DiscussMormonism.com

OK, on the one hand you can say, "Of course the plates don't make sense to you; the entire thing is made up." Because, there were no real plates. Joseph made, or someone made for him, a prop, and these were the "plates." OK, so that is one thing.

But I am trying to make sense of how the Book of Mormon's description of the plates fits with what we see in the history of the "translation" of the Book of Mormon. So, please correct me where I have this wrong:

Mormon's Abridgment with his Commentary and Moroni (Source material)

1. Mormon's abridgment of the Large Plates of Nephi (translation lost)
2. Small Plates of Nephi ending in Words of Mormon and his introduction/bridge regarding the reign of King Benjamin (new beginning of Book of Mormon, translated last)
3. Continuation of Mormon's abridgment of Large Plates of Nephi (translation continues after loss of manuscript)
4. Mormon's Own Record (through Chapter 7 of Mormon)
5. Moroni's addition to the Book of Mormon (Chapters 8-9)
9. Moroni's Abridgment of the 24 plates called the Book of Ether
10. Moroni's concluding account after the abridgment of Ether (Book of Moroni)

The point of confusion for me comes in the dictation order. Joseph loses the first manuscript, which, according to Don Bradley, left him to pick up the text in Mosiah (Brent Metcalf discovered Mosian Priority). Joseph did not go back and translate the small plates of Nephi to replace the lost portion of the narrative until after he had translated the rest of the book through Moroni. In Words of Mormon, however, Mormon says that he found the small plates of Nephi after he had abridged the portion "down to the reign of this King Benjamin." So he decides to "finish my record upon them, which remainder of my record I shall take from the Plates of Nephi" (I am assuming the Large Plates here).

It sounds like the Book of Mormon started with Mormon's abridgment of the Large Plates, then inexplicably started over with the Small Plates, covering the same timeframe, which Mormon only explained at the end of the Small Plates. The explanation? God told him to for some reason. Then Mormon tells us he will continue with the Large Plates from that point on, and he provides an introduction to King Benjamin to provide a bridge to his continuation of the abridgment of the Large Plates.

So, you are Joseph Smith, translating this record by divine inspiration, and you do not really understand the actual language you are reading. Somehow, maybe, again, by divine inspiration, you know to skip ahead so many leaves of the plates in order to give the Small Plates and the Words of Mormon a miss until you have completed the translation of Mormon's abridgment of the Large Plates with the added material from Moroni. Then you skip from the end of the plates back to the inserted Small Plates of Nephi and translate to the end of the Words of Mormon.

Have I missed something here? Am I wrong about where the Small Plates were inserted?

Reverend,

Is your main point that Mormon finds the small plates after he'd apparently already written the history that contains the small plates material?

Gadianton wrote:Reverend,

Is your main point that Mormon finds the small plates after he'd apparently already written the history that contains the small plates material?

Kind of. I am trying to imagine what kind of sense it makes for Mormon to place a different version of the same narrative right after the first, and then to move on with the original history, on the one hand. On the other, I am trying to imagine Joseph conveniently losing the manuscript at roughly the point where Mormon inserted the small plates, but then skipping ahead with the continuation of the large plates, requiring him to leaf through how many plates (?) to pick up at Mormon’s continuation of the Large Plates abridgment. And then at the end he goes back to the small plates to replace the lost narrative?

Frankly it sounds incredibly convoluted and contrived. Maybe Moroni leafed through for him, or put a bookmark in the right spot.

At the same time I wonder about the theft of the manuscript and how this might work as a cover story for something else, like the loss of a manuscript based on something he, himself had filched or plagiarized from something else.

Kishkumen wrote:OK, on the one hand, you can say, "Of course the plates don't make sense to you; the entire thing is made up." Because there were no real plates.

First-hand information is often the best. Best to place an emphasis on the story than worry about the story's structure as told through its McGuffin.

This is an excellent point I had not considered before, Reverend.

Funny how many things we learned growing up evanesce upon more mature reflection.

It was only last year the question occurred to me as to why two-thirds of the plates were sealed when they were inscribed with a language no one could read.

moksha wrote:First-hand information is often the best. Best to place an emphasis on the story than worry about the story's structure as told through its McGuffin.

In this case the description of the McGuffin must be consistent with claims about the translation process.

consiglieri wrote:This is an excellent point I had not considered before, Reverend.

Funny how many things we learned growing up evanesce upon more mature reflection.

It was only last year the question occurred to me as to why two-thirds of the plates were sealed when they were inscribed with a language no one could read.

And this is one of the many issues that makes it look as though the description of the plates is changing as needed. Of course there were no small plates until they were needed to provide a new text to translate from. But, Joseph was not going to claim the angel delivery service was bringing all of these different sets of plates, so he made all of the plates part of one set. This meant he only had to continue to account for the movement of one object (prop).

Future text not to be translated could be a locked portion of the same plates. Still there is but one prop needed.

It is possible sealing the majority of the plates saved Joseph the trouble of inscribing them all.

Sort of like putting a couple of hundreds on top of a stack of ones.

And is the Brother of Jared's vision really supposed to fill over 1,000 pages?

Wait a minute. How did Joseph know where in the plates to resume translating (at Mosiah) after a year’s hiatus... especially since the plates weren’t necessary or often present during the translation process? Did the rock have a spiritual sticky note or something?