An Update to My Faith Crisis
Here’s a PDF from Brigham Young University concerning the LDS churches publications on the Origin of Man:
“The scriptures tell why man was created, but they do not tell how, though the Lord has promised that he will tell that when he comes again (D&C 101:32-33).”
When I believed I found this sentence reassuring. We know why we were created of course; it’s part of Gods plan! And from the Book of Genesis we know that Adam was the first man and Eve was the first woman. But the scriptures don’t tell us “how” man was created. Except it does. In Genesis 2:7 it states:
And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.
And then it goes into more detail about how God made woman in Genesis 2:21-22
And the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and he slept: and he took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh instead thereof; And the rib, which the Lord God had taken from man, made he a woman, and brought her unto the man.
From dust, mud, and a rib, God made mankind. For those who say “well that’s just a figure of speech”, to me sounds like we’re cherry picking verses again that align with our worldly understanding. If we can ignore the dust, the breath of life, and the rib, why not just ignore the story as a whole? It’s because we’ve placed Adam and Eve on a pedestal. Without The Fall of Adam and Eve, there’s no reason for an atonement. No reason for a Christ. And no reason for Christianity. The believer can claim the scriptures have no opinion on how mankind was created, but they’d be ignoring words describing it in the Bible. And if the rib is figurative, then why draw the line between what is factual and what is a metaphor there? What if the whole story is just one large metaphor for the origin of life?
From Wikipedia:
General conference speeches
The LDS Church has published several general conference talks mentioning evolution. In the October 1984 conference, apostle Boyd K. Packer stated that “no one with reverence for God could believe that His children evolved from slime or from reptiles” as well as affirming that “those who accept the theory of evolution don’t show much enthusiasm for genealogical research.” In the April 2012 conference, apostle Russell M. Nelson discussed the human body stating “some people erroneously think that these marvelous physical attributes happened by chance or resulted from a big bang somewhere”. He then compared this to an “explosion in a printing shop producing a dictionary”.
And then again further down that Wikipedia article under the Bible Dictionary section it reads:
In the Bible Dictionary of the LDS Church, the entry for “Fall of Adam” previously included the following statement: “Before the fall, Adam and Eve had physical bodies but no blood. There was no sin, no death, and no children among any of the earthly creations.” Under the entry “Flesh”, it is written: “Since flesh often means mortality, Adam is spoken of as the ‘first flesh’ upon the earth, meaning he was the first mortal on the earth, all things being created in a non-mortal condition, and becoming mortal through the fall of Adam.
As noted above, the Bible Dictionary is published by the LDS Church, and its preface states: “It (Bible Dictionary) is not intended as an official or revealed endorsement by the church of the doctrinal, historical, cultural, and other matters set forth.”
I hate these little cop outs. We’re going to state this fact in our study material just because, but if it’s ever proven wrong… just know it’s not revelation or that we actually stand behind the words we’ve written! It might be wrong!
Why even state it in the first place? Why publish it? Staring these pseudo facts in the doctrine only breeds generational confusion. When I was on my mission and read that, I thought it was such a cool detail that was revealed to us. But now, it’s just something that’s been renounced and swept under the rug because it’ll be proven wrong. Imagine if the science community did this.