When it comes to predicting futures for readings of the Book of Mormon, it's hard to beat the book itself. As readers of the text know well, 2 Nephi 29 contains perhaps the greatest prophecy ever made about reception of a forthcoming book: “Because my words shall hiss forth, many of the Gentiles shall say: A Bible, a Bible, we have got a Bible! And there cannot be any more Bible!”1 This prediction turned out to be accurate. When the book first appeared in print in 1830, “many of the Gentiles” did react with ire, and, indeed, nonbelievers have spent practically every day since the book's publication asserting that “there cannot be any more Bible.” Nevertheless, the book's second prediction about itself also has proven prescient. “For after the book of which I have spoken shall come forth and be written unto the Gentiles and sealed up again unto...

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