Review of Rosalynde Frandsen Welch, Ether: A Brief Theological Introduction (Provo, UT: The Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship, 2020). 128 pages. $9.95 (paperback).

Abstract: The Book of Ether is a sometimes-overlooked gem of a text within the Book of Mormon, a history within a history that deserves careful and innovative investigation. Rosalynde Frandsen Welch offers such with a novel perspective in her entry in the Maxwell Institute’s series of “brief theological introductions” to the books within the Book of Mormon. The principal focus of Welch’s analysis is on issues concerning Moroni’s editorial purposes, how he interacts with his source text, and the ethics of his agenda for his abridgment of the Jaredite record. She critiques what she sees as Moroni’s lack of interest in the Jaredite record for its own sake and his attempts to “Christianize” the indigenous religion and culture of the former inhabitants of the land he occupies. Additionally, Welch presents Moroni as offering his future audience a “reader-centered theology of scripture” that seeks to transfer the authority of Scripture from the author to the reader. This review finds some of Welch’s proposals to be problematic but recognizes the great value of her beautifully written contribution to the academic study of the Book of Ether and the Book of Mormon.

Rosalynde Frandsen Welch is an independent scholar of Latter-day Saint literature, theology, and scripture. She earned a PhD from UC San Diego in early modern English literature. She is a member of the Neal A. Maxwell Institute’s advisory board and received a research grant from the Institute to write the manuscript for this study of the Book of Ether. Welch has published an impressive number and variety [Page 146]of scholarly works that can be found in academic journals such as BYU Studies, the Mormon Studies Review, and the Journal of Book of Mormon Studies, as well as in multiple blogs and in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. The focus of this review is on her entry in the Maxwell Institute’s Book of Mormon: Brief Theological Introductions series, which looks at the Book of Ether.

Welch is a wondrous wordsmith, with a highly articulate and lucid writing style, so much so that I could honestly read her eloquent prose all day. The way she organizes her treatment of the Book of Ether is accessible, fluid, effective, and interesting to read. In this theological analysis of the Book of Ether, she builds upon the work of scholars such as Grant Hardy and Joseph Spencer and adds notable original perspectives in an effort to present this singular Jaredite/Nephite blend of inspired writings in a light that most readers would not have previously considered.

In Welch’s introductory remarks, she explains her approach to this volume:

My basic method in this study is threefold: (1) to make the best sense I can of the text’s language and structures, (2) to infer something of the writer’s intent, and then (3) to press beyond the plain sense and authorial intent to draw out emergent patterns of meaning at work in the passage. (pp. 12–13)

Readers should keep in mind that this collection from the Maxwell Institute is a series of “brief theological introductions,” not the standard verse-by-verse commentaries or intensive doctrinal expositions many may be used to seeing. Instead, Welch’s approach is to more broadly “search the book of Ether for themes at the heart of religion as it is experienced by believers” (p. 13). Although the author does occasionally touch briefly on particular points of the story of the brother of Jared and other highlights of the Jaredite record, it is clear from the outset that her principal focus is on what Moroni’s intentions are and how he is interacting with his source text.