If I didn’t like the first book in this series as much as I remembered but was generous in my rating because I appreciate what it’s doing, I liked this second book more than I remembered but am harsh in my rating because I don’t appreciate what it’s doing. This book reads less as an extended conversation with 2 Nephi than as a wide-ranging, largely apologetic treatment of Latter-day Saint theology that happens to frequently reference 2 Nephi.

I’m also frustrated with what feels like sloppiness in the apologetics. One section praising Joseph Smith as being radical enough to break with traditional Christian thought is followed by a section citing the New Testament and early Christian writers’ voicing the same kinds of ideas that Joseph was apparently radical enough to introduce on his own. Some of the citations go to other Mormon apologists’ treatments of these subjects rather than to the primary sources that purportedly make the same point. The argument about how the Book of Mormon emphasizes the original meaning of the English word “atonement” doesn’t wrestle with how weird that is as an argument, since the Book of Mormon purportedly wasn’t written in English, and the Bible definitely wasn’t.

It’s written well and clearly passionate, but it’s not what I want out of this series, and I think it gets sloppy in its enthusiasm to present Latter-day Saint theology as amazing and unprecedented.

• 2nd Nephi: A Brief Theological Introduction
• Terryl Givens
• apologetics
• The Book of Mormon: Brief Theological Introductions