Alma 1:15 and Nehor's "Ignominious Death"

Alma 1:15, speaking of the execution of Nehor, reads thusly:

And it came to pass that they took him; and his name was Nehor; and they carried him upon the top of the hill Manti, and there he was caused, or rather did acknowledge, between the heavens and the earth, that what he had taught to the people was contrary to the word of God; and there he suffered an ignominious death. (Alma 1:15)

Commenting on this passage and how it supports their thesis that the Book of Mormon is, in part, based on the 19^th century world of upper New York state that he lived in, the Tanners wrote:

In 1827 a man by the name of Jesse Strang was hung for a murder which he had committed in Albany, N.Y. The people in New York were very upset over the murder, and a crowd estimated at “thirty thousand persons” witnessed and hanging. At least five articles were printed concerning this affair in the Wayne Sentinel. We know that the Smith family was familiar with this newspaper, for on August 11, 1826, Joseph Smith’s father was listed as a delinquent subscriber. Almost two years before Joseph Smith’s father had run an advertisement in this paper (see A New Witness For Christ in America, Vol. 1, page 16).

In the Book of Mormon we find a story concerning a wicked man named Nehor (see Alma 1:2-15). This story is very similar to the story of Jesse Strang. Below is a list of parallels:

1. Both Strang and Nehor committed a murder.

2. In both cases the victim was a righteous man.

3. Neither Strang nor Nehor held to orthodox religious beliefs nor seemed to fear eternal punishment.

4. Both appeared before a very religious judge.

5. Both Strang and Nehor were found guilty and were sentenced to death.

6. Both were taken to the place of execution and acknowledged their sin.

7. Both accounts use the expression “ignominious death.”

In the Wayne Sentinel we read:

 . . . he was about to suffer a painful and ignominious death. (Wayne Sentinel, August 31, 1827)

In the Book of Mormon we read:

. . . he suffered an ignominious death. (Alma 1:15)

Although the word “ignominy” is found in Proverbs 18:3, the word “ignominious” is not found in the King James version of the Bible. It is interesting to note that the only place it appears in the Book of Mormon is in connection with the execution of Nehor. Because of the similarity of the two accounts, we feel that the story of Nehor in the Book of Mormon. (Jerald and Sandra Tanner, Mormonism: Shadow or Reality? [5^th ed.; Salt Lake City: Utah Lighthouse Ministry, 1987 2008], 86, emphasis in original)

In his review of Mormonism: Shadow or Reality? Matthew P. Roper wrote the following about Nehor and his "ignominious death" and the parallelomania they are engaging in (something which permeates much of their works):

The Tanners refer to a newspaper article which mentions the public hanging of a murderer named Strang, who is described as suffering an “ignominious” death (pp. 85-86). (Would not death by hanging be considered “ignominious” in any age?) They compare him with Nehor. However, this kind of grab-bag methodology clearly has its limitations. It might be fun for the Tanners, but it leaves them powerless to explain many of the more subtle complexities in the Book of Mormon. The case of the Gadianton Zemnarihah is an excellent example. After his capture, he is “hanged upon a tree, yea even on the top thereof until he was dead. And when they had hanged him until he was dead they did fell the tree to the earth” (3 Nephi 4:28). While hanging was certainly a common form of ignominious death in the nineteenth century, where in Jacksonian America do you find the practice of cutting down the “hanging tree”? Such practices seem odd to us today, but they would make good sense for an Israelite. Ancient tradition required that the tree upon which a criminal was hung be chopped down so that it would not serve as a reminder of the dead criminal. The tree was sometimes even buried with the body. In fact, the Talmud actually recommended that a dead and detached tree be used for hanging so that a live tree did not have to be felled. (Welch, ed., Reexploring the Book of Mormon, 250-52.)

Commenting on Early Modern English and “ignominious death” as used in the Book of Mormon:

The Book of Mormon has a single use of the adjective ignominious:

Alma 1:15
and it came to pass that they took him
— and his name was Nehor—
and they carried him up to the top of the hill Manti . . .
and there he suffered an ignominious death

Some have declared that the Book of Mormon’s use of the phrase “ignominious death” dates from Joseph Smith’s time, but the Oxford English Dictionary from its very first citation under ignominious shows that this is wrong:

1526, William Bonde, The Pilgrimage of Perfection
the ignominious and shameful death of the cross

Of course, the phrase ranges from Early Modern English up into modern English, as in these examples, the first taken from Early English Books Online and the second from Google Books:

1560, John Knox, An Answer to a Great Number of Blasphemous Cavilations
Written by an Anabaptist
why he did not provide man’s redemption by some other means
than by the cruel and ignominious death of his own Son.

1824, The Cincinnati Literary Gazette
and in that nature living a laborious life and suffering an ignominious death (Royal Skousen, The History of the Text of the Book of Mormon, Part 3: The Nature of the Original Language [Provo, Utah: The Foundation for Ancient Research and Mormon Studies/Brigham Young University Studies, 2018], 369)

On the legal background of Nehor’s trial, not execution merely, see:

John W. Welch, The Trial of Nehor

It should be clear that the parallelomania and superficial analysis of the Book of Mormon by the critics notwithstanding, the Book of Mormon is not a clumsy hoax but is a much more complex, sophisicated text than many give it credit for.