According to Brant Gardner, in order to more fully appreciate the Book of Mormon as an ancient text, we need to find multiple interconnected complex sets of connection points between it and a proposed cultural context. Towards that end, one of the first phrases in the Book of Mormon text that invites comparison to the culture in Mesoamerica at the time of the Book of Mormon is found in 2 Nephi 5:6, “and all those who would go with me.”
Nephi names those who leave. Using mentioned people and their logical progeny, the only ones clearly unaccounted for in the division are the sons of Ishmael. It would certainly seem that if “all those who would go” were only one or two people, we would expect that Nephi might make mention of them, at least by their head of household, as he does for the families of Zoram, Sam, Jacob, and Joseph.
Since at this time there were a number of settlement areas along the Pacific coast of Guatemala, the best hypothesis to explain Nephi’s inclusion of “all those who would go” is that it referred to those of the hamlet (or perhaps hamlets?) that had joined with the Lehites. [Brant Gardner, “A Social History of the Early Nephites,” delivered at the FAIR Conference, August 17, 2001, pp. 2-3]
“And All Those Who Would Go with Me”
Nephi’s mention of “all those who would go with me” (2 Nephi 5:6) seems to be the first time he explicitly refers to others who might have accompanied or joined the family group of Lehi. It also gives us the first definition of the term “Nephites” (“all those who believed in the warnings and revelations of God”). If we were to go strictly by the text, Nephi’s party might have had only three adult males: Nephi, Sam, and Zoram. (Jacob and Joseph might have grown old enough to be considered adults, but the text does not say they had married. Nephi’s sisters might have been old enough to be married; however, nothing is mentioned in the text.) The group left behind might have had only four adult males: Laman, Lemuel, and the two sons of Ishmael (1 Nephi 7:6) (although Laman’s sons (2 Nephi 4:3), and Lemuel’s sons (2 Nephi 4:8), and the sons of the two sons of Ishmael might have been old enough to be considered adults). Whatever the case, for a small group to find a safe place we would hardly need to define their travel distance in terms of “many days” (2 Nephi 5:7). On the other hand, by including others (“all those who would go with me”) in Nephi’s group (whether they came from Jerusalem or were native to the lands that Lehi had traveled to), it would give more significance to the “many days” which Nephi’s group would have had to travel in order to avoid discovery by Laman’s group. [Alan C. Miner, Personal Notes]