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Gospel Wiki Connections hel-kor-cannot-witness-eyes

Helaman 16:20 · Alma 30:15

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Book of Mormon Helaman 16:20
"we cannot witness with our own eyes that they are true"
Book of Mormon Alma 30:15
"ye cannot know of things which ye do not see; therefore ye cannot know that there shall be a Christ"

Shared words: cannot

Korihor's seen/unseen epistemology returns at the threshold of Christ's birth as an anonymous, leaderless popular movement: the unbelievers reason that, since they cannot directly witness the events for themselves (Helaman 16:20 'cannot witness with our own eyes'), the prophesied Christ cannot be known to be coming (Alma 30:15 'cannot know of things which ye do not see… cannot know that there shall be a Christ'). The shared skeleton is sensory-limit -> unknowability of a future Christ. Distinct from the live record alma-korihor-no-foreknowledge (Alma 30:13 <-> Jacob 7:7), which carries the future-unknowability half on the Sherem axis; this record carries the seen/unseen half forward into Helaman, on a different Alma verse (30:15, not 30:13). DO-NOT-FLATTEN: the Helaman speakers are NOT a Korihor reprise. (1) They concede ground neither Sherem nor Korihor concedes -- 'Some things they may have guessed right, among so many' (Helaman 16:16), a probabilistic hedge, where Korihor flatly denied all foreknowledge. (2) Helaman 16:18 frames the objection in a new register absent from Alma 30 -- the geographic 'why will he not show himself unto us as well as unto them who shall be at Jerusalem'. (3) Helaman 16:20-21 reworks Korihor's 'foolish traditions of your fathers' (Alma 30:14) charge: where Korihor accused priests of selfish priestcraft to 'glut' on labor, these speakers cast it as class resentment of a distant elite -- 'a wicked tradition… handed down unto us by our fathers… they can keep us in ignorance… to be servants to their words, and also servants unto them'. Report the differences as carefully as the contact.

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Korihor