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Metal plates in ancient Israel: Difference between revisions
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===External links===
===External links===
* William J. Hamblin (research), "Metal Plates and the Book of Mormon," F.A.R.M.S. Update (July 1994), number 95.  {{link|url=http://www.jefflindsay.com/LDSMetal.shtml}}
* William J. Hamblin (research), "Metal Plates and the Book of Mormon," F.A.R.M.S. Update (July 1994), number 95.  {{link|url=http://www.jefflindsay.com/LDSMetal.shtml}}
===Printed material===
*{{Newlight|author=C. Wilfred Griggs|article=The Book of Mormon as an Ancient Book|start=75|end=94}}{{GL1|url=http://gospelink.com/library/doc?book_doc_id=264979}}
==Response==
==Conclusion==
==Endnotes==
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==Further reading==
===FAIR wiki articles===
{{Book of Mormon anachronisms}}
===FAIR web site===
*FAIR Topical Guide:[http://www.fairlds.org/apol/ai267.html Metal and metal plates]
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===Printed material===
===Printed material===  
*{{Newlight|author=C. Wilfred Griggs|article=The Book of Mormon as an Ancient Book|start=75|end=94}}{{GL1|url=http://gospelink.com/library/doc?book_doc_id=264979}}
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Revision as of 02:45, 2 October 2006

This article is a draft. FairMormon editors are currently editing it. We welcome your suggestions on improving the content.

Criticism

Critics claim that Joseph's report of finding a record on metal plates is not plausible.

Source(s) of the Criticism

  • John Hyde, Jr., Mormonism: Its Leaders and Designs (New York: Fetridge, 1857), 217–218.
  • M.T. Lamb, The Golden Bible (New York: Ward and Drummond, 1887), 11.
  • Stuart Martin, The Mystery of Mormonism (London: Odhams Press, 1920), 27.

Response

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]

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?

Endnotes

  1. [note] 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.
  2. [note] See
 
Byblos is only about 170 miles north of Jerusalem.
  1. [note] 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.
  2. [note] 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.
  3. [note] Walter Burkert, The Orientalizing Revolution: Near Eastern Influence on Greek Culture in the Early Archaic Age, 32.
  4. [note] 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)

Further Reading

FAIR wiki articles

Book of Mormon "Anachronisms"

Metal plates in ancient Israel


FAIR web site

External links

  • William J. Hamblin (research), "Metal Plates and the Book of Mormon," F.A.R.M.S. Update (July 1994), number 95. off-site
  • William J. Adams Jr., "Lehi's Jerusalem and Writing on Metal Plates," Journal of Book of Mormon Studies 3/1 (1994). [204–206] link
  • William J. Adams Jr., "More on the Silver Plates from Lehi's Jerusalem," Journal of Book of Mormon Studies 4/2 (1995). [136–137] link
  • John Gee, "Epigraphic Considerations on Janne Sjodahl's Experiment with Nephite Writing," Journal of Book of Mormon Studies 10/1 (2001). [25–25] link
  • John Gee, "Two Notes on Egyptian Script," Journal of Book of Mormon Studies 5/1 (1996). [162–176] link
  • Kirk B. Henrichsen, "How Witnesses Described the 'Gold Plates'," Journal of Book of Mormon Studies 10/1 (2001). [16–21] link
  • Janne M. Sjodahl, "The Book of Mormon Plates," Journal of Book of Mormon Studies 10/1 (2001). [22–24] link
  • Sidney B. Sperry, "Some Problems of Interest Relating to the Brass Plates," Journal of Book of Mormon Studies 4/1 (1995). [185–191] link
  • Stephen D. Ricks and John A. Tvedtnes, "Jewish and Other Semitic Texts Written in Egyptian Characters," Journal of Book of Mormon Studies 5/2 (1996). [156–163] link

Printed material

  • C. Wilfred Griggs, "The Book of Mormon as an Ancient Book," in Book of Mormon Authorship: New Light on Ancient Origins, edited by Noel B. Reynolds and Charles D. Tate (eds.), (Provo, Utah : Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University ; Salt Lake City, Utah : Distributed by Bookcraft, 1996 [1982]),75–94. ISBN 0884944697 GospeLinkGL direct link
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