The Patriachs

In Moses 6 and Moses 8 we have information about how long some of the patriarchs lived and how old they were when their sons were born. Using this and counting from year 0 when Adam became mortal, we get these years for births and deaths of the early patriarchs:

One of the questions I was trying to answer when doing this was who was alive at the time of the flood. Using the same chronology, the flood occurred when Noah was 600 years old, which means in year 1656. Interesting, that is the same year that Methuselah, Noah’s grandfather, died. Lamech, Noah’s father, died just five years before that. So all of the patriarchs before Noah were gone by the time the flood happened, which explains why none of them were on it with him. I also compared the numbers with the same text in Genesis, and they mostly match except for Enoch from what I can tell. In Genesis we read, “And Enoch lived sixty and five years, and begat Methuselah: And Enoch walked with God after he begat Methuselah three hundred years, and begat sons and daughters: And all the days of Enoch were three hundred sixty and five years” (Genesis 5:21-23). In Moses we have this: “And Enoch lived sixty-five years, and begat Methuselah…. And all the days of Enoch were four hundred and thirty years” (Moses 6:25, 8:1). They are off by sixty-five years for the end of Enoch’s mortality, which suggests perhaps that the Genesis account meant to say that the days of Enoch after he begat Methuselah were 365 years instead of “all the days” of Enoch being that long. More interesting is the fact that in Genesis we have four verses to cover Enoch’s life, and in the Moses account we have about 115 verses. How blessed we are to have the incredible story and teachings in Moses 6-7 that cover his life!

             In Doctrine and Covenants 107 we have more information about these patriarchs and the years at which they obtained the priesthood. In verses 42-52 we learn of the ordinations of Seth, Enos, Cainan, Mahaleleel, Jared, Enoch, Methuselah, Lamech, and Noah, and I included the dates above as well. A few things of note include the fact that Adam was alive at the birth of Enoch and actually ordained him; Noah’s father Lamech was alive at the same time as Adam, his sixth-great-grandfather, and all the other patriarchs before him; and Jared, Enoch, and Methuselah were all ordained before Mahalaleel who came before them. One of the most interesting parts of the account in the Doctrine and Covenants is this story: “Three years previous to the death of Adam, he called Seth, Enos, Cainan, Mahalaleel, Jared, Enoch, and Methuselah, who were all high priests, with the residue of his posterity who were righteous, into the valley of Adam-ondi-Ahman, and there bestowed upon them his last blessing.” This was in the year 927, and all the patriarchs before Noah were alive at that time. Interestingly, the list of people there who were high priests does not mention Lamech who was ordained twenty-one years earlier, and we don’t have an explanation for that. The account continues, “And the Lord appeared unto them, and they rose up and blessed Adam, and called him Michael, the prince, the archangel. And the Lord administered comfort unto Adam, and said unto him: I have set thee to be at the head; a multitude of nations shall come of thee, and thou art a prince over them forever. And Adam stood up in the midst of the congregation; and, notwithstanding he was bowed down with age, being full of the Holy Ghost, predicted whatsoever should befall his posterity unto the latest generation” (v53-56). So this group of righteous patriarchs saw the Lord, and Adam prophesied about what should come upon his posterity even up until our own day.

I wish that we had more details about the lives and preaching and faith of these patriarchs, but we look forward to the future coming of Adam again to Adam-ondi-Ahman where “shall come to visit his people, or the Ancient of Days shall sit, as spoken of by Daniel the prophet” (Doctrine and Covenants 116:1). This group will undoubtedly all be there again and we hope to be there too for this glorious event that Joseph Smith described this way: “Daniel in his seventh chapter speaks of the Ancient of Days; he means the oldest man, our Father Adam, Michael; he will call his children together and hold a council with them to prepare them for the coming of the Son of Man [see Daniel 7:9–14]. He (Adam) is the father of the human family, and presides over the spirits of all men, and all that have had the keys must stand before him in this grand council. … The Son of Man stands before him, and there is given him glory and dominion. Adam delivers up his stewardship to Christ, that which was delivered to him as holding the keys of the universe, but retains his standing as head of the human family.”