What did Mormon command his son to write?

[poulsenll]

In Mormon 8:1-5 Moroni writes:

1 Behold I, Moroni, do finish the brecord of my father, Mormon. Behold, I have but few things to write, which things I have been commanded by my father.

2 And now it came to pass that after the great and tremendous battle at Cumorah, behold, the Nephites who had escaped into the country southward were hunted by the bLamanites, until they were all destroyed.

3 And my father also was killed by them, and I even remain alone to write the sad tale of the destruction of my people. But behold, they are gone, and I fulfil the commandment of my father. And whether they will slay me, I know not.

4 Therefore I will write and hide up the records in the earth; and whither I go it mattereth not.

5 Behold, my father hath made this record, and he hath written the intent thereof. And behold, I would write it also if I had room upon the plates, but I have not; and ore I have none, for I am alone. My father hath been slain in battle, and all my kinsfolk, and I have not friends nor whither to go; and how long the Lord will suffer that I may live I know not.

In verses one and three he empasizes that he must write what his father has commanded him to write. In verse 5 , he says there is not enough room on the plates to write in his own words a history as did his father. My question is twofold.

What did Mormon command his son to write? and How much room was needed to complete the task?

In a recent FAIR presentation, Brant Gardner made a good case for the probability that Mormon had planned out exactly what was to be contained in the Book of Mormon. Is it not possible that he prepared sufficient plates to contain everything that he had planned to include? The fact that the plates found by Joseph Smith were all the same size rather than a mixture of different sizes and materials suggests that they were all made at the same time. Brant has also suggested that he used the small plates as a template for the balance of the plates. Thus all the plates would be the same size.

All of this suggests to me that there was room enough on the plates to contain Moroni's brief history of the last battles, Moroni's commentary on the history of the Jaredites as contained in the 24 gold plates of Ether and his own short compendium which he probably wrote when he had completed writing what his father had commanded him to write and found a bit of room left over.

Although there was not enough room for Moroni to write his own history of the Nephites, there could have been enough room to finish what Mormon had intended to include in the plates and therefore no need to make more plates.

Larry P

[hagoth7]

What did Mormon command his son to write? and How much room was needed to complete the task?

Keep in mind the sealed portion.

Would be surprising if Moroni had no hand in some of its content.