Random thoughts from the end of the Book of Mormon

*  It’s droll to read the Book of Mormon as a historical document.  You know, with the same scepticism we usually give to ancient documents.  Except that you are treating it as a real document, which drives the sceptics mad.

There are limits to doing that.  Because if the Book of Mormon is real, it is inspired.

That said, and just for fun, here is what I would infer from the ending of the Book of Mormon if I were reading it as just a document from some ancient civilization.

I would read the ending books as documents written by an old elite who were being phased out and who were not at all in sympathy with the new ways, or didn’t even understand them, but who still had some relic power and some relic position.  This old elite doesn’t understand the new warfare and isn’t even in sympathy with their people as the people try to update to respond to the new warfare.  Instead of recognizing the failed strategic situation for what it is, the old elite decides to do a cargo cult battle where they deliberately try to recreate Giggiddoni’s famous historical triumph in the hope that somehow this will lead to a victory.  Everyone dies.

My apologies to Mormon and Moroni, and this is not what I believe.  But it is what I would think or at least suspect if the Book of Mormon weren’t inspired.  Inspiration and character (Mormon and Moroni are good men) both matter.

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* The Book of Mormon’s end reminds me of William Hope Hodgson’s the Night Land.  They have the same flavor.

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* In Mormon 7, Moroni says he can’t find ore for more plates.  In the beginning, Nephi was shown ore by revelation and shown how to smelt it.  A haunting and powerful contrast

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