How can Nephi quote Isaiah chapters scholars date after 600 BC?
The Bible answers
King James Version
Thus saith the Lord God, Behold, I will lift up mine hand to the Gentiles… and kings shall be thy nursing fathers, and their queens thy nursing mothers.
NRSVUE
Thus says the Lord God: I will soon lift up my hand to the nations… Kings shall be your foster fathers, and their queens your nursing mothers.
The Book of Mormon answers
1 Nephi 19:23
That which was written by the prophet Isaiah. Nephi thinks there is one Isaiah.
I did liken all scriptures unto us, that it might be for our profit and learning — Nephi treats Isaiah as already on the brass plates, a living prophetic book for a remnant leaving Jerusalem.
Dead Sea Scrolls and related extra-biblical texts that illuminate the same pattern the Restoration restores.
Great Isaiah Scroll (1QIsaᵃ)
Qumran copies Isaiah as one book, without a seam at chapter 40. The oldest complete Isaiah is a unity in the community that kept it.
The Dead Sea Scrolls do not present 'Deutero-Isaiah' as a separate work. That is a modern academic story, not an ancient title page.
FAIR
FAIR Latter-day Saints
Multiple-Isaiah theories rest on the assumption that predictive prophecy of Cyrus cannot be genuine. Latter-day Saints do not grant that assumption. Even if some later editing occurred in the Masoretic tradition, Nephi’s brass plates are an independent sixth-century witness. The Great Isaiah Scroll treats the book as one.
If God can name Cyrus, God can give Isaiah those words. The Restoration is not hostage to naturalistic dating.
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