What's With the Ages of the Patriarchs? (Final)

In my first post in this series I brought up reasons why the ages of the ancient patriarchs (and numbers in general) in Genesis should be approached with caution. In my second post I showed how a straightforward reading of the ages results in problems of scriptural consistency. But this still leaves us with D&C 107:41-53, a revelation to Joseph Smith that gives support to the long ages of the patriarchs. I will admit up front that I don't have a tidy solution, but maybe we can nibble around the edges of the problem.

First let's look at these verses more closely. The ages at which the various patriarchs down to Noah were ordained to the Priesthood are given, and range from 10 years old to 496. Two of the ages stand out: Enos was ordained at 134 years and 4 months, and Mahalaleel at 496 years and 7 days(!). Why are we given such specificity for these two obscure prophets? Also notice that Enoch was ordained at 25 and blessed at 65. This blessing cannot refer to Adam's final blessing, as a look at the graphs in my second post shows. Is it coincidence that this blessing by Adam, the birth of Methuselah, and the founding of Zion all occurred when Enoch was 65? The text mentions that "God called upon Cainan...in the fortieth year of his age," and Enoch's ordination and blessing were also 40 years apart. The number 40 plays a prominent role in the Bible. For example Moses: was 40 years old when he first visited the Hebrews, spent 40 years as a shepherd, led Israel in the desert for 40 years, was on the mountain for 40 days, etc. Finally, perhaps it's also worth pointing out that these verses are somewhat in tension with D&C 84:15-16, which gives a different impression as to who ordained whom.

Now let's look at historical context. This portion of D&C 107 was received in March (or maybe April) of 1835. Perhaps it is not coincidence that just 2-3 months before, Joseph was helping to prepare the Lectures on Faith for publication. The Lectures on Faith had been composed the previous November, and they were selected for inclusion in the 1835 edition of the Doctrine and Covenants, which was published in August of that year. Although Sidney Rigdon is thought to have done most, if not all, of the actual composition, it seems clear that Joseph oversaw their contents.

The Lectures on Faith are of interest here because the second lecture dwells at length on the ages of the various patriarchs and their relationships to one another. A passage that seems to foreshadow D&C 107:53 says,

So that Lamech, the father of Noah, Methuselah, Enoch, Jared, Mahalaleel, Cainan, Enos, Seth, and Adam, were all living at the same time, and beyond all controversy, were all preachers of righteousness.

This brings us to the changes to the patriarchal ages made in the JST. The Book of Moses was written in 1830-31, and it followed the Old Testament in the ages it used. Sometime later (apparently after August 1831), Oliver Cowdery marked changes to the ages on one of the source manuscripts of the JST. However, except for the ages for Enoch, these changes were apparently removed by Joseph Smith III during publication, which is why they are also absent from our Book of Moses. As can be seen in my last post, it appears that the most important effect of these changes was to push Lamech's birth to after Adam's death, which fits better with D&C 107:53. Were these changes pure revelation? Were they adjustments made to correct perceived inconsistencies? What is their relationship to D&C 107 (especially the age of Enoch)? And why were they not included in the Lectures on Faith?

Perhaps the key to another way of looking at this scripture is verse 57.

These things were all written in the book of Enoch, and are to be testified of in due time.

Perhaps when the unknown book of Enoch was written these ages had symbolic or numerological significance that is lost to us. Under this hypothesis Joseph revealed contents of an ancient text, the real meaning of which remains cryptic to us.

But what about Adam's meeting with so many generations of his lineal descendants? There are several potential answers:

1. Such a thing would technically be possible even with non-miraculous documented lifespans of up to 120 years.

2. Returning to my first post, it may be that the relationships were not all strictly lineal.

3. It's possible that some of the detail is actually based on assumptions made by Joseph. It might be that the actual revelation was simply that Adam assembled and blessed his posterity, and that Joseph filled in the details of names based on his familiarity with the kinds of details contained in the Lectures on Faith?

Admittedly these ideas are not the most natural way to read D&C 107. However, the point of all of this is not to force a conclusion on whether the patriarchs lived for hundreds of years, or whether D&C 107 is right or wrong--or right in an unexpected way. Rather, my purpose has been simply to think creatively and raise possibilities. Since a straightforward reading of the scriptures dealing with the patriarchal ages leads to contradictions, it seems that creative thinking is required whether you think the ages are real or not.

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