“Rather Than Spend Their Days in Idleness They Would Labor Abundantly with Their Hands”

Brant Gardner

Textual: Mormon now concludes this part of the story by providing his own summary and moral. He is reasonably accurate to Anti-Nephi-Lehi’s speech in his summary, but his conclusion portrays the same anti-Lamanite prejudices we have seen from Mormon. Anti-Nephi-Lehi never mentions anything about abandoning idleness. Indeed, it is quite likely that the over-king of such a large political hegemony was anything but idle. Nevertheless, Mormon’s conclusion trots out the long-standing accusation of idleness that becomes one of the caricatures of the Lamanite culture among the Nephites.

Multidimensional Commentary on the Book of Mormon

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