In 2 Nephi 5:16, Joseph Smith has Nephi claim he built a temple “after the manner of Solomon’s,” though less ornate since “precious things … were not to be found upon the land.”

Yet the verse immediately before (5:15) boasts of “wood, iron, copper, brass, steel, gold, silver, and precious ores … in great abundance.”

This contradiction is telling: first an abundance of valuable resources, then their complete absence.

Historically, the claim collapses further—steel and other Old World metals were unknown in the pre-Columbian Americas.

The juxtaposition exposes Joseph’s lack of research and narrative inconsistency.

Constructing a Solomonic temple was not only implausible, but impossible, exposing how little credibility the Book of Mormon holds as a historical record.