Arts and Humanities Commons^™

“ America Reads” And The Book Of Mormon, D. Todd Christofferson

Religious Educator: Perspectives on the Restored Gospel

Between 1828 and 1831, the American Bible Society launched an aggressive campaign to put a copy of the Old and New Testament in every American home. During those three years, over 500,000 copies of “the Good Book” were printed and distributed across the country, illustrating just how much Protestant Americans considered themselves to be a God-fearing and Bible-believing people. At the same time of the American Bible Society’s ambitious initiative, a young man named Joseph Smith from upstate New York was translating and printing an additional sacred book of scripture, eventually published as the Book of Mormon.

All Kindreds Shall Be Blessed: Nephite, Jewish, And Christian Interpretations Of The Abrahamic Covenant, Noel B. Reynolds

Faculty Publications

A review of current and traditional scholarship regarding the covenant God made with Abraham combined with a thorough review of Book of Mormon references shows that the Nephite understanding varies in important ways from traditional Christian and Jewish interpretations. However, some of the insights of contemporary scholarship are more compatible with the Book of Mormon perspective.

The Ancient Doctrine Of The Two Ways And The Book Of Mormon, Noel B. Reynolds

Faculty Publications

Scholars have long recognized that a number of ancient cultures shared a traditional doctrine of the Two Ways that could be used to instruct youth and others in the right way to live their lives. While the language of the Two Ways surfaces on occasion in both the Old and New Testaments, the doctrine is not developed or explained in any detail in the Bible. However, noncanonical texts of the Greco-Roman period display a highly developed and stylized form of the doctrine in both Jewish and Christian traditions. The earliest known version of these stylized forms of the doctrine occurs …

Scripture Note—“For This Cause Did King Benjamin Keep Them”: King Benjamin Or King Mosiah?, Daniel Sharp

Religious Educator: Perspectives on the Restored Gospel

In the 2013 edition of the scriptures published by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Ether 4:1 reads, “And the Lord commanded the brother of Jared to go down out of the mount from the presence of the Lord, and write the things which he had seen; and they were forbidden to come unto the children of men until after that he should be lifted up upon the cross; and for this cause did king Mosiah keep them, that they should not come unto the world until after Christ should show himself unto his people.” But the 1830 …

Review Of An Other Testament: On Typology, Andrew C. Smith

Religious Educator: Perspectives on the Restored Gospel

Typology has held a place of importance in the Christian tradition as a method of theology, scriptural exegesis, and history from the composition of the New Testament onward. In An Other Testament: On Typology, Joseph Spencer examines the place of typology within the Book of Mormon in order to understand the book’s theological complexity: “By theological complexity, I do not primarily mean that the ideas presented in the Book of Mormon are complex, though sometimes they are. Rather, I mean that it can be difficult to bring into focus some of the Book of Mormon’s overarching theological claims, given the …

“The Intent For Which It Was Given”: How The Book Of Mormon Teaches The Value Of Scripture And Revelation, Nicholas J. Frederick

Religious Educator: Perspectives on the Restored Gospel

The book of Jarom is a short chapter, consisting of only fifteen verses, that nonetheless manages to summarize the affairs of the Nephites over an approximately forty-year period. In the midst of his outline of the current Nephite status quo, Jarom makes mention of the religious climate of the time: “Wherefore, the prophets, and the priests, and the teachers, did labor diligently, exhorting with all long-suffering the people to diligence; teaching the law of Moses, and the intent for which it was given; persuading them to look forward unto the Messiah, and believe in him to come as though he …

“After All We Can Do” (2 Nephi 25:23), Jared W. Ludlow

Religious Educator: Perspectives on the Restored Gospel

A Book of Mormon verse that has led to immense discussion and scrutiny is 2 Nephi 25:23: “For we labor diligently to write, to persuade our children, and also our brethren, to believe in Christ, and to be reconciled to God; for we know that it is by grace that we are saved, after all we can do.” It is particularly the last part of the verse, “after all we can do,” that has garnered the most attention since it seems to qualify the statement on grace and leads interpreters to define what grace means in LDS belief and consequently …

On Doubting Nephi's Break Between 1 And 2 Nephi: A Critique Of Joseph Spencer's "An Other Testament: On Typology", Noel B. Reynolds

Faculty Publications

This essay rejects the proposal by Joseph Spencer to recognize the true break in Nephi's two books as occurring after the fifth chapter of the second book. The essay invokes standard interpretive practices arguing that while Spencer does present reasoning to make sense of this novel proposal, he does not acknowledge the much greater weight of standard interpretation or provide explanations for ignoring it.

How "Come Unto Me" Fits In The Nephite Gospel", Noel B. Reynolds

Faculty Publications

Book of Mormon readers can easily be left wondering in numerous passages where the repeated term "come unto me/him/Christ" refers to unspecified elements of the gospel understood as "the way" by which men and women can come to him. This paper identifies six passages that are presented as quotations from Jesus himself and that have identical rhetorical structures---in which this phrase appears to refer each time to that stage of the gospel described as "enduring to the end." This discovery may offer useful interpretive guidance for the numerous other passages that invoke the same phrase. This paper was updated June …

Kingship, Democracy, And The Message Of The Book Of Mormon, Gregory Steven Dundas

BYU Studies Quarterly

Chapter 29 of the book of Mosiah, in which the people of Zarahemla transform their government from a monarchy to a rule of judges, is a crucial—indeed, pivotal—chapter in the Book of Mormon. Modern readers of the book, particularly those of us raised in Western nations, are prone to react very positively to this story, viewing it as the creation of a free, democratic system, and we are inclined to read this account with something of the same thrill with which we observed the freedom-loving, democratic urges of peoples worldwide, most notably in Eastern Europe in 1989 and in more …

Reading Competency In The Book Of Mormon: Abish And Other Model Readers, Michael J. Call

BYU Studies Quarterly

In chapter 19 of the book of Alma, we are introduced to Abish, described in the narrative as one of the “Lamanitish women” serving in King Lamoni’s court (Alma 19:16). Mormon’s account of her experience on the day of the king’s conversion is compelling for many reasons, but I would like to explore here how Abish and other important figures in the text function as model readers, exhibiting the traits and competencies that the Book of Mormon authors expected the future reader of their text to bring to the reading act. In fact, a careful analysis of important reading acts …

Geology Of The Book Of Mormon, Benjamin R. Jordan

BYU Studies Quarterly

Jerry D. Grover Jr. Geology oof the Book of Mormon.

Provo, Utah: By the author, 2014.

The Ancient Doctrine Of The Two Ways And The Book Of Mormon, Noel B. Reynolds

BYU Studies Quarterly

From its opening pages to the end, the Bible describes a bifurcated world in which God bids, commands, and teaches the people he has created to follow him in the way of righteousness, and in which the devil leads people into wickedness. And while great blessings and cursings are promised and realized in this life according to which way people choose to live their lives, the final judgment comes after this life when all will be judged according to whether they chose to follow good or evil. This way of seeing things surfaces explicitly in various texts and is known …

Samuel And His Nephite Sources, John Hilton Iii, Sunny Hendry Hafen, Jaron Hansen

BYU Studies Quarterly

Samuel the Lamanite is a unique and powerful individual in the Book of Mormon. Dennis Largey described him as “one of the most colorful figures in the Book of Mormon,” stating that “few readers can forget the image of this fearless servant of God announcing the dramatic signs of Christ’s birth and death, crying repentance from the walls of Zarahemla."

The Bible, Mormon Scripture, And The Rhetoric Of Allusivity, Jeffrey D. Tucker

BYU Studies Quarterly

Nicholas J. Frederick. The Bible, Mormon Scripture, and the Rhetoric of Allusivity.

Madison, N.J.: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 2016.

Animals In The Book Of Mormon: Challenges And Perspectives, Wade E. Miller, Matthew Roper

BYU Studies Quarterly

When the Book of Mormon first appeared, skeptics said that references to horses, asses, elephants, and other animals (such as swine and cows) were out of place. During the first century after its publication, Book of Mormon critics argued that such animals never existed anywhere in the Americas before the arrival of Columbus and western Europeans in the late fifteenth century. In time, however, scientific discoveries showed that species of horses, asses, elephants, and other animals had once been present in North America, although dating to an earlier period than that covered in the Book of Mormon. Encouraged by such …

The Ancient Doctrine Of The Two Ways In The Book Of Mormon, Noel B. Reynolds

Faculty Publications

Consistent with their preexilic Hebrew Bible predecessors, the Book of Mormon prophets taught a version of the Two Ways doctrine that featured (1) invitations to repentance defined as turning or returning to God’s way, (2) the context of the Abrahamic covenant, (3) the blessings and cursings that would come from obedience or disobedience, and (4) the contrast of the path of righteousness that leads to life with the path of evil that leads to death. But this analysis has also produced a number of expansions or refinements of the Two Ways doctrine that are not reflected in biblical treatments of …

[Introduction To] Feeding The Flock: The Foundations Of Mormon Thought: Church And Praxis, Terryl L. Givens

Bookshelf

Feeding the Flock, the second volume of Terryl L. Givens's landmark study of the foundations of Mormon thought and practice, traces the essential contours of Mormon practice as it developed from Joseph Smith to the present. Despite the stigmatizing fascination with its social innovations (polygamy, communalism), its stark supernaturalism (angels, gold plates, and seer stones), and its most esoteric aspects (a New World Garden of Eden, sacred undergarments), as well as its long-standing outlier status among American Protestants, Givens reminds us that Mormonism remains the most enduring-and thriving-product of the nineteenth-century's religious upheavals and innovations. Because Mormonism is founded …