Book of Mormon Reference Comparison

For several years I've wanted some kind of companion book to use in my Book of Mormon study. What I want is something that will almost be like a person sitting next to me, ready to have a conversation when I read a verse that's interesting to me or confusing to me. I've looked at different books from time to time, but never really settled on anything.

In the last few months I've bought several different books, and I thought I'd tell a little about them in case you're looking for something to accompany your scripture study too.

The first one is called the Book of Mormon Reference Companion. I already had this one, but have only just started looking at it. This one is like an encyclopedia or dictionary for the Book of Mormon, with alphabetized entries. It's great for finding out more about a particular subject, but not what I was looking for right now.

I picked up this book a few weeks ago at the LDS bookstore. It wasn't until I got home and read through the introduction that I really understood what this book was. The introduction explains that the compiler, Douglas Bassett, has problems sleeping. He finds that reading the scriptures and writings of the general authorities and gospel scholars helps him to find peace and be able to rest at night. When he reads at night, he underlines sections and marks what scripture verses they correspond to. Then during the day his wife types these quotes up and organizes them by scripture reference. The result is an amazing resource. Each entry gives a scripture verses, (like 1 Nephi 1:4), a short summary ("And it Came to Pass"), and then relevant quotes by different church leaders. So under the "It Came To Pass" heading, there are two entries. The first is from an Ensign article explaining the frequency of the use of this phrase in the Book of Mormon, and the second is a paragraph from Hugh Nibley that describes the Egyptian use of repeated phrases instead of punctuation.

One of the most interesting things I've read in this book was regarding the descriptions of the great and abominable church in 1st Nephi. There is a great explanation from Stephen Robinson about it can't be talking about the Catholic Church. He points out that the verses in chapter 13 of 1st Nephi describe the actions of the great and abominable church — taking away the plain and precious parts of the gospel, killing the apostles, etc — had already happened by the time the Catholic church began in AD 313. He goes on to point out that we should be grateful to the work of the medieval monks for saving as much of the scriptures as were saved at all. So interesting!

These books (3 volumes) are really excellent. I love to read what different writers have said about different parts of the scriptures. Unfortunately, the amount of reading that I need to do to keep up with our ward's Book of Mormon challenge doesn't leave me time for this much extra reading. So I think I'm setting these books aside and I'll use them when I can read the Book of Mormon more slowly again.

The last book I bought (this one used from Amazon--hooray for really cheap!) is called Doctrinal Commentary on the Book of Mormon. It's by Robert Millet and Joseph Fielding McConkie, which predisposed me to like it even before I saw it.

And then it arrived, and I opened it and started reading, and knew I'd found what I was looking for. It has the actual text of the Book of Mormon, so you could just do your reading in here if you wanted to. (If you didn't have a super-cool edition of the Book of Mormon like my Reader's Edition to use instead.) Under each section of scripture verses are their comments on those verses.

Most are very short--for example, this from 1 Nephi 7:35--

The Lord esteemeth all flesh in one: God is no respecter of persons. All men are saved by obedience to the same laws and ordinances.

Well that makes that verse more clear to me!

Some are longer, but in general this book is working for my reading this time. When I read a verse and want a little clarification or just an idea of what someone thought about it, I look it up in here. It will also be a great study aid next time around.

Speaking of my awesome edition of the Book of Mormon, I emailed the editor and have received an email in return. I asked him how he decided what verses to put in a poetic form, and he said that when he felt like passages exhibited a lot of repetition, parallelism, and lyrical language, he experimented to see if they could be arranged into the sorts of poetic forms that are characteristic of Hebrew poetry. I thought that was very interesting.

He also pointed out something that I had recently noticed. The last page of the book explains that he will receive no royalties from sales of the book — he's donated his part to the church Humanitarian Fund. He says that he wants more people to have his book so that they can read more easily and with more comprehension. What a lot of work to go to help people read the Book of Mormon more easily--I sure appreciate it!