Adam-ondi-Ahman: What does it mean, and do you believe it?

[thesometimesaint]

1 hour ago, JLHPROF said:

What does it mean
Its literal meaning is still something of a mystery.
Adam literally means man.
Ahman (according to revelation) literally means God.
Ondi is the mysterious word - man meets with God, man is called God, man becomes God, Adam meets with God, Adam becomes God, Adam is called God.

Lots of ideas out there.  But it somehow connects man (or the man Adam) and God.

It is the valley where Adam was sent after being cast out of the Garden of Eden.
It is the valley where Adam gathered and blessed his posterity.
It is the valley where the grand council spoken of in Daniel and by Joseph Smith will take place prior to the second coming.  (D&C 116)
It is located in Missouri near the same area where the New Jerusalem will be built.

Do you believe it
Yes.  Absolutely.  I've been there many times, and the spirit is so strong.  That is sacred ground.

The winters in Missouri make it problematic as to being the spot for the Garden of Eden.

[Calm]

23 minutes ago, ALarson said:

Well, we know it still existed in 1873 (according to Wilford Woodruff).  

How were LDS being treated in the area at that time (actual question, I don't know)?  Given the history of their experience as well as what the feds were doing over time, my expectations would be that LDS might believe if they started making a big thing about stuff being Mormon related, so to speak, it might get dangerous again in that area if it wasn't already.

[ALarson]

10 minutes ago, JLHPROF said:

I find McConkie's switch of Ahman from God the person to land of God a little bit of a stretch.

Yes, I can see that.  Maybe it more literally means the land where God visited Adam?  (Or one of your other suggestions).  I'd have to look up quotes from Joseph Smith, but did he specifically write about it or do we only have quotes from those who were with him?

[JLHPROF]

16 minutes ago, thesometimesaint said:

The winters in Missouri make it problematic as to being the spot for the Garden of Eden.

Not if you consider the environmental changes that occurred post-fall.
 

[consiglieri]

1 hour ago, CV75 said:

I feel a couplet coming on.... I don't know and I don't care / But when invited I'll be there.

According to Wendy Nelson, Jesus has already been on earth meeting with large groups of his faithful followers.

You would know if you had been invited.

Sorry you missed it.

It was fabulous!

[CV75]

2 hours ago, consiglieri said:

According to Wendy Nelson, Jesus has already been on earth meeting with large groups of his faithful followers.

You would know if you had been invited.

Sorry you missed it.

It was fabulous!

consiglieri (if that is your real name...) I've always liked President Kimball's comment, “When Satan is bound in a single home—when Satan is bound in a single life—the Millennium has already begun in that home, in that life” (The Teachings of Spencer W. Kimball, ed. Edward L. Kimball [1982], 172).

 

[mfbukowski]

3 hours ago, Gray said:

Orthodox Mormonism is always evolving, but I would define it as Mormonism as it's taught through official church channels. That seems reasonable.

I agree that unorthodox members can still get a recommend while rejecting orthodoxy and literalism. But I just find it curious that you criticize critics for their naive literalism but don't seem to blink at the same literalism that is coursing through everything that comes to us via official church channels. There is no hint that any of them are approaching this the way you do. Or the way I do.

I think literalism is usually pretty silly, but I can't fault former believers for maintaining the same interpretive lens that they learned in church.

The fact that we need to change has nothing to do with critics who do not understand that there are many ways to interpret Mormonism.

I also have no problem with literalism per se.  It is just that we can all see multiple paradigms of interpretation simultaneously if we want to.

For example, was there a literal Adam?  Honestly I have no idea.  God could have done it that way if he wanted.  Was the world created 6000 years ago?  Honestly God could have done that if he wanted to.  Bertrand Russel pointed out that there is no way to disprove the idea that the world popped into existence 5 minutes ago and all our memories are false.

He did not believe that, nor do I , but the point is, it is logically possible that this is the case.

As far as Adam-ondi-Ahman, it is possibly literally "true" meaning "it actually happened".  I think that is about as probable as the earth popping into existence 5 minutes ago, but who am I to judge God's purposes.

It could be that the place is a symbol for a "peaceful place" which will house a huge meeting of the priesthood including the living and the dead that may take place literally in what is now known as Missouri or in "heaven".  After all, humans can represent God himself in temple symbolism, so why could not AoA symbolize any peaceful place?

The scriptures speak of a "second Adam"- the savior.  Jacob, it is said wrestled with an "angel" which could have been a human representing an angel or the Lord himself or any combination of the above.

All of these are possible and I discount none of them.  There is no need for an either/or interpretation of anything.  In my opinion those who demand an either/or view lack the ability to see other possibilities 

The bottom line for me is that pragmatically, these religious beliefs enrich my life incredibly and make me feel closer to a real person I know as "Christ" whom I believe I have experienced through revelation in the form of feelings in my heart.  This person knows me and my life and problems and is capable of putting answers to fundamental questions into my mind in such a way that I know that they did not come from me.  They are new ways of seeing that I could not or would not come up with on my own.  They are in some cases brand new ideas, or new ways of assembling old ideas which allow me to make sense of a particular problem or theory.

So no, I am not against literalism, I just find it hard to reconcile it with science AND other opinions I hold about the nature of reality, some derived just from living life, and others that have a philosophical origin.

I attack critics who lack the understanding that there are may ways of seeing things, and try to teach members the same principle.  I am gentle with members and reflect the attitude of critics.  If they are here to attack, I attack.  If they are here to be conciliatory and ask questions and reason things out, I respond as I am here.

The bottom line is that there are many possible paradigms for ways of seeing religious issues and I see the "best" as being one which removes as many logical conflicts as possible.  But that view itself is not guaranteed as being "correct" or "what really happened".  Occam's Razor is just a theory like any other theory.  For all I really know it might be "turtles all the way down" but I do not believe anything like that

That's my story and I am sticking to it.

[mfbukowski]

2 hours ago, consiglieri said:

According to Wendy Nelson, Jesus has already been on earth meeting with large groups of his faithful followers.

You would know if you had been invited.

Sorry you missed it.

It was fabulous!

According to Mark Bukowski, Jesus appears every day on numerous occasions and meets with the faithful in the temple on a daily basis.

He is there as really as the spirits of the dead are there represented by proxies, and yes he is also represented by proxies just as Jacob wrestled the Lord through an angelic proxy.  And angels can also be human beings, including any of us.  This principle is known as "Divine Investiture"

You would know it if you had been invited to see it that way.

It is really quite fabulous!

[Calm]

4 hours ago, consiglieri said:

According to Wendy Nelson, Jesus has already been on earth meeting with large groups of his faithful followers.

It was a thought experiment.  Sheesh.

[Robert F. Smith]

22 hours ago, Sanpitch said:

Not to worry, walking to Missouri in the last days is just a myth. 

We'll wave goodbye to you when we leave.  

[Robert F. Smith]

Adam-ondi-Ahman: What does it mean, and do you believe it? (D&C 117:8,11)

In ancient Sumerian Á-DAM is “country, pasture” = Akkadkian  namû, nawû “flock, pastureland” (Tawil, Akkadian Lexical Companion 234), which is the source of Hebrew Nauvoo.  

Likewise, Sumerian EDIN, EDEN[1] = Akkadian edinu “plain, steppe, open country,” is the source of Hebrew Eden (2 Nephi 2:19,22, 8:3 ǁIsaiah 51:3, Alma 12:21, 42:2-3), suggesting that Noah may have prepared for the Great Deluge in the Carolinas.[2]  M. Cowley wrote that A. Smoot and A. Ripley claimed that, while surveying land at Adam-ondi-Ahman (about 72 miles north of Jackson County), Joseph Smith visited them and "said that the Garden of Eden was located in Jackson County, Missouri."[3]  The Garden of the Lord is after all located on the east of Eden (Genesis 2:8, Abraham 5:8), that is, on the east side of the Great Plains.  The great non-Mormon biblical scholar David Noel Freedman said:

. . . the Mississippi River in our country drains a vast basin from north to south, being fed by tributary rivers on both sides, e.g., the Ohio, itself the product of a vast tributary system flowing into the Mississippi from the East, while the mighty Missouri joins the Mississippi from the West.  If we try to impose a real picture on the imagined one in the book of Genesis, we might come out in the following fashion: It may be that the flow of the biblical rivers from one source into many streams will be reversed and they will flow back into the main stream from which they came.[4]

Thus, one is hard put to find a better location for Eden and its four rivers than the Great Plains of North America (Sumerian EDIN “Plain”): with the Yellowstone, Missouri, Little Missouri, and Platte Rivers.

---

 

[1] ePennsylvania Sumerian Dictionary, Sumerian eden “plain, steppe; open country” = Akkadian edinu; cf. Sumerian an-eden, an-edin "the high steppe, high plain" = Akkadian ṣērum.

[2] So Oliver B. Huntington in Juvenile Instructor, (15 Nov 1895), 700-701, as cited by Tanner & Tanner, Changing World of Mormonism, 23; cf. LDS “Bible Dictionary,” 659-660.

[3] Cowley, Wilford Woodruff, 545-546, cited in BYU Studies, 13:566; cf. the Woodruff Journals for possible mention; cf. TPJS, 126, for Joseph's statement that Adam offered sacrifice in Adam-ondi-Ahman after being cast out of the Garden – this best makes sense in light of Phelps in Evening & Morning Star, I/11 (April 1833), quoting Moses 5:1-16, the Lord speaking to Adam from the Garden.  

[4] Freedman, “Introduction: The Rivers of Paradise,” in Freedman & M. J. McClymond, eds., The Rivers of Paradise (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2001), 9; E. A. Speiser, “The Rivers of Paradise,” in Festschrift Johannes Friedrich, 473-485.

[mrmarklin]

On ‎2‎/‎15‎/‎2016 at 4:04 PM, cinepro said:

Today in out Stake Conference broadcast, Elder Renlund shared a story about a visit to Adam-ondi-Ahman (the Church-owned property in Missouri).  While visiting with a non-member there, he shared a brief outline of LDS beliefs regarding that area.  As he outlined these beliefs, it struck me as how anachronistic this belief could be to the worldview of some LDS.  With this belief, several key aspects of the conventional history of mankind's existence on this planet come into question.

Specifically:

Significant Events:

Three years before he died, Adam called his righteous posterity into this valley and bestowed on them his last blessing (D&C 107:53–56)

 

So what does this mean?

If Adam was living with his children in the land that is now Missouri three years before he died, does this indeed confirm that the Garden of Eden was in the general vicinity? 

What this mean for scientific models of ancient human dispersion?  Should LDS reject these theories (and their attendant evidences)?

How do we reconcile this with the idea that Noah's flood was a local flood located in the area of the Middle East?

 

 

There is no reason to doubt the scriptures regarding this event.  Mormon tradition is that the entire earth was in "paradisical" glory per the Articles of Faith.  JS stated that A&E emerged in Missouri. and that Adam-Ondi-Ahman was nearby.  There were 1,688 years between the emergence of Adam and the Flood.  People could have gone anywhere.  After the flood, even if there was no all encompassing event that "covered" the world it seems clear that Noah landed in the eastern hemisphere.

All the dispersion of ancient peoples possibly happened before Adam.  We really don't know if any survived to Adamic times.  It's likely, but not known for a fact.  All civilizations now extant have at least some tradition of a great flood.

[Robert F. Smith]

6 hours ago, JLHPROF said:

What does it mean
...........................................................
Adam literally means man...............................................

...............................................

The biblical name Adam comes from Hebrew ’ādām, hă’ādām "humanity, mankind, human, person; man,"[1] which "is a collective and is therefore never used in the plural; it means literally 'mankind' (L. Köhler).  Luther instinctively translated the word very well with 'Menschen'" in Genesis 1:26-27; cf. Leviticus 18:5.[2]  ’Ādām is used in Genesis 5:1 as a proper name, which is not the case in Genesis 1 - 3[3]; ’ādām "man," ’ădāmâ "earth," is the theme of Genesis 2:4b-25; cf. Genesis 3:17b "dust"[4]; this also applies to Ugaritic ʼadamu, adm "mankind, human being," in KTU 1.14:I: 35/36 +36/37, according to Stan Segert (in the phrase il ab adm)[5]; note, however, I. Engnell, who sees Adam in Genesis 1:26 as "divine."[6]  Cf. PGP Moses 1:34, 6:9.

---

[1] LDS Holy Bible (1979), 8 n, Hebrew adam “man, mankind.”

[2] Gerhard von Rad, Genesis, 57; cf. D. Wold in Bible Review, Apr 1994, p. 6, citing R. S. Hess, "Splitting the Adam: The Usage of ’ADAM in Genesis IV," Vetus Testa­mentum Supplement 41 [1990]:1-15, and H. N. Wallace, "The Toledot of Adam," VTS, 41:17-33.

[3] Von Rad, Genesis, 70.

[4] Von Rad, Genesis, 76-77.

[5] Segert, Journal of the American Oriental Society, 103 (1983):304a; del Olmo Lete, Canaanite Religion, 2^nd ed., 373-374.

[6] Engnell, Vetus Testamentum, Supplement, 3 (H. H. Rowley Festschrift, 1960), 112.

[strappinglad]

Out of curiosity , has any archeological work been done around Adam-ondi-Ahman?  I suppose I should do a Google Earth search because the only time I was near the area was many decades ago and it was untouched land.

[Robert F. Smith]

12 minutes ago, strappinglad said:

Out of curiosity , has any archeological work been done around Adam-ondi-Ahman?  I suppose I should do a Google Earth search because the only time I was near the area was many decades ago and it was untouched land.

Not that I know of, but I did an unscientific survey when I was there, looking for remnants of the red brick store, and found the characteristic red dust from the bricks in grass where it should have been.  The Church rented out much of the bottom land near the river to local farmers, and it looked so beautiful in the summertime.

[strappinglad]

I don't know how current the aerial map view I saw is, but it looks like much of the land east of the road is farmed and the part west of the road looks like pasture and trees. A few years ago I was told the Church had put in some infrastructure there , but I guess it was faith promoting rumor.

Edited February 16, 2016 by strappinglad

[Sanpitch]

3 hours ago, Robert F. Smith said:

We'll wave goodbye to you when we leave.  

Are you just joking around or is there still a belief in going back to Missouri, if so what is the reference.  I'm curious.

[Sevenbak]

8 hours ago, thesometimesaint said:

The winters in Missouri make it problematic as to being the spot for the Garden of Eden.

Why, the Pangea landmass during Adam's lifetime doesn't apply to Missouri's current climate.

[Kaleb Webb]

I don't think the Garden of Eden was anywhere near Missouri. In Genesis it seems to be describing an area somewhere in the middle east. It talks about a river that runs towards Assyria and mentions the river Euphrates by name.

Quote

It means they are looking for Noah's ark in the wrong place? I guess, I don't really know what your map indicates, the migration of Homo sapiens? What do the numbers represent?

The numbers on the map refer to the times when humans migrated to those areas, starting in 200,000 BC in Africa

[Sky]

42 minutes ago, Sevenbak said:

Why, the Pangea landmass during Adam's lifetime doesn't apply to Missouri's current climate.

It is said that Pangaea existed from about 300 to 175 million years ago…I didn't think we believed that Adam went back that far...(?)   

The only way to reconcile this, in my mind, is that there had to have been "pre-Adamites" on the earth which existed for hundreds of millions of years before Adam and Eve.  

It does not make sense that the scientific community says that the human race started in sub-Saharan Africa, but Joseph Smith said that it started in present-day Missouri.  The only other way I can try to reconcile this is that there are missing pieces that we don't know about right now.  

…or the two stories are not reconcilable at all.  If in fact they are not, it seems sort of silly to try and make them seem as though they are!           

Edited February 16, 2016 by Sky

[thesometimesaint]

3 hours ago, Sevenbak said:

Why, the Pangea landmass during Adam's lifetime doesn't apply to Missouri's current climate.

Because Pangea ended about 175,000,000 years ago.

[thesometimesaint]

2 hours ago, Sky said:

It is said that Pangaea existed from about 300 to 175 million years ago…I didn't think we believed that Adam went back that far...(?)   

The only way to reconcile this, in my mind, is that there had to have been "pre-Adamites" on the earth which existed for hundreds of millions of years before Adam and Eve.  

It does not make sense that the scientific community says that the human race started in sub-Saharan Africa, but Joseph Smith said that it started in present-day Missouri.  The only other way I can try to reconcile this is that there are missing pieces that we don't know about right now.  

…or the two stories are not reconcilable at all.  If in fact they are not, it seems sort of silly to try and make them seem as though they are!           

It works if we consider Adam to be the first man to hold the Priesthood.

[Sevenbak]

22 minutes ago, thesometimesaint said:

Because Pangea ended about 175,000,000 years ago.

Not according to the teachings of the church.  It's called continental swift, not drift.

[Sevenbak]

3 hours ago, Sky said:

It is said that Pangaea existed from about 300 to 175 million years ago…I didn't think we believed that Adam went back that far...(?)   

The only way to reconcile this, in my mind, is that there had to have been "pre-Adamites" on the earth which existed for hundreds of millions of years before Adam and Eve.  

It does not make sense that the scientific community says that the human race started in sub-Saharan Africa, but Joseph Smith said that it started in present-day Missouri.  The only other way I can try to reconcile this is that there are missing pieces that we don't know about right now.  

…or the two stories are not reconcilable at all.  If in fact they are not, it seems sort of silly to try and make them seem as though they are!           

There are other ways to reconcile it, from the scriptures, from the manuals, from talks.  But we've had this discussion before...

[thesometimesaint]

41 minutes ago, Sevenbak said:

41 minutes ago, Sevenbak said:

Not according to the teachings of the church.  It's called continental swift, not drift.