Detailed response to CES Letter, Scriptures

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A FAIR Analysis of: [[../|Letter to a CES Director]]

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A FAIR Analysis of the online document Letter to a CES Director section "Scriptures Concerns & Questions"

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• Response to section: D&C 132 ^{[Work in Progress]}
• Response to section: Numbers 31 ^{[Work in Progress]}
• Response to section: 1 Nephi 4 ^{[Work in Progress]}
• Response to section: Exodus 12:12
• Response to section: Deuteronomy 21:18-21
• Response to section: Exodus 35:1-2 ^{[Work in Progress]}
• Response to section: Numbers 21:5-9
• Response to section: Judges 19:22-29 ^{[Work in Progress]}
• Response to section: "I’m asked to believe in not only a part-time racist god and a part-time polygamous god but a part-time psychopathic schizophrenic one as well" ^{[Work in Progress]}

Response Section

1 Nephi 4

{{CESLetterItem |claim=The author states, "The Lord commands Nephi to murder (decapitate) Laban for the brass plates. Never mind that Laban was drunk and defenseless. The argument that Laban would send his servants after Nephi and his brothers is ridiculous considering that the same God who had no problem lighting stones and taming swarms of bees (Ether 2-3) for the Brother of Jared can also preserve Nephi." |answer=

• The Lord did preserve Nephi and his brothers from being killed by Laban....twice.
• Elder Jeffery R. Holland responds to this:

It is wrong to assume that Nephi in any way wished to take Laban’s life. He was a young man, and despite a 600 B.C. world full of tensions and retaliations, he had never “shed the blood of man.” (1 Ne. 4:10.) Nothing in his life seems to have conditioned him for this task. In fact the commandments he had been taught from childhood declared, “Thou shalt not kill”; and he recoiled, initially refusing to obey the prompting of the Spirit. . . . Laban, lying before Nephi in a drunken stupor, has not been guiltless in his dealings with Lehi’s family. In what little we know of the man, Laban has at least: (1) been unfaithful in keeping the commandments of God; (2) falsely accused Laman of robbery; (3) coveted Lehi’s property as a greedy, “lustful” man; (4) stolen that property outright; and (5) sought twice to kill Nephi and/or his brothers. He was, by the Holy Spirit’s own declaration, a “wicked” man delivered unto Nephi by the very hand of the Lord. ("I Have a Question, Ensign (September 1976)) off-site

Exodus 12:12

Deuteronomy 21:18-21

Numbers 21:5-9