Adam Miller and Rosalynde Welch's book, Seven Gospels: The Many Lives of Christ in the Book of Mormon, was released in October 2023. Seven Gospels is a collection of letters from the authors to each other that explore seven unique witnesses in the Book of Mormon. How do these witnesses vary from one another? And what are we to learn from each particular account?
King Benjamin, Abish, Mahonri Moriancumer—these often-overlooked figures in the Book of Mormon bear powerful testimonies of the divinity of Jesus Christ and His gospel. In poignant, personal ways, they witness of His divine mission and ministry. How do these witnesses vary from one another? What are we to learn from each account? Adam S. Miller and Rosalynde F. Welch explore the wide chorus of diverse voices in the Book of Mormon, all pointing to the Savior. Through heartfelt personal letters to each other, the authors illuminate how this book of scripture uniquely teaches of Christ and assures readers that, regardless of our personal differences, Christ is willing and able to show himself to all of us.
The following questions were answered by Rosalynde Welch, co-author of Seven Gospels.
Where did the idea for Seven Gospels come from?
Adam and I have been long-time friends and writing partners. Deseret Book approached Adam to write a book about Jesus Christ in the Book of Mormon, and Adam then invited me to co-author the book—out of his inherent generosity and out of the practical reality that two authors only have to write half as many words! I accepted the invitation immediately, because I had already been thinking about a book project examining something I had noticed in the Book of Mormon: the presence of several "mini-gospels," or narrative accounts of the mortal life and atonement of Christ, sort of like compressed versions of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John. I suggested that we write on passages from Nephi, Benjamin, Abinadi, and Alma—and because seven is such a great theological number, we added the witnesses of Abish, Samuel, and the brother of Jared.
Why did you choose to write letters?
We knew that we wanted to write the book as letters to each other. This was not entirely an artificial conceit. We often send emails to each other (and to a group of other nerdy scripture friends) asking for ideas or floating ideas about a passage of scripture. So it felt very natural to write back and forth, exploring what jumped out at us from each "gospel", swapping stories, and sharing glimpses from our lives. We didn't know ahead of time how the themes of each chapter would unfold, and so the overarching themes about death, grief, love, and redemption just developed organically from these collected testimonies of Christ.
What did you learn through writing Seven Gospels?
I was surprised at how much value I found in reading these seven passages together—something that I wouldn't typically do, because they are not placed sequentially in the Book of Mormon. But considered together, they really do form a distinct and beautiful unified witness of Christ's full humanity, a testimony that perfectly complements the portrait of the mighty and glorified pre- and post-mortal Christ at other points in the book. The mortal Messiah, who willingly took on every human affliction, is a symbol of solidarity with our suffering and a model of empathy for believers to follow.
Release date: October 30, 2023. Order here.