Do you believe someone was taking notes when Christ was speaking?  

If a science textbook is the most correct book in the world on geology, is it likely to be teaching the most correct precepts by which men can get nearer to God?

“I told the brethren,” he said, “that the Book of Mormon was the most correct of any book on earth, and the keystone of our religion, and a man would get nearer to God by abiding by its precepts, than by any other book.””

Edited December 11, 2024 by Calm

[Calm]

https://rsc.byu.edu/living-book-mormon-abiding-its-precepts/most-correct-book-joseph-smiths-appraisal
 

Quote

How is it that the Book of Mormon is correct—in fact, the most correct of any book? In Joseph Smith’s day the adjective correct was understood to mean “set right, or made straight,” “conformable to truth, rectitude or propriety, or conformable to a just standard; not faulty; free from error.” Likewise, to correct something was “to amend” or to “bring back or attempt to bring back to propriety in morals,” to “obviate or remove whatever is wrong,” or to “counteract whatever is injurious.”[3] In our day we would say that something is correct if it is “free from error; accurate; in accordance with fact, truth, or reason.”[4] In the action sense of the word, the Book of Mormon was given to us to set things straight, to make things right, to bring our thinking into conformity with truth, to see things as they really are (see Jacob 4:13; D&C 93:24), to bring back or restore to propriety, and to counteract ideas or teachings or practices that are harmful.

 

[Kevin Christensen]

Here are a few things that have helped me come to grips with what happens in 3 Nephi 8-10.  I published some them in Review of Books on the Book of Mormon 2/1 and in Paradigms Regained.  I'm quoting Mircea Eliade, Cosmos and History: The Myth of Eternal Return.

Quote

The Rites of the New Year:

The destructions described in 3 Nephi become especially striking, not just as perils,
but as potent symbols when considered against the pattern of the New Year Temple
rites current throughout the ancient world.

Mormon tells us that this all happens “in the ending of the thirty and fourth year. ” Eliade in-
forms us that “ ... in the expectation of the New Year there is a repetition of the mythical
moment of passage from chaos to cosmos.”

In my review, I then cited the following passages
from Eliade and from 3 Nephi:

Regression to Chaos:
The first act of the ceremony . . . marks a regression into the mythical period before the
Creation; all forms are supposed to be confounded in the marine abyss of the beginning,
... overturning of the entire social order. ... Every feature suggests universal confusion, the
abolition of order and hierarchy, “orgy,” chaos. We witness, one might say, a “deluge” that an-
nihilates all humanity in order to prepare the way for a new and regenerated human
species. 

There arose a great storm ... also a great and terrible tempest; and there was terrible thunder, insomuch that it did shake the whole
earth as if it was about to divide asunder. ... The city of Moroni did sink into the depths
of the sea. 

The Sacred Combat

The ritual combats between two groups of actors reactualize the cosmogonic moment of
the fight between the god and the primordial dragon ... for the combat... presupposes the reactualization of primordial chaos, while the
victory... can only signify... the Creation.

That great city Zarahemla have I burned. ... That great city Moroni have I caused to be
sunk in the depths of the sea.... And many great destructions have I caused to come upon
this land, and upon this people, because of their wickedness and abominations.

The ritual/mythic context shows that by speaking in this way, the Lord may be ritually casting the destroyed cities in the role of the
dragon, the leviathan, the representation of chaos which he must defeat in order to bring
forth a new creation. 3 Nephi agrees with Barker’s picture in that the destruction is
judgment and the vengeance of the Lord as well as a preliminary to a new creation

https://scripturecentral.org/archive/periodicals/journal/paradigms-regained-survey-margaret-barkers-scholarship-and-its-significance-mormon-studies

So there is a ritual context that casts all of this as the destruction preceding a new creation.  "Old things are done away.  All things are become new."

And beyond this, consider, would the innocent children have been better off being raised in a society that was ripe for destruction?   And where are they now?  Are they eternally stuck on those days of destruction, or have they moved on had the Gospel preached to them on a congenial, loving environment?  As innocent children, our understanding is that they are saved in the Kingdom of God.  That Jesus can and does "wipe all the tears from their eyes."

Hugh Nibley has commented that the real tragedy is not what becomes of people, but what they become.  So, in the eternal sense, what have the innocents of that society become by now?  And how much, or how little does that matter in considering the situation?

FWIW

Kevin Christensen

Canonsburg, PA

 

[teddyaware]

4 hours ago, Robert F. Smith said:

This is also a feature of the Bible, particularly of the OT.  Are the writers and editors putting words in God's mouth to account for what appear to be his mighty acts?  We already know that Mesoamerica is one of the most active volcanic and earthquake regions on the planet.  So, is it punishment or just bad luck?

That’s the ticket!! Blame all the destructions on the desperately wicked Nephites on bad luck and the haphazard motions of dispassionate nature instead of taking the Lord at his own very plain, direct and unambiguous word.

[Nevo]

9 hours ago, Maestrophil said:

How are we supposed to be OK with this morally?

My mother-in-law, who is one of the finest people I know, is totally okay with passages like this. She takes the view that whatever God does is right and that death is actually a deliverance, so there's nothing morally problematic about God wiping people and livestock off the face of the earth.

I don't share her view. I don't acknowledge the hand of God in all things. I believe God allows evil and can bring good out of evil, but I don't believe he is the author of evil. And, to my way of thinking, burning or drowning or burying alive innocent children and animals is evil.

The Book of Mormon is very consistent in portraying God as the principal agent of destruction of the Nephite and Jaredite nations. Samuel the Lamanite quotes the Lord as saying: "Four hundred years shall not pass away before I will cause that they shall be smitten; yea, I will visit them with the sword and with famine and with pestilence. Yea, I will visit them in my fierce anger..." (Helaman 13:9-10). Four hundred years later, Mormon confirms that the Lord kept his promise: "Great and marvelous is the destruction of my people, the Nephites. And behold, it is the hand of the Lord which hath done it" (Mormon 8:7-8).

The God of the Book of Mormon is both merciful and just, and his justice includes "execut[ing] judgment against [people] to their utter destruction" (Ether 11:20). There are carrots and there are (very big) sticks. Mormon theorizes that the Lord chastens his people with afflictions and visits them "with death and with terror, and with famine and with all manner of pestilence" so that they will remember him (Helaman 12:3). One of the main themes of the Book of Mormon is that America is a covenant land of promise and that whoever possesses it must serve God or be "swept off when the fulness of his wrath should come upon them" (Ether 2:8 [8-12]). If the current Gentile inhabitants do not shape up, Mormon warns, "[God] shall come out in justice against you" (Mormon 5:24).

I ascribe this view of God to Joseph Smith's New England Protestant upbringing (see, e.g., Bushman, Rough Stone Rolling, 246) and I don't think Latter-day Saints are obligated to keep this theological inheritance. I much prefer Terryl Givens's take here, where he argues that God and humans must inhabit the same moral universe and that our doctrine of God should be "morally compelling" (starting at timestamp 16:51): 

 

 

 

Edited December 11, 2024 by Nevo

[bluebell]

8 hours ago, Maestrophil said:

Trying to come to grips with the notion that Jesus, shortly after his Crucifixion causes massive death and suffering - even of innocent children.  I could understand the Earth reacting with cataclysmic events at teh death of her creator causing havoc and death, but 3 Nephi tells us Jesus did it:

 

 

3 Behold, that great city Zarahemla have I burned with fire, and the inhabitants thereof.

4 And behold, that great city Moroni have I caused to be sunk in the depths of the sea, and the inhabitants thereof to be drowned.

5 And behold, that great city Moronihah have I covered with earth, and the inhabitants thereof, to hide their iniquities and their abominations from before my face, that the blood of the prophets and the saints shall not come any more unto me against them.

6 And behold, the city of Gilgal have I caused to be sunk, and the inhabitants thereof to be buried up in the depths of the...

Any way, you get the idea without quoting more.  How are we supposed to be OK with this morally?  

(Underlining was done when I pulled up the scripture online for some reason - it is not mine to emphasize anything)

I think the continuation of this section also says that those who were spared, were spared because they were more righteous than those that were killed, right (I'm remembering correctly, right?)  That is a contradiction with the verses where whole cities are destroyed.

And to me that says, something isn't being literal here.  Something is symbolic. I just have to figure out what.

[Pyreaux]

2 hours ago, teddyaware said:

That’s the ticket!! Blame all the destructions on the desperately wicked Nephites on bad luck and the haphazard motions of dispassionate nature instead of taking the Lord at his own very plain, direct and unambiguous word.

The word also tells us the Fall of Adam and Eve (Genesis 3 / 2 Nephi 2) brought about a fallen world where both humans and the environment are subject to decay, suffering, and death. Mostly suffering and hardship are not being caused by God but by the earth, its merely being allowed by God.

President Joseph Fielding Smith “The Lord informs us that the earth on which we dwell is a living thing... when Enoch is conversing with the Lord, he hears the earth crying for deliverance from the iniquity upon her face [Moses 7:48].  " (Church History and Modern Revelation [1953], 1:366–67).

Natural disasters (like earthquakes, hurricanes, or other catastrophic events) occur as part of the natural world and are not directly orchestrated by God as acts of punishment. 

Enoch saw that the earth would mourn and groan and its rocks would be rent when Christ was crucified (Moses 7:55–5).

President Spencer W. Kimball “These earth spasms [were] a revolt by the created earth against the crucifixion of its Creator” (in Conference Report, Apr. 1963, 65).

Gaia - Spirit of the Earth

Edited December 11, 2024 by Pyreaux

[Tacenda]

That's why I take scriptures with a grain of salt. It's second hand to me.

[The Nehor]

Once you reach a certain level of power and knowledge I think the distinction between “God acted to make it happen” and “God allowed it to happen” stops mattering that much. Does it matter morally if God flipped the switch to kill them all or just deliberately chose not to keep the switch from flipping and letting them all die? It would matter to a mortal since one is malice and the other is negligence but when you have omniscience and stopping the switch from flipping costs God nothing is there a difference? It is the same choice.

[Pyreaux]

8 minutes ago, The Nehor said:

Once you reach a certain level of power and knowledge I think the distinction between “God acted to make it happen” and “God allowed it to happen” stops mattering that much. Does it matter morally if God flipped the switch to kill them all or just deliberately chose not to keep the switch from flipping and letting them all die? It would matter to a mortal since one is malice and the other is negligence but when you have omniscience and stopping the switch from flipping costs God nothing is there a difference? It is the same choice.

Batman disagrees, 

[MrShorty]

The problem of divine violence in scripture and belief has been a long running issue. I liked what @Nevo shared from Teryl Givens about God inhabiting the same moral universe that we inhabit. In recent years, I have become quite uncomfortable with ideas that suggest God is subject to different moral laws than we are or that God just make up morality as He sees fit (divine command theory type stuff).

An internet search found this from BYU's RSC: https://rsc.byu.edu/vol-19-no-2-2018/dealing-difficulty-scripture-divine-violence-book-mormon

I'm not sure it's a fully satisfactory "tie up the problem of divine violence into a neat package with a pretty bow on top" answer, but Andrew Smith had some interesting things to say.

[The Nehor]

4 hours ago, Kevin Christensen said:

And beyond this, consider, would the innocent children have been better off being raised in a society that was ripe for destruction?   And where are they now?  Are they eternally stuck on those days of destruction, or have they moved on had the Gospel preached to them on a congenial, loving environment?  As innocent children, our understanding is that they are saved in the Kingdom of God.  That Jesus can and does "wipe all the tears from their eyes."

I would find this explanation more convincing if God used it. Instead in the text God says he does it because the slain prophets and saints were calling for blood vengeance and God was presumably tired of hearing it and seems glad that their complaints cease.

[The Nehor]

8 minutes ago, Pyreaux said:

Batman disagrees, 

Batman doesn’t see the end from the beginning. Batman also does not have power over all of creation.

Batman also should really use his wealth to revitalize Gotham so that the people thrive and are not desperate enough to fall into criminality instead of running around dressed like a bat punching people.

Also if Bruce Wayne’s parents had died in the events of 3 Nephi 8-10 he would have started a grand crusade to defeat God to make sure something like this never happens again. Who is going to stop him? Bibleman?

[Anonymous Mormon]

9 hours ago, Maestrophil said:

Trying to come to grips with the notion that Jesus, shortly after his Crucifixion causes massive death and suffering - even of innocent children.  I could understand the Earth reacting with cataclysmic events at teh death of her creator causing havoc and death, but 3 Nephi tells us Jesus did it:

 

 

3 Behold, that great city Zarahemla have I burned with fire, and the inhabitants thereof.

4 And behold, that great city Moroni have I caused to be sunk in the depths of the sea, and the inhabitants thereof to be drowned.

5 And behold, that great city Moronihah have I covered with earth, and the inhabitants thereof, to hide their iniquities and their abominations from before my face, that the blood of the prophets and the saints shall not come any more unto me against them.

6 And behold, the city of Gilgal have I caused to be sunk, and the inhabitants thereof to be buried up in the depths of the...

Any way, you get the idea without quoting more.  How are we supposed to be OK with this morally?  

(Underlining was done when I pulled up the scripture online for some reason - it is not mine to emphasize anything)

 

As a thought experiment, I am curious to know which of these things you believe God could do without it bothering you:

• Allow an innocent baby to be stillborn
• Allow a child to die
• Allow a middle-age adult to die
• Allow a full-grown adult to die
• Allow a 'righteous' adult to experience a painful terminal disease
• Allow a child to experience a painful terminal disease
• Allow a child to experience a painful death

I guess I am trying to understand if there are times you would accept God allowing a good individual to physically suffer without it bothering you? And are there times where you would allow God to let a child die without it bothering you?

And if God is in charge of all 6 billion of us and we all have to die at some point and suffering is an inevitable consequence of mortality, then when is there a right and a wrong that God has to abide by in your view? If God loves us all and sees the end from the beginning and has designed a mortal existence that is right for us, then is there any circumstance that God is wrong in allowing?

Lastly, if God knows how hard all of this is, so he provided a Savior his perfect son who experienced EXACTLY what we went through, so that we could know that it was 'fair,' so fair in fact that even God Himself would be willing to go through what we did, knowing that it was all going to be worth it. Then doesn't that make the Atonement so much more powerful?

[Robert F. Smith]

2 hours ago, teddyaware said:

That’s the ticket!! Blame all the destructions on the desperately wicked Nephites on bad luck and the haphazard motions of dispassionate nature instead of taking the Lord at his own very plain, direct and unambiguous word.

You have disregarded the human element.  The Word of the Lord is rarely "plain, direct and unambiguous."  Moreover, we  have plenty of  instances in which actual events are interpreted very differently by biblical writers and modern historians.  For example, during the reign of King Hezekiah of Judah, Isaiah assured him that the Assyrian siege would fail.  In fulfillment of that prophecy, the Bible tells us that an angel killed 185,000 Assyrian troops in one night.  We actually have a contemporary cuneiform account of that event from the Assyrians themselves, who left with an intact army, which continued to conduct operations elsewhere in the empire.  Why did they leave their siege?  Because Hezekiah pled for mercy (2 Kings 18:2), and because Judah paid a large tribute.  Yet, both Herodotus and Berossus indicate that mice caused a plague to hit the Assyrians during that period.

To make the problem even more difficult to define, the differences between the Hebrew and Greek LXX texts of 2 Kings 18:2 and the parallel text in 2 Chronicles 29:1 have variant spellings of the name Abi, Abou, Abijah, and Abba.

Similarly, 2 Chronicles 17:13-19 claims that King Jehoshaphat of Judah had a 1,160,000-man army.  Is that even remotely likely?  Hyperbole?

2 Chronicles 14:7-15 has a 580,000-man army of Jews slay 1,300,000 Cushites/Ethiopians?  is there evidence of any Ethiopian invasion [with 300 chariots!] of Judah in the early 9th century BC, or at any other time?); cf. I Kings 15 - 16 

[The Nehor]

34 minutes ago, Anonymous Mormon said:

 

As a thought experiment, I am curious to know which of these things you believe God could do without it bothering you:

• Allow an innocent baby to be stillborn
• Allow a child to die
• Allow a middle-age adult to die
• Allow a full-grown adult to die
• Allow a 'righteous' adult to experience a painful terminal disease
• Allow a child to experience a painful terminal disease
• Allow a child to experience a painful death

I guess I am trying to understand if there are times you would accept God allowing a good individual to physically suffer without it bothering you? And are there times where you would allow God to let a child die without it bothering you?

All those bother me to some degree. I know I don’t emotionally feel it each time but that is because I am used to it. When it hits closer to home I feel it a lot more.

34 minutes ago, Anonymous Mormon said:

And if God is in charge of all 6 billion of us and we all have to die at some point and suffering is an inevitable consequence of mortality, then when is there a right and a wrong that God has to abide by in your view? If God loves us all and sees the end from the beginning and has designed a mortal existence that is right for us, then is there any circumstance that God is wrong in allowing?

You are now echoing some of the arguments of Job’s “friends”. God is so far above us that no matter what happens we should trust God. How do you have trust in such a God? The only difference between that God and an amoral and capricious one is the first God might feel bad about it but still do it.

34 minutes ago, Anonymous Mormon said:

Lastly, if God knows how hard all of this is, so he provided a Savior his perfect son who experienced EXACTLY what we went through, so that we could know that it was 'fair,' so fair in fact that even God Himself would be willing to go through what we did, knowing that it was all going to be worth it. Then doesn't that make the Atonement so much more powerful?

By this standard it would be fair to pit all of humanity against the trials of Hercules because someone with divine parentage could win those trials. That is not very encouraging. Fortunately that is not how the Atonement is taught or we would be the most depressed people on Earth and only the most deluded of us that could imagine ourselves as nearly equal to God would have any hope at all. Their hopes would eventually be dashed.

[Robert F. Smith]

8 hours ago, Maestrophil said:

Exactly - If the BOM is supposed to be the most correct book, and the verses I mentioned are supposedly quoting Jesus Himself - why would the author do that if it were not literal versus passively stating "Then God made so and so happen" or something similar.  These passages make it clear Jesus is taking credit...  

Where human purveyors are implicated, caution is always called for.  These editors must be regarded as flawed, just as you and I are flawed.

The Bible contains hundreds of such imponderables.

[Tacenda]

Just now, Robert F. Smith said:

Where human purveyors are implicated, caution is always called for.  These editors must be regarded as flawed, just as you and I are flawed.

The Bible contains hundreds of such imponderables.

Yep, and I'm grateful that the LDS church believes in the Bible as far as it is translated correctly. I guess that could apply to the BoM as well?

[CV75]

10 hours ago, Maestrophil said:

Trying to come to grips with the notion that Jesus, shortly after his Crucifixion causes massive death and suffering - even of innocent children.  I could understand the Earth reacting with cataclysmic events at teh death of her creator causing havoc and death, but 3 Nephi tells us Jesus did it:

 

 

3 Behold, that great city Zarahemla have I burned with fire, and the inhabitants thereof.

4 And behold, that great city Moroni have I caused to be sunk in the depths of the sea, and the inhabitants thereof to be drowned.

5 And behold, that great city Moronihah have I covered with earth, and the inhabitants thereof, to hide their iniquities and their abominations from before my face, that the blood of the prophets and the saints shall not come any more unto me against them.

6 And behold, the city of Gilgal have I caused to be sunk, and the inhabitants thereof to be buried up in the depths of the...

Any way, you get the idea without quoting more.  How are we supposed to be OK with this morally?  

(Underlining was done when I pulled up the scripture online for some reason - it is not mine to emphasize anything)

He caused all these misfortunes in that He set up the laws governing this telestial kingdom where His light also shines. The two worlds are bound to collide, that the plan of salvation can prevail. We all have to do our part.

[CV75]

8 hours ago, Maestrophil said:

Exactly - If the BOM is supposed to be the most correct book, and the verses I mentioned are supposedly quoting Jesus Himself - why would the author do that if it were not literal versus passively stating "Then God made so and so happen" or something similar.  These passages make it clear Jesus is taking credit...  

Maybe passages like this are more literal than not, and some readers don't have enough spiritual/doctrinal context.

[The Nehor]

13 minutes ago, Tacenda said:

Yep, and I'm grateful that the LDS church believes in the Bible as far as it is translated correctly. I guess that could apply to the BoM as well?

This would go beyond what we would call translation errors. It is saying Mormon’s theological understanding was limited in some ways. While almost certainly true it isn’t a very hopeful conclusion. It means you have to read the Book of Mormon in as critical a way as you would any other historical or religious text. Mormon’s conclusions may be flawed or outright wrong.

So every time Mormon says something along the lines of ‘and thus we see that’ we should be thinking: “But do we though?”

It does make it hard to swallow the idea that the Book of Mormon is written as a plain warning to our day. One idea I have heard bandied about is that the Book of Mormon works on multiple levels and engages the reader at the level they are at. Does it follow there is a level at which the Book of Mormon is less helpful? I won’t hold my breath waiting for an apostle to make that declaration in General Conference.

Edited December 11, 2024 by The Nehor

[CV75]

1 hour ago, MrShorty said:

The problem of divine violence in scripture and belief has been a long running issue. I liked what @Nevo shared from Teryl Givens about God inhabiting the same moral universe that we inhabit. In recent years, I have become quite uncomfortable with ideas that suggest God is subject to different moral laws than we are or that God just make up morality as He sees fit (divine command theory type stuff).

An internet search found this from BYU's RSC: https://rsc.byu.edu/vol-19-no-2-2018/dealing-difficulty-scripture-divine-violence-book-mormon

I'm not sure it's a fully satisfactory "tie up the problem of divine violence into a neat package with a pretty bow on top" answer, but Andrew Smith had some interesting things to say.

From my experience, the morality isn’t found it the lack or degree of mortal violence, it is found in the preservation of agency that results in mortal violence (or lack thereof), because greater goodness for all is eventually accomplished by those who choose it. The Lord chose to ultimately restore everything and then add to it to make it better than it was, even while preserving the subjects' agency.