The
Book of Mormon announces self-referential prophecies of its destiny to gather
in a Lehite remnant and thereby unite the Lehite branch of Israel. Readers
encounter this message on its title page, in its final chapter of Moroni 10,
and throughout the volume. But the narrative arc of the volume details the
tragedy of how this branch of Israel destroyed itself. It tells how the e could
not be relied on to help save one another. Thus, the Book of Mormon asserts the
necessity of collective salvation while demonstrating the Lehites’ failure to
achieve it. What is more, for years they failed precisely because they
permitted belief in Christ to separate them from one another rather than
uniting them. Ultimately, in their separation and the subsequent Nephite
extinction, Christ disappeared altogether. The Book of Mormon suggests that
whatever individual salvation the atonement makes possible, Christ requires collective
from his covenant disciples for other communities. Without it, and for all the
atonement’s efficacy, over time groups (and the individuals who comprise them) collectively
fail to embrace Christ and the covenant. Eventually the Nephites rejected Christ
just as the Lamanites had. While Christ’s atonement is infinite, those lost to
the wash of history in this way must be brought back to it by some other means.
(Sharon J. Harris, “Saving the House of Israel: Collective Atonement in the
Book of Mormon,” in Latter-day Saint Perspectives on Atonement, ed.
Deirdre Nicole Green and Eric D. Huntsman [Urbana, Ill.: University of Illinois
Press, 2024], 128)
