My Embarrassment with the Book of Mormon

by John G. Turner

The Book of Mormon embarrasses me. Not because of its content, but because I haven't read it . I cringe when Mormon History friends ask me if I've read the most famous of American scriptures, as it seems irresponsible to undertake a project of any significance on Mormon history and avoid the "Gold Bible."

So this summer, without great enthusiasm I borrowed the BOM on CD for a car ride from Provo to Logan. Actually, there were so many CDs at the BYU library that I only took the first few. As I was trying to get to Utah State before the archives opened, it was quite early, and I didn't make it through very many chapters of 1 Nephi before fatigue forced me to another form of entertainment. Mark Twain's famous (infamous to some, I imagine) of the BOM as "chloroform in print" seemed persuasive. I put the project aside and endured the indignity of continuing to tell friends I hadn't read it. Depressing setback.

I'm teaching a graduate course on Religion in 19th-Century America this semester. I'm privileging my students with a disproportionate amount of things Latter-day Saint (including an assessment of Will Bagley and Ronald Walker, et al. on the Mountain Meadows Massacre). As part of our introduction to Mormonism, I assigned selections from the BOM that further my own reading (1 Nephi, chpts. 1, 18; 2 Nephi, chpts. 29; 3 Nephi, chpts. 1, 11-15; 4 Nephi, chpts. 1; Moroni, chps. 9-10). I also gave my students Laurie Maffly-Kipp's excellent short introduction to the Book of Mormon. [She also suggested the selections].

These short chunks suited me more than my prior attempt -- I found some portions quite eloquent (esp. the closing chapters of Moroni). My students' reactions varied sharply. Several, though, found the book evocative and biblical.

I don't have any scholarly or even well-informed opinions about the book. After all, I've got a long way to go. From the little I've read about the book's production, however, I find entirely unpersuasive the theories that anyone either than Joseph Smith translated the text (however one wishes to define "translate"). I read the BOM as a product of its time, but that does not prevent me from being drawn into the narrative at points or contemplating its function as scripture. Thus, even though I do not accept Smith as a divine prophet, I do think outsiders underestimate him despite Harold Bloom's designation of him as a "religious genius."

Coincidentally, Royal Skousen's The Book of Mormon: The Earliest Text (Yale, 2009) arrived in my mailbox the day of the above-mentioned class. Skousen has been working on a Critical Text Project of the BOM for two decades, examining discrepancies among the earliest BOM sources. Now, Skousen presents a corrected text that aims to approach as nearly as possible that dictated by Joseph Smith to Oliver Cowdery and others in the late 1820s.

Somehow, Yale sells this attractive cloth-bound, 800-page tomb for only $35. They must be expecting robust sales. I have only read Grant Hardy's introduction (a concise source on the production of the BOM), read Skousen's own preface, and poked around the text. I like the way Skousen has presented the text in "sense-lines," breaking up the text in phrases and clauses. [Thus, he has not tried to reproduce the original manuscript's lack of punctuation or sentence breaks]. The method increases the text's readability somewhat. I do wish the most important discrepancies were footnoted in the body of the text itself (as in, say, the Nestle-Aland Greek New Testament) rather than in an appendix.

Yale's publication of Skousen's crowning achievement itself signifies the maturation and partial mainstreaming of Mormon Studies. It's not as if the leading university presses have ignored Mormonism; indeed, they have long published books on various Mormon history topics. However, Skousen's work is of another genre, an effort of textual criticism focused on an American scripture, edited by a professor at BYU who has done at least some of his work through FARMS. I reckon that until recently Skousen's work would not have found such a warm reception at places like Yale. I'm glad times have changed.

Alas, whether via Skousen or the 1981 BOM left in my departmental mailbox by a Mormon elder who missed me, I have hundreds of chapters to go. I need a Mormon version of the "Read-the-Bible-in-a-Year" promoted by so many evangelical churches. Even better yet, a Walk Thru the Book of Mormon in a weekend program. Actually, what I'd really like is something akin to my NRSV Study Bible, an annotated BOM with a discussion of how these text have functioned among the Saints. Any suggestions?

UPDATE: The folks at Juvenile Instructor have a review and discussion of Terryl Given's Very Short Introduction to the BOM, which should help those of us trying to teach even portions of the book. [Givens, whose productivity and intellectual breadth is establishing him as the LDS equivalent of Mark Noll, also has a history of "Pre-Mortal Existence in Western Thought" forthcoming next month].