While Mormon does not explicitly say so, he is correlating the three calendars that his people have used. The years he has named up to this point marked time from the establishment of the reign of the judges. An earlier reckoning date had been Lehi’s departure from Jerusalem. For believers, the newest count began with the signs of the Messiah’s birth. Mormon has shifted from the judge-years to the birth-years. It is unlikely that this change would have been widespread throughout Nephite society, since it would have been significant only to believers and enforceable only when the believers controlled the government. From a historical perspective, it seems likely that this new count was consistently used only retroactively—after the Messiah’s arrival in the New World confirmed the signs of his birth.