Ammonihah () is a city mentioned in the

Book of Mormon The Book of Mormon is a religious text of the Latter Day Saint movement, which, according to Latter Day Saint theology, contains writings of ancient prophets who lived on the American continent from 600 BC to AD 421 and during an interlude date ...

that is governed by a class of lawyers and judges who lead an aristocratic and materialistic social order. When the Book of Mormon prophet

Alma Alma or ALMA may refer to: Arts and entertainment * ''Alma'' (film), a 2009 Spanish short animated film * ''Alma'' (Oswald de Andrade novel), 1922 * ''Alma'' (Le Clézio novel), 2017 * ''Alma'' (play), a 1996 drama by Joshua Sobol about Alma ...

visits Ammonihah as part of a ministerial tour, the city becomes the setting of "one of the most disturbing episodes" of the text in which Ammonihah's governing elite imprison him, exile any men converted by his preaching, and kill women and children associated with his mission by fire. The narrative set in Ammonihah is

intertextual Intertextuality is the shaping of a text's meaning by another text, either through deliberate compositional strategies such as quotation, allusion, calque, plagiarism, translation, pastiche or parody,Gerard Genette (1997) ''Paratexts'p.18/ref>H ...

with the Old and New Testaments. Literary and theological scholarship treat the Ammonihah story as an exploration of suffering and a turning point in the Book of Mormon's use of the phrase "lake of fire and brimstone" as a metaphor for hell. Artist John Held Sr. was commissioned to depict Ammonihah in two woodblock prints for George Reynolds's 1888 ''The Story of the Book of Mormon.'' These were among the first published illustrations of Book of Mormon content.

Background

Book of Mormon

The Book of Mormon is the primary

religious text Religious texts, including scripture, are texts which various religions consider to be of central importance to their religious tradition. They differ from literature by being a compilation or discussion of beliefs, mythologies, ritual prac ...

of the

Latter Day Saint movement The Latter Day Saint movement (also called the LDS movement, LDS restorationist movement, or Smith–Rigdon movement) is the collection of independent church groups that trace their origins to a Christian Restorationist movement founded by Jo ...

. In the book's narrative, a family flees Jerusalem in approximately 600 BCE, prophetically directed to escape the

Babylonian captivity The Babylonian captivity or Babylonian exile is the period in Jewish history during which a large number of Judeans from the ancient Kingdom of Judah were captives in Babylon, the capital city of the Neo-Babylonian Empire, following their defeat ...

. Led by God, they arrive in the Americas and establish a society which, due to a deepening fraternal disputation, splits into two: the

Nephites According to the Book of Mormon, the Nephites () are one of four groups (along with the Lamanites, Jaredites, and Mulekites) to have settled in the ancient Americas. The term is used throughout the Book of Mormon to describe the religious, po ...

and the

Lamanites The Lamanites () are one of the four ancient peoples (along with the Jaredites, the Mulekites, and the Nephites) described as having settled in the ancient Americas in the Book of Mormon, a sacred text of the Latter Day Saint movement. The Lamani ...

. Despite preceding the advent of Jesus, the Nephites have a Christian society with prophets among them. The majority of the story is framed as the retrospective work of its principal narrator,

Mormon Mormons are a religious and cultural group related to Mormonism, the principal branch of the Latter Day Saint movement started by Joseph Smith in upstate New York during the 1820s. After Smith's death in 1844, the movement split into several ...

, a Nephite who lives near the end of the chronological narrative and reflexively describes creating the text that is the Book of Mormon by abridging and quoting from Nephite history.

Book of Alma

The Book of Mormon is further divided into fifteen internal books, named after prophets in the text in a manner reminiscent of the prophetic books of the Bible. The ninth book is the

book of Alma The Book of Alma: The Son of Alma (), usually referred to as the Book of Alma, is one of the books that make up the Book of Mormon. The title refers to Alma the Younger, a prophet and "chief judge" of the Nephites. Alma is the longest book in the ...

, named after

, a prophet who is the son of the late founder of the then-current incarnation of the Nephite church. In this sub-book, Mormon narrates Alma's ministry and that of his son Helaman during the "reign of the judges", a period in which rule by judges has replaced monarchy in Nephite society. The book of Alma structurally divides into four quarters that alternatively parallel each other. In the first and third quarters (Alma 1–16 and 30–44), Alma encounters dissent among Nephites and responds; in the second and fourth quarters (Alma 17–29 and 45–63), Mormon narrates Nephite–Lamanite interactions. The majority of the Ammonihah narrative is framed by an

inclusio In biblical studies, inclusio is a literary device based on a concentric principle, also known as bracketing or an envelope structure, which consists of creating a frame by placing similar material at the beginning and end of a section, although w ...

spanning Alma 9–16.

Nephite dissenters and Alma

Prior to the Ammonihah narrative, the Book of Mormon develops an ongoing plot depicting a series of dissident movements in Nephite society whose participants persecute members of the Nephite church and reject its orthodoxy on the need for a Redeemer. The first of these are called "unbelievers", and in Alma's first appearance he is an active and highly persuasive unbeliever who convinces "many of the people to do after the manner of his iniquities". Alma's life drastically changes when an angel appears and commands him to repent. In a reversal that is intertextual with the apostle

Paul Paul may refer to: *Paul (given name), a given name (includes a list of people with that name) *Paul (surname), a list of people People Christianity *Paul the Apostle (AD c.5–c.64/65), also known as Saul of Tarsus or Saint Paul, early Chris ...

's story in the

New Testament The New Testament grc, Ἡ Καινὴ Διαθήκη, transl. ; la, Novum Testamentum. (NT) is the second division of the Christian biblical canon. It discusses the teachings and person of Jesus, as well as events in first-century Christ ...

, Alma does repent, and his transformation is so complete he goes on to become high priest of the Nephite church. In addition to being high priest of the church, Alma spends some time ruling as chief judge. The first case the narrative describes him overseeing is for a man named

Nehor Nehor ()"Book of Mormon Pronunciation Guide"

Narrative

Ministry

The Ammonihah narrative begins with Alma on a preaching tour throughout Nephite cities, having stepped down as chief judge in order to focus on spiritual ministry. Ammonihah, a community that has politically and religiously distanced itself from the rest of Nephite society, is the fourth city he visits. When Alma arrives the people abruptly refuse to give him an audience, and they aggressively mock him and "his" church. In response to this rejection, Alma leaves, but once he is outside the city, an angel directs him to return and preach repentance to Ammonihah. The angel warns Alma that Ammonihah is not only doctrinally heterodox but also plotting political sedition, as some "study at this time that they may destroy the liberty of thy people". When Alma reenters the city, he meets

Amulek Amulek () is a key figure in the Book of Alma, a book of the Book of Mormon. Mission to Ammonihah According to Alma, chapters 8-14, Amulek, in 82 B.C., accompanied the prophet Alma the Younger on a mission to the wicked city of Ammonihah, where h ...

, who offers Alma food and a place to stay, which Alma accepts. Alma invokes a blessing on Amulek's home and family, and they commence preaching in Ammonihah as a duo. An elite governing class of judges and lawyers, unique in the Book of Mormon to Ammonihah, confront Alma and Amulek. The lawyers and judges accuse the pair of trying to undermine Ammonihah's aristocratic and materialistic political order. Among these interlocutors are the lawyer Zeezrom and the chief judge Antionah. Alma uses stark imagery in his sermonizing at Ammonihah. He warns that for those who fail to repent and therefore experience "spiritual death", their "torments shall be as a lake of fire and brimstone, whose flame ascendeth up forever and ever". Some residents of Ammonihah respond to Alma and Amulek's preaching by repenting and reading the scriptures. Others, however, are outraged, and these eventually seize the pair and imprison them. The plot escalates into a mass persecution as the Ammonihah majority drive male Christian converts out of the city, arrest their wives and children, and seize any scripture in their possession.

Martyrdoms

After gathering Christian scriptures and prisoners, the people of Ammonihah create a fire in which they destroy scriptures and burn women and children alive as an intentional and distorted reference to Alma's sermon. The narrative states that any who believed Alma and Amulek's teachings or even listened to them at all become victims in Ammonihah. A chief judge brings Amulek and Alma to the "place of martyrdom" and forces them to watch, and he asks, "After what ye have seen, will ye preach again unto this people, that they shall be cast into a lake of fire and brimstone?" Kylie Nielson Turley explains, the judge "ensures that Alma understands the brutal irony at the heart of this horror. Alma's unfortunate gospel metaphor about a lake of fire and brimstone prompts the literal lake of fire and brimstone that burns before his eyes". The Deliverance of Alma and Amulek

The people of Ammonihah keep Alma and Amulek imprisoned. The jailers take away their clothing, mock them, starve them, and even beat them. After days spent in this manner, Alma and Amulek finally escape through miraculous deliverance when the prison, in response to a prayer by Alma, spontaneously collapses without harming them. They leave Ammonihah and reunite with survivors in a place called Sidom. There, Alma and Amulek encounter an ailing Zeezrom, who has survived and repented, and Alma miraculously heals him. Amulek is no longer in possession of any of the wealth he had while living in Ammonihah, and he has implicitly lost his immediate family to the fires. The story closes with Alma taking Amulek into his home where he "did administer unto him in his tribulations".

Aftermath

As the narrator of the book and the compiler in the framing narrative, Mormon follows up the Ammonihah story by describing its destruction amid the outbreak of unexpected Nephite–Lamanite war, casting the leveling of the city and its people as divine retribution for the violence committed in the narrative. In the rest of the Book of Mormon, Ammonihah briefly reappears twice. The first time is in Alma 25, when Mormon recapitulates its destruction as part of an overlapping plot involving war and politics. The last appearance is in Alma 49, which mentions that the city of Ammonihah is rebuilt.

Intertextuality

The martyrdoms at Ammonihah may parody the instructions for sacrifices given in Leviticus 16 (part of the

Acharei Mot Acharei Mot (also Aharei Mot, Aharei Moth, or Acharei Mos) (, Hebrew for "after the death") is the 29th weekly Torah portion in the annual Jewish cycle of Torah reading. It is the sixth weekly portion (, ''parashah'') in the Book of Leviticus, c ...

), in which God instructs

Aaron According to Abrahamic religions, Aaron ''′aharon'', ar, هارون, Hārūn, Greek (Septuagint): Ἀαρών; often called Aaron the priest ()., group="note" ( or ; ''’Ahărōn'') was a prophet, a high priest, and the elder brother of ...

and

Moses Moses hbo, מֹשֶׁה, Mōše; also known as Moshe or Moshe Rabbeinu (Mishnaic Hebrew: מֹשֶׁה רַבֵּינוּ, ); syr, ܡܘܫܐ, Mūše; ar, موسى, Mūsā; grc, Mωϋσῆς, Mōÿsēs () is considered the most important pro ...

to release one goat as "a scapegoat into the wilderness" and to take another as a "sin offering" to "burn in the fire". The men cast out from Ammonihah parallel the scapegoat while the women and children "serv as a grotesque sin offering", G. St. John Stott explains. Alma and Amulek's divinely-enabled escape from the Ammonihah prison resembles the New Testament's prison deliverance stories: the

liberation of Peter The liberation of the apostle Peter is an event described in the Acts of the Apostles, chapter 12 in which the apostle Peter is rescued from prison by an angel. Although described in a short textual passage, the tale has given rise to theological ...

Acts 12 Acts 12 is the twelfth chapter of the Acts of the Apostles in the New Testament of the Christian Bible. It records the death of the first apostle, James, son of Zebedee, followed by the miraculous escape of Peter from prison, the death of Herod ...

and that of Paul and

Silas Silas or Silvanus (; Greek: Σίλας/Σιλουανός; fl. 1st century AD) was a leading member of the Early Christian community, who according to the New Testament accompanied Paul the Apostle on his second missionary journey. Name and et ...

Acts 16 Acts 16 is the sixteenth chapter of the Acts of the Apostles in the New Testament of the Christian Bible. It records the second missionary journey of Paul, together with Silas and Timothy. The book containing this chapter is anonymous but early ...

Interpretation

Kylie Nielson Turley writes that the Ammonihah story is "one of the most disturbing episodes in the Book of Mormon" on account of its abruptly graphic violence and the twisted, personal motives behind that violence. Joseph Spencer calls the martyrdom "one of the grisliest scenes in the Book of Mormon". Charles Swift considers the story "one of the most poignant in all of scripture", observing that what starts as an uplifting story about Alma and Amulek becoming friends and colleagues "ends with the horrible death of innocent women and children and Amulek's having lost everything".

Suffering

The narrative set in Ammonihah invites readers to ponder why a god capable of miracles seemingly allows suffering and evil to exist. In the story, God delivers Alma and Amulek from prison but does not stop women and children from being burned at Ammonihah. While watching the mass killing, Alma tells Amulek that God forbids him and Amulek from invoking a miracle to intervene, and Alma concludes that the deaths are willed by God so that he can receive them into heavenly paradise and visit just punishment on Ammonihah. In a commentary, Fatimah Salleh and Margaret Olsen Hemming consider this an unsatisfactory theology of suffering, stating that "Alma's response does not stand up to the scrutiny of the people's pain in front of him". Within the Book of Mormon's framing narrative, Alma's theological exposition may be read as a lapse on Alma's part, caused by shock from the carnage, or possibly as a case of Mormon as narrator-editor inserting an attempted explanation for inexplicable horror. Ultimately, the Ammonihah narrative, Salleh and Olsen Hemming explain, "does not necessarily answer the question" of suffering in a world with God and instead "it simply invites us to sit with it."

Fire imagery

Ammonihah marks a turning point in the Book of Mormon's vocabulary. In the Book of Mormon before and during the Ammonihah arc, ''"lake of fire and brimstone"'' is a relatively common metaphor for hell and

spiritual death The concept of spiritual death has varying meanings in various uses and contexts. Buddhism Buddhadasa called ''duḥkha'' spiritual death. Sangharakshita uses the term "spiritual death" to describe one stage in a system of meditation, where insi ...

. However, after Alma and Amulek escape Ammonihah, the phrase "lake of fire and brimstone" is never repeated for the remainder of the book. Within the context of the book's narrative, this may be a Nephite cultural response to the tragedy. In the context of the framing narrative, it might be part of Mormon's character as the internal editor-historian, responding to his own experience of reading the Ammonihah story.

Artistic depictions

Artistic depictions of scenes of Ammonihah appear in George Reynolds's 1888 ''The Story of the Book of Mormon'', a book containing what Noel Carmack calls "the first published attempt at illustrating the Book of Mormon". John Held Sr., father of cartoonist

John Held Jr. John James Held Jr. (January 10, 1889 – March 2, 1958) was an American cartoonist, printmaker, illustrator, sculptor, and author. One of the best-known magazine illustrators of the 1920s, his most popular works were his uniquely styled ...

, created ''The Martyrdoms at Ammonihah'' and ''The Deliverance of Alma and Amulek'' (both pictured above) as woodblock prints. Carmack considers ''Martyrdoms'' the "strongest, most skillful piece" Held created for ''Story of the Book of Mormon'', noting that its "complex, action-filled" scene is rare even in contemporary Book of Mormon art.

References

Notes

General sources

* * * *

External links

* Chapter 24 of ''The Story of the Book of Mormon'' which depicts Ammonihah in prose and with John Held Sr.'s accompanying prints, on the Internet Archive * , the chapter of Ammonihah's first appearance in the Book of Mormon, on Wikisource {{bots, deny=Citation bot Book of Mormon places