As mentioned in the last post, an
enormous amount of criticism was leveled at Joseph Smith and at the Church for
more than a hundred years regarding Joseph’s claim that he found writing on
metal plates buried in a stone box. As one critic wrote: “The
book of Mormon purports to have been originally engraved on brass plates. How
could brass be written on?” Another wrote: “This book speaks of
the Jewish Scriptures, having been kept by Jews on plates of brass, six hundred
years before Christ. The Jews never kept any of their records on plates
of brass.” Still another in 1972 stated: “In the sixth century
B.C. the most common forms of writing material in Palestine were papyrus and
leather (or animal skin); the Hebrew also wrote on wood and potsherds. It
should of course be mentioned that writing on metal was not completely unknown,
since a copper scroll has been discovered at Qumran. This scroll, however, was
not a plate but a roll, and is dated much later than 600 B.C., being generally
ascribed to the first century B.C. In view of the above facts, does it seem
likely that brass plates containing a large section of the Old Testament in
Egyptian would be found in Palestine in 600 B.C.?” And yet another, “The
statement is objectionable that there were found in the possession of a man by
the name of Laban certain brass plates upon which were engraven, in the Egyptian
language, the five books of Moses, containing the law, the entire history
of the Jews from the first down to Laban's time.”
However, as often is
the case, time has shown the lack of knowledge of such detractors. In the last
post we introduced several documents written on metal plates that have since been
uncovered in the Middle East. Here are a few more:
Top LtoR: Writing on Silver plates, Writing
on brass sheaths; Bottom LtoR: Writing on gold bound in a book, and Writing on
Gold scroll—all in B.C. times in the Middle East
In addition to writing on metal
plates or sheaths as discussed in the last post, and shown above, there have
been a couple of interesting finds regarding ancient metal plates.
The first is a practice of
“sealing” a writing. In the case of the Roman document of citizenship (shown in
the last post), the two sheets were bound, or sealed, together to both protect
the witness signatures, and to provide a duplicate record of the decree. Wires
were run through the two corner holes
and small rings bound the plates together. A wire, laced through the two center
holes, was twisted to hold the plates snugly intact. A copy of the first half of constituto,
was written on the interior
text, and the text on sides B and C was a duplicate copy. If a dispute should
arise over the reading of the main text on the front of plate 1, a judge could
resolve that uncertainty by breaking open the seal impressions and untying the
sealing wire to consult this sealed portion of the record. This practice of
double-sealing a document was used earlier by the Akkadians in early B.C.
times, and several legal systems in the ancient world used doubled (duplicate)
documents to prevent tampering.
There is also mention of Sumerian sealed documents in Mesopotamia in Sureth
documkents, and in ancient Egypt, sealed portions of documents, or completely
sealed documents, were written on papyrus and often sealed with a mud
sealing embossed with a stamp from a scarab seal, much in the same way that wax
seals were later used. In Mesopotamia it was common practice to seal entire
documents to prevent tampering or even for keeping secret.
Cuneiform documents would
often be sealed in a second layer of clay onto which the inner document text
was rewritten. On receipt of the document the clay outer envelope could be
broken away and the inner text checked if there was any suspicion of tampering.
This 650 B.C. tablet still has its outer envelope with seals still fully intact
Though the famous Jordanian
codices have been shown to be a hoax, it is interesting still that of the 70
small books claimed to have been found in a cave (like the Dead Sea Scrolls),
some of them were sealed. Why would a hoaxster seal some of the little books, unless the practice of a sealed book was known well enough to convince whoever
that they would appear more authentic.
Note
that the right image of two Jordanian codices is a “sealed” book. Though a
hoax, the sealing is of interest
It seems obvious that
the sealing of writing, or a book, was not an invention of Joseph Smith, or a stolen
idea from the Book of Revelations, but represents a continuation of a
heretofore little-known practice concerning the sealing of sacred or important
records.
Another long-standing
criticism of the Book of Mormon is that Joseph Smith found the metal plates
buried in a stone box. Prior to 1823 when Joseph first saw the stone box
containing the plates, no record had ever been found describing any type of
stone box from any ancient period, and when he told of it later, again the
world laughed at such an idea. However, in recent years, numerous stone boxes
containing sacred or important records, many written on metal plates, have been
found.
It is remarkable that
though unknown in the West, for 3000 years this strange documentary custom of
depositing and burying written records in stone boxes of the Mesopotamian kings
persisted, which was distinct and separate from the scribal tradition of
clay-tablet writing associated with information of lesser or little value.
This custom led to
numerous regal burials of metallic documents, often encased in stone boxes or
other special containers, which were concealed in the foundations or other
inaccessible recesses of temples and palaces. The discovery of metal documents
beneath the foundations of the Serapis Temple, which housed the Serapeum
Library at Alexandria, has also established an archaeological connection between
the building practices of the Ptolemies and the Mesopotamian kings.
Left: The ruins of the Serapeum (Temple) of Alexandria in Ptolemaic
Egypt; Right: The Catacombs deep beneath the Serapeum, where ancient buried
writings on metal were found in stone containers
There has also been a mass of
metal tablets from Early Dynastic peg deposits, including the Akkadian bronze
tablet from Samaria, the uninscribed bronze plates from the Isin-Larsa period,
the mysterious stone and metal tablets from Old and Middle Assyro-Babylonian times,
the references to metals deposited in foundations by Shamshi-Adad I (1813-1781
B.C.) and Esarhaddon (680-699 B.C.), the built-up brick boxes from Lagash, the
many brick boxes from the Neo-Sumerian and later periods, and the door pivot
boxes.
However, one of the most important and
interesting of all the discoveries of ancient metal records was that of the
gold and silver plates of Emperor Darius I of Persia written around 518 B.C.,
which were found sealed in a box of stone and bearing a text in three
languages. The four plates of gold and four of silver and the stone box were
found beneath the foundations of the Apandana
or Audience Hall where Darius buried them in 515 B.C.
Left: Darius’ stone box and gold plates buried under the Apandana;
Right: A buried stone box with gold and silver foundation plates found by a
farmer digging a well in western Peloponnesus
The stone box loaded with metal
documents is probably derived from the peg deposits of the Neo-Sumerian
Renaissance at Mari in the Ur III period (2100-2000 B.C.). Andre Parrot
uncovered "six foundation deposits" of Niwar-Mer, which had been
embedded in the materials used to construct an ancient building. Four of these
deposits, "placed very precisely at its corners, identified the building
as the Ninhursag Temple, thanks to the inscribed bronze plates"
According to Oscar White
Muscarella in Bronze and Iron Ancient
Near Eastern Artifacts, “Foundation peg deposits were arranged under the
corners of buildings or under doors and gateways, or even scattered under walls
or pavements, usually with stone and or metal tablets. They are characteristic
of southern Mesopotamia buildings sites,” and Richard S. Ellis is quoted in The Deuteronomistic History and the Name
Theology, that “For millennia the placing of these various deposits in the
foundations of newly built or refurbished edifices was considered an essential
aspect of building protocol in the Mesopotamian cultures.” At first these peg
deposits were objects, which then grew into written texts, which eventually
became a standard in all building.
Only in recent years
have archaeologists confirmed that this method for storing valuable articles
was commonly used in ancient cultures. Joseph Smith's description of the stone
box, which contained the golden plates stood alone for nearly a century as the
only account involving ancient stone boxes. Today, we know that it was quite
common.
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