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There is no hell; ... I am no devil, for there is none
The Bible never succinctly claims that only wicked people believe there is no hell and no devil, but 2 Nephi 28:22–23 contains a direct take on the concept:
And others will he [the devil] pacify, and lull them away into carnal security, that they will say: All is well in Zion; yea, Zion prospereth, all is well—and thus the devil cheateth their souls, and leadeth them away carefully down to hell.
And behold, others he flattereth away, and telleth them there is no hell; and he saith unto them: I am no devil, for there is none—and thus he whispereth in their ears, until he grasps them with his awful chains, from whence there is no deliverance.
There is also Alma 54:22, where the wicked Ammoron in an epistle to Moroni wonders aloud “If it so be that there is a devil and a hell,” for another possible connection. The Book of Mormon at multiple points wants to make it clear that only the wicked do not believe in a literal hell and a literal devil. That’s how he gets you!
This sentiment was expressed by Universalists, summarized as: No hell, No devil, No immortal death, and put succintly in an 1811 hymnal, as principal doctrine 11:
- We firmly believe that the doctrine of an immortal hell, of an immortal devil, and an immortal death is absurd in the extreme, and that Eternity is the habitation of God and upright ones only.
Hence Nephi’s rant is an Anti-Universalist response to a hymn book printed in New York in 1811 (or earlier Universalist developments). (For context, Dan Vogel uses 28:7 to show that the “eat, drink, and be merry” phrasing is a conflation, tipping Nephi’s hand that he is quoting Luke’s version of the Epicurean motto, before either the Greeks or New Testament had written such things, and not quoting Isaiah. This is yet more anti-Universalism in 2 Ne. 28.)
See also 1811 Universalist Hymn-Book and Anti-Universalism for more connections.
More on hell and the devil
These were not really concerns in ancient Judaism, see Devil in Christianity. For Nephi to individually develop his own trans-millenium crash course on theology (demonology, really) going from pre-exile Judaism (Ibid: which “does not have a demonology or any set of doctrines about demons”); to the emphasis on hell and the devil in the New Testament period through the Middle Ages and into the Reformation; then to develop a modern Universalist reaction to the concept—all so he could impart his anti-Universalist angle—is piling anachronism upon anachronism, unless God has time travel.
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