danithew,

I don’t know about you but I see a distinct break in the “story” between 1 Nephi and 2 Nephi. Near the end of 1 Nephi, the gang arrive on the American continent. Nephi finishes up the book with some more prophesying, concluding, somewhat, the underlying themes brought up from about Nephi 11 on.

2 Nephi starts with Lehi instructing his children before he dies. For continuity, it doesn’t fit in 1 Nephi, because the death of Lehi causes the breakup of his family, with Laman and Lemuel attempting to assert their rule over the rest. Continuity wise, this doesn’t fit into 1 Nephi.

I guess I just see two acts in Nephi’s life. One act is leaving Jerusalem and arriving in America, and the 2nd act being his rule over his people.

Certainly Mormon could have kept it all in one story but he chose not to. Or maybe it was Nephi himself who wrote it in two separate books. I think, from reading 1 Nephi, we can see that he wrote it after they arrived in America. Perhaps he did not write the second section until much later in his life…

Hi Dan,

I was my understanding that Nephi 1 was the abridgement with commentary of Lehi’s record and the history up to the time of Lehi’s death, which he started after arriving in American for a “for a wise purpose in him, which purpose I know not.”

I think Nephi originally didnt intend to redo the time period his father had already done out of respect. He intended to start his record after Lehi’s death. But God know the first 116 pages comprising the Book of LEhi would be lost. Therefore, God commanded Nephi to rehash the story of their coming to America.

Only after Lehi’s death did Nephi start his own record, both the small and large plates of Nephi. The small plates were then passed down father-to-son until there were no more room to write on the plates and Amaleki comments “these plates are full” (Omni 1:30).

Mormon then starts his abridgement with King Benjamin or in other words he made an abridgement from the Large plates of Nephi starting with himself “back” to King Benjamin. Mormon then uses the writings of Lehi and the Small Plates of Nephi to cover the period of time from Lehi to King Benjamin (see WofM 1:3-7).

I agree that 1 Nephi is not just an abridgement. It does focus on Nephi’s life and there is a lot of commentary (more commentary than Mormon put in his abridgement) however, I speculate that unless specifically commanded, Nephi wouldnt have redone the coming the America story. Maybe he would have just started with the death of his Father and gone from there. I speculate that it may have been out of respect. Or we might be surprised to find that Nephi assisted in the writing of the Book of Nephi in the same way the words of Jacob are found in NEphi and the words of Moroni and Mormon are in eachothers writings. But, until we have the 116 pages we wont know.

Two articles come to mind on this subject:

Reynolds, Noel B. “Nephi’s Outline.” BYU Studies 20/2 (Winter 1980: 131–49.

———. “The Political Dimension in Nephi’s Small Plates.” BYU Studies 27/4 (Fall 1987): 15–37.

Justin’s first article is the one I was thinking of.

Glad others are less senile than I.