Verse 35 tells us that this event occurs in the two hundred and thirty first year. While it is entirely possible that his source material listed something in the two hundred and thirty first year that indicated this division into groups, the presence of the number thirty one warns us to take this information cautiously. These verses provide the antithesis to the unity proclaimed in verse 17 above. During the perfect two hundred years. Early in the third hundred years, this unity explodes into major divisions. The situation returns to pre-visit social-religious distinctions. The sense of these verses is very clear. Historically, however, we have more to ask of them. Specifically, we need to know of these divisions are as lineal as they appear to be.
Part of the key to understanding this litany of tribal affiliation is found in verse 39. Mormon notes:
“And it was because of the wickedness and abomination of their fathers, even as it was in the beginning. And they were taught to hate the children of God, even as the Lamanites were taught to hate the children of Nephi from the beginning.” (italics added).
The repetition of and emphasis on the beginning tells us that this is a structural piece rather than a purely historical one. Mormon’s entire construction in 4 Nephi sets a structural stage, and this event is simply one of the symbolic components. The specific antithetical contrast to the “nor any manner of –ites” from verse 17 tells us that this is intended to be a structural piece. The previous unity becomes disunity. The lack of –ites becomes a proliferation of –ites. The new world formed after the visit of the Messiah returns to the old world from the beginning.
Jacob gave us our early understanding of the non-lineal usage of the lineal categories:
Jacob 1:14
14 But I, Jacob, shall not hereafter distinguish them by these names, but I shall call them Lamanites that seek to destroy the people of Nephi, and those who are friendly to Nephi I shall call Nephites, or the people of Nephi, according to the reigns of the kings.
Compare that terminology to that given by Mormon:
“there arose a people who were called the Nephites, and they were true believers in Christ”
“they who rejected the gospel were called Lamanites, and Lemuelites, and Ishmaelites”
In exactly the same way that Jacob indicated that Lamanite was used as a generic label, Mormon relabels the divisions in the people. The key element that decides whether a person is called a Nephite or a Lamanite is their relationship to their belief in Christ, not their parentage. It is certain that kin groupings still remained during the time when there were no “manner of –ites,” but they were not the issue. The difference was the unity/disunity indicated by the Nephite/Lamanite label. When the unity begins to unravel, the social divisions return to those of the previous times, and once again there are Nephites and Lamanites, even though biology was never altered.
It is also interesting to note that the Zoramites are listed among the Nephites. Very ancient history would have associated them with the Nephites, but the Zoramites were also an infamous apostate group, and directly responsible for many of the wars against the Nephites in the decades prior to the Savior’s birth. The more recent history would therefore suggest that the Zoramites would have been most likely to have remembered their more recent history and the lineage should have been associated with the Lamanites. This association with the Nephites must therefore refer to the earliest periods, and is yet another indication that this is an artificial construction rather than a reporting of precise lineages.
Mormon is crafting his narrative to show the symbolic return to a previous unrighteous state. This is important to his meta-theme in that he will be comparing the first and second destructions of the Nephites. One of the elements of the first destruction was the conflict between the Nephite and Lamanite elements. Mormon makes certain that they return as conditions leading to the second destruction.
Chronological: Two hundred and thirty one years in the Nephite chronology corresponds to 225 A.D. in our calendar.