What are the Jaredites for?

[_beastie]

Kaching, found it. David Persuitte's "Joseph Smith and the Origins of the Book of Mormon" (which, by the way, is one of the best books on the subject) - there were two schools of thought regarding the origin of Native Americans in the nineteenth century. We're most familiar with the "lost tribes" theory, proposed by Adair and Ethan Smith. However, there was an earlier theory, one that proposed....drumroll... that it was a result of the dispersion after the Tower of Babel. From page 103 in his book:

Another school of thought proposed that the original inhabitants of the New World arrived there as a consequence of the dispersion from the biblical tower of Babel. In 1652, Sir Harmon l'Estrange published a book expressing that view, and in the eighteenth century Samuel Mather and Pierre de Charlevoix published other books in that vein.

Like the lost tribes school of thought, the tower of Babel school had advocates well into the early nineteenth century.

(his footnote cites Dan Vogel's Indian Origins for more exploration of this. Indian Origins is another great read, and can be found online now:

http://www.signaturebookslibrary.org/indian/preface.htm

The most predictable thing about Joseph Smith is that he borrowed ideas from other places. Yes, he pieced them together in a unique way that attracted people, but he really wasn't coming up with original ideas on his own. He wanted to cover both bases, both myths that were popular in his time period. (or the author of the Book of Mormon wanted to do so...)

[_Mercury]

Kaching, found it. David Persuitte's "Joseph Smith and the Origins of the Book of Mormon" (which, by the way, is one of the best books on the subject) - there were two schools of thought regarding the origin of Native Americans in the nineteenth century. We're most familiar with the "lost tribes" theory, proposed by Adair and Ethan Smith. However, there was an earlier theory, one that proposed....drumroll... that it was a result of the dispersion after the Tower of Babel. From page 103 in his book:

Another school of thought proposed that the original inhabitants of the New World arrived there as a consequence of the dispersion from the biblical tower of Babel. In 1652, Sir Harmon l'Estrange published a book expressing that view, and in the eighteenth century Samuel Mather and Pierre de Charlevoix published other books in that vein.

Like the lost tribes school of thought, the tower of Babel school had advocates well into the early nineteenth century.

(his footnote cites Dan Vogel's Indian Origins for more exploration of this. Indian Origins is another great read, and can be found online now:

http://www.signaturebookslibrary.org/indian/preface.htm

The most predictable thing about Joseph Smith is that he borrowed ideas from other places. Yes, he pieced them together in a unique way that attracted people, but he really wasn't coming up with original ideas on his own. He wanted to cover both bases, both myths that were popular in his time period. (or the author of the Book of Mormon wanted to do so...)

so by this the authors of the Book of Mormon attempted a shotgun approach to the false histories of the americas.

[_Chap]

Thanks for the interesting information, Beastie!

(Who says we can't explain how the Book of Mormon originated? We have two great ideas for the Jaredite sections in one short thread!)

[_The Nehor]

A microcosm of the overarching lesson of the Book of Mormon in case the main story of the Book of Mormon is missed due to constant interludes of preaching, prophesying, and attention to the stories of individual characters. The Book of Mormon is (after it's primary goal of testifying of Christ) a warning addressed to our world of what may happen to us. The Jaredite story is that story in an even more abbreviated form.

That's more or less what I said.

Except that you think the story was put there by divine providence, and I think it was put there by a 19th C. author.

Even leaving aside my disbelief in divine providence, I think my suggestion is more plausible than yours.

Perhaps, but I have the witness of God to back up my theory. Admittedly that doesn't increase plausibility to anyone else but it's pretty strong evidence for me to take it in that light.