The Nephite Articles of Faith

In these verses, Alma told the poor Zoramites exactly seven things they needed to believe:

1. Believe in the Son of God,
2. That he will come to redeem his people.
3. That he shall suffer and die to atone for their sins.
4. That he shall rise again from the dead.
5. That he will bring about the general resurrection.
6. So that all men can stand before him.
7. That they will be judged at the last judgment day according to their works.

Precisely we are told that the Zoramites did not believe in a Messiah: “there shall be no Christ” (31:16). This is one of the main things that they had rejected. Nor did they believe that they needed atonement for their sins. Again, that was something that their doctrine rejected. Their belief was, “We are a chosen and a holy people” (31:18). In contrast, Alma gives the Zoramite poor the most complete and concise statement of the traditional expression of belief that began with Nephi and was variously stated by Jacob, Benjamin, and Abinadi. Alma had apparently taught this list to Amulek who used it in Ammonihah (see Alma 11:39–41).

Figure 1 Adapted from John W. Welch and Greg Welch, “Consistent Elements in Nephite Declarations of Faith,” in Charting the Book of Mormon, chart 43.

Apparently, this had become something of what we might call the Nephite “articles of faith.” We actually see variations of this very list nine times in the Book of Mormon (Figure 1). Awareness and use of “this word” continued down to the time of Moroni after the final destruction of the Nephites (see Mormon 9:1–14).

Further Reading

Book of Mormon Central, “What Are the Nephite Articles of Faith? (Alma 33:22),” KnoWhy 141 (July 12, 2016).