The Book of Mormon

Week 13: King Benjamin’s Temple Sermon

Mosiah 2–6

18 January 2023

• John W. Welch and Stephen D. Ricks, eds., King Benjamin’s Speech: “That Ye May Learn Wisdom” (Provo, UT: Foundation for Ancient Research and Mormon Studies, 1998).

• John A. Tvedtnes, “King Benjamin and the Feast of Tabernacles,” in By Study and Also by Faith: Essays in Honor of Hugh W. Nibley, volume 2, eds. John M. Lundquist and Stephen D. Ricks (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book and Provo, UT: Foundation for Ancient Research and Mormon Studies, 1990), 197–237.

• Matthew L. Bowen, “Becoming Sons and Daughters at God’s Right Hand: King Benjamin’s Rhetorical Wordplay on His Own Name,” Journal of the Book of Mormon and Restoration Scripture 21, no. 2 (2012): 2–13. Bowen argues that King Benjamin’s reference to being “found at the right hand of God” in Mosiah 5:9 is a play on his own name, which means “son of the right hand.”

• Donald W. Parry, “Service & Temple in King Benjamin’s Speech,” Journal of Book of Mormon Studies 16, no. 2 (2007): 42–47. Parry, a professor of Hebrew Bible at BYU, explores how King Benjamin’s speech focuses almost entirely on service, repeating four variations of the word—servants, serve, served, and service—fifteen times in only eighteen verses (Mosiah 2:10–27).