Lehi in the Desert, the World of the Jaredites, There Were Jaredites (Collected Works of Hugh Nibley)

This book began in 1948 with Dr. Nibley's article "The Book of Mormon as a Mirror of the East," which soon grew into three lengthy serials, "Lehi in the Desert" in 1950, "The World of the Jaredites" in 1951-52, and "There Were Jaredites" in 1956-57, all of which were published in the Improvement Era. In 1952, the first two serials were published as a book entitled Lehi in the Desert and the World of the Jaredites. That volume has enjoyed wide circulation for thirty-five years. In the present volume, the work of the editors has been confined largely to technical tasks. The earlier texts remain substantially unchanged, but they have been edited lightly. All the information found in "The Book of Mormon as a Mirror of the East" has been worked into the text and notes of "Lehi in the Desert." In addition, the series "There Were Jaredites" is included here for the first time, and all footnotes in this enlarged edition have been verified and made more readable. The kinds of ancient Near Eastern facts and observations Dr. Nibley correlates with details in the Book of Mormon are drawn from areas of language and literature, archaeology and history, culture and politics. Taken alone, few single factors are overwhelming impressive, but all together they fit very convincingly into what Dr. Nibley calls "The Big Picture." As he writes at the conclusion of his findings: "There is no point at all to the question: Who wrote the Book of Mormon? It would have been quite as impossible for the most learned man alive in 1830 as it was for Joseph Smith."