New Order Mormon

[jhansen8]

One thing that has always bothered me about the Nephi returning to Jerusalem story. After he cuts off Laban's head he then puts on his clothes to fool everyone into thinking he's Laban. Doesn't cutting off someone's head leave their clothes soaked with blood? And if it does why does no one notice that "Laban" is walking around with blood all over himself? Just curious to know what everyone else thinks.

[Schultz]

[Dathon]

That one bothered me too when I finally stopped to think about it. Before then I just went along with the fast moving plot of the story. I was actually looking at urban legends and bad physics in movies when I finally thought about anachronisms, discontinuities and inconsistencies in scripture. Kuhn might have been right because I had a paradigm shift.

When I mentioned it to a TBM friend, they suggested that G-d could staunch the bleeding, make the blood not stain or make the clothes stain resistant. I suggested it might have been just as easy for G-d to make Laban forget about ever having the plates or changing his mind to give them to Nephi and go along with the rest of the expedition. AMAZING! Further evidence to me that people don't think critically about a number of things and are predisposed to believe what they learned as children or have a vested interest in believing for social acceptance.
_________________
"If God exists and His/Her best efforts for our happiness can be that easily thwarted by idiot humans, I am inclined to feel sympathetic at the frustration God would feel." --llave de látigo de Clay

[Steve-M]

That one bothered me my whole TBM life!

If Laban was drunk and passed out, it seems that Nephi could have just as easily disrobed him without any resistance, thus allowing him to impersonate Laban and get the plates while avoiding the shedding of blood.

Funny that Sunday School classes never seem to realize that.

[Schultz]

I actually had a seminary teacher explain that they were probably on some slope, and Nephi laid Laban's body out so his head (umm, bloody stump) would be down hill and the blood would flow away from his clothes.

Of course, JS really hit is dramatic peak with Shiz and Coriantumr. If JS where alive today I'm sure he would be walking a picket line in front of Paramount Studios...
_________________
Men think epilepsy divine, merely because they do not understand it. But if they called everything devine which they do not understand, why, there would be no end of devine things.
-- Hippocrates

[Dathon]

[roughrider1901]

Since Laban was passed out, maybe Nephi just removed Laban's clothes before decapitating him!?! Sounds a little kinky, though.

Regardless, shouldn't a naked headless body have aroused someone's suspicion a little faster than it did? I mean just how often does a rich city father like Laban go off and get passed-out drunk without anyone to help him home?

[roughrider1901]

Oh yes, I just remembered the depiction of this scene in the Book of Mormon movie. Even my TBM wife bust out laughing because the blood just kind of squirts up from below the camera in a stream.

Add to that the way Nephi pulls a professional wrestling move to take out the guard at Laban's house and this was one freaking hilarious movie! It should be a cult classic just because of how bad it was!

[alas]

That story always bothered me.

#1 I don't believe the God I worship would tell Nephi to kill him. Or that he would tell Abraham to kill his son, for that matter.

#2 I was always of the opinion that if Laban was that drunk, it would have been much smarter and more moral for Nephi to have just taken his clothing off and gotten the plates that way.

#3 And why would a rich man like that be out without his servants to make sure he gets home. It just isn't socially acceptable to sleep in the gutter, then or now and rich men always take their desingated driver with them to make sure they make it home after a good drinking binge.

#4 wouldn't the servants have expected him to come home drunk as usual, so Nephi shows up with bloody ill fitting clothing and sober, and the servants fall for it??

#5 the servant who went with him would have gotten very suspicious long before leaving the gates of the city. People just don't walk around with valuables like that, and especially don't leave the relative safty of the city at night

that whole story had more loopholes than a B-grade movie.
_________________

[MIBK]

Slightly off topic, but there used to be a poster on the old foyer who had the screen name of "Head of Laban" and his avatar was a disembodied head floating around. That would crack me up to no end every time I saw it.

[GreedyMonkey]

[fh451]

[Josephine]

Yeah. I remember my husband and I laughing about this a few years back (before our NOM'ness). We tried to figure out how that was possible because it is clear that he killed him, then took of his clothes and I am sure they would be a mess!

There was also one we laughed about where a man's head is cut off as he is gasping for air or struggling or something....How do you gasp when your head is off? I can't remember where that one was or if it was the same story.

JS should have thought harder about those ones.

[Nom de Cypher]

[Leukarktos]

Yes, I've always thought it would be rather icky to don blood-soaked clothing after killing Laban, too. My real problem, however, is with the idea of murdering an unconscious, and therefore helpless, man and calling the act righteous. Nephi's excuse that it was necessary in order to preserve the scriptures and save future generations rings hollow after his faith-promoting sermon to his brothers that the Lord could defeat Laban's 50, if necessary. Well, if the Lord can defeat 50 people in battle, surely He can help Nephi and his brothers obtain and sneak off with the plates of brass without killing Laban while Laban is passed out drunk! And the fact that Nephi practically quotes Caiaphas (or is it the other way around?) really creeps me out.

No, this is just the "founding murder" of Nephite society, like so many others throughout history.

Leuk