The Brother of Jared “Within the Veil”—Parallels to the LDS Temple Endowment

In May 2019, President Nelson boldly declared that “Adam and Eve, Noah and his wife, Abraham and Sarah, Lehi and Sariah, and all other devoted disciples of Jesus Christ—since the world was created—have made the same covenants with God. They have received the same ordinances that we as members of the Lord’s restored Church today have made: those covenants that we receive at baptism and in the temple” (“Come, Follow Me” [italics in original]). The Brother of Jared’s spiritual journey back into God’s presence, “within the veil” (Ether 3:13), mirrors the journey we symbolically reenact in the temple endowment, the same covenantal journey other ancient prophets made according to President Nelson, including Adam, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, Lehi and Nephi. Each of them “saw Jesus,” who “ministered unto” them as He did unto the Brother of Jared (Ether 3:20). The process the Brother of Jared and every prophet has followed to receive this ultimate of all “heavenly gifts” (Ether 12:8) of entering into the presence of God is nothing less than the covenant path, which culminates in the ordinances of the House of the Lord.

Gospel scholars[1] highlight a number of parallels between Moroni’s account of the Brother of Jared’s experience and temple themes highlighted throughout the scriptures and in resources the Church has provided to explain the nature and purpose of temple ordinances. The following are just a few of many examples:

Themes of Creation, Fall, Apostasy and Restoration through Prophets and Apostles. In its “Overview of the Endowment,” the Church describes how, “during the ordinance, events that are part of the plan of salvation are presented,” including “the Creation of the world, the Fall of Adam and Eve, the Atonement of Jesus Christ, the Apostasy, and the Restoration.” That the Jaredites, including the civilization’s last prophet, Ether, were well-versed in these themes is evident from Moroni’s statement that “the first part” of Ether’s record spoke “concerning the creation of the world, and also of Adam, and an account from that time even to the great tower” (Ether 1:3). Moroni’s description of the Brother of Jared as “a man highly favored of the Lord” (Ether 1:34) suggests that he and his faithful family and friends doubtless also had access to these records. Certainly they were no strangers to the principle of faith in God (and the true nature of God, as evidenced by the Brother of Jared’s request that the Lord “touch these stones with thy finger”). Their faith was evidenced, among many other acts of obedience, by their diligence in prayer. When Jared saw that “the word of the Lord” was being fulfilled that the people “should be scattered upon all the face of the earth” after He “confounded the language of the people,” Jared asked his brother to “cry unto the Lord” (Ether 1:33-34). That Jared, who appears to be the social or political leader of the group, looked to his brother to approach the Lord suggests to me that the Brother of Jared possibly held some ecclesiastical office to which his family looked for spiritual leadership (possibly suggesting that the priesthood and ecclesiastical organization established by Noah and Shem after the flood extended to this part of the world, at least among these faithful “members”). Moreover, in his later fervent prayer for light for their barges, the Brother of Jared tells the Lord that “because of the fall our natures have become evil continually” (Ether 3:2), indicating that he clearly understood the doctrine of the Fall and in all likelihood its complementary doctrine, the Atonement of Jesus Christ.[2]

In any event, Jared and his brother’s story begins with a society suffering the full effects of the Fall, being in abject apostasy. M. Catherine Thomas of BYU’s Ancient Scripture Department notes that Babylon, “by ancient tradition, . . . was inspired by Nimrod, the grandson of Noah.” “The name babel means, in Akkadian, ‘gate of God’ and is a play on the Hebrew balal, meaning ‘to mix or confound.’ It is apparent then that the tower of Babel was a counterfeit gate of God, or temple, that Ham's priesthood-deprived descendants built in rebellion against God.”[3]

Notwithstanding the evil environment in which the Brother of Jared and his family and friends lived, it is clear that they rejected Babylon’s apostate religion, false priesthood and false temple. Rather, they sought to be carried by the Lord “into a land which is choice above all the earth” and to “be faithful unto the Lord,” that they might “receive it for [their] inheritance” (Ether 1:38). In granting the desire of their hearts, we are reminded of the Lord’s pattern to call prophets and restore His gospel. As He did for the Jaredites, Jehovah promised to lead Abraham, his family and friends “into a strange land” (Ab. 1:16) and to lead Moses and the children of Israel out of Egypt to their promised land. In short, the Lord called Jared and his brother to lead a new dispensation, as he had Adam, Enoch, Noah, Abraham, Moses, Lehi and Joseph Smith, in each case restoring His gospel. As part of his prophetic preparation, the Lord showed the Brother of Jared “all the inhabitants of the earth, . . . even unto the ends of the earth” (Ether 3:25), as he had to Enoch and would to Moses, indeed, showing him “all things” (Ether 12:21). The most important of “all things” the Lord could have shown him, of course, would have been the fulness of His gospel, including, no doubt, the first ordinance of the gospel, baptism.

Theme of Baptism. The Apostle Paul described how the Israelites, in passing through the Red Sea and being led by the Lord in a cloud “were all baptized . . . in the cloud and the sea” and “drank of that spiritual Rock [who] was Christ” (1 Cor. 10:1-4). Modern-day revelation describes how Moses “plainly taught to the children of Israel in the wilderness” the doctrine of Christ, including the vital role of the “ordinances [of] and the authority of the priesthood” to obtaining the “power of godliness” so that they might be “sanctified” and “behold the face of God” (D&C 84:20-23). These scriptural references reinforce President Nelson’s teaching that, even though largely lost to the Old Testament, the ordinance of baptism was as central to the Israelites and all ancient Saints as it is to us today. Likewise, the images of water and immersion that Moroni laced into his narrative of how the Lord “continually” directed the Jaredites as they “cross[ed] many waters” (Ether 2:6), were “encompassed about by the floods” (Ether 3:2; see also Ether 2:20) and were “buried in the depths of the sea” (Ether 6:6) suggest that he understood the importance of baptism not only in the Jaredites’ spiritual journey, but in the Nephites’ and our spiritual journeys as well.

Passing Through the Veil and Entering the Presence of the Lord. “The Church’s ‘Temples’ page describes” “the culminating experience of the endowment ordinance . . . as [patrons] ‘symbolically return to the Lord’s presence as they enter the celestial room.’”[4] In the temple, President Nelson taught, “we learn how to part the veil” (“Hear Him,” April 2020). Similarly, the brother of Jared’s encounter with the Lord happens on a mountain, which scripture often associate with temples (for example, the “mountain of the Lord,” “mountain of the Lord’s house,” and the “holy mountain” in Isaiah 2:2–3; 30:29; 65:11; 66:20; Daniel 9:20; Joel 2:1; Zechariah 8:3). Significantly, the name of this particular mountain, Shelem, also has temple connotations. As Thomas points out, in Hebrew “shelem has reference to the peace offering of the law of sacrifice, which corresponds to the seeking of fellowship with God . . .. When the brother of Jared carried the stones in his hands to the top of the mount, whether or not a temple peace offering is implied, he sought a closer fellowship or at-one-ment with the Lord.”[5].

The record does not say whether, when the Brother of Jared arrived at the “top of the mount,” where he “cried again unto the Lord” (Ether 3:1), that the Lord “stood in a cloud” as He had in the Valley of Nimrod (Ether 2:4), as they travelled in the wilderness (verse 5) and when he was “chastening” the Brother of Jared after their arrival at the “great sea” (Ether 2:13-14). Nevertheless, it is clear when he asked the Lord to “touch these stones with thy finger” and the Lord “stretched forth his hand and touched the stones one by one with his finger,” the veil then being “taken [partially] off” the Brother of Jared’s eyes (Ether 3:4, 6), that the Brother of Jared is approaching the Lord at what Thomas calls the “cloud-veil”[6]. Through that veil, the Lord then asks a series of questions, to which the Brother of Jared responds, which further strengthen his faith and desire, culminating in his request to “show thyself unto me” (Ether 3:10). In other words, the Brother of Jared seeks to enter into the Lord’s presence. The Lord then “brings” him “back into [His] presence,” showing Himself unto him (verse 13) and “ministering” unto him “even as he ministered unto the Nephites” (verse 18). What did the Savior minister to the Nephites? “Gospel scholars have shown [that] Jesus’s teachings in 3 Nephi [can be read] as ‘a sacred, ancient temple experience,’ as ‘teachings, instructions, doctrines and commandments’ given ‘in connection with or in preparation for’ the types of ceremonies we associate with our temple experience.” [7] “The pattern [followed by] the brother of Jared,” Sister Thomas concludes, “points the way” for our temple experiences. “Having rejected all counterfeit worship, having pushed on past all comfortable way-stations, having sacrificed to come up to the full measure of obedience to the Lord, the brother of Jared received his endowment on the top of mount Shelem, where the Savior of the world sealed him his,” meaning that he also received the Second Comforter or had his calling and election made sure.[8]

Exaltation and Eternal Family Life. Moroni returned to the temple theme of “seeing” God or having our calling and election made sure as he concluded the Book of Ether. After reading about “the great and marvelous things” Ether prophesied (Ether 12:5) (which tells as much about Ether’s spiritual stature) and no doubt recalling the equally marvelous things that were contained in the “first part” of Ether’s record (Ether 1:3), including possibly first-hand accounts of the amazing lives and works of Adam, Enoch, Noah and other faithful early-day Saints, Moroni is led to exclaim: “And there were many whose faith was so exceedingly strong, even before Christ came, who could not be kept from within the veil, but truly saw with their eyes the things which they had beheld with an eye of faith, and they were glad” (Ether 12:19). This ultimate “heavenly gift,” Moroni explains, to see, and be admitted back into the presence of, the Lord, in essence to be assured of eternal life in the Celestial Kingdom of God, is available to all of us through the covenants and ordinances of the gospel. “Wherefore, ye,” Moroni declares, speaking to us, “may also have hope, and be partakers of [this] gift, if ye will but have faith” (Ether 12:9). We also, like “they of old,” can be “called after the holy order of God” (Ether 12:10). What did Moroni mean? “To enter into the [holy] order of the Son of God,” President Ezra Taft Benson explained, “is the equivalent today of entering into the fulness of the Melchizedek Priesthood, which is only received in the house of the Lord,” meaning the new and everlasting covenant of marriage.[9] Moroni seems to be echoing President Nelson’s statement that ALL “devoted disciples of Jesus Christ—since the world was created—have made the same covenants with God” and “received the same ordinances that we as members of the Lord’s restored Church today” receive, including the crowning ordinances of the temple.

For me, one of the great lessons from the experience of the Brother of Jared (as well as all other patriarchs and prophets we read about in the Old Testament and the Pearl of Great Price) is that the same “everlasting gospel” (Rev. 14:6), with its eternal covenants and ordinances, has been available to bless, lift and exalt God’s children from the very beginning. As President Nelson has reminded us, “temple ordinances and covenants are ancient.”[10] Think about it! How many “devoted disciples of Jesus Christ” were there during the first four dispensations from 4000 B.C. to the time of Christ, who, according to President Nelson, would have been endowed, sealed to their families and “were with Christ in his resurrection” (D&C 133:54-55), meaning that they already have come forth in the “morning of the first resurrection” as promised during the sealing ordinance?[11] If they could endure faithfully in their difficult and challenging circumstances, then so we can we! The Brother of Jared’s ultimate triumph (and the triumph of all the faithful Saints of past dispensations) assures us that we “may also have hope” that if we “but have faith,” enduring faithfully to the end of our lives, we also will be partakers of God’s greatest “heavenly gift” (Ether 12:9)—eternal life!

[1] See, for example, M. Catherine Thomas, “The Brother of Jared at the Veil,” in Temples of the Ancient World: Ritual and Symbolism, ed. Donald W. Parry (Salt Lake City, Utah: Deseret Book and FARMS, 1994), 388, www.ldsscriptureteach-ings.org/staging/4108/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/Temples-of-the-Ancient-World-Ritual-and-Symbolism-Parry-full-text.pdf; Thomas R. Valletta, “Jared and His Brother,” in The Book of Mormon: Fourth Nephi Through Moroni, From Zion to Destruction, eds. Charles D. Tate Jr. and Monte S. Nyman, BYU Religious Studies Center, 1995, 303-22, https://rsc.byu.edu/book-mormon-fourth-nephi-through-moroni-zion-destruction/jared-his-brother; “Why did Moroni Use Temple Imagery While Telling the Brother of Jared Story?”, Scripture Central, August 21, 2019, https://scripturecentral.org/knowhy/why-did-moroni-use-temple-imagery-while-telling-the-brother-of-jared-story. [2] See Stephen L. Fluckiger, Drawing Upon the Spiritual Treasures of the Temple (Springville, Utah: CFI, an Imprint of Cedar Fort, Inc.), 157-59. [3]Thomas, 389. [4] Fluckiger, Drawing, 209. [5] Thomas,390. [6] Ibid. [7] Fluckiger, Drawing, 103-04, quoting John W. Welch, Illuminating the Sermon at the Temple & the Sermon on the Mount: An Approach to 3 Nephi 11–18 and Matthew 5–7 (Provo, Utah: Foundation for Ancient Research and Mormon Studies, 1999), 5. [8] Thomas, 394-96. For additional information about how the temple prepares us to see the face of God and enter into His presence, the Second Comforter and having our calling and election made sure, see Fluckiger, Drawing, 279-84. [9] Thomas, 393,  quoting Ezra Taft Benson, "What I Hope You Will Teach Your Children about the Temple," Ensign (August 1985), 6. For a discussion of the “fulness of the priesthood,” see Fluckiger, Drawing, 284-87. [10] Russell M. Nelson, “The Temple and Your Spiritual Foundation,” Liahona, November 2021, 93. One way to appreciate the antiquity of temple ordinances is to look for evidence of counterfeit priesthoods and ordinances in antiquity. In Moses’s account, after Adam and Eve were baptized and confirmed and Adam ordained to the holy priesthood (Moses 5:9; 6:64-67), and “made all things [they had received from God] known unto their sons and their daughters,” Satan “came among them, saying: I am also a son of God; and he commanded them, saying: Believe it not; and they believed it not, and they loved Satan more than God” (Moses 5:13). Moroni’s statement that the 24 gold plates comprising Ether’s record contained an account “of Adam . . even [down] to the great tower” (Ether 1:2), together with other statements in the record (for example, the daughter of Jared’s reference in Ether 8:9 to the “secret plans” of “them of old” and Akish’s administration described in verse 15 of “the oaths which were given by them of old”) suggest that the Jaredite civilization possessed a detailed account of early gospel dispensations, including the false or perverted temple themes (beginning with Cain) we see in both the Book of Moses and Genesis. In those accounts, we read how Cain and his followers “make ‘oaths’ and ‘covenants’ with Satan,” which are “made in ‘secret,’ . . . ratified through bloodshed (including that of Abel)” and included, among other things, perversions of the laws of God, eg., perverting the true law of sacrifice (ie. sacrificing “selfish desires”) for the false sacrifices practiced by Akish and other Jaredites, as well as the Gadianton Robbers who figure so prominently in the Book of Mormon, such as human sacrifice, wholesale murder of the victims of their robberies and even sacrificing or killing members of their own secret societies who betrayed their perverted oaths. See Ploni Almoni, A Latter-day Saint Blog, “Gadiantonism as a Counterfeit Temple Priesthood, July 25, 2017, https://www.plonialmonimormon.com/2017/07/gadiantonism-as-counterfeit-temple.html; see also Jeffrey M. Bradshaw, Temple Themes in the Book of Moses, Eborn Publishing, 2010.

[11]“One of the blessings pronounced upon those who are sealed in the temple for time and all eternity is the power to come forth ‘in the morning of the first resurrection’, [receiving] celestial bodies [and the] celestial kingdom.” Doctrines of the Gospel Teacher Manual, “Chapter 32: The Resurrection and the Judgment,” quoting Bruce R. McConkie, Mormon Doctrine, 640. Among the individuals described by the Lord in Doctrine and Covenants Section 133, who received their exaltation at the time of Christ’s resurrection, include “Enoch also, and they who were with him; the prophets who were before him; and Noah also, and they who were before him; and Moses also, and they who were before him; And from Moses to Elijah, and from Elijah to John [the Baptist], who were with Christ in his resurrection, and the holy apostles, with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob” (D&C 133:54). Each of these mighty prophets, as our prophets today, had immense influence. It is hard not to believe that there may have been thousands, perhaps in the aggregate even millions of, as President Nelson described them, “devoted disciples of Jesus Christ” during earlier dispensations of the gospel who have already received their exaltation. In any event, we know, as Alma described in Alma 13:12 (and remembering that he also, like the Brother of Jared, had unadulterated accounts of those early Saints in the Brass Plates), that “there were many” before Alma’s time, “exceedingly great many, who were made pure and entered into the rest [presence] of their Lord.”

For example, the First Dispensation, from 4000-3313 B.C. (687 years), led by Adam, included the patriarchs Seth, Enos, Cainan, Malaheel, Jared, their wives and righteous friends, neighbors and posterity. The Second Dispensation, from 3313- approx. 2344 B.C. (969 years), led by Enoch, whose people were translated, also included the patriarchs Methuselah, Lamech, their wives and righteous friends and posterity. The Third Dispensation, led by Noah, from 2344-1917 B.C. (427 years), included the great patriarch Shem (who possibly was the King of Salem or Melchizedek, who ordained Abraham) and the 10 generations from Noah to Terah, Abraham’s father. Ether, a righteous descendant of Jared, reminds us that during the 1600 or so years of the Jaredite dispensation (2200-600 B.C.) there no doubt were many faithful “rank and file” members of Christ’s church that He no doubt instructed the Brother of Jared to establish from the very beginning of that divinely directed civilization. Likewise, consider the faithful members who were “gathered” during the 430 years of Abraham’s dispensation (the Fourth Dispensation from 1917-1487 B.C.), the 1517 years of Moses’ dispensation (the Fifth Dispensation from 1487 to the time of Christ) and the 600 years before Christ of the Lehi-Nephite Dispensation. (Dates of the dispensations are taken from “Gospel Dispensations,” https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/bc/content/shared/content/images/gospel-library/manual/32489/32489_000_004_06_dispensation.pdf.) Images Unsplash Ales Krivec; Painting Robert T. Barrett, “Brother of Jared See the Finger of the Lord,” LDS Church.