BOM Mosiah 10

Two brief observations regarding today’s reading, Mosiah 10:

1. 

“Now, the Lamanites knew nothing concerning the Lord,” says verse 11,  “nor the strength of the Lord, therefore they depended upon their own strength. Yet they were a strong people, as to the strength of men.”

The Lamanites could survive such arrogance in their conflicts with the Nephites because, throughout the narrative of the Book of Mormon, they typically outnumbered the Nephites.  Usually by a considerable margin.

By contrast, however, the Nephites lacked the luxury of superior numbers, so that, when they grew arrogant and overconfident, trusting in their own strength, they lost.  They could only prevail, by and large, with the Lord’s help.  See, for example, Mormon 3:9-11 and 4:8.  And see too, Helaman 4:13:

“And because of this their great wickedness, and their boastings in their own strength, they were left in their own strength; therefore they did not prosper, but were afflicted and smitten, and driven before the Lamanites, until they had lost possession of almost all their lands.”  (Emphasis mine.)

There is, surely, a lesson in this for us as individuals and families, and for us as a church.  We can only prosper and prevail, in a world that is largely arrayed against our beliefs and our moral principles, with the Lord’s help.

2.

In Mosiah 10:12-17, we’re given a glimpse of the “counter narrative” of Book of Mormon history that was cultivated — and that flourished — among the Lamanites.

They saw things very differently.  (Imagine the Book of Mormon story told from their perspective!)

And their view was, perhaps, not wholly implausible.  After all, Lehi had fled from Jerusalem at the cost, evidently, of his considerable fortune, and had been obliged to take refuge with his family in the wilderness.  And Laman and Lemuel were the elder brothers, supplanted by their younger brother, Nephi.  They should have been the heirs.  And the Nephites maintained a record that portrayed the Lamanites in a very negative light, having made off with the plates that Lehi had owned and that should, they thought, have gone by rights to the oldest son.

In other words, good stories can be made to look very bad by those who hate and reject them.

In which, again, there’s a lesson for Latter-day Saints to ponder.  Can a counter-narrative for Mormonism be constructed, in which Joseph Smith and other leaders of the Church — and even the general membership of the Church — will be made to look very bad?  Yes.  Of  course.  And it might even be very plausible.  (I’ve seen many such counter-narratives online over the years.)  That’s one of the reasons why “even the very elect” can be deceived and fall.