The brass plates prove to be extremely
important in the social and cultural history of what would become Nephi’s
people. First, acquiring the plates establishes Nephi’s leadership, beginning
the fulfillment of the prophecy that Nephi would rule his brothers. The large quantity
of folk and biblical literature showing the younger son triumphing over the
older is so popular that we might think this pattern as the norm. The
popularity, however, can be accounted for by the fairly universal pressures on
younger sons in the ancient world where primogeniture was the standard method
of inheritance, thus requiring inventing action on the part of the younger sons
to make their own way. Nephi’s story may match common themes but it was nevertheless
a very real disruption of the expected social order. In fact, the ascendancy of
Jacob over Esau and that of Joseph over his brothers stress that these events
were exceptions, not the rules.
Second, the brass plates were, in my opinion,
Nephi’s model for his own plates. They were metal and written in “Egyptian”
which is the “language” Nephi used in his record. . . .
Third, the plates contained the
theology form which Nephite religion developed. Nephi, his brother Jacob, and
some later leaders quote prophets whose words are found on the brass plates.
Fourth, the brass plates were a social
anchor, stabilizing Nepite culture by linking it indissolubly to certain
practices from the law of Moses. Omni 1:17 makes it clear that Nepite culture
remained stable while the Mulekite culture, being without records, lost both its
language and its faith in the true God (though this would certainly be true only
from the Nephite perspective).
Fifth, the brass plates function as
sacred object. They are part of the set of royal objects passed from Benjamin
to Mosiah2 (Osiah 1:16). It is possible that they were also the
stuff of folk legend, for Nephi suggests that “these plates of brass should
never perish; neither should they be dimmed any more by time” (1 Ne. 5:19). (Brant
A. Gardner, Second Witness: Analytical and Contextual Commentary on the Book
of Mormon, 6 vols. [Salt Lake City: Greg Kofford Books, 2007], 1:100-1)