1 Nephi 1

Christlike Attributes

verse 1:

"having been highly favored of the Lord in all my days" Blue

"goodness...of God" Blue

"mysteries of God" Green

verse 4:

"the great city of Jerusalem must be destroyed" Red

verse 6:

Lehi prayed and received a vision Blue

verse 8:

Lehi prayed again and received a vision Blue

verse 12:

"he was filled with the Spirit of the Lord" Blue

verse 13:

"it should be destroyed, and the inhabitants thereof" Red

"many should perish by the sword" Red

"many should be carried away captive into Babylon" Red

verse 14:

"my father had read and seen many great and marvelous things" Blue

"thy throne is high in the heavens" Green

"thy power, and goodness, and mercy are over all the inhabitants of the earth" Blue

"because thou art merciful, thou wilt not suffer those who come unto thee that they shall perish" Blue

verse 19:

"the redemption of the world" Blue

verse 20:

"the tender mercies of the Lord are over all those whom he hath chosen" Blue

Commentary


I expected the Book of Mormon to be pretty neutral in the Blue and Red department.  Since in general, the Book of Mormon is the third piece of the puzzle that helps us to understand both the Old and New Testaments better.  But somehow, I really expected it to still be largely blue.  No one complains about the Book of Mormon having an angry god that they just can't understand.  So I was surprised when I ended up marking 4 reds in the first chapter.  That's 40% of the first chapter (discounting the one green)!  So I spent a little time looking more into the reds and realized that it's a common thing in the Book of Mormon to say, "the wicked will be destroyed" and focus on being righteous so you're not one of the ones destroyed.  But every event I can think of where the wicked are destroyed it's either factually provable (Jerusalem) and we learn about it in other scriptures or we're more intimately connected with the cities that are destroyed and agree that yes, they are in fact wicked and they have been warned and they knew better.  So it's not as harsh a blow as it feels like in the Old Testament.  At least, that's my current hypothesis.  After one chapter.  :)  But I do think the BoM will end up having more red than I expected.  I wonder (hope) if it will be the same in the NT.

As a note, if the scriptures referred to the same event, specifically, multiple times in one chapter, I only marked it once.  (Like referring to a single vision multiple times.)  If the same kind of event happened multiple times, I marked it each time (Lehi received multiple visions).  If I marked something once, then a specific detail about that event was given later, I marked both.  ("Jerusalem must be destroyed" and "many should perish by the sword")  Lastly, I'm imperfect, so I may occasionally break my own rules.  Feel free to correct me.