Why Were Scholars Originally Critical of the Book of Ether?

            When I was a boy, church meetings were laid out differently than they are today.  There was Priesthood and Relief Society in the morning.  After that, there was Sunday School.  We would go home around lunchtime and return for sacrament meeting in the evening.  While my parents and brothers were in Priesthood and Relief Society, my sisters would read to us from scripture readers for the Book of Mormon.  The main book I loved was the book of the Ether—the Jaredites.  I was not sure why other than to say that their story was different enough that it fascinated me.  As a boy, I couldn’t even say why it was different—it just was.

            As I became older and was able to read the Book of Mormon for myself, my interest in the Book of Ether never decreased.  In fact, if anything, it increased.  There were so many questions about it that I wanted to answer.

            Later, I served in the New York, Rochester mission.  I met people there who were descendants of those who knew the Smith family.  Some of them said there was admiration expressed in the journals of their ancestors for the Smiths.  Others had strange, unbelievable ideas about them. 

            But one person shared something that made me think again about the Book of Ether.  He said that the book of Ether was strange, and no one could believe it.  He said his ancestors, who were scholars, felt the same way.  His statement made me decide to look deeper, to determine what about the Jaredites was different, and to somehow put it into words.

            On my mission, I became deeply familiar with the Jaredites by studying the Book of Mormon.  But when I came home, I began to consider the strangeness the man had expressed about this book.  Some ideas he shared gave me a starting point for my search.  I decided to compose them in terms of questions and attempt to answer them.  I realized the questions were mainly related to culture, and primarily due to what we might call unusual behavior in war.  I have listed them here and will use them as a guide.  There are other questions that people have raised in my Education Week classes at BYU – Idaho.  These original ideas are only briefly introduced in this discussion, along with why they may seem unusual to us.  Cultural reasons for them will come later.  The initial questions are:

1. When the Jaredites went to war, when was the war over?

2.  Did the Jaredites prefer to kill or capture the leader of the opposing side?

3.  Does it take an entire army to win the war?

4.  What did the Jaredites do with captured leaders?

5.  What did the ordinary people do once they got new leaders?

For each of these five questions, in this section I will briefly introduce the idea.  Possible cultural reasons for these ideas will  be handled separately.

When the Jaredites went to war, when was the war over?

            When the Jaredites went to war, the war continued until the leader of one of the sides was killed or captured.  This was true in all times of battle, not just in the final destructive battle where only Coriantumr was left.  Interestingly, this strategy can be seen in the game of chess. 

            In chess, everything is done to protect the king, with all other players being significantly less important, no matter how powerful they are.  Every other player can be sacrificed to protect the king.  We’ll discuss chess more later.  But an example of this can be found in Ether 8:

Ether 8:6 And it came to pass that when they had slain the army of Jared they were about to slay him also; and he pled with them that they would not slay him, and he would give up the kingdom unto his father. And it came to pass that they did grant unto him his life.

The whole army of Jared was killed fighting to preserve the king.  But only when the king was dead or captured would the war be over.  One side can lose everyone or almost everyone and still win if the opposing king is killed or captured.

Did the Jaredites prefer to kill or capture the opposing leader?

            This is an interesting question.  Sometimes the fight would go on until the leader was killed.  This is especially seen in the final battle, which continued until everyone was dead except for the leaders of the two sides, Shiz and Coriantumr.  And then the war was finally finished as Coriantumr took Shiz’s life.  But many of the wars did not have such extreme outcomes.  Some ended with little or no bloodshed.

            In the first battle, King Kib’s son, Corihor, raised an army and fought against him (Ether 7).  Corihor captures Kib but does not kill him.  Instead, Kib remains in captivity until he is old.  At that point, another son, Shule, born in captivity, raises an army and defeats his brother, Corihor, to return the kingdom to his father.

            Note that Corihor is not killed, and when Shule is made the new king, Corihor repents and is given power in the kingdom.  This makes two situations within the rule of the first generation of kings where the defeated opposition leader is left alive and subject to the king.  This idea of not killing the king but putting him in captivity is mentioned eleven times in the book of Ether.   In comparison, only ten times was the leader killed by the opposing leader, and three of these were by Coriantumr in the final war of the Jaredites. 

Does it take a whole army to win a war?

            One important concept is that it does not take an entire army to win the war.  Often there is what we might call a coup, which does not require a full-scale military campaign. An example of this can be seen in the changeovers of power from Omer to Jared to Akish.

            This type of transition of power by a coup is familiar in our day, but there is something that makes it quite different.  In our day, most transitions of power by coups are done by the military or have the backing of the military.  This may not always be the case, but a person would be hard-pressed to take over a country if they were not somehow aligned with the military.

            If a person were to attempt a coup and the military did not support them, it would be nothing for the military leaders to turn against them.  Coup leaders would have little ability to stand against the military’s might.

            Now, contrast that to some of what could be considered coups in the book of Ether.  Perhaps they could be military leaders, and it is not stated, but some situations give reason to believe that is not the case.  Jared, in chapters eight and nine of Ether, is a good example of this.  Jared, the son of King Omer, raised an army and became a military commander.  As a military commander, he fought against his father and beat him, placing him in captivity.  Later, Jared’s brothers, born in captivity, raised an army and beat Jared.  It says they destroyed his entire army.

            Now, here is where the story breaks from the modern day.  Jared now has no army but still desires the kingdom.  This is when his daughter suggests she will dance for Akish and get Akish to kill Omer, and Jared will become king.

            Jared has no army to back him and has just been defeated by the army raised by his brothers.  He is, if you will, an enemy to his brothers, the army leaders.  He is also guilty of insurrection and treason.  The Lord warns Omer to flee, and Akish is able to put Jared in as king.  (Akish, of course, later kills Jared and takes the kingdom for himself.)

            The question arises as to whether Akish had an army behind him.  If so, how did the army change so quickly from backing Omer and his sons, who defeated Jared, to supporting Akish, or was it a different army, and how did he organize it?  Also, why were the people so willing to follow someone who had been guilty of treason?

What did the Jaredites do with captured leaders?

            When the opposing side’s leader was captured, he was usually not killed.  He was put into “captivity.”  What is this captivity?  The word “captivity” does not mean prison, as some might think in our modern vernacular.  It takes on an interesting connotation in how the Jaredites use it. 

            According to the dictionary, it could mean prison, but it could also simply mean “confined.”  But for the Jaredites, it is not prison in the sense we would think of, because the former king has sons and daughters while in captivity.  Sometimes many generations of a king’s descendants are in captivity. 

            So, what is this captivity like?  This question will be addressed later.

What did the ordinary people do once they got new leaders?

            All indications are that the minute there is a new leader, the ordinary people accept him as their king.  Even the military seems to accept him.  There is almost no indication of the people ever refusing to accept the new king.  What makes this acceptance unusual to us is that their change of allegiance doesn’t depend on whether the new leader becomes king by his army defeating the army of the current king, or if the new king is put in place by someone simply killing the current king or putting the current king into captivity.

            For the Jaredites, once the new leader takes over, there does not seem to be any question of his authority by the ordinary people.  The people, even the army, seem to turn their allegiance to whoever is the winner.  The only ones who seem to defy the new king are those seeking power, not due to a lack of the king’s legitimacy, but because of the man’s personal ambitions. 

            In comparison, in Western Civilizations, the thought that a person would immediately turn their loyalty to the winner of a conflict seems unthinkable.  Switching allegiance in an instant is considered the highest treason.  Not only would it be condemned in the military, but society, in general, would condemn and ostracize a person who would do this.  Words like “traitor” or “turncoat” would follow the person throughout their life.

Conclusions of Scholar Skepticism

These cultural differences are much of what laid the basis for some scholars to feel the book of Ether was unusual and therefore have doubts about the Book of Mormon.  We must realize that these scholars were mainly only familiar with Western Civilization lines of thought.  They had little experience with a culture like the Jaredites.  Does that mean cultures like the Jaredites didn’t exist?  Of course, they did.  A person just has to look at the game of chess to see that. 

            However, the scholars didn’t seem to put the two things together, and they may not have been familiar with chess, even though it was around.  It wasn’t as well known in the United States in the 1800’s as in other countries.

            In following articles, we will look at some of these unusual cultural norms of the Jaredites and why they might not be uncommon for their society.  We will consider societies matching the Jaredites and look at archeology and historical information to help us understand them better.  Where did they come from?  What might they have looked like?  We want to learn everything about them that we can.