“And I said unto him: Deniest thou the Christ who shall come? And he said: If there should be a Christ, I would not deny him; but I know that there is no Christ, neither has been, nor ever will be. And I said unto him: Believest thou the scriptures? And he said, Yea. And I said unto him: Then ye do not understand them; for they truly testify of Christ. Behold, I say unto you that none of the prophets have written, nor prophesied, save they have spoken concerning this Christ.” In Jacob 7, Sherem denies Christ, but then […]

The parable of the Olive Trees in Jacob 5 is long and it can get boring sometimes. Not only that, but what does it even mean? “And it came to pass that the master of the vineyard went forth, and he saw that his olive tree began to decay; and…

Jacob 5 quotes Zenos’s parable of the olive trees, as Jacob explains in verse 1: Behold, my brethren, do ye not remember to have read the words of the prophet Zenos, which he spake unto the house of Israel”. But where in the scriptures does Zenos say that? The Bible…

“I might rid my garments of your sins” Jacob tells the people. Why does Jacob want to rid the people’s sin from his garments? It’s not even on his “garments”! He also says, “but I this day am weighed down with much more desire and anxiety for the welfare of…

“And we did magnify our office unto the Lord” said Jacob concerning his brother and him. What does that mean? Gordon B. Hinkley compared that to a pair of binoculars. You look in one side, it makes what you see bigger. Look in the other side and things shrink. So,…

“Behold, this is the doctrine of Christ, and there will be no more doctrine given until after he shall manifest himself unto you in the flesh. And when he shall manifest himself unto you in the flesh, the things which he shall say unto you shall ye observe to do.”…

2 Nephi 31:1-2 says “And now I, Nephi, make an end of my prophesying unto you, my beloved brethren. And I cannot write but a few things, which I know must surely come to pass; neither can I write but a few of the words of my brother Jacob. Wherefore, the…

“… many of the Gentiles shall say: A Bible! A Bible! We have got a Bible, and there cannot be any more Bible.” reads 2 Nephi 29:3. Why do we need two sets of scriptures? “But thus saith the Lord God: O fools, they shall have a Bible; and it…

As Nephi say in 2 Nephi 28:7, “there shall be many which shall say: Eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we die; and it shall be well with us.” But what does that mean? It means that some people say that it’s okay to do sin if you won’t…

What does Isaiah mean in 2 Nephi 27:6-22? The book in “the Lord God shall bring forth unto you the words of a book, and they shall be the words of them which have slumbered.” means the Book of Mormon, and the “slumbered” could mean died. “And behold the book shall…

In 2 Nephi 26, Nephi makes is now prophesy, which has come to pass. He said that there shall be many signs of Christ’s birth and death, among other things. There were signs! When he was born, there was a new star in the sky and three days with no…

Why are there so many chapters in Second Nephi that seem like they are copied from Isaiah? Because, from 2 Nephi 12 to 24, Nephi is quoting the Brass Plates, which today is the Bible. He did so since “[his] soul delighteth in the words of Isaiah” and “[his] soul…

In 23:6-7, Nephi reads Isiah’s prophesy that “Howl ye, for the day of the Lord is at hand; it shall come as a destruction from the Almighty. Therefore shall all hands be faint, every man’s heart shall melt”. What does that mean? “Howl ye” could be interpreted as “cry unto…

2 Nephi 22:2 reads, “Behold, God is my salvation; I will trust, and not be afraid; for the Lord Jehovah is my strength and my song; he also has become my salvation.” What does it mean that the Lord is Isaiah’s “song”? I think it means that we delight in…

Isaiah prophies that, “For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given; and the government shall be upon his shoulder; and his name shall be called, Wonderful, Counselor, The Mighty God, The Everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace.” He doesn’t mean that he has that name;…

What does it mean when Isaiah says that the Lord is our stumbling-block? 2 Nephi says first that the Lord “shall be our stone of stumbling” then that “many shall stumble and fall”. That makes it sound like the Lord makes us fall. But I know that that’s not it….

What does 1 Nephi 14:1 mean? It reads, “if the Gentiles shall hearken unto the Lamb of God in that day that he shall manifest himself unto them in word, and also in power, in very deed, unto the taking away of their stumbling blocks,” which means that if the…

1 Nephi 12:8-9 reads, “And the angel spake unto me, saying: Behold the twelve disciples of the Lamb, who are chosen to minister unto thy seed. And he said unto me: Thou rememberest the twelve apostles of the Lamb? Behold they are they who shall judge the twelve tribes of…

What does it mean when Lehi says that ‘all mankind were in a lost and in a fallen state’? Romans 3:23 is the footnote for ‘lost’, and it says, “For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God.” So ‘lost’ means ‘sinned’. But what does ‘fallen’ mean?…

In 1 Nephi 9, Nephi make two sets of plates. The large plates were later on abridged by Mormon and put at the front of the Gold Plates. The small plates were put at the back. Why? Fast-forward a few thousand year to 1828. Joseph Smith had already translated the…

Lehi’s vision has 6 things: a Great and Spacious building, a river, an Iron Rod, a wilderness, a mist, and a Tree. What do they represent? 1 Nephi 11 give us some answers: “What meaneth the rod of iron which our father saw, that led to the tree? And I…

In Lehi’s vision, he traveled for a long time in darkness. He was beginning to feel a little scared, so he “began to pray unto the Lord that he would have mercy on me, according to the multitude of his tender mercies.” After he prayed, he saw the Tree of…

Nephi and his brothers left Jerusalem three times. Why couldn’t they grab Ismael’s family when they got the plates? Or, why couldn’t they get the plates and Ishmael before they left the first time? We don’t know for sure. There were a few possibilities. When they left, they probably didn’t…

Sariah had a strong testimony, but while her sons went back to get the plates, she almost lost it. She was murmuring against Lehi, “saying: Behold thou hast led us forth from the land of our inheritance, and my sons are no more, and we perish in the wilderness.” Lehi…

Nephi tells the story of killing Laban in 1 Nephi 3:5-18. After he finds Laban, he “was constrained by the Spirit that [he] should kill Laban”. But, Nephi replied, “Never at any time have I shed the blood of man.” And he “would that [Nephi] might not slay [Laban].” Nephi…

In 1 Nephi 3:5, Lehi tells Nephi the following: “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.” Lehi did not ask it; God…

When Lehi had his vision in 1 Nephi 1:12, he reads a book: “and the first came and stood before my father, and gave unto him a book, and bade him that he should read.” What is that book? I think that it is the same book John sees in…

In 1 Nephi 1:9-10, when Lehi had his vision of heaven, “he saw One descending out of the midst of heaven, and he beheld that his luster was above that of the sun at noon-day. And he also saw twelve others following him, and their brightness did exceed that of…

What did the lost 116 pages contain? They contained the Book of Lehi and the first two chapters of the Book of Mosiah. Those chapters in Lehi probably told us part of Lehi’s life from before he left Jerusalem and part of the family’s trip into the wilderness, from Lehi’s…

In A Brief Explanation of The Book of Mormon, it says that the Book of Mormon was compiled from four plates: the Small Plates of Nephi, the Plates of Mormon, the Plates of Ether, and the Plates of Brass. What parts of the Book of Mormon had which plates? The…

The angel Moroni talked to Joseph Smith three times that night, and once again the next day. Why? I think it was because Joseph Smith needed to remember EVERYTHING Moroni told him, and if Moroni told Joseph only once, he wouldn’t have remembered it all. Moroni also had Joseph come…

In Joseph Smith–History, he said that Moroni quoted some scriptures differently from “what it says in our Bibles.” Why? Because the King James version of the Bible is not translated correctly. The eighth article of faith says, “We believe the Bible to be the word of God as far as…

The prophet Joseph Smith, in his testimony, said that the Plates, Urim, and Thummim were in the hill with ‘other things’, including a breastplate. I can probably find out what those ‘other things’ were in the end of Moroni, when he buries the Plates. At the end of Moroni, however,…

As their testimony says, the Eight Witnesses gave their ‘names unto the world’. That means that they are telling the world that they saw and felt the plates. They are bearing record to us that Joseph Smith did have the plates and translated them. I think that it is very…

In The Testimony of Three Witnesses, Oliver Cowdery, David Whitmer, and Martin Harris tell us that they saw the plates, “through the grace of God the Father.” That teaches us that God is graceful. Later on, they mention the “judgment-seat of Christ,” so now I know that Jesus will judge…

The Introduction to The Book of Mormon teaches us many things, such as that Jesus is the Messiah and will come again. Joseph Smith also tells us that we can get more like and closer to God by following what it says ‘than by any other book.’ It says gives…

When I read the Title Page of The Book of Mormon, I want to learn more about the stories it mentions, such as how ‘the people of Jared … were scattered [when] the Lord [mixed-up] the language of the people’ and about the prophecies and revelations that are in the…