point he retrospectively abridges, quotes from, and redacts years of Nephite history to create the text as the reader experiences it. This includes the portion of the book in which Abish appears. Book of Alma The Book of Mormon is divided into fifteen internal "books", reminiscent of books in the Bible, named after figures in the narrative. The ninth book in the Book of Mormon is the Book of Alma, which narrates thirty-nine years spanning the ministry of a prophet named Alma and, after his death, of his son Helaman during the "reign of the judges", an era of Nephite society in which monarchy has been replaced with a dynastic succession of semi-democratic hereditary judgeships. Pentecostal theologian John Christopher Thomas posits that "The fact that such a large book is devoted to such a short period of time… would suggest to the readers that the period described in Alma would be a most significant one with very important events described therein." Structurally, the Book of Alma divides into four quarters with two parallel narratives: the first (Alma 1–16) and third quarters (Alma 30–44) compare divine–human relationships; the second (Alma 17–29) and fourth quarters (45–63) contrast Nephite–Lamanite interactions. Abish's narrative, contained in Alma 19, takes place in the second quarter of the Book of Alma. Nephite misogyny Women are rarely visible in the Book of Mormon, and the book frequently invokes masculine pronouns, as if implying a male audience. Throughout the entire narrative, Abish is one of only three women unique to the Book of Mormon to be directly named. Because the Book of Mormon is mediated through narrators, biases of the text such as this become part of the book's overarching plot, attributes of "a narrative, authored in the first person" by fallible human narrators, Peter Coviello writes. The book's failure to individually identify women suggests that within the Book of Mormon's setting "the Nephites overlooked and disempowered women", Fatimah Salleh and Margaret Olsen Hemming explain. The book's overarching structure develops a plot in which the Nephites' patriarchal, misogynistic society is a significant factor in their ultimate downfall by the end of the narrative. By contrast, two Book of Mormon prophets (Jacob and Samuel) point out in prophetically charged sermons that in Lamanite society, men and women have healthy, loving relationships not characterized by the abuse that happens in Nephite society. Lamanite prophecies Although hostility between Nephites and Lamanites is