Welcome to Maxwell Institute podcast. I'm Joseph Stewart. Latter-day Saints recognize the Book of Mormon as the keystone of our religion, a book that will bring a person closer to Jesus Christ than any other.

How do non-Latter-day Saints read the Book of Mormon, though, especially in their academic research?

To answer that question, we'll speak to Dr. Rosalind Friesen Welch,

research fellow and associate director of the Neil A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship

at BYU about an article she wrote entitled The Secular Syllabus and the Sacred Book.

Literary scholars approach the book of Mormon. As always, we ask you to share the podcast

with a friend by Word of Mouth, sending a link to our YouTube page or to one of our social media handles at BYUu Maxwell. Thank you for considering

doing that. And without any further ado, let's speak to Dr. Rosalind Franston Welch. Rosalind Welch. Welcome to the

Maxwell Institute podcast. Thanks, Joey. I'm so excited to be here in the hot seat. Yeah, we are thrilled to have you

here. We are going to be discussing your article in the most recent issue of the Journal of

Mormon Studies, the secular syllabus and the sacred book, literary scholars approach the book of

Mormon. And your article looks at how scholars have studied the book of Mormon as literature.

I think that we should probably start with the basics here. Why call the book of Mormon literature doesn't its status of scripture

make it different from something like reading their eyes were watching God or the Great Gatsby or

something like that? Yeah, that's a great question. And as a former English major who read both of

those and loves them, it's important to me.

I love literature and certain books can kind of achieve something like a personal elevated status in my own soul, right?

Where I'll return to them again and again.

But yes, literature and scripture are different in important ways.

So scripture is a sacred text that has been canonized. And by that we just

mean it's been accepted by the body of Christ, received by the body of Christ as holding a kind of

spiritual power over the believer. So now that underlying text that's been canonized or accepted, it can take

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