The Book of Mormon

2 Nephi 5:8

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~588–559 BC

1830 Edition

And my people would that we should call the name of the place Nephi; wherefore, we did call it Nephi.

Influences

Galatians 2:10 (KJV)
Only they would that we should remember the poor; the same which I also was forward to do.
2 Maccabees 1:36 (KJV)
And Neemias called this thing Naphthar, which is as much as to say, a cleansing: but many men call it Nephi.

Simple English

My people wanted to name the place Nephi. So we called it Nephi.

Paraphrase

My people wanted to name the place Nephi, so that’s what we called it.

Notes

5:8

"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: There is a significant parallel in wording between 2 Maccabees and the Book of Mormon in that both books use the words "the place" and "call it Nephi" (see 2 Maccabees 1:34, 36).

For other parallels, please see: 1 Nephi 1:1, 1 Nephi 1:2, 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 10:13, 4 Nephi 1:31.

For a full note on the use of the Apocrypha, please see the annotation at 1 Nephi 1:1.