Hank Smith: 00:00:04 Hello everyone. Welcome to another episode of followHIM. My name’s Hank Smith. I’m your host. I’m here with my co-host, John Bytheway, who I describe as having an everlasting hatred for sin and iniquity, Alma 37:32. We’re also here with our guest, Dr. Welch.

  00:00:23 John, we’re moving on from the Zoramite mission. We are looking at these lessons that Alma is teaching to his son. It’s the first of two lessons. What are you looking forward to today? What do you see in these chapters?

John Bytheway: 00:00:38 I love this break in the storyline because there were some Zoramite converts, some that weren’t. They were afraid they would enter into an alliance with the Lamanites, which is exactly what they do. So in between that, it’s like I’ve got to talk to my sons, and then what happens? The war chapters. Wow, look at that.

  00:00:56 First of all, he talks to Helaman in Alma 36:37, and this Alma 36 I’m sure we’re going to talk about is this masterpiece of chiasmus, and sometimes if you’re like me, I get so excited about the form, I forget about the content, and then I get dazzled by the content and then I get dazzled by the form again. I’m sure we’ll talk about that.

  00:01:18 Then Alma 37, the importance of the records. Why are we doing all of this work and engraving these records and how will they help us and why do they need to be preserved? Some great counsel there.

  00:01:29 And then Alma 38, Shiblon. He doesn’t get a lot of time from his dad, but we hear some great things about Shiblon and some great advice there at the end. That’s all we’re covering today, is those three.

Hank Smith: 00:01:42 That’s fantastic. What a great description, John. I’m really looking forward to this because one, I do want to talk about chiasmus because it has a serious impact on Book of Mormon scholarship, and we have the master of that here today, so we do need to spend some time there, but like you, I’m looking forward to looking through the text itself and what it teaches us about Christ.

  00:02:05 Dr. Welch, we’re excited to have you. What do you want to do today? From start to finish, what are we going to look at?

Prof. Jack Welch: 00:02:13 Well, I think we’re going to look at the first two blessings of Alma to his first and second son, but there’s a third son as well, Corianton. He needs a lot of correction, but what it tells us is that Alma, he even gives more to Corianton than the other two. He recognizes that Corianton needs and will receive that help. He was a young man, but had a lot of opportunities and a lot going for him, and Alma doesn’t give up on him.

  00:02:46 So, we’ve got all three of these very different sons. I really think it’s important for people to read this week’s lesson and next week’s lesson together because you don’t get the full picture until you get all three of these blessings. They, of course, were different sons, but after all, Alma had served himself. He knew what it meant to be a wayward son. He had been one. He also knew what it meant to wear various hats. He was at one point the high priest, the chief judge, and the commander-in-chief of the army, so we had all three branches of government under his responsibility.

  00:03:29 If he could juggle that and balance that by uniting it under the gospel of Jesus Christ and the knowledge that Jesus Christ would come and that that would change everything and could bring together all people, well, I think he’s the best person to tell us about the gospel of Jesus Christ from his own personal experiences like that. I think that’s partly why it’s so rich, but his own revelations, I mean, who else could tell you about Jesus Christ other than someone who had been stopped on the road with his four friends? I hope people will look at it from a broad perspective, personal, inspired, there’s so many different ways to read these texts.

Hank Smith: 00:04:15 They are magnificent. Really, everything that Alma’s given us, a mind-expanding set of sermons, that each chapter one after another.

Prof. Jack Welch: 00:04:25 How do you see Alma in terms of what he is expanding upon his background, and you start putting in a few factors. How did Alma get to be this way? How did he learn these things? Who was his father? Sometimes we think that our kids aren’t listening, and I suppose Alma the Elder had his reasons for thinking Alma wasn’t listening, but he was and he had his objections.

  00:04:54 That’s another thread in this story that Alma, he is true to his heritage, true to his family, his father. All of that makes him true to his heavenly father and his eternal heritage.

Hank Smith: 00:05:09 Yeah, I love that you said that. Where does he get all this? These are chapters that you can study. They’re inexhaustible. You could study them over and over and over and you can’t get to the bottom of them.

Prof. Jack Welch: 00:05:21 Do you think Alma knew the scriptures? Do you think he knew the Book of Lehi? Of course, he doesn’t know the Book of Mormon, doesn’t exist yet, but is there evidence that he actually knew the scriptures very well and would that be something that would help us understand how he could give us such a masterful set of sermons and blessings here?

  00:05:46 Well, there is one place in Alma 36 where Alma says, as he then received this great joyous relief when he felt he was going to be destroyed, “Methought I saw even as our father Lehi had seen, God seated upon his throne, surrounded by numberless concourses of angels in the attitude of singing and praising their God.” Where’s Alma getting those words from?

Hank Smith: 00:06:15 Yeah.

Prof. Jack Welch: 00:06:16 1 Nephi, what chapter?

Hank Smith: 00:06:18 One.

Prof. Jack Welch: 00:06:19 Chapter 1:8, and there are 21 words there that Alma has quoted verbatim, precisely. Now, this says a lot about the nature of the translation, and we often comment on that, but it also tells us a lot about Alma’s scriptural training. He was the chief judge. He knows the law. He has spent his time learning the Book of Leviticus, the Law of Moses, and we see him quoting and using those passages too. What a background to launch into here.

Hank Smith: 00:06:58 Yeah, that’s fantastic. Thank you for that.

  00:07:01 John, Dr. Welch is not new to our podcast. He joined us last year, but there might be someone who said, “Who?” Introduce him to us.

John Bytheway: 00:07:12 I’d love to. Dr. John W. Welch, who goes by Jack, he’s well known in the wide world of Book of Mormon studies. Hank, some of us plant seeds, Jack planted a FARM. He planted FARMS. So, some of our listeners will remember FARMS. It used to go by the name of FARMS, The Foundation for Ancient Research and Mormon Studies, and what a blessing that has been to all of us. He brings to the conversation extensive academic and personal experiences in ancient languages, travel, law, biblical studies, and church history. And on a personal note, Hank, I got to go on a cruise years ago and Jack and Janine sat with us, were so kind to my wife and me. It’s one thing to know somebody’s smart, but then you learn how kind and gracious they are, and I’m so grateful to have him back on the program again and want to say thank you for your impact on my wife and me, and thanks for joining us again.

Prof. Jack Welch: 00:08:13 Well, John, it’s always a lot of fun and a pleasure, a privilege to be able to come and learn from you and talk together. Let’s see what comes out this time, because it will be exciting, I’m sure.

Hank Smith: 00:08:25 As a young seminary teacher, if you would’ve told me I’m going to know Jack Welch, we’re just going to talk online, I probably would’ve asked you what online means, but then I would’ve just been so excited. It’s a pleasure. It really is. It’s an honor.

John Bytheway: 00:08:44 Now, Hank, I mentioned FARMS, and just today Hank, because I got to teach today, I showed a video clip from bookofmormoncentral.org about the Law of Moses in the Book of Mormon. I hope people become acquainted with that resource. That is just one of the fruits of this farm you planted called FARMS, is bookofmormoncentral.org.

Prof. Jack Welch: 00:09:08 Well, thank you for mentioning that, John, and as it is available on the web, worldwide, on YouTube, lots of social media channels, reaching as you do millions of people, one of the things that we offer that will be really helpful to most people in their study of the Book of Mormon is what we call the Book of Mormon Central archive. There, we have now over 13,000 books and articles, all kinds of resources, and you can go on and you can search for all kinds of things, and search for Alma 36, search for whatever you’re working on with a particular question or lesson. Up will come full texts of all these articles and resources, and you can also then switch and see a lot of it in English, as well as in Spanish and in Portuguese, trying to be a central worldwide for Book of Mormon scholarship.

  00:10:06 We also have Scripture Central, which deals with the New Testament, Old Testament, Doctrine and Covenants. So, we do all of the four standard works. It’s a wonderful team. We have a great time bringing this out, and we have supporters, we have volunteers.

  00:10:24 When President Benson once said, “We should flood the Earth with the Book of Mormon,” you might remember that, I was actually out washing my car when I heard him say that. I had the radio on and I was holding the hose on my car and I thought, “Well, this isn’t much of a flood,” but I said, “We’re going to do this someday.” Now, with all these translations and so many people doing so many wonderful things all over the world, that invitation by President Benson has truly been fulfilled and come to pass.

Hank Smith: 00:11:00 That’s wonderful, and it’s been fun from the sidelines to see that grow, Book of Mormon Central. What does that tell you about the Book of Mormon? There’s 13,000 books and articles on one book.

Prof. Jack Welch: 00:11:13 Well, it does tell us all that the Book of Mormon is going to wear us out a long time before we will wear it out. It speaks about so many subjects, temporal and eternal, personal and collective, political, literary, you name the discipline, the need, and the Book of Mormon will speak to you on these subjects. It is so rich and so true. We are truly blessed to have it, and I’ve spent a lifetime working in and around it, I never cease to be amazed at what it does, no matter what I’m talking about.

  00:11:54 I work in the temple, so many things are temple related in the Book of Mormon that we haven’t even realized until quite recently.

  00:12:01 I’m a law professor and I go through and look at all the reports of these legal cases, and as you’d expect, Alma himself was the chief judge. He includes things that are legal dependent, like the trial of Nehor, and how that turns out and why, like the trial that occurred in the city of Ammonihah and the legal consequences of that, and Korihor. Korihor is brought before Alma. He’s being tried for blasphemy and other crimes. And if you don’t understand the law as it existed in Alma’s day, then how are you going to put all that together? Well, that’s just another layer, dozens of them that are wonderful.

  00:12:51 You can make a lot of points about that. That’s the way a classic text is. It reflects reality and history and all of this richness. The Book of Mormon ranks right up there with the classics of the world, but how did it get that way? There’s a reason. God did not give us this book just to give us another volume along with Homer’s Iliad. We’ve been given this book because it has a special mission to testify of the truthfulness of Jesus Christ. That through this book we will know that Jesus Christ is the son of God, the very eternal father, and that his gospel is true. When it comes forth, it will be a sign that the Lord is open and willing and going forth in the world to anybody, to the Isles of the Sea. There’s no book like it, really.

Hank Smith: 00:13:45 My friend, Bryce Dunford, I remember him saying, “This book understands the human condition,” and I thought about that for a long time, “This book understands the human condition.” It speaks, like you said, Jack, to every facet of our lives.

  00:14:01 Jack, you’ve probably seen that the Come, Follow Me manual does a great job of outlining these lessons for individuals and families. I’m going to read from the opening paragraph for this week’s lesson, which is called Look to God and Live. It says when Alma saw wickedness around him, he felt deep sorrow, tribulation, and anguish of soul. “Wickedness among this people,” he said of the Zoramites, “Doth pain, my soul.”

  00:14:26 He felt something similar after returning from his mission to the Zoramites, he observed that the hearts of many of the Nephites began to wax hard and that they began to be offended because of the strictness of the word, and this made his heart exceedingly sorrowful. What did Alma do about what he saw and felt? He didn’t simply become discouraged or cynical about the state of the world. Instead, he caused that his sons should be gathered together, and taught them things pertaining unto righteousness. He taught them that there is no other way or means whereby man can be saved, only in and through Christ. ” Behold, he is the word of truth and righteousness.” With that, Jack, we turned first to Helaman.

Prof. Jack Welch: 00:15:09 Helaman was the first son. That’s a wonderful introduction to these chapters, not just the three chapters for this lesson, but the four chapters that follow, where the blessing to Corianton is given. In the Jewish tradition about the Exodus, there was a day on the Jewish calendar, kind of a season of Passover, where everyone celebrated. According to the Law of Moses, you had to do this. You had to celebrate the deliverance of God who brought Israel out of Egypt by miracles. Moses, of course, led the children of Israel out into the wilderness. Alma will refer to being delivered and being brought out, being freed from the captivity and bondage. Those are words that relate to the Passover. Saying those words were kind of little bells that went off in my mind when we were thinking about putting this into a Passover setting. You don’t have to say very much about Wise Men or mangers, and you know I’m talking about Christmas.

  00:16:20 So, many of these words, if we know enough of about Passover, we recognize that there may be a Passover connection here. And one of the things that of course was done in Judaism, we can’t date it way back into the time of Lehi and Nephi and so on, but one of the things that is part of the celebration of Passover is that a father would gather all of his extended family and you know how at Christmas people will play Mary and Joseph and a shepherd, well, they would have three sons, and they would pick the three boys, and they each had a line out of the Torah,

Prof. Jack Welch: 00:17:00 and they would come and recite that line and they were questions, and then the father would answer those three questions. One of the sons had to be and play the role of a very righteous son. Another son had to play the role of an ignorant or unknowing son, but an okay guy and the third son had to play the role of a wicked or rebellious son. Then the father would give them instruction, maybe what Alma is doing. We know from the introduction that he was torn apart by the problems. He went to the land of Antionum hoping to convert the Zoramites and help to make things better, and he comes home rather sad, I think. He had not been successful. It’s true that he converted a lot of the poor people there. The Zoramites will go and make an alliance with the Lamanites, and they will be fighting now to undo what Alma has tried to establish.

  00:18:11 He’s very sober and wanting to reinforce his son’s testimonies about the gospel they were teaching, about what they were doing as missionaries. I don’t know if Alma knew this at the time he’s giving these three blessings, but he will leave. We don’t know whether he leaves because he’s sick and dying or whether he’s translated or whatever, but we never hear of him again.

  00:18:54 These three blessings become his farewell statement to his sons, and no wonder they saved them. Helaman, of course, will become the leader of the stripling warriors, how important he is on continuing the lineage of Alma. And Shiblon will be righteous to the very end of his life at the end of the book of Alma. And of course, Corianton will take off with Hagoth and other people. So it’s interesting that the Book of Alma really concludes once we know that the three sons of Alma are gone or dead. The Book of Alma is telling the conclusion of Alma’s whole life, and the middle of the book are these three blessings.

Hank Smith: 00:19:41 What an introduction. This is fantastic.

John Bytheway: 00:19:44 Yeah. Alma 63:10, Shiblon died also, and Corianton had gone forth to the land northward in his ship. So he’s talking about what each of these sons, verse 12, all those engravings in the possession of Helaman were written and sent forth. So those three sons of these next chapters, 36 through 42 are all wrapped up here at the end of Alma. I never thought of that before.

Hank Smith: 00:20:08 John, Jack, I have to say that I’m excited that we are talking about a parent child relationship. Here’s Alma speaking to his sons, and I have memories, I’m sure you both do, of my father pulling me aside at certain points of my life and teaching me lessons. One, I’ll always remember, if you don’t mind if I bring it up, is as I read through what we’re going to do today, Alma 37, “Teach them an everlasting hatred against sin,” this is to Helaman. “Preach repentance and faith. Withstand every temptation of the devil. Don’t be weary of good works. Learn wisdom in thy youth.” This sounds like my dad, but he would tell us this story so often that when he was in high school, he went to Granger High. There was a high speed chase through Salt Lake. There was some college age student who was on a blind date with this girl and he picks her up.

  00:21:08 He’s on a motorcycle, he was speeding. The police tried to pull him over and he had some outstanding warrants, didn’t want to be pulled over. So with this girl he barely knows on the back of his motorcycle, he takes off on a high speed chase. This girl is mortified and she’s holding on to him as the police are chasing them. The kid somehow figures out he cannot get away with this girl on the back of his motorcycle. He has got to get rid of her, so he takes a hard right with his right arm, just elbows her off the bike and launches her into the street, and she rolls onto the sidewalk and he’s able to take off. I was obviously mortified.

  00:21:59 He would tell us this story and I’m like, “Dad,” and then he would say something I think to what Alma’s going to say to his sons, which is that’s what Satan will do to you. He will take you for this ride and you think everything is great, but then he doesn’t need you anymore, and when he doesn’t need you anymore, he will leave you on the side of the road beat up and almost dead. And I remember us being like, “Okay, dad.” I think that was his way of Alma 37:33 to teach them to withstand every temptation of the devil.

John Bytheway: 00:22:39 It reminds me of the last verse of the Korihor story, right? The devil will not support his children at the last day, but will kick them off the motorcycle.

Hank Smith: 00:22:50 He’ll kick them off the motorcycle and leave them on the side of the road.

John Bytheway: 00:22:55 I’m fascinated by how often the Exodus is so much in their minds and in their culture that it is still being brought up in verse one of Alma 36, that Moses remembering the captivity of our fathers for they were in bondage, and then of course, at the very end as well. Thank you for that reminder of how much Moses, and you’re saying the Passover may be even part of this arrangement of these chapters.

Hank Smith: 00:23:25 And then we talked about Passover and how Alma goes away and they never hear from him again. That’s the same with Moses.

Prof. Jack Welch: 00:23:33 Oh, that’s right. Something they would’ve recognized from their tradition.

Hank Smith: 00:23:38 What do we want to do next, Jack. Should we jump into this portion to Helaman?

Prof. Jack Welch: 00:23:43 Let’s dive right into what Alma has to say to Helaman. This chapter 36 is the greatest chiastic passage in the Book of Mormon. When you look at density and a lot of other factors, precision, balance, quotation, a lot of the elements that make for a real strong, meaningful chiasm, the turning point has to be impressive and something that you would put on a pedestal at the top of a pyramid or something and then come back down. Chiasmus can be used in explaining a journey in a way where you go from point A to point X and come back all the way to point A, or you climb up a mountain and come back down. All of these elements are brought together in a truly masterful way, and as we said before, I think that Alma knows his scriptures well enough to know that there are chiasms like this.

  00:24:44 At the end of the book of Leviticus, for example, in Leviticus 24, one of the great chiasms there, he would’ve been trained by his father. His father Alma, had been one of the priests in the court of Noah, and they knew the language of the scriptures. They studied the scriptures, they used the scriptures. Abinadi could quote the scriptures. I think this kind of verbal technical expertise, I’m not saying that Alma’s showing it off because he’s not. He doesn’t draw any attention to it, and it wasn’t until 1969 that this was actually even found. It’s that kind of thing that people wouldn’t have thought of. It makes so much sense that Alma would’ve used a very formal dignified style that would help actually with the memorization of this text. Once you know the pattern and the orders, it’s a lot easier to memorize. When we talk about a gem, they’re cut.

  00:25:53 They have facets, they reflect the light in various ways. They’re clear, they’re beautiful. All of those attributes describe Alma 36. All of these facets, they’re cut in place, they’re put together and they reflect the light of Jesus Christ. They reflect the light of truth. But Alma 36, it’s not like we’ve been handed one little gem or a beautiful big one. The Book of Mormon itself is like a crown and you have all these different parts of the crown that give it structure, that make it fit, that give it authority. I mean, what’s a crown for? It’s to recognize that the person wearing that crown is worthy. And the Book of Mormon, when you look at it with all of these kind of metaphors in mind, you can begin to say, “Well, the Book of Mormon does that too and does other things that communicate to us the deep message that Alma here is focusing on.”

John Bytheway: 00:26:58 There is on BookofMormonCentral.org, a video called The Discovery of Chiasmus, which is so beautiful. I hope people will watch that and see how this pattern that you just described was discovered, and I’d marvel that the Lord found a young missionary, put you in the right place, and it makes me think, what else are we going to discover in here? Are we at the end of Book of Mormon scholarship or are we still at the beginning, and what else are we going to discover? It’s so exciting to think of that.

Prof. Jack Welch: 00:27:32 We have not exhausted this book. There are so many wonderful things in it. Yes, it’s true that as I was a missionary, I was in the middle of my mission. In fact, the day I discovered chiasmus in the Book of Mormon was the dead center middle day of my mission.

John Bytheway: 00:27:49 Oh, really? I never knew that. Imagine that. It was the gem in the crown of your mission.

Prof. Jack Welch: 00:27:57 Yeah, the top of the mountain. Now you come back down.

John Bytheway: 00:28:01 Wow.

Prof. Jack Welch: 00:28:02 We used to mark that on our calendar, our hump day, when you’re absolutely halfway through. I look back on that and say, “Well, the Lord has a sense of humor too.” I mean, he could have done that on any other day, but he did call it to my attention at a very early point in the morning and I got up, and I did not find Alma 36 at first. I began by happening to read in Mosiah 4 and 5, King Benjamin’s speech. That’s where I went because that was what we were faithfully doing as missionaries the night before. We read every night in our Book of Mormon together in German. That’s where we’d left off, and I said, “All right,” there’s a long story on why I was aware of Chiasmus and why I would’ve responded to a spiritual prompting to actually look for it.

John Bytheway: 00:28:54 Oh, watch the video, yes.

Prof. Jack Welch: 00:28:57 But to turn exactly to Mosiah 4, turn one page, and there was Mosiah 5:10-12, which is a beautiful chiastic structure. At the end of King Benjamin’s speech, there’s a similar one of exactly the same length at the very center of King Benjamin’s speech. Now, I mentioned this in the context of Alma because we come back to the point about who is Alma the Younger, he is becoming the new ruler of the city of Zarahemla. He has taken over from Mosiah the king, the son of King Benjamin, and Mosiah had been crowned king when King Benjamin gave that coronation speech and covenant speech years before at the temple of Zarahemla. This would’ve been like reading the Gettysburg Address for Alma. This is the essence of the politics. It gives the rules that King Benjamin wanted to bestow upon his people so that his son would be a successful king, and some of the rules are very secular and popular, and ordinary, and others are very spiritual, bringing all those together.

  00:30:16 So I’m convinced that Alma would have, for many reasons, been consulting King Benjamin’s speech for religious and political reasons. He knows he has to know and recognize these crowning literary formations that King Benjamin has given him. When he now turns to giving his speech to his son, it’s natural that he would use that. But I didn’t find Alma 36, and I’ll tell you this little story, it hasn’t been told very often. I was home for my mission. I was called to be, guess what? The Gospel Doctrine teacher in my student ward. That year we were doing the Book of Mormon, and you may remember that we used to go from September to the end of August on the curriculum. The middle of that year would’ve come in March, and March the 9th was the Saturday before we were going to read some material about Alma in the Gospel Doctrine class.

  00:31:24 I had assigned the students to go back and read all of Alma’s speeches, Alma 5, Alma 7, Alma 12 and 13, read all of these speeches and see what you can ascertain, what you can learn about who Alma was and what he was concerned about, and so I had to do that. I didn’t want to stand up in front of my class if I hadn’t actually done the exercise. I pulled out my replica copy of the first edition of the Book of Mormon because I like to read that because it didn’t have chapters and verses and two columns, and I could see the text better. It was faster to read it that way, not just faster to read, but I could absorb more. As I was turning through all of these, I opened up and started reading Alma, it’s not 36, it wasn’t chapter 36 in the 1830 Edition.

  00:32:19 But as I read those pages right at the top of one of the middle columns was the turning point of Alma 36, and I had been working on chiasmus for a couple of years or a year and a half. Immediately I noticed the middle and then I started looking out to the wings, the beginning and the end of that section. The Lord does this to you. You do what you’re supposed to do and he’ll tell you things that you’re needing to know when you need to know them. That’s how Alma 36 was found. And let me say also, it’s not a gee whiz kind of thing. John, you were saying how the discovery of Chiasmus really changed a lot of things, and Hank how we do Book of Mormon studies.

  00:33:06 Do you remember how Book of Mormon studies, what it was like back in the 1960s and ’50s? Who read the Book of Mormon in those days? Not very many people really. Once chiasmus was found, instead of reading the Book of Mormon as we used to, which was to select out certain verses that were proof texts, maybe about one thing or another, or maybe to get the storyline and pick up a few details about the big picture. Now, we all became aware of the need to focus on the word level, the details, look at every little word all of a sudden might have some significance. That was a game changer, and think how many ways that has then benefited John, as you say, our study of the Book of Mormon.

Hank Smith: 00:34:03 It did. It really changed the field. Now you have Book of Mormon Academy at BYU. The many books that really have changed how we look at the book itself, the structure of the book itself. I like what you said there, John, earlier. I go back and forth from the structure-

John Bytheway: 00:34:20 Being dazzled by the structure or the content.

Hank Smith: 00:34:23 Yeah, you go back and forth. I like how you said that.

John Bytheway: 00:34:26 I will show my class the chiastic structure of Alma 36 and then I’ll say, “Now let’s not get so excited about that structure that we don’t read it. We’ve got to read and see what Alma’s going to teach his son, Helaman.” I go back and forth because both of them are amazing.

Hank Smith: 00:34:45 John, since you mentioned that, will you do something for me? There might be someone out there who is gardening or on their commute and they’ve heard us say this term, chiasm, chiastic structure, and they might be thinking, “I wish I knew what that was.” What do you tell your classes, John, when you introduce it to them?

John Bytheway: 00:35:01 Let me do this and then let me have Jack fix it if I don’t do it well, okay?

Hank Smith: 00:35:06 Yeah. Have you ever done it with Jack in the room? This’ll be-

John Bytheway: 00:35:09 No, I’ve never done it. I’m nervous right now.

Prof. Jack Welch: 00:35:12 Jack will stay in the box.

Hank Smith: 00:35:14 Yeah.

John Bytheway: 00:35:17 Yeah. Okay. I’ll tell my class that there was a structure of writing things to say a word or a phrase in a specific order like ABCDE, and then repeat it and reverse order EDCBA, or something like that and that to visualize it, it kind of goes like this and then goes like this and I’ll make an X with my hands and say, “The Greek letter chi was like that, so I think that’s why they called it a chiasmus.” Some mini chiasmus might be, “It’s nice to be important, but it’s more important to be nice,” and then they kind of get that idea or some of them that Jesus used. “The first will be last and the last will be first,” and so forth. It’s really fun. After explaining that, then I’ll show them Mosiah five that you found, 10 through 12.

  00:36:11 I’ll show them in King Benjamin’s speech in Mosiah three, but then when I get to show them Alma 36, that’s when, if they’ve never seen it before, their jaws drop and I say, “Look at that. That is a masterpiece. Look how intricate… That cannot be an accident. Think of a certain order of things and then a center which is super important where it shifts and then repeats in reverse order.” How did I do?

Prof. Jack Welch: 00:36:40 Very well. That’s good. Nicely explained, John. I would just add that the Greek word chiazein, which is where the word chiasmus comes from, means crossing. The optic nerve actually has… The left optic nerve goes to the right side of the brain, and you know how there’s a crossing in the optic nerve pattern in the brain? Well, that’s called a chiasm. That’s the chiasm in the optic nerve. It’s this idea of crisscrossing. Why do we call it crisscrossing? That actually is related to the word Christ. I don’t think there’s any reason to believe that the pattern of chiasmus is related except… The idea of the cross is not directly related, of course, to a literary chiasm, but it is interesting that in most cases, in the Book of Mormon, what you’ll find at the center of the chiasm is Jesus Christ. He’s often there at the middle. That’s certainly the case with Alma 36, isn’t it?

John Bytheway: 00:37:41 Yeah.

Hank Smith: 00:37:41 Oh, it’s wonderful. That Apex!

John Bytheway: 00:37:45 And Jack, I don’t know the answer to this. How many of these structures have been discovered within the Book of Mormon? Is it 10? Is it 20? Is it hundreds?

Prof. Jack Welch: 00:37:55 It’s hundreds. Don Parry has put together a little book of some of the newest ones that have been found and there are 200 and some in that book. You gather them all together… I haven’t added them up, but I’m guessing we have really good substantial uses. Some small, some medium, some long, I’d say four, maybe 500 of them.

Hank Smith: 00:38:18 This point is crucial, this center point that you’ve shown us in this chiastic structure, that it’s like climbing a mountain and getting to that top point and then coming back down and the center point is what’s impressive, not only about the structure, but about what it teaches. The manual brings up a great talk from Elder Matthew Holland. This is back in 2020. I remember this talk specifically because I deal with the same problem that Elder Holland here starts his talk with. He says in Alma’s report to Helaman of what happened to him, he says, “I was struck by the phrase ‘nothing so exquisite and bitter as this pain,'” and then he says, “I confess talk of exquisite pain caught my attention partly due to my battle with a seven millimeter kidney stone.” He says, “Never has one man experienced such great things when such a small and simple thing was brought to pass.”

  00:39:22 I have had my fair share of kidney stones. I thank my father for that. There were some nights where I would be, “oh, please, please. I don’t want kidneys anymore,” but he says right at the end of the talk… This whole talk is fantastic. I hope everyone will go read this, the Exquisite Gift of the Son by Elder Matthew Holland. He says, “I witness to you that through the staggering goodness of Jesus Christ in his infinite atonement, we can escape the agonies of our moral failings and overcome the undeserved agonies of our mortal misfortune. Under his direction, your divine destiny will be one of unparalleled magnificence and indescribable joy.”

  00:40:09 He’s using the language here of the center point of Alma 36. “A joy so intense,” he says, “and so unique to you, your particular ashes will become beauty beyond anything earthly. That you might taste this happiness now and be filled with it forever, I invite you to do what Alma did. Let your mind catch hold on the exquisite gift of the Son of God as revealed through his gospel in this, his true and living church.” Isn’t that so wonderful that that is the center point of this chiasmus?

John Bytheway: 00:40:50 It’s so good, and I think that a lot of parents, I hope it will give them hope because this is Alma, the vilest of sinners who… “Wait. Somewhere back there, my father told the people about Jesus Christ, a Son of God, who would atone for the sins of the world.” And then that phrase that Elder Matt Holland repeated in my mind, “caught hold upon this thought.” I mean, it was grasping like the last rope to save my life. “My mind caught hold upon this and I cried…” This is why you don’t want to be dazzled by the structure because look at the content. “I cried within my heart, ‘Oh, Jesus, thou Son of God have mercy on me.”

  00:41:32 And Hank and Jack, I have a memory of sitting in a jeepney in the Philippines next to a pastor who I had reason to believe didn’t believe we were Christians. I told him this story. I told him about in my Book of Mormon, there’s this story about Alma who remembers his father to have taught about Jesus Christ, the Son of God who could forgive sin. No idea what happened, but really fun to tell this beautiful story about someone who cried out in his heart to Jesus, “Thou Son of God, have mercy on me.” What an essential message of the whole gospel right there, faith in Christ and repentance.

Hank Smith: 00:42:26 Yeah. More from Elder Holland’s talk, he said, “Alma said everything started to change the moment his mind caught hold upon the coming of one Jesus Christ.” Everything changing at that singular moment.

John Bytheway: 00:42:43 Jack, I hope you wouldn’t mind this, but you told me… When we were on a trip together I asked you, “Did you go home? Did you show Hugh Nibley?” Could you tell us briefly how that meeting was to have one of his former students come home? And Hank, can you imagine showing Hugh Nibley something he had never seen before? Is there any other human who has ever done that before? So it’s just kind of a fun thing to imagine.

Prof. Jack Welch: 00:43:08 Well, thanks for asking about that. I was returning from my mission. It was September, the beginning of fall semester, 1968. Hugh Nibley had been my Book of Mormon teacher when I was a freshman, so I knew him. I had written to Robert K. Thomas, who was the academic vice president and told him about my discovery of chiasmus because he taught a class at BYU on the Bible as literature. He had written back kindly and said, “No, I don’t think anybody’s ever found this. I’ve never heard anyone talk about it,” so I made a little note of that and said, “Well, if Brother Thomas doesn’t know about it,” and knowing that Brother Nibley probably didn’t know about it and knowing how excited he would be, it gave me courage to get to BYU, we drove up, my brother and I, and checked into our dorm.

  00:44:04 It was about 9:30 or so, and I thought, “I’m going to take my briefcase and go over and knock on Hugh’s door.” I knew where he lived. School was beginning. I was worried that, “Well, if I don’t catch him, when am I going to have a time free to come and do that?” So I did. It was probably close to 10 o’clock when I knocked on the door. It didn’t bother me because I knew he was a night owl. He always said, “There was no virtue in getting up early in the morning to write a bad book.”

John Bytheway: 00:44:34 That’s right.

Hank Smith: 00:44:36 I think I’ve heard that. “I’d rather get up at nine and write a good book than get up at five and write a bad book.”

Prof. Jack Welch: 00:44:45 You’re right. Was I out of my mind? Yes. But I knocked on the door… Well, first of all, the lights were all on. I felt confident. One of his daughters opened the door and recognized me and said, “Hey, dad, it’s one of your students here,” and he let me in. He had served a mission in Germany. He welcomed me and I explained where I’d been, what cities I’d been in, and we chatted for a while and I said, “Well, if you’ve got a few minutes, I’ve got something I’d like to show you.” Well, I started taking out my handwritten notes and some of the work I’d done. I had with me copies of some of the books that I had acquired in German and in other places. Started talking to him about this and he immediately caught on and saw what was going on. He knew about chiasmus in ancient literature, but had never thought of finding it in the Book of Mormon.

  00:45:41 It wasn’t like it was just coming out of nowhere at him. As we started going through them, I pulled out one after another. I said, “Here’s another sheet. Here’s another one.” They were all just handwritten, some of them just scribbled, but he immediately… He knew the text. He could sense, of course, the place in the scripture where it came, its meaning, and he was like a kid in a candy shop. He insisted on my telling him every person I had talked to about it, he wanted to know where I had learned about it, and what was the name of that German professor that gave that lecture and the book that I went and bought and read about it. He was really impressed with and immediately saw, I think, a lot of the value in, “Let’s do this right.” It was probably a little after midnight when we finally said, “Okay, we’ve covered it tonight.”

  00:46:33 As he did, put both of his hands on his legs and said, “You need to write a master’s thesis on this subject,” and I said, “Well, Hugh, I’m an undergraduate. I’m not Brother Nibley. I’m not even admitted to a graduate program yet.” He said, “Don’t worry. We’ll take care of that.” I started working on my master’s thesis at that point, which I would then complete and graduate with a master’s degree the same day I got my bachelor’s degree in the spring of 1970. True to his promise, he said, “I will be on your thesis committee,” and he was. I’m so grateful that he would take the time, that he would take the interest. What a great mentor! And I’ve tried to repay that debt partly by being the general editor of the collected works of Hugh Nibley, 19 volumes, and like King Benjamin says, “It doesn’t matter how much you try to repay, he immediately pays you back and you’re still in his debt.” I’m still very grateful.

John Bytheway: 00:47:41 Didn’t he say to you something like, “This could be the most important thing to come out of the BY,” or something like that?

Prof. Jack Welch: 00:47:48 Well, he did as we walked out on the porch of his house and we were looking out in the dark and wondering, “So what’s next?” And I said, “Thank you, thank you,” and he said, “Thank you for coming. I think you’ve made the first significant discovery to come out of the BYU.” Now, to me, that of course was enabling, empowering, stimulating. I mean, I thought, “Okay, I certainly have now the support of my mentor,” but more than that, I recognized… I knew Brother Nibley well enough that he loved to speak in hyperbole. I took it with a grain of salt or maybe a whole lump of salt.

Hank Smith: 00:48:47 Well, John, this would be a perfect moment to include this. We need to do a shout-out to Rebecca Nibley who left us the kindest review on Apple Podcast. I don’t know if she’s the one who opened the door Jack, but here’s what she said. “I love, love, love this show. It’s my very favorite podcast,” and then she says, “It gives me a little personal thrill when they quote my father, Hugh Nibley, because he is my hero and the smartest man I ever knew.”

Prof. Jack Welch: 00:49:18 Thank you for bringing that up. Way to go, Rebecca. Thank you.

Hank Smith: 00:49:22 What a great story.

John Bytheway: 00:49:24 Let me throw in one more plug to watch that, the Discovery of Chiasmus video on BookOfMormonCentral.org, because correct me if I’m wrong, Jack, it looks like some of your handwritten notes are included in that video. You see a lot of those handwritten notes of chiasmus examples, is that right?

Prof. Jack Welch: 00:49:42 That’s correct. This is the issue of BYU Studies that was published in the autumn of 1969, so that’s only six months after Alma 36 was found. In this issue of BYU Studies, Alma 36… And also Alma chapter 41 has a wonderful, very creative chiasm in it, and that was published as an undergraduate in BYU Studies and it’s still one of the landmark publications of this great journal.

John Bytheway: 00:50:15 My memory too is that you published an article in the New Era, ’71 or something, about chiasmus.

Prof. Jack Welch: 00:50:21 It was actually February of ’72, and you can still look that up on the church’s website. You have to go back into the old issues of the magazines, but there’s a real fun story about that too. I was studying at Oxford University at that time, and while we were there, the church held for the first time an area conference outside of the United States. Manchester, England was the place where that was held. There were just a handful of us who were college students then. This is 1970. How many members of the church in England were there?

Prof. Jack Welch: 00:51:00 Not many. And then there were a few of us from the United States, but again, only a handful of us. As a part of that Area Conference, Jay Todd, who was the new editor of the New Era, came wanting to do an article about that Area Conference, do some interviewing, talk about the youth in England and what they were doing.

  00:51:26 He came to a little session that we had where all of the college students in all of England, we fit into one very small chapel and didn’t even begin to fill it. But he and Marion D. Hanks and other people were there, and that’s when I met Jay Todd.

  00:51:45 He had heard a little bit about chiasmus. He was current with his reading and had seen the article and he said, “Will you do an article for the New Era and aim it at the youth? We don’t want all these footnotes or we just want something that’s really nice and fun.” So I put on the title of that article, Chiasmus in the Book of Mormon, or the Book of Mormon Does It Again. Took a minute to get a smile, but you read that and it’s a clever enough title.

  00:52:16 And in those days we didn’t have social media, we didn’t have YouTube, we couldn’t go online to get things. Where did people get, especially the youth, their articles and interests? There were good things they were putting out in that little magazine. It was circulated fairly widely and more than that, the New Era sent copies of this to all the missions of the church as far as I know. And missionaries then would leave these magazines in their apartments.

  00:52:49 And I can’t tell you the number of people who tell me, “I read that article in Italy” or “I read that article in Japan” or wherever it was, and it left an indelible memory where they saw for the first time like I had. It was so exciting and so new. It’s still maturing. We’re still learning more about it.

John Bytheway: 00:53:13 That’s wonderful. I have loved talking about the structural elements of this end of the whole Book of Mormon briefly, but let’s jump in and start looking at the content. You want to begin to take us through Alma 36 here?

Prof. Jack Welch: 00:53:28 I think the best way to do it would be to go line by line, but looking at them by their pairs. Get the logic of how Alma is putting this together. In Verse 1, Alma begins by saying to Helaman, “My son, give ear to my words.” And of course, when you talk about hearing, when we hear the word of the Lord, it doesn’t just mean listen, but you really internalize it. You hear it and you obey it. If you hear the word of the Lord, there’s more to it than just listening.

  00:54:02 Then at the end in Verse 30, the last thing he says here is that the promise of the Lord that has just been mentioned, this is according to his word. What Alma is saying, you begin by listening to my words, but that will bring you to the words of God. And chiasmus often will do this, that the first mention will be at kind of an ordinary or worldly level, but then there will be an intensification in the second half. It’s clearly related. And in many of these cases, these words are only mentioned in their sequential spot in the big structure.

  00:54:50 So what does he want him to hear? He says, “Keep the commandments.” Like we’ve said, hearing means obey. “Keep the commandments and you shall prosper in the land. God has promised you that.” And if you look at Verse 30, you have exactly these same words where he says, “I want you to know as I do know, that if you will keep the commandments, you shall prosper in the land.” So at the beginning, he’s giving a command, an imperative, “Keep the commandments,” but then at the end he’s kind of bearing his testimony, “I know this.” If you do this, God will be true to his words. Next in Verse 2, he says to his son, “I wish you should do as I have done,” and particularly going on remembering the captivity of our fathers for they were in bondage. Now, if you go to the end, starting in Verse 28 and 29, “God brought our fathers out of bondage and captivity and you should retain a remembrance of their captivity. And now you will know as I do know.” You can see the reversal of the order and there’s a little subtle difference in each of those. But at the beginning he says, “I want you to do as I have done.” And then he says, “And if you do so, you will know as I do know.” Can you see how it’s being elevated but clearly connected?

  00:56:28 Going back up, he says they were in bondage, yes, and he surely did deliver them. Then in Verse 27, working up from the bottom, “He will deliver me.” We have in Verse 27 also, trust in him. And up at the top, Verse 3, Alma is saying, “Trust in God.” You see how that’s also a pattern.

  00:56:56 Now, in Verse 3, we have him saying that you will be supported in your trials, troubles and afflictions. So that’s an interesting little triplet. And in Verse 26, he says, “My knowledge is of God and I have been supported in my trials, troubles and afflictions.” He’ll only use that triplet twice. I don’t know how many other times it even appears in Alma’s writings, but very clearly they’re positioned exactly in this order.

  00:57:26 Now, in Verse 4, Alma says, ” I know this not of myself, but of God.” And if you look in Verse 26, after he tells the story of his conversion, he says, “I have been born of God, therefore my knowledge is of God.” And if you look at Verse 5, back up at the top, the way he had said it there, “I know this not of myself, but of God, for I have been born of God.” And in the second half he says, “I have been born of God and therefore my knowledge is of God.” Once again, you see the switching of the order.

  00:58:04 And at that point he begins to tell this story that I’m sure Alma has told many, many times. You go back to Alma chapter five, there are some allusions to his conversion. In Mosiah chapter 27, we have the words that he spoke as he came up out of the three days where he thought he was going to be destroyed and he immediately says, “I was in the darkest abyss, but now I behold the marvelous light of the…” I was this, but now I’m that. I was this, but now I’m… In Mosiah 27, he gives us a whole bunch of what you call antithetical parallelisms. Here he will split those antithetical parallelisms and put one part in the first half and the other part in the second half.

  00:58:49 Now, it’s much more natural and spontaneous to have done it the way he did in Mosiah 27 when he hasn’t thought about it very much. But here you can see him orchestrating, telling this story like Joseph Smith tells the story of the first vision on many occasions. He changes it in structure, not in content. It’s the same message, but it’s delivered in a way that’s appropriate for each of the contexts that Joseph is speaking in. And so it is here.

  00:59:20 So in Verses 6 through 9, Alma goes at some length to talk about how he sought to destroy the church. And if you go down to Verse 24, it’s interesting that the contrast there is that “I now have labored to bring souls to repentance.” He clearly sees his missionary labors as doing penance for, or compensating for, trying to correct problems that he had created by seeking to destroy the church.

John Bytheway: 00:59:55 I look at Verse 24 there where he’s now building up the church and one of the things that I thought was really, really interesting there where he says that “I might bring them to taste of the exceeding joy of which I did taste.” And a lot of times when we’re talking about sharing the gospel, we say we want people to feel what we have felt. But it’s interesting that he has just finished writing about the Zoramites and asking them to plant the word in their hearts and to partake of the tree of life. And he’s still using the word taste there instead of feel.

  01:00:34 I probably had a pie chart of reasons that I went on a mission. My dad went, my brothers went, I should go. I want to go. I think it’s the right thing to do. Do you know what I mean? But when I look at Verse 24, I feel like this sounds like such a wonderful motive, maybe the best motive. “From that time even until now, I’ve labored without ceasing, that I might bring souls onto repentance, that I might bring them to taste of the exceeding joy of which I did taste, that they might also be born of God and be filled with the Holy Ghost.”

Hank Smith: 01:01:09 If you had to think of all the reasons to go on a mission, that might be high on your list.

John Bytheway: 01:01:13 Yeah. And if you’re like me, my reasons got better after I was out. I met people and saw what the gospel had done for them, and it got more exciting to share it rather than just, oh, my brothers went, my dad went. Then in Verse 26, he says, “Yeah, and because of that, behold many have been born of God and have tasted as I have tasted and have seen eye to eye as I have seen.”

Hank Smith: 01:01:37 He talks about Lehi in Verse 22, and then it’s tasting and it’s fruit in Verse 25, almost as if he’s channeling Lehi’s dream there, reminding us of how Lehi had tasted of the fruit and wanted other people to taste that same thing.

John Bytheway: 01:01:59 Yeah, I love that he’s still using taste, that metaphor.

Hank Smith: 01:02:04 All right, Jack, where do you want to go next with this?

Prof. Jack Welch: 01:02:07 Verse 10, he says, Whoa, this angel appeared and my limbs were paralyzed. You don’t see that word limbs very often in the scriptures, but you’ll find it again in Verse 23, down in the second half “when my limbs received strength again.” Why did they receive strength? Well, we can just zero in now on the middle, starting in Verse 14, he says, “I feared being in the presence of God and I suffered the pains of a damned soul. I was harrowed up by the memory of my sins. And then I remembered my father speaking of one Jesus Christ, a son of God who would come to atone for the sins of the world.” And he then says, “And I did cry out within my soul, ‘Oh Jesus, thou son of God, have mercy on me.’And when I did that,” he said, “and I was harrowed up no more by the memory of my sins.” Indeed, my joy was as exceeding as had been my pain. And where he had feared being in the presence of God, now he says, ” And I did long to be in the presence of God.”

  01:03:35 The words are exactly the same but now being put into first the problem side and then the solution side. Of course, the most important thing is always the turning point. Sometimes we think that, well, Alma was converted because the angel came. No. Angels come to people. Didn’t help Laman and Lemuel. It’s more than that. The conversion doesn’t happen until he cries out within his soul, “Oh, Jesus have mercy on me.”

  01:04:11 And he’s doing it because he remembers his father speaking about the coming of Jesus Christ. He exercises faith and says, “I now call upon the name, your name, Jesus. Help me.” And when he did, that’s the turning point of not only this chapter, but obviously the turning point of his whole life.