This is Scripture Roundtable 161 from The Interpreter Foundation, in which we discuss the Book of Mormon Gospel Doctrine Lesson #17, A Seer-Becometh a Great Benefit to His Fellow Beings, focusing on scriptures in Mosiah 7-11, bringing in various insights to help us better understand the scriptures. These roundtables will generally follow the 2016 Gospel Doctrine schedule of scriptures, a few weeks ahead of time.
Panelists for this roundtable are Steven Densley, Kristine Frederickson, Martin Tanner, Daniel Peterson, Craig Foster, and Benjamin McGuire.
This roundtable is also available as an audio podcast, and will be included in the podcast feed. You can listen by pressing the play button or download the podcast below:
Podcast: Download (Duration: 1:10:36 — 24.2MB)
Chuckle. Although there were 6 people in the “discussion,” the first 21 minutes or so were mostly dominated by one person. Then at about 21:15, that same person started to talk about overzealousness and the need to “strike a balance.”
It’s good stuff to be sure, and I was glad for all of it, but considering the lack of balance in the conversation up to that point, it was also a bit funny. 🙂
I agree
I appreciate the effort everybody puts into making these videos and podcasts.
I think one thing Mormon is doing in the Book of Mosiah is to contrast the three kings in the land of Nephi and the three parallel kings in the land of Zarahemla.
Unfortunately, we don’t have the first two chapters of the Book of Mosiah (which may cover 5-10 of chapters the size of our current chapters) where we would learn more about Mosiah1 and Benjamin. But we see the contrasts Mormon gives us:
1. Mosiah1 and Zeniff both led parties between Nephi and Zarahemla (but in opposite directions). Both had to negotiate with people already there.
2. Benjamin and Noah are clearly contrasted. Almost every characteristic of either is pretty much the opposite of the corresponding characteristic of the other. It is as if Mormon was going out of his way to contrast the two. Even their deaths are contrasted–Benjamin saw three years of his son on the throne (years of peace) while Noah had a hectic 3 years (148 to 145 BC) with Abinadi calling him to repentance then Alma an then Noah being burned at the stake in what is listed 145 BC. (I can’t help thinking these dates might be as much as 20 years too early as the events in Mosiah 19-20 and 23-24 don’t appear to cover very much time, let alone the 20+ years indicated in the headers).
3. Mosiah2 and Limhi who completed these dynasties. Both were righteous. Limhi went into obscurity after he and his people go to Zarahemla.