Text: The sacred texts in Nephite possession when Nephi inscribed this passage consisted of the brass plates, the large plates of Nephi, and the small plates of Nephi. It seems likely that Lehi wrote down his own experiences, but he probably used paper since it would have been difficult to make or acquire plates while the family was traveling.
Nephi clarifies that we are reading a different type of narrative from the large plates (“the plates of Nephi”) upon which he has written “a full account of the history of my people.” His phrasing sounds like the book’s title, even though Joseph Smith identified the book from which he translated the first 116 pages as the Book of Lehi. (See Behind the Text: Chapter 3, “Mormon’s Sources.”) The designation, “Plates of Nephi,” would therefore attach to the plates, not to their narrative. They were plates made by Nephi, hence “plates of Nephi.” However, it is probable that because the first kings were named Nephi (Jacob 1:11), the plates would come to have the connotation of an official tribal record. The set of plates that contain the separately named dynastic records (Mosiah, Alma, etc.) continue to be referred to as the “plates of Nephi” during Mormon’s time. For Mormon, the “plates of Nephi” served as the collective name for the individual books, much as “Book of Mormon” serves us as the collective name for the abridged books it contains.
Interestingly enough, the second set of plates is “also called the plates of Nephi.” Nephi also made these, hence they are appropriately called “plates of Nephi,” even though modern readers are justifiably confused that there would be two different sets of plates with the same designation. It may be that Nephi understood this name to be more related to his record than his manufacture. When Mormon abridged the large-plate record for this dynasty, it was the book of Lehi. When we read these chapters from the small plates they are named the book of Nephi. The two names that we have translated as the same designation “plates of Nephi” may have had different connotations for Nephi that have not survived translation. To avoid confusion over the issue, modern readers understand the two sets of plates by the designation of the large plates and small plates of Nephi.
Apologetics: When the Book of Mormon was published, many did not believe that writing on metal plates was an authentic ancient practice. Modern scholarship has since established that many peoples have inscribed records, some of them sacred records, on metal plates. (See commentary accompanying 1 Nephi 5:10.) John Tvedtnes notes that the Bible describes such a process, even though the King James translation obscures the passage:
A prominent late-nineteenth-century critic of the Book of Mormon wrote, “No such records were ever engraved upon golden plates, or any other plates, in the early ages.” Had he known Hebrew, he would have known that Isaiah 8:1 speaks of writing on a polished metal plate with an engraving tool; the terms are mistranslated “roll” and “pen” in the King James Bible. The critic also seems to have been unaware of the fact that the Apocrypha, which was included in about half [of] the King James Bibles in the early nineteenth century, notes that a treaty between the Jews and the Romans in the second century B.C. was inscribed on bronze plates (see 1 Maccabees 8:22).
A growing body of literature as well as archaeological finds can now document such a practice beyond any reasonable challenge. Tvedtnes’s The Book of Mormon and Other Hidden Books provides an excellent collection of such materials.