Filter: Bible Paratext
Total chapters: 85
1 Nephi 2
Bible Paratext
Lehi is commanded to take his family and depart into the wilderness, similar to Abraham's departure from Ur of the Chaldees in Genesis, or Moses taking the children of Israel out of Egypt in Exodus, or Adam and Eve being cast out of the Garden of Eden in Genesis.
1 Nephi 10
Bible Paratext
Lehi predicts a bunch of stuff from JS Jr.'s KJV of the Old Testament and the New Testament
1 Nephi 11
Bible Paratext
Nephi's vision of a bunch of stuff from the NT, including anachronistic ammendments to Mark
1 Nephi 14
Bible Paratext
Nephi sees the great and abominable church (cf. Rev. of John, where the KJV English verbiage is actually “Mystery, Babylon the Great, the Mother of Harlots and Abominations of the Earth,”) which is basically all of Christianity except Mormonism
1 Nephi 15
Bible Paratext
Nephi chastizes his brothers for not having read the Epistle of James, which had not been written yet: “Do ye not remember the things which the Lord hath said?—If ye will not harden your hearts, and ask me in faith, believing that ye shall receive, with diligence in keeping my commandments, surely these things shall be made known unto you.”
1 Nephi 17
Bible Paratext
Nephi builds a ship, his brothers rebel. Nephi chastises his brothers for their lack of faith using extensive OT and NT mini-quotes, like ten times in three verses.
1 Nephi 19
Bible Paratext
Nephi spends his time laboriously inscribing on metal a bunch of stuff from the New Testament and contemporary Jewish history that is already old news in the 19th century, except quotes from a fantasy Old World, pre-Babylonian-captivity prophet Zenos, who merely quotes the phrase “four quarters of the earth” from the Book of Revelations, before it had been written.
2 Nephi 2
Bible Paratext
Lehi teaches about the Fall and the Atonement, stuff already in the Bible
2 Nephi 6
Bible Paratext
Jacob quotes Isaiah, emphasizing the importance of the covenant people
2 Nephi 11
Bible Paratext
Jacob quotes Isaiah, interpreting Isaiah ch. 6, “In the year that king Uzziah died, I saw also the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up, and his train filled the temple.” The vision of the LORD (YHWH) on the throne is connected to Isaiah seeing the pre-existent Jesus of Nazareth (“... for [Isaiah] verily saw my Redeemer, even as I [Jacob] have seen him.”) with no support from the text.
2 Nephi 25
Bible Paratext
Nephi explains the context of the New Testament as understood from the 19th century.
2 Nephi 31
Bible Paratext
Nephi prophesies about concepts from the New Testament, such as baptism and the role of the Holy Ghost.
2 Nephi 32
Bible Paratext
Nephi teaches about the importance of the Holy Ghost and the need for personal revelation, as well as Jesus coming in the flesh.
Jacob 4
Bible Paratext
Jacob teaches about the Atonement and other stuff from the Bible.
Jacob 5
Bible Paratext
Jacob quotes Zenos about an Olive Tree in a Vineyard in an extended attempt at allegory that even JS Jr. can't understand completely. The metaphorical meaning is pretty clear, but the underlying imagery is utterly incoherent, for several obvious reasons.
Jacob 6
Bible Paratext
Jacob continues to exhort people using New Testament language.
Jacob 7
Bible Paratext
Jacob confronts Sherem, who demands a sign to prove the existence of Christ, which is weirdly actually given, compared to the real world, where this does not happen. With solid evidence like that, who needs faith?
Omni 1
Bible Paratext
Amaleki exhorts people to believe in Pauline gifts of the spirit.
Mosiah 4
Bible Paratext
King Benjamin continues his sermon, emphasizing the need for humility and service to others.
Mosiah 5
Bible Paratext
King Benjamin's sermon concludes with a covenant of discipleship, where the people commit to follow God's commandments and serve one another, take on the name of Christ, etc.
Mosiah 7
Bible Paratext
Forty days in the wilderness is mentioned (Numbers, synoptics), and the speech in verse 19 is very Old Testament, as well as biblical language.
Mosiah 12
Bible Paratext
Abinandi before King Noah reminds us of Jesus before Pilate.
Mosiah 13
Bible Paratext
Abindai preaches from the Old Testament as a prooftext for the coming of Christ in the New Testament.
Mosiah 15
Bible Paratext
Abinadi quotes liberally from the Old Testament, as well as the New Testament and the letters of Paul, which had not been written yet.
Mosiah 18
Bible Paratext
Alma baptizes at the waters of Mormon, using language from the New Testament about discipleship and baptism. For example mourn / mourn / comfort / comfort reminds us of the Sermon on the Mount where Jesus says “Blessed are they that mourn: for they shall be comforted.”
Mosiah 23
Bible Paratext
Alma quotes Paul's letter to the Galatians almost 150 years before he had even written it.
Mosiah 24
Bible Paratext
Alma prays for deliverance, and the Lord hears his prayer and delivers them. Bible paratext abounds, in nearly every verse. The people of Alma are freed from bondage and arrive in Zarahemla and join king Mosiah's people.
Mosiah 26
Bible Paratext
The Lord tells Alma stuff about redemption that would not be written yet, and also references some post-Lehi Old Testament ideas.
Mosiah 27
Bible Paratext
The sons of King Mosiah and Alma son of Alma steal away the hearts of the people, just as Absolom, the son of King David, did (2 Sam. 15:6).
Alma 5
Bible Paratext
Alma preaches and laments the treatment of the Nephites under the hands of the Lamanites, calls them to repentance and a return to God.
Alma 6
Bible Paratext
The Church in Zarahemla is set in order and the unrighteous and prideful have their names blotted out.
Alma 9
Bible Paratext
Alma is somehow able to transcribe the things he said and did while evading capture by a hostile, unreceptive audience.
Alma 10
Bible Paratext
Reads like Acts and like Jesus dealing with lawyers, Pharisees, etc.
Alma 12
Bible Paratext
Paints a storybook picture of the naivety of anyone who disagrees with Alma and Amulek, causing Zeezrom to literally tremble. Also mentions that Adam and Eve had angels sent to teach them the plan of redemption (about Jesus), a very Mormon trope.
Alma 14
Bible Paratext
Believers are persecuted, like in Acts, and the prison walls collapsed just like in the story of Samson or Acts.
Alma 15
Bible Paratext
Zeezrom has a turnaround, like Saul becoming Paul.
Alma 17
Bible Paratext
Ammon is a type of Christ, defending the flock from predators. This is very Young David the Shepherd as well, down to the sling.
Alma 18
Bible Paratext
cf. Jn. 20:16 Rabboni. Also reading thoughts is very like Jesus and his interlocutors.
Alma 19
Bible Paratext
This whole episode reads like something from the New Testament (Lazurus, specifically).
Alma 20
Bible Paratext
The story of Ammon powerfully chopping off arms is a perennial favorite Just-So Story of little Latter-day Saint boys and teenagers.
Alma 24
Bible Paratext
The motif of self-sacrifice and martyrdom present in this chapter reflects broader themes in Christian theology, particularly the idea of laying down one's life for others.
Alma 26
Bible Paratext
Ammon and his brethren rejoice in their missionary success, like Paul and Silas in Acts, using language from letters Paul had not yet written, and quoting Isaiah (specifically, Trito-Isaish, composed after the return from Exile, and after Lehi left Jersualem).
Alma 28
Bible Paratext
Mourning and lamentation (cf. Lam. 2:5) across the land, using language like Mosiah 21:9.
Alma 29
Bible Paratext
Alma desires to cry repentance with the voice of an angel.
Alma 30
Bible Paratext
An unbeliever predicatably asks for a sign and is smitten with one, something that somehow doesn't happen in the real world, only in storybooks. (Also, Korihor secretly always knew there was a God, and has to lie about it all; this narrative serves to question the basic integrity of all people who never believed in God, or lost their belief for explicable reasons, serving as a very us-versus-them presentation of non-belief, reinforcing the believers' superiority.)
Alma 32
Bible Paratext
Alma pits knowledge explicitly against faith (“Now I ask, is this faith? Behold, I say unto you, Nay; for if a man knoweth a thing he hath no cause to believe, for he knoweth it.”) and claims that faith is much better than knowledge, and that people should just believe what they are told without asking for evidence or a sign. He doesn't say how this credulity is good for the credulous, despite credulity being obviously good for preachers and missionaries. The lovely, poetic analogy of a seed of faith growing and somehow turning into a perfect knowledge doesn't explain how the lack of evidence and empirical knowledge turns blind faith, or a desire to believe, into a plant that can bear delicious fruit, any more than false propaganda and false brainwashing could accomplish. The “delicious” angle implies that it feels good and tastes good (wasn't Korihor condemend for falling for something pleasing?), but that still doesn't explain how believing in something unseen (i.e. without evidence and reason) can turn wishful thinking into actual testable knowledge. If this were possible, one could simply run the test without having to believe anything up front, and then just be forced to believe the result of the test. But this can't be how faith works, or the whole edifice would crumble under the purifying force of doubt. The beautiful poetical language doesn't solve any of the philosophical problems. It may work emotionally, but this approach to knowledge (Alma even says faith can become “perfect knowledge”! What a conflation, when this was explicitly tagged as being awful, just paragraphs earlier) fails to deliver the goods, when it matters, epistemologically. And later Alma says even with perfect knowledge, you can never lay aside your faith. So how is that knowledge? It must still really be faith, just dressed up and called knowledge. Very weird doublespeak.
Alma 35
Bible Paratext
The coming war in the back half of the book of Alma actually commences because the poor of the people of the Zoramites who were cast out were treated well by the people of Ammon, a weird reason to start a war. But the Zoramites are a caricature of universalists, which means they are really bad.
Alma 36
Bible Paratext
Alma relates his conversion story to his son Helaman.
Alma 37
Bible Paratext
Alma paraphrases James 3 where a great ship is “driven of fierce winds, yet are they turned about with a very small helm, whithersoever the governor listeth,” but loses the seafaring metaphor.
Alma 38
Bible Paratext
Alma exhorts his son Shiblon by paraphrasing a bunch of teachings and phrases from the Bible, and repeating tropes from earlier in the Book of Mormon.
Alma 45
Bible Paratext
Alma wanders off and his end is uncertain (“as to his death of burial we know not“). ”The saying went abroad in the church that he was taken up by the Spirit, or buried by the hand of the Lord, even as Moses.”
Alma 57
Bible Paratext
Helaman recounts that miraculously, all 2,000 of the Ammonite stripling warriors are wounded, but none are slain.
Alma 58
Bible Paratext
Helaman again recounts that miraculously, all 2,000 of the Ammonite stripling warriors all survive, despite their wounds.
Helaman 5
Bible Paratext
Nephi Jr. and his brother Lehi Jr. remember the words of Helaman their father, which quotes ideas from the New Testament, which had not been written yet. A pillar of fire protects them, and some Lamanites (including Aminadab, who only occurs in this one chapter) are converted.
Helaman 7
Bible Paratext
Nephi Jr. is surprised to find a crowd gathered around him as he prayed and mourned the wickedness of his people, then preaches repentance to people who had supposedly heard it already just a few chapters earlier.
Helaman 8
Bible Paratext
Nephi Jr. continues his sermon explaining the history of the Old Testament as a typology of Jesus who was to come, before Matthew and Paul (or rather, the author of Hebrews) had used those verses as prooftext.
Helaman 9
Bible Paratext
Nephi Jr. gives a sign to prove his prophetic calling, which involves using psychic powers to view the contemporaneous death of the chief judge at the hand of his wicked brother.
Helaman 10
Bible Paratext
Nephi Jr. is given the sealing power, which he uses to keep himself safe from the wicked, not unlike Moses, reading like something from Exodus or the book of Acts.
Helaman 11
Bible Paratext
Nephi Jr. asks the Lord to replace the sword with a famine. The people beg to ask God to spare them. He does so for many verses, writing everything down somehow at the same time. Also, his brother and sidekick Lehi Jr. gets a passing mention, lest we forget about him.
Helaman 12
Bible Paratext
Mormon laments the wickedness of the children of men.
Helaman 16
Bible Paratext
Samuel the Lamanite convinces some, and enrages others, but he has super high THAC0 so cannot be hit by stones and arrows (weapons, incidentally, that were possible for people in the New World to wield).
3 Nephi 1
Bible Paratext
Nephi's prophecy of the sign of Christ's birth is fulfilled. This is hard to read because the wicked unbelievers are so caricatured as to be unconvincing. The skeptical say, we're tired of hearing about this coming Messiah, where are the signs? Then the signs happen but that does not convince the people who wanted that evidence. Yet this never happens in the modern world. Believers / God never deliver the goods, so we don't get to find out if the unbelievers will be convinced by evidence of Jesus second coming, since it never comes. It's an apples to oranges comparison. Great for a storybook, but lousy for epistemology.
3 Nephi 4
Bible Paratext
The Nephites defend themselves against the Gaddianton robbers by praying, a very Old Testament sort of just-so story.
3 Nephi 7
Bible Paratext
Splitting into tribes is so Biblical. And Nephi (not the OG Nephi) does a bunch of New-Testament-style stuff like raising the dead, casting out devils, etc.
3 Nephi 9
Bible Paratext
The voice of Jesus over loudspeaker describes the aftermath of his crucifixion, including the destruction of the Nephite cities and the signs of his death.
3 Nephi 11
Bible Paratext
Jesus Christ appears to the Nephites and teaches them his gospel, similar to the New Testament. The Bible fan fiction aspect ratchets up to 11, literally.
3 Nephi 15
Bible Paratext
Jesus teaches about the law and the prophets, emphasizing their fulfillment in him. Twists the conventional meaning of Other Sheep to support the narrative of the entire Book of Mormon.
3 Nephi 17
Bible Paratext
Jesus heals the sick and invites the children to come unto him, emphasizing the importance of childlike faith.
3 Nephi 19
Bible Paratext
Jesus prays for the Nephites and they are filled with the Holy Ghost.
3 Nephi 23
Bible Paratext
The saints arising bit quotes Mat. 27:52, as if it were something new.
3 Nephi 26
Bible Paratext
Jesus teaches about the importance of faith and works in salvation.
3 Nephi 27
Bible Paratext
Jesus teaches about his gospel, which is basically the same as the one in the New Testament.
3 Nephi 30
Bible Paratext
The latter-day Gentiles are asked to become saints by joining JS Jr.'s fledgling church.
Mormon 3
Bible Paratext
Mormon laments the wickedness of his people and the destruction that is coming upon them, and gives up being their commander.
Mormon 6
Bible Paratext
Mormon laments the destruction of his people, echoing Jeremiah's lament over the fall of Jerusalem.
Ether 1
Bible Paratext
Genealogy and gather two of every kind. Where have we read that before?
Ether 4
Bible Paratext
Moroni quotes Jesus quoting Mark 16 anachronistic second ending again. If he is quoting Jesus (3 Ne.) quoting these later additions, then that just compounds the same problem.
Ether 12
Bible Paratext
Moroni discusses faith, hope, and charity, the Gentiles mocking, etc. More rehashed biblical themes.
Ether 14
Bible Paratext
The name Shiz may be a garbled reference to Sisera, a Canaanite general defeated by the prophetess Deborah in Judges 4-5. cf. also Shez in Ether 1.
Ether 15
Bible Paratext
Moroni describes the final battles and the complete destruction of the Jaredite civilization, with only one survivor, Coriantumr, who is found by the people of Zarahemla, as prophesied by Ether. JS Jr. pretty much wants to tell a war story bigger than the scale of the Old Testament battles, so in his war, millions die very quickly, but somehow leave behind zero evidence. None. Also, there is a partially-beheaded man who does a single pushup, probaly setting some sort of world record.
Moroni 6
Bible Paratext
Moroni emphasizes the importance of baptism and being part of the church of Christ, and following the spirit in their meetings, echoing New Testament themes.
Moroni 7
Bible Paratext
Moroni quotes Paul the Apostle by claiming he is quoting his father Mormon's sermon about faith, hope, and charity, and the importance of praying to God to know things.
Moroni 9
Bible Paratext
Moroni laments the wickedness of the people and the destruction that has come upon them, using a lot of little Biblical phrases.