Abstract: The Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship has recently published a new study edition of the Book of Mormon. Edited by Grant Hardy, the Maxwell Institute Study Edition (MISE) incorporates important advances in Book of Mormon scholarship from the past few decades while grounding the reader’s experience in the text of the Book of Mormon. The reformatted text presented in the MISE improves the readability of the Book of Mormon, while footnotes, charts, bibliographies, and short explanatory essays highlight the strides made in recent years related to Book of Mormon scholarship. The MISE is a phenomenal edition of the Book of Mormon that is representative of the sort of close attention and care Latter-day Saints should be giving the text.

Review of Grant Hardy, ed. The Book of Mormon: Another Testament of Jesus Christ, Maxwell Institute Study Edition (Provo, UT: Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship, Religious Studies Center at Brigham Young University / Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2018). 648 pp. $35.00 (paperback).

Whether reading it as an act of piety, out of a desire to debunk its pretentions to divine revelation, or as an exercise in academic curiosity, one thing cannot be denied: the thoughtless handwaving and blithe dismissal past critics had for the Book of Mormon can no longer be seriously entertained. We are long past the days when the Book of Mormon can be feasibly deemed “a bungling and stupid production … [with] nothing to commend it to a thinking mind,”1 or [Page 144]“a yeasty fermentation, formless, aimless, and inconceivably absurd.”2 Rather, an informed, intelligent, and fair-minded evaluation of the book reveals “a remarkable text … worthy of serious study,”3 a text that “should rank among the great achievements of American literature,”4 indeed, “a fascinating tale well worth reading for a number of reasons”5 that tells a “dramatic story in a fine biblical style.”6

As such, members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints should avail themselves of resources that will enhance their study of the Book of Mormon in a manner befitting the book’s importance. Latter-day Saints are obliged by prophetic command to seek “out of the best books words of wisdom” (Doctrine and Covenants 88:118). If they do not, if they treat the Book of Mormon lightly or “trifle with sacred things” intellectually as well as spiritually, they are liable to bring themselves and “the whole Church under condemnation” for having squandered “this great and marvelous gift the Lord has given to us.”7

The latest publication that seeks to engage the Book of Mormon is Grant Hardy’s new Maxwell Institute Study Edition.8 The MISE, to borrow a useful acronym from Blair Hodges,9 aims to help its intended Latter-day Saint readers “learn to read this sacred text as carefully as possible, with detailed attention to language, structure, and historical context,” the desired outcome for readers that “its message of salvation [Page 145]through Jesus Christ will become more compelling and its le...