1. The small plates of Nephi, a record kept upon gold plates made by the first Nephi upon which he purposed to record and have recorded more especially the work of the holy ministry among the Nephites, the prophecies of the coming of the Messiah in the flesh, and the exhortations to righteousness by the prophets who should arise among his people. As compared with his plates on which he designed to have recorded the secular history of his people, they were small, and doubtless comparatively few in number, hence their name—"The Smaller Plates of Nephi." The historical data contained in these small plates of Nephi extends over a period of about four hundred years, or from the departure of Lehi from Jerusalem to the reign of King Benjamin, the second king of the Nephite-Zarahemla nation. But chiefly these plates were filled with prophecies and exhortations to righteousness, and many transcriptions from the writings of Isaiah, and other prophets, while historical data—though sufficient to give a general idea of the movement of Lehi's colony, and the subsequent march of events among the peoples that sprang from that colony—are meager.
The translation of these small plates, in current editions, occupies the first one hundred and fifty-seven[[1]] pages of the Book of Mormon, fractional pages aside; and with two pages of explanatory matter by Mormon, under the title "Words of Mormon," make 133 pages of the book. The books of this first division of the Book of Mormon are six in number, viz: I. Nephi, II. Nephi, Book of Jacob, Book of Enos, Book of Jarom, Book of Omni. Though there are but six books in this division, there are nine writers, as follows:
The first Nephi, who writes one hundred and twenty-seven and a half pages[[2]] of the one hundred and fifty seven in this division.
Jacob, brother of Nephi, twenty-one and a half pages.
Zenos, son of the above Jacob, two and one-half pages.
Jarom, son of the above Zenos, two pages.
In the Book of Omni there are but three and one half pages, but there are five writers, each of whom records merely a few lines:
Omni, son of the above Jarom;
Amaron, son of the above Omni;
Chemish, brother of the above Amaron;