The CT is a testimony of Jesus Christ
The Second Reason: The two authors’ intentions were to convey the message ‘Jesus is The Christ’ to future generations.
[To: Lamanites, Jews, other Tribes of Israel, Gentiles.]
Today’s Book of Mormon is not what was originally intended by the authors: Mormon and Moroni. Mormon planned to abridge the civil record which Nephi, the first Nephite king, had begun on what is known as the Large Plates of Nephi. But Nephi was also the Nephite prophet and in that role, he prepared a different kind of record which included quotes from the Brass Plates, a Bible-parallel record they had carried from the Land of Jerusalem and which included the information we have from the creation, Abraham and his descendants, and the writings of many prophets up to Jeremiah. This was a tribal genealogical record (tribe of Manasseh) and included dreams, visions, prophecies and revelations. This record was sometimes referred to as the Small Plates of Nephi. Mormon had already abridged the Large Plates when he discovered the Small Plates of Nephi. Mormon was so impressed by the spiritual content of the Small Plates that he decided to include them, along with his abridgement, ‘for a wise purpose’ [1 Nephi 2:99 CofChrist; 9:5 LDS; Words of Mormon 1:10 CofChrist; 1:7 LDS; Alma 17: 31, 42, 45, 49 CofChrist; 37:1, 12,14, 18 LDS].
Mormon and Moroni really intended the Caractors Transcript to be the Title Page of the Book of Mormon as they originally wrote it. For reasons we have no time for here, this objective was divinely changed. During an early period of translation (1828) some 116 pages of translation were lost, including the translation of the CT. A similar, but shorter new Title Page had been produced by Mormon and Moroni for the revised version of the Book of Mormon which included the Small Plates. (For a summary about the ‘missing pages’, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lost_116_pages).
Mormon’s original abridgement of the civil record had been handed down from king to king for about 1000 years by Mormon’s day. This abridgement would have included the names of their kings and key advisers and administrators who did the daily work of the kingdom; special events with dates; and records of their many wars with the Lamanites. Most of that kind of information was lost in the missing 116 pages, but what was gained is the parallel spiritual record (prophecies, dreams, visions, sermons) that Nephi began as the prophet of the Nephite people.
In doing the translation in 1829, the Small Plate religious history replaced the lost 116 pages from the abridged Large Plates, so the religious history had caught up with the civil history. Joseph Smith, Jr. however, appears to have continued translating from the original civil history to the final stage of the war that destroyed the Nephite culture (i.e., from the book of Mosiah through Mormon—THEN, he went back to replace the ‘missing 116 pages’ from the sacred Small Plates of Nephi’). Thus, we find that the first part of the Book of Mormon is short on the civil record and heavy on the spiritual realm—it is from this part that we know of that the Nephites knew that Jesus would be born in the Land of Jerusalem about 600 years after the Nephites left Jerusalem, and that his mother’s name would be Mary. Starting with the book of Mosiah, we start to see a record of the kings, movements of peoples, major events with dates, and records of Nephite-Lamanite battles, all of which are sparse in the earlier parts (from 1 Nephi through the book of Omni) of today’s Book of Mormon.
There were many Nephite kings and prophets who added to Nephi’s writings in the Book of Mormon, but, after about 1000 years of history, near the very the end of the Nephite civilization, two prophets were led by the Spirit of God to condense (abridge) their history as a record for future generations. Mormon was a soldier as well as prophet and he recorded the final battles until he was killed in battle. Just before his death, Mormon had given the sacred records to his son, Moroni, and gave him the tasks of recording the final battle; keeping the sacred records safe; and, summarizing or abridging the history of yet another people whose record had been discovered and translated by the Nephite King Mosiah II, some 600 years earlier. It was roughly 400 AD when these two prophets were writing the final story of their failing civilization.
The purpose of Mormon’s and Moroni’s efforts in making their record, was to leave the testimony that Jesus is the Christ to four, distinct categories of future humanity of the world, none of which would know of the existence of this record until it would be revealed by God.
- The first of these four groups was the Lamanites, the Nephite peoples’ contrary cousins who were destroying their Nephite civilization, even as Mormon and Moroni were writing the final chapters during lulls between the final battles—they were writing that story for peoples of the future.
- The second group was the Jews who the Nephites had left behind in Jerusalem 1000 years earlier. The Nephite’s religion was the Judaism of 600 BC, but the Nephites learned of the coming birth of Jesus after leaving the Land of Jerusalem. The Jews went into Babylonian captivity and never got that message from God for their record. Note that Judaism was quite different between 600 BC and Jesus’ time—and it is even more different now. Mormon and Moroni wanted to leave a testimony to future Jews about the saving Grace of Jesus.
- The third group was the other ‘ten lost tribes of Israel’ who had been ‘faithless’ to God and carried captive to Assyria about 722 BC. These people had no firm religion and no records in which to keep their genealogy, but they were still descendants of Jacob/Israel. Thus, even though they had lost their Israelite identities, those tribes unknowingly still held God’s faithful covenant which held for ALL of Abraham’s descendants—they too, would have the opportunity to learn of Jesus through the testimonies of Mormon and Moroni in the Book of Mormon.
- The fourth group was the Gentiles, none of whom had ever been heirs to the ‘Promise of Abraham.’ In short, Mormon and Moroni were writing their testimony of Jesus to ALL peoples of the future.
We will now address each of these members of Mormon’s target population: The Lamanites, the Jews, the ‘lost’ tribes of Israel, and the Gentiles.
Details of each target population group:
(links coming soon…)