Book of Mormon/Warfare/Ritual warfare

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Ritual warfare in the Book of Mormon

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• John W. Welch: "Alma effectively showed in the record that this fate befell them in accordance with divine law"
• John W. Welch: "On closer examination, however, even war cannot be conducted successfully in a total state of anarchy or chaos"

John W. Welch: "Alma effectively showed in the record that this fate befell them in accordance with divine law"

John W. Welch,

While Alma clearly lacked both the desire and the power to have the city of Ammonihah destroyed by a Nephite military force, and certainly no legal decree was ever issued calling for the extermination of the city, Alma carefully recorded and documented the fact that the inhabitants of Ammonihah had satisfied every element of the crime of being an apostate city. When the justice of God destroyed that city, Alma effectively showed in the record that this fate befell them in accordance with divine law. —(Click here to continue)

John W. Welch: "On closer examination, however, even war cannot be conducted successfully in a total state of anarchy or chaos"

John W. Welch,

At first, law and war appear to be opposites. Especially in the modern experience, wars are thought to be basically extralegal. They break out when law and order break down; rules and conventions can become next to meaningless in the heat and rage of war. On closer examination, however, even war cannot be conducted successfully in a total state of anarchy or chaos. To a greater or lesser extent, all civilizations accept and employ certain laws, rules, customs, rituals, and conventional practices in times of war. In ancient Israel and in the Book of Mormon, this was certainly also the case. —(Click here to continue) <re "f>John W. Welch, "Law and War in the Book of Mormon," Warfare in the Book of Mormon (1990)</ref>

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