The Zoramites are a separate city within the political hegemony of Zarahemla. Mesoamerican cities tend to be located fifteen to twenty miles apart, and the city centers are separated by farmland and perhaps untilled areas. This physical separation allows for internal autonomy, even when trade and military matters might tie them to the over-city; Zarahemla in this case. The leader of the city is named Zoram, and the people are called after him. Nevertheless, the land in which they settle they name Antionum rather than Zoram (see verse 3). It is possible that the name Antionum existed prior to their arrival.
Textual: Mormon’s story must make a transition from an individual dissenter to a city-dissenter. As was noted at the end of chapter 30, it is very possible that Korihor’s death at the hands of the Zoramites was a literary device to assist in making that transition. We should remember that there is no chapter break here in Mormon’s text, so this story flows directly out of the Korihor episode. That tells us that Mormon is conceptually linking these stories, and that while they are different, they both move forward the main idea of the chapter he is writing.
One of the keys to understanding Mormon’s development of his text is that he is working with the records of Alma the Younger, and selecting from those records the episodes that will be told. Regardless of the actual history of the Nephites at the time of Alma the Younger, what Mormon is working with is Alma the Younger’s perception of the important events of that history. When we take a look at the themes that are coming from Alma the Younger’s record, we note that they are heavily oriented to religious contention and the efforts to correct religious error. Note the major stories that we have in Alma:
1) The story of Nehor. This is a conflict over alternate religious ideas, and the text gives us Alma’s role in combating this threat to religious stability.
2) The Amlicite invasion. This is mostly a military story, but still fits Alma’s themes of religious conflict because the Amlicites are Nephite dissenters.
3) Alma’s missionary journey through the land of Zarahemla. To bolster the strength of the church, Alma gives up the governance of the land, and works to improve the religious unity. He begins with reforms in Zarahemla, and ends with the more apostate Ammonihahites. In between we have the faith of those in Gideon. The faith of the true convert will be held up as an example by Alma, and it would not be surprising if one of the reasons he notices such stalwart faith among the true converts is that he himself is one. Inside the story of the Ammonihahites, Alma focuses on a particular person, Zeezrom. One of the subthemes in Alma’s writings is the person to person “battle” between the gospel and apostate ideas. We have this individual theme with Nehor, Zeezrom, and later Korihor.
4) The missionary efforts of the sons of Mosiah to the Lamanites. Of course this isn’t Alma’s record, and we cannot be certain that Alma included in his record, or whether Mormon had access to Ammon’s record (the apparent original source of this material). In any case, it fits with the themes Alma builds, and would not be out of place in the Alma source material.
5) Chapter 28 has a condensed version of a major Lamanite invasion. Alma records the event, but diminishes the military aspects to deal with the human and religious aspects that come out of the military action.
6) The conflict with Korihor.
7) The conflict with the Zoramites
8) Alma’s father-blessings to his sons
9) The Lamanite invasion led by the apostate Amalikites. This is the last episode before Alma the Younger closes his own record. The remaining chapters in our book of Alma come from Helaman, the eldest son of Alma.
The only apparent aberration in this list is the final description of the Amalikite invasion, which is much longer than Alma’s previous treatment of military actions. Based on this chapter alone, we might suggest that Alma’s record did indeed contain greater information about the military actions, but that it was Mormon’s editorial choice to limit such information in the record of Alma the Younger. Rather than military actions, the clear themes present here deal with religious conflict and Alma’s attempts to combat religious error.
Either Alma emphasized, or Mormon selectively chose, those events in Alma’s life that dealt with the questions of apostasy and conversion. This may not be surprising since the seminal event in Alma’s life was his own conversion from apostasy. He was uniquely attuned to the temptations of apostasy, because he had once succumbed to them. He was keenly interested in the process of conversion, and made sure that he showed the examples of true converts, even though they might have been tainted by Lamanite connections, such as the people of Gideon (who had been the people of Noah in the land of Nephi) and the Anti-Nephi-Lehies. As we noted in the early discussion of Alma the Younger, it appears that he had been tainted by the Lamanite ideas around him. The people of Gideon and Anti-Nephi-Lehi (now called the people of Ammon) were prime examples of the faithfulness of a conversion that might come from one with Lamanite ties.
S. Kent Brown has suggested that Alma’s conversion experience heavily influenced his sermons (S. Kent Brown. “Alma’s Conversion: Reminiscences in his Sermons.” Monte S. Nyman and Charles D. Tate, Jr., eds., Alma, the Testimony of the Word. Provo: BYU Religious Studies Center, 1992). To that we should add that his conversion experience heavily influenced virtually all of the episodes he elected to write in his record.