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The Lost Prequel That Changes How the Book of Mormon Begins | Don Bradley E0057

May 1, 2026

AI Summary

5 min read

The Passover Frame That Changes How the Book of Mormon Opens

Historian Don Bradley, author of The Lost 116 Pages, has reconstructed details from the missing opening of the Book of Mormon by analyzing a little-known 1830 interview with Joseph Smith Sr. What he found reframes the familiar opening chapters of 1 Nephi—not by adding new doctrine, but by revealing that the entire narrative is structured around the Jewish Passover. This framework, Bradley argues, shows that the Book of Mormon announces itself as "another testament of Jesus Christ" from its very first verses, not just its title page.

The Lost Interview and What It Preserves

In 1830, while the Book of Mormon was still at the Grandin printing press, a young Palmyra man named Fayette Lapham (pronounced "Latham") went to Joseph Smith Sr.'s door wanting to know about the book everyone was calling the "gold Bible." Joseph Jr. was in Harmony, Pennsylvania, so his father—the first person Joseph Jr. had told about Moroni—spent several hours narrating the story.

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What you'll learn

  • 1 (00:00) **The Lost 116 Pages and a Reframed Beginning** - Don Bradley introduces the discovery that details from the lost 116 pages, preserved in a 1830 interview with Joseph Smith Sr., reframe the opening of the Book of Mormon as a Passover narrative.
  • 2 (16:30) **Why a Feast Matters: The Passover Clue** - Bradley explains that the Book of Mormon is filled with echoes of Jewish feasts, and the Lapham account points to a specific feast that frames the entire Lehi story.
  • 3 (35:33) **Lehi's Exodus as a New Passover** - Bradley draws direct parallels between the biblical Exodus story and the events of 1 Nephi, showing Lehi as a new Moses leading a new exodus.
  • 4 (56:08) **Laban as the Firstborn: The Passover Parallel Deepens** - The detail that Laban was likely the firstborn son and his death echoes the death of the Egyptian firstborns at the first Passover.
  • 5 (61:55) **Implications: A Passover of the Spirit, Not Just the Law** - Bradley explains how this Passover context changes the meaning of both the biblical feast and the Book of Mormon's opening narrative.
  • 6 (68:05) **Personal Significance: Hope and Redemption in the Midst of Suffering** - Stephen Jones and Don Bradley connect the Passover theme to personal experiences of loss and the hope of the resurrection.
  • 7 Standout Quotes

+ Full timestamped outline available in the app

Guests on this episode

Don Bradley

Show Notes

"I, Nephi . . . ." We’ve all read the beginning of the Book of Mormon.

Lehi is warned. Nephi is sent back. Laban is drunk. The story moves fast and feels familiar.

But what if we’ve been reading it without understanding the setting it's unfolding in?

In this episode, I sit down with church historian and former "ex-Mormon" atheist Don Bradley to explore a clue hiding in plain sight, one that tells us more about the "lost 116 pages" and reframes how we see the Book of Mormon's entire opening sequence - and the book itself. Not by changing its meaning, but by grounding it in its original sacred context.

The beginning of the Book of Mormon isn't just happening randomly. It’s taking place during a specific moment in the Jewish calendar, a festival setting that adds layers of clarity to what’s happening and why, refocusing the story from being about Lehi's escape from Jerusalem to being about your own deliverance and the redemption of the world.

Once you see it, the timing, the tension, and even the actions of key figures start to come into sharper focus.

We don’t just revisit the story. We slow it down, connect the dots, and explore what was there all along.

If you’ve ever felt like there’s more going on in the scriptures than what’s on the surface, this conversation will change how you read them.


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The Lost 116 Pages: Reconstructing the Book of Mormon's Missing Stories
https://www.amazon.com/Lost-116-Pages-Reconstructing-Mormons/dp/158958760X

"A Passover Setting for Lehi's Exodus," published in Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Scripture
https://interpreterfoundation.org/journal/a-passover-setting-for-lehis-exodus

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