The Book of Mormon: A Beginner's Guide to Where to Start Reading

A neighbour, a coworker, or two friendly missionaries have handed you a book, and now it is on your shelf with a fair question attached: what is this, and if I open it, where do I start?

You do not need to belong to any church to read it well. You just need a map — the book has its own family tree, and a reading order that is not quite the order of its story.

What the Book of Mormon is

For members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints — the Church's full name, worth using at least once, since members often prefer it to the nickname "Mormon Church" — the Book of Mormon is scripture alongside the Bible, not a replacement for it. Its title page calls it "Another Testament of Jesus Christ," and that phrase is the key to how Latter-day Saints read it: as a witness to the same Jesus the New Testament proclaims.

Latter-day Saints believe it is a translated record of ancient peoples in the Americas, kept on metal plates over roughly a thousand years, from about 600 BC to the early fifth century AD, and that Joseph Smith translated that record, published in 1830. Whether you read as a believer, a curious neighbour, or a student of religion, reading it first on its own terms is the respectful way in.

The books inside the book, briefly

The volume is divided into smaller books, each named for a principal writer or keeper of the record.

1 and 2 Nephi open the story. Nephi, a young man in Jerusalem around 600 BC, leaves the city with his father Lehi's family, journeys in the wilderness, and crosses the sea to a new land. 2 Nephi closes with Lehi's farewell counsel to his sons — some of the book's most quoted teaching.

Jacob, Enos, Jarom, and Omni are short books carrying the record through the following generations: sermons, a famous prayer, and brief entries by keepers who sometimes confess they have little to add. Words of Mormon, a single page, is a bridge: Mormon, the record's editor, explains that he is abridging centuries of plates, which is why the voice changes here.

Mosiah, Alma, and Helaman form the long middle — kings giving way to judges, missionary journeys, wars, and sermons. Alma, the largest book, follows Alma the Younger and the sons of Mosiah as preachers.

3 and 4 Nephi are the centre for most readers. 3 Nephi narrates the resurrected Jesus Christ visiting the peoples of the book in the Americas, teaching and blessing children; 4 Nephi describes the generations after. Mormon is the editor's own book, written amid collapse and war. Ether reaches back much earlier, to the Jaredites, a people presented as arriving long before Lehi's family. Moroni, by Mormon's son, closes the record.

Where beginners actually start

Start at 1 Nephi, chapter 1, and read forward. Most first-time readers should do exactly that.

The opening chapters are narrative — a family, a journey, conflict between brothers — and Nephi, writing in the first person, introduces the names, places, and tone of everything after. You will meet a King James cadence in the English and some unfamiliar names, but the story carries you.

Many readers find the Isaiah chapters quoted in 2 Nephi slower going. Reading them with the story in mind, or returning to them later, is a normal approach, not cheating.

The other door: Moroni 10

There is one well-known exception. The book's last writer ends his record with an invitation that missionaries often ask people to read early, alongside their first chapters. Moroni urges readers to ponder what they have read, and to pray about it:

And when ye shall receive these things, I would exhort you that ye would ask God, the Eternal Father, in the name of Christ, if these things are not true; and if ye shall ask with a sincere heart, with real intent, having faith in Christ, he will manifest the truth of it unto you, by the power of the Holy Ghost.

Moroni 10:4 (Book of Mormon)

Latter-day Saints call this "Moroni's promise," and it explains their approach: reading and prayer belong together. If you begin at 1 Nephi, keep Moroni 10 in mind as the destination.

Some of the teaching is justly famous on its own terms. Lehi's counsel holds one of the book's most quoted lines:

Adam fell that men might be; and men are, that they might have joy.

2 Nephi 2:25 (Book of Mormon)

Joy as the purpose of human existence, in eleven words — that sentence alone tells you a great deal about the book's outlook.

Reading it alongside the Bible

Latter-day Saints read the Book of Mormon with the Bible, not instead of it. In English, the Church uses the King James Version, and printed editions carry footnotes cross-referencing Bible passages throughout; the prophecies, sermons, and the visit in 3 Nephi all lean on biblical language.

As a reader, you can use that. When a passage sounds like Isaiah or the Sermon on the Mount, it is often engaging them, and comparing the two shows what the book adds. In Faith Map, the Book of Mormon sits in the Latter-day Saint track with reading and lessons free, so you can follow those cross-references in one place; chapter narration, if you prefer to listen, is a Plus feature.

The Come, Follow Me connection

If you know Latter-day Saint families, you may hear this book discussed on a weekly rhythm. Come, Follow Me is the Church's home-centred study programme: a manual with weekly readings that households and classes follow together, cycling through the Old Testament, the New Testament, the Book of Mormon, and Church history over four years.

In a Book of Mormon year, the manual walks through the book in order, a few chapters a week — one of the easiest ways to read the whole volume in a year with company.

A few practical tips

Keep track of the family line. Nephi's descendants and his brothers' descendants drive much of the story, and names repeat across generations — there are two Almas and three Nephis worth distinguishing.

Read in short sittings at first, a chapter or two, rather than long pushes. The language rewards slowness, and the sermons are dense.

And read charitably, as you would want any scripture read: inside its own claims and its community's devotion to Jesus Christ. Decide what you make of it afterwards; first, let it say what it says.

Your faith is beautiful — and for millions of Latter-day Saint neighbours, this book stands near the centre of theirs.