Title: The Book of Mormon Study Guide, Start to Finish
General Editor: Thomas R. Valletta
Publisher: Deseret Book
Genre: Scripture study guide
Year of Publication: 2015
Number of Pages: 921 (appendices begin on 819)
Binding: paper (N.B. “The eBook contains additional quotations from authoritative sources” (2)) ISBN13: 978-1-62972-097-5
Price: $29.99
Reviewed by Julie J. Nichols for the Association for Mormon Letters
Don’t let the number of pages (921) put you off. This volume is surprisingly easy to hold and carry, neither heavy nor unwieldy, gratifyingly clean in design and just right in size (9”x6”x11/4”). If you’re teaching or studying the Book of Mormon along with everyone else this year, this is an excellent book to consult. As its title promises, it provides insights into every verse, “start to finish,” insights from an enormous number of sources across time and scholarship, all clearly cited, with charts, graphs and pictures, and an easy-to-follow question-and-answer format which is certainly convenient for teachers in particular.
An example will demonstrate the virtues (and perhaps also the limitations) of the *Study Guide.*
The Table of Contents looks exactly like the Table of Contents of the Book of Mormon itself, except for the “Introduction to *The Book of Mormon Study Guide*” that opens the volume. Each element of the Book of Mormon—its title page, its introduction, the testimonies of the three and eight witnesses and Joseph Smith, the “brief explanation about the Book of Mormon,” and each of the books that constitute it—has a section in this Study Guide. You need to have your Book of Mormon open beside you, since the Study Guide doesn’t carry the text, only commentary.
Here is the text of the Title Page of the Book of Mormon (BoM):
“Wherefore, it is an abridgment of the record of the people of Nephi, and also of the Lamanties—Written to the Lamanites, who are a remnant of the house of Israel; and also to Jew and Gentile—Written by way of commandment, and also by the spirit ofprophecy and of revelation—Written and sealed up, and hid up unto the Lord, that they might not be destroyed—To come forth by the hand of Moroni, and hid up unto the Lord, to come forth in due time by way of the Gentile—The interpretation thereof by the gift of God.
“An abridgment taken from the Book of Ether also, which is a record of the people of Jared, who were scattered at the time the Lord confounded the language of the people, when they were building a tower to get to heaven—Which is to show unto the remnant of the House of Israel what great things the Lord hath done for their fathers; and that they may know the covenants of the Lord, that they are not cast off forever—And also to the convinding of the Jew and Gentile that JESUS is the CHRIST, the ETERNAL GOD, manifesting himself unto all nations—And now, if there are faults they are the mistakes of men; wherefore, condemn not the things of God, that ye may be found spotless at the judgment-seat of Christ.
“TRANSLATED BY JOSEPH SMITH, Jun.”
Now, questions may arise when you read this title page, questions about its meaning and implications. If a principal strength of the Study Guide is its question-and-answer format, useful both for teachers to ask their students and for individual readers to ponder, this may also be a weakness, because the Study Guide’s questions may not be your questions and its answers may not be enough for you.
In the “Title Page” section (5-6), the Study Guide provides answers to six questions: Did Joseph Smith write the title page? By what process was the BoM translated? Was Joseph Smith a Gentile? Why was the BoM written? To what sort of ‘mistakes’ was Mormon referring? And How long did it take Joseph to translate the record?
Each of these six questions is given one or two paragraphs. (Rarely is any question in the whole 921 pages given more than two paragraphs, about a quarter of a page.) The vast majority of “answers” are quotations taken whole-cloth from one or another of the multitude of sources consulted by the eight subeditors beneath Valletta. Comparisons, contradictions, incomplete answers—none of these is attempted or addressed. You won’t find in-depth, controversial arguments here, only lots of brief one-shot answers to questions many BoM readers may not know they could/should ask.
In many cases these are helpful enough. The Study Guide reminds readers that Joseph Smith said that he translated the title page from the very last leaf of the gold plates (5). The single paragraph about how the Book of Mormon was translated (“what we do know about the actual coming forth of the BoM is adequate, but it is not comprehensive” (5)) may not satisfy some readers. The section explaining that Joseph Smith was a cultural or political Gentile of the blood of Israel is by Bruce R. McConkie as quoted in Dennis L. Largey’s 2003 *Book of Mormon Reference Companion.* Under the question, “Why was the BoM written,” the Study Guide asks, “How have you seen those purposes fulfilled? Which of those reasons has had the greatest impact in your life?” Clearly these are thought-questions for students of the BoM rather than answers to the question itself. Finally, the interesting fact that “a span of no more than sixty-five to seventy-five total days was likely involved in translating the Book of Mormon as we now have it” (6) is cited as coming from a book edited by John W. Welch in 1992, but no publisher is given, even in the list of sources. Perhaps this brief summary of the two pages given to the title page in the Study Guide will give an indication of how the Study Guide works, and how well.
For every book (1 Nephi, 2 Nephi, etc) in the Book of Mormon a brief section appears explaining who the character was that wrote that book. Numerous charts and graphs clarify the chronology and order of the complicated journeys, wars, and interactions depicted in the BoM. Small black-and-white reproductions of some familiar pictures of BoM characters, as well as tiny photographs of geographical areas where Lehi and his family and descendants might have been, also help readers visualize much BoM lore and landscape.
Sources range from Brigham Young to Thomas S. Monson, from Parley P. Pratt to L. Tom Perry, from the earliest days of the Restored Church to last year. The study guide is thorough—hardly a verse is untouched by commentary written by some authority on the history or doctrine of that particular verse. Any Gospel Doctrine teacher will be pleased to have it at hand, a first resource to consult (after the BoM itself) as she or he prepares each lesson. But because it doesn’t ask every possible question the BoM raises (what guide could?), nor synthesize multiple possible answers to any question, and because it holds fast to its own doctrinal iron rod, for some of us it may not be the last.