PUZZLE #8 - His Genealogy

Having read the first five chapters of this book, we find that the story is about a family from Jerusalem who were told by god to leave Jerusalem and to journey into
the wilderness, toward an unknown destination, a promised land.

In the Old Testament book of 2nd Kings, we find that in the years just before Zedekiah became king, Jerusalem had been captured by the Babylonian king, Nebuchadnezzar. Judah was no longer a sovereign nation. It was a possession of the Babylonian kingdom. It is just prior to this that we find Lehi and family making their departure under the close supervision of god.

Many days into the journey, their god tells them that they will need the records of the people, so back the boys go to get the 'plates'. No sooner do they return to their parents, than god realizes that the boys will require female partners if they are going to build a new nation somewhere. Back to the city the boys went.

What a short-sighted god they had, who would send them back twice to the city, rather than take care of these things before the left town the first time. Then, when they get back to their parents in the wilderness, the writer announces that he isn't going to give us his genealogy in his record, even though they went back specifically to get it (1st Nephi 3:3, 12).

In 43 lines Matthew (KJV) gives the genealogy from Judah (son of Jacob/Israel) down to Zedekiah at the time of the Babylonian captivity. Nephi claimed to be a descendant of Joseph (son of Jacob/Israel), Judah’s brother. Nephi also claimed that he himself lived in the days of King Zedekiah. Nephi would therefore have been contemporary with Zedekiah. Therefore, his own genealogy from Joseph (son of Jacob/Israel) should have taken about the same writing space as the genealogy from Judah (son of Jacob/Israel) that we find in Matthew, about 43 lines of print.

In 1st Nephi Chapter 6, Nephi says that he does not have room to include his genealogy, and he uses 31 lines to say so. He uses 3/4 of the space to tell us that he doesn't have enough room to include his genealogy, as it would have taken to include his genealogy. At least four other verses in 1st and 2nd Nephi repeat his refusal to include his genealogy from Joseph. This is our PUZZLE.

Why didn't he just include his genealogy? It would actually have taken less space.

Joseph Smith’s first 116 pages of text had been lost. Perhaps those pages had included a genealogy for Nephi and Lehi, but could Joseph remember the names he had
used in those lost pages? If the text were being fabricated extemporaneously, to include that genealogy in the replacement version would mean including the list of names exactly the same as the original. That would have put the authenticity of the entire book at risk. The pages that would replace the lost 116 could not be allowed to have the genealogy.

REF: Pages 11-12