“He Planted Vineyards Round About in the Land”

Botanical: The use of the term vineyards brings up the problem of pre-Columbian grapes in the New World. Sorenson suggests:

"Wine" and the "vineyards" in King Noah's land (Mosiah 11:15) can definitely be clarified by attention to linguistic matters. Those terms seem puzzling at first glance, since wine was apparently not made from grapes in the New World. (Certain grapes were present, but we do not know that they were used for food or drink. ) However, the Book of Mormon nowhere says that "grapes" were present, only "vineyards." The Spaniards spoke of "vineyards" referring to plantings of the maguey (agave) plant from which pulque is made. And various sorts of "wine" were described by the early Europeans in Mesoamerica: one from bananas in eighteenth-century Guatemala, another from pineapples in the West Indies, palm wine from the coyol palm trunk (manufactured from Veracruz to Costa Rica), and the balche of the Mayan area, made from a fermented tree bark. Clearly Noah the "wine"-bibber in the book of Mosiah could have been drinking something intoxicating besides the squeezings of the grape (Sorenson, John L. _An Ancient American Setting for the Book of Mormon._ FARMS 1985, pl. 186).

Social: If we allow for a possible translation mislabeling here, we have the emphasis on alcoholic drinks rather than the plant from which they were made. Mormon's point isn't the type of wine, but the effect of the wine. It is also quite likely that Mormon's point isn't absolutely the wine, but the "wine in abundance…he became a wine-bibber…." Rather than any drink, it is the excess in particular that is examined.

Doctrinal: The printing of the Book of Mormon precedes Section 86 of the Doctrine and Covenants by 3 years. When the Book of Mormon was translated there was no clear recommendation by the Lord condemning alcohol, and so this verse should not be read as though it followed Section 86. It clearly indicates the Lord's disdain of alcoholic excess. The Bible exhibits this same general conception of the relationship of alcohol and spirituality in the prohibition of alcohol in situations of particular religious purity while it was clearly acceptable at other times.