Phillips underscores that Mormon’s interest in Moroni1 is exceptional, especially when compared to the wars in Helaman 4 which result in the Nephites’ near-destruction and the capture of most of the Nephite lands (v. 5). The recovery of some land is covered in verse 9. Events that occupy whole chapters in Alma are condensed to single verses in Helaman.
According to my reading, what makes these particular wars important are the personalities involved in them. Moroni was a powerful man of God, but he is also presented as a military innovator who invented defensive armaments and tactics that later became standard (Alma 43:19). Possibly his innovations continued to be used in Mesoamerica, a possibility that I see in the parallel Aztec tactics, discussed below. It seems reasonable to me that Mormon, a general, studied Moroni as carefully as military men have for centuries studied Sun Tzu’s The Art of War. While there is no indication that Moroni documented his strategies, unquestionably his innovations were noticed and replicated.
Mormon’s professional admiration and Moroni’s lasting military influence may explain the particulars of these battles, but not why the descriptions of war in Alma are different from those any other book. Phillips correctly notes that the greatest detail is concentrated on the period of 75 B.C. to 25 A.D., and I argue that it is the time, not the tactics, that explain Mormon’s driving focus. If he were interested only in warfare, we surely would have seen much more of war, as Welch indicates.
This period has, as its focus, the expectation of, arrival of, and aftermath of, the Messiah’s mission. All other purposes are secondary. Mormon calls himself a disciple of Christ but appears to function in an apostle’s role: “Behold, I am a disciple of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. I have been called of him to declare his word among his people, that they might have everlasting life” (3 Ne. 5:13).
He understands the Messiah’s mission as the most important event in the history of the world. To place that event in its larger human context, however, he must give us the story of the Nephites, reporting not only great hope in their revelations about the coming Messiah, but great sorrow in their turning away. During this period, Mormon tells the story of the human struggle to preserve this hope in the face of a world filled with increasing destruction. The closer the event comes, the greater detail we have about this struggle. Not only does he describe the wars in greater detail, but he also provides more detail on all aspects of the Nephite religious struggle. It is not that Alma and his times were more righteous, but that his time more clearly defined the conditions that prevailed when the Messiah arrived.
To understand how the Messiah’s birth and visit transformed the Nephite world, Mormon depicts that world’s desperation and degeneracy. He must show us how a people led by such men as Mosiah1, Benjamin, Mosiah2, Alma1, and Alma2 could fall so far. He contrasts Benjamin’s new covenant where his people accepted the Messiah’s name with a time when the majority of Nephites had rejected belief in the coming Messiah.
These wars depict how drastically the Nephite religious culture changes before Christ’s coming. These wars, like the Messiah’s coming, were predicted; hence, Mormon shows their fulfillment. (See Helaman, Part 1: Context, Chapter 2, “History at the Service of God: Mormon’s Structural Message.”)
History: This time period is called the Late Preclassic by Mesoamerican archaeologists, and covers 200 B.C. to A.D. 200. Clues about the Maya during this period apparently point toward increased militarism, even though the best information on that characteristic comes during the Classic (A.D. 200–600). I hypothesize that the Nephite/Lamanite wars fit into general pressures that were building in the late Preclassic.
For example, at the site of Edzna (in the Campeche lowlands), during the Late Preclassic, a surge in the population was accompanied by a system of canals and reservoirs that may have had a defensive function. Chiapa de Corzo, which Sorenson locates in Zarahemla’s political sphere of influence, also shows signs of militarism during the late Preclassic. These fragments of archeological information suggest the plausibility of increased warfare in this region.
The Book of Mormon narrative confirms both increased and larger-scale war. Mormon may be telling us how the Nephite world deteriorated in the count-down to Christ’s coming, but he is also mirroring events swirling around the Nephite nation in the larger culture. They could not fail to have some participation in it.
Redaction: As Mormon has done before, he tacks his concluding summary on the beginning of the next chapter rather placing it at the end of the chapter where it seems most relevant. His reason is that the chapter break marks a shift between quoted material (Alma’s instructions to his sons) and narrative material, which Mormon is editing from his sources. Mormon makes transitions between types of material more important than between concepts.