Circle Squared
A Textual Analysis of the Book of Mormon
Chapter 1: "Hear the Words of My Mouf"
Chapter Summary:
Mormon abridges the large plates of Nephi--He puts the small plates with the other plates--King Benjamin establishes peace in the land. About A.D. 385.
Much like the addendum of 1 Nephi 6 (where Nephi explained that he would not include his genealogy because it was included in the book of Lehi, which was lost by Martin Harris), this chapter seeks to clarify the whole "small and large plates" issue.
This is the first time we hear from the namesake of the book, Mormon, who supposedly lived towards the end of the Nephite empire, around 400 CE. As one of the last Nephite prophets, Mormon is tasked with consolidating and abridging the entire Book of Mormon. As he explains, he had several sets of metal plates containing the entire record of the Nephites--over 1000 years of history. Mormon points out that he "cannot write the hundredth part of the things of my people."
On the issue of the "small and large plates" Mormon says:
"3 ...for after I had made an abridgment from the plates of Nephi, down to the reign of this king Benjamin, of whom Amaleki spake, I searched among the records which had been delivered into my hands, and I found these plates, which contained this small account of the prophets, from Jacob down to the reign of this king Benjamin, and also many of the words of Nephi."
It seems that Mormon is saying that the first two books of Nephi (1 Nephi being a redundancy of the book of Lehi, because, Mrs. Harris, god cannot be out-foxed) come from the large plates, and the books from Jacob to Omni come from the small plates. This doesn't make sense, since Nephi stated that his books were part of the small plates, which contain the religious dealings of the Nephites. The large plates contain the history of the kings and wars, which, frankly, has only been glossed over in the books covered so far.
The only way I can reconcile this trite dilemma is through Mormon's mention that the words of Nephi were found, at least in part, in both sets of records. Mormon could have consolidated Nephi's records into what we have now, including the confusing bits about different plates, without specifying which parts come from which record. But Mormon makes no effort to explain this. Why not?
This explanation only makes sense because Mormon claims to be abridging all of these records, which implies that he rewrote each word into the new record (the Book of Mormon). But why include any of this in the first place? Why include Nephi's explanation of the various records, to which we don't have access? Why mention them at all?
Mormon tells us that there are records other than the small and large plates, but he does not describe them with the same detail. And for all the mentions of limited space and the cumbersome writing process (on one of the softest metals known to man), it seems completely unnecessary and space-consuming. Just say this is an abridgment of multiple records and be done with it. A real historian likely would have done this.
Or maybe Joseph Smith just wanted people to take the Book of Mormon seriously as an abridged history, so he added a bunch of references to other histories to make it sound like an impressive consolidation, but, being the crap writer he was, he botched it and confused the whole unnecessary issue.
It is too bad that we don't have the gold plates or the small and large plates or any of the other unnamed plates, so we can't see which hypothesis is correct. Since we have no evidence other than a book and the testimony of a fraudulent treasure hunter, my money is on the natural--not supernatural--explanation.
Mormon goes on to state his intentions, specifically that this book should be used to bring the Lamanites (aka Native Americans) back to the true religion. Now that the Book of Mormon has been kicking around for 180 years or so, let's see how well-received the book has been among Natives.
In the United States, where Joseph claimed the Lamanites were living in his lifetime, very few Natives have joined the Mormon Church. In South America, the location of the Lamanites according to those interested in perpetuating Mormonism, more Natives have joined the Church. This boom in membership, which really took off in certain countries a couple decades ago, is great news for Mormons. Too bad less than 25% of new members stick with the church after their first year.
This has caused huge problems for the Church, as the failure to retain members has made it especially difficult to train new leaders. Confounding this problem further, females, who seem to be more receptive to the Mormon message, can't fill most leadership roles in the Church. So, in many areas, the Church has seen ballooning membership among women, but very few leadership-caliber men.
Additionally, there is the issue of Church buildings, including meeting houses and temples--the construction and maintenance of which depends on the number of members in a given area. With people joining, but not sticking with the Church, Mormons often have a difficult time determining how to manage their funds. Due to problems such as these, many missions in Central and South America have transitioned from purely proselytizing to non-Mormons to almost exclusively focusing on membership retention.
I think Mormons have bitten off more than they can chew by converting people from a culture they don't understand and expecting them to assimilate seamlessly. The Natives they are converting, by and large, come from predominately Catholic societies, wherein many people are not accustomed to the level of church activity expected of Mormons.
A Catholic who only goes to mass on Christmas and Easter will generally not raise any eyebrows, but a Mormon who doesn't go to weekly church meetings at least once or twice a month will be counted as "less-active" and will likely be contacted by Church representatives concerning their level of commitment to the Church. Seriously. If Mormons took this more laid back approach to membership, surely they would find greater success among South American Natives.
As a side note, I have mentioned in previous chapters that the Book of Mormon contains an obscure reference to people living on the "islands of the sea" as Nephites and/or Lamanites, and that because of this reference, many Mormons believe that Polynesians are descendants of Lehi. You will be happy to know that Mormonism is generally well-received by Polynesians, and recently, the Prince of Samoa was baptized into the Mormon Church. Therefore, the Book of Mormon is true!
Mormon explains that his record, and the records of other prophets (presumably the bible), will be used to judge people on Judgement Day based on their acceptance of and adherence to these records. This veiled threat is just as juvenile and unbecoming of omnipotence as any other threats of hell or damnation or eternal torture. This is barbaric fear-mongering--a vestige of our infancy as a species. Keep your ignorant threats, you sanctimonious jackal.
In this self-righteous vein, Mormon explains the end of the long and poorly-described transitional period where the last five authors have failed. According to Mormon, King Benjamin used the sword of Laban (the same sword Nephi stole from Laban after decapitating him) to kill many Lamanites in battle. His army successfully drove out the Lamanites from their land and they were soon presented with a new problem: false Christs.
This is a prime example of when the Book of Mormon could include detailed, useful information about this pivotal period, but does not. All Mormon says concerning the many false Christs and false prophets who tried to lead the people astray, is that they were punished accordingly: "and their mouths had been shut, and they punished according to their crimes."
Never mind explaining how they were shut up or punished, or what they did which was criminal (claiming to be a messiah or being wrong about religion is a subjective offense). Allegedly, the people were following the Law of Moses, which calls for offenders to be stoned to death. But I have yet to find a single instance in the Book of Mormon where this punishment is ever exacted.
Thus far, every anti-Christ and false prophet, about whom Mormon bothers to detail, has been punished by being bound and brought before a high priest, who accuses them of denying the truth (rather than addressing their arguments) and "gives them a sign" which ultimately kills them. I suppose this is the same end-result as stoning, but with the Nephite method god does all the dirty work.
After Benjamin and the righteous prophets advising him drive out all the false prophets--through an unspecified, and therefore, useless process--there is finally peace in the land. I suppose forced conformity will do that. After all, sometimes the solution to morale problems is just to fire all the unhappy people.