“His blood would come upon us for vengeance…” (Alma 1.13)
Recently I was going through Brant Gardner’s insightful commentary on the Book of Mormon and came across some of the ideas associated with Nehor, his crimes, and blood vengeance in the Book of Mormon. I found these ideas and Gardner’s astute connections to be worthy of note.
Gardner weaves his connections of Nehor’s crimes, Mesoamerican traditions, and the concept of blood vengeance discussed by several prophets in the Book of Mormon in the following commentary:
Nehor’s priestcraft had the potential of undermining Zarahemla’s entire social structure, fomenting dissension and schism. Such dissensions had erupted into the civil war in Benjamin’s time, motivating many to leave and join with the Lamanites (Words of Mormon 1.15-16). Thus, Alma is taking the long view- that Nehor’s religion was a more dangerous crime than murdering one man in the heat of passion.
Alma 1.13-14
13 And thou hast shed the blood of a righteous man, yea, a man who has done much good among this people; and were we to spare thee his blood would come upon us for vengeance.
14 Therefore thou art condemned to die, according to the law which has been given us by Mosiah, our last king; and it has been acknowledged by this people; therefore this people must abide by the law.
After hearing Nehor’s defense, Alma identified his crimes (first priestcraft, then murder), and immediately pronounced sentence upon him. He specifically invoked “the law which has been given us by Mosiah.”
History: An interesting concept is that the first reason for judgment is not the law, but blood vengeance (Alma 1.13). This concept is a traditional one:
Jacob: O, my beloved brethren, remember my words. Behold, I take off my garments, and I shake them before you; I pray the God of my salvation that he view me with his all-searching eye; wherefore, ye shall know at the last day, when all men shall be judged of their works, that the God of Israel did witness that I shook your iniquities from my soul, and that I stand with brightness before him, and am rid of your blood. (2 Nephi 9.44)
Benjamin: Therefore, as I said unto you that I had served you, walking with a clear conscience before God, even so I at this time have caused that ye should assemble yourselves together, that I might be found blameless, and that your blood should not come upon me, when I shall stand to be judged of God of the things whereof he hath commanded me concerning you.
I say unto you that I have caused that ye should assemble yourselves together that I might rid my garments of your blood, at this period of time when I am about to go down to my grave, that I might go down in peace, and my immortal spirit may join the choirs above in singing the praises of a just God. (Mosiah 2.27-28)
Abinadi: Yea, and I will suffer even until death, and I will not recall my words, and they shall stand as a testimony against you. And if ye slay me ye will shed innocent blood, and this shall also stand as a testimony against you at the last day.
For each of these men, blood has a meaning and a “voice” unrelated to modern scientific views. It is a religious concept that apparently underlies the particulars of Mosiah’s law. Although the new Nephite society experienced a practical separation between politics and religion, that bond was not severed entirely. Indeed, it would have been conceptually impossible to do so, since religion defined the way people understood the world. It was their science. In this particular case, blood spilled by murder had a power to call down vengeance if spilling innocent blood was not compensated for.
The concept of the vitality and voice of blood also appears in the Old Testament. When Cain killed Abel, the Lord queried: “What hast thou done? The voice of by brother’s blood crieth unto me from the ground” (Genesis 4.10). The Book of Mormon concept certainly was part of the Lehites’ Jewish background, but it must have been reinforced by the concept of blook extant in Mesoamerican cultures. Even more strongly than in the Bible, Mesoamerica assigned blood a powerful significance. Linda Schele (epigrapher) and Mary Ellen Miller (professor of art history) describe the Mayan understanding of the sacred nature of blood:
The blood… refers directly to several aspects of Maya life and to Maya beliefs about their world and their kings. Blood was the mortar of ancient Maya ritual life. The Maya let blood on every important occasion in the life of the individual and in the life of the community. It was the substance offered by kings and other nobility to seal ceremonial events. Even more important, the purpose of art was to document the bloodlines of Classic Maya kings. Kingshop normally passed from father to son: descent and bloodlines dominated the dertmination of legitimate rule. For this reason, records of parents and ancestors transferring power to their children consume a large part of Maya pictorial imagery and writing. After the birth of an heir, the king performed a blood sacrifice, drawing his own substance as an offering to his ancestors. Human sacrifice, offered to sanctify the installation of a king in office, was in some cases recorded as a vital part of accession imagery. Among the most common events recorded on Maya monuments are war and capture. Although Maya warfare fulfilled several needs, the primary ritual role was to proved the state sacrificial victims, whose blood was then drawn and offered to the gods. At death, Maya kings were placed in richly furnished tombs that often displayed the imagery of the watery Underworld, their walls painted the color of blood or in blood symbols. In the Maya view, none of these behaviors was bizarre or exotic but necessary to sustain the world. (Linda Schele and Mary Ellen Miller, The Blood of Kings: Dynasty and Ritual in Maya Art (New York: George Braziller, 1986), p. 14-15)
In addition to the significance of this later culture attached to blood, the Maya had another interesting parallel to Book of Mormon blood “speaking” from the ground. Freidel, Schele, and Parker report a modern Maya belief, which probably had ancient antecedents:
The Zinacanteco Maya also believe that the blood talks; in this context, however, it is the blood of the patient. A skilled shaman diagnoses soul sickness by taking the patient’s pulse at the wrist and elbow. Sometimes patients have lost a piece of their soul (ch’ulel), or their animal spirit companion is wandering lost outside the ancestral corral underneath the mountain. Even Evon Vogt, the great ethnographer of the Zinacanteco Maya, is not sure exactly what is speaking to the shaman through the blood, but he has observed that ch’ulel, the “inner soul or spirit” of an individual abides in that blood, and perhaps it is that soul that speaks. (David Freidel, Linda Schele, and Joy Parker, Maya Cosmos: Three Thousand Years on the Shaman’s Path (New York: William Morrow and Company, 1993), p. 201-202)
This combination of the Mesoamerican concept and the inherited Middle Eastern tradition lends texture to Alma’s ruling. Underlying the law which required punishment for murder was a powerful belief in the “voice” of Gideon’s blood. (Brant Gardner, Second Witness: Analytical and Contextual Commentary on the Book of Mormon: Volume 4, Alma, p. 28-29)