Etherial Insights

In reading for the Sunday School lesson covering Ether 1-6, Brant Gardner's Second Witness series has some really interesting content surrounding the Jaredites, where they came from, when they came from, and more.  This post may seem somewhat disconnected as I'm mainly highlighting some of the ideas that I found most enlightening.

Are the Jaredites the same as the Olmecs?

According to Gardner, they are not the Olmecs, but obviously lived in the culture, though more likely were absorbed into the already extant civilization when they arrived.  The connections are "completely circumstantial.... The Olmec culture flourished and supported hierarchical societies, including kings, during the period when similar social institutions flourished among the Jaredites.  Olmec lands in the Gulf Coast lie in appropriate geographic proximity to the southern Isthmus of Tehuantepec and Chiapas [plausible Nephite lands].  The plausible linguistic and cultural connections of the people of Zarahemla also fit into the known archaeological and linguistic history of the area."

One major catch is that the "phonetics of the Olmec and therefore probably of the Jaredites, do not match the Jaredite names in the Book of Mormon."

Jaredite Chronology

Gardner hypothesizes that given "the fact that Coriantumr was given refuge in Zarahemla, [this establishes] a plausible prior connection with that group.  Mulekite early history suggests that they had participated in the Olmec culture to the point of adopting that language and religion and losing their own (Omni 1:17).  Apparently a smaller group moved up the Grijalva Valley to Zarahemla.  From the fact that both the city and the ruler at Mosiah's arrival were named Zarahemla, [Gardner deduces] that they had only recently relocated and that the city was named for the founding leader.  Thus, Coriantumr may have lived with them perhaps less than fifty years before Mosiah's arrival.

"I also read Zarahemlaite interest in the stone they brought to Mosiah as interest in a relatively recent history, not as antiquarian curiosity in a stone nearly three hundred years old.  Therefore, this commentary uses 200 B.C. as a probable death date for Coriantumr and his contemporary Ether and therefore a plausible anchor for the generational chronology.  This anchor places the beginnings of the Jaredites somewhat earlier than 1070 B.C. [Gardner uses the round number 1100 B.C.]... This places them after Abraham and the patriarchs, and after Joseph in Egypt, after Moses and the plausible timing of the Israelites' return from Egypt."

Issues in Establishing the Chronology

John Sorenson cautions, "Historical texts and archaelogical research on Mesopotamia, their homeland, tell us that big pyramid-shaped temple platforms called ziggurats were being erected well before 3000 B.C.  Nothing but one of them qualifies as 'the great tower' referred to in Ether 1:33.  If the departure of the Jaredite party from their original home had been many centuries later than 3000 B.C. or earlier than about 3300 B.C., their account about "the great tower" would sound odd in terms of Near Eastern history... We have already seen that the earliest evidences of some of the basic indicators of civilization - stable agriculture, village life, and ceramics - date in Mesoamerica to about 3000 B.C.

"There is no sound evidence, by the way, to support the idea from outmoded biblical commentaries that the great tower ('of Babel') dated to near 2200 B.C., as some Latter-day Saints continue to believe.  Indeed, contrary data abound."

Gardner places "the reign of Jared's son (the first on the king list and therefore the first to have a reign to which the average reign of 30 years might apply) at 1120-1190 B.C.  The result is a gap of nearly two thousand years between the [Tower of Babel and their arrival]....

"In the genealogical list, the text identifies Morianton as a 'descendant' (rather than 'son') of Riplakish (Ether 1:23, 10:11).  Ether himself is a 'descendant' of Corihor.  Assuming that every other part of the genealogy were absolutely accurate, at these two locations we might have a plausible collapsing of generations.  Two other locations where 'descendant' is used in the original list (Ether 1:6, 16) suggest that there might be other places where there is the possibility of missing kings.  Hugh Nibley suggests: 'The first chapter of our text [Ether] gives us warning not to be dogmatic about chronology.  Three times in the genealogical list of thirty names running back to "the great tower" the word "descendant" occurs in place of "son" (1:6, 16, 23).'

"Although this caution is important, the chronology in the text itself corrects two of the three 'descendant' links to 'son' (Ether 11:23, 10:31).  This doesn't leave much room for missing generations.... While the king-list could be in error, it is internally consistent and there is no obvious reason to call it into question.  I believe that it provides a reasonable structure for reconstructing estimated time."

The Translation of the Jaredite Record and the Tower

"The Jaredite/Mesoamerican record itself seems fairly consistent and accurate, starting at the ending point (Ether and Coriantumr) and working backwards.  But it is difficult to connect the Jaredite/Mesoamerican story with a chronology that would include the Tower of Babel."

Gardner then pulls out other examples from later Mesoamerican history where cultural history was purposely linked to Bible stories due to some similarities (the building of a tower in one linked to the Tower of Babel).  This is "either because of [their] own belief in the Bible or awareness that a Christian-like narrative would be pleasing to the politically dominant Spanish....

"The provenance of the book of Ether is inherently problematic:

• Ether is the original author.  His relationship to any actual records is completely unknown.
• Mosiah (2) translates the text using the translators.
• Moroni retells the text.
• Joseph Smith translates Moroni's text into English."

Gardner further explains that three of these four transmission steps offer the opportunity of mixing up the histories with the Tower of Babel (as Ether would have not likely made this erroneous link to the tower).  Mosiah (2), Moroni, and Joseph Smith all knew the Bible story and if any of them made the "same kind of translation/historical conflation" as others have done, "then the tower story could have been read into the Jaredite story, rather than being original to it."  Gardner suggests that if this did happen, it was likely during Mosiah's translation, "as Mormon mentions the tower as part of Mosiah's translation (Mosiah 28:17).  Thus the tower appears in the narrative before Moroni's retelling of it."  Additionally, there are elements of Noah, Moses, and Abraham clearly in the Jaredite narrative, that in my mind continue to support this reading in of Biblical history into the Jaredite story.

Gardner understands that this contradicts traditional reading, and the assumption that scripture must be historically accurate, but it does help understand "how a text that is otherwise accurate to a time and place could miss a 'little thing' like a gap of two thousand years between the dates of the Old World tower and the date Gardner reconstructed using the average reign calculation of the king-list in Ether."

All You Need Is Love!

I was listening to a podcast with the author of a book entitled Letters to a Young Mormon.  It is a book written by a father for his daughter and is a series of letters containing some of the most important things he wished for her to know about the Gospel.

On the section titled “Sin,” the author provides us with a very unique understanding of how we establish our relationship with God:

"Your story, like everyone's, is a bit of a Frankenstein.  Without your hardly noticing or choosing, it gets sewn together, on the fly, out of whatever borrowed scraps are at hand.  You may have borrowed a bit from your mother, a bit from a movie you liked, and a bit from a lesson at church.  You may have stitched these pieces together with a comment overheard at lunch, a glossy image from a magazine, and a second-grade test score.  Whatever sticks.  More stuff is always getting added as other stuff is discarded.  Your story's projection of what you should be is always getting adjusted. Your idea of your shadow's optimal shape gets tailored and tailored again.

"Like most people, you'll lavish attention on this story until, almost unwittingly, it becomes your blueprint for how things ought to be.  As you persist in measuring life against it, this Franken-bible of the self will become a substitute for God, an idol.  This is sin.  And this idolatrous story is all the more ironic when, as a true believer, you religiously assign God a starring role in your story as the one who, with some cajoling and obedience, can make things go the way you've plotted.  But faith isn't about getting God to play a more and more central part in your story.  Faith is about sacrificing your story on his altar."

I love this analogy.  When things don’t go the way we want them to we get mad or frustrated or sad because God isn’t fitting into our mold.  We need to get to know God as He is, go to Him, seek Him out, learn about Him, otherwise we will be stuck worshipping and praying to a God who is nothing more than an idol.

“Jesus [asks] us to lose [our] story.  ‘Those who find their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it” (Matt 10:39 nsrv).  Hell is when your story succeeds, not when it fails.  Your suffocating story is the problem, not the solution.  Surrender it and find your life.”

Once we forfeit our “story” at God’s feet, we are then more free to keep his most important commandments.  In the section on Faith, the author tells us where we can find God:

“Don’t look for God in the throne room.  Don’t look for him in outer space.  You won’t find him there.  Jesus claims, instead, that he’s hidden in plain sight.  God constantly gives himself to us in the inconvenient, in the hungry, the outcast, the prisoner, the sinner.  He gives himself in what we would like to ignore.”

How we can love and serve God is taught in greater detail in the Book of Job.  Job does a lot of complaining; in fact the majority of what he says is cursing his life and asking “why me?”  His friends had come to comfort him, but they can’t handle the fact that Job claims he’s innocent and is yet suffering.  To them, God doesn’t punish the innocent, and so they see Job as attacking God by calling Him unjust and incompetent. This throws up red flags for them and they caution him and berate him for coming close to blasphemy.

At the end of the story, God condemns Job’s friends and says that Job (through all of his complainings and cursings) showed greater love to God than they did.  Can you imagine what his friends were thinking?!  They just spent numerous chapters trying to defend God and He says they were less devout!

This situation is very similar and almost easier to understand in the story of the Good Samaritan.  The common understanding is that the priest and the Levite pass by the injured man simply because they didn’t love enough or didn’t have time.  While these may be valid interpretations, it is helpful to remember that it was against their law for men in their position to touch the dead, which this man appeared to be.  Perhaps there is another reason they chose not to help a man in need that also parallels the motives of Job’s comforters in abandoning their friend.

“The priest and the Levite do not want to risk ritual uncleanliness by touching a dead body.  [Job’s comforters] don’t want to risk the moral contagion of listening to Job’s blasphemous complaints against God.  In both cases, the representatives of the orthodox religion choose abstract theological purity above the physical and spiritual needs of another human being.  For both Jesus and the Job poet, it is the wrong choice….  The unconditional love that Christ requires of us cannot coexist with any ideology that requires us to reject those who do not hold it.”

How are we taught to love God?  By serving our fellow man (Mosiah 2:17); by loving those who are hungry, thirsty, imprisoned (physically, emotionally, spiritually), naked (Matt 25:40); after baptism we covenant to bear one anothers burdens, mourn with those that mourn and comfort those needing comfort (Mosiah 18:9-10).  The second greatest commandment is essentially a way for us to comply with the first.  

All of us can find more ways to serve others and to overcome any uncomfortableness when encountering people who might not choose to live the same way we do (within or without the Church).  “God is love” (1 John 4:8).  If we do not have love, God is not with us.  (1 John 4:7-21)   Our mission on this earth is to love God’s children.

Becoming a Friend to the Mammon of Unrighteousness

The following is the parable of the unjust steward as related in Luke 16:1-8 (KJV)

1. And he said also unto his disciples, There was a certain rich man, which had a steward; and the same was accused unto him that he had wasted his goods.
2. And he called him, and said unto him, How is it that I hear this of thee? give an account of thy stewardship; for thou mayest be no longer steward.
3. Then the steward said within himself, What shall I do? for my lord taketh away from me the stewardship: I cannot dig; to beg I am ashamed.
4. I am resolved what to do, that, when I am put out of the stewardship, they may receive me into their houses.
5. So he called every one of his lord’s debtors unto him, and said unto the first, How much owest thou unto my lord?
6. And he said, An hundred measures of oil. And he said unto him, Take thy bill, and sit down quickly, and write fifty.
7. Then said he to another, And how much owest thou? And he said, An hundred measures of wheat. And he said unto him, Take thy bill, and write fourscore.
8. And the lord commended the unjust steward, because he had done wisely: for the children of this world are in their generation wiser than the children of light.

I've always been puzzled by this parable and never really gave it much thought.  I memorized verse 13 ("No man can serve two masters...") in Luke 16 and always knew it had something to do with the parable, but never quite drew the connection.  I'd like to take a couple minutes to describe how insight can come by taking time to ponder on the scriptures.

I recently read through the New Testament and when I got to this parable I decided that I was going to figure out what it meant.  Why would the Lord praise an unjust steward?  So this is my interpretation of the parable:

A certain man has not been a good worker.  His boss was sick of him wasting his time and money and essentially gave him his two-weeks' notice.  The worker got really worried because he didn't have any other jobs that he could quickly pick up, and he had enough pride to not want to have to beg for subsistence from anyone else.  So he set out a plan to get on the 'A' list of some of his clients so that they would help him out when he was discharged.  He then proceeded to call up all those indebted to his boss and gave each a heavy discount.  Jesus then says that the guy's boss praises him for doing wisely.

That's basically verses 1-8.  Now this is where I really raise an eyebrow.  Is the Lord telling us it's good to be dishonest?  Of course not.  But he's praising a guy who seems like he's cheating his boss one last time, and yet his boss is happy about it?  Verses 9-13 really help clarify what just happened.

9. And I say unto you, Make to yourselves friends of the mammon of unrighteousness; that, when ye fail, they may receive you into everlasting habitations.
10. He that is faithful in that which is least is faithful also in much: and he that is unjust in the least is unjust also in much.
11. If therefore ye have not been faithful in the unrighteous mammon, who will commit to your trust the true riches?
12. And if ye have not been faithful in that which is another man’s, who shall give you that which is your own?
13. No servant can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one,and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon.

We are counseled to "make ... friends of the mammon of unrighteousness", which is essentially money, or worldly wealth, or those who hold in high regard wealth, so that when we are in need (not necessarily financially) we will have friends to help us.

A simple example came to me.  I'm frequently put in a position to put this idea into practice.  When I go out to eat, get a haircut, get a babysitter, or pay for any type of service that ultimately has a cost that's partially determined by me, I try to not give the minimal amount (unless I think the service merits the minimal), but I rarely am "generous."  Why is that?  I believe that it's because I hold money ("the mammon of unrighteousness") in high regard and am very possessive of it, not wanting to "impart it freely", essentially coveting it (D&C 19:26).  I would like to consider myself a charitable person.  I set aside money for those in need, lend my time for service, etc., but reading this scripture I realize that I'm still not where I need to be.

More fully understanding this scripture I realize that by not coveting money (clinging to it, being too frugal, etc.) I will be able to make more wicked mammon friends.  Seriously, though, back to the tip example - if I stop trying to give the minimum and just try to be generous (not taking into account how much I'm out if I give 'x' percent) and give what I think would actually make the person happy, I'm freeing myself of this worldly bond and learning better to serve the Master that will be able to reward me with eternal happiness.  Money begins to become a tool to enrich lives other than my own.

Studying the Bible

I received a new study bible for my birthday, and while this may seem weird to some, I am loving it. My scripture study has been rejuvenated and I'm discovering lots of connections that I otherwise wouldn't. Here's a few of the interesting tidbits, so far.

Moses is a type [1] for Christ:

• Matthew 1:1 - "generation". The Greek word here is "genesis," translated elsewhere as "origin."
  
• Matthew 2:15 - "Out of Egypt I have called my son." is a quote from Hosea 11:1. In Hosea, "son" refers to Israel. This quotation recalls Moses leading the Israelites out of Egypt.
• Matthew 2: 16-18 footnote - "The massacre echoes Pharaoh's ruling at the birth of Moses."
• Matthew 4:2 - Moses also fasted for 40 days/nights, when he communed with the Lord and wrote the 10 commandments (Exodus 34:28).
  

Elijah is a type for Christ:

• Matthew 3:1 - "wilderness of Judea" is associated with Elijah stories
• Matthew 4:2 - Elijah did not eat for 40 days after being fed by an angel (1 Kings 19:8)
• Matthew 4:11 - what the KJV renders as "ministered to" is translated in the NRSV as "waited on," reminiscent of Elijah's being fed by an angel

Allusions to Jacob

• John 1:47 - Jesus says of Nathanael "Here is truly an Israelite in whom there is no deceit!" Now, I have to admit, I've read this a dozen times without ever thinking about why Jesus said this, or why John felt to record it. To the best of my knowledge, there is no anecdote of Nathanael elsewhere in the New Testament where his lack of guile becomes significant. One could argue that it is simply to prompt Nathanael's next question, but I also like this thought: "Israel was the name given to Jacob, who had been deceitful (Gen. 27:34-36)." Or as the Scripture Scouts sing "Jacob, Jacob do come quick. We will play a little trick." However, this allusion would be glancing without the next one.
  
• John 1:51 - "you will see heaven opened and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man." Again, as far as I know, Nathanael witnesses no such thing. But Jacob did (Gen. 28:12). [2]
  

Thus we see that Matthew and John framed their testimonies of Jesus in the context of the scriptures they had at the time.
_________________________

[1] Defined here as "a symbol of something in the future, as an Old Testament event serving as a prefiguration of a new testament event."
[2] I always regarded the dream of Jacob's ladder as of little significance. Hopefully, due to scripture scouts, my kids won't make the same mistake. They sing, "Jacob had a ladder, so high! Jacob had a ladder, oh my! Jacob had a ladder, that's true. But you and I have ladders, too."