As a Scripture Central team member, I can attest to the dedication of every individual who works on all of our projects. Luckily we don't have to stay up to midnight to publish videos. RU-vid lets us schedule videos in advance. This is a lifesaver and allows us to get ahead in our production schedule as well as work more normal hours. Thanks for your shout out. :)
Brother Welch, I have been so fascinated by your story! I was a seminary student in Bicknell, Utah in 1992 when I learned about chiasmus from my teacher. I was very intrigued! I later read the book called, “Out of Darkness” which was a novel about scholars that were asked to study the Book of Mormon as a scholarly project. The story highlighted multiple compelling evidences of rather miraculous truths found in the Book of Mormon, and devoted a whole chapter on chiasmus! I was delighted years later to come across your amazing personal account of disturbing chiasmus in the Book of Mormon! Every little detail that you describe of being in the right place at the right time coupled with your intellect and curiosity created the perfect scenario for the spirit to show you what was carefully put in place in scripture! Amazing! Thank you for sharing your story of discovery!
Evidence to me that the Book of Mormon is true are the peace and joy I feel when I give myself to a diligent study of it. I believe that to be a witness from the Holy Spirit. But I am very excited to see these kinds of empirical evidences, too. This is an amazing story, and I'm so grateful it is here
While praise is difficult for a humble person like Jack Welch to receive, I am convinced that his personal worthiness made this miraculous discovery come through him. I am so glad he was prepared and receptive to the influence of the Holy Ghost on his mission to Germany back in about 1967. Hearing the origins of this Hebrew literary devise in the Book of Mormon from him is a blessing this day.
Of course I am reading Mosiah at this time. I am on chapter 3 . And I found my video by brother Welsh and sister Wilson yesterday . Funny in 1965 I was making a beach landing with 3rd Marine Division at Chu Lai Vietnam. I didn't discover a Book Of Mormon until 1977 after the war . I am eternally greatful that I was blessed to do so.
My son struggles to understand chiasmus. Whenever we try to help him understand it, he refers to them as riddles. I just sent him a link to this video. I think it might just help him understand what they are and what the structure is. Thank you.
Jack, thank you for your videos. Back in the early 1970s as a recently returned missionary sitting in the Glendale I Ward bldg you taught us a bit about chiasmus. Not being an academic I didn't understand much of what you said. Very grateful 50 yrs later to have this video explain in more detail. Thank you.
Brother Welch, thank you so much for sharing your miraculous experiences with the Spirit and finding chiasmus in the Book of Mormon for the first time. What a treasure and example! Your diligent study and teaching about the Book of Mormon, as well as other scriptures, has enriched our scripture study in the Come Follow Me progam. I love your many analyses and thoughtful teaching manner. I'm certain you have blessed many, many lives as you have ours. Thank you!
I love this. I remember reading about chiasmus years ago, but there were only one of two examples. I loved the others you shared. I also think I have noticed some. This is evidence that the Book of Mormon is what Josph claimed. Brother Welch, we are so blessed by your diligent scholarship and faithful searching. Thank you both!
Thank you Brother Welch and Sister Lynn. I have always wanted to hear the deeper details of the chiasmus reveal to you. I was in Mosiah 3 and 4 today. What a miraculous miracle The Book of Mormon will always be.
We know it was not just a coincidence that the Year Without a Summer caused Joseph Smith Sr to move his family to Palmyra, NY, within walking distance of where Moroni had secreted the Book of Mormon metal codex. It seems to me that the inspiration which guides the apostles in assigning missionaries to various nations at those times was especially working for Brother Welch. Rather than being sent to Japan, where I believe his father served, he was sent to a place where he could learn about chiasmus in a German language lecture, in a German language monograph, and using a German translation of the Book of Mormon that would highlight that first instance of chiasmus that he found in King Benjamin's sermon. Japanese grammar and word order in sentences is so different from English and sister languages that chiasmus is obscured. My feeling is that, just as God promises to bring us to knowledge of the things we have faith in if we diligently cultivate our faith (Alma 32), God rewards the Latter-day Saints who have been faithful witnesses of the Book of Mormon to the world by revealing to us new knowledge that confirms our history of faith. I think it is interesting that one of the prime examples in Matthew of chiasmus is in Chapter 13, in the parable of the sower and the Savior's explanation of it to the apostles. John Tvedtnes pointed out that the parable and it's meaning are in correspondence with the four categories of people in Lehi's dream, who respond to the Tree of Life and it's fruit (presumably bearing seeds) in different ways.
I love how Brother Welch was guided by the spirit in the wee hours of the morning and the timing surrounding how he found the chiasmus in Mosiah 4:10-12. I love how he thoroughly studied the research of a Catholic scholar to share with those of another faith. I love that his aim was to edify and to build the faith of these clergymen ("tilling the ground" as it were) on the things they already believed to be true before planting the seeds regarding chiasmus in the Book of Mormon. He was guided by the Holy Spirit on how to build bridges of friendship and dialogue. This is the approach we must all use when engaging people of all faiths. The knowledge of the Chiasmus wasn't just a means of proving a book to be true but more importantly it was a means to build bridges of conversation and friendship to connect with those of other religions. His action said, "we care about the truths you already have as well." Jacks approach was akin to that of the Apostle Paul with his sermon on Mars Hill in the Book of Acts when he quoted from their poets on what they understood to be true before introducing the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Brilliant!
I attended a class at BYU Education week 1983 all about chiasmus. (Maybe Br. Welch was the teacher?) I loved this new knowledge, and have taught it to our eight homeschooled children. Thankyou.
I gave a sacrament meeting talk about chiasmas at Ricks College when I was a sophomore there in 1980/81, using a church publication as the source, and have been intrigued with the subject ever since. What a beautiful, forceful literary style chiasmas are!
So inspiring! How miraculous you discovered this as such a young man. I have just learned about chiasmus from scripture central introducing it. God is great!
Wow, very interesting, thank you so much for sharing this with us Bro Welch. The Scriptures just keep on giving don't they, that is what I love. They truly are an endless treasure chest of precious jewels of knowledge. It was a good idea to zero in on this part of the presentation particularly, and present it again in a separate presentation. You are the best SC ❤
I got my bachelors degree from Weber state university in Ogden Utah. I had an English professor tell my class that if we could work a chiasmus into one of our papers, we would get an automatic A. I couldn’t do it 😂. Not if I wanted it to actually make sense and fit into the topic. I had to get my A the regular way.
What a profound and interesting story. My late husband first introduced me to chiasmus in the Book of Mormon & once I caught on as to how to pull it out of the page, in my mind, it really added to the depth & richness of the text. He would have been so interested to know the story behind it's discovery!
Thank you so much bro. Welch for your tesitmonyies n your understanding of its!. I really appreciated very much. God bless you for all the good n greatest work!!!…😇😇🙏🙏😇🙏😇
This is great that he was able pursue this as a missionary, to have understanding companions and understanding leaders. Today's restrictive mission rules would not allow elders to follow the Spirit and stray a little "off the program". This yielded great results for the Book of Mormon and the church.
I’m was really hoping someone would explain what chiasmus is. 😅 I get that it’s wonderful and everything but I have no idea what you are even talking about. ❤
Google You'll get an LDS Living article that will help you understand it. Basically, as I understand it, it is a Hebrew form of poetry whose structure adds beauty and emphasis. It is created by giving a sequence of thoughts until you come to the most important thought and then repeating the thoughts in reverse order. So the order of ideas would be A B C D D C B A And in this pattern, D would be the thought the writer is trying to teach. It is also found in Isaiah. Alma 36 is an example of a great one. It might be fun to try to find the elements on your own.
Most likely not. J.S couldn’t even dictate a letter or write before dictating the Book of Mormon. Have you ever met someone that grew up with no education? It’s hard for them to write or dictate correct full sentences. I know someone like that in my life and I’ve had to help them make letters and write what they are trying to say in a formal matter. As a child with an education (elementary) vs my mom with no education at all it’s so different.
It's an ancient scribal literary or poetic form of writing. It's found in the Bible. The process is involves parallel elements being stated and then repeated in reverse order. The structure builds up to a central point. There are quite a few impressive videos on the subject. Check out the one on this channel called: "How the Book of Mormon's complexity shows its authenticity." That will give you a good overview of it. The point of the discovery is that nobody noticed or knew about this in the Book of Mormon until 130+ years after the publication. There have since been found hundreds of such examples, which demonstrate the Joseph Smith, nor any other contemporary author, could have written this book.
@@joselito811The most important part is that it is an effective communication style that reinforces concepts by repeating ideas without appearing to repeat them. In my opinion.
The "Now what" application is that it's an evidence that The Book of Mormon was actually written by ancient prophets of God who were educated in the Hebrew literary and linguistic traditions. It disproves critics of The Book of Mormon who claim that the book was written either by Joseph Smith who was utterly uneducated in such matters, or written by one or more of his associates as a fraud to delude people into following them into a new religion, for their own purposes. It would have been impossible for such alleged fraudulent authorship to have produced chiasmus, inasmuch as nobody had discovered it in any ancient texts at the time The Book of Mormon was published. Hence chiasmus being discovered in The Book of Mormon fairly soon after it was discovered in the Bible is a strong evidence of the authenticity of the claims that The Book of Mormon is an authentic ancient scripture given to us by God, as claimed by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
@@MrMelvinSchlock Keep on learning and finding that all things bear testimony of Christ (Moses 6:63). Christ is he who takes us across (the cross). Chiasmus is in the form of a cross. Every man will find out that he needs the cross. My father's first name was Melvin!
The center point of the chiastic structure is the focus. So if its a A, B, C, C, B, A chiastic structure, then the focus is the center. Which would be C.
”For such men are false apostles, deceitful workmen, disguising themselves as apostles of Christ. And no wonder, for even Satan disguises himself as an angel of light. So it is no surprise if his servants, also, disguise themselves as servants of righteousness. Their end will correspond to their deeds.“ 2 Corinthians 11:13-15
That is not miraculous. There is a lot of poetry that has the same and muslims claim the same for the Koran. Straw man claim to distract from the hundreds of issues/errors in the Book of Mormon. Unfortunately LDS just put those issues on their 'shelf' of issues and ignore it.....
Do the myriad things found in the Book of Mormon and, yes, in the Book of Abraham that no scholar or group of scholars could have possibly duplicated make you consider that there is no other explanation than the miraculous?
