And now it came to pass that while he was going about to destroy the church of God, for he did go about secretly with the sons of Mosiah seeking to destroy the church, and to lead astray the people of the Lord, contrary to the commandments, or even the king—And as I said unto you, as they were going about rebelling against God, behold, the angel of the Lord appeared unto them; and he descended as it were in a cloud; and he spake as it were with a voice of thunder, which caused the earth to shake upon which they stood. (Mosiah 27:10-11)
Some critics have argued that this text and the narrative of Alma the Younger’s conversion as being dependent upon Paul’s conversion as recounted in Acts 9:1-9:
And Saul, yet breathing out threatenings and slaughter against the disciples of the Lord, went unto the high priest, And desired of him letters to Damascus to the synagogues, that if he found any of this way, whether they were men or women, he might bring them bound unto Jerusalem. And as he journeyed, he came near Damascus: and suddenly there shined round about him a light from heaven: And he fell to the earth, and heard a voice saying unto him, Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me? And he said, Who art thou, Lord? And the Lord said, I am Jesus whom thou persecutest: it is hard for thee to kick against the pricks. And he trembling and astonished said, Lord, what wilt thou have me to do? And the Lord said unto him, Arise, and go into the city, and it shall be told thee what thou must do. And the men which journeyed with him stood speechless, hearing a voice, but seeing no man. And Saul arose from the earth; and when his eyes were opened, he saw no man: but they led him by the hand, and brought him into Damascus. And he was three days without sight, and neither did eat nor drink.
While there are parallels, to be sure, (1) there are significant differences and (2) Alma’s conversion narrative fits neatly with ancient Mesoamerica. As Brant Gardner noted:
. . . certain differences, more subtle than the similarities, are important to highlight. First is the belief system underlying the persecution. Saul is a Hebrew and a believer in Yahweh.. He persecutes because he is part of the established religion that is fending off a dangerous schism. Saul defends the status quo, the mainline religion. In contrast, Alma2 is a member of a minority religion who has rejected his people’s primary religion. Thus, Saul begins persecuting Christians with heh assumption that he is fighting to preserve Yahweh’s religion, while Alma2 has already rejected that religion (and worldview) and espoused a “foreign” religion (and worldview).
The next slight difference comes in the angel’s appearance to them. To Alma2 the angel comes in a cloud and to Saul with a bright light from heaven (Acts 9:3). This difference may be more significant than it would first appear. Yahweh appeared to Israel as a pillar of fire, so Saul would be culturally predisposed to recognize deity accompanied by fire and, by extension, light.
The cultural context of Mesoamerica may have been sufficiently different that the cloud was as significant for Alma2 as the light for Saul. While the cultural explication of Mesoamerican clouds comes from a later period than the Book of Mormon, the concept of the sacred appears to have had a long history in Mesoamerica and one cannot discount the possibility that these associations could have been present during Book of Mormon times.
Schele and Mathews describe several Maya structures in The Code of Kings. The building known as “the nunnery” in Uxmal (located in the Peten, Yucatan, Mexico) they discuss an S-shape lying on its side with dots around it that appears on the building walls:
Alternating with the flower lattice are squared, S-shaped scrolls. These scrolls have glyphic counterparts in a sign that reads muyal, “cloud . . . “
Maya artists often depicted their vision floating in clouds, sometimes clouds of incense, sometimes the clouds of the sky: these are the muyal of the entablature. (Linda Scheme and Peter Mathews, The Code of Kings: The Language of Seven Sacred Maya Temples and Tombs [New York: Scribner, 1998], 270-71)
I have hypothesized that Alma2 has become a believer in the alternate Mesoamerican religion, countering Nephite Messianism. In that worldview, clouds (whether incense or sky-clouds) would mark the presence of the gods. Thus, the appearance of a being in a cloud would signal communication with the divine for Alma2 in a very powerful way.
This detail creates an interesting context for this particular variation from the story of Saul. While the similarities are so obvious as to not require recounting, this particular difference is rather obscure but still possibly deeply significant in the Alma2’s Mesoamerican context.
The next difference is the description of the voice. No description accompanies the voice in Paul’s account, but in Alma2’s it is “a voice of thunder” that shakes the earth. Both Saul and Alma2 fall to the ground—Saul/Paul because he appears to recognize majesty, and with Alma2, as a result of the earth’s shaking.
Miller and Taube describe the religions connotations of lightning and thunder: “Among the most potent and dramatic natural phenomena of Mexico are lightning storms which light up the sky and shake the earth with thunder” (Mary Miller and Karl Taube, An Illustrated Dictionary of the Gods and Symbols of Ancient Mexico and the Maya [London: Thames & Hudson, 1993], 106). Note that they document thunder-shaking earth, just as Alma2 experienced it. A modern Chamulan (Chamula is a town of the Tzotzil Maya) tale ties thunder to the voice of the gods: “When Our Father still walked the earth, he talked to the earth gods. He told them that they could not make it rain without talking to him first, so that he could punish the people if they did not ‘want’ the rain enough (if they had not prayed enough). When there are thunderheads, the earth gods are talking to Our Father. Whether rain falls or not depends on him” (Quoted in Gary Gossen, Chamulas in the World of the Sun: Time and Space in a Maya Oral Tradition [Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1974], 330).
Just as with the appearance in a cloud, the thunder and earth-shaking of Alma2’s experience may have Mesoamerican religious significance. As with the cloud imagery, Alma2’s apparent acceptance of the competing Mesoamerican religion would sensitize him to certain modes of divine communication. A being in a cloud accompanied by thunder and shakings would present unmistakable evidence of its divine authenticity and authority. (Brant A. Gardner, Second Witness: Analytical and Contextual Commentary on the Book of Mormon, Volume 3: Enos-Mosiah [Salt Lake City: Greg Kofford Books, 2007], 449-50)