The Book of Mormon

Note: Here's another expositional one like the previous blog, geared heavily toward non-members for the sake of educating them on some of the primary themes of the memoir. Too much, do you think?

The Book of Mormon — Not the Book of the Mormons, as I heard a few times from people over the course of the mission — is a record of scripture similar in structure to the Bible. We revere it because it is once of the things that makes our faith unique. We love the Bible and study it alongside the Book of Mormon, but the former book is already well known and embraced by much of the world, so much of our missionary work is focused on introducing the latter.

The Bible is organized into books (such as Genesis, Matthew, Mark, and Revelation), often named after their authors, which describe God and His interactions with a relatively small group of people in the Holy Land. Many of these authors were prophets, holy men chosen by God and given authority to relay divine will to the people and warn of sin.

The Book of Mormon is arranged similarly. Instead of the familiar Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, authors with names like Nephi, Ether, and Moroni composed the books in the Book of Mormon, which is so called because a prophet named Mormon collected all the records of his forebears and arranged them into a single record. He also edited the record for brevity and included his own commentary. These men lived were descended from Hebrew stock, having fled the destruction of Jerusalem in 586 BC by crossing the ocean to an unspecified point in the Americas. These people, who soon formed into opposing groups called the Nephites and Lamanites, quickly grew in number. The prophet Nephi writes the first book, followed by his brother Jacob and others over the course of about a thousand years. (There is also a short record of an earlier people called the Jaredites whose tribal wars completely wiped themselves out.) Archaeological evidence of these peoples exists, though it is not definite and can easily be discounted by those who don’t want to accept the verity of the Book of Mormon. We’re not sure how far across the American continent these people spread or what percentage of the overall Mesoamerican population they represented, we don’t know how many native peoples were already in the land when the Book of Mormon peoples arrived, and we have no idea as to the extent of interbreeding that may have occurred between the newcomers and any natives, but we do believe that some amount of Native Americans today are descended from these peoples.

The Book of Mormon was never written as a history; its writers didn’t care to educate us on geography or history more than was absolutely necessary to convey its message — that Jesus Christ is the anticipated Messiah with the power to cleanse the human race of its collective and individual sins. The climax of the Book of Mormon comes after the crucifixion of Christ in the Holy Land. After Christ’s death is heralded by supernatural destruction in the New World, Christ Himself appears as a resurrected personage to these people, introducing himself as their savior, healing their sick, bestowing priesthood authority, and teaching them.

Christ departs, leaving the people to unite and live for generations in peace. However, as often happens in the book, the people’s prosperity turns to pride, which results in a general disposition to disregard the laws of God. In the end, the Lamanite armies decimate the people of the Nephites. The last Nephite, Mormon’s son Moroni, hides the records before meeting an unknown fate some time in the fifth century AD.

I’ll get to the story of Joseph Smith in a later chapter and give you some room to breathe between my fervent religious instruction, but we believe that Moroni returned after death as a resurrected being to a boy named Joseph Smith, who had already received significant heavenly visitations. In 1827, Smith was led by Moroni to the records, which had been engraved on metal plates to assure that they would endure the centuries after Moroni buried them, and translated them from into English through miraculous means. Smith then published the records as the Book of Mormon.

I understand the hesitancy of many people to accept this admittedly outlandish story. Though the story is no more ludicrous-sounding than many of the stories in the Bible (which sounds more plausible, receiving an ancient record from an angel or riding a flaming chariot to heaven?), some people still contend that miracles and visions were reserved for days long past, as though God became bored some time long ago with talking to His children and found more interesting things to do, leaving us to our own devices. Modern skepticism, while often allowing that there is a God, still refuses that such an all-powerful being actually does anything.