Saturday, May 30, 2020

Nephi's Slaying of Laban in light of 11Q19

In the text from Qumran 11Q19 (alt. 11QTa), we read the following in column LXI:

 

7 . . . If a false witness should stand up against a man to accuse him 8 of wrongdoing, the two men between whom there is /the litigation/ shall stand before me, and before the priests and the levites, and before 9 the judges who will be there on those days; and the judges shall investigate. And if it happens that a witness has given falsely testimony, falsely 10 accusing his brother, then you shall do to him so as he intended to do to his brother; thus shall you eradicate the evil from the your midst. 11 The rest shall hear it and fear and not dare to do a similar bad thing /again/ in your midst. Not 12 shall your eye take pity on him; life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot. (The Dead Sea Scrolls Study Edition, eds. Florentino García Martínez and Eibert J.C. Tigchelaar [Leiden: Brill, 1997], 1283, 1285)

 

As we read in a commentary on this passage:

 

This text, which reproduces the law of testimony in Deut 19:15-21, addresses the case of a malicious witness (עַד חָמָס), who deliberately makes a false declaration against the accused (לַעֲנוֹת בּוֹ סָרָה) before the high court at the sanctuary (לְפָנַי, “before me”). When the lie is uncovered during the investigation of the court, the false witness is to receive the punishment that his testimony was intended to bring upon the accused. (David W. Chapman and Eckhard J. Schnabel, The Trial and Crucifixion of Jesus: Texts and Commentary [Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson, 2019], 39, emphasis added)

 

One is reminded of how Laban (falsely) accused Nephi of being, not a thief, but a robber (1 Nephi 3:13). Why is this significant? In the Ancient Near East, being a thief was not a capital offense, but a robber was (for a fuller discussion, see John W. Welch, Theft and Robbery in the Book of Mormon and Ancient Near Eastern Law). Nephi, in slaying Laban at the command of the Spirit, can be viewed as distributing divine justice, as if Laban was found guilty of this false witness in a court of law, he would probably have been executed.