2 Nephi 5

2 Ne 5:4-5

To defend God regarding the problem of evil, apologists often explain that because of moral agency, God may not or does not intercede to protect the innocent. These verses are among many examples rendering this defense indefensible.

2 Ne 5:14-15

The skills that Nephi lists here—smelting steel, various other metallurgies, building buildings, working all manner of wood—very impressive, but is it credible that anyone, let alone a person from such a well-to-do family, would have all these blue-collar skills?

In 1 Kings 5:13-16 we learn that Solomon had tens of thousands gather and prepare materials for the Jewish temple, and that it took seven years to build.

Keep in mind that not more than 30 years had passed since the Lehites had left Jerusalem (2 Ne 5:28). The first 8 years after leaving Jerusalem they were traveling in the wilderness (1 Ne 17:4). Then in Bountiful they had to build a ship and store provisions, so it may have taken the first 9, 10, or more years to get to the Americas. So after that

• They’re a relatively small band new to the land and have to establish a colony.
• At some point Nephi and company split from their brothers making the group smaller, and essentially starting over in the wilderness.

How would such a small group in these circumstances build a temple where, “the manner of the construction was like unto the temple of Solomon/ and the workmanship thereof was exceedingly fine”?

2 Ne 5:21-22

Apologists often say that the curse is separate from the black skin, that the dark skin is just a sign of the curse.

Is it reasonable in this case to say the cursing was not darkened skin pigmentation? It says

• God caused a curse to come upon them because of how bad they became
• Wherefore, God caused them to have a skin of blackness.

Regardless, is it any less offensive to explain the dark skin as a sign of the curse instead of being the curse? Doesn’t it seem to reflect a 19th century cultural colonialism of white skin being delightsome and black skin being loathsome and not enticing unto the white skinned?

In spite of the claim to believe that men will be punished for their own sins, doesn’t this verse teach that children are cursed because their parents mixed their seed with those cursed?

This verse contains a highly similar phrase found in Acts 13:10. Note that while the word "subtilty" is found 6 times in the KJV bible, only in Acts 13 is it found in conjunction with "full of" or "mischief". It's strange that such a similar phrase was written by Nephi 600 years before and an ocean away from the New Testament writer that used it in Acts.

"[W]e had already had wars ..."

There are families of Laman, Lemuel, Sam, Nephi, Jacob, Joseph, Ishmael. Let’s generously assume hypotheticals and see what this looks like. If they had an average of 4 sons in each of the 7 families, that’s potentially 28 sons and 7 fathers of fighting age. Some of the 28 sons may have had sons early on, so let’s assume another 56 men/boys of fighting age (average of two each for the 28 sons). That’s a total of 91 fighters, and since the group split into Lamanites versus Nephites, it’s an average of 46 (rounding up) fighters per side. How do you have wars with such low numbers? Not a single war, but wars. Keep in mind that these people were establishing new colonies in an unfamiliar land, so the above assumptions on growth seem highly unlikely. In addition, if they had been fighting and killing each other off during the 40 years, how many fighters would they be likely to have at that point?