Michael Preece, former president of the London South Mission, promised to teach BYU–Hawaii’s students and faculty some of the most important things he knows at a devotional held on Sept. 28.
His daughter Katie introduced him. She shared that Preece is a former member of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, a practicing cardiologist, as well as former mission president. He began each morning while in medical school studying the Book of Mormon as he would study his medical books. Since then, he has written several volumes of verse-by-verse commentary of the Book of Mormon, Pearl of Great Price and Doctrine and Covenants for his family members.
Brother Preece shared of “evidences” of the Book of Mormon which he defines as a “feature or concept in the text of the Book of Mormon that is particularly significant, important, and exciting. But its significance and importance were not appreciated by Joseph Smith or anyone else in 1829, the year the book was translated.”
The first evidence he shared was chiastic parallelism. It is a form of poetry that has a central idea in the middle and works it’s way in and out repeating the same ideas.
“Well, so what? Joseph Smith must have been just unbelievably lucky. His writing just happened to contain complex examples of chiasmus. It was a pure accident. What do you think? Was it luck? Was it mere accident? What is your opinion? I promise you it had nothing to do with luck. I promise you it was not accident,” said Brother Preece.
Another evidence is textual consistency. He illustrated it through an example in Alma. “In Alma 36:22 the prophet Alma quotes a twenty-one word statement verbatim uttered some 500 years previously by father Lehi. Lehi's statement is found in 1 Nephi 1:8.
Joseph had dictated 1 Nephi chapter 1 a few weeks and hundreds of pages before. How then might we explain the twenty-one word phrase that is shared by these two verses? Joseph Smith didn't stop to look back. He just kept on reading. The answer is that it was Alma who looked back in the record and found the quote of father Lehi on the small plates of Nephi. He then included it in his writings,” said Brother Preece.
A third evidence he mentioned is called wordprinting. It is “Using statistical models and sophisticated computer technology, scientists have long been able to characterize the writing pattern or wordprint of any given author. Studies have shown that even the most skillful writers cannot change their pattern at will. The wordprinting pattern of one author is statistically different from that of all other authors.”
This proves that “Nephi's writings were taken from the small plates of Nephi, and so had not been abridged by Mormon. Alma's writings were abridged. The results unambiguously showed that the writings of Nephi and Alma were distinct from one another and both were quite different from the writings of Joseph, Oliver, and Solomon Spaulding,” said brother Preece.
“The Book of Mormon is absolutely true. I promise you that. What does this mean? What does this imply? Does it mean that Moroni actually appeared to young Joseph Smith? Did Joseph just happen upon the plates by chance? The Book of Mormon is true. Does that mean that Joseph actually saw the Father and the Son in the grove? Does it mean that there actually is a life after death and that we will live together forever. It does. It does. Please know that. This is all absolutely true! I promise you!” he said.
Brother Preece left BYU–Hawaii with a promise. He said that if anyone has any questions at all about the Book of Mormon to email him because either he or his scholarly friends will answer it.
“I'll do whatever I can to instill in you a love for this powerful book and for the gospel,” he concluded.
Contact Brother preece at
mmpreece7@gmail.com.
Photo by Monique Saenz.