It is not unreasonable to read this verse as a verbal foil to the definition of a seer which follows. We are much more interested in Ammon’s “right” definition than in Limhi’s “wrong” conclusion. But why would Limhi think a seer greater than a prophet? A closer reading shows that Ammon is not correcting Limhi but agreeing with him. Ammon has described Mosiah as one who can “translate all records that are of ancient date.” The significant element is the antiquity of the writing.
Why is the text’s age important? Ancient Israel, ancient Mesoamerica (and likely in many other parts of the ancient world) conceived of history not merely as something that had happened but rather as part of a cycle that would recur in the future. In the words of biblical scholar H. Wheeler Robinson, “[For Israel], the unifying principle [acted] like a magnet in evoking a pattern amongst iron filings. It created a pattern of history out of all its complexities, a pattern which disclosed the previously hidden purpose of God.” Thus, the past revealed the form of the future. One manifestation of this patterning of life and history is the numerous ways in which the Exodus became the model for subsequent events, including Lehi’s flight from Jerusalem.
Similarly, in Mesoamerica, all time ran in repeating cycles. The creation myth of the Maya and Nahua (cultural group that included the Aztecs) told of recurring cycles of destruction and new creations in which the destruction/renewal of the sun was the principal event. The serendipitous arrival of the Spanish (serendipitous for the Spanish, at least) in a year that symbolized change and renewal allowed them to be seen as the return of the divine Quetzalcoatl. That same year had come and gone before, but the arrival of the Spaniards created a connection to mythological themes. Thus, a historical event became a cyclical (ritual) event, and the present repeated the past. Sadly, the most striking repetition was not Cortez’s arrival as a manifestation of Quetzalcoatl’s triumphant return, but the eerie way in which the destruction of the Aztec kingdom repeated the destruction of Tula—an event also linked indelibly to Quetzalcoatl in Nahua mythology.
To return to our point, however, a seer was not simply one who could read about the past but who could perceive its “real truth”—how it fit as a revelation of the past and, hence, as a revelation of the future. In contrast, a prophet saw only the future, while the seer understood the larger patterns. This fact explains why Ammon did not define a seer as something else, but rather confirmed Limhi’s perception of the seer’s true standing. (See commentary accompanying vv. 16–18.)