In 3 Nephi
4:27-29, we read:
And there were many thousands who did yield
themselves up prisoners unto the Nephites, and the remainder of them were
slain. And their leader, Zemnarihah, was taken and hanged upon a tree, yea,
even upon 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, and did cry with a loud voice,
saying: May the Lord preserve his people in righteousness and in holiness of
heart, that they may cause to be felled to the earth all who shall seek to slay
them because of power and secret combinations, even as this man hath been
felled to the earth.
On Zemnarihah’s
hanging, John Tvedtnes noted the following parallels to Old World texts:
One of the Dead Sea Scrolls, the Temple Scroll (also called 11Q19) calls
for execution of a spy--one who defects to another nation and curses his own
people, or one who "betrays his people to a foreign nation or causes evil
against his people"--by hanging (Temple
Scroll [11Q19], col. LXIV, lines 6-13). The Israelites who joined themselves
to their enemies, the Midianites, in the worship of the false god Baal-Peor and
were hanged by Moses fi this description of a traitor (see Numbers 25:1-9).
The Gadianton band led by Zemnarihah
consisted of dissenters who had turned against the Nephites (see Helaman
11:24-26; 3 Nephi 1:27-28). In Gadianton's day they had fled the land to avoid
being apprehended for their treasonous acts in killing the chief judge Pahoran
and attempting to slay his successor, Helaman (see Helaman 2:11). Because of
this flight, they fit the description found in the Temple Scroll of the man who "escapes amongst the
nations." Giddianhi, Zemnarihah's predecessor as leader of the band,
admitted that his people had dissented from the Nephites (see 3 Nephi 3:9011).
It is also of interest that Giddianhi swore "with an oath" to destroy
the Nephites (3 Nephi 3:8), clearly plotting evil against the people as also
mentioned in the Temple Scroll. His
successor's execution by hanging is entirely in line with early Jewish law.
(John A. Tvedtnes, "Ancient Texts in Support of the Book of Mormon,"
in Donald W. Parry, Daniel C. Peterson, and John W. Welch, eds. Echoes and Evidences of the Book of Mormon
[Provo, Utah: Foundation for Ancient Research and Mormon Studies, 2002],
231-60, here, pp. 250-51
On the topic
of hanging in Mesoamerica, Brant Gardner wrote:
There is little information on hangings among
Mesoamericans, but a late Classic Period (A.D. 250-600) mural from Mulchic,
Yucatan, shows a man hanging by the neck from a tree. Liquid coming from the
mouth suggests that the man was alive when hanged. The mural was painted long
after the Book of Mormon’s close, but it does suggest that hanging was a known
form of execution in the New World. (Brant A. Gardner, Second Witness: Analytical and Contextual Commentary on the Book of
Mormon, Volume 5: Helaman Through Third Nephi [Salt Lake City: Greg Kofford
Books, 2007], 268)
Here is the
mural from Mulchic, Yucatan:
It is taken
from:
Beatriz
Reyes-Foster, Unraveling
Ixtab: Revisiting the "Suicide Goddess" in Maya Archaeology
