Second Witness: Analytical and Contextual Commentary on the Book of Mormon, Volume 5: Helaman Through Third Nephi

Second Witness: Analytical and Contextual Commentary on the Book of Mormon #5

by Brant A. Gardner

Volume five of the six-volume Book of Mormon Commentary

Genres: Religion, History

670 pages, Hardcover

Published January 1, 2007

Reviews

[Carl]

I'm not sure that I have a lot more to say about this book than what I've written about the previous volumes in the series. It's a great commentary. Serious students of the Book of Mormon should read it. I don't agree with everything here (in particular the comments on the Lord's Prayer from the Sermon at the Temple stand out to me in this vein), but there's a lot of food for thought.

[Kathleen]

Continues to be insightful with extensive research and helpful information.

[Aaron]

The several dozen pages of commentary on Jesus's "Sermon at the Temple" are, by themselves, worth the purchase price of this volume. It was fascinating to read Gardner's objective and detailed analysis of the interplay between an old-world discourse, full of old-world allusions, and the new-world view and understanding (if any) of those concepts and allusions, all coming to us through the lens of Joseph Smith's translation.

Gardner has convinced me that Joseph's translation was not a word-for-word revelation directly-beamed from God straight into Joseph's head. Rather, as Gardner has demonstrated over and over again, Joseph translated the Book of Mormon after "studying it out" in his mind (as hinted at in D&C 9) and dictated to his scribes words that were influenced by his obviously intense study of the King James Version of the Bible and by his own early-19th-century, rural-America culture.

At some point I will need to pick up Gardner's book about the translation process.

[Christian Larsen]

If you are looking for a commentary on the Book of Mormon, this one outstrips them all. Without exaggeration, every other commentary set (especially the 4-vol McConkie/Millet set) is going to appear useless and superficial in comparison. Gardner uses everything at his disposal, from literary criticism and early manuscripts of the Book of Mormon to Mesoamerican cultural and archaeological findings to inform his commentary. It is not just trite fluff, devotional ramblings, or regurgitation of General Authority quotes (see the McConkie/Millet set to see what I'm talking about) but is hard hitting and thought provoking. Whether you are a true believer in the Mesoamerican model for Book of Mormon geography or even question the very historicity of the Book of Mormon, this commentary will enlighten and enliven your reading of the Book of Mormon in every aspect.