Poetry in the BoM
Inverted lines, already in the record.
Chiasmus arranges a thought, then walks it back in reverse. Parallelism sets two clauses in conversation. The Book of Mormon does both, from a couplet in 2 Nephi 2 to the center point of Alma 36.
Alma’s Conversion
The finest extended chiasm in the book. Alma tells Helaman the story of his own conversion, and the chapter finds its center point with him: Jesus Christ, Son of God, sits at the exact center.
Nephi's 1st Chiasmus (1 Nephi 1–22)
We know Nephi was a prophet, ship builder, record keeper, and king, but his work as a poet cannot be overlooked.
The Hunt at the Center
The family goes out, and the verses come back in reverse. Six pairs. Murmuring, the ball, the river, Shazer, and the wilderness all reverse. The hunt for food is the center point.
The Name That Should Not Be Blotted Out
King Benjamin’s covenant speech has its center point in a single worry: that the name of Christ written in the heart might be lost. The first chiasm Welch marked in the German Book of Mormon is this one.
The Natural Man
Benjamin sets the infant who dies in infancy against the man who drinks damnation, then folds the whole argument into a single demand: become a child again, through the atonement of Christ.
We Talk of Christ
Nephi’s messianic hymn. The law of Moses is kept, fulfilled, given, and at last done away — and at the still center, four verbs of devotion: we talk of Christ, we rejoice in Christ, we preach of Christ, we prophesy of Christ.
The Word Restoration
Alma teaches Corianton what restoration actually means by laying down four paired rewards, then walking them backward twice: mercy, justice, righteousness, good — sent out, then returned.
Peace in Both Lands
A year’s record, not a sermon: the sixty-fourth year of the reign of the judges, folded into nine layers. Peace opens and closes it. At the apex, Zedekiah and the Lord stand together — in Hebrew, the -yah of the name is the Lord.
O That I Were an Angel
Alma’s wish to cry repentance with the trump of God, then the quieting of that wish. The poem begins and ends with the angel he is not, and rests on the work he has been given.
Adam Fell That Men Might Be
Lehi’s most compressed couplet. Two clauses, inverted and complete: the fall is for being, and being is for joy. Hebrew parallelism without a wasted word.