Time elapsed between Christs death and appearance in the Americas

[Volcanogrills]

As I was reading 3rd Nephi, It appears to me that the death of Christ happened in the first month (nissan) on the 4th day of the 34th year.

Then, in Chapter 10, VV 18-19 He says:

18 And it came to pass that in the ending of the thirty and fourth year, behold, I will show unto you that the people of Nephi who were spared, and also those who had been called a Lamanites, who had been spared, did have great favors shown unto them, and great blessings poured out upon their heads, insomuch that soon after the ascension of Christ into heaven he did truly manifest himself unto them—

19aShowing his body unto them, and ministering unto them; and an account of his ministry shall be given hereafter. Therefore for this time I make an end of my sayings.

To me, this indicates that Christ finished his work in the Old World. and THEN appeared to the Nephites.. Somewhere between Tevet (Dec/Jan) and Adar (Feb/march)

One could then also surmise that it was at least a year after his death that he appeared to the "lost" 10 tribes.

[rameumptom]

You read it correctly. Some General Authorities of the past (Joseph F. Smith is one that comes to mind), insisted it still was within a couple days. However, the text itself is very clear that it is a year later when Christ appeared to the Nephites.

[livy111us]

According to Joseph Fielding Smith, it was only a matter of a couple of days. From "Answers to Gospel Questions", we read:

When Did Jesus Appear to the Nephites?

Question: "Several years ago I was asked to make a talk on the events which took place on the American continent at the first Easter. In studying for the talk I discovered that it was almost a year from the time that Christ was crucified until he showed himself to the Nephite multitude at the temple in the land Bountiful. 'And it came to pass in the thirty and fourth year, in the first month, there arose a great storm,' (3 Nephi 8:5.) 'And it came to pass in the ending of the thirty and fourth year, behold, I will show unto you that the people of Nephi who were spared. . . . ' (Ibid., 10:18.)

"There is still a misconception of the event—or these events—in the minds of many of our members. Perhaps it doesn't really matter. Will you please discuss it?"

Answer: It is true that there has been a misconception in the minds of many members of the Church, but a careful reading of the account will clear up these misconceptions. It is true that a hasty examination will leave the impression that there was a delay of about a year after the resurrection of the Lord before he visited the Nephites and Lamanites who were spared; but more attention to what is written shows that it was but a very short time after his resurrection that the Lord appeared to the people who were assembled near the temple in Bountiful. This false conclusion that practically a year had passed from the time of the resurrection until the Lord appeared on this hemisphere has been published and circulated throughout the Church. Therefore we are justified in asking our brethren and sisters, and all who read the Book of Mormon, to pay close attention to the details of the story.

DESTRUCTION AT THE TIME OF THE CRUCIFIXION

In 3 Nephi 8:5, we discovered that in the "thirty and fourth year, in the first month, on the fourth day of the month, there arose a great storm, such an one as never had been known in all the land." The succeeding verses give much of the detail of the destruction which followed. This, evidently was at the time when Jesus was on the cross. Chapter 9 continues this story of destruction, and during this storm the voice of Jesus was heard in which he gave reasons for the great destruction, and he said:

O all ye that are spared because ye were more righteous than they, will ye not now return unto me, and repent of your sins, and be converted, that I may heal you? . . .

Behold, I am Jesus Christ the Son of God. I created the heavens and the earth, and all things that in them are. I was with the Father from the beginning, I am in the Father, and the Father in me; and in me hath the Father glorified his name. (3 Nephi 9:13, 15.)

All of this was while the great darkness covered the earth, and Mormon then through the ninth and tenth chapters commented upon the terrible destructions which had taken place. He closes the tenth chapter in these words:

And it came to pass that in the ending of the thirty and fourth year, behold, I will show unto you that the people of Nephi who were spared, and also those who had been called Lamanites, who had been spared, did have great favors shown unto them, and great blessings poured out upon their heads, insomuch that soon after the ascension of Christ into heaven he did truly manifest himself unto them—

Showing his body unto them, and ministering unto them; and an account of his ministry shall be given hereafter. Therefore for this time I make an end of my sayings. (3 Nephi 10:18-19; italics added.)

CHRIST APPEARED TO NEPHITES SOON AFTER ASCENSION

Here he declares that it was soon after the Savior's ascension into heaven that he appeared to the Nephites and Lamanites on this continent. And his ascension was the day of his resurrection after his appearance to Mary at the tomb, and before his appearance to the disciples that same day.

The reason why Mormon discontinued his account at this point is not stated. Evidently he was writing during the days of the great struggle with the Lamanites for the Nephite existence, and it is very possible that some sudden emergency had arisen so that he had temporarily to close his record. However, he continued his story where he broke off and states that there was a great multitude gathered together round about the temple in Bountiful. It seems perfectly clear that this great gathering was immediately after the close of the dreadful period of darkness. We read that the people were "marveling and wondering one with another," and "were showing one to another the great and marvelous change which had taken place." (3 Nephi 11:1.) While they were marveling and pointing out to each other these changes, and conversing, they heard a voice.

. . . it was not a harsh voice, neither was it a loud voice; nevertheless, and notwithstanding it being a small voice it did pierce them that did hear to the center, insomuch that there was no part of their frame that it did not cause to quake; yea, it did pierce them to the very soul, and did cause their hearts to burn. (3 Nephi 11:3.)

And it came to pass, as they understood they cast their eyes up again towards heaven; and behold, they saw a Man descending out of heaven; and he was clothed in a white robe; and he came down and stood in the midst of them; and the eyes of the whole multitude were turned upon him, and they durst not open their mouths, even one to another, for they thought it was an angel that had appeared unto them. (3 Nephi 11:8.)

EVIDENCES FOR APPEARANCES FOLLOWING RESURRECTION

The fact that the multitude had gathered at the temple and were pointing out to each other the great changes that had occurred is evidence that this was an event immediately following the resurrection of our Lord. If this event had occurred one year later, the multitude would have been perfectly familiar with these great changes, and they would not have been so awed by them. It was in great astonishment and wonder that they had gathered and were pointing out to each other what had occurred.

Moreover it is contrary to reason that Jesus would make the Nephites and Lamanites, who had been faithful, wait for one whole year before he would make his appearance and give them instruction in relation to the closing of the period in which the law of Moses was in force, and the period when the fulness of the gospel was ushered in.

(Joseph Fielding Smith, Answers to Gospel Questions, 5 vols. [salt Lake City: Deseret Book Co., 1957-1966], 4: 27.)

[rameumptom]

But for Joseph Fielding Smith, he places the emphasis on two words: "soon after." Well, soon after what? The ascension of Jesus Christ. Was the ascension when Christ resurrected? Or was it the ascension of Christ after his 40 day ministry (Acts 1)? Or was it after another ascension we do not know about?

I believe Pres Smith's "close" look was based upon his personal belief and bias, and ignored the actual text of the Book of Mormon. He was a very strong traditionalist when it came to following the scriptures. Traditional belief outweighed what the scriptures actually stated. For Mormon, who dwelt almost 4 centuries later, a year's time could easily mean "soon after."

He also believed that Lehi was the chief ancestor of all Native Americans and that the Book of Mormon lands were across both continents. Yet, modern prophets look at these things very differently. Where earlier BoMs state that the Nephites were the chief ancestor of the American Indian, current books state that the Nephites are among the ancestors of the American Indians. That is quite a difference. And it comes down to rejecting traditional thought, and actually doing a critical review of the text. Traditional thought is often based upon conjecture, rather than actual revelation or text. For this reason the Church had the tradition of Cain's curse on blacks from Brigham Young down to Pres Kimball. President McKay had it researched and found there was no revelatory nor scriptural basis for that belief. Yet, even after 32 years of the ban being lifted, the tradition still persists.

It does us no good when Answers to Gospel Questions literally ignores what the BoM itself states regarding the timing of Christ's visit. The BoM is a primary source. Answers to Gospel Questions is not. I'm thinking that Mormon understood what he was writing, and my views fit it much easier.

[Larry Terry]

John Tvedtnes makes a strong, well thought out argument for the Savior's appearance to the Nephites as having happened shortly after his resurrection.  This is referred to at Bookofmormoncentral.org in a search related to "the timing of Christ's appearance to the Nephites"

[zil2]

Welcome to ThirdHour, @Larry Terry!

[Vort]

On 3/27/2024 at 1:04 PM, Larry Terry said:

John Tvedtnes makes a strong, well thought out argument for the Savior's appearance to the Nephites as having happened shortly after his resurrection.  This is referred to at Bookofmormoncentral.org in a search related to "the timing of Christ's appearance to the Nephites"

(The buried lede: Christ's criticism of Nephi for not keeping the records up-to-date by failing to record the fulfillment of Samuel's prophecy of the miracle of dead Saints being resurrected and appearing to many, a thing which could not reasonably have happened within mere days of Jesus' death, belies Tvedtnes' argument for an immediate-post-resurrection appearance of Jesus to the Nephites.)

This article includes some uncharacteristic slipups by Tvedtnes—an accusation I don't make lightly, since I'm something of a Tvedtnes fan. His whole approach in this particular article seems to reflect an attitude of President-Smith-wrote-this-in-his-book-and-I-want-to-believe-him, to the point that Tvedtnes decides (rather arbitrarily, if you ask me) that the gospel of Matthew is more reliable than the gospels of Mark and Luke, because Matthew might have been written by an actual apostle and eyewitness. Too many suppositions and inferences there to list out in this post, and certainly too many for me to easily agree with him. I actually agree with Rameumptom's take, which in itself is not exactly unusual. Ram and I probably agreed more than we disagreed about such things. But I would not easily have guessed that I would agree with Rameumptom and disagree with Tvedtnes on a point of doctrine and scriptural interpretation.

Tvedtnes' argument is basically as follows:

When Mormon wrote "in the ending of the thirty and fourth year", he wasn't actually talking about when Jesus showed himself to the Nephites, but rather was writing about when the record-keepers of the time had actually written down the news of Jesus' coming among the Nephites.

Yup, that's the argument. As Dave Barry might have written, I am not making this up.

While I think that Tvedtnes' argument in defense of this is quite weak (and you're welcome to read it yourself and decide if you agree or disagree), I am surprised by at least one glaring omission that Tvedtnes makes. 3 Nephi 23:8-14 tells of Jesus commanding the records (scripture) to be brought to him. After looking them over, Jesus carries on the following conversation with his disciples:

"Verily I say unto you, I commanded my servant Samuel, the Lamanite, that he should testify unto this people, that at the day that the Father should glorify his name in me that there were many saints who should arise from the dead, and should appear unto many, and should minister unto them." And he said unto them: "Was it not so?" And his disciples answered him and said: "Yea, Lord, Samuel did prophesy according to thy words, and they were all fulfilled."

Then Jesus asks the following question and gets an interesting response:

And Jesus said unto them: "How be it that ye have not written this thing, that many saints did arise and appear unto many and did minister unto them?" And it came to pass that Nephi remembered that this thing had not been written.

Feminists and other wokeists have misinterpreted this plain recounting. To be fair, almost everyone gets sloppy in reading this and misinterprets it, at least until they read it carefully and actually think about it a bit.

The common (and wrong) interpretation is as follows: Nephi and the other record-keepers had failed ever to record Samuel's prophecy, given probably more than 30 years earlier, of the dead Saints rising to life again and appearing to many. According to today's woke crowd, this is evidence of Nephite racism: Why else would they fail to record this mighty prophecy from a great prophet if not because Samuel was a hated Lamanite?

Nonsense. But that's what people think. Look at the chapter header; even the apostle who wrote it (probably McConkie) appeared to take this view. The First Presidency apparently approved it.

But that is not what the verse says!

Read it again. Jesus criticized his disciples that "this thing" had not been recorded. What thing? The prophecy itself? No, the prophecy had been duly recorded thirty years earlier, when it was given. Jesus' criticism of his disciples was that the fact that the prophecy had been fulfilled was not recorded—"that many saints did arise and appear unto many and did minister unto them". It's as plain as day. Just read the words. Jesus asked whether Samuel's prophecy had actually come about, and was told that it had. Then Jesus asked why the fact that many Saints had arisen and appeared unto many had not been recorded in their scripture, and Nephi remembered that "this thing"—the fulfillment of Samuel's prophecy—had not been written, probably because Nephi himself was the one who had failed to do so in good time.

Now remember, Tvedtnes' argument is that Jesus appeared to the Nephites within days of his crucifixion and resurrection—not months, not even weeks, but days. So assume that Tvedtnes' (and, to be fair and transparent, President Joseph F. Smith's) theory is correct. During the hours or at most perhaps a day (probably not two) after Christ's resurrection, some dead Saints had arisen, had appeared unto many, and had ministered unto them. Nephi knew about this, that it had happened...

...And hours later, Christ himself is chastising Nephi because, after all the momentous destructions that had taken place in the previous 72 hours, Nephi had not yet found time to go to the records and write, "Just pulled another survivor out of the rubble, but her parents didn't make it. Searched for food all day and found a source of clean water to keep people alive. By the way, some dead Saints were resurrected and appeared to us and ministered to us this morning, just like Samuel the Lamanite said! Going off now to make shelter for the wounded in hopes that they can survive the night."

The absurdity should be obvious. For the risen Lord to have had the expectation that His disciples responsible for keeping the records should have recorded the fulfillment of Samuel's prophecy clearly indicates that sufficient time must have passed for the Saints to have arisen, to have appeared to and ministered to many, and for his disciples then to have opened the sacred records and written of the fulfillment of such a glorious prophecy. Eleven months after His resurrection? Makes perfect sense; Jesus is not happy that they have failed to record the fulfillment of such an important prophecy. Three days after His crucifixion? Nonsense.

Yeah, I don't think so.

Edited March 29 by Vort