The Record
Definition
The record in the Book of Mormon is the written documentation of history, revelation, and covenants. The entire text understands itself as an abridged record of older records. The writers are self-consciously aware that their writing will be read in a distant future. Writing, preserving, and transmitting the record is not an administrative task but a sacred duty. The record is the antidote to forgetting: “we write … that our children may know.”
Where It Appears
The theme of the record appears at every structural level of the text. The small plates of Nephi are specifically designated for “the more spiritual things.” The large plates contain the fuller political and military history. Mormon’s editorial project — abridging a thousand years of records into one volume — is itself an act of record-making. The Jaredite record (Book of Ether) is discovered, translated, and embedded within the larger record. Moroni’s final act is to bury the completed record, and Joseph Smith’s prophetic career begins with its discovery.
Narrative and Theological Function
The record functions as memory made material. Nephite civilization collapses not primarily from military defeat but from forgetting — forgetting the covenant, forgetting past deliverances, forgetting who they are. The record is the weapon against this forgetting. The text’s obsession with its own materiality (plates, engraving, hiding, discovering, translating) makes the record a character in its own right: the record has a biography that spans the entire narrative.
Relationship to Other Concepts
The record is the product of revelation and prophecy: inspired speech is committed to writing. The record depends on the physical plates as its medium. The record must be hidden (Cumorah) before it can be revealed (Joseph Smith). The record enables sacred memory: what is written is remembered; what is unwritten is forgotten.
In Comparative Context
Few scriptures are as self-conscious about their own production as the Book of Mormon. The Bible is a library of texts with diverse origins; the Book of Mormon is a single compiler’s abridgment, and the compiler tells us he has selected, condensed, and framed. This self-consciousness makes the Book of Mormon a particularly “meta” scripture — it is a book about how books are made, preserved, and transmitted.