Book of Mormon Evidence: Mesoamerican Kingship Rituals

Evidence Summary

Some aspects of King Benjamin’s speech, given at the temple to announce Mosiah as the next king, may seem odd to modern readers. For example, Benjamin did not want the people to “think that I of myself am more than a mortal man” (Mosiah 2:10). This statement, along with Benjamin’s insistence that “I, even I, whom ye call your king, am no better than ye yourselves are,” may correspond to ancient ideas about royalty (Mosiah 2:26). As Mark Wright and Brant Gardner have observed, “such descriptions make little sense unless the conditions he described as absent under his reign were actually common elsewhere.”1 

Indeed, throughout antiquity—in both the Old and New Worlds—the belief that kings were in some way divine was prevalent. It was also commonly thought that kings became gods when they were coronated. Much work situating these and other aspects of King Benjamin’s speech within an Old World context, especially within ancient Israelite festivals and coronations, is well known.2 Lesser known is scholarship illustrating how Benjamin’s speech fits into a New World context. On this front, it appears Benjamin may have subverted the traditions about divine kingship that were embedded in surrounding cultures.

When giving his public address, Benjamin declared that Mosiah was “a king and a ruler” over his people (Mosiah 2:30). This followed a more intimate announcement of Mosiah’s kingship given in a family setting on the previous day (Mosiah 1:10). A similar pattern of private coronations followed by public announcements can be seen in Mesoamerican cultures. Wright explains, “The anointing of a new king among the Maya began with a private ceremony held in the royal palace, attended by priests, scribes, and a select few elites. The public presentation of the new king occurred later at the temple, where he would be displayed in his full royal regalia.”3

Another parallel involves the setting of Benjamin’s speech. Because the crowd was so large, “king Benjamin could not teach them all within the walls of the temple, therefore he caused a tower to be erected, that thereby his people might hear the words which he should speak unto them” (Mosiah 2:7). Similar structures can be found in ancient America. For instance, “On the murals of San Bartolo, Guatemala (ca. 100 BC) we see an enthronement ceremony wherein the ruler sits upon a wooden tower or scaffold to receive the emblems of rulership.” Furthermore, “The architectural layout of temple complexes effectively maximized acoustics, enabling speakers atop a temple to be seen and heard clearly throughout the plaza.”4

During Mesoamerican coronations, the king would perform a series of rituals. One of these, a bloodletting ritual, “required that blood [be] drawn from different and specific parts of the body.”5 It was believed that by shedding the king’s blood in this ritual fashion, doorways connecting the divine and earthly worlds would be opened and the king would receive visions and revelations about the divine realm and future events. Through these visions, the king could commune with divine beings (such as angels) and bring life to the world, which would also strengthen the king’s claim to be a divine being.6

Rather than performing a bloodletting ritual as a Maya king would, Benjamin insisted that he was not divine. Instead, he taught that “salvation was, and is, and is to come, in and through the atoning blood of Christ, the Lord Omnipotent,” which “blood cometh from every pore” (Mosiah 3:7, 18). This message “emphasized the fact that Christ was their “heavenly King” (Mosiah 2:19) and that his blood had a power far beyond that of any earthly king.”7 Wright observed that the “Nephites, living among the larger Mesoamerican culture, would surely have been aware of the sacred nature of royal blood and the power it had to bring new life.”8

Notably, these truths about Christ’s atoning sacrifice were revealed to Benjamin as he conversed with an angel. Although not occurring in a bloodletting ritual, this nonetheless established Benjamin as “an intermediary between the human and supernatural realms,” just as was believed of Mesoamerican kings.9 When performed at harvest festivals, Maya coronations included the king reenacting a god’s descent to the underworld and triumphant resurrection—an act that Benjamin did not attribute to himself but, again, to Jesus Christ.10

Another central aspect of divine kingship in ancient Mesoamerica was the king’s divine heritage. According to Wright, “For the ancient Maya, the right to rule clearly came by descent from the gods,” thereby allowing the king to receive “a portion of his ancestors’ divinity through birthright, and his legitimacy as ruler thus became firmly established in the minds of the people.”11

Instead of claiming descent from any divine being, Benjamin democratized this element of kingship, teaching that all the people could be considered descendants of the “heavenly King” and could all therefore be recipients of Christ’s blessings (Mosiah 2:19).12 By making covenants at the temple, the Nephites had all become “children of Christ, his sons, and his daughters; for behold, this day he hath spiritually begotten you” (Mosiah 5:7). 

Conclusion

These details demonstrate that King Benjamin’s speech fits well in an ancient Mesoamerican context. In fact, that setting may even help explain some of Benjamin’s otherwise puzzling statements. If surrounding cultures saw mortal kings as semi-divine beings who were descended from the gods and whose blood had sacred power, then it makes sense why Benjamin clarified that he was only a man, that only Christ’s blood can save us, and that everyone can become children of Christ through sacred covenants. As Gardner and Wright concluded, “Benjamin seems to be contrasting his reign with a well-known set of traits from the surrounding cultures.”13

Instead of being at odds with previous studies on Old World cultural features, these New World parallels expand upon them, demonstrating that Benjamin’s speech has meaningful connections with both ancient contexts. This is what might be expected of a group of Israelites who immigrated to a distant land and assimilated into a new society but who were also intent on preserving their religion and much of their cultural heritage.