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Thanks for the brilliant insights in Alan Goff’s enlightening and rewarding essay. It’s long and dense but constantly rewarding, and earns its length and pays back the effort of careful reading with and enlightened mind and expanded understanding. I was particularly struck by the importance of the names of Amlici and Amalekiah having the Hebrew root for “king” in their names. Why I hadn’t seen this before is a mystery, since I knew about Mulek and Melchizedek in that regard. And I have long been fond of Nibley’s essay on Kingmen and Freemen in the Book of Mormon. Thanks for the opening my eyes tomore Biblical and Book of Mormon types and patterns and their artful and important use in this essay, as in several of your previous ones. I happened to have been doing a prepublication review of an ealier version of this essay on January 6 and have been anticipating the publication ever since. Even without the sidebar the occasional allusions and types still resonate as they should for attentive readers.
Thank you, Kevin, for your kind appraisal of the article. I am not yet finished with the book of Mosiah, especially the content about Zeniff and King Noah in their attempt to repossess the land of first inheritance. Expect more on the topic in the future. We haven’t even begun to read the book of Mosiah (or the Book of Mormon more generally) to the depth and breadth it deserves, let alone to understand the filial connections it constantly makes to biblical narrative.