Jaredite Records

The Book of Mormon student manual gives this description of the book of Ether: "The book of Ether covers over 1,700 years of history from 2200 B.C. down to the time of Coriantumr. We don’t know exactly when Coriantumr lived, but it was somewhere between 500 and 250 B.C."  The book starts at the time of the tower of Babel, and so it is relatively soon after Noah and before even Abraham came on the scene in the Bible.  We know that Coriantumr spent time with the Mulekites, and so their civilization ended sometime after the arrival of the Lehites and the Mulekites.  The Nephites discovered the Mulekites and this story of Coriantumr visiting them when Mosiah I and his followers arrived, somewhere around 150 BC or so.  We also know that Ammon and his group around 120 BC "did find a land which had been peopled; yea, a land which was covered with dry bones," and this was the remains of the Jaredites (Mosiah 21:26).  Given that bones will eventually decompose, it is likely that the Jaredite civilization ended closer to the 250 BC estimate than 500 BC.  

               Given that timeline, the Jaredites would not have had any of the Old Testament scriptures that the Nephites had in the brass plates.  We know that they did have a record that came with them as they traveled the ocean, though, because in the record that Moroni had (the 24 plates which were finished by Ether) contained an account of "the creation of the world, and also of Adam, and an account from that time even to the great tower, and whatsoever things transpired among the children of men until that time" (Ether 1:3).  Moroni chose not to write it for us in the Book of Mormon, but clearly they had scriptures of their own telling of the time from Adam through Noah.  The daughter of Jared also referred to this record in Ether 8:9.  In that light, it is interesting to consider the first 12 verses of Ether 13.  Moroni wrote to us that Ether told his people "of all things, from the beginning of man" (v2).  Surely much of that he learned from the record which his fathers had brought across the waters.  He spoke of a future "New Jerusalem which should come down out of heaven, and the holy sanctuary of the Lord" (v3).  Ether presumably had a record of Enoch's time and his city which was taken into heaven, the same which would come back down as the New Jerusalem, and so he very well may have gotten his information about the New Jerusalem from those scriptural records his fathers had brought.  

            But Ether also taught about things which could not have been on those original records.  For example, he "spake also concerning the house of Israel, and the Jerusalem from whence Lehi should come."  Jacob/Israel of course did not live until well after the time of the Tower of Babel, and so the only way that Ether could have known about the whole concept of the House of Israel would have been through revelation. It is not entirely clear to me in verses 7-11 whether Moroni was adding any of his own commentary or paraphrasing entirely from Ether, but given the context of the passage I believe he was essentially summarizing Ether.  If that's true, then Ether also knew about the "remnant of the house of Joseph" and "the Jerusalem of old" and the scattering of the house of Israel.  He likewise mentioned the covenant that God had made with Abraham.  None of that could have been known to Ether from the records his fathers brought over because the time of Abraham, Jacob, Joseph and even Jerusalem itself was well after the time of the brother of Jared.  So the Lord must have revealed it to Ether or prophets before him who recorded it in their own records.  Perhaps the important point of this is that the Lord reveals the whole picture to his prophets, the grand vision of his whole plan, and not just the Lord’s dealing with his own immediate people.  We can trust that the prophets understand and see far more we do.