Helaman 7

Helaman 7 (Heading):

According to Thomas MacKay, when Mormon includes the material on Samuel [the Lamanite], he gives a brief heading (before chapter 7 and again before chapter 13), as he had done for such records as those of Alma₁ (see the header before Mosiah 23), and for Alma₂ (see the headers before Alma 1,5,7,9,36,38,39). This slight disjuncture may suggest the haste that propelled Mormon’s abridgement of the many records before him. Likewise similar seams in the summary, paraphrase, and quotation style he employs point in all likelihood to the exigencies of time and circumstances as well as to his respect for his historical sources. ¹

Helaman 7:7 Oh, That I Could Have Had My Days in the Days When My Father Nephi First Came out of the Land of Jerusalem:

Nephi makes a strange statement in Helaman 7:7:

Oh, that I could have had my days in the days when my father Nephi first came out of the land of Jerusalem, that I could have joyed with him in the promised land; then were his people easy to be entreated; firm to keep the commandments of God, and slow to be led to do iniquity; and they were quick to hearken unto the words of the Lord–

Hugh Nibley queries, Is this a naive statement he makes here? When Nephi got to the promised land, he had to break off from his brethren, and he ends on a note of dire misgivings. His people weren’t at all [“easy to be entreated”]. But this is a very realistic touch in the Book of Mormon. We do look back to those happy times, not really knowing what they were like, reading their teachings rather. . . . Actually, the early Nephi said they were very slow to hearken to the words of the Lord. ²

Could it be that Nephi really did have some success in a major way with people being converted to the gospel such that they would be referred to as “his people”? In other words, was Nephi a missionary to the peoples he came in contact with as he journeyed from Jerusalem to the Promised Land and to the land of Nephi? While the text basically focuses on the family of Lehi, and does not definitely describe any missionary efforts of Nephi, part of the covenant responsibilities of the Lord’s covenant servants has always been to spread the gospel to others. George Potter and Lynn Hilton have shown that along the Frankincense Trail there were a number of opportunities and evidences for the missionary preachings of Nephi and Lehi. If such was the case, then the sons of Helaman (Nephi and Lehi) would have shared the common bond of missionary experiences with their fathers Nephi and Lehi who first came out of Jerusalem, and Nephi’s statement here in Helaman 7:7 could have been correct. Once again it should be pointed out that in referring to Nephi of old, the present Nephi refers to “his people,” not “his family.” ³

Helaman 7:10 The Chief Market:

Hugh Nibley notes, Here’s a December 1980 National Geographic. You can always pick this stuff up in anything. Here’s a typical marketplace. Of course, this is during the time of the Conquistadors. This is much later, but there’s this lavish wealth. As it says here, “Cortez reports a crowd of 60,000 bartering for goods in one market [that’s business, you see]–turkeys, armadillos, rabbits, cotton boles, girds, bolts of finest cloth, quilts filled with gold dust [notice it talks about the weaving and the gold here], straw mats, corn, pottery, feathers for lavish ornament. . . . When disputes arose they were settled by a judge. Dress identifies region or occupation. . . . In other words, the Book of Mormon isn’t exaggerating. It is not Joseph Smith letting his imagination run wild, as some people have said–Mrs. Brodie, for example.⁴

Here [in National Geographic] is the ancient city [Tenochtitlan?] as the Spaniards saw it when they discovered it. It’s all very neatly laid out, all planned with streets wide open, all at right angles to each other, etc. and notice here are the gardens. As you go up, these are garden plots. Here the road approaches the city and passes a garden plot here. You get in the city and you see their towers here and there. Everything is laid out in a very proper manner. The interesting thing is the garden surrounds it, and they still do. This is one thing that has been discovered, archaeologically, down at Teotihuacan today at the big Pyramid of the Sun there. It was a large city, and moreover, the city was surrounded by garden patches, very systematically, and Mormon describes it here. ⁵

Helaman 7:10 Upon a Tower . . . in the Garden of Nephi . . . by the Highway Which Led to the Chief Market . . . in the City of Zarahemla:

According to John Sorenson, highways are now well known in Mesoamerica during Book of Mormon times, but what evidence is there of gardens and chief markets in ancient Mesoamerican cities (Helaman 7:10)?

Cities: For decades the prevailing view was that cities with high-density populations did not exist at all in Mesoamerica. In the last twenty years, however, intensive work at places like Teotihuacan and Monte Alban have demonstrated unquestionably that cities in the modern sense were indeed known during the Book of Mormon times.

Gardens: Indeed, in at least some of those cities recently demonstrated, garden areas were cultivated immediately adjacent to single habitation complexes. At the archaeological site of El Tajin near the coast of the Gulf of Mexico east of Mexico City are the remains of a city that occupied at least five square kilometers at its maximum period, probably between A.D. 600-900.

Chief markets: No one knowledgeable of pre-Columbian Mexico has had any doubt that markets were found in all sizeable settlements, yet until recently, only little attention has been given to the fact that a number of these cities had multiple markets. Blanton and Kowalewski, for example, have noted that Monte Alban had both a chief market and subsidiary ones. For Teotihuacan, Rene Millon identifies one location as “the principal marketplace” and suggests that other markets existed for special products, such as kitchen wares.

These things once seemed problematic in the book of Helaman’s casual description of Nephi’s neighborhood. They turn out instead to have substance beyond what was known only a few years ago. ⁶

Helaman 7:10 Upon a Tower Which Was in the Garden of Nephi:

In Helaman 7:10, mention is made of Nephi pouring his soul out to God while “upon a tower, which was in the garden of Nephi, which was by the highway which led to the chief market, which was in the city of Zarahemla; . . .” According to The Writings of Ixtlilxochitl, “the Tultec kings had gardens and pools within their palaces, which were very large; and trees and plants, animals and fowls of all kinds to amuse themselves.” The presence of a tower in the garden is noteworthy. Watchtowers were built in the gardens of the Israelites, and most of such gardens were on the outskirts of the towns. ⁷

Helaman 7:10 The Highway Which Led to the Chief Market:

According to Wallace Hunt, Helaman 7:10 is the only place in the Book of Mormon where the word market appears, to say nothing of the phrase chief market. Upon deeper perusal of the verse, the use of the two words at first seems unnecessary. Why add this description? If Joseph Smith were authoring the book, there would be no need to include such a description. After all, the native Americans with whom he was familiar had no marketplaces! Moreover, why would he jeopardize the integrity of his work by adding any unusual word or description?

If we look at Mesoamerica, the reference to a market (marketplace) is not only proper but crucial to Mormon’s description of Nephi’s praying and its effect upon the people. . . . The marketplace has been and still is a continuing and important part of their culture. J. Eric Thompson comments, “The present-day markets of highland Guatemala are enchanting, colorful, and thought-provoking, but they are but pale shadows of the markets in pre-Columbian times.” . . . In Bernal Diaz’s account of the “great market” of Tlatelolco, . . . his fellow soldiers, who had been in many parts of the world, commented that “they had never seen a market so well laid out, so large, so orderly, and so full of people.” Interestingly in this same dialogue Diaz also comments on the beauty and number of Montezuma’s gardens and describes the courts and enclosures on the road to the market. . . . Even today, to stand on the road leading to a marketplace can be an especially moving experience when one is observing a routine that has been followed for millennia. . . . Early in the morning the road is busy. Men and women are on their way to sell and purchase wares. . . . Thus Mormon, being intimately familiar with the markets of his day, surely knew that his description of Nephi’s garden and tower as being on the road to the chief market was very important in adequately conveying the impression of the large number of people who would hear Nephi praying and who would quickly assemble to hear him speak.⁸

Helaman 7:10 Which Was by the Highway:

We find references to “highways” in the New World in a number of places: Helaman 7:10; 14:24; 3 Nephi 6:8; 8:13). According to Hunter and Ferguson, the Maya (of Mesoamerica) like the Romans, were finished builders of roads. In the days of their greatness, macadamized roads, raised from six to eight feet above the ordinary level of the country and surfaced with hard, smooth cement, led from palace terrace to temple, from temple center to temple center. Such highways radiated form Chichen Itza toward all the other great centers of population. From Coba a road led all the way across the peninsula to the Coast of Cozumel which was a sacred place with the ancients and contained many shrines. . . . Roman roads, proverbial for their permanence, have disappeared, and can be traced today only with difficulty, or not at all. Our modern roads, if left to the forces of nature, will completely disappear without leaving a trace in 500 years, but this great Maya road has withstood the passage of centuries in a country of heavy rainfall and luxuriant vegetation. With the exception of its cement facing, this road is almost the same now as it was the day when the last Maya trod its smooth level surface. ⁹