This book starts off strong, with a very interesting exploration of Christology in the Book of Mormon. There are some other interesting observations, too (including a frank-to-the-point-of-productive-discomfort evaluation of race in the Book of Mormon). If I were only reading the conclusion, I’d likely give it full marks. A few things keep me from doing that for the book as I read it, though.

I admit that some of those things are entirely my fault. As with the last two books in the series, I’ve read this one too quickly to appreciate the arguments it’s making. Furthermore, I confess that I have personal biases against a couple of the authors cited even though I don’t know much about those authors—it’s the laziest kind of bias, and while I might still dislike those authors after a thorough evaluation of their work, it’s not solid ground for grumping about their appearance in this book.

This isn’t a particularly deep post. There’s not a thesis to it, I’m not critiquing what I’m describing, and I don’t know that there’s anything to really take away from it. I just had a memory come to mind last night related to Book of Mormon Christology that I wanted to hold onto by sharing.

When I was a Latter-day Saint missionary, the Preach My Gospel missionary manual that we used had a suggested activity encouraging missionaries to read through the Book of Mormon and record “each reference to Jesus Christ (any of His names or pronouns related to Him).” The point of the exercise was to demonstrate just how central Jesus is to the volume of scripture, and early on in my service, I decided that I would give it a try.

Mormon theology doesn’t really do incarnation. Latter-day Saints believe in an embodied God and that (nearly) all humans will be resurrected to perfect bodies after this life and inevitable death. Latter-day Saints are also not Trinitarian and see Jesus and God the Father as more distinct than most Christian traditions do. Between those two beliefs, Jesus’s taking on a mortal body is not really a big deal—it’s kind of par for the course for any human, whether or not they are the Savior of the world. Perhaps because of that contrast, incarnation has been one of the most interesting things for me to think about as I’ve evolved my own theology with my transition out of institutional Mormonism over the past few years. What does it mean for a God that transcends fleshy, imperfect existence to take on mortal form and live among us? I’ve really enjoyed exploring the implications of that reframing (even though, when pressed, I’d probably describe my understanding of God is largely non-theistic and my Christology as pretty low).

Kind of like the Spong book I recently finished, I enjoyed this book, but I think I would have gotten about as much from a condensed version. I’ve gotten to a point after nearly a decade of this kind of reading that I don’t need to be eased into a lot of these arguments and just want the crux of them. I think the academic in me (though this is certainly not my area of training) also wants more sources and footnotes. Nonetheless, it was a really helpful book despite my impatience with it.