This week for Come, Follow Me lesson 35 covering Helaman 1-6, we have lectures 73 through 78 from Hugh Nibley’s Book of Mormon classes at Brigham Young University, covering Alma 62–Helaman 10.

During 1988, 1989, and 1990, Hugh Nibley taught Honors Book of Mormon classes for four semesters at Brigham Young University. The lectures were video-taped and audio cassettes and printed transcripts were made of the lectures. We believe these recordings will be interesting to listen to and valuable to your Come, Follow Me study program this year. Each week, we will include the lectures covering the Book of Mormon chapters being studied that week.

All 112 lectures are immediately available in PDF, audio, video, and electronic formats, as well as in paperback books that are available for purchase. Links for all of the available online sources can be found in the Complete Bibliography for Hugh Nibley at https://interpreterfoundation.org/bibliographies/hugh-w-nibley/lectures/.

Lecture 73: Book of Mormon—Alma 62–Helaman 1.

Also called “Book of Mormon Names.”
The plot thickens now as we get closer and closer to home. We are in Alma 62. Of course, Moroni was very, very glad and relieved to receive Pahoran’s letter. I wonder if he felt cheap or something when he found out he had been completely wrong after all the shouting, raving, and ranting against Pahoran. His heart was filled with exceedingly great joy to find out that he wasn’t a traitor, as he thought he was. He really jumped the gun that time. But at the same time “he did also mourn exceedingly.” Moroni is something of a manic-depressive, isn’t he? He’s an overachiever, he’s a military genius, and he only lives a very short life. He just wears himself out, I think. He’s that sort of person. We get these beautiful character delineations in the Book of Mormon. We learn that things are often wrong with the world, but [we should] be careful how we place the blame. We don’t want to do things like that.

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Lecture 74: Book of Mormon—Helaman 1–3.

Also called “Geography and Ecology.”
We’re in the first chapter of Helaman, and we’ve just come to Coriantumr’s exploit where he marched right into Zarahemla. The reason he could do it is because there was so much social unrest in Zarahemla. This Coriantumr was the leader, and he was appointed leader by the son of Ammoron who was the brother of that rascal Amalickiah. Tubaloth is a nephew of Amalickiah, and he was put in charge of things, but he put Coriantumr in charge.

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Lecture 75: Book of Mormon—Helaman 3–6.

Also called “Apostasy; The Gospel and World Religions.”
We begin with Helaman 3:30: “And land their souls, yea, their immortal souls, at the right hand of God in the kingdom of heaven, to sit down with Abraham, and Isaac, and with Jacob, and with all our holy fathers, to go no more out.” To sit down—it uses that a number of times in the Book of Mormon. Remember, you’re invited to go into the tent and sit down—have place with us. What he’s talking about is the old Mosaic law, which was abolished after Lehi left Jerusalem and the temple was destroyed. It was never the same after that. These people were familiar with the old custom—that going in and sitting down with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob is very important.

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Lecture 76: Book of Mormon—Helaman 6.

Also called “Crime; Secret Societies; Egyptian Mythology on the Origin of the World.”
We are on the sixth chapter of Helaman now. It is one of those epoch chapters; it’s like chapter 46 and others. If this was all we had of the Book of Mormon, it would be enough to attest to its authenticity right down to the ground. This is a chapter on crime. It starts out happily and then suddenly things go sour.

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Lecture 77: Book of Mormon—Helaman 6.

Also called “Modern Wickedness; Cain and the Origin of Secret Combinations.”
The Nephites were getting rich so they didn’t need wars anymore. They were rather happy about it. With riches of the world they hadn’t been stirred up to bloodshed nationally, so they got rich and were stirred up to private bloodshed. Their wars are lowered to a private level now. They are going to start doing that sort of thing, and then we get our prime time, as I mentioned before. “. . . to commit secret murders, and to rob and to plunder, that they might get gain.”

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Lecture 78: Book of Mormon—Helama 6–10.

Also called “Great Rulers in History.”
In the sixth chapter the Nephites have gotten wicked again. Remember, the Lamanites wiped out the Gadiantons simply by preaching the gospel to them. That may seem extravagant to us. But the Nephites went on getting more and more wicked, and then see what happened. Why did they do this? Because they didn’t work at being righteous. You have to fast and pray and things like that. The Lord had blessed them, and this is the reason. They liked prosperity.

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