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Metal plates in ancient Israel
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Contents
- 1 Is Joseph's report of finding a record on metal plates is not plausible?
Is Joseph's report of finding a record on metal plates is not plausible?
Questions
It is claimed that Joseph's report of finding a record on metal plates is not plausible.
To see citations to the critical sources for these claims, [[../CriticalSources|click here]]
Answer
In the past critics of the Book of Mormon have attacked the alleged absurdity of the Book of Mormon having been written on golden plates and its claim of the existence of an early sixth century B.C. version of the Hebrew Bible written on brass plates. Today, however, critics almost universally admit that there are numerous examples of ancient writing on metal plates. Ironically, some critics now claim instead that knowledge of such plates was readily available in Joseph Smith's day. Hugh Nibley's 1952 observation seems quite prescient: "it will not be long before men forget that in Joseph Smith's day the prophet was mocked and derided for his description of the plates more than anything else." [1]
William J. Adams Jr., "Lehi's Jerusalem and Writing on Metal Plates"
William J. Adams Jr., Journal of Book of Mormon Studies, (1994)Lehi sent his sons back to Jerusalem to obtain scriptures engraved on "brass plates" (1 Nephi 3 and 4). Later we read that Lehi and his son, Nephi, kept records on metal "plates" (1 Nephi 6 and 9). These incidences raise the question: Did others in Lehi's Jerusalem inscribe records on metal plates?This lack of metal inscriptions from Judea could be interpreted to mean that (1) Judeans did not write on metal plates, or (2) archaeology has not found artifacts which would support the practice of writing on metal plates in seventh-century BC Jerusalem. Alternative 2 seems to have been the problem, for inscribed silver plates have been excavated only recently.
The use of metal plates upon which records are inscribed is fairly well attested throughout the Middle and Far East from many centuries before to many centuries after Lehi, but none so far appear to be from Lehi's seventh-century BC Judea.
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Sidney B. Sperry, "Some Problems of Interest Relating to the Brass Plates"
Sidney B. Sperry, Journal of Book of Mormon Studies, (1995)Most contemporary Old Testament scholars question whether Moses wrote the Pentateuch, but the Book of Mormon affirms Moses' authorship. Questions arise as to how Jeremiah's prophecies appeared on the brass plates and what the nature of the Book of the Law was. According to the brass plates Laban and Lehi were descendants of Manasseh. How then did they come to be living in Jerusalem? The brass plates, on which may be found lost scripture, may have been the official scripture of the ten tribes.
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Detailed Analysis
Recent reevaluation of the evidence now points to the fact that the Book of Mormon's description of sacred records written on bronze plates fits quite nicely in the cultural milieu of the ancient eastern Mediterranean.
One of the earliest known surviving examples of writing on "copper plates" are the Byblos Syllabic inscriptions (eighteenth century B.C.), from the city of Byblos on the Phoenician coast. The script is described as a "syllabary [which] is clearly inspired by the Egyptian hieroglyphic system, and in fact is the most important link known between the hieroglyphs and the Canaanite alphabet."[2]
It would not be unreasonable to describe the Byblos Syllabic texts as eighteenth century B.C. Semitic "bronze plates" written in "reformed Egyptian characters."[3]
Walter Burkert, in his study of the cultural dependence of Greek civilization on the ancient Near East, refers to the transmission of the practice of writing on bronze plates (Semitic root dlt) from the Phoenicians to the Greeks. "The reference to 'bronze deltoi [plates, from dlt ]' as a term [among the Greeks] for ancient sacral laws would point back to the seventh or sixth century [B.C.]" as the period in which the terminology and the practice of writing on bronze plates was transmitted from the Phoenicians to the Greeks.[4]
Students of the Book of Mormon will note that this is precisely the time and place in which the Book of Mormon claims that there existed similar bronze plates which contained the "ancient sacred laws" of the Hebrews, the close cultural cousins of the Phoenicians.
Burkert also maintains that "the practice of the subscriptio in particular connects the layout of later Greek books with cuneiform practice, the indication of the name of the writer/author and the title of the book right at the end, after the last line of the text; this is a detailed and exclusive correspondence which proves that Greek literary practice is ultimately dependent upon Mesopotamia. It is necessary to postulate that Aramaic leather scrolls formed the connecting link."[5]
Joseph Smith wrote that "the title page of the Book of Mormon is a literal translation, taken from the very last leaf, on the left hand side of the collection or book of plates, which contained the record which has been translated."[6]
This idea would have been counterintuitive in the early nineteenth century when "Title Pages" appeared at the beginning, not the end, of books.
Why, then, did Joseph claim the Book of Mormon practiced subscriptio—writing the name of the author and title at the end of the book? If the existence of the practice of subscriptio among the Greeks represents "a detailed and exclusive correspondence which proves that Greek literary practice is ultimately dependent upon Mesopotamia [via Syria]," as Burkert claims, cannot the same thing be said of the Book of Mormon—that the practice of subscriptio represents "a detailed and exclusive correspondence" which offers proof that the Book of Mormon is "ultimately dependent" on the ancient Near East?
Best articles to read next
The best article(s) to read next on this topic is/are:
- William J. Hamblin, "Sacred Writing on Metal Plates in the Ancient Mediterranean," FARMS Review 19/1 (2007): 37–54. off-site wiki
- William J. Hamblin, "An Apologist for the Critics: Brent Lee Metcalfe's Assumptions and Methodologies (Review of Apologetic and Critical Assumptions about Book of Mormon Historicity by Brent Lee Metcalfe)," FARMS Review of Books 6/1 (1994): 434–523. off-site
Notes
- ↑ Hugh W. Nibley, Lehi in the Desert, the World of the Jaredites, There Were Jaredites, edited by John W. Welch with Darrell L. Matthew and Stephen R. Callister, (Salt Lake City, Utah: Deseret Book Company; Provo, Utah: Foundation for Ancient Research and Mormon Studies, 1988), 107.
- ↑ See Byblos is only about 170 miles north of Jerusalem.
- ↑ Hugh W. Nibley, Lehi in the Desert, the World of the Jaredites, There Were Jaredites, edited by John W. Welch with Darrell L. Matthew and Stephen R. Callister, (Salt Lake City, Utah: Deseret Book Company; Provo, Utah: Foundation for Ancient Research and Mormon Studies, 1988),105–6. Nibley mentions these plates, which were not deciphered until 1985.
- ↑ Walter Burkert, translated by Walter Burkert and Margaret E. Pinder, The Orientalizing Revolution: Near Eastern Influence on Greek Culture in the Early Archaic Age (Cambridge, Mass. : Harvard University Press, 1992), 30. ISBN 0674643631.
- ↑ Walter Burkert, The Orientalizing Revolution: Near Eastern Influence on Greek Culture in the Early Archaic Age, 32.
- ↑ Joseph Smith, History of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, 7 volumes, edited by Brigham H. Roberts, (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1957), 1:71. Volume 1 link (emphasis added)