Ether

I was out of town and missed a couple of weeks so I am combining a bunch of thoughts about the Book of Either into one post.  

The Book of Ether is a short account of a group of people who came to the Americas more than a 1000 years before the Nephite exodus from Jerusalem.  The first part is in the form of an epic origin narrative, and there is a cursory account of the various rulers of the people, and then it ends with an epic destruction narrative. The whole story mirrors in miniature the account of the Nephite people. Here are a few things I found interesting in the story. 

The Brother of Jared was the religious leader at the beginning of the story. His actual name is never mentioned, but one of the podcasters noted that if you are writing in a pictorial language, like ancient Egyptian, (not that it says it was written in that language, but many ancient languages started out as pictorial) it is a lot easier to use a common idea, like "brother" than to come up with a sign that represents the phonetic recreation of someone's name. This is because each picture represents either a word, or a syllable. Common words have their own symbol, but an unfamiliar word, like a name, would be represented by symbols of words that sound like the syllables of the name. For example, if the language required that there be a picture letter for each syllable of Mohonri Moriacumer, it would have needed to use eight symbols each time the name was mentioned.  But if the language already had an accepted symbol for brother, then writing, "The Brother of Jared" would only take three symbols. 

The experience of the Brother of Jared seeing the finger of God is very much a temple experience. It resembles more the ancient temple experience than the modern one, but all three have the key element of being allowed to move through the veil to enter the presence of the Lord.  There is a good "Know Why" by Scripture Central about the imagery.

Even though this is an "epic" narrative, and is not trying to be historically accurate, there are ways that ancient peoples could have crossed into the Americas using boats.  It is unlikely that they would have been able to do it in one go, like is suggested by the text, because they would not have been able to store enough water and food, and deal with refuse from the animals and people, if they really did spend almost a year in the boat without reaching land.  It is not, however, impossible that they could have used boats to move in increments along the coast to get to the Americas.  I watched a PBS video that suggested that the first peoples to enter the Americas did come by boat, moving in stages from Asia to Alaska to Washington etc, camping on the beach along the way, rather than by walking across the frozen Bering Strait. 

The most impactful thing about the Book of Ether for me this month has been the metaphor of God sending someone on a difficult and uncomfortable journey to get them to a better place.  God wanted to give the people of Jared a promised land, but he knew they could only get there by making a frightening and uncomfortable journey.  Because they had faith, the people were willing to undertake the journey in hopes of receiving God's blessing.  In return, God gave the people what they needed to make the journey safely and even gave them whatever comfort he could to make the journey less arduous (e.g. the lighted stones in their vessels, and the strong wind that blew them across the sea more quickly). But he didn't remove the necessity of making the journey.  They had to make the journey to get where they needed to be.  Life is sometimes like that.  We have to go through the hard dark times for God to get us to where we need to be.  It takes faith not to back away from the hard stuff, but if we do have faith, and call on God for help, he gives us what we need to get through the journey. 

About Mormon

This week we start the Book of Mormon in the Book of Mormon. In it we learn of the utter destruction of the Nephites.  I think Mormon is the most tragic figure in all scripture.  I don't know how a man could endure what he endured and not be utterly crushed.  We actually don't know that much about his life.  He gives us the barest of outlines, and we are left to speculate on the rest.  Here are some speculations based on hints in the text. 

Mormon was only ten when Ammaron came to him and asked him to keep a record of what he saw. I hope someday to have a full account of how that all happened.  Why would Ammaron choose Mormon?  Was he a relative? Was he a student of Ammaron? I think we can deduct from the text that Mormon came from a prominent family.  He states that he "began to be learned somewhat after the manner of the learning of my people." (Mormon 1:2). In most ancient agrarian cultures, education and literacy are only available to the upper classes. It also seems that he was unusually intelligent. Why else would Ammaron single him out for such an important task at such a young age. 

Then at the tender age of 15 he was"visited of the Lord" (1:15).  Again, why so young? Of course there is precedence. David was probably about that same age when he killed Goliath, (see this link for justification for that assertion). Samuel was a boy of 12 when he heard the voice of the Lord (1 Sam 3). Later, Joseph Smith had his First Vision at age 14. The Lord is willing to call young people  into service as soon as they are willing and able.

Soon after his vision he became a military leader (Mormon 2:1). He modestly states he got the job because he was "large of stature" (ibid) but there must have been something else going on there. Some of the podcasters this week (Jack Welsh, and Lynn Wilson were two) suggested that he was likely the son of the previous commander, and that the position was hereditary.  That is how Alexander the Great came to lead his army at age 18. The text suggests that he had an academic education, but did he also understand warfare and strategy?  Apparently the Nephites thought he did. That fact that he was trained as a military leader and given an academic education further supports the idea that he was some kind of aristocracy, being raised to rule. 

So, he is the leader of the army and even though the people were wicked, under his leadership they had some success. During that time we presume he started reading the plates.  One should remember that when he was initially called at ten, he wasn't appointed to abridge the plates of Nephi, just to add an account of the things he saw in his day.  Perhaps his call to abridge the plates came when he was visited of the Lord at age 15.  He doesn't say.  We do get a sense that he has read the plates, or at least part of them, by the 46th year because he encourages his people with almost the exact speech Captain Moroni used, "for their wives, and their children, and their houses, and their homes." (2:23). 

Because of his inspired leadership, He was able to make a treaty with the Lamanites and had ten years of peace. (2:28) We know he preached to the people during this time and made military preparations (3:1), but I think we can also presume this is when he started his abridgment. There was also a time when he refused to lead the Nephites because of their wickedness. He most likely worked on the abridgment then as well.  Once he goes back to being a military leader, he moves the plates to protect them from the Lamanites (3:9).  After that he would not likely have had time to work on them as it is just war and preparations for war, at the end of which he gives the plates over to his son. 

There is a theme in the Book of Mormon that if you are righteous you will prosper in the land.  The text helps us understand that this is a promise made to groups, on individuals.  Mormon had a lifetime (perhaps 75 years) of life during which there where only short snippets of time that he prospered as an individual. He strove, suffered, grieved and died.  He had the satisfaction of knowing that his son Moroni was righteous and outlived him.  He had the hope that his great work, the abridgement of the history of his people, would someday come forth and bless Israelites and Gentiles alike, but his life was rough, by any standard.  He saw the death of almost all of his friends, and all of his people, men, women and children.  Almost worse, he saw them sink into vicious wickedness and open rebellion against God.  Sometimes it is terrifying that God can ask so much of some people.  We just have to have faith that Mormon's ultimate reward will compensate him for all he went through.