Who is Coriantumr? Omni 1:21

Who is Coriantumr? Omni 1:21

Okay, so the Book of Mormon is actually a history of multiple civilizations of people who came from the Middle East to the American continent.

The first group left around the time of the tower of Babel. For more than you ever thought possible to know about Assyria and Babylonia, see this. And actually, if you think that is too long to read, maybe...don't try going into Ancient Near East Studies. There will be wayyyyy more of that.



The Confusion of Tongues by Paul Gustave Doré

But basically, Babel was the capital of Babylon. Remember the story of Noah and the flood, that you should probably have heard before at some point unless you've been living under a rock? Well Noah had a son named Ham, and Ham has a son named Cush, and Cush had a son named Nimrod. And Nimrod was the king of Babel. See Genesis 10. Greek historian Herodetus wrote about Babylon.

The Tower of Babel is another great Bible Classic, for all you non-rock-dwellers. Basically, the story is that the people of Babel were really wicked and decided to build a tower to get to heaven. The Lord was apparently really displeased with them for trying to do this, because the consequence of trying to build this tower was that instead, they were scattered and "their language was confounded."

Of course, that totally interests me, as a language lover. Soooo many questions about this.

But that's not the point.

The point is, there was this family there who was righteous. They begged the Lord to spare them from having their language confounded. One of the members of the family was named Jared. The Lord led Jared, his family, and his friends and their families to the American continent. Read about it here.

Jared's descendants sometimes keep the commandments and sometimes they do not. Eventually, they are really wicked, and eventually Coriantumr is born and becomes both the military leader and king of the Jaredites (see Ether 12). He is really wicked, and frankly, a prideful jerk who cared more about winning a war than preserving his people. He literally saw the deaths of everybody he loved.

Then, this other civilization of Nephites in Zarahemla finds Coriantumr and he lives with them for 9 months until he dies. The Nephites were some of the descendants of Lehi, who was led from Jerusalem to the Americas by God about 600 years before Christ's birth.

Answer:
Coriantumr was the king of the Jaredites until they were all killed because of his own stupid pride.

Sometimes the names of people in the Book of Mormon are confusing. There are a lot of Cori-whos-its.