Ancient Scriptures: The Book of Mormon: Textual Problems

Archaeological evidence is not all there is against the book. There are internal problems in the Book of Mormon, many but not all of which were edited out of the first edition. First, there were thousands of grammatical errors in the first edition which have since been sanitized out. Things like "they did not fight against God no more" (Alma 23:7), "the numerority of their forces having slain a vast number" (Alma 56:10), and "he was a going" show that the original Book of Mormon language incorporated Joseph's speaking style. Many problematic sentences remain, such as "they should observe to do all these things for to keep these commandments" (Mosiah 13:25). People's initial response to the Book of Mormon might often be very different if they confronted this language.

Mormon scholars have confusing and conflicting theories for how the plates were translated - did the Lord show Joseph the text in English, word for word (as at least one observer described), which he then read to his scribe? This can't be correct because of the many errors that can't just be attributed to scribal mistakes. If it wasn't word for word, then how do we know what in the book is Joseph's and what is ancient (and how can those infamous word print studies thus have any validity)? In the first edition, King Benjamin is twice referred to as one who can translate ancient plates, when in fact he had died years before. In later editions Benjamin is changed to Mosiah. It is unlikely that a scribe consistently made this mistake.

Another problem is Nephi's encounter with Laban. Somehow Nephi is able to decapitate Laban, put on his bloody clothes and imitate his voice perfectly. Nephi coincidentally matches Laban in stature, age and facial features (or maybe Nephi carried a fake beard with him - we know from Mormon popular pictures that Nephi was always clean-shaven, like his Native American descendants!) so that he can fool Laban's servants, who don't notice the bloody clothes. Nephi gets these mysterious plates from Laban, which must have been ridiculously massive (hundreds of pounds) if they contained the entire Old Testament up to 600 BC (assuming, as Joseph did, that all the books were written in the order they appear in the KJV). These plates were made of brass, even though brass did not exist in Egypt or Palestine until Roman times, unless of course Laban had a secret production method known to no one else in the world. Furthermore, the brass plates were supposedly engraved in Egyptian, indicating that, incredibly, Laban had an Egyptian translation of the Hebrew scriptures, including much of the writings Jeremiah, in 600 B.C., centuries before the creation of the Septuagint, the first Greek translation of the Hebrew scriptures (see Mosiah 1:4, and Firmage 2002).

The Book of Mormon people supposedly spoke Hebrew, and wrote occasionally in Reformed Egyptian, but neither Hebrew nor Egyptian had a word for brass at that time. (Ashment 1993. The King James Version has the word brass on occasion, but the original Hebrew says bronze or copper- why would the Book of Mormon continue to perpetuate this mistranslation?) On the brass plates were the five Books of Moses in spite of the fact that none of these writings except parts of Deuteronomy existed as a book until long after Lehi's family left Jerusalem. Biblical scholars have good evidence that Moses did not actually write the five books ascribed to him. The Books of Moses as we have them in the Old Testament were compiled from earlier writings during the time of the second Temple, almost a century after Lehi left the hemisphere (see Friedman 1987, especially p. 224). Also, the brass plates were said to contain many of the writings of Jeremiah, who was the Old Testament prophet who would have been contemporary with Lehi. It is very unlikely though that many of Jeremiah's words had already been written down, compiled in book form and inscribed on wicked Laban's brass plates, in Egyptian! In fact, Nephi talks about Jeremiah being thrown into prison (1 Nephi 7:14), when this did not occur until the tenth year of the reign of Zedekiah, years after Lehi's family supposedly left Jerusalem.

One spot that has always troubled me has been where Jacob reveals the name of the Messiah to the Nephites (2 Nephi 10:3). The angel tells him the name is Christ - a Greek word derived from an Aramaic term that means roughly the same thing as Messiah does in Hebrew. Why would an angel reveal a Greek word for the Nephites to use as a proper name for the Messiah? If the angel did not actually reveal the Greek word, what was revealed? Nephites were already using the word Messiah. What was Joseph really translating here? Furthermore, in the first edition of the Book of Mormon the word Christ is used before this point, contradicting Jacob's assertion that an angel had to reveal it to him. Later editions fixed this by changing the earlier reference to Messiah. The Book of Mormon also states that the Nephites kept the law of Moses, yet no mention is made of major Jewish feast days such as Passover (I know apologists try to say there are indirect hints of such festivals, but their work is sheer speculation and not solid evidence that the text is referring to Mosaic feasts).

Elder B.H. Roberts noted some of the internal problems almost 80 years ago. He writes:

The first part of [Lehi's journey] is a three days' travel from Jerusalem to "near the shores of the Red Sea" (1 Nephi 2:4-6). It may be thought a small matter, but the nearest point from Jerusalem to the Red sea is about one hundred and seventy miles, and even if allowance is made for some change in the Red Sea's extension northward, in ancient times, the distance could scarcely be covered in three days. (Roberts 1992, p. 251).

Roberts also noted the problems with the construction of the first Nephite temple:

In our examination of these matters let the smallness of Lehi's colony be constantly borne in mind. It could not have exceeded thirty, all told, who came out of Jerusalem. About thirty years later... the colony divided... How many would there be in [the] righteous branch? Not more than a hundred...many would be children. Yet we have Nephi saying:..."And I (Nephi) did teach my people to build buildings, and to work in all manner of wood, and of iron, and of copper and of brass, and of steel, and of gold and of silver, and of precious ores, which were in great abundance. And I, Nephi did build a temple; and I did construct it after the manner of the temple of Solomon, save it were not built of so many precious things; for they were not to be found upon the land; wherefore, it could not be built like unto Solomon's temple. But the manner of the construction was like unto the temple of Solomon; and the workmanship thereof was exceedingly fine" (1 Nephi 5:16). Yet this "temple" was "not built of so many precious things" as Solomon's temple, "for they were not to be found upon the land"! One may not refuse to ask what had become of the fine woods, the silver, and the gold, and the other precious ores of a few lines above! And this people of less than a hundred were manufacturing and working in iron and copper and brass, and steel and gold and silver in the New World? And they built a temple, like unto Solomon's temple "save it were not built of so many precious things"! What! may one as, a people of less than a hundred in number - and many of these children - build a temple like unto Solomon's?

Let it be remembered that Nephi knew Solomon's temple. All his days he had lived in Jerusalem, and was familiar with the temple...

Seven years was the time required to build Solomon's temple (1 Kings 6:30)!

Two kingdoms were employed in the building it [sic]. The kingdom of Israel, and the kingdom of Tyre (see 1 Kings 5:12).

Solomon raised a levy out of Israel, of "thirty thousand men..." (Studies of the Book of Mormon, p. 259-261).

As discussed earlier, some apologists postulate an 'assimilation theory,' or the idea that the Nephites became rulers over a large native population that could have provided labor to build the temple. It's hard to imagine that the Nephites would have had these natives labor on the temple without at least attempting to bring them to a belief in Christ for whom the temple rites would be a type. Yet the Book of Mormon mentions no such conversion attempt on these mysterious natives, successful or unsuccessful, which would be surprising considering the theme of the book.

There are problems with the plates themselves. Emma says the plates were wrapped up and left on the table, and that she occasionally moved them around for dusting. She must have been a remarkably strong woman, because these plates would have weighed 200 lbs. Joseph published the dimensions of the plates, and from this you can determine how many cubic inches of gold they contained. Using the density of gold, you can easily calculate how much the plates should have weighed. Joseph let several people heft a box that he said contained the plates, and these people said the box felt like 30-60 pounds. The plates were either significantly smaller than Joseph claimed they were, or else he didn't have gold plates in the box. Gold alloys or gilded copper, two possibilities that have been suggested for the plates, were not created in Mesoamerica until well after the Book of Mormon time period.

In fact, I am unable to find a single eyewitness report of Joseph actually translating with the plates present. Instead of reading the plates through the Urim and Thumim, attached to Joseph via a breastplate, all the eyewitness testimony we have describes Joseph as sitting with his face buried in a hat, staring into his seer stone, with the plates always hidden. Although like most primary children I grew up with the image of Joseph reading from the plates, the historical evidence doesn't support any such translation process.

At one point Joseph dictated what he claimed to be the original Hebrew phrases of Jacob 5:13 and 7:27 (Ashment 1993, p. 334). Here is an example: "For it grieveth me that I should lose this tree and the fruit thereof." Joseph said the original Hebrew was "ofin Zimim ezmon E, Zu onis ifs veris etzer" This is just sheer nonsense. In real Hebrew the phrase would be "ki car li ki yo'bad li ha'ec hazzeh upiryo" (Ashment's transliteration - I don't have the proper font to display this correctly). There are many other examples in Joseph's life where he made up a bunch of sounds and claimed they were Egyptian or Hebrew. Significantly, once Joseph started learning Hebrew in Kirtland, he didn't use these made up words anymore and started using real Hebrew.