Interesting Parallels Between the Book of Ether and the Old Testament

In the early chapters of Ether, we read of the destruction of the Tower of Babel, the confounding of the languages, and the Jaredite flight to the seashore, where they build barges to travel to a new land. 

Beginning in Ether 2:16, the Lord gives the Brother of Jared many instructions on the construction of the barges. They were to have peaked ends and were sealed tight, like unto a dish. In verse 20, we read that they were to make air holes in the top and bottom that could be stopped and unstopped as needed.

In verse 23, the Brother of Jared asks what to do for light in the barges. We have the popular footnote to the word “windows,” which takes us to Genesis 6:16, discussing the windows on Noah’s Ark.

The Lord asks what the Brother of Jared would like Him to do, and in chapter 3, he made sixteen crystal stones and asked the Lord to touch them and make them glow in the darkness. When the Lord obliged, the veil was lifted and the Brother of Jared was allowed to see His finger as He touched the stones. After this, he is permitted to see the Savior fully.

Going back to Genesis 6:16, the word used for “window” was the Hebrew word tsohar, which, rather than “window,” actually means “a light.” Rabbinical teachings explain that this was a precious stone that shone in the dark, giving light to the inhabitants inside. The word is taken from the root word tsahar, which means “to glisten.” The other 23 times the word tsohar is used in the Bible, it’s translated as “noon,” or “the noonday sun.” Genesis 8:6 refers again to a window, but this time, the word used was challon,which actually does mean “window”.

In the Talmud (TB Sanhedrin 108b), Noah used precious jewels and stones to light the Ark. The Pirkê de-Rabbi Eliezer (PRE) states that those stones are in fact glowing pearls, and that Noah also sees the finger of God while receiving the instructions to build the Ark, exactly like the Brother of Jared did (PRE 23). Therefore, Noah had a source of glistening light in the Ark, and several sources specifically say that the light came in the form of glowing, precious stones.

In the Epic of Gilgamesh and other Sumerian and Akkadian legends about the Great Flood, the boat is described as being a square cube, rather than a rectangle like Genesis describes. This boat is also said in some of the legends to have had peaked ends, was without sails, was completely enclosed/sealed, and is said to have gone underwater, just like the Jaredite barges. In fact, the Epic of Gilgamesh (Tablet XI) even describes water plugs in the middle of the boat to keep out the water, similar to those mentioned in Ether 2:20.

In Jonah 1:17, it explains that the Lord had prepared a great fish for Jonah. The PRE (PRE 10) and the Zohar (Zohar Exodus 2:48a) each explain that this fish had eyes like windows of glass that also shone “in the noonday sun.” The PRE claims that these eyes allowed Jonah to see outside, and that the fish somehow spoke to Jonah and showed him different underwater sights. The Zohar gives a different explanation – that the glowing stone itself is what “made visible to him all the wonders of the deep,” just like a seer stone might do.

Further similarities in the circumstances and language used in Ether 3 and Jonah 2 are highlighted in a blog post from BookOfMormonCentral.org.

*Just as an aside, the PRE was first translated into English in 1916; the Talmud was first translated into English in 1921; and the Zohar was first translated into English in an incomplete volume in 1887, while the full copy was not translated into English until it was published in chunks between 1995-2005. Joseph Smith could not have used any of them as source material if he had written the Book of Mormon himself.