For Sunday21: The Book of Mormon made understandable

[Vort]

Sunday21, you ask some great questions and bring up an important stumbling block for members, both new and seasoned: How do we understand the Book of Mormon? The short, facile answer is "By reading it lots and lots". This is perfectly true, but there must be a way to sort of kickstart the process. This post is my attempt to introduce you to the Book of Mormon, so that when you read it, you have some hooks to hang various things on.

 

I'm going to give you a very short rundown of what is contained in the Book of Mormon. But first, I'm going to tell you The Big Secret about the Book of Mormon, possibly the single biggest thing that readers new to the Book of Mormon don't understand and find confusing.

 

The Big Secret

 

The first fifty or hundred pages of the Book of Mormon are lost. (Read Doctrine & Covenants 10 for more information about this event, which was so horrible that Joseph Smith thought he was to be eternally damned because of it. In brief, Joseph allowed a man named Martin Harris to "borrow" the first 116 written pages translated from the Book of Mormon plates to show to his wife. The pages were never seen again. People cried, heads rolled -- figuratively -- and a great deal of repentance and pain were gone through.)

 

This means when we start reading the Book of Mormon, we're coming in during the second act, and no one is around to tell us what went on in the first act. So let me tell you, very roughly speaking, what went on in the first act.

 

Here is a rough paraphrase of how the first 116 pages might have started:
 

Hi there, reader. My name is Mormon. I am living about 360 years after the birth of Jesus Christ, but I probably won't be living all that much longer. I am among the last survivors of a people called the "Nephites". Our ancestors came out of the city of Jerusalem almost a thousand years ago, and have been largely a righteous people until a generation or two before I was born. Now they are all corrupt and will very shortly be wiped out.

 

The Nephites have had many prophets during the past 1000 years, and these prophets have kept extensive records of the people's doings and the prophecies given to them. God has commanded me to take this entire, huge set of records and distill it down to a much shorter book. He has shown me that you who read it, living far in my future, will encounter many problems that the lessons of my people can help you with. So I am going to abridge Nephite history down to a much shorter narrative.

 

The first writing I will abridge is that of our first father, Lehi, who came out from Jerusalem. The record I am abridging was kept by Lehi and his faithful son, Nephi, whose descendants we are. Here is what they had to say...

 

Then, at the end of the Book of Lehi, Mormon might have added something like:

 

...And that covers my abridgment of the history of my people from the time Lehi left Jerusalem up until the reign of king Benjamin, a period of about 450 years. There is another short record of this same period, kept by Nephi himself, his brother Jacob, and many of Jacob's descendants. I am going to go find that book right now and put it in my record.

 

At that point, you would have started reading 1 Nephi, the next thing in Mormon's record.

 

Alas, those first pages are forever lost, so we must resign ourselves to coming in after the play has begun. But 1 Nephi through Omni actually cover the very same period that Mormon already abridged, so while we miss a lot of important details, we have the essential history covered, along with many precious teachings from Lehi, Nephi, Jacob, and other prophets.

[Sunday21]

Thank you. This explanation is most helpful!

[Vort]

1 Nephi, 2 Nephi, Jacob, Enos, Jarom, Omni, Words of Mormon

 

These books collectively are often referred to as "the small plates" (other than the Words of Mormon, which is a small insert joining the end of the small plates with the ongoing narrative of Mormon's abridgment). They are called this because the prophet Nephi (the original, the first one) kept two sets of records: the "large" plates and the "small" plates.

 

The large plates were much more extensive; they contained a more or less complete history of Lehi's family from the very beginning. Nephi kept this record faithfully, then passed it on to those who reigned in his stead (probably his sons), who in turn kept the record and passed it on to the next kings.

 

But the Lord commanded Nephi to keep another, much smaller set of plates, and to write on them only the most important spiritual highlights of what his family experienced. (See 1 Nephi 9 to read Nephi's thoughts on this.) Nephi called these the "small plates", and instead of passing them onto the kings, he passed them to his younger brother Jacob, who became the spiritual leader of the Nephites after Nephi's death. Jacob kept this record, then passed them on to his descendants, who continued keeping the record (though they were running out of room) until the small plates were finally filled up and the keeper of the plates, a man named Amaleki, had no sons to pass the plates on to. So Amaleki finished up the small plates and gave them to the king, who put them with the rest of his (extensive) records. And six hundred years later, Mormon -- doubtless having read about the small plates while abridging the large plates -- went looking for them and included them in his abridgement.

 

That said, these small plates contain some of the most amazing and profound doctrine found in the Book of Mormon, or anywhere else in any scripture. Nephi describes his father's family, his father's role as a prophet, and his (Nephi's) own efforts to follow his father and, later, become the leader of his people. He describes his older brothers' faithlessness and their subsequent rebellion, which formed the enemy group of the Lamanites (named for Nephi's oldest brother Laman). Nephi writes plaintively of his father's death and the difficulties that beset them, and copies extensively from the book of Isaiah, which Nephi saw as giving the entire history of Israel in prophetic form. Jacob takes over at Nephi's death and writes some very interesting things about Nephite society and teachings and such. His descendants take over at his death until, as already described, the record and the patriarchal line gave out and the small plates were finished off.

 

After all this is over, Mormon pops his head (back) up and talks about how, after abridging Nephite history down to this point, he went digging around to find the small plates and included them in his abridgment. Whether he copied the content of the plates verbatim into his abridgment or simply physically inserted the plates in, I don't know, but the result was the same in either case. Then Mormon says that he will now continue his abridgment of the large plates, and his efforts recommence in the following book of Mosiah.

 

Note that, for first-time readers of the Book of Mormon, the Words of Mormon are utterly confusing and seem out of place. Who is this guy? Why is he writing from hundreds of years in the future (from the perspective of the Nephites we had been reading about)? This is where the loss of the 116 pages makes everything confusing.

 

But now you know, so you won't be confused. :)

Edited January 14, 2016 by Vort

[Guest MormonGator]

For Vort: thanks!  I knew about the missing pages but this was so helpful. 

Edited January 14, 2016 by MormonGator

[Sunday21]

Thank you! This is golden. The whole narrative makes a lot more sense now!

[LeSellers]

The lost 116 pages were not "the book of Lehi".

Nephi copied a lot of his father's writings, but he did not include them directly. This remains true for the lost pages as well as the text we have.

I've recently begun wondering how Lehi would have explained his visions, and his worrying about his wayward sons. I'm touched by Nephi's statements that he, Lehi, "did exhort them then with all the feeling of a tender parent."

Lehi (no, not that one)

Edited January 14, 2016 by LeSellers

[Vort]

Mosiah, Alma, Helaman

 

These three large books make up the bulk of the Book of Mormon, both in length and in time period covered. They are named for three of the kings and prophets of the Nephites.

 

At the end of the small plates, we find out that the Nephites joined with a much more numerous people called the people of Zarahemla. (We often call them "Mulekites", after their ancestor Mulek, a son of Zedekiah king of Judah who was assassinated in about 590 BC, though the term "Mulekite" is not found in the Book of Mormon.) Some few years after, a large number of Nephites left the city of Zarahemla and went down south to try living in their original land of inheritance where Nephi had lived, which they called the land of Nephi.

 

Mosiah was the last great king among the Nephites, the son of the great king Benjamin and grandson of the first (that we know of) king  Mosiah. (This first king Mosiah is probably the Mosiah for whom the book of Mosiah was named.) Mosiah, the younger one, lived in Zarahemla. Roughly 80 or 85 years after the separatist group of Nephites had left to reoccupy the land of Nephi down south, Mosiah sent out a scout squad to see if they or their descendants were still alive. This group finally did succeed in finding their long-lost brethren, though it almost cost them their lives.

 

Turns out the separatist group had moved right on into the land of Nephi and, for a generation, had gotten along pretty well with the Lamanites of the area. But after a while, they had some problems with those pesky Lamanites trying to enslave them or wipe them out. The Nephites fell into wickedness, led by a wicked king named Noah, who was a son of the righteous man (Zeniff) who led them there in the first place. A prophet, Abinadi, came among them and preached repentance, telling the people that if they did not repent, they would be brought into bondage. They rejected him and chased him away. A few years later, Abinadi came back and told the people that, because they had not repented, they were now cursed and would be brought into bondage -- and this time, if they did not repent in their bondage, they would be totally wiped out. Repent or die, said Abinadi.

 

One of the priests consecrated by king Noah was a man named Alma, and unlike his fellow priests and the king himself, Alma believed Abinadi's teachings. When Alma stood up for Abinadi, the king tried to have him killed. The king and remaining priests put Abinadi to death, but Alma preached Abinadi's words and began building up a Church. When king Noah found out about this, he tried to kill Alma and his followers, who all picked up and skedaddled to safer areas.

 

Note that the Nephites are now living in three bodies: Those at Zarahemla, those separatists at the original colony in the land of Nephi, and those who fled from the separatists and established their own righteous colony.

 

True to Abinadi's prophecy, the separatist colony was taken over by the Lamanites (after extensive, bloody battles and infighting among the Nephites themselves). They rebelled against the occupying Lamanite force three times, until they were so totally devastated that they humbled themselves and accepted their condition of slavery. After some time, the scouting party from the Zarahemla Nephites showed up. The colonists, thinking these were wicked priests of Noah, almost killed them, but fortunately they didn't. After a while, the Nephites cooked up a plan to abscond with all their people and many of their possessions and simply move, lock, stock, and barrel, back up to the land of Zarahemla. (The colonists had long ago forgotten how to get back there, so until the scout party showed up, they were stuck in the land of Nephi.)

 

Eventually, the righteous people under Alma were also brought into bondage, as per Abinadi's prophecy. But they were humble, and as a result spent only a short time in bondage, and were led out of bondage by the hand of God back to the city of Zarahemla, not long after the other colonists returned.

 

Alma and king Mosiah (of Zarahemla) became fast friends, and Alma received authorization from Mosiah to establish the Church among the Zarahemla Nephites. Alma's and Mosiah's children also became fast friends; tragically, they were very wicked men, and went about seeking to destroy Alma's church. Alma's son, whose name was also Alma, and Mosiah's four sons were stopped by the miraculous appearance of an angel, and Alma (junior) was told that he was to leave off working to destroy the people, even if he himself would be destroyed. Alma was so incredibly affected by this experience that he fell into a coma of sorts, suffering indescribable agony, and eventually was restored to health. Both Alma Jr. and Mosiah's sons were converted to the truth and went about for years among the Nephites, seeking to undo the damage they had done. Alma eventually took over his father's position leading the Church, and Mosiah's sons eventually left Nephite lands altogether and went to live among the Lamanites (!!!) and preach to them.

 

Around this time, the Nephites abandoned the rule of kings and established a series of higher- and lower-level judges to rule the land, with Alma (Junior) as their chief judge. Not too long later, Alma abdicated this position so that he could spend his life preaching the gospel to the Nephites and getting them to repent. Eventually, Alma's son Helaman takes over the leadership of the Church, and Alma himself simply disappears.

 

(Nephite legend was that Alma was "translated", meaning that he was changed to a sort of temporarily immortal state to serve God. While the Book of Mormon tells us that this was the common belief, we don't really know for sure whether this was the case. I think most of us assume it was, and that Alma Jr. really was translated. But for purposes of understanding the Book of Mormon, it probably doesn't matter.)

Edited January 14, 2016 by Vort

[Vort]

I should add to the previous post that the book of Alma introduces us to a great soldier, captain of the Nephite armies, named Moroni. The prophet Mormon, the one who produced the Book of Mormon, was himself a great Nephite captain, possibly the greatest captain the Nephites had ever had. Mormon looked with unabashed admiration to the ancient (to him) captain Moroni. Mormon even named his son Moroni. Moroni (the captain) stands as one of the great figures in the Book of Mormon, and is a central figure in the so-called "war chapters" in the second half of the book of Alma. These chapters often seem confusing and bloody to the first-time reader, but have amazing spiritual value. But the point is that you should be aware of the figure of captain Moroni, whom Mormon considered the greatest of the Nephite military leaders and who was a mighty man of God.

Edited January 14, 2016 by Vort

[The Folk Prophet]

Alas, those first pages are forever lost, 

 

Maybe not forever.

[Vort]

3 Nephi, 4 Nephi, Mormon

 

The prophet Helaman's son, Helaman (also a prophet), had a son that he named Nephi (and another that he named Lehi). Nephi in turn had a son he named Nephi; both were mighty prophets. Thus, six successive generations of the family had father/son prophets whose names that went like this:

 

Alma→Alma→Helaman→Helaman→Nephi→Nephi.

 

This is one of those things that can get confusing. The first Alma was the repentant priest of Noah who founded the Nephite Church under king Mosiah. The second Alma was the wicked man who repented, became one of the greatest leaders of the Nephite Church, and appears to have been translated. The first Helaman was the oldest son of Alma who received both the records and the leadership of the Church, and passed it on to his son Helaman Jr. The second Helaman named his two sons Nephi and Lehi, after their early ancestors, to encourage them to emulate the characteristics those mighty prophets had shown. (And they did.) The elder Nephi led the Church through horrible times of war, destruction of the government, and apostasy; his son Nephi became one of the Twelve Disciples of Christ when Jesus appeared to them.

 

(The Twelve Disciples had more or less the same duties that the Twelve Apostles had in Jerusalem, but since God is one and his kingdom is one, you can't have two groups of Twelve Apostles. The Nephite Twelve were subservient to the Jerusalem Twelve.)

 

3 Nephi details the growing wickedness of the Nephites, then the destruction of the more wicked part at Jesus' crucifixion. It details Jesus' coming among the Nephites a little less than a year after his crucifixion and resurrection. It tells of the joyful civilization they built up at that time, which lasted for over 150 years until apostasy finally started creeping in. Then, 4th Nephi briefly tells of the Nephites' fall from grace, their growing wickedness, and their eventual ripening for destruction.

 

Mormon ends his writing in the book bearing his name (the book of Mormon, not to be confused with the larger Book of Mormon, of which the book of Mormon is one small part) by telling of the heartbreaking destruction of his people. He is killed, and his son Moroni finishes his father's record with true pathos, telling of being alone, bereft of all friends and family, and running for his life from bands of Lamanites, who kill each other but take special delight in killing any Nephites they can find who won't deny Christ.

Edited January 14, 2016 by Vort

[The Folk Prophet]

The lost 116 pages were not "the book of Lehi".

 

This is correct, though many think of it that way. The lost 116 pages were (probably) Moroni's abridgment of the Large Plates of Nephi.

[LeSellers]

The lost 116 pages were (probably) Moroni's abridgment of the Large Plates of Nephi.

Dead on.

Lehi

[Vort]

Ether, Moroni

 

Moroni, having told of his father's death and the utter destruction of his people, signs off at the end of his father's book, telling us that he intends only to give an abridgment of the ancient people of Jared.

 

During the time of the Nephite recolonization of the land of Nephi (Zeniff, Noah, Alma, those people), the survivors of the Lamanite massacre of the Nephite colony had sent out a search party to find Zarahemla. That search party was unsuccessful, but they did find a land littered with bones, which they assumed was the dead remnants of Zarahemla, and a record on gold plates that were in an unknown language. When these Nephites subsequently went to Zarahemla, they gave the record to the prophet-king Mosiah, who had the wherewithal* to translate that record. It was an account of a people who followed a leader named Jared; thus, the Jaredites.

 

*Mosiah possessed a "Urim and Thummim", a device of divine origin that allowed knowledge of past and future events and translation of records. Joseph Smith himself had a Urim and Thummim, perhaps this same one, and he used it at some points in translating the Book of Mormon.

 

The book of Ether, then, is Moroni's abridgement of this Jaredite history. Ether was the last of the Jaredite prophets, who survived the utter destruction of his people in order to bear witness of it. The history of the Jaredites was a tragic and weirdly similar prefiguration of the history of the Nephite nation itself.

 

In about AD 420, Moroni, now a very old man, is surprised to find himself still alive. He reopens the record long enough to write some final thoughts, mainly reminiscences about how ordinances were performed in the Church during and before his time, as well as some transcriptions of letters his father had written to him and some of his own thoughts. This is the book of Moroni, the final book in the Book of Mormon. After finishing this, Moroni sealed up the book and hit it with a few other artifacts in a hill. About 1400 years later, they were revealed to Joseph Smith, who eventually received them from the angel Moroni -- the selfsame Moroni who hid them up 1400 years earier, but now a resurrected being -- and translated them into the Book of Mormon.

 

So now you have a basic foundation for understanding the Book of Mormon. Read it a bunch of times, spend your life studying it, and you'll be in great shape. Best of luck.

[Sunday21]

The lost 116 pages were not "the book of Lehi".Nephi copied a lot of his father's writings, but he did not include them directly.)

What a minute. I thought I had it but now...

There are 3 sets of plates?

1) The original written by Lehi's, covering Lehi's life history. Perhaps these were lost?

2) the large plates, the first 116 pages of which were lost. Nephi abridged his father's work. Mormon abridged these yet again? Or Mormon just bundled/packaged these plates up and wrote some organizing notes that crop up at various points in the text including the introduction?

3) the small plates, a very abbreviated account of the most important occurrences and gospel principles, begun by Nephi and...

continued by Jacob, Enos etc because surely Nephi 1st was dead by the time Enos came along. So Nephi 1st manufactured these small plates and others wrote on them? No maybe not because I think Jacob was explaining how hard it was to make the plates. rIght? So nearly everyone, except maybe Omni and those immediately after Omni, was involved in plate manufacture. Omni says that he had promised to write on the plates which sounds as though the plates were supplied for Omni.

So the large and small plates were begun by Nephi 1st and both the large and the small plates were continued by the following prophets and kings. No surely not. Surely the following prophets and kings did not all keep 2 different copies of the same material! Or maybe they did?

When you think of how much work writing a single sentence was, you have to begin to think that every word must have been chosen with care thus every detail must have been included for a reason. Eg the details about preparations for war, shoring up the foundations of buildings, military manouvers, fights between bad guys and good guys, all of that detail was carefully chosen. Why was this information important for this day? There must be a reason...hmmm.,

[Vort]

The lost 116 pages were not "the book of Lehi".

 

 

This is correct, though many think of it that way. The lost 116 pages were (probably) Moroni's abridgment of the Large Plates of Nephi.

 

 

Dead on.

 

Not sure where you folks are getting your information, but you are mistaken. The initial 116 pages were a translation of Mormon's abridgment of the book of Lehi. Joseph Smith himself clearly stated this:

 

As many false reports have been circulated respecting the following work, and also many unlawful measures taken by evil designing persons to destroy me, and also the work, I would inform you that I translated, by the gift and power of God, and caused to be written, one hundred and sixteen pages, the which I took from the book of Lehi, which was an account abridged from the plates of Lehi, by the hand of Mormon; which said account, some person or persons have stolen and kept from me, notwithstanding my utmost exertions to recover it again--and being commanded of the Lord that I should not translate the same over again, for Satan had put it into their hearts to tempt the Lord their God, by altering the words, that they did read contrary from that which I translated and caused to be written; and if I should bring forth the same words again, or, in other words, if I should translate the same over again, they would publish that which they had stolen, and Satan would stir up the hearts of this generation, that they might not receive this work; but behold, the Lord said unto me I will not suffer that Satan shall accomplish his evil design in this thing; therefore thou shalt translate from the plates of Nephi, until ye come to that which ye have translated, which ye have retained; and behold ye shall publish it as the record of Nephi; and thus I will confound those who have altered my words. I will not suffer that they shall destroy my work; yea, I will show unto them that my wisdom is greater than the cunning of the devil. Wherefore to be obedient unto the commandments of God I have through His grace and mercy accomplished that which He hath commanded me, respecting this thing I would also inform you that the plates of which hath been spoken, were found in the township of Manchester, Ontario county, New York.

 

http://www.boap.org/LDS/History/History_of_the_Church/Vol_1

[Vort]

The lost 116 pages were (probably) Moroni's abridgment of the Large Plates of Nephi.

 

Not sure I understand what you are saying. The bulk of the Book of Mormon -- the books of Mosiah, Alma, Helaman, and 3rd and 4th Nephi -- were Mormon's abridgment of the large plates. The 116 pages were Mormon's abridgment of the first part of Nephite history as told in the large plates, namely, the book of Lehi. This is well-established, so I am not sure why it's controversial to anyone here.

 

EDIT: Corrected "Moroni's" to "Mormon's".

Edited January 14, 2016 by Vort

[Sunday21]

Holy Cow Vort! You are hardcore. I didn't know anyone could actually do that! I am going to print this out and give it to friends, That's amazing!!!

I am stunned anyone knows the book that well. Seriously cool! I will print this out and keep with my scriptures. Must go to bed. Midnight and I am teaching employment law in the am. What's scary is I am by turns relief society teacher and goodness knows what else teacher here and I cannot keep my nephi's straight! Nite nite. Thanks a lot!

Edited January 15, 2016 by Sunday21

[Vort]

What a minute. I thought I had it but now...

There are 3 sets of plates?

1) The original written by Lehi's, covering Lehi's life history. Perhaps these were lost?

2) the large plates, the first 116 pages of which were lost. Nephi abridged his father's work. Mormon abridged these yet again? Or Mormon just bundled/packaged these plates up and wrote some organizing notes that crop up at various points in the text including the introduction?

3) the small plates, a very abbreviated account of the most important occurrences and gospel principles, begun by Nephi and...

 

The Book of Mormon mentions (by my count) five sets of plates, as follows:

1. The plates on which Mormon wrote his abridgment. These are the most commonly mentioned plates in Church teachings; we generally call these "the golden plates" or "the gold plates". Joseph Smith translated the Book of Mormon from the characters inscribed on these plates.
2. The large plates of Nephi. This was a set of plates that formed a comprehensive history of the Nephite civilization, from the time of Lehi himself all the way down to Mormon. The books of Mosiah, Alma, Helaman, Third Nephi, and Fourth Nephi, as well as the material that was translated onto the lost 116 pages (translation of the book of Lehi), were all taken from the large plates of Nephi by Mormon, who abridged them.
3. The small plates of Nephi. This was a very tiny spiritual history kept by Nephi, Jacob, and some of Jacob's descendants, which was transcribed verbatim (or perhaps physically inserted) by Mormon into his abridgment of the gold plates (#1).
4. The 24 plates of Ether. These were the plates found by the southern Nephite colonists when they were searching for Zarahemla, written in an unknown language and detailing a brief history of the Jaredite people. The book of Ether is an abridgment of the history written on these plates.
5. The plates of Laban. This was an extensive collection of sacred writings, equivalent to our Old Testament but, it would seem, rather significantly larger, giving a pretty comprehensive history of God's dealings with the house of Israel along with the spiritually historical material such as we have in the book of Genesis.

[Sunday21]

[*]The plates of Laban. This was an extensive collection of sacred writings, equivalent to our Old Testament but, it would seem, rather significantly larger, giving a pretty comprehensive history of God's dealings with the house of Israel along with the spiritually historical material such as we have in the book of Genesis.

Ah so this is where the Book of Mormon gets prophets such as zenos. Vort you have an amazing understanding of the Book of Mormon!

Edited January 14, 2016 by Sunday21

[Guest]

Plates of Laban:  Just to add a bit so you don't get confused.  These were called the "plates of brass" in 1 Nephi.

 

Sunday,

 

It is amazing you were able to put together that Zenos came from the plates of Laban.  You get a lot more than you think you

do.

 

 

Vort,

 

Good work.

[Vort]

Vort you have an amazing understanding of the Book of Mormon!

 

Thank you for the compliment, but you should know that there is nothing magical about my general knowledge of the Book of Mormon. It has come from carefully reading the Book of Mormon about three dozen times over 20+ years. I know people who claim to have read the Book of Mormon 50 times or more.

 

When you read the book this many times, carefully, studying it and praying over it, you become very familiar with its outlines and general narrative. You also see many important and very deep teachings that touch you and change your heart. It's a natural consequence of long-term applied study. If you will study the Book of Mormon like this for the rest of your life, you will understand it in depth, eventually better than I do now. (I'm still reading the Book of Mormon and other scriptures every day, and plan to continue doing so. I am no expert, just a student.)

[The Folk Prophet]

Not sure I understand what you are saying. The bulk of the Book of Mormon -- the books of Mosiah, Alma, Helaman, and 3rd and 4th Nephi -- were Moroni's abridgment of the large plates. The 116 pages were Mormon's abridgment of the first part of Nephite history as told in the large plates, namely, the book of Lehi. This is well-established, so I am not sure why it's controversial to anyone here.

 

Upon further review, there is accuracy in both of what we are saying -- though I did make a mistake.

 

The book of Lehi (which, you have correctly corrected me on as it being the 116 pages) was from the abridgment of the large plates. So the 116 pages were both a translation from the abridgement of the Large Plates of Nephi and the book of Lehi.

Edited January 14, 2016 by The Folk Prophet

[Guest MormonGator]

Thank you for the compliment, but you should know that there is nothing magical about my general knowledge of the Book of Mormon. It has come from carefully reading the Book of Mormon about three dozen times over 20+ years. I know people who claim to have read the Book of Mormon 50 times or more.

 

When you read the book this many times, carefully, studying it and praying over it, you become very familiar with its outlines and general narrative. You also see many important and very deep teachings that touch you and change your heart. It's a natural consequence of long-term applied study. If you will study the Book of Mormon like this for the rest of your life, you will understand it in depth, eventually better than I do now. (I'm still reading the Book of Mormon and other scriptures every day, and plan to continue doing so. I am no expert, just a student.)

 No Vort. In all honesty you should be really proud of your knowledge. Sunday was dead on accurate.  

[LeSellers]

Not sure where you folks are getting your information, but you are mistaken. The initial 116 pages were a translation of Mormon's abridgment of the book of Lehi. Joseph Smith himself clearly stated this:

The plates Joseph had were Mormon's (not Moroni's) abridgement of the Plates of Nephi. Now, we don't know how much Lehi wrote, and Nephi included in his archive. Moroni completed Mormon, abridged Ether then wrote his own Handbook of instructions and the Title Page.

So, when I say that the 116 pages were not the book of Lehi, taken from the plates of Lehi, I mean that if any at all (and Joseph says there were some), the plates from which Mormon took his record were still the plates of Nephi.

Let's examine the last several books of the Book of Mormon. The book of Alma was named after Alma, but which one? I think it possible that Alma the Younger named it in honor of his father. Mosiah was named after the king, but who wrote it? It seems that Benjamin started and Alma finished (with a couple of others in between), but it was named after the first king Mosiah, Benjamin's father. The same with Helaman and even third and fourth Nephi. The book of Ether was an abridgement by Ether (with his final entries) of the entire Jaredite history. Moroni, as noted above, write a large part of Mormon, and I suspect that he named it after his father to distinguish it from his own tiny book (that he didn't even know he'd be writing).

The point of the 'graf above is that Nephi would easily have written the book of Lehi, naming it after his father, and that he included, by copying it himself, or by including his father's own record. In either case, the portion that could be called the plates of Lehi was a minor fraction of the plates of Nephi.

Lehi

[Vort]

 

The plates Joseph had were Mormon's (not Moroni's) abridgement of the Plates of Nephi.

 

I do not understand the point of your clarification. It's like making a correction out of a clear blue sky that, by the way, George Washington had ivory dentures, not wooden dentures.

 

Did anyone in this conversation even suggest that Moroni was the abridger of the large plates into the Book of Mormon?

 

So, when I say that the 116 pages were not the book of Lehi, taken from the plates of Lehi, I mean that if any at all (and Joseph says there were some), the plates from which Mormon took his record were still the plates of Nephi.

 

Same comment. Did anyone in this conversation suggest otherwise?

 

The point of the 'graf above is that Nephi would easily have written the book of Lehi, naming it after his father, and that he included, by copying it himself, or by including his father's own record. In either case, the portion that could be called the plates of Lehi was a minor fraction of the plates of Nephi.

 

Sorry, LeSellers, but I'm still just not grokking your point. What does this have to do with what I wrote? How is this a correction of anything?

 

Are you under the impression that the "book of Lehi" must somehow be a separate thing from Nephi's large plates? I don't see why this should be the case. I doubt that the large plates were an undifferentiated, amorphous stack of plates. I have no doubt that they themselves were carefully divided and organized. The first part of the large plates of Nephi were undoubtedly the book of Lehi. It would have been from this initial part of the large plates that Mormon (not Moroni :)) would have gleaned his abridged narrative that Joseph Smith translated and wrote (or had written) onto the 116 pages that were then lost.

 

Your claim was that the 116 lost pages did not contain the translation of the abridgment of the book of Lehi. I do not see where you arrive at that conclusion or how you maintain it, especially in the face of Joseph Smith's own words affirming that the translated and lost pages were indeed taken from the book of Lehi.