The Sealed Portion of the Book of Mormon and the Pure Adamic Language

1.      The Sealed Portion of the Book of Mormon and the Pure Adamic Language

LDS scripture maintains that Adam and Eve had a language that was pure and undefiled, a language both spoken and written (Moses 6:5, 6). This was the one and only language until the time of the Tower of Babel (Genesis 11:1-9; Mosiah 28:17, Journal of Discourses 3: 100 (Orson Pratt)).

You’ll recall that the Jaredites (Book of Mormon people whose history comprises the Book of Ether) descended from people who were present at the tower of Babel Mosiah 28:17, Ether 1:33). You’ll further recall that the central event of the story of the Tower of Babel is that God made everybody forget their (Adamic) language, “counfounded” their languages, and scattered the people (Genesis 11: 7-9; Ether 1:33).

Jared somehow had foreknowledge of what God was about to do, so asked his brother to ask God to spare them and their friends (Ether 1: 33-37). God listened and agreed. Consequently, the language that the Jaredites carried to the new world was the Adamic language—unreadable to the Nephites who discovered the 24 gold Jaredite plates (the as yet unnamed Book of Ether) and Urim and Thummim amongst the ruins of the final Jaredite battle (Mosiah 8: 8-11).[i]

King Mosiah translated the plates, by use of the Urim and Thummin (Mosiah 28: 11-13), but after telling his people all about it, apparently didn’t write it down (Mosiah 28: 17-19), because the written account of Ether was re-translated by Moroni (Ether 1: 1-2).

Now the question of the sealed portion of the Book of Mormon. The sealed portion is a vision that the Brother of Jared had of “all things from the foundation of the world unto the end thereof” (2^nd Nephi 27: 10-11), and “all the inhabitants of the earth which had been, and also all that would be…even unto the ends of the earth.” (Ether 3: 25). And where does it fit into the Book of Mormon? In the first few verses of Ether 4 where Moroni says (4) Behold, I have written upon these plates the very things which the brother of Jared saw; and there never were greater things made manifest than those which were made manifest unto the brother of Jared. (5) Wherefore the Lord hath commanded me to write them; and I have written them. And he commanded me that I should seal them up…”

And here’s where it raises an interesting question to me.

“…and he also hath commanded that I should seal up the interpretation thereof…”

It appears that Moroni wrote a translation in addition to transcribing the original. The original, being in the Adamic language, would be impossible to read without divine assistance:

God, speaking to the Brother of Jared:

(Ether 3: 22) [w]hen ye shall come unto me, ye shall write them and shall seal them up, that no one can interpret them; for ye shall write them in a language that they cannot be read. (23) And behold, these two stones will I give unto thee, and ye shall seal them up also with the things which ye shall write. (24) For behold, the language which ye shall write I have confounded; wherefore I will cause in my own due time that these stones shall magnify to the eyes of men these things which ye shall write. (27)… write these things and seal them up…(28)… the Lord commanded him that he should seal up the two stones which he had received, and show them not, until the Lord should show them unto the children of men. (italics added).

(Note the above use of the term “confounded.” It is the same term found in the accounts of the Tower of Babel (Genesis 11: 7, 9; Ether 1:33; Mosiah 28:7)—the language being confounded was the pre-Babel language (Gen 11:1), in LDS theology the Adamic language).

So if he included the original Adamic text, in order for it to be read in the future (when the sealed portion would be revealed), it would be necessary for Moroni to include the Urim and Thummim. And that is precisely what he does. In Ether 4: 5, Moroni adds that “I have sealed up the interpreters, according to the commandment of the Lord.”

My reading of this is that Moroni transcribed the translated the original into Moroni’s written language (Reformed Egyptian), transcribed the original in the original language (Adamic), and sealed it up, and included the Urim and Thummim in order to read the original Adamic text, which he admired so much (Ether 12:24).

Implication:

It appears to me that although the Church claims that it takes no official statement on Evolution, the acceptance of the reality of Sealed Portion of the Book of Mormon, at minimum is one of the many items tying the Church to an acceptance of a literal reality of Adam and Eve. A position that seems at odds to evolution to me…

 

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[i] They were lucky to stumble across the plates really, because in that final battle, one side alone suffered 2 million losses, plus their wives, plus their children (Ether 15:2). And that is one side, so double that. What’s that? 6 million deaths in that final battle. Yet an expedition of 43 explorers (Mosiah 8:7) luckily found them).