Full Bibliography by Title

30 pamphlets, weekly radio addresses from 7 March to 17 October.

Several maps from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries support details of Lehi’s journey as recorded in the Book of Mormon. In 1751, the renowned cartographer Jean Baptiste Bourguignon D’Anville became the first to include Nahom (or Nehem), Ishmael’s burial place in the Book of Mormon, in his map of Asia. This map and a 1771 map of Yemen are the basis for most accurate maps of Arabia from 1751 to 1814. The spelling varies among the subsequent maps, with most using either D’Anville’s Nehem or Niebuhr’s Nehhm, but the location of Nahom does not differ between those maps that include Nahom. The mention of Nahom on the finest maps by the greatest cartographers of the times, in a location that corresponds to Lehi’s account, gives credence to Lehi’s travels.

I have had a dream—I have seen Temple Hill filled with buildings—great temples of learning, and I have decided to remain and do my part. — Karl G. Maeser

Points out that there were major contacts between the American continent and Asia, European, and Mediterranean peoples before Columbus.

Throughout the Bible, understanding the meaning of names of important people and places is often crucial to understanding the message of the ancient authors. In other words, names of people and places serve as \"key-words\" that can help unlock the intended messages of scripture.Since the Book of Mormon is an ancient record rooted in Old Testament traditions, it is not surprising that similar patterns of wordplay emerge from its pages. Besides their important tole as key-words in scriptural interpretation, the names of people and places may also provide our clearest glimpses into the text that existed on the plates from which Joseph Smith translated the Book of Mormon. In many instances, the names of important Book of Mormon people and places are directly related to words matching the most-likely Hebrew and Egyptian origins for those names. Textual and contextual clues suggest that this matching was done deliberately in order to enhance literary beauty and as an aid to understanding. In some cases, authorial wordplay can be verified by a close analysis of matching text structures. In others, the wordplay can be verified by using the Bible as a \"control\" text. A wealth of philological, onomastic, and textual evidence suggests that the Book of Mormon, like the Bible, is the work of ancient authors rather than of a rural nineteenth-century man of limited literary attainments. Knowing more about these names enriches our understanding of the stories that these authors tell.

A brief report on the possible origins and meaning of select Book of Mormon proper names—i.e., Mormon, Cumorah, Shiblon, and Mosiah

A brief report on the possible origins and meaning of select Book of Mormon proper names—i.e., Mormon, Cumorah, Shiblon, and Mosiah.

This article argues that the appellation “Moroni” shows up in Asia, the Americas, and even in Paul’s exclamation “maranatha” (1 Cor. 16:22).

The Book of Mormon clearly teaches the name of Jesus’ church and outlines the requirements of membership. One must be willing to take the name of Christ upon him or herself and enter into covenants with nim.

When we willingly follow the counsel of the Lord as revealed through His living prophet, especially if it runs counter to our initial thinking, requiring humility and sacrifice, the Lord blesses us with additional spiritual power.

This first of two volumes of essays honoring Hugh Nibley includes scholarly papers based on what the contributors have learned from Dr. Nibley. Nearly every major subject that he has encompassed in his vast learning and scholarly production is represented here by at least one article. Topics include the influence of Nibley, Copts and the Bible, the Seventy in scripture, the great apostasy, the book of Daniel in early Mormon thought, an early Christian initiation ritual, John’s Apocalypse, ancient Jewish seafaring, Native American rites of passage, Sinai as sanctuary and mountain of God, the Qurʾan and creation ex nihilo, and the sacred handclasp and embrace.
Explores the connection between a name and the existence of the thing it refers to.

This book is the first ever comprehensive study of the nearly 400 proper names and foreign words in the Book of Mormon, the results of more than ten years of cooperative investigation by individuals with expertise in the languages of the ancient world. This dictionary contains an extensive examination of the etymologies of each of the names and foreign terms in the Book of Momon.

Unlike the Old and New Testaments, where a variety of Hebrew and Greek texts exist to aid us, for the Book of Mormon we have only the King James English translation produced by Joseph Smith. The languages of the Book of Mormon were hardly the same throughout the original composition. Chadwick continues the onomastic discussion of the names Lehi and Sariah by suggesting that the Book of Mormon name Lehi matches the spelling in the King James Bible in the place-name Ramath-lehi; therefore the two must necessarily represent the same Hebrew term. He agrees with one of Hoskisson’s meanings for Lehi’s name— “jaw”— and indicates this may be a nickname rather than a proper name. Sariah is attested as a female name in a Near Eastern document. Although not found as a female name in the Bible, it is well documented as a male name in ancient Israel. In this light, the name means “Jehovah is Prince,” meaning Jehovah is the son of a king.

John W. Welch, “Narrating Homicide Chiastically: Why Scriptures about Killings Use Chiasmus,” examines eight chiastic structures that pertain to homicides—three legal texts and five homicide narratives. The legal texts include “The Case of the Blasphemer (Leviticus 24:13–23)” and “The Law of Homicide (Numbers 35).” The narratives include “Abimelech’s Killing of Seventy of His Brothers (Judges 9:56–57)”; “The Case of Phinehas (Numbers 25)”; and “The Slaying of Laban (1 Nephi 4:4–27).” Welch concludes that these eight structures assist readers in recognizing the broader context of each homicide passage and “to discern the key central point on which the case turns.” Welch’s paper also contributes on a further level by cataloguing thirteen possible reasons why authors employed chiasmus when narrating a homicide. These purposes include, “propelling logic and persuasiveness,” “creating order,” “restoring equilibrium,” “processing circumstances,” “probing relevancy,” and “reinforcing memory.”

One of the first projects Joseph Smith undertook after the organization of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in April 1830 was a translation of the Bible. Although it was not a typical translation from original Greek or Hebrew manuscripts, the project was often called a “translation” nonetheless. The Joseph Smith Translation, or JST as it is often called, was referred to by the Lord in the Doctrine and Covenants as “the new translation of my holy word” (D&C 124:89). At the top of the manuscript of the revision of Matthew, it reads, “A translation of the New Testament translated by the power of God.”

There is a striking example of a “narrative” type call in the prophetic commission of Enoch in Moses 6:23–36. This study considers the elements of the narrative call pattern; those elements of this form found in the prophetic commission of Enoch are examined and compared with the biblical narrative call passages.
The report of the prophetic vocation of Enoch in the book of Moses accords with impressive consistency with the call narratives in the Bible. All of the elements of the prophetic call pattern isolated and examined by Habel in the calls of Moses, Gideon, and Jeremiah are also found in the Enoch passage; with one minor exception, the order of the elements in the vocation of Enoch is the same as in the call accounts recorded in the Bible. This additional authenticating detail places Enoch more securely in the tradition of the prophets and the book of Moses more firmly in the form and tradition of the prophetic literature.

This paper suggests the use of narrative criticism, a recent literary interpretive tool, as a favorable method of Book of Mormon interpretation. As an example of narrative interpretation, the narrative by Samuel the Lamanite in Helaman 13–16 is analyzed as a discrete narrative portion of the Book of Mormon for the exploration of the possibilities of a narrative critical approach to its text. Instead of focusing on the content of Samuel’s exhortations, lamentations, and prophecies in order to understand these passages, I interpret the surrounding narrative and find it serves as an impressive complement to the doctrinal content of Samuel’s discourse.

The Book of Helaman is a segment of the Book of Mormon whose study is both imperative and complicated in underappreciated ways. The imperative behind the book of Helaman’s study lies in the text’s significance for the self-conception of the Book of Mormon as well as its mythmaking function for the early Saints in their imaginative mapping of the American West. Like the Book of Mormon, Helaman traffics in buried texts that disclose signs and covenants and makes explicit the latent Lamanite frame that undergirds the Book of Mormon as a whole. It presents, as well, the Book of Mormon’s most robust account of secret combinations-a group that then entranced the text’s earliest readers to such a degree that they used this characterization to imbue their landscape with religious significance, describing the mountains surrounding the Salt Lake Valley as “the abode of the spirits of Gadianton robbers.” To understand the Book of Mormon’s sense of itself as a material artifact, to clarify the theological status of the Lamanites, and to explore the way the Book of Mormon helped sculpt a sense of place for early Latter-day Saints, close attention to the book of Helaman is an unavoidable prerequisite.

This article demonstrates certain similarities existing between texts in 1 Nephi in the Book of Mormon and a little-known document entitled “The Narrative of Zosimus.” The Narrative’s core material was written originally in Hebrew and appears to be at least as old as the time of Christ, and perhaps much older. There is no evidence that any knowledge about the Narrative of Zosimus existed in any English-speaking land prior to the publication of the Book of Mormon.

Hydrogeologist and geoarchaeologist Michael Hobby and geoarchaeologist Troy Smith recount experiences as they investigate the Panama region for possible evidence for the narrowest point in pre-Columbian times. This report includes maps and photographs.

Reviews the story of Captain Moroni (Alma 46) as an example of a righteous leader, student of the scriptures, man of faith, and a “champion of human liberty”

A doctrinal treatise that attempts to show that the Japanese are descendants of the house of Israel, some of whom may be descended from Lehi, a Book of Mormon prophet.

This paper probes the theories of the origin of the American Indian up to the time of the translation and publication of the Book of Mormon. It covers some three hundred years of development, looking at many different theories, including the predominant theory of the lost tribes of Israel, which was in decline among most leading scientific observers in the early nineteenth century. The paper covers new ground in showing that Professor Samuel L. Mitchill, formerly of Columbia College, had concluded that two main groups of people once dominated the Americas—the Tartars of northern Asia and the Australasians of the Polynesian islands. Furthermore, they fought one another for many years, culminating in great battles of extermination in what later became upstate New York. This New York theory has much in common with the Book of Mormon. While visiting Professor Charles Anthon in New York in 1828, Martin Harris also met with Mitchill, an encounter that lent support to Harris’s work on the Book of Mormon.

A poem that speaks about the coming forth of the Book of Mormon in the last day.

This first of two volumes of essays honoring Hugh Nibley includes scholarly papers based on what the contributors have learned from Dr. Nibley. Nearly every major subject that he has encompassed in his vast learning and scholarly production is represented here by at least one article. Topics include the influence of Nibley, Copts and the Bible, the Seventy in scripture, the great apostasy, the book of Daniel in early Mormon thought, an early Christian initiation ritual, John’s Apocalypse, ancient Jewish seafaring, Native American rites of passage, Sinai as sanctuary and mountain of God, the Qurʾan and creation ex nihilo, and the sacred handclasp and embrace.
A comparison of Native American rituals with rituals in The Church of Jesus Christ of latter-day Saints.

Discourse by Elder George Q. Cannon, delivered at Hyde Park, Sunday Evening, November 2, 1879. Reported By: Geo. F. Gibbs.

Receive the Lord’s servants. If we receive the Lord’s servants, we receive the Lord. Whenever we are obedient to the law upon which a blessing is based, it will be delivered.

King Benjamin stated that “the natural man is an enemy to God, and has been since the fall of Adam” (Mosiah 3:19). Brigham Young declared mankind God’s noblest work, but when Adam and Eve fell from the presence of God they were brought into an unnatural state, in contact with influences of an evil nature. The “natural man” spoken of by King Benjamin is equivalent to President Young’s “unnatural man.” Both refer to mankind that has been estranged from God.

Discourse by President John Taylor, delivered at Kaysville, on Sunday Afternoon, March 2, 1879. Reported By: Geo. F. Gibbs.

Gary Novak explains the problems caused by looking at religious history through naturalistic assumptions. He uses the naturalistic writings of Dale Morgan and Fawn Brodie to show that such assumptions exclude God from the writing of history, transforming the meaning of faith and eroding collective religious memory.He looks at biases created when Marvin Hill and Leonard Arrington adopt naturalistic assumptions into their writing.

Joseph Smith and his followers declared the Book of Mormon’s supernatural origin—that it was a divinely inspired translation of an ancient-American record, acquired by Joseph through visions and the help of an angel. This explanation, however, was widely rejected by outsiders from the outset. Within weeks after the Book of Mormon’s first pages came off the press, critics promoted “naturalistic explanations”—so called because they are based on scientific observation or natural phenomena—that rejected the possibility of a divine, supernatural origin of the Book of Mormon. To varying degrees, these naturalistic theories continue to be perpetuated today. This article examines the most popular naturalistic explanations for the Book of Mormon longitudinally, which will enable readers to better understand them and why they have waxed and waned in popularity over time.

We may rest assured that our Father knows all things and He does all that He does out of love. And He does what is best for us from an eternal perspective.

Describes the nature and origin of the Book of Mormon as well as the Doctrine and Covenants.

In this work the Book of Mormon is seen in a new perspective; we see it in a world setting, not in a mere local one. It takes its place naturally alongside the Bible and other great works of antiquity and becomes one of them.
The long summary at the end of this chapter tells what it is about. It is a general picture of Nephite culture, which turns out to be a very different sort of thing from what is commonly imagined. The Nephites were a small party of migrants laden with a very heavy and complete cultural baggage. Theirs was a mixed culture. In America they continued their nomadic ways and lived always close to the wilderness, while at the same time building cities and cultivating the soil. Along with much local migration attending their colonization of the new lands, these people were involved in a major population drift towards the north. Their society was organized along hierarchical lines, expressed in every phase of their social activity.

The Book of Mormon is a book about God. It provides one of the most powerful treatments of the nature of God of any other book in Latter-day Saint scripture. Robert Millet puts forth arguments to show that the Book of Mormon does not depict only one God. Jesus Christ is the central character, but the fact that there is a God separate from Christ comes through early on.

Remarks by President Brigham Young, Delivered in the Tabernacle, Great Salt Lake City, July 3, 1859. Reported By: G. D. Watt.

Remarks by President John Taylor, delivered in the Tabernacle, Ogden, Sunday Afternoon, July 20, 1884. Reported By: John Irvine.

Claims that Joseph Smith and Sidney Rigdon entered into an early conspiracy that led to the Book of Mormon. Discusses the role of the Three Witnesses, referring especially to the “feeble and superstitious mind” of Martin Harris.

Claims that Joseph Smith and Sidney Rigdon entered into an early conspiracy that led to the Book of Mormon. Discusses the role of the Three Witnesses, referring especially to the “feeble and superstitious mind” of Martin Harris.

Winner of the Harvey B. Black and Susan Easton Black Outstanding Publication Award (Gospel Scholarship in Church History and Doctrine), this comprehensive family history reference book describes hundreds of genealogical and historical resources for Nauvoo, Hancock County, and west-central Illinois. It includes descriptions of original records, primary and secondary sources, computer databases, finding aids, guides, websites, indexes, manuscript collections, newspapers, oral histories, historical and genealogical periodicals, library collections, and much more. It also includes an extensive bibliography of genealogical, local history, and historical resources. This research guide will benefit archivists, genealogists, family historians, historians, reference librarians, and others who study Illinois genealogy and local history and Latter-day Saint history. ISBN 978-0-8425-2857-3

The Doctrine of Salvation (the Doctrine of Christ) is found clearly in the Book of Mormon and the Doctrine of Exaltation (the Nauvoo Doctrine or Doctrine of the Father), which deals with temple ordinances, is present in the Book of Mormon. The Book of Mormon does reveal and illuminate the “covenant which God the Father made to the Patriarchs Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob . . . the ‘work of the Father’ (1 Nephi 14:17)”

A Speech by Mr. George A. Smith, Delivered in the Tabernacle, Great Salt Lake City, on the Anniversary of the Fourth of July, 1852. Reported By: G. D. Watt.

The story of the Nauvoo Temple is one fraught with adversity, struggle, persecution, and heartbreak. Latter-day Saints freely sacrificed their time, their money, their talents–and some even gave their lives–to build a holy place of covenant and worship—only to be forced to abandon their sacred temple, leaving it to be desecrated and destroyed by unbelievers. Yet, it is also a story of faith, triumph, and unwavering dedication to the holy work of the Lord. The construction of the Nauvoo Temple proved to be a spiritual blessing to the people who built it, and it continues to be an inspiration to millions of Church members today. This volume combines newspaper accounts, historic writings, private journals, letters, photos, and original architectural drawing and other illustrations. ISBN 1-5915-6014-4

An exposé of Mormonism. Among other things the author criticizes the Book of Mormon for containing King James English and containing “monstrous fictions” The Spaulding manuscript is suggested to be the original basis for the Book of Mormon.

It is my belief that we can obtain this goal of celestial glory as we seek and follow the divine feedback that comes through the still, small voice of the Holy Ghost.

There are few figures in the history of Islamic thought whose stature can rival that of Ibn Sina (980–1037), or Avicenna, as he came to be known in the Latin West. Educated at Bukhara, in modern-day Uzbekistan, Avicenna was, by his own admission, a prodigy and recognized as such early on. If there is a certain lack of modesty in his making that claim, there is no disputing that he had the credentials to back it up. He was forced by the turbulent politics of his day to move a number of times, but through it all he never stopped practicing medicine or writing treatises in his native Persian, as well as in Arabic. Avicenna’s output was massive, and his many contributions to fields as diverse as medicine, philosophy, and mysticism were groundbreaking and precedent setting and remain influential (and sometimes controversial) to this day.

Discourse by Apostle Erastus Snow, delivered in the Tabernacle, Logan, Saturday Afternoon, February 2, 1884. Reported By: John Irvine.

Parallels between sickle swords and two-bladed knives in ancient Mesoamerica and the Near East may strengthen the possibility of some historical link between the areas. Similarities in weapons terminology may also lead to fruitful research.

The prophetic counsel to read the Book of Mormon daily has not been reversed. Coming nearer to God is the very reason for reading its pages.

From living in a dugout called the Castle of Spiders to eating so many weeds their skin took on a green cast to losing four children in just a few weeks to diphtheria, nearly everything imaginable happened to the Mormon settlers of Utah Territory. Here are the details of the lives of the common people⿿what they ate, wore, lived in, and celebrated, how they worshipped, and why they endured. Here are the details of the lives of the common people, those who traveled in the dust of the leaders. What they ate, wore, lived in, and celebrated. How they worshiped. Why they endured. This volume begins with Marlin K. Jensen’s eulogy of the uncommonly heroic common Saint. Twenty-one renowned historians then apply nearly every type of source and method imaginable to capture pioneer life’s ordinary rhythms and cycles. In Nearly Everything Imaginable, you’ll find hundreds of vignettes from Utah’s early settlers, including these: Old and young would gather for dancing; everybody came early and left about the midnight hour. The bedrooms opening from the hall were generally filled with babies snugly tucked away, while the mothers enjoyed the dance. The huge fireplaces at either end of the hall were piled high with dry cedar fagots, the flames from which leaped and danced up the chimneys. Candles held in place by three nails driven into wooden brackets were ranged high along the walls. Tickets were paid for in any kind of produce that the fiddlers could be induced to accept. Usually a couple of two-bushel sacks could be seen near the door, into which the dancers deposited their contributions. Father made a plow out of a big forked stock and we boys held it in place while our father pulled it. The stock plow was made of quaking aspen. He fastened it to himself by a strap. We plowed two and a half acres that way, and planted wheat. I always remembered that picture of my father doing the work of a horse.

Remarks by President Brigham Young, Delivered in the Bowery, Great Salt Lake City, July 26, 1857. Reported By: G. D. Watt, J. V. Long.

“A medida que actuamos con fe, Dios promete investirnos verdaderamente con Su poder, sí, el poder necesario para vencer los desafíos espirituales de nuestros días a fin de poder entrar en la presencia de Dios y recibir la plenitud de las bendiciones de la exaltación”.

Discourse by Elder Lorenzo Snow, delivered at a Two Days’ Meeting Held By the St. George Stake of Zion, in the Temple, at St. George, Thursday Morning, April 5, 1877. Reported By: Geo. F. Gibbs.

A Discourse by President Brigham Young, Delivered in Great Salt Lake City, March 8, 1857. Reported By: G. D. Watt.

Discourse by President Brigham Young, delivered in the Bowery, Great Salt Lake City, October 6, 1863. Reported By: G. D. Watt.

Remarks by President Heber C. Kimball, Delivered in the Tabernacle, Great Salt Lake City, January 27, 1856. Reported By: G. D. Watt.

Remarks by President Brigham Young, delivered in the Bowery, Great Salt Lake City, October 7, 1864. Reported By: G. D. Watt.

Remarks by Elder Wilford Woodruff, Delivered in the Bowery, Great Salt Lake City, Thursday, April 9, 1857. Reported By: G. D. Watt, J. V. Long.

Discourse by President George A. Smith, delivered in the New Tabernacle, Salt Lake City, June 21, 1868. Reported By: David W. Evans.

An Oration by President Brigham Young, Delivered on the Southeast Corner Stone of the Temple at Great Salt Lake City, after the First Presidency and the Patriarch had laid the Stone, April 6, 1853 Reported By: G. D. Watt.

Remarks by President Brigham Young, delivered in the Bowery, Great Salt Lake City, Nov. 6, 1864. Reported By: G. D. Watt.

Discourse by Apostle Francis M. Lyman, delivered in the Assembly Hall, Salt Lake City, Sunday Afternoon, Feb. 24, 1884. Reported By: John Irvine.

A Discourse by President Brigham Young, Delivered in the Bowery, Great Salt Lake City, October 8, 1855. Reported By: G. D. Watt.

Remarks by President Daniel H. Wells, delivered in the Old Tabernacle, Salt Lake City, March 22, 1868. Reported By: David W. Evans.

Discourse by Elder Orson Pratt, delivered in the New Tabernacle, Salt Lake City, Sunday Morning, July, 13, 1873. Reported By: David W. Evans.

Remarks by President Brigham Young, delivered in the New Tabernacle, April 6, 1868. Reported By: G. D. Watt.

Remarks by Elder Wilford Woodruff, Delivered in the Tabernacle, Great Salt Lake City, Sunday, January 25, 1857. Reported By: J. V. Long.

A Discourse by Elder Ezra T. Benson, Delivered at the Seventies’ Conference in the Tabernacle, Great Salt Lake City, February 16, 1853. Reported By: G. D. Watt.

Remarks by President Brigham Young, made in the Tabernacle, Great Salt Lake City, January 26, 1862. Reported By: G. D. Watt.

Remarks by Elder Lorenzo Snow, delivered in the Tabernacle, Salt Lake City, October 9, 1867. Reported By: David W. Evans.

Discourse by Elder George Q. Cannon, delivered in the Tabernacle, Salt Lake City, on Sunday Morning, July 20, 1879. Reported By: John Irvine.

Remarks by President Brigham Young, made in the Bowery, Great Salt Lake City, Sunday p.m., July 17, 1864. Reported By: E. L. Sloan.

Remarks by President Brigham Young, Delivered in the Tabernacle, Great Salt Lake City, March 2, 1862. Reported By: G. D. Watt.

Remarks by Elder Wilford Woodruff, made in the Tabernacle, Great Salt Lake City, April 8, 1862. Reported By: J. V. Long.

A Discourse by President Brigham Young, Delivered in the Tabernacle, Great Salt Lake City, May 6, 1855. Reported By: G. D. Watt.

A Discourse by President Brigham Young, Delivered in the Tabernacle, Great Salt Lake City, March 2, 1856. Reported By: G. D. Watt.

Remarks by President Heber C. Kimball, made in the Tabernacle, Great Salt Lake City, April 7, 1862. Reported By: G. D. Watt.

Remarks by President Brigham Young, Delivered at a Special Conference held in the Tabernacle, Great Salt Lake City, August 28, 1852. Reported By: G. D. Watt.

A Sermon by President Brigham Young, Delivered in the Tabernacle, Great Salt Lake City, May 22, 1859. Reported By: G. D. Watt.

Discourse by Elder George A. Smith, delivered in the Tabernacle, Great Salt Lake City, April 7, 1862. Reported By: J. V. Long.

Remarks by Elder George Q. Cannon, delivered in the Bowery, Great Salt Lake City, April 7, 1867. Reported By: David W. Evans.

Remarks by Elder Wilford Woodruff, delivered in the Bowery, Great Salt Lake City, April 7, 1867. Reported By: David W. Evans.

The scriptures clearly teach the origin and need for a church directed by and with the authority of our Lord, Jesus Christ.

Describes the true meaning of the word apologetics and how Hugh Nibley used it to strengthen the Church.

Why do any of us have to be so mean and unkind to others? Why can’t all of us reach out in friendship to everyone about us?

Key historical events in the scriptures require historicity to give substance to our faith. Since the Enlightenment, however, some scholars have proclaimed that the scriptures lack historicity. In the face of these doubts, some have argued that historicity is not necessary for belief. Latter-day Saints should be wary of the misleading arguments of critics and of simplistic solutions to those arguments.

Discourse by President George Q. Cannon, delivered in the Tabernacle, Salt Lake City, Sunday Afternoon, July 15, 1883. Reported By: John Irvine.

Types in the scriptures are important for us to understand in order to get all we can from the scriptures. The Lehite’s journey in the wilderness is a type of our spiritual journey, Nephite warfare descriptions are types, and the 158 years between Mosiah2 and the coming of Christ is a type of the period of restoration and the second coming.

Types are a pattern for the future and reveal an understanding that God is in control. Every future event between the present and the millennium has been foretold through types in the scriptures. Types contained in the Book of Mormon include Lehi’s journey in the wilderness, Nephites/Lamanites, warfare, and the 158 years between Mosiah as king and the coming of Christ.

Some of the most significant needs we can meet are within our own families, among our friends, in our wards, and in our communities.

Much research has been devoted to identifying and examining language patterns in the Book of Mormon that appear to reflect the book’s underlying Semitic character. One possible Hebraism in the Book of Mormon that has not received attention is the use of negative rhetorical questions when a positive meaning is intended. Some modern Bible translations now translate these negative questions in a positive or even emphatic way. This rhetorical device occurs in English, but it is stronger and more com-mon in biblical Hebrew.

A Discourse by President Brigham Young, Delivered in the Tabernacle, Great Salt Lake City, November 22, 1857. Reported By: G. D. Watt.

Examines the Book of Mormon as a literary document in the context of the early nineteenth century and views it as a reflection of those naturalistic influences.

To increase your wisdom and stature, you will exercise your agency. You will choose your teachers and your role models. Choose them wisely.

When authors use the rhetorical device of literary allusion, they not only teach through their own words but also attach to their own text meanings and interpretations from the alluded text. This is true of Nephi’s allusion to the account of David and Goliath in Nephi’s own account of his killing Laban, which allusion is generally of a thematic nature. A few of the main thematic parallels between the two accounts are that both unbelieving Israel and Laman and Lemuel are fearful of the main antagonist, both David and Nephi prophesy the death of their opponent, and both Goliath and Laban have their heads cut off and armor stripped. The implications of this allusion run deep. At a time in which the right to kingship was continually in dispute between Nephi and Laman, Nephi casting himself as David—the archetypal king of Judah, whose faith led to his supplanting Saul—could be seen as legitimizing his regal authority over Laman.

Asherah was the chief goddess of the Canaanites. She was El’s wife and the mother and wet nurse of the other gods. At least some Israelites worshipped her over a period from the conquest of Canaan in the second millennium before Christ to the fall of Jerusalem in 586 BC (the time of Lehi’s departure with his family). Asherah was associated with trees—sacred trees. The rabbinic authors of the Jewish Mishna (second–third century ad) explain the asherah as a tree that was worshipped. In 1 Nephi 11, Nephi considers the meaning of the tree of life as he sees it in vision. In answer, he receives a vision of “a virgin, . . . the mother of the Son of God, after the manner of the flesh.” The answer to his question about the meaning of the tree lies in the virgin mother with her child. The virgin is the tree in some sense and Nephi accepted this as an answer to his question. As an Israelite living at the end of the seventh century and during the early sixth century before Christ, he recognized an answer to his question about a marvelous tree in the otherwise unexplained image of a virginal mother and her divine child—not that what he saw and how he interpreted those things were perfectly obvious. What he “read” from the symbolic vision was culturally colored. Nephi’s vision reflects a meaning of the “sacred tree” that is unique to the ancient Near East. Asherah is also associated with biblical wisdom literature. Wisdom, a female, appears as the wife of God and represents life.

A children’s story of Nephi making a new bow to feed his family while they were in the wilderness.

One of the best-known sections of the Book of Mormon tells the story of the journey of Lehi and his family from Jerusalem to the new promised land in the American continent. Yet, since the small plates were intended to contain the “things of God” (1 Nephi 6:4), why was this account included on the small plates while other things that seem to be more the “things of God” (such as the “many things which [Lehi] saw in visions and in dreams”—1 Nephi 1:16) were left out? Quite probably, Nephi, the author of this section, consciously wrote his account of the wilderness journey in a way that would remind the reader of the Exodus of the children of Israel from Egypt. He did this to prove that God loved and cared for the Nephites, just as the Exodus from Egypt was proof of God’s favor for the children of Israel. Therefore, this story of the journey truly is about the things of God and does belong on the small plates.

Nephi was a younger son of a wealthy family. As one who might not inherit his father's business, it is possible that he was trained for another profession. One of the high-status professions open to him would have been a scribe. Beyond the fact that Nephi produced at least three written works (1 Nephi, 2 Nephi, and the nonextant large-plate book of Lehi), there are other evidences in his writing that betray the kind of traning scribes received. His early professional training may have been an important preparation for his later role in establishing his people as a true people of the book.

A children’s story of Nephi building a ship to travel to the promised land.

A children’s story of how Nephi built a ship because he was commanded to by the Lord. It is important to obey the commandments.

Nephi, son of Helaman, confronts the wicked judges (Helaman 6-9).

Mentions the usage of the writings of Isaiah in the Book of Mormon and explains why Latter-day Saints should study Isaiah.

Nephi was raised in Jerusalem and the temple of Solomon would have had a great deal of religious significance is his life.