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Category: Core Book
Date: 06 Dec 2006 09:59am
Title: 1 Nephi 11

Nephi takes an oral exam

Nephi:

1. desire to know
2. believe it is possible (faith)
3. ponder

Therefore, he had a vision

Actually it is more of an oral exam...

Spirit:

1. What desirest thou?
2. Believest thou?

Therefore, blessed art thou

sp: Look!

N: I see X = most precious above all

sp: what desirest thou?

N: to know the interpretation thereof (to understand the meaning, or "what is X?") : he already knows the tree is symbolic

Sp: Look! (not a direct answer; Nephi will have to figure it out)

N: I see Y = most beautiful above all

Sp: what is Z (condescension of God)? (does Z = meaning of Y?)

N: no clue, but gives a good oral response

sp: Y = mother of God

sp: Look!

N: I see Y with C

sp: C = Son of God, Lamb of God

sp: what is X? (this was Nephi's question)

N: X = Love of God = most desirable above all

sp: X (also) = most joyous

How did Nephi figure it out? I don't see the logical connection, so it must have been an inspired leap.

Things which contributed to his understanding:

• He knew X was a symbol (initial assumption)
• Parallels: X = most __ above all, Y = most __ about all, Love of God = most __ above all
• Images of motherhood (evokes memories of love?)
• seeing two visions at the same time? (see below)

sp: Look!

N: I see Son of God preaching

Therefore: rod of iron = word of God

tree = tree of life = love of god = fountain of living waters

sp: Look! behold Z!

N: I see: Christ baptized, preaching, disciples/apostles

sp: Look! N: I see angels ministering

sp: Look! N: I see Christ healing

sp: Look! N: I see Christ crucified

N: I see multitudes gathered together to fight against the Apostles; the multitudes were in the large & spacious building.

sp: behold the world & its wisdom

N: building = pride of world

From this it seems to me that he is seeing these things at the same time he is seeing his father's vision. He sees the vision of people fighting against the Apostles at the same time (and in the same sequence) as the L&S building from Lehi's vision. Earlier he saw Christ preaching, and saw the connection with the rod as if that were also shown to him. The rod comes soon after the tree in Lehi's vision.

This could explain how he is making the connections between the two visions so easily. He is clearly seeing completely different images than Lehi saw, but he is connecting the two, either by keeping Lehi's description in mind, or by viewing as it were two screens: Lehi's vision on one screen, while seeing the interpretation vision in parallel on the other.

Also, Lehi was satisfied with seeing the symbol, but Nephi wanted to understand their meanings. Lehi was a Jew, and as Nephi says later, the Jews liked things which were hard to understand.