The Miracle of the Marvelous Work and Its Witnesses - Second Book of Nephi, Chapter Twenty-Seven (2 Nephi 27)

You can read the entire chapter at the following link: https://www.lds.org/scriptures/bofm/2-ne/27?lang=eng.

What are miracles? They are events that take place that we can’t explain. But does that mean that they are without explanation? No. One of the things that separates God from us is that He understands the workings of the universe intimately. To him, a miracle is not some way-out-of-left-field occurrence, but part of His plan, even if most or all of us mortals cannot yet comprehend it.

Sometimes we just need some help with the explanation—for the steps to be broken down for us. That is what we find in this chapter. The miracle is the coming forth of the Book of Mormon, amid the larger phenomenon of the restoration of God’s authority on earth and the gathering of the people of Israel. And an integral part of this coming forth is the establishment of witnesses.

So how does this miracle happen? Well, it starts with an inspired revelation through Isaiah. Nephi, who has the plates of brass available to him, draws from what appears to be an earlier (and probably more accurate) version of Isaiah 29. This prophecy refers to a book that contains divine revelation covering the earth’s lifespan from beginning to end. The book will come from those who have “slumbered in the dust” (we know that this refers to the Nephites after their eventual destruction around 400 A.D.) and part of the book will be “sealed,” or inaccessible.

Clearly, the Lord inspired Isaiah to write about this, and then inspired Nephi to transcribe it into his record, so that the Nephite prophets and record-keepers were clear about their duty and mission. Even if the people of their civilization were to be wiped out, the record would live on (eventually to be given new life as the Book of Mormon). So God makes sure everything is in place for the plates to be preserved and hidden.

As we know, the plates come forth to Joseph Smith in 1827. What is amazing here is that Joseph translates this chapter with the help of his scribe Oliver Cowdery in the early months of 1829, but many of the key events described therein had already taken place in 1828. Seeing confirmation that events he had experienced were the fulfillment of prophecy must have caused Joseph great wonder, and given him special confidence that his errand was truly the Lord’s.

Running through the chapter is the important theme that those who glory in their supposed power will be disabled when they act against the Lord’s purposes, and those whose natural abilities seem to be insignificant will find themselves magnified when working in line with the Lord. God declares to Nephi in verse 23 that He is a God of miracles. This never changes, but God will only show His power among men to the extent they have faith. Those who are preoccupied with their own strength without recognizing where it comes from are ultimately at a disadvantage to those who humbly acknowledge the Lord’s ability to intervene.

Some very powerful lines from the chapter rebuke those of us mortals who think that it’s somehow possible or even in their interest to ignore, outsmart, or hide things from the Lord. In 1820, nine years before Joseph translates this passage, the Father and Son appeared before him (in his first vision in Palmyra, New York). Joseph had desired to know which Christian church to join. The answer he received directly from the lips of the resurrected Savior (in verse 19 here) was that he should not join any of them, because they draw near the Lord with their lips, but “their hearts are far from me.” As Joseph translated this chapter, he must have been overcome with the memory of that earlier experience when he saw a very similar statement in verse 25 made to Nephi about 2,500 years earlier (which the Lord had perhaps shared with Isaiah even 150-200 years before Nephi).

The statement looks forward to Joseph’s day to say that as much as the people of that time draw near with their mouths and honor the Lord with their lips, but have removed their hearts from Him, and fear Him only according the “precepts of men,” the Lord will bring forth a “marvelous work and a wonder” that will overshadow anything that men concoct based on their own schemes and supposed wisdom. Verse 27 conveys the sense that Lord almost feels sorry for the pathetic delusions of people who think they can turn things “upside-down” by acting like they are superior to their Creator.

The reality is that any efforts they make to work against God’s designs—or his covenant people—are ultimately impotent. Isaiah does a good job of painting the verbal picture for us in verses 3-5. He likens the futility of working against God to people who dream of eating but wake up even hungrier than before, or who stagger through life like they are either sleepwalking or drunkenly incapacitated.

And, as mentioned before, Joseph Smith’s experience in the early months of 1828 shows us that this prophecy has concrete application and is not simply a poetic device. His experience played out as follows. Joseph’s first task, before engaging in full-on translation, was to copy some of the original characters found on the plates. Some of the plates, as foreseen in Isaiah’s and Nephi’s prophecies, were sealed. But there was an unsealed portion that would provide the source for the Book of Mormon. The characters on the unsealed plates were apparently some kind of mix of—according to Nephi (in verse 2 here)—“the learning of the Jews and the language of the Egyptians.” Nearly 1,000 years later (in verse 32 here), Moroni (the final Nephite custodian of the plates) writes that he and others keepers of the record through various generations used “characters which are called among us the reformed Egyptian, being handed down and altered by us, according to our manner of speech.”

A man named Martin Harris was Joseph’s main benefactor at the time, and he was considering taking out a mortgage on his property in order to finance Joseph’s translation work. Before making that financial commitment, however, the conventional wisdom is that Martin was interested in getting the opinion of some academic experts on the authenticity of the characters. Historical records indicate that Martin also had received instruction from the Lord to encourage Joseph to prepare these characters and their translation for expert scrutiny. See this account. 

So we have Joseph Smith, with a very limited grade-school-level education, engaging in a work of translation that would stretch the most highly-trained and -specialized minds of the day.

Once some initial copying was done on parchment, Martin headed off to (where else?) New York City to check Joseph’s work with the most celebrated scholars of the day in ancient languages. According to Martin’s account, a professor at Columbia (then a college and not a university), Charles Anthon, verified the characters and their translation by Joseph as authentic and correct and signed a certificate to that effect. When Anthon asked about the origins of the translation, and Martin told him that Joseph had received plates from an angel, Anthon asked for the certificate back and ripped it up. He then asked Martin to bring him the book that he might inspect it directly. Martin told him that the book was sealed, and Anthon said, “I cannot read a sealed book.” This experience, as related, tracks directly with verses 15-18.

A 1942 article in the Improvement Era (a Church periodical of that day) shows incredibly compelling evidence that the characters transcribed from the plates match demotic Egyptian characters that were in use during that period in history (as these characters have been photographed by non-Mormon scholars). For years, people assumed that the transcribed characters featured in the Improvement Era article were part of the actual transcriptions seen by Anthon, but recent handwriting analysis indicates that these characters were transcribed in 1829 by another scribe (John Whitmer) after Martin’s visit to Anthon. In either case, the side-by-side photographical evidence in the 1942 article is so compelling, I believe it could be sufficient by itself to convince many people of the authenticity of the Book of Mormon. (Below is an image of the Whitmer transcription, previously known as the Anthon transcript)

After having an even more esteemed scholar, Samuel Mitchill, verify Anthon’s initial conclusions about the authenticity of the characters and translation (see the account of Martin’s encounters with the scholars in verses 64-65 of Joseph Smith’s history), Martin returned to his home in upstate New York and arranged to both finance the translation and travel to northern Pennsylvania (where Joseph and his wife were living near her parents at the time) to act as Joseph’s scribe. (Anthon apparently disputed Martin Harris’ version of the facts, but in any event, Martin clearly came away from the encounter convinced that the translation work was worth pursuing.)

So this chapter clearly reinforces for Joseph, and for us, that the translation of the Book of Mormon and the restoration of divine authority through Joseph were both directed by Christ, and that Joseph is the man who receives the book, as referred to in verses 9 and 19, with Anthon as the “learned” referred to in verses 15-20.

We receive a number of further promises with great significance. The most important is that witnesses in addition to Joseph will be able to see the “book”—with “book” in this case meaning the gold plates used as the source for the Book of Mormon. Verse 12 tells us that three witnesses will behold the book by “the power of God.” The translation of this chapter inspired Joseph and those involved with helping him translate the plates to consider who these witnesses might be, and ultimately the angel (Moroni) who was the last Nephite custodian of the plates and who directed Joseph to find them is the one who presents the plates to Oliver Cowdery, Martin Harris, and David Whitmer in 1829. Their testimony of the experience lives on, as does the testimony of the eight witnesses who are the few others God allows to see the plates (verse 13) and to whom Joseph later showed them. None ever recanted his testimony.

There is, of course, more. Through a faithful few, the Lord pours out blessings that overflow so that they might touch the lives of many others and give these others (the deaf, the blind, the meek in verses 29-30) ample opportunity to embrace the cause of salvation and righteousness that the kingdom of God represents and see the “terrible one” (Satan and anyone who identifies with him) thwarted in his designs (verse 31). And God’s plan is clearly one of redemption, where those who have “erred in spirit shall come to understanding” (verse 35). Little by little, the field where the word of God is planted will become fruitful, and then its growth will be so great that it will be “esteemed as a forest” (verse 28). We are promised that even the sealed portion of the plates will one day be read from the housetops by the power of Christ, along with “all things” (verses 11, 21-22). I’m not sure we can properly comprehend how amazing it will be to be able to receive all things from the hand of the Lord.