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<div>I've been a newspaper reporter for the last few years. I started working here in late 2014: http://www.glendalestar.com</div>Sterlinghttp://feastupontheword.org/User:SterlingUser:Sterling2015-01-03T01:32:04Z<p>Sterling: </p>
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<div>I've been a newspaper reporter for the last few years. I started working here in late 2014: [http://www.glendalestar.com]</div>Sterlinghttp://feastupontheword.org/User:SterlingUser:Sterling2015-01-03T01:31:53Z<p>Sterling: </p>
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<div>I've been a newspaper reporter for the last few years. I started working here in late 2014: http://www.glendalestar.com</div>Sterlinghttp://feastupontheword.org/User:SterlingUser:Sterling2015-01-03T01:31:23Z<p>Sterling: </p>
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<div>I've been a newspaper reporter for the last few years. I started working here in late 2014: [www.glendalestar.com]</div>Sterlinghttp://feastupontheword.org/1_Ne_1:5-151 Ne 1:5-152014-01-19T21:20:22Z<p>Sterling: /* Verse 5 */ quotation marks</p>
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<div>[[The Book of Mormon]] > [[First Nephi]] > [[First Nephi 1-2 | Chapters 1-2]] > [[First Nephi 1 | Chapter 1]] > [[1 Ne 1:5-15 | Verses 1:5-15]] <br><br />
[[1 Ne 1:1-4 | Previous page: Verses 1:1-4]] &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; [[1 Ne 1:16-20 | Next page: Verses 1:16-20]]<br />
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This page would ideally always be under construction. You are invited to contribute.<br />
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== Summary ==<br />
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''This heading should be brief and may include an outline of the passage. Click the link above and to the right to edit or add content to this heading. →''<br />
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The relationship of verses 5-15 to the rest of Chapter 1 is discussed at [[First Nephi 1 | Chapter 1]].<br />
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== Discussion ==<br />
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''This heading is for more detailed discussions of all or part of a passage. Discussion may include the meaning of a particular word, how a doctrinal point is developed throughout the passage, insights to be developed in the future, and other items. Contributions may range from polished paragraphs down to a single bullet point. The focus, however, should always be on understanding the scriptural text consistent with LDS doctrine. Click the link above and to the right to edit or add content to this heading. →''<br />
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* It is impressive that the Book of Mormon starts off, first thing, with a prophet receiving a visit from a heavenly being and having a vision. Perhaps the greatest message of the Book of Mormon, both when it first came out, and for our days, is that the heavens are open.<br />
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=== Verse 5 ===<br />
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* ''Lehi...prayed unto the Lord.'' It is important to note Lehi's reaction to the prophets' message. Their invitation is a call to repent or "the great city Jerusalem must be destroyed." Lehi's prayer was not to know if the prophets spoke the truth, but rather for his people. Lehi's prayer is evidence of his faith in the prophets' words and his charity for his people. We can learn from Lehi how to react to a prophet's message. Certainly [[Moro 10:3]]-5 sets a standard for someone seeking to know if a prophet is speaking God's will. But Lehi shows us how to react when we already know the prophet's words are true. We turn our hearts and minds to convincing others of the veracity of the prophet's words.<br />
* ''"with all his heart."'' With a phrase often used to indicate the sincerity of someone's repentance (e.g., [[2 Kgs 23:25]]-26 and [[D&C 42:25]]), it is fitting that Lehi should offer up a prayer at this point, with similar fervor, for those who would not repent.<br />
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=== Verse 6 ===<br />
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* ''He saw and heard much.'' It makes sense that Lehi's faithful response to the prophets' message results in his receiving revelation. We see between [[1 Ne 1:4]]-6 a pattern: (1) a prophetic message is heard; (2) a prayer of faith is offered; (3) revelation important to the individual's success and survival is given, and (4) the relevant portion of the message is delivered to others. A similar pattern can be found when Nephi hears Lehi's vision of the tree of life: (1) Nephi hears the message ([[1 Ne 8]]; [[1 Ne 10|10]]), (2) Nephi offers a prayer of faith ([[1 Ne 11:1]]), (3) revelation is given ([[1 Ne 11]]-[[1 Ne 14|14]]), and (4) a message is imparted to others ([[1 Ne 15]]). This pattern can also be seen in Enos, who (1) was taught the message (Enos 1:1 - 3), (2) cried in mighty prayer (v. 4), (3) received revelation about the safety of his own soul (v. 4 - 8), (4) received revelation for welfare of others and delivered that revelation (v. 9 - 19).<br />
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* ''"luster."'' Definitions for this word include brightness or splendor. [http://adsl-65-66-134-201.dsl.kscymo.swbell.net/cgi-bin/webster/webster.exe?search_for_texts_web1828=luster Webster's 1828 Dictionary] includes the phrase "as the luster of the sun or stars" to illustate the meaning of this word. In modern times, one of the more commmon definitions for this word has become "a glow of reflected light." Thus, there is some ambiguity as to whether verses 8 and 9 are talking about reflected light or a light from within.<br />
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* ''"he thought."'' This phrase sometimes conveys uncertainty or doubt. In some instances it conveys the message that a person thought in a certain way at one point but has since changed their way of thinking. Consider, for instance, the sentence, "Everything I thought I knew about _______ is wrong." See also the usage in [[Gen 38:15]].<br />
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===Verse 8===<br />
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Lehi's second vision opens with a theme absolutely fundamental to the Book of Mormon (see [[2 Ne 31:13]], [[Mosiah 2:28]], [[Alma 36:22]], etc.): the council of the heavens. Such a vision might be understood to legitimize Lehi's prophetic activity, as [[Amos 3:7]] suggests that all prophetic activity begins with a vision of the council (Hebrew ''sod''--"secret"--would be best translated as "council"). Significantly, Lehi witnesses God at the center of a scene of worship, of praise. The scene is familiar, as in [[Rev 4]]-5. Central to Lehi's understanding of the heavens, perhaps to the understanding of the scriptural propehts, is a sacramental act of praise, a gathering together in song and dance in a sort of great, celestial prayer circle ("concourses," literally, "complete circles"). <br />
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But, besides universal concerns, Nephi makes explicit mention of these details in this very particular text. It is clear that this vision plays an important role in the broader structure of the Nephi's text. While it begins here with a vision of this council from below (messengers must ''descend'' to Nephi), his text ends with a promise that those who read and follow may join that very council and "shout praises to the Holy One of Israel" ([[2 Ne 31:13]]). Nephi's text might be read as inviting readers to a sort of progression from the vision of the heavenly council to eventual participation in it. Nephi thereafter says explicitly that he is not allowed to describe what would follow ([[2 Ne 32:7]]). (This last point may imply that the Nephites were not prepared in Nephi's day to be taught of "celestial work," of what happens beyond joining the choirs of praise. Perhaps it might be suggested that what Latter-day Saints call "exaltation" comes by invitation to those who join the council of the heavens by passing through the veil, in other words, that the sealing room follows the celestial room.)<br />
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=== Verse 9 ===<br />
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* ''One descending out of . . . heaven.'' The description of luster "above that of the sun at noon-day" and the capitalization of the word ''One'' making it a title strongly suggest this is the Savior (see General Conference talk below). <br />
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===Verse 13===<br />
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Verse 13 speaks of the abominations and pronounced destruction of Jerusalem. Then in verses 14-15, Lehi is rejoicing in God and his mercy. At first blush, this seems a strange juxtaposition. However, verse 14 mentions many other great and marvelous things that Lehi saw which we aren't told about. Also, verses 9-12 describe (presumably) the Savior and disciples preaching the gospel, thus providing a way for the inhabitants of the earth not to perish. Whether Lehi was motivated to praise the Lord because he saw this, or whether it was due to some other marvelous thing Lehi witnessed, it is clear from the way Lehi praises the Lord that his praise is motivated by the Lord's mercy--not by the abominations and destruction of Jerusalem.<br />
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== Points to ponder ==<br />
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''This heading is for prompts that suggest ways in which all or part of this passage can influence a person's life. Click the link above and to the right to edit or add content to this heading. →''<br />
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== I have a question ==<br />
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''This heading is for unanswered questions and is an important part of the continual effort to improve this wiki. Please do not be shy, as even a basic or "stupid" question can identify things that need to be improved on this page. Click the link above and to the right to edit or add content to this heading. →''<br />
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===Verse 5===<br />
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* ''"Lehi . . . prayed unto the Lord."'' How did Lehi react after hearing the prophets' message? What can we learn from Lehi's reaction?<br />
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* ''"went forth."'' Where was Lehi headed? Is Nephi saying Lehi was one of the prophets, mentioned in the previous verse, who went to Jerusalem and preached repentance unto its inhabitants? Or was Lehi following their example and providing a second round of repentence preaching?<br />
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* ''"prayed."'' Why did Lehi pray after he had "went forth"? Why didn't he pray beforehand? At what point in his travels did he stop to pray?<br />
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* ''"all his heart."'' If Lehi was commanded to love the Lord with "all his heart" (see [[Deut 6:5]]), and love his neighbor as himself (see [[Lev 19:18]]), then why is this phrase used to describe his prayer for the people?<br />
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* ''"his people."'' Who was Lehi praying for? The Jews at Jerusalem? Or perhaps his fellow members of the Tribe of Joseph? Members of the Tribe of Joseph already scattered or carried away into captivity?<br />
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* ''Number of Visions.'' Did Lehi have one or two visions? Did the second begin with him seeing “God sitting upon his throne” (verse 8)? Or was the second vision really just a continuation of the first vision? If the pillar of fire in the first vision is connected to Christ's second coming (see [[D&C 29:12]]), and the second vision portrays a heavenly being descending from heaven to earth, then are the two visions actually two pieces of the same thing? Do these verses provide no details about the content of the first vision, and then several details about the content of the second vision, because the two visions were really one vision and the details of the second were just a continuation of what was seen in the first?<br />
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* Did this vision signal Lehi's call as a prophet? Or was he already serving as one? Had he left his house to pray for the people because he was a prophet? Or was he seeking the Lord's will and finding out that the Lord wanted him to serve as a prophet? Why does the verse say Lehi was "carried away" if this language is not used elsewhere in the scriptures to describe visions? Or is this usage comparable to Nephi's discussion of being "carried away in the Spirit" (see [[1 Ne 11:19]], [[1 Ne 11:29]], [[1 Ne 14:30]], and [[1 Ne 15:1]]) or to descriptions of people who fell into trance-like states and were "carried away in God" (see [[Alma 19:6]])? Is this a foreshadowing of what will happen to the inhabitants of Jerusalem if they reject the message Lehi is about to receive in his vision (see [[2 Ne 25:10]]-11)?<br />
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* ''Parallels with Joseph Smith.'' How does Lehi's experience compare with Joseph Smith's experience? [http://www.lds.org/portal/site/LDSOrg/menuitem.b12f9d18fae655bb69095bd3e44916a0/vgnextoid=2354fccf2b7db010VgnVCM1000004d82620aRCRD&locale=0&sourceId=14f3fd758096b010VgnVCM1000004d82620a____&hideNav=1 Holland, Jeffrey R. ''Daddy, Donna, and Nephi.'' Ensign, September 1976.]<br />
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* ''Revelation.'' What does the inclusion of Lehi's vision in I Nephi 1 tell us about the importance of ongoing revelation? See also, e.g.: 1 Ne. 2:1-2, 1 Ne. 2:16,19. [http://www.lds.org/portal/site/LDSOrg/menuitem.b12f9d18fae655bb69095bd3e44916a0/?vgnextoid=2354fccf2b7db010VgnVCM1000004d82620aRCRD&locale=0&sourceId=14f3fd758096b010VgnVCM1000004d82620a____&hideNav=1 Holland, Jeffrey R. ''Daddy, Donna, and Nephi.'' Ensign, September 1976.]<br />
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* ''Parallels with Moses.'' If the Lord appeared to Moses in a burning bush ([[Ex 3:2]]), then was something similar happening with Lehi as he beheld the fire upon the rock? If the Lord used the burning bush as an occasion to call Moses to a great work, then was a similar prophetic calling being extended to Lehi at this time? If Moses fel overwhelmed at the thought of battling Pharaoh for the freedom of the Israelites (see [[Ex 3:11]]), then was Lehi experiencing similar feelings when "he did quake and tremble exceedingly"?<br />
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* In verses 9-11, Christ appears to Lehi and gives him a book to read. Is it significant that this revelation occurs by means of a revealed book rather than by Christ speaking to Lehi or in some other way? (Compare [[Ezek 2:9]], [[Rev 5:1-5]], and [[Rev 10:2]], and [[Rev 10:8|8-10]].)<br />
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===Verse 6===<br />
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* ''"pillar of fire."'' What is this thing that Lehi saw (verse 6)? Did Lehi connect it with the pillar of fire that accompanied the Israelites on their march out of Egypt? Was this the Lord's way of teaching Lehi that he is embarking on an exodus? Is the connection of a fire from heaven with a rock a hint that Lehi was in the process of offering a sacrifice upon an altar (see [[Judg 6:21]])?<br />
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* ''"quake and tremble."'' Was Lehi suddenly feeling this way because the vision left him with an acute awareness of his sins (compare to [[1 Ne 22:23]] and [[Isa 6:5]])? Or is this what naturally happens to mortals when the Lord looks upon them (see [[Mosiah 27:31]]) and addresses them in his all-powerful voice (see [[Hel 12:9]])? Or was Lehi experiencing, as a consequence of his mighty prayer on behalf of the people, something akin to what the sons of Mosiah felt, who "were desirous that salvation should be declared to every creature, for they could not bear that any human soul should perish; yea, even the very thoughts that any soul should endure endless torment did cause them to quake and tremble" ([[Mosiah 28:3]])?<br />
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===Verse 7===<br />
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* ''"returned to his own house."'' Where was Lehi before he went back home? Why did he feel the need to leave home in order to offer a prayer?<br />
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* ''"cast himself upon his bed."'' If the pillar of fire was a night-time experience for the Israelites as they escaped from captivity (see [[Ex 13:21]]), then is it likely that Lehi witnessed the pillar of fire at night and ready to retire to bed when the pillar vanished? Is the verb "cast" in this verse transitive or intransitive? If it was intransitive, then is it possible that Lehi was selecting himself to participate in the production that was about to unfold?<br />
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* ''"saw and heard."'' If this phrase does not appear in the Old Testament, then what influenced Nephi to use it? Was there no such thing as silent visions in Old Testament times? What is this significance of this phrase, given that all but one instance of it in scriptures occur in the Book of Mormon?<br />
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===Verse 8===<br />
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* ''Impact of the Vision upon Lehi.'' If Lehi was physically shaken by what he "saw and heard," (verse 6) then why was he soon after "overcome" by the things he had seen, and not by the things he had heard? Does this mean the things Lehi heard in his vision had more of a lasting impact upon him than the things he saw? Or is it possible the vision was primarily oral and the only visual component was the dazzling pillar of fire that danced upon the rock? Is [http://frontpage2000.nmia.com/~nahualli/LDStopics/1Nephi/1Nephi1.htm Brant Gardner right] that Lehi's experience was "enervating," just like Joseph Smith's early experiences with visions, or did Lehi "cast himself upon his bed" less out of exhaustion and more out of a desire to commence dreaming and continue receiving visions?<br />
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* ''"he saw the heavens open."'' Where did Lehi learn to describe his view of the heavens as a curtain or window being opened? Had Isaiah given him the mental image of a God who "stretcheth out the heavens as a curtain" ([[Isa 40:22]])? Was he influenced by Ezekiel who said "the heavens were opened, and I saw visions of God" ([[Ezek 1:1]])? What impact did Elisha's conversation with a nobleman about "windows in heaven" ([[2 Kgs 7:2]]) have on Lehi? Was Lehi already aware of the promise that Malachi would later record, that when a person paid their tithing the Lord would open "windows of heaven, and pour you out a blessing, that there shall not be room enough to receive it" ([[Mal 3:10]])? Did Nephi use this language to describe Lehi's vision because he considered his father's wealth a blessing for paying tithing? Was Nephi also making a connection between the heavens opening and the infinite blessings of the atonement that would result from the Savior's condescension to earth?<br />
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* ''"he thought he saw God."'' Is Nephi helping to preserve his father's humility with this choice of words? Was the question on Lehi's mind whether he saw God with his physical eyes or his spiritual eyes? Was Lehi's encounter with God similar to apostles and disciples who could not tell whether their experiences with divine beings were "in the body" or "out of the body" (see [[2 Cor 12:2]]-3 and [[3 Ne 28:15]])? Alternatively, was Lehi uncertain that the being he saw was actually God?<br />
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* ''"God sitting upon his throne."'' [http://frontpage2000.nmia.com/~nahualli/LDStopics/1Nephi/1Nephi1.htm If John W. Welch is right] that, throughout the Old Testament, indivdiuals received a vision of the heavens, including God and his council, when they were called as a prophet, then who were the audiences that needed to see Lehi portrayed within this same literary formula? Was it people living during Old Testament times that needed to hear about Lehi being called as a prophet in the same manner as other Old Testmanet prophets, or was it principally people in modern times that needed to recognize the pattern in Lehi's calling as a prophet? Why does Lehi see the Celestial Kingdom in this way, as a place of praise rather than as a place of celestial work? Did Lehi and Nephi acquire a mental image of this scene from their reading of [[2 Kgs 9:5]] and [[2 Chr 18:18]]?<br />
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===Verse 9===<br />
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* ''"One descending."'' Is this a reference to [[Ps 8:5]]?<br />
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===Verse 10===<br />
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* Lehi sees twelve others following God. Are these the twelve apostles that were alive at the time of Jesus, or some other twelve?<br />
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===Verse 11===<br />
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What is the book (see verse 11) that is given to Lehi?<br />
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== Resources ==<br />
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''This heading is for listing links and print resources, including those cited in the notes. A short comment about the particular strengths of a resource can be helpful. Click the link above and to the right to edit or add content to this heading. →''<br />
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===Incoming Cross-References Not Listed in The Footnotes for These Verses===<br />
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* ''Verse 5:'' [[Ex 3:2]], [[Jer 13:14]], [[Jer 26:18]], [[1 Ne 2:13]], [[2 Ne 1:4]], [[Hel 8:20]], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/gs/n/11 GS Nebuchadnezzar], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/tg/r/86 TG Repent, Repentance], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/in/l/57 IN Lehi]<br />
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* ''Verse 6:'' [[Ex 3:2]], [[Lev 9:24]], [[Judg 6:21]], [[Jer 13:14]], [[Jer 26:18]], [[Jer 29:13]], [[Ezek 1:1]], [[James 5:16]], [[1 Ne 2:13]], [[1 Ne 11:14]], [[2 Ne 1:4]], [[2 Ne 4:24]], [[Hel 8:20]], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/gs/n/11 GS Nebuchadnezzar], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/bd/f/15 BD Fire], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/tg/f/78 TG Fire], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/tg/g/77 TG God, Presence of], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/tg/p/90 TG Pillar], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/tg/q/2 TG Quake], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/tg/r/86 TG Repent, Repentance], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/tg/t/147 TG Tremble], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/in/f/57 IN Fire], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/in/l/57 IN Lehi], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/in/p/75 IN Pillar], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/in/q/1 IN Quake, Quaking], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/in/t/115 IN Tremble, Trembling]<br />
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* ''Verse 7:'' [[Jer 13:14]], [[Jer 26:18]], [[Jer 29:13]], [[Ezek 1:1]], [[James 5:16]], [[1 Ne 2:13]], [[1 Ne 11:14]], [[1 Ne 19:20]], [[2 Ne 1:4]], [[2 Ne 4:24]], [[Hel 8:20]], [[JS-H 1:20]], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/gs/n/11 GS Nebuchadnezzar], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/tg/o/60 TG Overcome, Overcame], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/tg/r/86 TG Repent, Repentance], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/in/l/57 IN Lehi], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/in/o/61 IN Overcome], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/in/s/268 IN Spirit, Holy / Spirit of the Lord]<br />
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* ''Verse 8:'' [[1 Sam 3:10]], [[Jer 13:14]], [[Jer 26:18]], [[Jer 29:13]], [[James 5:16]], [[1 Ne 2:13]], [[2 Ne 1:4]], [[2 Ne 4:24]], [[Hel 8:20]], [[D&C 110:2]], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/gs/n/11 GS Nebuchadnezzar], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/tg/c/34 TG Carry, Carried], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/tg/h/52 TG Heaven], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/tg/r/86 TG Repent, Repentance], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/tg/s/82 TG See, Saw, Seen], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/tg/s/171 TG Singing, Sing, Sang, Sung], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/tg/t/93 TG Throne], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/in/a/126 IN Angel], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/in/c/28 IN Carry], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/in/g/67 IN God, Manifestations of], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/in/h/47 IN Heaven], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/in/l/57 IN Lehi], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/in/o/40 IN Open], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/in/s/63 IN See, Saw, Seen], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/in/s/172 IN Sing, Sang, Sung, Singing], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/in/s/268 IN Spirit, Holy / Spirit of the Lord], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/in/t/64 IN Throne], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/in/v/30 IN Vision, Visionary]<br />
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* ''Verse 9:'' [[1 Sam 3:10]], [[Jer 13:14]], [[Jer 26:18]], [[Ezek 1:1]], [[1 Ne 2:13]], [[1 Ne 5:4]], [[1 Ne 11:14]], [[2 Ne 1:4]], [[Hel 8:20]], [[D&C 110:2]], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/gs/n/11 GS Nebuchadnezzar], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/tg/n/53 TG Noonday], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/tg/r/86 TG Repent, Repentance], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/tg/s/369 TG Sun], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/in/d/50 IN Descend], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/in/l/57 IN Lehi], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/in/n/66 IN Noon-day], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/in/s/354 IN Sun]<br />
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===Verse 9===<br />
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* ''One descending out of . . . heaven.'' See [http://scriptures.byu.edu/gettalk.php?ID=1364&CID=1877#dest “The Book of Mormon’s Witness of Jesus Christ,”] ''Ensign'', May 1987, 28J by Thomas Fyans.<br />
* For an odd poetic exploration of the significance of the book carried by this "One," see [[User: Joe Spencer/By way of introduction: t(h/r)e(e/mb)l(o/in)g(y/)]].<br />
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== Notes ==<br />
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''Footnotes are not required but are encouraged for factual assertions that average readers cannot easily evaluate for themselves, such as the date of King Solomon’s death or the nuanced definition of a Greek word. In contrast, insights rarely benefit from footnoting, and the focus of this page should always remain on the scriptures themselves rather than what someone has said about them. Links are actively encouraged on all sections of this page, and links to authoritative sources are preferable to footnotes.''<br />
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[[1 Ne 1:1-4 | Previous page: Verses 1:1-4]] &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; [[1 Ne 1:16-20 | Next page: Verses 1:16-20]]</div>Sterlinghttp://feastupontheword.org/1_Ne_1:5-151 Ne 1:5-152014-01-19T21:19:25Z<p>Sterling: /* Verse 5 */ with all his heart</p>
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<div>[[The Book of Mormon]] > [[First Nephi]] > [[First Nephi 1-2 | Chapters 1-2]] > [[First Nephi 1 | Chapter 1]] > [[1 Ne 1:5-15 | Verses 1:5-15]] <br><br />
[[1 Ne 1:1-4 | Previous page: Verses 1:1-4]] &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; [[1 Ne 1:16-20 | Next page: Verses 1:16-20]]<br />
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This page would ideally always be under construction. You are invited to contribute.<br />
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== Summary ==<br />
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''This heading should be brief and may include an outline of the passage. Click the link above and to the right to edit or add content to this heading. →''<br />
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The relationship of verses 5-15 to the rest of Chapter 1 is discussed at [[First Nephi 1 | Chapter 1]].<br />
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== Discussion ==<br />
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''This heading is for more detailed discussions of all or part of a passage. Discussion may include the meaning of a particular word, how a doctrinal point is developed throughout the passage, insights to be developed in the future, and other items. Contributions may range from polished paragraphs down to a single bullet point. The focus, however, should always be on understanding the scriptural text consistent with LDS doctrine. Click the link above and to the right to edit or add content to this heading. →''<br />
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* It is impressive that the Book of Mormon starts off, first thing, with a prophet receiving a visit from a heavenly being and having a vision. Perhaps the greatest message of the Book of Mormon, both when it first came out, and for our days, is that the heavens are open.<br />
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=== Verse 5 ===<br />
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* ''Lehi...prayed unto the Lord.'' It is important to note Lehi's reaction to the prophets' message. Their invitation is a call to repent or "the great city Jerusalem must be destroyed." Lehi's prayer was not to know if the prophets spoke the truth, but rather for his people. Lehi's prayer is evidence of his faith in the prophets' words and his charity for his people. We can learn from Lehi how to react to a prophet's message. Certainly [[Moro 10:3]]-5 sets a standard for someone seeking to know if a prophet is speaking God's will. But Lehi shows us how to react when we already know the prophet's words are true. We turn our hearts and minds to convincing others of the veracity of the prophet's words.<br />
* ''with all his heart.'' With a phrase often used to indicate the sincerity of someone's repentance (e.g., [[2 Kgs 23:25]]-26 and [[D&C 42:25]]), it is fitting that Lehi should offer up a prayer at this point, with similar fervor, for those who would not repent.<br />
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=== Verse 6 ===<br />
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* ''He saw and heard much.'' It makes sense that Lehi's faithful response to the prophets' message results in his receiving revelation. We see between [[1 Ne 1:4]]-6 a pattern: (1) a prophetic message is heard; (2) a prayer of faith is offered; (3) revelation important to the individual's success and survival is given, and (4) the relevant portion of the message is delivered to others. A similar pattern can be found when Nephi hears Lehi's vision of the tree of life: (1) Nephi hears the message ([[1 Ne 8]]; [[1 Ne 10|10]]), (2) Nephi offers a prayer of faith ([[1 Ne 11:1]]), (3) revelation is given ([[1 Ne 11]]-[[1 Ne 14|14]]), and (4) a message is imparted to others ([[1 Ne 15]]). This pattern can also be seen in Enos, who (1) was taught the message (Enos 1:1 - 3), (2) cried in mighty prayer (v. 4), (3) received revelation about the safety of his own soul (v. 4 - 8), (4) received revelation for welfare of others and delivered that revelation (v. 9 - 19).<br />
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* ''"luster."'' Definitions for this word include brightness or splendor. [http://adsl-65-66-134-201.dsl.kscymo.swbell.net/cgi-bin/webster/webster.exe?search_for_texts_web1828=luster Webster's 1828 Dictionary] includes the phrase "as the luster of the sun or stars" to illustate the meaning of this word. In modern times, one of the more commmon definitions for this word has become "a glow of reflected light." Thus, there is some ambiguity as to whether verses 8 and 9 are talking about reflected light or a light from within.<br />
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* ''"he thought."'' This phrase sometimes conveys uncertainty or doubt. In some instances it conveys the message that a person thought in a certain way at one point but has since changed their way of thinking. Consider, for instance, the sentence, "Everything I thought I knew about _______ is wrong." See also the usage in [[Gen 38:15]].<br />
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===Verse 8===<br />
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Lehi's second vision opens with a theme absolutely fundamental to the Book of Mormon (see [[2 Ne 31:13]], [[Mosiah 2:28]], [[Alma 36:22]], etc.): the council of the heavens. Such a vision might be understood to legitimize Lehi's prophetic activity, as [[Amos 3:7]] suggests that all prophetic activity begins with a vision of the council (Hebrew ''sod''--"secret"--would be best translated as "council"). Significantly, Lehi witnesses God at the center of a scene of worship, of praise. The scene is familiar, as in [[Rev 4]]-5. Central to Lehi's understanding of the heavens, perhaps to the understanding of the scriptural propehts, is a sacramental act of praise, a gathering together in song and dance in a sort of great, celestial prayer circle ("concourses," literally, "complete circles"). <br />
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But, besides universal concerns, Nephi makes explicit mention of these details in this very particular text. It is clear that this vision plays an important role in the broader structure of the Nephi's text. While it begins here with a vision of this council from below (messengers must ''descend'' to Nephi), his text ends with a promise that those who read and follow may join that very council and "shout praises to the Holy One of Israel" ([[2 Ne 31:13]]). Nephi's text might be read as inviting readers to a sort of progression from the vision of the heavenly council to eventual participation in it. Nephi thereafter says explicitly that he is not allowed to describe what would follow ([[2 Ne 32:7]]). (This last point may imply that the Nephites were not prepared in Nephi's day to be taught of "celestial work," of what happens beyond joining the choirs of praise. Perhaps it might be suggested that what Latter-day Saints call "exaltation" comes by invitation to those who join the council of the heavens by passing through the veil, in other words, that the sealing room follows the celestial room.)<br />
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=== Verse 9 ===<br />
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* ''One descending out of . . . heaven.'' The description of luster "above that of the sun at noon-day" and the capitalization of the word ''One'' making it a title strongly suggest this is the Savior (see General Conference talk below). <br />
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===Verse 13===<br />
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Verse 13 speaks of the abominations and pronounced destruction of Jerusalem. Then in verses 14-15, Lehi is rejoicing in God and his mercy. At first blush, this seems a strange juxtaposition. However, verse 14 mentions many other great and marvelous things that Lehi saw which we aren't told about. Also, verses 9-12 describe (presumably) the Savior and disciples preaching the gospel, thus providing a way for the inhabitants of the earth not to perish. Whether Lehi was motivated to praise the Lord because he saw this, or whether it was due to some other marvelous thing Lehi witnessed, it is clear from the way Lehi praises the Lord that his praise is motivated by the Lord's mercy--not by the abominations and destruction of Jerusalem.<br />
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== Points to ponder ==<br />
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''This heading is for prompts that suggest ways in which all or part of this passage can influence a person's life. Click the link above and to the right to edit or add content to this heading. →''<br />
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== I have a question ==<br />
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''This heading is for unanswered questions and is an important part of the continual effort to improve this wiki. Please do not be shy, as even a basic or "stupid" question can identify things that need to be improved on this page. Click the link above and to the right to edit or add content to this heading. →''<br />
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===Verse 5===<br />
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* ''"Lehi . . . prayed unto the Lord."'' How did Lehi react after hearing the prophets' message? What can we learn from Lehi's reaction?<br />
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* ''"went forth."'' Where was Lehi headed? Is Nephi saying Lehi was one of the prophets, mentioned in the previous verse, who went to Jerusalem and preached repentance unto its inhabitants? Or was Lehi following their example and providing a second round of repentence preaching?<br />
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* ''"prayed."'' Why did Lehi pray after he had "went forth"? Why didn't he pray beforehand? At what point in his travels did he stop to pray?<br />
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* ''"all his heart."'' If Lehi was commanded to love the Lord with "all his heart" (see [[Deut 6:5]]), and love his neighbor as himself (see [[Lev 19:18]]), then why is this phrase used to describe his prayer for the people?<br />
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* ''"his people."'' Who was Lehi praying for? The Jews at Jerusalem? Or perhaps his fellow members of the Tribe of Joseph? Members of the Tribe of Joseph already scattered or carried away into captivity?<br />
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* ''Number of Visions.'' Did Lehi have one or two visions? Did the second begin with him seeing “God sitting upon his throne” (verse 8)? Or was the second vision really just a continuation of the first vision? If the pillar of fire in the first vision is connected to Christ's second coming (see [[D&C 29:12]]), and the second vision portrays a heavenly being descending from heaven to earth, then are the two visions actually two pieces of the same thing? Do these verses provide no details about the content of the first vision, and then several details about the content of the second vision, because the two visions were really one vision and the details of the second were just a continuation of what was seen in the first?<br />
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* Did this vision signal Lehi's call as a prophet? Or was he already serving as one? Had he left his house to pray for the people because he was a prophet? Or was he seeking the Lord's will and finding out that the Lord wanted him to serve as a prophet? Why does the verse say Lehi was "carried away" if this language is not used elsewhere in the scriptures to describe visions? Or is this usage comparable to Nephi's discussion of being "carried away in the Spirit" (see [[1 Ne 11:19]], [[1 Ne 11:29]], [[1 Ne 14:30]], and [[1 Ne 15:1]]) or to descriptions of people who fell into trance-like states and were "carried away in God" (see [[Alma 19:6]])? Is this a foreshadowing of what will happen to the inhabitants of Jerusalem if they reject the message Lehi is about to receive in his vision (see [[2 Ne 25:10]]-11)?<br />
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* ''Parallels with Joseph Smith.'' How does Lehi's experience compare with Joseph Smith's experience? [http://www.lds.org/portal/site/LDSOrg/menuitem.b12f9d18fae655bb69095bd3e44916a0/vgnextoid=2354fccf2b7db010VgnVCM1000004d82620aRCRD&locale=0&sourceId=14f3fd758096b010VgnVCM1000004d82620a____&hideNav=1 Holland, Jeffrey R. ''Daddy, Donna, and Nephi.'' Ensign, September 1976.]<br />
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* ''Revelation.'' What does the inclusion of Lehi's vision in I Nephi 1 tell us about the importance of ongoing revelation? See also, e.g.: 1 Ne. 2:1-2, 1 Ne. 2:16,19. [http://www.lds.org/portal/site/LDSOrg/menuitem.b12f9d18fae655bb69095bd3e44916a0/?vgnextoid=2354fccf2b7db010VgnVCM1000004d82620aRCRD&locale=0&sourceId=14f3fd758096b010VgnVCM1000004d82620a____&hideNav=1 Holland, Jeffrey R. ''Daddy, Donna, and Nephi.'' Ensign, September 1976.]<br />
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* ''Parallels with Moses.'' If the Lord appeared to Moses in a burning bush ([[Ex 3:2]]), then was something similar happening with Lehi as he beheld the fire upon the rock? If the Lord used the burning bush as an occasion to call Moses to a great work, then was a similar prophetic calling being extended to Lehi at this time? If Moses fel overwhelmed at the thought of battling Pharaoh for the freedom of the Israelites (see [[Ex 3:11]]), then was Lehi experiencing similar feelings when "he did quake and tremble exceedingly"?<br />
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* In verses 9-11, Christ appears to Lehi and gives him a book to read. Is it significant that this revelation occurs by means of a revealed book rather than by Christ speaking to Lehi or in some other way? (Compare [[Ezek 2:9]], [[Rev 5:1-5]], and [[Rev 10:2]], and [[Rev 10:8|8-10]].)<br />
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===Verse 6===<br />
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* ''"pillar of fire."'' What is this thing that Lehi saw (verse 6)? Did Lehi connect it with the pillar of fire that accompanied the Israelites on their march out of Egypt? Was this the Lord's way of teaching Lehi that he is embarking on an exodus? Is the connection of a fire from heaven with a rock a hint that Lehi was in the process of offering a sacrifice upon an altar (see [[Judg 6:21]])?<br />
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* ''"quake and tremble."'' Was Lehi suddenly feeling this way because the vision left him with an acute awareness of his sins (compare to [[1 Ne 22:23]] and [[Isa 6:5]])? Or is this what naturally happens to mortals when the Lord looks upon them (see [[Mosiah 27:31]]) and addresses them in his all-powerful voice (see [[Hel 12:9]])? Or was Lehi experiencing, as a consequence of his mighty prayer on behalf of the people, something akin to what the sons of Mosiah felt, who "were desirous that salvation should be declared to every creature, for they could not bear that any human soul should perish; yea, even the very thoughts that any soul should endure endless torment did cause them to quake and tremble" ([[Mosiah 28:3]])?<br />
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===Verse 7===<br />
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* ''"returned to his own house."'' Where was Lehi before he went back home? Why did he feel the need to leave home in order to offer a prayer?<br />
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* ''"cast himself upon his bed."'' If the pillar of fire was a night-time experience for the Israelites as they escaped from captivity (see [[Ex 13:21]]), then is it likely that Lehi witnessed the pillar of fire at night and ready to retire to bed when the pillar vanished? Is the verb "cast" in this verse transitive or intransitive? If it was intransitive, then is it possible that Lehi was selecting himself to participate in the production that was about to unfold?<br />
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* ''"saw and heard."'' If this phrase does not appear in the Old Testament, then what influenced Nephi to use it? Was there no such thing as silent visions in Old Testament times? What is this significance of this phrase, given that all but one instance of it in scriptures occur in the Book of Mormon?<br />
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===Verse 8===<br />
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* ''Impact of the Vision upon Lehi.'' If Lehi was physically shaken by what he "saw and heard," (verse 6) then why was he soon after "overcome" by the things he had seen, and not by the things he had heard? Does this mean the things Lehi heard in his vision had more of a lasting impact upon him than the things he saw? Or is it possible the vision was primarily oral and the only visual component was the dazzling pillar of fire that danced upon the rock? Is [http://frontpage2000.nmia.com/~nahualli/LDStopics/1Nephi/1Nephi1.htm Brant Gardner right] that Lehi's experience was "enervating," just like Joseph Smith's early experiences with visions, or did Lehi "cast himself upon his bed" less out of exhaustion and more out of a desire to commence dreaming and continue receiving visions?<br />
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* ''"he saw the heavens open."'' Where did Lehi learn to describe his view of the heavens as a curtain or window being opened? Had Isaiah given him the mental image of a God who "stretcheth out the heavens as a curtain" ([[Isa 40:22]])? Was he influenced by Ezekiel who said "the heavens were opened, and I saw visions of God" ([[Ezek 1:1]])? What impact did Elisha's conversation with a nobleman about "windows in heaven" ([[2 Kgs 7:2]]) have on Lehi? Was Lehi already aware of the promise that Malachi would later record, that when a person paid their tithing the Lord would open "windows of heaven, and pour you out a blessing, that there shall not be room enough to receive it" ([[Mal 3:10]])? Did Nephi use this language to describe Lehi's vision because he considered his father's wealth a blessing for paying tithing? Was Nephi also making a connection between the heavens opening and the infinite blessings of the atonement that would result from the Savior's condescension to earth?<br />
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* ''"he thought he saw God."'' Is Nephi helping to preserve his father's humility with this choice of words? Was the question on Lehi's mind whether he saw God with his physical eyes or his spiritual eyes? Was Lehi's encounter with God similar to apostles and disciples who could not tell whether their experiences with divine beings were "in the body" or "out of the body" (see [[2 Cor 12:2]]-3 and [[3 Ne 28:15]])? Alternatively, was Lehi uncertain that the being he saw was actually God?<br />
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* ''"God sitting upon his throne."'' [http://frontpage2000.nmia.com/~nahualli/LDStopics/1Nephi/1Nephi1.htm If John W. Welch is right] that, throughout the Old Testament, indivdiuals received a vision of the heavens, including God and his council, when they were called as a prophet, then who were the audiences that needed to see Lehi portrayed within this same literary formula? Was it people living during Old Testament times that needed to hear about Lehi being called as a prophet in the same manner as other Old Testmanet prophets, or was it principally people in modern times that needed to recognize the pattern in Lehi's calling as a prophet? Why does Lehi see the Celestial Kingdom in this way, as a place of praise rather than as a place of celestial work? Did Lehi and Nephi acquire a mental image of this scene from their reading of [[2 Kgs 9:5]] and [[2 Chr 18:18]]?<br />
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===Verse 9===<br />
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* ''"One descending."'' Is this a reference to [[Ps 8:5]]?<br />
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===Verse 10===<br />
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* Lehi sees twelve others following God. Are these the twelve apostles that were alive at the time of Jesus, or some other twelve?<br />
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===Verse 11===<br />
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What is the book (see verse 11) that is given to Lehi?<br />
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== Resources ==<br />
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''This heading is for listing links and print resources, including those cited in the notes. A short comment about the particular strengths of a resource can be helpful. Click the link above and to the right to edit or add content to this heading. →''<br />
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===Incoming Cross-References Not Listed in The Footnotes for These Verses===<br />
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* ''Verse 5:'' [[Ex 3:2]], [[Jer 13:14]], [[Jer 26:18]], [[1 Ne 2:13]], [[2 Ne 1:4]], [[Hel 8:20]], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/gs/n/11 GS Nebuchadnezzar], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/tg/r/86 TG Repent, Repentance], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/in/l/57 IN Lehi]<br />
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* ''Verse 6:'' [[Ex 3:2]], [[Lev 9:24]], [[Judg 6:21]], [[Jer 13:14]], [[Jer 26:18]], [[Jer 29:13]], [[Ezek 1:1]], [[James 5:16]], [[1 Ne 2:13]], [[1 Ne 11:14]], [[2 Ne 1:4]], [[2 Ne 4:24]], [[Hel 8:20]], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/gs/n/11 GS Nebuchadnezzar], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/bd/f/15 BD Fire], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/tg/f/78 TG Fire], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/tg/g/77 TG God, Presence of], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/tg/p/90 TG Pillar], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/tg/q/2 TG Quake], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/tg/r/86 TG Repent, Repentance], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/tg/t/147 TG Tremble], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/in/f/57 IN Fire], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/in/l/57 IN Lehi], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/in/p/75 IN Pillar], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/in/q/1 IN Quake, Quaking], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/in/t/115 IN Tremble, Trembling]<br />
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* ''Verse 7:'' [[Jer 13:14]], [[Jer 26:18]], [[Jer 29:13]], [[Ezek 1:1]], [[James 5:16]], [[1 Ne 2:13]], [[1 Ne 11:14]], [[1 Ne 19:20]], [[2 Ne 1:4]], [[2 Ne 4:24]], [[Hel 8:20]], [[JS-H 1:20]], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/gs/n/11 GS Nebuchadnezzar], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/tg/o/60 TG Overcome, Overcame], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/tg/r/86 TG Repent, Repentance], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/in/l/57 IN Lehi], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/in/o/61 IN Overcome], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/in/s/268 IN Spirit, Holy / Spirit of the Lord]<br />
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* ''Verse 8:'' [[1 Sam 3:10]], [[Jer 13:14]], [[Jer 26:18]], [[Jer 29:13]], [[James 5:16]], [[1 Ne 2:13]], [[2 Ne 1:4]], [[2 Ne 4:24]], [[Hel 8:20]], [[D&C 110:2]], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/gs/n/11 GS Nebuchadnezzar], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/tg/c/34 TG Carry, Carried], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/tg/h/52 TG Heaven], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/tg/r/86 TG Repent, Repentance], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/tg/s/82 TG See, Saw, Seen], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/tg/s/171 TG Singing, Sing, Sang, Sung], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/tg/t/93 TG Throne], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/in/a/126 IN Angel], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/in/c/28 IN Carry], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/in/g/67 IN God, Manifestations of], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/in/h/47 IN Heaven], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/in/l/57 IN Lehi], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/in/o/40 IN Open], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/in/s/63 IN See, Saw, Seen], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/in/s/172 IN Sing, Sang, Sung, Singing], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/in/s/268 IN Spirit, Holy / Spirit of the Lord], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/in/t/64 IN Throne], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/in/v/30 IN Vision, Visionary]<br />
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* ''Verse 9:'' [[1 Sam 3:10]], [[Jer 13:14]], [[Jer 26:18]], [[Ezek 1:1]], [[1 Ne 2:13]], [[1 Ne 5:4]], [[1 Ne 11:14]], [[2 Ne 1:4]], [[Hel 8:20]], [[D&C 110:2]], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/gs/n/11 GS Nebuchadnezzar], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/tg/n/53 TG Noonday], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/tg/r/86 TG Repent, Repentance], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/tg/s/369 TG Sun], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/in/d/50 IN Descend], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/in/l/57 IN Lehi], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/in/n/66 IN Noon-day], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/in/s/354 IN Sun]<br />
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===Verse 9===<br />
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* ''One descending out of . . . heaven.'' See [http://scriptures.byu.edu/gettalk.php?ID=1364&CID=1877#dest “The Book of Mormon’s Witness of Jesus Christ,”] ''Ensign'', May 1987, 28J by Thomas Fyans.<br />
* For an odd poetic exploration of the significance of the book carried by this "One," see [[User: Joe Spencer/By way of introduction: t(h/r)e(e/mb)l(o/in)g(y/)]].<br />
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== Notes ==<br />
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''Footnotes are not required but are encouraged for factual assertions that average readers cannot easily evaluate for themselves, such as the date of King Solomon’s death or the nuanced definition of a Greek word. In contrast, insights rarely benefit from footnoting, and the focus of this page should always remain on the scriptures themselves rather than what someone has said about them. Links are actively encouraged on all sections of this page, and links to authoritative sources are preferable to footnotes.''<br />
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[[1 Ne 1:1-4 | Previous page: Verses 1:1-4]] &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; [[1 Ne 1:16-20 | Next page: Verses 1:16-20]]</div>Sterlinghttp://feastupontheword.org/1_Ne_1:1-41 Ne 1:1-42014-01-19T21:11:36Z<p>Sterling: /* Verse 4 */ king's age</p>
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<div>[[The Book of Mormon]] > [[First Nephi]] > [[First Nephi 1-2 | Chapters 1-2]] > [[First Nephi 1 | Chapter 1]] > [[1 Ne 1:1-4 | Verses 1:1-4]] <br><br />
[[First Nephi 1 | Previous page: Chapter 1]] &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; [[1 Ne 1:5-15 | Next page: Verses 1:5-15]]<br />
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This page would ideally always be under construction. You are invited to contribute.<br />
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== Summary ==<br />
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''This heading should be brief and may include an outline of the passage. Click the link above and to the right to edit or add content to this heading. →''<br />
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The relationship of verses 1-4 to the rest of Chapter 1 is discussed at [[First Nephi 1 | Chapter 1]].<br />
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== Discussion ==<br />
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''This heading is for more detailed discussions of all or part of a passage. Discussion may include the meaning of a particular word, how a doctrinal point is developed throughout the passage, insights to be developed in the future, and other items. Contributions may range from polished paragraphs down to a single bullet point. The focus, however, should always be on understanding the scriptural text consistent with LDS doctrine. Click the link above and to the right to edit or add content to this heading. →''<br />
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===Verse 1===<br />
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* ''Goodly'' According to Webster's 1828, [http://65.66.134.201/cgi-bin/webster/webster.exe?search_for_texts_web1828=goodly goodly] means "Being of a handsome form; beautiful; graceful; as a goodly person; goodly raiment; goodly houses." In this context it may mean "well-off." ''Goodly'' is used only once more in the Book of Mormon, [[Mosiah 18:7]]: there were a goodly number gathered together at the place of Mormon. It is used twice in the Doctrine and Covenants: [[D&C 97:9]] & [[D&C 99:7]]. There the meaning is ''beautiful'' or ''fair''. It is also used with this same meaning many times in the Old and New Testaments.<br />
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* ''On introducing.'' The "therefore" with which Nephi begins the final phrase of verse 1 marks his introductory verses (verses 1-3) as apologetic: this is ''why'' I am writing, all of what I just mentioned ''justifies'' taking up this project. The logic of Nephi's apologetic introduction is surprising because though he will later explicitly mention a divine commandment to produce the text ([[2 Ne 5:31]]), he makes no such reference here. Instead, he founds his text on the circumstances of his life. Nephi makes cites his experiences as of enough significance to justify writing scripture. Given this, Nephi's brief autobiography in verse 1--what we will see is essentially his reading of those very experiences--should be read with incredible care.<br />
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===Possible Structures===<br />
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* ''Serial structure.'' If one looks at Nephi's autobiographical sketch for a textual structure, the repeating word ''having'' immediately suggests its own importance: every phrase (except the ungrammatical "therefore I was taught somewhat in all the learning of my father," which can only be dealt with after some structural clarity is achieved) begins with the term. If ''having'' is read as the structural key to the passage, most likely therefore to be read as a progressive series, then it might be rendered thus (with connectives set between phrases):<br />
(1) having been born of goodly parents<br />
and<br />
(2) having seen many afflictions in the course of my days<br />
nevertheless<br />
(3) having been highly favored of the Lord in all my days<br />
yea<br />
(4) having had a great knowledge of the goodness and the mysteries of God<br />
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* ''Chiastic structure.'' No sooner is the structure laid out as a series of ''having'''s than some obvious parallelistic structures suggest themselves. Most visible perhaps is the parallel ''my days'' occurring in (2) and (3). Not quite so striking at first is the parallelism formed by (1) and (4) by their use of different manifestations of the word ''good'', ''goodly'' and ''goodness'' respectively. This double parallel of first with last and second with penultimate suggests the passage be read as a chiasm (perhaps with even the ''and'' between (1) and (2) parallel to the ''yea'' between (3) and (4)). Rendered chiastically, the autobiographical sketch would look thus:<br />
A having been born of ''goodly'' parents<br />
B ''and''<br />
C having seen many afflictions in the course of my ''days''<br />
D nevertheless<br />
C' having been highly favored of the Lord in all my ''days''<br />
B' ''yea''<br />
A' having had a great knowledge of the ''goodness'' and the mysteries of God<br />
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* ''Double parallel structure.'' The parallel drawn out above as B and B' further suggests another structural reading of the passage. Both ''and'' and ''yea'' suggest a doubling, a repetition. In other words, A and C might well be read parallelistically, as might A' and C'. The autobiographical sketch would then become a parallel set of parallelisms, mediated by the central ''nevertheless''. In short, the passage might be schematized thus:<br />
A having been born of goodly parents<br />
B and<br />
A' having seen many afflictions in the course of my days<br />
C nevertheless<br />
D having been highly favored of the Lord in all my days<br />
B' yea<br />
D' having had a great knowledge of the goodness and the mysteries of God<br />
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The interpretive comments below follow each of the above three structural readings in turn.<br />
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===Nephi's First "Having"===<br />
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* ''Birth and learning.'' Nephi's first ''having'', taken in its full and ungrammatical rendering, ties together two vital clues to Nephi's record: his birth and his learning. He immediately qualifies his birth with mention of his "goodly parents." ''Goodly'' here is often read as though its meaning is the same as ''good.'' But if we read ''goodly'' as meaning wealthy (see lexical note above), we see Nephi recognizing that it was because of his parent's wealth that he was able to be taught "somewhat in ''all'' the learning of [his] father" (emphasis added).<br />
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* ''Teaching and learning.'' Nephi calls upon two important if oddly balanced terms to describe his early education: ''taught'' and ''learning''. While a sort of opposition between teaching and learning might at first be read into the text, a careful reading reveals that this opposition is far too simplistic: the learning Nephi mentions is not his own, but his father's, and even as Nephi is the one taught, the verb is used passively ("I was taught somewhat") so that the teacher is cloaked and the act of teaching is therefore uprooted when set into the text. No simplistic scheme of Lehi teaching and Nephi learning is suggested at all in the text. The tie between the two terms, moreover, is prepositional: Nephi's being taught is "in" the learning of Lehi. This emphasizes an important fact: the term, "learning," in the text is a noun, a ''thing''. Whatever Lehi's learning consists of, it is clear from the text that it already consists, that it already stands together, that it is complete enough to be taught, named, or pointed out. And this nominal completion of Lehi's learning stands textually against the apparently incomplete studies of Nephi: "I was taught ''somewhat'' in all the learning of my father." While all of this sets up some possibilities for interpreting Nephi's brief report of his education, some more detailed consideration of the terms involved is warranted.<br />
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* ''Lehi's learning.'' While Nephi later (in verse 2) speaks of the "language of my father, which consists of the learning of the Jews and the language of the Egyptians," it is not yet clear how that should be read against the more simple "learning of my father" of verse 1. More fruitful for getting started, perhaps, is a brief consideration of the term, ''learning''. The English word, "learning," derives from an Indo-European root, ''leis'', meaning a track or a furrow. To learn is etymologically to follow a track, a pathway already (and not recently) cut out, already trod for some time. The pre-existence of whatever is trod, bound up in the word "to learn," is also not unfamiliar to the Hebrew root ''lqch'', the root behind the word most commonly translated in KJV as "learning": ''lqch'' means to take, to seize, even to steal, always implying the pre-existence of whatever is taken, seized, stolen. Certainly Lehi's learning implies that he takes up a way that has been trod for a long while before him. But the English and the Hebrew both imply still more: both "to learn" and ''lqch'' emphasize a sort of solitude. While teaching implies an instructor and an instructed, the learner comes upon a pathway that ''has been'' trod, but that might now be completely empty, and most likely is without a guide. That ''lqch'' can mean to steal certainly reinforces the lonely character of Lehi's learning: it might well be suggested that Lehi's learning, in which Nephi was taught, was a very solitary project.<br />
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* ''Nephi's being taught.'' If Lehi's learning is a work of solitude, the lonely work of following the long-since-left-behind, Nephi's being taught is imbued with the spirit of a face to face encounter, perhaps even characterized by a sort of violence as well. The English word, "teach," is etymologically related to "touch," as is "didactic" to "tactile." To teach is to point out, to put one's finger onto something. Whereas Lehi seems to come upon something abandoned, which he must attempt to bring back to life in self-disciplined learning, Nephi has a living someone who stands before him, who points out what is to be learned, who gives tasks to the student. This "being taught" on Nephi's part well reflects the broad meaning of the Hebrew term for teaching, ''lmd'', to train, to develop skills in oneself or another. Nephi learns through another, through an actual engagement. The ambiguity of such an engagement (one engages the enemy, and one is engaged to a future spouse) is suggestive: Nephi learns through a work of desire both to submit and to overpower, wraps his arms about his teach both to embrace and to wrestle ("touching" in being "taught"). Lehi's learning is the work of an archaeologist; Nephi's being taught is the work of a disciple. <br />
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* ''Toward the relation between Nephi and Lehi.'' The foregoing comments on Nephi's first ''having'', besides destructuring the father-son teaching situation, work out provisional meanings for three words: "goodly", being "taught", and "learning". The meanings worked out are provisional precisely in that they remain in the above comments extratextual: they have not been read back into the text, but provide a framework for just such a (re)reading. However, before such a reading can proceed, something of the interpersonal dynamics at play in this first ''having'' must be worked out, so that there is ''something'' to read these words back into. In other words, because "goodly" qualifies "parents", because "taught" qualifies "I", because "learning" qualifies--this last in a very broad sense--"father", the interrelatedness of Nephi ("I"), his "parents" and his "father" must be worked out before the meanings of their qualifying words can be read into the text. It should be noted at the same time that a preliminary working out of the interpersonal dynamics of Nephi's first ''having'' will also be provisional: like the working out of the meaning of the qualifying words, a working out of these dynamics is an abstraction of text, drawing out the persons without the words that qualify them. Hence, the complex interpersonal dynamics of this first ''having'' (it is unique among the four ''having'''s) require a second abstraction in addition to the first one worked out above. The two must then be read against and into each other for a more complete reading of the phrase.<br />
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* ''On proper names.'' The first and most obvious aspect of the interpersonal dynamics of Nephi's first ''having'' to be considered is the function of the proper name. Whereas Nephi's first verse opens with the overwhelming announcement of the prophet's own proper name, the remainder of the three-verse preface to Nephi's text is, from then on, void of any other proper names for any (earthly) person ("the Lord" might be a proper name, "YHWH", though it names God; "the Jews" and "the Egyptians" might also be argued to be proper names, but each apparently names a collective--they are both plural). This absence of proper names is most striking in Nephi's first ''having'', where he makes explicit mention of both his "parents" and his "father", but without any proper names. The comments above have overlooked this, drawing the names of Lehi and Sariah, of course, from the actual body of the Nephite text. The point raises two questions, one of which cannot be fully examined until after full consideration of Nephi's autobiographical sketch. This question to be postponed is, indeed, as broad as Nephi's autobiographical sketch: what does Nephi's announcement of his proper name accomplish in the text? The other question, to be dealt with presently, concerns rather the unnamed in the text: what does the lack of proper names for Lehi and Sariah in this first ''having'' accomplish?<br />
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* ''On the lack of proper names.'' Lehi and Sariah pass into Nephi's first ''having'' unnamed. Perhaps Lehi and Sariah, just for that reason, pass out of Nephi's first ''having''. At any rate, the weight of this lack--the lack of the weight--of proper names in this first autobiographical reading is most significant, is a sign that marks something important at play in the text. A first consequence of the unnamedness of Nephi's "parents" and "father" is a sort of delay, a sort of suspension: Lehi and Sariah are kept out of the preface, though they are mentioned--and hence present--in the same. They are, oddly enough, both included and excluded from Nephi's autobiography. But this duplicity--presence and yet non-presence--is precisely what is in question in Nephi's first ''having'': this first autobiographical reading is the prophet's exploration of the borders between himself and his parents, that strange no man's land where Nephi ends and his parents and father begin. As has been mentioned above, this first ''having'' is an exploration of ''influence'', of the "in-flowing" of Sariah and Lehi. And Nephi's text reads this influence as an unnamed presence. In other words, Nephi's text embodies the complex influence of parents and father on son: thoroughly, unquestioningly, overwhelmingly, perhaps suffocatingly present, and yet unnamed, unrecognized, unrealized, perhaps entirely unthought. More: parents and father are so absolutely present, in and through all things, that they are not only unnamed but unnamable, not only unrecognized but unrecognizable, etc. <br />
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* ''The theme of separation.'' The relation implied between Nephi and his parents/father, then, is ultimately not a question of presence and non-presence. Nephi's first ''having'', precisely because it writes them without names, reads Sariah and Lehi as completely saturating Nephi's experience, not as perpetual presences, but rather as the element of which Nephi is made. Nephi reads himself as a (re)presentation of his parents/father: they live (continually?) in his living. Hence it would appear that there is no separation between Nephi and his parents/father in the first ''having''. However, the very first verb this ''having'' employs is one of separation. Nephi in fact opens this first self-reading with mention of the most primordial act of separation possible: the umbilical cord is cut with his "having been born." As a result, a complex tension enters into the very first phrase of Nephi's text: Nephi is, according to the text, at once inseparable from his parents/father and entirely separated from his parents/father. The first interpersonal dynamic, the first written relation between Nephi and his parents/father, is a double separation/inseparability between them.<br />
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* ''A progressive inseparability/separation.'' The situation is made more complex by the fact that the theme of separation is taken up again in the second half of the first ''having'': "therefore I was taught somewhat in all the learning of my father." As mentioned above, though a teacher is implied, his or her identity is cloaked, so that the phrase draws upon an implied distance between Nephi and Lehi. As separate as they might have become through Nephi's birth, the teaching situation later in life suggests that this separation only grew. The inferential character of the connecting "therefore" seems to confirm this growing distance. However, at the same time, Nephi's teaching is precisely "in" his father's learning: even as the separation between son and parents/father grows, so does the inseparability between them. The tension introduced in the first part of Nephi's first ''having'' is doubled, strengthened, and confirmed in the second part. The relation between Nephi and his parents/father is remarkably difficult.<br />
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* ''The meaning of the tension.'' The textual rhythm of Nephi's first ''having'' may characterize this tension, may draw out its meaning. In both the first part (before the "therefore") and the second part (after the "therefore") of this first self-reading, the theme of separation comes first, so that it is, in each instance, countered by the theme of inseparability: "having been born [separation] of goodly parents [inseparability], therefore I was taught somewhat [separation] in all the learning of my father [inseparability]." The passage "feels" as if every attempt of Nephi to draw apart from his parents is countered by their overwhelming saturation of all that he does. In other words, in every attempt to live, Nephi lives his (still unnamed) parents. Stating the issue this way does not relieve the tension, but releases it from appearing as a contradiction: Nephi is separate just in that he embodies his parents, just in that he is inseparable from them. Hence, a first reading of Nephi's first (self-)reading: Nephi's collective experience is always from the standpoint of his a son who embodies his parents/father. Nephi encounters the world as his parents.<br />
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* ''The teaching situation and separation.'' The interpersonal dynamics of Nephi's first ''having'' might now be read preliminarily, at last, in and against the meaningful words explored above. And, in fact, the important difference examined between Nephi's "being taught" and Lehi's "learning" bears powerfully on the theme of separation. In that that difference marks a difference between Nephi and Lehi, the separation between father and son might easily be read there. However, the question of separation grounds that same difference still more profoundly: the distinction between "being taught" (always face-to-face) and "learning" (always in solitude) was precisely a question of separation. In other words, the two terms bear their meaning precisely by taking up opposite ends of the tension between separation/inseparability. As a result, Nephi's teaching situation is in and of itself a double embodiment of that vital tension. First, Nephi's being taught--in face-to-face instruction--is a work of inseparability, fundamentally frustrated by the grammatical cloaking of the instructor, which marks Nephi's being taught with an undeniable character of separation. Second, because the content of the teaching is the learning of Lehi, Nephi's instruction at once marks him inseparable from his father (studying precisely the same things) and entirely separate (if he truly learns his father's learning, what is profoundly a work of solitude, of separation). Nephi's first ''having'' wonderfully puts on display Lehi's profound influence on him: always as himself, Nephi entirely presents his father.<br />
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* ''Goodliness and separation.'' As pointed at at the very beginning of these comments on Nephi's first ''having'', the first self-reading of this autobiographical sketch (by employing the strong "therefore" at its center) draws upon the relation between the goodliness of Nephi's parents and his own later instruction. That broad relation now suggests that the theme of separation so powerfully embodied in the teaching situation should be read back into the goodliness of Lehi and Sariah. Or better, that goodliness should be read as the source of that eventually perfected tension of separation/inseparability. And it certainly does. If, as mentioned above, "goodly" is best read as marking the wealth or abundance of Nephi's parents, then the description the prophet's birth draws the theme of inheritance to bear powerfully on the present considerations: Nephi's first ''having'' casts him as an heir. The power of this insight emerges in the fact that inheritance is itself a perfect embodiment of the same tension of separation/inseparability. The heir is profoundly separate and absolutely inseparable from his or her benefactor. Nephi, as heir, is again marked entirely and always himself, even as he entirely and always (re-)presents his father. Perhaps most vital in all this: it is precisely the term "goodly" that draws this tension into the first half of Nephi's first ''having''.<br />
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* ''Subverted inheritance.'' However, as soon as Nephi's first ''having'' is read through the theme of inheritance, the same theme is called into question: Nephi's relational "therefore" does not draw eventual wealth as the fruition of inheritance, but rather instruction. In other words, Nephi's inheritance is "only" an ''intellectual'' inheritance: he is heir to his father's learning. (This first ''having'', then, should probably be read with an eye to the later Lamanite claim to the right of inheritance.) Perhaps most important of all, this subversion of the traditional theme of inheritance further subverts the meaning of the term "goodly." The goodliness Nephi is concerned with might ultimately be the goodliness commonly read into this first verse of the Book of Mormon: Lehi and Sariah were folk of abundant faith, obedience, goodness, etc.<br />
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* ''Nephi's relation, finally, to his parents.'' All of the above comments set up the relation between Nephi and his parents/father. In his first self-interpretation, Nephi reads himself fundamentally as heir to his father's learning, and that only through the instrumentality--the goodliness--of his parents. As heir, Nephi covers his parents over, in a sense, and yet manifests them perfectly: he manifests them in himself. Nephi reads himself not so much as drawing upon his parents' goodliness, but as re-working it, as re-presenting, as re-embodying it. Nephi himself is Lehi again, Lehi repeated, but now with the proper name of Nephi. If this first ''having'' is Nephi's attempt to read his beginnings, to interpret his origins, what he apparently finds is always only himself ("I, Nephi"), but always only his parents/father, as presented in himself. <br />
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* ''The content of Lehi's learning.'' With this relation now established, wherein Nephi continually re-presents his father (and that especially in terms of "learning"), the way has been opened up to explore at last the actual content of Lehi's learning. However, the above comments have conclusively pointed away from such a task. It might be best to say that Nephi, precisely because he does not take the space to explicate his father's learning, sees this issue as inessential, perhaps immaterial. The point, as suggested by the above comments, of Nephi's first ''having'' is the role Lehi and Sariah play in Nephi's independent/dependent writing.<br />
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===Nephi's Second "Having"===<br />
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* ''On the way to "afflictions."'' Obviously the most important word in Nephi's second ''having'' is "afflictions." Curiously, the word does not take the grammatical position of subject in the clause; rather it functions as the direct object. As direct object, it becomes that towards which this second self-interpretation tends: the "many afflictions" of Nephi might best be understood as the ''horizon'' of this second autobiographical comment, not as the starting point. This is as much as to say that Nephi removes from himself (in the act of writing) the actual afflictions he suffered (he displaces them to his--and the reader's--horizon). He in fact does so, precisely by clothing them in a double event-ness: the afflictions comes to Nephi spatially (through his body: "having ''seen''") and temporally (in time: "in the course of my ''days''"). (It should be noted very clearly that only Nephi's second ''having'' has an undeniable event-ness about it: the static verbs of the other three ''havings'' set this second one forth as uniquely event-ual.) In other words, because Nephi characterizes his "many afflictions" as events (spatio-temporal happenings), they become for him and for the reader ''event-ual'', intended but still unreached. A first interpretive point for Nephi's second ''having'': the very key of this ''having'' ("afflictions") are the key precisely because they are what the whole phrase aims at, but does not yet reach.<br />
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* ''On the way from "afflictions."'' Even as the grammatical structure of Nephi's second ''having'' sets the prophet's afflictions at a double remove as a spatio-temporal event-uality, another grammatical structure inherent in the same phrase cancels this distantiation. The "having" that marks the seeing (the spatial/bodily happening that is temporalized in the "course of [Nephi's] days") is a verbal that is, by the end of Nephi's first verse, caught up into the present work of writing. However absent or distant Nephi's afflictions are at the time of writing, they are one of his four self-interpretive reasons for writing at all. In other words, even as Nephi's second ''having'' marks itself as a way towards the many afflictions Nephi faced, the whole of the first verse unmistakably marks Nephi's entire introduction as a way from afflictions to writing. (As mentioned above, only this second ''having'' is ''explicitly'' event-ual. While the other three self-interpretations Nephi offers might be read as several ''groundings'' of Nephi's task of writing, this one, his second ''having'', seems best read as a sort of path or way towards the task of writing. That this ''having'' is temporalized by a "''course'' of... days" seems to underscore this point.) Though Nephi's afflictions appear event-ual and horizonal, they are nonetheless a sort of point of departure for Nephi.<br />
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* ''On the (double) way of "afflictions."'' This duplicity of way, caught up into the double, tense grammatical structure of Nephi's second ''having'', suggests a sort of parallel between Nephi's first and second ''havings''. Even as this second ''having'' suggests a distance or a separation, the same is cancelled by a broader inseparability: the event-ual afflictions are the point of departure for Nephi's task of writing. This is not unlike the separation/inseparability theme of Nephi's first ''having''. The absolution of afflictions accomplished by the role of direct object is cancelled in that Nephi himself takes his departure from his bodily/temporal experience of afflictions. Again--as before--Nephi reads himself as a sort of re-embodiment (perhaps particularly in the task of writing) of afflictions he has seen, has witnessed (were they never his own afflictions?). At least this much is clear: there is a parallel structure to be read into Nephi's first two ''havings''.<br />
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* ''"Seeing" afflictions.'' Nephi takes up his afflictions with a verb that might well be read as confirming the separation/inseparability theme already doubled with this second ''having''. Vision opens, quite singularly, the very possibility for the distinction between separation and inseparability (it might be precisely because the two opposites arise out of a singular that the tension explored in these comments is possible). Sight at once sets before the seer a world spectacle from which he or she might retire and at the same time locates the seer immediately in the world, most explicitly through the sheer physicality of the eyes with which one sees. Sight--or rather all the senses, perhaps corporeal existence itself and hence every verb (such as "having seen") that summons the body--then plays an important role in Nephi's second ''having'', important precisely because it--as a bodily verb--draws out this same tension of separation/inseparability. Whereas Nephi might have discussed afflictions he had once "had" or "experienced" or "gone through," his use of "having seen" suggests something more of his relation to his afflictions: Nephi's afflictions were at once something separate and remote from him (''"seen"'') and something that might be called his very setting or vantage point (from which he ''sees'' himself autobiographically).<br />
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* ''The meaning of affliction.'' Though "affliction" seems a simple enough word, its literal meaning is perhaps more nuanced. The verb, "to afflict", comes into English from a Latin compound: ''ad-fligo'', literally "to strike against (towards)". Its primary meaning in usage was to dash something against another (or two things together) or (much the same) to knock down, strike down, or damage. Only metaphorically did the word come to mean to weaken, to discourage. Affliction was originally, then, bodily pain or torture. Before the word is taken in Nephi's text to mean something primarily "spiritual" or "mental," it should be considered in its physical originality. If Nephi means the word in a "spiritual" or "mental" sense, the violence implied in the literal meaning should not be missed. Moreover, the original "physical" meaning of the word always implies ''at least two'' "things," marked by the ''ad-'', the ''towards'' or ''against''. Too quick a reversion to the "spiritual" or "mental" reading of affliction might reduce affliction to a sort of solitary struggle rather than a literal clash of at least two things. The towards and against of affliction also point toward two parties--one who afflicts, and one who is afflicted. Affliction is more than suffering, it is a suffering caused by one towards another.<br />
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* ''The corporeality of seeing and the physicality of afflictions.'' The corporeality of Nephi's "having seen" and the radical physicality of his mentioned "afflictions" come up against each other in an odd manner. While afflictions retreat into mental/spiritual meaning only metaphorically, sight and the eyes have a natural means of retreat (unlike the other four bodily senses) in one's ability to blink, to close off sight from bodily experience. And this means of visual escape is unique and significant. It is sight, for example, that makes sleep so bizarre a human state: the sleeper is open to the reality of the world in four ways, and what he or she hears, smells, tastes, or touches readily enters into the surreality of the dream. But the sleeper closes him- or herself off entirely from the world of sight. The eye's ability to retreat, to shut off the visual realm of the world, sets the corporeality of Nephi's principal verb in this second ''having'' against the radical physicality of the afflictions Nephi deals with: because he sees the afflictions, Nephi has some recourse to distance from them, has some means of retreat from the harsh reality of the bodily danger implicit in those afflictions. At least on the grammatical level, Nephi's second ''having'' at once presents a very real danger and an ability to flee the same.<br />
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* ''The ambiguous nature of visual escape.'' Here an ambiguity in Nephi's language might well be considered: because the afflictions Nephi mentions in his second ''having'' are completely unqualified grammatically, it remains unclear whether the afflictions were things Nephi himself suffered, or whether the afflictions Nephi saw were afflictions others passed through to which the prophet was "merely" witness. The importance of this ambiguity arises most clearly in the light of Nephi's means of escape, because his ability as seer to shut his eyes is ultimately ambiguous as well. On the one hand, Nephi's visual escape might be read as a very real escape: if he closes his eyes to violence inflicted on himself, he holds out to some degree a sort of mastery over his enemies. His closed eyes would mark his willing martyrdom, a sort of absolute denial on his part to become involved (perhaps thereby doing damage to the meaning of afflictions as two things striking one another). On the other hand, Nephi's visual escape might be read as a sort of false escape: if he closes his eyes to violence inflicted on others, he marks himself a slave to his own weakness. His closed eyes would here mark him as one completely lacking the virtue of charity: he allows others to suffer while he closes his eyes. Two very different meanings of visual "escape", based on two very different meanings of the afflictions mentioned in the passage.<br />
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* ''Nephi's apparently open eyes.'' The above two comments, however, work from an assumption that is unjustified based on Nephi's second ''having'': that Nephi closed his eyes. However, the fact that Nephi ''saw'' the afflictions marks with great importance the fact that Nephi could very easily and at any time have closed them: that he didn't is what should be emphasized here. As such, Nephi's open eyes (open to the ambiguous afflictions he mentions) require interpretation. Just as Nephi's grammar invites a double reading of visual escape, a double reading of Nephi's open eyes is warranted. If, on the one hand, the afflictions in question were Nephi's own, then his meeting them with open eyes would suggest his self-transcending courage, his unwillingness to take the escape of selfish retreat that would immortalize him as an innocent martyr. Apparently unconcerned with himself, Nephi--taking the afflictions, again, to be his own--was willing to engage (to love?) even his enemies, to wrestle with them, to crash against them in a very real sense, in a radical work of opening himself--his eyes--to them. If, on the other hand, the afflictions in question were not Nephi's, but those of others to which Nephi stood witness, then his open eyes mark his unquestionable charity. Unwilling, on this reading, to turn from the difficulties others faced, Nephi presents himself as one willing to engage (again, to love?) the innocent who suffer all about him. <br />
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* ''Nephi's eyes as the double figure of love.'' Fortunately, the reader of Nephi's text is not forced to choose between these two possible readings of Nephi's open eyes. The two are allowed to work against and through each other. In fact, the two carry a very similar meaning in the end: love. Nephi's open eyes mark his unconcernedness with himself, his willingness to engage (on the one hand) his enemies and/or (on the other hand) his friends. In both cases, his self-transcendence is marked by his open eyes, but his regard or gaze that takes up both friend and enemy by the hand (hand to hand, whether in combat or in salutation). In fact, that Nephi leaves the afflictions he mentions in this second ''having'' ambiguous suggests that he wants his readers to feel the tension between both possible readings. The charity with which Nephi marks himself in this second self-interpretation is supposed to be felt as all-embracing, as touching both friends ''and'' enemies. On that account, Nephi's "having seen" imbues the figure of Nephi with love. It might, moreover, be noted that it is precisely afflictions that open Nephi's eyes (on either reading). Love itself might here be read ''as'' affliction: love is the inevitable drama of striking two things, two people, together. Love is the site of affliction, afflictions are the sight of love: in Nephi's seeing afflictions--in his seeing ''to'' afflictions--he encounters love. <br />
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* ''Nephi's love as response.'' But as soon as one reads love into Nephi's second ''having'', the objection arises that Nephi never explicitly mentions love, that he only sets it forth negatively, under the figure of seeing ''afflictions''. In other words, that Nephi here interprets himself in terms of afflictions, apparently in an attempt to interpret himself in terms of charity, is oddly ironic. It might, on the one hand, mark Nephi's humility: he only suggests his charity negatively, through afflictions. On the other hand, this detail might set a sort of limit for the reading above: Nephi's love is not an absolute virtue, but one drawn out of him by the threat of the other, by afflictions. In a sense, then, that Nephi addresses his own charity through affliction serves to proscribe Nephi's love, to render it a response rather than a call. Nephi's eyes do not intend so much as they are intended and seeingly respond. In other words and in short, Nephi's second ''having'' might be read as a figure of responsive--even responsible--charity: Nephi's open eyes figure his response to the visible world, a world, apparently, of affliction.<br />
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* ''Reanalyzing the parallel between first and second "havings".'' Nephi's second ''having'' is now seen as the prophet's confrontation with the fallen nature of the world, as his loving response to the presence of evil--of afflictions, many afflictions--in the world. And here, perhaps, the apparent parallel between this second ''having'' and the first falls apart. Whereas in the first ''having'', Nephi interprets himself as a reembodiment of his parents (thus being separate and inseparable from them), here it is clear that Nephi is not reading himself in terms of affliction, but in terms of his response to affliction. In other words, Nephi's entire first verse does not ultimately follow Nephi's journey from afflictions to writing, but from his response to afflictions to the task of writing. If this second ''having'' is to be read as privileged above the others for its event-ness, it is now clear that the event(s) Nephi here recounts is (are) not to be understood as experience(s) of affliction, but as response(s) to affliction. The one event Nephi cites on the way to the task of writing is his seeing, his open eyes in response to the wickedness of the world.<br />
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* ''Toward the course of Nephi's days.'' Given all of the above, Nephi's second ''having'' might be summarized thus: the only event Nephi calls upon in interpreting his life is his loving response (his open eyes) to the wickedness of the world. All that remains to be dealt with in this second ''having'' is the "course of [Nephi's] days." It is clear that this phrase plays an important role in the text, besides confirming the event-ual character of the second ''having''. A first, but very brief reading suggests that Nephi proscribes his charitable response within a sort of temporal enclosure (which might just be a consequence of the event-ual character of this ''having''). The word "course" is, however, not so perfectly simple. Its many meanings in [[http://65.66.134.201/cgi-bin/webster/webster.exe?search_for_texts_web1828=course|1828]] suggest that it should be read quite carefully. Two "concepts" seem to be inevitable: the word implies at least motion and method/order. (Etymology bears this out: "course" derives from Latin ''cursus'', which means an established track for running a race, hence motion and order.) Whatever Nephi means by the "course" of his days, it seems that it must inevitably be read through the double theme of motion and method.<br />
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* ''Course and death.'' But perhaps this double theme of motion and method already suggests a meaning. If Nephi's days are, as a course, understood to be a methodical procession towards an already decided end, then at least one very real possible meaning is clear: the "course" of Nephi's days ends with death. That Nephi may here be thinking of death is not to be thrown out because of the reality of the resurrection: passages throughout the Old Testament--especially in Ecclesiastes--see life as a working out of days on the way to death. (To say that the race ends with death is not at all to claim that there is nothing after the race.) If Nephi is indeed concerned with death here, then Nephi's reads his loving response, his interlocuted charity as an event at once opened up and foreclosed by the reality of death. In other words, that the event-ual ''having'' is the one tied specifically to the theme of death (a theme that rings well with the theme of affliction) suggests that event-ness itself arises out of death, that the event of charity is a response to the evil of death (even death through affliction). In short, Nephi in his second ''having'' seems to characterize himself as having lived toward his own death.<br />
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* ''One's days and the course of one's days.'' If the course Nephi describes is the procedural movement of his days toward death, it might be well to consider more exactly the word "days." That the word should not be understood here in any objective sense (e.g., to mean "twenty-four hour periods") is clear: Nephi marks the days as his, as belonging to him. In other words, Nephi does not read "days" as some objective thing he passes through, but rather understands "days" to be a sort of aspect of his experience: as ''his'' days, these days are the what through which Nephi experiences the events of affliction. Each day--lit by the light of day as opposed to night--is the light in which a certain afflicting event appeared (was seen). In fact, Nephi's seeing might well be extended to every event that came before his eyes in his "days." If this is what Nephi means by mentioning these days as his, then the meaning of the "course" of his "days" might become clearer. Nephi here reads his afflictions as punctuating an ordered procession of experiences, of events, a series of events that culminate in death--the event that anounces itself as the foreclosure of all other events, as the cessation of events. In other words, Nephi seems to read his life here as a series of witnessed events, as experiences he entered into bodily (even through his eyes), all tending toward the cessation of events and experiences, and all this punctuated often ("many") by afflictions, by--perhaps--events that suggested the reality of the coming conclusive event. It is, of course, most significant that Nephi reads his own charity as a response to those event-ual forerunners of death. <br />
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* ''The overarching tension of Nephi's second'' having. All of the above suggests the following general reading of Nephi's second ''having''. Whereas the first ''having'' explored the possibility of Nephi's escape, as it were, from his parents, this second ''having'' explores the possibility of Nephi's ability to rebridge the gap of interpersonal separation. Taking as its theme the gift of charity, Nephi seems to read through the ever-present reality of death (ever-present through the constant experience of affliction) a sort of call to love, to which Nephi responds.<br />
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===Nephi's Third "Having"===<br />
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* ''Nephi's return to "days."'' After the peculiarities of Nephi's second ''having'', the word "days" immediately stands out in this third ''having''. Whereas before his days were subsumed under the figure of a course, here they are merely collected with the word "all." One immediately gets the sense that this third ''having'' breaks the course of the second, that the inevitable movement of Nephi's days toward death is canceled in the favor of the Lord. Broadly speaking, then, this third ''having'' already presents itself as something beyond even the implicit charity of the second ''having''. Certainly the clearest initial theme of this ''having'' is the theme of God's love, God's favor, a reverse of the charity mentioned above.<br />
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* ''The meaning of favor.'' <br />
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===Nephi's Four "Having's"===<br />
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* ''Nephi's life and the plan.'' Together the clauses beginning with ''having'' form a pattern that runs through Nephi's two books: creation ("having been born"), fall ("having seen many afflictions"), atonement ("having been highly favored of the Lord"), and passing through the veil ("having had a great knowledge"). The pattern might broadly be called "the plan of salvation," but it appears to play a more fundamental ''textual'' role for Nephi as well. His first eighteen chapters (1 Nephi 1-18) tell a sort of creation story (with constant reference to his goodly parents); his following nine chapters (1 Nephi 19-2 Nephi 5) tell a sort of fall story (marked emphatically by the division between Nephites and Lamanites); his next twenty-five chapters (2 Nephi 6-31) tell a sort of atonement story (how the Lamanites might become again favored and reconnected to broader Israel); and his concluding three chapters (2 Nephi 31-33) dwell on a sort of passing-through-the-veil story (through a discussion of baptism in incredibly "veil-like" terms). Moreover, that the twenty-five chapter atonement stretch of Nephi's two-book record is presented by three messengers who collectively bring to the reader an understanding of how the "veil" of 2 Nephi 31-33 might be passed suggests that there is some connection between Nephi's broader record and the temple drama. If this connection is not unfounded, Nephi's "therefore" toward the end of this verse is powerfully significant: it is because his very life might be read as a sort of "endowment" that he is writing this text.<br />
* ''goodness and mysteries.'' No other prophet in our scriptures pairs these words in a single verse. Nephi is restating an earlier portion of this verse, in which he attributed his "learning" to his "goodly parents." Nephi's life experiences apparently taught him these two things go hand in hand.<br />
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===Chiastic Interpretation===<br />
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===Double Parallelism Interpretation===<br />
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* ''Nevertheless.'' The center of the chiastic structural reading is peculiar, but textually important. D ''mediates'' the two "halves" of the passage. In other words, it is the single word ''nevertheless'' that decides how the relation between the first half (A, B, and C) and the second half (A', B', and C') should be read. The implication: this single, perhaps "intuitive" word must be read with care. An all-too-quick reading of the word might suggest that it draws the two halves of the chiasm together in a sort of antithesis: by bringing them to stand side by side, ''nevertheless'' markedly puts on display the distinction between the events of the first half and the events of the second half, precisely because ''nevertheless'' means ''however'', or ''but''. However, more careful thought reveals that ''nevertheless'' does not at all set up a facile anthithesis. The term rather means most literally that what is about to be said is not undone by what has been said, that the implications of the foregoing (here, the first half) do not preclude what is about to be said (here, in the second half): Y (what I am about to say) is ''never'' to be taken as anything ''less''--is not to be read weakly--because of X (what I have just said). This more literal reading implies a great deal about the meaning of Nephi's autobiographical chiasm. The first half of it (what might be called Nephi's earthly world) does not preclude in any way, nor does it weaken at all, the second half of it (what might be called Nephi's heavenly world). In short, the first half of Nephi's chiastic autobiography at once has something to do with the second half--especially in that it parallels it!--but the relation between the two is neither one of mutual implication, nor one of frustrating contradiction. Perhaps all that can at first be said about the chiasm in question is what has snuck into this discussion through the back door: Nephi sees the earthly and heavenly aspects of his existence as parallel, not contradictory or implicatory.<br />
* ''having .., nevertheless, having...'' Lehi is not disappointed by his experiences. He displays an attitude of gratitude.<br />
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===Beyond (?) Autobiography===<br />
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* ''Book of the Dead wording.'' If the final phrase of this verse is taken in the Egyptian idiom, it is remarkably close to the Egyptian name for what is commonly called the "Book of the Dead" (Egyptian: "The Book of Going Forth by Day"). Nephi might here be making a suggestive allusion: his two-volume record on the small plates is, as it were, his own Book of the Dead (which was, for all intents and purposes, a sort of Egyptian endowment, an Egyptian drama of resurrection). If this reading is justified, this final phrase might ground the temple connections mentioned above. A connection (however distant) to the Book of the Dead would certainly explain the autobiographical "I, Nephi" with which the verse begins: copies of the "canonical" Book of the Dead were always personalized (by name) for the individual who purchased them. This may also provide a better context in which to understand verse 2.<br />
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* ''Dependent/independent clauses.'' The rather extended series of dependent clauses (the four "havings") that makes up the first half of this verse is interrupted along its course by the strikingly ungrammatical "therefore I was taught...." (This instance of "therefore" is the first of two in 1 Nephi 1:1, and should not here be confused with the summary "therefore" with which Nephi begins the final phrase of the verse.) The phrase, abstracted from its surroundings, is clearly an independent clause, though it is (because of the "therefore") subjected to the series of dependent clauses. The phrase therefore sets up a tension in the first half of this verse: there is an independent clause that is, so to speak, dependent on a series of dependent clauses. The tension accomplishes two things at once: on the one hand, it allows Nephi to draw the conclusion implicated by his "therefore," that his having been taught has something to do with his father's wealth, etc.; on the other hand, it frees the phrase from its confines in the first verse so that it can form a parallelism with the "language of my father" mentioned in verse 2. The tension is therefore structural: the phrase, "therefore I was taught somewhat in all the learning of my father," is drawn into tension by the first two verses, suspended, as it were, between them. The "Yea" of verse 2, discussed below, is therefore all the more significant.<br />
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=== Verse 2 ===<br />
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* ''Double parallelism.'' Given the comments above on verse 1, there is a double parallelism at play in this verse: Nephi is concerned in the first verse with his father's learning, and in the second verse with his father's language. This is doubled by Nephi's further mention of the learning of the Jews and the language of the Egyptians. The full implications of this double parallelism, however, remain to be worked out.<br />
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* ''Re-translating verse 1?'' Besides the tension that already connects the first two verses in an odd way (explained above in the comments on verse 1), Nephi further connects them by mediating their contraposition with the weighty word "Yea." Given that the Book of Mormon broadly takes up the KJV idiom (a presupposition that might well be called into question), the "Yea" here likely should be read with the weight of the Hebrew root ''knn'', to double, to repeat, to confirm. If so, Nephi seems to be drawing his first two verses into a sort of reciprocal or perhaps dialectical relation. If this second verse might be read as a "translation" of the first, it is fascinating that the two verses are drawn together in their pairing of questions of language and learning, especially the explicit mention of Jewish and Egyptian traditions. Through these two verses (explicitly composed of "metalanguage"), Nephi presents his record as fundamentally dual: it is a crossing of Egyptian and Jewish traditions, of Lehi's and Nephi's experiences, of language and learning, of verse 1 and verse 2. It might at least be said that Nephi sees his work as working out these several tensions.<br />
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* ''Making a record.'' A single foundational phrase underlies both verse 1 and verse 2: "I make a record." When each of these verses is stripped of dependent clauses and prepositional phrases, only this four-word sentence is left behind for each of them. The two verses would thus read: "I make a record. Yea, I make a record." This observation not only strengthens the suggestion that verse 2 is a repetition/translation of verse 1, but it also makes clear that Nephi's making a record is of foundational importance to these first few verses. Nephi uses the word "record" three times in this three-verse introduction to his text, doubly marking the importance of the term. The word generally translates the Hebrew ''zkrwn'' in the KJV, a word deriving from the root ''zkr'', meaning to actualize, to enact, to remember, to hold in presence. Nephi's choice of this word may imply that his text is to be read as a ritual text, one to be read aloud, even acted out or presented dramatically (cf. [[Rev 1:3]]). Such a reading might well ground the endowment themes in verse 1, while at the same time both enriching and making difficult Nephi's statement in verse 3 that the record is "true."<br />
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* ''Mention of the Jews.'' The first mention of the Jews in the whole of Nephi's record--in the whole of the Book of Mormon--is found in this verse, and it sets the tone for all subsequent discussion of the Jews. If there is any starting point for a study of who is meant by the Jews in the Book of Mormon, it is here. And this first mention is quite peculiar. From the very beginning, the national identity of the Jews is in question. "The Jews" are set here quite clearly against "the Egyptians," both emerging under plural nouns that deserve some attention: why does Nephi say "the learning of the Jews" and not "the learning of Judah" or "Jewish learning," and why does Nephi say "the language of the Egyptians" and not "the language of Egypt" or "Egyptian language"? The point is important, because Nephi from the very beginning places an emphasis on individuals who derive their identity from their political situation, rather than on nations as whole individuals (the "Israel" of the OT prophets, so profoundly understood by William Blake in his mythic prophecies). The point is, in fact, more complicated still: specific mention of "the Jews" and "the Egyptians" can only have had for Nephi profound political overtones, because of the particular situation between these nations that obtained at the time he left Jerusalem with his family. These politically defined individuals, set against each other in Nephi's first mention of the Jews, deserves some very close attention.<br />
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* ''"of the Jews," "of the Egyptians."'' Only a decade or so before Zedekiah's enthronement, the Jews and the Egyptians found themselves at war. The political situation was intense: Assyria had crumbled, leaving a power vacuum and three nations trying to fill it. Babylon, the largest and most powerful nation, was the most likely to take its place, but this was undecided, since both Egypt and Judah were also striving for the part. Around 610 B.C., Pharaoh Necho offered to join forces with Babylon against all other powers, working towards a joint empire. While traveling to accomplish this in 609 B.C., Pharaoh was encountered by Israelite forces led by King Josiah, who was attempting to stop the alliance. Josiah had already led his armies to quite a few victories in his struggle to claim greater Judean power. At Megiddo, the armies met, and Israel suffered a terrible defeat, in which Necho himself killed Josiah. The defeat was crushing for Judah (the textual implications of this failure alone for the Bible are incredible), and led quickly to the conquest of Jerusalem within two decades. Babylon quickly asserted its power of Judah, and Judah found itself conquered with a puppet king in place over it (namely, Zedekiah, who was installed by Babylon). This set up a rather difficult situation for Judah, a people with a covenant they understood to mean that they would never be conquered: either they had to submit cheerfully to Babylon (which seemed to imply unfaithfulness to the Davidic covenant), or they had to raise up enough of a force against Babylon to throw off the yoke (which could only be done through an alliance with Egypt). The prophets at the time were advocating the former position (Jeremiah especially), but Zedekiah eventually tried to establish political ties with Egypt, and the result was the obliteration of the kingdom of Judah. All of this, oddly, shows that the Jews and the Egyptians had a rather complex relationship at the time the Book of Mormon begins: those who were in favor of Egypt were those who could forgive the death of Josiah in order to try in some way to restore the situation they believed to be according to the Davidic covenant; those who were not in favor of Egypt were following the prophets even though it seemed as if this were against the wishes of the Lord. More still: the Egyptians and the Jews had so many commercial ties--especially mercenary ties--that the cultures had to some degree or another fused into one. That Nephi writes his record in reformed Egyptian is of some significance: he finds himself in the midst of some major political struggles, all of which bear quite inevitably on the questions of covenant.<br />
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* ''Jews, then, and Egyptians.'' For Nephi here to use "of the Jews" and "of the Egyptians" makes quite a point, then: by drawing on collective individuals, Nephi avoids questions of broader politics. He is not so much concerned in this verse with Judah and Egypt as he is with people from Judah and people from Egypt. He is more concerned with cultures and heritages, with traditions. It should be noted, then, that the very first mention of "the Jews" in the Book of Mormon marks them as a national culture that can be opposed to, set against, that of Egypt. If Egypt is the glory of antiquity, Nephi sees Judah as no less so. The Jews, from the very beginning, are a people, one with a tradition, with a unique history and culture, and with an autonomous take on the world. The Jews, it seems quite clear, are to be understood as the people who come from the Southern Kingdom of Judah, who have inherited the particularities of Judah and Benjamin, as well as the complexities of cross-cultures that came in with the collapse of the Northern Kingdom. The heritage of Judah has a mixed history, perhaps, but Nephi understands it to be unique and separate by this point.<br />
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=== Verse 3 ===<br />
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* ''Chiasm.'' After the grammatical complexity of Nephi's first two verses, the third verse reads with a striking simplicity. It is made up of three straightforward statements, all beginning with the conjoining "and I". Despite the unbalance between these short, plain statements and the far more difficult phrases of verses 1 and 2, this verse sets up a chiastic structure that runs through the whole of Nephi's first three verses:<br />
A I make a record<br />
B I make a record<br />
C I know (that the record is true)<br />
B' I make it<br />
A' I make it<br />
The importance of this structure goes well beyond "proofs of ancient authorship": the whole of verse 1 is set in parallel with Nephi's rather simple "and I make it according to my knowledge"; and the whole of verse 2 is set in parallel with his (also rather simple) "and I make it with mine own hand." Further, because it marks the chiastic center and has no parallel, the independent statement "And I know that the record which I make is true," with its profound focus on knowledge instead of record-making, separates itself thematically from the rest of what Nephi writes into these first three verses. More still, the doubling already recognized in verses 1 and 2 (here called A and B) is itself doubled by a parallel doubling (B' and A' might be read as a project of translation just as A and B are above). These structural observations are perhaps a collective key to interpreting this third verse.<br />
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* ''Record-making and testimony.'' As mentioned above, the chiastic center of Nephi's first three verses is a grammatical inversion of every other step of the chiasm. In other words, whereas verses 1 and 2 unite with the second and third statements of verse 3 in a project of subordinating (grammatically) knowledge to the record Nephi makes, this central (most important?) statement subordinates (again, grammatically) the record to Nephi's knowledge: "And I know that the record which I make is true." Again, it might be said that the great majority of Nephi's three-verse introduction to his story understands Nephi's "knowledge" (and "learning" and "language") to be sublimated (or at least spoken) in the text is writes. At the same time, however, the most central message of that same three-verse introduction is a reversal of this sublimation: the record gathers itself up in Nephi's testimonial "I know," is sublimated (or, again, at least spoken) in the knowledge he has. In short, the complex structure written into Nephi's first three verses suggests a sort of dialectic of testimony: knowledge is channeled into a text, and a text is channeled into knowledge. Record-making and knowing are undeniably--even if impossibly--interwoven in Nephi's introduction. The LDS theme of "testimony" might well be re-read through these verses, in a reading that appears to adhere carefully to the implied roots of the Hebrew term for testimony, ''`dwt'' (from a root that arguably means to carve or engrave in stone).<br />
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* ''Record-keeping.'' It appears Nephi grew up in a culture that recorded, and then passed on, knowledge from God. He is well positioned to carry on this family tradition.<br />
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* ''Another structure?'' If the comments above concerning the semi-independent clause near the beginning of verse 1 are taken into account, an alternate structure for Nephi's first three verses emerges, recasting the function of this third verse. If Nephi's ungrammatical "therefore I was taught somewhat in all the learning of my father" is taken as an independent clause, then six statements (rather than five) precipitate out of 1 Nephi 1:1-3. Moreover, the sixth component of the surface structure of Nephi's introduction would disassemble the chiasm and replace it with an entirely different structure:<br />
A I was taught somewhat<br />
B I make a record<br />
C I make a record<br />
A' I know (that the record is true)<br />
B' I make it<br />
C' I make it<br />
Such a reading would make verse 3 a wholesale doubling of verses 1 and 2. Further, the two parallelisms mentioned in the chiastic reading would be switched ("with mine own hand" would parallel Nephi's fourfold life experience, and "according to my knowledge" would parallel the "language of my father"). Perhaps most important, Nephi's testimony ("I know that the record which I make is true") would here be parallel to his learning ("therefore I was taught somewhat in all the learning of my father"). Both of these parallel statements work out Nephi's "knowledge," perhaps strengthening this structural reading of these three verses.<br />
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=== Verses 1-3 ===<br />
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* ''Teaching as an impossibility.'' Nephi's first three verses should be read as a single literary unit (marked separate from and yet tied inextricably to verse 4 by the latter's introductory "For"). However, the comments collected above suggest that this "single literary unit" is bound together by an undeniable tension. At the root of this tension is the ungrammatical interruption early in the first verse: "therefore I was taught somewhat in all the learning of my father." Not only does this phrase break with the grammatical structure of the first verse, thereby setting up a syntactical tension, it forces a double semantic (better: structural) tension into the whole three verse introduction, as laid out in the comments above. In other words, what might have otherwise been a very straightforward three-verse introduction on how and why Nephi wrote his record is disturbed, unbalanced, perhaps even frustrated, and precisely in Nephi's having been "taught." It is not too much to say that Nephi's introductory text puts on display how the "simple" dialectical process of record-making is grounded on the violent, aporetic, and yet necessary work of "being taught." The implications of Nephi's "ungrammar" are rich, but remain to be worked out at length.<br />
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=== Verse 4 ===<br />
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* ''Zedekiah's reign.'' Zedekiah's reign marks the historical beginning of the story, but it probably should not be assumed that Nephi's text therefore "legitimizes" him. In fact, the text draws an important parallel that, to some degree, de-legitimizes him: whereas this verse portrays the enthroned Zedekiah as surrounded with prophets speaking disparaging messages, verse 8 will portray a parallel God upon His throne, surrounded with angels who sing and shout praises to Him. The comparison might well betray Nephi's attitude towards the king.<br />
* ''monarch.'' Zedekiah may have received less respect than his predecessors, because he was about 21 years old at this time.<br />
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== Points to ponder ==<br />
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''This heading is for prompts that suggest ways in which all or part of this passage can influence a person's life. Click the link above and to the right to edit or add content to this heading. →''<br />
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== I have a question ==<br />
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''This heading is for unanswered questions and is an important part of the continual effort to improve this wiki. Please do not be shy, as even a basic or "stupid" question can identify things that need to be improved on this page. Click the link above and to the right to edit or add content to this heading. →''<br />
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===Verse 1===<br />
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* ''Colophon.'' Was Hugh Nibley right about these introductory verses being a colophon? Is this literary structure or formula unique to Nephi in the Book of Mormon or did other authors use colophons throughout the Book of Mormon also? Do you agree with [http://frontpage2000.nmia.com/~nahualli/LDStopics/1Nephi/1Nephi1.htm John A. Tvedtnes or Brant Gardner] on this point?<br />
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* ''"born of goodly parents."'' How many people are included in the Nephi's use of the word parents? How many of these parents gave birth to him? Can parents mean more than just mother and father? Does the use of parents in [[Alma 30:25]] provide a possible answer?<br />
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* ''"in all the learning of my father."'' How does Nephi's phrase compare with this description of the sons of Mosiah: "And he caused that they should be taught in all the language of his fathers" ([[Mosiah 1:2]])? Does this mean the sons of Mosiah received most of their lessons from someone other than their father? If the phrasing of these two passages is so similar, does that suggest that Nephi also received some of his religious training from a teacher who was not his father?<br />
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* ''Nature of Nephi's learning.'' Did anyone in Lehi's family have access to scriptures before Nephi and his brothers obtained the brass plates from Laban? If they did not have access to sacred texts, what was Nephi studying in his youth? How likely is it that Lehi and Nephi were part of an oral tradition? Does [[2 Ne 33:1]] contain any clues about Nephi's feelings about spoken texts versus written texts?<br />
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* ''Afflictions and blessings.'' How can this verse be used to deepen understanding of the themes of afflictions and blessings throughout 1 Nephi?<br />
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* ''"having seen many afflictions."'' Whose afflictions might Nephi have witnessed?<br />
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* ''Learning equals language?'' What is the relationship between the learning of Nephi's father in [[1 Ne 1:1]] and the language of Nephi's father in [[1 Ne 1:2]]?<br />
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* ''Intended introduction?'' As we know from [[Words of Mormon]], [[D&C 3]], and [[D&C 10]], Mormon did not intend the Book of Mormon to begin as it does now. How does this verse, in its "usurped" position, change the way we might otherwise read the Book of Mormon? How would the Book of Mormon be different if, for example, it began with an introduction to the whole text by Mormon?<br />
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* ''"therefore I make a record."'' How might we here understand Nephi's purpose or motivation in writing? How do Nephi's other explanations for this record (as contained in this verse) compare with the purposes listed in [[1 Ne 9]] and [[1 Ne 19]]? How might we understand this statement while also considering that Nephi later wrote, "the Lord hath commanded me to make these plates for a wise purpose in him, which purpose I know not" in [[1 Ne 9:5]]?<br />
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* ''Tense.'' Nephi uses phrases like "having been" and "make a record" in the same sentence, mixing past tense with present tense. Why might Nephi be doing this? Is this intentional? (ie. are we looking at an instance of [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enallage enallage]?)<br />
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* ''Memory.'' If Nephi is writing this record several years after the fact, how does this affect his memory of past events? If Nephi is writing with the benefit of hindsight, how does that affect Nephi's explanation of how and why things happened?<br />
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* ''Autobiography?'' What did Nephi mean in [[1 Ne 1:17]] when he said that "after I have abridged the record of my father then will I make an account of mine own life?" Does that mean Nephi did not consider this verse autobiographical? Or was this brief introduction something less than an "account"?<br />
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* ''Concepts of Time.'' Why does Nephi shift from the event of one day, to things that happened in the course of days, to things that happened every day, to mysteries that may transcend time? Is this a progression of some sort? Is Nephi making a distinction between different measures of time when he talks about "my days"? Does [[Jacob 7:26]] offer any insights into how Nephi and his contemporaries conceptualized time?<br />
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===Verse 2===<br />
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* ''Process of a prophet.'' To what degree did Joseph Smith see these verses as a foreshadowing of his own work as a prophet?<br />
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* ''Double cultures.'' Nephi here introduces the difficulties of translation into his still untranslated text: his work is a crossing of two cultures? How does this internal theme of translation bear on questions of Joseph's work of translating the Book of Mormon? Does this double culture of Nephi's work affect how it should be read?<br />
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* ''"Yea."'' Nephi begins this verse with "Yea," implying that this verse is a validation of the first verse. How does this verse meet up with the first?<br />
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* ''"the language of my father."'' Is Nephi implying that his father was bi-literate? Did Lehi have experience producing written texts in reformed Egyptian? Or did Nephi primarily pick up this skill from the brass plates?<br />
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* ''"which" and "consists."'' What is the antecedent for "which" in this verse? Is it both "language" and "record"? Is it more likely that Nephi's "record" "consists" of "learning" and "language" or that his "language" "consists" of "learning" and "language"?<br />
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* ''Jews and Egyptians.'' What is Nephi's concept of these two groups at the time he writes this verse? Has Nephi already had the visions of 1 Ne. 13-15 by the time he puts these thoughts to paper? If so, how does his discussion of Jews in those chapters influence what he is saying here? Or is it possible that Nephi held those later understandings of Jews in abeyance while he wrote this verse, in an attempt to recreate the understanding of Jews he started out with?<br />
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* ''"I make a record."'' Technically speaking, would it have been more accurate for Nephi to have written, "I have been making a record"? Why might Nephi have used this wording?<br />
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* ''"learning of the Jews."'' Is there a qualitative difference between saying "learning of the Jews" and "the Jews' learning"?<br />
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* ''"the language of the Egyptians."'' Did Nephi think the Egyptians used only one language? Should the singular word "language" be read as referring to only one language? If Nephi had been aware that the Egyptians were multi-lingual, would he have necessarily used the word "languages" to refer to their spoken abilities?<br />
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* ''""the language" and "the learning."'' Is Nephi saying that Lehi's "language" consists of the entirety of these languages and learning? If Nephi's learning was "somewhat" in [[1 Ne 1:1]], is this contrasted with the completeness of his father's learning? Was Nephi just being humble, or did he really feel that his father's knowledge dwarfed his own?<br />
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===Verse 3===<br />
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* ''"The record . . . is true."'' What does Nephi mean when he calls this record true? Why does he emphasize that he made it with his own hands?<br />
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* ''"I make."'' By this point, Nephi has used the phrase "I make" five times. Why is he repeating himself so much? Where there some that would doubt that he was the maker of the plates? Was he just claiming authorship or did the fact that he was the maker of the plates provide him with another sort of authority?<br />
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* ''"I know."'' Did Nephi know in advance that, no matter what, his writings on the plates would always be true? Or is Nephi making this statement after having written enough of his record that he feels confident that everything on the plates will be true?<br />
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* ''"my knowledge."'' Is Nephi saying this knowledge belongs to him or that it is in his sole possession? How did Nephi suddenly shift from deferentially talking about "the language of my father" in the previous verse to speaking confidently about his own knowledge? Why did Nephi shift from referring to "a great knowledge . . . of God" (verse 1) to laying claim on what he called "my knowledge"?<br />
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* ''"make it according to my knowledge."'' Is Nephi saying he purposely designed the plates so they would correspond to his own knowledge? How would the meaning of this verse be different if Nephi had written "I make it with my knowledge" or "I make it as I am given knowledge"? Is Nephi implying in this verse that he takes responsibility for any mistakes, since the writing was based upon his own knowledge?<br />
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* ''"make it with my own hand."'' Later in this chapter, Nephi referes to "plates which I have made with mine own hands" ([[1 Ne 1:17]]). Why did he use the singular word "hand," rather than "hands," in this verse?<br />
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===Verse 4===<br />
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* ''"For it came to pass."'' Why did Nephi use a five-word phrase that appears only three other times in the Book of Mormon ([[1 Ne 11:1]], [[Mosiah 26:6]], and [[Ether 6:2]])? Why did he not simply say "And it came to pass"?<br />
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* ''"commencement of the first year."'' Is Nephi being needlessly repetitive? Or is he trying to point to the first day, week, or month of the king's reign, as opposed to referring to the entire year? Was this first year in 600 or 598 B.C.?<br />
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* ''"commencement . . . of the reign of Zedekiah."'' With the exception of [[1 Ne 5]], which also mentions Zedekiah, why is this the only instance of the word commencement in the Book of Mormon until [[Alma 2:1]]? Did the authors of the small plates of Nephi assume that "commencement" was a concept that applied to kings in Judah and not to political leaders in the promised land? Or were words and concepts that applied to kings, like "commencement," reserved for the large plates of Nephi?<br />
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* ''"it."'' Is there supposed to be an antecedent for this word? Or is Nephi just using a formulaic phrase?<br />
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* ''"in that same year."'' Is Nephi saying prophets came throughout the year, even though he opened the verse by presumably referring to the beginning of the year? Does Nephi's reference to the year, once again, indicate he was beginning a new sentence?<br />
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* ''"dwelt at Jerusalem in all his days."'' Is Nephi saying Lehi had never before left Jerusalem? Or is he saying Lehi's residence was at Jerusalem, even if he sometimes went on trips that took him away from the city. Is Nephi implying that Lehi has never called another place home? What clues does the phrase "the land of our forefathers" ([[Alma 7:10]]) hold for answering these questions?<br />
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* ''"all his days."'' Why does Nephi use days, rather than years, to measure the age of his father? Why does the phrase "his years" never appear in the Book of Mormon? Was Nephi starting a new pattern upon the plates for measuring age? Was he borrowing the practice from an ancient source? Is the frequent use of the phrase "his days" in the Book of Ether the result of Moroni's abridgement?<br />
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* ''Parentheses.'' Is this an example of a parenthetical expression in Nephi's writing, even though this piece of punctuation did not originate with Nephi? How does the phrase about Lehi dwelling in Jerusalem qualify or explain the clause that preceded it?<br />
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* ''"king of Judah."'' When Nephi points out that his father has dwelt at Jerusalem his entire life, while in the middle of saying that Zedekiah has been king for less than a year, is he trying to say that Lehi also lived under the previous kings? Who were the kings of Judah during Lehi's lifetime? What age was Lehi under Josiah's reign, which ended only eleven years before Zedekiah became king? How were Lehi's religious views, Laban's possession of the plates, and Nephi's religious training affected by the religious reforms of king Josiah?<br />
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* ''"dwelt at Jerusalem."'' What other indications do we have, besides [[1 Chr 9:3]], that descendants of Ephraim and Manessah lived in Jerusalem? To what extent were they outnumbered by the descendants of Judah and Benjamin who also lived in Jerusalem? What were relations like between the descendants of these four tribes who all lived in Jerusalem?<br />
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* ''"in that same year there came many prophets."'' Why is Nephi noting the presence of these prophets? Was it typical or unusal for Jerusalem to have "many" prophets in its midst? Is Nephi saying several prophets suddenly arrived on the scene when Zedekiah took office? Who else besides Jeremiah, Habakkuk, and Ezekiel (who are listed on page 639 of the Bible Dictionary), was on Nephi's list of prophets at the time? Have LDS scholars often overlooked Urijah (see [[Jer 26:20]]) as one these prophets? What reasons do we have for assuming that Zenos and Zenock either were or were not among these prophets? What do we know about the lineage of these prophets? How manhy of the prophets were descendants of Ephraim and Manessah? Were prophets with ties to the north, as opposed to those descended from Judah or Benjamin, more likely to antagonize listeners in Jerusalem?<br />
<br />
* ''"prophets."'' What is the connection between these prophets and the religious establishment in Jerusalem? Did the "churches" in Jersualem recognize the administrative authority of these prophets? Do you agree with [http://frontpage2000.nmia.com/~nahualli/LDStopics/1Nephi/1Nephi1.htm Brant Gardner's argument] that it is "highly unlikely" that these prophets were "part of the officially recognized religions governing bodies"? Did Jerusalem have a long tradition of requiring prophets to live on the outskirts of society?<br />
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* ''"the people . . . must repent."'' What was it that the people of Jerusalem needed to repent of? Had they abandoned the religious reforms of Josiah after only four decades? Was it their rejection of prophets that had necessitated their repentance? Had they already abandoned and forgotten the law of Moses? Had the only copies of the scriptures fallen into the hands of wicked people? Are these some of the reasons why Nephi later realizes that his descendants would be unable to follow the law of Moses unless he obtained the plates from Laban (see [[1 Ne 4]])?<br />
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* ''"prophesying . . . they must repent, or . . . be destroyed."'' Where did Nephi obtain this combination of words? If the words prophesy, repent, and destroy (as well as their variants) do not appear together in any biblical verses, does that mean Nephi was the first to use them jointly? If most of the other appearances in the Book of Mormon of this combination occur in the Book of Ether ([[Mosiah 12:8]], [[Ether 7:23]], and [[Ether 11:12]]), does that mean Moroni borrowed Nephi's phraseology while abriding the Jaredite record or that the Jaredite authors and Nephi were both borrowing from a more ancient source?<br />
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* ''"or the great city Jerusalem must be destroyed."'' Why does Nephi (or the prophets he is paraphrasing) change the repent or be destroyed formula? Why does he/they not follow the much more common example in scripture, in which prophets tell the people they will be destroyed if they do not repent (e.g., [[Mosiah 12:8]], [[Alma 37:22]], and [[Ether 7:23]])? Were the prophets in Jerusalem partially letting their listeners off the hook by telling them it was their city, and not them, that would be destroyed? Or was it the Lord who changed the formula in this instance, because he "had compassion on his people" ([[2 Chr 36:15]])? Or is Lehi's later comment, "had we remained in Jerusalem we should also have perished" ([[2 Ne 1:4]]), an indication that it was both the land of Jerusalem and its inhabitants who faced imminent destruction? How closely does this verse in 1 Ne. 1 parallel [[Hel 7:28]], which says "And except ye repent ye shall perish; yea, even your lands shall be taken from you, and ye shall be destroyed from off the face of the earth." At what point did it become inevitable that Jerusalem would be destroyed?<br />
<br />
* ''"the people."'' Who exactly was Nephi referring to when he used the phrase "the people"? Did every single inhabitant of Jerusalem have great need to repent? Was the city completely wicked? Was there no one left who followed the law of Moses? How sincere and thorough was the religious reform that happened forty years earlier if everyone was now wicked? Were there any exceptions to this apparently uniform wickedness? If Ishmael's family and Laban's servant Zoram can be considered at least partial exceptions to Nephi's characterization, does that mean there were other, scattered inhabitants of Jerusalem who were at least somewhat righteous? What evidence do we have that some of the people in Jerusalem actually repented? Should we assume that the only people in Jersualem who repented are the ones who joined Lehi in his exodus to the promised land?<br />
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* ''Mulekites.'' Were the ancestors of the people of Zarahemla, who "came out from Jerusalem at the time" of Zedekiah's reign ([[Omni 1:15]]), converted when they heard the preaching of the "many prophets" mentioned in this verse? If so, did these prophets realize that the Mulekites were converted by their preaching?<br />
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<br />
== Resources ==<br />
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''This heading is for listing links and print resources, including those cited in the notes. A short comment about the particular strengths of a resource can be helpful. Click the link above and to the right to edit or add content to this heading. →''<br />
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===Incoming Cross-References Not Listed in The Footnotes for These Verses===<br />
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* ''Verse 1:'' [[Job 1:5]], [[Hel 5:6]], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/gs/f/6 GS Father, Mortal], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/gs/k/9 GS Knowledge], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/gs/m/62 GS Mysteries of God], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/gs/n/15 GS Nephi, Son of Lehi], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/gs/t/5 GS Teach, Teacher], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/tg/b/152 TG Born], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/tg/f/39 TG Father], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/tg/g/98 TG Goodly], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/tg/l/47 TG Learn, Learning], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/tg/m/43 TG Marriage, Fatherhood], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/tg/p/12 TG Parent], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/tg/t/24 TG Teaching, Teach, Taught], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/in/b/93 IN Born], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/in/f/24 IN Father], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/in/f/27 IN Favored], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/in/g/65 IN God, Goodness of], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/in/g/78 IN Goodly], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/in/l/49 IN Learning], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/in/n/30 IN Nephi], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/in/p/20 IN Parent], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/in/r/37 IN Record], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/in/t/15 IN Teach, Taught]<br />
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* ''Verse 2:'' [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/gs/n/15 GS Nephi, Son of Lehi], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/tg/j/77 TG Jew, Jewish], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/in/e/18 IN Egyptian], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/in/j/61 IN Jew, Jewish], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/in/l/26 IN Language], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/in/n/30 IN Nephi]<br />
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* ''Verse 3:'' [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/gs/n/15 GS Nephi, Son of Lehi], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/tg/h/14 TG Hand], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/in/h/12 IN Hand]<br />
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* ''Verse 4:'' [[2 Kgs 23:27]], [[Ps 79:3]], [[Jer 13:14]], [[Jer 21:7]], [[1 Ne 2:13]], [[1 Ne 17:22]], [[Hel 5:6]], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/gs/j/19 GS Jerusalem], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/gs/n/11 GS Nebuchadnezzar], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/gs/n/15 GS Nephi, Son of Lehi], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/gs/z/5 GS Zedekiah], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/bd/z/11 BD Zedekiah], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/tg/d/92 TG Destroy], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/tg/r/59 TG Reign], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/in/d/67 IN Destruction, Destroy], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/in/j/32 IN Jerusalem], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/in/j/87 IN Judah], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/in/r/75 IN Repentance, Repent], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/in/z/8 IN Zedekiah], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/biblephotos/8 Photograph: Jerusalem]<br />
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===Verse 1===<br />
* ''A great knowledge of the goodness of God.'' [http://www.lds.org/conference/talk/display/0,5232,23-1-14-2,00.html Neal A. Maxwell (GC 1999)] contrasts Laman & Lemuel's lack of faith with Nephi's great faith in God's goodness. <br />
* ''Mysteries of God''<br />
** See [[1 Ne 2:16]] for an explanation by Nephi of how he gained knowledge of the mysteries of God.<br />
** See [[1 Ne 10:19]] where Nephi teaches that one must diligently seek to find the mysteries of God.<br />
** See [[Mosiah 1:3]] where Mosiah teaches his sons that without the scriptural record they could not know the mysteries of God.<br />
** See [[Mosiah 2:9]] where Mosiah starts his talk to his people with an invitation listen to him and open their ears, hearts and minds they they may learn the mysteries of God.<br />
** See the entry on [http://scriptures.lds.org/gsm/mystrsfg mysteries of God] in the <i>Guide to the Scriptures</i>. <br />
* [http://bomgroupies.wordpress.com/2007/03/01/nephi-and-the-mysteries/ "Nephi and the Mysteries"] A discussion of Nephi's interest in the Mysteries of God by the Book of Mormon Groupies.<br />
* [http://teachyediligently.mypodcast.com/2008/05/On_Scripture_Study-111110.html Podcast] of Joe Spencer exploring 1 Nephi 1:1 with a local Relief Society.<br />
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== Notes ==<br />
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''Footnotes are not required but are encouraged for factual assertions that average readers cannot easily evaluate for themselves, such as the date of King Solomon’s death or the nuanced definition of a Greek word. In contrast, insights rarely benefit from footnoting, and the focus of this page should always remain on the scriptures themselves rather than what someone has said about them. Links are actively encouraged on all sections of this page, and links to authoritative sources are preferable to footnotes.''<br />
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[[First Nephi 1 | Previous page: Chapter 1]] &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; [[1 Ne 1:5-15 | Next page: Verses 1:5-15]]</div>Sterlinghttp://feastupontheword.org/1_Ne_1:1-41 Ne 1:1-42014-01-19T21:08:57Z<p>Sterling: /* Verse 3 */ record-keeping</p>
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<div>[[The Book of Mormon]] > [[First Nephi]] > [[First Nephi 1-2 | Chapters 1-2]] > [[First Nephi 1 | Chapter 1]] > [[1 Ne 1:1-4 | Verses 1:1-4]] <br><br />
[[First Nephi 1 | Previous page: Chapter 1]] &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; [[1 Ne 1:5-15 | Next page: Verses 1:5-15]]<br />
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This page would ideally always be under construction. You are invited to contribute.<br />
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== Summary ==<br />
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''This heading should be brief and may include an outline of the passage. Click the link above and to the right to edit or add content to this heading. →''<br />
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The relationship of verses 1-4 to the rest of Chapter 1 is discussed at [[First Nephi 1 | Chapter 1]].<br />
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== Discussion ==<br />
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''This heading is for more detailed discussions of all or part of a passage. Discussion may include the meaning of a particular word, how a doctrinal point is developed throughout the passage, insights to be developed in the future, and other items. Contributions may range from polished paragraphs down to a single bullet point. The focus, however, should always be on understanding the scriptural text consistent with LDS doctrine. Click the link above and to the right to edit or add content to this heading. →''<br />
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===Verse 1===<br />
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* ''Goodly'' According to Webster's 1828, [http://65.66.134.201/cgi-bin/webster/webster.exe?search_for_texts_web1828=goodly goodly] means "Being of a handsome form; beautiful; graceful; as a goodly person; goodly raiment; goodly houses." In this context it may mean "well-off." ''Goodly'' is used only once more in the Book of Mormon, [[Mosiah 18:7]]: there were a goodly number gathered together at the place of Mormon. It is used twice in the Doctrine and Covenants: [[D&C 97:9]] & [[D&C 99:7]]. There the meaning is ''beautiful'' or ''fair''. It is also used with this same meaning many times in the Old and New Testaments.<br />
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* ''On introducing.'' The "therefore" with which Nephi begins the final phrase of verse 1 marks his introductory verses (verses 1-3) as apologetic: this is ''why'' I am writing, all of what I just mentioned ''justifies'' taking up this project. The logic of Nephi's apologetic introduction is surprising because though he will later explicitly mention a divine commandment to produce the text ([[2 Ne 5:31]]), he makes no such reference here. Instead, he founds his text on the circumstances of his life. Nephi makes cites his experiences as of enough significance to justify writing scripture. Given this, Nephi's brief autobiography in verse 1--what we will see is essentially his reading of those very experiences--should be read with incredible care.<br />
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===Possible Structures===<br />
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* ''Serial structure.'' If one looks at Nephi's autobiographical sketch for a textual structure, the repeating word ''having'' immediately suggests its own importance: every phrase (except the ungrammatical "therefore I was taught somewhat in all the learning of my father," which can only be dealt with after some structural clarity is achieved) begins with the term. If ''having'' is read as the structural key to the passage, most likely therefore to be read as a progressive series, then it might be rendered thus (with connectives set between phrases):<br />
(1) having been born of goodly parents<br />
and<br />
(2) having seen many afflictions in the course of my days<br />
nevertheless<br />
(3) having been highly favored of the Lord in all my days<br />
yea<br />
(4) having had a great knowledge of the goodness and the mysteries of God<br />
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* ''Chiastic structure.'' No sooner is the structure laid out as a series of ''having'''s than some obvious parallelistic structures suggest themselves. Most visible perhaps is the parallel ''my days'' occurring in (2) and (3). Not quite so striking at first is the parallelism formed by (1) and (4) by their use of different manifestations of the word ''good'', ''goodly'' and ''goodness'' respectively. This double parallel of first with last and second with penultimate suggests the passage be read as a chiasm (perhaps with even the ''and'' between (1) and (2) parallel to the ''yea'' between (3) and (4)). Rendered chiastically, the autobiographical sketch would look thus:<br />
A having been born of ''goodly'' parents<br />
B ''and''<br />
C having seen many afflictions in the course of my ''days''<br />
D nevertheless<br />
C' having been highly favored of the Lord in all my ''days''<br />
B' ''yea''<br />
A' having had a great knowledge of the ''goodness'' and the mysteries of God<br />
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* ''Double parallel structure.'' The parallel drawn out above as B and B' further suggests another structural reading of the passage. Both ''and'' and ''yea'' suggest a doubling, a repetition. In other words, A and C might well be read parallelistically, as might A' and C'. The autobiographical sketch would then become a parallel set of parallelisms, mediated by the central ''nevertheless''. In short, the passage might be schematized thus:<br />
A having been born of goodly parents<br />
B and<br />
A' having seen many afflictions in the course of my days<br />
C nevertheless<br />
D having been highly favored of the Lord in all my days<br />
B' yea<br />
D' having had a great knowledge of the goodness and the mysteries of God<br />
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The interpretive comments below follow each of the above three structural readings in turn.<br />
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===Nephi's First "Having"===<br />
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* ''Birth and learning.'' Nephi's first ''having'', taken in its full and ungrammatical rendering, ties together two vital clues to Nephi's record: his birth and his learning. He immediately qualifies his birth with mention of his "goodly parents." ''Goodly'' here is often read as though its meaning is the same as ''good.'' But if we read ''goodly'' as meaning wealthy (see lexical note above), we see Nephi recognizing that it was because of his parent's wealth that he was able to be taught "somewhat in ''all'' the learning of [his] father" (emphasis added).<br />
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* ''Teaching and learning.'' Nephi calls upon two important if oddly balanced terms to describe his early education: ''taught'' and ''learning''. While a sort of opposition between teaching and learning might at first be read into the text, a careful reading reveals that this opposition is far too simplistic: the learning Nephi mentions is not his own, but his father's, and even as Nephi is the one taught, the verb is used passively ("I was taught somewhat") so that the teacher is cloaked and the act of teaching is therefore uprooted when set into the text. No simplistic scheme of Lehi teaching and Nephi learning is suggested at all in the text. The tie between the two terms, moreover, is prepositional: Nephi's being taught is "in" the learning of Lehi. This emphasizes an important fact: the term, "learning," in the text is a noun, a ''thing''. Whatever Lehi's learning consists of, it is clear from the text that it already consists, that it already stands together, that it is complete enough to be taught, named, or pointed out. And this nominal completion of Lehi's learning stands textually against the apparently incomplete studies of Nephi: "I was taught ''somewhat'' in all the learning of my father." While all of this sets up some possibilities for interpreting Nephi's brief report of his education, some more detailed consideration of the terms involved is warranted.<br />
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* ''Lehi's learning.'' While Nephi later (in verse 2) speaks of the "language of my father, which consists of the learning of the Jews and the language of the Egyptians," it is not yet clear how that should be read against the more simple "learning of my father" of verse 1. More fruitful for getting started, perhaps, is a brief consideration of the term, ''learning''. The English word, "learning," derives from an Indo-European root, ''leis'', meaning a track or a furrow. To learn is etymologically to follow a track, a pathway already (and not recently) cut out, already trod for some time. The pre-existence of whatever is trod, bound up in the word "to learn," is also not unfamiliar to the Hebrew root ''lqch'', the root behind the word most commonly translated in KJV as "learning": ''lqch'' means to take, to seize, even to steal, always implying the pre-existence of whatever is taken, seized, stolen. Certainly Lehi's learning implies that he takes up a way that has been trod for a long while before him. But the English and the Hebrew both imply still more: both "to learn" and ''lqch'' emphasize a sort of solitude. While teaching implies an instructor and an instructed, the learner comes upon a pathway that ''has been'' trod, but that might now be completely empty, and most likely is without a guide. That ''lqch'' can mean to steal certainly reinforces the lonely character of Lehi's learning: it might well be suggested that Lehi's learning, in which Nephi was taught, was a very solitary project.<br />
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* ''Nephi's being taught.'' If Lehi's learning is a work of solitude, the lonely work of following the long-since-left-behind, Nephi's being taught is imbued with the spirit of a face to face encounter, perhaps even characterized by a sort of violence as well. The English word, "teach," is etymologically related to "touch," as is "didactic" to "tactile." To teach is to point out, to put one's finger onto something. Whereas Lehi seems to come upon something abandoned, which he must attempt to bring back to life in self-disciplined learning, Nephi has a living someone who stands before him, who points out what is to be learned, who gives tasks to the student. This "being taught" on Nephi's part well reflects the broad meaning of the Hebrew term for teaching, ''lmd'', to train, to develop skills in oneself or another. Nephi learns through another, through an actual engagement. The ambiguity of such an engagement (one engages the enemy, and one is engaged to a future spouse) is suggestive: Nephi learns through a work of desire both to submit and to overpower, wraps his arms about his teach both to embrace and to wrestle ("touching" in being "taught"). Lehi's learning is the work of an archaeologist; Nephi's being taught is the work of a disciple. <br />
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* ''Toward the relation between Nephi and Lehi.'' The foregoing comments on Nephi's first ''having'', besides destructuring the father-son teaching situation, work out provisional meanings for three words: "goodly", being "taught", and "learning". The meanings worked out are provisional precisely in that they remain in the above comments extratextual: they have not been read back into the text, but provide a framework for just such a (re)reading. However, before such a reading can proceed, something of the interpersonal dynamics at play in this first ''having'' must be worked out, so that there is ''something'' to read these words back into. In other words, because "goodly" qualifies "parents", because "taught" qualifies "I", because "learning" qualifies--this last in a very broad sense--"father", the interrelatedness of Nephi ("I"), his "parents" and his "father" must be worked out before the meanings of their qualifying words can be read into the text. It should be noted at the same time that a preliminary working out of the interpersonal dynamics of Nephi's first ''having'' will also be provisional: like the working out of the meaning of the qualifying words, a working out of these dynamics is an abstraction of text, drawing out the persons without the words that qualify them. Hence, the complex interpersonal dynamics of this first ''having'' (it is unique among the four ''having'''s) require a second abstraction in addition to the first one worked out above. The two must then be read against and into each other for a more complete reading of the phrase.<br />
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* ''On proper names.'' The first and most obvious aspect of the interpersonal dynamics of Nephi's first ''having'' to be considered is the function of the proper name. Whereas Nephi's first verse opens with the overwhelming announcement of the prophet's own proper name, the remainder of the three-verse preface to Nephi's text is, from then on, void of any other proper names for any (earthly) person ("the Lord" might be a proper name, "YHWH", though it names God; "the Jews" and "the Egyptians" might also be argued to be proper names, but each apparently names a collective--they are both plural). This absence of proper names is most striking in Nephi's first ''having'', where he makes explicit mention of both his "parents" and his "father", but without any proper names. The comments above have overlooked this, drawing the names of Lehi and Sariah, of course, from the actual body of the Nephite text. The point raises two questions, one of which cannot be fully examined until after full consideration of Nephi's autobiographical sketch. This question to be postponed is, indeed, as broad as Nephi's autobiographical sketch: what does Nephi's announcement of his proper name accomplish in the text? The other question, to be dealt with presently, concerns rather the unnamed in the text: what does the lack of proper names for Lehi and Sariah in this first ''having'' accomplish?<br />
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* ''On the lack of proper names.'' Lehi and Sariah pass into Nephi's first ''having'' unnamed. Perhaps Lehi and Sariah, just for that reason, pass out of Nephi's first ''having''. At any rate, the weight of this lack--the lack of the weight--of proper names in this first autobiographical reading is most significant, is a sign that marks something important at play in the text. A first consequence of the unnamedness of Nephi's "parents" and "father" is a sort of delay, a sort of suspension: Lehi and Sariah are kept out of the preface, though they are mentioned--and hence present--in the same. They are, oddly enough, both included and excluded from Nephi's autobiography. But this duplicity--presence and yet non-presence--is precisely what is in question in Nephi's first ''having'': this first autobiographical reading is the prophet's exploration of the borders between himself and his parents, that strange no man's land where Nephi ends and his parents and father begin. As has been mentioned above, this first ''having'' is an exploration of ''influence'', of the "in-flowing" of Sariah and Lehi. And Nephi's text reads this influence as an unnamed presence. In other words, Nephi's text embodies the complex influence of parents and father on son: thoroughly, unquestioningly, overwhelmingly, perhaps suffocatingly present, and yet unnamed, unrecognized, unrealized, perhaps entirely unthought. More: parents and father are so absolutely present, in and through all things, that they are not only unnamed but unnamable, not only unrecognized but unrecognizable, etc. <br />
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* ''The theme of separation.'' The relation implied between Nephi and his parents/father, then, is ultimately not a question of presence and non-presence. Nephi's first ''having'', precisely because it writes them without names, reads Sariah and Lehi as completely saturating Nephi's experience, not as perpetual presences, but rather as the element of which Nephi is made. Nephi reads himself as a (re)presentation of his parents/father: they live (continually?) in his living. Hence it would appear that there is no separation between Nephi and his parents/father in the first ''having''. However, the very first verb this ''having'' employs is one of separation. Nephi in fact opens this first self-reading with mention of the most primordial act of separation possible: the umbilical cord is cut with his "having been born." As a result, a complex tension enters into the very first phrase of Nephi's text: Nephi is, according to the text, at once inseparable from his parents/father and entirely separated from his parents/father. The first interpersonal dynamic, the first written relation between Nephi and his parents/father, is a double separation/inseparability between them.<br />
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* ''A progressive inseparability/separation.'' The situation is made more complex by the fact that the theme of separation is taken up again in the second half of the first ''having'': "therefore I was taught somewhat in all the learning of my father." As mentioned above, though a teacher is implied, his or her identity is cloaked, so that the phrase draws upon an implied distance between Nephi and Lehi. As separate as they might have become through Nephi's birth, the teaching situation later in life suggests that this separation only grew. The inferential character of the connecting "therefore" seems to confirm this growing distance. However, at the same time, Nephi's teaching is precisely "in" his father's learning: even as the separation between son and parents/father grows, so does the inseparability between them. The tension introduced in the first part of Nephi's first ''having'' is doubled, strengthened, and confirmed in the second part. The relation between Nephi and his parents/father is remarkably difficult.<br />
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* ''The meaning of the tension.'' The textual rhythm of Nephi's first ''having'' may characterize this tension, may draw out its meaning. In both the first part (before the "therefore") and the second part (after the "therefore") of this first self-reading, the theme of separation comes first, so that it is, in each instance, countered by the theme of inseparability: "having been born [separation] of goodly parents [inseparability], therefore I was taught somewhat [separation] in all the learning of my father [inseparability]." The passage "feels" as if every attempt of Nephi to draw apart from his parents is countered by their overwhelming saturation of all that he does. In other words, in every attempt to live, Nephi lives his (still unnamed) parents. Stating the issue this way does not relieve the tension, but releases it from appearing as a contradiction: Nephi is separate just in that he embodies his parents, just in that he is inseparable from them. Hence, a first reading of Nephi's first (self-)reading: Nephi's collective experience is always from the standpoint of his a son who embodies his parents/father. Nephi encounters the world as his parents.<br />
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* ''The teaching situation and separation.'' The interpersonal dynamics of Nephi's first ''having'' might now be read preliminarily, at last, in and against the meaningful words explored above. And, in fact, the important difference examined between Nephi's "being taught" and Lehi's "learning" bears powerfully on the theme of separation. In that that difference marks a difference between Nephi and Lehi, the separation between father and son might easily be read there. However, the question of separation grounds that same difference still more profoundly: the distinction between "being taught" (always face-to-face) and "learning" (always in solitude) was precisely a question of separation. In other words, the two terms bear their meaning precisely by taking up opposite ends of the tension between separation/inseparability. As a result, Nephi's teaching situation is in and of itself a double embodiment of that vital tension. First, Nephi's being taught--in face-to-face instruction--is a work of inseparability, fundamentally frustrated by the grammatical cloaking of the instructor, which marks Nephi's being taught with an undeniable character of separation. Second, because the content of the teaching is the learning of Lehi, Nephi's instruction at once marks him inseparable from his father (studying precisely the same things) and entirely separate (if he truly learns his father's learning, what is profoundly a work of solitude, of separation). Nephi's first ''having'' wonderfully puts on display Lehi's profound influence on him: always as himself, Nephi entirely presents his father.<br />
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* ''Goodliness and separation.'' As pointed at at the very beginning of these comments on Nephi's first ''having'', the first self-reading of this autobiographical sketch (by employing the strong "therefore" at its center) draws upon the relation between the goodliness of Nephi's parents and his own later instruction. That broad relation now suggests that the theme of separation so powerfully embodied in the teaching situation should be read back into the goodliness of Lehi and Sariah. Or better, that goodliness should be read as the source of that eventually perfected tension of separation/inseparability. And it certainly does. If, as mentioned above, "goodly" is best read as marking the wealth or abundance of Nephi's parents, then the description the prophet's birth draws the theme of inheritance to bear powerfully on the present considerations: Nephi's first ''having'' casts him as an heir. The power of this insight emerges in the fact that inheritance is itself a perfect embodiment of the same tension of separation/inseparability. The heir is profoundly separate and absolutely inseparable from his or her benefactor. Nephi, as heir, is again marked entirely and always himself, even as he entirely and always (re-)presents his father. Perhaps most vital in all this: it is precisely the term "goodly" that draws this tension into the first half of Nephi's first ''having''.<br />
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* ''Subverted inheritance.'' However, as soon as Nephi's first ''having'' is read through the theme of inheritance, the same theme is called into question: Nephi's relational "therefore" does not draw eventual wealth as the fruition of inheritance, but rather instruction. In other words, Nephi's inheritance is "only" an ''intellectual'' inheritance: he is heir to his father's learning. (This first ''having'', then, should probably be read with an eye to the later Lamanite claim to the right of inheritance.) Perhaps most important of all, this subversion of the traditional theme of inheritance further subverts the meaning of the term "goodly." The goodliness Nephi is concerned with might ultimately be the goodliness commonly read into this first verse of the Book of Mormon: Lehi and Sariah were folk of abundant faith, obedience, goodness, etc.<br />
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* ''Nephi's relation, finally, to his parents.'' All of the above comments set up the relation between Nephi and his parents/father. In his first self-interpretation, Nephi reads himself fundamentally as heir to his father's learning, and that only through the instrumentality--the goodliness--of his parents. As heir, Nephi covers his parents over, in a sense, and yet manifests them perfectly: he manifests them in himself. Nephi reads himself not so much as drawing upon his parents' goodliness, but as re-working it, as re-presenting, as re-embodying it. Nephi himself is Lehi again, Lehi repeated, but now with the proper name of Nephi. If this first ''having'' is Nephi's attempt to read his beginnings, to interpret his origins, what he apparently finds is always only himself ("I, Nephi"), but always only his parents/father, as presented in himself. <br />
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* ''The content of Lehi's learning.'' With this relation now established, wherein Nephi continually re-presents his father (and that especially in terms of "learning"), the way has been opened up to explore at last the actual content of Lehi's learning. However, the above comments have conclusively pointed away from such a task. It might be best to say that Nephi, precisely because he does not take the space to explicate his father's learning, sees this issue as inessential, perhaps immaterial. The point, as suggested by the above comments, of Nephi's first ''having'' is the role Lehi and Sariah play in Nephi's independent/dependent writing.<br />
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===Nephi's Second "Having"===<br />
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* ''On the way to "afflictions."'' Obviously the most important word in Nephi's second ''having'' is "afflictions." Curiously, the word does not take the grammatical position of subject in the clause; rather it functions as the direct object. As direct object, it becomes that towards which this second self-interpretation tends: the "many afflictions" of Nephi might best be understood as the ''horizon'' of this second autobiographical comment, not as the starting point. This is as much as to say that Nephi removes from himself (in the act of writing) the actual afflictions he suffered (he displaces them to his--and the reader's--horizon). He in fact does so, precisely by clothing them in a double event-ness: the afflictions comes to Nephi spatially (through his body: "having ''seen''") and temporally (in time: "in the course of my ''days''"). (It should be noted very clearly that only Nephi's second ''having'' has an undeniable event-ness about it: the static verbs of the other three ''havings'' set this second one forth as uniquely event-ual.) In other words, because Nephi characterizes his "many afflictions" as events (spatio-temporal happenings), they become for him and for the reader ''event-ual'', intended but still unreached. A first interpretive point for Nephi's second ''having'': the very key of this ''having'' ("afflictions") are the key precisely because they are what the whole phrase aims at, but does not yet reach.<br />
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* ''On the way from "afflictions."'' Even as the grammatical structure of Nephi's second ''having'' sets the prophet's afflictions at a double remove as a spatio-temporal event-uality, another grammatical structure inherent in the same phrase cancels this distantiation. The "having" that marks the seeing (the spatial/bodily happening that is temporalized in the "course of [Nephi's] days") is a verbal that is, by the end of Nephi's first verse, caught up into the present work of writing. However absent or distant Nephi's afflictions are at the time of writing, they are one of his four self-interpretive reasons for writing at all. In other words, even as Nephi's second ''having'' marks itself as a way towards the many afflictions Nephi faced, the whole of the first verse unmistakably marks Nephi's entire introduction as a way from afflictions to writing. (As mentioned above, only this second ''having'' is ''explicitly'' event-ual. While the other three self-interpretations Nephi offers might be read as several ''groundings'' of Nephi's task of writing, this one, his second ''having'', seems best read as a sort of path or way towards the task of writing. That this ''having'' is temporalized by a "''course'' of... days" seems to underscore this point.) Though Nephi's afflictions appear event-ual and horizonal, they are nonetheless a sort of point of departure for Nephi.<br />
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* ''On the (double) way of "afflictions."'' This duplicity of way, caught up into the double, tense grammatical structure of Nephi's second ''having'', suggests a sort of parallel between Nephi's first and second ''havings''. Even as this second ''having'' suggests a distance or a separation, the same is cancelled by a broader inseparability: the event-ual afflictions are the point of departure for Nephi's task of writing. This is not unlike the separation/inseparability theme of Nephi's first ''having''. The absolution of afflictions accomplished by the role of direct object is cancelled in that Nephi himself takes his departure from his bodily/temporal experience of afflictions. Again--as before--Nephi reads himself as a sort of re-embodiment (perhaps particularly in the task of writing) of afflictions he has seen, has witnessed (were they never his own afflictions?). At least this much is clear: there is a parallel structure to be read into Nephi's first two ''havings''.<br />
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* ''"Seeing" afflictions.'' Nephi takes up his afflictions with a verb that might well be read as confirming the separation/inseparability theme already doubled with this second ''having''. Vision opens, quite singularly, the very possibility for the distinction between separation and inseparability (it might be precisely because the two opposites arise out of a singular that the tension explored in these comments is possible). Sight at once sets before the seer a world spectacle from which he or she might retire and at the same time locates the seer immediately in the world, most explicitly through the sheer physicality of the eyes with which one sees. Sight--or rather all the senses, perhaps corporeal existence itself and hence every verb (such as "having seen") that summons the body--then plays an important role in Nephi's second ''having'', important precisely because it--as a bodily verb--draws out this same tension of separation/inseparability. Whereas Nephi might have discussed afflictions he had once "had" or "experienced" or "gone through," his use of "having seen" suggests something more of his relation to his afflictions: Nephi's afflictions were at once something separate and remote from him (''"seen"'') and something that might be called his very setting or vantage point (from which he ''sees'' himself autobiographically).<br />
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* ''The meaning of affliction.'' Though "affliction" seems a simple enough word, its literal meaning is perhaps more nuanced. The verb, "to afflict", comes into English from a Latin compound: ''ad-fligo'', literally "to strike against (towards)". Its primary meaning in usage was to dash something against another (or two things together) or (much the same) to knock down, strike down, or damage. Only metaphorically did the word come to mean to weaken, to discourage. Affliction was originally, then, bodily pain or torture. Before the word is taken in Nephi's text to mean something primarily "spiritual" or "mental," it should be considered in its physical originality. If Nephi means the word in a "spiritual" or "mental" sense, the violence implied in the literal meaning should not be missed. Moreover, the original "physical" meaning of the word always implies ''at least two'' "things," marked by the ''ad-'', the ''towards'' or ''against''. Too quick a reversion to the "spiritual" or "mental" reading of affliction might reduce affliction to a sort of solitary struggle rather than a literal clash of at least two things. The towards and against of affliction also point toward two parties--one who afflicts, and one who is afflicted. Affliction is more than suffering, it is a suffering caused by one towards another.<br />
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* ''The corporeality of seeing and the physicality of afflictions.'' The corporeality of Nephi's "having seen" and the radical physicality of his mentioned "afflictions" come up against each other in an odd manner. While afflictions retreat into mental/spiritual meaning only metaphorically, sight and the eyes have a natural means of retreat (unlike the other four bodily senses) in one's ability to blink, to close off sight from bodily experience. And this means of visual escape is unique and significant. It is sight, for example, that makes sleep so bizarre a human state: the sleeper is open to the reality of the world in four ways, and what he or she hears, smells, tastes, or touches readily enters into the surreality of the dream. But the sleeper closes him- or herself off entirely from the world of sight. The eye's ability to retreat, to shut off the visual realm of the world, sets the corporeality of Nephi's principal verb in this second ''having'' against the radical physicality of the afflictions Nephi deals with: because he sees the afflictions, Nephi has some recourse to distance from them, has some means of retreat from the harsh reality of the bodily danger implicit in those afflictions. At least on the grammatical level, Nephi's second ''having'' at once presents a very real danger and an ability to flee the same.<br />
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* ''The ambiguous nature of visual escape.'' Here an ambiguity in Nephi's language might well be considered: because the afflictions Nephi mentions in his second ''having'' are completely unqualified grammatically, it remains unclear whether the afflictions were things Nephi himself suffered, or whether the afflictions Nephi saw were afflictions others passed through to which the prophet was "merely" witness. The importance of this ambiguity arises most clearly in the light of Nephi's means of escape, because his ability as seer to shut his eyes is ultimately ambiguous as well. On the one hand, Nephi's visual escape might be read as a very real escape: if he closes his eyes to violence inflicted on himself, he holds out to some degree a sort of mastery over his enemies. His closed eyes would mark his willing martyrdom, a sort of absolute denial on his part to become involved (perhaps thereby doing damage to the meaning of afflictions as two things striking one another). On the other hand, Nephi's visual escape might be read as a sort of false escape: if he closes his eyes to violence inflicted on others, he marks himself a slave to his own weakness. His closed eyes would here mark him as one completely lacking the virtue of charity: he allows others to suffer while he closes his eyes. Two very different meanings of visual "escape", based on two very different meanings of the afflictions mentioned in the passage.<br />
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* ''Nephi's apparently open eyes.'' The above two comments, however, work from an assumption that is unjustified based on Nephi's second ''having'': that Nephi closed his eyes. However, the fact that Nephi ''saw'' the afflictions marks with great importance the fact that Nephi could very easily and at any time have closed them: that he didn't is what should be emphasized here. As such, Nephi's open eyes (open to the ambiguous afflictions he mentions) require interpretation. Just as Nephi's grammar invites a double reading of visual escape, a double reading of Nephi's open eyes is warranted. If, on the one hand, the afflictions in question were Nephi's own, then his meeting them with open eyes would suggest his self-transcending courage, his unwillingness to take the escape of selfish retreat that would immortalize him as an innocent martyr. Apparently unconcerned with himself, Nephi--taking the afflictions, again, to be his own--was willing to engage (to love?) even his enemies, to wrestle with them, to crash against them in a very real sense, in a radical work of opening himself--his eyes--to them. If, on the other hand, the afflictions in question were not Nephi's, but those of others to which Nephi stood witness, then his open eyes mark his unquestionable charity. Unwilling, on this reading, to turn from the difficulties others faced, Nephi presents himself as one willing to engage (again, to love?) the innocent who suffer all about him. <br />
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* ''Nephi's eyes as the double figure of love.'' Fortunately, the reader of Nephi's text is not forced to choose between these two possible readings of Nephi's open eyes. The two are allowed to work against and through each other. In fact, the two carry a very similar meaning in the end: love. Nephi's open eyes mark his unconcernedness with himself, his willingness to engage (on the one hand) his enemies and/or (on the other hand) his friends. In both cases, his self-transcendence is marked by his open eyes, but his regard or gaze that takes up both friend and enemy by the hand (hand to hand, whether in combat or in salutation). In fact, that Nephi leaves the afflictions he mentions in this second ''having'' ambiguous suggests that he wants his readers to feel the tension between both possible readings. The charity with which Nephi marks himself in this second self-interpretation is supposed to be felt as all-embracing, as touching both friends ''and'' enemies. On that account, Nephi's "having seen" imbues the figure of Nephi with love. It might, moreover, be noted that it is precisely afflictions that open Nephi's eyes (on either reading). Love itself might here be read ''as'' affliction: love is the inevitable drama of striking two things, two people, together. Love is the site of affliction, afflictions are the sight of love: in Nephi's seeing afflictions--in his seeing ''to'' afflictions--he encounters love. <br />
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* ''Nephi's love as response.'' But as soon as one reads love into Nephi's second ''having'', the objection arises that Nephi never explicitly mentions love, that he only sets it forth negatively, under the figure of seeing ''afflictions''. In other words, that Nephi here interprets himself in terms of afflictions, apparently in an attempt to interpret himself in terms of charity, is oddly ironic. It might, on the one hand, mark Nephi's humility: he only suggests his charity negatively, through afflictions. On the other hand, this detail might set a sort of limit for the reading above: Nephi's love is not an absolute virtue, but one drawn out of him by the threat of the other, by afflictions. In a sense, then, that Nephi addresses his own charity through affliction serves to proscribe Nephi's love, to render it a response rather than a call. Nephi's eyes do not intend so much as they are intended and seeingly respond. In other words and in short, Nephi's second ''having'' might be read as a figure of responsive--even responsible--charity: Nephi's open eyes figure his response to the visible world, a world, apparently, of affliction.<br />
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* ''Reanalyzing the parallel between first and second "havings".'' Nephi's second ''having'' is now seen as the prophet's confrontation with the fallen nature of the world, as his loving response to the presence of evil--of afflictions, many afflictions--in the world. And here, perhaps, the apparent parallel between this second ''having'' and the first falls apart. Whereas in the first ''having'', Nephi interprets himself as a reembodiment of his parents (thus being separate and inseparable from them), here it is clear that Nephi is not reading himself in terms of affliction, but in terms of his response to affliction. In other words, Nephi's entire first verse does not ultimately follow Nephi's journey from afflictions to writing, but from his response to afflictions to the task of writing. If this second ''having'' is to be read as privileged above the others for its event-ness, it is now clear that the event(s) Nephi here recounts is (are) not to be understood as experience(s) of affliction, but as response(s) to affliction. The one event Nephi cites on the way to the task of writing is his seeing, his open eyes in response to the wickedness of the world.<br />
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* ''Toward the course of Nephi's days.'' Given all of the above, Nephi's second ''having'' might be summarized thus: the only event Nephi calls upon in interpreting his life is his loving response (his open eyes) to the wickedness of the world. All that remains to be dealt with in this second ''having'' is the "course of [Nephi's] days." It is clear that this phrase plays an important role in the text, besides confirming the event-ual character of the second ''having''. A first, but very brief reading suggests that Nephi proscribes his charitable response within a sort of temporal enclosure (which might just be a consequence of the event-ual character of this ''having''). The word "course" is, however, not so perfectly simple. Its many meanings in [[http://65.66.134.201/cgi-bin/webster/webster.exe?search_for_texts_web1828=course|1828]] suggest that it should be read quite carefully. Two "concepts" seem to be inevitable: the word implies at least motion and method/order. (Etymology bears this out: "course" derives from Latin ''cursus'', which means an established track for running a race, hence motion and order.) Whatever Nephi means by the "course" of his days, it seems that it must inevitably be read through the double theme of motion and method.<br />
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* ''Course and death.'' But perhaps this double theme of motion and method already suggests a meaning. If Nephi's days are, as a course, understood to be a methodical procession towards an already decided end, then at least one very real possible meaning is clear: the "course" of Nephi's days ends with death. That Nephi may here be thinking of death is not to be thrown out because of the reality of the resurrection: passages throughout the Old Testament--especially in Ecclesiastes--see life as a working out of days on the way to death. (To say that the race ends with death is not at all to claim that there is nothing after the race.) If Nephi is indeed concerned with death here, then Nephi's reads his loving response, his interlocuted charity as an event at once opened up and foreclosed by the reality of death. In other words, that the event-ual ''having'' is the one tied specifically to the theme of death (a theme that rings well with the theme of affliction) suggests that event-ness itself arises out of death, that the event of charity is a response to the evil of death (even death through affliction). In short, Nephi in his second ''having'' seems to characterize himself as having lived toward his own death.<br />
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* ''One's days and the course of one's days.'' If the course Nephi describes is the procedural movement of his days toward death, it might be well to consider more exactly the word "days." That the word should not be understood here in any objective sense (e.g., to mean "twenty-four hour periods") is clear: Nephi marks the days as his, as belonging to him. In other words, Nephi does not read "days" as some objective thing he passes through, but rather understands "days" to be a sort of aspect of his experience: as ''his'' days, these days are the what through which Nephi experiences the events of affliction. Each day--lit by the light of day as opposed to night--is the light in which a certain afflicting event appeared (was seen). In fact, Nephi's seeing might well be extended to every event that came before his eyes in his "days." If this is what Nephi means by mentioning these days as his, then the meaning of the "course" of his "days" might become clearer. Nephi here reads his afflictions as punctuating an ordered procession of experiences, of events, a series of events that culminate in death--the event that anounces itself as the foreclosure of all other events, as the cessation of events. In other words, Nephi seems to read his life here as a series of witnessed events, as experiences he entered into bodily (even through his eyes), all tending toward the cessation of events and experiences, and all this punctuated often ("many") by afflictions, by--perhaps--events that suggested the reality of the coming conclusive event. It is, of course, most significant that Nephi reads his own charity as a response to those event-ual forerunners of death. <br />
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* ''The overarching tension of Nephi's second'' having. All of the above suggests the following general reading of Nephi's second ''having''. Whereas the first ''having'' explored the possibility of Nephi's escape, as it were, from his parents, this second ''having'' explores the possibility of Nephi's ability to rebridge the gap of interpersonal separation. Taking as its theme the gift of charity, Nephi seems to read through the ever-present reality of death (ever-present through the constant experience of affliction) a sort of call to love, to which Nephi responds.<br />
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===Nephi's Third "Having"===<br />
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* ''Nephi's return to "days."'' After the peculiarities of Nephi's second ''having'', the word "days" immediately stands out in this third ''having''. Whereas before his days were subsumed under the figure of a course, here they are merely collected with the word "all." One immediately gets the sense that this third ''having'' breaks the course of the second, that the inevitable movement of Nephi's days toward death is canceled in the favor of the Lord. Broadly speaking, then, this third ''having'' already presents itself as something beyond even the implicit charity of the second ''having''. Certainly the clearest initial theme of this ''having'' is the theme of God's love, God's favor, a reverse of the charity mentioned above.<br />
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* ''The meaning of favor.'' <br />
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===Nephi's Four "Having's"===<br />
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* ''Nephi's life and the plan.'' Together the clauses beginning with ''having'' form a pattern that runs through Nephi's two books: creation ("having been born"), fall ("having seen many afflictions"), atonement ("having been highly favored of the Lord"), and passing through the veil ("having had a great knowledge"). The pattern might broadly be called "the plan of salvation," but it appears to play a more fundamental ''textual'' role for Nephi as well. His first eighteen chapters (1 Nephi 1-18) tell a sort of creation story (with constant reference to his goodly parents); his following nine chapters (1 Nephi 19-2 Nephi 5) tell a sort of fall story (marked emphatically by the division between Nephites and Lamanites); his next twenty-five chapters (2 Nephi 6-31) tell a sort of atonement story (how the Lamanites might become again favored and reconnected to broader Israel); and his concluding three chapters (2 Nephi 31-33) dwell on a sort of passing-through-the-veil story (through a discussion of baptism in incredibly "veil-like" terms). Moreover, that the twenty-five chapter atonement stretch of Nephi's two-book record is presented by three messengers who collectively bring to the reader an understanding of how the "veil" of 2 Nephi 31-33 might be passed suggests that there is some connection between Nephi's broader record and the temple drama. If this connection is not unfounded, Nephi's "therefore" toward the end of this verse is powerfully significant: it is because his very life might be read as a sort of "endowment" that he is writing this text.<br />
* ''goodness and mysteries.'' No other prophet in our scriptures pairs these words in a single verse. Nephi is restating an earlier portion of this verse, in which he attributed his "learning" to his "goodly parents." Nephi's life experiences apparently taught him these two things go hand in hand.<br />
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===Chiastic Interpretation===<br />
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===Double Parallelism Interpretation===<br />
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* ''Nevertheless.'' The center of the chiastic structural reading is peculiar, but textually important. D ''mediates'' the two "halves" of the passage. In other words, it is the single word ''nevertheless'' that decides how the relation between the first half (A, B, and C) and the second half (A', B', and C') should be read. The implication: this single, perhaps "intuitive" word must be read with care. An all-too-quick reading of the word might suggest that it draws the two halves of the chiasm together in a sort of antithesis: by bringing them to stand side by side, ''nevertheless'' markedly puts on display the distinction between the events of the first half and the events of the second half, precisely because ''nevertheless'' means ''however'', or ''but''. However, more careful thought reveals that ''nevertheless'' does not at all set up a facile anthithesis. The term rather means most literally that what is about to be said is not undone by what has been said, that the implications of the foregoing (here, the first half) do not preclude what is about to be said (here, in the second half): Y (what I am about to say) is ''never'' to be taken as anything ''less''--is not to be read weakly--because of X (what I have just said). This more literal reading implies a great deal about the meaning of Nephi's autobiographical chiasm. The first half of it (what might be called Nephi's earthly world) does not preclude in any way, nor does it weaken at all, the second half of it (what might be called Nephi's heavenly world). In short, the first half of Nephi's chiastic autobiography at once has something to do with the second half--especially in that it parallels it!--but the relation between the two is neither one of mutual implication, nor one of frustrating contradiction. Perhaps all that can at first be said about the chiasm in question is what has snuck into this discussion through the back door: Nephi sees the earthly and heavenly aspects of his existence as parallel, not contradictory or implicatory.<br />
* ''having .., nevertheless, having...'' Lehi is not disappointed by his experiences. He displays an attitude of gratitude.<br />
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===Beyond (?) Autobiography===<br />
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* ''Book of the Dead wording.'' If the final phrase of this verse is taken in the Egyptian idiom, it is remarkably close to the Egyptian name for what is commonly called the "Book of the Dead" (Egyptian: "The Book of Going Forth by Day"). Nephi might here be making a suggestive allusion: his two-volume record on the small plates is, as it were, his own Book of the Dead (which was, for all intents and purposes, a sort of Egyptian endowment, an Egyptian drama of resurrection). If this reading is justified, this final phrase might ground the temple connections mentioned above. A connection (however distant) to the Book of the Dead would certainly explain the autobiographical "I, Nephi" with which the verse begins: copies of the "canonical" Book of the Dead were always personalized (by name) for the individual who purchased them. This may also provide a better context in which to understand verse 2.<br />
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* ''Dependent/independent clauses.'' The rather extended series of dependent clauses (the four "havings") that makes up the first half of this verse is interrupted along its course by the strikingly ungrammatical "therefore I was taught...." (This instance of "therefore" is the first of two in 1 Nephi 1:1, and should not here be confused with the summary "therefore" with which Nephi begins the final phrase of the verse.) The phrase, abstracted from its surroundings, is clearly an independent clause, though it is (because of the "therefore") subjected to the series of dependent clauses. The phrase therefore sets up a tension in the first half of this verse: there is an independent clause that is, so to speak, dependent on a series of dependent clauses. The tension accomplishes two things at once: on the one hand, it allows Nephi to draw the conclusion implicated by his "therefore," that his having been taught has something to do with his father's wealth, etc.; on the other hand, it frees the phrase from its confines in the first verse so that it can form a parallelism with the "language of my father" mentioned in verse 2. The tension is therefore structural: the phrase, "therefore I was taught somewhat in all the learning of my father," is drawn into tension by the first two verses, suspended, as it were, between them. The "Yea" of verse 2, discussed below, is therefore all the more significant.<br />
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=== Verse 2 ===<br />
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* ''Double parallelism.'' Given the comments above on verse 1, there is a double parallelism at play in this verse: Nephi is concerned in the first verse with his father's learning, and in the second verse with his father's language. This is doubled by Nephi's further mention of the learning of the Jews and the language of the Egyptians. The full implications of this double parallelism, however, remain to be worked out.<br />
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* ''Re-translating verse 1?'' Besides the tension that already connects the first two verses in an odd way (explained above in the comments on verse 1), Nephi further connects them by mediating their contraposition with the weighty word "Yea." Given that the Book of Mormon broadly takes up the KJV idiom (a presupposition that might well be called into question), the "Yea" here likely should be read with the weight of the Hebrew root ''knn'', to double, to repeat, to confirm. If so, Nephi seems to be drawing his first two verses into a sort of reciprocal or perhaps dialectical relation. If this second verse might be read as a "translation" of the first, it is fascinating that the two verses are drawn together in their pairing of questions of language and learning, especially the explicit mention of Jewish and Egyptian traditions. Through these two verses (explicitly composed of "metalanguage"), Nephi presents his record as fundamentally dual: it is a crossing of Egyptian and Jewish traditions, of Lehi's and Nephi's experiences, of language and learning, of verse 1 and verse 2. It might at least be said that Nephi sees his work as working out these several tensions.<br />
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* ''Making a record.'' A single foundational phrase underlies both verse 1 and verse 2: "I make a record." When each of these verses is stripped of dependent clauses and prepositional phrases, only this four-word sentence is left behind for each of them. The two verses would thus read: "I make a record. Yea, I make a record." This observation not only strengthens the suggestion that verse 2 is a repetition/translation of verse 1, but it also makes clear that Nephi's making a record is of foundational importance to these first few verses. Nephi uses the word "record" three times in this three-verse introduction to his text, doubly marking the importance of the term. The word generally translates the Hebrew ''zkrwn'' in the KJV, a word deriving from the root ''zkr'', meaning to actualize, to enact, to remember, to hold in presence. Nephi's choice of this word may imply that his text is to be read as a ritual text, one to be read aloud, even acted out or presented dramatically (cf. [[Rev 1:3]]). Such a reading might well ground the endowment themes in verse 1, while at the same time both enriching and making difficult Nephi's statement in verse 3 that the record is "true."<br />
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* ''Mention of the Jews.'' The first mention of the Jews in the whole of Nephi's record--in the whole of the Book of Mormon--is found in this verse, and it sets the tone for all subsequent discussion of the Jews. If there is any starting point for a study of who is meant by the Jews in the Book of Mormon, it is here. And this first mention is quite peculiar. From the very beginning, the national identity of the Jews is in question. "The Jews" are set here quite clearly against "the Egyptians," both emerging under plural nouns that deserve some attention: why does Nephi say "the learning of the Jews" and not "the learning of Judah" or "Jewish learning," and why does Nephi say "the language of the Egyptians" and not "the language of Egypt" or "Egyptian language"? The point is important, because Nephi from the very beginning places an emphasis on individuals who derive their identity from their political situation, rather than on nations as whole individuals (the "Israel" of the OT prophets, so profoundly understood by William Blake in his mythic prophecies). The point is, in fact, more complicated still: specific mention of "the Jews" and "the Egyptians" can only have had for Nephi profound political overtones, because of the particular situation between these nations that obtained at the time he left Jerusalem with his family. These politically defined individuals, set against each other in Nephi's first mention of the Jews, deserves some very close attention.<br />
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* ''"of the Jews," "of the Egyptians."'' Only a decade or so before Zedekiah's enthronement, the Jews and the Egyptians found themselves at war. The political situation was intense: Assyria had crumbled, leaving a power vacuum and three nations trying to fill it. Babylon, the largest and most powerful nation, was the most likely to take its place, but this was undecided, since both Egypt and Judah were also striving for the part. Around 610 B.C., Pharaoh Necho offered to join forces with Babylon against all other powers, working towards a joint empire. While traveling to accomplish this in 609 B.C., Pharaoh was encountered by Israelite forces led by King Josiah, who was attempting to stop the alliance. Josiah had already led his armies to quite a few victories in his struggle to claim greater Judean power. At Megiddo, the armies met, and Israel suffered a terrible defeat, in which Necho himself killed Josiah. The defeat was crushing for Judah (the textual implications of this failure alone for the Bible are incredible), and led quickly to the conquest of Jerusalem within two decades. Babylon quickly asserted its power of Judah, and Judah found itself conquered with a puppet king in place over it (namely, Zedekiah, who was installed by Babylon). This set up a rather difficult situation for Judah, a people with a covenant they understood to mean that they would never be conquered: either they had to submit cheerfully to Babylon (which seemed to imply unfaithfulness to the Davidic covenant), or they had to raise up enough of a force against Babylon to throw off the yoke (which could only be done through an alliance with Egypt). The prophets at the time were advocating the former position (Jeremiah especially), but Zedekiah eventually tried to establish political ties with Egypt, and the result was the obliteration of the kingdom of Judah. All of this, oddly, shows that the Jews and the Egyptians had a rather complex relationship at the time the Book of Mormon begins: those who were in favor of Egypt were those who could forgive the death of Josiah in order to try in some way to restore the situation they believed to be according to the Davidic covenant; those who were not in favor of Egypt were following the prophets even though it seemed as if this were against the wishes of the Lord. More still: the Egyptians and the Jews had so many commercial ties--especially mercenary ties--that the cultures had to some degree or another fused into one. That Nephi writes his record in reformed Egyptian is of some significance: he finds himself in the midst of some major political struggles, all of which bear quite inevitably on the questions of covenant.<br />
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* ''Jews, then, and Egyptians.'' For Nephi here to use "of the Jews" and "of the Egyptians" makes quite a point, then: by drawing on collective individuals, Nephi avoids questions of broader politics. He is not so much concerned in this verse with Judah and Egypt as he is with people from Judah and people from Egypt. He is more concerned with cultures and heritages, with traditions. It should be noted, then, that the very first mention of "the Jews" in the Book of Mormon marks them as a national culture that can be opposed to, set against, that of Egypt. If Egypt is the glory of antiquity, Nephi sees Judah as no less so. The Jews, from the very beginning, are a people, one with a tradition, with a unique history and culture, and with an autonomous take on the world. The Jews, it seems quite clear, are to be understood as the people who come from the Southern Kingdom of Judah, who have inherited the particularities of Judah and Benjamin, as well as the complexities of cross-cultures that came in with the collapse of the Northern Kingdom. The heritage of Judah has a mixed history, perhaps, but Nephi understands it to be unique and separate by this point.<br />
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=== Verse 3 ===<br />
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* ''Chiasm.'' After the grammatical complexity of Nephi's first two verses, the third verse reads with a striking simplicity. It is made up of three straightforward statements, all beginning with the conjoining "and I". Despite the unbalance between these short, plain statements and the far more difficult phrases of verses 1 and 2, this verse sets up a chiastic structure that runs through the whole of Nephi's first three verses:<br />
A I make a record<br />
B I make a record<br />
C I know (that the record is true)<br />
B' I make it<br />
A' I make it<br />
The importance of this structure goes well beyond "proofs of ancient authorship": the whole of verse 1 is set in parallel with Nephi's rather simple "and I make it according to my knowledge"; and the whole of verse 2 is set in parallel with his (also rather simple) "and I make it with mine own hand." Further, because it marks the chiastic center and has no parallel, the independent statement "And I know that the record which I make is true," with its profound focus on knowledge instead of record-making, separates itself thematically from the rest of what Nephi writes into these first three verses. More still, the doubling already recognized in verses 1 and 2 (here called A and B) is itself doubled by a parallel doubling (B' and A' might be read as a project of translation just as A and B are above). These structural observations are perhaps a collective key to interpreting this third verse.<br />
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* ''Record-making and testimony.'' As mentioned above, the chiastic center of Nephi's first three verses is a grammatical inversion of every other step of the chiasm. In other words, whereas verses 1 and 2 unite with the second and third statements of verse 3 in a project of subordinating (grammatically) knowledge to the record Nephi makes, this central (most important?) statement subordinates (again, grammatically) the record to Nephi's knowledge: "And I know that the record which I make is true." Again, it might be said that the great majority of Nephi's three-verse introduction to his story understands Nephi's "knowledge" (and "learning" and "language") to be sublimated (or at least spoken) in the text is writes. At the same time, however, the most central message of that same three-verse introduction is a reversal of this sublimation: the record gathers itself up in Nephi's testimonial "I know," is sublimated (or, again, at least spoken) in the knowledge he has. In short, the complex structure written into Nephi's first three verses suggests a sort of dialectic of testimony: knowledge is channeled into a text, and a text is channeled into knowledge. Record-making and knowing are undeniably--even if impossibly--interwoven in Nephi's introduction. The LDS theme of "testimony" might well be re-read through these verses, in a reading that appears to adhere carefully to the implied roots of the Hebrew term for testimony, ''`dwt'' (from a root that arguably means to carve or engrave in stone).<br />
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* ''Record-keeping.'' It appears Nephi grew up in a culture that recorded, and then passed on, knowledge from God. He is well positioned to carry on this family tradition.<br />
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* ''Another structure?'' If the comments above concerning the semi-independent clause near the beginning of verse 1 are taken into account, an alternate structure for Nephi's first three verses emerges, recasting the function of this third verse. If Nephi's ungrammatical "therefore I was taught somewhat in all the learning of my father" is taken as an independent clause, then six statements (rather than five) precipitate out of 1 Nephi 1:1-3. Moreover, the sixth component of the surface structure of Nephi's introduction would disassemble the chiasm and replace it with an entirely different structure:<br />
A I was taught somewhat<br />
B I make a record<br />
C I make a record<br />
A' I know (that the record is true)<br />
B' I make it<br />
C' I make it<br />
Such a reading would make verse 3 a wholesale doubling of verses 1 and 2. Further, the two parallelisms mentioned in the chiastic reading would be switched ("with mine own hand" would parallel Nephi's fourfold life experience, and "according to my knowledge" would parallel the "language of my father"). Perhaps most important, Nephi's testimony ("I know that the record which I make is true") would here be parallel to his learning ("therefore I was taught somewhat in all the learning of my father"). Both of these parallel statements work out Nephi's "knowledge," perhaps strengthening this structural reading of these three verses.<br />
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=== Verses 1-3 ===<br />
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* ''Teaching as an impossibility.'' Nephi's first three verses should be read as a single literary unit (marked separate from and yet tied inextricably to verse 4 by the latter's introductory "For"). However, the comments collected above suggest that this "single literary unit" is bound together by an undeniable tension. At the root of this tension is the ungrammatical interruption early in the first verse: "therefore I was taught somewhat in all the learning of my father." Not only does this phrase break with the grammatical structure of the first verse, thereby setting up a syntactical tension, it forces a double semantic (better: structural) tension into the whole three verse introduction, as laid out in the comments above. In other words, what might have otherwise been a very straightforward three-verse introduction on how and why Nephi wrote his record is disturbed, unbalanced, perhaps even frustrated, and precisely in Nephi's having been "taught." It is not too much to say that Nephi's introductory text puts on display how the "simple" dialectical process of record-making is grounded on the violent, aporetic, and yet necessary work of "being taught." The implications of Nephi's "ungrammar" are rich, but remain to be worked out at length.<br />
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=== Verse 4 ===<br />
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* ''Zedekiah's reign.'' Zedekiah's reign marks the historical beginning of the story, but it probably should not be assumed that Nephi's text therefore "legitimizes" him. In fact, the text draws an important parallel that, to some degree, de-legitimizes him: whereas this verse portrays the enthroned Zedekiah as surrounded with prophets speaking disparaging messages, verse 8 will portray a parallel God upon His throne, surrounded with angels who sing and shout praises to Him. The comparison might well betray Nephi's attitude towards the king.<br />
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== Points to ponder ==<br />
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== I have a question ==<br />
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===Verse 1===<br />
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* ''Colophon.'' Was Hugh Nibley right about these introductory verses being a colophon? Is this literary structure or formula unique to Nephi in the Book of Mormon or did other authors use colophons throughout the Book of Mormon also? Do you agree with [http://frontpage2000.nmia.com/~nahualli/LDStopics/1Nephi/1Nephi1.htm John A. Tvedtnes or Brant Gardner] on this point?<br />
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* ''"born of goodly parents."'' How many people are included in the Nephi's use of the word parents? How many of these parents gave birth to him? Can parents mean more than just mother and father? Does the use of parents in [[Alma 30:25]] provide a possible answer?<br />
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* ''"in all the learning of my father."'' How does Nephi's phrase compare with this description of the sons of Mosiah: "And he caused that they should be taught in all the language of his fathers" ([[Mosiah 1:2]])? Does this mean the sons of Mosiah received most of their lessons from someone other than their father? If the phrasing of these two passages is so similar, does that suggest that Nephi also received some of his religious training from a teacher who was not his father?<br />
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* ''Nature of Nephi's learning.'' Did anyone in Lehi's family have access to scriptures before Nephi and his brothers obtained the brass plates from Laban? If they did not have access to sacred texts, what was Nephi studying in his youth? How likely is it that Lehi and Nephi were part of an oral tradition? Does [[2 Ne 33:1]] contain any clues about Nephi's feelings about spoken texts versus written texts?<br />
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* ''Afflictions and blessings.'' How can this verse be used to deepen understanding of the themes of afflictions and blessings throughout 1 Nephi?<br />
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* ''"having seen many afflictions."'' Whose afflictions might Nephi have witnessed?<br />
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* ''Learning equals language?'' What is the relationship between the learning of Nephi's father in [[1 Ne 1:1]] and the language of Nephi's father in [[1 Ne 1:2]]?<br />
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* ''Intended introduction?'' As we know from [[Words of Mormon]], [[D&C 3]], and [[D&C 10]], Mormon did not intend the Book of Mormon to begin as it does now. How does this verse, in its "usurped" position, change the way we might otherwise read the Book of Mormon? How would the Book of Mormon be different if, for example, it began with an introduction to the whole text by Mormon?<br />
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* ''"therefore I make a record."'' How might we here understand Nephi's purpose or motivation in writing? How do Nephi's other explanations for this record (as contained in this verse) compare with the purposes listed in [[1 Ne 9]] and [[1 Ne 19]]? How might we understand this statement while also considering that Nephi later wrote, "the Lord hath commanded me to make these plates for a wise purpose in him, which purpose I know not" in [[1 Ne 9:5]]?<br />
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* ''Tense.'' Nephi uses phrases like "having been" and "make a record" in the same sentence, mixing past tense with present tense. Why might Nephi be doing this? Is this intentional? (ie. are we looking at an instance of [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enallage enallage]?)<br />
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* ''Memory.'' If Nephi is writing this record several years after the fact, how does this affect his memory of past events? If Nephi is writing with the benefit of hindsight, how does that affect Nephi's explanation of how and why things happened?<br />
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* ''Autobiography?'' What did Nephi mean in [[1 Ne 1:17]] when he said that "after I have abridged the record of my father then will I make an account of mine own life?" Does that mean Nephi did not consider this verse autobiographical? Or was this brief introduction something less than an "account"?<br />
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* ''Concepts of Time.'' Why does Nephi shift from the event of one day, to things that happened in the course of days, to things that happened every day, to mysteries that may transcend time? Is this a progression of some sort? Is Nephi making a distinction between different measures of time when he talks about "my days"? Does [[Jacob 7:26]] offer any insights into how Nephi and his contemporaries conceptualized time?<br />
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===Verse 2===<br />
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* ''Process of a prophet.'' To what degree did Joseph Smith see these verses as a foreshadowing of his own work as a prophet?<br />
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* ''Double cultures.'' Nephi here introduces the difficulties of translation into his still untranslated text: his work is a crossing of two cultures? How does this internal theme of translation bear on questions of Joseph's work of translating the Book of Mormon? Does this double culture of Nephi's work affect how it should be read?<br />
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* ''"Yea."'' Nephi begins this verse with "Yea," implying that this verse is a validation of the first verse. How does this verse meet up with the first?<br />
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* ''"the language of my father."'' Is Nephi implying that his father was bi-literate? Did Lehi have experience producing written texts in reformed Egyptian? Or did Nephi primarily pick up this skill from the brass plates?<br />
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* ''"which" and "consists."'' What is the antecedent for "which" in this verse? Is it both "language" and "record"? Is it more likely that Nephi's "record" "consists" of "learning" and "language" or that his "language" "consists" of "learning" and "language"?<br />
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* ''Jews and Egyptians.'' What is Nephi's concept of these two groups at the time he writes this verse? Has Nephi already had the visions of 1 Ne. 13-15 by the time he puts these thoughts to paper? If so, how does his discussion of Jews in those chapters influence what he is saying here? Or is it possible that Nephi held those later understandings of Jews in abeyance while he wrote this verse, in an attempt to recreate the understanding of Jews he started out with?<br />
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* ''"I make a record."'' Technically speaking, would it have been more accurate for Nephi to have written, "I have been making a record"? Why might Nephi have used this wording?<br />
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* ''"learning of the Jews."'' Is there a qualitative difference between saying "learning of the Jews" and "the Jews' learning"?<br />
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* ''"the language of the Egyptians."'' Did Nephi think the Egyptians used only one language? Should the singular word "language" be read as referring to only one language? If Nephi had been aware that the Egyptians were multi-lingual, would he have necessarily used the word "languages" to refer to their spoken abilities?<br />
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* ''""the language" and "the learning."'' Is Nephi saying that Lehi's "language" consists of the entirety of these languages and learning? If Nephi's learning was "somewhat" in [[1 Ne 1:1]], is this contrasted with the completeness of his father's learning? Was Nephi just being humble, or did he really feel that his father's knowledge dwarfed his own?<br />
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===Verse 3===<br />
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* ''"The record . . . is true."'' What does Nephi mean when he calls this record true? Why does he emphasize that he made it with his own hands?<br />
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* ''"I make."'' By this point, Nephi has used the phrase "I make" five times. Why is he repeating himself so much? Where there some that would doubt that he was the maker of the plates? Was he just claiming authorship or did the fact that he was the maker of the plates provide him with another sort of authority?<br />
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* ''"I know."'' Did Nephi know in advance that, no matter what, his writings on the plates would always be true? Or is Nephi making this statement after having written enough of his record that he feels confident that everything on the plates will be true?<br />
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* ''"my knowledge."'' Is Nephi saying this knowledge belongs to him or that it is in his sole possession? How did Nephi suddenly shift from deferentially talking about "the language of my father" in the previous verse to speaking confidently about his own knowledge? Why did Nephi shift from referring to "a great knowledge . . . of God" (verse 1) to laying claim on what he called "my knowledge"?<br />
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* ''"make it according to my knowledge."'' Is Nephi saying he purposely designed the plates so they would correspond to his own knowledge? How would the meaning of this verse be different if Nephi had written "I make it with my knowledge" or "I make it as I am given knowledge"? Is Nephi implying in this verse that he takes responsibility for any mistakes, since the writing was based upon his own knowledge?<br />
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* ''"make it with my own hand."'' Later in this chapter, Nephi referes to "plates which I have made with mine own hands" ([[1 Ne 1:17]]). Why did he use the singular word "hand," rather than "hands," in this verse?<br />
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===Verse 4===<br />
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* ''"For it came to pass."'' Why did Nephi use a five-word phrase that appears only three other times in the Book of Mormon ([[1 Ne 11:1]], [[Mosiah 26:6]], and [[Ether 6:2]])? Why did he not simply say "And it came to pass"?<br />
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* ''"commencement of the first year."'' Is Nephi being needlessly repetitive? Or is he trying to point to the first day, week, or month of the king's reign, as opposed to referring to the entire year? Was this first year in 600 or 598 B.C.?<br />
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* ''"commencement . . . of the reign of Zedekiah."'' With the exception of [[1 Ne 5]], which also mentions Zedekiah, why is this the only instance of the word commencement in the Book of Mormon until [[Alma 2:1]]? Did the authors of the small plates of Nephi assume that "commencement" was a concept that applied to kings in Judah and not to political leaders in the promised land? Or were words and concepts that applied to kings, like "commencement," reserved for the large plates of Nephi?<br />
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* ''"it."'' Is there supposed to be an antecedent for this word? Or is Nephi just using a formulaic phrase?<br />
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* ''"in that same year."'' Is Nephi saying prophets came throughout the year, even though he opened the verse by presumably referring to the beginning of the year? Does Nephi's reference to the year, once again, indicate he was beginning a new sentence?<br />
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* ''"dwelt at Jerusalem in all his days."'' Is Nephi saying Lehi had never before left Jerusalem? Or is he saying Lehi's residence was at Jerusalem, even if he sometimes went on trips that took him away from the city. Is Nephi implying that Lehi has never called another place home? What clues does the phrase "the land of our forefathers" ([[Alma 7:10]]) hold for answering these questions?<br />
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* ''"all his days."'' Why does Nephi use days, rather than years, to measure the age of his father? Why does the phrase "his years" never appear in the Book of Mormon? Was Nephi starting a new pattern upon the plates for measuring age? Was he borrowing the practice from an ancient source? Is the frequent use of the phrase "his days" in the Book of Ether the result of Moroni's abridgement?<br />
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* ''Parentheses.'' Is this an example of a parenthetical expression in Nephi's writing, even though this piece of punctuation did not originate with Nephi? How does the phrase about Lehi dwelling in Jerusalem qualify or explain the clause that preceded it?<br />
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* ''"king of Judah."'' When Nephi points out that his father has dwelt at Jerusalem his entire life, while in the middle of saying that Zedekiah has been king for less than a year, is he trying to say that Lehi also lived under the previous kings? Who were the kings of Judah during Lehi's lifetime? What age was Lehi under Josiah's reign, which ended only eleven years before Zedekiah became king? How were Lehi's religious views, Laban's possession of the plates, and Nephi's religious training affected by the religious reforms of king Josiah?<br />
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* ''"dwelt at Jerusalem."'' What other indications do we have, besides [[1 Chr 9:3]], that descendants of Ephraim and Manessah lived in Jerusalem? To what extent were they outnumbered by the descendants of Judah and Benjamin who also lived in Jerusalem? What were relations like between the descendants of these four tribes who all lived in Jerusalem?<br />
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* ''"in that same year there came many prophets."'' Why is Nephi noting the presence of these prophets? Was it typical or unusal for Jerusalem to have "many" prophets in its midst? Is Nephi saying several prophets suddenly arrived on the scene when Zedekiah took office? Who else besides Jeremiah, Habakkuk, and Ezekiel (who are listed on page 639 of the Bible Dictionary), was on Nephi's list of prophets at the time? Have LDS scholars often overlooked Urijah (see [[Jer 26:20]]) as one these prophets? What reasons do we have for assuming that Zenos and Zenock either were or were not among these prophets? What do we know about the lineage of these prophets? How manhy of the prophets were descendants of Ephraim and Manessah? Were prophets with ties to the north, as opposed to those descended from Judah or Benjamin, more likely to antagonize listeners in Jerusalem?<br />
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* ''"prophets."'' What is the connection between these prophets and the religious establishment in Jerusalem? Did the "churches" in Jersualem recognize the administrative authority of these prophets? Do you agree with [http://frontpage2000.nmia.com/~nahualli/LDStopics/1Nephi/1Nephi1.htm Brant Gardner's argument] that it is "highly unlikely" that these prophets were "part of the officially recognized religions governing bodies"? Did Jerusalem have a long tradition of requiring prophets to live on the outskirts of society?<br />
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* ''"the people . . . must repent."'' What was it that the people of Jerusalem needed to repent of? Had they abandoned the religious reforms of Josiah after only four decades? Was it their rejection of prophets that had necessitated their repentance? Had they already abandoned and forgotten the law of Moses? Had the only copies of the scriptures fallen into the hands of wicked people? Are these some of the reasons why Nephi later realizes that his descendants would be unable to follow the law of Moses unless he obtained the plates from Laban (see [[1 Ne 4]])?<br />
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* ''"prophesying . . . they must repent, or . . . be destroyed."'' Where did Nephi obtain this combination of words? If the words prophesy, repent, and destroy (as well as their variants) do not appear together in any biblical verses, does that mean Nephi was the first to use them jointly? If most of the other appearances in the Book of Mormon of this combination occur in the Book of Ether ([[Mosiah 12:8]], [[Ether 7:23]], and [[Ether 11:12]]), does that mean Moroni borrowed Nephi's phraseology while abriding the Jaredite record or that the Jaredite authors and Nephi were both borrowing from a more ancient source?<br />
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* ''"or the great city Jerusalem must be destroyed."'' Why does Nephi (or the prophets he is paraphrasing) change the repent or be destroyed formula? Why does he/they not follow the much more common example in scripture, in which prophets tell the people they will be destroyed if they do not repent (e.g., [[Mosiah 12:8]], [[Alma 37:22]], and [[Ether 7:23]])? Were the prophets in Jerusalem partially letting their listeners off the hook by telling them it was their city, and not them, that would be destroyed? Or was it the Lord who changed the formula in this instance, because he "had compassion on his people" ([[2 Chr 36:15]])? Or is Lehi's later comment, "had we remained in Jerusalem we should also have perished" ([[2 Ne 1:4]]), an indication that it was both the land of Jerusalem and its inhabitants who faced imminent destruction? How closely does this verse in 1 Ne. 1 parallel [[Hel 7:28]], which says "And except ye repent ye shall perish; yea, even your lands shall be taken from you, and ye shall be destroyed from off the face of the earth." At what point did it become inevitable that Jerusalem would be destroyed?<br />
<br />
* ''"the people."'' Who exactly was Nephi referring to when he used the phrase "the people"? Did every single inhabitant of Jerusalem have great need to repent? Was the city completely wicked? Was there no one left who followed the law of Moses? How sincere and thorough was the religious reform that happened forty years earlier if everyone was now wicked? Were there any exceptions to this apparently uniform wickedness? If Ishmael's family and Laban's servant Zoram can be considered at least partial exceptions to Nephi's characterization, does that mean there were other, scattered inhabitants of Jerusalem who were at least somewhat righteous? What evidence do we have that some of the people in Jerusalem actually repented? Should we assume that the only people in Jersualem who repented are the ones who joined Lehi in his exodus to the promised land?<br />
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* ''Mulekites.'' Were the ancestors of the people of Zarahemla, who "came out from Jerusalem at the time" of Zedekiah's reign ([[Omni 1:15]]), converted when they heard the preaching of the "many prophets" mentioned in this verse? If so, did these prophets realize that the Mulekites were converted by their preaching?<br />
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== Resources ==<br />
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''This heading is for listing links and print resources, including those cited in the notes. A short comment about the particular strengths of a resource can be helpful. Click the link above and to the right to edit or add content to this heading. →''<br />
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===Incoming Cross-References Not Listed in The Footnotes for These Verses===<br />
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* ''Verse 1:'' [[Job 1:5]], [[Hel 5:6]], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/gs/f/6 GS Father, Mortal], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/gs/k/9 GS Knowledge], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/gs/m/62 GS Mysteries of God], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/gs/n/15 GS Nephi, Son of Lehi], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/gs/t/5 GS Teach, Teacher], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/tg/b/152 TG Born], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/tg/f/39 TG Father], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/tg/g/98 TG Goodly], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/tg/l/47 TG Learn, Learning], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/tg/m/43 TG Marriage, Fatherhood], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/tg/p/12 TG Parent], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/tg/t/24 TG Teaching, Teach, Taught], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/in/b/93 IN Born], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/in/f/24 IN Father], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/in/f/27 IN Favored], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/in/g/65 IN God, Goodness of], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/in/g/78 IN Goodly], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/in/l/49 IN Learning], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/in/n/30 IN Nephi], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/in/p/20 IN Parent], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/in/r/37 IN Record], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/in/t/15 IN Teach, Taught]<br />
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* ''Verse 2:'' [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/gs/n/15 GS Nephi, Son of Lehi], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/tg/j/77 TG Jew, Jewish], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/in/e/18 IN Egyptian], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/in/j/61 IN Jew, Jewish], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/in/l/26 IN Language], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/in/n/30 IN Nephi]<br />
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* ''Verse 3:'' [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/gs/n/15 GS Nephi, Son of Lehi], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/tg/h/14 TG Hand], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/in/h/12 IN Hand]<br />
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* ''Verse 4:'' [[2 Kgs 23:27]], [[Ps 79:3]], [[Jer 13:14]], [[Jer 21:7]], [[1 Ne 2:13]], [[1 Ne 17:22]], [[Hel 5:6]], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/gs/j/19 GS Jerusalem], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/gs/n/11 GS Nebuchadnezzar], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/gs/n/15 GS Nephi, Son of Lehi], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/gs/z/5 GS Zedekiah], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/bd/z/11 BD Zedekiah], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/tg/d/92 TG Destroy], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/tg/r/59 TG Reign], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/in/d/67 IN Destruction, Destroy], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/in/j/32 IN Jerusalem], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/in/j/87 IN Judah], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/in/r/75 IN Repentance, Repent], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/in/z/8 IN Zedekiah], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/biblephotos/8 Photograph: Jerusalem]<br />
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===Verse 1===<br />
* ''A great knowledge of the goodness of God.'' [http://www.lds.org/conference/talk/display/0,5232,23-1-14-2,00.html Neal A. Maxwell (GC 1999)] contrasts Laman & Lemuel's lack of faith with Nephi's great faith in God's goodness. <br />
* ''Mysteries of God''<br />
** See [[1 Ne 2:16]] for an explanation by Nephi of how he gained knowledge of the mysteries of God.<br />
** See [[1 Ne 10:19]] where Nephi teaches that one must diligently seek to find the mysteries of God.<br />
** See [[Mosiah 1:3]] where Mosiah teaches his sons that without the scriptural record they could not know the mysteries of God.<br />
** See [[Mosiah 2:9]] where Mosiah starts his talk to his people with an invitation listen to him and open their ears, hearts and minds they they may learn the mysteries of God.<br />
** See the entry on [http://scriptures.lds.org/gsm/mystrsfg mysteries of God] in the <i>Guide to the Scriptures</i>. <br />
* [http://bomgroupies.wordpress.com/2007/03/01/nephi-and-the-mysteries/ "Nephi and the Mysteries"] A discussion of Nephi's interest in the Mysteries of God by the Book of Mormon Groupies.<br />
* [http://teachyediligently.mypodcast.com/2008/05/On_Scripture_Study-111110.html Podcast] of Joe Spencer exploring 1 Nephi 1:1 with a local Relief Society.<br />
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== Notes ==<br />
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''Footnotes are not required but are encouraged for factual assertions that average readers cannot easily evaluate for themselves, such as the date of King Solomon’s death or the nuanced definition of a Greek word. In contrast, insights rarely benefit from footnoting, and the focus of this page should always remain on the scriptures themselves rather than what someone has said about them. Links are actively encouraged on all sections of this page, and links to authoritative sources are preferable to footnotes.''<br />
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[[First Nephi 1 | Previous page: Chapter 1]] &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; [[1 Ne 1:5-15 | Next page: Verses 1:5-15]]</div>Sterlinghttp://feastupontheword.org/1_Ne_1:1-41 Ne 1:1-42014-01-19T21:04:05Z<p>Sterling: /* Verse 2 */ foreshadow</p>
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<div>[[The Book of Mormon]] > [[First Nephi]] > [[First Nephi 1-2 | Chapters 1-2]] > [[First Nephi 1 | Chapter 1]] > [[1 Ne 1:1-4 | Verses 1:1-4]] <br><br />
[[First Nephi 1 | Previous page: Chapter 1]] &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; [[1 Ne 1:5-15 | Next page: Verses 1:5-15]]<br />
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This page would ideally always be under construction. You are invited to contribute.<br />
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== Summary ==<br />
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''This heading should be brief and may include an outline of the passage. Click the link above and to the right to edit or add content to this heading. →''<br />
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The relationship of verses 1-4 to the rest of Chapter 1 is discussed at [[First Nephi 1 | Chapter 1]].<br />
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== Discussion ==<br />
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''This heading is for more detailed discussions of all or part of a passage. Discussion may include the meaning of a particular word, how a doctrinal point is developed throughout the passage, insights to be developed in the future, and other items. Contributions may range from polished paragraphs down to a single bullet point. The focus, however, should always be on understanding the scriptural text consistent with LDS doctrine. Click the link above and to the right to edit or add content to this heading. →''<br />
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===Verse 1===<br />
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* ''Goodly'' According to Webster's 1828, [http://65.66.134.201/cgi-bin/webster/webster.exe?search_for_texts_web1828=goodly goodly] means "Being of a handsome form; beautiful; graceful; as a goodly person; goodly raiment; goodly houses." In this context it may mean "well-off." ''Goodly'' is used only once more in the Book of Mormon, [[Mosiah 18:7]]: there were a goodly number gathered together at the place of Mormon. It is used twice in the Doctrine and Covenants: [[D&C 97:9]] & [[D&C 99:7]]. There the meaning is ''beautiful'' or ''fair''. It is also used with this same meaning many times in the Old and New Testaments.<br />
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* ''On introducing.'' The "therefore" with which Nephi begins the final phrase of verse 1 marks his introductory verses (verses 1-3) as apologetic: this is ''why'' I am writing, all of what I just mentioned ''justifies'' taking up this project. The logic of Nephi's apologetic introduction is surprising because though he will later explicitly mention a divine commandment to produce the text ([[2 Ne 5:31]]), he makes no such reference here. Instead, he founds his text on the circumstances of his life. Nephi makes cites his experiences as of enough significance to justify writing scripture. Given this, Nephi's brief autobiography in verse 1--what we will see is essentially his reading of those very experiences--should be read with incredible care.<br />
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===Possible Structures===<br />
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* ''Serial structure.'' If one looks at Nephi's autobiographical sketch for a textual structure, the repeating word ''having'' immediately suggests its own importance: every phrase (except the ungrammatical "therefore I was taught somewhat in all the learning of my father," which can only be dealt with after some structural clarity is achieved) begins with the term. If ''having'' is read as the structural key to the passage, most likely therefore to be read as a progressive series, then it might be rendered thus (with connectives set between phrases):<br />
(1) having been born of goodly parents<br />
and<br />
(2) having seen many afflictions in the course of my days<br />
nevertheless<br />
(3) having been highly favored of the Lord in all my days<br />
yea<br />
(4) having had a great knowledge of the goodness and the mysteries of God<br />
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* ''Chiastic structure.'' No sooner is the structure laid out as a series of ''having'''s than some obvious parallelistic structures suggest themselves. Most visible perhaps is the parallel ''my days'' occurring in (2) and (3). Not quite so striking at first is the parallelism formed by (1) and (4) by their use of different manifestations of the word ''good'', ''goodly'' and ''goodness'' respectively. This double parallel of first with last and second with penultimate suggests the passage be read as a chiasm (perhaps with even the ''and'' between (1) and (2) parallel to the ''yea'' between (3) and (4)). Rendered chiastically, the autobiographical sketch would look thus:<br />
A having been born of ''goodly'' parents<br />
B ''and''<br />
C having seen many afflictions in the course of my ''days''<br />
D nevertheless<br />
C' having been highly favored of the Lord in all my ''days''<br />
B' ''yea''<br />
A' having had a great knowledge of the ''goodness'' and the mysteries of God<br />
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* ''Double parallel structure.'' The parallel drawn out above as B and B' further suggests another structural reading of the passage. Both ''and'' and ''yea'' suggest a doubling, a repetition. In other words, A and C might well be read parallelistically, as might A' and C'. The autobiographical sketch would then become a parallel set of parallelisms, mediated by the central ''nevertheless''. In short, the passage might be schematized thus:<br />
A having been born of goodly parents<br />
B and<br />
A' having seen many afflictions in the course of my days<br />
C nevertheless<br />
D having been highly favored of the Lord in all my days<br />
B' yea<br />
D' having had a great knowledge of the goodness and the mysteries of God<br />
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The interpretive comments below follow each of the above three structural readings in turn.<br />
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===Nephi's First "Having"===<br />
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* ''Birth and learning.'' Nephi's first ''having'', taken in its full and ungrammatical rendering, ties together two vital clues to Nephi's record: his birth and his learning. He immediately qualifies his birth with mention of his "goodly parents." ''Goodly'' here is often read as though its meaning is the same as ''good.'' But if we read ''goodly'' as meaning wealthy (see lexical note above), we see Nephi recognizing that it was because of his parent's wealth that he was able to be taught "somewhat in ''all'' the learning of [his] father" (emphasis added).<br />
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* ''Teaching and learning.'' Nephi calls upon two important if oddly balanced terms to describe his early education: ''taught'' and ''learning''. While a sort of opposition between teaching and learning might at first be read into the text, a careful reading reveals that this opposition is far too simplistic: the learning Nephi mentions is not his own, but his father's, and even as Nephi is the one taught, the verb is used passively ("I was taught somewhat") so that the teacher is cloaked and the act of teaching is therefore uprooted when set into the text. No simplistic scheme of Lehi teaching and Nephi learning is suggested at all in the text. The tie between the two terms, moreover, is prepositional: Nephi's being taught is "in" the learning of Lehi. This emphasizes an important fact: the term, "learning," in the text is a noun, a ''thing''. Whatever Lehi's learning consists of, it is clear from the text that it already consists, that it already stands together, that it is complete enough to be taught, named, or pointed out. And this nominal completion of Lehi's learning stands textually against the apparently incomplete studies of Nephi: "I was taught ''somewhat'' in all the learning of my father." While all of this sets up some possibilities for interpreting Nephi's brief report of his education, some more detailed consideration of the terms involved is warranted.<br />
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* ''Lehi's learning.'' While Nephi later (in verse 2) speaks of the "language of my father, which consists of the learning of the Jews and the language of the Egyptians," it is not yet clear how that should be read against the more simple "learning of my father" of verse 1. More fruitful for getting started, perhaps, is a brief consideration of the term, ''learning''. The English word, "learning," derives from an Indo-European root, ''leis'', meaning a track or a furrow. To learn is etymologically to follow a track, a pathway already (and not recently) cut out, already trod for some time. The pre-existence of whatever is trod, bound up in the word "to learn," is also not unfamiliar to the Hebrew root ''lqch'', the root behind the word most commonly translated in KJV as "learning": ''lqch'' means to take, to seize, even to steal, always implying the pre-existence of whatever is taken, seized, stolen. Certainly Lehi's learning implies that he takes up a way that has been trod for a long while before him. But the English and the Hebrew both imply still more: both "to learn" and ''lqch'' emphasize a sort of solitude. While teaching implies an instructor and an instructed, the learner comes upon a pathway that ''has been'' trod, but that might now be completely empty, and most likely is without a guide. That ''lqch'' can mean to steal certainly reinforces the lonely character of Lehi's learning: it might well be suggested that Lehi's learning, in which Nephi was taught, was a very solitary project.<br />
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* ''Nephi's being taught.'' If Lehi's learning is a work of solitude, the lonely work of following the long-since-left-behind, Nephi's being taught is imbued with the spirit of a face to face encounter, perhaps even characterized by a sort of violence as well. The English word, "teach," is etymologically related to "touch," as is "didactic" to "tactile." To teach is to point out, to put one's finger onto something. Whereas Lehi seems to come upon something abandoned, which he must attempt to bring back to life in self-disciplined learning, Nephi has a living someone who stands before him, who points out what is to be learned, who gives tasks to the student. This "being taught" on Nephi's part well reflects the broad meaning of the Hebrew term for teaching, ''lmd'', to train, to develop skills in oneself or another. Nephi learns through another, through an actual engagement. The ambiguity of such an engagement (one engages the enemy, and one is engaged to a future spouse) is suggestive: Nephi learns through a work of desire both to submit and to overpower, wraps his arms about his teach both to embrace and to wrestle ("touching" in being "taught"). Lehi's learning is the work of an archaeologist; Nephi's being taught is the work of a disciple. <br />
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* ''Toward the relation between Nephi and Lehi.'' The foregoing comments on Nephi's first ''having'', besides destructuring the father-son teaching situation, work out provisional meanings for three words: "goodly", being "taught", and "learning". The meanings worked out are provisional precisely in that they remain in the above comments extratextual: they have not been read back into the text, but provide a framework for just such a (re)reading. However, before such a reading can proceed, something of the interpersonal dynamics at play in this first ''having'' must be worked out, so that there is ''something'' to read these words back into. In other words, because "goodly" qualifies "parents", because "taught" qualifies "I", because "learning" qualifies--this last in a very broad sense--"father", the interrelatedness of Nephi ("I"), his "parents" and his "father" must be worked out before the meanings of their qualifying words can be read into the text. It should be noted at the same time that a preliminary working out of the interpersonal dynamics of Nephi's first ''having'' will also be provisional: like the working out of the meaning of the qualifying words, a working out of these dynamics is an abstraction of text, drawing out the persons without the words that qualify them. Hence, the complex interpersonal dynamics of this first ''having'' (it is unique among the four ''having'''s) require a second abstraction in addition to the first one worked out above. The two must then be read against and into each other for a more complete reading of the phrase.<br />
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* ''On proper names.'' The first and most obvious aspect of the interpersonal dynamics of Nephi's first ''having'' to be considered is the function of the proper name. Whereas Nephi's first verse opens with the overwhelming announcement of the prophet's own proper name, the remainder of the three-verse preface to Nephi's text is, from then on, void of any other proper names for any (earthly) person ("the Lord" might be a proper name, "YHWH", though it names God; "the Jews" and "the Egyptians" might also be argued to be proper names, but each apparently names a collective--they are both plural). This absence of proper names is most striking in Nephi's first ''having'', where he makes explicit mention of both his "parents" and his "father", but without any proper names. The comments above have overlooked this, drawing the names of Lehi and Sariah, of course, from the actual body of the Nephite text. The point raises two questions, one of which cannot be fully examined until after full consideration of Nephi's autobiographical sketch. This question to be postponed is, indeed, as broad as Nephi's autobiographical sketch: what does Nephi's announcement of his proper name accomplish in the text? The other question, to be dealt with presently, concerns rather the unnamed in the text: what does the lack of proper names for Lehi and Sariah in this first ''having'' accomplish?<br />
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* ''On the lack of proper names.'' Lehi and Sariah pass into Nephi's first ''having'' unnamed. Perhaps Lehi and Sariah, just for that reason, pass out of Nephi's first ''having''. At any rate, the weight of this lack--the lack of the weight--of proper names in this first autobiographical reading is most significant, is a sign that marks something important at play in the text. A first consequence of the unnamedness of Nephi's "parents" and "father" is a sort of delay, a sort of suspension: Lehi and Sariah are kept out of the preface, though they are mentioned--and hence present--in the same. They are, oddly enough, both included and excluded from Nephi's autobiography. But this duplicity--presence and yet non-presence--is precisely what is in question in Nephi's first ''having'': this first autobiographical reading is the prophet's exploration of the borders between himself and his parents, that strange no man's land where Nephi ends and his parents and father begin. As has been mentioned above, this first ''having'' is an exploration of ''influence'', of the "in-flowing" of Sariah and Lehi. And Nephi's text reads this influence as an unnamed presence. In other words, Nephi's text embodies the complex influence of parents and father on son: thoroughly, unquestioningly, overwhelmingly, perhaps suffocatingly present, and yet unnamed, unrecognized, unrealized, perhaps entirely unthought. More: parents and father are so absolutely present, in and through all things, that they are not only unnamed but unnamable, not only unrecognized but unrecognizable, etc. <br />
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* ''The theme of separation.'' The relation implied between Nephi and his parents/father, then, is ultimately not a question of presence and non-presence. Nephi's first ''having'', precisely because it writes them without names, reads Sariah and Lehi as completely saturating Nephi's experience, not as perpetual presences, but rather as the element of which Nephi is made. Nephi reads himself as a (re)presentation of his parents/father: they live (continually?) in his living. Hence it would appear that there is no separation between Nephi and his parents/father in the first ''having''. However, the very first verb this ''having'' employs is one of separation. Nephi in fact opens this first self-reading with mention of the most primordial act of separation possible: the umbilical cord is cut with his "having been born." As a result, a complex tension enters into the very first phrase of Nephi's text: Nephi is, according to the text, at once inseparable from his parents/father and entirely separated from his parents/father. The first interpersonal dynamic, the first written relation between Nephi and his parents/father, is a double separation/inseparability between them.<br />
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* ''A progressive inseparability/separation.'' The situation is made more complex by the fact that the theme of separation is taken up again in the second half of the first ''having'': "therefore I was taught somewhat in all the learning of my father." As mentioned above, though a teacher is implied, his or her identity is cloaked, so that the phrase draws upon an implied distance between Nephi and Lehi. As separate as they might have become through Nephi's birth, the teaching situation later in life suggests that this separation only grew. The inferential character of the connecting "therefore" seems to confirm this growing distance. However, at the same time, Nephi's teaching is precisely "in" his father's learning: even as the separation between son and parents/father grows, so does the inseparability between them. The tension introduced in the first part of Nephi's first ''having'' is doubled, strengthened, and confirmed in the second part. The relation between Nephi and his parents/father is remarkably difficult.<br />
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* ''The meaning of the tension.'' The textual rhythm of Nephi's first ''having'' may characterize this tension, may draw out its meaning. In both the first part (before the "therefore") and the second part (after the "therefore") of this first self-reading, the theme of separation comes first, so that it is, in each instance, countered by the theme of inseparability: "having been born [separation] of goodly parents [inseparability], therefore I was taught somewhat [separation] in all the learning of my father [inseparability]." The passage "feels" as if every attempt of Nephi to draw apart from his parents is countered by their overwhelming saturation of all that he does. In other words, in every attempt to live, Nephi lives his (still unnamed) parents. Stating the issue this way does not relieve the tension, but releases it from appearing as a contradiction: Nephi is separate just in that he embodies his parents, just in that he is inseparable from them. Hence, a first reading of Nephi's first (self-)reading: Nephi's collective experience is always from the standpoint of his a son who embodies his parents/father. Nephi encounters the world as his parents.<br />
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* ''The teaching situation and separation.'' The interpersonal dynamics of Nephi's first ''having'' might now be read preliminarily, at last, in and against the meaningful words explored above. And, in fact, the important difference examined between Nephi's "being taught" and Lehi's "learning" bears powerfully on the theme of separation. In that that difference marks a difference between Nephi and Lehi, the separation between father and son might easily be read there. However, the question of separation grounds that same difference still more profoundly: the distinction between "being taught" (always face-to-face) and "learning" (always in solitude) was precisely a question of separation. In other words, the two terms bear their meaning precisely by taking up opposite ends of the tension between separation/inseparability. As a result, Nephi's teaching situation is in and of itself a double embodiment of that vital tension. First, Nephi's being taught--in face-to-face instruction--is a work of inseparability, fundamentally frustrated by the grammatical cloaking of the instructor, which marks Nephi's being taught with an undeniable character of separation. Second, because the content of the teaching is the learning of Lehi, Nephi's instruction at once marks him inseparable from his father (studying precisely the same things) and entirely separate (if he truly learns his father's learning, what is profoundly a work of solitude, of separation). Nephi's first ''having'' wonderfully puts on display Lehi's profound influence on him: always as himself, Nephi entirely presents his father.<br />
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* ''Goodliness and separation.'' As pointed at at the very beginning of these comments on Nephi's first ''having'', the first self-reading of this autobiographical sketch (by employing the strong "therefore" at its center) draws upon the relation between the goodliness of Nephi's parents and his own later instruction. That broad relation now suggests that the theme of separation so powerfully embodied in the teaching situation should be read back into the goodliness of Lehi and Sariah. Or better, that goodliness should be read as the source of that eventually perfected tension of separation/inseparability. And it certainly does. If, as mentioned above, "goodly" is best read as marking the wealth or abundance of Nephi's parents, then the description the prophet's birth draws the theme of inheritance to bear powerfully on the present considerations: Nephi's first ''having'' casts him as an heir. The power of this insight emerges in the fact that inheritance is itself a perfect embodiment of the same tension of separation/inseparability. The heir is profoundly separate and absolutely inseparable from his or her benefactor. Nephi, as heir, is again marked entirely and always himself, even as he entirely and always (re-)presents his father. Perhaps most vital in all this: it is precisely the term "goodly" that draws this tension into the first half of Nephi's first ''having''.<br />
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* ''Subverted inheritance.'' However, as soon as Nephi's first ''having'' is read through the theme of inheritance, the same theme is called into question: Nephi's relational "therefore" does not draw eventual wealth as the fruition of inheritance, but rather instruction. In other words, Nephi's inheritance is "only" an ''intellectual'' inheritance: he is heir to his father's learning. (This first ''having'', then, should probably be read with an eye to the later Lamanite claim to the right of inheritance.) Perhaps most important of all, this subversion of the traditional theme of inheritance further subverts the meaning of the term "goodly." The goodliness Nephi is concerned with might ultimately be the goodliness commonly read into this first verse of the Book of Mormon: Lehi and Sariah were folk of abundant faith, obedience, goodness, etc.<br />
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* ''Nephi's relation, finally, to his parents.'' All of the above comments set up the relation between Nephi and his parents/father. In his first self-interpretation, Nephi reads himself fundamentally as heir to his father's learning, and that only through the instrumentality--the goodliness--of his parents. As heir, Nephi covers his parents over, in a sense, and yet manifests them perfectly: he manifests them in himself. Nephi reads himself not so much as drawing upon his parents' goodliness, but as re-working it, as re-presenting, as re-embodying it. Nephi himself is Lehi again, Lehi repeated, but now with the proper name of Nephi. If this first ''having'' is Nephi's attempt to read his beginnings, to interpret his origins, what he apparently finds is always only himself ("I, Nephi"), but always only his parents/father, as presented in himself. <br />
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* ''The content of Lehi's learning.'' With this relation now established, wherein Nephi continually re-presents his father (and that especially in terms of "learning"), the way has been opened up to explore at last the actual content of Lehi's learning. However, the above comments have conclusively pointed away from such a task. It might be best to say that Nephi, precisely because he does not take the space to explicate his father's learning, sees this issue as inessential, perhaps immaterial. The point, as suggested by the above comments, of Nephi's first ''having'' is the role Lehi and Sariah play in Nephi's independent/dependent writing.<br />
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===Nephi's Second "Having"===<br />
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* ''On the way to "afflictions."'' Obviously the most important word in Nephi's second ''having'' is "afflictions." Curiously, the word does not take the grammatical position of subject in the clause; rather it functions as the direct object. As direct object, it becomes that towards which this second self-interpretation tends: the "many afflictions" of Nephi might best be understood as the ''horizon'' of this second autobiographical comment, not as the starting point. This is as much as to say that Nephi removes from himself (in the act of writing) the actual afflictions he suffered (he displaces them to his--and the reader's--horizon). He in fact does so, precisely by clothing them in a double event-ness: the afflictions comes to Nephi spatially (through his body: "having ''seen''") and temporally (in time: "in the course of my ''days''"). (It should be noted very clearly that only Nephi's second ''having'' has an undeniable event-ness about it: the static verbs of the other three ''havings'' set this second one forth as uniquely event-ual.) In other words, because Nephi characterizes his "many afflictions" as events (spatio-temporal happenings), they become for him and for the reader ''event-ual'', intended but still unreached. A first interpretive point for Nephi's second ''having'': the very key of this ''having'' ("afflictions") are the key precisely because they are what the whole phrase aims at, but does not yet reach.<br />
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* ''On the way from "afflictions."'' Even as the grammatical structure of Nephi's second ''having'' sets the prophet's afflictions at a double remove as a spatio-temporal event-uality, another grammatical structure inherent in the same phrase cancels this distantiation. The "having" that marks the seeing (the spatial/bodily happening that is temporalized in the "course of [Nephi's] days") is a verbal that is, by the end of Nephi's first verse, caught up into the present work of writing. However absent or distant Nephi's afflictions are at the time of writing, they are one of his four self-interpretive reasons for writing at all. In other words, even as Nephi's second ''having'' marks itself as a way towards the many afflictions Nephi faced, the whole of the first verse unmistakably marks Nephi's entire introduction as a way from afflictions to writing. (As mentioned above, only this second ''having'' is ''explicitly'' event-ual. While the other three self-interpretations Nephi offers might be read as several ''groundings'' of Nephi's task of writing, this one, his second ''having'', seems best read as a sort of path or way towards the task of writing. That this ''having'' is temporalized by a "''course'' of... days" seems to underscore this point.) Though Nephi's afflictions appear event-ual and horizonal, they are nonetheless a sort of point of departure for Nephi.<br />
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* ''On the (double) way of "afflictions."'' This duplicity of way, caught up into the double, tense grammatical structure of Nephi's second ''having'', suggests a sort of parallel between Nephi's first and second ''havings''. Even as this second ''having'' suggests a distance or a separation, the same is cancelled by a broader inseparability: the event-ual afflictions are the point of departure for Nephi's task of writing. This is not unlike the separation/inseparability theme of Nephi's first ''having''. The absolution of afflictions accomplished by the role of direct object is cancelled in that Nephi himself takes his departure from his bodily/temporal experience of afflictions. Again--as before--Nephi reads himself as a sort of re-embodiment (perhaps particularly in the task of writing) of afflictions he has seen, has witnessed (were they never his own afflictions?). At least this much is clear: there is a parallel structure to be read into Nephi's first two ''havings''.<br />
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* ''"Seeing" afflictions.'' Nephi takes up his afflictions with a verb that might well be read as confirming the separation/inseparability theme already doubled with this second ''having''. Vision opens, quite singularly, the very possibility for the distinction between separation and inseparability (it might be precisely because the two opposites arise out of a singular that the tension explored in these comments is possible). Sight at once sets before the seer a world spectacle from which he or she might retire and at the same time locates the seer immediately in the world, most explicitly through the sheer physicality of the eyes with which one sees. Sight--or rather all the senses, perhaps corporeal existence itself and hence every verb (such as "having seen") that summons the body--then plays an important role in Nephi's second ''having'', important precisely because it--as a bodily verb--draws out this same tension of separation/inseparability. Whereas Nephi might have discussed afflictions he had once "had" or "experienced" or "gone through," his use of "having seen" suggests something more of his relation to his afflictions: Nephi's afflictions were at once something separate and remote from him (''"seen"'') and something that might be called his very setting or vantage point (from which he ''sees'' himself autobiographically).<br />
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* ''The meaning of affliction.'' Though "affliction" seems a simple enough word, its literal meaning is perhaps more nuanced. The verb, "to afflict", comes into English from a Latin compound: ''ad-fligo'', literally "to strike against (towards)". Its primary meaning in usage was to dash something against another (or two things together) or (much the same) to knock down, strike down, or damage. Only metaphorically did the word come to mean to weaken, to discourage. Affliction was originally, then, bodily pain or torture. Before the word is taken in Nephi's text to mean something primarily "spiritual" or "mental," it should be considered in its physical originality. If Nephi means the word in a "spiritual" or "mental" sense, the violence implied in the literal meaning should not be missed. Moreover, the original "physical" meaning of the word always implies ''at least two'' "things," marked by the ''ad-'', the ''towards'' or ''against''. Too quick a reversion to the "spiritual" or "mental" reading of affliction might reduce affliction to a sort of solitary struggle rather than a literal clash of at least two things. The towards and against of affliction also point toward two parties--one who afflicts, and one who is afflicted. Affliction is more than suffering, it is a suffering caused by one towards another.<br />
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* ''The corporeality of seeing and the physicality of afflictions.'' The corporeality of Nephi's "having seen" and the radical physicality of his mentioned "afflictions" come up against each other in an odd manner. While afflictions retreat into mental/spiritual meaning only metaphorically, sight and the eyes have a natural means of retreat (unlike the other four bodily senses) in one's ability to blink, to close off sight from bodily experience. And this means of visual escape is unique and significant. It is sight, for example, that makes sleep so bizarre a human state: the sleeper is open to the reality of the world in four ways, and what he or she hears, smells, tastes, or touches readily enters into the surreality of the dream. But the sleeper closes him- or herself off entirely from the world of sight. The eye's ability to retreat, to shut off the visual realm of the world, sets the corporeality of Nephi's principal verb in this second ''having'' against the radical physicality of the afflictions Nephi deals with: because he sees the afflictions, Nephi has some recourse to distance from them, has some means of retreat from the harsh reality of the bodily danger implicit in those afflictions. At least on the grammatical level, Nephi's second ''having'' at once presents a very real danger and an ability to flee the same.<br />
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* ''The ambiguous nature of visual escape.'' Here an ambiguity in Nephi's language might well be considered: because the afflictions Nephi mentions in his second ''having'' are completely unqualified grammatically, it remains unclear whether the afflictions were things Nephi himself suffered, or whether the afflictions Nephi saw were afflictions others passed through to which the prophet was "merely" witness. The importance of this ambiguity arises most clearly in the light of Nephi's means of escape, because his ability as seer to shut his eyes is ultimately ambiguous as well. On the one hand, Nephi's visual escape might be read as a very real escape: if he closes his eyes to violence inflicted on himself, he holds out to some degree a sort of mastery over his enemies. His closed eyes would mark his willing martyrdom, a sort of absolute denial on his part to become involved (perhaps thereby doing damage to the meaning of afflictions as two things striking one another). On the other hand, Nephi's visual escape might be read as a sort of false escape: if he closes his eyes to violence inflicted on others, he marks himself a slave to his own weakness. His closed eyes would here mark him as one completely lacking the virtue of charity: he allows others to suffer while he closes his eyes. Two very different meanings of visual "escape", based on two very different meanings of the afflictions mentioned in the passage.<br />
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* ''Nephi's apparently open eyes.'' The above two comments, however, work from an assumption that is unjustified based on Nephi's second ''having'': that Nephi closed his eyes. However, the fact that Nephi ''saw'' the afflictions marks with great importance the fact that Nephi could very easily and at any time have closed them: that he didn't is what should be emphasized here. As such, Nephi's open eyes (open to the ambiguous afflictions he mentions) require interpretation. Just as Nephi's grammar invites a double reading of visual escape, a double reading of Nephi's open eyes is warranted. If, on the one hand, the afflictions in question were Nephi's own, then his meeting them with open eyes would suggest his self-transcending courage, his unwillingness to take the escape of selfish retreat that would immortalize him as an innocent martyr. Apparently unconcerned with himself, Nephi--taking the afflictions, again, to be his own--was willing to engage (to love?) even his enemies, to wrestle with them, to crash against them in a very real sense, in a radical work of opening himself--his eyes--to them. If, on the other hand, the afflictions in question were not Nephi's, but those of others to which Nephi stood witness, then his open eyes mark his unquestionable charity. Unwilling, on this reading, to turn from the difficulties others faced, Nephi presents himself as one willing to engage (again, to love?) the innocent who suffer all about him. <br />
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* ''Nephi's eyes as the double figure of love.'' Fortunately, the reader of Nephi's text is not forced to choose between these two possible readings of Nephi's open eyes. The two are allowed to work against and through each other. In fact, the two carry a very similar meaning in the end: love. Nephi's open eyes mark his unconcernedness with himself, his willingness to engage (on the one hand) his enemies and/or (on the other hand) his friends. In both cases, his self-transcendence is marked by his open eyes, but his regard or gaze that takes up both friend and enemy by the hand (hand to hand, whether in combat or in salutation). In fact, that Nephi leaves the afflictions he mentions in this second ''having'' ambiguous suggests that he wants his readers to feel the tension between both possible readings. The charity with which Nephi marks himself in this second self-interpretation is supposed to be felt as all-embracing, as touching both friends ''and'' enemies. On that account, Nephi's "having seen" imbues the figure of Nephi with love. It might, moreover, be noted that it is precisely afflictions that open Nephi's eyes (on either reading). Love itself might here be read ''as'' affliction: love is the inevitable drama of striking two things, two people, together. Love is the site of affliction, afflictions are the sight of love: in Nephi's seeing afflictions--in his seeing ''to'' afflictions--he encounters love. <br />
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* ''Nephi's love as response.'' But as soon as one reads love into Nephi's second ''having'', the objection arises that Nephi never explicitly mentions love, that he only sets it forth negatively, under the figure of seeing ''afflictions''. In other words, that Nephi here interprets himself in terms of afflictions, apparently in an attempt to interpret himself in terms of charity, is oddly ironic. It might, on the one hand, mark Nephi's humility: he only suggests his charity negatively, through afflictions. On the other hand, this detail might set a sort of limit for the reading above: Nephi's love is not an absolute virtue, but one drawn out of him by the threat of the other, by afflictions. In a sense, then, that Nephi addresses his own charity through affliction serves to proscribe Nephi's love, to render it a response rather than a call. Nephi's eyes do not intend so much as they are intended and seeingly respond. In other words and in short, Nephi's second ''having'' might be read as a figure of responsive--even responsible--charity: Nephi's open eyes figure his response to the visible world, a world, apparently, of affliction.<br />
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* ''Reanalyzing the parallel between first and second "havings".'' Nephi's second ''having'' is now seen as the prophet's confrontation with the fallen nature of the world, as his loving response to the presence of evil--of afflictions, many afflictions--in the world. And here, perhaps, the apparent parallel between this second ''having'' and the first falls apart. Whereas in the first ''having'', Nephi interprets himself as a reembodiment of his parents (thus being separate and inseparable from them), here it is clear that Nephi is not reading himself in terms of affliction, but in terms of his response to affliction. In other words, Nephi's entire first verse does not ultimately follow Nephi's journey from afflictions to writing, but from his response to afflictions to the task of writing. If this second ''having'' is to be read as privileged above the others for its event-ness, it is now clear that the event(s) Nephi here recounts is (are) not to be understood as experience(s) of affliction, but as response(s) to affliction. The one event Nephi cites on the way to the task of writing is his seeing, his open eyes in response to the wickedness of the world.<br />
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* ''Toward the course of Nephi's days.'' Given all of the above, Nephi's second ''having'' might be summarized thus: the only event Nephi calls upon in interpreting his life is his loving response (his open eyes) to the wickedness of the world. All that remains to be dealt with in this second ''having'' is the "course of [Nephi's] days." It is clear that this phrase plays an important role in the text, besides confirming the event-ual character of the second ''having''. A first, but very brief reading suggests that Nephi proscribes his charitable response within a sort of temporal enclosure (which might just be a consequence of the event-ual character of this ''having''). The word "course" is, however, not so perfectly simple. Its many meanings in [[http://65.66.134.201/cgi-bin/webster/webster.exe?search_for_texts_web1828=course|1828]] suggest that it should be read quite carefully. Two "concepts" seem to be inevitable: the word implies at least motion and method/order. (Etymology bears this out: "course" derives from Latin ''cursus'', which means an established track for running a race, hence motion and order.) Whatever Nephi means by the "course" of his days, it seems that it must inevitably be read through the double theme of motion and method.<br />
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* ''Course and death.'' But perhaps this double theme of motion and method already suggests a meaning. If Nephi's days are, as a course, understood to be a methodical procession towards an already decided end, then at least one very real possible meaning is clear: the "course" of Nephi's days ends with death. That Nephi may here be thinking of death is not to be thrown out because of the reality of the resurrection: passages throughout the Old Testament--especially in Ecclesiastes--see life as a working out of days on the way to death. (To say that the race ends with death is not at all to claim that there is nothing after the race.) If Nephi is indeed concerned with death here, then Nephi's reads his loving response, his interlocuted charity as an event at once opened up and foreclosed by the reality of death. In other words, that the event-ual ''having'' is the one tied specifically to the theme of death (a theme that rings well with the theme of affliction) suggests that event-ness itself arises out of death, that the event of charity is a response to the evil of death (even death through affliction). In short, Nephi in his second ''having'' seems to characterize himself as having lived toward his own death.<br />
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* ''One's days and the course of one's days.'' If the course Nephi describes is the procedural movement of his days toward death, it might be well to consider more exactly the word "days." That the word should not be understood here in any objective sense (e.g., to mean "twenty-four hour periods") is clear: Nephi marks the days as his, as belonging to him. In other words, Nephi does not read "days" as some objective thing he passes through, but rather understands "days" to be a sort of aspect of his experience: as ''his'' days, these days are the what through which Nephi experiences the events of affliction. Each day--lit by the light of day as opposed to night--is the light in which a certain afflicting event appeared (was seen). In fact, Nephi's seeing might well be extended to every event that came before his eyes in his "days." If this is what Nephi means by mentioning these days as his, then the meaning of the "course" of his "days" might become clearer. Nephi here reads his afflictions as punctuating an ordered procession of experiences, of events, a series of events that culminate in death--the event that anounces itself as the foreclosure of all other events, as the cessation of events. In other words, Nephi seems to read his life here as a series of witnessed events, as experiences he entered into bodily (even through his eyes), all tending toward the cessation of events and experiences, and all this punctuated often ("many") by afflictions, by--perhaps--events that suggested the reality of the coming conclusive event. It is, of course, most significant that Nephi reads his own charity as a response to those event-ual forerunners of death. <br />
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* ''The overarching tension of Nephi's second'' having. All of the above suggests the following general reading of Nephi's second ''having''. Whereas the first ''having'' explored the possibility of Nephi's escape, as it were, from his parents, this second ''having'' explores the possibility of Nephi's ability to rebridge the gap of interpersonal separation. Taking as its theme the gift of charity, Nephi seems to read through the ever-present reality of death (ever-present through the constant experience of affliction) a sort of call to love, to which Nephi responds.<br />
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===Nephi's Third "Having"===<br />
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* ''Nephi's return to "days."'' After the peculiarities of Nephi's second ''having'', the word "days" immediately stands out in this third ''having''. Whereas before his days were subsumed under the figure of a course, here they are merely collected with the word "all." One immediately gets the sense that this third ''having'' breaks the course of the second, that the inevitable movement of Nephi's days toward death is canceled in the favor of the Lord. Broadly speaking, then, this third ''having'' already presents itself as something beyond even the implicit charity of the second ''having''. Certainly the clearest initial theme of this ''having'' is the theme of God's love, God's favor, a reverse of the charity mentioned above.<br />
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* ''The meaning of favor.'' <br />
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===Nephi's Four "Having's"===<br />
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* ''Nephi's life and the plan.'' Together the clauses beginning with ''having'' form a pattern that runs through Nephi's two books: creation ("having been born"), fall ("having seen many afflictions"), atonement ("having been highly favored of the Lord"), and passing through the veil ("having had a great knowledge"). The pattern might broadly be called "the plan of salvation," but it appears to play a more fundamental ''textual'' role for Nephi as well. His first eighteen chapters (1 Nephi 1-18) tell a sort of creation story (with constant reference to his goodly parents); his following nine chapters (1 Nephi 19-2 Nephi 5) tell a sort of fall story (marked emphatically by the division between Nephites and Lamanites); his next twenty-five chapters (2 Nephi 6-31) tell a sort of atonement story (how the Lamanites might become again favored and reconnected to broader Israel); and his concluding three chapters (2 Nephi 31-33) dwell on a sort of passing-through-the-veil story (through a discussion of baptism in incredibly "veil-like" terms). Moreover, that the twenty-five chapter atonement stretch of Nephi's two-book record is presented by three messengers who collectively bring to the reader an understanding of how the "veil" of 2 Nephi 31-33 might be passed suggests that there is some connection between Nephi's broader record and the temple drama. If this connection is not unfounded, Nephi's "therefore" toward the end of this verse is powerfully significant: it is because his very life might be read as a sort of "endowment" that he is writing this text.<br />
* ''goodness and mysteries.'' No other prophet in our scriptures pairs these words in a single verse. Nephi is restating an earlier portion of this verse, in which he attributed his "learning" to his "goodly parents." Nephi's life experiences apparently taught him these two things go hand in hand.<br />
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===Chiastic Interpretation===<br />
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===Double Parallelism Interpretation===<br />
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* ''Nevertheless.'' The center of the chiastic structural reading is peculiar, but textually important. D ''mediates'' the two "halves" of the passage. In other words, it is the single word ''nevertheless'' that decides how the relation between the first half (A, B, and C) and the second half (A', B', and C') should be read. The implication: this single, perhaps "intuitive" word must be read with care. An all-too-quick reading of the word might suggest that it draws the two halves of the chiasm together in a sort of antithesis: by bringing them to stand side by side, ''nevertheless'' markedly puts on display the distinction between the events of the first half and the events of the second half, precisely because ''nevertheless'' means ''however'', or ''but''. However, more careful thought reveals that ''nevertheless'' does not at all set up a facile anthithesis. The term rather means most literally that what is about to be said is not undone by what has been said, that the implications of the foregoing (here, the first half) do not preclude what is about to be said (here, in the second half): Y (what I am about to say) is ''never'' to be taken as anything ''less''--is not to be read weakly--because of X (what I have just said). This more literal reading implies a great deal about the meaning of Nephi's autobiographical chiasm. The first half of it (what might be called Nephi's earthly world) does not preclude in any way, nor does it weaken at all, the second half of it (what might be called Nephi's heavenly world). In short, the first half of Nephi's chiastic autobiography at once has something to do with the second half--especially in that it parallels it!--but the relation between the two is neither one of mutual implication, nor one of frustrating contradiction. Perhaps all that can at first be said about the chiasm in question is what has snuck into this discussion through the back door: Nephi sees the earthly and heavenly aspects of his existence as parallel, not contradictory or implicatory.<br />
* ''having .., nevertheless, having...'' Lehi is not disappointed by his experiences. He displays an attitude of gratitude.<br />
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===Beyond (?) Autobiography===<br />
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* ''Book of the Dead wording.'' If the final phrase of this verse is taken in the Egyptian idiom, it is remarkably close to the Egyptian name for what is commonly called the "Book of the Dead" (Egyptian: "The Book of Going Forth by Day"). Nephi might here be making a suggestive allusion: his two-volume record on the small plates is, as it were, his own Book of the Dead (which was, for all intents and purposes, a sort of Egyptian endowment, an Egyptian drama of resurrection). If this reading is justified, this final phrase might ground the temple connections mentioned above. A connection (however distant) to the Book of the Dead would certainly explain the autobiographical "I, Nephi" with which the verse begins: copies of the "canonical" Book of the Dead were always personalized (by name) for the individual who purchased them. This may also provide a better context in which to understand verse 2.<br />
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* ''Dependent/independent clauses.'' The rather extended series of dependent clauses (the four "havings") that makes up the first half of this verse is interrupted along its course by the strikingly ungrammatical "therefore I was taught...." (This instance of "therefore" is the first of two in 1 Nephi 1:1, and should not here be confused with the summary "therefore" with which Nephi begins the final phrase of the verse.) The phrase, abstracted from its surroundings, is clearly an independent clause, though it is (because of the "therefore") subjected to the series of dependent clauses. The phrase therefore sets up a tension in the first half of this verse: there is an independent clause that is, so to speak, dependent on a series of dependent clauses. The tension accomplishes two things at once: on the one hand, it allows Nephi to draw the conclusion implicated by his "therefore," that his having been taught has something to do with his father's wealth, etc.; on the other hand, it frees the phrase from its confines in the first verse so that it can form a parallelism with the "language of my father" mentioned in verse 2. The tension is therefore structural: the phrase, "therefore I was taught somewhat in all the learning of my father," is drawn into tension by the first two verses, suspended, as it were, between them. The "Yea" of verse 2, discussed below, is therefore all the more significant.<br />
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=== Verse 2 ===<br />
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* ''Double parallelism.'' Given the comments above on verse 1, there is a double parallelism at play in this verse: Nephi is concerned in the first verse with his father's learning, and in the second verse with his father's language. This is doubled by Nephi's further mention of the learning of the Jews and the language of the Egyptians. The full implications of this double parallelism, however, remain to be worked out.<br />
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* ''Re-translating verse 1?'' Besides the tension that already connects the first two verses in an odd way (explained above in the comments on verse 1), Nephi further connects them by mediating their contraposition with the weighty word "Yea." Given that the Book of Mormon broadly takes up the KJV idiom (a presupposition that might well be called into question), the "Yea" here likely should be read with the weight of the Hebrew root ''knn'', to double, to repeat, to confirm. If so, Nephi seems to be drawing his first two verses into a sort of reciprocal or perhaps dialectical relation. If this second verse might be read as a "translation" of the first, it is fascinating that the two verses are drawn together in their pairing of questions of language and learning, especially the explicit mention of Jewish and Egyptian traditions. Through these two verses (explicitly composed of "metalanguage"), Nephi presents his record as fundamentally dual: it is a crossing of Egyptian and Jewish traditions, of Lehi's and Nephi's experiences, of language and learning, of verse 1 and verse 2. It might at least be said that Nephi sees his work as working out these several tensions.<br />
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* ''Making a record.'' A single foundational phrase underlies both verse 1 and verse 2: "I make a record." When each of these verses is stripped of dependent clauses and prepositional phrases, only this four-word sentence is left behind for each of them. The two verses would thus read: "I make a record. Yea, I make a record." This observation not only strengthens the suggestion that verse 2 is a repetition/translation of verse 1, but it also makes clear that Nephi's making a record is of foundational importance to these first few verses. Nephi uses the word "record" three times in this three-verse introduction to his text, doubly marking the importance of the term. The word generally translates the Hebrew ''zkrwn'' in the KJV, a word deriving from the root ''zkr'', meaning to actualize, to enact, to remember, to hold in presence. Nephi's choice of this word may imply that his text is to be read as a ritual text, one to be read aloud, even acted out or presented dramatically (cf. [[Rev 1:3]]). Such a reading might well ground the endowment themes in verse 1, while at the same time both enriching and making difficult Nephi's statement in verse 3 that the record is "true."<br />
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* ''Mention of the Jews.'' The first mention of the Jews in the whole of Nephi's record--in the whole of the Book of Mormon--is found in this verse, and it sets the tone for all subsequent discussion of the Jews. If there is any starting point for a study of who is meant by the Jews in the Book of Mormon, it is here. And this first mention is quite peculiar. From the very beginning, the national identity of the Jews is in question. "The Jews" are set here quite clearly against "the Egyptians," both emerging under plural nouns that deserve some attention: why does Nephi say "the learning of the Jews" and not "the learning of Judah" or "Jewish learning," and why does Nephi say "the language of the Egyptians" and not "the language of Egypt" or "Egyptian language"? The point is important, because Nephi from the very beginning places an emphasis on individuals who derive their identity from their political situation, rather than on nations as whole individuals (the "Israel" of the OT prophets, so profoundly understood by William Blake in his mythic prophecies). The point is, in fact, more complicated still: specific mention of "the Jews" and "the Egyptians" can only have had for Nephi profound political overtones, because of the particular situation between these nations that obtained at the time he left Jerusalem with his family. These politically defined individuals, set against each other in Nephi's first mention of the Jews, deserves some very close attention.<br />
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* ''"of the Jews," "of the Egyptians."'' Only a decade or so before Zedekiah's enthronement, the Jews and the Egyptians found themselves at war. The political situation was intense: Assyria had crumbled, leaving a power vacuum and three nations trying to fill it. Babylon, the largest and most powerful nation, was the most likely to take its place, but this was undecided, since both Egypt and Judah were also striving for the part. Around 610 B.C., Pharaoh Necho offered to join forces with Babylon against all other powers, working towards a joint empire. While traveling to accomplish this in 609 B.C., Pharaoh was encountered by Israelite forces led by King Josiah, who was attempting to stop the alliance. Josiah had already led his armies to quite a few victories in his struggle to claim greater Judean power. At Megiddo, the armies met, and Israel suffered a terrible defeat, in which Necho himself killed Josiah. The defeat was crushing for Judah (the textual implications of this failure alone for the Bible are incredible), and led quickly to the conquest of Jerusalem within two decades. Babylon quickly asserted its power of Judah, and Judah found itself conquered with a puppet king in place over it (namely, Zedekiah, who was installed by Babylon). This set up a rather difficult situation for Judah, a people with a covenant they understood to mean that they would never be conquered: either they had to submit cheerfully to Babylon (which seemed to imply unfaithfulness to the Davidic covenant), or they had to raise up enough of a force against Babylon to throw off the yoke (which could only be done through an alliance with Egypt). The prophets at the time were advocating the former position (Jeremiah especially), but Zedekiah eventually tried to establish political ties with Egypt, and the result was the obliteration of the kingdom of Judah. All of this, oddly, shows that the Jews and the Egyptians had a rather complex relationship at the time the Book of Mormon begins: those who were in favor of Egypt were those who could forgive the death of Josiah in order to try in some way to restore the situation they believed to be according to the Davidic covenant; those who were not in favor of Egypt were following the prophets even though it seemed as if this were against the wishes of the Lord. More still: the Egyptians and the Jews had so many commercial ties--especially mercenary ties--that the cultures had to some degree or another fused into one. That Nephi writes his record in reformed Egyptian is of some significance: he finds himself in the midst of some major political struggles, all of which bear quite inevitably on the questions of covenant.<br />
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* ''Jews, then, and Egyptians.'' For Nephi here to use "of the Jews" and "of the Egyptians" makes quite a point, then: by drawing on collective individuals, Nephi avoids questions of broader politics. He is not so much concerned in this verse with Judah and Egypt as he is with people from Judah and people from Egypt. He is more concerned with cultures and heritages, with traditions. It should be noted, then, that the very first mention of "the Jews" in the Book of Mormon marks them as a national culture that can be opposed to, set against, that of Egypt. If Egypt is the glory of antiquity, Nephi sees Judah as no less so. The Jews, from the very beginning, are a people, one with a tradition, with a unique history and culture, and with an autonomous take on the world. The Jews, it seems quite clear, are to be understood as the people who come from the Southern Kingdom of Judah, who have inherited the particularities of Judah and Benjamin, as well as the complexities of cross-cultures that came in with the collapse of the Northern Kingdom. The heritage of Judah has a mixed history, perhaps, but Nephi understands it to be unique and separate by this point.<br />
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=== Verse 3 ===<br />
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* ''Chiasm.'' After the grammatical complexity of Nephi's first two verses, the third verse reads with a striking simplicity. It is made up of three straightforward statements, all beginning with the conjoining "and I". Despite the unbalance between these short, plain statements and the far more difficult phrases of verses 1 and 2, this verse sets up a chiastic structure that runs through the whole of Nephi's first three verses:<br />
A I make a record<br />
B I make a record<br />
C I know (that the record is true)<br />
B' I make it<br />
A' I make it<br />
The importance of this structure goes well beyond "proofs of ancient authorship": the whole of verse 1 is set in parallel with Nephi's rather simple "and I make it according to my knowledge"; and the whole of verse 2 is set in parallel with his (also rather simple) "and I make it with mine own hand." Further, because it marks the chiastic center and has no parallel, the independent statement "And I know that the record which I make is true," with its profound focus on knowledge instead of record-making, separates itself thematically from the rest of what Nephi writes into these first three verses. More still, the doubling already recognized in verses 1 and 2 (here called A and B) is itself doubled by a parallel doubling (B' and A' might be read as a project of translation just as A and B are above). These structural observations are perhaps a collective key to interpreting this third verse.<br />
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* ''Record-making and testimony.'' As mentioned above, the chiastic center of Nephi's first three verses is a grammatical inversion of every other step of the chiasm. In other words, whereas verses 1 and 2 unite with the second and third statements of verse 3 in a project of subordinating (grammatically) knowledge to the record Nephi makes, this central (most important?) statement subordinates (again, grammatically) the record to Nephi's knowledge: "And I know that the record which I make is true." Again, it might be said that the great majority of Nephi's three-verse introduction to his story understands Nephi's "knowledge" (and "learning" and "language") to be sublimated (or at least spoken) in the text is writes. At the same time, however, the most central message of that same three-verse introduction is a reversal of this sublimation: the record gathers itself up in Nephi's testimonial "I know," is sublimated (or, again, at least spoken) in the knowledge he has. In short, the complex structure written into Nephi's first three verses suggests a sort of dialectic of testimony: knowledge is channeled into a text, and a text is channeled into knowledge. Record-making and knowing are undeniably--even if impossibly--interwoven in Nephi's introduction. The LDS theme of "testimony" might well be re-read through these verses, in a reading that appears to adhere carefully to the implied roots of the Hebrew term for testimony, ''`dwt'' (from a root that arguably means to carve or engrave in stone).<br />
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* ''Another structure?'' If the comments above concerning the semi-independent clause near the beginning of verse 1 are taken into account, an alternate structure for Nephi's first three verses emerges, recasting the function of this third verse. If Nephi's ungrammatical "therefore I was taught somewhat in all the learning of my father" is taken as an independent clause, then six statements (rather than five) precipitate out of 1 Nephi 1:1-3. Moreover, the sixth component of the surface structure of Nephi's introduction would disassemble the chiasm and replace it with an entirely different structure:<br />
A I was taught somewhat<br />
B I make a record<br />
C I make a record<br />
A' I know (that the record is true)<br />
B' I make it<br />
C' I make it<br />
Such a reading would make verse 3 a wholesale doubling of verses 1 and 2. Further, the two parallelisms mentioned in the chiastic reading would be switched ("with mine own hand" would parallel Nephi's fourfold life experience, and "according to my knowledge" would parallel the "language of my father"). Perhaps most important, Nephi's testimony ("I know that the record which I make is true") would here be parallel to his learning ("therefore I was taught somewhat in all the learning of my father"). Both of these parallel statements work out Nephi's "knowledge," perhaps strengthening this structural reading of these three verses.<br />
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=== Verses 1-3 ===<br />
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* ''Teaching as an impossibility.'' Nephi's first three verses should be read as a single literary unit (marked separate from and yet tied inextricably to verse 4 by the latter's introductory "For"). However, the comments collected above suggest that this "single literary unit" is bound together by an undeniable tension. At the root of this tension is the ungrammatical interruption early in the first verse: "therefore I was taught somewhat in all the learning of my father." Not only does this phrase break with the grammatical structure of the first verse, thereby setting up a syntactical tension, it forces a double semantic (better: structural) tension into the whole three verse introduction, as laid out in the comments above. In other words, what might have otherwise been a very straightforward three-verse introduction on how and why Nephi wrote his record is disturbed, unbalanced, perhaps even frustrated, and precisely in Nephi's having been "taught." It is not too much to say that Nephi's introductory text puts on display how the "simple" dialectical process of record-making is grounded on the violent, aporetic, and yet necessary work of "being taught." The implications of Nephi's "ungrammar" are rich, but remain to be worked out at length.<br />
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=== Verse 4 ===<br />
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* ''Zedekiah's reign.'' Zedekiah's reign marks the historical beginning of the story, but it probably should not be assumed that Nephi's text therefore "legitimizes" him. In fact, the text draws an important parallel that, to some degree, de-legitimizes him: whereas this verse portrays the enthroned Zedekiah as surrounded with prophets speaking disparaging messages, verse 8 will portray a parallel God upon His throne, surrounded with angels who sing and shout praises to Him. The comparison might well betray Nephi's attitude towards the king.<br />
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== Points to ponder ==<br />
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''This heading is for prompts that suggest ways in which all or part of this passage can influence a person's life. Click the link above and to the right to edit or add content to this heading. →''<br />
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== I have a question ==<br />
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''This heading is for unanswered questions and is an important part of the continual effort to improve this wiki. Please do not be shy, as even a basic or "stupid" question can identify things that need to be improved on this page. Click the link above and to the right to edit or add content to this heading. →''<br />
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===Verse 1===<br />
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* ''Colophon.'' Was Hugh Nibley right about these introductory verses being a colophon? Is this literary structure or formula unique to Nephi in the Book of Mormon or did other authors use colophons throughout the Book of Mormon also? Do you agree with [http://frontpage2000.nmia.com/~nahualli/LDStopics/1Nephi/1Nephi1.htm John A. Tvedtnes or Brant Gardner] on this point?<br />
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* ''"born of goodly parents."'' How many people are included in the Nephi's use of the word parents? How many of these parents gave birth to him? Can parents mean more than just mother and father? Does the use of parents in [[Alma 30:25]] provide a possible answer?<br />
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* ''"in all the learning of my father."'' How does Nephi's phrase compare with this description of the sons of Mosiah: "And he caused that they should be taught in all the language of his fathers" ([[Mosiah 1:2]])? Does this mean the sons of Mosiah received most of their lessons from someone other than their father? If the phrasing of these two passages is so similar, does that suggest that Nephi also received some of his religious training from a teacher who was not his father?<br />
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* ''Nature of Nephi's learning.'' Did anyone in Lehi's family have access to scriptures before Nephi and his brothers obtained the brass plates from Laban? If they did not have access to sacred texts, what was Nephi studying in his youth? How likely is it that Lehi and Nephi were part of an oral tradition? Does [[2 Ne 33:1]] contain any clues about Nephi's feelings about spoken texts versus written texts?<br />
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* ''Afflictions and blessings.'' How can this verse be used to deepen understanding of the themes of afflictions and blessings throughout 1 Nephi?<br />
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* ''"having seen many afflictions."'' Whose afflictions might Nephi have witnessed?<br />
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* ''Learning equals language?'' What is the relationship between the learning of Nephi's father in [[1 Ne 1:1]] and the language of Nephi's father in [[1 Ne 1:2]]?<br />
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* ''Intended introduction?'' As we know from [[Words of Mormon]], [[D&C 3]], and [[D&C 10]], Mormon did not intend the Book of Mormon to begin as it does now. How does this verse, in its "usurped" position, change the way we might otherwise read the Book of Mormon? How would the Book of Mormon be different if, for example, it began with an introduction to the whole text by Mormon?<br />
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* ''"therefore I make a record."'' How might we here understand Nephi's purpose or motivation in writing? How do Nephi's other explanations for this record (as contained in this verse) compare with the purposes listed in [[1 Ne 9]] and [[1 Ne 19]]? How might we understand this statement while also considering that Nephi later wrote, "the Lord hath commanded me to make these plates for a wise purpose in him, which purpose I know not" in [[1 Ne 9:5]]?<br />
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* ''Tense.'' Nephi uses phrases like "having been" and "make a record" in the same sentence, mixing past tense with present tense. Why might Nephi be doing this? Is this intentional? (ie. are we looking at an instance of [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enallage enallage]?)<br />
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* ''Memory.'' If Nephi is writing this record several years after the fact, how does this affect his memory of past events? If Nephi is writing with the benefit of hindsight, how does that affect Nephi's explanation of how and why things happened?<br />
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* ''Autobiography?'' What did Nephi mean in [[1 Ne 1:17]] when he said that "after I have abridged the record of my father then will I make an account of mine own life?" Does that mean Nephi did not consider this verse autobiographical? Or was this brief introduction something less than an "account"?<br />
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* ''Concepts of Time.'' Why does Nephi shift from the event of one day, to things that happened in the course of days, to things that happened every day, to mysteries that may transcend time? Is this a progression of some sort? Is Nephi making a distinction between different measures of time when he talks about "my days"? Does [[Jacob 7:26]] offer any insights into how Nephi and his contemporaries conceptualized time?<br />
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===Verse 2===<br />
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* ''Process of a prophet.'' To what degree did Joseph Smith see these verses as a foreshadowing of his own work as a prophet?<br />
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* ''Double cultures.'' Nephi here introduces the difficulties of translation into his still untranslated text: his work is a crossing of two cultures? How does this internal theme of translation bear on questions of Joseph's work of translating the Book of Mormon? Does this double culture of Nephi's work affect how it should be read?<br />
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* ''"Yea."'' Nephi begins this verse with "Yea," implying that this verse is a validation of the first verse. How does this verse meet up with the first?<br />
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* ''"the language of my father."'' Is Nephi implying that his father was bi-literate? Did Lehi have experience producing written texts in reformed Egyptian? Or did Nephi primarily pick up this skill from the brass plates?<br />
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* ''"which" and "consists."'' What is the antecedent for "which" in this verse? Is it both "language" and "record"? Is it more likely that Nephi's "record" "consists" of "learning" and "language" or that his "language" "consists" of "learning" and "language"?<br />
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* ''Jews and Egyptians.'' What is Nephi's concept of these two groups at the time he writes this verse? Has Nephi already had the visions of 1 Ne. 13-15 by the time he puts these thoughts to paper? If so, how does his discussion of Jews in those chapters influence what he is saying here? Or is it possible that Nephi held those later understandings of Jews in abeyance while he wrote this verse, in an attempt to recreate the understanding of Jews he started out with?<br />
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* ''"I make a record."'' Technically speaking, would it have been more accurate for Nephi to have written, "I have been making a record"? Why might Nephi have used this wording?<br />
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* ''"learning of the Jews."'' Is there a qualitative difference between saying "learning of the Jews" and "the Jews' learning"?<br />
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* ''"the language of the Egyptians."'' Did Nephi think the Egyptians used only one language? Should the singular word "language" be read as referring to only one language? If Nephi had been aware that the Egyptians were multi-lingual, would he have necessarily used the word "languages" to refer to their spoken abilities?<br />
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* ''""the language" and "the learning."'' Is Nephi saying that Lehi's "language" consists of the entirety of these languages and learning? If Nephi's learning was "somewhat" in [[1 Ne 1:1]], is this contrasted with the completeness of his father's learning? Was Nephi just being humble, or did he really feel that his father's knowledge dwarfed his own?<br />
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===Verse 3===<br />
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* ''"The record . . . is true."'' What does Nephi mean when he calls this record true? Why does he emphasize that he made it with his own hands?<br />
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* ''"I make."'' By this point, Nephi has used the phrase "I make" five times. Why is he repeating himself so much? Where there some that would doubt that he was the maker of the plates? Was he just claiming authorship or did the fact that he was the maker of the plates provide him with another sort of authority?<br />
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* ''"I know."'' Did Nephi know in advance that, no matter what, his writings on the plates would always be true? Or is Nephi making this statement after having written enough of his record that he feels confident that everything on the plates will be true?<br />
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* ''"my knowledge."'' Is Nephi saying this knowledge belongs to him or that it is in his sole possession? How did Nephi suddenly shift from deferentially talking about "the language of my father" in the previous verse to speaking confidently about his own knowledge? Why did Nephi shift from referring to "a great knowledge . . . of God" (verse 1) to laying claim on what he called "my knowledge"?<br />
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* ''"make it according to my knowledge."'' Is Nephi saying he purposely designed the plates so they would correspond to his own knowledge? How would the meaning of this verse be different if Nephi had written "I make it with my knowledge" or "I make it as I am given knowledge"? Is Nephi implying in this verse that he takes responsibility for any mistakes, since the writing was based upon his own knowledge?<br />
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* ''"make it with my own hand."'' Later in this chapter, Nephi referes to "plates which I have made with mine own hands" ([[1 Ne 1:17]]). Why did he use the singular word "hand," rather than "hands," in this verse?<br />
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===Verse 4===<br />
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* ''"For it came to pass."'' Why did Nephi use a five-word phrase that appears only three other times in the Book of Mormon ([[1 Ne 11:1]], [[Mosiah 26:6]], and [[Ether 6:2]])? Why did he not simply say "And it came to pass"?<br />
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* ''"commencement of the first year."'' Is Nephi being needlessly repetitive? Or is he trying to point to the first day, week, or month of the king's reign, as opposed to referring to the entire year? Was this first year in 600 or 598 B.C.?<br />
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* ''"commencement . . . of the reign of Zedekiah."'' With the exception of [[1 Ne 5]], which also mentions Zedekiah, why is this the only instance of the word commencement in the Book of Mormon until [[Alma 2:1]]? Did the authors of the small plates of Nephi assume that "commencement" was a concept that applied to kings in Judah and not to political leaders in the promised land? Or were words and concepts that applied to kings, like "commencement," reserved for the large plates of Nephi?<br />
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* ''"it."'' Is there supposed to be an antecedent for this word? Or is Nephi just using a formulaic phrase?<br />
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* ''"in that same year."'' Is Nephi saying prophets came throughout the year, even though he opened the verse by presumably referring to the beginning of the year? Does Nephi's reference to the year, once again, indicate he was beginning a new sentence?<br />
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* ''"dwelt at Jerusalem in all his days."'' Is Nephi saying Lehi had never before left Jerusalem? Or is he saying Lehi's residence was at Jerusalem, even if he sometimes went on trips that took him away from the city. Is Nephi implying that Lehi has never called another place home? What clues does the phrase "the land of our forefathers" ([[Alma 7:10]]) hold for answering these questions?<br />
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* ''"all his days."'' Why does Nephi use days, rather than years, to measure the age of his father? Why does the phrase "his years" never appear in the Book of Mormon? Was Nephi starting a new pattern upon the plates for measuring age? Was he borrowing the practice from an ancient source? Is the frequent use of the phrase "his days" in the Book of Ether the result of Moroni's abridgement?<br />
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* ''Parentheses.'' Is this an example of a parenthetical expression in Nephi's writing, even though this piece of punctuation did not originate with Nephi? How does the phrase about Lehi dwelling in Jerusalem qualify or explain the clause that preceded it?<br />
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* ''"king of Judah."'' When Nephi points out that his father has dwelt at Jerusalem his entire life, while in the middle of saying that Zedekiah has been king for less than a year, is he trying to say that Lehi also lived under the previous kings? Who were the kings of Judah during Lehi's lifetime? What age was Lehi under Josiah's reign, which ended only eleven years before Zedekiah became king? How were Lehi's religious views, Laban's possession of the plates, and Nephi's religious training affected by the religious reforms of king Josiah?<br />
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* ''"dwelt at Jerusalem."'' What other indications do we have, besides [[1 Chr 9:3]], that descendants of Ephraim and Manessah lived in Jerusalem? To what extent were they outnumbered by the descendants of Judah and Benjamin who also lived in Jerusalem? What were relations like between the descendants of these four tribes who all lived in Jerusalem?<br />
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* ''"in that same year there came many prophets."'' Why is Nephi noting the presence of these prophets? Was it typical or unusal for Jerusalem to have "many" prophets in its midst? Is Nephi saying several prophets suddenly arrived on the scene when Zedekiah took office? Who else besides Jeremiah, Habakkuk, and Ezekiel (who are listed on page 639 of the Bible Dictionary), was on Nephi's list of prophets at the time? Have LDS scholars often overlooked Urijah (see [[Jer 26:20]]) as one these prophets? What reasons do we have for assuming that Zenos and Zenock either were or were not among these prophets? What do we know about the lineage of these prophets? How manhy of the prophets were descendants of Ephraim and Manessah? Were prophets with ties to the north, as opposed to those descended from Judah or Benjamin, more likely to antagonize listeners in Jerusalem?<br />
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* ''"prophets."'' What is the connection between these prophets and the religious establishment in Jerusalem? Did the "churches" in Jersualem recognize the administrative authority of these prophets? Do you agree with [http://frontpage2000.nmia.com/~nahualli/LDStopics/1Nephi/1Nephi1.htm Brant Gardner's argument] that it is "highly unlikely" that these prophets were "part of the officially recognized religions governing bodies"? Did Jerusalem have a long tradition of requiring prophets to live on the outskirts of society?<br />
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* ''"the people . . . must repent."'' What was it that the people of Jerusalem needed to repent of? Had they abandoned the religious reforms of Josiah after only four decades? Was it their rejection of prophets that had necessitated their repentance? Had they already abandoned and forgotten the law of Moses? Had the only copies of the scriptures fallen into the hands of wicked people? Are these some of the reasons why Nephi later realizes that his descendants would be unable to follow the law of Moses unless he obtained the plates from Laban (see [[1 Ne 4]])?<br />
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* ''"prophesying . . . they must repent, or . . . be destroyed."'' Where did Nephi obtain this combination of words? If the words prophesy, repent, and destroy (as well as their variants) do not appear together in any biblical verses, does that mean Nephi was the first to use them jointly? If most of the other appearances in the Book of Mormon of this combination occur in the Book of Ether ([[Mosiah 12:8]], [[Ether 7:23]], and [[Ether 11:12]]), does that mean Moroni borrowed Nephi's phraseology while abriding the Jaredite record or that the Jaredite authors and Nephi were both borrowing from a more ancient source?<br />
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* ''"or the great city Jerusalem must be destroyed."'' Why does Nephi (or the prophets he is paraphrasing) change the repent or be destroyed formula? Why does he/they not follow the much more common example in scripture, in which prophets tell the people they will be destroyed if they do not repent (e.g., [[Mosiah 12:8]], [[Alma 37:22]], and [[Ether 7:23]])? Were the prophets in Jerusalem partially letting their listeners off the hook by telling them it was their city, and not them, that would be destroyed? Or was it the Lord who changed the formula in this instance, because he "had compassion on his people" ([[2 Chr 36:15]])? Or is Lehi's later comment, "had we remained in Jerusalem we should also have perished" ([[2 Ne 1:4]]), an indication that it was both the land of Jerusalem and its inhabitants who faced imminent destruction? How closely does this verse in 1 Ne. 1 parallel [[Hel 7:28]], which says "And except ye repent ye shall perish; yea, even your lands shall be taken from you, and ye shall be destroyed from off the face of the earth." At what point did it become inevitable that Jerusalem would be destroyed?<br />
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* ''"the people."'' Who exactly was Nephi referring to when he used the phrase "the people"? Did every single inhabitant of Jerusalem have great need to repent? Was the city completely wicked? Was there no one left who followed the law of Moses? How sincere and thorough was the religious reform that happened forty years earlier if everyone was now wicked? Were there any exceptions to this apparently uniform wickedness? If Ishmael's family and Laban's servant Zoram can be considered at least partial exceptions to Nephi's characterization, does that mean there were other, scattered inhabitants of Jerusalem who were at least somewhat righteous? What evidence do we have that some of the people in Jerusalem actually repented? Should we assume that the only people in Jersualem who repented are the ones who joined Lehi in his exodus to the promised land?<br />
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* ''Mulekites.'' Were the ancestors of the people of Zarahemla, who "came out from Jerusalem at the time" of Zedekiah's reign ([[Omni 1:15]]), converted when they heard the preaching of the "many prophets" mentioned in this verse? If so, did these prophets realize that the Mulekites were converted by their preaching?<br />
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== Resources ==<br />
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''This heading is for listing links and print resources, including those cited in the notes. A short comment about the particular strengths of a resource can be helpful. Click the link above and to the right to edit or add content to this heading. →''<br />
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===Incoming Cross-References Not Listed in The Footnotes for These Verses===<br />
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* ''Verse 1:'' [[Job 1:5]], [[Hel 5:6]], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/gs/f/6 GS Father, Mortal], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/gs/k/9 GS Knowledge], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/gs/m/62 GS Mysteries of God], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/gs/n/15 GS Nephi, Son of Lehi], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/gs/t/5 GS Teach, Teacher], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/tg/b/152 TG Born], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/tg/f/39 TG Father], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/tg/g/98 TG Goodly], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/tg/l/47 TG Learn, Learning], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/tg/m/43 TG Marriage, Fatherhood], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/tg/p/12 TG Parent], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/tg/t/24 TG Teaching, Teach, Taught], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/in/b/93 IN Born], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/in/f/24 IN Father], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/in/f/27 IN Favored], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/in/g/65 IN God, Goodness of], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/in/g/78 IN Goodly], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/in/l/49 IN Learning], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/in/n/30 IN Nephi], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/in/p/20 IN Parent], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/in/r/37 IN Record], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/in/t/15 IN Teach, Taught]<br />
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* ''Verse 2:'' [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/gs/n/15 GS Nephi, Son of Lehi], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/tg/j/77 TG Jew, Jewish], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/in/e/18 IN Egyptian], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/in/j/61 IN Jew, Jewish], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/in/l/26 IN Language], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/in/n/30 IN Nephi]<br />
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* ''Verse 3:'' [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/gs/n/15 GS Nephi, Son of Lehi], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/tg/h/14 TG Hand], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/in/h/12 IN Hand]<br />
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* ''Verse 4:'' [[2 Kgs 23:27]], [[Ps 79:3]], [[Jer 13:14]], [[Jer 21:7]], [[1 Ne 2:13]], [[1 Ne 17:22]], [[Hel 5:6]], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/gs/j/19 GS Jerusalem], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/gs/n/11 GS Nebuchadnezzar], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/gs/n/15 GS Nephi, Son of Lehi], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/gs/z/5 GS Zedekiah], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/bd/z/11 BD Zedekiah], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/tg/d/92 TG Destroy], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/tg/r/59 TG Reign], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/in/d/67 IN Destruction, Destroy], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/in/j/32 IN Jerusalem], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/in/j/87 IN Judah], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/in/r/75 IN Repentance, Repent], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/in/z/8 IN Zedekiah], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/biblephotos/8 Photograph: Jerusalem]<br />
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===Verse 1===<br />
* ''A great knowledge of the goodness of God.'' [http://www.lds.org/conference/talk/display/0,5232,23-1-14-2,00.html Neal A. Maxwell (GC 1999)] contrasts Laman & Lemuel's lack of faith with Nephi's great faith in God's goodness. <br />
* ''Mysteries of God''<br />
** See [[1 Ne 2:16]] for an explanation by Nephi of how he gained knowledge of the mysteries of God.<br />
** See [[1 Ne 10:19]] where Nephi teaches that one must diligently seek to find the mysteries of God.<br />
** See [[Mosiah 1:3]] where Mosiah teaches his sons that without the scriptural record they could not know the mysteries of God.<br />
** See [[Mosiah 2:9]] where Mosiah starts his talk to his people with an invitation listen to him and open their ears, hearts and minds they they may learn the mysteries of God.<br />
** See the entry on [http://scriptures.lds.org/gsm/mystrsfg mysteries of God] in the <i>Guide to the Scriptures</i>. <br />
* [http://bomgroupies.wordpress.com/2007/03/01/nephi-and-the-mysteries/ "Nephi and the Mysteries"] A discussion of Nephi's interest in the Mysteries of God by the Book of Mormon Groupies.<br />
* [http://teachyediligently.mypodcast.com/2008/05/On_Scripture_Study-111110.html Podcast] of Joe Spencer exploring 1 Nephi 1:1 with a local Relief Society.<br />
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== Notes ==<br />
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''Footnotes are not required but are encouraged for factual assertions that average readers cannot easily evaluate for themselves, such as the date of King Solomon’s death or the nuanced definition of a Greek word. In contrast, insights rarely benefit from footnoting, and the focus of this page should always remain on the scriptures themselves rather than what someone has said about them. Links are actively encouraged on all sections of this page, and links to authoritative sources are preferable to footnotes.''<br />
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[[First Nephi 1 | Previous page: Chapter 1]] &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; [[1 Ne 1:5-15 | Next page: Verses 1:5-15]]</div>Sterlinghttp://feastupontheword.org/1_Ne_1:1-41 Ne 1:1-42014-01-19T21:00:13Z<p>Sterling: /* Nephi's Four "Having's" */ qualifier</p>
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<div>[[The Book of Mormon]] > [[First Nephi]] > [[First Nephi 1-2 | Chapters 1-2]] > [[First Nephi 1 | Chapter 1]] > [[1 Ne 1:1-4 | Verses 1:1-4]] <br><br />
[[First Nephi 1 | Previous page: Chapter 1]] &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; [[1 Ne 1:5-15 | Next page: Verses 1:5-15]]<br />
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This page would ideally always be under construction. You are invited to contribute.<br />
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== Summary ==<br />
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''This heading should be brief and may include an outline of the passage. Click the link above and to the right to edit or add content to this heading. →''<br />
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The relationship of verses 1-4 to the rest of Chapter 1 is discussed at [[First Nephi 1 | Chapter 1]].<br />
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== Discussion ==<br />
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''This heading is for more detailed discussions of all or part of a passage. Discussion may include the meaning of a particular word, how a doctrinal point is developed throughout the passage, insights to be developed in the future, and other items. Contributions may range from polished paragraphs down to a single bullet point. The focus, however, should always be on understanding the scriptural text consistent with LDS doctrine. Click the link above and to the right to edit or add content to this heading. →''<br />
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===Verse 1===<br />
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* ''Goodly'' According to Webster's 1828, [http://65.66.134.201/cgi-bin/webster/webster.exe?search_for_texts_web1828=goodly goodly] means "Being of a handsome form; beautiful; graceful; as a goodly person; goodly raiment; goodly houses." In this context it may mean "well-off." ''Goodly'' is used only once more in the Book of Mormon, [[Mosiah 18:7]]: there were a goodly number gathered together at the place of Mormon. It is used twice in the Doctrine and Covenants: [[D&C 97:9]] & [[D&C 99:7]]. There the meaning is ''beautiful'' or ''fair''. It is also used with this same meaning many times in the Old and New Testaments.<br />
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* ''On introducing.'' The "therefore" with which Nephi begins the final phrase of verse 1 marks his introductory verses (verses 1-3) as apologetic: this is ''why'' I am writing, all of what I just mentioned ''justifies'' taking up this project. The logic of Nephi's apologetic introduction is surprising because though he will later explicitly mention a divine commandment to produce the text ([[2 Ne 5:31]]), he makes no such reference here. Instead, he founds his text on the circumstances of his life. Nephi makes cites his experiences as of enough significance to justify writing scripture. Given this, Nephi's brief autobiography in verse 1--what we will see is essentially his reading of those very experiences--should be read with incredible care.<br />
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===Possible Structures===<br />
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* ''Serial structure.'' If one looks at Nephi's autobiographical sketch for a textual structure, the repeating word ''having'' immediately suggests its own importance: every phrase (except the ungrammatical "therefore I was taught somewhat in all the learning of my father," which can only be dealt with after some structural clarity is achieved) begins with the term. If ''having'' is read as the structural key to the passage, most likely therefore to be read as a progressive series, then it might be rendered thus (with connectives set between phrases):<br />
(1) having been born of goodly parents<br />
and<br />
(2) having seen many afflictions in the course of my days<br />
nevertheless<br />
(3) having been highly favored of the Lord in all my days<br />
yea<br />
(4) having had a great knowledge of the goodness and the mysteries of God<br />
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* ''Chiastic structure.'' No sooner is the structure laid out as a series of ''having'''s than some obvious parallelistic structures suggest themselves. Most visible perhaps is the parallel ''my days'' occurring in (2) and (3). Not quite so striking at first is the parallelism formed by (1) and (4) by their use of different manifestations of the word ''good'', ''goodly'' and ''goodness'' respectively. This double parallel of first with last and second with penultimate suggests the passage be read as a chiasm (perhaps with even the ''and'' between (1) and (2) parallel to the ''yea'' between (3) and (4)). Rendered chiastically, the autobiographical sketch would look thus:<br />
A having been born of ''goodly'' parents<br />
B ''and''<br />
C having seen many afflictions in the course of my ''days''<br />
D nevertheless<br />
C' having been highly favored of the Lord in all my ''days''<br />
B' ''yea''<br />
A' having had a great knowledge of the ''goodness'' and the mysteries of God<br />
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* ''Double parallel structure.'' The parallel drawn out above as B and B' further suggests another structural reading of the passage. Both ''and'' and ''yea'' suggest a doubling, a repetition. In other words, A and C might well be read parallelistically, as might A' and C'. The autobiographical sketch would then become a parallel set of parallelisms, mediated by the central ''nevertheless''. In short, the passage might be schematized thus:<br />
A having been born of goodly parents<br />
B and<br />
A' having seen many afflictions in the course of my days<br />
C nevertheless<br />
D having been highly favored of the Lord in all my days<br />
B' yea<br />
D' having had a great knowledge of the goodness and the mysteries of God<br />
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The interpretive comments below follow each of the above three structural readings in turn.<br />
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===Nephi's First "Having"===<br />
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* ''Birth and learning.'' Nephi's first ''having'', taken in its full and ungrammatical rendering, ties together two vital clues to Nephi's record: his birth and his learning. He immediately qualifies his birth with mention of his "goodly parents." ''Goodly'' here is often read as though its meaning is the same as ''good.'' But if we read ''goodly'' as meaning wealthy (see lexical note above), we see Nephi recognizing that it was because of his parent's wealth that he was able to be taught "somewhat in ''all'' the learning of [his] father" (emphasis added).<br />
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* ''Teaching and learning.'' Nephi calls upon two important if oddly balanced terms to describe his early education: ''taught'' and ''learning''. While a sort of opposition between teaching and learning might at first be read into the text, a careful reading reveals that this opposition is far too simplistic: the learning Nephi mentions is not his own, but his father's, and even as Nephi is the one taught, the verb is used passively ("I was taught somewhat") so that the teacher is cloaked and the act of teaching is therefore uprooted when set into the text. No simplistic scheme of Lehi teaching and Nephi learning is suggested at all in the text. The tie between the two terms, moreover, is prepositional: Nephi's being taught is "in" the learning of Lehi. This emphasizes an important fact: the term, "learning," in the text is a noun, a ''thing''. Whatever Lehi's learning consists of, it is clear from the text that it already consists, that it already stands together, that it is complete enough to be taught, named, or pointed out. And this nominal completion of Lehi's learning stands textually against the apparently incomplete studies of Nephi: "I was taught ''somewhat'' in all the learning of my father." While all of this sets up some possibilities for interpreting Nephi's brief report of his education, some more detailed consideration of the terms involved is warranted.<br />
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* ''Lehi's learning.'' While Nephi later (in verse 2) speaks of the "language of my father, which consists of the learning of the Jews and the language of the Egyptians," it is not yet clear how that should be read against the more simple "learning of my father" of verse 1. More fruitful for getting started, perhaps, is a brief consideration of the term, ''learning''. The English word, "learning," derives from an Indo-European root, ''leis'', meaning a track or a furrow. To learn is etymologically to follow a track, a pathway already (and not recently) cut out, already trod for some time. The pre-existence of whatever is trod, bound up in the word "to learn," is also not unfamiliar to the Hebrew root ''lqch'', the root behind the word most commonly translated in KJV as "learning": ''lqch'' means to take, to seize, even to steal, always implying the pre-existence of whatever is taken, seized, stolen. Certainly Lehi's learning implies that he takes up a way that has been trod for a long while before him. But the English and the Hebrew both imply still more: both "to learn" and ''lqch'' emphasize a sort of solitude. While teaching implies an instructor and an instructed, the learner comes upon a pathway that ''has been'' trod, but that might now be completely empty, and most likely is without a guide. That ''lqch'' can mean to steal certainly reinforces the lonely character of Lehi's learning: it might well be suggested that Lehi's learning, in which Nephi was taught, was a very solitary project.<br />
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* ''Nephi's being taught.'' If Lehi's learning is a work of solitude, the lonely work of following the long-since-left-behind, Nephi's being taught is imbued with the spirit of a face to face encounter, perhaps even characterized by a sort of violence as well. The English word, "teach," is etymologically related to "touch," as is "didactic" to "tactile." To teach is to point out, to put one's finger onto something. Whereas Lehi seems to come upon something abandoned, which he must attempt to bring back to life in self-disciplined learning, Nephi has a living someone who stands before him, who points out what is to be learned, who gives tasks to the student. This "being taught" on Nephi's part well reflects the broad meaning of the Hebrew term for teaching, ''lmd'', to train, to develop skills in oneself or another. Nephi learns through another, through an actual engagement. The ambiguity of such an engagement (one engages the enemy, and one is engaged to a future spouse) is suggestive: Nephi learns through a work of desire both to submit and to overpower, wraps his arms about his teach both to embrace and to wrestle ("touching" in being "taught"). Lehi's learning is the work of an archaeologist; Nephi's being taught is the work of a disciple. <br />
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* ''Toward the relation between Nephi and Lehi.'' The foregoing comments on Nephi's first ''having'', besides destructuring the father-son teaching situation, work out provisional meanings for three words: "goodly", being "taught", and "learning". The meanings worked out are provisional precisely in that they remain in the above comments extratextual: they have not been read back into the text, but provide a framework for just such a (re)reading. However, before such a reading can proceed, something of the interpersonal dynamics at play in this first ''having'' must be worked out, so that there is ''something'' to read these words back into. In other words, because "goodly" qualifies "parents", because "taught" qualifies "I", because "learning" qualifies--this last in a very broad sense--"father", the interrelatedness of Nephi ("I"), his "parents" and his "father" must be worked out before the meanings of their qualifying words can be read into the text. It should be noted at the same time that a preliminary working out of the interpersonal dynamics of Nephi's first ''having'' will also be provisional: like the working out of the meaning of the qualifying words, a working out of these dynamics is an abstraction of text, drawing out the persons without the words that qualify them. Hence, the complex interpersonal dynamics of this first ''having'' (it is unique among the four ''having'''s) require a second abstraction in addition to the first one worked out above. The two must then be read against and into each other for a more complete reading of the phrase.<br />
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* ''On proper names.'' The first and most obvious aspect of the interpersonal dynamics of Nephi's first ''having'' to be considered is the function of the proper name. Whereas Nephi's first verse opens with the overwhelming announcement of the prophet's own proper name, the remainder of the three-verse preface to Nephi's text is, from then on, void of any other proper names for any (earthly) person ("the Lord" might be a proper name, "YHWH", though it names God; "the Jews" and "the Egyptians" might also be argued to be proper names, but each apparently names a collective--they are both plural). This absence of proper names is most striking in Nephi's first ''having'', where he makes explicit mention of both his "parents" and his "father", but without any proper names. The comments above have overlooked this, drawing the names of Lehi and Sariah, of course, from the actual body of the Nephite text. The point raises two questions, one of which cannot be fully examined until after full consideration of Nephi's autobiographical sketch. This question to be postponed is, indeed, as broad as Nephi's autobiographical sketch: what does Nephi's announcement of his proper name accomplish in the text? The other question, to be dealt with presently, concerns rather the unnamed in the text: what does the lack of proper names for Lehi and Sariah in this first ''having'' accomplish?<br />
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* ''On the lack of proper names.'' Lehi and Sariah pass into Nephi's first ''having'' unnamed. Perhaps Lehi and Sariah, just for that reason, pass out of Nephi's first ''having''. At any rate, the weight of this lack--the lack of the weight--of proper names in this first autobiographical reading is most significant, is a sign that marks something important at play in the text. A first consequence of the unnamedness of Nephi's "parents" and "father" is a sort of delay, a sort of suspension: Lehi and Sariah are kept out of the preface, though they are mentioned--and hence present--in the same. They are, oddly enough, both included and excluded from Nephi's autobiography. But this duplicity--presence and yet non-presence--is precisely what is in question in Nephi's first ''having'': this first autobiographical reading is the prophet's exploration of the borders between himself and his parents, that strange no man's land where Nephi ends and his parents and father begin. As has been mentioned above, this first ''having'' is an exploration of ''influence'', of the "in-flowing" of Sariah and Lehi. And Nephi's text reads this influence as an unnamed presence. In other words, Nephi's text embodies the complex influence of parents and father on son: thoroughly, unquestioningly, overwhelmingly, perhaps suffocatingly present, and yet unnamed, unrecognized, unrealized, perhaps entirely unthought. More: parents and father are so absolutely present, in and through all things, that they are not only unnamed but unnamable, not only unrecognized but unrecognizable, etc. <br />
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* ''The theme of separation.'' The relation implied between Nephi and his parents/father, then, is ultimately not a question of presence and non-presence. Nephi's first ''having'', precisely because it writes them without names, reads Sariah and Lehi as completely saturating Nephi's experience, not as perpetual presences, but rather as the element of which Nephi is made. Nephi reads himself as a (re)presentation of his parents/father: they live (continually?) in his living. Hence it would appear that there is no separation between Nephi and his parents/father in the first ''having''. However, the very first verb this ''having'' employs is one of separation. Nephi in fact opens this first self-reading with mention of the most primordial act of separation possible: the umbilical cord is cut with his "having been born." As a result, a complex tension enters into the very first phrase of Nephi's text: Nephi is, according to the text, at once inseparable from his parents/father and entirely separated from his parents/father. The first interpersonal dynamic, the first written relation between Nephi and his parents/father, is a double separation/inseparability between them.<br />
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* ''A progressive inseparability/separation.'' The situation is made more complex by the fact that the theme of separation is taken up again in the second half of the first ''having'': "therefore I was taught somewhat in all the learning of my father." As mentioned above, though a teacher is implied, his or her identity is cloaked, so that the phrase draws upon an implied distance between Nephi and Lehi. As separate as they might have become through Nephi's birth, the teaching situation later in life suggests that this separation only grew. The inferential character of the connecting "therefore" seems to confirm this growing distance. However, at the same time, Nephi's teaching is precisely "in" his father's learning: even as the separation between son and parents/father grows, so does the inseparability between them. The tension introduced in the first part of Nephi's first ''having'' is doubled, strengthened, and confirmed in the second part. The relation between Nephi and his parents/father is remarkably difficult.<br />
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* ''The meaning of the tension.'' The textual rhythm of Nephi's first ''having'' may characterize this tension, may draw out its meaning. In both the first part (before the "therefore") and the second part (after the "therefore") of this first self-reading, the theme of separation comes first, so that it is, in each instance, countered by the theme of inseparability: "having been born [separation] of goodly parents [inseparability], therefore I was taught somewhat [separation] in all the learning of my father [inseparability]." The passage "feels" as if every attempt of Nephi to draw apart from his parents is countered by their overwhelming saturation of all that he does. In other words, in every attempt to live, Nephi lives his (still unnamed) parents. Stating the issue this way does not relieve the tension, but releases it from appearing as a contradiction: Nephi is separate just in that he embodies his parents, just in that he is inseparable from them. Hence, a first reading of Nephi's first (self-)reading: Nephi's collective experience is always from the standpoint of his a son who embodies his parents/father. Nephi encounters the world as his parents.<br />
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* ''The teaching situation and separation.'' The interpersonal dynamics of Nephi's first ''having'' might now be read preliminarily, at last, in and against the meaningful words explored above. And, in fact, the important difference examined between Nephi's "being taught" and Lehi's "learning" bears powerfully on the theme of separation. In that that difference marks a difference between Nephi and Lehi, the separation between father and son might easily be read there. However, the question of separation grounds that same difference still more profoundly: the distinction between "being taught" (always face-to-face) and "learning" (always in solitude) was precisely a question of separation. In other words, the two terms bear their meaning precisely by taking up opposite ends of the tension between separation/inseparability. As a result, Nephi's teaching situation is in and of itself a double embodiment of that vital tension. First, Nephi's being taught--in face-to-face instruction--is a work of inseparability, fundamentally frustrated by the grammatical cloaking of the instructor, which marks Nephi's being taught with an undeniable character of separation. Second, because the content of the teaching is the learning of Lehi, Nephi's instruction at once marks him inseparable from his father (studying precisely the same things) and entirely separate (if he truly learns his father's learning, what is profoundly a work of solitude, of separation). Nephi's first ''having'' wonderfully puts on display Lehi's profound influence on him: always as himself, Nephi entirely presents his father.<br />
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* ''Goodliness and separation.'' As pointed at at the very beginning of these comments on Nephi's first ''having'', the first self-reading of this autobiographical sketch (by employing the strong "therefore" at its center) draws upon the relation between the goodliness of Nephi's parents and his own later instruction. That broad relation now suggests that the theme of separation so powerfully embodied in the teaching situation should be read back into the goodliness of Lehi and Sariah. Or better, that goodliness should be read as the source of that eventually perfected tension of separation/inseparability. And it certainly does. If, as mentioned above, "goodly" is best read as marking the wealth or abundance of Nephi's parents, then the description the prophet's birth draws the theme of inheritance to bear powerfully on the present considerations: Nephi's first ''having'' casts him as an heir. The power of this insight emerges in the fact that inheritance is itself a perfect embodiment of the same tension of separation/inseparability. The heir is profoundly separate and absolutely inseparable from his or her benefactor. Nephi, as heir, is again marked entirely and always himself, even as he entirely and always (re-)presents his father. Perhaps most vital in all this: it is precisely the term "goodly" that draws this tension into the first half of Nephi's first ''having''.<br />
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* ''Subverted inheritance.'' However, as soon as Nephi's first ''having'' is read through the theme of inheritance, the same theme is called into question: Nephi's relational "therefore" does not draw eventual wealth as the fruition of inheritance, but rather instruction. In other words, Nephi's inheritance is "only" an ''intellectual'' inheritance: he is heir to his father's learning. (This first ''having'', then, should probably be read with an eye to the later Lamanite claim to the right of inheritance.) Perhaps most important of all, this subversion of the traditional theme of inheritance further subverts the meaning of the term "goodly." The goodliness Nephi is concerned with might ultimately be the goodliness commonly read into this first verse of the Book of Mormon: Lehi and Sariah were folk of abundant faith, obedience, goodness, etc.<br />
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* ''Nephi's relation, finally, to his parents.'' All of the above comments set up the relation between Nephi and his parents/father. In his first self-interpretation, Nephi reads himself fundamentally as heir to his father's learning, and that only through the instrumentality--the goodliness--of his parents. As heir, Nephi covers his parents over, in a sense, and yet manifests them perfectly: he manifests them in himself. Nephi reads himself not so much as drawing upon his parents' goodliness, but as re-working it, as re-presenting, as re-embodying it. Nephi himself is Lehi again, Lehi repeated, but now with the proper name of Nephi. If this first ''having'' is Nephi's attempt to read his beginnings, to interpret his origins, what he apparently finds is always only himself ("I, Nephi"), but always only his parents/father, as presented in himself. <br />
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* ''The content of Lehi's learning.'' With this relation now established, wherein Nephi continually re-presents his father (and that especially in terms of "learning"), the way has been opened up to explore at last the actual content of Lehi's learning. However, the above comments have conclusively pointed away from such a task. It might be best to say that Nephi, precisely because he does not take the space to explicate his father's learning, sees this issue as inessential, perhaps immaterial. The point, as suggested by the above comments, of Nephi's first ''having'' is the role Lehi and Sariah play in Nephi's independent/dependent writing.<br />
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===Nephi's Second "Having"===<br />
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* ''On the way to "afflictions."'' Obviously the most important word in Nephi's second ''having'' is "afflictions." Curiously, the word does not take the grammatical position of subject in the clause; rather it functions as the direct object. As direct object, it becomes that towards which this second self-interpretation tends: the "many afflictions" of Nephi might best be understood as the ''horizon'' of this second autobiographical comment, not as the starting point. This is as much as to say that Nephi removes from himself (in the act of writing) the actual afflictions he suffered (he displaces them to his--and the reader's--horizon). He in fact does so, precisely by clothing them in a double event-ness: the afflictions comes to Nephi spatially (through his body: "having ''seen''") and temporally (in time: "in the course of my ''days''"). (It should be noted very clearly that only Nephi's second ''having'' has an undeniable event-ness about it: the static verbs of the other three ''havings'' set this second one forth as uniquely event-ual.) In other words, because Nephi characterizes his "many afflictions" as events (spatio-temporal happenings), they become for him and for the reader ''event-ual'', intended but still unreached. A first interpretive point for Nephi's second ''having'': the very key of this ''having'' ("afflictions") are the key precisely because they are what the whole phrase aims at, but does not yet reach.<br />
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* ''On the way from "afflictions."'' Even as the grammatical structure of Nephi's second ''having'' sets the prophet's afflictions at a double remove as a spatio-temporal event-uality, another grammatical structure inherent in the same phrase cancels this distantiation. The "having" that marks the seeing (the spatial/bodily happening that is temporalized in the "course of [Nephi's] days") is a verbal that is, by the end of Nephi's first verse, caught up into the present work of writing. However absent or distant Nephi's afflictions are at the time of writing, they are one of his four self-interpretive reasons for writing at all. In other words, even as Nephi's second ''having'' marks itself as a way towards the many afflictions Nephi faced, the whole of the first verse unmistakably marks Nephi's entire introduction as a way from afflictions to writing. (As mentioned above, only this second ''having'' is ''explicitly'' event-ual. While the other three self-interpretations Nephi offers might be read as several ''groundings'' of Nephi's task of writing, this one, his second ''having'', seems best read as a sort of path or way towards the task of writing. That this ''having'' is temporalized by a "''course'' of... days" seems to underscore this point.) Though Nephi's afflictions appear event-ual and horizonal, they are nonetheless a sort of point of departure for Nephi.<br />
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* ''On the (double) way of "afflictions."'' This duplicity of way, caught up into the double, tense grammatical structure of Nephi's second ''having'', suggests a sort of parallel between Nephi's first and second ''havings''. Even as this second ''having'' suggests a distance or a separation, the same is cancelled by a broader inseparability: the event-ual afflictions are the point of departure for Nephi's task of writing. This is not unlike the separation/inseparability theme of Nephi's first ''having''. The absolution of afflictions accomplished by the role of direct object is cancelled in that Nephi himself takes his departure from his bodily/temporal experience of afflictions. Again--as before--Nephi reads himself as a sort of re-embodiment (perhaps particularly in the task of writing) of afflictions he has seen, has witnessed (were they never his own afflictions?). At least this much is clear: there is a parallel structure to be read into Nephi's first two ''havings''.<br />
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* ''"Seeing" afflictions.'' Nephi takes up his afflictions with a verb that might well be read as confirming the separation/inseparability theme already doubled with this second ''having''. Vision opens, quite singularly, the very possibility for the distinction between separation and inseparability (it might be precisely because the two opposites arise out of a singular that the tension explored in these comments is possible). Sight at once sets before the seer a world spectacle from which he or she might retire and at the same time locates the seer immediately in the world, most explicitly through the sheer physicality of the eyes with which one sees. Sight--or rather all the senses, perhaps corporeal existence itself and hence every verb (such as "having seen") that summons the body--then plays an important role in Nephi's second ''having'', important precisely because it--as a bodily verb--draws out this same tension of separation/inseparability. Whereas Nephi might have discussed afflictions he had once "had" or "experienced" or "gone through," his use of "having seen" suggests something more of his relation to his afflictions: Nephi's afflictions were at once something separate and remote from him (''"seen"'') and something that might be called his very setting or vantage point (from which he ''sees'' himself autobiographically).<br />
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* ''The meaning of affliction.'' Though "affliction" seems a simple enough word, its literal meaning is perhaps more nuanced. The verb, "to afflict", comes into English from a Latin compound: ''ad-fligo'', literally "to strike against (towards)". Its primary meaning in usage was to dash something against another (or two things together) or (much the same) to knock down, strike down, or damage. Only metaphorically did the word come to mean to weaken, to discourage. Affliction was originally, then, bodily pain or torture. Before the word is taken in Nephi's text to mean something primarily "spiritual" or "mental," it should be considered in its physical originality. If Nephi means the word in a "spiritual" or "mental" sense, the violence implied in the literal meaning should not be missed. Moreover, the original "physical" meaning of the word always implies ''at least two'' "things," marked by the ''ad-'', the ''towards'' or ''against''. Too quick a reversion to the "spiritual" or "mental" reading of affliction might reduce affliction to a sort of solitary struggle rather than a literal clash of at least two things. The towards and against of affliction also point toward two parties--one who afflicts, and one who is afflicted. Affliction is more than suffering, it is a suffering caused by one towards another.<br />
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* ''The corporeality of seeing and the physicality of afflictions.'' The corporeality of Nephi's "having seen" and the radical physicality of his mentioned "afflictions" come up against each other in an odd manner. While afflictions retreat into mental/spiritual meaning only metaphorically, sight and the eyes have a natural means of retreat (unlike the other four bodily senses) in one's ability to blink, to close off sight from bodily experience. And this means of visual escape is unique and significant. It is sight, for example, that makes sleep so bizarre a human state: the sleeper is open to the reality of the world in four ways, and what he or she hears, smells, tastes, or touches readily enters into the surreality of the dream. But the sleeper closes him- or herself off entirely from the world of sight. The eye's ability to retreat, to shut off the visual realm of the world, sets the corporeality of Nephi's principal verb in this second ''having'' against the radical physicality of the afflictions Nephi deals with: because he sees the afflictions, Nephi has some recourse to distance from them, has some means of retreat from the harsh reality of the bodily danger implicit in those afflictions. At least on the grammatical level, Nephi's second ''having'' at once presents a very real danger and an ability to flee the same.<br />
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* ''The ambiguous nature of visual escape.'' Here an ambiguity in Nephi's language might well be considered: because the afflictions Nephi mentions in his second ''having'' are completely unqualified grammatically, it remains unclear whether the afflictions were things Nephi himself suffered, or whether the afflictions Nephi saw were afflictions others passed through to which the prophet was "merely" witness. The importance of this ambiguity arises most clearly in the light of Nephi's means of escape, because his ability as seer to shut his eyes is ultimately ambiguous as well. On the one hand, Nephi's visual escape might be read as a very real escape: if he closes his eyes to violence inflicted on himself, he holds out to some degree a sort of mastery over his enemies. His closed eyes would mark his willing martyrdom, a sort of absolute denial on his part to become involved (perhaps thereby doing damage to the meaning of afflictions as two things striking one another). On the other hand, Nephi's visual escape might be read as a sort of false escape: if he closes his eyes to violence inflicted on others, he marks himself a slave to his own weakness. His closed eyes would here mark him as one completely lacking the virtue of charity: he allows others to suffer while he closes his eyes. Two very different meanings of visual "escape", based on two very different meanings of the afflictions mentioned in the passage.<br />
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* ''Nephi's apparently open eyes.'' The above two comments, however, work from an assumption that is unjustified based on Nephi's second ''having'': that Nephi closed his eyes. However, the fact that Nephi ''saw'' the afflictions marks with great importance the fact that Nephi could very easily and at any time have closed them: that he didn't is what should be emphasized here. As such, Nephi's open eyes (open to the ambiguous afflictions he mentions) require interpretation. Just as Nephi's grammar invites a double reading of visual escape, a double reading of Nephi's open eyes is warranted. If, on the one hand, the afflictions in question were Nephi's own, then his meeting them with open eyes would suggest his self-transcending courage, his unwillingness to take the escape of selfish retreat that would immortalize him as an innocent martyr. Apparently unconcerned with himself, Nephi--taking the afflictions, again, to be his own--was willing to engage (to love?) even his enemies, to wrestle with them, to crash against them in a very real sense, in a radical work of opening himself--his eyes--to them. If, on the other hand, the afflictions in question were not Nephi's, but those of others to which Nephi stood witness, then his open eyes mark his unquestionable charity. Unwilling, on this reading, to turn from the difficulties others faced, Nephi presents himself as one willing to engage (again, to love?) the innocent who suffer all about him. <br />
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* ''Nephi's eyes as the double figure of love.'' Fortunately, the reader of Nephi's text is not forced to choose between these two possible readings of Nephi's open eyes. The two are allowed to work against and through each other. In fact, the two carry a very similar meaning in the end: love. Nephi's open eyes mark his unconcernedness with himself, his willingness to engage (on the one hand) his enemies and/or (on the other hand) his friends. In both cases, his self-transcendence is marked by his open eyes, but his regard or gaze that takes up both friend and enemy by the hand (hand to hand, whether in combat or in salutation). In fact, that Nephi leaves the afflictions he mentions in this second ''having'' ambiguous suggests that he wants his readers to feel the tension between both possible readings. The charity with which Nephi marks himself in this second self-interpretation is supposed to be felt as all-embracing, as touching both friends ''and'' enemies. On that account, Nephi's "having seen" imbues the figure of Nephi with love. It might, moreover, be noted that it is precisely afflictions that open Nephi's eyes (on either reading). Love itself might here be read ''as'' affliction: love is the inevitable drama of striking two things, two people, together. Love is the site of affliction, afflictions are the sight of love: in Nephi's seeing afflictions--in his seeing ''to'' afflictions--he encounters love. <br />
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* ''Nephi's love as response.'' But as soon as one reads love into Nephi's second ''having'', the objection arises that Nephi never explicitly mentions love, that he only sets it forth negatively, under the figure of seeing ''afflictions''. In other words, that Nephi here interprets himself in terms of afflictions, apparently in an attempt to interpret himself in terms of charity, is oddly ironic. It might, on the one hand, mark Nephi's humility: he only suggests his charity negatively, through afflictions. On the other hand, this detail might set a sort of limit for the reading above: Nephi's love is not an absolute virtue, but one drawn out of him by the threat of the other, by afflictions. In a sense, then, that Nephi addresses his own charity through affliction serves to proscribe Nephi's love, to render it a response rather than a call. Nephi's eyes do not intend so much as they are intended and seeingly respond. In other words and in short, Nephi's second ''having'' might be read as a figure of responsive--even responsible--charity: Nephi's open eyes figure his response to the visible world, a world, apparently, of affliction.<br />
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* ''Reanalyzing the parallel between first and second "havings".'' Nephi's second ''having'' is now seen as the prophet's confrontation with the fallen nature of the world, as his loving response to the presence of evil--of afflictions, many afflictions--in the world. And here, perhaps, the apparent parallel between this second ''having'' and the first falls apart. Whereas in the first ''having'', Nephi interprets himself as a reembodiment of his parents (thus being separate and inseparable from them), here it is clear that Nephi is not reading himself in terms of affliction, but in terms of his response to affliction. In other words, Nephi's entire first verse does not ultimately follow Nephi's journey from afflictions to writing, but from his response to afflictions to the task of writing. If this second ''having'' is to be read as privileged above the others for its event-ness, it is now clear that the event(s) Nephi here recounts is (are) not to be understood as experience(s) of affliction, but as response(s) to affliction. The one event Nephi cites on the way to the task of writing is his seeing, his open eyes in response to the wickedness of the world.<br />
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* ''Toward the course of Nephi's days.'' Given all of the above, Nephi's second ''having'' might be summarized thus: the only event Nephi calls upon in interpreting his life is his loving response (his open eyes) to the wickedness of the world. All that remains to be dealt with in this second ''having'' is the "course of [Nephi's] days." It is clear that this phrase plays an important role in the text, besides confirming the event-ual character of the second ''having''. A first, but very brief reading suggests that Nephi proscribes his charitable response within a sort of temporal enclosure (which might just be a consequence of the event-ual character of this ''having''). The word "course" is, however, not so perfectly simple. Its many meanings in [[http://65.66.134.201/cgi-bin/webster/webster.exe?search_for_texts_web1828=course|1828]] suggest that it should be read quite carefully. Two "concepts" seem to be inevitable: the word implies at least motion and method/order. (Etymology bears this out: "course" derives from Latin ''cursus'', which means an established track for running a race, hence motion and order.) Whatever Nephi means by the "course" of his days, it seems that it must inevitably be read through the double theme of motion and method.<br />
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* ''Course and death.'' But perhaps this double theme of motion and method already suggests a meaning. If Nephi's days are, as a course, understood to be a methodical procession towards an already decided end, then at least one very real possible meaning is clear: the "course" of Nephi's days ends with death. That Nephi may here be thinking of death is not to be thrown out because of the reality of the resurrection: passages throughout the Old Testament--especially in Ecclesiastes--see life as a working out of days on the way to death. (To say that the race ends with death is not at all to claim that there is nothing after the race.) If Nephi is indeed concerned with death here, then Nephi's reads his loving response, his interlocuted charity as an event at once opened up and foreclosed by the reality of death. In other words, that the event-ual ''having'' is the one tied specifically to the theme of death (a theme that rings well with the theme of affliction) suggests that event-ness itself arises out of death, that the event of charity is a response to the evil of death (even death through affliction). In short, Nephi in his second ''having'' seems to characterize himself as having lived toward his own death.<br />
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* ''One's days and the course of one's days.'' If the course Nephi describes is the procedural movement of his days toward death, it might be well to consider more exactly the word "days." That the word should not be understood here in any objective sense (e.g., to mean "twenty-four hour periods") is clear: Nephi marks the days as his, as belonging to him. In other words, Nephi does not read "days" as some objective thing he passes through, but rather understands "days" to be a sort of aspect of his experience: as ''his'' days, these days are the what through which Nephi experiences the events of affliction. Each day--lit by the light of day as opposed to night--is the light in which a certain afflicting event appeared (was seen). In fact, Nephi's seeing might well be extended to every event that came before his eyes in his "days." If this is what Nephi means by mentioning these days as his, then the meaning of the "course" of his "days" might become clearer. Nephi here reads his afflictions as punctuating an ordered procession of experiences, of events, a series of events that culminate in death--the event that anounces itself as the foreclosure of all other events, as the cessation of events. In other words, Nephi seems to read his life here as a series of witnessed events, as experiences he entered into bodily (even through his eyes), all tending toward the cessation of events and experiences, and all this punctuated often ("many") by afflictions, by--perhaps--events that suggested the reality of the coming conclusive event. It is, of course, most significant that Nephi reads his own charity as a response to those event-ual forerunners of death. <br />
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* ''The overarching tension of Nephi's second'' having. All of the above suggests the following general reading of Nephi's second ''having''. Whereas the first ''having'' explored the possibility of Nephi's escape, as it were, from his parents, this second ''having'' explores the possibility of Nephi's ability to rebridge the gap of interpersonal separation. Taking as its theme the gift of charity, Nephi seems to read through the ever-present reality of death (ever-present through the constant experience of affliction) a sort of call to love, to which Nephi responds.<br />
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===Nephi's Third "Having"===<br />
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* ''Nephi's return to "days."'' After the peculiarities of Nephi's second ''having'', the word "days" immediately stands out in this third ''having''. Whereas before his days were subsumed under the figure of a course, here they are merely collected with the word "all." One immediately gets the sense that this third ''having'' breaks the course of the second, that the inevitable movement of Nephi's days toward death is canceled in the favor of the Lord. Broadly speaking, then, this third ''having'' already presents itself as something beyond even the implicit charity of the second ''having''. Certainly the clearest initial theme of this ''having'' is the theme of God's love, God's favor, a reverse of the charity mentioned above.<br />
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* ''The meaning of favor.'' <br />
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===Nephi's Four "Having's"===<br />
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* ''Nephi's life and the plan.'' Together the clauses beginning with ''having'' form a pattern that runs through Nephi's two books: creation ("having been born"), fall ("having seen many afflictions"), atonement ("having been highly favored of the Lord"), and passing through the veil ("having had a great knowledge"). The pattern might broadly be called "the plan of salvation," but it appears to play a more fundamental ''textual'' role for Nephi as well. His first eighteen chapters (1 Nephi 1-18) tell a sort of creation story (with constant reference to his goodly parents); his following nine chapters (1 Nephi 19-2 Nephi 5) tell a sort of fall story (marked emphatically by the division between Nephites and Lamanites); his next twenty-five chapters (2 Nephi 6-31) tell a sort of atonement story (how the Lamanites might become again favored and reconnected to broader Israel); and his concluding three chapters (2 Nephi 31-33) dwell on a sort of passing-through-the-veil story (through a discussion of baptism in incredibly "veil-like" terms). Moreover, that the twenty-five chapter atonement stretch of Nephi's two-book record is presented by three messengers who collectively bring to the reader an understanding of how the "veil" of 2 Nephi 31-33 might be passed suggests that there is some connection between Nephi's broader record and the temple drama. If this connection is not unfounded, Nephi's "therefore" toward the end of this verse is powerfully significant: it is because his very life might be read as a sort of "endowment" that he is writing this text.<br />
* ''goodness and mysteries.'' No other prophet in our scriptures pairs these words in a single verse. Nephi is restating an earlier portion of this verse, in which he attributed his "learning" to his "goodly parents." Nephi's life experiences apparently taught him these two things go hand in hand.<br />
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===Chiastic Interpretation===<br />
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===Double Parallelism Interpretation===<br />
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* ''Nevertheless.'' The center of the chiastic structural reading is peculiar, but textually important. D ''mediates'' the two "halves" of the passage. In other words, it is the single word ''nevertheless'' that decides how the relation between the first half (A, B, and C) and the second half (A', B', and C') should be read. The implication: this single, perhaps "intuitive" word must be read with care. An all-too-quick reading of the word might suggest that it draws the two halves of the chiasm together in a sort of antithesis: by bringing them to stand side by side, ''nevertheless'' markedly puts on display the distinction between the events of the first half and the events of the second half, precisely because ''nevertheless'' means ''however'', or ''but''. However, more careful thought reveals that ''nevertheless'' does not at all set up a facile anthithesis. The term rather means most literally that what is about to be said is not undone by what has been said, that the implications of the foregoing (here, the first half) do not preclude what is about to be said (here, in the second half): Y (what I am about to say) is ''never'' to be taken as anything ''less''--is not to be read weakly--because of X (what I have just said). This more literal reading implies a great deal about the meaning of Nephi's autobiographical chiasm. The first half of it (what might be called Nephi's earthly world) does not preclude in any way, nor does it weaken at all, the second half of it (what might be called Nephi's heavenly world). In short, the first half of Nephi's chiastic autobiography at once has something to do with the second half--especially in that it parallels it!--but the relation between the two is neither one of mutual implication, nor one of frustrating contradiction. Perhaps all that can at first be said about the chiasm in question is what has snuck into this discussion through the back door: Nephi sees the earthly and heavenly aspects of his existence as parallel, not contradictory or implicatory.<br />
* ''having .., nevertheless, having...'' Lehi is not disappointed by his experiences. He displays an attitude of gratitude.<br />
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===Beyond (?) Autobiography===<br />
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* ''Book of the Dead wording.'' If the final phrase of this verse is taken in the Egyptian idiom, it is remarkably close to the Egyptian name for what is commonly called the "Book of the Dead" (Egyptian: "The Book of Going Forth by Day"). Nephi might here be making a suggestive allusion: his two-volume record on the small plates is, as it were, his own Book of the Dead (which was, for all intents and purposes, a sort of Egyptian endowment, an Egyptian drama of resurrection). If this reading is justified, this final phrase might ground the temple connections mentioned above. A connection (however distant) to the Book of the Dead would certainly explain the autobiographical "I, Nephi" with which the verse begins: copies of the "canonical" Book of the Dead were always personalized (by name) for the individual who purchased them. This may also provide a better context in which to understand verse 2.<br />
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* ''Dependent/independent clauses.'' The rather extended series of dependent clauses (the four "havings") that makes up the first half of this verse is interrupted along its course by the strikingly ungrammatical "therefore I was taught...." (This instance of "therefore" is the first of two in 1 Nephi 1:1, and should not here be confused with the summary "therefore" with which Nephi begins the final phrase of the verse.) The phrase, abstracted from its surroundings, is clearly an independent clause, though it is (because of the "therefore") subjected to the series of dependent clauses. The phrase therefore sets up a tension in the first half of this verse: there is an independent clause that is, so to speak, dependent on a series of dependent clauses. The tension accomplishes two things at once: on the one hand, it allows Nephi to draw the conclusion implicated by his "therefore," that his having been taught has something to do with his father's wealth, etc.; on the other hand, it frees the phrase from its confines in the first verse so that it can form a parallelism with the "language of my father" mentioned in verse 2. The tension is therefore structural: the phrase, "therefore I was taught somewhat in all the learning of my father," is drawn into tension by the first two verses, suspended, as it were, between them. The "Yea" of verse 2, discussed below, is therefore all the more significant.<br />
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=== Verse 2 ===<br />
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* ''Double parallelism.'' Given the comments above on verse 1, there is a double parallelism at play in this verse: Nephi is concerned in the first verse with his father's learning, and in the second verse with his father's language. This is doubled by Nephi's further mention of the learning of the Jews and the language of the Egyptians. The full implications of this double parallelism, however, remain to be worked out.<br />
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* ''Re-translating verse 1?'' Besides the tension that already connects the first two verses in an odd way (explained above in the comments on verse 1), Nephi further connects them by mediating their contraposition with the weighty word "Yea." Given that the Book of Mormon broadly takes up the KJV idiom (a presupposition that might well be called into question), the "Yea" here likely should be read with the weight of the Hebrew root ''knn'', to double, to repeat, to confirm. If so, Nephi seems to be drawing his first two verses into a sort of reciprocal or perhaps dialectical relation. If this second verse might be read as a "translation" of the first, it is fascinating that the two verses are drawn together in their pairing of questions of language and learning, especially the explicit mention of Jewish and Egyptian traditions. Through these two verses (explicitly composed of "metalanguage"), Nephi presents his record as fundamentally dual: it is a crossing of Egyptian and Jewish traditions, of Lehi's and Nephi's experiences, of language and learning, of verse 1 and verse 2. It might at least be said that Nephi sees his work as working out these several tensions.<br />
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* ''Making a record.'' A single foundational phrase underlies both verse 1 and verse 2: "I make a record." When each of these verses is stripped of dependent clauses and prepositional phrases, only this four-word sentence is left behind for each of them. The two verses would thus read: "I make a record. Yea, I make a record." This observation not only strengthens the suggestion that verse 2 is a repetition/translation of verse 1, but it also makes clear that Nephi's making a record is of foundational importance to these first few verses. Nephi uses the word "record" three times in this three-verse introduction to his text, doubly marking the importance of the term. The word generally translates the Hebrew ''zkrwn'' in the KJV, a word deriving from the root ''zkr'', meaning to actualize, to enact, to remember, to hold in presence. Nephi's choice of this word may imply that his text is to be read as a ritual text, one to be read aloud, even acted out or presented dramatically (cf. [[Rev 1:3]]). Such a reading might well ground the endowment themes in verse 1, while at the same time both enriching and making difficult Nephi's statement in verse 3 that the record is "true."<br />
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* ''Mention of the Jews.'' The first mention of the Jews in the whole of Nephi's record--in the whole of the Book of Mormon--is found in this verse, and it sets the tone for all subsequent discussion of the Jews. If there is any starting point for a study of who is meant by the Jews in the Book of Mormon, it is here. And this first mention is quite peculiar. From the very beginning, the national identity of the Jews is in question. "The Jews" are set here quite clearly against "the Egyptians," both emerging under plural nouns that deserve some attention: why does Nephi say "the learning of the Jews" and not "the learning of Judah" or "Jewish learning," and why does Nephi say "the language of the Egyptians" and not "the language of Egypt" or "Egyptian language"? The point is important, because Nephi from the very beginning places an emphasis on individuals who derive their identity from their political situation, rather than on nations as whole individuals (the "Israel" of the OT prophets, so profoundly understood by William Blake in his mythic prophecies). The point is, in fact, more complicated still: specific mention of "the Jews" and "the Egyptians" can only have had for Nephi profound political overtones, because of the particular situation between these nations that obtained at the time he left Jerusalem with his family. These politically defined individuals, set against each other in Nephi's first mention of the Jews, deserves some very close attention.<br />
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* ''"of the Jews," "of the Egyptians."'' Only a decade or so before Zedekiah's enthronement, the Jews and the Egyptians found themselves at war. The political situation was intense: Assyria had crumbled, leaving a power vacuum and three nations trying to fill it. Babylon, the largest and most powerful nation, was the most likely to take its place, but this was undecided, since both Egypt and Judah were also striving for the part. Around 610 B.C., Pharaoh Necho offered to join forces with Babylon against all other powers, working towards a joint empire. While traveling to accomplish this in 609 B.C., Pharaoh was encountered by Israelite forces led by King Josiah, who was attempting to stop the alliance. Josiah had already led his armies to quite a few victories in his struggle to claim greater Judean power. At Megiddo, the armies met, and Israel suffered a terrible defeat, in which Necho himself killed Josiah. The defeat was crushing for Judah (the textual implications of this failure alone for the Bible are incredible), and led quickly to the conquest of Jerusalem within two decades. Babylon quickly asserted its power of Judah, and Judah found itself conquered with a puppet king in place over it (namely, Zedekiah, who was installed by Babylon). This set up a rather difficult situation for Judah, a people with a covenant they understood to mean that they would never be conquered: either they had to submit cheerfully to Babylon (which seemed to imply unfaithfulness to the Davidic covenant), or they had to raise up enough of a force against Babylon to throw off the yoke (which could only be done through an alliance with Egypt). The prophets at the time were advocating the former position (Jeremiah especially), but Zedekiah eventually tried to establish political ties with Egypt, and the result was the obliteration of the kingdom of Judah. All of this, oddly, shows that the Jews and the Egyptians had a rather complex relationship at the time the Book of Mormon begins: those who were in favor of Egypt were those who could forgive the death of Josiah in order to try in some way to restore the situation they believed to be according to the Davidic covenant; those who were not in favor of Egypt were following the prophets even though it seemed as if this were against the wishes of the Lord. More still: the Egyptians and the Jews had so many commercial ties--especially mercenary ties--that the cultures had to some degree or another fused into one. That Nephi writes his record in reformed Egyptian is of some significance: he finds himself in the midst of some major political struggles, all of which bear quite inevitably on the questions of covenant.<br />
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* ''Jews, then, and Egyptians.'' For Nephi here to use "of the Jews" and "of the Egyptians" makes quite a point, then: by drawing on collective individuals, Nephi avoids questions of broader politics. He is not so much concerned in this verse with Judah and Egypt as he is with people from Judah and people from Egypt. He is more concerned with cultures and heritages, with traditions. It should be noted, then, that the very first mention of "the Jews" in the Book of Mormon marks them as a national culture that can be opposed to, set against, that of Egypt. If Egypt is the glory of antiquity, Nephi sees Judah as no less so. The Jews, from the very beginning, are a people, one with a tradition, with a unique history and culture, and with an autonomous take on the world. The Jews, it seems quite clear, are to be understood as the people who come from the Southern Kingdom of Judah, who have inherited the particularities of Judah and Benjamin, as well as the complexities of cross-cultures that came in with the collapse of the Northern Kingdom. The heritage of Judah has a mixed history, perhaps, but Nephi understands it to be unique and separate by this point.<br />
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=== Verse 3 ===<br />
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* ''Chiasm.'' After the grammatical complexity of Nephi's first two verses, the third verse reads with a striking simplicity. It is made up of three straightforward statements, all beginning with the conjoining "and I". Despite the unbalance between these short, plain statements and the far more difficult phrases of verses 1 and 2, this verse sets up a chiastic structure that runs through the whole of Nephi's first three verses:<br />
A I make a record<br />
B I make a record<br />
C I know (that the record is true)<br />
B' I make it<br />
A' I make it<br />
The importance of this structure goes well beyond "proofs of ancient authorship": the whole of verse 1 is set in parallel with Nephi's rather simple "and I make it according to my knowledge"; and the whole of verse 2 is set in parallel with his (also rather simple) "and I make it with mine own hand." Further, because it marks the chiastic center and has no parallel, the independent statement "And I know that the record which I make is true," with its profound focus on knowledge instead of record-making, separates itself thematically from the rest of what Nephi writes into these first three verses. More still, the doubling already recognized in verses 1 and 2 (here called A and B) is itself doubled by a parallel doubling (B' and A' might be read as a project of translation just as A and B are above). These structural observations are perhaps a collective key to interpreting this third verse.<br />
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* ''Record-making and testimony.'' As mentioned above, the chiastic center of Nephi's first three verses is a grammatical inversion of every other step of the chiasm. In other words, whereas verses 1 and 2 unite with the second and third statements of verse 3 in a project of subordinating (grammatically) knowledge to the record Nephi makes, this central (most important?) statement subordinates (again, grammatically) the record to Nephi's knowledge: "And I know that the record which I make is true." Again, it might be said that the great majority of Nephi's three-verse introduction to his story understands Nephi's "knowledge" (and "learning" and "language") to be sublimated (or at least spoken) in the text is writes. At the same time, however, the most central message of that same three-verse introduction is a reversal of this sublimation: the record gathers itself up in Nephi's testimonial "I know," is sublimated (or, again, at least spoken) in the knowledge he has. In short, the complex structure written into Nephi's first three verses suggests a sort of dialectic of testimony: knowledge is channeled into a text, and a text is channeled into knowledge. Record-making and knowing are undeniably--even if impossibly--interwoven in Nephi's introduction. The LDS theme of "testimony" might well be re-read through these verses, in a reading that appears to adhere carefully to the implied roots of the Hebrew term for testimony, ''`dwt'' (from a root that arguably means to carve or engrave in stone).<br />
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* ''Another structure?'' If the comments above concerning the semi-independent clause near the beginning of verse 1 are taken into account, an alternate structure for Nephi's first three verses emerges, recasting the function of this third verse. If Nephi's ungrammatical "therefore I was taught somewhat in all the learning of my father" is taken as an independent clause, then six statements (rather than five) precipitate out of 1 Nephi 1:1-3. Moreover, the sixth component of the surface structure of Nephi's introduction would disassemble the chiasm and replace it with an entirely different structure:<br />
A I was taught somewhat<br />
B I make a record<br />
C I make a record<br />
A' I know (that the record is true)<br />
B' I make it<br />
C' I make it<br />
Such a reading would make verse 3 a wholesale doubling of verses 1 and 2. Further, the two parallelisms mentioned in the chiastic reading would be switched ("with mine own hand" would parallel Nephi's fourfold life experience, and "according to my knowledge" would parallel the "language of my father"). Perhaps most important, Nephi's testimony ("I know that the record which I make is true") would here be parallel to his learning ("therefore I was taught somewhat in all the learning of my father"). Both of these parallel statements work out Nephi's "knowledge," perhaps strengthening this structural reading of these three verses.<br />
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=== Verses 1-3 ===<br />
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* ''Teaching as an impossibility.'' Nephi's first three verses should be read as a single literary unit (marked separate from and yet tied inextricably to verse 4 by the latter's introductory "For"). However, the comments collected above suggest that this "single literary unit" is bound together by an undeniable tension. At the root of this tension is the ungrammatical interruption early in the first verse: "therefore I was taught somewhat in all the learning of my father." Not only does this phrase break with the grammatical structure of the first verse, thereby setting up a syntactical tension, it forces a double semantic (better: structural) tension into the whole three verse introduction, as laid out in the comments above. In other words, what might have otherwise been a very straightforward three-verse introduction on how and why Nephi wrote his record is disturbed, unbalanced, perhaps even frustrated, and precisely in Nephi's having been "taught." It is not too much to say that Nephi's introductory text puts on display how the "simple" dialectical process of record-making is grounded on the violent, aporetic, and yet necessary work of "being taught." The implications of Nephi's "ungrammar" are rich, but remain to be worked out at length.<br />
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=== Verse 4 ===<br />
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* ''Zedekiah's reign.'' Zedekiah's reign marks the historical beginning of the story, but it probably should not be assumed that Nephi's text therefore "legitimizes" him. In fact, the text draws an important parallel that, to some degree, de-legitimizes him: whereas this verse portrays the enthroned Zedekiah as surrounded with prophets speaking disparaging messages, verse 8 will portray a parallel God upon His throne, surrounded with angels who sing and shout praises to Him. The comparison might well betray Nephi's attitude towards the king.<br />
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== Points to ponder ==<br />
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''This heading is for prompts that suggest ways in which all or part of this passage can influence a person's life. Click the link above and to the right to edit or add content to this heading. →''<br />
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== I have a question ==<br />
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''This heading is for unanswered questions and is an important part of the continual effort to improve this wiki. Please do not be shy, as even a basic or "stupid" question can identify things that need to be improved on this page. Click the link above and to the right to edit or add content to this heading. →''<br />
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===Verse 1===<br />
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* ''Colophon.'' Was Hugh Nibley right about these introductory verses being a colophon? Is this literary structure or formula unique to Nephi in the Book of Mormon or did other authors use colophons throughout the Book of Mormon also? Do you agree with [http://frontpage2000.nmia.com/~nahualli/LDStopics/1Nephi/1Nephi1.htm John A. Tvedtnes or Brant Gardner] on this point?<br />
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* ''"born of goodly parents."'' How many people are included in the Nephi's use of the word parents? How many of these parents gave birth to him? Can parents mean more than just mother and father? Does the use of parents in [[Alma 30:25]] provide a possible answer?<br />
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* ''"in all the learning of my father."'' How does Nephi's phrase compare with this description of the sons of Mosiah: "And he caused that they should be taught in all the language of his fathers" ([[Mosiah 1:2]])? Does this mean the sons of Mosiah received most of their lessons from someone other than their father? If the phrasing of these two passages is so similar, does that suggest that Nephi also received some of his religious training from a teacher who was not his father?<br />
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* ''Nature of Nephi's learning.'' Did anyone in Lehi's family have access to scriptures before Nephi and his brothers obtained the brass plates from Laban? If they did not have access to sacred texts, what was Nephi studying in his youth? How likely is it that Lehi and Nephi were part of an oral tradition? Does [[2 Ne 33:1]] contain any clues about Nephi's feelings about spoken texts versus written texts?<br />
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* ''Afflictions and blessings.'' How can this verse be used to deepen understanding of the themes of afflictions and blessings throughout 1 Nephi?<br />
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* ''"having seen many afflictions."'' Whose afflictions might Nephi have witnessed?<br />
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* ''Learning equals language?'' What is the relationship between the learning of Nephi's father in [[1 Ne 1:1]] and the language of Nephi's father in [[1 Ne 1:2]]?<br />
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* ''Intended introduction?'' As we know from [[Words of Mormon]], [[D&C 3]], and [[D&C 10]], Mormon did not intend the Book of Mormon to begin as it does now. How does this verse, in its "usurped" position, change the way we might otherwise read the Book of Mormon? How would the Book of Mormon be different if, for example, it began with an introduction to the whole text by Mormon?<br />
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* ''"therefore I make a record."'' How might we here understand Nephi's purpose or motivation in writing? How do Nephi's other explanations for this record (as contained in this verse) compare with the purposes listed in [[1 Ne 9]] and [[1 Ne 19]]? How might we understand this statement while also considering that Nephi later wrote, "the Lord hath commanded me to make these plates for a wise purpose in him, which purpose I know not" in [[1 Ne 9:5]]?<br />
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* ''Tense.'' Nephi uses phrases like "having been" and "make a record" in the same sentence, mixing past tense with present tense. Why might Nephi be doing this? Is this intentional? (ie. are we looking at an instance of [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enallage enallage]?)<br />
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* ''Memory.'' If Nephi is writing this record several years after the fact, how does this affect his memory of past events? If Nephi is writing with the benefit of hindsight, how does that affect Nephi's explanation of how and why things happened?<br />
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* ''Autobiography?'' What did Nephi mean in [[1 Ne 1:17]] when he said that "after I have abridged the record of my father then will I make an account of mine own life?" Does that mean Nephi did not consider this verse autobiographical? Or was this brief introduction something less than an "account"?<br />
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* ''Concepts of Time.'' Why does Nephi shift from the event of one day, to things that happened in the course of days, to things that happened every day, to mysteries that may transcend time? Is this a progression of some sort? Is Nephi making a distinction between different measures of time when he talks about "my days"? Does [[Jacob 7:26]] offer any insights into how Nephi and his contemporaries conceptualized time?<br />
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===Verse 2===<br />
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* ''Double cultures.'' Nephi here introduces the difficulties of translation into his still untranslated text: his work is a crossing of two cultures? How does this internal theme of translation bear on questions of Joseph's work of translating the Book of Mormon? Does this double culture of Nephi's work affect how it should be read?<br />
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* ''"Yea."'' Nephi begins this verse with "Yea," implying that this verse is a validation of the first verse. How does this verse meet up with the first?<br />
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* ''"the language of my father."'' Is Nephi implying that his father was bi-literate? Did Lehi have experience producing written texts in reformed Egyptian? Or did Nephi primarily pick up this skill from the brass plates?<br />
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* ''"which" and "consists."'' What is the antecedent for "which" in this verse? Is it both "language" and "record"? Is it more likely that Nephi's "record" "consists" of "learning" and "language" or that his "language" "consists" of "learning" and "language"?<br />
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* ''Jews and Egyptians.'' What is Nephi's concept of these two groups at the time he writes this verse? Has Nephi already had the visions of 1 Ne. 13-15 by the time he puts these thoughts to paper? If so, how does his discussion of Jews in those chapters influence what he is saying here? Or is it possible that Nephi held those later understandings of Jews in abeyance while he wrote this verse, in an attempt to recreate the understanding of Jews he started out with?<br />
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* ''"I make a record."'' Technically speaking, would it have been more accurate for Nephi to have written, "I have been making a record"? Why might Nephi have used this wording?<br />
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* ''"learning of the Jews."'' Is there a qualitative difference between saying "learning of the Jews" and "the Jews' learning"?<br />
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* ''"the language of the Egyptians."'' Did Nephi think the Egyptians used only one language? Should the singular word "language" be read as referring to only one language? If Nephi had been aware that the Egyptians were multi-lingual, would he have necessarily used the word "languages" to refer to their spoken abilities?<br />
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* ''""the language" and "the learning."'' Is Nephi saying that Lehi's "language" consists of the entirety of these languages and learning? If Nephi's learning was "somewhat" in [[1 Ne 1:1]], is this contrasted with the completeness of his father's learning? Was Nephi just being humble, or did he really feel that his father's knowledge dwarfed his own?<br />
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===Verse 3===<br />
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* ''"The record . . . is true."'' What does Nephi mean when he calls this record true? Why does he emphasize that he made it with his own hands?<br />
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* ''"I make."'' By this point, Nephi has used the phrase "I make" five times. Why is he repeating himself so much? Where there some that would doubt that he was the maker of the plates? Was he just claiming authorship or did the fact that he was the maker of the plates provide him with another sort of authority?<br />
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* ''"I know."'' Did Nephi know in advance that, no matter what, his writings on the plates would always be true? Or is Nephi making this statement after having written enough of his record that he feels confident that everything on the plates will be true?<br />
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* ''"my knowledge."'' Is Nephi saying this knowledge belongs to him or that it is in his sole possession? How did Nephi suddenly shift from deferentially talking about "the language of my father" in the previous verse to speaking confidently about his own knowledge? Why did Nephi shift from referring to "a great knowledge . . . of God" (verse 1) to laying claim on what he called "my knowledge"?<br />
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* ''"make it according to my knowledge."'' Is Nephi saying he purposely designed the plates so they would correspond to his own knowledge? How would the meaning of this verse be different if Nephi had written "I make it with my knowledge" or "I make it as I am given knowledge"? Is Nephi implying in this verse that he takes responsibility for any mistakes, since the writing was based upon his own knowledge?<br />
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* ''"make it with my own hand."'' Later in this chapter, Nephi referes to "plates which I have made with mine own hands" ([[1 Ne 1:17]]). Why did he use the singular word "hand," rather than "hands," in this verse?<br />
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===Verse 4===<br />
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* ''"For it came to pass."'' Why did Nephi use a five-word phrase that appears only three other times in the Book of Mormon ([[1 Ne 11:1]], [[Mosiah 26:6]], and [[Ether 6:2]])? Why did he not simply say "And it came to pass"?<br />
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* ''"commencement of the first year."'' Is Nephi being needlessly repetitive? Or is he trying to point to the first day, week, or month of the king's reign, as opposed to referring to the entire year? Was this first year in 600 or 598 B.C.?<br />
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* ''"commencement . . . of the reign of Zedekiah."'' With the exception of [[1 Ne 5]], which also mentions Zedekiah, why is this the only instance of the word commencement in the Book of Mormon until [[Alma 2:1]]? Did the authors of the small plates of Nephi assume that "commencement" was a concept that applied to kings in Judah and not to political leaders in the promised land? Or were words and concepts that applied to kings, like "commencement," reserved for the large plates of Nephi?<br />
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* ''"it."'' Is there supposed to be an antecedent for this word? Or is Nephi just using a formulaic phrase?<br />
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* ''"in that same year."'' Is Nephi saying prophets came throughout the year, even though he opened the verse by presumably referring to the beginning of the year? Does Nephi's reference to the year, once again, indicate he was beginning a new sentence?<br />
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* ''"dwelt at Jerusalem in all his days."'' Is Nephi saying Lehi had never before left Jerusalem? Or is he saying Lehi's residence was at Jerusalem, even if he sometimes went on trips that took him away from the city. Is Nephi implying that Lehi has never called another place home? What clues does the phrase "the land of our forefathers" ([[Alma 7:10]]) hold for answering these questions?<br />
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* ''"all his days."'' Why does Nephi use days, rather than years, to measure the age of his father? Why does the phrase "his years" never appear in the Book of Mormon? Was Nephi starting a new pattern upon the plates for measuring age? Was he borrowing the practice from an ancient source? Is the frequent use of the phrase "his days" in the Book of Ether the result of Moroni's abridgement?<br />
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* ''Parentheses.'' Is this an example of a parenthetical expression in Nephi's writing, even though this piece of punctuation did not originate with Nephi? How does the phrase about Lehi dwelling in Jerusalem qualify or explain the clause that preceded it?<br />
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* ''"king of Judah."'' When Nephi points out that his father has dwelt at Jerusalem his entire life, while in the middle of saying that Zedekiah has been king for less than a year, is he trying to say that Lehi also lived under the previous kings? Who were the kings of Judah during Lehi's lifetime? What age was Lehi under Josiah's reign, which ended only eleven years before Zedekiah became king? How were Lehi's religious views, Laban's possession of the plates, and Nephi's religious training affected by the religious reforms of king Josiah?<br />
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* ''"dwelt at Jerusalem."'' What other indications do we have, besides [[1 Chr 9:3]], that descendants of Ephraim and Manessah lived in Jerusalem? To what extent were they outnumbered by the descendants of Judah and Benjamin who also lived in Jerusalem? What were relations like between the descendants of these four tribes who all lived in Jerusalem?<br />
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* ''"in that same year there came many prophets."'' Why is Nephi noting the presence of these prophets? Was it typical or unusal for Jerusalem to have "many" prophets in its midst? Is Nephi saying several prophets suddenly arrived on the scene when Zedekiah took office? Who else besides Jeremiah, Habakkuk, and Ezekiel (who are listed on page 639 of the Bible Dictionary), was on Nephi's list of prophets at the time? Have LDS scholars often overlooked Urijah (see [[Jer 26:20]]) as one these prophets? What reasons do we have for assuming that Zenos and Zenock either were or were not among these prophets? What do we know about the lineage of these prophets? How manhy of the prophets were descendants of Ephraim and Manessah? Were prophets with ties to the north, as opposed to those descended from Judah or Benjamin, more likely to antagonize listeners in Jerusalem?<br />
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* ''"prophets."'' What is the connection between these prophets and the religious establishment in Jerusalem? Did the "churches" in Jersualem recognize the administrative authority of these prophets? Do you agree with [http://frontpage2000.nmia.com/~nahualli/LDStopics/1Nephi/1Nephi1.htm Brant Gardner's argument] that it is "highly unlikely" that these prophets were "part of the officially recognized religions governing bodies"? Did Jerusalem have a long tradition of requiring prophets to live on the outskirts of society?<br />
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* ''"the people . . . must repent."'' What was it that the people of Jerusalem needed to repent of? Had they abandoned the religious reforms of Josiah after only four decades? Was it their rejection of prophets that had necessitated their repentance? Had they already abandoned and forgotten the law of Moses? Had the only copies of the scriptures fallen into the hands of wicked people? Are these some of the reasons why Nephi later realizes that his descendants would be unable to follow the law of Moses unless he obtained the plates from Laban (see [[1 Ne 4]])?<br />
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* ''"prophesying . . . they must repent, or . . . be destroyed."'' Where did Nephi obtain this combination of words? If the words prophesy, repent, and destroy (as well as their variants) do not appear together in any biblical verses, does that mean Nephi was the first to use them jointly? If most of the other appearances in the Book of Mormon of this combination occur in the Book of Ether ([[Mosiah 12:8]], [[Ether 7:23]], and [[Ether 11:12]]), does that mean Moroni borrowed Nephi's phraseology while abriding the Jaredite record or that the Jaredite authors and Nephi were both borrowing from a more ancient source?<br />
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* ''"or the great city Jerusalem must be destroyed."'' Why does Nephi (or the prophets he is paraphrasing) change the repent or be destroyed formula? Why does he/they not follow the much more common example in scripture, in which prophets tell the people they will be destroyed if they do not repent (e.g., [[Mosiah 12:8]], [[Alma 37:22]], and [[Ether 7:23]])? Were the prophets in Jerusalem partially letting their listeners off the hook by telling them it was their city, and not them, that would be destroyed? Or was it the Lord who changed the formula in this instance, because he "had compassion on his people" ([[2 Chr 36:15]])? Or is Lehi's later comment, "had we remained in Jerusalem we should also have perished" ([[2 Ne 1:4]]), an indication that it was both the land of Jerusalem and its inhabitants who faced imminent destruction? How closely does this verse in 1 Ne. 1 parallel [[Hel 7:28]], which says "And except ye repent ye shall perish; yea, even your lands shall be taken from you, and ye shall be destroyed from off the face of the earth." At what point did it become inevitable that Jerusalem would be destroyed?<br />
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* ''"the people."'' Who exactly was Nephi referring to when he used the phrase "the people"? Did every single inhabitant of Jerusalem have great need to repent? Was the city completely wicked? Was there no one left who followed the law of Moses? How sincere and thorough was the religious reform that happened forty years earlier if everyone was now wicked? Were there any exceptions to this apparently uniform wickedness? If Ishmael's family and Laban's servant Zoram can be considered at least partial exceptions to Nephi's characterization, does that mean there were other, scattered inhabitants of Jerusalem who were at least somewhat righteous? What evidence do we have that some of the people in Jerusalem actually repented? Should we assume that the only people in Jersualem who repented are the ones who joined Lehi in his exodus to the promised land?<br />
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* ''Mulekites.'' Were the ancestors of the people of Zarahemla, who "came out from Jerusalem at the time" of Zedekiah's reign ([[Omni 1:15]]), converted when they heard the preaching of the "many prophets" mentioned in this verse? If so, did these prophets realize that the Mulekites were converted by their preaching?<br />
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== Resources ==<br />
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''This heading is for listing links and print resources, including those cited in the notes. A short comment about the particular strengths of a resource can be helpful. Click the link above and to the right to edit or add content to this heading. →''<br />
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===Incoming Cross-References Not Listed in The Footnotes for These Verses===<br />
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* ''Verse 1:'' [[Job 1:5]], [[Hel 5:6]], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/gs/f/6 GS Father, Mortal], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/gs/k/9 GS Knowledge], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/gs/m/62 GS Mysteries of God], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/gs/n/15 GS Nephi, Son of Lehi], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/gs/t/5 GS Teach, Teacher], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/tg/b/152 TG Born], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/tg/f/39 TG Father], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/tg/g/98 TG Goodly], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/tg/l/47 TG Learn, Learning], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/tg/m/43 TG Marriage, Fatherhood], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/tg/p/12 TG Parent], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/tg/t/24 TG Teaching, Teach, Taught], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/in/b/93 IN Born], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/in/f/24 IN Father], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/in/f/27 IN Favored], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/in/g/65 IN God, Goodness of], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/in/g/78 IN Goodly], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/in/l/49 IN Learning], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/in/n/30 IN Nephi], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/in/p/20 IN Parent], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/in/r/37 IN Record], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/in/t/15 IN Teach, Taught]<br />
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* ''Verse 2:'' [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/gs/n/15 GS Nephi, Son of Lehi], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/tg/j/77 TG Jew, Jewish], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/in/e/18 IN Egyptian], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/in/j/61 IN Jew, Jewish], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/in/l/26 IN Language], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/in/n/30 IN Nephi]<br />
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* ''Verse 3:'' [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/gs/n/15 GS Nephi, Son of Lehi], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/tg/h/14 TG Hand], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/in/h/12 IN Hand]<br />
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* ''Verse 4:'' [[2 Kgs 23:27]], [[Ps 79:3]], [[Jer 13:14]], [[Jer 21:7]], [[1 Ne 2:13]], [[1 Ne 17:22]], [[Hel 5:6]], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/gs/j/19 GS Jerusalem], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/gs/n/11 GS Nebuchadnezzar], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/gs/n/15 GS Nephi, Son of Lehi], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/gs/z/5 GS Zedekiah], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/bd/z/11 BD Zedekiah], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/tg/d/92 TG Destroy], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/tg/r/59 TG Reign], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/in/d/67 IN Destruction, Destroy], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/in/j/32 IN Jerusalem], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/in/j/87 IN Judah], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/in/r/75 IN Repentance, Repent], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/in/z/8 IN Zedekiah], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/biblephotos/8 Photograph: Jerusalem]<br />
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===Verse 1===<br />
* ''A great knowledge of the goodness of God.'' [http://www.lds.org/conference/talk/display/0,5232,23-1-14-2,00.html Neal A. Maxwell (GC 1999)] contrasts Laman & Lemuel's lack of faith with Nephi's great faith in God's goodness. <br />
* ''Mysteries of God''<br />
** See [[1 Ne 2:16]] for an explanation by Nephi of how he gained knowledge of the mysteries of God.<br />
** See [[1 Ne 10:19]] where Nephi teaches that one must diligently seek to find the mysteries of God.<br />
** See [[Mosiah 1:3]] where Mosiah teaches his sons that without the scriptural record they could not know the mysteries of God.<br />
** See [[Mosiah 2:9]] where Mosiah starts his talk to his people with an invitation listen to him and open their ears, hearts and minds they they may learn the mysteries of God.<br />
** See the entry on [http://scriptures.lds.org/gsm/mystrsfg mysteries of God] in the <i>Guide to the Scriptures</i>. <br />
* [http://bomgroupies.wordpress.com/2007/03/01/nephi-and-the-mysteries/ "Nephi and the Mysteries"] A discussion of Nephi's interest in the Mysteries of God by the Book of Mormon Groupies.<br />
* [http://teachyediligently.mypodcast.com/2008/05/On_Scripture_Study-111110.html Podcast] of Joe Spencer exploring 1 Nephi 1:1 with a local Relief Society.<br />
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== Notes ==<br />
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''Footnotes are not required but are encouraged for factual assertions that average readers cannot easily evaluate for themselves, such as the date of King Solomon’s death or the nuanced definition of a Greek word. In contrast, insights rarely benefit from footnoting, and the focus of this page should always remain on the scriptures themselves rather than what someone has said about them. Links are actively encouraged on all sections of this page, and links to authoritative sources are preferable to footnotes.''<br />
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[[First Nephi 1 | Previous page: Chapter 1]] &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; [[1 Ne 1:5-15 | Next page: Verses 1:5-15]]</div>Sterlinghttp://feastupontheword.org/1_Ne_1:1-41 Ne 1:1-42014-01-19T20:57:23Z<p>Sterling: /* Nephi's Four "Having's" */ goodness and mysteries</p>
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<div>[[The Book of Mormon]] > [[First Nephi]] > [[First Nephi 1-2 | Chapters 1-2]] > [[First Nephi 1 | Chapter 1]] > [[1 Ne 1:1-4 | Verses 1:1-4]] <br><br />
[[First Nephi 1 | Previous page: Chapter 1]] &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; [[1 Ne 1:5-15 | Next page: Verses 1:5-15]]<br />
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This page would ideally always be under construction. You are invited to contribute.<br />
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== Summary ==<br />
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''This heading should be brief and may include an outline of the passage. Click the link above and to the right to edit or add content to this heading. →''<br />
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The relationship of verses 1-4 to the rest of Chapter 1 is discussed at [[First Nephi 1 | Chapter 1]].<br />
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== Discussion ==<br />
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''This heading is for more detailed discussions of all or part of a passage. Discussion may include the meaning of a particular word, how a doctrinal point is developed throughout the passage, insights to be developed in the future, and other items. Contributions may range from polished paragraphs down to a single bullet point. The focus, however, should always be on understanding the scriptural text consistent with LDS doctrine. Click the link above and to the right to edit or add content to this heading. →''<br />
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===Verse 1===<br />
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* ''Goodly'' According to Webster's 1828, [http://65.66.134.201/cgi-bin/webster/webster.exe?search_for_texts_web1828=goodly goodly] means "Being of a handsome form; beautiful; graceful; as a goodly person; goodly raiment; goodly houses." In this context it may mean "well-off." ''Goodly'' is used only once more in the Book of Mormon, [[Mosiah 18:7]]: there were a goodly number gathered together at the place of Mormon. It is used twice in the Doctrine and Covenants: [[D&C 97:9]] & [[D&C 99:7]]. There the meaning is ''beautiful'' or ''fair''. It is also used with this same meaning many times in the Old and New Testaments.<br />
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* ''On introducing.'' The "therefore" with which Nephi begins the final phrase of verse 1 marks his introductory verses (verses 1-3) as apologetic: this is ''why'' I am writing, all of what I just mentioned ''justifies'' taking up this project. The logic of Nephi's apologetic introduction is surprising because though he will later explicitly mention a divine commandment to produce the text ([[2 Ne 5:31]]), he makes no such reference here. Instead, he founds his text on the circumstances of his life. Nephi makes cites his experiences as of enough significance to justify writing scripture. Given this, Nephi's brief autobiography in verse 1--what we will see is essentially his reading of those very experiences--should be read with incredible care.<br />
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===Possible Structures===<br />
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* ''Serial structure.'' If one looks at Nephi's autobiographical sketch for a textual structure, the repeating word ''having'' immediately suggests its own importance: every phrase (except the ungrammatical "therefore I was taught somewhat in all the learning of my father," which can only be dealt with after some structural clarity is achieved) begins with the term. If ''having'' is read as the structural key to the passage, most likely therefore to be read as a progressive series, then it might be rendered thus (with connectives set between phrases):<br />
(1) having been born of goodly parents<br />
and<br />
(2) having seen many afflictions in the course of my days<br />
nevertheless<br />
(3) having been highly favored of the Lord in all my days<br />
yea<br />
(4) having had a great knowledge of the goodness and the mysteries of God<br />
<br />
* ''Chiastic structure.'' No sooner is the structure laid out as a series of ''having'''s than some obvious parallelistic structures suggest themselves. Most visible perhaps is the parallel ''my days'' occurring in (2) and (3). Not quite so striking at first is the parallelism formed by (1) and (4) by their use of different manifestations of the word ''good'', ''goodly'' and ''goodness'' respectively. This double parallel of first with last and second with penultimate suggests the passage be read as a chiasm (perhaps with even the ''and'' between (1) and (2) parallel to the ''yea'' between (3) and (4)). Rendered chiastically, the autobiographical sketch would look thus:<br />
A having been born of ''goodly'' parents<br />
B ''and''<br />
C having seen many afflictions in the course of my ''days''<br />
D nevertheless<br />
C' having been highly favored of the Lord in all my ''days''<br />
B' ''yea''<br />
A' having had a great knowledge of the ''goodness'' and the mysteries of God<br />
<br />
* ''Double parallel structure.'' The parallel drawn out above as B and B' further suggests another structural reading of the passage. Both ''and'' and ''yea'' suggest a doubling, a repetition. In other words, A and C might well be read parallelistically, as might A' and C'. The autobiographical sketch would then become a parallel set of parallelisms, mediated by the central ''nevertheless''. In short, the passage might be schematized thus:<br />
A having been born of goodly parents<br />
B and<br />
A' having seen many afflictions in the course of my days<br />
C nevertheless<br />
D having been highly favored of the Lord in all my days<br />
B' yea<br />
D' having had a great knowledge of the goodness and the mysteries of God<br />
<br />
The interpretive comments below follow each of the above three structural readings in turn.<br />
<br />
===Nephi's First "Having"===<br />
<br />
* ''Birth and learning.'' Nephi's first ''having'', taken in its full and ungrammatical rendering, ties together two vital clues to Nephi's record: his birth and his learning. He immediately qualifies his birth with mention of his "goodly parents." ''Goodly'' here is often read as though its meaning is the same as ''good.'' But if we read ''goodly'' as meaning wealthy (see lexical note above), we see Nephi recognizing that it was because of his parent's wealth that he was able to be taught "somewhat in ''all'' the learning of [his] father" (emphasis added).<br />
<br />
* ''Teaching and learning.'' Nephi calls upon two important if oddly balanced terms to describe his early education: ''taught'' and ''learning''. While a sort of opposition between teaching and learning might at first be read into the text, a careful reading reveals that this opposition is far too simplistic: the learning Nephi mentions is not his own, but his father's, and even as Nephi is the one taught, the verb is used passively ("I was taught somewhat") so that the teacher is cloaked and the act of teaching is therefore uprooted when set into the text. No simplistic scheme of Lehi teaching and Nephi learning is suggested at all in the text. The tie between the two terms, moreover, is prepositional: Nephi's being taught is "in" the learning of Lehi. This emphasizes an important fact: the term, "learning," in the text is a noun, a ''thing''. Whatever Lehi's learning consists of, it is clear from the text that it already consists, that it already stands together, that it is complete enough to be taught, named, or pointed out. And this nominal completion of Lehi's learning stands textually against the apparently incomplete studies of Nephi: "I was taught ''somewhat'' in all the learning of my father." While all of this sets up some possibilities for interpreting Nephi's brief report of his education, some more detailed consideration of the terms involved is warranted.<br />
<br />
* ''Lehi's learning.'' While Nephi later (in verse 2) speaks of the "language of my father, which consists of the learning of the Jews and the language of the Egyptians," it is not yet clear how that should be read against the more simple "learning of my father" of verse 1. More fruitful for getting started, perhaps, is a brief consideration of the term, ''learning''. The English word, "learning," derives from an Indo-European root, ''leis'', meaning a track or a furrow. To learn is etymologically to follow a track, a pathway already (and not recently) cut out, already trod for some time. The pre-existence of whatever is trod, bound up in the word "to learn," is also not unfamiliar to the Hebrew root ''lqch'', the root behind the word most commonly translated in KJV as "learning": ''lqch'' means to take, to seize, even to steal, always implying the pre-existence of whatever is taken, seized, stolen. Certainly Lehi's learning implies that he takes up a way that has been trod for a long while before him. But the English and the Hebrew both imply still more: both "to learn" and ''lqch'' emphasize a sort of solitude. While teaching implies an instructor and an instructed, the learner comes upon a pathway that ''has been'' trod, but that might now be completely empty, and most likely is without a guide. That ''lqch'' can mean to steal certainly reinforces the lonely character of Lehi's learning: it might well be suggested that Lehi's learning, in which Nephi was taught, was a very solitary project.<br />
<br />
* ''Nephi's being taught.'' If Lehi's learning is a work of solitude, the lonely work of following the long-since-left-behind, Nephi's being taught is imbued with the spirit of a face to face encounter, perhaps even characterized by a sort of violence as well. The English word, "teach," is etymologically related to "touch," as is "didactic" to "tactile." To teach is to point out, to put one's finger onto something. Whereas Lehi seems to come upon something abandoned, which he must attempt to bring back to life in self-disciplined learning, Nephi has a living someone who stands before him, who points out what is to be learned, who gives tasks to the student. This "being taught" on Nephi's part well reflects the broad meaning of the Hebrew term for teaching, ''lmd'', to train, to develop skills in oneself or another. Nephi learns through another, through an actual engagement. The ambiguity of such an engagement (one engages the enemy, and one is engaged to a future spouse) is suggestive: Nephi learns through a work of desire both to submit and to overpower, wraps his arms about his teach both to embrace and to wrestle ("touching" in being "taught"). Lehi's learning is the work of an archaeologist; Nephi's being taught is the work of a disciple. <br />
<br />
* ''Toward the relation between Nephi and Lehi.'' The foregoing comments on Nephi's first ''having'', besides destructuring the father-son teaching situation, work out provisional meanings for three words: "goodly", being "taught", and "learning". The meanings worked out are provisional precisely in that they remain in the above comments extratextual: they have not been read back into the text, but provide a framework for just such a (re)reading. However, before such a reading can proceed, something of the interpersonal dynamics at play in this first ''having'' must be worked out, so that there is ''something'' to read these words back into. In other words, because "goodly" qualifies "parents", because "taught" qualifies "I", because "learning" qualifies--this last in a very broad sense--"father", the interrelatedness of Nephi ("I"), his "parents" and his "father" must be worked out before the meanings of their qualifying words can be read into the text. It should be noted at the same time that a preliminary working out of the interpersonal dynamics of Nephi's first ''having'' will also be provisional: like the working out of the meaning of the qualifying words, a working out of these dynamics is an abstraction of text, drawing out the persons without the words that qualify them. Hence, the complex interpersonal dynamics of this first ''having'' (it is unique among the four ''having'''s) require a second abstraction in addition to the first one worked out above. The two must then be read against and into each other for a more complete reading of the phrase.<br />
<br />
* ''On proper names.'' The first and most obvious aspect of the interpersonal dynamics of Nephi's first ''having'' to be considered is the function of the proper name. Whereas Nephi's first verse opens with the overwhelming announcement of the prophet's own proper name, the remainder of the three-verse preface to Nephi's text is, from then on, void of any other proper names for any (earthly) person ("the Lord" might be a proper name, "YHWH", though it names God; "the Jews" and "the Egyptians" might also be argued to be proper names, but each apparently names a collective--they are both plural). This absence of proper names is most striking in Nephi's first ''having'', where he makes explicit mention of both his "parents" and his "father", but without any proper names. The comments above have overlooked this, drawing the names of Lehi and Sariah, of course, from the actual body of the Nephite text. The point raises two questions, one of which cannot be fully examined until after full consideration of Nephi's autobiographical sketch. This question to be postponed is, indeed, as broad as Nephi's autobiographical sketch: what does Nephi's announcement of his proper name accomplish in the text? The other question, to be dealt with presently, concerns rather the unnamed in the text: what does the lack of proper names for Lehi and Sariah in this first ''having'' accomplish?<br />
<br />
* ''On the lack of proper names.'' Lehi and Sariah pass into Nephi's first ''having'' unnamed. Perhaps Lehi and Sariah, just for that reason, pass out of Nephi's first ''having''. At any rate, the weight of this lack--the lack of the weight--of proper names in this first autobiographical reading is most significant, is a sign that marks something important at play in the text. A first consequence of the unnamedness of Nephi's "parents" and "father" is a sort of delay, a sort of suspension: Lehi and Sariah are kept out of the preface, though they are mentioned--and hence present--in the same. They are, oddly enough, both included and excluded from Nephi's autobiography. But this duplicity--presence and yet non-presence--is precisely what is in question in Nephi's first ''having'': this first autobiographical reading is the prophet's exploration of the borders between himself and his parents, that strange no man's land where Nephi ends and his parents and father begin. As has been mentioned above, this first ''having'' is an exploration of ''influence'', of the "in-flowing" of Sariah and Lehi. And Nephi's text reads this influence as an unnamed presence. In other words, Nephi's text embodies the complex influence of parents and father on son: thoroughly, unquestioningly, overwhelmingly, perhaps suffocatingly present, and yet unnamed, unrecognized, unrealized, perhaps entirely unthought. More: parents and father are so absolutely present, in and through all things, that they are not only unnamed but unnamable, not only unrecognized but unrecognizable, etc. <br />
<br />
* ''The theme of separation.'' The relation implied between Nephi and his parents/father, then, is ultimately not a question of presence and non-presence. Nephi's first ''having'', precisely because it writes them without names, reads Sariah and Lehi as completely saturating Nephi's experience, not as perpetual presences, but rather as the element of which Nephi is made. Nephi reads himself as a (re)presentation of his parents/father: they live (continually?) in his living. Hence it would appear that there is no separation between Nephi and his parents/father in the first ''having''. However, the very first verb this ''having'' employs is one of separation. Nephi in fact opens this first self-reading with mention of the most primordial act of separation possible: the umbilical cord is cut with his "having been born." As a result, a complex tension enters into the very first phrase of Nephi's text: Nephi is, according to the text, at once inseparable from his parents/father and entirely separated from his parents/father. The first interpersonal dynamic, the first written relation between Nephi and his parents/father, is a double separation/inseparability between them.<br />
<br />
* ''A progressive inseparability/separation.'' The situation is made more complex by the fact that the theme of separation is taken up again in the second half of the first ''having'': "therefore I was taught somewhat in all the learning of my father." As mentioned above, though a teacher is implied, his or her identity is cloaked, so that the phrase draws upon an implied distance between Nephi and Lehi. As separate as they might have become through Nephi's birth, the teaching situation later in life suggests that this separation only grew. The inferential character of the connecting "therefore" seems to confirm this growing distance. However, at the same time, Nephi's teaching is precisely "in" his father's learning: even as the separation between son and parents/father grows, so does the inseparability between them. The tension introduced in the first part of Nephi's first ''having'' is doubled, strengthened, and confirmed in the second part. The relation between Nephi and his parents/father is remarkably difficult.<br />
<br />
* ''The meaning of the tension.'' The textual rhythm of Nephi's first ''having'' may characterize this tension, may draw out its meaning. In both the first part (before the "therefore") and the second part (after the "therefore") of this first self-reading, the theme of separation comes first, so that it is, in each instance, countered by the theme of inseparability: "having been born [separation] of goodly parents [inseparability], therefore I was taught somewhat [separation] in all the learning of my father [inseparability]." The passage "feels" as if every attempt of Nephi to draw apart from his parents is countered by their overwhelming saturation of all that he does. In other words, in every attempt to live, Nephi lives his (still unnamed) parents. Stating the issue this way does not relieve the tension, but releases it from appearing as a contradiction: Nephi is separate just in that he embodies his parents, just in that he is inseparable from them. Hence, a first reading of Nephi's first (self-)reading: Nephi's collective experience is always from the standpoint of his a son who embodies his parents/father. Nephi encounters the world as his parents.<br />
<br />
* ''The teaching situation and separation.'' The interpersonal dynamics of Nephi's first ''having'' might now be read preliminarily, at last, in and against the meaningful words explored above. And, in fact, the important difference examined between Nephi's "being taught" and Lehi's "learning" bears powerfully on the theme of separation. In that that difference marks a difference between Nephi and Lehi, the separation between father and son might easily be read there. However, the question of separation grounds that same difference still more profoundly: the distinction between "being taught" (always face-to-face) and "learning" (always in solitude) was precisely a question of separation. In other words, the two terms bear their meaning precisely by taking up opposite ends of the tension between separation/inseparability. As a result, Nephi's teaching situation is in and of itself a double embodiment of that vital tension. First, Nephi's being taught--in face-to-face instruction--is a work of inseparability, fundamentally frustrated by the grammatical cloaking of the instructor, which marks Nephi's being taught with an undeniable character of separation. Second, because the content of the teaching is the learning of Lehi, Nephi's instruction at once marks him inseparable from his father (studying precisely the same things) and entirely separate (if he truly learns his father's learning, what is profoundly a work of solitude, of separation). Nephi's first ''having'' wonderfully puts on display Lehi's profound influence on him: always as himself, Nephi entirely presents his father.<br />
<br />
* ''Goodliness and separation.'' As pointed at at the very beginning of these comments on Nephi's first ''having'', the first self-reading of this autobiographical sketch (by employing the strong "therefore" at its center) draws upon the relation between the goodliness of Nephi's parents and his own later instruction. That broad relation now suggests that the theme of separation so powerfully embodied in the teaching situation should be read back into the goodliness of Lehi and Sariah. Or better, that goodliness should be read as the source of that eventually perfected tension of separation/inseparability. And it certainly does. If, as mentioned above, "goodly" is best read as marking the wealth or abundance of Nephi's parents, then the description the prophet's birth draws the theme of inheritance to bear powerfully on the present considerations: Nephi's first ''having'' casts him as an heir. The power of this insight emerges in the fact that inheritance is itself a perfect embodiment of the same tension of separation/inseparability. The heir is profoundly separate and absolutely inseparable from his or her benefactor. Nephi, as heir, is again marked entirely and always himself, even as he entirely and always (re-)presents his father. Perhaps most vital in all this: it is precisely the term "goodly" that draws this tension into the first half of Nephi's first ''having''.<br />
<br />
* ''Subverted inheritance.'' However, as soon as Nephi's first ''having'' is read through the theme of inheritance, the same theme is called into question: Nephi's relational "therefore" does not draw eventual wealth as the fruition of inheritance, but rather instruction. In other words, Nephi's inheritance is "only" an ''intellectual'' inheritance: he is heir to his father's learning. (This first ''having'', then, should probably be read with an eye to the later Lamanite claim to the right of inheritance.) Perhaps most important of all, this subversion of the traditional theme of inheritance further subverts the meaning of the term "goodly." The goodliness Nephi is concerned with might ultimately be the goodliness commonly read into this first verse of the Book of Mormon: Lehi and Sariah were folk of abundant faith, obedience, goodness, etc.<br />
<br />
* ''Nephi's relation, finally, to his parents.'' All of the above comments set up the relation between Nephi and his parents/father. In his first self-interpretation, Nephi reads himself fundamentally as heir to his father's learning, and that only through the instrumentality--the goodliness--of his parents. As heir, Nephi covers his parents over, in a sense, and yet manifests them perfectly: he manifests them in himself. Nephi reads himself not so much as drawing upon his parents' goodliness, but as re-working it, as re-presenting, as re-embodying it. Nephi himself is Lehi again, Lehi repeated, but now with the proper name of Nephi. If this first ''having'' is Nephi's attempt to read his beginnings, to interpret his origins, what he apparently finds is always only himself ("I, Nephi"), but always only his parents/father, as presented in himself. <br />
<br />
* ''The content of Lehi's learning.'' With this relation now established, wherein Nephi continually re-presents his father (and that especially in terms of "learning"), the way has been opened up to explore at last the actual content of Lehi's learning. However, the above comments have conclusively pointed away from such a task. It might be best to say that Nephi, precisely because he does not take the space to explicate his father's learning, sees this issue as inessential, perhaps immaterial. The point, as suggested by the above comments, of Nephi's first ''having'' is the role Lehi and Sariah play in Nephi's independent/dependent writing.<br />
<br />
===Nephi's Second "Having"===<br />
<br />
* ''On the way to "afflictions."'' Obviously the most important word in Nephi's second ''having'' is "afflictions." Curiously, the word does not take the grammatical position of subject in the clause; rather it functions as the direct object. As direct object, it becomes that towards which this second self-interpretation tends: the "many afflictions" of Nephi might best be understood as the ''horizon'' of this second autobiographical comment, not as the starting point. This is as much as to say that Nephi removes from himself (in the act of writing) the actual afflictions he suffered (he displaces them to his--and the reader's--horizon). He in fact does so, precisely by clothing them in a double event-ness: the afflictions comes to Nephi spatially (through his body: "having ''seen''") and temporally (in time: "in the course of my ''days''"). (It should be noted very clearly that only Nephi's second ''having'' has an undeniable event-ness about it: the static verbs of the other three ''havings'' set this second one forth as uniquely event-ual.) In other words, because Nephi characterizes his "many afflictions" as events (spatio-temporal happenings), they become for him and for the reader ''event-ual'', intended but still unreached. A first interpretive point for Nephi's second ''having'': the very key of this ''having'' ("afflictions") are the key precisely because they are what the whole phrase aims at, but does not yet reach.<br />
<br />
* ''On the way from "afflictions."'' Even as the grammatical structure of Nephi's second ''having'' sets the prophet's afflictions at a double remove as a spatio-temporal event-uality, another grammatical structure inherent in the same phrase cancels this distantiation. The "having" that marks the seeing (the spatial/bodily happening that is temporalized in the "course of [Nephi's] days") is a verbal that is, by the end of Nephi's first verse, caught up into the present work of writing. However absent or distant Nephi's afflictions are at the time of writing, they are one of his four self-interpretive reasons for writing at all. In other words, even as Nephi's second ''having'' marks itself as a way towards the many afflictions Nephi faced, the whole of the first verse unmistakably marks Nephi's entire introduction as a way from afflictions to writing. (As mentioned above, only this second ''having'' is ''explicitly'' event-ual. While the other three self-interpretations Nephi offers might be read as several ''groundings'' of Nephi's task of writing, this one, his second ''having'', seems best read as a sort of path or way towards the task of writing. That this ''having'' is temporalized by a "''course'' of... days" seems to underscore this point.) Though Nephi's afflictions appear event-ual and horizonal, they are nonetheless a sort of point of departure for Nephi.<br />
<br />
* ''On the (double) way of "afflictions."'' This duplicity of way, caught up into the double, tense grammatical structure of Nephi's second ''having'', suggests a sort of parallel between Nephi's first and second ''havings''. Even as this second ''having'' suggests a distance or a separation, the same is cancelled by a broader inseparability: the event-ual afflictions are the point of departure for Nephi's task of writing. This is not unlike the separation/inseparability theme of Nephi's first ''having''. The absolution of afflictions accomplished by the role of direct object is cancelled in that Nephi himself takes his departure from his bodily/temporal experience of afflictions. Again--as before--Nephi reads himself as a sort of re-embodiment (perhaps particularly in the task of writing) of afflictions he has seen, has witnessed (were they never his own afflictions?). At least this much is clear: there is a parallel structure to be read into Nephi's first two ''havings''.<br />
<br />
* ''"Seeing" afflictions.'' Nephi takes up his afflictions with a verb that might well be read as confirming the separation/inseparability theme already doubled with this second ''having''. Vision opens, quite singularly, the very possibility for the distinction between separation and inseparability (it might be precisely because the two opposites arise out of a singular that the tension explored in these comments is possible). Sight at once sets before the seer a world spectacle from which he or she might retire and at the same time locates the seer immediately in the world, most explicitly through the sheer physicality of the eyes with which one sees. Sight--or rather all the senses, perhaps corporeal existence itself and hence every verb (such as "having seen") that summons the body--then plays an important role in Nephi's second ''having'', important precisely because it--as a bodily verb--draws out this same tension of separation/inseparability. Whereas Nephi might have discussed afflictions he had once "had" or "experienced" or "gone through," his use of "having seen" suggests something more of his relation to his afflictions: Nephi's afflictions were at once something separate and remote from him (''"seen"'') and something that might be called his very setting or vantage point (from which he ''sees'' himself autobiographically).<br />
<br />
* ''The meaning of affliction.'' Though "affliction" seems a simple enough word, its literal meaning is perhaps more nuanced. The verb, "to afflict", comes into English from a Latin compound: ''ad-fligo'', literally "to strike against (towards)". Its primary meaning in usage was to dash something against another (or two things together) or (much the same) to knock down, strike down, or damage. Only metaphorically did the word come to mean to weaken, to discourage. Affliction was originally, then, bodily pain or torture. Before the word is taken in Nephi's text to mean something primarily "spiritual" or "mental," it should be considered in its physical originality. If Nephi means the word in a "spiritual" or "mental" sense, the violence implied in the literal meaning should not be missed. Moreover, the original "physical" meaning of the word always implies ''at least two'' "things," marked by the ''ad-'', the ''towards'' or ''against''. Too quick a reversion to the "spiritual" or "mental" reading of affliction might reduce affliction to a sort of solitary struggle rather than a literal clash of at least two things. The towards and against of affliction also point toward two parties--one who afflicts, and one who is afflicted. Affliction is more than suffering, it is a suffering caused by one towards another.<br />
<br />
* ''The corporeality of seeing and the physicality of afflictions.'' The corporeality of Nephi's "having seen" and the radical physicality of his mentioned "afflictions" come up against each other in an odd manner. While afflictions retreat into mental/spiritual meaning only metaphorically, sight and the eyes have a natural means of retreat (unlike the other four bodily senses) in one's ability to blink, to close off sight from bodily experience. And this means of visual escape is unique and significant. It is sight, for example, that makes sleep so bizarre a human state: the sleeper is open to the reality of the world in four ways, and what he or she hears, smells, tastes, or touches readily enters into the surreality of the dream. But the sleeper closes him- or herself off entirely from the world of sight. The eye's ability to retreat, to shut off the visual realm of the world, sets the corporeality of Nephi's principal verb in this second ''having'' against the radical physicality of the afflictions Nephi deals with: because he sees the afflictions, Nephi has some recourse to distance from them, has some means of retreat from the harsh reality of the bodily danger implicit in those afflictions. At least on the grammatical level, Nephi's second ''having'' at once presents a very real danger and an ability to flee the same.<br />
<br />
* ''The ambiguous nature of visual escape.'' Here an ambiguity in Nephi's language might well be considered: because the afflictions Nephi mentions in his second ''having'' are completely unqualified grammatically, it remains unclear whether the afflictions were things Nephi himself suffered, or whether the afflictions Nephi saw were afflictions others passed through to which the prophet was "merely" witness. The importance of this ambiguity arises most clearly in the light of Nephi's means of escape, because his ability as seer to shut his eyes is ultimately ambiguous as well. On the one hand, Nephi's visual escape might be read as a very real escape: if he closes his eyes to violence inflicted on himself, he holds out to some degree a sort of mastery over his enemies. His closed eyes would mark his willing martyrdom, a sort of absolute denial on his part to become involved (perhaps thereby doing damage to the meaning of afflictions as two things striking one another). On the other hand, Nephi's visual escape might be read as a sort of false escape: if he closes his eyes to violence inflicted on others, he marks himself a slave to his own weakness. His closed eyes would here mark him as one completely lacking the virtue of charity: he allows others to suffer while he closes his eyes. Two very different meanings of visual "escape", based on two very different meanings of the afflictions mentioned in the passage.<br />
<br />
* ''Nephi's apparently open eyes.'' The above two comments, however, work from an assumption that is unjustified based on Nephi's second ''having'': that Nephi closed his eyes. However, the fact that Nephi ''saw'' the afflictions marks with great importance the fact that Nephi could very easily and at any time have closed them: that he didn't is what should be emphasized here. As such, Nephi's open eyes (open to the ambiguous afflictions he mentions) require interpretation. Just as Nephi's grammar invites a double reading of visual escape, a double reading of Nephi's open eyes is warranted. If, on the one hand, the afflictions in question were Nephi's own, then his meeting them with open eyes would suggest his self-transcending courage, his unwillingness to take the escape of selfish retreat that would immortalize him as an innocent martyr. Apparently unconcerned with himself, Nephi--taking the afflictions, again, to be his own--was willing to engage (to love?) even his enemies, to wrestle with them, to crash against them in a very real sense, in a radical work of opening himself--his eyes--to them. If, on the other hand, the afflictions in question were not Nephi's, but those of others to which Nephi stood witness, then his open eyes mark his unquestionable charity. Unwilling, on this reading, to turn from the difficulties others faced, Nephi presents himself as one willing to engage (again, to love?) the innocent who suffer all about him. <br />
<br />
* ''Nephi's eyes as the double figure of love.'' Fortunately, the reader of Nephi's text is not forced to choose between these two possible readings of Nephi's open eyes. The two are allowed to work against and through each other. In fact, the two carry a very similar meaning in the end: love. Nephi's open eyes mark his unconcernedness with himself, his willingness to engage (on the one hand) his enemies and/or (on the other hand) his friends. In both cases, his self-transcendence is marked by his open eyes, but his regard or gaze that takes up both friend and enemy by the hand (hand to hand, whether in combat or in salutation). In fact, that Nephi leaves the afflictions he mentions in this second ''having'' ambiguous suggests that he wants his readers to feel the tension between both possible readings. The charity with which Nephi marks himself in this second self-interpretation is supposed to be felt as all-embracing, as touching both friends ''and'' enemies. On that account, Nephi's "having seen" imbues the figure of Nephi with love. It might, moreover, be noted that it is precisely afflictions that open Nephi's eyes (on either reading). Love itself might here be read ''as'' affliction: love is the inevitable drama of striking two things, two people, together. Love is the site of affliction, afflictions are the sight of love: in Nephi's seeing afflictions--in his seeing ''to'' afflictions--he encounters love. <br />
<br />
* ''Nephi's love as response.'' But as soon as one reads love into Nephi's second ''having'', the objection arises that Nephi never explicitly mentions love, that he only sets it forth negatively, under the figure of seeing ''afflictions''. In other words, that Nephi here interprets himself in terms of afflictions, apparently in an attempt to interpret himself in terms of charity, is oddly ironic. It might, on the one hand, mark Nephi's humility: he only suggests his charity negatively, through afflictions. On the other hand, this detail might set a sort of limit for the reading above: Nephi's love is not an absolute virtue, but one drawn out of him by the threat of the other, by afflictions. In a sense, then, that Nephi addresses his own charity through affliction serves to proscribe Nephi's love, to render it a response rather than a call. Nephi's eyes do not intend so much as they are intended and seeingly respond. In other words and in short, Nephi's second ''having'' might be read as a figure of responsive--even responsible--charity: Nephi's open eyes figure his response to the visible world, a world, apparently, of affliction.<br />
<br />
* ''Reanalyzing the parallel between first and second "havings".'' Nephi's second ''having'' is now seen as the prophet's confrontation with the fallen nature of the world, as his loving response to the presence of evil--of afflictions, many afflictions--in the world. And here, perhaps, the apparent parallel between this second ''having'' and the first falls apart. Whereas in the first ''having'', Nephi interprets himself as a reembodiment of his parents (thus being separate and inseparable from them), here it is clear that Nephi is not reading himself in terms of affliction, but in terms of his response to affliction. In other words, Nephi's entire first verse does not ultimately follow Nephi's journey from afflictions to writing, but from his response to afflictions to the task of writing. If this second ''having'' is to be read as privileged above the others for its event-ness, it is now clear that the event(s) Nephi here recounts is (are) not to be understood as experience(s) of affliction, but as response(s) to affliction. The one event Nephi cites on the way to the task of writing is his seeing, his open eyes in response to the wickedness of the world.<br />
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* ''Toward the course of Nephi's days.'' Given all of the above, Nephi's second ''having'' might be summarized thus: the only event Nephi calls upon in interpreting his life is his loving response (his open eyes) to the wickedness of the world. All that remains to be dealt with in this second ''having'' is the "course of [Nephi's] days." It is clear that this phrase plays an important role in the text, besides confirming the event-ual character of the second ''having''. A first, but very brief reading suggests that Nephi proscribes his charitable response within a sort of temporal enclosure (which might just be a consequence of the event-ual character of this ''having''). The word "course" is, however, not so perfectly simple. Its many meanings in [[http://65.66.134.201/cgi-bin/webster/webster.exe?search_for_texts_web1828=course|1828]] suggest that it should be read quite carefully. Two "concepts" seem to be inevitable: the word implies at least motion and method/order. (Etymology bears this out: "course" derives from Latin ''cursus'', which means an established track for running a race, hence motion and order.) Whatever Nephi means by the "course" of his days, it seems that it must inevitably be read through the double theme of motion and method.<br />
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* ''Course and death.'' But perhaps this double theme of motion and method already suggests a meaning. If Nephi's days are, as a course, understood to be a methodical procession towards an already decided end, then at least one very real possible meaning is clear: the "course" of Nephi's days ends with death. That Nephi may here be thinking of death is not to be thrown out because of the reality of the resurrection: passages throughout the Old Testament--especially in Ecclesiastes--see life as a working out of days on the way to death. (To say that the race ends with death is not at all to claim that there is nothing after the race.) If Nephi is indeed concerned with death here, then Nephi's reads his loving response, his interlocuted charity as an event at once opened up and foreclosed by the reality of death. In other words, that the event-ual ''having'' is the one tied specifically to the theme of death (a theme that rings well with the theme of affliction) suggests that event-ness itself arises out of death, that the event of charity is a response to the evil of death (even death through affliction). In short, Nephi in his second ''having'' seems to characterize himself as having lived toward his own death.<br />
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* ''One's days and the course of one's days.'' If the course Nephi describes is the procedural movement of his days toward death, it might be well to consider more exactly the word "days." That the word should not be understood here in any objective sense (e.g., to mean "twenty-four hour periods") is clear: Nephi marks the days as his, as belonging to him. In other words, Nephi does not read "days" as some objective thing he passes through, but rather understands "days" to be a sort of aspect of his experience: as ''his'' days, these days are the what through which Nephi experiences the events of affliction. Each day--lit by the light of day as opposed to night--is the light in which a certain afflicting event appeared (was seen). In fact, Nephi's seeing might well be extended to every event that came before his eyes in his "days." If this is what Nephi means by mentioning these days as his, then the meaning of the "course" of his "days" might become clearer. Nephi here reads his afflictions as punctuating an ordered procession of experiences, of events, a series of events that culminate in death--the event that anounces itself as the foreclosure of all other events, as the cessation of events. In other words, Nephi seems to read his life here as a series of witnessed events, as experiences he entered into bodily (even through his eyes), all tending toward the cessation of events and experiences, and all this punctuated often ("many") by afflictions, by--perhaps--events that suggested the reality of the coming conclusive event. It is, of course, most significant that Nephi reads his own charity as a response to those event-ual forerunners of death. <br />
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* ''The overarching tension of Nephi's second'' having. All of the above suggests the following general reading of Nephi's second ''having''. Whereas the first ''having'' explored the possibility of Nephi's escape, as it were, from his parents, this second ''having'' explores the possibility of Nephi's ability to rebridge the gap of interpersonal separation. Taking as its theme the gift of charity, Nephi seems to read through the ever-present reality of death (ever-present through the constant experience of affliction) a sort of call to love, to which Nephi responds.<br />
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===Nephi's Third "Having"===<br />
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* ''Nephi's return to "days."'' After the peculiarities of Nephi's second ''having'', the word "days" immediately stands out in this third ''having''. Whereas before his days were subsumed under the figure of a course, here they are merely collected with the word "all." One immediately gets the sense that this third ''having'' breaks the course of the second, that the inevitable movement of Nephi's days toward death is canceled in the favor of the Lord. Broadly speaking, then, this third ''having'' already presents itself as something beyond even the implicit charity of the second ''having''. Certainly the clearest initial theme of this ''having'' is the theme of God's love, God's favor, a reverse of the charity mentioned above.<br />
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* ''The meaning of favor.'' <br />
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===Nephi's Four "Having's"===<br />
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* ''Nephi's life and the plan.'' Together the clauses beginning with ''having'' form a pattern that runs through Nephi's two books: creation ("having been born"), fall ("having seen many afflictions"), atonement ("having been highly favored of the Lord"), and passing through the veil ("having had a great knowledge"). The pattern might broadly be called "the plan of salvation," but it appears to play a more fundamental ''textual'' role for Nephi as well. His first eighteen chapters (1 Nephi 1-18) tell a sort of creation story (with constant reference to his goodly parents); his following nine chapters (1 Nephi 19-2 Nephi 5) tell a sort of fall story (marked emphatically by the division between Nephites and Lamanites); his next twenty-five chapters (2 Nephi 6-31) tell a sort of atonement story (how the Lamanites might become again favored and reconnected to broader Israel); and his concluding three chapters (2 Nephi 31-33) dwell on a sort of passing-through-the-veil story (through a discussion of baptism in incredibly "veil-like" terms). Moreover, that the twenty-five chapter atonement stretch of Nephi's two-book record is presented by three messengers who collectively bring to the reader an understanding of how the "veil" of 2 Nephi 31-33 might be passed suggests that there is some connection between Nephi's broader record and the temple drama. If this connection is not unfounded, Nephi's "therefore" toward the end of this verse is powerfully significant: it is because his very life might be read as a sort of "endowment" that he is writing this text.<br />
* ''goodness and mysteries.'' No other prophet pairs these words in a single verse. Nephi is restating an earlier portion of this verse, in which he attributed his "learning" to his "goodly parents." Nephi's life experiences apparently taught him these two things go hand in hand.<br />
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===Chiastic Interpretation===<br />
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===Double Parallelism Interpretation===<br />
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* ''Nevertheless.'' The center of the chiastic structural reading is peculiar, but textually important. D ''mediates'' the two "halves" of the passage. In other words, it is the single word ''nevertheless'' that decides how the relation between the first half (A, B, and C) and the second half (A', B', and C') should be read. The implication: this single, perhaps "intuitive" word must be read with care. An all-too-quick reading of the word might suggest that it draws the two halves of the chiasm together in a sort of antithesis: by bringing them to stand side by side, ''nevertheless'' markedly puts on display the distinction between the events of the first half and the events of the second half, precisely because ''nevertheless'' means ''however'', or ''but''. However, more careful thought reveals that ''nevertheless'' does not at all set up a facile anthithesis. The term rather means most literally that what is about to be said is not undone by what has been said, that the implications of the foregoing (here, the first half) do not preclude what is about to be said (here, in the second half): Y (what I am about to say) is ''never'' to be taken as anything ''less''--is not to be read weakly--because of X (what I have just said). This more literal reading implies a great deal about the meaning of Nephi's autobiographical chiasm. The first half of it (what might be called Nephi's earthly world) does not preclude in any way, nor does it weaken at all, the second half of it (what might be called Nephi's heavenly world). In short, the first half of Nephi's chiastic autobiography at once has something to do with the second half--especially in that it parallels it!--but the relation between the two is neither one of mutual implication, nor one of frustrating contradiction. Perhaps all that can at first be said about the chiasm in question is what has snuck into this discussion through the back door: Nephi sees the earthly and heavenly aspects of his existence as parallel, not contradictory or implicatory.<br />
* ''having .., nevertheless, having...'' Lehi is not disappointed by his experiences. He displays an attitude of gratitude.<br />
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===Beyond (?) Autobiography===<br />
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* ''Book of the Dead wording.'' If the final phrase of this verse is taken in the Egyptian idiom, it is remarkably close to the Egyptian name for what is commonly called the "Book of the Dead" (Egyptian: "The Book of Going Forth by Day"). Nephi might here be making a suggestive allusion: his two-volume record on the small plates is, as it were, his own Book of the Dead (which was, for all intents and purposes, a sort of Egyptian endowment, an Egyptian drama of resurrection). If this reading is justified, this final phrase might ground the temple connections mentioned above. A connection (however distant) to the Book of the Dead would certainly explain the autobiographical "I, Nephi" with which the verse begins: copies of the "canonical" Book of the Dead were always personalized (by name) for the individual who purchased them. This may also provide a better context in which to understand verse 2.<br />
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* ''Dependent/independent clauses.'' The rather extended series of dependent clauses (the four "havings") that makes up the first half of this verse is interrupted along its course by the strikingly ungrammatical "therefore I was taught...." (This instance of "therefore" is the first of two in 1 Nephi 1:1, and should not here be confused with the summary "therefore" with which Nephi begins the final phrase of the verse.) The phrase, abstracted from its surroundings, is clearly an independent clause, though it is (because of the "therefore") subjected to the series of dependent clauses. The phrase therefore sets up a tension in the first half of this verse: there is an independent clause that is, so to speak, dependent on a series of dependent clauses. The tension accomplishes two things at once: on the one hand, it allows Nephi to draw the conclusion implicated by his "therefore," that his having been taught has something to do with his father's wealth, etc.; on the other hand, it frees the phrase from its confines in the first verse so that it can form a parallelism with the "language of my father" mentioned in verse 2. The tension is therefore structural: the phrase, "therefore I was taught somewhat in all the learning of my father," is drawn into tension by the first two verses, suspended, as it were, between them. The "Yea" of verse 2, discussed below, is therefore all the more significant.<br />
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=== Verse 2 ===<br />
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* ''Double parallelism.'' Given the comments above on verse 1, there is a double parallelism at play in this verse: Nephi is concerned in the first verse with his father's learning, and in the second verse with his father's language. This is doubled by Nephi's further mention of the learning of the Jews and the language of the Egyptians. The full implications of this double parallelism, however, remain to be worked out.<br />
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* ''Re-translating verse 1?'' Besides the tension that already connects the first two verses in an odd way (explained above in the comments on verse 1), Nephi further connects them by mediating their contraposition with the weighty word "Yea." Given that the Book of Mormon broadly takes up the KJV idiom (a presupposition that might well be called into question), the "Yea" here likely should be read with the weight of the Hebrew root ''knn'', to double, to repeat, to confirm. If so, Nephi seems to be drawing his first two verses into a sort of reciprocal or perhaps dialectical relation. If this second verse might be read as a "translation" of the first, it is fascinating that the two verses are drawn together in their pairing of questions of language and learning, especially the explicit mention of Jewish and Egyptian traditions. Through these two verses (explicitly composed of "metalanguage"), Nephi presents his record as fundamentally dual: it is a crossing of Egyptian and Jewish traditions, of Lehi's and Nephi's experiences, of language and learning, of verse 1 and verse 2. It might at least be said that Nephi sees his work as working out these several tensions.<br />
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* ''Making a record.'' A single foundational phrase underlies both verse 1 and verse 2: "I make a record." When each of these verses is stripped of dependent clauses and prepositional phrases, only this four-word sentence is left behind for each of them. The two verses would thus read: "I make a record. Yea, I make a record." This observation not only strengthens the suggestion that verse 2 is a repetition/translation of verse 1, but it also makes clear that Nephi's making a record is of foundational importance to these first few verses. Nephi uses the word "record" three times in this three-verse introduction to his text, doubly marking the importance of the term. The word generally translates the Hebrew ''zkrwn'' in the KJV, a word deriving from the root ''zkr'', meaning to actualize, to enact, to remember, to hold in presence. Nephi's choice of this word may imply that his text is to be read as a ritual text, one to be read aloud, even acted out or presented dramatically (cf. [[Rev 1:3]]). Such a reading might well ground the endowment themes in verse 1, while at the same time both enriching and making difficult Nephi's statement in verse 3 that the record is "true."<br />
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* ''Mention of the Jews.'' The first mention of the Jews in the whole of Nephi's record--in the whole of the Book of Mormon--is found in this verse, and it sets the tone for all subsequent discussion of the Jews. If there is any starting point for a study of who is meant by the Jews in the Book of Mormon, it is here. And this first mention is quite peculiar. From the very beginning, the national identity of the Jews is in question. "The Jews" are set here quite clearly against "the Egyptians," both emerging under plural nouns that deserve some attention: why does Nephi say "the learning of the Jews" and not "the learning of Judah" or "Jewish learning," and why does Nephi say "the language of the Egyptians" and not "the language of Egypt" or "Egyptian language"? The point is important, because Nephi from the very beginning places an emphasis on individuals who derive their identity from their political situation, rather than on nations as whole individuals (the "Israel" of the OT prophets, so profoundly understood by William Blake in his mythic prophecies). The point is, in fact, more complicated still: specific mention of "the Jews" and "the Egyptians" can only have had for Nephi profound political overtones, because of the particular situation between these nations that obtained at the time he left Jerusalem with his family. These politically defined individuals, set against each other in Nephi's first mention of the Jews, deserves some very close attention.<br />
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* ''"of the Jews," "of the Egyptians."'' Only a decade or so before Zedekiah's enthronement, the Jews and the Egyptians found themselves at war. The political situation was intense: Assyria had crumbled, leaving a power vacuum and three nations trying to fill it. Babylon, the largest and most powerful nation, was the most likely to take its place, but this was undecided, since both Egypt and Judah were also striving for the part. Around 610 B.C., Pharaoh Necho offered to join forces with Babylon against all other powers, working towards a joint empire. While traveling to accomplish this in 609 B.C., Pharaoh was encountered by Israelite forces led by King Josiah, who was attempting to stop the alliance. Josiah had already led his armies to quite a few victories in his struggle to claim greater Judean power. At Megiddo, the armies met, and Israel suffered a terrible defeat, in which Necho himself killed Josiah. The defeat was crushing for Judah (the textual implications of this failure alone for the Bible are incredible), and led quickly to the conquest of Jerusalem within two decades. Babylon quickly asserted its power of Judah, and Judah found itself conquered with a puppet king in place over it (namely, Zedekiah, who was installed by Babylon). This set up a rather difficult situation for Judah, a people with a covenant they understood to mean that they would never be conquered: either they had to submit cheerfully to Babylon (which seemed to imply unfaithfulness to the Davidic covenant), or they had to raise up enough of a force against Babylon to throw off the yoke (which could only be done through an alliance with Egypt). The prophets at the time were advocating the former position (Jeremiah especially), but Zedekiah eventually tried to establish political ties with Egypt, and the result was the obliteration of the kingdom of Judah. All of this, oddly, shows that the Jews and the Egyptians had a rather complex relationship at the time the Book of Mormon begins: those who were in favor of Egypt were those who could forgive the death of Josiah in order to try in some way to restore the situation they believed to be according to the Davidic covenant; those who were not in favor of Egypt were following the prophets even though it seemed as if this were against the wishes of the Lord. More still: the Egyptians and the Jews had so many commercial ties--especially mercenary ties--that the cultures had to some degree or another fused into one. That Nephi writes his record in reformed Egyptian is of some significance: he finds himself in the midst of some major political struggles, all of which bear quite inevitably on the questions of covenant.<br />
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* ''Jews, then, and Egyptians.'' For Nephi here to use "of the Jews" and "of the Egyptians" makes quite a point, then: by drawing on collective individuals, Nephi avoids questions of broader politics. He is not so much concerned in this verse with Judah and Egypt as he is with people from Judah and people from Egypt. He is more concerned with cultures and heritages, with traditions. It should be noted, then, that the very first mention of "the Jews" in the Book of Mormon marks them as a national culture that can be opposed to, set against, that of Egypt. If Egypt is the glory of antiquity, Nephi sees Judah as no less so. The Jews, from the very beginning, are a people, one with a tradition, with a unique history and culture, and with an autonomous take on the world. The Jews, it seems quite clear, are to be understood as the people who come from the Southern Kingdom of Judah, who have inherited the particularities of Judah and Benjamin, as well as the complexities of cross-cultures that came in with the collapse of the Northern Kingdom. The heritage of Judah has a mixed history, perhaps, but Nephi understands it to be unique and separate by this point.<br />
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=== Verse 3 ===<br />
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* ''Chiasm.'' After the grammatical complexity of Nephi's first two verses, the third verse reads with a striking simplicity. It is made up of three straightforward statements, all beginning with the conjoining "and I". Despite the unbalance between these short, plain statements and the far more difficult phrases of verses 1 and 2, this verse sets up a chiastic structure that runs through the whole of Nephi's first three verses:<br />
A I make a record<br />
B I make a record<br />
C I know (that the record is true)<br />
B' I make it<br />
A' I make it<br />
The importance of this structure goes well beyond "proofs of ancient authorship": the whole of verse 1 is set in parallel with Nephi's rather simple "and I make it according to my knowledge"; and the whole of verse 2 is set in parallel with his (also rather simple) "and I make it with mine own hand." Further, because it marks the chiastic center and has no parallel, the independent statement "And I know that the record which I make is true," with its profound focus on knowledge instead of record-making, separates itself thematically from the rest of what Nephi writes into these first three verses. More still, the doubling already recognized in verses 1 and 2 (here called A and B) is itself doubled by a parallel doubling (B' and A' might be read as a project of translation just as A and B are above). These structural observations are perhaps a collective key to interpreting this third verse.<br />
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* ''Record-making and testimony.'' As mentioned above, the chiastic center of Nephi's first three verses is a grammatical inversion of every other step of the chiasm. In other words, whereas verses 1 and 2 unite with the second and third statements of verse 3 in a project of subordinating (grammatically) knowledge to the record Nephi makes, this central (most important?) statement subordinates (again, grammatically) the record to Nephi's knowledge: "And I know that the record which I make is true." Again, it might be said that the great majority of Nephi's three-verse introduction to his story understands Nephi's "knowledge" (and "learning" and "language") to be sublimated (or at least spoken) in the text is writes. At the same time, however, the most central message of that same three-verse introduction is a reversal of this sublimation: the record gathers itself up in Nephi's testimonial "I know," is sublimated (or, again, at least spoken) in the knowledge he has. In short, the complex structure written into Nephi's first three verses suggests a sort of dialectic of testimony: knowledge is channeled into a text, and a text is channeled into knowledge. Record-making and knowing are undeniably--even if impossibly--interwoven in Nephi's introduction. The LDS theme of "testimony" might well be re-read through these verses, in a reading that appears to adhere carefully to the implied roots of the Hebrew term for testimony, ''`dwt'' (from a root that arguably means to carve or engrave in stone).<br />
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* ''Another structure?'' If the comments above concerning the semi-independent clause near the beginning of verse 1 are taken into account, an alternate structure for Nephi's first three verses emerges, recasting the function of this third verse. If Nephi's ungrammatical "therefore I was taught somewhat in all the learning of my father" is taken as an independent clause, then six statements (rather than five) precipitate out of 1 Nephi 1:1-3. Moreover, the sixth component of the surface structure of Nephi's introduction would disassemble the chiasm and replace it with an entirely different structure:<br />
A I was taught somewhat<br />
B I make a record<br />
C I make a record<br />
A' I know (that the record is true)<br />
B' I make it<br />
C' I make it<br />
Such a reading would make verse 3 a wholesale doubling of verses 1 and 2. Further, the two parallelisms mentioned in the chiastic reading would be switched ("with mine own hand" would parallel Nephi's fourfold life experience, and "according to my knowledge" would parallel the "language of my father"). Perhaps most important, Nephi's testimony ("I know that the record which I make is true") would here be parallel to his learning ("therefore I was taught somewhat in all the learning of my father"). Both of these parallel statements work out Nephi's "knowledge," perhaps strengthening this structural reading of these three verses.<br />
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=== Verses 1-3 ===<br />
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* ''Teaching as an impossibility.'' Nephi's first three verses should be read as a single literary unit (marked separate from and yet tied inextricably to verse 4 by the latter's introductory "For"). However, the comments collected above suggest that this "single literary unit" is bound together by an undeniable tension. At the root of this tension is the ungrammatical interruption early in the first verse: "therefore I was taught somewhat in all the learning of my father." Not only does this phrase break with the grammatical structure of the first verse, thereby setting up a syntactical tension, it forces a double semantic (better: structural) tension into the whole three verse introduction, as laid out in the comments above. In other words, what might have otherwise been a very straightforward three-verse introduction on how and why Nephi wrote his record is disturbed, unbalanced, perhaps even frustrated, and precisely in Nephi's having been "taught." It is not too much to say that Nephi's introductory text puts on display how the "simple" dialectical process of record-making is grounded on the violent, aporetic, and yet necessary work of "being taught." The implications of Nephi's "ungrammar" are rich, but remain to be worked out at length.<br />
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=== Verse 4 ===<br />
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* ''Zedekiah's reign.'' Zedekiah's reign marks the historical beginning of the story, but it probably should not be assumed that Nephi's text therefore "legitimizes" him. In fact, the text draws an important parallel that, to some degree, de-legitimizes him: whereas this verse portrays the enthroned Zedekiah as surrounded with prophets speaking disparaging messages, verse 8 will portray a parallel God upon His throne, surrounded with angels who sing and shout praises to Him. The comparison might well betray Nephi's attitude towards the king.<br />
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== Points to ponder ==<br />
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''This heading is for prompts that suggest ways in which all or part of this passage can influence a person's life. Click the link above and to the right to edit or add content to this heading. →''<br />
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== I have a question ==<br />
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''This heading is for unanswered questions and is an important part of the continual effort to improve this wiki. Please do not be shy, as even a basic or "stupid" question can identify things that need to be improved on this page. Click the link above and to the right to edit or add content to this heading. →''<br />
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===Verse 1===<br />
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* ''Colophon.'' Was Hugh Nibley right about these introductory verses being a colophon? Is this literary structure or formula unique to Nephi in the Book of Mormon or did other authors use colophons throughout the Book of Mormon also? Do you agree with [http://frontpage2000.nmia.com/~nahualli/LDStopics/1Nephi/1Nephi1.htm John A. Tvedtnes or Brant Gardner] on this point?<br />
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* ''"born of goodly parents."'' How many people are included in the Nephi's use of the word parents? How many of these parents gave birth to him? Can parents mean more than just mother and father? Does the use of parents in [[Alma 30:25]] provide a possible answer?<br />
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* ''"in all the learning of my father."'' How does Nephi's phrase compare with this description of the sons of Mosiah: "And he caused that they should be taught in all the language of his fathers" ([[Mosiah 1:2]])? Does this mean the sons of Mosiah received most of their lessons from someone other than their father? If the phrasing of these two passages is so similar, does that suggest that Nephi also received some of his religious training from a teacher who was not his father?<br />
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* ''Nature of Nephi's learning.'' Did anyone in Lehi's family have access to scriptures before Nephi and his brothers obtained the brass plates from Laban? If they did not have access to sacred texts, what was Nephi studying in his youth? How likely is it that Lehi and Nephi were part of an oral tradition? Does [[2 Ne 33:1]] contain any clues about Nephi's feelings about spoken texts versus written texts?<br />
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* ''Afflictions and blessings.'' How can this verse be used to deepen understanding of the themes of afflictions and blessings throughout 1 Nephi?<br />
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* ''"having seen many afflictions."'' Whose afflictions might Nephi have witnessed?<br />
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* ''Learning equals language?'' What is the relationship between the learning of Nephi's father in [[1 Ne 1:1]] and the language of Nephi's father in [[1 Ne 1:2]]?<br />
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* ''Intended introduction?'' As we know from [[Words of Mormon]], [[D&C 3]], and [[D&C 10]], Mormon did not intend the Book of Mormon to begin as it does now. How does this verse, in its "usurped" position, change the way we might otherwise read the Book of Mormon? How would the Book of Mormon be different if, for example, it began with an introduction to the whole text by Mormon?<br />
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* ''"therefore I make a record."'' How might we here understand Nephi's purpose or motivation in writing? How do Nephi's other explanations for this record (as contained in this verse) compare with the purposes listed in [[1 Ne 9]] and [[1 Ne 19]]? How might we understand this statement while also considering that Nephi later wrote, "the Lord hath commanded me to make these plates for a wise purpose in him, which purpose I know not" in [[1 Ne 9:5]]?<br />
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* ''Tense.'' Nephi uses phrases like "having been" and "make a record" in the same sentence, mixing past tense with present tense. Why might Nephi be doing this? Is this intentional? (ie. are we looking at an instance of [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enallage enallage]?)<br />
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* ''Memory.'' If Nephi is writing this record several years after the fact, how does this affect his memory of past events? If Nephi is writing with the benefit of hindsight, how does that affect Nephi's explanation of how and why things happened?<br />
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* ''Autobiography?'' What did Nephi mean in [[1 Ne 1:17]] when he said that "after I have abridged the record of my father then will I make an account of mine own life?" Does that mean Nephi did not consider this verse autobiographical? Or was this brief introduction something less than an "account"?<br />
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* ''Concepts of Time.'' Why does Nephi shift from the event of one day, to things that happened in the course of days, to things that happened every day, to mysteries that may transcend time? Is this a progression of some sort? Is Nephi making a distinction between different measures of time when he talks about "my days"? Does [[Jacob 7:26]] offer any insights into how Nephi and his contemporaries conceptualized time?<br />
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===Verse 2===<br />
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* ''Double cultures.'' Nephi here introduces the difficulties of translation into his still untranslated text: his work is a crossing of two cultures? How does this internal theme of translation bear on questions of Joseph's work of translating the Book of Mormon? Does this double culture of Nephi's work affect how it should be read?<br />
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* ''"Yea."'' Nephi begins this verse with "Yea," implying that this verse is a validation of the first verse. How does this verse meet up with the first?<br />
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* ''"the language of my father."'' Is Nephi implying that his father was bi-literate? Did Lehi have experience producing written texts in reformed Egyptian? Or did Nephi primarily pick up this skill from the brass plates?<br />
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* ''"which" and "consists."'' What is the antecedent for "which" in this verse? Is it both "language" and "record"? Is it more likely that Nephi's "record" "consists" of "learning" and "language" or that his "language" "consists" of "learning" and "language"?<br />
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* ''Jews and Egyptians.'' What is Nephi's concept of these two groups at the time he writes this verse? Has Nephi already had the visions of 1 Ne. 13-15 by the time he puts these thoughts to paper? If so, how does his discussion of Jews in those chapters influence what he is saying here? Or is it possible that Nephi held those later understandings of Jews in abeyance while he wrote this verse, in an attempt to recreate the understanding of Jews he started out with?<br />
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* ''"I make a record."'' Technically speaking, would it have been more accurate for Nephi to have written, "I have been making a record"? Why might Nephi have used this wording?<br />
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* ''"learning of the Jews."'' Is there a qualitative difference between saying "learning of the Jews" and "the Jews' learning"?<br />
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* ''"the language of the Egyptians."'' Did Nephi think the Egyptians used only one language? Should the singular word "language" be read as referring to only one language? If Nephi had been aware that the Egyptians were multi-lingual, would he have necessarily used the word "languages" to refer to their spoken abilities?<br />
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* ''""the language" and "the learning."'' Is Nephi saying that Lehi's "language" consists of the entirety of these languages and learning? If Nephi's learning was "somewhat" in [[1 Ne 1:1]], is this contrasted with the completeness of his father's learning? Was Nephi just being humble, or did he really feel that his father's knowledge dwarfed his own?<br />
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===Verse 3===<br />
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* ''"The record . . . is true."'' What does Nephi mean when he calls this record true? Why does he emphasize that he made it with his own hands?<br />
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* ''"I make."'' By this point, Nephi has used the phrase "I make" five times. Why is he repeating himself so much? Where there some that would doubt that he was the maker of the plates? Was he just claiming authorship or did the fact that he was the maker of the plates provide him with another sort of authority?<br />
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* ''"I know."'' Did Nephi know in advance that, no matter what, his writings on the plates would always be true? Or is Nephi making this statement after having written enough of his record that he feels confident that everything on the plates will be true?<br />
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* ''"my knowledge."'' Is Nephi saying this knowledge belongs to him or that it is in his sole possession? How did Nephi suddenly shift from deferentially talking about "the language of my father" in the previous verse to speaking confidently about his own knowledge? Why did Nephi shift from referring to "a great knowledge . . . of God" (verse 1) to laying claim on what he called "my knowledge"?<br />
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* ''"make it according to my knowledge."'' Is Nephi saying he purposely designed the plates so they would correspond to his own knowledge? How would the meaning of this verse be different if Nephi had written "I make it with my knowledge" or "I make it as I am given knowledge"? Is Nephi implying in this verse that he takes responsibility for any mistakes, since the writing was based upon his own knowledge?<br />
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* ''"make it with my own hand."'' Later in this chapter, Nephi referes to "plates which I have made with mine own hands" ([[1 Ne 1:17]]). Why did he use the singular word "hand," rather than "hands," in this verse?<br />
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===Verse 4===<br />
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* ''"For it came to pass."'' Why did Nephi use a five-word phrase that appears only three other times in the Book of Mormon ([[1 Ne 11:1]], [[Mosiah 26:6]], and [[Ether 6:2]])? Why did he not simply say "And it came to pass"?<br />
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* ''"commencement of the first year."'' Is Nephi being needlessly repetitive? Or is he trying to point to the first day, week, or month of the king's reign, as opposed to referring to the entire year? Was this first year in 600 or 598 B.C.?<br />
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* ''"commencement . . . of the reign of Zedekiah."'' With the exception of [[1 Ne 5]], which also mentions Zedekiah, why is this the only instance of the word commencement in the Book of Mormon until [[Alma 2:1]]? Did the authors of the small plates of Nephi assume that "commencement" was a concept that applied to kings in Judah and not to political leaders in the promised land? Or were words and concepts that applied to kings, like "commencement," reserved for the large plates of Nephi?<br />
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* ''"it."'' Is there supposed to be an antecedent for this word? Or is Nephi just using a formulaic phrase?<br />
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* ''"in that same year."'' Is Nephi saying prophets came throughout the year, even though he opened the verse by presumably referring to the beginning of the year? Does Nephi's reference to the year, once again, indicate he was beginning a new sentence?<br />
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* ''"dwelt at Jerusalem in all his days."'' Is Nephi saying Lehi had never before left Jerusalem? Or is he saying Lehi's residence was at Jerusalem, even if he sometimes went on trips that took him away from the city. Is Nephi implying that Lehi has never called another place home? What clues does the phrase "the land of our forefathers" ([[Alma 7:10]]) hold for answering these questions?<br />
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* ''"all his days."'' Why does Nephi use days, rather than years, to measure the age of his father? Why does the phrase "his years" never appear in the Book of Mormon? Was Nephi starting a new pattern upon the plates for measuring age? Was he borrowing the practice from an ancient source? Is the frequent use of the phrase "his days" in the Book of Ether the result of Moroni's abridgement?<br />
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* ''Parentheses.'' Is this an example of a parenthetical expression in Nephi's writing, even though this piece of punctuation did not originate with Nephi? How does the phrase about Lehi dwelling in Jerusalem qualify or explain the clause that preceded it?<br />
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* ''"king of Judah."'' When Nephi points out that his father has dwelt at Jerusalem his entire life, while in the middle of saying that Zedekiah has been king for less than a year, is he trying to say that Lehi also lived under the previous kings? Who were the kings of Judah during Lehi's lifetime? What age was Lehi under Josiah's reign, which ended only eleven years before Zedekiah became king? How were Lehi's religious views, Laban's possession of the plates, and Nephi's religious training affected by the religious reforms of king Josiah?<br />
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* ''"dwelt at Jerusalem."'' What other indications do we have, besides [[1 Chr 9:3]], that descendants of Ephraim and Manessah lived in Jerusalem? To what extent were they outnumbered by the descendants of Judah and Benjamin who also lived in Jerusalem? What were relations like between the descendants of these four tribes who all lived in Jerusalem?<br />
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* ''"in that same year there came many prophets."'' Why is Nephi noting the presence of these prophets? Was it typical or unusal for Jerusalem to have "many" prophets in its midst? Is Nephi saying several prophets suddenly arrived on the scene when Zedekiah took office? Who else besides Jeremiah, Habakkuk, and Ezekiel (who are listed on page 639 of the Bible Dictionary), was on Nephi's list of prophets at the time? Have LDS scholars often overlooked Urijah (see [[Jer 26:20]]) as one these prophets? What reasons do we have for assuming that Zenos and Zenock either were or were not among these prophets? What do we know about the lineage of these prophets? How manhy of the prophets were descendants of Ephraim and Manessah? Were prophets with ties to the north, as opposed to those descended from Judah or Benjamin, more likely to antagonize listeners in Jerusalem?<br />
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* ''"prophets."'' What is the connection between these prophets and the religious establishment in Jerusalem? Did the "churches" in Jersualem recognize the administrative authority of these prophets? Do you agree with [http://frontpage2000.nmia.com/~nahualli/LDStopics/1Nephi/1Nephi1.htm Brant Gardner's argument] that it is "highly unlikely" that these prophets were "part of the officially recognized religions governing bodies"? Did Jerusalem have a long tradition of requiring prophets to live on the outskirts of society?<br />
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* ''"the people . . . must repent."'' What was it that the people of Jerusalem needed to repent of? Had they abandoned the religious reforms of Josiah after only four decades? Was it their rejection of prophets that had necessitated their repentance? Had they already abandoned and forgotten the law of Moses? Had the only copies of the scriptures fallen into the hands of wicked people? Are these some of the reasons why Nephi later realizes that his descendants would be unable to follow the law of Moses unless he obtained the plates from Laban (see [[1 Ne 4]])?<br />
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* ''"prophesying . . . they must repent, or . . . be destroyed."'' Where did Nephi obtain this combination of words? If the words prophesy, repent, and destroy (as well as their variants) do not appear together in any biblical verses, does that mean Nephi was the first to use them jointly? If most of the other appearances in the Book of Mormon of this combination occur in the Book of Ether ([[Mosiah 12:8]], [[Ether 7:23]], and [[Ether 11:12]]), does that mean Moroni borrowed Nephi's phraseology while abriding the Jaredite record or that the Jaredite authors and Nephi were both borrowing from a more ancient source?<br />
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* ''"or the great city Jerusalem must be destroyed."'' Why does Nephi (or the prophets he is paraphrasing) change the repent or be destroyed formula? Why does he/they not follow the much more common example in scripture, in which prophets tell the people they will be destroyed if they do not repent (e.g., [[Mosiah 12:8]], [[Alma 37:22]], and [[Ether 7:23]])? Were the prophets in Jerusalem partially letting their listeners off the hook by telling them it was their city, and not them, that would be destroyed? Or was it the Lord who changed the formula in this instance, because he "had compassion on his people" ([[2 Chr 36:15]])? Or is Lehi's later comment, "had we remained in Jerusalem we should also have perished" ([[2 Ne 1:4]]), an indication that it was both the land of Jerusalem and its inhabitants who faced imminent destruction? How closely does this verse in 1 Ne. 1 parallel [[Hel 7:28]], which says "And except ye repent ye shall perish; yea, even your lands shall be taken from you, and ye shall be destroyed from off the face of the earth." At what point did it become inevitable that Jerusalem would be destroyed?<br />
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* ''"the people."'' Who exactly was Nephi referring to when he used the phrase "the people"? Did every single inhabitant of Jerusalem have great need to repent? Was the city completely wicked? Was there no one left who followed the law of Moses? How sincere and thorough was the religious reform that happened forty years earlier if everyone was now wicked? Were there any exceptions to this apparently uniform wickedness? If Ishmael's family and Laban's servant Zoram can be considered at least partial exceptions to Nephi's characterization, does that mean there were other, scattered inhabitants of Jerusalem who were at least somewhat righteous? What evidence do we have that some of the people in Jerusalem actually repented? Should we assume that the only people in Jersualem who repented are the ones who joined Lehi in his exodus to the promised land?<br />
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* ''Mulekites.'' Were the ancestors of the people of Zarahemla, who "came out from Jerusalem at the time" of Zedekiah's reign ([[Omni 1:15]]), converted when they heard the preaching of the "many prophets" mentioned in this verse? If so, did these prophets realize that the Mulekites were converted by their preaching?<br />
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<br />
== Resources ==<br />
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''This heading is for listing links and print resources, including those cited in the notes. A short comment about the particular strengths of a resource can be helpful. Click the link above and to the right to edit or add content to this heading. →''<br />
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===Incoming Cross-References Not Listed in The Footnotes for These Verses===<br />
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* ''Verse 1:'' [[Job 1:5]], [[Hel 5:6]], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/gs/f/6 GS Father, Mortal], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/gs/k/9 GS Knowledge], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/gs/m/62 GS Mysteries of God], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/gs/n/15 GS Nephi, Son of Lehi], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/gs/t/5 GS Teach, Teacher], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/tg/b/152 TG Born], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/tg/f/39 TG Father], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/tg/g/98 TG Goodly], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/tg/l/47 TG Learn, Learning], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/tg/m/43 TG Marriage, Fatherhood], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/tg/p/12 TG Parent], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/tg/t/24 TG Teaching, Teach, Taught], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/in/b/93 IN Born], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/in/f/24 IN Father], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/in/f/27 IN Favored], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/in/g/65 IN God, Goodness of], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/in/g/78 IN Goodly], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/in/l/49 IN Learning], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/in/n/30 IN Nephi], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/in/p/20 IN Parent], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/in/r/37 IN Record], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/in/t/15 IN Teach, Taught]<br />
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* ''Verse 2:'' [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/gs/n/15 GS Nephi, Son of Lehi], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/tg/j/77 TG Jew, Jewish], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/in/e/18 IN Egyptian], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/in/j/61 IN Jew, Jewish], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/in/l/26 IN Language], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/in/n/30 IN Nephi]<br />
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* ''Verse 3:'' [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/gs/n/15 GS Nephi, Son of Lehi], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/tg/h/14 TG Hand], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/in/h/12 IN Hand]<br />
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* ''Verse 4:'' [[2 Kgs 23:27]], [[Ps 79:3]], [[Jer 13:14]], [[Jer 21:7]], [[1 Ne 2:13]], [[1 Ne 17:22]], [[Hel 5:6]], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/gs/j/19 GS Jerusalem], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/gs/n/11 GS Nebuchadnezzar], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/gs/n/15 GS Nephi, Son of Lehi], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/gs/z/5 GS Zedekiah], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/bd/z/11 BD Zedekiah], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/tg/d/92 TG Destroy], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/tg/r/59 TG Reign], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/in/d/67 IN Destruction, Destroy], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/in/j/32 IN Jerusalem], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/in/j/87 IN Judah], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/in/r/75 IN Repentance, Repent], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/in/z/8 IN Zedekiah], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/biblephotos/8 Photograph: Jerusalem]<br />
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===Verse 1===<br />
* ''A great knowledge of the goodness of God.'' [http://www.lds.org/conference/talk/display/0,5232,23-1-14-2,00.html Neal A. Maxwell (GC 1999)] contrasts Laman & Lemuel's lack of faith with Nephi's great faith in God's goodness. <br />
* ''Mysteries of God''<br />
** See [[1 Ne 2:16]] for an explanation by Nephi of how he gained knowledge of the mysteries of God.<br />
** See [[1 Ne 10:19]] where Nephi teaches that one must diligently seek to find the mysteries of God.<br />
** See [[Mosiah 1:3]] where Mosiah teaches his sons that without the scriptural record they could not know the mysteries of God.<br />
** See [[Mosiah 2:9]] where Mosiah starts his talk to his people with an invitation listen to him and open their ears, hearts and minds they they may learn the mysteries of God.<br />
** See the entry on [http://scriptures.lds.org/gsm/mystrsfg mysteries of God] in the <i>Guide to the Scriptures</i>. <br />
* [http://bomgroupies.wordpress.com/2007/03/01/nephi-and-the-mysteries/ "Nephi and the Mysteries"] A discussion of Nephi's interest in the Mysteries of God by the Book of Mormon Groupies.<br />
* [http://teachyediligently.mypodcast.com/2008/05/On_Scripture_Study-111110.html Podcast] of Joe Spencer exploring 1 Nephi 1:1 with a local Relief Society.<br />
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== Notes ==<br />
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''Footnotes are not required but are encouraged for factual assertions that average readers cannot easily evaluate for themselves, such as the date of King Solomon’s death or the nuanced definition of a Greek word. In contrast, insights rarely benefit from footnoting, and the focus of this page should always remain on the scriptures themselves rather than what someone has said about them. Links are actively encouraged on all sections of this page, and links to authoritative sources are preferable to footnotes.''<br />
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[[First Nephi 1 | Previous page: Chapter 1]] &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; [[1 Ne 1:5-15 | Next page: Verses 1:5-15]]</div>Sterlinghttp://feastupontheword.org/1_Ne_1:1-41 Ne 1:1-42014-01-19T20:46:56Z<p>Sterling: /* Double Parallelism Interpretation */ attitude</p>
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<div>[[The Book of Mormon]] > [[First Nephi]] > [[First Nephi 1-2 | Chapters 1-2]] > [[First Nephi 1 | Chapter 1]] > [[1 Ne 1:1-4 | Verses 1:1-4]] <br><br />
[[First Nephi 1 | Previous page: Chapter 1]] &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; [[1 Ne 1:5-15 | Next page: Verses 1:5-15]]<br />
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This page would ideally always be under construction. You are invited to contribute.<br />
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== Summary ==<br />
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''This heading should be brief and may include an outline of the passage. Click the link above and to the right to edit or add content to this heading. →''<br />
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The relationship of verses 1-4 to the rest of Chapter 1 is discussed at [[First Nephi 1 | Chapter 1]].<br />
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== Discussion ==<br />
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''This heading is for more detailed discussions of all or part of a passage. Discussion may include the meaning of a particular word, how a doctrinal point is developed throughout the passage, insights to be developed in the future, and other items. Contributions may range from polished paragraphs down to a single bullet point. The focus, however, should always be on understanding the scriptural text consistent with LDS doctrine. Click the link above and to the right to edit or add content to this heading. →''<br />
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===Verse 1===<br />
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* ''Goodly'' According to Webster's 1828, [http://65.66.134.201/cgi-bin/webster/webster.exe?search_for_texts_web1828=goodly goodly] means "Being of a handsome form; beautiful; graceful; as a goodly person; goodly raiment; goodly houses." In this context it may mean "well-off." ''Goodly'' is used only once more in the Book of Mormon, [[Mosiah 18:7]]: there were a goodly number gathered together at the place of Mormon. It is used twice in the Doctrine and Covenants: [[D&C 97:9]] & [[D&C 99:7]]. There the meaning is ''beautiful'' or ''fair''. It is also used with this same meaning many times in the Old and New Testaments.<br />
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* ''On introducing.'' The "therefore" with which Nephi begins the final phrase of verse 1 marks his introductory verses (verses 1-3) as apologetic: this is ''why'' I am writing, all of what I just mentioned ''justifies'' taking up this project. The logic of Nephi's apologetic introduction is surprising because though he will later explicitly mention a divine commandment to produce the text ([[2 Ne 5:31]]), he makes no such reference here. Instead, he founds his text on the circumstances of his life. Nephi makes cites his experiences as of enough significance to justify writing scripture. Given this, Nephi's brief autobiography in verse 1--what we will see is essentially his reading of those very experiences--should be read with incredible care.<br />
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===Possible Structures===<br />
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* ''Serial structure.'' If one looks at Nephi's autobiographical sketch for a textual structure, the repeating word ''having'' immediately suggests its own importance: every phrase (except the ungrammatical "therefore I was taught somewhat in all the learning of my father," which can only be dealt with after some structural clarity is achieved) begins with the term. If ''having'' is read as the structural key to the passage, most likely therefore to be read as a progressive series, then it might be rendered thus (with connectives set between phrases):<br />
(1) having been born of goodly parents<br />
and<br />
(2) having seen many afflictions in the course of my days<br />
nevertheless<br />
(3) having been highly favored of the Lord in all my days<br />
yea<br />
(4) having had a great knowledge of the goodness and the mysteries of God<br />
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* ''Chiastic structure.'' No sooner is the structure laid out as a series of ''having'''s than some obvious parallelistic structures suggest themselves. Most visible perhaps is the parallel ''my days'' occurring in (2) and (3). Not quite so striking at first is the parallelism formed by (1) and (4) by their use of different manifestations of the word ''good'', ''goodly'' and ''goodness'' respectively. This double parallel of first with last and second with penultimate suggests the passage be read as a chiasm (perhaps with even the ''and'' between (1) and (2) parallel to the ''yea'' between (3) and (4)). Rendered chiastically, the autobiographical sketch would look thus:<br />
A having been born of ''goodly'' parents<br />
B ''and''<br />
C having seen many afflictions in the course of my ''days''<br />
D nevertheless<br />
C' having been highly favored of the Lord in all my ''days''<br />
B' ''yea''<br />
A' having had a great knowledge of the ''goodness'' and the mysteries of God<br />
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* ''Double parallel structure.'' The parallel drawn out above as B and B' further suggests another structural reading of the passage. Both ''and'' and ''yea'' suggest a doubling, a repetition. In other words, A and C might well be read parallelistically, as might A' and C'. The autobiographical sketch would then become a parallel set of parallelisms, mediated by the central ''nevertheless''. In short, the passage might be schematized thus:<br />
A having been born of goodly parents<br />
B and<br />
A' having seen many afflictions in the course of my days<br />
C nevertheless<br />
D having been highly favored of the Lord in all my days<br />
B' yea<br />
D' having had a great knowledge of the goodness and the mysteries of God<br />
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The interpretive comments below follow each of the above three structural readings in turn.<br />
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===Nephi's First "Having"===<br />
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* ''Birth and learning.'' Nephi's first ''having'', taken in its full and ungrammatical rendering, ties together two vital clues to Nephi's record: his birth and his learning. He immediately qualifies his birth with mention of his "goodly parents." ''Goodly'' here is often read as though its meaning is the same as ''good.'' But if we read ''goodly'' as meaning wealthy (see lexical note above), we see Nephi recognizing that it was because of his parent's wealth that he was able to be taught "somewhat in ''all'' the learning of [his] father" (emphasis added).<br />
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* ''Teaching and learning.'' Nephi calls upon two important if oddly balanced terms to describe his early education: ''taught'' and ''learning''. While a sort of opposition between teaching and learning might at first be read into the text, a careful reading reveals that this opposition is far too simplistic: the learning Nephi mentions is not his own, but his father's, and even as Nephi is the one taught, the verb is used passively ("I was taught somewhat") so that the teacher is cloaked and the act of teaching is therefore uprooted when set into the text. No simplistic scheme of Lehi teaching and Nephi learning is suggested at all in the text. The tie between the two terms, moreover, is prepositional: Nephi's being taught is "in" the learning of Lehi. This emphasizes an important fact: the term, "learning," in the text is a noun, a ''thing''. Whatever Lehi's learning consists of, it is clear from the text that it already consists, that it already stands together, that it is complete enough to be taught, named, or pointed out. And this nominal completion of Lehi's learning stands textually against the apparently incomplete studies of Nephi: "I was taught ''somewhat'' in all the learning of my father." While all of this sets up some possibilities for interpreting Nephi's brief report of his education, some more detailed consideration of the terms involved is warranted.<br />
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* ''Lehi's learning.'' While Nephi later (in verse 2) speaks of the "language of my father, which consists of the learning of the Jews and the language of the Egyptians," it is not yet clear how that should be read against the more simple "learning of my father" of verse 1. More fruitful for getting started, perhaps, is a brief consideration of the term, ''learning''. The English word, "learning," derives from an Indo-European root, ''leis'', meaning a track or a furrow. To learn is etymologically to follow a track, a pathway already (and not recently) cut out, already trod for some time. The pre-existence of whatever is trod, bound up in the word "to learn," is also not unfamiliar to the Hebrew root ''lqch'', the root behind the word most commonly translated in KJV as "learning": ''lqch'' means to take, to seize, even to steal, always implying the pre-existence of whatever is taken, seized, stolen. Certainly Lehi's learning implies that he takes up a way that has been trod for a long while before him. But the English and the Hebrew both imply still more: both "to learn" and ''lqch'' emphasize a sort of solitude. While teaching implies an instructor and an instructed, the learner comes upon a pathway that ''has been'' trod, but that might now be completely empty, and most likely is without a guide. That ''lqch'' can mean to steal certainly reinforces the lonely character of Lehi's learning: it might well be suggested that Lehi's learning, in which Nephi was taught, was a very solitary project.<br />
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* ''Nephi's being taught.'' If Lehi's learning is a work of solitude, the lonely work of following the long-since-left-behind, Nephi's being taught is imbued with the spirit of a face to face encounter, perhaps even characterized by a sort of violence as well. The English word, "teach," is etymologically related to "touch," as is "didactic" to "tactile." To teach is to point out, to put one's finger onto something. Whereas Lehi seems to come upon something abandoned, which he must attempt to bring back to life in self-disciplined learning, Nephi has a living someone who stands before him, who points out what is to be learned, who gives tasks to the student. This "being taught" on Nephi's part well reflects the broad meaning of the Hebrew term for teaching, ''lmd'', to train, to develop skills in oneself or another. Nephi learns through another, through an actual engagement. The ambiguity of such an engagement (one engages the enemy, and one is engaged to a future spouse) is suggestive: Nephi learns through a work of desire both to submit and to overpower, wraps his arms about his teach both to embrace and to wrestle ("touching" in being "taught"). Lehi's learning is the work of an archaeologist; Nephi's being taught is the work of a disciple. <br />
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* ''Toward the relation between Nephi and Lehi.'' The foregoing comments on Nephi's first ''having'', besides destructuring the father-son teaching situation, work out provisional meanings for three words: "goodly", being "taught", and "learning". The meanings worked out are provisional precisely in that they remain in the above comments extratextual: they have not been read back into the text, but provide a framework for just such a (re)reading. However, before such a reading can proceed, something of the interpersonal dynamics at play in this first ''having'' must be worked out, so that there is ''something'' to read these words back into. In other words, because "goodly" qualifies "parents", because "taught" qualifies "I", because "learning" qualifies--this last in a very broad sense--"father", the interrelatedness of Nephi ("I"), his "parents" and his "father" must be worked out before the meanings of their qualifying words can be read into the text. It should be noted at the same time that a preliminary working out of the interpersonal dynamics of Nephi's first ''having'' will also be provisional: like the working out of the meaning of the qualifying words, a working out of these dynamics is an abstraction of text, drawing out the persons without the words that qualify them. Hence, the complex interpersonal dynamics of this first ''having'' (it is unique among the four ''having'''s) require a second abstraction in addition to the first one worked out above. The two must then be read against and into each other for a more complete reading of the phrase.<br />
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* ''On proper names.'' The first and most obvious aspect of the interpersonal dynamics of Nephi's first ''having'' to be considered is the function of the proper name. Whereas Nephi's first verse opens with the overwhelming announcement of the prophet's own proper name, the remainder of the three-verse preface to Nephi's text is, from then on, void of any other proper names for any (earthly) person ("the Lord" might be a proper name, "YHWH", though it names God; "the Jews" and "the Egyptians" might also be argued to be proper names, but each apparently names a collective--they are both plural). This absence of proper names is most striking in Nephi's first ''having'', where he makes explicit mention of both his "parents" and his "father", but without any proper names. The comments above have overlooked this, drawing the names of Lehi and Sariah, of course, from the actual body of the Nephite text. The point raises two questions, one of which cannot be fully examined until after full consideration of Nephi's autobiographical sketch. This question to be postponed is, indeed, as broad as Nephi's autobiographical sketch: what does Nephi's announcement of his proper name accomplish in the text? The other question, to be dealt with presently, concerns rather the unnamed in the text: what does the lack of proper names for Lehi and Sariah in this first ''having'' accomplish?<br />
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* ''On the lack of proper names.'' Lehi and Sariah pass into Nephi's first ''having'' unnamed. Perhaps Lehi and Sariah, just for that reason, pass out of Nephi's first ''having''. At any rate, the weight of this lack--the lack of the weight--of proper names in this first autobiographical reading is most significant, is a sign that marks something important at play in the text. A first consequence of the unnamedness of Nephi's "parents" and "father" is a sort of delay, a sort of suspension: Lehi and Sariah are kept out of the preface, though they are mentioned--and hence present--in the same. They are, oddly enough, both included and excluded from Nephi's autobiography. But this duplicity--presence and yet non-presence--is precisely what is in question in Nephi's first ''having'': this first autobiographical reading is the prophet's exploration of the borders between himself and his parents, that strange no man's land where Nephi ends and his parents and father begin. As has been mentioned above, this first ''having'' is an exploration of ''influence'', of the "in-flowing" of Sariah and Lehi. And Nephi's text reads this influence as an unnamed presence. In other words, Nephi's text embodies the complex influence of parents and father on son: thoroughly, unquestioningly, overwhelmingly, perhaps suffocatingly present, and yet unnamed, unrecognized, unrealized, perhaps entirely unthought. More: parents and father are so absolutely present, in and through all things, that they are not only unnamed but unnamable, not only unrecognized but unrecognizable, etc. <br />
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* ''The theme of separation.'' The relation implied between Nephi and his parents/father, then, is ultimately not a question of presence and non-presence. Nephi's first ''having'', precisely because it writes them without names, reads Sariah and Lehi as completely saturating Nephi's experience, not as perpetual presences, but rather as the element of which Nephi is made. Nephi reads himself as a (re)presentation of his parents/father: they live (continually?) in his living. Hence it would appear that there is no separation between Nephi and his parents/father in the first ''having''. However, the very first verb this ''having'' employs is one of separation. Nephi in fact opens this first self-reading with mention of the most primordial act of separation possible: the umbilical cord is cut with his "having been born." As a result, a complex tension enters into the very first phrase of Nephi's text: Nephi is, according to the text, at once inseparable from his parents/father and entirely separated from his parents/father. The first interpersonal dynamic, the first written relation between Nephi and his parents/father, is a double separation/inseparability between them.<br />
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* ''A progressive inseparability/separation.'' The situation is made more complex by the fact that the theme of separation is taken up again in the second half of the first ''having'': "therefore I was taught somewhat in all the learning of my father." As mentioned above, though a teacher is implied, his or her identity is cloaked, so that the phrase draws upon an implied distance between Nephi and Lehi. As separate as they might have become through Nephi's birth, the teaching situation later in life suggests that this separation only grew. The inferential character of the connecting "therefore" seems to confirm this growing distance. However, at the same time, Nephi's teaching is precisely "in" his father's learning: even as the separation between son and parents/father grows, so does the inseparability between them. The tension introduced in the first part of Nephi's first ''having'' is doubled, strengthened, and confirmed in the second part. The relation between Nephi and his parents/father is remarkably difficult.<br />
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* ''The meaning of the tension.'' The textual rhythm of Nephi's first ''having'' may characterize this tension, may draw out its meaning. In both the first part (before the "therefore") and the second part (after the "therefore") of this first self-reading, the theme of separation comes first, so that it is, in each instance, countered by the theme of inseparability: "having been born [separation] of goodly parents [inseparability], therefore I was taught somewhat [separation] in all the learning of my father [inseparability]." The passage "feels" as if every attempt of Nephi to draw apart from his parents is countered by their overwhelming saturation of all that he does. In other words, in every attempt to live, Nephi lives his (still unnamed) parents. Stating the issue this way does not relieve the tension, but releases it from appearing as a contradiction: Nephi is separate just in that he embodies his parents, just in that he is inseparable from them. Hence, a first reading of Nephi's first (self-)reading: Nephi's collective experience is always from the standpoint of his a son who embodies his parents/father. Nephi encounters the world as his parents.<br />
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* ''The teaching situation and separation.'' The interpersonal dynamics of Nephi's first ''having'' might now be read preliminarily, at last, in and against the meaningful words explored above. And, in fact, the important difference examined between Nephi's "being taught" and Lehi's "learning" bears powerfully on the theme of separation. In that that difference marks a difference between Nephi and Lehi, the separation between father and son might easily be read there. However, the question of separation grounds that same difference still more profoundly: the distinction between "being taught" (always face-to-face) and "learning" (always in solitude) was precisely a question of separation. In other words, the two terms bear their meaning precisely by taking up opposite ends of the tension between separation/inseparability. As a result, Nephi's teaching situation is in and of itself a double embodiment of that vital tension. First, Nephi's being taught--in face-to-face instruction--is a work of inseparability, fundamentally frustrated by the grammatical cloaking of the instructor, which marks Nephi's being taught with an undeniable character of separation. Second, because the content of the teaching is the learning of Lehi, Nephi's instruction at once marks him inseparable from his father (studying precisely the same things) and entirely separate (if he truly learns his father's learning, what is profoundly a work of solitude, of separation). Nephi's first ''having'' wonderfully puts on display Lehi's profound influence on him: always as himself, Nephi entirely presents his father.<br />
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* ''Goodliness and separation.'' As pointed at at the very beginning of these comments on Nephi's first ''having'', the first self-reading of this autobiographical sketch (by employing the strong "therefore" at its center) draws upon the relation between the goodliness of Nephi's parents and his own later instruction. That broad relation now suggests that the theme of separation so powerfully embodied in the teaching situation should be read back into the goodliness of Lehi and Sariah. Or better, that goodliness should be read as the source of that eventually perfected tension of separation/inseparability. And it certainly does. If, as mentioned above, "goodly" is best read as marking the wealth or abundance of Nephi's parents, then the description the prophet's birth draws the theme of inheritance to bear powerfully on the present considerations: Nephi's first ''having'' casts him as an heir. The power of this insight emerges in the fact that inheritance is itself a perfect embodiment of the same tension of separation/inseparability. The heir is profoundly separate and absolutely inseparable from his or her benefactor. Nephi, as heir, is again marked entirely and always himself, even as he entirely and always (re-)presents his father. Perhaps most vital in all this: it is precisely the term "goodly" that draws this tension into the first half of Nephi's first ''having''.<br />
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* ''Subverted inheritance.'' However, as soon as Nephi's first ''having'' is read through the theme of inheritance, the same theme is called into question: Nephi's relational "therefore" does not draw eventual wealth as the fruition of inheritance, but rather instruction. In other words, Nephi's inheritance is "only" an ''intellectual'' inheritance: he is heir to his father's learning. (This first ''having'', then, should probably be read with an eye to the later Lamanite claim to the right of inheritance.) Perhaps most important of all, this subversion of the traditional theme of inheritance further subverts the meaning of the term "goodly." The goodliness Nephi is concerned with might ultimately be the goodliness commonly read into this first verse of the Book of Mormon: Lehi and Sariah were folk of abundant faith, obedience, goodness, etc.<br />
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* ''Nephi's relation, finally, to his parents.'' All of the above comments set up the relation between Nephi and his parents/father. In his first self-interpretation, Nephi reads himself fundamentally as heir to his father's learning, and that only through the instrumentality--the goodliness--of his parents. As heir, Nephi covers his parents over, in a sense, and yet manifests them perfectly: he manifests them in himself. Nephi reads himself not so much as drawing upon his parents' goodliness, but as re-working it, as re-presenting, as re-embodying it. Nephi himself is Lehi again, Lehi repeated, but now with the proper name of Nephi. If this first ''having'' is Nephi's attempt to read his beginnings, to interpret his origins, what he apparently finds is always only himself ("I, Nephi"), but always only his parents/father, as presented in himself. <br />
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* ''The content of Lehi's learning.'' With this relation now established, wherein Nephi continually re-presents his father (and that especially in terms of "learning"), the way has been opened up to explore at last the actual content of Lehi's learning. However, the above comments have conclusively pointed away from such a task. It might be best to say that Nephi, precisely because he does not take the space to explicate his father's learning, sees this issue as inessential, perhaps immaterial. The point, as suggested by the above comments, of Nephi's first ''having'' is the role Lehi and Sariah play in Nephi's independent/dependent writing.<br />
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===Nephi's Second "Having"===<br />
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* ''On the way to "afflictions."'' Obviously the most important word in Nephi's second ''having'' is "afflictions." Curiously, the word does not take the grammatical position of subject in the clause; rather it functions as the direct object. As direct object, it becomes that towards which this second self-interpretation tends: the "many afflictions" of Nephi might best be understood as the ''horizon'' of this second autobiographical comment, not as the starting point. This is as much as to say that Nephi removes from himself (in the act of writing) the actual afflictions he suffered (he displaces them to his--and the reader's--horizon). He in fact does so, precisely by clothing them in a double event-ness: the afflictions comes to Nephi spatially (through his body: "having ''seen''") and temporally (in time: "in the course of my ''days''"). (It should be noted very clearly that only Nephi's second ''having'' has an undeniable event-ness about it: the static verbs of the other three ''havings'' set this second one forth as uniquely event-ual.) In other words, because Nephi characterizes his "many afflictions" as events (spatio-temporal happenings), they become for him and for the reader ''event-ual'', intended but still unreached. A first interpretive point for Nephi's second ''having'': the very key of this ''having'' ("afflictions") are the key precisely because they are what the whole phrase aims at, but does not yet reach.<br />
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* ''On the way from "afflictions."'' Even as the grammatical structure of Nephi's second ''having'' sets the prophet's afflictions at a double remove as a spatio-temporal event-uality, another grammatical structure inherent in the same phrase cancels this distantiation. The "having" that marks the seeing (the spatial/bodily happening that is temporalized in the "course of [Nephi's] days") is a verbal that is, by the end of Nephi's first verse, caught up into the present work of writing. However absent or distant Nephi's afflictions are at the time of writing, they are one of his four self-interpretive reasons for writing at all. In other words, even as Nephi's second ''having'' marks itself as a way towards the many afflictions Nephi faced, the whole of the first verse unmistakably marks Nephi's entire introduction as a way from afflictions to writing. (As mentioned above, only this second ''having'' is ''explicitly'' event-ual. While the other three self-interpretations Nephi offers might be read as several ''groundings'' of Nephi's task of writing, this one, his second ''having'', seems best read as a sort of path or way towards the task of writing. That this ''having'' is temporalized by a "''course'' of... days" seems to underscore this point.) Though Nephi's afflictions appear event-ual and horizonal, they are nonetheless a sort of point of departure for Nephi.<br />
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* ''On the (double) way of "afflictions."'' This duplicity of way, caught up into the double, tense grammatical structure of Nephi's second ''having'', suggests a sort of parallel between Nephi's first and second ''havings''. Even as this second ''having'' suggests a distance or a separation, the same is cancelled by a broader inseparability: the event-ual afflictions are the point of departure for Nephi's task of writing. This is not unlike the separation/inseparability theme of Nephi's first ''having''. The absolution of afflictions accomplished by the role of direct object is cancelled in that Nephi himself takes his departure from his bodily/temporal experience of afflictions. Again--as before--Nephi reads himself as a sort of re-embodiment (perhaps particularly in the task of writing) of afflictions he has seen, has witnessed (were they never his own afflictions?). At least this much is clear: there is a parallel structure to be read into Nephi's first two ''havings''.<br />
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* ''"Seeing" afflictions.'' Nephi takes up his afflictions with a verb that might well be read as confirming the separation/inseparability theme already doubled with this second ''having''. Vision opens, quite singularly, the very possibility for the distinction between separation and inseparability (it might be precisely because the two opposites arise out of a singular that the tension explored in these comments is possible). Sight at once sets before the seer a world spectacle from which he or she might retire and at the same time locates the seer immediately in the world, most explicitly through the sheer physicality of the eyes with which one sees. Sight--or rather all the senses, perhaps corporeal existence itself and hence every verb (such as "having seen") that summons the body--then plays an important role in Nephi's second ''having'', important precisely because it--as a bodily verb--draws out this same tension of separation/inseparability. Whereas Nephi might have discussed afflictions he had once "had" or "experienced" or "gone through," his use of "having seen" suggests something more of his relation to his afflictions: Nephi's afflictions were at once something separate and remote from him (''"seen"'') and something that might be called his very setting or vantage point (from which he ''sees'' himself autobiographically).<br />
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* ''The meaning of affliction.'' Though "affliction" seems a simple enough word, its literal meaning is perhaps more nuanced. The verb, "to afflict", comes into English from a Latin compound: ''ad-fligo'', literally "to strike against (towards)". Its primary meaning in usage was to dash something against another (or two things together) or (much the same) to knock down, strike down, or damage. Only metaphorically did the word come to mean to weaken, to discourage. Affliction was originally, then, bodily pain or torture. Before the word is taken in Nephi's text to mean something primarily "spiritual" or "mental," it should be considered in its physical originality. If Nephi means the word in a "spiritual" or "mental" sense, the violence implied in the literal meaning should not be missed. Moreover, the original "physical" meaning of the word always implies ''at least two'' "things," marked by the ''ad-'', the ''towards'' or ''against''. Too quick a reversion to the "spiritual" or "mental" reading of affliction might reduce affliction to a sort of solitary struggle rather than a literal clash of at least two things. The towards and against of affliction also point toward two parties--one who afflicts, and one who is afflicted. Affliction is more than suffering, it is a suffering caused by one towards another.<br />
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* ''The corporeality of seeing and the physicality of afflictions.'' The corporeality of Nephi's "having seen" and the radical physicality of his mentioned "afflictions" come up against each other in an odd manner. While afflictions retreat into mental/spiritual meaning only metaphorically, sight and the eyes have a natural means of retreat (unlike the other four bodily senses) in one's ability to blink, to close off sight from bodily experience. And this means of visual escape is unique and significant. It is sight, for example, that makes sleep so bizarre a human state: the sleeper is open to the reality of the world in four ways, and what he or she hears, smells, tastes, or touches readily enters into the surreality of the dream. But the sleeper closes him- or herself off entirely from the world of sight. The eye's ability to retreat, to shut off the visual realm of the world, sets the corporeality of Nephi's principal verb in this second ''having'' against the radical physicality of the afflictions Nephi deals with: because he sees the afflictions, Nephi has some recourse to distance from them, has some means of retreat from the harsh reality of the bodily danger implicit in those afflictions. At least on the grammatical level, Nephi's second ''having'' at once presents a very real danger and an ability to flee the same.<br />
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* ''The ambiguous nature of visual escape.'' Here an ambiguity in Nephi's language might well be considered: because the afflictions Nephi mentions in his second ''having'' are completely unqualified grammatically, it remains unclear whether the afflictions were things Nephi himself suffered, or whether the afflictions Nephi saw were afflictions others passed through to which the prophet was "merely" witness. The importance of this ambiguity arises most clearly in the light of Nephi's means of escape, because his ability as seer to shut his eyes is ultimately ambiguous as well. On the one hand, Nephi's visual escape might be read as a very real escape: if he closes his eyes to violence inflicted on himself, he holds out to some degree a sort of mastery over his enemies. His closed eyes would mark his willing martyrdom, a sort of absolute denial on his part to become involved (perhaps thereby doing damage to the meaning of afflictions as two things striking one another). On the other hand, Nephi's visual escape might be read as a sort of false escape: if he closes his eyes to violence inflicted on others, he marks himself a slave to his own weakness. His closed eyes would here mark him as one completely lacking the virtue of charity: he allows others to suffer while he closes his eyes. Two very different meanings of visual "escape", based on two very different meanings of the afflictions mentioned in the passage.<br />
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* ''Nephi's apparently open eyes.'' The above two comments, however, work from an assumption that is unjustified based on Nephi's second ''having'': that Nephi closed his eyes. However, the fact that Nephi ''saw'' the afflictions marks with great importance the fact that Nephi could very easily and at any time have closed them: that he didn't is what should be emphasized here. As such, Nephi's open eyes (open to the ambiguous afflictions he mentions) require interpretation. Just as Nephi's grammar invites a double reading of visual escape, a double reading of Nephi's open eyes is warranted. If, on the one hand, the afflictions in question were Nephi's own, then his meeting them with open eyes would suggest his self-transcending courage, his unwillingness to take the escape of selfish retreat that would immortalize him as an innocent martyr. Apparently unconcerned with himself, Nephi--taking the afflictions, again, to be his own--was willing to engage (to love?) even his enemies, to wrestle with them, to crash against them in a very real sense, in a radical work of opening himself--his eyes--to them. If, on the other hand, the afflictions in question were not Nephi's, but those of others to which Nephi stood witness, then his open eyes mark his unquestionable charity. Unwilling, on this reading, to turn from the difficulties others faced, Nephi presents himself as one willing to engage (again, to love?) the innocent who suffer all about him. <br />
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* ''Nephi's eyes as the double figure of love.'' Fortunately, the reader of Nephi's text is not forced to choose between these two possible readings of Nephi's open eyes. The two are allowed to work against and through each other. In fact, the two carry a very similar meaning in the end: love. Nephi's open eyes mark his unconcernedness with himself, his willingness to engage (on the one hand) his enemies and/or (on the other hand) his friends. In both cases, his self-transcendence is marked by his open eyes, but his regard or gaze that takes up both friend and enemy by the hand (hand to hand, whether in combat or in salutation). In fact, that Nephi leaves the afflictions he mentions in this second ''having'' ambiguous suggests that he wants his readers to feel the tension between both possible readings. The charity with which Nephi marks himself in this second self-interpretation is supposed to be felt as all-embracing, as touching both friends ''and'' enemies. On that account, Nephi's "having seen" imbues the figure of Nephi with love. It might, moreover, be noted that it is precisely afflictions that open Nephi's eyes (on either reading). Love itself might here be read ''as'' affliction: love is the inevitable drama of striking two things, two people, together. Love is the site of affliction, afflictions are the sight of love: in Nephi's seeing afflictions--in his seeing ''to'' afflictions--he encounters love. <br />
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* ''Nephi's love as response.'' But as soon as one reads love into Nephi's second ''having'', the objection arises that Nephi never explicitly mentions love, that he only sets it forth negatively, under the figure of seeing ''afflictions''. In other words, that Nephi here interprets himself in terms of afflictions, apparently in an attempt to interpret himself in terms of charity, is oddly ironic. It might, on the one hand, mark Nephi's humility: he only suggests his charity negatively, through afflictions. On the other hand, this detail might set a sort of limit for the reading above: Nephi's love is not an absolute virtue, but one drawn out of him by the threat of the other, by afflictions. In a sense, then, that Nephi addresses his own charity through affliction serves to proscribe Nephi's love, to render it a response rather than a call. Nephi's eyes do not intend so much as they are intended and seeingly respond. In other words and in short, Nephi's second ''having'' might be read as a figure of responsive--even responsible--charity: Nephi's open eyes figure his response to the visible world, a world, apparently, of affliction.<br />
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* ''Reanalyzing the parallel between first and second "havings".'' Nephi's second ''having'' is now seen as the prophet's confrontation with the fallen nature of the world, as his loving response to the presence of evil--of afflictions, many afflictions--in the world. And here, perhaps, the apparent parallel between this second ''having'' and the first falls apart. Whereas in the first ''having'', Nephi interprets himself as a reembodiment of his parents (thus being separate and inseparable from them), here it is clear that Nephi is not reading himself in terms of affliction, but in terms of his response to affliction. In other words, Nephi's entire first verse does not ultimately follow Nephi's journey from afflictions to writing, but from his response to afflictions to the task of writing. If this second ''having'' is to be read as privileged above the others for its event-ness, it is now clear that the event(s) Nephi here recounts is (are) not to be understood as experience(s) of affliction, but as response(s) to affliction. The one event Nephi cites on the way to the task of writing is his seeing, his open eyes in response to the wickedness of the world.<br />
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* ''Toward the course of Nephi's days.'' Given all of the above, Nephi's second ''having'' might be summarized thus: the only event Nephi calls upon in interpreting his life is his loving response (his open eyes) to the wickedness of the world. All that remains to be dealt with in this second ''having'' is the "course of [Nephi's] days." It is clear that this phrase plays an important role in the text, besides confirming the event-ual character of the second ''having''. A first, but very brief reading suggests that Nephi proscribes his charitable response within a sort of temporal enclosure (which might just be a consequence of the event-ual character of this ''having''). The word "course" is, however, not so perfectly simple. Its many meanings in [[http://65.66.134.201/cgi-bin/webster/webster.exe?search_for_texts_web1828=course|1828]] suggest that it should be read quite carefully. Two "concepts" seem to be inevitable: the word implies at least motion and method/order. (Etymology bears this out: "course" derives from Latin ''cursus'', which means an established track for running a race, hence motion and order.) Whatever Nephi means by the "course" of his days, it seems that it must inevitably be read through the double theme of motion and method.<br />
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* ''Course and death.'' But perhaps this double theme of motion and method already suggests a meaning. If Nephi's days are, as a course, understood to be a methodical procession towards an already decided end, then at least one very real possible meaning is clear: the "course" of Nephi's days ends with death. That Nephi may here be thinking of death is not to be thrown out because of the reality of the resurrection: passages throughout the Old Testament--especially in Ecclesiastes--see life as a working out of days on the way to death. (To say that the race ends with death is not at all to claim that there is nothing after the race.) If Nephi is indeed concerned with death here, then Nephi's reads his loving response, his interlocuted charity as an event at once opened up and foreclosed by the reality of death. In other words, that the event-ual ''having'' is the one tied specifically to the theme of death (a theme that rings well with the theme of affliction) suggests that event-ness itself arises out of death, that the event of charity is a response to the evil of death (even death through affliction). In short, Nephi in his second ''having'' seems to characterize himself as having lived toward his own death.<br />
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* ''One's days and the course of one's days.'' If the course Nephi describes is the procedural movement of his days toward death, it might be well to consider more exactly the word "days." That the word should not be understood here in any objective sense (e.g., to mean "twenty-four hour periods") is clear: Nephi marks the days as his, as belonging to him. In other words, Nephi does not read "days" as some objective thing he passes through, but rather understands "days" to be a sort of aspect of his experience: as ''his'' days, these days are the what through which Nephi experiences the events of affliction. Each day--lit by the light of day as opposed to night--is the light in which a certain afflicting event appeared (was seen). In fact, Nephi's seeing might well be extended to every event that came before his eyes in his "days." If this is what Nephi means by mentioning these days as his, then the meaning of the "course" of his "days" might become clearer. Nephi here reads his afflictions as punctuating an ordered procession of experiences, of events, a series of events that culminate in death--the event that anounces itself as the foreclosure of all other events, as the cessation of events. In other words, Nephi seems to read his life here as a series of witnessed events, as experiences he entered into bodily (even through his eyes), all tending toward the cessation of events and experiences, and all this punctuated often ("many") by afflictions, by--perhaps--events that suggested the reality of the coming conclusive event. It is, of course, most significant that Nephi reads his own charity as a response to those event-ual forerunners of death. <br />
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* ''The overarching tension of Nephi's second'' having. All of the above suggests the following general reading of Nephi's second ''having''. Whereas the first ''having'' explored the possibility of Nephi's escape, as it were, from his parents, this second ''having'' explores the possibility of Nephi's ability to rebridge the gap of interpersonal separation. Taking as its theme the gift of charity, Nephi seems to read through the ever-present reality of death (ever-present through the constant experience of affliction) a sort of call to love, to which Nephi responds.<br />
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===Nephi's Third "Having"===<br />
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* ''Nephi's return to "days."'' After the peculiarities of Nephi's second ''having'', the word "days" immediately stands out in this third ''having''. Whereas before his days were subsumed under the figure of a course, here they are merely collected with the word "all." One immediately gets the sense that this third ''having'' breaks the course of the second, that the inevitable movement of Nephi's days toward death is canceled in the favor of the Lord. Broadly speaking, then, this third ''having'' already presents itself as something beyond even the implicit charity of the second ''having''. Certainly the clearest initial theme of this ''having'' is the theme of God's love, God's favor, a reverse of the charity mentioned above.<br />
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* ''The meaning of favor.'' <br />
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===Nephi's Four "Having's"===<br />
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* ''Nephi's life and the plan.'' Together the clauses beginning with ''having'' form a pattern that runs through Nephi's two books: creation ("having been born"), fall ("having seen many afflictions"), atonement ("having been highly favored of the Lord"), and passing through the veil ("having had a great knowledge"). The pattern might broadly be called "the plan of salvation," but it appears to play a more fundamental ''textual'' role for Nephi as well. His first eighteen chapters (1 Nephi 1-18) tell a sort of creation story (with constant reference to his goodly parents); his following nine chapters (1 Nephi 19-2 Nephi 5) tell a sort of fall story (marked emphatically by the division between Nephites and Lamanites); his next twenty-five chapters (2 Nephi 6-31) tell a sort of atonement story (how the Lamanites might become again favored and reconnected to broader Israel); and his concluding three chapters (2 Nephi 31-33) dwell on a sort of passing-through-the-veil story (through a discussion of baptism in incredibly "veil-like" terms). Moreover, that the twenty-five chapter atonement stretch of Nephi's two-book record is presented by three messengers who collectively bring to the reader an understanding of how the "veil" of 2 Nephi 31-33 might be passed suggests that there is some connection between Nephi's broader record and the temple drama. If this connection is not unfounded, Nephi's "therefore" toward the end of this verse is powerfully significant: it is because his very life might be read as a sort of "endowment" that he is writing this text.<br />
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===Chiastic Interpretation===<br />
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===Double Parallelism Interpretation===<br />
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* ''Nevertheless.'' The center of the chiastic structural reading is peculiar, but textually important. D ''mediates'' the two "halves" of the passage. In other words, it is the single word ''nevertheless'' that decides how the relation between the first half (A, B, and C) and the second half (A', B', and C') should be read. The implication: this single, perhaps "intuitive" word must be read with care. An all-too-quick reading of the word might suggest that it draws the two halves of the chiasm together in a sort of antithesis: by bringing them to stand side by side, ''nevertheless'' markedly puts on display the distinction between the events of the first half and the events of the second half, precisely because ''nevertheless'' means ''however'', or ''but''. However, more careful thought reveals that ''nevertheless'' does not at all set up a facile anthithesis. The term rather means most literally that what is about to be said is not undone by what has been said, that the implications of the foregoing (here, the first half) do not preclude what is about to be said (here, in the second half): Y (what I am about to say) is ''never'' to be taken as anything ''less''--is not to be read weakly--because of X (what I have just said). This more literal reading implies a great deal about the meaning of Nephi's autobiographical chiasm. The first half of it (what might be called Nephi's earthly world) does not preclude in any way, nor does it weaken at all, the second half of it (what might be called Nephi's heavenly world). In short, the first half of Nephi's chiastic autobiography at once has something to do with the second half--especially in that it parallels it!--but the relation between the two is neither one of mutual implication, nor one of frustrating contradiction. Perhaps all that can at first be said about the chiasm in question is what has snuck into this discussion through the back door: Nephi sees the earthly and heavenly aspects of his existence as parallel, not contradictory or implicatory.<br />
* ''having .., nevertheless, having...'' Lehi is not disappointed by his experiences. He displays an attitude of gratitude.<br />
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===Beyond (?) Autobiography===<br />
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* ''Book of the Dead wording.'' If the final phrase of this verse is taken in the Egyptian idiom, it is remarkably close to the Egyptian name for what is commonly called the "Book of the Dead" (Egyptian: "The Book of Going Forth by Day"). Nephi might here be making a suggestive allusion: his two-volume record on the small plates is, as it were, his own Book of the Dead (which was, for all intents and purposes, a sort of Egyptian endowment, an Egyptian drama of resurrection). If this reading is justified, this final phrase might ground the temple connections mentioned above. A connection (however distant) to the Book of the Dead would certainly explain the autobiographical "I, Nephi" with which the verse begins: copies of the "canonical" Book of the Dead were always personalized (by name) for the individual who purchased them. This may also provide a better context in which to understand verse 2.<br />
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* ''Dependent/independent clauses.'' The rather extended series of dependent clauses (the four "havings") that makes up the first half of this verse is interrupted along its course by the strikingly ungrammatical "therefore I was taught...." (This instance of "therefore" is the first of two in 1 Nephi 1:1, and should not here be confused with the summary "therefore" with which Nephi begins the final phrase of the verse.) The phrase, abstracted from its surroundings, is clearly an independent clause, though it is (because of the "therefore") subjected to the series of dependent clauses. The phrase therefore sets up a tension in the first half of this verse: there is an independent clause that is, so to speak, dependent on a series of dependent clauses. The tension accomplishes two things at once: on the one hand, it allows Nephi to draw the conclusion implicated by his "therefore," that his having been taught has something to do with his father's wealth, etc.; on the other hand, it frees the phrase from its confines in the first verse so that it can form a parallelism with the "language of my father" mentioned in verse 2. The tension is therefore structural: the phrase, "therefore I was taught somewhat in all the learning of my father," is drawn into tension by the first two verses, suspended, as it were, between them. The "Yea" of verse 2, discussed below, is therefore all the more significant.<br />
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=== Verse 2 ===<br />
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* ''Double parallelism.'' Given the comments above on verse 1, there is a double parallelism at play in this verse: Nephi is concerned in the first verse with his father's learning, and in the second verse with his father's language. This is doubled by Nephi's further mention of the learning of the Jews and the language of the Egyptians. The full implications of this double parallelism, however, remain to be worked out.<br />
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* ''Re-translating verse 1?'' Besides the tension that already connects the first two verses in an odd way (explained above in the comments on verse 1), Nephi further connects them by mediating their contraposition with the weighty word "Yea." Given that the Book of Mormon broadly takes up the KJV idiom (a presupposition that might well be called into question), the "Yea" here likely should be read with the weight of the Hebrew root ''knn'', to double, to repeat, to confirm. If so, Nephi seems to be drawing his first two verses into a sort of reciprocal or perhaps dialectical relation. If this second verse might be read as a "translation" of the first, it is fascinating that the two verses are drawn together in their pairing of questions of language and learning, especially the explicit mention of Jewish and Egyptian traditions. Through these two verses (explicitly composed of "metalanguage"), Nephi presents his record as fundamentally dual: it is a crossing of Egyptian and Jewish traditions, of Lehi's and Nephi's experiences, of language and learning, of verse 1 and verse 2. It might at least be said that Nephi sees his work as working out these several tensions.<br />
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* ''Making a record.'' A single foundational phrase underlies both verse 1 and verse 2: "I make a record." When each of these verses is stripped of dependent clauses and prepositional phrases, only this four-word sentence is left behind for each of them. The two verses would thus read: "I make a record. Yea, I make a record." This observation not only strengthens the suggestion that verse 2 is a repetition/translation of verse 1, but it also makes clear that Nephi's making a record is of foundational importance to these first few verses. Nephi uses the word "record" three times in this three-verse introduction to his text, doubly marking the importance of the term. The word generally translates the Hebrew ''zkrwn'' in the KJV, a word deriving from the root ''zkr'', meaning to actualize, to enact, to remember, to hold in presence. Nephi's choice of this word may imply that his text is to be read as a ritual text, one to be read aloud, even acted out or presented dramatically (cf. [[Rev 1:3]]). Such a reading might well ground the endowment themes in verse 1, while at the same time both enriching and making difficult Nephi's statement in verse 3 that the record is "true."<br />
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* ''Mention of the Jews.'' The first mention of the Jews in the whole of Nephi's record--in the whole of the Book of Mormon--is found in this verse, and it sets the tone for all subsequent discussion of the Jews. If there is any starting point for a study of who is meant by the Jews in the Book of Mormon, it is here. And this first mention is quite peculiar. From the very beginning, the national identity of the Jews is in question. "The Jews" are set here quite clearly against "the Egyptians," both emerging under plural nouns that deserve some attention: why does Nephi say "the learning of the Jews" and not "the learning of Judah" or "Jewish learning," and why does Nephi say "the language of the Egyptians" and not "the language of Egypt" or "Egyptian language"? The point is important, because Nephi from the very beginning places an emphasis on individuals who derive their identity from their political situation, rather than on nations as whole individuals (the "Israel" of the OT prophets, so profoundly understood by William Blake in his mythic prophecies). The point is, in fact, more complicated still: specific mention of "the Jews" and "the Egyptians" can only have had for Nephi profound political overtones, because of the particular situation between these nations that obtained at the time he left Jerusalem with his family. These politically defined individuals, set against each other in Nephi's first mention of the Jews, deserves some very close attention.<br />
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* ''"of the Jews," "of the Egyptians."'' Only a decade or so before Zedekiah's enthronement, the Jews and the Egyptians found themselves at war. The political situation was intense: Assyria had crumbled, leaving a power vacuum and three nations trying to fill it. Babylon, the largest and most powerful nation, was the most likely to take its place, but this was undecided, since both Egypt and Judah were also striving for the part. Around 610 B.C., Pharaoh Necho offered to join forces with Babylon against all other powers, working towards a joint empire. While traveling to accomplish this in 609 B.C., Pharaoh was encountered by Israelite forces led by King Josiah, who was attempting to stop the alliance. Josiah had already led his armies to quite a few victories in his struggle to claim greater Judean power. At Megiddo, the armies met, and Israel suffered a terrible defeat, in which Necho himself killed Josiah. The defeat was crushing for Judah (the textual implications of this failure alone for the Bible are incredible), and led quickly to the conquest of Jerusalem within two decades. Babylon quickly asserted its power of Judah, and Judah found itself conquered with a puppet king in place over it (namely, Zedekiah, who was installed by Babylon). This set up a rather difficult situation for Judah, a people with a covenant they understood to mean that they would never be conquered: either they had to submit cheerfully to Babylon (which seemed to imply unfaithfulness to the Davidic covenant), or they had to raise up enough of a force against Babylon to throw off the yoke (which could only be done through an alliance with Egypt). The prophets at the time were advocating the former position (Jeremiah especially), but Zedekiah eventually tried to establish political ties with Egypt, and the result was the obliteration of the kingdom of Judah. All of this, oddly, shows that the Jews and the Egyptians had a rather complex relationship at the time the Book of Mormon begins: those who were in favor of Egypt were those who could forgive the death of Josiah in order to try in some way to restore the situation they believed to be according to the Davidic covenant; those who were not in favor of Egypt were following the prophets even though it seemed as if this were against the wishes of the Lord. More still: the Egyptians and the Jews had so many commercial ties--especially mercenary ties--that the cultures had to some degree or another fused into one. That Nephi writes his record in reformed Egyptian is of some significance: he finds himself in the midst of some major political struggles, all of which bear quite inevitably on the questions of covenant.<br />
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* ''Jews, then, and Egyptians.'' For Nephi here to use "of the Jews" and "of the Egyptians" makes quite a point, then: by drawing on collective individuals, Nephi avoids questions of broader politics. He is not so much concerned in this verse with Judah and Egypt as he is with people from Judah and people from Egypt. He is more concerned with cultures and heritages, with traditions. It should be noted, then, that the very first mention of "the Jews" in the Book of Mormon marks them as a national culture that can be opposed to, set against, that of Egypt. If Egypt is the glory of antiquity, Nephi sees Judah as no less so. The Jews, from the very beginning, are a people, one with a tradition, with a unique history and culture, and with an autonomous take on the world. The Jews, it seems quite clear, are to be understood as the people who come from the Southern Kingdom of Judah, who have inherited the particularities of Judah and Benjamin, as well as the complexities of cross-cultures that came in with the collapse of the Northern Kingdom. The heritage of Judah has a mixed history, perhaps, but Nephi understands it to be unique and separate by this point.<br />
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=== Verse 3 ===<br />
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* ''Chiasm.'' After the grammatical complexity of Nephi's first two verses, the third verse reads with a striking simplicity. It is made up of three straightforward statements, all beginning with the conjoining "and I". Despite the unbalance between these short, plain statements and the far more difficult phrases of verses 1 and 2, this verse sets up a chiastic structure that runs through the whole of Nephi's first three verses:<br />
A I make a record<br />
B I make a record<br />
C I know (that the record is true)<br />
B' I make it<br />
A' I make it<br />
The importance of this structure goes well beyond "proofs of ancient authorship": the whole of verse 1 is set in parallel with Nephi's rather simple "and I make it according to my knowledge"; and the whole of verse 2 is set in parallel with his (also rather simple) "and I make it with mine own hand." Further, because it marks the chiastic center and has no parallel, the independent statement "And I know that the record which I make is true," with its profound focus on knowledge instead of record-making, separates itself thematically from the rest of what Nephi writes into these first three verses. More still, the doubling already recognized in verses 1 and 2 (here called A and B) is itself doubled by a parallel doubling (B' and A' might be read as a project of translation just as A and B are above). These structural observations are perhaps a collective key to interpreting this third verse.<br />
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* ''Record-making and testimony.'' As mentioned above, the chiastic center of Nephi's first three verses is a grammatical inversion of every other step of the chiasm. In other words, whereas verses 1 and 2 unite with the second and third statements of verse 3 in a project of subordinating (grammatically) knowledge to the record Nephi makes, this central (most important?) statement subordinates (again, grammatically) the record to Nephi's knowledge: "And I know that the record which I make is true." Again, it might be said that the great majority of Nephi's three-verse introduction to his story understands Nephi's "knowledge" (and "learning" and "language") to be sublimated (or at least spoken) in the text is writes. At the same time, however, the most central message of that same three-verse introduction is a reversal of this sublimation: the record gathers itself up in Nephi's testimonial "I know," is sublimated (or, again, at least spoken) in the knowledge he has. In short, the complex structure written into Nephi's first three verses suggests a sort of dialectic of testimony: knowledge is channeled into a text, and a text is channeled into knowledge. Record-making and knowing are undeniably--even if impossibly--interwoven in Nephi's introduction. The LDS theme of "testimony" might well be re-read through these verses, in a reading that appears to adhere carefully to the implied roots of the Hebrew term for testimony, ''`dwt'' (from a root that arguably means to carve or engrave in stone).<br />
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* ''Another structure?'' If the comments above concerning the semi-independent clause near the beginning of verse 1 are taken into account, an alternate structure for Nephi's first three verses emerges, recasting the function of this third verse. If Nephi's ungrammatical "therefore I was taught somewhat in all the learning of my father" is taken as an independent clause, then six statements (rather than five) precipitate out of 1 Nephi 1:1-3. Moreover, the sixth component of the surface structure of Nephi's introduction would disassemble the chiasm and replace it with an entirely different structure:<br />
A I was taught somewhat<br />
B I make a record<br />
C I make a record<br />
A' I know (that the record is true)<br />
B' I make it<br />
C' I make it<br />
Such a reading would make verse 3 a wholesale doubling of verses 1 and 2. Further, the two parallelisms mentioned in the chiastic reading would be switched ("with mine own hand" would parallel Nephi's fourfold life experience, and "according to my knowledge" would parallel the "language of my father"). Perhaps most important, Nephi's testimony ("I know that the record which I make is true") would here be parallel to his learning ("therefore I was taught somewhat in all the learning of my father"). Both of these parallel statements work out Nephi's "knowledge," perhaps strengthening this structural reading of these three verses.<br />
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=== Verses 1-3 ===<br />
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* ''Teaching as an impossibility.'' Nephi's first three verses should be read as a single literary unit (marked separate from and yet tied inextricably to verse 4 by the latter's introductory "For"). However, the comments collected above suggest that this "single literary unit" is bound together by an undeniable tension. At the root of this tension is the ungrammatical interruption early in the first verse: "therefore I was taught somewhat in all the learning of my father." Not only does this phrase break with the grammatical structure of the first verse, thereby setting up a syntactical tension, it forces a double semantic (better: structural) tension into the whole three verse introduction, as laid out in the comments above. In other words, what might have otherwise been a very straightforward three-verse introduction on how and why Nephi wrote his record is disturbed, unbalanced, perhaps even frustrated, and precisely in Nephi's having been "taught." It is not too much to say that Nephi's introductory text puts on display how the "simple" dialectical process of record-making is grounded on the violent, aporetic, and yet necessary work of "being taught." The implications of Nephi's "ungrammar" are rich, but remain to be worked out at length.<br />
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=== Verse 4 ===<br />
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* ''Zedekiah's reign.'' Zedekiah's reign marks the historical beginning of the story, but it probably should not be assumed that Nephi's text therefore "legitimizes" him. In fact, the text draws an important parallel that, to some degree, de-legitimizes him: whereas this verse portrays the enthroned Zedekiah as surrounded with prophets speaking disparaging messages, verse 8 will portray a parallel God upon His throne, surrounded with angels who sing and shout praises to Him. The comparison might well betray Nephi's attitude towards the king.<br />
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== Points to ponder ==<br />
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''This heading is for prompts that suggest ways in which all or part of this passage can influence a person's life. Click the link above and to the right to edit or add content to this heading. →''<br />
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== I have a question ==<br />
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===Verse 1===<br />
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* ''Colophon.'' Was Hugh Nibley right about these introductory verses being a colophon? Is this literary structure or formula unique to Nephi in the Book of Mormon or did other authors use colophons throughout the Book of Mormon also? Do you agree with [http://frontpage2000.nmia.com/~nahualli/LDStopics/1Nephi/1Nephi1.htm John A. Tvedtnes or Brant Gardner] on this point?<br />
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* ''"born of goodly parents."'' How many people are included in the Nephi's use of the word parents? How many of these parents gave birth to him? Can parents mean more than just mother and father? Does the use of parents in [[Alma 30:25]] provide a possible answer?<br />
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* ''"in all the learning of my father."'' How does Nephi's phrase compare with this description of the sons of Mosiah: "And he caused that they should be taught in all the language of his fathers" ([[Mosiah 1:2]])? Does this mean the sons of Mosiah received most of their lessons from someone other than their father? If the phrasing of these two passages is so similar, does that suggest that Nephi also received some of his religious training from a teacher who was not his father?<br />
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* ''Nature of Nephi's learning.'' Did anyone in Lehi's family have access to scriptures before Nephi and his brothers obtained the brass plates from Laban? If they did not have access to sacred texts, what was Nephi studying in his youth? How likely is it that Lehi and Nephi were part of an oral tradition? Does [[2 Ne 33:1]] contain any clues about Nephi's feelings about spoken texts versus written texts?<br />
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* ''Afflictions and blessings.'' How can this verse be used to deepen understanding of the themes of afflictions and blessings throughout 1 Nephi?<br />
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* ''"having seen many afflictions."'' Whose afflictions might Nephi have witnessed?<br />
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* ''Learning equals language?'' What is the relationship between the learning of Nephi's father in [[1 Ne 1:1]] and the language of Nephi's father in [[1 Ne 1:2]]?<br />
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* ''Intended introduction?'' As we know from [[Words of Mormon]], [[D&C 3]], and [[D&C 10]], Mormon did not intend the Book of Mormon to begin as it does now. How does this verse, in its "usurped" position, change the way we might otherwise read the Book of Mormon? How would the Book of Mormon be different if, for example, it began with an introduction to the whole text by Mormon?<br />
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* ''"therefore I make a record."'' How might we here understand Nephi's purpose or motivation in writing? How do Nephi's other explanations for this record (as contained in this verse) compare with the purposes listed in [[1 Ne 9]] and [[1 Ne 19]]? How might we understand this statement while also considering that Nephi later wrote, "the Lord hath commanded me to make these plates for a wise purpose in him, which purpose I know not" in [[1 Ne 9:5]]?<br />
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* ''Tense.'' Nephi uses phrases like "having been" and "make a record" in the same sentence, mixing past tense with present tense. Why might Nephi be doing this? Is this intentional? (ie. are we looking at an instance of [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enallage enallage]?)<br />
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* ''Memory.'' If Nephi is writing this record several years after the fact, how does this affect his memory of past events? If Nephi is writing with the benefit of hindsight, how does that affect Nephi's explanation of how and why things happened?<br />
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* ''Autobiography?'' What did Nephi mean in [[1 Ne 1:17]] when he said that "after I have abridged the record of my father then will I make an account of mine own life?" Does that mean Nephi did not consider this verse autobiographical? Or was this brief introduction something less than an "account"?<br />
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* ''Concepts of Time.'' Why does Nephi shift from the event of one day, to things that happened in the course of days, to things that happened every day, to mysteries that may transcend time? Is this a progression of some sort? Is Nephi making a distinction between different measures of time when he talks about "my days"? Does [[Jacob 7:26]] offer any insights into how Nephi and his contemporaries conceptualized time?<br />
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===Verse 2===<br />
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* ''Double cultures.'' Nephi here introduces the difficulties of translation into his still untranslated text: his work is a crossing of two cultures? How does this internal theme of translation bear on questions of Joseph's work of translating the Book of Mormon? Does this double culture of Nephi's work affect how it should be read?<br />
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* ''"Yea."'' Nephi begins this verse with "Yea," implying that this verse is a validation of the first verse. How does this verse meet up with the first?<br />
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* ''"the language of my father."'' Is Nephi implying that his father was bi-literate? Did Lehi have experience producing written texts in reformed Egyptian? Or did Nephi primarily pick up this skill from the brass plates?<br />
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* ''"which" and "consists."'' What is the antecedent for "which" in this verse? Is it both "language" and "record"? Is it more likely that Nephi's "record" "consists" of "learning" and "language" or that his "language" "consists" of "learning" and "language"?<br />
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* ''Jews and Egyptians.'' What is Nephi's concept of these two groups at the time he writes this verse? Has Nephi already had the visions of 1 Ne. 13-15 by the time he puts these thoughts to paper? If so, how does his discussion of Jews in those chapters influence what he is saying here? Or is it possible that Nephi held those later understandings of Jews in abeyance while he wrote this verse, in an attempt to recreate the understanding of Jews he started out with?<br />
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* ''"I make a record."'' Technically speaking, would it have been more accurate for Nephi to have written, "I have been making a record"? Why might Nephi have used this wording?<br />
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* ''"learning of the Jews."'' Is there a qualitative difference between saying "learning of the Jews" and "the Jews' learning"?<br />
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* ''"the language of the Egyptians."'' Did Nephi think the Egyptians used only one language? Should the singular word "language" be read as referring to only one language? If Nephi had been aware that the Egyptians were multi-lingual, would he have necessarily used the word "languages" to refer to their spoken abilities?<br />
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* ''""the language" and "the learning."'' Is Nephi saying that Lehi's "language" consists of the entirety of these languages and learning? If Nephi's learning was "somewhat" in [[1 Ne 1:1]], is this contrasted with the completeness of his father's learning? Was Nephi just being humble, or did he really feel that his father's knowledge dwarfed his own?<br />
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===Verse 3===<br />
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* ''"The record . . . is true."'' What does Nephi mean when he calls this record true? Why does he emphasize that he made it with his own hands?<br />
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* ''"I make."'' By this point, Nephi has used the phrase "I make" five times. Why is he repeating himself so much? Where there some that would doubt that he was the maker of the plates? Was he just claiming authorship or did the fact that he was the maker of the plates provide him with another sort of authority?<br />
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* ''"I know."'' Did Nephi know in advance that, no matter what, his writings on the plates would always be true? Or is Nephi making this statement after having written enough of his record that he feels confident that everything on the plates will be true?<br />
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* ''"my knowledge."'' Is Nephi saying this knowledge belongs to him or that it is in his sole possession? How did Nephi suddenly shift from deferentially talking about "the language of my father" in the previous verse to speaking confidently about his own knowledge? Why did Nephi shift from referring to "a great knowledge . . . of God" (verse 1) to laying claim on what he called "my knowledge"?<br />
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* ''"make it according to my knowledge."'' Is Nephi saying he purposely designed the plates so they would correspond to his own knowledge? How would the meaning of this verse be different if Nephi had written "I make it with my knowledge" or "I make it as I am given knowledge"? Is Nephi implying in this verse that he takes responsibility for any mistakes, since the writing was based upon his own knowledge?<br />
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* ''"make it with my own hand."'' Later in this chapter, Nephi referes to "plates which I have made with mine own hands" ([[1 Ne 1:17]]). Why did he use the singular word "hand," rather than "hands," in this verse?<br />
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===Verse 4===<br />
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* ''"For it came to pass."'' Why did Nephi use a five-word phrase that appears only three other times in the Book of Mormon ([[1 Ne 11:1]], [[Mosiah 26:6]], and [[Ether 6:2]])? Why did he not simply say "And it came to pass"?<br />
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* ''"commencement of the first year."'' Is Nephi being needlessly repetitive? Or is he trying to point to the first day, week, or month of the king's reign, as opposed to referring to the entire year? Was this first year in 600 or 598 B.C.?<br />
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* ''"commencement . . . of the reign of Zedekiah."'' With the exception of [[1 Ne 5]], which also mentions Zedekiah, why is this the only instance of the word commencement in the Book of Mormon until [[Alma 2:1]]? Did the authors of the small plates of Nephi assume that "commencement" was a concept that applied to kings in Judah and not to political leaders in the promised land? Or were words and concepts that applied to kings, like "commencement," reserved for the large plates of Nephi?<br />
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* ''"it."'' Is there supposed to be an antecedent for this word? Or is Nephi just using a formulaic phrase?<br />
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* ''"in that same year."'' Is Nephi saying prophets came throughout the year, even though he opened the verse by presumably referring to the beginning of the year? Does Nephi's reference to the year, once again, indicate he was beginning a new sentence?<br />
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* ''"dwelt at Jerusalem in all his days."'' Is Nephi saying Lehi had never before left Jerusalem? Or is he saying Lehi's residence was at Jerusalem, even if he sometimes went on trips that took him away from the city. Is Nephi implying that Lehi has never called another place home? What clues does the phrase "the land of our forefathers" ([[Alma 7:10]]) hold for answering these questions?<br />
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* ''"all his days."'' Why does Nephi use days, rather than years, to measure the age of his father? Why does the phrase "his years" never appear in the Book of Mormon? Was Nephi starting a new pattern upon the plates for measuring age? Was he borrowing the practice from an ancient source? Is the frequent use of the phrase "his days" in the Book of Ether the result of Moroni's abridgement?<br />
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* ''Parentheses.'' Is this an example of a parenthetical expression in Nephi's writing, even though this piece of punctuation did not originate with Nephi? How does the phrase about Lehi dwelling in Jerusalem qualify or explain the clause that preceded it?<br />
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* ''"king of Judah."'' When Nephi points out that his father has dwelt at Jerusalem his entire life, while in the middle of saying that Zedekiah has been king for less than a year, is he trying to say that Lehi also lived under the previous kings? Who were the kings of Judah during Lehi's lifetime? What age was Lehi under Josiah's reign, which ended only eleven years before Zedekiah became king? How were Lehi's religious views, Laban's possession of the plates, and Nephi's religious training affected by the religious reforms of king Josiah?<br />
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* ''"dwelt at Jerusalem."'' What other indications do we have, besides [[1 Chr 9:3]], that descendants of Ephraim and Manessah lived in Jerusalem? To what extent were they outnumbered by the descendants of Judah and Benjamin who also lived in Jerusalem? What were relations like between the descendants of these four tribes who all lived in Jerusalem?<br />
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* ''"in that same year there came many prophets."'' Why is Nephi noting the presence of these prophets? Was it typical or unusal for Jerusalem to have "many" prophets in its midst? Is Nephi saying several prophets suddenly arrived on the scene when Zedekiah took office? Who else besides Jeremiah, Habakkuk, and Ezekiel (who are listed on page 639 of the Bible Dictionary), was on Nephi's list of prophets at the time? Have LDS scholars often overlooked Urijah (see [[Jer 26:20]]) as one these prophets? What reasons do we have for assuming that Zenos and Zenock either were or were not among these prophets? What do we know about the lineage of these prophets? How manhy of the prophets were descendants of Ephraim and Manessah? Were prophets with ties to the north, as opposed to those descended from Judah or Benjamin, more likely to antagonize listeners in Jerusalem?<br />
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* ''"prophets."'' What is the connection between these prophets and the religious establishment in Jerusalem? Did the "churches" in Jersualem recognize the administrative authority of these prophets? Do you agree with [http://frontpage2000.nmia.com/~nahualli/LDStopics/1Nephi/1Nephi1.htm Brant Gardner's argument] that it is "highly unlikely" that these prophets were "part of the officially recognized religions governing bodies"? Did Jerusalem have a long tradition of requiring prophets to live on the outskirts of society?<br />
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* ''"the people . . . must repent."'' What was it that the people of Jerusalem needed to repent of? Had they abandoned the religious reforms of Josiah after only four decades? Was it their rejection of prophets that had necessitated their repentance? Had they already abandoned and forgotten the law of Moses? Had the only copies of the scriptures fallen into the hands of wicked people? Are these some of the reasons why Nephi later realizes that his descendants would be unable to follow the law of Moses unless he obtained the plates from Laban (see [[1 Ne 4]])?<br />
<br />
* ''"prophesying . . . they must repent, or . . . be destroyed."'' Where did Nephi obtain this combination of words? If the words prophesy, repent, and destroy (as well as their variants) do not appear together in any biblical verses, does that mean Nephi was the first to use them jointly? If most of the other appearances in the Book of Mormon of this combination occur in the Book of Ether ([[Mosiah 12:8]], [[Ether 7:23]], and [[Ether 11:12]]), does that mean Moroni borrowed Nephi's phraseology while abriding the Jaredite record or that the Jaredite authors and Nephi were both borrowing from a more ancient source?<br />
<br />
* ''"or the great city Jerusalem must be destroyed."'' Why does Nephi (or the prophets he is paraphrasing) change the repent or be destroyed formula? Why does he/they not follow the much more common example in scripture, in which prophets tell the people they will be destroyed if they do not repent (e.g., [[Mosiah 12:8]], [[Alma 37:22]], and [[Ether 7:23]])? Were the prophets in Jerusalem partially letting their listeners off the hook by telling them it was their city, and not them, that would be destroyed? Or was it the Lord who changed the formula in this instance, because he "had compassion on his people" ([[2 Chr 36:15]])? Or is Lehi's later comment, "had we remained in Jerusalem we should also have perished" ([[2 Ne 1:4]]), an indication that it was both the land of Jerusalem and its inhabitants who faced imminent destruction? How closely does this verse in 1 Ne. 1 parallel [[Hel 7:28]], which says "And except ye repent ye shall perish; yea, even your lands shall be taken from you, and ye shall be destroyed from off the face of the earth." At what point did it become inevitable that Jerusalem would be destroyed?<br />
<br />
* ''"the people."'' Who exactly was Nephi referring to when he used the phrase "the people"? Did every single inhabitant of Jerusalem have great need to repent? Was the city completely wicked? Was there no one left who followed the law of Moses? How sincere and thorough was the religious reform that happened forty years earlier if everyone was now wicked? Were there any exceptions to this apparently uniform wickedness? If Ishmael's family and Laban's servant Zoram can be considered at least partial exceptions to Nephi's characterization, does that mean there were other, scattered inhabitants of Jerusalem who were at least somewhat righteous? What evidence do we have that some of the people in Jerusalem actually repented? Should we assume that the only people in Jersualem who repented are the ones who joined Lehi in his exodus to the promised land?<br />
<br />
* ''Mulekites.'' Were the ancestors of the people of Zarahemla, who "came out from Jerusalem at the time" of Zedekiah's reign ([[Omni 1:15]]), converted when they heard the preaching of the "many prophets" mentioned in this verse? If so, did these prophets realize that the Mulekites were converted by their preaching?<br />
<br />
<br />
== Resources ==<br />
<br />
''This heading is for listing links and print resources, including those cited in the notes. A short comment about the particular strengths of a resource can be helpful. Click the link above and to the right to edit or add content to this heading. →''<br />
<br />
===Incoming Cross-References Not Listed in The Footnotes for These Verses===<br />
<br />
* ''Verse 1:'' [[Job 1:5]], [[Hel 5:6]], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/gs/f/6 GS Father, Mortal], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/gs/k/9 GS Knowledge], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/gs/m/62 GS Mysteries of God], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/gs/n/15 GS Nephi, Son of Lehi], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/gs/t/5 GS Teach, Teacher], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/tg/b/152 TG Born], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/tg/f/39 TG Father], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/tg/g/98 TG Goodly], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/tg/l/47 TG Learn, Learning], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/tg/m/43 TG Marriage, Fatherhood], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/tg/p/12 TG Parent], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/tg/t/24 TG Teaching, Teach, Taught], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/in/b/93 IN Born], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/in/f/24 IN Father], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/in/f/27 IN Favored], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/in/g/65 IN God, Goodness of], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/in/g/78 IN Goodly], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/in/l/49 IN Learning], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/in/n/30 IN Nephi], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/in/p/20 IN Parent], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/in/r/37 IN Record], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/in/t/15 IN Teach, Taught]<br />
<br />
* ''Verse 2:'' [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/gs/n/15 GS Nephi, Son of Lehi], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/tg/j/77 TG Jew, Jewish], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/in/e/18 IN Egyptian], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/in/j/61 IN Jew, Jewish], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/in/l/26 IN Language], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/in/n/30 IN Nephi]<br />
<br />
* ''Verse 3:'' [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/gs/n/15 GS Nephi, Son of Lehi], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/tg/h/14 TG Hand], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/in/h/12 IN Hand]<br />
<br />
* ''Verse 4:'' [[2 Kgs 23:27]], [[Ps 79:3]], [[Jer 13:14]], [[Jer 21:7]], [[1 Ne 2:13]], [[1 Ne 17:22]], [[Hel 5:6]], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/gs/j/19 GS Jerusalem], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/gs/n/11 GS Nebuchadnezzar], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/gs/n/15 GS Nephi, Son of Lehi], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/gs/z/5 GS Zedekiah], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/bd/z/11 BD Zedekiah], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/tg/d/92 TG Destroy], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/tg/r/59 TG Reign], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/in/d/67 IN Destruction, Destroy], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/in/j/32 IN Jerusalem], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/in/j/87 IN Judah], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/in/r/75 IN Repentance, Repent], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/in/z/8 IN Zedekiah], [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/biblephotos/8 Photograph: Jerusalem]<br />
<br />
===Verse 1===<br />
* ''A great knowledge of the goodness of God.'' [http://www.lds.org/conference/talk/display/0,5232,23-1-14-2,00.html Neal A. Maxwell (GC 1999)] contrasts Laman & Lemuel's lack of faith with Nephi's great faith in God's goodness. <br />
* ''Mysteries of God''<br />
** See [[1 Ne 2:16]] for an explanation by Nephi of how he gained knowledge of the mysteries of God.<br />
** See [[1 Ne 10:19]] where Nephi teaches that one must diligently seek to find the mysteries of God.<br />
** See [[Mosiah 1:3]] where Mosiah teaches his sons that without the scriptural record they could not know the mysteries of God.<br />
** See [[Mosiah 2:9]] where Mosiah starts his talk to his people with an invitation listen to him and open their ears, hearts and minds they they may learn the mysteries of God.<br />
** See the entry on [http://scriptures.lds.org/gsm/mystrsfg mysteries of God] in the <i>Guide to the Scriptures</i>. <br />
* [http://bomgroupies.wordpress.com/2007/03/01/nephi-and-the-mysteries/ "Nephi and the Mysteries"] A discussion of Nephi's interest in the Mysteries of God by the Book of Mormon Groupies.<br />
* [http://teachyediligently.mypodcast.com/2008/05/On_Scripture_Study-111110.html Podcast] of Joe Spencer exploring 1 Nephi 1:1 with a local Relief Society.<br />
<br />
<br />
== Notes ==<br />
<br />
''Footnotes are not required but are encouraged for factual assertions that average readers cannot easily evaluate for themselves, such as the date of King Solomon’s death or the nuanced definition of a Greek word. In contrast, insights rarely benefit from footnoting, and the focus of this page should always remain on the scriptures themselves rather than what someone has said about them. Links are actively encouraged on all sections of this page, and links to authoritative sources are preferable to footnotes.''<br />
<br />
<references/><br />
<br />
<br />
----<br />
<br />
[[First Nephi 1 | Previous page: Chapter 1]] &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; [[1 Ne 1:5-15 | Next page: Verses 1:5-15]]</div>Sterlinghttp://feastupontheword.org/First_Nephi_1First Nephi 12014-01-19T20:40:13Z<p>Sterling: /* Discussion */ fix typo</p>
<hr />
<div>[[The Book of Mormon]] > [[First Nephi]] > [[First Nephi 1-2 | Chapters 1-2]] > [[First Nephi 1 | Chapter 1]] <br><br />
:Subpages: [[1 Ne 1:1-4 | Verses 1:1-4]], [[1 Ne 1:5-15 | Verses 1:5-15]], [[1 Ne 1:16-20 | Verses 1:16-20]] <br><br />
[[First Nephi 1-2 | Previous page: Chapters 1-2]] &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; [[1 Ne 1:1-4 | Next page: Verses 1:1-4]]<br />
<br />
This page would ideally always be under construction. You are invited to contribute.<br />
<br />
<br />
== Summary ==<br />
<br />
''This heading should be brief and may include an outline of the passage. Click the link above and to the right to edit or add content to this heading. →''<br />
<br />
The relationship of Chapter 1 to the rest of Chapters 1-2 is discussed at [[First Nephi 1-2]]. This chapter can be outlined as follows:<br />
<br />
:[[First Nephi 1 | '''Lehi receives two visions and preaches at Jerusalem (Chapter 1)''']]<br />
:[[1 Ne 1:1-4 | a. purpose, explanation, and preaching narrative (1:1-4)]]<br />
:::• Nephi knows the goodness of God and therefore writes ([http://www.lds.org/scriptures/bofm/1-ne/1.1?lang=eng 1:1])<br />
:::&nbsp;&nbsp;• explaining the small plates ([http://www.lds.org/scriptures/bofm/1-ne/1.2-3?lang=eng#1 1:2-3])<br />
:::&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;• prophets preach at Jerusalem ([http://www.lds.org/scriptures/bofm/1-ne/1.4?lang=eng#3 1:4])<br />
::[[1 Ne 1:5-15 | b. Lehi's two visions (1:5-15)]]<br />
::::• short vision with images ([http://www.lds.org/scriptures/bofm/1-ne/1.5-6?lang=eng#4 1:5-6])<br />
::::• long vision with explanation: God will not suffer his followers to perish ([http://www.lds.org/scriptures/bofm/1-ne/1.7-15?lang=eng#6 1:7-15])<br />
:[[1 Ne 1:16-20 | a. explanation, preaching narrative, and purpose (1:16-20)]]<br />
:::&nbsp;&nbsp;• explaining the small plates ([http://www.lds.org/scriptures/bofm/1-ne/1.16-17?lang=eng#15 1:16-17])<br />
:::&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;• Lehi's preaching at Jerusalem is rejected ([http://www.lds.org/scriptures/bofm/1-ne/1.18-20?lang=eng#17 1:18-20a])<br />
:::• Nephi's writing will show that the Lord delivers the faithful ([http://www.lds.org/scriptures/bofm/1-ne/1.20?lang=eng#19 1:20b])<br />
<br />
Portions of this chapter are discussed on the following subpages: [[1 Ne 1:1-4 | Verses 1:1-4]], [[1 Ne 1:5-15 | Verses 1:5-15]], [[1 Ne 1:16-20 | Verses 1:16-20]]<br />
<br />
<br />
== Discussion ==<br />
<br />
''This heading is for more detailed discussions of all or part of a passage. Discussion may include the meaning of a particular word, how a doctrinal point is developed throughout the passage, insights to be developed in the future, and other items. Contributions may range from polished paragraphs down to a single bullet point. The focus, however, should always be on understanding the scriptural text consistent with LDS doctrine. Click the link above and to the right to edit or add content to this heading. →''<br />
<br />
* "His reign and ministry": Nephi's rule as king of his people may represent half of the subtitle of this book, but it receives little mention in this spiritual account. For more details, see [[2 Ne 5:18]], [[2 Ne 6:2]] and [[1 Ne 10:1]].<br />
<br />
== Points to ponder ==<br />
<br />
''This heading is for prompts that suggest ways in which all or part of this passage can influence a person's life. Click the link above and to the right to edit or add content to this heading. →''<br />
<br />
<br />
== I have a question ==<br />
<br />
''This heading is for unanswered questions and is an important part of the continual effort to improve this wiki. Please do not be shy, as even a basic or "stupid" question can identify things that need to be improved on this page. Click the link above and to the right to edit or add content to this heading. →''<br />
<br />
<br />
== Resources ==<br />
<br />
''This heading is for listing links and print resources, including those cited in the notes. A short comment about the particular strengths of a resource can be helpful. Click the link above and to the right to edit or add content to this heading. →''<br />
<br />
<br />
== Notes ==<br />
<br />
''Footnotes are not required but are encouraged for factual assertions that average readers cannot easily evaluate for themselves, such as the date of King Solomon’s death or the nuanced definition of a Greek word. In contrast, insights rarely benefit from footnoting, and the focus of this page should always remain on the scriptures themselves rather than what someone has said about them. Links are actively encouraged on all sections of this page, and links to authoritative sources are preferable to footnotes.''<br />
<br />
<references/><br />
<br />
<br />
----<br />
<br />
[[First Nephi 1-2 | Previous page: Chapters 1-2]] &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; [[1 Ne 1:1-4 | Next page: Verses 1:1-4]]</div>Sterlinghttp://feastupontheword.org/First_Nephi_1First Nephi 12014-01-19T20:39:22Z<p>Sterling: /* Discussion */ his reign</p>
<hr />
<div>[[The Book of Mormon]] > [[First Nephi]] > [[First Nephi 1-2 | Chapters 1-2]] > [[First Nephi 1 | Chapter 1]] <br><br />
:Subpages: [[1 Ne 1:1-4 | Verses 1:1-4]], [[1 Ne 1:5-15 | Verses 1:5-15]], [[1 Ne 1:16-20 | Verses 1:16-20]] <br><br />
[[First Nephi 1-2 | Previous page: Chapters 1-2]] &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; [[1 Ne 1:1-4 | Next page: Verses 1:1-4]]<br />
<br />
This page would ideally always be under construction. You are invited to contribute.<br />
<br />
<br />
== Summary ==<br />
<br />
''This heading should be brief and may include an outline of the passage. Click the link above and to the right to edit or add content to this heading. →''<br />
<br />
The relationship of Chapter 1 to the rest of Chapters 1-2 is discussed at [[First Nephi 1-2]]. This chapter can be outlined as follows:<br />
<br />
:[[First Nephi 1 | '''Lehi receives two visions and preaches at Jerusalem (Chapter 1)''']]<br />
:[[1 Ne 1:1-4 | a. purpose, explanation, and preaching narrative (1:1-4)]]<br />
:::• Nephi knows the goodness of God and therefore writes ([http://www.lds.org/scriptures/bofm/1-ne/1.1?lang=eng 1:1])<br />
:::&nbsp;&nbsp;• explaining the small plates ([http://www.lds.org/scriptures/bofm/1-ne/1.2-3?lang=eng#1 1:2-3])<br />
:::&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;• prophets preach at Jerusalem ([http://www.lds.org/scriptures/bofm/1-ne/1.4?lang=eng#3 1:4])<br />
::[[1 Ne 1:5-15 | b. Lehi's two visions (1:5-15)]]<br />
::::• short vision with images ([http://www.lds.org/scriptures/bofm/1-ne/1.5-6?lang=eng#4 1:5-6])<br />
::::• long vision with explanation: God will not suffer his followers to perish ([http://www.lds.org/scriptures/bofm/1-ne/1.7-15?lang=eng#6 1:7-15])<br />
:[[1 Ne 1:16-20 | a. explanation, preaching narrative, and purpose (1:16-20)]]<br />
:::&nbsp;&nbsp;• explaining the small plates ([http://www.lds.org/scriptures/bofm/1-ne/1.16-17?lang=eng#15 1:16-17])<br />
:::&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;• Lehi's preaching at Jerusalem is rejected ([http://www.lds.org/scriptures/bofm/1-ne/1.18-20?lang=eng#17 1:18-20a])<br />
:::• Nephi's writing will show that the Lord delivers the faithful ([http://www.lds.org/scriptures/bofm/1-ne/1.20?lang=eng#19 1:20b])<br />
<br />
Portions of this chapter are discussed on the following subpages: [[1 Ne 1:1-4 | Verses 1:1-4]], [[1 Ne 1:5-15 | Verses 1:5-15]], [[1 Ne 1:16-20 | Verses 1:16-20]]<br />
<br />
<br />
== Discussion ==<br />
<br />
''This heading is for more detailed discussions of all or part of a passage. Discussion may include the meaning of a particular word, how a doctrinal point is developed throughout the passage, insights to be developed in the future, and other items. Contributions may range from polished paragraphs down to a single bullet point. The focus, however, should always be on understanding the scriptural text consistent with LDS doctrine. Click the link above and to the right to edit or add content to this heading. →''<br />
<br />
* "His reign and ministry": Nephi's rule as king of his people may represent half of the subtitle of this book, but it receives little mention in this spiritual account. For more details, see [[2 Ne. 5:18]], [[2 Ne. 6:2]] and [[1 Ne. 10:1]].<br />
<br />
== Points to ponder ==<br />
<br />
''This heading is for prompts that suggest ways in which all or part of this passage can influence a person's life. Click the link above and to the right to edit or add content to this heading. →''<br />
<br />
<br />
== I have a question ==<br />
<br />
''This heading is for unanswered questions and is an important part of the continual effort to improve this wiki. Please do not be shy, as even a basic or "stupid" question can identify things that need to be improved on this page. Click the link above and to the right to edit or add content to this heading. →''<br />
<br />
<br />
== Resources ==<br />
<br />
''This heading is for listing links and print resources, including those cited in the notes. A short comment about the particular strengths of a resource can be helpful. Click the link above and to the right to edit or add content to this heading. →''<br />
<br />
<br />
== Notes ==<br />
<br />
''Footnotes are not required but are encouraged for factual assertions that average readers cannot easily evaluate for themselves, such as the date of King Solomon’s death or the nuanced definition of a Greek word. In contrast, insights rarely benefit from footnoting, and the focus of this page should always remain on the scriptures themselves rather than what someone has said about them. Links are actively encouraged on all sections of this page, and links to authoritative sources are preferable to footnotes.''<br />
<br />
<references/><br />
<br />
<br />
----<br />
<br />
[[First Nephi 1-2 | Previous page: Chapters 1-2]] &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; [[1 Ne 1:1-4 | Next page: Verses 1:1-4]]</div>Sterlinghttp://feastupontheword.org/Testimony_of_the_Prophet_Joseph_SmithTestimony of the Prophet Joseph Smith2014-01-19T20:34:23Z<p>Sterling: /* Questions */ timing of visit</p>
<hr />
<div>[[The Book of Mormon]]<br />
{| <br />
| [[Book of Mormon Testimony of Eight Witnesses|Previous (Book of Mormon Testimony of Eight Witnesses)]] || &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; || [[A Brief Explanation about The Book of Mormon|Next (A Brief Explanation about The Book of Mormon)]]<br />
|}<br />
<br />
To see the contents of the Testimony of the Prophet Joseph Smith click [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/bm/jstestimony here].<br />
<br />
== Questions ==<br />
* ''Click the edit link above and to the right to add questions''<br />
<br />
* "all that he had related to me the previous night": Why did the fourth visit occur at an opposite time (day) as the previous three (night)?<br />
* "no sooner was it known that I had them": Did the community find out about the gold plates because Joseph needed a scribe?<br />
<br />
== Lexical notes ==<br />
* ''Click the edit link above and to the right to add lexical notes''<br />
<br />
<br />
== Exegesis ==<br />
''Click the edit link above and to the right to add exegesis''<br />
<br />
<br />
== Related links ==<br />
* ''Click the edit link above and to the right to add related links''<br />
<br />
<br />
----<br />
{| <br />
| [[Book of Mormon Testimony of Eight Witnesses|Previous (Book of Mormon Testimony of Eight Witnesses)]] || &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; || [[A Brief Explanation about The Book of Mormon|Next (A Brief Explanation about The Book of Mormon)]]<br />
|}</div>Sterlinghttp://feastupontheword.org/Testimony_of_the_Prophet_Joseph_SmithTestimony of the Prophet Joseph Smith2014-01-19T20:30:44Z<p>Sterling: /* Questions */ awarenss of plates</p>
<hr />
<div>[[The Book of Mormon]]<br />
{| <br />
| [[Book of Mormon Testimony of Eight Witnesses|Previous (Book of Mormon Testimony of Eight Witnesses)]] || &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; || [[A Brief Explanation about The Book of Mormon|Next (A Brief Explanation about The Book of Mormon)]]<br />
|}<br />
<br />
To see the contents of the Testimony of the Prophet Joseph Smith click [http://scriptures.lds.org/en/bm/jstestimony here].<br />
<br />
== Questions ==<br />
* ''Click the edit link above and to the right to add questions''<br />
<br />
* "no sooner was it known that I had them": Did the community find out about the gold plates because Joseph needed a scribe?<br />
<br />
== Lexical notes ==<br />
* ''Click the edit link above and to the right to add lexical notes''<br />
<br />
<br />
== Exegesis ==<br />
''Click the edit link above and to the right to add exegesis''<br />
<br />
<br />
== Related links ==<br />
* ''Click the edit link above and to the right to add related links''<br />
<br />
<br />
----<br />
{| <br />
| [[Book of Mormon Testimony of Eight Witnesses|Previous (Book of Mormon Testimony of Eight Witnesses)]] || &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; || [[A Brief Explanation about The Book of Mormon|Next (A Brief Explanation about The Book of Mormon)]]<br />
|}</div>Sterlinghttp://feastupontheword.org/Moses_1:1-11Moses 1:1-112013-12-15T15:05:50Z<p>Sterling: /* Verses 1 */</p>
<hr />
<div>[[The Pearl of Great Price]] > [[Moses]] > [[Moses 1 | Chapter 1]] > [[Moses 1:1-11 | Verses 1:1-11]] <br><br />
[[Moses 1 | Previous page: Chapter 1]] &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; [[Moses 1:12-23 | Next page: Verses 1:12-23]]<br />
<br />
This page would ideally always be under construction. You are invited to contribute.<br />
<br />
<br />
== Summary ==<br />
<br />
''This heading should be brief and may include an outline of the passage. Click the link above and to the right to edit or add content to this heading. →''<br />
<br />
The relationship of [http://www.lds.org/scriptures/pgp/moses/1.1-11?lang=eng Verses 1:1-11] to the rest of this chapter is discussed at [[Moses 1 | Chapter 1]].<br />
<br />
<br />
== Discussion ==<br />
<br />
''This heading is for more detailed discussions of all or part of a passage. Discussion may include the meaning of a particular word, how a doctrinal point is developed throughout the passage, insights to be developed in the future, and other items. Contributions may range from polished paragraphs down to a single bullet point. The focus, however, should always be on understanding the scriptural text consistent with LDS doctrine. Click the link above and to the right to edit or add content to this heading. →''<br />
<br />
===Verse 2===<br />
<br />
* [[D&C 88:19]] rhetorically links ''glory'' with the ''presence of God the Father''.<br />
<br />
* The word ''therefore'' suggests that there is something about God's glory being upon Moses that allowed Moses to endure God's presence, and that Moses couldn't have endured God's presence otherwise. Compare this to [[Moses 1:14|verse 14]] where Moses says to Satan "I can look upon thee in the natural man."<br />
<br />
===Verse 3===<br />
<br />
* ''Almighty'' and ''Endless'' may be appellations God choses to set up as a contrast to Satan who will soon appear (verse 12ff). God is almighty whereas Satan has very limited power (and glory). God is endless in that he has eternal increase and declares lasting truths whereas Satan cannot have eternal increase and declares lies that do not last.<br />
<br />
===Verse 6===<br />
<br />
* ''Full of grace and truth'': The phrase "grace and truth" in the scriptures [http://scriptures.lds.org/query?words=%22grace+and+truth%22 is only used] to describe God (the Father or the Son). Grace and truth are set up in contrast to the law which was given by Moses in [[John 1:17]].<br />
<br />
* ''But there is no God beside me''. Although it seems the Father and the Son are being described here as distinct personages, perhaps God is concurrently making it clear that the Father and the Son are one God, perhaps in anticipation of the problems the children of Israel would face in worshiping other gods (e.g. [[Ex 32:1|Ex 32:1-6]]).<br />
<br />
===Verse 7===<br />
<br />
''One thing.'' If the "one thing" that God shows Moses is the world that Moses is in, then this stands in contrast to all the works of God (v. 5), and in contrast to the numberless worlds mentioned in [[Moses 1:33|verse 33]]. The "one thing" also clarifies "the workmanship" that God promises to show in verse 4. By focusing on "one thing" and later clarifying "for thou art in the world," the work that God says he has for Moses (in v. 6) may be alluded to: rather than showing Moses other things, God will focus on the "one thing" that is most needful (cf. [[Luke 10:42]]), namely this world that Moses is reminded (later in v. 7) that he is in. This shift from the many works of God ("works without end" in v. 4; "all my works" in v. 5; "all things" in v. 6) to "one thing" seems also to function as a means of setting up the epiphany that Moses has in verse 10 that "man is nothing." By getting only a glimpse of the many glorious works of God, Moses seems to be overwhelmed in verse 9 and then, when he comes to, Moses then realizes the (relative?) nothingness of man in (at least) a way that he had never before supposed. <br />
<br />
''My son.'' The addition of the phrase "my son" may be a way of reassuring Moses that the reason Moses will be shown only one thing, is not because God is not a loving father or that Moses is an ontologically inferior being to God, but rather because Moses has a work to do (v. 6) and this work pertains to the world that Moses is in.<br />
<br />
''For thou art in the world.'' After stating that God has a work for Moses (v. 6) and that God will only show Moses "one thing," an additional phrase of seeming explanation is added: "for thou art in the world." This may be giving an explanation for why God is not revealing things about other worlds to Moses. It may also be emphasizing the work mentioned in verse 6 that Moses has to perform.<br />
<br />
===Verse 11===<br />
<br />
* ''Natural'' is used here in a way similar to [[1 Cor 2:14]] and [[Mosiah 3:19]]. It stands in contrasts to what is spiritual. The fact that natural is used in the phrase ''natural man'' in verse 14 is especially suggestive of [[Mosiah 3:19]] where we are told that the natural man is an "enemy to God." There the natural man is described as the person who is not yet willing to submit to the Lord.<br />
<br />
<br />
== Points to ponder ==<br />
<br />
''This heading is for prompts that suggest ways in which all or part of this passage can influence a person's life. Click the link above and to the right to edit or add content to this heading. →''<br />
<br />
<br />
== I have a question ==<br />
<br />
''This heading is for unanswered questions and is an important part of the continual effort to improve this wiki. Please do not be shy, as even a basic or "stupid" question can identify things that need to be improved on this page. Click the link above and to the right to edit or add content to this heading. →''<br />
<br />
===Verses 1===<br />
<br />
* How does the phrase "words of God," which appears in this verse, differ from "word of God"? Is this first phrase, which occurs much less frequently in scripture, linked to rebellion against God, as suggested by [[Ps 107:11]], [[Alma 1:7]] and [[Alma 3:18]]? Does that make it appropriate for this passage about the premortal Satan?<br />
<br />
* Was God starting a conversation with Moses about the plan of salvation, as was his custom at the beginning of each dispensation? Does [[Alma 12:30]] suggest this pattern started soon after Adam and Eve left the garden of Eden?<br />
<br />
* If God "spake unto Moses," who exactly was the audience for this message? Why does the final verse of this visionary chapter contain a comment in parentheses, presumably to Joseph Smith, that says "Show them not unto any except them that believe" ([[Moses 1:42]])?<br />
<br />
* Did Moses approach God "at a time when" he was ready to reveal? Was David talking about the importance of timing when his psalm to God said "every one that is godly" shall "pray unto thee in a time when thou mayest be found" ([[Ps 32:6]])?<br />
<br />
* If "Moses was caught up," which senses of the words "catch" and "caught" are at work in this chapter? Does it echo the language about being lifted up at the last day and suggest a invisible hand will "catch" the righteous and carry them to some heavenly destination? Was Moses about to learn that standing in the presence of God was like "catching" on fire and that only the righteous could endure his presence?<br />
<br />
* If Nephi was the only other prophet who used identical language to describe his time around "exceedingly high mountain(s)" ([[1 Ne 11:1]] and [[2 Ne 4:25]]), what parallels can we draw between the experiences of Nephi and Moses? How does Nephi's description of how his body was "carried away" on "the wings of his Spirit," as well as his explanation that as he "sat pondering" he "was caught away in the Spirit of the Lord," echo the language used by Moses? Could Moses relate to Nephi's exclamation that the words he received from God were "too great for man; therefore I was bidden that I should not write them"?<br />
<br />
* Was the preposition intentional when Moses said he went "into" and not "onto" a mountain to talk with God? Do we find confirmation of this language and visionary pattern, if not exactly the same participants, during the temptation of Christ, when "the devil taketh him up into an exceeding high mountain, and sheweth him all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them" ([[Matt 4:8]])?<br />
<br />
* Of what significance are mountains in scripture? For example, why do revelations so often occur on mountains?<br />
<br />
It is my understanding that prior to Moses building the Tabernacle, and after that prior to the Temple being built, and again after the desecration of the Temple, the only place the Lord could appear to his servants that had not been completely desecrated was the top of the mountains. In other words the mountains were Holy Places.<br />
<br />
===Verse 2===<br />
<br />
* Why is it important that we know Moses spoke with God face to face? <br />
<br />
* What does it mean to say “the glory of God was upon Moses”? What is his glory? What does verse 5 tell us about what we read here? How about [[Moses 1:39|verse 39]]? Do [[D&C 29:36]] or [[D&C 88:19]] help us understand these verses?<br />
<br />
Moses had received the Holy Ghost, and was transformed, or purified by the power of the Holy Ghost, until he was able to endure the presence of the Lord. Once in that state, God being a perfect glorified man spoke to Moses, the same way that any man speaks to another man who is in his presence. When we read or hear the Glory of God is on someone it means that that person has been transformed, or purified by the Holy Ghost, so they can endure the presence of deity.<br />
<br />
Verse 5:In this verse God is about to show Moses a portion of his work and how he is going to accomplish it. Especially as it pertains to Moses, and what Moses’ roll in that portion of his work will be. God is also telling Moses, that this is a small portion of what his work is. It is sufficient for Moses to know at this time. He is also explaining to Moses, that to know all that God knows, would make him a glorified being like unto God, and that giving him that much knowledge would be more than he Moses, could endure.<br />
<br />
===Verse 3===<br />
<br />
* Why does God tell Moses his name? He has many names, why does he here use this particular name, Endless? <br />
<br />
===Verses 4-5===<br />
<br />
* In what sense or senses are the works of God without end? In what sense or senses are his words without end?<br />
The Lord all ways uses titles that are descriptive of Himself. The name Endless fits in well with an understanding of the eternal and things without end that God is showing to Moses.His words are eternal as they are truth and truth is the same yesterday, today and tomorrow.<br />
<br />
===Verse 6===<br />
<br />
* This verse suggests that God the Father is speaking to Moses, since he refers to "mine Only Begotten". However, Jesus Christ has stated that he was the God of Abraham ([[John 8:58]]), and gave the law to Israel ([[3 Ne 15:5]]). Who is talking to Moses, God the Father, or Jehovah? Does it matter?<br />
<br />
* Why does God tell Moses that Moses is in the similitude of the Only Begotten? In what way or ways is he in that similitude? Why does God say that the Only Begotten ''is and shall be the Savior''? God says that the Only Begotten is and will be the Savior because he is full of grace and truth. How can we explain that? What does it mean to be full of grace and truth? Why does being full of them make one the Savior? <br />
<br />
* Why does the Father add “but there is no God beside me” immediately after telling Moses of the Savior? <br />
<br />
* What does it mean to say that all things are present? What does it mean for something to be present? The last clause of the verse says that Father’s knowledge makes all things present to him. To say that knowledge is what makes things present is an unusual way to speak. What can we make of that? Does it suggest anything about how things are present before God?<br />
<br />
===Verse 7===<br />
<br />
* What is the “one thing” that God shows Moses? Why does he explain what he shows Moses by saying, “For thou art in the world”?<br />
<br />
* The 'one thing' that God shew to Moses was the Mission and Sacrifice of Jesus Christ; event that would occur in the distant future. And showed to Moses because he 'was in the world' in which such event will take place. [Joh@aci.on.ca]<br />
<br />
===Verse 8===<br />
<br />
* The word “end” can mean “final point” and it can also mean “purpose.” Which meaning do you think is used here when the scripture says that Moses beheld the ends of the world? The meaning here is 'final point' Moses was able to see the end of the earth and its civilization beyond the Second Coming of the Lord. [joh@aci.on.ca]<br />
<br />
===Verse 9===<br />
<br />
* What does it mean to say that Moses was left to himself?<br />
A natural man, in other words, God glory was withdrew from him and Moses was left only with the power(stramgth) of a human man [joh@aci.on.ca]<br />
<br />
===Verse 10===<br />
<br />
* What does Moses mean when, having had this vision of the ends of the world and all the children of men, he says, “Now, for this cause I know that man is nothing, which thing I never had supposed”? <br />
<br />
<br />
== Resources ==<br />
<br />
''This heading is for listing links and print resources, including those cited in the notes. A short comment about the particular strengths of a resource can be helpful. Click the link above and to the right to edit or add content to this heading. →''<br />
<br />
===Verse 6===<br />
<br />
* See more on [[User:RobertC/Jehovah and Father|Jesus Christ as Jehovah and Father here]] on [[User:RobertC|RobertC's]] subpage.<br />
<br />
<br />
== Notes ==<br />
<br />
''Footnotes are not required but are encouraged for factual assertions that average readers cannot easily evaluate for themselves, such as the date of King Solomon’s death or the nuanced definition of a Greek word. In contrast, insights rarely benefit from footnoting, and the focus of this page should always remain on the scriptures themselves rather than what someone has said about them. Links are actively encouraged on all sections of this page, and links to authoritative sources are preferable to footnotes.''<br />
<br />
<references/><br />
<br />
<br />
----<br />
<br />
[[Moses 1 | Previous page: Chapter 1]] &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; [[Moses 1:12-23 | Next page: Verses 1:12-23]]</div>Sterlinghttp://feastupontheword.org/Moses_1:1-11Moses 1:1-112013-12-15T15:02:02Z<p>Sterling: /* Verses 1 */</p>
<hr />
<div>[[The Pearl of Great Price]] > [[Moses]] > [[Moses 1 | Chapter 1]] > [[Moses 1:1-11 | Verses 1:1-11]] <br><br />
[[Moses 1 | Previous page: Chapter 1]] &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; [[Moses 1:12-23 | Next page: Verses 1:12-23]]<br />
<br />
This page would ideally always be under construction. You are invited to contribute.<br />
<br />
<br />
== Summary ==<br />
<br />
''This heading should be brief and may include an outline of the passage. Click the link above and to the right to edit or add content to this heading. →''<br />
<br />
The relationship of [http://www.lds.org/scriptures/pgp/moses/1.1-11?lang=eng Verses 1:1-11] to the rest of this chapter is discussed at [[Moses 1 | Chapter 1]].<br />
<br />
<br />
== Discussion ==<br />
<br />
''This heading is for more detailed discussions of all or part of a passage. Discussion may include the meaning of a particular word, how a doctrinal point is developed throughout the passage, insights to be developed in the future, and other items. Contributions may range from polished paragraphs down to a single bullet point. The focus, however, should always be on understanding the scriptural text consistent with LDS doctrine. Click the link above and to the right to edit or add content to this heading. →''<br />
<br />
===Verse 2===<br />
<br />
* [[D&C 88:19]] rhetorically links ''glory'' with the ''presence of God the Father''.<br />
<br />
* The word ''therefore'' suggests that there is something about God's glory being upon Moses that allowed Moses to endure God's presence, and that Moses couldn't have endured God's presence otherwise. Compare this to [[Moses 1:14|verse 14]] where Moses says to Satan "I can look upon thee in the natural man."<br />
<br />
===Verse 3===<br />
<br />
* ''Almighty'' and ''Endless'' may be appellations God choses to set up as a contrast to Satan who will soon appear (verse 12ff). God is almighty whereas Satan has very limited power (and glory). God is endless in that he has eternal increase and declares lasting truths whereas Satan cannot have eternal increase and declares lies that do not last.<br />
<br />
===Verse 6===<br />
<br />
* ''Full of grace and truth'': The phrase "grace and truth" in the scriptures [http://scriptures.lds.org/query?words=%22grace+and+truth%22 is only used] to describe God (the Father or the Son). Grace and truth are set up in contrast to the law which was given by Moses in [[John 1:17]].<br />
<br />
* ''But there is no God beside me''. Although it seems the Father and the Son are being described here as distinct personages, perhaps God is concurrently making it clear that the Father and the Son are one God, perhaps in anticipation of the problems the children of Israel would face in worshiping other gods (e.g. [[Ex 32:1|Ex 32:1-6]]).<br />
<br />
===Verse 7===<br />
<br />
''One thing.'' If the "one thing" that God shows Moses is the world that Moses is in, then this stands in contrast to all the works of God (v. 5), and in contrast to the numberless worlds mentioned in [[Moses 1:33|verse 33]]. The "one thing" also clarifies "the workmanship" that God promises to show in verse 4. By focusing on "one thing" and later clarifying "for thou art in the world," the work that God says he has for Moses (in v. 6) may be alluded to: rather than showing Moses other things, God will focus on the "one thing" that is most needful (cf. [[Luke 10:42]]), namely this world that Moses is reminded (later in v. 7) that he is in. This shift from the many works of God ("works without end" in v. 4; "all my works" in v. 5; "all things" in v. 6) to "one thing" seems also to function as a means of setting up the epiphany that Moses has in verse 10 that "man is nothing." By getting only a glimpse of the many glorious works of God, Moses seems to be overwhelmed in verse 9 and then, when he comes to, Moses then realizes the (relative?) nothingness of man in (at least) a way that he had never before supposed. <br />
<br />
''My son.'' The addition of the phrase "my son" may be a way of reassuring Moses that the reason Moses will be shown only one thing, is not because God is not a loving father or that Moses is an ontologically inferior being to God, but rather because Moses has a work to do (v. 6) and this work pertains to the world that Moses is in.<br />
<br />
''For thou art in the world.'' After stating that God has a work for Moses (v. 6) and that God will only show Moses "one thing," an additional phrase of seeming explanation is added: "for thou art in the world." This may be giving an explanation for why God is not revealing things about other worlds to Moses. It may also be emphasizing the work mentioned in verse 6 that Moses has to perform.<br />
<br />
===Verse 11===<br />
<br />
* ''Natural'' is used here in a way similar to [[1 Cor 2:14]] and [[Mosiah 3:19]]. It stands in contrasts to what is spiritual. The fact that natural is used in the phrase ''natural man'' in verse 14 is especially suggestive of [[Mosiah 3:19]] where we are told that the natural man is an "enemy to God." There the natural man is described as the person who is not yet willing to submit to the Lord.<br />
<br />
<br />
== Points to ponder ==<br />
<br />
''This heading is for prompts that suggest ways in which all or part of this passage can influence a person's life. Click the link above and to the right to edit or add content to this heading. →''<br />
<br />
<br />
== I have a question ==<br />
<br />
''This heading is for unanswered questions and is an important part of the continual effort to improve this wiki. Please do not be shy, as even a basic or "stupid" question can identify things that need to be improved on this page. Click the link above and to the right to edit or add content to this heading. →''<br />
<br />
===Verses 1===<br />
<br />
* How does the phrase "words of God," which appears in this verse, differ from "word of God"? Is this first phrase, which occurs much less frequently in scripture, linked to rebellion against God, as suggested by [[Ps 107:11]], [[Alma 1:7]] and [[Alma 3:18]]? Does that make it appropriate for this passage about the premortal Satan?<br />
<br />
* Was God starting a conversation with Moses about the plan of salvation, as was his custom at the beginning of each dispensation? Does [[Alma 12:30]] suggest this pattern started soon after Adam and Eve left the garden of Eden?<br />
<br />
* If God "spake unto Moses," who exactly was the audience for this message? Why does the final verse of this visionary chapter contain a comment in parentheses, presumably to Joseph Smith, that says "Show them not unto any except them that believe" ([[Moses 1:42]])?<br />
<br />
* Did Moses approach God "at a time when" he was ready to reveal? Was David talking about the importance of timing when his psalm to God said "every one that is godly" shall "pray unto thee in a time when thou mayest be found" ([[Ps 32:6]])?<br />
<br />
* If "Moses was caught up," which senses of the words "catch" and "caught" are at work in this chapter? Does it echo the language about being lifted up at the last day and suggest a invisible hand will "catch" the righteous and carry them to some heavenly destination? Was Moses about to learn that standing in the presence of God was like "catching" on fire and that only the righteous could endure his presence?<br />
<br />
* If Nephi was the only other prophet to talk about spending time around "exceedingly high mountain(s)" ([[1 Ne 11:1]] and [[2 Ne 4:25]]), what parallels can we draw between the experiences of Nephi and Moses? How does Nephi's description of how his body was "carried away" on "the wings of his Spirit," as well as his explanation that as he "sat pondering" he "was caught away in the Spirit of the Lord," echo the language used by Moses? Could Moses relate to Nephi's exclamation that the words he received from God were "too great for man; therefore I was bidden that I should not write them"?<br />
<br />
* Was the preposition intentional when Moses said he went "into" and not "onto" a mountain to talk with God? Do we find confirmation of this language and visionary pattern, if not exactly the actors, during the temptation of Christ, when "the devil taketh him up into an exceeding high mountain, and sheweth him all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them" ([[Matt 4:8]])?<br />
<br />
* Of what significance are mountains in scripture? For example, why do revelations so often occur on mountains?<br />
<br />
It is my understanding that prior to Moses building the Tabernacle, and after that prior to the Temple being built, and again after the desecration of the Temple, the only place the Lord could appear to his servants that had not been completely desecrated was the top of the mountains. In other words the mountains were Holy Places.<br />
<br />
===Verse 2===<br />
<br />
* Why is it important that we know Moses spoke with God face to face? <br />
<br />
* What does it mean to say “the glory of God was upon Moses”? What is his glory? What does verse 5 tell us about what we read here? How about [[Moses 1:39|verse 39]]? Do [[D&C 29:36]] or [[D&C 88:19]] help us understand these verses?<br />
<br />
Moses had received the Holy Ghost, and was transformed, or purified by the power of the Holy Ghost, until he was able to endure the presence of the Lord. Once in that state, God being a perfect glorified man spoke to Moses, the same way that any man speaks to another man who is in his presence. When we read or hear the Glory of God is on someone it means that that person has been transformed, or purified by the Holy Ghost, so they can endure the presence of deity.<br />
<br />
Verse 5:In this verse God is about to show Moses a portion of his work and how he is going to accomplish it. Especially as it pertains to Moses, and what Moses’ roll in that portion of his work will be. God is also telling Moses, that this is a small portion of what his work is. It is sufficient for Moses to know at this time. He is also explaining to Moses, that to know all that God knows, would make him a glorified being like unto God, and that giving him that much knowledge would be more than he Moses, could endure.<br />
<br />
===Verse 3===<br />
<br />
* Why does God tell Moses his name? He has many names, why does he here use this particular name, Endless? <br />
<br />
===Verses 4-5===<br />
<br />
* In what sense or senses are the works of God without end? In what sense or senses are his words without end?<br />
The Lord all ways uses titles that are descriptive of Himself. The name Endless fits in well with an understanding of the eternal and things without end that God is showing to Moses.His words are eternal as they are truth and truth is the same yesterday, today and tomorrow.<br />
<br />
===Verse 6===<br />
<br />
* This verse suggests that God the Father is speaking to Moses, since he refers to "mine Only Begotten". However, Jesus Christ has stated that he was the God of Abraham ([[John 8:58]]), and gave the law to Israel ([[3 Ne 15:5]]). Who is talking to Moses, God the Father, or Jehovah? Does it matter?<br />
<br />
* Why does God tell Moses that Moses is in the similitude of the Only Begotten? In what way or ways is he in that similitude? Why does God say that the Only Begotten ''is and shall be the Savior''? God says that the Only Begotten is and will be the Savior because he is full of grace and truth. How can we explain that? What does it mean to be full of grace and truth? Why does being full of them make one the Savior? <br />
<br />
* Why does the Father add “but there is no God beside me” immediately after telling Moses of the Savior? <br />
<br />
* What does it mean to say that all things are present? What does it mean for something to be present? The last clause of the verse says that Father’s knowledge makes all things present to him. To say that knowledge is what makes things present is an unusual way to speak. What can we make of that? Does it suggest anything about how things are present before God?<br />
<br />
===Verse 7===<br />
<br />
* What is the “one thing” that God shows Moses? Why does he explain what he shows Moses by saying, “For thou art in the world”?<br />
<br />
* The 'one thing' that God shew to Moses was the Mission and Sacrifice of Jesus Christ; event that would occur in the distant future. And showed to Moses because he 'was in the world' in which such event will take place. [Joh@aci.on.ca]<br />
<br />
===Verse 8===<br />
<br />
* The word “end” can mean “final point” and it can also mean “purpose.” Which meaning do you think is used here when the scripture says that Moses beheld the ends of the world? The meaning here is 'final point' Moses was able to see the end of the earth and its civilization beyond the Second Coming of the Lord. [joh@aci.on.ca]<br />
<br />
===Verse 9===<br />
<br />
* What does it mean to say that Moses was left to himself?<br />
A natural man, in other words, God glory was withdrew from him and Moses was left only with the power(stramgth) of a human man [joh@aci.on.ca]<br />
<br />
===Verse 10===<br />
<br />
* What does Moses mean when, having had this vision of the ends of the world and all the children of men, he says, “Now, for this cause I know that man is nothing, which thing I never had supposed”? <br />
<br />
<br />
== Resources ==<br />
<br />
''This heading is for listing links and print resources, including those cited in the notes. A short comment about the particular strengths of a resource can be helpful. Click the link above and to the right to edit or add content to this heading. →''<br />
<br />
===Verse 6===<br />
<br />
* See more on [[User:RobertC/Jehovah and Father|Jesus Christ as Jehovah and Father here]] on [[User:RobertC|RobertC's]] subpage.<br />
<br />
<br />
== Notes ==<br />
<br />
''Footnotes are not required but are encouraged for factual assertions that average readers cannot easily evaluate for themselves, such as the date of King Solomon’s death or the nuanced definition of a Greek word. In contrast, insights rarely benefit from footnoting, and the focus of this page should always remain on the scriptures themselves rather than what someone has said about them. Links are actively encouraged on all sections of this page, and links to authoritative sources are preferable to footnotes.''<br />
<br />
<references/><br />
<br />
<br />
----<br />
<br />
[[Moses 1 | Previous page: Chapter 1]] &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; [[Moses 1:12-23 | Next page: Verses 1:12-23]]</div>Sterlinghttp://feastupontheword.org/Moses_1:1-11Moses 1:1-112013-12-15T15:00:49Z<p>Sterling: /* Verses 1 */</p>
<hr />
<div>[[The Pearl of Great Price]] > [[Moses]] > [[Moses 1 | Chapter 1]] > [[Moses 1:1-11 | Verses 1:1-11]] <br><br />
[[Moses 1 | Previous page: Chapter 1]] &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; [[Moses 1:12-23 | Next page: Verses 1:12-23]]<br />
<br />
This page would ideally always be under construction. You are invited to contribute.<br />
<br />
<br />
== Summary ==<br />
<br />
''This heading should be brief and may include an outline of the passage. Click the link above and to the right to edit or add content to this heading. →''<br />
<br />
The relationship of [http://www.lds.org/scriptures/pgp/moses/1.1-11?lang=eng Verses 1:1-11] to the rest of this chapter is discussed at [[Moses 1 | Chapter 1]].<br />
<br />
<br />
== Discussion ==<br />
<br />
''This heading is for more detailed discussions of all or part of a passage. Discussion may include the meaning of a particular word, how a doctrinal point is developed throughout the passage, insights to be developed in the future, and other items. Contributions may range from polished paragraphs down to a single bullet point. The focus, however, should always be on understanding the scriptural text consistent with LDS doctrine. Click the link above and to the right to edit or add content to this heading. →''<br />
<br />
===Verse 2===<br />
<br />
* [[D&C 88:19]] rhetorically links ''glory'' with the ''presence of God the Father''.<br />
<br />
* The word ''therefore'' suggests that there is something about God's glory being upon Moses that allowed Moses to endure God's presence, and that Moses couldn't have endured God's presence otherwise. Compare this to [[Moses 1:14|verse 14]] where Moses says to Satan "I can look upon thee in the natural man."<br />
<br />
===Verse 3===<br />
<br />
* ''Almighty'' and ''Endless'' may be appellations God choses to set up as a contrast to Satan who will soon appear (verse 12ff). God is almighty whereas Satan has very limited power (and glory). God is endless in that he has eternal increase and declares lasting truths whereas Satan cannot have eternal increase and declares lies that do not last.<br />
<br />
===Verse 6===<br />
<br />
* ''Full of grace and truth'': The phrase "grace and truth" in the scriptures [http://scriptures.lds.org/query?words=%22grace+and+truth%22 is only used] to describe God (the Father or the Son). Grace and truth are set up in contrast to the law which was given by Moses in [[John 1:17]].<br />
<br />
* ''But there is no God beside me''. Although it seems the Father and the Son are being described here as distinct personages, perhaps God is concurrently making it clear that the Father and the Son are one God, perhaps in anticipation of the problems the children of Israel would face in worshiping other gods (e.g. [[Ex 32:1|Ex 32:1-6]]).<br />
<br />
===Verse 7===<br />
<br />
''One thing.'' If the "one thing" that God shows Moses is the world that Moses is in, then this stands in contrast to all the works of God (v. 5), and in contrast to the numberless worlds mentioned in [[Moses 1:33|verse 33]]. The "one thing" also clarifies "the workmanship" that God promises to show in verse 4. By focusing on "one thing" and later clarifying "for thou art in the world," the work that God says he has for Moses (in v. 6) may be alluded to: rather than showing Moses other things, God will focus on the "one thing" that is most needful (cf. [[Luke 10:42]]), namely this world that Moses is reminded (later in v. 7) that he is in. This shift from the many works of God ("works without end" in v. 4; "all my works" in v. 5; "all things" in v. 6) to "one thing" seems also to function as a means of setting up the epiphany that Moses has in verse 10 that "man is nothing." By getting only a glimpse of the many glorious works of God, Moses seems to be overwhelmed in verse 9 and then, when he comes to, Moses then realizes the (relative?) nothingness of man in (at least) a way that he had never before supposed. <br />
<br />
''My son.'' The addition of the phrase "my son" may be a way of reassuring Moses that the reason Moses will be shown only one thing, is not because God is not a loving father or that Moses is an ontologically inferior being to God, but rather because Moses has a work to do (v. 6) and this work pertains to the world that Moses is in.<br />
<br />
''For thou art in the world.'' After stating that God has a work for Moses (v. 6) and that God will only show Moses "one thing," an additional phrase of seeming explanation is added: "for thou art in the world." This may be giving an explanation for why God is not revealing things about other worlds to Moses. It may also be emphasizing the work mentioned in verse 6 that Moses has to perform.<br />
<br />
===Verse 11===<br />
<br />
* ''Natural'' is used here in a way similar to [[1 Cor 2:14]] and [[Mosiah 3:19]]. It stands in contrasts to what is spiritual. The fact that natural is used in the phrase ''natural man'' in verse 14 is especially suggestive of [[Mosiah 3:19]] where we are told that the natural man is an "enemy to God." There the natural man is described as the person who is not yet willing to submit to the Lord.<br />
<br />
<br />
== Points to ponder ==<br />
<br />
''This heading is for prompts that suggest ways in which all or part of this passage can influence a person's life. Click the link above and to the right to edit or add content to this heading. →''<br />
<br />
<br />
== I have a question ==<br />
<br />
''This heading is for unanswered questions and is an important part of the continual effort to improve this wiki. Please do not be shy, as even a basic or "stupid" question can identify things that need to be improved on this page. Click the link above and to the right to edit or add content to this heading. →''<br />
<br />
===Verses 1===<br />
<br />
* How does the phrase "words of God," which appears in this verse, differ from "word of God"? Is this first phrase, which occurs much less frequently in scripture, linked to rebellion against God, as suggested by [[Ps 107:11]], [[Alma 1:7]] and [[Alma 3:18]]? Does that make it appropriate for this passage about the premortal Satan?<br />
<br />
* Was God starting a conversation with Moses about the plan of salvation, as was his custom at the beginning of each dispensation? Does [[Alma 12:30]] suggest this pattern started soon after Adam and Eve left the garden of Eden?<br />
<br />
* If God "spake unto Moses," who exactly was the audience for this message? Why does the final verse of this visionary chapter contain a comment in parentheses, presumably to Joseph Smith, that says "Show them not unto any except them that believe" ([[Moses 1:42]])?<br />
<br />
* Did Moses approach God "at a time when" he was ready to reveal? Was David talking about the importance of timing when his psalm to God said "every one that is godly" shall "pray unto thee in a time when thou mayest be found" ([[Ps 32:6]])?<br />
<br />
* If "Moses was caught up," which senses of the words "catch" and "caught" are at work in this chapter? Does it echo the language about being lifted up at the last day and suggest a invisible hand will "catch" the righteous and carry them to some heavenly destination? Was Moses about to learn that standing in the presence of God was like "catching" on fire and that only the righteous could endure his presence?<br />
<br />
* If Nephi was the only other prophet to talk about spending time around "exceedingly high mountain(s)" ([[1 Ne 11:1]] and [[2 Ne 4:25]]), what parallels can we draw between the experiences of Nephi and Moses? How does Nephi's description of how his body was "carried away" on "the wings of his Spirit," as well as his explanation that as he "sat pondering" he "was caught away in the Spirit of the Lord," echo the language used by Moses? Could Moses relate to Nephi's exclamation that the words he received from God were "too great for man; therefore I was bidden that I should not write them"?<br />
<br />
* Was the preposition intentional when Moses said he went "into" and not "onto" a mountain to talk with God? Do we find confirmation of this language during the temptation of Christ, when "the devil taketh him up into an exceeding high mountain, and sheweth him all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them" ([[Matt 4:8]])?<br />
<br />
* Of what significance are mountains in scripture? For example, why do revelations so often occur on mountains?<br />
<br />
It is my understanding that prior to Moses building the Tabernacle, and after that prior to the Temple being built, and again after the desecration of the Temple, the only place the Lord could appear to his servants that had not been completely desecrated was the top of the mountains. In other words the mountains were Holy Places.<br />
<br />
===Verse 2===<br />
<br />
* Why is it important that we know Moses spoke with God face to face? <br />
<br />
* What does it mean to say “the glory of God was upon Moses”? What is his glory? What does verse 5 tell us about what we read here? How about [[Moses 1:39|verse 39]]? Do [[D&C 29:36]] or [[D&C 88:19]] help us understand these verses?<br />
<br />
Moses had received the Holy Ghost, and was transformed, or purified by the power of the Holy Ghost, until he was able to endure the presence of the Lord. Once in that state, God being a perfect glorified man spoke to Moses, the same way that any man speaks to another man who is in his presence. When we read or hear the Glory of God is on someone it means that that person has been transformed, or purified by the Holy Ghost, so they can endure the presence of deity.<br />
<br />
Verse 5:In this verse God is about to show Moses a portion of his work and how he is going to accomplish it. Especially as it pertains to Moses, and what Moses’ roll in that portion of his work will be. God is also telling Moses, that this is a small portion of what his work is. It is sufficient for Moses to know at this time. He is also explaining to Moses, that to know all that God knows, would make him a glorified being like unto God, and that giving him that much knowledge would be more than he Moses, could endure.<br />
<br />
===Verse 3===<br />
<br />
* Why does God tell Moses his name? He has many names, why does he here use this particular name, Endless? <br />
<br />
===Verses 4-5===<br />
<br />
* In what sense or senses are the works of God without end? In what sense or senses are his words without end?<br />
The Lord all ways uses titles that are descriptive of Himself. The name Endless fits in well with an understanding of the eternal and things without end that God is showing to Moses.His words are eternal as they are truth and truth is the same yesterday, today and tomorrow.<br />
<br />
===Verse 6===<br />
<br />
* This verse suggests that God the Father is speaking to Moses, since he refers to "mine Only Begotten". However, Jesus Christ has stated that he was the God of Abraham ([[John 8:58]]), and gave the law to Israel ([[3 Ne 15:5]]). Who is talking to Moses, God the Father, or Jehovah? Does it matter?<br />
<br />
* Why does God tell Moses that Moses is in the similitude of the Only Begotten? In what way or ways is he in that similitude? Why does God say that the Only Begotten ''is and shall be the Savior''? God says that the Only Begotten is and will be the Savior because he is full of grace and truth. How can we explain that? What does it mean to be full of grace and truth? Why does being full of them make one the Savior? <br />
<br />
* Why does the Father add “but there is no God beside me” immediately after telling Moses of the Savior? <br />
<br />
* What does it mean to say that all things are present? What does it mean for something to be present? The last clause of the verse says that Father’s knowledge makes all things present to him. To say that knowledge is what makes things present is an unusual way to speak. What can we make of that? Does it suggest anything about how things are present before God?<br />
<br />
===Verse 7===<br />
<br />
* What is the “one thing” that God shows Moses? Why does he explain what he shows Moses by saying, “For thou art in the world”?<br />
<br />
* The 'one thing' that God shew to Moses was the Mission and Sacrifice of Jesus Christ; event that would occur in the distant future. And showed to Moses because he 'was in the world' in which such event will take place. [Joh@aci.on.ca]<br />
<br />
===Verse 8===<br />
<br />
* The word “end” can mean “final point” and it can also mean “purpose.” Which meaning do you think is used here when the scripture says that Moses beheld the ends of the world? The meaning here is 'final point' Moses was able to see the end of the earth and its civilization beyond the Second Coming of the Lord. [joh@aci.on.ca]<br />
<br />
===Verse 9===<br />
<br />
* What does it mean to say that Moses was left to himself?<br />
A natural man, in other words, God glory was withdrew from him and Moses was left only with the power(stramgth) of a human man [joh@aci.on.ca]<br />
<br />
===Verse 10===<br />
<br />
* What does Moses mean when, having had this vision of the ends of the world and all the children of men, he says, “Now, for this cause I know that man is nothing, which thing I never had supposed”? <br />
<br />
<br />
== Resources ==<br />
<br />
''This heading is for listing links and print resources, including those cited in the notes. A short comment about the particular strengths of a resource can be helpful. Click the link above and to the right to edit or add content to this heading. →''<br />
<br />
===Verse 6===<br />
<br />
* See more on [[User:RobertC/Jehovah and Father|Jesus Christ as Jehovah and Father here]] on [[User:RobertC|RobertC's]] subpage.<br />
<br />
<br />
== Notes ==<br />
<br />
''Footnotes are not required but are encouraged for factual assertions that average readers cannot easily evaluate for themselves, such as the date of King Solomon’s death or the nuanced definition of a Greek word. In contrast, insights rarely benefit from footnoting, and the focus of this page should always remain on the scriptures themselves rather than what someone has said about them. Links are actively encouraged on all sections of this page, and links to authoritative sources are preferable to footnotes.''<br />
<br />
<references/><br />
<br />
<br />
----<br />
<br />
[[Moses 1 | Previous page: Chapter 1]] &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; [[Moses 1:12-23 | Next page: Verses 1:12-23]]</div>Sterlinghttp://feastupontheword.org/Moses_1:1-11Moses 1:1-112013-12-15T14:54:40Z<p>Sterling: /* Verses 1 */</p>
<hr />
<div>[[The Pearl of Great Price]] > [[Moses]] > [[Moses 1 | Chapter 1]] > [[Moses 1:1-11 | Verses 1:1-11]] <br><br />
[[Moses 1 | Previous page: Chapter 1]] &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; [[Moses 1:12-23 | Next page: Verses 1:12-23]]<br />
<br />
This page would ideally always be under construction. You are invited to contribute.<br />
<br />
<br />
== Summary ==<br />
<br />
''This heading should be brief and may include an outline of the passage. Click the link above and to the right to edit or add content to this heading. →''<br />
<br />
The relationship of [http://www.lds.org/scriptures/pgp/moses/1.1-11?lang=eng Verses 1:1-11] to the rest of this chapter is discussed at [[Moses 1 | Chapter 1]].<br />
<br />
<br />
== Discussion ==<br />
<br />
''This heading is for more detailed discussions of all or part of a passage. Discussion may include the meaning of a particular word, how a doctrinal point is developed throughout the passage, insights to be developed in the future, and other items. Contributions may range from polished paragraphs down to a single bullet point. The focus, however, should always be on understanding the scriptural text consistent with LDS doctrine. Click the link above and to the right to edit or add content to this heading. →''<br />
<br />
===Verse 2===<br />
<br />
* [[D&C 88:19]] rhetorically links ''glory'' with the ''presence of God the Father''.<br />
<br />
* The word ''therefore'' suggests that there is something about God's glory being upon Moses that allowed Moses to endure God's presence, and that Moses couldn't have endured God's presence otherwise. Compare this to [[Moses 1:14|verse 14]] where Moses says to Satan "I can look upon thee in the natural man."<br />
<br />
===Verse 3===<br />
<br />
* ''Almighty'' and ''Endless'' may be appellations God choses to set up as a contrast to Satan who will soon appear (verse 12ff). God is almighty whereas Satan has very limited power (and glory). God is endless in that he has eternal increase and declares lasting truths whereas Satan cannot have eternal increase and declares lies that do not last.<br />
<br />
===Verse 6===<br />
<br />
* ''Full of grace and truth'': The phrase "grace and truth" in the scriptures [http://scriptures.lds.org/query?words=%22grace+and+truth%22 is only used] to describe God (the Father or the Son). Grace and truth are set up in contrast to the law which was given by Moses in [[John 1:17]].<br />
<br />
* ''But there is no God beside me''. Although it seems the Father and the Son are being described here as distinct personages, perhaps God is concurrently making it clear that the Father and the Son are one God, perhaps in anticipation of the problems the children of Israel would face in worshiping other gods (e.g. [[Ex 32:1|Ex 32:1-6]]).<br />
<br />
===Verse 7===<br />
<br />
''One thing.'' If the "one thing" that God shows Moses is the world that Moses is in, then this stands in contrast to all the works of God (v. 5), and in contrast to the numberless worlds mentioned in [[Moses 1:33|verse 33]]. The "one thing" also clarifies "the workmanship" that God promises to show in verse 4. By focusing on "one thing" and later clarifying "for thou art in the world," the work that God says he has for Moses (in v. 6) may be alluded to: rather than showing Moses other things, God will focus on the "one thing" that is most needful (cf. [[Luke 10:42]]), namely this world that Moses is reminded (later in v. 7) that he is in. This shift from the many works of God ("works without end" in v. 4; "all my works" in v. 5; "all things" in v. 6) to "one thing" seems also to function as a means of setting up the epiphany that Moses has in verse 10 that "man is nothing." By getting only a glimpse of the many glorious works of God, Moses seems to be overwhelmed in verse 9 and then, when he comes to, Moses then realizes the (relative?) nothingness of man in (at least) a way that he had never before supposed. <br />
<br />
''My son.'' The addition of the phrase "my son" may be a way of reassuring Moses that the reason Moses will be shown only one thing, is not because God is not a loving father or that Moses is an ontologically inferior being to God, but rather because Moses has a work to do (v. 6) and this work pertains to the world that Moses is in.<br />
<br />
''For thou art in the world.'' After stating that God has a work for Moses (v. 6) and that God will only show Moses "one thing," an additional phrase of seeming explanation is added: "for thou art in the world." This may be giving an explanation for why God is not revealing things about other worlds to Moses. It may also be emphasizing the work mentioned in verse 6 that Moses has to perform.<br />
<br />
===Verse 11===<br />
<br />
* ''Natural'' is used here in a way similar to [[1 Cor 2:14]] and [[Mosiah 3:19]]. It stands in contrasts to what is spiritual. The fact that natural is used in the phrase ''natural man'' in verse 14 is especially suggestive of [[Mosiah 3:19]] where we are told that the natural man is an "enemy to God." There the natural man is described as the person who is not yet willing to submit to the Lord.<br />
<br />
<br />
== Points to ponder ==<br />
<br />
''This heading is for prompts that suggest ways in which all or part of this passage can influence a person's life. Click the link above and to the right to edit or add content to this heading. →''<br />
<br />
<br />
== I have a question ==<br />
<br />
''This heading is for unanswered questions and is an important part of the continual effort to improve this wiki. Please do not be shy, as even a basic or "stupid" question can identify things that need to be improved on this page. Click the link above and to the right to edit or add content to this heading. →''<br />
<br />
===Verses 1===<br />
<br />
* How does the phrase "words of God," which appears in this verse, differ from "word of God"? Is this first phrase, which occurs much less frequently in scripture, linked to rebellion against God, as suggested by [[Ps 107:11]], [[Alma 1:7]] and [[Alma 3:18]]? Does that make it appropriate for this passage about the premortal Satan?<br />
<br />
* Was God starting a conversation with Moses about the plan of salvation, as was his custom at the beginning of each dispensation? Does [[Alma 12:30]] suggest this pattern started soon after Adam and Eve left the garden of Eden?<br />
<br />
* If God "spake unto Moses," who exactly was the audience for this message? Why does the final verse of this visionary chapter contain a comment in parentheses, presumably to Joseph Smith, that says "Show them not unto any except them that believe" ([[Moses 1:42]])?<br />
<br />
* Did Moses approach God "at a time when" he was ready to reveal? Was David talking about the importance of timing when his psalm to God said "every one that is godly" shall "pray unto thee in a time when thou mayest be found" ([[Ps 32:6]])?<br />
<br />
* If "Moses was caught up," which senses of the words "catch" and "caught" are at work in this chapter? Does it echo the language about being lifted up at the last day and suggest a invisible hand will "catch" the righteous and carry them to some heavenly destination? Was Moses about to learn that standing in the presence of God was like "catching" on fire and that only the righteous could endure his presence?<br />
<br />
* If Nephi was the only other prophet to talk about spending time in "exceedingly high mountain(s)" ([[1 Ne 11:1]] and [[2 Ne 4:25]]), what parallels can we draw between the experiences of Nephi and Moses? How does Nephi's description of how his body was "carried away" on "the wings of his Spirit," as well as his explanation that as he "sat pondering" he "was caught away in the Spirit of the Lord," echo the language used by Moses? Could Moses relate to Nephi's exclamation that the words he received from God were "too great for man; therefore I was bidden that I should not write them"?<br />
<br />
* Of what significance are mountains in scripture? For example, why do revelations so often occur on mountains?<br />
<br />
It is my understanding that prior to Moses building the Tabernacle, and after that prior to the Temple being built, and again after the desecration of the Temple, the only place the Lord could appear to his servants that had not been completely desecrated was the top of the mountains. In other words the mountains were Holy Places.<br />
<br />
===Verse 2===<br />
<br />
* Why is it important that we know Moses spoke with God face to face? <br />
<br />
* What does it mean to say “the glory of God was upon Moses”? What is his glory? What does verse 5 tell us about what we read here? How about [[Moses 1:39|verse 39]]? Do [[D&C 29:36]] or [[D&C 88:19]] help us understand these verses?<br />
<br />
Moses had received the Holy Ghost, and was transformed, or purified by the power of the Holy Ghost, until he was able to endure the presence of the Lord. Once in that state, God being a perfect glorified man spoke to Moses, the same way that any man speaks to another man who is in his presence. When we read or hear the Glory of God is on someone it means that that person has been transformed, or purified by the Holy Ghost, so they can endure the presence of deity.<br />
<br />
Verse 5:In this verse God is about to show Moses a portion of his work and how he is going to accomplish it. Especially as it pertains to Moses, and what Moses’ roll in that portion of his work will be. God is also telling Moses, that this is a small portion of what his work is. It is sufficient for Moses to know at this time. He is also explaining to Moses, that to know all that God knows, would make him a glorified being like unto God, and that giving him that much knowledge would be more than he Moses, could endure.<br />
<br />
===Verse 3===<br />
<br />
* Why does God tell Moses his name? He has many names, why does he here use this particular name, Endless? <br />
<br />
===Verses 4-5===<br />
<br />
* In what sense or senses are the works of God without end? In what sense or senses are his words without end?<br />
The Lord all ways uses titles that are descriptive of Himself. The name Endless fits in well with an understanding of the eternal and things without end that God is showing to Moses.His words are eternal as they are truth and truth is the same yesterday, today and tomorrow.<br />
<br />
===Verse 6===<br />
<br />
* This verse suggests that God the Father is speaking to Moses, since he refers to "mine Only Begotten". However, Jesus Christ has stated that he was the God of Abraham ([[John 8:58]]), and gave the law to Israel ([[3 Ne 15:5]]). Who is talking to Moses, God the Father, or Jehovah? Does it matter?<br />
<br />
* Why does God tell Moses that Moses is in the similitude of the Only Begotten? In what way or ways is he in that similitude? Why does God say that the Only Begotten ''is and shall be the Savior''? God says that the Only Begotten is and will be the Savior because he is full of grace and truth. How can we explain that? What does it mean to be full of grace and truth? Why does being full of them make one the Savior? <br />
<br />
* Why does the Father add “but there is no God beside me” immediately after telling Moses of the Savior? <br />
<br />
* What does it mean to say that all things are present? What does it mean for something to be present? The last clause of the verse says that Father’s knowledge makes all things present to him. To say that knowledge is what makes things present is an unusual way to speak. What can we make of that? Does it suggest anything about how things are present before God?<br />
<br />
===Verse 7===<br />
<br />
* What is the “one thing” that God shows Moses? Why does he explain what he shows Moses by saying, “For thou art in the world”?<br />
<br />
* The 'one thing' that God shew to Moses was the Mission and Sacrifice of Jesus Christ; event that would occur in the distant future. And showed to Moses because he 'was in the world' in which such event will take place. [Joh@aci.on.ca]<br />
<br />
===Verse 8===<br />
<br />
* The word “end” can mean “final point” and it can also mean “purpose.” Which meaning do you think is used here when the scripture says that Moses beheld the ends of the world? The meaning here is 'final point' Moses was able to see the end of the earth and its civilization beyond the Second Coming of the Lord. [joh@aci.on.ca]<br />
<br />
===Verse 9===<br />
<br />
* What does it mean to say that Moses was left to himself?<br />
A natural man, in other words, God glory was withdrew from him and Moses was left only with the power(stramgth) of a human man [joh@aci.on.ca]<br />
<br />
===Verse 10===<br />
<br />
* What does Moses mean when, having had this vision of the ends of the world and all the children of men, he says, “Now, for this cause I know that man is nothing, which thing I never had supposed”? <br />
<br />
<br />
== Resources ==<br />
<br />
''This heading is for listing links and print resources, including those cited in the notes. A short comment about the particular strengths of a resource can be helpful. Click the link above and to the right to edit or add content to this heading. →''<br />
<br />
===Verse 6===<br />
<br />
* See more on [[User:RobertC/Jehovah and Father|Jesus Christ as Jehovah and Father here]] on [[User:RobertC|RobertC's]] subpage.<br />
<br />
<br />
== Notes ==<br />
<br />
''Footnotes are not required but are encouraged for factual assertions that average readers cannot easily evaluate for themselves, such as the date of King Solomon’s death or the nuanced definition of a Greek word. In contrast, insights rarely benefit from footnoting, and the focus of this page should always remain on the scriptures themselves rather than what someone has said about them. Links are actively encouraged on all sections of this page, and links to authoritative sources are preferable to footnotes.''<br />
<br />
<references/><br />
<br />
<br />
----<br />
<br />
[[Moses 1 | Previous page: Chapter 1]] &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; [[Moses 1:12-23 | Next page: Verses 1:12-23]]</div>Sterlinghttp://feastupontheword.org/Moses_1:1-11Moses 1:1-112013-12-15T14:53:14Z<p>Sterling: /* Verses 1 */</p>
<hr />
<div>[[The Pearl of Great Price]] > [[Moses]] > [[Moses 1 | Chapter 1]] > [[Moses 1:1-11 | Verses 1:1-11]] <br><br />
[[Moses 1 | Previous page: Chapter 1]] &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; [[Moses 1:12-23 | Next page: Verses 1:12-23]]<br />
<br />
This page would ideally always be under construction. You are invited to contribute.<br />
<br />
<br />
== Summary ==<br />
<br />
''This heading should be brief and may include an outline of the passage. Click the link above and to the right to edit or add content to this heading. →''<br />
<br />
The relationship of [http://www.lds.org/scriptures/pgp/moses/1.1-11?lang=eng Verses 1:1-11] to the rest of this chapter is discussed at [[Moses 1 | Chapter 1]].<br />
<br />
<br />
== Discussion ==<br />
<br />
''This heading is for more detailed discussions of all or part of a passage. Discussion may include the meaning of a particular word, how a doctrinal point is developed throughout the passage, insights to be developed in the future, and other items. Contributions may range from polished paragraphs down to a single bullet point. The focus, however, should always be on understanding the scriptural text consistent with LDS doctrine. Click the link above and to the right to edit or add content to this heading. →''<br />
<br />
===Verse 2===<br />
<br />
* [[D&C 88:19]] rhetorically links ''glory'' with the ''presence of God the Father''.<br />
<br />
* The word ''therefore'' suggests that there is something about God's glory being upon Moses that allowed Moses to endure God's presence, and that Moses couldn't have endured God's presence otherwise. Compare this to [[Moses 1:14|verse 14]] where Moses says to Satan "I can look upon thee in the natural man."<br />
<br />
===Verse 3===<br />
<br />
* ''Almighty'' and ''Endless'' may be appellations God choses to set up as a contrast to Satan who will soon appear (verse 12ff). God is almighty whereas Satan has very limited power (and glory). God is endless in that he has eternal increase and declares lasting truths whereas Satan cannot have eternal increase and declares lies that do not last.<br />
<br />
===Verse 6===<br />
<br />
* ''Full of grace and truth'': The phrase "grace and truth" in the scriptures [http://scriptures.lds.org/query?words=%22grace+and+truth%22 is only used] to describe God (the Father or the Son). Grace and truth are set up in contrast to the law which was given by Moses in [[John 1:17]].<br />
<br />
* ''But there is no God beside me''. Although it seems the Father and the Son are being described here as distinct personages, perhaps God is concurrently making it clear that the Father and the Son are one God, perhaps in anticipation of the problems the children of Israel would face in worshiping other gods (e.g. [[Ex 32:1|Ex 32:1-6]]).<br />
<br />
===Verse 7===<br />
<br />
''One thing.'' If the "one thing" that God shows Moses is the world that Moses is in, then this stands in contrast to all the works of God (v. 5), and in contrast to the numberless worlds mentioned in [[Moses 1:33|verse 33]]. The "one thing" also clarifies "the workmanship" that God promises to show in verse 4. By focusing on "one thing" and later clarifying "for thou art in the world," the work that God says he has for Moses (in v. 6) may be alluded to: rather than showing Moses other things, God will focus on the "one thing" that is most needful (cf. [[Luke 10:42]]), namely this world that Moses is reminded (later in v. 7) that he is in. This shift from the many works of God ("works without end" in v. 4; "all my works" in v. 5; "all things" in v. 6) to "one thing" seems also to function as a means of setting up the epiphany that Moses has in verse 10 that "man is nothing." By getting only a glimpse of the many glorious works of God, Moses seems to be overwhelmed in verse 9 and then, when he comes to, Moses then realizes the (relative?) nothingness of man in (at least) a way that he had never before supposed. <br />
<br />
''My son.'' The addition of the phrase "my son" may be a way of reassuring Moses that the reason Moses will be shown only one thing, is not because God is not a loving father or that Moses is an ontologically inferior being to God, but rather because Moses has a work to do (v. 6) and this work pertains to the world that Moses is in.<br />
<br />
''For thou art in the world.'' After stating that God has a work for Moses (v. 6) and that God will only show Moses "one thing," an additional phrase of seeming explanation is added: "for thou art in the world." This may be giving an explanation for why God is not revealing things about other worlds to Moses. It may also be emphasizing the work mentioned in verse 6 that Moses has to perform.<br />
<br />
===Verse 11===<br />
<br />
* ''Natural'' is used here in a way similar to [[1 Cor 2:14]] and [[Mosiah 3:19]]. It stands in contrasts to what is spiritual. The fact that natural is used in the phrase ''natural man'' in verse 14 is especially suggestive of [[Mosiah 3:19]] where we are told that the natural man is an "enemy to God." There the natural man is described as the person who is not yet willing to submit to the Lord.<br />
<br />
<br />
== Points to ponder ==<br />
<br />
''This heading is for prompts that suggest ways in which all or part of this passage can influence a person's life. Click the link above and to the right to edit or add content to this heading. →''<br />
<br />
<br />
== I have a question ==<br />
<br />
''This heading is for unanswered questions and is an important part of the continual effort to improve this wiki. Please do not be shy, as even a basic or "stupid" question can identify things that need to be improved on this page. Click the link above and to the right to edit or add content to this heading. →''<br />
<br />
===Verses 1===<br />
<br />
* How does the phrase "words of God," which appears in this verse, differ from "word of God"? Is this first phrase, which occurs much less frequently in scripture, linked to rebellion against God, as suggested by [[Psalms 107:11]], [[Alma 1:7]] and [[Alma 3:18]]? Does that make it appropriate for this passage about the premortal Satan?<br />
<br />
* Was God starting a conversation with Moses about the plan of salvation, as was his custom at the beginning of each dispensation? Does [[Alma 12:30]] suggest this pattern started soon after Adam and Eve left the garden of Eden?<br />
<br />
* If God "spake unto Moses," who exactly was the audience for this message? Why does the final verse of this visionary chapter contain a comment in parentheses, presumably to Joseph Smith, that says "Show them not unto any except them that believe" ([[Moses 1:42]])?<br />
<br />
* Did Moses approach God "at a time when" he was ready to reveal? Was David talking about the importance of timing when his psalm to God said "every one that is godly" shall "pray unto thee in a time when thou mayest be found" ([[Ps 32:6]])?<br />
<br />
* If "Moses was caught up," which senses of the words "catch" and "caught" are at work in this chapter? Does it echo the language about being lifted up at the last day and suggest a invisible hand will "catch" the righteous and carry them to some heavenly destination? Was Moses about to learn that standing in the presence of God was like "catching" on fire and that only the righteous could endure his presence?<br />
<br />
* If Nephi was the only other prophet to talk about spending time in "exceedingly high mountain(s)" ([[1 Ne 11:1]] and [[2 Ne 4:25]]), what parallels can we draw between the experiences of Nephi and Moses? How does Nephi's description of how his body was "carried away" on "the wings of his Spirit," as well as his explanation that as he "sat pondering" he "was caught away in the Spirit of the Lord," echo the language used by Moses? Could Moses relate to Nephi's exclamation that the words he received from God were "too great for man; therefore I was bidden that I should not write them"?<br />
<br />
* Of what significance are mountains in scripture? For example, why do revelations so often occur on mountains?<br />
<br />
It is my understanding that prior to Moses building the Tabernacle, and after that prior to the Temple being built, and again after the desecration of the Temple, the only place the Lord could appear to his servants that had not been completely desecrated was the top of the mountains. In other words the mountains were Holy Places.<br />
<br />
===Verse 2===<br />
<br />
* Why is it important that we know Moses spoke with God face to face? <br />
<br />
* What does it mean to say “the glory of God was upon Moses”? What is his glory? What does verse 5 tell us about what we read here? How about [[Moses 1:39|verse 39]]? Do [[D&C 29:36]] or [[D&C 88:19]] help us understand these verses?<br />
<br />
Moses had received the Holy Ghost, and was transformed, or purified by the power of the Holy Ghost, until he was able to endure the presence of the Lord. Once in that state, God being a perfect glorified man spoke to Moses, the same way that any man speaks to another man who is in his presence. When we read or hear the Glory of God is on someone it means that that person has been transformed, or purified by the Holy Ghost, so they can endure the presence of deity.<br />
<br />
Verse 5:In this verse God is about to show Moses a portion of his work and how he is going to accomplish it. Especially as it pertains to Moses, and what Moses’ roll in that portion of his work will be. God is also telling Moses, that this is a small portion of what his work is. It is sufficient for Moses to know at this time. He is also explaining to Moses, that to know all that God knows, would make him a glorified being like unto God, and that giving him that much knowledge would be more than he Moses, could endure.<br />
<br />
===Verse 3===<br />
<br />
* Why does God tell Moses his name? He has many names, why does he here use this particular name, Endless? <br />
<br />
===Verses 4-5===<br />
<br />
* In what sense or senses are the works of God without end? In what sense or senses are his words without end?<br />
The Lord all ways uses titles that are descriptive of Himself. The name Endless fits in well with an understanding of the eternal and things without end that God is showing to Moses.His words are eternal as they are truth and truth is the same yesterday, today and tomorrow.<br />
<br />
===Verse 6===<br />
<br />
* This verse suggests that God the Father is speaking to Moses, since he refers to "mine Only Begotten". However, Jesus Christ has stated that he was the God of Abraham ([[John 8:58]]), and gave the law to Israel ([[3 Ne 15:5]]). Who is talking to Moses, God the Father, or Jehovah? Does it matter?<br />
<br />
* Why does God tell Moses that Moses is in the similitude of the Only Begotten? In what way or ways is he in that similitude? Why does God say that the Only Begotten ''is and shall be the Savior''? God says that the Only Begotten is and will be the Savior because he is full of grace and truth. How can we explain that? What does it mean to be full of grace and truth? Why does being full of them make one the Savior? <br />
<br />
* Why does the Father add “but there is no God beside me” immediately after telling Moses of the Savior? <br />
<br />
* What does it mean to say that all things are present? What does it mean for something to be present? The last clause of the verse says that Father’s knowledge makes all things present to him. To say that knowledge is what makes things present is an unusual way to speak. What can we make of that? Does it suggest anything about how things are present before God?<br />
<br />
===Verse 7===<br />
<br />
* What is the “one thing” that God shows Moses? Why does he explain what he shows Moses by saying, “For thou art in the world”?<br />
<br />
* The 'one thing' that God shew to Moses was the Mission and Sacrifice of Jesus Christ; event that would occur in the distant future. And showed to Moses because he 'was in the world' in which such event will take place. [Joh@aci.on.ca]<br />
<br />
===Verse 8===<br />
<br />
* The word “end” can mean “final point” and it can also mean “purpose.” Which meaning do you think is used here when the scripture says that Moses beheld the ends of the world? The meaning here is 'final point' Moses was able to see the end of the earth and its civilization beyond the Second Coming of the Lord. [joh@aci.on.ca]<br />
<br />
===Verse 9===<br />
<br />
* What does it mean to say that Moses was left to himself?<br />
A natural man, in other words, God glory was withdrew from him and Moses was left only with the power(stramgth) of a human man [joh@aci.on.ca]<br />
<br />
===Verse 10===<br />
<br />
* What does Moses mean when, having had this vision of the ends of the world and all the children of men, he says, “Now, for this cause I know that man is nothing, which thing I never had supposed”? <br />
<br />
<br />
== Resources ==<br />
<br />
''This heading is for listing links and print resources, including those cited in the notes. A short comment about the particular strengths of a resource can be helpful. Click the link above and to the right to edit or add content to this heading. →''<br />
<br />
===Verse 6===<br />
<br />
* See more on [[User:RobertC/Jehovah and Father|Jesus Christ as Jehovah and Father here]] on [[User:RobertC|RobertC's]] subpage.<br />
<br />
<br />
== Notes ==<br />
<br />
''Footnotes are not required but are encouraged for factual assertions that average readers cannot easily evaluate for themselves, such as the date of King Solomon’s death or the nuanced definition of a Greek word. In contrast, insights rarely benefit from footnoting, and the focus of this page should always remain on the scriptures themselves rather than what someone has said about them. Links are actively encouraged on all sections of this page, and links to authoritative sources are preferable to footnotes.''<br />
<br />
<references/><br />
<br />
<br />
----<br />
<br />
[[Moses 1 | Previous page: Chapter 1]] &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; [[Moses 1:12-23 | Next page: Verses 1:12-23]]</div>Sterlinghttp://feastupontheword.org/Moses_1:1-11Moses 1:1-112013-12-15T14:42:23Z<p>Sterling: /* Verses 1 */</p>
<hr />
<div>[[The Pearl of Great Price]] > [[Moses]] > [[Moses 1 | Chapter 1]] > [[Moses 1:1-11 | Verses 1:1-11]] <br><br />
[[Moses 1 | Previous page: Chapter 1]] &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; [[Moses 1:12-23 | Next page: Verses 1:12-23]]<br />
<br />
This page would ideally always be under construction. You are invited to contribute.<br />
<br />
<br />
== Summary ==<br />
<br />
''This heading should be brief and may include an outline of the passage. Click the link above and to the right to edit or add content to this heading. →''<br />
<br />
The relationship of [http://www.lds.org/scriptures/pgp/moses/1.1-11?lang=eng Verses 1:1-11] to the rest of this chapter is discussed at [[Moses 1 | Chapter 1]].<br />
<br />
<br />
== Discussion ==<br />
<br />
''This heading is for more detailed discussions of all or part of a passage. Discussion may include the meaning of a particular word, how a doctrinal point is developed throughout the passage, insights to be developed in the future, and other items. Contributions may range from polished paragraphs down to a single bullet point. The focus, however, should always be on understanding the scriptural text consistent with LDS doctrine. Click the link above and to the right to edit or add content to this heading. →''<br />
<br />
===Verse 2===<br />
<br />
* [[D&C 88:19]] rhetorically links ''glory'' with the ''presence of God the Father''.<br />
<br />
* The word ''therefore'' suggests that there is something about God's glory being upon Moses that allowed Moses to endure God's presence, and that Moses couldn't have endured God's presence otherwise. Compare this to [[Moses 1:14|verse 14]] where Moses says to Satan "I can look upon thee in the natural man."<br />
<br />
===Verse 3===<br />
<br />
* ''Almighty'' and ''Endless'' may be appellations God choses to set up as a contrast to Satan who will soon appear (verse 12ff). God is almighty whereas Satan has very limited power (and glory). God is endless in that he has eternal increase and declares lasting truths whereas Satan cannot have eternal increase and declares lies that do not last.<br />
<br />
===Verse 6===<br />
<br />
* ''Full of grace and truth'': The phrase "grace and truth" in the scriptures [http://scriptures.lds.org/query?words=%22grace+and+truth%22 is only used] to describe God (the Father or the Son). Grace and truth are set up in contrast to the law which was given by Moses in [[John 1:17]].<br />
<br />
* ''But there is no God beside me''. Although it seems the Father and the Son are being described here as distinct personages, perhaps God is concurrently making it clear that the Father and the Son are one God, perhaps in anticipation of the problems the children of Israel would face in worshiping other gods (e.g. [[Ex 32:1|Ex 32:1-6]]).<br />
<br />
===Verse 7===<br />
<br />
''One thing.'' If the "one thing" that God shows Moses is the world that Moses is in, then this stands in contrast to all the works of God (v. 5), and in contrast to the numberless worlds mentioned in [[Moses 1:33|verse 33]]. The "one thing" also clarifies "the workmanship" that God promises to show in verse 4. By focusing on "one thing" and later clarifying "for thou art in the world," the work that God says he has for Moses (in v. 6) may be alluded to: rather than showing Moses other things, God will focus on the "one thing" that is most needful (cf. [[Luke 10:42]]), namely this world that Moses is reminded (later in v. 7) that he is in. This shift from the many works of God ("works without end" in v. 4; "all my works" in v. 5; "all things" in v. 6) to "one thing" seems also to function as a means of setting up the epiphany that Moses has in verse 10 that "man is nothing." By getting only a glimpse of the many glorious works of God, Moses seems to be overwhelmed in verse 9 and then, when he comes to, Moses then realizes the (relative?) nothingness of man in (at least) a way that he had never before supposed. <br />
<br />
''My son.'' The addition of the phrase "my son" may be a way of reassuring Moses that the reason Moses will be shown only one thing, is not because God is not a loving father or that Moses is an ontologically inferior being to God, but rather because Moses has a work to do (v. 6) and this work pertains to the world that Moses is in.<br />
<br />
''For thou art in the world.'' After stating that God has a work for Moses (v. 6) and that God will only show Moses "one thing," an additional phrase of seeming explanation is added: "for thou art in the world." This may be giving an explanation for why God is not revealing things about other worlds to Moses. It may also be emphasizing the work mentioned in verse 6 that Moses has to perform.<br />
<br />
===Verse 11===<br />
<br />
* ''Natural'' is used here in a way similar to [[1 Cor 2:14]] and [[Mosiah 3:19]]. It stands in contrasts to what is spiritual. The fact that natural is used in the phrase ''natural man'' in verse 14 is especially suggestive of [[Mosiah 3:19]] where we are told that the natural man is an "enemy to God." There the natural man is described as the person who is not yet willing to submit to the Lord.<br />
<br />
<br />
== Points to ponder ==<br />
<br />
''This heading is for prompts that suggest ways in which all or part of this passage can influence a person's life. Click the link above and to the right to edit or add content to this heading. →''<br />
<br />
<br />
== I have a question ==<br />
<br />
''This heading is for unanswered questions and is an important part of the continual effort to improve this wiki. Please do not be shy, as even a basic or "stupid" question can identify things that need to be improved on this page. Click the link above and to the right to edit or add content to this heading. →''<br />
<br />
===Verses 1===<br />
<br />
* How does the phrase "words of God," which appears in this verse, differ from "word of God"? Is this first phrase, which occurs much less frequently in scripture, linked to rebellion against God, as suggested by [[Psalms 107:11]], [[Alma 1:7]] and [[Alma 3:18]]? Does that make it appropriate for this passage about the premortal Satan?<br />
<br />
* Was God starting a conversation with Moses about the plan of salvation, as was his custom at the beginning of each dispensation? Does [[Alma 12:30]] suggest this pattern started soon after Adam and Eve left the garden of Eden?<br />
<br />
* If God "spake unto Moses," who exactly was the audience for this message? Why does the final verse of this visionary chapter contain a comment in parentheses, presumably to Joseph Smith, that says "Show them not unto any except them that believe" ([[Moses 1:42]])?<br />
<br />
* Did Moses approach God "at a time when" he was ready to reveal? Was David talking about the importance of timing when his psalm to God said "every one that is godly" shall "pray unto thee in a time when thou mayest be found" ([[Ps 32:6]])?<br />
<br />
* If "Moses was caught up," which senses of the words "catch" and "caught" are at work in this chapter? Does it echo the language about being lifted up at the last day and suggest a invisible hand will "catch" the righteous and carry them to some heavenly destination? Was Moses about to learn that standing in the presence of God was like "catching" on fire and that only the righteous could endure his presence?<br />
<br />
* Of what significance are mountains in scripture? For example, why do revelations so often occur on mountains?<br />
<br />
It is my understanding that prior to Moses building the Tabernacle, and after that prior to the Temple being built, and again after the desecration of the Temple, the only place the Lord could appear to his servants that had not been completely desecrated was the top of the mountains. In other words the mountains were Holy Places.<br />
<br />
===Verse 2===<br />
<br />
* Why is it important that we know Moses spoke with God face to face? <br />
<br />
* What does it mean to say “the glory of God was upon Moses”? What is his glory? What does verse 5 tell us about what we read here? How about [[Moses 1:39|verse 39]]? Do [[D&C 29:36]] or [[D&C 88:19]] help us understand these verses?<br />
<br />
Moses had received the Holy Ghost, and was transformed, or purified by the power of the Holy Ghost, until he was able to endure the presence of the Lord. Once in that state, God being a perfect glorified man spoke to Moses, the same way that any man speaks to another man who is in his presence. When we read or hear the Glory of God is on someone it means that that person has been transformed, or purified by the Holy Ghost, so they can endure the presence of deity.<br />
<br />
Verse 5:In this verse God is about to show Moses a portion of his work and how he is going to accomplish it. Especially as it pertains to Moses, and what Moses’ roll in that portion of his work will be. God is also telling Moses, that this is a small portion of what his work is. It is sufficient for Moses to know at this time. He is also explaining to Moses, that to know all that God knows, would make him a glorified being like unto God, and that giving him that much knowledge would be more than he Moses, could endure.<br />
<br />
===Verse 3===<br />
<br />
* Why does God tell Moses his name? He has many names, why does he here use this particular name, Endless? <br />
<br />
===Verses 4-5===<br />
<br />
* In what sense or senses are the works of God without end? In what sense or senses are his words without end?<br />
The Lord all ways uses titles that are descriptive of Himself. The name Endless fits in well with an understanding of the eternal and things without end that God is showing to Moses.His words are eternal as they are truth and truth is the same yesterday, today and tomorrow.<br />
<br />
===Verse 6===<br />
<br />
* This verse suggests that God the Father is speaking to Moses, since he refers to "mine Only Begotten". However, Jesus Christ has stated that he was the God of Abraham ([[John 8:58]]), and gave the law to Israel ([[3 Ne 15:5]]). Who is talking to Moses, God the Father, or Jehovah? Does it matter?<br />
<br />
* Why does God tell Moses that Moses is in the similitude of the Only Begotten? In what way or ways is he in that similitude? Why does God say that the Only Begotten ''is and shall be the Savior''? God says that the Only Begotten is and will be the Savior because he is full of grace and truth. How can we explain that? What does it mean to be full of grace and truth? Why does being full of them make one the Savior? <br />
<br />
* Why does the Father add “but there is no God beside me” immediately after telling Moses of the Savior? <br />
<br />
* What does it mean to say that all things are present? What does it mean for something to be present? The last clause of the verse says that Father’s knowledge makes all things present to him. To say that knowledge is what makes things present is an unusual way to speak. What can we make of that? Does it suggest anything about how things are present before God?<br />
<br />
===Verse 7===<br />
<br />
* What is the “one thing” that God shows Moses? Why does he explain what he shows Moses by saying, “For thou art in the world”?<br />
<br />
* The 'one thing' that God shew to Moses was the Mission and Sacrifice of Jesus Christ; event that would occur in the distant future. And showed to Moses because he 'was in the world' in which such event will take place. [Joh@aci.on.ca]<br />
<br />
===Verse 8===<br />
<br />
* The word “end” can mean “final point” and it can also mean “purpose.” Which meaning do you think is used here when the scripture says that Moses beheld the ends of the world? The meaning here is 'final point' Moses was able to see the end of the earth and its civilization beyond the Second Coming of the Lord. [joh@aci.on.ca]<br />
<br />
===Verse 9===<br />
<br />
* What does it mean to say that Moses was left to himself?<br />
A natural man, in other words, God glory was withdrew from him and Moses was left only with the power(stramgth) of a human man [joh@aci.on.ca]<br />
<br />
===Verse 10===<br />
<br />
* What does Moses mean when, having had this vision of the ends of the world and all the children of men, he says, “Now, for this cause I know that man is nothing, which thing I never had supposed”? <br />
<br />
<br />
== Resources ==<br />
<br />
''This heading is for listing links and print resources, including those cited in the notes. A short comment about the particular strengths of a resource can be helpful. Click the link above and to the right to edit or add content to this heading. →''<br />
<br />
===Verse 6===<br />
<br />
* See more on [[User:RobertC/Jehovah and Father|Jesus Christ as Jehovah and Father here]] on [[User:RobertC|RobertC's]] subpage.<br />
<br />
<br />
== Notes ==<br />
<br />
''Footnotes are not required but are encouraged for factual assertions that average readers cannot easily evaluate for themselves, such as the date of King Solomon’s death or the nuanced definition of a Greek word. In contrast, insights rarely benefit from footnoting, and the focus of this page should always remain on the scriptures themselves rather than what someone has said about them. Links are actively encouraged on all sections of this page, and links to authoritative sources are preferable to footnotes.''<br />
<br />
<references/><br />
<br />
<br />
----<br />
<br />
[[Moses 1 | Previous page: Chapter 1]] &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; [[Moses 1:12-23 | Next page: Verses 1:12-23]]</div>Sterlinghttp://feastupontheword.org/Moses_1:1-11Moses 1:1-112013-12-15T14:32:39Z<p>Sterling: /* Verses 1 */</p>
<hr />
<div>[[The Pearl of Great Price]] > [[Moses]] > [[Moses 1 | Chapter 1]] > [[Moses 1:1-11 | Verses 1:1-11]] <br><br />
[[Moses 1 | Previous page: Chapter 1]] &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; [[Moses 1:12-23 | Next page: Verses 1:12-23]]<br />
<br />
This page would ideally always be under construction. You are invited to contribute.<br />
<br />
<br />
== Summary ==<br />
<br />
''This heading should be brief and may include an outline of the passage. Click the link above and to the right to edit or add content to this heading. →''<br />
<br />
The relationship of [http://www.lds.org/scriptures/pgp/moses/1.1-11?lang=eng Verses 1:1-11] to the rest of this chapter is discussed at [[Moses 1 | Chapter 1]].<br />
<br />
<br />
== Discussion ==<br />
<br />
''This heading is for more detailed discussions of all or part of a passage. Discussion may include the meaning of a particular word, how a doctrinal point is developed throughout the passage, insights to be developed in the future, and other items. Contributions may range from polished paragraphs down to a single bullet point. The focus, however, should always be on understanding the scriptural text consistent with LDS doctrine. Click the link above and to the right to edit or add content to this heading. →''<br />
<br />
===Verse 2===<br />
<br />
* [[D&C 88:19]] rhetorically links ''glory'' with the ''presence of God the Father''.<br />
<br />
* The word ''therefore'' suggests that there is something about God's glory being upon Moses that allowed Moses to endure God's presence, and that Moses couldn't have endured God's presence otherwise. Compare this to [[Moses 1:14|verse 14]] where Moses says to Satan "I can look upon thee in the natural man."<br />
<br />
===Verse 3===<br />
<br />
* ''Almighty'' and ''Endless'' may be appellations God choses to set up as a contrast to Satan who will soon appear (verse 12ff). God is almighty whereas Satan has very limited power (and glory). God is endless in that he has eternal increase and declares lasting truths whereas Satan cannot have eternal increase and declares lies that do not last.<br />
<br />
===Verse 6===<br />
<br />
* ''Full of grace and truth'': The phrase "grace and truth" in the scriptures [http://scriptures.lds.org/query?words=%22grace+and+truth%22 is only used] to describe God (the Father or the Son). Grace and truth are set up in contrast to the law which was given by Moses in [[John 1:17]].<br />
<br />
* ''But there is no God beside me''. Although it seems the Father and the Son are being described here as distinct personages, perhaps God is concurrently making it clear that the Father and the Son are one God, perhaps in anticipation of the problems the children of Israel would face in worshiping other gods (e.g. [[Ex 32:1|Ex 32:1-6]]).<br />
<br />
===Verse 7===<br />
<br />
''One thing.'' If the "one thing" that God shows Moses is the world that Moses is in, then this stands in contrast to all the works of God (v. 5), and in contrast to the numberless worlds mentioned in [[Moses 1:33|verse 33]]. The "one thing" also clarifies "the workmanship" that God promises to show in verse 4. By focusing on "one thing" and later clarifying "for thou art in the world," the work that God says he has for Moses (in v. 6) may be alluded to: rather than showing Moses other things, God will focus on the "one thing" that is most needful (cf. [[Luke 10:42]]), namely this world that Moses is reminded (later in v. 7) that he is in. This shift from the many works of God ("works without end" in v. 4; "all my works" in v. 5; "all things" in v. 6) to "one thing" seems also to function as a means of setting up the epiphany that Moses has in verse 10 that "man is nothing." By getting only a glimpse of the many glorious works of God, Moses seems to be overwhelmed in verse 9 and then, when he comes to, Moses then realizes the (relative?) nothingness of man in (at least) a way that he had never before supposed. <br />
<br />
''My son.'' The addition of the phrase "my son" may be a way of reassuring Moses that the reason Moses will be shown only one thing, is not because God is not a loving father or that Moses is an ontologically inferior being to God, but rather because Moses has a work to do (v. 6) and this work pertains to the world that Moses is in.<br />
<br />
''For thou art in the world.'' After stating that God has a work for Moses (v. 6) and that God will only show Moses "one thing," an additional phrase of seeming explanation is added: "for thou art in the world." This may be giving an explanation for why God is not revealing things about other worlds to Moses. It may also be emphasizing the work mentioned in verse 6 that Moses has to perform.<br />
<br />
===Verse 11===<br />
<br />
* ''Natural'' is used here in a way similar to [[1 Cor 2:14]] and [[Mosiah 3:19]]. It stands in contrasts to what is spiritual. The fact that natural is used in the phrase ''natural man'' in verse 14 is especially suggestive of [[Mosiah 3:19]] where we are told that the natural man is an "enemy to God." There the natural man is described as the person who is not yet willing to submit to the Lord.<br />
<br />
<br />
== Points to ponder ==<br />
<br />
''This heading is for prompts that suggest ways in which all or part of this passage can influence a person's life. Click the link above and to the right to edit or add content to this heading. →''<br />
<br />
<br />
== I have a question ==<br />
<br />
''This heading is for unanswered questions and is an important part of the continual effort to improve this wiki. Please do not be shy, as even a basic or "stupid" question can identify things that need to be improved on this page. Click the link above and to the right to edit or add content to this heading. →''<br />
<br />
===Verses 1===<br />
<br />
* How does the phrase "words of God," which appears in this verse, differ from "word of God"? Is this first phrase, which occurs much less frequently in scripture, linked to rebellion against God, as suggested by [[Psalms 107:11]], [[Alma 1:7]] and [[Alma 3:18]]? Does that make it appropriate for this passage about the premortal Satan?<br />
<br />
* Was God starting a conversation with Moses about the plan of salvation, as was his custom at the beginning of each dispensation? Does [[Alma 12:30]] suggest this pattern started soon after Adam and Eve left the garden of Eden?<br />
<br />
* If God "spake unto Moses," who exactly was the audience for this message? Why does the final verse of this visionary chapter contain a comment in parentheses, presumably to Joseph Smith, that says "Show them not unto any except them that believe" ([[Moses 1:42]])?<br />
<br />
* Did Moses approach God "at a time when" he was ready to reveal? Was David talking about the importance of timing when his psalm to God said "every one that is godly" shall "pray unto thee in a time when thou mayest be found" ([[Ps 32:6]])?<br />
<br />
* Of what significance are mountains in scripture? For example, why do revelations so often occur on mountains?<br />
<br />
It is my understanding that prior to Moses building the Tabernacle, and after that prior to the Temple being built, and again after the desecration of the Temple, the only place the Lord could appear to his servants that had not been completely desecrated was the top of the mountains. In other words the mountains were Holy Places.<br />
<br />
===Verse 2===<br />
<br />
* Why is it important that we know Moses spoke with God face to face? <br />
<br />
* What does it mean to say “the glory of God was upon Moses”? What is his glory? What does verse 5 tell us about what we read here? How about [[Moses 1:39|verse 39]]? Do [[D&C 29:36]] or [[D&C 88:19]] help us understand these verses?<br />
<br />
Moses had received the Holy Ghost, and was transformed, or purified by the power of the Holy Ghost, until he was able to endure the presence of the Lord. Once in that state, God being a perfect glorified man spoke to Moses, the same way that any man speaks to another man who is in his presence. When we read or hear the Glory of God is on someone it means that that person has been transformed, or purified by the Holy Ghost, so they can endure the presence of deity.<br />
<br />
Verse 5:In this verse God is about to show Moses a portion of his work and how he is going to accomplish it. Especially as it pertains to Moses, and what Moses’ roll in that portion of his work will be. God is also telling Moses, that this is a small portion of what his work is. It is sufficient for Moses to know at this time. He is also explaining to Moses, that to know all that God knows, would make him a glorified being like unto God, and that giving him that much knowledge would be more than he Moses, could endure.<br />
<br />
===Verse 3===<br />
<br />
* Why does God tell Moses his name? He has many names, why does he here use this particular name, Endless? <br />
<br />
===Verses 4-5===<br />
<br />
* In what sense or senses are the works of God without end? In what sense or senses are his words without end?<br />
The Lord all ways uses titles that are descriptive of Himself. The name Endless fits in well with an understanding of the eternal and things without end that God is showing to Moses.His words are eternal as they are truth and truth is the same yesterday, today and tomorrow.<br />
<br />
===Verse 6===<br />
<br />
* This verse suggests that God the Father is speaking to Moses, since he refers to "mine Only Begotten". However, Jesus Christ has stated that he was the God of Abraham ([[John 8:58]]), and gave the law to Israel ([[3 Ne 15:5]]). Who is talking to Moses, God the Father, or Jehovah? Does it matter?<br />
<br />
* Why does God tell Moses that Moses is in the similitude of the Only Begotten? In what way or ways is he in that similitude? Why does God say that the Only Begotten ''is and shall be the Savior''? God says that the Only Begotten is and will be the Savior because he is full of grace and truth. How can we explain that? What does it mean to be full of grace and truth? Why does being full of them make one the Savior? <br />
<br />
* Why does the Father add “but there is no God beside me” immediately after telling Moses of the Savior? <br />
<br />
* What does it mean to say that all things are present? What does it mean for something to be present? The last clause of the verse says that Father’s knowledge makes all things present to him. To say that knowledge is what makes things present is an unusual way to speak. What can we make of that? Does it suggest anything about how things are present before God?<br />
<br />
===Verse 7===<br />
<br />
* What is the “one thing” that God shows Moses? Why does he explain what he shows Moses by saying, “For thou art in the world”?<br />
<br />
* The 'one thing' that God shew to Moses was the Mission and Sacrifice of Jesus Christ; event that would occur in the distant future. And showed to Moses because he 'was in the world' in which such event will take place. [Joh@aci.on.ca]<br />
<br />
===Verse 8===<br />
<br />
* The word “end” can mean “final point” and it can also mean “purpose.” Which meaning do you think is used here when the scripture says that Moses beheld the ends of the world? The meaning here is 'final point' Moses was able to see the end of the earth and its civilization beyond the Second Coming of the Lord. [joh@aci.on.ca]<br />
<br />
===Verse 9===<br />
<br />
* What does it mean to say that Moses was left to himself?<br />
A natural man, in other words, God glory was withdrew from him and Moses was left only with the power(stramgth) of a human man [joh@aci.on.ca]<br />
<br />
===Verse 10===<br />
<br />
* What does Moses mean when, having had this vision of the ends of the world and all the children of men, he says, “Now, for this cause I know that man is nothing, which thing I never had supposed”? <br />
<br />
<br />
== Resources ==<br />
<br />
''This heading is for listing links and print resources, including those cited in the notes. A short comment about the particular strengths of a resource can be helpful. Click the link above and to the right to edit or add content to this heading. →''<br />
<br />
===Verse 6===<br />
<br />
* See more on [[User:RobertC/Jehovah and Father|Jesus Christ as Jehovah and Father here]] on [[User:RobertC|RobertC's]] subpage.<br />
<br />
<br />
== Notes ==<br />
<br />
''Footnotes are not required but are encouraged for factual assertions that average readers cannot easily evaluate for themselves, such as the date of King Solomon’s death or the nuanced definition of a Greek word. In contrast, insights rarely benefit from footnoting, and the focus of this page should always remain on the scriptures themselves rather than what someone has said about them. Links are actively encouraged on all sections of this page, and links to authoritative sources are preferable to footnotes.''<br />
<br />
<references/><br />
<br />
<br />
----<br />
<br />
[[Moses 1 | Previous page: Chapter 1]] &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; [[Moses 1:12-23 | Next page: Verses 1:12-23]]</div>Sterlinghttp://feastupontheword.org/Moses_1:1-11Moses 1:1-112013-12-15T14:31:11Z<p>Sterling: /* Verses 1 */</p>
<hr />
<div>[[The Pearl of Great Price]] > [[Moses]] > [[Moses 1 | Chapter 1]] > [[Moses 1:1-11 | Verses 1:1-11]] <br><br />
[[Moses 1 | Previous page: Chapter 1]] &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; [[Moses 1:12-23 | Next page: Verses 1:12-23]]<br />
<br />
This page would ideally always be under construction. You are invited to contribute.<br />
<br />
<br />
== Summary ==<br />
<br />
''This heading should be brief and may include an outline of the passage. Click the link above and to the right to edit or add content to this heading. →''<br />
<br />
The relationship of [http://www.lds.org/scriptures/pgp/moses/1.1-11?lang=eng Verses 1:1-11] to the rest of this chapter is discussed at [[Moses 1 | Chapter 1]].<br />
<br />
<br />
== Discussion ==<br />
<br />
''This heading is for more detailed discussions of all or part of a passage. Discussion may include the meaning of a particular word, how a doctrinal point is developed throughout the passage, insights to be developed in the future, and other items. Contributions may range from polished paragraphs down to a single bullet point. The focus, however, should always be on understanding the scriptural text consistent with LDS doctrine. Click the link above and to the right to edit or add content to this heading. →''<br />
<br />
===Verse 2===<br />
<br />
* [[D&C 88:19]] rhetorically links ''glory'' with the ''presence of God the Father''.<br />
<br />
* The word ''therefore'' suggests that there is something about God's glory being upon Moses that allowed Moses to endure God's presence, and that Moses couldn't have endured God's presence otherwise. Compare this to [[Moses 1:14|verse 14]] where Moses says to Satan "I can look upon thee in the natural man."<br />
<br />
===Verse 3===<br />
<br />
* ''Almighty'' and ''Endless'' may be appellations God choses to set up as a contrast to Satan who will soon appear (verse 12ff). God is almighty whereas Satan has very limited power (and glory). God is endless in that he has eternal increase and declares lasting truths whereas Satan cannot have eternal increase and declares lies that do not last.<br />
<br />
===Verse 6===<br />
<br />
* ''Full of grace and truth'': The phrase "grace and truth" in the scriptures [http://scriptures.lds.org/query?words=%22grace+and+truth%22 is only used] to describe God (the Father or the Son). Grace and truth are set up in contrast to the law which was given by Moses in [[John 1:17]].<br />
<br />
* ''But there is no God beside me''. Although it seems the Father and the Son are being described here as distinct personages, perhaps God is concurrently making it clear that the Father and the Son are one God, perhaps in anticipation of the problems the children of Israel would face in worshiping other gods (e.g. [[Ex 32:1|Ex 32:1-6]]).<br />
<br />
===Verse 7===<br />
<br />
''One thing.'' If the "one thing" that God shows Moses is the world that Moses is in, then this stands in contrast to all the works of God (v. 5), and in contrast to the numberless worlds mentioned in [[Moses 1:33|verse 33]]. The "one thing" also clarifies "the workmanship" that God promises to show in verse 4. By focusing on "one thing" and later clarifying "for thou art in the world," the work that God says he has for Moses (in v. 6) may be alluded to: rather than showing Moses other things, God will focus on the "one thing" that is most needful (cf. [[Luke 10:42]]), namely this world that Moses is reminded (later in v. 7) that he is in. This shift from the many works of God ("works without end" in v. 4; "all my works" in v. 5; "all things" in v. 6) to "one thing" seems also to function as a means of setting up the epiphany that Moses has in verse 10 that "man is nothing." By getting only a glimpse of the many glorious works of God, Moses seems to be overwhelmed in verse 9 and then, when he comes to, Moses then realizes the (relative?) nothingness of man in (at least) a way that he had never before supposed. <br />
<br />
''My son.'' The addition of the phrase "my son" may be a way of reassuring Moses that the reason Moses will be shown only one thing, is not because God is not a loving father or that Moses is an ontologically inferior being to God, but rather because Moses has a work to do (v. 6) and this work pertains to the world that Moses is in.<br />
<br />
''For thou art in the world.'' After stating that God has a work for Moses (v. 6) and that God will only show Moses "one thing," an additional phrase of seeming explanation is added: "for thou art in the world." This may be giving an explanation for why God is not revealing things about other worlds to Moses. It may also be emphasizing the work mentioned in verse 6 that Moses has to perform.<br />
<br />
===Verse 11===<br />
<br />
* ''Natural'' is used here in a way similar to [[1 Cor 2:14]] and [[Mosiah 3:19]]. It stands in contrasts to what is spiritual. The fact that natural is used in the phrase ''natural man'' in verse 14 is especially suggestive of [[Mosiah 3:19]] where we are told that the natural man is an "enemy to God." There the natural man is described as the person who is not yet willing to submit to the Lord.<br />
<br />
<br />
== Points to ponder ==<br />
<br />
''This heading is for prompts that suggest ways in which all or part of this passage can influence a person's life. Click the link above and to the right to edit or add content to this heading. →''<br />
<br />
<br />
== I have a question ==<br />
<br />
''This heading is for unanswered questions and is an important part of the continual effort to improve this wiki. Please do not be shy, as even a basic or "stupid" question can identify things that need to be improved on this page. Click the link above and to the right to edit or add content to this heading. →''<br />
<br />
===Verses 1===<br />
<br />
* How does the phrase "words of God," which appears in this verse, differ from "word of God"? Is this first phrase, which occurs much less frequently in scripture, linked to rebellion against God, as suggested by [[Psalms 107:11]], [[Alma 1:7]] and [[Alma 3:18]]? Does that make it appropriate for this passage about the premortal Satan?<br />
<br />
* Was God starting a conversation with Moses about the plan of salvation, as was his custom at the beginning of each dispensation? Does [[Alma 12:30]] suggest this pattern started soon after Adam and Eve left the garden of Eden?<br />
<br />
* If God "spake unto Moses," what was the audience for this message? Why does the final verse of this visionary chapter contain a comment in parentheses, presumably to Joseph Smith, that says "Show them not unto any except them that believe" ([[Moses 1:42]])?<br />
<br />
* Did Moses approach God "at a time when" he was ready to reveal? Was David talking about the importance of timing when his psalm to God said "every one that is godly" shall "pray unto thee in a time when thou mayest be found" ([[Ps 32:6]])?<br />
<br />
* Of what significance are mountains in scripture? For example, why do revelations so often occur on mountains?<br />
<br />
It is my understanding that prior to Moses building the Tabernacle, and after that prior to the Temple being built, and again after the desecration of the Temple, the only place the Lord could appear to his servants that had not been completely desecrated was the top of the mountains. In other words the mountains were Holy Places.<br />
<br />
===Verse 2===<br />
<br />
* Why is it important that we know Moses spoke with God face to face? <br />
<br />
* What does it mean to say “the glory of God was upon Moses”? What is his glory? What does verse 5 tell us about what we read here? How about [[Moses 1:39|verse 39]]? Do [[D&C 29:36]] or [[D&C 88:19]] help us understand these verses?<br />
<br />
Moses had received the Holy Ghost, and was transformed, or purified by the power of the Holy Ghost, until he was able to endure the presence of the Lord. Once in that state, God being a perfect glorified man spoke to Moses, the same way that any man speaks to another man who is in his presence. When we read or hear the Glory of God is on someone it means that that person has been transformed, or purified by the Holy Ghost, so they can endure the presence of deity.<br />
<br />
Verse 5:In this verse God is about to show Moses a portion of his work and how he is going to accomplish it. Especially as it pertains to Moses, and what Moses’ roll in that portion of his work will be. God is also telling Moses, that this is a small portion of what his work is. It is sufficient for Moses to know at this time. He is also explaining to Moses, that to know all that God knows, would make him a glorified being like unto God, and that giving him that much knowledge would be more than he Moses, could endure.<br />
<br />
===Verse 3===<br />
<br />
* Why does God tell Moses his name? He has many names, why does he here use this particular name, Endless? <br />
<br />
===Verses 4-5===<br />
<br />
* In what sense or senses are the works of God without end? In what sense or senses are his words without end?<br />
The Lord all ways uses titles that are descriptive of Himself. The name Endless fits in well with an understanding of the eternal and things without end that God is showing to Moses.His words are eternal as they are truth and truth is the same yesterday, today and tomorrow.<br />
<br />
===Verse 6===<br />
<br />
* This verse suggests that God the Father is speaking to Moses, since he refers to "mine Only Begotten". However, Jesus Christ has stated that he was the God of Abraham ([[John 8:58]]), and gave the law to Israel ([[3 Ne 15:5]]). Who is talking to Moses, God the Father, or Jehovah? Does it matter?<br />
<br />
* Why does God tell Moses that Moses is in the similitude of the Only Begotten? In what way or ways is he in that similitude? Why does God say that the Only Begotten ''is and shall be the Savior''? God says that the Only Begotten is and will be the Savior because he is full of grace and truth. How can we explain that? What does it mean to be full of grace and truth? Why does being full of them make one the Savior? <br />
<br />
* Why does the Father add “but there is no God beside me” immediately after telling Moses of the Savior? <br />
<br />
* What does it mean to say that all things are present? What does it mean for something to be present? The last clause of the verse says that Father’s knowledge makes all things present to him. To say that knowledge is what makes things present is an unusual way to speak. What can we make of that? Does it suggest anything about how things are present before God?<br />
<br />
===Verse 7===<br />
<br />
* What is the “one thing” that God shows Moses? Why does he explain what he shows Moses by saying, “For thou art in the world”?<br />
<br />
* The 'one thing' that God shew to Moses was the Mission and Sacrifice of Jesus Christ; event that would occur in the distant future. And showed to Moses because he 'was in the world' in which such event will take place. [Joh@aci.on.ca]<br />
<br />
===Verse 8===<br />
<br />
* The word “end” can mean “final point” and it can also mean “purpose.” Which meaning do you think is used here when the scripture says that Moses beheld the ends of the world? The meaning here is 'final point' Moses was able to see the end of the earth and its civilization beyond the Second Coming of the Lord. [joh@aci.on.ca]<br />
<br />
===Verse 9===<br />
<br />
* What does it mean to say that Moses was left to himself?<br />
A natural man, in other words, God glory was withdrew from him and Moses was left only with the power(stramgth) of a human man [joh@aci.on.ca]<br />
<br />
===Verse 10===<br />
<br />
* What does Moses mean when, having had this vision of the ends of the world and all the children of men, he says, “Now, for this cause I know that man is nothing, which thing I never had supposed”? <br />
<br />
<br />
== Resources ==<br />
<br />
''This heading is for listing links and print resources, including those cited in the notes. A short comment about the particular strengths of a resource can be helpful. Click the link above and to the right to edit or add content to this heading. →''<br />
<br />
===Verse 6===<br />
<br />
* See more on [[User:RobertC/Jehovah and Father|Jesus Christ as Jehovah and Father here]] on [[User:RobertC|RobertC's]] subpage.<br />
<br />
<br />
== Notes ==<br />
<br />
''Footnotes are not required but are encouraged for factual assertions that average readers cannot easily evaluate for themselves, such as the date of King Solomon’s death or the nuanced definition of a Greek word. In contrast, insights rarely benefit from footnoting, and the focus of this page should always remain on the scriptures themselves rather than what someone has said about them. Links are actively encouraged on all sections of this page, and links to authoritative sources are preferable to footnotes.''<br />
<br />
<references/><br />
<br />
<br />
----<br />
<br />
[[Moses 1 | Previous page: Chapter 1]] &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; [[Moses 1:12-23 | Next page: Verses 1:12-23]]</div>Sterlinghttp://feastupontheword.org/Moses_1:1-11Moses 1:1-112013-12-15T14:30:04Z<p>Sterling: /* Verses 1 */</p>
<hr />
<div>[[The Pearl of Great Price]] > [[Moses]] > [[Moses 1 | Chapter 1]] > [[Moses 1:1-11 | Verses 1:1-11]] <br><br />
[[Moses 1 | Previous page: Chapter 1]] &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; [[Moses 1:12-23 | Next page: Verses 1:12-23]]<br />
<br />
This page would ideally always be under construction. You are invited to contribute.<br />
<br />
<br />
== Summary ==<br />
<br />
''This heading should be brief and may include an outline of the passage. Click the link above and to the right to edit or add content to this heading. →''<br />
<br />
The relationship of [http://www.lds.org/scriptures/pgp/moses/1.1-11?lang=eng Verses 1:1-11] to the rest of this chapter is discussed at [[Moses 1 | Chapter 1]].<br />
<br />
<br />
== Discussion ==<br />
<br />
''This heading is for more detailed discussions of all or part of a passage. Discussion may include the meaning of a particular word, how a doctrinal point is developed throughout the passage, insights to be developed in the future, and other items. Contributions may range from polished paragraphs down to a single bullet point. The focus, however, should always be on understanding the scriptural text consistent with LDS doctrine. Click the link above and to the right to edit or add content to this heading. →''<br />
<br />
===Verse 2===<br />
<br />
* [[D&C 88:19]] rhetorically links ''glory'' with the ''presence of God the Father''.<br />
<br />
* The word ''therefore'' suggests that there is something about God's glory being upon Moses that allowed Moses to endure God's presence, and that Moses couldn't have endured God's presence otherwise. Compare this to [[Moses 1:14|verse 14]] where Moses says to Satan "I can look upon thee in the natural man."<br />
<br />
===Verse 3===<br />
<br />
* ''Almighty'' and ''Endless'' may be appellations God choses to set up as a contrast to Satan who will soon appear (verse 12ff). God is almighty whereas Satan has very limited power (and glory). God is endless in that he has eternal increase and declares lasting truths whereas Satan cannot have eternal increase and declares lies that do not last.<br />
<br />
===Verse 6===<br />
<br />
* ''Full of grace and truth'': The phrase "grace and truth" in the scriptures [http://scriptures.lds.org/query?words=%22grace+and+truth%22 is only used] to describe God (the Father or the Son). Grace and truth are set up in contrast to the law which was given by Moses in [[John 1:17]].<br />
<br />
* ''But there is no God beside me''. Although it seems the Father and the Son are being described here as distinct personages, perhaps God is concurrently making it clear that the Father and the Son are one God, perhaps in anticipation of the problems the children of Israel would face in worshiping other gods (e.g. [[Ex 32:1|Ex 32:1-6]]).<br />
<br />
===Verse 7===<br />
<br />
''One thing.'' If the "one thing" that God shows Moses is the world that Moses is in, then this stands in contrast to all the works of God (v. 5), and in contrast to the numberless worlds mentioned in [[Moses 1:33|verse 33]]. The "one thing" also clarifies "the workmanship" that God promises to show in verse 4. By focusing on "one thing" and later clarifying "for thou art in the world," the work that God says he has for Moses (in v. 6) may be alluded to: rather than showing Moses other things, God will focus on the "one thing" that is most needful (cf. [[Luke 10:42]]), namely this world that Moses is reminded (later in v. 7) that he is in. This shift from the many works of God ("works without end" in v. 4; "all my works" in v. 5; "all things" in v. 6) to "one thing" seems also to function as a means of setting up the epiphany that Moses has in verse 10 that "man is nothing." By getting only a glimpse of the many glorious works of God, Moses seems to be overwhelmed in verse 9 and then, when he comes to, Moses then realizes the (relative?) nothingness of man in (at least) a way that he had never before supposed. <br />
<br />
''My son.'' The addition of the phrase "my son" may be a way of reassuring Moses that the reason Moses will be shown only one thing, is not because God is not a loving father or that Moses is an ontologically inferior being to God, but rather because Moses has a work to do (v. 6) and this work pertains to the world that Moses is in.<br />
<br />
''For thou art in the world.'' After stating that God has a work for Moses (v. 6) and that God will only show Moses "one thing," an additional phrase of seeming explanation is added: "for thou art in the world." This may be giving an explanation for why God is not revealing things about other worlds to Moses. It may also be emphasizing the work mentioned in verse 6 that Moses has to perform.<br />
<br />
===Verse 11===<br />
<br />
* ''Natural'' is used here in a way similar to [[1 Cor 2:14]] and [[Mosiah 3:19]]. It stands in contrasts to what is spiritual. The fact that natural is used in the phrase ''natural man'' in verse 14 is especially suggestive of [[Mosiah 3:19]] where we are told that the natural man is an "enemy to God." There the natural man is described as the person who is not yet willing to submit to the Lord.<br />
<br />
<br />
== Points to ponder ==<br />
<br />
''This heading is for prompts that suggest ways in which all or part of this passage can influence a person's life. Click the link above and to the right to edit or add content to this heading. →''<br />
<br />
<br />
== I have a question ==<br />
<br />
''This heading is for unanswered questions and is an important part of the continual effort to improve this wiki. Please do not be shy, as even a basic or "stupid" question can identify things that need to be improved on this page. Click the link above and to the right to edit or add content to this heading. →''<br />
<br />
===Verses 1===<br />
<br />
* How does the phrase "words of God," which appears in this verse, differ from "word of God"? Is this first phrase, which occurs much less frequently in scripture, linked to rebellion against God, as suggested by [[Psalms 107:11]], [[Alma 1:7]] and [[Alma 3:18]]? Does that make it appropriate for this passage about the premortal Satan?<br />
<br />
* Was God starting a conversation with Moses about the plan of salvation, as was his custom at the beginning of each dispensation? Does [[Alma 12:30]] suggest this pattern started soon after Adam and Eve left the garden of Eden?<br />
<br />
* If God "spake unto Moses," what was the audience for this message? Why does the final verse of this visionary chapter contain a comment in parentheses, presumably to Joseph Smith, that says "Show them not unto any except them that believe" ([[Moses 1:42]])?<br />
<br />
* Did Moses approach God "at a time when" he was ready to reveal? Was David talking about the importance of timing when his psalm to God said "every one that is godly" shall "pray unto thee in a time when thou mayest be found" ([[Ps. 32:6]])?<br />
<br />
* Of what significance are mountains in scripture? For example, why do revelations so often occur on mountains?<br />
<br />
It is my understanding that prior to Moses building the Tabernacle, and after that prior to the Temple being built, and again after the desecration of the Temple, the only place the Lord could appear to his servants that had not been completely desecrated was the top of the mountains. In other words the mountains were Holy Places.<br />
<br />
===Verse 2===<br />
<br />
* Why is it important that we know Moses spoke with God face to face? <br />
<br />
* What does it mean to say “the glory of God was upon Moses”? What is his glory? What does verse 5 tell us about what we read here? How about [[Moses 1:39|verse 39]]? Do [[D&C 29:36]] or [[D&C 88:19]] help us understand these verses?<br />
<br />
Moses had received the Holy Ghost, and was transformed, or purified by the power of the Holy Ghost, until he was able to endure the presence of the Lord. Once in that state, God being a perfect glorified man spoke to Moses, the same way that any man speaks to another man who is in his presence. When we read or hear the Glory of God is on someone it means that that person has been transformed, or purified by the Holy Ghost, so they can endure the presence of deity.<br />
<br />
Verse 5:In this verse God is about to show Moses a portion of his work and how he is going to accomplish it. Especially as it pertains to Moses, and what Moses’ roll in that portion of his work will be. God is also telling Moses, that this is a small portion of what his work is. It is sufficient for Moses to know at this time. He is also explaining to Moses, that to know all that God knows, would make him a glorified being like unto God, and that giving him that much knowledge would be more than he Moses, could endure.<br />
<br />
===Verse 3===<br />
<br />
* Why does God tell Moses his name? He has many names, why does he here use this particular name, Endless? <br />
<br />
===Verses 4-5===<br />
<br />
* In what sense or senses are the works of God without end? In what sense or senses are his words without end?<br />
The Lord all ways uses titles that are descriptive of Himself. The name Endless fits in well with an understanding of the eternal and things without end that God is showing to Moses.His words are eternal as they are truth and truth is the same yesterday, today and tomorrow.<br />
<br />
===Verse 6===<br />
<br />
* This verse suggests that God the Father is speaking to Moses, since he refers to "mine Only Begotten". However, Jesus Christ has stated that he was the God of Abraham ([[John 8:58]]), and gave the law to Israel ([[3 Ne 15:5]]). Who is talking to Moses, God the Father, or Jehovah? Does it matter?<br />
<br />
* Why does God tell Moses that Moses is in the similitude of the Only Begotten? In what way or ways is he in that similitude? Why does God say that the Only Begotten ''is and shall be the Savior''? God says that the Only Begotten is and will be the Savior because he is full of grace and truth. How can we explain that? What does it mean to be full of grace and truth? Why does being full of them make one the Savior? <br />
<br />
* Why does the Father add “but there is no God beside me” immediately after telling Moses of the Savior? <br />
<br />
* What does it mean to say that all things are present? What does it mean for something to be present? The last clause of the verse says that Father’s knowledge makes all things present to him. To say that knowledge is what makes things present is an unusual way to speak. What can we make of that? Does it suggest anything about how things are present before God?<br />
<br />
===Verse 7===<br />
<br />
* What is the “one thing” that God shows Moses? Why does he explain what he shows Moses by saying, “For thou art in the world”?<br />
<br />
* The 'one thing' that God shew to Moses was the Mission and Sacrifice of Jesus Christ; event that would occur in the distant future. And showed to Moses because he 'was in the world' in which such event will take place. [Joh@aci.on.ca]<br />
<br />
===Verse 8===<br />
<br />
* The word “end” can mean “final point” and it can also mean “purpose.” Which meaning do you think is used here when the scripture says that Moses beheld the ends of the world? The meaning here is 'final point' Moses was able to see the end of the earth and its civilization beyond the Second Coming of the Lord. [joh@aci.on.ca]<br />
<br />
===Verse 9===<br />
<br />
* What does it mean to say that Moses was left to himself?<br />
A natural man, in other words, God glory was withdrew from him and Moses was left only with the power(stramgth) of a human man [joh@aci.on.ca]<br />
<br />
===Verse 10===<br />
<br />
* What does Moses mean when, having had this vision of the ends of the world and all the children of men, he says, “Now, for this cause I know that man is nothing, which thing I never had supposed”? <br />
<br />
<br />
== Resources ==<br />
<br />
''This heading is for listing links and print resources, including those cited in the notes. A short comment about the particular strengths of a resource can be helpful. Click the link above and to the right to edit or add content to this heading. →''<br />
<br />
===Verse 6===<br />
<br />
* See more on [[User:RobertC/Jehovah and Father|Jesus Christ as Jehovah and Father here]] on [[User:RobertC|RobertC's]] subpage.<br />
<br />
<br />
== Notes ==<br />
<br />
''Footnotes are not required but are encouraged for factual assertions that average readers cannot easily evaluate for themselves, such as the date of King Solomon’s death or the nuanced definition of a Greek word. In contrast, insights rarely benefit from footnoting, and the focus of this page should always remain on the scriptures themselves rather than what someone has said about them. Links are actively encouraged on all sections of this page, and links to authoritative sources are preferable to footnotes.''<br />
<br />
<references/><br />
<br />
<br />
----<br />
<br />
[[Moses 1 | Previous page: Chapter 1]] &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; [[Moses 1:12-23 | Next page: Verses 1:12-23]]</div>Sterlinghttp://feastupontheword.org/Moses_1:1-11Moses 1:1-112013-12-15T14:17:25Z<p>Sterling: /* Verses 1 */</p>
<hr />
<div>[[The Pearl of Great Price]] > [[Moses]] > [[Moses 1 | Chapter 1]] > [[Moses 1:1-11 | Verses 1:1-11]] <br><br />
[[Moses 1 | Previous page: Chapter 1]] &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; [[Moses 1:12-23 | Next page: Verses 1:12-23]]<br />
<br />
This page would ideally always be under construction. You are invited to contribute.<br />
<br />
<br />
== Summary ==<br />
<br />
''This heading should be brief and may include an outline of the passage. Click the link above and to the right to edit or add content to this heading. →''<br />
<br />
The relationship of [http://www.lds.org/scriptures/pgp/moses/1.1-11?lang=eng Verses 1:1-11] to the rest of this chapter is discussed at [[Moses 1 | Chapter 1]].<br />
<br />
<br />
== Discussion ==<br />
<br />
''This heading is for more detailed discussions of all or part of a passage. Discussion may include the meaning of a particular word, how a doctrinal point is developed throughout the passage, insights to be developed in the future, and other items. Contributions may range from polished paragraphs down to a single bullet point. The focus, however, should always be on understanding the scriptural text consistent with LDS doctrine. Click the link above and to the right to edit or add content to this heading. →''<br />
<br />
===Verse 2===<br />
<br />
* [[D&C 88:19]] rhetorically links ''glory'' with the ''presence of God the Father''.<br />
<br />
* The word ''therefore'' suggests that there is something about God's glory being upon Moses that allowed Moses to endure God's presence, and that Moses couldn't have endured God's presence otherwise. Compare this to [[Moses 1:14|verse 14]] where Moses says to Satan "I can look upon thee in the natural man."<br />
<br />
===Verse 3===<br />
<br />
* ''Almighty'' and ''Endless'' may be appellations God choses to set up as a contrast to Satan who will soon appear (verse 12ff). God is almighty whereas Satan has very limited power (and glory). God is endless in that he has eternal increase and declares lasting truths whereas Satan cannot have eternal increase and declares lies that do not last.<br />
<br />
===Verse 6===<br />
<br />
* ''Full of grace and truth'': The phrase "grace and truth" in the scriptures [http://scriptures.lds.org/query?words=%22grace+and+truth%22 is only used] to describe God (the Father or the Son). Grace and truth are set up in contrast to the law which was given by Moses in [[John 1:17]].<br />
<br />
* ''But there is no God beside me''. Although it seems the Father and the Son are being described here as distinct personages, perhaps God is concurrently making it clear that the Father and the Son are one God, perhaps in anticipation of the problems the children of Israel would face in worshiping other gods (e.g. [[Ex 32:1|Ex 32:1-6]]).<br />
<br />
===Verse 7===<br />
<br />
''One thing.'' If the "one thing" that God shows Moses is the world that Moses is in, then this stands in contrast to all the works of God (v. 5), and in contrast to the numberless worlds mentioned in [[Moses 1:33|verse 33]]. The "one thing" also clarifies "the workmanship" that God promises to show in verse 4. By focusing on "one thing" and later clarifying "for thou art in the world," the work that God says he has for Moses (in v. 6) may be alluded to: rather than showing Moses other things, God will focus on the "one thing" that is most needful (cf. [[Luke 10:42]]), namely this world that Moses is reminded (later in v. 7) that he is in. This shift from the many works of God ("works without end" in v. 4; "all my works" in v. 5; "all things" in v. 6) to "one thing" seems also to function as a means of setting up the epiphany that Moses has in verse 10 that "man is nothing." By getting only a glimpse of the many glorious works of God, Moses seems to be overwhelmed in verse 9 and then, when he comes to, Moses then realizes the (relative?) nothingness of man in (at least) a way that he had never before supposed. <br />
<br />
''My son.'' The addition of the phrase "my son" may be a way of reassuring Moses that the reason Moses will be shown only one thing, is not because God is not a loving father or that Moses is an ontologically inferior being to God, but rather because Moses has a work to do (v. 6) and this work pertains to the world that Moses is in.<br />
<br />
''For thou art in the world.'' After stating that God has a work for Moses (v. 6) and that God will only show Moses "one thing," an additional phrase of seeming explanation is added: "for thou art in the world." This may be giving an explanation for why God is not revealing things about other worlds to Moses. It may also be emphasizing the work mentioned in verse 6 that Moses has to perform.<br />
<br />
===Verse 11===<br />
<br />
* ''Natural'' is used here in a way similar to [[1 Cor 2:14]] and [[Mosiah 3:19]]. It stands in contrasts to what is spiritual. The fact that natural is used in the phrase ''natural man'' in verse 14 is especially suggestive of [[Mosiah 3:19]] where we are told that the natural man is an "enemy to God." There the natural man is described as the person who is not yet willing to submit to the Lord.<br />
<br />
<br />
== Points to ponder ==<br />
<br />
''This heading is for prompts that suggest ways in which all or part of this passage can influence a person's life. Click the link above and to the right to edit or add content to this heading. →''<br />
<br />
<br />
== I have a question ==<br />
<br />
''This heading is for unanswered questions and is an important part of the continual effort to improve this wiki. Please do not be shy, as even a basic or "stupid" question can identify things that need to be improved on this page. Click the link above and to the right to edit or add content to this heading. →''<br />
<br />
===Verses 1===<br />
<br />
* How does the phrase "words of God," which appears in this verse, differ from "word of God"? Is this first phrase, which occurs much less frequently in scripture, linked to rebellion against God, as suggested by [[Psalms 107:11]], [[Alma 1:7]] and [[Alma 3:18]]? Does that make it appropriate for this passage about the premortal Satan?<br />
<br />
* Was God starting a conversation with Moses about the plan of salvation, as was his custom at the beginning of each dispensation? Does [[Alma 12:30]] suggest this pattern started soon after Adam and Eve left the garden of Eden?<br />
<br />
* If God "spake unto Moses," what was the audience for this message? Why does the final verse of this visionary chapter contain a comment in parentheses, presumably to Joseph Smith, that says "Show them not unto any except them that believe" ([[Moses 1:42]])?<br />
<br />
* Of what significance are mountains in scripture? For example, why do revelations so often occur on mountains?<br />
<br />
It is my understanding that prior to Moses building the Tabernacle, and after that prior to the Temple being built, and again after the desecration of the Temple, the only place the Lord could appear to his servants that had not been completely desecrated was the top of the mountains. In other words the mountains were Holy Places.<br />
<br />
===Verse 2===<br />
<br />
* Why is it important that we know Moses spoke with God face to face? <br />
<br />
* What does it mean to say “the glory of God was upon Moses”? What is his glory? What does verse 5 tell us about what we read here? How about [[Moses 1:39|verse 39]]? Do [[D&C 29:36]] or [[D&C 88:19]] help us understand these verses?<br />
<br />
Moses had received the Holy Ghost, and was transformed, or purified by the power of the Holy Ghost, until he was able to endure the presence of the Lord. Once in that state, God being a perfect glorified man spoke to Moses, the same way that any man speaks to another man who is in his presence. When we read or hear the Glory of God is on someone it means that that person has been transformed, or purified by the Holy Ghost, so they can endure the presence of deity.<br />
<br />
Verse 5:In this verse God is about to show Moses a portion of his work and how he is going to accomplish it. Especially as it pertains to Moses, and what Moses’ roll in that portion of his work will be. God is also telling Moses, that this is a small portion of what his work is. It is sufficient for Moses to know at this time. He is also explaining to Moses, that to know all that God knows, would make him a glorified being like unto God, and that giving him that much knowledge would be more than he Moses, could endure.<br />
<br />
===Verse 3===<br />
<br />
* Why does God tell Moses his name? He has many names, why does he here use this particular name, Endless? <br />
<br />
===Verses 4-5===<br />
<br />
* In what sense or senses are the works of God without end? In what sense or senses are his words without end?<br />
The Lord all ways uses titles that are descriptive of Himself. The name Endless fits in well with an understanding of the eternal and things without end that God is showing to Moses.His words are eternal as they are truth and truth is the same yesterday, today and tomorrow.<br />
<br />
===Verse 6===<br />
<br />
* This verse suggests that God the Father is speaking to Moses, since he refers to "mine Only Begotten". However, Jesus Christ has stated that he was the God of Abraham ([[John 8:58]]), and gave the law to Israel ([[3 Ne 15:5]]). Who is talking to Moses, God the Father, or Jehovah? Does it matter?<br />
<br />
* Why does God tell Moses that Moses is in the similitude of the Only Begotten? In what way or ways is he in that similitude? Why does God say that the Only Begotten ''is and shall be the Savior''? God says that the Only Begotten is and will be the Savior because he is full of grace and truth. How can we explain that? What does it mean to be full of grace and truth? Why does being full of them make one the Savior? <br />
<br />
* Why does the Father add “but there is no God beside me” immediately after telling Moses of the Savior? <br />
<br />
* What does it mean to say that all things are present? What does it mean for something to be present? The last clause of the verse says that Father’s knowledge makes all things present to him. To say that knowledge is what makes things present is an unusual way to speak. What can we make of that? Does it suggest anything about how things are present before God?<br />
<br />
===Verse 7===<br />
<br />
* What is the “one thing” that God shows Moses? Why does he explain what he shows Moses by saying, “For thou art in the world”?<br />
<br />
* The 'one thing' that God shew to Moses was the Mission and Sacrifice of Jesus Christ; event that would occur in the distant future. And showed to Moses because he 'was in the world' in which such event will take place. [Joh@aci.on.ca]<br />
<br />
===Verse 8===<br />
<br />
* The word “end” can mean “final point” and it can also mean “purpose.” Which meaning do you think is used here when the scripture says that Moses beheld the ends of the world? The meaning here is 'final point' Moses was able to see the end of the earth and its civilization beyond the Second Coming of the Lord. [joh@aci.on.ca]<br />
<br />
===Verse 9===<br />
<br />
* What does it mean to say that Moses was left to himself?<br />
A natural man, in other words, God glory was withdrew from him and Moses was left only with the power(stramgth) of a human man [joh@aci.on.ca]<br />
<br />
===Verse 10===<br />
<br />
* What does Moses mean when, having had this vision of the ends of the world and all the children of men, he says, “Now, for this cause I know that man is nothing, which thing I never had supposed”? <br />
<br />
<br />
== Resources ==<br />
<br />
''This heading is for listing links and print resources, including those cited in the notes. A short comment about the particular strengths of a resource can be helpful. Click the link above and to the right to edit or add content to this heading. →''<br />
<br />
===Verse 6===<br />
<br />
* See more on [[User:RobertC/Jehovah and Father|Jesus Christ as Jehovah and Father here]] on [[User:RobertC|RobertC's]] subpage.<br />
<br />
<br />
== Notes ==<br />
<br />
''Footnotes are not required but are encouraged for factual assertions that average readers cannot easily evaluate for themselves, such as the date of King Solomon’s death or the nuanced definition of a Greek word. In contrast, insights rarely benefit from footnoting, and the focus of this page should always remain on the scriptures themselves rather than what someone has said about them. Links are actively encouraged on all sections of this page, and links to authoritative sources are preferable to footnotes.''<br />
<br />
<references/><br />
<br />
<br />
----<br />
<br />
[[Moses 1 | Previous page: Chapter 1]] &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; [[Moses 1:12-23 | Next page: Verses 1:12-23]]</div>Sterlinghttp://feastupontheword.org/Moses_1:1-11Moses 1:1-112013-12-15T14:12:25Z<p>Sterling: /* Verses 1 */</p>
<hr />
<div>[[The Pearl of Great Price]] > [[Moses]] > [[Moses 1 | Chapter 1]] > [[Moses 1:1-11 | Verses 1:1-11]] <br><br />
[[Moses 1 | Previous page: Chapter 1]] &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; [[Moses 1:12-23 | Next page: Verses 1:12-23]]<br />
<br />
This page would ideally always be under construction. You are invited to contribute.<br />
<br />
<br />
== Summary ==<br />
<br />
''This heading should be brief and may include an outline of the passage. Click the link above and to the right to edit or add content to this heading. →''<br />
<br />
The relationship of [http://www.lds.org/scriptures/pgp/moses/1.1-11?lang=eng Verses 1:1-11] to the rest of this chapter is discussed at [[Moses 1 | Chapter 1]].<br />
<br />
<br />
== Discussion ==<br />
<br />
''This heading is for more detailed discussions of all or part of a passage. Discussion may include the meaning of a particular word, how a doctrinal point is developed throughout the passage, insights to be developed in the future, and other items. Contributions may range from polished paragraphs down to a single bullet point. The focus, however, should always be on understanding the scriptural text consistent with LDS doctrine. Click the link above and to the right to edit or add content to this heading. →''<br />
<br />
===Verse 2===<br />
<br />
* [[D&C 88:19]] rhetorically links ''glory'' with the ''presence of God the Father''.<br />
<br />
* The word ''therefore'' suggests that there is something about God's glory being upon Moses that allowed Moses to endure God's presence, and that Moses couldn't have endured God's presence otherwise. Compare this to [[Moses 1:14|verse 14]] where Moses says to Satan "I can look upon thee in the natural man."<br />
<br />
===Verse 3===<br />
<br />
* ''Almighty'' and ''Endless'' may be appellations God choses to set up as a contrast to Satan who will soon appear (verse 12ff). God is almighty whereas Satan has very limited power (and glory). God is endless in that he has eternal increase and declares lasting truths whereas Satan cannot have eternal increase and declares lies that do not last.<br />
<br />
===Verse 6===<br />
<br />
* ''Full of grace and truth'': The phrase "grace and truth" in the scriptures [http://scriptures.lds.org/query?words=%22grace+and+truth%22 is only used] to describe God (the Father or the Son). Grace and truth are set up in contrast to the law which was given by Moses in [[John 1:17]].<br />
<br />
* ''But there is no God beside me''. Although it seems the Father and the Son are being described here as distinct personages, perhaps God is concurrently making it clear that the Father and the Son are one God, perhaps in anticipation of the problems the children of Israel would face in worshiping other gods (e.g. [[Ex 32:1|Ex 32:1-6]]).<br />
<br />
===Verse 7===<br />
<br />
''One thing.'' If the "one thing" that God shows Moses is the world that Moses is in, then this stands in contrast to all the works of God (v. 5), and in contrast to the numberless worlds mentioned in [[Moses 1:33|verse 33]]. The "one thing" also clarifies "the workmanship" that God promises to show in verse 4. By focusing on "one thing" and later clarifying "for thou art in the world," the work that God says he has for Moses (in v. 6) may be alluded to: rather than showing Moses other things, God will focus on the "one thing" that is most needful (cf. [[Luke 10:42]]), namely this world that Moses is reminded (later in v. 7) that he is in. This shift from the many works of God ("works without end" in v. 4; "all my works" in v. 5; "all things" in v. 6) to "one thing" seems also to function as a means of setting up the epiphany that Moses has in verse 10 that "man is nothing." By getting only a glimpse of the many glorious works of God, Moses seems to be overwhelmed in verse 9 and then, when he comes to, Moses then realizes the (relative?) nothingness of man in (at least) a way that he had never before supposed. <br />
<br />
''My son.'' The addition of the phrase "my son" may be a way of reassuring Moses that the reason Moses will be shown only one thing, is not because God is not a loving father or that Moses is an ontologically inferior being to God, but rather because Moses has a work to do (v. 6) and this work pertains to the world that Moses is in.<br />
<br />
''For thou art in the world.'' After stating that God has a work for Moses (v. 6) and that God will only show Moses "one thing," an additional phrase of seeming explanation is added: "for thou art in the world." This may be giving an explanation for why God is not revealing things about other worlds to Moses. It may also be emphasizing the work mentioned in verse 6 that Moses has to perform.<br />
<br />
===Verse 11===<br />
<br />
* ''Natural'' is used here in a way similar to [[1 Cor 2:14]] and [[Mosiah 3:19]]. It stands in contrasts to what is spiritual. The fact that natural is used in the phrase ''natural man'' in verse 14 is especially suggestive of [[Mosiah 3:19]] where we are told that the natural man is an "enemy to God." There the natural man is described as the person who is not yet willing to submit to the Lord.<br />
<br />
<br />
== Points to ponder ==<br />
<br />
''This heading is for prompts that suggest ways in which all or part of this passage can influence a person's life. Click the link above and to the right to edit or add content to this heading. →''<br />
<br />
<br />
== I have a question ==<br />
<br />
''This heading is for unanswered questions and is an important part of the continual effort to improve this wiki. Please do not be shy, as even a basic or "stupid" question can identify things that need to be improved on this page. Click the link above and to the right to edit or add content to this heading. →''<br />
<br />
===Verses 1===<br />
<br />
* How does the phrase "words of God," which appears in this verse, differ from "word of God"? Is this first phrase, which occurs much less frequently in scripture, linked to rebellion against God, as suggested by [[Psalms 107:11]], [[Alma 1:7]] and [[Alma 3:18]]? Does that make it appropriate for this passage about the premortal Satan?<br />
<br />
* Was God starting a conversation with Moses about the plan of salvation, as was his custom at the beginning of each dispensation? Does [[Alma 12:30]] suggest this pattern started soon after Adam and Eve left the garden of Eden?<br />
<br />
* Of what significance are mountains in scripture? For example, why do revelations so often occur on mountains?<br />
<br />
It is my understanding that prior to Moses building the Tabernacle, and after that prior to the Temple being built, and again after the desecration of the Temple, the only place the Lord could appear to his servants that had not been completely desecrated was the top of the mountains. In other words the mountains were Holy Places.<br />
<br />
===Verse 2===<br />
<br />
* Why is it important that we know Moses spoke with God face to face? <br />
<br />
* What does it mean to say “the glory of God was upon Moses”? What is his glory? What does verse 5 tell us about what we read here? How about [[Moses 1:39|verse 39]]? Do [[D&C 29:36]] or [[D&C 88:19]] help us understand these verses?<br />
<br />
Moses had received the Holy Ghost, and was transformed, or purified by the power of the Holy Ghost, until he was able to endure the presence of the Lord. Once in that state, God being a perfect glorified man spoke to Moses, the same way that any man speaks to another man who is in his presence. When we read or hear the Glory of God is on someone it means that that person has been transformed, or purified by the Holy Ghost, so they can endure the presence of deity.<br />
<br />
Verse 5:In this verse God is about to show Moses a portion of his work and how he is going to accomplish it. Especially as it pertains to Moses, and what Moses’ roll in that portion of his work will be. God is also telling Moses, that this is a small portion of what his work is. It is sufficient for Moses to know at this time. He is also explaining to Moses, that to know all that God knows, would make him a glorified being like unto God, and that giving him that much knowledge would be more than he Moses, could endure.<br />
<br />
===Verse 3===<br />
<br />
* Why does God tell Moses his name? He has many names, why does he here use this particular name, Endless? <br />
<br />
===Verses 4-5===<br />
<br />
* In what sense or senses are the works of God without end? In what sense or senses are his words without end?<br />
The Lord all ways uses titles that are descriptive of Himself. The name Endless fits in well with an understanding of the eternal and things without end that God is showing to Moses.His words are eternal as they are truth and truth is the same yesterday, today and tomorrow.<br />
<br />
===Verse 6===<br />
<br />
* This verse suggests that God the Father is speaking to Moses, since he refers to "mine Only Begotten". However, Jesus Christ has stated that he was the God of Abraham ([[John 8:58]]), and gave the law to Israel ([[3 Ne 15:5]]). Who is talking to Moses, God the Father, or Jehovah? Does it matter?<br />
<br />
* Why does God tell Moses that Moses is in the similitude of the Only Begotten? In what way or ways is he in that similitude? Why does God say that the Only Begotten ''is and shall be the Savior''? God says that the Only Begotten is and will be the Savior because he is full of grace and truth. How can we explain that? What does it mean to be full of grace and truth? Why does being full of them make one the Savior? <br />
<br />
* Why does the Father add “but there is no God beside me” immediately after telling Moses of the Savior? <br />
<br />
* What does it mean to say that all things are present? What does it mean for something to be present? The last clause of the verse says that Father’s knowledge makes all things present to him. To say that knowledge is what makes things present is an unusual way to speak. What can we make of that? Does it suggest anything about how things are present before God?<br />
<br />
===Verse 7===<br />
<br />
* What is the “one thing” that God shows Moses? Why does he explain what he shows Moses by saying, “For thou art in the world”?<br />
<br />
* The 'one thing' that God shew to Moses was the Mission and Sacrifice of Jesus Christ; event that would occur in the distant future. And showed to Moses because he 'was in the world' in which such event will take place. [Joh@aci.on.ca]<br />
<br />
===Verse 8===<br />
<br />
* The word “end” can mean “final point” and it can also mean “purpose.” Which meaning do you think is used here when the scripture says that Moses beheld the ends of the world? The meaning here is 'final point' Moses was able to see the end of the earth and its civilization beyond the Second Coming of the Lord. [joh@aci.on.ca]<br />
<br />
===Verse 9===<br />
<br />
* What does it mean to say that Moses was left to himself?<br />
A natural man, in other words, God glory was withdrew from him and Moses was left only with the power(stramgth) of a human man [joh@aci.on.ca]<br />
<br />
===Verse 10===<br />
<br />
* What does Moses mean when, having had this vision of the ends of the world and all the children of men, he says, “Now, for this cause I know that man is nothing, which thing I never had supposed”? <br />
<br />
<br />
== Resources ==<br />
<br />
''This heading is for listing links and print resources, including those cited in the notes. A short comment about the particular strengths of a resource can be helpful. Click the link above and to the right to edit or add content to this heading. →''<br />
<br />
===Verse 6===<br />
<br />
* See more on [[User:RobertC/Jehovah and Father|Jesus Christ as Jehovah and Father here]] on [[User:RobertC|RobertC's]] subpage.<br />
<br />
<br />
== Notes ==<br />
<br />
''Footnotes are not required but are encouraged for factual assertions that average readers cannot easily evaluate for themselves, such as the date of King Solomon’s death or the nuanced definition of a Greek word. In contrast, insights rarely benefit from footnoting, and the focus of this page should always remain on the scriptures themselves rather than what someone has said about them. Links are actively encouraged on all sections of this page, and links to authoritative sources are preferable to footnotes.''<br />
<br />
<references/><br />
<br />
<br />
----<br />
<br />
[[Moses 1 | Previous page: Chapter 1]] &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; [[Moses 1:12-23 | Next page: Verses 1:12-23]]</div>Sterlinghttp://feastupontheword.org/Moses_1:1-11Moses 1:1-112013-12-15T14:00:27Z<p>Sterling: /* Verses 1 */</p>
<hr />
<div>[[The Pearl of Great Price]] > [[Moses]] > [[Moses 1 | Chapter 1]] > [[Moses 1:1-11 | Verses 1:1-11]] <br><br />
[[Moses 1 | Previous page: Chapter 1]] &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; [[Moses 1:12-23 | Next page: Verses 1:12-23]]<br />
<br />
This page would ideally always be under construction. You are invited to contribute.<br />
<br />
<br />
== Summary ==<br />
<br />
''This heading should be brief and may include an outline of the passage. Click the link above and to the right to edit or add content to this heading. →''<br />
<br />
The relationship of [http://www.lds.org/scriptures/pgp/moses/1.1-11?lang=eng Verses 1:1-11] to the rest of this chapter is discussed at [[Moses 1 | Chapter 1]].<br />
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<br />
== Discussion ==<br />
<br />
''This heading is for more detailed discussions of all or part of a passage. Discussion may include the meaning of a particular word, how a doctrinal point is developed throughout the passage, insights to be developed in the future, and other items. Contributions may range from polished paragraphs down to a single bullet point. The focus, however, should always be on understanding the scriptural text consistent with LDS doctrine. Click the link above and to the right to edit or add content to this heading. →''<br />
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===Verse 2===<br />
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* [[D&C 88:19]] rhetorically links ''glory'' with the ''presence of God the Father''.<br />
<br />
* The word ''therefore'' suggests that there is something about God's glory being upon Moses that allowed Moses to endure God's presence, and that Moses couldn't have endured God's presence otherwise. Compare this to [[Moses 1:14|verse 14]] where Moses says to Satan "I can look upon thee in the natural man."<br />
<br />
===Verse 3===<br />
<br />
* ''Almighty'' and ''Endless'' may be appellations God choses to set up as a contrast to Satan who will soon appear (verse 12ff). God is almighty whereas Satan has very limited power (and glory). God is endless in that he has eternal increase and declares lasting truths whereas Satan cannot have eternal increase and declares lies that do not last.<br />
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===Verse 6===<br />
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* ''Full of grace and truth'': The phrase "grace and truth" in the scriptures [http://scriptures.lds.org/query?words=%22grace+and+truth%22 is only used] to describe God (the Father or the Son). Grace and truth are set up in contrast to the law which was given by Moses in [[John 1:17]].<br />
<br />
* ''But there is no God beside me''. Although it seems the Father and the Son are being described here as distinct personages, perhaps God is concurrently making it clear that the Father and the Son are one God, perhaps in anticipation of the problems the children of Israel would face in worshiping other gods (e.g. [[Ex 32:1|Ex 32:1-6]]).<br />
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===Verse 7===<br />
<br />
''One thing.'' If the "one thing" that God shows Moses is the world that Moses is in, then this stands in contrast to all the works of God (v. 5), and in contrast to the numberless worlds mentioned in [[Moses 1:33|verse 33]]. The "one thing" also clarifies "the workmanship" that God promises to show in verse 4. By focusing on "one thing" and later clarifying "for thou art in the world," the work that God says he has for Moses (in v. 6) may be alluded to: rather than showing Moses other things, God will focus on the "one thing" that is most needful (cf. [[Luke 10:42]]), namely this world that Moses is reminded (later in v. 7) that he is in. This shift from the many works of God ("works without end" in v. 4; "all my works" in v. 5; "all things" in v. 6) to "one thing" seems also to function as a means of setting up the epiphany that Moses has in verse 10 that "man is nothing." By getting only a glimpse of the many glorious works of God, Moses seems to be overwhelmed in verse 9 and then, when he comes to, Moses then realizes the (relative?) nothingness of man in (at least) a way that he had never before supposed. <br />
<br />
''My son.'' The addition of the phrase "my son" may be a way of reassuring Moses that the reason Moses will be shown only one thing, is not because God is not a loving father or that Moses is an ontologically inferior being to God, but rather because Moses has a work to do (v. 6) and this work pertains to the world that Moses is in.<br />
<br />
''For thou art in the world.'' After stating that God has a work for Moses (v. 6) and that God will only show Moses "one thing," an additional phrase of seeming explanation is added: "for thou art in the world." This may be giving an explanation for why God is not revealing things about other worlds to Moses. It may also be emphasizing the work mentioned in verse 6 that Moses has to perform.<br />
<br />
===Verse 11===<br />
<br />
* ''Natural'' is used here in a way similar to [[1 Cor 2:14]] and [[Mosiah 3:19]]. It stands in contrasts to what is spiritual. The fact that natural is used in the phrase ''natural man'' in verse 14 is especially suggestive of [[Mosiah 3:19]] where we are told that the natural man is an "enemy to God." There the natural man is described as the person who is not yet willing to submit to the Lord.<br />
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<br />
== Points to ponder ==<br />
<br />
''This heading is for prompts that suggest ways in which all or part of this passage can influence a person's life. Click the link above and to the right to edit or add content to this heading. →''<br />
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<br />
== I have a question ==<br />
<br />
''This heading is for unanswered questions and is an important part of the continual effort to improve this wiki. Please do not be shy, as even a basic or "stupid" question can identify things that need to be improved on this page. Click the link above and to the right to edit or add content to this heading. →''<br />
<br />
===Verses 1===<br />
<br />
* How does the phrase "words of God," which appears in this verse, differ from "word of God"? Is this first phrase, which occurs much less frequently in scripture, linked to rebellion against God, as suggested by [[Psalms 107:11]], [[Alma 1:7]] and [[Alma 3:18]]? Does that make it appropriate for this passage about the premortal Satan?<br />
<br />
* Of what significance are mountains in scripture? For example, why do revelations so often occur on mountains?<br />
<br />
It is my understanding that prior to Moses building the Tabernacle, and after that prior to the Temple being built, and again after the desecration of the Temple, the only place the Lord could appear to his servants that had not been completely desecrated was the top of the mountains. In other words the mountains were Holy Places.<br />
<br />
===Verse 2===<br />
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* Why is it important that we know Moses spoke with God face to face? <br />
<br />
* What does it mean to say “the glory of God was upon Moses”? What is his glory? What does verse 5 tell us about what we read here? How about [[Moses 1:39|verse 39]]? Do [[D&C 29:36]] or [[D&C 88:19]] help us understand these verses?<br />
<br />
Moses had received the Holy Ghost, and was transformed, or purified by the power of the Holy Ghost, until he was able to endure the presence of the Lord. Once in that state, God being a perfect glorified man spoke to Moses, the same way that any man speaks to another man who is in his presence. When we read or hear the Glory of God is on someone it means that that person has been transformed, or purified by the Holy Ghost, so they can endure the presence of deity.<br />
<br />
Verse 5:In this verse God is about to show Moses a portion of his work and how he is going to accomplish it. Especially as it pertains to Moses, and what Moses’ roll in that portion of his work will be. God is also telling Moses, that this is a small portion of what his work is. It is sufficient for Moses to know at this time. He is also explaining to Moses, that to know all that God knows, would make him a glorified being like unto God, and that giving him that much knowledge would be more than he Moses, could endure.<br />
<br />
===Verse 3===<br />
<br />
* Why does God tell Moses his name? He has many names, why does he here use this particular name, Endless? <br />
<br />
===Verses 4-5===<br />
<br />
* In what sense or senses are the works of God without end? In what sense or senses are his words without end?<br />
The Lord all ways uses titles that are descriptive of Himself. The name Endless fits in well with an understanding of the eternal and things without end that God is showing to Moses.His words are eternal as they are truth and truth is the same yesterday, today and tomorrow.<br />
<br />
===Verse 6===<br />
<br />
* This verse suggests that God the Father is speaking to Moses, since he refers to "mine Only Begotten". However, Jesus Christ has stated that he was the God of Abraham ([[John 8:58]]), and gave the law to Israel ([[3 Ne 15:5]]). Who is talking to Moses, God the Father, or Jehovah? Does it matter?<br />
<br />
* Why does God tell Moses that Moses is in the similitude of the Only Begotten? In what way or ways is he in that similitude? Why does God say that the Only Begotten ''is and shall be the Savior''? God says that the Only Begotten is and will be the Savior because he is full of grace and truth. How can we explain that? What does it mean to be full of grace and truth? Why does being full of them make one the Savior? <br />
<br />
* Why does the Father add “but there is no God beside me” immediately after telling Moses of the Savior? <br />
<br />
* What does it mean to say that all things are present? What does it mean for something to be present? The last clause of the verse says that Father’s knowledge makes all things present to him. To say that knowledge is what makes things present is an unusual way to speak. What can we make of that? Does it suggest anything about how things are present before God?<br />
<br />
===Verse 7===<br />
<br />
* What is the “one thing” that God shows Moses? Why does he explain what he shows Moses by saying, “For thou art in the world”?<br />
<br />
* The 'one thing' that God shew to Moses was the Mission and Sacrifice of Jesus Christ; event that would occur in the distant future. And showed to Moses because he 'was in the world' in which such event will take place. [Joh@aci.on.ca]<br />
<br />
===Verse 8===<br />
<br />
* The word “end” can mean “final point” and it can also mean “purpose.” Which meaning do you think is used here when the scripture says that Moses beheld the ends of the world? The meaning here is 'final point' Moses was able to see the end of the earth and its civilization beyond the Second Coming of the Lord. [joh@aci.on.ca]<br />
<br />
===Verse 9===<br />
<br />
* What does it mean to say that Moses was left to himself?<br />
A natural man, in other words, God glory was withdrew from him and Moses was left only with the power(stramgth) of a human man [joh@aci.on.ca]<br />
<br />
===Verse 10===<br />
<br />
* What does Moses mean when, having had this vision of the ends of the world and all the children of men, he says, “Now, for this cause I know that man is nothing, which thing I never had supposed”? <br />
<br />
<br />
== Resources ==<br />
<br />
''This heading is for listing links and print resources, including those cited in the notes. A short comment about the particular strengths of a resource can be helpful. Click the link above and to the right to edit or add content to this heading. →''<br />
<br />
===Verse 6===<br />
<br />
* See more on [[User:RobertC/Jehovah and Father|Jesus Christ as Jehovah and Father here]] on [[User:RobertC|RobertC's]] subpage.<br />
<br />
<br />
== Notes ==<br />
<br />
''Footnotes are not required but are encouraged for factual assertions that average readers cannot easily evaluate for themselves, such as the date of King Solomon’s death or the nuanced definition of a Greek word. In contrast, insights rarely benefit from footnoting, and the focus of this page should always remain on the scriptures themselves rather than what someone has said about them. Links are actively encouraged on all sections of this page, and links to authoritative sources are preferable to footnotes.''<br />
<br />
<references/><br />
<br />
<br />
----<br />
<br />
[[Moses 1 | Previous page: Chapter 1]] &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; [[Moses 1:12-23 | Next page: Verses 1:12-23]]</div>Sterlinghttp://feastupontheword.org/Moses_6:56-60Moses 6:56-602010-09-27T04:57:26Z<p>Sterling: /* Exegesis */ must vs. can</p>
<hr />
<div>[[The Pearl of Great Price]] > [[The Book of Moses]] > [[The Book of Moses 6|Chapter 6]]<br />
{| <br />
| [[Moses 6:51-55|Previous (Moses 6:51-55)]] || &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; || [[Moses 6:61-65|Next (Moses 6:61-65)]]<br />
|}<br />
== Questions ==<br />
* ''Click the edit link above and to the right to add questions''<br />
<br />
<br />
== Lexical notes ==<br />
* ''"in nowise."'' This adverb is unique to the restoration scriptures. And outside of the scriptures is it commonly used without the preceding preposition. Perhaps the uncharacteristic usage is reflective of the archaic origins of the word.<br />
<br />
== Exegesis ==<br />
* ''"all men, everywhere."'' This phrase occurs in four books of scripture, always immediately followed by the injunction to repent. It stems from the days of Adam and perhaps entered gospel idiom at that time. This fairly unique dual emphasis on number and place underscores that there is no way around this requirement for entrance into the kingdom of God.<br />
* ''"must . . . or . . . can."'' This is a subtle word play that switches between a word that signals a command and another that sometimes connotes permission. If the word "can" in this context refers to a person's capabilities, then in this instance the meaning is flipped because no individual, on their own, will have the skills, power, rights, ability, or privilege to enter God's kingdom.<br />
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== Related links ==<br />
* ''Click the edit link above and to the right to add related links''<br />
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{| <br />
| [[Moses 6:51-55|Previous (Moses 6:51-55)]] || &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; || [[Moses 6:61-65|Next (Moses 6:61-65)]]<br />
|}</div>Sterlinghttp://feastupontheword.org/Moses_6:56-60Moses 6:56-602010-09-27T04:41:07Z<p>Sterling: /* Exegesis */ typos</p>
<hr />
<div>[[The Pearl of Great Price]] > [[The Book of Moses]] > [[The Book of Moses 6|Chapter 6]]<br />
{| <br />
| [[Moses 6:51-55|Previous (Moses 6:51-55)]] || &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; || [[Moses 6:61-65|Next (Moses 6:61-65)]]<br />
|}<br />
== Questions ==<br />
* ''Click the edit link above and to the right to add questions''<br />
<br />
<br />
== Lexical notes ==<br />
* ''"in nowise."'' This adverb is unique to the restoration scriptures. And outside of the scriptures is it commonly used without the preceding preposition. Perhaps the uncharacteristic usage is reflective of the archaic origins of the word.<br />
<br />
== Exegesis ==<br />
* ''"all men, everywhere."'' This phrase occurs in four books of scripture, always immediately followed by the injunction to repent. It stems from the days of Adam and perhaps entered gospel idiom at that time. This fairly unique dual emphasis on number and place underscores that there is no way around this requirement for entrance into the kingdom of God.<br />
<br />
== Related links ==<br />
* ''Click the edit link above and to the right to add related links''<br />
<br />
<br />
----<br />
{| <br />
| [[Moses 6:51-55|Previous (Moses 6:51-55)]] || &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; || [[Moses 6:61-65|Next (Moses 6:61-65)]]<br />
|}</div>Sterlinghttp://feastupontheword.org/Moses_6:56-60Moses 6:56-602010-09-27T04:40:34Z<p>Sterling: /* Exegesis */ all men everywhere</p>
<hr />
<div>[[The Pearl of Great Price]] > [[The Book of Moses]] > [[The Book of Moses 6|Chapter 6]]<br />
{| <br />
| [[Moses 6:51-55|Previous (Moses 6:51-55)]] || &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; || [[Moses 6:61-65|Next (Moses 6:61-65)]]<br />
|}<br />
== Questions ==<br />
* ''Click the edit link above and to the right to add questions''<br />
<br />
<br />
== Lexical notes ==<br />
* ''"in nowise."'' This adverb is unique to the restoration scriptures. And outside of the scriptures is it commonly used without the preceding preposition. Perhaps the uncharacteristic usage is reflective of the archaic origins of the word.<br />
<br />
== Exegesis ==<br />
* ''"all men, everywhere."'' This phrase occurs in four books of scripture, always immediately followed by the injunction to repent. It stems from the days of Adams and perhaps entered gospel vocabulary at that time. This fairly unique dual emphasis on number and place underscores that there is no way around this requirement for entrance into the kingdom of God.<br />
<br />
== Related links ==<br />
* ''Click the edit link above and to the right to add related links''<br />
<br />
<br />
----<br />
{| <br />
| [[Moses 6:51-55|Previous (Moses 6:51-55)]] || &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; || [[Moses 6:61-65|Next (Moses 6:61-65)]]<br />
|}</div>Sterlinghttp://feastupontheword.org/Moses_6:56-60Moses 6:56-602010-09-27T04:27:48Z<p>Sterling: /* Lexical notes */ nowise</p>
<hr />
<div>[[The Pearl of Great Price]] > [[The Book of Moses]] > [[The Book of Moses 6|Chapter 6]]<br />
{| <br />
| [[Moses 6:51-55|Previous (Moses 6:51-55)]] || &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; || [[Moses 6:61-65|Next (Moses 6:61-65)]]<br />
|}<br />
== Questions ==<br />
* ''Click the edit link above and to the right to add questions''<br />
<br />
<br />
== Lexical notes ==<br />
* ''"in nowise."'' This adverb is unique to the restoration scriptures. And outside of the scriptures is it commonly used without the preceding preposition. Perhaps the uncharacteristic usage is reflective of the archaic origins of the word.<br />
<br />
== Exegesis ==<br />
''Click the edit link above and to the right to add exegesis''<br />
<br />
<br />
== Related links ==<br />
* ''Click the edit link above and to the right to add related links''<br />
<br />
<br />
----<br />
{| <br />
| [[Moses 6:51-55|Previous (Moses 6:51-55)]] || &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; || [[Moses 6:61-65|Next (Moses 6:61-65)]]<br />
|}</div>Sterlinghttp://feastupontheword.org/D%26C_93:31-35D&C 93:31-352010-01-15T05:03:39Z<p>Sterling: /* Verse 32 */ receive not the light</p>
<hr />
<div>[[Doctrine & Covenants]] > [[Doctrine & Covenants 93|Section 93]]<br />
{| <br />
| [[D&C 93:26-30|Previous (D&C 93:26-30)]] || &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; || [[D&C 93:36-40|Next (D&C 93:36-40)]]<br />
|}<br />
== Questions ==<br />
===Verse 31===<br />
* "''agency.''" Is this verse saying that people have freedom to choose because of the intelligence that is within them? Has that intelligence been independent enough to give us agency even when we were not enticed by evil, notwithstanding what [[2 Ne 2:16]] says? Why is the word agency found only in latter-day scriptures?<br />
* "''condemnation.''" Is it our words, works, and thoughts that will condemn us (see [[Alma 12:14]]), or is it declining to admit light into our soul that will most definitely damn us?<br />
===Verse 32===<br />
* "''receive not the light.''" If "whatsoever is light is Spirit" ([[D&C 84:45]]), then is the opposite also true? If so, how does a human spirit that is made of light repel the very substance from which it is made?<br />
<br />
== Lexical notes ==<br />
* ''Click the edit link above and to the right to add lexical notes''<br />
<br />
<br />
== Exegesis ==<br />
''Click the edit link above and to the right to add exegesis''<br />
<br />
<br />
== Related links ==<br />
* ''Click the edit link above and to the right to add related links''<br />
<br />
<br />
----<br />
{| <br />
| [[D&C 93:26-30|Previous (D&C 93:26-30)]] || &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; || [[D&C 93:36-40|Next (D&C 93:36-40)]]<br />
|}</div>Sterlinghttp://feastupontheword.org/D%26C_93:31-35D&C 93:31-352010-01-15T04:58:32Z<p>Sterling: /* Questions */ verse heading</p>
<hr />
<div>[[Doctrine & Covenants]] > [[Doctrine & Covenants 93|Section 93]]<br />
{| <br />
| [[D&C 93:26-30|Previous (D&C 93:26-30)]] || &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; || [[D&C 93:36-40|Next (D&C 93:36-40)]]<br />
|}<br />
== Questions ==<br />
===Verse 31===<br />
* "''agency.''" Is this verse saying that people have freedom to choose because of the intelligence that is within them? Has that intelligence been independent enough to give us agency even when we were not enticed by evil, notwithstanding what [[2 Ne 2:16]] says? Why is the word agency found only in latter-day scriptures?<br />
* "''condemnation.''" Is it our words, works, and thoughts that will condemn us (see [[Alma 12:14]]), or is it declining to admit light into our soul that will most definitely damn us?<br />
===Verse 32===<br />
<br />
== Lexical notes ==<br />
* ''Click the edit link above and to the right to add lexical notes''<br />
<br />
<br />
== Exegesis ==<br />
''Click the edit link above and to the right to add exegesis''<br />
<br />
<br />
== Related links ==<br />
* ''Click the edit link above and to the right to add related links''<br />
<br />
<br />
----<br />
{| <br />
| [[D&C 93:26-30|Previous (D&C 93:26-30)]] || &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; || [[D&C 93:36-40|Next (D&C 93:36-40)]]<br />
|}</div>Sterlinghttp://feastupontheword.org/D%26C_93:31-35D&C 93:31-352010-01-15T04:57:58Z<p>Sterling: /* Verse 31 */ condemnation</p>
<hr />
<div>[[Doctrine & Covenants]] > [[Doctrine & Covenants 93|Section 93]]<br />
{| <br />
| [[D&C 93:26-30|Previous (D&C 93:26-30)]] || &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; || [[D&C 93:36-40|Next (D&C 93:36-40)]]<br />
|}<br />
== Questions ==<br />
===Verse 31===<br />
* "''agency.''" Is this verse saying that people have freedom to choose because of the intelligence that is within them? Has that intelligence been independent enough to give us agency even when we were not enticed by evil, notwithstanding what [[2 Ne 2:16]] says? Why is the word agency found only in latter-day scriptures?<br />
* "''condemnation.''" Is it our words, works, and thoughts that will condemn us (see [[Alma 12:14]]), or is it declining to admit light into our soul that will most definitely damn us?<br />
<br />
== Lexical notes ==<br />
* ''Click the edit link above and to the right to add lexical notes''<br />
<br />
<br />
== Exegesis ==<br />
''Click the edit link above and to the right to add exegesis''<br />
<br />
<br />
== Related links ==<br />
* ''Click the edit link above and to the right to add related links''<br />
<br />
<br />
----<br />
{| <br />
| [[D&C 93:26-30|Previous (D&C 93:26-30)]] || &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; || [[D&C 93:36-40|Next (D&C 93:36-40)]]<br />
|}</div>Sterlinghttp://feastupontheword.org/D%26C_93:31-35D&C 93:31-352010-01-15T04:50:32Z<p>Sterling: /* Verse 31 */ agency</p>
<hr />
<div>[[Doctrine & Covenants]] > [[Doctrine & Covenants 93|Section 93]]<br />
{| <br />
| [[D&C 93:26-30|Previous (D&C 93:26-30)]] || &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; || [[D&C 93:36-40|Next (D&C 93:36-40)]]<br />
|}<br />
== Questions ==<br />
===Verse 31===<br />
* "''agency.''" Is this verse saying that people have freedom to choose because of the intelligence that is within them? Has that intelligence been independent enough to give us agency even when we were not enticed by evil, notwithstanding what [[2 Ne 2:16]] says? Why is the word agency found only in latter-day scriptures?<br />
<br />
== Lexical notes ==<br />
* ''Click the edit link above and to the right to add lexical notes''<br />
<br />
<br />
== Exegesis ==<br />
''Click the edit link above and to the right to add exegesis''<br />
<br />
<br />
== Related links ==<br />
* ''Click the edit link above and to the right to add related links''<br />
<br />
<br />
----<br />
{| <br />
| [[D&C 93:26-30|Previous (D&C 93:26-30)]] || &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; || [[D&C 93:36-40|Next (D&C 93:36-40)]]<br />
|}</div>Sterlinghttp://feastupontheword.org/D%26C_93:31-35D&C 93:31-352010-01-15T04:42:41Z<p>Sterling: /* Questions */ verse heading</p>
<hr />
<div>[[Doctrine & Covenants]] > [[Doctrine & Covenants 93|Section 93]]<br />
{| <br />
| [[D&C 93:26-30|Previous (D&C 93:26-30)]] || &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; || [[D&C 93:36-40|Next (D&C 93:36-40)]]<br />
|}<br />
== Questions ==<br />
===Verse 31===<br />
* ''Click the edit link above and to the right to add questions''<br />
<br />
== Lexical notes ==<br />
* ''Click the edit link above and to the right to add lexical notes''<br />
<br />
<br />
== Exegesis ==<br />
''Click the edit link above and to the right to add exegesis''<br />
<br />
<br />
== Related links ==<br />
* ''Click the edit link above and to the right to add related links''<br />
<br />
<br />
----<br />
{| <br />
| [[D&C 93:26-30|Previous (D&C 93:26-30)]] || &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; || [[D&C 93:36-40|Next (D&C 93:36-40)]]<br />
|}</div>Sterlinghttp://feastupontheword.org/D%26C_93:26-30D&C 93:26-302010-01-15T04:35:49Z<p>Sterling: /* Verse 30 */ there is no existence</p>
<hr />
<div>[[Doctrine & Covenants]] > [[Doctrine & Covenants 93|Section 93]]<br />
{| <br />
| [[D&C 93:21-25|Previous (D&C 93:21-25)]] || &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; || [[D&C 93:31-35|Next (D&C 93:31-35)]]<br />
|}<br />
== Questions ==<br />
===Verse 30===<br />
* "''truth is independent.''" Can truth be neutral? Does no one control it? Does it stand on its own? Is it never relative?<br />
* "''sphere.''" Why does truth lose its independence outside of certain realms? Does that mean it is not absolute?<br />
* "''placed.''" Does truth not exist until God introduces it? Does this mean truth is whatever God says it is? Does God have the power to determine what is truth?<br />
* "''act for itself.''" How can truth act? Is this verse saying that truth can act? If so, in what sense can truth be understood to act? Does truth have agency because of what it shares in common with intelligences?<br />
* "''there is no existence.''" Should this verse in combination with [[Alma 42:22]], since they both discuss how a violation of divine nature leads to death?<br />
<br />
== Lexical notes ==<br />
* ''Click the edit link above and to the right to add lexical notes''<br />
<br />
<br />
== Exegesis ==<br />
''Click the edit link above and to the right to add exegesis''<br />
<br />
<br />
== Related links ==<br />
===Verse 29===<br />
* ''Eternal intelligence.'' See the blog post [http://www.millennialstar.org/index.php/2005/12/16/infinite_intelligences_1 Infinite Intelligences?] by Paul Manning (guest blogger) at ''Millenial Star''.<br />
<br />
===Verses 30-31===<br />
* ''Truth and agency.'' See [http://www.libertypages.com/clark/Intros/agencyshape.html "The Shape of Agency"] by Clark at his philosophical ''Mormon Metaphysics'' blog.<br />
<br />
----<br />
{| <br />
| [[D&C 93:21-25|Previous (D&C 93:21-25)]] || &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; || [[D&C 93:31-35|Next (D&C 93:31-35)]]<br />
|}</div>Sterlinghttp://feastupontheword.org/D%26C_93:26-30D&C 93:26-302010-01-15T04:29:01Z<p>Sterling: /* Verse 30 */ act for itself</p>
<hr />
<div>[[Doctrine & Covenants]] > [[Doctrine & Covenants 93|Section 93]]<br />
{| <br />
| [[D&C 93:21-25|Previous (D&C 93:21-25)]] || &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; || [[D&C 93:31-35|Next (D&C 93:31-35)]]<br />
|}<br />
== Questions ==<br />
===Verse 30===<br />
* "''truth is independent.''" Can truth be neutral? Does no one control it? Does it stand on its own? Is it never relative?<br />
* "''sphere.''" Why does truth lose its independence outside of certain realms? Does that mean it is not absolute?<br />
* "''placed.''" Does truth not exist until God introduces it? Does this mean truth is whatever God says it is? Does God have the power to determine what is truth?<br />
* "''act for itself.''" How can truth act? Is this verse saying that truth can act? If so, in what sense can truth be understood to act? Does truth have agency because of what it shares in common with intelligences?<br />
<br />
== Lexical notes ==<br />
* ''Click the edit link above and to the right to add lexical notes''<br />
<br />
<br />
== Exegesis ==<br />
''Click the edit link above and to the right to add exegesis''<br />
<br />
<br />
== Related links ==<br />
===Verse 29===<br />
* ''Eternal intelligence.'' See the blog post [http://www.millennialstar.org/index.php/2005/12/16/infinite_intelligences_1 Infinite Intelligences?] by Paul Manning (guest blogger) at ''Millenial Star''.<br />
<br />
===Verses 30-31===<br />
* ''Truth and agency.'' See [http://www.libertypages.com/clark/Intros/agencyshape.html "The Shape of Agency"] by Clark at his philosophical ''Mormon Metaphysics'' blog.<br />
<br />
----<br />
{| <br />
| [[D&C 93:21-25|Previous (D&C 93:21-25)]] || &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; || [[D&C 93:31-35|Next (D&C 93:31-35)]]<br />
|}</div>Sterlinghttp://feastupontheword.org/D%26C_93:26-30D&C 93:26-302010-01-15T04:27:28Z<p>Sterling: /* Verse 30 */ placed</p>
<hr />
<div>[[Doctrine & Covenants]] > [[Doctrine & Covenants 93|Section 93]]<br />
{| <br />
| [[D&C 93:21-25|Previous (D&C 93:21-25)]] || &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; || [[D&C 93:31-35|Next (D&C 93:31-35)]]<br />
|}<br />
== Questions ==<br />
===Verse 30===<br />
* "''truth is independent.''" Can truth be neutral? Does no one control it? Does it stand on its own? Is it never relative?<br />
* "''sphere.''" Why does truth lose its independence outside of certain realms? Does that mean it is not absolute?<br />
* "''placed.''" Does truth not exist until God introduces it? Does this mean truth is whatever God says it is? Does God have the power to determine what is truth?<br />
* ''How can truth act?'' Is this verse saying that truth can act? If so, in what sense can truth be understood to act?<br />
<br />
== Lexical notes ==<br />
* ''Click the edit link above and to the right to add lexical notes''<br />
<br />
<br />
== Exegesis ==<br />
''Click the edit link above and to the right to add exegesis''<br />
<br />
<br />
== Related links ==<br />
===Verse 29===<br />
* ''Eternal intelligence.'' See the blog post [http://www.millennialstar.org/index.php/2005/12/16/infinite_intelligences_1 Infinite Intelligences?] by Paul Manning (guest blogger) at ''Millenial Star''.<br />
<br />
===Verses 30-31===<br />
* ''Truth and agency.'' See [http://www.libertypages.com/clark/Intros/agencyshape.html "The Shape of Agency"] by Clark at his philosophical ''Mormon Metaphysics'' blog.<br />
<br />
----<br />
{| <br />
| [[D&C 93:21-25|Previous (D&C 93:21-25)]] || &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; || [[D&C 93:31-35|Next (D&C 93:31-35)]]<br />
|}</div>Sterlinghttp://feastupontheword.org/D%26C_93:26-30D&C 93:26-302010-01-15T04:21:55Z<p>Sterling: /* Verse 30 */ sphere</p>
<hr />
<div>[[Doctrine & Covenants]] > [[Doctrine & Covenants 93|Section 93]]<br />
{| <br />
| [[D&C 93:21-25|Previous (D&C 93:21-25)]] || &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; || [[D&C 93:31-35|Next (D&C 93:31-35)]]<br />
|}<br />
== Questions ==<br />
===Verse 30===<br />
* "''truth is independent.''" Can truth be neutral? Does no one control it? Does it stand on its own? Is it never relative?<br />
* "''sphere.''" Why does truth lose its independence outside of certain realms? Does that mean it is not absolute?<br />
* ''How can truth act?'' Is this verse saying that truth can act? If so, in what sense can truth be understood to act?<br />
<br />
== Lexical notes ==<br />
* ''Click the edit link above and to the right to add lexical notes''<br />
<br />
<br />
== Exegesis ==<br />
''Click the edit link above and to the right to add exegesis''<br />
<br />
<br />
== Related links ==<br />
===Verse 29===<br />
* ''Eternal intelligence.'' See the blog post [http://www.millennialstar.org/index.php/2005/12/16/infinite_intelligences_1 Infinite Intelligences?] by Paul Manning (guest blogger) at ''Millenial Star''.<br />
<br />
===Verses 30-31===<br />
* ''Truth and agency.'' See [http://www.libertypages.com/clark/Intros/agencyshape.html "The Shape of Agency"] by Clark at his philosophical ''Mormon Metaphysics'' blog.<br />
<br />
----<br />
{| <br />
| [[D&C 93:21-25|Previous (D&C 93:21-25)]] || &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; || [[D&C 93:31-35|Next (D&C 93:31-35)]]<br />
|}</div>Sterlinghttp://feastupontheword.org/D%26C_93:26-30D&C 93:26-302010-01-15T04:20:06Z<p>Sterling: /* Verse 30 */ truth is independent</p>
<hr />
<div>[[Doctrine & Covenants]] > [[Doctrine & Covenants 93|Section 93]]<br />
{| <br />
| [[D&C 93:21-25|Previous (D&C 93:21-25)]] || &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; || [[D&C 93:31-35|Next (D&C 93:31-35)]]<br />
|}<br />
== Questions ==<br />
===Verse 30===<br />
* "''truth is independent.''" Can truth be neutral? Does no one control it? Does it stand on its own? Is it never relative?<br />
* ''How can truth act?'' Is this verse saying that truth can act? If so, in what sense can truth be understood to act?<br />
<br />
== Lexical notes ==<br />
* ''Click the edit link above and to the right to add lexical notes''<br />
<br />
<br />
== Exegesis ==<br />
''Click the edit link above and to the right to add exegesis''<br />
<br />
<br />
== Related links ==<br />
===Verse 29===<br />
* ''Eternal intelligence.'' See the blog post [http://www.millennialstar.org/index.php/2005/12/16/infinite_intelligences_1 Infinite Intelligences?] by Paul Manning (guest blogger) at ''Millenial Star''.<br />
<br />
===Verses 30-31===<br />
* ''Truth and agency.'' See [http://www.libertypages.com/clark/Intros/agencyshape.html "The Shape of Agency"] by Clark at his philosophical ''Mormon Metaphysics'' blog.<br />
<br />
----<br />
{| <br />
| [[D&C 93:21-25|Previous (D&C 93:21-25)]] || &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; || [[D&C 93:31-35|Next (D&C 93:31-35)]]<br />
|}</div>Sterlinghttp://feastupontheword.org/Abr_3:21-25Abr 3:21-252010-01-13T17:49:40Z<p>Sterling: /* Verse 22 */ intelligences</p>
<hr />
<div>[[The Pearl of Great Price]] > [[The Book of Abraham]] > [[The Book of Abraham 3|Chapter 3]]<br />
{| <br />
| [[Abr 3:16-20|Previous (Abr 3:16-20)]] || &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; || [[Abr 3:26-28|Next (Abr 3:26-28)]]<br />
|}<br />
== Questions ==<br />
===Verse 22===<br />
* "''intelligences.''" If these are not "created or made" ([[D&C 93:29]]), then what exactly happened when they were "organized"?<br />
* "''organized.''" Why does this word not appear in the Bible or Book or Mormon? What did community organizing look like in the premortal existence?<br />
<br />
===Verse 23===<br />
* "''these souls.''" Is God drawing a distinction between the "noble and great ones" and "those that were spirits"? Are they synonymous groups or is the latter all-inclusive? How do we reconcile this verse with the statement in [[Moses 2:21]] wherein God "saw that all things which [he] had created were good"?<br />
* "''stood in the midst.''" Is this a scriptural way of saying the Lord already considered these individuals his disciples?<br />
* "''rulers.''" Should we find any discomfort in being told that we should be rulers, given that Nephi and the sons of Mosiah struggled with the expectation they should be kings?<br />
* "''chosen before thou wast born.''" How do square this statement with the concept that many were called in the premortal existence (see [[Alma 13:3]]) but relatively few are chosen in this life to minister in the Lord's kingdom (see [[D&C 121:34]]-40)? Or is this verse more compatible with scriptures such as [[Alma 7:10]]?<br />
<br />
===Verse 24===<br />
* "''these may dwell.''" Why didn't the Lord say instead "whereon we may dwell" or "whereon all of us may dwell"? Are the future earth dwellers, who are labeled "these," a group that is separate from "those who were with" the Lord at this planning meeting?<br />
* "''one among them that was like unto God.''" Does this just mean Jesus was the firstborn? If so, how did that make him like God? Is this saying nobody else was like God in the premortal existence? Should we read [[Moro 7:48]] as saying that Jesus Christ was the only person capable of becoming like God prior to our mortal probation?<br />
* "''space there.''" Weren't they presumably already surrounded by empty space in the universe? Or was there something particularly fitting about the galaxy our planet ended up in?<br />
* "''take of these materials.''" Is this saying spirit beings transported physical matter to our galaxy to fashion a planet whereon God's children could dwell?<br />
* "''an earth.''" If this is the only verse in scripture that talks of "an earth," as opposed to hundreds of scriptures that make reference to "the earth," then should we assume that the Lord and those who helped him followed a pattern or template in putting together a planet for us?<br />
<br />
== Lexical notes ==<br />
* ''Click the edit link above and to the right to add lexical notes''<br />
<br />
<br />
== Exegesis ==<br />
===Verse 21===<br />
This verse read differently until the 1981 edition of the scriptures. Of the several manuscripts of the Book of Abraham (none of which were written in Joseph's hand), one has an alternate reading that was (in 1981) replaced with the more common reading. The text used to read "deliver" instead of "declare" in the first part of this verse: "I now, therefore, have come down unto thee to ''deliver'' unto thee the works which my hands have made...." While "declare" certainly seems to make more sense, if "deliver" is the correct reading, there may be an entirely different way of understanding this verse (and its implications for the whole of Abraham 3). (It might well be noted that "deliver" appears in verse 20. This may be a reason on the one hand to reject the alternate reading, and on the other hand to accept it. It may be that, on the one hand, some scribe copying accidently glanced at verse 20 rather than at verse 21 while copying, thus producing the alternate text. It may be that, on the other hand, the Lord used deliver in two very different senses to tie them together, and this may suggest a powerful literary tie in these two verses. If this were the case, the more common rendering might be explained as a later "cleaning up" that became quickly adopted by other scribes who worked on the Book of Abraham.) <br />
<br />
If, then, "deliver" is the correct reading, Abraham's experience here might be similar to Enoch's experience as described in [[Moses 7]], one in which he is exalted and receives the right to sit on the very throne of God.<br />
<br />
== Related links ==<br />
===Verse 23===<br />
* ''"[T]hou wast chosen before thou wast born..."'': Compare [[Gen 11:26]] where Abraham was the tenth generation patriarch from Noah, the prior major patriarch mentioned in the old testament, just as Noah was the tenth generation patriarch from Adam (cf. [[Gen 5:29]]). This similarity suggests both Abraham and Noah were foreordained to become great patriarchs.<br />
* For a poetic attempt to think the possibility of reading "deliver" in verse 21, see [[User: Joe Spencer/who is like God]].<br />
<br />
<br />
----<br />
{| <br />
| [[Abr 3:16-20|Previous (Abr 3:16-20)]] || &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; || [[Abr 3:26-28|Next (Abr 3:26-28)]]<br />
|}</div>Sterlinghttp://feastupontheword.org/Abr_3:21-25Abr 3:21-252010-01-13T17:46:50Z<p>Sterling: /* Verse 24 */ errant quotation mark</p>
<hr />
<div>[[The Pearl of Great Price]] > [[The Book of Abraham]] > [[The Book of Abraham 3|Chapter 3]]<br />
{| <br />
| [[Abr 3:16-20|Previous (Abr 3:16-20)]] || &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; || [[Abr 3:26-28|Next (Abr 3:26-28)]]<br />
|}<br />
== Questions ==<br />
===Verse 22===<br />
* "''organized.''" Why does this word not appear in the Bible or Book or Mormon? What did community organizing look like in the premortal existence?<br />
<br />
===Verse 23===<br />
* "''these souls.''" Is God drawing a distinction between the "noble and great ones" and "those that were spirits"? Are they synonymous groups or is the latter all-inclusive? How do we reconcile this verse with the statement in [[Moses 2:21]] wherein God "saw that all things which [he] had created were good"?<br />
* "''stood in the midst.''" Is this a scriptural way of saying the Lord already considered these individuals his disciples?<br />
* "''rulers.''" Should we find any discomfort in being told that we should be rulers, given that Nephi and the sons of Mosiah struggled with the expectation they should be kings?<br />
* "''chosen before thou wast born.''" How do square this statement with the concept that many were called in the premortal existence (see [[Alma 13:3]]) but relatively few are chosen in this life to minister in the Lord's kingdom (see [[D&C 121:34]]-40)? Or is this verse more compatible with scriptures such as [[Alma 7:10]]?<br />
<br />
===Verse 24===<br />
* "''these may dwell.''" Why didn't the Lord say instead "whereon we may dwell" or "whereon all of us may dwell"? Are the future earth dwellers, who are labeled "these," a group that is separate from "those who were with" the Lord at this planning meeting?<br />
* "''one among them that was like unto God.''" Does this just mean Jesus was the firstborn? If so, how did that make him like God? Is this saying nobody else was like God in the premortal existence? Should we read [[Moro 7:48]] as saying that Jesus Christ was the only person capable of becoming like God prior to our mortal probation?<br />
* "''space there.''" Weren't they presumably already surrounded by empty space in the universe? Or was there something particularly fitting about the galaxy our planet ended up in?<br />
* "''take of these materials.''" Is this saying spirit beings transported physical matter to our galaxy to fashion a planet whereon God's children could dwell?<br />
* "''an earth.''" If this is the only verse in scripture that talks of "an earth," as opposed to hundreds of scriptures that make reference to "the earth," then should we assume that the Lord and those who helped him followed a pattern or template in putting together a planet for us?<br />
<br />
== Lexical notes ==<br />
* ''Click the edit link above and to the right to add lexical notes''<br />
<br />
<br />
== Exegesis ==<br />
===Verse 21===<br />
This verse read differently until the 1981 edition of the scriptures. Of the several manuscripts of the Book of Abraham (none of which were written in Joseph's hand), one has an alternate reading that was (in 1981) replaced with the more common reading. The text used to read "deliver" instead of "declare" in the first part of this verse: "I now, therefore, have come down unto thee to ''deliver'' unto thee the works which my hands have made...." While "declare" certainly seems to make more sense, if "deliver" is the correct reading, there may be an entirely different way of understanding this verse (and its implications for the whole of Abraham 3). (It might well be noted that "deliver" appears in verse 20. This may be a reason on the one hand to reject the alternate reading, and on the other hand to accept it. It may be that, on the one hand, some scribe copying accidently glanced at verse 20 rather than at verse 21 while copying, thus producing the alternate text. It may be that, on the other hand, the Lord used deliver in two very different senses to tie them together, and this may suggest a powerful literary tie in these two verses. If this were the case, the more common rendering might be explained as a later "cleaning up" that became quickly adopted by other scribes who worked on the Book of Abraham.) <br />
<br />
If, then, "deliver" is the correct reading, Abraham's experience here might be similar to Enoch's experience as described in [[Moses 7]], one in which he is exalted and receives the right to sit on the very throne of God.<br />
<br />
== Related links ==<br />
===Verse 23===<br />
* ''"[T]hou wast chosen before thou wast born..."'': Compare [[Gen 11:26]] where Abraham was the tenth generation patriarch from Noah, the prior major patriarch mentioned in the old testament, just as Noah was the tenth generation patriarch from Adam (cf. [[Gen 5:29]]). This similarity suggests both Abraham and Noah were foreordained to become great patriarchs.<br />
* For a poetic attempt to think the possibility of reading "deliver" in verse 21, see [[User: Joe Spencer/who is like God]].<br />
<br />
<br />
----<br />
{| <br />
| [[Abr 3:16-20|Previous (Abr 3:16-20)]] || &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; || [[Abr 3:26-28|Next (Abr 3:26-28)]]<br />
|}</div>Sterlinghttp://feastupontheword.org/Abr_3:21-25Abr 3:21-252010-01-13T17:46:07Z<p>Sterling: /* Verse 24 */ an earth</p>
<hr />
<div>[[The Pearl of Great Price]] > [[The Book of Abraham]] > [[The Book of Abraham 3|Chapter 3]]<br />
{| <br />
| [[Abr 3:16-20|Previous (Abr 3:16-20)]] || &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; || [[Abr 3:26-28|Next (Abr 3:26-28)]]<br />
|}<br />
== Questions ==<br />
===Verse 22===<br />
* "''organized.''" Why does this word not appear in the Bible or Book or Mormon? What did community organizing look like in the premortal existence?<br />
<br />
===Verse 23===<br />
* "''these souls.''" Is God drawing a distinction between the "noble and great ones" and "those that were spirits"? Are they synonymous groups or is the latter all-inclusive? How do we reconcile this verse with the statement in [[Moses 2:21]] wherein God "saw that all things which [he] had created were good"?<br />
* "''stood in the midst.''" Is this a scriptural way of saying the Lord already considered these individuals his disciples?<br />
* "''rulers.''" Should we find any discomfort in being told that we should be rulers, given that Nephi and the sons of Mosiah struggled with the expectation they should be kings?<br />
* "''chosen before thou wast born.''" How do square this statement with the concept that many were called in the premortal existence (see [[Alma 13:3]]) but relatively few are chosen in this life to minister in the Lord's kingdom (see [[D&C 121:34]]-40)? Or is this verse more compatible with scriptures such as [[Alma 7:10]]?<br />
<br />
===Verse 24===<br />
* "''these may dwell.''" Why didn't the Lord say instead "whereon we may dwell" or "whereon all of us may dwell"? Are the future earth dwellers, who are labeled "these," a group that is separate from "those who were with" the Lord at this planning meeting?<br />
* "''one among them that was like unto God.''" Does this just mean Jesus was the firstborn? If so, how did that make him like God? Is this saying nobody else was like God in the premortal existence? Should we read [[Moro 7:48]] as saying that Jesus Christ was the only person capable of becoming like God prior to our mortal probation?<br />
* "''space there.''" Weren't they presumably already surrounded by empty space in the universe? Or was there something particularly fitting about the galaxy our planet ended up in?<br />
* "''take of these materials.''" Is this saying spirit beings transported physical matter to our galaxy to fashion a planet whereon God's children could dwell?<br />
* "''an earth.''" If this is the only verse in scripture that talks of "an earth"," as opposed to hundreds of scriptures that make reference to "the earth," then should we assume that the Lord and those who helped him followed a pattern or template in putting together a planet for us?<br />
<br />
== Lexical notes ==<br />
* ''Click the edit link above and to the right to add lexical notes''<br />
<br />
<br />
== Exegesis ==<br />
===Verse 21===<br />
This verse read differently until the 1981 edition of the scriptures. Of the several manuscripts of the Book of Abraham (none of which were written in Joseph's hand), one has an alternate reading that was (in 1981) replaced with the more common reading. The text used to read "deliver" instead of "declare" in the first part of this verse: "I now, therefore, have come down unto thee to ''deliver'' unto thee the works which my hands have made...." While "declare" certainly seems to make more sense, if "deliver" is the correct reading, there may be an entirely different way of understanding this verse (and its implications for the whole of Abraham 3). (It might well be noted that "deliver" appears in verse 20. This may be a reason on the one hand to reject the alternate reading, and on the other hand to accept it. It may be that, on the one hand, some scribe copying accidently glanced at verse 20 rather than at verse 21 while copying, thus producing the alternate text. It may be that, on the other hand, the Lord used deliver in two very different senses to tie them together, and this may suggest a powerful literary tie in these two verses. If this were the case, the more common rendering might be explained as a later "cleaning up" that became quickly adopted by other scribes who worked on the Book of Abraham.) <br />
<br />
If, then, "deliver" is the correct reading, Abraham's experience here might be similar to Enoch's experience as described in [[Moses 7]], one in which he is exalted and receives the right to sit on the very throne of God.<br />
<br />
== Related links ==<br />
===Verse 23===<br />
* ''"[T]hou wast chosen before thou wast born..."'': Compare [[Gen 11:26]] where Abraham was the tenth generation patriarch from Noah, the prior major patriarch mentioned in the old testament, just as Noah was the tenth generation patriarch from Adam (cf. [[Gen 5:29]]). This similarity suggests both Abraham and Noah were foreordained to become great patriarchs.<br />
* For a poetic attempt to think the possibility of reading "deliver" in verse 21, see [[User: Joe Spencer/who is like God]].<br />
<br />
<br />
----<br />
{| <br />
| [[Abr 3:16-20|Previous (Abr 3:16-20)]] || &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; || [[Abr 3:26-28|Next (Abr 3:26-28)]]<br />
|}</div>Sterlinghttp://feastupontheword.org/Abr_3:21-25Abr 3:21-252010-01-13T17:43:06Z<p>Sterling: /* Verse 24 */ take of these materials</p>
<hr />
<div>[[The Pearl of Great Price]] > [[The Book of Abraham]] > [[The Book of Abraham 3|Chapter 3]]<br />
{| <br />
| [[Abr 3:16-20|Previous (Abr 3:16-20)]] || &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; || [[Abr 3:26-28|Next (Abr 3:26-28)]]<br />
|}<br />
== Questions ==<br />
===Verse 22===<br />
* "''organized.''" Why does this word not appear in the Bible or Book or Mormon? What did community organizing look like in the premortal existence?<br />
<br />
===Verse 23===<br />
* "''these souls.''" Is God drawing a distinction between the "noble and great ones" and "those that were spirits"? Are they synonymous groups or is the latter all-inclusive? How do we reconcile this verse with the statement in [[Moses 2:21]] wherein God "saw that all things which [he] had created were good"?<br />
* "''stood in the midst.''" Is this a scriptural way of saying the Lord already considered these individuals his disciples?<br />
* "''rulers.''" Should we find any discomfort in being told that we should be rulers, given that Nephi and the sons of Mosiah struggled with the expectation they should be kings?<br />
* "''chosen before thou wast born.''" How do square this statement with the concept that many were called in the premortal existence (see [[Alma 13:3]]) but relatively few are chosen in this life to minister in the Lord's kingdom (see [[D&C 121:34]]-40)? Or is this verse more compatible with scriptures such as [[Alma 7:10]]?<br />
<br />
===Verse 24===<br />
* "''these may dwell.''" Why didn't the Lord say instead "whereon we may dwell" or "whereon all of us may dwell"? Are the future earth dwellers, who are labeled "these," a group that is separate from "those who were with" the Lord at this planning meeting?<br />
* "''one among them that was like unto God.''" Does this just mean Jesus was the firstborn? If so, how did that make him like God? Is this saying nobody else was like God in the premortal existence? Should we read [[Moro 7:48]] as saying that Jesus Christ was the only person capable of becoming like God prior to our mortal probation?<br />
* "''space there.''" Weren't they presumably already surrounded by empty space in the universe? Or was there something particularly fitting about the galaxy our planet ended up in?<br />
* "''take of these materials.''" Is this saying spirit beings transported physical matter to our galaxy to fashion an earth whereon God's children could dwell?<br />
<br />
== Lexical notes ==<br />
* ''Click the edit link above and to the right to add lexical notes''<br />
<br />
<br />
== Exegesis ==<br />
===Verse 21===<br />
This verse read differently until the 1981 edition of the scriptures. Of the several manuscripts of the Book of Abraham (none of which were written in Joseph's hand), one has an alternate reading that was (in 1981) replaced with the more common reading. The text used to read "deliver" instead of "declare" in the first part of this verse: "I now, therefore, have come down unto thee to ''deliver'' unto thee the works which my hands have made...." While "declare" certainly seems to make more sense, if "deliver" is the correct reading, there may be an entirely different way of understanding this verse (and its implications for the whole of Abraham 3). (It might well be noted that "deliver" appears in verse 20. This may be a reason on the one hand to reject the alternate reading, and on the other hand to accept it. It may be that, on the one hand, some scribe copying accidently glanced at verse 20 rather than at verse 21 while copying, thus producing the alternate text. It may be that, on the other hand, the Lord used deliver in two very different senses to tie them together, and this may suggest a powerful literary tie in these two verses. If this were the case, the more common rendering might be explained as a later "cleaning up" that became quickly adopted by other scribes who worked on the Book of Abraham.) <br />
<br />
If, then, "deliver" is the correct reading, Abraham's experience here might be similar to Enoch's experience as described in [[Moses 7]], one in which he is exalted and receives the right to sit on the very throne of God.<br />
<br />
== Related links ==<br />
===Verse 23===<br />
* ''"[T]hou wast chosen before thou wast born..."'': Compare [[Gen 11:26]] where Abraham was the tenth generation patriarch from Noah, the prior major patriarch mentioned in the old testament, just as Noah was the tenth generation patriarch from Adam (cf. [[Gen 5:29]]). This similarity suggests both Abraham and Noah were foreordained to become great patriarchs.<br />
* For a poetic attempt to think the possibility of reading "deliver" in verse 21, see [[User: Joe Spencer/who is like God]].<br />
<br />
<br />
----<br />
{| <br />
| [[Abr 3:16-20|Previous (Abr 3:16-20)]] || &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; || [[Abr 3:26-28|Next (Abr 3:26-28)]]<br />
|}</div>Sterlinghttp://feastupontheword.org/Abr_3:21-25Abr 3:21-252010-01-13T17:40:17Z<p>Sterling: /* Verse 24 */ space there</p>
<hr />
<div>[[The Pearl of Great Price]] > [[The Book of Abraham]] > [[The Book of Abraham 3|Chapter 3]]<br />
{| <br />
| [[Abr 3:16-20|Previous (Abr 3:16-20)]] || &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; || [[Abr 3:26-28|Next (Abr 3:26-28)]]<br />
|}<br />
== Questions ==<br />
===Verse 22===<br />
* "''organized.''" Why does this word not appear in the Bible or Book or Mormon? What did community organizing look like in the premortal existence?<br />
<br />
===Verse 23===<br />
* "''these souls.''" Is God drawing a distinction between the "noble and great ones" and "those that were spirits"? Are they synonymous groups or is the latter all-inclusive? How do we reconcile this verse with the statement in [[Moses 2:21]] wherein God "saw that all things which [he] had created were good"?<br />
* "''stood in the midst.''" Is this a scriptural way of saying the Lord already considered these individuals his disciples?<br />
* "''rulers.''" Should we find any discomfort in being told that we should be rulers, given that Nephi and the sons of Mosiah struggled with the expectation they should be kings?<br />
* "''chosen before thou wast born.''" How do square this statement with the concept that many were called in the premortal existence (see [[Alma 13:3]]) but relatively few are chosen in this life to minister in the Lord's kingdom (see [[D&C 121:34]]-40)? Or is this verse more compatible with scriptures such as [[Alma 7:10]]?<br />
<br />
===Verse 24===<br />
* "''these may dwell.''" Why didn't the Lord say instead "whereon we may dwell" or "whereon all of us may dwell"? Are the future earth dwellers, who are labeled "these," a group that is separate from "those who were with" the Lord at this planning meeting?<br />
* "''one among them that was like unto God.''" Does this just mean Jesus was the firstborn? If so, how did that make him like God? Is this saying nobody else was like God in the premortal existence? Should we read [[Moro 7:48]] as saying that Jesus Christ was the only person capable of becoming like God prior to our mortal probation?<br />
* "''space there.''" Weren't they presumably already surrounded by empty space in the universe? Or was there something particularly fitting about the galaxy our planet ended up in?<br />
<br />
== Lexical notes ==<br />
* ''Click the edit link above and to the right to add lexical notes''<br />
<br />
<br />
== Exegesis ==<br />
===Verse 21===<br />
This verse read differently until the 1981 edition of the scriptures. Of the several manuscripts of the Book of Abraham (none of which were written in Joseph's hand), one has an alternate reading that was (in 1981) replaced with the more common reading. The text used to read "deliver" instead of "declare" in the first part of this verse: "I now, therefore, have come down unto thee to ''deliver'' unto thee the works which my hands have made...." While "declare" certainly seems to make more sense, if "deliver" is the correct reading, there may be an entirely different way of understanding this verse (and its implications for the whole of Abraham 3). (It might well be noted that "deliver" appears in verse 20. This may be a reason on the one hand to reject the alternate reading, and on the other hand to accept it. It may be that, on the one hand, some scribe copying accidently glanced at verse 20 rather than at verse 21 while copying, thus producing the alternate text. It may be that, on the other hand, the Lord used deliver in two very different senses to tie them together, and this may suggest a powerful literary tie in these two verses. If this were the case, the more common rendering might be explained as a later "cleaning up" that became quickly adopted by other scribes who worked on the Book of Abraham.) <br />
<br />
If, then, "deliver" is the correct reading, Abraham's experience here might be similar to Enoch's experience as described in [[Moses 7]], one in which he is exalted and receives the right to sit on the very throne of God.<br />
<br />
== Related links ==<br />
===Verse 23===<br />
* ''"[T]hou wast chosen before thou wast born..."'': Compare [[Gen 11:26]] where Abraham was the tenth generation patriarch from Noah, the prior major patriarch mentioned in the old testament, just as Noah was the tenth generation patriarch from Adam (cf. [[Gen 5:29]]). This similarity suggests both Abraham and Noah were foreordained to become great patriarchs.<br />
* For a poetic attempt to think the possibility of reading "deliver" in verse 21, see [[User: Joe Spencer/who is like God]].<br />
<br />
<br />
----<br />
{| <br />
| [[Abr 3:16-20|Previous (Abr 3:16-20)]] || &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; || [[Abr 3:26-28|Next (Abr 3:26-28)]]<br />
|}</div>Sterlinghttp://feastupontheword.org/Abr_3:21-25Abr 3:21-252010-01-13T17:33:32Z<p>Sterling: /* Verse 24 */ one among them that was like unto God</p>
<hr />
<div>[[The Pearl of Great Price]] > [[The Book of Abraham]] > [[The Book of Abraham 3|Chapter 3]]<br />
{| <br />
| [[Abr 3:16-20|Previous (Abr 3:16-20)]] || &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; || [[Abr 3:26-28|Next (Abr 3:26-28)]]<br />
|}<br />
== Questions ==<br />
===Verse 22===<br />
* "''organized.''" Why does this word not appear in the Bible or Book or Mormon? What did community organizing look like in the premortal existence?<br />
<br />
===Verse 23===<br />
* "''these souls.''" Is God drawing a distinction between the "noble and great ones" and "those that were spirits"? Are they synonymous groups or is the latter all-inclusive? How do we reconcile this verse with the statement in [[Moses 2:21]] wherein God "saw that all things which [he] had created were good"?<br />
* "''stood in the midst.''" Is this a scriptural way of saying the Lord already considered these individuals his disciples?<br />
* "''rulers.''" Should we find any discomfort in being told that we should be rulers, given that Nephi and the sons of Mosiah struggled with the expectation they should be kings?<br />
* "''chosen before thou wast born.''" How do square this statement with the concept that many were called in the premortal existence (see [[Alma 13:3]]) but relatively few are chosen in this life to minister in the Lord's kingdom (see [[D&C 121:34]]-40)? Or is this verse more compatible with scriptures such as [[Alma 7:10]]?<br />
<br />
===Verse 24===<br />
* "''these may dwell.''" Why didn't the Lord say instead "whereon we may dwell" or "whereon all of us may dwell"? Are the future earth dwellers, who are labeled "these," a group that is separate from "those who were with" the Lord at this planning meeting?<br />
* "''one among them that was like unto God.''" Does this just mean Jesus was the firstborn? If so, how did that make him like God? Is this saying nobody else was like God in the premortal existence? Should we read [[Moro 7:48]] as saying that Jesus Christ was the only person capable of becoming like God prior to our mortal probation?<br />
<br />
== Lexical notes ==<br />
* ''Click the edit link above and to the right to add lexical notes''<br />
<br />
<br />
== Exegesis ==<br />
===Verse 21===<br />
This verse read differently until the 1981 edition of the scriptures. Of the several manuscripts of the Book of Abraham (none of which were written in Joseph's hand), one has an alternate reading that was (in 1981) replaced with the more common reading. The text used to read "deliver" instead of "declare" in the first part of this verse: "I now, therefore, have come down unto thee to ''deliver'' unto thee the works which my hands have made...." While "declare" certainly seems to make more sense, if "deliver" is the correct reading, there may be an entirely different way of understanding this verse (and its implications for the whole of Abraham 3). (It might well be noted that "deliver" appears in verse 20. This may be a reason on the one hand to reject the alternate reading, and on the other hand to accept it. It may be that, on the one hand, some scribe copying accidently glanced at verse 20 rather than at verse 21 while copying, thus producing the alternate text. It may be that, on the other hand, the Lord used deliver in two very different senses to tie them together, and this may suggest a powerful literary tie in these two verses. If this were the case, the more common rendering might be explained as a later "cleaning up" that became quickly adopted by other scribes who worked on the Book of Abraham.) <br />
<br />
If, then, "deliver" is the correct reading, Abraham's experience here might be similar to Enoch's experience as described in [[Moses 7]], one in which he is exalted and receives the right to sit on the very throne of God.<br />
<br />
== Related links ==<br />
===Verse 23===<br />
* ''"[T]hou wast chosen before thou wast born..."'': Compare [[Gen 11:26]] where Abraham was the tenth generation patriarch from Noah, the prior major patriarch mentioned in the old testament, just as Noah was the tenth generation patriarch from Adam (cf. [[Gen 5:29]]). This similarity suggests both Abraham and Noah were foreordained to become great patriarchs.<br />
* For a poetic attempt to think the possibility of reading "deliver" in verse 21, see [[User: Joe Spencer/who is like God]].<br />
<br />
<br />
----<br />
{| <br />
| [[Abr 3:16-20|Previous (Abr 3:16-20)]] || &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; || [[Abr 3:26-28|Next (Abr 3:26-28)]]<br />
|}</div>Sterlinghttp://feastupontheword.org/Abr_3:21-25Abr 3:21-252010-01-13T17:17:19Z<p>Sterling: /* Verse 23 */ chosen before thou wast born</p>
<hr />
<div>[[The Pearl of Great Price]] > [[The Book of Abraham]] > [[The Book of Abraham 3|Chapter 3]]<br />
{| <br />
| [[Abr 3:16-20|Previous (Abr 3:16-20)]] || &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; || [[Abr 3:26-28|Next (Abr 3:26-28)]]<br />
|}<br />
== Questions ==<br />
===Verse 22===<br />
* "''organized.''" Why does this word not appear in the Bible or Book or Mormon? What did community organizing look like in the premortal existence?<br />
<br />
===Verse 23===<br />
* "''these souls.''" Is God drawing a distinction between the "noble and great ones" and "those that were spirits"? Are they synonymous groups or is the latter all-inclusive? How do we reconcile this verse with the statement in [[Moses 2:21]] wherein God "saw that all things which [he] had created were good"?<br />
* "''stood in the midst.''" Is this a scriptural way of saying the Lord already considered these individuals his disciples?<br />
* "''rulers.''" Should we find any discomfort in being told that we should be rulers, given that Nephi and the sons of Mosiah struggled with the expectation they should be kings?<br />
* "''chosen before thou wast born.''" How do square this statement with the concept that many were called in the premortal existence (see [[Alma 13:3]]) but relatively few are chosen in this life to minister in the Lord's kingdom (see [[D&C 121:34]]-40)? Or is this verse more compatible with scriptures such as [[Alma 7:10]]?<br />
<br />
===Verse 24===<br />
* "''these may dwell.''" Why didn't the Lord say instead "whereon we may dwell" or "whereon all of us may dwell"? Are the future earth dwellers, who are labeled "these," a group that is separate from "those who were with" the Lord at this planning meeting?<br />
<br />
== Lexical notes ==<br />
* ''Click the edit link above and to the right to add lexical notes''<br />
<br />
<br />
== Exegesis ==<br />
===Verse 21===<br />
This verse read differently until the 1981 edition of the scriptures. Of the several manuscripts of the Book of Abraham (none of which were written in Joseph's hand), one has an alternate reading that was (in 1981) replaced with the more common reading. The text used to read "deliver" instead of "declare" in the first part of this verse: "I now, therefore, have come down unto thee to ''deliver'' unto thee the works which my hands have made...." While "declare" certainly seems to make more sense, if "deliver" is the correct reading, there may be an entirely different way of understanding this verse (and its implications for the whole of Abraham 3). (It might well be noted that "deliver" appears in verse 20. This may be a reason on the one hand to reject the alternate reading, and on the other hand to accept it. It may be that, on the one hand, some scribe copying accidently glanced at verse 20 rather than at verse 21 while copying, thus producing the alternate text. It may be that, on the other hand, the Lord used deliver in two very different senses to tie them together, and this may suggest a powerful literary tie in these two verses. If this were the case, the more common rendering might be explained as a later "cleaning up" that became quickly adopted by other scribes who worked on the Book of Abraham.) <br />
<br />
If, then, "deliver" is the correct reading, Abraham's experience here might be similar to Enoch's experience as described in [[Moses 7]], one in which he is exalted and receives the right to sit on the very throne of God.<br />
<br />
== Related links ==<br />
===Verse 23===<br />
* ''"[T]hou wast chosen before thou wast born..."'': Compare [[Gen 11:26]] where Abraham was the tenth generation patriarch from Noah, the prior major patriarch mentioned in the old testament, just as Noah was the tenth generation patriarch from Adam (cf. [[Gen 5:29]]). This similarity suggests both Abraham and Noah were foreordained to become great patriarchs.<br />
* For a poetic attempt to think the possibility of reading "deliver" in verse 21, see [[User: Joe Spencer/who is like God]].<br />
<br />
<br />
----<br />
{| <br />
| [[Abr 3:16-20|Previous (Abr 3:16-20)]] || &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; || [[Abr 3:26-28|Next (Abr 3:26-28)]]<br />
|}</div>Sterlinghttp://feastupontheword.org/Abr_3:21-25Abr 3:21-252010-01-13T17:10:34Z<p>Sterling: /* Verse 23 */ stood in the midst</p>
<hr />
<div>[[The Pearl of Great Price]] > [[The Book of Abraham]] > [[The Book of Abraham 3|Chapter 3]]<br />
{| <br />
| [[Abr 3:16-20|Previous (Abr 3:16-20)]] || &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; || [[Abr 3:26-28|Next (Abr 3:26-28)]]<br />
|}<br />
== Questions ==<br />
===Verse 22===<br />
* "''organized.''" Why does this word not appear in the Bible or Book or Mormon? What did community organizing look like in the premortal existence?<br />
<br />
===Verse 23===<br />
* "''these souls.''" Is God drawing a distinction between the "noble and great ones" and "those that were spirits"? Are they synonymous groups or is the latter all-inclusive? How do we reconcile this verse with the statement in [[Moses 2:21]] wherein God "saw that all things which [he] had created were good"?<br />
* "''stood in the midst.''" Is this a scriptural way of saying the Lord already considered these individuals his disciples?<br />
* "''rulers.''" Should we find any discomfort in being told that we should be rulers, given that Nephi and the sons of Mosiah struggled with the expectation they should be kings?<br />
<br />
===Verse 24===<br />
* "''these may dwell.''" Why didn't the Lord say instead "whereon we may dwell" or "whereon all of us may dwell"? Are the future earth dwellers, who are labeled "these," a group that is separate from "those who were with" the Lord at this planning meeting?<br />
<br />
== Lexical notes ==<br />
* ''Click the edit link above and to the right to add lexical notes''<br />
<br />
<br />
== Exegesis ==<br />
===Verse 21===<br />
This verse read differently until the 1981 edition of the scriptures. Of the several manuscripts of the Book of Abraham (none of which were written in Joseph's hand), one has an alternate reading that was (in 1981) replaced with the more common reading. The text used to read "deliver" instead of "declare" in the first part of this verse: "I now, therefore, have come down unto thee to ''deliver'' unto thee the works which my hands have made...." While "declare" certainly seems to make more sense, if "deliver" is the correct reading, there may be an entirely different way of understanding this verse (and its implications for the whole of Abraham 3). (It might well be noted that "deliver" appears in verse 20. This may be a reason on the one hand to reject the alternate reading, and on the other hand to accept it. It may be that, on the one hand, some scribe copying accidently glanced at verse 20 rather than at verse 21 while copying, thus producing the alternate text. It may be that, on the other hand, the Lord used deliver in two very different senses to tie them together, and this may suggest a powerful literary tie in these two verses. If this were the case, the more common rendering might be explained as a later "cleaning up" that became quickly adopted by other scribes who worked on the Book of Abraham.) <br />
<br />
If, then, "deliver" is the correct reading, Abraham's experience here might be similar to Enoch's experience as described in [[Moses 7]], one in which he is exalted and receives the right to sit on the very throne of God.<br />
<br />
== Related links ==<br />
===Verse 23===<br />
* ''"[T]hou wast chosen before thou wast born..."'': Compare [[Gen 11:26]] where Abraham was the tenth generation patriarch from Noah, the prior major patriarch mentioned in the old testament, just as Noah was the tenth generation patriarch from Adam (cf. [[Gen 5:29]]). This similarity suggests both Abraham and Noah were foreordained to become great patriarchs.<br />
* For a poetic attempt to think the possibility of reading "deliver" in verse 21, see [[User: Joe Spencer/who is like God]].<br />
<br />
<br />
----<br />
{| <br />
| [[Abr 3:16-20|Previous (Abr 3:16-20)]] || &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; || [[Abr 3:26-28|Next (Abr 3:26-28)]]<br />
|}</div>Sterling