The Brass Plates

For behold, 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)

This record of the Jews becomes a stabilizing force among the Nephites. It allows consistency of language, doctrine, history, genealogy, and tradition. The stabilizing effect can be seen when comparing the Nephites to the Mulekites who came to the new world without any records. Hence, 'their language had become corrupted; and . . . they denied the being of their Creator' (Omni 1:17).

"The purpose of the plates, as he saw it, was to preserve the cultural heritage of the past for generations to come, and especially to retain intact the unbroken religious tradition of God's people back to the very beginning.

"This is the announcement that launches the vast and restless record-keeping project of Lehi's descendants, determined to keep intact the chain of writings that bound them to the righteous of every age in a single unbroken faith and tradition. For the ancients all history was sacred history." (Hugh Nibley, An Approach to the Book of Mormon, p. 158.)

Some have argued that the description of brass in the Book of Mormon is an anachronism. However, the same term is used in the Bible as early as Genesis 4:22. Both descriptions probably describe a copper alloy which is different than the current definition. Brass is an alloy of copper and nickel. Bronze is an alloy of copper and tin. The latter was much more common in Old Testament times, but by the 17th and 18th centuries, the word "bronze" was not yet in common usage.

Hugh Nibley said:

"When we see brass in the Old Testament, are we supposed to read bronze? Answer: Well, you can read bronze. They did have brass, the alloy of copper and nickel, but, of course, copper and tin was much commoner. The word bronze doesn't occur in the King James Bible at all because it wasn't used until the 1880's. It wasn't an English word at all; it was a French word. We use brass which means bronze.... In Joseph Smith's time they didn't use the word bronze at all. That was a word for artists in Paris to use, and it was a new thing." (Teachings of the Book of Mormon, lecture 10, p. 141)