In particular, there is a fair amount of “Alma” material in Samuel’s speech, especially from Alma 9 and 42. Alma the Younger also had prophesied that the Nephite nation would be destroyed four hundred years after the appearance of the Savior (Alma 45:10). Samuel the Lamanite reflected Alma’s words as he prophesied. Samuel was alone in giving his five-year prophecy about the birth of the Savior, but he drew upon the words of Alma for the four-hundred-year and the fourth-generation prophecies about the destruction of the Nephites.
The fourth-generation prophecy stated that there would be righteousness for four generations. Then before the conclusion of four hundred years, the Nephite nation would be destroyed. That, of course, is what happened. Such precision is not common in prophecy. It seems likely that when the exact timing is included in the record, the timing itself was somehow significant. And so this number has attracted the attention of scholars.
All ancient societies had important calendar units or time periods that were carefully marked. Latter-day Saint scholar and Mesoamericanist John E. Clark has noted, “The major cycle of Maya time was a four-hundred-year period called a baktun.” Each baktun was broken down into 20 units called a katun, which was a 20-year cycle, and the katun was subdivided into units called a hotun, which was a five-year cycle. According to renown Mesoamerican scholar John L. Sorenson, “Omens and prophecies … among the Maya were commonly phrased in terms of the beginning or ending of whole calendar units.”
In this light, it is significant that both of Samuel the Lamanite’s time-specific prophecies correlate to the specific units of measurement within the Mesoamerican calendrical system. As Clark put it, “Samuel the Lamanite warned the Nephites that one baktun ‘shall not pass away before … they [would] be smitten’ (Helaman 13:9).”
Another Latter-day Saint Mesoamerican scholar, Mark Wright, suggested, “Samuel the Lamanite may have been making a hotun prophecy when he stated that in ‘five years’ signs would be given concerning the birth of Christ (Helaman 14:2).” Interestingly, according to Sorenson, “In Yucatan at the time of the Spanish conquest, the ruler or his spokesman … had the duty to prophesy five years in advance what fate the next twenty-year k’atun would bring.” In similar fashion, Samuel the Lamanite prophesied the fate of the next baktun (Helaman 13:5, 9), and apparently did so five years in advance (Helaman 14:2).
To put the Maya calendar discussion in perspective, Brant A. Gardner, another LDS Mesoamerican specialist, proposed, “It is important to note that the Nephites need not be using the Mayan calendar to nonetheless recognize the sacred importance of these numbers in the calendaring of their neighbors, and to even be influenced in such a way as to also give weight and import to time cycles of 5, 20, and 400 years themselves. Though commonly referred to as the ‘Maya’ calendar system, it was known throughout Mesoamerica and likely had its origins among the Olmec between 500–400 BC. The earliest long count date attested is 36 BC, on Stela 2 in Chiapa de Corzo, confirming its use in Samuel’s time.”
Book of Mormon Central,), “Why Did Samuel Make Such Chronologically Precise Prophecies? (Helaman 13:5),” KnoWhy 184 (September 9, 2016).
John E. Clark, “Archaeology, Relics, and Book of Mormon Belief,” Journal of Book of Mormon Studies 14, no. 2 (2005): 46–47.
Brant A. Gardner, Second Witness: Analytical and Contextual Commentary on the Book of Mormon, 6 vols. (Salt Lake City, UT: Greg Kofford Books, 2007), 5:177.
John L. Sorenson, An Ancient American Setting for the Book of Mormon (Salt Lake City and Provo, UT: Deseret Book and FARMS, 1985), 274.
John L. Sorenson, Mormon’s Codex: An Ancient American Book (Salt Lake City and Provo, UT: Deseret Book and Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship, 2013), 192–195, 434–442.
John L. Sorenson, “The Book of Mormon as a Mesoamerican Record,” in Book of Mormon Authorship Revisited: The Evidence for Ancient Origins, ed. Noel B. Reynolds (Provo, UT: FARMS, 1997), 409.
Mark Alan Wright, “Nephite Daykeepers: Ritual Specialists in Mesoamerica and the Book of Mormon,” in Ancient Temple Worship: Proceedings of the Expound Symposium, 14 May 2011, ed. Matthew B. Brown, Jeffrey M. Bradshaw, Stephen D. Ricks, and John S. Thompson (Salt Lake City and Orem, UT: Eborn Books and Interpreter Foundation, 2014), 253.