Mormon has most certainly omitted an important historical episode somewhere between the story of Abinadi and this point. At the beginning of Abinadi’s story, Noah is a powerful ruler, controlling the labor force and sponsoring large building projects. He appears to have fairly uniform popular support. Yet this passage describes a king losing his authority.
How has the unity of Noah’s people disintegrated into internal factionalism and a reduction of the army? Have unspecified battle losses caused the military reduction? It seems unlikely, since verse 6 specifies a Lamanite attack with no indication of any previous attack. Rather, the army seems to have dwindled through defections. In that case, it would be directly related to the internal dissension. Those who agreed with the dissenters are leaving Noah’s service.
We have even less information for recreating the internal disorder. It is tempting to speculate that Alma’s teachings have created religious (and therefore political) dissatisfaction with Noah. However, Alma’s adherents seem to be a separate faction, one that operates secretly and physically leaves the city. Thus, those who remain in open contention are probably not Alma’s followers, but they are also clearly no longer Noah’s.
It is possible that this faction (or factions) had been in existence before Abinadi’s mission, glossed over in Mormon’s abridgment because it served his editorial interests to show the entire population as apostate. Against this simpler backdrop, Mormon could then create a more dramatic story of Abinadi’s rejection, arrest, and trial.
Because Mormon is making narrative selections based on historic documents, no doubt including Noah’s official records, we have some leeway in reconstructing the most probable social situation because the official record would have made the situation appear more uniform. Clearly Noah had a dominant political position and probably the support of the majority for his religious innovations. However, it is unlikely that all of Zeniff’s followers would have completely abandoned their previously held religion. They would have constituted a smoldering faction that could easily erupt after Abinadi’s cruel death. Also probably, the high taxation that financed the building projects created economic pressure that would have chafed those who disagreed with the political and social statement behind those buildings.
Almost certainly, these still-loyal followers of Zeniff would have been receptive to Abinadi’s preaching, more likely to recognize him as a prophet. Although this scenario is certainly speculative, it would explain how Mormon’s few reported details could lead to the relatively quick erosion of Noah’s authority. Perhaps such a sequence appeared so natural to Mormon that he saw no reason to explain it. Or perhaps this episode is simply another example of how Mormon’s interest in spiritual things led him to omit many things that a historian would love to know.