John Kammeyer won his Juris Doctor from the Northwestern
School of Law. He has three books of
scriptural research published at https://www.smashwords.com: The Nephite Art of
War (2012), Warfare in Mesoamerica: Battles in the Book of Mormon (2012) The
Book of Exodus: An Israelite Endowment (2014).
I enjoyed the idea of viewing Alma's movement as a political insurgency. It reminded me of historian Mark Grimsley's
argument that the Civil Rights movement was an insurgency, and suggests that
our conception of warfare might expand beyond conventional armies and battles.
Would it surprise you to learn that Alma the Elder was
running a secret combination? While his purposes were good rather than ill, it
still had all the elements of a subversive group—and King Noah certainly took
it as such.
(Mosiah 18:1a)
And now, it came to pass that Alma, who had fled from the servants of King
Noah, repented of his sins and iniquities,
The first thing an insurgency needs is a leader with a cause.
Daniel C. Peterson and others note that few movements in the ancient world were
purely secular, they almost always had a religious motive or rational.
There is nothing unsavory in saying Alma’s motives were mixed.
First Phase: The goal of an insurgency is to
separate the people from the government. According to the Wikipedia:
Maoist theory of people's war
divides warfare into three phases. In the first phase, the guerrillas gain the
support of the population through attacks on the machinery of government and
the distribution of propaganda.
Every successful insurgency has to (1) discredit government
ideology, and (2) replace it with one the people will believe in.
(Mosiah 18:1b)
and went about privately among the people, and began to teach the words of
Abinadi—
Alma would have started recruiting among his own household
and servants. According to Che Guevara: “At the outset there is a more or less
homogeneous group…that devotes itself almost exclusively to hiding in the
wildest and most inaccessible places.”
(Mosiah 18:3)
And as many as would hear his word he did teach. And he taught them privately,
that it might not come to the knowledge of the king. And many did believe his
words.
Alma
had established a kind of first-phase insurgency, politicizing the people, in
Maoist terms, or “preparing the minds of the people to be faithful,” as Captain
Moroni (Alma 48:7) would have put it. Or in another setting, it looks like the beginning of the
Maccabean revolt, as described by Herzog and Gichon:
For approximately a year the
rebels made their preparations in relative peace. Emphasis was laid on the
reaffirmation of the principles of Judaism for which they were fighting. They
defended themselves whenever necessary, but initiated few operations while
organizing their base. At the same time they strengthened contacts with the
villages in the countryside and spread the story of the revolt. Soon an effective
intelligence-gathering organization was developed as a people’s militia grew
under the leadership of Judah the Maccabee…
Judah
Maccabee laid the foundation of his movement on righteousness, and ideology,
and recruiting the countryside.
Second Phase: According to Wikipedia:
In the second phase,
escalating attacks are made on the government's military and vital
institutions.
This
proceeds from indoctrination, to progressively denying the government the
ability to function, by means of a functional organization.
(Mosiah 18:4)
And it came to pass that as many as did believe him did go forth to a place
which was called Mormon, having received its name from the king, being in the
borders of the land having been infested, by times or at seasons, by wild beasts.
(5) Now, there was in Mormon a fountain of pure water, and Alma resorted
thither, there being near the water a thicket of small trees, where he did hide
himself in the daytime from the searches of the king. (6) And it came to pass
that as many as believed him went thither to hear his words.
The king was still looking for him. Noah assumed Alma would
attempt to raise up a rebellion against him, and he “did hide himself…from the
searches of the king.”
(Mosiah 18:7)
And it came to pass after many days there were a goodly number gathered
together at the place of Mormon, to hear the words of Alma. Yea, all were
gathered together that believed on his word, to hear him. And he did teach
them, and did preach unto them repentance, and redemption, and faith on the
Lord.
We note from Alma 31:5 that
…the preaching of the word had
a great tendency to lead the people to do that which was just—yea, it had had
more powerful effect upon the minds of the people than the sword, or anything
else, which had happened unto them—
According to Che: “the guerrilla, having taken up
inaccessible positions out of reach of the enemy...ought to proceed to the
gradual weakening of the enemy.” Rather than subverting the government by the
sword, Alma was subverting it by the word of God.
(Mosiah 18:
16) And after this manner he did baptize every one that went forth to the place
of Mormon; and they were in number about two hundred and four souls; yea, and
they were baptized in the waters of Mormon, and were filled with the grace of
God. (17) And they were called the church of God, or the church of Christ, from
that time forward. And it came to pass that whosoever was baptized by the power
and authority of God was added to his church.
A covenant, binding them to God and to
their leader, Alma, would have been a powerful unifying element. They were
swearing their lives to him and to God. They were serious about this.
Alma started to establish cells among
the larger population:
(Mosiah 18:18)
And it came to pass that Alma, having authority from God, ordained priests;
even one priest to every fifty of their number did he ordain to preach unto
them, and to teach them concerning the things pertaining to the kingdom of God.
Initially, there were about four cells, each led by a priest,
while Alma hid out in his wilderness refuge. It was an urban conspiracy, like
the later Gadianton Robbers. While building the organization, he continued to
indoctrinate.
(Mosiah 18:19)
And he commanded them that they should teach nothing save it were the things
which he had taught, and which had been spoken by the mouth of the holy
prophets.
To maintain the loyalty of the group, he had to keep them
focused on his teachings, his ideology. There could be no rivals to his
leadership.
(Mosiah 18:20)
Yea, even he commanded them that they should preach nothing save it were
repentance and faith on the Lord, who had redeemed his people. (21) And he
commanded them that there should be no contention one with another, but that
they should look forward with one eye, having one faith and one baptism, having
their hearts knit together in unity and in love one towards another. (22a) And
thus he commanded them to preach.
To subvert the government, he had to keep the people focused
on the covenant with God.
(Mosiah
18:22b) And thus they became the children of God. (23) And he commanded them
that they should observe the sabbath day, and keep it holy, and also every day
they should give thanks to the Lord their God.
Living among a larger population, they would be able to
unobtrusively observe what was going on, and know if the King had learned of
them.
(Mosiah 18:24)
And he also commanded them that the priests whom he had ordained should labor
with their own hands for their support.
This was to establish equality among
his people. Next, he had to instill a functioning social system, in order to
keep them focused on the covenant.
(Mosiah
18:25) And there was one day in every week that was set apart that they should
gather themselves together to teach the people, and to worship the Lord their
God, and also, as often as it was in their power, to assemble themselves
together.
They were organized in cells of fifty people, or about six to
eight households each. Recruiting them from extended households would ensure
the secrecy of the movement—everybody was related, everyone knew who was
involved. On normal days, the priests would perhaps go from household to
household, like a secret home teaching route. There are other ways the entire
group could have met, such as at market days and national festivals. They knew
their own calendar and could make arrangements. Since the movement was based on
family groups, outsiders wouldn’t be able to tell if it was a family barbeque
or a sacrament meeting.
(Mosiah 18:26)
And the priests were not to depend upon the people for their support; but for
their labor they were to receive the grace of God, that they might wax strong
in the Spirit, having the knowledge of God, that they might teach with power
and authority from God.
Daniel J. Elazar also notes:
[The
Levites] had to support themselves by their own labor and could not count on
maintaining themselves through their ritual services. They were not a clergy
living off the labor of others. This is an old Jewish tradition, part of the
approach to civic life of the edah.
Compare this with the Priests of Noah, who were glutting
themselves on the people’s goods. There must have been a lot of bitterness
about this. A secular reason for the priests to support themselves was to
maintain the clandestine character of the movement. Nobody was to stand out
from the larger population.
In the second phase of the insurgency, the organization grows
and becomes more sophisticated. Alma would have led the group. The priests, an
embryonic Council of Elders, would have transmitted his teachings to the group.
In Marxist terms, a sort of Central Committee.
It was common in Semitic societies to have a joint presidency
between priestly and lay judges.
The lay judges, led by Helam, would have had a lot to do at this point,
ensuring the welfare of the group. It parallels the modern relationship between
the LDS Stake President and the Bishop. Alma and the priests oversaw the
spiritual welfare of the people, and Helam oversaw the temporal affairs.
(Mosiah 18:27)
And again Alma commanded that the people of the church should impart of their
substance, every one according to that which he had; if he have more abundantly
he should impart more abundantly; and of him that had but little, but little
should be required; and to him that had not should be given. (28) And thus they
should impart of their substance of their own free will and good desires
towards God, and to those priests that stood in need, yea, and to every needy,
naked soul.
Communalism would instill a sense of community and of shared
hardships and danger.
(Mosiah 18:29)
And this he said unto them, having been commanded of God; and they did walk
uprightly before God, imparting to one another both temporally and spiritually
according to their needs and their wants.
Charity was part of the covenant, as we find both in the Old
Testament and the Book of Mormon.
In Mosiah 18:31 we note that “these things were done in the
borders of the land, that they might not come to the knowledge of the king.” It
was a secret society.
Third
Phase:
According to the Wikipedia:
In the third phase,
conventional fighting is used to seize cities, overthrow the government, and
take control of the country.
There
is no way to know how far Alma was aiming to go with this; presumably, he was
trying to bring the whole society back to righteousness. It didn’t reach a
third phase, because King Noah discovered the movement.
(Mosiah 18:32)
But behold, it came to pass that the king, having discovered a movement among
the people, sent his servants to watch them. Therefore on the day that they
were assembling themselves together to hear the word of the Lord they were
discovered unto the king.
It doesn’t sound like he’d penetrated the group, but too many
people were beating a path out to Alma’s thicket.
(Mosiah 18:33)
And now the king said that Alma was stirring up the people to rebellion against
him; therefore he sent his army to destroy them. (34) And it came to pass that
Alma and the people of the Lord were apprised of the coming of the king's army;
therefore they took their tents and their families and departed into the
wilderness.
It took a while for the king to figure out what was going on.
He must have sent his soldiers out to the Waters of Mormon, unaware of the
larger character of the movement. So while they were (literally) beating the
bushes for Alma, people were filtering out of the city and assembling elsewhere
for departure.
(Mosiah 18:35)
And they were in number about four hundred and fifty souls.
The goal of an insurgency is survival, even if this means retreating
and giving up territory. According to Mao, in an only slightly different
context: “A strategic retreat is a planned strategic step taken by an inferior
force for the purpose of conserving its strength and biding its time to defeat
the enemy, when it finds itself confronted with a superior force whose
offensive it is unable to smash quickly.”
Bear
in mind that Alma was only 80 miles away, once they settled in the Land of
Helam. He had no intention of returning to overthrow Noah, but he would not have
been the first or last rebel leader to flee into the wilderness in order to
fight another day.
Is this reading too much into Mosiah
18? Not at all, it makes sense of the story in both religious and temporal
contexts.
Bibliography
“Deuteronomy as Israel's Ancient Constitution: Some
Preliminary Reflections.”
Herzog,
Chaim, and Gichon, Mordecai. Battles of the Bible. Mechanicsburg:
Stackpole, 1997.
Ricks,
Stephen, and Hamblin, William, Warfare in
the Book of Mormon. SLC: Deseret, 1990.
Wikipedia, “Guerrilla Warfare.”
Chaim Herzog and
Mordecai Gichon, Battles of the Bible, (Mechanicsburg: Stackpole, 1997),
268.
