Hello again, everyone! I thought some of you might find this interesting. With the changes announced today, the new total life experience of Presidents Nelson, Oaks, and Eyring (as of Sunday, when those changes were effective) is 263.39, with the average age of the three standing at 87.8 years. which are both only slightly more than the numbers I shared in terms of those averages that I cited in my report of those averages less than a month ago (on Christmas Eve, when the totals were 252.04 years for the combined life experience of Presidents Monson, Eyring, and Uchtdorf, with the average of the three on Christmas Eve being 84.01 years.
In the meantime, the way the First Presidency was reconstituted (with Presidents Nelson, Oaks, and Eyring) and the return of Elder Uchtdorf to the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles left the 10 members of that Quorum with 720.46 years of combined life experience, which averages to 72.05 years for each of those 10. At the time of my last report, since President Monson was still alive, those totals were 821.42 for the life experience total of the then 11 members, and averaged out at 74.67 years. So that average went up, but only slightly.
The 13 current apostles had a combined total of 983.85 years of life experience at the time the reorganization of the First Presidency occurred on Sunday, which means that each of those 13 had an average 75.68 years of individual experience. In the meantime, on Christmas Eve, I reported that the 14 apostles living at that time had 1073.46 years of total experience, which at that time averaged out to 76,68 years.
This concludes my explanation of those averages, so that does it for this post. Any and all comments are, as always, welcome and appreciated. Thank you for the privilege of your time. Until my next post, I wish each one of you all the best and pray that the Lord will bless you all in everything you do.
Tuesday, January 16, 2018
New Averages for First Presidency, Quorum of the Twelve, and All 13 Apostles
I have had a lifelong love for Church history, which has extended to ongoing reports of the ministry of our apostles and prophets, General Conference, and all temple developments. This blog enables me to share that love with all who read my thoughts on these developments, which are sometimes reported multiple times per day as needed.
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I have a few comments about these numbers.
ReplyDelete1) In the second paragraph, I think you meant that the average age for the members of the Quorum of the Twelve went down (from 74.67 to 72.05).
2) That average age going down to about 72 years makes this the youngest Quorum since 1998, if I'm correctly interpreting what I read on https://ldsfacts.net/apostlbb/ .
Which is also interesting because the Quorum was never that old until the last year of Pres. Benson (unless it was in 1941 just before Elder Smoot died and was replaced by Elder Lee).
3) It is all but certain that that average will go down further with the calling of two new apostles, as it does not seem likely to me that even one of them will be over the age of emeritus general authorities.
4) I also realized that the Quorum of the Twelve that we had in 1998 with a similar average age has had almost complete turnover- 7 of them have died and 3 of the other 5 are the new First Presidency. So it seems to take what you could call a new generation of apostles to get back to what an earlier group had, in terms of age. And it's taken so long because I suspect the average age at death has gone up.
5) Finally, with 3 of the 4 apostles over 80 in the First Presidency, that average age is already closing to breaking the record (for oldest First Presidency) set in 2007 shortly before Pres. Faust's death. (Actually, I guess the First Presidency's average age went up when he died, as he was a few months younger than their average and there were only 2 members of the First Presidency for the almost two months until Pres. Eyring was called to replace him.) I believe the average of Pres. Hinckley's and Pres. Monson's age was between 88.7 and 88.8 at the beginning of the October 2007 conference when the vacancy was filled - I'm sure you can get that number more precise. I'm having a little trouble calculating when the new First Presidency becomes the oldest one in Church history- but it seems like it will either be in December or (next) January.
Whew! That's about all I can figure out tonight!
Sorry, I didn't put enough spaces in that comment.
ReplyDeleteAlso, the time on the posted comments is off by an hour, my clock now says 1:56 AM, just so you know.
ReplyDeleteThank you for stopping by to comment. I appreciate the insights you shared. With the rapid-fire extensive comment I was churning out at the rate I did yesterday in light of the day's events and the news that was published about it, I did not have a chance to look into the comparative data you mentioned. But it has been interesting to look at the 13 current apostles. President Monson, prior to his death, had been the youngest of that group at the time of his call to the apostleship, as he was 36. In the wake of President Monson's passing, the new "youngest apostle" of the current group is President Oaks, called at age 51, and as such, was just around a year younger than Elder Bednar would be when he was called to the apostleship. The two "oldest apostles" at the time of their call were Elder Cook (who was 67 at the time of his October 2007 call) and Elder Rasband (who was called at age 64). In case you are interested, President Monson's death resulted in the average age of the remaining 13 at the time of their call at 59.66 years. And as already noted, apostles appointed during President Monson's administration ranged in age from oldest to youngest, with Elder Rasband called at 64 and and Elder Andersen called at 57. With all of this in mind, it is possible that President Nelson (under the inspiration of the Lord) could feel impressed to call men outside of what the typical age range has been, but. as you said, I don't consider it likely that anyone who might be eligible for emeritus status in 2-3 years would be called. It seems more likely that the Lord will likely inspire President Nelson to look, at least this go-round, to men who are within the age range of their early 50s-early 60s. I also should note that, based on the length of service in other positions that the 5 apostles appointed under President Monson's administration had, I think it would be safe (if not guaranteed) to proceed on the assumption that in considering who President Nelson might call, he may look to those that have been serving as general authorities for at least the last five years. Based on all of this, I am still at work (as I am able to do so) on a list of potential names for those vacancies within those age and service length demographics. Hopefully I will be able to post that here within the next week or two. In the meantime, thanks for your great comments, especially for your kind note about how the clock used for the time on my posts and the comments below them is an hour behind. I figured that out myself at one point, but I am still not used to it. Thanks again. I always appreciate your insights.
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