Mormon's Method for Transmitting Faith
Book of Mormon Notes - Saturday, September 30, 2023, Alma 36
Mormon’s vision and inspiration in his editing and transcribing and abridging of the Book of Mormon is so vast. It includes instruction that will bless not only the serious students of the Book of Mormon, but also many generations of the same students. By the time we arrive at this chapter in the Book of Alma, we can see Mormon at work in binding together generations. What I mean is that Mormon didn’t just record these directly quoted teachings from Alma to his sons in order to bless his own son Moroni, although Moroni, and perhaps others of Mormon’s children were certainly blessed by these teachings. Mormon had you and me in view when he recorded these words from the great prophet Alma the Younger and his sons.
Especially after everything that Mormon taught us through King Benjamin and the rising generation of his time, it is clear to me that Mormon desired to transmit his book from generation to generation, and that the Lord inspired him with the best ways to do that. Just as the Plates of Brass and the other sacred objects were passed down from generation to generation, often from father to son, from Lehi, to Nephi, to Jacob, to Enos, and so forth down to Alma the Younger, Mormon hands down his sacred record to Joseph Smith, and to our fathers, and to our sons. It is therefore no accident, in my mind, that Mormon hones his focus ever closer to home, and particularly into the same focus that Joseph Smith had in binding together generations:
I might have rendered a aplainer translation to this, but it is sufficiently plain to suit my purpose as it stands. It is sufficient to know, in this case, that the earth will be smitten with a bcurse unless there is a welding clink of some kind or other between the fathers and the dchildren, upon some subject or other—and behold what is that subject? It is the ebaptism for the dead. For we without them cannot be made perfect; neither can they without us be made perfect. Neither can they nor we be made perfect without those who have died in the gospel also; for it is necessary in the ushering in of the dispensation of the ffulness of times, which dispensation is now beginning to usher in, that a whole and complete and perfect union, and welding together of dispensations, and keys, and powers, and glories should take place, and be revealed from the days of Adam even to the present time. And not only this, but those things which never have been revealed from the gfoundation of the world, but have been kept hid from the wise and prudent, shall be revealed unto hbabes and sucklings in this, the dispensation of the fulness of times. (D&C 128:18)
Mormon saw this welding link between Alma the Younger and his sons, and he knew how valuable Alma’s teachings to his sons would be for binding together future generations of fathers and sons, parents and children, and dispensations.
We might ask, why didn’t Mormon simply abridge Alma the Younger’s teachings to his sons? Why did he quote Alma the Younger extensively and directly? I don’t know all the answers to these questions, but I speculate that Mormon had already selected and outlined the main portions of the Book of Mormon that he wished to share directly, and that he wove them together masterfully for the benefit of future generations. From direct quotations from Lehi, Nephi, Jacob, Isaiah, Enos, King Benjamin, Mosiah, Abinadi, Alma the Elder, Alma the Younger, and many others, Mormon allowed their voices to speak clearly and distinctly from the dust that covered them, and the dust that Mormon knew would soon cover both him and his son Moroni. He was writing for future generations, and his abridgment wasn’t just a history of his people. It was an abridged history of his people that framed the doctrine of Christ and the testimony of Christ for the specific purposes mentioned on the title page, and for the purpose to prepare his latter-day audience for the Second Coming of Jesus Christ.
Thus, when Mormon records the superscription “The commandments of Alma to his son Helaman” and when Mormon quotes Alma directly: “My ason, give ear to my words”, Mormon is training generations of fathers to teach generations of sons and lead them and their posterity to Jesus Christ. And there are people who would like me to believe that a farm-boy in his early twenties concocted all of this? Preposterous.
Entire volumes could be written, and many things have already been written, on Alma 36, one of the greatest chapters in all of holy writ. But as great as these teachings are, I believe that the Lord provided them, through Alma, through Mormon, through the Prophet Joseph Smith, in order to prepare us for greater things, and a greater portion of His word.
Elder Jeffrey R. Holland’s son Elder Matthew S. Holland has eloquently testified of Christ using Alma the Younger’s teachings to his son Helaman. This father to son testimony and report of his experience even references another earlier father to son testimony, that of Lehi to his son Nephi:
Yea, methought I saw, even as our father aLehi saw, God sitting upon his throne, surrounded with numberless concourses of angels, in the attitude of singing and bpraising their God; yea, and my soul did long to be there. (Alma 36:22)
It’s almost as though Mormon, through Alma, reminds us to go back to the very beginning of the Book of Mormon and to consider the influence of the teachings and testimonies of a father to his son, the original father Lehi to his son Nephi.
Another thing that leaps out to me is that Mormon knew that in the last days there would be very imperfect fathers with very imperfect sons who nevertheless desired conversion to the Lord and who nevertheless desired to transmit faith in Christ to their posterity. If Mormon had only included the small plates and the record of Lehi and Nephi, how many fathers and sons might have struggled to identify with such heroic founders of a civilization, even if Nephi confesses his own sins and weaknesses in his own psalm (2 Nephi 4)? Alma the Elder and Alma the Younger are, among many others (Enos, etc.) great examples of real men who sought repentance and obtained mercy through our Savior Jesus Christ, real men with whom we flawed and imperfect men of the last days may more easily identify. Nevertheless, Alma the Younger was a man who, like Lehi of old, testified of Christ and of His promise that those who keep His commandments shall prosper in the land.
There is so much in this chapter. It merits at least another post soon.