Nov 27, 2011
Top 5 Things I Hate About Nephi
So every once in a while someone suggests I ought to try reading the Book of Mormon, “just once more.” Most of these suggestions come from people I really love and so I am occasionally inclined to humor them. I pick up the book and start reading . . . “I Nephi . . . blah, blah, blah . . .” I never get far before I give up, but every read increases my dislike, my utter loathing . . . not of the book itself, but of that one character — Nephi.
Can I just say how very much I loath Nephi?! Have for ages. Actually (and this really happened), I once shocked a Sunday School teacher and class when I made the suggestion that, if I had been Nephi’s sister, I’d probably have wanted to kill him too. Who wouldn’t? The man is pompous, self-absorbed and not at all hesitant to share his deep self-love with anyone who will listen. If the Book of Mormon were true and Nephi were a real man and a prophet, and if you had the misfortune to actually know the guy . . .
Well, let me just give you five reasons why Nephi is my least favorite Mormon prophet.
Number 5: The guy just cannot shut up. Several times in his record, Nephi explains why he is making this new, smaller, record. But he doesn’t just say that God told him too, oh no, he goes on, line after line saying: This record is special. And it is small. It is so small and special that nothing unimportant should ever be put on it. You know we have to make this small and special record out of gold which involves digging it out of the ground and smelting it and forming plates and carving them and it’s really heavy stuff this gold, so I don’t want to be carrying some big record around which is why, on this small and sacred record I’m only going to write really important things. Got it? Important. Things. Things that are important. Don’t go putting unimportant things on my record. Cause God told me to make this record and he did that because he is God and he knows something I don’t know (like that Joseph Smith will lose the manuscript and have to do a quick ball-change in order to dance around the accusations of fraud that will no doubt come up when people compare manuscript one with manuscript two so he’s going to need manuscript 1a that tells the same story only different) . . . and on and on. Obviously I am paraphrasing there, but it drives me bonkers that Nephi, who is supposedly conserving space, has there endless repetitions of stupid, unimportant things . . .
Number 4:
The guy totally disses on his parents. He generally speaks well of his father (and not at all of his mother) but he makes it clear that both of them fall short in the faith department. In fact, the only person who doesn’t is . . . wait for it . . . Nephi! I find this disrespect especially jarring in regards to Sariah because the only real information we have about her is that she was complaining in the wilderness after he husband dragged them all from their home and she believes all her kids have been killed. How dare she!?! And she wasn’t even complaining about God, just about her crazy husband. Sheesh. Didn’t they always tell us in Young Women’s to pay attention to how a guy treats his mother . . .
Number 3:
Ok, if I was Laman or Lemuel I would seriously want to kick some Nephi booty! It is clear from the text (written from Nephi’s point of view) that Nephi was an insufferable prig of a brother — always telling his brothers what they should be doing or what they should be believing. Pointing out their faults and failings. Shocking them with heavenly power. (just kidding). I don’t really care if Nephi was more spiritual or the better man than his brothers. He didn’t have to go to such great lengths to point this out (to us or to them). Couldn’t he, shouldn’t he have exhibited some kindness and love for these men who shared his life? Of course, with the low regard he had for his parents . . .
Number 2:
Ok, all this adds up to one thing. Nephi was a jerk. A self-absorbed, preachy, self-satisfied jerk. How many times in First Nephi does God personally share with this “highly favored” man the fact that he is OK in God’s eyes. God’s going to take care of him. Consider this line from one of Nephi’s explanations for the contents of his record:
“And it mattereth not to me that I am particular to give a full account of all the things of my father, for they cannot be written upon athese plates, for I desire the room that I may write of the things of God.”
He doesn’t write about his father because he wants to write about the “things of God”. Fair enough. But what does he then write about? He writes about Nephi. Nephi, Nephi, Nephi. One might be forgiven if she suspected that to Nephi God and Nephi were pretty much the same thing. Nephi (the book) is littered with examples of Nephi (the man) showing how important he thought he was. For example, when Ishmael’s sons’ begin to rebel, who does Nephi say they rebel against? “[They] did crebel against us; yea, against me, Nephi, and Sam, and their father . . .” (emphasis mine). Nephi is first. Always first . . .
Number 1:
Simple: Nephi killed a drunken man in cold blood, put on his clothes, went to his house and stole valuable records. Period.
I know it doesn’t really matter. I don’t believe the Book of Mormon is true and I don’t think Nephi even really existed. Yet it bothers me that so many of my friends and relations can read the record of Nephi and read past the self-serving nature of his narrative. How can anyone think Nephi is a hero?
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