Talk:Mosiah 25:6-10

From Feast upon the Word (http://feastupontheword.org). Copyright, Feast upon the Word.

I have a question about Mosiah 25:6. It suggests that Alma and his people had been in Zarahemla, but my reading of the Book of Mormon indicates that they were never there. Any ideas?

I haven't yet checked to see what others might have said about this already on the Internet. So you might want to look around. I think this is the type of question sometimes addressed in anti-anti-mormon literature and there tends to be quite a bit of good thought put into those types of responses so I'm thinking you might find something. But anyway, in the meantime, here's how I interpret this. If we look back at verse 5 we see that Mosiah read the "records of Zeniff" from the time he and his people left Zarahemla to the time they returned. Of course Zeniff himself never returned to Zarahemla. But his people do return when his grandson, Limhi, is leading the people. So clearly Zeniff didn't write this entire record, but, nevertheless, the record is called the records of Zeniff. What verse 6 says is that Mosiah also read another record. He calls this "the account of Alma and his brethren." And as I read this verse the account of Alma and his brethren does not begin at the point that Alma leaves Noah's people. For both groups the critical "beginning" it seems is the time that they leave Zarahemla. In both cases the record covers a longer period of time than the life of the person the account is named after. Hope this helps. --Matthew Faulconer 07:15, 10 July 2008 (CEST)