Understanding the Book of Mormon: a Reader's Guide

Understanding the Book of Mormon: a Reader's Guide
Grant Hardy
Oxford University Press, 2010, 346 pages, Nonfiction

Grant Hardy’s insightful book about the Book of Mormon is based on the premise that as a literary work, the book deserves close and careful reading by believers and nonbelievers alike. Whether written by Joseph Smith or its purported authors and abridgers, there is much to be gained by comparing the preoccupations and writing styles of the various characters. Hardy closely examines only three major characters: Nephi, who fled Jerusalem with his family and is the founder of one of the major civilizations traced in the book; Mormon, who has collected and abridged most of the book (including the writings of Nephi); and Mormon’s son, Moroni, who is the final writer in the book.

Hardy has obviously studied the book extremely closely while asking interesting questions about the text and the writer or writers. What themes exemplify the writing of each character? What details about the character’s life are revealed and what are left out and for what possible reasons? In what ways is each character’s writing unique in style or form? Why are original documents such as letters and sermons sometimes included while at other times the abridger’s comments suffice to summarize? Hardy asks no end of interesting questions and offers insightful answers.

The book is dense and demanding but well worth the effort. Hardy is a professor of history and religious studies at the University of North Carolina at Asheville and also wrote “The Book of Mormon: a Reader’s Edition (University of Illinois Press, 2003).