In three previous posts, I have worked through some preliminaries regarding 3 Nephi 20-21, a number of analyses of the role of Micah in the text, and a number of similar analyses of the role of Isaiah in the text. Now, at last, I want to get back to the basic structure I worked out in the first of these three posts in order to begin to uncover what is at work in 3 Nephi 20-21 thematically. In other words, I want finally to connect these posts back up to the whole series of posts (see here and here and here and here and here and here) on the remnant in the Book of Mormon that preceded them. My wager, throughout this project, has been that what Nephi drew from Isaiah in terms of a remnant theology as he constructed his small plates record comes to full fruition in the Book of Mormon only with the sermon of 3 Nephi 20-21, when the visiting Christ Himself organizes an Isaianic (and Mican) remnant theology. It is time, at last, to see what’s actually happening thematically, that is, theologically, in 3 Nephi 20-21. Read the rest of this entry »

In my last post on the remnant, I worked through the Micah texts that occupy Christ in 3 Nephi 20-21 (see also my preliminary post on 3 Nephi 20-21 that preceded that). Here I’d like to work through the distribution of Isaiah 52 in 3 Nephi 20-21, attempting to make some sense of what Christ is doing with this other Old Testament text. This, I hope, will allow me to get on to the work of dealing at last with 3 Nephi 20-21 quite directly. Read the rest of this entry »