Item Detail
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32753
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3
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23
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English
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Lehi’s Dream, Nephi’s Blueprint: How Nephi Uses the Vision of the Tree of Life as an Outline for 1 and 2 Nephi
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Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship
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2022
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52
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Orem, UT
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Interpreter Foundation
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231-278
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"This essay harnesses the late twentieth-century discovery of Hebrew rhetoric by Bible scholars to identify Lehi’s dream as the foundation of the carefully constructed unity in Nephi’s writings and to identify previously unrecognized elements of that dream which are distributed throughout his final work. The teachings and prophecies in 1 and 2 Nephi are shown to derive from their shared dream/vision. Further, the entirety of Nephi’s writings in the Small Plates is shown to be a tightly designed rhetorical production that establishes the centrality of Christ’s identity, mission, and teachings for current and future generations of Lehi’s descendants and ultimately for the entire world. For decades, interpreters of the Book of Mormon and its teachings have singled out the vision of the tree of life given first to Lehi and subsequently to his son Nephi as one of the book’s most prominent elements that require careful study. While literary and visual artists continue to find inspiration in the human dramas retold throughout the book, the text itself features visualizations of its basic doctrinal messages: (1) God on his throne in heavenly council, (2) the tree of life with the straight and narrow path, the iron rod, and the great and spacious building, and (3) the allegory of the olive tree. As I will explain below, those three visual images are part of Lehi’s and Nephi’s great vision and provide the blueprint for the complex of covenant history and doctrinal teaching recorded by multiple authors throughout the entire book. This article will trace that blueprint in the structure and content of Nephi’s Small Plates with limited side glances at the rest of the text."
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A Look at Some 'Nonstandard' Book of Mormon Grammar
Analysis of Textual Variants of the Book of Mormon
Biblical hesed and Nephite Covenant Culture
Glimpses of Lehi's Jerusalem
Labor Diligently to Write : The Ancient Making of a Modern Scripture
Lehi and Nephi as Trained Manassite Scribes
Nephi’s Good Inclusio
Nephi's Outline
Nephi's Small Plates: A Rhetorical Analysis
Pressing Forward with the Book of Mormon
Rethinking Alma 36
Since Cumorah : The Book of Mormon in the Modern World
“Strong Like unto Moses” : The Case for Ancient Roots in the Book of Moses Based on Book of Mormon Usage of Related Content Apparently from the Brass Plates
'That Which They Most Desired' :
The Waters of Mormon, Baptism, the Love of God, and the Bitter Fountain
The Book of Mormon : The Earliest Text
The Goodness of God and His Children as a Fundamental Theological Concept in the Book of Mormon
The Gospel According to Mormon
The History of the Text of the Book of Mormon
The Lost 116 Pages : Reconstructing the Book of Mormon’s Missing Stories
The Record of My Father
The Things Which my Father Saw : Approaches to Lehi's dream and Nephi's Vision
Understanding Christian Baptism through the Book of Mormon
Understanding the Abrahamic Covenant through the Book of Mormon