Rhetoric: Jacob’s opening statement is not only brief but startling. He begins by announcing that the sermon’s purpose is to condemn. By indicating that he gives the sermon because of his responsibility to God, he makes it clear that the words are not his but God’s. Second, because he must “rid his garments” of his people’s sins, he places himself in a different category from his audience. They are under condemnation; Jacob is not. He is fulfilling a commandment that will ensure his separateness from their sinfulness.
Culture: Jacob notes that he has “come up into the temple.” Just as the “land of Jerusalem” included an area around the “city of Jerusalem, the temple would consist of both the physical building and its grounds near the front of the temple. Since Jacob is speaking to an assemblage, it seems logical that they would be congregated in the temple courtyard with Jacob probably standing before or more likely on the steps of the temple. Jacob’s statement that he had “come up” into the temple may also suggest these stairs (or simply that the temple structure was on an elevation in the community, a common practice in both the Old and New Worlds).
A small village would probably have only two buildings appropriate for a formal rhetorical event: the seat of government and the seat of religious observance. While the temple is explicitly built on the model of the temple of Solomon, we would expect that dwellings would be built on New World models because they had to respond to New World materials and climatic needs. The governmental building would likely follow the New World mode of construction rather than the Old World’s. Religious conservativism clearly influenced the retention of the Old World form for religion. No such tie between form and symbolism would dictate the type of governmental structure.
Within the village, the king’s dwelling place no doubt had a public function since meetings and proclamations would be made there. Thus, it, like the temple, was a public gathering place. In Mesoamerica, the dwelling of the important lineages was typically a residence on top of a stepped platform. Such buildings begin to appear as the settlement moves from a nucleated village to a segregated elite district. Both types of settlements may have a population from 500 to 1,000. The difference isn’t population, but rather the way the population conceives itself. The segregated elite district is defined by its higher proportion of ceremonial and civic buildings. The city of Nephi would have fit into the appropriate population and, as the seat of a king and location of a temple, would have had the requisite archaeological features to classify as a segregated elite district. While most settlements in the Formative period of Mesoamerican history (1500–500 B.C.) would be smaller villages and hamlets, there are some larger regional sites exhibiting the more public architectural forms.
The fact that Jacob delivered his sermon at the temple emphasizes its religious nature, as opposed to political content (and may also emphasize Jacob’s stature as a religious leader and marginalization in the political arena). Indeed, there may have been no laws governing his topics of polygamy and lack of charity to the poor. In fact, it seems doubtful that his admonitions against the pride in wealth would have been backed up by any laws, since those in power were also most likely to be wealthy. Thus, Jacob is, by his position and by his selected location, providing a moral and religious condemnation that probably was not represented in the city’s legal code.