Questions from the Field

QUESTIONS FROM THE FIELD

Was steel known at the time of Lehi's departure from Jerusalem? A well known anti-“Mormon” writer states that the Book of Mormon mentions steel (with especial reference to Laban's sword) hundreds of years before steel was known.

The use of iron by the human race goes back thousands of years. The qualities of iron, and therefore the uses to which it can be pat, are largely determined by its content of carbon. Wrought iron contains less than three-tenths of one per cent. of carbon; steel contains as high as two and one fourth per cent. of carbon; and cast iron contains as high as five per cent. of carbon. In modern iron furnaces, the quantity of carbon is controlled, so that wrought iron, steel or cast iron may be produced at will. The crude methods of iron (extraction in early days, often in open tires, offered no Such control, and it can not be doubted that steel, hard iron that may be tempered, was often formed, and became recognized. It is certain that much of the earliest iron was steel; and historical references make it equally certain that methods for preparing and hardening steel were developed very early. Homer, the poet, writing in the ninth century before Christ, made use of a simile, in one of his best known passages, drawn from the method of hardening steel.

The translators of King James’ Bible found it necessary to use the word “steel” in making clear the meaning of the Old Testament writers, and the word occurSsseveral times in periods long before the migration of Lehi.

Most objections to the Book of Mormon are of the same shallow order, intended to deceive the uninformed.