Nephi as Scribe, an insightful possibility

In an article in the latest issue of Mormon Studies Review (Vol 23, Number 1, 2011), Brant Gardner proposes that Nephi was trained to be a Scribe, which helps explain or give meaning to a number of Book of Mormon happenings and shows as with many other things that the deeper you dig in the Book of Mormon, the more truth and insights you find. Here are some of the highlights:

--Lehi was well-to-do financially, possibly drawing resources from land holdings and from a trade of metalsmithing or metal-working. Evidences: 1) Nephi had these skills, as shown by the fact that he didn’t pray to know how to make the tools to build the ship, just to locate ore; 2) Lehi left behind gold and silver, the possesing of the former being rare and perhaps indicative that he was involved in goldsmithing/making precious jewelry.

–Laban would have inherited his father’s business, not Nephi, so the latter would have needed another trade or profession.

–Indicator that Nephi trained for another profession–he could read and write. (Literacy was not the norm in that day.)

–Beyond that, the production of two complex writings (1 Nephi and 2 Nephi) show writing skills beyond what even most literate people of his day could do.

–What Nephi accomplished in the creating of these books and other facts suggest that he had received the scribal training of his day.

–The great civilizations (Egypt, Mesopotamia) of his day had formal scribal schools, as did Israel.

–Only the higher social classes (money, status) were acceptable sources for scribes.

–The curriculum of these schools included languages (mastery of at least one foreign), writing systems associated with these languages, study and explication of classic texts, public speaking, and perhaps travel to broaden one’s experience.

–Note the extraordinary skill level in combining the phonetics of one language (Hebrew) with the symbolic representation in another language (Egyption).

–For Jewish scribes, there was heavy emphasis on making them scholars of the Torah (the books of Moses and the prophets). For Nephi, note 1) his familiarity with and love of Isaiah; 2) his use of literary parallels with earlier Hebrew scriptural examples, such as the children of Isreal in the wilderness, David and Goliath, Joseph in Egypt. Also there is this telling incident in 1 Nephi 15, in which Laman and Lemuel come to Nephi (a younger brother, whom they resent, no less) for interpretation of their father’s religious teachings. The author suggests that they recognized that Nephi had been trained in the interpretation of symbolic content of religious matters.