In his review of Wesley P. Walters' book, The Use of the Old Testament in the Book of Mormon (1990), John Tvedtnes wrote the following about Book of Mormon “judges”:
Walters’s second point is that Joseph Smith, like the King James translators, misunderstood the nature of the Hebrew word shophet, rendered “judge.” It did not denote one who “judges” (though this may be one of the minor duties of the Israelite judges), but one who governs. He does not indicate his evidence for this, but it comes principally from the Canaanite/ Phoenician usage of the word to denote rulers, along with an understanding of the major activities of the Israelite judges.
But it is Walters, not the Book of Mormon, who has misunderstood. The judges replaced the Nephite king, so the phrase “to judge this people” obviously meant more than sitting in a court of law (Mosiah 29:11-13, 28-29). “They did appoint judges to rule over them, or to judge them according to the law” (Mosiah 29:41; cf. Alma 4:17). The judge is often called “governor.” Alma, as “the chief judge and the governor of the people of Nephi” led the army against the Amlicite insurgents (Alma 2:16). Other Nephite chief judges, such as Pahoran and Lachoneus, were also involved in military affairs, as were their ancient Israelite counterparts. For Walters to ignore these facts is unpardonable in what purports to be a scholarly thesis—but expected in a work that is principally designed to denigrate the Book of Mormon.
Timothy Willis in his scholarly volume on Elders-Laws in the book of Deuteronomy wrote the following about “judges” which has strong parallels to the Book of Mormon and Tvedtnes’ remarks quoted above:
Other texts support the possibility of royal involvement in judicial appointments (Exod 18:13-27; Deut 1:9-18; and 2 Chr 19:4-11). In each text, the judicial official chosen are also traditional leaders in the nation’s kinship-based structure. Those whom Moses chooses are described as “leading men of your tribes” in Deut 1:15 (cp. Exo 18:21, 25), and among those appointed by Jehoshaphat in Jerusalem are “heads of families of Israel” (2 Chr 19:8). The presence of priests among the ranks of judicial officials in the latter (as in Deuteronomy) is also not unexpected, based on the examples of other societies . . . The cases which mention other functionaries and not elders vary in terms of the extent and nature of the jurisdiction involved; but they can easily be seen as cases which naturally require the services of someone other than city elders. The cases brought before “the Levitical priests and the judges” in Deut 17:8-13 are described as “any case within your towns” (lit. ‘gates’) which is too difficult for you.” This presumes that someone else within a town would have heard the case first and found it too difficult to resolve. That could have been local elders. The resolution of the cases considered in Deut 19:15-21 requires an investigation “before the Lord, before the priests and judges.” It would make sense to assume that such cases had been heard but left unresolved by local adjudicators, that they too are cases “too difficult for you.”
This leaves two laws to be considered—Deut 16:18-20 and 25:1-3. Both speak of “judges” hearing cases, but both are ambiguous on one crucial point: whether these judges constitute the very lowest level of adjudication, or are they there, as in Deut 17:8-13, to resolve cases that are “too difficult” for city elders to resolve. We have already shown that the presence of judges in other societies of the ancient Near East does not preclude the existence of additional local adjudicators such as elders. More specifically, the law codes of Mesopotamia contain laws which mention only judges, yet we know from other documents that judges are not the only adjudicators; they do not possess a “polemical silence” against other adjudicators. (Timothy M. Willis, The Elders of the City: A Study of the Elders-Laws in Deuteronomy [Society of Biblical Literature Monograph Series 55; Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature, 2001], 84, 85-6)
