According to Brant Gardner, one of the passages in the Book of Mormon that may gain added perspective from a Mesoamerican context is found in Words of Mormon 1:15. Mormon indicates that there had been "false Christs" among the people. While we cannot be certain of the meaning of this phrase, the presence of multiple "false Christs" in a culture undergoing a conflict between a new and an old religious system at least suggests that the false Christs may be related to this religious conflict. The Nephites considered Christ as their God, and a false Christ would be a man impersonating that deity. This is the precise definition of the Mesoamerican concept of god-impersonators. We find both Olmec and Maya depicted in the garb of various deities. Among the later Aztecs, these god-impersonators were known as the ixiptla. It is not difficult to imagine the internal contentions revolving around the retention or rejection of the old religion. Whether the god-impersonators were attempting to continue the old gods, or attempting to merge the religious form of the old religion with the new, the god-impersonators of that old religion are direct conceptual matches for the false Christs which Mormon describes. This particular interpretation of the false Christs as god-impersonators explains why there are multiple false Christs, why they become an issue at precisely this time (early in the merger between the Zarahemlaites and the Nephites), and why we should have false Christs appearing in a community where only the smaller number of people had a tradition of a belief in Christ at all. [Brant Gardner, "A Social History of the Early Nephites," delivered at the FAIR Conference, August 17, 2001, p. 9]