The Inquisitive Christian

This is the final chapter of 1 Nephi. I’m going to be thankful that it is much shorter than the Bible, because this is a bigger undertaking than I initially realized. Throughout this journey, I am constantly reminded of the old adage, “If It’s true, it’s not new. If it’s new, it’s not true.” This statement, of course, is a warning against new theologies or new ways of interpreting Scripture. As Christians, we know the Bible is the ultimate authority on spiritual and theological truths. We can do one of two things with teachings that contradict it: 1) ignore them completely, or 2) study them for research purposes only in the hope that we can bring truth to those who subscribe to them. Our ultimate goal should always be to point people to the true Christ, who is the second person of the Trinity, which consists of three co-existing, co-eternal, and co-equal persons that make up one God. He is not Satan’s spirit brother. He is not the offspring of Heavenly Father and Heavenly Mother. He is God incarnate. To assign him a status as anything less is heresy.

1 Nephi Chapter 22

Israel will be scattered upon all the face of the earth. The Gentiles will nurse and nourish Israel with the gospel in the last days. Israel will be gathered and saved, and the wicked will burn as stubble. The kingdom of the devil will be destroyed, and Satan will be bound. About 588-570 B.C.

1: “And now it came to pass that I, Nephi, had read these things which were engraven upon the plates of brass, my brethren came unto me and said unto me: What meaneth these things which ye have read? Behold, are they to be understood according to things which are spiritual, which shall come to pass according to the spirit and not the flesh?”

As I clearly laid out in my previous post, Nephi is claiming he read Isaiah 48 and 49 on the brass plates, which is impossible because Isaiah 40-55 hadn’t been written yet. See the post titled “A Chronological Impossibility” for more information. I have cited my research there.

2: “And I, Nephi, said unto them: Behold they were manifest unto the prophet by the voice of the Spirit; for by the Spirit are all things made known unto the prophets, which shall come upon the children of men according to the flesh.”

3: “Wherefore, the things of which I have read are things pertaining to things both temporal and spiritual; for it appears that the house of Israel, sooner or later, will be scattered upon all the face of the earth, and also among the nations.”

There are numerous prophecies in the Old Testament about the Israelites being scattered throughout the world. These can be found in Deut. 4:25-30, 28:64-67, Hosea 9:1-3, 17, Jeremiah 18:15-17, Amos 9:8-9, and Ezekiel 22:14-15, just to name a few.

4: “And behold, there are many who are already lost from the knowledge of those who are at Jerusalem. Yea, the more part of all the tribes have been led away; and they are scattered to and fro upon the isles of the sea; and whither they are none of us knoweth, save that we know they have been led away.”

This doesn’t match what was happening in the Old Testament during this time period. We know that they were being scattered around the middle east, but not “to and fro upon the isles of the sea.” My speculation is that phrase was added to include Nephi and his family in the Americas. The Assyrians conquered and carried away the Northern Kingdom before Nephi’s departure to the Americas. After a lengthy conflict, King Sargon II defeated the capital city of Samaria around 721 B.C. Many Israelites were slaughtered, while thousands were taken captive and resettled. See for more information: The Ten Lost Tribes – Biblical Archaeology Society and Assyrian Deportation and Resettlement: The Story of Samaria – TheTorah.com.

The remaining tribe of Judah was defeated and taken captive by Babylon around 586 B.C. King Nebuchadnezzar ordered the total destruction of Jerusalem, and the destruction of the temple Solomon had built. He forced King Zedekiah to witness the execution of his sons before having his eyes gouged out. He and thousands of others were marched to Babylon in chains. For more information, see What Was the Babylonian Exile and Why Should I Care? – St. Paul Center. So, this would have happened around the same time Nephi and his family supposedly arrived in the Americas. While the Israelites were certainly scattered, I don’t think we can say it was nearly as widespread across the earth as this passage of Nephi implies.

5: “And since they have been led away, these things have been prophesied concerning them, and also concerning all those who shall hereafter be scattered and be confounded, because of the Holy One of Israel; for against him will they harden their hearts; wherefore, they shall be scattered among the nations and shall be hated of all men.”

Nothing particularly noteworthy here. The Old Testament, as mentioned before, has similar prophecies.

6: “Nevertheless, after they shall be nursed by the Gentiles, and the Lord has lifted up his hand upon the Gentiles and set them up for a standard, and their children have been carried in their arms, and their daughters have been carried upon their shoulders, behold these things of which are spoken are temporal; for thus are the covenants of the Lord with our fathers; and it meaneth us in the days to come, and also all our brethren who are of the house of Israel.”

There are most definitely Old Testament prophecies concerning the salvation of Gentiles: Genesis 12:3, 22:18, Deut. 32:43, Isaiah, 2:2-3, 49:6, 56:3-7, Psalm 22:27-28, Zechariah 2:11, Malachi 1:11, and Micah 4:1-2. There are also verses that discuss the Gentiles assisting in bringing Jews back to God. The verbiage in verse 6 here resembles Isaiah 49:22-23, which reads: “Thus saith the Lord God, Behold, I will lift up mine hand to the Gentiles, and set up my standard to the people: and they shall bring thy sons in their arms, and thy daughters shall be carried upon their shoulders. And kings shall be thy nursing fathers, and their queens thy nursing mothers: they shall bow down to thee with their face toward the earth, and lick up the dust of thy feet; and thou shalt know that I am the Lord: for they shall not be ashamed that wait for me.” If you recall from my previous post, this was plagiarized and put into 1 Nephi 21, which would be why verse 6 uses similar phrasing. Other verses prophesying the Gentiles’ assistance in bringing the Jews back to God are Isaiah 60:3-11, 66:18-21, and Zechariah 8:23.

7: “And it meaneth that the time cometh that after all the house of Israel have been scattered and confounded, that the Lord God will raise up a mighty nation among the Gentiles, yea, even upon the face of this land; and by them shall our seed be scattered.”

So, there are conflicting ideas about what this “mighty nation” is. Scripture Central, a very well-known pro-LDS source, insists that it was the Spanish Empire. Their argument is that Spain, at one time, controlled portions of the Americas and enslaved Indigenous peoples and exported them to other regions, such as the Caribbean. The author of that article argues against it being the United States because the US wasn’t a prominent world power in 1830. You can read that article here: What “Mighty Nation among the Gentiles” Would Scatter Lehi’s.

Another well-known pro-LDS source called Gospel Doctrine argues that the “mighty nation” is the United States. That article’s author points to the phrase “even upon the face of this land” as support for this idea and points to the US government’s treatment of the Native Americans as the scattering of the house of Isreal. You can read that article here: 1 Nephi 22 | Gospel Doctrine. It’s important to note that neither of these websites are run by the official LDS church.

I could certainly go down a pointless rabbit hole regarding which of these theories is more plausible, but that would be a complete waste of time, because they’re both absurd. Both of these articles presuppose that the Indigenous peoples of the Americas are descendants of ancient Jews. This idea, of course, is ridiculous and is not supported by reality. There is not a single shred of ancient middle eastern or Hebrew DNA in any indigenous populations in America. They were descended from ancient east Asians and North Eurasians that were in the Americas for thousands of years before the events in the Book of Mormon were purported to have taken place. You can read a brief summary of this history here: A Genetic Chronicle of the First Peoples in the Americas – SAPIENS. The lack of middle eastern DNA in Native American populations is not new information, as this article in an LDS publication in 2003 points out: Simply Implausible: DNA and a Mesoamerican Setting for the Book of Mormon – Dialogue Journal. Some Mormon apologists, however, still cling to the delusional hope that ancient Hebrew DNA will be found in Native American populations, despite extensive genetic studies. Others insist the data is somehow skewed. In either case, they demonstrate a profound unwillingness to accept reality.

Verses 8 through 12 are expounding upon what has already been said here and contain nothing noteworthy.

13: “And the blood of that great and abominable church, which is the whore of all the earth, shall turn upon their own heads; for they shall war among themselves, and the sword of their own hands shall fall upon their own heads, and they shall be drunk with their own blood.”

14: “And every nation which shall war against thee, O house of Israel, shall be turned one against another, and they shall fall into the pit which they digged to ensnare the people of the Lord. And all that fight against Zion shall be destroyed, and that great whore, who hath perverted the right ways of the Lord, yea, that great and abominable church, shall tumble to the dust and great shall be the fall of it.”

My, Joseph Smith really hated Christians. Not only does he make his absolute disdain known in these verses that label any church but his as “the whore of all the earth,” but he has famously called the teachings of Christianity abominable. In one account of his first vision, he reports the God told him every sect of Christianity was wrong, calling all their creeds “an abomination.” He further described all Christian teachers as corrupt. You can read this quote in verse 19 and his account of his first vision here: Joseph Smith—History 1. He preached heavily against the Trinity, a foundational doctrine of Christianity. He also taught that men could become gods themselves. You can read these heretical quotes and others here: Quotations from Teachings of the Prophet Joseph Smith – Mormonism Research Ministry. It also bears mentioning again that the word “church” didn’t exist in the Old Testament, because it is a Christian concept that did not come into being until the New Testament.

Out of curiosity and in the interest of fairness, I decided to research what Mormons believe this “great and abominable church” is. In the 1958 edition of his book, “Mormon Doctrine,” Apostle Bruce R. McConkie insisted the church described in these 1 Nephi passages is the Catholic Church, which is what I originally speculated in my post titled “What Have You Got Against Catholics?” McConkie’s teaching, of course, soured relations between Mormons and Catholics, which, let’s be honest, probably weren’t that great to begin with. Rather than apologize, however, he was reportedly rebuked in private, and later editions of “Mormon Doctrine” took a softer approach to defining what constituted the “great and abominable church.” You can view a neat and tidy comparison of the different editions here: Mormon Doctrine: Catholicism – Wheat & Tares.

In the abstract of a paper titled, “Nephi’s Great and Abominable Church,” authored by Stephen E. Robinson, the more acceptable definition is “avoiding a denominational name, Hellenized Christianity.” You can read that abstract here: “Nephi’s “Great and Abominable Church”” by Stephen E. Robinson. What jumped out to me the most in this paragraph is this church “seeks wealth and luxury.” That is quite rich coming from the wealthiest religious organization in the world, according to multiple sources. Its entire wealth is estimated between at least 265-293 billion dollars (per a basic Google search), with a significant portion in a reserve fund managed by Ensign Peak Advisors, the financial investment arm of the LDS church. However, according to the Widow’s Mite Report, an organization that tries to track LDS finances due to their lack of transparency, their estimated net worth in 2025 could be as high as 321 billion. You can read much finer details here: 2025 Update. That report also contains evidence pointing to tax evasion by Ensign Peak Advisors and documentation related to the church’s SEC violations that resulted in a 5 million dollar fine. They essentially tried to lie about how much money they had and attempted to hide a portion of it in shell LLC’s.

I also found it quite amusing that “it is characterized by sexual immorality” was also included in the description of the great and abominable church in the aforementioned paper. I would love to delve into that topic, but I can only go down so many rabbit holes in a single blog post. I am certain I will have ample opportunity to discuss the abhorrent practice of polygamy that started with Joseph Smith. There is indeed a “great and abominable church,” and it isn’t the Catholic one.

Verses 15-28 is more end times prophesy concerning the destruction of the wicked and the protection of those who follow God.

29: “And now I, Nephi, make an end; for I durst not speak further as yet concerning these things.”

Thank goodness.

30: “Wherefore, my brethren, I would that ye should consider that the things which have been written upon the plates of brass are true; and they testify that a man must be obedient to the commandments of God.”

Yes, that’s right. The passages of Isaiah that weren’t written yet were definitely on the brass plates.

31: “Wherefore, ye need not suppose that I and my father are the only ones that have testified, and also taught them. Wherefore, if ye shall be obedient to the commandments, and endure to the end, ye shall be saved at the last day. And thus it is. Amen.”

Well, ladies and gent. One book down. Fourteen more to go.