Twenty-Two (1827)mission, helping him to fulfill his role. More about the Three Nephites will be detailed later to
the time that they finally departed Joseph’s company.
True Facts vs. Myths and Legends
Fourteen hundred years before, Moroni had fashioned a carrying case for the Urim and
Thummim by placing the stones on the ground and constructing a form around them. The form
allowed a small gap around the stones that were otherwise touching. Into this gap, Moroni
melted tin/silver mixture and formed two rims around the rocks that held them together. He
fashioned a hook that would allow him to hang the stones’ carrying case on the inside of his
breastplate, creating a pocket to protect them. His breastplate was made of a bronze/copper
mix, which he had worn to protect himself from swords and arrows. Before Moroni was killed,
and because he had already resigned himself to soon surrender to the Lamanites (which would
have certainty led to his death), he no longer needed his breastplate. Therefore, he placed it on
the floor of the box he had fashioned from a crude cement mixture (the side of the breastplate
that fit next to his body was facing upwards). He laid the plates inside the breastplate and then
put the Urim and Thummim on top of the plates.
The vain and foolish imagination of Brigham Young would later distort and convolute
what he thought he heard Oliver Cowdery say about the sword of Laban. Oliver didn’t actually
say it, but that didn’t keep Brigham from announcing to the world that Oliver had seen the
sword of Laban. There was no sword of Laban. It was only in the minds of the fools who
invented fascination and fantasy because of their lack of true knowledge.^63 Joseph did not
misstate his words when he left out any reference to the sword of Laban, where he wrote,
without disclosing all of the details of the event, “At length the time arrived for obtaining the
plates, the Urim and Thummim, and the breastplate.”^64
As mentioned before, Lucy Mack Smith’s later stories about how and when the plates
were finally delivered to her son^65 demonstrated a grieving mother’s desire to make sure her
beloved son would not be forgotten for what he did. Although Joseph himself wrote in brevity
regarding how he took possession of the plates, the failing memory of his 70-year-old mother
provided the only other firsthand witness of Joseph’s words concerning the event.
Joseph later presented the entire history of the plates, the Urim and Thummim, and
the breastplate as this: “[Moroni] delivered them up to me,” and “I delivered them up to
him; and he has them in his charge until this day, being the second day of May, one
thousand eight hundred and thirty-eight.” This is all Joseph ever said concerning the things
he was given to accomplish “what was required at [his] hand.”^66 Everything else ever
written and discussed among his immediate family, friends, and the LDS/Mormon people
about the things he took out of the ground on September 22, 1827 are inventions,
imaginations, legends, fables, and outright lies.
Myths and Legends of the “Three Nephites”
Furthermore, every LDS/Mormon story, every legend, account, or testimony that makes
claim that someone other than Joseph Smith, Jr. (in his time or since) was or has been visited by
or knowingly met with the Three Nephites or with John is a lie. These lies have been formed
either by deliberate falsehood or by the vain and foolish imagination of the person claiming to
have seen or met any of them. Although they have lived among the people of the world for
centuries, the Brothers have never allowed themselves to be known or recognized for who they