3rd Nephi takeaway

[Hagoth]

If you still attend some or all of your Sunday school classes (my first time back in 5 or 6 weeks) you probably heard a lesson today about Jesus' visit to the New World. I have always felt that portions of 3rd Nephi are among the most touching scripture ever written, but at the same time it has some of the most heinous vengeful God rantings too. It's almost an exercise in the split-personality of Old Testament God meets New Testament God.

I was encouraged when our teacher raised the question of why God dealt so much more harshly with the people in the Americas than he dealt with the people who actually killed him. To me the answer was obvious. in the Bible there's an earthquake and three hours of darkness at Jesus' death and Mormonism has to one-up everything it borrows from elsewhere.

It was kind of entertaining to see how eagerly class members defended God's decision to kill, I dunno, hundreds of thousands of people for simply not believing that Jesus would come.

It wasn't long before the lesson turned, as they always do in my ward, to apostate hating. The consensus of the class and instructor was that, even though Jesus lived among the Jews, they had never truly accepted him. The ancient Americans, on the other hand, had gained a fuller knowledge, but because they began to "criticize the prophets and leaders" they deserved a much harsher fate. One person pointed out that 200 years of peace and prosperity followed, so the appropriate solution is to "kill all of the bad people." Everyone laughed. The only definition given by anyone for the justification of the horrible deaths of these men, women and children up to this point was that they had criticized the prophets and leaders and were therefore "bad people."

And of course, this wrapped up with the warning that what we should all take away from this is that the devastation of the apostate Nephites and Lamanites was merely a foreshadowing of the far worse fate that awaits those of us who aren't toeing the line next time the Savior comes. Will it be you next time?

So there's that.

[LSOF]

The Mountain Meadows Massacre mentality is alive and well, I see.

[John G.]

3 Nephi 8:

8 And the city of Zarahemla did take fire.

9 And the city of Moroni did sink into the depths of the sea, and the inhabitants thereof were drowned.

10 And the earth was carried up upon the city of Moronihah, that in the place of the city there became a great mountain.

11 And there was a great and terrible destruction in the land southward.

12 But behold, there was a more great and terrible destruction in the land northward; for behold, the whole face of the land was changed, because of the tempest and the whirlwinds, and the thunderings and the lightnings, and the exceedingly great quaking of the whole earth;

13 And the highways were broken up, and the level roads were spoiled, and many smooth places became rough.

14 And many great and notable cities were sunk, and many were burned, and many were shaken till the buildings thereof had fallen to the earth, and the inhabitants thereof were slain, and the places were left desolate.

15 And there were some cities which remained; but the damage thereof was exceedingly great, and there were many in them who were slain.

16 And there were some who were carried away in the whirlwind; and whither they went no man knoweth, save they know that they were carried away.

....

24 And in one place they were heard to cry, saying: O that we had repented before this great and terrible day, and then would our brethren have been spared, and they would not have been burned in that great city Zarahemla.

25 And in another place they were heard to cry and mourn, saying: O that we had repented before this great and terrible day, and had not killed and stoned the prophets, and cast them out; then would our mothers and our fair daughters, and our children have been spared, and not have been buried up in that great city Moronihah. And thus were the howlings of the people great and terrible.

When I was a TBM I don't remember ever learning, learning, about all the destruction in America when Jesus came. I knew there was darkness and that generally there was a vague amount of destruction, but nothing as specific as what's in 3 Nephi. I'm pretty sure we skipped over those scriptures in Sunday School.

It truly is hard to believe that Jesus of the New Testament would be killing CHILDREN! What did they do? Surely if some wicked people had to die god could have sent a virus that only infected the wicked adults and spared the children.

[Hagoth]

It truly is hard to believe that Jesus of the New Testement would be killing CHILDREN! What did they do? Surely if some wicked people had to die god could have sent a virus that only infected the wicked adults and spared the children.

Especially when he just left the cross after begging his father to forgive the people who actually nailed him there.

There are some other weird things in the verses you quoted. Like, how did all of the people assemble at the temple in bountiful when the entire face of the earth had been disrupted and it was too dark to see your hand in front of your face? And how did they know about what had happened in specific cities? It wasn't until later that the voice of Jesus bragged about all of the killing.

24 And in one place they were heard to cry, saying: O that we had repented before this great and terrible day, and then would our brethren have been spared, and they would not have been burned in that great city Zarahemla.

25 And in another place they were heard to cry and mourn, saying: O that we had repented before this great and terrible day, and had not killed and stoned the prophets, and cast them out; then would our mothers and our fair daughters, and our children have been spared, and not have been buried up in that great city Moronihah. And thus were the howlings of the people great and terrible.

Also, how is it the the terrain was so utterly destroyed that it was unrecognizable, and the cities were burned, crushed and drowned, yet neither the archaeological record nor the written record of the Maya show any indication of any of this. Yes, there is one archaeological site that sunk slowly into a lake, but sorry FAIR, that's not what this is talking about. Somehow the Maya and other civilizations continued uninterrupted and unaware that all of this was going on and continued to grow and thrive in many places well after the epic war of the Nephites and Lamanites.

[Zadok]

Never fear Hagoth, the evidence is there, we just haven't found it yet... Oh, and could you send in your back tithing, we're running a little short this month.

[General Nuisance]

Yo Hagoth / Go back next time and tell them from their scriptures, which they read all the time, the answer to their prideful inquiry.

Ezekiel 16:49
49 Behold, this was the iniquity of thy sister SODOM, pride, fulness of bread, and abundance of idleness was in her and in her daughters, neither did she strengthen the hand of the POOR and NEEDY.

In Isaiah God calls the poor HIS people dozens of times. The church has shown many a time the desire to construct fancy pants buildings and let the poor dumpster dive to survive. Good morning SODOM...

[nibbler]

For me 3rd Nephi is second coming fan fiction, it's how [insert author] imagined how the second coming would be. Second coming imagery has got to include things like death and destruction otherwise what would scare the wicked into being more righteous? How would all of the injustices of the righteous suffered at the hands of the wicked be addressed? How would the righteous obtain their vengeance?

So yes, the story is inconsistent with the Jesus that forgave the people that nailed him to the cross just hours before but our second coming narrative is also inconsistent with that Jesus.

In short, "Mormon Jesus" be like:

[Hagoth]

Ezekiel 16:49
49 Behold, this was the iniquity of thy sister SODOM, pride, fulness of bread, and abundance of idleness was in her and in her daughters, neither did she strengthen the hand of the POOR and NEEDY.

But I bet they had one hell of a shopping mall.

[Not Buying It]

Yeah, that crazy roller-coaster Jesus in 3rd Nephi. He's drowning, crushing, tornadoing and burning innocent children in 3 Nephi Chapter 8, then we're supposed to get all misty-eyed when he blesses other little children one-by-one a few chapters later. He slaughters way more children than the worst child serial killer a few chapters before, and somehow people ignore that and get all warm and fuzzy about "behold your little ones".

That's just sick. Can someone photoshop me that picture of Jesus blessing the children from 3 Nephi with a caption that says, "You know, kiddo, you're lucky you weren't born in Moronihah!"?

[LSOF]

I like to call it Jesus' temper tantrum. This sounds more like the "Those mine enemies, who would not that I should reign over them, bring them hither and slay them before me" and "I am not come to bring peace on earth, but a sword" Jesus than the "Love thine enemies" and "Forgive them until seventy times seven" Jesus.

[Enough]

I substitute taught this lesson a week ago. I don't remember EVER learning what is actually in 3 Nephi 8. That was an eye-opening experience.

[deacon blues]

I think Joseph Smith wanted God to do the same thing to the Missourians that he did to the people in 3rd Nephi.

[Hagoth]

A couple of other observations from 3 Nephi where Jesus seems to be confused about a couple of things:

In 3 Nephi 20:23 Christ quotes Moses (sort of Deuteronomy 18:18-19) but the word he uses are actually Peter's paraphrase of Moses in Acts 3:22-23. Seems kind of odd that Jesus would use a version of the statement that hadn't been written yet. Did he get confused about who said what and who was going to someday say it differently?

Also, in 3Nephi 17:4 Jesus says, "But now I go unto the Father, and also to show myself unto the lost tribes of Israel, for they are not lost unto the Father, for he knoweth whither he hath taken them." In Joseph's time the location of the Ten Tribes was a hot topic and there were all kinds of theories about where they were hiding out: the North Pole, inside the hollow earth, on another planet... It's pretty much understood now that they were "lost" merely by deciding not to return to Jerusalem and by natural diffusion among other peoples and nations. Jesus seems to be fueling the 19th century flame about a mysterious place where they were all still hanging out together.

One more thing. Does the BoM ever talk about the end of Jesus' ministry in the Americas? He ascends to heaven and returns a couple of times and on the last one he gives the 3 Nephites their immortality. Then it kind of follows the exploits of the American disciples and just kind of stops talking about Jesus and leaves him standing there. Am I forgetting/missing something? I kind of skimmed it this time through.