In an epistle to his son Moroni, Mormon wrote:
For, if I have learned the truth, there have been disputations among you concerning the baptism of your little children. (Moroni 8:5)
In his critical review of the Book of Mormon, Delusions (1831), Alexander Campbell wrote that "This prophet Smith, through his stone spectacles, wrote on the plates of Nephi, in his book of Mormon, every error and almost every truth discussed in N. York for the last ten years. He decides all the great controversies." Among these theological controversies, Campbell lists is that of infant baptism. Campbell's argument labours under the (false) a priori assumption that this topic, and others he lists (e.g., justification) were only 19th century debates. While Campbell and other critics (e.g., the Tanners) view the Book of Mormon's reference to debates about infant baptism as being out of place, in reality, it fits its ancient Mesoamerican background. As one scholar noted:
[Chalchiuhtlicue, the goddess of the waters] matter appears to be gifted with the power of salvation: vapour, freed from the great mass of water rises heavenward only to return once more to earth after having been made fertile by the sun so that it may create life on earth. Doubtless because of her permanent contact with the celestial spheres, the goddess is invested with the high faculty of purifying. It is she who in the baptismal ceremony frees the newborn child from impurity. (Laurette Séjourné, Burning Water: Thought and Religion in Ancient Mexico [New York: Grove Press, Inc., 1960], 135-36, comment in square bracket added for clarification)
Brant Gardner, a Latter-day Saint Mesoamericanist, wrote the following in Second Witness: Analytical and Contextual Commentary on the Book of Mormon, volume 6: Fourth Nephi Through Moroni (Salt Lake City: Greg Kofford Books, 2007), 386-87:
The Maya practiced an infant-washing ritual so similar to Catholic baptism that Diego de Landa declared it to be a baptism in fact (3). Archaeologist Warwick Bray describes the Aztec practice: “The baby was carried out into the courtyard of the house to be bathed in an earthenware tub placed on a layer of rushes. Water was sprinkled on the child’s mouth, chest, and head, while the appropriate incantations were made. Then the midwife washed the baby all over and recited the prayer to keep away evil” (4). A religious belief system that produced the need to wash (and spiritually cleanse) the infant could easily influence Christian baptismal practice, just as it did in the Old World.
Notes for the Above:
[3] Diego de Landa, Relación de las cosas de Yucatán (Editorial Porrúa, Mexico, 1973), 44, “Baptism is found in no other part of the Indias except here in Yucatán and even with a word that means ‘to be born anew,’ or ‘another time’” [translation mind]. While Landa did not consider that the rite was found outside of Yucatán, a similar infant washing was part of Aztec culture.
[4] Warwick Bray, Everyday Life of the Aztecs (New York: Peter Bedrick Books, 1991), 57.
Incidentally, some critics claim that the Book of Mormon’s use of “epistle” is another anachronism. For a refutation of this point, see:
