1 Ne 19:1 I
did make plates of ore
Nephi¡¯s
experience making tools to build a ship helped him learn to work with raw
metals. Not long after arriving in the promised land he used this skill to make
the Large Plates of Nephi. This verse makes it clear that Nephi did not begin
to record his history until after arriving in the promised land. The first
thing he did was make the Large Plates of Nephi. These contained more of the
secular history of the people, including, the record
of my father, and the genealogy of his fathers, and the more part of all our
proceedings in the wilderness¡Šand the wars
and contentions and destructions of my people (v. 2,4).
He
did not begin to make the Small Plates until about 20 years later, see 2 Ne
5:28-30. Therefore, 1st and 2nd Nephi which came from the
Small Plates were written not as a daily journal but as a retrospective history
(written 30 years after Lehi left Jerusalem), including only those details
which are pertinent to the story and the doctrine. Nephi explains that at the
time he made the Large Plates, he did not know that the Lord would command him
to write another record, the Small Plates, I knew
not at the time when I made them that I should be commanded of the Lord to make
these plates (v. 2).