Biographical History

John Welch (1946-) discovered chiasmus in the Book of Mormon.

On Friday, August 4, 1967, while serving in the LDS South German Mission, Elder John W. Welch and his mission companion attended a lecture in the Catholic Priesterseminar during which the lecturer made use of chiasmus in the Gospel of Matthew. He also referred to the recently published book by Paul Gaechter, Die Literarische Kunst im Matthäus Evangelium, which Welch immediately went and purchased at the Pustet Bookstore only a few doors down the Gestandtenstrasse from where the missionaries had their apartment. Thus began his 40 years of collecting, analyzing, corresponding, publishing, and speaking about chiasmus as it appears in a wide range of literary contexts, especially in the Book of Mormon.

Welch's discovery of chiasmus in Mosiah 5:10-12 and 3:18-19 occurred early in the morning on Wednesday, August 16, 1967, and the following Friday he wrote his weekly letter home to his parents excitedly reporting the discovery. That letter, along with several other letters soon written by Welch to such people as his mentor at BYU, Academic Vice President Robert K. Thomas, and Paul Gaechter, then an elderly Jesuit in Innsbruck, commenced his writing on this subject. Most of his correspondence, notes, and several drafts of articles and his master's thesis were kept in various files, boxes, folders and stacks, some more organized than others. He made no attempt to consolidate or systematize these papers and working files, which were regularly consulted, utilized and drawn upon.

Welch returned from his mission in Germany in 1968 to attend Brigham Young University (BYU) for two years, earning his bachelor's and master's degrees in 1970. His article, "Chiasmus in the Book of Mormon" was written in the fall of 1968, submitted to BYU Studies in the winter of 1969, and published in the autumn issue of BYU Studies, 1969. His master's thesis on Chiasmus in the Old Testament, Ugaritic literature, Greek and Latin texts, the New Testament, and the Book of Mormon, was completed in 1970. This work contributed significantly to his admission to Oxford University to study Greek philosophy and to his being named a Woodrow Wilson Fellowship.

At Oxford, Welch corresponded often with Robert F. Smith and discussed chiasmus with several Oxford scholars, but his graduate seminars and weekly tutorials left little time for much attention to this subject. He was invited by the New Era in 1971 to submit an article on chiasmus in the Book of Mormon, which appeared in the February issue in 1972. From 1972 to 1975, Welch attended Duke Law School, where he also attended classes at the Duke Divinity School. It was at this time that he submitted an article on chiasmus in Ugaritic for publication in Ugaritforschungen, some research for which had been conducted at the Los Angeles Public Library while he worked as a paralegal in 1972 before entering law school. During these years in North Carolina, he communicated with several people at Brigham Young University and elsewhere, often regarding unpersuasive proposals to extend or apply the concept of chiasmus in various ways.

From 1975 to 1980, Welch practiced law with O'Melveny and Meyers in Los Angeles, during which time he continued corresponding with Robert F. Smith and also with Yehuda Radday at the Technion in Haifa, bringing together a group of scholars who contributed the volume, Chiasmus in Antiquity, which Welch edited in 1978 and saw it through to publication in 1981, published by Gerstenberg Press in Hildesheim, Germany.

In 1979, Welch organized the Foundation for Ancient Research and Mormon Studies (FARMS) in Los Angeles as a California tax-exempt corporation, and in July, 1980, he accepted an invitation initiated by Dean Rex E. Lee to become a member of the faculty of the young J. Reuben Clark School of Law at Brigham Young University. The FARMS organization, newsletter, and publications spawned a dramatic upsurge in visibility, exposure and communications regarding chiasmus. Reprints, preliminary reports, video tapes, lectures, and bibliographic work commenced, generating several waves of letters, exploratory contributions, and critiques. These items were processed and evaluated by Welch as much as possible, but during these years Welch was also teaching full-time at the Law School, presiding over FARMS, serving as a bishop of a BYU singles ward, working as the general editor of the collected works of Hugh Nibley, fulfilling an appointment as Director of Special Projects in the BYU Religious Studies Center, while being the father of four growing children. While certain projects such as chiasmus in Alma 36 and in King Benjamin's speech received considerable attention at this time, many items in this collection were simply gathered as they happened to come across his desk, receiving little immediate attention.

In the 1980s, the chiasmus bibliography project was started as an outgrowth of the bibliography published in Chiasmus in Antiquity, which Welch and Robert Smith had previously produced. Much of the continuing bibliographic work was accomplished by DeeAnn Hofer and Daniel McKinley under Welch's supervision. As the bibliography grew, files of copies of pages or sections from articles and books that mentioned chiasmus were collected and put in file folders that were labeled by cutting out entries from the chiasmus bibliography. These files were updated from time to time, especially in the late 1990s, when research assistants at FARMS attempted to be more comprehensive in the collection of materials for the chiasmus archive.

From 1988 to 1991, Welch served as one of the editors of Macmillan's Encyclopedia of Mormonism, while continuing to work at the Law School. The encyclopedia involved additional contacts regarding chiasmus, particularly the article on Book of Mormon Literature by Richard Rust. During this time, Welch presented and published an article on chiasmus in biblical legal texts in the Jewish Law Annual.

From 1991 to 2007, Welch served as editor-in-chief of BYU Studies. During this time he also remained on the board of trustees for the Foundation of Ancient Research and Mormon Studies, continued to give various firesides, published a number of books and articles through FARMS, taught Ancient Near Eastern and Biblical Law in the Law School, and associated with several members of the Society of Biblical Literature. All of these contacts continued to generate correspondence and materials regarding chiasmus. Notably, during these years, the Chiasmus Bibliography was published by FARMS, Chiasmus in Antiquity was reprinted, a lengthy section on King Benjamin's use of chiasmus and parallelism was included in the FARMS volume on King Benjamin's speech, articles on criteria for identifying the presence of chiasmus and answering the questions, "What does the presence of chiasmus in a text prove?" and "How much was known about chiasmus in 1829?" were produced in connection with FARMS projects. One article written by Edwards and Edwards, regarding the statistical measurement of the probability of extended chiasmus occurring by chance, was published in BYU Studies.

John W. Welch (1946 - ) discovered chiasmus in the Book of Mormon and founded the Foundation for Ancient Research and Mormon Studies (FARMS). John W. Welch was born in 1946. In 1967, while serving in the LDS South German Mission, Welch and his companion attended a lecture in the Catholic Priesterseminar which talked about the use of chiasmus in the Gospel of Matthew. Two weeks later, he discovered chiasmus in the Book of Mormon and began to correspond with family members and scholars on the subject. In 1968, when he returned from his mission, he attended BYU for two years, earning a B.A. and M.A. in 1970. He attended Oxford as a Woodrow Wilson Fellow after that, and then attended Duke Law School from 1972 to 1975. He began working for the law firm O’Melveny and Meyers in Los Angeles in 1975 and worked until 1980, all the while corresponding with scholars about chiasmus studies. In 1979, he organized the Foundation for Ancient Research and Mormon Studies (FARMS) in Los Angeles, and in July 1980 he accepted a job offer to teach at the J. Reuben Clark Law School at BYU. He continued to work with FARMS and BYU, furthering the historiography and knowledge of chiasmus. From 1988 to 1991, he served as an editor of the Encyclopedia of Mormonism and from 1991 to 2007 he was the editor-in-chief of BYU Studies. Today, he still researches chiasmus and works on the Joseph Smith Papers project.

He is married to the former Jeannie Sutton, and they have four children and sixteen grandchildren.

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Found in 97 Collections and/or Records: