Last week in Sunday School, I had a brief exchange with my class, and it stuck in my brain. I find myself thinking about it often, and any of you writers out there know that sometimes the only way to get it out is to write it down.
We were discussing why there was so much talk of war in the Book of Mormon. It is said that 1/3 of the entire volume is war related one way or another. That’s a lot of war – a lot of battles – and a high body count.
The writers of The Book of Mormon make the point – multiple times -(Jacob 3:13, 3 Nephi 5:8, Ether 15:33) that they had to be very selective about what they included on the plates. They said that what was eventually was included was not even 100th part of the available writings. Since the abridged version of The Book of Mormon ended up with 531 pages, that means Mormon had over 53,000 pages worth of material to choose from.
I asked the question to my class, “With 53,000 pages of stuff to choose from, why do you think Mormon chose to include 30% war?”
They thought for a minute, then a brave soul volunteered an idea: “Maybe it’s because those war stories contain principles that can apply to our lives.” Perfect! Gold Star on the forehead. (I wish we still did that!)
Then another -borrowing courage from the first- added, “A lot of the Book of Mormon is history, and a lot of the most important parts of history involve wars.” Another good comment! (These are smart kids: 15-16)
I had one more idea I wanted to bring out. You know when teachers have a specific answer that they are looking for, and they keep asking the same question in different ways, and then waiting for you to psychically divine what they are after? Yeah, I hate that too. And that is exactly what I was doing to my students when I asked, “If you think about who edited The Book of Mormon, does it give you any more ideas?”
Crickets and blank stares.
I figured out a way around my logjam. “When President Uchtdorf gives a talk, what does he always talk about?” All at once everybody had an answer – “He’s a pilot,” “Flying,” “Airplanes.” Exactly.
Then one of the kids made the leap and said, “Wasn’t Mormon a General? Maybe he wrote a lot about war because that was his job.” (See, these are smart kids.)
Mormon was chosen to be a leader of a Nephite army when he was 16 years old. Before that he had been preaching repentance. It would appear that his entire life was about making war and preaching the gospel. Because of that, it only makes sense that his selection process would be tinted by his life experience, and that may be why so much of what he chose for scripture was war related. I have no problem with it.
It makes sense that if President Uchtdorf can teach obedience with stories about airplane instrument panels, then Mormon can teach the very same principles using the Sons of Helaman. Both men use their knowledge base, and draw on their personal experiences, to teach truths.
I imagine if the prophet who had been called to abridge The Book of Mormon had been a farmer, or a lawyer, or a brick mason, the “tint” of The Book of Mormon” would reflect their lives and understandings. It would be a very different book. Would that make it any less true? No. The principles remain true. Just as we see every General Conference as the prophets teach the same principles year after year, but with variation based on their personal experience, or “tint.”
As I read The Book of Mormon, and as I try and teach its truths, I keep reminding myself that everything in it is in there on purpose. So when I hit a section that doesn’t “speak to me,” I need to try and figure out why:
What is the principle that should emerge from this story or teaching?
How does the life of the author tint what I am reading.
If God inspired a prophet to chisel this into metal plates, what does He want me to get out of it?
And finally, how does my personal life and experience “tint” my perception of what I am reading? Because I’m absolutely sure that it can. There are times in my life that a specific passage of scripture can evolve from “meaningless” to “life-changing.” Not that the words changed, but that my life and perspective have changed.
That is why we read The Book of Mormon over, and over, and over, and over again. It is never the same book twice – nor should it be.
And that is why I never mark scriptures – but we’ll save that for another day.
Coming up: Our view of the Gospel: Tinted or Tainted?
Just as an added perspective, I’ve always loved the way my religion professor at BYU approached this same subject. We started the semester discussing the title page of the Book of Mormon, which states that the Book of Mormon 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”. We regularly returned to the theme of covenants in the Book of Mormon, and she suggested that one reason for the ‘war chapters’ being included was to show the results of breaking and forsaking covenants made with God.
Seriously, I LOVED this post! Its just what I’ve been thinking about in the last week or so. Although, I LOVE marking my scriptures. I love to read and read things in the margins that I was prompted about and wrote down.
One of the strangest things abt marking my scriptures is that it has to be ‘special’ for me to do so and yet sometimes as I’m reading I come across a marked verse and wonder, Why?…for the life of me I can’t think what motivated me to mark that particular verse.
I don’t look forward to the war chapters but then I don’t enjoy reading of todays wars & the only war movie I ever went to see was the Audie Murphy one, To Hell and Back, which pretty much sums up any war.
I scribble/underline/mark all over my scriptures (BOM anyway) but I use an economy copy and when I finish it I buy a new one and start fresh. It helps me keep all my thoughts about what I read in an organized way (I’ve gone back to my “old” BOMs to find out what I thought about a particular scripture during a particular time in my life. I also mark the starting and end dates in the front cover so I can associate the thoughts in that copy with events in my life.
I don’t write/mark nearly as much in my nice triple and bible (I can’t do the quad – too big) instead I use a notebook and write down the reference to the verse and then my thoughts and any points I found significant.
But I love my growing collection of economy BOMs and I plan on giving one to each of my children.
One of the central themes and purposes of the BOM is to provide us a practical example of salvation for obedience, and destruction for disobedience. Nearly always, the opposition is greater than us, but time and time again, it doesn’t matter, as long as we humble ourselves and repent, etc. And the application to our day is so, uh, applicable.
So some of your commenters have already gotten to the chicken and egg question — is there so much war because Mormon was the abridger or was Mormon the abridger because there’s so much war?
Personally, I appreciate that God’s servants use their own experience to teach His word (as your President Uchtdorf example suggests). In my view, neither side of the chicken & egg debate diminishes the truthfulness or effectiveness of the Book of Mormon.
The Ensign article in September on the Book of Mormon and War says it has 73% of content dealing with war/violence: “Of the 239 chapters in the Book of Mormon, 174 (73 percent) deal with war, terrorism, murder, political conspiracies, secret combinations, threats, family collusions, and other hostilities.”
I don’t mark my scriptures either usually. But that’s only because I’m too lazy to get up off the couch and find a proper writing utinsel.
Drawing pictures next to my fave scriptures is fun for me when I have a scripture pencil. :)I also draw rainbows at the end of the Noah’s ark story and bloody arms at the Ammon story section… (I’m lying about the bloody arms… but it’s a good idea.)
This reminds me of how proud I was of myself the time it hit me that one of the reasons there is so much praise of Captain Moroni is because Mormon was one of his biggest fans! I mean, think about it– he named his son after the guy! It’s fun when you can gleam these little bits and pieces about the authors of the Book of Mormon!
On a different note but still related to your post, I like to mark my scriptures (when I’m not being too lazy) because I like to see where my thoughts used to be. I especially enjoy notes from when I was a missionary, since my comments tend to be scrawled in Japanese and (naturally) be about missionary work. So I’ll be interested to hear your take on why you shouldn’t mark them. Maybe then I won’t feel so guilty about when I think I’m being lazy!
I have never said you shouldn’t mark them – and I will never say that. I merely said I don’t, and I’ll address it another time!
This is really neat 🙂 I can really tell you have a strong testimony.
I guess a good reason not to mark your scriptures is to keep those “sweet morsal” revelations flowing, you know? And to keep them sacred and for you, just in case you lose your scriptures and someone reads that personal exprience. (not like it’s a sin, but it’s something that is a special connection with you and God).
I have always loved the war chapters, especially Alma. There are so many great lesson to be learned about preparation, the Lord’s timing, and faith. It took me a lot of years to love them, but I am glad that I do.
I would be interested in know your reason for not marking your scriptures. We lived with a family on my mission and the father was appalled (and gave me a 20 minute lecture) on why I should not be marking my scriptures. It works for me, and is how I get the most out of it so I keep doing it. What benefits do you get from not marking them? I would hate to be missing out on a new way of learning!
I can understand why you don’t mark scriptures. My “method” (using the word loosely) is different. I mark my scriptures but I use a different color everytime through and put a note in the front beginning and ending date for each color. For those verses that still speak to me, I put a dot of the the color I’m using at the time. It’s amazing to me what speaks to me from reading to reading and that’s how I keep track of where I am in my life.
Loved this. Thank you for that perspective!
I pointed out to my class today that with the war chapters in the BoM we are given a real look at how Satan works. Important to know, because he is always working on us. But, I also used the talk by John Bytheway on the war chapters for my lesson. The kids were able to put things in perspective. Smart kids.
I like this post. As an English major/geek/teacher, I’ve had a lot of discussions about how every story is tinted and there is really no such thing as complete objectivity. I haven’t thought about it much in regards to the gospel, and especially, about why there are so many war chapters in the Book of Mormon (the ones in Alma are especially hard for me to get through).
A different topic, but related as far as the idea of tinting goes, is judgment—whether it’s how we judge other people or thinking about the final judgment. It can be easy to sit back and think “so and so is wicked because of this” etc., but we don’t know the whole story. I am so glad that God is a perfect God, because we all come with different challenges and struggles and experiences, so it really is not fair to compare people’s weaknesses.
Yes, that would be a comment from my intelligent daughter. Thankfully she is not disagreeing with me.
Now I want to know why you don’t mark your scriptures…
One of my MTC teachers marked them like crazy, but he has a Book of Mormon for each time he reads through it, so it’s new every time. Then, sometimes, he’ll label the side of one with a topic (like “repentance”) and find or relate everything to that topic. Kind of neat.
Ohhhh love this.
I stopped marking my scriptures after seminary years ago…wise move for me.
Looking forward to the tinted tainted post!
We just finished reading the Isaiah sections of 2 Nephi as a family. I don’t know why he put all those in, unless it was to teach us to persevere through difficult things.
Hmm, good point. I guess I need to learn more about the life of Isaiah.
I don’t mark my scriptures either, at the suggestion of a very smart bishop. It’s been great for me.
Here’s a quote one of my friends put on facebook today. It’s not relevant, but I thought you’d find it interesting:
“And while for Alma a free society was one in which anybody could think and say whatever he chose (Alma 30:7–12), for Korihor the only free society was one in which everyone thought exactly as he thought (Alma 30:24).” —Hugh W. Nibley
this post corresponded perfectly with a thought I had this past week. All of us who have been active members of the church for a while have likely heard the quote about how reading the Book of Mormon regularly, in our homes, with our families will bring such amazing blessings… including “the spirit of the book with permeate our homes.” (or something close too it; I am too lazy to look it up right now to get the exact wording) ANYWAY, the start of a new school year brings a new schedule, and brought a renewed commitment in our family to getting up early enough to read the Book of Mormon together as a family before everyone heads out the door. I am attest to the fact that the “spirit of that book” (or at least 30% of it) has permeated our home… it feels like a regular WAR ZONE, a veritable field of contention, around here! LOVE IT! (and yet, we will persevere! Finding things to laugh about on the way – things like twisting this poor quote out of context…) Love your blog! keep it up!
Great Post!!! I have several sets of scriptures. One set is not marked at all. One set is well marked with notes and quotes and thoughts etc. Then I have several of the cheap Book of Mormons. One year I took a challenge to see how many times in the year I could read through it. After all it is not that big of a book. I can read a novel in a matter of days. Of course I didn’t have to meditate too much on the novel. Anyway I took a clean, no markings B of M and started reading with a red pencil I underlined things that stuck out to me that I had never seen before. I read it 4 times the first year and 2 times the next and then I slacked off from there. I had some really great spiritual experiences happen to me during this time. It was awesome!!
Thanks for your writings – they are great!
Interesting. I can see that. But maybe Mormon, as a General, was chosen to compile it because of what he would include. Our day, which the Book of Mormon was written for, is a day of war, when peace has been taken from the earth. We have an historical record of how to behave righteously in a time of warfare and some examples of how not to behave….not to mention all of the other great teachings and witnesses of the Savior.
True. In fact, the idea that we are at war is a great one – one that my class brought up – I just forgot to mention it.
Carin’s point is the one I brought up with my Sunday School class (16-17 year olds). Because of that, God (being all-wise and all-knowing) would choose the person whose “tint” was best for God’s purposes. Another thing I like to point out is: Whom did Mormon name his son after? He had access to piles of records and knew the history of his people all the way back to Lehi and beyond. He chose the man whom he described as “strong and mighty” and “of a perfect understanding” as well as “firm in the faith of Christ”.
P.S. I used “whom” because I saw that your daughter is an English teacher and that made me try a little harder with the grammar–though I’m still not sure I used it correctly 🙂
Great post! I’m looking forward to your next: Our view of the Gospel: Tinted or Tainted?