List Price:    $27.98

Available from the Deseret Book Company.

Hardcover - 475 pages, 1st edition March 1997

Chiasma are not readily apparent to readers of the scriptures who are untrained in their identification. In fact, chiasmus as a literary form was virtually unknown to Bible scholars when The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints was restored through Joseph Smith. It is obvious that Joseph was unaware of the form when he translated the plates of the Book of Mormon. Yet now, through the careful analysis performed by the author, over 960 Book of Mormon chiasma have been identified and are listed and analyzed herein.

Author H. Clay Gorton, in his previous book Language of the Lord - New Discoveries of Chiasma in the Doctrine and Covenants, has already made a powerful case that chiasma are a characteristic of the Lord's speech pattern, and that their existence in the scriptures is strong evidence that those scriptures constitute divine revelation. He identified over 220 chiasma in the Doctrine & Covenants. Now, in this book, he documents over 960 chiasma in the Book of Mormon! He defines eight distinct types of chiastic structures. He takes all the chiastic passages found in the Book of Mormon and presents them in easy-to-read diagrams and explanations.

Understanding the form and nature of chiasma opens the way to a profound new level of scriptural understanding, since the structures of the chiasma often clarify the meanings of the passages involved. It has been wisely observed that "You don't understand the Book of Mormon till you know and understand this book - A New Witness for Christ!"