Helaman

It comes from the life of someone who carried the name before you, or the way that you are carrying it now.

As an example, in the Book of Mormon, Helaman explained why he named his sons Nephi and Lehi.

He wanted them, whenever they remembered their names, to remember the great men whose names they carried, and then remember their good works so that they would try to live in a similar way.

I love that.

Helaman was teaching his sons that their names mattered, that their names should remind them who came before them, and remembering who came before them should remind them who they were trying to become.

I learned something about names in a different way when I was young.

I remember getting caught doing something I probably shouldn't have been doing.

But while they were able to accept that from him, they didn't ever really get good at it themselves.

What you don't see lots of Book of Mormon people doing, Mormon, for example, or Alma, or Helaman, or King Mosiah, or King Benjamin, they don't use Isaiah.

They use their own prophets because they're comfortable with them, but they're not using Isaiah.

There's only four people in the Book of Mormon that use Isaiah, and three of them were born in the Middle East, Nephi, Jacob, and Jesus.

This is verse 11.

And we're actually going to talk about this because there's some other internally consistent details here in Mosiah 27 that Alma recounts again to his son when he's talking to Helaman in Alma 36.

But in verse 12, it says, So great was their astonishment that they fell to the earth.

So it's a really clever example because the first time they fall to the earth, it's like...

The narrative account of the conversion, we already spent a little bit of time there, you know, the first time they fell to the earth.

Okay.

The second chapter is where Alma is talking to his son, Helaman, and he's recounting his conversion.

Now, again, Alma 36 is the chapter of chiasm.

Another word for virtue kind of along that would be like valiant or valiant.

Or you talked about how it was kind of men in battle is usually how it's used, right? And I was thinking about the Sons of Helaman and there is the phrase in Alma, 53 20 um that talks about the sons of helaman being exceedingly valiant oh yeah and if i remember right i had read somewhere that that was the word shayil sons of helaman were exceedingly valiant

yes they were all young men and they were exceedingly valiant you were right it is alma 53 20 and the power that those boys had

is just unheard of that all of them went out and came back alive that's covenant power that and and it required valiancy right i i found another scripture that just put it together for me um and it's in dnc 76 79 where they talk about people who are not valiant oh okay so it's it's the three kingdoms and it's um focusing on the terrestrial kingdom at this point okay what first did you say 76 79 79

Sorry, I am there.

Helaman 512.

Oh, you're good.

Now, as I looked, and it wasn't an exhaustive list, but there's about 10 verses that I found in different places that it seems to capture this third rock.

This one, okay, Moses chapter 7, per the great price.

And again, this is what's cool of just like looking at scripture a little closer.

I thought this was the same as Helaman 5.12 until I read it a little bit more closely.

And I thought, wait, I think this is a different rock.

There was goodness, and there was peace, and there was righteousness, and there was hope, and everybody was happy and serving each other.

Wouldn't the Book of Mormon be a lot more uplifting if that's all it had? Some have wondered, why so much evil? Why so much from people like Korhor, this Antichrist? And why so much war in Alma and Helaman and 3rd Nephi? The question here is, what would happen if our Book of Mormon only focused on just the positive and totally ignored the negative? I want to share a little concept with you.

There's an educational philosophy out there.

Taylor has talked about this in a previous episode.

Don't you love the fact that Zeezrom was on the team with the missionaries now? This lawyer from Ammonihah who had previously been trying to destroy them.

I love that.

He doesn't take Helaman, but he took with him Shiblon and Corianton.

and we go on this mission down here to the Zoramites.

And she was a nurse and had a passion for truth.

And he said he learned that from his mother, which was kind of a sweet echo of Alma in the book of Alma talking about the sons of Helaman who learned some really important things from their mother.

So he said he has this passion for truth and it has encouraged him to get involved.

And now he's kind of an activist, so that's kind of an interesting story.

This song is about this.

So this is a guy named Helaman, who was the captain of an army, and he was speaking.

He said, "'Never had I seen so great courage.'" They said unto me, Father, behold, our God is with us, and he will not suffer that we should fall, then let us go forth.

Now they did not fear death, and they did think more upon the liberty of their fathers than they did upon their lives.

I'm the only one.

Maybe there's a reason, but I like it.

He also says, my favorite book of Mormon-related song, we are as the armies of Helaman.

We are as the armies of Helaman.

He's talking about the three-voice framework conversation, and we describe, um, Dr. Lunwill actually describes this best, the switch from the third-person narrative to the first-person narrative.

So the Book of Mormon from beginning to end, so from Mosiah and Alma and Helaman, is all third-person narrative, which is what almost all narratives are.

And then it starts, it slowly starts creeping into first person, and by the time you get around to Nephi and Jacob, it's all first person.

So there's this, tr- there's this, uh, third person, then a transition period, and then it's all first person.

And so let me bring up this chart that I presented, um, I think in the second big episode before we got the series started.

And I laid out all of the books of the Book of Mormon, and then where they were located and who was scribing, the date, the time frames and all that sort of thing.

If you look at Ether and you go down to the existing text row, um, I think there was an existing text or an Ur text for the lost pages for Mosiah, Alma, Helaman, and for 3 Nephi and 4 Nephi, and then in the Ether column I put probably.

And, um, that's because Ether's kind of an oddball.