Joseph Smith Ark of the Covenant
Did Joseph Smith Find a Nephite Ark of the Covenant? The Remarkable Biblical Pattern at Cumorah
The gold plates may be part of a much larger temple pattern. Don Bradley explores connections between Cumorah, the Ark of the Covenant, the Urim and Thummim, Liahona, Sword of Laban, and the restoration of God’s covenant with Israel.
This article is a written summary of a Let’s Get Real discussion with historian Don Bradley exploring a striking proposal: that the sacred objects Joseph Smith recovered at Cumorah can be understood as a Nephite counterpart to the biblical Ark of the Covenant. Rather than focusing only on the gold plates, Bradley compares the entire collection of relics—the plates, interpreters, breastplate, Liahona, and Sword of Laban—with sacred objects connected to ancient Israelite temple worship. His larger argument is that the Restoration follows recurring biblical patterns of lost scripture, covenant renewal, temple worship, exodus, and restoration. :chatgpt-content-reference{index=”0″}
TL;DR: Did Joseph Smith Find a Nephite Ark of the Covenant?
Don Bradley argues that Joseph Smith may have recovered more than an ancient record at Cumorah. He proposes that the stone box containing the gold plates and other sacred relics functioned symbolically as a Nephite Ark of the Covenant. The biblical Ark was a gold-covered container holding stone covenant tablets and associated with the Urim and Thummim, high-priestly relics, manna, and sacred temple worship. At Cumorah, Joseph found a stone container holding gold plates, interpreters associated with a breastplate, and according to historical accounts, other Nephite relics including the Liahona and Sword of Laban. Bradley argues that these are not isolated similarities but part of an interconnected biblical temple pattern centered on restoring God’s covenant with Israel.
Watch the Full Let’s Get Real Episode With Don Bradley
Joseph Smith and King Josiah: A Biblical Pattern of Restoration
The episode begins with a simple but powerful comparison.
A young man discovers a lost book of scripture and uses it to restore God’s covenant with Israel.
Who is it?
The answer could be King Josiah.
It could also be Joseph Smith.
Bradley argues that this is not a trivial similarity. It is part of a larger scriptural pattern.
King Josiah lived shortly before Lehi. During his reign, a lost book of scripture—the book of the law or book of the covenant—was discovered in the temple.
When Josiah read it, he realized how far Israel had drifted from the covenant.
He led a national reform and called the people to return to the Lord.
The Book of the Covenant Was Connected to the Ark
Bradley points to Deuteronomy, where Moses commands that the book of the law be placed with the Ark of the Covenant.
The book contained covenant instructions.
Israel was not merely supposed to possess it.
They were supposed to live it.
Moses and Joshua both emphasize the need to:
Keep the words of the covenant and do according to that which is written.
That phrase becomes important later in the Restoration.
Doctrine and Covenants 84 Calls the Book of Mormon a New Covenant
One of the strongest connections in the video comes from Doctrine and Covenants 84.
The revelation began on September 22, 1832.
That date is exactly five years after Joseph Smith received the gold plates on September 22, 1827.
The revelation warns the Church that it had treated the things it had received too lightly.
Then it says the Saints must:
“Remember the new covenant, even the Book of Mormon.”
And not only remember it:
“Not only to say, but to do according to that which I have written.”
Bradley compares this language with the biblical instructions surrounding the book of the covenant in the days of Moses, Joshua, and Josiah.
His conclusion is significant:
The Book of Mormon is not simply a religious book. It functions as a covenant book.
The Restoration Repeats Ancient Patterns
Bradley’s larger point is that restoration is not something God did only once.
The pattern appears repeatedly throughout scripture.
Truth is lost or neglected.
A sacred record is preserved.
A prophet receives it.
The covenant is renewed.
God’s people are called to repent.
That pattern appears in:
- Moses.
- Joshua.
- King Josiah.
- Lehi and Nephi.
- Joseph Smith.
For Bradley, this demonstrates the continuity between ancient Israel and the Restoration.
Lehi and Nephi Lost the Same Sacred Things Israel Lost
The conversation then moves to the opening of the Book of Mormon.
Lehi lived during the reign of Zedekiah, shortly before Jerusalem was destroyed by Babylon.
Israel was about to lose:
- The promised land.
- Jerusalem.
- Solomon’s Temple.
- The Ark of the Covenant.
- Temple relics.
- Political independence.
Lehi’s family experienced a similar loss.
They left Jerusalem and lost access to Solomon’s Temple and its sacred objects.
But instead of being taken into Babylonian captivity, they experienced a new exodus.
God led them toward a new promised land.
How Could the Nephites Keep the Law of Moses Without the Ark?
The Book of Mormon repeatedly says that the Nephites kept the law of Moses.
This creates an important question.
How could they fully practice temple-based Israelite worship after leaving Jerusalem?
They no longer had access to Solomon’s Temple.
Nephi solves part of the problem by building a temple patterned after Solomon’s.
But Bradley argues that a temple alone was not enough.
Ancient Israelite worship required sacred objects.
Most importantly, it required the Ark of the Covenant.
This leads to one of the central claims of the episode:
The Nephites must have created or preserved their own ark-like collection of sacred relics.
What Was the Biblical Ark of the Covenant?
Bradley spends considerable time explaining the function of the biblical Ark because without that background, the Cumorah parallels are easy to miss.
The Ark was not decorative furniture.
It was central to Israelite temple worship.
The Hebrew temple was organized in increasingly sacred spaces.
At the center was the Holy of Holies.
And at the center of the Holy of Holies was the Ark.
The Ark Was a Container for the Covenant
The word ark essentially refers to a container.
Noah’s ark contained Noah, his family, and the animals.
The Ark of the Covenant contained sacred covenant objects.
Most importantly, it contained the stone tablets associated with God’s covenant with Israel.
These tablets were especially sacred because scripture describes them as having been written upon by the finger of God.
The Ark Represented the Presence of God
The Ark’s lid, or mercy seat, included two cherubim.
The space above the mercy seat symbolically represented God’s throne and divine presence.
Below it rested the covenant stones touched by God.
Bradley describes the Ark as a concentrated symbol of God’s presence in the temple.
The temple housed the Ark.
The Ark housed the tablets.
And the tablets bore the touch and covenant word of God.
The Ark of the Covenant and the Day of Atonement
The Ark also played an essential role in the most sacred annual Israelite ritual: the Day of Atonement.
On that day, the high priest entered the Holy of Holies.
Sacrifices were offered for the high priest and for Israel.
Blood from those sacrifices was sprinkled on the mercy seat of the Ark.
For Christians, this ritual points toward the ultimate Atonement of Jesus Christ.
Bradley therefore argues that the Ark was indispensable to ancient temple worship.
Without an Ark, the Day of Atonement ritual could not be performed in its traditional form.
What Happened to the Biblical Ark of the Covenant?
The Bible does not clearly explain what happened to the Ark before or during the Babylonian destruction of Jerusalem.
Bradley discusses one ancient tradition preserved in the Apocrypha.
According to that tradition, Jeremiah hid the Ark in connection with the coming Babylonian destruction.
The interview is careful to note that this material is not canonical Latter-day Saint scripture.
Still, Bradley finds the tradition interesting because Jeremiah lived during the same broader era as Lehi.
A Curious Apocryphal Reference to “Nephi”
Bradley also discusses a striking passage in the Apocrypha in which a combustible substance associated with cleansing is referred to with a word rendered as Nephi.
He does not claim this proves a direct connection with the Book of Mormon prophet Nephi.
But he finds the coincidence noteworthy because the passage concerns restoring temple worship after the Babylonian exile.
Nephi in the Book of Mormon faces a similar challenge: restoring covenant worship after leaving Jerusalem and losing access to the original temple system.
Nephi Built a Temple Like Solomon’s Temple
The Book of Mormon explicitly says that Nephi built a temple after the manner of Solomon’s Temple.
This is central to Bradley’s argument.
Lehi’s descendants lost the biblical promised land.
God gave them a new promised land.
They lost Solomon’s Temple.
Nephi built another temple patterned after it.
They lost access to the biblical Ark of the Covenant.
Bradley therefore asks:
What replaced the Ark?
Could the Stone Box at Cumorah Be a Nephite Ark?
The discussion eventually reaches Cumorah.
Joseph Smith did not simply find gold plates lying on the ground.
Historical accounts describe the objects as being preserved in a stone box.
Bradley cites an account in which Martin Harris reportedly referred to this stone box as an ark.
This leads to the central comparison:
Could the stone box at Cumorah have functioned as the Nephite Ark of the Covenant?
Gold Box With Stone Tablets vs. Stone Box With Gold Tablets
The comparison is immediately striking.
The biblical Ark was:
A gold-covered box containing stone tablets.
The Cumorah structure was:
A stone box containing gold tablets.
Bradley calls this an inversion.
One has:
Gold container + stone covenant record.
The other has:
Stone container + gold covenant record.
By itself, that might simply be interesting.
But Bradley argues that the strength of the case comes from the many other parallels that fit the same pattern.
The Gold Plates as Temple Relics
Bradley next focuses on the gold plates themselves.
The Old Testament contains an engraved gold plate associated with the high priest.
The high priest wore a gold plate on his crown engraved with the words:
“Holiness to the Lord.”
Bradley argues that this provides a possible temple-symbolic background for the Nephite record being engraved on gold plates.
The plates may therefore be more than simply a durable writing material.
They can also be viewed as sacred temple relics.
The Urim and Thummim Create Another Temple Parallel
The sacred interpreters associated with the Book of Mormon provide one of the clearest temple connections.
The biblical high priest possessed the Urim and Thummim.
These were associated with revelation and the high priest’s breastplate.
Joseph Smith received interpreters with the Book of Mormon plates that Latter-day Saints also associate with the Urim and Thummim.
And historical descriptions connect those interpreters with a breastplate.
Bradley’s pattern therefore becomes:
- Biblical high priest — breastplate.
- Biblical high priest — Urim and Thummim.
- Joseph Smith — breastplate.
- Joseph Smith — interpreters or Urim and Thummim.
The parallels become increasingly temple-centered.
The Brother of Jared and Moses: Stones Touched by God
One of the most important parts of the discussion concerns the brother of Jared.
His story occurs chronologically long before Moses, yet Bradley sees striking parallels with the Exodus.
The brother of Jared is participating in an exodus-like journey.
He is traveling toward a promised land.
He ascends a mountain.
He meets the Lord.
The Lord touches stones with His finger.
Those stones eventually become sacred revelatory objects.
Moses follows a similar pattern.
He leads Israel on an exodus.
He travels toward a promised land.
He ascends Mount Sinai.
He meets God.
God gives him sacred stones associated with His own finger and covenant.
Those stones are placed in the Ark of the Covenant.
Both Sets of Sacred Stones End Up in Ark-Like Containers
Bradley emphasizes this detail.
Moses’s sacred stones touched by God ultimately belong in the biblical Ark.
The brother of Jared’s sacred stones eventually become part of the Nephite sacred record tradition and are associated with the objects preserved in the stone box at Cumorah.
This gives Bradley another major parallel between the biblical Ark and the Nephite relic collection.
The Breastplate Strengthens the High-Priest Pattern
The biblical Urim and Thummim were associated with a breastplate worn by the high priest.
The Nephite interpreters were likewise described as associated with a breastplate.
Bradley sees this as especially significant.
If the interpreters alone paralleled the Urim and Thummim, that would already be interesting.
But when both sets are connected with a breastplate, the parallel becomes more specific.
Joseph Smith’s Translation Process and Temple Symbolism
The episode then examines historical accounts of Joseph Smith’s translation process.
Bradley discusses an account in which Joseph described attaching the interpreters to the breastplate while translating.
He also discusses a veil or curtain being placed between Joseph and his scribe.
Bradley sees strong temple imagery in the scene:
- A breastplate.
- Sacred stones.
- Engraved plates.
- A veil.
- Sacred words transmitted through the veil.
In one historical account discussed in the video, Joseph reportedly described touching a character on the plates and perceiving translation words in connection with the veil.
Bradley interprets this as another way in which the Book of Mormon translation can be understood within a high-priestly temple pattern.
Why Joseph Smith’s Seer Stone Does Not Have to Contradict the Interpreters
The hosts address the different historical accounts of Book of Mormon translation.
Some accounts describe Joseph using the Nephite interpreters and breastplate.
Others describe him using a seer stone in a hat.
Bradley does not see these accounts as mutually exclusive.
His view is that different instruments may have been used at different times.
He also points out that the interpreters themselves function as sacred stones used by a seer to receive divine knowledge.
From that perspective, a seer stone is conceptually related to the revelatory function of the interpreters.
Darkness to Light: Symbolism in the Translation
Bradley also explores symbolic imagery surrounding the plates and translation.
Historical accounts discussed in the interview describe dark material being placed in the engraved grooves of the gold plates so that the characters would stand out against the bright metal.
That means the untranslated characters could be imagined as:
Dark letters against a bright background.
Other accounts describe words of translation appearing spiritually as light against darkness.
Bradley sees this as another inversion:
Dark characters on light become light words in darkness.
For him, the imagery symbolically reflects the Restoration itself:
Truth comes out of obscurity.
The word of God emerges from darkness into light.
The Liahona and the Pot of Manna
The Liahona creates another major parallel.
The biblical Ark was associated with a pot of manna.
Manna represented God’s miraculous provision during Israel’s Exodus.
Lehi’s family also experiences an exodus.
They need food in the wilderness.
The Liahona helps guide them to obtain it.
Bradley therefore sees the Liahona as paralleling the manna tradition.
The Liahona and Manna Are Found in Similar Ways
The narrative details deepen the comparison.
The Israelites discover manna in the morning on the ground.
It is described as round.
Lehi also awakens one morning.
He goes to the door of his tent.
There on the ground he finds a round object—the Liahona.
Both groups are traveling through the wilderness toward a promised land.
Both receive miraculous help connected with food and survival.
The Liahona and Aaron’s Rod
The Ark was also associated with Aaron’s rod that budded.
That rod served as a miraculous sign and instrument connected with divine revelation and priestly authority.
The Liahona likewise functions as an instrument of revelation.
Bradley therefore sees the Liahona as carrying elements of both:
- The pot of manna.
- Aaron’s rod.
It represents divine guidance and divine provision during an exodus.
Does the Sword of Laban Break the Ark of the Covenant Pattern?
The Sword of Laban initially appears to be the weakest part of the theory.
What does a sword have to do with the temple?
Bradley says this became a test case for him.
If every other object fit the pattern but the Sword of Laban did not, perhaps the larger argument would weaken.
So he returned to the biblical story that most closely parallels Nephi’s encounter with Laban.
Nephi and Laban Parallel David and Goliath
Bradley points to extensive parallels between Nephi’s encounter with Laban and David’s encounter with Goliath.
Both involve:
- A future king.
- A powerful adversary.
- An apparently impossible confrontation.
- The stronger opponent being defeated.
- The defeated opponent being decapitated.
- The victor using the enemy’s own sword.
- The sword being preserved afterward.
The interview references scholarship arguing that Nephi’s account deliberately echoes the David and Goliath story.
Nephi may be presenting himself as a new David-like covenant leader.
The Sword of Goliath Became a Temple Relic
The key discovery comes from 1 Samuel 21.
Later, when David is fleeing Saul, he goes to the sanctuary and asks the priest for a weapon.
The priest tells him that the Sword of Goliath is there.
It is wrapped and stored behind the ephod.
The ephod is associated with the high priest’s sacred clothing and breastplate.
In other words, the Sword of Goliath had been preserved as a sacred relic connected with the sanctuary.
Bradley therefore argues that the Nephite parallel makes sense:
The Sword of Laban can also be understood as a sacred national and temple relic.
Every Major Object at Cumorah Fits the Temple Pattern
By the end of the episode, Bradley argues that the full set of sacred objects associated with the Cumorah deposit fits the biblical temple pattern.
The proposed correspondences include:
- Biblical Ark of the Covenant → Nephite stone box at Cumorah.
- Stone covenant tablets → Gold plates containing the Nephite covenant record.
- Urim and Thummim → Nephite interpreters.
- High priest’s breastplate → Breastplate associated with the interpreters.
- Pot of manna → Liahona and wilderness sustenance.
- Aaron’s rod → Liahona as an instrument of revelation.
- Sword of Goliath preserved at the sanctuary → Sword of Laban preserved as a Nephite relic.
- Book of the Covenant recovered by Josiah → Book of Mormon as a restored covenant record.
Bradley’s argument is that when all of these parallels are taken together, they look less like isolated coincidences and more like a coordinated sacred pattern.
Cumorah as a Restoration of the Covenant With Israel
The episode ends by returning to the larger question:
What was Joseph Smith really doing on September 22, 1827?
In the familiar telling, he was retrieving the gold plates.
Bradley sees something larger.
Joseph was stepping into an ancient scriptural pattern.
He was recovering a covenant record.
He was recovering sacred relics.
He was participating in a modern restoration of the covenant with Israel.
In Bradley’s words, the stone box at Cumorah can be understood as a Nephite Ark of the Covenant.
The Book of Mormon Is Meant to Be Lived, Not Merely Defended
Perhaps the most important spiritual lesson of the episode returns to Doctrine and Covenants 84.
The revelation does not tell Latter-day Saints merely to admire the Book of Mormon.
It does not say simply to prove that the record is ancient.
It says to remember the new covenant.
And then:
“Not only to say, but to do according to that which I have written.”
The ancient Israelites had a covenant record.
Josiah rediscovered it and called Israel to repentance.
The Restoration brings forth another covenant record.
Its purpose is likewise to call God’s people back to Him.
Final Takeaway: The Restoration Continues the Story of Ancient Israel
The deepest message of the episode is that the Restoration should not be understood as something disconnected from the Bible.
Bradley sees it as a continuation of the same covenant story.
Moses receives sacred stones from God.
Israel preserves them in the Ark of the Covenant.
King Josiah recovers a lost covenant book and restores Israelite worship.
Lehi and Nephi experience a new exodus, receive a new promised land, and build a temple after the pattern of Solomon.
The Nephites preserve sacred relics connected with their covenant history.
Then Joseph Smith climbs a hill in the nineteenth century and retrieves a covenant record and sacred relics from a stone ark.
For believing Latter-day Saints, these patterns can deepen the meaning of the coming forth of the Book of Mormon.
The gold plates are not merely evidence that an ancient record existed.
They belong to a larger story of covenant, temple worship, revelation, and restoration.
Joseph Smith’s work therefore fits within a recurring scriptural pattern:
God preserves His word, calls prophets, restores lost truth, renews His covenant, and invites His people to return to Him.
The episode closes by previewing an additional argument concerning September 22, 1827 and the Jewish Feast of Trumpets, which will be explored in the next part of the discussion.