Text: When Amaleki delivers the plates to Benjamin, they become part of the royal collection of records. In his preface to the 1830 edition of the Book of Mormon, Joseph Smith indicates: “I would inform you that I translated, by the gift and power of God, and caused to be written, one hundred and sixteen pages, the which I took from the Book of Lehi, which was an account abridged from the plates of Lehi, by the hand of Mormon.… ” This preface was removed in the 1837 and subsequent editions of the Book of Mormon.
Quinn Brewster, professor of mechanical engineering, University of Illinois, has analyzed the Book of Mormon’s structure and suggests that Joseph Smith may not have been completely aware of the interrelationships among the source plates as he dictated the text. While Brewster’s analysis depends upon a very different reading of the hints in Words of Mormon, he is apparently correct about Joseph’s understanding of the plates’ composition. The best evidence is the preface’s indication that the book of Lehi was taken from the plates of Lehi. This is not correct, according to the internal evidence from the translation we have received.
Without dispute, the lost 116 pages constituted a “Book of Lehi.” Nevertheless, the translation that picks up immediately in Mosiah comes from the plates of Nephi, according to the consistent references Mormon makes in the Mosiah-Mormon section of our current Book of Mormon. It is also certain that there was a record of Lehi’s deeds, probably created early in the family exodus, from which Nephi quoted Lehi in Nephi’s record (1 and 2 Nephi). There was a difference, however, between the record of Lehi and the book of Lehi. The record of Lehi would have been the source material Nephi consulted when writing his account in the large plate and small plate tradition. The necessity of carrying Lehi’s record when they already had the heavy brass plates suggests that it was probably written on a perishable material. When Nephi fled from his brothers, he took the brass plates and the Liahona but does not mention any other plates (2 Ne. 5:12), although later in that same chapter, Nephi speaks of “other plates” on which he has a more particular history (2 Ne. 5:29). Nephi abridged the record of Lehi, at least on the small plates, but also made and kept a more complete record on the large plates. While a record of Lehi certainly existed, it probably was not originally engraved on metal plates. It is possible that Nephi copied it into his large plates in its entirety. In any case, the book of Lehi was Nephi’s composition that included information from the record of Lehi.
The suggested resolution to this excursion into the Book of Mormon “plate tectonics” is that Joseph simply assumed that “plates of Lehi” existed because of the physical plates in front of him, Mormon’s mention of plates as source material, and the existence of the book of Lehi. The book of Lehi, as translated, continued to the beginning of our Book of Mosiah, both of which were on the large plates of Nephi.