The Book of Mormon: Another Testament of Jesus Christ

The Book of Jarom is among the shortest texts within The Book of Mormon. Like the other books in this section, it occupies just a single chapter. It records a brief historical narrative of the time of Enos’s son, Jarom. Although Jarom exercises the office of prophet like his familial predecessors, he refrains from recording his prophecies and visions, since the small plates on which these records are kept are now running out of space. Further, he feels that his prophetic teachings are similar enough to those of his predecessors and those recorded in other sources that to record them in the small plates would be redundant.

Jarom portrays the Nephites as continuing to live under the biblical commands of the law of Moses, kept diligent in religion by periodic exhortations and rebukes from prophets: “And it came to pass that the prophets of the Lord did threaten the people of Nephi, according to the word of God, that if they did not keep the commandments, but should fall into transgression, they should be destroyed from off the face of the land” (Jarom 1:10). Nephite civilization flourished and began to grow wealthy, while the Lamanites are depicted in similar terms to those used by Enos, emphasizing the barbarism (from the Nephite perspective) of their culture. The Nephites continue to grow and enjoy stability during Jarom’s lifetime—a sign of God’s mercy despite their spiritual waywardness—and at the end of his life, he commits the care of the Nephite records to his son, Omni.

Like Enos and Jarom, Omni is a brief text of only a single chapter, and it represents the final installment of writings from the Small Plates of Nephi. Unlike all the other texts preceding it, however, it represents itself as the product of many different authors and covers a span of some 200 years of history. The authors of the Book of Omni do not portray themselves as prophets (nor even as diligent followers of God’s commands), but simply as the current custodians of the records, which have been handed down to them. The plates thus pass through a series of hands as each custodian lives and dies, with each making a brief record of his own time. It begins with Omni, Jarom’s son, who then passes them to Amoron, then Chemish, Abinadom, and finally Amaleki, whose concluding account is the most thorough of the set.

The authors of the Book of Omri narrate a series of wars between the Lamanites and the Nephites, in which some of them were combatants. The spiritual situation described in the Book of Jarom continues, with the Nephites still enjoying God’s protection, largely thanks to the continuing presence of some righteous believers among them. Amaleki’s concluding account, however, introduces a new period of Nephite history. He describes how the righteous king Mosiah led an exodus of the Nephites into the wilderness, where they came to the land of Zarahemla and founded a new kingdom, together with another group of residents descended from ancient Israel. Mosiah was also distinguished for being a seer, which enables him to interpret ancient writings, much as Joseph Smith with The Book of Mormon itself: “he did interpret the engravings by the gift and power of God” (Omni 1:20). King Mosiah thus successfully translates an ancient record of the Jaredite people (of which a version is recorded in the Book of Ether). Despite the flourishing of the new kingdom at Zarahemla, two expeditions elect to return to the previous Nephite homeland but appear to be unsuccessful in their attempts to reestablish a presence there. Amaleki also describes the transfer of kingship from Mosiah to his son Benjamin, who was also a good and godly king. At the end of the book, Amaleki delivers the Nephite records over to King Benjamin’s keeping.

The Words of Mormon is a short work of a single chapter, distinct from both The Book of Mormon—referring to the overall collection of texts—and the Book of Mormon, a text that follows 3 and 4 Nephi later in the corpus (See: Mormon under Key Figures). The Words of Mormon serves as an appendix added to the Small Plates of Nephi and an introduction to the works translated from Mormon’s abridgement of the Large Plates. The text is written by Mormon, a later compiler and preserver of the records. According to traditional chronology, Mormon would have lived in the fourth century CE, and in addition to preserving earlier records, he also authored or redacted many of the central works in The Book of Mormon. Mormon notes that the Small Plates are notable for their records of the prophetic exhortations of the earlier periods: “I shall take these plates, which contain these prophesyings and revelations, and put them with the remainder of the record, for they are choice unto me” (Words of Mormon 1:6).

The Words of Mormon offers a brief overview of the reign of King Benjamin, thus connecting the narrative arc of Omni with that of Mosiah (see below). Benjamin’s reign is characterized by a successful military defense against Lamanite forces and the repudiation of several people who falsely claimed the title of Christ. In addition to his prowess as a political leader, Benjamin was acclaimed for his wisdom and piety: “a holy man, and he did reign over his people in righteousness” (Words of Mormon 1:17).