The Book of Mormon

Week 12: Enos’s wrestle; Nephite spiritual decline; Mosiah₁ leads righteous Nephites to Zarahemla

Enos, Jarom, Omni, Words of Mormon, and Mosiah 1

11 January 2024

Notes and lesson materials will be posted after the class has been held. 

• Clifford P. Jones, “The Prophets Who Wrote the Book of Omni,” Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship 34 (2020): 221–44. The brief accounts written by Omni, Amaron, Chemish, Abinadom, and Amaleki, taken alone, don’t always inspire confidence in their righteousness. Jones argues that, when the specific words used by these men and all relevant context are taken into consideration, it’s reasonable to conclude that each of these authors of the book of Omni was a prophet of God.

• The people of Zarahemla were the descendants of a group that came from Jerusalem who were led by Mulek, a son of King Zedekiah. (Omni 1:14–19; Mosiah 25:2; Helaman 8:21) There is no outside historical record of Zedekiah of Judah having a son named Mulek, and the Old Testament record claims that Zedekiah’s sons were killed by the Babylonians in front of him. (2 Kings 25:7; Jeremiah 39:6; 52:10). However, an ancient Judean stamp seal has been identified as bearing the Hebrew form of the name Malkiyahu, son of the king, which may refer to the Mulek of the Book of Mormon. See Jeffrey R. Chadwick, “Has the Seal of Mulek Been Found?”, Journal of Book of Mormon Studies 12, no. 2 (2003): 72–83.

• For more information on how the small plates of Nephi became the replacement for the lost 116 manuscript pages of the Book of Mormon, see the notes and slideshow for Doctrine and Covenants lesson 3.

• Mosiah chapter 1 is identified as “Chapter III” in the printer’s manuscript of the Book of Mormon. This evidence indicates that these two missing chapters from the book of Mosiah were part of the 116 manuscript pages lost by Martin Harris. Royal Skousen, editor of the Book of Mormon Critical Text project, discusses this with Michael De Groote in “Scholar’s Corner: The stolen chapters of Mosiah,” Deseret News  (24 June 2010).