Hugo Grotius's On the Law of War and Peace in comparison with the Book of Mormon

[Benjamin McGuire]

4 hours ago, JarMan said:

The idea that Nephi was justified based solely on God's command is consistent with the interpretation of many church members in my experience. I think it's people like Welch who are on the fringe, here.

Yeah, but this is an irrelevancy. The fact that many people are uncomfortable with a text and attempt to read it in a way that alleviates that discomfort doesn't change the text. There are lots of passages in the Old Testament that would be easy to identify where people today consistently misread the text. Should we then argue that the text means what everyone wants it to mean? This represents the two different sides of the discussion about texts and how we read them. Who gets to decide what the text means? Is it the author or the reader? Your argument here suggests that it is the reader who is king (and that the author is consequently dead). The only problem here is that if we abandon the author as having any relevance to the meaning of the text, then your argument about Grotius also becomes meaningless. Grotius can have nothing to say about the meaning of the text because that meaning is drawn from its readers.

4 hours ago, JarMan said:

I've acknowledged already that Nephi's actions aren't justified under Grotius' natural law. But that is beside the point. You're still refusing to address what Grotius says about God's sovereignty to punish his own creation. He explicitly does not limit God to the natural law. He's very clear about this. But you keep trying to impute a logical argument onto him that he expressly rejects.

Grotius argues that God can punish humanity however God wants to - in the context of the final judgment. But you are missing the point that this is God doing the punishment - God is the source of that punishment. In the Book of Mormon text, this could easily have been the case if Nephi had come across a dead Laban lying in the street instead of a passed out drunk Laban. But, it is not God that is doing the punishment in the Book of Mormon, it is Nephi. And what Grotius suggests that would have been relevant is that God wouldn't command Nephi to kill a helpless Laban in the middle of the night while stealing from him. God, Grotius argues, cannot make violating natural law into a good thing - it can only be evil - even for God. This is the problem that you aren't recognizing.

4 hours ago, JarMan said:

God punishes the wicked, including with death. Grotius is perfectly comfortable with this. God also does not permit the murder of helpless people, which Grotius also agrees with. But this is what causes the moral tension for Nephi and makes it so heart-wrenching for him. If Nephi was justified under the natural law, there would be no tension here and no reason for God to even be involved. It is precisely because Nephi is not otherwise justified in killing Laban that we must read this as a story of obedience, from Nephi's perspective. From God's perspective it's a story about punishing the wicked and bringing about a greater good. As I mentioned in another post, I think Nephi's ruminations about Laban's actions are intended to be God's justifications. God says he kills the wicked for his purposes (verse 13); but just before that (verse 11), Nephi's mental recap reminds us just what wickedness Laban was guilty of.

Of course God does - when God actually performs the punishment. No one looks at the story of Noah and his ark and thinks that Noah killed the rest of the human population. It was God that does this. And if this was really a story about God punishing the wicked, then it would be incredibly easy, in an Old Testament context, for God to simply kill Laban. But, there isn't any basis for us to consider Nephi as the stand in for God in this narrative. If anything, the narrative prevents this by placing the divine into the person of the angel. And while the angel uses God's power to kill the wicked to achieve a righteous purpose, it is the Book of Mormon's translation of this into giving Nephi that same privilege that would be abhorrent to Grotius. God can wipe out Sodom for the greater good, but that decision is God's alone. God could kill Laban. And if Grotius is only worried about God's interests here, then why does Nephi repeatedly bring up the range of justifications - all of which run contrary to Grotius's own thoughts?

This is, of course, only half of the problem. We are very narrowly focused on Grotius to this point. But, could we find contemporaries of Grotius whose arguments are much better represented by the narrative here? Grotius represents novelty in some of his specific applications of natural law theory. But this idea that God can do whatever God wants is not unique at all to Grotius - and if you are going to reduce the narrative to this very basic (and widely shared) idea, the text loses any value in determining authorship in Grotius's favor (apart from the problems I mentioned earlier in this response).

4 hours ago, JarMan said:

It's true that many people are familiar with the Aeneid. We know for certain Grotius was. But we can only speculate whether Joseph or others in his environment were. So if we are keeping a tally with Joseph in one column and Grotius in the other, Grotius gets the check mark while Joseph gets a question mark.

The problem here is that you haven't made a good case that the Book of Mormon engages the Aeneid. The Book of Mormon seems to be engaging the Old Testament, which generally works under any authorship model (and so isn't helpful for authorship determination).

4 hours ago, JarMan said:

I do agree with your assertion about plausibility versus probability here vis a vis Grotius in particular. What I find interesting, though, is a general lack of willingness to apply this logic to apologetic argument. I think apologists exist exclusively in the realm of plausibility (at best), yet they speak with the confidence of someone talking about probability. (Someone recently sent me a Tad Callister talk that illustrates this to a T and I was reminded just how annoying it can be.)

I will disagree with the "exclusively." It's not that there isn't a lot of this sort of thing that goes on - but it is also true that when we see people developing methodologies, or using more widely accepted methods, and applying them to real data, the effort is being made to move away from simple plausibility into a more defined realm of falsifiable theories. My essay on literary allusion in the Book of Mormon to David and Goliath in the Old Testament certainly isn't proof. But it is a well reasoned argument that attempts to minimize this idea of plausibility. Instead of discussing possibilities, I am able to discuss likelihoods. And likelihoods are much stronger arguments than plausibilities.

[JarMan]

12 hours ago, Benjamin McGuire said:

Yeah, but this is an irrelevancy. The fact that many people are uncomfortable with a text and attempt to read it in a way that alleviates that discomfort doesn't change the text. There are lots of passages in the Old Testament that would be easy to identify where people today consistently misread the text. Should we then argue that the text means what everyone wants it to mean? This represents the two different sides of the discussion about texts and how we read them. Who gets to decide what the text means? Is it the author or the reader? Your argument here suggests that it is the reader who is king (and that the author is consequently dead). The only problem here is that if we abandon the author as having any relevance to the meaning of the text, then your argument about Grotius also becomes meaningless. Grotius can have nothing to say about the meaning of the text because that meaning is drawn from its readers.

I should remind you of the original context here, which is that I'm responding to your assertion that my reading of the text is contrived. My response is to show that, on the contrary, it's actually quite common. Your response to that is to build a straw man. The straw man you've built is the idea that if a reading of the text is common then it must be the right reading. This is essentially what you assert me to be saying, and so you respond to that idea. I disagree with the straw man you've built so I agree with most of what you say here in tearing it down. This type of approach doesn't move the discussion forward at al and is exhausting to respond to.

12 hours ago, Benjamin McGuire said:

Grotius argues that God can punish humanity however God wants to - in the context of the final judgment.

Based on the bolded statement, I don't think you've taken a serious look at Book 2, which is largely devoted to Grotius' theory of punishment--that is--punishment on earth, not eternal, final judgment punishment. From 2.20.4.2: "The holy Scriptures, at least, do testify that GOD inflicts Punishment sometimes upon profligate abandoned Sinners, for no other Reason but to punish them."

13 hours ago, Benjamin McGuire said:

But you are missing the point that this is God doing the punishment - God is the source of that punishment. In the Book of Mormon text, this could easily have been the case if Nephi had come across a dead Laban lying in the street instead of a passed out drunk Laban. But, it is not God that is doing the punishment in the Book of Mormon, it is Nephi.

You are forcing a contrived interpretation onto the text, but your interpretation is directly contradicted by the clear words: "Behold the Lord slayeth the wicked to bring forth his righteous purposes." I don't think it could be more clear that God is doing the killing here. He's the one who brought a helpless Laban into Nephi's hands in the first place. He's the one with the righteous purpose here. He's the one issuing the direct command (x3). Nephi is brought along kicking and screaming.

13 hours ago, Benjamin McGuire said:

And what Grotius suggests that would have been relevant is that God wouldn't command Nephi to kill a helpless Laban in the middle of the night while stealing from him. God, Grotius argues, cannot make violating natural law into a good thing - it can only be evil - even for God. This is the problem that you aren't recognizing.

It's not a violation of the natural law if God is doing the killing. Grotius is very clear about this.

13 hours ago, Benjamin McGuire said:

Of course God does - when God actually performs the punishment. No one looks at the story of Noah and his ark and thinks that Noah killed the rest of the human population. It was God that does this. And if this was really a story about God punishing the wicked, then it would be incredibly easy, in an Old Testament context, for God to simply kill Laban. But, there isn't any basis for us to consider Nephi as the stand in for God in this narrative. If anything, the narrative prevents this by placing the divine into the person of the angel. And while the angel uses God's power to kill the wicked to achieve a righteous purpose, it is the Book of Mormon's translation of this into giving Nephi that same privilege that would be abhorrent to Grotius. God can wipe out Sodom for the greater good, but that decision is God's alone. God could kill Laban.

Now you're doubling down on the idea that God didn't kill Laban in the Book of Mormon. As mentioned, I think this is a contrived argument that is contradicted by the plain words.

13 hours ago, Benjamin McGuire said:

And if Grotius is only worried about God's interests here, then why does Nephi repeatedly bring up the range of justifications - all of which run contrary to Grotius's own thoughts?

I've answered this question multiple times already. Rather than re-asking the question, it would help move the discussion forward if you responded to my answer. Otherwise we will be stuck in an endless loop of you asking and me answering the same question over and over again.

13 hours ago, Benjamin McGuire said:

This is, of course, only half of the problem. We are very narrowly focused on Grotius to this point. But, could we find contemporaries of Grotius whose arguments are much better represented by the narrative here? Grotius represents novelty in some of his specific applications of natural law theory. But this idea that God can do whatever God wants is not unique at all to Grotius - and if you are going to reduce the narrative to this very basic (and widely shared) idea, the text loses any value in determining authorship in Grotius's favor (apart from the problems I mentioned earlier in this response).

The idea behind this discussion is to look at things in the Book of Mormon and compare them to Grotius' thought in DJB to see whether or not there is a contradiction. Uniqueness is not a consideration when determining contradiction. It's an add on. It's a moving of the goalposts. And it is you that is reducing the narrative by building straw men.

13 hours ago, Benjamin McGuire said:

The problem here is that you haven't made a good case that the Book of Mormon engages the Aeneid. The Book of Mormon seems to be engaging the Old Testament, which generally works under any authorship model (and so isn't helpful for authorship determination).

Look, I don't want to derail this discussion with a discussion about similarities between the Book of Mormon and the Aeneid so I'll save this one for another thread sometime in the future when I'm not trying to recover from two major surgeries.

13 hours ago, Benjamin McGuire said:

I will disagree with the "exclusively." It's not that there isn't a lot of this sort of thing that goes on - but it is also true that when we see people developing methodologies, or using more widely accepted methods, and applying them to real data, the effort is being made to move away from simple plausibility into a more defined realm of falsifiable theories. My essay on literary allusion in the Book of Mormon to David and Goliath in the Old Testament certainly isn't proof. But it is a well reasoned argument that attempts to minimize this idea of plausibility. Instead of discussing possibilities, I am able to discuss likelihoods. And likelihoods are much stronger arguments than plausibilities.

I don't consider your referenced essay to be apologetic per se and I'm not criticizing it. I'm complaining about assertions like the archaeology just hasn't uncovered it yet, but it will I promise, because we've only excavated a small number of sites so far.  Or we know there is writing in this part of the world during this time period--it's not the writing we're looking for (ahem)--but the fact that it exists shows that the writing we are looking for could just be lying hidden somewhere. Anyway, I don't want this to be a distraction from the main topic, either, so probably shouldn't have even brought it up.

[Benjamin McGuire]

11 hours ago, JarMan said:

I should remind you of the original context here, which is that I'm responding to your assertion that my reading of the text is contrived. My response is to show that, on the contrary, it's actually quite common. Your response to that is to build a straw man. The straw man you've built is the idea that if a reading of the text is common then it must be the right reading. This is essentially what you assert me to be saying, and so you respond to that idea. I disagree with the straw man you've built so I agree with most of what you say here in tearing it down. This type of approach doesn't move the discussion forward at al and is exhausting to respond to.

Ok. So what you are saying is that there is no contrived reading of the text - and that all readings are just fine. That is never going to be a basis for discussion.

11 hours ago, JarMan said:

You are forcing a contrived interpretation onto the text, but your interpretation is directly contradicted by the clear words: "Behold the Lord slayeth the wicked to bring forth his righteous purposes." I don't think it could be more clear that God is doing the killing here. He's the one who brought a helpless Laban into Nephi's hands in the first place. He's the one with the righteous purpose here. He's the one issuing the direct command (x3). Nephi is brought along kicking and screaming.

No. The Lord isn't slaying Laban here. However, Nephi is being told that the slaying of Laban can be justified just as God slaying the wicked for a future good is justified. It is a fascinating argument that the Book of Mormon is making here. But it is not Grotius's argument. And the idea that Nephi is being brought along kicking and screaming is the problem - this isn't what Grotius would write about. And a direct command? "I was constrained by the spirit" is a direct command? Nephi is hearing a voice? In his head? This gets really messy, really fast.

11 hours ago, JarMan said:

It's not a violation of the natural law if God is doing the killing. Grotius is very clear about this.

And yet, is God doing the killing? Grotius actually makes further exceptions than this - he argues that divine law (commandments for example) can supercede natural law. When God commands something (as in, say Leviticus 20:10 - "they shall be put to death") this doesn't become homicide. But with all of the ways to make this occur within the text, we get nothing of the sort. Grotius isn't using God as a way of justifying violence in this text - he is mentioning God merely to make sure that all the bases are covered, and that people won't have a religious argument against his positions on natural law and just war.

But this isn't what is happening in the Book of Mormon - and this is why I am arguing that the Book of Mormon narrative is fundamentally different from what Grotius wrote. Suddenly the attention is all about what God wants to the exclusion of everything that would be represented under the law of Nature. Does this really make sense?

11 hours ago, JarMan said:

Now you're doubling down on the idea that God didn't kill Laban in the Book of Mormon. As mentioned, I think this is a contrived argument that is contradicted by the plain words.

Except that it's not. Don't forget that the whole "Behold, the Lord slayeth the wicked" is an inner dialogue -

Quote

And I was led by the Spirit, not knowing beforehand the things which I should do. ... I was constrained by the Spirit that ... And the Spirit said unto me again: ... And it came to pass that the Spirit said unto me again:

What is this Spirit? Don't get me wrong, I am not suggesting that there isn't this inner voice that Nephi hears and responds to. What I am suggesting is that the narrative does not read to me the same way that it reads to you.

11 hours ago, JarMan said:

I've answered this question multiple times already. Rather than re-asking the question, it would help move the discussion forward if you responded to my answer. Otherwise we will be stuck in an endless loop of you asking and me answering the same question over and over again.

Your only answer has been that Grotius is not concerned with any of this. And yet, we have this problem. You want God to command Nephi to kill Laban, while he is helpless. You want God to command Nephi to steal Laban's property. You want God to command Nephi to kidnap Zoram (oh wait, that one is totally on just Nephi). And you want all of this to be irrelevant because it is exactly what God wants - and this is the point of the narrative for Grotius, right?

11 hours ago, JarMan said:

The idea behind this discussion is to look at things in the Book of Mormon and compare them to Grotius' thought in DJB to see whether or not there is a contradiction. Uniqueness is not a consideration when determining contradiction. It's an add on. It's a moving of the goalposts. And it is you that is reducing the narrative by building straw men.

No, uniqueness is always the second check. I published some material on this idea here. This is a brief excerpt:

Quote

Earlier, I quoted the 5th of Muriel C. St. Byrne’s five golden rules:

In order to express ourselves as certain of attributions we must prove exhaustively that we cannot parallel words, images, and phrases as a body from other acknowledged plays of the period; in other words, the negative check must always be applied.

The idea behind the negative check is quite simple: if we can find a proposed verbal parallel in multiple sources, then it becomes very unlikely that the parallel in question is one of genetic nature. The same idea applies when we compare a text to a larger body of materials or a tradition—if we can find the same parallels outside of that body of literature or that tradition, then establishing a connection between the text and that tradition or body of material becomes much more difficult.

The point is this - you want to have this coming from Grotius (we shouldn't lose sight of the argument). When you reduce the argument of the text to this lowest common denominator, and it is found all over the place, then the value for authorship attribution vanishes. It isn't enough to say that we can find parallels between the Book of Mormon and Grotius - this is an easy task to do. It is also easy to find parallels between the Book of Mormon and Hobbes, or the Book of Mormon and Plato, or the Book of Mormon and lots of other things (and lots of people have done so). If you are trying to make the argument that these parallels have something to say about authorship, however, it is insufficient to say that the parallels can be found. You have to 1) account for the differences, and 2) show that the parallels are unique and that they cannot be found elsewhere. This is pretty standard fare in authorship attribution.As a final note, in that essay, I also listed my four basic guidelines that I use for analysis:

Quote

• Differences are as important as similarities.
• Parallels need to be examined in progressively expanding contexts.
• Parallels should be discussed in a detailed and specific fashion.
• Rhetorical values, the intentions of an author, and the purposes of a text should all to be taken into consideration.

Edited March 8, 2025 by Benjamin McGuire

[JarMan]

On 3/8/2025 at 6:11 AM, Benjamin McGuire said:

Ok. So what you are saying is that there is no contrived reading of the text - and that all readings are just fine. That is never going to be a basis for discussion.

When you put words into my mouth you are building a straw man, as you do here once more. When you build a straw man you are signaling that you don't want to or aren't able to answer the question at hand.

On 3/8/2025 at 6:11 AM, Benjamin McGuire said:

No. The Lord isn't slaying Laban here. However, Nephi is being told that the slaying of Laban can be justified just as God slaying the wicked for a future good is justified. It is a fascinating argument that the Book of Mormon is making here. But it is not Grotius's argument. And the idea that Nephi is being brought along kicking and screaming is the problem - this isn't what Grotius would write about. And a direct command? "I was constrained by the spirit" is a direct command? Nephi is hearing a voice? In his head? This gets really messy, really fast.

Rather than put an argument into your mouth, let me try to state what it is I think you are saying and then you can tell me if I am correct or not. It sounds like your interpretation of this story is that Nephi committed unjustifiable murder and theft. If this is correct, then I don't disagree with you. Obviously killing a defenseless person is wrong. Claiming you were commanded to do it by God doesn't make it any less wrong. Even when I was a believing member I always rejected the idea that Abraham's obedience in intending to kill Isaac was virtuous. But this is all beside the point, because the authorial intent is clearly to justify the killing of Laban. To answer the question of authorship we need to look at that intent rather than at our own interpretation.

On 3/8/2025 at 6:11 AM, Benjamin McGuire said:

And yet, is God doing the killing? Grotius actually makes further exceptions than this - he argues that divine law (commandments for example) can supercede natural law. When God commands something (as in, say Leviticus 20:10 - "they shall be put to death") this doesn't become homicide. But with all of the ways to make this occur within the text, we get nothing of the sort. Grotius isn't using God as a way of justifying violence in this text - he is mentioning God merely to make sure that all the bases are covered, and that people won't have a religious argument against his positions on natural law and just war.

But this isn't what is happening in the Book of Mormon - and this is why I am arguing that the Book of Mormon narrative is fundamentally different from what Grotius wrote. Suddenly the attention is all about what God wants to the exclusion of everything that would be represented under the law of Nature. Does this really make sense?

You want to insist that this story has something to do with natural law theory, when clearly it does not. Grotius has obviously written about many other things, so we shouldn't expect a one note song from him. One of the things he's written about, as I keep pointing out, is that God is sovereign over his creations and can do as he chooses to them. This is consistent with God's actions in this story.

On 3/8/2025 at 6:11 AM, Benjamin McGuire said:

Except that it's not. Don't forget that the whole "Behold, the Lord slayeth the wicked" is an inner dialogue -

The author gives us Nephi's inner dialogue because that is all he has access to. If the author meant for this inner dialogue to be Nephi's justification for the killing, then the author didn't need to have the Spirit command him. The inner dialogue is there to prep us for "the Lord slayeth the wicked" by reminding us of exactly what wicked things Laban is guilty of.

On 3/8/2025 at 6:11 AM, Benjamin McGuire said:

What is this Spirit? Don't get me wrong, I am not suggesting that there isn't this inner voice that Nephi hears and responds to. What I am suggesting is that the narrative does not read to me the same way that it reads to you.

It doesn't really matter what you or I think the Spirit is. The question is what the author thinks the Spirit is. Our own interpretations are irrelevant in the context of determining authorship since its authorial intent that matters. You seem to have fallen in love with your unorthodox interpretation of the story without realizing that it's irrelevant to the question at hand.

On 3/8/2025 at 6:11 AM, Benjamin McGuire said:

Your only answer has been that Grotius is not concerned with any of this.

I'm beginning to wonder if you're actually reading what I am writing. I answer this question for at least the third time two paragraphs back.

On 3/8/2025 at 6:11 AM, Benjamin McGuire said:

And yet, we have this problem. You want God to command Nephi to kill Laban, while he is helpless. You want God to command Nephi to steal Laban's property. You want God to command Nephi to kidnap Zoram (oh wait, that one is totally on just Nephi). And you want all of this to be irrelevant because it is exactly what God wants - and this is the point of the narrative for Grotius, right?

I don't "want" anything except to read the story and understand its intent. And the story clearly has God killing Nephi. It sounds like you are uncomfortable with a God that would command the murder of a helpless person, but that doesn't allow you to change the clear meaning of the story to fit your preferences. This is simply your own version of an apologetic.

On 3/8/2025 at 6:11 AM, Benjamin McGuire said:

No, uniqueness is always the second check. I published some material on this idea here. This is a brief excerpt:

The point is this - you want to have this coming from Grotius (we shouldn't lose sight of the argument). When you reduce the argument of the text to this lowest common denominator, and it is found all over the place, then the value for authorship attribution vanishes. It isn't enough to say that we can find parallels between the Book of Mormon and Grotius - this is an easy task to do. It is also easy to find parallels between the Book of Mormon and Hobbes, or the Book of Mormon and Plato, or the Book of Mormon and lots of other things (and lots of people have done so). If you are trying to make the argument that these parallels have something to say about authorship, however, it is insufficient to say that the parallels can be found. You have to 1) account for the differences, and 2) show that the parallels are unique and that they cannot be found elsewhere. This is pretty standard fare in authorship attribution.As a final note, in that essay, I also listed my four basic guidelines that I use for analysis:

If I was claiming that this story clearly showed that Grotius was the author, then the level of uniqueness would matter. But I'm not claiming this. I started with this story because it was the first one chronologically, not because I thought it was an especially good one for my purposes. But, no matter, my hypothesis survives if I can show consistency with Grotius. If you want to show Grotius is not the author, then you need to show inconsistencies.

I suspect we are close to the end of discussing this particular story. Why don't you start thinking about another topic we can discuss and then suggest it when you feel this one has run its course.

[Benjamin McGuire]

8 hours ago, JarMan said:

Rather than put an argument into your mouth, let me try to state what it is I think you are saying and then you can tell me if I am correct or not. It sounds like your interpretation of this story is that Nephi committed unjustifiable murder and theft

No. In fact, what I believe is irrelevant. I made this explicit in my article that you read on Nephi and Goliath:

Quote

I believe that this is the wrong question. Whether or not we believe the law in Exodus applied to Nephi is to some extent irrelevant to what Nephi believed. The fact that he includes several distinct references to the passage would suggest that he did, in fact, think it was applicable.

All of the things that Nephi raises (including the comparison made between Laban and Goliath) point to a justification for the death of Laban that sits well within the Law of Moses and outside of the necessity to rely simply on the actions as a result of the command from God. This matters for this discussion because at each of these points, Grotius would disagree with Nephi - and Grotius would see Nephi as the one who was acting unjustly against Laban's natural rights. This is the core of the argument. The only way to save Nephi (as a construct of Grotius reflecting Grotius's point of view) is to jettison all of these reasons and stick only to the idea that God commanded it. But this runs counter to the text. I won't disagree that this is exactly what the other LDS author that you referenced does. So we have these two different perspectives. If we stick with the idea that obedience to God is the only thing that matters, and that if God commands something, it must be righteous to the exclusion of any other consideration, then that's certainly one way to interpret the text. But once we take that route, it stops having any evidentiary value for the claim that Grotius authored it. This perspective was never original to Grotius (unlike a lot of his natural law material).

I further explain my personal understanding of the Nephi narrative in that article:

Quote

 

The better approach (although from an apologetic perspective perhaps less satisfying, since we still are faced with the issue of whether or not Nephi was justified in killing Laban) is to ask how Nephi felt that the law applied to him—that is to say, how does he justify the killing of Laban within the context of the Mosaic law. Dealing with intent in the technical fashion that Welch does is problematic, since the text itself states that this narrative is written long after the events occurred, and the text twice gives a foreshadowing of Laban’s demise (first from the angel and then later from Nephi himself). If we accept the chronology provided in the text literally, then there is a real issue of whether or not Nephi entered the city fully expecting to kill Laban. Additionally, Nephi uses the phrase to “shed blood.” While Welch briefly discusses this phrase, it was used in the Old Testament to reference violent killings that violated cultic purity and required a response to keep the land from being tainted.

While the Hebrew text of Exodus 21 allows for the accidental (or even happenstance) occurrence of homicide, the 1 Samuel text allows for the intentional and divinely mandated killing of an enemy (as was the case with Goliath and David). Nephi is also making it clear that he views Laban (even though he is an Israelite) as an enemy—both to himself and to God—and thus ultimately deserving of the fate which he receives. This is essential if Nephi wishes to portray Laban as Goliath and their encounter as one of the foundational events establishing Nephi’s dynasty.

 

I think that the question of guilt and what that means is a challenge here - because of the literary nature of the narrative. Nephi kills a helpless man. This has always been something of a challenge. The narrative doesn't really answer the question of necessity there. A kick to the head, and you could still take the sword, the armor, pretend to be Laban, successfully steal the plates and leave the city, with no one the wiser - and by the time anyone figures it out, you are far enough out in the wilderness that it wouldn't matter. However, reading the text as an allusion (and I am certain that it is), the death of Laban plays a very different role in the text - it is useful as part of the larger argument that Nephi is making decades later. We have to read the text while being cognizant of that usage of the narrative. Why would Grotius be interested in this? What are his views on monarchy? Grotius fits right in with his contemporaries on the idea that government represents a social contract, and that the social contract limits the powers of monarchs. This whole idea of kingship that we see in the Book of Mormon (rule by divine right) doesn't represent that (the Book of Mormon repeatedly engages the kingship code in Deuteronomy 17 when discussing the limitations on monarchs). But I think that this is getting ahead of ourselves. We are still stuck back at trying to understand why Grotius would feel the need to write a narrative that emphasizes absolute obedience to God over natural law.

8 hours ago, JarMan said:

But this is all beside the point, because the authorial intent is clearly to justify the killing of Laban. To answer the question of authorship we need to look at that intent rather than at our own interpretation.

I don't disagree with you. I think where our disagreement lies is that Nephi's understanding of what justifies Laban's death is not this notion of absolute obedience that trumps everything else. Nephi explicit lists a number of reasons why he was justified. And he implicitly provides more in his allusion to David and Goliath.

9 hours ago, JarMan said:

You want to insist that this story has something to do with natural law theory, when clearly it does not. Grotius has obviously written about many other things, so we shouldn't expect a one note song from him. One of the things he's written about, as I keep pointing out, is that God is sovereign over his creations and can do as he chooses to them. This is consistent with God's actions in this story.

The entire volume that you wanted to compare this narrative to is about natural law theory and the investigation of possible causes for just war. His mention of god's sovereignty occurs in two short sections out of a three volume work. And while he wrote about this, his position isn't unique or special to him. Finding this idea in the Book of Mormon doesn't connect the Book of Mormon to Grotius - it cannot be used as evidentiary for this purpose. Finding close connections between the Book of Mormon and Gortius's novel ideas about natural law would be a much stronger argument. But we don't find that here. In fact, one of the strongest statements in the Book of Mormon that could be understood as a reference to natural law is completely opposite of Grotius's beliefs: Mosiah 3:19 -

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For the natural man is an enemy to God, and has been from the fall of Adam, and will be, forever and ever

This is a huge hurdle that we haven't gotten to yet ...

But you keep talking about God's actions. God's actions are described in a single statement (used more than once): "the Lord hath delivered him into thy hands." The problem is that this is a quote from the Old Testament. There are two different opinions on the source of the quote (which is important - the sources have a different underlying Hebrew). Jack Welch argued for the quote to be from Exod. 21:13-14:

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And if a man lie not in wait, but God deliver him into his hand; then I will appoint thee a place whither he shall flee. But if a man come presumptuously upon his neighbour, to slay him with guile; thou shalt take him from mine altar, that he may die.

The phrase here is a euphamism, and refers to an accident. The NIV makes this a bit more clear than does the KJV (and remember what I noted earlier about the KJV - Grotius wouldn't be using it): "However, if it is not done intentionally, but God lets it happen, they are to flee to a place I will designate." This isn't an action on the part of God at all. My take makes God a more active participant in the narrative, because I argue that it is a quote of 1 Samule 17:46 -

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This day will the Lord deliver thee into mine hand; and I will smite thee, and take thine head from thee; and I will give the carcases of the host of the Philistines this day unto the fowls of the air, and to the wild beasts of the earth; that all the earth may know that there is a God in Israel.

How does the NIV treat this passage? "This day the Lord will deliver you into my hands, and I’ll strike you down and cut off your head." You can see that it maintains that concept - because the underlying text is different, and because it isn't a euphemism. So you keep talking about what God is doing here - but - that argument isn't a clean as you want it to be. What did God do here? Did God make Laban unconscious? And if God's involvement occurs in such a granular way, why wouldn't Grotius have wanted for God to simply smite him dead - and then all of that other baggage would be irrelevant. What you want is for Nephi to be commanded by God to kill Laban, and for God to purposefully incapacitate Laban and put him in Nephi's path - so that Nephi was sure to succeed when he goes to kill him. Is this an Abrahamic test? But it seems like such a strange argument to be making when we try to make this all about obedience.

9 hours ago, JarMan said:

The author gives us Nephi's inner dialogue because that is all he has access to. If the author meant for this inner dialogue to be Nephi's justification for the killing, then the author didn't need to have the Spirit command him. The inner dialogue is there to prep us for "the Lord slayeth the wicked" by reminding us of exactly what wicked things Laban is guilty of.

What do you mean by "that is all he has access to"?

9 hours ago, JarMan said:

I don't "want" anything except to read the story and understand its intent. And the story clearly has God killing Nephi. It sounds like you are uncomfortable with a God that would command the murder of a helpless person, but that doesn't allow you to change the clear meaning of the story to fit your preferences. This is simply your own version of an apologetic.

I'll give you the benefit of the doubt here ...

9 hours ago, JarMan said:

If I was claiming that this story clearly showed that Grotius was the author, then the level of uniqueness would matter. But I'm not claiming this. I started with this story because it was the first one chronologically, not because I thought it was an especially good one for my purposes. But, no matter, my hypothesis survives if I can show consistency with Grotius. If you want to show Grotius is not the author, then you need to show inconsistencies.

I suspect we are close to the end of discussing this particular story. Why don't you start thinking about another topic we can discuss and then suggest it when you feel this one has run its course.

I am continuing to argue that it doesn't show consistency with Grotius.

Let's review:

1: Grotius argues that killing someone is never acceptable for risks of harm in the distant future - he considers this a part of his natural law theory. The Spirit suggests to Nephi that Laban has to die for some future benefit.

2: Grotius argues that it never appropriate to kill someone just to recover property unless that property is something that your life is immediately dependent on. Nephi's life is not dependent on that property - to the point that he never actually recovers it.

3: Grotius argues that it is evil to kill someone who is helpless - and even more so to do so at night while in engaged in robbery. Nephi kills the helpless Laban at night, while stealing his armor and sword.

4: Grotius does argue that God can punish the wicked however he chooses without concern for the good it may or may not do. The Book of Mormon has a God who is willing to punish Laban, but only because of the future good it will do. There is no position taken on the absolute nature of God's punishment here.

While that's not the whole list, it's a pretty good chunk of the major issues. Point four is really the sticking point in some ways. The point is that the Book of Mormon puts together a case to litigate the justness of Laban's death. It does not base it on some general purpose that God can do whatever God wants to do - it very carefully explains exactly why it is justified. And its use of allusion suggests that there is much more going on here in the decision to include this episode. That's my argument.

And while you might label my reading unorthodox, that paper was fairly well received.

[ZealouslyStriving]

One of the late Temple Lot Apostles, in the book "A Companion to the Book of Mormon", makes the case that the slaying of Laban falls under the self-defense clause of the Mosaic law and that Nephi went into specifics so that future readers conversant with Mosaic law would know that he wasn't acting contrary to God's commands.