The Know

The writers of the Book of Mormon often stated that they would “make a record” of the things that they had seen or done.1 The fact that they said they would “make a record” rather than “write a record” or some other similar phrase may seem insignificant. However, this phrase provides evidence that the writers of the Book of Mormon had training in the ways of ancient scribes.2

The most notable example of this from the Old Testament comes from Ecclesiastes 12:12, in which a young man is warned, “of making many books there is no end.” In his book Biblical Interpretation in Ancient Israel, Michael Fishbane has pointed out that the reference to “making books” in Ecclesiastes is somewhat unusual.3 One might even assume that this phrase could refer to someone physically making a book or a scroll, rather than the one doing the writing. Thankfully, other ancient Near Eastern texts help to clarify this point.

Some ancient writings composed in a language called Akkadian, record that scribes were expected to “compose” writings.4 The word translated as “compose” is a slight variation on the word “make.”5 Thus, when these scribes were literally being asked to “make a record” they were simply being asked to write a book.6 Fishbane has argued that the unusual phrase “making books” as found in Ecclesiastes is a result of the influence of ancient Near Eastern scribal culture on the person who wrote those verses of Ecclesiastes.7

This technical term, known by scribes throughout the ancient Near East, was used by Aramaic-speaking Jews in Egypt as well, showing that it was fairly widespread.8 Nephi’s use of this phrase fits well with what we know about scribes in the ancient world and suggests that he similarly had training in ancient scribal practices.

This idea is strengthened by the use of the word “abridgement” in the Book of Mormon.9 Ecclesiastes 12:9, a nearby verse that also describes ancient scribal practices, states that “the preacher ... set in order many proverbs.” The phrase “set in order” is a translation of a single word that means “to edit” or “to arrange,” or in other words, “to abridge.”10 This phrase was also commonly used by scribes in the ancient Near East.11 The fact that references to making a record and abridging texts occur next to each other in a section of Ecclesiastes that refers to scribal practices shows that these terms were almost certain technical scribal terms. The Book of Mormon’s use of these terms in a similar way suggests that Nephi had training in the ancient scribal practices known from the ancient world. 

However, the use of these phrases throughout the Book of Mormon suggests something else as well. The fact that the phrase is used throughout the Book of Mormon, from 1 Nephi through Ether, suggests that the Book of Mormon authors were careful to pass down this ancient scribal learning from generation to generation. 

The Why

Because these details of ancient Near Eastern scribal training were unknown at the time the Book of Mormon was published, these small points serve as evidence for its authenticity. Nephi’s scribal training, which he inadvertently reveals to us through his use of language, tells us something else as well. In 1 Nephi, Nephi used phraseology that was common among ancient Near Eastern scribes. These technical scribal terms come from a much older and broader tradition than just ancient Israel. And yet, Nephi internalized these terms, passed down to him from others, and passed on his scribal learning to the next generation, who continued to use these terms.

References to “making a record” appear throughout the Book of Mormon, showing that later writers valued this scribal education just as Nephi had.12 This careful preservation of tradition is a valuable lesson for us today. Just as Nephi carefully preserved and passed down his learning to others, who in turn carefully preserved and passed it down as well, we can also seek out learning and pass it down to others.13Whether our knowledge is secular or religious, we can do our best to acquire knowledge and then to share it with those around us, like Nephi did.14

Our commitment to learning both spiritual and secular truths, and sharing those truths with those around us, will help us to make the world a better place.15 Acting on this commitment may change the lives of people for generations to come, just as the consequences of Nephi’s carefully acquired scribal training, the Book of Mormon, is still changing lives today.

• 1. See, for example, 1 Nephi 1:1–2; 19:4, 3 Nephi 5:4-18, Mormon 1:1, Mormon 2:17, Ether 13:14.
• 2. For more on Nephi’s scribal training, see Brant A. Gardner, “Nephi as Scribe,” Mormon Studies Review 23, no. 1 (2011): 46. See also, Anita Wells, “Bare Record: The Nephite Archivist, The Record of Records, and the Book of Mormon Provenance,” Interpreter: A Journal of Mormon Scripture 24 (2017): 102–106.
• 3. Michael A. Fishbane, Biblical Interpretation in Ancient Israel (Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 1985), 31.
• 4. Fishbane, Biblical Interpretation, 31.
• 5. Fishbane, Biblical Interpretation, 31.
• 6. Fishbane, Biblical Interpretation, 31.
• 7. Fishbane, Biblical Interpretation, 31.
• 8. Fishbane, Biblical Interpretation, 31.
• 9. Some version of the word “abridge” occurs on the Title Page, 1 Nephi 1:17, Words of Mormon 1:3, Mormon 5:9, and Moroni 1:1
• 10. Fishbane, Biblical Interpretation, 32.
• 11. Fishbane, Biblical Interpretation, 32.
• 12. See Book of Mormon Central, “Why Did Nephi Work So Hard to Preserve the Wisdom He Had Received? (1 Nephi 6:5–6),” KnoWhy 262 (January 16, 2017).
• 13. See Taylor Halverson, “Reading 1 Nephi with Wisdom,” Interpreter: A Journal of Mormon Scripture 22 (2016): 279–293.
• 14. See Book of Mormon Central, “Acquiring Spiritual Knowledge: Act In Faith (1 Nephi 2:16),” KnoWhy 260 (January 11, 2017).
• 15. See Book of Mormon Central, “Why Is It Good to Seek Both Spiritual and Secular Learning? (1 Nephi 1:1),” KnoWhy 324 (June 9, 2017).

The Know

“I, Nephi, having been born of goodly parents …” (1 Nephi 1:1).1 This opening line, so familiar to diligent students of the Book of Mormon, can probably be quoted word for word by many of its readers. What probably goes unrecognized, though, is that Nephi’s introduction includes a pun on his own name. Nephi is most likely derived from an Egyptian word (nfr) which means “good,” “goodly,” “fine,” or “fair” (meaning beautiful).2 During Nephi and Lehi’s day, it was pronounced something like “neh-fee, nay-fee, or nou-fee.”3

Nephi’s statement that he was born of “goodly” parents isn’t the only use of good in his opening remarks. He also mentioned that he had “a great knowledge of the goodness and the mysteries of God”  (1 Nephi 1:1). This seems to suggest that Nephi was crediting any of his own goodness, which was inherent in his name, to his earthly parents and Heavenly Father.

Nephi’s closing remarks, in 2 Nephi 33, mirror his introduction’s emphasis on goodness. He said his words “persuadeth [his people] to do good” (v. 4) and that “they teach all men that they should do good” (v. 10). These statements affirm that Nephi fulfilled the commandment given to him by the Lord in 2 Nephi 5:30: “and thou shalt engraven many things upon them which are good in my sight, for the profit of thy people.” Finally, Nephi warned that his words would condemn those who “will not partake of the goodness of God” (2 Nephi 33:14 which, of course, echoes his description of God’s “goodness” from 1 Nephi 1:1.4

The threefold repetition of good-related terms at the beginning and end of Nephi’s record provides evidence that a pun was indeed intended.5 The case is strengthened even further by the fact that other Book of Mormon authors picked up on Nephi’s clever introduction and mimicked his use of wordplay in their own opening statements.

For instance, Enos introduced his short book by writing, “I, Enos, knowing my father that he was a just man—for he taught me in his language, and also in the nurture and admonition of the Lord—and blessed be the name of my God for it” (Enos 1:1). Like Nephi, Enos mentioned (1) the righteousness of his father, (2) that he was taught in the language of his father, and (3) praise for God. In Hebrew, the name Enos means “man.”6 Therefore, by referring to his father as a “just man,” Enos connected his own name with his father’s righteousness, much like Nephi did. Similar examples of introductory wordplay can be found for the names Benjamin, Abish, Alma, and Zeniff.7

Another line of evidence comes from a statement made by Helaman, son of Helaman, to his sons, Nephi and Lehi. Helaman said that he gave them the names of their “first parents” so that

“. . . when you remember your names ye may remember them; and when ye remember them ye may remember their works; and when ye remember their works ye may know how that it is said, and also written, that they were good.

Therefore, my sons, I would that ye should do that which is good, that it may be said of you, and also written, even as it has been said and written of them.” (Helaman 5:6–7)

This comment is obviously valid for Father Lehi,8 whom Nephi described as being “goodly” (1 Nephi 1:1). But it works especially well if the name Nephi is derived from a word that literally means “good.” By naming his children after his first parents, Helaman helped ensure that Nephi’s good name and good works were perpetuated by his descendants.9

In fact, it may be important to remember that the term Nephites comes from Nephi’s own name. Recalling that the Egyptian word (nfr) from which Nephi’s name is likely derived can also mean “fair,” it is notable that the Nephites are often referred to as a “fair” people. For example, when righteous Lamanites were converted unto the Lord, “their young men and their daughters became exceedingly fair, and they were numbered among the Nephites, and were called Nephites” (3 Nephi 2:16). Even more noteworthy is that Mormon referred to the Nephites as being “fair” four times in a row when he lamented their destruction:

O ye fair ones, how could ye have departed from the ways of the Lord! O ye fair ones, how could ye have rejected that Jesus, who stood with open arms to receive you! … O ye fair sons and daughters, ye fathers and mothers, ye husbands and wives, ye fair ones, how is it that ye could have fallen! (Mormon 6:17, 19).10

Altogether, these textual clues persuasively demonstrate that Book of Mormon authors associated the name Nephi with that which is “good” and “fair.” Nephi’s statement that he was using the Egyptian language to write his record makes the possibility of an Egyptian wordplay especially inviting.11

The Why

It is widely accepted among biblical scholars that ancient Hebrew writers extensively used various forms of wordplay in their writings.12 They cared about names and their meanings, and when the opportunity presented itself they creatively linked names with important narrative themes. In Nephi’s case, it seems he used his own name to emphasize the goodness of his father, the goodness of God, and the goodness of his record, which he described as containing the “words of Christ” (2 Nephi 33:10–11).

Most of all, Nephi hoped that his words would persuade his people and also all men to “do good,” just as Nephi himself had done (2 Nephi 33:4, 10). These themes help establish Nephi’s record—and by extension the entire Book of Mormon—as a good book, much like the Bible.13

The importance of names among Book of Mormon prophets can also help us recognize the significance of taking upon us the name of Christ. Helaman named his sons after Nephi and Lehi so that when they reflected upon their own names, they would have a desire to “do that which is good” (Helaman 5:7). Likewise, at baptism, we are commanded to take upon ourselves the name of Christ.14 This can help us remember the things that Christ has done and then to do the works that Christ would do.15

Finally, it should be remembered that Joseph Smith didn’t study Hebrew until years after he translated the Book of Mormon.16 And he never gained any formal training in the Egyptian language.17 This being the case, it is highly unlikely that, relying on his own wisdom, he would have known about the widespread use of puns in the Bible. Nor would he have known that Nephi could be appropriately linked to an Egyptian word which means “good.” Nephi’s good introduction therefore provides good evidence that Joseph Smith was truly a prophet of God. It also helps affirm that Nephi was indeed an ancient Hebrew prophet trained in “the learning of the Jews and the language of the Egyptians” (1 Nephi 1:2).

• 1. Throughout this article, italics will be added to scriptural quotes to emphasize instances of wordplay.
• 2. See Matthew L. Bowen, “Nephi’s Good Inclusio,” Interpreter: A Journal of Mormon Scripture 17 (2016): 182. See also, Matthew L. Bowen, “Internal Textual Evidence for the Egyptian Origin of Nephi’s Name,” Insights 22, no. 11 (2002): 2; John Gee, “Four Suggestions on the Origin of the Name Nephi,” in Pressing Forward with the Book of Mormon: The FARMS Updates of the 1990’s, ed. John W. Welch and Melvin J. Thorne (Provo, UT: FARMS, 1999), 1–5; John Gee, “Notes and Communications: A Note on the Name Nephi,” Journal of Book of Mormon Studies 1, no. 1 (1992): 189–191; Raymond O. Faulkner, A Concise Dictionary of Middle Egyptian (Oxford, UK: Griffith Institute, 1962), 131.
• 3. Bowen, “Nephi’s Good Inclusio,” 181. As a source for his explanation, Bowen cited Gee, “A Note on the Name Nephi,” 189–191; Gee, “Four Suggestions on the Origin of the Name Nephi,” 1–5.
• 4. Nephi’s imagery seems to be drawing upon his father’s dream of the Tree of Life. In it, Lehi beckoned Laman and Lemuel to come unto the Tree of Life, but “they would not come unto me and partake of the fruit” (1 Nephi 8:18). The use of “would” in this sentence likely holds the archaic meaning of “want” or “desire.” If so, it would mean that Laman and Lemuel didn’t partake of the fruit because they didn’t desire to do so. This provides additional insight into Nephi’s statement concerning those who “will not partake of the goodness of God” (2 Nephi 33:14). No one is ultimately unable or prohibited from partaking of God’s goodness (see 2 Nephi 26:24–28), and so the only individuals who don’t eventually come unto Christ are those who refuse to do so. See Bowen, “Nephi’s Good Inclusio,” 186; Jennifer C. Lane, “The Presence of the Lord,” in The Things Which My Father Saw: Approaches to Lehi’s Dream and Nephi’s Vision (2011 Sperry Symposium), ed. Daniel L. Belnap, Gaye Strathearn, and Stanley A. Johnson (Salt Lake City and Provo, UT: Deseret Book and Religious Studies Center and Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University, 2011), 130.
• 5. The three-fold repetition in Nephi’s introduction includes Nephi’s own name.
• 6. See Bowen, “Nephi’s Good Inclusio,” 187–188; Matthew L. Bowen, “‘And There Wrestled a Man with Him’ (Genesis 32:24): Enos’s Adaptations of the Onomastic Wordplay of Genesis,” Interpreter: A Journal of Mormon Scripture 10 (2014): 151–160; Matthew L. Bowen “Wordplay on the Name Enos,” Insights 26, no. 3 (2006): 2. For an additional wordplay in the Book of Enos, see Matthew L. Bowen, “‘I Kneeled Down Before My Maker’: Allusions to Esau in the Book of Enos,” Interpreter: A Journal of Mormon Scripture 27 (2017): 29–56.
• 7. See Bowen, “Nephi’s Good Inclusio,” 188–191.
• 8. Much like “father Abraham” (see Luke 1:73; John 8:52; Acts 7:2; Romans 4:12), Lehi was seen as the founding patriarch of his people and was continually identified by Nephite prophets as “father Lehi” (see Mosiah 1:4; Alma 9:9; Helaman 8:22; 3 Nephi 10:17). See Book of Mormon Central, “Why Did Lehi Divide His People into Seven Tribes? (Jacob 1:13),” KnoWhy 319 (May 29, 2017).
• 9. See Matthew L. Bowen, “‘He Is a Good Man’: The Fulfillment of Helaman 5:6–7 in Helaman 8:7 and 11:18–19,” Interpreter: A Journal of Mormon Scripture 17 (2016): 167–168.
• 10. See Matthew L. Bowen, “‘O Ye Fair Ones’ – Revisited,” Interpreter: A Journal of Mormon Scripture 20 (2016): 315–344; Matthew L. Bowen, “‘O Ye Fair Ones’: An Additional Note on the Meaning of the Name Nephi,” Insights 23, no. 6 (2003): 2–3.
• 11. Although by Nephi’s day the Israelites had long ago escaped Egyptian bondage, the political, cultural, and linguistic connections between the two societies were never fully severed. Like Nephi, biblical authors sometimes utilized Egyptian words for puns and wordplay, even when they were writing in Hebrew. See Gary A. Rendsburg, “Word Play in Biblical Hebrew: An Eclectic Collection,” in Puns and Pundits: Word Play in the Hebrew Bible and Ancient Near Eastern Literature, ed. Scott B. Noegel (Bethesda, Maryland: CDL Press, 2000), 137–162.
• 12. See Arthur Keefer, “Phonological Patterns in the Hebrew Bible: A Century of Studies in Sound,” Currents in Biblical Research 15, no. 1 (2016): 41–64.
• 13. See Bowen, “‘O Ye Fair Ones’ – Revisited,” 315–344; Gordon B. Hinckley, “Mormon Should Mean ‘More Good’,” Ensign, November 1990, online at lds.org.
• 14. See Richard O. Cowan, “The Church Shall Bear My Name and Be Built upon My Gospel,” in 3 Nephi 9–30, This Is My Gospel, Book of Mormon Symposium Series, Volume 8, ed. Monte S. Nyman and Charles D. Tate (Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University, 1993), 225–228.
• 15. See Dallin H. Oaks, “Taking upon Us the Name of Jesus Christ,” Ensign, May 1985, online at lds.org.
• 16. Joseph Smith translated the Book of Mormon in 1829 and there is no evidence that he was instructed in Hebrew until 1835. See Matthew J. Grey, “‘The Word of the Lord in the Original’: Joseph Smith’s Study of Hebrew in Kirtland,” in Approaching Antiquity: Joseph Smith and the Ancient World, ed. Lincoln H. Blumell, Matthew J. Grey, and Andrew H. Hedges (Salt Lake City and Provo, UT: Deseret Book and Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University, 2015), 253–255; Louis Zucker, “Joseph Smith as a Student of Hebrew,” Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 3, no. 2 (1968): 41–55.
• 17. For insights into what was known about ancient Egypt in Joseph Smith’s day, see John Gee, “Joseph Smith and Ancient Egypt,” in Approaching Antiquity, 427–448.

The Know

Several passages in the Book of Mormon speak of eternal torment in a “lake of fire and brimstone [sulfur]” as the fate of sinners who die without having reconciled themselves to God. The prophet Jacob, brother of Nephi, for instance, assured that “as the Lord liveth . . . they who are filthy are the devil and his angels; and they shall go away into everlasting fire, prepared for them; and their torment is as a lake of fire and brimstone, whose flame ascendeth up forever and ever and has no end.”1 This teaching is verbalized by other Book of Mormon prophets, including Nephi (2 Nephi 28:23), King Benjamin (Mosiah 3:27), and Alma and Amulek (Alma 12:17; 14:14–15).2

Such language is found elsewhere in scripture. Genesis speaks of “brimstone and fire” raining down on Sodom and Gomorrah (Genesis 19:24; cf. Luke 17:29), while another text warns of God sending “fire and brimstone” upon the wicked (Psalm 11:6). In the New Testament the book of Revelation (which draws heavily on apocalyptic language from the Old Testament) uses “fire and brimstone” (14:10; 21:8) and “lake of fire and brimstone” (19:20; 20:10) to depict the torment of Satan and his followers. Although the Book of Mormon renders this phraseology in familiar King James English,3 the text's core teachings and underlying depictions accurately reflect very ancient Near Eastern perceptions and pre-Christian precedents.

For instance, Old Testament prophets repeatedly employ the metaphor of consuming fire to describe the judgments of God on wicked nations. One example is the prophet Isaiah’s vivid depiction of the Lord’s impending judgments on the kingdom of Assyria:

Behold, the name of the Lord cometh from far, burning with his anger, and the burden thereof is heavy: his lips are full of indignation, and his tongue as a devouring fire. . . . [T]he Lord shall cause his glorious voice to be heard, and shall shew the lighting down of his arm, with the indignation of his anger, and with the flame of a devouring fire, with scattering, and tempest, and hailstones. For through the voice of the Lord shall the Assyrian be beaten down, which smote with a rod. . . . For Tophet is ordained of old; yea, for the king it is prepared; he hath made it deep and large: the pile thereof is fire and much wood; the breath of the Lord, like a stream of brimstone, doth kindle it. (Isaiah 30:27, 30–31, 33, emphasis added)

This passage speaks of Tophet, which in Hebrew means essentially “a fire-place” or place of burning.4 In other words, the king of Assyria, according to this prophetic oracle, was ordained to suffer annihilation on, essentially, a burning pile of wood.5 Elsewhere in Isaiah wicked inhabitants of the earth are spoken of as being “burned” (Hebrew: ḥarah; “to be hot,” “kindle,”6) by the Lord in divine retribution for breaking the covenant (Isaiah 24:5–6). And, of course, the New Testament’s imagery of Gehenna (hell) as a place of fiery torment7 drew its inspiration from the Hebrew gêy ben hinnōm (that is, the Valley of the Son of Hinnom), the valley just south of Mount Zion in Jerusalem which was immortalized in the Old Testament as the infamous location of fiery child sacrifices to the god Moloch (2 Kings 23:10; 2 Chronicles 28:3; 33:6) and later as a smoldering garbage dump.8

Significant convergences between the Book of Mormon’s description of hell are also found among the writings of the ancient Egyptians. The so-called netherworld books9 from the Egyptian New Kingdom (ca. 1540–1075 BC) contain shocking depictions of the fate awaiting those who are annihilated in the afterlife for failure to properly navigate the underworld. Punishments for the damned in the Egyptian afterlife include being burned alive by fire-breathing serpents, being roasted in fiery pits, and being cut up and cooked in cauldrons.10 Furthermore, the Egyptians imagined a “lake of fire”11 (Egyptian: mw n sḏt;“waters of fire”; š n ȝmw; “lake of burning”) that provided “fiery torture . . . for those who are to be punished and destroyed” in the afterlife.12 In iconographic depictions of the netherworld this lake of fire is drawn as “a rectangular or round body where the water is fire, suitably colored in red, or given red waves.”13

The consummate damnation described in the ancient Egyptian netherworld texts was total annihilation and non-existence. “The goal of all these punishments is to inflict not suffering itself, but rather complete elimination,” Egyptologist Erik Hornung writes. “The damned are thus frequently designated as ‘eliminated’ or ‘non-being’ and ‘negated.’ They are not, and they should not be: extinguishing their existence is the ‘second’ or ‘repeated death’ [Egyptian: mt m wḥm] frequently mentioned with fear in the Book of the Dead.”14 So grave were the consequences (everlasting annihilation) of the second death that the Egyptians composed funerary spells offering protection against such.15

The Why

As seen from the preceding evidence, the imagery used by the Book of Mormon to depict hell finds ample parallel in the ancient world.16 Nephi, with his background as a learned Israelite with training in Egyptian scribal practice (1 Nephi 1:2), may have drawn broadly from his ancient Near Eastern cultural backdrop in rendering his theological imagery. That imagery was then picked up and developed by subsequent Nephite prophets as they naturally found it compellingly graphic.17  

More important than the linguistic expressions that scripture uses, however, is the eternal truth the Book of Mormon teaches that “this life is the time for men to prepare to meet God; yea, behold the day of this life is the day for men to perform their labors.” As the prophet Amulek stressed, it is vitally important that men and women “do not procrastinate the day of [their] repentance until the end; for after this day of life, which is given us to prepare for eternity, behold, if we do not improve our time while in this life, then cometh the night of darkness wherein there can be no labor performed” (Alma 34:32–33).18

While harsh and disturbing imagery of God destroying sinners with fiery torment may understandably be unsettling for modern readers, Latter-day Saints are especially blessed to know that the imagery of hell as a place of burning torture is meant to be understood only figuratively. Jacob spoke of this torment as being “as a lake of fire and brimstone” (2 Nephi 9:16, emphasis added). King Benjamin described the demands of divine justice as awakening the unrepentant soul “to a lively sense of his own guilt, . . . which is like an unquenchable fire, whose flame ascendeth up forever,” or in other words “never-ending torment” (Mosiah 2:38–39, emphasis added). In 1829, the Savior himself explained that “endless torment” is called endless because God is endless, and thus his punishment is called “endless” (Doctrine and Covenants 19:6–7). All who repent can escape those exquisite sufferings (D&C 19:16). The mercy extended through faith and repentance is such that even those who die without having had an opportunity to receive the gospel in mortality will have such afforded to them in the spirit world.19

To awaken our minds and hearts to the urgency of needing to repent, the scriptures make strong use of powerful metaphors and meaningful words and images. To those who take heed and give diligence, the generous Nephite record is “another testament concerning the existence of hell, and explains how one can escape the ‘chains of hell’ [Alma 5:7, 9-10] in this life, and an everlasting hell in the next life, through application of the Atonement of Jesus Christ.”20

• 1. 2 Nephi 9:16; cf. vv. 19, 26; Jacob 3:11; 6:10.
• 2. For an overview of this teaching in the Book of Mormon, see Dennis L. Largey, “Hell, Second Death, Lake of Fire and Brimstone, and Outer Darkness,” in The Book of Mormon and the Message of the Four Gospels, ed. Ray L. Huntington and Terry B. Ball (Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University, 2001), 77–89.
• 3. The similar scenes described in the book of Revelation and in Nephi’s writings may well be attributable to Nephi having seen the things which the apostle of the Lamb and other ancient seers would also be shown (1 Nephi 14:24, 26). For a discussion see Brant A. Gardner, The Gift and Power: Translating the Book of Mormon (Salt Lake City, UT: Greg Kofford Books, 2011), 307–308.
• 4. Ludwig Koehler and Walter Baumgartner, The Hebrew and Aramaic Lexicon of the Old Testament (Leiden: Brill, 2001), 2:1781.
• 5. See the commentary in Philip C. Schmitz, “Topheth,” in The Anchor Bible Dictionary, ed. David Noel Freedman (New York: Doubleday, 1992), 6:601. Note also the observation made by Joseph Blenkinsopp, who writes that this passage “concludes with the ritual immolation [burning] of Assyria in the Valley of Hinnom, later Gehenna.” Joseph Blenkinsopp, Isaiah 1–39, The Anchor Bible (New York: Doubleday, 2000), 424.
• 6. Koehler and Baumgartner, The Hebrew and Aramaic Lexicon of the Old Testament, 1:351.
• 7. Matthew 5:22, 29–30; 10:28; 18:9; Mark 9:43, 45, 45; Luke 12:5; James 3:6.
• 8. See Duane F. Watson, “Hinnom Valley,” in The Anchor Bible Dictionary, 3:202–203. Biblical scholars dispute to what degree these passages describe actual, historical human sacrifices as opposed to act as polemical rhetoric against unpopular Judahite kings such as Ahaz and Manasseh. See the recent discussions presented in Francesca Stavrakopoulou, King Manasseh and Child Sacrifice: Biblical Distortions of Historical Realities (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2012); Heath D. Dewrell, Child Sacrifice in Ancient Israel (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 2017). Whatever the case may be, the recognition of the Valley of Hinnom as a place of fiery death and destruction in Israelite religious consciousness is attested in texts contemporaneous to Lehi and Nephi (Jeremiah 7:31–32; 19:2–6, 11–14; 32:35).
• 9. Ancient Egyptian beliefs about the afterlife spanned millennia. The earliest corpus of texts describing how the Egyptians conceived of the afterlife are the Pyramid Texts of the Old Kingdom (ca. 2705–2180 BC), followed by the Coffin Texts of the Middle Kingdom (ca. 1987–1640 BC), followed by the Book of the Dead, the Book of Gates, the Book of Caverns, the Book of the Amduat, and other similar compositions in the New Kingdom (ca. 1540–1075 BC), and the Book of Breathings in the Ptolemaic Period (ca. 350–30 BC). During Egypt’s history some beliefs and traditions about the nature of the afterlife diminished over time while others remained popular, with elements from the Pyramid Texts or the Coffin Texts sometimes surviving many centuries past their initial composition and resurfacing in texts from the New Kingdom, such as the Book of the Dead. For an accessible overview of these texts, their transmission, and their significance in ancient Egyptian religion, see Erik Hornung, The Ancient Egyptian Books of the Afterlife, trans. David Lorton (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1999).
• 10. See the extended discussions with ample textual citations and examples in J. Zandee, Death as an Enemy According to Ancient Egyptian Conceptions (Leiden: Brill, 1960); Erik Hornung, Altägyptische Höllenvorstellungen (Berlin: Akademie Verlag, 1968); “Black Holes Viewed from Within: Hell in Ancient Egyptian Thought,” Diogenes 165, no. 42/1 (Spring 1994): 133–156.
• 11. So translated routinely by Egyptologists, including Hornung, Altägyptische Höllenvorstellungen, 22.
• 12. Hornung, “Black Holes Viewed from Within,” 142. See further Hornung, Altägyptische Höllenvorstellungen, 21–29
• 13. Hornung, “Black Holes Viewed from Within,” 142. See also the discussion in Eltayeb Sayed Abbas, The Lake of Knives and the Lake of Fire: Studies in the Topography of Passage in Ancient Egyptian Religious Literature, BAR International Series 2144 (Oxford: Archaeopress, 2010). Spell 149 from the Book of the Dead contains this description of the lake of fire: “Its water is fire, its waves are fire, its breath is efficient for burning, in order that no-one may drink its waters to quench their thirst, that being what is in them, because their fear is so great and so towering is its majesty. Gods and spirits see its water from afar, but they cannot quench their thirst and their desires are unsatisfied.” Raymond O. Faulkner, The Ancient Egyptian Book of the Dead: 189 Spells, Prayers and Incantations for the Afterlife (Cairo: The American University in Cairo Press, 2010), 144.
• 14. Hornung, “Black Holes Viewed from Within,” 145. Compare this with the teaching of Book of Mormon prophets that a “second death” (also called a “spiritual death” and an “everlasting death”) awaits unrepentant sinners (Jacob 3:11; Alma 12:16, 32; 13:30; Helaman 14:18–20).
• 15. See Zandee, Death as an Enemy, 186–188, who catalogues multiple Egyptian funerary spells offering the following protections: “Not to die for the second time”; “He who knows this spell does not die for the second time”; “Not to die for the second time in the realm of the dead.” Zandee even goes so far as to compare this phraseology to that found in Revelation 2:11; 20:6; 21:8. Further commentary can be found in Jan Assmann, Death and Salvation in Ancient Egypt, trans. David Lorton (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2001), 64–86.
• 16. Zandee, Death as an Enemy, 303–342, examines how earlier “pagan” Egyptian conceptions of hell and the afterlife may have influenced Coptic (Egyptian) Christianity. See further John Gee, “Some Neglected Aspects of Egypt’s Conversion to Christianity,” in Coptic Culture: Past, Present and Future, ed. Mariam Ayad (Stevenage, UK: The Coptic Orthodox Church Centre, 2012), 43–55. Blogger Clark Goble offers the intriguing idea that a large volcano near Jerusalem (Al Safa in modern Syria) might also have inspired Nephi’s metaphor of hell being a “lake of fire and brimstone.” Clark Goble, “Hell Part 2: Lake of Fire and Brimstone,”Times and Seasons (February 23, 2018). Alternatively, any of the known active volcanos in Mesoamerica may have provided the inspiration for Nephi’s imagery.
• 17. See also “Why Does Jacob Choose a ‘Monster’ as a Symbol for Death and Hell?”KnoWhy #34 (2016).
• 18. Another interesting parallel with the Book of Mormon is the ancient Egyptian belief that lurking in the underworld was an oppressive, abysmal darkness ready to consume the damned, who in one text are condemned as “those who do not see [the sun god] Re’s rays, and do not hear his words. They are in darkness, and their souls do not leave the earth, and their shades do not alight on their bodies.” Hornung, “Black Holes Viewed from Within,” 135, 137–138, 142, 150–153, quote at 138.
• 19. 1 Peter 3:18-20; D&C 128:15–18; 137:7–10; 138:25–37.
• 20. Largey, “Hell, Second Death, Lake of Fire and Brimstone, and Outer Darkness,” 88.

The Know

In the first chapter of his record, Nephi said he would show unto his readers that the “tender mercies of the Lord are over all those whom he hath chosen, because of their faith, to make them mighty even unto the power of deliverance” (1 Nephi 1:20). This passage, which has been described as Nephi’s “thesis statement,”1 can help us identify a key theme in Nephi’s writings, especially in the book of 1 Nephi.

In the Old Testament, the phrase “tender mercies” is used repeatedly and almost exclusively in the Psalms.2 In these Bible passages, tender mercies are associated with God’s blessings, loving-kindness, and intimate concern for His children. In addition, Elder David A. Bednar has viewed tender mercies as “the very personal and individualized blessings, strength, protection, assurances, guidance, loving-kindnesses, consolation, support, and spiritual gifts which we receive from and because of and through the Lord Jesus Christ.”3

Nephi, however, clarified that the Lord’s tender mercies are specifically available for those “whom he hath chosen, because of their faith” (1 Nephi 1:20; emphasis added). We know this point was important to Nephi because he emphasized it over and over again in the stories he told about his family’s journey. For instance, when Lehi’s sons were commanded to get the plates of brass, Lehi declared to Nephi, “Therefore go, my son, and thou shalt be favored of the Lord, because thou hast not murmured” (1 Nephi 3:6; emphasis added).

In what way was Nephi favored over his brothers? In this story, it was Nephi who courageously left his brothers and went alone into the city to face Laban, much like David stood alone against Goliath.4 Nephi was miraculously directed “by the Spirit, not knowing beforehand the things which [he] should do” (1 Nephi 4:6). And then Laban, who had fallen to the earth in a drunken stupor, was “delivered” into Nephi’s hands by the Lord—a point which was repeated twice by the Spirit (1 Nephi 4:11–12).5

Nephi’s stories of deliverance followed this same essential pattern after his family departed from the Valley of Lemuel. It was Nephi who didn’t murmur and took the initiative to make a bow and arrow and save his family from starvation.6 It was Nephi who faithfully fulfilled the Lord’s commandment to build a ship, despite Laman and Lemuel’s ridicule and disbelief.7 And it was Nephi whose faith calmed the storms and reactivated the liahona after his brothers’ rebellion on their ocean voyage. In each case Nephi—and in several instances, his entire family—were miraculously delivered because of his personal righteousness.8

Of course, this situation also caused tension and conflict between Nephi and his oldest brothers. When Laman and Lemuel’s anger wasn’t boiling over, Nephi’s chosen status seemed to keep it at a fairly constant simmer.9 Nephi’s older brothers apparently felt that divine favor was a matter of inheritance. They believed the Jews were a righteous people because they descended from a righteous covenant lineage.10 Likewise, they felt that as the oldest sons, it was their right to rule and lead the family. On one occasion, Nephi countered these attitudes by reminding them of the Israelite conquest of Canaan:

And now, do ye suppose that the children of this land, who were in the land of promise, who were driven out by our fathers, do ye suppose that they were righteous? Behold, I say unto you, Nay. Do ye suppose that our fathers would have been more choice than they if they had been righteous? I say unto you, Nay. (1 Nephi 17:33–34)

In other words, divine favor, including greater access to God’s tender mercies, is directly contingent upon righteousness. Because all of God’s children have an inborn ability to discern between right and wrong (see Moroni 7:15–16), it means that all are free to choose the right and gain access to the Lord’s tender mercies. For this reason Nephi could appropriately add that “the Lord esteemeth all flesh in one; he that is righteous is favored of God” (1 Nephi 17:35).

The Why

Nephi’s thesis wasn’t intended to arrogantly prove how amazing he was or how much better he was than his brothers.11 Instead, it seems his primary goal was to persuade his readers that the tender mercies of the Lord are available to all of God’s children. Being favored of the Lord isn’t based upon race, ethnicity, language, culture, nationality, wealth, or any other arbitrary factor. Instead, the Lord tenderly and lovingly provides additional blessings for those who faithfully and righteously come unto Him. For this reason, Nephi declared, “For the fulness 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” (1 Nephi 6:4).

Nephi’s major theme also provides a warning about attitudes and behaviors that will prevent us from receiving the Lord’s tender mercies. At one point, when Nephi’s brothers were arguing about the meaning of Lehi’s dream, Nephi asked them, “Have ye inquired of the Lord? And they said unto me: We have not; for the Lord maketh no such thing known unto us” (1 Nephi 15:8–9). Nephi’s record diligently strives to help readers overcome this negative attitude of self-exclusion. As Elder David A. Bednar has taught,

Some individuals … erroneously may discount or dismiss in their personal lives the availability of the tender mercies of the Lord, believing that “I certainly am not one who has been or ever will be chosen.” We may falsely think that such blessings and gifts are reserved for other people who appear to be more righteous or who serve in visible Church callings. I testify that the tender mercies of the Lord are available to all of us and that the Redeemer of Israel is eager to bestow such gifts upon us.12

Another concern is that we may not immediately recognize the tender mercies the Lord has bestowed upon us. Laman and Lemuel, for instance, saw their father’s vision about Jerusalem’s destruction as mere “foolish imaginations” (1 Nephi 2:11). As a result, they viewed their journey into the wilderness as an unnecessary retreat from civilization and a rash forfeiture of their family’s wealth. Nephi, however, was spiritually sensitive enough to seek his own revelation from the Lord, which confirmed the truth of his father’s vision (see 1 Nephi 2:16). What seemed like foolishness to his brothers, Nephi correctly recognized as a divine means of deliverance—or in other words, a tender mercy.

By the end of Nephi’s record, it is abundantly clear that God repeatedly and consistently blessed and delivered him because of his faith and obedience. As we liken Nephi’s record unto ourselves, we can trust that the Lord will similarly bless us in our own lives (see 2 Nephi 4:34). This doesn’t mean that our trials and hardships will go away. Nephi’s surely didn’t. What it means is that the Lord will lovingly and tenderly support us, and ultimately deliver us, from all of our trials. If we are faithful and obedient, we, like Nephi, will be able to look back upon our mortal journey and clearly see the power of the Lord’s deliverance in our lives (see 2 Nephi 4:20; 1 Nephi 17:14).13

• 1. See James E. Faulconer, “Remembrance,” BYU Speeches, June 23, 1998, p. 4.
• 2. It is also found in Proverbs 12:10. For KnoWhys discussing tender mercies in the Psalms and the Book of Mormon, see Book of Mormon Central, “Is ‘Nephi’s Psalm’ Really a Psalm? (2 Nephi 4:16–17),” KnoWhy 30 (February 10, 2016); Book of Mormon Central, “Why Does Jacob Quote So Much from the Psalms? (Jacob 1:7),” KnoWhy 62 (March 25, 2016); Book of Mormon Central, “Why Did Lehi Quote from a Psalm of Repentance In His Dream? (1 Nephi 8:8),” KnoWhy 325 (June 12, 2017); Book of Mormon Central, “Why Do Biblical Psalms of Lament Show Up in the Book of Mormon? (1 Nephi 8:8),” KnoWhy 438 (May 31, 2018); Book of Mormon Central, “Why Are Certain Biblical Psalms Used by Book of Mormon Authors? (1 Nephi 8:8),” KnoWhy 439 (June 7, 2018).
• 3. David A. Bednar, “The Tender Mercies of the Lord,” Ensign, May 2005, online at lds.org.
• 4. For extensive comparisons between Nephi’s slaying of Laban and David’s slaying of Goliath, see the appendix in Book of Mormon Central, “Why Was the Sword of Laban So Important to Nephite Leaders? (Words of Mormon 1:13),” KnoWhy 411 (February 27, 2018).
• 5. When Nephi’s brothers bound him with cords in the next wilderness rebellion episode, the theme of faith deliverance is repeated again: “O Lord, according to my faith which is in thee, wilt thou deliver me from the hands of my brethren” (1 Nephi 7:17; emphasis added). For more on deliverance themes in the Book of Mormon, see M. Catherine Thomas, “Types and Shadows of Deliverance in the Book of Mormon” in A Book of Mormon Treasury: Gospel Insights from General Authorities and Religious Educators, (Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University, 2003), 280–294.
• 6. See Book of Mormon Central, “Why Did Nephi Include the Story of the Broken Bow? (1 Nephi 16:23),” KnoWhy 421 (April 3, 2018).
• 7. For a treatment of Nephi’s shipbuilding activity as divinely directed act of creation, see Alan Goff, “Boats, Beginnings, and Repetitions,” Journal of Book of Mormon Studies 1, no. 1 (1992): 67–84.
• 8. Several of these narratives, like the episode with Laban, even use some form of the word “deliver.” For instance, after Lehi’s sons persuaded Ishmael’s family to join them, Nephi’s brothers bound him with cords. In response, Nephi prayed, “O Lord, according to my faith which is in thee, wilt thou deliver me from the hands of my brethren” (1 Nephi 7:17; emphasis added).
• 9. See Matthew L. Bowen, “‘Their Anger Did Increase Against Me’: Nephi’s Autobiographical Permutation of a Biblical Wordplay on the Name Joseph,” Interpreter: A Journal of Mormon Scripture 23 (2017): 115–136.
• 10. See Book of Mormon Central, “How Can the Old Testament Covenants Help Us Understand the Book of Mormon? (1 Nephi 2:12–13),” KnoWhy 363 (September 12, 2017); Neal Rappleye, “The Deuteronomist Reforms and Lehi’s Family Dynamics: A Social Context for the Rebellions of Laman and Lemuel,” Interpreter: A Journal of Mormon Scripture 16 (2015): 87–99.
• 11. To be sure, Nephi certainly did intend to prove that he was chosen as a “ruler and a teacher over [his] brethren” just as the Lord had prophesied (1 Nephi 2:22). However, Nephi’s intent was clearly to give glory to God rather than retain it for himself. For the political purposes of Nephi’s record, see Noel B. Reynolds, “Nephi’s Political Testament,” in Rediscovering the Book of Mormon: Insights You May Have Missed Before, ed. John L. Sorenson and Melvin J. Thorne (Salt Lake City and Provo, UT: Deseret Book and FARMS, 1991), 221; Noel B. Reynolds, “The Political Dimension in Nephi’s Small Plates,” BYU Studies Quarterly 27, no. 4 (1987): 15–37.
• 12. Bednar, “The Tender Mercies of the Lord,” online at lds.org. See also, Neal A. Maxwell, “Lessons from Laman and Lemuel,” Ensign, November 1999, online at lds.org.
• 13. Elder Dieter F. Uchtdorf has taught that “when we step back and take an eternal perspective, when we look at our lives in the frame of the gospel of Jesus Christ, we can begin to see how the various dots in our lives interconnect. We may not be able to see the entire picture just yet, but we’ll see enough to trust that there is a beautiful, grand design. And as we strive to trust God and follow His Son, Jesus Christ, one day we will see the finished product, and we will know that the very hand of God was directing and guiding our steps.” Dieter F. Uchtdorf, “The Adventure of Mortality,” Worldwide Devotional for Young Adults, January 14, 2018, online at lds.org.

The Know

In his first recorded revelation, the prophet Lehi learned of the future “coming of a Messiah” who would bring about “the redemption of the world” (1 Nephi 1:19).1 Additional revelations to Lehi and his son Nephi shed further light on this Messiah and his mortal mission (1 Nephi 8; 11–12). Summarizing his father’s teachings, Nephi assured that “a prophet would the Lord God raise up among the Jews—even a Messiah, or, in other words, a Savior of the world” (1 Nephi 10:4, emphasis added).

Nephi’s clarification that the Messiah was “a Savior of the world” may seem odd to modern Christians who are well acquainted with the New Testament’s depiction of Jesus, the Messiah, as the Savior of humankind. The reason behind Nephi’s clarification most certainly derives from the fact that in ancient Israel the concept behind the word “messiah” was much broader than it is today. For starters, the word “messiah” derives from the Hebrew mashiach, which means “anointed.” The Greek equivalent to mashiach as used in the New Testament is christos, hence the origin of the name Jesus Christ (Jesus the Anointed One). In the Old Testament, however, several categories of individuals were identified as being a messiah, an “anointed one.”

For instance, Israelite kings including Saul, David, and Solomon were anointed upon their coronations, making them, technically, messiahs.2 At least one non-Israelite king, the Persian Cyrus, is likewise called a messiah (Isaiah 45:1). In addition to kings, priests and prophets are designated as messiahs (“anointed”).3 It is therefore clear from the biblical evidence from before the time of Lehi and Nephi that the term “messiah” was used much more broadly by the ancient Israelites than it is used by modern readers of the Bible, who generally speak of or recognize Jesus alone as being the Messiah.4

The form of Israelite religion likely practiced by Lehi and Nephi around 600 B.C. apparently did not use the concept of “messiah” in the specific way it was understood later in Jewish and Christian theology, and in the Book of Mormon. “One should realize that in the [Old Testament] the term ‘anointed’ is never used of a future savior/redeemer,” noted one biblical scholar, “and that in later Jewish writings of the period between 200 B.C. and A.D. 100 the term is used only infrequently in connection with agents of divine deliverance expected in the future.”5 This might explain why Lehi’s contemporaries were perplexed and even angry at his preaching (1 Nephi 1:20). Having received a revelation that “manifested plainly of the coming of a Messiah” who would bring about “the redemption of the world” (1 Nephi 1:19, emphasis added), Lehi boldly introduced a new or expanded way of thinking about the concept of the messiah. This type of innovation likely upset the religious and political rivals who opposed him and the other prophets who cried repentance to the people of Jerusalem at that time (1 Nephi 1:4, 20). Lehi saw this “One descending” (1 Nephi 1:9) not only as some generic messiah, but as “the Messiah” (1 Nephi 10:7–11). In turn, linguistic ambiguity in Lehi’s day might also explain why Nephi himself felt it necessary to clarify that the messiah promised by his father was “a Savior of the world.” This would be a universal messiah who could save all humankind, as opposed to a prophet, priest, or king concerned only with serving or redeeming the House of Israel.

The Why

By understanding that the Bible is not entirely consistent in its usage of the word messiah, readers can better appreciate why Nephi needed to qualify more explicitly what kind of messiah Jesus was prophesied as being. This, in turn, helps modern readers appreciate how the Book of Mormon expounds on or clarifies plain gospel truths. While a few key Old Testament texts undoubtedly laid the foundation for Israel’s hopeful messianic expectations (e.g. Isaiah 53),6 the visions of Lehi and Nephi as recorded in the Book of Mormon are what give the clearest prophetic insight into Jesus’ messianic role.7

The Book of Mormon testifies that Jesus is the Holy One of Israel and that he condescended to succor the children of men and save them from their pains, sicknesses, and sins (1 Nephi 11:16, 26; Alma 7:12).8 For many people in Lehi’s day as well as in Jesus’s day, the idea of such a messiah was a stumbling block on which many people faltered. This concept was the foundation stone that some builders rejected. While ancient audiences could easily accept the use of the term messiah to describe a leader or holy person in their midst, it seemed inappropriate, if not blasphemous, to think that a future anointed person would become an absolute messiah, even, as Lehi said at the end of his life, “the true Messiah, their Redeemer, and their God” (2 Nephi 1:10). Due to the persistent range of answers to the timeless question, “Who say men that I am?” this bold testimony and clarification is needed no less today than it was in Lehi’s day.

Book of Mormon prophets, particularly Nephi, spoke often of Jesus as the Messiah, the one “full of grace and truth” through whom redemption for all of God’s children would come.9 The Book of Mormon thus acts as a crucial second witness next to the New Testament that Jesus is in fact the Messiah, the one God anointed with power and authority to fulfill an infinite atonement (Acts 10:38; 2 Nephi 9:7).  

• 1. It is interesting to note that Lehi, apparently, did not learn from his first vision that the name of the Messiah was specifically Jesus Christ. See Book of Mormon Central, “Why Does an Angel Reveal the Name of Christ to Jacob?” KnoWhy 36 (February 18, 2016).
• 2.1 Samuel 9:16; 10:1; 12:3–5; 24:6; 2 Samuel 2:4–7; 5:3, 17; 19:21; 22:51; 23:1; 1 Kings 1:39, 45; 19:16; Psalm 18:50; 89:20, 38, 51; 132:10, 17. This practice of anointing kings was also carried out by Book of Mormon peoples (Jacob 1:9; Ether 6:22, 27; 9:4, 14–15, 21-22; 10:10, 16).
• 3. For examples of priests being anointed, see Exodus 40:14–15; 28:41; Leviticus 4:3, 5, 16; 6:22. For prophets, see Psalm 105:15; 1 Kings 19:16; 1 Chronicles 16:22.
• 4. See the commentary in Marinus De Jonge, “Messiah,” in The Anchor Bible Dictionary, ed. David Noel Freedman (New York, NY: Doubleday, 1992), 4:777–780.
• 5. De Jonge, “Messiah,” 4:777.
• 6. See further Book of Mormon Central, “Did Pre-Christian Prophets Know About Christ?”KnoWhy 12 (January 15, 2016); “Why Did Abinadi Talk About the Suffering Messiah?”KnoWhy 91 (May 3, 2016).
• 7. See further Book of Mormon Central, “How Did Nephi Read Isaiah as a Witness of Christ’s Coming?”KnoWhy 40 (February 24, 2016); “Why Did Nephi Say an Angel Had Revealed the Name Jesus Christ?”KnoWhy 304 (April 24, 2017).
• 8. See also the reflections provided by Richard D. Draper, “The Book of Mormon on Christ’s Role as Redeemer,”Ensign (January 2000).
• 9. See 2 Nephi 2:6; cf. 1 Nephi 10:4-5, 7, 9-11, 14, 17; 2 Nephi 2:6, 8, 26; 25:14, 16, 18-19; Jarom 1:11; Mosiah 13:33; Helaman 8:13.

The Know

When Ammon taught King Lamoni the plan of salvation, the king was so overwhelmed by the experience that he fell to the earth as though he were dead (Alma 18:39–42). While he was unconscious, he had a vision of the Lord, and when he told his wife about this experience, she also fell to the earth as if she were dead, as did Ammon (Alma 19:13–14). Most of the servants in the court fell to the earth as well (v.16).1

The only exception was Abish, who had already been converted to the Lord (v. 16).2 In an effort to signal something about the power of God to the people, Abish gathered everyone together and showed them what had happened (v. 28).3 Then she took the queen by the hand and raised her up (v. 29). The queen then took her husband Lamoni by the hand and raised him as well (v. 30). For modern readers, this is a significant scene, that requires careful consideration from several angles,4 and one level of possible symbolism in this story is not apparent today. In ancient contexts, this scene might have gathered power from mythological backgrounds pertaining to the resurrection of divine and royal beings.

One element of the story that suggests this is that Alma 18–19 mentions on eight separate occasions that the royal family appeared to be dead. King Lamoni’s servants even wanted to bury him (Alma 19:1). Thus, when Abish raises them up from the ground, she would have been seen by people familiar with such backgrounds as playing a role in raising them from their perceived state of death. The fact that it is a woman who raised them from the ground would have been suggestive to them as well, because, as Kevin and Shauna Christensen have observed, goddesses were sometimes associated with reviving their husbands in ancient mythology.5

In ancient Canaanite mythology, for example, the goddess Anath enabled her husband Baal-Hadad to be resurrected by her killing his sworn enemy, Mot, the god of death.6 In Mesopotamian mythology, Inanna-Ishtar descended into the underworld to free her deceased lover, Dumuzi-Tammuz, from the god Erishkigal, so he could be brought back to life.7 Because of the inherent female capacity for creating life through childbirth, the connection between women and reawakening and revival in these stories makes sense.

One can find a similar motif in the New World as well in the Popul Vuh, a sacred text of the ancient Maya.8 In this text, the lords of the underworld killed a man named One Hunahpu and put his head in a tree.9 This act caused the tree to produce fruit that looked like the skull of the dead hero.10 The daughter of one of the lords of the underworld then partook of this fruit, and through her, life was renewed in the world.11 With these details in mind, it seems reasonable to assume that the fainting and reviving of Lamoni and his wife might be understood as signally something about death and resurrection.12

The Why

Seeing the experience of the Lamanite court as a symbolic resurrection makes sense on multiple levels. On a narrative level, Ammon had taught king Lamoni “the plan of redemption, which was prepared from the foundation of the world; and he also made known unto them concerning the coming of Christ, and all the works of the Lord did he make known unto them” (Alma 18:39). The king would have understood the plan of mortality, the reality of death, and also the promise of being redeemed from the dead. When he cried out for mercy (v. 41), as all must do according to the plan, Lamoni was overcome as if by death. The story of Lamoni, his wife, and his people remind all readers vividly of their own mortality and absolute need for a redeemer. 

Once they revived, these people gave up their old lives and been reborn as followers of Christ, such that “their hearts had been changed; that they had no more desire to do evil” (Alma 19:33). In a sense, they had been reborn. Paul, when referring to the symbolic death and resurrection that Christians experience at baptism, stated, “Therefore we are buried with him by baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised up from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we also should walk in newness of life” (Romans 6:4). Symbolically, the Lamanite royal court had died and were raised up as new people, giving up their old lives for “newness of life” through Christ.

The story is significant for another reason as well. The association of Abish with the “resurrection” of the king’s court can be seen as a subtle foreshadowing of the resurrection of Christ. The ancient traditions of goddesses being associated with the resurrection of their husbands could well have signaled to the believers in the crowd that they too had just witnessed a divine miracle. Perhaps the role of the slave girl Abish in the story of king Lamoni and his queen finds a cultural echo in the story of the daughter eating of the fruit of the tree of One Hunahpu which led to the renewal of life on earth according to the Mayan lore. 

When read in its various contexts, the story of Lamoni’s court takes on new meanings. In particular, through the faithfulness of Abish, this foundational conversion story reminds us that all can find new life through the resurrection of Christ. This truth is beautifully signaled by this powerful foreshadowing of His conquest of Death and Hell which makes possible the resurrection that will come to all (Alma 33:22).  

• 1. For more on this motif, see Mark Alan Wright, “Nephite Daykeepers: Ritual Specialists in Mesoamerica and the Book of Mormon,” in Ancient Temple Worship: Proceedings of the Expound Symposium, 14 May 2011, ed. Matthew B. Brown, Jeffrey M. Bradshaw, Stephen D. Ricks, John S. Thompson (Salt Lake City and Orem, UT: Eborn Books and Interpreter Foundation, 2014), 243–257; “‘According to Their Language, unto Their Understanding’: The Cultural Context of Hierophanies and Theophanies in Latter-day Saint Canon,” Studies in the Bible and Antiquity 3 (2011): 51–65.
• 2. For ideas on how her conversion may have happened, see Brant A. Gardner, Second Witness: Analytical and Contextual Commentary on the Book of Mormon, 6 vols. (Salt Lake City, UT: Greg Kofford Books, 2007), 4:298–310.
• 3. See Book of Mormon Central, “What Can We Learn From Abish’s Member-missionary Work? (Alma 19:17),” KnoWhy 374 (October 19, 2017).
• 4. For a fine example of such a reading, pointing out the irony that even after observing this amazing development, there were still many in the crowd of onlookers “who would not hear [Lamoni’s] words (Alma 19:32),” see Michael J. Call, “Reading Competency in the Book of Mormon: Abish and Other Model Readers” BYU Studies Quarterly 56, no. 2 (2017): 59–70.
• 5. Kevin and Shauna Christensen, “Nephite Feminism Revisited: Thoughts on Carol Lynn Pearson’s View of Women in the Book of Mormon,” FARMS Review of Books 10, no. 2 (1998): 18.
• 6. Christensen, “Nephite Feminism Revisited,” 18.
• 7. Christensen, “Nephite Feminism Revisited,” 18.
• 8. Christensen, “Nephite Feminism Revisited,” 18.
• 9. Allen J. Christensen, “The Sacred Tree of the Ancient Maya,” Journal of Book of Mormon Studies 6, no. 1 (1997): 3.
• 10. Christensen, “The Sacred Tree,” 3.
• 11. Christensen, “The Sacred Tree,” 4.
• 12. Christensen, “Nephite Feminism Revisited,” 18.

The Know

In 1873, a Greek Orthodox bishop named Philotheos Bryennios was studying in a monastery in Constantinople when he came across an unusual ancient manuscript.1 It was called The Teaching of the Twelve Apostles or the Didache (the Greek word for “teaching”) and was unlike anything most people had ever seen before. It contained instructions on how early Christians, perhaps as early as the end of the first century, were to perform ordinances and how the church was to conduct itself.

In 1830, more than forty years before Bryennios made his groundbreaking discovery, the world became aware of a similar collection: Moroni 3­–6. Similar to the Didache, these chapters contained notes on ordinances and church conduct.2 The similarities between the two texts are striking and shed light on the founding and organization of Christ’s church in both the Old World and the New.  

Moroni 3, for example, contains instructions on how appointed leaders (called “elders”) were to ordain “priests” and “teachers.” One finds the same thing in Didache 15:1, which describes how the community was to appoint worthy and meek men to serve as “bishops” and “deacons” to carry on  “the ministry of the prophets and teachers.”3 Similarly, Moroni 4 and 5 contain two sacrament prayers, one for the bread and one for the wine. Didache 9:1–5 also contains separate prayers, one for the cup of wine and the other for the broken bread.4

Moroni 6 also contains a number of elements that are similar to the Diadache. Moroni 6:1–4 discusses details related to the performance of baptism, as does Didache 7:1–4.5 Moroni 6:5–6 then states, “And the church did meet together oft, to fast and to pray, and to ... partake of bread and wine, in remembrance of the Lord Jesus.” Didache 14:1 similarly states, “But on the Lord's day, after you have gathered together, break bread and give thanks.”6 Didache 8:1 also mentions fasting often, just as Moroni 6:5 mentions frequent fasting.7 The Greek words of Didache 16:2 are naturally translated into English with the same expression that Moroni used.8 Moroni, quoting the words of Christ in 3 Nephi 18:22, states that they should “meet together oft” and the Didache states “gather together often.”9

Moroni 6:7–8 states, “and whoso was found to commit iniquity, and ... repented not, and confessed not, their names were blotted out. But as oft as they repented and sought forgiveness, with real intent, they were forgiven.” Didache 15:3 contains a similar commandment: “Rebuke each other, but do not do so wrathfully, but peaceably, as the gospel commands; but let nobody speak to anyone who mistreats his neighbor, and don’t let him be heard by you until he repents.”10

The Why

The Didache was likely written sometime between AD 60 and 117, making it surprisingly early and roughly the same age as much of the New Testament.11 However, when looking at it in isolation, one might wonder how much of the material in the Didache goes back to Jesus Himself, and how much might have been created by other early Christians.12 The similarities between the Didache in the Old  World and the words of Moroni in the Book of Mormon suggest that basic parts of the primitive Christian church handbook of instructions for how to organize and manage the church and perform ordinances go back to the original Apostles, who received their instructions from Christ Himself.   

If this is the case, the similarities between the Didache and Moroni show that Christ cares about the details of the church. Ordinances and church structure and conduct are not incidental details to Christ, but they are important elements of the church that He established. This attention to detail proved to be significant in the early days of the Restoration, as the Book of Mormon appears to have been used as something of a handbook for conducting the church.13 John W. Welch has noted that Oliver Cowdery quoted Moroni 3­–6 in a three-page draft of a document drafted in June 1829, entitled “Articles of the Church of Christ.”14 That document discusses primarily instructions for the administration of ordinances and other practices of the Church.15

Thus, the same four chapters of Moroni most closely paralleled in the early Christian Didache are the same chapters that were foundational in the organization of the Restored Church in this dispensation as well. This detail is a reminder of the continuity between the Church of Christ established during His ministry, and His church on the earth today. It also allows us to approach the ordinances of the restored gospel more confidently. When we participate in these ordinances, the distance between us and the ancient followers of Christ narrows, and we can, in some small way, participate in these ordinances with them.

• 1.“Didache,” in The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, 3rd edition revised, ed. F. L. Cross and E. A. Livingstone (New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2005), 482. The Didache was also one of the books in the highly revered Codex Siniaticus, which was brought from Saint Catherine’s monastery by Tischendorff to Germany, but not until the 1860s, a generation after the Book of Mormon was printed in 1830. 
• 2. For some similarities between the two texts, see Hugh Nibley, Since Cumorah, The Collected Works of Hugh Nibley, Volume 7 (Salt Lake City and Provo, UT: Deseret Book and FARMS, 1988), 176.
• 3. See M. B. Riddle, “The Teaching of the Twelve Apostles,” in The Ante-Nicene Fathers: Translations of the Writings of the Fathers down to A.D. 325, ed. Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson, 10 vols. (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1951), 7:381.
• 4. See Riddle, “The Teaching of the Twelve Apostles,” 7:381.
• 5. See Riddle, “The Teaching of the Twelve Apostles,” 7:379–380.
• 6. For another translation, see Riddle, “The Teaching of the Twelve Apostles,” 7:381.
• 7. See Riddle, “The Teaching of the Twelve Apostles,” 7:379.
• 8. See Riddle, “The Teaching of the Twelve Apostles,” 7:382.
• 9. For another connection between the Didache and the Book of Mormon, see Book of Mormon Central, “Why Is the Lord's Prayer Different in 3 Nephi? (3 Nephi 13:9),” KnoWhy 204 (October 7, 2016).
• 10. For another translation, see Riddle, “The Teaching of the Twelve Apostles,” 7:381.
• 11. See “Didache,” 482: “Although in the past many English and American scholars tended to assign it to the late 2nd cent., most scholars now date it in the 1st cent.”
• 12. For the latest volume of studies exploring this important question, see Jonathan A. Draper and Clayton N. Jefford, eds., The Didache: A Missing Piece of the Puzzle in Early Christianity (Atlanta: SBL Press, 2015). Chapters in this book discuss approaches to this text as a whole, leadership and liturgy, relations between the Didache and the Gospel of Matthew (including the Sermon on the Mount), early Christian diversity, revelation, and the challenges faced by the dynamics and methodological issues that arise in continuing studies of the Didache.
• 13. See Book of Mormon Central, “Was the Book of Mormon Used as the First Church Administrative Handbook? (3 Nephi 27:21–22),” KnoWhy 72 (April 6, 2016); "Why Did the Lord Quote the Book of Mormon When When Reestablishing the Church? (3 Nephi 11:24)," KnoWhy 282 (March 3, 2017).
• 14. See John W. Welch, “The Book of Mormon as the Keystone of Church Administration,” Religious Educator, Vol. 12, No. 2 (2011): 88.
• 15. See Scott H. Faulring, “An Examination of the 1829 ‘Articles of the Church of Christ’ in Relation to Section 20 of the Doctrine and Covenants,” BYU Studies 43, no. 4 (2004): 57–91. See also Robin Scott Jensen, Robert J. Woodford, and Steven C. Harper, eds., The Revelations and Translations, vol. 1 of the Manuscript Revelation Books series of The Joseph Smith Papers (Salt Lake City, UT: Church Historian’s Press, 2009), 23–24.

The Know

After Sennacherib, the powerful king of Assyria, conquered the northern kingdom of Israel in 722 B.C. and deported much of its population, he invaded the southern kingdom of Judah in 701. Although he destroyed several well-fortified cities and carried away thousands of people, he was not successful in conquering Jerusalem.

At that time, a righteous king named Hezekiah ruled over Jerusalem, and God promised to “defend this city [Jerusalem], to save it, for mine own sake, and for my servant David’s sake.” The Lord kept his promise to King Hezekiah, for “it came to pass that night, that the angel of the Lord went out, and smote in the camp of the Assyrians an hundred fourscore and five thousand” (2 Kings 19:34–35).

Jerusalem miraculously survived an invasion attempt by Assyria, the greatest empire in the world at that time. For this reason, when the Babylonian armies laid siege to Jerusalem about a hundred years later, there were many in the city who firmly believed it could not be conquered. Laman and Lemuel, the sons of the prophet Lehi, had believed similarly when their own father was called to be a prophet of God. Although many prophets, including their father, were prophesying to the contrary, they did not “believe that Jerusalem, that great city, could be destroyed according to the words of the prophets” (1 Nephi 2:13).

BYU Religious Education professors David Rolph Seely and Fred E. Woods identified six factors that may have contributed to this deeply-held, but ultimately erroneous, belief that Jerusalem could not possibly be destroyed. They noted that:

1) The spiritual traditions regarding Jerusalem suggested to many that because the city was God’s holy habitation on earth, the site of His house, the Temple of Jerusalem, He would naturally protect it from desecration and destruction. According to tradition, the temple built by Solomon had been erected on the location where Abraham had nearly sacrificed Isaac. The temple had stood for three hundred years and was seen as a powerful symbol of the presence of the Lord, their Savior, in the city.

2) Many appear to have misunderstood the nature of the Lord’s covenant with David, especially in regard to what it meant for the protection of David’s city, Jerusalem. The Lord had promised David: “Thine house and thy kingdom shall be established for ever before thee: thy throne shall be established forever” (2 Samuel 7:16; see Psalm 89:3–4). This part of the Davidic covenant was unconditional and was ultimately fulfilled by the coming of Jesus of Nazareth as the Messiah from the lineage of David (Matthew 1:1–17).

However, some scriptural passages connected the Davidic covenant with Jerusalem, the city of David (see Psalm 132:13, 17–18), and prophets such as Isaiah declared that the Lord would protect His holy city (Isaiah 31:4–5). But the Lord had made it clear, through his prophets, that these promises of protection were conditional, depending on the people’s obedience to God’s commandments (1 Kings 6:12–13; 9:6–7).

3) The miraculous deliverance of Jerusalem from the Assyrians in the days of King Hezekiah (2 Kings 18–19), discussed above, strengthened the belief that the Lord would preserve Jerusalem and its temple from all enemies.

4) Hezekiah had gone to great lengths to fortify Jerusalem and prepare it for siege. He had massive walls and towers built (2 Chronicles 32:2–8) and created a water source inside the city that would help them endure long sieges (2 Kings 20:20; 2 Chronicles 32:4, 30). These robust fortifications would surely have contributed to a feeling of impregnability.

5) Not many years before Lehi left Jerusalem, Judah’s King Josiah had undertaken a massive religious reformation that centralized worship around the Temple of Jerusalem. He attempted to eradicate the worship of idols and foreign gods and led the people in a renewal of their covenants with Jehovah (2 Kings 22–23). These reforms may have led some people to hold an exaggerated view of their own righteousness and favor in God’s eyes.

6) Although there were many prophets, like Jeremiah and Lehi, who were prophesying of the destruction of Jerusalem, there were also false prophets, such as Hananiah (Jeremiah 28:15) who gave the opposite message—that God would preserve them from their enemies. They were in the business of telling the people and their leaders what they wanted to hear and not what the Lord wanted them to know, so many hearkened unto their words instead of to the words of the true prophets.1

The Why

Although many elements likely contributed to the undue sense of security and divine approval held by those at Jerusalem, the most basic factor was that they were unwilling to listen to the true and living prophets of God.

The fact that false prophets were preaching pleasing words to the people understandably made following the true word of the Lord more complicated. As BYU Professor Aaron Schade noted: “To make things more difficult for the people, at this time when ‘true prophets’ of God were receiving divine direction to warn the people of Judah to repent, as well as to surrender themselves peacefully over to the Babylonians, others were preaching the safety and impregnability of Judah.”2

Laman and Lemuel, like those who dwelt at Jerusalem, struggled to discern the true word of the Lord, even though their own father was a true prophet. Their hardened hearts and overconfidence blinded them to the real danger they would have faced had they not followed their father into the wilderness. Thus, Nephi had the following to report on the reactions of the Jews to his father’s preaching, an attitude which ultimately led them to destruction, along with their beloved city:

And it came to pass that the Jews did mock him because of the things which he testified of them; for he truly testified of their wickedness and their abominations; … And when the Jews heard these things they were angry with him (1 Nephi 1:19–20).

• 1. These six points were adapted from David Rolph Seely and Fred E. Woods, “How Could Jerusalem, ‘That Great City,’ Be Destroyed,” in Glimpses of Lehi’s Jerusalem, ed. John W. Welch, David Rolph Seely, and Jo Ann H. Seely (Provo, UT: FARMS, 2004), 595–610.
• 2. Aaron P. Schade, “The Kingdom of Judah: Politics, Prophets, and Scribes,” in Glimpses of Lehi’s Jerusalem, ed. John W. Welch, David Rolph Seely, and Jo Ann H. Seely (Provo, UT: FARMS, 2004), 308.

The Know

In the summer of 1828, Joseph Smith let Martin Harris borrow the first 116 pages of the Book of Mormon’s English translation. Through negligence and disobedience, Harris subsequently lost the manuscript, and its contents have never been recovered.1 When explaining this situation in the preface to the 1830 edition of the Book of Mormon, Joseph Smith said that the lost manuscript contained the Book of Lehi.2

Due to the fame of this story, and its significant role in reshaping the structure and content of the Book of Mormon,3 readers may naturally wonder what the Book of Lehi was all about. Drawing upon several lines of evidence, scholars have been able to reconstruct a number of topics, themes, and even direct statements that most likely were part of Lehi’s original record or Mormon’s abridgment of it.4

Clues from the Small Plates

Concerning the small plates (1 Nephi through Omni) Nephi explained, “Wherefore, the Lord hath commanded me to make these plates for a wise purpose in him, which purpose I know not” (1 Nephi 9:5). Today, the purpose for the Lord’s commandment to Nephi has become clear. The small plates help directly compensate for the lost 116 pages, and they provide the Book of Mormon with a much-needed, spiritually focused introduction.5

On several occasions, Nephi stated that he was giving a shortened account of his father’s writings.6 This means that we surely have at least some portions of the Book of Lehi preserved in Nephi’s writings. S. Kent Brown, for instance, has suggested that Nephi’s account of his father’s opening vision (1 Nephi 1:4–15) was likely taken directly from the introduction of Lehi’s record.7 Many more instances could be cited.8 As explained by Don Bradley, the story in the small plates “recapitulates in broad strokes the story of the first four and a half centuries of Nephite narrative that had been given in detail in the Book of Lehi.”9

Clues from Mormon’s Abridgment

Mormon was a careful editor and abridger, and most of the time he only made references to content that he knew his readers would be familiar with. So one way to find things that were likely on the 116 pages is to look at Mormon’s abridgment and identify perplexing references to unfamiliar past content. These include lost stories like the account of Aminadi (Alma 10:2) and additional details about what happened in Lehi’s wilderness journeys, as is found in Alma 37:38–42. They also include statements from Lehi that aren’t found in the small plates (see Alma 50:19–20).10

Clues from the Doctrine and Covenants

Surprisingly, the Doctrine and Covenants also contains information that may help fill in some gaps about the Book of Lehi. For instance, D&C 3:17-18 mentions the seven tribes of Lehi: Nephites, Jacobites, Josephites, Zoramites, Lamanites, Lemuelites, and Ishmaelites. These same tribes show up in this same order on three occasions in the Book of Mormon.11 Their presence in this revelation, dictated soon after Martin Harris lost the manuscript, suggests that these tribes were probably an important piece of information from the Book of Lehi. Doctrine and Covenants 5 and 10 were also dictated before the translation of the plates resumed and may likewise contain valuable information.12

Clues from Historical Documents

Perhaps the most intriguing line of evidence comes from 19th century historical documents, especially from an interview recorded by Fayette Lapham. Lapham never became a Latter-day Saint,13 but he did record a discussion he had with Joseph Smith, Sr. in 1830. Much of the content in Lapham’s report is clearly garbled. Yet, through careful analysis, Don Bradley has persuasively argued that Lapham’s report does indeed contain several authentic details about the Book of Lehi.

These include (1) a story about Lehi building a tabernacle in the wilderness, (2) a wilderness journey, guided by the Liahona, that seems to have taken place in the New World, (3) the discovery of an artifact that can be reasonably identified as the Nephite interpreters, (4) an encounter with the Lord at a veil, (5) and a report of when the Liahona stopped working. These details are all fascinating because in one way or another Bradley has shown how they help explain perplexing content or fill in missing information about known Book of Mormon stories.14

The Why

Until the lost 116 pages are found or the Lord reveals their contents, we will never be sure exactly what was on them. Yet a careful analysis of the available evidence offers intriguing, and in some cases, very likely possibilities about what they contained. This information, while not essential, can help us answer questions about Book of Mormon passages that may otherwise seem confusing or irrelevant.

The story of the lost manuscript also demonstrates that God can compensate for the human weaknesses of his servants. Centuries before Martin Harris lost the 116 pages, God inspired the prophet Nephi to make a record which would ideally serve as a replacement introduction to the Book of Mormon. As the Lord explained to Joseph Smith, “The works, and the designs, and the purposes of God cannot be frustrated, neither can they come to naught. … Remember, remember that it is not the work of God that is frustrated, but the work of men” (D&C 3:1, 2).

Furthermore, the story of the lost 116 pages can also help us trust that God is still accomplishing his designs through living prophets today, whatever weaknesses or ailments they may have. For instance, concerning the health challenges that sometimes accompany the advanced ages of modern apostles, Elder David A. Bednar has taught, “The Lord’s revealed pattern of governance by councils in His Church provides for and attenuates the impact of human frailties. Interestingly, the mortal limitations of these men actually affirm the divine source of the revelations that come to and through them.”15

Whatever challenges or setbacks we may suffer in our personal lives, we can similarly trust that the Lord can compensate for our weaknesses and limitations. Sometimes, like Joseph Smith and Martin Harris, we may feel that “all is lost.”16 Yet through the infinite power of Christ’s Atonement, all that seems lost can be ultimately and miraculously restored.

• 1. See William J. Critchlow, Jr., “Manuscript, Lost 116 Pages,” Encyclopedia of Mormonism, 4 vols., ed. Daniel H. Ludlow (New York, NY: Macmillan, 1992), 2:854–855.
• 2. See “Book of Mormon, 1830,” p. [iii], online at josephsmithpapers.org.
• 3. After the loss of the 116 pages, Joseph Smith’s divine gift to translate was temporarily suspended. In a revelation, he was told to not attempt to retranslate the missing pages because wicked men with the stolen copy would seek to undermine the credibility of the work (see D&C 10). Instead, when the translation resumed in April of 1829, the translators just picked up where the translation had previously had left off, near the beginning of the Book of Mosiah. Evidence indicates that, contrary to most readers’ expectations, Nephi’s small plates (1 Nephi through Omni) were most likely translated after the abridgments and personal writings of Mormon and Moroni. When the Book of Mormon was being prepared for publication, it was rearranged in the order that we know it today, with the translation of the small plates at the beginning, followed by Words of Mormon and then Mosiah. See John W. Welch, “The Miraculous Timing of the Translation of the Book of Mormon,” in Opening the Heavens: Accounts of Divine Manifestations, 1820–1844, ed. John W. Welch, 2nd edition (Salt Lake City and Provo, UT: Deseret Book and BYU Press, 2017), 98–103, 121–125.
• 4. The following summary is largely adapted from Don Bradley, “American Proto-Zionism and the ‘Book of Lehi’: Recontextualizing the Rise of Mormonism,” (M.A. Thesis, Utah State University, 2018), 28–30.
• 5. Elder Kim B. Clark has explained, “Without Lehi’s record [which was lost with the 116 pages], there would be no account of Lehi’s family, the journey to the promised land, or the origin of the Nephites and Lamanites. In May of 1829 the Lord revealed to Joseph a plan, centuries in the making, to replace the book of Lehi with what we now know as the small plates of Nephi.” Kim B. Clark, “Thou Art Joseph,” Worldwide Devotional for Young Adults, May 7, 2017, online at lds.org.
• 6. See 1 Nephi 1:16; 6:3; 9:2.
• 7. S. Kent Brown, “Recovering the Missing Record of Lehi,” in From Jerusalem to Zarahemla: Literary and Historical Studies of the Book of Mormon (Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University, 1998), 30.
• 8. See Brown, “Recovering the Missing Record of Lehi,” 28–54; S. Kent Brown, “Nephi’s Use of Lehi’s Record,” in Rediscovering the Book of Mormon: Insights You May Have Missed Before, ed. John L. Sorenson and Melvin J. Thorne (Salt Lake City and Provo, UT: Deseret Book and FARMS, 1991), 3–14.
• 9. Bradley, “American Proto-Zionism and the ‘Book of Lehi’,” 28–29.
• 10. See John A. Tvedtnes, “Contents of the 116 Lost Pages and the Large Plates,” in The Most Correct Book: Insights from a Book of Mormon Scholar (Salt Lake City, UT: Cornerstone Publishing, 1999), 38–40.
• 11. See Book of Mormon Central, “Why Did Lehi Divide His People into Seven Tribes? (Jacob 1:13),” KnoWhy 319 (May 29, 2017).
• 12. See Bradley, “American Proto-Zionism and the ‘Book of Lehi’,” 29.
• 13. See Bradley, “American Proto-Zionism and the ‘Book of Lehi’,” 124.
• 14. See Bradley, “American Proto-Zionism and the ‘Book of Lehi’,” 120–159.
• 15. David A. Bednar, “‘Chosen to Bear Testimony of My Name’,” Ensign, November 2015, online at lds.org.
• 16. See “Lucy Mack Smith, History, 1844–1845,” p. [6], bk. 7, online at josephsmithpapers.org.

The Know

Oliver Cowdery is undoubtedly one of the most important figures in the early history of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. While the Church was headquartered in Kirtland, Ohio, Oliver served as the editor of the Church’s newspaper Latter Day Saints’ Messenger and Advocate from October 1834 to May 1835 and again from April 1836 to January 1837.1

During his early tenure as editor of the paper, Oliver wrote a series of letters to William W. Phelps, another prominent Mormon figure, detailing the early history of Joseph Smith, the coming forth of the Book of Mormon, the restoration of the gospel, and the gathering of Israel. These letters, eight in total,2 were written partly to combat anti-Mormon opposition and partly to increase the faith of Church members by publishing “a more particular or minute history of the rise and progress of the church of the Latter Day Saints [sic]; and publish, for the benefit of enquirers, and all who are disposed to learn.”3

Although the Prophet Joseph Smith began composing his personal history in 1832,4 this early draft remained unpublished during his lifetime, effectively making Oliver’s letters in the Messenger and Advocate the earliest public history of Joseph Smith, the coming forth of the Book of Mormon, and several other related topics.5

The impact and authority of Oliver’s letters can be measured by several factors. First, “there is no evidence that Joseph Smith assigned Cowdery to write the letters.”6 Second, the Prophet gave some support by providing Oliver details about “the time and place of [his] birth” and information about his adolescence that would help Oliver correct anti-Mormon misconceptions as a main concern,7 but it is unclear how much information Joseph supplied about other things. 

Third, Joseph was impressed enough with Oliver’s letters that when he commissioned his 1834–1836 history, copies of them were included. But they were included as a block and without any corrections or clarifications. “The transcription of [these] letters into [Joseph Smith’s] history was evidently conceived in terms of the entire series, not as a piecemeal copying of the individual letters.”8 The men tasked with composing this early history were Frederick G. Williams, Warren Parrish, and Oliver himself, making the inclusion of the Cowdery letters an understandable move.9

Finally, Oliver’s letters were republished on multiple occasions by Church presses in both North America and Europe, making them effective missionary tools in early Mormon proselytizing efforts, but again without the benefit of any improvements or the supervision of Joseph Smith.10

Even though Oliver’s history was undoubtedly popular among early Mormons, historians recognize that it does not tell the whole story and cannot be taken entirely at face value. For instance, Letter III provides a retelling of Joseph’s youth which includes the religious excitement that caused Joseph to reflect on where he could turn for answers to his soul-wrenching questions,11 but then, Oliver omits any description of Joseph Smith’s First Vision in 1820.12

At first glance, Oliver’s narrative “appears to be leading up to the story of the First Vision,”13 but then it abruptly skips the First Vision and instead places the religious excitement not between the years 1818­–1820, as Joseph himself would do in his 1838 history,14 but in the year 1823 with the visitation of Moroni.15 Furthermore, instead of depicting Joseph as praying to God in the woods in consequence of this turmoil in 1820, as Joseph made clear in his own official history,16 Oliver describes him as praying in his bedroom.17

Besides these errors, Oliver includes lengthy quotations of the angel Moroni to Joseph Smith which are unlikely to be a verbatim recapturing.18 Given that this depiction of Moroni’s interviews with Joseph between 1823–1827 was published some years after their occurrence, and given the fact Oliver was not present during these visits, it is more likely that, true to his extravagant literary style, Oliver somewhat embellished his account to enhance its readability and appeal.19 This is not to say Oliver’s letters should be dismissed wholesale, only that they should be used carefully in historical reconstructions.

The Why

Oliver Cowdery was undeniably an important witness to the foundational events of the Restoration and his letters as published in the Messenger and Advocate offer a glimpse into these events. He was intimately familiar with the production of the Book of Mormon, having written it “with [his] own pen . . . as it fell from the lips of the Prophet Joseph, as he translated it by the gift and power of God, by the means of the Urim and Thummim, or as it is called by the book, Holy Interpreters.”20 And, although Oliver fell into apostasy for a period, he never denied his testimony and returned to the Church a few years before his death.21

While Oliver’s letters certainly convey his moving personal testimony of the authenticity of the Book of Mormon, they don’t definitively establish other matters for which there is contrary historical evidence or which remain open to discussion. This includes Book of Mormon geography. While it is true that Oliver understood the hill near Palmyra, N.Y. where Joseph retrieved the plates to be the same hill Cumorah described in the Book of Mormon where the Nephites and the Jaredites perished,22 it is unknown where Oliver got this idea. Was it from assumptions he made based on his reading of the Book of Mormon, from prophetic insights offered by Joseph Smith, or from some other source?23

In any case, unlike the Lectures on Faith in 1835, or Joseph's Smith's epistles to the Church in 1844, or the Pearl of Great Price in 1880, or even other texts attributed to Oliver such as the “Declaration of Government and Law" (now D&C 134),24 none of Oliver Cowdery's letters from this series, including Letter VII, were ever canonized as binding revelation.25 As many comments by Church leaders have made clear, the Church has no official position on the geography of Book of Mormon events.26

It is therefore more appropriate that, rather than seeing Oliver’s views on the topic of Book of Mormon geography as being authoritative, prophetic pronouncements, they should be seen as reflections of, if not the main cause behind, popular nineteenth-century Mormon speculation on Book of Mormon geography.

While it is clear that Joseph said he was visited by the angel Moroni on the west side of the unnamed hill near his family’s Manchester, N.Y., home,27 that is a separate matter from how far and wide Moroni had wandered during the 36 or more years after the final battle in A.D. 385 before he deposited the plates in A.D. 421 in their designated resting place.

So, Oliver’s Messenger and Advocate letters need to be approached cautiously. Although they are not entirely free from error and embellishment, they are, of course, quite valuable to students of early Mormon history. They provide many important insights into the translation of the Book of Mormon and the restoration of the priesthood, matters with which Oliver was personally acquainted. Most of all, these letters are intended to be read and used for increasing faith in the gospel of Jesus Christ and in affirming belief in the Book of Mormon as the word of God.

• 1. J. Leroy Caldwell, “Messenger and Advocate,” in Encyclopedia of Mormonism, ed. Daniel H. Ludlow (New York, NY: Macmillan, 1992), 2:892.
• 2. The letters can be read online at the Book of Mormon Central archive.
• 3.“Letter II,” Latter Day Saints’ Messenger and Advocate 1, no. 2 (November 1834): 27–28. In October of the same year that Oliver began his letters, the anti-Mormon author E. D. Howe published his highly influential work Mormonism Unvailed [sic] in nearby Painesville, Ohio. In it, Howe attempted to prove that the Book of Mormon was a modern fabrication based on a manuscript written by a certain Solomon Spalding and that Joseph Smith’s reputation, including his honesty and moral character, was suspect. Howe’s book can be accessed online at https://archive.org/details/mormonismunvaile00howe. Unlike other anti-Mormon writers, like Alexander Campbell, whom Oliver also responded to elsewhere in the Messenger and Advocate, Howe was never mentioned by name in any of Oliver’s letters to Phelps. Nevertheless, the timing of the publication of Howe’s book, the considerable influence it wielded in popular discourse on Mormonism, and the overall content and focus of Oliver’s letters all make it seem very likely that Oliver was at the very least indirectly responding to Howe. On Oliver’s efforts to defend the Church, see generally John W. Welch, “Oliver Cowdery’s 1835 Response to Alexander Campbell's 1831 ‘Delusions’,” in Oliver Cowdery: Scribe, Elder, Witness, ed. John W. Welch and Larry E. Morris (Provo, UT: Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship, 2006), 221–239; John W. Welch, “Oliver Cowdery as Editor, Defender, and Justice of the Peace in Kirtland,” in Days Never to Be Forgotten: Oliver Cowdery, ed. Alexander L. Baugh (Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University, 2009), 267–270.
• 4. See “History, circa Summer 1832,” online.
• 5. One year earlier, the Church’s newspaper The Evening and the Morning Star ran editorials by William Phelps on the content and message of the Book of Mormon and the early progress of Mormon missionary efforts, but these articles provided neither a substantive history behind the early life of Joseph Smith nor a clear narrative describing the coming forth of the Book of Mormon. See “The Book of Mormon,” The Evening and the Morning Star 1, no. 8 (January 1833): 56–58; “Rise and Progress of the Church of Christ,” The Evening and the Morning Star 1, no. 11 (April 1833): 83–84. On the importance of Oliver’s letters as an early Church history, see Richard Bushman, “Oliver’s Joseph,” in Days Never to Be Forgotten, 6–10.” Phelps, “The Book of Mormon,” 57, appears to be the first recorded instance of the hill in New York where Joseph Smith received the plates being called Cumorah.
• 6. Karen Lynn Davidson et al., eds., The Joseph Smith Papers: Histories, Volume 1: Joseph Smith Histories, 1832–1844 (Salt Lake City, UT: The Church Historian’s Press, 2012), xxi.
• 7. Joseph Smith letter to Oliver Cowdery, “Brother O. Cowdery,” Latter Day Saints’ Messenger and Advocate 1, no. 3 (December 1834): 40. It seems very likely that Joseph provided his support in an effort to counter the accusations made in Howe’s Mormonism Unvailed. Additionally, it seems that that Oliver had access to Joseph’s 1832 history and incorporated elements of it in his sketch of Joseph Smith’s early life. See the discussion in “JS Defended Himself in Letter in Messenger and Advocate,” online; Roger Nicholson, The Cowdery Conundrum: Oliver’s Aborted Attempt to Describe Joseph Smith’s First Vision in 1834 and 1835,” Interpreter: A Journal of Mormon Scripture 8 (2014): 27–44.
• 8. Davidson et al., eds., The Joseph Smith Papers: Histories, Volume 1, 39.
• 9. Pages 46–103 of the 1834–1836 history are written in the hands of these scribes. The history can be accessed online.
• 10. Republications of Oliver’s letters began appearing in 1840 when Parley P. Pratt reprinted Oliver’s depiction of the visitation of Moroni to Joseph Smith. See “A Remarkable Vision,” The Latter-day Saints’ Millennial Star 1, no. 2 (June 1840): 42–44; “A Remarkable Vision,” The Latter-day Saints’ Millennial Star 1, no. 5 (September 1840): 105–109; “A Remarkable Vision,” The Latter-day Saints’ Millennial Star 1, no. 6 (October 1840): 150–154; “A Remarkable Vision,” The Latter-day Saints’ Millennial Star 1, no. 7 (November 1840): 174–178. The letters were further republished in 1840 (“Copy of a Letter written by O. Cowdery,” Times and Seasons 2, no. 1 [November 1, 1840]: 199–201; “Letter II,” Times and Seasons 2, no. 2 [November 15, 1840]: 208–212; “Letter III,” Times and Seasons 2, no. 3 [December 1, 1840]: 224–225; “Letter IV,” Times and Seasons 2, no. 4 [December 15, 1840]: 240–242; Orson Pratt, A[n] Interesting Account of Several Remarkable Visions [Edinburgh: Ballantyne and Hughes, 1840], 8–12), 1841 (“Letter VI,” Times and Seasons 2, no. 11 [April 1, 1841]: 359–363; “Rise of the Church,” Times and Seasons 2, no. 12 [April 15, 1841]: 376–379; “Letter VIII,” Times and Seasons 2, no. 13 [May 1, 1841]: 390–396; “O. Cowdery’s Letters to W. W. Phelps,” Gospel Reflector 1, no. 6 [March 15, 1841]; 137–176), 1843 (“O. Cowdery’s First Letter to W. W. Phelps,” The Latter-day Saints' Millennial Star 3, no. 9 [January 1843]: 152–154), and 1844 (Letters by Oliver Cowdery, to W.W. Phelps on the Origin of the Book of Mormon and the Rise of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints [Liverpool: Ward and Cairns, 1844]; “O. Cowdery’s Letters to W. W. Phelps,” The Prophet 1, no. 7 [June 29, 1844]).
• 11.“Letter III,” Latter Day Saints’ Messenger and Advocate 1, no. 3 (December 1834): 42–43.
• 12. Joseph’s journal entry on November 9, 1835, which was copied by Warren Cowdery into the 1834–1836 history project, clearly recounted the 1820 vision in which Joseph saw and heard two beings. See Dean C. Jessee, “The Earliest Accounts of Joseph Smith’s First Vision,” in Opening the Heavens: Accounts of Divine Manifestation, 1820–1844, ed. John W. Welch, 2nd ed. (Provo: Brigham Young University Press, 2017), 9–12. For a recent attempt at making sense of Oliver’s omission of the 1820 vision, see Nicholson, “The Cowdery Conundrum,” 27–44.
• 13. Bushman, “Oliver’s Joseph,” 6.
• 14.History, 1838–1856, volume A-1 [23 December 1805–30 August 1834], p. 1. “Sometime in the second year after our removal to Manchester [1819], there was in the place where we lived an unusual excitement on the subject of religion.”
• 15.“Letter IV,” Latter Day Saints’ Messenger and Advocate 1, no. 5 (February 1835): 78. “You will recollect that I mentioned the time of a religious excitement, in Palmyra and vicinity to have been in the 15th year of our brother J. Smith Jr’s, age—that was an error in the type—it should have been in the 17th.—You will please remember this correction, as it will be necessary for the full understanding of what will follow in time. This would bring the date down to the year 1823.”
• 16.History, 1838–1856, volume A-1 [23 December 1805–30 August 1834], p. 3. “I at last came to the determination to ask of God, concluding that if he gave wisdom to them that lacked wisdom, and would give liberally and not upbraid, I might venture. So in accordance with this my determination to ask of God, I retired to the woods to make the attempt. It was on the morning of a beautiful clear day early in the spring of Eightteen hundred and twenty. It was the first time in my life that I had <​made​> such an attempt, for amidst all <​my​> anxieties I had never as yet made the attempt to pray vocally.”
• 17.“Letter IV,” 78–79. “On the evening of the 21st of September, 1823, previous to retiring to rest, our brother's mind was unusually wrought up on the subject which had so long agitated his mind—his heart was drawn out in fervent prayer, and his whole soul was so lost to every thing of a temporal nature, that earth, to him, had lost its claims, and all he desired was to be prepared in heart to commune with some kind messenger who could communicate to him the desired information of his acceptance with God. . . . While continuing in prayer for a manifestation in some way that his sins were forgiven; endeavoring to exercise faith in the scriptures, on a sudden a light like that of day, only of a purer and far more glorious appearance and brightness, burst into the room.”
• 18. See “Letter VIII,” Latter Day Saints’ Messenger and Advocate 2, no. 1 (October 1835): 197–198, where Oliver quotes Moroni for an astounding 1078 words.
• 19. Oliver’s overwrought verbosity, his penchant for “rhetorical flourishes” which make “the story more Oliver’s than Joseph’s,” his telltale “flowery journalese,” and his ”florid romantic language“ have been noted by careful readers. See for instance the remarks of Bushman, “Oliver’s Joseph,” 7; Arthur Henry King, The Abundance of the Heart (Salt Lake City, UT: Bookcraft, 1986), 204; Davidson et al., eds., The Joseph Smith Papers: Histories, Volume 1, 38.
• 20.“Last Days of Oliver Cowdery,” Deseret News (April 13, 1859)” 48.
• 21. See Scott H. Faulring, “The Return of Oliver Cowdery,” in Oliver Cowdery, 321–362.
• 22. Oliver makes his views plain in “Letter VII,” Latter Day Saints’ Messenger and Advocate 1, no. 10 (July 1835): 155–159.
• 23. As made clear in Joseph Smith’s December 1834 letter cited above, the extent of the Prophet’s involvement with the compositions of the Messenger and Advocate letters was to provide Oliver with information about his youth and upbringing. In the absence of any corroborative evidence attesting to Joseph’s input beyond this, any comments made by Oliver in these letters concerning the geography of the Book of Mormon must therefore have been his alone.
• 24."On August 17, 1835, in the midst of the Saints’ attempts to petition the government for help, Oliver Cowdery and Sidney Rigdon presented a document titled 'Declaration of Government and Law' to Church members in Kirtland, Ohio. The declaration—now Doctrine and Covenants 134—sought to address all of the Saints’ concerns." Spencer W. McBride, "Of Governments and Laws," online at history.lds.org.
• 25. An excerpt from Letter I providing Oliver Cowdery's firsthand testimony of the translation of the Book of Mormon and the visitation of John the Baptist was included in the 1851 Pearl of Great Price as a footnote to republished portions of Joseph Smith's 1838 history. The Pearl of Great Price was canonized as scripture in 1880. This excerpt is present in the current 2013 edition of the Pearl of Great Price (Joseph Smith—History 1:71 footnote). Beyond this footnote reproducing part of Letter I, no material from the letters has been canonized, including any material from Letter VII concerning the location of the hill Cumorah.
• 26.“Church leadership officially and consistently distances itself from issues regarding Book of Mormon geography.” John E. Clark, “Book of Mormon Geography,” in Encyclopedia of Mormonism, 1:176. See also Book of Mormon Central, “Where Did the Book of Mormon Happen?” KnoWhy 431 (May 8, 2018). While a number of later Church leaders felt confident in following Oliver in identifying the hill Cumorah as the hill in New York, others, such as apostle and later Church president Harold B. Lee, demurred. “Some say the Hill Cumorah was in southern Mexico (and someone pushed it down still farther) and not in western New York. Well, if the Lord wanted us to know where it was, or where Zarahemla was, he’d have given us latitude and longitude, don’t you think?” For the Lee citation, and additional citations showing some variance amongst Church leaders on the issue of the location of the hill Cumorah, see FairMormon’s collection of Hill Cumorah Quotes.
• 27. Joseph Smith himself appeared somewhat ambivalent towards the location of the hill Cumorah. In Joseph’s earliest history the “place . . . where the plates [were] deposited” goes unnamed. History, circa Summer 1832, p. 4. In his 1838 history the Prophet again merely describes the location where he found the plates as “a hill of considerable size” without positively identifying it as Cumorah. History, 1838–1856, volume A-1 [23 December 1805–30 August 1834], addendum, p. 7. Also in 1838, while describing how he obtained the Book of Mormon, Joseph spoke generally of "a hill in Manchester, Ontario County New York" as the repository of the plates, again without identifying it as Cumorah. Joseph Smith, Elders' Journal (July 1838): 43. Some 4 years later, however, in a letter dated 6 September 1842, Joseph exulted at hearing “Glad tidings from Cumorah! Moroni, An Angel from heaven, declaring the fulfilment of the prophets.” “Letter to ‘The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints,’ 6 September 1842 [D&C 128],” p. 7. It’s conceivable that Joseph eventually accepted the identity of the hill Cumorah as being the hill in Palmyra after this theory became popular amongst early Church members. Be that as it may, it would still appear that, as with Oliver, Joseph Smith’s views on Book of Mormon geography were the product of his being informed by popular nineteenth century Mormon speculation, not revelation. See Matthew Roper, “Limited Geography and the Book of Mormon: Historical Antecedents and Early Interpretations,”FARMS Review 16, no. 2 (2004): 225–275; “Joseph Smith, Revelation, and Book of Mormon Geography,”FARMS Review 22, no. 2 (2010): 15–85; Matthew Roper, Paul J. Fields, and Atul Nepal, “Joseph Smith, the Times and Seasons, and Central American Ruins,” Journal of the Book of Mormon and Other Restoration Scripture 22, no. 2 (2013): 84–97; Neal Rappleye, “‘War of Words and Tumult of Opinions’: The Battle for Joseph Smith’s Words in Book of Mormon Geography,” Interpreter: A Journal of Mormon Scripture 11 (2014): 37–95; Matthew Roper, “John Bernhisel’s Gift to a Prophet: Incidents of Travel in Central America and the Book of Mormon,” Interpreter: A Journal of Mormon Scripture 16 (2015): 207–253; Mark Alan Wright, “Joseph Smith and Native American Artifacts,” in Approaching Antiquity: Joseph and the Ancient World, edited by Lincoln H. Blumell, Matthew J. Grey, and Andrew H. Hedges (Salt Lake City and Provo, UT: Deseret Book and Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University, 2015), 119–140; Matthew Roper, “Joseph Smith, Central American Ruins, and the Book of Mormon,” in Approaching Antiquity, 141–162.

The Know

In the first week of May 1843, six bell-shaped brass plates, engraved on both sides, were brought to Nauvoo by people wanting to see if Joseph Smith would translate them. These odd plates had supposedly been dug up a week or so earlier in Kinderhook, Illinois, about 60 miles to the south.1 Local news spread rapidly of their arrival, along with great anticipation for the presumed, forthcoming translation from Joseph. The Times and Seasons, then under the editorship of John Taylor, proclaimed confidently, “We have no doubt, however, but Mr. Smith will be able to translate.”2

Charlotte Haven, a non-Mormon in Nauvoo at the time, claimed to have heard from an unidentified friend that Joseph “said that the figures or writing on them was similar to that in which the Book of Mormon was written” and “thought that by the help of revelation he would be able to translate them. So a sequel to that holy book may soon be expected.”3

In a letter to John Van Cott, Parley P. Pratt gave a brief report of the plates and ambiguously said, “you will hear more soon on this subject.”4 Another non-Mormon, who was there when Joseph Smith looked at the six plates, got the impression that Joseph believed he would “be able to decipher them,” and went on to tell the editor of the New York Herald, “You may expect something very remarkable pretty soon.”5

Decades later, however, one of the men involved in digging them up confessed that the plates were a forgery, perpetrated with the intent of fooling Joseph Smith.6 Modern scientific testing of the one remaining plate confirms they were created using 19th century methods.7 So did Joseph fall for the hoax? Not quite. He briefly gave these artifacts due consideration, but did not try to acquire them, retain them, or ultimately find them of any value.

Despite all the anticipation for a “sequel” to the Book of Mormon, nothing ever came.8 No translation was ever produced or published. No manuscript of a purported translation has ever turned up.9 Both William Clayton and Parley P. Pratt mentioned what appear to be some preliminary interpretations of a “portion” of the plates, which they attributed to Joseph,10 but Joseph himself never provided any kind of translation, in full or in part.

When the plates were first brought to Joseph, rather than utilize any revelatory tools— such as prayer or a seer stone —Joseph sent “for [his] Hebrew Bible & Lexicon.”11 An eyewitness remembered him also comparing the characters on the plates with “his Egyptian alphabet,”12 and Pratt said they were being compared to the Egyptian papyri in Joseph’s possession.13

In other words, Joseph took preliminary steps toward an ordinary translation by comparing the squiggles on these plates to other ancient writings he was familiar with. This apparently produced no findings of any significance. If he ever sought out a revelatory translation, he evidently never received or claimed to have received one.14

The evidence from Joseph Smith’s journal for early May 1843 indicates that, “whatever JS initially thought about the plates, he soon lost interest in them.”15 The numerous entries in Joseph’s journal indicate that Joseph was busy entertaining several guests, holding court, attending business and religious meetings, overseeing economic transactions, and much more—but only one brief mention of the Kinderhook Plates is made.16 Some evidence even suggests Joseph wanted them examined by the Antiquarian Society of Philadelphia,17 so perhaps Joseph even suspected their fraudulence or had concluded that they were not religiously significant.

The Why

In the Book of Mormon, when Limhi desired to know the contents of the ancient Jaredite plates, he asked Ammon, “Knowest thou of any one that can translate?” Ammon responded by telling him of King Mosiah, who could use his divine gift of seership to “look, and translate all records that are of ancient date” (Mosiah 8:12–13).

Likewise, some of the men sincerely bringing the Kinderhook plates to Joseph Smith hoped he would use his gift of seership to look into his seer stone and translate the plates.18 The Kinderhook story reminds us that the gifts of the Spirit are not to be used to satisfy the idle curiosities of man. Instead, Joseph approached these artifacts by using ordinary language translation methods, and in the end did not produce even a proposed translation.

In fact, evidence suggests his secular examination efforts did not go very far. Analysis from historians Mark Ashurst-McGee and Don Bradley indicate that the translated “portion” mentioned by William Clayton and Parley P. Pratt comes from a single “boat-shaped” character in the Egyptian Alphabet (a vaguely similar character appears on one of the Kinderhook Plates facsimiles).19 If he made any effort to acquire a revelatory translation, that also did not succeed. Today, we can see why: the Kinderhook plates were not legitimate. They were not “of ancient date,” so his gift of translation did not come to bear.

While some critics try to use this story as evidence that everything about Joseph Smith was a fraud, the historical evidence suggests that Joseph ultimately did not fall for the hoax—he never tried to purchase the plates, hire scribes, and go into translation mode, like he did with the ancient Egyptian papyri he had purchased in Ohio. He never produced a “Book of Kinderhook.”20 Whatever Joseph Smith may have thought of the Kinderhook plates, the Lord could not be fooled. God would not and did not reveal a translation of these bogus artifacts.

The more universal message from the Kinderhook incident is that Joseph’s ability to translate, like the case of Mosiah’s in the Book of Mormon, was a gift from God, and only worked when God enabled him to do His will. The gift of “the interpretation of languages,” like all spiritual gifts, “come[s] by the Spirit of Christ; and they come unto every man severally, according as [Christ] will” (Moroni 10:16). Like Joseph and Mosiah, we all have gifts from the Lord, which can only be properly used to build-up the kingdom of God. If we try to use these gifts from the Lord for inappropriate or irrelevant purposes, we can expect underwhelming results, like those from the case of the Kinderhook plates.

• 1. W. P. Harris, Letter to the Editor, Times and Seasons 4, no. 12, May 1, 1843, 186.
• 2.“Ancient Records,” Times and Seasons 4, no. 12, May 1, 1843, 186. However, the editor had to confess that at the time, he did not know Joseph’s opinion of the plates: “Mr. Smith has had those plates, what his opinion concerning them is, we have not yet ascertained.”
• 3. Charlotte Haven, “A Girl’s Letters from Nauvoo,” Overland Monthly 16, no. 96, December 1890, 630; letter written May 2, 1843.
• 4. Parley P. Pratt and Orson Pratt to John Van Cott, May 7, 1843; in Brian M. Hauglid, “‘Come & Help Build the Temple & City’: Parley P. and Orson Pratt’s Letter to John Van Cott,” Mormon Historical Studies 11, no. 1 (Spring 2011): 155.
• 5.“A Gentile,” letter to James Gordon Bennett, May 7, 1843, in “Late and Interesting from the Mormon Empire on the Upper Mississippi,” New York Herald, May 30, 1843. The editor of the Quincy Whig even stoked the fires: “Some pretend to say, that Smith the Mormon leader, has the ability to read them. … if Smith can decipher the hieroglyphics on the plates, he will do more towards throwing light on the early history of this continent, than any man now living.” “Singular Discovery—Material for Another Mormon Book,” Times and Seasons 4, no. 12, May 1, 1843, 186–187; originally published in the Quincy Whig 6, no. 2, May 3, 1843.
• 6. Wilbur Fugate to James T. Cobb, June 30, 1879, in Wilhelm Wyl (Wymetal), Mormon Portraits (Salt Lake City, 1888), 207–208. This wasn’t the only time folks came to Nauvoo with the intent of exposing Joseph Smith as an impostor. A year earlier, in April 1842, Henry Caswell visited Nauvoo and later said he showed Joseph a copy of a medieval Greek manuscript. Joseph allegedly identified the manuscript as Egyptian, which Caswell took as evidence of Joseph’s ignorance of ancient languages. For a reasonable assessment of this incident, see John W. Welch, “Joseph Smith’s Awareness of Latin and Greek,” in Approaching Antiquity: Joseph Smith and the Ancient World, ed. Lincoln H. Blumell, Matthew J. Grey, and Andrew H. Hedges (Salt Lake City and Provo, UT: Deseret Book and BYU Religious Studies Center, 2015), 311–314.
• 7. See Stanley B. Kimball, “Kinderhook Plates Brought to Joseph Smith Appear to Be a Nineteenth Century Hoax,” Ensign, August 1981, online at lds.org.
• 8. Near the end of June, a broadside published by John Taylor and Wilford Woodruff, still promised, “The contents of the Plates, together with a Fac-simile of the same, will be published in the ‘Times & Seasons,’ as soon as the translation is completed.” See “A Brief Account of the Discovery of the Brass Plates Recently Taken from a Mound near Kinderhook, Pike County, Illinois,” (Taylor & Woodruff, June 24, 1843).
• 9. Andrew H. Hedges, Alex D. Smith, and Brent M. Rodgers, eds., Journals, Volume 3: May 1843–June 1844, The Joseph Smith Papers (Salt Lake City, UT: Church Historians Press, 2015), 13 n.28: “no translation endorsed by JS has been located, suggesting that whatever JS initially thought about the plates, he soon lost interest in them.”
• 10. See George D. Smith, ed., An Intimate Chronicle: The Journal of William Clayton (Salt Lake City, UT: Signature Books, 1995), 100; Pratt to Van Cott, May 7, 1843, in Hauglid, “Come & Help Build,” 155.
• 11. JS Journal, May 7, 1843, in Hedges, Smith, Rodgers, eds., Journals 3:13.
• 12.“A Gentile,” letter to Bennett, May 7, 1843. This source mistakenly associates the Egyptian Alphabet with the Book of Mormon, instead of the Book of Abraham, an understandable mistake for an outsider. The Egyptian Alphabet is part of the corpus known by historians as the Kirtland Egyptian Papers. It has Egyptian characters from the Joseph Smith Papyri with attempted “interpretations” next to them. Currently, there is disagreement among scholars regarding the nature and purpose of the KEP and their relationship to the Book of Abraham. For various perspectives, see Kerry Muhlestein, “Egyptian Papyri and the Book of Abraham: A Faithful Egyptological Point of View,” in No Weapon Shall Prosper: New Light on Sensitive Issues, ed. Robert L. Millet (Salt Lake City and Provo, UT: Deseret Book and BYU Religious Studies Center, 2011), 228–229; Brian M. Hauglid, “The Book of Abraham and the Egyptian Project: ‘A Knowledge of Hidden Languages’,” in Approaching Antiquity: Joseph Smith and the Ancient World, edited by Lincoln H. Blumell, Matthew J. Grey, and Andrew H. Hedges (Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center; Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2015), 474–511; John Gee, An Introduction to the Book of Abraham (Salt Lake City and Provo, UT: Deseret Book and BYU Religious Studies Center, 2017), 13–39.
• 13. Pratt to Van Cott, May 7, 1843, in Hauglid, “Come & Help Build,” 155.
• 14. See Brian M. Hauglid, “Did Joseph Smith Translate the Kinderhook Plates?” in No Weapon Shall Prosper: New Light on Sensitive Issues, ed. Robert L. Millet (Salt Lake City and Provo, UT: Deseret Book and BYU Religious Studies Center, 2011), 93–103.
• 15. Hedges, Smith, Rodgers, eds., Journals 3:13 n.28.
• 16. See Hedges, Smith, Rodgers, eds., Journals 3:8–16, also online at josephsmithpapers.org. The editors note (p. 13 n.28): “No further mention of the plates is made in JS’s journal after this 7 May entry.”
• 17. See Kimball, “Kinderhook Plates,” on lds.org.
• 18. Years later, in a letter to a Mr. Flagg, one of the men who brought the plates to Nauvoo indicated that he did not know, at the time, that the plates were a hoax, and that he was sincerely interested in learning more about them. See W.P. Harris to Mr. Flagg, April 25, 1855, in “A Hoax: Reminiscences of an Old Kinderhook Mystery,” Journal of the Illinois State Historical Society 5 (July 1912): 271–273.
• 19. Don Bradley and Mark Ashurst-McGee, “Joseph Smith and the Kinderhook Plates,” in A Reason for Faith: Navigating LDS Doctrine and Church History, ed. Laura Harris Hales (Salt Lake City and Provo, UT: Deseret Book and BYU Religious Studies Center, 2016), 93–115.
• 20. Richard Lyman Bushman, Joseph Smith: Rough Stone Rolling (New York, NY: Alfred A. Knopf, 2005), 490: “After the first meeting, no further mention was made of translation, and the Kinderhook plates dropped out of sight. Joseph may not have detected the fraud, but he did not swing into a full-fledged translation as he had with the Egyptian scrolls. The trap did not quite spring shut, which foiled the conspirators’ original plan. Instead of exposing the plot immediately, as they had probably intended to do, they said nothing until 1879, when one of them signed an affidavit describing the fabrication.”

The Know

The Three and Eight Witnesses of the Golden Plates stand out in Latter-day Saint History. Their testimonies are among the first words that many read in the Book of Mormon, and they stood by these testimonies to the end of their lives, despite trial and personal disaffection with Joseph Smith.1

But there are “unofficial” witnesses,2 including some of the prominent women of the early Restoration. They also stood by what they saw, heard, and felt through similar disaffections, hardships, and trials. And their names and stories should be remembered.

Among these women, Mary Whitmer is unique. Other than the Three and Eight Witnesses—who included her sons—she is the only known person to have seen the Golden Plates. Her experience was incredible and its importance, both to her personally and to the work of translation, should not be understated.

Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery began the translation of the Book of Mormon in April 1829, but persecution intensified quickly. Eventually, for safety, and so the work could continue uninterrupted, Joseph, Emma, and Oliver relocated to the home of the Whitmer family in Fayette, NY.

Though miracles attended their decision to help the young prophet and his family, the decision to take in and support three more adults was not an easy one.3 Peter and Mary Whitmer had a large family, and the burden would fall especially hard on Mary.4 With Joseph and Oliver focused on the translation and contributing little to their own upkeep, Mary bore the brunt of “cooking, cleaning, and caring for the visitors.”5

David Whitmer said that his mother never complained of the burden, but that she may have felt that the labor was too much.6 Joseph and Oliver, who would grow tired during translation, “often skated rocks on a pond.”7 Elvira Mills related that, “[Mary] thought that they might as well carry her a bucket of water or chop a bit of wood as to skate rocks on a pond,” and “[s]he was about to order them out of her home.”8

One day though, in the course of her chores, she went to the barn and met a stranger carrying something like a knapsack. Although she was frightened of the man at first, “…[H]e spoke to her in a kind, friendly tone, and began to explain to her the nature of the work which was going on in her house, and she was filled with inexpressible joy and satisfaction.”9

The man—an angelic messenger—opened the knapsack, showed Mary a bundle of plates, and “turned the leaves of the book of plates over, leaf after leaf, and also showed her the engravings upon them.” He told her “to be patient and faithful in bearing her burden a little longer” and made the promise that if Mary did, “she should be blessed; and her reward would be sure, if she proved faithful to the end.”10

“From that moment,” related her grandson decades later. “…[M]y grandmother was enabled to perform her household duties with comparative ease, and she felt no more inclination to murmur because her lot was hard.”11

Of her testimony, he said, “I knew my grandmother to be a good, noble and truthful woman, and I have not the least doubt of her statement in regard to seeing the plates being strictly true. She was a strong believer in the Book of Mormon until the day of her death.”12

The Why

Without Mary Whitmer’s support, the translation of the Book of Mormon would have come to a screeching halt. The appearance of the messenger with the plates provided Mary with spiritual and physical solace which she needed to help move the work forward.

Mary was the only known woman to have actually seen the plates. Beyond this, Mother Whitmer’s witness of the golden plates’ reality came before the Three and Eight Witnesses had received theirs.13 This is important. While her testimony is not canonized alongside those of her sons, its sheer existence—the messenger's actual appearance to her with the plates—serves as a critical reminder that the Lord is mindful of the prayers and needs of all His children, male and female.

In our individual lives and trials, we may not have the tangible witness that she experienced. We may instead have the blessing of the wives of the sons of Lehi, in the midst of a spiritual wilderness, to be strong and bear our journeyings without murmuring (1 Nephi 17:2). We may receive the blessings of the people of Alma, who in the midst of their persecutions, heard the voice of the Lord saying, “Lift up your heads and be of good comfort…I will also ease the burdens which are put upon your shoulders, that even you cannot feel them” (Mosiah 24:12-15). We may receive the blessing of Abish, who in the midst of turmoil, was able to reach out to a fellow daughter of God, who eased her sorrow (Alma 19:28-29). We may receive the strength of the mothers of Helaman’s Stripling Warriors, to not doubt that God will deliver us (Alma 56:47-48).

As he did for Mary Whitmer and countless men and women throughout the scriptures, the Lord will speak to each of us at our times of need. We can each receive our own witness of the truthfulness of the work.

• 1. For a discussion of the witnesses and their prophesied role, see Book of Mormon Central, “Who are the "Few" Who were Permitted to See the Plates? (2 Nephi 27:12-13),”KnoWhy 54 (March 15, 2016).
• 2. For another fascinating early female witness of the Book of Mormon translation, see Book of Mormon Central, “How Can Sally Conrad’s Witness of the Book of Mormon Strengthen Our Faith? (Alma 37:23),”KnoWhy 385 (November 28, 2017).
• 3. Richard L. Anderson, Investigating the Book of Mormon Witnesses (Salt Lake City, UT: Deseret Book, 1989), 30.
• 4. Amy Easton-Flake and Rachel Cope, citing an 1862 agricultural study, remind us that the farmer’s wife “works harder, endures more, than any other place.” See Amy Easton-Flake and Rachel Cope, “A Multiplicity of Witnesses: Women and the Translation Process,” in The Coming Forth of the Book of Mormon: A Marvelous Work and a Wonder, ed. Dennis L. Largey, Andrew H. Hedges, John Hilton III, and Kerry Hull (Salt Lake City and Provo, UT: Deseret Book and Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University, 2015), 134.
• 5. Easton-Flake and Cope, “A Multiplicity of Witnesses,” 134.
• 6. Easton-Flake and Cope, “A Multiplicity of Witnesses,” 134-135.
• 7. Royal Skousen, “Another Account of Mary Whitmer’s Viewing of the Golden Plates,” Interpreter: A Journal of Mormon Scripture 10 (2014): 39.
• 8. Skousen, “Another Account,” 39.
• 9. Janiece L. Johnson and Jennifer Reeder, The Witness of Women: Firsthand Experiences and Testimonies from the Restoration (Salt Lake City, UT: Deseret Book, 2016), 30-31.
• 10. Johnson and Reeder, The Witness of Women, 30-31. Richard Lloyd Anderson identifies this messenger as the same man who appeared to David Whitmer while he was helping transport Joseph and Oliver to Fayette, NY. Anderson relates the following journal account, “And an aged man about 5 feet 10, heavy set, and on his back an old fashioned army knapsack strapped over his shoulders and something square in it, and he walked alongside of the wagon and wiped the sweat off his face, smiling very pleasantly. David asked him to ride and he replied, ‘I am going across to the Hill Cumorah.’ Soon after they passed, they felt strange and stopped but could see nothing of him-all around was clear. And they asked the Lord about it. He said that the Prophet looked as white as a sheet and said that it was one of the Nephites, and that he had the plates.” See Edward Stevenson, Journal, Dec. 23, 1877 quoted in Richard L. Anderson, Investigating the Book of Mormon Witnesses (Salt Lake City, UT: Deseret Book, 1989), 30.
• 11. Johnson and Reeder, The Witness of Women, 30-31.
• 12. Johnson and Reeder, The Witness of Women, 30-31.
• 13. This follows a pattern that the Lord sets out in the New Testament, when he appeared to Mary Magdalene at the garden tomb before he appeared to his apostles.

The Know

Several passages in the most recent editions of the Book of Mormon describe the path leading to eternal life as being “strait and narrow,” as in 1 Nephi 8:20. There is some uncertainty, however, about whether the word strait or straight was originally intended in these contexts. Not only are these words spelled differently, but they also have different definitions, with strait meaning “narrow” and straight meaning “not crooked.”1 Yet because these words are pronounced exactly the same, Joseph Smith’s scribes would likely not have known which word was intended whenever he dictated it during the translation of the Book of Mormon.

Unfortunately, careful analysis of the original and printer’s manuscripts, as well as the first edition of the Book of Mormon, has proven to be unhelpful in resolving this concern.2 As explained by Noel B. Reynolds and Royal Skousen, we “must rely instead on context and other internal evidences from the text to determine which word was meant in each case.”3

In their article on this topic, Reynolds and Skousen argued that because strait means narrow, it seems unnecessarily redundant to describe a path as being both “strait” and “narrow.” They also found that there is at least one instance, in Alma 7:19–20, where we know that straight is the correct word because it is contrasted with the statement that the Lord “cannot walk in crooked paths.” For these and other reasons, the authors concluded that several instances of strait (“narrow”) in recent editions of the Book of Mormon should be replaced with straight (“not crooked”).4

Paul Hoskisson, in his study of the same topic, found evidence for a different conclusion. He noted, for example, that “the expression strait and narrow has an ancient Hebrew analog, and that analog [despite its redundancy in English] would require the spelling strait.”5 After a lengthy discussion comparing variant usages in the Book of Mormon, exploring evidence from literary parallels, and weighing the significance of counterexamples, Hoskisson concluded,

In the ten verses in the Book of Mormon where the words strai(gh)t and narrow occur in the same verse, there are compelling reasons in nine of them to read strait, while the tenth verse could take either reading. Reading strait in the expressions strait gate and narrow way and strait and narrow way preserves the poetic parallelism, accords with a biblical Hebrew analog, and is consistent within the Book of Mormon.6

John S. Welch, in his research on this subject, has offered yet another approach to this issue. When trying to decide between strait or straight, he posed questions such as “Which is more enlightening? Which presents the richer or more descriptive image? What image naturally comes to mind in these passages? Which meaning will help me more to order my life in my quest for eternal life?”7

Finding the redundancy of strait and narrow to be ultimately unsatisfying, Welch concluding that “readers of the Book of Mormon should continue to understand these ‘strait and narrow’ phrases to mean ‘straight and narrow,’ just as they appeared for 150 years in all pre-1981 editions of the Book of Mormon.”8

The Why

These contrasting views demonstrate that not all issues concerning the Book of Mormon’s language and meaning have been tidily settled through scholarly consensus. In this case, whether certain Book of Mormon passages are describing the path leading to eternal life as strait, meaning “narrow,” or straight, meaning “not crooked” is still subject to debate. The good news is that whichever word the original authors or translators intended, both words offer valuable and accurate insights about the path leading toward eternal life.

This path surely is straitand narrow, in the sense that God’s commandments must be obeyed with exactness and precision. There is little room to deviate to the right or left if one wants to stay on the covenant path toward eternal life. On the other hand, it makes sense that this same path could also be seen as straight and narrow, in that it is direct and not crooked or regressive (see Alma 37:42–45). The covenant path, in this sense, conveys us steadily and directly toward eternal joy and happiness. Thus, although the original authors most likely had one definition or the other in mind in specific instances, both definitions seem to convey accurate spiritual truths about the path.

These types of situations should help emphasize the important role that the Spirit should play in scripture study. Pondering the teachings of past or current prophets is about more than just logically teasing out the meanings of their words, even though such studies are certainly good and important (see 2 Nephi 9:29). Instead, as we allow the Spirit to enlighten our hearts and minds, we often gain greater spiritual insights about the past and the present—meaning we are better able to understand the original intent of the past authors as well as how their writings may apply to our personal lives today.

Concerning the issue of strait vs. straight, John W. Welch and Daniel McKinlay have explained, “These meanings open to our spiritual understanding a number of possible insights. By considering the possible meanings on several occasions when the word ‘strai[gh]t’ appears in the Book of Mormon, we may discern more specifically the many ways the text may apply to us today.”9

For instance, Elain S. Dalton has taught, “Sometimes as we walk life’s paths, we want to loiter in dangerous places, thinking that it is fun and thrilling and that we are in control. Sometimes we think we can live on the edge and still maintain our virtue. But that is a risky place to be.”10 Recognizing that the path to eternal life is both narrow and direct can help us understand why we should not only stay on it, but stay as close to its center as possible.11

• 1. For a broader range of meanings, see John W. Welch and Daniel B. McKinlay, “Getting Things Strai[gh]t,” in Reexploring the Book of Mormon: A Decade of New Research, ed. John W. Welch (Salt Lake City and Provo, UT: Deseret Book and FARMS, 1992), 260–262.
• 2. See Noel B. Reynolds and Royal Skousen, “Was the Path Nephi Saw ‘Strait and Narrow’ or ‘Straight and Narrow’?” Journal of Book of Mormon Studies 10, no. 2 (2001): 30–31.
• 3.Reynolds and Skousen, “The Path Nephi Saw,” 30.
• 4. Reynolds and Skousen, “The Path Nephi Saw,” 30–33, 70.
• 5. Paul Y. Hoskisson, “Straightening Things Out: The Use of Strait and Straight in the Book of Mormon,” Journal of Book of Mormon Studies 12, no. 2 (2003): 66.
• 6. Hoskisson, “Straightening Things Out,” 71.
• 7. John S. Welch, “Straight (Not Strait) and Narrow,” Journal of Book of Mormon Studies 16, no. 1 (2007): 18–25, 83–84.
• 8. Welch, “Straight (Not Strait) and Narrow,” 25.
• 9. Welch and McKinlay, “Getting Things Strai[gh]t,” 262.
• 10. Elaine S. Dalton, “Stay on the Path,” Ensign, May 2007, online at lds.org.
• 11. One way to ensure that we stay on the strai[gh]t and narrow path is to give strict heed the word of God, which is represented in the scriptures as a lamp and an iron rod. As explained by Elder Joseph B. Wirthlin, “Nephi taught that by clinging to the word of God, as though it be a handrail, we would be able to avoid temptations and not lose our way in darkness. Thus, we would remain on the narrow path. Using another apt symbol, the Psalmist wrote: ‘Thy word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path’ (Psalm 119:105). God’s word, then, is the light for our path, the iron rod or railing to which we can cling. It provides the limiting lines that we must not cross if we are to reach our destination.” Joseph B. Wirthlin, “The Straight and Narrow Way,” Ensign, November 1990, online at lds.org.

The Know

Twice in the Book of Mormon the prophet Lehi was called a “visionary man”; once by his sons Laman and Lemuel (1 Nephi 2:11) and once by his wife Sariah (1 Nephi 5:2). On the latter occasion, Lehi himself acknowledged that he was indeed a “visionary” man, affirming, “If I had not seen the things of God in a vision I should not have known the goodness of God, but had tarried at Jerusalem, and had perished with my brethren” (1 Nephi 5:4).

The Book of Mormon phrase “visionary man” is curious since it does not appear elsewhere in Latter-day Saint canon. Nevertheless, this language appears to draw authentically from the world of ancient Israel. The roots rāʾāh and ḥāzāh are both attested in biblical Hebrew and denote “to see” or “to perceive.” The biblical term “seer” is commonly derived from rāʾāh (cf. 1 Samuel 9:9, 11), while ḥāzāh underlies most biblical instances of the word “vision” (cf. Isaiah 1:1). In many cases the two roots are “barely distinguishable,”1 since they overlap considerably and both describe either the seers themselves or the visions being seen by them, depending on the context.2

Given that “both Hebrew roots have the verbal meaning of ‘to see’,” it is not entirely clear which words would apply to Lehi. Nevertheless, contextual clues make it appear “that [ḥôzĕh] is behind the Book of Mormon term visionary man, while [rôʾeh] is probably the word behind seer in 2 Nephi 3:6–7, 11, 14 and Mosiah 8:13–17.”3 That is to say, Lehi was a prophet like Isaiah who saw visions (ḥăzôt), whereas king Benjamin (or possibly Mosiah) was a seer (rôʾeh) who could translate records with divinely prepared oracular instruments (Mosiah 21:28).4

This reading is supported by Lehi’s use of a Hebraism called the cognate accusative (when a verb and its object share the same root) in two separate instances.5 The first appears when Lehi assured his wife Sariah, “I know that I am a visionary man [Hebrew: ḥôzĕh; “seer”; alternatively ʾîš ḥāzôn/ḥezĕyôn; lit. ‘man of vision’]; for if I had not seen [ḥāzāh] the things of God in a vision [ḥāzôn/ḥezĕyôn] I should not have known the goodness of God, but had tarried at Jerusalem, and had perished with my brethren” (1 Nephi 5:4).

Later, in a memorable line, Lehi reaffirmed his visionary ability by informing his family, “Behold, I have dreamed a dream [Hebrew: ḥălômtî ḥălôm]; or, in other words, I have seen a vision [Hebrew: ḥāzîtî ḥāzôn; lit. ‘seen a seeing’]” (1 Nephi 8:2). While this reconstruction must remain tentative without access to the original text, it is especially plausible given the attestation of both cognate constructions in the biblical corpus and of biblical “visions” (ḥăzôt) being granted in dreams at night.6

The Why

The Book of Mormon’s description of Lehi being a “visionary man” places him in the same tradition as other biblical prophets, including most notably Moses,7 but also the great visionaries Isaiah and Lehi’s contemporary Jeremiah.8 Like Moses, Isaiah, Jeremiah, and other biblical prophets, Lehi was indeed one blessed with visions of the Almighty and His divine council, a telltale sign of a true prophet in ancient Israel (1 Nephi 1:5–15).9 This in turn naturally heightens the legitimacy of Lehi’s own prophetic calling, leaving little doubt as to why Nephi preserved this important description in his retelling of his father’s life and ministry.10

The description of Lehi as a “visionary man” is significant for modern Latter-day Saints in another way. It is important to keep in mind that when Lehi’s sons and his wife Sariah called him a “visionary man,” they did so to complain and cast doubt on the truth of his visions.11 Lehi’s response to his family’s murmuring, however, is instructive. Rather than being crippled by criticism, Lehi used the opportunity to reaffirm his testimony and turn an intended insult into something positive. This is a laudatory model for modern Latter-day Saints to emulate in their daily lives.

• 1. Ludwig Koehler and Walter Baumgartner, The Hebrew and Aramaic Lexicon of the Old Testament (Leiden: Brill, 2001), 2:1159.
• 2. For instance, in 1 Samuel 3:15 the young prophet Samuel is said to have been afraid to tell his “vision” (marĕāʾh) to the priest Eli, while in 2 Samuel 24:11 the prophet Gad is called a “seer” (ḥôzĕh). Other instances of ḥôzĕh being translated as “seer” include Amos 7:12, 1 Chronicles 21:9, and Isaiah 29:10. This confusion is likely the result of the ambiguity inherent in the English term “seer,” which in common usage can range from generic visionaries to those who profess an ability to use oracular instruments such as seer stones or diving rods.
• 3. John A. Tvedtnes, "A Visionary Man,” in Pressing Forward with the Book of Mormon, ed. John W. Welch and Melvin J. Thorne (Provo, UT: FARMS, 1999), 29.
• 4. On the identity of the king who translated the Jaredite records, see Book of Mormon Central, “Which Nephite King Had the Gift of Interpretation?” KnoWhy #99 (May 13, 2016).
• 5. On the cognate accusative in the Book of Mormon, see John A. Tvedtnes, “The Hebrew Background of the Book of Mormon,” in Rediscovering the Book of Mormon: Insights You May Have Missed Before, ed. John L. Sorenson and Melvin J. Thorne (Provo, UT: FARMS, 1991), 80–81; Melvin Deloy Pack, “Hebraisms,” in Book of Mormon Reference Companion, ed. Dennis L. Largey (Salt Lake City, UT: Deseret Book, 2003), 322–323.
• 6. For the “dreamed a dream” cognate accusative, see Genesis 37:5, 9; 40:5, 8; 41:11; Deuteronomy 13:3; Judges 7:13; Daniel 2:3. For the “seen a vision/seeing” construction, see Isaiah 1:1; Ezekiel 12:27; 13:7, 16. As noted and discussed in Tvedtnes, “A Visionary Man,” 30–31. For the attestation and context of nighttime visions in the biblical world, as well as for the ancient context of Lehi’s visionary dream, see Dana M. Pike, Lehi Dreamed a Dream: The Report of Lehi’s Dream in Its Biblical Context,” in The Things Which My Father Saw: Approaches to Lehi’s Dream and Nephi’s Vision (2011 Sperry Symposium), ed. Daniel L. Belnap, Gaye Strathearn, and Stanley A. Johnson (Salt Lake City and Provo, UT: Deseret Book and Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University, 2011), 92–118.
• 7. See Book of Mormon Central, “Why Is Lehi Depicted as Similar to Moses?” KnoWhy #268 (January 30, 2017).
• 8. See David Rolph Seely and Jo Ann H. Seely, “Lehi and Jeremiah: Prophets, Priests, and Patriarchs,” Journal of Book of Mormon Studies 8, no. 2 (1999): 24–35, 85–86; Stephen D. Ricks, “Heavenly Visions and Prophetic Calls in Isaiah 6 (2 Nephi 16), the Book of Mormon, and the Revelation of John,” in Isaiah in the Book of Mormon, ed. Donald W. Parry and John W. Welch (Provo, UT: FARMS, 1998), 171–190.
• 9. See Matthew Roper, “Scripture Update: Lehi as a Visionary Man,” Insights 27, no. 4 (2007): 2–3; Book of Mormon Central, “How Did God Call His Prophets in Ancient Times?” KnoWhy #17 (January 22, 2016).
• 10. See additionally the observation in Stephen O. Smoot, “The Divine Council in the Hebrew Bible and the Book of Mormon,” Interpreter: A Journal of Mormon Scripture 27 (2017): 173.
• 11. See additionally the observation in Stephen O. Smoot, “The Divine Council in the Hebrew Bible and the Book of Mormon,” Interpreter: A Journal of Mormon Scripture 27 (2017): 173.

The Know

It doesn’t take long for readers of the Book of Mormon to come across the name Zoram (see 1 Nephi 4:35). Zoram was Laban’s important servant, the official guard of the treasury where sacred records were housed. But he chose to become a free man by joining Lehi’s family and journeying with them to their promised land.

Not much is revealed about Zoram, except that he was a “true friend” to Nephi1 and that, despite having been an outsider to Lehi’s group, he became one of the seven founding tribal heads of Lehi’s people.2 Although Zoram was apparently a righteous man, some of his descendants caused problems for the Nephites,3 and it seems that Mormon may have used a pun on Zoram’s name to emphasize this point.

After analyzing the name Zoram in light of ancient Semitic languages, Matthew L. Bowen suggested that it “could … plausibly denote ‘the one who is high/exalted’ or ‘He of the Exalted One’.”4 Although Zoram was likely meant to be a praiseworthy name, Nephite authors instead associated it with pride and vanity. Evidence for this connection can be found in a number of Book of Mormon passages but is perhaps most apparent in the story of Alma’s mission to the Zoramites.

When Alma and his missionaries arrived in the land of Antionum, they found that the Zoramites had perverted the righteous traditions of the Nephites. This included the offering of vain prayers on an elevated platform called the Rameumptom (Alma 31:21). From this platform, which was “high above the head” (v. 13), the richly dressed Zoramites boasted about their supposedly holy and elected status. Notably, the term ram at the beginning of “Rameumptom” is probably the same basic element in Zoram that means “high” or “exalted” in Hebrew.5 The dual presence of ram in this context makes the possibility of intentional wordplay especially likely.

An additional line of evidence can be seen in the fact that Alma, on two separate occasions, contrasted the Zoramites’ prideful behavior with righteous themes of being “lifted up.” In the first instance, Alma compared the hearts of the Zoramites, which were “lifted up were lifted up unto great boasting, in their pride,” with his own righteous prayer, in which he “lifted up his voice to heaven” (Alma 31:25–26). In the second instance, Alma counseled his son Shiblon to not be “lifted up unto pride” or “pray as the Zoramites do” (Alma 38:11, 13). He contrasted this with the promise that Shiblon would be “lifted up at the last day” if he remembered to put his “trust in God” (v. 5).6

Yet further evidence for an intended wordplay comes from the way that the names Cezoram and Seezoram (each a variant of Zoram) are associated with being proud and lifted up. It was in the context of the assassination of a chief judge named Cezoram that the people “began to seek to get gain that they might be lifted up one above another” (Helaman 6:15–17). Likewise, it was during the reign of Seezoram that the Nephites were “lifted … up beyond that which is good” (Helaman 7:26). Thus, during the tenure of these leaders—each with Zoram-associated names—the Nephites began to be lifted up in wickedness much like the prideful Zoramites.7

The Why

In light of these and other textual evidences, it seems apparent that the Zoramites came to be associated with the “high” and “exalted” connotations of their own name. Yet, instead of being high or holy in a positive way, they were “lifted up” unto gross pride and vanity. In particular, the Zoramites became a symbol of the type of pride that stems from greed, materialism, worldly success, and a false sense of personal or collective righteousness.

Sadly, the same pride that led to the downfall of the Zoramites eventually infected the Nephite nation as a whole. In a letter to Moroni, Mormon declared, “Behold, the pride of this nation, or the people of the Nephites, hath proven their destruction except they should repent” (Moroni 8:27).8 Latter-day readers should be especially concerned about this type of pride because it is also rampant in our own day. To modern readers, Moroni wrote,

Behold, I speak unto you as if ye were present, and yet ye are not. But behold, Jesus Christ hath shown you unto me, and I know your doing. And I know that ye do walk in the pride of your hearts; and there are none save a few only who do not lift themselves up in the pride of their hearts, unto the wearing of very fine apparel, unto envying, and strifes, and malice, and persecutions, and all manner of iniquities; and your churches, yea, even every one, have become polluted because of the pride of your hearts. (Mormon 8:35–36)

It should be understood that ancient Hebrew authors didn’t just use puns for amusement. Instead, the use of wordplay was often meant to help establish and reinforce important narrative themes. In this case, the story of the Zoramites, including the clever pun on the name Zoram, can help us remember the dangers of boasting in our own strength or being lifted up in the pride of our hearts. It was this type of pride that led the Zoramites and Nephites to destruction.9 And if we are not careful, the same pride will lead societies in our own time to the same dismal fate.

President Dieter F. Uchtdorf taught, “Pride is the great sin of self-elevation. It is for so many a personal Rameumptom, a holy stand that justifies envy, greed, and vanity.”10 How can we ensure that we don’t fall into the same prideful condition as the Zoramites and Nephites? One way is to deflect praise and glory away from ourselves and towards God. For example, when an individual called Jesus “Good Master,” Jesus “said unto him, Why callest thou me good? there is none good but one, that is, God” (Matthew 19:17). Likewise, Ammon the Nephite missionary was once warned about boasting in himself, yet Ammon explained that he was actually giving all his praise to “the Most High God” (Alma 26:14).

As we keep our focus upon the Lord’s goodness and away from our own achievements, the Lord will help us see our true eternal value and worth as His children. In this condition, we won’t feel we need to lift ourselves up in pride. This is because, like Shiblon, we can trust that the Lord will do all the lifting for us—meaning He will graciously lift us up unto eternal life—if we keep the commandments and faithfully “put our trust in God” (Alma 38:5).

• 1. This description of Zoram comes from Lehi, who also declared, “Wherefore, because thou hast been faithful thy seed shall be blessed with his seed” (2 Nephi 1:30–31). On one level, it seems that Lehi may have compared Zoram to Jonathan in the Old Testament who “loved [David] as his own soul” (1 Samuel 18:3) and who said to David, “we have sworn both of us in the name of the Lord, saying, The Lord be between me and thee, and between my seed and thy seed for ever” (1 Samuel 20:42). For an extended comparison between Nephi and David, see Book of Mormon Central, “Why Was the Sword of Laban So Important to Nephite Leaders? (Words of Mormon 1:13),” KnoWhy 411 (February 27, 2018).
• 2. See Book of Mormon Central, “Why Did Lehi Divide His People into Seven Tribes? (Jacob 1:13),” KnoWhy 319 (May 29, 2017). These seven tribes are always listed in the same order, with the Zoramites being placed between the groups affiliated with the Nephites and Lamanites: Nephites, Jacobites, Josephites, Zoramites, Lamanites, Lemuelites, and Ishmaelites” (Jacob 1:13). This middle placement is perhaps symbolic of Zoram’s outsider status, as well as the fact that Zoram’s descendants weren’t fully committed to either the Nephites or the Lamanites throughout the long history of their conflicts.
• 3. These descendants at least included the dissidents Amalickiah and Ammoron (Alma 54:23), and mostly likely the apostate Zoramites who were named after a man name Zoram (Alma 30:59), who himself was presumably a descendent of the Zoram who accompanied Lehi’s journey to the New World. See also, Sherrie Mills Johnson, “The Zoramite Separation: A Sociological Perspective,” Journal of Book of Mormon Studies 14, no. 1 (2005): 76. It should be noted, however, that not all Zoramites throughout the history of the Book of Mormon were wicked (see 4 Nephi 1:36–37).
• 4. Matthew L. Bowen, “‘See That Ye Are Not Lifted Up’: The Name Zoram and Its Paronomastic Pejoration,” Interpreter: A Journal of Mormon Scripture 19 (2016): 114.
• 5. See Bowen, “‘See That Ye Are Not Lifted Up’,” 125–127.
• 6. See Bowen, “‘See That Ye Are Not Lifted Up’,” 128–131.
• 7. See Bowen, “‘See That Ye Are Not Lifted Up’,” 132–135.
• 8. See Bowen, “‘See That Ye Are Not Lifted Up’,” 135–137.
• 9. For an example of how the Zoramites’ pride led them to be ironically defeated in battle, see Parrish Brady and Shon Hopkin, “The Zoramites and Costly Apparel: Symbolism and Irony,” Journal of the Book of Mormon and Other Restoration Scripture 22, no. 1 (2013): 40–53.
• 10. Dieter F. Uchtdorf, “Pride and the Priesthood,” Ensign, November 2010, 56, online at lds.org.

The Know

The first recorded visions given to the Book of Mormon prophet Lehi are introduced by Lehi’s son, Nephi, in 1 Nephi 1. Lehi received his prophetic calling after he prayed to the Lord on behalf of his people (1 Nephi 1:5). As he prayed, he saw a pillar of fire that came and dwelt on a rock, and he was told many things that caused him to “quake and tremble exceedingly” (v. 6).

After this initial experience, he went home and being “overcome with the Spirit and the things which he had seen,” he collapsed onto his bed and was then “carried away” in another vision. He “saw the heavens open” and beheld “God sitting upon his throne, surrounded with numberless concourses of angels” (1 Nephi 1:7–8). He then saw other heavenly beings whose brightness was greater than that of the sun and stars of heaven. One gave him a book to read, which filled him with the Spirit of the Lord (vv. 9–12). The book told of how history would play out, especially regarding the destruction of Jerusalem. Ultimately, he praised God and rejoiced in all the things he had been shown and wrote down his dreams and visions (vv. 13–16).

Scholars have noted the similarity between the elements of some of the Book of Mormon prophets’ visions, especially that of Nephi in 1 Nephi 11–14, and the “apocalyptic” genre of ancient religious literature.1 Apocalyptic texts involve “the revelation of the divine mysteries through visions or some other form of immediate disclosure of heavenly truths.”2 Some of the elements common to many apocalyptic texts include the presence of a heavenly messenger who reveals the divine mysteries, the fulfillment of God’s promises, the warning of cataclysmic events to come, visions of God, His throne, and/or the Divine Council, the promise of the coming of a heavenly kingdom to earth, and the initiation of that kingdom through a quasi-divine savior figure.3

The era in which apocalyptic literature flourished in Judaism and early Christianity was between 300 B.C. and 300 A.D., well after the time of Lehi. There are many parallels between Lehi’s visions and those featured in much later apocalyptic texts, including the books of 1–2 Enoch, the Testament of Levi, the Apocalypse of Abraham, the Ascension of Isaiah, and the book of Revelation.4

Although this type of apocalyptic imagery seemingly became more prevalent in these later texts, the biblical book of Daniel is considered by scholars to be apocalyptic5 and the prophetic-call narratives6 of earlier prophets such as Ezekiel and Isaiah are widely seen as the roots of this apocalyptic tradition.7

Many of the elements of Lehi’s visions in 1 Nephi fit in well with those of the visions of Daniel, Ezekiel, Isaiah, and others. For example, LDS scholar Blake Ostler outlined the following elements shared by both Lehi’s and Ezekiel’s visions and the broader and earlier apocalyptic genre:

• a historical introduction (1 Nephi 1:4; Ezekiel 1:1–3)
• a divine confrontation (1 Nephi 1:6; Ezekiel 1:4)
• a throne-theophany (1 Nephi 1:8; Ezekiel 1:26–28)
• a heavenly book (1 Nephi 1:11–12; Ezekiel 2:8–10)
• angelic songs of praise (1 Nephi 1:14; Ezekiel 3:12)
• the commission of the prophet (1 Nephi 1:18; 2:1; Ezekiel 2:2–3)
• a rejection by his people (1 Nephi 1:19–20; Ezekiel 3:8–9)
• reassurance and a promise of deliverance (1 Nephi 1:20; Ezekiel 3:8–9)8

Similar elements can be found in the prophetic-call narratives of Isaiah (Isaiah 6) and Jeremiah (Jeremiah 1) as well.9 Similarly, much of the same language that is used in 1 Nephi 1 can be found in the visions of Daniel in Daniel 7, 8, and 12.

The Why

The apocalyptic genre was a powerful medium for the communication of religious ideas for many centuries, especially in what is known as the intertestamental Jewish period and in early Christianity. In light of the late fluorescence of apocalypticism, some people may be surprised to learn that apocalyptic writing began much earlier, perhaps emerging in the face of the apocalyptic catastrophes that befell the Northern Kingdom of Israel and threatened the southern Kingdom of Judah around Lehi’s time.

For this reason, it is useful to recognize that much of the imagery and many of the underlying theological assumptions found in the more recent documents draw inspiration from what can already be found in the earlier biblical visions of Lehi’s predecessors and contemporaries, such as Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel. Isaiah lived approximately one hundred years before Lehi, and Jeremiah and Ezekiel were roughly contemporary with the Book of Mormon prophet. The written accounts of their visions should be expected to be meaningfully similar.

In Lehi’s day, it was critically necessary to be able to recognize the true prophets.10 At that time, it was widely expected that a true prophet would genuinely claim to have been admitted into the heavenly council of God. As BYU professor John W. Welch has explained, Lehi fulfilled that expectation of a true prophet in his day, as defined by his contemporary, Jeremiah: “For who hath stood in the council of Jehovah, that he should perceive and hear his word? who hath marked my word, and heard it?” (ASV Jeremiah 23:18). As Welch has noted, and as all can see: “This passage stresses the importance in Lehi’s day for a prophet not only to stand in the council of God, but also to both see and hear what goes on there and then to carry out his assignment meticulously by delivering the precise words of the council’s decree, just as Lehi does.”11 This, in effect, certified that the prophet was a true messenger of God.

Just as much if not more so today, we need to understand and have confidence in Lehi’s calling as a true prophet of God. He was the founding prophetic father of his posterity—the Nephites, Lamanites, Jacobites, and Lemuelites. His role is essential to the authority and authenticity of all his prophetic successors who stand on his shoulders. He delineating words and exemplary character traits are the wellspring of the Book of Mormon. as Jeremiah demands of a true prophet, Lehi indeed beheld God and his assembly. He “saw and heard” (1 Nephi 1:18, 19; also 1:6) what transpired there, and then faithfully “went forth . . . to declare unto [the people of Jerusalem] concerning the things which he had both seen and heard” (1 Nephi 1:18).12 His visions, dreams, teachings, warnings, blessings, and promises are eternal. His legacy among people the world over is everlasting.

• 1. Blake T. Ostler, “The Throne-Theophany and Prophetic Commission in 1 Nephi: A Form-Critical Analysis,” BYU Studies Quarterly 26, no. 4 (1986): 67–95; Richard Dilworth Rust and Donald W. Parry, “Book of Mormon Literature,” in Encyclopedia of Mormonism, Vol. 1, ed. Daniel H. Ludlow (New York, N.Y.: Macmillan, 1992), 184; Charles Swift, “Lehi’s Vision of the Tree of Life: Understanding the Dream as Visionary Literature,” Journal of Book of Mormon Studies 14, no. 2 (2005): 52–63; Jared M. Halverson, “Lehi’s Dream and Nephi’s Vision as Apocalyptic Literature,” in The Things Which My Father Saw: Approaches to Lehi’s Dream and Nephi’s Vision (2011 Sperry Symposium), ed. Daniel L. Belnap, Gaye Strathearn, and Stanley A. Johnson (Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University; Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2011), 5t3–69; Nicholas J. Frederick, “Mosiah 3 as an Apocalyptic Text,” Religious Educator 15, no. 2 (2014): 40–63; Book of Mormon Central, “Should Nephi’s Vision Be Called an Apocalypse? (1 Nephi 11:2–3),” KnoWhy 471 (September 27, 2018).
• 2. Christopher Rowland, The Open Heaven: A Study of Apocalyptic in Judaism and Early Christianity (Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock, 1982), 70. Another helpful definition is that of John J. Collins, who noted that apocalyptic is a “genre of revelatory literature with a  narrative framework, in which a revelation is mediated by an otherworldly being to a human recipient, disclosing a transcendent reality which is both temporal, insofar as it envisages eschatological salvation, and spatial, insofar as it involves another supernatural world.” John J. Collins, “Toward the Morphology of a Genre,” Semeia 14 (1979): 9.
• 3. For more on the elements present in apocalyptic literature, see Rowland, The Open Heaven, 49–70; Klaus Koch, The Rediscovery of Apocalyptic (Naperville, IL: Allenson, 1970), 28; John J. Collins, “From Prophecy to Apocalypticism: The Expectation of the End,” in The Encyclopedia of Apocalypticism, ed. John J. Collins (Lexington: The Continuum Publishing Company, 1998), 1:145–159.
• 4. For more on the parallels between 1 Nephi 1 and these apocalyptic texts, see Ostler, “The Throne-Theophany,” 72–83.
• 5. See Rowland, The Open Heaven, 11.
• 6. Meaning the visions that these prophets received when they were called to be prophetic messengers, as, for example, in Isaiah 6 and Ezekiel 1.
• 7. See Ostler, “The Throne-Theophany,” 67; Rowland, The Open Heaven, 193–247; Silviu Bunta, "In Heaven or on Earth: A Misplaced Temple Question About Ezekiel's Visions," in With Letters of Light: Studies in the Dead Sea Scrolls, Early Jewish Apocalypticism, Magic, and Mysticism in Honor of Rachel Elior, ed. Daphna V. Arbel and Andrei A. Orlov, Ekstasis: Religious Experience from Antiquity to the Middle Ages, 2 (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2011), 28-44.
• 8. Adapted from Ostler, “The Throne-Theophany,” 73.
• 9. For more on 1 Nephi 1 and prophetic-call narratives, see John W. Welch, “The Calling of Lehi as a Prophet in the World of Jerusalem,” in Glimpses of Lehi’s Jerusalem, eds. John W. Welch, David Rolph Seely, and Jo Ann H. Seely (Provo, UT: FARMS, 2004), 421–448.
• 10. Due to the fact that there were also false prophets spreading incorrect information in the name of Israel’s God. See, for example, the story of the false prophet Hananiah in Jeremiah 28:15. As BYU Professor Aaron Schade noted: “To make things more difficult for the people, at this time when ‘true prophets’ of God were receiving divine direction to warn the people of Judah to repent, as well as to surrender themselves peacefully over to the Babylonians, others were preaching the safety and impregnability of Judah.” Aaron P. Schade, “The Kingdom of Judah: Politics, Prophets, and Scribes,” in Glimpses of Lehi’s Jerusalem, ed. John W. Welch, David Rolph Seely, and Jo Ann H. Seely (Provo, UT: FARMS, 2004), 308. See Book of Mormon Central, “Why Did Some in Lehi’s Time Believe that Jerusalem Could Not Be Destroyed? (1 Nephi 2:13),” KnoWhy 451 (July 19, 2018).
• 11. Welch, “The Calling of Lehi,” 429.
• 12. Welch, “The Calling of Lehi,” 429.

The Know

Throughout the Book of Mormon, there are occasions where people’s spiritual experiences drain their strength, causing them to become completely exhausted. King Lamoni, for example, fell to the earth as though he were dead, and Ammon explained to the queen that “the light of everlasting life was lit up in his soul,” and that this experience “had overcome his natural frame, and he was carried away in God” (Alma 19:6). After Lehi had a profound vision, he was similarly, “overcome with the Spirit and the things which he had seen” (1 Nephi 1:6–7). In the Book of Mormon, Nephi, Alma the Younger, Lamoni’s household, and Ammon all had similar experiences.1 Other ancient prophets like Moses and Daniel did so as well.2

Although there are many possible explanations for experiences like this, Joseph Smith’s encounters with divine beings may give us close-up accounts to help bring to light the vision-related exhaustion experienced by individuals in the Book of Mormon.3

One significant comment comes from Joseph Smith—History 1:20, in which Joseph described what happened immediately after the First Vision: “When I came to myself again, I found myself lying on my back, looking up into heaven. When the light had departed, I had no strength; but soon recovering in some degree, I went home.”4 The vision had drained his strength so much that he actually needed to recover before he could make the short walk home. 

He was apparently so exhausted that his mother noticed something was wrong and asked him about it: “And as I leaned up to the fireplace, mother inquired what the matter was. I replied, ‘Never mind, all is well—I am well enough off’” (Joseph Smith—History 1:20).5 He later told Alexander Neibaur that, after the first vision, he “endeavored to arise but felt uncommon feeble.”6

Joseph had a similarly exhausting experience with a heavenly messenger years later, when Moroni appeared to him. Joseph Smith—History 1:47 states “immediately after the heavenly messenger had ascended from me for the third time, the cock crowed, and I found that day was approaching, so that our interviews must have occupied the whole of that night.” Here, it seems that Joseph was surprised at how long his conversations with Moroni had been, as it was only when the cock crowed that he realized how long he had been talking to him.

Joseph got up and attempted to do his usual chores. However, he said, “I found my strength so exhausted as to render me entirely unable.” His father noticed and told him to return home. He recalled, “I started with the intention of going to the house; but, in attempting to cross the fence out of the field where we were, my strength entirely failed me, and I fell helpless on the ground, and for a time was quite unconscious of anything” (Joseph Smith—History 1:48). In this case, the exhaustion usually associated with spiritual experiences seems to have been compounded by Joseph’s lack of sleep, leaving him completely unable to work as usual.

However, Joseph Smith was not the only person in the early church to experience this kind of exhaustion. Philo Dibble recalled that in the process of receiving the vision that would eventually be recorded in Doctrine and Covenants section 76, Sidney Rigdon had a similar experience. Dibble remembered, “Joseph sat firmly and calmly all the time in the midst of a magnificent glory, but Sidney sat limp and pale, apparently as limber as a rag, observing which, Joseph remarked, smilingly, 'Sidney is not used to it as I am.’”7

This kind of reaction to these spiritual experiences is not unique to either the 19^th century or ancient times. Religion scholar Felicitas D. Goodman has stated that “countless reports and modern field observations by anthropologists” have found that when people have significant spiritual experiences like visions, “certain physical changes occur.”8 Experiences like this stimulate the nervous system in two opposite ways, and this “alternating action produces relaxation” that may lead to this effect.10 At the same time, the body creates endorphins that act as painkillers in the body.11

Medical anthropologist Barbara W. Lex has noted that, “these endorphins are thought to be responsible on the biological level for the joy, euphoria, and ‘sweetness’ that are often reported in the visions of Christian mystics.”12 She concludes that ultimately, “in some mysterious way … the body becomes a perceiving organ for the sacred dimension of reality.”13 Alma 19:13 specifically states that, Lamoni’s “heart was swollen within him, and he sunk again with joy,” suggesting that Lamoni’s physical body was responding to this spiritual experience in that way anthropologists have observed today: with intense joy and exhaustion.

The Why

Truman G. Madsen, in his 1989 classic Joseph Smith the Prophet, stated, “Joseph was wearied with his experience in the grove. The encounter, however long or short, demanded much of him.”14 Like in the Old Testament and the Book of Mormon, “Joseph was filled with a spirit which enabled him to endure the presence of God. Is that spirit enervating or is it energizing? My considered answer is, ‘Yes.’ It is both.”15 To explain this duality, Madsen reasoned that “it demands from us a concentration and a surrender comparable to nothing else possible in this life. But is also confers great capacities that transcend our finite mental, spiritual, and physical powers.”16

Although many of us may not have the kinds of spiritual experiences that Joseph Smith or Lehi or Moses did, the exhaustion they felt is a testament to the focus and concentration that such spiritual experiences often require of us. It may be unwise to assume that significant spiritual experiences will always be passive events. Our own spiritual experiences may sometimes require much of us, and we may find ourselves quite exhausted afterwards. However, the joy that accompanies such spiritual experiences makes this intense spiritual effort worth the cost.

The characters in the Book of Mormon had significant spiritual experiences that left them exhausted, reminding us all of the price they paid for such experiences. The similarities between the experiences of the characters in the Book of Mormon and this dispensation suggest that exhaustion related to spiritual experiences is a common element of such experiences in various times and places. Thus, we should not be surprised to find that significant spiritual experiences may require of us a significant amount, even an exhausting amount, of focus and energy, even today.

• 1. See 1 Nephi 19:20; Mosiah 27:19; Alma 19:14–16.
• 2. See Moses 1:9–10; Daniel 8:27.
• 3. For another element of this issue, see Book of Mormon Central, “Why Does the Lord Speak to Men ‘According to Their Language’?” (2 Nephi 31:3),” KnoWhy 258 (January 6, 2017).
• 4. For important current studies about the First Vision, see Samuel Alonzo Dodge and Steven C. Harper, Exploring the First Vision (Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University, 2012); Richard L. Bushman, Joseph Smith: Rough Stone Rolling (New York, NY: Vintage Books, 2005), 30–56; Matthew B. Brown, A Pillar of Light: The History and Message of the First Vision (American Fork, UT: Covenant Communications, 2009); Steven C. Harper, “Suspicion or Trust: Reading the Accounts of Joseph Smith’s First Vision,” in No Weapon Shall Prosper: New Light on Sensitive Issues, ed. Robert L. Millet (Salt Lake City and Provo, UT: Deseret Book and Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University, 2011), 63–76; Steven C. Harper, Joseph Smith’s First Vision: A Guide to the Historical Accounts (Salt Lake City, UT: Deseret Book, 2012); Matthew B. Christensen, The First Vision: A Harmonization of 10 Accounts from the Sacred Grove (Springville, UT: Cedar Fort, 2014); Steven C. Harper, “Remembering the First Vision,” in A Reason for Faith: Navigating LDS Doctrine & Church History, ed. Laura Harris Hales (Salt Lake City and Provo, UT: Deseret Book and Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University, 2016), 7–20.
• 5. For more on this portion of the account, see Dean C. Jessee, “The Earliest Accounts of Joseph Smith’s First Vision,” in Opening the Heavens: Accounts of Divine Manifestations, 1820–1844, ed. John W. Welch, 2nd edition (Salt Lake City and Provo, UT: Deseret Book and BYU Press, 2017), 19, note 27.
• 6. Jessee, “The Earliest Accounts,” 30, primary document no. 5.
• 7. Elder Philo Dibble, “Recollections of the Prophet Joseph Smith,” Juvenile Instructor 27, no. 10 (1892): 304
• 8. Felicitas D. Goodman, “Visions,” Encyclopedia of Religion, 2nd edition, ed. Lindsay Jones, 15 vols. (Farmington Hills, MI: Thomson Gale, 2005), 14:9611–9612.[/fnn] In the course of these experiences, many people, “fall into what appears to be a deep sleep or even a dead faint.”Goodman, “Visions,” 14:9612.
• 10. Goodman, “Visions,” 14:9612.
• 11. Goodman, “Visions,” 14:9612.
• 12. Goodman, “Visions,” 14:9612.
• 13. Goodman, “Visions,” 14:9612.
• 14. Truman G. Madsen, Joseph Smith the Prophet (Salt Lake City, UT: Bookcraft, 1989), 14.
• 15. Madsen, Joseph Smith the Prophet, 14.
• 16. Madsen, Joseph Smith the Prophet, 14.

The Know

In the first chapter of the Book of Mormon, Nephi explained that he was not going to make a “full account” of the things which his father had written (1 Nephi 1:16). He then stated, “after I have abridged the record of my father then will I make an account of mine own life” (1 Nephi 1:17). This declaration of intent may lead readers to wonder where, exactly, Nephi made the transition between summarizing his father’s record and writing his own.

In a groundbreaking study on the structural outline of Nephi’s first book, Noel B. Reynolds proposed that this division takes place between chapters 9 and 10 of 1 Nephi.1 One reason for this is that Nephi’s language at the beginning of chapter 10 seems to indicate that the promised narrative shift would occur here: “And now I, Nephi, proceed to give an account upon these plates of my proceedings, and my reign and ministry” (v. 1).

Another clue comes from the fact that the formal ending of chapter 9 (“And thus it is. Amen”) is repeated again at the conclusion of chapter 22, the last chapter in Nephi’s first book:

Importantly, these are the only two verses in Nephi’s record that contain this phrase. Reynolds proposed that these concluding statements act as bookends to two separate textual units, with chapters 1–9 being the first unit and chapters 10–22 making up the second unit.2

In order to test this theory, Reynolds carefully analyzed the structure of each of these major units. He found that they significantly mirrored one another and that the subunits within the larger structures contained a number of close parallels and meaningful relationships. The following chart can help readers identify the parallel sections in Nephi’s two-part record, including two chiastic (inverted) relationships which Reynolds explained at length in the body of his article.3

Generally speaking, Lehi plays a larger role in the first unit (chapters 1–9). Aside from Nephi’s editorial remarks, Lehi’s unit opens up with an account of Lehi’s prophecies about the destruction of Jerusalem (1 Nephi 1:4–15), and it closes with Lehi’s dream of the Tree of Life (1 Nephi 8). Moreover, in this unit’s deliverance episodes, Lehi was the primary leader of the group. For example, it was Lehi who “did speak unto [Laman and Lemuel] in the valley of Lemuel, with power, being filled with the Spirit, until their frames did shake before him” (1 Nephi 2:14; emphasis added). It was Lehi who received the commandment to get the plates of brass from Laban (1 Nephi 3:2–4). And it was Lehi who encouraged family members, including his wife Sariah, to trust in the Lord and not murmur (1 Nephi 5:4–6).

In contrast, the second unit (chapters 10–22) quickly transitions into Nephi’s expanded vision of the Tree of Life (1 Nephi 11–15), and it ends with Nephi’s prophecies about the restoration of Israel in the last days. In this unit’s deliverance episodes, Nephi began to fulfill his role as Lehi’s prophetic successor.4 Instead of Lehi taking the lead, it was Nephi who spoke unto Laman and Lemuel while being “filled with the power” (1 Nephi 17:48), and who “did shake them, even according to the word which he had spoken” (v. 54; emphasis added). It was Nephi who received the commandment to build a ship (vv. 7–8). And it was Nephi who encouraged Lehi to remain faithful after Lehi himself murmured against the Lord (1 Nephi 16:20–25).

The Why

Because Nephi did not directly explain the structure of his writings, it is impossible to know with certainty where his summary of his father’s record ended and the account of his own proceedings began.5 Yet a break between 1 Nephi 9–10 is especially inviting. It nicely explains (1) the unique formal conclusions to chapters 9 and 22, (2) Nephi’s emphasis on his own “reign and ministry” in 1 Nephi 10:1, (3) why Lehi’s prophecies and leadership role is emphasized in chapters 1–9 and then Nephi’s prophecies and leadership role is emphasized in chapters 10–22, and (4) the many structural parallels between the two proposed units.

Why would Nephi make such a division in the first place? There are several interesting possibilities. In one sense, the related units seem to act as dual witnesses of many important truths, such as the coming of the Messiah and the power of God’s deliverance. In this way, Lehi and Nephi act together in unity as father and son and as prophetic witnesses of Christ.6

On another level, the second unit often expands upon and clarifies the teachings in the first unit. For instance, Nephi’s vision of the Tree of Life explains the symbolism from his father’s dream.7 This, perhaps, is meant to show how personal revelation was needed before Nephi could understand the meaning of his father’s revelations. It also shows how revelation necessarily builds upon revelation, “line upon line and precept upon precept” (2 Nephi 28:30).8

Finally, Nephi’s unit simultaneously shows how he became his father’s rightful prophetic successor and how Laman and Lemuel became increasingly hard hearted. These developments didn’t happen overnight, and Nephi’s two part-structure illustrates the major transitions that led to them. The structural division helps explain why Nephi was chosen as a king over his people, why Laman and Lemuel sought to kill him, and why Lehi’s posterity was ultimately divided into two opposing factions: Nephites and Lamanites.9

With all of this in mind, identifying Nephi’s narrative transition between his and his father’s teachings may be crucial for understanding the purposes of his record. It can also help readers discern valuable principles which they can then apply into their personal lives. These principles and insights include the need for two or more witnesses of the truth, a better understanding of personal spiritual development, a model for obtaining a spiritual witness of sacred truths, a warning about how murmuring and rebellion lead to being cut off from God’s presence, and a greater appreciation for how further revelations often expand upon and clarify the content of prior revelations.

• 1. See Noel B. Reynolds, “Nephi’s Outline,” in Book of Mormon Authorship: New Light on Ancient Origins, ed. Noel B. Reynolds (Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University, 1982), 53–74.
• 2. See Reynolds, “Nephi’s Outline,” 56–57. S. Kent Brown has similarly proposed that 1 Nephi 1–10 make up Nephi’s summary of his father’s record. See S. Kent Brown, “Nephi’s Use of Lehi’s Record,” in Rediscovering the Book of Mormon: Insights You May Have Missed Before (Provo, UT: FARMS, 1991), 6.
• 3. This chart is derived from Reynolds, “Nephi’s Outline,” 58.
• 4. See Noel B. Reynolds, “The Political Dimension in Nephi’s Small Plates,” BYU Studies Quarterly 27, no. 4 (1987): 14.
• 5. For the lack of certainty and finality about this proposed structure, see, Reynolds, “Nephi’s Outline,” 72–73: “There are undoubtedly … aspects of my hypothesis which may raise doubts in the minds of readers. Whether or not the patterns outlined above are exactly right, there is ample evidence that Nephi was consciously working with rhetorical patterns and devices. In this article I have attempted to identify only a few such elements. As others are identified, the patterns suggested here will undoubtedly be revised or even replaced.”
• 6. The concept of mutually sustaining prophetic witnesses also plays an important role in the chiastic structure of 2 Nephi. See Noel B. Reynolds, “Chiastic Structuring of Large Texts: Second Nephi as a Case Study” in To Seek the Law of the Lord: Essays in Honor of John W. Welch, ed. Paul Y. Hoskisson and Daniel C. Peterson (Orem UT: The Interpreter Foundation, 2017), 340–341. See also, Bruce A. Van Orden, “The Law of Witnesses in 2 Nephi,” in Second Nephi, The Doctrinal Structure, Book of Mormon Symposium Series, Volume 3, ed. Monte S. Nyman and Charles D. Tate Jr. (Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University, 1989), 307–321.
• 7. See John W. Welch and J. Gregory Welch, Charting the Book of Mormon: Visual Aids for Personal Study and Teaching (Provo, UT: FARMS, 1999), chart 92.
• 8. This principle is also expressed in the ninth Article of Faith: “We believe all that God has revealed, all that He does now reveal, and we believe that He will yet reveal many great and important things pertaining to the Kingdom of God.”
• 9. See Noel B. Reynolds, “Nephi’s Political Testament,” in Rediscovering the Book of Mormon: Insights You May have Missed Before, ed. John L. Sorenson and Melvin J. Thorne (Salt Lake City and Provo, UT: Deseret Book and FARMS, 1991), 220–229.

The Know

Early on in the book of 1 Nephi, the Lord promised Nephi that if he would keep God’s commandments he would “be made a ruler and a teacher over [his] brethren” (1 Nephi 2:22). As their family’s wilderness journey progressed, this prophecy began to be fulfilled.1 Yet Nephi’s brothers complained that Nephi had taken this position of ruler and teacher upon himself, which led them to be angry with Nephi and rebellious towards God (1 Nephi 16:37–38).

Many years later, after the family had arrived and settled in the promised land, Nephi was asked by his people to become their king. Although he preferred that they have no king, he accepted the position anyway. It seems this was at least partly due to Nephi remembering the Lord’s prophecy about him being a ruler:

And behold, the words of the Lord had been fulfilled unto my brethren, which he spake concerning them, that I should be their ruler and their teacher. Wherefore, I had been their ruler and their teacher, according to the commandments of the Lord, until the time they sought to take away my life. (2 Nephi 5:19)

Although it defied cultural expectations, the elevation of a younger brother over his elder siblings is a recurring theme in the sacred writings of ancient Israel. Some of the great patriarchs and kings of Israel—including Jacob, Joseph, Judah, Ephraim, David, and Solomon—were given similar promises by the Lord and chosen over elder brothers. As in Nephi’s account, the fulfillment of those promises is clearly demonstrated in the scriptures.

Although Jacob and his brother Esau were twins, Esau was born first and therefore should have received the birthright. In the turn of events in which Jacob was able to secure the birthright blessing in place of his older brother, their father Isaac pronounced the following upon Jacob:

“Let people serve thee, and nations bow down to thee: be lord over thy brethren, and let thy mother’s sons bow down to thee” (Genesis 27:29). The kingdom of Edom, populated by Esau’s descendants, would eventually become a vassal state to Israel after they were conquered by King David (2 Samuel 8:14).

David, whose lineage was to sit on the throne of Israel for all time, was of the tribe of Judah.2 Judah had been promised, in a blessing from his father, Jacob, that he would rule over his siblings. Although he was the fourth-born son, his patriarchal blessing declared: “Judah, thou art he whom thy brethren shall praise: thy hand shall be in the neck of thine enemies; thy father’s children shall bow down before thee” (Genesis 49:8). Additionally, he was promised that “the scepter shall not depart from Judah” until the time of the Messiah (Genesis 49:10).

Joseph, another son of Jacob, received a similar blessing from the Lord. One of Jacob’s youngest sons, Joseph was shown in dreams that his family members would eventually bow down before him (Genesis 37:6–10). Just as Nephi’s brothers were angry with him, the biblical record states that Joseph’s brothers “hated him yet the more for his dreams, and for his words” (Genesis 37:7).3

Joseph’s brothers were so upset by his perceived pretentiousness that they sold him as a slave into Egypt. Ironically, this event eventually led to Joseph becoming a governor over that land (a vice-regent to Pharaoh) and to the fulfillment of his prophetic dreams. When his family was in need and came to Egypt for food, “Joseph’s brethren came, and bowed down themselves before him with their faces to the earth,” just as he had foreseen (Genesis 42:6).

This pattern continued with Joseph’s own sons, Manasseh and Ephraim, who, when their grandfather Jacob blessed them, he put his right hand on younger Ephraim’s head for the birthright blessing rather than on the eldest son Manasseh’s (Genesis 49:13–14).

The Why

These connections show that Nephi ruled over his older brothers much like his ancestor Joseph did, as well as a line of early patriarchal figures including Joseph’s son Ephraim, his older brother Judah, his father Jacob, and also figures like Moses and David.4 So, while Nephi’s ascendency over his brothers defied the cultural expectations and patriarchal order of his day, it was still supported by ample scriptural precedent.

Although the birthright was typically passed on to the firstborn son even if the father’s preferences were otherwise (Deuteronomy 21:15–17), the scriptures record many instances in which that blessing and inheritance were granted to a younger son. In general, the reason for this seems to have been that the younger son was simply more righteous. For example, in the case of the first sibling rivalry recorded in the Bible, between Cain and Abel, the Lord favored Abel because of his greater obedience (Moses 5:16–23).

This was the case with Nephi as well. When Lehi saved his family by leading them into the wilderness, his oldest sons, Laman and Lemuel, murmured against him “because they knew not the dealings of that God who had created them” (1 Nephi 2:12). Nephi, although he was the younger son, repeatedly turned to the Lord for answers. As a result, Nephi noted, the Lord “did soften my heart that I did believe all the words which had been spoken by my father; wherefore, I did not rebel against him like unto my brothers” (1 Nephi 2:16).

Whereas Laman and Lemuel were eventually “cut off from the presence of the Lord” for their rebellion, Nephi was “blessed” and given greater responsibility because of his faith (1 Nephi 2:19, 21). The examples of Nephi and others demonstrate that no matter what our situation or position is in life, which is often out of our control, the Lord will judge us based upon our righteousness and bless us accordingly. “For the Lord seeth not as man seeth; for man looketh on the outward appearance, but the Lord looketh on the heart” (1 Samuel 16:7).

• 1. See Book of Mormon Central, “Why Did Nephi Include the Story of the Broken Bow? (1 Nephi 16:23),” KnoWhy 421 (April 3, 2018); Book of Mormon Central, “Why Was the Sword of Laban So Important to Nephite Leaders? (Words of Mormon 1:13),” KnoWhy 411 (February 27, 2018).
• 2. David was also a younger son who was elevated over his brethren because the Lord looked “not on his countenance, or on the height of his stature,” his “outward appearance,” but looked “on the heart” (1 Samuel 16:7). His kingdom continued through his son Solomon, also a later-born son.
• 3. For a wordplay on the name Joseph and its relationship to his brother’s anger, see Matthew L. Bowen, “‘Their Anger Did Increase Against Me’: Nephi’s Autobiographical Permutation of a Biblical Wordplay on the Name Joseph,” Interpreter: A Journal of Mormon Scripture 23 (2017): 115–136. For more similarities between Nephi and Joseph, see Book of Mormon Central, “How Was Nephi Similar to Joseph of Egypt? (1 Nephi 18:18),” KnoWhy 416 (March 15, 2018).
• 4. See Alan Goff, “A Hermeneutic of Sacred Texts: Historicism, Revisionism, Positivism, and the Bible and Book of Mormon,” (MA dissertation, Brigham Young University, 1989), 104–132; Grant Hardy, Understanding the Book of Mormon: A Reader’s Guide (New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2010), 42–44; Brant A. Gardner, Second Witness: Analytical and Contextual Commentary on the Book of Mormon, 6 vols. (Salt Lake City, UT: Greg Kofford Books, 2007), 1:47; Book of Mormon Central, “How Was Nephi Similar to Joseph of Egypt? (1 Nephi 18:18),” KnoWhy 416 (March 15, 2018).

The Know

In a series of exhortations to his brothers, Nephi referred to the treatment received by Jeremiah, his prophetic contemporary, as an example of the sinful failings of the inhabitants of Jerusalem. “For behold,” Nephi declared, “the Spirit of the Lord ceaseth soon to strive with them [the people of Jerusalem]; for behold, they have rejected the prophets, and Jeremiah have they cast into prison. And they have sought to take away the life of my father, insomuch that they have driven him out of the land” (1 Nephi 7:14).

At first glance, this passage seems to refer to the imprisonment of Jeremiah by Zedekiah, the king of Judah, as recorded in Jeremiah 37–38. However, this raises some questions, since that biblical evidence appears to place Jeremiah’s imprisonment towards the end of Zedekiah’s reign (Jeremiah 32:2; 38:28), while 1 Nephi opens at the beginning of Zedekiah’s reign and Lehi and his family leave shortly afterwards (1 Nephi 1:4). Because of this and other chronological concerns, several researchers, including S. Kent Brown and David R. Seely, have argued that Nephi was likely referring to an earlier incident of Jeremiah being imprisoned, and not to the account preserved in Jeremiah 37–38.1

Recalling that Jeremiah was a fierce critic of the Judahite king Jehoiakim (the royal successor of king Josiah and predecessor to Zedekiah), Brown and Seely pointed to passages which indicate earlier occasions when the prophet was placed under arrest in some manner, usually for preaching what his critics saw as a pro-Babylonian political position (e.g. Jeremiah 20:1–6).2 Early in the reign of Jehoiakim, Jeremiah found himself in legal trouble at the temple in Jerusalem. Although he was not imprisoned on that occasion, he was taken, tried, and narrowly escaped punishment, as recorded in Jeremiah 26, the earliest autobiographical information recorded about this outspoken prophet.3 After reviewing the textual evidence, Brown and Seely concluded,

We think it likely that Jeremiah, who was accused of being pro-Babylonian, was imprisoned during the last year of the reign of Jehoiakim, who by then had revolted against the Babylonians. Jeremiah’s imprisonment would have been for the same reasons that he was imprisoned later by Zedekiah when that king revolted against the Babylonians (Jeremiah 37–38). In this light, it is possible that Nephi was referring to an imprisonment that began during the last year of the reign of Jehoiakim and continued into the early months of Zedekiah’s reign.4

Similarly, Jeffrey R. Chadwick has identified at least three other occasions when Jeremiah was placed under arrest: “588 BC (Jeremiah 37:15), during the Babylonian siege of Jerusalem; 601 BC (Jeremiah 20:2), when he was put into stocks for a day and a night; and late 605 BC (Jeremiah 36:5), after the first composition of his prophecies.”5 Chadwick proposed that Nephi was referring to the 605 BC imprisonment as opposed to the later and more fully detailed imprisonment under Zedekiah in Jeremiah 37–38.6

Another possibility is that Nephi heard of Jeremiah’s imprisonment as recorded in Jeremiah 37–38 during one of his return trips to Jerusalem. Nephi and his brothers returned to Jerusalem at least twice before finally departing Judah for good and traveling with the rest of Lehi’s group to the promised land (1 Nephi 3–4, 7). Because Nephi’s account gives no information about how much time elapsed between these two return trips and the family’s initial departure into the deserts of Arabia, it is conceivable that Nephi could have heard about Jeremiah’s imprisonment towards the end of the reign of Zedekiah from several second-hand sources.7 Finally, of course, it is also possible that Nephi learned of Jeremiah’s imprisonment by revelation.

The Why

Many unresolved questions that remain about the Book of Mormon deal with attempts to correlate its internal chronology with external historical events. This is especially true when attempting to correlate prophecies of future events given in the Book of Mormon. In this case, the timing of Jeremiah’s imprisonment is wrapped up in a debate surrounding the timing of Lehi’s departure from Jerusalem and his prophecy that the Messiah would come 600 years after such (1 Nephi 10:4; 19:8; 2 Nephi 25:19).8

While the available and relevant data is not always as clear as modern readers would sometimes like, when it comes to the dating of Jeremiah’s imprisonment it must be remembered “that the [biblical] book of Jeremiah was not written in chronological order, but compiled later, perhaps after his death. Some later chapters describe events that took place in the days of earlier kings, so one must pay attention to the chronological notations associated with each story, where possible.”9 Because of these and other gaps in the historical and scriptural record, attempts to correlate points of the Book of Mormon’s internal chronology with external historical events should be undertaken cautiously and following solid methodologies.

Beyond what this verse might say about the internal chronology of the Book of Mormon, Nephi’s reference to Jeremiah’s imprisonment served an important rhetorical function as he admonished his disgruntled brothers. Ishmael had only barely escaped Jerusalem with his family when Laman and Lemuel quickly convinced “two of the daughters of Ishmael, and the two sons of Ishmael and their families” to “rebel against . . . Nephi, and Sam, and their father, Ishmael, and his wife, and his three other daughters” (1 Nephi 7:6). The murmuring members of the party rebelled because they “were desirous to return unto the land of Jerusalem” (v. 7). But such a rash course would have ended in complete disaster.10 It would not be long before “the word of the Lord [would] be fulfilled concerning the destruction of Jerusalem,” and so returning to the city was out of the question (v. 13). As proof that Jerusalem was ripe for destruction and that “the Spirit of the Lord ceaseth soon to strive with” its inhabitants, Nephi cited the imprisonment of Jeremiah in addition to the threats which were made against the life of his own father Lehi (v. 14).11

President Spencer W. Kimball taught that the “rejection of the holy prophets comes because the hearts of people are hardened, as people are shaped by their society.”12 This was certainly the case in Jeremiah’s and Lehi’s day, when the popular party line in Judahite society was that God would preserve the holy city of Jerusalem and its temple despite the sins of the people.13 Similar messages abound in the world today (2 Nephi 28:7–8, 21–25). Nephi’s warning that the rejection of God’s prophets is a sign of imminent apostasy is, therefore, just as applicable today as it was on the eve of the Babylonian captivity of Judah some 2,600 years ago.

• 1. S. Kent Brown and David R. Seely, “Jeremiah’s Imprisonment and the Date of Lehi’s Departure,” Religious Educator 2, no. 1 (2001): 18–21.
• 2. Brown and Seely, “Jeremiah’s Imprisonment,” 19–20.
• 3. See John W. Welch, “The Trial of Jeremiah: A Legal Legacy from Lehi’s Jerusalem,” in Glimpses of Lehi’s Jerusalem (Provo: FARMS, 2004), 337-56.
• 4. Brown and Seely, “Jeremiah’s Imprisonment,” 20
• 5. Jeffrey R. Chadwick, “Dating the Departure of Lehi from Jerusalem,” BYU Studies Quarterly 57, no. 2 (2018): 40.
• 6. Chadwick, “Dating the Departure of Lehi from Jerusalem,” 40–41.
• 7. Nephi, it is clear, escaped with Ishmael and his family before the final Babylonian deportation of Judah in 587 BC in the eleventh and final year of the reign of Zedekiah (Jeremiah 39:1–10; 2 Nephi 1:3–4). Jeremiah had been imprisoned by Zedekiah at least at the outset of the Babylonian siege of Jerusalem which started two years earlier in 589 BC (Jeremiah 32:2; 38:28). It’s conceivable that Jeremiah, who is said to have suffered imprisonment under Zedekiah’s watch for “many days” (Jeremiah 37:16), was arrested long enough before the final siege and destruction of Jerusalem for word of his arrest to have circulated and reached Nephi. The timing in this scenario would be tight, with Nephi collecting Ishmael and his family perhaps in the eighth or ninth years of the reign of Zedekiah, but not necessarily impossible. Indeed, the fact that Nephi mentioned Jeremiah’s imprisonment only after his second trip to Jerusalem may bolster this timeframe.
• 8. For various approaches see Brown and Seely, “Jeremiah’s Imprisonment,” 15–32; Randall P. Spackman, “Was Jeremiah Imprisoned in Zedekiah’s Reign?” online at www.bookofmormonchronology.net; Chadwick, “Dating the Departure of Lehi from Jerusalem,” 7–51, esp. 39–41.
• 9. John A. Tvedtnes, “Jeremiah in Prison?”  online at www.bookofmormonresearch.org
• 10. It is true that Laman and Lemuel had not killed Laban, but did they really think that people in Jerusalem would take their word on that and let them completely off the hook?
• 11. Lehi and Jeremiah were not the only prophets who were persecuted during this volatile time. The prophet Urijah, who like Lehi and Jeremiah urged the wicked Judahites to repent, was captured and executed on the order of king Jehoiakim (Jeremiah 26:20–23). See further Book of Mormon Central, “Who Were the ‘Many Prophets’ in Jerusalem During Lehi’s Time?” KnoWhy 441 (June 14, 2018).
• 12. Spencer W. Kimball, “Listen to the Prophets,” General Conference address, April 1978, online at www.lds.org.
• 13. This was a belief accepted by Laman and Lemuel. See Neal Rappleye, “The Deuteronomist Reforms and Lehi’s Family Dynamics: A Social Context for the Rebellions of Laman and Lemuel,” Interpreter: A Journal of Mormon Scripture 16 (2015): 87–99; Book of Mormon Central, "Why Did Some in Lehi’s Time Believe that Jerusalem Could Not Be Destroyed?"KnoWhy 451 (July 19, 2018).