Onto Mormon. Book of Mormon within the Book of Mormon. Just as bad as having an overabundance of people named Nephi. Can I call it "Book of Mormon squared"?

What a fascinating book. We read the long-predicted demise of the Nephites. They refuse to repent. They refuse to turn to Christ. They seek wealth and vengeance. Mormon temporarily refuses to lead them in battle.

It’s such a doleful, poignant image. Mormon and 23 others on the top of Hill Cumorah, staring down at the corpses of their people, watching them moulder and crumble. They were “swept off .. even as a dew before the sun.”

Then, Mormon and his son Moroni address people living 14 centuries later, the Gentiles (all those not of the House of Israel, the latter including both Jews and Native Americans) and the Indians.

Commentary on plates. “The plates thereof are of no worth ... for he truly saith that no one shall have them to get gain.”

Pointed criticism of the churches of JS’s day for denying the miraculous and for privileging their own wealth over the needs of the poor. “I will shew unto you a God of miracles.”

Such a fascinating comment that “imperfections” in the record are due in part to it having been written in “reformed Egyptian.” The plates were too small for Hebrew. Suggests bilingual editors of plates.

So Hebrew is like Arial and reformed Egyptian is like Calibri?