Concerning the Brass Plates (28 July 1921)

CONCERNING THE BRASS PLATES.

By Thomas W. Brookbank.

(Continued from page 453.)

Attention is next directed to other matters which have a bearing, though not directly, upon the main subject of these remarks. The prophecies of the sixteen prophets, whose utter­ances have been preserved to us in the Old Testament Scriptures, cannot all be arranged in the order of their delivery; but there are references in them to events in Jewish ancient history, besides other keys that are useful for the purpose, by which chronologists fix the time definitely in some cases, and with a close approximation in others, when these inspired servants of God prophesied, and the respective times are given by Dr. Clarke as follows:

Jonah, under the reign of Jereboam the second.

Hosea, under Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, etc.

Joel, contemporary with Hosea.

Amos, under Uzziah and Jereboam the second.

Isaiah, under Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz and Hezekiah.

Micah, contemporary with Isaiah.

Nahum, under the reign of Hezekiah.

Habakkuk. under the reign of Manasseh or Josiah.

Zephaniah, under Josiah.

Jeremiah, from Josiah to Zedekiah.

Daniel, under the captivity, after Zedekiah.

Ezekiel, at the same time.

Obadiah, during the captivity.

Haggai began to prophesy during the second year of Darius.

Zechariah, about the same time (See Zech. 1:1, and 7:1).

Malachi, the last of all the Old Testament prophets, under Nehemiah.

According to this showing, six of these prophets prophesied in whole or in part after B.C. 000, at which time the Book of Mor­mon claims that a colony of Jews, under the leadership of a prophet named Lehi, left Jerusalem for a country they called “their land of promise,” now known as America. The colonists took with them certain brass plates which, we find from Nephite sources, contained the law of Moses, the prophecies of a number of the Jewish prophets, that is such of them as had been uttered down to about the date already given, besides a record of some other matters of importance.

In this connection a fact of much interest is that none of the prophecies of the later prophets could possibly be written on the plates which that Jewish colony carried away from Jerusalem to America. Now, while the Book of Mormon, or the Nephite record as that work is often called, makes lengthy quotations from Isaiah’s prophecies, it nowhere claims to give as of record on the brass plates any of the prophetic utterances of God’s servants who declared His word during the later years of the reign of Zedekiah, the Babylonish captivity or thereafter, though refer­ence is made to messengers from God who went among the people during the first year of Zedekiah’s term of office—a time just previous to the departure of Lehi and his people from Jerusalem. The prophecies which had to be excluded from the brass plates are those of Ezekiel, Daniel, Obadiah, Haggai, Zechariah and Malachi, and they are consistently excluded from the record on the brass plates according to what the Book of Mormon definitely states respecting this point, or attests the truth thereof by a failure to quote any of the said later prophe­cies, or to mention even by name the famous prophets Ezekiel, Daniel and the other messengers from God just spoken of. This is a remarkable fact when one reflects that Joseph Smith in his early life was not a trained student of Biblical history, and had he been an impostor and had written the Book of Mormon as a romance, he would, without the least doubt, have got himself right at this stage of his cheat entangled in a network of contra­dictions from which he never could have been extricated with the least semblance of honor.

It is a fact, however, that two whole chapters from Malachi are found in the Book of Mormon. But since they were delivered by the Lord Himself to the Nephites, their having a place in that book does not in any manner reflect on the truth of what has been said respecting the contents of the brass plates, and these remarks apply also to Christ’s Sermon on the Mount, which is made part of the Nephite record. Since Jeremiah’s prophecies were uttered in great part before B. C. 600, a reference to them could consistently be made as we find from I. Nephi 5: 13 was done; but while no blunder was committed in thus referring to his prophecies, it would have been fatal to the Nephite claims had Jeremiah’s Lamentations been represented as forming part of the contents of the brass plates; but this yawning pitfall found no victim among all the men from first to last who had anything to do with the coming forth of the Book of Mormon.

Not only, then, are there no prophecies or sacred teachings of any kind belonging to a later date than that which witnessed the carrying away of the brass plates from Jerusalem by Lehi or his people, represented either directly or indirectly as forming part of the contents of the said plates, but, farther, in no part of the Biblical Scriptures (Protestant canon) written by Ezekiel, Daniel, Obadiah, Haggai, Zechariah and Malachi is there found a single reference to tables, tablets, plates or mirrors upon which they were to record their prophecies, as Isaiah and Habakkuk had been commanded by the Lord to use when writing His word to them. Were there no more of the revelations of God to man worthy of being written on metal plates that it might endure for ever and for ever? Why should the Lord cease giving directions to His servants to write on metal plates at practically the very time when the Nephite records tell us that a lehole book of sacred brass plates was carried away by divine direction from Jerusa­lem? No attempt will be made by the writer to depict to the reader's mind the full significance of the facts and circumstances just recited. Think of them in connection with the command­ments which had been given only a short time previously to Isaiah and Habakkuk: to see to it that plates were used for recording purposes. Looking the whole field over can one fail to conclude that the Almighty had some special object or purpose in view when he caused a record of his words to his prophets to be recorded on brass plates, and that, so far as the work of pre­paration of the record was concerned, that part had been fully accomplished, and that then, in order to prevent the sacred volume from falling in the near future into the hands of the Babylonians, he sent it far a way by the hands of his prophet Lehi, to another land of promise, where he could build up anew his Church among his children?

When opponents of this work inform us whether several sacred things which were kept in the temple at Jerusalem fell into the hands of the Babylonians (allowing that the Lord could be indifferent to their fate), when the holy city was destroyed, or were sent to places of concealment and safety according to his direction, there to be guarded by angelic custodians, it will be time for them to scoff at the Nephite record, which tells us that one of the most sacred things of the Jews was carried by divine command to a place of safety in what is now known as the land of America. Neither Jew nor Gentile can tell us what became of several sacred things which were kept in the temple at Jerusalem. These holy things, like the sacred plates, seem to have taken wings simultaneously and mysteriously vanished from the sight  of the Jews either in Palestine, Babylon or elsewhere. What became of those holy things is a problem of tremendous interest that every one should seek to solve aright. If men are utterly indifferent respecting their fate, we may be sure that the Lord’s interest in their preservation has not slackened.