Pyreaux

I'm not sure how acknowledging what the official doctrine was and what local members genuinely believed "downplays" their sacrifice. They sacrificed because they loved God and believed their local leaders. Is it not entirely fair to parcel out what people in an era believed and official doctrine without being accused of undermining either? In any religious movement, grassroots popular theology often expands beyond the official canon. In 1880s Utah, local pulpits heavily emphasized plural marriage as the supreme mark of faith. As a result, many ordinary members like Bent Larsen and Lorena grew up believing it was the only way to the highest degree of glory. Bent Larsen was not a man of means, but local leaders often called and cleared ordinary faithful men, not just wealthy men. You can hold both truths together A. The lived experience of Lorena and thousands like them were taught at the local ward level that plural marriage was mandatory for the highest celestial degree, and they courageously sacrificed everything based on that belief. B. Whereas Brigham Young in the 1869 School of the Prophets to post-Manifesto presidency clarifications maintained that eternal sealing was the essential requirement, and that faithful monogamists who embraced the covenant in their heart inherited full exaltation. Can we be allowed to look at history objectively and hold these two distinct historical realities at once? Or is the driving force behind your argument at its core just a moral indictment of Brigham Young? Maybe you want to lay the emotional, domestic, and physical suffering of Saints like Lorena Washburn directly at the feet of Brigham Young? When you realized that top-level theological clarifications, like Brigham’s 1869 statement, don't support a universal requirement, are you then pivoting by questioning my moral responsibility for what I believe in this matter?

Hmmm, a search on Jared Livesey says he participated in detailed theological debates. For example, he argued about repentance, spiritual perfection, and salvation in a 2019 discussion on the Mormon blog By Common Consent. Other online discussions suggests that his online absence had already attracted attention years ago. A 2026 Covenant Christian Conference website lists Jared Livesey as a speaker in the Denver Snuffer-associated religious community. He seem to be applying our own standards of repentance and truthfulness to his claims of spiritual knowledge. And uses exceptionally absolute language, "utter and complete ignorance," "I acknowledge I am a fool," and the repeated "if spirits even exist." That intensity makes the post feel like a major rupture rather than an ordinary change of opinion. It may be sincere, performative, or both. Whether it is a sincere confession, a dramatic exit, or a pointed piece of religious criticism remains uncertain.

Brigham Young claiming his sermons were "as good as scripture" (JD 13:95, 264), things "copied and approved by me," he was referring specifically to sermons that were transcribed from shorthand by his secretaries, like George D. Watt, read back to him, corrected, and then officially published in Church publications like the Deseret News or Millennial Star. The Journal of Discourses was not that. He also acknowledged that he spoke as a man, gave personal opinions, and made mistakes. Hence in 1862, he famously said, "I am more afraid that this people have so much confidence in their leaders that they will not inquire for themselves of God whether they are led by Him." (JD 9:150) The 1873 "Paris, Idaho" Sermon was addressing a specific group of men who explicitly said, "I don't want but one wife, I will live my religion with one." Brigham Young in his 1869 School of the Prophets instruction "a man may embrace the Law of Celestial Marriage in his heart and not take the second wife, and be justified", the defining issue was whether a man rejected God's revelations in his heart, not whether he was physically capable of marrying multiple women. The quote starting with 'Few, if any, of the temple marriages have been made binding...' cited from historicalmonogamy.wixsite.com as Brigham Young in Journal of Discourses Vol. 16, p. 167 seems incorrect. Volume 16, page 167 of the Journal of Discourses, is the end of a sermon about tithing. Historically, Joseph Smith and Brigham Young both entered sealings with older women and widows past childbearing age (Zina D. H. Young, Agnes Coolbrith). If the requirement were strictly young, fertile women for procreation, these older sealings would make no sense. They served to form eternal, family connections across the covenant structure. Brigham Young didn't 'wildly contradict' himself, you can harmonize his statements. In 1866, Brigham says be "polygamists at least in your faith" (Journal of Discourses Vol 11, p 269). In 1869, Brigham says "a man may embrace the Law of Celestial Marriage in his heart and not take the second wife, and be justified before the Lord" (Wilford Woodruff Journal, Sept 25, 1869). In 1873, he condemned men who actively rejected God's revelations or dodged priesthood callings out of selfish convenience or fear. It seems to align.

Lorena wrote, "We were taught in those days that there was no way to get to the highest degree in the Celestial Kingdom, only by plural marriage." Sure, small southern Utah towns during the 1870s and 1880s (St. George, Monroe, Orderville), leaders heavily emphasized plural marriage as the pinnacle of devotion, local speakers simplified the message down, and many Saints may have believed plural marriage was necessary for the highest exaltation, because that was the dominant local cultural narrative preached from the rural pulpits. However, official clarifications by the Church, even Brigham Young himself, Joseph F. Smith and Wilford Woodruff, at that time affirmed that faithful monogamous couples inherit exaltation. Once, Apostle John Holman argued that no one could achieve Celestial glory without taking multiple wives and Brigham Young directly corrected him and shut the debate down (Recorded in Wilford Woodruff’s Journal, Sept 25, 1869). Brigham did feel it was sin to entertain feelings against the doctrine, meaning rebellion against God's revelations, or refusing a priesthood calling for selfish reasons. A monogamous man who lived faithfully and accepted the restoration, including the revelation "in his heart" was completely acceptable, a man who rejected the revelation or refused an assignment out of rebellion was the one under condemnation. The Discourse by Joseph F. Smith July 1878, "We are not under the necessity of practicing polygamy because God gave laws and commandments for its observance and regulation in ancient times... [I think referring to Section 132]" Let's not conflate what local Utah Saints felt and understood in 1880 with either Section 132 nor what 1880 official doctrine of the Church actually required. Lorena Washburn Larsen’s autobiography is an incredible historical document. Lorena’s accounts do actually demonstrate the historical dynamics I have been outlining. Lorena repeatedly turned down proposals, and her father supported her right to do so. Lorena didn't seem obligated into sealings. The men proposing to Lorena were prominent local figures, a bishop, a Co-op store president, a merchant who had plenty of means, and a future county judge. This fits the precise pattern of established, financially stable men who weren't necessarily proposing spontaneously, someone was suggesting specific women to men in the ward whom they believed could provide for them.

Plucking a 3rd-hand journal recollections or newspaper poems out of context isn't an exegetical reading of LDS doctrine, it's quote-mining. 1856 Deseret News song and similar sermons were produced during the Mormon Reformation of 1856–1857. Jedediah M. Grant and Brigham Young launched a fiery revival campaign characterized by hyperbole, intense calls to repentance, rebaptisms, and heavy pressure to adopt plural marriage as a mark of spiritual devotion. A short-lived revival is not a permanent baseline of Latter-day Saint theology, nor canonized theology. Wilford Woodruff's diary noting that Brigham Young believed the very common Christian and Saint belief the end times were coming soon, and saying that one man might have to 'take thousands' was apocalyptic hyperbole regarding the last days, not a literal domestic mandate. Keep mining databases for the most shocking, extreme quote available, while ignoring how historical documentation and the church canon actually functions. Peder Wallentine's personal, third-party diary entry is not an official published sermon, a transcript, or canonized doctrine. In 1882, the U.S. Congress passed the Edmunds Act, which made "unlawful cohabitation" a crime and stripped polygamists of the right to vote or hold public office. Some leaders did give fiery, defensive talks attempting to rally members against the government pressure. However, when speaking in an official, published capacity, Joseph F. Smith explicitly clarified the exact opposite. In 1878 (published in the Journal of Discourses, 20:28), Joseph F. Smith taught that plural marriage was not a universal condition for exaltation for every individual, but was only required of those who were specifically commanded by God in their circumstances. Using Carol Lynn Pearson's book (The Ghost of Eternal Polygamy) to argue that people entered plural marriage out of fear of losing their families, I don't deny that high-pressure sermons caused intense personal anxiety or that some families suffered heartbreak because of it. But rhetoric and individual decisions do not equate to the overarching doctrine of the Church, the story does not reflect a majority consensus among Latter-day Saints that only polygamists could be exalted. Historical diaries, journals, and official Church teaching you didn't find in your database shows how the majority of the Saints understood polygamy. Most Saints understood that one had to merely accept plural marriage as a divinely restored principle to be a "polygamist in faith," as Brigham Young put it, rather than every single individual physically entering a plural marriage. The Saints understood it was a specific calling or stewardship given to certain individuals, often leaders or men with financial means, not a blanket mandate for every member of the Church. And Saints understood the doctrine of exaltation centered on being sealed by priesthood authority in the temple and applied fully to monogamous couples. Carol Lynn Pearson’s heartbreaking human experiences stand out in historical literature precisely because they represent the extreme examples. While these incidents happened, treating them as representative of the everyday beliefs and lived realities of the majority of Saints is historically inaccurate.

Did Section 132 then make plural marriage mandatory for everyone who heard it? No, it didn't. Even under Brigham Young, the majority of active Latter-day Saints were monogamous, and could never be polygamists if they wanted to. If plural marriage were the sole requirement to enter exaltation, the overwhelming majority of Saints, including bishops, stake leaders, and faithful members and every member not in the US would have been excluded. The quotes from Brigham Young in 1873 are historical footnotes, they don't define the universal doctrine of the Church, and ignores both the specific historical context of the 1870s and subsequent clarification by Church leaders. Brigham was not talking to those who simply lived faithful monogamous lives because they were never called to take additional wives. Men were typically called and vetted by local bishops or First Presidency leaders who deliberately targeted men of means who were financially, socially, and spiritually stable enough to provide housing, food, and protection for additional families, especially single immigrant women, widows, and young women who lacked financial support on the frontier. When Brigham Young made statements like the one in 1873, he was speaking directly to men who had been extended specific callings to care for women in the community and shrank back from that responsibility. Brigham Young believed that backing down or choosing monogamy out of cowardice or social pressure was a failure of faith. It was harsh rhetoric preached to push men who had been called. In the very same August 19, 1866 discourse in which Brigham Young you partially quoted, he explicitly softened his speech, "Now, we as a people will be polygamists, at least in our faith, or you will come short of enjoying the salvation and the glory which Abraham has obtained." (Brigham Young, Journal of Discourses, 11:269) Leaders both during and after Brigham Young's era clarified that plural marriage was never a universal command. Wilford Woodruff explicitly stated that monogamous men and women could attain the highest degree of the Celestial Kingdom. Joseph F. Smith taught in 1878 that plural marriage was only required of those to whom it was specifically commanded or given as a personal law by God, not an absolute blanket mandate for every individual in all eras. D&C 132:19 explicitly states that a man and one wife sealed by the Holy Spirit of Promise will inherit exaltation. Claiming Saints only entered polygamy out of 'fear of damnation' oversimplifies history.

The revelation sets out broader teachings about eternal marriage and plural marriage. But has a personal context involving Joseph and Emma. The passage is describing one category of authorized plural marriage, while other arrangements may have involved different circumstances. Verse 64 is specifically about a wife in a particular situation "If any man have a wife, who holds the keys of this power, and he teaches unto her the law of my priesthood, as pertaining to these things…" The verse then says she must "believe and administer unto him." The verse describes a husband who holds the relevant keys and teaches his wife the law. It is not phrased as a general instruction to every woman or every married couple. It doesn't establish a universal command for every Church member to practice it.

In scriptural idioms, a "virgin" in the context of marriage simply referred to her status at the time she entered the covenant (as opposed to a widow or divorcee). The descriptor applies when she is espoused (betrothed/married). If a law said, "If a man marry a maiden, and she bear him children..." nobody interprets that to mean she remained a literal "maiden" after childbirth. Noah Webster’s 1828 American Dictionary of the English Language a "virgin" can be an unattached woman. The main point of verse 61 is stating that if a man marries a woman who is not bound to another husband, and then enters a subsequent marriage with another unattached woman under priesthood authority, he is not committing adultery. It is addressing covenant legalities, not demanding that previous wives remain perpetually untouched.

Section 132 is not a restatement of the Levitical law codes. Leviticus 21:13-14 and Ezekiel 44:22 restrict the High Priest exclusively to virgins of Israel. Joseph Smith’s later plural sealing included non-virgin widows, the same for many other early LDS polygamists. It seems 132 is a copy of a letter to Emma concerning Joseph’s marriages to Emily and Eliza Partridge specifically who were indeed virgins, but also sisters which is against Levitical law, 132 is not a rule book for all plural marriages in the future.

The "Gods" of 4:1 are "them" of 3:24. For some reason, you want "the Gods" to be one exclusive group of non-human, infinite deities, while completely separating them from the noble and great spirits. I imagine it's because you are stuck in a theological box where a being is either a 100% immutable God or a 100% non-divine being, with zero overlap or trajectory in between them. You claim Abraham 4 excludes the noble spirits. But look at the textual chain. Abraham 3:22-23: God stands among the "intelligences that were organized... among all these...the noble and great ones... God... said: These I will make my rulers... Abraham, thou art one of them..." Abraham 3:24: "And there stood one among them that was like unto God, and he said unto those who were with him: We will go down... and we will make an earth..." Abraham 4:1: "And then the Lord said: Let us go down. And they went down... and they, that is the Gods, organized and formed the heavens..." Who is "with Him", the noble and great spirit who was like God in 3:24? The other noble and great spirits. When Abraham 4:1 says "and they, that is the Gods," the text is not introducing a mystery third party; it is giving the title ("the Gods" elohim) to Jehovah and the noble spirit leaders executing the creation. Abraham 4 is not in isolation, it does not invent a foreign concept here. In the first Genesis Creation account, Genesis 1:1 "Bereshit bara Elohim... [the Gods created]" the earth, who are also the same "us" of Genesis 1:26 "Let us make man in our image", which already depicts that Creation was a collaborative, plural endeavor involving the divine council. The first Creation account concludes in Genesis 2:4, "these are the generations [toledot] of the heavens" toledot denotes begettings, genealogy, and family, refers directly to the progeny of God and the bene Elohim were begotten [or adopted] at some point during Creation or before it. In the Psalms Creation, Psalm 104:1-4, Day One the Lord wrapped Himself in a robe of divine light, establishes His court, and "make the winds [spirits] your messengers, fire and flame [glorious angels] your ministers", a verse that Hebrews 1:7 explicitly applies to the organization of heavenly beings at Creation. In the Job Creation, Job 38:4-7 the "sons of God" [bene Elohim] shouted for joy to see the foundation of the earth laid and Job 15:7-8 where the "First Man" Adam stood in the council before the hills. While Michael isn't spelled out in Abraham 4, D&C 27:11 and D&C 107:54-55 has Michael the Archangel placed under Christ in the heavenly hierarchy as far as great spirits go, and Michael became Adam, "the Lord appeared unto them, and they rose up and blessed Adam, and called him Michael, the prince, the archangel." The great spirits that God made "rulers", aka the celestial princes of the nations. It's a position, they only have as much power and authority they were portioned and justifies the title of god. Lackluster gods, but gods. Exodus 22:28 "You shall not curse the gods, and you shall not curse the ruler [prince] of your people". The word "gods" in this biblical context is a title given to the celestial princes of several nations. The "prince of Persia" in the Bible (Daniel 10) is a celestial patron assigned to the kingdom of Persia, while the "prince of Tyre" (Ezekiel 28) refers to the celestial patron assigned to Tyre, who is distingushed from the "king of Tyre" the human ruler. Like in the Jewish Christian text Clementine Recognitions 3:42, "Thus the princes of the several nations are called gods. But Christ is God of princes".

Though not mutually exclusive, the Queen of Heaven in Jeremiah could still exist and belong in the theology while still being wrong to worship her instead of the Lord of Israel. When King Hezekiah took out Nehushtan the Brazen Serpent of Moses (and Asherah which was there for 2/3rds of the temple's existence) because people were burning incense to it instead of the Lord has not much to do with whether Nehushtan had a rightful place in the theology of the temple when they first put it in there.

Yet the council and "gods" are in Abraham 3. To claim there is no "council" in Abraham 3 ignores what the chapter actually depicts. Abraham 3:22–23 is a gathered assembly of premortal spirits under God, by definition, is a council in Heaven. Abraham 3:24 is the decree and Abraham 4:1 records the execution of this decree. Grammatically, "they" who went down in Abraham 4:1 is directly referring back to the "we" who agreed to go down in Abraham 3:24. The text explicitly defines the antecedent. When Abraham 4:26–27 describes the formation of Adam, "And the Gods took counsel among themselves and said: Let us go down and form man in our image, after our likeness... So the Gods went down to organize man in their own image..." In Latter-day Saint scripture, doctrine, and temple theology, who specifically makes up "the Gods" in this creation council includes God the Father as the Head of the Council, standing in their midst, who directs the plan, Jesus Christ as the Creator and "One like unto God" who leads the execution of the creation, and noble spirits under Jesus' direction, which would include folk such as Michael, Gabriel, Raphiel, Uriel and others who'd be born eventually as important figures, prophets and kings. How and what they did to help I'm not sure, but it's merely foreign Greek concept that spirits can't interact with matter, the Bible says a spirit can interact with matter, like people can get spirited away to mountain tops. Did they help craft the clay golem of Adam or did they spiritually guide pre-Adamites to birth an Adam naturally, I'm not so certain.

"Most" likely? You've mapped out a very neat taxonomy, but a faithful Latter-day Saint doesn't need to pick one model. The Church merely affirms that we have a Heavenly Mother. Modern Latter-day Saint thought is entirely comfortable leaving the exact cosmic origin of the Heavenly Mother as an unrevealed mystery, meaning all four of your models can remain fascinating theological theories without any single one being forced as the answer. However, if you want me be a good sport and play the game, I will argue for the simplest model. Model #4, the Co-Eternal Heavenly Mother, as LDS theology has the internal, scriptural space to accommodate a self-existent, fully divine Mother without getting dragged into either infinite regression nor creationism. D&C 93:29 states, "Intelligence... was not created or made, neither indeed can be." So, it's certainly possible for a core divine identity to be self-existent. If God the Father's core essence/intelligence is uncreated and co-eternal with the universe itself, the same principle would apply to the Heavenly Mother. In this model, she did not "become" a God. God is an uncreated Divine Binary, a fundamental cosmic pairing who together embody the full stature of God. And I do favor Ancient Near Eastern literature, in which the origin stories for gods weren't written to satisfy neither modern philosophical demands nor LDS thoughts like "infinite regression". When you look at Ancient Near Eastern mythology and Israelite religion through modern scholarship (like Margaret Barker, Mark S. Smith, Frank Moore Cross), the concept of a co-eternal divine pair has incredible historical resonance. El and Lady Wisdom (Hokhmah) is portrayed as a primordial pair. So, arguing from silence, and ignoring tradition, #4 is "most" likely.

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It looks like you're making an error by trying to artificially sever Abraham 3 from Abraham 4 and ignoring how the literary narrative flows across these chapters. The exact word "gods" appears in Abraham 4, Abraham 4:1 is the direct narrative continuation of Abraham 3:24–28. Who is the "we" in Abraham 3:24? The Lord and "those who were with him" (the noble and great spirits). Who is the "they" in Abraham 4:1? The antecedent to "they" in 4:1 is literally the group that agreed to go down in 3:24. Abraham 4:1 explicitly defines the antecedent, "and they, that is the Gods..." Abraham 4:1 is giving the structural title ("the gods") to the council of spirits ("we") introduced at the end of Abraham 3. You seem to be playing an "all-or-nothing" game by insisting that if a group called elohim in Psalm 82 does not currently possess 100% of the attributes of a fully exalted, perfected, resurrected god in D&C 132, then they cannot be considered real divine beings at all. In ancient Near Eastern Hebrew thought as well as in LDS theology a "god" is simply the category of heavenly/divine status or office, and not an "all-or-nothing" list of attributes. In biblical Hebrew, gods are not all defined as beings who are omnipotent or immutable. When Moses is called an elohim he is not all powerful, yet he is not a false elohim either, is he? D&C 132:19–20 describes the final, perfected state of resurrected exaltation, it is not describing every elohim in scripture. The elohim of Psalm 82 DO possess real divine status and authority, as it explicitly calls them "gods" and "children of the Most High". They are divine sons sitting in the assembly of God in heaven. They were given administrative authority and domain over nations (cf Deut 32:8, LXX/DSS). That is real, delegated authority over lower domains. They lose their status (Psalm 82:7), but you cannot fall from a divine status you never had in the first place. Their loss of permanency is a late judgment, not proof that they were mere mortal humans or non-divine all along. If these beings were just ordinary mortals or non-divine figures with zero real divine standing, saying "ye are gods" and "ye shall die like men" makes no sense. Do any of these possess "all power" or absolute post-resurrection perfection? No. Yet the Hebrew text calls them elohim and sons. D&C 132 outlines the end result, faithful new sons who become new elohim to replace them.

Justice and mercy are connected, because the human idea of justice is often limited or flawed, which is why we might prefer a more perfect and wise Judge untangle it all. True justice isn't just about punishment. After all, what is justice for someone who was wronged or falsely accused, justice is mercy and vindication. It can mean restoring what was lost or fixing what is broken. Earth often seems serendipitous, I think It mostly is serendipitous. Meaning events are not always because God caused it, but because we live in an imperfect world where free will and earthly randomness does happen. Rather than viewing our heartbreak as 'God's plan' and forcing ourselves to call it good, maybe faith is believing the truth that its bad or otherwise not God's will, but rather that God has the ability to ultimately repair, heal, and set right everything that went wrong. That the story isn't finished until both justice and mercy have its day.

I might agree there is an intentional dynamic in how the Church approaches public messaging around environmental issues. Church leadership rarely uses any political phrasing or explicitly name terms like "climate change." However, the Church seems to emphasize action over rhetoric. It will ground its environmental messaging under terms like "stewardship" (like in D&C 104), framing things like wasting resources or degrading the land as a breach of a spiritual duty. Conservation resonates across all members without triggering pushback. Instead of arguing over these multi-decade causes of climate trends does less immediate good than proceeding to change how water, energy, and land are actually managed today. Enacting real, large-scale environmental action.

They do have many of them except being everlasting with regards to their permanency but they do seem to have angels under them, even Satan has "his angels". I'm not certain they have a throne exactly, but they might. Jesus is one of them, I think he had a throne, and like them he became mortal, and had to be exalted again with a body and regain a throne. But Abraham 3 does say Jesus suggested that "we" the noble and great spirits should make an earth and Abraham 4 "they, rather the gods" make the earth. Are they two separate groups?

Reminds me of one of my pillars of faith in God. I know I believe in justice and will never not believe in it, justice will always be a worthy goal to me, but I know often justice is not found on earth. If I'm to proceed to have any hope that justice could be served, I must have faith there is some other force in the universe that will deliver that justice. Like Karma or God. The Just-World Fallacy is looking at present suffering, authority, or legal outcomes and working backward to assume, "They must have done something to deserve this," or "The system got it right because the system exists." The just-world bias actively protects injustice by sanctifying whatever outcome currently exists. It mistakes the status quo for right. If you believe in justice too, we should keep striving for what should be, rather than blindly accepting what is.

D&C 132:19-20 "Then shall they be gods, because they have no end; therefore shall they be from everlasting to everlasting... Then shall they be gods, because they have all power, and the angels are subject unto them." D&C 132:37 "they have entered into their exaltation, according to the promises, and sit upon thrones, and are not angels, but are gods." The Bible says Christians become "partakers of the divine nature" (2 Peter 1:4), given "glory" (1 Corinthians 15:43), made "like" God (1 John 3:2). Sitting on God's throne (Revelation 3:21) and exercising dominion over angels (1 Corinthians 6:3). LDS scripture, including the Bible, is not exclusive in its definition of all beings called gods. We clearly believe Jesus was God before he became human, therefore logically an exalted human cannot be the exclusive definition of a god. A godhood status existed in pre-mortal entities. Ether 3 and John 1:1 says Jesus is pre-mortally "God", which is divine investiture. He carried the Father’s title and authority. D&C 93:12-14 says Jesus "received not of the fulness at the first, but continued from grace to grace, until he received a fulness". His ultimate exaltation was only completed through his mortal embodiment and physical resurrection. Philippians 2:5-11, Jesus had a pre-mortal title of "God" but "he emptied himself [ekenosen], by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death... Therefore God super-exalted him [hyperypsosen]" and so is still an exalted embodied human above His previous status, and all Christians are promised to be also. The Book of Abraham says human spirits were in the council of gods at creation, Abraham 3:22-24 "Now the Lord had shown unto me, Abraham, the intelligences that were organized before the world was [human spirits]; and among all these there were many of the noble and great ones [nobles even as human spirits]... And there stood one among them that was like unto God [Jesus], and he said unto those who were with him: We [Jesus and noble human spirits] will go down, for there is space there, and we will take of these materials, and we will make an earth whereon these [other human spirits] may dwell." Human spirits were present in the council of the gods before the earth was framed. Abraham 4:1, 26 "And then the Lord said: Let us go down. And they went down at the beginning, and they, that is the gods, organized and formed the heavens and the earth." The Creation is explicitly carried out by "the gods" (elohim), a council with noble humans operating under the direction of the Father and the Lord, including premortal spirit beings acting as agents. Job 15:7-8 "Are you the first man ever born [Adam]? Were you brought forth before the hills [before Creation]? Have you listened in the council of God [sod elohim]?" Job 38:4-7 "Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth [at Creation]?... When the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God [bene Elohim] shouted for joy?" Genesis 1:26 "Let us make man in our image, after our likeness" Genesis 11:7 "let us go down, and there confound their language" The "council of the righteous" (Sod Yesharim / Adat Tzaddikim) is a prominent motif in classical rabbinic literature from Psalms 1:5 and Psalms 111:1. Jewish midrash interprets Genesis 1:26, where God says, "Let us make man in our image." as commonly thought to be referring to "the souls of the righteous with whom He took counsel before creating the world." Genesis Rabbah 8:7 Midrash Kee Tov says Adam, Noah, Abraham, and Moses were among the council of the righteous and were present before creation Ruth Rabbah 2:3 says the council of the righteous associated with God's decision to create the world

I don't think the Kimball quote actually corrects what I said. It pretty much reinforces the distinction I was making. When Kimball says man is "a god in embryo" and has "the seeds of godhood", he's not saying that every mortal is presently a god, these are developmental metaphors about the predication of godhood. They attribute godhood to humanity in terms of its potentiality. An embryo is precisely something that belongs to a particular kind or developmental trajectory while not yet possessing the mature characteristics of the adult. A worker honeybee larva has the exact same genetic code as a queen. Her "present quality" as a potential queen is her species and capacity, but she isn't yet and may never be a queen until she is fed royal jelly and given room to grow. One present continuity between God and man is that humans are created in the image and likeness of God. A "god in embryo" doesn't mean that man is presently a god in knowledge, power, glory, or other divine attributes. So, when you ask, "What are all these qualities that already makes \[present tense\] a man a god in embryo?", I think you're mistaking "god in embryo" as though it means "already a fully-fledged god and justified in calling them a god without any qualifiers" It doesn't. The whole point of Kimball's embryo metaphor is that the present state and the mature state are different. Humans are genuinely capable of becoming gods, they are still different, except some meaningful continuity between them. Believers will undergo a genuine ontological transformation into some sort of non-human, more like God than human, "We are God's children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is." (1 John 3:2) And that's also why your Psalm 82 question doesn't refute the argument. If there are other beings called "gods" in Psalm 82, that doesn't establish that every being called a god has to have the same origin, developmental history, or relationship to humanity. A "god" can refer to a status or office in different contexts without making every use of the word identical. I'm not saying every being called a god is an exalted human. The council gods are real pre-incarnate spiritual beings who receive divine titles and authority, but are not the Father, and ultimately are subject to judgment/mortality in Psalm 82. Exalted humans who can eventually receive godhood is a different route from these nation gods. None of this requires saying that a mortal human is presently identical to God. In fact, the "god in embryo" language makes the opposite distinction. Kimball is using an analogy based on essentially the same developmental distinction I was making.

My wording is a bit different than I intended. When I said "the Bible and I clearly said," at first I meant to just say I clearly said humans are the same species as God, and then went back to try refer back to the biblical use of genos in Acts, which I understand is an interpretation and not so clear, but it does support the idea of a shared kind/stock, but doesn't easily lead into things like modern biological categories of species and genus. With species being the weakest of possible meanings, when I should of just said "kind" or "genos". Paul certainly is not portraying God as an utterly unrelated category of being. Even being the same species still doesn't mean humans are presently equal to God. That's precisely why I used a species developmental analogy. A newborn horse and an adult horse can belong to the same kind without being identical in their present capacities or developmental state. LDS thoughts on theosis doesn't include that mortals are currently omniscient, omnipotent, glorified, etc.

Not at all, the Bible and I clearly said humans are the same species as God, but a god is clearly at a different developmental stage just like anyother thing of the same species can be compared to in my analogy. A human is the image and likeness of God, but not a god until they have all the necessary qualities of a god, just as a newborn horse is the same species as an adult horse, yet a newborn horse is not an adult horse. Being the same species does not make a later stage of development the same as your current state of development. The analogy is pretty simple, I don't know what the problem is.

They are deity, as that is the name the Bible gives them. They are real, they do have power and authority from God to govern the laws and religious affairs of other nations, and in that sense they are deities - of that nation - and only within that nation. They seem to have a tendency to fall from grace and fall from their heavenly position a lot, which shows there is at least someone with more power over them to dislodge them. You might call them angels but the Bible refers to them as gods, but not the one true God, the Father. They are lords too, but not our Lord, Jesus. In Israel there is Yahweh, and there is no other god in Israel governing Israel at his side. It seems simple and straightforward to me and nearly every Near Eastern scholar I know agrees. Doesn't make it true, but it's far from just my bias or uninformed opinion. No, it's merely not doctrine until it is canonized as the truth. Like how Schrodinger's cat is both alive and dead until someone opens the box to see. It's is not true or false until we actually get certified confirmation from God one way or the other. We can think any contrary thoughts we want if it's not made a binding doctrine of the church. If they truly thought it was revelation, they should canonize it, because then and only then is it binding on the members of the church.

Whether I use an acorn and an oak tree, a horse zygote and a 1,200-pound stallion, or a human and God, the point remains identical. Developmental distance does not alter their species kind.