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The Book of Mormon > First Nephi > Chapter 13

Questions

Verse 1

• What visual representation did Nephi see of these massive geopolitical entities?

Verse 2

• Why is this the only place where a Book of Mormon prophet talks about nations and kingdoms?

Verse 3

• To whom does "Gentiles" refer?

Verse 4

• How was Nephi able to see that the religious organizations had been transformed into a new church?

Verse 5

• By "church" does this mean what we would call a religious movement vs a single church?
• What does it mean for the church to be abominable?
• How does this great and abominable church bring the "saints of God...down into captivity"?
• What does it mean to bind down and "yoketh...with a yoke of iron"?

Lexical notes

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Exegesis

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The Book of Mormon > First Nephi > Chapter 13

Questions

Verse 6

• How does the devil found a church? Don't other people have to do it for him?

Verse 7

• How was this passage influenced by Ezek 16 (see especially verses 13 and 15)?
• What do harlots have to do with the great and abominable church?

Verse 8

• What should we make of the fact that the description of the abominable church's desires focuses much more on material wealth than on sexual sin? Is it significant that the material wealth is mentioned first, and that the harlots are mentioned in what seems to be the same breath?(Cf. Jacob 2:22)

Verse 9

• What does it mean that the abominable church destroys and enslaves the saints “for the praise of the world"? How is the word “saint” being used here? How does the abominable church destroy and enslave the saints?

Verse 10

• Did Nephi and the New World prophets abandon the Old Testament practice of naming Seas?
• What does Nephi mean by "many waters"? Can we presume that he means "the ocean" or is there something else going on here?
• Is this the first intimation that Nephi might have that they will have to cross the ocean to get to their land of promise?

Lexical notes

• Many Waters According to LDS.org, this phrase occurs 24 times in scripture, including a dozen times in the Old and New Testament. In Hebrew, the word translated as "many" is rab, which can also be translated as great, much, mighty.

Exegesis

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The Book of Mormon > First Nephi > Chapter 13

Questions

Verse 11

• How long did God stay angry with the Lamanites after they rejected his gospel and killed off the Nephites?

Verse 12

• Could this "man among the Gentiles" be a role that was filled by many individuals from Europe who came to the New World in the early days of initial contact?

Verse 13

• Is Nephi saying the Holy Ghost had to work upon these Gentiles in order for them follow the Lord's will?

Verse 14

• Was this "land of promise" just one of several "lands of promise" (see 2 Ne 9:2 and 2 Ne 24:2).

Verse 15

• If the Europeans were killing the Lamanites and stealing their land, then why did they remain favored of the Lord?

Lexical notes

Verse 15

• White: This could refer to the righteousness or the skin color of the Gentiles. (See Tvedtnes article below.)

Exegesis

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Related links

Verse 12

• See De Lamar Jensen's Ensign article Columbus and the Hand of God.

Verse 15

• Tvedtnes on "white": See The Charge of "Racism" in the Book of Mormon by John A. Tvedtnes.

The Book of Mormon > First Nephi > Chapter 13

Questions

Verse 16

• Were the Europeans more humble than the indigenous peoples they encountered?

Verse 17

• Did Nephi use the image of mother Gentiles because he believed that ethnicity was transmitted from mother to child?

Verse 18

• Does this history apply only to the Indigenous Peoples of North and South America, or does it include what happened to Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders as well?

Verse 19

• Are the Gentiles in this vision primarily British or does the term also include the French and the Spanish?

Verse 20

• Was Nephi accustomed to equating plates, records, and books at this point (see 1 Ne 10:15)?

Lexical notes

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Exegesis

Verses 20-29: On the Bible

In verse 20 Nephi sees a book carried among the Gentiles. Verse 23 tells us that this book is a record of the Jews which contains "the covenants of the Lord ... made unto the house of Israel" and "many of the prophecies of the holy prophets."

It is curious that the angels speaking to Nephi talks about this book coming from "the mouth of a Jew" (vv 23, 24; emphasis added) in the singular.

Verse 24 tells us that at the point it proceeded from the mouth of a Jew "it contained the fulness of the gospel. Verse 25 tells us that it goes from the Jews "in purity unto the Gentiles." It isn't clear from the text whether this Bible (if it is proper to call it that at this point in history) still contained the fulness of the gospel. But it is clear that it didn't have anything false in it. This seems to be the point of the phrase "in purity" (v 25).

In any case, the blameworthy party for the missing parts of the Bible is identified in verse 26: the great and abominable church. The same point is then reiterated in verse 28. Verse 29 tells us that the things that were removed were "plain unto the understanding of the children of men, according to the plainness which is in the Lamb of God" and that because these things were removed "many do stumble, yea, insomuch that Satan hath great power over them." 2 Ne 25:4, 7 makes a distinction between Nephi's plainness--in which no man can err--and Isaiah's--not plain to his people but plain to those filled with the spirit of prophecy. Here "plain unto the understanding of the children of men" seems closer to the former.

One thing that is interesting about this passage is the distinction between the Jews and the Gentiles. We get a picture of the Jews protecting the plain and precious pure word of God over a long period of time, then turning it over to the Gentiles and in a relatively short period of time the great and abominable church is formed and precious parts of the scriptures are lost.

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The Book of Mormon > First Nephi > Chapter 13

Questions

Verse 21

• Was the angel really asking about the what the book contents meant or was he continuing the biblical tradition of finding "meaning" in visions (see Dan 8:15, 1 Ne 11:17, and 1 Ne 11:21)?

Verse 22

• Why didn't Nephi guess that there was a connection between the brass plates in his possession and the book he saw?

Verse 23

• Why is the singular wording, "a Jew," used in the first sentence of this verse?

• The angel says that the Bible contains the covenants of the Lord and some of the prophecies of the prophets, and he repeats that they are important because it contains the covenants of the Lord. What covenants is he referring to? Why are they important to Lehi’s people?

• The word "covenants" is used here in the singular, and yet is never used in the plural in the Old Testament (at least "covenants" never turns up in the KJV according to this search, though it shows up a couple times in the New Testament). Why does Nephi use the plural form of the word covenants and how does this relate to and differ from the meaning we should take from the Old Testament passages concerning covenant(s)?

• What can we learn about the nature, purpose(s), and character of the Bible from Nephi's description of it here?

• "Not so many." Is this saying that the Bible does not contain as many records as the plates of brass, or is there another way to read this?

• Why are the covenants that the Lord made with Israelites "of great worth unto the Gentiles"? Were other covenants made with other people (e.g., the Jaredites)? Would other such covenants be significant to the Gentiles?

Verse 24

• How much did Nephi witness and how much was elaboration from the angel?

Verse 25

• If the Bible went forth from the Jews in purity, what does that suggest about when or how things might have been removed from the record? What does it mean to say that the book went forth “in purity"? In this case is purity the same as completeness? as accuracy? or does the angel mean something else? Does “in purity” modify the book or the way that it was transmitted or . . . ?

Lexical notes

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Exegesis

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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

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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.

The Book of Mormon > First Nephi > Chapter 13

Questions

Verse 31

• How does the extinction of many tribes not count as destruction?

Verse 32

• Is this vision saying that the Gentiles were both spiritually blind and filled with the power of God?

Verse 33

• Why does mercy for the Gentiles come at the cost of death and destruction for the Lamanites?

Verse 34

• What kind of stumbling did the Europeans and Americans experience between 1492 and 1830?

Verse 35

• Did Jesus appear unto the Nephites and not unto the Lamanites?

Lexical notes

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Exegesis

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The Book of Mormon > First Nephi > Chapter 13

Questions

Verse 36

• The writings of the Book of Mormon contain “the gospel [. . .] and my rock and my salvation” (v. 36). Why does the Lord describe the gospel as “my rock"? In what other ways does he use “rock” and how might it be related to his use here? (Compare, for example, Matt 16:18.) Why does he describe the gospel as “my salvation” rather than just “salvation"?

Verse 37

• What does it mean to bring forth Zion? Is the last part of the verse ("and whoso shall publish peace . . .") parallel to the first part, making “bring forth Zion” and “publish peace” parallel? What does it mean to publish peace?

Verse 38

• Why did Nephi think that all his direct descendants were exterminated by the Lamanites?

Verse 39

• How conscious was Nephi of the fact that he was helping to produce these "other books"?

Verse 40

• Are the last records referred to here those of the Book of Mormon, or are they all of the scriptural revelations of the latter-days? How do the last records restore the plain and precious things that have been removed? Can we use the later records to figure out what things were removed from the earlier ones? The verse says that the records “shall make known the plain and precious things” and that they “shall make known [. . .] that the Lamb of God is the Son of the Eternal Father.” Are these two things intended to be parallel in meaning?

• What does it mean to be "saved" in this context?

Verse 41

• Was this a recognition or subversion of the law of witnesses?

Verse 42

• Which nations have not yet received this manifestation?

Lexical notes

• v. 37: Isa 9:6 refers to the Messiah as "The Prince of Peace." The word for peace in Hebrew used here is shalowm whose root is shalam which has the dual meaning to make whole or complete; to be repaid or recompensed. When Christ speaks of being perfect in Matt 5:48 and Matt 9:21, the Greek word for perfect here (teleios) also has a dual meaning of complete. Thus, when Nephi (quoting Isaiah) says how beautiful upon the mountains shall they who "publish peace, yea, tidings of great joy" be, "publishing peace" can be lexicographically linked to proclaiming the gospel of the Atonement which allows us sinners to be complete.

Exegesis

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• v. 37: "publish peace" is a phrase first used in Isa 52:7. Other verses using this phrase can be thought of as also quoting Isaiah (Nahum 1:15, Mosiah 12:21, Mosiah 15:14-17, Mosiah 27:37, and 3 Ne 20:40).