It's the Maxwell Institute podcast. I'm Blair Hodges. Daniel Becerra joins us in this episode to talk about his new book, Third and Fourth Nephi, a brief theological introduction.

These two books of scripture are the linchpin of the Book of Mormon. They depict Christ's visit to the ancient peoples on the American continent.

Daniel Bacera's brief theological introduction treats the books as guidebooks in the disciples' pursuit of Christ and Christ-likeness.

Becerra asks, what do these books reveal about the nature of God, about human nature, and how the gap between the two might be bridged?

Bacera is an assistant professor of ancient scripture at Brigham Young University and a scholar of early Christianity.

You can learn more about the brief theological introduction book series at our website, m.b.b.edu.edu slash brief. Questions and

comments about this and other episodes of the Maxwell Institute podcast can be sent to me at

MI Podcast at BYU.edu. Today we're briefly looking at a scripture that offers a lifetime

worth of truth, third and fourth Nephi.

Daniel Bacera joins us today on the Maxwell Institute podcast. Daniel, welcome.

Thanks. It's good to be here.

It's good to be here, too. I'm actually on campus today with you here at Brigham Young University,

and it's nice to be doing this in person at a distance across the table here rather than at a distance through Zoom. So thanks for meeting me here. How's your summer been? Good, productive. I haven't had to

teach this summer because I'm a new faculty member here and they typically give us the first spring and

summer off. So I've been doing a lot of writing and spending time with the family. And yeah, it's been good.

Good. Well, by the time this comes out, you'll, knee-deep in the Book of Mormon with students here at BYU.

Yeah. All right. Well, let's start off here. You're the author of one of the brief theological introductions to the Book of Mormon. You were chosen to do third and fourth Nephi. They decided to put those together because Fourth Nephi is really short. What did you think about that? At first, I was a little hesitant because I know

Third Nephi specifically is one of the probably most well-known chapters in the Book of Mormon

in addition to First Nephi. So I felt like whatever I wrote, there would be some people that

might be disappointed or some people that might want more. I was a little hesitant as well because

my training is an early Christianity, so I consider

myself to be an aspiring as opposed to an accomplished Book of Mormon scholar.

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