1 Ne 15:1-5
From Feast upon the Word (http://feastupontheword.org). Copyright, Feast upon the Word.
The Book of Mormon > First Nephi > Chapter 15
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Contents |
Questions
Verse 1
- Was Nephi looking for his father or his brethren?
Verse 2
- If they were debating something that was said five chapters earlier, how much time had already passed?
Verse 3
- Should modern-day readers find Lehi's words just as hard to understand?
Verse 4
- Why is it that the New Testament, but not the Old Testament, talks about "being grieved for the hardness of their hearts" (see Mark 3:5)?
Verse 5
- "My people." Why does Nephi use the term "my people" rather than "my descendants"? Is he more concerned here about the preservation of his seed, which would persist as a "remnant" or in the preservation of his kingdom?
Lexical notes
Verse 2
- "Dispute." This word is consistently used with a negative connotation in the Book of Mormon. See especially 3 Ne 11:28. (Note that in the New Testament the word is used sometimes without the same negative overtones. See for example Acts 19:8.)
Verse 3
- "Hard to be understood." A couple of intriguing cross-references for this phrase are Ezek 3:6 and 2 Pet 3:16 in the KJV, and Mosiah 13:32 and Alma 33:20 in the Book of Mormon. Although these passages may be interesting from a theological, translational, or linguistic perspective, a more relevant passage in terms of what may have had an effect on Nephi is Isa 6:9ff where it seems Isaiah is told to preach things that "were hard for many people to understand," as Nephi puts it in 2 Ne 25:1.
Exegesis
Verses 1-3
Nephi here contrasts his own approach to his father's teachings with his brother's. Both were confused about the meaning of what he said. Nephi's reaction was to ask God for not only an interpretation but to see what his father had seen. His brother's in contrast, "dispute" the meaning. In this context dispute might mean any number of things, but it could be a reference to a competing hermeneutic approach that prioritizes dialectic to revelation. Notice that Nephi's approach treats his father's teachings as more than a receptacle of latent meaning to be extracted. Rather, it treats it as a portal through which one comes to experience God's revelation for one's self.
Verses 4-5
Notice that Nephi here places himself within the cosmic story of history that he has just seen in vision. He is afflicted because of the "great wickedness of the children of men" and "the destruction of my people." Given that he seems to create an identity between himself and "his people" -- He is afflicted; they are destroyed -- it is possible that he also intends to identify his brothers with "the children of men" and their wickedness. Nesting himself and his brothers in the narrative of his father's teachings further emphasizes the approach taken in the previous three verses. There Nephi insisted on the recapitulation of the experience of the original prophet through personal revelation. Here he nests himself narratively rather than experientially within the story of the original revelation. The emphasis again is on the receiver of scripture not simply extracting meaning from it but experiencing it form themselves.
If Nephi is in fact silently comparing his brothers with "the wickedness of the children of men," inviting the reader to fill in the lacunae in his parallelism, it is possible that there is another incomplete parallelism that Nephi is inviting the reader to complete, namely the parallel between Nephi and Lehi as prophets and the parallel between Nephi and the reader as those that receive revelation. In other words, Nephi may be inviting the reader to seek revelation to understand his revelation and to see themselves as characters in the narrative that he is providing.
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