Download the low and high resolution Book of Mormon Redaction Chart here: https://archive.bookofmormoncentral.org/content/book-mormon-redaction-chart
The title page of the Book of Mormon says it contains an abridement of the record of the people of Nephi and also of the Lamanites, as well as an abridement taken from the Book of Ether. An abridement is a shortened version of a document, which means that the abridements found in the Book of Mormon are only summaries of larger recorded histories. The total amount of history that the Book of Mormons primary editors were working with must have been quite vast. Mormon and other prophets said they couldn’t include even a hundredth part of what had transpired among their people. At one point, Morgan explained that there are many books and many records of every kind, and they have been kept chiefly by the Nephites. What were these underlying documents? One scholar has proposed a list based on details mentioned in the text, compared with known record keeping practices in ancient America. With great skill, Morgan and Maronas drew from such records to create the final text of the Book of Morgan. In other words, the abridged version of Nephite and Jaredite history as we know it. The Book of Mormons’ embedded documents are diverse, complex, and brilliantly put together.
Simply trying to keep track of them can be a chore for readers. Yet, Morgan and Maronae’s explanations about them are consistent. In addition, subtle clues about undisclosed source documents reveal realistic layers of underlying texts that would be difficult for any author, especially one as uneducated as Joseph Smith, to fabricate. Readers can be confident in light of such evidence that the Book of Mormon is exactly what it claims to be, an abridgment of various ancient records. It condenses nearly 1,000 years of Nephite history and approximately 2,500 years of Geradite history into a unified record that boldly and relentlessly testifies of Jesus Christ. And now you know why.
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