See Words of Mormon 1:5; 3 Nephi 26:6; Ether 15:33. Here Mormon, the editor and compiler of the Book of Mormon, tells us that he could not include the “hundredth part” of the events that took place during this twenty-five-year period of Nephite history, the elapsed time, as they now reckoned it, since Christ’s birth.
Scriptures are, by their very nature, fragmentary and abbreviated accounts of both the events they describe and the doctrines and teachings of the prophets they quote. No scriptural record is complete; all scripture requires the Holy Ghost to carry our understanding beyond the written record. Of the vision of the degrees of glory, Joseph Smith said,
“I could explain a hundred fold more than I ever have of the glories of the kingdoms manifested to me in the vision, were I permitted, and were the people prepared to receive them.”
(Teachings, p. 305)
The same is true of much that is contained within the covers of holy writ.