Textual: We must remember that Mormon is writing this description long after the account, and while it must be based on original sources, what we have is Mormon’s interpretation of those documents rather than the documents themselves. An official reported would never place his own kings actions in this pejorative light. If the tone of this report comes from Mormon, we may legitimately attempt to uncover something of the material upon which he was basing his opinions.
Mormon’s denunciation of Noah has some specifics that we can deal with:
While not part of the current catalog of his sins, idolatry is added in verse 6. It is significant that in addition to the moral aspects of commandments, multiple wives, whoredoms, and all manner of wickedness, Mormon also highlights the preoccupation with wealth. This begins with the tax noted in verse 3 but is the particular focus of verses 8-14. We have seen this conjunction of religious problems before (see Jacob 2:12-13 and associated commentary). Just as with Jacob, Mormon sees in Noah’s people a connection between social and economic sins – all of which are religious sins because religion encompasses all life. Even though we might see polygamy as a separate issue from wealth, it was apparently deeply connected in the New World, with both Jacob and now Mormon making implicit associations between a sin involving multiple wives and the accumulation of wealth.
The appearances of the term “whoredom” in the Book of Mormon fall are either in conjunction with riches (Mosiah 12:29, Alma 1:29-32, Hel. 3:14, Ether 8:16, Ether 10:7) or as a part of a general litany of types of sins including contentions, strifes, and deceivings (Alma 30:18, Alma 50:21-22, Hel. 6:22, 3 Ne. 16:10, 3 Ne. 30:2, 4 Ne. 1:15-17, Morm. 8:31). A shift begins to occur in Alma and the explicit connection to riches disappears from the context of “whoredoms after Helaman, though many of the sins earlier associated with ”whoredoms" continue to be mentioned.