Book of Mormon Studies Podcast: Alma 30-63 Text with John Welch

Rosalynde Welch: Welch: Hello and welcome to another episode of the Maxwell Institute's Book of Mormon Studies podcast. My name is Rosalynde Welch. I'm the host of the podcast and I am absolutely delighted today to be joined by a very, very special guest. All of my guests are special, but this one is very special. Today we're joined by Dr. John W. Welch. He often goes by Jack Welch. Dr. Welch is a name that our listeners have heard many times. He's a very important scholar of Book of Mormon Studies, in fact an architect of the contemporary field of Book of Mormon Studies. He's much more than that. He is also an emeritus professor of law at Brigham Young University where he spent 40 years on the faculty here. During that time he founded the organization FARMS, Foundation for Ancient Research in Mormon Studies, which published pioneering scholarship on the literary and poetic devices in the Book of Mormon. He also was the editor of BYU Studies for many years during that time, where among many other things, he published articles on the Book of Mormon. These days, Jack Welch spends a lot of his time and energy over at Book of Mormon Central. He himself is the co-host of a podcast over at Book of Mormon Central. It's called Book of Mormon Matters, and he co-hosts that with Lynn Wilson. He is also the author of a new reference book on the Book of Mormon. It's titled Inspirations and Insights from the Book of Mormon, A Come Follow Me Commentary, that was published last year by Covenant Publications. Jack Welch, thank you.

John (Jack Welch:) Welch: And thank you, thank you, Rosalynde. And it's so good to be here. And I just happened to bring this book. So if people want to take a look at it, we'll refer to it. But it is a handy guide that goes through the lessons as you are doing, just one a week. And it's been a lot of fun to do. But more fun to be here with you today. And wow, what a great opportunity for us to share more than just our last name, huh?

Rosalynde Welch:

That's right. That's right. Some listeners may wonder, I'm Rosalind Welch, you're Jack Welch. Indeed, we are related. Jack Welch is my father-in-law, so I can attest he is a wonderful scholar. He's also a wonderful grandfather and a wonderful father. It's so fun that we share this passion and this love for the Book of Mormon. And I've really, really been looking forward to having this conversation with you here today.

Jack Welch:

Well, thank you.

Rosalynde Welch:

We are indeed today talking about Alma 30 through 63, the second half of the Book of Alma. The Book of Alma is the longest book in the Book of Mormon. And we'll talk a little later about why that might be the case. So today we've split it in half. We're just focusing on the second half. So we're going to start off by talking about any important context that can help us better understand what's about to happen. This is a very complex part of the Book of Mormon. It can be hard to keep everything straight. What context will help us, Jack Welch to better understand Alma 30 through 63?

Jack Welch:

You basically have some fundamental divisions in the, the land of Zarahemla, and you have these polarities pairing off against each other for various reasons. Some of the debates are going to be couched in terms of speeches and political activity. Others will come to outright warfare. But at the root of it all is a question of whether we're going to have a society that is, you might say, vertical with Jesus Christ at the top, His prophets on down, and then different church organizations and people and populations who are

more or less in a, I wouldn't say class structure, because I don't think there are real classes here in a modern sense, but there are different functions and different types of organizations and family groups and so on.

Will we have judges or will we not? And if the judges are going to be there, how will they be elected or will they represent the people? And it basically comes down to a theological difference because if you accept Jesus Christ as the Lord and the King, and we are obviously his servants, you are then married to a vertical mentality. And if you reject God and others as Nahor and Korihor and others do, then you're going to be lobbying for a much more egalitarian type of structure.

Rosalynde Welch:

That is so interesting. That's really, really helpful to think about sort of two different directions that Nephite society might take, right? One is well-ordered and headed at the top by Jesus Christ, who, and then human leaders rule justly and in accordance with God's law. Or on the contrary, you have a kind of chaotic, ever-dividing, ever-spreading, and mutating horizontal human society.

It seems like often, the fundamental division between Lamanite and Nephite is fed by an internal fracturing within Nephite society itself, whether that be over the question of judges versus kings, or whether it be Nephite dissenters who defect over to the Lamanites. It's the kind of division and disorder within Nephite society itself that feeds this larger antagonism between Nephites and Lamanites that determines the overall structure and context for these chapters.

Jack Welch:

That's right, well said. It is a brilliantly organized text. Let me give the whole book of Alma. We are only dealing, so we say, with Alma 30 to 63 today, but you can't talk about the second half of the book without also the first half of the book.

Rosalynde Welch:

Of course not, yeah.

Jack Welch:

And a lot of the problems that are going to result in military conflict in the second part of the book are grounded in things that happen in the first part of the book. So for example, these Ammonites, the converts that Ammon will win and bring over to the land of Jershon, where we read about them in the previous episodes. Anytime you then convert people and take them away from a larger population. The Lamanites weren't real happy losing all those workers and wondering what else will happen. Who's going to defect from their regime? And so there is an attack on the land of Jershan. And then when Alma and Amulek and his companions convert the Zoramite poor, that they are then transplanted over to the land of Jershon. And the Ammonites are brought to Zarahemla because they can't fight because of their covenant not to go to battle. And so the poor Ammonites, the poor Zoramites from Antionum are now sitting ducks. And it's the Zoramites led by their disgruntled leaders who now go form an alliance with the Lamanites, they have a common interest. And after all, they then will, you know… And then together we will see that playing out all the way to the end, where some of these leaders actually turn out to be Zoramites who are now in charge of Lamanite forces. Anyway, that's just one example of how the overall structure of the problems really have to be seen together.

Rosalynde Welch:

Well, that is fascinating. I just want to underscore what you said, because it's something I had never noticed before, that you see the same mechanism play out twice, first with the people of Ammon who leave the Lamanites, which then provokes this kind of war of revenge, trying to recover them. And it's the very same dynamic that happens with the Zoramites, where the converted Zoramite poor are brought over into Nephite territories. And that provokes then the Zoramites to attack, the first war that we see here in this, in the scripture block. So it's really fascinating how there's a kind of parallel historical occurrence that sets up the social circumstances between Nephites and Lamanites that are gonna determine the following two Amalekiahite wars that we see play out through the rest of the Book of Alma.

Jack Welch:

That's right. And so this principle of things reappearing in the second half, I did count up the number of pages in the 1830 edition of the Book of Mormon and wanted to know, so what's the middle of the Book of Alma? And it's Alma chapters 32, 33, and 34, with a little spillover into Alma's conversion in Alma 36. And so those chapters, which of course are the sermons, the preaching, the missionary messages given by Alma and Amulek, focusing on Jesus Christ and praying to Jesus Christ, and the Atonement and the Infinite Atonement that Amulek so famously talks about. Interesting that then ends up being the middle of this book.

Rosalynde Welch:

It's so interesting to see the kind of large scale chiastic structure here in the Book of Alma. We can see that it's a beautifully designed, very deliberately composed structure here in the Book of Alma. And it's helpful to step back to see these large scale patterns. If we're always focused in at the level of the chapter and the verse, it can be hard to see how large blocks of text are put together so carefully.

But that raises another question, which is why the Book of Alma might be so very long. It's basically kind of double the length of the Book of Mosiah. Why, Jack Welch:, do you think it might be such a long Book of Scripture?

Jack Welch:

Well, there are probably lots of answers to that question. There may just be a personal choice by Mormon who really likes war. I mean, he does as a younger man. I think by the end he's had enough of it, but it is important, I think, and it's his wheelhouse. And so he, I think, enjoys it. And he also wants to inform people about the history of these people and how narrowly they came from not having anybody there to meet Jesus Christ when he comes, because it could have all fallen apart. So I think he understands the importance of this, besides just the personal military dimension. And by the way, the military strategy and details that are presented here take a while to explain. You can’t really understand a complex multi-faceted two-front war without some detail. And so it just does take time. It's realistic. But beyond that, I think there are certain other threads that run through this book. One of them is the reign of the judges. And we start with the first year of the reign of judges, and we will end with the 39th year of the reign of judges. So it's maybe 40 years in the wilderness here.

But one of the big questions that I think is at stake here is will the reign of judges survive? And, you know, Alma, when the book begins, was not only the chief judge, but also the high priest and the commander-in-chief of the military.

Rosalynde Welch:

He had a big job.

Jack Welch:

And one of the ways, what you see him doing, of course, he sheds the military side of it after the first battle with Amalekai. And then he will appoint Nephiah to be the chief judge. And so that he after the ninth year can focus his entire energies on being the high priest. Now what becomes interesting here is that Alma never dies. We don't know of his death. Of course when we get to Alma 45 and we see Alma now passing the baton to his oldest son Helaman. He gives him a little interview and makes sure, do you believe this? Do you believe that? Will you be a faithful high priest? And Alma then transfers the responsibility of high priest to Helaman.

But Helaman, I think, is wondering, am I really the high priest, or am I just the acting high priest until my father Alma comes back?

Rosalynde Welch:

Interesting. So just as a reminder, there's kind of a mysterious send off to Alma, right? He sort of seems to disappear. He leaves the land of Zarahemla and we never know definitively of his death, but we just don't hear about him anymore. So there's this kind of question marker, this uncertainty that hangs over the fate of Alma.

Jack Welch:

And so it may be, I mean, this is just speculative, but I think in Helaman's mind and his brothers, Shiblon and Corianton, they may be saying, one of us maybe will need to be here. And they don't really end this book until finally those three, Corianton leaves, Helaman and Shiblon die, and they then have, Helaman's younger son, old enough to receive the records. And at that point, we say, all right, we've now gone through that generation and we're now able to move on.

But like I also said, there are other carryovers from the first half of the book to the second half. And if you were just working with this as an editor, and so I put on my editor hat, and I said, all right, if I'm going to divide this into two books, where would I divide it?

Rosalynde Welch:

I think you divide it right where Alma transfers custody of the records to Helaman. That would seem to make sense to me.

Jack Welch:

Well, but then how do you explain all this difficulty going on with the people from Antionum? And how do you explain all these problems and when the city of Ammonihah becomes a target? If you haven't already understood Ammonihah from Alma chapter 16, you don't understand it in the latter part of the material. So it's true. You can make, you can divide it into two parts, but I don't think you can really divide it in terms of coherence. And from a literary perspective, I think that coherence wins.

Would you then entertain the possibility that advice for how to read this book would be to always be alert for places where you have echoes or things that are related to things, hey, I read that somewhere before. So for example, in Alma chapter 12...

You read there where Alma talks about the plan of redemption as he's preaching to the people in Ammonihah and he's just converted Amulek. The plan of redemption, the plan of redemption seven times. He doesn't mention any other plans. But then when you get to Alma 42 and he's now speaking to his son Corianton, you have Alma now talking about not just number one, the plan of redemption, which he will mention three times in that chapter, but you'll also have the plan of restoration, the plan of salvation, the plan of happiness, the plan of mercy. And Alma will use the word plan of ten times there. Now these, that kind of frequency seems to be deliberate. The number seven and the number ten are the two most significant symbolic numbers in Hebrew and Jewish thought. And so for him to be talking about the plan of redemption a complete number of times and then a final perfect number of times for Corianton, now if you hear that echo you can say I'm sure glad Alma 42 is in the same book as Alma chapter 12.

Rosalynde Welch:

Well, let's shift gears a little bit right now. Let's talk about some of the key characters in the Book of Alma. There are a lot. This book probably has the fullest cast of characters. There are lots of names to keep track of, lots of different military commanders. So we won't touch on every character that appears in the Book of Alma, but there are definitely some key personalities, some very big personalities that we encounter here. So tell us about some of the people we should get to know.

Jack Welch:

Well, yes, and what I find really inspiring is how authentic I think these characters are. I think that people live these lives and that the records, and maybe they've become enshrined in the memory of their people in a kind of epic way. And, you know, we can see Homer, taking characters like Achilles and Agamemnon and Hector and so on and weaving them into an epic, but still they are very different people and they have their own problems they're working through and they have their conflicts and their different cultures they represent. And I think it's the same with what I would call the epic of Alma, the Book of Alma, where all of these characters, some play supporting minor roles, others are very close roles. And I just think that is so true to kind of the historic epic warfare literature, the Iliad and the Odyssey being, of course, maybe the two prime examples. So I've loved reading Alma with that background of my Greek study of Homer helping me out.

Rosalynde Welch:

Yes. Yeah.

Jack Welch:

So, another thing though that I'd like to suggest is that people should make a list of their own cast of characters.

Rosalynde Welch:

What a great idea.

Jack Welch:

And every time you see some character introduced, start writing down a little bit, where's he come from? What's his background? What's his agenda? Or hers with the mothers of those stripling warriors? Where did they come from?

Rosalynde Welch:

And don't forget the maidservant of Morianton. She's an important character too.

Jack Welch:

And all of them, yes, that's absolutely. So there are none to be left out. And they all do play very beneficial roles, not just to the narrative, but to the deep structure of eternal truths and gospel principles that are being represented, conveyed, and testified of here. So I make my chart with the good guys and the bad guys, so to speak. And Alma, Amulek, Gideon, Ammon, Moroni, Pahoran, Moronihah, these guys are on the good side. And on the bad side, you've got Amlici, the Amalekites, Amulonites, Amalikiah, Amaron, his brother, and so on. And that also helps me to keep them straight. It's just a little thing, but it doesn't have to be so daunting.

Rosalynde Welch:

Good point. Let's encourage our readers. You can do this. You can understand this. You can follow the action through the war chapters. That's been a challenge for me personally. I'm not inherently drawn to military strategy and tactics. And sometimes my eyes have glazed over, but it's possible with a little bit of work, rolling up your sleeves, taking some notes. It's possible to make sense of the narrative through here. And it's very rewarding to do that as well.

Jack Welch:

I think so, and as you are rolling up your sleeves, try to get to know them as people. You know, Helaman, Alma's firstborn son, how would you feel if your father had left very abruptly. I think Helaman may have thought someday, I will inherit the office of high priest, but he was totally unprepared for that.

Rosalynde Welch:

Good point.

Jack Welch:

And can you then sympathize with him? He was a young man, and he becomes the chosen commander of the Ammonite young men, those stripling warriors. And you start saying, well, he can relate. And other people like that, I think, who's your favorite wise ruler in all the Book of Mormon? Is it Pahoran?

Rosalynde Welch:

Ah, I love Pahoran because he's such a great foil to Moroni. Moroni tends to dominate this portion of the Book of Mormon and we all know how wonderful he is and I hope we'll talk about him more, but he can overshadow Pahoran, I think, who is this really wonderful compliment to Moroni. I think where Moroni is impetuous and strong and proactive, I feel like Pahoran is wise, he's deliberative, he's slow to act and longer to think. And so together, I think they make a really great team as they try to guide the Nephites through this very, very tricky part of their history.

Jack Welch:

And I don't want to caricature anybody here, but Moroni is the young kid. He is very young when he takes over, but he is a gallant soldier. And by the time Pahoran gets this letter, Pahoran has been in the office for at least seven years. And he has weathered this war, holding down the fort, holding down the center, the hub, supply chains going out to all these Nephite armies. He's been there supporting the back. You know, Moroni, I've got your back. Why are you calling me all of this? But he doesn't lose his cool. And what an example, like you say. He's not just wise, and maybe he's just tired of this war. I don't know.

Rosalynde Welch:

He's exhausted.

Jack Welch:

But there are a lot of wonderful personal traits there. So key characters. I think as we list all of them, I'd like to bring up this subject of stylometry at this point.

Rosalynde Welch:

Okay, yeah, tell us what that is.

Jack Welch:

Well, having said that there is a difference between the roles and the characters of each of these figures in the Book of Alma. Mormon has set up for us a real test, almost a litmus test. Can the words that we hear, Alma and Amulek and all of these different people, do they sound like they're coming from different people?

I haven't run a stylometry test on the Iliad, but I'm guessing that Odysseus and Achilles sound pretty much the same in dactylic hexameter. What we find through this new computer capability is to take a super, super computer and put in all of the words that we know were spoken by each of these different people, and then have the computer run all kinds of different algorithms and searches and correlations to look at word frequency and not just vocabulary but phrase frequency and order of thought and it comes in then several different approaches that you can take with the computer to find ways to help us determine whether two or three people have written or three texts or whether one person has written all three of them. This stylometry capability was first developed, as I understand, over in Scotland Yard in order for the investigators there to determine whether a book was a forgery or not or whether a document was authentic or not. And so it has legal significance.

And so what does that tell us about these voices, these characters? We can lean pretty hard on a particular word. If you see Moroni talking about the title of liberty, and nobody else talks about that, or these other things, Moroni will quote certain verses from the book of Genesis, and nobody else will do that sort of thing. You can begin to see unique elements that help us to appreciate and understand and relate to them as individuals.

Rosalynde Welch:

That is such a great point and it helps to reinforce our appreciation of the real people behind these stories in the Book of Mormon and the deeply layered historical character of the Book of Mormon text, right? That it contains different voices that originated from different minds and different souls and different hearts. And not only can it add to our appreciation for the historicity of the Book of Mormon, but it helps us to understand the characters better and it encourages us to get into their minds and get into their hearts and understand what made them tick and what was most important to them to communicate to us.

Jack Welch:

And you know, one other thing along that same point you're making, Roslynde, is that Mormon, as he I think is compiling and finishing the book of Alma, I think, but he is drawing heavily on the records of different people. And he will say then, and thus ends the record of Ammon. That's in the end of Alma 26. And then we have, thus ends the record of Helaman, or a letter that's being written. And there are these communications. And I think this tells us that Mormon is working with at least a Nephite record, a chronicle, where these records have been preserved and entered into the chronicle accurately. Or maybe he has these different records that he's bringing together for the first time. I don't know. It could be either. Maybe it's a little of both. I tend to suspect, though, that it was all compiled by someone more contemporaneous who knew all of these details and to whom they would be very important.

And with that, having these separate records, we can now actually take a step back and compare it with other historians. And we can see that Herodotus, Thucydides, Seneca, other people who left us records reporting on other activities in their worlds. We can see that Herodotus is pretty good, but he plays fast and loose with a lot of the quotes that we get. We're becoming much more aware of, you know, is Herodotus tweaking these records so that he can say what he wants. But it seems that with the Book of Mormon, we have people who are being very careful and deliberate with their records. And it reminds me of, you know, a lot of the ways that the records of Joseph Smith have been kept and where we have these preserved. And now we have the Joseph Smith papers. We don't have to rely on paraphrases. We can go straight to the prophet's words. And for me, it gives me a sense of immediacy that I'm immediately there. I'm hearing those people and those voices

Rosalynde Welch:

Yes, I agree with you. Mormon is an historian's historian. He is meticulous. He really, really cares to treat his primary sources with accuracy. He's incredibly good at connecting extremely complex narrative threads. He keeps all his balls in the air and it's rare if ever that he drops anything. As you say, I think it's because he wants us to know these people. He generously gives us their first person voices through these embedded documents so that we can know them and relate to them, as you said, with that sense of immediacy. I also think he wants to build credibility as an historian because it's so important to him. Of course, he has a long game here, right? His long game is to persuade his readers that Jesus Christ really did come to minister among the Nephites in 3rd Nephi. And so he is building his credibility with us now by showing us how carefully and respectfully he is treating his historical sources so that we can trust him when he shows the wonders that happened about 75 years or so in the future.

John Welch (55:10.53)

Yeah, I love that and thank you.

Rosalynde Welch:

Maybe I'll just say one last thing about these characters. I made the case earlier that sometimes Moroni dominates a little through this part of the Book of Mormon. Nevertheless, I'm gonna return to Moroni. He's so charismatic. He's kind of irresistible. This time through, as I was reading about Moroni, I was really struck by what an innovator Moroni was.

He was an innovator, of course, both militarily and tactically. He introduced armor, and he introduced kind of earthwork fortifications to Nephites. But he was also an innovator culturally and kind of ideologically, I think, the way that he brought together these themes of protecting Nephite families, protecting Nephite liberty, and protecting Nephite faith.

He brought these three motivating ideas together, I think, in a new way that proved to be very, very galvanizing for Nephites, who had grown weary, it seems, of war. He creates a kind of cultural identity around this title of liberty and these very memorable moments as when the Nephites rend their garments like the title and then cast them in the large heap before Moroni himself. So he creates these very memorable cultural moments that all coalesce around this idea of Christian identity.

So we don't get the word Christian very often in the Book of Mormon, but Moroni seems to use it specifically as a way to create a new form of Nephite community and Nephite identity centered on Christianity. So he was much more than just a military innovator. He was really a cultural and an ideological innovator as well.

Jack Welch:

I think Moroni probably was trained by Alma, who started out as the military commander. I don't know exactly when Moroni steps into that position, but when you look at Alma's emphasis on Christ, because of his own conversion by calling upon the name of Jesus Christ, you'd think that Moroni would have been loyal to that legacy as well.

Rosalynde Welch:

Well, that's a wonderful transition, I think, now to moving from characters to some of the literary and poetic forms that we find in this part of the Book of Alma. They're concentrated, I think, in these first chapters from Alma 31 through 42 or so, as we see Alma teaching the Zoramites and then teaching his own sons. Talk to us about what we find there.

Jack Welch:

Well, the first thing again is to say there are lots of different devices and rhetorical moves that are made in these texts. And so again, your toolbox needs to be equipped with lots of things where you'll appreciate. For example, quotation. Alma will quote Zenos in a way that's just a beautiful poem. I call it “Hearing Mercy.” And you can just line that out as almost like elegiac couplets. And then he will quote Zenock, but he's very verbal. Alma wants people to know the Word, meaning the Word of God, but he also wants them to know the words, that each word is important. And this is, of course, reflective of someone who has dealt with sacred records and understands the importance of the placement of their words and the choice of their words. And this is a very powerful mind working on these texts, drawing upon texts from back on the brass plates or maybe creating new ones and giving them a new situation and new life.

Another one I think is Amulek, who may be quoting, but I think he may be also composing a text where he's talking about Zenos and redemption coming through the Son of God, and then he talks about prayer because the poor people in Antionum were not allowed to go in and pray in the synagogue on the Rameumptom. And he wants these people to know that they can pray anywhere. But if you go to Alma 34 verses 18 to 25, you'll find eight lines there, and they are first a pair. You have four pairs. And within those four groups of four, you have another pairing. So you have eight, which is two cubed. So you have a pair of pairs of pairs, okay? And you can see them, they alternate. Verse 18, “Ye cry unto him.” Verse 19, “Ye humble yourselves.” Verse 20. “Cry unto him when you are in your fields.” Verse 21, “Cry unto him in your houses.” And then the turning point, “Yay over all your household both morning, midday, and evening.” And then we come back, “Yay, and cry, cry.” You can read those, but it's a beautiful little way of reciting an instruction that is memorable and is opening, inviting for them to be confident.

Why should they pray? How should they pray? Where should they pray? What should they pray for? And instead of just checking the boxes, you have a beautiful eight part parallelism there that I hope some of them put up on their fireplace. You know, these are the kinds of things that stick with people. And what a beautiful way of expressing that.

Now parallelism, of course, is going to be one of their fundamental tools. And it gets kind of boring when you just say AABB, AABB. And so you do get this chiastic arrangement where you can go ABCD. And you go on kind of a journey, you tell a story, and you get to the turning point or the climax of that story, and then you go back and retrace your step. It's like climbing a mountain and coming back down to the bottom of the mountain when you're finished. And these are beautiful, beautiful places. We saw King Benjamin doing this in Mosiah, chapters three, the center point of King Benjamin's speech, and the covenant text at the end of King Benjamin's speech. And we know from several places that King Benjamin's speech is being used as a foundational covenant text still in the land of Zarahemla in Alma's day. And it's what Ammon will take and he will preach to and quote that when he's down there with the Lamanites, because they weren't there when Benjamin did that. So I think this is a style that was adopted maybe because King Benjamin had made such a point of it.

Rosalynde Welch:

Yeah. That's a good point, yeah.

Jack Welch:

Now, of course, there are two of Alma's chiasms. Do you want to talk about these, Rosalynde Welch:?

Rosalynde Welch:

Let's do it. I'll give our listeners a little preview that in our next episode, we're going to do a deep dive into a really important article that you authored just as a young man, Jack Welch:, “Chiasmus in the Book of Mormon.” So, we'll be looking in more detail at this phenomenon in the next episode. But we have you, the man himself, with us today. So yes, let's spend a little time talking about one of these chiasms. How about if we look at Alma 41? How does that sound?

Jack Welch:

Okay, let's start there.

Rosalynde Welch:

For listeners who only have us on audio, we are sharing a screen right now. So you might wanna hop over to YouTube so you can see in front of you how this is laid out. I think you'll be able to follow along okay though, just on the audio.

So what do we have going on here in Alma chapter 41? We're talking about restoration, the restoration of what is good for good, what is righteous for righteous. How does Alma actually lay this out in a way that is memorable and meaningful?

Jack Welch:

Well, there are two things going on here. First of all, Alma chapter 41 is a short chapter. It's next to the last chapter in Alma's words to Corianton. And here he is responding to a mistake that people have made who have followed what is called what we would call Nehorism. The Nehorites believed that God had created us in the Garden of Eden or whatever, but God had created us as perfect, flawless, holy beings, and we're here having an experience on this earth, and when we die, we will be restored to that state that we began in. That's what the word restoration means. It's like a building and it falls down. When you restore the building, you put it back. So.

And they're trying to get people to say, you know, you don't have to worry about all this covenant and priesthood and even the laws and principles. God will restore you. And Alma has to correct Corianton because he had been influenced by that point of view. And Alma begins by saying, the meaning of the word restoration does not mean that. And he uses this chiastic contrasting to give this in a beautiful and impressive way. And so he begins by giving us a list of pairs. Restoration means good for that which is good, righteous for that which is righteous. Just for that which is just and mercy for that which is merciful.

But he goes through this with the four words. Therefore, see that you are merciful, deal justly, judge righteously, and do good continually. And then you'll have your reward. You'll have mercy. You'll have justice. You'll have judgment restored to you. And you will have good restored to you again.

So he's emphasizing this is the essence of the meaning of the word restoration. And this is the one thing that Corianton and I guess we all need to learn is that yes, we will be restored and there is the plan of restoration, but it's not the only plan, part of the plan. There's also the plan of redemption. There's the plan of mercy. There's the plan of all of these other parts, which Alma will then go on in Chapter 42 to then explain. But I think this is very, very clever. What do you think?

Rosalynde Welch:

Well, I agree. I think it's very clever and I think it's especially clever how you described it. It starts out with a list of pairs and then it moves into a pair of lists. Right? I thought that, I think that's such a clever way to understand the structure of this passage right here to draw out just how carefully Alma has composed it and how full of theological meaning it is. Right? It's not just a game. It's not just something interesting. For him, this is very, very close to the heart of the way that the world works and the way that God works with us in the world and in the world to come. So yes, the way you've laid this out here really clarifies the stakes of this passage.

Jack Welch:

And I think for me, this is yet one more validation of the accuracy of the translation that we're given here. That it was a word by word translation, as Joseph Smith says, and we can see that happening here at many levels of accuracy and precision and meaning, and in this case, structure.

Rosalynde Welch:

Yeah, that's wonderful. Well, as we talked about before, the point of these literary and poetic features that we see is always, I think, for Alma and for Benjamin to clarify their message. Ultimately, what matters is their testimony of Jesus Christ. Again, I'll...I'll point our listeners forward to our next episode where my guest and I will look carefully at the beautiful chiasm in Alma 36. But it points us always toward the theology, the theological themes of these beautiful sermons. So let's move on to that now, Jack Welch:, and let's talk a little bit about some of the themes that come out here in this last half of the Book of Alma. There are so many, of course, we cannot touch on them all, but what are a few that are especially interesting to you.

Jack Welch:

Well, some of them are just mechanical. There's a chronological theme, keeping track of time. And so I think that that's more than a thread. I think that is an important part of the essence of the book. And it's kept very accurately and, again, in a complex and meaningful way. I like also looking for legal themes.

The granting of a military exemption is permitted under the Book of Deuteronomy. But it says that if you are granted an exemption, because let's say you've just gotten married and you have a one-year exemption to be able to stay home and start your family, you must still support the troops in the front.

Rosalynde Welch:

Interesting.

Jack Welch:

And that's exactly what the Ammonites, who have sworn their oath that they will not fight, they still do. Now you'd think if you were a pure pacifist, you couldn't bring yourself to do that. But they aren't pure pacifists. They are given an exemption under the law, and the law explains why they do what they do.

Rosalynde Welch:

Yeah, that's a fascinating insight.

Jack Welch:

And then here in Korihor we have another legal case. Now at this time Korihor is first of all brought from our favorite place, Jershon. He's there trying to reconvert those Ammonites. And then he's taken to Jerusalem. And then he's taken to Zarahemla. And he is now being accused of several things, but eventually as Alma argues back and forth with him and says, Korihor, you're wrong about this, you're wrong about that. And Korihor asks, then, I want more proof that there is a God. I deny that there is a God. And now Alma will couch that as a form of blasphemy. And blasphemy is against the law under Leviticus chapter 24. And with that, Korihor then has to submit to what we would call an ordeal, which is a common form of verifying or vindicating a person who's accused of something. And they had water ordeals in Babylon, they had different kinds of ordeals in Jewish law. But here, Korihor submits to, he says, I will submit to this ordeal, and he then receives this curse, which is interesting because what is the offending part? It's not his hand, it's his mouth. He has spoken blasphemy. And so the curse is that you can't speak. For all we know, he could still hear. But that is a perfect example of what we call talionic justice…

Rosalynde Welch:

Right, eye for an eye.

Jack Welch:

…where the punishment should fit the crime. So that's just a small part of a big case.

Rosalynde Welch:

Yeah. Well, that's fascinating, Jack Welch:. Just a smattering of the legal things. Well, it seems like part of what's at stake in the legal happenings here in the Book of Alma is Mosiah's reforms that took place right at the end of the Book of Mosiah. Of course, he famously transitioned from monarchy to a reign of the judges, but he also made some legislative changes as well.

In particular, he made it possible, he provided a kind of freedom of conscience, right? That people were free to believe what they did, to believe in the Church of God or not to believe. A man couldn't be convicted because of his beliefs, but he could because of his actions or his crimes. So determining the difference between a belief and an action, it seems like is the crux of a lot of these legal cases.

And in something like speech, right? That's right. It straddles the line. It's expressing your beliefs, but it's also a kind of action. So this is what Alma is trying to parse out with Korihor. And when he lands on the accusation of blasphemy, it seems to him that falls then definitively over into the category of an action, of a crime.

Jack Welch:

I think you're absolutely right on that. And it sounds to me like you've read a book on the legal cases in the Book of Mormon.

Rosalynde Welch:

I certainly have.

Jack Welch:

But you know, it goes one step further. Because if he was really convicted of blasphemy, why didn't they take him out and stone him?

Rosalynde Welch:

Yeah, good question.

Jack Welch:

That should have happened. And Alma doesn't remove the curse. He said, it's up to God to do this. If God wants you dead. It's his job to do that. And you remember, Korihor will then go to Antionum, and we don't know why, but he's run upon by people and trampled, apparently. By people, by animals, we don't know, but he dies. In a way that doesn't mean that the Nephites had to put him to death. So by leaving it in God's hands is like you're saying, it leaves open kind of the question, is speaking blasphemy an action that is punishable or speech that is protected? And I think the holding of the case basically says, it is open to God to punish those who will speak blasphemously about Him. And I think that becomes a standard for other cases coming down the road.

Rosalynde Welch:

Yeah. So for the Nephites, their law and their religion, of course, could not be separated. Their law was the Law of Moses. With a few legislative tweaks here and there to apply it to the circumstances of Nephite society, but they went hand in hand, their religious beliefs and their legal corpus. Tell us a little bit more about how law and the law of Moses works as a theme throughout the Book of Alma.

Jack Welch:

Yeah, you're right that when you look at, you know, we know that they live the law of Moses because in Alma 25 verse 15, Ammon says, we live the law of Moses. And then in Alma 31 verse 9, as they are preaching there in Ammonihah, they make it clear to the poor Zoramites.

So that tells us that that's the baseline, the standard for the faithful people who are still carrying on the legacy and traditions of Nephi and of course, King Benjamin, the brass plates and so on. So this gives us an open invitation to, I think ask ourselves, are there evidences or are there indications that they are actually living the law of Moses. And we can start right here with the very beginning of Alma chapter 30 where we have the, an indication that okay the 16th year and the 17th years pass in peace. Well the 16th year of the reign of judges, was how far from the from King Benjamin's speech?

Rosalynde Welch:

I can't do the math in my head. You tell me.

Jack Welch:

Well, how long did King Mosiah reign after King Benjamin? 33 years. And now we have 16 years of the reign of judges and the 17th year as continual peace. So 16 and 33, 49. And 33 and 17, 50.

So in the 49th and 50th years from King Benjamin's speech, which was the making of the foundational covenant that they are still using as their covenant text, we have then the seventh seven, 49. So we've got the seventh sabbatical year. And under Leviticus chapter 25, the 50th year is the year of Jubilee.

And it is in the year of Jubilee that the poor shall be freed. And that's going to happen as Alma goes to help free the poor and other things. But you put together the pieces there. It doesn't say that this was a year of Jubilee, but it's a completely empty year where it just says there was peace and then there was continual peace. So I think that's good circumstantial evidence.

Rosalynde Welch:

I think so, I'm persuaded.

Jack Welch:

And let me give you one last one, and that is that if you go to Deuteronomy and read the law about inheritance, you will find that if a man has four sons, or let's just say four sons, and when he dies his estate will be divided into five portions. Why? Because the older son will get two portions and the younger, the others will each get one portion.

And this is probably because the older son will take responsibility for his mother and the household. Any young children, he will now be his father's emissary. He will be acting on behalf of his father and needs to have those resources. The younger sons will take their inheritance and like the prodigal son, go wherever they want and do what they want with it. At least that's some of the background that's going on there. So what does that have to do with the Book of Mormon?

Well, in Alma 36 and 37, Alma blesses Helaman, first of all, with that wonderful, big, chiastic example of the conversion story, the turning point being right there at the turning point of his life. So he gives Helaman a doubled story, right? It's the chiastic first half leading up to the turning point, and then back down with some 16 or 17 steps, all very meticulously structured and repeated. Well then look what he gives to Shiblon. He gives Shiblon also an account of his conversion, but it starts at the beginning and it goes through the story step by step to what point? To the center, the turning point. And he ends there.

And says, okay, now Shiblon, I've got some rules and assignments for you and some things that you should do and how you should live your life and so on. And the things that Alma does in chapter 37 for Helaman, he gives Helaman his charge and the things he's supposed to do and commandments that he's supposed to get, but Shiblon only gets half of the kind of instructions that Helaman does. So it's a double blessing given half, and then a double instruction and only half. And so now the rule breaker, of course, is Corianton. And he gets four chapters.

Rosalynde Welch:

I see. A double portion.

Yeah. Well, it was needed. It was needed in Corianton's case.

Jack Welch:

That's right. But it's a different kind of thing. Anyway, I just think these are interesting little, I don't know, are they just amusements where they just put in here? Is somebody sticking these in saying, why, they'll never get this one. You know, I don't think so. I think this is coming out of their culture, out of things that they all would have understood. You know, Helaman gets that double blessing. And it's not only the blessing of the full account of the conversion, but he also gets the records and the responsibility, and he after all then will be the acting high priest. And so he needs to have all those things. I don't think Alma had much in the way of monetary assets to divide.

Rosalynde Welch:

He had a lot of wisdom though, a lot of experience. Yeah.

Jack Welch:

And isn't that true? And that's what he gives. That's what he gives.

Rosalynde Welch:

Jack Welch:, it is such a delight to watch your mind at work on this text as you bring together your deep knowledge of the Old Testament, the legal training of your mind, your ability to think and reason legally, and then your love for the Book of Mormon. And when those three come together, you are able to see things in the text that nobody else has seen. So I'm grateful for the way you've dedicated your gifts and your experience to open the text for us today. It's just a delight to see you at work on it.

We're gonna shift gears here in a minute as we come towards the end of our interview together. But I thought it might be worth just making one last point about the themes that we see in this part of the Book of Mormon. These early chapters, chapters 31 through 42, they are some of the richest theological teaching that we have in the Book of Mormon. And of course we could spend hours talking about all the themes of faith and of prayer, of how we know, how we gain spiritual knowledge, the infinite atonement. It is all beautiful.

There are two things that really help me to appreciate and interpret these chapters, I think. One is that Alma is always talking to somebody. Whether he's teaching the Zoramite poor or he's speaking specifically to the experiences and the needs of one of his three sons, he's talking to them and he's tailoring his ideas to what they need. And it seems to me that that's a very different kind of thinking than if he were to be sitting alone in his study, kind of laying out an abstract theological treatise on the principles of atonement and mercy and justice. It's very different when you're talking to somebody. You know what they need to hear, and you frame your remarks according to what is needed.

Likewise, I think we hear Alma's experience echoing through each of these chapters, even when he's not specifically talking about his own experience of new birth, I think we hear it echoing throughout. So the ways that he talks about mercy and justice, mercy overpowering justice.

I think we have to hear in that Alma's own personal experience of overwhelming mercy, of finding himself at the lowest possible point, knowing he needed rescue, could not rescue himself, and then feeling amazingly, inexplicably, the love and the safety that comes from being snatched out of that pit of despair.

And I think the emotion and intensity that we feel in his discussion of justice and mercy has to be understood and interpreted in light of the personal experience that laid at its heart. And again, I think that leads us to read it differently than if we were sitting in front of an abstract text that was trying to systematically map all the relations between justice and mercy. It instead invites us to read it personally ourselves and to try to experience what Alma is saying rather than just think about it intellectually

Jack Welch:

That's so beautifully said, and it's a wonderful thing, as Alma then will try to describe to us and to his son, Corianton, how mercy and justice work together. I really feel strongly that in Alma chapter 42, we have a brilliant answer to this question of justice and mercy. And it's interesting that Alma uses this phrase, “A space of time.” A space of time, we don't think of time having space…

Rosalynde Welch:

Yeah, yeah, that's right.

Jack Welch:

…but what he's talking about is that there will be a stay of judgment. He knows because he, as you say, has experienced this. God could have wiped him out and should have wiped him out, but he was going to give him a little more time. And Alma then says to Corianton, God will give you a space of time in which to repent.

And Alma will then define that as God's mercy. His mercy is giving us all the time we need to eventually come, but we must come. And Alma, in Alma chapter 36, he would have been destroyed if he had not remembered his father speaking of one Jesus Christ, a son of God, who would come to atone for the sins of the world, and my soul did cry out, O Jesus, thou son of God, and that's the turning point, have mercy on me, who am in the gall of bitterness. And with that, Alma understands that God will be just. There will be a time of judgment. And that's what Amulek will say. This life is the time for men to prepare to meet God to repent. And with that, Corianton will then be assured that even in the resurrection, there will be time. The time of this life, I think, for Alma, extends from where we are now until the resurrection, which would include whatever happens. He doesn't know much about what happens, I think, or at least he doesn't say what he knows about what's going to happen in the spirit world. But he does know that whatever time will be needed, that space of time will be granted to a point where then the resurrection will take place.

Rosalynde Welch:

Amen to that. I love what you've just pointed out. It helps me to think of every new morning as a new space of time that has been mercifully given to me to grow, to come to know God, and to repent. It helps me, I think, wake up in the morning with thanksgiving, seeing that rising sun as God's love for me reaffirmed again.

Well, Jack Welch:, our time together is growing short, but I would love to end our conversation today with you sharing with me and with our listeners some passage or scripture in these chapters that has special meaning for you. I think we've seen, I could probably give you any verse in Alma 30 through 63, and you would have something beautiful to say about it, but what really speaks personally to you, John Welch?

Jack Welch:

The one that jumps to my mind at this point is what Alma calls the word. In Alma 33, he defines what he meant in Alma 32 when he talks about a seed that we must plant.

And if you can do no more than desire to have the fruit of the tree of life, if you can plant this seed and then nourish it, and it will grow, and it will spring up in you unto a wonderful fruit-bearing tree of eternal life.

I love that passage, and I remember being a freshman at BYU and having this verse talked about in a devotional down in the old field house. And I walked out saying, okay, but how do I want to want if I have to have a desire, but if I don't want it, I won't want it. So it seemed circular to me.

And the answer came. You have to get outside of yourself if you're going to break that cycle of circularity. And you get out of that cycle by knowing what the seed is that you're supposed to plant.

And that's what Alma will conclude his comments on, saying, “My brethren I desire that ye shall plant this word in your hearts, and it will then spring up in you unto a tree of everlasting life.” What is that word?

And in telling us what that word is, you just have to go back up about 10 lines. And there Alma will say, if you will begin to believe in the Son of God, that he will come to redeem his people, and that he shall suffer and die to atone for their sins, and that he shall rise again from the dead, which shall bring to pass the resurrection that all men shall stand before him to be judged at the last and judgment day according to their works.

And then he says, and now my brethren I desire that you plant this word.

Rosalynde Welch:

That is the word.

Jack Welch:

And that's the word. And he will, and Alma will talk about the word in other places, but it is this belief, not just in Jesus Christ as an abstraction, but believing in Jesus Christ as our Savior, who will come, who will die, who will do all of these things so that we can then find ourselves back in the presence of God.

That's something I want. That's something I wanted. I didn't have to now try to figure out how to want that. We desire this.

And I know that when we plant that seed in our hearts, it will then truly grow as a testimony of Jesus Christ and His gospel and what I would say Alma is talking about here, the plan of salvation, the plan of atonement. It's all of these plans that Alma has now embedded in, not some abstract, not just some abstract idea that was planned in the pre-existence. Yes, it's that, but it's this personal carrying out of that plan. And I'm so grateful for him and for that. And so glad to be able to bear his testimony and so glad to be able to bear testimony of Him. In His name, amen.

Rosalynde Welch:

This is the perfect place to end. Thank you so much, Jack Welch, for everything that you have shared for your lifetime of study and of devotion to this book that we both love. Your words have taught me and have moved me. And I know that's the case for all of our listeners as well. Thank you for being with us today on the Maxwell Institute Book of Mormon Studies podcast.

Jack Welch:

Thank you. And thanks to you Rosalind for all you've done here and all you will do in the future. You're great. And this is a wonderful opportunity for so many people to hear the good word. Keep it up.