Jaredite record keepers

[JustAnAustralian]

So I was doing my reading this morning, and realised that I hadn't thought much about who was keeping the Jaredite records.

There are bits from Ether at the start (family tree) and end (his witness of the destruction). So those bits are covered.

After the family tree it looks like the personal record of the Brother of Jared (inter-spaced with Moroni's commentary) for a few chapters. So those bits are fine.

I could see someone in the Jaredite version of the royal court keeping a record of the general goings on (kings being killed etc), and then Ether raiding palaces after everyone is dead, but are any of you aware of any articles that have been written with specific hypotheses about where each bit came from?

 

(I'm not interested in anyone trying to use this as a way to try and prove the church is false, so if that's what your goal is, please don't reply).

[Calm]

A possible source, though from table of context low probability:

https://rsc.byu.edu/book/illuminating-jaredite-records

review:

https://bookofmormoncentral.org/blog/new-books-on-the-jaredites-to-enrich-your-study-of-ether

Another possibility as it deals with the Jaredite record keepers, though Nephite:

https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.18809/jbms.2017.0105

Edited September 28, 2021 by Calm

[JustAnAustralian]

Thanks Calm, will need to see if I can find a local library with full jstor access. That last one looks interesting.

[Calm]

48 minutes ago, JustAnAustralian said:

Thanks Calm, will need to see if I can find a local library with full jstor access. That last one looks interesting.

It was a Maxwell Institute publication, but doesn’t look like it is in the archive unless it is in a journal that doesn’t have content listed.

You could check out other possibilities by searching on Jaredite, I got 388 hits.

https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/do/search/?q=Jaredite&start=0&context=5485626&facet=
 

Unfortunately the last JoBMS posted is volume 25 and it is in volume 26

You might see if it is on Book of Mormon Central Archives and if not, write than to see if they have access to copies.  I know some people downloaded stuff when MI was doing the shift to the ScholarsArchive because of worry stuff would be lost…and it was.  added:  They have 4 articles from Volume 26 listed, but not this one.  They have have a hard copy though they could scan and send you.

https://bookofmormoncentral.org/content/journal-of-book-of-mormon-studies-26-2017

Edited September 28, 2021 by Calm

[CV75]

15 hours ago, JustAnAustralian said:

So I was doing my reading this morning, and realised that I hadn't thought much about who was keeping the Jaredite records.

There are bits from Ether at the start (family tree) and end (his witness of the destruction). So those bits are covered.

After the family tree it looks like the personal record of the Brother of Jared (inter-spaced with Moroni's commentary) for a few chapters. So those bits are fine.

I could see someone in the Jaredite version of the royal court keeping a record of the general goings on (kings being killed etc), and then Ether raiding palaces after everyone is dead, but are any of you aware of any articles that have been written with specific hypotheses about where each bit came from?

 

(I'm not interested in anyone trying to use this as a way to try and prove the church is false, so if that's what your goal is, please don't reply).

King Mosiah had a stone with engravings that was found by his people, plus Limhi later gave him the 24 plates completed by Ether. Both contained histories of the Jaredites.

The stone was a history of Coriantumr and his forebears and overlaps the history in the 24 plates of Ether. Ether was of a royal line stemming back to Jared but had been defeated and in captivity since his grandfather’s generation. Coriantumr’s genealogy is not known, but he became a king during Ether’s lifetime.

In either case, I think the writings would have been kept by royal scribes (in Ether's case, the 24 plates ended up in his hands). I think it reasonable that Moroni had access to Mosiah’s translation of the Coriantumr stone and that Mosiah also possibly translated the 24 plates, and that Moroni had access to these.

[Robert F. Smith]

17 hours ago, JustAnAustralian said:

So I was doing my reading this morning, and realised that I hadn't thought much about who was keeping the Jaredite records.

There are bits from Ether at the start (family tree) and end (his witness of the destruction). So those bits are covered.

After the family tree it looks like the personal record of the Brother of Jared (inter-spaced with Moroni's commentary) for a few chapters. So those bits are fine.

I could see someone in the Jaredite version of the royal court keeping a record of the general goings on (kings being killed etc), and then Ether raiding palaces after everyone is dead, but are any of you aware of any articles that have been written with specific hypotheses about where each bit came from?..................................

 

2 hours ago, CV75 said:

King Mosiah had a stone with engravings that was found by his people, plus Limhi later gave him the 24 plates completed by Ether. Both contained histories of the Jaredites.

The stone was a history of Coriantumr and his forebears and overlaps the history in the 24 plates of Ether. Ether was of a royal line stemming back to Jared but had been defeated and in captivity since his grandfather’s generation. Coriantumr’s genealogy is not known, but he became a king during Ether’s lifetime.

In either case, I think the writings would have been kept by royal scribes (in Ether's case, the 24 plates ended up in his hands). I think it reasonable that Moroni had access to Mosiah’s translation of the Coriantumr stone and that Mosiah also possibly translated the 24 plates, and that Moroni had access to these.

The only high culture in the Americas which had writing during the Jaredite period was that of the Olmecs in Tabasco and Veracruz states in southern Mexico.

[pogi]

Finding Jaredite writings would give us the closest glimpse into the Adamic language. 

•  

  Quote

  Ether 1:34–38 records that the Lord did not confound the language of Jared’s family, his brother, and their friends at the time of the Tower of Babel. President Joseph Fielding Smith (1876–1972) taught that the Jaredites likely spoke in the language of Adam: “It is stated in the Book of Ether that Jared and his brother made the request of the Lord that their language be not changed at the time of the confusion of tongues at the Tower of Babel. Their request was granted, and 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 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 [1970], 69).

   

[CV75]

31 minutes ago, Robert F. Smith said:

The only high culture in the Americas which had writing during the Jaredite period was that of the Olmecs in Tabasco and Veracruz states in southern Mexico.

You mean cannabis culture?

[pogi]

58 minutes ago, CV75 said:

You mean cannabis culture?

Too 20th century for the Americas.  It would have been the native peyote culture.

Edited September 28, 2021 by pogi

[bOObOO]

1 hour ago, pogi said:

Finding Jaredite writings would give us the closest glimpse into the Adamic language. 

•  

   

Apparently that was the language of whoever wrote the book of Ether.  It is the language Jared would have learned from Adam.  

D&C 107:47 Jared was two hundred years old when he was ordained under the hand of Adam, who also blessed him.

[Robert F. Smith]

57 minutes ago, pogi said:

Too 20th century for the Americas.  It would have been the native peyote culture.

Yes, and

Quote

Hallucinogenic cactus, plants and mushrooms were used to induce altered states of consciousness in healing rituals and religious ceremonies. The Maya drank balché (a mixture of honey and extracts of Lonchocarpus) in group ceremonies to achieve intoxication. Ritual enemas and other psychoactive substances were also used to induce states of trance. Olmec, Zapotec, Maya and Aztec used peyote, hallucinogenic mushrooms (teonanacatl: Psilocybe spp) and the seeds of ololiuhqui (Turbina corymbosa), that contain mescaline, psilocybin and lysergic acid amide, respectively. The skin of the toad Bufo spp contains bufotoxins with hallucinogenic properties, and was used since the Olmec period. Jimson weed (Datura stramonium), wild tobacco (Nicotiana rustica), water lily (Nymphaea ampla) and Salvia divinorum were used for their psychoactive effects. Mushroom stones dating from 3000 BC have been found in ritual contexts in Mesoamerica. Archaeological evidence of peyote use dates back to over 5000 years.   https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/21893367/

And they drank pulque, which was a kind of Mesoamerican beer made from the fermented juice or sap of the maguey plant (Agave americana). In Nahuatl it was known as octli and in Maya it was chih.

Their balche (mead) was made from the bark of a leguminous tree (Lonchocarpus  violaceus), which was soaked in honey and water, and fermented.  Interestingly, the Mayan zaztun, "clear-stone (rock crystal)," which was then typically placed in balche to "quicken" it, could then be used to divine the the future, the cause of an illness or other problem, and even to work a cure.  The Mayan name may have been derived from an original Jaredite use of theoretical Sumerian *zaZA.TUN, "stone-of-womb (belly; container); geode," by elision or syncope of medial -a-.  Naturally, the borrowing would have been by the Mayans via the Olmecs (Jaredites).  See the photo and description in National Geographic, 148/6 (Dec 1975):746-747.

[Robert F. Smith]

2 hours ago, pogi said:

Finding Jaredite writings would give us the closest glimpse into the Adamic language. ...........

Olmec writing has been found, although it does not seem to be Adamic.  However, no one is really sure what language the Olmec spoke.  It has be be reconstructed linguistically.

[OGHoosier]

Grant Hardy has an interesting thesis where he argues that Moroni Christianized the Jaredite history forcibly: they were likely not as Christian as they have been made out to be. If he's right, then the Book of Ether as we have it is probably at some distance from whoever the Jaredite record keepers may have been. Rather, it is an abridgement/recasting made by Ether from a plurality of records of various types (much like Mormon's work drawing from a plurality of records) with significant redaction by Moroni. This opens up interesting interpretive windows: one the one hand, we could view the episode where Shule forges swords from the hill as an couple-layers-of-culturally-influenced translation of an unconventional event in which he sharpened meteoric iron into blades (since as a refugee he probably would not have access to standard obsidian.) Or we could view it as a legendary event where Shule is depicted as retaking the kingdom with weapons made from sacred material (meteoric iron or metal of any sort was typically used for religious ornamentation), thus securing the mandate of Deity for his reign (which does seem in line with his character depiction.) 

I've long since learned to forget modern conventions of authorship and the definition of history when dealing with ancient authors. Titus Livius has been quite enlightening in this regard. 

Edited September 28, 2021 by OGHoosier

[Robert F. Smith]

2 hours ago, OGHoosier said:

Grant Hardy has an interesting thesis where he argues that Moroni Christianized the Jaredite history forcibly: they were likely not as Christian as they have been made out to be. If he's right, then the Book of Ether as we have it is probably at some distance from whoever the Jaredite record keepers may have been. Rather, it is an abridgement/recasting made by Ether from a plurality of records of various types (much like Mormon's work drawing from a plurality of records) with significant redaction by Moroni. This opens up interesting interpretive windows: one the one hand, we could view the episode where Shule forges swords from the hill as an couple-layers-of-culturally-influenced translation of an unconventional event in which he sharpened meteoric iron into blades (since as a refugee he probably would not have access to standard obsidian.) Or we could view it as a legendary event where Shule is depicted as retaking the kingdom with weapons made from sacred material (meteoric iron or metal of any sort was typically used for religious ornamentation), thus securing the mandate of Deity for his reign (which does seem in line with his character depiction.) 

I've long since learned to forget modern conventions of authorship and the definition of history when dealing with ancient authors. Titus Livius has been quite enlightening in this regard. 

The Olmec processed tons of iron from ore outcroppings in Oaxaca, and they fashioned them into mirrors, and even magnetic (lodestone) pointers likely used as a compass.  We mustn't underestimate the Olmecs at all.  Moreover, nearly everything we associate with our Judeo-Christian civilization was already present in ancient Mesopotamia -- from where the Jaredites originally came.

[strappinglad]

It's amazing what people can get from nature when there is no TV or social media to entertain them.

I wonder who the first person was that thought about giving an enema with a psycho-active plant. 

[CV75]

12 hours ago, strappinglad said:

It's amazing what people can get from nature when there is no TV or social media to entertain them.

I wonder who the first person was that thought about giving an enema with a psycho-active plant. 

I think it would have been ancient Asian elephant herders, whose practices spread into Central Asia and were brought into the New World with the Jaredites.