Words of Mormon Intro

[pam]

What are the Words of Mormon doing here when Omni was written about 130 BC and Words of Mormon was written about AD 385, and the book which follows Words of Mormon, (Mosiah) begins approximately at 130 BC?

The Words of Mormon were apparently written near the end of Mormon’s life for the purpose of connecting two major records [large & small plates of Nephi.]…So that a gap would not occur in the history of the Nephites, Mormon included the major events of the lifetime of King Benjamin in The Words of Mormon, thus connecting the account on the small plates of Nephi with Mormon’s abridgment of the book of Mosiah.

Daniel H. Ludlow, Companion to Your Study of the Book of Mormon [salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1976], 170

The Book of Mormon, as we now have it, consists of the following:

· A title page prepared by Moroni

· The small plates of Nephi (an unabridged record, 1 Nephi through Omni)

· The words of Mormon (a transition between the small plates and Mormon’s abridgment of the large plates)

· Mormon’s abridgment of the large plates of Nephi and some of his other writings (Mosiah through Mormon 7, Moroni 7-9)

· Moroni’s abridgment of the twenty-four gold plates (the Jaredite record, the Book of Ether)

· Moroni’s writings (Mormon 8-9, Moroni)

Millet & McConkie, Commentary on BOM, Vol 2, p. 120