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1 Ne 13:28)
The Book of Mormon > First Nephi > Chapter 13
Questions
Verse 26
- To whom does "they" refer to in the phrase "they have taken away from the gospel of the Lamb many parts which are plain and most precious"? Is "they" the Jews who Jacob tells us "despised the words of plainness"? Or, is "they" the Gentiles since verse 25 tells us that "these things [went] forth from the Jews in purity unto the Gentiles"?
- Does this verse tell us that the abominable church is abominable because it has taken away plain and precious parts? Are “many parts which are plain and most precious” and “many covenants” two different things that have been removed, or is this a case of parallelism in which the second item in the parallel tells us what the first item means? In what ways could one remove a covenant from the Bible?
- Is there a difference between proceeding forth from the "mouth" of a Jew or from the "hands" of the Apostles?
Verse 27
- If they had such an evil agenda, then how was so much good left in the Bible?
Verse 28
- Does "the book" of verses 24 and 28 refer to what we call the Bible today, or could it refer to something else?
Verse 29
- Many stumble because the plain things have been removed from the book. Is that stumbling apostasy or something else?
Verse 30
- At the end of verse 30 and in verse 31, the Lord promises that he will not allow the Gentiles to utterly destroy the seed of Nephi and his brethren. Why would Nephi find such a promise comforting rather than disheartening?
Lexical notes
- Click the edit link above and to the right to add lexical notes
Exegesis
Verse 26 says that it was those in the great and abominable church that took away the plain and most precious things from the gospel. Further it indicates that this church was formed after the things in the bible went forth from the hand of the twelve apostles. Further, verse 25 says that when these things went from the Jews unto the Gentiles they were pure "according to the truth which is in God." In sum verses 25 and 26 indicate that the plain and precious things were taken from the bible sometime after the resurrection of Jesus Christ. However, since the bible as we know it was not compiled until several centuries after the resurrection, it is difficult to determine from these passages exactly when the changes occurred or who was responsible for making the changes.
Related links
- Bart Ehrman's Misquoting Jesus discusses how the Biblical canon was formed and transmitted in the early days of Christianity.
