In his talk given at the 2016 Sunstone Symposium, titled Was There An Original?, Denver recounted Joseph Smith's last dream, had the night before he died. It was pointed out that Denver had removed the three references to "the church". In footnote 210 of the transcript Denver wrote: TPJS pp. 393-394, edited to remove insertions about the church that do not belong in the account.
When asked, And is this verifiable or simply something you happen to know?, he responded: It is something I know, but I've never seen in any historical document--because it was recounted and recorded postmortem.
During the development of the Timeline of the Fathers it was pointed out that while we have the age of each father noted as to when he was ordained to the Holy Order, there was no such age given for Melchizedek. The matter was brought up again yesterday and the question was posed to Denver whether he knew what that age was. He replied:
There is no age given for his ordination. He exhibited great faith "when a child" and qualified because of his great works to be ordained as a result. (His father having been ordained at the age of 10). The record states, immediately after defining this as "when a child" that Melchizedek "thus, having been approved of God, he was ordained a high priest after the Order of the covenant." That does not necessarily mean he was ordained as a child, but that he was approved of God for ordination because of his great faith exhibited while he was still a child.
That having been said, there would be little reason to mention he had this great faith to qualify "when a child" unless the immediately following reference to ordination to the Holy Order were not likewise a childhood event. In the absence of direct proof to the contrary, I would conclude he was ordained at the same age as his father, when 10 years of age. I would make that "perhaps 10" rather than a definitive "10".
The notation "~10" will be added to Melchizedek's timeline.
