I’m not seriously arguing that I expect an expansion of the Quorum of the Twelve any time soon. But say the Church doubles or even triples its current size, getting up to 40 million members worldwide. It’s clear that some adjustment will have to be made. Even with eight fully-staffed Quorums of the Seventy — 560 General Authorities and Area Seventies — that still puts a tremendous organizational burden on just twelve men to oversee them (that’s almost 50 Seventies per Apostle). The answer may well be to add additional quorums of Presidents of the Seventy, or it could be an expansion or addition to the Quorum of the Twelve.

Remember, too, that the Twelve in this dispensation were identified repeatedly in the D&C as a “traveling high council”, that is, they were patterned after the stake high council but were designated as general authorities in the Church. In fact, if you look at D&C 107:36-37, there seems to be some concept of equivalence of authority between the Twelve and the stake high councils. That is clearly not the case today, but it does (IMHO) leave the door open for the organization of another “traveling high council” either equal to or subordinate to the Twelve. ..bruce..

I will amend my previous statement to only 12 w/in *our* church organization. Whether there can be another instantiation would be an interesting idea.

There’s no scriptural precedent for amending the number of the 12.

Actually, there is. Joseph Smith referred to the “twelve disciples” called by Christ in the New World as being apostles, which would suggest that there were 24 apostles at one point — 12 in the Old World, 12 in the New World. And Joseph Fielding Smith apparently agreed with him that the Nephite disciples were, in fact, apostles.

So maybe Scott was undershooting, and what we’ll end up with is the Quorum of the Twenty-Four. Or perhaps, following the Book of Mormon model, we’ll have a Second Quorum of the Twelve that’s subordinate to the First Quorum of the Twelve.

Besides, we now have eight Quorums of the Seventy, a development that startled me quite a bit, until I decide that a close reading of D&C 107:95-98 could plausibly interpret “other seventy, until seven times seventy” as meaning seven more quorums in addition to the First Quorum of the Seventy. ..bruce..