Mormon’s Introduction
I, Mormon, am about to pass this record on to my son Moroni. I’ve watched nearly my entire people—the Nephites—be destroyed. It’s been many hundreds of years since Christ came, and now I’m handing these records to my son. I expect he’ll see the complete end of our people. But I pray God will let him survive them, so he can write something about them and about Christ—something that might help someone someday.
The Small Plates of Nephi
Let me explain what I’ve written. After I’d summarized the plates of Nephi down to the reign of King Benjamin—the one Amaleki mentioned—I dug through the records I had and found these plates. They held a brief account of the prophets from Jacob down to King Benjamin, along with many of Nephi’s words. What’s on these plates moved me, especially the prophecies about Christ’s coming. My ancestors knew many of them had come true. I know, too, that everything prophesied about us up to this day has happened, and what lies beyond will certainly come to pass. So I chose to finish my record with these. The rest I’ll take from the plates of Nephi. I can’t write even a hundredth of what’s happened to my people.
I’m going to include these plates—full of prophecies and revelations—with the rest of my record. They’re precious to me, and I know they’ll be precious to my descendants. I’m doing this for a reason the Spirit whispers to me. I don’t know everything, but the Lord knows what’s coming, and he’s working through me to accomplish his will. My prayer to God is for my people—that they might come back to knowing God, that they might understand what Christ has done for them, and become a people of light again.
The Record Passes Through Generations
Now I’ll finish my record, drawing from the plates of Nephi and writing according to the knowledge and understanding God has given me. After Amaleki gave these plates to King Benjamin, Benjamin added them to the other plates—the royal records that had been passed down from king to king, generation after generation, until his time. They were handed down from King Benjamin through the generations until they came to me. I pray to God they’ll be kept safe from now on. I know they will be, because there are powerful truths written on them. My people and their relatives will be judged by them on the last day, according to God’s word.
King Benjamin Fights for His People
Now, about King Benjamin: he had some conflicts among his own people. The Lamanite armies also came down from the land of Nephi to attack his people. But King Benjamin gathered his forces and stood against them. He fought with his own hands, wielding the sword of Laban. In the Lord’s strength, they fought their enemies until they’d killed many thousands of Lamanites. They kept fighting until they’d driven them completely out of their territory.
Peace Restored
After false messiahs had appeared and been silenced, punished for their crimes— and after false prophets and preachers and teachers had arisen among the people and been punished for their crimes, and after much fighting and many defections to the Lamanites—King Benjamin, with the help of the holy prophets among his people— King Benjamin was a righteous man who ruled his people with integrity. There were many holy men in the land who spoke God’s word with power and authority. They were blunt because the people were so stubborn. So with their help, King Benjamin—working with all his strength, body and soul, alongside the prophets—brought peace to the land once more.
Influences
- 1:4 — Revelation 10:6 (KJV)And sware by him that liveth for ever and ever, who created heaven, and the things that therein are, and the earth, and the things that therein are, and the sea, and the things which are therein, that there should be time no longer:
- 1:4 — Acts 1:16 (KJV)Men and brethren, this scripture must needs have been fulfilled, which the Holy Ghost by the mouth of David spake before concerning Judas, which was guide to them that took Jesus.
- 1:7 — 1 John 3:20 (KJV)For if our heart condemn us, God is greater than our heart, and knoweth all things.
- 1:7 — Philippians 2:13 (KJV)For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure.
- 1:15 — Matthew 24:24 (KJV)For there shall arise false Christs, and false prophets, and shall shew great signs and wonders; insomuch that, if it were possible, they shall deceive the very elect.
- 1:16 — 2 Peter 3:2 (KJV)That ye may be mindful of the words which were spoken before by the holy prophets, and of the commandment of us the apostles of the Lord and Saviour:
- 1:17 — Acts 4:31 (KJV)And when they had prayed, the place was shaken where they were assembled together; and they were all filled with the Holy Ghost, and they spake the word of God with boldness.
Notes
- 1:3-7
In 1828, Martin Harris lost 116 pages of the manuscript (History of the Church, vol. 1). These 116 pages, translated by Smith, had come to the point of King Benjamin's reign (130 B.C.). Remarkably, this is precisely the point at which Mormon, the ancient abridger of Nephi’s record, paused to insert Nephi’s small plates, which cover the same time period.
"Strangely enough we find inserted in the middle of the Book of Mormon...[1981 edition, pp. 143-145] a little book entitled the 'Book of Mormon,' or 'Words of Mormon.' It is by the supposed author or compiler of the entire work, the prophet Mormon. He has a book of his own, in its proper place, near the close of the work, recording his own life, and his connection with Nephite history. And this little affair of only two pages, having nothing whatever to do with the thread of the history that is being recorded, is to an ordinary reader of the Book of Mormon, wholly inexplicable. It becomes intelligible, however, when read in connection with a certain untoward event that occurred in connection with the translation of the book [i.e., the theft of the 116 pages]... in due course of time, there appeared a lengthy revelation purporting to come from God, the substance of which... is that Satan has put it into the hearts of the enemies of the truth to alter the words of that stolen manuscript so that should Mr. Smith reproduce them, they would lie about it, and say the two did not agree together...But now, dear reader, after learning all these facts, would you suppose Mr. Smith so far lacking in common sense and good judgment as to give himself completely away in the Book of Mormon itself, by making the old prophet Mormon a party to the fraud? This is precisely what he does by inserting after page 141 [142 of 1981 edition] two pages, entitled the 'Words of Mormon,' at the precise point in the translation where he had arrived when Martin Harris carried away those one hundred and sixteen pages of manuscript!... Singular, isn't, reader, that this old prophet Mormon, fifteen hundred years ago should happen to discover these other plates of Nephi, and thus change the entire first part of his book, at the precise spot in King Benjamin's history where Martin Harris stole the 116 pages of manuscript? And quite as singular is another fact, that from the beginning of the Book of Mormon, in a large number of places, these two sets of plates are carefully distinguished from each other, and very much said about them up to the very same period, the point in the history of King Benjamin where Mr. Harris stole those 116 pages, and from that point onward nothing more is said of a double set of plates, so that Nephi himself, his brother Jacob, and all the writers down to King Benjamin were, as it were, preparing the way for this same great change made necessary by Mr. [Mrs.?] Harris' theft! But although these double sets of plates are so often mentioned in part first of the Book of Mormon, and the specific character of each clearly stated, yet strangely enough the prophet Mormon did not know of the existence of the one set containing 'the more part of the ministry' until he happened to reach that same dangerous point in the history of his nation where Martin Harris' 116 pages ended!... had it not been for the fortunate theft... the whole religious world of to-day would have had palmed upon them, as part first of the Book of Mormon, a very inferior article, losing much of the flavor and sweetness of the gospel, and the most precious prophecies of Christ that the book now, fortunately, contains. Truly Mormon's ways are mysterious, and so are Joseph Smith's!" -M.T. Lamb, The Golden Bible; or The Book of Mormon, Is It From God? (New York: Ward and Drummand, 1887), p. 119.