The Life of Nephi
Cannon, George Q. 1888. The Life of Nephi. The contributor company.
Rating:
1
Summary:
Early Book of Mormon Commentary?
The book is essentially a summary of the life of Nephi, the son of the first prophet in the Book of Mormon, Lehi. The book quotes directly from the Book of Mormon quite regularly and adds what one might consider commentary; usually in the form of geographic speculation and historical events that took place during the same time. Cannon also includes a lot of projected emotions – ‘what would it have been like to…’, ‘they must have felt like…’, etc. – which is not really historical and bugs me.
Review:
If you are believing Mormon and are really interested in gospel commentaries, you’ll probably want to look somewhere else, for something more recent (see below). The book is well over 100 years old and, well, antiquated. It also doesn’t offer much in terms of the new theories that are being promoted and pushed by Mormon apologists today (check out FARMS website).
If you are not a Mormon and are interested in the book, you would probably be better served by either reading the source material (the Book of Mormon, 1st and 2nd Nephi – though second Nephi has a ton of Isaiah in it and is nearly impossible to read, or at least enjoyably read) or a different scriptural commentary.
Since I don’t really keep up on faith-promoting scriptural commentaries I’m not really sure which would be the best. You can always try a search at Deseretbook.com, they tend to have all of these types of things in stock. (You can try this search: , it has all of the current listings for scriptural commentaries on the Book of Mormon they currently carry.)
There was one other thing I wanted to mention. In the introduction to the book, Cannon talks about how the world is becoming more skeptical. In response to this he says, “Fortunately for us, we are in a position to stem and turn this tide of infidelity, so that it shall not overwhelm our young people. We are not dependent upon the Bible alone for our knowledge concerning these grand, cardinal truths over which the world is stumbling and debating. We have other records – among the most important of which is the Book of Mormon – which corroborate and furnish ample proofs of their heavenly origin.” I point this out because there are numerous current theories postulating that the Book of Mormon is a 19th century document that was written precisely with this goal in mind. I think it is interesting that this 19th century Mormon apostle used the argument as evidence of the divinity of the book and Mormonism. Just thought I would point it out. Oh yeah, and what’s wrong with skepticism? I’m happy to be an infidel in this sense.