What is the Significance of Nephite Money

What is the significance of the Nephite monetary system in Alma 11?

We cannot say for sure. Perhaps Mormon was just male-brained and liked esoteric trivia for its own sake (the system he describes does not seem to have been his own). However, we should probably assume that it has symbolic significance.

Why should we assume that?

The Book of Mormon is an extract from a copious collection of sacred and historical records. Our default assumption should be that everything was selected with a purpose by the editor. In fact, the section on the monetary system has every appearance of Mormon adding it in personally.

Recall that ancient societies were almost all massively more inclined to symbolism than ours is.

What is the significance of the value of the coins (or weights) doubling up except for the highest value coin?

The significance may be that the values were hierarchical. The highest value coin being worth the value of them all may be a reflection of God’s place at the head of the hierarchy.

Abraham 3:19 describes a hierarchy of intelligences very similar to the Nephite monetary system

These two facts do exist, that there are two spirits, one being more intelligent than the other; there shall be another more intelligent than they; I am the Lord thy God, I am more intelligent than they all.

There is a similar expression in Alma 7 where the ‘they all’ phrase is also explicitly referring to a member of the Godhead

For behold, I say unto you there be many things to come; and behold, there is one thing which is of more importance than they all—for behold, the time is not far distant that the Redeemer liveth and cometh among his people.

Coincidentally its only a few verses later in Alma 7 where we get the famous passage about Christ suffering our pains and our troubles as well as our sins, which points to the atonement being Christ experiencing the sum of all human existence.

We suspect that God being the sum of all human stuff was an ancient trope which the Nephite monetary system reflected.  It is meant to indicate to the mind a hierarchy where God is not just the top of the hierarchy but the sum of the hierarchy.

What is the significance of two equal monetary systems, one based on gold and the other on silver?

We suspect it symbolizes the Father and the Son, different but equal.  The silver hierarchy and the gold hierarchy both have a value at top that is equal to “them all,” which suggests the Godhead.  Silver is generally considered to be lesser than gold, but in the Nephite system the silver units had the same value as the gold units.  This is a neat figure of the relationship between the Father and the Son–the Son acknowledges the Father as his superior but they are also equal.

Coincidentally in the remainder of Chapter 11 Zeezrom attacks the belief in Christ as being incompatible with there being one God; Zeezrom also attacks the idea that Christ can have cross-identity with the Father (“Is the Son of God the very Eternal Father?”–said, I believe, with a sneer).  Mormon’s inclusion of the Nephite monetary system is a tidy pre-rebuttal of the Nehorite attack memes he’s about to quote.

The gold and the silver could also symbolize the body and the spirit, which is the subject of the last part of Amulek’s sermon in Alma 11.  Amulek says that at the resurrection the soul and body are united together (equal in value) and we have a “bright” (like money) recollection of “all of our guilt” (like the limnah and the onti are the sum of all the monetary values that have gone before them).

Coincidentally Zeezrom’s dig the Son also being the Father harks back to Abinadi’s sermon in Mosiah 15, which would have been formative sermon for the Nephite Church and was probably a key doctrine of theirs.  In that sermon, the very first thing that Abinadi says is that the Son represents the Flesh and the Father represents the Will and the Spirit and Christ can be called both the Father and the Son because he unites the flesh and the spirit together (v. 1-5).  Mind status: blown.

What we have here is a monetary system that arguably reflects the Father and the Son, and arguably reflects the relationship between body and spirit, as Mormon’s preface to a debate that is mostly just about those two subjects–a debate which is a continuation of a sermon in Mosiah 15 where Abinadi explicitly links the Father and the Son to the body and the spirit.

So Joseph Smith is some kind of evil genius to have subtly arranged for all these coincidences when he wrote the Book of Mormon, right?

Lol get out.

How did you figure all this out?

There were three things.

It started with reading Alma 7 a bit ago and being bugged by the ‘they all’ language, which is bad English grammar.  It reminded me that I was bugged by the same verbiage in the book of Abraham.

Then when we sat down as a family to read Alma 11, I had a spiritual impression to look for symbolism in the monetary system.  The initial insight I had, and it was the only insight at the time, was the limnah/onti possibly being a representation of God based on them being the sum off all the values.

Finally, when we were reading the rest of the chapter it occurred to me that Zeezrom was probably taking a shot at Abinadi’s sermon.

The rest just came out when I sat down to write this post.  I am surprised as you are.

There is always more to know.

And God can take even stupid stuff, like me being petty about grammar, and turn it to good use.

What is the significance of the six onties of silver that Zeezrom offers Amulek to deny the Supreme Being?

For the Hebrews, 6 represents imperfection.  Silver, as mentioned, is both generally considered to be a “lesser” metal but for the Nephites may have symbolized Christ and/or the flesh.  Zeezrom was a smart man, so he probably understood at some level that his offer  had emotional valences of Amulek accepting lower status in return for wealth.  Basically a humiliation ritual.  So the offer had two levels–it had the doctrinal level where he wanted to show that Amulek didn’t really believe his doctrine.  But it also had the social status level where he was wanting Amulek to humiliate himself and thus show that Amulek’s beliefs were embarrassing.

However, God also works through wicked men so there is actually a deep symbolic meaning here that we can also benefit from.  The message is that denying God means accepting imperfection (6) and accepting the limits of the flesh (silver).  The message is also that believing Christ was imperfect ultimately means denying God.  Could the message also be that believing the flesh cannot be perfected also ultimately means denying God?  I believe so.

What is the significance of Mormon casually tacking on that “an antion of gold is equal to three shiblons”?

No idea, what the heck Mormon.