The Book of Mormon Rational Abridgment Project

Need or want to know the whole Book of Mormon but don’t have much time?  Here is a super condensed version of the Book of Mormon.  You can read it in under 2 minutes  Lehi in Jerusalem has a vision that Jerusalem is about to be destroyed by Babylonians. He escapes with his family into the wilderness and his sons go back twice for scriptures and babes because he forgot.   They travel to the ocean and build a ship and sail to America.  Lehi dies and his family rips apart into the newly blackened Lamanites and white Nephites.  Nephi becomes the leader and dies and then his brother follows suit. Nephites fight on and off with the Lamanites for hundreds of years before finding the people of Zarahemla who they integrate with.  They alternate between being wicked and get attacked by lamanites and righteous where they get wealth. A massive military campaign happens between the Nephites and the Lamanites and no one wins! Various forms of government and more evi...

  Chapter 10 Lehi, despite telling his family this beforehand to get them to come to the random wilderness presumably, tells his family Babylon will destroy Jerusalem.  Also Jesus will come and be baptized and the Jews will be scattered and gathered. Yea really unsure why Joseph decided to start quoting the old and new testaments here like don’t they have the plates of brass that have the old testament already? Weird flex Nephi And uh the New Testament kind of doesn’t exist yet so where did that come from? Divine inspiration! This is one of the places where the changes between versions matters.  The current version shows him Mary as the mother of the Son of God while the older translations or iterations say she’s the mother of God.  Nicean Creed anyone?

  Chapter 9 Remember how they had to get the plates of brass and they supposedly couldn’t deal without them? Nephi just reveals oh yea I’m making my own plates because as a rich strong spiritual dude I just know how to do that. I will make a set of big plates that tell everything called the plates of Nephi. And these smaller plates will focus on spiritual things also called.... the plates of Nephi.  Nephi I’m starting to think Laman took all the brains Also important to note, for those unaware, the first part of the Book of Nephi is written in response to Joseph Smith’s scribe taking the 116 pages of the book of Lehi and losing them to his skeptical wife who demands they recreate them. Joseph of course is flying by the seat of his pants.  So his response is uh Nephi wrote the same stuff on other plates that are slightly different because making plates is just that easy apparently. Nephi remarks here in chapter 9 that he has no idea why the Lord commanded him to make not o...

  Chapter 8 Lehi wakes up from a dream and says oh shit I had a vision of a tree! And it was bright and glowing and made delicious fruit.  And I told my family to come to eat it and Nephi and Sam and Sariah did but Laman and Lemuel were too busy getting laid in a nearby building. Alas! Laman and Lemuel are constantly written as the villains but let’s not forget Nephi murdered someone and kidnapped someone else. Frankly the L squad should be getting a free pass imho

  Chapter 7 Lehi wakes up the next morning and goes Oh fuck I...I kinda forgot something. Incest is bad. Go convince this random family to come with us so you can breed. Nobody rebels this time. They triumphantly sing: I will go I will do the babes the lord commands! I know the lord will provide a way he wants me to get laid! They go to this family friend and are like hey do you want to go live in the middle of the fucking wilderness? This dude Ishmael for whatever reason is like sure why the fuck not.  Totally rational resume to being told to leave everything behind you’ve ever known. Then Laman and Lemuel are like haha our surprise attack commences convince our father to go back home your buffoon why are we hanging out in BFE instead of drinking Pina coladas They get mad and tie up Nephi. This will definitely never happen again Then Nephi breaks out of his ropes like Superman and the angry half of the squad is like, fuck it! Let’s kill him! But then Ishmael’s wife and a daug...

Chapter 6 is lehi reading parts of the Old Testament. So exciting *sigh*

Chapter 5 They get back and Lehi is like hell yea you didn’t die? My wife thought you were toast because I sent you on a suicide mission. Congrats on not dying! Her name is Sariah not Sarah btw. Congratulations you have met one of the 3 named women in the entire book! No this book does not have a snowball’s chance in hell of passing the Bechdel test

  Chapter 4 Nephi sneaks back into the city because you know a very recognizable buff dude with rich clothing is so hard to notice He finds Laban and the dude is piss drunk and passed out on the streets. Like the dude is like a lord with servants but he’s the town drunk for some reason. Nephi does the rational thing and just takes out the dude’s high quality steel sword in 600 bc and solid gold hilt that definitely won’t deform in his hand.  Sword of Laban supposedly is found 2400 years later in unusually condition after being used in battle for years. Is the sword magic? I think we can’t rule it out at this point.  Joseph please put the pipe down So after Nephi just whips out this dude’s sword that nobody is paying attention to the Spirit is like uh you should kill this dude.  Nephi is like uh really Spirit says really really Nephi chops the dude’s head off Cold blooded murder yay! So after Nephi has cut this dude’s head off and his blood is gushing everywhere HE PU...

Chapter 3 They set up camp in the wilderness and Lehi goes “Oh shit we gotta go back. Uh fuck but uh we need the scriptures. My sons go buy the scriptures from a dude in Jerusalem.” Laman and Lemuel are like seriously dude we just ran for our lives and you want us to go back? At this point we have to wonder was Lehi stoned or in fact *stoned* Nephi says you all need to repent or I’ll be better than you forever because I’m not egotistical at all So his sons Nephi Laman Lemuel and Sam not Samuel actually just Sam go back to Jerusalem since they apparently aren’t on the most wanted to be stoned list They go to their old house that miraculously hasn’t been robbed by the mob who tried to kill Lehi or anyone else and take a fuck ton of gold silver and precious shit to a dude named Laban Laban says ha no and takes all their shit and tries to kill the four brothers.  So that went well. Laman not Laban takes out their anger with sidekick Lemuel by beating the fuck out of Nephi. An angel say...

Chapter 2 Lehi gathers his family and they flee into the wilderness because nobody cares to Stone you if you run far enough or maybe they just can’t throw that far. Who knows. Need some Nephi arms  Laman and Lemuel are like we were rich and you want us to live in the fucking wilderness? Dude wtf Nephi is like I’m young but I’m buff as hell as spiritual and gifted and I’m sure bragging about this won’t make my brothers hate me If it’s not clear Nephi is Joseph Smith’s stand-in While the church likes to represent him as a buff 20 something given the time period Nephi is probably like 14-16 considering none of his siblings are married. Maybe younger. It’ll make Nephi make a lot more sense. 

Chapter 1 Our story starts in 600 BCE in Jerusalem right before it’s about to be invaded (again) A rich dude named Lehi suddenly sees a pillar of fire and god talks to him apparently and says uh if people don’t repent we’re taking the Jews to Isengard, I mean Babylon Lehi starts yelling at the people to repent and they act rationally by trying to stone him.

Presenting: The Rational Abridgment of the Book of Mormon by Crystal Legionaires This will be an on going project until I get finish or bored.  This is a rational abridgment that highlights not only the inaccuracies and possible mental states of the author but also other interesting or curious things I find along the way. A curious workmanship if you will.  I’ve read the Book of Mormon 13 times in the church and I attempted something similar 4 years ago and only got 1/4 of the way with a much less entertaining version so let’s fix that shall we? I hope to make this fun to read and informative so without further ado let us begin!