If I Wrote the Book of Mormon — Chapter 1

Ha ha, I make my titles way too ominous sometimes! Well, relax; this one isn't going to be a heavy thought.

I'm not about to write some treatise defending this book that I love so very much, nor am I going to criticize it. I just had an idea, and I thought I would share it today.

You see, I have asked some people ("some" people, he says) to try reading this book called the Book of Mormon. (Heh heh. "Some" people, he says. "A lot of" people, it should be. After all, what are our missionaries normally known for doing?) I've tried in the past, and try now, to get people to see why I love it: between the stories, the teachings, and the feeling of peace I always have when I consider the things that those writers said, it stands as one of my favourite books that I've read in my life.

But you know something? It is kind of hard to read sometimes.

One of the things that turns off a lot of people from reading things like the Bible, or the works of Shakespeare, is the old language. Elizabethan English (also known as "Early Modern English") doesn't always make the most sense to us. Sometimes it even says things that mean something drastically different, or even the complete opposite of what we would assume they mean.

And this Book of Mormon that I'm asking people to read, it holds that same problem for some people who read it. Not to mention that it wasn't originally written in English, and so some of the style and structure can be difficult to read through. (For instance, there's a sentence in there somewhere that contains the word "and" seven times in a row. That's not very good sentence structure in English, but apparently it's considered perfect grammar in Semitic languages.)

So, the thought that I had was, "What would it sound like if I were the one writing these stories?" I mean, some people tell me that they like reading what I write. Some people say that my writing voice is compelling. (Ha ha ha... I'm sure you so readily believe that. You'll have to trust me on this.)

With that in mind, I had an idea one day: if I were the one writing out the same ideas as the writers in the Book of Mormon... how would I put their words?

I'm going to try an experiment. I'm going to take the first chapter of the Book of Mormon and, changing the ideas as little as possible, show you how I would phrase those same ideas in my own writing voice. I hope that somehow or other, some good comes of this.




But let me tell you before I even start: there is a certain kind of dignity and power in the form of language that this book uses. And it really adds something to the book as a whole. So, keep that in mind, if ever you try reading it.

With all of that said, here's my take on 1 Nephi, chapter 1.

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To begin with, allow me to explain what this book is. This book within a book — that is to say, this book called the First Book of Nephi — tells only a part of the complete story that you're going to read. (At least, I assume so. Right now I have nothing but a lot of blank pages ahead of me.)

If you don't mind spoilers, here's what happens in this segment of this book:

This tells the story of Lehi and Sariah, and their children. Specifically, you will hear some of the story of four of their sons — from eldest to youngest, their names are Laman, Lemuel, Sam, and Nephi.

To start with, the Lord warns Lehi to leave Jerusalem for the safety of his own life. This is necessary because he has been preaching and prophesying to Jerusalem about what terrible people they are, and as you can imagine, the people of Jerusalem don't like that very much. So, Lehi does what he's asked, and for three days he journeys out into the desert.

But then Nephi and his aforementioned brothers have to go back to Jerusalem for a certain very important record of their people and their teachings.

They suffer a lot.

Then those boys get married. (Some would say they thus continue suffering, heh heh. But really, those women are awesome. Some of the best women you would ever know, really.) The women all happen to come from the same family, whose father is named Ishmael. Ishmael and his family join everyone out in the wilderness, because they ultimately decide they'd rather live in the wilderness than in Jerusalem with all the terrible people.

And they all suffer some more. The wilderness often does that to you.

In this book, I also tell you the course of everyone's travels. They eventually come to a huge body of water.

At this point, Nephi's brothers rebel against him. You know, just because.

So naturally, Nephi teaches them a lesson — and no, that's not a metaphor for beating them up. He does it so well that he astounds them, and they decide, "Sure, Nephi, let's help you build a ship." (It makes more sense when you read this story in context.)

By the way, as I forgot to mention, the name of this place where this ship-building and wilderness-living is going on is a nicer part of the wilderness, so this family calls it Bountiful.

But then the family crosses that huge body of water and reaches a promised land. And other stuff happens.

All of this is according to the way it was recorded by Nephi. Or, in other words...

...I can stop talking in third person. My name is Nephi, and I wrote this.

Chapter 1
My name is Nephi. Let me say from the start, I appreciate that I have had good parents. Among my reasons for saying that, one is that my father has taught me a lot of things. It's not to say that I've never suffered; truthfully, I have seen a lot of affliction in my days. But I have also been highly favoured by the Lord during all that time, to the point that I am familiar with the Lord's goodness, and also what you might call the "mysteries" of God. (They're not so mysterious once they're revealed to you, which is why I usually call these revealed mysteries "revelation.")

Anyway, on account of all these things I just told you, I would like to make records and relate to you the story of my days.

I will do this in the language that my father taught me, which consists of putting Hebrew words and grammar into Egyptian characters. (Trust me, when you're writing on metal plates like these, you will be glad when someone tells you about this blessed kind of shorthand. It makes writing this so much easier.)

And... I want you to understand, and listen well to me as I say this:

I know that these things I write are true. I write it with my own hand. I write it according to what I, of myself, know. On my honour — which I now stake after I've said this — I know that these words are true.

So, this story begins at the start of the first year of Zedekiah, the new king of the kingdom of Judah. (My father, Lehi, had resided in Jerusalem for his entire life, so this king was kind of important to us.) In that very year, the one where Zedekiah started being king, there came a lot of prophets. These prophets started warning the people, "Hey! You all need to repent, or this city of Jerusalem is going to be destroyed!" (Actually, they called Jerusalem "this great city," specifically. If by chance you're not familiar with it, Jerusalem is — or, at least was — the capital city of the kingdom of Judah. If Jerusalem falls, the whole kingdom and the entire economy, political structure, and culture go down with it.)

It so happened that one of these prophets was my father, Lehi. And on one particular day, as he was about to go preach, just like the other prophets, he prayed to the Lord with all his heart on behalf of the people he was about to teach. I don't know the words of his prayer, but I know my father. He must have been pleading to find someone who would listen, someone whom he could give greater happiness and peace. And somehow, couldn't these people have their hearts changed? Would it be too much for the Lord to help him do that?

Well, as my father was praying, he saw a pillar of fire descend on a rock in front of him. And at this point, Lehi heard and saw many things — so many things, such powerful and heart-rending things — that he started to tremble.

It was so much for him to take in, that instead of going out to preach like he normally would have, he went home and went straight to bed. The power of the Spirit of God and the magnitude of the things he'd just witnessed had completely overcome him.

But it was at this time, while he was overcome by these things, that he had a vision. He saw the heavens open, and he tells me that he thought he saw God sitting on his throne, surrounded by angels, so many that they couldn't be counted, all of them praising God.

And then my father Lehi saw One, a special One, descending out of heaven. My father said that his face was so bright that it was like looking at the sun at noon — brighter, even.

Then there were twelve others who followed, and their brightness, while not as great, was still impressive enough that they were brighter than starlight at night.

So, this One and the twelve others all descended toward the earth, and the first of them stood in front of my father, handed him a book, and said, "Read this."

My father did so.

And as soon as he did, he cried.

He wept for those people that he tried to teach, and he said, "Oh, Jerusalem! Now I have seen all of your abominations!" And that wasn't all that my father read in that book; he also learned what Jerusalem's fate was about to be: the city would be destroyed, and so would the people in it. Many of them would be slain by the swords of enemy nations. Many of them would be taken prisoners back to the invading nation: Babylon. Yes, that country that was so small and insignificant only a couple generations ago, it was now going to be the next world power that would nearly wipe out our people.

Once my father was done reading all of this, and had seen great and marvelous things — there's really no other way to put it — he exclaimed a lot of things to God. Among them, "Great and marvelous are thy works, O Lord God Almighty! Thy throne is high in the heavens, and thy power, and goodness, and mercy are over all the inhabitants of the earth; and, because thou art merciful, thou wilt not suffer those who come unto thee that they shall perish!"

(*It's so beautiful, those things he said... there's no paraphrasing that.)

Some of these things that my father had been shown were enough to make his whole soul rejoice, and it filled his heart. So of course he praised God.

But right now I (by the way, if you've forgotten, "I" refers to me, Nephi) will not go into detail about all of those things that my father saw. He has written down a lot of things that he has seen in his visions and dreams, in the same place that he's written down his words that he prophesied, and the things that he taught his children. So, I don't think I need to make a full account of those things.

I will tell you the full account of things that happened to me in my days; this other story I just told you was to abridge some of the things that my father saw, so that you can understand where I am coming from, as background and a bit of the "story so far." And since I'm transferring this story onto these metal plates that I mentioned I'm writing on, (I made them myself), I thought this would be important to include. So, if you let me finish up this history about my father, I will go ahead with my own life's story.

On that note, you should know that once my father had seen all of these marvelous things in this vision that the Lord gave him, my father started to prophesy again to the people of Jerusalem. This time it wasn't a vague, "Repent or you will be destroyed!" kind of message. No, this time he told them specifically what was about to befall them if they didn't change. He had foreseen it, and he had heard it from the Lord directly, after all.

And because of the very fact that what my father, Lehi, was saying was the truth — namely, that the people of Jerusalem were terrible people — instead of listening to him, they mocked him. Even as he was testifying of those things he'd read in that book he saw in his vision. They mocked him even while he told them that this book made it abundantly clear that the Messiah was going to come and redeem the world.

It still got worse; when these Jews heard him saying this part about a Messiah, they were angry with him. Some things never change; that's the same reaction that the prophets of old typically got as well. Prophets as recent as Isaiah, all the way back to the ancient ones like Abraham or Noah, the Jews and their ancestors all too often threw those prophets out of town, and threw stones at them, and in some instances even killed them. And, as I said, some things never change; these people that Lehi taught now, they started trying to take his life. But I (Nephi, remember) will show you "that the tender mercies of the Lord are over all those whom he hath chosen, because of their faith, to make them mighty even unto the power of deliverance."

(*TAB III here, to tell you... I can't paraphrase that last bit. It's beautiful as it is. But it means, if that line confuses you, "I will show you that the Lord gives tender mercy to his chosen people — "chosen" being a term for people who have the Lord's favour, because of their faith — and that the Lord will make those chosen people mighty, granting them access to the power necessary for them to be protected and freed from those who oppose them.")

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And Thus We See...
(*Yes, we're back to me talking again. It's "TAB III," not Nephi, as I say the remaining things. Hi. You're looking good today.)

Thus ends chapter one. And the next three chapters immediately go into Lehi evading a plot for his death, the entire family becoming refugees, and then Nephi and his brothers trying to get an important set of records from a man who doesn't want to give them up, so they end up doing something that closely resembles pulling a heist that is led by divine guidance.

Yeah, and this is just the first four chapters!

Anyway, if my writing this at all helps you realize that this book called the Book of Mormon isn't going to be as dull or frustrating as you might have feared, or if it in some way encourages you to try reading this book I've told you about... then I think this post has accomplished its purpose.

If not, well... I haven't lost anything. But I still hope you consider seeing for yourself what else this book says.

This same book that tells of nations falling apart by sustaining and building up secret combinations (think something like the Mafia), it also tells of people who change their hearts, and for the first time in their lives recognize the difference between simple gratification and true joy.

This book compares beliefs of those who say, "Every man fared in this life according to the management of the creature; therefore every man prospered according to his genius, and that every man conquered according to his strength; and whatsoever a man did was no crime," to, "Wherefore, whoso believeth in God might with surety hope for a better world, yea, even a place at the right hand of God, which hope cometh of faith, maketh an anchor to the souls of men, which would make them sure and steadfast, always abounding in good works, being led to glorify God."

This same book that tells of peoples who delight in murder, it also tells of peoples who turn away from their old ways, and towards a God who promises to heal those that trust Him.

This same book that tells you it is good to obtain wisdom and learning of all kinds, religious or otherwise, it also tells you of the method for learning of things that you can't see, and the way that you can know the truth of all things. (Spoiler alert: that last part is in the final chapter of the whole book.)

Oh yeah, and if you want a way to access this book online for free, here's the link:

https://www.lds.org/scriptures/bofm?lang=eng

If you want a physical copy of the book, that can also be arranged. Just let me know if you want instructions on where to get one.

Right. I'll leave you to do with this knowledge whatever you choose. Have a good day, regardless, and may you be happy.

Con amor,
- TAB III