Question about “A Bible, a Bible” in 2 Nephi 29:3

Question: Does the Gentiles’ complaint against the words of the Lord’s hissing forth when they say “A Bible! A Bible! We have got a Bible, and there cannot be any more Bible” (2 Nephi 29:3) refer to the Book of Mormon or to something else?

Answer: A common “precept of men,” or incorrect interpretation, is that this scripture refers to the Book of Mormon’s coming forth through the prophet Joseph Smith, and that those who reject the Book of Mormon are non-LDS Gentiles.

However, Nephi, who has seen our day in vision, is speaking of the Gentiles “in Zion”—that is, of the Ephraimite Gentiles who reject the further “records” the Lord brings forth beyond the Bible and Book of Mormon because of their reliance on “precepts of men” (1 Nephi 13:39–40; 14:26; 2 Nephi 28:24–32). In that sense, it is clear that 2 Nephi 29 is a continuation of Nephi’s words in 2 Nephi 28, where the term “more” acts as a word link to “more” of God’s word that the Gentiles in Zion reject who harden their hearts against “more” of God’s truth (2 Nephi 28:27–30).

This is also evident from the Lord’s “great and marvelous work” that appears in connection with the new records that come forth (1 Nephi 14:7; 2 Nephi 29:1–3). By Book of Mormon definition, that great and marvelous work is the restoration of the house of Israel—the Jews, Ten Tribes, and Lehi’s descendants—to lands of inheritance. Which work occurs at the time the Lord “sets his hand again the second time” to restore his people, as Isaiah predicts—that being is an integral part of the world’s end-time scenario of deliverance and destruction (Isaiah 11:10–16; 1 Nephi 14:1–17; 2 Nephi 29:1, 14; 30:1).