And assuredly it was great, for they had
undertaken to preach the word of God to a wild and a hardened and a ferocious
people; a people who delighted in murdering the Nephites, and robbing and
plundering them; and their hearts were set upon riches, or upon gold and
silver, and precious stones; yet they sought to obtain these things by
murdering and plundering, that they might not labor for them with their own
hands. (Alma 17:14)
Commenting
on the locution “gold and silver” in the New World context of the Book of
Mormon, Brant Gardner offered this possible meaning of the phrase:
Mormon further characterizes the Lamanites as
greedy: “their hearts were set upon riches, or upon gold and silver, and
precious stones.” Mesoamerican tribute lists include gold and silver. When they
include precious stones, it was typically jade (semi-precious) rather than the
Western precious stones as emeralds, rubies, and diamonds. The Book of Mormon frequently
mentions “gold and silver” as a synonym for desiring wealth. Mesoamerican
cultures did not value either gold or silver as highly as Westerners who
explored, conquered, looted, and plundered in the search of those meals . . . I
hypothesize that “gold and silver” is a phrase with an idiomatic, rather than
literal, meaning—in this case, greed for wealth. A parallel English expression
is acquiring a property “lock, stock, and barrel.” Someone has purchased real
estate and all that is on it including buildings and natural resources.
However, the idiom did not originally apply to land at all, but rather to parts
of a rifle.
Similarly, when we go to a sporting goods
store to be outfitted for golf, we purchase “the whole enchilada.” Of course,
golf clubs, balls, shoes, gloves, and cap have nothing to do with food, let
alone Mexican food. The idiom has transcended its literal meaning to convey “everything
necessary” to play golf. “Gold and silver” seems to have become a set phrase in
the same way. I suspect that Joseph Smith introduced the phrase during his
translation. However, I also suspect that John L. Sorenson would suggest that
it might be part of the plate language, based on his reading of the linguistic
labeling issue of Book of Mormon fauna where he and I have a similar difference
of opinion (Sorenson, An Ancient American
Setting for the Book of Mormon, 288-95). (Brant A. Gardner, Second Witness: Analytical and Contextual
Commentary on the Book of Mormon, Volume 4: Alma [Salt Lake City: Greg
Kofford Books, 2007], 266-67)
