Mormon
From CleanPosts
There is another Book of Mormon tucked inside the Book of Mormon, written by none other than Mormon. He calls it the Book of Mormon, but it's really the Plate of Mormon. No Nephite ever wrote on paper.
Ammaron once came to Mormon when he was ten years old, because Ammaron judged him to be a serious child who was as smart as a whip. He tells Mormon that when he's twenty-four years old he needs to go to the land of Antum and to the hill Shim, where he can find all the plates which Ammaron buried. He is supposed to take only the plates of Nephi but leave the other plates in the ground. Then he is to keep a journal of the doings of his people on the plates of Nephi.
When Mormon was eleven, his father Mormon took him south to the land of Zarahemla. Mormon found that land to be completely covered with buildings and people. He witnessed a war between the Nephites and Lamanites along the borders of Zarahemla. The Lamanites were beaten by a force of 30,000 Nephites, then they withdrew and there was peace for four years.
But there was so much wickedness among the Nephites that Jesus ordered a recall of his disciples, and their work of miraculous healing came to an end. But Mormon himself received the Holy Spirit because of the soberness of his mind. He wanted to become a preacher, but his mouth was stopped shut by God due to the wilfil rebellion of the Nephites.
There were robbers among the Lamanite who roamed the land, causing the Nephites to bury their worldly goods in the earth, but the land was cursed, and it would not securely hold their valuables.
When war came again between the Nephites and Lamanites in 327 AD, Mormon was appointed the leader of their armies because he was large in stature, despite being only sixteen years old. But the Lamanite armies were so great that Mormon's armies would not fight, and they began a retreat toward the north.
There they took possession of the city of Angola and fortified it to defend against the Lamanites. But it was still not enough, and they where driven by their enemies out of the city. And they were driven out of the land of David.
Then Mormon's army came to the land of Joshua and tried to make a stand, with the Pacific Ocean hard by. The Lamanite king Aaron came against Mormon's 42,000 with 44,000 of his own men, and was defeated in battle. This was in 331 AD.
There are other Yeshuas besides Yeshua bin Yosef (Jesus) in the Bible including Yeshua bin Nun, who is the subject of the Book of Joshua, as well as one who is the son of the high priest and another one who is the son of Josedech. So when we get to Mormon 2:6, which reads "And we marched forth and came to the land of Joshua, which was in the borders west by the seashore." JS should have translated that "the land of Jesus". Yeshua was a late-Hebrew shortening of the early-Hebrew name Yehoshua, and it was the name his contemporaries actually called him. In Nehemiah 8:17 the short form Yeshua is used about Yehoshua bin Nun (Moses' padawan learner Joshua) showing that the names are all essentially the same even as languages shift.
Nehemiah 8:17 And all the congregation of them that were come again out of the captivity made booths, and sat under the booths: for since the days of Jeshua the son of Nun unto that day had not the children of Israel done so. And there was very great gladness.
Finally it dawned on the Nephites that they could not keep their own property on account of the robbers and the bewitched land, and there rose up a great lamentation. Mormon hoped that they would now turn back to the Lord and receive his blessings again, but his hope was in vain, because they were not sorrowful for their sins, but sorrowful for their lost property.
The Nephites were pursued by the Lamanites to the land of Jashon before Mormon could get them to stop and make another stand. The city of Jashon, by coincidence, was near the place where Ammaron told Mormon to dig up the plates of Nephi, which Mormon promptly did. Fourteen years prior, Ammaron told Mormon to dig up only the plates of Nephi and update them with the current doings of the Nephites.
Mormon has seen nothing but wickedness and abominations around him all his life, so he made an account of them on the plates of Nephi and they ended up in the hill of Cumorah. But only a brief summary of their wickedness was recorded on the plates that Joseph Smith translated.
Essentially, the Nephites were not sorrowful for their sins, but sorrowful for the property they were losing to the robbers infesting the land, even when they buried it in the ground. Besides much theft there was murder and witchcraft in the land. They boasted in their strength and made oaths. They fought without asking God for help. Mormon said they were doing abominations too, and we have no record of what that entailed.
The Nephites were again hunted until they came northward to the land of Shem and fortified the city there. Mormon inspired the people to at last stand boldly and fight for their wives and children and hearth and home. It seemed to work, they did not shrink back when the Lamanites attacked Shem. Mormon's army of thirty thousand defeated a Lamanite army of fifty thousand.
Finally in 350 AD the Nephites made a treaty with the Lamanites which divided the Western Hemisphere into two regions. The Nephites would get North America, the Lamanites would get South America, and the dividing line would be Panama.
