While on the surface not related (although they are part of the same paragraph in the 1830 edition of the Book of Mormon), these verses exemplify how the Book of Mormon understates matters and lets the reader discover connections between important points. 3 This dream occurs in the context of the family gathering “together all manner of seeds of every kind, both of grain of every kind, and also of the seeds of fruit of every kind.” This information is followed by Nephi’s statement that “it came to pass that while my father tarried in the wilderness he spake unto us, saying: Behold, I have dreamed a dream or, in other words, I have seen a vision” (1 Ne. The drastically different responses of Nephi and Laman to the invitation to partake of spiritual food are foretold in Lehi’s vision of the tree of life, which Bruce Jorgensen appropriately considers a controlling image in the Book of Mormon. Through disobedience, Lehi’s family comes close to perishing ironically, the same brothers who contemplate leaving Nephi in the wilderness “to be devoured by wild beasts” (1 Ne. 78:19), and the answer is yes-on the condition of obedience. “Can God furnish a table in the wilderness?” the Psalmist asks (Ps. As is frequently affirmed, this preservation ultimately comes from the Lord and depends on the people’s righteousness (cf.
5: 14) likewise, in the wilderness he and Nephi have primary responsibility for preserving their own family-with correspondences to the children of Israel in the wilderness (1 Ne. Lehi discovers in the brass plates that he is descended from Joseph, who preserved his family from starvation (1 Ne. Initially, food and drink are significant as they help determine survival or death in the wilderness. These images support a point made by Peter Farb and George Armelagos in Consuming Passions: The Anthropology of Eating: “Because of values that go far beyond filling the stomach, eating becomes associated, if only at an unconscious level, with deep-rooted sentiments and assumptions about oneself and the world one lives in.” 2įilling the stomach is an immediate concern in the Book of Mormon, with symbolic meanings arising from literal images of eating and drinking. Turning that around, Jean Brillat-Savarin in his treatise on eating, The Physiology of Taste, says: “Tell me what you eat, and I shall tell you what you are.” 1 This observation holds true for the Book of Mormon, in which literal and metaphorical references to eating and drinking (or the lack thereof) define the essential nature of people, emphasize problems of survival, illustrate degradation, characterize social relationships, reinforce covenants, poetically define a hope for eternal life, and suggest a response to the book as a whole.
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