Nephi himself makes the claim that he knows his record to be true. This is coming from a man who by far as greater faith than anyone of us. He was a great man and we should revere him as such and defend his account as honest truth.

To your second point, as predicted, what you want to focus on is the answers. However as I said, we by God’s intention don’t have a god’s eye view of what happened with Nephi. We only have Nephi’s views. There are reasons to think he is biased in how he presents things. That’s the point – not that we have full answers but that by questioning we can better understand what is unclear.

Finally, to accuse me of denigrating the prophets seems a bit much. As I’ve said repeatedly I find Nephi and Joseph great because despite being flawed people, they trusted in the Lord and even in hardship made it through. That’s not denigrating them. That’s praising them. My problem is that you see any recognition of their weakness as denigration and thus the only view you’ll accept is a twisted idealized version which simply isn’t them anymore. That’s fine if that’s what you need. To me though that’s denigrating them because you have to transform them into something else.

Even Nephi speaks of the evils of sin and temptation and the constant need to pray and seek forgiveness, and this from his own dealings. He speaks of faith, of constant searching the scriptures and seeking to know Gods will. On the other hand he tells the tale of those who refuse to put forth the necessary effort to be constantly nourished. It thus bothers me when I see people choosing to make unwarranted claims against Nephi and take Lamans side to perhaps think he was truly justified. I see these types as those who couldnt hold on to the rod of iron firmly enough, yet made it to the tree, tasted its fruit but then were ashamed and turned away.

Nephi and his record stands as a testimony against all those who seek to denigrate Gods holy prophets.

To the thrust of your question, who is more remarkable? Nephi or Joseph Smith? In Joseph Smith’s history I can find many people like Laman and Lemuel. Now in Joseph’s religious writings, does he represent fairly people like William Law, Thomas Marsh, or Oliver Cowdery given what we know with our broader historical evidence. Now that’s for a person I think greater than Nephi. How should that affect how we read Nephi’s descriptions of people he had conflicts with?

He is by far no ordinary man or bishop. He is more like an apostle- a prophet like Nephi. The people love him and the obedient follow his counsel. If we lived in Nephis time he would be similar to Nephi. Extraordinary men do exist, Nephi was an extraordinary man. And on the other hand, in our own ward we have the typical Laman and Lemuals who no matter how much you serve them never really help back but are just continually antagonistic towards the church. They continue to lie, cheat, steal, break the law and yet at times listen a little bit and do whats right for a moment and then back to the same old thing. Even Nephi, from time to time, gained hope in Laman and Lemual but it was in vain as they both quickly returned to their wicked lifestyles. Nephi was no lazy man. Just like my brother, there was always something to do, someone to help, someone to serve.
Why is it hard for you to see Nephi as an extraordinary man who loved and served his people so much they called themselves after his name for a thousand years?

But for an example, how does Nephi represent Laman and Lemuel’s concerns about leaving Jerusalem. Given what we know of human nature, should we assume Nephi’s picture is a complete one? Dealing with 2 Nephi 5, did Laman and Lemuel have a point about worrying about Nephi ruling over them given that he becomes a king? Again, given what Nephi presents of the story, how does that undermine in portrayal of Laman and Lemuel. Most of the things they feared seem to have happened.