In addition to Masonry, I believe that the secret combination narratives in the Book of Mormon allude to a second group. They significantly resemble Josephus’ description of Jewish robber bands in Palestine. These parallels of plot and world view in these narratives should not be seen as an allegorical interpretation but rather as a subtle allusion by the Book of Mormon.

Josephus’ work were published fourteen times in the United States between 1800 and 1830. In his Antiquities of the Jews, Josephus frequently refers to “bands of robbers” who, like the Nephite robber bands, lived in caves and mountains between the time of Herod the Great and the Roman destruction of Jerusalem. He asserts that between 52 and 60 C.E., the “country was again filled with robberies” and that the Roman leaders Felix and Florus protected the robbers and secretly paid them to assassinate Jewish leaders. On one occasion these paid assassins entered the temple in Jerusalem with daggers under their garments and, hiding in the throne of worshippers, murdered Jonathan, the high priest. No one could detect who had done the deed, but the resulting Jewish revolt caused the Romans to destroy Jerusalem. These secret murders and robbers were, in the judgment of Josephus, “the reason why God, out of his hatred of these men’s wickedness, rejected our city . . . He . . . brought the Romans upon us, and threw a fire upon the city to purge it, and brought upon us, our wives, and children, slavery, as desirous to make us wiser by our calamities. These works, that were done by the robbers, filled the city with all sorts of impiety.”

The Book of Mormon narrative scenes contain the same general elements and a similar theological perspective. With these parallels to Josephus, the Book of Mormon alludes to a Jewish example of how secret combinations caused social destruction. Secret combination narratives in the Book of Mormon resemble the tales of Jewish bandits who hastened the downfall of the Jewish nation far more than they resemble any events in accounts of Masonry. I am aware of almost no significant parallels between Masonic narratives and those in the Book of Mormon. The clear allusions to Masonry in the Book of Mormon are verbal and not part of the plot.