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“The Loss of Jesus in the Small Plates of Nephi”

“The Loss of Jesus in the Small Plates of Nephi”

Last updated on: June 15, 2026 at 12:14 am by Dan Peterson

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“The Loss of Jesus in the Small Plates of Nephi” 2026-06-15T00:14:23-06:00 Dan Peterson

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“Zion’s Camp at Fishing River” (Judith Mehr) LDS.org, public domain image.

The twenty-first installment of Becoming Brigham — “Saints and Complainers” — is now up online for (we hope!) your enjoyment and information:

Why did ordinary men like Brigham Young leave everything behind to walk over 1,000 miles under brutal conditions to help the Saints in Missouri?

How did Joseph Smith demonstrate remarkable leadership and patience while leading a group of exhausted, complaining men on Zion’s Camp?

What can we learn from the extreme sacrifices of the early Saints—and the women left behind—when facing trials that don’t turn out as expected?

This episode continues the story of the 1833–1834 Missouri persecutions. Joseph receives a revelation and calls for Zion’s Camp, an expedition of volunteers to aid the displaced Saints. Brigham Young is among the first to step forward, along with others like Wilford Woodruff.

The episode vividly describes the immense challenges of Zion’s Camp: volunteers walking 30–40 miles a day for nearly 2,000 total miles, enduring extreme heat, mosquitoes, bad water, blistered and bleeding feet, minimal sleep, and scarce supplies. The discussion emphasizes the true purpose of the camp—a defensive and relief mission seeking legal redress and militia protection, not armed conquest—and the powerful leadership lessons Joseph Smith taught through patience and meekness.

Nephi’s vision, as depicted in 2011 at the long-running but now-concluded annual Hill Cumorah Pageant in New York (Wikimedia Commons public domain image)

This podcast episode of Conversations with Interpreter, featuring Avram and Thora Shannon, went up yesterday: “The Loss of Jesus in the Small Plates of Nephi.” It’s not quite forty-five minutes in length:

In this episode of Conversations with Interpreter, Avram and Thora interview one another, discussing their education and research interests. They also talk about their most recent project together, a paper presented at “For a Wise Purpose in Him” The 2026 Small Plates of Nephi Conference In Honor of President Jeffrey R. Holland. This paper looks at evidence that there was a gradual loss of knowledge of the full name and mission of Jesus Christ between Jacob and King Benjamin, because Benjamin receives this information from an angel.

More information on the conference and their paper is available at https://interpreterfoundation.org/conferences/2026-small-plates-of-nephi-conference/.

In Conversations with Interpreter, we join Avram and Thora Shannon as they talk with scholars who contribute to The Interpreter Foundation through articles, book chapters, and conference presentations. Together, they explore the insights, research, and faith that inspire these contributions and enrich our understanding of the restored gospel.

Avram is an Associate Professor of Ancient Scripture at Brigham Young University, specializing in the intersection of early Christianity and Judaism. He earned a BA in ancient Near Eastern studies from Brigham Young University (2007), a master of studies in Jewish studies from the University of Oxford (2008), and a PhD in Near Eastern languages and cultures with a graduate interdisplinary specialization in religions of the ancient Mediterranean from The Ohio State University (2015).

Thora is a scholar and writer with a passion for scriptural study and education. She received a degree from Brigham University in Near Eastern Studies, where she studied Hebrew and Arabic, including a study abroad in Egypt. She has presented multiple time at BYU’s Religious Education Symposium and has appeared on the Y Religion podcast.

Weekly episodes will stream at noon on alternate Saturdays. Short clips from each episode will post on all of our social media channels twice a week.

Be sure to subscribe to our YouTube channel at https://youtube.interpreterfoundation.org/ and our other social media channels on Facebook, X, Instagram, and TikTok.

Napoleon on his Imperial Throne, by Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres (1806). (Wikimedia Commons public domain image) Not exactly a cross section of humanity or a representative of the typical human.

This is, in a way, a continuation of the thoughts that I expressed in “False Memories and Social Media,” albeit, obviously, on a more generalized, academic, and far less personal level:

History is about the past. Yet it exists only in the present – the moment of its creation as history provides us with a narrative constructed after the events with which it is concerned. The narrative must then relate to the moment of its creation as much as its historical subject. History presents an historian with the task of producing a dialogue between the past and the present. But as these temporal co-ordinates cannot be fixed, history becomes a continuous interaction between the historian and the past. As such, history can be seen as a process of evaluation whereby the past is always coloured by the intellectual fashions and philosophical concerns of the present. This shifting perspective on the past is matched by the fluid status of the past itself. (Dana Arnold, architectural historian, Middlesex University, London)

Professor Arnold puts her finger on one of the reasons why, for example, there will never be a definitive history of the Roman Empire, or a definitive biography of Napoleon or the K’ang-hsi Emperor: It’s not just that new sources and/or new archaeological evidence might be found. It’s not just that there’s more that might be said about any particular person — let alone about a vast subject such as the Roman Empire — than any particular historian or group of historians will ever be able to say. Those are important and relevant facts. But it’s also the case that historians in different eras, from different backgrounds, working from different cultures, with different personalities and interests, will be continually asking new and different questions of their topics. And those questions, and the answers that are given to them, will be shaped not only by the past but by the intellectual trends and psycho-cultural factors and economic contexts and political and religious issues surrounding the historians.

A sunset view toward the west from atop Mt. Pisgah, Iowa, taken with my cellphone near the grave of Joseph Knight, Sr.

Just so you know — and so that you can take preventive measures or engage in evasive maneuvers — I’ll be speaking this coming Friday evening to the Joseph Knight Sr. Family Reunion in American Fork, Utah. And who knows? By then I may be past the abominable cold that has been punishing me for a week now and that just seems to linger and linger and linger. Each day, I think that I’ll be over it tomorrow. And, each day, I’m surprised. In the meanwhile, though, I’m sleeping multiple times each night! It’s not often, typically, that I’m able to savor life at 3 AM and, again, at 4 AM and 5 AM and 6 AM.

Travel and Religion

History and Religion

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