Humor me for a minute: I want to talk about a character in the Book of Mormon who isn't named and receives a vague enough mention in just a couple of verses that it's possible that she doesn't exist at all.
I want to talk about Amulek's wife. I'll explain why later.
Refresher: Amulek was the longtime missionary companion of Alma the Younger. The two met shortly after Alma gave up the position of High Priest over the people of Nephi in order to travel the land and preach the word of God. After some profoundly affecting experiences (which we'll discuss in a bit), Amulek decided to join Alma in his life-long preaching mission. The last we hear of him is his sermon on prayer and repentance (Alma 34), given to the poor people in Antionum.
Now, what do we know about his wife?
First, let's look at Alma 10:11, where Amulek describes his interactions with Alma:
For behold, he hath blessed mine house, he hath blessed me, and my women, and my children, and my father and my kinsfolk; yea, even all my kindred hath he blessed, and the blessing of the Lord hath rested upon us according to the words which he spake. [emphasis mine]The phrasing here is interesting: is Amulek admitting to practicing polygamy? There's somewhat of a precedent set before amongst wicked Nephites like those in Ammonihah (see Jacob 2), but it seems like such an isolated incident that I'm not sure that's what's going on. Additionally, in Spanish the phrasing used is more akin to "the women of my house," which is less possessive and seems to imply other women (grown children, extended family) who were simply living in Amulek's abode. Whatever that case may be, it seems that Amulek had at least one wife, since he mentions that Alma blessed his children (which do not simply spring up into existence on their own).
Now, let's look at another verse, which takes place after the events of Ammonihah (which we'll get around to. Let's see how many balls I can keep in the air before you lose interest):
Now as I said, Alma having seen all these things, therefore he took Amulek and came over to the land of Zarahemla, and took him to his own house, and did administer unto him in his tribulations, and strengthened him in the Lord. (Alma 15:18)After everything that happened in Ammonihah, Alma takes Amulek back to his (Alma's) own house to rest and recuperate from what they went through. What strikes me here is that it very much sounds like Amulek went there alone, without all of the friends and family he described earlier. Why would this be?
I've come up with a few theories. The first (which I'll come back to a lot) is that this discrepancy is just due to the writing/editing of the Book of Mormon. For whatever reason, the creators and compilers of the Book of Mormon did not mention women, even when it's apparent that they had to have played a part. For instance, take Alma: in Alma 31 and the subsequent chapters we read about Alma's sons, but nowhere do we even find a mention of his wife. Clearly she has to have existed, and I imagine that her influence on her sons was just as defining as Alma's was, but for whatever reason, she was left out of the narrative.
So, again, there's our first possibility: Amulek took his entire family to Alma's house, and the record simply didn't mention anyone except Amulek. If we take in more evidence and conjecture a bit more, though, other options reveal themselves.
In fact, in the light of another scripture, we can debunk/clarify at least part of the first theory. Here's Alma 15:16:
And it came to pass that Alma and Amulek, Amulek having forsaken all his gold, and silver, and his precious things, which were in the land of Ammonihah, for the word of God, he being rejected by those who were once his friends and also by his father and his kindred...Amulek's stance in what happened in Ammonihah (we're getting there, I promise) was pretty radical. It was in such opposition to his former way of life that he was disowned by his father, his friends, and a large part of his family. So, even if Amulek didn't go alone to live with Alma for a spell, he definitely left behind a large part of his former support network, which is sad to contemplate.
However, it's also possible that this scripture meant to imply that he was abandoned by everyone, including his immediate family. It could be that even his own wife and children turned their backs on him before he was expelled from the city, leaving him alone with Alma. If this is what happened, then Amulek might have felt the sting of their loss twice over, as all of the people in the city of Ammonihah were killed by Lamanites shortly after the whole affair (Alma 16:1-3). As we discussed, Amulek definitely had some former friends and family in Ammonihah, but if he went to Zarahemla alone, then it's possible that he lost everyone he had cared about in that attack, never to be seen again in this life.
So now we have two possibilities as to the fate of Amulek's wife: she may have accompanied him to Alma's house, or she may have stayed in Ammonihah and perished in the Lamanite attack.
But there's one other possibility I can glean from this account.
Before I get into it, I just need to stress something: what happened in Ammonihah, what I'm about to talk about, is not pleasant. It is inhumane and cruel. Because of the language of the scriptures, it is not something that I think most people tend to dwell on, and it is not something that I particularly like to dwell on. However, the point of this whole post, the lesson I want to get across, came about exactly because I did dwell on this scene one day. So, just know that, like Mormon, I do not desire to harrow up the souls of men and women by describing these things, but also like Mormon, I do so because it serves a purpose.
So, with that in mind, let's get into what happened in Ammonihah:
Alma entered the city with the intent to preach, to bring people to repentance. The people didn't recognize his authority and threw him out of the city almost immediately. Commanded by an angel to return, he met Amulek and, after spending time with him, converted him to the cause. Alma went back to preaching, this time supported by Amulek, an insider. They debated at length with a lawyer named Zeezrom, and they eventually convinced him of the truth of their words. Some people saw this and began to believe, but the majority only became more enraged as they watched Zeezrom concede the debate. They reacted violently, accosting Alma and Amulek and binding them while they drove the rest of the men who believed from the city and into the wilderness.
The mob then stormed the houses of all of these men, capturing their wives and children and seizing all copies of the scriptures they could find. They created their very own "lake of fire and brimstone" (see Alma 14:4), likely a pit dug into the earth and then set ablaze. Having accomplished this, they threw all of the scriptures into the pit to be destroyed. Having accomplished that, they threw the captured women and children into the pit as well to die by being burned alive.
I don't want to beleaguer the point, but these were not quick deaths. They were not painless deaths. Those cast into the pit found themselves thrust into a literal hell, forced to witness the agonizing deaths of their friends and children while being consumed by pain and flame themselves.
In our third scenario, this is the fate that Amulek's wife and his children suffered. Death by fire.
Why bring this possibility up? Why paint such an awful scene of horror and pain?
Alma 14:9-10:
And it came to pass that they took Alma and Amulek, and carried them forth to the place of martyrdom, that they might witness the destruction of those who were consumed by fire.I don't think that quite adequately sums up how he felt.
And when Amulek saw the pains of the women and children who were consuming in the fire, he also was pained...[emphasis mine]
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I know what you may be thinking, the idea I may have placed in your mind: Amulek watched his family die in those two verses.
Personally, I don't think that's actually the case. If the Book of Mormon were some great work of fiction, some grand drama envisioned by an enterprising author, I might believe it. But here we come to the reason I even bother bringing any of this up:
The Book of Mormon is not a work of fiction. It is not just a story. Amulek is more than just a name on a page: Amulek was a man, a man with real emotions and experiences. A man who, while he may not have personally witnessed the death of his own family, witnessed the horrifying martyrdom of many innocent women and children, and so cried out:
How can we witness this awful scene? Therefore let us stretch forth our hands, and exercise the power of God which is in us, and save them from the flames.Alma was a man as well, a man who, while he may not have had a personal investment in this crisis, was still looking down into the faces of women and children perishing in the flames, crying "Save us!" with their eyes if not also with their smoke-filled lungs. He was a man filled with every possible amount of human compassion and empathy as the rest of us, which gives new weight to his response:
The Spirit constraineth me that I must not stretch forth mine hand...Alma knew of the power of God to save from both physical and spiritual peril; he experienced it firsthand. He knew that, if it were God's will, he could command the fire to cease and the believers to be delivered from the pit. But at that moment, he knew it was God's will that these His children return to His presence, and so fighting against every natural impulse and instinct for compassion, he stayed his hand. Amulek, disheartened, wondered aloud if they would be burned as well once the others were consumed. Alma noted that their captors made no moves to do so, and so resignedly concluded that their work was not yet done.
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In the end, I don't think we're actually any closer to knowing what happened to Amulek's wife than we were in the beginning. I don't claim any sort of authority in laying out these possibilities. And, really, that's not what matters, that's not why I wrote this post. I wrote this post because considering the possibility that Amulek's wife might have perished in the fire allowed me to see him and Alma, not as characters in a story, but as humans who lived out their lives on this earth. It's been said that there are only two classes of people in our lives: those whom we love, and the rest, whom we don't yet know. And what better way to come to know someone than to see their suffering and their trials through their own eyes?
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There are some stray thoughts concerning this story that I may include in a separate post. Besides those, I have one story left to examine, one Thing left to Think On from the Book of Mormon. After that, who knows?
