How did they get the teachings ?

[blackstrap]

We have the speech from King  Benjamin because it was recorded, likely beforehand, and printed out and passed around . I wonder how and by whom there are records of Nephi's prayer and other speeches which seem to have been delivered extemporarily . Today we have recording devices that can capture verbatem what was said. In Joseph S day there were official and unofficial recorders who did their best to copy things down as they were said. Maybe there was a " journalist core " who always had pen and paper, so to speak, so that when events happened records could be made. Of course , there is always the post event revelation by the spirit to bring things to remembrance. Do we have evidence of scribes using a type of shorthand to keep up with at-the-time speeches? 

Sorry, this is what I get from imagining myself in the ancient world but still carrying 21st century baggage. 

[bluebell]

Well, with Nephi's prayer, that is recorded on the plates of Nephi, which Mormon tacked onto his abridgement, so I think Nephi likely just wrote it down himself. 

With the others, I've often wondered that same thing.  I think sometimes there must have been records that Mormon had access to and other times I wonder if Mormon had the main story but improvised some of the specific dialogue that we have.

[Duncan]

In 3 Nephi 17 verse 16-17, it's an interesting snippet from the probable records of the "multitude" of what Jesus had said and done in the previous chapters. So, I suspect that Mormon had their records of what Jesus has said and done and he included that piece in his part

[CV75]

24 minutes ago, blackstrap said:

We have the speech from King  Benjamin because it was recorded, likely beforehand, and printed out and passed around . I wonder how and by whom there are records of Nephi's prayer and other speeches which seem to have been delivered extemporarily . Today we have recording devices that can capture verbatem what was said. In Joseph S day there were official and unofficial recorders who did their best to copy things down as they were said. Maybe there was a " journalist core " who always had pen and paper, so to speak, so that when events happened records could be made. Of course , there is always the post event revelation by the spirit to bring things to remembrance. Do we have evidence of scribes using a type of shorthand to keep up with at-the-time speeches? 

Sorry, this is what I get from imagining myself in the ancient world but still carrying 21st century baggage. 

Of the abridged material, I imagine the source documents were other numerous records kept by the prophets who gave the prayers/declarations/ speeches, etc. (for example, Mormon 1:3; Words of Mormon 1:5; you can search how often Mormon uses the phrase "hundredth part" to describe the relative content of his abridgement). The rest was inserted (small plates) or written by Mormon or Moroni. 

[Rain]

I have sometimes written in a journal where what I was writing naturally flowed into a written prayer.  Perhaps similar to Nephi's experience?