“The Queen Having Heard of the Fame of Ammon”

Brant Gardner

Mormon has chosen to leave out a piece of this story, which simply was not important to him. Mormon has given us a very rapid transition from the moment the king fell as though dead to the resolution of that state two days later. Surely that very moment would have seen some rather dramatic events. Ammon is speaking with the king, and the king calls upon a new God, then falls down dead (or so it was clearly assumed). This can hardly have passed without notice nor concern.

Since Ammon is still alive, and free to attend the queen when she calls, we know that Ammon was not blamed for the king’s state, though he could have been. There would have been great confusion, and perhaps someone might have detained Ammon, or perhaps they still considered him possibly “more than a man” and left him alone. In any case, there could not have been a quiet end to the audience before the king. The silence by Mormon belies what must have been a fuller and more vivid description of the aftermath of this striking occurrence.

Multidimensional Commentary on the Book of Mormon

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