Did Jaredites Survive Their Final Battle? – Part II

Continuing with the theorist view of Hugh Nibley, John L. Sorenson, John A. Tvedtnes and others, which holds that some Jaredites survived the final battle that destroyed their kingdom. However, we know differently because Ether tells us that “all the people upon the face of the land were shedding blood” (Ether 13:31), and “the people began to flock together in armies, throughout all the face of the land” (Ether 14:19), and “that they did gather together all the people upon all the face of the land, who had not been slain, save it was Ether” (Ether 15:12, emphasis added).

The Jaredites gathered everyone, save Ether, into their final war

Ether then goes on to tell us: “Wherefore, they were for the space of four years gathering together the people, that they might get all who were upon the face of the land, and that they might receive all the strength which it was possible that they could receive. And it came to pass that when they were all gathered together, everyone to the army which he would, with their wives and their children -- both men women and children being armed with weapons of war, having shields, and breastplates, and head-plates, and being clothed after the manner of war—they did march forth one against another to battle” (Ether 15:14-15, emphasis added).
    Still, Nibley persists in his own beliefs, claiming that “every soul” did not mean “every soul.” He defends his stance by stating: “Did not Ether prophesy that 'every soul should be destroyed save it were only Coriantumr?' (Ether 13:21). Every soul of what?”
    One might answer that every soul of the Jaredites, but that thought seems lost on Nibley who wants to insist that the scriptural record does not mean what it says. He adds, “Ether himself, hiding out in a cave, was not included in the number, and neither were other inhabitants of the continent—Nephites, Lamanites, and Mulekites that were actually living here at the time of the Jaredite destruction.”
    Here again we see the assumptive nature of Nibley’s thinking. First of all, the record clearly states that Ether was not included in this “all the people” (Ether 15:12). Secondly, we have no knowledge that the Mulekites or Nephites and Lamanites had reached the Land of Promise prior to the final destruction of the Jaredites. But that is not all, for Nibley goes on to add abut other surviving Jaredites: “Neither were renegade Jaredites, wandering far and wide beyond the confines of the kingdom.” What renegade Jaredites wandering far and wide?
    Now, there is no mention anywhere in the scriptural record of renegade Jaredites wandering far and wide beyond the confines of the kingdom—that is pure speculation on Nibley’s part. Nibley goes on to add about what he believes would have been numerous Jaredite remnants.
    But Nibley is not alone in his speculative thinking. James Lee Warr, a Central America theorist, states of the Jaredites: “One of the problems facing Book of Mormon archaeology is the fact that the civilizations of the Maya, Aztec and other pre-Columbian cultures were at their zenith many years after the extermination of the Nephites. If we are focusing on the archaeological ruins of these civilizations, they don't seem to fit Book of Mormon history.” But that does not stop Warr, he decides to make these Jaredite remnants a new people, which he calls Neo-Jaredites (meaning new Jaredites), stating: “I contend that they were not related to the Nephite history, nor were they the work of true Lamanites.

“It is my opinion that the early Formative Period or Olmec Era ruins were built by the Jaredite peoples of the Book of Ether, but the later ruins (Maya, etc.) were built by Jaredite remnants and others, who followed the Jaredite tradition. I will call these people neo-Jaredites—being any of those heterogenous groups of people, following the terminal Jaredite wars (about 300 B.C.) who admired, conserved and followed the ancient Jaredite traditions.
    Warr also goes on to claim that these neo-Jaredites were actualy the Gadianton
Robbers, when he states: “These neo-Jaredites were involved in ceremonies that were of ancient date and had been passed down from the time of Cain. They included oaths, blood offerings, secret signs, execution of those who violated these oaths by beheading, gaining power and wealth through assassination, worshiping the god of the underworld, and swearing oaths by heaven and earth and by one’s own head (3 Nephi 12:33-36; Ether 8:13-14), and were likely sealed by blood. These were the groups termed “Robbers” in the Book of Mormon (Helsmsn 2:10; 6:20; 7:4; Mormon 8:9). They successfully recruited others by flattering them with vanities, encouraging them to become part of their "elite" group, bribing them with their ill-gotten gain, or appealing to their greed and lust for power. They felt that their works were “good; and...of ancient date and they had been handed down to them” from the ancients. (3 Nephi 3:9).”
    Now, in addition to these (and many others), we have John L. Sorenson, in the Encyclopedia of Mormonism (p192), suggesting that "it is plausible that several remote groups also could have survived to meld unnoticed by historians into the successor Mulekite and Lamanite populations." He also adds another purely speculative idea when he writes: “It is a safe presumption, however, that some groups existing at the time when the armies referred to in Ether 15 were destroyed simply refused to participate in the suicidal madness of Coriantumr and Shiz. They would have ensured their own survival by staying home and minding their meek business in this or that corner of the land. Such minor peoples might hardly even have noted the distant slaughter of the dynasts, so absorbed would they have been in their local affairs.”
    It seems odd to suggest that some Jaredites were so absorbed in their personal activities that they hardly would have noted the wars going on around them—after all, wars the size of those described by Ether have a wide-spreading and long-lasting effect on all people. While America, because of sheer distance, was not affected by Nazi Germany’s attack of Czechoslovakia, Austria, Poland, Denmark, Norway, Belgium and the Netherlands, by the time they moved on France and Britain, this country was heavily involved and affected financially, and eventually brought into the war. At that time, though the continental U.S. was not directly involved in any fighting, the nation was heavily involved politically and through higher taxes, and everyone was involved in preparation, sacrifice, rationing, labor, price-controls, security, service and numerous other controls.
    The fact that the Jaredies spent four years getting “all who were upon the face of the land” (Ether 15:14) seems to have no meaning to these theorists. They have their own viewpoint and it simply does not matter what Ether, Moroni or any other writer of the Book of Mormon states, if it is contrary to their personal viewpoint, they either ignore it or try to discredit it.

This is easily seen in the word “all,” which in 1828 meant “every one, the whole number; the whole quantity, the whole or entire thing; wholly, completely, entirely, the whole number as “all the men.” There is simply no way the word “all” can be ignored or lessened from the meaning of the word Joseph Smith used to describe the Jaredites, as in “all the people in all the land.”
    Yet, Sorenson goes on to claim: “The likelihood is that more than a few such groups continued past the time of the 'final destruction' of the armies at the hill Ramah, and some could well have been living in the land southward as Nephi and Laman built up their small colonies.” 
    Another theorist, John A. Tvedtnes of the University of Utah and a senior resident scholar at the Institute for the Study and Preservation of Ancient Religious Texts at BYU, has stated on Jaredite remnants: "I have long believed that some Jaredites survived the last great battles of their civilization and that it was the civilization itself that was destroyed, not every single Jaredite.”
    It seems to these theorists that the actual wordage of the scriptural record is meaningless regarding this matter. He goes on to claim that the continued Jaredite existence is evidenced mostly by the existence of Jaredite names in the Nephite population, proposing that the proper names of the Jaredites as recorded in the Book of Mormon were drawn from the Akkadian and Sumerian languages, confirming the Mesopo­tamian origin of that earlier people. Robert F. Smith of the Neal A. Maxwell Institute has shown where some Book of Mormon names compare not only to Hebrew and Egyptian, but also Akkadian and Sumerian.
(See the next post, “Did Jaredites Survive Their Final Battle? – Part III,” to see what connection all these languages had with the Jaredites and Nephites)