Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Nephite Kingship Reconsidered, Noel B. Reynolds

Faculty Publications

This paper extends and updates previous efforts to understand the political dynamic of the Book of Mormon by looking at four themes or issues that can be developed from the text itself. The first is an expansion of earlier treatments of the contradictory political ideologies of the Nephites and Lamanites, which informed relations between these two groups across their thousand-year history. The second is an exploration of the historical possibility that Nephi may never, in fact, have been anointed as king of the Nephite people, which raises in turn a possible need to reassess the character of Nephite kingship. The …