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Book of Mormon Commentary Volume 6 - I Mormon Make a Record

Book of Mormon Commentary Volume 6 is the final installment of the Book of Mormon Commentary set. It covers more of the time period of the Book of Mormon peoplethan any of the other five volumes. It begins during the thirty-fourthyear after the birth of Jesus Christ and ends in the four hundred andtwenty-first year of that same time period, for a total of three hundredand eighty-seven years. These years are more than one-third of thetotal years of the Nephite record (1021 years). This volume alsocontains an abridgment of around two thousand years of the Jarediterecord, the book of Ether. The other five volumes of the commentarycover only six hundred and thirty-four years, collectively, 600 B.C.to part of the year A.D. 34. The geographical area is likewise sparsely treated and is onlyspoken of in general terms. What place Mormon refers to as the peoplehaving “spread upon all the face of the land” is left in question (4Nephi 1:23). The geographical area of “the north countries” (Mormon2:3) is not clearly defined. How far northward the people of Nephiwere driven is questionable (see Mormon 2:20, 29). The location ofthe land of Desolation, where the Jaredites were destroyed (see Alma22:30–31) and where many of the last battles of the Nephites werefought, is also not clearly defined (see Mormon chapters 3 & 4). Againhow much farther north the Nephites were driven is left unanswered(see Mormon 5:3–7). The land of Cumorah is controversial (Mormonchapter 6), but we will assume it is in New York until the time when“a knowledge of these things must come unto the remnant of thesepeople, and also unto the Gentiles” (Mormon 5:8). In this work wewill concentrate on the guidelines for life given to us by the abridgers,which will bring us “nearer to God by abiding by its precepts, thanby any other book” (Book of Mormon Introduction; quoting TPJS,194). Fourth Nephi is Mormon’s abridgment of the last of the recordsof the Nephites (4 Nephi). The time period is from sometime in A. D.34 to 321. This abridgment covered a period of 286 plus years (theending of the thirty-fourth year and the thirty-fifth are named but nocomments are made). The records are condensed to just four pagesin our present Book of Mormon text. Mormon then made a record ofhis own time on earth. He begins with the statement, “And now I,Mormon, make a record” (Mormon 1:1). The title of this volume ofthe Book of Mormon commentary series is taken from this statement.The first seven chapters of the book of Mormon, the small bookwithin the Book of Mormon, are Mormon’s abridgment of his ownwork (see Mormon 5:9). His son, Moroni, completed the record of hisfather (Mormon chapters 8 and 9). Moroni then abridged “the twentyand four gold plates which were found by the people of Limhi, whichis called the book of Ether” (Ether 1:2). This record is an account ofthe Jaredites who occupied the promised land of the Americas beforethe Nephites. He condensed this record of around two thousand yearsof Jaredite occupancy into just thirty-one pages in our present text ofthe Book of Mormon. In these thirty-one pages, he freely insertedcomments or precepts learned from the record of the Jaredites.After finishing the abridgment of the Jaredites, Moroni added hisown book to those previously assembled. He added things taught bythe Savior during his “Divine Ministry” as a resurrected being amongthe Nephites in the Americas (3 Nephi chapters 11–27). His father,Mormon, had promised to add some of these things but was unableto do so, and Moroni fulfilled the promise (see 3 Nephi 18:37). Moronialso included the words of a sermon delivered by his father, Mormon,and the contents of two epistles he had received from his father(Moroni chapters 7–9). Thus Moroni finished his father’s record(Mormon 7–9), and quoted his father in the ending of his own record(Moroni 7–9).

Hardback
Pages 449

By Monte S. Nyman

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