Textual: As with any other incident Mormon records, we must ask ourselves why this particular incident is included in his abridgement. While we might say that it is obviously significant, we are unable to tell whether it is as significant as things that were left out, or more significant than the material Mormon chooses not to include. Even the determination of the value of the incident depends upon our interest in it. For a linguist, a discussion of the appearance of the plates might be more interesting, providing some useful clues as to its identity. For someone else, the details of how Limhi organizes his people for their departure may be more interesting than this exchange. The point is, of course, that this incident is important to Mormon, and we should understand the reason it was important to him.
It is too simple to say that the incident is important because of the information contained on the plates of Ether. While the information on those plates is important, and we do eventually receive that information, the inclusion of that text in our Book of Mormon comes much later. In the current context, the Mormon selects the important information in the form of an abbreviated conversation. The conversation actually says nothing of the text of the plates. The conversation takes place prior to either Limhi or Ammon understanding what the plates were. While Mormon would have the advantage of knowing that the eventual translation would reveal information of religious significance, at the time of this recorded/reported conversation, the plates could just as easily have been tribute lists, or divination aids, both of which are text types known for Mesoamerica, albeit much later in time, and not on plates.
Mormon gives absolutely no foreshadowing of the content of the plates. For Mormon, then, this exchange between Limhi and Ammon has more to do with the exchange than the eventual translation of the plates. Mormon includes this information because it describes the spiritual position of a seer. Mosiah II was such a man, and that spiritual prowess is what interests Mormon, not his linguistic abilities.
Note: For a further discussion of verse 13, see the discussion of verses 16 and 17 below.
Mosiah 8:15
15 And the king said that a seer is greater than a prophet.
The way some modern readers would understand this verse is as a verbal foil to the following discussion of the definition of a seer. We are much more interested in Ammon’s “right” definition than in Limhi’s “wrong” conclusion. Nevertheless, we really must ask ourselves why Limhi might have thought a seer greater than a prophet. Why would anyone think that a seer might be greater than a prophet?
The key to understanding is to realize that Ammon is not correcting Limhi, but rather agreeing with him. Ammon has specifically has associated a seer with one who is able to read a specific kind of text. He has described Mosiah as one who can: “…translate all records that are of ancient date.” The key is not the text itself, but that it is an ancient text. It is the ancientness of the writing that is significant, and sets it apart from the kind of recording that must have occurred so that we have this exchange. The point is that the text deals with the past.
To understand the importance of the ancient text, we need to understand the way the past was conceived in ancient Israel and in ancient Mesoamerica (and likely in many other parts of the ancient world). History was not simply something that had happened, but a glimpse at cycles that have occurred, but will occur again. For Israel, “the unifying principle [acted] like a magnet in evoking a pattern amongst iron filings. It created a pattern of history out of all its complexities, a pattern which disclosed the previously hidden purpose of God” (Robinson, H. Wheeler. Inspiration and Revelation in the Old Testament. Oxford: Clarendon Press. 1946, p. 129). For Israel, the past revealed the form of the future. One of the manifestations of this patterning of life and history can be seen in the numerous ways in which the Exodus became the model for subsequent events, including Lehi and his family.
In Mesoamerica, all time ran in repeating cycles. The creation myth that was shared among the Maya and Nahua told of recurring cycles of destruction and new creations in which the destruction/renewal of the sun was the principle event. The serendipitous arrival of the Spanish (serendipitous for the Spanish, at least) in a year which symbolized change and renewal allowed them to be seen as a predicted return of a god, Quetzalcoatl. That same year had come and gone before, but the arrival of the Spaniards created a connection to mythological themes. This historical event became a cyclical event, and the present repeated the past. Sadly, the greatest repetition of the past was not Cortez’ arrival becoming the triumphal return of Quetzalcoatl, but the eerie way that the destruction of the Aztec kingdom repeated the destruction of Tula - an event also linked indelibly to Quetzalcoatl in Nahua mythology.
A seer, therefore, was one who could not simply read about the past, but have the past revealed to him – to have the “real truth” of the past revealed, not simply the record of the past. With a conception of the past that linked it to the future, a seer was then one who could see the future because he could see the past, whereas a prophet saw only the future that was revealed to him. As seer would have the larger patterns available to his prophecy.
Note how this fits into Ammon’s discussion of the seer – not as a redefinition of a seer as something else, but rather as the confirmation of Limhi’s perception of the true standing of the seer (see the next three verses).