Temples in the Book of Mormon—Part 1

Joseph commences translating the Book of Lehi. Upon returning to Harmony, Pennsylvania from his February 1828 trip to show the “learned” the characters Joseph and others had copied from the gold plates, Martin Harris “reasoned” with the Prophet Joseph Smith, the Church History Department contributors to Saints volume 1 state, “that if some of the most educated men in America could not translate the book, Joseph had to do it.”[1] The Saints historians do not explain exactly what may have motivated or inspired Joseph to begin the translation process in earnest at this particular season in 1828. They do cite, however, Joseph’s later 1832 recounting of the events that led up to the moments in 1828 when he began to exercise his gift of seership in earnest. “[Martin Harris would say] to the Learned . . . read this I pray thee and the learned said I cannot but if he would bring the blates [plates] they would read it but the Lord had forbid it and he returned to me and gave them to <me> <to> translate and I said I said cannot for I am not learned but the Lord had prepared spectticke spectacles for to read the Book therefore I commenced translating the characters” (see 2 Nephi 27:20).[2] Whatever may have been going through Joseph’s mind at that time, it is clear that the Lord approved of his beginning, and that Joseph now had the faith needed, to translate all of the sacred record that the Lord, in His perfect wisdom, needed him to translate and publish, which task he completed miraculously in about 65-75 days or so.[3]

Father Lehi and Nephi by Nathan Pinnock

Joseph’s wife, Emma, served initially as his principal scribe, aided from time to time by her brothers, Alva and Reuben Hale (as well, for a brief period, Joseph’s brother Samuel Smith), until Martin Harris’s promised return in mid-April to help Joseph “write for a season.”[4] By mid-June, they had translated what Joseph described in his 1832 history as “116 pages.”[5] What was in that translation? More importantly for the purposes of these blogs, was there anything in the things that Joseph dictated that may have ministered to the Prophet’s ongoing, line-upon-line education about the role of temples and temple ordinances in God’s plan for His children?

The Book and Plates of Lehi. In his Preface to the first edition of the Book of Mormon, published in 1830, Joseph stated that the 116 manuscript pages were taken “from the Book of Lehi, which was an account abridged from the plates of Lehi, by the hand of Mormon.”[6] In other words, the “Book of Lehi” was actually Mormon’s abridgment of Lehi’s writings , not the actual record that Lehi kept. Eldon Ricks, then an emeritus professor of ancient scripture at BYU, explained that when Mormon turned 24 and took “the [large] plates of Nephi” from the hill Shim as instructed by the prophet Ammaron (Mormon 1:2-4), he then “engraved on them the history of his times.” The large plates of Nephi, then, would have “included the books of Lehi, Mosiah, Alma, Helaman, 3 Nephi, 4 Nephi, and Mormon.” Then, he concludes from his study of Mormon’s editorial comments, “at or near the close of his literary efforts on the large plates of Nephi, Mormon was inspired to write a small digest of the moral and spiritual contributions of that entire record” covering “nearly a thousand years of Nephite history,” from 600 B.C. to 385 A.D. Mormon wrote his abridgement of the large plates, which Ricks states “very likely took Mormon years to complete,” “on plates which I have made with mine own hands” (3 Nephi 5:11; see verses 14-17, 20).[7] In other words, Mormon used the large plates of Nephi as his primary source in composing his thousand-year Nephite history.

What was in the Book of Lehi and who wrote it? In describing the Lord’s commandment to him to “make plates of ore” soon after arriving in the promised land around 590 B.C., Nephi wrote, “upon the plates which I made I did engraven the record of my father, and also our journeyings in the wilderness, and the prophecies of my father” (1 Nephi 19:1). While Lehi kept a “record,” which Mormon may (or may not) have had access to, the record Mormon abridged was Nephi’s, which focused on “the history of [his] people” (2 Nephi 5:33), as recorded by the nation’s kings who succeeded Nephi down to Mosiah2. The title, “Book of Lehi,” derived from the records of Lehi that Nephi abridged. Mormon followed a similar pattern in naming the books of Omni, Alma and Helaman, which contained writings of later prophets other than the prophet each such book was named after.

About 20 years after beginning this largely civil history, the Lord commanded Nephi to “make other plates,” the small plates of Nephi, which were to focus on that which was “good in my sight, for the profit of thy people” (2 Nephi 5:30). As one commentator noted, “in the case of [these second or smaller plates], Nephi acknowledges that his father’s work formed the foundation,” as it had on his previous record, the large plates.[8] Speaking of this new record, Nephi wrote, “Behold, I make an abridgment of the record of my father, upon plates which I have made with mine own hands; wherefore, after I have abridged the record of my father then will I make an account of mine own life” (1 Nephi 1:16-17). Significantly, Joseph did not begin translating Nephi’s small-plate-abridgement of the record of his father until possibly April to July 1829, after finishing the entirety of Mormon’s abridgement of the rest of the large plates.[9] What do we learn about Lehi, and particularly his role in establishing temple worship among the Nephites, from all of these records?

Lehi, the wealthy, educated merchant. Latter-day Saints are as familiar with Lehi as possibly any other ancient prophet, as the story of his call to be a prophet is described in undoubtedly the most read book in the Book of Mormon, 1 Nephi. Hugh Nibley paints a particularly vivid picture of Lehi and the times in which he lived: “Lehi was a very rich Jew; he was proud of his Egyptian education, spoke and wrote Egyptian, and insisted on his sons learning the language. He possessed exceeding great wealth in the form of ‘gold, silver, and all manner of riches’ (1 Nephi 3:16)” and “was something of an expert in vine, olive, fig, and honey culture; so there can be little doubt of the nature of his business with Egypt.”[10] “He had ‘his own house at Jerusalem” (1 Nephi 1:7),” but “his paternal estate, the land of his inheritance, where the bulk of his fortune reposed, was some distance from town (1 Nephi 3:16, 22; 2:4). He came from an old, distinguished, and cultured family (1 Nephi 5:14-16). . . He was of the tribe of Manasseh, which of all the tribes retained the old desert ways and was the most active in the caravan trade. He seems to have had particularly close ties with Sidon . . ., which at the time was one of the two harbors through which the Israelites carried on an extremely active trade with Egypt and the West.”[11]

Lehi’s prophetic preparation and call. Lehi’s descent from Manasseh, Joseph’s oldest son, influenced him not only temporally but spiritually. As one LDS commentator has noted, “Ephraim and Manasseh . . . received the birthright blessing that had gone to Joseph instead of his eldest brother Reuben, as Joseph’s dream of many years before had prophesied (1 Chronicles 5:1): ‘For Judah prevailed above his brethren, and of him came the chief ruler; but the birthright was Joseph’s’ (1 Chronicles 5:2). This birthright blessing was not that of rulership, for the line of kingship was given to Judah . . . [but] . . . through Joseph’s two offspring born in Egypt that the right to the Melchizedek Priesthood passed down.” [12] Joseph Smith taught that “all the prophets had the Melchizedek Priesthood.”[13] Thus, both Lehi and likely his contemporary, Jeremiah, who were about the same age, held the Melchizedek Priesthood. Building on Joseph Smith’s prophetic insight, David and JoAnn Seely suggest that—

Lehi and Jeremiah may have known each other, and it may well have been through the priesthood that they shared association. We may assume that those commissioned by the Lord to prophesy in Jerusalem were acquainted with each other. Orders of the prophets known as the “sons of the prophets” were known in ancient Israel from the time of Saul and Samuel (see 1 Samuel 10:5; 19:20) and at the time of Elijah (see 1 Kings 18:4) and Elisha (see 2 Kings 2:3; 3:11; 4:1, 38; 6:1–2). . . . It is possible that a group of legitimate prophets also existed in Jerusalem shortly before the exile. . . .It is likely that Lehi and Jeremiah were part of a Melchizedek Priesthood community in Jerusalem, and it is not unlikely that one even received his priesthood authority from the other.[14]

Richard Crapo expands upon the historical roots of Lehi’s priesthood citing non-Latter-day Saint scholars who “recognized the existence of a priesthood held by Moses and his descendants,” holders of which were referred to as “Mushite priests,” whose authority “differed from that of Aaron’s descendants.” Crapo notes, for example, that “before the establishment of the First Temple in Jerusalem,” holders of the priesthood “were disbursed throughout all  . . . territories” of Israel’s tribes, who officiated in temple “sacrificial rites . . . conducted locally at ‘high places,’” as described in I Kings 3:2: “Only the people sacrificed in high places, because there was no house built unto the name of the LORD, until those days.” This practice continued even after the construction of Solomon’s temple, as evidenced by scriptural examples “of non-Aaronites offering sacrifices . . . during the period of Judges and the Monarchy,” including, for example, “the Ephraimite Micah (Judges 17), Jonathan, a descendant of Moses (Judges 18); and Samuel, who was an Ephraimite (1 Samuel 1:1).” Crapo suggests “that the Mushite priesthood represented the line of those who held the Melchizedek authority, which oversaw the work of the Aaronites” and was “not passed down strictly by descent,” but to those chosen by God. Crapo cites as an example Moses’s call and ordination (by the laying on of hands) of Joshua, an Ephraimite as recorded in Numbers 27:18-19, 21-23. “It was Joshua, not the Levites, who consistently decided when and where those guardians of the Ark would transport it from one place to another. Joshua ultimately had the Ark taken to the territory of Ephraim, his own tribe, and it came to be housed at Shiloh, under the care of the Mushite priest Eli, who was also a descendant of Moses.”[15] Archeological evidence that Israelites built multiple temples before and after Solomon’s temple outside of Jerusalem supports the idea that the priesthood may have been distributed more widely in Israel than commonly believed.[16] Interestingly, centuries later, when David (who possibly was acting under priesthood authority, see D&C 132:39; 2 Samuel 6:13-14, 17) recaptured the Ark from the Philistines and brought it to Jerusalem, he appointed the Mushite priests Zadock, Eli’s grandnephew, and Abiathar, the great-great-grandson of Eli to take charge of the Ark. However, when Solomon exiled Abiathar for his support of Solomon’s brother Adonijah to succeed David, control of the temple passed to Aaronic priests in Jerusalem.[17]

How did Lehi’s genealogical and spiritual roots tying back to Joseph and his sons Manasseh and Ephraim influence his understanding of the gospel? For one thing, we know that Lehi had access to the writings of prophets from the northern tribes, such as Zenos, Zenock, and Esias (Helaman 8:20; 3 Nephi 10:16), that were not included in the Hebrew writings compiled by scribes in Jerusalem.[18] Over time, priestly editors in Jerusalem began integrating into the Hebrew Bible portions of the sacred texts refugees from the northern tribes Ephraim and Manasseh brought with them after the fall of Israel to the Assyrians in 721 B.C. Biblical scholars have identified these northern texts as E or Elohist sources (referring to the term Elohim, “the common designation for God among the northern tribes”). Texts generated by prophets in the southern Kingdom, on the other hand, have been identified as J texts, derived from their term for deity, Yahweh, or in English, Jehovah. Crapo cites one example how texts from these distinct traditions were melded together in the creation story in Genesis:

In the Genesis 1 account, Elohim . . . “creates” (Hebrew bara, ( ברָּאָ ) “to shape, fashion, or form by cutting”) the heavens and the earth, the day and the night, and the plants and animals by “speaking” them into existence. He is a God of authority whose word is law. God’s creation account in Genesis 1 differs markedly from its portrayal by the priests of Judah in the south, where the story is found in Genesis 2. Beginning in verse 4, God is referred to by the Hebrew name Yahweh, which is said to have been revealed to Moses (Genesis 6:3). In Genesis 2, Jehovah never “creates.” Instead, he is a hands-on creator who “forms” (Hebrew yatzah) man out of the dust of the earth, who “sends" (Hebrew matar) rain, who “plants” (Hebrew nata’) a garden, and who “makes” (Hebrew tzamach) the plants of the garden.[19]

Scholars have identified in the Book of Mormon not only traces of this “Elohist style of writing,” but broader themes “that distinguish the northern Elohist texts that came from the Kingdom of Israel,” which “strongly contrast with the so-called J texts written by the southern authors.” These themes, as summarized by Crapo, include (1) the ministry of angels (such as the angel who appears to Nephi in 1 Nephi 1:7-8); (2) interpreters of prophetic dreams (eg. Lehi’s dreams or “visions”); (3) the imagery of the tree of life; and (4) the Bronze Serpent Raised on a Staff Tradition (referred to in 2 Nephi 25:20; Helaman 8:14-15). It is noteworthy to me that these Elohist themes, “largely lost in the Hebrew Bible,”[20] focus on Christ, who is the main focus of the Stick of Ephraim or of Joseph[21]—“the convincing of the Jew and Gentile that JESUS is the CHRIST, the ETERNAL GOD, manifesting himself unto all nations” (Book of Mormon Title Page 1:2).

Unfortunately, we do not have any details about Lehi’s preparation for the priesthood (other than what we can surmise from his later ministry and teachings), or even whether he was ordained to the Melchizedek Priesthood before or after the Lord called him to prophesy to the people of Jerusalem. It seems to me likely that Lehi may have included some of these details in his own written record (as Abraham did, for example at the beginning of his record in Abr. 1:1-7). It seems likely, further, that Nephi may have recorded at least some of such details in the “record of [his] father” that he engraved at the beginning of the Book of Lehi (1 Nephi 19:1), which would also possibly have included more details about Lehi’s prophetic call than those Nephi included decades later in his small plates. If so, Joseph Smith would have gained valuable insights about the priesthood early in 1828, about a year before he would translate Alma’s sermon about priesthood in Alma 13 or the Savior’s ordination of the Nephite disciples in 3 Nephi. (After reading 3 Nephi, Joseph and Oliver were prompted to pray in May 1829[22], which led to the restoration of the Aaronic Priesthood, to be discussed in my next blog.)

We do know, however, from Nephi’s small plates that Lehi’s first vision was preceded and prompted by his prayer “unto the Lord, yea, even with all his heart, on behalf of his people” (1 Nephi 1:5). Given what we know about Lehi’s public ministry, going “forth among the people” and “prophesy[ing” (1 Nephi 1:18), as well as the depth of gospel knowledge displayed in his private ministry to his family (see especially 1 Nephi 8, 10; 2 Nephi 1-4), it is not unlikely that the Lord followed the same pattern with Lehi, involving a long period of priesthood tutoring, that He used with prophets anciently. (For example, Noah tutoring and ordaining his son Shem (D&C 138:41; Moses 8:27); Melchizedek (who possibly was Shem) likely tutoring and ordaining Abraham (D&C 84:14), who tutored Isaac, and, in turn, Isaac Jacob, and Jacob Joseph;[23] Jethro tutoring and ordaining Moses,[24] who for years tutored and prepared Joshua;[25] Eli training Samuel (1 Sam. 3); Elijah training Elisha (1 Kings 19:19-21; 2 Kings 2) and so forth.) Of course, the Lord utilizes a similar tutoring process with prophets in our day.[26] The centerpiece of the Lord’s tutoring, as it should be with each of us, was Lehi’s vision and understanding of the nature of, and his establishing an intimate relationship with, God, whom he saw “sitting upon his throne,” and His Firstborn, Jehovah, even “One descending out of the midst of heaven” (1 Nephi 1:8-10). For the “testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy” (Rev. 19:10).[27] Lehi then went and testified of “the things which he had seen and heard,” most importantly of the “coming of a Messiah” (1 Nephi 1:15-19).

Following the pattern revealed to Moses, the Lord directs Lehi to erect a tabernacle. With this brief but broadened perspective on the priesthood training we imagine that Lehi received, culminating in his prophetic call, he immediately “went forth among the people, and began to prophesy” (1 Nephi 1:18). As with the “many” other prophets the Lord sent (1 Nephi 1:4), the people of Jerusalem “were angry with” Lehi (1 Nephi 1:20). Nevertheless, the Lord acknowledged his faithfulness: “Blessed art thou Lehi, because of the things which thou hast done; and because thou hast been faithful and declared unto this people the things which I commanded thee, behold, they seek to take away thy life.” The Lord then commanded Lehi to “take his family and depart into the wilderness” (1 Nephi 2:1), to become a Josephite branch of Israel to be planted in a new promised land.

We are familiar with the rest of the story—direction for Nephi and his brothers to obtain the Josephite scriptures engraved on the brass plates and then to invite the Ephraimite Ishmael and his family to join them and, finally, their eight-year journey in the wilderness and then to the promised land. Before beginning their journey, however, Don Bradley, in his 2019 book about the possible content of the Book of Lehi, The Lost 116 Pages: Reconstructing the Book of Mormon’s Lost Stories, suggests that the Book of Lehi may have included an account of the Lord directing Lehi to build a tabernacle, modeled on the tabernacle God commanded Moses to build as recorded in Exodus (although Lehi’s would most likely have been much more modest than Moses’s). Quoting from an extensive 1830 interview Fayette Lapham, a former Palmyra businessman, had with Joseph Smith Sr. about the coming forth of the Book of Mormon (published in an 1870 issue of The Historical Magazine), Lapham recalled that, in recounting the story of the Book of Mormon, Joseph Sr. told him that after Nephi returned with the brass plates,

The family then moved on, for several days, when they were directed to stop and get materials to make [gold] plates upon which to keep a record of their journey; also to erect a tabernacle, wherein they could go and inquire whenever they became bewildered or at a loss what to do. After all things were ready, they started on their journey, in earnest; a gold ball went before them, having two pointers, one pointing steadily the way they should go, the other the way to where they could get provisions and other necessaries. [28]

That Lehi’s “band of travelers would feel authorized and even obligated to construct a replacement for the temple in Jerusalem,” Bradley asserts,” is made clear by Nephi building a temple modeled on, and functionally replacing, Solomon’s in the promised land (2 Ne. 5:16).” Such a commandment would also be consistent with “the report by Book of Mormon prophets that they tried scrupulously to observe the law of Moses, which required a sanctuary for the fulfillment of its ritual observances (2 Ne. 5:10; 25:24; Jacob 4:5; Mosiah 13:27; Alma 25:15; 3 Ne. 1:24–25).” Further, Nephi recorded in the small plates that upon his successful return with the brass plates, Lehi’s family “did rejoice exceedingly, and did offer sacrifice and burnt offerings unto the Lord” (1 Nephi 5:9; see also 1 Nephi 7:22), which, if such sacrifices were conducted in the context of a sacred tabernacle as the Law of Moses prescribed (Exodus 27), would coincide with Lapham’s recollection of when they were commanded to build the tabernacle—after Nephi returned with the brass plates. In a footnote, Bradely adds the interesting fact that “archaeologist F. Richard Hauck has explored the remains of a small Solomon’s-temple-like sanctuary at Khor Kharfot in Oman, a candidate for the Book of Mormon’s Bountiful,” suggesting that “Lehi’s family [may have constructed] progressively more elaborate places of worship on their journey,” culminating in Nephi’s construction of his temple as soon as practicable after securing the safety of his people in their own land.[29] As a sacred space to “go and inquire” of the Lord (compare Exodus 35:22; Numbers 7:89), Bradley points out that the tabernacle likely would also have been where Lehi would have gone to use the Liahona.[30]

There may have been another important reason the Lord might have commanded Lehi to erect a portable temple, or tabernacle. Lehi’s sons were soon to marry the daughters of Ishmael. Is it possible that Lehi held the sealing power? If so, would he not want to seal his sons’ marriages for time and all eternity? If so, such ordinance would most likely need to be performed in a temple. Recall President Nelson’s prophetic teaching that “Lehi and Sariah . . . made the same covenants with God [and] received the same ordinances that we as members of the Lord’s restored Church today have made: those covenants that we receive at baptism and in the temple.”[31] President Nelson was simply echoing what the Lord would reveal to the Prophet Joseph Smith in 1838: “For, for this cause [that your washings may be acceptable unto me] I commanded Moses that he should build a tabernacle, that they should bear it with them in the wilderness, and to build a house in the land of promise, that those ordinances might be revealed which had been hid from before the world was” (D&C 124:38). While it is true that Moses’s tabernacle, and later Solomon’s temple, were primarily established to administer the Aaronic Priesthood ordinances detailed in the Book of Leviticus, as I point out in my book Drawing Upon the Spiritual Treasures of the Temple—

In the January 1972 Ensign devoted entirely to the subject of temples, Dr. Sidney B. Sperry, Professor of Old Testament Languages and Literature at Brigham Young University, wrote: “We do not know the extent to which ordinances pertaining to the Melchizedek Priesthood were performed in the tabernacle while in the wilderness and in Palestine up to the time of the building of Solomon’s Temple, but that such ordinances were performed seems certain in the light of such statements as this: ‘David’s wives and concubines were given unto him of me, by the hand of Nathan, my servant, and others of the prophets who had the keys of this power. . . .’ (Doctrine and Covenants 132:39.) [Note that David lived about three centuries before Lehi] It seems more reasonable to believe that Nathan and the other prophets would seal David’s wives and concubines to him in a holy place such as the tabernacle than in any other structure.” As the Lord revealed to the Prophet Joseph Smith, “in all ages of the world, whenever the Lord has given a dispensation of the priesthood to any man by actual revelation, or any set of men, this [sealing] power has always been given” (Doctrine and Covenants 128:9). “Just how endowment ceremonies [for the living] were arranged for in the tabernacle,” Brother Sperry adds, “we can only conjecture. But within the Holy of Holies, where the ark of the covenant was located, the Lord made provision to commune with the leaders of his people.”[32]

As discussed above, we know that Lehi held the Melchizedek Priesthood. After all, he was called to lead a one thousand-year “dispensation” on this (the American) continent. If we believe President Nelson, we also know that Lehi and Sariah were sealed (which means they also were endowed). We also know that Nephi (and all his prophetic successors in the Book of Mormon) held the Melchizedek Priesthood. With his father, Nephi was also called to lead the Nephite dispensation. Doubtless he was ordained (and possibly sealed) by Lehi.[33] (Likewise we know that Jacob and Joseph were ordained by Nephi; might they also have been sealed by him?) This is not to say, however, that the temple ordinances Lehi and Sariah received, or any “other [ancient] disciple of Jesus Christ” “since the world was created,” to use President Nelson’s phrases, were presented in a form identical to the format temple ordinances are presented in our temples today.[34] Rather, the covenants made by the ancient saints, which are the same covenants we make, and the sacred knowledge they received, in whatever ritual forms the Lord then prescribed, had the same effects as do temple ordinances today.

Other parallels Bradley suggest existed between Moses’s tabernacle (and later Solomon’s temple) and Lehi’s possible tabernacle (and later Nephi’s temple) included certain sacred relics that the Lord commanded be housed in the temple as memorials of His divine providence, including (i) the Liahona, on which appeared divine writing and which functioned like the high priest’s Urim and Thummim (as described further below, this was later replaced by the divine “interpreters” Mosiah1 found during his exodus from the Land of Nephi to the land of Zarahemla, through which he as seer could “see” to translate the Jaredite engraving on the “large stone” mentioned in Omni 1:20-21, discussed in more detail below); (ii) brass and gold plates “inscribed with the sacred word” parallel[ing] the two sets of stone tablets written by the finger of God and housed in the Ark of the Covenant; and (iii) the sword of Labon paralleling the sword David used to slay Goliath, which was kept “behind the ephod” in the tabernacle (1 Sam. 21:8-9). Thus, the righteous Nephite kings, as presiding high priests holding the Melchizedek Priesthood, “acted as custodian[s] of these relics and consulted [their] own Urim and Thummim, possessed the revelatory power and authority over the temple that in the Bible belongs to the high priest.”[35]

Aminadi, Mosiah1 and his tabernacle and temple. Another temple story Bradley identifies as possibly being included in greater detail in the Book of Lehi  relates to a cryptic reference by Amulek when he introduces himself to the people of Ammonihah: “I am Amulek; I am the son of Gidanah, who was the son of Ishmael, who was a descendant of Aminadi; and it was that same Aminadi who interpreted the writing which was upon the wall of the temple, which was written by the finger of God” (Alma 10:2). Bradley and other scholars[36] surmise that the temple “writing” consisted of a warning of imminent destruction the Lord gave in the temple of Nephi before “the more wicked part of the Nephites were destroyed” 320 years after Lehi left Jerusalem (Omni 1:5).

The most striking thing about the story of Aminadi and the writing on the [temple] wall is what it reveals about the function of temples among the Nephites. The temple, as seen here, is much more than a house of sacrifice. For the Nephites, as it functions in the story of Aminadi, the temple is where God’s presence resides and may be entered, where covenant relationship with God is established or reaffirmed, . . . a place for inquiring after and receiving hidden knowledge.[37]

“Warned of the Lord” not only by the words Aminadi interpreted in the temple, but perhaps by a theophany not unlike those Lehi and Nephi received, Mosiah1 led “as many as would hearken to the voice of the Lord [to] depart out of the land with him, into the wilderness,” leaving behind the city and temple of Nephi with its now corrupt king and spiritual leadership. Mosiah’s journey parallels the journeys of Moses and of Lehi and Nephi. “And they were led by many preachings and prophesyings. And they were admonished continually by the word of God; and they were led by the power of his arm, through the wilderness until they came down into the land which is called the land of Zarahemla” (Omni 1:12-13). In the same way the Lord guided His people in these journeys, Bradley finds evidence that the Lord’s presence went before Mosiah1’s people in a temple tabernacle. Quoting again from Lapham’s published interview with Joseph Smith Sr.:

They [meaning, Bradley argues, Mosiah1’s people] . . . found something of which they did not know the use, but when they [meaning Mosiah1]went into the tabernacle, a voice said, “What have you got in your hand, there?” [He] replied that [he] did not know, but had come to inquire; when the voice said, “Put it on your face, and put your face in a skin, and you will see what it is.” [He] did so, and could see everything of the past, present, and future; and it was the same spectacles that Joseph found with the gold plates. The gold ball stopped [thereafter] and ceased to direct them any further.[38]

Thus, we find in this second-hand historical record a possible answer to the question raised by Amaleki’s cryptic report in the Book of Omni, in which Mosiah1 “did interpret the engravings by the gift and power of God” on the “large stone brought unto him,” which “gave an account of one Coriantumr,” whose “first parents came out of the tower, at the time the Lord confounded the language of the people” (Omni 1:20-22). How did Mosiah1 interpret such engravings? Also where did Mosiah2 get the interpreters Ammon1 mentions in Mosiah 8:13? While Amaleki says nothing about the means Mosiah1 used to interpret the engravings on the Jaredite stone, the phrase “gift and power of God” sounds a lot like the “things . . . called interpreters” that Ammon1, a descendant of Zarahemla (Mosiah 7:3), said Mosiah2 (Mosiah1’s grandson) possessed. “The king of the people who are in the land of Zarahemla” “has wherewith that he can look, and translate all records that are of ancient date; and it is a gift from God. And the things ae called interpreters” (Mosiah 8:13). From these and other clues in our extant Book of Mormon, together with Lapham’s recollection of Joseph Smith Sr.’s recounting of the story told in the lost manuscript, Bradley reconstructs the following “picture of Mosiah1’s life that emerges from our available evidence”:

In the land of Nephi, under the reign of the final king of Nephi’s dynasty, Mosiah1 was called by God as a prophet to warn, like Lehi and Jeremiah, of coming destruction. He led the few who would listen on an exodus before the decisive Lamanite invasion. At the Lord’s behest he also rescued Nephi’s relics, presumably taking them from the royal treasury by stratagem and likely assisted from within the royal family. Mosiah1 used one of these relics, the Liahona, to guide his people through the wilderness and find refuge nearby at the hill north of Shilom. Here they constructed a tabernacle to worship God outside the polluted temple of Nephi. Mosiah1 preached and prophesied to his people, explaining why they had to abandon what had once been the Lord’s temple, teaching them to resist the evil spirit that had come to inhabit that temple and could inhabit them, pointing them to the Messiah, and placing them under personal covenant to keep the commandments. While encamped here, their Sinai, Mosiah1 was led by the Liahona to the interpreters, which the Lord instructed him how to use in the tabernacle. Now replaced, the Liahona ceased functioning, and Mosiah1 guided his people through the wilderness by the interpreters.

Arriving in the land of Zarahemla, they encountered the Mulochites, descendants of David who had no scriptures and had largely lost their Israelite identity. Mosiah1 restored them to knowledge of their Hebrew tongue and Israel’s God. Although the Mulochites had been ruled by Zarahemla, the heir of David, they saw in Mosiah1 a seer, the rightful heir of Joseph—in whose promised land they lived—and a forerunner to the Messiah; thus, they embraced him as their new ruler. The people of Nephi and the people of Zarahemla became, together, the people of Mosiah1. Mosiah1 reformed the faith of both the Nephites and the Mulochites, restoring them from apostasy. Serving his people as a prophet, as a priest, and as a king, Mosiah1 constructed a new temple in which to worship Israel’s God and receive higher truths, pointing them always toward their Messiah.[39]

In summary, Bradley notes, the lost Book of Lehi “provided more detail of the early period of Nephite history, when worship at the temple of Nephi and then the temple of Mosiah was first established. As a more detailed historical record in general, it was likely to convey more regarding the history of the Nephite temples in particular, including their construction, the identity and actions of their high priests, and the establishment of worship in these temples—just as the earlier texts of the Hebrew Bible during and surrounding the Exodus provide much more detail on Israelite temple worship than do the later books.”[40]

More importantly than what Bradley and other scholars have or may in the future glean about the role of temples in the Nephite’s civilization and religion in the lost Book of Lehi from their study of historical sources and the Book of Mormon text itself (which, of course, we will not know for a certainty, only if and until the translation of this record is restored), for our purposes it is more interesting to consider what Joseph Smith may have learned and taken away from his translation of these things. In this regard, Bradley’s conclusions are telling:

Looking back over the story of Lehi and Nephi from its end, a fully functioning system of temple worship is the goal toward which the early events of their history tend, the culmination to which they build. This centrality of temple worship to Lehi’s and Nephi’s New World dispensation forecast the centrality of temple worship to the Restoration. That Latter-day Saints early on believed they would rebuild the temple of Nephi is fitting.[41] Figuratively, they have. While the lost manuscript narratives of Lehi and Nephi and others never had an audience outside of Joseph Smith and his scribes, the understanding of temple worship presented there likely had a great impact on Joseph Smith’s own early understanding of temple worship, providing him with important insights for the later work of the Restoration.[42]

[1] Saints: The Story of the Church of Jesus Christ in the Latter Days, vol. 1, “The Standard of Truth: 1815–1846” (Salt Lake City, Utah: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 2018), 48. [2] History, circa Summer 1832, p. 5, JSP, accessed March 6, 2025, https://www.josephsmithpapers.org/paper-summary/history-circa-summer-1832/5#historical-intro. Don Bradley adds the interesting insight to this timeline that Joseph may have known all along that he could not start translating until the “learned” had their “opportunity” to do so: “In Oliver Cowdery’s 1835 version of Joseph’s history in The Messenger and Advocate, he reported that Joseph knew early on that Isaiah 29 would have to be fulfilled before he could translate. According to Oliver, the angel had told Joseph in 1823: [I]t was . . . [his] privilege, if obedient to the commandments of the Lord, to obtain, and translate the same by the means of the Urim and Thummim, which were deposited for that purpose with the record. ‘Yet,’ said he, ‘the scripture must be fulfilled before it is translated, which says that the words of a book, which were sealed, were presented to the learned; for thus has God determined to leave men without excuse, and show to the meek that his arm is not shortened that it cannot save.’ Consistent with this, Emily Colburn Austin, an early Saint and an in-law to Joseph Knight (who also assisted with the translation), later recalled that even before Joseph obtained the plates, He declared an angel had appeared to him and told him of golden plates, which were hidden up to come forth on a certain day; and . . . it was that which Isaiah the prophet had spoken of; a vision which should become as the words of a book that is sealed; which was delivered to one that was learned, saying: ‘Read this, I pray thee.’ Given Austin’s reminiscence, and particularly Oliver Cowdery’s early history, it appears that Joseph anticipated ‘the learned’ would be helpless to make sense of the characters, and that he sent the characters, not to have them translated, but to fulfill the words of Isaiah and thus, stepping into this prophecy as its unlearned man, acquire power to translate them himself.” Don Bradley, The Lost 116 Pages: Reconstructing the Book of Mormon's Missing Stories (Salt Lake City: Greg Kofford Books. Kindle Edition, 2019), 29. [3] John W. Welch, Tim Rathbone, "How Long Did It Take Joseph Smith to Translate the Book of Mormon?," Insights: The Newsletter of the Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship, vol. 6: no. 1, Article 1, https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/insights/vol6/iss1/1. See also John W. Welch, “How long did it take Joseph Smith to translate the Book of Mormon?” Ensign, January 1988, 46-47; John W. Welch and Tim Rathbone, “The Translation of the Book of Mormon: Basic Historical Information” (Provo: F.A.R.M.S., 1986). For further details on the translation process, which I covered in my previous blog, “Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery—Translation and the “Spirit of Revelation,” see Bradley, The Lost 116 Pages, 37-45.[4] Darkness Unto Light, 84; Bradley, The Lost 116 Pages, 45. [5] Joseph Smith first introduced the 116 page count for the lost manuscript in his 1830 preface to the first edition of the Book of Mormon, which was later discarded. Bradley suggests that this page count was simply a “placeholder,” most likely derived from the actual count of the Printer’s Manuscript pages that replaced it (with just two and a half lines spilling over to page 117). The actual count, Bradley argues, could have been much larger, with Martin Harris’s brother Emer Harris describing it in 1856 as “near 200 pages.” See Bradley, The Lost 116 Pages, 85-104. [6] Book of Mormon, 1830, Page iii, p. iii, JSP, accessed March 6, 2025, https://www.josephsmithpapers.org/paper-summary/book-of-mormon-1830/9. [7] Eldin Ricks, “The Small Plates of Nephi and the Words of Mormon,” in The Book of Mormon: Jacob through Words of Mormon, To Learn with Joy, eds. Monte S. Nyman and Charles D. Tate Jr., (Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University, 1990), 209–19. [8] S. Kent Brown, “Recovering the Missing Record of Lehi,” in From Jerusalem to Zarahemla: Literary and Historical Studies of the Book of Mormon (Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University, 1998), 28–54, https://rsc.byu.edu/jerusalem-zarahemla/recovering-missing-record-lehi (a previous version originally appeared as “Lehi’s Personal Record: Quest for a Missing Source,” BYU Studies 24, no. 1 (Winter 1984), 9–42) (“Lehi’s written record underlay[s] a good deal more in the writings of Nephi and Jacob than others have thought”). See also Bradley, The Lost 116 Pages, 109-12 (“The large plates share a similarity to the historical books (such as Kings and Chronicles), whereas the small plates ‘which contained this small account of the prophets’ (W of M 1:3) share a similarity to those histories’ contemporaneous prophetic books (such as Isaiah and Jeremiah).”). [9] For a timeline of which books in the golden plates were translated when, see “Book of Mormon Evidence: Mosiah-First Translation,” Scripture Central, Evidence #86, September 19, 2020, https://scripturecentral.org/evidence/book-of-mormon-evidence-mosiah-first-translation?searchId=16ed5b61f0e5b54990c8747bbbdc1c66fed07a4fe1911836647847d1f69e1225-en-v=57c0391. As explained in “Doctrine and Covenants 10: Revelation, Spring 1829,” in Joseph Smith’s Revelations: A Doctrine and Covenants Study Companion from the Joseph Smith Papers, https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/church-historians-press/jsp-revelations/dc-010-1829_04_01_005?lang=eng), “JS and Cowdery apparently picked up the translation [in April 1829] where JS and Harris had left off [in June 1828]—in the book of Mosiah. This “Mosiah-First” theory of translation, which Scripture Central Evidence #86 states “scholars now widely agree” on, see John W. Welch, “Timing the Translation of the Book of Mormon: ‘Days [and Hours] Never to Be Forgotten’,” BYU Studies Quarterly 57, no. 4 (2018): 22–23; John W. Welch, “The Miraculous Timing of the Translation of the Book of Mormon,” in Opening the Heavens: Accounts of Divine Manifestations, 1820–1844, ed. John W. Welch, 1st edition (Salt Lake City and Provo, UT: Deseret Book and BYU Press, 2005), 115–117, provides one more evidence of the miraculous nature of the Book of Mormon translation process, because, among many other things, there are passages in the later books (such as Alma and 3 Nephi) that refer back to specific language from the small plates of Nephi that Joseph Smith had not yet translated (and may not then have even known about). See Book of Mormon Central, “How Does the ‘Mosiah-First’ Translation Sequence Strengthen Faith? (Words of Mormon 1:5),” KnoWhy 503 (February 22, 2019); Alan Goff, “Positivism and the Priority of Ideology in Mosiah-First Theories of Book of Mormon Production,” FARMS Review 16, no. 1 (2004): 11–36.

The Mosiah-First theory of the order in which the books in our extant Book of Mormon were translated also helps us understand to which “plates of Nephi” the Lord was referring in D&C 10. As Joseph Smith and Cowdery began translating the Book of Mosiah in April 1829 and progressed through Momon’s abridgement, “they grew concerned about whether to go back and retranslate the lost portion. The revelation [Section 10] stated that wicked men had changed the lost manuscript to discredit JS and commanded him not to retranslate the lost pages but to substitute another record” in place of the Book of Lehi the Prophet had previously translated. “This substitute record, described as being ‘engraven upon the plates of Nephi,’ covered the same period as the lost manuscript.” “Doctrine and Covenants 10: Revelation, Spring 1829.” Some commentators have read Section 10’s reference to “the plates of Nephi” as referring to two sets of plates—the small plates and the large plates of Nephi. J.B. Haws, a BYU Associate Professor of Church History, argues, however, that reading this phrase as referring to only one set of plates of Nephi, the small plates, “fits with what Joseph Smith likely would have known (and not known) about the composition of the gold plates before translating what is now 1 Nephi through Words of Mormon—remembering that he received Doctrine & Covenants 10 before translating 1 Nephi through Words of Mormon.” See J.B. Haws, “The Lost 116 Pages Story: What We Do Know,” in The Coming Forth of the Book of Mormon: A Marvelous Work and a Wonder, eds. Dennis L. Largey, Andrew H. Hedges, John Hilton III, and Kerry Hull (Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center; Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2015), 81–102. [10] Hugh Nibley, Lehi in the Desert, The Collected Works of Hugh Nibley, vol. 5 (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Co., 1988), 11–12. [11] Hugh Nibley, An Approach to the Book of Mormon, The Collected Works of Hugh Nibley, vol. 6 (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Co., 1988), 46-47. [12] Richley Crapo, “Lehi, Joseph, and the Kingdom of Israel,” Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship, vol. 33, 2019, 300. Crapo adds that “it is noteworthy that Ephraim and Manasseh grew up speaking Egyptian as their mother tongue, a fact that echoes down to the time of their descendant Lehi, who taught his son to record the ‘knowledge of the Jews’ in ‘the language of the Egyptians.’” See also H. Donl Peterson, “Father Lehi,” in The Book of Mormon: First Nephi, The Doctrinal Foundation, ed. Monte S. Nyman and Charles D. Tate Jr. (Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University, 1988), 55–66, https://rsc.byu.edu/book-mormon-first-nephi-doctrinal-foundation/father-lehi#:~:text=Ishmael%20was%20of%20the%20lineage,had%20already%20married%20Ishmael's%20sons (“According to Erastus Snow, ‘The Prophet Joseph informed us that . . . Ishmael was of the lineage of Ephraim; . . . his sons [had] married into Lehi’s family, and Lehi’s sons married Ishmael’s daughters’ [citing JD 23:184]. It is concluded from this statement that Lehi had some older daughters who had already married Ishmael’s sons.”). Thus, Lehi’s children and their descendants would be children of the birthright through both Manasseh and Ephraim. A Wikipedia entry on “House of Joseph (LDS Church)” states, without specific attribution, that “some LDS church leaders have suggested that Lehi's wife Sariah may have descended from Ephraim.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_of_Joseph_(LDS_Church). [13] Joseph Fielding Smith, Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1997), 181. [14] David R. Seely and JoAnn H. Seely, "Lehi and Jeremiah: Prophets, Priests, and Patriarchs," Journal of Book of Mormon Studies, vol. 8 : no. 2 , 1999, https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/jbms/vol8/iss2/5. See also Joseph Fielding Smith, Answers to Gospel Questions, 1:124, quoted in “Chapter 8: 2 Nephi 4–8,” Book of Mormon Student Manual (“The Nephites were descendants of Joseph. Lehi discovered this when reading the brass plates. … Therefore there were no Levites who accompanied Lehi to the Western Hemisphere. Under these conditions the Nephites officiated by virtue of the Melchizedek Priesthood from the days of Lehi to the days of the appearance of our Savior among them”); John A. Widtsoe, “Did the Nephites Have the Higher Priesthood before the Coming of Christ?” Improvement Era, June 1942 (“Lehi, father of the Nephites, held the Priesthood, for, while yet in the wilderness, he and his family offered sacrifice and burnt offerings, priestly ordinances of the Church before the coming of Christ. (1 Nephi 5:9). . . At no time, it would seem, were the Nephites without the Priesthood. It would appear that not every man held the Priesthood, yet it must have been rather widely distributed. Mosiah records that there was ‘one priest to every fifty of their number.’ (Mos. 18:18) Every Church unit was presided over by the Priesthood. (Mos. 25:21) . . . Alma, the younger, says ‘I am called ... according to the holy order of God, which is in Christ Jesus’ (Alma 5:44), and he later states that he confined himself wholly to the High Priesthood of ‘the holy order of God.’ (Alma 49:30) This holy order was ‘after the order of his Son.’ (Alma 13:2; Helaman 8:18) The ‘holy order of God,’ especially when coupled with the order of the Son of God, has always been held to refer to the Melchizedek or High Priesthood. (Doctrine and Covenants 77:11; 84:19).”). [15] Crapo, 290-91. [16] For a partial list of such temples, see “Temples in the Book of Mormon,” FAIR: Faithful Answers, Informed Response, https://www.fairlatterdaysaints.org/answers/Temples_in_the_Book_of_Mormon; “Did Ancient Israelites Build Temples outside of Jerusalem? (2 Nephi 5:16),” KnoWhy 31 (February 11, 2016), https://knowhy.bookofmormoncentral.org/sites/default/files/knowhy-pdf/2016/did_ancient_israelites_build_temples_outside_of_jerusalem.pdf. [17] Crapo, 293. [18] Ibid. 302. Bradley argues that Nephi’s statement that “Laban also was a descendant of Joseph, wherefore he and his fathers had kept the records” (1 Ne. 5:14−16) suggests that the brass plates “were a record of the family of Joseph” going “all the way back to the patriarch himself.” Bradley, 138-42. [19] Crapo, 295. [20] Ibid. 296-302. [21] See “Ephraim—The Stick of Ephraim or Joseph,” Guide to the Scriptures, https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/scriptures/gs/ephraim?lang=eng. [22] See J-S History 1:68. In his 1839-41 history, Joseph Smith recorded: “We still continued the <work of> translation, when in the ensuing month (May, Eighteen hundred and twenty nine) we on a certain day went into the woods to pray and inquire of the Lord respecting baptism for the remission of sins as we found mentioned in the translation of the plates.” The JSP editors further clarified that “Oliver Cowdery indicated specifically that the impetus for seeking further information about baptism was the translation of ‘the account given of the savior’s ministry to the remnant of the seed of Jacob, upon this continent.’ This account, found in the Book of Mormon, 1830 ed., 472–510 [3 Nephi 9–28], includes several passages concerning baptism. (Oliver Cowdery, Norton, OH, to William W. Phelps, 7 Sept. 1834, LDS Messenger and Advocate, Oct. 1834, 1:15.)” History, circa June 1839–circa 1841 [Draft 2], p. 17, JSP, accessed March 16, 2025, https://www.josephsmithpapers.org/paper-summary/history-circa-june-1839-circa-1841-draft-2/23. [23] Stephen L. Fluckiger, Drawing Upon the Spiritual Treasures of the Temple (Springville, UT: CFI, an imprint of Cedar Fort, Inc., 2024), 219-20; 230-31 and note 7; Appendix 2. [24] Ibid. 65-66, citing D&C 84:6; 84 note 12; Exodus 18:1-12. [25] Ibid. 73, 77-81. [26] For example, of President Nelson’s prophetic preparation, President Oaks testified, “Russell M. Nelson has had a lifetime of preparation for this holy calling. . . .President Russell M. Nelson’s preparation is evident in the sum total of his lifetime experiences and achievements.” Dallin H. Oaks, “President Russell M. Nelson: Guided, Prepared, Committed,” Ensign, May 2018. [27] Peterson states that Lehi saw both Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ. Peterson, “Father Lehi.” John Welch argues that “God” and the “One descending” in 1 Nephi 1:8-9 both refer to Jesus Christ: “It seems . . . likely that the ‘one descending’ was ‘the Holy One of Israel,’ the Lord himself, who then had left his throne to deliver in person his decree to his messenger the prophet, for as in Amos 3:7 the Lord God himself reveals his secrets (sod) unto his servants, the prophets. Under this understanding, the one who came down to speak to Lehi was the God himself who had been initially seated on his throne, and thus Lehi’s exclamation ‘unto the Lord’ at the conclusion of his vision, extolling the highness of his throne (verse 14), should be understood as having been made in a direct personal statement to that God, Christ himself, as he stood right before Lehi.” John W. Welch, “The Calling of a Prophet,” in The Book of Mormon: First Nephi, The Doctrinal Foundation, ed. Monte S. Nyman and Charles D. Tate Jr. (Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University, 1988), 35–54. [28] Fayette Lapham, “Interview with the Father of Joseph Smith, the Mormon Prophet, Forty Years Ago. His Account of the Finding of the Sacred Plates,” The Historical Magazine and Notes and Queries concerning the Antiquities, History, and Biography of America [second series] 7 (May 1870): 305−9, in Vogel, Early Mormon Documents 1:462, as quoted in Bradley, Lost 116 Pages, 252. A full transcript of the interview can be found at “LaFayette Lapham His Account of the Finding of the Sacred Plates” (1870), Book of Mormon Evidence, https://bookofmormonevidence.org/his-account-of-the-finding-of-the-sacred-plates-1870-lafayette-lapham/. [29] Bradley, Lost 116 Pages, 145-46, 156 n.3. [30] Ibid. 153 (“The tabernacle was the most natural place to use the Liahona.”). [31] Russell M. Nelson, “Come, Follow Me,” Ensign, May 2019 (emphasis in original). [32] Fluckiger, 87 n. 38. [33] See Widstoe, “Did the Nephites Have the Higher Priesthood before the Coming of Christ?” (“Nephi, the son of Lehi, also held the Priesthood, probably conferred by his father.”).[34] Anthony Sweat, in his excellent introduction to the endowment, The Holy Covenants: Living Our Sacred Temple Promises [Salt Lake City, UT: Deseret Book, 2022], urges us to “remember, there is a difference between endowment (the power and capacity to enter the presence of God and receive a fulness of His exalted blessings) and the presentation of the endowment (a teaching tool) (page 12). [35] Bradley, Lost 116 Pages, 200-02. [36] Ibid., 224, citing George Reynolds, A Dictionary of the Book of Mormon, Comprising its Biographical, Geographical and other Proper Names (Salt Lake City: Joseph Hyrum Parry, 1891), 54; Brant A. Gardner, Second Witness: Analytical and Contextual Commentary on the Book of Mormon,6 vols. (Salt Lake City: Greg Kofford Books, 2007), 4:164; Verneil Simmons, People, Places and Prophecies: A Study of the Book of Mormon (Independence, MO: Zarahemla Research Foundation, 1981), 161. [37] Bradley, The Lost 116 Pages, 234-35. [38] Ibid. 252, quoting Lapham, “Interview with the Father of Joseph Smith.” [39] Ibid. 271-73. [40] Ibid. 206. [41] Bradley’s statement that early members of the Church believed that they would rebuild the Temple of Nephi derives from a Palmyra newspaper report on the imminent publication of the Book of Mormon in 1829, which prefigured the role temples would ultimately play in the new religion. Referring to a previously published and now-lost article by John Hadley in the Palmyra Freeman, Abner Cole reported in the Palmyra Reflector, “The ‘New-Jerusalem Reflector’ states that the building of the TEMPLE OF NEPHI is to be commenced about the beginning of the first of the year of the Millennium. Thousands are already flocking to the standard of Joseph the Prophet. The Book of Mormon is expected to astonish the natives!!” Abner Cole, Reflector (Palmyra, NY), October 7, 1829, as quoted in Don Bradley, "Building the Temple of Nephi: Early Mormon Perceptions of Cumorah and the New Jerusalem," Journal of Book of Mormon Studies, vol. 27, no. 1, Article 14, 2018, https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/jbms/vol27/iss1/14. [42] Bradley, The Lost 116 Pages, 207. Image by Nathan Pinnock https://www.facebook.com/natepinnockart/posts/father-lehi-and-nephi-is-the-story-of-1-nephi-11-i-believe-when-we-look-for-insp/798657763943570/ Tag: #Book of Lehi #Lost Manuscript #116 pages #temple in the Book of Mormon #Development of LDS temple doctrine #Lehi #Nephi’s temple