History: Lehi may have known of the existence of the brass plates, but these verses hint that he was not familiar with their contents. After “search[ing]” (reading) them, Lehi provided a summary that discloses Lehi’s religious/historical knowledge and additional information about the plates themselves.
Although the description is Nephi’s, he was probably either working from Lehi’s record, was present as his father read the plates, was present as his father described the contents, or all three. The description includes the topics to which Lehi and/or Nephi assigned the greatest importance. Thus, it includes the information that the plates contained the first five books of Moses, including the Genesis account of Adam and Eve. Because Nephi does not elaborate on the description, he apparently expected the plates to contain these records and was familiar with those texts, probably from a different source. In other words, the scriptures Lehi had been using in his regular worship were not the brass plates, despite significant overlap.
While this description suggests that the brass plates are related to our received Old Testament text, there are some important differences. Scholars generally accept that the Old Testament, like the New Testament, is a fortuitous collection of manuscripts, which have survived many dangers. Given centuries of repeated copying, there are, naturally, changes in the text and differences among texts.
There are three textual traditions for the Old Testament. (1) The Masoretic tradition supplies the base text from which the King James Version of the Old Testament has been translated. Although this text was the most carefully transmitted, it is not the oldest. (2) The Greek Septuagint, the Old Testament that was translated into Greek for the Jews of the Diaspora, is the oldest version. This text differs in some places from the Masoretic text. For many years it was not known whether it represented a translation error or an authentically different tradition. (3) The discovery of the Qumran library (the third tradition) verified that there were alternate parallel manuscript traditions that did not completely agree with each other. The library of the Qumran community also preserved most of the biblical texts. These three texts generally agree but also contain numerous variations.
To these three traditions, we may add a fourth, that of the brass plates. This tradition is the most divergent. Not only are there textual changes, but it included entire books (such as Zenos and Zenock) that have otherwise been lost to history.
John Sorenson suggests, in his analysis of the brass plates, that they are more oriented to the northern kingdom, while the Masoretic text is more representative of the southern kingdom:
Book of Mormon writers mention five prophets whose words appear in the brass plates: Zenos, Zenoch, Ezias, Isaiah, and Neum (the last might be Nahum). Of the first four only Isaiah is surely known from existing biblical texts. Internal evidence suggests a reason why: all four direct a great deal of attention to the Northern Kingdom. Since the Masoretic text, which lies behind our King James’s version, came out of the South, omission of three of the four (or four of the five, counting Neum) is explicable. Zenos is quoted as saying, “And as for those who are at Jerusalem” (1 Ne. 19:13). Nowhere else in the extensive quotes from Zenos does he mention Judah or Jerusalem. This in context strongly suggests that he was not located in the territory of Judah. (It is implied in 3 Ne. 11:16 that Zenos and Zenoch were of a Joseph tribe, although nothing is said of the location.) The reference to Jerusalem implies a date after David’s capture of the city and quite probably after the division of the monarchy (about 922 B.C.). Careful reading of the allegory of the olive tree, from Zenos, as well as Alma 33:3–17 concerning both Zenos and Zenoch further confirms a context of a sinful Israel more reminiscent of the time of Amos (mid-8th century B.C.) than earlier or later. Moreover, Zenoch was said to be a “prophet of old,” (Alma 33:17) a chronological term not used regarding Jeremiah or even Isaiah. The probability is high, therefore, that the prophets cited from the brass plates date between 900 B.C. and the end of the Northern Kingdom in 721 B.C.
Sorenson’s suggested northern provenance for the brass plates is ample explanation for the presence of prophets unknown in the southern tradition, the source of our received King James text. If Zenos and Zenock are prophets in the northern kingdom, it is understandable that they might be absent from the southern scriptures.