Nondescendants Of Adam

[bu11fr0g]

Many areas were peopled by migrations that are much older than 6000 years. Are the aboriginal Australians nondescendants of Adam and what does this mean if they are?

[thesometimesaint]

That just maybe Archbishop Ussher was off on his dating of Creation.

[Log]

Maybe he wasn't.

[thesometimesaint]

Log:

He was only off by a factor of about half a million, but whose counting?

[Log]

Don't be coy; next time, don't say "maybe" when you don't mean it. Tell us Joseph was wrong, too. Tell us by what authority you know what you claim.

[thesometimesaint]

Log:

Not being coy, being facetious.

JS was reported as believing the earth was 2 &1/2 billion years old.

So said William W. Phelps, the Prophet Joseph’s scribe, in a letter to the Prophet’s brother, William Smith, in 1844. Shortly thereafter, the Church’s official periodical published Phelps’ statement, with one small editorial addition.

… eternity, agreeably to the records found in the catacombs of Egypt, has been going on in this system (not the world) almost two thousand five hundred and fifty five millions of years… Times & Seasons 5 no. 24 (1 Jan. 1844).

Archbishop Ussher.

http://en.wikipedia....ki/James_Ussher

Edited April 8, 2012 by thesometimesaint

[Log]

You contradict your source on the face of it. But in any event, it does not answer the topic of the OP.

... funny, just noted that 7000 years (for creation) * 365 days (per year) * 1000 years per day (God's time to human time) = 2555000000 years. Curious figure, that.

Edited April 8, 2012 by Log

[zerinus]

Log:

Not being coy, being facetious.

JS was reported as believing the earth was 2 &1/2 billion years old.

So said William W. Phelps, the Prophet Joseph’s scribe, in a letter to the Prophet’s brother, William Smith, in 1844. Shortly thereafter, the Church’s official periodical published Phelps’ statement, with one small editorial addition.

… eternity, agreeably to the records found in the catacombs of Egypt, has been going on in this system (not the world) almost two thousand five hundred and fifty five millions of years… Times & Seasons 5 no. 24 (1 Jan. 1844).

Archbishop Ussher.

http://en.wikipedia....ki/James_Ussher

That is the length of eternity, not the age of the earth.

[cinepro]

Many areas were peopled by migrations that are much older than 6000 years. Are the aboriginal Australians nondescendants of Adam and what does this mean if they are?

I find the following process helpful in dealing with such things:

1. Study the "natural" history of the Earth and its people.

2. Take whatever I can from the teachings of the scriptures and Church leaders and fit it into this natural history.

3. Throw out the rest as mistaken or allegorical.

It's worked well so far, and I highly recommend it.

[Log]

Rep point for that one. Perfect candor.

Now, be consistent and apply it to the Resurrection.

[thesometimesaint]

Zerinus:

That doesn't make any sense. Eternity is without beginning and without end. Think of the largest number you can, that whatever it is but a drop of time in the vast ocean of eternity.

[zerinus]

Zerinus:

That doesn't make any sense. Eternity is without beginning and without end. Think of the largest number you can, that whatever it is but a drop of time in the vast ocean of eternity.

Joseph Smith apparently believed that eternity was not as we think it is. He believed that it was a fixed period of time. He said that he discovered that truth from the Book of Abraham. That is not such an impossible concept as you think it is.

[Bikeemikey]

Joseph Smith apparently believed that eternity was not as we think it is. He believed that it was a fixed period of time. He said that he discovered that truth from the Book of Abraham. That is not such an impossible concept as you think it is.

Joseph Smith did allude to the fact that an eternity may be the time it takes for God to redeem all of his children. I have never been shown this quote personally but have heard it on a number of occasions.

[zerinus]

Joseph Smith did allude to the fact that an eternity may be the time it takes for God to redeem all of his children. I have never been shown this quote personally but have heard it on a number of occasions.

I am not familiar with that suggestion, but he did appear to set a fixed number for the length of eternity, which he said he had discovered from the studying the Egyptian papyri from which he translated the Book of Abraham.

[Bikeemikey]

I am not familiar with that suggestion, but he did appear to set a fixed number for the length of eternity, which he said he had discovered from the studying the Egyptian papyri from which he translated the Book of Abraham.

I would be interest in any CFR from JS either for the position you highlighted or my early statement relating to an eternity being the length of time it take the Lord to save all his children.

[HiJolly]

I would be interest in any CFR from JS either for the position you highlighted or my early statement relating to an eternity being the length of time it take the Lord to save all his children.

Well, that's basically how my kabbalist friends take it to mean. Once tikkun olam is complete and all the sparks of intelligence return to Adam Kadmon, then the eternity can wrap up the scene and all becomes as before the creation. And eventually, Ein once again becomes Ein Sof, and then Ein Sof Aur, etc. One eternal round.

HiJolly

Edited April 8, 2012 by HiJolly

[LDS_RM]

is there any reason to believe that Adam and Eve where the only two until inbreeding occured? Is it possible they were only the first, and that others were created as Adam and Eve?

[bu11fr0g]

Created Adam and Eve at different times and places on our Earth?

The problem is all mankind being linked to Adam and Eve through sealings.

[dtorge26]

Many areas were peopled by migrations that are much older than 6000 years. Are the aboriginal Australians nondescendants of Adam and what does this mean if they are?

There's actually a quite simple explanation for the aboriginals, cavemen, or any other 'non-descendent' of Adam.

In short, these people never really existed on this Earth.

Their fossil remains and remnants are simply part of the package that came with our Earth, since the Earth was materialized by God as a copy of some prior Earth.

So, the non-descendants were real, only that they were real in another time and space apart from this universe.

God didn't bother to remove fossil evidence from the template copy of Earth, mainly because there would be literally no end to the modifications He would have to make in order to hide its age and natural genesis.

So, unfortunately, these poor non-descendants of Adam probably never had a soul, because there was no god at the time to keep their soul.

But, on a happier note, we can be assured that all people's of this Earth are descended from Adam, and they do indeed have souls.

See, I told you it was simple!

[cinepro]

To answer the original post, the existence of people on this planet who are not descended from Adam and Eve would be catastrophic to conventional LDS doctrine.

Obviously individual LDS members are free to come up with whatever theories they like in reconciling the theorized existence of such people, but as far as the Church is concerned, they cannot possibly exist.

As Robert Millet said:

All too often Adam’s place and role in the plan of salvation have been misunderstood. To many in the religious world he is an enigma; to others, a myth. Some despise him for his actions in Eden. The praise he receives from some others takes the strange form of adoration and even worship. But to misunderstand Adam is to misunderstand our own identity as well as our relationship to the Lord and his plan.

At the very least, we might have to get used to calling Eve "the mother of most living"

[BCSpace]

Many areas were peopled by migrations that are much older than 6000 years. Are the aboriginal Australians nondescendants of Adam and what does this mean if they are?

Assuming evolution, it depends on what was going on outside the garden state, if there was an "outside" at all, if pre Adamites (possible in LDS doctrine because of the 1931 statement and the doctrine on D&C 77) made it through the garden state, and how the spirit children of God propagated after the Fall.

A:

Assuming pre Adamites did not make it through the Fall, then Australia of course would have to be repopulated which is not impossible especially because of the precedent of how God in the scriptures has driven or led people all over the world. They could have done it themselves too without God's direct intervention. The European DNA found in Australian aboriginies as recently as 2011 could still have manifested itself through the DNA of Adam and Eve, the descendents of pre Adamites themselves (according to my personal hypothesis). This would require far fewer figurative assumptions about the creation account.

B:

Assuming pre Adamites did make it through the Fall, then there are multiple directions one could go but the creation account might need to be assumed to be more figurative:

1) Adam and Eve's children, having the literal children of God as spirits within, spread, dominate, and out compete the pre Adamite races and those lines die out.

2) Same as 1, but with the addition of interbreeding in which case the spirits within the resulting "mixed" children are always the spirit children of God.

3) With the Fall, the spirits of children born to all lines now are spirit children of God.

In the cases of B2 and B3 above, Adam and Eve being the father and mother of the human race might have to go more figurative. The least change towards the figurative is assuming, not unreasonably, that with the spread of Adam and Eve's children and interbreeding, that everyone can still trace their line back to Adam and Eve as well as some other lines. The precedence of Adam and Eve's line of course is shown in their choice in the garden and the line of spirit children going back to God in certain scenarios and such precedence makes Adam and Eve the mother and father of the human race as it pertains to "temporal time" (the doctrine on D&C 77).

In all cases, I assume Adam and Eve to be the children of pre Adamite parents, the first to be born with literal children of God as spirits within and at some point placed into the garden state.

I also assume all pre Adamites to be homo sapiens as science dictates but the spirits within them are not the literal spirit children of God until Adam and Eve and after. Intelligent for sure, but perhaps less capable so as to explain the quarter million years plus existence without civilization. I could also go with the revelation and knowledge of God as an instigator for civilization. But assuming pre Adamites had spirit children of God within them like we do, places an additional burden of explaining how they are saved though I am sure some would go with the fact of the infinite nature of the Atonement. I tend not to go that direction.

I have no problem pushing back the date of the Fall. 8, 10, maybe 12,000 B.C. or so. I think it's unlikely to be circa 4004 B.C. as per traditional christianity.

I'm certain one can find other good explainations (or problems) but I remain certain that evolution and science does not present a problem with LDS doctrine in this or any area.

Edited April 10, 2012 by BCSpace

[JeremyOrbe-Smith]

The existence of people on this planet who are not descended from a literal Adam and Eve would not be catastrophic to LDS doctrine in the slightest. There are, of course, some good members whose original understanding of the first story they happened to read in scripture might have to change with the accumulation of further evidence, but that should come as no surprise. After all, we are a church based on the principles of continuing revelation, eternal progression, and the idea that knowledge is given to God's servants in their weakness, line upon line, precept upon precept, by study of the best books and by faith, after the manner of their language, that they might come to understanding, where inasmuch as they erred it might be made known, and inasmuch as they sought wisdom they might be instructed, and inasmuch as they were humble they might be made strong, and blessed from on high, and receive knowledge from time to time. What's the hymn? "The Lord is extending the Saints' understanding."

Joseph Smith was very concerned when the people started relying on their Prophets to answer every little question, neglecting the duties which devolved upon themselves and thereby darkening their minds. As President Uchtdorf said once: "Brothers and sisters, as good as our previous experience may be, if we stop asking questions, stop thinking, stop pondering, we can thwart the revelations of the Spirit. Remember, it was the questions young Joseph asked that opened the door for the restoration of all things. We can block the growth and knowledge our Heavenly Father intends for us. How often has the Holy Spirit tried to tell us something we needed to know but couldn’t get past the massive iron gate of what we thought we already knew?"

As President Hugh B. Brown said: "We must go out on the research front and continue to explore the vast unknown. We should be in the forefront of learning in all fields, for revelation does not come only through the prophet of God nor only directly from heaven in visions or dreams. Revelation may come in the laboratory, out of the test tube, out of the thinking mind and the inquiring soul, out of search and research and prayer and inspiration."

Brigham Young made it a point to say that his religion was natural philosophy. "All of God's productions came according to natural principles," he said, and "there is no such thing as a miracle, except to those who do not understand." As far as the scriptures go, he noted that "Moses obtained the history and traditions of the fathers, and from these picked out what he considered necessary, and that account has been handed down from age to age, and we have got it, no matter whether it is correct or not." Certainly not a fundamentalist understanding in which the scriptures are the Inerrant Word of God, every letter Inspired.

"It is the same with religion," Brigham Young said, "but our traditions are such that it is one of the most difficult things in the world to make men believe that the revealed religion of heaven is a pure science, and all true science in the possession of men now is a part of the religion of heaven and has been revealed from that source. But it is hard to get the people to believe that God is a scientific character, that He lives by science or strict law, that by this He is, and by law He was made what He is; and will remain to all eternity because of His faithful adherence to law."

Indeed, Young said that "all truth is ours. Now, if anybody wants to make a trade, come on! If you have truths, and I have errors, I will give ten errors for one truth."

As far as Adam and Eve goes ... I really think the controversy is so heated in part because it's the very first story in the Bible that people read. We tend to cling to the first understanding that we had as children rather than listen to 1 Corinthians 13.

If we understand the Garden stories as part of a word-perfect literal textbook on How To Populate A World, then I'm afraid we're in for disillusionment. The accounts are simply contradictory; God cannot create "men and women" at once in His image from the dust and yet create Eve later from Adam's rib. Etc., etc.. Since we already admit that some things in the story such as the rib are symbolic or figurative (despite being presented in unambiguously literal terminology), there is little reason to suppose that other aspects cannot be figurative as well. (At the very least, we'd need some sort of reason for why the rib bit can be figurative while other parts must be taken literally.)

But this sort of disillusionment only occurs if we are working from flawed premises. if we simply step back, take a deep breath, and understand the context the stories were written in, the very nature of the question is rendered moot. As Nephi wrote, "mine eyes hath beheld the things of the Jews, and I know that the Jews do understand the things of the prophets, and there is none other people that understand the things which were spoken unto the Jews like unto them, save it be that they are taught after the manner of the things of the Jews."

In the Pearl of Great Price, Adam and Eve are called "many." In the Hebrew, Ugaritic, Eblaite, and Old Akkadian, Adam is adm, the common generic noun meaning "man, humankind" -- ie, "many." He is a wordplay on adama, "earth", for the bodies of mankind were raised from the primordial ooze and soil and dust to be Kings and Queens, the Temples in which the family of the Gods breathe our uncreated intelligences into. The bodies we inhabit for our earth life are glorious things; there is another type of glory for our celestial bodies. Adam and Eve are the King and Queen in a Temple Drama -- a script for a play which expresses many True Things which is nevertheless not a "literal" history.

This is the same principle as Joseph's Dream of his family as a Father Sun, Mother Moon, and Sibling Stars. It is the same principle as Isaiah's "tree" of Jesse, as Daniel's Vision of the World Tree, Enoch's Vision of the Animals, Ezekiel's figurative language, all of Christ's Parables, the Book of Revelation, Lehi and Nephi's Vision of the Tree of Life, Jacob's story of the Vineyard, Alma's lesson on the Tree of Wisdom, etc., etc..

If we're reading these particular scriptures literally, we're missing the point. And yet they do express true ideas, true concepts, which are real even if they were clothed in gorgeous allegory during their expression. I think the Garden story, especially in the LDS interpretation, is meant to teach us about our Premortal life in the world above where we walked with God, and our descent -- the eucatastrophe of our individual "Falls" -- into this world of mortality, this Refiner's Fire. We each partake of the Fruit, as Eve said, in order to have joy and learn Wisdom, continuing on in the next stage in our eternal progression -- our evolution from one kind of being to another as our Uncreated Intelligences ascend back to our primeval home in the Atonement taught by the Anointed One, the Messiah we elected by common consent because His Plan was to bring about the immortality and eternal life of all humanity.

We become Adam and Eve in the Temple; we take their names because they are the ultimate archetypes representing each one of us, reenacting the Plan of Salvation overlaid onto this life for every generation in order to construct the context necessary to live fulfilling lives. We're real, and therefore so are they; it's a Hero's Journey kind of thing. Every primate over worlds without number which is the combination of an Uncreated Intelligence adopted as a Child of God breathed into a physical body is a "descendent" of an Adam or Eve, and becomes an Adam or Eve themselves. It's all part of the eternal round, the cycle in which Intelligences help each other as they journey together on the path towards theosis. The Template we act out which teaches us to follow the Way of the Anointed One is taught through metaphor and allegory and symbol; yet Christ's Resurrection was real.

Edited April 10, 2012 by JeremyOrbe-Smith

[dtorge26]

The existence of people on this planet who are not descended from a literal Adam and Eve would not be catastrophic to LDS doctrine in the slightest.

I thought your post was very thoughtful, but I have a hard time with your first sentence. I think there is a huge doctrinal problem if there are people on this planet who didn't descend from a first parent scenario. The problem relates to the eternal nature of families, God being a non-respecter of persons, and identification of God's eternal spirit family (adoption notwithstanding).

Run through your evolutionary scenario of single-cell bacteria transforming into multi-cellular organisms, into higher organisms, then into humans. And explain exactly where you posit that God started implanting the spirits of His children into these organisms? I'll suppose for a second that you choose a rather arbitrary point along the development of the homo family of species. Under this scenario, God creates a first generation of eternal souls deserving of resurrection and higher glories, all without the hope of ever being reunited with their earthly parents. This is a true Mormom heresy! What if God picks and chooses which human organisms to implant his spirit children, then He is truly a respector of persons. Another heresy. If there are people alive on the planet who can't be assured that they can trace their lineage back into God's spirit family, then there is a huge problem with the promise of eternal families, I don't see any way around it.

[JeremyOrbe-Smith]

I think the theological problem only comes when one jumps over adoption as "notwithstanding." All Intelligence is eternal (whatever the heck an "intelligence" actually is) and according to Joseph Smith can exist in or out of a larger tabernacle. Therefore, while there is biological parentage -- ie, the physical genetic relationship between our ancestors and our current bodies -- there is also a non-genetic "family" which we are adopted into through Covenant. I think that's why there's so much stress laid in the scriptures about choosing God as our Father, rather than the Father of Lies. We can always choose which type of family we want to be a part of -- one which has a "spirit of bloodshed", or the one which is working to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life in tabernacles of all Uncreated Intelligences. Our eternal family is made of those Uncreated Intelligences we choose to seal ourselves to.

In other words, I shouldn't want to be sealed to my parents merely because I have biological blood-ties to them; I want to be with them because they, as tabernacled Uncreated Intelligences themselves, are good people, and have sacrificed so much for me.

As Joseph Smith said: "Friendship is one of the grand fundamental principles of ‘Mormonism’; [it is designed] to revolutionize and civilize the world, and cause wars and contentions to cease and men to become friends and brothers."

Edited April 11, 2012 by JeremyOrbe-Smith

[cinepro]

The existence of people on this planet who are not descended from a literal Adam and Eve would not be catastrophic to LDS doctrine in the slightest.

If you were referencing my comment, you'll notice that I qualified my statement as referring to conventional LDS doctrine (i.e. that Doctrine which is taught by Church leaders, Church publications and Church curriculum, and their published interpretation of the scriptures).

I can't account for the creativity of a single LDS in an online forum, and fully acknowledge that many members of the Church can interpret LDS doctrines in ways that comfortably fit with pre-Adamites, dead physical bodies before the fall, and an Earth undisturbed by a global flood in the last 6,000 years.

But unless you can find anything taught by the Church that accounts for non-Adamic humans, the Church's teachings about the primacy of Adam's place in the human family tree don't allow for such beings, no matter how much we wish it did.

Edited April 11, 2012 by cinepro