Mormon writers lose no opportunity to attempt to vindicate the Book of Mormon, and Mormons, who have little else to cling to, will grasp, without hesitancy, any seeming straw of evidence that will bolster their faith. The Improvement Era serves as a medium of disseminating these bits of encouragement to the saints.

Typical of this is an article in the April 1962 issue. Thomas Stuart Ferguson in an article entitled “Gold Plates and the Book of Mormon, describes two plates found in Iran as follows:

These tablets are thing and one of them has about the same dimensions as the tablets comprising the Book of Mormon said by the prophet Joseph to be about six inches wide and eight inches long. This tablet of gold was engraved in the fourth century B.C. in the days of Darius II.

So far we have no problem in this report. Joseph smith did describe his plates as about the size stated, and gold plates from the reign of Darius II are quite plausible. From here Ferguson gets himself into trouble when he says:

Of all ancient inscriptions which have been discovered in the Bible world—old world homeland of the Book of Mormon nations—confirming the claim of the Book of Mormon that the ancient scribes engraved historical data on metal plates, perhaps none is more noteworthy or remarkable than these gold tablets recently discovered in Iran.

Here Ferguson gives the Book of Mormon nations an Old World homeland in the Near east. The Book of Mormon people, according to all of the Mormon writers, are the American Indians, hence Ferguson implies that the American Indians are from the Near east. The Book of Mormon, of course, goes into detail to establish the teaching that the American Indians are descended from Israelites who traveled to America in 600 B.C. which, of course, is absurd, the American Indians being Mongoloids from eastern Asia and not Semites from Bible lands.

Ferguson goes deeper to enhance his argument by stating:

One of the grounds for attacking Joseph Smith and the restoration of the gospel has been that the idea of a book of gold plates is, in and of itself, absurdity.

Ferguson contuse by drawing two other Mormons into the argument, Dr. Franklin Harris, Jr. of the University of Utah and Dr. Ariel Crowly of Boise Idaho, who have compiled a long list of inscribed tablets. Ferguson does not state that none of these inscribed tablets is from the New World and that none of them contains material pertinent to the Book of Mormon or related subjects. He says only:

These compilations also establish that the references within the Book of Mormon to the use of metal plates by people possessing the culture of the ancient Middle East are well founded.

The absurdity is not in the assumption that Joseph Smith had metal plates but in that they were produced in America during the period from 600 B.C. to A.D. 431, the dates of the Book of Mormon. We will overlook the absurdity of the Book of Mormon which states that the Jaredite civilization was engraving records on metal plates in America as long ago as 2,000 B.C.

One of the best established facts of American antiquities is that the early Americans had no metal during the supposed period of the Book of Mormon. In the Book of Mormon there are repeated references to the smelting of metals and the production of plates of metal in which to record the Nephite records. It makes little difference whether the plates were of gold or copper, as both metals were unknown until after the Book of Mormon period.

Three ancient cultures date the use of metal in ancient America.

First of these is the Nazca, whose first traces would be dated at the early centuries after Christ and continuing until A.D. 500, with metal appearing at the close of the period. Some gold is found in middle and late Nazca graves. There are in the form of beads and were a quite uncommon find.

The Mochica culture dates from approximately A.D. 500, and a wider use of gold and copper is indicated. It will be seen that this is already later than the Book of Mormon period.

Following this came the now celebrated Chimu culture, which developed considerably to the north of Nazca and Mochica. This civilization was noted for its fine work in smelting and engraving and for processes of metallurgy that have not been duplicated to this day.

All of this, however, can give no comfort to the Mormons as the Chimu florescence did not occur until six hundred years after Angel Moroni is supposed to have buried the golden plates in a chest on a hillside on the Smith farm at Palmyra, N.Y.