that ye may learn.

I’ve been in this Shakespeare class where we’ve talked about different translations of the Bible, and just basking in the rich, gorgeous prose of the Geneva Edition, with its archaic spellings and dynamic language. It’s been a revelation to me, as I’ve learned how in the sixteenth century this version took England by storm, surpassing the officially-sanctioned Bishops’ Bible because its language was so much more riveting—the people were just starting to get the Bible in their own language, and they loved it! Can you imagine how exciting that must have been for a people who had grown up gleaning all their knowledge of God from the stained-glass windows in the church they looked at while their attention wandered from the Latin bible reading in Mass, and what their priest told them. Suddenly they can go directly to the source and decide for themselves, through prayer, what they think the Lord was saying through a particularly elegant iteration of His word. And of course I’m familiar with the almost excruciating warmth of the King James Version. Seriously, it’s painfully beautiful to me sometimes. And I mean it’s been the gold standard in Bible translation for four hundred years. We have an embarrassment of wealth of incredible language in our English translations of the Bible.

I heard someone quote Mark Twain (perhaps apocryphally) as saying the Book of Mormon is “chloroform in print.” Regardless of how you feel about it, the Book’s writers definitely did not write it with our modern conventions of English in mind. Its run-ons run on and on, its parenthetical phrases sometimes take over the narrative, and, well, five words: “and it came to pass.” I mean, I think the Book of Mormon does have some literary moments that just glisten—Nephi’s Psalm, for example, or some of Alma and Ammon’s exclamations of missionary joy. But in general, the Book reads more stodgily than the Bible.

And I think that’s a part of its charm. The writers of the Book of Mormon are conscious of what they call their “weakness in writing.” At least Nephi and Moroni, and maybe even more writers, lament that they can’t communicate with us in their preferred medium, public speaking, where it’s easier for them to connect personally with their listeners and really stir souls. But since they do face constraints in writing, it’s nice that they acknowledge their imperfection. I think it’s in Mormon 9:31, where Moroni says, Don’t condemn us for our imperfections, but rather give thanks, so you can learn from our mistakes. What a beautiful humble attitude. These guys were probably some of the most learned and closest to perfect of their societies, and they are willing to recognize that they made mistakes and urge us to learn from them. They did the best they could, and so did Joseph Smith in translating the book. There was no team of government-funded scholars to make the language flowery, but the result is a book of frank beauty and naked truth, unpretentious, earthy, human, and ultimately inspired. Truly the Lord works through the weak things of the world to bring great things to come to pass.

Lay Hold Upon Every Good Thing.

I sometimes hear people criticize the Mormon church as very restrictive, stifling even. And of course, it’s easy to see where they’re coming from. We believe in all these Thou Shalt Nots which sometimes, if we’re not careful, can get more airtime in our religious discourse than the (arguably more important) Thou Shalts. Moroni was not a victim to such a misconception: he seemed to recognize the possibility that exists to misconstrue commandments as injunctions toward a reclusive isolation from the world, and fought against it.
Moroni of course exhorts his readers to eschew evil, but gives equal emphasis to the importance of NOT eschewing good. Moroni 7:14: “Wherefore, take heed, my beloved brethren , that ye do not judge that which is evil to be of God, or that which is good and of God to be of the devil.” In verse 19, he admonishes us to “lay hold upon every good thing, and condemn it not,” with the promise that we “certainly will be a child of Christ.”
I interpret this as a warning against narrow-mindedness. It can be very tempting, in our world of today with danger lurking around every corner, to look at anything unfamiliar and place it by default in the “harmful” category. I mean, I look at people who have kids, and think I would probably do the same thing. But we have to be willing to accept good things wherever we encounter them, because Moroni is insistent that they all come from the same source.  I don’t know, to me, this seems to imply a responsibility on our part to not get too complacent with our worldview, but to seek always to learn from anyone we can.  Of course part of this responsibility is to not abandon the truth we already hold dear, but rather expand and augment it.  Moroni sums it up nicely: “lay hold upon every good gift, and touch not the evil gift.”  May we all keep an open mind and an open heart as we continue to access more and more of the infinite truth and beauty that is God’s.