Alma 63:15 reported that an army of dissenters had come against Moronihah and been beaten back. Given this military action in the thirty-ninth year of the reign of the judges, Mormon makes the almost sardonic comment that, in the beginning of the fortieth year, there began to be serious difficulty among the Nephites. The pressures have been steadily mounting internally as well as externally. Moronihah’s defeated invasion was an external problem, but the most serious difficulties are the internal problems—the secret combinations. As I argued in Helaman, Part 1: Context, Chapter 3, “The Gadianton Robbers in Mormon’s Theological History: Their Structural Role and Plausible Identification,” Mormon sees the Gadianton robbers as the ultimate cause of the Nephite civilization’s collapse. Their presence is Mormon’s definition of “serious difficulty.”
Chronology: The fortieth year of the reign of the judges translates to approximately 54 B.C. in the correlation used in this commentary. (See commentary accompanying 1 Nephi 10:4.)
Text: This verse introduces a completely new book—a more important break than a chapter change. Possibly the original plates of Nephi had some type of colophon to identify the writer and to explain why a new book was beginning, but Mormon elected not to include it. He is in the middle of a terrible story. Events in the book of Helaman continue the conflicts with which the book of Alma terminated, and Mormon therefore begins this new book with no more fanfare than he would have begun a new chapter. He continues to skimp on historical details, providing just enough to give us the context of the times.
As a result, the book’s name, but not the narrative function, changes. If we were to work from the hypothesis that Joseph Smith was the text’s sole author (which I do not), we would wonder why he would start a new book when no significant change had occurred. As the translation of an ancient document, however, the answer is much simpler. Mormon starts a new book because his source was a new book.
Why, however, did Helaman2 choose to start a new record set rather than continue adding to Alma’s record? I argue that the answer can be deduced from information in the previous chapter and the following chapter. Helaman2’s uncle and father had both added to the book of Alma, yet Helaman2 does not.
Alma 63:11 records Shiblon’s transfer of the plates to Helaman2, the son of Helaman1. Helaman 2:2 records Helaman2’s appointment as chief judge. This appointment is the reason for the change in the book’s name. Alma’s record began with Alma2 as a chief judge and as the religious leader. A new dynasty began with him; he therefore gave his name to a new book in the records. The record began while Alma was the political leader, but he abdicated that responsibility to concentrate on his religious duties but retained the plates. When he passed on the plates, he did so to his own son, Helaman1, but Helaman1 did not hold a political office. When Helaman2 received the plates from Shiblon, he was not a political ruler. Therefore, when he received the plates, the text recorded his receiving them as part of the dynasty following Alma.
In the book of Helaman, however, Helaman2 rules as the chief judge, head of a new political dynasty. Changes in the political dynasties have dictated the book-name changes throughout most of the large-plate tradition. Therefore, Helaman begins his own book. The reasons for the shift in the text are completely consistent with the internal logic of the textual transmission. (For more information on the reasons for changes in book names, see Mosiah, Part 1: Context, Chapter 2, “Mormon’s Structural Editing of the Book of Mormon: Chapters and Books.”)