War and Calendar Prophecy

[Ntrw]

Battle in the Sidon (Alma 2) by James H. Fullmer   In my last three posts, Long Count Year 1.1 and Mulek the Conqueror, The End of the Jaredites and The Messianic Event: Cyclical History and Nephite Calendar Prophecies, I've tried to show how even a very superficial understanding of the Mayan calendar systems and their cyclical view of history can unlock and rationalize certain aspects of the Book of Mormon, just as studying Canaanite and Akkadian texts help us better understand the Hebrew Bible.   In her book, The Indian Christ, the Indian King: The Historical Substrate of Mayan Myth and Ritual, Victoria R. Bricker has noted the following:

On the other hand, there is some evidence that the Maya intervened in history and made events conform to their prophecies. The conquest of the last Itza capital at Tayasal reffered to in the quote from Roys(1933:136113) above is a case in point. The Itza had resited several attempts to convert them to Christianity on the grounds that the time prophesied for this to take place had not yet arrived. At the end of 1695, the Itza sent word of their willingness to be converted. A new Katun 8 Ahau began in 1697, the year that the Itza were finally conquered by the Spaniards(see chapter 2). This suggests that the Katun 8 Ahau “prophecies” may well be historically accurate and that the Itza actually did abandon their capital every 256 years. 

As ancient Mesoamericans, the Nephites and Lamanites appear to have the same basic cyclical view of history, where the events of one year are expected to be repeated when the date of that year is repeated. The Nephites, like their Mayan neighbors, may have used this understanding of prophetic history when making decisions regarding war. We already know that Nephite military commanders would occasionally consult prophets and implore the guidance of their God in making decisions about warfare(Alma 16:5) but was calendar prophecy also used in making decisions about war?

In 3 Nephi, Mormon tells us about the Nephite leader Lachoneus, the "governor of the land" and a prophet(3 Nephi 3:16). Lachoneus and his people were  being threatened by the head of the Gadianton Robbers:

3 Nephi 3:11-12
And now it came to pass when Lachoneus received this epistle he was exceedingly astonished, because of the boldness of Giddianhi demanding the possession of the land of the Nephites, and also of threatening the people and avenging the wrongs of those that had received no wrong, save it were they had wronged themselves by dissenting away unto those wicked and abominable robbers.

Now behold, this Lachoneus, the governor, was a just man, and could not be frightened by the demands and the threatenings of a robber; therefore he did not hearken to the epistle of Giddianhi, the governor of the robbers, but he did cause that his people should cry unto the Lord for strength against the time that the robbers should come down against them.

Now, as an ancient Mesoamerican prophet, in charge of leading a whole people against these threats, how might have Lachoneus responded to these threats? What would he have done to defend his people? Why is it that he "could not be frightened by the demands and threatening of a robber"; what was the source of his confidence?

As someone with a cyclical view of history, one thing he might have done was to look at the three different Nephite calendars and try to see what happened in the past, for the same numbered year as the one he was living in. The Nephites had three different calendars. The first calendar marked time from the year Lehi left Jerusalem. The second calendar marked time from the first year of the judges. The third calendar marked time from the day the sign was given of Christ's birth.

If Lachoneus received Giddhianhi's letter near the end of "the seventeenth year", he might have looked to Nephite history to see if his people had been in a similar situation at the end of a "seventeenth year" and "eighteenth year", to see what happened then in order to predict what should happen now. It would be strange and inappropriate for us English speaking moderns to do such a thing today but the Lord speaks to people "in their weakness, after the manner of their own language" so that they come come to understanding(D&C 1:24). It just so happens that such a thing did happen:

Alma 35:8-9
...the chief ruler of the Zoramites, being a very wicked man, sent over unto the people of Ammon desiring them that they should cast out of their land all those who came over from them into their land. And he breathed out many threatenings against them. And now the people of Ammon did not fear their words;


Alma 35:12-13
And thus ended the *seventeenth year of the reign of the judges over the people of Nephi. And the people of Ammon departed out of the land of Jershon, and came over into the land of Melek, and gave place in the land of Jershon for the armies of the Nephites, that they might contend with the armies of the Lamanites and the armies of the Zoramites; and thus commenced a war betwixt the Lamanites and the Nephites, in the eighteenth year of the reign of the judges; and an account shall be given of their wars hereafter.

Alma 43:3-4 
And now I return to an account of the wars between the Nephites and the Lamanites, in the *eighteenth year of the reign of the judges. For behold, it came to pass that the Zoramites became Lamanites; therefore, in the commencement of the eighteenth year the people of the Nephites saw that the Lamanites were coming upon them; therefore they made preparations for war; yea, they gathered together their armies in the land of Jershon. 

The rest of this war story and Captain Moroni's defeat of the Zoramite/Lamanite warriors happened in the eighteenth year of the reign of the judges(Alma 44). Lachoneus was in a similar situation as Alma the Younger and Captain Moroni were in, 91 one years before his time; and because he's a prophet from a culture which believes in cyclical history and calendar prophesy(Alma 45:10; Helaman 13:5,9; Mormon 8:6), he employs a similar solution for a similar problem at a similar time:

3 Nephi 3:22-23
And it came to pass in the *seventeenth year, in the latter end of the year, the proclamation of Lachoneus had gone forth throughout all the face of the land, and they had taken their horses, and their chariots, and their cattle, and all their flocks, and their herds, and their grain, and all their substance, and did march forth by thousands and by tens of thousands, until they had all gone forth to the place which chad been appointed that they should gather themselves together, to defend themselves against their enemies. 

And the land which was appointed was the land of Zarahemla, and the land which was between the land Zarahemla and the land Bountiful, yea, to the line which was between the land Bountiful and the land Desolation.

3 Nephi 4:1, 4 
And it came to pass that in the latter *end of the eighteenth year those armies of robbers had prepared for battle, and began to come down and to sally forth from the hills, and out of the mountains, and the wilderness, and their strongholds, and their secret places, and began to take possession of the lands, both which were in the land south and which were in the land north, and began to take possession of all the lands which had been deserted by the Nephites, and the cities which had been left desolate. 
 • • • 
Therefore, there was no chance for the robbers to plunder and to obtain food, save it were to come up in open battle against the Nephites; and the Nephites being in one body, and having so great a number, and having reserved for themselves provisions, and horses and cattle, and flocks of every kind, that they might subsist for the space of seven years, in the which time they did hope to destroy the robbers from off the face of the land; and thus the eighteenth year did pass away.

[Darren10]

Very interesting take and application of Mesoamerican history. 

 

[Robert F. Smith]

You can get a  much better handle on the Mesoamerican calendar system and its cyclic ideology by reading my “The Role of Cyclical Fatalism Among the Maya,” 2011, online at https://www.scribd.com/doc/74773355/Cyclic-Fatalism-Among-the-Maya , and at  http://www.bmaf.org/node/386 .

Stephen Ricks and I applied some specific calendric observations to crucial Nephite actions in our “New Year’s Celebrations,” FARMS Update, January 1985, reprinted in John W. Welch, ed., Reexploring the Book of Mormon: The F.A.R.M.S. Updates (Provo: FARMS/SLC: Deseret Book, 1992), 209-211.  Online at http://maxwellinstitute.byu.edu/publications/books/?bookid=71&chapid=826 .

Edited March 18, 2017 by Robert F. Smith

[Robert F. Smith]

2 hours ago, Ntrw said:

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As someone with a cyclical view of history, one thing he might have done was to look at the three different Nephite calendars and try to see what happened in the past, for the same numbered year as the one he was living in. The Nephites had three different calendars. The first calendar marked time from the year Lehi left Jerusalem. The second calendar marked time from the first year of the judges. The third calendar marked time from the day the sign was given of Christ's birth.

 

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As far as I can tell, the Nephites and Lamanites only had one overarching calendar, consisting of 360-day years arranged according to the Long Count inherited from the Jaredites (Olmec) by all five Mesoamerican cultures.  The three calendars you mention were all subsumed within that Long Count.