Sometimes I find myself reading the scriptures and wondering about basic practicalities. In this case, it’s a rather macabre practicality, but as a writer, I just have to wonder about some of these things. 

Nephi was so faithful to follow the moment to moment instructions from the Lord. It’s amazing to me. I would definitely balk (as Nephi did) at killing a man (in spite of this bad guy’s attempts to kill me and my family members) who was not in a state to fight back. Maybe that’s really naive of me, because I would not hesitate to kill someone who was actively threatening me or my family. (I didn’t spend over 7 years studying self-defense so I could give up and die easily.) 

But one thing I’ve always wondered is how do you cut off a man’s head, and then put on his clothes without getting blood and gore all over them? Ick. And besides that, what must those clothes have smelled like coming off a man who was passed out drunk in the gutter? I encountered a man passed out drunk in my friend’s car once. He was nasty-ripe! 

1 Nephi 4

“18 Therefore I did obey the voice of the Spirit, and took Laban by the hair of the head, and I smote off his head with his own sword.

19 And after I had smitten off his head with his own sword, I took the garments of Laban and put them upon mine own body; yea, even every whit; and I did gird on his armor about my loins.”

https://www.lds.org/scriptures/bofm/1-ne/4?verse=18-19&lang=eng#p18