Here’s the introduction to this series, and here is the previous entry.

Book of Mormon quotes here, as for the entire series, is taken from The Book of Mormon: The Earliest Text (Royal Skousen, ed.).

This is the first (though far from the last) time that Orson Pratt’s chapter division matches that found in the 1830 first edition of the Book of Mormon (and, as explained in the first post, apparent chapter divisions indicated as Joseph dictated the contents of the Book of Mormon). This is also quite a bit shorter than Nephi’s first three chapters, which suggest that there may be thematic reasons this chapter stands alone.

Nephi Starts His Ministry

Nephi has at the start of his first three chapters referred either explicitly or implicitly to his “ministry”. His own subtitle for this book, found in the introduction just before Chapter I, is “His reign and ministry”. At the start of Chapter II (1 Nephi 6), Nephi states that “the fullness of mine intent is that I may persuade men to come unto the God of Abraham and the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob and be saved.” And at the start of Chapter III (1 Nephi 10), he writes “And now I Nephi proceed to give an account on these plates of my proceedings and my reign and ministry” — but then goes own largely to describe his father’s prophesies of the Messiah and his own ascension vision.

With that vision, Nephi now appears confident in instructing his brothers in a prophetic manner — not just bearing testimony or asking why they don’t listen to Lehi, but offering his own prophetic interpretations and directions. In fact, that’s what the entire chapter is about: Nephi explaining not just Lehi’s vision and prophecies, but his own vision and prophecies as well, as well as his interpretations of the scriptures. He is ministering in a prophetic fashion to his brothers, and they (by his account) accept that prophetic ministry, however briefly. As Nephi notes near the start of this chapter:

And it came to pass that I beheld my brethren,
and they were disputing one with another
concerning the things which my father had spoken unto them.
For he truly spake many great things unto them
which was hard to be understood
save a man should inquire of the Lord.
And they being hard in their hearts,
therefore they did not look unto the Lord as they had ought.

Nephi steps in, asks what they are arguing about, asks if they have “inquired of the Lord”, rebukes them for “the hardness of [their] hearts”, and then proceeds to explain Lehi’s vision and prophecies to them. He notes that he has success where his father did not:

And it came to pass that I did speak so many words unto my brethren
that they were pacified and did humble themselves before the Lord.

He also urges them to personal obedience and righteousness:

Wherefore I Nephi did exhort them to give heed unto the word of the Lord.
Yea, I did exhort them with all the energies of my soul
and with all the faculty which I possessed
that they would give heed to the word of God
and remember to keep his commandments always in all things.

Now his brothers start asking more questions, not just interpreting Lehi’s vision but expounding on details that Lehi missed:

And they said unto me:
What meaneth the river of water which our father saw?
And I said unto them that the water which my father saw was filthiness.
And so much was his mind swallowed up in other things
that he beheld not the filthiness of the water.

This continues on for a while; then Nephi wraps up with a Q&A session that presages Alma₂‘s discourse to his son Corianton about the afterlife, judgment, and eternity, tying at the end of the chapter the whole discussion back to his and his father’s visions:

Wherefore the wicked are separated from the righteous
and also from that tree of life
whose fruit is most precious and most desirable of all other fruits;
yea, and it is the greatest of all the gifts of God.

And thus I spake unto my brethren.
Amen.

Through these first four chapters of the Book of Nephi, Nephi has been tracing his own arc. He starts as the youngest (and therefore least important) of four sons, one who cries unto the Lord to have his own heart softened so that he does not “rebel against” his father Lehi. He now stands as a prophet who has great visions and who — with temporary success — calls his older brothers to repentance and from whom his brothers seek spiritual and scriptural explanations. Keep in mind that Nephi is writing all this some 30+ years later, after arriving in the promised land, and after the great family split — that is, Nephi and those who would follow them fleeing for their lives from Laman and Lemuel. He writes these chapters, I believe, to bear testimony to the descendants of Laman and Lemuel as to how things really were.

Next post: First Nephi V (1 Nephi 16 – 19:21).

Here’s the introduction to this series, and here is the previous entry.

I’ll now talk about the third chapter of the first “Book of Nephi” from the original Book of Mormon manuscript.

Lehi’s Prophecy

In Chapter III of First Nephi, Nephi gives us his third introduction in as many chapters, and again finds himself taking a detour from covering his “reign and ministry” to cover something more important (all quotes are from Skousen’s The Book of Mormon: The Earliest Text):

And now I Nephi proceed to give an account upon these plates
of my proceedings and my reign and ministry.
Wherefore to proceed with mine account,
I must speak somewhat of the things of my father and also my brethren.

Nephi covers exactly two things in Chapter III. The first is his father Lehi’s prophecy of a future Messiah and the forerunner Prophet who should go before Him. This is a more detailed followup to Lehi’s prophecies in the streets of Jerusalem:

And he testified that the things which he saw and heard,
and also the things which he read in the book [in his vision],
manifested plainly of the coming of a Messiah
and also the redemption of the world. (First Nephi I; 1 Nephi 1:19)

But here in Chapter III, Lehi is giving the same prophecies and warnings, in apparently greater detail, to Nephi’s brothers, as a follow-up to his concerns about Laman and Lemuel as a result of his dream. He ties it into the scattering of Israel and then ties that into their own flight from Jerusalem and towards “the land of promise.” The account is brief –less that two pages in the Skousen edition — and Nephi defers the rest of the details to his “other book”.

Nephi’s Ascension Vision

The rest of Chapter III — roughly 14 pages in Skousen — is devoted to Nephi’s ascension vision, which blends together elements of both Lehi’s dream and Lehi’s prophecies, but covers much more than Nephi has reported from his father. Nephi was frank about what he wanted:

And it came to pass that after I Nephi having heard all the words of my father…
…that I Nephi was desirous also
that I might see and hear and know of these things by the power of the Holy Ghost…

He then digresses momentarily to issue a short but stern “blessing/warning” sermon, promising that God will answer those who “diligently seek” but will “cast off forever” those who are “found unclean before the judgment seat of God.” He then adds, for the first time, his own prophetic imprimatur:

And the Holy Ghost giveth authority
that I should speak these things and deny them not.

The modern edition of the Book of Mormon places this statement at the end of 1 Nephi 10, wrapping up his sermonette, but I think Nephi meant it as much for all that would follow in the rest of Chapter III: his ascension vision:

And the Holy Ghost giveth authority
that I should speak these things and deny them not.
For it came to pass that after I had desired
to know the things that my father had seen,
and believing that the Lord was able to make them known unto me,
wherefore as I sat pondering in mine heart,
I was caught away in the Spirit of the Lord,
yea, into an exceeding high mountain,
a mountain which I never had before seen
and upon which I never had before sat my foot.

Nephi then records an expansive and detailed vision of future (to Nephi) history, all centered around the coming of Jesus Christ and the restoration of His gospel in the last days. Much has been written about this vision, and a discussion of it doesn’t really fit within the premise of these posts except to note this: Nephi is serving notice, both to his own posterity and that of his brothers, that he was by that point every bit as much a prophet and seer as his father Lehi. He closes up his chapter with that testimony:

And behold, I Nephi am forbidden
that I should write the remainder of the things which I saw.
Wherefore the things which I have written sufficeth me,
and I have not written but a small part of the things which I saw.
And I bear record that I saw the things which my father saw,
and the angel of the Lord did make them known unto me.
And now I make an end of speaking concerning the things
which I saw while I was carried away in the spirit.
And if all the things which I saw are not written,
the things which I have written are true.
And thus it is.
Amen.

The first chapter set forth Nephi being dutiful and obedient. The second chapter set forth Nephi being believing and on the right path (as per Lehi’s dream). This third chapter establishes Nephi as a prophet in his own right. The next chapter shows the start of Nephi’s ministry.

Next post: First Nephi IV (1 Nephi 15).

Here’s the introduction to this series, and here is the previous entry.

Nephi has written the first chapter of his “reign and ministry” record on what we refer to as “the small plates”. As noted, Nephi touches on almost every major point of contention between him and his brothers: primogeniture leadership, the brass plates, the sword of Laban, divine calling, being led by God out of Jerusalem, and so on.

Nephi’s second chapter (which maps to 1 Nephi 6-9 in modern editions) is shorter and covers just three major themes:

• how Nephi’s reign-and-ministry record (the small plates) fits in with all the other plates (the brass plates and Nephi’s other plates)
• the second trip back to Jerusalem for Ishmael and his family
• Lehi’s vision of the tree of life

Let’s look at each of these.

Nephi’s second set of plates

Chapter II starts and ends with this topic, in which Nephi further clarifies what will and will not be on his reign-and-ministry (“small”) plates.

• His father’s genealogy (descending from Joseph), which is on the brass plates, will not be on these plates (but will be on the other plates).
• His father’s full record will be on the other (“large”) plates, but not on these.
• His goal for the small plates is to “write of the things of God. For the fullness of mine intent is that I may persuade men to come unto the God of Abraham and the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob and be saved.”
• These small plates “are not the plates upon which I make a full account of the history of my people.”
• “These plates are for the more part of the ministry, and the other plates are for the more part of the reign of the kings and the wars and contentions of my people.”
• Finally, “the Lord hath commanded me to make these plates for a wise purpose in him, which purpose I knoweth not.”

Remember that Nephi is working on these plates some 30 to 40 years after he and his family left Jerusalem. He’s already fled “with those who would follow me” and set up a city and culture center distinct from that of Laman and Lemuel. As a literate student of the (then-extant) Hebrew scriptures, Nephi is familiar with the contents of the brass plates, which he describes at the end of First Nephi I as containing (among other things):

a record of the Jews from the beginning,
even down to the commencement of the reign of Zedekiah, king of Judah,

and also the prophecies of the holy prophets from the beginning,
even down to the commencement of the reign of Zedekiah,
and also many prophecies which have been spoken by the mouth of Jeremiah.

Nephi most likely sees his large and small plates as a direct and unbroken continuation of these two portions of the brass plates (history and prophecy, respectively), since he starts his small plates (and likely his large plates as well) “in the commencement of the first year of the reign of Zedekiah, king of Judah.” In other words, he sees himself as a prophet/king with the responsibility for keeping the scriptures going forward. As such, he would therefore have the divine claim to the brass plates, as opposed to having stolen them from his older brothers (as the Lamanites would later claim).

Return for Ishmael’s Family

The second major topic for First Nephi II is the return trip to Jerusalem for Ishmael’s family. There are numerous parallels with the earlier trip to get the brass plates:

• It is done by divine commandment via Lehi for the salvation of his seed.
• Laman and Lemuel rebel (along with two of Ishmael’s sons).
• Nephi rebukes his brothers for their lack of faith and obedience.
• Laman and Lemuel threaten Nephi’s life.
• Nephi is saved via apparent divine intervention (though Nephi’s bonds are merely “loosed” instead of Nephi being able to “burst” them).
• Laman, Lemuel repent and ask Nephi’s forgiveness.
• They all journey to Lehi’s camp, where thanks are given to God, along with sacrifices and burnt offerings (possibly for forgiveness of Laman and Lemuel’s sins, as per S. Kent Brown).

Nephi’s account in Chapter I of the first trip back to Jerusalem, among other things, legitimized his claim to both Laban’s sword and the brass plates. This account shows the divine commandment that brought Ishmael’s family out of Jerusalem and to the Americas. This was likely a sore point with Ishmael’s sons, who pretty much threw in their lot with Laman and Lemuel. Again, Nephi is most probably trying preemptively to set the record straight as to how Ishmael’s family ended up in the Americas.

The Tree of Life Vision

The third major topic for First Nephi II is Lehi’s vision of the Tree of Life. Unlike Nephi’s own vision (found in First Nephi III), which is focused on the coming of a Messiah, Lehi’s vision (as recounted by Nephi) is focused almost entirely on his family and emphasizes once again the differences between Laman and Lemuel and the rest of Nephi’s family (including Nephi). As Lehi puts it:

And behold, because of the thing which I have seen,
I have reason to rejoice in the Lord because of Nephi and also of Sam.
For I have reason to suppose
that they and also many of their seed will be saved.
But behold, Laman and Lemuel, I fear exceedingly because of you.

The rest of Lehi’s account of his vision pretty much focuses on individual choice, including falling away even after partaking of the fruit of the tree of life. And he ties it twice more to Laman and Lemuel:

And it came to pass that I was desirous
that Laman and Lemuel should come and partake of the fruit also.
Wherefore I cast mine eyes toward the head of the river
that perhaps I might see them.
And it came to pass that I saw them,
but they would not come unto me and partake of the fruit.
. . .
Thus is the words of my father,
for as many as heeded them had fallen away.
And Laman and Lemuel partook not of the fruit, saith my father.

Nephi then says that Lehi “exceedingly feared for Laman and Lemuel . . . lest they should be cast off from the presence of the Lord.” So, once again, Nephi shows why he is the favored one, the one to inherit Lehi’s authority and his prophetic mantle, while Laman and Lemuel have been rejected of the Lord.

So far, in his first two chapters, Nephi has been setting forth his version of events surrounding Lehi’s and Ishmael’s families coming out of Jerusalem into the wilderness. At the same time, he has been demonstrating repeatedly God’s (and Lehi’s) acceptance of him and rejection of Laman and Lemuel, as well as Nephi’s legitimate claims to the brass plates and Laban’s sword. The next two chapters will focus largely on prophecy and revelation rather than history — but that won’t let Laman and Lemuel off the hook.

Next post: First Nephi III (1 Nephi 10-14)

Here’s the introduction to this series, and here’s the first entry.

Nephi is now starting his second historical record on plates, the first being his transcription/abridgment of his father’s record along with his own historical additions: the “Book of Lehi”, lost with the first 116 pages of manuscript, along with the first few chapters of Mosiah. He’s trying to set the record straight, as he sees it, because his brothers are determined to kill him and take over (or wipe out) his people.

In doing so, he touches upon almost every major issues between him and his older brothers all within the space of his first chapter.

His own qualifications

First, Nephi establishes his parentage, education, standing before God, and personal witness of the record — in short, his bona fides. In fact, I am struck by the parallels with what Nephi does at the start of his first chapter and what I do as an expert witness in my written reports, laying out my qualifications for being accepted as an expert and for trusting in what I am about to write.

Also, Laman and Lemuel may well be illiterate or, at least, unable to read the language of the brass plates (cf. Mosiah 1:3-4) . Literacy was not common in 600 BC, and while Lehi and Nephi can both read the brass plates, Nephi has to read the brass plates out loud for his brothers. Hence, Nephi touts his education and literacy at the start of his first chapter.

In short, Nephi is saying, “Here’s why you should trust what I have to say over what Laman and Lemuel are saying.”

Lehi’s calling as a true prophet of God

Laman and Lemuel thought their father was a loon: preaching in the streets, dragging his family out into the wilderness, leaving their riches and property behind, putting them through eight years of desert travels and travails, and then doing this trans-oceanic voyage that moved them irrevocably far away from their homeland. They went so far as to suggest killing Lehi (and Nephi) and heading back to Jerusalem at one point, a rather shocking deed in a patriarchal society.

Nephi, by contrast, portrays his father as a true prophet in Mosaic (pillar of fire, exodus into the desert), Enochian (ascension vision with book), and Jeremaic (preaching in the streets of Jerusalem) terms, all in a short space.  The threat of potential martyrdom merely adds to Lehi’s credibility.

Nephi, the believing and obedient son, to receive the primogeniture leadership birthright

Nephi gains his own personal testimony of his father’s calling, and helps Sam to believe as well, even as Laman and Lemuel being their long history of rebellion against Lehi. As a result, God bears witness to Nephi (later confirmed in this same chapter by an angel) that Nephi will receive the rights of patriarchal leadership rather than Laman or Lemuel, his older brothers. However, Nephi does record the accompanying warning that Laman and Lemuel’s seed will “be a scourge unto thy seed” if his seed is not obedient to God, a prophecy that Nephi recounts as beginning to be fulfilled even before he starts this record.

Nephi as the rightful heir of the brass plates and Laban’s sword; the beginning of his prophetic role

Nephi recounts the trek back to Jerusalem for the brass plates at length, showing that he (unlike his brethren) is willing to follow God’s instructions through Lehi (His prophet). He then goes on to show that — after his brothers failed — he was the one who succeeded in gaining both the brass plates and Laban’s sword. Likewise, Nephi is saved by an angel and guided by the Spirit in accomplishing that, demonstrating the start of his own role as a prophet.

Repeated confirmation of Lehi’s status as a prophet (and Nephi’s status as the obedient son and future prophet)

Nephi ends his first chapter by showing that Lehi was truly inspired and acting under God’s direction in sending his sons back for the brass plates, while Laman and Lemuel were wrong for murmuring and rebelling. Even Sariah, who had murmured while her sons were gone, repents and confirms Lehi’s prophetic status. Nephi gives a brief summary of the plates’ contents, indicating all the prophesies, history, and commandments that he (at the time of his writing) now has but his brothers don’t. He then ends his chapter as he began it (post-introduction) — with Lehi prophesying — but with this pointed comment:

And it came to pass that thus far I and my father had kept the commandments wherewith the Lord had commanded us.

So, Nephi is just one chapter into his “reign and ministry” personal history, and he has already touched upon just about every major difference between him and his older brothers, including why he deserves to have the brass plates and Laban’s sword, and why he is his father’s heir, both temporally and spiritually.

It’s important to remember in all this that Nephi has already had visions of the eventual fall and destruction of his own seed, so he is certainly writing this with that in mind. But I think he has a more personal rationale in mind as well (recognizing that the Lord commanded him to do these other plates in the first place).  As I’ll note towards the end of this series, Nephi’s self-justification ultimately turns into self-recrimination, and his history abruptly ends.

Next post: First Nephi II (1 Nephi 6-9).

Here’s the introduction to this series; briefly put, it is looking at the original ‘chapter’ divisions in the Book of Mormon manuscripts (original and printer’s, resulting in the 1830 first edition). As noted in the introduction, it appears from original manuscript evidence that these chapter divisions were somehow indicated on the plates themselves and thus would represent editorial decisions by the author, in this case, Nephi1 (whom I’ll just refer to as “Nephi” hereafter). All my chapter-and-verse citations will use the modern edition, and I’ll link to the LDS Church’s on-line edition; however, when I quote text directly, I will quote from The Book of Mormon: The Earliest Text (Royal Skousen, editor, Yale University Press, 2009), following Skousen’s layout.

For reference, here is a chart comparing the 1830 chapters to the modern edition chapters.

First Nephi (modern edition: 1 Nephi)

First, a bit of context. Nephi started working on what we now refer to as “the small plates of Nephi” (First and Second Nephi; the plates would eventually contain Jacob, Enos, and Omni as well) thirty or more years after leaving Jerusalem and finished his historical portion sometime within a ten-year period (2 Nephi 5:28-34). By the time he started the plates, he and his followers had fled from Laman and Lemuel, leaving the original Lehite settlement and relocating to what would become known as “the land of Nephi”. When he left, Nephi took with him the brass plates, the director ( “liahona”, though that name is only used once in the Book of Mormon itself and then only several centuries after the time of Nephi), and the sword of Laban (2 Nephi 5:12-14). I suspect it was the theft of these key items — the only tangible links back to Jerusalem as well as objects with substantial religious/totemic value — that infuriated Laman and Lemuel enough to lead them to track down and attack Nephi and his people, though they may also have seen Nephi as a lingering threat to their own legitimacy as rulers over their own people. (Centuries later, we still see Lamanites bitterly complaining about how Nephi robbed Laman and Lemuel not just of physical items but also of “their right to the government“.)

The flight into the wilderness and the initial wars with Laman and his people all happen (2 Nephi 5:1-27) before Nephi creates and starts writing the small plates, the ones that contain “the things of my soul“. Up until now, he has been adding to his father’s record (the lost “Book of Lehi“), but under divine direction he creates a record entirely of his own. He gives it the title, “The Book of Nephi, His Reign and Ministry” (hereafter “First Nephi”), which indicates what he thinks he will be writing about, at least eventually; as it turns out, he writes very little about his ‘reign’, and all that will be saved for the second “Book of Nephi”. And unless you include his (truly remarkable) visions and prophecies, this book doesn’t have much in the way of ‘ministry’ either — mostly just lectures to and arguments with his brothers.

Nephi also lays out what he intends to cover in this book; in essence, an outline or table of contents, but one clearly devised ahead of time, not just because of its location on the plates (at the start of First Nephi), but because of all that it leaves out. While this introduction does clearly sketch out the historical sequence covered by First Nephi and in that order, it completely leaves out those remarkable visions and prophecies alluded to earlier, and the structure of what Nephi actually wrote doesn’t mesh exactly with his planned contents. Here is Nephi’s introduction (after Skousen) as aligned with the actual chapters in First Nephi:

An account of Lehi and his wife Sariah and his four sons,
being called, beginning at the eldest,
Laman, Lemuel, Sam, and Nephi.

[Chapter I]

The Lord warns Lehi to depart out of the land of Jerusalem
because he prophesieth unto the people concerning their iniquity
and they seek to destroy his life.

He taketh three days’ journey into the wilderness with his family.

Nephi taketh his brethren and returneth to the land of Jerusalem
after the record of the Jews.

The account of their sufferings.

[Chapter II]

They take the daughters of Ishmael to wife.

[Chapter III]

[Chapter IV]

[Chapter V]

They take their families and depart into the wilderness.

Their sufferings and afflictions in the wilderness.

The course of their travels.

They come to the large waters.

Nephi’s brethren rebel against him.

He confoundeth them, and buildeth a ship.

They call the name of the place Bountiful.

They cross the large waters into the promised land etc.

[Chapter VI]

[Chapter VII]

This is according to the account of Nephi,
or in other words, I, Nephi, wrote this record.

In short, it is clear I think that Nephi started out with an(other) historical record in mind — his “reign and ministry”, with the events that led him to that point. As is often the case for writers, however, what he started out to write is not what he wrote at the end. Likewise, a record that starts on a rather triumphal note (again, “reign and ministry”) diverts into harsh self-recrimination (2 Nephi 4:17-35) just before a very short recounting of his actual reign and ministry (2 Nephi 5:1-28) and an abrupt end to his historical record (the rest of Second Nephi is prophecy and scripture).

Next post: First Nephi I (1 Nephi 1-5). ..bruce..