Alma 11: How much is a Senine of gold worth?

The Law of Mosiah established a basic legal system to deal with disputes (mostly financial disputes from the sound of it). A plaintiff could bring a case to the Judges, and then the accused person would be brought to the courtroom for a trial. Pretty basic stuff.

Now if a man owed another, and he would not pay that which he did owe, he was complained of to the judge; and the judge executed authority, and sent forth officers that the man should be brought before him; and he judged the man according to the law and the evidences which were brought against him, and thus the man was compelled to pay that which he owed, or be stripped, or be cast out from among the people as a thief and a robber. 11.2

More importantly, though, was how the Judges were compensated. They were paid one "Senine"of gold per day that they spent in court trying cases.

Now it was in the law of Mosiah that every man who was a judge of the law, or those who were appointed to be judges, should receive wages according to the time which they labored to judge those who were brought before them to be judged. 11.1 

And the judge received for his wages according to his time -- a senine of gold for a day, or a senum of silver, which is equal to a senine of gold; and this is according to the law which was given. 11.3

You might be asking yourself: "Is that a fair amount? How much is a senine, really?" Good question. Luckily Joseph Smith has an answer for us.

A Senine of gold = a Senum of silver = A measure of barley (or any other grain)
A seon of gold = 2 senines of gold
A shum of gold = 2 seons of gold
A limnah of gold = the value of them all*

*Most people interpret this as a limnah being worth 1 senine + 1 seon + one shum, or 7 senines.
11.5-11.10

(Also, it's worth noting that a person could become rich very quickly speculating on the Nephite commodities market, since all crop prices were pegged to their coinage.)

And for silver they had names, too!

An amnor of silver = 2 senums
An ezrom of silver = 2 ammors
An Onti of silver = the value of them all.

And for smaller amounts they had awesome, made-up sounding names, too:

A shiblon of silver = 1/2 senum
A shiblum of silver = 1/2 shiblom
A leah of silver = 1/2 shiblum

Also, just in case we needed a unit for gold that was equal to 1.5 senines, they invented the antion of gold, which was worth 3 shibloms of silver (1.5 senums, which are equal to 1.5 senines of gold). I wish we had a 1.5 dollar bill!

Okay, good. So how much were the Judges paid, and was it a fair amount?

For an honest day's work, a Judge could be paid:

A.) 1 senine of gold
B.) 1 senum of silver
C.) 1 measure of barley
D.) 1 measure of any other grain
E.) 1/2 amnor of silver
F.) 1/4 ezrom of silver
G.) 1/7 onti of silver
H.) 2 shiblons of silver
I.) 4 shiblums of silver
J.) 8 leahs of silver
K.) 2/3 antion of gold
L.) 1/2 seon of gold
M.) 1/4 shum of gold
N.) 1/7 leah of gold

So they had plenty of options. But we still don't really have a good idea of how much these coins were worth, unless we figure out how much a "measure of barley" is. Some people have claimed that a "measure" is as much as 6 bushels. If so, then a Judge was being paid quite well for his day of work.

I suppose they could also have paid the judges with change, like 1/8 ezrom of silver and a half measure of barley, but that would have been rude with all of the other options. (None of these coins have ever been found, by the way.)

But on with the story.

You see, the judges were greedy people, and they convinced the people to file frivolous lawsuits, because they wanted more work.

Now, it was for the sole purpose to get gain, because they received their wages according to their employ, therefore, they did stir up the people to riotings, and all manner of disturbances and wickedness, that they might have more employ, that they might get money according to the suits which were brought before them; therefore they did stir up the people against Alma and Amulek. 11.20

Remember Zeezrom from the last chapter? He was the clever lawyer that was out to get Alma and Amulek. Zeezrom asked Amulek if he could ask him a few questions. Amulek agreed, and Zeezrom tried to bribe him to deny the existence of God. He offered him six onties of silver!

And this Zeezrom began to question Amulek, saying: Will ye answer me a few questions which I shall ask you? Now Zeezrom was a man who was expert in the devices of the devil, that he might destroy that which was good; therefore, he said unto Amulek: Will ye answer the questions which I shall put unto you? 11.21 

And Amulek said unto him: Yea, if it be according to the Spirit of the Lord, which is in me; for I shall say nothing which is contrary to the Spirit of the Lord. And Zeezrom said unto him: Behold, here are six onties of silver, and all these will I give thee if thou wilt deny the existence of a Supreme Being. 11.22

Amulek didn't take him up on his kind offer. Zeezrom continued to question Amulek about God, and he continued to answer him. Then he explained how everyone is going to resurrected to be judged by God.

Now Amulek said: O thou child of hell, why tempt ye me? Knowest thou that the righteous yieldeth to no such temptations? 11.23

And Zeezrom said unto him: Thou sayest there is a true and living God? 11.26 

And Amulek said: Yea, there is a true and living God. 11.27 

Now Zeezrom said unto him again: How knowest thou these things? 11.30 

And he said: An angel hath made them known unto me. 11.31

And Zeezrom said again: Shall he save his people in their sins? And Amulek answered and said unto him: I say unto you he shall not, for it is impossible for him to deny his word. 11.34

Now Zeezrom saith again unto him: Is the Son of God the very Eternal Father? 11.38

And Amulek said unto him: Yea, he is the very Eternal Father of heaven and of earth, and all things which in them are; he is the beginning and the end, the first and the last; 11.39

After this little speech, everyone was astonished, and Zeezrom trembled. And that's the end of the chapter, or at least all that he bothered to write down.

Now, when Amulek had finished these words the people began again to be astonished, and also Zeezrom began to tremble. And thus ended the words of Amulek, or this is all that I have written. 11.46

The LDS church finally admits it was wrong about race. (So it now rejects its own scriptures.)

The LDS church has finally confessed. It admits that it was wrong about race from the church's beginning in 1830 until 1978 when God changed his mind about black people.

Here is what the new document "Race and the Priesthood" says about it:

Today, the Church disavows the theories advanced in the past that black skin is a sign of divine disfavor or curse ... that mixed-race marriages are a sin; or that blacks or people of any other race or ethnicity are inferior in any way to anyone else.

If that is true, then the LDS church disavows the Book of Mormon, which says that God cursed people by blackening their skin, causing them to be "a dark, filthy, and loathsome people," and that any "white and delightsome" person who "mixes seed" with them will be "cursed with the same cursing."

Here are just a few passages in the Book of Mormon that the Mormon church now disavows:

After they had dwindled in unbelief they became a dark, and loathsome, and a filthy people, full of idleness and all manner of abominations. 1 Nephi 12:23

He had caused the cursing to come upon them ... wherefore, as they were white, and exceedingly fair and delightsome, that they might not be enticing unto my people the Lord God did cause a skin of blackness to come upon them. And thus saith the Lord God: I will cause that they shall be loathsome unto thy people ... Cursed shall be the seed of him that mixeth with their seed; for they shall be cursed even with the same cursing. 2 Nephi 5:21-23

And the skins of the Lamanites were dark ...which was a curse upon them because of their transgression against their brethren...therefore they were cursed; and the Lord God set a mark upon them. And this was done that their seed might be distinguished from the seed of their brethren, that thereby the Lord God might preserve his people. Alma 3:6-8

This people ... shall become a dark, a filthy, and a loathsome people ... because of their unbelief and idolatry ... They were once a delightsome people ... But now, behold, they are led about by Satan. Mormon 5:15-18

In the document, the LDS church tries to blame its racist past on the early 19th century American culture from which it arose. It claims, for example, that it was commonly believed in the early 1800s "that God’s 'curse' on Cain was the mark of a dark skin." And that "[a]ccording to one view, which had been promulgated in the United States from at least the 1730s, blacks descended from the same lineage as the biblical Cain, who slew his brother Abel."

Which is true enough (except for the fact that there was no United States in the 1730s). But what the document doesn't say is that this same view is clearly expressed in its own scripture (The book of Moses in the Pearl of Great Price).

And Enoch also beheld the residue of the people which were the sons of Adam; and they were a mixture of all the seed of Adam save it was the seed of Cain, for the seed of Cain were black, and had not place among them. Moses 7:22 

The document also says that "[b]lack servitude was sometimes viewed as a second curse placed upon Noah’s grandson Canaan as a result of Ham’s indiscretion toward his father."

Which is true again. But it is also true that Mormon scripture says the same thing. 

There was a blackness came upon all the children of Canaan, that they were despised among all people. Moses 7:8 

Now this king of Egypt was a descendant from the loins of Ham, and was a partaker of the blood of the Canaanites by birth. ... from Ham, sprang that race which preserved the curse in the land ... Pharaoh ... seeking earnestly to imitate that order established by the fathers in the first generations, in the days of the first patriarchal reign, even in the reign of Adam, and also of Noah, his father, who blessed him with the blessings of the earth, and with the blessings of wisdom, but cursed him as pertaining to the Priesthood. Abraham 1:21-26

 So now the LDS church is no longer just embarrassed by its scriptures, it rejects them entirely.

Now it's time for all Mormons to do likewise.

And it came to pass

Anyone who reads the Book of Mormon (BoM) will notice that the phrase "and it came to pass" is used way too often. Mark Twain had this to say about it:

The author labored to give his words and phrases the quaint, old-fashioned sound and structure of our King James's translation of the Scriptures.... Whenever he found his speech growing too modern -- which was about every sentence or two -- he ladled in a few such Scriptural phrases as "exceeding sore," "and it came to pass," etc., and made things satisfactory again. "And it came to pass" was his pet. If he had left that out, his Bible would have been only a pamphlet. Roughing It, Chapter 16

The phrase is also, of course, frequently found in the King James Version of the Bible, which is no doubt why Joseph Smith used it in the BoM; it just sounds so darned biblical. The trouble is that he liked it so much that he got carried away with it. Here's a summary of the occurrences of "it came to pass" in the Bible and the BoM.

	Bible	BoM
it came to pass	452	1424

The phrase occurs more than three times as often in the BoM as in the Bible. That doesn't seem so bad until you look at the size of the two books. The Bible is nearly five times as big as the BoM. Here's how the comparison looks when size is taken into account.

	Bible	BoM
it came to pass	452	1424
number of verses	31,102	6553
Occurrences per 100 verses	1.45	21.7

So "it came to pass" is found in more than 20% of the BoM's verses -- 15 times as often as in the Bible! But, actually, it's a bit worse than that. The original 1830 edition of the BoM had even more uses of "and it came to pass." But since I can't find a searchable version of the 1830 edition, I can't quantify it for you.

Of course all of this can be explained. Brant A. Gardner in Meridian Magazine tells us that there's a good reason for all the and-it-came-to-passes; Joseph Smith used this phrase to mark the beginning of paragraphs. It's just that simple.

Still it seems strange that he would have had 30 paragraphs in the 39 verses of 1 Nephi 16. I guess the original translation didn't have any punctuation, but still 30 paragraphs in 45 or so sentences seems a bit excessive.

And if the and-it-came-to-passes were used to mark new paragraphs, why do some verses have more than one. Here's Alma 47:11, for example:

And it came to pass that when Lehonti received the message he durst not go down to the foot of the mount. And it came to pass that Amalickiah sent again the second time, desiring him to come down. And it came to pass that Lehonti would not; and he sent again the third time.

Did Joseph Smith really think there should be three paragraphs in this verse?

No, it looks to me like Mark Twain had it exactly right. Joseph Smith thought the and-it-came-to-passes made it sound like scripture, and it would make his rather short book a bit longer. So he couldn't resist.