Before I even opened the Grant Hardy edition of The Book of Mormon,
I was expecting to read a very choppy text that didn’t flow particularly well.
I thought it would eb too difficult to combine the verses with paragraphs and
make it look and read like a normal book. After reading just a few pages,
however, I was pliantly surprised with how much I enjoyed reading it this way.
The headings before certain events helped me better
understand what was going on and the flow of events that were transpiring. The organization
of this text seemed to help me grasp more the storyline, as opposed to The Book
of Mormon we read today that is very separated and marked off verse by verse.
Reading this as literature and not scripture is challenging
given my familiarity with the text, however it is interesting to see even in
the first couple pages the themes that are frequently present. There is a lot
of contrast between doing the right thing and the wrong thing. One paragraph
will be about murmuring and choosing to disobey, then the following paragraph
is all about choosing to do the right thing and follow God. I am curious to see
how this theme carries on throughout the rest of the book.
Yes! I definitely relate to reading the text this way being challenging given the familiarity with the text. I was having that same problem. I definitely notice my mind filling in the story as I know it, and not just reading the literature as edited by Hardy. It is definitely a mentality shift, but it is interesting to see this story in the context Hardy is demonstrating it, and the new themes highlighted will be compelling to read.
ReplyDeleteI was surprised as well! its a great read! Yes the storyline made more sense to me too! I think it is challenging because we are so used to reading it how we have been reading it.
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