Der Untergang des Nephitenlandes

For no particular reason this time through the Book of Mormon my understanding has been particularly drawn to the historical  narrative of the Book of Mormon as an authentic ancient text.  In that light, I am increasingly convinced that what we have is an extremely typical rise-and-fall arc that many other cultures and civilizations have gone through.

We’ve already covered evidence that the Nephites had a ‘modernity.’  The evidence that they had a fall is blatantly obvious, no one will disagree with that.

But still it isn’t immediately apparent reading the text that we are going through an overall Rise-and-Fall arc and I think there are three reasons why.

1. The Pride Cycle.  The editor’s emphasis on small cycles of prosperity and wickedness and poverty and righteousness obscures the over all trajectory.
2. Christ’s coming.  This is a big ol’ outside context event that distorts the underlying natural flows, like dropping a rock in the pond.
3.  The Nephite-Lamanite distinction.  The “Lamanite” category is a black box that conceals a lot of change and even different groups.  In particular, in the crucial civilizational arc from King Mosiah up through Christ’s coming, the distinction between Nephites and Lamanites obscures that Nephite civilization appears to be on an expansion phase.  My theory is that read carefully the Book of Mormon shows that the Lamanites of that era were successfully being brought into Nephite civilization–we are actually seeing what probably looks like successful Nephite imperialism to an outside observer–but Mormon’s focus on the Nephites proper covers that up.  Let’s hit a few points.  First, there is some kind of expansionary impulse going on in this time period.  We have Zeniff’s crew and we have the wave of settlement happening with Hagoth et al. into the Land of Desolation and elsewhere.  It’s a growth phase.  Cities start popping up all over. (We also seem to have much better, more widespread, and more thorough records, which is another evidence of a certain stage in a civilizational cycle).  Second, the Lamanites are now part of the Nephite world in a way they weren’t before.  The Nephites weren’t even totally clear on where the Lamanites were but now they are all part of the same geopolitical sphere.  For the first time we now have an understanding of events in the Lamanite sphere whereas before (and later) they are just this vague off stage presence.  The Lamanites have Nephite teachers and a number of Nephite diasporas throughout their lands–look at the priests of King Noah or the other dissenters that the sons of King Mosiah encounter.  There is a huge interest among the Lamanites in Nephite culture and knowledge, as demonstrated by Ammon’s mission.  A Nephite literally becomes the Lamanite king.  After a couple of generations the Lamanites are fully part of the Nephite religious sphere–as witness Samuel the Lamanite–and by the time of Christ’s coming and thereafter its not clear that there is a meaningful distinction between Nephites and Lamanites anymore.  They have homogenized into one cultural mass.  For comparison, imagine we had a history written by an Englishman that divided the world into “British” and “foreigners.”  He might talk about how some British settled into Americas and then prospered but then there was a war with foreigners and America came to be ruled by “foreigners,” because in his mind its either British or foreigner, and then Britain prospered but eventually come World War I and World War II had to accept allies among the foreigners and now alas is a secondary state to a foreigner country that even has bases on British territory.  This would not be a totally senseless narrative.  But it would also obscure the way that America is an anglo nation.

To really make the case that the Book of Mormon is a record from a bog-standard civilizational arc we would need some evidence of feminism and a sexual revolution sometime in the Mosiah-Christ’s Coming period.  Nothing stands out off hand.  See if you see anything as we read through these sections over the next couple of months.

Just for fun and despite what I said above about Christ’s coming, you can map the Nephites onto the Romans pretty well.  Even the actual dates sorta line up.

Late Roman Republic, Grachii to Augustus <–> Mosiah to Christ’s Coming
Imperial peace, Augustus through the Five Good Emperors <–> Christ establishes 200 years of peace
The crisis of the 3rd century, ongoing decay to collapse <–> the Nephite peace falls apart, ongoing decay to collapse