One common criticism of the Restoration is the idea that the entire text of the Book of Mormon as we have it today, plus the Book of Lehi (the lost 116 pages), plus the sealed portion, all fit on a set of gold plates that were about 6"x9"x6" thick.
This objection came up recently on the Alex O'Connor podcast with Jacob Hansen.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q_E4K_6O1LY
I've seen myriad speculations from all sides on this topic, including the idea that the inscriptions were tiny, that each character could represent several words, a sentence, or a concept, etc.
For example, in his Part Seven, Royal Skousen rejects the Truman Coe account of the translation by writing, "A single character corresponding to an entire thought ('the import written in plain English' and 'the meaning of the next character') also shows up in David Whitmer's later accounts, but this too seems to be impossible."
Regardless of the speculation, whether from apologists or critics, the problem would be alleviated if there were more plates involved.
Which is exactly what we think happened, as explained by the "two sets of plates" scenario.
https://www.lettervii.com/p/the-two-sets-of-plates-schematic.html
Under this scenario, Joseph obtained abridged plates from Moroni's stone box, but not the original plates of Nephi (which we usually call the small plates). He returned the abridged plates to the messenger (one of the Three Nephites) before leaving Harmony. This messenger returned those plates to the repository in Cumorah, where he picked up the plates of Nephi and took them to Fayette, which is why Joseph translated the plates of Nephi in Fayette.
IOW, we have two entirely separate sets of plates.
Those who claim the entire Book of Mormon, including the Book of Lehi, the sealed portion, and the plates of Nephi, were all included in the 6x9x6 set of plates can immediately see how confining their theory is.
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you say we have some descriptions about the physical characteristics of the plates we know sort of roughly how big
they were we know like the size of the the the the plates and of course we also know how much information was put on the Golden Plates because we have our English translation of course it wasn't written in English on the plates but we know like the amount of information given what we know about the size of the plates and given that there 269,000 plates which seems like a reasonable estimate I mean would you agree that they were probably between 50 and 100 Golden Plates I actually wouldn't um you're bringing up uh uh the how could all of this this information it fit onto those plates yes because you're going to say that they're much thinner so so they have they they actually have been people who have studied this pretty in depth um and and there are absolutely ways that it could have fit on it within the thickness of known Alloys that would be used for this sort of thing um so to be clear like the if you look at another example of a metal plates and this is something that Trent horn brings up in his debate to you he mentions the plates of Darius which are written in a few different languages they're written in uh old Persian they're written in Acadian um they're written in some other language that I can't pronounce elmite and uh each plate contains around 200 English words like in Translation we get about 200 English words per plate right mhm there are 270,000 words in the Book of Mormon so if it like obviously it's a different language that we're talking about here but if that is the kind of information uh density that we tend to find in these sort of symbolic languages it is difficult to imagine how somebody would take 270,000 words and fit them onto Golden Plates that like you know were would sort of off the off the size described it seems like you have to have like entire paragraphs represented by like singular symbols yeah I I would say that I I would dispute the number of I I would have to point you to people that have actually made videos on this I actually have one on my channel I don't have it off the top of my head some of the research on this but when you actually take the thickness of the plates and change it to the number of plates that would have been available they were described as being as thin as like pliable paper so they were very thin in in according to the scriptions from the witnesses and when you take into account um how small the text could be made like it doesn't rule this out and then there's another aspect to this that people have talked about as a as I think a possibility if this is a revealed translation there's nothing in there that can't expand certain ideas that are in the original text Blake Osler who's a great scholar latterday St scholar has a has a paper about the expansion theory around the Book of Mormon that some of this may have been expanded ideas that exist so again yes I put this in the okay this is sort of an interesting puzzle but I don't think that it's something that sort of comes away showing that it's impossible I think people over their claim it would have to be an incredible document right and I don't know much about this I mean I haven't read the book of Mor um and I I'm I I knew nothing about Mormonism until we met fairly recently in Los Angeles so yeah we're sort of learning on the spot here but as far as I understand it like this is just the the Golden Plates are written accounts of the people who had fled uh who had fled Jerusalem and they end up burying these plates somewhere and so like the writing of the plates isn't itself like a miraculous occurrence this is just a people writing down in their language the events of their lives and so if we did end up happening to find happening that if if it did happen that this occurred on these incredibly thin Golden Plates which we don't really find anywhere else we find plates but we don't find them that thin we don't find that much information put onto that size of plates it would have to be this like remarkable and unique set of texts at the very least right to a certain to a certain degree there again some of the stuff that you're bringing up I know it's been disputed because I've I've seen apologetics on this subject I don't have them here but like there are there are texts that are extremely small in the ancient world that they would that they would do also the thickness of the plates you can make certain things like tumbaga that they've talked about that can be made extremely thin it's just one of those things again that yeah sure I I can see why this would be a a challenge but it it's one that when I stack up all the other things sure I end up in this situation where it's like look yeah I have reasons to doubt but if I'm trying to account for all of it I also have to try and account for all these reasons that I believe and a lot of those reasons there there is evidentiary stuff there as I've kind of talked about which again people can debate and dispute but um I think that there's like ultimately like with like with any Christian for example talking about various things there are reasons to believe there are reasons to doubt and I think that we have a strong case as strong as any Christian Case and then there is sort of the effect that this has on sort of a spiritual level right yeah um so I'm I'm I'm not going to yeah I I don't want to I don't want to put you on the spot and if you send me after this a link to the the video that you have or other videos discussing this I'll put it in the description because I think this will this will be important to people because it's it's one of the it's an interesting sort of physical uh dispute right like we we can there's things that we can learn we can discover how ancient Plains were inscribed we can discover how thin you can realistically cut gold and it still be legible you you we can discover ancient language is cond and just to be clear like the plates had an appearance of gold there's the idea that they are actually like 24 carat solid go we that is not what we believe about that just interesting yeah that's that's that's instructive too
