Nephi said he wrote his record “in the language of [his] father, which consists of the learning of the Jews and the language of the Egyptians” (1 Nephi 1:2). This being the case, it is reasonable to expect that his writings should bear the marks of an ancient Judeo-Egyptian literary culture. Nephi’s use of colophons fulfills this expectation remarkably well. Inasmuch as there is clear evidence (unavailable in Joseph Smith’s day) for Egyptian influence on Jewish literary and scribal culture before and during Nephi’s time, this in turn reinforces the book’s historicity.
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