Book of Mormon

What about the Samites?

Before the Book of Mormon prophet Jacob popularized the terms Nephites and Lamanites to refer to the two Book of Mormon peoples, various names were used to refer to the peoples.

>”Now the people which were not Lamanites were Nephites; nevertheless, they were called Nephites, Jacobites, Josephites, Zoramites, Lamanites, Lemuelites, and Ishmaelites.” (Jacob 1:13)

So why isn’t Sam listed? Jacob and Joseph are. Laman and Lemuel are. All of Nephi’s brothers are except for Sam.

Any thoughts?

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Kim Siever

Queer Mormon poet with radical political views. I have been married 27 years, and we have 6 children. Sunday school president. Served in the Utah Provo Mission.

7 thoughts on “What about the Samites?”

  1. “And after he [Lehi] had made an end of speaking unto them, he spake unto Sam, saying: Blessed art thou, and thy seed; for thou shalt inherit the land like unto thy brother Nephi. And thy seed shall be numbered with his seed; and thou shalt be even like unto thy brother, and thy seed like unto his seed; and thou shalt be blessed in all thy days.”

    2 Nephi 4:11

  4. May Sam really wasn’t the ‘leader’ type….and hated being in the lime light…

  5. Now that I think about it, it seems kind of odd, in light of our focus on families and the promises made in the temple, that it would be considered a blessing for Sam not to have a specific group of people tracing their ancestry back to him.

    I dunno. Here’s a more controversial idea: maybe Sam only had daughters.

  6. Or specifically, JimD, that it was a blessing to be numbered with Nephi. Lehi doesn’t even say why Sam received this blessing.

  7. Another interesting thing about the way the blessing is recorded by Nephi is that Sam, a lineal descendant of Lehi received his blessing after Lehi spoke to the sons of Ishmael, and even all his [Ishmael] household.

    Not only was he counted with Nephi’s lineage, but he was at the tail end of the blessings, NTTAWWT.

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