Concepts matters
Ideas and practices the text teaches or argues over: covenant, faith, apostasy.
❮ All matters
- Cannibalism in War — Forced cannibalism among starving armies, reported as bravery
- Circumcision — The Abrahamic-Mosaic covenant rite that Christ's atonement does away
- All things common — Nephite practice of shared goods
- Sacrament — Communal bread-and-wine rite among the risen Jesus's followers
- Lex Talionis — Mosaic proportional retribution, overturned in Christ's sermon
- Spirit Affliction — Reported affliction by devils or unclean spirits and their removal
- Signs, Wonders, and Miracles — Extraordinary events publicly witnessed, reported, and contested
- Siege Warfare — Blockade to force surrender rather than open battle
- Night Operations — Concealment, infiltration, and readiness after dark
- Factionalism and Dissent — Internal political division that weakens the people
- Throne Usurpation — Seizing a kingdom by intrigue, murder, and political fraud
- Gesture and token — Bodily acts that carry meaning between persons
- Rending garments as token — Cloth torn as a covenant sign, with the tearing itself stating the terms
- Conquest and Subjugation — Warfare represented as reducing a people to bondage and installing rule
- Military Preparation — Readiness through intelligence, fortification, arms, and provisions
- Defensive Warfare — Nephite claims about defense, restraint, and refusal of vengeance
- Conferral by touch — The hand laid on a person, by which Spirit or authority passes
- Order of the Nehors — Religious affiliation associated with Amalekite and Amulonite synagogues
- Raising by the hand — Lifting a bowed person from the ground, glossed as a token of peace
- Lamanite Great Spirit — Lamoni's inherited religious language for a supreme divine being
- Captivity — Loss of liberty, confinement, and treatment of captured enemies
- Warfare — Military conflicts in Nephite history
- Weights and Measures — Nephite system of weights and measures
- Legal Profession — Lawyers and judges who administer law in public trials
- Hospitality and Hosting — Receiving guests into a household and providing food or shelter
- Fasting — Devotional abstinence joined with prayer, mourning, and spiritual power
- Revelation and Prophecy — Divine truth made known by the Spirit and declared to others
- Military Command — Appointed captains and commanders directing armies
- Sorcery and Witchcraft — A named forbidden occult practice, distinct from idolatry
- Wealth and Poverty — Material abundance, deprivation, and their moral consequences
- Civic Administration — Appointed judges, governors, and officers exercising public authority
- Political Liberty — Rights, privileges, and freedom from political bondage
- Reign of the Judges — Nephite government by elected judges under law
- Judgment Seat — Civic seat of Nephite judges
- Judicial Procedure — Trials, testimony, judgment, and legal process
- Crime and punishment — Legal accountability for acts, with belief protected from civil penalty
- Monarchy and Kingship — Rule by a king and the moral hazards of concentrated power
- Equality — Equal standing and mutual regard within a community
- Church Discipline — Church correction and removal of unrepentant members
- Trade and Commerce — Buying, selling, and traffic for gain
- Layered Territorial Kingship — Local kings, lands, and the authority of a king over a wider territory
- Wound Care — Binding, dressing, and tending bodily injuries
- Worship — Devotion to the true and living God in heart and assembly
- Preaching and Teaching — Authorized proclamation and instruction in the word of God
- Ordination — Setting apart priests and teachers for community ministry
- Church of God — Covenanted community of the baptized, organized for worship and care
- Clapping and clasping hands — Hands brought together in acclamation and in joy
- Mourning and Comfort — Shared grief, lamentation, and covenantal consolation
- Capital punishment — Execution as a legal and punitive measure
- Ordinances — Prescribed sacred performances that remember and point to God
- Seership — A recognized office for seeing and interpreting hidden records
- Treaties — Negotiated settlements governing land, war, and coexistence
- Bondage and Slavery — Political subjection, forced labor, and divine deliverance
- Bowing and obeisance — Lowering the body before a king or before God
- Voice of the people — Nephite political decision-making process
- Exploration — Parties searching for a destination through unfamiliar wilderness
- Reckoning of Time — Nephite dating from Lehi's departure, the judges, and Christ's sign
- Lending and Borrowing — Neighborly loans, repayment, and generosity
- Angelic Visitations — Reported angelic appearances and messages with public consequences
- Taxation and Tribute — Levies imposed by rulers and conquering powers
- Labor — Productive work, self-support, and exploited toil
- Public Proclamation — Official messages gathered, spoken, written, and sent among a people
- Royal Accession — Public installation and transfer of a king's authority
- Tradition of the Fathers — Inherited transmission of belief and identity across generations
- Translation — Rendering an ancient record through a seer's divine gift
- Migration and Colonization — A people relocating under a leader to found or reoccupy a settlement
- Animal Husbandry — Tending flocks, herds, and useful domestic animals
- Kneeling in prayer — The bodily posture of petition, held apart from prayer as an act
- Prayer — Calling upon God in faith, need, and continual devotion
- Law of Moses — Israelite religious observance maintained by early Nephite communities
- Chastity and Virtue — Sexual integrity treated as precious before God
- Sexual Transgression — Adultery, lust, and sexual exploitation condemned in scripture
- Alms — Charitable giving and its principles
- Ridding the garments — The prophetic idiom of standing clear of a people's blood
- Plural Marriage and Concubinage — The practice of taking multiple wives or concubines
- Baptism — Water ordinance witnessing repentance and covenant
- Secret combinations — Oath-bound conspiracies pursuing power, gain, and murder
- Feasts — Public and household meals of celebration, display, or excess
- Shaking the garments — Garments shaken before a congregation as a witness of clean hands
- Sackcloth and ashes — Mourning and repentance practice
- Divorce — Dissolution of marriage and Christ’s teaching on its moral consequences
- Holy Order of God — Ordained high-priest order that taught and organized the church
- Priests and Teachers — Community religious offices among Nephites and converted Lamanites
- Government Principles — Nephite principles of governance and law
- Law, civil — Nephite legal systems and governance
- Contention — Angry division and conflict among people
- Harvest and Increase — Agricultural yield, abundance, and seasonal gathering
- Cultivation and Sowing — Tilling land, planting seed, and tending fields
- Dancing and Merrymaking — Social dancing, singing, and celebration in narrative settings
- Stretching forth the hand — The arm extended toward heaven, toward persons, or toward an object
- Forbidden touch — The person or object that may not be laid hands on
- Hunting and Foraging — Wilderness subsistence by hunted game and wild food
- Persecute, persecution — Social pattern of oppression and conflict
- Burial of the Dead — Communal practice of interring or disposing of the slain and the dead
- Craftsmanship — Skilled artisanal labor as a valued social role
- Naming Customs — Naming lands, cities, and children after ancestors and first possessors
- Agriculture — Agricultural practices in Nephite society
- Marriage — Covenant family union and raising a righteous posterity
- Sacrifice and Offerings — Mosaic offerings of firstlings, later done away by Christ
- Oaths — Oaths in Nephite and Jaredite society
- Property and Ownership — Possession, loss, and defense of material goods and land
- Genealogical Record-Keeping — Preserving commanded family descent across generations
- Elder-Son Precedence — The expectation that the eldest leads, contested by appointment
- Visions and Dreams — Experiences recorded, interpreted, disputed, and acted upon
- Reformed Egyptian — The Nephites' altered script used for their engraved records
- Language — Inherited speech and writing preserved across generations
- Learning — Education, literacy, and cultivated understanding
- Family — Family roles in Nephite society