Only after the sentence is passed do we learn the name of the condemned man. It is Nehor. After the listing of his crimes, judgment is passed quickly and he is executed. We know his name only in the short notice that he died “an ignominious death.” Nevertheless, this will not be the last we hear of the name of Nehor, or of his teachings.
Mormon prepares his readers for what will come by noting that Nehor’s death did not end the teaching of the religious ideas that Nehor had taught. Mormon uses this incident to tie Nehor’s name to the movement of increasing the ideas of priestcraft, and for the coming desires for social inequity. Mormon declares that those engaging in priestcraft did so “for the sake of riches and honor.” Thus, Mormon declares that they perpetuate the problem of social inequality that leads to internal strife throughout the Book of Mormon.
Although Mormon tells Nehor’s story succinctly, he does so intentionally. First, he tells it generically, and then associates the name only when Nehor is already convicted and on his way to an ignominious death. Mormon will begin to use Nehor’s name as a shorthand reference to these teachings whenever we see them. Although this gives the impression that these teachings had begun with Nehor, that is clearly not the case. The priests of Noah taught very similar things. What Mormon is doing is using Nehor’s name as a prejudicial association. Nehor was a convicted murderer, and, therefore, we, as Mormon’s readers, are to understand that when we see a reference to The Order of the Nehors, it cannot be good.