Posted on 03/02/2003 8:42:35 PM PST by Illbay
Adam, the first man, is a controversial figure in the minds of many people. So is Eve, his wife. Together, they probably are the most misunderstood couple who ever lived on the earth.
This is hardly to be wondered at, though. Misconceptions and far-out theories have been bombarding the public concerning our first parents for centuries past. Probably the most to blame are teachers of religion themselves. Not knowing the facts about Adam and Eve, they have foisted their own private notions and uninspired creeds upon the people, with the result that a mass of confusion has mounted year after year.
Their doctrine concerning original sin has been at the root of most of the trouble. But the more recent tendency of clergymen and scholars alike to call the Garden of Eden account in the Bible a mere myth has not helped the situation. Neither have the evolutionary theories that attempt to trace our pedigrees back to some accidental development of a single cell which, it is alleged, eventually became human.
Adding to the confusion are some who have so completely misunderstood gospel truths concerning the Garden of Eden that they assume that Adam was Deity, a thing completely at variance with both ancient scripture and modern revelation.
Some Jewish scholars also have joined the parade by saying that the Bible accounts of the creation, of the Garden of Eden, of our first parents, and of the flood are all myths, with questionable parallels in the writings of other early peoples. While orthodox Jews still believe in the Torah and what it says about Adam and Eve, even they are becoming relatively fewer in number as disbelief invades the ranks of the "chosen race."
Dictionaries also tend to deflate the Garden of Eden story and speak of Adam as simply a symbol of the "unregenerate nature of man." Adam's wife is described as merely a symbol, "an effortless feminine creature whose personal career never interferes with her role as a charming eternal Eve."
Apparently the lexicographers, like many clergymen, are not at all sure that Adam and Eve were ever real individuals who once lived and breathed here on earth, or that the Garden of Eden was anything more than the figment of someone's imagination.
A recent edition of the Jewish Book of Knowledge classes the stories in the five books of Moses as inventions of the Israelites, and attempts to show that similar "myths" are found in the writings of other ancient peoples. Some scholars even say the Israelites borrowed these "legends" from their neighbors. They do not take into consideration the fact that the original truthful accounts far more likely were distorted and disseminated to various parts of the earth as the Lord scattered the people when he confounded their language at Babel. It seems easier for these writers to class all accounts as legends and leave them at that.
The long-standing Christian churches for the most part accept Adam and Eve as real persons, but they so complicate their sectarian theology with peculiar concepts of the original sin and what it did to us that the average person is left actually questioning the wisdom of God and wondering whether the Deity really knew what he was about.
The Question Box, published by the Paulist Press and bearing the imprimatur of Patrick Cardinal Hayes, archbishop of New York, says that "Adam's sin was a sin of pride. . . . The eating of an apple was a trivial thing in itself, but God made it a supreme test of loyalty. It was a grievous sin, because Adam could easily have avoided it, as there was in him neither ignorance nor concupiscence, and he certainly knew, as head of the race, what terrible consequences would follow for all mankind." (Reverend Bertrand L. Conway, The Question Box, New York: Paulist Press, 1929, p. 219.)
The same book also calls Adam's sin "an offence of . . . prevarication," and adds, "Original Sin is indeed a great mystery, which human reason cannot fathom." (Ibid., p. 220.)
Commenting on the extreme to which some denominations had carried their belief about original sin, President Joseph Fielding Smith at one time wrote:
"When the Gospel was restored . . . there was a most pernicious doctrine being taught among the people. We may all be grateful to the Lord that it has almost disappeared, for it could not live in the light of the revealed Gospel. This was the doctrine that unbaptized (unsprinkled) infants, many of them not more than `a span long,' were in hell in everlasting torment, because their parents did not have them christened by an unauthorized priest who held no divine authority. When I was in the mission field . . ., a man and his wife, unto whom I was teaching the Gospel, asked me if there was any hope for babies who die without being christened by a priest. Then they related the following story: One of their children died in early infancy. They asked the minister of their church to take charge of the funeral and give the child `Christian burial.' This he refused to do, because, he explained, the child had not been `baptized' and therefore could not receive Christian burial. The parents were heart-broken; they had been made to believe that their child was eternally damned, and that they need not think they would ever see it again for it was assigned to stay in the torment of hell forever. Can you imagine anything more unchristian than a teaching of this kind?" (The Way to Perfection, Salt Lake City: Genealogical Society of Utah, 1949, p. 198.)
The fall of Adam and Eve was no tragedy. It was a blessing in disguise, for without it none of us would have been born, since Adam and Eve, in their original state, were not able to have children, as the Book of Mormon explains:
"And now, behold, if Adam had not transgressed he would not have fallen, but he would have remained in the garden of Eden. And all things which were created must have remained in the same state in which they were after they were created; and they must have remained forever, and had no end.
"And they would have had no children; wherefore they would have remained in a state of innocence, having no joy, for they knew no misery; doing no good, for they knew no sin." (2 Ne. 2:22-23.)
Dr. James E. Talmage explained that when the temptation came in the Garden of Eden, "the woman was captivated by these representations; and, being eager to possess the advantages pictured by Satan, she disobeyed the command of the Lord, and partook of the fruit forbidden. She feared no evil for she knew it not. Then, telling Adam what she had done, she urged him to eat of the fruit also.
"Adam found himself in a position that made it impossible for him to obey both of the specific commandments given by the Lord. He and his wife had been commanded to multiply and replenish the earth. Adam had not yet fallen to the state of mortality, but Eve already had; and in such dissimilar conditions the two could not remain together, and therefore could not fulfil the divine requirement as to procreation. On the other hand, Adam would be disobeying another commandment by yielding to Eve's request. He deliberately and wisely decided to stand by the first and greater commandment; and, therefore, with understanding of the nature of his act, he also partook of the fruit that grew on the tree of knowledge. . . . The prophet Lehi, in expounding the scriptures to his sons, declared: `Adam fell that man might be; and men are, that they might have joy.'"
Dr. Talmage then says:
"It has become a common practice with mankind to heap reproaches upon the progenitors of the family, and to picture the supposedly blessed state in which we would be living but for the fall; whereas our first parents are entitled to our deepest gratitude for their legacy to posterity—the means of winning glory, exaltation, and eternal lives. . . . From Father Adam we have inherited all the ills to which flesh is heir; but such are necessarily incident to a knowledge of good and evil, by the proper use of which knowledge man may become even as the Gods." (Articles of Faith, pp. 65, 70.)
Adam and Eve were real persons. They were the children of God. They did the will of God and opened the way for us to do likewise.
There is much significance in the genealogy of the Savior as it appears in Luke. It concludes with a listing of the generations as follows:
"Which was the son of Methusala, which was the son of Enoch, which was the son of Jared, which was the son of Maleleel, which was the son of Canaan, which was the son of Enos, which was the son of Seth, which was the son of Adam, which was the son of God." (Luke 3:37-38. Italics added.)
The marriage of Adam and Eve was a reality and God performed it. President Joseph Fielding Smith is quoted as follows on this subject:
"Paul declared that, `Neither is the man without the woman, neither the woman without the man, in the Lord.' And the Lord said he would give the man a companion who would be a help meet for him: that is, a help who would answer all the requirements, not only of companionship, but also through whom the fulness of the purposes of the Lord could be accomplished regarding the mission of man through mortal life and into eternity.
"Neither the man nor the woman [was] capable of filling the measure of their creation alone. The union of the two was required to complete man in the image of God. The Lord said, `Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. . . . So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.' (Gen. 1:26-27.)
"Moreover when the woman was presented to the man, Adam said: `This [woman] is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh.' (Gen. 2:23; Moses 3:23.) From this we understand that his union with Eve was to be everlasting. The Savior confirmed this doctrine when he said to the Jews: `For this cause shall a man leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife; and they twain shall be one flesh. Wherefore they are no more twain, but one flesh.' (Matt. 19:5-6.) . . .
"The Prophet Joseph taught that `marriage was an institution of heaven, instituted in the Garden of Eden; [and] that it is necessary it should be solemnized by the authority of the everlasting priesthood.'
"Marriage as established in the beginning was an eternal covenant. The first man and the first woman were not married until death should part them, for at that time death had not come into the world. The ceremony on that occasion was performed by the Eternal Father himself whose work endures forever. It is the will of the Lord that all marriages should be of like character, and in becoming `one flesh' the man and the woman are to continue in the married status, according to the Lord's plan, throughout all eternity as well as in this mortal life." (Bruce R. McConkie, compiler, Doctrines of Salvation, Bookcraft, 1955, 2:70-71.)
(Mark E. Petersen, Adam: Who Is He? [Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Co., 1976], 6.)
Everybody knows that Joseph Smith believed in marriage. He believed in it at least 52 times by a conservative count. JS's wimmen. BTW, how many wives do you have, since the Prophet Joseph said that plural marriage was necesary?
... provided we ignore ol' Brother Brigham on the topic.
LOL - nice try - please pardon the protestants and Catholics for thier amusement at this statement
Thank you for practicing the Golden Rule!
Becky
You voiced your opinon on if the guy was off topic or not, I voiced mine.
Becky
Which one do you perfer Becky?
29. Else what shall they do which are baptized for the dead, if the dead not rise at all? why are they then baptized for the dead?
30. And why stand we in jeopardy every hour?
Y'all have scripture on your side, why not use that?
Becky
There is a link in #7 to the 'other' thread. However, as of post #32 the 'other' thread hasn't supplied a link to 'this' thread.
Just an observation.
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