Why did Nephi cut off the head of Laban? Wouldn't some other form of execution have been quicker and less gruesome for Nephi? Again, the smiting off of the head is a part of Hebrew culture. Beheading among these people was a testament against them of the judgments of God (see William Hamblin and Brent Merrill, Warfare in the Book of Mormon, pp. 335-36) as quoted from a CES symposium talk given by John G. Scott, "The Miracle of First Nephi," 1997).