Moroni's Abridgment and the Unnamed Prophet
Book of Mormon Notes - Sunday, April 21, 2024, Ether 1, Part 1
At first it seems as though Moroni finished writing and was ready to hide up the records. However, as far as I understand, both Mormon and his son Moroni planned to add the Jaredite record to the Book of Mormon:
Now after Mosiah had finished atranslating these brecords, behold, it gave an account of the people who were cdestroyed, from the time that they were destroyed back to the building of the dgreat tower, at the time the Lord econfounded the language of the people and they were scattered abroad upon the face of all the earth, yea, and even from that time back until the creation of Adam.
Now this account did cause the people of Mosiah to mourn exceedingly, yea, they were filled with sorrow; nevertheless it gave them much knowledge, in the which they did rejoice.
And this account shall be awritten hereafter; for behold, it is expedient that all people should know the things which are written in this account. (Mosiah 28:17-19)
From these passages we learn that Mormon knew of, studied, and planned to write, or planned for his son to write, the account of the Jaredites. Why couldn’t Mormon simply add the Jaredite plates to his plates like he did with the small plates of Nephi? I don’t know. Perhaps the record was too long. I think that the answer to this question will become clear as we proceed with our study. My hunch is that there were things in the Jaredite record that the Lord held back, just as there were things in the Nephite record that the Lord held back. The Lord commanded that certain things be written, and others be excluded. Some sacred things were excluded to test our faith, and other things were excluded to prevent people from adopting the evils and secret combinations of previous generations.
In any case, Mormon planned for the Jaredite account to be written, because it is expedient that all people should know the things which are written in this account. Mormon may have commissioned his son Moroni to write, and to abridge the Jaredite record, a task that Moroni may have begun while Mormon was still alive. I don’t know. But wouldn’t it be fascinating if Moroni worked on the abridgment of the Jaredite record beside his father who worked on the abridgment of the Nephite record. Just imagine the conversations between father and son during that time, if such were the case! Mormon may have tutored his son in the process of abridgment of the Jaredite plates, and Moroni may have shared insights with his father as he abridged the Nephite plates. At least we know that Moroni must have benefited from an understanding of his father’s abridgment of the Nephite plates while he abridged the Jaredite plates:
And now I, Moroni, proceed to give an aaccount of those ancient inhabitants who were destroyed by the bhand of the Lord upon the face of this north country.
And I take mine account from the atwenty and four plates which were found by the people of Limhi, which is called the Book of Ether. (Ether 1:1-2)
We know that Moroni abridged this account, because he tells us so at the end of his record:
And the Lord spake unto Ether, and said unto him: Go forth. And he went forth, and beheld that the words of the Lord had all been fulfilled; and he finished his record; (and the hundredth part I have not written) and he hid them in a manner that the people of Limhi did find them. (Ether 15:33)
Moroni also tells us how and for what reasons he decided to abridge the account of the Jaredites:
And as I suppose that the afirst 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 btower, and whatsoever things transpired among the children of men until that time, is had among the Jews—
Therefore I do not write those things which transpired from the adays 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.
But behold, I give not the full account, but a apart of the account I give, from the tower down until they were destroyed. (Ether 1:3-5)
Did Joseph Smith find the full account of the Jaredites? It makes sense that he did. If so, Joseph Smith had power to get the full account. Has anyone else found the Jaredite plates? I don’t know. Moroni planned his abridgment according to his understanding of the records that his latter-day audience would obtain. He knew that the record of the Jews, the Bible, would contain an account from the creation of the world, and also of Adam, and the things that transpired until the time of the great tower. Perhaps he also knew that Joseph Smith would obtain records such as the Book of Abraham and the Book of Moses. Whatever the case, Moroni begins his abridgment of the Book of Ether from the time of the tower until the time of their destruction. This indicates to me that Moroni had already thoroughly read and studied the Jaredite account before he began the work of abridgment.
Thus the record that we read in the Book of Mormon called The Book of Ether is the lesser portion of the word, just as the Book of Mormon itself is the lesser portion of the word. The greater portion of the word is whatever we obtain by the Spirit of God and the full accounts contained in the complete records. Moroni begins his abridgment by introducing the original prophet-author and his lineage. It would be easy for our eyes to glaze over as we read the lineage of Ether, from his father Coriantor back to Jared and his brother who left the great tower, but then we discover that Moroni follows this lineage exactly in reverse order throughout his abridgment of the Book of Ether, from Jared and his brother up through twenty-nine generations or more to Coriantor and his son Ether, never missing a name or getting a name out of order. And we’re supposed to believe that Joseph Smith came up with all this on the fly as he wrote the entire Book of Mormon in a few months or less? I don’t think so. Moreover, just look at these Jaredite names. I challenge anyone to invent a name as strange and as interesting as even one of the Jaredite names. But Joseph Smith invented more than thirty of them just in the Book of Ether, not counting the hundreds of other names in the rest of the Book of Mormon? I don’t think so.
Why did Moroni begin his abridgment of the Book of Ether with this lineage? The Book of Mormon Central response to this question is helpful:
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.
Did Moroni take his account from Mosiah’s translation of the Book of Ether or directly from the Book of Ether? Let’s read this verse again:
And I take mine account from the atwenty and four plates which were found by the people of Limhi, which is called the Book of Ether. (Ether 1:2)
Whether Moroni used the interpreters to read and abridge the record of Ether or whether he used King Mosiah’s translation of the twenty-four plates I do not know. But it sounds as though Moroni drew his account directly from the golden Jaredite plates. If so, I imagine Moroni with at least two sets of gold plates as he inscribed his own abridgment: the gold plates of his father Mormon (the abridgment called the Book of Mormon) and the gold plates of Ether (the Book of Ether).
This graphic is helpful for understanding the genealogy of Ether:
The first and the last names on this list stand out to me as the most important: Jared (and especially the Brother of Jared) and Ether. The unfortunate name of Ether’s grandfather is also a word to describe those who voted for Joe Biden (bless their hearts), and the interesting name of Ether’s great-grandfather is an exclamation that a person who gets this joke might make.
But before I speed to quickly through this list of names, one thing that immediately leaps from the page is how similar some of these Jaredite names are to certain Nephite names. For example, consider the names Moroni, Corianton, and Shiblon in connection with the Jaredite cognates.
After the list of Jaredite Kings, Moroni introduces us to one of the most fascinating characters in the Book of Mormon: the Brother of Jared:
Which aJared came forth with his brother and their families, with some others and their families, from the great tower, at the time the Lord bconfounded the language of the people, and swore in his wrath that they should be scattered upon all the cface of the earth; and according to the word of the Lord the people were scattered.
And the abrother 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 bunderstand our words. (Ether 1:33-34)
Why doesn’t Moroni write the name of the brother of Jared? Is it because Moroni connects Ether to the brother of Jared through Jared’s lineage and not the direct lineage of the brother of Jared? I don’t know. Daniel H. Ludlow suggested the following possible reasons for this omission:
The Brother of Jared may have omitted his name out of modesty (John the Beloved did essentially the same thing in the Gospel of John, which he wrote).
The Book of Ether is clearly a family record of Jared, not the Brother of Jared; Ether, the final writer and perhaps the abridger of the record, was a descendant of Jared and might naturally have emphasized the achievements of his direct ancestor rather than the brother of his ancestor.
Moroni may have omitted the name in his abridgment because of difficulty in translating (or "transliterating") the name into the Nephite language.[8]
In the Roman practice of damnatio memoriae, names were intentionally removed from the record. Egyptian factions also wiped out names and statues of heretical rivals. In Ether 11:17–18, a direct descendant of the Brother of Jared, and rival king, is also not named.[9]
What was the brother of Jared’s name? George Reynolds, an early member of the seventy, recounts the following story:
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 [or revealed] 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” (“The Jaredites,” Juvenile Instructor, 1 May 1892, p. 282 n.).
However, this statement was made from a second hand source. Even if there were at least two witnesses to this event, as far as I know, we don’t have a first hand statement from the Prophet Joseph Smith that the brother of Jared’s name was Mahonri Moriancumer. We do know, however, that Jared and his people called the place where they camped by the sea “Moriancumer” (Ether 2:13), and that it was the Nephite custom (Alma 8:7) and probably the Jaredite custom as well to name places after the people who first settled in them. But this would mean that the brother of Jared’s name was “Moriancumer,” and the “Mahonri” is perhaps a title. I don’t know. As far as I can tell, almost no one in the Book of Mormon, Nephite, Jaredite, or otherwise, has two names. I’m sure that Hugh Nibley has already written extensively on this topic. (see also here)
To understand the context of the beginning of this story, we need to read Genesis 1-10, and into chapter 11. Fortunately, we have McConkie’s chapter headings to help us:
Before Babel, the whole earth was of one language. I take this to mean that Jared and his brother Mahonri Moriancumer spoke and wrote in a pure language (or at least more pure than the languages after the scattering from Babel), the language of Adam that had been passed down from Adam to Seth, Enos, Cainan, Mahalaleel, Jared, Enoch, Methuselah, Lamech, and Noah to Shem, Ham, and Japeth, and to Jared and his brother and their friends. Were the Jaredites descendants of Noah through Shem? Or through one of Noah’s other sons? I don’t know. I’m sure Hugh Nibley has written on this topic as well.
Whatever the case, Noah’s descendants journeyed from the East to a plain in the land of Shinar. Then someone had the bright idea to build a city and a tower whose top may reach unto heaven. It seemed like a good idea until the Lord came down.