Being caught up into Zion

[The Nehor]

Or the whole patriarchal lineage for Adam to Noah is cobbled together. I mean look at this comparison. Here is the line from Adam to Noah:

Adam
Seth 
Enosh 
Kenan
Mahalalel
Jared
Enoch
Methuselah
Lamech
Noah

Here is the lineage of Adam through Cain with names that are obviously similar:

Adam
Cain (Kenan)
Enoch (in both lists and Enosh is similar)
Irad (Jared)
Mehujael (Mahalelel)
Methushael (Methusaleh)
Lamech

Some of them are swapped around some but they are the same or obviously similar names. It is the same list. Cain’s list also doesn’t work with the flood account. In there we get names where the person is supposed to be the progenitor of certain kinds of people. Those that dwell in tents, those that make music, etc. If they all died in the flood that story makes no sense.

Most biblical scholars think two diverging accounts were stitched together. The editor appears to favor the Seth to Noah account as they get the heroic stuff and Cain’s line gets the secular stuff. You get a similar stitching with the two incompatible creation accounts at the beginning of Genesis. It is also possible that one of these literary lines didn’t have Adam and Eve as the only humans avoiding the plot hole of how Cain ran off and got a wife.
 

[halconero]

16 hours ago, The Nehor said:

Or the whole patriarchal lineage for Adam to Noah is cobbled together. I mean look at this comparison. Here is the line from Adam to Noah:

Adam
Seth 
Enosh 
Kenan
Mahalalel
Jared
Enoch
Methuselah
Lamech
Noah

Here is the lineage of Adam through Cain with names that are obviously similar:

Adam
Cain (Kenan)
Enoch (in both lists and Enosh is similar)
Irad (Jared)
Mehujael (Mahalelel)
Methushael (Methusaleh)
Lamech

Some of them are swapped around some but they are the same or obviously similar names. It is the same list. Cain’s list also doesn’t work with the flood account. In there we get names where the person is supposed to be the progenitor of certain kinds of people. Those that dwell in tents, those that make music, etc. If they all died in the flood that story makes no sense.

Most biblical scholars think two diverging accounts were stitched together. The editor appears to favor the Seth to Noah account as they get the heroic stuff and Cain’s line gets the secular stuff. You get a similar stitching with the two incompatible creation accounts at the beginning of Genesis. It is also possible that one of these literary lines didn’t have Adam and Eve as the only humans avoiding the plot hole of how Cain ran off and got a wife.
 

Indeed that is a possibility, and also kind of the point I tried to make a few times in my previous posts (and perhaps failed to get across. My bad).

The original figure wasn't my attempt to provide a particular proof of a particular timeline or lineage. It was my own private attempt (originally) to understand how different textual traditions developed and understood different patriarchal narratives, including Joseph Smith, but also the Yahwist, Priestly and other redactors of the Hebrew Bible.

[halconero]

16 hours ago, The Nehor said:

It is also possible that one of these literary lines didn’t have Adam and Eve as the only humans avoiding the plot hole of how Cain ran off and got a wife.

Interestingly enough, it's possible that some of the earliest creation narratives actually started with Noah and the Flood. The flood itself is described in terms akin to the waters of chaos covering the earth at the start of Genesis 1.

[TheTanakas]

On 10/19/2026 at 4:46 PM, halconero said:

The Nephite leadership and priesthood pass through Nephi's line rather than Sam's, who, by all indications, was himself righteous.

The Book of Mormon does not explicitly say Sam was disqualified from leadership or
priesthood because he was less righteous than Nephi. There is a difference between 
saying that leadership was associated with Nephi's line and asserting that every 
subsequent leader was his biological descendant. The text does not establish an unbroken 
genealogical succession of rulers or priests. Nor does it clearly state that priesthood 
authority was exclusively hereditary. 

Jacob 1:9–11 says that the people wanted to preserve Nephi's name, so his successors 
were called Second Nephi, Third Nephi, and so forth. It does not identify the second 
king's personal name or whether he was a biological son of Nephi.

See Val Larsen's discussion in Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought, which proposes
Nephi's unnamed successor may have been Sam or Sam's oldest son.

In 2 Nephi 3:23–24, Lehi promises that Joseph's descendants will not be destroyed, 
that they will hearken to the words of a book, and that a mighty person will arise among 
them to accomplish a great work and help restore the house of Israel. In the Church's 
interpretation, the passage points to Joseph Smith and the coming forth of the Book of 
Mormon.

So Joseph, Lehi's youngest son, received the greater blessing.

[halconero]

On 10/23/2026 at 9:20 AM, TheTanakas said:

The Book of Mormon does not explicitly say Sam was disqualified from leadership or
priesthood because he was less righteous than Nephi. There is a difference between 
saying that leadership was associated with Nephi's line and asserting that every 
subsequent leader was his biological descendant. The text does not establish an unbroken 
genealogical succession of rulers or priests. Nor does it clearly state that priesthood 
authority was exclusively hereditary. 

Jacob 1:9–11 says that the people wanted to preserve Nephi's name, so his successors 
were called Second Nephi, Third Nephi, and so forth. It does not identify the second 
king's personal name or whether he was a biological son of Nephi.

See Val Larsen's discussion in Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought, which proposes
Nephi's unnamed successor may have been Sam or Sam's oldest son.

In 2 Nephi 3:23–24, Lehi promises that Joseph's descendants will not be destroyed, 
that they will hearken to the words of a book, and that a mighty person will arise among 
them to accomplish a great work and help restore the house of Israel. In the Church's 
interpretation, the passage points to Joseph Smith and the coming forth of the Book of 
Mormon.

So Joseph, Lehi's youngest son, received the greater blessing.

That's kind of my point: priesthood ordinations, blessings, or leadership succession doesn't always follow a lineal or genealogically sequential process.

[TheTanakas]

18 hours ago, halconero said:

That's kind of my point: priesthood ordinations, blessings, or leadership succession doesn't always follow a lineal or genealogically sequential process.

Therefore, your earlier statement "The Nephite leadership and priesthood pass 
through Nephi's line rather than Sam's" is not accurate.

[halconero]

3 hours ago, TheTanakas said:

Therefore, your earlier statement "The Nephite leadership and priesthood pass 
through Nephi's line rather than Sam's" is not accurate.

Okay.

[The Nehor]

On 10/23/2026 at 10:20 AM, TheTanakas said:

The Book of Mormon does not explicitly say Sam was disqualified from leadership or
priesthood because he was less righteous than Nephi. There is a difference between 
saying that leadership was associated with Nephi's line and asserting that every 
subsequent leader was his biological descendant. The text does not establish an unbroken 
genealogical succession of rulers or priests. Nor does it clearly state that priesthood 
authority was exclusively hereditary. 

Jacob 1:9–11 says that the people wanted to preserve Nephi's name, so his successors 
were called Second Nephi, Third Nephi, and so forth. It does not identify the second 
king's personal name or whether he was a biological son of Nephi.

See Val Larsen's discussion in Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought, which proposes
Nephi's unnamed successor may have been Sam or Sam's oldest son.

In 2 Nephi 3:23–24, Lehi promises that Joseph's descendants will not be destroyed, 
that they will hearken to the words of a book, and that a mighty person will arise among 
them to accomplish a great work and help restore the house of Israel. In the Church's 
interpretation, the passage points to Joseph Smith and the coming forth of the Book of 
Mormon.

So Joseph, Lehi's youngest son, received the greater blessing.

Yet oddly there are tribal grouping throughout the Book of Mormon. Nephites, Jacobites, Josephites, Zoramites, Lamanites, Lemuelites, and Ishaelites. No Samites though. Did his line die out?