OREM — Should fiction teach?

Ask that question of a college American literature professor and the answer would be a resounding "No!" Fiction should stand on its own as its own work of art. But with the novels by Book of Mormon scholar Wesley Jarvis and fiction writer Sharon Downing Jarvis — his daughter-in-law — it's both.

Their first book together, "Priceless Discoveries," self-published by BeeJay Publishing, is about a team of three crack East Coast television journalists sent to Utah to do an expose for their boss. Reporter Tim Bradshaw wants to show up the Mormons for the fraud he thinks they are so his daughter won't join the LDS Church. Here's where it gets didactical, but the novel is also a love story. While it takes the reader through the religious investigative process, introducing Mormon doctrine in an easy, conversational style, it also follows the romance between two of the journalists, Bradshaw and Jody Sykes.

During their investigation, the two discover something in the Book of Mormon that leads them to believe that not all the Nephites, a nation of people who lived in Book of Mormon times from 600 B.C to A.D. 400, were destroyed in the great civil wars in the final chapters.

That's the foundation of the sequel, published just weeks ago. "The Zion Builders" takes Bradshaw and Sykes, now members of the LDS Church and married, through the fulfillment of Book of Mormon prophesies involving the Nephites and their descendants.

In the sequel the authors use Book of Mormon prophet Jacob's denunciation of unrighteous Nephites (Jacob 3: 3-4) as the launching pad into a discussion of how some of them could have survived the destruction of the Nephite nation. Jacob tells his people that a righteous remnant will be led away from that group.

The fulfillment of that prophesy is found in the book of Alma, within the Book of Mormon, where it speaks of Hagoth the ship builder, about 55 BC. Alma 63: 6-10 is the only reference about people of that period traveling in ships. Thousands of people traveled north in the ships Hagoth built. Some never returned.

Jarvis said it's commonly believed they populated the South Pacific Islands. And some of them may have. But the scripture is clear that at least one group of righteous Nephites traveled farther northward. The authors use their novel to state their belief that some of those people ended up on the shores of Japan.

No one really knows what happened to the Hagoth ships. But the possibilities are intriguing, Jarvis said.