Matters of the Book of Mormon
Things, practices and ideas in the Book of Mormon, each with the verses that mention it: objects and places in the story, the material world, and the concepts the text teaches.
The particular things the story names: the Liahona, the sword of Laban, the brass plates.
Kinds of things in the Book of Mormon world: tents, swords, coins, crops, buildings.
- Agricultural Tools — Implements for cultivating, harvesting, and processing crops
- Poisonous Serpents — Jaredite serpents that poisoned people and altered migration routes
- Elephant — Valuable Jaredite herd animal
- Cureloms — Unidentified Jaredite beast with elephants
- Cumom — Unidentified Jaredite beast useful to man
- Monster of The Sea — Great sea creature in Jaredite crossing
- Whale — Deep-sea creature in Jaredite voyage
- Barges — Small, light watercraft used for crossing waters
- Birds — Generic fowls carried and caught by the Jaredites
- Containers — Vessels used to hold and carry substances
- Graves — Burial places and patriarchal idioms
- Fine Pearls — Luxury ornaments in Nephite decline
- Pits — Dug excavations used for confinement, destruction, and escape attempts
- Window — Architectural opening and figure for blessing
- Figs — Fruit used in Christ’s comparison of true and false sources
- Serpents — Serpent imagery in Christ’s teachings
- Swine — Jaredite food animal and Christ’s proverb
- Salt — Savoring mineral and covenant emblem
- Torches — Handheld lights extinguished by the three days of darkness
- Candle — Lit source of light named during the great darkness
- Whirlwinds — Violent rotating winds that carry people away at the destruction
- Lightning — Electrical flashes named in the physical destruction at Christ's death
- Darkness — Physical absence of light in the Book of Mormon world
- Highways and Roads — Cast-up roads linking Nephite cities
- Thunder — Atmospheric sound accompanying storms and catastrophe
- Rain — Precipitation affecting crops, famine, and sea travel
- Cloak — Outer garment in law and crime
- Door — Hinged entryway in dwellings and metaphor
- Gardens — Walled enclosures of cultivation
- Nephite Gold and Silver Idols — Idols built from Nephite wealth in apostasy
- Cement — Building material in the land northward
- Epistles — Written letters exchanged among Nephite, Lamanite, and Jaredite leaders
- Daytime Heat — Heat of the day as a material condition in a wartime camp
- Defensive Ditches — Excavated barriers surrounding Nephite fortifications
- Coat — Garment used in civic emblem and teaching
- Camps — Temporary military encampments and their guarded overnight quarters
- Armshield — Arm-mounted defense in Moroni’s reforms
- Head Plate — Helmet-like armor from Moroni’s reforms
- Pole — Pole for Moses’ brazen serpent
- Zoramite Dumb Idols — Cult objects before which Zoramites bowed
- Hills — Lower natural elevations used for travel, teaching, refuge, and battle
- Streets — Public urban thoroughfares and teaching spaces
- Waters — Generic bodies of water in travel, conflict, and settlement
- Precious Stones — Gemstone wealth desired alongside gold and silver
- Health and Disease — Bodily illness, healing, and the natural conditions that affect them
- Antion — Gold piece equal to three shiblons
- Leah — Smallest Nephite silver fraction
- Shiblum — Silver fraction worth half a shiblon
- Shiblon — Silver piece worth half a senum
- Ezrom — Silver piece worth four senums
- Onti — Largest named Nephite silver piece
- Shum — Gold piece worth four senines
- Limnah — Largest named Nephite gold piece
- Seon — Gold piece worth twice a senine
- Nephite Currency — Named pieces of gold and silver in the Nephite reckoning
- Senum — Base silver piece equal to a senine
- Senine — Base gold piece equal to a senum
- Bread — Ordinary prepared food served in a Nephite household
- Amnor — Silver piece worth two senums
- Villages — Small settlements distinguished from larger cities and towns
- Armor — Protective war gear worn or carried in armed conflict
- Thistles — Thorny weed in Abinadi's prophecy and Christ's fruit saying
- Insects — Crop-destroying pests in Abinadi’s warning to Noah’s people
- Pestilence — Widespread deadly affliction named among covenant judgments
- Dogs — Carrion animals and a proverb figure in Book of Mormon passages
- Vultures — Scavenging birds that consume the fallen after violence
- Breastwork — Defensive timber rampart of Nephite cities
- Royal Thrones — Literal seats and emblems of earthly kingship
- Fatlings — Fattened livestock among Nephite wealth
- Club — Bludgeon used by Lamanite herdsmen
- Sheum — An unidentified cultivated seed named in Zeniff’s colony
- Wheat — Old World cereal planted by Zeniffites
- Neas — An unidentified cultivated seed named in Zeniff’s colony
- Instruments of Translation — Prepared stones by which records of ancient date are read
- Rust — Corrosion on the recovered Jaredite sword blades
- Breastplate — Torso armor of Nephite and Jaredite armies
- Bones — Skeletal remains found after battle and ancient destruction
- Corn — Cereal staple of Nephite agriculture
- Barley — Cereal grain cultivated by Nephites
- Grain — Cultivated cereal crops measured, harvested, and paid as tribute
- Famine — Widespread want of food as historical crisis and covenant chastening
- Weapons — Implements made and carried for armed conflict
- Darts — Throwing weapon in Jarom’s Nephite arsenal
- Machinery — Nephite mechanical works alongside buildings and craftsmanship
- Javelin — Throwing spear in Jaredite craft and Teancum’s raids
- Cities — Built urban settlements, distinct from named geographic places
- Axe — Hafted blade in Lamanite weapon trio
- Cimeter — Curved sword of Nephite and Lamanite armies
- Lamanite Tents — Wilderness dwellings of Lamanite communities
- Fine Apparel — Costly clothing of Nephite pride
- Shield — Hand-held defense in Nephite warfare
- Sanctuary — Nephite worship house alongside temples and synagogues
- Synagogues — Nephite assembly houses built like Jewish synagogues
- Palaces — Royal residences of Book of Mormon kings
- Satyrs — Mythic dancing creatures in Isaiah’s oracle of desolation
- Owls — Nocturnal birds inhabiting Isaiah’s desolated city
- Roe — Fleeing deer in Isaiah's oracle against fallen Babylon
- Asp — Venomous serpent rendered harmless in Isaiah's peaceful-kingdom oracle
- Cockatrice — Venomous serpent in Isaiah prophecy
- Bear — Wild predator in Isaiah’s vision
- Wolves — Predators used in sheepfold and false-prophet figures
- Leopard — Predator reconciled with the kid in Isaiah’s peace vision
- Mattock — Digging and cultivating implement named in Isaiah’s hill-country image
- Cattle — Nephite wealth in domestic herds
- Valleys — Low landforms contrasted with mountains in prophecy and upheaval
- Pools — Pools of water in Isaiah’s desolation oracle
- Teil Tree — Tree named beside the oak in Isaiah's remnant oracle
- Tongs — Implement used to take the live coal from Isaiah’s altar
- Lions — Isaianic judgment and peaceful-kingdom lions
- Lambs — Literal and Isaiah-quoted sacrificial lambs
- Briers — Thorny scrub vegetation in Isaiah’s desolation imagery
- Thorns — Thorn-bearing vegetation in Isaiah and Jesus’s agricultural images
- Towers — Elevated structures for defense and proclamation
- Grapes — Vineyard fruit used in prophetic and moral comparisons
- Wine-Press — Grape press in the vineyard allegory
- Gates — Civic gates of Nephite and Zeniffite cities
- Girdle — Isaianic figure of readiness and virtue
- Bracelet — Ornamental wrist jewelry of pride
- Ornaments — Isaianic finery and Nephite pride
- Mole — Burrowing animal to which cast-off idols are given in Isaiah
- Bat — Creature to which cast-off idols are given in Isaiah's oracle
- Chariots — Horse-drawn conveyances in royal, Nephite, and prophetic settings
- Spear — Thrusting weapon of Nephite warriors
- Fortification — Nephite defensive works of earth and timber
- Idols — Idolatry of Lamanites and Nephite dissenters
- Dragon — Isaianic creature and Nephite simile
- Moths — Garment-corrupting moth in Christ’s treasure teaching
- Worms — Earth and decay creatures in Isaiah and the Jaredite final war
- Sackcloth — Garment of mourning and repentance
- Rivers — Flowing inland waters in travel, settlement, and prophetic imagery
- Fish — Water creatures used as food and in Christ’s teaching
- Temples — Nephite houses of God after Solomon’s temple
- Materials — Physical substances worked into Book of Mormon objects and buildings
- Buildings — Enclosed structures for dwelling, worship, governance, and work
- Herds — Managed aggregate livestock, distinguished from flocks
- Flocks — Herded livestock in Nephite and Jaredite economies
- Tents — Portable shelters for camps and gatherings
- Sheep — Flock animal in Nephite and Christ imagery
- Calves — Young cattle used in growth and deliverance figures
- Smoke — Atmospheric vapor accompanying fire and destruction
- Quiver — Arrow case in Isaiah’s Servant Song
- Furnace — Fire enclosure in affliction images and deliverance accounts
- Isles — Islands and sea-bound lands in scattering and gathering prophecy
- Plates — Metal tablets used for engraved records
- Forests — Wooded natural terrain used for hunting, concealment, and settlement
- Animals — Creatures kept, hunted, or encountered in the Book of Mormon
- Ores — Mineral-bearing rock extracted and refined for metalwork
- Wild Goat — Untamed goat in Nephite lands
- Horse — Chariot animal of Nephite and Lamanite courts
- Iron — Hard metal for tools and God’s word
- ox — Draft animal in Nephite and Jaredite herds
- Copper — Native metal for tools and armor
- Ass — Beast of burden among Nephite livestock
- Goat — Domestic herd animal raised by Nephites and Jaredites
- Cow — Domestic bovine in promised land
- Plants — Living vegetation used for food, medicine, timber, and cultivation
- Winds — Air that drives ships, calms, and contributes to storms
- Tempests — Violent storms of wind and water in travel, prophecy, and catastrophe
- Provisions — Stored and transported supplies of food for travel, settlement, and war
- Meat — Animal food used as wilderness provisions and household fare
- Timber — Construction wood for Nephite projects
- Fiery Flying Serpents — Judgment-plague serpents in Israelite scripture and Isaiah’s oracle
- Fire — Combustion used for heat, light, and metalwork
- Animal Skins and Leather — Processed hides used for bellows, protective garments, and girdles
- Bellows — Animal-skin bellows Nephi made for smelting
- Tools — Implements for construction, cultivation, and animal work
- Ship — General term for sea-going vessels
- Shores — Coastal margins used for landing, settlement, travel, and battle
- Sea — Great body of salt water encountered in migration and scripture
- Bees — Jaredite swarmed honey-producing insects
- Honey — Wild sweet substance at Bountiful
- Raw Meat — Uncooked flesh as sustenance and savagery
- Milk — Sustaining beverage and emblem of salvation
- Roots and Herbs — Wild plants for food and medicine
- Wild Beasts — Unspecified wild animals hunted, feared, or encountered in wildernesses
- Wood — Raw material for Nephite construction
- Stone Sling — Projectile weapon of hunters and armies
- Slings — Hand-held projectile weapons used with stones for hunting and combat
- Food — Nourishment gathered, prepared, shared, and supplied
- Arrow — Projectile for hunting and war
- Bow — Ranged weapon of hunters and warriors
- Silk — Silk as a symbol of wealth and pride
- Linen — Fine-twined linen in Nephite society
- Plains — Broad level ground used for travel, battle, and prophetic destruction
- Earthquakes — Quakings and rending of the earth in prophetic warning and catastrophe
- Mountains — High natural landforms in vision, refuge, and divine power imagery
- Sandals — Footwear with latchet unworthy to unloose
- White Robe — Luminous garment of celestial beings
- Seeds — Planting stock carried, preserved, and sown for subsistence
- Fruits — Literal harvest of Nephite records
- Cords — Ropes for binding and spiritual captivity
- Prisons — Confinement places across Nephite, Lamanite, and Jaredite eras
- Houses — Dwellings of Nephite and Lamanite families
- Records — Preserved written accounts, chiefly engraved on plates
- Apparel — Clothing and adornment worn for protection, status, and identity
- Steel — Hardened metal for weapons and tools
- Wine — Fermented drink in feasts, households, and military stratagems
- Walls — Enclosing barriers of ancient cities
- Caves — Natural rock shelters used as refuges
- Treasures — Valuable material goods, especially gold, silver, and precious things
- Brass — Copper-tin alloy for records and ornament
- Altar — Stone offering-place of Mosaic continuity
- Stone — Natural rock used in altars, tools, weapons, and construction
- Gold — Precious metal for coinage and ornament
- Silver — Precious metal for coinage and wealth
- Wilderness — Unsettled land of travel, testing, subsistence, and divine provision
- Swords — War blade of Nephite, Lamanite, and Jaredite armies
- Astronomy — Heavenly bodies and celestial events
Ideas and practices the text teaches or argues over: covenant, faith, apostasy.
- Cannibalism in War — Forced cannibalism among starving armies, reported as bravery
- Circumcision — The Abrahamic-Mosaic covenant rite that Christ's atonement does away
- All things common — Nephite practice of shared goods
- Sacrament — Communal bread-and-wine rite among the risen Jesus's followers
- Lex Talionis — Mosaic proportional retribution, overturned in Christ's sermon
- Spirit Affliction — Reported affliction by devils or unclean spirits and their removal
- Signs, Wonders, and Miracles — Extraordinary events publicly witnessed, reported, and contested
- Siege Warfare — Blockade to force surrender rather than open battle
- Night Operations — Concealment, infiltration, and readiness after dark
- Factionalism and Dissent — Internal political division that weakens the people
- Throne Usurpation — Seizing a kingdom by intrigue, murder, and political fraud
- Gesture and token — Bodily acts that carry meaning between persons
- Rending garments as token — Cloth torn as a covenant sign, with the tearing itself stating the terms
- Conquest and Subjugation — Warfare represented as reducing a people to bondage and installing rule
- Military Preparation — Readiness through intelligence, fortification, arms, and provisions
- Defensive Warfare — Nephite claims about defense, restraint, and refusal of vengeance
- Conferral by touch — The hand laid on a person, by which Spirit or authority passes
- Order of the Nehors — Religious affiliation associated with Amalekite and Amulonite synagogues
- Raising by the hand — Lifting a bowed person from the ground, glossed as a token of peace
- Lamanite Great Spirit — Lamoni's inherited religious language for a supreme divine being
- Captivity — Loss of liberty, confinement, and treatment of captured enemies
- Warfare — Military conflicts in Nephite history
- Weights and Measures — Nephite system of weights and measures
- Legal Profession — Lawyers and judges who administer law in public trials
- Hospitality and Hosting — Receiving guests into a household and providing food or shelter
- Fasting — Devotional abstinence joined with prayer, mourning, and spiritual power
- Revelation and Prophecy — Divine truth made known by the Spirit and declared to others
- Military Command — Appointed captains and commanders directing armies
- Sorcery and Witchcraft — A named forbidden occult practice, distinct from idolatry
- Wealth and Poverty — Material abundance, deprivation, and their moral consequences
- Civic Administration — Appointed judges, governors, and officers exercising public authority
- Political Liberty — Rights, privileges, and freedom from political bondage
- Reign of the Judges — Nephite government by elected judges under law
- Judgment Seat — Civic seat of Nephite judges
- Judicial Procedure — Trials, testimony, judgment, and legal process
- Crime and punishment — Legal accountability for acts, with belief protected from civil penalty
- Monarchy and Kingship — Rule by a king and the moral hazards of concentrated power
- Equality — Equal standing and mutual regard within a community
- Church Discipline — Church correction and removal of unrepentant members
- Trade and Commerce — Buying, selling, and traffic for gain
- Layered Territorial Kingship — Local kings, lands, and the authority of a king over a wider territory
- Wound Care — Binding, dressing, and tending bodily injuries
- Worship — Devotion to the true and living God in heart and assembly
- Preaching and Teaching — Authorized proclamation and instruction in the word of God
- Ordination — Setting apart priests and teachers for community ministry
- Church of God — Covenanted community of the baptized, organized for worship and care
- Clapping and clasping hands — Hands brought together in acclamation and in joy
- Mourning and Comfort — Shared grief, lamentation, and covenantal consolation
- Capital punishment — Execution as a legal and punitive measure
- Ordinances — Prescribed sacred performances that remember and point to God
- Seership — A recognized office for seeing and interpreting hidden records
- Treaties — Negotiated settlements governing land, war, and coexistence
- Bondage and Slavery — Political subjection, forced labor, and divine deliverance
- Bowing and obeisance — Lowering the body before a king or before God
- Voice of the people — Nephite political decision-making process
- Exploration — Parties searching for a destination through unfamiliar wilderness
- Reckoning of Time — Nephite dating from Lehi's departure, the judges, and Christ's sign
- Lending and Borrowing — Neighborly loans, repayment, and generosity
- Angelic Visitations — Reported angelic appearances and messages with public consequences
- Taxation and Tribute — Levies imposed by rulers and conquering powers
- Labor — Productive work, self-support, and exploited toil
- Public Proclamation — Official messages gathered, spoken, written, and sent among a people
- Royal Accession — Public installation and transfer of a king's authority
- Tradition of the Fathers — Inherited transmission of belief and identity across generations
- Translation — Rendering an ancient record through a seer's divine gift
- Migration and Colonization — A people relocating under a leader to found or reoccupy a settlement
- Animal Husbandry — Tending flocks, herds, and useful domestic animals
- Kneeling in prayer — The bodily posture of petition, held apart from prayer as an act
- Prayer — Calling upon God in faith, need, and continual devotion
- Law of Moses — Israelite religious observance maintained by early Nephite communities
- Chastity and Virtue — Sexual integrity treated as precious before God
- Sexual Transgression — Adultery, lust, and sexual exploitation condemned in scripture
- Alms — Charitable giving and its principles
- Ridding the garments — The prophetic idiom of standing clear of a people's blood
- Plural Marriage and Concubinage — The practice of taking multiple wives or concubines
- Baptism — Water ordinance witnessing repentance and covenant
- Secret combinations — Oath-bound conspiracies pursuing power, gain, and murder
- Feasts — Public and household meals of celebration, display, or excess
- Shaking the garments — Garments shaken before a congregation as a witness of clean hands
- Sackcloth and ashes — Mourning and repentance practice
- Divorce — Dissolution of marriage and Christ’s teaching on its moral consequences
- Holy Order of God — Ordained high-priest order that taught and organized the church
- Priests and Teachers — Community religious offices among Nephites and converted Lamanites
- Government Principles — Nephite principles of governance and law
- Law, civil — Nephite legal systems and governance
- Contention — Angry division and conflict among people
- Harvest and Increase — Agricultural yield, abundance, and seasonal gathering
- Cultivation and Sowing — Tilling land, planting seed, and tending fields
- Dancing and Merrymaking — Social dancing, singing, and celebration in narrative settings
- Stretching forth the hand — The arm extended toward heaven, toward persons, or toward an object
- Forbidden touch — The person or object that may not be laid hands on
- Hunting and Foraging — Wilderness subsistence by hunted game and wild food
- Persecute, persecution — Social pattern of oppression and conflict
- Burial of the Dead — Communal practice of interring or disposing of the slain and the dead
- Craftsmanship — Skilled artisanal labor as a valued social role
- Naming Customs — Naming lands, cities, and children after ancestors and first possessors
- Agriculture — Agricultural practices in Nephite society
- Marriage — Covenant family union and raising a righteous posterity
- Sacrifice and Offerings — Mosaic offerings of firstlings, later done away by Christ
- Oaths — Oaths in Nephite and Jaredite society
- Property and Ownership — Possession, loss, and defense of material goods and land
- Genealogical Record-Keeping — Preserving commanded family descent across generations
- Elder-Son Precedence — The expectation that the eldest leads, contested by appointment
- Visions and Dreams — Experiences recorded, interpreted, disputed, and acted upon
- Reformed Egyptian — The Nephites' altered script used for their engraved records
- Language — Inherited speech and writing preserved across generations
- Learning — Education, literacy, and cultivated understanding
- Family — Family roles in Nephite society