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In Enoch’s preaching, he reminded his listeners of the righteousness of some of their forebears. “Death hath come upon our fathers, “he said; “nevertheless we know them, and cannot deny, and even the first of all we know, even Adam” (Moses 6:45). How did they all know Adam? Partly because they kept a written record. “For a book of remembrance we have written among us,” he said (Moses 6:46). But it’s also worth noting that Adam was still alive.

Here’s a chart of the lifespans of the earliest generations recorded in the Bible, in Genesis 5. If the year counts are accurate, you can see that most of Enoch’s life overlaps with Adam. The Creation and the Fall of Adam and Eve, were not just a distant memory for Enoch and his people!

Enoch’s statement that he and his listeners knew Adam lends credibility to his detailed account of God teaching Adam about the gospel of Jesus Christ. (See Moses 6:51-68.) It’s worth remembering as we study this account that this is a story within a story within a story: a conversation between Adam and God, related by Enoch, as seen by Moses in a vision thousands of years later. And the reason we have Moses’ words is because they in turn were revealed to Joseph Smith, thousands of years after that.

In this account, God instructs Adam to share the gospel with his children.

Wherefore teach it unto your children, that all men, everywhere, must repent …

Therefore I give unto you a commandment, to teach these things freely unto your children.

Moses 6:57-58

Undoubtedly much of this teaching was verbal, but as Enoch pointed out, Adam’s descendants had access to a “book of remembrance.” Why? Because the earliest generations of humanity had kept a spiritual history:

A book of remembrance was kept, in the which was recorded, in the language of Adam, for it was given unto as many as called upon God to write by the spirit of inspiration;

And by them their children were taught to read and write, having a language which was pure and undefiled.

Moses 6:5-6

So there are multiple ways for parents to fulfill the divine injunction to teach their children. They can verbally share truths they have learned. They can quote spiritual truths learned by prior generations. And they can write what they have learned, by the spirit of inspiration, so that their children will have a permanent record of their teaching.

It’s worth remembering here that King Benjamin urged his sons to study the spiritual record contained on the brass plates, telling them that it would not have been possible that their ancestor, Lehi, “could have remembered all these things, to have taught them to his children, except it were for the help of these plates” (Mosiah 1:4). And when Jesus visited Lehi’s descendants after His resurrection, He made it a point to fill gaps in their record, instructing them to write some missing prophecies of Samuel the Lamanite and quoting two chapters from the book of Malachi (3 Nephi 23:6-14; 24:1).

This week, as we study Genesis 5 and Moses 6, let’s particularly notice how Adam, Enoch, and Moses modeled effective intergenerational gospel teaching.