Below is an example of what I am taking back. They are my personal thoughts from my personal spiritual journal that I shared with the aforementioned YouTuber, who shared it on his channel and made it his own. Ugh.
Excerpt From: Don Bradley. “The Lost 116 Pages.” Apple Books. https://books.apple.com/us/book/the-lost-116-pages/id1488816109
“A close reading of the small plates account of the first Nephite nation in the land of Nephi reveals the arc of this nation’s rise and fall: two centuries of rise followed by two centuries of fall. In this arc the early Nephite nation paralleled the rise and fall of the later Nephite nation chronicled in Mormon’s abridgement in 4 Nephi, where the Nephites’ pattern of progress culminates in the 200th year after the birth of Jesus and begins to lapse in the 201st year.
“…the small plates account of this period identifies the other Nephite year 200—two hundred years from Lehi’s exodus out of Jerusalem—as the zenith of that nation’s spiritual progress and material prosperity.
“That the two chronologies are purposely presented with a parallel in mind is further suggested by the appearance of yet another common date in the two chronologies: the year 320. In the summary record of the decline of the early Nephite nation given in the small plates, the record keeper Amaron reports a watershed event in his nation’s decline toward total destruction:“
“…it seems more than coincidental that in both chronologies the year 200 is used to describe the nation’s apex, that the nation is destroyed in approximately if not exactly the year 400, and that the year 320 is in each nation the precise year of a watershed moment in that terminal decline…”
While reading the chapter explaining the Nephite years of ascension and decline, and the watershed year, I was reminded that the Book of Mormon was written for our day, so what does this information mean for us, today?
I started thinking about when our nation began. Did it begin with the Revolutionary War, and the ensuing Constitution, or did it begin earlier, perhaps with the arrival of the Pilgrims? 400 years is a long time, so how could something like above play out for the United States of America, a land chosen for the restoration of the fulness of the gospel of Jesus Christ?
According to www.plimoth.org, the Mayflower arrived in New England on November 11, 1620. If that were the beginning of this nation, and we add 200 years to reach “the zenith of [our] nation’s spiritual progress and material prosperity,” that would place the year in 1820; the year of the First Vision, which began the restoration of the gospel in this last dispensation.
To determine what the year was for “a watershed event in [our] nation’s decline toward total destruction, we would add 320 years to 1620. That is 1940. What could be a watershed moment at that time? According to www.history.com, World War II officially started on September 1, 1939. Pearl Harbor was attacked by Japan on December 7, 1941 according to www.nationalww2museum.org. I believe that the watershed year was 1941–when Pearl Harbor was attacked–because our nation clearly had no protection from God, which allowed another nation to cross our borders and initiate an attack.
To determine the year that the nation’s progress will begin to lapse we would add 400 years to 1620. That puts us at the year 2020. Hmmm…was there anything different about the year 2020? I can’t quite put my finger on it (obvious sarcasm).
