EVIDENCE: Joseph’s Rent Garment (Alma 46:21–24)

Ed J. Pinegar, Richard J. Allen

When Captain Moroni tore out a piece of his garment and created a standard (the title of liberty) to gather his troops, he stated that his people were “a remnant of the seed of Joseph, whose coat was rent by his brethren into many pieces.” However, in the biblical account, there is no indication that Joseph’s brothers tore his garment, though when they gave it to Jacob he cried out that his son had been “rent in pieces” (Genesis 37:33). Fascinatingly, one other document indicates that the brothers did indeed tear Joseph’s garment, and this document is part of a thirteenth-century collection of early Jewish stories. In Jasher 43:13, we read, “And they hastened and took Joseph’s coat and tore it, and they killed a kid of the goats and dipped the coat into the blood of the kid, and then tramped it in the dust, and they sent the coat to their father Jacob.” Since Joseph Smith did not have access to the Book of Jasher until it was published in English in 1840, it is apparent that the Book of Mormon and the Book of Jasher share an ancient tradition. (See Echoes, 236–238.)

Commentaries and Insights on the Book of Mormon, Vol. 2

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