How missionary found Book of Mormon secret

Discovering chiasmus in the Book of Mormon 41 years ago changed John W. Welch's life. It also changed the way many people look at the scripture sacred to members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Chiasmus is poetry, not of rhyme, but of structure. Its presence in the Book of Mormon, if recognized, can help readers understand with greater clarity not only the meaning of the text, but its origin.

Welch's belief in the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon came before his discovery of chiasmus within its pages.  On his 16th birthday, his parents gave him a small leather set of scriptures that included the Book of Mormon. He read it and, following the advice of his seminary teacher, prayed about it.

"I gained a firm assurance that the Book of Mormon was the Lord's true guide to eternal life," Welch said.

He recognizes the Lord's hand in prompting and guiding him in finding chiasmus.

In the vol. 10 no. 2, 2007 issue of Journal of Book of Mormon Studies, Welch gave a first-person account of how he found the distinctive patterns of chiasmus in the Book of Mormon.

Welch gives Hugh Nibley, a professor of ancient scripture at Brigham Young University, much of the credit for creating an intellectual atmosphere where discoveries like this could be made. He took Nibley's Honors Book of Mormon class in 1964 as a freshman at BYU. Nibley encouraged his students to read the Book of Mormon as an ancient text.

Welch left for an LDS mission to Germany in 1966.

He found that religion is always a controversial subject to open with the German people.

One scholarly German Welch would meet later was Father Paul Gaechter. Gaechter was a Catholic priest who had written a book titled, "The Literary Art in the Gospel of Matthew."

The priest acknowledged in his book that the presence of chiasmus structure indicated that a narrative was Hebraic or of Hebrew origins.  

A professor who was familiar with Gaechter's works gave a lecture that Welch and his companion decided to attend on their preparation day. The professor mentioned Gaechter's book and discussed its analysis of Matthew. It would be Welch's first contact with chiasmus.

Matthew's gospel is arranged in a seven-part structure, Gaechter explained.  This chiasmus structure is evidence of the book's Hebrew thought patterns.