How should we read the Book of Mormon? And does the Book of Mormon itself have anything to say about it? Joseph Spencer follows the lead of Nephite prophets who interpreted Isaiah and other prophets typologically—according to “types” and “shadows”—in order to preach salvation through Jesus Christ. By focusing on history, memory, time, repentance, and conversion, An Other Testament explores what it means to believe God provided the Book of Mormon to change a person like you and a world like ours.

This book contains the papers from the44th Annual Brigham Young University Sidney B. Sperry Symposium, held in October, 2015. The Sperry Symposium is held annually, and draws most of its speakers from the Church Educational System. Each year’s theme is usually based on the book of scripture that will be studied by LDS adults in the coming year, and this volume fits right in with this year’s Gospel Doctrine study of the Book of Mormon.

The Book of Mormon is a cautionary tale about the destructive effects of materialism and a also a call to love and serve “the least of these.” Book of Mormon prophets foresaw how a love of riches would be the central challenge among those who “professed to belong to the church of God” (Helaman 4:11) in the latter days. Consequently, they offered extensive counsel on—and examples of—how believers might avoid falling prey to “that lucre which doth corrupt the soul” (Mosiah 29:40) and answer the Savior’s call to discipleship by caring for the poor among them.

 A primary goal of Book of Mormon Central is to create a searchable and easily accessible online archive of the materials that have been created by LDS writers and scholars over the years.  Over the past several decades, since well before the establishment of the Foundation for Ancient Research and Mormon Studies, known as FARMS, in the late 1970s, a vast amount of scholarly material and insight has been generated with respect to the Book of Mormon. It is so vast that it’s been practically impossible to navigate, even for those deeply involved in creating it and working with it.