Social: The first question we hear from the Zoramites is whether or not they should believe in one God. This is a rather fascinating question that tells us quite a bit about both the religion and the socio-political associations of these farmers. The first thing it tells us is that they currently believe in more than one God, and that they are aware that Alma does not. To understand the social and political meaning of this interesting situation, we must return to some of the information that we have about Antionum and the Zoramites.
First, the Zoramites are new to Antionum, and because they do not name the city after Zoram, we suspect that the city or the location was already known and named. We understand that the Zoramites are apostate Nephites who have rejected Nephite religion and politics, and have apparently intentionally chosen a location that is peripheral to the Nephite lands, and bordering a wilderness where there are Lamanites (see Alma 31:3).
The Zoramite worship appears to have adopted a polytheistic belief system. This is consonant with their conscious move away from the Nephites and toward the Lamanites. They have created a society which excludes the farming class from participation in the religion. This very exclusion makes it unlikely that this particular clan had voluntarily come to Antionum to be with the Zoramites. Why would they intentionally follow a religion-political system that they knew would create a condition that they did not want?
If they did not voluntarily come to join the Zoramites, where did they come from? It is most likely that they were already there. Antionum was a named location, and it is quite likely that it supported scattered hamlets of farmers that were unattached to the larger city states of the area.
Into this inhabited area come the Zoramites and create a city center. As one of the peoples in the area, there would be an expectation of a relationship between the outlying farmers and the center of the city. In most cases, this would be a relationship of mutual benefit, but in this case, one of the benefits that was apparently expected was unfulfilled. In Mesoamerican cities, the city served as the religious center for the entire land. In this case, however, at least this one segment of the population was not receiving the desired benefit from the city’s religion. We may deduce, therefore, that they did not follow the Zoramites to this location, but were rather previous occupants of the land.
As we will see in the next verse, Alma expects that this clan will have known of Nephite scripture, or brass plate scripture at the very least. Since the brass plates were unknown in the region until the arrival of the Nephites in Zarahemla in about 200 BC, this expectation also tells us that they had been affiliated with the Nephites prior to the arrival of the Zoramites. It appears that they were typical of many ancient farming populations, where they adopted at least some of the religion of the dominant city to which they became attached. Thus they had a Nephite background, but had become assimilated into Zoramite religion, but were unhappy with the results of that assimilation.