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The first and biggest problem in Ether 4 is that Jared’s brother has some sort of meeting with God, and God tells him to write down the experience, but then we are told, “they were forbidden to come unto the children of men cuntil after that he should be lifted up upon the cross; and for this cause did king Mosiah keep them, that they should not come unto the world until after Christ should show himself unto his people. 2 And after Christ truly had showed himself unto his people he commanded that they should be made manifest.“There are several issues with this brief section.
- First, there is the illogic of Jared writing this down, and it being kept sacred and revered by all the descendants down to the time of the last Jaredite, yet none of them knew what was contained in it (since it didn’t “come unto the world”) — though Ether must have known it because he included it in the record on the 24 gold plates.
- Next is the apparent contradiction with Mosiah 28:17, which says that Mosiah translated the plates (which would apparently include this section), and that the people heard the account and mourned. (I suspect that the Mormon would say that they were only told the outline, or that this part was kept from them; however, the passage doesn’t sound like that at all.)
- Going along with the last point is a near-repeat of the first point. Let’s say that somehow Mosiah did translate it but didn’t tell anybody. How is it that the account was kept as part of the Scriptures, but nobody else in this highly religious community that read the Scriptures ever read this?
- Then why would this be kept from the people? Especially since what we’re told in the vision is basically what the prophets had been preaching since Lehi left Jerusalem! If anything, this would be a great confirmation of what the prophets of that day and before had said, if these ancient gold plates from an entirely different people also said the same thing.
- Finally, v2 indicates that Mosiah was still alive and king at the time Jesus appeared to the Nephites, though that contradicts the BOM timeline (since v2 says, “And after Christ truly had showed himself unto his people he commanded that they should be made manifest” — this puts Mosiah’s command as being given after Jesus’s appearance to the Nephites). But then again, the 1830 version had this as King Benjamin (Mosiah’s long-dead father), so what’s another contradiction?
V5 has Moroni saying that he has sealed up the interpreters, with the context indicating that they are with his plates — but JS didn’t apparently use them, so why were they included? [There are many conflicting reports on the dictation process, with some saying “stone in a hat” while others said some sort of “stone spectacles” (eyeglasses but with clear or white stones instead of glass); and even these stone specs were said to have been both too large for a man to wear like normal glasses, and also to have fit into a compartment within the leaves of the gold plates, though the plates were said to be about 4×6″ or 6×8″ in dimensions.]
This chapter also contains a couple of the many verses that show Modalism in the BOM.
V11 says people will know to do good because of the Spirit, and that this is how they’ll know that the BOM is true. Then, v12 says that whatever persuades men to do good is from God, which reminds me of the problems I spoke of recently in Evil and Sealing in Helaman 10. Particularly for this passage, the problem is that people may do something that is considered “good”, for a great many reasons that aren’t so “good”, including pride and self-interest.
V16 clearly indicates that the events of the book of Revelation will happen soon after the coming forth of the BOM, but here it is, nearly 200 years later, and we don’t seem to be any closer to it.
Finally, the “longer ending of Mark”, which many scholars believe to have been not original to the gospel, but later added to it is included here, which is awkward if those scholars are correct and it wasn’t actually originally inspired by God.
TOYBOM: The One Year Book of Mormon 
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