In the

Book of Ether The Book of Ether () is one of the books of the Book of Mormon. It describes the Jaredites, descendants of Jared and his companions, who were led by God to the Americas shortly after the confusion of tongues and the destruction of the Tower of Ba ...

in the

Book of Mormon The Book of Mormon is a religious text of the Latter Day Saint movement, which, according to Latter Day Saint theology, contains writings of ancient prophets who lived on the American continent from 600 BC to AD 421 and during an interlude date ...

, Jared was the primary ancestor of the

Jaredite The Jaredites () are one of four peoples (along with the Nephites, Lamanites, and Mulekites) that the Latter-day Saints believe settled in ancient America. The Book of Mormon (mainly its Book of Ether) describes the Jaredites as the descenda ...

s. He is not to be confused with another Jared, a later

king who dethroned his father,

Omer Omer may refer to: __NOTOC__ * Omer (unit), an ancient unit of measure used in the era of the ancient Temple in Jerusalem * The Counting of the Omer (''sefirat ha'omer''), a 49 day period in the Jewish calendar * Omer (Book of Mormon), a Jaredite ...

Biblical Jared

The Book of Mormon Jared has the same name as the biblical patriarch Jared ( he, יֶרֶד ''Yéreḏ'', in

pausa In linguistics, pausa (Latin for 'break', from Greek παῦσις, ''pausis'' 'stopping, ceasing') is the hiatus between prosodic declination units. The concept is somewhat broad, as it is primarily used to refer to allophones that occur in cer ...

''Yā́reḏ'', "to descend"),The etymology "to descend" is according to in the

Book of Genesis The Book of Genesis (from Greek ; Hebrew: בְּרֵאשִׁית ''Bəreʾšīt'', "In hebeginning") is the first book of the Hebrew Bible and the Christian Old Testament. Its Hebrew name is the same as its first word, ( "In the beginning") ...

, who was the sixth in the ten pre-

flood A flood is an overflow of water ( or rarely other fluids) that submerges land that is usually dry. In the sense of "flowing water", the word may also be applied to the inflow of the tide. Floods are an area of study of the discipline hydrol ...

generations between

Adam Adam; el, Ἀδάμ, Adám; la, Adam is the name given in Genesis 1-5 to the first human. Beyond its use as the name of the first man, ''adam'' is also used in the Bible as a pronoun, individually as "a human" and in a collective sense as " ...

and

Noah Noah ''Nukh''; am, ኖህ, ''Noḥ''; ar, نُوح '; grc, Νῶε ''Nôe'' () is the tenth and last of the pre-Flood patriarchs in the traditions of Abrahamic religions. His story appears in the Hebrew Bible (Book of Genesis, chapters 5– ...

; he was the son of Mahalaleel and the father of

Enoch Enoch () ''Henṓkh''; ar, أَخْنُوخ ', Qur'ān.html"_;"title="ommonly_in_Qur'ān">ommonly_in_Qur'ānic_literature__'_is_a_biblical_figure_and_Patriarchs_(Bible).html" "title="Qur'ānic_literature.html" ;"title="Qur'ān.html" ;"title="o ...

, and lived 962 years (

Genesis Genesis may refer to: Bible * Book of Genesis, the first book of the biblical scriptures of both Judaism and Christianity, describing the creation of the Earth and of mankind * Genesis creation narrative, the first several chapters of the Book of ...

5:18). The biblical text in the

Book of Jubilees The Book of Jubilees, sometimes called Lesser Genesis (Leptogenesis), is an ancient Jewish religious work of 50 chapters (1,341 verses), considered canonical by the Ethiopian Orthodox Church as well as Beta Israel (Ethiopian Jews), where it is ...

implicitly etymologizes the name as derived from the

root In vascular plants, the roots are the organs of a plant that are modified to provide anchorage for the plant and take in water and nutrients into the plant body, which allows plants to grow taller and faster. They are most often below the sur ...

YRD "descend", because in his days "the angels of the Lord ''descended'' to earth". Alternative suggestions for the name's etymology include words for "rose" and for "servant". The biblical Jared was a sixth-generation descendant of

Adam and Eve Adam and Eve, according to the creation myth of the Abrahamic religions, were the first man and woman. They are central to the belief that humanity is in essence a single family, with everyone descended from a single pair of original ancestors. ...

. His primary history is recounted in , thus within the timeline of the Book of Mormon, he would have been antediluvian and an ancestor of the Jared of Ether.

Migration

According to the narrative Jared, along with family and friends came to the "promised land" (the

Americas The Americas, which are sometimes collectively called America, are a landmass comprising the totality of North and South America. The Americas make up most of the land in Earth's Western Hemisphere and comprise the New World. Along with th ...

) shortly after the Great Tower

Tower of Babel The Tower of Babel ( he, , ''Mīgdal Bāḇel'') narrative in Genesis 11:1–9 is an origin myth meant to explain why the world's peoples speak different languages. According to the story, a united human race speaking a single language and mi ...

. When the language of the people was confounded, Jared asked his brother to ask God not to confound their own language, that of their friends, and that of their immediate families. This means that they arrived much earlier than Lehi and Nephi and their families did. The Brother of Jared, often referred to as such in the text, and also called

Mahonri Moriancumer In the Book of Mormon, the brother of Jared is the most prominent person in the account given in the beginning (Chapters 1–6) of the Book of Ether. The brother of Jared's name is not given in the text of the Book of Mormon but Joseph Smith state ...

is also a significant character. Jared's group, the ancestors of the

Jaredites The Jaredites () are one of four peoples (along with the Nephites, Lamanites, and Mulekites) that the Latter-day Saints believe settled in ancient America. The Book of Mormon (mainly its Book of Ether) describes the Jaredites as the descendan ...

, were guided through the wilderness by God, and then fled across the ocean on unusual barges and established an ancient civilization in the Americas. They also brought with them animals and food. The recorded length of the miraculous trip was 344 days. The Book of Ether's mention of a "narrow neck of land" has led some to posit various locations for their point of arrival. Some of these include "necks of land" in Central America or modern-day Mexico. Others favor a location which spanned from the

Midwest The Midwestern United States, also referred to as the Midwest or the American Midwest, is one of four Census Bureau Region, census regions of the United States Census Bureau (also known as "Region 2"). It occupies the northern central part of ...

to the

Eastern United States The Eastern United States, commonly referred to as the American East, Eastern America, or simply the East, is the region of the United States to the east of the Mississippi River. In some cases the term may refer to a smaller area or the East C ...

such as

New York New York most commonly refers to: * New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York * New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States New York may also refer to: Film and television * '' ...

. However, neither of these are certain, and are not supported by mainstream archeology.

Mormon apologist Apologetics (from Greek , "speaking in defense") is the religious discipline of defending religious doctrines through systematic argumentation and discourse. Early Christian writers (c. 120–220) who defended their beliefs against critics and ...

s link this story to various traditions similar to that of the tower of Babel said to be found in Central America. Some writers connected the

Great Pyramid of Cholula The Great Pyramid of Cholula, also known as (Nahuatl for "made-by-hand mountain"), is a complex located in Cholula, Puebla, Mexico. It is the largest archaeological site of a pyramid (temple) in the New World, as well as the largest pyramid by ...

to the Tower of Babel. The

Dominican friar The Order of Preachers ( la, Ordo Praedicatorum) abbreviated OP, also known as the Dominicans, is a Catholic mendicant order of Pontifical Right for men founded in Toulouse, France, by the Spanish priest, saint and mystic Dominic of Cal ...

Diego Durán Diego Durán (c. 1537 – 1588) was a Dominican friar best known for his authorship of one of the earliest Western books on the history and culture of the Aztecs, ''The History of the Indies of New Spain'', a book that was much criticised in hi ...

(1537–1588) reported hearing an account about the pyramid from a hundred-year-old priest at Cholula, shortly after the conquest of Mexico. He wrote that he was told when the light of the sun first appeared upon the land, giants appeared and set off in search of the sun. Not finding it, they built a tower to reach the sky. An angered Lord of the Heavens called upon the inhabitants of the sky, who destroyed the tower and scattered its inhabitants. The story was not related to either a flood or the confusion of languages, although Frazer connects its construction and the scattering of the giants with the Tower of Babel. Another story, attributed by the native historian

Fernando de Alva Cortés Ixtlilxóchitl Fernando de Alva Cortés Ixtlilxóchitl (between 1568 and 1580, died in 1648) was a nobleman of partial Aztec noble descent in the Spanish Viceroyalty of New Spain, modern Mexico; he is known primarily for his works chronicling indigenous Aztec his ...

(c. 1565–1648) to the ancient

Toltecs The Toltec culture () was a pre-Columbian Mesoamerican culture that ruled a state centered in Tula, Hidalgo, Mexico, during the Epiclassic and the early Post-Classic period of Mesoamerican chronology, reaching prominence from 950 to 1150 CE. T ...

, states that after men had multiplied following a great deluge, they erected a tall ''zacuali'' or tower, to preserve themselves in the event of a second deluge. However, their languages were confounded and they went to separate parts of the earth.

Question of succession

As death was approaching Jared and his brother, Mahonri Moriancumer, gathered together the people to ask them what they desired of them before they died. The people then requested that they anoint one of their sons as king. This was grievous to them, and the Mahonri Moriancumer remarked that "surely this thing leadeth into captivity." Despite Mahonri's misgivings, Jared pressed him to allow the establishment of a Jaredite kingship at which suggestion the brother of Jared yielded.Ether 6:24

Family

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Jared Book of Mormon people Tower of Babel