📖 Literary Value¶
Estimated time to read: 10 minutes
And there were some who died with fevers, which at some seasons of the year were very frequent in the land—but not so much so with fevers, because of the excellent qualities of the many plants and roots which God had prepared to remove the cause of diseases, to which men were subject by the nature of the climate—
But there were many who died with old age; and those who died in the faith of Christ are happy in him, as we must needs suppose.
Verses 37 - 41 better illustrate my point here, but that's a lengthy excerpt.
And thus did the thirty and eighth year pass away, and also the thirty and ninth, and forty and first, and the forty and second, yea, even until forty and nine years had passed away, and also the fifty and first, and the fifty and second; yea, and even until fifty and nine years had passed away.
Does this sound divinely inspired to you? Does this sound like an abridgment by the prophet Mormon, to distill the needed information written for our day?
Those two excerpts are rambling so incoherently that they sound like the stories I tried writing as a ten-year-old. No, I won't share those stories to prove my claim 😳
In my year of studying the Book of Mormon as a seminary student, I recall numerous times that the instructor would pause to wonder aloud at how divinely appointed this text is. "Joseph Smith could never have written this book on his own!" Right, but that wasn't a relevant consideration until you brought it up. Admittedly, being a sleep-deprived teenager wasn't conducive to critical evaluation, so I didn't push back. "The Book of Mormon describes culture, history, economics, faith diversity, fashion, agriculture, and so many other markers that some uneducated farm kid wouldn't have ever thought of!"
Half-awake later that afternoon, I had time to reflect on what I had been told, and had the realization that there are no interwoven stories in here. There aren't twists and turns that hold your attention. If it was a compelling read by its own merit, we wouldn't have to be compelled by church leadership to read it daily (1, 2, 3, 4). If it were published and presented as a work of fiction, I don't think it would have held much value as historical literature. It really sounds like a story that is being dictated. There's so much repetition, there are chapters that span decades with absolutely nothing noteworthy happening in the interim. It feels like someone needed the story to move along quicker to reach temporal milestones.
Character¶
To be clear, "character" does not require fiction. I'm not trying to say that scriptural figures are fictional—not here, anyway.
There are numerous characters in the bible of varying complexity. What makes many of them compelling is that they are morally grey—meaning that they do both good and bad things, much like how real, tangible humans do. No human is 100% good or bad. People make mistakes, and people grow, mature, and develop their sense of purpose and morality over time. Compelling characters in fiction have measurable progress as the story changes them.
If you're unfamiliar with the alignment chart in the tabletop game Dungeons & Dragons, it's a 3x3 grid with an axis for disposition toward law versus chaos, the other axis representing disposition toward good versus evil. I bring this up to describe how characters in the Book of Mormon are archetypical heroes and villains. There are Lawful Good characters and there are Chaotic Evil ones. I'd be hard-pressed to identify any that fall anywhere in the middle of that spectrum.
Readers can only differentiate between the sons of Mosiah because one of them chopped off arms and then had a pentecostal revival. The other three... were also there, I guess. Aaron met up with Ammon to ask Lamoni if the other two can be let out of prison. What else did they do? The very next chapter after their respective proselytizing efforts end, this segment of the book ends with "and this is the account of Ammon and his brethren," so says Alma 28:8; they are no longer the sons of Mosiah, they are Ammon and his brethren since the past ten chapters are practically just Ammon. Probably just a coincidence. Most correct book on earth, definitely not made up.
These simply are not compelling characters to read about. They are predictable and two-dimensional. We don't spend enough time with any one character to find any emotional investment in them, seeing how three hundred years can pass by in a single chapter with absolutely nothing of note happening.
Moroni gets spicy when writing to Pahoran. Nephi gets sad when Lehi dies. The rest of the time, they are monolithic and uninteresting. Korihor has room to be a misunderstood character, but is presented as a two-dimensional villain who is solely bent on destroying faith & happiness. Amulek... has a name, and never really does anything independently or separately from Alma.
Economy¶
The idea that the Book of Mormon's economical structure as a proof of legitimacy is... it's really something isn't it? Looking in the scripture's index entry for Money, Nephite we see one (1) citation in Alma 11:4-19. And never again are any of these currencies mentioned.
In fact, pick any three of the currencies and do a search on the church's website for them.
- Limnah: Alma 11; and also King Limhi
- Ezrom: Alma 11; Zeezrom; or Ezra
- Shiblon: Alma 11; "Shiblon, my Book of Mormon Hero"; "Being like Shiblon"
- Amnor: Alma 11; Amnor [money]; Amnor [spy]
- Antion: Alma 11; or Antionum, Land of
God dammit, these names for money are all recycled names of people. Never once outside of Alma 11 are these convoluted currencies ever used. With all the iterations of the Pride Cycle™️, we could have quantified how many multiplicities of a measure of barley the people had amassed! We could have valuated what those pesky Gadianton Robbers were selling secrets for.
Fullness of the Gospel¶
The Book of Mormon is a volume of holy scripture comparable to the Bible. It is a record of God’s dealings with ancient inhabitants of the Americas and contains the fulness of the everlasting gospel.
— Introduction Page to the Book of Mormon
The Lord Himself has stated that the Book of Mormon contains the “fulness of the gospel of Jesus Christ” (D&C 20:9). That does not mean it contains every teaching, every doctrine ever revealed. Rather, it means that in the Book of Mormon we will find the fulness of those doctrines required for our salvation. And they are taught plainly and simply so that even children can learn the ways of salvation and exaltation. The Book of Mormon offers so much that broadens our understandings of the doctrines of salvation.
— Chapter 9: The Book of Mormon—Keystone of Our Religion, Teachings of Presidents of the Church: Ezra Taft Benson
"I mean, yeah, we said it contains the fullness of the gospel, but that doesn't mean that it actually contains the fullness of the gospel! It just contains what you need for salvation."
... What? It absolutely does not. It contains neither of those.
If someone were to have access only to this book and tried to create a church from its teachings, it would look nothing like the Brighamite sect of the LDS movement. There would be no temple ceremony, no Word of Wisdom, no Tithing, no Garments, no delineation of priesthood, signs or tokens, no hierarchy of upper leadership, no organization of wards, branches, or stakes, no outlining of how the next prophet is chosen...
If we were to outline all of the things that the modern LDS church teaches that we must do, count how many can be clearly and specifically cited back to the Book of Mormon. How far would you get? Using the standard of the Temple Recommend Interview questions, or even the Baptismal Interview questions that missionaries use, would anyone who reads the Book of Mormon without any outside context conclude that those things are necessary for salvation? Evidently, that's what the "fullness of the gospel" means.
As literature¶
I know I've harped on the idea that it is "written for our day" numerous times, but... really, was it? Was it written to us in current year or for people in 1830? People in the early 19th century probably weren't too bothered by the run-on sentences, comical absence of punctuation and awful grammar. Are we sure it wasn't written for them?
It's a dull book with absurd segments. It has been around for close to 200 years, and its popularity hasn't quite lived up to the expectation that it'd fill the whole Earth. If this was a good read, people outside of Mormonism would buy it and read it. By now, someone without a vested interest in it being proof of a church's legitimacy should have taken note and advocated for it. Yet the only people I find who see value in this book are those who need it to be true to settle cognitive dissonance.
If you were raised in the church and forced firmly advised to read and study it daily, having been taught that it's the best and most important book in the history of the world, then yes, it's a great read. To anyone outside of that cultural context, it's... it's a book, alright. Of all the books in the world, it sure is one of them.