I’ve had a profound journey in exploring connections between the Book of Mormon and the Book of Moses ever since I encountered a paper by Noel B. Reynolds, “The Brass Plates Version of Genesis.” Reynolds explored connections in the wording of the two texts and found unexpected evidence of a one-way connection from the Book of Moses to the Book of Mormon, as if the Book of Moses (or something like it on the brass plates) had been a significant source that influenced Book of Mormon authors. That paper solved a problem for me and led to my paper, “‘Arise from the Dust’: Insights from Dust-Related Themes in the Book of Mormon (Part 1: Tracks from the Book of Moses),” published in Interpreter in 2016, which added a few more proposed parallels. Noel Reynolds then kindly collaborated with me as we explored even more parallels and related issues, leading to the 2021 Interpreter publication, Jeff Lindsay and Noel B. Reynolds, “‘Strong Like unto Moses’: The Case for Ancient Roots in the Book of Moses Based on Book of Mormon Usage of Related Content Apparently from the Brass Plates.” We thought we had exhausted all the possibilities then with nearly 100 parallels, but more kept coming, including some of my favorites, as recently published in “Further Evidence from the Book of Mormon for a Book of Moses-Like Text on the Brass Plates” (2024) with a total of 133 parallels. But after a few more finds since then, the total now stands at 146, as I’ll explain in two forthcoming publications that explore the surprising distribution of the parallels in the Book of Mormon, along with some further updates. I think that the 146 number, by the way, might be very close to the final count.
One of the new updates involves further information on Parallel #86, first presented in “Strong Like unto Moses,” now listed as “Compound parallel 10: the account of Samuel the Lamanite echoes Enoch’s call and early ministry.” This involves connections between Moses 6:26–41 (esp. vv. 26–29, 32, 37) and Helaman 13–16 (specifically, Helaman 13:2–6, 8–10, 14–17, 29; 15:5, 8; 16:2).
Parallel #86, as explained in the initial discussion, included six elements common to Samuel the Lamanite’s sermon and the calling and early ministry of Enoch. Recently, six more common elements have been noted. Further, a useful observation from Hugh Nibley on Samuel the Lamanite’s apparent use of a phrase from the Book of Enoch was found. The revised explanation for Parallel #86 now follows:
Samuel the Lamanite comes to the wicked Nephites as an outsider with a message from the Lord, and in need of protection from the Lord to deliver that message, much like Enoch preaches to a wicked people as “a strange thing in the land,” even “a wild man” that has come among them (Moses 6:38) after receiving his weighty call from the Lord. As Hugh Nibley wrote of the “Enoch figure,” the mysterious preacher exhibiting “independence, intelligence, compassion and power” from God, his attributes can be seen in numerous other prophets. See Hugh Nibley, Enoch the Prophet, ed. Stephen D. Ricks, vol. 2 of The Collected Works of Hugh Nibley (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book and Provo, UT: Foundation for Ancient Research and Mormon Studies, 1986), 19–23.
The possibility of Samuel the Lamanite being aware of ancient accounts of Enoch was raised by Nibley in light of Samuel apparently employing a passage from the Book of Enoch in his famous sermon on the walls of Zarahemla. Nibley writes:
Incidentally, the book of Enoch is quoted at least 128 times in the New Testament and very often in other places. Since the apocryphal manuscripts were discovered, we’ve recognized that Enoch is quoted all over the Bible and also frequently in the Book of Mormon. That is very interesting, since the Enoch literature has been discovered long since 1830.
A quotation from an Enoch text occurs in the thirteenth chapter of Helaman. “Ye have trusted in your riches,” Enoch tells the people. “Ye have not remembered the Lord in the day he gave you your riches.” (Cf. Helaman 13:33 [also see vv. 20–23, 31–32].) This is also Samuel the Lamanite speaking, an expert in the scriptures; he knew all about these things. He had access to the plates of brass and other records. And here Enoch speaks in a writing not discovered until 1888: “Ye have not remembered the Lord in the days he gave you your riches; ye have gone astray that your riches shall not remain, because you have done evil in everything. Cursed are you and cursed are your riches.” (Nibley, Enoch the Prophet, 8.)
The wording given by R.H. Charles is:
Woe to you, ye rich, for ye have trusted in your riches,
And from your riches shall ye depart,
Because ye have not remembered the Most High in the days of your riches.
(Book of Enoch, 94:8, in R.H. Charles, ed., The Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha of the Old Testament, vol. 2, Pseudepigrapha [Oxford: The Clarendon Press, 1913], 266, available at Archive.org.)
Nibley’s remark resonates with other evidence that Samuel the Lamanite was deeply familiar with the Nephite scriptures, such as Matthew Bowen’s observation of a clever Hebrew wordplay in Samuel’s prophecies that draw upon Isaiah and Jeremiah (Matthew Bowen, “Smooth Words and Slippery Things: Samuel the Lamanite’s Prophetic Use of Hebrew ḥlq,” Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship, forthcoming), and Donald R. Parry’s observation that Samuel employs six forms of known prophetic speech forms – “the messenger formula, the proclamation formula, the oath formula, the woe oracle, the announcement formula, and the revelation formula” (Donald W. Parry, “‘Thus Saith the Lord’: Prophetic Language in Samuel’s Speech,” Journal of Book of Mormon Studies 1, no. 1 [1992]: 181–83) — likely indicative of a keen familiarity with the Nephite scriptures, in my opinion.
Building on the possibility that Samuel the Lamanite may have been familiar with ancient material on Enoch such as something like our Book of Moses on the brass plates, some of the apparent connections in the story of Samuel the Lamanite to the calling and initial ministry of Enoch in the Book of Moses may be meaningful. Allusions to an account of Enoch may have been intended for Nephite listeners or future readers to notice. However, it is also possible that these parallels are a string of coincidences, some of which reflect some common patterns in the Lord’s work through other “Enoch figures” in general.
Consider the following connections between Samuel and Enoch:
- Called to preach during a journey. As Samuel was about to go back to his people after being rejected by the Nephites as he “preached repentance unto the people” (Helaman 13:2), he was called by the voice of the Lord to return to the Nephites and preach (vv. 2–3), similar to what Alma2 experienced with respect to the people of Ammonihah (Alma 8:13–16). Likewise, as “Enoch journeyed in the land, among the people” (Moses 6:26), “he heard a voice from heaven” calling him to preach repentance to the people (v. 27).
- The Lord would give utterance. Helaman 13 emphasizes that Samuel was told to prophesy “whatsoever things should come into his heart” from the Lord (v. 3), and did so (vv. 4–5). Likewise, the Lord told Enoch, “Open thy mouth, and it shall be filled, and I will give thee utterance” (Moses 6:32). He also assured him that “all thy words will I justify” (v. 34). See also Parallel #139.
- The Lord’s “fierce anger” has been kindled. The Lord tells Samuel that “I will visit them in my fierce anger” (Helaman 13:10). Samuel later states that “the anger of the Lord is already kindled against you” (v. 30). When Enoch is called, the Lord first declares that “my fierce anger is kindled against” the people (Moses 6:27; cf. 7:34).
- The wicked face justice and doom unless they repent. Samuel said, “the sword of justice hangeth over this people; and four hundred years pass not away save the sword of justice falleth upon this people” (Helaman 13:5) and “heavy destruction awaiteth this people” unless they repent (v. 6). Quoting the Lord, he warns that if they persist in wickedness, “I will turn the hearts of their brethren against them” (v. 8), suggesting war with Lamanites that will lead to their destruction four generations later (vv. 9–10). In the Book of Moses, because of the wickedness and secret combinations of the people, the Lord tells Enoch that “they have brought upon themselves death; and a hell I have prepared for them, if they repent not” (Moses 6:29).
- Preaching from high places. Famously, Samuel climbed the city wall of Zarahemla and preaches from there (Helaman 13:4). Similarly, “Enoch went forth in the land, among the people, standing upon the hills and the high places” as he testified against the people (Moses 6:37). This is given added emphasis in the next verse: “And they came forth to hear him, upon the high places” (v. 38).
- Reference to the righteous heritage of the prophet. In Helaman 15:4–10, Samuel refers to his people, the converted Lamanites, and speaks of their righteousness. He says that “the more part of them are in the path of their duty, and they do walk circumspectly before God, and they do observe to keep his commandments and his statutes and his judgments according to the law of Moses” (v. 5) and once converted, they “are firm and steadfast in the faith” (v. 8). Likewise, Enoch says, “I came out from the land of Cainan, the land of my fathers, a land of righteousness unto this day” (Moses 6:41).
- Hardness of hearts. The word of the Lord to Samuel condemned “the hardness of the hearts of the people of the Nephites” (Helaman 13:8), expressing anger for this problem: “except they repent … I will suffer them no longer, and I will turn the hearts of their brethren against them.” Through Enoch, the Lord said “I am angry with this people, and my fierce anger is kindled against them; for their hearts have waxed hard, and their ears are dull of hearing, and their eyes cannot see afar off” (Moses 6:27).
- Hardened and blind. Samuel calls the Nephites “ye hardened and ye stiffnecked people” and asks “how long will ye suffer yourselves to be led by foolish and blind guides? Yea, how long will ye choose darkness rather than light?” (Helaman 13:29). After telling his people that “their hearts have waxed hard,” Enoch says that “their eyes cannot see afar off” (Moses 6:27).
- “Abominations” among the people are condemned. Samuel calls out “the wickedness and abominations which are in [Zarahemla]” (Helaman 13:14), “the wickedness and abominations which are in [Gideon]” (v. 15), and “the wickedness and abominations which are in [all the Nephite cities in the land round about]” (v. 16). Speaking of the Nephite people in general, he also condemns “their wickedness and their abominations” (v. 17). Enoch speaks of abominations as well, linking them to secret combinations: “and have sought their own counsels in the dark; and in their own abominations have they devised murder” (Moses 6:28). The works of Satanic secret combinations are denounced elsewhere as “abominations” in the Book of Moses (e.g., Moses 5:52) and in the Book of Mormon (Mormon 8:40)—see Parallel #140 for more details.
- The earth to quake and mountains to be moved. This is related to Parallel #139, “The Lord Promises to Justify a Prophet’s Words, Including Moving Mountains,” involving Helaman 10:4–10. Samuel prophesies that at the death of Christ, “the earth shall shake and tremble” (Helaman 14:21) and that “there shall be many mountains laid low, like unto a valley, and there shall be many places which are now called valleys which shall become mountains, whose height is great (v. 23). This was later fulfilled (3 Nephi 8:5–14). Similarly, the Lord told Enoch that “the mountains shall flee before you, and the rivers shall turn from their course” (Moses 6:34). Rivers changing course, incidentally, is the natural result of a valley being turned into a mountain, which may be part of the proposed connection with Samuel’s prophecy. The fulfillment of the Lord’s statement is recorded in Moses 7:13, which reports that through Enoch’s faith, “the earth trembled, and the mountains fled, even according to his command” (Moses 7:13). Both the trembling of the earth and the moving of mountains connects Enoch and Samuel.
- The people are angry and reject the prophet. While some believe Samuel and repent, the others are angry and sought to harm him, even to the point of casting stones and arrows at him (Helaman 16:2). Of Enoch, we read that “all men were offended because of him” (Moses 6:37).
- Protected from violence. Samuel is miraculously protected from the stones and arrows of his many enemies: “the Spirit of the Lord was with him, insomuch that they could not hit him with their stones neither with their arrows” (Helaman 16:2). Enoch was also protected from the wrath of the offended: “when they heard him, no man laid hands on him; for fear came on all them that heard him; for he walked with God” (Moses 6:39). The promise that “no man shall pierce thee” (Moses 6:32) was fulfilled. (See also the related Parallel #138.)
This multifaceted conceptual parallel between Enoch and Samuel the Lamanite might be consistent with Samuel’s awareness of the Enoch account in a proposed brass plates version of Genesis. The textual clues are not as obvious as they could have been if a translator had been actively working to draw our attention to the two stories. For example, the translator could have said that the Nephites could not “pierce” Samuel with their arrows as he stood on the “high places” around the city, or that the Nephites were “offended” by Samuel to better highlight the connections.
A further connection to the Book of Moses, but not involving Enoch, may be found in Samuel’s statement in Helaman 14:10:
And now, because I am a Lamanite, and have spoken unto you the words which the Lord hath commanded me, and because it was hard against you, ye are angry with me and do seek to destroy me, and have cast me out from among you.
This may allude to the description of Satan in Moses 4:
Wherefore, because that Satan rebelled against me, and sought to destroy the agency of man, which I, the Lord God, had given him, and also, that I should give unto him mine own power; by the power of mine Only Begotten, I caused that he should be cast down; . . .
And Satan put it into the heart of the serpent, (for he had drawn away many after him,) and he sought also to beguile Eve, for he knew not the mind of God, wherefore he sought to destroy the world. (Moses 4:3, 6)
Perhaps with irony, Samuel might be insinuating that the Nephites are like Satan in seeking to destroy him, but are casting him out as if he were Satan.
If any of the seemingly large number of connections involving Samuel the Lamanite are not random coincidences, they may reflect actual allusions to the brass plates made by Samuel. After his words were conveyed by Mormon or Helaman or both into Reformed Egyptian, those words may not have obviously been connected to the Book of Moses in the eyes of whatever agent or agents assisted with the translation into English, leaving us with relatively more conceptual rather than linguistic cues to recognize. It may be reasonable to accept some intentional allusions to the brass plates were not given clear linguistic markers in the final translation, while others may have been made easier to recognize with common English phrasing. And of course, we must also entertain the possibility that Joseph’s own language may have been at play, giving some linguistic connections that were not really intended by Book of Mormon writers.
While there is much we can’t know at this stage, I believe there is reasonable evidence for many unexpected connections between the Book of Mormon and the Book of Moses, including the possibility that the account of Enoch may have influenced Samuel the Lamanite and the account of his message to the Nephites. I wish we knew more about his life and his ministry.
