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Introduction

Thirty years after leaving Jerusalem in 600 BC and journeying to the Americas with his family, Nephi, the first author in the Book of Mormon, explained that shortly after their arrival there had been a serious rift between family members. Soon after their father Lehi’s death (see 2 Nephi 4:12), Nephi’s rebellious older brothers and older brothers-in-law refused to accept Nephi as the family’s divinely appointed leader (see 5:2–3, 19–20) and, as a result, were “cut off from the presence of the Lord,” cursed with “a sore cursing,” given a “skin of blackness,” and were deemed “loathsome” to Nephi’s people (vv. 20–22). For many modern readers, these descriptions contain some of the most “confusing, troubling, and demanding” concepts in the entire Book of Mormon[1] and stand in stark contrast to Nephi’s expressed intentions of speaking and prophesying “plainly” (see 31:3).[2] Even though more than a century of scholarship has been devoted to explicating Nephi’s comments, with interpretations ranging from racial[3] to metaphorical,[4] nothing that has been produced about these verses so far has been completely helpful or entirely satisfying for me.[5] Therefore, with a desire to provide an alternative explanation, I have taken my lead from Mormon, a Nephite prophet who insisted that the Bible and the Book of Mormon were designed to support each other through essential historical perspective (see Mormon 7:9), from scholars who have argued that covenant is a central theme of the Hebrew Bible,[6] and from modern prophets who have emphasized the fundamental position of covenants in the gospel plan.[7] I will argue that all four of the Lamanite descriptors in 2 Nephi 5—cut off, cursed, skin of blackness, and loathsome[8]—are best understood from within a covenant perspective, specifically from within the ancient Near Eastern suzerain-vassal covenant relationship that God made with Lehi’s family. I will begin by exploring how Nephi deliberately structured 1 and 2 Nephi to emphasize the importance of making and keeping covenants. I will then identify and analyze the specific ancient Near Eastern suzerainty treaty, or the Lehitic covenant, that Nephi presented in the opening chapters of 2 Nephi, and I will show how that treaty guided Nephi’s behavior, his perspectives, and his writing. Finally, I will demonstrate that Nephi described Laman, Lemuel, and the sons of Ishmael in terms of the rejected Lehitic covenant and that Nephi’s representations of them are covenantal in nature, not racial or metaphorical.

The Covenantal Structure of 1 and 2 Nephi

Contrary to what many students of the Book of Mormon assume, 1 and 2 Nephi are not “on-the-ground, in-the-moment” reports of what happened as Nephi and his family left Jerusalem and traveled to the Americas.[9] Instead, they are Nephi’s deliberately structured reflections made thirty to forty years after arriving and settling in the promised land (see 2 Nephi 5:29–32). Nephi consciously composed and organized the contents of 1 and 2 Nephi for specific historical, theological, and political purposes.[10] Opening with an Old Testament-like exodus,[11] 1 Nephi shows that Nephi’s approach to his family’s history was heavily influenced by his reading of the Pentateuch and the prophet Isaiah.[12] Intending to write two separate books, the only Book of Mormon author to do so, Nephi first told the family’s Old World origin story followed by the New World origin story.[13] The plot of 1 Nephi is “built around six rhetorically linked” narratives in which Nephi showed the distinction between those who “personally engaged in a covenant relationship with their creator” and those who did not.[14] Thus, the family’s experiences traveling to the promised land are much more than an inspiring collection of “vignettes modeling faith amid aversity.”[15] The stories in 1 Nephi work like a handbook for 2 Nephi by outlining Israel’s covenant history in preparation for the “deep and sustained treatment” of Israel’s covenantal destiny, and the exiled Nephites’ place within that destiny, that follows.[16] Similar to Old Testament narrative practice, Nephi deliberately framed his, and everyone else’s, relationship with God according to whether or not they made and kept covenants with him.[17] At the end of 1 Nephi 1, Nephi explained that his purpose was to show “that the tender mercies of the Lord are over all those whom he hath chosen” (v. 20). People become “chosen and invite [God’s] tender mercies” as they use their agency to choose God, a decision that involves making and keeping covenants with him.[18] Thus, anything Nephi says about his brothers in 1 and 2 Nephi needs to be carefully considered from within the substantial covenantal contextual framework that Nephi provided. However, because of his Middle Eastern upbringing, Nephi had a specific type of covenant in mind that significantly influenced the microstructure of specific chapters and the language that he used in them.

Covenants with God

The Oxford English Dictionary defines covenant as “a mutual agreement between two or more persons to do or refrain from doing certain acts; a compact, contract, bargain.”[19] In other words, a covenant is an agency-based demonstration of mutual commitment. Through modern revelation, we learn that God accomplishes his work to “bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man” (Moses 1:39) through eternal covenants.[20] An eternal covenant is an agreement between a person and God in which God sets the terms. Through eternal covenants, God becomes an active partner who promises to “sustain, sanctify, and exalt” those who actively strive “to serve him and keep his commandments.”[21] God will not force anyone to make covenants with him, though he will tirelessly invite, persuade, and encourage his children to do so.[22] Elder D. Todd Christofferson explained that there is real power in “the covenants God offers to His children” because when people bind themselves to God, their covenants open “the door to every spiritual blessing and privilege available to men, women, and children everywhere.”[23]

The scriptures indicate that God[24] made covenants with Adam and Eve (see Moses 5:4–8; 6:64–68), and scholars have demonstrated that “the new and everlasting covenant [God] made with [them] is the same covenant that [he] made with Abraham and Sarah, renewed with Israel at Mount Sinai” and reestablished with “the Nephites in the Book of Mormon.”[25] Lehi and his family “understood that they participated in both the covenant that Abraham and Sarah made with God and the covenant that Israel made with God at Sinai,” and their descendants continued to live the “essentials of each of these covenants” even though there was some adaptation for their unique circumstances.[26] Since the 1950s, Bible scholars have recognized that Israel’s Mosaic covenant was administered in the form of a suzerainty treaty, a type of covenant that was then common in the Middle East where a dominant party, the suzerain (God/Jehovah), set the terms of an agreement with a subordinate party, the vassal (Israel). As the weaker member, vassals had no power to negotiate or change the terms of the treaty. They could only agree to accept or reject whatever the suzerain offered.[27]

In the same way that we are familiar with political systems today, Lehi’s family was accustomed to suzerainty treaties.[28] The Hebrew Bible books of Deuteronomy and Isaiah are particularly insightful about the nature, history, and language of suzerainty covenants,[29] and this may be one reason why Nephi filled the latter part of 1 Nephi and a large part of 2 Nephi with copied selections from Isaiah[30] and why the opening chapters of 2 Nephi have much in common with Deuteronomy.[31] Nephi may have ended 1 Nephi and started 2 Nephi because Lehi announced that Jerusalem, the beloved center and home of Jehovah’s covenant people, had been destroyed (see 2 Nephi 1:4). As an intact group of exiles from a Jerusalem that no longer existed the family could not return to their homeland. Suddenly, Lehi’s descendants became “founding fathers and founding mothers” of a new covenantal center for Jehovah’s people.[32] Realizing their position, Lehi may have wanted to formally reaffirm “the continuity of the Mosaic covenant in a New world setting”[33] by holding a covenant-renewal ceremony similar to the one Moses held for the Israelites as they prepared to enter and establish themselves in the promised land of Canaan (see Deuteronomy 1–30).[34] Nephi may have honored this important transition in the family’s life by commencing a new book, 2 Nephi, and by recording activities that reflect Moses’ behavior in Deuteronomy. Like Moses,[35] Lehi gathered his people together to speak to them (see 2 Nephi 4:12), he reviewed the “great things the Lord had done for them in bringing them out of the land of Jerusalem” (1:1), he discoursed about divine laws (agency, opposition, probation, and atonement; 2 Nephi 2), he blessed them (see 4:1–11),[36] and he reviewed the covenant, including its blessings and cursings (see 1:5–12).[37] Though Nephi may have glossed over some of the finer details of the covenant-renewal ceremony, he did include six elements of the ancient Near Eastern suzerainty covenant that he and his family were a part of. As we will see below, these six elements set the stage for understanding Nephi’s later descriptions of his brothers and brothers-in-law.

The Lehitic Suzerainty Covenant

Ancient Near Eastern treaties traditionally included six, sometimes seven, vital elements, though there could be some variety in the ordering of the elements in the treaty.[38] Generally, the treaties began with a preamble. The preamble identified the parties making the covenant and indicated the time and place where the covenant was made. Nephi recorded the preamble in 2 Nephi 1:5, explaining that the covenant was made with Lehi, with Lehi’s family, and with “all those who should be led out of other countries by the hand of the Lord” and that the covenant became active upon arrival in the Americas.[39] The preamble also contained evidence of the superior authority and power of the suzerain (Jehovah). Nephi provided this evidence by recording how Lehi “rehearsed” the “great things” the Lord had done for them in “bringing them out of the land of Jerusalem” (v. 1).

The preamble was followed by a historical prologue. The prologue reviewed the past relationship between the suzerain and the vassal (Lehi’s family), emphasizing the benevolent actions of the former and any rebellious behaviors from the latter. Thus, Lehi accentuated the “mercies” of Jehovah in “sparing their lives” and in warning them to “flee out of the land of Jerusalem” while also highlighting his older sons’ “rebellions upon the waters” (2 Nephi 1:2–3).

The third part of a suzerainty treaty outlined the stipulations of the covenant. The terms established the “reciprocal responsibilities” for each party.[40] In 2 Nephi 1:5–7, 21, Lehi explained that the Lord would preserve the promised land as a land of liberty for Lehi’s family as long as they served him “according to the commandments which he [had] given [them],” were “united in all things,” and willingly supported Nephi as the next “ruler and teacher” after Lehi died (see vv. 24–28). Because Hebrew prophets were individually chosen by Jehovah and served as his exclusive spokesmen, Nephi’s position and acceptance by the family was built on the “assurance that Jehovah had personally selected him to service.”[41]

The terms of the suzerainty covenant were followed by a blessing and cursing section. Blessings provided incentives for the vassal to keep the terms of the covenant. Lehi explained that if the family was obedient to Jehovah’s commands, if they were unified, and if they followed Jehovah’s prophet, they would never be “brought down into captivity” (2 Nephi 1:7) but would “prosper upon the face” of the land and would be “kept from all other nations,” possessing “[the] land unto themselves,” dwelling there “safely forever” (v. 9; see v. 20), and not perishing (see 2:28). Cursings, on the other hand, graphically described the consequences for breaking the covenant. Lehi’s cursings section began with a general declaration that if the family’s iniquity was great enough the land would be “cursed . . . for their sakes” (1:7). But he also identified more specific curses, or consequences. For example, rejecting the true Messiah would bring “other nations unto them” who would take away “the lands of their possessions” by violence, bloodshed, and scattering (vv. 10–12). Hard-heartedness would result in generations of destructive warfare, famine, hatred, and captivity to the devil (see 1:18). In other words, the family would become vulnerable to their own weaknesses and imperfections, and they would also be left without any promised aid in dealing with the unwanted or inappropriate behavior of others.[42] It is no wonder that Nephi would later describe the cursing as “a sore cursing” (5:21).

The fifth portion of a suzerainty treaty included a list of witnesses. Witnesses could be objects, Gods, or people, including the individuals making the covenant. Witnesses were essential because they demonstrated that the suzerain was trustworthy and did not act in secret. In Deuteronomy, for example, Moses specified that the “heavens” and the “earth” were witnesses (32:1), and he directed that large, inscribed stones be set up on the banks of the river Jordan as witnesses to Israel’s covenant renewal (see 27:1–3). If Lehi did something similar with objects, Nephi did not record it on the small plates, though Lehi’s descendants, who were all present at the covenant-renewal ceremony, could easily have served as the witnesses to the covenant (see 2 Nephi 1–4). Lehi’s requests that his posterity “hearken unto [his] words” (1:12) and “give ear unto [his] words” (4:3) reflect Moses’ plea to his witnesses—“Give ear, O ye heavens . . . and hear, O earth, the words of my mouth” (Deuteronomy 32:1)—and suggest that Lehi intended his descendants to be witnesses.

The sixth portion of a suzerainty treaty included the instructions for preserving and remembering the covenant. In Deuteronomy, Moses fulfilled this requirement by giving “this law” to the priests who bore the ark of the covenant and by instructing Joshua that it should be read “at the end of every seven years” during the Feast of Tabernacles (Deuteronomy 31:9–13). Nephi seems to have preserved the Lehitic covenant by recording it on the small plates, which were designed to hold “the more sacred things” of his people and were to be kept by the prophets, handed down “from one prophet to another,” and used by them for the “instruction” and “knowledge of [his] people” (1 Nephi 19:3–5).[43] Since agency is an essential element in all covenants,[44] preserving and remembering the suzerainty treaty were critical activities because each member of the family in each generation would come to know Jehovah only as he or she made a personal decision to engage with “him individually in that covenant.”[45] After Lehi’s death (see 2 Nephi 4:12), it became Nephi’s responsibility to preserve the covenant and to remind family members to stay true to it. Nephi’s descriptions of the escalating drama between him and his brothers in 2 Nephi 4 demonstrate his diligence in fulfilling these responsibilities.

Keeping the Lehitic Suzerainty Covenant

Not many days after Lehi died, a grieving Nephi, who already carried important responsibilities as a husband and father, entered one of the most challenging times of his life as he shouldered his new role as Jehovah’s appointed prophet.[46] The family had promised to be obedient to Jehovah, to be unified among themselves, and to follow Nephi in exchange for divine prosperity and protection. Unfortunately, even at this early stage in Nephi’s leadership all three of these agreements were already being violated as “Laman and Lemuel and the sons of Ishmael” responded angrily to Nephi’s “admonitions of the Lord” (2 Nephi 4:12–14) and defiantly rejected his leadership role, saying “we will not have [Nephi] to be our ruler; for it belongs unto us, who are the elder brethren, to rule over this people” (5:3). Though Nephi’s initial response to his brothers’ wrath and rejection was severe self-doubt and discouragement (see 4:17–19),[47] he wrote about working through those feelings from a covenant-centered perspective, showing how important the Lehitic covenant was to him and how it influenced his thinking and writing.

Described as the “Psalm of Nephi,”[48] numerous authors have shown that 2 Nephi 4:20–35 was “carefully and meticulously crafted.”[49] In the psalm, Nephi beautifully demonstrated the way covenants provide “the power to smile through hardships” and how they can convert “tribulation into triumph.”[50] By utilizing the typical elements of a covenant speech,[51] Nephi recovered his equilibrium and perspective. Beginning with a preamble, “I know in whom I have trusted,” Nephi reminded himself that he and Jehovah were partners in a sacred covenant (2 Nephi 4:19; emphasis added).[52] Next, Nephi created a personal historical prologue as he rehearsed in specific detail the “great things” the Lord had already done for him (vv. 20–26), even contrasting his own rebellious behavior as he mistakenly wallowed in self-pity, gave “way to temptations,” and succumbed to anger (vv. 26–27). Nephi then produced a set of terms, committing himself to improved behavior that was the opposite of his confessed shortcomings (vv. 28–29). Then, Nephi did what all vassals should do when they have trouble with other vassals.[53] Nephi humbly brought the situation before the suzerain and asked him to intervene (vv. 31–33). He even ended the psalm with a small blessing and cursing section, reminding himself that God gives “liberally” to those who rely on him and curses those who put their “trust in man” (vv. 34–35).

Nephi’s psalm was followed by a waiting period in which he patiently endured the increasing anger of his brothers (see 2 Nephi 5:1–2) until Jehovah, his suzerain, made “a way for [his] escape before [his] enemies” (4:33). Nephi’s persevering endurance was a necessary part of his covenant obligations because only the suzerain could alter the terms of the covenant.[54] Until Jehovah directed otherwise, Nephi needed to remain with the entire family so he could speak for Jehovah as he tried to increase obedience and improve family unity. Because “the Lord’s justice and his mercy are closely connected to his covenant relationship with his children,”[55] God was slow to wrath and gave Laman and Lemuel every chance possible. Jehovah did not direct Nephi to leave until it was certain that his older brothers intended to kill him (see 5:2, 4). Fully committed to his suzerain, Nephi obediently departed into the wilderness, taking all those who “believed in the warnings and the revelations of God” with him (vv. 5–6). Nephi then carefully recorded how the blessings in the blessing section of the suzerainty treaty became operative. Because he had kept the covenant and relied on Jehovah for protection, the suzerain graciously provided him with a new land (see vv. 7–8), a supportive group of followers (see vv. 9, 18), and economic, industrial, and spiritual prosperity and population growth (see vv. 10–17). Nephi also described how his people continued to honor the terms of the Lehitic suzerainty covenant by carefully observing “the statues . . . and the commandments of the Lord in all things” (v. 10), by willingly following Nephi’s directions (see vv. 15, 17), and by unitedly caring about each other’s happiness (see v. 27). Nephi then turned his attention to the family he had left behind, deliberately showing how the curses in the cursing section of the suzerainty treaty had become operative in their lives. Because “the entire Israelite (and so Nephite) system of law and covenant depended on [the] divine justice and trustworthiness” of Jehovah,[56] it was absolutely necessary for Nephi to demonstrate that “the words of the Lord had been fulfilled unto [his] brethren” (v. 19) in the same way that they had been fulfilled for him.

Rejecting the Lehitic Suzerainty Covenant

As Nephi described the consequences that came to his brothers, he structured his comments after the original terms of the Lehitic covenant. I will present this section accordingly.

The Promise to Accept and Follow the Prophet

Nephi first addressed the requirement for the family to uphold him as Jehovah’s chosen spokesman. In 2 Nephi 5:19, he noted that he had been the family’s ruler and teacher until Laman and Lemuel dramatically rejected his divine appointment by seeking to kill him. In verse 20, Nephi reported Jehovah’s promised consequences for that choice: “Inasmuch as they will not hearken unto thy words they shall be cut off from the presence of the Lord.” Nephi had known of these consequences for many years. Shortly after leaving Jerusalem, the Lord said, “Inasmuch as thy brethren shall rebel against thee, they shall be cut off from the presence of the Lord” (1 Nephi 2:21). Inasmuch means “in so far as, to such a degree as, in proportion as, according as.”[57] In other words, Laman and Lemuel controlled their proximity to Jehovah by their responses to Nephi, and to the degree that they rebelled against Nephi, they rebelled against Jehovah because Nephi was Jehovah’s “proxy on earth.”[58] Judging from the numerous divine confirmations that Laman and Lemuel received after leaving Jerusalem, including one that caused them to admit to Nephi, “We know of a surety that the Lord is with thee” (17:55), it seems evident that they did indeed gain a witness for themselves that Nephi was Jehovah’s prophet even though that process took time.[59] In fact, after their declaration of sure knowledge, Laman and Lemuel stopped accusing Nephi of lying and of being led by “the foolish imaginations of his heart” (v. 20) even though they continued to object to a younger brother ruling over them (see 18:10; 2 Nephi 5:3) and continued to complain about his leadership style (see 2 Nephi 1:25–26).[60]

Moreover, within a suzerainty treaty context, particular words had legal meanings that were different from their everyday use. For example, to rebel refers to “breaking the terms of one’s covenants,”[61] while cut off “serves as the fundamental term in the Hebrew Bible for making or concluding a covenant.”[62] The Lord’s deliberate use of rebel (see 1 Nephi 2:21, 23–24) and of cut off (see v. 21; 2 Nephi 5:20) indicates that Laman and Lemuel must have entered into a covenant with him previously; otherwise, Jehovah’s accusation of rebelliousness and his decision to cut them off would have been unjust.[63] Unfortunately, it is not clear when the family made the covenant. Textual clues in 1 Nephi 2 suggest that Lehi and his family entered the suzerainty covenant shortly after leaving Jerusalem. Nephi recorded that his father “built an altar of stones, and made an offering unto the Lord, and gave thanks unto the Lord our God” (v. 7). These offerings may have been peace offerings or animal sacrifices offered in keeping with the law of Moses that were designed to express thanks, including gratitude for safety in traveling.[64] However, peace offerings could also be performed to complete or finish the vow process.[65] Because Nephi mentioned both “an offering” and giving “thanks,” it is possible that several different sacrifices were performed at this time, including those accompanying a suzerainty covenant.[66] Other textual clues support this possibility. At the end of 1 Nephi 2, Nephi helpfully recorded the Lord’s response to his prayerful concerns over Laman and Lemuel. The Lord’s words, beginning with “inasmuch as ye shall keep my commandments, ye shall prosper, and shall be led to a land of promise” (v. 18), could be interpreted as Jehovah’s timely direction that Nephi focus on what Nephi could control, which was his own faithful obedience to the covenant he had entered into at Lehi’s altar, and that Nephi stop focusing on what he could not control, which was Laman and Lemuel’s faithfulness to that same covenant.[67] Using covenant terminology, the Lord in 2 Nephi 2:21–24 reminded Nephi that if his brothers rebelled (i.e., broke the previously made covenant), his covenant relationship with them would be terminated (i.e., they would be cut off, and the covenant curses would become operative). Additionally, Nephi recorded that Lehi comforted Sariah with assurances that he had already “obtained a land of promise” (1 Nephi 5:5), and during the second trip back from Jerusalem, Nephi reminded his brothers that if they were faithful, they would “obtain the land of promise” (7:13). In fact, he may have alluded to the covenant by strongly questioning whether they even had a choice in returning to Jerusalem (see v. 15). These three references make much better sense if a covenant had already been made.

Thus, Laman and Lemuel’s plan to kill Nephi in 2 Nephi 5 seems to be a knowledgeable choice, one that declared the brothers’ intent to remain in a state of disobedience, a state that prevented them from being in Jehovah’s presence[68] and made the suzerainty covenant “void and of none effect” (Doctrine and Covenants 54:4). However, one of the remarkable features of God’s invitation for his children to participate in covenants with him is that the invitation is open-ended: “anyone who had previously rejected or not known of the invitation could decide at any point to accept it.”[69] In fact, the words cut off may represent a temporary, changeable condition “because one’s rebellion or disobedience may ebb and flow and thus change one’s access to the presence of the Lord in mortality.”[70] Thus, Jehovah said to Nephi that if the Lamanites would “repent of their wickedness,” they could still obtain his mercy and reengage in the covenant relationship (Alma 3:14).

After acknowledging that Laman and Lemuel had chosen to dissolve the covenant, Nephi stated that the Lord “caused the cursing to come upon them, yea, even a sore cursing, because of their iniquity” (2 Nephi 5:21). These curses came as a natural consequence of Laman and Lemuel’s rebellion and disloyalty toward their suzerain.[71] Mormon, the editor of the Book of Mormon, later recorded that the Lord specifically told Nephi, “Behold, the Lamanites have I cursed” (Alma 3:14). Unfortunately, many authors have equated the cursing with the cutting off, arguing that the curse was the “self-chosen exile from God’s presence.”[72] However, the suzerainty treaty clarifies that for Nephi, cut off and cursing were two different events.[73] Cut off designated a canceled covenant relationship, while cursing referred to the specific cursing section that was written into the Lehitic treaty. By distinguishing between the two terms, Nephi deftly showed that rejecting the covenant guaranteed that Jehovah’s curses would be fulfilled in his brothers’ lives in the same way that the blessings had been fulfilled for the covenant-keeping Nephites who followed him.

Because of the curses, Laman and Lemuel would experience violence, visitations by the sword, “great bloodsheds,” hatred, and captivity to the devil (see 2 Nephi 1:12, 18). These pronouncements could be inflicted on covenant breakers by outside sources as the protection and other spiritual blessings that Jehovah offered were forfeited (see Mosiah 2:36; Helaman 6:35; 13:8), but they could also be perpetuated by the covenant breakers themselves as they lost the Spirit (see Mormon 1:14; 5:16) and became increasingly captive to the devil (see Mosiah 10:17; Enos 1:14; Omni 1:10), who is “the father of contention” and who stirs “up the hearts of men to contend with anger, one with another” (3 Nephi 11:29). Because these curses are behavioral in nature and have to do with motives and choices, it makes sense that the Lord would prophesy that the children of those who intermarried with the Lamanites would be affected by the curses even if the children had never participated actively in the suzerain covenant themselves (see 2 Nephi 5:23; Alma 3:9). Innocent children are heavily influenced by the values, teachings, and example of their parents, often called “the traditions of their fathers” in the Book of Mormon (see Enos 1:14; Mosiah 10:12; 26:1; Alma 3:11), which is why the Lord extended “many promises” of mercy to the Lamanites (Alma 9:16). Nephi understood, expected, and prepared for the long-term consequences, or curses, attending the broken Lehitic covenant because he wrote about the “many swords” he made to protect his people from the Lamanites’ hatred and about the “wars and contentions” that the Nephites had with the Lamanites (2 Nephi 5:14, 34).

The Promise to be Unified as a Family

Following Nephi’s declaration that the cursings in the treaty would become operative, he continued by addressing the important subject of family unity. In binding the family to him through the suzerainty covenant, Jehovah intended to take Lehi’s family as his own,[74] “to be his peculiar people” (Deuteronomy 26:18). However, “unity is the test of divine ownership,”[75] which means “if ye are not one ye are not mine” (Doctrine and Covenants 38:27). If the brothers could not become “determined in one mind and in one heart, united in all things” (2 Nephi 1:21), neither they nor their families could ultimately become Jehovah’s “peculiar treasure” (Exodus 19:5). In 2 Nephi 5:21, beginning with the words “for behold,” which indicate that readers need to pay careful attention to what follows,[76] Nephi explained that his brothers had “hardened their hearts against him [Jehovah]” so completely that they had “become like unto a flint.” A flint is a very hard, dark rock or “anything proverbially hard.”[77] Because of its nature, flint does not blend with other substances, which makes it a fitting metaphor describing Laman and Lemuel’s refusal to submit to Jehovah’s will by working to unify with the family. By rejecting the requirement to be unified, Laman and Lemuel chose to remain separate. And since “God will not act to make us something that we do not choose by our actions to become,”[78] the Lord told Nephi that he would “set a mark on [the Lamanites] that they and their seed may be separated from thee and thy seed, from this time henceforth and forever, except they repent of their wickedness and turn to me that I may have mercy upon them” (Alma 3:14; emphasis added). The words may be are important because they reflect Jehovah’s gracious acknowledgment of, and respect for, Laman and Lemuel’s agency. As stipulated in the suzerainty treaty, Jehovah wanted Lehi’s sons to work in harmony, but he allowed Laman and Lemuel to choose for themselves, and when they did he respected their decision to become autonomous.[79] Additionally, the word that in the phrase “that they and their seed may be separated” seems to mean “so that”. In other words, the Lord said that Laman and Lemuel’s desires to be autonomous would be fulfilled through a distinguishing mark that would make it obvious who was a Lamanite and who was a Nephite, a procedure that would ultimately benefit both groups who were trying to establish themselves in a new world that may have already been inhabited.[80] From this perspective, the mark wasn’t a malicious curse inflicted by Jehovah. Rather, the mark was the logical means for the Lamanites to obtain a completely distinct identity from their relatives whom they resembled both genetically and culturally. And by using the general term mark, which has a wide variety of meanings,[81] the Lord was able to prophetically inform Nephi how the issues of separation and distinction would be managed without dictating to Laman and Lemuel what the mark would be or how it would be administered.[82]

A contextual reading of 2 Nephi 5:21 also indicates that Laman and Lemuel’s desire for autonomy was the driving factor behind the mark. Nephi explained that his brothers “had hardened their hearts against him [Jehovah], that they had become like unto a flint; wherefore,[83] as they were white, and exceedingly fair and delightsome, that they might not be enticing unto my people the Lord God did cause a skin of blackness to come upon them.” This passage can be read to mean that in response to their hard hearts, the Lord darkened Lamanite skin pigmentation so that the Lamanites would no longer be physically enticing as marriage partners. However, the suzerainty covenant makes it clear that hard-hearted vassals were to be cut off from the covenant relationship and then cursed with specific curses that were stipulated and explained in advance (see 2 Nephi 1:11–12, 17–18). Significantly, there is no mention of a mark or a skin of blackness among the many curses.

Because Jehovah does not work secretively (see 1 Nephi 20:16; 2 Nephi 26:23; Isaiah 45:19; 48:16), because he speaks plainly (see 2 Nephi 26:33; Jacob 4:13; Alma 13:23), and because he doesn’t “vary from that which he hath said” (Doctrine and Covenants 3:2), the mark’s absence from the covenant cursings section is strong evidence that the mark, or skin of blackness, did not come as a direct consequence for breaking the suzerainty covenant.[84] Therefore, it seems that Laman and Lemuel’s flinty hearts, hearts full of a consuming desire for separation and autonomy, created the need for the mark since “everything depends—initially and finally”—on desire. Desires shape thought patterns and precede actions, and God will not override or overwhelm individual will.[85] If we combine passionate desire for autonomy with strong personalities and leadership skills capable of influencing others, Laman, Lemuel, and the sons of Ishmael cease to be the unwitting victims of an arbitrary, untrustworthy suzerain and become instead complex people who were willing and able to make important decisions[86] in the pursuit of their desires, desires that dictated what would “be done unto [them]” (Doctrine and Covenants 11:17) by a just and trustworthy suzerain who honored both the treaty and their agency.

Moreover, having finally obtained the long-contested right “to rule over” the family that remained with them (2 Nephi 5:3), these men would not have left important questions of intermarriage unresolved, especially when Hebrew law and custom (see Numbers 36:5–9), much of which they were strongly supportive of,[87] favored marriages to individuals “who were not too distantly removed” and gave preference to first cousins.[88] As Israelite fathers, they were largely in control of whom their sons and daughters would marry.[89] Therefore, it seems that a more accurate reading of Nephi’s words is obtained by placing emphasis on the Lamanite perspective of the situation rather than on the Nephite perspective. Acting on their desires to be autonomous, the Lamanites perceived themselves to be “white, and exceedingly fair and delightsome,” and “[so] that they might not be enticing unto [the Nephites] the Lord God did cause a skin of blackness to come upon them” (2 Nephi 5:21).[90] In other words, by deliberately responding to Lamanite distaste for intermarriage, which was the only remaining way the family could still be unified, Jehovah, who “knows all the thoughts and intents of the heart” (Alma 18:32), and who grants “unto men according to their desire” (Alma 29:4), provided a way for the desired distinction, something that Nephi named a “skin of blackness.”[91] From Mormon’s later explanations of the mark, it seems that the Nephites grew to understand that one of the positive purposes of the mark was to remind them that intermarriage with the Lamanites could lead to the adoption of “incorrect traditions which would prove their destruction” (3:8).

Mormon indicated that the mark was self-inflicted when he wrote that “the skins of the Lamanites were dark, according to the mark which was set upon their fathers” (Alma 3:6; emphasis added). According to means “agreed with,” “referred to,” or “harmonized with,” and it suggests that it was the Nephites who identified the dark skin as the fulfillment of the prophesied mark, not Jehovah. Mormon’s careful descriptions of the Amlicites, a group of Nephite dissenters who came “out in open rebellion against God” and unwittingly fulfilled “the words of God” by voluntarily setting a distinguishing red mark “in their foreheads after the manner of the Lamanites” (vv. 4, 13, 18; emphasis added), also confirms that marks were self-determined. The phrase after the manner is important because it suggests there was a recognizable, reproducible form or design to the Lamanite mark and a specific method or mode of application[92] that the Amlicites could replicate[93] to outwardly distinguish themselves as Lamanite allies.[94]

Therefore, if the skin of blackness was not a racially oriented “miraculous act of God” inflicted by Jehovah on the unsuspecting Lamanites, what might it have been?[95] Perhaps the Lamanites created the skin of blackness by “inlaying the Colour of Black under their skins”[96] through the process of tattooing. Modern scholarship has demonstrated that tattooing dates back thousands of years.[97] In fact, the oldest tattooed mummy is 5,200 years old. Tattoos “preserved on mummified human remains” demonstrate that “the global antiquity of tattooing extends to at least 3200 BCE.”[98] In the ancient Near East, Greece, and Rome, the use of tattoos, called stigmata, was a common religious custom, especially among the “neighbors of the Israelites,” which explains why the practice was banned in Jewish law (see Leviticus 19:28) around 400 BCE.[99] Tattooed mummies and tattooing tools have also been found among Pre-Columbian American cultures across North and South America.[100] Because the cultural and demographic clues in the Book of Mormon text “hint at the presence of other groups,”[101] it is possible that Laman and Lemuel were exposed to tattooing by the Native American peoples around them[102] who already practiced it and who encouraged and taught them how to do it. Because there is “no known word for tattooing in ancient Egyptian,”[103] Nephi, who admitted that he made his record “in the language of my father, which consists of the learning of the Jews and the language of the Egyptians” (1 Nephi 1:2),[104] may have struggled to express the concept of tattooing clearly, resulting in the rather indistinct “skin of blackness” or the equally obscure “darkness of their skins” (2 Nephi 5:21; Jacob 3:9). Or because Egyptian “contains alphabetic (phonograms or sound-signs) as well as logographic (ideograms or sense-signs) characters,” a character can represent an entire word, phrase, or idea,[105] making it entirely possible that the Nephites’ Egyptian character for “tattoo” may have literally meant “skin of blackness” when translated into English.[106]

The word tattoo came into Western languages only in the late 1760s as a result of Captain James Cook’s (1728–1779) British expedition to Tahiti. Because there was no word in English for the markings he saw on the Tahitians’ bodies, he adapted the islanders’ term tatatau or tattau, meaning “to hit or strike,” and after his return to England the word was adopted across England and Europe.[107] However, it wasn’t until 1835, five years after the Book of Mormon was translated, that James F. O’Connell (1808–1854), an Irish castaway who lived on the remote South Pacific coral island of Pohnpei in the 1830s, gained fame as the first man to display his full-body tattoos in the United States,[108] which raises important questions about contemporary familiarity with the word tattoo in early 1800s America and whether Joseph Smith would have known the word or even understood the practice of tattooing before or during the translation of the Book of Mormon. These lexical circumstances may help explain why tattoo wasn’t used in place of skin of blackness during translation.[109]

Anciently, tattooing was accomplished by making punctures in the skin with a sharp object, such as thorns, sharpened awls, or bones, and rubbing charcoal or soot into the wounds to permanently fix the pricked image or pattern.[110] Tattooing was laborious, time-consuming, painful, and dangerous, and infections often caused serious illness and even death.[111] The visible, life-threatening risks associated with tattooing might be why the Nephites described the dark skin[112] as a retributive “curse” upon the Lamanites for initially seeking to destroy “Nephi, Jacob, Joseph, and Sam” (Alma 3:6) because Hebrew culture ascribed all illness to the will, even judgment, of God.[113] Tattoos were often used to mark both men and women as belonging to a specific group, such as to a tribe or genealogical line,[114] and because of their desires to be autonomous, Laman and Lemuel may have adopted the practice and asked for the first tattoos to be set upon themselves and upon “the sons of Ishmael, and [the] Ishmaelitish women” (Alma 3:7). In some cultures, tattoos were obtained at important life events, such as birth, puberty, or marriage, and some tattoos were even given to record notable achievements attained while hunting or engaging in battle.[115] These practices might very easily explain how the skin of blackness was deliberately, though nongenetically, transferred to the rising generation, including those who intermarried with the Lamanites (see Alma 3:9, 15), or to those who suffered themselves “to be led away by the Lamanites” and had the “mark set upon” them afterward (v. 10). Some ancient cultures rebuffed those who had tattoos,[116] which might explain why the Nephites reviled against the Lamanites for the “darkness of their skins” (Jacob 3:9). Tattoos might also be a much better explanation for what happened to a group of Lamanites whose “skin became white” after they were “converted unto the Lord” and united with the Nephites (3 Nephi 2:12, 14–16). The miraculous fading or divinely aided disappearance of tattoos, which were both difficult and dangerous for humans to remove,[117] would be a unique and special event worthy of noting in the Nephite record, but also one that did not necessarily happen to every Lamanite who was converted. And finally, tattoos might help explain at least part of the procedure for how someone, like a Nephite dissenter, became recognized as a Lamanite or as a Lamanite ally (see Alma 43:4, 13; 54:24).

Obedience to God’s Commandments

After describing how Laman and Lemuel had broken the covenant of family unity and deliberately confirmed their separateness by a physical sign, Nephi then addressed the issue of obedience to the commandments, the third fundamental commitment in the Lehitic suzerain treaty. According to the treaty, the promised land was a consecrated land for the Nephites only if they would serve Jehovah “according to the commandments which he hath given” (2 Nephi 1:7). In 2 Nephi 5:22, the Lord told Nephi, “I will cause that they [the Lamanites] shall be loathsome unto thy people, save they shall repent of their iniquities.” Unfortunately, some authors have misread this passage and have mistakenly argued that “the Lord caused the Lamanites to appear ‘loathsome’ to the Nephites by bringing a ‘skin of blackness’ upon them.”[118] But by reading this passage in reverse order, it becomes evident that Jehovah was not referring to the Lamanites’ appearance or to the skin of blackness as the source of the feelings of loathsomeness. Jehovah said, “Save [except] they [the Lamanites] repent of their iniquities, I will cause that they shall be loathsome unto thy people.” In other words, Nephite feelings of loathsomeness would be the natural consequences of the Lamanites’ engagement in sinful behavior.[119]

However, because of the suzerainty treaty, loathsome, as defined as “disgusting; hateful; abhorred; detestable,”[120] may not be a prophecy of Nephite rejection, derision, racism, or persecution because “righteous people did not think themselves above others, nor did they persecute others.”[121] When loathsome is perceived through the Lehitic suzerainty treaty, the concept of hate takes on a legal meaning that “signified the status of an individual outside” the covenant relationship, while love “represented a covenantal devotion to one’s superior.”[122] Thus, righteous behavior (love) honored the covenant with the suzerain while sinful behavior (hate) broke it. Samuel, the Lamanite prophet who preached to the Nephites several hundred years after Nephi₁, illustrated this when he said that the Lord had “hated” the Lamanites “because their deeds have been evil continually” (Helaman 15:4). Because divine hatred “is about loyal covenantal allegiance (or its opposite),”[123] the Lord perceived the Lamanites as outside the covenant because they had not kept his commandments. In declaring that the Lamanites would be loathsome to the Nephites, Jehovah may have meant something similar and was actually prophesying that until the Lamanites repented of their sins, the Nephites would continue to perceive them as people who lived outside the covenant and who needed to be restored to it. David Belnap has noted that loathsome is used only three times in the Book of Mormon: once to describe the Lamanites (see 2 Nephi 5:22) and twice to describe the surviving population of Lamanites and Nephites who had all rejected Jehovah (see 1 Nephi 12:23; Mormon 5:15). This data supports the idea that for the Nephite record keepers, loathsome was exclusively used to describe people who chose to be outside the covenant relationship.[124]

Other passages in the Book of Mormon demonstrate that Jehovah was determined to help the Lamanites return to the covenant and that he intended the return to be accomplished by “the preaching of the Nephites” (Helaman 15:4). Enos, Nephi’s nephew, obtained a divine promise that the Lamanites might be “brought unto salvation” in a future day (Enos 1:13). Alma, a future Nephite prophet, declared “there are many promises which are extended to the Lamanites.” He explained that the Lord would be “merciful unto them,” that he would “prolong their existence in the land,” and that at some future period of time they would be brought to “believe in his word” (Alma 9:16–17). Jacob, Nephi’s younger brother, testified that “many means were devised to reclaim and restore the Lamanites to the knowledge of the truth; but it all was vain” (Jacob 7:24). Enos demonstrated his love and concern by praying to God “with many long strugglings for [his] brethren, the Lamanites” (Enos 1:11) and said that the Nephites sought “diligently to restore the Lamanites unto the true faith in God” but had no success (v. 20). Importantly, the saving relationship between the Nephites and Lamanites was not meant to be one-sided. Immediately following the prophecy that the Nephites would perceive the Lamanites as outside the covenant, Jehovah explained to Nephi that if his people became covenant breakers themselves, the Lamanites would serve as “a scourge” to “stir them up in the ways of remembrance” so that they could return to the covenant (2 Nephi 5:25; 1 Nephi 2:24). In other words, both groups would be able to help each other recommit to the Lehitic treaty.

Conclusion

Nephi’s descriptions of his rebellious older brothers as cut off, cursed, bearing a skin of blackness, and loathsome to the Nephites have created much confusion and consternation for students of the Book of Mormon for more than a century. Copious amounts of ink have been employed to argue for racial or metaphorical explanations, none of which have been entirely convincing or satisfying for me. Inspired by the historical perspective that the Book of Mormon and the Bible create when they are used as complementary tools, by the covenantal approach of the Old Testament, and by the central position of covenants in the plan of salvation, I have sought to provide an alternative explanation and have argued that cut off, cursed, skin of blackness, and loathsome are best understood from within the ancient Near Eastern suzerainty covenant that Lehi’s family participated in. Following a discussion of the deliberate covenant-centered structure of 1 and 2 Nephi, I demonstrated that Nephi was familiar with the ancient Near Eastern suzerainty covenants and that he carefully presented a Lehitic suzerainty covenant in the opening chapters of 2 Nephi. I argued that the elements of the treaty assisted Nephi in recovering from his brothers’ rejection of his leadership and that they also dictated the way he described Laman, Lemuel, and the sons of Ishmael after they spurned the Lehitic covenant. From Nephi’s perspective, cut off signified that the covenant was broken, cursed denoted that the promised consequences for breaking the covenant became operative in his brothers’ lives, skin of blackness was a self-inflicted mark (most likely a tattoo) brought about by Laman and Lemuel’s divinely acknowledged desires to be distinctly autonomous, and loathsome indicated that the Lamanites would remain outside the covenant until they repented. On this view, Nephi’s descriptions are seen to be covenantal in nature, not racial or metaphorical.

Notes

[1] David Knowlton, “Lamanites, Apologetics, and Tensions in Mormon Anthropology,” in Perspectives on Mormon Theology: Apologetics, ed. Blair G. Van Dyke and Loyd Isao Ericson (Sandy, UT: Greg Kofford Books, 2017), 208. Brant A. Gardner explains, “There are many ways in which color may be associated with a person[;] . . . the question is what the [Book of Mormon] means when it makes those associations.” Second Witness: Analytical and Contextual Commentary on the Book of Mormon (Sandy, UT: Greg Kofford Books, 2007), 2:108–23.

[2] Because Nephi seems to suggest that darker skin pigmentation is a sign of unrighteousness or divine disfavor, some readers believe that the Book of Mormon is racist and that it reflects the racist attitudes common in the United States in the early 1800s, when the Book of Mormon was first published by Joseph Smith. See John Dehlin, “Mormon Stories: Questions and Answers,” June 27, 2014, /; and Simon G. Southerton, Losing a Lost Tribe: Native Americans, DNA, and the Mormon Church (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 2004), 8–9, 12, 40, 184.

[3] Two recent volumes that argue a racial interpretation are Max Perry Mueller, Race and the Making of the Mormon People (Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 2017); and Elizabeth Fenton and Jared Hickman, eds., Americanist Approaches to The Book of Mormon (New York: Oxford University Press, 2019).

[4] For overviews of the various interpretations of the Lamanite descriptors, see David M. Belnap, “The Inclusive, Anti-Discrimination Message of the Book of Mormon,” Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship 42 (2021): 200–217; Russell W. Stevenson, “Reckoning with Race in the Book of Mormon: A Literature Review,” Journal of Book of Mormon Studies 27 (2018): 210; Ethan Sproat, “Skins as Garments in the Book of Mormon: A Textual Exegesis,” Journal of Book of Mormon Studies 24, no. 1 (2015): 142, 144; and Armand L. Mauss, All Abraham’s Children: Changing Mormon Conceptions of Race and Lineage (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2003), 41–157.

[5] I think a racial reading is critically flawed because research continues to demonstrate that the Book of Mormon is full of textual ambiguities, cultural indicators, and theological teachings that significantly undermine that reading. Moreover, while the metaphorical reading of skin of blackness/dark skins is highly problematic for 2 Nephi 5:20–25 and Alma 3:6, I believe that metaphorical interpretations of dark work very well elsewhere in the text, such as in 2 Nephi 30:6 and Mormon 5:15.

[6] See Scott Hahn, A Father Who Keeps His Promises: God’s Covenant Love in Scripture (Ann Arbor, MI: Servant, 1998), 23–36; Frank Moore Cross, From Epic to Canon: History and Literature in Ancient Israel (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1998), 3–21; and Walther Eichrodt, Theology of the Old Testament, trans. J. A. Baker, 2 vols. (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1961).

[7] See Russell M. Nelson, “Covenants,” Ensign, November 2011; and Quentin L. Cook, “See Yourself in the Temple,” Ensign, May 2016.

[8] Descriptive terminology of the Lamanites elsewhere in the Book of Mormon, such as wild, ferocious, blood-thirsty (Enos 1:20; Mosiah 10:12), cunning, crafty (Mosiah 7:21), lazy, and idolatrous (Mosiah 9:12; Alma 22:28), seems to be Nephite descriptions of Lamanite behavior as judged through the law of Moses, which the Nephites followed and which was part of their covenant of obedience to God’s commandments (see 1 Nephi 4:15; 2 Nephi 25:24, 30; Jacob 4:5). Though I will not be discussing any of these other terms here, a case could be made that the Nephites understood them in relation to the Lamanites’ failure to keep their covenant of obedience to God’s laws.

[9] Joseph Spencer, 1st Nephi: A Brief Theological Introduction (Provo, UT: Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship, 2020), 11.

[10] See Spencer, 1st Nephi, 12; and Terrence L. Szink, “To a Land of Promise (1 Nephi 16–18),” in Studies in Scripture, vol. 7, 1 Nephi to Alma 29, ed. Kent P. Jackson (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1987), 60–72; Noel B. Reynolds, “The Political Dimension in Nephi’s Small Plates,” BYU Studies Quarterly 27, no. 4 (Fall 1987): 15; and Frederick W. Axelgard, “1 and 2 Nephi: An Inspiring Whole,” BYU Studies Quarterly 26, no. 4 (Fall 1986): 54–60.

[11] Grant Hardy argues that “the Exodus precedent is never far from Nephi’s mind, and he refers to Moses’ example or writings in nine different chapters in First and Second Nephi.” Understanding the Book of Mormon: A Reader’s Guide (New York: Oxford University Press, 2010), 42.

[12] See George S. Tate, “The Typology of the Exodus Pattern in the Book of Mormon,” in Literature of Belief: Sacred Scripture and Religious Experience, ed. Neal E. Lambert (Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University, 1981), 248, 251.

[13] See Brant A. Gardner, “Labor Diligently to Write: The Ancient Making of a Modern Scripture, Chapters 6–8,” Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship 35 (2020): 156, 160.

[14] Noel B. Reynolds, “The Nephite Prophets’ Understanding of Faith and Faithfulness,” Religious Educator 21, no. 2 (2020): 90–91; and Noel B. Reynolds, “Nephi’s Outline,” BYU Studies Quarterly 20, no. 2 (Winter 1980); 131–49.

[15] Spencer, 1st Nephi, 22.

[16] Spencer, 1st Nephi, 22. See Terryl Givens, 2nd Nephi: A Brief Theological Introduction (Provo, UT: Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship, 2020), 6–7.

[17] See Kerry Muhlestein, “Recognizing the Everlasting Covenant in the Scriptures,” Religious Educator 21, no. 2 (2020): 41.

[18] David A. Bednar, “The Tender Mercies of the Lord,” Ensign, May 2005. See Dale G. Renlund, “Choose You This Day,” Ensign, November 2018.

[19] Oxford English Dictionary Online (hereafter OED), “covenant,” https://www.oed.com/.

[20] Bonnie L. Oscarson, “Covenants Are an Exchange of Love Between God and Us” (BYU Women’s Conference Address, Brigham Young University, Provo, UT, April 30, 2015), 3, .

[21] D. Todd Christofferson, “The Power of Covenants,” Ensign, May 2009.

[22] Dieter F. Uchtdorf, “Fourth Floor, Last Door,” Ensign, November 2016.

[23] D. Todd Christofferson, “Why the Covenant Path,” Liahona, May 2021.

[24] Throughout this paper, I will adopt the Old Testament perspective by using the name Jehovah and the title God to refer to Deity. Dana M. Pike explains, “Jehovah is a divine name, while ‘God’ is a title in the Old Testament.” Pike, “The Name and Titles of God in the Old Testament,” Religious Educator 11, no. 1 (2010): 17.

[25] Kerry Muhlestein, Joshua M. Sears, and Avram R. Shannon, “New and Everlasting: The Relationship between Gospel Covenants in History,” Religious Educator 21, no. 2 (2020): 35.

[26] Muhlestein, Sears, and Shannon, “New and Everlasting,” 32. See David Rolph Seely, “Sacred History, Covenants, and the Messiah: The Religious Background of the World of Lehi,” in Glimpses of Lehi’s Jerusalem, ed. John W. Welch, David Rolph Seely, and Jo Ann H. Seely (Provo, UT: Foundation for Ancient Research and Mormon Studies, 2004), 391–97.

[27] See George E. Mendenhall, Ancient Israel’s Faith and History: An Introduction to the Bible in Context, ed. Gary H. Herion (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox, 2001), 57–69; and Amy Blake Hardison, “Being a Covenant People,” in Covenants, Prophecies, and Hymns of the Old Testament, ed. Victor L. Ludlow (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2001), 19–20.

[28] David E. Graves insists that “Israel understood its relationship with Yahweh . . . in terms of ancient Near Eastern treaty culture.” The Seven Messages of Revelation and Vassal Treaties: Literary Genre, Structure, and Function (Piscataway, NJ: Gorgias, 2014), http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/byu/detail.action?docID=5908986.

[29] See Hardison, “Covenant People,” 19.

[30] Spencer, 1st Nephi, 20–22.

[31] David R. Seely argues that it is reasonable to believe that some form of Deuteronomy was on the brass plates. He identifies common phrases and distinctive themes from Deuteronomy in the Book of Mormon and believes that the Book of Mormon presents itself much like Deuteronomy. See his study “Deuteronomy in the Book of Mormon” (BYU Law School presentation, November 11, 2015), 53:43, archive.bookofmormoncentral.org. Brant A. Gardner has suggested that Lehi may have opposed Deuteronomic religious reforms that were made in late seventh-century Jerusalem under the reign of King Josiah (648–609 BC). See Second Witness, 1:36. Neal Rappleye has argued that Lehi and Nephi were not anti-Deuteronomy but stood “in contrast to parts of the ideological agenda of the Deuteronomists.” “The Deuteronomist Reforms and Lehi’s Family Dynamics: A Social Context for the Rebellions of Laman and Lemuel,” Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship 16 (2015): 99.

[32] Givens, 2nd Nephi, 4–5.

[33] Givens, 2nd Nephi, 34.

[34] Seely identifies covenant-renewal ceremonies in Deuteronomy 27–28, Joshua 24, 2 Kings 23, and Nehemiah 9–10. “Sacred History,” 403. Hardison argues that God reinstituted covenants “at times of major transition or following periods of great wickedness.” “Covenant People,” 23.

[35] Moses gathered Israel together (Deuteronomy 1:3), reviewed the Lord’s dealings with them (chaps. 1–4), discoursed about laws (chaps. 12–26), blessed Israel (chap. 33), and reviewed the covenant (chaps. 27–30).

[36] John W. Welch argues that part of Lehi’s blessing involved giving his last will and testament, which included dividing the family into seven tribes, establishing a system for property rights, and identifying his legal successor. “Lehi’s Last Will and Testament,” in The Book of Mormon: Second Nephi, the Doctrinal Structure, ed. Monte S. Nyman and Charles D. Tate Jr. (Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University, 1989), 68–72.

[37] Noel B. Reynolds has stated, “Lehi’s own final address reflects an intimate knowledge of the text of Deuteronomy.” Reynolds outlined fourteen important themes and situational similarities in “Lehi as Moses,” Journal of Book of Mormon Studies 9, no. 2 (2000): 28.

[38] General descriptions of treaty elements are taken from Seely, “Sacred History,” 397–405; Hardison, “Covenant People,” 20–23; and Lee L. Donaldson, “The Plates of Ether and the Covenant of the Book of Mormon,” in Fourth Nephi, From Zion to Destruction, ed. Monte S. Nyman and Charles D. Tate Jr. (Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University, 1995), 70–72.

[39] As Lehi’s family journeyed through the wilderness, the Lord said, “After ye have arrived in the promised land, ye shall know that I, the Lord, am God; and that I, the Lord, did deliver you from destruction” (1 Nephi 17:14; emphasis added). RoseAnn Benson and Stephen D. Ricks explain that “Near Eastern treaty references to the verb to know indicated a legally binding agreement. Similarly, Old Testament usage of this verb in certain instances also indicated a legal and binding covenant.” They argue that know is used in the Book of Mormon in a similar way. “Treaties and Covenants: Ancient Near Eastern Legal Terminology in the Book of Mormon,” Journal of Book of Mormon Studies 14, no. 1 (2005): 52, 57–58. David E. Graves has also argued that “know in the OT goes beyond a simple care for or knowledge of, it conveys the sense of covenant relationship.” Seven Messages, 235.

[40] Benson and Ricks, “Treaties,” 50.

[41] Matthew O. Richardson, “The Prophet-Leader,” Religious Educator 9, no. 1 (2008): 72–73.

[42] See Reynolds, “Nephite Prophets,” 76.

[43] That the small plates were used for teaching seems evident in Jacob 7:27, Jarom 1:2, and Omni 1:6–7. John Hilton III, Sunny Hendry Hafen, and Jaron Hansen have argued that even Samuel the Lamanite quoted from the small plates of Nephi. See their article “Samuel and His Nephite Sources,” BYU Studies Quarterly 56, no. 3 (2017): 120.

[44] See Victor L. Ludlow, “Covenant Teachings in the Book of Mormon,” in The Fulness of the Gospel: Foundational Teachings from the Book of Mormon, ed. Camille Fronk and Brian M. Hauglid (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2003), 227.

[45] Reynolds, “Nephite Prophets,” 90.

[46] See Kenneth L. Alford and D. Bryce Baker, “Parallels between Psalms 25–31 and the Psalm of Nephi,” in Ascending the Mountain of the Lord: Temple, Praise, and Worship in the Old Testament, ed. Jeffrey R. Chadwick, Matthew J. Grey, and David Rolph Seely (Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University; Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2013), 313–14.

[47] Hardy believes that Nephi may have felt responsible for these circumstances, blaming himself for letting his father down. Understanding the Book of Mormon, 51–52.

[48] Sidney B. Sperry, Our Book of Mormon (Salt Lake City: Stevens and Wallis, 1947), 110–11.

[49] Some authors have remarked on the parallelism, chiastic structure, and Hebraisms in Nephi’s psalm. See Steven Barton, “The Psalm of Nephi and Biblical Poetry,” http://home.comcast.net/~openskyvisions/PsalmOfNephiEssay.html; and Richard Dilworth Rust, “Poetry in the Book of Mormon,” in Rediscovering the Book of Mormon: Insights You May Have Missed Before, ed. John L. Sorensen and Melvin J. Thorne (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1991), 100–103; for a good overview of the different perspectives, see Alford and Baker, “Parallels,” 315–16.

[50] Christofferson, “Power of Covenants.”

[51] See Seely, “Sacred,” 397; and Hardison, “Covenant People,” 30.

[52] See note 33 for an explanation of know.

[53] See Brian Keith Hudsom, “The Suzerain/Vassal Covenants,” https://www.ancient-hebrew.org/culture/suzerain-vassal-covenants.htm; and Robert I. Bradshaw, “Covenant and Covenants in the Bible,” https://biblicalstudies.org.uk/article_covenant.html.

[54] See Hardison “Covenant People,” 19.

[55] Avram Shannon, “Law of God/God of Law: The Law of Moses in Alma’s Teachings to Corianton,” in Give Ear to My Words: Text and Context of Alma 36–42, ed. Kerry M. Hull, Nicholas J. Frederick, and Hank R. Smith (Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University, 2019), 134.

[56] Shannon, “Law of God,” 147.

[57] OED, s.v. “inasmuch.”

[58] Richardson, “Prophet-Leader,” 78–79.

[59] These confirmations include the following: an angel told them (1 Nephi 3:29), the Lord spoke to them more than once and in different ways (16:37–39; 17:45), the Lord shocked or shook them (17:18, 52–55), and the judgments of the Lord nearly killed them (18:15, 20).

[60] Neal Rappleye argues that Laman and Lemuel may have believed in specific Deuteronomic ideologies that conflicted with Lehi’s beliefs and behaviors and that this is one reason why it took time for them to accept Lehi and Nephi as true prophets. “Deuteronomist Reforms,” 87–99.

[61] Hardison, “Covenant People,” 24.

[62] Matthew L. Bowen refers to a Hebrew idiomatic excommunication formula built around the verb ��������� (meaning “cut off”). “Cut Off from the Face and Presence: Alma’s Use of Hebraistic Idioms to Teach the Fall,” Religious Educator 21, no. 2 (2020): 160. The original Book of Mormon plates once possessed by Joseph Smith have never been available for general study, making it impossible to identify what original terms the English cut off represents and whether the Hebrew idiomatic excommunication formula is present. However, John A. Tvedtnes has argued that the Book of Mormon “quite clearly reflects a number of Hebrew idioms and contains numerous Hebrew words” because “the Nephites retained the Hebrew language albeit in an altered form.” “Hebraisms in the Book of Mormon,” BYU Studies Quarterly 11, no. 1 (Autumn 1970): 50. Avram Shannon has explained that “because the Book of Mormon was translated into King James–like language, we can with some caution consider concepts from the Hebrew Bible to underlie the corresponding words in the Book of Mormon.” “Law of God,” 131. Jennifer C. Lane makes similar associations between the English “cast off from the presence of the Lord” in the Book of Mormon and the corresponding Hebrew terminology of the Old Testament. “The Presence of the Lord,” in The Things Which My Father Saw: Approaches to Lehi’s Dream and Nephi’s Vision, ed. Daniel L. Belnap, Gaye Strathearn, and Stanley A. Johnson (Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University; Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2011), 121–30.

[63] Avram Shannon argues that God’s justice is “an inherent element of his character and being” and that “accusing God of injustice is tantamount to rejecting the entire character of God.” “Law of God,” 130, 133. During the covenant-renewal ceremony, Lehi repeatedly stated that Jehovah’s judgments were just (see 2 Nephi 1:10, 22). Mosiah 29:12 states that “the judgments of God are always just.”

[64] See S. Kent Brown, “What Were Those Sacrifices Offered by Lehi?,” in From Jerusalem to Zarahemla: Literary and Historical Studies of the Book of Mormon (Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University, 1998).

[65] See Daniel L. Belnap, “The Law of Moses: An Overview,” in New Testament: History, Culture, and Society, ed. Lincoln Blumell (Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University, 2019), 24–25; and Nathaniel Micklem, “The Book of Leviticus,” in The Interpreter’s Bible, ed. G. A. Buttrick (New York: Abingdon, 1953), 2:21–22.

[66] Jared T. Parker discusses how sacrificial animals were slaughtered and cut up to ratify a suzerainty agreement. “Cutting Covenants,” in The Gospel of Jesus Christ in the Old Testament (Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University, 2009), 109–28.

[67] Grant Hardy has noted that Laman and Lemuel were “orthodox, observant Jews” who struggled with pendulum-like swings between repentant humility and grumbling skepticism. Understanding the Book of Mormon, 33–50. Perhaps the brothers entered the suzerainty covenant during a humble phase. They did have good moments where they were helpful, repentant, and willing to be taught; see 1 Nephi 7:2–5; 15:6–36; 16:1–5; 17:1–4; 22:1.

[68] Lane, “Presence of the Lord,” 120.

[69] Reynolds, “Nephite Prophets,” 76.

[70] Lane, “Presence of the Lord,” 126.

[71] Donald Magnetti argues that “violation of the sworn bond would be punished by Yahweh . . . for such an act would let loose the curses embodied in the oath.” “The Function of the Oath in the Ancient Near Eastern International Treaty,” American Journal of International Law 72, no. 4 (October 1978): 829, https://ir.lawnet.fordham.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1766&context=faculty_scholarship.

[72] Patrick Q. Mason, “Mormonism and Race,” in The Oxford Handbook of Religion and Race in American History, ed. Kathryn Gin Lum and Paul Harvey (New York: Oxford University Press, 2018), 6. For other examples, see Catherine Thomas, “A Great Deliverance (2 Nephi 3–5),” in Studies in Scripture, vol. 7, 1 Nephi to Alma 29, ed. Kent P. Jackson (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1987), 111; Reynolds, “Political Dimension,” 35; and Sproat, “Skins as Garments,” 153.

[73] Lehi also treated cut off and cursed as two different events in 2 Nephi 1:17–18, 22 by using the conjunctions or and to differentiate between them. Alma also used cut off to indicate that the Lamanites no longer had a covenant relationship with God because of their state of disobedience (see Alma 9:14).

[74] See Blair G. Van Dyke, “Profiles of a Covenant People,” in Covenants, Prophecies, and Hymns of the Old Testament, ed. Victor L. Ludlow (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2001), 35–36.

[75] Harold B. Lee, in Conference Report, April 1950, https://scriptures.byu.edu/#:t1c2$12783:c12e2627.

[76] “Viewpoint: Pay Attention to ‘Behold’ and ‘Thus We See’ Verses,” Church News, October 24, 2013, https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/church/news/viewpoint-pay-attention-to-behold-and-thus-we-see-verses.

[77] Noah Webster, An American Dictionary of the English Language (New York: S. Converse, 1828), s.v. “flint.”

[78] D. Todd Christofferson, “Free Forever, to Act for Themselves,” Ensign, November 2014.

[79] Lane, “Presence of the Lord,” 124.

[80] There is a strong likelihood that there were non-Lehite people in the Americas when Lehi’s family arrived and that Lehi’s descendants intermarried with them. See Brant Gardner, “The Other Stuff: Reading the Book of Mormon for Cultural Information,” FARMS Review 13, no. 2 (2001): 31; John L. Sorenson, “When Lehi’s Party Arrived in the Land, Did They Find Others There?,” Journal of Book of Mormon Studies 1, no. 1 (1992): 4–6; and Matthew Roper, “Nephi’s Neighbors: Book of Mormon Peoples and Pre-Columbian Populations,” FARMS Review 15, no. 2 (2003): 116–27.

[81] “1. A visible line made by drawing one substance on another; as a mark made by chalk or charcoal, or a pen.” 2. A line, groove or depression made by stamping or cutting; an incision; a channel or impression; as the mark of a chisel, of a stamp, of a rod or whip; the mark of the finger or foot. 3. Any note or sign of distinction.” American Dictionary of the English Language, s.v. “mark.”

[82] I believe it is important to distinguish between what the Lord says about the mark and what the Nephites say about the mark. When Jehovah speaks in first person about the mark, he never identifies it (see Alma 3:14–16). It is Nephi, Jacob, and Mormon who designate the mark as a “skin of blackness” (2 Nephi 5:21) or dark skins (see Jacob 3:9; Alma 3:6).

[83] Wherefore is a conjunction that means “for which reason,” “in consequence of,” or “as a result of which.” See American Dictionary of the English Language, s.v. “wherefore”; and OED, s.v. “wherefore.”

[84] The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints unequivocally disavowed any theory claiming that “black skin is a sign of divine disfavor or curse” in the Gospel Topics essays “Race and the Priesthood,” https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/manual/gospel-topics-essays/race-and-the-priesthood. The absence of the mark, or skin of blackness, from the Lehitic treaty’s cursing section strongly supports the assertion that dark skin is not a sign of divine disfavor or curse.

[85] Neal A. Maxwell, “‘Swallowed Up in the Will of the Father,’” Ensign, November 1995, https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/ensign/1995/11/swallowed-up-in-the-will-of-the-father.

[86] See Michael A. Goodman, “Laman and Lemuel: A Case Study in ‘Not Becoming,’” in Living the Book of Mormon: Abiding by Its Precepts, ed. Gaye Strathearn and Charles Swift (Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University; Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2007), 104.

[87] See Hardy, Understanding the Book of Mormon, 39. Neal Rappleye has shown the ways in which Laman and Lemuel had an “expressed commitment to the law” and “upheld it as the final arbiter of righteousness.” “Deuteronomist Reforms,” 96.

[88] Welch, “Lehi’s Last Will and Testament,” 66–67. Brant Gardner argues that 2 Nephi 5:21 establishes Nephite exogamy rules and that it forbids the Nephites from intermarrying with the Lamanites. Second Witness, 2:108–23. I think it more likely, given their angry and rebellious feelings toward Nephi, that Laman and Lemuel made the marital prohibitions first and that reading the passage from the Lamanite perspective is more accurate.

[89] See Welch, “Lehi’s Last Will and Testament,” 66–67.

[90] Douglas Campbell has examined the instances of white in the Book of Mormon and demonstrated that they are used metaphorically in “‘White’ or ‘Pure’: Five Vignettes,” Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 29, no. 4 (Winter 1996): 131–35. I believe Campbell is right about white, but I do not believe the skin of blackness is metaphorical too.

[91] Hugh Nibley argued that the skin of blackness “described the result, not the method” and suggested that the process was neither miraculous nor racial. Lehi in the Desert, The World of the Jaredites, There Were Jaredites, ed. John W. Welch, Darrell L. Matthews, and Stephen R. Callister (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1988), 74. Eugene England believes that the mark “was propagated by the Lamanites themselves—which they could easily do either through marking their own skin or by intermarrying with darker New World people around them.” “‘Lamanites’ and the Spirit of the Lord,” Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 18, no. 4 (1985): 29. Ethan Sproat has argued that “nothing in the text of the Book of Mormon itself positively or unambiguously indicates that the various-colored or cursed skins are definitely human flesh.” Sproat, “Skins as Garments,” 142. Nonetheless, I believe it makes the most sense to read skin as epidermis and not as animal skins.

[92] An American Dictionary of the English Language, s.v. “manner.”

[93] The Amlicite mark was red, not dark or black, which suggests that the design and mode of application were more important than the color. Perhaps a red mark allowed the Amlicites to identify as Lamanite allies while at the same time maintaining an identity as Amlicites. J. Christopher Conkling has argued that the Amlicites and the Amalekites were the same group and that they played a significant role in continually stirring up, recruiting, and inspiring the reluctant Lamanites to go to war with the Nephites. See his study “Alma’s Enemies: The Case of the Lamanites, Amlicites, and Mysterious Amalekites,” Journal of Book of Mormon Studies 14, no. 1 (2005).

[94] Brant Gardner has argued that if the Lamanite mark was a divinely instigated skin pigmentation change that was also applied to the Amlicites as they rebelled from the Nephites, the self-determined red mark in the forehead would be superfluous as a distinguishing feature. See his study “If the Lamanites Were Black, Why Didn’t Anyone Notice?,” https://www.fairlatterdaysaints.org/blog/2012/05/21/if-lamanites-were-black-why-didnt-anyone-notice#ftn3ref.

[95] Rodney Turner, “The Lamanite Mark,” in The Book of Mormon: Second Nephi, the Doctrinal Structure, ed. Monte S. Nyman and Charles D. Tate Jr. (Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University, 1989), 138. John L. Sorenson also argued that “God induced a difference in skin color.” Mormon’s Codex: An Ancient American Book (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2013), 510–11.

[96] William J. L. Wharton, ed., Captain Cook’s Journal during His First Voyage round the World Made in H.M. Bark ‘Endeavour,’ 1768–71: A Literal Transcription of the Original Mss. with Notes and Introduction (London: Elliot Stock, 1893), 93.

[97] See Joann Fletcher and Cate Lineberry, “Tattoos: The Ancient and Mysterious History,” Smithsonian Magazine, January 1, 2007, https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/tattoos-144038580/.

[98] Aaron Deter-Wolf, Tanya M. Peres, and Steven Karacic, “Ancient Native American Bone Tattooing Tools and Pigments: Evidence from Central Tennessee,” Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports 37 (June 2021), 4; see Dan Hunter, “The History and Origin of Tattoos,” Authority Tattoo, January 9, 2021, .

[99] See C. P. Jones, “Stigma and Tattoo,” in Written on the Body: The Tattoo in European and American History, ed. Jane Caplan (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2000), 6; Encyclopaedia Judaica, ed. Michael Berenbaum and Fred Skolnik, 2nd ed. (Detroit: Macmillan Reference USA, 2007), s.v. “Tattoo,” ; and Martin T. Dinter and Astrid Khoo, “If Skin Were Parchment: Tattoos in Antiquity,” in Tattoo Histories: Transcultural Perspectives on the Narratives, Practices, and Representations of Tattooing, ed. Sinah Theres Kloß (New York: Routledge, 2020), 88, 95.

[100] See Fletcher and Lineberry, “Tattoos”; and Deter-Wolf, Peres, and Karacic, “Ancient Native American Bone Tattooing Tools and Pigments,” 2–3; and Pauline Alvarez, “Indigenous (Re)inscription: Transmission of Cultural Knowledge(s) through Tattoos as Resistance,” in Kloß, Tattoo Histories, 157.

[101] See “Book of Mormon and DNA Studies,” Gospel Topics Essays, https://abn.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/manual/gospel-topics/book-of-mormon-and-dna-studies.

[102] For references to articles about other inhabitants of the Americas, see note 80 above.

[103] Steve Gilbert, Tattoo History: A Source Book (New York: Juno Books, 2000), 13.

[104] William J. Hamblin discusses the Nephite modifications to Egyptian in his study “Reformed Egyptian,” FARMS Review 19, no. 1 (2007): 31; see John Gee, “La Trahison des Clercs: On the Language and Translation of the Book of Mormon,” Review of Books on the Book of Mormon 6, no. 1 (1994): 79–82, 94–99.

[105] Alan Gardiner, Egyptian Grammar, 3rd ed. (Oxford: Griffith Institute, 1957), §6; see James E. Hoch, Middle Egyptian Grammar (Mississauga, ON: Benben, 1997), §4.

[106] John L. Sorenson, in Mormon’s Codex, has argued that the Book of Mormon “text says nothing about any physical mechanism that might have produced” the contrast in skin between the Lamanites and Nephites in Sorenson (p. 511), but original language character and translation issues may easily account for that omission. Jerry D. Grover Jr. explains that “the English translation of the Book of Mormon remained true to the original glyph form and original language.” Sumerian Roots of Jaredite-Derived Names and Terminology in the Book of Mormon (Provo, UT: Challex Scientific, 2017), xi.

[107] See Juniper Ellis, Pacific Designs in Print and Skin: Tattooing the World (New York: Columbia University Press, 2008), 1; and “The Origin of the Word Tattoo,” https://www.tattoo.com/blog/origin-word-tattoo/.

[108] Ellis, Pacific Designs, 1, 8. In the 1840s, O’Connell traveled around the United States “presenting his tattoos in melodramas, circuses, and P. T. Barnum’s American Museum.” The first professional tattooist in the United States was Martin Hildebrandt. He opened the first tattoo studio in New York City in 1870. See Christina Parrella, “Tattoo You: A History of Tattooing in New York City,” NYC: The Official Guide, February 17, 2017, https://www.nycgo.com/articles/tattooed-new-york-nyc-tattooing-history.

[109] More research needs to be done into the familiarity of the word tattoo among early Latter-day Saints. How much influence Joseph Smith had over the English text of the Book of Mormon is an ongoing debate. For those in favor of Joseph’s having very little influence on the text, see Royal Skousen, “Translating the Book of Mormon: Evidence from the Original Manuscript,” in Book of Mormon Authorship Revisited: The Evidence for Ancient Origins, ed. Noel B. Reynolds (Provo, UT: Foundation for Ancient Research and Mormon Studies, 1997), 90–91; for those in favor of an active, reformulating role, see Grant Hardy, ed., The Book of Mormon: A Reader’s Edition (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2005), xv; and Brant A. Gardner, The Gift and Power: Translating the Book of Mormon (Sandy, UT: Greg Kofford Books, 2011), 279–83.

[110] See Gilbert, Tattoo History, 89.

[111] See “Mayan Art of the Tattoo,” History on the Net, May 26, 2021, https://www.historyonthenet.com/mayan-art-of-the-tattoo; and Gilbert, Tattoo History, 89, 101.

[112] Richard O. Cowan explains that “Hebrew uses the same word for ‘blackness’ and ‘darkness.’” “The Lamanites—A More Accurate Image,” in The Book of Mormon: Helaman Through 3 Nephi 8, According to Thy Word, ed. Charles D. Tate and Monte S. Nyman (Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University, 1992), 254.

[113] See Ralph Gower, Manners and Customs of Bible Times (Chicago: Moody Bible Institute of Chicago, 1987), 55, 170–72.

[114] See Alvarez, “Indigenous (Re)inscription,” 157.

[115] See Gilbert, Tattoo History, 89–90; and Alvarez, “Indigenous (Re)inscription,” 157, 159–60.

[116] See Dinter and Khoo, “Tattoos in Antiquity,” 91–92.

[117] Dinter and Khoo, “Skin,” 86.

[118] Reynolds, “Political,” 35; see Sorenson, Mormon’s Codex, 65; and Hokulani K. Aikau, A Chosen People, A Promised Land: Mormonism and Race in Hawai’i (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2012), 36–37.

[119] Belnap argues a similar position in “Inclusive, Anti-Discrimination Message,” 222.

[120] American Dictionary of the English Language, s.v. “loathsome.”

[121] Belnap, “Inclusive, Anti-Discrimination Message.”

[122] David E. Bokovoy, “Love vs. Hate: An Analysis of Helaman 15:1–4,” Insights: A Window on the Ancient World 22, no. 2 (2002): 2–3.

[123] “Why Did Samuel Say the Lord ‘Hated’ the Lamanites?,” Book of Mormon Central, September 13, 2016, https://knowhy.bookofmormoncentral.org/knowhy/why-did-samuel-say-the-lord-hated-the-lamanites.

[124] See Belnap, “Inclusive, Anti-Discrimination Message,” 224, 319.