“I Did Stand As an Idle Witness”

"A striking new study has been initiated comparing a subtle, recurring pattern in the Book of Mormon with a particular type of human behavior recently identified in the writings of the ‘survivors’ of Hitler‘s and Stalin’s death camps…the dominant response of the few who survived the European concentration camps has been an irrepressible desire ’to bear witness.’ The world of death camps and gulags produces a consistent reaction, a will to survive not for oneself, but rather to bear witness to the world in a particular kind of testament or indictment against man’s inhumanity to his fellows. ’Survival is an act involving choice [even when death might seem easier]…The ‘utmost concern’ of such survivors was to hide up a record ’preserved for future generations.‘ One survivor speaks of his duty to witness as a ’mission,‘ a ’sacred task,‘ and a ’burning within me, screaming: Record!’

“…That profile has much in common with the human conduct of several people in the Book of Mormon, like Mormon and Moroni. For example, there is the will ‘to remember and record’ that overcomes one’s fears of the surrounding savagery (see Mormon 2:15; 4:11-21). There is the survivor viewing his task as a sacred duty, born out of the realization that no one will be left.” (John W. Welch, Reexploring The Book of Mormon, p. 267)