CONTENTS

I will raise up a Moses; and I will give power unto him in a rod; and I will give judgment unto him in writing.
- 2 Nephi 3:17

And out of weakness he shall be made strong. . . and the weakness of their words shall be made strong.
- 2 Nephi 3:13, 21

The weak things of the world shall come forth and break down the mighty and strong ones.
- Book of Commandments 1:4; D&C 1:19

The Book of Mormon has been, by almost any measure, one of the most influential books of scripture to appear since the revelations of Muhammad produced Islam nearly 1,400 years ago. Its worldwide influence continues to increase with the growth of the churches that honor it as the word of God—the largest being the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (the Mormon church) and the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. It is published in millions of copies and dozens of languages.

Since its appearance in March 1830, it is clear that the book's influence runs much deeper than even the number of its readers reveals. In meetings each month, thousands of Mormons testify that "the Book of Mormon is true." It is a living book that has changed many lives, has created new world views, and continues to provide a source of religious authority. The voice of the text responds with answers to fundamental problems of human existence—individual and social death, sin, and guilt. In short, it presents itself as the restoration of the pure, lost gospel of Jesus Christ to modern readers.

Yet despite the story of its miraculous appearance and influence, the Book of Mormon remains buried, largely unknown. How can this be possible? Ask any non-Mormon biblical scholar if he or she has ever heard of the brass plates which the Book of Mormon claims as its source for an ancient, alternate reading of Isaiah. My experience is that these scholars are unaware of Mormon claims to such ancient biblical texts. Yet they all seem fascinated when I tell them of these claims, recognizing that their scholarship could be useful in analyzing Mormon texts.

Non-Mormon historians and literary critics have been no better at uncovering and interpreting the book. They often ignore or dismiss it with a single phrase and almost always without a reading. It lies outside the mainstream of religious or literary tradition. It is, in fact, an offensive text to those in the traditions of modern theology and literature. Most historical narratives that have survived were written by members of a social elite. But the Book of Mormon speaks in the voice of outcast visionaries, wanderers in search of a home, and lone survivors of a society's demise. To grasp the original intention of the Book of Mormon text, we must understand that it is counter-cultural. Furthermore, it claims no literary supremacy, no polished style. The book teaches that God is revealed through small means, by mere stones, in plain words, with inaccurate and awkward phrases, and by weak and simple people (1 Ne. 16:29, 19:6-7; 2 Ne. 3:11-13, 26:33, 33:5; Alma 37:6-7; Eth. 12:23-27; D&C 1:17-19, 64:33).

Yet the reverence with which most Mormons read the book blinds them to its counter-cultural challenge. They ignore its offensiveness. Their devotion smothers its prophetic voice. They do not see that the Book of Mormon takes the pages of our modern culture and rips them up in our faces. In addition, almost all serious Mormon scholarship on the book attempts to reconstruct its historical origins, making little or no effort at interpretation. If Mormons fear to read their own holy book, what can we say of the anger found among its enemies? The interpretive stakes are high enough to bury the text by consensus.

The Book of Mormon begs readers from both sides of belief to push away the debris of neglect, prejudice, over-reverence, and fear—and begin to read the text itself. That is what I intend to do.

Beneath that debris is the fascination and scandal of ultimate answers from lost stories. I know that the patient labor of really reading the text is worth the effort. My scholarly passion is rigorous Book of Mormon research. My methodology, molded by critical biblical scholarship, is eclectic and interpretive, combining various textual, historical, and literary-critical techniques. They help me listen carefully to the voice of the text and enter into dialogue with it. Approached in this way, the Book of Mormon becomes endlessly fascinating and provocative.

I intend my work as part of the foundation for a new tradition in Book of Mormon studies. Such study begins with rigorous, critical scholarship. The Book of Mormon's divergent literary and religious perspectives leave it vulnerable to attack; it contains serious moral and textual shortcomings. Some Mormons may find my approach threatening. My advice is that it is better to face these difficulties honestly in the context of faith than to weaken faith by ignoring them. If we value our faith and respect the Book of Mormon, there is no substitute for honest, thorough, and serious scholarship.

I have attempted to be both objective about my task and sensitive to the sentiments of fellow believers. But for more than anyone else, I have written this book for those who have lost—or are losing—all belief. The Book of Mormon asks non-believers to believe impossible things: that a farm boy is God's agent in restoring his lost gospel to the world, that the inner word of God is the infallible source of truth, that earthquakes and breathing are manifestations of God's power, that evil powers can cause treasure to sink lower into the earth and tools to slip away in the night. It would be easier to believe that Joseph Smith's seer stones were diamonds, that his water witching stick was a royal staff, that a religious salesman bribed God into speaking, that a hill in western New York could be magically levitated to the height of Sinai.

This, the most improbable of books, was written for seekers of both a lost world and a new world—for readers who have misplaced their world somewhere along the way. The Book of Mormon contains both nostalgia for the lost ideal and an apocalyptic hope for a new age. It makes heavy-handed claims to religious authority, but it leads with a strong hand across the desert to refreshing waters.

Before we begin this great narrative adventure, we must review the story behind the Book of Mormon. Joseph Smith announced to the world that a heavenly messenger, later identified as Moroni, directed him to uncover the book buried in a hill near his father's farm. Joseph's mother, Lucy Mack Smith, dates Moroni's original visit to 1823. After a number of visits to the hill, Joseph obtained the text. He described it as written on thin pages of gold, bound together with metal rings. He declared that he translated it by divine aid, dictating to scribes what he saw when he looked into stones. After the translation was complete, he returned the gold plates to Moroni. Several accounts of Moroni's visits, Joseph's pilgrimages to the hill, and his translation of the book have survived. Joseph dictated the most familiar of these accounts over a decade later, and his story has itself become scripture.

This is the basic story of the Book of Mormon's appearance. But my focus is the stories within the Book of Mormon. The scandal of the book's delivery by angelic messenger is exceeded only by the scandal of its own narratives. The heroes of this book are self-assured prophets who chastise more reasonable relatives. These outcast visionaries leave their societies to form a nation. They find life by passing through the desert. In an opening scene, the hero Nephi seeks to save his new civilization by obtaining scripture through murder and deception. And that is just the beginning of this book s ironies. It builds new worlds out of old ones. It contains the life histories of four nations: one (treated last) beginning at the time of the tower of Babel and the other three beginning about 600 BCE. These national histories are portrayed as containing the essential life story of every nation (1 Ne. 13, 1 7:37-39; Jac. 5). These narratives begin with a divinely guided migration from the Near East to the promised land of America and end with final destruction due to sin. This universal cultural cycle is powered by universal mechanisms: a divine choosing of this people, a miraculously guided migration, God's governing over and judgements upon individuals and nations, class structures as a form of social evil, the warning voice of prophets in times of spiritual decline, and, finally, "secret combinations" that destroy the civilization. The Book of Mormon portrays the final destruction of its peoples and prophesies that the reader's own world will reach the brink of a similar upheaval and social suicide prior to the second coming of Christ. The hidden voice from the dust warns readers that they themselves stand on the verge of their own open graves and that only faith in Jesus Christ can draw them back from that fatal plunge (Eth. 2:9-11). Throughout this national drama are interwoven the personal dramas of salvation: the fatal propensity toward sin of the "natural man," the triumph of conversion to Christ, and the loneliness of foreseeing and enduring the end of one's civilization.

Each of these universal social mechanisms in the life of nations and individuals has its own narrative form in the Book of Mormon. In the ten chapters that follow, I analyze a particular literary form in this national and personal drama. Chapter 1 lays out the tools and methodology that I find useful in understanding the Book of Mormon. Although I approach the text from this particular critical method, I have tried to make the work accessible to readers from a variety of backgrounds.

Chapter 2 begins where the book begins: a journey into the wilderness. Chapter 10 ends where the book ends: the final destruction of Book of Mormon society. The chapters in between examine seven other narrative patterns or literary forms. Since form and content are connected, this approach should dramatically increase the reader's understanding of the book and its messages as he or she engages the Book of Mormon in dialogue.

My work is particularly indebted to the late Norman Perrin of the University of Chicago Divinity School and to Coby Jones, an anthropologist with a Renaissance mind, both of whom have had a major impact on my approach to the Book of Mormon and my life. I also thank those who have offered important suggestions, including David P. Wright, Wayne Booth, Melodie Moench Charles, Kathy Snow, Dan Vogel, Stan Larson, and especially Lavina Fielding Anderson.

I hope that my work does justice to these and all other individuals to whom I am indebted, but the final form of this critical examination is my own responsibility.

To raise the question of the nature of narrative is to invite reflection on the very nature of culture and, possibly, even on the nature of humanity itself. . . .We may not be able to fully comprehend specific thought patterns of another culture, but we have relatively less difficulty understanding a story coming from another culture, however exotic that culture may appear to us. . . .This suggests that far from being one code among many that a culture may utilize for endowing experience with meaning, narrative is a metacode, a human universal on the basis of which transcultural messages about the nature of a shared reality can be transmitted.

—Hayden White

Nearly all research on the Book of Mormon is not about the Book of Mormon at all, but about its claims to religious authority. This battle of authority centers on one question: "Is the Book of Mormon ancient or modern—history or fiction?" The assumption behind all of this research is that, if it is ancient history, it is the word of God and authoritative for all people. The quest that research has defined for itself is an important one, given the narratives of the book's divine origins, and the debate over whether the Book of Mormon is ancient or modern needs to continue.

But we have fought for so long over the age of the book that its messages have become accidental casualties. In the end, a book's authority lies less in its origin than in its messages. I believe that the origin of the Book of Mormon is not the most important question that it compels us to ask. The real question is: "Is the Book of Mormon worth reading?" The focus of this present work is on meaning, not authority. This study hopefully transcends the history/fiction debate to address a wide audience of serious students. As an author, I am trying to offer a new way of viewing this old book and fresh, important reasons for reading it. This visionary book speaks to us—children of the Enlightenment—of the non-rational, spiritual world. It evokes a world accessible through dreams, visions, and seer-stones. While it accepts and uses rationality, it is a book in which people travel from the mundane to the spiritual world to find answers to fundamental problems of existence, and it answers those questions not so much with logic as with the authority of spiritual power.

In order to begin interpreting this unusual text, we must agree on a fruitful and flexible methodology. In this chapter I propose an approach for interpreting narratives in the Book of Mormon. It can generally be classified as a rhetorical approach because it focuses on the internal literary features of the text and how these forms address its original nineteenth-century audience, while setting aside the issue of authorship.

There are good reasons for bracketing the issues of authorship of the Book of Mormon. Authorial intent plays a part in most current theories of interpretation; yet interpretations that focus extensively on the life and times of a book's author are often not satisfactory in elucidating the meaning of the text. Life-and-times interpretive approaches may distort and overinterpret texts to prove some apologetic or biographical point. 1 As John Barton, the Oxford biblical scholar, stated: "There is a consensus nowadays, extending well beyond the ranks of doctrinaire critical theorists, that criticism should concentrate on the text rather than the author. . . .We can concede that, in strict theory, meanings must be traced back to an author's intentions and yet, for the purposes of practical criticism, hardly ever find it necessary to invoke them. . . . Indeed,. . . genre-recognition and intelligent reading are usually simultaneous."2

As Barton points out, we cannot ignore the author or the historical context of a work. But what we can conclude from Barton's statement is that Book of Mormon meanings extend beyond what we can glean from examining the life of its author(s). We will never find out the book's real value or messages until we set aside the apologetic issues of authorship, at least temporarily, so that we can actually recognize the genres in which the book is written. It is a complex cluster of literary forms under the heading of counter-cultural prophecy. It closely resembles, and has been greatly influenced by, the Christian Bible. It can best be described as an American Bible.

Biblical scholarship has faced similar interpretive problems with apologetic interests interfering with interpretation. Two analogies from critical New Testament scholarship will clarify the interpretive intentions of this present work. The rationale of my approach may be explained with an analogy inspired by John Meier, a prominent New Testament scholar at Catholic University.3 Meier proposes a method for reconstructing the life of the historical Jesus acceptable to a wide variety of scholars, despite their differing religious convictions. I modify his approach slightly to apply to an interpretation of the Book of Mormon.

Suppose that we take a Protestant, a Catholic, an atheist, and a Mormon, all of whom are committed to critical scholarship. We lock them in the University of Chicago library on a spartan diet. They will not be allowed to leave until they have created a consensus method for interpreting Book of Mormon narratives. Naturally, due to their differing backgrounds, they all hold different opinions about Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon. But for the purposes of their assignment, they must concentrate on the stories in the book itself without appealing to Joseph's biography, the witnesses of the Book of Mormon, or archaeology. Instead, they must find a way of talking about what the book actually says. The methodology I use in this examination would be a way for these scholars to reach conclusions about the book without discussing their private convictions concerning authority. This chapter describes the set of interpretive tools that could provide such a consensus.

Since the Enlightenment, critical biblical scholars have maintained that the Bible must be interpreted with the same general methodologies used for any book. That means that interpretative work on any text, including the Bible, can best be accomplished with an eclectic approach combining various methods of textual, historical, and literary criticisms.4 The same approach can be applied to the Book of Mormon. Below I summarize the various textual, literary, and historical elements of my interpretive methodology.

In this work I will not discuss the history of the Book of Mormon text in any detail, but I will raise textual-historical issues as needed. Every text with a long history also has a long history of textual changes which, in turn, raise interpretive issues. The Book of Mormon is no exception. Coming to grips with the interpretive issues raised by textual modifications is necessary if our interpretation is to be accurate and complete. Textual issues become particularly important for ascertaining the original meaning of the Book of Mormon, which is the outcome I hope to achieve with this approach.

The original manuscript of the Book of Mormon was written by various scribes as Joseph Smith dictated the book. For reasons of security, the original manuscript was later copied and this duplicate is often called the "printer's copy." Section by section, either the copy or the original went to the printer who prepared batches of type from which he printed the first edition in 1829-30. Each of these three versions (the original manuscript, the printer's copy, and the 1830 edition) differs from each other, sometimes in important ways. Since 1830, there have been numerous editions of the Book of Mormon and, consequently, a regular history of many textual changes, both accidental and purposeful. Among the latter, perhaps the most numerous changes have been grammatical corrections. Others have been made for theological reasons.

For example, 1 Nephi 20:1, itself a quotation of Isaiah 48:1, now reads: "Hearken and hear this, O house of Jacob, which are called by the name of Israel, and are come out of the waters of Judah (or out of the waters of baptism). . ." The portion in parentheses was not in Isaiah or in the 1830 edition. It was added to the 1840 edition published in Nauvoo, Illinois. However, subsequent editions printed in Utah omitted the parenthetical material until Apostle James E. Talmage re-added it in the 1920 edition. It has been in every edition since then, including our current (1981) edition.5 One interpretive position is that the addition simply elucidates the original, though hidden, meaning. Another is that the addition constitutes a later commentary that is not part of the original meaning. I hold the second position; but in either case a reader must have some knowledge about the textual history before addressing this question adequately. Presumably both readers are equally interested in original meaning, and their conclusions about this change have an important effect on interpretation.

In this study I quote the 1830 edition, with occasional references to the printer s copy and the original manuscript. The 1830 edition is readily available in reprinted and facsimile form. These texts help us uncover the original meaning of the book. Later editions are equally legitimate texts for study. However, they have later audiences in mind and represent editorial re-workings that have, at times, obscured the original wording and its meaning. Because I am interested in original meaning, I pay careful attention to the earliest possible texts.

Another value of the earlier texts is that they preserve the language of Joseph Smith, with its errors and weaknesses. The Book of Mormon was dictated quickly and is thus more like an artist's rough sketch than a carefully crafted painting. For these reasons, I have chosen to quote the 1830 edition, although for the reader's convenience I have cited the versification of the current 1981 LDS edition.

Another analogy using New Testament scholarship may help illustrate the role of textual criticism as a part of my approach to the Book of Mormon. Research has indicated that the sayings of Jesus were originally in Aramaic, but the earliest surviving texts are in Greek. In examining a particular text, some scholars argue that translating the quotations attributed to Jesus back into Aramaic would produce something close to the words he actually spoke. Others argue that a particular phrase may have been created by early Christians and added to the authentic sayings. Regardless of the origin of the passage, all scholars must begin at the same place—the Greek text. Likewise, the earliest available text of the Book of Mormon is in the language of Joseph Smith. All serious scholarship must begin with that text, with that language, and with the peculiarities of that vocabulary.

In this work I seek to understand the text as though it were a semi-independent entity addressing a nineteenth-century audience in the language of Joseph Smith. Any reference to "Joseph's language" in this work simply means the language used in the Book of Mormon. It is not a comment about authorship (pp. 1-5).

NOTE: The chapter continues on for another 26 pages (with section headings: "Literary Features for a Historical Audience," "Excursus 1.1: An Example of a Cluster of Biblical Parallels," and "Excursus 1.2: The Book of Mormon as Myth"), but the typist's fingers became tired at this point; the intent is to return and finish inputting the rest of this sample chapter soon.
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Notes to Chapter 1.

1. It is true that the Book of Mormon begins with a literary form, an autobiography of Nephi, which some have interpreted as a hidden autobiography of Joseph Smith. Such discussions, however, are more often concerned with proving a historical or apologetic point than with interpreting the text.
2. John Barton, Reading the Old Testament: Method in Biblical Study, rev. and enl. (Louisville, KY: John Knox Press, 1996), 191-93.
3. The analogy is a modified form of what Meier has proposed in his work on the historical Jesus: A Marginal Jew: Rethinking the Historical Jesus, Vol. 1 (New York:Doubleday, 1991).
4. Beyond these three broad disciplines, many other interpretive traditions (such as cultural anthropology) have greatly enriched the interpretation of sacred texts.
5. For a discussion of this textual issue, see Stanley R. Larson, "A Study in Some Textual Variations in the Book of Mormon Comparing the Original and Printer's Manuscripts and the 1830, the 1837, and the 1840 Editions," M.A. thesis, Brigham Young University, 1974, 69-70, 281-83.

But he saith unto them, Behold, it is not expedient that we should have a king; for thus saith the Lord: Ye shall not esteem one flesh above another, or one man shall not think himself above another; therefore I say unto you, It is not expedient that ye should have a king.

—Mosiah 23:7

There is a strong interest, even a fascination, in the Book of Mormon with evil institutions and evil character types. The narratives portray the deeds of wicked kings, the great and abominable church, and secret combinations. This chapter focuses on the Book of Mormon views about the evils of monarchy and aristocracy. In the Book of Mormon, social institutions are unavoidably religious and, hence, under God s blessing or cursing. The book condemns monarchy and aristocracy because they create inequality and abuse power. Images of captivity and evil surround monarchy in the Book of Mormon.

Social elites, power seekers, and would-be kings cause wars and captivity in the Book of Mormon. These elites include Lamanites who covet to regain what they saw as their lost right to rule, and Nephite and Jaredite dissenters such as Amlici, Amalekiah, Pachus, and Akish (Alma 2:1, 46:1 - 51:34, 62:6-8; Ether 8:10, 9-12). The power hungry are constantly contrasted with lovers of equality and liberty (Alma 43:6-8, 29, 44:2, 46:1-6, 48:11-20). The social elites and those who would become kings by war are contrasted with the righteous warriors who seek to pull down powerful elites these righteous defenders of the country seek not for power, save to. . . preserve the rights and liberty of my people" (Alma 61:9; see also Alma 60:36). War pits freedom and liberty against monarchy and aristocracy.

Alma 45-62 is an extended narrative about a lengthy cycle of Nephite-Lamanite wars. In the first half, the Nephites successfully resist Lamanite invasion (Alma 45-50). The next section (Alma 51:1-6) describes the revolt of the "kingmen," power-hungry nobles whose greed and ambition reverse the fortunes of the Nephites in the war (Alma 53:9, 60:15-17). The third part describes Lamanite successes and strenuous efforts by the Nephites to defend their homeland (Alma 51:22 - 62:42). The narrator interprets these wars as an example of the piety/prosperity cycle: Obedience to God's commandments brings prosperity; disobedience brings adversity (Alma 50:19-23). These war narratives, therefore, exemplify both sides of this cycle: The righteous succeed in war while the wicked are punished by war. The turning point from success to failure in war comes when the Nephite society is splintered by the wickedness of the ambitious.

Righteous military leaders rank with prophets as Book of Mormon heroes. God is the Lord of Hosts, the God of the righteous warrior. Memorable are the faithful idealism of the sons of Helaman, the fiery nobility of General Moroni, the clever daring of Teancum, and the lonely wanderings of Moroni. The righteous warrior is justified before God only when war is fought in defense of home, land, and liberty. Alma 48:13-25 expresses the Book of Mormon concept of just war.1

Like the prophets, these soldiers are counter-cultural heroes because they are defending their people against those social elites who seek to obtain power through war. The people of Ammon are pacifists on religious grounds: They have vowed not to fight because of serious sins committed prior to their religious conversion.

Trickery, or "stratagem," has been a controversial military tactic in western history, denounced as deceitful and dishonorable by its opponents.2 However, the Book of Mormon not only endorses its use, but also relishes the cunning of righteous military leaders who use "stratagems." For example, Moroni "also knowing that it was the only desire of the Nephites to preserve their lands and their liberty, and their church, therefore he thought it no sin that he should defend them by stratagem" (Alma 43:30). Each sub-plot in Alma 45-60 describes a successful military ploy. Stratagem does not mean "strategy" but rather "trickery" in the early nineteenth century.

"Kingmen" and "freemen," referring to power-seeking aristocrats and lovers of liberty respectively, echo terminology from the American revolution familiar to 1830s readers. The American Revolution was actually a civil war as rebels mounted guerilla actions and formal military engagements against loyalists who sustained the government of Great Britain. During and after the American Revolution, kingmen referred to loyalists and freemen to revolutionists. In the early years of the American Revolution, the loyalists claimed that the rebels were actually in the minority.

By using these terms, the Book of Mormon was evoking memories and meanings for 1830s readers. Its war narratives are not an allegory of the American Revolution, but the terms focused the readers attention on the similarities between the Nephite wars and their own history. The use of these terms celebrates the American Revolution as a universal experience in which God preserves the freedom of the righteous in all ages as they wage just war. Like the ancient Nephites, 1830s readers saw America as a land of liberty threatened by hostile forces (Native Americans and competing European nations) and the power hungry (those fostering class distinctions, both in the United States and in Europe). The Book of Mormon predicts that these threats are part of the eschatological dangers of the future, warns against the brutality of the "natural man," and raises an alarm against the power hungry who are ready to attack lovers of liberty. The terms freemen and kingmen bring the readers world into dialogue with the narrative.

Since those who seek social power cause wars, kings are looked upon with suspicion among the Nephites, even though there are examples of righteous kings. To avoid potential abuses of power, King Mosiah persuaded the Nephites to change to a system of elected judges (Mosiah 29:1-36). The Zeniff/Limhi narratives ascribe the captivity of their people to social stratification and its associated wickedness (Mosiah 11:1-23). Alma condemns monarchy on the grounds that it leads to social inequality (Mosiah 23:7). Throughout the Book of Mormon, social and economic equality is a central feature of social righteousness. The elimination of class structure after the coming of Christ, the condemnation of special legal and professional classes, and the negative portrayal of class structure among the apostate Zoramites are examples of the book s concern for righteousness through social equality (Alma 1:1-2:38, 10:27, 31:1-35:6; 3 Ne. 6:11-12; 4 Ne. 1:18, etc.).

The Jaredite narratives in the book of Ether also emphasize the relationship among kings, war, and captivity, beginning with the narrative of the Jaredite kings themselves. Before the deaths of the righteous Jared and his brother, the people asked for a king, continuing their importunities until the brother of Jared acquiesced, even though he warned, "Surely, this thing [monarchy] leadeth into captivity" (Ether 6:23). The abbreviated history that follows shows that competition for the kingship resulted in almost constant warfare; nearly half of the Jaredite kings spent some or all of their lives in captivity, regardless of their personal righteousness. Kib, the second Jaredite king, was imprisoned by his son, Corihor. The narrator then editorializes: ". . . which [captivity] brought to pass the saying of the brother of Jared, That they would be brought into captivity" (Ether 7:5). This commentary near the beginning of the long history of Jaredite kings provides the interpretive frame for the remaining narrative: monarchy results in captivity.

This monarchical narrative pattern is repeated many times in the Jaredite history and at other times in other portions of the Book of Mormon. Its patterns are derived from the monarchical literary form in 1 and 2 Kings in the Bible.3 Although the Book of Mormon social history follows this biblical pattern, it significantly modifies the form for own its theological purposes.

Both the Nephites and Jaredites desire a king. A righteous leader objects but acquiesces (2 Ne. 5:17-19; Ether 6:19-27). This pattern is derived from the biblical story of Samuel the prophet (1 Sam. 8:l-22). 1 and 2 Kings relate the history of the Israelites up to the fall of Jerusalem in 587 B.C.E. According to Frank M. Cross, a noted scholar of the Hebrew Bible, these books were written in pre-exilic times, with some editorializing added during the exile.4 The books of 1 and 2 Kings actually contain two forms—one for the kings of Judah, and one for the kings of Israel. These formulae are similar except for the fact that, while the narrator approves of the life of the king of Judah, if righteous, he always condemns the king of Israel5 (pp. 149-152).

NOTE: Again, this is just a portion of this chapter, which continues on for eight more pages and includes two tables: "Biblical Formulas Used by the Author of Kings 1 and 2" and "Characteristics of Noah and Riplakish, Influenced by the Formulas of Kings 1 and 2." We hope this "teaser" gives enough of an idea of the content to be helpful, and we hope to return and complete the chapter for you soon.
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Notes to Chapter 7.

1. For discussions of war in the Book of Mormon, see Graham S. John Stott, "Just War, Holy War, and Joseph Smith, Jr.," in Restoration Studies IV, edited by Marjorie B. Troeh (Independence, MO: Herald Publishing House, 1988): 134-41, which assumes a nineteenth-century setting; and Stephen D. Ricks and William J. Hamblin, eds., Warfare in the Book of Mormon (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book/FARMS, 1990), which assumes an ancient setting. The 1830s readers had positions on war ranging from pacifism to various formulations of what constituted just war (Roland H. Bainton, Christian Attitudes Toward War and Peace [New York: Abingdon, 1960], esp. 190-93; Joshua Wilson, War, the Work of the Lord, and the Coward Cursed [Concord, NH: I. & W. R. Hill, 1812], 8-12; Adna Heaton, War and Christianity Contrasted [New York: Samuel Wood & Sons, 1816]; David Dodge, War Inconsistent with the Religion of Jesus Christ [New York: Dodge & Syre, 1815], 25-32, 82, 93, 125-29, 190-93; Marshall Smelser, The Winning of Independence [Chicago: Quadrangle Books, 1972], 9, 99). For an eighteenth-century work on just war influential in America, see the various editions of De Vattel's The Law of Nations. Nineteenth-century pacifists cited "Resist not evil" from the Sermon on the Mount (Matt. 5:39) as a proof text for complete pacifism. In the Book of Mormon, Pahoran concludes that a defensive war is just and inverts Matthew 5:39 by repeating four times in various forms: "Therefore my beloved brother Moroni, let us resist evil" (Alma 61:10-14). In addition to providing an example of complete pacifism in the people of Ammon (Alma 24:1-28), the Book of Mormon also provides an anti-pacifist proof text to justify defensive warfare: "[stand] fast in that liberty, in which the Lord has made us free" (Alma 61:9, 21; Mosiah 23:13; Alma 46:27, 58:3940//Gal. 5:1).
2. Cornelius van Bynkershock, Treatise on the Law of War (Philadelphia: Farrand & Nicholas, 1810), is one of many books in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries treating this subject.
3. Richard Bushman, Joseph Smith and the Beginnings of Mormonism (Urbana: University of illinois Press, 1984), 132-33, has demonstrated that the Book of Mormon's governmental and political ideals are at variance with mainstream American political thought in the early nineteenth century. Likewise, the Book of Mormon monarchical and war narratives differ markedly from standard histories of monarchies at the time of Joseph Smith. Willliam Grisham, History of England from the First Invasion by Julius Caesar, to the Peace of Ghent . . . (Philadelphia: Lydia R. Bailey, 1819), discusses some of the evils of kingship, including heavy taxation and immorality. But in every other respect, this history shares little in common with the Book of Mormon and its forms. The Book of Mormon monarchical narratives are derived from biblical forms and are essentially religious in nature.
4. Frank Moore Cross, Canaanite Myth and Hebrew Epic (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1973), 275-76.
5. Ibid.; Bernhard W. Anderson, Understanding the Old Testament, 3d ed. (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1975), 232-34. See also Robert L. Cohn, "Form and Perspective in 2 Kings [5]," Vetus Testamentum 33 (1983): 171-84; Robert L. Cohn, "Literary Technique in the Jeroboam Narrative," Zeitschrift für die Alttestamentlische Wissenschaft 97 (1985): 23-35; Alexander Rofé, "The Classification of the Prophetic Stories," Journal of Biblical Literature 89 (1970): 427-40.