Is evolution Compatible with the Bible?

[cinepro]

Interestingly, even though Bruce was wrong, his error (reiterated in his final conference talk in 1985) appears to have remained undetected by the Correlation Committee and it was recently reprinted in the March 2016 Ensign!

Quote

 

In Eden we will see all things created in a paradisiacal state—without death, without procreation, without probationary experiences.

We will come to know that such a creation, now unknown to man, was the only way to provide for the Fall.

We will then see Adam and Eve, the first man and the first woman, step down from their state of immortal and paradisiacal glory to become the first mortal flesh on earth.

Mortality, including as it does procreation and death, will enter the world. And because of transgression a probationary estate of trial and testing will begin.

 

 

Also in the April 2011 Ensign.  What is going on with the Church magazines?!  Can someone please let them know that the creation involved tons of procreation and death and evolution, and that it was only the limited Garden area that was "telestial".  Aren't they reading these discussion forums where the true nature of the LDS Creation story has been explained over and over?

Edited September 14, 2016 by cinepro

[cinepro]

Also, if anyone has Robert Millett's email, please let him know about this thread, since he apparently still thinks this:

 

In the morning of creation, Adam, Eve, and all forms of life existed in a paradisiacal condition. All things were physical. But they were also

spiritual in the sense that they were not mortal, not subject to death (see 1 Cor. 15:44; Alma 11:45; D&C 88:27).⁵ In the Garden of Eden, Adam and Eve walked with God. Adam was made “lord or governor of all things on earth, and at the same time [enjoyed] communion … with his Maker, without a vail to separate between.”⁶ Our first parents would have remained in this state indefinitely if they had not partaken of the forbidden fruit (see 2 Ne. 2:22; Moses 4:9).

https://www.lds.org/liahona/1998/02/the-man-adam?lang=eng

[Teancum]

16 hours ago, Robert F. Smith said:

According to the Brethren, modern man was brought to Earth fully formed, and he was placed in the Garden of Eden, which most scholars consider a temple precinct.  There a ritual was conducted (the same ritual we still practice today) and covenants were made.  That began the march of modern history, even though it was preceded by billions of years of formative work on the Earth -- including pre-Adamites, who become part of that same covenant-making which took place in the Garden.

CFR for all of the above please.

[Teancum]

16 hours ago, BCSpace said:

The Bible refers to the Book of Mormon.  The Book of Mormon contains 2 Nephi 2:22.  2 Nephi 2:22 tells us that the state of no death began when the creative period was over.

Check and mate.

No not really. That is just your own spin.  Check and mate.

[waveslider]

25 minutes ago, cinepro said:

Bruce was wrong.

So was Elder Nelson:

 

 

Okay, CFR then that the Earth was in a Telestial state before the Fall of Adam.

[cinepro]

4 minutes ago, waveslider said:

Okay, CFR then that the Earth was in a Telestial state before the Fall of Adam.

My reference for this is Robert F. Smith.  This being an LDS forum, anyone with a middle initial should qualify:

According to the Brethren, modern man was brought to Earth fully formed, and he was placed in the Garden of Eden, which most scholars consider a temple precinct.  There a ritual was conducted (the same ritual we still practice today) and covenants were made.  That began the march of modern history, even though it was preceded by billions of years of formative work on the Earth -- including pre-Adamites, who become part of that same covenant-making which took place in the Garden.

[Teancum]

5 hours ago, mnn727 said:

Is that a problem?

Only if you believe the Bible is to literal word of God.  If not well then myths and fairy tales of all sorts are fun but they should not be used to determine issues like how we came to be and what the age of the earth is and whether there really was a literal Adam and Eve and a literal fall.

[mnn727]

1 hour ago, waveslider said:

CFR. I didn't ever get that the Earth was already in a Telestial state before Adam fell, whenever I have gone to the temple. Here is something else that makes me believe otherwise as well:

“This earth and all that pertains to it, including every form of life on the face thereof, was first created in a terrestrial or paradisiacal state. Incident to the fall of Adam, the earth itself and all life on its face fell to their present telestial state” (Bruce R. McConkie, Mormon Doctrine, 2d ed., p.633).

Next time you are there pay close attention to when Adam and Eve are sent out of the Garden. 

Edited September 14, 2016 by mnn727

[mnn727]

4 minutes ago, Teancum said:

Only if you believe the Bible is to literal word of God.  

Correct, and I don't. The Bible is mans records,  men wrote it, not God.

Genesis especially is a primitive tribes attempt to make sense of their world.

[waveslider]

21 minutes ago, cinepro said:

My reference for this is Robert F. Smith.  This being an LDS forum, anyone with a middle initial should qualify:

 

 

Well then let Robert F. Smith CFR that the Earth was in a Telestial State before the fall. Just because he has published opinions doesn't mean that he is correct. I want to see where it is stated by a church official that the Earth was already in a Telestial state before the fall.

Edited September 14, 2016 by waveslider
to ad this: By the way my name is Mitchell S. Smith and therefore have a middle intitial. That doesn't mean squat in qualifing my opinions as CFRs.

[Teancum]

3 hours ago, cinepro said:

Interestingly, even though Bruce was wrong, his error (reiterated in his final conference talk in 1985) appears to have remained undetected by the Correlation Committee and it was recently reprinted in the March 2016 Ensign!

 

Also in the April 2011 Ensign.  What is going on with the Church magazines?!  Can someone please let them know that the creation involved tons of procreation and death and evolution, and that it was only the limited Garden area that was "telestial".  Aren't they reading these discussion forums where the true nature of the LDS Creation story has been explained over and over?

See here is the rub.  So many LDS thinkers, apologists, etc want to make or reconcile their religious dogma with science.  That is fine. But to claim that the LDS Church really teaches some of the things that people jump through to save their faith and reconcile it with scientific evidence is simple nonsense.  Your reference above proves this out.

Edited September 15, 2016 by Teancum

[Teancum]

20 minutes ago, mnn727 said:

Correct, and I don't. The Bible is mans records,  men wrote it, not God.

Genesis especially is a primitive tribes attempt to make sense of their world.

No argument from me on this one.

[JLHPROF]

48 minutes ago, mnn727 said:

Genesis especially is a primitive tribes attempt to make sense of their world.

The Genesis creation account is Moses' record of his endowment.
We also have Abraham's record of his endowment.
And we have the temple ceremony creation account as part of our endowment.
And there are hints of other endowments all throughout scripture.

None of these are exact history.  Moses (assuming you aren't a doubter in his existence) lived around 1300 BC.  Calling the Genesis creation account a historical record is incorrect, even if like me you believe in a literal historical Adam and Eve and creation etc.
The only person that could have written a history of the creation events would have been Adam.

Edited September 14, 2016 by JLHPROF

[bcuzbcuz]

1 hour ago, JLHPROF said:

The Genesis creation account is Moses' record of his endowment.
We also have Abraham's record of his endowment.
And we have the temple ceremony creation account as part of our endowment.
And there are hints of other endowments all throughout scripture.

None of these are exact history.  Moses (assuming you aren't a doubter in his existence) lived around 1300 BC.  Calling the Genesis creation account a historical record is incorrect, even if like me you believe in a literal historical Adam and Eve and creation etc.
The only person that could have written a history of the creation events would have been Adam.

"The Genesis creation account is Moses´ record of his endowment"

So you´re saying Moses wrote the books of Moses? Can you find any scholar who agrees with that opinion?

If not, then you´re saying that Moses talked about his endowment and that his story was passed down through 20 something generations? I haven´t even told my own kids about my endowment. I thought that was part of the agreement.

[JLHPROF]

54 minutes ago, bcuzbcuz said:

If not, then you´re saying that Moses talked about his endowment and that his story was passed down through 20 something generations? I haven´t even told my own kids about my endowment. I thought that was part of the agreement.

Nope.
There are only certain things that we covenant not to reveal.  The story of the creation isn't one of them regardless of current Church taboo against talking about ANYTHING in the endowment.

Quote

So you´re saying Moses wrote the books of Moses? Can you find any scholar who agrees with that opinion?

Irrelevant to this discussion.  Whether Genesis was Moses writing directly about his endowment or a record of his endowment as passed down orally before being recorded by some later scribe it still explains the account better than pretending it is the history.  The oral passing down of Moses record would also account for any differences that may have crept in between the differing creation accounts.

Moses 1:1 The words of God, which he spake unto Moses at a time when Moses was caught up into an exceedingly high mountain,

Abraham 3:11 Thus I, Abraham, talked with the Lord, face to face, as one man talketh with another; and he told me of the works which his hands had made;
12 And he said unto me: My son, my son (and his hand was stretched out), behold I will show you all these. And he put his hand upon mine eyes, and I saw those things which his hands had made, which were many; and they multiplied before mine eyes, and I could not see the end thereof.

Sound like the endowment to me.
I could go into more detail and expand on this but we'd risk actually violating the covenants made in the temple.

 

Edited September 15, 2016 by JLHPROF

[Robert F. Smith]

9 hours ago, snowflake said:

I agree with you Robert that the bible is full of various types genres within the text itself, and I was no English major. 

You can find online courses, such as the following:  https://is.byu.edu/description/LIT-051-101 , and https://bibleasliterature.wordpress.com/lesson-1/ .

Quote

However, you seem to dismiss the beginning of the book when it states "in the beginning". According to the "big bang" and the bible, there was a literal beginning to all of the universe, including space and time.   As I understand LDS theology the brethren don't agree with this because there is no beginning in LDS theology correct?  Matter is eternal, just re-organized by the newest god to be exalted.  So if often hear the arguments for billions of years or that days meant "generations" or "gaps".  I just don't see these as being supported by the text in the Bible itself.

A lot of that has to do with poor, inaccurate translations of the text.  During his funeral oration over the death of his friend King Follett, for example, Joseph Smith provided an excellent correction on the KJV translation of Gen 1:1-3.  That correction still stands with the best grammarians even today, and one can find it fully explained by the great Jewish scholar Ephraim Speiser in his translation-commentary on Genesis for the Anchor Bible (1964).  You should note a couple of Speiser's conclusions:  (1) the creation was from already existing material, not from nothing; (2) the first phrases are all circumstantial, conditionals, meaning "When the Gods set about to create the Heavens and the Earth, the Earth then being in formless chaos, with abyssal darkness, and the Holy Spirit rippling across the waters, then the Gods said:  Let there be light." -- mine, not Speiser.

After all, even the Big Bang doesn't start from nothing.  Moreover, space and time already existed, and the naturalistic LDS Gods exist inside space & time.  There is not merely one universe, but a multiverse, or infinite universes.  There was no beginning.  There shall be no end.

Edited September 15, 2016 by Robert F. Smith

[Robert F. Smith]

4 hours ago, cinepro said:

My reference for this is Robert F. Smith.  This being an LDS forum, anyone with a middle initial should qualify:

You're so droll, cinepro.  

[Robert F. Smith]

4 hours ago, cinepro said:

Interestingly, even though Bruce was wrong, his error (reiterated in his final conference talk in 1985) appears to have remained undetected by the Correlation Committee and it was recently reprinted in the March 2016 Ensign!

Also in the April 2011 Ensign.  What is going on with the Church magazines?!  Can someone please let them know that the creation involved tons of procreation and death and evolution, and that it was only the limited Garden area that was "telestial".  Aren't they reading these discussion forums where the true nature of the LDS Creation story has been explained over and over?

Tongue in cheek?

[mfbukowski]

11 hours ago, snowflake said:

According to the Bible, all the beasts and creepy things were created on day 6, along with the whales.  Before the flood obviously the earth was much different than today. Something enabled the dinosaurs to get huge, supposedly there was more oxygen or greater atmospheric pressure that allowed them to become massive. Things were different because insects, animals and man lived much longer.  Adam live 900 years, to get a dinosaur as big as they got would take quite some time. So dinosaurs were on Noah's ark (baby ones, much easier to manage), they were called dragons. The term "dinosaur" was not invented until the 1850's? Noah's flood destroyed all flesh except what was on the ark. It would take a massive catastrophic event to bury some of the larger dinosaurs, something like a volcano could bury one quickly, or say a massive flood. 

 

Oh gosh

The only mention of "dragons" in the Bible refer to the latter days clearly referring to Satan.   Nothing about Noah and dragons.  Perhaps you need to learn just a little about symbolism.  

[mfbukowski]

11 hours ago, snowflake said:

I agree with you Robert that the bible is full of various types genres within the text itself, and I was no English major.  However, you seem to dismiss the beginning of the book when it states "in the beginning". According to the "big bang" and the bible, there was a literal beginning to all of the universe, including space and time.   As I understand LDS theology the brethren don't agree with this because there is no beginning in LDS theology correct?  Matter is eternal, just re-organized by the newest god to be exalted.  So if often hear the arguments for billions of years or that days meant "generations" or "gaps".  I just don't see these as being supported by the text in the Bible itself.

like maybe six "days"?????

[snowflake]

9 hours ago, mfbukowski said:

Oh gosh

The only mention of "dragons" in the Bible refer to the latter days clearly referring to Satan.   Nothing about Noah and dragons.  Perhaps you need to learn just a little about symbolism.  

Job 40 and 41 describe 2 different creatures, the Leviathan and the Behemoth.

[thesometimesaint]

20 hours ago, snowflake said:

Agreed, shotgunning is not an adequate response.  Please explain the mid oceanic ridge. According to plate tectonics the ridges are all moving apart. This appears to work fine in the atlantic ocean but what about the areas where these ridges intersect off of Madagascar and the tip of Africa?  

Thanks for the link to the response to walt brown's book. I will read it.   

Actually the Mid-Atlantic ridge is a bit of a misnomer. That is where they were first discovered. The ridges extend around the world.

SEE https://www.britannica.com/topic-browse/Earth-and-Geography/Physical-Geography/Oceanic-Ridges

[thesometimesaint]

1 hour ago, snowflake said:

Job 40 and 41 describe 2 different creatures, the Leviathan and the Behemoth.

None of which is a dinosaur.

[snowflake]

20 hours ago, mnn727 said:

Next time you're going to place a link, make sure its from a credible peer reviewed source please.

Just because its on the internet, that doesn't make it true.

http://kgov.com/dinosaur-soft-tissue#research

[mfbukowski]

22 hours ago, snowflake said:

I agree with you Robert that the bible is full of various types genres within the text itself, and I was no English major.  However, you seem to dismiss the beginning of the book when it states "in the beginning". According to the "big bang" and the bible, there was a literal beginning to all of the universe, including space and time.   As I understand LDS theology the brethren don't agree with this because there is no beginning in LDS theology correct?  Matter is eternal, just re-organized by the newest god to be exalted.  So if often hear the arguments for billions of years or that days meant "generations" or "gaps".  I just don't see these as being supported by the text in the Bible itself.

like maybe six "days"?????

And whales and elephants (leviathan and behemoth) are now dragons?