1 Nephi 11-15

After Lehi's vision of and subsequent sermon on the two trees, there follows Nephi's obviously parallel and yet significantly different experience. Again it is a question of two trees, and many of the same imagery can be found in Nephi's experience, but little else can ultimately be said to tie the two visions together. Indeed, there seems to be some evidence that Nephi saw less of Lehi's dream of the tree of life than he saw of Lehi's initial visions recorded in 1 Nephi 1. All these details, of course, have to be sorted out in the proper order.

The whole experience begins, as Terryl Givens has pointed out, because Nephi dares to seek what had been received only by the authoritative figure of the patriarch/prophet. When Nephi, after he is asked what he desires, responds to the Spirit that he desires "to behold the things which my father saw" (1 Nephi 11:3), he is stopped short by a question from the Spirit that might have suggested to him that he was not to be given to see such things: "Believest thou that thy father saw the tree of which he hath spoken?" (1 Nephi 11:4). To answer negatively would, of course, have been to reject the possibility of seeing such things himself, but to answer positively might just as well have resulted in not seeing the vision, since the Spirit might have said that it was enough to believe that his father had seen the things.

Nephi, however, was given to have the visions and revelation for himself. It is an emphatic point in the text: not only does the Spirit erupt in praises when he hears that Nephi believes and yet wants to see for himself, but when Nephi confronts his unbelieving brothers in 1 Nephi 15 at the close of the account of the visions, he finds that they have not "inquired of the Lord" to know for themselves the meaning of the dreams and visions (1 Nephi 15:8). The record of Nephi's experience thus opens and closes on the same note: revelation is open to all who would receive it, regardless of hierarchical position. And this point is not without textual significance: if chapters 1-7 of 1 Nephi establish the possibility of the fulfillment of the Lehitic covenant as well as the reality of the conflict between Nephi and his brothers, the intertwining of Lehi's dreams and visions with Nephi's, paired with Laman and Lemuel's refusal to seek out the same revelations themselves, is a sort of final confirmation of the Lehitic covenant and the rift between what will become the Nephites and the Lamanites.

That said, though, what does the vision itself amount to? Nephi does first see a tree, presumably the same tree Lehi had described in his dream, but he immediately thereafter is given a vision that does not appear in any particular way to reflect Lehi's experience: "after thou hast beheld the tree which bore the fruit which thy father tasted, thou shalt also behold a man descending out of heaven, . . . the Son of God" (1 Nephi 11:7). The vision of the tree is paired, even before the experience, with a vision of a descending Son of God. The connection between these two visions is clarified in the subsequent narrative. "I said unto the Spirit: I behold thou hast shown unto me the tree which is precious above all. And he said unto me: What desirest thou? And I said unto him: To know the interpretation thereof . . . . And it came to pass that he said unto me: Look! And I looked as if to look upon him, and I saw him not; for he had gone from before my presence" (1 Nephi 11:9-12). So soon as the Spirit disappears, Nephi's vision of the descent of the Son of God begins. What all of this seems to imply is that the second vision, that of the Son of God's descent, is "the interpretation" of the tree for which Nephi asks. Vision one: the tree. Vision two: the interpretation of the tree.

Whence, then, this second vision? Notice that it parallels in significant ways especially the second vision of Lehi in 1 Nephi 1: Nephi witnesses the opening of the heavens and the descent of an angel out of the midst of the council who comes to stand before him (1 Nephi 11:13-15 and 1 Nephi 1:8-9), thereafter witnessing the Messiah (1 Nephi 11:16-28 and 1 Nephi 1:19) who is soon followed by twelve others who are "carried away . . . from before [Nephi's] face" (1 Nephi 11:29 and 1 Nephi 1:10-11) while the Messiah remains present in the vision (1 Nephi 11:30-36 and 1 Nephi 1:11). Following the pattern still, Nephi's vision goes on to detail the emergence of a book, namely the Book of Mormon, that provides the prophetic knowledge necessary to fulfill the covenants that had been made to the ancients (1 Nephi 13-14 and 1 Nephi 1:12+). This almost perfect series of parallels cannot be coincidental. (There are some oddities about Lehi's discourses that suggest this further: Lehi speaks in 1 Nephi 10 about the Baptist but without ever having explained that he had seen him in vision; Nephi's vision of the Baptist in 1 Nephi 11 may well suggest that Lehi had seen/read about the Baptist in his vision of 1 Nephi 1.)

What all of this seems to suggest is that Nephi here ends up with Lehi's several visions, but in a kind of reverse order, such that Nephi can see how they all cohere together (something Lehi seems to have sorted out during his 1 Nephi 10 discussion, covered so briefly in Nephi's narrative): 1 Nephi 1, fleshed out at length (in 1 Nephi 11:12-14:30), is the interpretive key to 1 Nephi 8 (or 1 Nephi 11:1-11).

But this is not all: 1 Nephi 12, just as 1 Nephi 11, seems to recount the visionary experiences of 1 Nephi 1 all over again. After seeing massive destruction among the Nephites and Lamanites, Nephi watches an unfolding of the very same pattern recorded in 1 Nephi 11: "I saw the heavens open, and the Lamb of God descending out of heaven; and he came down and showed himself unto them. And I also saw and bear record that the Holy Ghost fell upon twelve others" (1 Nephi 12:6-7). Again with the descent, and again with the twelve followers. Moreover, the One and twelve are followed, exactly as in 1 Nephi 11, by severe destructions and a threat to the covenant, though it is this time the Nephites and Lamanites who are destroyed rather than the Jews.

1 Nephi 11-12 would seem, then, to be a kind of double revelation of Lehi's second vision in 1 Nephi 1: it is only after this One and twelve pattern is repeated twice that there is the emergence, precisely as in 1 Nephi 1, of a book (in 1 Nephi 13-14). This doubling of what Lehi saw in 1 Nephi 1, actually, turns out to complicate that textual emergence: not one but two books make up the story in 1 Nephi 13-14 (the Bible and the Book of Mormon). In other words, not only is the witnessed vision of the descent and ministry of the One and the twelve doubled in Nephi's experience, but so is the delivery of the book: two books circulate in Nephi's vision, whereas only one did so in Lehi's.

This doubling of Lehi's experience might at first seem quite odd, but it must be recognized that there is a kind of doubling at work in Lehi's own teachings in 1 Nephi 8-10: though his dream seems only to have involved one tree, his teachings to Laman and Lemuel actually speak of two trees. (And one need look no further than Ezekiel 37 for a text in which trees and books are equated: two trees may well imply two books.) Lehi's doubling of the tree gives way to Nephi's doubling of the book.

But it is this emphasis on the book that is, in the end, particularly helpful about this way of approaching 1 Nephi 11-15: 1 Nephi 13-14 would seem specifically to be best read as a story of the emergence of a text that, through its intertwining relationship with another, "earlier" text, recasts the meaning of the whole history of the world. What must follow, then, is a reading of this vision of 1 Nephi 13-14 with an eye to that strange relationship between two texts.

The structure of 1 Nephi 13 is simply fascinating (it seems to me that the breaks imposed on Nephi's vision are actually quite well done: chapters 11, 12, 13, and 14 are nicely divided). In essence, this chapter tells the same story three times over, first in verses 1-20, second in verses 21-33, and third in verses 34-42. The first telling of the story tells it as if it were a kind of supplement to the stories of chapters 11 and 12: chapter 11 tells the story of the Old World, chapter 12 tells the story of the New World, and verses 1-20 of chapter 13 tells the story of the world in between, that is, of Europe. There is, then, a kind of triangulation at work in the first part of 1 Nephi 13: Old World (1 Nephi 11), New World (1 Nephi 12), In-Between World (1 Nephi 13:1-20).

This story of In-Between World is quite familiar: Nephi sees "many nations and kingdoms" (1 Nephi 13:2), the "nations and kingdoms of the Gentiles" (1 Nephi 13:3), among which is constructed the "great and abominable church" (1 Nephi 13:6). The whole of the Gentile nations are soon overspread by this corrupt church, but first one and then many Gentiles are "wrought upon" by the Spirit of God to leave Gentile Europe and sail to the New World (1 Nephi 13:12-13). Wielding the "wrath of God" (1 Nephi 13:14), these particular Gentiles "obtain the land [the New World] for their inheritance" (1 Nephi 13:15), soon finding themselves at war with "their mother Gentiles" (1 Nephi 13:17). The Gentiles in the New World, however, are "delivered by the power of God out of the hands of all other nations" (1 Nephi 13:19). Nephi's description of this rather long stretch of uninterrupted vision ends with this note: "And it came to pass that I, Nephi, beheld that they did prosper in the land; and I beheld a book, and it was carried forth among them" (1 Nephi 13:20).

The story, in a word: a relatively small group of Gentiles are (divinely!) subtracted from the dialectical political history of Europe, inheriting the New World and carrying with them a book. The mention of the book only comes at the very end of this first telling, almost as an afterthought. But the effect is unmistakable: the entire work of subtraction aims at isolating this people of the book, this Gentile group in the New World that is singularly dedicated to the text they carry with them, though Nephi says nothing to this point of the provenance of the book.

The story is then told a second time, and in an important way: the story of the In-Between World is recast as a story of the Old World (1 Nephi 13:1-20 is now viewed through the lens of 1 Nephi 11). In this retelling, the entire story is a question of the book the New World Gentiles carry with them. The emphasis is quite clearly on "the covenants of the Lord" contained in the book (1 Nephi 13:23). The book, with its covenants quite on display, comes from the Jews through the hands of the great and abominable church and then "across the many waters" with the escaped Gentiles. The pathway the book travels causes the loss of "many plain and precious things" (1 Nephi 13:28), things that would seem primarily to concern the "many covenants of the Lord" (1 Nephi 13:26). The result is that the New World Gentiles "stumble, yea, insomuch that Satan hath great power over them" (1 Nephi 13:29). But because of a covenant that has been subtracted from the book they carry, these very Gentiles will receive "the plain and most precious parts of the gospel of the Lamb which have been kept back by that abominable church" (1 Nephi 13:32).

This second telling of the story is quite clearly a recasting of the first telling in terms of 1 Nephi 11: the Old World war of all of Israel against the faithful twelve is what results in the formation of the corrupt church, and the truths of the covenant are taken from the book the apostles had passed along to the Gentiles. The reception of the book among "the house of Israel" scattered all about the New World (1 Nephi 13:33) is entirely a question of the covenants made in the Old World.

But so soon as this second telling of the story comes to its close, the same story is told all over again, but now inflected by the story of the New World as told in 1 Nephi 12. That is, as 1 Nephi 13:21-33 is a retelling of 1 Nephi 13:1-20 in terms of 1 Nephi 11, 1 Nephi 13:34-42 is a retelling of 1 Nephi 13:1-20 in terms of 1 Nephi 12. And if the second telling of the story, inflected by 1 Nephi 11, tells the story of the Old World book (namely, the Bible), then the third telling of the story, inflected by 1 Nephi 12, should tell the story of the New World book (namely, the Book of Mormon). And that is precisely what one finds in 1 Nephi 13:34-42.

The destruction of the Nephites is recounted briefly, but this time it is a question of something being left behind, "these things," as the angel calls them (or as Nephi inserts into the angel's diction), that are "hid up, to come forth unto the Gentiles, by the gift and power of the Lamb" (1 Nephi 13:35). Nephi's small paltes, along with "other books," then come forth "unto the convincing of the Gentiles and the remnant of the seed of [the Lamanites], and also the Jews who were scattered upon all the face of the earth, that the records of the prophets and of the twelve apostles of the Lamb are true" (1 Nephi 13:39). This results in the construction of an almost eschatological unity: "for there is one God and one Shepherd over all the earth" (1 Nephi 13:41).

One story, three tellings: the In-Between World joins the Old and New Worlds into a single history by making that history the intertwining of two scriptural texts. And this then hands the reader over to 1 Nephi 14.

Much of chapter 14 is relatively straightforward. Drawing on chapter 13's introduction of the Gentiles into the story, chapter 14 lays out a sharp dichotomy that faces that singular group: they can "hard not their hearts" (1 Nephi 14:2), or they can "harden their hearts" (1 Nephi 14:6). Twice the text goes on the highlight the sharp distinction: it is "a work which shall be everlasting, either on the one hand or on the other" (1 Nephi 14:7); and it will result in there being "save two churches only; the one is the church of the Lamb of God, and the other is the church of the devil" (1 Nephi 14:10). This dichotomy itself then leads to confrontation: "the great mother of abominations did gather together multitudes upon the face of all the earth, among all the nations of the Gentiles, to fight against the Lamb of God" (1 Nephi 14:13). But eventually, "the wrath of God is poured out upon the mother of harlots," such that "the way" is prepared "for the fulfilling of [the Father's] covenants, which he hath made to his people who are of the house of Israel" (1 Nephi 14:17).

Interestingly, it is precisely as this mention of the covenant's fulfillment is introduced that the vision comes to a rather sudden close, or rather takes a rather sudden turn. Nephi is commanded to look, and he is shown the Revelator, "one of the twelve apostles of the Lamb" (1 Nephi 14:20). The remainder of the chapter is a kind of rehearsal of all that had been explained in chapter 13: John writes Nephi's vision "in the book which [Nephi] beheld proceeding out of the mouth of the Jew," things which had originally been "plain and pure, and most precious and easy to the understanding of all men" (1 Nephi 14:23). And this connection between Nephi's vision and the Apocalypse is of signal importance for the meaning of the entirety of the text under consideration here. Nephi's vision is not to be written in its entirety, but that is perhaps because "these things" are primarily to point the way back to the "book" that came forth from the Jews. That is, Nephi's vision is to send us back to the Book of Revelation.

With that, things wrap up, and Nephi is left to discuss the whole situation with his brothers, who characteristically have not sought out the revelation Nephi has dared to seek. And thus, more or less, this part of the story comes to an end.

The two visionary sequences of 1 Nephi 8-10 and 1 Nephi 11-15 together pave the way from the initial introduction and clarification of the Lehitic covenant in 1 Nephi 1-7 to the actual journey to the promised land in 1 Nephi 16-18. And what has it added? At least this: the Lehitic covenant is now given to fit within the broader Abrahamic covenant, the covenant made by the Father to Israel. And how does that fitting-into work? Quite simply: one book points to another, intertwines itself with another, and so clarifies the covenantal purposes of that other, fundamental text. The Book of Mormon, with its eminently covenantal purposes, is given to the Gentiles precisely to clarify the meaning of the Bible that they themselves carry about: the "book of the Jews" is a book about covenant, but about a covenant that cannot be understood without the Book of Mormon that must be taken to the (still scattered) Lamanites.

With that understanding, the story can go on.

1 Nephi 8-10

Once everything seems to be in place for the fulfillment of the promises given to Nephi in 1 Nephi 2, the narrative turns to a second series of visions. Chapters 8-10 describe the experiences and teachings of Lehi, and chapters 11-15 describe the experiences and teachings of Nephi. Again there is a profound emphasis on the intertwining of father and son through these revelatory experiences.

1 Nephi 8 is, of course, one of the most famous texts in the Book of Mormon: Lehi's dream of the tree of life. Even so, I would venture to suggest that there is a good deal more to say about it--especially about its relationship to what Lehi teaches in 1 Nephi 10--than what has thus far been said about it. Nothing less than the invention of Nephite Christology, paired with the introduction of what will become the most persistent image in the Book of Mormon (the tree of life), is at work in 1 Nephi 8-10. And, of course, these chapters need to be reexamined in light of the covenantal themes articulated (but too easily ignored) in 1 Nephi 1-7.

Familiar though Latter-day Saints generally are with the overall "picture" of what Lehi sees in his dream--it is easy enough, that is, to incorporate all of the elements of the dream into a single drawing or painting--there is reason to question the very desire to make a picture out of Lehi's experience: not only Lehi's experience but his very description of the experience is saturated by a genuine temporality. In other words, Lehi's dream unfolds as a series of sequential events; it does not come to him as a kind of static picture. This is, it seems to me, absolutely vital for making sense of the whole thing.

He begins, of course, by seeing, as if from afar, "a dark and dreary wilderness" (1 Nephi 8:4). As in his earlier vision, he is then confronted by "a man . . . dressed in a white robe" who "came and stood before [him]" (1 Nephi 8:5; cf. 1 Nephi 1:11). Again the visiting figure bids Lehi to do something, but now it is to follow rather than to read. Because of the obvious similarities between Lehi's earlier visionary experience and this dream at first, this distinction marks an important difference: it would almost seem as if, whereas Lehi was in his first dream given to reside high in the mountains and so away from the dark recesses visited by the twelve who "went forth upon the face of the earth" (1 Nephi 1:11), now he is summoned from the heights right down into the dark and dreary world. The shift from the position of spectator ("I saw in my dream, a dark and dreary wilderness") in verse 4 to the position of actual participant ("I beheld myself that I was in a dark and dreary waste") in verse 7 cannot be missed.

Lehi goes on traveling--though it is unclear whether the messenger remains his guide or whether he simply wanders on his own at this point--until he despairs and so begins "to pray unto the Lord that he would have mercy on me, according to the multitude of his tender mercies" (1 Nephi 8:8; cf. 1 Nephi 1:20). The immediate result is that a light comes on: "I beheld a large and spacious field. And it came to pass that I beheld a tree, whose fruit was desirable to make one happy" (1 Nephi 8:9-10). The imagery of this whole scene, as Hugh Nibley pointed out long ago, is that of a wanderer in the desert: Lehi seems to have been, in his dream, traveling through a dust storm, and just when he begins to wonder whether he will survive for his hunger and thirst, his prayer results in the storm's abeyance and the appearance of a tree--the sign of an oasis.

Lehi of course rushes forward to try the fruit, which he describes as "most sweet, above all that I ever before tasted. Yea, and I beheld that the fruit thereof was white, to exceed all the whiteness that I had ever seen . . . . [I]t was desirable above all other fruit" (1 Nephi 8:11-12). Struck by the experience, Lehi famously looks for his family, and it is only then that the scene begins to be complicated. Indeed, one must notice that up until this point, there has been nothing to the dream except the darkness, the sudden light, and the tree: Lehi was so taken up by the possibility of finding salvation from the storm, that he seems not to have noticed anything else around him.

Now, however, he sees "a river of water," which "ran along, and it was near the tree of which I was partaking the fruit" (1 Nephi 8:13). He recognizes only now that he indeed stands at an oasis. The source of the images in Lehi's dream, at this point, should be relatively obvious: the entire dream is a reflection of the experience he is himself already actually going through: he had been wandering through the desert, praying for his people, when he saw the fire/light on the rock, and he had, through that first vision and its aftermath, discovered the tree of life--the truth of the coming of a Messiah (though he will seem, as will be seen below, to have understood little about what that coming meant as yet). More strikingly still, he has recently had to flee through the desert to an oasis very like--if not identical to--the one he is seeing in his dream: the tree and river Lehi comes to in his dream may well be a visionary reflection of the very place at which he has set up camp in real life, at a distance from the dangerous wilderness that is sixth-century B.C. Jerusalem. This will prove helpful further along.

It isn't long before Lehi sees Sariah, Sam, and Nephi, and he summons them to the tree in the wilderness as well, away from the lures of Jerusalem. Though they come "and partake of the fruit also" (1 Nephi 8: 16), Laman and Lemuel, spotted a moment later, "would not come unto [Lehi] and partake of the fruit" (1 Nephi 8:18). The situation, again, is exactly what Lehi's family has been experiencing: though Sariah, Sam, and Nephi all come out into the wilderness to dwell at the oasis Lehi has called the valley of Lemuel, Laman and Lemuel have on several occasions refused to come, and a good Freudian would interpret Lehi's dream as being haunted by the fear (or perhaps the desire) that Laman and Lemuel will eventually desert the family and return to the doomed city. Again: it must not be missed that the dream seems to be a kind of symbolic recasting of the situation Lehi's family is experiencing at the very time.

The scene remains, up to this point in Lehi's experience, still relatively simple: there is only the tree and the river on the one hand, and the desert stretching out towards Jerusalem on the other, and the various members of Lehi's family find their several places somewhere on that simple stage. But so soon as Laman and Lemuel refuse to come to the desert oasis, Lehi's vision suddenly expands: "And I beheld a rod of iron, and it extended along the bank of the river, and led to the tree by which I stood" (1 Nephi 8:19). Note that this rod does not appear to Lehi at all until Laman and Lemuel decide not to come to Lehi's family gathered around the tree: it seems to have been uncovered only when Lehi began to wonder how it was possible to get his two rebellious sons to join him in the valley of Lemuel.

The rod is an interesting image. Hugh Nibley mentions in one of his lectures on the Book of Mormon that some traditions claimed that there had been an iron rod leading up to the Jerusalem temple, such that those who would go to the temple had to cling to the rod of iron all the way up the temple mount. Interesting and promising though this is, it must be recognized that, if there is a reference to this tradition here, Lehi's dream effectively reverses it: the rod leads not to the temple, but indeed away from it into the desert, away from Jerusalem and the temple that Jeremiah was busy telling the people was to be destroyed any day.

It is only after Lehi sees this rod that he notices the "strait and narrow path, which came along by the rod of iron, even to the tree by which I stood" (1 Nephi 8:20). The implication seems to be that the path derives from the rod rather than the rod from the path: it is not that there is a single path that leads to the tree, but that those who would get to the tree must hold to the rod, and their many footsteps eventually wear a path into the ground alongside the rod. (The implications of this subtle point for our "application-oriented" readings of the tree of life dream are important, it seems to me: the emphasis is on the rod, not the path.) And, so soon as Lehi sees the well-worn path, he glimpses the multitudes of people.

It is fascinating that it is only at this point, only when Lehi sees how worn the ground is along the rod, that he begins to notice the enormous multitudes of people. Up until this point, his vision has been entirely focused on his own family, but now his perspective is forcibly shifted: the oasis that Lehi had taken at first as a kind of personalized have now becomes the only place that the people in Jerusalem can look to for safety, and they begin to flee the city in droves. Lehi sees them separated into categories that he witnesses in succession.

The first is described, curiously enough, in the language of Lehi's earlier visions: he sees "numberless concourses of people" (1 Nephi 8:21; cf. 1 Nephi 1:8) who are looking for the well-worn path that leads to the tree and away from the doomed city. But because they look for the path rather than the rod, they are lost in the "mist of darkness" that suddenly engulfs them (1 Nephi 8:23). Again the emphasis is on the rod: it is not the path by the rod that leads to the tree.

So Lehi sees a second group, this one "press[ing] forward through the mist of darkness, clinging to the rod of iron, even until they did come forth and partake of the fruit of the tree" (1 Nephi 8:24). This group--reduced from the "numberless concourses" (who, one can guess, flee from Jerusalem as the Babylonians enter it to destroy the temple) to the smaller-sounding title "others"--do arrive at the oasis and partake of the fruit, but then they suddenly begin to "cast their eyes about as if they were ashamed" (1 Nephi 8:25). This odd scene forces Lehi's eyes open a little wider: "And I also cast my eyes round about, and beheld, on the other side of the river of water, a great and spacious building; and it stood as it were in the air, high above the earth" (1 Nephi 8:26, emphasis added). This curious building deserves careful attention.

Hugh Nibley, of course, compared this building with the enormous towers built in the desert cities of Arabia, with which Lehi might well have been familiar. But given the relatively local meaning of the dream that seems quite obvious to me, there seems to be a much simpler interpretation: the great and spacious building is the temple. Just as Jeremiah was at this very time telling the people of Jerusalem to put no trust in the merely physical building that was the temple, Lehi here offers his prophetic critique of those who too easily misunderstand the meaning of the temple in Israelite religion. Mocking those who come out into the desert to hide at the oasis are the rich who put all of their trust in a long-since apostate religious establishment. Lehi and his family too face their scorn--and Laman and Lemuel's decision to stay in Jerusalem may well tell us their own relationship to the religious traditions against which Jeremiah railed.

At any rate, the situation seems relatively clear: what is the fruit of a tree at a tiny oasis in the desert to the great feasts of the holy days at the temple? The wealthy who point their fingers merely emphasize the undeniable weakness of a single--though deliciously arrayed--tree in the desert. And so it is that many who come to the tree find themselves ashamed, unwilling to bear the weakness of the truth, and they soon "fell away into forbidden paths and were lost" (1 Nephi 8:28).

Lehi goes on to describe a third and final group to his family, but Nephi here suddenly interrupts to announce that he will only summarize the remainder of the dream or vision: "And now I, Nephi, do not speak all the words of my father" (1 Nephi 8:29). Whatever follows in the last few verses of the chapter must be taken as heavily abridged. Why? And this question is doubly important given the textual complexities of the relationship between the last few verses in this chapter and what Lehi goes on to say in chapter 10--all of this being split in the middle by a full chapter's aside in 1 Nephi 9. What is going on here?

First, regarding the obviously truncated remainder of 1 Nephi 8: (1) Nephi summarily describes two kinds of "other multitudes," some pressing through to the tree and remaining there, others "feeling their way towards that great and spacious building" (1 Nephi 8:30-34); (2) Nephi turns back from this overarching summary of the two extremes (those who joyfully partake of the fruit and those who "joyfully" head towards the building) to the question of Laman and Lemuel: "And Laman and Lemuel partook not of the fruit, said my father. And . . . he said unto us, because of these things which he saw in a vision, he exceedingly feared for Laman and Lemuel . . . . And he did exhort them then with all the feeling of a tender parent . . . , yea, my father did preach unto them. And after he had preached unto them, and also prophesied unto them of many things, he bade them to keep the commandments of the Lord; and he did cease speaking unto them" (1 Nephi 8:35-38).

This truncation of the remainder of the experience is fascinating. First, Nephi only begins to abridge what he's writing when he gets to this point, that is, only after he has described in some detail the first two "types" of people and as he comes to the point of describing the second two "types." This seems, of course, backwards: it would seem that Nephi describes in some detail the two "types" of lesser importance but then ends up summarizing the two important extremes, the joyfully righteous and the betrayers. Second, even as what would seem to be the most important part of the dream is thus shortened down and moved through rather quickly, Nephi turns the whole event back to the apparently central question of Lehi's relation to Laman and Lemuel. Everything else Lehi might have said on the occasion is completely elided, except in that it is described narratively in the last few verses of the chapter.

This return to Laman and Lemuel is perhaps particularly fascinating because it tells us something of the way Nephi sees Lehi understanding the whole experience: for Nephi's Lehi, the dream is a question from the first and definitely at the last of where Laman and Lemuel fit into the experience of escaping the wrath coming to Jerusalem. The concern Nephi attributes to Lehi at the end of verse 36 is, so far as this goes, perhaps the most important line in this last part of the text: "yea, he feared lest they [Laman and Lemuel] should be cast off from the presence of the Lord." It must be noticed that this phrase makes this whole experience a question, rather suddenly, of the Lehitic covenant: precisely as had been said to Nephi in 1 Nephi 2, Laman and Lemuel, if they rebel against the commandments (these being in turn nicely mentioned as part of Lehi's admonition in verse 38), are to be cut off from the presence of the Lord.

What this means is that Nephi's truncation of the last part of the dream-telling experience makes a fascinating weave of two apparently disparate ideas in the text to this point: on the one hand, it emphasizes that the entire experience of the dream as Lehi understood was a question of Laman and Lemuel's relationship to Jerusalem and its doom; but on the other hand, Nephi's way of stripping the final part of the dream from the linguistic command of Lehi (that is, because Nephi is not quoting) allows him to intertwine this apparently local concern on the part of Lehi with the much broader or even more global concern of the Lehitic covenant as Nephi understood it. In other words, what Lehi seems best interpreted as having understood as a question entirely of his immediate family and its loyalty to the words being delivered to him, Nephi is able narratively to begin to turn into a question of something like world history.

In a word, Nephi's way of summarizing the end of the dream-telling experience ultimately works out a kind of anticipatory transition to what Nephi will describe in 1 Nephi 11-15, his own experience of Lehi's vision(s) in a much broader interpretive context (Lehi's local concern becomes Nephi's global apocalypse). What of chapters 9-10, then, if Nephi seems already to be moving beyond Lehi's local interpretation of the dream of the tree of life and so towards his own subsequent experience (in chapters 11-15)? Actually, it is vital to sort out the effect of this truncation because Nephi will do something very similar all over again in chapter 10: there is an essentially parallel relationship that obtains between chapters 8 and 10. This calls for a bit of comment.

1 Nephi 8 tells, as it were, the entire story of the dream-telling experience: Lehi gives his preface to the dream at the beginning of the chapter; his words are quoted at length; and Nephi gives a summary of the remainder of the event, even concluding with "and he did cease speaking unto them" (1 Nephi 8:38). But, oddly, 1 Nephi 10, reopens the account: "For behold, it came to pass after my father had made an end of speaking the words of his dream, and also of exhorting them to all diligence, he spake unto them concerning the Jews" (1 Nephi 10:2). And what follows through most of the chapter is another summary treatment of Lehi's teachings on the occasion, which I will discuss below in some detail. And Nephi again closes up his account of Lehi's teachings as if he had told the whole story: "And after this manner of language did my father prophesy and speak unto my brethren" (1 Nephi 10:15).

What one finds in 1 Nephi 8-10, then, is something like a set of two accounts of the very same event: first, an account of Lehi's preaching to Laman and Lemuel that gives all the weight to the dream of the tree of life, and second, an account of Lehi's preaching to Laman and Lemuel that gives all the weight to another tree, "an olive-tree, whose branches should be broken off and should be scattered upon all the face of the earth" (1 Nephi 10:12). Two accounts of the event, and two trees. If one didn't know better, one might begin to construct a kind of "documentary hypothesis" here: it is almost as if Nephi brings two completely different sources together here, reporting the same event in two radically different ways, each account drawing on the central image of a tree, but in each instance in a totally different sense (the tree of life; the olive tree).

Actually, such a documentary hypothesis is entirely called for: what interrupts the flow between the two accounts is not only Nephi's wrapping things up at the end of chapter 8 and his reopening of the question at the beginning of chapter 10, but also the very existence of chapter 9, which is about nothing other than the fact that Nephi is drawing from two sources (his father's record on the one hand, and his own large plates on the other, this distinction between the small and the large plates only being introduced in this intervening chapter for the first time). The tension between these two sources is emphatic in the text itself: Nephi begins his truncation at the end of chapter 8 by announcing that he has been drawing that chapter from his father's record ("And now I, Nephi, do not speak all the words of my father," he says in 1 Nephi 8:29); and he opens chapter 10 by announcing that he is now turning to his own record ("wherefore, to proceed with mine account, I must speak somewhat of the things of my father, and also of my brethren," he says in 1 Nephi 10:1).

The entire sequence of 1 Nephi 8-10, then, would seem to be a kind of juxtaposition of two very different takes on the same experience: the one (chapter 8) is primarily that of Lehi, an entirely local interpretation of what had been revealed, truncated so as to maintain that entirely local emphasis; the other (chapter 10) is primarily that of Nephi, a much more global interpretation (that I will still discuss in detail below) paves the way to Nephi's own apocalyptic vision of 1 Nephi 11-15; and these two split by an explanation of where the two sources for these juxtaposed accounts come from (chapter 9).

All of this, at last, might make it possible to approach the actual content of chapter 10.

As I read it, 1 Nephi 10 is essentially the introduction of Book of Mormon Christology. Though the Messiah is mentioned in 1 Nephi 1 just briefly, nothing very much is said there about Him: His "coming" is connected in some way with "the redemption of the world" (1 Nephi 1:19), but nothing too much more seems derivable from what is said in that chapter. Here, however, not only is the Messiah mentioned, but something of a preliminary theology of the Messiah is worked out.

The difficulty, of course, is sorting out where Lehi's Christology leaves off and Nephi's Christology begins: while chapter 8 at least claims to quote Lehi's words quite directly for most of its content, chapter 10 seems to be entirely in the voice of the narrator, and Lehi is never quoted directly. The result: it is never entirely clear whether what one reads should be traced back to Lehi's incipient Christolog, or whether it should be attributed to Nephi's subsequent (indeed: much later) theological systematization. That said, however, I will attempt to do some unraveling in what follows.

Verse 3 of 1 Nephi 10 opens the question by providing the context within which the Messiah will be understood: the destruction, captivity, and return of the Jews. The way it is phrased in the text is important: "after they should be destroyed, even that great city Jerusalem, and many be carried away captive into Babylon, according to the own due time of the Lord, they should return again, yea, even be brought back out of captivity; and after they should be brought back out of captivity they should possess again the land of their inheritance" (1 Nephi 10:3). Several things to note: (1) the way the sentence is structured (with its "after . . .") places the entire focus of the teaching on the return; (2) the return, so soon as it is mentioned, is restructed in the passive voice: "yea, even be brought back," etc.; (3) the return cannot be disentangled from the importance of the Abrahamic tie to "the land of their inheritance." Taken together, these three points suggest that the thrust of this contextualizing introduction to the incipient Nephite Christology is that the something or someone will intervene to bring about the fulfillment of earlier covenants.

The next verse introduces the figure of intervention: "Yea, even six hundred years from the time that my father left Jerusalem, a prophet would the Lord God raise up among the Jews--even a Messiah, or, in other words, a Savior of the world" (1 Nephi 10:4). Though this verse is generally read as a straightforwardly correct prophecy of the coming of the Jesus Christ, the context as analyzed above suggests that there is a bit more to the story than just that. Given that verse 3 opens up the question of a specific intervention that results in a return from captivity and a restoration of the ancient covenant, verse 4 would seem to suggest that it is the arrived and present Messiah who brings about that return and restoration: Lehi would seem to have taught, according to Nephi, that the Messiah would come six hundred years after the prophecy in order to bring the Jews out of captivity in Babylon. To be clear: Lehi does not seem to see the Jews as returning from Babylon during the sixth century, but at what we now call the meridian of time; the Messiah's task seems to have been, at least for Lehi, to come specifically to bring the Jews out of their captivity.

In some sense, this is a very Jewish point of view: the Messianic expectations of the several centuries before Christ were very similar, though Babylon was by then an ancient question. The Jews who anticipated the arrival of a Messiah generally looked for a Messiah who would deliver them from Rome and hence who would redeem the land and the covenant on their behalf. Lehi seems, according to Nephi, to have seen things in a similar way, though he makes no mention whatsoever of Rome, only of Babylon.

Now, if this is indeed what Lehi was teaching, we have to recognize that he didn't have all the details, that his understanding of what was coming was, quite frankly, somewhat flawed. This should not, of course, be understood in any condemnatory sense: it is not that Lehi was saying anything wrong, apostate, or corrupt. Rather, it simply appears that Lehi had only a few details revealed to him in his reading of the heavenly book (in 1 Nephi 1) and that he is here trying to sort out the nature of the Messiah's coming. For his part, he seems unable as yet to separate it from the Babylonian exile and a return to the land in fulfillment of the Abrahamic covenant.

Moreover, if this is right, it would seem that Lehi understood the Messiah to be a relatively human figure: the Messiah would, as the Anointed One ("Messiah" is a Hebrew word meaning "the Anointed One"), be a king and/or priest who would come to solve the problems of the Jews. As Lehi is reported here as having taught it, the Messiah would be "raise[d] up among the Jews," a phrase that would seem to imply that He need not be understood to be any kind of a divine figure, but simply a chosen Jew, etc.

But if things seem so traditionally Jewish, the very next verse begins to complicate things: there the text reports Lehi as having run through the prophets who testified of these same things, that is, of "this Messiah, of whom he had spoken, or this Redeemer of the world" (1 Nephi 10:5). It is this last phrase that is so important here: the Messiah is suddenly recast as being not primarily a Jewish figure, but rather the "Redeemer of the world," a global figure of intervention. The difficulty, of course, as mentioned before, is figuring out where Lehi's teachings end and Nephi's begin: could it be that the "or" that introduces the final phrase indicates Nephi's editorial intervention here? That is, might it be that Lehi's Messiah was a relatively earthly figure, a redeemer merely of the Jews, and Nephi, in writing up his summary of the occasion, begins to introduce his own subsequent Christological insights into Lehi's discussion? On the one hand, the relatively limited scope of verses 3-4 would seem to suggest that this is the case. On the other hand, though, the phrase "Redeemer of the world" very much echoes what Nephi attributes to Lehi back in chapter 1: Lehi had seen and read concerning not only the coming of a Messiah, but also concerning the redemption of the world.

But then, can the redemption of the world not be understood in a similarly local sense? That is, there is in the prophets--indeed, in the very chapters of Isaiah that Nephi will suggest Lehi quoted a few verses later--a persistent idea that the redemption of the Jews in their return from Babylon will have a profound effect on all the nations, and the fulfillment of the Abrahamic covenant through the reinheritance of the land will also imply the blessing of all the families or tribes of the entire world. That is, even the mention of the redemption of the world, whether in 1 Nephi 1 or in 1 Nephi 10, need not be taken as suggesting anything like Nephi's subsequent Christological systematizations: it is enough for the return of the Jews from Babylon to have important global effects.

This would mean that verse 6 could be read within the context of the return from exile as well: "Wherefore, all mankind were in a lost and in a fallen state, and ever would be save they should rely on this Redeemer." The Redeemer's redemption of Israel would in turn open the way for the redemption of all mankind through the relationships discussed in Isaiah 40-55 (the Gentiles would be saved through their own fidelity to the Redeemer's intervention, etc.). It might be said, in the end, that all of what Lehi has to say remains profoundly Jewish.

So soon as this Messiah is thus introduced, Nephi reports Lehi as having turned to the question of the Messiah's forerunner. And here the question of Isaiah 40-55 becomes quite important. The forerunner is described in the language of the very first verses of Isaiah 40: "Yea, even he should go forth and cry in the wilderness: Prepare ye the way of the Lord, and make his paths straight" (1 Nephi 10:8). But the language is, of course, just as much an echo of the gospels, which draw on the same text: "for there standeth one among you whom ye know not; and he is mightier than I, whose shoe's latchet I am not worthy to unloose" (1 Nephi 10:8).

That the following verse goes on to mention "Bethabara, beyond Jordan" (1 Nephi 10:9) is significant: it would seem on the one hand to draw on the language of the New Testament rather directly; but on the other it would seem to provide a significant clarification of the themes discussed above. A significant clarification: the forerunner is cast here as baptizing "beyond Jordan," almost as if he were standing at the gateway into the land to which the exiles are returning, baptizing them as they come. Again it seems relatively difficult to disentangle Lehi's teachings (as Nephi reports them) from what might be called a relatively traditional Jewish understanding of the Messiah. This baptist figure, interestingly, then baptizes the Messiah Himself in verse 10.

But if all of the above can be taken as a relatively Jewish-sounding prophecy, what opens in verse 11 perhaps cannot: here the Messiah is killed by the Jews, and He then rises from the dead, while the gospel is preached to the Gentiles and the Messiah manifests Himself to them by the Holy Ghost. One wonders, though, whether it isn't Nephi's voice rather than Lehi's that predominates here, especially because verse 12 goes on to suggest that Lehi's emphasis was on the Gentiles rather than on the events of the Messiah's death and resurrection. Again, though, it is too difficult to make these kinds of decisions, at least as yet.

Regardless of whose ideas are reflected in verse 11, the story that begins to be told with verse 12 is one that must be taken as parallel to the story of 1 Nephi 8: there is here a story about a tree, specifically an olive tree. Its branches are "scattered upon all the face of the earth" (1 Nephi 10:13) eventually to be "gathered together again" (1 Nephi 10:14), all of this being a question of the story of the Gentiles. The details are hardly worked out in any overarchingly significant way in this chapter (and they receive heavy emphasis, of course, in Jacob 5), but it is worth noting that there are two specific trees to be reckoned with in Lehi's teachings to Laman and Lemuel on this occasion.

When all of this wraps up about verse 16 or so, Nephi is left with the mystery of the two trees, and so that last six verses make a marvelous transition from Lehi's experiences to Nephi's subsequent experiences in 1 Nephi 11-15. Whatever Christology can be read into the story that Lehi had to tell, it will be worked out in much greater detail in Nephi's own visionary experience. The transition (1 Nephi 10:17-22) deserves a good deal of attention, but I will only summarize it here by pointing ot its transitional purpose. Attention, so far as the unraveling of the covenant goes, must be turned from Lehi's two trees in 1 Nephi 8-10 to Nephi's two trees in 1 Nephi 11-15.

1 Nephi 1-7

So much ought to be said about the first three verses of 1 Nephi 1 alone--or perhaps of those three verses in relation to the italicized (and ancient!) heading that opens the whole of 1 Nephi. But it seems to me that it would be best to return to deal with them from the perspective offered by the first verses of 1 Nephi 19, so I will postpone all discussion of the non-narrative introductory material until then. For now, I will deal only with the narrative that occupies Nephi's attention in the course of his first seven chapters.

A way of sorting out the basic structure to pave the way towards discussion:

1. 1 Nephi 1-2: Two sets of two visions (Lehi's two visions in 1 Nephi 1; Nephi's two visions in 1 Nephi 2), culminating in the establishment of the Lehitic covenant


2. 1 Nephi 3-6: The first of two "loose ends" concerning the covenant is tied up (the question of "commandments")


3. 1 Nephi 7: The second of two "loose ends" concerning the covenant is tied up (the question of "seed")

There is, in short, a rather straightforward narrative made up by these seven chapters: it is, through and through, a question of what I will call the "Lehitic" covenant, first of its reception, and then of sorting out necessary details so that its fulfillment becomes possible.

First, then: the visions.

The two visions Lehi has in chapter 1 are perhaps quite familiar: Lehi is out "pray[ing] unto the Lord . . . in behalf of his people" (1 Nephi 1:5), who are torn by the political complexities of the Babylonian-Egyptian conflict, when he suddenly encounters "a pillar of fire" that comes down ont "a rock before him" (1 Nephi 1:6). The experience seems to have been overwhelming, whatever its noetic content, and so he rushes home to "cast himself upon his bed" (1 Nephi 1:7), only to be "carried away in a vision" to some viewpoint from which "he thought he saw God sitting upon his throne, surrounded with numberless concourses of angels in the attitude of singing and praising their God" (1 Nephi 1:8).

This striking scene, the opening of Lehi's second vision, is--as has been pointed out by many LDS scholars--a relatively conventional prophetic scene: the prophet is given to witness the proceedings of the council in heaven, hearing the song of the angels who are gathered about the throne of God. (Nephi will in fact go on to copy into his small plates--in 2 Nephi 16=Isaiah 6--the account of Isaiah's similar vision.) But this scene will prove to be absolutely vital to the meaning and structure of Nephi's record as a whole: Nephi will return to this imagery when he comes to the conclusion of the second "volume" of his contribution to the small plates, that is, in 2 Nephi 31-33. This will have to be, however, dealt with only in time, though every detail of the vision--even of what is still to be discussed here--will prove to be vital to Nephi's later teachings.

The vision continues: thirteen different figures descend out of the council, twelve moving off into the world and "One" (note the capital "O") coming to Lehi to "g[i]ve him a book" that he bidden to read (1 Nephi 1:11). This too is a relatively common theme in scripture and the broader prophetic tradition: not only is the prophet privy to the goings on of the heavenly council, but he has the opportunity to read or to hear read the actual contents of the heavenly book of life (cf. Revelation 4-5, for example), something like a transcript of those proceedings, but a transcript that is generally kept sealed and so made unavailable to those outside. Lehi's being qualified to read the book, then, should probably be understood as a kind of initiation or ritual of inclusion (much like Isaiah's receiving the white stone that is pressed to his lips, etc.): Lehi is being, as it were, drawn into the council itself. This is signaled rather straightforwardly by verses 14-15. Lehi suddenly finds himself "praising . . . his God" with words that clearly echo verse 8: "Great and marvelous are they works, O Lord God Almighty! Thy throne is high in the heavens, and thy power, and goodness, and mercy are over all the inhabitants of the earth!" Lehi would seem to have been made into an angel, as it were, to have experienced apotheosis.

So soon as Nephi gets to this point in his narrative, he begins to clarify that this record is not primarily about his father, though he would seem already to be getting carried away with reporting his father's experiences. Rather, though, he says: "he [Lehi] hath written many things which he saw in visions and in dreams; and he also hath written many things which he prophesied and spake unto his children, of which I shall not make a full account. But I shall make an account of my proceedings in my days" (1 Nephi 1:16-17). Nephi's point, as I understand him, is to make it clear that he has not selected to recount these two visions (of the fire on the rock and of the council and the book) without good reason: they have something to do with his own story, which is his primary--perhaps his only--concern. In short, these two visions are only related in the narrative because they cannot be disentangled from Nephi's own experience.

There is, of course, an obvious way in which this is the case: these two visions, taken together, result in death threats and other difficulties in Jerusalem (notice: it is specifically Lehi's mention of "a Messiah," according to verse 19, that leads to the most serious threats), which leads by the first verses of chapter 2 to an exodus of the entire family into the desert. But, given the way that Nephi recounts most of chapter 2, this is only half--or even less than half--of the story. The two visions result in familial crisis, one that will come to dominate the entirety of the book Mormon and Moroni eventually put together. It is this story, as Nephi introduces it in chapter 2, that is grounded in the curious theme of what I am calling the Lehitic covenant.

The way Nephi tells this story is rather interesting: he begins with only three characters, namely, Lehi, Laman, and Lemuel. The latter two are introduced specifically through Lehi's poetic admonitions, only after which Nephi mentions "the stiffneckedness of Laman and Lemuel" (1 Nephi 2:11). Nephi gives their reasons, and then he describes something like a showdown, in which Lehi "speak[s] unto them in the valley of Lemuel, with power, being filled with the Spirit, until their frames did shake before him" (1 Nephi 2:14). This apparently impressive scene leads Nephi directly to his own visions: "And it came to pass that I, Nephi, being exceedingly young, nevertheless being large in stature, and also have great desires to know of the mysteries of God, wherefore I did cry unto the Lord; and behold he did visit me, and did soften my heart that I did believe all the words which had been spoken by my father; wherefore, I did not rebel against him like unto my brothers" (1 Nephi 2:16).

The rift begins with this first vision (or at least quasi-revelatory experience) of Nephi, but it is confirmed in the two verses that follow: "And I spake unto Sam . . . . And it came to pass that he believed in my words. But, behold, Laman and Lemuel would not hearken unto my words" (1 Nephi 2:17-18). And then this rift drives Nephi to his knees: "and being grieved because of the hardness of their hearts I cried unto the Lord for them" (1 Nephi 2:18). This prayer results in the second vision/revelatory experience for Nephi, one that is spelled out in much more detail than the first (just as was the case with Lehi's two visions: the first is described in an almost passing fashion, essentially just leading toward the second, which is then described in great detail). Moreover, it must be noticed that this second revelatory experience on Nephi's part is heavily involved in the rift; indeed, it amounts to a revelatory clarification of what the rift means. It is this revelation--which makes up the remaining six verses of the chapter--that I call the Lehitic covenant.

The revelation begins in a relatively straightforward fashion: "Blessed art thou, Nephi, because of thy faith, for thou hast sought me diligently, with lowliness of heart" (1 Nephi 2:19). But it quickly becomes rather complex: the next verse finds the Lord announcing "And inasmuch as ye shall keep my commandments, ye shall prosper, and shall be led to al and of promise; yea, even a land which I have prepared for you; yea, a land which is choice above all other lands" (1 Nephi 2:20). Familiar though the language of this verse appears (it makes up, of course, the veritable leitmotif of the entire Book of Mormon!), it must be recognized that it is actually rather complex, indeed, complex enough that the next five chapters of Nephi's narrative are really just a long double clarification of this verse alone (and the subsequent eight chapters are, in turn, another long double clarification of the overarching "cultural" meaning of this same verse, though that will have to be discussed in its proper place).

What does the promise say, then? First, it comes with an important condition: the covenant promises what it promises only "inasmuch as ye shall keep my commandments." It should be noted that the nature of these "commandments" is not at all clarified here. (1 Nephi 3-6 are given entirely to the clarification of these commandments.) But Nephi would not likely have raised much of a question about that: just as modern readers naturally assume that the commandments in question are quite simply "whatever God happens to command at any point," Nephi seems to have taken the condition of the covenant to be a kind of vague obedience. (Nephi only thinks to ask questions about what the commandments are in the subsequent narrative, interestingly.)

At any rate, given compliance with the commandments, the covenant promises "a land of promise" and prosperity along the way (later mentions of this promise, once the Lehites are in the promised land, of course make it a question of prosperity not on the way to but in the land). And that seems straightforward enough: the valley of Lemuel is, as Nephi recognizes (but Lehi does not: cf. 1 Nephi 5:5!), only a stopover on the way to something much bigger, something much more important.

But then the remainder of the verses that make up the covenant complicate this story greatly, returning to the theme of the familial rift: "And inasmuch as thy brethren shall rebel against thee, they shall be cut off from the presence of the Lord. And inasmuch as thou shall keep my commandments, thou shalt be made a ruler and a teacher over thy brethren. For behold, in that day that they [Nephi's brethren] shall rebel against me, I will curse them even with a sore curse, and they shall have no power over thy seed except they [Nephi's seed] shall rebel against me also. And if it so be that they [again: Nephi's seed] rebel against me, they [Nephi's brethren again, or now, presumably Laman and Lemuel's seed] shall be a scourge unto thy seed, to stir them up in the ways of remembrance" (1 Nephi 2:21-24).

The relations set up here between Nephi and his brothers is somewhat complex. First, it should be notice that all of the relations are predicated on the question of leaving the valley of Lemuel--and so, the city of Jerusalem--far behind: "ye . . . shall be led to a land of promise . . . . And inasmuch as thy brethren shall rebel against thee . . . ." The journey, it would seem, is to be what creates in the first place and determines the subsequent history of the split between what will eventually come to be called the Nephites and the Lamanites.

Second, and very importantly: this quickly becomes, then, a question not only of Nephi and his brothers, but of their seed. This must have sounded a bit strange to Nephi: not only has he just mentioned how young he was, but his family is hiding in the desert for their lives, and without the necessary marriages in place to propagate the seed spoken of in the covenant. That is, a second aspect of the covenant remains vague or as yet impossible: not only are the commandments referred to less than clear; the seed to be had is not yet a genuine possibility. (It will be 1 Nephi 7 that rectifies this situation.)

Third, finally, the actual relations that are established between the eventual Nephites and Lamanites deserve attention. Interestingly, while the Lamanites are cursed, the Nephites are not really blessed: only Nephi is given a specific blessing (of being "made a ruler and a teacher over [his] brethren"). Instead of being blessed, the Nephites are simply promised a kind of protection against the Lamanites so long as they are obedient. This protection, though, appears to be instrumental: the promise of protection is in place so that the Nephites can always identify why it is that the Lamanites have an ascendency, namely, because the Nephites have begun to rebel against God. The final phrase of the whole exchange between Nephi and the Lord is key: it is entirely a question of "the ways of remembrance," and the Lamanites are effectively a tool in the Lord's plan to ensure that remembrance takes place.

With that, the second of Nephi's two revelatory experiences here comes to an end. But the chapter break (between chapters 1 and 2) nonetheless does some violence to the flow of the narrative: one must not miss the fact that Nephi is on his way back from having this experience when he is confronting with the commandment to return to Jerusalem for the brass plates. The connection is vital, because, as Nephi tells the story, Lehi (1) mentions "commandments" (the importance of which had just been highlighted for Nephi) three times in his explanation and (2) frames the entire situation in terms of a split between Nephi and his rebellious brothers, Laman and Lemuel (the other major theme in the visionary experience Nephi had just had).

It is vital to note how Lehi, according to Nephi, employs the word "commandments" in his short discussion with Nephi in the first verses of chapter 3. First: "Behold I have dreamed a dream, in the which the Lord hath commanded me that thou and thy brethren shall return to Jerusalem" (1 Nephi 3:2, emphasis added). After explaining the existence of the record: "Wherefore, the Lord hath commanded me that thou and thy brothers should go unto the house of Laban, and seek the records" (1 Nephi 3:4, emphasis added). And finally: "And now, behold thy brothers murmur, saying it is a hard thing which I have required of them; but behold I have not required it of them, but it is a commandment of the Lord" (1 Nephi 3:5, emphasis added). Three times Lehi mentions "commandments," and that number itself is not without its own significance.

As if to highlight the point, as well as to demonstrate Nephi's being on the same wavelength as his father, we find that Nephi's response employs the same word three times: "And it came to pass that I, Nephi, said unto my father: I will go and do the things which the Lord hath commanded, for I know the Lord giveth no commandments unto the children of men, save he shall prepare a way for them that they may accomplish the thing which he commandeth them" (1 Nephi 3:7, emphases added). There is, here, a kind of matching up of father and son through the three mentions of the same key word (marked by the wording of verse 8: "And it came to pass that when my father had heard these words he was exceedingly glad, for he knew that I had been blessed of the Lord"). But there is also a kind of setting up of the story that is about to unfold: it is, from the very beginning, a question through and through of commandments.

This theme follows right through the story: the story of 1 Nephi 3-6, this first return to Jerusalem, is all about the meaning of the word "commandments" in the Lehitic covenant as given to Nephi in 1 Nephi 2.

Indeed, after the first failed attempt to retrieve the plates from Laban, when Nephi's brothers are about to return empty-handed to Lehi, Nephi says: "As the Lord liveth, and as we live, we will not go down unto our father int he wilderness until we have accomplished the thing which the Lord hath commanded us" (1 Nephi 3:15, emphasis added). In fact, he goes on: "Whrefore, let us be faithful in keeping the commandments of the Lord; therefore, let us go down to the land of our father's inheritance, for behold he left gold and silver, and all manner of riches. And all this he hath done because of the commandments of the Lord" (1 Nephi 3:16, emphases added). Note here that Nephi not only mentions the commandments a few more times in his words, but that he marks a kind of connection between himself and his father: Lehi left his riches behind because he was obedient to the commandments, and so we can use that to fulfill the commandments ourselves. He mentions the commandments twice more in the course of this short discourse: "Wherefore, if my father should dwell in the land after he hath been commanded to flee out of the land, behold, he would also perish" (1 Nephi 3:18, emphasis added); "And it came to pass that after this manner of language did I persuade my brethren, that they might be faithful in keeping the commandments of God" (1 Nephi 3:21, emphasis added).

Five times in the course of the brief transition from attempt number 1 to attempt number 2 Nephi mentions commandments. His fidelity to the commandments themselves is thus beyond question. But his understanding of what those commandments are is relatively immature as yet. He seems, quite naturally, to understand the commandments to refer to whatever his father announces in the name of the Lord: as his father had used "commandments" three times in his commission to return to Jerusalem, Nephi assumes through most of this discussion that the word has reference to the mandate to get the plates. But, as will become clear, this is only a preliminary understanding, and it has to be superseded.

The familiar story continues: the second attempt to obtain the plates (this time through trade) fails as well, and Lehi's sons find themselves hiding in a cave, quarreling. The fight is broken up by the appearance of an angel who lets Laman and Lemuel in on the nature of the Lehitic covenant, at least in a preliminary way. But Nephi sees this is opening up a space for him to take up his consistently favorite theme: "Let us go up again unto Jerusalem, and let us be faithful in keeping the commandments of the Lord" (1 Nephi 4:1, emphasis added). This time he only mentions it once, using the rhetorical force of the Moses-and-the-Red-Sea comparison to some effect. The result, of course, is that Nephi finds himself on his way into the city alone at night, wandering by the Spirit, while his brothers hide outside the city walls.

Nephi soon stumbles onto Laban, drunk and asleep, in the street. He busies himself admiring Laban's sword (some have suggested that this, along with a few other details in Nephi's record, suggests that Nephi's was an apprentice to a metal-worker), but then finds himself "constrained" by the Spirit to kill Laban (1 Nephi 4:10). Nephi's choice of words here is vital: he does not say that he was commanded, but constrained. That the injunction came to him--at least as he describes it--as less than a full-blown commandment is significant: it gives him the opportunity to open up a conversation with the Spirit, through which he will come to a far different understanding of the commandments than he has maintained up until this point.

The conversation is indeed fascinating. Nephi describes the Spirit's response to his initial refusal to kill Laban thus: "Behold the Lord hath delivered him into thy hands" (1 Nephi 4:11). Scholars have pointed out that this language is an echo of the Mosaic Law, according to which it was not murder to kill an enemy who was "delivered into one's hands": the Spirit seems to have been making it quite clear that the injunction to kill Laban was not at variance with the Mosaic commandments. But more interesting still is what Nephi thinks to himself in response to this first response from the Spirit: "Yea, and I also knew that he had sought to take away mine own lief; yea, and he would not hearken unto the commandments of the Lord; and he also had taken away our property" (1 Nephi 4:11, emphasis added). In part, Nephi's little list here seems to be his sorting out of the reasons he would be justified in killing Laban under the law, but one must not miss his second and central reason: Laban wouldn't listen to the commandments.

At this point, Nephi is still understanding the commandments to be whatever Lehi has enjoined him to do. In fact, it should be pointed out that Laban's not hearkening to the commandments of Lehi is hardly a justifiable reason to dispatch him, and so one has to ask why this reason is featured in the list of definitely justifiable reasons. The answer, I think, is simply that Nephi has to let his readers know at the very beginning of this conversation how he defines the commandments at this point, since it is about to be changed drastically. His own reflections thus begin with his as yet completely unchanged understanding of what the commandments in the Lehitic covenant must be: whatever the Lord commands right now through Lehi.

The Spirit speaks again, telling him to kill Laban and providing a kind of logical justification (the whole "it is better for one man to perish" business). Readers of the Book of Mormon have long had trouble ethically with this justification attributed to the Spirit: God would never, goes the argument, offer a kind of scapegoat logic as justification to have someone killed. But I wonder, in light of the prevalent emphasis on commandments and the Lehitic covenant that runs through this narrative, whether the emphasis isn't elsewhere: it isn't so much a question of the one dying for the Spirit as it is a question of shifting Nephi's sights from his own one-on-one relation to Laban to the question of entire peoples (the Nephites and Lamanites about which he had just learned). That is, the Spirit seems intent less on making some kind of logical argument than on pressing Nephi to recognize that the context is not the Jerusalem street, but the covenantal conversation he had had a few days earlier.

Nephi makes this ver clear: "And now, when I, Nephi, had heard these words, I remembered the words of the Lord which he spake unto me in the wilderness, saying that: Inasmuch as thy seed shall keep my commandments, they shall prosper in the land of promise" (1 Nephi 4:14, emphasis added). Notice that Nephi is not won over by the Spirit's logic, but instead, he is reminded of the covenantal revelation of 1 Nephi 2. And so soon as he remembers that, the entire situation is a question of (1) his "seed" and (2) the "commandments." And then Nephi begins to work out his own logic: "Yea, and I also thought that they could not keep the commandments of the Lord according to the law of Moses, save they should have the law. And I also knew that the law was engraven on the plates of brass" (1 Nephi 4:15-16). Here Nephi begins to see where all of this is going: once his focus is shifted to his seed, he realizes that the commandments they will have to obey can't be whatever immediate commandment has come through the resident patriarch; rather, it is necessary to provide them with some kind of written code. And the obvious candidate--since it is a collection of commandments--is the Law of Moses, written in the very plates he has been sent to retrieve.

Everything thus comes together for Nephi quite rapidly: the commandments in the covenant are the commandments of the Mosaic Law. And, as he says, "Therefore I did obey the voice of the Spirit, and took Laban by the hair of the head, and I smote off his head with his own sword" (1 Nephi 4:18, emphasis added). And the remainder of the story follows quickly: Nephi disguises himself, retrieves the plates, swears Zoram to join them, and the whole group returns to Lehi. Interestingly, once they return, the language of commandments surfaces again: Sariah mentions the commandments twice in 1 Nephi 5:8; Nephi notes, after the plates have been gone through and indexed, that "thus far I and my father had kept the commandments wherewith the Lord had commanded us. And we had obtained the records which the Lord had commanded us . . . insomuch that we could preserve the commandments of the Lord unto our children" (1 Nehi 5:20-21); and Nephi mentions in his brief aside about his record: "Wherefore, I shall give commandment unto my seed that they shall not occupy these plates with things which are not of worth unto the children of men" (1 Nephi 6:6).

With that, the first return journey comes to an end, and the first loose end concerning the Lehitic covenant is tied: the commandments are clarified, so far as the covenant goes, as being the commandments of the Law of Moses. The consequences of that centralization of the Mosaic Law for the Nephites will prove enormous, but they will have to be discussed in another place.

So soon as things seem to have settled down, though, Nephi and his brothers are sent to Jerusalem all over again: the covenant needs to be further clarified, since it is a question not only of commandments, but also of seed. So 1 Nephi 7 recounts their journey to bring the family of Ishmael, with its collection of potential spouses, down into the wilderness as well. The journey seems to go rather well, of course, until the confrontation between Nephi and his brothers on the way back down to Lehi's tent. Again the theme is the rift between brothers that is the theme of the Lehitic covenant itself, but everything is--at least for the time--sorted out and the possibility of seed (and hence of the fulfillment of the covenant) is in place.

And thus the first seven chapters come to an end: everything is in order that needs to be in order for the Lehitic covenant to be fulfilled. Lehi's family has made its last trip back to Jerusalem, and things now pause while the visions of 1 Nephi 1-2 are doubled by another set of visions in 1 Nephi 8-15.

Introduction

I'd like to begin with D&C 84. That revelation marks one of the relatively few times the Lord Himself bothers to mention the Book of Mormon in His (canonized) communications with the Prophet Joseph. But what a curious place to bring it up! D&C 84 is the first revelation given to the saints on the connection between the priesthood and the temple. In fact, it would become one of only four revelations privileged in the 1835 Doctrine and Covenants with the heavily bolded prefatory phrase "ON PRIESTHOOD," the others being what are now sections 3, 86, and 107 (D&C 3, it should be noted, was actually prefaced with "ON PRIESTHOOD AND CALLING," though it is entirely unclear why). There would thus seem to be little reason for the question of the Book of Mormon to intervene in this revelation particularly: What has the Book of Mormon to do with the priesthood and the temple?

In fact, this odd juxtaposition can be pressed a bit further. It is relatively common to point out that there is something strange about the assertion in D&C 20:9 that the Book of Mormon "contains . . . the fulness of the gospel fo Jesus Christ to the Gentiles and to the Jews also," since it would appear to say nothing at all, really, about the ordinances of the temple. Somewhat less commonly asserted among the traditionally faithful but equally poignant, it seems to me, is the claim that the Book of Mormon represents Joseph Smith's "early" theologizing, something he surpassed or indeed left behind with his "later" radical Nauvoo teachings. At any rate, this much seems clear: There seems to be something of a disjunct between the content and self-presentation of the Book of Mormon on the one hand, and the complex theology of the temple and the priesthood on the other. Why would a revelation like D&C 84 bring these together?

Of course, one should ask how the temple and the priesthood are presented in D&C 84. And, much more importantly, one should ask how what is said about the temple and the priesthood in D&C 84 ought to recast the way that Latter-day Saints read the Book of Mormon itself. In other words, the very fact that the Book of Mormon is intertwined in the revelation with the twin themes of the temple and the priesthood ought to suggest that we tend to approach the Book of Mormon, to be a bit blunt, incorrectly. That is, if the revelation brings these several themes together, is there not reason to ask all over again what the Book of Mormon is, or how it ought to be read?

This question can be asked all the more strongly with an appeal to the text of D&C 84 itself, which chides the saints of 1832 precisely for misreading the Book of Mormon: a "condemnation resteth upon the children of Zion, even all," and it is not to be lifted "until they repent and remember the new covenant, even the Book of Mormon" (D&C 84:56-57). Taking this text as seriously as possible, I would like to suggest that we are, perhaps precisely as Latter-day Saints, prone to misreading the Book of Mormon, to misunderstanding its actual intentions and self-presentation. Rather than reading it first and foremost as a collection of doctrinal sermons that articulate a relatively bland, quasi-neo-orthodox Christology, and rather than following up that approximately theological reading with an emphasis on how Nephite history parallels (and so reinforces our interpretations of) American history, I would suggest that we approach this singular book of scripture as a question from the first to the last of the priesthood and the temple.

The Book of Mormon as having everything to do with the priesthood and the temple: How could the book be read in that way without doing violence to the text? I respond: How else can the book be read without doing violence to the text?


If we take Joseph Smith at his word--and I'm not sure how a Latter-day Saint can be faithful without doing so--then we have to recognize that the Book of Mormon begins as a question of the temple and the priesthood. From the earliest revelation canonized in the D&C: "Behold, I will reveal unto you the Priesthood, by the hand of Elijah the prophet, before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord. And he shall plant in the hearts of the chiildren the promises made to the fathers, and the hearts of the children shall turn to their fathers. If it were not so, the whole earth would be utterly wasted at his coming" (D&C 2:1-3). These are, of course, the last two verses of Malachi 4 as Moroni reportedly quoted them to Joseph Smith during his several visits on September 21-22, 1823. Of everything the Brethren might have bothered to canonize from Joseph's personal history after his death, they chose these words (the section was canonized in 1876), emphasizing the connection Moroni himself drew between his announcement of the existence of the Book of Mormon and what would eventually be revealed as the highest and holiest ordinances of the temple.


But what is the connection? The traditional understanding of D&C 2 takes the inclusion of these words among the revelations as an emphasizing of the importance of the eventual visit of Elijah to the Kirtland temple, or perhaps as a canonizing of the crucial necessity of doing genealogical work. But the question deserves to be asked: Why Moroni? That is, what was it Moroni specifically who offered Joseph an alternative reading of Malachi's words, and why did he do it specifically when he was there to let Joseph know all about the ancient record of the Nephites? In a word, what was Moroni doing talking about Malachi during his visit, when he had other, perhaps more pressing matters with which to concern himself?


It should first be noted that Christ Himself quoted these same verses--along with the remainder of Malachi 3-4--to the gathered Nephites and Lamanites during His visit to the Americas. That is, there is an implicit connection between the text Moroni quoted to the Prophet Joseph in 1823 and the actual text of the Book of Mormon, since Christ so obviously privileges the same biblical passage. In light of that fact, it might well be argued that Moroni was less playing the Old Testament exegete in his discussion with Joseph Smith than he was being the advocate of the record he came to announce and so of the peoples whose ancestors had once heard the same words from the lips of the resurrected Christ. Moroni's having dwelled on Malachi's closing words should, I would argue, be understood less as a kind of fanciful foray into complex or arcane doctrine, and more as an explicit commentary on precisely what Moroni was himself doing in his visit to Joseph.


That said, what does D&C 2 itself say? Its connections to the temple and the priesthood are perhaps relatively clear, but how might it be seen to bear on the Book of Mormon?

One could perhaps suggest that there is a thematic tie between D&C 2 and one of Joseph's most interesting public discourses on the Book of Mormon. In his vital "Before 8 August 1839" discourse, Joseph Smith raised the possibility of reading the parable of the mustard seed as having reference to the Book of Mormon: "The Kingdom of heaven is like a grain of mustard seed. the mustard seed is small but brings forth a large tree, and the fowls lodge in the branches The fowls are the Angels, the Book of Mormon perhaps, these Angels come down combined together to gather their children, & gather them. We cannot be made perfect without them, nor they without us." I have taken these words directly from John Taylor's notes on the discourse, since the version in the History of the Church (and hence the version in The Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith) drops the phrase "the Book of Mormon perhaps" in its editorial attempt to sort out the language of the passage.

It is worth noting carefully what this brief reading of the parable says. The kingdom is the seed that brings forth a large tree. The fowls that lodge in the branches are the angels who "come down combined together to gather their children . . . . We cannot be made perfect without them, nor they without us." Here Joseph is touching on what might said to be the essence of his Nauvoo teachings: the sealing up of the moderns to the ancients through the visitation of true messengers sent from heaven, etc. But what is so interesting in these notes is that Joseph cites as the prime example of such a visitation the instance of the Book of Mormon.

And it fits: Moroni can be understood as having come, not simply as a relatively passive messenger who then subtracts himself from the remainder of Mormon history; he comes rather as one of so many angels with keys (cf. D&C 27:5) whose work it is to seal the children (namely, the Lamanites) to the fathers (Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob). The Book of Mormon is, in a word, a textual connection between the children and the fathers, precisely the sort of thing that has to be brought by true messengers so as to turn the hearts of the children back to the promises made to the fathers.

Indeed, this is what the very title page of the Book of Mormon explains: the primary purpose of the book, according to the ancient title page itself, is "to show unto the remnant of the House of Israel what great things the Lord hath done for their fathers; and that they may know the covenants of the Lord, that they are not cast off forever." This could not, in the end, be any clearer: the first purpose of the Book of Mormon is covenantal. It is only after that that the title page mentions the question of Christology, to which we so quickly turn: "And also to the convincing of the Jew and Gentile that JESUS is the CHRIST, the ETERNAL GOD, manifesting himself unto all nations" (emphasis added).

This covenantal emphasis of the Book of Mormon, moreover, is not something that Moroni adds when he writes up the title page for the whole compilation. Nephi discusses it as early as First Nephi: in the course of his apocalyptic vision, the angel explains to him that the worth of the Bible carried among the Gentiles is precisely "the covenants" contained therein (1 Nephi 13:23), and that, similarly, its major flaw is precisely that "many covenants of the Lord" have been "taken away" (1 Nephi 13:26). Indeed, the coming forth of the Book of Mormon, in Nephi's vision, is not preparatory to the Second Coming as such (Nephi's vision never mentions an actual second visit from Christ at all!), but to "the fulfilling of the covenants" (1 Nephi 14:7).

The Book of Mormon, then, as a covenantal word--indeed, as the "new covenant" mentioned in D&C 84. Or rather, as what must be "planted," according to D&C 2: Alma describes in what is perhaps his most famous sermon that God "imparteth his word by angels unto men, . . . women . . . [and] children" (Alma 32:23). That "word" he goes on to compare to a seed, and what results is a metaphor that draws on precisely the language employed in the Malachi passage as reworded by Moroni (one almost has to ask whether Moroni did not Alma 32 in mind when he retranslated Malachi's words): "Now, we will compare the word unto a seed. Now, if ye give place, that a seed may be planted in your heart, behold, if it be a true seed, or a good seed, if ye do not cast it out by your unbelief, that ye will resist the Spirit of the Lord, behold, it will begin to swell within your breasts," etc. (Alma 32:28, emphasis added).

Is it not more or less clear from all of the above that the Book of Mormon ultimately cannot be separated from the twin questions of the priesthood and the temple, from the twin questions of angels bringing keys and the endowment and sealing ordinances of the temple? Whatever this book is, in the end, it seems best to me to read it in light of what is too easily summarized as later than Joseph's "early" Book of Mormon theology: the Book of Mormon is, through and through, a question of what Joseph only began to make explicit in Nauvoo, and to read it otherwise is to miss its entire message.

The primary question, then, that will guide all of my subsequent reflections on the Book of Mormon is this: What is this book telling us about the covenant? If we do not approach the Book of Mormon through this question, I fear that we are most likely to miss the book entirely.