In “The Book of Mormon: A Biography,” (Princeton University Press, 2012) author Paul C. Gutjahr notes that critiques and evaluations of Mormonism’s most important book have moved simple two-way, primarily theological debates between Mormon apologists and mostly evangelical critics who opposed the book for its claims of being holy scripture. As Gutjahr writes, including his own, slim but scholarly volume as one example, “By the early twenty-first century it was finally escaping the narrow confines of Mormon/non-Mormon religious debate as it increasingly came to be treated as an important text in American culture more generally.”
