Title: A Word in Season: Isaiah’s Reception in the Book of Mormon
Author: Joseph M. Spencer
Publisher: University of Illinois Press
Genre: Religious Non Fiction
Year Published: 2023
Number of Pages: 297
Binding: Hardcover, Paperback, and eBook
ISBN-13: Hardcover: 978-0-252-04552-3; Paperback: 978-0-252-08763-9; eBook: 978-0-252-05515-7
Price: $125 (hardcover) /$30 (paperback) / $tbd (ebook)
Reviewed by Richard Ji for the Association for Mormon Letters
A Word in Season: Isaiah’s Reception in the Book of Mormon, written by Joseph M. Spencer, posits that the Book of Mormon’s treatment of “Isaiah is a key – perhaps the key – to the Book of Mormon’s meaning” (p. viv). Spencer makes clear that the Book of Mormon gives priority to Isaiah as a source (abundance of Isaiah chapters quoted) and argues that it “programmatically makes the interpretation of Isaiah a central and sustained concern in order to raise questions about and then to defend vigorously the modern relevance of the ancient institution of prophecy” (p. xv). A Word in Season is a scholarly review of Spencer’s argument. While he deploys all the rigors of a scholastic work, Spencer makes clear that he is a “believer in the Book of Mormon, convicted at the religious and existential level of its spiritual value and its historical truth” (p. 21).
The book is organized into two main parts: Mormon’s Isaiah and Nephi’s Isaiah. Each part has four chapters. There are Acknowledgements, Introduction, and Preliminary sections at the beginning of the book and Notes, Works Cited, Index, and Scriptural Index sections at the end. Spencer’s analysis follows the chronological order as originally translated by Joseph Smith. This places the story of King Benjamin first and Nephi’s works last in his study. Whereas, in the published edition, Nephi’s works are first and then followed by Mormon’s abridgments. This change was due to the lost manuscript pages known as the Book of Lehi. Spencer believes that the order that was first read by Joseph Smith has a material effect on how one understands the role Isaiah has in the Book of Mormon (p. 17).
In Mormon’s Isaiah, Spencer focused primarily on Mosiah (Abinadi) and Third Nephi (Jesus). In Nephi’s Isaiah, the focus, as implied from the name, is on Nephi’s writings on Isaiah. Spencer believes that by following this order of analysis, one can get a sense of not only distinctions between the three primary expounders of Isaiah but also how they build upon one another and crescendo (p. 19) in the form of a symphony.
A Word in Season is clearly written by one who is not only gifted intellectually but whose passion for Isaiah is evident throughout the book. The analysis presented by Spencer is not intended for the average person but rather for those who may share the zealousness of the author as well as the cerebral horsepower to keep up with him.
Joseph Spencer deploys a device borrowed from fellow Isaiah scholar Katheryn Pfisterer Darr, which looks at the text through the eyes of an imagined reader. In A Word in Season, Spencer’s imaginary person is an ideal reader/listener who sits in the room with Joseph Smith through the translation process, both hearing the words as Joseph Smith says them and then can follow up later reviewing the written transcript. This imagined listener/reader would also have passion and knowledge of Isaiah and prevailing interpretations of his writings up through about 1830 (p.22-23). While such a device provides clarity on the perspective Spencer desires a reader to take, I found the execution of it to be a bit distracting.
First, the description of the device when cited was long. Second, the ideal listener/reader’s interpretations (as explained by the author) were so elite that for average readers such as me, the perspective was unrelatable. At times, it felt condescending that if one would not naturally interpret the text as such a reader, one was not a careful reader. In my opinion, the ideal listener/reader is such a person as Joseph M. Spencer, so rather than convolute the text with the insertion of what the ideal listener/reader might think, just simply expressing it as Joseph Spencer would suffice.
Spencer quotes Claudia Bushman twice. Once, where she quips that Nephi’s long quotations are no doubt the “chloroform in print” spoken of by Mark Twain (p. 167). Next, he quotes her speaking of the “wasteland of 2 Nephi with its endless transcriptions of Isaiah” (p. 177). In both instances, the context was one of how smart readers such as Claudia Bushman were themselves puzzled or found difficulty with Isaiah. So, if a famed scholar such as Claudia Bushman were to say such things, it seems relating to Spencer’s imagined ideal listener/reader is out of reach.
Despite the distractions, one cannot question the value of Spencer’s work. A Word in Season: Isaiah’s Reception in the Book of Mormon may be the definitive text of the subject matter to date. It is chock full of enlightened analysis and profound testaments to the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon. What I find amusing is that whereas Spencer sees the crescendo in Isaiah, I see the crescendo in some of Spencer’s findings that support historicity. Two examples are the finding of “inclusion” within the works of Nephi as discovered when studying the 1830 edition of the Book of Mormon with its original chaptering. Such a literary device was common for Hebraic authors of the time but not a known device until after Joseph Smith translated the Book of Mormon. The other finding was the fact that Nephi’s works drew from what modern scholars consider to be First Isaiah and Second Isaiah (not Third Isaiah) which would be consistent with the timing of the Brass Plates when Lehi and his family left Jerusalem. Such analytics were also not available during Joseph Smith’s time. As a believer, Spencer seems to mention such things only in passing. It seems that such findings are not impressive to him because of the Book of Mormon’s innate truthfulness, duh. But for readers like me, who also share Spencer’s belief, such insights are extraordinary and worthy of more discussion as they help to validate faith and historicity rather than simply being esoteric findings.
A Word in Season: Isaiah’s Reception in the Book of Mormon by Joseph M. Spencer is a worthy contribution to Latter-Day Saint (LDS) scholarship. While it may not be as accessible to the average reader, it merits ownership in libraries of those with a passion for Isaiah or LDS scholarship in general. I am grateful for scholars like Spencer who devote such energy to subjects that most find to be grueling.