Redaction: We have seen that Moroni patterns the history of the Jaredites to emphasize the promise of the land. He is also patterning the history to highlight the theme that his father wove into the Nephite tale, that of the destruction by secret combinations. Those intentional patternings suggest that the appearance of these verses in the book of Ether is due as much, if not more, to Moroni than to the original text. When Mormon is describing the nearing end of the Nephites, he tells us:
Mormon 1:18
18 And these Gadianton robbers, who were among the Lamanites, did infest the land, insomuch that the inhabitants thereof began to hide up their treasures in the earth; and they became slippery, because the Lord had cursed the land, that they could not hold them, nor retain them again.
The slipperyness of the belongings has a very direct parallel to verses 1 and 2 of this chapter. What makes the correlation even more important is the relationship of this described condition to the presence of the “robbers.” In Mormon, we have the connection within the same verse. There are robbers, therefore there it is difficult to retain one’s treasures. In the case of Ether, the reference to the robbers is not in the same verse, but it is quite close. It is found at the end of the previous chapter:
Ether 13:26
26 And there were robbers, and in fine, all manner of wickedness upon all the face of the land.
However, the relationship is even closer than that when we remember that this chapter break is artificial, coming later than the 1830 edition. When Moroni wrote, they were only a few sentences apart in the same chapter.
The parallel presence of the robbers, and then the parallel presence of the difficulties in retaining one’s possessions is beyond coincidence. Since the theme is demonstrably first written in Mormon’s text, we must therefore suspect Moroni of replicating that pattern as he retells the story of the Jaredites. We cannot tell how much of this information was in the original plates of Ether. However, we may be assured that the close connection between the two situations (the end of the Nephites and the end of the Jaredites) is a conscious adaptation of the text as Moroni adapts the Jaredite material in his retelling.