Grant Hardy's love of the Book of Mormon has spanned a lifetime. When he began teaching history at the University of North Carolina at Asheville, he saw the need to share his love with his fellow professors by editing a more reader-friendly version of the Book of Mormon.
"I am the only LDS faculty here in Asheville," Hardy said. "Many of my colleagues have a Book of Mormon on their shelves, and when I ask them if they have read it they usually say only the first 30 pages before they became disinterested or confused."
According to the book's introduction, The Book of Mormon: A Reader's Edition "reformats the complete, unchanged 1920 text in the manner of modern translations of the Bible."
Instead of a verse format, Hardy reorganized the text into paragraphs, and added quotation marks, indented quoted documents and italicized portions of Biblical prophecies contained in the Book of Mormon.
In addition to the text, the 696-page book also contains a glossary of names, an essay on Book of Mormon poetry, and a chronology of translation, among additional information.,
"I included footnotes that detail Mormon's editing," Hardy said, " as well as Emma Smith's testimony of the translation of the Book of Mormon."
Hardy said he included everything he would want some to know about the Book of Mormon, if he gave them a copy.
"The Book of Mormon is not an easy text to read," Hardy said. "It is easy to get bogged down so in this edition I tried to give people a format which is easier to comprehend."
Hardy has spent the last ten years working on this edition of the Book of Mormon. When he completed the introduction he sent a copy to the Institute for the Study and Preservation of Ancient Religious Texts, formerly the Foundation for Ancient Research and Studies, to get some feedback.
Hardy said the response he has received from the Institute has been positive and he has used them as a resource to compile some of the charts in The Book of Mormon: A Reader's Edition.
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has not taken a stand on Hardy's reader friendly version. Students interested in purchasing The Book of Mormon: A Reader's Edition, can look for it in the BYU Bookstore after its publication in May. "We are planning on carrying it, as far as we know," said Maureen Porter, the religious buyer for the BYU Bookstore.
As far as Hardy's colleagues at the University of North Carolina are concerned, Hardy said, "Of course it would be great if everyone who read this book got interested and become converted, but I just hope that this book will allow more people everywhere to read the Book of Mormon."