Verse 2 highlights the characteristics of the most serious Nephite apostasies. The issue is never over the nature of ritual purity as it is in the New Testament (e.g., Matt. 9:10–11, Luke 6:1–2). While the absolute dividing lines among Sadducees, Pharisees, and Essene are not at all clear, the substance of some issues obviously stem from different interpretations and applications of the law of Moses. None of them deal with the denial of an Atoning Messiah.
The New World was unique both in retaining its belief in the Atoning Messiah (see 1 Nephi, Part 1: Context, Chapter 2, “The Historical Setting of 1 Nephi”), but also in the tremendous religious and social divisions that belief caused. Noah and his priests rejected the Atoning Messiah; affirming the Messiah formed the substance of Abinadi’s preaching. (See “Excursus: Religion of the Nehors,” following Alma 1.)
Only a short generation after the anti-Messiah apostates had defected to the Lamanites (W of M 1:14–16), the same conflict erupts again in Zarahemla. Thus, even inside Benjamin’s society that had been drawn together as one people in a powerful experience, something was still pulling the youngsters away—those children who could not rely on their personal transformation to motivate their adoption of the covenant and name that Benjamin confers upon them.
This situation requires more examination. Cultural change is a complex topic, and multiple factors influence any change. While it is true that the opportunity for innovation exists in any human society, the fact is that change occurs less frequently in self-contained societies. Change typically occurs at the individual level, but the factors that enable individual change eventually spread to the group.
The particular type of change that seems to be described here substantially undermines the common belief structures of an entire community. Surely the adults, with their shared beliefs, are passing them on to their children. In the ancient world, religion’s role as the very definition of reality was so strong as to be nearly absolute. This concept of religion’s power was so strong that, when one group was defeated by another, the reason for the defeat was often given as the superiority of the winning group’s god.
Why, then, are children of very committed parents discarding a fundamental belief so rapidly and in such conspicuously large numbers? That should not happen in a self-contained society. H. G. Barnett, who wrote an early study of innovation, suggests: “Some cultural changes… are derived, incidental, unforeseen, and even unwanted. They are in a sense forced as a result of a change in some other part of the cultural nexus. The initial and dominant change is the focus of attention. It may have been instituted by some member of the in-group, imposed by a conquering group, or voluntarily adopted from an outside source.” The change in Zarahemla would clearly be unwanted change from the parents’ perspective. What, then, is its origin? An internal change seems unlikely, since we would have to suppose that an individual in that group of children was a religious innovator and a sufficiently important person for his or her ideas to become popular with peers despite the opposition of their parents.
However, this is the same heresy that occurred in Noah’s case and that Sherem suggested even earlier. In other words, this tension has gone on for hundreds of years. The children are not innovating, but copying, which means that they are copying from a group outside their own. In short, this dissension indicates continued contact with a group outside of Zarahemla who had not adopted Benjamin’s covenant.
Significantly, because they denied the coming mission of the Atoning Messiah, “they could not understand the word of God; and their hearts were hardened” (v. 3). This rejection of a specific tenet of Nephite religion led them to reject the entire “word of God”—in other words, virtually all of the religious beliefs of their parents and, hence, their parents’ view of how the world worked. Almost certainly, they borrowed a competing worldview from another religion. Like other religious conflicts in the Book of Mormon, this one apparently relied on the existence of a competing religion in their immediate vicinity—the same religion that had attacked the Nephite religion in the city of Nephi as well as in Zarahemla.
Threads of Mesoamerican thought can be traced from the Olmec (the earliest high Mesoamerican culture) through the Maya and later to the Aztecs (at the time of the conquest). In a world filled with such a consistent but diametrically opposed worldview, it is not surprising that there are so many apostasies from Nephite religion. While I see the presence of other Mesoamerican cultures as the strong influence in Nephite apostasy, the particular nature of the apostasy suggests that the attraction was to Mesoamerican social institutions, not Mesoamerican religion per se. There is no indication that the Nephites adopted Mesoamerican gods. Rather, they adopted Mesoamerican kingship, its accompanying social hierarchy, and the preeminence it gave wealth. The Nephite apostasy suggests that the changes were adaptations of social hierarchies into a version of the traditional brass-plate religion accompanied by specific denials of the Atoning Messiah. Perhaps Nephite egalitarianism was so tightly bound to the doctrine of the Messiah that rejecting egalitarianism also required rejecting the Messiah. (See“Excursus: The Religion of the Nehors,” following Alma 1.)