FAIR is a non-profit organization dedicated to providing well-documented answers to criticisms of the doctrine, practice, and history of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Book of Mormon/Anachronisms/Animals/Story of Jaredites added to explain presence of animals in New World
This article is a draft. FairMormon editors are currently editing it. We welcome your suggestions on improving the content.
Criticism
- Critics charge the the story of the Jaredites, as described in the Book of Ether, was added by Joseph Smith as an "afterthought" in order to account for the variety of animals present in the New World at the time of arrival of Lehi's group.
Source(s) of the criticism
- Fawn M. Brodie, No Man Knows My History: The Life of Joseph Smith (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1945), 70–71. ( Index of claims )
- Simon Southerton, Losing a Lost Tribe: Native Americans, DNA, and the Mormon Church (Salt Lake City, UT: Signature Books, 2004) 30. ( Index of claims )
Response
The verse used to support the assertion by the critics is Ether 2:1-3:
- 1 And it came to pass that Jared and his brother, and their families, and also the friends of Jared and his brother and their families, went down into the valley which was northward, (and the name of the valley was Nimrod, being called after the mighty hunter) with their flocks which they had gathered together, male and female, of every kind.
- 2 And they did also lay snares and catch fowls of the air; and they did also prepare a vessel, in which they did carry with them the fish of the waters.
- 3 And they did also carry with them deseret, which, by interpretation, is a honey bee; and thus they did carry with them swarms of bees, and all manner of that which was upon the face of the land, seeds of every kind. (Ether 2꞉1-3)
Conclusion
Endnotes
None
Further reading
FAIR wiki articles
FAIR web site
- FAIR Topical Guide: