The Book of Mormon

The Book of Mormon has generally come to most people as a surprise: to the farm boy beckoned from his sleep by an angel in the 1820s, to critics astonished that anyone would take the work seriously, and to millions of readers professing a personal witness that the book is not only authentic, but divine. It is unavoidably controversial and enigmatic, and if hundreds of millions of people have heard of this text, relatively few have examined it long enough to form an original opinion of what it may actually be. There are more than ten million Mormons worldwide, nearly half of them in the United States. Most of them have never seen this cornerstone of their religion as it was first published to the world. When a book is a foundation stone of faith, it will always be more than a collector’s item. As with many other famous books, this volume’s relatively nondescript mien belies the prominence which it attained. The Book of Mormon disappears comfortably on the shelf between other books of similar time and place until some unsuspecting browser turns the front board to reveal the famous title. There were works of equally imposing claim even in nineteenth-century America, and it would be unproductive to insist that this book is unique. Indeed, much of the Book of Mormon speaks not merely from its own era, but from its own decade and the very counties from which it emerged. This has been verified over the years in hundreds of texts examined and transcribed from the immediate world and culture of Joseph Smith. So when it is pointed out that the Book of Mormon also has its exceptional moments, readers of all persuasions may allow that surprises wait between its leaves. Commentary by Rick Grunder, searchable live text.