Book of Mormon Lesson #10: “He Inviteth All to Come unto Him,” 2 Nephi 26-30 (Gospel Doctrine)

As I explained in my last post, I’m going to treat 2 Nephi 25 here, along with 2 Nephi 26-30. I’ll note also that I’ll do a little bit of retroactive treatment of 2 Nephi 11, since it is closely tied to 2 Nephi 25. Principally, the aim here is to deal with Nephi’s prophetic contribution to what I’ve been calling, since the beginning, the “atonement” stretch of Nephi’s record. (See here and here for other details concerning all this.) What we have in 2 Nephi 25-30 is the final culmination of Nephi’s crucial record. After this we’ll have only his concluding appendix, if you will. Everything Nephi’s been working on comes to a real fruition right here.

Indeed, what we have in 2 Nephi 25-30 is the final weaving together of Nephi’s two obsessions: (1) his vision from 1 Nephi 11-14, in which he saw the whole panorama of covenantal history, and (2) the writings of Isaiah, which he’s been inserting according to clear patterns (which I cover in the posts linked to above). He now brings to its highest point his work of “likening,” making sense of Isaiah through his own visionary knowledge, and making sense of his own visionary knowledge through Isaiah. If we want to get our brains around what all this Isaiah stuff is doing in the Book of Mormon, it’s in these chapters first and foremost that we’re given to understand. Let’s look quite closely at it, shall we?

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