It is not clear how Mormon knew that Aaron’s heckler was an Amalekite, since the congregation included both Amalekites and Amulonites. Perhaps Mormon’s source included details that he omitted.
History: The mention of a synagogue as a worship center is controversial in the Book of Mormon, as many scholars hold that there were no preexilic synagogues from which the Lehites could have taken their pattern. (See commentary accompanying Alma 16:13 and 2 Nephi 26:25–26.) Regardless of what it might have been in the Old World, however, what is a Book of Mormon synagogue? “Synagogue” is a Greek term, literally, “a meeting place.” As we have already seen, the relationship between the words on the plates and Joseph’s English words can be quite fluid. It is impossible to know whether the plate text said “meeting place,” which Joseph translated into the more familiar “synagogue,” or whether it actually meant a particular type of structure. In Jewish literature, “synagogue” refers to both the community that met and the structure in which it met. In at least one instance, “synagogue” describes what must have been an open-air gathering. (See commentary accompanying Alma 31:12–13.)