Moroni's Abridgment

At the end of his abridgment of the Jaredite record, Moroni wrote, “[Ether] went forth, and beheld that the words of the Lord had all been fulfilled; and he finished his record; (and the hundredth part I have not written) and he hid them in a manner that the people of Limhi did find them” (Ether 15:33).  This gives us at least a clue to the size of the original Jaredite record.  If we take the statement literally, then it was about 100 times the size of our book of Ether, which would make it the equivalent of approximately 3000 pages of our scriptures.  We know that the original record was “twenty-four plates” made of gold that were “filled with engravings” (Mosiah 8:9).  It’s not clear from the description whether that means one set of 24 individual pages (plates) or 24 sets of plates (with each having multiple individual sheets).  But knowing how much information was in the record per Mormon’s description, it seems more likely that it was 24 sets of plates.  It must have been a massive undertaking for Moroni to read and digest the record in order to abridge it for us.  

               As Mormon was doing his own abridgment of the Nephite record, he made this statement about the Jaredite plates that Mosiah had translated, “And this account shall be written hereafter; for behold, it is expedient that all people should know the things which are written in this account” (Mosiah 28:19).  From this we see that Mormon planned to provide an abridgment of the Jaredite record, but for some reason it was his son that did it for us instead.  Mormon may have been killed by the Lamanites before he could finish it, or perhaps all along he had prepared his son do the abridgment and fulfill his promise.  We don’t know exactly when Moroni id the abridgment, but it was not right after he took over the plates.  At that point he had written, “My father hath made this record, and he hath written the intent thereof. And behold, I would write it also if I had room upon the plates, but I have not; and ore I have none, for I am alone” (Mormon 8:5).  Clearly at some point after this he was able to find more ore and thus was able to have the room for the Jaredite record.  Not only did Moroni give us the 30 pages that we have now of the Book of Ether, but he also wrote the sealed portion that contained the revelation of the brother of Jared.  Moroni recorded, “Behold, I have written upon these plates the avery things which the brother of Jared saw….  Wherefore the Lord hath commanded me to write them; and I have written them. And he commanded me that I should seal them up” (Ether 4:5).  We aren’t sure exactly how large the sealed portion was, but it was of considerable size.  According to one source, David Whitmer said that half of the plates Joseph had were sealed, Orson Pratt said that two-thirds were sealed, and George Q. Cannon said that one-third of the plates were sealed.  If we take the middle estimate, that means that Moroni essentially wrote as much of the Book of Mormon as his father (though most of what he wrote we don’t yet have).  We are indebted to both prophets/historians for their monumental efforts in abridging over a thousand years’ worth of records and leaving us the record we now have as the Book of Mormon.  Indeed, we can say of not only the Book of Ether but all of the Book of Mormon: “It is expedient that all people should know the things which are written in this account.”