Tuesday, August 13, 2019

Alonzo Gaskill on One's Tribe/Lineage in their Patriarchal Blessing


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: