“The record is now published in many languages”

This reminds me of an old Economics thought exercise. Imagine you and a small group of 30 people have been stranded on an island. People have needs to be taken care of and quickly learn if everyone tries to do everything, nothing gets done. So… people specialize. There are coconut pickers, and water gatherers and hut builders. Soon, we need to trade products and services so we quickly learn after bartering for a while that a currency is needed to exchange goods.

Certain products become valued at a certain amount of money, dependent on their value, the time it took to produce the item, etc. Money very quickly becomes the common language of value in the society.Without seeing a product we can come to know its relative value by the cost associated with it. Even if 2 people don’t speak the same language, they can understand the value of things by money, whose value transcends language or culture.

Similarly, the BOM, now published in over 109 languages, communicates universal truths to its readers. Although different languages are spoken and written, different cultures practiced, the message of the Book of Mormon is common to all, a medium communicating spiritual value to its reader, regardless of the individuals specialization, vocation, education, etc.

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“Their words, written on gold plates,”

From the very inception of the Book of Mormon, we read of gold plates. Gold has always been a precious metal, valued for its intrinsic beauty and used as currency for many generations before and since the Book of Mormon. Perhaps gold was an ideal metal to inscribe on because it is malleable and therefore relatively easy of use. Or, perhaps more importantly, the precious words that were to be written thereon were of such value that only plates made of the most precious ore would be used to contain this important record of God’s dealing with the ancient Americans.

Gold is used to adorn the most important things with beauty and added value. We adorn temples, palaces, even our own bodies with gold because they are some of the the greatest gifts God has given us. Today, we know the words of eternal life were engraved on golden plates, a symbol of the value and worth of the message contained thereon.

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