Nephi's and Mormon's miraculous plate uniformity

[thechair]

Radio Free Mormon's recent podcast episode 268 (with Nemo, John Dehlin, and Mike from LDS Discussions) led me to wonder just how the length and width of Mormon's gold plates matched the length and width of Nephi's small plates that were hammered out 1,000 years beforehand. Bear with me, here; Mormon's own timeline reveals a possibly interesting payoff.

I don't remember the time stamp, but in the first fourth of the show, RFM discussed the dimensions of Nephi's large plates and Nephi's small plates. He wondered about a potential size difference. I assumed he was speaking about length and width. As he spoke, I wondered about thickness, as in, what if Nephi meant "thicker" for his large plates and "thinner" for his small plates. This then led me to ponder what size Mormon's plates were... the ones upon which he etched his abridgement of the Nephite record. Joseph Smith described the plates' dimensions as 6 inches wide by 8 inches long by 6 inches thick. (Martin Harris and David Whitmer remembered 6x7x4, different but close. See, e.g., https://www.deseret.com/2010/7/7/203829 ... den-plates )

Ok, fine. But what about Nephi's small plates? How did they nestle into the codex so unobtrusively? I don't recall any modern witnesses remembering two sizes of plates put together in the three-ring codex that Joseph Smith produced. Witnesses described plates of uniform length and width. Now remember what Mormon said about suddenly discovering and adding Nephi's small plates to his own pile. From the Words of Mormon:

3 And now, I speak somewhat concerning that which I have written; for AFTER I had made an abridgment from the plates of Nephi, down to the reign of this king Benjamin, of whom Amaleki spake, I searched among the records which had been delivered into my hands, and I found these plates, which contained this small account of the prophets, from Jacob down to the reign of this king Benjamin, and also many of the words of Nephi.

4 And the things which are upon these plates a pleasing me, because of the prophecies of the coming of Christ; and my fathers knowing that many of them have been fulfilled; yea, and I also know that as many things as have been b prophesied concerning us down to this day have been fulfilled, and as many as go beyond this day must surely come to pass—

5 Wherefore, I chose these things, to finish my record upon them, which remainder of my record I shall take from the plates of Nephi; and I cannot write the hundredth part of the things of my people.

6 But behold, I shall take these plates, which contain these prophesyings and revelations, and put them with the remainder of my record, for they are choice unto me; and I know they will be choice unto my brethren.

(All caps added in verse 3.) So Mormon made his gold plates approximately 6 inches by 8 inches, or thereabouts, with apparent uniformity according to modern witnesses. And he made his abridgment on those plates. His job was finished. AFTER THAT, while scouring the Nephite pile-o'-records, Mormon stumbled onto Nephi's small plates hammered out a millennium earlier and, lo and behold, they were miraculously the same length and width?!

(Sidebar: Mormon must have punched three holes into Nephi's small plates, too, unless Nephi anticipated Mormon's three-ring codex. If Mormon did punch the three holes into Nephi's small plates, then Nephi prophetically anticipated a large enough margin for Mormon's hole-punching. But if Nephi punched the holes, then he prophetically anticipated the diameter of, and distance between, Mormon's future punched holes.)

If Nephi's small plates were not the same size as Mormon's gold plates, wouldn't the modern witnesses of the plates have noticed and mentioned this in their descriptions? (E.g., "the plates were 6 inches by 8 except for the top half-inch--those were 5 by 7 inches," or something like that). 

If Mormon had discovered Nephi's small plates first and THEN used those as a pattern to hammer out his own to match and go with them, that would explain the apparent uniformity more rationally. But unless I'm missing something, Mormon's plates matching Nephi's small plates after-the-fact looks like one more Occam's-razor-flouting coinkidink.

thechair

[malkie]

That's pretty close to A5 paper size.

We now know that the metric standards for paper sizes were established by the Nephites!

Another bullseye for Joseph! How could he possibly have known that in 1829?

[Alphus and Omegus]

That's an interesting catch. It seems like this could be a problem for Smith.

But perhaps Mormons could say that Mormon had not finalized his codex dimensions when he was writing.

In the text from WoM that you quoted, Mormon says he has finished the abridgement of the first part of the large plates record. So therefore, he has not written out the majority of the text yet at that time.

It's not particularly convincing, but one could say that Mormon made new plates to match the Nephi small plates dimensions after finding them. Or perhaps his own record was not finalized in physical size until he found the Nephi small plates. Neither of these ideas are in the text though.

Even if the sizing problem were resolveable, however, I think that the Mormon and Nephi plates would have had different colors since Nephi's were significantly older and would have had some oxidizing and therefore discoloration. So the witnesses should have said that the plates contained a portion toward the beginning that was a different color.

But this could be resolved if Mormon simply copies the words from the Nephi small plates into his own records and doesn't physically include them.

These are interesting questions but I think there are others that are more problematic.

[thechair]

You are correct, Alphus and I was off some... Mormon's job was halfway finished, not fully finished, when he found Nephi's small plates. One doubts, though, that Mormon had a pair of tin snips at the ready. (He probably couldn't have stretched Nephi's small plates to conform them to his own; he'd have had to cut his down to size while still leaving room for the hole punching.)

by the way, did the witnesses say they opened the plates from the right swinging over to the left, like modern western books? Or from left to right?

[Dr. Shades]

Hi thechair,

Wow, THANK YOU for this! It isn’t very often that we see a unique “hit” against the church’s version of events after all these years. Congratulations for coming up with something I for one had never considered before. To my knowledge, you’re the first one to think of this (no, I’m NOT being sarcastic).

Good job on coming up with something brand-new for us to chew on.

[Dr Exiled]

How about great, great .... grandfather setting the standard for plate size and then everyone following the standard throughout the ages?