Why the Amlicites Weren't the Amalekites

I wrote a while back about the Amalekites and a theory on where they came from.  Though it has been proposed that they were really Amlicites, there is a problem of timing I alluded to that I don’t think you can get around and I wanted to explore that a bit here.  The sons of Mosiah “took their journey into the wilderness to go up to preach the word among the Lamanites” while their father Mosiah was still alive (Mosiah 28:9).  This was “in the first year of the judges” when they departed and “they journeyed many days in the wilderness, and they fasted much and prayed much that the Lord would grant unto them a portion of his Spirit to go with them” (Alma 17:6, 9).  This was the wilderness between the land of Zarahemla and the land of Nephi where the Lamanites were, and it was crossed by various groups of people throughout the Book of Mormon.  For example, when Ammon (not the son of Mosiah) and his brethren went to find the people of Zeniff by going from the land of Zarahemla to the land of Nephi, they got lost and “forty days did they wander” until they found their destination (Mosiah 7:4).  So it is possible that it also took a matter of weeks or even months for the sons of Mosiah to cross the wilderness and to make it to the Lamanites, but “when they had arrived in the borders of the land of the Lamanites… they separated themselves and departed one from another, trusting in the Lord that they should meet again at the close of their harvest” (Alma 17:9).  Mormon recorded the first thing that Aaron did once they arrived was go to Jerusalem: “When Ammon and his brethren separated themselves in the borders of the land of the Lamanites, behold Aaron took his journey towards the land which was called by the Lamanites, Jerusalem, calling it after the land of their fathers’ nativity; and it was away joining the borders of Mormon” (Alma 21:1).  When he got there “the Lamanites and the Amalekites and the people of Amulon had built a great city, which was called Jerusalem” (Alma 21:1).      

            So what is the earliest date that the Amlicites could have arrived to build up this city of Jerusalem if they were really the same group as the Amalekites?  We read that in the “commencement of the fifth year of their reign” Amlici showed up among the Nephites and drew many people away after him (Alma 2:1).  A subsequent battle ensued with the Nephites and those who followed Amlici, and the Amlicites soon joined forces with the Lamanites.  So that means that it was over four years from the time the sons of Mosiah left the land of Zarahemla before the Amlicites were even a people, and so if they had time after that to fight the Nephites and then settle in Jerusalem and build up the city with synagogues, that would be likely be at least five years from the sons of Mosiah’s departure before Aaron could have realistically found a city in the land of Nephi built up by the Amlicites.  If that were the case, then that would mean the trek from Zarahemla to the borders of the land of Nephi plus Aaron’s journey from there to Jerusalem was at least five years, something that simply is not supported in the text.  These sons of Mosiah “were desirous that salvation should be declared to every creature, for they could not bear that any human soul should perish” and they “they did plead with their father many days that they might go up to the land of Nephi” (Mosiah 28:3, 5).  Given their eagerness, it seems very unlikely that they unnecessarily took extra years to get to their location (which was forty days away for a group who got lost).  The timing simply doesn’t fit for Aaron to have found a city already built up by the Amlicites as the first place he went among the Lamanites—the Amalekites he found had to have been a different people. 

I think that one of the reasons that at first glance it seems that the Amalekites were the same as the Amlicities is that both were described as being associated with Nehor who came on the scene among the Nephites in the first year of the reign of the judges.  Mormon recorded that “many of the Amalekites and the Amulonites were after the order of the Nehors” and that similarly Amlici was “after the order of the man that slew Gideon by the sword” (Alma 2:1, 21:4). Considering the timing I’ve just described above, it seems hard to understand how the Amalekites could have already been living after the manner of Nehor.  One possible explanation to this I realized is that Nehor could have actually come from the Amalekites.  It may be that after they built up their city Jerusalem and established their “all mankind should be saved at the last day” and do whatever you want philosophy.  He, a former Nephite, may have decided to try his hand at going back to the Nephites and trying to gain followers there like he had among the Lamanites (Alma 1:4).  If that were the case, he would have been coming from the Lamanites to the Nephites as a missionary of his own philosophy around the same time the sons of Mosiah were going from the Nephites to the Lamanites as missionaries for Christ.  At any rate, whatever the origin of Nehor and the Amalekites, what matters most is that we guard ourselves against their anti-Christ philosophy and hold fast to the testimony of Aaron to them, “that there [can] be no redemption for mankind save it were through the death and sufferings of Christ, and the atonement of his blood” (Alma 21:9).