Near the close of Enos’ record he states:
And it came to pass that I began to be old, and an hundred and seventy and nine years had passed away from the time that our father Lehi left Jerusalem.
Enos 1:25
He is supposedly the grandson of Lehi, Jacob being his father. Some have supposed that perhaps this Enos is actually the son of another Enos who we don’t have a record of, but Enos being the son of Jacob is absolutely possible and I’ll explain how.
First off, there’s actually a story from 2018 that talks about two men who are the grandsons of a man born in 1790; that’s a 228-year span!
It sounds crazy , but there is a man alive today whose grandfather was born in 1790, just one year after the US Constitution was ratified.
John Tyler was the first vice president elevated to the presidency on the death of the chief executive and the first president to marry in the White House. Nearly 175 years later, two of his grandchildren are still around.
Harrison Ruffin Tyler, 89, is one of two living grandsons of President John Tyler, who was born in 1790, one year after George Washington was sworn in as president.
Just three generations — President Tyler, his son Lyon Tyler, and grandson Harrison — span almost the entire history of the United States. […]
Here’s how it happened. John Tyler became president in 1841. He had eight children with his first wife, who died while he was in office. At 52, he married 22-year-old Julia Gardiner. They had seven children, for a total of 15 — the most of any president. He was 63 when son Lyon Tyler was born, whose first wife also died. Lyon also had a very young second wife, and was 75 years old when Harrison Tyler was born in 1928.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/how-two-of-president-john-tylers-grandsons-are-still-alive/
Jacob was born in the wilderness which means that his birth occurred between 600-592 B.C. Enos was writing 179 years after Lehi left Jerusalem, not his own birth. This gives us a window of about 171-179 years.
If you split the difference from 171 – 179 years you get 85.5 – 89.5 years.
Strom Thurman, Mick Jagger, and Charlie Chaplin all became fathers at 73. In 1951 James E. Smith became a father of twins at age 101. [Source]
But that’s nothing; the Jaredite, Coriantum, got remarried after his 102-year-old wife died, had sons and daughters (plural), and lived to 142 years old!
And it came to pass that Coriantum did walk in the steps of his father, and did build many mighty cities, and did administer that which was good unto his people in all his days. And it came to pass that he had no children even until he was exceedingly old. And it came to pass that his wife died, being an hundred and two years old. And it came to pass that Coriantum took to wife, in his old age, a young maid, and begat sons and daughters; wherefore he lived until he was an hundred and forty and two years old
Ether 9:23–24
There is definitely a precedent in the Book of Mormon and in history for men having kids in their very advanced years.
So if Jacob’s first wife died and he remarried later and had a child when he was 85.5 (or 89.5), then Enos could have been writing his record at age 85.5 (or 89.5); after all, he mentioned being close to death at the time of his writing.
Another way of looking at it is if you make Jacob a slightly younger father at 75, then that puts Enos at 96 at the time of his final words. Alma the elder lived 82 years (Mosiah 29:45), so putting Enos or Jacob in their 80s or even 90s is certainly plausible.
The strangest part of the whole idea is Jacob being a very old father, but it’s not unheard of, especially in the scriptures, where you have other examples like Abraham and Zechariah.
4 Comments
Ironic that Jacob is the one prophet who called polygamy a whoredom and an abomination. If he wasnt teaching by example then he would certainly be the most problematic prophet to have seen Christ. This is the same prophet that talked about the sins being on his own head if he didnt teach his posterity righteously.
My guess is that Enos was not from a plural marriage. Also Jacob likely got married later in life, given he would have had to of married a niece, and likely not one of his Lamanite nieces. His first wife… I’m guessing would have to be at least 15 years younger, which means his first child was born when he was 30. If his first wife passed away, she would have died very young. Assuming she didnt… the latest the first and possibly only wife could have had Enos is when Jacob was 70 and she was 55. 175 minus 70 would then mean Enos lived to at least 105 years. Minimum, given the extreme assumptions made above kf gettingarried at 15 and having Enos at 55.
The most realistic scenarios put Enos at over 105 years old, and closer to 120 years old.
I say this because the experience hunting is estimated to have happened around 544 BC. The experience is one that i can’t imagine he had before he was 15, unless Enos matured incredibly fast That would make him 110 years old when writing the last few versus in his ownly chapter.”
Again, living to at least 120 years old feels mucj more likely than even 105.
In the Book of Ether you have guys like Orihah, Kib, and Omer who begat children in their “old age” and then Coriantum, I’m not sure if you caught my reference to him. It’s an example of a man whose wife dies and he remarries a younger woman. That could have been Jacob’s situation as well. Super weird today but that probably happened a lot back then.
Jacob could have also married a daughter of Zoram who wouldn’t have been a niece and wouldn’t have been blood-related. But it does seem there would be a lot of first cousin marriages going on. It’s unusual but not outside of the realm of possiblity.
Thank you for this. I was perplexed by that date and I couldn’t figure out how to make it work in my head, until I read your article. Thanks again!
Awesome, haha, I actually forgot I wrote this post and enjoyed reading through it again. Pretty wild stuff. After reading it, I realized that I could add Coriantum to this list, he had kids in his hundreds!