Digging in Cumorah: Reclaiming Book of Mormon Narrative

Despite being one of the most influential books of scripture since the Koran, the Book of Mormon remains largely an undiscovered text, according to Mark D. Thomas. In this interpretive primer, he provides an eclectic framework for understanding Mormonism's founding scripture, including textual, historical, and literary approaches. His honest scholarship will engage all serious students of religion. "Mark D. Thomas has rediscovered the Book of Mormon, much like Hans Frei's The Eclipse of the Biblical Narrative did for the Bible. He shows how frequent asides to the reader ('frame breaks') guide them to the intended devotional significance, and applies modern narratology with great effect, using Robert Alter's 'type-narrative' schema. This inaugurates a new era of Book of Mormon studies, demonstrating that a searching scrutiny is the greatest friend, and no enemy, of a sacred work, since there can be nothing more edifying than understanding the text." Robert M. Price, Jesus Seminar Fellow, Westar Institute; editor, The Journal of Higher Criticism "This astonishing book probes more deeply into the Book of Mormon's literary and spiritual qualities than any other work I know. Its analysis of narrative structures will provide, as Thomas hopes, 'a means for the current reader to enter into fully informed dialogue with the text.' His analyses may 'sound as a faint whisper from the ground of Being.' In short, the most influential American narrative of the nineteenth century has at last found the scholarly reader it deserves." Wayne C. Booth, Pullman Professor of English, retired, University of Chicago; author, The Knowledge Most Worth Having