Throughout the Book of Omni, its narrators claim that God causes the righteous among their people to win wars and punishes the wicked by letting them die in war. Salleh and Hemming take issue with this idea, saying that whether or not someone dies in war does not determine personal righteousness. Sharon Harris points out that the points of contention mentioned by Abinadom and Amaleki lead to bodily injury; from this she concludes that the usage of "contention" here (and in other parts of the Book of Mormon) carries a more intense connotation than what modern readers think of.
Throughout the Book of Omni, its narrators claim that God causes the righteous among their people to win wars and punishes the wicked by letting them die in war. Salleh and Hemming take issue with this idea, saying that whether or not someone dies in war does not determine personal righteousness. Sharon Harris points out that the points of contention mentioned by Abinadom and Amaleki lead to bodily injury; from this she concludes that the usage !of "contention" here (and in other parts of the Book of Mormon) carries a more intense connotation than what modern readers think of.