Wednesday, November 21, 2012

The Judge Executed Authority

Interesting how much this discussion of legal procedure tracks with this element in the Worship of the Shalems.  There are judges and officers, and in Matthew 5 an adversary -- an antidikos, the person opposite you in a lawsuit, or in Hebrew a satan.  In Alma 11 the passive voice formulation "he was complained of to the judge" hides the necessary counterparty, which in the narrative is of course Zeezrom.

So we see that the scene between Alma and Amulek on the one hand and Zeezrom on the other looks like a stop in the worship of the shalems, with Zeezrom playing the role of Satan.  No wonder Zeezrom is an expert in the "devices of the devil," and a "child of hell."

Amulek's response to Zeezrom is interesting.  Does his description of himself as "the righteous" mean that Alma has made him a Melchizedek priest?  Is he jolting the scene out of joint by telling the Satan Zeezrom that he's tempting the wrong person, trying to test the angel-priest rather than the initiates?

No comments:

Post a Comment