OK guys, there are a LOT of directions I could go with this video about The Book of Mormon. People
have all sorts of questions about it -- they want to talk about geography and DNA evidence
and honeybees -- I’m going to get around to that stuff, but not in this episode. First,
people need to have an idea of what the story contained in The Book of Mormon is actually about.
This is your official SPOILER ALERT warning.
The year is about 600 B.C. The Place: Ancient Jerusalem. The situation: Not good. The people
are wicked, they’re rejecting the prophets, like Jeremiah, who you can read about in the
Bible. The Book of Mormon follows the path of another prophet, Lehi, and his family.
God warns Lehi about an impending invasion from Babylon and tells him to take his family
and get the heck outta dodge. So, Lehi leaves Jerusalem with his wife, Sariah,
and their kids. They’ve got four sons: Laman, Lemuel, Sam, and Nephi.
The family wanders in the wilderness for several years. Lehi has a couple more kids,
Jacob and Joseph, and finally they end up building a ship and traveling to the
Americas. They weren’t the first people to discover the Americas nor the only
people there. But once Lehi’s family gets there, some family issues cause a
division. The family members that believe in God’s revelations leave with Nephi to
start their own settlement. Those that don’t believe stay behind with Laman and Lemuel.
This is the foundation for pretty much the rest of The Book of Mormon.
Generations pass and both the Nephites and the Lamanites develop into powerful nations.
Most of The Book of Mormon is about the relationship between these two nations.
Now, just like the Bible, The Book of Mormon has a ton of books in it. The
guy who edited all of these books into one anthology was an ancient prophet,
a descendant of Nephi, named Mormon. Hence, The Book of Mormon.
The first two books were written by Nephi. He then passes the baton to his younger brother,
Jacob, who passes it to his son, Enos, who gives it to his son, Jarom, to his son, Omni, etc.
Then Mormon throws a few editorial thoughts in there. After that, we continue with the story
of a Nephite prophet and king, named Mosiah. After he dies, his best friend’s son, Alma,
takes the reigns. He’s both the political and the religious leader of the Nephites.
A TON of wars happen in Alma, but there are also some priceless teachings about faith
and some great missionary stories about Mosiah’s sons, who were friends of Alma.
The next book is Helaman. Helaman was Alma’s great-grandson. More wars and
prophecies of Christ in this book. It gets really interesting because there’s a time
when the Lamanites actually get their crap together, more so than even the Nephites.
Helaman’s grandson, also named Nephi, keeps the record next. At this point
about 600 years have passed since the first Nephi left Jerusalem. 3rd Nephi,
covers the birth of Jesus Christ. Of course, Christ was born in Bethlehem,
so the people in the Americas just had to rely on what the prophets had foretold about Christ,
which was quite a bit. They lived the Law of Moses, but they knew Christ would come,
and they knew salvation came through Christ. They received signs of his birth, and of his death.
After his death, Christ himself appeared to the Nephites and taught and expounded upon
the same gospel He taught the Jews during His life, which we read about in the Bible.
This is the main event of The Book of Mormon. Everything is leading up
to Christ. After Christ’s ministry in The Book of Mormon, we read in 4th Nephi that
there are like two hundred awesome years of peace, everyone is righteous, they’re
all prospering in every sense of the word ... and then things start to spiral downhill again.
Then we get to the Book of Mormon (within The Book of Mormon),
which is the history written by our editor, Mormon. In this book he basically describes
the complete annihilation of the entire Nephite nation at the hands of the Lamanites.
The Book of Ether comes next, which is a flashback to the story of a completely
different group of people from the Middle East, fleeing from the Tower of Babel, who came to
the Americas centuries before Lehi and Nephi. It adds a ton of depth to The Book of Mormon.
And The Book of Mormon ends with the book of Moroni, who is Mormon’s son. Moroni buries the
record and then, as an angel like 14-hundred years later, tells Joseph Smith where to find
it. Joseph translates it into English, gets it printed, and voila! Now you can read it.
If you don’t have a physical copy, you can read it online using the link below.
There’s also a link for an article that goes a little more in-depth into the Book
of Mormon’s story. Check it out. Have a great day, and we’ll see you next time.