Understanding the Book of Mormon from the perspective of an American is impossible. It is a Hebrew book, written by prophets from a Jewish culture. The words, insights, analogies, stories, and experiences need to be understood through the eyes of a Jew.
For example, remember the story when Lehi and his family took off into the wilderness and dwelt in a tent? Trying to comprehend this from an American standpoint is not possible. None of us make a living travelling with camels and tents in the wilderness. Lehi probably did and his boys did too.
Try to explain living in a metropolis (New York City, for example) to a Bedouin shepherd of 600 BC. They can no more comprehend taxis, stoplights, street vendors, squeegee bandits, graffiti, airports, high rise buildings, homeless people, elevators, escalators, hippies, neon signs, and cops than we can understand travelling the Frankincense trail unless we’ve studied it. Most American Mormons try to understand the Book of Mormon from their American perspective.
The first part of the Book of Mormon is a collection of hidden truths and insights to the American reader who is so presumptuous as to think he understands salient aspects of the writ without time studying the text outside of the American culture.
