THE PLATES OF BRASS

The Plates of Brass ,will doubtless one day be as famous as the Dead Sea Scrolls, and their discovery will surely be as amazing. , When they do come forth, they will likely be known&mdash,according to established convention&mdash,as the Plates of Joseph. , This book is written to provide a timely introduction to these plates.The Plates of Brass are a set of scriptures almost entirely unknown to the world today. , They were kept by the Israelite tribe of Joseph and cover a period of time from the creation of the world to about 600 BC. , They are similar to the Old Testament from Genesis to Jeremiah except that they are more complete and include the words of prophets unknown today.A few years prior to the destruction of Jerusalem by the Babylonians in 587 BC, Lehi and his family&mdash,being led by the Lord&mdash,left Jerusalem and traveled to the New World. , They brought with them the Plates of Brass which served as their scriptures. , The loss of these records from Jerusalem coincided with the destruction of the temple and other records kept at the temple. Ezekiel, an Israelite prophet who was taken captive by Nebuchadnezzar, was probably very disheartened about the loss of those sacred records. , He and other Jews spent many years afterward trying to reconstruct what was lost&mdash,both from memory and from whatever records remained. , No doubt it was a great comfort to Ezekiel when he learned by revelation that the &ldquo,stick of Joseph&rdquo, (which included the Plates of Brass) and the &ldquo,stick of Judah&rdquo, (the Bible) would one day come back together (see Ezekiel 37