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The Vision of All: Twenty-five Lectures on Isaiah in Nephi’s Record
In The Vision of All, Joseph Spencer draws on the best of biblical and Latter-day Saint scholarship to make sense of the so-called “Isaiah chapters” in the first two books of the Book of Mormon. Arguing that Isaiah lies at the very heart of Nephi’s project, Spencer insists on demystifying the writings of Isaiah while nonetheless refusing to pretend that Isaiah is in any way easy to grasp. Presented as a series of down-to-earth lectures, The Vision of All outlines a comprehensive answer to the question of why Nephi was interested in Isaiah in the first place. Along the way, the book presents both a general approach to reading Isaiah in the Book of Mormon and a set of specific tactics for making sense of Isaiah's writings. For anyone interested in understanding what Isaiah is doing in the Book of Mormon, this is the place to start.
330 pages, Paperback
Published October 18, 2016
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March 18, 2024
The best book on Isaiah in the Book of Mormon I’ve read. Spencer has done great analysis and presents it in a way that is both engaging and easy to understand.
July 10, 2023
Many authors have tried to make the biblical book of Isaiah accessible to Mormon readers. Approaches range from traditional scholarly commentaries (Parry, Parry & Peterson, Understanding Isaiah), to lighter, more contemporary works (Bytheway, Isaiah for Airheads; Ridges, Your Study of Isaiah made Easier; Chase, Making Isaiah Plain). There are LDS-influenced translations and studies (Gileadi, The Book of Isaiah: A New Translation with Interpretive Keys from the Book of Mormon; Nyman, Great are the Words of Isaiah), and even several book-length works which concentrate solely on the Isaiah passages in the Book of Mormon (Parry and Welch, Isaiah in the Book of Mormon; Ludlow, Unlocking Isaiah in the Book of Mormon; Bassett, Commentaries on Isaiah in the Book of Mormon). It is this latter undertaking that Joseph M. Spencer embarks upon in his book The Vision of All: Twenty-Five Lectures on Isaiah in Nephi’s Record. Spencer does not attempt to be detailed in his presentation; rather, he offers a general panorama intended to enlighten the reader upon Nephi’s (and other Book of Mormon authors’) inclusion of Isaiah passages in their writings. He has chosen to arrange these in a “lecture” format.
Before reviewing how well he succeeds, I’ll need to confess my distaste of the use of an overly colloquial approach to a scholarly subject. In my opinion, Spencer begins the book in a desperately chatty tone, though he calms down in later chapters. My advice to writers: don’t ever, ever begin a sentence with the idiomatic “so.” Examples of this in Spencer’s first ten pages: “So let’s get down to business…So it seems that what the book means to accomplish…So when the angel mentions the Jewish prophets…So why do they misunderstand the nature of the book?…So the point of the angel’s words…So this, according to the angel…So, now we have the basic outline…” Perhaps equally as annoying is starting sentences with “Okay,” or “Alright,” as in “Okay, now let’s look at a little more of the text…Okay, let’s gather up the details…Alright, we’ve nailed down two major features,” or even putting them both together: “Okay so here’s what we’ve got in hand…Alright so what is this book?” To further his conversational tone, Spencer uses affectations that read awkwardly: “That’s reason to rejoice, no?…All this couldn’t be much clearer, no?” The author’s conversational style does not give the subject the gravitas that it seems to demand.
While I’m complaining, let me just note that Spencer’s continual refrain “we are running out of time” is extremely distracting. Perhaps this was meant to give the feel of a taped lecture series. But it comes across as an excuse for not developing ideas sufficiently. Spencer ends literally every chapter with: “Alright. We’re rapidly running out of time…Ack. We’re well beyond out of time for today’s discussion…Yikes, we’re quickly running out of time…Well, we’ve gone over time again!…we’re getting near the end of our time today…I don’t want to be caught in the middle of things and end up keeping you over time again, likely far longer than usual!…I’ve got an idea. And I only hope we can do it in the time we’ve got left.” He often gives time constraints as a reason why he is unable to finish a train of thought. This leaves the book feeling segmented and erratic.
In Lecture XII, Spencer laments, “Yikes. Somehow, we’ve got to let this terribly-too-brief review of a long quotation suffice. It’s embarrassing. But we’re out of time, and we’ve got to move on in our next lecture…” (141) Yes, it’s embarrassing. Because, in reality, the author has plenty of time to cover whatever he pleases. I would prefer he simply state that he is limiting his discussion of Jacob’s coverage of Isaiah to a brief summary, rather than overusing the thin convention that he is “out of time.” In other places, the author presents himself as indecisive (249), disagrees with himself (148), or “changes his mind,” rather than plainly declaring that there are several ways a particular passage may be interpreted.
Despite these difficulties, there are several reasons I can recommend The Vision of All. The first, in my estimation, is that the author does not shy away from addressing problems the Mormon reader may encounter while reading Isaiah in the Book of Mormon. While he does not always satisfactorily answer difficulties, he explains the nature of these problems as they arise, in a succinct and matter-of-fact way.
For example, in an early chapter, Spencer speaks of the conclusion of “the vast majority of Isaiah scholars…that the two halves of Isaiah were produced by at least two distinct prophets working in fundamentally different historical and geographical settings” (20). Spencer points out that if these scholars are right, “it spells serious trouble for the Book of Mormon” (21).
I am happy to see Spencer take the problem of Deutero-Isaiah seriously. Though the book of Isaiah contains some internal unity, there is much historical, theological, literary, and linguistic evidence that several authors contributed to the work. The theory does not rest simplistically, as some have argued, upon the scholars’ disbelief in the supernatural reality of prophecy. As Spencer explains, “major parts of the Book of Isaiah that appear in the Book of Mormon shouldn’t have been produced until well after Lehi took his family away from Jerusalem” (21). He suggests that we earnestly consider the work of non-Mormon Isaiah scholars: “We as Mormons have to find a complicated balance between the consensus among Isaiah scholars and the conclusions we’re bound to because of our belief in the Book of Mormon’s truth” (21).
Spencer follows with some ideas that I find less “striking” than he. He remarks that our recognition of multiple authorship of Isaiah need not “commit us to certain historical reconstructions of how the Book of Isaiah came into final form. We’re free to suspend judgment on that point” (23). In fact, the believer in strict Book of Mormon historicity *must* suspend judgment here! But at the very least, Spencer is willing to concede that “we’d do best to see that there really is a turn from the Assyrian era to the post-Babylonian era as we work through the Book of Isaiah” (23).
In this vein, Spencer tackles the borrowing that Lehi does of New Testament language when introducing John the Baptist (62-65), and Nephi’s use of the language of the post-exilic book of Malachi (116). Neither Book of Mormon prophet should have had access to such late wordings. As in the previous case, I’m not satisfied with the way the author answers these questions, but I’m impressed with his willingness to bring them up, and I believe that his discussion can be a jumping-off point for students to consider these issues and come to their own conclusions.
Latter-day Saint authors and authorities have made several idiosyncratic interpretations of Isaiah passages which do not accord with the best scholarship or with Isaiah’s intent. Spencer does his best to address these when they occur. For instance, the linking of Isaiah 14 with Satan is problematic (67-68). There is disagreement between the Book of Mormon Isaiah usage of the rod of Jesse and its treatment in the Doctrine and Covenants (213). Jacob’s language can be read as anti-semitic (132). A passage which has been identified as Messianic is clearly not so intended when read in context (209-210). In fact, Spencer provides an entire lecture devoted to the question of Messianic texts (203-214). I found this chapter illuminating and instructive. Here, Spencer finally puts his colloquial language to good use as he paraphrases a difficult passage:
“Isaiah’s message,” Spencer explains. “You can see immediately why it makes little sense in context to understand it as a reference to Jesus. How would the birth of Jesus, seven and a half centuries away, serve as a sign to Ahaz regarding the imminent demise of his enemies?” Spencer strikes an important balance as he walks the reader through this prophecy: “Hopefully you can see why scholars aren’t terribly convinced that there’s much of anything messianic going on in Isaiah 7.”
Yet, Spencer acknowledges that it is possible that Nephi saw something messianic here. “One can certainly claim that the Christian is free to find here a trace—a type or shadow—of Jesus Christ…but the most honest way of doing this is to make that claim while at the same time recognizing how those without belief in Christ responsibly and legitimately read the text in another way” (210). Spencer then compares this prophecy with others more clearly Messianic.
The overarching goal of this “lecture series” is to present Spencer’s synthesis of the Book of Mormon’s Isaiah. On the whole, he is successful in portraying the grander themes of a remnant of Israel being shaped by war and tribulation into a covenant people. Spencer engages Isaiah closely to show how the nuances of the text connect into the general themes. He unpacks Nephi’s practice of “likening” more than any author I have read.
In my own study of the Book of Mormon Isaiah, I have been delighted by the similarity of Nephi’s “likening” to the ancient Jewish convention of “pesher.” Pesher is an interpretive commentary upon the Hebrew scriptures, commonly found in the Dead Sea Scrolls. Rather than an interpretation of the original Bible passage, pesher explains what the passage means in the day and age of the commentator, particularly for his own community. For example, the Habukkuk Pesher (1QpHab) quotes verses from the biblical book of Habukkuk which are strongly analogous to the Masoretic text. Then, introduced by the word “pesher,” a commentary begins, with the author suggesting the relevance of Habakkuk to his own time. Nephi uses Isaiah in a remarkably similar manner.
Spencer demonstrates many instances where Nephi lifts the prophecies of Isaiah out of that prophet’s time and “likens” them to his own people—a remnant of Israel. In many cases he also brings the prophecies forward to the latter day:
>blockquote>Nephi’s interested in what Isaiah has to say, but he’s interested because he sees there a basic pattern for God’s working with Israel and the Gentiles quite generally. And he wants to see if he can’t align Isaiah’s text with that much, much larger history—the history he saw in his own visionary experiences outside Jerusalem (79).
Spencer’s apologetics are sometimes subtle and persuasive, and sometimes more clunky. For example, he does some preliminary work on the possible meaning of variants in the Book of Mormon Isaiah text. In one place, he portrays Nephi as seeing Isaiah’s writings “as a kind of figure for a much larger pattern…And so he’s begun, under inspiration, to tamper with Isaiah’s writings, clearly in an attempt to get his readers to see what it would mean to read Isaiah as speaking to all of scattered Israel” (107-108).
In another place, Spencer is less adept, as he explains the more fragmentary and halting rendition of Isaiah 6 in the Book of Mormon: “Woe me! For I am undone! Because I, a man of unclean lips—and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips—for mine eyes have seen the King, the Lord of Hosts!” (2 ). Spencer defends the variant thus: “Isaiah’s at a complete loss, tripping over his words as he announces what he takes to be his inevitable swift demise” (174). Note that Spencer uses the original Book of Mormon text here. In fact, all of his Book of Mormon quotes come from the findings of Royal Skousen in The Earliest Text, published by Yale University Press–though he uses his own punctuation (See p. 51).
Building upon Skousen’s work, Spencer whets the appetite for those who may wish to explore the intriguing area of Book of Mormon variants. Also of interest to those who accept the Book of Mormon as literally true is the distinction Spencer makes between Lehi’s, Jacob’s, and Nephi’s applications of Isaiah’s words (66-69, 127-129). In doing so, he personalizes these prophets, presenting them as real people with unique perspectives.
Though he concentrates on a comprehensive view of Isaiah in Nephi’s record, Spencer adds some noteworthy details to spark the reader’s attention along the way. My favorite tidbit is his exegesis of Isaiah’s vision of God, mentioned above. After encountering the Lord, Isaiah laments that he, a man of “unclean lips,” has seen the Divine Being. Spencer provides an original interpretation of this passage, noting that the Hebrew word for “lips” can also be translated “tongue,” the two words referring to language. “What if we read Isaiah as attributing his fear before the appearance of the Lord in major part to his inability to speak the divine language?” Spencer asks.
I must be honest: I am disturbed by many parts of this book. Beside my problems with its presentation, I see oversimplification, equivocation, lack of clarity in several key places…and three typographical errors. (Yikes!) However, Joseph M. Spencer does accomplish his goal of providing a firm and forthright structure upon which to read the Book of Mormon’s Isaiah passages. Within the pages of The Vision of All can be found both brilliant insight and moments of illumination, both of which make it a memorable read.
Before reviewing how well he succeeds, I’ll need to confess my distaste of the use of an overly colloquial approach to a scholarly subject. In my opinion, Spencer begins the book in a desperately chatty tone, though he calms down in later chapters. My advice to writers: don’t ever, ever begin a sentence with the idiomatic “so.” Examples of this in Spencer’s first ten pages: “So let’s get down to business…So it seems that what the book means to accomplish…So when the angel mentions the Jewish prophets…So why do they misunderstand the nature of the book?…So the point of the angel’s words…So this, according to the angel…So, now we have the basic outline…” Perhaps equally as annoying is starting sentences with “Okay,” or “Alright,” as in “Okay, now let’s look at a little more of the text…Okay, let’s gather up the details…Alright, we’ve nailed down two major features,” or even putting them both together: “Okay so here’s what we’ve got in hand…Alright so what is this book?” To further his conversational tone, Spencer uses affectations that read awkwardly: “That’s reason to rejoice, no?…All this couldn’t be much clearer, no?” The author’s conversational style does not give the subject the gravitas that it seems to demand.
While I’m complaining, let me just note that Spencer’s continual refrain “we are running out of time” is extremely distracting. Perhaps this was meant to give the feel of a taped lecture series. But it comes across as an excuse for not developing ideas sufficiently. Spencer ends literally every chapter with: “Alright. We’re rapidly running out of time…Ack. We’re well beyond out of time for today’s discussion…Yikes, we’re quickly running out of time…Well, we’ve gone over time again!…we’re getting near the end of our time today…I don’t want to be caught in the middle of things and end up keeping you over time again, likely far longer than usual!…I’ve got an idea. And I only hope we can do it in the time we’ve got left.” He often gives time constraints as a reason why he is unable to finish a train of thought. This leaves the book feeling segmented and erratic.
In Lecture XII, Spencer laments, “Yikes. Somehow, we’ve got to let this terribly-too-brief review of a long quotation suffice. It’s embarrassing. But we’re out of time, and we’ve got to move on in our next lecture…” (141) Yes, it’s embarrassing. Because, in reality, the author has plenty of time to cover whatever he pleases. I would prefer he simply state that he is limiting his discussion of Jacob’s coverage of Isaiah to a brief summary, rather than overusing the thin convention that he is “out of time.” In other places, the author presents himself as indecisive (249), disagrees with himself (148), or “changes his mind,” rather than plainly declaring that there are several ways a particular passage may be interpreted.
Despite these difficulties, there are several reasons I can recommend The Vision of All. The first, in my estimation, is that the author does not shy away from addressing problems the Mormon reader may encounter while reading Isaiah in the Book of Mormon. While he does not always satisfactorily answer difficulties, he explains the nature of these problems as they arise, in a succinct and matter-of-fact way.
For example, in an early chapter, Spencer speaks of the conclusion of “the vast majority of Isaiah scholars…that the two halves of Isaiah were produced by at least two distinct prophets working in fundamentally different historical and geographical settings” (20). Spencer points out that if these scholars are right, “it spells serious trouble for the Book of Mormon” (21).
I am happy to see Spencer take the problem of Deutero-Isaiah seriously. Though the book of Isaiah contains some internal unity, there is much historical, theological, literary, and linguistic evidence that several authors contributed to the work. The theory does not rest simplistically, as some have argued, upon the scholars’ disbelief in the supernatural reality of prophecy. As Spencer explains, “major parts of the Book of Isaiah that appear in the Book of Mormon shouldn’t have been produced until well after Lehi took his family away from Jerusalem” (21). He suggests that we earnestly consider the work of non-Mormon Isaiah scholars: “We as Mormons have to find a complicated balance between the consensus among Isaiah scholars and the conclusions we’re bound to because of our belief in the Book of Mormon’s truth” (21).
Spencer follows with some ideas that I find less “striking” than he. He remarks that our recognition of multiple authorship of Isaiah need not “commit us to certain historical reconstructions of how the Book of Isaiah came into final form. We’re free to suspend judgment on that point” (23). In fact, the believer in strict Book of Mormon historicity *must* suspend judgment here! But at the very least, Spencer is willing to concede that “we’d do best to see that there really is a turn from the Assyrian era to the post-Babylonian era as we work through the Book of Isaiah” (23).
In this vein, Spencer tackles the borrowing that Lehi does of New Testament language when introducing John the Baptist (62-65), and Nephi’s use of the language of the post-exilic book of Malachi (116). Neither Book of Mormon prophet should have had access to such late wordings. As in the previous case, I’m not satisfied with the way the author answers these questions, but I’m impressed with his willingness to bring them up, and I believe that his discussion can be a jumping-off point for students to consider these issues and come to their own conclusions.
Latter-day Saint authors and authorities have made several idiosyncratic interpretations of Isaiah passages which do not accord with the best scholarship or with Isaiah’s intent. Spencer does his best to address these when they occur. For instance, the linking of Isaiah 14 with Satan is problematic (67-68). There is disagreement between the Book of Mormon Isaiah usage of the rod of Jesse and its treatment in the Doctrine and Covenants (213). Jacob’s language can be read as anti-semitic (132). A passage which has been identified as Messianic is clearly not so intended when read in context (209-210). In fact, Spencer provides an entire lecture devoted to the question of Messianic texts (203-214). I found this chapter illuminating and instructive. Here, Spencer finally puts his colloquial language to good use as he paraphrases a difficult passage:
Look, Ahaz, God himself will give you a sign. A young woman here in the city will get pregnant soon and then give birth, naming her child “God is with us!” as a gesture of the trust you lack. And then before that kid’s old enough to know the difference between right and wrong, the Syrian and Ephraimite kings you think are so threatening will both be dead! (209)
“Isaiah’s message,” Spencer explains. “You can see immediately why it makes little sense in context to understand it as a reference to Jesus. How would the birth of Jesus, seven and a half centuries away, serve as a sign to Ahaz regarding the imminent demise of his enemies?” Spencer strikes an important balance as he walks the reader through this prophecy: “Hopefully you can see why scholars aren’t terribly convinced that there’s much of anything messianic going on in Isaiah 7.”
Yet, Spencer acknowledges that it is possible that Nephi saw something messianic here. “One can certainly claim that the Christian is free to find here a trace—a type or shadow—of Jesus Christ…but the most honest way of doing this is to make that claim while at the same time recognizing how those without belief in Christ responsibly and legitimately read the text in another way” (210). Spencer then compares this prophecy with others more clearly Messianic.
The overarching goal of this “lecture series” is to present Spencer’s synthesis of the Book of Mormon’s Isaiah. On the whole, he is successful in portraying the grander themes of a remnant of Israel being shaped by war and tribulation into a covenant people. Spencer engages Isaiah closely to show how the nuances of the text connect into the general themes. He unpacks Nephi’s practice of “likening” more than any author I have read.
In my own study of the Book of Mormon Isaiah, I have been delighted by the similarity of Nephi’s “likening” to the ancient Jewish convention of “pesher.” Pesher is an interpretive commentary upon the Hebrew scriptures, commonly found in the Dead Sea Scrolls. Rather than an interpretation of the original Bible passage, pesher explains what the passage means in the day and age of the commentator, particularly for his own community. For example, the Habukkuk Pesher (1QpHab) quotes verses from the biblical book of Habukkuk which are strongly analogous to the Masoretic text. Then, introduced by the word “pesher,” a commentary begins, with the author suggesting the relevance of Habakkuk to his own time. Nephi uses Isaiah in a remarkably similar manner.
Spencer demonstrates many instances where Nephi lifts the prophecies of Isaiah out of that prophet’s time and “likens” them to his own people—a remnant of Israel. In many cases he also brings the prophecies forward to the latter day:
>blockquote>Nephi’s interested in what Isaiah has to say, but he’s interested because he sees there a basic pattern for God’s working with Israel and the Gentiles quite generally. And he wants to see if he can’t align Isaiah’s text with that much, much larger history—the history he saw in his own visionary experiences outside Jerusalem (79).
Spencer’s apologetics are sometimes subtle and persuasive, and sometimes more clunky. For example, he does some preliminary work on the possible meaning of variants in the Book of Mormon Isaiah text. In one place, he portrays Nephi as seeing Isaiah’s writings “as a kind of figure for a much larger pattern…And so he’s begun, under inspiration, to tamper with Isaiah’s writings, clearly in an attempt to get his readers to see what it would mean to read Isaiah as speaking to all of scattered Israel” (107-108).
In another place, Spencer is less adept, as he explains the more fragmentary and halting rendition of Isaiah 6 in the Book of Mormon: “Woe me! For I am undone! Because I, a man of unclean lips—and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips—for mine eyes have seen the King, the Lord of Hosts!” (2 ). Spencer defends the variant thus: “Isaiah’s at a complete loss, tripping over his words as he announces what he takes to be his inevitable swift demise” (174). Note that Spencer uses the original Book of Mormon text here. In fact, all of his Book of Mormon quotes come from the findings of Royal Skousen in The Earliest Text, published by Yale University Press–though he uses his own punctuation (See p. 51).
Building upon Skousen’s work, Spencer whets the appetite for those who may wish to explore the intriguing area of Book of Mormon variants. Also of interest to those who accept the Book of Mormon as literally true is the distinction Spencer makes between Lehi’s, Jacob’s, and Nephi’s applications of Isaiah’s words (66-69, 127-129). In doing so, he personalizes these prophets, presenting them as real people with unique perspectives.
Though he concentrates on a comprehensive view of Isaiah in Nephi’s record, Spencer adds some noteworthy details to spark the reader’s attention along the way. My favorite tidbit is his exegesis of Isaiah’s vision of God, mentioned above. After encountering the Lord, Isaiah laments that he, a man of “unclean lips,” has seen the Divine Being. Spencer provides an original interpretation of this passage, noting that the Hebrew word for “lips” can also be translated “tongue,” the two words referring to language. “What if we read Isaiah as attributing his fear before the appearance of the Lord in major part to his inability to speak the divine language?” Spencer asks.
He’s seen God, but he lacks the ability to shout forth articulate anthems of praise like the seraphs arranged about God’s throne. A speaker only of human languages, of what the Apostle Paul calls “the tongues of men” as opposed to “the tongue of angels”, Isaiah’s alarmed at having come into the presence of the divine council (175).
I must be honest: I am disturbed by many parts of this book. Beside my problems with its presentation, I see oversimplification, equivocation, lack of clarity in several key places…and three typographical errors. (Yikes!) However, Joseph M. Spencer does accomplish his goal of providing a firm and forthright structure upon which to read the Book of Mormon’s Isaiah passages. Within the pages of The Vision of All can be found both brilliant insight and moments of illumination, both of which make it a memorable read.
September 13, 2016
Incredibly insightful. Nobody knows the "Isaiah chapter" in the Book of Mormon better than Joseph Spencer.
March 29, 2020
Phenomenal. Completely changed my perspective on Nephi's record and how I study the Book of Mormon. Basically Nephi was a genius and was very meticulous in how he structured his record and what he wanted his people and us to get out of it. And it all centers around Isaiah. He tells us so throughout his record, but before now I had never really paid much attention to it. Joe Spencer makes this material very reader-friendly! He's a fantastic scholar you need to pay attention to, as well as a great friend. Highly recommend!
March 4, 2024
No one has thought more carefully about the relationship between Isaiah and Nephi, period. This volume represents Spencer’s efforts to make that work accessible to a non-specialist audience, and to do so he chooses a form that emphasizes moving through the material with relative speed while maintaining plenty of callbacks and reminders to review what was previously covered. In terms of developing a working, synthetic approach to Isaiah and Nephi accessible to the non specialist, the lecture format works well in my opinion.
I’m writing this review after my second time through the volume (because I can’t believe I skipped it back in 2016). I have returned to this book multiple times in the intervening years to review a specific topic or section; the re-read was just as stimulating and rewarding as my initial read 8 years ago.
Spencer’s serious engagement with Isaiah in the academy runs under the surface here, providing a broad, supportive base from which to work. He’s not worried so much about which scholar is ultimately “right”; rather, he uses the currents and even the existence of these debates to frame Isaiah and Nephi as one of many possible approaches to the broader subject of covenantal theology, and it’s here that the real heart of Spencer’s project starts to emerge.
Highly, highly, overwhelmingly recommended to anyone working on or through Isaiah and Nephi in any context.
I’m writing this review after my second time through the volume (because I can’t believe I skipped it back in 2016). I have returned to this book multiple times in the intervening years to review a specific topic or section; the re-read was just as stimulating and rewarding as my initial read 8 years ago.
Spencer’s serious engagement with Isaiah in the academy runs under the surface here, providing a broad, supportive base from which to work. He’s not worried so much about which scholar is ultimately “right”; rather, he uses the currents and even the existence of these debates to frame Isaiah and Nephi as one of many possible approaches to the broader subject of covenantal theology, and it’s here that the real heart of Spencer’s project starts to emerge.
Highly, highly, overwhelmingly recommended to anyone working on or through Isaiah and Nephi in any context.
December 15, 2017
I'm always grateful for an honest attempt to explain Isaiah to us lay members of the Church. When reading the Book of Mormon, it is made clear that understanding Isaiah is absolutely vital. But the moment we hit 2 Nephi's extensive quoting of Isaiah, we give up. We're caught in this endless conundrum, always feeling a little guilty for not caring enough to do a deep dive. Spencer explains the problem well at the beginning of his lecture series:
Well, we can’t [ignore Isaiah]. Instead, we tend to develop one of two problematic relationships to Isaiah. Either we feel a kind of guilt about the fact that we don’t give much attention to Isaiah’s writings, or we feel a kind of pride about how hard we work at understanding Isaiah. Nephi says that “the words of Isaiah . . . are plain unto all they that are filled with the spirit of prophecy” (2 Ne. 25:4), so we either fret and worry that we’re not spiritual enough to have that gift, or we pat ourselves on the back since the work we’ve put into understanding Isaiah seems to mean that we’re worthy of that gift. Let’s call this the Isaiah complex, an illness peculiar to those who cherish the Book of Mormon. My aim, over the twenty-five lectures you’ve volunteered to sit through, is to start the process of healing that illness.
I have made my attempts at tackling Isaiah, but I just never felt like I had enough resources to do it justice. I relied on a few commentaries (I tried to use "Isaiah for Airheads" by John Bytheway, but I gave up on it. It doesn't do it justice!). Perhaps I'm just to lazy to think independently for myself! But Spencer sympathizes, in passing calling out all the Sunday School teachers who have ever swept the Isaiah chapters under the rug:
Let’s get started, but let me first explain what we won’t be doing with Isaiah 2–14 or 2 Nephi 12–24. We won’t be skipping over these chapters in order to focus all of our attention just on 2 Nephi 25:1–8 while leaving most of the hard work for you to do on your own. Have you ever noticed how often people do that? If you’re familiar with Book of Mormon commentary, you’ll know that this is the usual move: to cover thirteen chapters of Isaiah in just a couple of pages, and then to follow that with a longer, closer reading of Nephi’s so-called “keys” to reading Isaiah. Do you remember that passage at the opening of 2 Nephi 25? It’s all the Sunday School lesson on the Isaiah chapters focuses on every four years also. There Nephi says a bit about knowing geography and history, about having the spirit of prophecy, about living in the last days, and so on—and all these things are supposed to help make sense of Isaiah. So teachers and commentators tend to give their attention just to what Nephi says there, recommending these “keys” as the way in to Isaiah. Now, I don’t know about you, but that always rubs me the wrong way. If someone can’t provide me with some solid commentary on Isaiah’s actual writings, why should I trust his or her commentary on Nephi’s keys for understanding Isaiah?
I have had one other commentary on Isaiah that I found very engaging by Denver Snuffer, "Nephi's Isaiah." He interprets Nephi's extensive quoting of Isaiah slightly differently than Spencer. He takes a key verse of Nephi's for interpreting the included quotes:
“And behold, the things which this apostle of the Lamb [John the Revelator] shall write are many things which thou hast seen; and behold, the remainder shalt thou see. But the things which thou shalt see hereafter thou shalt not write; for the Lord God hath ordained the apostle of the Lamb of God that he should write them. And also others who have been, to them hath he shown all things, and they have written them; and they are sealed up to come forth in their purity, according to the truth which is in the Lamb, in the own due time of the Lord, unto the house of Israel.”
Like other prophets before and after him, Nephi was able to see in one grand vision the history of the entire world. But he was commanded not to write of it in its entirely; that was reserved for John the Revelator. To get around this strict command, Nephi chooses to quote someone else who had already written on the subject: Isaiah. Interesting interpretation, and one that asks us to take Isaiah seriously.
Spencer argues that Nephi's quoting of Isaiah has a different purpose, and one that fits into the overall purpose of the Book of Mormon as a whole: to restore Christianity to its foundations in the Abrahamic convenant. Isaiah is one of the best commentaries on the Abrahamic covenant, and Spencer explains how the Bible in the hands of the Gentiles removed that foundational element.
The book is arranged in a series of lectures that appear to be taken from an actual lecture series in a class. As such, they are conversational in nature, but very well-done. I appreciate the ease with which they can be understood. It is good to have a copy of your scriptures by so you can follow along in the Book of Mormon.
One of the best things I found that Spencer does is help give the reader some structure around the Isaiah chapters, as well as First and Second Nephi. Some of the profound things I learned were:
* 2 Nephi 6-30 are "the more sacred things" that Nephi was commanded to write. 1 Nephi and the introduction to 2 Nephi was context that Nephi wasn't commanded to write by the Lord, but supporting context that he thought would help his descendants understand Isaiah.
* 1 Nephi is divided into two parts: Chapters 1-9 are a summary of the lost Book of Lehi, and Chapters 10-22 are an account of his own reign and ministry not found in the Book of Lehi.
* The two halves of 1 Nephi mirror each other: Chapter 1-5 deal with recovering the records. Chapters 6-9 deal with developing a new prophetic tradition in Lehi's vision. Chapters 10-15 are Nephi recounting his version of his father's dream (mirroring Chapters 6-9), and Chapters 16-22 are Nephi quoting Isaiah and explaining it to his brothers (mirroring the recovery of the record).
* The original chapter divisions in the Book of Mormon that were done away with in favor of shorter Bible-like chapters in the 1870s make some of this structure a lot more clear. I've GOT to get a copy of Grant Hardy's Reader's Edition of the Book of Mormon.
This eBook is just the first half of Spencer's Vision of All, and I look forward to reading the second half!
Well, we can’t [ignore Isaiah]. Instead, we tend to develop one of two problematic relationships to Isaiah. Either we feel a kind of guilt about the fact that we don’t give much attention to Isaiah’s writings, or we feel a kind of pride about how hard we work at understanding Isaiah. Nephi says that “the words of Isaiah . . . are plain unto all they that are filled with the spirit of prophecy” (2 Ne. 25:4), so we either fret and worry that we’re not spiritual enough to have that gift, or we pat ourselves on the back since the work we’ve put into understanding Isaiah seems to mean that we’re worthy of that gift. Let’s call this the Isaiah complex, an illness peculiar to those who cherish the Book of Mormon. My aim, over the twenty-five lectures you’ve volunteered to sit through, is to start the process of healing that illness.
I have made my attempts at tackling Isaiah, but I just never felt like I had enough resources to do it justice. I relied on a few commentaries (I tried to use "Isaiah for Airheads" by John Bytheway, but I gave up on it. It doesn't do it justice!). Perhaps I'm just to lazy to think independently for myself! But Spencer sympathizes, in passing calling out all the Sunday School teachers who have ever swept the Isaiah chapters under the rug:
Let’s get started, but let me first explain what we won’t be doing with Isaiah 2–14 or 2 Nephi 12–24. We won’t be skipping over these chapters in order to focus all of our attention just on 2 Nephi 25:1–8 while leaving most of the hard work for you to do on your own. Have you ever noticed how often people do that? If you’re familiar with Book of Mormon commentary, you’ll know that this is the usual move: to cover thirteen chapters of Isaiah in just a couple of pages, and then to follow that with a longer, closer reading of Nephi’s so-called “keys” to reading Isaiah. Do you remember that passage at the opening of 2 Nephi 25? It’s all the Sunday School lesson on the Isaiah chapters focuses on every four years also. There Nephi says a bit about knowing geography and history, about having the spirit of prophecy, about living in the last days, and so on—and all these things are supposed to help make sense of Isaiah. So teachers and commentators tend to give their attention just to what Nephi says there, recommending these “keys” as the way in to Isaiah. Now, I don’t know about you, but that always rubs me the wrong way. If someone can’t provide me with some solid commentary on Isaiah’s actual writings, why should I trust his or her commentary on Nephi’s keys for understanding Isaiah?
I have had one other commentary on Isaiah that I found very engaging by Denver Snuffer, "Nephi's Isaiah." He interprets Nephi's extensive quoting of Isaiah slightly differently than Spencer. He takes a key verse of Nephi's for interpreting the included quotes:
“And behold, the things which this apostle of the Lamb [John the Revelator] shall write are many things which thou hast seen; and behold, the remainder shalt thou see. But the things which thou shalt see hereafter thou shalt not write; for the Lord God hath ordained the apostle of the Lamb of God that he should write them. And also others who have been, to them hath he shown all things, and they have written them; and they are sealed up to come forth in their purity, according to the truth which is in the Lamb, in the own due time of the Lord, unto the house of Israel.”
Like other prophets before and after him, Nephi was able to see in one grand vision the history of the entire world. But he was commanded not to write of it in its entirely; that was reserved for John the Revelator. To get around this strict command, Nephi chooses to quote someone else who had already written on the subject: Isaiah. Interesting interpretation, and one that asks us to take Isaiah seriously.
Spencer argues that Nephi's quoting of Isaiah has a different purpose, and one that fits into the overall purpose of the Book of Mormon as a whole: to restore Christianity to its foundations in the Abrahamic convenant. Isaiah is one of the best commentaries on the Abrahamic covenant, and Spencer explains how the Bible in the hands of the Gentiles removed that foundational element.
The book is arranged in a series of lectures that appear to be taken from an actual lecture series in a class. As such, they are conversational in nature, but very well-done. I appreciate the ease with which they can be understood. It is good to have a copy of your scriptures by so you can follow along in the Book of Mormon.
One of the best things I found that Spencer does is help give the reader some structure around the Isaiah chapters, as well as First and Second Nephi. Some of the profound things I learned were:
* 2 Nephi 6-30 are "the more sacred things" that Nephi was commanded to write. 1 Nephi and the introduction to 2 Nephi was context that Nephi wasn't commanded to write by the Lord, but supporting context that he thought would help his descendants understand Isaiah.
* 1 Nephi is divided into two parts: Chapters 1-9 are a summary of the lost Book of Lehi, and Chapters 10-22 are an account of his own reign and ministry not found in the Book of Lehi.
* The two halves of 1 Nephi mirror each other: Chapter 1-5 deal with recovering the records. Chapters 6-9 deal with developing a new prophetic tradition in Lehi's vision. Chapters 10-15 are Nephi recounting his version of his father's dream (mirroring Chapters 6-9), and Chapters 16-22 are Nephi quoting Isaiah and explaining it to his brothers (mirroring the recovery of the record).
* The original chapter divisions in the Book of Mormon that were done away with in favor of shorter Bible-like chapters in the 1870s make some of this structure a lot more clear. I've GOT to get a copy of Grant Hardy's Reader's Edition of the Book of Mormon.
This eBook is just the first half of Spencer's Vision of All, and I look forward to reading the second half!
September 5, 2024
If you ever wanted a better way to approach the Isaiah chapters in 1 and 2 Nephi than "skip them," which was what I was first taught as a teenager, then this book is the Mormon Studies equivalent of winning the lottery.
Joe is a friend of mine, and all of his genius and thoughtfulness are on full display as he systematically takes us through the writings of Nephi on Isaiah and helps us understand what he thinks Nephi's project is, and why Nephi uses Isaiah so heavily. My one complaint was the overly-colloquial attitude throughout the book. Just about every chapter starts with "argh, we covered so little last time" and ends with "argh, we covered so little in this chapter!" It doesn't need to be repeated so often, but I hope that one day Joe will record this as an audiobook. It is, after all, a series of lectures, and I think that format serves this topic very well.
Joe is a friend of mine, and all of his genius and thoughtfulness are on full display as he systematically takes us through the writings of Nephi on Isaiah and helps us understand what he thinks Nephi's project is, and why Nephi uses Isaiah so heavily. My one complaint was the overly-colloquial attitude throughout the book. Just about every chapter starts with "argh, we covered so little last time" and ends with "argh, we covered so little in this chapter!" It doesn't need to be repeated so often, but I hope that one day Joe will record this as an audiobook. It is, after all, a series of lectures, and I think that format serves this topic very well.
December 24, 2021
"The Vision of All" covers the centrality and significance of Isaiah in First Nephi and Second Nephi of the Book of Mormon. It does so in a conversational, lecture-style kind of way - a style I'm not a big fan of but which likely makes the book accessible to a wider audience than might otherwise have been the case.
The book was most illuminating in showing how the structure of Nephi's record (1 and 2 Nephi) is completely centered around Isaiah. Spencer shows that 2 Nephi 6-30 (which includes Isaiah 49:22-52:1-2 and the very long block of Isaiah 2-14) is the core of Nephi's message and that these chapters are the "more sacred" things Nephi was commanded by God to write. He shows us this by paying careful attention to the statements of Nephi in the text: in 1 Nephi 19:3-5, Nephi tells us that he was commanded to write "the more sacred things" or "the ministry and the prophecies, the more plain and precious parts of them" and that he will write these after giving an account of making the small plates. In 2 Nephi 5, Nephi gives that account, and then proceeds to draw on Isaiah, first through his brother Jacob and then through his own elucidation. 2 Nephi 30 then has Nephi "make an end of [his] sayings." Everything before 2 Nephi 6 and after 2 Nephi 30 is therefore seen as either leading up to, and introducing us to, the Isaiah chapters, or adding to Nephi's record of the "more sacred things."
Spencer shows how 1 Nephi introduces us to 2 Nephi 6-30 by giving an account of how the Nephites received the Biblical prophetic tradition (through the brass plates) and how they started their own prophetic tradition (through the visions of Lehi and Nephi). He makes clear that in both instances these are introductory to Nephi's coverage and treatment of Isaiah - first by showing how Nephi had Isaiah in the first place, and secondly by showing that Nephi interprets - or likens and applies - Isaiah on the basis of his own visions of the future. "Visions of All" is particularly noteworthy for showing just how carefully Nephi reads Isaiah, paying attention to small textual details to then liken - and in some cases expand - those writings to a context not originally envisioned by Isaiah. This prophetic tradition of building on, likening, and expanding prior writings puts Nephi squarely within a prophetic tradition utilized by both New Testament writers and Joseph Smith.
Given the style of writing, and the intent to reach a broad audience, "Vision of All" was not as academic as I'd wish it would have been. Indeed, the book seems to draw slightly more on conservative Biblical scholarship, all while drawing on and juxtaposing liberal and conservative authors as important to read. This is understandable, especially given the problem that Deutero-Isaiah is to the historicity of the Book of Mormon. Spencer does cover this issue, but doesn't tackle it in depth and instead proposes that, given the Book of Mormon, Deutero-Isaiah may have been contemporary to Lehi, or that perhaps there was only one Isaiah after all. He does interestingly note the absence of Third Isaiah from the Book of Mormon (there are allusions to Third Isaiah, which one could ascribe to Joseph Smith's translation, but Third Isaiah is not quoted at length or integrated into the sermons and prophecies of the Book of Mormon the way First and Second Isaiah are).
But Spencer's approach also draws on an illuminating and close reading of 2 Nephi 27, which quotes and significantly expands Isaiah 29. Here Nephi tells us that "the learned" need to not focus on historical evidence (seeing the sealed book or other more concrete evidences) but should instead focus on the text and meaning of the Book of Mormon. Applying these verses to believing readers of the Book of Mormon, and not just to critics, Spencer argues that focusing on "the book" or material evidence for the Book of Mormon rather than "the words of the book" is missing the point - and that Nephi here is telling us that basically we're supposed to be reading a book that speaks like a voice from the dead, cut off from material evidence, so that we focus on the message with faith rather than on proofs and apologetics. And that's exactly what Spencer himself has done here - read Isaiah through its starting point in the Book of Mormon, and then secondarily used academic scholarship to inform and deepen our understanding of the text.
The book was most illuminating in showing how the structure of Nephi's record (1 and 2 Nephi) is completely centered around Isaiah. Spencer shows that 2 Nephi 6-30 (which includes Isaiah 49:22-52:1-2 and the very long block of Isaiah 2-14) is the core of Nephi's message and that these chapters are the "more sacred" things Nephi was commanded by God to write. He shows us this by paying careful attention to the statements of Nephi in the text: in 1 Nephi 19:3-5, Nephi tells us that he was commanded to write "the more sacred things" or "the ministry and the prophecies, the more plain and precious parts of them" and that he will write these after giving an account of making the small plates. In 2 Nephi 5, Nephi gives that account, and then proceeds to draw on Isaiah, first through his brother Jacob and then through his own elucidation. 2 Nephi 30 then has Nephi "make an end of [his] sayings." Everything before 2 Nephi 6 and after 2 Nephi 30 is therefore seen as either leading up to, and introducing us to, the Isaiah chapters, or adding to Nephi's record of the "more sacred things."
Spencer shows how 1 Nephi introduces us to 2 Nephi 6-30 by giving an account of how the Nephites received the Biblical prophetic tradition (through the brass plates) and how they started their own prophetic tradition (through the visions of Lehi and Nephi). He makes clear that in both instances these are introductory to Nephi's coverage and treatment of Isaiah - first by showing how Nephi had Isaiah in the first place, and secondly by showing that Nephi interprets - or likens and applies - Isaiah on the basis of his own visions of the future. "Visions of All" is particularly noteworthy for showing just how carefully Nephi reads Isaiah, paying attention to small textual details to then liken - and in some cases expand - those writings to a context not originally envisioned by Isaiah. This prophetic tradition of building on, likening, and expanding prior writings puts Nephi squarely within a prophetic tradition utilized by both New Testament writers and Joseph Smith.
Given the style of writing, and the intent to reach a broad audience, "Vision of All" was not as academic as I'd wish it would have been. Indeed, the book seems to draw slightly more on conservative Biblical scholarship, all while drawing on and juxtaposing liberal and conservative authors as important to read. This is understandable, especially given the problem that Deutero-Isaiah is to the historicity of the Book of Mormon. Spencer does cover this issue, but doesn't tackle it in depth and instead proposes that, given the Book of Mormon, Deutero-Isaiah may have been contemporary to Lehi, or that perhaps there was only one Isaiah after all. He does interestingly note the absence of Third Isaiah from the Book of Mormon (there are allusions to Third Isaiah, which one could ascribe to Joseph Smith's translation, but Third Isaiah is not quoted at length or integrated into the sermons and prophecies of the Book of Mormon the way First and Second Isaiah are).
But Spencer's approach also draws on an illuminating and close reading of 2 Nephi 27, which quotes and significantly expands Isaiah 29. Here Nephi tells us that "the learned" need to not focus on historical evidence (seeing the sealed book or other more concrete evidences) but should instead focus on the text and meaning of the Book of Mormon. Applying these verses to believing readers of the Book of Mormon, and not just to critics, Spencer argues that focusing on "the book" or material evidence for the Book of Mormon rather than "the words of the book" is missing the point - and that Nephi here is telling us that basically we're supposed to be reading a book that speaks like a voice from the dead, cut off from material evidence, so that we focus on the message with faith rather than on proofs and apologetics. And that's exactly what Spencer himself has done here - read Isaiah through its starting point in the Book of Mormon, and then secondarily used academic scholarship to inform and deepen our understanding of the text.
December 8, 2023
This is definitely not an easy or leisurely read. If you want to read this book, make sure you have your scriptures open next to you, and be prepared to take notes! I was gifted this book after presenting in the BYU Religious Education Symposium, and I’m glad I read it even though it was probably the toughest book for me to get through (as you can tell by how long it took me to read it).
While most LDS scholars and commentators try to teach us HOW to read Isaiah, Joseph M Spencer focuses completely on WHAT Isaiah has to say. Basically he studies Isaiah through an exegetical approach, giving readers the historical context needed to make any sense of Isaiah’s words, then he explores Nephi’s eisegetical approach, explaining how Nephi “likens” the ancient prophecies to his own people and to modern readers. The analysis is brilliant and fascinating—I am blown away by how much effort must have gone into researching and outlining and drafting this book! Joseph M. Spencer articulates his interpretations well and in a mostly-informal way that helped make the text feel less intimidating and more accessible to me.
Joseph M. Spencer makes the claim that the “Isaiah chapters”, though often ignored or skipped over in casual scripture reading, is the main spiritual essence of all of First and Second Nephi. 1 Nephi establishes patterns of prophetic tradition, the first few chapters of 2 Nephi serve as an introduction to Isaiah, and the last few chapters serve as a conclusion to it. The “more sacred” part that Nephi refers to IS the Isaiah chapters. So, Isaiah is a big deal, and we should all take some time to try to understand his words instead of skimming over them like I’d been doing my whole life.
Joseph M. Spencer does a good job summarizing and reviewing the information he explains, but even then, some chapters were hard for me to wrap my brain around. I did my best. Here are some things I learned:
1. To understand the history of Isaiah you MUST understand the history of the Jews, even Nephi says so in 2 Nephi 25:5: “There is none other people that understand the things which were spoken unto the Jews like unto them, save it be that they are taught after the manner of the things of the Jews.”
2. The Syro-Ephraimite Crisis
3. The main “messianic” prophecies in Isaiah may not actually be as messianic as we members of the church think.
4. The original chapter breaks in Nephi from the first version of the BoM make clear the story sequence of the Isaiah chapters (Isaiah 2-5 then 6-12 then 13-14): Israel goes wildly astray and ends up in seriously trouble, but… God uses that trouble to purify Israel and prepare them for full redemption for full redemption through… the eventual destruction of their enemies.
5. Isaiah 6, found in 2 Nephi 16. Think of the endowment session!
6. The main gist?? God sends prophets to warn His people before he does anything drastic with them
7. And, as Joseph M. Spencer beautifully writes on the second to last page of the book, “Nephi delights in Isaiah, who gives the rich patterns followed in every iteration of covenantal history.”
While most LDS scholars and commentators try to teach us HOW to read Isaiah, Joseph M Spencer focuses completely on WHAT Isaiah has to say. Basically he studies Isaiah through an exegetical approach, giving readers the historical context needed to make any sense of Isaiah’s words, then he explores Nephi’s eisegetical approach, explaining how Nephi “likens” the ancient prophecies to his own people and to modern readers. The analysis is brilliant and fascinating—I am blown away by how much effort must have gone into researching and outlining and drafting this book! Joseph M. Spencer articulates his interpretations well and in a mostly-informal way that helped make the text feel less intimidating and more accessible to me.
Joseph M. Spencer makes the claim that the “Isaiah chapters”, though often ignored or skipped over in casual scripture reading, is the main spiritual essence of all of First and Second Nephi. 1 Nephi establishes patterns of prophetic tradition, the first few chapters of 2 Nephi serve as an introduction to Isaiah, and the last few chapters serve as a conclusion to it. The “more sacred” part that Nephi refers to IS the Isaiah chapters. So, Isaiah is a big deal, and we should all take some time to try to understand his words instead of skimming over them like I’d been doing my whole life.
Joseph M. Spencer does a good job summarizing and reviewing the information he explains, but even then, some chapters were hard for me to wrap my brain around. I did my best. Here are some things I learned:
1. To understand the history of Isaiah you MUST understand the history of the Jews, even Nephi says so in 2 Nephi 25:5: “There is none other people that understand the things which were spoken unto the Jews like unto them, save it be that they are taught after the manner of the things of the Jews.”
2. The Syro-Ephraimite Crisis
3. The main “messianic” prophecies in Isaiah may not actually be as messianic as we members of the church think.
4. The original chapter breaks in Nephi from the first version of the BoM make clear the story sequence of the Isaiah chapters (Isaiah 2-5 then 6-12 then 13-14): Israel goes wildly astray and ends up in seriously trouble, but… God uses that trouble to purify Israel and prepare them for full redemption for full redemption through… the eventual destruction of their enemies.
5. Isaiah 6, found in 2 Nephi 16. Think of the endowment session!
6. The main gist?? God sends prophets to warn His people before he does anything drastic with them
7. And, as Joseph M. Spencer beautifully writes on the second to last page of the book, “Nephi delights in Isaiah, who gives the rich patterns followed in every iteration of covenantal history.”
January 17, 2019
I rated this according to the scholarship and presentation of these lectures on the Isaiah chapters in the Book of Mormon. Brent and I started reading this aloud together, but we realized pretty quickly that it was not that kind of a book! It was densely packed with comparing and contrasting, and other analyses of specific verses of scripture from two different books (the Bible and the Book of Mormon), and we couldn't process it very well as a read-aloud! We ended up looking for the summarizing portions and reading those, and we found some real gems of thought. Being kind of OCD, I went back on my own and read the entire book. I really appreciated how Spencer wasn't shy about critiquing the facile "Sunday School" interpretations we've heard, where certain verses are used as proof-texting and we never hear any other possible interpretation. Spencer does a wonderful job showing the historical context and interpretations coming from different schools of thought. I love the rabbinic tradition of creative interpretation, as well as the wrestlings of early Christian scholars. The modern Biblical and Book of Mormon scholarship can also be very enlightening. Spencer pulls much of that together and presents his own best understanding--sometimes explaining how that has evolved over time--so that the reader is forever cured of simplistic views on Scripture. This book will be a great resource for me to visit again and again.
May 8, 2020
I always wanted to have a better understanding of why there are so many passages of Isaiah in the Book of Mormon, especially 2 Nephi. This was a helpful book to me. It is more a transcription of the author's lectures than it is a written book, lightly edited. He often repeats the same phrases such as "we are running out of time today." At first those phrases kind of bothered me, but now I appreciate the fact that it seems kind of a stream of thought more than a well-organized book. Since Isaiah could be kind of intimidating, the format of the book is helpful, though I'm not sure his conclusions are perfect—but a window the way one diligent person can come to understanding of some difficult things. More than anything, it gave me some foundational thoughts that might assist in my own study of Isaiah in the Book of Mormon. So much better than the few commentaries that I've run into on these passages of scripture.
March 11, 2020
Best commentary on Isaiah in the book of Mormon out there
Although this book is good, his other book “An Other Testament” blew my mind many times more. He shows that Isaiah is much easier to understand than most think. Nephi uses themes from Isaiah 11, 29, and 49 the most, weaving them together to apply what Isaiah was prophesying about regarding the destruction and survival of Jerusalem to the latter days. I also liked how Joseph showed the deliberate and intricate structure of the first two books of Nephi
Although this book is good, his other book “An Other Testament” blew my mind many times more. He shows that Isaiah is much easier to understand than most think. Nephi uses themes from Isaiah 11, 29, and 49 the most, weaving them together to apply what Isaiah was prophesying about regarding the destruction and survival of Jerusalem to the latter days. I also liked how Joseph showed the deliberate and intricate structure of the first two books of Nephi
July 13, 2017
First half opens your mind to Nephi's deeper purposes and planning
New perspectives and understanding of Isaiah and God's purposes in a familiar format - perhaps slightly too familiar, but that's just my opinion. Definitely a great study companion. Two books as ebook for some reason, stops suddenly
New perspectives and understanding of Isaiah and God's purposes in a familiar format - perhaps slightly too familiar, but that's just my opinion. Definitely a great study companion. Two books as ebook for some reason, stops suddenly
March 21, 2021
This is a highly engaging read, a bit of an homage to High Nibley's Book of Mormon lectures. Some ideas are not explored as "running out of time". As such, the book is still 300 pages long. Spencer sticks to a few themes with a large focus on context. The focus on context shortchanges some spiritual offerings.
December 22, 2022
I'm sure the author is very smart, but I did not like this "lecture" style. There was a lot of rambling and I had to give up after making it halfway because I just wasn't getting much out of it for the time input.
September 11, 2017
I learned some amazing and inspiring things about Isaiah and Nephi's use of his words in the Book of Mormon. Wow!
November 10, 2018
This was fascinating. This book has fundamentally changed my understanding of Isaiah in the books of Nephi.
December 30, 2018
This is an amazing, well written, and profound book about Isaiah and its presence in The Book of Mormon.
October 14, 2019
While the information is interesting, I didn't much care for the lecture format.
March 23, 2020
The most insightful book on the book of Mormon’s excerpts of Isaiah that I have read. Turns a lot of my traditional readings on their head. And there’s so much that isn’t covered too!
August 1, 2025
A lot of food for thought. I will most likely read this again and dig deeper into what the author is saying. It has truly enhanced my study of the Book of Mormon, particularly the Isaiah chapters.
April 18, 2020
Excellent and thought provoking
I really enjoyed the work done by the author, it helped me see the deeper levels of how Nephi used Isaiah and how intricately it was done.
I really enjoyed the work done by the author, it helped me see the deeper levels of how Nephi used Isaiah and how intricately it was done.
October 13, 2022
Fabulous. Spencer is one the best, most creative minds I've ever encountered. I'm a huge fan of all of his work, and this one proved no exception. His insights never cease to impress and amaze!
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December 19, 2017Isaiah really gets dragged through the mud quite a bit in Mormon culture. In all our new goals to re-read the Book of Mormon, give it a week or two and you will hear things like "I hit the Isaiah chapters, and it's a doozy!" or "I had to skip those Isaiah chapters, or I would have given up!" Funny, considering Nephi considered this part of his record the "more sacred" part, and we try to flip through them as quickly as we can, consoling ourselves that even Nephi said they're hard to understand.
I've done it myself. That's party why I pulled out Spencer's "Vision of All" in the hopes that he would provide me with some sort of baseline with which I could approach Nephi's Isaiah. This second half deals directly with the largest chunk of Nephi's Isaiah quoting: 2 Nephi 6-30. Even if you skip most of the Isaiah chapters, you do get the idea that history in important from Nephi, and that there is more to the gospel than faith, repentance, baptism, and the gift of the Holy Ghost; they are part of a larger structure of sacred history and God's plan from the foundation of the world. This book gets really deep really fast, and includes things like:
* Nephi uses Isaiah's encounter with God as a model for every right encounter with God, and invites us to have a similar experience.
* Just like the Book of Mormon was written, sealed up, and hidden away for a latter-day audience, Isaiah used a similar pattern, sealing up his writings for a generation who would be prepared to understand.
* One hard saying of Isaiah's is his call to preach isn't to soften hearts, but to harden them, to expose those who aren't willing to listen to God's word so they can be condemned. This is all a part of God preparing a righteous remnant who will survive the last days.
* Isaiah's central purpose in his writings isn't prophesying of Christ, but rather outlining Israel's covenantal relationship with God. Surely Christ is a part of that, but we often lose Isaiah's whole narrative when we solely jump to the one's we've been trained to here as prophesying of Christ.
I really liked Spencer's proposal that Nephi's approach to Isaiah is how we should model our own scripture study. We should spend time getting to know the overarching narrative, avoiding "prooftexting" (reading individual verses with no idea of context, and making the verse say whatever we want it to say. Mormons tend to do it a lot because we don't like to invest a lot into learning the overall narrative), and only then looking at subtle nuances in wording and seeing the possibilities of what the scriptures are saying. Nephi calls this likening. He takes Isaiah's prophesies that were meant for a Jewish audience in 800-600 BC, and applies them to his own people. Nephi can do this, because he understands Isaiah and has also had his own apocalyptic vision. He knows the big picture, and can creatively use Isaiah to help tell his own prophetic story.
It seems to me that scripture reading should take a lot of right-brained thinking. We need to be more willing to engage with the scriptures that we have been if we truly wish to liken them to ourselves.
A great series of lectures! I hope they get more people excited about Isaiah.
Finally, Nephi goes beyond the prophetic tradition by inviting every one of his readers to experience the same sort of thing. All of Nephi’s readers are to become prophets, in a way, imitating the experiences of Lehi and Isaiah, paradigmatic prophets from both the Old- and the New-World traditions.
Our little digression of the past couple of minutes has been aimed just at making clear how much Nephi seems to have invested in Isaiah’s experience. He sees in it the model for every right encounter with the Lord.
In other words, Isaiah is a proto-Nephite prophet. He knows in advance that his people won’t receive his teachings, and so he writes for a “latter-day” audience, for a people still to come. He prophesies and he writes, but then he seals up his prophecies and his writings so that they can be read by a people finally ready to receive the message.
but God here sends out a prophet whose task is to make sure that doesn’t change. They’re to remain in their hardened state; God wishes that nothing be done to recover them. And that’s something that’s hard to feel terribly comfortable about, no? This isn’t the God we like to talk about in the twenty-first century. Yet this is the God of Isaiah, the God who hides his face from Israel to accomplish his own purpose. And what’s that purpose? We’ve already stated it a dozen times: the production of a remnant, sanctified and prepared to receive the Lord’s word.
What makes messianic prophecy messianic prophecy is the way it looks beyond these “everyday” messiahs, who were all over ancient Israel, to a messiah you couldn’t find in Israel’s midst. Messianic prophecy essentially looks at all the available messiahs and finds only reason to despair, but then it looks to a future in which some messiah of messiahs will show up and set things right. We do this sort of thing all the time ourselves, don’t we? You’re in college, taking class after class from boring professors. At some point, you begin to daydream about a class where the professor is genuinely interesting, genuinely engaging. You might find yourself working up a kind of description of this ideal professor, waiting for her or his arrival in the classroom. You’re looking for what you’re already experiencing—a professor—but one who finally gets things right. That’s something very like messianic prophecy. So to ask whether this or that biblical text is a messianic prophecy is most basically to ask whether it anticipates someone coming along eventually, occupying more or less an already-established institutional position, but finally doing so in a way that makes the institution work.
the Lord himself declares that the rod of Jesse emphatically isn’t Christ, but rather “a servant in the hands of Christ, who is partly a descendant of Jesse as well as of Ephraim, or of the house of Joseph, on whom there is laid much power”
The Jaredites, you’ll remember, are entirely eradicated. Moroni highlights this point several times, and he’s clear about the fact that he’s writing the Jaredite story as a kind of warning to the Gentiles of the last days. “Hey! Listen up! You’ve got no promise unless you join with the covenant people!”
Nephi hopes that his own people will get just one major message as they struggle their way through Isaiah’s writings, and that’s the idea that judgment comes only after prophetic warnings have first been given.
Ouch. Seriously? Nephi’s willing to hit his people with that one? “Look, Isaiah’s writings would be simple enough if you just had the spirit of prophecy!” We’ve got to be prophets to understand this? Then who’ll ever get to the bottom of Isaiah? Just a few people who happen to have received the spiritual gift of prophecy? Sometimes we read this verse and we say that Nephi’s encouraging those who wish to understand Isaiah to pray for inspiration, but that’s a pretty drastic weakening of Nephi’s words. He says that Isaiah’s words are plain—got that? plain!—to anyone with the spirit of prophecy—got that? prophecy! We’re not talking here about everyday guidance by the Spirit. We’re talking about high-octane prophetic experience. And Nephi expects everyone to have that sort of experience?
Spencer, Joseph M.. The Vision of All: Twenty-five Lectures on Isaiah in Nephi’s Record (Part 2 of 2) (Kindle Locations 1497-1504). Greg Kofford Books. Kindle Edition.
“Isaiah’s perfectly clear to those like me who’ve been given to experience an apocalyptic vision of the world’s history, to those like me who’ve received in pure grace the prophetic gift of seeing the larger stakes of the Abrahamic covenant. But I know that most of you won’t ever have that sort of experience. Perhaps you could, but I recognize that most of you won’t. But because I have had that sort of experience, I can tell you about what I’ve seen, and that should give you a kind of foothold. You need the spirit of prophecy to make Isaiah plain, so let me give you a few words deriving from the spirit of prophecy that was given to me. And that should help you to get started, anyway.”
Here’s the shock. Nephi takes Isaiah’s reference to a necromantic practice—to wizardry!—and turns it into something positive. The Nephite prophets will have their voices heard only thanks to an effort at translation that’s more like a séance (although it isn’t a séance, obviously)— than like a work of translation. Nephi has apparently seen the process of translating the Book of Mormon in vision, and he sees that it wasn’t at all like the scholarly, academic work of translation. Joseph Smith didn’t sit down with dictionaries and lexicons, using years of study of the relevant languages to cast the source text in a target language. He was more like a familiar spirit, like a toad or an ape used by a wizard. He’s a medium, the channel through which the Nephites’ words are delivered to the latter-day world. As Nephi puts this point, “the words of the faithful should speak as if it were from the dead” (2 Ne. 27:13).
Now, the first thing we’ve got to note is this: Nephi distinguishes carefully between two things, between “the words of the book” and “the book” itself. We just saw in verse 6 that he sees God bringing forth “the words of a book,” but now look at verse 7. There he explains this: “And behold, the book shall be sealed.” So there’s a clear difference between the book and its words, between what we might call the physical, material artifact (the book) and its transmissible intellectual content (the words of the book). Nephi’s surprisingly careful throughout this whole chapter to keep these distinct. And perhaps we can already see why. The book itself is sealed, while the words are being brought forth to everyone. So what’s the book? I think that’s clear. It’s the gold plates, the actual physical artifact that was buried in the Hill Cumorah. And what are the words of the book? That’s just what we call the Book of Mormon, the text we print and circulate and read. That’s a fair—if not simply obvious—interpretation, isn’t it?
So let’s go back to the text. What does Nephi actually tell us? The man with the book gives the words to another, who takes those words (never the book) to the learned, plural. And what’s their response? What does every learned person say when they’re confronted with the Book of Mormon? “And the learned shall say: ‘Bring hither the book, and I will read them’” (2 Ne. 27:15). That’s the learned response to the Book of Mormon. “I want evidence. I’m not going to give this thing a second thought until you can furnish me with the gold plates themselves. If there isn’t physical, tangible, material evidence for this whole thing, why should I bother at all? And how would I know that some rube of a farm kid has given me anything of any substance anyway? Let’s get the original text, the gold plates, into the hands of some scholars and see what the thing actually says when we’ve figured out the underlying language. Who could trust the thing at all until good scholarly work has been undertaken, making sure it’s done well?” Isn’t that the learned response? It’s Charles Anthon’s response. And it’s our response still today, isn’t it?
He tells us pretty clearly here that God’s placed a seal on material evidence so that we have to wrestle with the words alone. We’re supposed to be reading a book that speaks like a voice from the dead, like a ghostly voice during a séance. It’s disembodied, cut off in a crucial way from all the material artifacts we prefer to deal with. It speaks like a familiar spirit, and we’re uncomfortable with that. Why should God set up a situation like that? Here’s Nephi’s answer. “I am God, and I am a God of miracles,” he has God say. “And I will shew unto the world that I am the same yesterday, today, and forever. And I work not among the children of men save it be according to their faith” (v. 23). God’s set all this up in such a way that we’re forced to take the Book of Mormon on faith. Once we’ve passed through the trial of our faith, perhaps we’ll get some kind of witness, maybe even evidence. But that can’t be where we begin. The Book of Mormon is meant to work against the dominant conception of knowledge on offer in secular modernity.
What if we were to take Nephi’s use of Isaiah as giving us a picture of what we ought to do with scripture? What if we too were to seek the spirit of prophecy, and then were to read the Book of Mormon closely and inventively enough to see the latent possibilities at work in this text? What if we were to read as faithfully and as inventively as Nephi? Does that sound paradoxical? I think it is. But I think it’s precisely what we ought to be doing in our close study of scripture. Real fidelity to the text also turns out to be creative in a certain sense. We have to read scripture so closely that we see the crosscurrents of meaning that organize the fluid mechanics of the text. There’s no one definite meaning. At the same time, we can’t make the text say whatever we want. Somehow, we have to read so faithfully that we can see the ways the text calls us to read it against its own grain. That requires more work than we’re used to giving to scripture study, and it requires more grace than we’re used to receiving as we study.
I've done it myself. That's party why I pulled out Spencer's "Vision of All" in the hopes that he would provide me with some sort of baseline with which I could approach Nephi's Isaiah. This second half deals directly with the largest chunk of Nephi's Isaiah quoting: 2 Nephi 6-30. Even if you skip most of the Isaiah chapters, you do get the idea that history in important from Nephi, and that there is more to the gospel than faith, repentance, baptism, and the gift of the Holy Ghost; they are part of a larger structure of sacred history and God's plan from the foundation of the world. This book gets really deep really fast, and includes things like:
* Nephi uses Isaiah's encounter with God as a model for every right encounter with God, and invites us to have a similar experience.
* Just like the Book of Mormon was written, sealed up, and hidden away for a latter-day audience, Isaiah used a similar pattern, sealing up his writings for a generation who would be prepared to understand.
* One hard saying of Isaiah's is his call to preach isn't to soften hearts, but to harden them, to expose those who aren't willing to listen to God's word so they can be condemned. This is all a part of God preparing a righteous remnant who will survive the last days.
* Isaiah's central purpose in his writings isn't prophesying of Christ, but rather outlining Israel's covenantal relationship with God. Surely Christ is a part of that, but we often lose Isaiah's whole narrative when we solely jump to the one's we've been trained to here as prophesying of Christ.
I really liked Spencer's proposal that Nephi's approach to Isaiah is how we should model our own scripture study. We should spend time getting to know the overarching narrative, avoiding "prooftexting" (reading individual verses with no idea of context, and making the verse say whatever we want it to say. Mormons tend to do it a lot because we don't like to invest a lot into learning the overall narrative), and only then looking at subtle nuances in wording and seeing the possibilities of what the scriptures are saying. Nephi calls this likening. He takes Isaiah's prophesies that were meant for a Jewish audience in 800-600 BC, and applies them to his own people. Nephi can do this, because he understands Isaiah and has also had his own apocalyptic vision. He knows the big picture, and can creatively use Isaiah to help tell his own prophetic story.
It seems to me that scripture reading should take a lot of right-brained thinking. We need to be more willing to engage with the scriptures that we have been if we truly wish to liken them to ourselves.
A great series of lectures! I hope they get more people excited about Isaiah.
Finally, Nephi goes beyond the prophetic tradition by inviting every one of his readers to experience the same sort of thing. All of Nephi’s readers are to become prophets, in a way, imitating the experiences of Lehi and Isaiah, paradigmatic prophets from both the Old- and the New-World traditions.
Our little digression of the past couple of minutes has been aimed just at making clear how much Nephi seems to have invested in Isaiah’s experience. He sees in it the model for every right encounter with the Lord.
In other words, Isaiah is a proto-Nephite prophet. He knows in advance that his people won’t receive his teachings, and so he writes for a “latter-day” audience, for a people still to come. He prophesies and he writes, but then he seals up his prophecies and his writings so that they can be read by a people finally ready to receive the message.
but God here sends out a prophet whose task is to make sure that doesn’t change. They’re to remain in their hardened state; God wishes that nothing be done to recover them. And that’s something that’s hard to feel terribly comfortable about, no? This isn’t the God we like to talk about in the twenty-first century. Yet this is the God of Isaiah, the God who hides his face from Israel to accomplish his own purpose. And what’s that purpose? We’ve already stated it a dozen times: the production of a remnant, sanctified and prepared to receive the Lord’s word.
What makes messianic prophecy messianic prophecy is the way it looks beyond these “everyday” messiahs, who were all over ancient Israel, to a messiah you couldn’t find in Israel’s midst. Messianic prophecy essentially looks at all the available messiahs and finds only reason to despair, but then it looks to a future in which some messiah of messiahs will show up and set things right. We do this sort of thing all the time ourselves, don’t we? You’re in college, taking class after class from boring professors. At some point, you begin to daydream about a class where the professor is genuinely interesting, genuinely engaging. You might find yourself working up a kind of description of this ideal professor, waiting for her or his arrival in the classroom. You’re looking for what you’re already experiencing—a professor—but one who finally gets things right. That’s something very like messianic prophecy. So to ask whether this or that biblical text is a messianic prophecy is most basically to ask whether it anticipates someone coming along eventually, occupying more or less an already-established institutional position, but finally doing so in a way that makes the institution work.
the Lord himself declares that the rod of Jesse emphatically isn’t Christ, but rather “a servant in the hands of Christ, who is partly a descendant of Jesse as well as of Ephraim, or of the house of Joseph, on whom there is laid much power”
The Jaredites, you’ll remember, are entirely eradicated. Moroni highlights this point several times, and he’s clear about the fact that he’s writing the Jaredite story as a kind of warning to the Gentiles of the last days. “Hey! Listen up! You’ve got no promise unless you join with the covenant people!”
Nephi hopes that his own people will get just one major message as they struggle their way through Isaiah’s writings, and that’s the idea that judgment comes only after prophetic warnings have first been given.
Ouch. Seriously? Nephi’s willing to hit his people with that one? “Look, Isaiah’s writings would be simple enough if you just had the spirit of prophecy!” We’ve got to be prophets to understand this? Then who’ll ever get to the bottom of Isaiah? Just a few people who happen to have received the spiritual gift of prophecy? Sometimes we read this verse and we say that Nephi’s encouraging those who wish to understand Isaiah to pray for inspiration, but that’s a pretty drastic weakening of Nephi’s words. He says that Isaiah’s words are plain—got that? plain!—to anyone with the spirit of prophecy—got that? prophecy! We’re not talking here about everyday guidance by the Spirit. We’re talking about high-octane prophetic experience. And Nephi expects everyone to have that sort of experience?
Spencer, Joseph M.. The Vision of All: Twenty-five Lectures on Isaiah in Nephi’s Record (Part 2 of 2) (Kindle Locations 1497-1504). Greg Kofford Books. Kindle Edition.
“Isaiah’s perfectly clear to those like me who’ve been given to experience an apocalyptic vision of the world’s history, to those like me who’ve received in pure grace the prophetic gift of seeing the larger stakes of the Abrahamic covenant. But I know that most of you won’t ever have that sort of experience. Perhaps you could, but I recognize that most of you won’t. But because I have had that sort of experience, I can tell you about what I’ve seen, and that should give you a kind of foothold. You need the spirit of prophecy to make Isaiah plain, so let me give you a few words deriving from the spirit of prophecy that was given to me. And that should help you to get started, anyway.”
Here’s the shock. Nephi takes Isaiah’s reference to a necromantic practice—to wizardry!—and turns it into something positive. The Nephite prophets will have their voices heard only thanks to an effort at translation that’s more like a séance (although it isn’t a séance, obviously)— than like a work of translation. Nephi has apparently seen the process of translating the Book of Mormon in vision, and he sees that it wasn’t at all like the scholarly, academic work of translation. Joseph Smith didn’t sit down with dictionaries and lexicons, using years of study of the relevant languages to cast the source text in a target language. He was more like a familiar spirit, like a toad or an ape used by a wizard. He’s a medium, the channel through which the Nephites’ words are delivered to the latter-day world. As Nephi puts this point, “the words of the faithful should speak as if it were from the dead” (2 Ne. 27:13).
Now, the first thing we’ve got to note is this: Nephi distinguishes carefully between two things, between “the words of the book” and “the book” itself. We just saw in verse 6 that he sees God bringing forth “the words of a book,” but now look at verse 7. There he explains this: “And behold, the book shall be sealed.” So there’s a clear difference between the book and its words, between what we might call the physical, material artifact (the book) and its transmissible intellectual content (the words of the book). Nephi’s surprisingly careful throughout this whole chapter to keep these distinct. And perhaps we can already see why. The book itself is sealed, while the words are being brought forth to everyone. So what’s the book? I think that’s clear. It’s the gold plates, the actual physical artifact that was buried in the Hill Cumorah. And what are the words of the book? That’s just what we call the Book of Mormon, the text we print and circulate and read. That’s a fair—if not simply obvious—interpretation, isn’t it?
So let’s go back to the text. What does Nephi actually tell us? The man with the book gives the words to another, who takes those words (never the book) to the learned, plural. And what’s their response? What does every learned person say when they’re confronted with the Book of Mormon? “And the learned shall say: ‘Bring hither the book, and I will read them’” (2 Ne. 27:15). That’s the learned response to the Book of Mormon. “I want evidence. I’m not going to give this thing a second thought until you can furnish me with the gold plates themselves. If there isn’t physical, tangible, material evidence for this whole thing, why should I bother at all? And how would I know that some rube of a farm kid has given me anything of any substance anyway? Let’s get the original text, the gold plates, into the hands of some scholars and see what the thing actually says when we’ve figured out the underlying language. Who could trust the thing at all until good scholarly work has been undertaken, making sure it’s done well?” Isn’t that the learned response? It’s Charles Anthon’s response. And it’s our response still today, isn’t it?
He tells us pretty clearly here that God’s placed a seal on material evidence so that we have to wrestle with the words alone. We’re supposed to be reading a book that speaks like a voice from the dead, like a ghostly voice during a séance. It’s disembodied, cut off in a crucial way from all the material artifacts we prefer to deal with. It speaks like a familiar spirit, and we’re uncomfortable with that. Why should God set up a situation like that? Here’s Nephi’s answer. “I am God, and I am a God of miracles,” he has God say. “And I will shew unto the world that I am the same yesterday, today, and forever. And I work not among the children of men save it be according to their faith” (v. 23). God’s set all this up in such a way that we’re forced to take the Book of Mormon on faith. Once we’ve passed through the trial of our faith, perhaps we’ll get some kind of witness, maybe even evidence. But that can’t be where we begin. The Book of Mormon is meant to work against the dominant conception of knowledge on offer in secular modernity.
What if we were to take Nephi’s use of Isaiah as giving us a picture of what we ought to do with scripture? What if we too were to seek the spirit of prophecy, and then were to read the Book of Mormon closely and inventively enough to see the latent possibilities at work in this text? What if we were to read as faithfully and as inventively as Nephi? Does that sound paradoxical? I think it is. But I think it’s precisely what we ought to be doing in our close study of scripture. Real fidelity to the text also turns out to be creative in a certain sense. We have to read scripture so closely that we see the crosscurrents of meaning that organize the fluid mechanics of the text. There’s no one definite meaning. At the same time, we can’t make the text say whatever we want. Somehow, we have to read so faithfully that we can see the ways the text calls us to read it against its own grain. That requires more work than we’re used to giving to scripture study, and it requires more grace than we’re used to receiving as we study.
Want to read
February 3, 2018"Isaiah's far simpler than you've imagined. Seriously." Pg 35
July 6, 2018
I love the things I learned reading this book. Now I am looking forward to the Isaiah chapters in 2 Nephi instead of dreading them. Wow! I highly recommend this book to all serious students of the Book of Mormon.
I only have one criticism. It is written in the style of a lecture series, although I find no evidence that he actually gave them as lectures. But he retains the contractions we all use in everyday speech. That is fine for a live lecture but it is very hard to read. I know the author wanted to keep it more informal, but in trying to do one thing, you have made it much harder to read in another
I only have one criticism. It is written in the style of a lecture series, although I find no evidence that he actually gave them as lectures. But he retains the contractions we all use in everyday speech. That is fine for a live lecture but it is very hard to read. I know the author wanted to keep it more informal, but in trying to do one thing, you have made it much harder to read in another
Displaying 1 - 26 of 26 reviews