How did the brother of Jared’s sealed record and interpreters get transferred from the Jaredite nation to the Nephite nation? The Book of Mormon is silent on this issue. Many LDS scholars believe that these items were transferred through the twenty-four plates of Ether; however, this article will show how that was not possible and will attempt to show an alternative explanation.

The Brother of Jared

As the brother of Jared was preparing to cross the ocean with his friends and family, he asked the Lord to touch sixteen small stones, and once this occurred, the brother of Jared saw the finger of the Lord (see Ether 3:6). After this experience, the veil was removed from the brother of Jared, and he was brought into the presence of the Lord (see Ether 3:13). What happened next is where the subject matter of our article begins.

Once the brother of Jared was in the presence of the Lord, he beheld a vision. We read that the Lord, “showed unto the brother of Jared all the inhabitants of the earth which had been, and also all that would be; and he withheld them not from his sight, even unto the ends of the earth” (Ether 3:25).

What did the brother of Jared see? According to the prophet Nephi, the brother of Jared received a “revelation from God, from the beginning of the world to the ending thereof” (2 Nephi 27:7).[1] The prophet Moroni said that “there never were greater things made manifest than those which were made manifest unto the brother of Jared” (Ether 4:4). And according to Elder Orson Pratt, “the brother of Jared could look upon past, present, and future generations; they all came before him, and he gazed upon them all; there was not a soul that he did not behold.”[2]

In other words, the brother of Jared beheld the entire history and future of the world, from the Fall of Adam to the end of the Millennium!

After showing the brother of Jared this vision, the Lord commanded him to “write these things and seal them up; and I will show them in mine own due time unto the children of men” (Ether 3:27).

The brother of Jared did so, and eventually, without much explanation from the Book of Mormon text, this record somehow ended up in the hands of Moroni: “Behold, I [Moroni] have written upon [the gold] plates the very things which the brother of Jared saw…. Wherefore the Lord hath commanded me to write them; and I have written them. And he commanded me that I should seal them up” (Ether 4:4-5).

This article aims to trace the record of the brother of Jared, from the brother of Jared to its final custodian, Moroni. However, before we can do this, we need to first introduce a sacred device that was associated with the bother of Jared’s record—a device that consisted of two sacred stones.

These Two Stones

While he was on the mount, just prior to his vision, the Lord said to the brother of Jared: “And behold, these two stones will I give unto thee” (Ether 3:23). Nothing in the text suggests that these two stones were part of the original sixteen stones that the brother of Jared asked the Lord to touch earlier in the narrative. Rather, this verse explicitly tells us that these two stones were given to the brother of Jared by the Lord himself: “and these two stones will I give unto thee (Ether 3:23; emphasis added).

Another important characteristic of these two stones was that they were to be sealed up together with the brother of Jared’s record. The Lord said: “And behold, these two stones will I give unto thee, and ye shall seal them up also with the things which ye shall write” (Ether 3:23; emphasis added).

According to the Lord, these two stones were to always remain with the brother of Jared’s record. But for what purpose? The Lord himself answered this question when he said: “The language which ye shall write I have confounded; wherefore I will cause in my own due time that these stones shall magnify to the eyes of men these things which ye shall write” (Ether 3:24).

In other words, these two stones—which would later be given the name “interpreters” by the Nephites (Mosiah 8:13)—were to be the sole means of interpreting the brother of Jared’s record. This means that if these interpreters ever got separated from the record itself, you would be left with an unreadable, and therefore useless, record. “The interpreters,” writes Valentin Arts, “were to remain with the record for which they were prepared until it was translated…. It implies that any reference to either the sealed record or the interpreters would mean that both were held in possession at the same time.”[3] This will be extremely important to remember throughout the remainder of this article.

Until After Christ

​​How long was the brother of Jared’s record to remain sealed? The prophet Moroni answered this question when he said:

And the Lord commanded the brother of Jared to go down out of the mount from the presence of the Lord, and write the things which he had seen; and they were forbidden to come unto the children of men until after that he should be lifted up upon the cross; and…they should not come unto the world until after Christ should show himself unto his people (Ether 4:1; emphasis added).

In other words, the Lord commanded that the brother of Jared’s record was to remain sealed until after He appeared to the Nephites in the flesh following His Resurrection.

​This begs the question: Was the brother of Jared’s sealed record ever unsealed and subsequently revealed to the Nephites when Christ appeared to them? While this event is not recorded in 3 Nephi, the prophet Moroni said that this event happened nevertheless:

And after Christ truly had shown himself unto his people he commanded that [the Brother of Jared’s record] should be made manifest (Ether 4:2).​

So yes, according to Moroni, the brother of Jared’s record was eventually unsealed and made manifest unto the Nephites, though we do not have a firsthand account of this in Book of Mormon. More on this later.

So, what happened to the brother of Jared’s record, and the interpreters, between being sealed by the brother of Jared, and being revealed at Christ’s coming? Before we can sufficiently answer this question, we must first make a few points regarding the twenty-four plates of Either.

The Twenty-Four Plates

​What were the twenty-four plates of Ether? Sometime close to the final Jaredite battle, the prophet Ether recorded the entire Jaredite history onto “twenty and four plates” (see Ether 1:2). Once he was done with his record, Ether hid these plates “in a manner that [others] could find them” (Ether 15:33), which suggests that they were concealed, but in a location that was not very difficult for others to discover. As it turns out, these twenty-four plates were eventually discovered by the Limhi expedition—a small group of Nephites who were sent by King Limhi to try and locate the land of Zarahemla in an appeal for help. King Limhi recalled:

Being grieved for the afflictions of my people, I caused that forty and three of my people should take a journey into the wilderness, that thereby they might find the land of Zarahemla, that we might appeal unto our brethren to deliver us out of bondage. And they were lost in the wilderness for the space of many days…and found not the land of Zarahemla but…[they] discovered a land which was covered with bones of men, and of beasts, and was also covered with ruins of buildings of every kind…. And for a testimony that the things that they had said are true they have brought twenty-four plates which are filled with engravings, and they are of pure gold (Mosiah 8:7-8; emphasis added).​

In the earlier years of the Church, most, if not all, LDS scholars believed that the brother of Jared’s record was contained on these twenty-four plates.[4] However, in 2002 the Journal of Book of Mormon Studies published an article[5] by Valentin Arts who argued that this could not be possible for several reasons:

How do we know that the Limhi expedition did not find the interpreters when they discovered the twenty-four plates? We know this because King Benjamin already had the brother of Jared’s interpreters in Zarahemla prior to the discovery of the twenty-four plates by the Limhi expedition. And how do we know this? Because shortly after King Limhi received the twenty-four plates, he asked Ammon if he knew of anyone who could translate them:

Knowest thou of any one that can translate? For I am desirous that these records should be translated into our language; for, perhaps, they will give us a knowledge of a remnant of the people who have been destroyed (Mosiah 8:12).

This was Ammon’s reply:

Now Ammon said unto him: I can assuredly tell thee, O king, of a man that can translate the records; for he has wherewith that he can look, and translate all records that are of ancient date; and it is a gift from God. And the things are called interpreters… And behold, the king of the people who are in the land of Zarahemla is the man that is commanded to do these things, and who has this high gift from God (Mosiah 8:13-14; emphasis added).​

According to Ammon, the Nephite king in Zarahemla already had the interpreters! And we know that Ammon was referring to King Benjamin in these verses from a later passage in the Book of Mormon, which reads:

And now Limhi was again filled with joy on learning from the mouth of Ammon that king Benjamin had a gift from God, whereby he could interpret such engravings (1830 edition of Mosiah 21:28).​

The clever reader will notice that the verse quoted above (1830 edition of Mosiah 21:28) is worded slightly different than how it reads in our current Book of Mormon. In our current Book of Mormon, this verse states that it was “king Mosiah” who had the gift of interpretation, not King Benjamin. However, according to the printer’s manuscript, and according to the 1830 edition of the Book of Mormon, this verse originally read as “king Benjamin.”[6] It was changed to “king Mosiah” in the 1837 edition, likely due to a confusion over the timeline of events. According to Sharp and Bowen: “Many have assumed that King Benjamin must have been dead when Ammon left on his journey. Others, however, have rightly pointed out that this is not necessarily the case.”[7] They would go on to explain: “The original reading is perfectly intelligible: Ammon left on his journey after three years of Mosiah’s reign but before knowledge of the death of King Benjamin had spread (possibly because he was not yet dead). Thus, Ammon told King Limhi that King Benjamin could translate using interpreters.”[8]

In other words, this verse was correct as originally transcribed and should never have been changed. Ammon was sent to inquire about King Limhi’s people three years into King Mosiah’s reign, but likely while King Benjamin was still alive. Thus, Ammon would have assumed that King Benjamin would be able to translate the record for them when they returned to Zarahemla with the twenty-four plates. When they did arrive in Zarahemla sometime later, Ammon and Limhi would have then learned of King Benjamin’s death, which is why King Benjamin’s son—King Mosiah—would ultimately serve as the translator of the twenty-four plates of Ether (see Mosiah 28:11).

All of this to say, King Benjamin already had the Jaredite interpreters in his possession when the Limhi expedition discovered the twenty-four plates. And remember, we must assume that “any reference to either the sealed record or the interpreters would mean that both were held in possession at the same time.”[9] This means that King Benjamin not only had the Jaredite interpreters in his possession, but that he also had the brother of Jared’s sealed record in his possession too.

​In fact, to further prove our point, there is a verse in the Book of Mormon that specifically states that King Benjamin had the brother of Jared’s record in his possession at one point in time. Moroni wrote:

And the Lord commanded the brother of Jared to go down out of the mount from the presence of the Lord, and write the things which he had seen; and they were forbidden to come unto the children of men until after that he should be lifted upon the cross; and for this cause did king Benjamin keep them [referring to the brother of Jared’s sealed record] (1830 edition of Ether 4:1; emphasis added).​

Here again we find a second verse in the Book of Mormon where the text was later changed by a well-meaning, latter-day scribe. In our current Book of Mormon, this verse says that the brother of Jared’s record was given to “king Mosiah” rather than to King Benjamin. However, just like the verse that was changed above (see Mosiah 21:28), this verse, according to the printer’s manuscript and the 1830 edition of the Book of Mormon, originally read as “king Benjamin,” not King Mosiah.[10] Sharp and Bowen explain:

“Orson Pratt, the editor of the 1849 edition of the Book of Mormon, changed this name to read Mosiah. He probably did this because he assumed that the plates discussed in Ether 4:1 were the twenty-four plates of Ether. Since Pratt knew King Mosiah and not King Benjamin translated the twenty-four plates of Ether, he attempted to correct what he perceived as a mistake in the text—and he changed King Benjamin to King Mosiah. All subsequent LDS editions of the Book of Mormon have followed suit.”[11]​

This seemed like a reasonable edit to make at the time; however, now that we know that the brother of Jared’s sealed record was in no way contained on the twenty-four plates of Ether, this verse, when attributed to King Benjamin, does not in any way contradict the other verse in the Book of Mormon that states Mosiah translated the twenty-four plates of Ether (see Mosiah 21:28). In other words, this verse was correct as originally transcribed and should not have been changed.

The takeaway? King Benjamin had the brother of Jared’s record and the interpreters in his possession before the Limhi expedition ever discovered the twenty-four plates of Ether.

More than One Set of Interpreters?

​How do we know that the interpreters that King Benjamin had in his possession were the same interpreters that were given to the brother of Jared? Simple! As we know, King Benjamin’s interpreters were handed down among the Nephite record keepers from generation to generation, until they were given to Moroni, who buried them in the New York Hill Cumorah with the gold plates. And as we learn from the Lord in the Doctrine and Covenants, the interpreters that Moroni gave to Joseph Smith—later referred to as the Urim and Thummim by the early Saints—were the same interpreters that were given to the brother of Jared by the Lord on the mount:

Behold, I say unto you [Joseph Smith], that you must rely upon my word, which if you do with full purpose of heart, you shall have a view of the plates, and also…the Urim and Thummim, which were given to the brother of Jared upon the mount, when he talked with the Lord face to face (D&C 17:1; emphasis added).​

This tells us that there was only one set of interpreters used by the brother of Jared, King Benjamin, King Mosiah, Moroni, Joseph Smith, and everyone in between.

How King Benjamin Received the Interpreters

​How then did King Benjamin receive the brother of Jared’s sealed record and interpreters? While the Book of Mormon does not say, it is very likely that they were given to King Benjamin by his father, King Mosiah the Elder. We know that King Mosiah the Elder had them in his possession, because he used them to translate a large stone that was brought to him during the early part of his reign:

And it came to pass in the days of Mosiah [the Elder], there was a large stone brought unto him with engravings on it; and he did interpret the engravings by the gift and power of God (Omni 1:19-20)​

According to LDS scholar Sidney B. Sperry, “These sacred ‘interpreters’ were certainly in the possession of the Nephites as early as the days of the elder Mosiah, who must have used them in translating engravings on a large stone which had been brought to him.”[12] Similarly, LDS historian Don Bradley concluded that Mosiah the Elder’s ability to interpret the engravings on the stone “implies his similar possession of the interpreters.”[13]

Now that we have traced the brother of Jared’s record and interpreters back to King Mosiah the Elder, the next question is: How did he come into possession of these items?

Answering the Book of Mormon’s Greatest Mystery

This has been, by far, the greatest mystery in the entire Book of Mormon. The reason it has been the Book of Mormon’s greatest mystery is because the Book of Mormon is completely silent on this issue. But thanks to contributions made by Don Bradely, we have reason to believe that this question was answered in the lost 116 pages of the Book of Mormon. And what is even more incredible, due to Bradley’s research, we are now able to reconstruct this missing narrative with enough precision to potentially answer this perplexing question!

Don Bradley’s The Lost 116 Pages

In his book, The Lost 116 Pages, Bradley attempts to reconstruct the contents of the lost manuscript through a variety of historical reconstruction methods. For a full account of Bradley’s methods and findings, I will refer the reader to the book itself. However, one source used by Bradley deserves special mention for its relevance to our topic: an 1830 interview between newspaper reporter Fayette Lapham and Joseph Smith Sr.

The Fayette Lapham Interview

​​In his book, Bradley gives the context of this important interview as follows:

In early 1830, shortly before the Book of Mormon came off the Grandin press, Palmyra businessman Fayette Lapham and his brother-in-law Jacob Ramsdell called at the Joseph Smith Sr. home in Manchester to get information on the forthcoming book. As Palmyra residents, Lapham and Ramsdell would have heard the considerable buzz in town about the Book of Mormon but were not yet able to satisfy their curiosity by reading its pages. Instead, the two young men enjoyed the rare privilege of hearing the Prophet’s father relate the story of the Book of Mormon’s emergence, and they were given an oral sneak preview of its contents. Four decades later, Lapham published an extensive account of this interview in an 1870 issue of The Historical Magazine.[14]​

Bradley would go on to say that “Lapham’s account largely retells familiar Book of Mormon stories. Yet at key points it also adds to the existing narrative some story elements not found in the published Book of Mormon. These additional pieces of Nephite narrative, though new or unknown, fit remarkably well into the familiar, known narrative, suggesting that they are not errors but echoes of narrative from the lost pages.”[15] This would make sense if Joseph Smith Sr., whom Lapham interviewed, had firsthand knowledge of the lost manuscript from his son, Joseph Smith Jr., who was aware of its contents through his role in the translation.

This Lapham interview will be closely examined hereafter.

The Lost 116 Pages

While attempting to reconstruct the contents of the lost manuscript, it is important to remember that the lost 116 pages did not just contain the book of Lehi. That is a common misconception among Latter-day Saints. Rather, the lost manuscript contained about 470 years of Mormon’s abridgment, which spanned from Lehi’s day in 600 BC, to King Benjamin’s reign around 130 BC. By way of comparison, the portion of Mormon’s abridgement that we do have covers around 515 years, from 130 BC to around AD 385, which means that we lost almost half of Mormon’s abridgment if you look at the just the number of years that his record covered.[16]

While Bradley was able to reconstruct quite a bit of the lost manuscript through his research, in this article we will only be examining the portions of Bradley’s book that answer the question of how King Mosiah the Elder received the brother of Jared’s record and interpreters.

The Land of Nephi

We begin with Nephi. A few years after Nephi landed in the promised land, he was warned in a dream that he should depart from the land of their first inheritance and “flee into the wilderness” (1 Nephi 5:5). Nephi and his followers did so and settled in a place which they called “Nephi” (1 Nephi 5:8). It was here where Nephi built a temple “after the manner of the temple of Solomon save it were not built of so many precious things” (2 Nephi 5:16).

Nephi and his people remained in the land of Nephi for several hundred years—years of which we have little record of thanks to the lost manuscript. What we do know is that during this time period, there were two sets of records being kept: The large plates, which contained a “history of [Nephi’s] people” (Jacob 1:4), and the small plates, which contained the “more precious” teachings of Christ (Jacob 1:4). The small plates were passed from Nephi to his brother Jacob, and from Jacob, they were passed to Jacob’s descendants (see Jacob 1:1-3). The large plates on the other hand, were “had by the kings” (Omni 1:11), and “handed down by the kings, from generation to generation” (Words of Mormon 1:10).

​In 279 BC, the Nephites, while still in the land of Nephi, fell into apostasy and the “more wicked part of the Nephites were destroyed” (Omni 1:5). In around 200 BC, approximately 80 years after this destruction in the land of Nephi, many Nephites apostatized again. This time, the Lord, in his mercy, called Mosiah the Elder to lead an exodus from the land of Nephi to the land of Zarahemla:

Behold, I will speak unto you somewhat concerning Mosiah, who was made king over the land of Zarahemla; for behold, he being warned of the Lord that he should flee out of the land of Nephi, and as many as would hearken unto the voice of the Lord should also depart out of the land with him, into the wilderness (Omni 1:12).​

It is important to note that Mosiah the Elder was most likely not the king in the land of Nephi when he fled with his righteous followers. Rather, he was likely only a prophet. It was not until he arrived in Zarahemla that he was “made king” (Omni 1:12). From this, we can infer several things. First, the Nephite king in the land of Nephi at the time of Mosiah the Elder’s exodus was likely in a state of apostasy. Had he been obedient to the Lord’s commandments, he would have been among those who ‘hearken[ed] unto the voice of the Lord’ (Omni 1:13) and fled with the prophet Mosiah to the land of Zarahemla. In that case, he likely would have remained king there instead of Mosiah. Second, since Mosiah was not a king in the land of Nephi, he did not have access to the large plates because the large plates were under the jurisdiction of the kings, not the prophets (see Words of Mormon 1:10).

From this we can infer that the large plates of Nephi were under the control of an apostate Nephite king somewhere in the land of Nephi around 200 BC. However, we know that Mosiah was able to brings these large plates with him to Zarahemla (see Words of Mormon 1:10), which means that he was able to retrieve them somehow, someway.

How was he able to accomplish this? Did it involve a miracle like when Nephi retrieved the Brass Plates from Laban during his exodus from Jerusalem? Did Mosiah “[take] them from the royal treasury by stratagem,” as Bradley suggested?[17] Unfortunately, we are not told; however, this story was no doubt recorded somewhere in the lost manuscript.

It is also worth mentioning that Mosiah the Elder was apparently also able to retrieve the sacred Nephite relics—the Liahona, the Sword of Laban, and the Brass Plates—because they are also all mentioned as being in King Benjamin’s possession later in the narrative (see Mosiah 1:16). In fact, the book of Omni may have hinted that Mosiah the Elder was using the Liahona during his journey from the land of Nephi to Zarahemla. It reads that Mosiah and his followers, “departed out of the land into the wilderness…and they were led by the power of his arm, through the wilderness until they came down into the land which is called the land of Zarahemla (Omni 1:13; emphasis added). More on this possibility later.

The Hill North of Shilom

​From all that we can tell, after Mosiah the Elder retrieved the large plates of Nephi, the brass plates, the Liahona, and the sword of Laban from the royal treasury in the land of Nephi, he and his people fled the land of Nephi and headed northward towards the land of Zarahemla. However, before they arrived at Zarahemla, they likely camped for a short time on a hill north of the land of Shilom. How do we know this? Because it was referenced by Mormon much later in his record, when he was recounting the story of King Noah:

And it came to pass that [King Noah] caused many buildings to be built in the land Shilom; and he caused a great tower to be built on the hill north of the land Shilom, which [hill] had been a resort for the children of Nephi at the time they fled out of the land (Mosiah 11:13).​

Bradely explains: “A pattern of Mormon’s abridgement is that when [Mormon] first mentions a new geographical location in the text, he orients the reader by noting the name of the place and identifying where it stands in relation to other, already familiar places in the text.”[18] Bradley would go onto explain that “if Mormon fails to introduce a location where we first see it mentioned in his available abridgement, then it was likely already introduced in the lost manuscript.”[19] Such is likely the case with the “hill north of the land Shilom” (Mosiah 11:13). Mormon simply assumes that we know all about the events that happened at this hill because he probably told us all about it in the lost manuscript. Mosiah the Elder’s exodus from the land of Nephi is, without a doubt, the best candidate for this missing story because they are the only known group of Nephites to have “fled out of the land” of Nephi (Mosiah 11:13) prior to King Noah.

Finding the Interpreters

​According to the Fayette Lapham interview referenced earlier, it was likely at this location, where Mosiah the Elder constructed a tabernacle, and where he was led by the Liahona to the brother of Jared’s record and interpreters, which were probably buried somewhere on, or near, this hill. According to Lapham’s interview with Joseph Smith Sr:

“They also found something of which they did not know the use, but when they went into the tabernacle, a voice said, ‘What have you got in your hand, there?’ They replied that they did not know, but had come to inquire; when the voice said, ‘Put it on your face, and put your face in a skin, and you will see what it is.’ They did so, and could see everything of the past, present, and future; and it was the same spectacles that Joseph found with the gold plates. The gold ball stopped here and ceased to direct them any further.”[20]​

To be clear, Lapham does not associate this story with Mosiah the Elder, nor does he place it on the “hill north of the land Shilom” (Mosiah 11:13). All we know from the Lapham interview is that this event took place after Nephi landed in the New World, and before Christ’s appearance to the Nephites.[21] However, it is important to remember that Lapham is clearly recounting a Book of Mormon story of which we have no knowledge of in our current text. Since Lapham received this information from Joseph Smith Sr., who likely discussed the contents of the lost manuscript with the Prophet, it is very possible that this story originated from the lost 116 pages, which just so happens to cover the same time period that Mosiah the Elder’s exodus took place in.

Furthermore, the fact that this group of Nephites found the interpreters while making use of a portable tabernacle is a major clue that they were between temples at this time. According to Bradley, this could only be describing “one of two periods, because there are only two gaps between temples in the Book of Mormon—after Lehi leaves Jerusalem but before Nephi builds his temple, and during Mosiah’s exodus.”[22] And as we have already shown, in his interview with Joseph Smith Sr., Lapham places this particular story after Nephi landed in the New World, and before Christ’s appearance to the Nephites.[23] Therefore, the only remaining candidate for when the Nephites were between temples in the Book of Mormon narrative was when Mosiah the Elder and his people left their temple in the land of Nephi but prior to building their temple in the land of Zarahemla. I agree with Bradley who concluded, “all available evidence points to Mosiah [the Elder] finding this relic [i.e., the interpreters] during his exodus.”[24]

A Note on the Liahona

​According to Lapham, it was the Liahona who led Mosiah the Elder to the interpreters. Bradley noted:

“Lapham’s account…explains why the Liahona, which guided travels during the lost-manuscript period, is never used again in Mormon’s abridgment and seems to instead be handed down as a relic of the past.… After Mosiah [the elder] acquired the interpreters—presented as a superior instrument: ‘a gift which is greater can no man have’ (Mosiah 8:13-16)—the inferior Liahona was no longer needed.”[25]

How did the Interpreters Arrive at the Hill North of Shilom?

If our conclusions are correct, we now have a clear idea of how Mosiah the Elder obtained the brother of Jared’s record and interpreters. However, what the Book of Mormon does not tell us is how these items ended up at the hill north of Shilom in the first place.

Admittedly, all we can do is speculate on this matter. What we assume happened is that the brother of Jared’s record and interpreters were passed down among the Jaredite record keepers until they reached the hands of Ether. Ether lived in the land northward (see Alma 22:30), and as we have already shown, the hill north of Shilom was located somewhere near the land of Nephi. Since the Limhi expedition journeyed from the land of Nephi to the land northward in “many days” (Mosiah 8:8), it does not seem unreasonable to suggest that the prophet Ether could have also made the reverse journey sometime after his ministry among the Jaredites had concluded.

Therefore, we speculate that once Ether had finished writing the Jaredite history onto his twenty-four plates, he hid them somewhere in the land northward, and was then instructed by the Lord to travel to the land of Nephi and bury the brother of Jared’s record and interpreters in the hill north of the land of Shilom. More on this possibility later.

From Mosiah to Moroni

Now that we have, to the best of our ability, pieced together how the brother of Jared’s record and interpreters were transferred from the Jaredites to the Nephites, we will now briefly trace their journey through Nephite history.

As we have already shown, the brother of Jared’s record and interpreters were passed down from Mosiah the Elder, to King Benjamin, to Mosiah the Younger, and subsequently to the various Nephite record keepers until Christ's appearance. The Nephite prophet at the time of Christ’s appearance was Nephi, making it likely that he had the brother of Jared’s record and interpreters in his possession when Christ appeared to the Nephites after His Resurrection.

​Moroni tells us that the brother of Jared’s record was allowed to be unsealed and translated at this time (see Ether 3:21; Ether 4:1); and since Nephi was the prophet when this occurred, it is likely that he was given this important task. In fact, the unsealing of the brother of Jared’s record at the time of Christ might have been alluded to in the following verse:

[Jesus] did expound all things [unto the Nephites], even from the beginning until the time that he should come in his glory—yea, even all things which should come upon the face of the earth (3 Nephi 26:3; emphasis added).​

Is this a reference to the unsealing of the brother of Jared’s record? Afterall, the brother of Jared’s record contained a “revelation from God, from the beginning of the world to the ending thereof” (2 Nephi 27:7), and according to this verse in 3 Nephi, Christ expounded on all things from the beginning of the world to his Second Coming.

While we do not know for certain, we do know that once Nephi had unsealed the brother of Jared’s record, he would have been allowed to translate it into the Nephite language for all to read. Thus, “after Christ truly had showed himself unto his people he commanded that they [i.e., the brother of Jared’s record] should be made manifest” (Ether 4:2).[26]

​This means that from the time that Christ appeared to the Nephites and allowed the contents of the brother of Jared’s translation to be revealed, there would be two copies of the brother of Jared’s vision: the original, and the translation. LDS scholar Valentin Arts writes:

“From [at least] the time of Nephi (AD 35), there were two copies of the record of the great vision of the bother of Jared: the original, ‘in a language that…cannot be read’ (Ether 3:22), and ‘the interpretation thereof’ by Nephi in the Nephite language (Ether 4:1-5).”[27]

Both of these records would have been passed down among the Nephites until they fell into the hands of Moroni. Once Moroni received them, he likely read Nephi’s translated copy, and engraved the details of the brother of Jared’s vision onto the gold plates:​

Behold, I [Moroni] have written upon [the gold] plates the very things which the brother of Jared saw…. Wherefore the Lord hath commanded me to write them; and I have written them. And he commanded me that I should seal them up; and he also hath commanded that I should seal up the interpretation thereof; wherefore I have sealed up the interpreters, according to the commandment of the Lord (Ether 4:4-5; emphasis added).

LDS scholar Valentin Arts noted:

“Moroni possessed both records [of the brother of Jared’s vision] and added a third copy by writing or copying the words of the vision upon ‘these plates’ (Ether 4:4), that is, the gold plates. He most likely used Nephi’s translation as his master copy because he was familiar with that language and not with the language of the brother of Jared.”[28]​

Moroni, after he copied the brother of Jared’s vision onto the gold plates (from Nephi’s copy), sealed up his record along with the interpreters, and eventually buried them together in the New York Hill Cumorah. What is interesting about this event is how Moroni describes it:​

Therefore, I [Moroni] am commanded that I should hide them up again in the earth (Ether 4:3; emphasis added).

In other words, according to Moroni this would be the second time that either the gold plates, or the brother of Jared’s record, was buried in the earth. According to Dr. John Lund, Moroni first hid the plates sometime between AD 385 and AD 400 because “there was no more room on the existing plates and he had no ‘gold’ ore to make gold plates.”[29] Dr. Lund then went onto explain that after this occurred, sometime between A.D. 401 and AD 421, Moroni, “wandered ‘withersoever’ and found gold” and continued his record, only to bury the plates a second time in AD 421.[30] Thus, Moroni did “hide them [referring to the gold plates] up again in the earth” (Ether 4:3).

While this seems reasonable based on the evidence, a second possible interpretation of this verse is that the brother of Jared’s record was buried twice: once by Ether at the hill north of Shilom, and once by Moroni at the Hill Cumorah in New York. According to this interpretation, Moroni was specifically referring to the brother of Jared’s record that was hidden up “again in the earth” (Ether 4:3).

Regardless of which interpretation is correct, we know that once buried by Moroni for the final time, Joseph Smith would later receive the gold plates, which contained the brother of Jared’s record, but was not authorized to translate this portion of the plates due to it being sealed (see Ether 5:1). Once sealed by Moroni, it has not been opened or read by anyone since.

Joseph Smith and the Interpreters

When the Lord originally gave the interpreters to the brother of Jared on the mount, they simply consisted of “two stones” (Ether 3:23); however, by the time King Mosiah the Younger had possession of them, these two stones had been “fastened into the two rims of a bow” (Mosiah 28:13), although it is unclear if this accessory was made by the Nephites or the Jaredites. When Joseph Smith received the interpreters from the angel Moroni, he described them as, “two stones in silver bows, and these stones fastened to a breastplate constituted what is called the Urim and Thummim.”[31]

In addition to Joseph Smith, the three witnesses to the gold plates, Oliver Cowdery, David Whitmer, and Martin Harris, were all allowed to see the interpreters. Furthermore, Joseph Smith’s mother, Lucy Mack Smith, was allowed to examine them through a “silk handkerchief,”[32] in which she describes them as consisting of “two smooth three- cornered diamonds set in glasses,”[33] although some scholars have questioned the reliability of certain aspects of this statement.[34]

​Perhaps the most comprehensive account of the interpreters—at least from those who examined them directly—came from Martin Harris, who said in an 1859 interview:

“The two stones set in a bow of silver were about two inches in diameter, perfectly round, and about five-eighths of an inch thick at the [center]; but not so thick at the edges where they came into the bow. They were joined by a round bar of silver, about three-eighths of an inch in diameter, and about four inches long, which, with the two stones, would make eight inches. The stones were white, like polished marble, with a few gray streaks.”[35]​

After reviewing all available eyewitness testimonies and secondary accounts regarding the interpreters, LDS scholar Stan Spencer concluded:

“By these accounts, the interpreters were smooth, mostly white, perhaps translucent stones set in a long metal frame. Although they superficially resembled eyeglasses, the stones were set much too far apart to be worn as such. They were not clear like eyeglasses but were transparent in the sense that they, like other seer stones, could be ‘looked into’ by a person gifted as a seer of visions.”[36]

The Biblical Urim and Thummim

Initially, Joseph referred to the interpreters as “spectacles.”[37] However, upon translating the Book of Mormon, Joseph learned that the Nephites had called this translation device “interpreters” (Mosiah 8:13), and once he had discovered this, he began referring to them as such. “Soon, the early Saints recognized that Joseph’s translation instruments were similar to the Urim and Thummim from the Old Testament, and they began to interchangeably refer to them by this biblical term.”[38] While there are some similarities that do exist between the biblical Urim and Thummim and Joseph Smith’s interpreters, it is important to remember that they were separate devices, with some distinct differences.[39]

Abraham’s Urim and Thummim

It should also be noted that “Abraham, had [a] Urim and Thummim” in his possession at one time as well (Abraham 3:1), which he used to receive a grand vision of God’s universe (see Abraham 3:1-11). Like the brother of Jared’s two stones, Abraham’s Urim and Thummim was also given to him directly from the Lord (see Abrahm 3:1). It is unclear if Abraham’s Urim and Thummim was the same Urim and Thummim later used by the Israelite high priests, or if Moses and Aaron were given a separate device completely.

Where are the Interpreters Now?

​What happened to the interpreters after Joseph Smith had finished translating the Book of Mormon? According to Book of Mormon Central:

“When the 116 pages of the book of Lehi were lost in July 1828, the plates and the interpreters were taken back by the angel Moroni. But then in September, 1828, Moroni returned them to Joseph. He commenced translating again in earnest two days after Oliver Cowdery arrived on April 5, 1829. After the translation was finished, the plates and interpreters were returned again to Moroni, who showed them to the Three Witnesses.”​

After they were shown to the three witnesses, the interpreters and the plates were given to the angel Moroni and according to Joseph Smith, “he [Moroni] has them in his charge until this day” (Joseph Smith—History 1:60). Similarly, President Joseph Fielding Smith stated: “We have been taught since the days of the Prophet that the Urim and Thummim were returned with the plates to the angel. We have no record of the Prophet having the Urim and Thummim after the organization of the Church.”[40]

Thus, just as the interpreters were to always remain with the brother of Jared’s record, it stands to reason that they would also need to remain with the gold plates until the sealed portion is translated, as it will likely serve as the means for that future translation.

To Recap

​In summary, below is a brief recap of the history of the interpreters:

When Will the Sealed Portion be Unsealed?

Now that we know what is contained in the sealed portion of the Book of Mormon, the next logical question is, when will we get to read it?

The Lord said to Moroni that it “shall not go forth unto the Gentiles until the day that they shall repent of their iniquity, and become clean before the Lord” (Ether 4:6). Similarly, we are also told that it will “not be delivered in the day of wickedness and abominations of the people” (2 Nephi 27:8). Will this occur once the Saints have built Zion and are living a celestial law? Or will this occur in the Millennium when the wicked will be cleansed from the earth? Unfortunately, these scriptures do not specify but both are potentially plausible.

Importance of Scriptures

Whether we will have to wait until Zion, or the Millennium, to read the sealed portion of the Book of Mormon remains to be seen. However, we should in the meantime take advantage of all the scriptures we have now. In high school, I attended a youth class at Education Week at BYU. The speaker, likely inspired by an exercise done by J. Golden Kimball,[41] first explained to us what was contained in the sealed portion of the Book of Mormon. Then he asked us to raise our hands if we wanted to read it. Every hand, including mine, went up. Next, he told us to keep our hands raised if we had read the Book of Mormon from cover to cover. Most of our hands went down, including mine. This taught me an important lesson: The Lord will not give us more until we have made good use of what he has already given us.

​May we all study the Book of Mormon more diligently so that we will be prepared to receive the sealed portion of the Book of Mormon when the time comes. 

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​Notes:

[1] That Nephi in this verse is referring to the gold plates is made clear by 2 Nephi 27:6-20; however, as we shall see, the brother of Jared’s vision was eventually recorded onto the gold plates and sealed by Moroni (see Ether 4:4), which is the portion of the gold plates that Nephi is here referencing.

[2] Journal of Discourses, 2:244.

[3] Arts, “A Third Jaredite Record: The Sealed Portion of the Gold Plates,” Journal of Book of Mormon Studies 11/1 (2002); p. 53-56, located at: https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1344&context=jbms

[4] See for example, Nibley, Since Cumorah, p. 128.

[5] Arts, “A Third Jaredite Record: The Sealed Portion of the Gold Plates,” Journal of Book of Mormon Studies 11/1 (2002); p. 53-56, located at: https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1344&context=jbms

[6] See Royal Skousen, The Book of Mormon: The Earliest Text, p. 251.

[7] Sharp and Bowen, “Scripture Note—‘For this cause did King Benjamin Keep them’: King Benjamin or King Mosiah?” Religious Educator, 2007, 18:1:84, located at: https://rsc.byu.edu/sites/default/files/pub_content/pdf/Scripture_Note%E2%80%94For_This_Cause_Did_King_Benjam%E2%80%8Bin_Keep_Them_King_Benjamin_or_King_Mosiah.pdf

[8] Sharp and Bowen, “Scripture Note—‘For this cause did King Benjamin Keep them’: King Benjamin or King Mosiah?” Religious Educator, 2007, 18:1:85, located at: https://rsc.byu.edu/sites/default/files/pub_content/pdf/Scripture_Note%E2%80%94For_This_Cause_Did_King_Benjam%E2%80%8Bin_Keep_Them_King_Benjamin_or_King_Mosiah.pdf

[9] Arts, “A Third Jaredite Record: The Sealed Portion of the Gold Plates,” Journal of Book of Mormon Studies 11/1 (2002); p. 53-56, located at: https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1344&context=jbms

[10] See Royal Skousen, The Book of Mormon: The Earliest Text, p. 682.

[11] Sharp and Bowen, “Scripture Note—‘For this cause did King Benjamin Keep them’: King Benjamin or King Mosiah?” Religious Educator, 2007, 18:1:85, located at: https://rsc.byu.edu/sites/default/files/pub_content/pdf/Scripture_Note%E2%80%94For_This_Cause_Did_King_Benjam%E2%80%8Bin_Keep_Them_King_Benjamin_or_King_Mosiah.pdf

[12] Sperry, Book of Mormon Compendium, p. 27.

[13] See also, Bradley, The Lost 116 pages, p. 198.

[14] Bradley, The Lost 116 Pages, p. 121-22.

[15] Bradley, The Lost 116 Pages, p. 122.

[16] See also Bradley, The Lost 116 Pages, chapter 5.

[17] Bradley, The Lost 116 Pages, p. 272.

[18] Bradley, The Lost 116 Pages, p. 215.

[19] Bradley, The Lost 116 Pages, p. 215.

[20] Lapham, “Interview,” in Vogel, EMD, 1:462, as quoted in Bradely, The Lost 116 pages, p. 252.

[21] Lapham places this particular event “after sailing a long time, they came to land,” and before, “Christ…came to this nation.” See Lapham, “Interview.” A copy of this interview can be found on line at “Historical Magazine (second series) 7 (May 1870) Interview with the Father of Joseph Smith, Wikisource, located at: https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Historical_Magazine_(second_series)/Volume_7/May_1870/Interview_with_the_Father_of_Joseph_Smith

[22] Bradley, The Lost 116 Pages, p. 252.

[23] Lapham places this particular event “after sailing a long time, they came to land,” and before, “Christ…came to this nation.” See Lapham, “Interview,” located at: https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Historical_Magazine_(second_series)/Volume_7/May_1870/Interview_with_the_Father_of_Joseph_Smith

[24] Bradley, The Lost 116 Pages, p. 215.

[25] Bradley, The Lost 116 Pages, p. 254.

[26] While this is perhaps the more likely scenario, we also have to consider a second possibility that the brother of Jared’s record was translated by King Benjamin much earlier in Nephite history. Some scholars believe this to be the case because Moroni said of the brother of Jared’s record: “and for this cause did king Benjamin keep them, that they should not come unto the world until after Christ should show himself unto his people” (1830 edition of Ether 4:1). In other words, some believe that the Lord had King Benjamin translate the brother of Jared’s record but had him hold back the translation until Christ appeared after His Resurrection. This seems less the less likely scenario however, because of the commandment from the Lord that the record was to remain sealed until Christ’s appearance to the Nephites (see Ether 4:1).

[27] Arts, “A Third Jaredite Record: The Sealed Portion of the Gold Plates,” Journal of Book of Mormon Studies 11/1 (2002); p. 58, located at: https://ojs.lib.byu.edu/spc/index.php/JBMRS/article/view/19953/18518

[28] Arts, “A Third Jaredite Record: The Sealed Portion of the Gold Plates,” Journal of Book of Mormon Studies 11/1 (2002); p. 58, located at: https://ojs.lib.byu.edu/spc/index.php/JBMRS/article/view/19953/18518

[29] Lund, Joseph Smith and the Geography of the Book of Mormon, p. 139.

[30] Lund, Joseph Smith and the Geography of the Book of Mormon, p. 139. Other LDS scholars have arrived at similar conclusions; see for example, Peterson, “Moroni, the Last of the Nephite Prophets,” in The Book of Mormon: Fourth Nephi Through Moroni, From Zion to Destruction, p. 235-49, located at: https://rsc.byu.edu/book-mormon-fourth-nephi-through-moroni-zion-destruction/moroni-last-nephite-prophets; Ainsworth, “Did Moroni Bury the Plates More than Once?” in Book of Mormon Archeological Forum, located at: http://bmaf.org/node/574

[31] Times and Seasons, 15 April 1842, p. 753, The Joseph Smith Papers, accessed March 28, 2025, https://www.josephsmithpapers.org/paper-summary/times-and-seasons-15-april-1842/3

[32] Lucy Mack Smith, History, 1844–1845, Page [7], bk. 5, p. [7], bk. 5, The Joseph Smith Papers, accessed March 28, 2025, https://www.josephsmithpapers.org/paper-summary/lucy-mack-smith-history-1844-1845/61

[33] Lucy Mack Smith, History, 1845, p. 107, The Joseph Smith Papers, accessed March 29, 2025, https://www.josephsmithpapers.org/paper-summary/lucy-mack-smith-history-1845/114?p=114

[34] Spencer, “What did the Interpreters (Urim and Thummim) Look Like?” Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Faith and Scholarship (2019), p. 234-35, located at: https://journal.interpreterfoundation.org/what-did-the-interpreters-urim-and-thummim-look-like/

[35] “Martin Harris Interview with Joel Tiffany, 1859,” in Early Mormon Documents, ed. Dan Vogel, 2:305, as quoted in Spencer, “What did the Interpreters (Urim and Thummim) Look Like?” Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Faith and Scholarship (2019), p. 223, located at: https://journal.interpreterfoundation.org/what-did-the-interpreters-urim-and-thummim-look-like/

[36] Spencer, “What did the Interpreters (Urim and Thummim) Look Like?” Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Faith and Scholarship (2019), p. 223, located at: https://journal.interpreterfoundation.org/what-did-the-interpreters-urim-and-thummim-look-like/

[37] History, circa Summer 1832, p. 5, The Joseph Smith Papers, accessed March 28, 2025, https://www.josephsmithpapers.org/paper-summary/history-circa-summer-1832/5#historical-intro

[38] Scripture Central, “Were Joseph Smith’s Translation Instruments Like the Israelite Urim and Thummim?” KnowWhy #417, March 20, 2018, located at: https://knowhy.bookofmormoncentral.org/content/were-joseph-smiths-translation-instruments-like-the-israelite-urim-and-thummim#footnote10_h90nwa0

[39] For a detailed explanation of the similarities and differences between these the Biblical Urim and Thummim and the interpreters, see, Scripture Central, “Were Joseph Smith’s Translation Instruments Like the Israelite Urim and Thummim?” KnowWhy #417, March 20, 2018, located at: https://knowhy.bookofmormoncentral.org/content/were-joseph-smiths-translation-instruments-like-the-israelite-urim-and-thummim#footnote10_h90nwa0

[40] Smith, Doctrines of Salvation, 3:225.

​[41] Eric A. Eliason, The J. Golden Kimball Stories, p. 58.