This is one of the major strengths of the book, the first in the Maxwell Institute's Brief Theological Introductions to the Book of Mormon series. It gives example of some of the great questions we could be asking, shows productive ways one might approach answers to those questions (along with showing some ways others may have considered them), and guides us into ways of closely reading and paying attention to the text in a way that can lead to discovering one's own 'new' questions.
It's not a book designed to make 1 Nephi easier - it's a book designed to make our engagement with it more meaningful.
I appreciated Joseph Spencer's combination of candor and sensitivity. He asks the reader to be prepared for hard questions, and models ways we can productively think about them.
It's a small book, but some of the insights presented within it will be sitting with me for a long time. I very much look forward to what the other authors in this series bring to their forthcoming volumes in the series. I highly recommend it.
