The Abridging Works

The record translated and published in 1830 as the Book of Mormon was composed in some sequence, right? In an original approach relying on textual analysis, this book re-arranges, according to their sequence of composition, the familiar books from that unique record. In so arranging, it gives us a new way to read the Book of Mormon, recovering the order of writings composed by Mormon and other authors. Vivid prophets, despairing war chiefs, wandering clans; behind them all, discover the author as he composes amid the calamitous, crashing fall of a civilization.The sequence of composition, moreover, reveals surprises within the text itself. Thebiography of Mormon composed over three decades shapes the historical narrative;an original introduction to the earliest (and lost) abridgment is recovered from whatis now called 3 Nephi; and a groundbreaking revision of the received traditionregarding the Small and Large Plates of Nephi is brought forward. And happily, thetext has been freed from the constraints of column and verse, and oriented to theepic and historic genres more appropriate for its wingspan and tragic grandeur, forappreciating the complexity of its composition.Additional essays by the editor introduce evidence for the proposed order of composition by Mormon, Moroni, and others. Material is presented that 1 Nephi was added in June 1829, and compiled from additional plates recovered from Cumorah. Other essays give new insights into the role of lineage in the transmission of records,speculate on an alternate history of the "lost leaves" of 1828, and introduce a theoryof translation essential for scholarly study of the Book of Mormon.