Click to Listen: Episode 19: Omni-Words of Mormon
In this episode we meet a TON of new people, but they basically have nothing to say. Then we finally hear from Mr. Mormon himself, who surprisingly has very little to say himself. Well, if nothing else you should have a good buzz by the end if you playing the drinking game.
“Drink” Count – 24
4 Beers
![1f37b[1]](https://mybookofmormonpodcast.files.wordpress.com/2014/07/1f37b1-e1405272752631.png)
My Book of Mormon 
June 23, 2014 at 6:01 pm
Well, I’m not Duke, but I’ll fill in some chronology here.
361 BCE – Jarom gives plates to Omni
323 BCE – Omni writes on the plates
317 BCE – Omni gives the plates to his son, Amaron,
279 BCE – Amaron writes something then gives the plates to his brother, Chemish
Chemish gives the plates to his son, Abinadom, at an unspecified date.
Abinadom doesn’t write much of anything and doesn’t say when or how he passes on the plates
Amaleki, Abinadom’s son, gets the plates somehow. He gives us some clues to his timeline since he talks about two kings Mosiah and Benjamin.
Amaleki says he was born in the days of Mosiah (we’ll assume he means the days of his reign) and has survived to see his son Benjamin reign as well. Amaleki eventually gives the plates to Benjamin, ending the bloodline bequeathing we’ve seen up to this point.
Warning, there are two Mosiahs in the Book of Mormon. One in King Benjamin’s father, Mosiah 1, and the other is Benjamin’s son, Mosiah 2, after whom the Book of Mosiah is named (you’ll hit it next episode). Amaleki is referencing the first Mosiah.
Since Amaleki doesn’t mention Mosiah 2, we will assume Amaleki gave the plates to Benjamin while he was still king.
Using other times mentioned later in the book, here is the most accuracte chronolgy I can figure out:
Chemish, Abinadom, and Amaleki have the plates between 279 BCE and 124 BCE.
Chemish probably didn’t give the plates to Abinadom the same day he receieved them, and Amaleki most likely didn’t give the plates to King Benjamin the same year the King gave up his throne.
Bottom line: The dates are WAY too fuzzy to arrive at any solid conclusion here.
Real bottom line: Since Smith made it all up, we don’t have to worry about it making sense all the time!
June 23, 2014 at 6:02 pm
Sorry, I misspelled received by adding an extra “e”.
June 24, 2014 at 1:48 am
I agree with jwartena that we don’t have solid enough dates to get a clear picture, but as Benjamin is an old man in 124 BC (as we’ll see coming right up), and he could have received the plates from Amaleki perhaps much earlier than 124 BC, that means filling this 155 year time gap is a bit less troublesome than the time spans between Jacob and Omni. But again, I think we’d have to have some really old guys giving the plates to their surprisingly young sons. We’d probably have generation gaps of about 50-55 years, on average, for the rest of these guys (even assuming Chemish not to be necessarily younger than his brother Amaron). These time spans are stretching credibility, but they’re still better than the 70-80 year gaps we have to deal with from Jacob to Enos, then Enos to Jarom.
But with the apologetics out of the way, it seems JS really wanted to get these small plates of Nephi over and done with, and rushed through 400 or so years in a few pages, so he could get back to the main narrative, in which the plot often has plot details!
June 24, 2014 at 2:14 am
Duke is right! These time spans are more believable than those covered in Jarom, but only slightly more so. We’ll run into this age problem again before the book is over.
Warning: The next few sections get very very confusing. We have flashbacks within flashbacks, name repeats, bringing in new characters not explained until later, etc.
May 12, 2015 at 10:14 pm
These were actually the last “books” written in the Book of Mormon by Joseph Smith. Remember, he lost the 116 pages and then just continued on where he left off. Then when he finished Moroni, he went BACK and tacked on 1Ne through Omni and then did Words of Mormon as a way to join the two and explain why we were going from first person account to an abridged third person narrative.
Words of Mormon is basically a messy welding job between the first pass and the Nephi side of the story he had to come up with to fill in for the 116 pages of Mormon’s abridgement of the same story that was lost. He wasn’t in a hurry to get back to the main narrative, he was in a hurry to finish the entire book!
June 24, 2014 at 5:43 am
Oh yeah, pronounciations (woot, woot!):
Mosiah – you’re saying it right already, mos-EYE-uh (a Z sound would also be acceptable)
Chemish – KEM-ish (won’t see him no more…)
Amaleki – a-MAL-ack-EYE (this name pops up again, different guy though)
June 24, 2014 at 2:12 pm
Jesus shows up later. And later there is a book called the Book of Mormon, so then all your questions about who Mormon was will be answered. It’s so fascinating how confusing this is to an outsider.
So basically, the first King mosiah led all the good nephites away to zarahemla. And then he was made King of zarahemla which is the weirdest thing ever. When does that ever happen peacefully in history? Then different people decided that they wanted to reclaim their old lands that they left so they led small groups of people back.
Then there’s King mosiahs son King Benjamin who has a son also named mosiah, so that’s confusing.
Keep up the great work!
June 24, 2014 at 6:56 pm
I’ve never been LDS, but I have read the Book of Mormon. It is interesting to hear your commentary. One difference of perspective here is particularly interesting. Although unobservant, I am Jewish. The question you raised about people still not believing post-Christ is part of a larger issue of the Book of Mormon. That is the total lack of understanding of Judaism and Jewish culture. For example, (and this was and maybe still is a big protestant thing) there is the idea that the ancient Jewish prophets were prophesying about Christ and had a clear picture of who he was and what he was supposed to be. Not only is that ridiculous (the Jewish Messiah may be a savior, but he is a Jew-exclusive and he is not the Son of God/God), but it explains how all these people could be portrayed as having solid proof of Christ and proof of all the prophets have been saying and still turn away. That’s what people thought of the Jews when they didn’t except Christ.
July 23, 2014 at 8:47 pm
Mymo = an individual listener
Mymoites = a community or group of listeners
August 27, 2014 at 12:03 pm
I like Heather’s idea.. Plurality it.
December 15, 2014 at 6:11 am
Duke wrote, “it seems JS really wanted to get these small plates of Nephi over and done with, and rushed through 400 or so years in a few pages, so he could get back to the main narrative, in which the plot often has plot details!”
Actually, the small plates were the last things Joseph “translated.” When he started up again after losing the 113 pages, he began with Mosiah and went to the end of the Book of Mormon, and then did the small plates. So Joseph was wrapping up the entire process with Jarom and Omni and Words of Mormon. He wasn’t rushing through to get to the good stuff. He was rushing through to get done with the whole thing.