Samuel begins to parallel the sign of birth with the sign of death. However, gives us verses 15-19 that are not the sign before returning the concept of the sign in verse 20. The reason for the inserted section that is not about the sign is that Samuel is triggering is discourse on the idea of the death. Samuel needs to explain that the Savior will die. Why?
Samuel has just indicated that the Atoning Messiah will be “Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the Father of heaven and of earth, the Creator of all things from the beginning” (verse 12). If the Atoning Messiah is such a powerful being, how would it be conceivable that he should die? Should not the creator of all things be immortal? It is this issue that Samuel addresses. Prior to the sign he must explain the reason that this Son of God must die.
Samuel expresses the need for the death of the Atoning Messiah in terms of the resurrection of the dead. The Messiah will die so that through death the dead may live. The basic concept of a dying god was not foreign to pagan Mesoamerica. Indeed, the connection between death and life was seen as more directly connected in Mesoamerica than in many cultures:
“In Mesoamerican thought death was closely integrated into the world of the living. Life and death were believed to exist in dynamic and complementary opposition. It was widely recognized that because of the basic need for nourishment, killing and sacrifice was a necessary aspect of life.” (Mary Miller and Karl Taube. An Illustrated Dictionary of the Gods and Symbols of Ancient Mexico and the Maya. Thames and Hudson, London, 1993, p. 74).
The mythology of the Aztecs frequently has themes of life coming from death. In one of the myths of creation, the Aztec creator pair, Tezcatlipoca and Quetzalcoatl, bring the goddess Tlaltecuhtli down form the heavens and rip her into pieces from which are formed the features of earth (Mary Miller and Karl Taube. An Illustrated Dictionary of the Gods and Symbols of Ancient Mexico and the Maya. Thames and Hudson, London, 1993, p. 167-8). For the Mesoamericans, bones contained the essence of life and were seen as representing the eventual return to life. In her analysis of the Mixtec Codes given the title Codex Vindobonensis Mexicanus I, Jill Leslie Furst indicates:
“Repeatedly in the preceding pages, skulls, skeletal jaws and skeletonization in general have merged not, as might have been expected, as symbols of death but rather of generation and fertility… The apparent contradiction between fertility, generation and rebirth on the one hand and bones on the other is in fact perfectly comprehensible in the context of general Native Mesoamerican ideology, in which the skeletal remains were – and in fact, here and there continue to be – regarded as the seat of the essential life force and the metaphorical seed from which the individual, whether human, animal, or plant, is reborn.” (Jill Leslie Furst. Codex Vindobonensis Mexicanous I: A Commentary. Institute3 for Mesoamerican Studies, State University of New York at Albany. Publication 4. Albany, NY 1978, p.318).
Since the concept of life coming from death would not have been foreign to the Nephites, it is the particular functions and differences of the Atoning Messiah’s death that become important to tell the Nephites. Samuel begins with the concept that the death of the Messiah will effect the resurrection. That part of his mission would not have been that foreign to a Mesoamerican, even had they not been apostate Nephites who should have known from what they had been previously taught.