The Zoramites occupy a separate city in Zarahemla’s political hegemony. Mesoamerican cities tended to be located twelve to twenty miles apart, and the city centers were separated by farmland and perhaps untilled areas. This physical separation allowed for internal autonomy, even when trade and military ties linked them to the dominant city in the polity—Zarahemla in this case. The leader of the city is named Zoram, and the people have taken his name. Their land is Antionum, not Zoram (v. 3). It is probable that the name Antionum existed prior to their arrival and designated a spread-out farming community.
Text: Mormon’s story must make a transition from an individual dissenter to dissenting city. As noted at the end of chapter 30, the Zoramites’ killing of Korihor may have been a literary device to effect that transition. Mormon has no chapter break here, so the Zoram episode flows directly from that of Korihor. This placement is a signal that Mormon conceptually linked these stories and that both advance the main idea of the chapter he is writing.
A key to understanding Mormon’s narrative development in this chapter is that his source is Alma2’s record. Regardless of what happened factually in Nephite history, Alma’s record reflected his perception of its important events. Obviously Alma stressed religious contention and efforts to correct religious error, as demonstrated by his major stories:
• The story of Nehor. This conflict over alternate religious ideas focuses on Alma’s role in combating this threat to religious stability.
• The Amlicite (or Amalekite) invasion. This story is mostly a military story but still fits Alma’s themes of religious conflict because the Amlicites are Nephite dissenters.
• Alma’s missionary journey through the land of Zarahemla. To strengthen the church, Alma gives up political governance and works on religious unity. He begins with reforms in Zarahemla and ends with the more apostate Ammonihahites. In-between, he visits the faithful in Gideon. Alma holds up the faith of the true convert as an example, and it would not be surprising if one reason he notices such steadfast faith among true converts is that he himself is one. Within the Ammonihahite story, Alma develops Zeezrom’s sub-narrative as person-to-person “battle” to carry out the theme of gospel versus apostate ideas. He uses this same technique for Nehor, Zeezrom, and later Korihor.
• The sons of Mosiah’s missionary efforts among the Lamanites. Of course, that story is not Alma’s record, but either Alma included Ammon’s record in his own or Mormon had independent access to Ammon’s record. In any case, the brothers’ experience fits with the themes Alma builds and are not out of place in Alma’s material.
• Chapter 28 has a condensed version of a major Lamanite invasion. Alma records the event but diminishes its military aspects to emphasize human and religious consequences.
• The conflict with Korihor.
• The conflict with the Zoramites.
• Alma’s blessings on his three sons.
• The Lamanite invasion led by the apostate Amalekites. This episode completes Alma’s record. The remaining chapters in our book of Alma come from Helaman, Alma’s eldest son.
The only apparent aberration in this list is the last item, the Amalekite invasion, which is much longer than Alma’s previous treatment of military actions. I hypothesize that Alma’s record contained more detailed warfare information but that Mormon made the editorial choice to reduce such material to give greater emphasis to religious conflict and Alma’s attempts to combat religious error.
Thus, either Alma emphasized, or Mormon selected, events in Alma’s life dealing with apostasy and conversion—not surprisingly, since the foundational event in Alma’s life was his own conversion from apostasy. He was uniquely attuned to the temptations of apostasy, because he had once succumbed to them. He was keenly interested in the process of conversion and made sure that he praised true converts, regardless of Lamanite connections. They included the people of Gideon (Noah’s people in the land of Nephi) and the people of Ammon. Alma had apparently been tainted by Lamanite ideas but had become a firm convert. The people of Gideon and people of Ammon were prime examples of the faithfulness of Lamanite conversions.
S. Kent Brown has suggested that Alma’s conversion experience heavily influenced his sermons. I agree and would add that this conversion influenced virtually all of the episodes he selected for his own record.