History: Modern readers might assume that the priests of Noah were religious teachers, not scientists, but this division of knowledge familiar to a modern reader would have been foreign to the ancient world. The priests would have been learned in all aspects of their culture, both religious and scientific/technological. Thus, their teachings would have been valuable even if they chose to mute religion. For Mormon, however, this was the essential point. Regardless of what advantages the Lamanites may have gained, they did not learn the really important lessons about Yahweh’s relations with man.