Zeezrom's Deception

The bribe Zeezrom offered Amulek, six onties of silver, appears to be about 42 days’ wages for a judge, according to the Nephite money system.

Today an average state court judge makes about $150,000 per year – which seems like an exorbitant salary if you work at McDonald’s but is too low to attract many lawyers to judging. Since 42 days of work is about two months, subtracting weekends and holidays, the value of Zeezrom’s attempted bribe was about $25,000. The big assumption in this calculation is that a judge in Zeezrom’s day made about the same as a judge does now. Suffice it to say, this may not be a safe assumption, but it at least allows us to estimate the value of Zeezrom’s attempted bribe.

So it was a substantial bribe. What prompted Zeezrom to offer it? In my mind it is rather simple. It was the very same bargain Zeezrom had already made. As we learn later, Zeezrom believed in God all along but he perverted that belief to live a life of luxury. And he was good at it. In his corrupted mind, Amulek couldn’t possibly withstand the offer of easy money just to continue professing a belief in God.

This whole affair highlights a basic limitation of legal systems. They exist to resolve disputes. (Those who believe legal systems exist to find truth are just plain naïve.) The problems arise when lawyers and judges act to create demand for their services; they stir up contention. And the spirit of the Lord cannot strive where there is contention. In other words, when lawyers and judges get aggressive about marketing their services (whether by advertising or by more nefarious means), society suffers. Of late, lawyer advertising has been cast as a matter of free speech, without regard to societal consequences, hence the litigiousness that so damages American society.

I could go on, but I’d rather not.

The outright corruption in Zeezrom’s tactic is to be found in his total lack of sincerity, his win-at-all-costs strategy. He never intended to give the money to Amulek. Instead, he sought to get Amulek to denounce the very things to which he had just testified. Zeezrom would then declare Amulek a fraud and have him thrown in prison for trying to deceive the people.

Zeezrom’s problem is that he was up against an intellect higher than his own – that is, the Lord’s intellect, not Amulek's.