KnoWhy #108, dated May 13, 2017, discusses the question, "Why Did Nehor Suffer an “Ignominious” Death?"
It focuses on this passage:
And it came to pass that they took him; and his name was Nehor; and they carried him upon the top of the hill Manti, and there he was caused, or rather did acknowledge, between the heavens and the earth, that what he had taught to the people was contrary to the word of God; and there he suffered an ignominious death. (Alma 1:15)
The KnoWhy is an excellent discussion of Alma 1 with good insights about Nephite law. The text does not explain how he died, but we do see that they carried him to the top of the hill Manti.
Why would they do that?
Here's the link:
https://scripturecentral.org/knowhy/why-did-nehor-suffer-an-ignominious-death
Back then, Scripture Central related everything to Mesoamerica, as they did in this Kno-Why.
The seriousness of Nehor’s (seditious) challenges to the Nephite social order, to say nothing of his murder of Gideon, is undoubtedly what prompted his “ignominious” death on the hill Manti.6 Brant A. Gardner commented that, at its core, Nehor’s execution “remove[d] personal honor from him.”7
Not only did Nehor have to be “carried” to his place of execution, suggesting that he resisted his fate in an undignified manner, but both Welch and Gardner posit that he was likely stoned, a method of execution known from both ancient Israel and ancient Mesoamerica, and one that would’ve “connoted shame.”8
While stoning "connoted shame" it does not make sense to carry him to the top of the hill only to stone him. The top of the hill suggests something more visible and obvious to the community.
A later execution in the text describes something that would make more sense from the top of a hill: And their leader, Zemnarihah, was taken and hanged upon a tree, yea, even upon the top thereof until he was dead. And when they had hanged him until he was dead they did fell the tree to the earth. (3 Nephi 4:28)
"Ignominious" is a nonbiblical word that appears only once in the Book of Mormon. Why would Joseph Smith choose that word? Was that a literal translation or a to a form of punishment described in the text that Joseph chose to describe by reference?
Here is a common modern definition of "ignominious" from https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/ignominious
1 : humiliating, degrading
an ignominious defeat
2 : deserving of shame or infamy : despicable
an ignominious collaborator
3 : marked with or characterized by disgrace or shame : dishonorable
a cowardly life and ignominious death
The 1828 Webster's is similar: https://webstersdictionary1828.com/Dictionary/ignominious
IGNOMIN'IOUS, adjective [Latin ignominiosus. See Ignominy.]
1. Incurring disgrace; cowardly; of mean character. Then with pale fear surprised, Fled ignominious
2. Very shameful; reproachful; dishonorable; infamous. To be hanged for a crime is ignominious. Whipping, cropping and branding are ignominious punishments.
3. Despicable; worthy of contempt; as an ignominious projector.
Here we see hanging, whipping, cropping and branding listed, but of these, only hanging results in death.
_____
We can look at Jonathan Edwards for a clue to what happened.
3. The gospel leads us to love Christ as a crucified Savior, as a Savior and Lord who suffered the greatest ignominies, was put to the most ignominious death, though he was the Lord of glory. This in many ways teaches his followers humility, and leads them to an humble love of Christ.
For by God's sending his Son into the world to suffer such an ignominious death, he did as it were pour contempt on all that earthly glory which men are wont to be proud of, in that he gave his Son, the Head of all elect men, to appear in circumstances so far from earthly glory, circumstances of the greatest earthly ignominy.
CRUCIFIXION is perhaps the sort of death that men have ever been wont to suffer, whereby they die merely through the exquisiteness of the pain; and it must be very great pain indeed, which alone will kill a man in three hours. And it was the most ignominious of all deaths, chosen out by the Jews for him before any other kind of death, for the sake of the ignominiousness and painfulness of it.
And nothing is esteemed more ignominious and disgraceful through the world in general than to be a fool; nothing men seek more to avoid than to be counted fools.
It was men's wickedness that laid the cross on him to bear, that nailed him to the cross, and put him to so cruel and ignominious a death. This tended to give Christ an extraordinary sense of the greatness and hatefulness of the sin and depravity, at the time of his suffering to atone for men's sin
'tis great enough to take their nature upon him, to become one of them, that he may be one with them: yea, it is great enough to abase himself yet lower for them, even to expose himself to shame and spitting; yea, to yield up himself to an ignominious death for them. And what act of condescension can be conceived of greater? Yet such an act as this, has his condescension yielded to, for those that are so low and mean, despicable and unworthy!
_____
The ancient Egyptians and Assyrians practiced a form of hanging people prominently. Examples are given here:
https://www.worldhistory.org/crucifixion/
In the region of ancient Mesopotamia (the later empires of Assyria, Babylon, and Persia), we have a similar process. When the Assyrian king Sennacherib conquered the Israelite city of Lachish in 701 BCE, his wall depictions show prisoners being strung up on poles, with the pole inserted up through the ribs. The purpose of this excruciating punishment was to emphasize the cruelty and terror of what awaited prisoners and rebels.
An ignominious death therefore was likely one that would remind people of the seriousness of the crime. While it may not have constituted being nailed to a cross the way the Savior was, the term Joseph chose works to let us know there was some form of hanging.
Here is the rest of the Kno-Why's explantion:
The Know
Not long after the establishment of the reign of the Nephite judges, a crisis arose that called into question the viability of the Nephite church and government.1 “In the first year of the reign of the judges over the people of Nephi” a dissenter named Nehor went “about among the people, preaching to them that which he termed to be the word of God, bearing down against the church” (Alma 1:1, 3). Nehor was adamant that “every priest and teacher ought to become popular; and they ought not to labor with their hands, but that they ought to be supported by the people” (v. 3).2
Theologically, Nehor preached a version of universalism. He declared, “All mankind should be saved at the last day, and that they need not fear nor tremble, but that they might lift up their heads and rejoice; for the Lord had created all men, and had also redeemed all men; and, in the end, all men should have eternal life” (v. 4).
Nehor’s teachings caught on among the Nephites, and soon his followers “began to establish a church after the manner of his preaching” (v. 6). Nehor, however, went a step further than mere religious dissent. When confronted by Gideon, the apostate Nephite did “contend with him sharply” over doctrine (v. 7). The argument escalated to the point where Nehor “drew his sword and began to smite him. Now Gideon being stricken with many years, therefore he was not able to withstand his blows, therefore he was slain by the sword” (v. 9). What began as religious and cultural dissent turned into outright homicide.
This of course led Nehor to stand before the chief judge Alma, to plead his defense (v. 11). Nehor’s defense failed, and Alma condemned him to die, as he was “not only guilty of priestcraft," but had "endeavored to enforce it by the sword." Alma reasons, "Were priestcraft to be enforced among this people it would prove their entire destruction” (v. 12).
The record describes Nehor’s execution in a single verse. “And it came to pass that they took him . . . and they carried him upon the top of the hill Manti, and there he was caused, or rather did acknowledge, between the heavens and the earth, that what he had taught to the people was contrary to the word of God; and there he suffered an ignominious death” (v. 15).3
The Why
The account of Nehor’s life and death is deeply embedded in the context of Nephite law. John W. Welch has explored at length how Nehor’s trial and execution are illuminated by looking at both biblical law in general and Nephite law in particular.4
A number of factors, according to Welch, contributed to Nehor ultimately being given an “ignominious death.” These include the recent social reforms of Mosiah and the establishment of the Nephite judgeship at the end of the book of Mosiah, all of which Nehor sought to undermine with violence. Nehor’s trial, therefore, was not a mere triviality.
"When Nehor was brought before Alma to be judged, his trial was a major test of Alma’s political and judicial power in the fledgling reign of the judges. How would the new system of judges work? What would the power of the chief judge be? . . . How would the recently enunciated principle of equality and the rubric that a person could not be punished for his beliefs be interpreted and applied in actual practice? . . . All these were open questions that would be tested and settled, intentionally or unintentionally, by the precedent-setting trial of Nehor.5"
[excerpt promoting M2C is quoted above]
That Mormon would say that Nehor’s death was “ignominious” shows the prophet-historian’s complete disdain for one of the Nephites’ worst dissenters.9 Indeed, Nehor’s schismatic teachings would lead to further conflict and bloodshed in Nephite history, most notably with the rise of the Amlicites (Alma 2–3). From the perspective of Nephite law, then, and through Mormon’s moralizing narrative, that Nehor’s death was “ignominious” is understandable. That his ignominious teachings, which did not die with him, would later affect so many lives for the worst is just one of many tragedies in the Book of Mormon.
Comments:
