Why the Number Five?

Cardon Ellis (the host) and Jonah Barnes (an associate professor and expert in apocryphal studies) dive into a fascinating literary discovery from the Book of Mormon—what Jonah Barnes describes as a "double chiasm" or concentric chiasms in Alma chapter 24, specifically in the speech of King Anti-Nephi-Lehi.The duo starts on a light note, joking about seeing chiasms everywhere (even in sandwiches), before digging into the structure and thematic relevance of chiasmus—a literary pattern often associated with Hebrew texts. Jonah Barnes explains that while chiasms are known in the Book of Mormon, he discovered two overlapping or concentric chiasms centering around key verses involving the words “stain” and “brethren.”