An Ingenious and Inspiring Literary Analysis of Alma 30–42 - a podcast by PDF feed of Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship

Review of Mark A. Wrathall, Alma 30–63: A Brief Theological Introduction (Provo, UT: The Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship, 2020). 176 pages. $9.95 (paperback).

Abstract: Mark A. Wrathall’s analytic treatment of Alma 30–42 is a sheer gift that inspires insight into the theological depth of Alma’s thought. His reading of Alma teases out insights not previously recognized and not easily discovered regarding belief and knowledge and their relation to faith and committed action. This extremely rewarding introduction provides a glimpse at the best any writer in the Latter-day Saint tradition has written on Alma’s thoughts and goals.





It would be difficult to overstate just how impressive I found Mark Wrathall’s small and brief “theological introduction” of Alma 30–63. Wrathall brings to this introduction his considerable genius and insight. His impressive credentials in both philosophy and law are evident in this work. His immersive knowledge of the German philosopher Martin Heidegger is especially on display — though a full exploration of that issue would take a much longer introduction to Heidegger than this review allows.

The Nature of these Brief Introductions

Let me get a few things out of the way right up front. First, this is not a work addressing Alma 30–63, because Wrathall never gets beyond Alma 42. There is literally no discussion of Alma 45–63 or why the earlier chapters are set in a work that is dominated by war between two peoples who fight over the meaning of their origin traditions. This book is not a work of theology. There is no attempt to place the text in the context [Page 116]of any theology other than the a-theological (and even anti-theological) approach that Wrathall sees in the text itself. There is not even a hint of expertise or discussion of ancient context — or any context beyond the text for that matter. All of the reviews of the books in this series should be called: “A Review of Texts Without Context.” Or perhaps we should call them solus textus. There is no attempt to situate the text in space and time beyond what the text says self-referentially.

The failure to provide any context beyond text is both a weakness and a strength of this entire series. The authors of this series are brilliant textual analysts who provide ingenious insights into the text and how it operates. None of the authors has the education or training to comment on any ancient context or even the context of Joseph Smith’s Weltanschauung (roughly the contextual worldviews that dominate the thought of the time). A text that is an island in a contextual vacuum exists in a void of meaning.

To be fair, Wrathall does provide some context of how particular English words were used in Joseph Smith’s time. He quotes the Oxford English Dictionary on the meaning of the word type and the American English Dictionary for the meanings of proper and whit. Wrathall also comments on how Alma’s discussion of death, the intermediate state, and the resurrection fills in a gaping hole in what the biblical documents tell us about those issues (without any citations to scholarly works about what the Bible does say about such issues — e.g., the status of the rephaim in Sheol). That is about as far as the discussion of context goes. One looking to understand the Book of Mormon in the ancient context of sixth-century BC Jews coming to a new world or how the text could fit into that new world in the context of the world as we know it will have to look elsewhere.

It seems to me that the Maxwell Institute has purposely steered away from any “apologetics” regarding the ancient origins of Joseph Smith’s oeuvre (body of work) and his claims to textual antiquity. This is a considerable loss in my opinion.

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