As explained in my last two posts, neither the Hebrew Bible nor the Old Testament existed in their current form when Lehi and his family took their journey toward their promised land. So what was written on the brass plates which Lehi so urgently wanted to bring with them? Even though we don’t have a complete table of contents, we can make some reasonable assumptions based on three types of evidence within the text: Nephi’s overview, attributed quotations, and implicit references.
Nephi’s Overview
During the narrative of obtaining and examining the brass plates, Lehi’s son Nephi gives us two similar descriptions of their content. When Lehi first gives Nephi and his brothers the assignment to obtain the plates, he says:
Laban hath the record of the Jews and also a genealogy of my forefathers, and they are engraven upon plates of brass.
1 Nephi 3:3
Lehi may not have known very much about the plates at that point. After Nephi and his brothers obtain the brass plates and Lehi examines them, Nephi gives us an expanded description of their contents:
My father, Lehi, took the records which were engraven upon the plates of brass, and he did search them from the beginning.
And he beheld that they did contain the five books of Moses, which gave an account of the creation of the world, and also of Adam and Eve, who were our first parents;
And also a record of the Jews from the beginning, even down to the commencement of the reign of Zedekiah, king of Judah;
And also the prophecies of the holy prophets, from the beginning, even down to the commencement of the reign of Zedekiah; and also many prophecies which have been spoken by the mouth of Jeremiah.
And it came to pass that my father, Lehi, also found upon the plates of brass a genealogy of his fathers; wherefore he knew that he was a descendant of Joseph; yea, even that Joseph who was the son of Jacob, who was sold into Egypt, and who was preserved by the hand of the Lord, that he might preserve his father, Jacob, and all his household from perishing with famine.
And they were also led out of captivity and out of the land of Egypt, by that same God who had preserved them.
1 Nephi 5:10-15
Nephi’s three categories of content parallel the eventual structure of the Hebrew Bible, but we should be careful not to read too much into that similarity. Biblical scholars agree, for example, that the Torah as we know it was completed after the Babylonian Exile. And with only one named prophet, Jeremiah, we will need other clues to determine which prophets and other writings were included.
Nephi twice cautions us that anything written after Zedekiah’s reign, when Nephi obtained the plates, couldn’t possibly have been included. However, even this reminder indicates that Nephi’s knowledge was not limited to the contents of the plates, and that he had at least a general familiarity with the scriptural text that many of his future readers would call the Bible. (See 1 Nephi 13:20-23; 2 Nephi 29:3-6.)
Attributed Quotations
Isaiah’s writings were definitely on the brass plates. Nephi tells us so (1 Nephi 19:21-23). He then proceeds to quote 15 chapters and paraphrase another from Isaiah’s book. (See 1 Nephi 20-21; 2 Nephi 12-24; 2 Nephi 27.) Abinadi and the priests of King Noah had access to Isaiah’s writings, even though they had no contact with King Benjamin, who kept the brass plates at the time. (See Mosiah 12:20-24; 14.) And when Jesus visited Lehi’s descendants after His resurrection, he elaborated at length on several passages from Isaiah and quoted another complete chapter. (See 3 Nephi 16; 20-22.) In all, about one third of Isaiah’s book (21 out of 66 chapters) is quoted in the Book of Mormon. Twice on the second day of Jesus’s ministry, He urges the people to “search” Isaiah’s words, indicating that they had access to this book.
Jesus also included a passage from the book of Micah in his discussion of Isaiah, which suggests that Lehi’s people were also familiar with those words. (See 3 Nephi 20:10-22; 21:11-25.)
Jesus also quoted two chapters from the book of Malachi and asked that they be written. These chapters could not have been on the brass plates, because they were written about 150 years after Lehi left Jerusalem.
So outside of the Torah, two Old Testament prophets are explicitly quoted in the Book of Mormon—Isaiah and Micah—and a third—Malachi—is quoted even though his writings were definitely not on the brass plates.
Implicit References
Other Old Testament books clearly influence Book of Mormon writers even though they are not explicitly mentioned. For example, John Hilton III, a religion professor at BYU, has identified 43 phrases which are distinctive to the book of Psalms and which also appear in the Book of Mormon (“Old Testament Psalms in the Book of Mormon,” in Ascending the Mountain of the Lord: Temple, Praise, and Worship in the Old Testament, 291–311). While it’s possible that some of these phrases were simply familiar to Lehi’s family because of their experiences in Jerusalem, Alma’s extensive elaboration on Psalm 95 during his sermon in Ammonihah suggests that this text was part of the Lehite scriptural canon.
Extra-Biblical Writings
The brass plates also included content which is not in the Old Testament. When an angel showed Nephi the compilation and impact of the Bible, he used the brass plates as a reference point:
The book that thou beholdest is a record of the Jews, which contains the covenants of the Lord, which he hath made unto the house of Israel; and it also containeth many of the prophecies of the holy prophets; and it is a record like unto the engravings which are upon the plates of brass, save there are not so many; nevertheless, they contain the covenants of the Lord, which he hath made unto the house of Israel; wherefore, they are of great worth unto the Gentiles.
1 Nephi 13:23
An important element of this description is the phrase “there are not so many.” In other words, the brass plates contained more content than the Old Testament. Nephi underscores this point when he references three prophets—Zenos, Zenock, and Neum—who do not appear in the Hebrew Bible or in the Old Testament. (See 1 Nephi 19:10-16; compare Alma 33:3-17.)
Inclusion of Old Testament Books on the Brass Plates
With each of these evidentiary lenses in mind, we can classify each book of the Old Testament as either definitely, possibly, or almost certainly not included in the brass plates.
| Old Testament Book | Included in Brass Plates? |
|---|---|
| Genesis | Yes |
| Exodus | Yes |
| Leviticus | Yes |
| Numbers | Yes |
| Deuteronomy | Yes |
| Joshua | Possibly |
| Judges | Possibly |
| Ruth | Possibly |
| 1 Samuel | Possibly |
| 2 Samuel | Possibly |
| 1 Kings | Possibly |
| 2 Kings | Possibly |
| 1 Chronicles | No: post-exilic |
| 2 Chronicles | No: post-exilic |
| Ezra | No: post-exilic |
| Nehemiah | No: post-exilic |
| Esther | No: post-exilic |
| Job | Unlikely: probably post-exilic |
| Psalms | Probably: quoted extensively |
| Proverbs | Possibly |
| Ecclesiastes | No: post-exilic |
| Song of Solomon | Possibly |
| Isaiah | Yes |
| Jeremiah | Yes, partial |
| Lamentations | No: written after the destruction of Jerusalem |
| Ezekiel | No: post-exilic |
| Daniel | No: post-exilic |
| Hosea | Possibly: contemporary with Isaiah |
| Joel | No: post-exilic |
| Amos | Possibly: contemporary with Isaiah |
| Obadiah | No: post-exilic |
| Jonah | Possibly: timing unclear |
| Micah | Yes |
| Nahum | Possibly: between Isaiah and Lehi |
| Habakkuk | Possibly: contemporary with Lehi |
| Zephaniah | Possibly: contemporary with Lehi |
| Haggai | No: post-exilic |
| Zechariah | No: post-exilic |
| Malachi | No: post-exilic – but quoted by Jesus |
So out of 39 Old Testament books, eight were definitely included in the brass plates in some form, another 16 might plausibly have been included, and 15 were written after Lehi and his family left Jerusalem.
Benefits of the Brass Plates
Book of Mormon authors repeatedly emphasize the importance of the brass plates to their people and explain some of the blessings they received through these inspired writings.
Lehi emphasizes the value of the plates in preserving the Jewish identity of his family. As a father who taught his sons in “the learning of the Jews” (1 Nephi 1:2), he clearly wanted his descendants to be connected with their spiritual heritage. So a document which explained the history of his people, particularly their relationship with God, and which placed him personally in the narrative would help his children feel a sense of inclusion. They were part of Israel and heirs to the promises God had made to their ancestors. No matter how far they traveled from Jerusalem, from the temple, and from the institutions of Israelite culture, this record would keep them grounded and connected.
Nephi uses the brass plates as a second witness of spiritual truths he has learned by revelation. He reads to his brothers from the plates to “persuade them to believe in the Lord their Redeemer” (1 Nephi 19:23), and he writes extensive passages from Isaiah in order to “prove” to his descendants “that [his] words are true” (2 Nephi 11:3).
King Benjamin valued the brass plates as a memory aid, telling his sons that “it were not possible that our father, Lehi, could have remembered all these things, to have taught them to his children, except it were for the help of these plates” (Mosiah 1:4). He tells them that the physical plates make it possible for them to have God’s commandments “always before our eyes” (Mosiah 1:5), echoing language from the Torah. (See Deuteronomy 6:6-12.)
Finally, Alma emphasized the importance of the plates in persuading people to repent. He specifically mentioned their usefulness to the sons of Mosiah, saying:
Were it not for these things that these records do contain, which are on these plates, Ammon and his brethren could not have convinced so many thousands of the Lamanites of the incorrect tradition of their fathers; yea, these records and their words brought them unto repentance; that is, they brought them to the knowledge of the Lord their God, and to rejoice in Jesus Christ their Redeemer.
Alma 37:9
For Book of Mormon prophets, the brass plates were more than a historical record. They were an essential part of their identity: connecting them to intergenerational covenants, testifying of the Savior, and bringing them closer to God.
Today I will anchor myself to scriptural texts, allowing God’s word to influence my behavior, affirm my identity, and strengthen my testimony of Jesus Christ.
Leave a Reply