Book of Mormon Questions #4 (chronology)

To see the context for this and other questions in this series, please see the introduction, parts 1, 2, 3, and 4. 

Could All of This Have Happened in the Nineteenth Year?

Let’s take a close look at the nineteenth year of the reign of the judges. Here’s a brief summary.

The first recorded event is Alma turning the records over to Helaman, blessing the church, departing in the direction of Melek but never arriving. The people assume he was “taken up by the Spirit, or buried by the hand of the Lord, even as Moses” (Alma 45:18–19). Helaman and his brethren then go forth to preach and “establish the church again in all the land, yea, in every city throughout all the land” (45:22). I’m assuming this would have taken some time, months rather than weeks. But many would not hearken to them and even sought to slay them. The leader of those who were “wroth” with Helaman and the true followers of Christ was “a large and strong man; and his name was Amalickiah.” Amalickiah wants to be king, and he flatters many of the church members away into his group of followers. Moroni, chief commander of the armies, hears about all this and is angry with Amalickiah. He tears a piece of his coat off, writes an inspiring message on it, and fastens it on a pole (the famous title of liberty). People flock to his banner, with their “armor girded about their loins” (46:21). They are called Christians.

Seeing the size of Moroni’s army and realizing that some of his followers were doubting their prospects (and “the justice of [their] cause” [46:29]), Amalickiah takes “those of his people who would” and departs “into the land of Nephi” (46:30). Moroni, of course, doesn’t want the Amalickiahites to strengthen the armies of the Lamanites, so he heads them off and engages in battle with them. Amalickiah, however, leaves the larger body of his followers in the lurch, escapes with a small group of men, and flees to the Lamanites. Moroni pressures Amalickiah’s followers who were left behind to enter into a covenant to “support the cause of freedom” (46:35). He puts to death all who refuse. No due process among the Nephites, it appears.

In the meantime, Amalickiah has spent time stirring up the Lamanites to anger against the Nephites. I imagine this didn’t happen overnight. Their king sends a proclamation throughout the land to gather together and go to war against the Nephites. But his people have just fought a losing battle against their enemies, so they are afraid. In fact, “the more part of them would not obey the commandments of the king” (47:2). The king is “wroth,” so he gives Amalickiah command of the part of his army that is obedient. Bad move.

The disobedient portion of the army has fled to a place called Onidah. The army is holed up on the top of a mount called Antipas, and their leader, Lehonti, refuses to come down to meet with Amalickiah. On the fourth try, Amalickiah goes up near to Lehonti’s camp and requests him to come down with his guards. Lehonti finally gives in, and Amalickiah makes him an offer he can’t refuse. He tells him if he brings his army down and surrounds Amalickiah’s men, Amalickiah will deliver his men into Lehonti’s hands, if—and this is a big if—Lehonti will make Amalickiah his second in command. Bad decision. It’s like making a deal with Donald Trump. These sorts of men are predictable. Amalickiah has one of his servants “administer poison by degrees to Lehonti, that he died” (47:18). The Lamanite custom, if a leader dies, is to make the second in command the new leader, so Amalickiah now has control over all the Lamanite armies.

He leads his forces back to the city of Nephi. The king of the Lamanites comes out to greet them, naively suspecting no subterfuge. One of Amalickiah’s servants then stabs the king to the heart, and he dies. The king’s servants, seeing the writing on the wall, flee into the wilderness, leaving only Amalickiah and his most faithful servants to tell the tale that it was the king’s servants who killed him. Their flight is, of course, proof of their guilt.

Amalickiah sends an embassy to the queen to tell her that her husband has been slain by his servants. He and his servants then tell the gory details, and she, of course, believes them. Amalickiah then woos the queen, wins her hand, and becomes king of the Lamanites. I suspect this also didn’t happen over one hyper-romantic weekend. Amalickiah then starts up his propaganda machine, appointing men to speak to the Lamanites from their right-wing social-media sites, er, towers. The people are gullible (or maybe just afraid, much like our Republican reps in Congress). And by the end of the nineteenth year, Amalickiah has laid his plans to become king over the Nephites as well. He appoints military leaders from among the Zoramites, because they know the Nephites’ strengths and weaknesses.

Now, while Amalickiah has been accumulating power by deceit, murder, and subterfuge, Moroni has not been idle. He has had his people build forts, “throwing up banks of earth round about to encircle his armies, and also building walls of stone round about all their cities and the borders of their lands” (48:8). Quite an engineering project to complete in maybe half a year. Anyway, finally, in the eleventh month of the nineteenth year, Amalickiah sends his armies against the Nephites. They are surprised to find Moroni’s ditches, banks of earth and forts, so they do not attack immediately.

But Amalickiah apparently has also had time, after coming to power, to set up a military industrial complex. He has prepared his thousands of warriors with shields and breastplates and thick garments of skins to protect them from the Nephites’ swords and arrows. So, after approaching the city of Ammonihah and finding it too daunting, the Lamanites march to the land of Noah, but it is even more strongly defended than Ammonihah. Afraid to return to Amalickiah with their tails between their legs, they attack. The Lamanites lose all their chief captains and over a thousand of their soldiers in the ensuing battle, while the Nephites had just fifty wounded. The Lamanites, leaderless and defeated, retreat back to Amalickiah in the land of Nephi. He, of course, is once again “wroth,” and this ended the nineteenth year of the reign of the judges.

All the preceding events happened in that one year. Now, I might be able to accept the political maneuverings, the murders, the subterfuge, the battles, and the preaching. But digging ditches, throwing up walls of earth, and erecting forts around all of their cities? Doesn’t seem possible. And don’t forget that everybody in Nephite society still has to eat, and many have important jobs to fulfill. How many men would it take, without modern excavating and construction equipment, to dig all those ditches, cast up banks of earth, and then build fortresses?

Amalickiah also maneuvers himself into power among the Lamanites, which certainly took a fair amount of time, and then he somehow still has time to mass produce shields and breastplates and heavy clothing. The Lamanites, by all evidence in the records, were not a highly industrialized society. Some apologists have surmised that the breastplates were made of wood. Even so, that’s a lot of wooden breastplates and shields to produce in short order. But every indication in the record is that swords and shields and breastplates in the Book of Mormon are made of metal. There was a breastplate among the artifacts Joseph Smith found in the box with the plates. The only description I have found of it comes from Joseph’s mother, who said it was made of gold. That seems rather impractical, gold being relatively soft, but it was also likely not meant for combat. Its purpose was apparently to hold the interpreters in place. We might call if a “dress breastshield.” But Joseph didn’t really use the interpreters to translate most of the book, so I’m not sure what purpose the breastplate really served. Limhi’s search party found breastplates of a large size left by the Jaredites. They were made of copper and brass. And their swords were likely made of steel since the hilts had perished, but the blades were “cankered with rust” (Mosiah 8:10–11). In his account of the fall of the Jaredites, Ether records that the people, including men, women, and children were “armed with weapons of war, having shields, and breastplates, and head-plates” (Ether 15:15). I can’t imagine the Nephites and Lamanites would be fighting with wooden shields and breastplates if the Jaredites, who preceded them in the land had brass, copper, and steel.

The question is whether all this was possible in one calendar year. It seems a bit much, in my mind. Especially the production of shields and breastplates for thousands of warriors and the building of fortresses to protect every city of the Nephites. Anything is possible, I suppose, but I find the nineteenth year of the reign of the judges highly improbable.