Title: 1st Nephi: a brief theological introduction
Author: Joseph Spencer
Publisher: Brigham Young University ; Neal A. Maxwell Institute
Genre: Scriptural studies
Year Published: 2020
Reviewed by Peter Wilson, June 2020.
Before reading this book, I had never thought deeply about gender relations in the Book of Mormon. I found Spencer’s writing on this subject thought-provoking, as I detail below.
Joseph Spencer writes “the Book of Mormon feels less and less readable in the twenty-first century, that is, in a culture of progressive emancipation for women” (100). Those of us who, like me, grew up with the Book of Mormon, are accustomed to the diminished role of women within that text. However, it is easy to imagine that those who do not have this background find the diminished role of women in the Book of Mormon to be jarring.
Before reading Spencer’s book, I had never realized that Lehi received commandments about gender relations that were separate from the Law of Moses. In Jacob 2—the chapter where Jacob lambasts the men for, among other things, “committing whoredoms” (v 23) and having “many wives and concubines” (v 24)—Jacob references “commandments [that] were given to our father, Lehi” about gender relations (Jacob 2:34). Jacob again mentions these commandments about that were given to Lehi in Jacob 3:5.
Behold, the Lamanites your brethren, … are more righteous than you; for they have not forgotten the commandment of the Lord, which was given unto our father – that they should have save it were one wife, and concubines they should have none, and there should not be whoredoms committed among them.
It is mysterious that Nephi never mentions these commandments about chastity and gender relations from Lehi that meant so much to Jacob. Spencer (sort of) insinuates that Nephi may have contributed to a culture characterized by problematic gender relations. Maybe these commandments about gender relations were included in the lost 116 pages of the book of Lehi?
Jacob’s sermon on chastity includes the following warning:
For behold, I, the Lord, have seen the sorrow and heard the mourning of the daughters of my people in the land of Jerusalem, and in all the lands of my people, because of the wickedness and abominations of their husbands. And I will not suffer, saith the Lord of Hosts, that the cries of the fair daughters of this people, which I have led out of the land of Jerusalem shall come up unto me against the men of my people, saith the Lord of Hosts. For they shall lead away captive the daughters of my people because of their tenderness, save I shall visit them with a sore curse, even unto destruction (Jacob 2:31 – 33).
Spencer comments on this prophecy of Jacob’s: “Jacob’s predictions come spectacularly, terribly true. Nephite men, unrepentant of their sins against women, grow worse as the Book of Mormon near its conclusion.” Here Spencer alludes to the most trigger-warning worthy verses of scripture, which appear in Moroni 9:9-10.
And notwithstanding this great abomination of the Lamanites, it doth not exceed that of our people in Moriantum. For behold, many of the daughters of the Lamanites have they taken prisoners; and after depriving them of that which was most dear and precious above all things, which is chastity and virtue—And after they had done this thing, they did murder them in a most cruel manner, torturing their bodies even unto death; and after they have done this, they devour their flesh like unto wild beasts, because of the hardness of their hearts; and they do it for a token of bravery.
It certainly seems that if one of the main messages of the Book of Mormon is that wicked gender relations lead to spiritual destruction, it should have been repeated more often or been stated more clearly. Jacob certainly sends a strong message about the need for righteous gender relations, but no other Book of Mormon prophet addresses the issue.
The famous author and anthropologist, Jared Diamond, discusses the decline of a variety of different civilizations in his book Collapse. He consistently refuses “single-cause explanations” of collapse. For example, Diamond refuses to place the blame of the Rwandan genocide solely on ethnic hatred or extreme levels of population density, instead saying that these were among the factors of the genocide rather than sole factors (328).
We may consider something similar about the spiritual collapse of the Book of Mormon: poor treatment of women was not the only reason why the Nephite civilization collectively lost their spiritual soul, but it contributed to their problem.
Spencer seems to suggest that the Nephite nation never internalized Jacob’s message about gender relations and the destruction of the Nephite nation is a fulfillment of Jacob’s prophetic warning in Jacob 2. In Jacob’s sermon, Jacob compares Nephite gender relations to Lamanite gender relations and says that Lamanites are in a better place than the Nephites spiritually because the Lamanites’ marriages are characterized by reciprocal love: “their husbands love their wives and their wives love their husbands” (vs 7).
Spencer sees within the Book of Mormon some evidence that Lamanite women enjoyed a more privileged position in society than Nephite women did. King Lamoni’s wife in Alma 19 is called a “queen” and she exercises some political power as evidenced by her sending for Ammon. Similarly, the queen of the Lamanites in Alma 47 gives and sends messages to Amalickiah and hears the testimony of witnesses. In contrast, no Nephite queens (or judges) are ever mentioned. No Nephite woman is ever named or ever has a speaking part in the Book of Mormon, while there are three Lamanite women that have speaking parts: King Lamoni’s wife, Abish, and the Queen of the Lamanites in Alma 47. One other Lamanite woman, Isabel, is identified by name (Alma 39:3).
What do we make of the fact that Nephite women appear in scripture far less often than Lamanite women, women in the New Testament, or women in the Old Testament?
The people of King Noah repeat the sins of the Nephites that Jacob preached against. King Noah and his priests practice polygamy, have concubines, and employ harlots (see Mosiah 11:4, 14). Later, King Noah literally commands his people (or at least his men) to abandon their wives and flee from the Lamanites. In the aftermath of that story, the priests of Noah kidnap Lamanite women. In Ammonihah, women were victims of targeted violence (Alma 14). Given where Nephite society ended up, it is reasonable to wonder if these sins that the people of Ammonihah, the people of King Noah, and the people during the time of Jacob had problems with were continuing problems in Nephite society and contributed to the demise (both spiritual and physical) of their civilization.