The British educator and literary scholar Arthur Henry King was an adult convert to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Here is his candid report of his initial response to the Book of Mormon:
It took me a long time to appreciate the Book of Mormon. When I started to read it, I thought it was an awful bore. Then I gradually found (it took me about two years) that I was wrong. I think my mind was closed to it in the beginning because it was so like the Bible and yet so unlike it. . . .
I don’t think I really was converted to the Book of Mormon until I began to teach it here at BYU. Having to teach it made me make the effort to see what it rhetorically was. I was trying to apply the principles of my judgment of English literature and poetry. I discovered my judgment was wrong. The tradition of the language was different. What I was looking at as clichés weren’t clichés at all. It is important to learn things like the fact that Archibald Macleish cannot be judged in the same way as Yeats. They come from different traditions. Their rhetorical patterns are totally different. . . .
The rhetoric of the Book of Mormon is more developed than the rhetoric of the Hebrew scriptures. Look at Jacob 5, the parable of the olive tree, or 2 Nephi 9, the sermon about the Atonement. When we start working out the rhetorical patterns in those chapters, we have something more complex than anything in the Bible. That is another proof, incidentally, that not even Sidney Rigdon could have written the Book of Mormon. . . .
The Book of Mormon is not in any way inferior to the Bible in its use of literary devices. The Book of Mormon, from the point of view of its style, is effective, full of great writing.[1]
[1] King, “An Account of My Conversion,” 43-44.
***
Ben Spackman gave a really good talk at the annual FairMormon conference last August, and the text of his remarks is now online. I commend them to you for your enjoyment and edification:
“Truth, Scripture, and Interpretation: Some Precursors to Reading Genesis”
***
The indefatigable and inimitable Robert Boylan has a useful item up on his blog, responding to the fairly common Evangelical anti-Mormon argument that, because they seem to have spoken about the Sun and the Moon being inhabited, Joseph Smith and Brigham Young were false prophets:
“Fun Anti-Mormon ‘Facts’ Refuted: Joseph Smith, Brigham Young, and ‘Moonie Men'”
***
William J. Hamblin and the execrable Daniel C. Peterson have a new article in the Deseret News this morning, full to overflowing with Peterson’s trademark hateful ad hominem bigotry against non-Mormons:
“The third man of the Reformation”
***
Just a reminder that the loathsome Peterson will be taking his venomous show on the road later this week, to Indiana. His visit there will include a public event a week from tomorrow: He’ll be giving a Sunday night fireside in a stake center that, unless I’m much mistaken, sits very near the new Indianapolis Indiana Temple — which is actually located in the suburban area of Carmel:
If you’re in the vicinity, you’re certainly welcome. Just fortify yourself in advance with a tranquilizer or two and bring some smelling salts. If some of my online critics are right, it will be ninety minutes of rage and invective.
Posted from St. George, Utah
Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In