A literature professor once told me that the first thing you can find out about an author through his works is whether or not he likes people. And Twain, without a doubt, hated the human race. This general disgust that he felt toward his own species, mixed with a certain level of wit and charm, inspired a number of stories and catch-phrases that have endured into our time by virtue of their chocolate-coated bitterness alone. Among his various famous descriptions of humanity as a collection of worthless fools, he left a gem for the anti-Mormons when he described the Book of Mormon as "chloroform in print."

In Alan Wolfe's Slate Magazine article by the same name, he holds Twain's typical cynicism up against the contrary opinion of scholar Grant Hardy, who praises the Book of Mormon.

Weighing these two viewpoints against each other, Wolfe shows that he sides with Twain's assessment. As evidence, he points to the fact that the Book of Mormon does not read as a work of good fiction should. Complaining of how boring the record is, he states:

Hardy does convince me that writing the Book of Mormon required an amazing amount of dedication. How else to explain its length and the fervent imagination clearly at work within it. He has not convinced me that what was written qualifies as great, or even good.

However, I am shocked at Wolfe's apparent ignorance of what a literary scholar is to do in reading the Book of Mormon. One cannot judge the Book of Mormon as a work of fiction when it was never intended to be read as fiction. Does one complain of a lack of plot continuity in an issue of The New York Times? Does one moan that the technical language of a professional journal is inaccessible to the majority of lay readers?

I understand that Wolfe, being a "learned" man, has too much intellectual objectivity to actually invest himself into anything other than criticism. I also understand that, being such an objective scholar, he simply cannot read the Book of Mormon under the assumption that it is actually holy scripture that was given to mankind by God. However, even as he reads it with such cynical intentions and prejudices, he should at least be smart enough to realize that, even if it is not really a record of an ancient people, it was certainly meant to be read as such. Because of this, any literary scholar worth his weight in beans will know that it is unfair to criticize the Book of Mormon in the same way one would criticize the latest Cormac McCarthy book. And yet, here is Wolfe complaining that the Book of Mormon does not entertain him enough.

Does Wolfe think that the Old Testament is an engaging piece of fiction? Is he enthralled by the magnificent stories of Leviticus? I doubt it. (Yes, I've read Leviticus.) And yet, ask any student of Biblical Hebrew, and he will tell you that the Old Testament is one of the greatest pieces of literature ever written. As will anyone who reads it with the expectations one would have of an ancient text and religious writing rather than with the expectations one would have of a $5 paperback novel.

Aside from his apparent inability to judge the Book of Mormon by the proper standard, Wolfe makes a blatantly incorrect accusation when he claims that the introduction of Jesus Christ onto the scene is a sudden and unexpected event that does not fit with previous events in the record. "Long after [Joseph Smith] began writing," writes Wolfe, "he suddenly realized the need to insert Jesus into the picture and so simply wedged him in." This statement shows that any reading Wolfe actually gave of the Book of Mormon was nothing more than a scan. The prophets in the New World were prophesying of Christ's appearance in the Western Hemisphere from the beginning of the record. Because of this, the appearance of Christ is neither haphazard nor sudden; it is the culmination of everything that has been written before.

Harold Bloom, a literary scholar of somewhat more acclaim than Wolfe, has very different feelings about Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon. While Wolfe disregards the Book of Mormon as a work that is not great or even good, Bloom lauds Joseph Smith as being the greatest of American writers, to be compared only with Whitman and Emerson. Bloom does this not because he believes the Book of Mormon to be a gift from God, but because he realizes that it would have taken a work of the highest genius to falsify that book and the other prophetic works of Joseph Smith.

Wolfe's patently obvious inattention and unmitigated cynicism make his opinion on the literary merit of the Book of Mormon something of little regard. Similarly, Mark Twain's general distaste for humanity explains his disregard for one of the greatest products of the human experience. The cynical sophists can complain all they want, but they cannot destroy the greatness that surpasses them, as much as they would like to.