Why Did Nehor Suffer an “Ignominious” Death?

The Know

Not long after the establishment of the reign of the Nephite judges, a crisis arose that called into question the viability of the Nephite church and government.1 “In the first year of the reign of the judges over the people of Nephi” a dissenter named Nehor went “about among the people, preaching to them that which he termed to be the word of God, bearing down against the church” (Alma 1:1, 3). Nehor was adamant that “every priest and teacher ought to become popular; and they ought not to labor with their hands, but that they ought to be supported by the people” (v. 3).2

Theologically, Nehor preached a version of universalism. He declared, “All mankind should be saved at the last day, and that they need not fear nor tremble, but that they might lift up their heads and rejoice; for the Lord had created all men, and had also redeemed all men; and, in the end, all men should have eternal life” (v. 4).

Nehor’s teachings caught on among the Nephites, and soon his followers “began to establish a church after the manner of his preaching” (v. 6). Nehor, however, went a step further than mere religious dissent. When confronted by Gideon, the apostate Nephite did “contend with him sharply” over doctrine (v. 7). The argument escalated to the point where Nehor “drew his sword and began to smite him. Now Gideon being stricken with many years, therefore he was not able to withstand his blows, therefore he was slain by the sword” (v. 9). What began as religious and cultural dissent turned into outright homicide. 

This of course led Nehor to stand before the chief judge Alma, to plead his defense (v. 11). Nehor’s defense failed, and Alma condemned him to die, as he was “not only guilty of priestcraft," but had "endeavored to enforce it by the sword." Alma reasons, "Were priestcraft to be enforced among this people it would prove their entire destruction” (v. 12).

The record describes Nehor’s execution in a single verse. “And it came to pass that they took him . . . and they carried him upon the top of the hill Manti, and there he was caused, or rather did acknowledge, between the heavens and the earth, that what he had taught to the people was contrary to the word of God; and there he suffered an ignominious death” (v. 15).3

The Why

The account of Nehor’s life and death is deeply embedded in the context of Nephite law. John W. Welch has explored at length how Nehor’s trial and execution are illuminated by looking at both biblical law in general and Nephite law in particular.4

A number of factors, according to Welch, contributed to Nehor ultimately being given an “ignominious death.” These include the recent social reforms of Mosiah and the establishment of the Nephite judgeship at the end of the book of Mosiah, all of which Nehor sought to undermine with violence. Nehor’s trial, therefore, was not a mere triviality.

When Nehor was brought before Alma to be judged, his trial was a major test of Alma’s political and judicial power in the fledgling reign of the judges. How would the new system of judges work? What would the power of the chief judge be? . . . How would the recently enunciated principle of equality and the rubric that a person could not be punished for his beliefs be interpreted and applied in actual practice? . . . All these were open questions that would be tested and settled, intentionally or unintentionally, by the precedent-setting trial of Nehor.5

The seriousness of Nehor’s (seditious) challenges to the Nephite social order, to say nothing of his murder of Gideon, is undoubtedly what prompted his “ignominious” death on the hill Manti.6 Brant A. Gardner commented that, at its core, Nehor’s execution “remove[d] personal honor from him.”7 Not only did Nehor have to be “carried” to his place of execution, suggesting that he resisted his fate in an undignified manner, but both Welch and Gardner posit that he was likely stoned, a method of execution known from both ancient Israel and ancient Mesoamerica, and one that would’ve “connoted shame.”8

That Mormon would say that Nehor’s death was “ignominious” shows the prophet-historian’s complete disdain for one of the Nephites’ worst dissenters.9 Indeed, Nehor’s schismatic teachings would lead to further conflict and bloodshed in Nephite history, most notably with the rise of the Amlicites (Alma 2–3). From the perspective of Nephite law, then, and through Mormon’s moralizing narrative, that Nehor’s death was “ignominious” is understandable. That his ignominious teachings, which did not die with him, would later affect so many lives for the worst is just one of many tragedies in the Book of Mormon.