Further study of the Book of Mormon's Visionary Men yields new insights into their worship and ideas, and also into other ancient scripture. John 1 uses ritual props and staging to introduce Jesus as the Lord; Helaman 5 recounts an endowment of power; Ether 3 is a temple account; and Isaiah is an underground prophet, describing the dark apostasy of his day in code. This book is a follow-up to "Plain and Precious Things: The Temple Religion of the Book of Mormon's Visionary Men," which should be read first.

Nephi's small plates are a time capsule from the sixth century B.C., containing a "loser's eye view" of religion that strongly contrasts with the ideology of the Jerusalem establishment of the time. Lehi's dream and Nephi's interpretive vision are visionary-literary accounts of the two temple ordinances at the heart of the worship of Lehi's "visionary men" -- the Peace Offerings and the Day of Atonement. Learning to understand those visions opens up the rest of the Book of Mormon, and ancient scripture in general.