This is an archived copy of a post written by Conflict Of Justice (conflictofjustice.com). Used with permission: Conflict Of Justice may not agree with any alterations made.
The Book of Mormon is a large volume of scripture. Is it possible for 531 pages of text fit onto a small set of gold plates? Yes. The Book of Mormon text fits on a 2.5 inch thick set of plates, which accounts for the unsealed portion of the gold plates.
Detailed witness descriptions give us a good idea of what the gold plates which Joseph Smith used to translate the Book of Mormon looked like. They were 6-8 inches by 8 inches in size, and 6 inches thick. Each plate was “not quite so thick as common tin.” Both sides of each plate contained inscriptions, and they were “filled with” characters, “fine engravings”, “some large some small.” We don’t know how many plates there were, but we can compare it to other ancient metal plates and estimate how much writing the volume could have contained.
How Many Characters Per Page? – We can look at ancient metal tablets discovered by archaeologists to get an idea for how many reformed Egyptian characters fit onto each page of the gold plates. Ancient metal plates generally match the gold plates’ dimensions. For example, the Diamond-Cutter Sutra plates at Iksan, Korea are 6 by 5 inches. The Qumran copper scroll is 12 inches wide and 1mm (.04 inch) thick. The Qumran copper scroll can fit 17 lines of text across the 12 inch wide sheet and fit about 16 character across 8 inches. This calculates to about 2.8 characters per square inch.
The Darius gold plate is a better example for comparison, because it uses cuneiform text similar to the reformed Egyptian and it uses gold which is easier to get smaller inscriptions into each page. The gold plates fit more characters because gold is much more maleable and easier to write onto. The Darius gold plate fits 27 lines of text across 13 inches and 24 characters per line, calculating to about 3.8 characters per inch square. Let’s go with that.
How Many English Words Per Character? – The original Hebrew version of scripture is much shorter than our English translation. For example, Ezekiel 37:16 is 46 words long in English but only 23 words in Hebrew, and the Hebrew words are much shorter. “Associated with him” is a 5-letter word, and the vowels of words were omitted in the written text. So, Hebrew is less than half as bulky as the English.
But the Book of Mormon was not written in Hebrew. It was a unique form of “reformed Egyptian.” In Mormon 9 we read: “And if our plates had been sufficiently large we should have written in Hebrew.” This indicates the reformed Egyptian afforded a significantly more condensed writing than even ancient Hebrew. This is probably because it was hieroglyphs, and each character represented an entire word rather than just a letter in a word. Not only that, a string of English words could be represented by a single character. For example, “‘And it came to pass’ is likely a single hieroglyphic symbol that denotes that something happened next. There is evidence that such symbols were used by the ancient peoples of the Americas, such as the Mayan ut symbol.” (Steve Poole) That is 5 words translated from a single short character.
It is difficult to determine how many English words should on average account for a single reformed Egyptian character, but the famously wordy grammar of the English text indicates it is a considerably large number. About 15 years ago, Elder Dieter Uchtdorf participated in a church effort at producing a new German Book of Mormon translation. The German translation that had been used for over a century took liberties in wording and grammar in order to make the text condensed and easier to read. But the church determined that it would be better instead to provide a more precise translation that ends up taking up many more pages. For example, Ezekiel 37:16 begins with “We’attah ben adam,” three words that could reasonably be condensed in English to: “You man-son.” But the KJV bible translates it as “Moreover, thou son of man.” The first verse of Mosiah in the Book of Mormon is: “And now there was no more contention in all the land of Zarahemla,” and this could be condensed to: “Now, no contention in Zarahemla-land.” I estimate there are 3 to 5 English words per original Egyptian character.
158 Total Plates – If we consider the greatest number of words that may have appeared on the original gold plates (268,163 words), take 1 character per 4 words, 56 square inches per page, and estimate 3.8 characters per square inch, this calculates to 315 pages or 158 plates in the golden plates. This number could be slightly higher if some of the inscriptions were larger and there were some blank space, but it sounds like the Nephites were interested in cramming as much text as possible on each plate. Depending on how adroit they were at tiny inscriptions, this number could be considerably smaller.
2.58 Inches Thick – Joseph Smith said each plate was thinner than common tin. Other witnesses described it as the thickness of tin, which varies from 0.01-0.5 mm. One study determines each plate was 0.0163 inches thick. How much space accounts for the air between each plate? Well, David Whitmer described the closed set of plates “as solid to my view as wood.” One critic of the church points out: “The very weight of the plates themselves would eliminate any air gaps, thus making the plates a virtual block of gold.” So we can agree space between each plate is negligable? This calculates to 2.58 inches of thickness.
This number could be smaller. One study comparing the text to Hebrew produces a much smaller number: “According to this finding, the Book of Mormon could be written using as few as twenty-one plates (or even forty-eight if written in larger characters).” Another quick experiment finds that if you squeeze the English text of the Book of Mormon to 8 pt. font on 7 x 8 inch plates, it stacks up to only 1.5 inches thick.
Sealed Portion – There is some disagreement of how much of the plates were sealed. Orson Pratt is quoted in the journal of discourses claiming “about two-thirds were sealed up, and Joseph was commanded not to break the seal.” The Catholic Telegraph reported only one-third was sealed, and David Whitmer said “about the half of the book was sealed.” (Deseret Evening News, 1878) If it is between half and two thirds, this calculates to 6 inches of total thickness, exactly the thickness of the gold plates that all witnesses described.
What About The Lost 116 Pages
“Getting all of the Book of Mormon on a two inch stack of plates becomes even more complicated since the text of the 116 pages lost by Martin Harris must be included.”
(www.ULM.org)
What about the large portion of text that got lost at the beginning of the translation process?
That was a different set of plates. We often make the mistake of thinking that the Book of Mormon was translated straight over from a book that looked exactly the same but just needed translating. I don’t think this is true. Throughout the text, we see headings announcing the start of a different historical record. Mormon provides an introduction (which is actually located at the end of each record) in multiple places, suggesting multiple compilations of records. It could be these records were compiled into the same set of gold plates or that Joseph Smith handled multiple sets of plates. We don’t know.
But what we do know was that Lehi’s record which was translated onto the lost 116 pages was on a totally different set of plates from first and second Nephi. It sounds to me like Nephi’s record was on a different set of plates than the record of Lehi and Mosiah through Moroni: “And now, verily I say unto you, that an account of those things that you have written, which have gone out of your hands, is engraven upon the plates of Nephi; Yea, and you remember it was said in those writings that a more particular account was given of these things upon the plates of Nephi. And now, because the account which is engraven upon the plates of Nephi is more particular concerning the things which, in my wisdom, I would bring to the knowledge of the people in this account— Therefore, you shall translate the engravings which are on the plates of Nephi, down even till you come to the reign of king Benjamin, or until you come to that which you have translated, which you have retained;” (D&C 10:38-41)
Should Gold Plates Be Heavier? – Another common argument from skeptics is that if the plates were gold they should have been too heavy to be able to carry. Witnesses said the plates weigh 40 to 60 pounds. But a solid piece of gold of these dimensions would weigh about 230 pounds. Why this discrepency?
Copper is much lighter. At 3.74 oz. per cubic inch, a set of copper plates of these dimensions would weigh 78 pounds maximum. One witness said the engravings were “filled with black cement,” which sounds to me like copper or some other material was being exposed when a gold plating was scraped away by the inscriber. The plates may have had a very thin coating of gold to provide a convenient writing surface, like the wax coating on wax wood tablets, which case up to 95% of the plates may have been copper. It is difficult to determine from witness descriptions, because the alloy properties are not evident from visual observation: “you don’t need to have much gold in the alloy to still get a yellowish golden looking metal.”
Just as there is a difference in weight between a solid piece of wood and a book, there is a considerable difference in weight between solid cubic metal and the gold plates. In fact, the difference is considerably bigger than with a paper book, because the inscriptions removed a large amount of gold from each plate. A little bit of metal is scraped away per character, but with 67,000 total characters, it adds up to between a fifth and a third of the total weight. Also, I think there actually was some air gap between plates. It is hard to imagine that someone with ancient technology could create a bunch of uniformely flat thin plates. Bending and wrinkles undoudtedly made the plates thicker than they would have been if perfectly flat. If Mosiah through Moroni were on their own set of records, the amount of English text that we need to fit on a full set of records becomes considerably less. So, the estimate of 50 pounds sounds reasonable to me.
Running While Carrying Fifty Pounds? – There are stories of Joseph Smith running away from thieves who tried to take the plates from him as he was walking home. Martin Harriss claimed “Joseph knocked the man down, and then ran for home, and was much out of breath.” Another account in History of Joseph Smith (I can’t find who it was that actually claimed this) said he jumped over a log to get away. Critics say Joseph Smith could not have done this while carrying fifty pounds. How did he do this?
Fifty pounds is a lot of weight, but I find it strange that critics act like it is impossible to run with 50 pounds attached to you. Ask any father who picks up his 50-pound child and runs around the house with them. For an in-shape young man like Joseph Smith who regularly performed manual farm labor, it was certain possible. The plates were likely in a sack, or maybe in a backpack that made carrying easier.
Conclusion – Unfortunately, I do not have a big block of gold and copper lying around that I can make into plates to test all of these theories, and we know very little about the “reformed Egyptian” that the Book of Mormon was translated from. But it appears very possible that the text fits on the gold plates as described by witnesses. The entire translated text likely derived from two or more sets of plates, but even if it turns out there was only one set of gold plates, it certainly could have been the source exactly as Joseph Smith and witness accounts describe.