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| Narrative Structure and History in the Writings of Nephi |
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The separateness of this chapter from our current chapters 4 and 6 are illustrative of the completeness of chapter 5 as a unit. The "boundary verses" are:
While the beginning of chapter 5 presents a neat literary connection to the end of chapter 4, the subject matters of the two chapters are completely different. Chapter 4 is Nephi's psalm, and the text is concerned with spiritual issues, and only tangentially about the history of his people. On the other hand, chapter 5 is a return to narrative history. It is a remarkable history in that only important highlights are given, and information we might dearly love to have has been left out. 2 Nephi 5 is a remarkably parallel to 1 Nephi 17:1- 6 . It is parallel not in content, but in the terseness of the relation of history:
In 1 Nephi 17:1-6, a long period of time is reduced to very few sentences. In fact, we have the historically blank verse 4, where we learn that they spent eight years in the wilderness - and nothing at all about those eight years! With so little information for such a long period of time, virtually matched by the relative paucity of historical information for the period after the arrival in the New World, what can we learn of Nephi's writing, and in particular the structural units he used to mark his writing, and the function of history in his text? The boundary verses between 2 Nephi 5 and 2 Nephi 6 tell us something of Nephi's writing process:
Chapter 5 is a synoptic history, and chapter 6 begins with a very abrupt change not only in content, but in locutor. Without any further literary transition than the blunt statement of 2 Nephi 6:1, Nephi simply begins recounting sermons of his brother, Jacob. In what follows there is no story line, no history, no real narrative. What we have in 2 Nephi chapters 6-10 is a record of a sermon. The transition out of Jacob and into Isaiah is not nearly so abrupt, but still occurs with little attempt to make a transition:
Once the sermon ended in 10, Nephi makes no more of a reference to it that to say (in 2 Nephi 11:1) that Jacob had other sermons. The transition in verse 2 is an abrupt change of locutor again, leaving the New World entirely, and returning to the Old World prophet Isaiah. Particularly in 2 Nephi, it is easier to see where Nephi is making narrative breaks. Clearly there is a narrative break between the synoptic history of chapter 5 and the Jacobean sermons of chapters 6-10. Likewise, there is a narrative break between Jacob's sermon and the beginning of the Isaiah chapters. Returning to chapter 5, the break for the previous chapter, and the dating information included in the chapter suggest that it was written as a unit. We know that Nephi did not begin writing on the small plates until thirty years after the departure from Jerusalem (2 Nephi 5:28-29). Clearly when Nephi began the work of writing on the plates, he began with what we have in 1 Nephi 1. Therefore by the time this particular section is being written, it should be long after those earlier chapters. Chapter 5 is also written by forty years after the departure from Jerusalem, a statement that comes only six short verses after the thirty year marker (verse 34). It appears, from the synoptic nature of chapter 5, the clear breaks between 4/5 and 5/6, that 2 Nephi 5 was written as an entire unit - perhaps at a single sitting. While we don't know how long it would have taken Nephi to write on the plates, and that is certainly a constraining factor, were that not a complete barrier, the structure of 2 Nephi chapters 4-6 are very suggestive that chapter 5 is a unit written at a single sitting, a more or less complete thought for that day's (?) writing on the plates. Another obvious narrative break occurs between the end of 1 Nephi and the beginning of 2 Nephi. The end of 1 Nephi is Nephi's exegesis on scripture pertaining to the future, and 2 Nephi 1 begins Lehi's blessings of his sons (again a change in the locutor). The break between the 1830 version chapter one and two of 1 Nephi (current 1 Nephi 5/6 break) is also a clear unit marker:
There is a shift in the text from the narrative of the story of the obtaining of the plates, and the next literary unit begins with a reference to the previous section, but an interjection by Nephi that does not continue the narrative, but rather explains that he intends not to continue such a narrative:
The examination of the literary unit boundaries in Nephi's writings leads to some interesting conclusions about the process by which Nephi's small plate texts were constructed.
The very last point that is important to make is the nature of "history" in Nephi's writings. There are clearly historical sketches, such as the return for the plates and the building of the ship, but those pieces of "history" occur only because they are the narrative structure onto which Nephi hangs the real important information, the story of his spiritual development. In Nephi, there is very little regard for "history" as we would have in a Western tradition. What passes for "history" is subservient to a larger purpose, which is the spiritual reason for the small plates. Any question about this subservience of history is completely answered by Nephi himself as he is temporarily "finishing" his record at the end of chapter 5: "2 Nephi 5:33 And if my people desire to know the more particular part of the history of my people they must search mine other plates." Nephi is explicit, if you want history, go somewhere else. You won't find it here. Thus we must understand as we read Nephi that many of the very important historical questions that we would love to have answered are not there because Nephi had no reason to write them. At this point in the narrative, as we proceed to chapter 6, it is also interesting to speculate that Nephi had "finished" his writing at the end of chapter 5, and that what we get from now on is of a very different character. |
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| by Brant Gardner. Copyright 1998 |
The scripture we
know as 2 Nephi 5 was originally 2 Nephi 4 in the 1830 edition of the Book of Mormon. The numbering of the chapter
is not necessarily significant, but the fact that while other chapters were restructured in the versified edition,
our 2 Nephi 5 was not. In both the first edition, and the most recent, this chapter is presented as a redactive
whole. This is precisely as it should be, because 2 Nephi 5 forms a complete redactive unit.
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