Redaction: Mormon carefully marks three years, noting that not much happened. What he doesn’t tell us, however, does tell us much about Mormon’s intents. It can be taken for granted that something happened in the three years that Mormon skips. No doubt to some of the people, some of those things might have been very important. They were not important to Mormon. In fact, he specifically shows us what is important by noting the absence of the one thing that interests him: contention.
Why Does Mormon Write What He Wrote? Understanding that Mormon is focusing on contention allows us to understand the driving principle behind his entire effort. It is one thing to suggest that Mormon wrote a text for us, but why? What drove him to do it (besides the Lord), and why did he make the selections of material that he did? Mormon is carefully crafting some kind of story, what does Mormon think that story is? I suggest that Mormon has a single theme leading to a single purpose.
The single theme is contention, and Mormon develops this contention in two ways. The contention is the gospel versus the world. In that conflict the prophets have often had to teach the gospel to counter opposing ideas. Even Benjamin’s great sermon flows out of conflict, a conflict that might have been lost because Mormon’s original description of it was lost with the 116 pages. It remains only at the end of Words of Mormon. The great doctrinal sermons of Mormon’s story are battles against ideas.
The next type of conflict is physical. These conflicts revolve around the Nephite political system. The Lamanites threaten it, and internal contention threatens the political structure. This too is a conflict of Nephite against the world. When we remember that for the ancient world there was no firm division between religion and politics, we begin to understand that Mormon’s two types of contention are different more in our perception than his. For Mormon, these were two elements of the same conflict.
The next structural part of Mormon‘s work is the escalation of conflicts closer to the time of Christ’s appearance. Of course some of this is historical, but the emphasis on those historical contentions also increases the closer we come to that event. Some of the events are told in more detail because of the personalities involved. We see more of Captain Moroni because he was a great military innovator, and a spiritual man. In the elaboration of the accounts of Moroni’s wars we do see Mormon the general admiring his historical counterpart, a man who was so admired that his name was given to Mormon’s son.
Mormon shortens time and history long before Christ. The closer we get, the more details we get. The book of Alma covers a tremendous number of pages, but a relatively short number of years. After the arrival of the savior, Mormon drastically collapses time. Mormon uses this technique to focus on the arrival of the savior in the New World as the seminal event of history. Even in this, however, he has a message.
The Book of Mormon understands the two different functions of the Messiah, the Atoning Messiah and the Triumphant Messiah. While they understand that these are two different missions (as opposed to the Old Testament assumption of a single mission, and focusing on the Triumphant Messiah), they do understand that both missions are embodied in the same Messiah. Mormon declares this unity of Messianic functions in the structure of his text.
In the largest picture of the Book of Mormon, the conflicts increase up to the time of Christ’s appearance in the New World. Even though there is a small reprieve in the conflict after the signs of the birth of Christ, the contentions increase until the destruction comes.
The structural/symbolic elements of Christ’s appearance are:
1) Various destructions, but fire is one of them.
2) Dramatic and undeniable arrival of the Messiah
3) Validation of the gospel
4) Removal of contention.
When Christ comes, he validates the gospel of the Nephites with his personal teachings. Baptism and its effectiveness for removal of sin is reinforced. The Atoning Messiah that was preached comes, and confirms the Nephite gospel. In addition, however, this Atoning Messiah at the Meridian of time will be the Triumphant Messiah, and he cannot separate himself from that aspect of who he is. Therefore he ushers in destructions and fire, just as has been predicted of the Triumphant Messiah. Just as the Triumphant Messiah is predicted to do, he ends conflict.
Thus Mormon sets up his story of the arrival of Christ by focusing on the contentions before so that the contrast may be made with their absence after. Mormon structures his story to show that the Atoning Messiah really was/is/will be the Triumphant Messiah because he brought those effects with him. Since it was the first coming and not the second, however, the effects did not last, and contention returned (with a vengeance). Thus there is the stage for the return of this Triumphant Messiah to make those effects permanent.
We know that the Book of Mormon is designed to be a second witness for Christ. What we might miss, however, is the way that Mormon structures the events he selects to focus on the eschatological reality of Christ. That reality is highlighted by the contentions that are the world without the Messiah in it, contrasted to the peace of the world when the Messiah comes.
Mormon foreshortens history after the appearance of Christ, but when he discusses his own day, he returns to the obvious theme of contention, in this case an increasingly military contention. Just as he built up the approach to Christ’s first appearance with the destruction of the Nephite government by the Gadiantons, he does the same for his own day. Once again the Gadiantons are behind the destruction of the Nephite government (and therefore religion). Perhaps it is also in Mormon’s narrative hope that just as the arrival of the Atoning Messiah restored peace (and the gospel) that soon after his day would come the Triumphant Messiah to reprise the era of peace, but to remain with us so that peace would also remain.
Seen this way, Mormon’s entire text shares the same eschatological hope as the writers of the New Testament who hoped for the return of their Messiah in the near future.
Chronological: The forty-fifth year of the reign of the judges would be 49 BC. As the birth of Christ is looming on the horizon, it should be remembered that it will occur in 4 BC in the correlation used in this commentary.