Reference/Translation: Mormon’s image clearly stresses Yahweh’s power compared to the feebleness of human beings, but Mesoamerica had no scrolls. Therefore, Joseph has borrowed this language from the King James Bible. The basic image was also used in the Savior’s instructions to the Bountiful Nephites: “And he did expound all things… even until the elements should melt with fervent heat, and the earth should be wrapt together as a scroll, and the heavens and the earth should pass away” (3 Ne. 26:3).
The ultimate reference is Isaiah 34:4: “And all the host of heaven shall be dissolved, and the heavens shall be rolled together as a scroll: and all their host shall fall down, as the leaf falleth off from the vine, and as a falling fig from the fig tree.” Revelation 6:14 also quotes it: “And the heaven departed as a scroll when it is rolled together; and every mountain and island were moved out of their places.”
Both Isaiah and Revelation agree, not only in the image of the rolling scroll but also in the concept that it is the heavens that will be rolled, resulting in their disappearance. The flexible scroll of the Bible is thus a counterpart to the Old World’s image of the heavens as a cosmic tent over the world. Once rolled up, the heavens disappear, removing a barrier that had separated heaven and earth and, by extension, humankind and God. Isaiah stresses the concept of the barrier by noting that, once removed, “all their host shall fall down.” There is nothing holding the hosts of heaven away from earth any more.
In Mormon’s image, it is the earth, not the heavens, that is rolled up. Nor is there any indication that the earth will disappear. Therefore, I see this passage as mixed contexts by Joseph Smith. The plate context had one set of meanings; and Joseph, understanding the image as one of the world’s comparative impermanence in the face of Yahweh’s power, used a biblical image familiar to him. Both communicate the end of the world. It seems more likely that Mormon would have alluded to earthquakes as communicating “rolling” in a Mesoamerican context. Joseph translated the concept but with a culturally mismatched image. Unlike the Revelation’s allusion to Isaiah, which borrows the full meaning and context, Joseph’s borrowing was lexical only.