As a pre-mission teenager studying at Brigham Young University, I took a number of religion classes. It has been satisfying to look over some of the papers I wrote for those classes and to see how my understanding and writing style have progressed. While this text certainly doesn’t represent my best work, I thought I’d include it here just for fun.
The Book of Mormon writers describe Satan, “the author of all sin” (Hel. 6:30), in such a way that their readers can draw a direct contrast between the father of lies and Jesus the Christ. Satan is thus presented as a foil for the Savior. This essay will first explore the methods and results of Satan’s tenacious efforts to destroy the Lehite civilization, as presented in the Book of Mormon text, and will then show how the authors later introduced Jesus Christ as possessing attributes exactly opposite of Lucifer for purposes of contrast.
Satan employed essentially three mechanisms in his persistent attempt to undermine the Lehites’ happiness: deceit, destructive human organizations, and disunity. Through these methods, the fallen one tried to undermine the Gospel as preached by Jesus Christ on the American continent some years later.