Alma 32:14-20

Verses 14-15

This verse opens with a clear indication of

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Alma 32: 7–13 Summary

Although the discussion ranged over a variety of topics, I found that many of the comments centered around one of two themes: language and action. I will highlight what I found to be the most pertinent thoughts associated with each theme.

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Alma 32: 7–13

I decided to group my comments by verse in an attempt to impose some sort of structure on my scattered notes … which, as you will soon find, tend to end with questions rather than conclusions. Sorry they got so long—hopefully something here will spark some discussion.

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Alma 32:1-6 Summary

A few summary thoughts:

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Alma 32:1-6

In this post, I’ll identify two major themes in this section of Alma.

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Alma 33-34 Summary

Here are some of the high points of our discussion (and a side-argument from me):

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Alma 33-34

I will look more closely at Alma 33 than at 34 because Alma 33 is a continuation of the sermon which begins in Alma 32. In Alma 34 Amulek repeats in a different way what Alma has preached in chapters 32-33. I will look only at the fist 30 verses of Alma 34.

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Discussion Summary: Alma 30-31

What seems to me to have been the most vital insight during the course of our discussions this week is the apparent structural parallel between the “conversions” of Alma and Korihor. Most vital: one can hang every other narrative, thematic, or linguistic connection between chapters 30-31 and chapter 32 on this insight. What this insight reveals is that Alma’s primary and guiding concern, in his sermon to the Zoramites, is to disambiguate these two structures. That is, Alma 32 might most profitably be read as a more or less systematic working out of how Alma’s conversion is structurally different from Korihor’s.

If this, then, focuses us forward, it also highlights what absolutely must not be missed in chapters 30-31: the terminological, thematic, and even narrative ties between these two chapters and the sermonic chapter that follows them are all rooted in the fact that there one finds so many clues, more or less unsystematically scattered about a narrative text, that are necessary for the work of the disambiguation undertaken in chapter 32.

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Alma 30-31

Toward Faith

Faith—since it is faith we are primarily hoping to have Alma 32 teach us about—has the last word in Alma 30-31, in fact, quite literally: the word “faith” does not appear in these two chapters at all until the very last word of the very last verse of chapter 31. That the word subsequently appears in chapters 32-34 some twenty-six times (by my count) highlights how really odd this singular appearance in chapters 30-31 is. Its placement as the very last word of these otherwise faith-less chapters sets up a kind of teleological reading (please don’t read anything metaphysical into the word “teleological” here!): Alma 30-31 not only can (in light of chapter 32’s heavy emphasis on faith), but also ought to (in light of the subtle teleology of Alma 30-31), be read as working toward the question of faith.

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