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Sherem

The learned preacher who comes among the people of Nephi declaring “that there should be no Christ”, confronts Jacob, demands a sign, is smitten, and dies confessing the Christ he denied.

Account

Arrival and aims

Sherem enters the record with no genealogy, no homeland, and no backstory: “there came a man among the people of Nephi, whose name was Sherem” (Jacob 7:1). Where he came from is a question the text does not answer, and this wiki does not speculate. What the text does state is his program and its success: “he began to preach among the people, and to declare unto them that there should be no Christ. And he preached many things which were flattering unto the people; and this he did that he might overthrow the doctrine of Christ” (Jacob 7:2). The narrator reports results: “he labored diligently that he might lead away the hearts of the people, insomuch that he did lead away many hearts” (Jacob 7:3). His campaign has a deliberate target — “he knowing that I, Jacob, had faith in Christ who should come, he sought much opportunity that he might come unto me” (Jacob 7:3).

His doctrine and his method

The text gives an exact profile of Sherem’s equipment as a persuader: “he was learned, that he had a perfect knowledge of the language of the people; wherefore, he could use much flattery, and much power of speech, according to the power of the devil” (Jacob 7:4). Four instruments — learning, language, flattery, power of speech — and one attributed power source.

His doctrine, as the text records it in his own voice, has two prongs. Negatively, he denies the Christ: “I know that there is no Christ, neither has been, nor ever will be” (Jacob 7:9). Positively, he claims the law of Moses as the standard Jacob has corrupted: “ye have led away much of this people that they pervert the right way of God, and keep not the law of Moses which is the right way; and convert the law of Moses into the worship of a being which ye say shall come many hundred years hence” (Jacob 7:7). His epistemological ground is stated in the same verse: “I, Sherem, declare unto you that this is blasphemy; for no man knoweth of such things; for he cannot tell of things to come” (Jacob 7:7). Sherem is not presented as irreligious — he affirms the scriptures when asked (Jacob 7:10) — but as one who holds the law while denying the future Christ that Jacob preaches as its object.

⚖️ Interpretation — weigh this. Years before this confrontation, Jacob preached a sermon at the temple — introduced as “The words of Jacob, the brother of Nephi” (2 Nephi 6:1) and resumed with “I, Jacob, speak unto you again” (2 Nephi 10:1) — in which he warned: “O the vainness, and the frailties, and the foolishness of men! When they are learned they think they are wise, and they hearken not unto the counsel of God, for they set it aside, supposing they know of themselves” (2 Nephi 9:28), immediately qualified by “But to be learned is good if they hearken unto the counsels of God” (2 Nephi 9:29). The antagonist Jacob later faces is introduced with precisely the term his sermon warned about: “he was learned, that he had a perfect knowledge of the language of the people” (Jacob 7:4). The reading offered for weighing is that Jacob’s record presents Sherem as a case of his own earlier diagnosis — learning deployed against the counsel of God. The verbal overlap is mainly the single word “learned”, and the two passages share a devil framing (“O that cunning plan of the evil one!” opens the same verse, 2 Nephi 9:28; “according to the power of the devil”, Jacob 7:4) — a thematic pairing, not a quotation. The text never connects the two passages explicitly.

The confrontation

Jacob prefaces the exchange by stating his own grounding — the reason Sherem’s hope “to shake me from the faith” fails: “notwithstanding the many revelations and the many things which I had seen concerning these things; for I truly had seen angels, and they had ministered unto me. And also, I had heard the voice of the Lord speaking unto me in very word, from time to time; wherefore, I could not be shaken” (Jacob 7:5).

Sherem opens with studied courtesy: “Brother Jacob, I have sought much opportunity that I might speak unto you; for I have heard and also know that thou goest about much, preaching that which ye call the gospel, or the doctrine of Christ” (Jacob 7:6) — the only place in the record where an opponent names the doctrine of Christ as the thing he opposes. (The nearest other surface is narrated, not spoken: at 3 Nephi 2:2 a deceived people are led “to believe that the doctrine of Christ was a foolish and a vain thing.”) After the accusation of blasphemy (Jacob 7:7), Jacob reports: “the Lord God poured in his Spirit into my soul, insomuch that I did confound him in all his words” (Jacob 7:8).

The exchange the text records proceeds by question and answer:

Jacob 7:9: “And I said unto him: Deniest thou the Christ who shall come? And he said: If there should be a Christ, I would not deny him; but I know that there is no Christ, neither has been, nor ever will be.”

Jacob 7:10–11: “And I said unto him: Believest thou the scriptures? And he said, Yea.” — “And I said unto him: Then ye do not understand them; for they truly testify of Christ. Behold, I say unto you that none of the prophets have written, nor prophesied, save they have spoken concerning this Christ.”

Jacob then adds his own witness: “it has been made manifest unto me, for I have heard and seen; and it also has been made manifest unto me by the power of the Holy Ghost; wherefore, I know if there should be no atonement made all mankind must be lost” (Jacob 7:12).

Sherem’s reply is a demand: “Show me a sign by this power of the Holy Ghost, in the which ye know so much” (Jacob 7:13). Jacob’s answer refuses to take the sign into his own hands and surrenders the outcome:

Jacob 7:14: ”…What am I that I should tempt God to show unto thee a sign in the thing which thou knowest to be true? Yet thou wilt deny it, because thou art of the devil. Nevertheless, not my will be done; but if God shall smite thee, let that be a sign unto thee that he has power, both in heaven and in earth; and also, that Christ shall come. And thy will, O Lord, be done, and not mine.”

The sign, the fall, the confession, the death

The sign comes immediately: “when I, Jacob, had spoken these words, the power of the Lord came upon him, insomuch that he fell to the earth. And it came to pass that he was nourished for the space of many days” (Jacob 7:15). Knowing his end, Sherem asks for an audience: “Gather together on the morrow, for I shall die; wherefore, I desire to speak unto the people before I shall die” (Jacob 7:16).

Before the gathered multitude, the man who taught with flattery now “spake plainly” — the phrase falls twice in Jacob 7 (Jacob 7:17, 7:18), and once more in the corpus, of Nephi son of Helaman before the judges who were angry with him (Helaman 8:4). He “denied the things which he had taught them, and confessed the Christ, and the power of the Holy Ghost, and the ministering of angels” (Jacob 7:17), and declared “that he had been deceived by the power of the devil. And he spake of hell, and of eternity, and of eternal punishment” (Jacob 7:18). Note the symmetry the text itself supplies: the narrator attributed Sherem’s power of speech to “the power of the devil” (Jacob 7:4); Sherem’s own dying confession adopts the same attribution (Jacob 7:18).

His final recorded words:

Jacob 7:19: “And he said: I fear lest I have committed the unpardonable sin, for I have lied unto God; for I denied the Christ, and said that I believed the scriptures; and they truly testify of him. And because I have thus lied unto God I greatly fear lest my case shall be awful; but I confess unto God.”

Then: “when he had said these words he could say no more, and he gave up the ghost” (Jacob 7:20). The text records Sherem’s fear of the unpardonable sin as his own words; it does not adjudicate whether that fear was warranted, and neither does this page.

Aftermath

The multitude’s response mirrors Sherem’s fall: “they were astonished exceedingly; insomuch that the power of God came down upon them, and they were overcome that they fell to the earth” (Jacob 7:21). Jacob discloses that the outcome answered his own petition: “this thing was pleasing unto me, Jacob, for I had requested it of my Father who was in heaven; for he had heard my cry and answered my prayer” (Jacob 7:22).

The episode closes on restoration: “peace and the love of God was restored again among the people; and they searched the scriptures, and hearkened no more to the words of this wicked man” (Jacob 7:23). The remedy the text names is the one Sherem professed but, in Jacob’s verdict, did not understand (Jacob 7:10–11): the scriptures themselves.

Significance

Sherem is the figure against whom the doctrine of Christ is contested in the record’s own narrative — whether he is the first such opponent is weighed below, not asserted here. The doctrine is expounded by Nephi as “the only and true doctrine” (2 Nephi 31:21) and named again as “the doctrine of Christ” (2 Nephi 32:6); in Jacob 7 it acquires an opponent who names it explicitly — “that which ye call the gospel, or the doctrine of Christ” (Jacob 7:6) — and sets out “that he might overthrow” it (Jacob 7:2).

The text’s own framing of Sherem is supplied twice over: the narrator says his power of speech was “according to the power of the devil” (Jacob 7:4), and Sherem’s dying confession concurs — “he had been deceived by the power of the devil” (Jacob 7:18). The chapter also stages a contest of epistemologies in the speakers’ own words: Sherem’s “no man knoweth of such things; for he cannot tell of things to come” (Jacob 7:7) against Jacob’s “I truly had seen angels… I had heard the voice of the Lord speaking unto me in very word” (Jacob 7:5) and “it also has been made manifest unto me by the power of the Holy Ghost” (Jacob 7:12).

⚖️ Interpretation — weigh this. Across the whole record — the Book of Mormon, ordered by its own internal chronology rather than by book position — Sherem appears to be the first named figure the narrative introduces specifically as a doctrinal antagonist: one who arises to preach a counter-doctrine (“that there should be no Christ”, Jacob 7:2) rather than to oppose by violence or murmuring, as Laman and Lemuel or Laban do. He is named at his introduction (Jacob 7:1); the two who follow him arrive centuries later — Nehor, introduced at Alma 1:3–5 and named only at his execution (Alma 1:15), and Korihor (Alma 30:12). This is an observation about the shape of the record, not a claim the text makes about itself, and it is bounded to the record: the wider corpus carries named doctrinal opponents of its own — Hymenaeus and Philetus, “Who concerning the truth have erred, saying that the resurrection is past already; and overthrow the faith of some” (2 Timothy 2:17–18) — on a chronology the record’s does not share.

Sherem’s arc — flattery to plainness, denial to confession, “much power of speech” (Jacob 7:4) to “he could say no more” (Jacob 7:20) — is the longest narrated reversal of an opponent in the small plates measured in verses: six (Jacob 7:15–20), against three for Laman and Lemuel’s contrition in 1 Nephi 7:19–21 and one apiece at 1 Nephi 16:39 and 1 Nephi 18:20. It is not, however, the only reversal resolved by contrition rather than by sword or separation — each of those three is as well.

The Alma-side contacts (Jacob 7 ↔ Korihor, Alma 30)

More than three centuries after Sherem — the record’s own year-count puts the gap between roughly 350 and 470 years (Jacob 1:1; Enos 1:25; Mosiah 29:46; Alma 30:6) — a man the narrator labels “Anti-Christ”, Korihor, preaches “that there should be no Christ” (Alma 30:12) before Alma the Younger, demands a sign, is struck dumb, and confesses that “the devil hath deceived me; for he appeared unto me in the form of an angel” (Alma 30:53). The Korihor record reaches back to Jacob 7 at several points, and Alma’s later charge to Corianton reuses one of Sherem’s exact terms. Those connection records are registered on the host pages (Korihor, Corianton), not here. What this section gives is the Jacob-side of each contact — the verse on this page that the Alma verse pairs with — so that a reader on Sherem can see where his words recur, with the badge linked to the page that hosts the full record.

Before listing the pairs, the standing guard, stated plainly: Sherem, Nehor, and Korihor are three distinct figures the text itself differentiates — they are not one recurring villain. Sherem mounts a law-defending anti-Christology: he holds the law of Moses and charges Jacob with corrupting it (“keep not the law of Moses which is the right way; and convert the law of Moses into the worship of a being which ye say shall come”, Jacob 7:7); his quarrel is with a future Christ, not with the existence of God, and he affirms the scriptures when asked (Jacob 7:10). Nehor preaches a universalist priestcraft — that “all mankind should be saved at the last day” and that priests “ought to be supported by the people” (Alma 1:3–5), a doctrine the Amalekites later hold in substance though not in the same words (“We do believe that God will save all men”, Alma 21:6); the tie the text itself states is institutional — “many of the Amalekites and the Amulonites were after the order of the Nehors” (Alma 21:4). Korihor preaches a materialist anti-prophecy — no God, no atonement, no life after death, knowledge bounded by the senses (“when a man was dead, that was the end thereof”, Alma 30:18). Law-defending anti-Christology, universalist priestcraft, and materialist atheism are three different positions; the pairs below are verbal points of contact, not an equation of the men. This page reports the contacts and leaves the figures distinct, as the text does.

With that guard in place, the verbal contacts:

[Textual] — shared phrasing: the unknowable future. ↔ hosted on Korihor (alma-korihor-no-foreknowledge). Korihor grounds his denial of a future Christ on the same premise Sherem used against Jacob — that the future cannot be known:

  • Jacob 7:7: “…for no man knoweth of such things; for he cannot tell of things to come”
  • Alma 30:13: ”…Why do ye look for a Christ? For no man can know of anything which is to come”

The shared skeleton is no man can/knoweth + things to come; the wording is close but not verbatim. The full record and its discussion live on Korihor.

[Textual] — shared phrasing: “Show me a sign”. ↔ hosted on Korihor (alma-korihor-sign-demand). Both challengers make the same demand (Jacob 7:13; Alma 30:43) and receive a sign — Sherem is smitten and dies (Jacob 7:15, 7:20); Korihor is struck dumb (Alma 30:50) and later trodden down (Alma 30:59):

  • Jacob 7:13: ”…Show me a sign by this power of the Holy Ghost, in the which ye know so much”
  • Alma 30:43: ”…If thou wilt show me a sign, that I may be convinced that there is a God”

Only Korihor’s demand is framed as a condition of belief — “that I may be convinced that there is a God” (Alma 30:43). Sherem attaches none, and Jacob’s reply denies there could be one: the sign is demanded “in the thing which thou knowest to be true”, which Sherem “wilt deny” in any case (Jacob 7:14). Jacob’s refusal — “What am I that I should tempt God to show unto thee a sign” (Jacob 7:14) — is itself echoed in Alma’s “will ye tempt your God?” (Alma 30:44). Registered on Korihor.

[Textual] — shared phrasing: deceived by the devil. ↔ secondary end of Korihor (alma-korihor-angel-of-light). Sherem’s dying recantation and Korihor’s written confession share the deceived by the devil formula:

  • Jacob 7:18: “…he had been deceived by the power of the devil”
  • Alma 30:53: “…the devil hath deceived me; for he appeared unto me in the form of an angel”

On Korihor this record’s primary anchor is the angel-form image, paired with 2 Nephi 9:9 (“who transformeth himself nigh unto an angel of light”); Sherem’s “deceived by the power of the devil” (Jacob 7:18) is noted there as the secondary internal end. The pair is registered and discussed on Korihor.

[Textual] — shared term: “unpardonable”. ↔ hosted on Corianton (alma-corianton-unpardonable). The word “unpardonable” occurs at exactly two places in the corpus — here, where Sherem fears the sin, and in Alma’s charge to his son, where Alma defines it:

  • Jacob 7:19: ”…I fear lest I have committed the unpardonable sin, for I have lied unto God”
  • Alma 39:6: “…if ye deny the Holy Ghost when it once has had place in you, and ye know that ye deny it, behold, this is a sin which is unpardonable”

The shared term is textual; the two contexts are not the same claim — Sherem grounds his fear in a different act (“for I denied the Christ, and said that I believed the scriptures”, Jacob 7:19) than the one Alma defines. Whether Sherem’s case meets Alma’s definition is left unresolved on Corianton, where the record is registered as an ⚖️ interpretive callout. The two passages are reported in their own frames and left unharmonized.

Key references

Jacob · Doctrine of Christ · Messiah · Korihor · Corianton · Cited & Minor Figures · Laban · Laman & Lemuel · Index · Connections

Sources

The Book of Mormon (Jacob 7; 1 Nephi 7, 16, 18; 2 Nephi 6, 9–10, 31–32; Jacob 1; Enos 1; Mosiah 29; Alma 1, 21, 30, 39; Helaman 8; 3 Nephi 2 — everything outside Jacob 7 for cross-reference ends, the Sherem-to-Korihor chronology, and the corpus-scope disclosures; the Alma-side records are hosted on Korihor and Corianton). The New Testament (2 Timothy 2) for the corpus-scope disclosure in the doctrinal-antagonist callout.

Every quote on this page is taken verbatim from the source text (Jacob 7; 1 Nephi 7, 16, 18; 2 Nephi 6, 9, 10, 31, 32; Jacob 1; Enos 1; Mosiah 29; Alma 1, 21, 30, 39; Helaman 8; 3 Nephi 2; 2 Timothy 2). Textual facts are cited to their verse. The two [interpretive] callouts are offered for weighing, not asserted as settled. The four [Textual] badges in the section The Alma-side contacts cross-link to their host pages (Korihor, Corianton) — that section registers no new records; it presents the Jacob-side of each pair and states the standing guard that Sherem, Nehor, and Korihor are three distinct figures the text differentiates, not one type. The one record this page hosts is , in the ⚖️ callout above. Sherem’s origins are out of scope: the text says only that “there came a man among the people of Nephi” (Jacob 7:1).