The Great Tower and the Jaredites

Unfortunately, many Book of Mormon scholars have tried to determine the building of the Great Tower by using carbon-14 dating methods on artifacts and ruins located in Babylonia.  This is the nature of archaeology; however, Latter-day Saint scholars cannot ignore the scriptural record, and should be wise enough to take the Lord's word over that of the so-called men of science, especially when that science is tenuous at best.
    Actually, there are two ways in which we can place the general date of Jared's debarkation from Mesopotamia more accurately. 

Jaredites left Babel and followed the Lord

First, Ether's writings in the Book of Mormon tell us that the Jaredites crossed vast distances of land and many seas before arriving on the coast where they dwelt for at least four years.  Since the waters were all gathered in one place prior to the division of the earth in Peleg's time, it must be that this division had already taken place or was in the midst of taking place when the Jaredites left the tower area and traveled to the coast in preparation of being led across the great deep and to the promised land.  This great deep is obviously a very large ocean and very deep since the boats that the Brother of Jared built were like submarines and took 344 days to cross from one shore to another, despite the winds blowing the seas in the direction of the promised land all that time. 
    Since the earth was divided in Peleg's day, this would have occurred between 2148 B.C. and 1909 B.C. as already shown.  This obviously places the Jaredite departure from Mesopotamia within a two-hundred-year period around 2000 B.C.
Second, if we take a look at Noah's descendants, we can also place a time frame on the tower from those who built it.  Noah, of course, had three sons that came on the Ark:  Jepheth, Shem, and Ham.  The scriptures said they dwelt in the west after journeying from the east and found a plain in the land of Shinar where the Great Tower (of Babel) was eventually constructed.
    The scriptures also tell us that Jepheth had seven sons: Gomer, Magog, Madai, Javan, Tubal, Meshech, and Tiras; but only the descendants of two (Gomer and Javan) are listed.  The concluding remark made by Moses of these descendants is: by these were the isles of the Gentiles divided in their lands. 

Relaxing along the seashore for four years

According to the scriptures, Ham had four sons: Cush, Mizraim, Phut, and Canaan.  We know nothing of Phut's descendants, but Mizraim was the ancestor of the Philistines, and Canaan that of numerous peoples who settled from Sidon to Sodom and Gomorah in what is present-day Israel, and many areas abroad, including an island off the coast of Syria.  From Cush came Nimrod, who was the last of Cush's six sons and who built the cities of Babel, Erech, Accad, and Calneh in the land of Shinar.  This is where the Tower of Babel was built in Nimrod's day.
Third: Since Shem lived 600 years, we can assume his brother, Ham, would have lived several hundred himself, especially when we realize that Ham was, himself, basically a righteous man.  The birth of his son Cush could have been anywhere from directly after the flood (such as Araphaxad for Shem) to as much as one or two hundred years after the flood.  Cush's sixth son, Nimrod, giving a time frame of 100+ years for Cush to live, may well have been born anywhere between 50 years after the flood to as much as two or three hundred years after the flood.
    Considering the manpower needed to build the Great Tower, and considering the fact that Nimrod built at least four cities, we can assume there were numerous people living at the time.  This suggests a later, rather than earlier, date.  If we take about 100 years, this means the tower was begun about 2243 B.C., or if we take a later date that would allow for three couples to have populated the area sufficiently to established the numbers needed for the multiple cities and manpower to build a tower, we are looking at the start date of the tower around 2150 B.C. to 2050 B.C.  How many years it took to build the tower sufficiently as indicated in the scriptures, and for the Lord to grow weary of the evil and confound the languages, is not known.  But somewhere in this two hundred years, between about 2250 B.C. and 2050 B.C., Nimrod started his tower and the Lord confounded the language.
    This is the time the Book of Ether begins, that is, with Jared asking his brother to inquire of the Lord and ask that their language be not confounded.  As a result, Jared and his brother, and 22 other adult couples, were led out of Babel and into the valley of Nimrod between 2250 and 2050 B.C.  How many years they wandered, how long they remained in the valley, how long it took to build barges and cross many waters and an inland sea and finally reach the coast is not known.

The length of time it took the Jaredites to reach the sea where they spent four years is unknown

Nor do we know how long it took for the Jaredites to construct the boats that would take them across the great deep.  But no matter the amount, we are still in the same general time period as the life of Peleg (2148 B.C. and 1909 B.C.) and the earth being divided.
    When theorist F. Richard Hauck places the Jaredite landing at 3000 B.C., John L. Sorenson at 2700 B.C., and Joseph Allen between 3000 and 3300 B.C., it is clear these scholars are using man's reckoning rather than that of the Lord. 
    These same scholars, who are off anywhere between 700 and 1,300 years of the Jaredite landing in the land of promise, also claim the Jaredites lived well after the arrival of the Nephites in the New World.  Some even claim the Jaredites co-mingled with the Mulekites and Nephites, thus increasing the numbers of both groups, despite there being not a single word in the Book of Mormon to indicate such a mixture.
    Sorenson adds: When did the Jaredites originate as a people?  Historical texts and archaeological research on Mesopotamia, their homeland, tell us that big pyramid-shaped temple platforms called ziggurats were being erected well before 3,000 B.C.  There is no sound evidence, by the way, to support the idea from outmoded Biblical commentaries that the great tower ("of Babel") dated to near 2200 B.C., as some Latter-day Saints continue to believe.  Indeed, contrary data abound.  If the departure of the Jaredite party from their original home had been many centuries later than 3000 B.C. or earlier than about 3300 B.C. their account about "the great tower" would sound odd in terms of Near Eastern history” ([7  John L. Sorenson, An Ancient American Setting for the Book of Mormon, Deseret Book Co., Salt Lake City, 1985, pp 116-117).
    Allen states: “2700 B.C. (is) the arrival (date) of the Jaredites.  The date of arrival is based upon 1) the dating of the great tower, 2) the archaeological and traditional evidence coming out of Mesoamerica in relationship to the first settlers [2].  The Jaredites developed a massive New World civilization dating approximately 2500 B.C. to approximately 300 B.C. [3]  We encounter great difficulty in determining when the flood actually occurred [4].  3114 B.C. (is the date) of the great flood [5], (and the) jaredites arrived in the New World in 2700 BC” Joseph L. Allen, Ph.D., Exploring the Lands of the Book of Mormon, S.A. Publishers, Inc., Orem, Utah, 1989, p14).

Author F. Richard Hauck and his book about the Land of Promise

Hauck adds that “Perhaps as early as 3,000 B.C. (the Jaredites) migrated to an undisclosed location in the Americas.  Sometime between 600 B.C. and 300 B.C. a major civil war erupted between the protagonists of the two dominant political and ideological factions... the struggle for domination became so intense that the localized feud gradually deteriorated into a destructive scorched-earth model of intensive civil war...over the years local peoples were forced to choose sides and enter the foray”(F. Richard Hauck, Deciphering the Geography of the Book of Mormon, Deseret Book Co., Salt Lake City, 1988, pp 6-7).
    To better understand this fallacy, we need to look at what Ether and Moroni wrote about the original 24 families that came from the Tower to settle the Land of Promise:
1. The land of promise was a special place for only those who served God.
Ether 2:8: Before arriving in the new land, the Brother of Jared was told by the Lord that this land of promise would be preserved for those who would serve God.
Ether 2:9-12: Moroni inserts his own testimony about the need for those who inherit the land of promise to serve God.
Ether 2:11: To make this clear, Moroni testifies that the previous inhabitants (previous to the history of the Nephites) had been destroyed because they did not serve God.
2. The Jaredites were completely destroyed.
Ether 1:5: Moroni explains that Ether's record gives an account of the Jaredites "from the Tower down until they were destroyed."
    Thus we see, without equivocation, the time of the Jareidtes leaving the Tower of Babel on their severed year journey to the sea and beyond to the Land of Promise.