“This Stone Shall Become the Great, and the Last, and the Only Sure Foundation”: A Nephite Poetics of Dramatic Fusion and Transfer in Jacob 5 Audio podcast of the Interpreter Foundation

Abstract: In this study, three intersecting images are traced through the small plates until Jacob 5, where they directly (or by implication) culminate in the final section of Zenos’s allegory. The three images appear fused together in Nephi’s and Jacob’s writings. Specifically, this literary study tracks the images of the olive vineyard, the sheepfold and pasture, and the cornerstone or rock foundation. These oddly fused (or adjacent) images, though complexly employed, can be understood best as representing not only Christ but a gospel-centered record to be revealed by him. Fundamental to this reading is the idea that the Good Shepherd gathers his sheep by means of a stone or rock comparable to the gospel of Christ. In making this case, it is helpful to compare related texts such as 2 Nephi 25 and 3 Nephi 27. The value of this analysis is to demonstrate a unity amidst complexity in the aesthetic of the Book of Mormon and to offer alternative readings of certain scriptures, especially Jacob 5. Zenos’s allegory is read here as tragicomedy and as one locus for the aforementioned images.





John Milton’s Paradise Lost, not unlike the Book of Mormon, deals with the Creation, Fall, and Redemption of humankind. It is also an epic patterned after the Eastern aesthetic of the Holy Bible that this study will term fusion poetics. This term refers to a poetic characterized by the varied and complex mingling of symbols and metaphors to illustrate diverse aspects of a topic or theme. In Deuteronomy 33:26–29, for instance, “God” is compared in rapid fire, and without [Page 376]differentiation or discussion, to a raptor, a rock with arms (a personified place of refuge), a shield, and a sword. In effect, God is described in this passage by means of several fused (adjacent) images that act as metaphors. This aesthetic is found in the writings of Nephi and Jacob, who apply mixed imagery involving plants, sheep, and rocks or stones. Further, and more broadly, whereas the Miltonic epic seeks to explain the fulfillment of the earliest messianic prophecy (Genesis 3:15), the Nephite record has much to say about messianic prophecy and the fulfillment of the Abrahamic covenant (Genesis 12:3). Milton’s narrative poem is a creative expansion of Genesis 1–3. It is more of a literary epic than a historical one, though. Yet, both works claim to be inspired and employ an aesthetic of fusion that, for Milton, is manifest in his passion poetics.1 Especially for Milton, this creative aesthetic of fusion has implications for his reader’s interpretive experience, and ultimately, his/her salvation.2 As in Hebrew prophetic tradition, Milton, an aspiring poet-prophet, pulls together disparate textual strands into a oneness that is excessively detailed. This dense detail may disorient his reader. When dictating his literary testament, Milton drew heavily on his wide learning, thereby creating an intertextual complexity to rival those epic works before him. Without overstating the comparison between these distinct religious texts, except to say that as Milton (and the prophets among the Hebrews whom he imitated) had a tendency to gather together in-one scattered biblical images in making an apocalyptic theodicy, so did, it appears, the Nephite prophets, who were also students of the Hebrew prophetic tradition and imitators of the same,