© 2013 The Interpreter Foundation. A nonprofit organization.

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/ or send a letter to Creative Commons, 444 Castro Street, Suite 900, Mountain View, California, 94041, USA.

The goal of The Interpreter Foundation is to increase understanding of scripture through careful scholarly investigation and analysis of the insights provided by a wide range of ancillary disciplines, including language, history, archaeology, literature, culture, ethnohistory, art, geography, law, politics, philosophy, etc. Interpreter will also publish articles advocating the authenticity and historicity of LDS scripture and the Restoration, along with scholarly responses to critics of the LDS faith. We hope to illuminate, by study and faith, the eternal spiritual message of the scriptures—that Jesus is the Christ.

Although the Board fully supports the goals and teachings of the Church, Interpreter Foundation is an independent entity and is neither owned, controlled by nor affiliated with The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, or with Brigham Young University. All research and opinions provided are the sole responsibility of their respective authors, and should not be interpreted as the opinions of the Board, nor as official statements of LDS doctrine, belief or practice.

This journal is a weekly publication. Visit us at MormonInterpreter.com

A Note on Family Structure in Mosiah 2:5

Stephen D. Ricks

Mosiah 2:5 provides the reader of the Book of Mormon with new insights about Israelite-Nephite family structure. In a passage set during what John A. Tvedtnes has persuasively argued is the Feast of Tabernacles,1 we read: “And it came to pass that when they came up to the temple, they pitched their tents round about, every man according to his family, consisting of his wife, and his sons, and his daughters, and theirs sons and their daughters, from the eldest down to the youngest.”

The word “family” (understood in Modern English as a nuclear, two-generational arrangement—parents and children) is used here as a multigenerational structure—parents, children, grandchildren—and may be the equivalent of the biblical Hebrew word bet-av/bet-ab, “(extended) family.” But as Francis Andersen observes, “Since the scope of bet-ab is nowhere defined, its limits and typical size are not known.”2 Still, Andersen notes that “the commonly accepted opinion is that it was an extended family, composed of all living persons, except married females, descended from a person still living, including the female slaves.”3 The “(extended) family” (bet-av) is thus multigenerational and includes all the living descendants of parents, possibly to the third or fourth generation.4

Whereas the modern Hebrew word mishpachah is translated in modern English as “family” and understood as a nuclear (two-generation) family, the biblical Hebrew mishpachah is to be understood as a multigenerational (possibly six-generation) family group, a “clan” or “phratry” that is even larger than the bet-av and was a subgroup of the tribe (Heb. shebet).5 The possessive adjective “their” in the phrase “their sons and their daughters” in Mosiah 2:5 may as easily refer to the sons and daughters of the sons and not of the offspring of the daughters since “a married woman joined her husband’s bet-ab.”6

To recapitulate, the idea of a nuclear, two-generation family is modern (in both English and Hebrew); the Israelite-Nephite family is multi-generational and indicated in Hebrew by bet-av, while the biblical Hebrew mishpachah is a six-generation “clan” or “phratry” and a subunit of the tribe (shebet).

Stephen D. Ricks completed his BA in Ancient Greek and MA in the Classics at Brigham Young University, and then received his PhD in ancient Near Eastern religions from the University of California, Berkeley and the Graduate Theological Union. While completing his doctoral work he spent two years studying at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. He is now professor of Hebrew and Cognate Learning at Brigham Young University where he has been a member of the faculty for over thirty years.

1 John A. Tvedtnes, “King Benjamin and the Feast of Tabernacles,” in By Study and Also by Faith, ed. John M. Lundquist and Stephen D. Ricks (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book and FARMS, 1988), 2:197-237.

2 Francis Andersen, “Israelite Kinship Terminology and Social Structure,” The Bible Translator 20/1 (January 1969), 36–37.

3 Andersen, “Israelite Kinship Terminology,” 29-34.

4 Cf. Karl Elliger, “Das Gesetz Leviticus 18,” Zeitschrift für die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft 67 (1955): 9; cf. Helmer Ringgren, “abh,” in ed. Johannes Botterweck and Helmer Ringgren, Theological Dictionary of the Old Testament, tr. John T. Willis (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1975), 1:9.

5 Andersen, “Israelite Kinship Terminology,” 29-34; cf. Hans-Jürgen Zobel, “mispahah,” in ed. Johannes Botterweck, Helmer Ringgren, and Heinz-Josef Fabry, Theological Dictionary of the Old Testament, tr. David Green (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1998), 9:80-83; and Zobel, ”sebet,” in Theological Dictionary of the Old Testament, tr. Douglas Stott, 14:306-8.

6 Andersen, “Israelite Kinship Terminology,” 37.