Review
———
Title: Samuel the Lamanite: That Ye Might Believe
Editor: Charles Swift
Publisher: The Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University; Deseret Book
Genre: Interdisciplinary Scholarship
Year Published: 2021
Number of Pages: 410
Binding: Hardback
ISBN: 978-1950304103
Price: $27.99
Reviewed by Dan Call for the Association for Mormon Letters
History has a funny way of pushing us to reduce whole lives and movements to a single slogan or image. We haven’t done too well with resisting this tendency in church, either. Perhaps we acquiesce for the benefit of Seminary students or our own short attention spans, but Spencer W. Kimball ends up becoming the “lengthen your stride” prophet, Lorenzo Snow, the “windows of heaven” prophet, David O. McKay, the great modernizer. We do it with the ancient prophets, too, and as Samuel the Lamanite: That Ye Might Believe contends, to our tremendous detriment. When I hear the words “Samuel the Lamanite,” I reflexively pull up the mental image of Friberg’s lonely, barely detailed prophet standing atop the walls of Zarahemla. The perspective we are given is as though we are among the Nephites, he cries out repentance but is distant, unknowable, and about to disappear from out of the Book of Mormon’s pages. From my youth, this moment, this telling of Samuel’s story persuaded me that protection comes to those on the Lord’s errand. From an already short narrative of just a few pages, we often focus on a few lines of dramatic text that captures this prophet not by what he taught or did or stood for but by what someone else couldn’t do to him.
Jean Baudrillard’s once quipped that “the image takes the idea hostage.” We have allowed Samuel to be taken as a sort of action hero, but the collection of essays assembled by Charles Swift in Samuel the Lamanite wrestles him back into the realm of a prophet. The guiding approach is to look at him through four lenses: the prophetic, the pedagogical, the cultural-theological, and the literary. Each contributor examines one of these facets of his contribution to the Book of Mormon, ultimately giving us a portrait of a man whose teachings deserve more study by all.
Take Jan J. Martin’s account, for example, on the role that Nephite bias plays in this story, pointing out that this “…is a story about prejudice before it is a story about prophecy” (p. 128). She goes on to explore the centuries-old formation of anti-Lamanite sentiments, what we might learn from Samuel’s responses to it, the lasting damage it may have caused to the messenger, and the evolving attitudes within the narrative surrounding the use of “Lamanite” as an identifier. Considering the abundance of oppression that God’s children the world over are clamoring to name and dismantle, the story of Samuel takes new stature in our affirmation that the Book of Mormon was written for our day.
As a teacher, I appreciated Ryan Sharp’s contribution “’Was it not so?’ Remembering the Contributions of “Samuel the Lamanite,” in which he proposes an array of novel ideas for approaching this story in the classroom. Leaning into a pedagogy that emulates Samuel’s innovative approach, we are challenged to consider what effect it might have on students if we were to frame this story in the way the resurrected Christ did during his visit to the Americas.
With heightened respect for the details, even the inanimate players in this story take on new significance. The city walls come into focus as physical markers of the us/them dyad, and Samuel’s stance upon them suddenly seems like more than just the point from which he is most likely to be heard – the outsider prophet, occupying a liminal space, gives the Nephites a powerful visual that many cherished concepts about the boundaries of their world are about to be shattered, and that prophecy can come from the least expected places. Once again, if we are to take the Book of Mormon seriously, we likewise ought to ask ourselves which sacred dyads we 21st-century readers take for granted and prepare our hearts to receive truth from voices we once thought unlikely.
And most importantly, as Frank F. Judd Jr. highlights, since any prophet’s principal mission is to testify of Christ, Samuel’s prophecies about the promised Messiah’s birth and death tower as the most significant and specific revelation his audience had received since the founding of their civilization. The signs given are so specific and even time-bound as to cast out any doubt that this man spoke as a prophet, possibly on par with John the Baptist.
Each time I tried to plow onward through this text, hopeful to keep up a brisk reading pace, I was slowed down by the thoughtfulness of these authors who enticed me to see the story with new eyes. Daniel Becerra considers what Samuel’s sermon reveals about God’s intentions for allowing wealth, as well as the consequences of its abuse. Charles Swift offers a thrilling insight on how to read this story as the culmination of a literary theme that Mormon may have intended for us to experience. Nicholas J. Frederick makes a compelling case that these chapters of Helaman actually function as a divinely modified jeremiad.
As a believing reader who feels affinity with the Lamanites, and who has always longed for more insight into their lives, culture, history, and contributions to scripture, the overall effect of this book was invigorating. Moments after I finished it, my phone rang and I caught myself secretly hoping that it was a church leader with a speaking assignment for me and that I was about to have a platform of my own from which to share some of these insights. When we allow him to live outside the moment when the arrows flew by him, Samuel the Lamanite’s contribution to scripture becomes clearer and brighter.