Why Is The "Brother Of Jared" Not Called "Mahonri" In The Book Of Mormon?

[Doug the Hutt]

We encounter the five syllable, three word English pseudo-name "brother of Jared" 41 times in the Book of Ether.

http://lds.org/scriptures/search?lang=eng&type=verse&query=%22brother+of+Jared%22

In 1834 Reynolds Cahoon asked Joseph to bless his newborn son. Joseph named him "Mahonri Moriancumer", claiming that the Lord had just revealed the name to him:

The actual name of the brother of Jared is not given in the scriptures. However, George Reynolds relates the following account which indicates that the brother of Jared’s name was revealed to the Prophet Joseph Smith.

“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.).

http://www.ldsces.org/inst_manuals/bm-in-sm1996/bm1996-09-mor.htm#9-3

https://www.familysearch.org/search/records#count=20&query=%2Bgivenname%3Amahonri~%20%2Bsurname%3Acahoon~

So, why is the "Brother of Jared" not called "Mahonri" in the Book of Mormon? I can't see the point of not including his name on the record.

[Doug the Hutt]

Here's an internal dialog I just had between brains (it didn't go too well) ...

1. Because "Mahonri" was too difficult to spell.

Mmmkay, brain, why is "Mahonri" more difficult to write or even speak than any other Book of Mormon name?:

Amnigaddah ăm-nĭ-găd´ä

Coriantumr kōr-ē-ăn´ta-mer

Gidgiddonah gĭd-gĭd-dō´nä

Gimgimno gĭm-gĭm´nō

Jacobugath jā´ka-bū´găth

Kumenonhi kū´ma-nän´hī

Maher-shalal-hash-baz mā´her—shăl-ăl—hăsh´bäz

Mathonihah măth-ō-nī´hä

Moriancumer mōr-ē-ăn´ka-mer (I've always thought this was the surname of Jared and Mahonri -- now presenting Jared, and his brother Mahonri, Moriancumer....)

Paanchi pā-ăn´kī

Pacumeni pā-kyū´mĕn-ī

Rameumptom răm-ē-ump´tum

Ripliancum rĭp-lē-ăn´kum

Shearjashub shĭr-jā´shub

Zemnarihah zĕm-na-rī´hä

Ziff zĭf (jk)

*no comment*

2. Because that part of all 41 occurrences of "Mahonri Moriancumer" on the 24 gold plates were smudged by some hoodlum gra-fe-to-taggers who, for whatever reason, thought it would be funny to erase his name from existence.

Mmmkay, brain, that's quite convenient. There's no indication at all that the 24 gold plates were marred or maimed or damaged in any way, shape or form.

Hey, God works in mysterious ways.

Are you saying that God vandalized the 24 gold plates?

I'm not saying anything. You just have to have faith that it's part of God's Plan.

*what can you possibly say to that?*

3. Because in the Jaredite language "Brother of Jared" physically took less space than "Mahonri" and the author was trying to conserve space. It made sense to just diminish him to "Brother of Jared".

Brain, that makes no sense. Why didn't they do that with Ether's geneology? Why didn't they cut out unimportant details? Seems a major character is important enough to at least keep his name intact. Do we teach US History referring to President Brother-of-Billy(Carter)? Do we refer to the discovery of America by "an Italian"? Besides, cutting a three syllable name down to maybe two syllables over 41 occurrences doesn't seem like much of a space savings. It just couldn't unless we're working with a very inefficient language...

Hey, you don't know the makeup of the Jaredite written language.

Neither do you. Nobody has ever produced anything written in such a language.And secondly if they were running out of or trying to conserver space why didn't they just add more plates, or leave out boring geneological details?

Because gold was scarce. Or maybe they had better things to do than go digging for gold.

But the Jaredites did make themselves rich with silver and gold and precious things. I'm sure I can find the reference..

*internal argument went on about about Olmecs, Toltecs, Maya and other Native American people being the Book of Mormon people, but the dialog broke down with charges of someone fitting square pegs into round holes and the other having no faith and lookin for reasons to disbelieve...*

4. Because God didn't want anyone from 2500-2200BC to 1834 to know Mahonri's name.

Mmmkay. Why? What purpose could that possibly even serve?

There is no 'why' -- it's an axiom.

Whaddaya mean 'an axiom'? So you're placing "not revealing the name 'Mahonri' until a baby's birth in 1834 where Joseph can demonstrate his ability to provide revelations from God as proof of his prophetic calling" alongside other axioms like "God is our eternal father", "God created the Universe", "Jesus is the Christ" and "If you love me keep my commandments"?

Talk to the hand, vile unbeliever!

*the brains didn't feel like speaking to each other anymore today on the subject*

Ok, I'm clearly having trouble both approaching and answering my question. So, back to WHY....it just doesn't make sense.

Edited November 21, 2011 by Doug the Hutt

[KevinG]

Mormon had enough of engraving long names on the plates while running from his enemies and just said "forget it - I'm using the symbol for brother and leaving it at that"?

Also an good explaination for the repeated use of "and it came to pass".

Edited November 21, 2011 by DaddyG

[Mola Ram Suda Ram]

So, why is the "Brother of Jared" not called "Mahonri" in the Book of Mormon? I can't see the point of not including his name on the record.

Dunno. It really just proves that JS made the whole thing up. One interesting note is that Moriancumer is in the BoM.

• Ether 2:13
  13 And now I proceed with my record; for behold, it came to pass that the Lord did bring Jared and his brethren forth even to that great sea which divideth the lands. And as they came to the sea they pitched their tents; and they called the name of the place Moriancumer; and they dwelt in tents, and dwelt in tents upon the seashore for the space of four years.
  

There are places in the BoM that tell us that they name the place after the person who found it.

[CV75]

So, why is the "Brother of Jared" not called "Mahonri" in the Book of Mormon? I can't see the point of not including his name on the record.

The name “Mahonri Moriancumer” translated into Nephrite as “The bigger and stronger and highly favored of the Lord but socially inept and lethargic older brother of the yet unborn but much less scary and more charismatic one who is foreordained to deliver us from the hard work of the tower” (the latter was subsequently named Jared), and [correction Moroni] abridged it to “brother of Jared.”

Edited November 21, 2011 by CV75

[Doug the Hutt]

Mormon had enough of engraving long names on the plates while running from his enemies and just said "forget it - I'm using the symbol for brother and leaving it at that"?

Also an good explaination for the repeated use of "and it came to pass".

Hmm...I guess you meant "Moroni" since he was the one handling the 24 gold plates. But then Moroni often interrupted the Jaredite record and went on long redactive tangents of his own in the Book of Ether that had nothing to do with their history. He even gets longwinded by telling us how he's "proceeding with the record" which only distracts from a concise abridgement. Instead of telling us how he's proceeding, why didn't he just pro-ceed? Wouldn't that cut down on unnecessary verbiage to be carved on metal plates? And the running-from-enemies idea doesn't stand up too well when he's going out of his way to be verbose -- chapter 12 has a very long summary of the Book of Mormon which includes references to the "brother of Jared". Why even give a summary? The reader could summarize it themselves, and a gold plate could have been spared, AND Mahonri's name could have been had.

Ether 1:1

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.Ether 2:13

13 And now I proceed with my record; for behold, it came to pass that the Lord did bring Jared and his brethren forth even to that great sea which divideth the lands. And as they came to the sea they pitched their tents; and they called the name of the place Moriancumer; and they dwelt in tents, and dwelt in tents upon the seashore for the space of four years.

Ether 6:1

1 And now I, Moroni, proceed to give the record of Jared and his brother.

Ether 9:1

1 And now I, Moroni, proceed with my record. Therefore, behold, it came to pass that because of the secret combinations of Akish and his friends, behold, they did overthrow the kingdom of Omer.

Ether 13:1

1 And now I, Moroni, proceed to finish my record concerning the destruction of the people of whom I have been writing.

And now I'm left wondering why two symbols -- brother + Jared -- is shorter than one symbol for "Mahonri"? And if it's phonetic, 5 syllables is more than 3 syllables.

Edited November 21, 2011 by Doug the Hutt

[Log]

"Brother of Jared" may well have been one symbol, where any other appellation would have been more. (like, say, Jared = X, and BoJ = X')

Edited November 21, 2011 by Log

[LeSellers]

One wonders if the Brother of Jared, aka Mahonri Moriancumr, was simply, as the author of the original history, so humble that he felt writing his own name was to be proud, so he didn't record it. Ether, some 2,000 years later, didn't know the name, so could not transfer it to his own abridgment, and Moroni had nothing to work with.

Or, it could be that any "Jaredite" of that age, would not use his own name is such a record, something like a man's not ever pronouncing his mother-in-law's name once he was married in certain cultures. Customs change, so later Jaredite prophets didn't have this impediment.

Who knows?

Who cares?

Lehi

Edited November 21, 2011 by LeSellers

[Doug the Hutt]

...one who is foreordained to deliver us from the hard work of the tower...

Isn't that what "Jared" means in Adamic?

[Calm]

Did not John not specifically identify himself by name at times in the Gospel written by him?

[CV75]

Isn't that what "Jared" means in Adamic?

Of course, but only in shorthand Adamic. Before it was bestowed as a name upon the child (Jared), the older brother's name was the actual phrase and Moroni translated it to Nephite, making too long to be practicable.

[CV75]

Did not John not specifically identify himself by name at times in the Gospel written by him?

That may have been appropriate for John's culture but not Jared's (???)

[Calm]

Why would self effacement not be common in any culture?

[ERayR]

He was called the brother of Jared because Jared was the athletic one and stare of the high school footbal team.

[Scott Lloyd]

Here's an internal dialog I just had between brains (it didn't go too well) ...

[snip]

Ok, I'm clearly having trouble both approaching and answering my question. So, back to WHY....it just doesn't make sense.

Perhaps Mormon, who was abridging the Jaredite record, momentarily forgot the name of the brother of Jared and didn't have time just then to go back and look it up. (As a journalist, I can relate. I've been in that position many a time.)

[Nathair/|\]

John Sorensen writes:

For the Jaredites on this point it is sufficient to note that Ether, the last prophet and record keeper, traced his genealogy back exclusively to Jared. His line held the right of rulership (see Ether 6:22–25), and Ether's record is mainly the dynastic history of that line. At least one other lineage reigned at times, but about those rulers we are left ignorant. Ether 10:30–31 tells us that in the days of a king named Hearthom, the kingdom "was taken away" from him—obviously by another lineage, since the name of the new king was not even recorded in Ether's account. Thereafter, four more of the rightful (i.e., Jared line) kings lived out their days in captivity, obviously under the domination of someone from another lineage. (Competitors for the throne from within the Jared lineage are mentioned by name, as at Ether 7:15; there were eight barges on the transoceanic journey, so there could have been a total of eight lineages [see Ether 3:1, and note the "friends" in Ether 1:41.]) Meanwhile, the brother of Jared held the role of religious leader at the beginning. Not surprisingly, the brother's descendants are mostly ignored in Ether's own dynastic record; mention is made of one such descendant who gained the throne (Ether 11:17), but he remains anonymous. Surely the priestly lineage's record would tell the story differently.

The Book of Mormon as a Mesoamerican Record

[Stargazer]

The name of the brother of Jared may not have been lawful to record under the cultural rules in effect among them (due to his being a prophet). This is a pure speculation, of course.

I am a descendant of certain native Americans who lived in northern California. My great great grandmother's White name was "Katie" -- which incidentally sounds like the Maidu/Konkow word for "aunt", which she was to her sisters' children. I was told, and believed once that her Indian name was "Yo-he-ma", meaning "Little Flower", but later found out that this wasn't exactly correct. Since Maidu cultural practices forbade speaking the actual name of a decesased person, after her death she was spoken of as "Dead Flower", and that is what Yo-he-ma means. In a related move, her father was known as Tu-me-hi-ya-nem, (translated as "Big Fishdam Builder"), but it was not his birth name. For, in order to identify his deceased father by name without violating the cultural prohibition, he took his father's name as his own after his father died.

What cultural practices influenced the Jaredites such that they identified Mahonri Moriancumer as "brother of Jared" are most likely never to be known. But it seems that there must have been such, else why would the man's actual name not be written?

Of course, Doug, if you think the Book of Mormon is a load of fictional ramblings concocted by Joseph Smith and his co-conspirators, then in that case you think this is all terribly funny.

I hope the amusement is of some value to you when you discover that the whole thing is a fact not a fiction.

[Ariarates]

Maybe Joseph just played a practical joke on brother Calhoon. Today, the handbooks tell us not to bother GA's with mundane requests for attention but Joseph had to teach them the hard way... I bet no one ever asked brother Joseph for a baby blessing ever again, or did they?

[LeSellers]

Maybe Joseph just played a practical joke on brother Calhoon. Today, the handbooks tell us not to bother GA's with mundane requests for attention but Joseph had to teach them the hard way... I bet no one ever asked brother Joseph for a baby blessing ever again, or did they?

I don't know about that, but Brother Brigham named one of his sons "Mahonri". He became a rather well known artist.

It was probably not a major burden back then. But even in Salt Lake City, fifty years ago, my name, "Lehi" was a standard joke, and I was none too pleased with it. These decades later, I am, as some may have guessed, not so unhappy about it now.

Lehi, grandson of Lehi

[KevinG]

Hmm...I guess you meant "Moroni" since he was the one handling the 24 gold plates. But then Moroni often interrupted the Jaredite record and went on long redactive tangents of his own in the Book of Ether that had nothing to do with their history. He even gets longwinded by telling us how he's "proceeding with the record" which only distracts from a concise abridgement. Instead of telling us how he's proceeding, why didn't he just pro-ceed? Wouldn't that cut down on unnecessary verbiage to be carved on metal plates? And the running-from-enemies idea doesn't stand up too well when he's going out of his way to be verbose -- chapter 12 has a very long summary of the Book of Mormon which includes references to the "brother of Jared". Why even give a summary? The reader could summarize it themselves, and a gold plate could have been spared, AND Mahonri's name could have been had.

Ether 1:1

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.Ether 2:13

13 And now I proceed with my record; for behold, it came to pass that the Lord did bring Jared and his brethren forth even to that great sea which divideth the lands. And as they came to the sea they pitched their tents; and they called the name of the place Moriancumer; and they dwelt in tents, and dwelt in tents upon the seashore for the space of four years.

Ether 6:1

1 And now I, Moroni, proceed to give the record of Jared and his brother.

Ether 9:1

1 And now I, Moroni, proceed with my record. Therefore, behold, it came to pass that because of the secret combinations of Akish and his friends, behold, they did overthrow the kingdom of Omer.

Ether 13:1

1 And now I, Moroni, proceed to finish my record concerning the destruction of the people of whom I have been writing.

And now I'm left wondering why two symbols -- brother + Jared -- is shorter than one symbol for "Mahonri"? And if it's phonetic, 5 syllables is more than 3 syllables.

My own journals have long winded sections about nothing important interwoven with gaps of several years when important things happened but I didn't write in them. This makes sense to me.

[Doug the Hutt]

There's nothing wrong with the name "Lehi" -- it's Biblical just like David or Peter or Adam or Seth or Paul or Micheal or Deborah or Rachel or Sarah or Jesus any number of Biblical names (though I have yet to run into a "Mehujael"), many of which are found all over the valley and belong to many great families. So whoever made fun of you for your name can <something something something something something don't shine>.

[Freedom]

We do not actually know what his real name is. This blessing is attributed to Joseph Smith, but we have no original statements from Joseph Smith that this was his name. I understand also that the recounting of this blessing was recorded many decades after it was given.

[volgadon]

It could very well be that the "brother of Jared" was the nickname MM was known by during his lifetime, and the term preserved for posterity in the plates. It makes sense if Jared was the chief kinsman for others to be defined in relationship to him.

[thesometimesaint]

When my family was at BYU we lived in married student housing. Right below the brother of Jared. His name was Steve.

Ps; But seriously, there were no Egyptian, English, French words on the plates. They were a type of reformed Egyptian used by the Nephites for their own purposes, and translated by JS into English. It is even doubtful that Moroni talked/wrote the same language as Nephi. It would be comparable to modern day American English speakers reading Beowolf in the original Anglo-Saxon. Doable but very difficult.

http://www.sacred-te...m/neu/asbeo.htm

Edited November 22, 2011 by thesometimesaint

[alter idem]

The Brother of Jared's name was not 'Mahonri Moriancumer', it was just "Moriancumer". Note that no one in the Book of Mormon--Nephite or Jaredite has two names. Also, 'Mahonri' is not a Jaredite name. If you doubt this, look carefully at the Jaredite names and words compared to the Nephite names and words--Hugh Nibley is an excellent source for this.

Hugh Nibley explains that the record of Ether was kept and written by Jared's descendants, not Moriancumr's so his descendants are not named--only Jared's lineage are named. I think this is the best explanation, since the name 'Moriancumr' was not too hard to write--it is written when the waters of Moriancumer are mentioned--obviously named after him.

Edited November 22, 2011 by alter idem