According to Walter Kaiser, Jr., a great deal of skepticism remains around the oft repeated biblical claim that Moses wrote the first five books of the Old Testament: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy. But by the time of Joshua, this piece of revelation must have been coming to its completion, for only Joshua is said to have added any words to this legislation (Joshua 24:26). Its status as divine and holy seems to be indicated specifically enough by God’s instructions to place it in the ark of the covenant. [Water C. Kaiser Jr., The Old Testament Documents: Are They Reliable & Relevant?, p. 25]
“The Five Books of Moses”
In 2 Kings 22:2-13 there is an account of the discovery of the Book of the Law by Hilkiah, the high priest during the renovation of the temple in the days of Josiah, the king of Judah. How could the Jews in the days of Josiah be without the Book of the Law when the brass plates which contained the “five books of Moses” (1 Nephi 5:11) were in the hands of Laban or one of his predecessors? Sidney B. Sperry asks, are we to suppose that the keepers of the brass plates deliberately withheld the Book of the Law from the Jews? They must have known the Jews were without it. Such an action would seem strange because certain individuals were allowed access to the plates in order to write the prophecies of Jeremiah. Perhaps the Book of the Law was some other book than we have supposed, but that seems quite unlikely. At present we are unable to answer, with any certainty. [Sidney B. Sperry, Answers to Book of Mormon Questions, pp. 41-42]
According to Verneil Simmons, one can only ask why the earlier find of the Book of the Law in the Temple was such a shock in the days of Josiah, when apparently the writings on the brass plates of Laban were up-to-date and available. Perhaps the situation was similar to that evident later in the Nephite history when the records kept by the priest line seemed to be totally separate from the civil records of the king line (see Jacob 1:1-3; Omni 1:11). And it would appear that neither of the records had much influence with either the kings or priests in the old world or the new. [Verneil W. Simmons, Peoples, Places and Prophecies, p. 71]
Perhaps the record keepers feared that if they made things known to the king of Judah, he would confiscate the records entrusted to the tribe of Joseph since members of that tribe were now living in Judah instead of in Northern Israel. Or perhaps there was a conspiracy to keep this information from the people. [Alan C. Miner, Personal Notes] [See the commentary on 1 Nephi 2:13, 3:3]
“They the Brass Plates Did Contain the Five Books of Moses”
Lehi took the plates of brass and searched them from the beginning. Nephi notes that Lehi, beheld that they did contain the five books of Moses, which gave an account of the creation of the world, and also of Adam and Eve, who were our first parents; and also a record of the Jews from the beginning, even down to the commencement of the reign of Zedekiah, king of Judah; and also the prophecies of the holy prophets, from the beginning, even down to the commencement of the reign of Zedekiah; and also many prophecies which have been spoken by the mouth of Jeremiah.
And it came to pass that … Lehi also found upon the plates of brass a genealogy of his fathers; (1 Nephi 5:11-14)
The following is a list of references to quotations from the plates of brass within the Book of Mormon:
The Plates of Brass (1 Nephi 3:3)
a. Five books of Moses (1 Ne 5:11)
1. Creation (1 Ne 17:36) (2 Ne 2:14)
2. Fall of Adam (2 Ne 2:18) [2 Ne 2:14-26]
3. “All the holy prophets from Moses to Abraham” (Hel 8:16,18) [Alma 46:24-26]
4. Prophecies of Joseph (2 Ne 4:1-2) [2 Ne 3:5-21]
5. Life of Moses (Hel 8:11,14-15,16)
6. Law of Moses (2 Ne 25:24-25) (Alma 25:15) (2 Ne 9:17; 15:28) (Hel 13:1; 15:5)
b. Record of the Jews down to the reign of Zedekiah (1 Ne 5:12)
c. Prophecies of the Holy Prophets including many by Jeremiah (1 Ne 5:13)
1. Ezias (Helaman 8:20)
2. Isaiah [1 Ne 20,21] [2 Ne 6,7,8,12-24] [Mos 14] (Hel 8:20) [3 Ne 22 (Savior’s quote)]
3. Jeremiah (Hel 8:20)
4. Neum (1 Ne 19:10)
5. Zenock (1 Ne 19:10) (Alma 33:15) (Hel 8:20) (3 Ne 10:16)
6. Zenos (1 Ne 19:10-17) [Jacob 5] (Alma 33:13) (Hel 8:19) (3 Ne 10:16)
7. Unknown Prophets (2 Ne 32:4) (2 Ne 9:10-13) (Mos 3:10) (Alma 11:40-45)
(Hel 5:8,12,25; 10:7; 12:25-26)
d. Genealogy of Lehi’s fathers (1 Ne 5:14-16)
[Alan C. Miner, Personal Notes] [See Appendix B of Volume 6]
1 Nephi 5:11 We beheld that they did contain the five books of Moses ([Illustration] Moses [Clark Kelley Price, Verse Markers, Book of Mormon, Vol. 1, p. 1]
1 Nephi 5:11 Adam and Eve ([Illustration] Adam and Eve. [The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Gospel Art, #101]
“He Beheld That They Did Contain … ”
According to Hugh Nibley, the contents of the brass plates is an amazing thing. At that time the Old Testament was not in the possession of Jews. You couldn’t have it because it was a secret book. The circulation was very limited. The law was read publicly once a year, but only by the Scribes and Pharisees. That’s why they were so jealous of their rights. The Scribes and Pharisees were the ones who started interpreting the law in Babylon where they didn’t have a temple. They got a proprietary claim. They called themselves the rabbis, which means “the great ones.” It’s their own title… . It wasn’t until the third century that Ptolemy had the seventy Jews come down. He was the king of Egypt and direct successor of Alexander the Great. He was a great and competent ruler, and he was collecting the greatest library in the world… . He thought he had every book on religion, but he was told, “There‘s one book you don’t have, and that’s the book of the Jews.” So he ordered the seventy Jews to be brought back to Alexandria. He shut each one up in a special cubbyhole by himself and gave him a copy of the Old Testament to translate. Then he compared the translations… . That‘s why it’s called the Septuagint: it was a translation by seventy Jews. By comparing them he knew that they were right. What’s more, the Septuagint is far older than any Hebrew text we have. The oldest Hebrew text we have is the Ben Asher Codex from the ninth century… .
But notice what was in the brass plates. It was the Tanach he brought back. It wasn’t just the plates of Moses. T is for Torah: that’s the five books of Moses. N is for Nebi im, the prophets. And K is for the Ketubim, which are the literary works (like the Psalms) and the histories. They call the entire Old Testament the Tanach, and that’s exactly what was in the bronze plates… . But remember, nobody outside of Israel ever thought about the Old Testament. Ptolemy didn’t even know about it, though he was a very learned man. He didn’t know about it until a Jew in his court told him about it. It was known only in Judah and only to a very select group of scribes who jealously guarded it… .
The brass plates also had a genealogy, and Lehi found out that he was a descendant of Joseph. Why didn’t he, who was an important rich man, have it? Well, these documents were very rare, and they were secret. He wouldn’t have been able to get them. Laban was also a descendant of Joseph in a direct line. that’s probably why they were in his house. But only one person at a time could receive these genealogical records; that was the direct descendant. In this case it happened to be Laban. [Hugh W. Nibley, Teachings of the Book of Mormon, Semester 1, pp. 164-165] [See the commentary on 1 Nephi 5:18; 13:23; 19:22; 19:23; also Alma 37:3-5]