Text: Chapter 32 is a new chapter in the 1830 edition of the Book of Mormon, apparently following some signal on the plates that was the equivalent of a chapter break. (See Behind the Text: Chapter 5, “The Organization of the Plates.”)
Assuming that the breaks between chapters existed for some purpose in Nephi’s narrative raises the question of why this chapter is separate from chapter 31. Both appear to be recorded speeches. Chapter 31 has a clear conclusion, but chapter 32 continues the theme of the Holy Ghost from chapter 31 and thus feels like a continuation of that discourse.
The introduction to chapter 32 (v. 1) also suggests that this is a continuation. Nephi again addresses an audience directly. Perhaps his reference to “pondering” explains the division between chapters. Nephi has presented information on the Holy Spirit in chapter 31 which his listeners have pondered, thus suggesting the passage of time between the two speeches. Another example of an address being given on subsequent days is Jacob’s address in 2 Nephi 9:54: “And now, my brethren, I would speak unto you more; but on the morrow I will declare unto you the remainder of my words.” As I have proposed, the fact that Nephi is preaching a sermon and his division between chapters 31 and 32 argue for a difference in days. Like Jacob, Nephi addressed his people, giving a talk with a clear conclusion on the first day but continuing on the second with a related topic.
Rhetoric: Nephi begins with a question—no idle rhetorical question but one that is perplexing his audience. The entire discourse captured in 2 Nephi 32 depends on Nephi’s understanding of a real problem in Nephite society.
Culture: The problem is, as Nephi states it: “I suppose that ye ponder somewhat in your hearts concerning that which ye should do after ye have entered in by the way.” This topic continues the previous day’s discussion of baptism, but also reveals that Nephi’s people apparently do not know what to do after baptism. How is that possible?
All societies have both stated and unstated ways of learning ranging from laws that mandate or criminalize certain behavior for unspoken and informal social norms. Between these two extremes of unstated and codified rules are the wide range of assumptions and habits that are part of any culture. Nephite society, though rooted in the Old World, had existed for thirty or forty years in increasing contact with native cultures. Almost certainly it had developed social, moral, and legal norms that would have been amply familiar. Ancient societies did not differentiate between religion, science, economics, and politics. Religion informed all of life. Consequently, particularly given the divine origins of Nephite society and the deliberation with which Nephi and other leaders would have established social norms, we must assume that the “rules” of living would have been well known. Therefore, baptism and post-baptism life must have been new information.
Nephi has known of the Messiah since his youth, and he is now elderly, perhaps seventy or seventy-five years old. His tree of life vision included the information that John baptized Jesus. Therefore, baptism could not have been new information to Nephi. It also seems a safe assumption, given Nephi’s emphasis on the Messiah’s mission and Jacob’s sermon (2 Ne. 6–11; especially chapters 10–11), that the Nephites had been taught about the Messiah. But apparently making a baptismal covenant and receiving the Holy Ghost modeled on Jesus’s baptism, while standard for the New Testament and for modern Christians, was new to the Nephites whenever Nephi gave this sermon.
Probably the Nephites had preserved the concept of ritual washings to restore ritual purity. (See commentary accompanying 2 Nephi 31:5.) Nephi, however, seems to be issuing a broad invitation to baptism, most likely in the context of introducing a new commitment for the entire group of people and most likely as part of building their new community. Thus, Nephi must explain not only the ordinance of baptism but also the commitment to future behavior required by the covenant they have entered into.
The Nephite community has at its foundation an Old World Jewish religious culture, transformed and redirected by revelations about the coming Messiah. Nevertheless, ritually, they remained Jewish (2 Ne. 5:10, 25:24). Thus, the law of Moses dictated their religious behaviors, rituals, and laws. I therefore hypothesize four stages in Nephite religious development during Nephi’s lifetime:
Stage 1: Individual. This stage occurred during the departure from Jerusalem, journey in the wilderness and to the New World, and up to the point of Lehi’s death. Nephi’s religious foundation and practices are Jewish rituals but informed and reshaped by personal revelation. Nephi’s youthful revelatory experiences shaped his personal development, an important process for him. But even though he explained his understandings to his brothers, his revelations did not change the group’s religious practices. The family still worshipped at the altars Lehi built.
Stage 2: Incipient society. This stage occurred after Lehi’s death and after the Nephites withdrew from the Lamanites. That division was made along religious boundaries. Nephi interpreted these internal family pressures as a fundamental difference in the willingness of the two groups to follow Yahweh. If my hypothesis is correct that the religious split between Nephi and Laman and Lemuel followed at least some of the lines of the pre- and post-Josian reforms, then the Old World conflict was transplanted to the New World. The Nephites were a Jewish community in public and private ritual, with a theological emphasis on the Atoning Messiah. However, the urgent needs of a new colony dictated that most of the innovations during this early period—which may have lasted perhaps five to ten years—would be secular, not religious.
Stage 3: Stability. This stage comes perhaps five to ten years after the separation, and would last for perhaps twenty years. After achieving economic, agricultural, and social stability, the Nephites could develop their society. Here social differentiation began with Nephi serving as king and Jacob as priest. Such specialization betokens a relatively stable society, one that has passed the point of struggling to survive. The most logical reason for Jacob’s sermon was the influx of local natives into Nephite society. (See commentary accompanying 2 Nephi 6:13.) As noted in the discussion of that sermon, it appears to have been given perhaps forty years after the departure from Jerusalem. That would place it well into this stable phase, and perhaps indicates the ending of the stability through the growth of internal tensions.
Stage 4: Prophetic innovation. After a number of years as a stable and even prosperous independent city, Nephite society appears to destabilize. If we see in Jacob’s speech an effort to build acceptance for the integrated “Gentiles” coming around forty years after the departure from Jerusalem (therefore thirty or less in the New World), then by that point there were internal tensions. These tensions erupt into more serious conflict in Jacob 2 and 3. Perhaps Nephi’s discourse on baptism comes somewhere around the time of Jacob’s discourse (beginning in 2 Ne. 6). When the later King Benjamin faces a similar integration problem in Zarahemla, he introduces a new covenant. (See commentary accompanying Mosiah 1:11.) Perhaps Nephi’s emphasis on baptism is Nephi’s similar attempt at this earlier point in time and is a similar response to the need to unify a mixed people.