Latest / Scripture Central / How Does the Book of Mormon Fulfill the Purposes Declared on the Title Page? #706

Transcript

How Does the Book of Mormon Fulfill the Purposes Declared on the Title Page? #706 · Scripture Central

• 0:01
  Which is to show unto the remnant of the House of Israel
• 0:04
  what great things the Lord hath done for their fathers, and that
• 0:07
  they may know the covenants of the Lord, that they were not
• 0:10
  cast off forever. And also to the convincing of
• 0:13
  the Jew and Gentile that Jesus is the Christ, the eternal God,
• 0:18
  manifesting himself unto all nations.
• 0:21
  Hey listeners, this is Nick from Scripture Central and today's
• 0:24
  podcast addresses the question, How does the Book of Mormon
• 0:27
  fulfill the purposes declared on the title page?
• 0:33
  While the Book of Mormon was mostly compiled and abridged by
• 0:35
  the prophet Mormon, it was completed by his son Moroni
• 0:38
  following his death. As part of his editions, Moroni
• 0:42
  included a title page which has been printed at the front of
• 0:45
  every edition of the Book of Mormon since 1830.
• 0:49
  Joseph Smith once explained that the title page is a literal
• 0:52
  translation taken from the very last leaf on the left hand side
• 0:56
  of the collection or Book of Plates which contained the
• 0:59
  record which has been translated.
• 1:01
  Correcting those who assumed he wrote it himself, Joseph stated
• 1:05
  that the title page is not by any means a modern composition,
• 1:09
  either of mine or of any other man's who has lived or does live
• 1:13
  in this generation. According to the title page
• 1:16
  itself, there are two primary purposes of the Book of Mormon.
• 1:20
  Number one, to show unto the remnant of the House of Israel
• 1:23
  what great things the Lord hath done for their fathers, and that
• 1:26
  they may know the covenants of the Lord, that they are not cast
• 1:30
  off forever. And also two, to the convincing
• 1:34
  of the Jew and Gentile that Jesus is the Christ, the eternal
• 1:37
  God, manifesting himself unto all nations.
• 1:41
  This twofold intent is clearly and repeatedly demonstrated
• 1:45
  throughout the text in a variety of different ways and through a
• 1:48
  number of different techniques. Some of the ways the authors
• 1:51
  illustrated these two core messages appear to reflect
• 1:55
  aspects of their ancient worldview, helping illustrate
• 1:58
  how the Lord speaketh unto men according to their language unto
• 2:02
  their understanding. Thus understanding the world
• 2:05
  views that Nephites and their neighbors shared can provide
• 2:08
  insights into how the Book of Mormon fulfills these two
• 2:11
  purposes stated on the title page.
• 2:14
  The first of these purposes is to show unto the remnant of the
• 2:17
  House of Israel what great things the Lord hath done for
• 2:20
  their fathers. Throughout the Book of Mormon,
• 2:23
  many accounts of miracles, prophetic guidance, and divine
• 2:27
  covenants are given. To that end, Brant Gardner has
• 2:30
  noted that Nephite prophets relied upon a cyclical concept
• 2:35
  of history that looked to the past to understand the future.
• 2:39
  Such was the case for many ancient societies, including
• 2:42
  those described in the Old Testament, as explained by
• 2:45
  Geoffrey S Spencer. The Old Testament could be as
• 2:48
  precise as it is regarding the future because its authors
• 2:52
  understood what God was doing for them in their day, and they
• 2:56
  expected the same pattern to play out in the future.
• 2:59
  That is to say, history becomes prophetic because what God has
• 3:03
  done becomes the key to what he will do.
• 3:07
  A similar belief was held in ancient America as well.
• 3:10
  Among these Maya, a cyclical calendar, was used on the basis
• 3:14
  of repeating periods of 520 and 400 year periods.
• 3:19
  These cycles dominated Maya thought and resulted in a
• 3:23
  deterministic view in which history repeated itself.
• 3:26
  If a given day or period resulted in dreadful
• 3:29
  consequences once, it would do so again when the day returned
• 3:33
  or when the cycle repeated itself.
• 3:35
  A similar system appears to be in use among the Nephites, and
• 3:38
  this conception of recurring history among the Maya certainly
• 3:41
  parallels the Israelite worldview of cyclical time that
• 3:44
  the Nephites may have inherited. According to Gardner, showing
• 3:48
  what great things God had done for the Lamanite Fathers was an
• 3:52
  explicit promise that those great things could and would be
• 3:56
  done for Mormon's future audience.
• 3:58
  As such, modern readers today can and should expect many of
• 4:03
  the same miracles and blessings that God's people experienced in
• 4:06
  previous times. The same can be applied to
• 4:09
  Mormon's hope for future audiences to repent and make
• 4:13
  covenants with the Lord. When Mormon wrote his final
• 4:16
  words in the Book of Mormon, the Lamanites he knew were long
• 4:20
  separated from the House of Israel.
• 4:22
  Nevertheless, Mormon showed that regardless of the time they
• 4:25
  might have spent away from the covenant, that covenant
• 4:29
  patiently awaited their repentance and return throughout
• 4:32
  the Book of Mormon. It is made clear how the
• 4:35
  Lamanites had previously fallen away from the covenants they had
• 4:38
  made with the Lord near the beginning of their exodus to the
• 4:41
  Americas. However, Mormon also showed
• 4:44
  throughout his record that the Lamanites could repent of their
• 4:48
  sins and rejoin the Lord's covenant family, as expressed
• 4:52
  most dramatically in the stories of the Anti Nephi, Lehis and the
• 4:56
  missionary journey of the brothers Nephi and Lehi in
• 4:59
  Helaman Chapter 5. As such, Mormon shows his hope
• 5:03
  for future readers to follow this cycle and repent, just as
• 5:07
  these two groups of Lamanites did, lay down their weapons of
• 5:10
  war, and also their hatred and the tradition of their fathers.
• 5:14
  Mormon hope that Lehigh's future posterity, who were plausibly
• 5:18
  immersed in a culture of war and bloodshed, would similarly lay
• 5:22
  down your weapons of war and delight no more in the shedding
• 5:25
  of blood, and take them not again, save it be that God shall
• 5:29
  command you for the Book of Mormon's primary authors and
• 5:32
  editors, persuading readers to believe in and come unto Jesus
• 5:36
  Christ was a significant priority.
• 5:40
  Well, any reader of the Book of Mormon can be enlightened by
• 5:42
  this added witness of the ministry and divinity of Jesus
• 5:45
  Christ. It is telling how Mormon and
• 5:47
  Moroni expressly tailored their words for future Lamanites, whom
• 5:51
  they likely presumed would have had similar cultures and beliefs
• 5:54
  as the Lamanites known to them in their day.
• 5:57
  As such, many aspects of the teachings about Jesus and the
• 6:00
  Book of Mormon reflect ancient understandings of God in both an
• 6:04
  old and new world setting. For example, multiple prophets
• 6:08
  are reported as having seen God and Jesus Christ in divine
• 6:11
  visions, beginning with Lehigh and 1st Nephi Chapter One.
• 6:15
  In fact, as Nephi recounts how his father was called to be a
• 6:19
  prophet, he follows the same narrative pattern in describing
• 6:22
  this experience as found in the experiences of Isaiah, Jeremiah,
• 6:28
  Ezekiel, and other Old Testament prophets.
• 6:31
  Remarkably, many later prophets who had lived in the New World
• 6:34
  their entire lives recount their visions in different ways, which
• 6:38
  Mark Allen Wright has observed conform to a pattern that can be
• 6:42
  detected in ancient Mesoamerica. Specifically, elements of this
• 6:47
  pattern can be seen throughout the Book of Mormon in the
• 6:49
  accounts of individuals who are overcome by the Spirit to the
• 6:52
  point that they fall to the earth as if dead, and ultimately
• 6:56
  recover and through that process become spiritually reborn and
• 7:01
  subsequently prophecy concerning Jesus Christ, which mirrors the
• 7:05
  calling of Mesoamerican shaman priests.
• 7:08
  Oftentimes, this event also began as the newly called
• 7:11
  prophet's soul embarked on a spirit journey while his body
• 7:14
  lay suffering, just as experienced by Alma and King
• 7:18
  Limoni in the Book of Mormon. Upon reawakening, both Alma and
• 7:23
  Limoni became witnesses of Christ.
• 7:25
  Other teachings by Nephite prophets clearly reflect an
• 7:29
  ancient Mesoamerican setting. For example, in Alma chapter 34,
• 7:33
  Amulek describes the atonement as neither the sacrifice of man,
• 7:37
  neither of beast, neither of any manner of fowl, but an infinite
• 7:42
  and eternal sacrifice of the Son of God himself.
• 7:45
  The three types of sacrifice Amulek specifically taught would
• 7:49
  be inadequate. Humans, beasts, and birds
• 7:52
  happened to be the three most common things that were offered
• 7:55
  by Mesoamerican worshippers that an apostate group such as the
• 7:59
  Zoramites would have likely been familiar with due to their
• 8:02
  neighboring civilizations. Similarly, Wright has also
• 8:06
  observed that it is possible that Jesus may have been
• 8:08
  communicating with Nephites according to their cultural
• 8:11
  language when he visited them to come and feel for themselves the
• 8:16
  wounds in his flesh. Unlike his appearance in the Old
• 8:19
  World, where he invited them to touch solely his hands and his
• 8:22
  feet, Jesus invited the Nephites to 1st feel the wounds in his
• 8:27
  side. As Wright observes to a people
• 8:30
  steeped in Mesoamerican culture, the sign that a person had been
• 8:34
  ritually sacrificed would have been an incision on their side,
• 8:38
  suggesting that they had their hearts removed, therefore
• 8:42
  showing how Jesus identified himself to the Nephites in a way
• 8:45
  that they would have culturally understood.
• 8:48
  As John W Welch has observed, the title page clearly
• 8:52
  articulates the essentials of the Book of Mormon.
• 8:55
  It provides a clear introduction to the overarching purposes of
• 8:58
  Mormon's abridgement and informs the reader early on why the Book
• 9:03
  of Mormon is so important for the world today as we strive to
• 9:07
  come closer to Jesus Christ ourselves.
• 9:10
  Ultimately, the title page allows readers to know of a
• 9:13
  surety the unambiguously good intent of the Book of Mormon,
• 9:18
  written unto the convincing of all people that Jesus is the
• 9:21
  Christ, the eternal God, manifesting himself to all
• 9:26
  nations so that people may know and embrace the mercies and
• 9:30
  covenants of the Lord who desires all to come unto him.
• 9:35
  As modern readers approach the Book of Mormon with an open
• 9:38
  heart and mind, they too can be enlightened by the Spirit and
• 9:43
  come away with a deeper appreciation for this sacred
• 9:46
  book of scripture. Thank you for listening to this
• 9:52
  presentation from Scripture Central.
• 9:54
  For more information, please visit scripturecentral.org.