The Books of Nephi
The Book of Mormon has four books with the names Nephi in them. The first two are named “The First Book of Nephi His Reign and Ministry” and “The Second Book of Nephi.” Both of these have a kind of subheading that summarizes what is in the book. The first summarizes well the major events of the book including Lehi’s preaching in Jerusalem, their journey in the wilderness, and their crossing of the ocean. The second, on the other hand, really only summarizes what is now in 2 Nephi 4-5: “An account of the death of Lehi. Nephi’s brethren rebel against him. The Lord warns Nephi to depart into the wilderness. His journeyings in the wilderness, and so forth.” The rest of the book after that is mostly quotations from Isaiah and the teachings of Nephi without much detail on the things that happened to the people. One odd thing is the extra phrase in the title of the first book: “his reign and ministry.” That presumably is referring to the reign of Nephi as a king which didn’t happen until 2 Nephi 5 (i.e. so it was not in the first book of Nephi). It may be that there weren’t really meant to be two distinct books, and so “his reign and ministry” was meant to cover all of what Nephi wrote. One evidence of that is that in the printer’s manuscript, both books appeared to be titled “The Book of Nephi” originally. For both the first and the second books, those numeric indications appear to have been added as an afterthought. Perhaps the second “The Book of Nephi” was just a division of the individual book in which Nephi was highlighting the very important events that took place regarding the death of his father and their separation. That would then explain why the subheading of 2 Nephi was really only applicable to a small part of the book. In other words, it was perhaps only meant to be a summary of that section and not an entire book (like what we have before Mosiah 9 describing the account of Zeniff within the larger book of Mosiah).
The
other two books that have the name Nephi come much later and are “Third Nephi
The Book of Nephi The Son of Nephi, Who Was the Son of Helaman” and “Fourth
Nephi The Book of Nephi Who Is the Son of Nephi—One of the Disciples of Jesus Christ.”
As I thought about this yesterday, I realized that it wouldn’t make sense for
the original text to have labeled these 3rd and 4th Nephi.
That is because these two books came from the abridgement of Mormon, whereas
the first two books came from the small plates (written directly by Nephi).
Since they were not meant originally to be in the same book, and since the
first book in Mormon’s abridgement was called “The Book of Lehi,” why would he
name them 3 Nephi and 4 Nephi? And it doesn’t appear that he did. In
the printer’s
manuscript, “Third Nephi” is not found at all as far as I can tell. It is
simply “The Book of Nephi. And similarly, the printer’s
manuscript does not have “Fourth Nephi” at all; again it is called “The
Book of Nephi.” So “Third Nephi” and “Fourth Nephi” must have been added once
the book was all put together in order to help readers distinguish between the
four books.
The title
for what we call Fourth Nephi includes the statement that this Nephi was a disciple
of Jesus Christ. And perhaps that is what ties all of these books together—all the
people named Nephi in the Book of Mormon were followers of the Savior. The
first declared, “And we talk of Christ, we rejoice in Christ, we preach of
Christ, we prophesy of Christ, and we write according to our prophecies, that
our children may know to what source they may look for a remission of their
sins” (2 Nephi 25:26). The Nephi who was the prophet when the Savior visited
the Nephites “arose and went forth, and bowed himself before the Lord and did
kiss his feet” (3 Nephi 11:19). It was he, among others, who was told this by
the Savior, “Therefore, what manner of men ought ye to be? Verily I say unto
you, even as I am” (3 Nephi 27:27). And this statement in 4 Nephi may have referred
to the first Nephi or his son after whom this short book was named: “And there
were great and marvelous works wrought by the disciples of Jesus, insomuch that
they did heal the sick, and raise the dead, and cause the lame to walk, and the
blind to receive their sight, and the deaf to hear; and all manner of miracles
did they work among the children of men; and in nothing did they work miracles
save it were in the name of Jesus” (4 Nephi 1:5). The text books of Nephi in
the Book of Mormon, whatever we call them, invite us to likewise become
followers of Jesus Christ.
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