For Latter-day Saints, the Book of Mormon is scripture.
To University of Utah associate instructor David Bokovoy, it is also a story.
Bokovoy, who has spent most of his academic career on the Old Testament, is teaching a first-of-its-kind course: The Book of Mormon as literature.
"We have a need to understand Mormonism and its history as a sub-field of religious studies," he said. A course like this "has not been done before in an academic context. ... We’re allowing the text to speak for itself."