KnoWhy #82 | April 22, 2024

Why Does King Benjamin Emphasize the Blood of Christ?

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Scripture Central

“O have mercy, and apply the atoning blood of Christ that we may receive forgiveness of our sins, and our hearts may be purified” Mosiah 4:2

The Know

At a ceremonial pause in King Benjamin’s coronation speech, all the people cried out with one voice, “O have mercy, and apply the atoning blood of Christ that we may receive forgiveness of our sins” (Mosiah 4:2). The people’s invocation of Christ’s blood comes as no surprise, since King Benjamin, while relaying the message of an angel, had mentioned the atoning blood of Christ five times in his immediately preceding words (Mosiah 3:7, 11, 15, 16, 18). This emphasis on blood is likely related to the ritual festival context of King Benjamin’s speech.1

Israelite priestly rituals on the Day of Atonement involved daubing and sprinkling blood to purify various parts of the temple (Leviticus 16:14–19, 27).2 It is perhaps ritually significant that Benjamin mentioned the words “atone” or “atonement” seven times (Mosiah 3:11, 15, 16, 18, 19; 4:6, 7), the same number of times blood was sprinkled on the mercy seat and the altar (Leviticus 16:14, 19).3

A Priest sprinkling the altar of sacrifice with blood. Artist Unknown. Image via redeemerofisrrael.org

In some cases, the sprinkling of blood in ancient Israelite and Near Eastern covenant rituals may have carried the connotations of kinship between God and man.4 This is reflected in  Mosiah 5:7–8, where King Benjamin connected this group of atonement "ideas with a new kinship relationship through covenant making.”5

Hearing about the atoning blood of Christ “could hardly have been set more vividly in the minds of his people” while witnessing the sprinkling of blood on the altar.6 As vivid as that Israelite setting likely was, King Benjamin's language and imagery of blood would have been further intensified by the New World environment of the Nephites.

Depiction of a Mayan King in the San Bartolo Murals. Image via mesoweb.com

Ancient Mesoamerican peoples also had harvest festivals and coronations.7 Crowning the king was among the rites and rituals often performed during these celebrations.8 On such occasions, there would be "an enthronement ceremony wherein the ruler sits upon a wooden tower or scaffold to receive the emblems of rulership," as depicted on the murals at San Bartolo (ca. 100BC).9

From their elevated position atop the tower, the king would perform a bloodletting ritual, which "required that blood [be] drawn from different and specific parts of the body, depending on the ritual."10To draw the blood, often a sensitive area, like the tongue, would be pierced. These rituals, also attested at San Bartolo,11 were believed to open up doorways connecting the divine and earthly worlds.12 It additionally serves to show that the earthly king was divine.

The Why

The Crucifixion by Leon Bonnat. Image via Wikipedia.

While bloodletting was an act of divine kingship, it is not to suggest that either Benjamin or his successor Mosiah performed a bloodletting ritual, or that these Book of Mormon kings saw themselves as divine. Benjamin specifically disclaimed being divine (Mosiah 2:10, 26); instead, he taught of the true divine king, whose blood would be shed for his people. “The Messiah was the self-sacrifice for his people.”13

Cultural awareness of these vivid and often graphic rituals would have further impressed the minds of Benjamin’s listeners as they learned of the “atoning blood of Christ,” especially as they learned of how the Messiah would bleed “from every pore” (Mosiah 3:7). Brant A. Gardner explained, “For Mesoamericans, the Messiah’s bleeding from every pore would indicate the measure of his self-sacrifice, involving, as it was, his entire body.”14

Gardner, however, gave an important caveat. “While [Benjamin’s Mesoamerican audience] … would have been culturally disposed to attribute other-worldly power to blood, atonement was not part of their understanding.”15 For this, one must draw on the Israelite rituals of atonement and purification through blood rituals—and this is exactly what Benjamin did, declaring: “the law of Moses availeth nothing except it were through the atonement of his blood” (Mosiah 3:15, emphasis added). 

The Sacrificial Lamb by Josefa de Ayala. Image via Wikipedia.

In Mesoamerican conceptions of bloodletting, the blood of divinely anointed kings would serve as a conduit to connect the human and divine. In Israelite ritual, the blood sacrifice of animals atoned for sins and purified the community, making the Lord their kinsmen through covenant. In Benjamin’s speech, the blood of a divine Messiah—the “anointed one”—atones and purifies his people, reconciling the human and the divine, and creating a covenantal relationship between them and Christ as “his sons and his daughters” (Mosiah 5:7).

Hence, Gardner observed, “Benjamin purposefully invokes the image of the Messiah’s atoning blood, not only setting up associations with the Mesoamerican conceptions of blood sacrifice but also with the blood sacrifices of the Mosaic law.”16 The combined perspectives of both the Old and New World background of the Nephites merge together in Benjamin’s speech to powerfully communicate the efficacious, redeeming power of Christ’s blood. 

Further Reading
Footnotes
Atonement
Blood
King Benjamin
Kinship
Sacrament
Book of Mormon

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