Episode 13: The Omnibus of Omni (Omni 1)

The book of Omni is probably one of the most overlooked books in the Book of Mormon.  It's roughly three pages long, but it has five different authors who contributed to it, plus it contains the account of a mass Nephite exodus, plus the discovery of another people who had likewise been led out of Jerusalem not long after Lehi split town, plus the first mention of an even older civilization that had been brought from the Old World to the New by the hand of God centuries before, plus the first references to political and/or cultural divisions within the Nephite people themselves!  *Phew!*

Pretty much all we hear about from the end of Enos through Jarom and on through Omni is "war, war, war...".  The "land of promise" wasn't exactly a land of peace.  Then again, we're not getting "even a hundredth part" of their story, so maybe there wasn't as much war as it seems; I'm inclined to believe that these really were perilous times for them, however.

We have the first mention of any Nephite kings by name since the death of Nephi himself.  At the time Nephi died, the record says that the people decided to call all kings by the name of "Nephi."  This was actually a common thing in ancient times.  Egyptian pharaohs, for example, had their own given name, as well as their "Horus name," which was their royal name, or king name.  And even the term "pharaoh" itself comes from the name of an even more ancient Egyptian ruler: Pharaoh Johnson.

Okay, I made up the "Johnson" part, but "Pharaoh" really was the name of a very early Egyptian ruler.  It should also be noted that he was a righteous man and beloved by his people--just like Nephi (Abraham 1:25-26).

The responsibility of kings as keepers
of sacred things (including records) is
of ancient date; this picture shows a few
of the items that may have been passed
down from ruler to ruler by the Nephites;
it's significant that the sword of Laban
and the Liahona were among the sacred
items: the sword as symbol of a king's
duty to protect his people is as old as
kingship itself; and the crown--perhaps
the most famous symbol of kings--is it-
self a symbol of a halo, suggesting the
king's divinity, or his ruling by divine
right, which is similar to the symbolism
of the Liahona when it was held and
operated first by Lehi, and then by
Nephi, who used it to lead their group
by divine instruction and injunction.
It is significant that these items were
eventually passed from prophet to pro-
phet, rather than from king to king: in
essence, the Nephites had rejected the
Lord's guidance for their government.

However, in the book of Omni, the writer refers to the kings by what I'm assuming were their personal names, "Mosiah" and "Benjamin," rather than something like "Nephi XVI" and "Nephi XVII" (or whatever the Nephite equivalent to Roman numerals would be).  I don't know if this means the tradition of calling the king "Nephi" went out of practice, or if the writers simply omitted the kings' "Nephi names" for the sake of clarity.  But we know the record had been passed down through direct descendants of Nephi, and we know that the Nephite monarchy followed family lines as well, so it's possible that Amaleki--the last contributor to the Small Plates--and King Mosiah--to whom he entrusted the plates--may have been related.

Again, these are all such tiny and insignificant questions in comparison to the ocean of doctrinal information contained in the Book of Mormon that maybe they're not even worth asking.  But I really do believe it's helped my own, personal, appreciation and understanding of this book to really dive in and explore the world in its pages as much as possible.  Being a history buff, I love reading books about ancient civilizations, and I enjoy studying the process by which historians and archeologists try to reconstruct the worlds of the people and cultures that they are studying.  To understand a person's environment is to understand their perspective; and I really want to know the perspective of these men and women I'm reading about in the Book of Mormon.  I think they're worth my time and effort.

Anyway, getting back to the story:

The fall of Jerusalem: the Book of Mormon begins with
destruction and ends with destruction; and throughout
the record, there's plenty of destruction along the way.
It should be noted that much of this destruction happened
in the "promised land" of each of these peoples (Israelites,
Nephites, Jaredites, etc.); this tells us that we never really
"arrive" anywhere in this life: the struggle between the
"spiritual man" and the "natural man" never ends.

Like I said, I'm inclined to believe these were perilous times to be a Nephite.  Otherwise, you wouldn't read in Omni 1:12 about King Mosiah being warned by the Lord to "flee out of the land of Nephi."  I had always read into this passage that they were fleeing because of the Lamanites' antagonism.  However, in the book of Jarom, we read about how the Nephites "were a stiffnecked people... And there was nothing save it was exceeding harshness, preaching and prophesying of wars, and contentions, and destructions, and continually reminding them of death, and the duration of eternity, and the judgments and the power of God...stirring them up continually in the fear of the Lord...[that] would keep them from going down speedily to destruction" (Jarom 1:22-23).

And in Omni 1:13, where King Mosiah leaves the land of Nephi, it says of him and those who followed him: "And they departed out of the land into the wilderness, as many as would hearken unto the voice of the Lord."

The Waters of Mormon - The pattern of right-
eous leaders inspired to lead their people in-
to the wilderness in order to flee destruction
is often accompanied by water of some kind:
the Red Sea; the River Jordan; the Lehites'
ocean-crossing; the Jaredites being brought
across "the great deep"; and Alma leading his
followers to the Waters of Mormon.  All of this
represents the role of baptism in life: as the
"gate by which ye should enter" to obtain the
path to the Tree of Life; there we are offered
Eternal Life--and this is the way in which
we are able to flee spiritual destruction.

So, not all Nephites left with King Mosiah.  Maybe he was commanded to leave on account of Nephite persecution as much as Lamanite antagonism?  Can we see King Mosiah as a type of "Lehi"?  This pattern of a righteous leader being inspired to flee a place of wickedness happens all over the place.  In the book of Ether, chapter 9, we read about the Jaredite king, Omer, who was likewise inspired by the Lord to get out of town and travel to another place; the story of Alma, the reformed priest of King Noah, in which he created an underground movement of Christian believers, demonstrates this same pattern when he, too, was warned of the Lord to take his fellow believers and travel into the wilderness; then, of course, there's the most famous example: Moses and the children of Israel; we can see Abraham's story as fitting this pattern as well; a more recent occurrence of this was when Brigham Young led the saints westward, through the American "wilderness," to Utah (though, being a resident of Hawaii, I'm reluctant to ascribe "land of promise" to Utah...); and of course, there are two more examples of this pattern that we'll be looking at later in this post: Mulek fleeing from the Babylonian sacking of Jerusalem, and the brother of Jared leading a group from the fall of the Tower of Babel.

I could keep going--there are more examples of this pattern (and, honestly, one could write a book on it) --but let's move on by getting back to where we left off in Omni.  (Sort of a funny way to "move on" isn't it: by turning around and going back to where you were?)

But like I mentioned before, concerning the Nephites' "stiffneckedness" that we read about in Jarom, and the fact that the account in Omni specifies that only "those who would hearken to the voice of the Lord" went with Mosiah, it begs the question: was there speedy destruction awaiting the Nephites?  Could it be that Mosiah was told to leave--just like Lehi--right before the axe fell?

It's a speculative question, like many others I've asked in this post, so I'll move quickly past it into more concrete territory, but whatever the reasons for Mosiah and his party to relocate (and I'm sure there were many of them), there's no doubting the Lord's intended outcome: the next part of the story introduces us for the first time to the "Mulekites" and the land of Zarahemla (the future Nephite capital). This was a pivotal event in the history of both Nephites and Lamanites.

One thing that's fun to point out here: if you look closely in verse 12, it appears as if the writer makes a goof-up and has to shift gears in his narrative to make up for it.  Amaleki says that he is going to tell us about Mosiah, "who was made king over the land of Zarahemla."  But then he realizes that this is the first time the reader is even hearing of Zarahemla in this record--it dawns on Amaleki that he's not presenting the story in a completely linear manner.  So he amends it by quickly adding in the account of Mosiah's exodus in the form of a parenthetical statement.  Not the best way to present a crucial bit of history ("Oh yeah, and by the way, I should mention that the colonists on North America had revolted from England and formed their own country..."), but when you're writing this stuff on gold plates, you can't exactly erase your mistakes or hit "backspace."

I'll point out more of these little "glitches" in the narration as S.T.O.M.P. continues, but I'd like to point out that it's these little "mistakes" throughout the Book of Mormon, in which you see the narrator have to backtrack or quickly redirect in order to address an oversight, that make it that much more real to me; they solidify my testimony in this book that much more.  After all, if Joseph Smith really did write this whole thing as a complete work of fiction, he could have taken the time to edit, revise, and repair any of these mistakes (and even if one argues that perhaps he added these "mistakes" on purpose just for the illusion of what problems may arise with using metal plates for record-keeping, you gotta admit that it's a pretty remarkable "illusion."  You'd have to ascribe a brilliant I.Q. and college-level English skills to a "hick from the sticks."  Most of Joseph Smith's critics are reluctant to assign him such honors, though.  But you can't have it both ways...)

This is the power of hanging on every word in this book.  There are other little nuances we can pick up from the text besides writing errors.  Upon the discovery of the land of Zarahemla, Amaleki uses terminology similar to that which people used for traveling to and from Jerusalem.  Something I mentioned in one of my earlier posts was, one of the things that really adds to the authenticity of Nephi's account is the fact that he says "go up to Jerusalem" and "go down from Jerusalem." The city of Jerusalem sits on a high plateau.  Thus, because one has to climb a hill to get to it, and descend that same hill upon leaving, the common language for the city's comings and goings was "up" and "down."

"Welcome to sunny Zarahemla:
home of the 'Fighting Cureloms'!"

Thus, when Amaleki says in verse 13, "they came down into the land which is called the land of Zarahemla," I wonder if Zarahemla was located in a valley of some sort--or maybe it lay at the foot of a mountain: a pass through which Mosiah had traveled in order to arrive at Zarahemla.

Another thing that is interesting to note is, despite Mulek being the forefather of these people in Zarahemla (they were called "Mulekites," weren't they...?), it says in verse 14 that they "were called the people of Zarahemla."  And then, we see something that intimates that Zarahemla was in fact also a personal name, and this person, Zarahemla, was still alive at the time of Mosiah's arrival: "Now, there was great rejoicing among the people of Zarahemla; and also Zarahemla did rejoice exceedingly, because the Lord had sent the people of Mosiah with the plates of brass which contained the record of the Jews."

Okay, so let first me answer my not-as-rhetorical-as-you-think question posed in parentheses up there: the term "Mulekite" is nowhere in the Book of Mormon.  In fact, it's nowhere in the scriptures.  "Mulekite" is a term that has come about in extra-scriptural discussion (or rather, it's scriptural terminology that's nowhere in the scriptures).  A more appropriate appellation for them might be "Zarahemlites." But what I wonder is, perhaps the main body of the Mulekite people were located elsewhere, just like a portion of the Nephite population who hadn't followed Mosiah; and perhaps Zarahemla was a righteous man warned of the Lord to leave and establish a new city and a new people, just like Mosiah had been.

For we do read later on, in Helaman, of a city and land of Mulek.  What's interesting is that this city and land of Mulek is essentially a "border town" to the Nephite and Lamanite territories, appearing to straddle the point at which their two spheres of influence butt heads; and the land of Mulek trades hands between Nephite control and Lamanite control at least a few times.  Maybe the land of Mulek was the Mulekites' land of inheritance from which Zarahemla and a few others fled to establish a new city elsewhere?

The record specifically states that the people of Zarahemla rejoiced because Mosiah brought with him the plates of brass, which means they were a people who were interested in their heritage.  It seems to me, as well, that perhaps they were a people aware of the fact that they were missing something.  Amaleki tells us that by this point in time the people of Zarahemla had strayed from the faith of their fathers when it says, "and they denied the being of their Creator."  Nevertheless, this does not necessarily discount Zarahemla being a man led by the Spirit.  After all, if Heavenly Father can convince the Persian king, Cyrus, to let the Jews return to Jerusalem, I think He can convince just about anyone of anything, be they believers or atheists.

We are also told that the language of the people of Zarahemla "had become corrupted."  John L. Sorenson points out that there has to be another reason for this other than simple "drift" (i.e., the subtle changes that happen in a people's language over time).  Sorenson argues that there had not been enough time that had passed since either people had come from their common point of origin--with or without written records--for their languages to become incomprehensible to one another.  He proposes that either the Nephites or the Mulekites had switched from using Hebrew to using another language.  After all, Aramaic and Egyptian had both been common languages throughout Palestine before Lehi and Mulek fled Jerusalem.  And we know for a fact that the Nephites were using Egyptian in their written records as a sort of "short hand" to compile a ton of information on the limited space provided by the gold plates (and whatever other surfaces they were writing stuff down on).

Technically he wasn't the last Kryptonian: there
was also General Zod, Kara Zor-El, and...
Hey!  Don't call me a nerd!

Another option is, we know that the Mulekites (or Zarahemlites, or whatever you want to call them) had come in contact with the "tail end" of the Jaredite civilization.  I put "tail end" in quotes because I tend to agree with those out there who believe the Jaredites were still around and still a large part of the story throughout the Book of Mormon.  This is despite assumptions commonly drawn from the book of Ether that Coriantumr was the last of the Jaredites (like Superman was the "Last Son of Krypton" or something).  Before going deeper into that vein of thought, however, I'll finish what I started with the Mulekites' language: it could be that part of the reason their language had become "corrupted" was they had begun to assimilate the Jaredites' culture and language into their own, which accelerated the "drift" that Sorenson talks about (I suppose I should provide the reference source for Sorenson: "Images of Ancient America: Visualizing Book of Mormon Life," pg. 25 [it's not exactly the Chicago Manual Style for endnotes, but it'll do for a blog]).

After all, as Hugh Nibley and so many others have pointed out, it's from this point on in the Book of Mormon that we begin to see Jaredite names cropping up all over the place.  And what's of particular interest is that almost every place they appear, it's in conjunction with the Mulekite component of the Nephite population.

Take the name "Coriantumr," for example (our "last of the Jaredites").  In Omni 1:21, it says that he was discovered by the people of Zarahemla and "dwelt with them for the space of nine moons." And yet, in Helaman 1:15, we read of another man named Coriantumr, and we are told that "he was a descendant of Zarahemla." So there's an obvious overlap of Jaredite and Mulekite culture.

Despite being an ill-fated prophet among a splinter colony
of Nephites, Abinadi's influence would stretch beyond
the walls of King Noah's chambers and permeate the entire
Nephite nation.  What was a passing statement in Omni
1:27 would turn out to be one of the most crucial events in
the Book of Mormon.

There are other examples to which I could point right now, but I want to save the Jaredite/Mulekite discussion for another post.  The last thing I want to point out before I wrap this up is that apparently not everyone who went with Mosiah was happy with how things were in Zarahemla.  In Omni 1:27 we read about "a certain number who went up into the wilderness to return to the land of Nephi; for there was a large number who were desirous to possess the land of their inheritance."  These people also become an important part of the story: from them we get the prophets Abinadi and Alma, the miraculous stories of deliverance from Lamanite oppressors for both Alma's little community as well as Limhi's people; we also get the origin story for the antagonistic fugitive priests of wicked King Noah, who later become a very influential component within the Lamanite political structure.  It is from these former priests that we see the ignition of some of the worst conflicts between Nephites and Lamanites.

And that brings me to my last point: as one reads the Book of Mormon, it doesn't take long to notice how often the wars between Nephites and Lamanites are started by "former Nephites." These dissenters include any of those who were at one time a part of the Nephite culture or territory and rejected it, whether they were ethnically Nephite, or only politically/culturally Nephite (such as the Mulekites, Jaredites, or whatever).  I'm going to forego discussion on what may have been the political and cultural reasons for these dissensions (for now, anyway) and focus on the doctrinal lesson that can be learned from this:

One of the primary themes of the Book of Mormon is about those who have once had the truth and then rejected it; of how they often become worse than they had ever been before.  It makes this point not only with the stories of the many Nephite dissenters, but especially with the Nephites themselves!  Today, some of these former fellow flock-members (say that three times fast) become the most vehement enemies of the Church.  And along with this, the Book of Mormon consistently points out the heavy responsibility that comes with hearing, understanding, and receiving testimony of the truth.  This is why the gravest sin we hear of in the scriptures is that of rejecting the Holy Ghost.  To coin the famous phrase of Ben Parker (Spider-Man's uncle): "With great power comes great responsibility."

And likewise, with great truth comes equally great responsibility.  And when that truth is confirmed in one's heart by the power of the Holy Ghost, it is a greater, deeper knowledge than anything gained through the physical senses--one of the great lies in this life is that of trusting our physical senses over anything else; that it is those things which are felt, or perceived spiritually, that must be doubted.

I'm sure many of you may be thinking right now of the Savior's warnings about leaning "on the arm of flesh," but again, don't hop into your "I-don't-have-that-problem barcalounger" just yet: we struggle with this in the Church more than most people realize.

What I'm about to say is going to sound strange and even heretical at first, but please, stay with me and hear this out:

An over-reliance on commandments and policies can lead to a dimming of sensitivity to the Spirit.  Here's why: God's commandments are spiritual guidelines that can set up general boundaries and point us in the right direction; and Church policies are administrative guidelines to a physical organization of God's kingdom on earth (which, don't forget, His "kingdom on earth" refers to the priesthood--not the Church; "policy" and "priesthood" are not synonymous).  And yet, everyone who has ever played sports knows that simply being aware of where the lines are on the field or court does not mean they will win the game.  Good athletes do not set their eyes on the "out-of-bounds": they set their eyes on the goal--the place where they will score points that will lead to victory.  Likewise, Heavenly Father wants all of us to go by the promptings of the Spirit.  The commandments are the training wheels; living by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God (directly to your ear) on the other hand, is the "big leagues."

I'll demonstrate what I mean.  One of the youth in my ward asked my advice about whether or not she should go to an end-of-the-year party for her school's volleyball team.  The party, of course, was being held on a Sunday.  In posing her question, I could tell she wanted a solid, "black-and-white" answer to her dilemma: she wanted a policy or a commandment to solve her quandary for her.

Now, let me quickly point out that I never take lightly when someone else's kids ask me for advice.  So when she came to me, I was by no means being cavalier in my response.  That being said, I simply told her that she needed to pray about it and do what she felt was the right thing to do.  She was a little surprised.  She even said, "You're one of the youth leaders: aren't you supposed to tell me to not go to the party and to stay home and read my scriptures or something?"  I laughed and told her what my own personal, general guidelines for Sabbath-appropriate activities are, but then made it clear that these were guidelines that I had come up with for myself, over time, through prayer and experience.  (Sorry, there were a lot of italics in that paragraph, but this is an issue I'm passionate about).

Somewhat deflated, she thanked me for my advice and we moved on to something else in our conversation.  However, about a week later, I found out that she didn't go to the party.

Of course, she probably didn't stay home and read her scriptures, either, but she did tell me that her decision to forego attending the part was a decision she came up with by herself.  She would have learned nothing of communicating with her Heavenly Father had she simply looked up a set of rules in "For the Strength of Youth" and stopped there.  Instead, she learned something about receiving personal revelation regarding a dilemma in her life.  One less intermediary between her and God; one step closer to Father--one step closer to the Tree.

Of course, this is all sounding like an article out of the New Era or something you hear about in a conference talk (in fact, just a few conferences ago this was addressed in a talk by Larry Y. Wilson).  But this scenario captures perfectly this battle we all have within ourselves: a battle between comfortable boundaries that are spoon-fed to us through others--whom we set up as intermediaries between us and God--and the boundaries the Lord sets for us.  And when I speak of boundaries the Lord sets for us, I am talking about boundaries established through direct revelation from Him, received in prayer and through the constant whisperings of the Spirit.  The commandments that we read about in the scriptures and that are presented to us by Church leaders are often the least we should be doing.  But Heavenly Father does not need blind acolytes who simply ask, "How far can I go before I get in trouble?"  Rather, He needs thoughtful, inspired disciples who ask, "How can I get closer to the Spirit?"  And don't mistake Church policies for commandments: they are also not always synonymous.  Sometimes policies are established in the Church simply because someone had an idea of how to address a certain issue.  It's not exactly doctrine: it's just an idea of how to run things.

And isn't our whole religion founded on the act of someone who went directly to the Lord for guidance?  For Joseph Smith, the Bible provided the least he could do.  He took things to the next level and prayed to God directly for help.  Our entire religion is built on personal revelation.  A love of commandments more than a love of the Spirit is what led to the blindness that crucified our Savior.

Thankfully, we are moving in that direction as a Church: the teachers' manuals for Sunday School, Aaronic Priesthood, Young Women's, Seminary, and training for full-time missionary service have all moved away from a concrete outline from which a teacher stands at the head of the class and moves through bullet-points like a checklist.  I've been serving as an advisor to the Deacons Quorum in my ward for the past three years, and I can tell you the greatest lessons we've had in quorum have been the ones in which we used the manual less and the scriptures more.  Also, when I do less talking and more listening--and when the deacons do more engaging and less "enduring"--we are all edified.  During my preparation for each Sunday's lesson, when I've stepped outside the manual and knelt down and really prayed to know what I should teach my deacons (and yes, I feel to call them "my deacons" just as Helaman thought of the 2,000 stripling warriors as "his sons"), I've received real answers that have helped me address their needs and concerns.

We can learn a lot...

More than that, when I've made the Deacons Quorum President a part of this process--when I've accessed his priesthood keys to revelation for the quorum lessons--we've been able to see miracles.  It's extraordinary to see how the quorum discussion begins: it starts to move in one direction--the direction that I am thinking it should go--but then somehow we all end up exploring the material together, and then in perfect we unison move in a completely different direction!  This happened just a couple Sundays ago in which, in the middle of the lesson, I felt prompted to take our discussion in another direction.  However, the Deacons Quorum President beat me to it (and notice that it was the President who was the one to lead us in that direction).  Immediately after, the other deacons all chimed in and they each covered

...from twelve-year-old boys...

perfectly every last bullet point that had come to my mind and which I had felt we needed to discuss.

We were all inspired; the lesson was a communal experience (or, dare I say, it was an experience in communion?); we were all students and teachers at the same time.

I was very cool.

...or fourteen-year-old boys...

...or even sixteen-year-old boys.