King Zedekiah

This issue is one I don’t see covered too often, but is important because it shows that the author of the Book of Mormon erred in the chronology of events leading up to the departure of Lehi.

From 1 Nephi:4:

“For it came to pass in the commencement of the first year of the reign of Zedekiah, king of Judah, (my father, Lehi, having dwelt at Jerusalem in all his days); and in that same year there came many prophets, prophesying unto the people that they must repent, or the great city Jerusalem must be destroyed.”

The problem here is that Nephi says this happened during the first year of Zedekiah, but Zedekiah was only put in after Nebuchadnezzar II, king of Babylon, sieged Jerusalem and made him king.

In other words, the first year of Zedekiah was the first year of the Babylonian exile, meaning that the city was already devastated and thousands had been taken captive and their property pillaged. To be clear, the Book of Mormon has Lehi making a prophecy for something that had already happened.

This problem is further complicated by the Book of Mormon stating that Lehi lived in Jerusalem his entire life, which means that he could not have been unaware that Jerusalem was already taken over and devastated before making this prophecy. If the Book of Mormon was a true historical record, Lehi would have already lived through the besieging in 605 BCE along with the siege of 599-597 BCE that led to Zedekiah being installed as king.

Furthermore, Lehi’s sons do not believe Lehi’s prophecy that Jerusalem could be destroyed. From 1 Nephi 2:13:

“Neither did they believe that Jerusalem, that great city, could be destroyed according to the words of the prophets. And they were like unto the Jews who were at Jerusalem, who sought to take away the life of my father.”

Again, this makes absolutely no sense given that Jerusalem has already been devastated, many thousands of leaders and ruling class people had been taken captive, and the city and temple pillaged. The chronology is off, and this timeframe is crucial in that it’s where most scholars agree the Bible becomes more reliably historical beginning with the reign of Zedekiah.

The timing is also problematic in that Lehi is portrayed as a prominent figure in Jerusalem, descending from the line of Joseph. When Jerusalem was sieged, they took over 10,000 of its citizens to Babylon, and yet Lehi was left in Jerusalem. This is also true of Laban, who is given importance in the text, yet he also remains behind with brass plates that would have also been of great wealth to Babylon if they existed.

As I mentioned above, this is where scholars can identify these events as historical because there are corroborating materials. In this case, the sieges and captures are recorded in both the Bible and Babylonian records, yet are completely absent from the Book of Mormon.

While on the surface it might seem like a small issue, the fact that the opening chapter of the Book of Mormon are out of the correct timeframe is a big problem for any claim to being a historical record. (On a small side note, this is exactly what happens in the very beginning of the Book of Abraham as well.) There is absolutely no way that Lehi could live in Jerusalem all his days and not know that Jerusalem had been taken over, let alone have children that did not believe it could happen.

As we’ve pointed out in these overviews, these are the seemingly tiny mistakes that let us know that a text is not what it claims to be. In the case of the Book of Mormon, throughout these overviews we have provided example after example where we can show that not only can the Book of Mormon not be an ancient text, but that the author has to be Joseph Smith.