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abinadi

Abinadi

Abinadi is an interesting prophet. He is one that is referred to often in the Book of Mormon, and so is Samuel the Lamanite (who even the Lord references when he is visiting them personally). Because he is made special mention of often, it makes me wonder what kind of a perspective they had on him. That raises the question of which Nephite prophets do the Nephites look to a lot?

He is unique in a couple of ways. He is brought before the government of a large nation and put on trial, and sentenced to death. We have a lot of scripture of him preaching (Mosiah 11-17).

What I like is that he references the older prophets Moses and Isaiah and *interprets* their writings and explains them and builds on them. That's not very common either. Nephi quoted Isaiah and gave some commentary on him, but Abinadi is taking the same events and explaining their relevance in his own manner, talking about the children of Israel as if he himself had led them (Mosiah 13:29-32). He seems like a type of Moses in some ways, and his prophecies relate to his as well, with reference to plagues, pestilence, and hail. (Mosiah 12:4) He also recites the Ten Commandments and comments on them as well, and his face shines as Moses' did (Mosiah 13: 5).

Nephi does add commentary on Isaiah, but Abinadi mixes Isaiah's writings with his own commentary while quoting him, again, *expanding* on what he is saying, and adding more interpretation to it. It's a very unique approach (Mosiah 15:10-11, 12-13, 15-18 for example).

He also reveals a lot of new doctrine that hadn't been mentioned before:

  • The law of Moses will be fulfilled and no longer practiced (Mosiah 13:27)
  • Details about the Atonement, Christ's mortal life, His ressurrection and ascension to heaven, acting as judge
  • All prophets testified of Christ
  • The first resurrection
  • Little children have eternal life
  • The Lord cannot deny justice

It occurs to me that Alma, who recorded his words (Mosiah 17:4), would have drawn heavily on his teachings. So everything that he taught and preached likely would have come from Abinadi in some form.

abinadi.txt · Last modified: 2013/05/03 22:47 by steve