Ether 1

#The Book of Ether

#The record of the Jaredites, taken from the twenty-four plates found by the people

#of Limhi in the days of king Mosiah.

As Moroni recorded the book of Ether onto the plates of Mormon, he either used King Mosiah’s translation of the twenty-four plates of Ether and produced an abridgment of that record, or he re-translated the Jaredite plates themselves, making both a translation and an abridgment. The text is not clear on this point. In making his record, Moroni did not give a full account of the Jaredites (see Ether 1:5), rather he selected only certain specific materials. Later on, he will comment that he included only a “hundredth part” of the prophet Ether’s record on the plates of Mormon (Ether 15:33). The record covers about fifteen hundred years of Jaredite history from the time of the tower of Babel to the destruction of the Jaredite nation.

In including the Jaredite record onto the plates of Mormon, it is likely that Moroni was following his father Mormon’s instructions. Mormon had previously written, while giving an account of the discovery and translation of the twenty-four gold plates of Ether, “And this account shall be written hereafter; for behold, it is expedient that all people should know the things which are written in this account” (Mosiah 28:19).

The Jaredite record is the saga of a people who may have existed for as long as two thousand years—from the time of the Tower of Babel in approximately 2200 BC (for further speculation about this date, see below) to the time the last surviving Jaredite king, Coriantumr, is found by the Mulekites, somewhere between 600 BC and 200 BC. Moroni chronicles at least thirty generations of people. The Bible gives an account of the tower of Babel (Genesis 11), but a precise date for the tower is not known.

In the opening scenes of the book of Ether, the reader is presented with a people being driven out of a land, but promised that their language, perhaps the Adamic language, would not be taken from them. God will also make promises to them, or covenants with them, that contain the essential elements of the covenant later made with Father Abraham. These elements include priesthood, posterity, and a land of inheritance. Modern revelation makes it clear that these covenants, often referred to as the Abrahamic covenant, were previously and subsequently made with Adam and the other patriarchs (see Moses 6:65-68; 7:51; 8:2, also see Old Testament Student Manual 70-72). This covenant is also the “new” and everlasting covenant that God established in this dispensation (see D&C 49:9; 66:2; 132:2-7). According to Elder Bruce R. McConkie, “The covenant made with the fathers was that their seed after them should receive the same gospel, the same priesthood, the same promise of salvation, that blessed the lives of those with whom the covenant was first made” (A New Witness for the Articles of Faith, 524).

#The Book of Ether as an Epic Poem

In 1952, Hugh Nibley pointed out that that the book of Ether has many similarities with epic poetry from all over the world (Nibley dedicated over 100 pages to demonstrating this point. See Hugh Nibley, Lehi in the Desert / The World of the Jaredites / There Were Jaredites, The Collected Works of Hugh Nibley: Volume 5, Salt Lake City and Provo, UT: Deseret Book and FARMS, 1988, 285–423, p. 412 provides an interesting example.). Epics are long poems that stem from oral tradition, and they relate the history of a nation. They are also about heroic figures. Nibley argued that the book of Ether was originally an epic (Nibley, There Were Jaredites, 405–408). This may seem odd at first, since, as a written document, the Book of Mormon would seem not to have anything to do with epics. However, if the Jaredites were a predominantly oral culture, their founding narratives could have been preserved in a manner similar to epics found throughout ancient literature.

In cultures where writing is not common, oral stories are created in ways that make them easy to remember. This naturally leads to similar methods for creating oral stories across many cultures, leading to many similarities in stories told by various cultures, which Nibley noticed are also present in Ether (Walter J. Ong, Orality and Literacy: The Technologizing of the Word, New York, NY: Routledge, 1982, 137).

In the early 1930s Milman Parry went to southern Europe to observe how people composed long-form oral poetry, similar to the epics Nibley talked about (This work was obviously done many years ago, and some may assume that it was done too long ago to still be relevant, as is was done in the 1930s. But the work of Parry, as well as that of Albert Lord in the 1960s, has proven to be definitive in the field, with scholars still referring to it today. Lord and Parry sometimes failed to appreciate the use of old oral patterns in cultures where written texts had become the norm, but besides this criticism, their work is still considered to be definitive today. See Patrick D. Miller, “The Performance of Oral Tradition in Ancient Israel,” in Contextualizing Israel’s Sacred Writings: Ancient Literacy, Orality, and Literary Production, ed. Brian Schmidt, Atlanta, GA: Society of Biblical Literature, 2015, 175–177. One sees examples of it from all over the world. See Michael Wood, In Search of the Trojan War, New York, NY: Facts on File Publications, 1985, 123). Parry observed singers in different regions, and had them “recite” oral poems. He found some people who said they could recite something “word for word” every time after only hearing it once. However, when Parry actually recorded them reciting these works, he found that the stories they recited were somewhat different every time (Albert B. Lord, The Singer of Tales, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1960, 28).

This was because these bards (individuals who compose and recite epic poems, oven while playing a harp), rather than memorizing multiple poems in their entirety, had simply memorized a certain number of phrases and conventions that they could modify and recombine at will, allowing them to tell a practically infinite number of stories, both true and legendary, by simply changing how they employed the conventions (This may have been done, to a lesser extent, in the Old Testament. See David M. Gunn, The Story of King David: Genre and Interpretation, JSOTSup 6, Sheffield, UK: Sheffield Academic, 1982, 49, 60). This explains how a bard could hear the story once and then be able to repeat it in a way very similar to the way it was given. He did not have to memorize the entire story, he simply had to memorize which conventions had been stitched together and how those conventions had been changed to match each story (Lord, Singer of Tales, 68, 71, 78–81).

Modern archaeological evidence suggests that writings spread across Mesoamerica between 900 and 500 BC, meaning that there may not have been a written history of the Jaredite kings until late Jaredite times (See Stephen D. Houston, “Writing in Early Mesoamerica,” in The First Writing: Script Invention as History and Process, ed. Stephen D. Houston, New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 2004, 284. See also John Justeson, “Early Mesoamerican Writing Systems,” in The Oxford Handbook of Mesoamerican Archaeology, ed. Deborah L. Nichols and Christopher A. Pool, New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2012, 830–831; Javier Urcid, “Scribal Traditions from Highland Mesoamerica, 300–1000 AD,” in The Oxford Handbook of Mesoamerican Archaeology, 855). If this is correct, that would mean that Ether was originally composed orally, and was only written down later. This would explain why, as Nibley has argued, the book of Ether is similar to other orally-composed epic poetry— because the author was using the kinds of conventions common in many oral cultures (“Epic” is used loosely here, because many kinds of orally composed works have elements similar to epics, even if they are not epics. See David B. Honey, “Ecological Nomadism versus Epic Heroism in Ether: Nibley’s Works on the Jaredites,” Review of Books on the Book of Mormon 2, no. 1, 1990: 157). These conventions would have been preserved in the text when Ether finally wrote the work down, but Moroni’s abridgement left the modern reader with only glimpses of this oral style.

Nibley pointed out that these epics often paint an accurate picture of the world they represent. For example, the book of Ether depicts brothers fighting over a kingdom (see Ether 7:9), as do other epics. This is likely a common occurrence in epics because it was a common occurrence in history (Nibley, There Were Jaredites, 396). Nibley also noticed that Ether contains a scene of one king fighting another king to the death. Again, this was probably a common theme in history (Nibley, There Were Jaredites, 413). As Nibley observed, “it is [the real world] and not the poet’s imagination which furnishes him with his characters and images” (Nibley, There Were Jaredites, 286-87).

As with much of the rest of the Book of Mormon, Ether is a carefully crafted work, yet it is also historically reliable (Epic poems such as Beowulf and The Iliad were thought to have no basis in reality. However, in many cases, archaeological evidence has shown that epics like these are heavily stylized retellings of actual events. See Wood, In Search of the Trojan War, 156). In the modern era, many people assume that a work must either be one or the other. The Book of Mormon is a reminder that a work can be both a beautifully stirring work of sacred literature and an accurate depiction of events. The Book of Mormon is a beautiful literary creation that can, like the Bible, speak to the reader in profound ways thousands of years after its composition, yet it also accurately depicts the events it describes.

Because epics have this characteristic, the reader can step into the ancient world and get a taste of what life might have been like for the Nephites or the Jaredites. The Book of Mormon, like many ancient texts, is valuable as a window on the past, but as a divinely inspired text, it also teaches the reader timeless lessons specifically tailored to the times in which the modern reader lives.

#Chapter Outline of Ether

A brief outline of the book of Ether, worth committing to memory, is as follows: Ether 3 The brother of Jared sees the finger and the body of the Lord; his great vision of the earth the account of which is sealed up by Moroni.

Ether 8 Moroni warns of secret combinations.

Ether 12 The Prophet Moroni on Faith, Hope, and Charity

#Ether 15 The Great and Final Battle of the Jaredites—Coriantumr kills Shiz. Ether Chapter 1

verses 1-6 In describing the book of Ether, Book of Mormon scholar Grant Hardy has observed, “Moroni maintains a more pervasive narrator presence” than his father, Mormon (Grant Hardy, Understanding the Book of Mormon: A Reader’s Guide, New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2010, 223). Moroni broke in to comment on the Jaredite narrative at five points: Ether 1:1–6; 3:17–20; 4:1–6:1; 8:18–26; 12:6–41 (John W. Welch and J. Gregory Welch, Charting the Book of Mormon: Visual Aids for

Personal Study and Teaching, Provo, UT: FARMS, 1999, chart 15). In the book of Ether alone, the phrase “I, Moroni” appears eleven times. In contrast, the phrase “I, Mormon” only appears three times outside Mormon’s own writing about his own lifetime (Hardy, Understanding the Book of Mormon, 223). Moroni used Mormon’s classic phrase “and thus we see” only once (George A. Horton Jr., “And Thus We See,” in Book of Mormon Reference Companion, ed. Dennis L. Largey, Salt Lake City, UT: Deseret Book, 2003, 57–59). One wonders why Mormon’s and Moroni’s approaches were so different.

One possible explanation is that Mormon wrote with some sense of security while Moroni was constantly unsure of his own safety and whether he would have any time to write more. Mormon had an entire decade to compile and abridge the Book of Mormon when the Nephites and Lamanites made a ten-year peace treaty around AD 350 (See the commentary for Mormon 3:1). It would have provided an opportunity to carefully craft his narrative to make the points he wanted to make. His characteristic “and thus we see” served his purposes perfectly without breaking into the text as obviously. In addition, he likely believed he would have enough time to write about his own life, and thus did not feel the need to break into the text with personal comments as often.

Moroni, on the other hand, appears to have been surprised that he survived long enough to write anything after his abridgement of Ether. He states, “Now I, Moroni, after having made an end of abridging the account of the people of Jared, I had supposed not to have written more, but I have not as yet perished” (Moroni 1:1). Moroni’s uncertainty about how much time he had left may be reflected in the way he commented on the Jaredite record (Brant A. Gardner, Second Witness: Analytical and Contextual Commentary on the Book of Mormon, 6 vols., Salt Lake City, UT: Greg Kofford Books, 2007, 6:330).

When one removes Moroni’s five comments from Ether, the remaining text flows flawlessly (John W. Welch, “Preliminary Comments on the Sources Behind the Book of Ether” FARMS Preliminary Reports, Provo, Utah: FARMS, 1986, 7). Ether 12–13 is a good example of this. When Ether 12:5 and 13:2 are combined, they read like they belong back to back: “Ether did prophesy great and marvelous things unto the people, which they did not believe, because they saw them not . . . For behold, they rejected all the words of Ether; for he truly told them of all things, from the beginning of man.” These two verses flow perfectly together, even though there is almost an entire chapter between them.

This evidence suggests that Moroni did not heavily edit the original Jaredite record while interspersing light commentary like his father did, but rather left the Jaredite record more or less intact. He seems to have only lightly edited it, while occasionally inserting large blocks of personal commentary all at once. In Hardy’s words, Moroni’s “treatment of the [the Jaredite record] reads like a lightly edited chronicle” (Hardy, Understanding the Book of Mormon, 222). Ultimately, “Moroni does not appear to be reworking his source material to any appreciable extent; in contrast to his father’s abridging” (Hardy, Understanding the Book of Mormon, 223).

The seamlessness of the text that one sees when Moroni’s asides are removed is a subtle witness to the Book of Mormon’s authenticity. Joseph would often dictate long portions of the Book of Mormon, stop translating for a while, and then pick up exactly where he left off without asking anyone where he had stopped the session before (John W. Welch, “The Miraculous Translation of the Book of Mormon,” Opening the Heavens: Accounts of Divine Manifestations, 1820–1844, ed. John Welch with Erick B. Carlson, Salt Lake City and Provo, UT: Deseret Book and BYU Press, 2005, 85). Dictating an aside as long as Ether 12 from memory and then getting back to the narrative without asking where he had left off would be a remarkable feat of memory if he were not actually translating something.

Even more significant, however, is what this says about Moroni. It is hard to comprehend what it was like to write and abridge so much of the Book of Mormon with death constantly hanging over his head. Moroni seemed uncertain about when his life would end, as he included multiple endings (See the commentary for Mormon 8:12- 13) and persistently inserted his own thoughts into Ether. And yet, despite the incredibly difficult circumstance he worked under, Moroni was still able to produce page after page of beautiful scripture.

Despite the constant probability of death, Moroni, “finished his father’s inspired abridgment of the Nephite millennial-long history . . . he abridged the writings of Ether . . . he recorded the lengthy writings of the brother of Jared on the gold plates and sealed them up.” After that: “He wandered alone about the land for many years, not only concerned about his personal safety, but also fully aware of his responsibility to preserve the plates until he was commanded to hide them in the earth. Finally, after traveling extensively and fulfilling priesthood responsibilities, he deposited the plates in a hillside in what is now western New York state. What Moroni accomplished has blessed many people and will yet bless many more” (H. Donl Peterson, “Moroni, the Last of the Nephite Prophets,” in The Book of Mormon: Fourth Nephi, From Zion to Destruction, ed. Monte S. Nyman and Charles D. Tate Jr., Provo, UT: Religious Studies Center, Brigham Young University, 1995, 235).

1 And now I, Moroni, proceed to give an account of those ancient inhabitants who were destroyed by the hand of the Lord upon the face of this north country.

verse 1 “This north country” is the land Desolation, north of the narrow neck of land. Moroni was familiar with this land and was probably writing from that area.

2 And I take mine account from the twenty and four plates which were found by the people of Limhi, which is called the Book of Ether.

verse 2 Again, as has been mentioned above, it is unclear whether Moroni made an independent translation of the twenty-four plates, or whether he simply abridged king Mosiah’s translation of those plates.

3 And as I suppose that the first part of this record, which speaks concerning the creation of the world, and also of Adam, and an account from that time even to the great tower, and whatsoever things transpired among the children of men until that time, is had among the Jews–

verse 3 “the first part of this record” In using the term “this record,” Moroni is referring to either the twenty-four plates of Ether themselves or king Mosiah’s translation of them. He avers that the Jewish scriptures contain other accounts of the creation of the world, of Adam, and of other event down to the time of the building of the great tower (Genesis 1-11). We will learn in the next verses that he has decided not to include this account in the book of Ether.

“the great tower” See the discussion on “the tower” in the commentary for Omni 1:22.

4 Therefore I do not write those things which transpired from the days of Adam until that time; but they are had upon the plates; and whoso findeth them, the same will have power that he may get the full account.

verse 4 “they are had upon the plates” A careful reading of this verse, and particularly this phrase, suggests that Moroni may have the plates of Ether in his possession, and may have made his own translation.

He suggests that whosoever finds the twenty-four plates of Ether in the latter days would have power to translate them. Also, he indicates that the early record— from Adam to the tower of Babel—is, indeed, contained on this record. Oh, that someone could indeed find them!

5 But behold, I give not the full account, but a part of the account I give, from the tower down until they were destroyed.

verse 5 It would seem that Moroni did not feel it necessary to include from the plates of Ether the account of the creation of the world from the story of Adam through to the days of the tower of Babel. As mentioned, he knew that this account was available to his readers elsewhere.

verses 6-32 In these verses Moroni provides us with a genealogy of Ether, the last of the Jaredite prophets. It is likely that it is not a complete genealogy. Note that he sometimes writes “son of” and at other times he writes “a descendant of.”

A remarkable evidence of the authenticity of the Book of Mormon is seen in these verses. In order to appreciate this evidence, please keep in mind the way the translation of the Book of Mormon actually took place. If you need a review, please read “The Process of Translating the Book of Mormon” found in volume 2, appendix A, of Ye Shall Know of the Doctrine.

Note, beginning in verse 6, the prophet Ether lists his genealogy beginning with himself and extending back to Jared (see verse 32). There are thirty names in all: Ether and Coriantor (verse 6), Moron (verse 7), Ethem (verse 8), Ahah (verse 9), Seth (verse 10), Shiblom (verse 11), Com (verse 12), Coriantum (verse 13), Amnigaddah (verse 14), Aaron (verse 15), Heth and Hearthom (verse 16), Lib (verse 17), Kish (verse 18), Corom (verse 19), Levi (verse 20), Kim (verse 21), Morianton (verse 22), Riplakish (verse 23), Shez (verse 24), Heth (verse 25), Com (verse 26), Coriantum (verse 27), Emer (verse 28), Omer (verse 29), Shule (verse 30), Kib (verse 31), and Orihah and Jared (verse 32). Then, beginning in verse 33 Ether’s record will give a summary (sometimes very brief) of each and every one of these thirty individuals in exactly the reverse order. These summaries extend from Ether 1:33 through Ether 11:23 (This was first published by Grant Hardy, ed., The Book of Mormon: A Reader’s Edition, Urbana and Chicago, IL: University of Illinois Press, 2003, xiii, though he only mentioned 27, whereas there are actually 30. See John W. Welch and J. Gregory Welch, Charting the Book of Mormon: Visual Aids for Personal Study and Teaching, Provo, UT: FARMS, 1999, chart 31.). For example, Jared is the last person to appear in the list (verse 32), and the first one discussed in the narrative (verse 33). As mentioned this pattern continues throughout the entire book of Ether, never missing a name or getting them out of order, despite all the additional names of people and places in-between

Just how do you think Joseph was able to accomplish this feat if he had no notes to which he might refer and if he simply just continued dictating the text with his face in a hat? How did he keep them all straight and provide summaries of each character in the exact reverse sequence? The fact was, that he did not need to memorize this sequence of descendants. He simply continued with the translation process. lt was the prophet Ether who had worried about the sequence as he wrote his record.

Such a genealogy seems unusually long for the Book of Mormon, compared to the much shorter genealogies typically found elsewhere in the Nephite text (See, for example, Mosiah 7:9; Alma 10:2-3, and the heading of 3 Nephi. Omni 1 can be seen as a genealogy as well, but is not in the same style.). For more on genealogies in the Book of Mormon, see the commentary for Jarom 1:1. The occurrence of such a lengthy genealogy, in reverse order, may be important to understanding the book of Ether.

Grant Hardy has proposed that “the genealogical list in the first chapter provides the framework” for the rest of the book of Ether (Grant Hardy, Understanding the Book of Mormon: A Reader’s Guide, New York: Oxford University Press, 2010, 223).

The list in Ether 1 is similar to the king lists attested in the ancient Near East and similar dynastic histories in pre-Columbian Mesoamerica. Comparable to the lengthy list in Ether 1, the Hittite king list is 30 names long (Bernard Goldman, The Ancient Arts of Western and Central Asia: A Guide to the Literature, Ames, IA: Iowa State University Press, 1991, 249). A Mayan example has 33 names (Ruth J. Krochock, “Written Evidence,” in Lynn V. Foster, Handbook to Life in the Ancient Maya World, New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2002, 286). Evidence for such histories does not yet date back to Jaredite times, but this may be due to the limited amount of writing recovered from Jaredite times. There is evidence for writing spreading across Mesoamerica between 900 and 500 BC, so there is no reason such a list couldn’t have been written in (late) Jaredite times (See Stephen D. Houston, “Writing in Early Mesoamerica,” in The First Writing: Script Invention as History and Process, ed. Stephen D. Houston, New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 2004, 284. See also John Justeson, “Early Mesoamerican Writing Systems,” in The Oxford Handbook of Mesoamerican Archaeology, ed. Deborah L. Nichols and Christopher A. Pool, New York, NY: Oxford

University Press, 2012, 830–831; Javier Urcid, “Scribal Traditions from Highland Mesoamerica—300–1000 AD,” in The Oxford Handbook of Mesoamerican Archaeology, 855). It is also important to note that Moroni lived in the late fourth century (early Classic period) and he may have been the one to impose this structure on the record. Genealogies in the Bible usually start at the beginning and document descendants until arriving in the present (See Genesis 5:3–32 or 1 Chronicles 1–9 for classic examples of this style. Matthew 1 shows a similar style.). However, king lists in reverse chronological order, called retrograde king lists, are often found in the ancient Near East and may have been the style of king list adopted by the Jaredites (K. Lawson Younger Jr., “Ugaritic King List, 1.104”, in The Context of Scripture, 3 vols., ed. William W. Halo, Leiden: Brill, 2003, 1: 356 n.1). Mesoamerican dynastic histories also usually start with the most recent ruler and then trace the lineage backward through their ancestors (Brant Gardner, Second Witness: Analytical and Contextual Commentary on the Book of Mormon, 6 vols., Salt Lake City: Greg Kofford Books, 2007, 6:164. For numerous examples, see Simon Martin and Nikolai Grube, Chronicle of the Maya Kings and Queens, 2nd edition, London, UK: Thames and Hudson, 2008, 26–27, 32–4, 37–40, 48, 52, 70–72, 162, 172–173, and several others.). In both the Old and New Worlds, the purpose of these lineage lists was to establish authority (For more information on dynastic histories, see Urcid, “Scribal Traditions from Highland Mesoamerica (300–1000 AD),” 863–865; Krochock, “Written Evidence,” 286–291. For a thorough discussion of dynastic or lineage histories and the Book of Mormon, see John L. Sorenson, Mormon Codex: An Ancient American Book (Salt Lake City and Provo, UT: Deseret Book and Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship, 2013), 198–218; John L. Sorenson, “The Book of Mormon as a Mesoamerican Record,” in Book of Mormon Authorship Revisited: The Evidence for Ancient Origins, ed. Noel B. Reynolds, Provo, UT: FARMS, 1997, 418–429. See also Nehemiah 7:64).

With this background information in mind, modern readers can appreciate why Moroni began the Jaredite record by laying out the royal lineage of the prophet Ether, the original author of the work. This established the authority of Ether and the authoritative nature of his record. By making that king list the organizing principle of the Jaredite story, Moroni authoritatively tied the origins of the Jaredite civilization back to the divine guidance given to the Brother of Jared in Ether 1:35 and Ether 3:8-16.

Moreover, Moroni skillfully employed the king list as a subtle organizing principle for his book of Ether. The occurrence of the names on this list in Ether 1:6-32 in perfect reverse order in Ether 6:1-11:23, despite many details and additional names of people and cities that were added. This is impressive evidence that the book of Ether was carefully crafted by Moroni, based on a well-organized underlying Jaredite narrative. The writing of this book was certainly something that required a great deal of time and attention to detail to compose. As Grant Hardy has noted, “If [Joseph Smith] were composing as he went along,” repurposing this king list in its opposite order would have been “quite the feat of memory” (Hardy, Readers Edition, xiii).

Studying details such as these allows readers to better understand and relate to the ancient authors of the Book of Mormon. It may be easy to think of the authors of the Book of Mormon as distant from readers today. They’re people from the remote past, who may seem difficult to relate to in modern times. Yet, on occasion, the curtain gets pulled back and the modern reader can almost sit with the authors and compilers and observe their manners and methods as they work. The book of Ether is one of those occasions. One can almost see Ether referring to the king list as he crafted his 24-goldplate record of the Jaredites. One can also observe Moroni as he interspersed his own editorial commentaries (Ether 1:1-6; 3:17-20; 4:1-6:1; 8:18-26; 12:6-41) into the Jaredite story as it unfolded.

Experiences like these allow the reader to connect with these ancient authors in new and unique ways. Seeing how they worked under adverse circumstances can be a reminder that they were ordinary people that God strengthened as they made decisions about what to include and how to include it. One can only imagine how Joseph Smith felt when he read Ether for the first time and saw how intricate the work was. Yet one can read the book with the same wonder today. Craig C. Christensen put it well: “For many of us, a witness of the Prophet Joseph Smith begins as we read the Book of Mormon. I first read the Book of Mormon from cover to cover as a young early-morning seminary student. With my vivid boyish imagination, I decided to read as if I were Joseph Smith, discovering the truths in the Book of Mormon for the very first time. It had such an impact on my life that I continue to read the Book of Mormon in that way. I often find that doing so deepens my appreciation for the Prophet Joseph and for the truths restored in this precious book (Elder Craig C. Christensen, “A Choice Seer Will I Raise Up,” Ensign, November 2016, online at lds.org).

6 And on this wise do I give the account. He that wrote this record was Ether, and he was a descendant of Coriantor.

#7 Coriantor was the son of Moron.

#8 And Moron was the son of Ethem.

#9 And Ethem was the son of Ahah.

#10 And Ahah was the son of Seth.

#11 And Seth was the son of Shiblon.

#12 And Shiblon was the son of Com.

verses 11-12 “Shiblon” here is probably an error. His name is really “Shiblom” (see Ether 11:4, 5, 7, 9).

#13 And Com was the son of Coriantum.

#14 And Coriantum was the son of Amnigaddah.

#15 And Amnigaddah was the son of Aaron.

#16 And Aaron was a descendant of Heth, who was the son of Hearthom.

#17 And Hearthom was the son of Lib.

#18 And Lib was the son of Kish.

#19 And Kish was the son of Corom.

#20 And Corom was the son of Levi.

#21 And Levi was the son of Kim.

#22 And Kim was the son of Morianton.

#23 And Morianton was a descendant of Riplakish.

#24 And Riplakish was the son of Shez.

#25 And Shez was the son of Heth.

#26 And Heth was the son of Com.

#27 And Com was the son of Coriantum.

#28 And Coriantum was the son of Emer.

#29 And Emer was the son of Omer.

#30 And Omer was the son of Shule.

#31 And Shule was the son of Kib.

verses 30-31 The name Shule invites some interesting speculation as one compares it with the Mayan word “Xul” (pronounced exactly the same as “Shule”). The “X” is pronounced “SH.” “Xul” is the name of one of the Mayan months. The “SH” sound is very commonly used in Jaredite names in the Book of Mormon such as Shiz, Shem, Shim, and Shiblom.

#32 And Kib was the son of Orihah, who was the son of Jared;

verse 32 We thus learn that Ether is a direct descendant of Jared.

The prophet Ether has just recounted his genealogy from himself back to the brother of Jared. He has mentioned thirty individuals, in order, counting himself and Jared. It is quite remarkable that in the remainder of the book of Ether, he gives an account of each one of these thirty characters in exactly the reverse order. This is especially remarkable in view of the fact that Joseph “translated” the record of the Jaredites without referring to any book or list (see “The Process of Translating the Book of Mormon” in Appendix A in volume 2 of Ye Shall Know of the Doctrine). How did Joseph keep them all straight if he was not able to refer to a list? The answer is: He didn’t need a list! He didn’t need to worry about keeping them straight! He didn’t have the names written down anywhere. He was just reading as the Lord revealed the book of Ether to him. It was the prophet Ether who did the writing, editing, and organizing.

33 Which Jared came forth with his brother and their families, with some others and their families, from the great tower, at the time the Lord confounded the language of the people, and swore in his wrath that they should be scattered upon all the face of the earth; and according to the word of the Lord the people were scattered.

verse 33 The Jaredites probably came from Mesopotamia where tradition places the tower of Babel. It seems likely if their journey began there, they probably crossed the Pacific Ocean to the Pacific coast of Mesoamerica.

The date of the tower incident is uncertain. Fundamentalist Christians and some Latter-day Saints have accepted a date of around 2200 BC, but there is no adequate basis in the Bible for such a date. Joseph L. Allen, after studying the writings of the sixteenth century Mesoamerican scholar Ixtlilxochitl (pronounced ixt-leel-so-cheé-tl), provided an alternate view of the date of the Jaredites’ journey to the New World. He has concluded they landed in the Americas approximately 2698 BC. Thus, he surmises, “the tower of Babel can be dated at approximately 2700 BC” (Exploring the Lands of the Book of Mormon, 256). John L. Sorenson has suggested a date of about 3100 BC or a bit later (“The Years of the Jaredites,” a FARMS reprint). Dr. Sorenson notes that architectural form of the ziggurat or temple-tower, whose remains still dot the plain of southern Iraq, first appears in the concluding centuries of the fourth millennium BC. He also writes: “The flood/tower combination of Genesis is undoubtedly derived from the same source as the flood/tower record of secular Mesopotamian history. The latter is most comfortably dated in the second half of the fourth millennium BC. On this basis, a date for the beginning of the Jaredite story can be estimated. About 3100 BC is acceptable; possibly it could be a little later” (Ibid.).

The tower of Babel, described further in Genesis 11, is considered by many scholars to have been a Babylonian temple (“Babel,” The Interpreter’s Dictionary of the Bible, 2:334). This apostate temple was an attempt by an ambitious and wicked people to imitate true temple worship (Hugh Nibley, Lehi in the Desert/The World of the Jaredites, 154-68). In Babylonian or Akkadian, the meaning of Babel was “gate of God.” The focus of these apostate temple builders was to “reach unto heaven . . . and make us a name, lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth” (Genesis 11:4). But what kind of a name might an apostate covet, hoping to avoid being scattered abroad? Apparently, they were trying to establish a name by which they might be saved, but not the name of Jesus Christ. By building a great monument, they were trying to establish for this name a reputation and fame among men, and thus render it valid. The king/prophet Benjamin would later declare “that there shall be no other name given nor any other way nor means whereby salvation can come unto the children of men, only in and through the name of Christ, the Lord Omnipotent” (Mosiah 3:17). Speaking of the Lord’s placing his name in the true temples, Elder Dallin Oaks concluded:

All of these references to ancient and modern temples as houses for “the name” of the Lord obviously involve something far more significant than a mere inscription of his sacred name on the structure. The scriptures speak of the Lord’s putting his name in a temple because he gives authority for his name to be used in the sacred ordinances of that house. That is the meaning of the prophet’s reference [Joseph Smith’s reference in the dedicatory prayer for the Kirtland temple] to the Lord’s putting his name upon his people in that holy house (“Taking Upon Us the Name of Jesus Christ,” Ensign [May 1985], 15:80-83).

The term “tower of Babel” is not actually used in the Book of Mormon record. This rebellion at the tower of Babel was interrupted when the Lord scattered the people abroad because of their apostasy (Genesis 11:9). In the case of the group that were scattered with Jared and his brother, the Lord was scattering a righteous seed for the purpose of preserving that remnant.

Jared, in Hebrew, means “to go down.” The brother of Jared, like Moses and other prophets, has been noted to be a type of the Savior.

34 And the brother of Jared being a large and mighty man, and a man highly favored of the Lord, Jared, his brother, said unto him: Cry unto the Lord, that he will not confound us that we may not understand our words.

verse 34 Moroni never gives us the name of Jared’s brother, rather he consistently refers to him as “the brother of Jared.” He is obviously the spiritual leader of Jared’s people. Why is his name never mentioned? Daniel H. Ludlow has suggested three possible reasons: (1) the brother of Jared himself may, out of modesty, have purposely omitted his name from the record in similar manner as did John in recording his gospel; (2) the prophet Ether was a descendant of Jared and not the brother of Jared. Perhaps Ether simply wanted to emphasize the name of his progenitor. (3) Moroni may have found the name too difficult to translate adequately into the reformed Egyptian (see A Companion to Your Study of the Book of Mormon, 310).

The name of the brother of Jared was revealed to the prophet Joseph Smith. Elder George Reynolds recounted: “While residing in Kirtland Elder Reynolds Cahoon had a son born to him. One day when President Joseph Smith was passing his door he called the Prophet in and asked him to bless and name the baby. Joseph did so and gave the boy the name of Mahonri Moriancumer. When he had finished the blessing he laid the child on the bed, and turning to Elder Cahoon, he said, the name I have given your son is the name of the brother of Jared; the Lord has just shown it to me. Elder William F. Cahoon, who was standing near, heard the Prophet make this statement to his father; and this was the first time the name of the brother of Jared was known in the Church in this dispensation” (“Jaredites,” Juvenile Instructor, 27:282).

35 And it came to pass that the brother of Jared did cry unto the Lord, and the Lord had compassion upon Jared; therefore he did not confound the language of Jared; and Jared and his brother were not confounded.

verse 35 Obviously, Jared and his brother were granted an exception from the confusion of tongues.

36 Then Jared said unto his brother: Cry again unto the Lord, and it may be that he will turn away his anger from them who are our friends, that he confound not their language.

37 And it came to pass that the brother of Jared did cry unto the Lord, and the Lord had compassion upon their friends and their families also, that they were not confounded.

verses 34-37 “therefore he did not confound the language of Jared; and Jared and his brother were not confounded” The text never makes it perfectly clear what is meant by the confounding of language. The word confound means something like “throw into confusion.” This confounding could have resulted in the rather abrupt onset of the people’s being unable to understand one another. We would presume that, as a result of the prayerful pleading of the brother of Jared, that Jared and his family, the brother of Jared and his family, and their friends and their families were all left speaking the same language and therefore able to communicate with one another. What language did they speak? This, of course, is unknown. Perhaps it was the language of Adam, the so-called “Adamic language.”

Elder Joseph Fielding Smith taught: “They carried with them the speech of their fathers, the Adamic language, which was powerful even in its written form, so that the things Mahonri [Moriancumer] wrote ‘were mighty even unto the overpowering of man to read them.’ That was the kind of language Adam had, and this was the language with which Enoch was able to accomplish his mighty work” (The Way to Perfection, 60). There is likely more to the account of the retaining of the original or Adamic language than what initially meets the eye. The book of Moses describes the language of Adam as “pure and undefiled” (Moses 6:5-6). The book of Moses describes Enoch’s faith as causing him to be feared among men because “so powerful was the word of Enoch, and so great was the power of the language which God had given him” (Moses 7:13).

38 And it came to pass that Jared spake again unto his brother, saying: Go and inquire of the Lord whether he will drive us out of the land, and if he will drive us out of the land, cry unto him whither we shall go. And who knoweth but the Lord will carry us forth into a land which is choice above all the earth? And if it so be, let us be faithful unto the Lord, that we may receive it for our inheritance.

39 And it came to pass that the brother of Jared did cry unto the Lord according to that which had been spoken by the mouth of Jared.

40 And it came to pass that the Lord did hear the brother of Jared, and had compassion upon him, and said unto him:

41 Go to and gather together thy flocks, both male and female, of every kind; and also of the seed of the earth of every kind; and thy families; and also Jared thy brother and his family; and also thy friends and their families, and the friends of Jared and their families.

42 And when thou hast done this thou shalt go at the head of them down into the valley which is northward. And there will I meet thee, and I will go before thee into a land which is choice above all the lands of the earth.

verse 42 “the valley which is northward” This phrase refers to a valley in the Eastern hemisphere in which the group was to gather as they began their journey to the Western hemisphere (see Ether 2:1).

“a land which is choice above all the lands of the earth” This phrase refers to an area in the New World, the Western Hemisphere. Again, we learn that the Lord regards at least some parts of the Americas to be choice above all the lands of the earth.

43 And there will I bless thee and thy seed, and raise up unto me of thy seed, and of the seed of thy brother, and they who shall go with thee, a great nation. And there shall be none greater than the nation which I will raise up unto me of thy seed, upon all the face of the earth. And thus I will do unto thee because this long time ye have cried unto me.

verse 43 “I will do unto thee because this long time ye have cried unto me” Like the prophet Enos, the brother of Jared received an answer to his prayers because of his diligent persistence in prayer and likely his careful listening following his prayer. Obviously, this verse should serve as a reminder to all of us of the necessity of our

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being diligent and persistent in our prayers even “wrestling” with the Lord (Alma 8:10, cf. Enos 1:4).