Enos, Jarom, Omni

Brief Theological Insights into the Book of Mormon

Apr 04, 2024

The single chapter of Jacob 5 has more verses than Enos, Jarom, and Omni combined, so it felt a bit like a dare to write a theological book on them. The itty bitty books delivered.

Enos, Jarom, and Omni come at the end of the small plates. As such, they were also the end of the Book of Mormon in dictation order—the order in which the book was spoken aloud by Joseph Smith during translation. How does the focus of the entire Book of Mormon alter when we think of it in this sequence? The small plates contain the most focused and extended explication of the Book of Mormon covenant, that it is a record intended for a surviving remnant of the Lehites in the latter days. All three of the itty bitty books illuminate this focus from different angles.

Enos is usually presented as an accessible account of personal repentance that expands into prayer on behalf of an ever-widening circle. I focus on how this ever-widening circle is a restatement of the Book of Mormon covenant. Enos secures God’s reiteration that he will “preserve a record of . . . the Nephites . . . that it might be brought forth at some future day unto the Lamanites” (Enos 1:13). Adding onto the traditional reading of Enos, I focus on how he pours out his “whole soul” as a latter-day scripture example of kenosis. Coming from the Greek text of Philippians 2, kenosis means to empty out one’s self, as Christ “emptied himself by taking on the form of a slave, by looking like other men, and by sharing in human nature” (Phil. 2:7). Kenosis is not just humility, though. It is something only someone in power can do; they give up their power to empower others. Jesus condescends to earth and saves us. Even more than praying for our enemies, which Jesus commands us to do, kenosis is the idea that if we have the upper hand over anyone, we empty ourselves for their benefit. In Enos’s case, this meant that he wrestled on behalf of his people’s enemies, the Lamanites.

The book asks, “Who feels like your enemy? . . . Whoever they are and in whatever ways they are dangerous or destructive, would you engage in a spiritual wrestle over a long period of time to secure blessings for them and their descendants? Enos’s experience suggests that the same people we view as antithetical to our ideals could ultimately play a key role in our salvation.”1

Jarom is caught in the messy middle. His people aren’t wicked enough to be destroyed, but they need help to stay righteous long enough for the record to survive and reach the Lamanite remnant. Jarom wants to save space on the few remaining plates to make them last until the prophecy of the record reaching a Lamanite remnant is fulfilled. He decides, “I, Jarom, do not write more, for the plates are small” (Jarom 1:14). We can learn from Jarom by “understand[ing] the significance of what is not in his book” (50). He does not draw attention to his prophesying or revelations (Jarom 1:2). He does not indulge in the same prejudice against the Lamanites as others do. He persuades his people “to look forward unto the Messiah, and believe in him to come as though he already was” (Jarom 1:11).

This is a model for the latter days. We look forward to the second coming of Jesus, but we don’t know when it will be. Does this mean we crave the death and destruction that has been foretold to herald Christ’s return? Does the world need to get bad enough, or do the Lord’s covenant people need to become good enough for Jesus to come again?

Thinking about the book of Jarom as a pattern for us now, we can see that this question “divides the signs of the second coming into those that require that we act and those in which we are acted upon. If some things, like natural disasters, widespread hunger, and horrific wars will happen, we can and should watch for and notice them. But other signs depend on the discipleship of God’s covenant people to bring them about. If we do not roll up our sleeves and dig in, we give up our opportunity to share hope and redemption. We give up our place among the covenant people. The perspective we take will make all the difference in how we understand our responsibilities and responses to signs of the latter days.”2

The book of Omni is named after the first of its five authors, and this short book speeds up the tape; we see multiple generations in just a few verses. We also see the stated purpose of the small plates change. “According to Nephi, the small plates are for the things of the spirit, for prophecies, and for purposes known to God (see 1 Ne. 9:3, 19:3, 5; 2 Ne. 5:29–30). Nephi explicitly says, however, that these plates are not to give the genealogy of his fathers (89). But Omni writes “to preserve our genealogy,” and it looks to be a different project (Omni 1:1). What the authors of Omni make becomes a genealogy across generations, but at each entry it looks more like journal writing.

This raises provocative ideas about the relationship between journals and scripture. In the entry of the final author, Amaleki, we see the convergence of genealogy, history, and personal faith. Amaleki receives the plates from his father, Abinadom, but he gives them not to a direct descendant, but to King Benjamin. The book of Omni shows lineal and lateral links among records and families, sometimes moving from father to son and sometimes between brothers or peers. Preserving the record also preserves relationships. This intersection raises an important question. “I have heard some members of the Church express concern that . . . we focus so much on eternal families that we risk forgetting about Jesus. They ask: Are we the church of Jesus Christ or the church of eternal families?” (105) But this division isn’t what we find in Amaleki’s account.

Ultimately, the covenant of the Book of Mormon doesn’t just redeem the Lamanites but all the family of Lehi and Sariah and all those who have joined them (see D&C 3:17–18). . . . Because the plates and their story move both ways, they capture all the associated individuals and families not only in a chain but in chain mail, surrounded by linkages lineally and laterally, stretching in all directions. The chain-mail links include those in less traditional family situations who may not fit neatly into a conventional lineal inheritance, such as those who never married, widows and widowers, LGBTQ+ people, those who cannot have children, those who die prematurely, families who are separated, and anyone who cannot care for others. God wants all to be included in the covenant family. As Joseph Smith explains, “they without us cannot be made perfect—neither can we without our dead be made perfect” (D&C128:15).

In dictation order, the small plates’ emphasis on covenant comes into sharp focus, especially through the itty bitty books. With that in mind, as I was finishing writing this book, the end of Omni hit me as powerfully as any experience I’ve ever had in scripture. I’ll leave that as a teaser and inducement to return to the Book of Mormon, which is how we become linked now—lineally and laterally—in its covenant.

Sharon Harris is an assistant professor of English at Brigham Young University. She studies early modern literature, focusing on how it intersects with music. She holds degrees from BYU, the University of Chicago, and Fordham University. She has worked in public education, non-profit arts administration, and academic publishing. Harris is the author of “Enos, Jarom, Omni: A Brief Theological Introduction.”

Art by Brian Kershisnik.

These essays appear in Theological Insights from the Book of Mormon, a Wayfare series that pairs the 2024 Come, Follow Me curriculum with authors of the Maxwell Institute’s Brief Theological Introductions to the Book of Mormon series.