New Book of Mormon videos start hitting YouTube today


NeuroTypical
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I’m actually really impressed with it! My only complaint is having Rick Macy as Lehi. Having him play the wise old man in every church movie is becoming incredibly redundant. To me, whenever I see him and Nathan Mitchell, it distracts from the video/movie.

But other than that I loved it. I enjoyed the approach to All the sons of Lehi, I REALLY appreciate how young Nephi is, I’m actually pretty excited to see how they will age him over this first season.

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On 9/20/2019 at 12:58 PM, Fether said:

I’m actually really impressed with it! My only complaint is having Rick Macy as Lehi. Having him play the wise old man in every church movie is becoming incredibly redundant. To me, whenever I see him and Nathan Mitchell, it distracts from the video/movie.

But other than that I loved it. I enjoyed the approach to All the sons of Lehi, I REALLY appreciate how young Nephi is, I’m actually pretty excited to see how they will age him over this first season.

Lucky for me I don't recall Rick Macy from anything else, I really enjoyed him as Lehi. What I didn't like was the guy they got to play the voice of God. I've heard his voice in other church videos and I find it extremely fake sounding and forced. I think it was a mistake using this guy. At least his unnatural diction was a mistake.

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8 hours ago, LePeel said:

Lucky for me I don't recall Rick Macy from anything else, I really enjoyed him as Lehi. What I didn't like was the guy they got to play the voice of God. I've heard his voice in other church videos and I find it extremely fake sounding and forced. I think it was a mistake using this guy. At least his unnatural diction was a mistake.

He has played Joseph Smith Senior in every restoration movie, the prophet Helam in the testament,  the wise and righteous father in the old New Testament videos, and has roles and cameos in  ritually every movie made for Latter-day Saints.

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4 hours ago, priesthoodpower said:

Would have been cool and totally mainstream if they released it in season format on netflix. After the bom story go into the JS restoration. I know the rest of the world would enjoy it. 

It would be the new missionary tool.

I imagine something like this will eventually happen. The Restoration and a few others are on Amazon Prime

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I guess I’ll be a minority view here:

I don’t like the videos.  I don’t know exactly why.  Can’t articulate it very well.  Something about them just feels “off”, beginning with the narrator’s singsong tone, the overacting by the “wicked people” and the fake-holy-vocal quiver of the “righteous people”; and going downhill from there.  I don’t see them as helping our missionary cause; I see them as making the BoM seem ridiculous and making us look even weirder.  

It just seems like, with the exception of The Lamb of God and one or two others, every movie the Church makes is full of people who know they’re supposed to be in scripture (even when the plot of the movie isn’t actually scriptural)—or at least in an epic story being filmed circa 1957.  Maybe someday the Church’s motion picture studio and the actors who work for it will learn the power of subtlety and understatedness and just . . . acting natural.  But today, apparently, is not that day.  🤷‍♂️

 

Edited by Just_A_Guy
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1 hour ago, Just_A_Guy said:

I guess I’ll be a minority view here:

I don’t like the videos.  I don’t know exactly why.  Can’t articulate it very well.  Something about them just feels “off”, beginning with the narrator’s singsong tone, the overacting by the “wicked people” and the fake-holy-vocal quiver of the “righteous people”; and going downhill from there.  I don’t see them as helping our missionary cause; I see them as making the BoM seem ridiculous and making us look even weirder.  

It just seems like, with the exception of The Lamb of God and one or two others, every movie the Church makes is full of people who know they’re supposed to be in scripture (even when the plot of the movie isn’t actually scriptural)—or at least in an epic story being filmed circa 1957.  Maybe someday the Church’s motion picture studio and the actors who work for it will learn the power of subtlety and understatedness and just . . . acting natural.  But today, apparently, is not that day.  🤷‍♂️

 

I agree, but you can’t deny that It is a HUGE improvement from every pre-Bible Video videos the church has put out. They were all cringe worthy imo.

And because of the lack of narration text, exaggeration is needed to convey what is going on. They had like 1 minute of screen time to convey the wickedness of the people and their desire to kill Lehi and the other prophets. I’m sure if they had an hour of run time and $15,000,000 for each episode they could have done a better job and made it more authentic.

Perhaps Reign of the Judges (if it ever is finished) will scratch you itch.

For what they had, I thought it was incredible.

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4 hours ago, Just_A_Guy said:

I guess I’ll be a minority view here:

I don’t like the videos.  I don’t know exactly why.  Can’t articulate it very well.  Something about them just feels “off”, beginning with the narrator’s singsong tone, the overacting by the “wicked people” and the fake-holy-vocal quiver of the “righteous people”; and going downhill from there.  I don’t see them as helping our missionary cause; I see them as making the BoM seem ridiculous and making us look even weirder.  

It just seems like, with the exception of The Lamb of God and one or two others, every movie the Church makes is full of people who know they’re supposed to be in scripture (even when the plot of the movie isn’t actually scriptural)—or at least in an epic story being filmed circa 1957.  Maybe someday the Church’s motion picture studio and the actors who work for it will learn the power of subtlety and understatedness and just . . . acting natural.  But today, apparently, is not that day.  🤷‍♂️

I don't want to be negative, especially to a Church-made film designed to help the Saints. But I agree. I was disappointed by what I thought to be some of the hammy, amateurish features of what I saw. I don't pretend to be some great screenwriter, but I felt like I was watching an updated, somewhat better-directed Book of Mormon Movie.

I have been idly working on a Book of Mormon screenplay for the last decade or so, mostly in my mind. Maybe I'll share some of it here at some point. That way, everyone on this forum can laugh at and mock me. Turnabout is fair play, after all.

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2 hours ago, Fether said:

And because of the lack of narration text, exaggeration is needed to convey what is going on.

I'm all for avoiding didactic narration, but if it's a choice between clarifying a point by providing narrative or other commentary vs. hamming it up to try to drive the point home by sledge hammer, I'll opt for the former.

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3 hours ago, Fether said:

I’m sure if they had an hour of run time and $15,000,000 for each episode they could have done a better job and made it more authentic.

It doesn't take lots of money to make good film. It takes a good script, a strong director, decent actors, and a good eye for historical accuracy in things like mannerisms and costuming. The indy film Primer was famously done for a total budget of $7000. That's seven thousand dollars. Total. Don't tell me it takes $15 million to make a decent Book of Mormon film. It takes a good screenplay and director. That's the key.

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1 hour ago, Vort said:

It doesn't take lots of money to make good film. It takes a good script, a strong director, decent actors, and a good eye for historical accuracy in things like mannerisms and costuming. The indy film Primer was famously done for a total budget of $7000. That's seven thousand dollars. Total. Don't tell me it takes $15 million to make a decent Book of Mormon film. It takes a good screenplay and director. That's the key.

I chose that number because Game of Thrones has inspired many tv series to start adopting this pattern of throwing millions to their individual tv shows. 15million being the number for one of the upcoming tv series (LOTR or The Mandolorian, can’t remember)

I’m sure it could have been better, but I still found it to be fantastic, and  a huge improvement from all previous church films (except the Bible ones). But I’m sure my enjoyment of every marvel movie (post winter soldier) and the star wars films gives away my ability to detect a poorly made screen play.

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My kids enjoyed it.  But they like anything that we let them watch on Sunday.  :D  

The one issue that stuck out to me was Sariah.  It's hard to imagine a woman her age having at least two more children.  

I liked the cinematography, and the dialogue. And I loved the scenery. 

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2 hours ago, NeuroTypical said:

True.  What's also true, is most cheap films are crappy.  You can find exceptions.

Such films are not crappy because they are cheap, though. To a large extent, they are cheap because they are crappy, and the producer can't get better funding for a crap project. Such is not the case with Church films. (You can certainly find awful films that have all sorts of funding, so money is only tangentially related to film quality.)

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3 hours ago, dprh said:

My kids enjoyed it.  But they like anything that we let them watch on Sunday.  :D  

The one issue that stuck out to me was Sariah.  It's hard to imagine a woman her age having at least two more children.  

I liked the cinematography, and the dialogue. And I loved the scenery. 

Yeah, marriage for Jews in Biblical times happened at much younger ages. Depending on the number of sisters between Nephi and his brothers, I have always viewed Sariah in her mid to late 30's when they left Jerusalem. 

I too loved the scenery. Good choice of location.

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19 hours ago, Just_A_Guy said:

I guess I’ll be a minority view here:

I don’t like the videos.  I don’t know exactly why.  Can’t articulate it very well.  Something about them just feels “off”, beginning with the narrator’s singsong tone, the overacting by the “wicked people” and the fake-holy-vocal quiver of the “righteous people”; and going downhill from there.  I don’t see them as helping our missionary cause; I see them as making the BoM seem ridiculous and making us look even weirder.  

It just seems like, with the exception of The Lamb of God and one or two others, every movie the Church makes is full of people who know they’re supposed to be in scripture (even when the plot of the movie isn’t actually scriptural)—or at least in an epic story being filmed circa 1957.  Maybe someday the Church’s motion picture studio and the actors who work for it will learn the power of subtlety and understatedness and just . . . acting natural.  But today, apparently, is not that day.  🤷‍♂️

 

I have to say that I kind of agree. My daughter and wife were kind of laughing at some of these things.

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22 minutes ago, Emmanuel Goldstein said:

I have to say that I kind of agree. My daughter and wife were kind of laughing at some of these things.

IMO, most of this is a result of portraying historical figures from millennia past as 21st-century Americans. I am painfully reminded of a scene in the execrable Book of Mormon Movie where Lehi and Sariah tearfully tell their children just how much they love them. Barf.

[squirrel]

That was almost as bad as Lehi playing the part of the insane street person, shaking his hands in the faces of passers-by in Jerusalem and yelling in their face, "DOOOOOOOM! You will be DESTROYED! REPEEEEEEEEEEENT!!!!" Do you really and honestly believe that's how Lehi, or just about any prophet of God, would go about teaching the word and calling people to repentance? (Though I note with some dismay that this same general tack seems to have been taken in the latest Church film.)

[/squirrel]

I understand that even historical figures must be portrayed in a way that modern audiences lacking in specialized education can nevertheless relate and feel empathy for. But give the audience some credit. For the most part, they aren't six-year-olds or idiots.

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1 hour ago, Vort said:

Nephi should be several years younger.

Here is my personal (approximate) chronology of events:

618 BC or earlier: Laman born. I envision Sariah to be a young woman of perhaps 18 to 20, and Lehi to be a mature man of around 35 or 40.

616 BC or earlier: Lemuel born

614 BC (probably not earlier): Sam born. I see Sam as immediately older than Nephi.

612 BC: Nephi born

620 BC—600 BC: Daughters also born (not named in scripture)

605 BC (appx): Lehi begins taking an active pro-Babylonian (essentially a pacifist) political stance, allying himself with Jeremiah's views and incurring the wrath of the Egyptian loyalists (such as, ironically, Zedekiah, who was appointed king by Babylon but rebelled and was cruelly punished for it). The loyalists naturally accuse Jeremiah, Lehi, and all other pro-Babylonians of sedition.

At this point, Nephi is perhaps seven years old. I envision him being apprenticed out (or whatever the ancient near eastern equivalent to apprenticeship was) to a blacksmith. This would explain why Nephi, even as a teenager, has such a keen appreciation of metalsmithing and sword manufacturing. It would also help explain why, years later, setting up a smelter in the middle of the wilderness would be a large but believable work and not a miracle in and of itself (and also why Nephi, when commanded to build a ship, asked God where he should go to get ore to smelt to make tools, instead of asking God, "Um....okay. I have absolutely no idea what I'm supposed to do to build a ship. Where do I even start? Little help?"). Plus the fact that Nephi alone of the family smelted and produced gold (probably tumbaga, a gold/copper alloy) plates to write on.

601 BC: At this point, Nephi is perhaps eleven years old. I envision him as helping out with his blacksmith master, taking an active role in helping manage the forges and perhaps even holding the steel pieces with tongs to allow the master to work them. I could see a scene where Nephi's master shows him the layering of multifolded steel beaten with hammers, so that Nephi would easily recognize the fine workmanship of Laban's sword some years later. (Though there's going to have to be a lantern or a full moon or something to illuminate the blade on the night Nephi kills Laban. It was night, after all.)

600 BC: Lehi is warned to flee Jerusalem, which will surely be destroyed. Nephi is about twelve years old; in my mental movie, I envision his blacksmith master presenting him with the gift of a steel bow that Nephi himself helped to forge. (The bow would not be solid steel, but steel "limbs" attached to a hardwood center grip.)

599 BC (appx): During an extended camp near the Red Sea, Lehi sends his four sons back to Jerusalem on a seemingly impossible suicide mission: To get the brass plates of scripture and history from Laban. (Laban was in charge of a garrison within the city—a "captain of fifty"—and probably had the command of the ancient equivalent of one or more military divisions, making him a captain of "tens of thousands". A powerful and fearsome man, Laban was not above murdering young men to take possession of their property.) Nephi is 13 or perhaps 14 at this time, but is physically (and obviously spiritually) mature beyond his years, essentially the physical match for a typical adult man.

At this point, Sariah, who has never really been on board with her husband's "visions" or his taking them from their life of comfort to live in tents in the wilderness, loses it. Flying in the face of a wife's proper decorum to her husband, Sariah lets Lehi have it with both barrels, sneeringly calling him a "visionary man" and accusing him of sending their sons to their deaths. Lehi responds as patiently as he can and tries to reassure Sariah, but to no avail. Sariah will not be placated. Comfort completely eludes her until many weeks later, that evening when she espies her sons (and another) coming back to camp. I see her running in tears to greet them, falling on them weeping and kissing them. I see her marveling at the brass plates and at the stories they bring of how they got those plates. I see Sariah ultimately accepting all these testimonies and, finally, turning her heart to her husband, humbly acknowledging that he was a bona fide prophet of God. From this point on, there is no record of Sariah herself offering a word of complaint, though her life certainly got a lot harder.

597 BC (appx): Lehi sends his sons back again to the land of Jerusalem to recruit Ishmael's family to join them, a vital necessity in the as-yet-unknown plan of God for them. I see Ishmael as an older man, late 50s or maybe 60, old but still able to embark on a long and challenging journey (and one that he will never finish). Nephi is fully into his young manhood at 15 or 16, but his oldest brothers, built on the same plan as Nephi, are several years older—and there are two of them. Nephi is unable to fight back physically against both of his older brothers, and must again be miraculously delivered from their murderous hands.

(Laman and Lemuel present a fascinating personality study. They are clearly wicked men, but just as clearly they don't see themselves as wicked. They do in fact repent from time to time, and seem sincere, but their repentance never quite seeps down to the bone. Their pride and their insistence on playing the part of "the older brothers" was their undoing. What a great angle to illustrate in a film! If you knew Laman and Lemuel, you very well might not peg them as wicked men, but only as very devout traditionalists. Yet wicked they were.)

(Sam is also interesting. We know little of him, other than that he was righteous. Perhaps he had some physical disability like Down Syndrome. In my movie, Sam marries one of Ishmael's girls, and they have only daughters, explaining why Sam's line continues despite there being no "Samites" ever mentioned.)

This is probably around the time that Jacob was born. By this time, Sariah is 40 or older. She will have one more child within a few years (Joseph, of course), and that will be that. Lehi is pushing 60, or possibly older than that already. He's still at the plateau of his prime, but that plateau is sloping. At this point, Lehi is no spring chicken. Each year lessens Lehi's vitality, and shortly after this he begins offloading many of his patriarchal duties to—no, not his oldest sons, as might be envisioned, but—Nephi. Surprise.

From this time, Nephi grows fully into his role as a prophet under his father. Within months or years, Nephi and his brothers, along with Zoram, marry Ishmael's daughters. We might suppose that some of Ishmael's sons marry Lehi's daughters, as well. Ishmael dies during their wanderings and is buried at NHM, a place which seems to have been found on the western Arabian peninsula.

596 BC (appx): Lehi has his great vision of the tree of life. Most of his family dislike his "visionary" nature, but Nephi prays to have his heart softened and becomes firmly convinced of his father's prophetic mantle. Nephi convinces Sam of this; we can assume that Sariah now accepts this as a true vision. Nephi is only about sixteen but is remarkably spiritually mature, since he seeks for and receives the same vision his father saw.

592 BC: By this point, the party has wandered completely across the Arabian peninsula to the east and finds the land they first call Bountiful. Within the year, a 20- or 21-year-old Nephi is instructed by God to build a ship. He does so with remarkable celerity, despite the predictable rebellion of his older brothers and general fiasco that ensues when Laman and Lemuel decide to exercise their pride.

And so on. The party reaches the New World, their own Promised Land, in about 590 BC, when Nephi is in perhaps his mid-20s and his older brothers are in or at least near their 30s. Sariah is in her late 40s and Lehi around his mid-60s.

That's how I envision things. I think it would make a fascinating and very moving motion picture, as long as we took the characters seriously and on their own terms, without imposing our own 21st-century prejudices onto things.

Edited by Vort
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7 minutes ago, Vort said:

Here is my personal (approximate) chronology of events:

618 BC or earlier: Laman born. I envision Sariah to be a young woman of perhaps 18 to 20, and Lehi to be a mature man of around 35 or 40.

616 BC or earlier: Lemuel born

614 BC (probably not earlier): Sam born. I see Sam as immediately older than Nephi.

612 BC: Nephi born

620 BC—600 BC: Daughters also born (not named in scripture)

605 BC (appx): Lehi begins taking an active pro-Babylonian (essentially a pacifist) political stance, allying himself with Jeremiah's views and incurring the wrath of the Egyptian loyalists (such as, ironically, Zedekiah, who was appointed king by Babylon but rebelled and was cruelly punished for it). The loyalists naturally accuse Jeremiah, Lehi, and all other pro-Babylonians of sedition.

At this point, Nephi is perhaps seven years old. I envision him being apprenticed out (or whatever the ancient near eastern equivalent to apprenticeship was) to a blacksmith. This would explain why Nephi, even as a teenager, has such a keen appreciation of metalsmithing and sword manufacturing. It would also help explain why, years later, setting up a smelter in the middle of the wilderness would be a large but believable work and not a miracle in and of itself (and also why Nephi, when commanded to build a ship, asked God where he should go to get ore to smelt to make tools, instead of asking God, "Um....okay. I have absolutely no idea what I'm supposed to do to build a ship. Where do I even start? Little help?"). Plus the fact that Nephi alone of the family smelted and produced gold (probably tumbaga, a gold/copper alloy) plates to write on.

601 BC: At this point, Nephi is perhaps eleven years old. I envision him as helping out with his blacksmith master, taking an active role in helping manage the forges and perhaps even holding the steel pieces with tongs to allow the master to work them. I could see a scene where Nephi's master shows him the layering of multifolded steel beaten with hammers, so that Nephi would easily recognize the fine workmanship of Laban's sword some years later. (Though there's going to have to be a lantern or a full moon or something to illuminate the blade on the night Nephi kills Laban. It was night, after all.)

600 BC: Lehi is warned to flee Jerusalem, which will surely be destroyed. Nephi is about twelve years old; in my mental movie, I envision his blacksmith master presenting him with the gift of a steel bow that Nephi himself helped to forge. (The bow would not be solid steel, but steel "limbs" attached to a hardwood center grip.)

599 BC (appx): During an extended camp near the Red Sea, Lehi sends his four sons back to Jerusalem on a seemingly impossible suicide mission: To get the brass plates of scripture and history from Laban. (Laban was in charge of a garrison within the city—a "captain of fifty"—and probably had the command of the ancient equivalent of one or more military divisions, making him a captain of "tens of thousands". A powerful and fearsome man, Laban was not above murdering young men to take possession of their property.) Nephi is 13 or perhaps 14 at this time, but is physically (and obviously spiritually) mature beyond his years, essentially the physical match for a typical adult man.

At this point, Sariah, who has never really been on board with her husband's "visions" or his taking them from their life of comfort to live in tents in the wilderness, loses it. Flying in the face of a wife's proper decorum to her husband, Sariah lets Lehi have it with both barrels, sneeringly calling him a "visionary man" and accusing him of sending their sons to their deaths. Lehi responds as patiently as he can and tries to reassure Sariah, but to no avail. Sariah will not be placated. Comfort completely eludes her until many weeks later, that evening when she espies her sons (and another) coming back to camp. I see her running in tears to greet them, falling on them weeping and kissing them. I see her marveling at the brass plates and at the stories they bring of how they got those plates. I see Sariah ultimately accepting all these testimonies and, finally, turning her heart to her husband, humbly acknowledging that he was a bona fide prophet of God. From this point on, there is no record of Sariah herself offering a word of complaint, though her life certainly got a lot harder.

597 BC (appx): Lehi sends his sons back again to the land of Jerusalem to recruit Ishmael's family to join them, a vital necessity in the as-yet-unknown plan of God for them. I see Ishmael as an older man, late 50s or maybe 60, old but still able to embark on a long and challenging journey (and one that he will never finish). Nephi is fully into his young manhood at 15 or 16, but his oldest brothers, built on the same plan as Nephi, are several years older—and there are two of them. Nephi is unable to fight back physically against both of his older brothers, and must again be miraculously delivered from their murderous hands.

(Laman and Lemuel present a fascinating personality study. They are clearly wicked men, but just as clearly they don't see themselves as wicked. They do in fact repent from time to time, and seem sincere, but their repentance never quite seeps down to the bone. Their pride and their insistence on playing the part of "the older brothers" was their undoing. What a great angle to illustrate in a film! If you knew Laman and Lemuel, you very well might not peg them as wicked men, but only as very devout traditionalists. Yet wicked they were.)

(Sam is also interesting. We know little of him, other than that he was righteous. Perhaps he had some physical disability like Down Syndrome. In my movie, Sam marries one of Ishmael's girls, and they have only daughters, explaining why Sam's line continues despite there being no "Samites" ever mentioned.)

This is probably around the time that Jacob was born. By thsi time, Sariah is 40 or older. She will have one more child within a few years (Joseph, of course), and that will be that. Lehi is pushing 60, or possibly older than that already. He's still at the plateau of his prime, but that plateau is sloping. At this point, Lehi is no spring chicken. Each year lessens Lehi's vitality, and shortly after this he begins offloading many of his patriarchal duties to—no, not his oldest sons, as might be envisioned, but—Nephi. Surprise.

From this time, Nephi grows fully into his role as a prophet under his father. Within months or years, Nephi and his brothers, along with Zoram, marry Ishmael's daughters. We might suppose that some of Ishmael's sons marry Lehi's daughters, as well. Ishmael dies during their wanderings and is buried at NHM, a place which seems to have been found on the western Arabian peninsula.

596 BC (appx): Lehi has his great vision of the tree of life. Most of his family dislike his "visionary" nature, but Nephi prays to have his heart softened and becomes firmly convinced of his father's prophetic mantle. Nephi convinces Sam of this (but apparently not his mother, who at least privately clearly has some major misgivings about her husband's supposed visions). Nephi is only about sixteen but is remarkably spiritually mature, since he seeks for and receives the same vision his father saw.

592 BC: By this point, the party has wandered completely across the Arabian peninsula to the east and finds the land they first call Bountiful. Within the year, a 20- or 21-year-old Nephi is instructed by God to build a ship. He does so with remarkable celerity, despite the predictable rebellion of his older brothers and general fiasco that ensues when Laman and Lemuel decide to exercise their pride.

And so on. The party reaches the New World, their own Promised Land, in about 590 BC, when Nephi is in perhaps his mid-20s and his older brothers are in or at least near their 30s. Sariah is in her late 40s and Lehi around his mid-60s.

That's how I envision things. I think it would make a fascinating and very moving motion picture, as long as we took the characters seriously and on their own terms, without imposing our own 21st-century prejudices onto things.

I’d watch that movie.

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6 minutes ago, Just_A_Guy said:

I’d watch that movie.

Can't you  just hear the argument to counter Lehi's preaching and campaigning? "Egypt has been the king of the world for THOUSANDS of years! Egypt will NEVER fail! What fools would we be to submit to wicked Babylon instead of standing manfuilly for our freedom with our ally Egypt?!"

Would any rational and patriotic Jew of the time have disagreed? Would you have disagreed? Only, I submit, if you were informed by the Spirit. Otherwise, siding with your oppressor seems so obviously wrong that it's no wonder Jeremiah and Lehi were in fear for their lives.

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1 minute ago, Vort said:

Can't you  just hear the argument to counter Lehi's preaching and campaigning? "Egypt has been the king of the world for THOUSANDS of years! Egypt will NEVER fail! What fools would we be to submit to wicked Babylon instead of standing manfuilly for our freedom with our ally Egypt?!"

Would any rational and patriotic Jew of the time have disagreed? Would you have disagreed? Only, I submit, if you were informed by the Spirit. Otherwise, siding with your oppressor seems so obviously wrong that it's no wonder Jeremiah and Lehi were in fear for their lives.

Well, and the Egyptians had been responsible for the death of the righteous King Josiah; and of course it was Egypt who had enslaved Israel in the first place.  I think the more devout Yahweh-worshippers would have had misgivings about the desirability of Egypt as an ally all  along; especially when they failed to defend their puppet Jehoiakim and allowed the Babylonians to sack Jerusalem and put Zedekiah on the throne. 

The politics of the time would be an epic in and of themselves . . . 

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