For Sunday21: The Book of Mormon made understandable

[LDSGator]

21 hours ago, zil2 said:

Ha!  I tripped over that the other day when looking through the list of things others had shared with me on my g-drive (trying to find things to delete - no, I did not delete it ).

I’ve already told him, but @Vorts summary of the BOM is A+. To any lurkers out there-this will help you out big time if you get lost reading the BOM.    

[Vort]

2 hours ago, zil2 said:

Well, and here I've just tripped over 1 Nephi 1:17:

It would appear that the large plates of Nephi contain an abridgement on the book of Lehi - no doubt called the book of Lehi, but still an abridgement.  That would suggest that Lehi had a lot to say.  It would also suggest that Mormon may have abridged Nephi's abridgement of the book of Lehi.  (Or Mormon may have abridged the original book of Lehi, or that book may have been added to Nephi's large plates, heaven knows - but it's interesting to note that Nephi made an abridgement.)

I took this to mean something more like, "After I have abridged my father's words (in 1 Nephi), I will make my own account of my life from that point on (in 2 Nephi)." Your interpretation might make more sense. I'll have to give this some thought.

[zil2]

11 minutes ago, Vort said:

I took this to mean something more like, "After I have abridged my father's words (in 1 Nephi), I will make my own account of my life from that point on (in 2 Nephi)." Your interpretation might make more sense. I'll have to give this some thought.

I went searching after I posted, and it appears there are folks in both camps.  The difficulty I have with the "small plates" version is that it's too interspersed with things that are strictly Nephi's POV (Lehi not present), and never has anything that's not Nephi's POV (as far as I can tell).

Things to look forward to.

Edited January 8 by zil2

[Vort]

49 minutes ago, zil2 said:

The difficulty I have with the "small plates" version is that it's too interspersed with things that are strictly Nephi's POV (Lehi not present), and never has anything that's not Nephi's POV (as far as I can tell).

To be fair, Mormon added a lot of commentary in his abridgment. Nephi would have been abridging his father's history, but his own experiences included, so he could have shifted POV. I realize this whole discussion amounts to nothing, but it's fun to think about.

[zil2]

On 1/8/2024 at 12:42 PM, zil2 said:

Well, and here I've just tripped over 1 Nephi 1:17:

It would appear that the large plates of Nephi contain an abridgement on the book of Lehi - no doubt called the book of Lehi, but still an abridgement.  That would suggest that Lehi had a lot to say.  It would also suggest that Mormon may have abridged Nephi's abridgement of the book of Lehi.  (Or Mormon may have abridged the original book of Lehi, or that book may have been added to Nephi's large plates, heaven knows - but it's interesting to note that Nephi made an abridgement.)

And now the first verse in 1 Nephi 10 lends credence to the idea that the first 9 chapters may have been abridged from Lehi's work.  Hard to be sure, but Nephi notes here that he's giving an account of his proceedings, as if that's not what I'd been doing all along...

(Ah, but v15 also indicates more of Lehi's words were written on the large plates - so, perhaps more detailed abridgement there, shorter here?)

Edited January 20 by zil2