“Many More Things Did King Benjamin Teach His Sons”

Brant Gardner

Textual: Mormon indicates the end of his selection from the source material. He also indicates that this selection occurs within a larger context of the teachings of Benjamin to his sons. Since we are told that the next event of importance is the conferral of the kingdom, this teaching of Benjamin may have been a formal discourse for the princes of his kingdom. It would appear that it comes later in life, and is perhaps an explanation of learning they have already received rather than an explanation of why the will learn this language in order to read the plates.

We may also presume that Benjamin's teachings to his sons would have contained moral lessons as well from which we might have profited, such as Lehi's discourses to his sons, or Alma the Younger this his sons. Nevertheless, Mormon selected only this one section. For Mormon, the emphasis on the importance of the record was the most important of those teachings, a point with which he would particularly resonate as he was charged with abridging and preserving them.

Multidimensional Commentary on the Book of Mormon

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