If your Non-Mormon acquaintance from Utah really knows their stuff, they will tell you about the Book of Ether. Most people who start reading the Book of Mormon stop long before they get to Ether, the fourteenth of fifteen sub-books and the only one without the timeline at the bottom of every page. Mark Twain may not have read Ether before he dismissed the Book of Mormon as “chloroform in print.” Ether is what scripture would be if Dr. Seuss had written scripture.
Ether tells us the story of the Jaredites. The Jaredites were not Nephites. They were not Lamanites. They were the descendants of Jared and his brother, known only as “the brother of Jared.” Moroni edited the Book of Ether before he wrote the Book of Moroni and before he hid the Golden Plates in the Hill Cumorah, which he did some time before 421 A.D.
The first five verses of Ether are easier to read than describe.
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.
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.
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 of that time even to the great tower, 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 days
of Adam until that time; . . .
But behold, I give not the full account, but a part of the account I give,
from the tower down until they were destroyed.
In Ether 1:33 we read that “Jared and his brother came forth with their families, and others and their families, from the great tower, at the time the Lord confounded the language of the people.” The Lord commands them to assemble their “flocks, both male and female, of every kind; and also of the seed of the earth of every kind” and move to the valley of Nimrod (yes, Nimrod).
And it came to pass that they did travel in the wilderness, and
did build barges in which they did cross many waters, being
directed continually by the hand of the Lord.
And the Lord would not suffer that they should stop beyond the
sea in the wilderness, but he would that they should come forth
even unto the land of promise, which was choice above all other
lands, which the Lord had preserved for a righteous people.
And the Lord said: Go to work and build, after then manner of
barges which ye have hitherto built. And it came to pass that the
brother of Jared did go to work, and also his brethren, and built
barges after the manner which they had built, according to the
instructions of the Lord. And they were small, and they were light
upon the water, even like unto the lightness of a fowl upon the water.
And they were built after a manner that they were exceedingly tight,
even that they would hold water like unto a dish; and the bottom
thereof was tight like unto a dish; and the sides thereof were tight
like unto a dish; and the ends thereof were peaked; and the top thereof
was tight like unto a dish; and the length thereof was the length of a tree;
and the door thereof, when it was shut, was like unto a dish.
But what about regenerating oxygen in these water-tight and air-tight barges? The brother of Jared posed these questions to the Lord Himself:
And the Lord said unto the brother of Jared: Behold, thou shalt make
a hole in the top, and also in the bottom; and when thou shalt suffer for
air thou shalt unstop the hole and receive air. And if it be that the water
come in upon thee, behold, ye shall stop the hole, that ye not perish in
the flood.
For behold, ye shall be as a whale in the midst of the sea; for the
mountain waves shall dash upon you. Nevertheless, I will bring you
up again out of the depths of the sea; for the winds have gone forth
out of my mouth, and also the rains and the flood have I sent forth.
After the brother of Jared oversaw the construction of eight vessels according to the Lord’s specifications, he retired to Mount Shelem. There, he “did molten out of a rock sixteen small stones; and they were white and clear, even as transparent glass; . . .”
And it came to pass that when the brother of Jared had said these things,
behold, the Lord stretched forth his hand and touched the stones one by
one with his finger. And the veil was taken off from the eyes of the
brother of Jared, and he saw the finger of the Lord; and it was as the
finger of a man, like unto flesh and blood . . ..
The brother of Jared came down from Mount Shelem and placed one of the stones the Lord had touched in each of the eight barges. The stones “did give light unto the vessels,”which the Jaredites then boarded with their food and “whatsoever beast or animal or fowl that they should carry with them.”
furious wind to blow upon the face of the waters, towards the promised
land; and thus they were tossed upon the waves of the sea before the wind.
And it came to pass that they were many times buried in the depths of the sea, because of the mountain waves which broke upon them, and
also the great and terrible tempests which were caused by the fierceness
of the wind.
And it came to pass that when they were buried in the deep there was
no water that could hurt them, their vessels being tight like unto a
dish, and also they were tight like unto the ark of Noah; . . .
The Jaredites reach the shores of the Promised Land after 344 days at sea. Righteous Jaredites “became exceedingly rich,”accumulating silks, fine linen, gold and silver. They also had “all manner of cattle, of oxen, and cows, and of sheep, and of swine, and of goats, and also many other kinds of animals which were useful for the food of man.”
And they also had horses, and asses, and there were elephants and
cureloms and cumoms; all of which were useful unto man, and more
especially the elephants and cureloms and cumoms.
Trained elephants are clearly more useful to man than horses. How cureloms and cumoms would be as useful as elephants is not as clear. Fortunately, we have the inspired thoughts of charter Latter-Day Apostle Orson Pratt, who wrote in 1868:
After [the Jaredites] had come down into this valley by the command of
the Lord they collected seeds and grain of every kind, and animals of
almost every description, among which, no doubt, were the elephant and
the curelom and the cumom, very huge animals that existed in those days,
and after travelling and crossing, we suppose, the sea that was east of
where the many days, with their flocks and herds, their grain and substance, they
eventually came to the great Pacific ocean, on the eastern borders of China
or somewhere in that region.
So, the Jaredites had domesticated animals with English names that we won’t find in any English dictionary. They bobbed and rolled across the Indian and Pacific Oceans in eight wooden submarines whose bulwarks were as tight as dishes that could withstand elephants, cureloms and cumoms tumbling into them for 344 days. They had glowing stones from God. They had silk several thousand years before a silkworm made it out of China – as far as we knew.
But the Jaredites throw it all away for war and other wickedness, just like every other great Pre-Columbian civilization described in the Book of Mormon. They made “swords of steel” for their endless wars, in which no fewer than two million Jaredites and Lord know how many horses perished. The Jaredites are eventually wiped from recorded history along with cureloms, cumoms, and every other great Pre-Columbian civilization described in the Book of Mormon.
And that’s the abridged story of the Jaredites. Moroni assures us (in parentheses, which the Jaredites also evidently had) that his account is not “the hundredth part” of Ether’s edited writings. If that’s true, you might ask if the Jaredites had ice cream and four-wheel drive. An epoxy of some sort seems a given – but we just won’t know until we have Perfect Knowledge of all things. Your Mormon acquaintance will tell you that.
Your Mormon acquaintance will also tell you the Book of Ether is as “true” as the rest of the Book of Mormon. They will tell you they know they are “true.” They know the Jaredites had their wooden submarines as much as Noah had his Ark. They know Jared saw God’s finger as much as Moses did, then made it to the real Promised Land thousands of years before Christopher Columbus got all the credit. They may not know what cureloms and cumoms were, but they know the Jaredites had them as much as they had silk. You know all these things and more if you know the Book of Mormon is true – and you know that if you know Joseph Smith was a prophet. You don’t even have to read Ether.
Your Non-Mormon acquaintance from Utah hasn't read Ether either. They just know that Ether’s more interesting elements are truly fantastic – especially for people who say Creationism, the Great Flood and other Old Testament archetypes that are Ether's essence ain’t necessarily so. People who do accept those archetypes as premises can feel right at home with this Book of Mormon that corroborates the Bible, God and Adam. The occasional page or two of putative genealogy puts putative names to putative faces in putative places. Sure it’s boring – but it’s also scripture, for Christ’s sake, and it does read much like the Old Testament when it isn’t raining frogs. Mark Twain probably thought the New Testament was a yawner too.
Less discriminating readers feel like they’re reading Genesis or Exodus – but they’re not eight paperback pages into Ether before Noah looks like a bathtub skipper and Moses positively pedestrian. The Old Testament looks as incomplete as its protagonists. How could its editors leave out the Jaredites? They only emerged from the rubble of the only structure in recorded history to be personally destroyed by God, then recouped His favor and navigated to the Americas in eight wooden submarines built to His specifications. You won’t find a better “riches to rags back to riches” story of God’s approbation or opprobrium. Does your religious tradition include it? Do you see how it might be irretrievably deficient – especially with the full, divinely-translated story written in Ether?Those who consider the Tower of Babel babble can only throw up their hands – but Joseph Smith didn’t write Ether for them any more than he wrote it for Mainstream Christians who believe in Noah’s Ark but not in the Jaredites and their wooden submarines. He wrote it for people who are still reading the Book of Mormon after Jews leave Jerusalem to sail to another Promised Land to become Nephites and Lamanites. Those people might eat the Jaredite dog chow like so many more Jews ate swine after they left the Promised Land to become Jaredites. Others can make horses’ asses of themselves nit-picking over horses and asses.
Others can also see how Joseph Smith is the perfect prophet for people who need a little curelom and cumom with their Tower of Babel. Today, there are around ten million such people, give or take four million. Not one of them would ever concede that Smith plagiarized a thing. Prophets don’t plagiarize. They tell us that the Garden of Eden was in Missouri, and that the Great Flood is how Noah and humanity made it over to the so-called “Old” World.
It’s easy to scold Joseph Smith for requiring his followers to believe in his avant-garde interpretations of the Mainstream Christian classics -- but some people require their religion to require more of them. In Medieval times, some of them became monks so they could flog themselves and call it religious ritual. Still, even people of faith will eventually wince at too much of a good thing. Your Mormon acquaintance has a lot more faith in a lot more things than you. Your Non-Mormon acquaintance from Utah knows that a little Ether goes a long way.
The Book of Mormon’s divinely-translated text does not once mention one animal generally considered native to the Western Hemisphere – including jaguars, which were prominent in Mayan culture. However, the preface to the Book of Mormon's paperback edition includes some replica paintings by lionized Mormon artist Arnold Friburg. One of the paintings depicts the great Nephite prophet Abinadi preaching to the wicked Lamanite King Noah. In the background sits a jaguar, wearing a metal collar and linked chain.
