As Moroni writes, he is in the north countries. He specifically notes that the book of Ether concerns the ancient inhabitants who were “upon the face of this north country.” Moroni has implied that his father was among those who had gone into the land southward hoping (but not finding) escape from the Lamanite/Gadiantons (Mormon 8:2-3). It would be surprising if Moroni had not gone with his father. It would be a logical assumption that the event that took his father’s life was the impetus for Moroni to move from the land southward back to the land northward where he is currently writing.
Redaction: The introductory statement that Moroni makes at the beginning of Ether is unusual. As a general rule, the beginnings of chapters in the 1830 edition of the Book of Mormon have no different form than structural breaks inside of the chapters. The majority of the chapter breaks begin with “And now it came to pass” or simply “And now,” which are the typical markers of a conceptual break in the text. An interesting exception to this great category of structural markers is a set that begin with “behold,” or “Now behold.”
We find the “behold” beginning in the 1830 edition’s 2 Nephi 4 (current 2 Nephi 5:1). This is a transitional shift between an inserted discourse by Lehi, and the beginning of Nephi’s personal narrative of the history of the separation of the family. The next two times we find the “behold” beginning are in Enos 1:1 and Omni 1:1, with Jarom 1:1 having the slight variant, “now behold.” In each of these cases, the “behold beginning indicates a major shift in the text, and in the last three cases, a shift in author. For Nephi, the author was the same, but it marks a shift from reporting Lehi’s record to giving Nephi’s record.
When we have the beginning of the holographic record of Zeniff, it does not begin with a “behold,” but rather with “I, Zeniff” (current chapter Mosiah 9:1). This parallels the beginning of Nephi’s holographic record in 1 Nephi 1:1 which begins with the well known “I, Nephi.”
The “behold” beginning occurs in several chapters in Alma, but not at the beginning of the book of Alma. In the 1830 chapter 5 (current chapter Alma 7:1), the “behold” marks the beginning of an inserted sermon, and is therefore attached to the sermon, not Mormon’s description. The “behold” beginning next comes in the 1830 chapter 14 (current chapter Alma 23:1) where it marks the beginning of a new story line after a small narrative interruption by Mormon The ending of chapter 13 (current chapter Alma 22) indicates: “And no I , after having said this, return again to the account of Ammon, and Aaron, Omner and Himni, and their brethren.” In the 1830 chapter 16, the “behold” beginning marks the introduction of a new section of the story of the people of Ammon after the end of an inserted citation of Alma.
In the 1830 edition’s chapter 21 (current chapter Alma 45:1) we have an interesting transition. We have the end of the words of Alma in the book of Alma, and the beginning of the portion of the book of Alma written by his son, Helaman. As Helaman begins his section in the book of Alma, we have the introductory statement: “Behold, now it came to pass….” As a new writer in the same book, Mormon notes the transition with the “behold” beginning.
Other “behold” beginnings marking shifts in the text come at the 1830 edition’s chapters Alma 28 (current Alma 61), Helaman 3 (current Helaman 7), and 3 Nephi 8 (current 3 Nephi 17). Interestingly, however, we do not find Mormon beginning books with “behold.” For Mormon, his writing is a continuous set, and his abridgment beginnings are the more typical “and now it came to pass.” Extrapolating from the available data, we have the “behold” beginning for new sections that mark some distinct transition from one chapter or book to the next. Typically, these come either because of inserted copied texts where the “behold” beginning is associated with the original author, or we have them as introductions to new hands on the source plates. When Mormon is simply stringing together his narrative, he does not use that transition, but uses the same structural transitions that are apparent inside the chapters as well.
All of this information now brings us back to Moroni, our most recent hand on the plates. As a new writer, it is appropriate that he should have a “behold” beginning, and indeed we have that beginning when he writes on his father’s record, in the 1830 chapter Mormon 4:1 (current Mormon 8:1). This is a direct parallel to Helaman’s introduction of his section of his father Alma’s book.
So far, Moroni the writer has behaved in the expected manner. Of course we have only the one chapter of his writing, but he has introduced himself both my name and with the “new beginning” marker behold. His next writing that we have is this book of Ether. Although it follows Moroni’s conclusion to his father’s text, that does not necessarily mean that Moroni wrote Ether after he finished his father’s work. We expect that he did, but there is no overt textual indication of order, such as we have between the ending of the book of Ether and the beginning of the book of Moroni where he very clearly notes:
Moroni 1:1
…after having made an end of abridging the account of the people of Jared…
Even though he does not explicitly state the order, there are still textual clues that will assure us that Ether followed the conclusion of his father’s record.
The first clue is that there is no “behold’ beginning for the book of Ether. This is a completely new record written from a different source document, and completely outside of his father’s intended narrative. While Mormon likely intended Ether to be included, the structural evidence from the text suggests that it was to be included as an appendix, rather like the 1 Nephi to Omni material was also inserted as an addition to Mormon’s text, not as an integral part of the text. Thus we have an essentially new piece being added to the plates, but no structural marker of a beginning. There is no “behold” to clearly instruct us that this is new text.
In addition to the absence of the “behold,” we have the presence of yet another odd structural feature. Moroni tells us that: “…I, Moroni, proceed to give an account…” The structural function of the phrase “proceed to give an account” is to return to an interrupted narrative.
We have the first occurrence of this phrase in the 1 Nephi 10:1 after Nephi took a break in his narrative to explain the plates in our chapter 9, and then returns to his original theme. As he returns from this narrative interruption, he tells us: “And now I, Nephi, proceed to give an account…” A short interrupted narrative aside in 1 Nephi 19:2-5 (an aside occasioned by the historical setting of the command to create the plates in 1 Nephi 19:1) is followed with:
1 Nephi 19:5
5 And an account of my making these plates shall be given hereafter; and then, behold, I proceed according to that which I have spoken; and this I do that the more sacred things may be kept for the knowledge of my people.
Mormon uses this method or returning to an interrupted narrative in 3 Nephi:
3 Nephi 5:19
19 And now I make an end of my saying, which is of myself, and proceed to give my account of the things which have been before me.
This structural marker is used in situations where there is an interruption in the narrative, and the author is now picking up again on the intended thread. This makes the presence of this phrase at the very beginning of Ether 1 an interesting anomaly. There is not narrative thread of Ether to interrupt. It is a completely new source, topic, and book. However, there was apparently an interruption, but it is an interruption from Moroni’s perspective, not the text’s perspective.
If we use this textual information to reconstruct certain events, we can fill in some of the story of Moroni’s addition to Mormon’s record, and the book of Ether. Mormon had commanded his son to do certain things:
Mormon 8:1
1 Behold I, Moroni, do finish the record of my father, Mormon. Behold, I have but few things to write, which things I have been commanded by my father. (italics added)
Mormon commanded Moroni to write. The very first thing that would have been on Mormon’s mind was the conclusion to his message to the future generations. Therefore we can surmise that the first command was to finish the record, and we have Moroni’s addition to his father’s text as witness that he did that. Certainly we may expect that he finished his father’s work before he began any of his own after that point.
This would seem to suggest that Ether was written after, but there is still the possibility that Moroni could have been writing on Ether prior to receiving these commands to write from his father. The transition at the beginning of Ether tells us that Ether was written afterward, however. Moroni begins Ether with a structural element indicating the resumption of an interrupted narrative. Since the narrative was not interrupted, the interruption must have come from Moroni’s life. Therefore, we may presume that Mormon’s command to write included the abridgment of the book of Ether, and that events in Moroni’s life prevented him from picking up the task of writing Ether until some time had passed from the first task of concluding his father’s record.