Anachronistic Use of the Old Testament

This anachronistic quotation of material and events before they had occurred is not limited to material from the New Testament placed in in the Old Testament period. The words of Malachi who wrote during the post-exilic period (c. 450 B.C.) are quoted with only minor variations from the King James version in a section of the Book of Mormon that purports to date over a century earlier (588-545 B.C.). Malachi 4:1 in the King James Version reads:

For, behold, the day cometh, that shall burn as an oven; and all the proud, yea, and all that do wickedly, shall be stubble; and the day that cometh shall burn them up.

In 1 Nephi 22:15 the same basic message is recorded in these words (with words common to the KJV underlined):

For behold, saith the prophet . . . the day soon cometh that all the proud and they who do wickedly shall be as stubble; and the day cometh that they must be burned.

The same text is again depended upon in 2 Nephi 26:4, 6. This anachronistic use of Malachi is further compounded by placing Malachi’s words upon the lips of the Savior when he is portrayed by the Book of Mormon as visiting America after his resurrection. Jesus informs his American audience that he quoted Malachi’s words so that they might have “these scriptures which ye had not with you” (3 Nephi 26:2). Thus the Book of Mormon itself recognizes that the Jewish people in ancient America could not have had Malachi’s words, yet the Book of Mormon managed to refer to those words in America one hundred years before Malachi had written them.

The same type of chronological disparity is seen in the Book of Mormon’s reference to Jeremiah. The Book of Mormon people are presented as having left Jerusalem in the first year of the reign of Zedekiah, which can now be dated to the year 597 B.C. While it is certainly true that Jeremiah was serving as a prophet at the time, yet his imprisonment is dated in the biblical record to the tenth year of Zedekiah’s reign (Jer. 32:1-2; 37:15). The Book of Mormon, however, claiming no further contact with the old world after leaving it, off-handedly mentions that “Jeremiah have they cast into prison” (1 Nephi 7:14).