Saturday, March 7, 2020

Brant Gardner on the Mesoamerican Background of Alma 24:9-11 and the Anti-Nephi-Lehies



And behold, I also thank my God, that by opening this correspondence we have been convinced of our sins, and of the many murders which we have committed. And I also thank my God, yea, my great God, that he hath granted unto us that we might repent of these things, and also that he hath forgiven us of those our many sins and murders which we have committed, and taken away the guilt from our hearts, through the merits of his Son. And now behold, my brethren, since it has been all that we could do, (as we were the most lost of all mankind) to repent of all our sins and the many murders which we have committed, and to get God to take them away from our hearts, for it was all we could do to repent sufficiently before God that he would take away our stain. (Alma 24:9-11)

Commenting on this text and its Mesoamerican background, Brant Gardner noted:

The story of the Anti-Nephi-Lehies’ not taking up arms is enigmatic. Mormon has selected the story and specifies its “and thus we see” moral (v. 19). But Mormon’s moral is different from what the people of Anti-Nephi-Lehi identify as the purpose of the remarkable pacifist stand.

The story is clearly here because of the Anti-Nephi-Lehies’ resolute stand against taking up arms, even for self-defense; but that position contradicts all other stories of Book of Mormon conflict. These people are praised for their firm principles, but their example is never used as a model for Nephite behavior. The only others who adopt this model are other Lamanites of this same generation. Even their children will not perpetuate their parents’ covenant.

An anomaly in the story if the king’s assertion that the people of Anti-Nephi-Lehi must repent or “murders.” Murder is, by definition, an unsanctioned and intended death inflicted on another person. An accidental death is not murder, even if we were the particular instrument of the accident. War casualties are justified by all societies and are not considered murder. Furthermore, the entire people apparently accept guilt for these “murders,” even women and children. It is inconceivable that every single man, woman, and child of the Anti-Nephi-Lehies had personally committed a murder. Nevertheless, their self-condemnation for these “murders” is so great that they would rather give up their lives than fight to protect themselves. He Book of Mormon story produces more questions than answers.

However, Mesoamerican culture suggests a situation that may help illuminate this story. If we assume, as seems logical, that these former Lamanites had adopted the Preclassic Maya-like religion, which would have fit the time and the place, then they presumably also espoused the values of the Mesoamerican cult of war. Unlike European warfare, which was typically a struggle for territory, Mesoamerican warfare is a conflict between the gods. David Drew, a historian notes: “The aim of [Maya] warfare, in part, was to capture prominent individuals from an enemy state, put them to torture and finally to sacrifice them, normally by beheading” (David Drew, The Lost Chronicles of the Maya Kings [Berkley: University of California Press, 1999], 171).

For the Maya , blood was the conduit for ch’ulel, or the “inner soul or spirit” (David Freidel, Londa Schele, and Joy Parker, Maya Cosmos: Three Thousand Years on the Shaman’s Path [New York: William Morrow and Company, 1993], 201-2). Sacrificial bloodletting became both nourishment/worship for the gods and the substitute sacrifice that renews creation (Roberta H. Markman and Peter T. Markman, The Flayed God: The Mesoamerican Mythological Tradition, Sacred Texts and Images from Pre-Colombian Mexico and Central America [San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1992], 179). According to the anthropologist Dennis Tedlock, this principle of creation through sacrifice appears to have great antiquity in the Mesoamerican region: “Puz, all the way from its Mixe-Zoque (and possibly Olmec) sources down to modern Quiche, refers literally to the cutting of flesh with a knife, and it is the primary term for sacrifice. If it is read as a synecdoche in the present passage [of the Popol Vuh], it means that the creation was accomplished (in part) through sacrifice” (Dennis Tedlock, “Creation in the Popol Vuh: A Hermeneutical Approach,” in Symbol and Meaning beyond the Closed Community, edited by Gary Gossen [Albany: Institute for Mesoamerican Studies, State of  University of New York at Albany, 1986], 79). The sacrificial blood could and did not come from the kind and his queen but was augmented by the blood of captives taken in war Classic Maya inscriptions glorify the personal conquests of the kings and the humiliation and sacrifice of their captives. The Bonampak mural commonly known as “the arraignment” is a graphic depiction of the torturous bloodletting inflicted upon captives (Linda Schele and Mary Ellen Miller, The Blood of Kings: Dynast and Ritual in Maya Art [New York: George Braziller, 1986], 217).

I argue that the Anti-Nephi-Lehies had grown up with a religion that glorified warfare, bloodshed as a religious act, torture, and human sacrifice. Men, women, and children all espoused this worldview, whether or not they participated in the actual warfare or death of captives (Ruben G. Mendoza, PhD., and director of the Institute for Archaeological Science, Technology and Visualization, California State University at Monterey Bay, notes: “The women of Yaxchilan and Bonampak were clearly implicated in blood sacrifice as were the men; and this pattern holds archaeologically, ethnohistorically, and ethnographically throughout the Americas.” Email to the Aztlan mailing list, April 17, 2005, file copy in my possession). In this context, Lamoni’s brother’s declares that they must make a supreme effort “to get God to take . . . away” their sins, especially “the many murders which we have committed . . . for it was all that we could do to repent sufficiently before God that he would take away our stain” (v. 11).

Imagine how far these people had traveled in their spiritual journey. They came from a worldview that told them that it was essential to shed blood of sacrificial victims for the world to exist. They must now forsake that concept and believe that the only sacrifice needed would be that of the future Atoning Messiah. Their worldview had glorified warfare and human sacrifice. Now their worldview condemned both practices. No wonder they considered themselves “the most lost of all mankind.”

The riddle of the Anti-Nephit-Lehies’ pacifism is answered by their background. They resolve never to touch arms again, no because self-defense is wrong or inherently evil, but because, like alcoholics, they must be constantly vigilant against their disease. They are choosing to stay as far as possible from the feelings aroused by and supporting the cult of war and sacrifice. Rather than risk a return to their former taste for sacrificial blood, they choose to avoid even the very first step along that path—a radical step to protect their newly gained cleanliness from the “stain” of that former life. (Brant A. Gardner, Second Witness: Analytical and Contextual Commentary on the Book of Mormon, Volume 4: Alma [Salt Lake City: Greg Kofford Books, 2007], 353-55)