“How Could Ye Have Departed from the Ways of the Lord?”

We are trying to track how people are coming to find our Book of Mormon Sunday School posts.  Would you mind just leaving a comment on how you found this post?  Did you find it through an e-mail, Mormon Stories Face Book Group,  Portland/Seattle Mormon Stories Support Group, MO 2.0 Face Book Group, googling around the internet, etc.?

One more thing. At various places in this post, I will ask questions.  I am not asking these for rhetorical reasons.  I truly want to know if I have approached   certain verses correctly and if there is another way to approach it.  Thanks – Mike.

Click here to listen to Jared Anderson’s podcast and to review his notes that go over this lesson.

Mormon₂ to Receive the Records:  book of Mormon 1:1-4

The Nephite and Jaredite record that we have is called the Book of Mormon.  Within this larger record we have “The Words of Mormon” and the “book of Mormon”.  For clarification purposes, the word “book” will not be capitalized when the smaller book within the larger Nepite record (the Book of Mormon) is being referenced.

1:2-4  Ammaron had received the Nephite record patrilineally.  Here however, Ammaron entrusts the records to someone with whom he shares no familial relation.  This is not the first time the record does not follow family lines. Amaleki₁ —-> King Benjamin;  Mosiah₂ —–> Alma_2..  In 3 Nephi 5:20, Mormon does describe himself as “a pure descendant of Lehi” however; again he mentions this in the book of Momon 1:5 

As with Nephi, what we are currently reading is not Mormon’s full history but rather a later, shorter version.  It is not clear when or why Mormon decided to create this synopsis of the Large Plates.  Perhaps this information was spelled out in the introductory material of the book of Lehi, but from comments elsewhere we gather that Mormon’s abridgment presented his personal, inspired view of Nephite history (‘I make it according to the knowledge and the understanding which God has given me: Words of Mormon 1:9);  that he saw his record as eventually going to the Gentiles and remnants of the House of Israel in the latter days (3 Nephi 26:8; 29:1;  book of Mormon 3:17-19; 4:9-10);  that he was commanded by God to include and omit certain details (3 Nephi 26:6-12;  28:25;  30:1); and that he wrote it toward the end of his life as a portable summary so that the archival records themselves could remain safely hidden (book of Mormon 6:6).  In addition, he saw his abridgment as honoring a heritage of faith(3 Nephi 5:14-15).

This reflects a strikingly personal connection to history:  Mormon’s editorial labors will directly fulfill the prayers of the earlier prophets he writes about, and that vindicated their faith.  Yet at the same time he also reaches toward the future.  Like Nephi, Mormon failed in his efforts to bring his contemporaries to repentance, and he consequently redirects his preaching into writings intended for an audience many centuries later.

Mormon does not spend nearly as much time on his own life as he does on earlier prophets such as Alma₂ – his autobiography consists of just seven chapters – but he reveals enough to give us an idea of his sensibilities and concerns.  He appears as a tragic figure, a witness to the self-destruction of his people, yet powerless to stop it…what we are left with seems to be a quick summary of one defeat after another (even when reporting the occasional Nephite victory, Mormon sustains the grim trajectory of his narrative, (“[We] did beat them, nevertheless, the strength  of the Lord was not with us”; book of Mormon 2:26).  The only causation highlighted by Mormon is military and spiritual; we learn little of social or economic factors.  This narrow focus on general wickedness and warfare is sufficient for his purposes here;  when he speaks directly to his readers, he pleads with them to prepare for the final judgment day (book of Mormon 3:20-22; 5:22; 7:6-7, 10), which apparently will come upon them as suddenly and surely as destruction fell upon the Nephites.  Nevertheless, Mormon’s historiographical urge for precision is still evident;  despite the radically constricted viewpoint of those seven chapters, he notes twenty-two specific years in passing and gives the names of ten different cities that were lost to the Lamanites in chronological order  (Grant Hardy, Understanding the Book of Mormon, A Reader’s Guide, pg 93-95).

 

War Between the neo-Nephites and neo-Lamanites*:  book of Mormon 1:5-12

*These names are taken from Grant Hardy who notes that the division between Lamanites and Nephites, at this time, was not necessarily along lineage lines (Grant Hardy, The Book of Mormon: A Reader’s Edition, pg. 554, note ^b5).

1:5 “…I, Mormon, being a descendant of Nephi…”  Why does Mormon mention this?  Why does he feel this is important?

1:8-9 

“[Mormon’s] writing is once agains structured around a clear timeline, with careful identifications, exact numbers, specific names and locations and comments  noting the fulfillment of particular prophecies (book of Mormon 1:19; 2:10).  His historian’s agenda of persuasion through valid evidence and logical reasoning still holds sway” (Hardy, A Reader’s Guide, pg. 213).

Wickedness Prevails:  book of Mormon 1:13-19

1:13 “…take away his beloved disciples…”  See 3 Nephi 28:4-32;  4 Nephi 1:30-33.

1:17 “…and the land was cursed for their sake….”   Do any of you have any insight as to the meaning of this phrase? Is this referring to “treasures being slippery” ? (vs. 18)

1:18 This idea of treasures “being slippery” is is also found in Samuel the Lamanite’s preaching (Helaman 13:31).  And it has the harkens to Joseph Smith’s early treasure-digging days:

 

“…According to their neighbor and early Mormon convert Orrin Porter Rockwell, Lucy Mack Smith aided her husband and son Joseph in such a treasure-quest. “Not only was there religious excitement, but the phantom treasures of Captain Kidd were sought for far and near.”…Rockwell explained that “his mother and Mrs. Smith used to spend their Saturday evenings together telling their dreams…He often heard his mother and Mrs. Smith comparing notes, and telling how such an one’s dream, and  such another’s pointed to the same lucky spot:  how the spades often

Joseph Smith’s sandy-colored seer stone

struck the iron sides of the treasure chest, and how it was charmed away, now six inches this side, now four feet deeper, and again completely out of reach.”    

The incident in Manchester/Palmyra was not the only occasion that Joseph Jr. and his followers encountered a moving treasure.  Martin Harris said:  ”A candid old Presbyterian told me, that on the Susquehanna flats he dug down to an iron chest…[but] it moved away two or three rods into the earth, and they could not get it.”  This referred to Josiah Stowell, who was a deacon in the Presbyterian church of  Bainbridge and  whose house was “two miles below the village, on the Susquehanna.”   Aside from Josiah’s statement to Harris about this moving treasure, one of Stowell’s workmen also referred to the same incident during young Smith’s treasure-quest along the Susquehanna River:  ”One of the men placed his hand upon the box, but it gradually sunk from his reach.” 

In fact, the Book of Mormon described a complaint common to treasure-seekers:  ”Yea, we have hid up our treasures and they have slipped away from us, because the curse of  the land.”  These people “began to hide up their treasures in the earth; and they became slippery, because the Lord had cursed the land” (Helaman 13:35;  Mormon 1:18).    This reflected the treasure-digging language of early America, as the book May Martin shows.  The 1835 novel described Vermont treasure-diggers who dreamed of “the prospects of another trial for the slippery treasure.”  Book of Mormon phrasing was consistent with one scholar’s observation about American folklore of “slipping treasures” that “sink into the earth when something is wrong.”  

Divining rods

Nevertheless, Ostler’s argument gives opportunity for me to emphasize that this chapter does not make the reductionist argument that Mormon scriptures are occult texts.  I regard the Book of Mormon’s references to slippery treasures as an echo of the translator’s social world, not as a key to understanding a very complex historical and religious narrative.  I find echoes of folk magic and the occult in all the “Standard Works,” even though these LDS scriptures overwhelmingly emphasize religious history and theology”(D. Michael Quinn, Early Mormonism and the Magic World View, pg. 62, 196, 197).

 

 

 

1:19  “…even  unto the fulfilling of all the words of Abinadi and also Samuel the Lamanite…” See Helaman 13:17-18, 31-37;  Mosiah 12:8. 

“Of course, no reader could miss the point that the martyred Abinadi was a paragon of faithfulness, and when Mormon later interrupts his narrative to note when Abinadi’s predictions were fulfilled, the authenticity of his revelations and God’s justice are also confirmed” (Hardy, A Reader’s Guide, pg. 156)

The Nephites Retreat:  book of  Mormon 2:1-9

2:7 “…notwithstanding the great destruction which hung over my people…”   This statement makes me wonder, did Mormon saw destruction while the rest of the Nephites really didn’t see it?  Perhaps the majority of the populace just saw the “destruction” as just a normal part of life;  nothing to be alarmed about.  What I am saying is, that some people will read into stuff things that aren’t really there.

2:9 “…and he came against us with an army of forty and four thousand…”   We find this passage presenting the Lamanites differently than they have been presented in the past.   In the majority of the “war chapters” of the Book of Mormon, the Lamanites have to be “stirred up” by Nephite dissenters (usually the Zoramites, Amulonites, or Amalekites) to go to war against the Nephites. There are even passages to suggest that the Lamanites did not want to war against the Nephites at all (see Alma 47:1,2 and Helaman 4:3, 4).  What we are reading here in the book of  Mormon is different than what we find earlier in the Book of Mormon as a whole.   In the book of Mormon 2:9, we find the Lamanites needing no outside agitation to incite them to battle against the Nephites.  Why  don’t the Lamanites need to be stirred up by the Nephite dissenters in the book of Mormon 2:9?  It is because the term “Lamanite”, after the 200 years of peace, is a name taken by Nephite dissenters themselves;  it is not a term to describe a certain race.   In other words, the Lamanites are the dissenters. The following is a survey of scriptures to show that, in the majority of the Book of Mormon, it was the dissenters that stirred up the Lamanites to war;  it was never the Lamanites that instigated war themselves.

Alma 24:1 “…were stirred up by the Amalekites and by the Amulonites to anger against their brethren.”
Alma 27:12 “…for Satan has great hold on the hearts of the Amalekites, who do stir up the Lamanites to anger against their brethren to slay them;”
Alma 35:10 ” Now this did stir up the Zoramites to anger against the people of Ammon, and they began to mix with the Lamanites and to stir them up also to anger against them.”
Alma 43:8 “For behold, his designs were to stir up the Lamanites to anger against the Nephites…”
Alma 44:16 “Now it came to pass that Zerahemnah was exceedingly wroth, and he did stir up the remainder of his soldiers to anger, to contend more powerfully against the Nephites.”
Alma 46:30 “Now Moroni thought it was not expedient that the Lamanites should have any more strength; therefore he thought to cut off the people of Amalickiah, or to take them and bring them back, and put Amalickiah to death; yea, for he knew that he would stir up the Lamanites to anger against them, and cause them to come to battle against them; and this he knew that Amalickiah would do that he might obtain his purposes.”
Alma 47:1, 2 “…for, behold, he had taken those who went with him, and went up in the land of Nephi among the Lamanites, and did stir up the Lamanites to anger against the people of Nephi…they also feared to go to battle against the Nephites…”
Alma 48:3 “Therefore he had accomplished his design, for he had hardened the hearts of the Lamanites and blinded their minds, and stirred them up to anger, insomuch that he had gathered together a numerous host to go to battle against the Nephites.”
Alma 63:14 “And it came to pass also in this year that there were some dissenters who had gone forth unto the Lamanites; and they were stirred up again to anger against the Nephites.”
Helaman 1:17 “Therefore he did stir them up to anger, and he did gather together his armies, and he did appoint Coriantumr to be their leader, and did cause that they should march down to the land of Zarahemla to battle against the Nephites.”
Helaman 4:3,4 “the Lamanites were exceedingly afraid, insomuch that they would not hearken to the words of the dissenters…there were dissenters who went up from the Nephites unto the Lamanites; and they succeeded with those others in stirring them up to anger against the Nephites; and they were all that year preparing for war.”
Helaman 11:24 “…there were a certain number of the dissenters from the people of Nephi, who had some years before gone over unto the Lamanites, and taken upon themselves the name of Lamanites, and also a certain number who were real descendants of the Lamanites, being stirred up to anger by them, or by those dissenters, therefore they commenced a war with their brethren.”

2:9 “…forty and four thousand…”  Some critics of the Book of Mormon have pointed out that this number of soldiers would be impossible. Dr. John Sorenson has pointed out the following:

“The following facts are documented: The Quiché force opposing the Spaniards numbered 232,000 despite the fact that some groups abstained from the alliance. The Aztecs mustered a force of 400,000 in a fairly routine campaign against a nearby kingdom. More problematic is Alba Ixtlilxochitl’s account of central Mexican history, according to which a combined Aztec army at one point consisted of 700,000 men. Of the hazier past, the historian said that in the last war of the “Tultecs,” which lasted three years and two months, a total (including women) of 5,600,000 persons were slain”      (Don Domingo Juarros, A Statistical History of the Kingdom of Guatemala, in Spanish America . . . , trans. J. Baily (London: J. F. Dove, 1823), 389; Fray Diego Durán, The History of the Indies of New Spain (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1994), 420; Ross Hassig, Aztec Warfare: Imperial Expansion and Political Control (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1988), 55; Alfred Chavero, trans., Obras Históricas de Don Fernando De Alva Ixtlilxochitl (Mexico: Editora Nacional, 1959), 58; and Milton R. Hunter and Thomas Stuart Ferguson, Ancient America and the Book of Mormon (Oakland, CA: Kolob, 1950), 385).

Sorrow Without Repentance:  book of Mormon 2:10-16

2:14 “…they did curse God, and wish to die.  Nevertheless they would struggle with the sword for their lives.”  This is an interesting editorial on human nature.

Mormon₂ Updates the Records:  book of  Mormon 2:17-19

2:17  Help me out with my math here. In Mormon 1:3,  Ammaron instructs Mormon₂ to get the records when he is 24 years old.   4 Nephi 1:48 tells us that in the year +320 Ammaron hides the Nephite records.  I assume that it was that same  year when Ammaron also approached Mormon about the Nephite records;  Mormon was between 10 and 11 years old. Using my amazing math skills, it seems that Mormon should gather up the records in about the year +334.

In the book of  Mormon 2:1 Mormon is 15 years old and it is the year +325 (see the book of Mormon 1:6, 12).  The book of Mormon 2:16, 17 tells us that it was the year +345 when Mormon goes and gets the Nephite record.  It appears Mormon is running about 10 years behind schedule (Mormon was supposed to be 24 years old); Mormon would be about 35-36 years old in the year +345.  Could he have been delayed due to all the wars in which he was involved?

2:18 “…upon the Plates of Nephi…”  Mormon₂ here is referring to the Large Plates of Nephi.

2:18 “….but upon these plates…”   Here Mormon₂ is speaking of his abridgment of the Large Plates of Nephi.

Nephite Gains;  the Land is Divided:  book of  Mormon 2:20-29

2:16 “…we had become weak like unto our brethren.”  Mormon seems to hold to a different definition of what weak is.  Apparently it is not physical or military strength.

2:28 Besides this treaty, Zeniff’s treaty (Mosiah 7:21; 9:2)is the only other treaty mentioned in the Book of Mormon.

“Mormon could have wondered about the wisdom of the treaty he himself had negotiated – the only other treaty, besides Zeniff’s, mentioned in the Book of Mormon” (Hardy, A Reader’s Guide, pg. 131).

A Chance for Repentance:  book of Mormon 3:1-3

 3:1 “…until ten years more…”  This would be +360 years.

Nephite Victories Lead to War-Fever:  book of Mormon 3:4-10

3:1-10 “After Christ’s visit, however, the pride cycle seems no longer operative;  the wicked are prosperous (4 Nephi 1:46) and upturns in fortune can occure without repentance” (Hardy, A Reader’s Guide, pg. 114)

3:4 “….after this tenth year had passed away…”   That is, ten years since the treaty had been signed with the (neo)Lamanites adn the Gadianton robbers (see Mormon 2:28, 3:1)

Mormon₂ Refuses to Lead His People: book of  Mormon 3:11-16 

3:13 “…thrice have I delivered them out of the hands of their enemies….”   First time was the book of Mormon 2:9.  The second time was the book of Mormon 2:25-26.   The third time was the book of  Mormon 3:7-8 (Grant Hardy, The Book of Mormon: A Reader’s Edition, pg. 559, note ^d13).

3:14 “…they had sworn by all that had been forbidden them…”  See 3 Nephi 12:34-36;  book of Mormon 3:10

A Message to Israel and the Gentiles:  book of Mormon 3:17-22

3:17-22

“Mormon’s clearest identification of his presumed audience is in the book of Mormon 3:1-22, where he lists four distinct groups:  the Gentiles, the Jews, other scattered descendants of Israel, and the remnants of the Lehites…Mormon, coming at the end of the Nephite civilization, is more aware that he is writing for people far removed from his time and culture, yet he also assumes that his primary readers will be latter-day Lamanites and only secondarily Jews and Gentiles (4 Nephi 1:49; book of  Mormon 5:12; cf.  3 Nephi 29:1; book of Mormon 3:17-18)” (Hardy, A Reader’s Guide, pg. 317, note 48, pg. 221)

3:18-19 

“The apostles mentioned here are those Jesus chose in Palestine.  The Book of Mormon scrupulously avoids calling the twelve Nephite disciples “apostles” and indicates that the Nephtie twelve will in some way be subordinate to Jesus’ original twelve.  See 1 Nephi 12:9-10)” (Hardy, A Reader’s Guide, pg. 322, note 25)

3:21 “Christ”  If Mormon was of Hebrew descent, why not use the Hebrew  transliterated word”Messiah” instead of the transliterated Greek “Christ”?

The Nephites Attack the Lamanties and are Defeated:  book of Mormon 4:1-5

4:5 “…for it is the wicked that stir up the hearts…”   Interesting, here Mormon puts the blame, not on Satan, but on humanity.

Nephite Gains and Losses; Great Wickedness:  book of Mormon 4:6-15

4:12 “…according to the words of the Lord…”  The reference here is uncertain.

4:14  “…and did offer them up as sacrifices unto their idol gods.”  

Many groups of people have performed human sacrifices as a way of pleasing or appeasing their gods. The Maya were no different in this regard. Inscribed stones bear witness to the Maya practice of human sacrifice. Precious feathers appear where blood would be expected coming from the wounds in some depictions of Maya human sacrifice ritual. Perhaps this symbolizes how valuable the life-giving fluid is to the gods. In the accompanying illustration, instead of spurting blood, there are serpents.
The common method for human sacrifice seems to have been for the “ah nacom” (a functionary) to extract the heart quickly, while 4 people associated with Chac, the rain/lightning god, held the struggling victim’s limbs. Human sacrifices seem to have been made, as well, with arrows, by flaying, decapitation, hurling from a precipice, and throwing the victim into a limestone sinkhole.

Warfare was one source of human sacrificial victims. It is thought that losers in the ballgames may also have sometimes been victims, and sacrifice appears to have been connected mainly with ballgames, festivals, and the assumption of power by a new king (http://ancienthistory.about.com/od/deathafterlife/qt/012709MayaScrfc.htm).

 

4:15 “…had sacrificed their women…”   Once again, this characteristic of the (neo)Lamanites does not sound like the behavior of the Lamanites that are found prior to Jesus’ new-world visit.     See the following: 1 Nephi 7:19 “…one of the daughters of Ishmael, yea, and also her mother…did soften their hearts…”      Jacob 2:35 “…ye have done greater iniquities than the Lamanites…”  Mosiah 23:33, 34 “…the Lamanites…did not destroy them, because of their wives.”   In these earlier chapters, we see that women were able to soften the Lamanite heart and at times, were treated better by the Lamanites than by the Nephites.

  The Beginnings of the End:  book of Mormon 4:16-23

4:23 “…therefore I did go to the hill Shim…”  This further complicates my question from the book of Mormon 2:17.   Do any of you have any insight?   Is this a separate time from what is spoken of in the book of Mormon 2:17?

The Nephites Retreat:  book of Mormon 5:1-7

5:1 “…and did repent…”  Since the Book of Mormon was written in some type of Hebrew which was called “Reformed Egyptian” and relies heavily on the KJV, it is a worth while exercise to look at the  different Hebrew words from which the word “repent” is translated in the KJV.  Here are a few:

nacham: to be sorry, console oneself
Original Word: נָחַם
Part of Speech: Verb
Transliteration: nacham
Phonetic Spelling: (naw-kham’)
Short Definition: comfort

shabah: to take captive
Original Word: שָׁבָה
Part of Speech: Verb
Transliteration: shabah
Phonetic Spelling: (shaw-baw’)
Short Definition: taken

chanan: beseech
Original Word: חָנַן
Part of Speech: Verb
Transliteration: chanan
Phonetic Spelling: (khaw-nan’)
Short Definition: beseech

shub: to turn back, return
Original Word: שׁוּב
Part of Speech: Verb
Transliteration: shub
Phonetic Spelling: (shoob)
Short Definition: return

latash: to hammer, sharpen, whet
Original Word: לָטַשׁ
Part of Speech: Verb
Transliteration: latash
Phonetic Spelling: (law-tash’)
Short Definition: sharpen

zamam: to consider, purpose, devise
Original Word: זָמַם
Part of Speech: Verb
Transliteration: zamam
Phonetic Spelling: (zaw-mam’)
Short Definition: purposed

chus: to pity, look upon with compassion
Original Word: חוּס
Part of Speech: Verb
Transliteration: chus
Phonetic Spelling: (khoos)
Short Definition: pity

aph: a nostril, nose, face, anger
Original Word: אַף
Part of Speech: Noun Masculine
Transliteration: aph
Phonetic Spelling: (af)
Short Definition: anger

A Prophecy Concerning the Lamanites and the Gentiles: book of Mormon 5:8-24

“If the chronology forms the backbone of Mormon’s history, prophecy is the ligament that holds it together. We should also note that Mormon has a vested interest in linking prophecies and their realizations;  the Book of Mormon presents an extended “argument from fulfilled prophecy,” that is, readers are assured that if all of these predictions have come to pass as foretold, so too will those that are as yet unfulfilled, including many that concern their own lives at the time when the Book of Mormon would be published (e.g. Mormon’s prophecies in 3 Nephi 29 and the book of Mormon 5:8-24), as well as the final judgment day. (Perhaps unsurprisingly, Jesus’ Second coming and the Millennium are almost never mentioned in Mormon’s writings.)”  (Hardy, A Reader’s Guide pg. 113).

5:9 “…who the Lord hath said should scatter this people…”  See 3 Nephi 16:8;  20:15, 27;  21:2 Cf. 1 Nephi 13:14,;  22:7 & 2 Nephi 1:11, though the Lord is not the speaker in these verses.

5:9  “…this people should be counted as naught among them…”  Perhaps this refers to 3 Nephi 16:9 (Hardy, Reader’s Edition, pg. 563, note ^c9).

5:10-24 “The two places where Mormon addresses God’s plan for Israel are in 3 Nephi 5:21-26 (in which he uses the relatively rare term “House of Jacob” exclusively) and perhaps in the book of Mormon 5:10-24” (Hardy, A Reader’s Guide, pg. 295, note 3).

5:14

“In his study of the relationship between Mormons and Jews, Steven Epperson downplayed this the Book of Mormon teaching that the House of Israel will be brought to a knowledge of Jesus Christ as their Redeemer, observing that ‘The Book of Mormon repeatedly asserts that Israel’s restoration depends on realizing the territorial terms of the covenant not in its conversion to, or identity with, the church.’  It may be that ‘Jewish missions were explicitly rejected by most leaders of the LDS Church and were never part of the church’s program in the nineteenth century,’ but the Book of Mormon is nevertheless clear that eventually Jews will become Christians’” (Grant Hardy, Understanding The Book of Mormon:  A Reader’s Guide, pg. 315, note 36)

5:24 “…shall go forth among you as a lion…” See Micah 5:8, cited in 3 Nephi 20:15; 21:12.

Preparations for the Last Battle:  book of Mormon 6:1-6

6:6 “…and hid up in the hill Cumorah all the records which had been entrusted to me by the hand of the Lord, save it were these few plates which I gave unto my son Moroni.” 

It is clear that the plates that were hid in the hill Cumorah were all the plates except for the record that Mormon is writing, that he would pass on to Moroni, and later become what we now have as the Book of Mormon.  If one holds to a limited-geography view of the Book of Mormon and to the idea that it mostly occured in Meso-America, this can prove to be a problem.  Why?  Because the hill in which Joseph Smith found the Golden Plates is called the Hill Cumorah and is in up-state New York.

So, this then begs the question, why is the hill in upstate New York called the Hill Cumorah, if that is where only the Book of Mormon was hid,  and (if you hold to a limited-geography view of the Book of Mormon occurring in Southern Mexico and Guatemala) not necessarily where “all the records” were hid?

The hill outside of Manchester, New York “of considerable size” (Joseph Smith – History 1:51) was first called the Hill Cumorah by Oliver Cowdery in the Church periodical, “The Messenger and Advocate”, in 1835;  it was not Joseph Smith that gave this mount the name that we now use.    We see Joseph Smith, Jr. adopting  the common, accepted LDS parlance in 1842 –  Doctrine and Covenants section 128:20  reads “…what do we hear?  Glad tidings from Cumorah!”

For these reasons, I do not believe that the Hill Cumorah in up-state New York is the same hill Cumorah spoken of in the Book of Mormon.

The Last Battle:  book of Mormon 6:7-15

6:11-15 Do the math.  That is 90,000 people.

Mormon₂‘s Lamentation:  book of Mormon 6:16-22

In these verses you sense the pain and loneliness that Mormon is feeling.  Mormon is now seventy-four when writes down his lamentations.

6:19 “…fair sons and daughters…”

“In using this locution, he brings to mind the only previous occasion we have encountered it, that is, when a voice from heaven enumerated the cataclysmic destructions at the time of Christ’s death, lamenting the slain of the fair sons and daughters of my people” (3 Nephi 9:2) (Hardy, A Reader’s Guide, pg. 109).

Mormoni₂ Quotes a Second Letter from Mormon₂: Moroni 9:1-26

After five-hundred and twenty-seven pages of the Book of Mormon, these are the last recorded words of the prophet Mormon….sigh.

_{The Hard Hearts of the People:  Moroni 9:1-6} 

“A few key phrases in common suggest that this letter was originally written about the time of the events described in the book of Mormon 4” (Hardy, Reader’s Edition, pg. 624, note ^c1).

Wickedness and Suffering of the People:  Moroni 9:7-19

9:17 Aaron is the King of the Lamanites.  See the book of Mormon 2:9; 3:4

Mormon₂‘s Words of Farewell to Moroni₂:  Moroni 9:20-25

9:23 “Jaredites”   The fact that Mormon mentions the name of the Book of Ether, tells us that he was aware of what the record contained.

9:24 “…I have sacred records that I would deliver up unto thee…” See the book of Mormon 6:6

[End of Moroni₂ Quotes a Second Letter from Mormon₂:  Moroni 9:1-26]