1 Nephi: Headnote, Part IX
“The course of their travels. They come to the large waters.”
So once again we come to the question of “why.” If the headnote features the most important points of his book, why are “the course of their travels” and their arrival at “the large waters” so important to him, especially when, at least in our modern minds, the former is barely mentioned (see 1 Nephi 16:13) in the text itself? Well, I’m going to go out on a limb here: it’s important to him.
Nephi was a living, breathing, very human human being. As a product of his time and society, the way he writes is as indicative of his life’s experience as the way you or I write, today. When he says, for example, that the Liahona led Lehi’s party “in the more fertile parts of the wilderness” (1 Nephi 16:16), it’s second nature to him. He knows where those “more fertile parts” are, so he doesn’t need to explain it to himself; and his audience—who, at this point, is still his own family and descendants—would either already know, since they were with him; or never know, since they’re never going back—especially now that Jerusalem has already been “destroyed” (2 Nephi 1:4). While the “course” Nephi cites is just barely enough for scholars to piece it together, for him it was a subtle reminder of what he’d been through, and for his immediate audience it was just enough to tell the story without bogging them down in unnecessary details.
Now, why are “the large waters” such a big deal? Well, I expect they’d be a big deal to anyone that had spent so much time on them. However, I think they also serve as a necessary precedent to the logic of shipbuilding, which we shall deal with tomorrow in Part X.
Likening the scriptures unto myself:
The course of Nephi’s travels can be viewed as a metaphor for life itself, with progress often slowing and, when it finally seems like it’s all behind you, “large waters” to cross. In my life, both the “course” and the “large waters” involve our inability to grow our family to any even vaguely “normal” extent. What can I learn from Nephi’s perseverance? And at the risk of getting ahead of myself, what ship do I need to build?
Nephi was a living, breathing, very human human being. As a product of his time and society, the way he writes is as indicative of his life’s experience as the way you or I write, today. When he says, for example, that the Liahona led Lehi’s party “in the more fertile parts of the wilderness” (1 Nephi 16:16), it’s second nature to him. He knows where those “more fertile parts” are, so he doesn’t need to explain it to himself; and his audience—who, at this point, is still his own family and descendants—would either already know, since they were with him; or never know, since they’re never going back—especially now that Jerusalem has already been “destroyed” (2 Nephi 1:4). While the “course” Nephi cites is just barely enough for scholars to piece it together, for him it was a subtle reminder of what he’d been through, and for his immediate audience it was just enough to tell the story without bogging them down in unnecessary details.
Now, why are “the large waters” such a big deal? Well, I expect they’d be a big deal to anyone that had spent so much time on them. However, I think they also serve as a necessary precedent to the logic of shipbuilding, which we shall deal with tomorrow in Part X.
Likening the scriptures unto myself:
The course of Nephi’s travels can be viewed as a metaphor for life itself, with progress often slowing and, when it finally seems like it’s all behind you, “large waters” to cross. In my life, both the “course” and the “large waters” involve our inability to grow our family to any even vaguely “normal” extent. What can I learn from Nephi’s perseverance? And at the risk of getting ahead of myself, what ship do I need to build?
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