Moroni took that epic and abridged it and added his own comments to the record left by Ether. Moroni would have most likely relied on King Mosiah’s translation of Ether’s twenty-four plates. And as Moroni’s intent was for the record to teach future generations “from the dust,” he did not hold back in inserting his own editorial comments. Because this text is “layered,” it is interesting to notice, at the outset, that in any given verse, the following “voices” may be speaking to us or influencing the text’s wording and meaning. Those possible voices would include (1) Jared or the brother of Jared, (2) other ancient Jaredite recordkeepers or story-tellers, (3) the final Jaredite prophet Ether, (4) King Mosiah as translator, (5) Moroni as abridger or editor, (6) Moroni as commentator or as author adding his own thoughts and impressions, and finally (7) Joseph Smith as translator bringing it forth in English. Facing this complexity would normally be unsettling, but realizing that all of this was possible—at every important turn—because of the gift and power of God gives us as readers confidence going forward.
Considering these layers further: As is recorded in Mosiah 28, the messengers of Limhi had found Ether’s plates during their unsuccessful journey in search of Zarahemla, and then Mosiah translated them using the Urim and Thummim because his people were anxious to know about the former civilization. Mormon commented in Mosiah 28:19 that the contents would be written later because it was “expedient that all people should know the things which are written in this account.” Possibly, as Mormon lay dying, he reminded Moroni to be sure to let people know about the history of the Jaredites.
Mormon and Moroni may have been even more interested in ensuring that the history was available for later generations of readers after they knew that their own generation had suffered the same kind of fate as the Jaredites. The whole book of Ether becomes, then, a prophetic, allegorical warning to the Nephites and to us, of how these things happened. The historical content of the Jaredite history is not allegorical, but Moroni used it allegorically, making it into a series of valuable lessons.
Moroni’s abridgement most likely relied on King Mosiah’s translation. Although he says in Ether 1:2 that he is taking his account from the twenty-four gold plates, it is not likely that Moroni retranslated Ether’s plates; he would probably have said so if he had. It is not clear that he even had those plates with him, though he would have known of them. It is unlikely that Moroni would have keep many records with him during his wandering and travels, although he certainly had some, in addition to the plates of Mormon, which he was finishing.
Ether 5 contains an important disclosure by Moroni: “And now I, Moroni, have written the words which were commanded me according to my memory” (Ether 5:1). Apparently, he knew these Jaredite origin stories by heart, as was common in ancient cultures. Parts of Moroni’s book of Ether may be a retelling of the Jaredite history based on things that he learned from his father Mormon, who would have had particular access to these records. As they were engrossed in wars, both Mormon and Moroni would have studied the final chapters of the Jaredite history particularly to learn military strategies from them.
Moroni’s purpose was to demonstrate that what had become of the Jaredites had happened to his generation of Nephites and would happen to later generations of Gentiles. In Ether 2:11 Moroni added, “And this cometh unto you, oh, ye Gentiles.” Moroni wrote this about fifteen years after he had written his first farewell in Mormon 8 and 9, in which he had spoken directly to the Gentiles. In Ether 2 he continued that conversation about what they needed to know, “that ye may know the decrees of God—that ye may repent.” The call to repentance is a persistent theme throughout Moroni’s writings.
Interestingly, Moroni was honest enough to tell readers when he was chiming in, when he was abridging, and even when he was quoting. For example, in Ether 2:13, Moroni did not say, “And now I proceed with Ether’s record,” but rather, “Now I proceed with my record of the Jaredites” (emphasis added). Moroni’s abridgment produced what one may thus call “Moroni’s Book of Ether.” In addition to his abridgement of existing material, Moroni took occasion to interject his own commentary, asides, and sometimes prophecies. Here are the main ones: Ether 1:1–6; 4:1–6:1; 12:6–41; and 15:33.
As mentioned above, the book of Ether has a very complex textual history, but one of the most interesting things about Moroni’s book of Ether in particular, and about the Book of Mormon in general, is the candor and the honesty of this text. Mormon and Moroni usually state clearly when they are interjecting their own commentary. Thus, there is not the same confusion here as in the Old Testament, where dissecting its layers of redaction and editing is often ambiguous and uncertain.
Anotherintriguing feature is the source text’s underlying continuity. If one were to mark everything spoken by Moroni in one color, and mark everything that is archaic Jaredite in a contrasting color, one can take the Moroni material out, and the underlying Jaredite text flows seamlessly together. This careful splicing of the text is incredibly difficult to do successfully without a word-processor. The result is, from a text-critical point of view, a powerful testimony of the antiquity and the editorial process by which this came.
On the original Jaredite record, presumably also in Mosiah’s translation, there was an account of the creation. This is one more feature that marks this record as a work of ancient prophecy. In Ether 1:3, Moroni stated that he was going to spare us the rehearsal of the creation account because he expected that it would be available from other sources, as it had been for him on the Plates of Brass.