The Brother Of Jared

[EarlJibbs]

I looked to see if this was asked already and I couldnt find a similar thread. So here goes. I have done little research on this so I wanted to turn to those that I think are vastly more educated than I am in gospel topics (YOU! ). Why is the Brother of Jared's name not mentioned in the BOM? Why not use his name?

[Vort]

His name (Moriancumr) is indeed mentioned in the Book of Mormon. He simply is not identified with the name, perhaps because Jared was the leader, so his important identifier is his relationship to his brother. I don't really understand why.

Note that another prominent (this time wicked) man, Nehor, is talked about without his name being mentioned until it is given almost as an aside when talking about his execution. Apparently, the "order of the Nehors" was so powerful and influential that Mormon decided to point out who the original Nehor was. Otherwise, his name might never have been given.

Not always obvious why names are or are not given in the Book of Mormon. For no obvious reason, we get the names of all the people who went on various missionary or exploratory journeys, yet have other characters of importance (e.g. the brother of Jared, the wife of Lamoni) who somehow don't rate a mention by name. Not sure what to make of that.

[EarlJibbs]

I at least knew that Mohonri Moriancumr was his name . But reading about him and his great faith leading up to him leading the expedition to the promise land is great. I think that the reference to Jared - since Jared was the one who directed him to pray that he and his friends wouldnt be confounded is important. It points out I think who he looked up to? I guess in reality the name may not be important, as long as we can take the lessons given out of it. My wife and I were just reading in Ether and I never really thought about it.

[NightSG]

It's an interesting parallel to a few other things in the Bible. Lot's wife is never named, and IIRC, (IOW, I'm too lazy to reach two feet for a Bible and look it up) only one of the synoptic gospels names the servant whose ear Simon Peter cut off, or names Simon Peter as the one doing the cutting, for that matter.

The brother of Jared is interesting in that he has so much mention only by relation, when he himself is particuarly significant, but leaving someone unnamed is not entirely unique in scripture.

[captmoroniRM]

We can only guess why "Brother of Jared" was prefered to his full name. One of the best ideas comes from a friend of my dad's who was a military linguist who learned several Arabic languages. The linguist said the Book of Mormon translated beautifully into Arabic. He also noted that many longer phrases like "And it came to pass" were only one or two characters in Arabic. We also know from Mormon's writings that their "reformed egyptian" was a very condensed languge, taking up less space than even Hebrew in order to maximize space on the plates (Mormon 9). He theorized, and it is very possible, that spelling out "Mohonri Moriancumr" took up more space on the plates than simply "The brother of Jared."

[MarginOfError]

So, essentially, Moroni was lazy.

Also, Moroni may have travelled several thousand miles in the course of 30 years while lugging around the gold plates. If we assume he was in hiding much of that time, coming by the resources to make new plates would have been challenging and so conserving space on the plates would have been important. Especially given the cost of making an error in inscribing the characters. A less challenging set of characters would probably be preferred to the more challenging set.

[Blackmarch]

Originally Posted by EarlJibbs

I looked to see if this was asked already and I couldnt find a similar thread. So here goes. I have done little research on this so I wanted to turn to those that I think are vastly more educated than I am in gospel topics (YOU! ). Why is the Brother of Jared's name not mentioned in the BOM? Why not use his name?

Probably because It took up a bunch more space than it did to write brother of jared, and or was more difficult to write.
altho in english, its not too much longer... i'd wager that in whatever language it was written that the difference was more significant.

[NightSG]

Originally Posted by Blackmarch

Probably because It took up a bunch more space than it did to write brother of jared, and or was more difficult to write.
altho in english, its not too much longer... i'd wager that in whatever language it was written that the difference was more significant.

Probably; consider that in a lot of languages of the time, a leader's name would often be a single character. (Presumably it would be written a lot, so this would be much more efficient.) Assuming that a common identifier like "brother of" would also be a single character, it would be two characters compared to whatever it would have taken to - most probably phonetically - spell out his full name.

[Vort]

The concept of "name" is also very fluid, and not at all uniform between cultures. We think of our name in a very personal way, as if our name somehow intimately defines us. This is silly, of course; we are no more defined by our name than by the shoes we wear, but that's how we think of it.

Many throughout history have thought of names in other ways. For example, in ancient Rome, women did not (originally) have proper names given to them. Rather, all daughters of Julius were called Julia; if one later married Lucius, she became Lucia.

We don't really know what the name "Mahonri Moriancumr" meant. Was it the name given him by his parents at birth? Was it a title he earned or that was bestowed, like Lord Fauntleroy? As far as we know, "the brother of Jared" may have been the most personal "name" he had.

[Blackmarch]

Originally Posted by Vort

The concept of "name" is also very fluid, and not at all uniform between cultures. We think of our name in a very personal way, as if our name somehow intimately defines us. This is silly, of course; we are no more defined by our name than by the shoes we wear, but that's how we think of it.

Many throughout history have thought of names in other ways. For example, in ancient Rome, women did not (originally) have proper names given to them. Rather, all daughters of Julius were called Julia; if one later married Lucius, she became Lucia.

We don't really know what the name "Mahonri Moriancumr" meant. Was it the name given him by his parents at birth? Was it a title he earned or that was bestowed, like Lord Fauntleroy? As far as we know, "the brother of Jared" may have been the most personal "name" he had.

To add to that in quite a few cultures names are comprised of parts that have meaning behind them.