The Book of Mormon Medium

I’ve heard it said that the Book of Mormon is an extremely “self-conscious” book.  I believe what is meant by that is that the writers of the Book of Mormon were constantly concerned with the book itself: how the writings would be passed on from one generation to the next, who would be the audience to receive the finished product, how the book would be preserved, what God was planning to accomplish with the words they were transmitting from one generation to the next, etc.  One way that we see this is the repeated focus throughout the text on the plates that were being used to transmit their words.  Again and again the writers of the Book of Mormon refererred to, talked about, and made prophecies around the durability, destiny, and purpose of the plates they were painstakingly writing on to preserve their sacred experiences.

                The writers of the small plates portion of the Book of Mormon were particularly conscious of the medium they were using to record their words.  Nephi wrote, “I have received a commandment of the Lord that I should make these plates, for the special purpose that there should be an account engraven of the ministry of my people” (1 Nephi 9:3).  Jacob wrote of the “difficulty of engraving our words upon plates” and how “whatsoever things we write upon anything save it be upon plates must perish and vanish away.”  Because of that they “did labor diligently to engraven [their] words upon plates” with hope that future generations would be blessed by them (Jacob 4:1-2).  Jarom was careful to not write too much, for, as he said, “the plates are small” (Jarom 1:14).  He gave them to Omni, and they were subsequently passed on to Amaron, Chemish, Abinadom, and Amaleki, with their messages sometimes containing little more than the information about how the plates were being passed down from one generation to the next.  Amaleki finished by simply saying, “these plates are full” (Omni 1:30).  And that was the end of the small plates which would be found hundreds of years later by Mormon and included without edit from him into his compilation. 

                The writers of the large plates likewise were very conscious of the plates and their preservation and passing from one generation to the next.  King Benjamin spoke specifically to his sons about the importance of both the plates of brass and the plates of Nephi upon which he was keeping his record and bore witness “that these records are true” (Mosiah 1:6).  I think it’s not insignificant that we had people bearing testimony that the Book of Mormon was true before there was really a book or a Mormon.   King Benjamin passed them on to his son Mosiah, and Mosiah passed on the plates to Alma, the son of Alma “and commanded him that he should keep and preserve them, and also keep a record of the people” (Mosiah 28:20).  And so the story continued throughout the book of Mormon, with a talk of plates reappearing again and again throughout the book, including not only the plates of Nephi but the Jaredite record, the plates of brass, and all the records that Mormon ultimately ended up with to produce his abridgement and summary of the Nephite history. 

                Marshall McLuhan gave us the famous phrase that “the medium is the message”.   I think there’s a lot of truth to that with the Book of Mormon.  The final medium that came into the hands of Joseph Smith was gold plates, and I think the message is clear from that.  The book was to be of great value—greater than that of gold—and also permanent just as the metal had lasted for thousands of years waiting for the book to come forth into publication.  It is truly for us a pearl of great price, worth more than all our physical possessions (Matt. 13:46).