This is a bit different from what I usually post about. It's a purely academic exercise with no deeper meaning, symbolism or spiritual lessons. But in addition to the Book of Mormon's main purpose to remind Israel of their covenants and bring us to Christ, there is a historical element that fascinates me. These were real people who were a branch of Israel living in a promised land. I am very interested in the historical elements and would love to learn more about the Nephite society and people. Mormon, who abridged their records, comes across as a historian. In addition to inviting us to Christ and conveying important spiritual lessons, he is a thorough narrator of events and places.
Still, we don't have many examples of the exact age of Book of Mormon people. A few years ago, I tried to track the timeline and deduct some reasonable lifespans for Book of Mormon prophets. I will not go into all that speculation here but list the ones that we know directly from the text:
- Alma-I: 82 years old (Mosiah 29:45)
- Mosiah-II: 63 years old (Mosiah 29:46)
- Coriantum's wife: 102 years old (Ether 9:24)
- Coriantum: 142 years old (Ether 9:24)
- 9 Nephite disciples: 72 years old (3 Nephi 28:3)
The last one is interesting. 72 years old is simply a result of the disciples' own granted wish and the Lord's decision. But their granted wish to come to Him in his kingdom after having "lived unto the age of a man" says something about what the typical "age of a man" was considered to be at the time.
As far as I know, these 5 examples are the only ones we have knowing the exact age of someone in the Book of Mormon. There are others that come close, Mormon himself was born 310 AD and the last battle at Cumorah was likely in 385 AD. He did not die in that battle but according to his son, he died shortly after. So Mormon must have been 75 years old or a bit older. For the timeline of the keepers of the Small plates of Nephi to work, some of them must have been quite old, perhaps more than 100. The record keepers after Alma-I until the coming of Christ did not seem to live that long, typically somewhere between 45-60. These are some rough calculations I have made and I will not go into all those details. But it is also important to note that two of those prophets, Alma-II and Nephi-II did not seem to die natural deaths and just left the land at a certain point without anyone knowing where they had gone.
In the above list with specific ages, obviously, Coriantum, and partly his wife, stand out. One might even claim that 142 sounds unrealistic. Some scientist (but definitely not all) would claim that it is simply beyond the upper limit of a theoretical human life. It is also reasonable to ask how 72 years old could be considered the "age of a man" when it was possible to live twice as long. But I find it quite interesting that we get this apparent difference between Nephite and Jaredite lifespans, because it aligns very well with the Bible. We know that the ancient patriarchs lived much longer lives than this. They could become more than 900 years old. I have my own theories about how that was possible, but that requires some explanation that I will keep for myself for now. This does not appear to be merely symbolic because there are certain trends in these Old Testament lifespans, eventually stabilizing around the values we expect today.
I have written before on the
timeline of the Book of Ether. Coriantumr, who lived to 142 years old, was the seventh generation from Jared. Based on the calculations in that post, he lived around the time of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Abraham was 175 years old, Sarah 127, Isaac 180, Jacob 147 and Joseph 110 at their death. At this time, the convergence into what is considered normal lifespans today had not yet been reached. But Coriantum's age fits well into this small sample.
By the time of the first Israelite kings, this convergence had been reached. They lived up to ages between 40 (41 in the case of King Jotham) and 80 (in the case of King Solomon), quite consistent with the few Nephite lifespans we know about and the idea of 72 years as the "age of man".