KnoWhy #106 - What do the Jaredites Have to Do with the Reign of the Judges? (Mosiah 28:17)

Mosiah gives a number of justifications for eliminating kingship during the succession crisis of his last years, yet most of these reasons had no precedent in Nephite history. All of these, however, did have precedents among the civilization of the Jaredites, whose tragic tale had only recently been translated from gold plates by Mosiah himself. It is hard to imagine Joseph Smith drawing on the specific details of the Jaredite story he would not compose until later on. Additionally, seeing the historical grounding of this cautionary counsel makes Mosiah’s warning all the more potent as a forewarning to readers in the latter days.