Beware of Trodding Zoramites, or How Korihor got Screwed
By Rory on Feb 12, 2007
In the thirtieth chapter of Alma we are treated to the story of Korihor. While reading this account recently I found myself quite sympathetic to him. It’s rather disturbing to sit in Sacrament meeting reading Alma and identifying with an antichrist, but identify I did.
Now, to be sure, I wasn’t in lock-step with this character. He denied God, and he taught in such a way as to lead people away from any reliance upon spiritual promptings. But his comments about our inability to know and our being burdened with the baggage of strange traditions are fairly spot on. In fact, many of his statements are quite tame, even going so far as <gasp> foreshadowing one of our Articles of Faith.
Fortunately for us, Alma confronts Korihor with a series of arguments that are solidly convincing:
But Alma said unto him: Thou hast had signs enough; will ye tempt your God? Will ye say, Show unto me a sign, when ye have the testimony of all these thy brethren, and also all the holy prophets? The scriptures are laid before thee, yea, and all things denote there is a God; yea, even the earth, and call things that are upon the face of it, yea, and its motion, yea, and also all the planets which move in their regular form do witness that there is a Supreme Creator.
Yes. Okay. Maybe not solidly convincing. Maybe not even convincing. Let’s be honest, maybe these were great arguments circa 74 BC somewhere in the promised land. Or even early 19th century. Or both. Whatever.
But today? Hardly. Is the universe majestic? Absolutely. Is it awe-inspiring? You bet. Is it unexplainable? Nope.
And life? Diverse? Yes. Complex? Yes. A mystery? Well, sort of, but not entirely so. Happy birthday, Charles Darwin, you’re 198 today.
Back to Alma.
Korihor doesn’t buy Alma’s line of reasoning (kudos to him). So instead he is given a sign – he is struck dumb and cannot speak. That’ll do it.
In the interest of wrapping up the tale with an uplifting and glorious ending, Korihor confessed his errors (in writing, since he coudn’t speak), recanted his teachings (in writing, since he couldn’t speak), and repented of his sins (in writing, since he couldn’t speak). All was well!
Well, not exactly. Korihor, the poor chap, went about begging for his support (in writing, since he couldn’t speak - the first known instance of freeway exit panhandling with a cardboard sign). Then he made the unfortunate mistake of panhandling in the wrong neighborhood, and “he was run upon and trodden down” by the Zoramites. Talk about getting the shaft.
Ah, but let’s be charitable to the Zoramites, Matthew won’t be written for another 140-170 years. Or maybe it was written some 1750 years ago. It’s all so very hazy.
So the lesson in all of this? It’s that we need more signs. Big ones.
Okay, maybe not. But maybe we need to rethink how we support our faith with spurious arguments. We are quick to cite the latest and greatest argument du jour that supports our faith and our strange behavior. Think word of wisdom. Think cureloms and cumoms. Think… you get the picture.
But what of tomorrow? Is it better to be strange and shrug? To seek God and leave it at that? Maybe.
All I really know is that we need to scrupulously avoid Zoramites with a penchant for trodding.
What I’ve always loved about this chapter is how, when Korihor is struck dumb, the chief judge “put forth his hand and wrote unto Korihor, saying: Art thou convinced of the power of God? In whom did ye desire that Alma should show forth his sign? Would ye that he should afflict others, to show unto thee a sign? Behold, he has showed unto you a sign; and now will ye dispute more?” (Alma 30:51).
Apparently the chief judge thought that Korihor had been cursed with deafness rather than dumbness.
Comment # 1 by Steve M | Feb 12, 2007 | Reply
Steve M - Good observation. I missed that one.
Rory - Well put. This is why I refuse to repent. After my Bishop compared me to Korihor, all I could think about was being trampled to death. Good thing I found a loophole.
Comment # 2 by Simeon | Feb 12, 2007 | Reply
And Korihor said, “But behold, the devil hath deceived me; for he appeared unto me in the form of an angel, and he said unto me: . . . There is no God.” I think this is the only case I know of a person becoming an atheist because an angel told him there was no God.
Comment # 3 by Parker | Feb 13, 2007 | Reply
The examples of Korihor and Sherem seem to put it into the heads of many members that unbelievers are:
1) insincere (and deep in their hearts really know that God and Christ exist).
2) consciously in league with Satan to bring down God’s church.
3) are doomed to an ignominious death.
When I was in that liminal stage where I was beginning to question and doubt, these stories scared the er…hell…out of me.
Comment # 4 by John Remy | Feb 13, 2007 | Reply
Korihor asked for a sign and wanted Alma to inflict someone else as the sign. So Alma was allowed to show him a sign, which was to strike him dumb. Alma asks him whether he thought God would see fit to strike someone else with a sign to convince Korihor. I suppose the same question can now be put to you, since you exhibit an element of incredulity that Korihor should be struck with a sign for not believing Alma’s argument (i.e., that is not what he was actually struck with a sign for; presumably that is clear to you as well).
Comment # 5 by john f. | Feb 13, 2007 | Reply
err, the chief judge asks him, but the point is the same.
Comment # 6 by john f. | Feb 13, 2007 | Reply
LOL.
I have nothing clever or intelligent to add to the discussion……just really enjoyed the post and comments that followed!
Comment # 7 by Elise | Feb 13, 2007 | Reply
I’ve always wondered what is so wrong about seeking a sign? Don’t we all seek signs of God’s existence? I’ve been doing this since I can remember. Isn’t praying for an answer to this or that question a form of seeking signs? Isn’t looking for an answer in a book, or talking to a friend or church leader a form of sign seeking?
You bet I want a sign. I might not be smug about it like Korihor, but I’m sympathetic all the same.
Signs seemed to be dolled out indiscriminately in the scriptures. Just last Sunday I taught a lesson out of the gospel doctrine manual. I’m too lazy to look up the scriptures right now, but in one of the lesson’s stories/anecdotes, Jesus reads from the book of Isaiah about the coming of Christ and tells the assembled listeners that this scripture has now been fulfilled, that he is the said Christ. The audience’s response is doubt and hesitation. Isn’t this Joseph’s son? Could the Christ come out of Nazareth? These people are rebuked for their lack of faith. In the very next story/anecdote from the lesson we read the story of Jesus meeting some of his disciples for the first time. They are fishing but having no luck. Jesus fills their nets with fish and he invites them to be fishers of men. They willingly follow.
In the first story no sign is given and the people are rebuked for their lack of faith; in the second story a sign is given and the people are rewarded for their faith. What am I missing here?
Comment # 8 by Matt Thurston | Feb 14, 2007 | Reply
RE # *
Matt, faith promoting experiences are for those who are exercising faith. Alma 32, so often cited, says that you have to try an experiment by making space for your faith, and hoping that it is true. The good citizens in the synagogue in the example you cited were only expressing doubt, not faith. They immediately discounted the Savior’s pronouncement by belittling him and his background that they all knew.
On the other hand, we have some evidence that some of the apostles called in your second example were already disciples of John the Baptist. Others called were already following Christ, and most were acquainted or knew of him. If you exercise no faith, you don’t get your faith rewarded with any kind of sign. Faith itself (heresy alert) is a form of “work”, just as prayer is.
You said it clearly at the end of your statement. “In the first story no sign is given and the people are rebuked for their lack of faith;in the second story a sign is given and the people are rewarded for their faith.” In both cases the sign was given or not given, based on the faith displayed. The faith came first, and then the evidence of the faith.
As to Korihor, the sign was given not for his benefit, but for the benefit of those who were exercising their faith, even if it was just Alma and the chief judge. Korihor’s plight and subsequent unfortunate experience with the Zoramites shows the difference between knowledge, which Korihor had, and faith, which he did not.
Faith is simply to hope for and act in a manner for an outcome that cannot be proven to exist. Lack of faith, however sincere, does not share that ability to act as if it were true, and then find out it is true.
I know, many of you, including me, have had experiences where faith has not been rewarded, but just as many times, it has. I’m not able to predict these outcomes, but it happens often enough for me to continue in the “faith”, despite some doubts about certain specifics.
Comment # 9 by Kevinf | Feb 14, 2007 | Reply
Thanks, Kevin. Nicely said. I’d agree that any knowledge or belief (secular, spiritual, etc.) requires some effort or work. Nobody is going to give me a Master’s degree if I just ask for one. It didn’t appear to me that the disciples had done anything to merit their “sign,” that it was offered free of charge, and that they chose to follow after witnessing the sign. But I am not a scriptorian so I’ll accept your interpretation.
In any case, I prefer your simple approach to faith (as expressed here and in previous comments) and signs as it is grounded in the reality I see all around me. The dramatic, physical signs portrayed in the Book of Mormon (of which, Korihor is but one minor example) are nice because they offer simple, black and white illustrations of certain gospel principles in action, but they aren’t grounded in reality as we know it. Sometimes, as John Remy points out in #4, the doubters among us are not insincere, in-league-with-Satan, sign-seeking Korihors, but genuine disciples, fishers of men, who have come to interpret their signs differently. In such situations, a nice, unmistakable sign now and then that we or they are on the right track would sure be welcome.
Comment # 10 by Matt Thurston | Feb 14, 2007 | Reply
Matt,
I agree. I’d appreciate an unmistakable sign now and then, myself. The ones I do see, tend towards the small and mundane, not so much grand and amazing, although I have had one experience where I was given an IP subnet mask that solved a huge problem at work for me. It came in the form of a windows dialog box that woke me up in the middle of the night, which pretty much amazed me for two reasons. One, I had no idea the Lord understood IP addressing and variable length subnet masks, and two, I had actually been praying for help with the issue, as it had our company and a customer totally at odds with each other. It’s my Elder-Nelson-heart-incision-here-on-the-dotted-line moment.
More typical is the overwhelming sense of the spirit that came to me as I was doing my monthly cleaning of the chapel, and was vacuuming in one of the primary classrooms. I was thinking about needing to do a better job at it, and about the kids, adults, investigators who came to church each Sunday. I was suddenly struck by how the cleaning of the chapel was an act of love, and I needed to get a better attitude about it, or be trodden underfoot by visiting Zoramites. Not making fun of it, but to me it was an unmistakable sign that came just because, however reluctantly, I was doing my duty (exercising my faith, even though I had previously had issues with how the chapel cleaning program was being handled).
I suspect that some of those Book of Mormon moments should come under the heading of “I wrote this upon the plates after I realized that it was Significant”. There probably was judicious editing, leaving out some of the details. I’ve often thought about Laman’s record, and how it probably started something like “I, Laman, having been born of whacked out parents, and unmercifully afflicted by an obnoxious, know-it-all younger brother, who always got Mom and Dad to believe his side of things, etc…”. Who knows what Mormon and Moroni edited out, or chose to emphasize?
I personally have decided that I might not have liked Captain Moroni very much as a person, while respecting him as a military leader and church leader. He ran around threatening anyone who didn’t see things his way with his sword, pretty much stifled some kinds of free speech, and conducted military tribunals with summary executions. I would have struggled with being his bishop. I perhaps from time to time struggle with some of our modern general authorities for the same reasons. While I respect their spiritual insights, I often don’t see things the same way they do, and wonder how I would react to sitting in ward council meetings with them, or going out to dinner.
Oh well, faith would be dead without works, and work entails something hard and frequently onerous, or it wouldn’t be work.
Parts of my faith are simple, and other aspects incredibly complex and maddeningly frustrating. I just keep plugging along, enduring to the end, and get some nice surprises now and then.
Comment # 11 by Kevinf | Feb 14, 2007 | Reply
I think this is the only case I know of a person becoming an atheist because an angel told him there was no God.
Well, if anyone would know about the existence (or lack thereof) of a certain supernatural being, it would be another supernatural being, right?
Comment # 12 by Mark N. | Mar 7, 2007 | Reply
Regarding comment #1 about it being ironic when Korihor is struck dumb and the chief judge “put forth his hand and wrote unto Korihor”. The author thinks dumb doesn’t mean deaf but if you ake a look at dictionary.com for definitions of dumb, you will find:
2. lacking the power of speech (often offensive when applied to humans): a dumb animal.
3. temporarily unable to speak: dumb with astonishment.
4. refraining from any or much speech; silent.
5. made, done, etc., without speech.
Comment # 13 by HeatherB | Sep 24, 2008 | Reply
This post startled me!
Having been labled a Korihor more than once, I had wondered how often this brush gets used by good Mormon folks on other good Mormon folks.
Thanks for letting me know that I am not alone in being thus painted. I notice that this thread originated more than a year and a half ago, but this last comment reawakened it and made it timely for me!
When I read the Alma 30 summary about Korihor from my four-in-one scriptures to the local Russian Orthodox priest recently, after receiving the latest brushing by an LDS ecclesiastical leader (a patriarch), the priest asked how this Mormon leader and the others I mentioned (two stake presidents, besides the patriarch) could possibly think that about me, since the priest and I have been meeting for more than four hours weekly for the past year and a half. [I only just realized that this the same time this blog thread originated!!]
My reply to the priest was that many zealous Mormon leaders simply cannot see their own dark sides–their Shadows, to refer to Carl Jung’s term. They find it more convenient to project their unconscious self-aspects on others than to take responsibility for their own uncharitable or critical side.
I told the priest that I see my task when encountering such people is to know myself well enough (including my Shadow!) so that I can survive their projections. The hard part is to return these projections to their source with skill and in a beloving way.
This is why we need this Sunstone community! –and its wise bloggers. You are my teachers.
Comment # 14 by Eugene Kovalenko | Sep 25, 2008 | Reply
Many of Korihor’s observations are legitimate, appropriate and should be thoughtfully considered.
It doesn’t appear that either side in this story had direct and definitive knowledge of “God”; the evidence and arguments made in Alma demonstrate this.
Consider me a Korihor who has experienced direct contact with the supreme source of divinity and knows without interpretation, conclusion, opinion, or self-serving biased belief, the true nature of divinity, and like Korihor so appropriately observed, the Church has a lot of cleaning up to do.
Comment # 15 by Dane | Sep 26, 2008 | Reply