The Book of Mormon: A Very Short Introduction
Language: English
Pages: 152
ISBN: 0195369319
Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub
With over 140 million copies in print, and serving as the principal proselytizing tool of one of the world's fastest growing faiths, the Book of Mormon is undoubtedly one of the most influential religious texts produced in the western world. Written by Terryl Givens, a leading authority on Mormonism, this compact volume offers the only concise, accessible introduction to this extraordinary work.
Givens examines the Book of Mormon first and foremost in terms of the claims that its narrators make for its historical genesis, its purpose as a sacred text, and its meaning for an audience which shifts over the course of the history it unfolds. The author traces five governing themes in particular--revelation, Christ, Zion, scripture, and covenant--and analyzes the Book's central doctrines and teachings. Some of these resonate with familiar nineteenth-century religious preoccupations; others consist of radical and unexpected takes on topics from the fall of Man to Christ's mortal ministries and the meaning of atonement. Givens also provides samples of a cast of characters that number in the hundreds, and analyzes representative passages from a work that encompasses tragedy, poetry, sermons, visions, family histories and military chronicles. Finally, this introduction surveys the contested origins and production of a work held by millions to be scripture, and reviews the scholarly debates that address questions of the record's historicity.
Here then is an accessible guide to what is, by any measure, an indispensable key to understanding Mormonism. But it is also an introduction to a compelling and complex text that is too often overshadowed by the controversies that surround it.
About the Series: Combining authority with wit, accessibility, and style, Very Short Introductions offer an introduction to some of life's most interesting topics. Written by experts for the newcomer, they demonstrate the finest contemporary thinking about the central problems and issues in hundreds of key topics, from philosophy to Freud, quantum theory to Islam.
Isaiah passages. Midrash is based on the word derash. As Norman Cohen explains, the derash teaches meaning for every age. The term derash is based on the root d-r-h, which means ‘‘to seek’’ or ‘‘to search out’’ in reference to the Bible, i.e., to search out and to discern meaning in the biblical text. . . . Derash, the method of midrash (from the same root), is, as we have seen already, the dominant mode for the creation of rabbinic literature. . . . [T]he words of the text can illumine the
waving the rent part of his garment in the air, that all might see the writing which he had written upon the rent part, and crying with a loud voice, saying: Behold, whosoever will maintain this title upon the land, let them come forth in the strength of the Lord, and enter into a covenant that they will maintain their rights, and their religion, that the Lord God may bless them. And it came to pass that when Moroni had proclaimed these words, behold, the people came running together with their
prophets and missionaries pronounce against a panoply of sins—but they have their own leitmotifs as Jeremiah had his. Nephi decries dwindling faith in spiritual gifts and in the principle of revelation. Jacob, like Paul, emphasizes sexual immorality, placing such a premium on chastity and fidelity that he makes the remarkable promise that, their myriad sins notwithstanding, the Lamanite faithfulness to their wives assures their survival as a people while the otherwise favored Nephite nation will
almost one hundred direct addresses to ‘‘my people,’’ ‘‘you, my children,’’ and ‘‘my beloved brethren.’’ Clearly, he has in mind that he is writing a family history to be read by his descendents. 85 The Book of Mormon When the Gentile peoples (or non-Israelites) are referred to, as they are dozens of times, it is always in the third person. In one exception, Nephi foresees the Gentiles mocking the Book of Mormon (‘‘We have got a Bible’’) and turns his prophetic fury on them in an extended
heavenly revelations would appear, his neighbors were more attuned to the gold element in the equation, and the plates quickly became the focus of everyone’s attention. Smith made a few tentative efforts at translating the plates with the help of the interpreters and his wife as scribe, but harassment from locals impeded all his efforts. The pestering was a consequence of several factors: Smith had long been involved in the fad then 6. Hill Cumorah 94 current in New England of money-digging