Who Was Jared In The Book Of Mormon?

According to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints' (LDS) Book of Ether, Jared was a patriarch who lived at the time of the Tower of Babel. When God came down to confound the language of men and scatter them across the Earth, Jared led his people out from the tower. He asked that his own family and his closest friends might be allowed to keep understanding one another.

Like Moses with Aaron, Jared had a brother whom he relied on to be his voice. In their case, though, the brother was nameless in the text (Joseph Smith later claimed his name was Mahonri Moriancumer), and instead of using him to pass God's word onto others, Jared had his brother speak to God on his behalf. It was the brother of Jared who delivered the prayer to save their language, and who asked where they were to go after the fall of the Tower of Babel. God sends them on to the "promised land" – the Americas in Mormon teaching — and promises that their people will become the greatest of nations.

The brother is the more prominent of the siblings in the Book of Ether, though their people are called the Jaredites. They were the second of the four groups of people under the covenant that Mormons believe journeyed to the New World. Upon arrival, the brother was given a spiritual vision of Jesus Christ and ordered to write down a secret account, to be revealed after Christ's incarnation.