Mormon Dilemma 319

19 July

History Lessons from the Bible

Ether 15:34; “Now the last words which are written by Ether are these: Whether the Lord will that I be translated, or that I suffer the will of the Lord in the flesh, it mattereth not, if it so be that I am saved in the kingdom of God. Amen.”

1 Timothy 6:3-5; “If any man teach otherwise, and consent not to wholesome words, even the words of our Lord Jesus Christ, and to the doctrine which is according to godliness; 4 He is proud, knowing nothing, but doting about questions and strifes of words, whereof cometh envy, strife, railings, evil surmisings, 5 Perverse disputings of men of corrupt minds, and destitute of the truth, supposing that gain is godliness: from such withdraw thyself.”

When I write these dilemmas I’m hoping that Mormons would see the futility in what their leaders teach and what they’re expected to buy into. My prayer is that they’ll stop to think about their “holy scripture” and wonder why it says what it does.

For today’s dilemma I’m wondering…is it reasonable that Ether would say the things he did here?

Ether is a descendant of the Jaredites who sprang from Jared who supposedly lived during the Tower of Babel era (Early Dynastic Period) which took place circa BC 2500-2200.

There is a Jared mentioned in the Bible in just a handful of verses (Gen. 5:15-20). Jared in the Bible was 162 years old when he begat Enoch who by the way was indeed translated (Gen. 5:24), but how would Ether know this term or phrase if his family had sailed away to America before Enoch was born?

Would he (Ether) have said something like “I am saved in the kingdom of God” or it “mattereth not if I be translated”? Also keep in mind Abraham wasn’t even born yet and David wasn’t born until at least 500 years after Abraham so where did this vocabulary spring from?

Note: if you ask a Mormon about this Jared in the Book of Mormon they’ll tell you the Jared in the Bible and the Jared in the Book of Mormon are not the same people. 

The following is just a general outline of when things happened in biblical history:

Peleg – 2700-2500 BC

Abraham – 2100-2000 BC

Moses – 1500 BC

David – 1000 BC

Daniel – 500 BC

Jesus – 4-6 BC (Historians date Jesus’ birth in the BC era now that it’s been discovered the calendars were off by this amount of time. 

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