Iron in the Book of Mormon

Have you ever thought it strange that iron is mentioned as a “precious thing” in the Book of Mormon? Mosiah 11:8 says “King Noah built many elegant and spacious buildings; and he ornamented them with fine work of wood, and of all manner of precious things, of gold, and of silver, and of iron, and of brass, and of ziff, and of copper…” Why is iron mentioned alongside copper, gold and silver as precious metals?

An article by Alan Millard in the Bible Review talks about how iron was used anciently to decorate royal beds, thrones, bracelets and other jewelry. The article explains how iron was “highly prized” just like other precious metals and was considered a treasure.

I am fairly confident that if I tried to give my wife an elegant pair of iron ear rings, she would not hold them in as high regard as gold or even silver ones. I am also confident that Joseph Smith would not have considered iron a precious metal. He would not have included iron in the same class as gold, silver and copper if he were writing the Book of Mormon based on his own experiences.

King Benjamin's Address

In 1985, William Kurz wrote an article in the Journal of Biblical Literature that compares famous farewell speeches throughout history. He focused on Greco-Roman and biblical speeches and, in total, compared twenty-two such speeches. Kurz has developed a list of twenty elements that are common to the farewell addresses he used in his study. None of the speeches contain all twenty of these elements but all contain at least a few. For example, Moses’ farewell address contains 16 of these elements, while Socrates’ has eleven.

The Book of Mormon contains some stirring farewell speeches, one of which is King Benjamin’s farewell address to his people at the temple. When compared to the twenty elements from Kurz’s study, King Benjamin’s speech tops the chart with sixteen that are explicitly stated, while three others could be implied. This means that this speech follows the pattern of Greco-Roman and biblical farewell speeches as well as the ancient speeches do! Coincidence? I don’t think so.

I won’t list all twenty of the elements because that would take too long, but some of my favorites are “He states his innocence and the fact that he fulfilled his duty”, “He refers to his impending death”, and “He cites his own mission as an example.”

Columbus

1 Nephi 13:12 says that the Spirit of God “came down and wrought upon the man” and that he crossed the waters and came to the descendants of the Lamanites. We generally tend to think that this scripture is a prophesy relating to the discovery of the America’s by Christopher Columbus. While past scholarship has focused on the “strong working of his vigorous mind” as the reason for his voyage, more modern research has pointed to spiritual reasons as his main motivation.

Pauline Watts’ article in 1985 gives us evidence that the Spirit really did help guide Columbus’ decision to come to the new world. Columbus believed himself to be a fulfiller of biblical prophecy such as in Isaiah 11:11 that those from the “islands of the sea” would be recovered. He also paid particular attention to John 10:16 which says, “Other sheep I have, which are not of this fold…” This scripture is particularly important to members of the Church, since Christ said it referred to the inhabitants of the America’s when he visited the continent after his resurrection.

We now know that many of these prophecies were indeed fulfilled, at least in part, to the voyage that Columbus started over 500 years ago. The discovery of America opened the doors to the eventual restoration of the gospel that would enable to whole Earth to be of “one fold and one shepherd.”