From Joseph Smith’s earliest days as a prophet, talk of a record inscribed on metal plates caught the imagination of people on the American frontier, and it has continued to provide fodder for scandal down to the present. Few realized Joseph Smith was really talking about multiple ancient metal records, including not only Mormon’s gold plates but also the brass plates that figure so prominently in the Book of Mormon as well as other metallic records created by or known to the Nephites. But in the twenty-first century it is acknowledged by academics studying the ancient world that a wide variety of materials, including metals, have been used for records at various times in different places.

This paper will offer Book of Mormon readers a contemporary perspective on the use of metals for writing in ancient times. This will begin by recognizing selected contributions of earlier scholars on this question and will continue by introducing more recent discoveries that extend and enrich their story. The paper will also explore in what may be new ways for many readers the attitudes of biblical and Nephite writers toward writing on metal. While reinforcing and updating earlier works, the paper does not introduce new lines of inquiry.

Unfortunately for the preservation of these ancient writings, the refined metals on which they were inscribed may have had far more value for subsequent generations than did the inscriptions themselves. The absence of surviving metallic books compared to other inscriptions on metal sometimes leads historians to resort to this obvious explanation. But it is also not provable. While the recycling of metals could explain why so few manuscripts on metal have been preserved down to the present day, no one has yet found a way to document that. Nor were metallic books safe from the fires that destroyed so many ancient cities. “More than three

thousand tables of bronze or brass kept in the Roman Capitol perished by a fire in the reign of Vespasian.” These records supposedly contained “proclamations, laws and treaties of alliance.” The vast majority of surviving metal artifacts with inscriptions were protected in tombs, building foundations, or stone boxes. The political or religious institutions that created the original metal documents were never permanent, and so the artifacts have been left to fend for themselves over time.

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CONCLUSIONS

This essay begins with the recognition that documents written on papyrus, metal, or other materials were produced in the workshops of seventhcentury-BCE Jerusalem scribal schools. It continues with a review and an update of the most important studies produced over the last half century that document the extensive practice of engraving important documents on different forms of metal in the ancient world. With that perspective, we can see that contrary to the expectations of Joseph Smith’s contemporaries, Lehi and Nephi’s brass plates, small plates, and large plates all reflect a common practice of the ancient Near East, the Mediterranean world, and even parts of South Asia in Lehi’s day.

The essay also explains and documents the Israelite belief that written records, and especially those written on metal or stone, provided permanent witness of recorded truths and prophecies, making all subsequent generations responsible for their content. In that context, the Nephite prophets understood that the records they had been commanded by the Lord to keep on metal plates would play a major role in God’s final work of gathering and saving his people in the last days. It was that vision that motivated the prophets to endure all kinds of hardship and danger as they made their respective contributions to the creation, transmission, and maintenance of those records.