In response
to the question of whether it is possible for someone to be proclaimed a member
of a different lineage or Tribe than their other family members in their
Patriarchal Blessing, Alonzo Gaskill wrote:
Your patriarchal lineage is not determined primarily by our race or nationality
and thus, it is not a statement about your genetics. In other words, when the
patriarch declares what tribe of Israel you are from, he is not declaring your
literal bloodline, as almost every human being is of mixed blood. You and I
almost certainly have the blood of several
of the tribes of Israel coursing through our veins. Indeed, President
Joseph Fielding Smith (1876-1972), tenth President of the Church, wrote, “It is
true that we are [each] of mixed lineage. A man said to be of the lineage of Ephraim
may also be a ‘descendant of Reuben, Benjamin, or Simeon,’ but the blood that
predominates is the one that counts” (Answers
to Gospel Questions 5:167). (See D&C 86:9.) (Alonzo L. Gaskill, 65 Questions and Answers About Patriarchal
Blessings [Springville, Utah: CFI, 2018], 71)
Such ties in
well with D&C 64:34-36 where a rebellious member of the tribe of Ephraim is
said to be "plucked out" so they will not be accounted by the Lord as
part of that lineage:
Behold, the Lord
requireth the heart and a willing mind; and the willing and obedient shall eat
the good of the land of Zion in these last days. And the rebellious shall be
cut off out of the land of Zion, and shall be sent away, and shall not inherit
the land. For, verily I say that the rebellious are not of the blood of
Ephraim, wherefore they shall be plucked out.
For more on
this passage, as well as a response to an anti-Mormon article against the LDS
practice of patriarchal blessings, see:
