The Book of Mormon

1 Nephi 1:1

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~600 BC

1830 Edition

I, Nephi, having been born of goodly parents, therefore I was taught somewhat in all the learning of my father; and having seen many afflictions in the course of my days—nevertheless, having been highly favored of the Lord in all my days; yea, having had a great knowledge of the goodness and the mysteries of God, therefore I make a record of my proceedings in my days.

Influences

1 Corinthians 4:1 (KJV)
Let a man so account of us, as of the ministers of Christ, and stewards of the mysteries of God.

Changes

I, Nephi, having been born of goodly parents, therefore I was taught somewhat in all the learning of my father; and having seen many afflictions in the course of my days—, nevertheless, having been highly favored of the Lord in all my days; yea, having had a great knowledge of the goodness and the mysteries of God, therefore I make a record of my proceedings in my days.

Simple English

I, Nephi, was born to good parents. So I learned many things from my father. I have seen many hard times in my life. But the Lord has blessed me in all my days. I have learned much about God’s goodness and mysteries. So I am making a record of what happens in my life.

Paraphrase

I, Nephi, was blessed with good parents who taught me everything they knew. My life has been full of hardships, but God has always looked after me. He's shown me his goodness and let me in on his mysteries. So I'm writing down my story.

Notes

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"The book of Genesis seems to have had a real influence upon the first few chapters of the Book of Mormon. Two of Nephi's brothers, Joseph and Jacob, have names taken from the book of Genesis. His mother's name is Sariah, which reminds us of Abraham's wife Sarah-also called Sarai (Genesis 17:15). Ishmael-a friend of the family-is also a name taken from Genesis (Genesis 17:18). The name Laban is likewise found in Genesis (Genesis 24:29). The story of Nephi in some ways parallels that of Joseph found in Genesis (the younger son is favored by the father, is chosen of God, the older brothers try to kill him, etc)." -Jerald and Sandra Tanner, Joseph Smith's Plagiarism of the Bible in the Book of Mormon, p. 20.

1:1

The name Nephi, the younger son of Lehi, appears to have been drawn from the King James Version of the Apocrypha. In 2 Maccabees 1:36 (KJV) we read: “And Neemias called this thing Naphthar, which is as much to say, a cleansing; but many men call it Nephi.”

There are over 300 proper names in the Book of Mormon. Roughly 141 of those names can be found in the Bible as well. For example, Abrahahm, Ammon, Bethabara, Esrom, Ether, Gomorrah, Ishmael, Jared, Jonas, Judea, Lemuel, Madmenah, Nazareth, Pathros, Pekah, Rama, Shinar, Sinim, and Zebulun are names found both in the Book of Mormon and the Bible.

"Many Book of Mormon names not found in the Bible seem to be made up by re-arranging various syllables or changing the ending of Bible names. For example, the Bible speaks of Abinadab, the Book of Mormon mentions Abinadi and Abinadom. The BOM also uses the biblical Aminadab and a modified Aminodi. The Bible mentions Kish, the Book of Mormon has Akish and Kishcumen. The Bible has Gimzo, and the Book of Mormon speaks of Gimgimno. Besides using the biblical name Helam, Smith expands it to Helaman.... Some seem to be simply different spellings. Melech in the Bible becomes Melek in the Book of Mormon. Biblical Chemosh becomes Chemish. Book of Mormon Ziff seems to be a different spelling of biblical Ziph. Nehor seems to be from the biblical Nahor. More names are created by adding such endings as 'hah.' The Book of Mormon has the names Nephi and Nephihah; Moroni and Moronihah; Ammon and Ammonihah; Mathoni and Mathonihah..." -Jerald and Sandra Tanner, Joseph Smith's Plagiarism of the Bible in the Book of Mormon, p. 27

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"Although criticism of the Apocrypha was growing among the Protestants in Joseph Smith's day, it was still printed in a number of King James Bibles at that time. In fact, when Smith purchased a Bible in the late 1820's, he picked one which contain the Apocrypha. LDS scholar Reed Durham mentioned this purchase in his BYU dissertation (A History of Joseph Smith's Revision of the Bible, Ph.D. dissertation, BYU, 1965, p. 25). In view of the parallels it seems obvious that Joseph Smith read at least portions of the Apocrypha before writing the book of 1 Nephi. He was apparently familiar with the Apocryphal book of Judith and both 1 and 2 Maccabees. From these three books he absorbed portions and combined them into one story in the Book of Mormon. There are thirty-two interesting parallels between material found in three books of the Apocrypha and the Book of Mormon story of Nephi....Interestingly, twenty-eight of the thirty-two parallels to the Apocrypha are found in the first five chapters of the Book of Mormon. This constitutes an extraordinary cluster of similarities..." -Jerald and Sandra Tanner, Joseph Smith's Plagiarism of the Bible in the Book of Mormon, p. 29.

Parallel: Both the book of Nephi (BOM) and the book of 2 Maccabees (APO) use the word "Nephi" in their opening chapter (1 Nephi 1:1; 2 Maccabees 1:36). Furthermore, the very first verse found in 2 Maccabees mentions the Jews in Egypt. The second verse in the Book of Mormon (1 Nephi 1:2) contains Nephi's statement that the book would be written in the Egyptian language.

For other parallels, please see: 1 Nephi 1:17, 1 Nephi 4:20-24, 1 Nephi 2:4-6, 1 Nephi 3:3, 1 Nephi 3:16, 1 Nephi 3:25, 1 Nephi 3:31, 1 Nephi 4:1-2, 1 Nephi 4:4-5, 1 Nephi 4:7-9, 1 Nephi 4:18, 1 Nephi 4:19-24 & 38, 1 Nephi 4:20, 1 Nephi 4:27, 1 Nephi 5:9, 1 Nephi 13:40, 2 Nephi 5:8, Mosiah 3:1, Mosiah 10:13, 4 Nephi 1:31.

1:1

The Book of Mormon opens with this statement: "I, Nephi, having been born of goodly parents." Smith's own story states: "I was born in the town of Sharon...of goodly parents."

Smith is quoted as saying "born of goodly parents" in An American Prophet's Record, pp. 3-8.

For other examples of Smith's common phrases, see 2 Nephi 26:15 and 2 Nephi 28:16.