LDS Only: Creation Account in Genesis

[Watchmen]

The discussion of the Book of Mormon in the other thread prompted this question.

Do you believe the Genesis account of the Creation and the Temple endowment portrayal of same literally happened and is historical fact or is a myth/story/allegory from God to teach us truth?

 

[Watchmen]

No takers?

 

[madhatter85]

Sorry, it is a great subject and one which i would love to discuss. However, I think it's the discussion of the temple endowment. It's not a simple answer and would require depth into the ceremony. This is not the venue really.

 

[Katzpur]

The discussion of the Book of Mormon in the other thread prompted this question.

Do you believe the Genesis account of the Creation and the Temple endowment portrayal of same literally happened and is historical fact or is a myth/story/allegory from God to teach us truth?

I definitely believe that account of the creation as explained in the scriptures is not to be understood literally. I think you and I have talked before about our take on Adam and Eve as the first human beings and have similar opinions on it. We could expound on our viewpoints, but we might be turned in for treason.

 

[Katzpur]

Sorry, it is a great subject and one which i would love to discuss. However, I think it's the discussion of the temple endowment. It's not a simple answer and would require depth into the ceremony. This is not the venue really.

There is nothing about the telling of the re-enactment of the Fall of Adam that cannot be found in both the Bible and the Pearl of Great Price. I don't agree that talking about this event in human history is off-limits. We all know when and where to draw the line.

 

[ftv1975]

The discussion of the Book of Mormon in the other thread prompted this question.

Do you believe the Genesis account of the Creation and the Temple endowment portrayal of same literally happened and is historical fact or is a myth/story/allegory from God to teach us truth?

in asking these questions are you trying to find out if other memebers feel the same as you? Or are you trying to place doubt in the minds of members?

 

[DadBurnett]

There is nothing about the telling of the re-enactment of the Fall of Adam that cannot be found in both the Bible and the Pearl of Great Price. I don't agree that talking about this event in human history is off-limits. We all know when and where to draw the line.

First of all, I am ex-LDS and was married in the Temple. To those LDS that receive the temple endowments, what goes on in the temple is sacred and not open for discussion with those outside the temple. I said sacred, not secret and there is a huge difference.
The only people I've heard openly discuss what goes on in the temple, reanactment of the Adam/Eve story, whatever, are anti-Mormon ...

 

[Katzpur]

First of all, I am ex-LDS and was married in the Temple. To those LDS that receive the temple endowments, what goes on in the temple is sacred and not open for discussion with those outside the temple. I said sacred, not secret and there is a huge difference.
The only people I've heard openly discuss what goes on in the temple, reanactment of the Adam/Eve story, whatever, are anti-Mormon ...

So maybe Watchmen should have phrased his question differently. I didn't infer from his question that he wanted to discuss the endowment per se or what takes place in the temple. If I had, I would have avoided this discussion entirely. The account of the Creation and the Fall of Adam can be found in the Pearl of Great Price and is certainly not off limits to non-Mormons. It describes events that may or may not be taken literally. I think what Watchmen was asking was this: Do you accept as literal the story of the Creation and the Fall of Adam as described in the Pearl of Great Price? Perhaps Watchmen can explain where he was really intending to take this thread so we'll have a better idea. If everybody else is right and I'm wrong, then I would agree that it's off limits to discussion.

 

[Watchmen]

Sorry, it is a great subject and one which i would love to discuss. However, I think it's the discussion of the temple endowment. It's not a simple answer and would require depth into the ceremony. This is not the venue really.

No - it's not a discussion of the temple ceremony.

 

[Watchmen]

As usual, Katzpur is right and the rest foolish.

Or, perhaps I'm foolish in how I phrased the question.

I'm simply asking whether you believe the LDS portrayal of the Creation historically happened or is a myth/story/allegory provided by God?

 

[Katzpur]

As usual, Katzpur is right and the rest foolish.

Watchmen, would you consider asking the mods to move this to the Same Faith Debates forum, specify that it is for LDS only and maybe take the words "Temple Endowment" out of the title. I think everybody jumped the gun when they saw those words and thought you wanted to delve into the temple ceremonies. I'd like to hear what other Latter-day Saints have to say about the literalness of the scriptural account of the Creation, Adam and Eve, etc., and I really liked your take on it when you explained it a long time ago.

 

[Watchmen]

Watchmen, would you consider asking the mods to move this to the Same Faith Debates forum, specify that it is for LDS only and maybe take the words "Temple Endowment" out of the title. I think everybody jumped the gun when they saw those words and thought you wanted to delve into the temple ceremonies. I'd like to hear what other Latter-day Saints have to say about the literalness of the scriptural account of the Creation, Adam and Eve, etc., and I really liked your take on it when you explained it a long time ago.

*****MODS*****
Can you please make the adjustments as described by Katzpur? Thanks.

 

[Mister_T]

***MOD POST***

Thread moved to Same Faith Debates and title has been changed. Enjoy.
​

 

[zomg]

I was one of the first to read the thread. I didn't jump to any conclusions. Just didn't feel like answering

I think some of it is literal and some is not.

 

[madhatter85]

Same, some of it is literal, some of it is not, and i think a lot of people misinterpret the time it took for God to construct this earth. it was not 6000 years nor was is 6-24 hour periods.

 

[Katzpur]

But what about Adam and Eve? How do you personally (all of you -- I'm not directing this post at anybody in particular) reconcile the fact that Adam and Eve are generally referred to as "our first parents" or something of that sort and the fact that science has pretty much provided extensive evidence of "men" before Adam (i.e. Cro-magnan man, Neaderthal man, Homo-erectus, etc.). I have my own interpretation and Watchmen has his. I'm wondering what yours is.

 

[madhatter85]

There was a first presidency statement in 1909 and then re-printed in 2006 so I am fairly certain the first presidency still hold this to be the case. This is just an excerpt:

Adam, our first progenitor, “the first man,” was, like Christ, a preexistent spirit, and like Christ he took upon him an appropriate body, the body of a man, and so became a “living soul.” The doctrine of the preexistence—revealed so plainly, particularly in latter days—pours a wonderful flood of light upon the otherwise mysterious problem of man’s origin. It shows that man, as a spirit, was begotten and born of heavenly parents and reared to maturity in the eternal mansions of the Father, prior to coming upon the earth in a temporal body to undergo an experience in mortality. It teaches that all men existed in the spirit before any man existed in the flesh and that all who have inhabited the earth since Adam have taken bodies and become souls in like manner.

It is held by some that Adam was not the first man upon this earth and that the original human being was a development from lower orders of the animal creation. These, however, are the theories of men. The word of the Lord declared that Adam was “the first man of all men” (Moses 1:34), and we are therefore in duty bound to regard him as the primal parent of our race. It was shown to the brother of Jared that all men were created in the beginning after the image of God; whether we take this to mean the spirit or the body, or both, it commits us to the same conclusion: Man began life as a human being, in the likeness of our Heavenly Father.

True it is that the body of man enters upon its career as a tiny germ embryo, which becomes an infant, quickened at a certain stage by the spirit whose tabernacle it is, and the child, after being born, develops into a man. There is nothing in this, however, to indicate that the original man, the first of our race, began life as anything less than a man, or less than the human germ or embryo that becomes a man.

Man, by searching, cannot find out God. Never, unaided, will he discover the truth about the beginning of human life. The Lord must reveal Himself or remain unrevealed; and the same is true of the facts relating to the origin of Adam’s race—God alone can reveal them. Some of these facts, however, are already known, and what has been made known it is our duty to receive and retain.

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, basing its belief on divine revelation, ancient and modern, proclaims man to be the direct and lineal offspring of Deity. God Himself is an exalted man, perfected, enthroned, and supreme. By His almighty power He organized the earth and all that it contains, from spirit and element, which exist coeternally with Himself. He formed every plant that grows and every animal that breathes, each after its own kind, spiritually and temporally—“that which is spiritual being in the likeness of that which is temporal, and that which is temporal in the likeness of that which is spiritual.” He made the tadpole and the ape, the lion and the elephant, but He did not make them in His own image, nor endow them with godlike reason and intelligence. Nevertheless, the whole animal creation will be perfected and perpetuated in the Hereafter, each class in its “distinct order or sphere,” and will enjoy “eternal felicity.” That fact has been made plain in this dispensation (see D&C 77:3).

Man is the child of God, formed in the divine image and endowed with divine attributes, and even as the infant son of an earthly father and mother is capable in due time of becoming a man, so the undeveloped offspring of celestial parentage is capable, by experience through ages and aeons, of evolving into a God.

Joseph F. Smith
John R. Winder
Anthon H. Lund
First Presidency of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
November 1909

© 2006 Intellectual Reserve, Inc. All rights reserved.

Or simply put, Cro-magnan, Neanderthal and other similar species were separate and much like other animals on the planet which died out before Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. I suppose they had a specific purpose. Maybe they were meant to be here during the evolutionary process of the earth to help tend to and beautify it? Maybe the last of them were the ones that did the physical planting of the Garden of Eden?

 

[Katzpur]

Or simply put, Cro-magnan, Neanderthal and other similar species were separate and much like other animals on the planet which died out before Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. I suppose they had a specific purpose. Maybe they were meant to be here during the evolutionary process of the earth to help tend to and beautify it? Maybe the last of them were the ones that did the physical planting of the Garden of Eden?

So is this last statement your opinion (I'm guessing it is) or is it part of the First Presidency's statement?

 

[madhatter85]

So is this last statement your opinion (I'm guessing it is) or is it part of the First Presidency's statement?

The last part is my opinion.

 

[Katzpur]

Okay, well that has some similarities to what I believe. What do you think about Adam and Eve bringing death into the world by their transgression, though? Do you believe there was death before Adam? Or were there man-like beings (Cro-magnon man, etc.) still wandering around up until Adam and Eve were cast out of the Garden, thousands of years old? And what about other prehistoric life forms such as the dinosaurs? Did they did before Adam transgressed? Or did the phrase, "you will surely die" mean only that they would suffer spiritual death (i.e. separation from God)?