I don’t believe there is any single ‘right’ way to read or interpret the scriptures. Throughout my life, passages of scripture have meant different things to me at different times. You might have had the experience of reading a verse for the umpteenth time, only to have it jump out at you for the first time, and saying to yourself, ‘I’m sure that verse wasn’t there last time I read.’ It happens to me a lot.

The Jews had 4 ways to read the scriptures:

1. Peshat: the literal, simple level.

2. Remez: the allegorical level

3. Derash: the sermonic level – what the text means to individual people applying it in their lives

4. Sod: the mystical level

I often tell myself that I ‘should’ really spend more time examining the scriptures with each of these four ideas in mind. And when I listen to talks given by Robert Kay, for example, on understanding what it means to call upon the name of the Lord in Ether 3-4, it blows my mind at what there is to discover (see the video here). Robert is totally fascinating and I encourage you to give him a listen if you haven’t previously.

That said, when I get into the scriptures, my mind seems to take me in different directions – usually some combination of Remez and Derash, the allegorical and sermonic levels.

 One of the things I’ve really enjoyed over the last year in particular is the new ways to read both the prophetic books of the Old Testament (roughly from Isaiah to the end), and the Book of Mormon. It’s opened up entirely new and beautiful vistas of understanding.

I’d like to share just one today. I’ll forewarn you, though – it might challenge the way you think about things and you might have some cognitive dissonance try and make you reject it outright. I encourage you to work through that, though. The blessings of increased understanding are worth it.

Over the years, I’ve often wondered why Nephi split his writings into two books – 1 Nephi and 2 Nephi. Our current chapter and versification weren’t placed there by Nephi; they were done by Orson Pratt and included for the first time in the 1879 LDS edition of the Book of Mormon. It makes it a lot easier to reference, but sure does hide a lot of poetry and other literary devices used by the original authors. But the division between the individual books within the Book of Mormon was done by Nephi (and later on Mormon and Moroni) himself. Why?

On the one had, you could say that 1 Nephi is mostly ‘telling a story’, and 2 Nephi is mostly sermons. And mostly, that’s right. But there are two chapters of Isaiah plonked into the end of 1 Nephi, and the first few chapters of 2 Nephi are ‘story’, so it doesn’t quite fit as an explanation. Maybe you’ve never really thought about it, but everything Nephi, Mormon and Moroni did while writing, compiling, etc this record was done with intentionality. They thought deeply and prayerfully about what to put down on the permanent record of gold plates. We can learn something from that if we understand the ‘why’.

While I can’t give you a definitive answer (because I haven’t met Nephi et al to ask), a possible reason might be that each of the individual books in the Book of Mormon are intended to teach us something specific. As it relates specifically to 1 and 2 Nephi, however, I wonder if each book is essentially teaching the same thing, but in a different way. A few different ideas came together for me to come to that conclusion which I will share below, and it directly relates to the fact that it was written to and for us in our day (specifically to the Lamanites, Jews and Gentiles). We won’t actually get very far in this today, but I hope to write some future posts to further explore it.

Let’s start off with the beginning of 1 Nephi. 

After his brief introduction, Nephi tells us that many prophets are coming to call the Lord’s people to repentance, and warning of the destruction of Jerusalem if they fail to do so.

Without going any further, let’s pause and see how this applies to us today. I’ve shared in a previous post about the warnings to the Lord’s latter-day covenant people (see that post here). The Book of Mormon itself explicitly speaks of us – Moroni says he has seen us. And then he tells us we have polluted the holy church of God, and transfigured the holy word of God (see Moroni 8:27-38).

When Christ visited the Nephites, he said that the Gentiles of the latter days would reject the fulness of his gospel and face destruction. And the Lord tells us in D&C 112 that the destructions of the last days will begin with us, ‘And upon my house shall it begin, and from my house shall it go forth, saith the Lord; First among those among you, saith the Lord, who have professed to know my name and have not known me, and have blasphemed against me in the midst of my house, saith the Lord.’ (D&C 112:25-26)

Yes, prophets have told us of our forthcoming destruction. Now, we don’t know for certain whether that destruction will happen in our lifetimes or not, but the warning is to us nonetheless. We would do well to heed it.

Going back to the first chapter of 1 Nephi, we next see Lehi being called as one of those prophets who is to declare repentance to the people. As is usually the case in scripture, the true prophet isn’t someone in ecclesiastical authority. He is an outsider. He obeys the command of the Lord and is threatened by the people as a result. Nephi subtly gives us more information on this throughout 1 Nephi, as he refers to his brothers Laman and Lemuel. So, let’s look briefly at them.

In the second chapter, Nephi tells us that his older brothers, ‘were like unto the Jews who were at Jerusalem, who sought to take away the life of my father.’ (1 Nephi 2:13) And we get insight into how Laman and Lemuel think later on when Nephi quotes them as saying, ‘And we know that the people who were in the land of Jerusalem were a righteous people; for they kept the statutes and judgments of the Lord, and all his commandments, according to the law of Moses; wherefore, we know that they are a righteous people.’ (1 Nephi 17:22) And according to the law of Moses, a false prophet could be killed; so if the people think that they’re righteous and that Lehi is a false prophet, they’re totally self-justified in seeking Lehi’s life.

Laman and Lemuel (and most of the Jews of the day) judged righteousness by adherence to the minutiae of the law of Moses. And the Jews were excellent at that. The same was the case amongst the Pharisees during Christ’s mortal ministry. We see the same thing yet again with the first ‘anti-Christ’ of the Book of Mormon, Sherem. Sherem believed that by teaching the doctrine of Christ, Jacob was perverting, ‘the right way of God, and [and teaching them to] keep not the law of Moses which is the right way; and convert the law of Moses into the worship of a being [Christ]…’ (Jacob 7:7)

Later in the book of Mosiah, the wicked priests of Noah make the same argument again. Indeed, we can start to see a pattern here, especially in the Book of Mormon. The wicked and most worthy of destruction, often see themselves as righteous, because they ‘keep the law’ fastidiously. Their spiritual and civic leaders think the same thing. But they’re all wrong – desperately and tragically so.

As we apply this to us in our day, as members of the LDS church, maybe we say, ‘I attend all my meetings, I fulfil my calling, I pay my tithing, keep the word of wisdom, attend the temple every week, read the scriptures daily and listen to general conference, always trying to ‘follow the prophet’.

The ecclesiastical leaders of the Jews in Nephi’s day also called themselves prophets. And what did they prophesy? ‘The prophets prophesy falsely, and the priests bear rule by their means; and my people love to have it so…’ (Jeremiah 5:31); ‘…from the prophet even unto the priest every one dealeth falsely.’ (Jeremiah 6:13); ‘For the pastors are become brutish, and have not sought the Lord…’ (Jeremiah 10:21); ‘Many pastors have destroyed my vineyard…’ (Jeremiah 12:10).

I could carry on with endless quotes from Jeremiah, Isaiah and other Old Testament (true) prophets, but you get the point. The 23rd chapter of Jeremiah is especially damning to the ‘prophets’. Verse 30 reads, ‘Therefore, says the LORD, I am against these prophets who steal messages from each other and claim they are from me.’ (New Living Translation). It fascinating to note that, according to one analyst, in the last general conference, President Nelson was quoted more frequently than Jesus Christ himself.

Samuel the Lamanite says the same thing to the Nephites in the book of Helaman, in a sermon that equally applies to our days. He tells them:

‘Yea, wo unto this people, because of this time which has arrived, that ye do cast out the prophets, and do mock them, and cast stones at them, and do slay them, and do all manner of iniquity unto them, even as they did of old time. And now when ye talk, ye say: If our days had been in the days of our fathers of old, we would not have slain the prophets; we would not have stoned them, and cast them out. Behold ye are worse than they; for as the Lord liveth, if a prophet come among you and declareth unto you the word of the Lord, which testifieth of your sins and iniquities, ye are angry with him, and cast him out and seek all manner of ways to destroy him; yea, you will say that he is a false prophet, and that he is a sinner, and of the devil, because he testifieth that your deeds are evil. But behold, if a man shall come among you and shall say: Do this, and there is no iniquity; do that and ye shall not suffer; yea, he will say: Walk after the pride of your own hearts; yea, walk after the pride of your eyes, and do whatsoever your heart desireth—and if a man shall come among you and say this, ye will receive him, and say that he is a prophet. Yea, ye will lift him up, and ye will give unto him of your substance; ye will give unto him of your gold, and of your silver, and ye will clothe him with costly apparel; and because he speaketh flattering words unto you, and he saith that all is well, then ye will not find fault with him.’ (Helaman 13:24-28)

At least we don’t (usually) kill people today when they say things we don’t like. We excommunicate them, and then tell members not to talk to ‘apostates’, but it’s the same principle.

This is where the cognitive dissonance kicks in. ‘No, no, no,’ you say to yourself. ‘Our prophets are true prophets. The scriptures are talking about someone else.’

Except Christ explicitly said that Isaiah and the other ‘prophets’ of the Old Testament prophesied both of their day and the last days. Plus, Moroni, Nephi, and Christ all explicitly called out wickedness of the Lord’s people in these days, not to mention the final destructions beginning with ‘His’ people as quoted earlier in D&C 112.

So, no, I’m sorry, we are not righteous as a people. All is absolutely not well in Zion – quite the opposite in fact.

Because unlike what Laman and Lemuel (and the Jews of their day) believed, God isn’t especially interested in temple attendance and paying tithing to the last senine. 

This is what the Lord says about temples in the Jews’ day, ‘Israel is an empty vine, he bringeth forth fruit unto himself: according to the multitude of his fruit he hath increased the altars; according to the goodness of his land they have made goodly images. Their heart is divided; now shall they be found faulty: he shall break down their altars, he shall boil their image.’ (Hosea 10:1-2)

‘For I desired mercy, and not sacrifice; and the knowledge of God more than burnt offerings.’ (Hosea 6:6); ‘Hath the Lord as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices as in obeying the voice of the Lord? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to hearken than the fat of rams.’ (1 Samuel 15:22)

Do we really think that if Jesus Christ were on the earth today He would spend His time in the temples? During His mortal ministry, He only taught at the temple during the appointed feasts. At all other times, He was teaching, ministering to, and healing the poor, the sick, and the ostracised. Why would He be different today? Why would He want us to do differently today?

So, if the Jews of Nephi’s day kept the law of Moses, and offered their appointed sacrifices, what was their great sin (and our great sin today)?

‘The shew of their countenance doth witness against them; and they declare their sin as Sodom, they hide it not. Woe unto their soul! for they have rewarded evil unto themselves.’ (Isaiah 3:9)

What was the sin of Sodom? ‘Behold, this was the iniquity of thy sister Sodom, pride, fulness of bread, and abundance of idleness was in her and in her daughters, neither did she strengthen the hand of the poor and needy.’ (Ezekiel 16:49). Not quite what we’re taught in Sunday School, right?

‘Forasmuch therefore as your treading is upon the poor, and ye take from him burdens of wheat: ye have built houses of hewn stone, but ye shall not dwell in them; ye have planted pleasant vineyards, but ye shall not drink wine of them. For I know your manifold transgressions and your mighty sins: they afflict the just, they take a bribe, and they turn aside the poor in the gate from their right.’ (Amos 5:11-12)

‘O ye that swallow up the needy, even to make the poor of the land to fail, Saying, When will the new moon be gone, that we may sell corn? and the sabbath, that we may set forth wheat, making the ephah small, and the shekel great, and falsifying the balances by deceit? That we may buy the poor for silver, and the needy for a pair of shoes; yea, and sell the refuse of the wheat?’ (Amos 8:4-6)

‘…ye beat my people to pieces, and grind the faces of the poor.’ (Isaiah 3:15); ’… he looked for judgment, but behold oppression; for righteousness, but behold a cry.’ (Isaiah 5:7)

Orphans, widows, poor, outcasts, homeless. How we treat these groups is apparently what God values most. It seems we’re ripening for destruction.

That was the message to the Jews of Nephi’s day. And that’s the message Nephi is trying to tell us, too. God told Lehi to take his family and get out of town – to leave the supposed covenant community; to leave behind what he had believed was his land of promise and his inherited blessings. We see this pattern repeated early in 2 Nephi, when the Lord tells Nephi to take all those who believe with him and to get out of town, to leave Laman and Lemuel. This repetition is what alerted me to the similarities between 1 and 2 Nephi.

The Lord might not be telling you and me just yet to take our families and get out of town, to get away from the supposed covenant people. But we should be prepared for it. Because the Jews of Jerusalem in 1 Nephi are representative of the latter-day church. Laman and Lemuel are representative of the average active, ‘faithful’ member of the latter-day church.

Yes, you and I are Laman. We need to repent. That’s why 2 Nephi kicks off with Lehi calling Laman and Lemuel to repentance. Remember though, repentance isn’t scary; in fact, it’s beautiful and joyous. I’ve discussed repentance recently (you can find that post here), but I’ll post again to specifically talk about Lehi’s message to Laman and Lemuel because there’s some fascinating stuff in there.

Truly the Lord loves us. That’s why He gave us these beautiful writings. Let’s come out from under the condemnation of ignoring the Book of Mormon (see D&C 84:54-57) and really listen to what it has to say to us.

© Copyright 2025 Jeffrey Collyer