“The Book of Mormon”

Brant Gardner

Mormon’s first sentence is a colophon that parallels 1 Nephi 1:1. (See its accompanying commentary.) Mormon announces both that he is the author (as opposed to the compiler/abridger/historian) and that he represents a shift in the text’s transmission. The plates of Nephi, which Ammaron entrusted to Mormon, are a different record. Mormon and his son will write this book of Mormon. It so clearly terminates Mormon’s own abridgment of the plates of Nephi that it must be considered part of Mormon’s spiritual-historical volume rather than a reworking of what he may have written on the official plates of Nephi.

Second Witness: Analytical & Contextual Commentary on the Book of Mormon, Vol. 6

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