The Know

Lions are mentioned thirteen times in the Book of Mormon, primarily in quotations from biblical writers like Isaiah and Micah, but also in two passages unique to the Book of Mormon.1 That ancient American peoples mentioned lions can seem puzzling if we subconsciously consider them to be the African lions familiar to modern audiences.2 However, several large American cats could qualify as Book of Mormon lions, and their literary mention may draw upon both biblical and ancient American traditions.

Because most Book of Mormon mentions of lions are Old Testament quotations, these references can best be explained by exploring how biblical authors describe lions.3 In biblical times, lions roamed the land of Israel, but they have since gone extinct in the region.4 Lions were fearsome beasts that sometimes killed humans but were also defeated by individuals like David, Samson, and Benaiah.5 Though many think of lions today as symbols of pride and nobility, they were primarily mentioned as biblical metaphors for terrifying fierceness because of their loud roars, dangerous ambushes, and ability to maul their prey.6 The biblical quotations about lions in the Book of Mormon describe the animals in that same way.

Relief depicting the lion hunt of Ashurbanipal, Assyrian, 645–640 BC, British Museum, London, ref. no. 124874.

The lion references specific to the Book of Mormon also focus on the lion as a fierce predator. When Limhi’s people went to battle unexpectedly with the Lamanites, “the battle became exceedingly sore, for they fought like lions for their prey” (Mosiah 20:10). On another occasion, after crowds of people witnessed Alma and Amulek emerging unscathed from the collapsed prison in Ammonihah, the people “fled from the presence of Alma and Amulek even as a goat fleeth with her young from two lions.”7 Since Old World lions were not known in pre-Columbian America, it is likely that in Nephite understanding, the word lion came to refer to similar creatures familiar to ancient Americans, primarily the jaguar or the cougar.8 Thus, it is valuable to learn about these large cats potentially present in Nephite lands.

As John L. Sorenson notes, the jaguar is an obvious candidate for the Book of Mormon lion and was a feared animal.9 Taxonomically, the jaguar (Panthera onca) falls in the Panthera genus with lions, tigers, and leopards; it would be the American cat most similar in size to an Old World lion. The two species have notable differences in appearance, but they were similar enough that Spanish colonists repeatedly referred to jaguars as lions.10

Like Old World lions, the jaguar is an ambush predator though to a higher degree. It can lie in wait, hiding on the ground, in trees, or in the water. This ambush style may explain the mention of lions in Limhi’s military ambush setting:

And now Limhi had discovered them from the tower . . . ; therefore . . . [they] laid wait for them in the fields and in the forests. . . . [And] the people of Limhi began to fall upon them from their waiting places, and began to slay them. And it came to pass that the battle became exceedingly sore, for they fought like lions for their prey. (Mosiah 20:8–10)

The cougar, or mountain lion, (Puma concolor) is also a great candidate for the Book of Mormon lion, as the name itself suggests. Like the jaguar, cougars can be dangerous to humans and look similar to Old World lions, though they are smaller. The creature lives throughout North, Central, and South America. Like the jaguar and most big cats, it is an ambush predator that would work well as a metaphor for Limhi’s ambushing warriors.

Another intriguing aspect of the lions in Mosiah is that they are used to describe warriors in a military context, as are dragons (which were perhaps understood as crocodiles or caimans).11 Animal predation is not an uncommon metaphor for combat in many cultures, as Homer’s Iliad demonstrates.12 However, a unique feature of Mesoamerican culture is its strong connection between animals and warfare in clothing and ideology. Warriors (particularly elite ones) were often dressed in the likeness of an animal.13 At least by the time of the Spanish conquest, Aztec warriors were divided into warrior orders that included the elite jaguar knights.14

A jaguar warrior from Codex Magliabechiano CL. XIII.3. Image via the Foundation for the Advancement of Mesoamerican Studies, http://www.famsi.org/research/graz/magliabechiano/img_page061.html

Beyond simply dressing like jaguars, Mesoamerican cultures also envisioned individuals as having an “animal spirit companion” called a way (plural, wayob) or a tonal, into which shamans, kings, and gods could magically transform.15 Mary Miller and Karl Taube summarize, “In a state of shamanic transformation, a Maya lord would take on an animal self or [way], most commonly the jaguar.”16 This supernatural transformation was ideologically connected to their armed conflicts, as another scholar notes: “The ancient Maya also transformed into their wayob when they fought their wars.”17 Furthermore, “jaguar gods were present in every major Mesoamerican civilization,” including some violent ones.18 

Shamanic transformation of a shaman into a jaguar way on a vase from Altar de Sacrificios in Petén, Guatemala. Image via the Foundation for the Advancement of Mesoamerican Studies, http://research.famsi.org/montgomery_list.php?_allSearch=Altar%20de%20Sacrificios&tab=montgomery&title=Montgomery%20Drawing%20Collection.

The Why

As with the imagery of dragons in the Book of Mormon, the imagery of lions denotes a fierceness that is not necessarily good or evil in and of itself.19 Peter warns, “Your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour” (1 Peter 5:8). However, John calls Christ “the Lion of the tribe of Juda,” and lion imagery adorned the temple of Solomon.20

Fierceness and strength can be virtues when used appropriately for the cause of truth, and the lion was often used as a respectful symbol of strength in scripture.21 This can also be seen with the people of Limhi, whose righteous motivations for self-defense and protection of others gave them the dragon- and lionlike strength to prevail.

The scriptures also contain ominous prophecies of lionlike punishments if its modern audience does not repent. Jesus, adapting the prophecy of Micah, warned the nations of the latter days “that if the Gentiles do not repent after the blessing which they shall receive, after they have scattered my people . . . [they] shall be among them as a lion among the beasts of the forest, and as a young lion among the flocks of sheep” (3 Nephi 20:15–16).

Dana M. Pike, speaking of this passage, says:

Not surprisingly, Jesus “likens” Micah 5:8 to the Israelite remnant in the Americas since he is speaking to an Israelite audience in the Americas. . . . The Nephite survivors with whom Jesus visited in the Americas presumably understood this use of lion imagery, given the variety of wild cats in the Americas. Thus, Jesus’s statement . . . would have been a powerful image for them too.22

The prophecy serves “to give hope to [righteous] Israelite remnants that eventually they would triumph over their enemies” but is also “a warning to unbelieving Gentiles.”23 As with much of the day of the Lord imagery, these prophecies need only worry those who are spiritually unprepared: “The righteous need not fear” and can look forward to the beautiful promise of the Millennium as a time so peaceful that even “the lion shall eat straw like the ox. . . . They shall not hurt nor destroy in all my holy mountain: for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea” (1 Nephi 22:17; Isaiah 11:7, 9).

• 1. For biblical quotations, see 2 Nephi 15:18, 29 (quoting Isaiah 5:18, 29; 21:6–7); 2 Nephi 30:12–13 (quoting Isaiah 11:6–7); and 3 Nephi 20:16, 21:12 and Mormon 5:24 (quoting Micah 5:8). For unique Book of Mormon references, see Mosiah 20:10; Alma 14:29.
• 2. Matthew Roper, “Anachronisms: Accidental Evidence in Book of Mormon Criticisms, Part1: Animals,” forthcoming.
• 3. Dana M. Pike, “Passages from the Book of Micah in the Book of Mormon,” in They Shall Grow Together: The Bible in the Book of Mormon, ed. Charles Swift and Nicholas J. Frederick (Deseret Book; Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University, 2022), 402–403; Brent A. Strawn, What Is Stronger Than a Lion? Leonine Image and Metaphor in the Hebrew Bible and the Ancient Near East (Academic Press Fribourg, 2005).
• 4. The lion in Israel was likely the Asiatic lion, a subpopulation within the lion species with shorter manes, but this isn’t certain. Strawn, What Is Stronger Than a Lion?, 31, notes: “Indeed, while some have made much of the African/Asiatic distinction, notably Koehler, it is best not to speculate on which type of lion was encountered and where. As Wapnish notes, ‘Several subspecies of lion ranged throughout the greater Near East until modern times, but it is impossible to determine which were closest to ancient Levantine populations.’” Previous taxonomy considered the African lion and Asiatic lion to be two different subspecies, Panthera leo leo and Panthera leo persica, though newer taxonomy considers them to be different populations of the same subspecies. A. C. Kitchener et al., “A Revised Taxonomy of the Felidae: The Final Report of the Cat Classification Task Force of the IUCN Cat Specialist Group,” Cat News Special Issue 11 (2017): 71–73. The last surviving Asiatic lions reside in India. See C. A. W. Guggisberg, Wild Cats of the World (Taplinger, 1975), 139, 143–144; Strawn, What Is Stronger Than a Lion?, 29–31; Annik E. Schintzler, “Past and Present Distribution of the North African–Asian Lion Subgroup: A Review,” Mammal Review 41, no. 3 (2011): 220–243.
• 5. For lions killing humans, see 1 Kings 13:24–26; 2 Kings 17:25–26. For humans killing lions, see Judges 14:5–6; 1 Samuel 17:35–36; 2 Samuel 23:30.
• 6. Strawn, What Is Stronger Than a Lion?, 14–15: “In most instances, at least in North America, it seems that when someone is likened to a lion this indicates pride, nobility, or bravery. This is probably due to the fact that the lion is understood today as ‘The King of the Beasts’ despite marginal (and non-canonical!) stories of cowardly lions. But does ‘bravery’ capture the full tenor of the lion metaphor in ancient Israel? . . . In the case of the Hebrew Bible, for instance, while a few instances of leonine metaphor do support notions of bravery (e.g., Prov 28:1; Job 10:16) or nobility (e.g., Prov 30:30), and are perhaps the origin of our own dead metaphor, the vast majority do not carry such significance, though this does not mean that they are antithetical to such conceptions.”
• 7. Alma 14:29. Goats are also seen by many as anachronistic in the Book of Mormon, but the mention could well refer to a mammal that was a regular part of the jaguar or cougar diet like brocket deer (genus Mazama), which was sometimes equated with goats by Spanish colonists. See Matthew Roper, “Deer as ‘Goat’ and Pre-Columbian Domesticate,” Insights: The Newsletter of the Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship 26, no. 6 (2006): 2–3. A few other caprines are possible candidates for Book of Mormon goats, like the Rocky Mountain goat (Oreamnos americanus) or the extinct Harrington’s mountain goat (Oreamnos harringtoni), though these are less preferable. See Roper, “Anachronisms, Part1: Animals.”
• 8. John L. Sorenson, Mormon’s Codex: An Ancient American Book (Neal A. Maxwell Institute; Deseret Book, 2013), 320. See also Roper, “Anachronisms, Part 1: Animals”; Scripture Central, “Why Does the Book of Mormon Mention Dragons? (Mosiah 20:11),” KnoWhy 732 (May 21, 2024). Sorenson also suggests some other smaller cats as potential possibilities, but these are less likely. These include the bobcat (Lynx rufus) in North America and northern Mexico, the jaguarundi (Herpailurus yagouaroundi) throughout Central and South America, and American spotted cats (genus Leopardus) that are primarily in South America, except for the ocelot, which ranges into Southern Mexico. See Sorenson, Mormon’s Codex, 320. Another unlikely candidate is the extinct American lion (Panthera atrox), a larger relative of the Old World lion that ranged throughout North and Central America; its most recent fossils date to the end of the Pleistocene (about 10,000 BC), so it probably went extinct before Book of Mormon times.
• 9. Sorenson, Mormon’s Codex, 320. See also Roper, “Anachronisms, Part 1: Animals”; Scripture Central, “Why Does the Book of Mormon Mention Dragons?”
• 10. Roper, “Anachronisms, Part 1: Animals.” They would primarily be differentiated by their spotted coats, lack of mane, and occasional dark, melanistic coats. A cougar, despite being smaller, would have a closer coloring to an Old World lion. One potential objection to this possibility is that jaguars are usually solitary hunters, unlike Old World lions, and the Book of Mormon uses a metaphor of two lions hunting together (in Alma 14:29). However, jaguars are known to hunt together during mating season, and males occasionally form coalitions for hunting; similarly, females stay with their cubs, which could explain the presence of multiple lions. Andrew F. Fraser, Feline Behavior and Welfare (CABI, 2012), 79–80: “Hunting and feeding [for jaguars] are usually performed alone, although mating pairs and mothers with cubs will share their catches. In addition, siblings that are on the move during dispersion may stay together, dividing their kills amongst each other. . . . At 2 months of age [the cubs] begin accompanying [the mother] on hunting trips. . . . This is their hunting tuition, and in these initial stages they spend their time observing.” See also Włodzimierz Jędrzejewski et al., “Collaborative Behaviour and Coalitions in Male Jaguars (Panthera onca)—Evidence and Comparison with Other Felids,” Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology 76, no. 121 (2022): 1–15. Cougars share food but are quite solitary hunters. See L. Mark Elbroch et al., “Adaptive Social Strategies in a Solitary Carnivore,” Science Advances 3, no. 10 (2017): 1–8; Anthony J. Stuart and Adrian M. Lister, “Extinction Chronology of the Cave Lion Panthera spelaea,” Quaternary Science Reviews 30 (2010): 7. Other extinct cat candidates could include the saber-toothed cats in the subfamily Machairodontinae.
• 11. Mosiah 20:10–11; Scripture Central, “Why Does the Book of Mormon Mention Dragons?”
• 12. Maureen Alden, “Lions in Paradise: Lion Similes in the Iliad and the Lion Cubs of IL. 18.318–22,” Classical Quarterly 55, no. 2 (2005): 335: “The Iliad uses more than twenty-eight extended similes in which lions attack domestic cattle or timid wild animals to describe heroic aggression.”
• 13. Mary Miller and Karl Taube, An Illustrated Dictionary of the Gods and Symbols of Ancient Mexico and the Maya (Thames & Hudson, 2014), 102: “To assert lordly power, chiefs and kings wore jaguar pelts, jaguar sandals, headdresses fashioned of jaguar heads, and necklaces made of jaguar teeth—and even necklaces of jade beads carved as jaguar teeth. Along with the mat, jaguar pelts and cushions were the symbol of the enthroned lord, and many stone thrones, particularly among the Maya, took the shape of jaguars, sometimes double-headed.”
• 14. Miller and Taube, Illustrated Dictionary, 183.
• 15. David Freidel, Linda Schele, and Joy Parker, Maya Cosmos: Three Thousand Years on the Shaman’s Path (William Morrow, 1993), 190. They also note (on page 52), “The Classic word way refers to kings, ritual performers, and gods in their magical alternative forms as animals, stars, and fantastic beasts. In ancient times these wayob were powerful, terrifying conduits of supernatural power who could defend those who conjured them up, as well as being able to destroy those who opposed them. For the Yukatek Maya of today, wayob are witches who turn themselves into animals to annoy, attack, and steal the souls of their neighbors.”
• 16. Miller and Taube, Illustrated Dictionary, 201. They also note (on page 102) the antiquity and ubiquity of the practice: “jaguars were also important shamanic creatures, and in states of ritual transformation, humans changed themselves into jaguars from at least Olmec times onward.”
• 17. Freidel, Schele, and Parker, Maya Cosmos, 192. Another author notes concerning the modern Maya, “All of the animals identified by the Maya of Chiapas as potential spirit co-essences are respected for their fierceness and courage when trapped in dangerous situations.” Inga Calvin, “Where the Wayob Live: A Further Examination of Classic Maya Supernaturals,” in The Maya Vase Book: A Corpus of Rollout Photographs of Maya Vases, ed. Barbara Kerr and Justin Kerr, vol. 5 of 5 (Kerr Associates, 1997), 870.
• 18. These include Tezcatlipoca, the Central Mexican “god of rulers, sorcerers, and warriors”; the Mayan jaguar god of the underworld; and the Olmec “were-jaguar.” Miller and Taube, Illustrated Dictionary, 102–104, 164.
• 19. Scripture Central, “Why Does the Book of Mormon Mention Dragons?.”
• 20. Revelation 5:5; 1 Kings 7:29, 36. Lion imagery was fairly common in the Near East for both deities and rulers, and thus it featured prominently in palaces and temples. Strawn, What Is Stronger Than a Lion?, 77–233.
• 21. The people of Israel, several of its tribes, and some of its mighty warriors are likened to lions. See Genesis 49:9; Numbers 23:24; 24:9; Deuteronomy 33:20, 22; 2 Samuel 1:23; 1 Chronicles 12:8.
• 22. Pike, “Book of Micah in the Book of Mormon,” 401, 403.
• 23. Pike, “Book of Micah in the Book of Mormon,” 417. He also writes on page 418, “The . . . lion imagery in these verses from Micah, most likely used for their familiar yet powerful physical symbolism, functions to communicate uncontestable power and inevitability. Such will be Jehovah’s gathering and deliverance of Israelite remnants and the defeat of his/their enemies. These animal images were thus well suited for inclusion in teachings about future Israelite remnants and their longed-for reversal of fortune.”