The book of Alma begins a new phase in Nephite record keeping. It is the first time that we begin to see consistent listing of the years. In the small plates, dates had been given according to the time after Lehi’s family left Jerusalem, if they were given at all. Now, we will begin to see consistent listing of the years from a new starting point. The beginning of the reign of the judges was seen as a reformulation of Nephite society, and apparently supported by a change in the way dates were recorded.
The new method of record keeping appears to come from the large plates, and represents a change that organized the historical information on those plates. From this time forward, information is organized according to years. Mormon will provide the accounting of time from the beginning of the reign of the judges until the record of the birth of the Messiah, which will provide another new beginning date.
Mormon’s work itself will follow the basic organization of collecting information, either by single years, or sets of years. We will see that he pays attention to time, and if there is no other reason for ending a chapter, he will end a chapter to correspond to a five-year period. Among the Maya, this was a hotun, a period of five years. The Maya later raised stone stela on five-year anniversaries to summarize the history of those five-year periods. Mormon does not organize his record into five-year periods, but he does pay attention to them when he has no more important reason for ending one chapter and beginning a new one.