Abstract: In the Book of Mormon, the term disciple occurs fifty-five times. Of those, forty-eight are unambiguous references to the Twelve called by the risen Christ to preside over his new-world Church. The remaining six instances could plausibly be read either as references to more generic followers of Jesus or as references to the Nephite Twelve. If they are read as references to the Nephite Twelve, subtle themes emerge, generating insights into Mormon’s life, the apostasy in 4 Nephi, Mormon’s letters to his son, and the translation process of the Book of Mormon.


If one reads the Book of Mormon in translation order,1 Mormon first introduces himself to the readers in 3 Nephi:
And behold, I am called Mormon . . . Behold, I am a disciple of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. I have been called of him to declare his word among his people, that they might have everlasting life. (3 Nephi 5:12–13)
Mormon’s pulling back of the editorial curtain seems to come rather suddenly and with little foreshadowing. In his self-introduction, Mormon declares, “I am a disciple of Jesus Christ.” At a surface reading, Mormon appears to be self-identifying as one who follows the teachings of Jesus Christ. However, as we continue to read the [Page 386]Book of Mormon, it becomes clear that the term disciple has a much narrower use in Mormon’s narrative. It next occurs in 3 Nephi 15:12, [Page 386]when Jesus is addressing the twelve men he has set apart to lead his Church in the New World. From then on, in every other instance in 3 Nephi (twenty-nine more occurrences) the term unambiguously refers to this group of twelve men whom, for my purposes, I will label new-world apostles.2
Disciples Versus Apostles
The Book of Mormon writers, as a whole, are aware of the term apostle, but it appears only sixteen times. Thirteen of the occurrences are in 1 Nephi 11–14 as references to the old-world apostles.3 They are deliberately differentiated from the Nephite Twelve in 1 Nephi 12:8-10. This is when the angel tells Nephi that the Twelve Disciples “chosen to minister unto thy seed” will themselves be judged by the Twelve Apostles of the Lamb in the Old World. This is a point reiterated hundreds of years later by Mormon (Mormon 3:19). The remaining occurrences of apostle are Mormon 9:18, where Moroni states that apostles perform miracles; Ether 12:41, where Moroni says that prophets and apostles have written of Jesus; and Moroni 2:2, which records some of Christ’s instructions to the Nephite Twelve that end with “for thus do mine apostles.” These twelve Nephite men are never formally labeled apostles in the Book of Mormon, but they are clearly called as the leaders of the new-world Church and in Moroni 2:2 their office is analogous to that of apostle. While some commentators read the Nephite Twelve as identical in apostolic office to the old-world Twelve,