A Marvelous Work and a Wonder

Manuscript page of the Book of Mormon

Ever since I began graduate school in 2007, I have thought a lot about the Book of Mormon.  Most importantly, the Book of Mormon has been my lifeline in graduate school.  I have learned just how wise President Marion G. Romney was when he said that daily study out of the Book of Mormon had kept him close to the Church.  Whenever the theories and ideas of graduate school have started to become too influential in my life, the words of the Lord in the Book of Mormon have been there to bring me back down to earth and back to the pure and simple truths of the Gospel.

But there has been another reason I have thought a lot about the Book of Mormon.  Perhaps it is just the writer in me, but during these past several years I have lived in constant awe of the accomplishment that the Book of Mormon represents.  It is a book of rich stories that appeal to the smallest children and captivate the most educated adults.  It is a book that never grows old, never gets worn out, and is constantly relevant.  Most of those who truly read it are not satisfied with a single reading of the book.  Millions of people finish the Book of Mormon one day, only to start reading from the very beginning again the very next day.  All this from a book that was (for the most part) translated in a little under three months, with Joseph translating on average nine to eleven pages per day.

As someone who aspires to become an author and who spends a good amount of his time writing papers, I can't help but be amazed when I consider the Book of Mormon.  I consider myself to be a fairly competent writer.  I have been blessed to have the guidance of several wonderful professors and mentors who have forced me to hone my writing skills.  But after all of this training and years of trying to craft sentences to be just right, I am certain that I have never written anything of any length that any person has ever wanted to more than one or two times, let alone time after time.

Further, I stand in awe of the whole process by which it came forth.  As someone who, on the best of writing days, can produce little more than seven readable pages of material, I am amazed by the fact that during the translation process, Joseph averaged between nine and eleven pages per day!  It took me two years to complete my thesis which turned out to be close to 240 double-spaced pages.  The Prophet translated the majority of the Book of Mormon's more than 500 pages in less than three months.  What's more, D&C 9 makes it clear that this translation was more involved than simply reading words off of the Urim and Thummim.   We don't know exactly how the translation process worked, but as Oliver learned, it was anything but a simple reading exercise.  This was a process that required great mental and spiritual exertion, and Joseph still averaged nine to eleven pages per day.

1830 Edition of the Book of Mormon

Intellectual arguments for gospel truths will always fall short of convincing those who do not wish to be convinced.  And they certainly have neither the power nor the ability to provide souls with a witness and a testimony of the Book of Mormon.  No doubt some who are better writers than myself may not be as impressed by the things that I have mentioned here.  But I nevertheless stand in awe of the "marvelous work and a wonder" that is the Book of Mormon.  After a daily study of its pages for close to fifteen consecutive years, I find myself more impressed and more enlightened by this divine record every single day.  Further, I find myself more impressed with and inspired by its prophetic translator.  Above all else, I have found within its pages, a sure witness of the divinity of Jesus Christ, the Savior of the World.  Surely this book came forth "by the gift and power of God," just as Moroni declared on the Title Page of the Book of Mormon.

Brett D. Dowdle