“Notwithstanding the Preaching”

Brant Gardner

Textual: This is Mormon’s conclusion. What he has in his historical information is two pieces of information. Helaman and his brethren preach. There is tremendous social unrest that is pulling people into apostasy and civil rebellion. What Mormon must do is reconcile the dissonance between those two facts. Helaman is a good man, and faithful. The gospel should prevail – but it wasn’t. Thus Mormon feels the need to specifically note that the failure was in the hearers, not in the preachers. The people were led away, in spite of all Helaman could do. Mormon is declaring that the fault of the problem does not lie with Helaman and his brethren, but rather with Amalickiah.

Multidimensional Commentary on the Book of Mormon

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