2 Nephi 27: The One With the Sealed Book

The unpublished subtitle of this chapter is "In Which Joseph Tries to Manufacture the Fulfillment of a Prophecy."

In my opinion, the biggest issue in this chapter is easily the "I cannot read a sealed book" thing.  In verses 15 through 19, the Book of Mormon relates (with some extra fluff) a prophecy from Isaiah, chapter 29, verse 11:

And the vision of all is become unto you as the words of a book that is sealed, which men deliver to one that is learned, saying, Read this, I pray thee: and he saith, I cannot; for it is sealed:

 Apparently Joseph Smith had some plans to get an expert to validate the authenticity of the partially sealed records he was translating.  In Joseph Smith--History, verses 64 and 65, Martin Harris relates his experience showing a copy of some of the characters from the plates to Professor Charles Anthon.  As the story goes, Anthon declared the characters and their translations to be legitimate and signed a note stating such, until Harris mentioned that the characters were of an angelic source.  Harris wrote:

He then said to me, "Let me see that certificate."  I accordingly took it out of my pocket and gave it to him, when he took it and tore it to pieces, saying that there was no such thing now as ministering of angels, and that if I would bring the plates to him he would translate them.  I informed him that part of the plates were sealed, and that I was forbidden to bring them.  He replied, "I cannot read a sealed book."

 The idea is that this story validates Joseph Smith and Mormonism as a whole because it is a direct fulfillment of a prophecy found in both the Bible and the Book of Mormon.  But if you think about it, and maybe filter out a little bit of the airy nineteenth-century mannerisms, the exchange doesn't make much sense.

ANTHON:  There's no such thing as the ministering of angels.  If you bring me the actual plates, I can translate them for you.

HARRIS:  Part of the plates are sealed and also there's no way my buddy is going to let the plates out of his sight.

ANTHON:  Well, I can't read a sealed book.

I find it highly suspect that Professor Anthon would have said that.  The biggest impediment to his personally examining the golden plates was not that a part of them were sealed.  As long as he had a little bit of unsealed material to work with, he could easily verify its linguistic validity.  The biggest impediment to his personally examining the golden plates was that Joseph Smith would refuse to show them to him (because they didn't actually exist).  This scenario seems more likely:

ANTHON:  There's no such thing as the ministering of angels.  If you bring me the actual plates, I can translate them for you.

HARRIS:  Part of the plates are sealed and also there's no way my buddy is going to let the plates out of his sight.

 ANTHON:  Well, I can't translate it if you won't show it to me.

Not only does Martin Harris' account not really make sense, but Charles Anthon apparently denied writing anything for Harris concerning the authenticity of the characters.  Admittedly, the issue is muddied by an earlier statement from Anthon, in which he claimed that he wrote a note to let Smith know his fraud was obvious and to let Harris know he'd been duped.  Either way, Anthon denies claiming that the characters were valid Egyptian writings.

Of course, I'm pulling that information off of Wikipedia, which we all know is prone to misinformation and vandalism.  But, come on--who are you going to believe?  Wikipedia, which labors to present accurate and unbiased information and despite its faults is almost always correct?  Or Martin Harris, the bumbling idiot who lost the 116 pages and fell for every little trick that Joseph Smith pulled on him?

At least there's good news for this Isaiah chapter--Joseph used it for a purpose other than filler.