Review
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Title: Jacob: Faith and Great Anxiety
Editors: Avram R. Shannon and George A. Prince
Publisher: Deseret Book/BYU Religious Studies Center
Genre: Academic/Devotional
Year Published: 2024
Number of Pages: 326
Binding: Hardcover
ISBN: 1950304507
Price: 29.99
Reviewed by Ivan Wolfe for the Association of Mormon Letters
I hesitated when I came to the “Genre” label above. Not that Jacob: Faith and Great Anxiety defies genre boundaries or anything, but it clearly crosses at least two. It’s devotional in its focus and essence, but it doesn’t read like most devotional works. In fact, I felt this book reads like a collection of essays that might be used for an undergraduate religion class on Jacob in the Book of Mormon.
So, despite the devotional focus, I read the essays like I was taking a class on Jacob and these were the assigned readings. Each one makes good use of academic tools and approaches to help explicate and understand the too often skipped over Jacob.
In the introduction, Shannon and Prince note that although Jacob seems often “eclipsed” by his older brother Nephi and scholars like Grant Hardy have declared Jacob “interesting but not . . . major,” Jacob is one of the most quoted in General Conference of Book of Mormon narrators, and that his presence actually “looms larger” than one might think from his initial space within the text.
The approach that each of the chapters takes is as varied as the authors and their interests. While the essays are loosely grouped into three (not formally marked, but discussed in the introduction) sections, the only real connecting glue between them is the focus on Jacob and the use of academic tools.
So, for example, the first chapter by John Hinton III uses wordprint analysis to discuss Jacob’s distinct voice when compared to other Book of Mormon authors (as well as discussing why that matters – all the essays do a good job dealing with the “so what?” of each of their unique approaches/focus). Jan Martin and Kerry Hull’s chapter deals with ancient notions of purity, prejudice, and race and discusses how that informs understanding what Jacob means when using terms like dark and light (as well as how that relates to contemporary concerns over racism and justification for racist ideas). Jared Halverson’s essay (the last one in the volume and one of the standouts, though the quality is quite high across all chapters) discusses Jacob’s “great anxiety” and relates that to the challenges of mental health.
In the end, each essay wants to inspire the reader to a greater understanding of, engagement with, and devotion to the words of Jacob in the Book of Mormon. Jacob: Faith and Great Anxiety is an excellent example of how to use the tools of the academic realm in a way that fosters devotion rather than brackets devotion.