The Book of Mormon, while ostensibly a history of ancient Jews who lived in the Americas, is in fact most concerned with an exposition of God’s plan of salvation through Jesus. Among the most foundational ideas in LDS theology is that all of history progresses along a linear plan toward the fulfillment of God’s purposes. This view of history draws on the LDS tradition’s shared heritage with Judaism and Christianity, which also view history teleologically: as proceeding in a linear fashion toward an ultimate end, in which God’s final plan for his creation will be realized. Some other religious traditions, by contrast—such as Buddhism and certain Indigenous American religions—tend to view history in the mode of a cyclical, recurring pattern rather than a linear progression.

In The Book of Mormon’s portrayal of history, even apparent setbacks (such as, for instance, the eradication of the Nephite people even after all of God’s work through his prophets and in Jesus’s ministry to them) are not, in fact, reversals of God’s purposes; LDS theology holds that God sees and knows those events long before they come about, and that his plan of salvation ultimately triumphs even over such downturns in the fortunes of his believers.