repost ::: nephi in PE

I want to focus in on The Book of Mormon and how we can relate to this type of ancient writing. I have read the beginning of The Book of Mormon hundreds of times. Reading the beginning of the BOM in our “text book” has helped me to see a different perceptive on the Book of Mormon, a more humanizing way. While reading the BOM with such a human perspective I have been able to humanize the prophet Nephi appropriately. .  Also, during the time I was reading the beginning of the BOM in our class we were working on personal essays. I had found that Nephi’s entries are his personal essays in a way. .

I, Nephi, having been born of goodly parents, therefore I was taught somewhat in all the learning of my father; and having seen many afflictions in the course of my days, nevertheless, having been highly favored of the Lord in all my days; yea, having had a great knowledge of the goodness and the mysteries of God, therefore I make a record of my proceedings in my days.

Looking deeper in analysis of the first verse of The Book of Mormon. Nephi, a prophet, is reflecting on his experiences with his family and other ideas that have put him on the path he is on. In comparison to our own personal experiences, we also too write in correlation to the way we were raised. Most of our personal essay we are either stating a purpose or are reflecting on particular parts of our lives because they are important to us for some reason. Nephi was commanded to write, but also like we are told to write by professors we choose what and how it will be written. Here Nephi explains the reasoning behind he is recording his experiences because he feels he will be able to accurately write the Lord needs because he has knowledge we do not. Nephi writes his own personal experiences to share with others what they might not have understood or experiences otherwise. We do the same in our own writing everyday. If everyone were writing the same idea or even writing in the same style, there would be no reason to read or ponder anything.  

After the first verse, Nephi continues to write about his knowledge and many of different personal experiences. These stories in The Book of Mormon are like any other kind of “personal” narrative and can be easly relatable if the reader looks through this type of perspective. By analyzing at The Book of Mormon by humanizes the narrator and characters, we are able to hear and read prophets of old and their stories and liken them unto ourselves. It can be hard at times to understand or relate to them but through analyzing it in this perspective we can easily understand they are people like us who have similar experiences.