Deutero-Isaiah on the brass plates
The Book of Mormon quotes Isaiah chapters that scholars date after Lehi left Jerusalem.
What the Church claims
The brass plates, taken from Jerusalem about 600 BC, contained Isaiah 48-54.
Once the evidence is in, this claim: Weak. Mainstream dating is firm and LDS scholars now mostly manage rather than dispute it. A minority scholarly position is the only thing holding the claim off the floor.
The record
- The Book of Mormon quotes Isaiah 48-49, 50-52:2, 52:7-10, 53 and 54.
- Isaiah 40-55 addresses exiles in Babylon, names Cyrus (Isaiah 45:1), and is dated by the scholarly mainstream to about 550-539 BC or later.
- BYU's Joshua Sears (2022) surveys Latter-day Saint approaches rather than denying the problem.
- The item does not appear in Roper's chart.
The moving target
The Church has never published a position on the authorship of Isaiah. Its Old Testament curriculum has long taught the book as the work of one prophet, which is what the Book of Mormon's use of Isaiah 48–54 requires, but that teaching sits in manuals rather than in doctrine, and no essay, proclamation or conference talk has ever defended it against the scholarly dating. The result is a position the Church holds in practice and has never had to state, which is also a position it has never had to defend.
The exchange
Traditional LDS position; some evangelical scholars
Isaiah wrote the whole book; multiple authorship rests on disbelief in prophecy.
The answer: The case rests on historical setting, language and theology, not only on Cyrus; many believing Jewish and Christian scholars accept it.
Sidney Sperry; John Welch; summarized by Sears
The Book of Mormon notably omits Third Isaiah (56-66), and some of 40-55 may be earlier than the exile.
The answer: Isaiah 48-54 is the core of the exilic material. The omission of 56-66 is interesting but does not date 48-54 earlier.
What they get right: The absence of Isaiah 56-66 is a real datum that a careless forger might not have produced.
Blake Ostler's expansion model; discussed by Sears
Joseph Smith's inspired translation supplied later Isaiah text.
The answer: This saves the plates by conceding that large parts of the English text are 19th-century composition, and the narrative has Nephi and Abinadi reading these chapters aloud.
Both cases at full strength
The skeptics' case
Second Isaiah is one of the most secure results in biblical studies, the quoted chapters are its heart, and they appear in King James wording with King James errors. It is a problem that did not exist for readers in 1830 and has grown since, which is precisely the kind the chart leaves out.
The apologetic case
Dating of biblical texts is inferential, and minority scholars defend earlier origins for parts of Isaiah 40-55. The book's selective use of Isaiah (none of 56-66) fits a 600 BC cut-off better than chance would suggest.
What would change this
A pre-exilic manuscript or inscription containing Isaiah 40-55 material.
Closely related
- King James dependence: errors, italics, late Greek readings
- Christ in 3 Nephi: the sermon and the destruction
Sources
- Anachronisms ... Chapter 7: Records, Writing, and Language
- Anachronisms in the Book of Mormon (tertiary finder)
- Joseph Smith's Interpretation of Isaiah in the Book of Mormon
- Isaiah in the Book of Mormon
- Deutero-Isaiah in the Book of Mormon (Y Religion ep. 86)
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