While there are only a handful of primary authors of the Book of Mormon, 150 different
voices are heard throughout the text. These include the voices of God the Father, Jesus
Christ, military officers, righteous and wicked kings, wives and mothers, and many others.
Identifying and isolating these voices can provide new perspectives on its text.
It assists us in finding similarities and differences in the complex and multi-faceted
personalities present in the Book of Mormon. If you click the link in the video description,
you can access a program that lets you see the text of the Book of Mormon parsed out
by the different speakers. Let’s take a quick look at the top 5 speakers
in the Book of Mormon organized by the number of words attributed to each of them. You can
see that Mormon, for example, writes more words in the Book of Mormon than any other
person, but there are other prominent speakers in the Book of Mormon. We could spend hours
talking about each of these individuals, but today I want to share just 1 lesson I learned
from carefully studying the words spoken by Jesus Christ in the Book of Mormon.
You’ve probably noticed that in 3rd Nephi 11, one of the major messages that the Savior
gives to those present concerned baptism. Jesus said, “according as I have commanded
you, thus shall ye baptize.” And, “whosoever believeth in me, and is baptized, the same
shall be saved … and whosoever believeth not in me, and is not baptized, shall be damned.”
These are 3 of the 12 times Christ says “baptize” in this chapter.
Now, here’s what I think is really interesting. Its not just in this chapter that the Savior
focuses on baptism. In fact, throughout the Book of Mormon, Jesus Christ uses the word
“baptize” much more frequently than any other speaker in terms of times used per 1,000
words spoken. Although Mormon uses the word “baptize” more than Jesus, he also accounts
for way more words in the Book of Mormon than the Savior does.
So, when we take the total number of words spoken into account, Jesus Christ uses the
word “baptize” about 500 percent more than Mormon or Nephi do. This is something
Jesus Christ really cares about. Now, some people might think that Jesus only
uses the word “baptize” in 3rd Nephi 11, but in fact, Christ’s emphasis on being
baptized is consistent in his use of the word “baptize” throughout the entire Book of
Mormon. As you can see in this diagram, in 3rd Nephi chapters 11 through 28, Christ speaks
9,694 words and he says “baptize” 25 times. 2.58 times per 1,000 words spoken. Outside
those chapters, he speaks 4,467 words. For example, he speaks to Alma, Nephi, and others.
And in these passages, he says “baptize” 11 times. 2.46 times per 1,000 words. In other
words, about the same. The Savior’s words are scattered throughout
the Book of Mormon, but both inside and outside of 3rd Nephi, he focuses on the importance
of being baptized. Why does this matter? I think there are 2
key insights we can gain from this. First, and don’t base your testimony of the Book
of Mormon on this, its really cool that the Savior has consistent speaking patterns in
the Book of Mormon. That indicates a level of complexity beyond what Joseph Smith could
have written on his own. In the Book of Mormon, we are hearing the authentic voice of Jesus
Christ. That’s powerful. Second, and more importantly, the Savior’s
patterns in using the word “baptize” show us that baptism matters to Jesus. It’s important
to him and it should be important to us. We can also see the importance the Savior places
on baptism given that more than any other person in the Book of Mormon, he associates
his name with baptism. It’s personal to him. He has said, “baptize in my name.”
And, “come unto me and be baptized.” To be honest with you, until I did this study
on the words of Jesus Christ in the Book of Mormon, I didn’t think a lot about my baptism.
But ever since I’ve learned how significant baptism is to Jesus, my own baptism has become
more significant to me. And, I hope your own baptism feels a little more significant to
you now. I also hope you’ll click the link below
and do you own study of what individual speakers in the Book of Mormon teach in the Book of
Mormon. It’s a really powerful way to study this word of God.