Ether 2-6

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Home > The Book of Mormon > Ether > Chapters 1b-6

Subpages: Chapter 1b-2  •  3-5  •  6

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Summary

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Relationship to Ether. The relationship of Chapters 2-6 to the rest of Ether is discussed at Ether.

Story. Chapters 1b-6, the story of the initial founding of the Jaredites under Jared and his brother, consists of three major sections:

Message. Themes, symbols, and doctrinal points emphasized in Chapters 1b-6 include:

Discussion

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Relation between three parts of the story

  • Relation of all three parts. The promise of temporal salvation is obtained in the middle of 1:33-2:7 "because this long time have you cried unto me" (1:43), the statement of what it takes to save a nation temporally occurs in the middle of 1:33-2:25 (2:8-12), and the example of what it takes to save an individual spiritually occurs in the middle of the entire opening narrative (chapters 3-5).
  • Opening and closing narratives. Both of these narrative sections (1:33-2:7; 2:13-25) recount question and answer sessions between the Brother of Jared and the Lord, with the last answer of each session running into the next section of Moroni's message. In both cases the Brother of Jared makes increasingly less specific requests for divine intervention until his final request. Finally the Lord tells him to figure it out for himself.
In verses 2:4-7, the last episode before the promised land speech (2:8-12), Jared and his brother are in constant communication with the Lord, who leads them toward the promised land and will not suffer that they stop progressing until they arrive. In the parallel episode immediately following that speech (2:13-15), the Lord chastises the Brother of Jared because they quit communicating with the Lord and progressing toward the promised land.

Unanswered questions

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Prompts for life application

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Prompts for further study

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Resources

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Notes

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