I've noticed something very interesting in the Book of Mormon. This concept will take several posts to fully flesh out, but here it is in a nutshell: The Book of Mormon contains a recurring covenant pattern I will refer to as 'the endowment pattern,' which is told and retold many times.
It is the story of humanity's redemption. The pattern follows a few basic steps:
1) There is a call to leave the fallen world behind.
2) Those who heed this call find themselves cast out into the wilderness.
3) Through obedience they gradually regain the presence of the Lord and they are led to a state of rest and abundance.
In order to add depth and meaning to the numerous symbols associated with this pattern, I will lay out of some background on how I came to see this recurring theme. I will then conclude this post (part 1) by laying out the most comprehensive example from the Book of Mormon (found throughout 1 Nephi) complete with a list of the common details and symbols we find when this story is later retold. Finally, I'll offer one final list at the very end of this post which will show how many times this basic story is retold in the Book of Mormon.
How I came to notice this pattern
This pattern became increasingly clear to me over many years. The first aspect I noticed was the similarity between the locations through which Lehi's family pass:
- Wicked Jerusalem
- Wilderness
- Bountiful
- Promised land
...with the pattern of progression we experience in the temple:
- Fallen world (outside the temple)
- Telestial
- Terrestrial
- Celestial
The similarity is intriguing. Here's how I would describe each point along the progression:
- Lost and fallen
- Still in the presence of wickedness but learning from heavenly messengers
- Abundance without a fulness, Satan's influence has been overcome
- Fulness of joy, entered into the rest of the Lord.
I've been pondering this pattern for at least a few years. I've thought about the faith it would take to leave the world behind and wander into the desert. And how much faith it would take to leave Bountiful to journey on a boat on your own making to an unknown destination.
The second realization relates to boats. Since that first realization, I've spent a lot of time studying the covenant symbols found in the story of Noah. You can find a long series on the topic beginning here. Seeing the ark as a symbol of the covenant which carries us safely through mortality opened my eyes to other examples of this pattern which will be discussed later on, including Ether 1-6.
Third, I began to find examples of 'metalepsis' in the Book of Mormon. This is an ancient literary device in which the author draws an entire story to the mind of a reader by referencing one unique part of that story. (Here is one such example.)
Fourth and finally, as I read Stisa's recent posts about the symbolic importance of tents and this blog post offering a speculative alternative explanation for the mention of horses by Nephi, I realized that the presence of a specific detail in a story can serve multiple purposes. In addition to recounting an event, the detail could also have symbolic significance and could have been included to point the prepared mind to see deeper significance to the story.
Common Elements of the Endowment Pattern
Once these elements were in place, I began to dig deeper into the details of 1 Nephi. I created a list of details I felt were significant to the general endowment pattern. (This is a work in progress so I may add additional details to this list in the future.) Here is my list up to this point:
- Commanded/warned (often in a dream or vision) to depart
- The group they leave are involved in secret combinations or intend murder
- They seek to bring all who will hearken/listen
- The new covenant people passes through a wilderness on their journey
- "Many days"
- Tents (a symbol of the presence of the Lord)
- A list of animals (sometimes "of every kind")
- They inherit a land
- New names are given (see Genesis 2:20)
- They obey the commandments of the Lord
- Abundance/Prosper
- They are usually led by a righteous patriarch/king/royal family member
Many of these elements are quite easy to connect to the temple. Many of these details are found in the archetypal Adam and Eve narrative found in the Book of Moses, too. This will be the subject of a future post.
1 Nephi as Endowment
Let's look at each of the elements listed above in the story of Lehi's family travelling to the promised land (I give references for most but list other details which are supported by the text in multiple places):
Additional Examples
Once you become familiar with the basic story outline, it's easy to see additional examples. In fact, right after Lehi dies, the story repeats itself as the Nephites split off from the Lamanites. It happens again with Mosiah-1, though many details are missing due to the loss of portions of that part of Mormon's record. Other elements of the story are present with King Benjamin. Then we see the same pattern again with Alma-1 and Limhi. It happens again with the Anti-Nephi-Lehites. We see additional elements in the origin story of Jaredites, and one additional time in Ether 9.
Of course we don't see every element each time, but in general, it is clear to me that a pattern is being followed by the author of the narrative. Almost as if they are saying: "Here is yet another attempt by the Lord to re-establish His people."
Series overview
The next post in this series will begin with a big chart listing the references I've found so far supporting this pattern. After laying out the big picture, we'll take a few posts to walk through each example in detail. After that, we'll look at the significance of each story element and list a few potential additional elements which might belong, as well as a few additional examples of this pattern playing out in variant form. Finally, I'll end the series by discussing the significance of this repeated pattern.