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Source:Rediscovering the Book of Mormon:Ch:2:2:Mormon shapes his material
Hardy: "Mormon's choices are most revealing when the message of his editing seems to contradict the facts that he recorded"
Parent page: Book of Mormon/Complexity/Mormon as editor
Hardy: "Mormon's choices are most revealing when the message of his editing seems to contradict the facts that he recorded"
Grant R. Hardy:
We can learn much about Mormon's priorities and purposes when we identify patterns in the type of details he chose to delete or include. For instance, his editing may be responsible for some of the more puzzling features of the Book of Mormon, such as its fascination with war (Mormon himself was a general) and its lack of attention to the law of Moses (Mormon, as a Christian, may have thought the space could be better used on other, more Christian topics).
Mormon's choices are most revealing when the message of his editing seems to contradict the facts that he recorded. Mormon's honesty as a historian sometimes forced him to include facts that did not exactly support the message he was trying to convey. This tension is frequent in the Book of Mormon as Mormon tried to make spiritual sense of historical events. For me at least, this tension is evidence that Mormon was an actual person, since we all face similar difficulties in making sense of our own lives.[1]
Notes
- Jump up ↑ Grant R. Hardy, "Mormon as Editor," in Rediscovering the Book of Mormon, edited by John L. Sorenson and Melvin J. Thorne (Salt Lake City, Utah: Deseret Book Co.; Provo, Utah: Foundation for Ancient Research and Mormon Studies, 1991), Chapter 2.