Young Generals

[This is cross posted from the new and excellent blog, Ether's Cave.]

 

Modern readers of the Book of Mormon might wonder a bit at the precociousness of some of the military leaders. Moroni "was only twenty and five years old when he was appointed chief captain over the armies of the Nephites." (Alma 43:17). Mormon says that when he was "fifteen years of age" (Mormon 1:15), "the people of Nephi appointed me that I should be their leader, or the leader of their armies. Therefore it came to pass that in my sixteenth year I did go forth at the head of an army of the Nephites" (Mormon 2:1–2).

 Other leaders were also young. The text reports that "Moroni yielded up the command of his armies into the hands of his son, whose name was Moronihah" (Alma 62:43) in the thirty-second year of the reign of the judges (see Alma 62:39). Moroni was twenty-five in the eighteenth year (Alma 43:3-4, 17) just fourteen years earlier. Even if we assume that Moronihah was born when Moroni was fifteen, Moronihah could not have been more than twenty-four when he took over command of all the armies.

 On the one hand, mortality rates in the ancient world were significantly higher than they are now. So individuals simply had to take over responsibilities at an earlier age. On the other hand, there may have been a cultural factor at play as well.

 Bernardino de Sahagun reports the custom among the Aztecs of sending young men to live in a "young men's house" (tepuchcali):

And when [he was] yet an untried youth, then they took him into the forest. They had him bear upon his back what they called logs of wood--perchance now only one, or, then, two. Thus they tested whether perhaps he might do well in war when, still an untried youth, they took him into battle. He only went to carry a shield upon his back.

 And when [he was] already a youth, if mature and prudent, if he was discreet in his talking, and especially if [he was] of good heart, then he was made a master of youths; he was named tiachcauh. And if he became valiant, if he reached manhood, then he was named ruler of youths (telpochtlato). He governed them all; he spoke for all the youths. If one [of them] sinned, this one judged him; he sentenced [the youths] and corrected them. He dealt justice.

 

 And if he was brave, if he took four [captives] then he attained [the office of] commanding general, [or] chief. (Fray Bernardino de Sahagun, Florentine Codex 3, appendix 5, in Arthur J. O. Anderson and Charles E. Dibble, Florentine Codex [Santa Fe, NM: The School of American Research, 1952], 4:53.)

While Sahagun is writing about Aztecs, not Nephites, and about customs of a much later time, we do not know how far back the customs stretch. The custom, however, provides a plausible parallel for how a man could rise to be a commanding officer at an early age.

Imperial Patriots: The Book of Mormon War Chapters as a Catalyst for Imperialism

[This is an abstract for a paper I proposed to the Society for Military History and their theme of transformative warfare.]

 

The Book of Mormon primarily serves as a spiritual witness in the religious realm. But almost one third of the book is devoted to warfare.  Some sociologists have also described Mormonism as a new world religion.[1]  Yet the book, particularly its military passages, remains woefully understudied.[2]  At least in part this is due to the enormous spiritual baggage and bitter polemic debates that accompany the book.  But new research, such as that by Grant Hardy, has tried to bracket the claims of its truthfulness to better understand the complexity, beauty, and message of the text.[3] 

In particular, the Book of Mormon contains a dense series of chapters that follow a great war between the two principle groups, the Nephites and Lamanites. Both groups descended from two brothers, Nephi and Laman, who left Jerusalem around 600 B.C. [4] After journeying to the new world they split into two groups that frequently warred with each other until the Nephites were destroyed in the 4^th century A.D. Living in the first century B.C., Moroni is described as leading the Nephites during a 14 year long period of intense conflict covered in a dense narrative section called the “war chapters.” His actions included creating a standard of liberty to rally his people, giving powerful political religious speeches that increased support for the war, merciful treatment of surrounded and surrendered soldiers, many outstanding battlefield victories, brilliant strategy and pre battle tactical maneuvers, and a respect for the rule of law. But his actions also included things that are not as sterling or had unintended consequences.   This included the use of preemptive warfare, increased use of (expensive) armor for his soldiers, increased use of fortifications, an expansion of the size of armies, execution of defectors, aggressive pursuit of decisive battle, a completely counterproductive negotiating strategy, using rhetoric that threatened a war of extermination against his enemies, and a threatened coup against the government. 

A careful reading of the war chapters suggests that Moroni initiated a series of actions that inaugurated an imperial period within the book, led to their eventual destruction as a political entity, and can be used by modern readers to justify an aggressive and interventionist American foreign policy. Examining the unintended consequences suggests a need for added caution in considering the merits of military action. A relatively short time before Moroni assumed military command, King Benjamin served as a “yeoman” ruler who boasted that he farmed with his own hand.[5] The Nephites ruled a relatively small area around their capital and had a single army. Yet a generation later, the Nephite people led by Moroni preemptively seized land during a time of peace, and preemptively sought to attack an enemy leader.  Moroni changed their armor and fortifications that made their military more effective in the short term, but more expensive to maintain in the long run. The Nephites also fielded multiple armies capable of operating in different theatres with Moroni as the chief captain. The necessary tax base to fund the armor and fortifications required more extensive territory, protection of trade routes and a larger military; these actions led to deeper debts and an overextension of their military. Even though the Nephite armies explicitly fought under a banner of liberty, they faced continued political unrest, increasing social stratification, oppression of the poor, and a growing insurgency they had trouble subduing.

Battlefield losses often inspire great soul searching and political, military, and cultural reform, while winning a war brings a whole new set of problems.  From Rome to Britain, to American policy after World War II, the burden of hegemonic leadership is often assumed vigorously after outstanding military victory, but often unravels from within due to the demands of money and men and a slow decay of society’s ability, and desire, to furnish them.  The Book of Mormon is a uniquely American text,[6] from a uniquely American religion that informs the voting habits of millions of Americans.  Thus a study of the war chapters suggests that Moroni initiated a series of actions that inaugurated an imperial period within the book, and can be used to justify an aggressive and interventionist American foreign policy, while at the same time shows a transformation that has been missed by military historians.

---

[1] Rodney Stark, The Rise of Mormonism (New York: Columbia University Press, 2005). 

[2] Stephen D. Ricks, William Hamblin Eds. Warfare in the Book of Mormon (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book and FARMS Press 2001), is the only academically substantive book dedicated to warfare in the Book of Mormon.  Patrick Mason, David Pulispher, Richard Bushman, ed. War and Peace in Our Time: Mormon Perspectives (Draper UT: Greg Kofford Books, 2012), is a more recent addition but it has very few chapters on the Book of Mormon and only one from a military historian. 

[3] Grant Hardy, Understanding The Book of Mormon: A Reader’s Guide (New York: Oxford University Press, 2010).

[4] Bracketing truth claims I can either report the dates and actions of the characters with the Book of Mormon faithfully, or add a “supposedly” or “reportedly” in front of every fact in the book.  For the sake of brevity I will simply report what the book said. Serious skeptics and non believers of the book can feel free to add those qualifiers and keep in mind that the entire volume is a fantasy fiction of Joseph Smith.  

[5] Scott, G. St. John. “King Benjamin and the Yeoman Farmer” Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 39 (1988), 1-26.

[6] This is due to its focus on at least some part of North or South America being type of “promised land” similar to the land of Israel described in the Bible.

Book Review: Shanghai 1937- Stalingrad on the Yangtze

It almost sounds like the beginning subtitle to an Indiana Jones movie. But instead it is my new book review on behalf of the Michigan War Studies Group.  Thanks for reading. 

Henry the V, Hummers, and the Book of Mormon

“Why don't you "pray" to know if some purported history has Henry V going into battle at Agincourt in a Hummer is TRUE?? Are you so certain that new evidence (for Hummers several centuries ago) won't come forth to change the thinking of experts? How limited is THAT kind of thinking??  In other words, you haven't been paying attention: the BOM is FULL OF ANACHRONISMS, just as bad as Henry riding in a Hummer.”[1]

This is fairly typical of the kind of mockery that critics heap upon the Book of Mormon.  But I’ve been going through storage that includes hundreds of books. So I recently read several about the Hundred Years War. This was a conflict between England and France that, naturally, lasted on and off for 100 years. It started in the 1337 with Edward III trying to expand England’s holdings and independence in Southwestern France.  They quickly won several outstanding victories including ones at Poitiers and Crecy. Agincourt was another outstanding victory in 1415 that ensured the French would continue to try and avenge their loss.  Shakespeare’s Henry V immortalized the conflict by embellishing items like the St. Crispin’s Day speech. This includes the famous line, “We few, we happy few, we band of brothers.” This period witnessed the rise and murder of Joan of Arc as well. The conflict ended in 1453 when the more widespread use of cannons ousted the English from their fortifications.  This was also the same year as the invention of the printing press and the fall of Constantinople.    

So naturally it sounds ridiculous to think that Henry the V had hummers. At first I thought about it facetiously.  If one of the soldiers was humming on a wagon, to the point that he was nicknamed "the hummer" then it wouldn't be an anachronism. It would be somewhat weird, but not laughably outrageous as the critics imply.   But then I remembered there was a prominent group in England called the Lollards. Some think the word comes from the Dutch for mumbling or English for singing softly, similar to the word lullaby. This described a group of people that followed the heresies of John Wycliffe.  I looked a little deeper, and the Gesta, a medieval chronicle and one of the earliest sources for the battle, discussed Agincourt in the same space as the Lollards.  So the idea of people who hum, or hummers, at the battle of Agincourt might not invite derision.

I know this author meant the vehicle, but the funny thing about language is that one word can have many different variations and mean various things. If somebody is unfamiliar with the language, unfamiliar with the history, and the text has no clarifying passages, they might think that hummer meant the vehicle, which is something they could laugh at and mock; but it could really mean another thing that actually enhances our understanding of the text. Just like hummer could mean the anachronistic vehicle, or it could be another term for a Lollard. A chariot in the Book of Mormon could mean what you see in Ben-Hur, but it could actually mean a carried sedan or litter accompanied by a ceremonial war animal. The first invites derisions since common knowledge assumes they didn’t have the wheel.[2] But the second actually enhances our understanding of the text, and helps us overcome faulty assumptions.

I should add that in order for critics use of the hummer to work, they have to do what critics usually do- insist upon one and only one meaning of a word. So hummer can only mean the vehicle. But language doesn't work like that. If I walked into a British bar and asked for a football game, they would not show RGIII and the Redskins. It wouldn't be called a bar either, but it would be a pub. When asked for a football game they would show what Americans would call soccer. So one word can contain multiple meanings for people who speak the same language in the same era. The same word can mean many things especially when working with two different languages from different eras as translation texts are, and as the Book of Mormon purports to be.

The reader can identify the exact meaning of terms if there are passages that provide context. Unfortunately, terms like chariot in the Book of Mormon don't have the clarifying context that this critic provided for hummer. He started calling it the “internal combustion kind” of hummer. But when the word chariot is used within the text, there are no discussions of wheels, no discussion of how exactly it was used, what the animal associated with it was used for, what it looked like and so forth. In fact, there are only several mentions of chariot in the entire text outside of the Isaiah chapters. Alma 18: 9, 10 and Alma 20:6 says that horses and chariots were made ready.  3 Nephi 3:22 said that the people took their chariots to their appointed meeting place. 

So critics insist that chariot has to mean the Ben-Hur kind. Even though a reader who strips away the assumptions gained from popular knowledge would not know what exactly was being described. When a person studies the passages context a new picture emerges. Mesoamerican Kings were often carried on a sedan. The word chariot actually means several different words in Hebrew, including litter or sedan. Mesoamerican kings also travelled to war with a ceremonial animal designated as a war token.[3]  So stripping away our assumptions of what the text should mean, it is just as likely that the term chariot refers to a carried sedan used by elites for transportation, accompanied by a battle beast or ceremonial war animal.[4]  This enhances the text since 3 Nephi 3:22 actually described a massive preparation of the Nephites for battle.

In short, when a critic attacks the Book of Mormon by using such obvious anachronisms such as hummers at the Battle of Agincourt, or chariots in Mesoamerica, a person should study the language, history, and any clarifying passages to better understand the text. Because you might find out that Henry V did take hummers to battle.   

---

[1] CARM Discussion Board. Father JD October 10^th 2013, http://forums.carm.org/vbb/showthread.php?164084-Breaking-News-and-Established-History&p=4839148#post4839148 (Accessed, October 12^th, 2013.)

[2] John Sorenson, though,  has discussed extensive evidence for the wheel in pre Columbian Mesoamerica.  John Sorenson, Mormon’s Codex: An Ancient American Book (Salt Lake City, Deseret Book, 2013) 350-356.

[3] See Lintel 2 of temple 1 at Tikal.

[4] Brant A. Gardner, Second Witness: Analytical and Contextual Commentary on the Book of Mormon, 6 vols. (Salt Lake City, UT: Greg Kofford Books, 2007) 4:287-288.