Temple: What does the Garden of Eden symbolize/immitate?

[strappinglad]

Did Adam and his posterity up to Enoch have a physical temple ? Did the Egyptians not have temples well before the Babylonians ? Nibley sees many connections between the Egyptian rites and our modern ones.

I think there is a difference between a garden east of Eden and one Eastward IN Eden.

[CV75]

On 9/8/2018 at 2:36 PM, Robert F. Smith said:

I can imagine the same essential liturgy being used everywhere in the universe, forever and ever.  "Worlds without end."  D&C 76:112, Moses 1:3

Yes, as far as I know these ordinances are universally essential, and to be such, I think another phrase has to conjoin worlds without end, which is, before the foundation of the world.

Baptism is a good example (D&C 124:33), as are other laws and promises (130:20, 132:5, 63), the priesthood order (Alma 13:7), Christ's foreordination and works (1 Peter 1:20, Moses 5:57), and the overarching plan of redemption (Alma 22:13, Abraham 2:22-26). Some of these passages can be considered purely liturgical, reflecting and directing us into the aligned / corresponding actuality revealed in some of the other passages. The same thing gets said for both contexts. If Eden is part of such a liturgy, Eden becomes as literal and as figurative as baptism, which is both symbolic and dependent on actual people, elements, redemptive law, prescriptive actions and actualized deeds and intents.

This is why I say we would have a different story if things were slightly different before the foundation of the world; not necessarily a different end, just a slightly different (and non-essential for us in this particular rubric) process.

Edited September 9, 2018 by CV75

[katherine the great]

On 9/7/2018 at 11:58 PM, clarkgoble said:

I always took Missouri to be where Adam ended up after leaving the garden but not the garden's location.

Well obviously California! 

[katherine the great]

18 hours ago, strappinglad said:

I think there is a difference between a garden east of Eden and one Eastward IN Eden.

I think the scriptures describe the garden as being in the east part of Eden. They imply that the "world" to which they were banished was further east still since the barrier to get back in was placed in the east part of the garden.

[Robert F. Smith]

5 hours ago, CV75 said:

Yes, as far as I know these ordinances are universally essential, and to be such, I think another phrase has to conjoin worlds without end, which is, before the foundation of the world.

Baptism is a good example (D&C 124:33), as are other laws and promises (130:20, 132:5, 63), the priesthood order (Alma 13:7), Christ's foreordination and works (1 Peter 1:20, Moses 5:57), and the overarching plan of redemption (Alma 22:13, Abraham 2:22-26). Some of these passages can be considered purely liturgical, reflecting and directing us into the aligned / corresponding actuality revealed in some of the other passages. The same thing gets said for both contexts. If Eden is part of such a liturgy, Eden becomes as literal and as figurative as baptism, which is both symbolic and dependent on actual people, elements, redemptive law, prescriptive actions and actualized deeds and intents.

This is why I say we would have a different story if things were slightly different before the foundation of the world; not necessarily a different end, just a slightly different (and non-essential for us in this particular rubric) process.

Indeed.  The actual words used, in whatever alien language, and corresponding to whatever alien culture, might seem on the surface to be different, but closer examination would belie that.  The basics apply everywhere and for all time and eternity.  That is my speculative declaration.

[Robert F. Smith]

On 9/7/2018 at 11:58 PM, clarkgoble said:

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

I always took Missouri to be where Adam ended up after leaving the garden but not the garden's location.

Hebrew ˁēden from Sumerian EDIN, EDEN,[1] and Akkadian edinu “plain, steppe, open country,” in other words referring to the Great Plains.  One is hard put to find a better location for Eden and its four rivers than the Great Plains of North America -- the Yellowstone, Missouri, Little Missouri, and Platte Rivers.  The "Garden" itself is placed on the East side of this fertile "plain" or Eden (according to Genesis 2:8, Abraham 5:8), thus suggesting the appropriateness of Jackson County, Missouri, as the original site.  Adam-ondi-Ahman is also not so far from the Garden, and D&C 117:8 speaks of the mountains of Adam-ondi-Ahman and the plains of Olaha Shinehah, or the land where Adam dwelt.

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."[2]

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

[2] 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!

[CV75]

9 hours ago, Robert F. Smith said:

Indeed.  The actual words used, in whatever alien language, and corresponding to whatever alien culture, might seem on the surface to be different, but closer examination would belie that.  The basics apply everywhere and for all time and eternity.  That is my speculative declaration.

I find that with deeper conversion, our very lives become a liturgy, beginning with "a godly walk and conversation," taking the name of Jesus upon us, becoming Zion ("one heart and one mind") and "walking in holiness before the Lord." I find that they are eventually the same thing, both virtually and actually, which is why I think the Lord refers to Eden in D&C 29:41.

[clarkgoble]

13 hours ago, Robert F. Smith said:

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."[2]

To be fair that's a distant second hand account. Although also to be fair the comment about Noah and Carolina is also distant and second hand. While I've used the latter to argue for a hurricane explanation of the flood as a possibility, realistically I'm not sure we should be basing doctrine on distant and often third hand (in the case of Woodruff) accounts. Especially when some, such as the Young account that Woodruff recounts include fantastical elements that seem dubious. (Such as the City of Enoch's removal resulting in the gulf of Mexico) It seems like exactly the kind of conflation we'd expect if location where they left Eden comes to get associated with Eden. All that said, certainly there's circumstantial evidence he taught Eden was in Missouri and clearly many believed it.

[Robert F. Smith]

5 hours ago, CV75 said:

I find that with deeper conversion, our very lives become a liturgy, beginning with "a godly walk and conversation," taking the name of Jesus upon us, becoming Zion ("one heart and one mind") and "walking in holiness before the Lord." I find that they are eventually the same thing, both virtually and actually, which is why I think the Lord refers to Eden in D&C 29:41.

Yes, and when we include vs 42, we can see that both Satan and God told the truth about what would happen when the fruit of knowledge was eaten.  The seeming contradiction is resolved.

[RevTestament]

1 hour ago, clarkgoble said:

To be fair that's a distant second hand account. Although also to be fair the comment about Noah and Carolina is also distant and second hand. While I've used the latter to argue for a hurricane explanation of the flood as a possibility, realistically I'm not sure we should be basing doctrine on distant and often third hand (in the case of Woodruff) accounts. Especially when some, such as the Young account that Woodruff recounts include fantastical elements that seem dubious. (Such as the City of Enoch's removal resulting in the gulf of Mexico) It seems like exactly the kind of conflation we'd expect if location where they left Eden comes to get associated with Eden. All that said, certainly there's circumstantial evidence he taught Eden was in Missouri and clearly many believed it.

What's the circumstantial evidence besides hearsay accounts?

[RevTestament]

1 minute ago, Robert F. Smith said:

Yes, and when we include vs 42, we can see that both Satan and God told the truth about what would happen when the fruit of knowledge was eaten.  The seeming contradiction is resolved.

I disagree. Satan said they would not surely die, which was the lie. But the rest of modern Christianity always gets the "like God" part bent out of shape.

[CV75]

46 minutes ago, Robert F. Smith said:

Yes, and when we include vs 42, we can see that both Satan and God told the truth about what would happen when the fruit of knowledge was eaten.  The seeming contradiction is resolved.

By my way of seeing it, the contradiction wasn’t so much in “Ye shall not surely die” vs. “lest ye die” but in the timing and type of death, i.e. “Ye shall not surely die [right now, temporally; it will take time and meanwhile you will be as gods. Neither will ye die spiritually because knowing good and evil is spiritual life—here I am, living proof of that]” -- thus glossing over the significance of spiritual death -- versus “lest ye die [spiritually, and in due time, temporally]”, simply and without ifs, ands or buts.

God knew that they would become as gods, but also under circumstances where they would die both spiritually and temporally, requiring a Redeemer to enable mankind “the days of his probation” while spiritually dead and approaching physical death.

[nuclearfuels]

On 9/7/2018 at 4:34 PM, ksfisher said:

What age are you teaching?

9 and 10 year olds :)

 

[clarkgoble]

1 hour ago, RevTestament said:

What's the circumstantial evidence besides hearsay accounts?

It's not just one or two hearsays, although most of the idea appears to come from Brigham Young. If you have several people saying the same thing and appear to be at least plausibly independent then that's more circumstantial. The second point for the circumstantial evidence is simply a straightforward "literalist" reading of the text which is that they were driven out of the garden and the garden remained with a guard. While that could be interpreted as a shift to a different place, the more natural reading is literally that the garden was just a bit to the west of where Adam was. And he was at Adam-ondi-Ahman. So people saying Joseph said something is natural to the text itself. Although again I think we have to be cautious with these sorts of accounts, much as with the Zelph accounts. 

And of course even if Joseph truly said this he may simply have inferred it from the revelation about Adam-ondi-Ahman rather than a clear revelation stating where Eden was.

The main difficulty with it being in Missouri is that we know there were people in that area for thousands of years. Now maybe God could hide the garden but that seems more implausible. Of course a literalist will simply say there was no death before the fall and all the archaeological evidence is wrong. But there's obvious problems with that literalist view, although I'd assume that was the presupposition of most early Mormons. 

1 hour ago, RevTestament said:

I disagree. Satan said they would not surely die, which was the lie. But the rest of modern Christianity always gets the "like God" part bent out of shape.

Even that's more a half-lie since Adam and Eve were immortal. But it also gets to the tension in the story that if Adam and Eve were naive and so ignorant they didn't know they needed clothes, how on earth could they know what death meant?

Edited September 10, 2018 by clarkgoble

[Durangout]

On 9/7/2018 at 4:25 PM, bluebell said:

Interesting, I've never heard this before.  Is this your own beliefs or is there a reference to someone else teaching it that you can share?

I don’t have anything authoritative to point you to.  Its just what I have come to understand through study and thought on the subject.

 

Look at it this way.  The Creation is not as much an explanation of HOW the earth was created as much as WHY it was created.  As such, it provides the backdrop for the ultimate explanation of the Plan of Salvation:  where we came from, why we’re here, and what path we must follow to become like our heavenly Parents.

[bluebell]

Just now, Durangout said:

I don’t have anything authoritative to point you to.  Its just what I have come to understand through study and thought on the subject.

 

Look at it this way.  The Creation is not as much an explanation of HOW the earth was created as much as WHY it was created.  As such, it provides the backdrop for the ultimate explanation of the Plan of Salvation:  where we came from, why we’re here, and what path we must follow to become like our heavenly Parents.

Ok, thanks.   

[Robert F. Smith]

3 hours ago, RevTestament said:

I disagree. Satan said they would not surely die, which was the lie. But the rest of modern Christianity always gets the "like God" part bent out of shape.

That ignores the two separate types of death meant in the story.  Both God and Satan told the truth.  The objective fact that archetypal adam & eve did not immediately physically die is meant to be taken as the "trick" in the liturgy -- since Satan is the archetypal trickster.

[RevTestament]

13 hours ago, clarkgoble said:

It's not just one or two hearsays, although most of the idea appears to come from Brigham Young. If you have several people saying the same thing and appear to be at least plausibly independent then that's more circumstantial. The second point for the circumstantial evidence is simply a straightforward "literalist" reading of the text which is that they were driven out of the garden and the garden remained with a guard. While that could be interpreted as a shift to a different place, the more natural reading is literally that the garden was just a bit to the west of where Adam was. And he was at Adam-ondi-Ahman. So people saying Joseph said something is natural to the text itself. Although again I think we have to be cautious with these sorts of accounts, much as with the Zelph accounts. 

I think the likelihood of people mis-hearing Adam-ondi-Ahman for Eden is much more likely, than mis-hearing stuff about Zelph. I mean an apostle gathered up the bones and gave them a burial. Everyone who heard the story of Zelph agree in particulars about his being an ancient Lamanite. There is just not any doubt about that. Because of separate D&C scriptures about Adam-ondi-Ahman, however, I think the chance for misinterpretation or "mis-hearing", if you will, goes up substantially. I see how you are saying current doctrine is "natural" to the text if one considers only D&C,  but I believe Moses is also important to proper interpretation, so I don't agree that a conclusion that Spring Hill is anywhere near Eden is "natural." I think it obvious that Assyria is nowhere near Spring Hill, but was near Eden. 

The problem I have with the hearsays is it seems they come rather late in the record after BY began to talk about Eden being in America. Being 20 years removed from the events doesn't help their veracity either. 

Quote

And of course even if Joseph truly said this he may simply have inferred it from the revelation about Adam-ondi-Ahman rather than a clear revelation stating where Eden was.

The main difficulty with it being in Missouri is that we know there were people in that area for thousands of years. Now maybe God could hide the garden but that seems more implausible. Of course a literalist will simply say there was no death before the fall and all the archaeological evidence is wrong. But there's obvious problems with that literalist view, although I'd assume that was the presupposition of most early Mormons. 

Even that's more a half-lie since Adam and Eve were immortal. But it also gets to the tension in the story that if Adam and Eve were naive and so ignorant they didn't know they needed clothes, how on earth could they know what death meant?

I don't see Eden being in a place with humans as being a problem. I believe Eden was in the Sumerian plain. That was also populated for thousands of years. What scripture are you relying on for your statement that Adam & Eve were immortal? D&C? 

 

[CV75]

17 hours ago, Robert F. Smith said:

That ignores the two separate types of death meant in the story.  Both God and Satan told the truth.  The objective fact that archetypal adam & eve did not immediately physically die is meant to be taken as the "trick" in the liturgy -- since Satan is the archetypal trickster. 

This makes me wonder, does a trickster really tell the truth? Ammon used guile in Alma 18:23 to align the king with God’s will or truth. Satan beguiled Eve in Genesis, but considering his aim was to “kill” God (from the war in heaven), I can't take his purpose to be the same. Tricksters typically defraud, cheat and disobey rules, etc. (and this is how Satan is portrayed in Genesis), and I’ve usually found most trickster stories to have great comic effect, but I think Satan crossed a far more terrible line in his activity in the  garden of Eden. Though I do find some subtle humor (as well as the terror) in the temple presentation.

[clarkgoble]

8 hours ago, RevTestament said:

I see how you are saying current doctrine is "natural" to the text if one considers only D&C,  but I believe Moses is also important to proper interpretation, so I don't agree that a conclusion that Spring Hill is anywhere near Eden is "natural." I think it obvious that Assyria is nowhere near Spring Hill, but was near Eden. 

Could you expand your critique here?  I confess I assume Gen 2-3 is a relatively late text highly influenced by Babylonian myths and religion. So I assume that if Joseph was inspired about Adam-ondi-Ahman and the like then ANE references are artifacts of how Gen 2-3 developed.

[Robert F. Smith]

3 hours ago, CV75 said:

This makes me wonder, does a trickster really tell the truth? Ammon used guile in Alma 18:23 to align the king with God’s will or truth. Satan beguiled Eve in Genesis, but considering his aim was to “kill” God (from the war in heaven), I can't take his purpose to be the same. Tricksters typically defraud, cheat and disobey rules, etc. (and this is how Satan is portrayed in Genesis), and I’ve usually found most trickster stories to have great comic effect, but I think Satan crossed a far more terrible line in his activity in the  garden of Eden. Though I do find some subtle humor (as well as the terror) in the temple presentation.

I see Satan playing by the rules throughout the Bible, whether in Genesis or Job or the NT.  Why?  Because he must obey God.  However, tricksters are also clever riddlers, and we need to watch carefully what really takes place in biblical stories in which trickery plays a role -- Esau tricked out of his inheritance by Isaac, Tamar fooling her brother Judah, the daughters of Lot getting him drunk, Nathan the Prophet fooling King David, etc.

[RevTestament]

1 hour ago, clarkgoble said:

Could you expand your critique here?  I confess I assume Gen 2-3 is a relatively late text highly influenced by Babylonian myths and religion. So I assume that if Joseph was inspired about Adam-ondi-Ahman and the like then ANE references are artifacts of how Gen 2-3 developed.

Moses says the Lord spoke its words directly to Moses. Couching that in terms of Gen 2-3 i think is avoiding the authority of the Book of Moses. Why should I accept D&C as being more authoritative than the Book of Moses? Obviously, there was no Assyria in the days of Eden. The Lord used it as an identifying point for Moses and the Hebrews. I don't see the conflict the rest of the Church apparently does with Adam-ondi-Ahman being in Spring Hill - just like I don't see a conflict with the New Jerusalem being in Missouri. I don't think Michael is returning to the same place as the valley of Adam-ondi-Ahman outside of Eden. The Lord is naming the spot of Adam's return Adam-ondi-Ahman for a reason, but it is not because that is where the garden of Eden was. To be blunt I think BY just got that wrong. It was his interpretation of what JS  taught, but not what JS actually said. That's about the best I can critique my view in a nutshell, but there are other factors. Even the word Eden is a Sumerian word. Adam was a Sumerian man - the first companion of God if you will. The first source by which God spoke to man. He is therefore our Father. The Sumerian plain of Eden, the Sumerian word Eden itself, and the ancient existence of the four rivers there in the birth place of modern agriculture exactly in accordance with the Book of Moses, all scream to me of the locale of Eden. Incidentally, just east of where the four rivers met in Eden is a mountain range with valleys. Even in this modern day one can easily follow the Karun River into its mountain valley - which would have been a logical place for the ancient valley of Adam-ondi-Ahman right next to the plain of Eden. It all fits perfectly. Trying to cram Eden into Missouri? Something BY may have tried, but tbh imho, he just doesn't have a great record when it comes to scriptural interpretation. The Church will eventually be disabused of this notion. 

[CV75]

38 minutes ago, Robert F. Smith said:

I see Satan playing by the rules throughout the Bible, whether in Genesis or Job or the NT.  Why?  Because he must obey God.  However, tricksters are also clever riddlers, and we need to watch carefully what really takes place in biblical stories in which trickery plays a role -- Esau tricked out of his inheritance by Isaac, Tamar fooling her brother Judah, the daughters of Lot getting him drunk, Nathan the Prophet fooling King David, etc.

I agree there’s a lot of trickery committed in the Bible, and God ensures that His purposes are served by outsmarting, outmaneuvering or planning around the perpetrators of the adversarial kinds. Eventually the guilty will be held accountable and the innocent made whole. I put the Nathans and the Ammons as employing a permissible kind of guile.

I don’t see playing by the rules as the same as chafing against their limits. This is shown in the willfulness and enmity that the devil exerts get others to break the rules he has no hope of ever acting upon, or of ever having an opportunity to act upon, for they are now (post-expulsion) way beyond his potential to keep. This self-destructive nature is one that so perpetually breaks whatever remaining rules he might enjoy, consistently reducing his sphere of action (“rule-keeping”). Instead his hate in this world grows beyond credible influence (the opposite of amazement at God’s love), and I’m thinking that this may one way by which he eventually gets bound.

Another way I see it is, if an infant cannot keep rules, neither can the most seasoned devil; and if an infant yet remains innocent, the devil also remains perverse.

[clarkgoble]

22 minutes ago, RevTestament said:

Moses says the Lord spoke its words directly to Moses. Couching that in terms of Gen 2-3 i think is avoiding the authority of the Book of Moses.

The usual way this is dealt with is to emphasize that this is a revision to Genesis. So if there were a proto-text in pre-exilic times that was significantly revised and edited in the exile then that would account for that. The Assyrian and other names are later redactions or revisions. Of course one could argue that Joseph is restoring the text and not offering an inspired commentary/expansion. How one views the JST will affect how you read the text. My personal position is that treating it as a restoration of a text is problematic.

11 hours ago, RevTestament said:

I think the likelihood of people mis-hearing Adam-ondi-Ahman for Eden is much more likely, than mis-hearing stuff about Zelph. I mean an apostle gathered up the bones and gave them a burial. Everyone who heard the story of Zelph agree in particulars about his being an ancient Lamanite.

I think it clear comparing the accounts of Zelph (useful since we have so many) that there were distortions. It's also important to recall that the early Mormons saw all native Americans as Lamanites. But I do agree with your point - it's easier to confuse things given the statements about Adam out of the garden especially given the traditional readings of Gen 2-3 early Mormons would have been familiar with.

[Robert F. Smith]

3 hours ago, CV75 said:

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

Another way I see it is, if an infant cannot keep rules, neither can the most seasoned devil; and if an infant yet remains innocent, the devil also remains perverse.

In addition, God the Father and His Son must be confronted by a true opponent, not merely a symbolic one.  There must always be an opposition.  In all things.  In Job we see how formal and powerful an opposition it truly is.  Satan must have permission from God before he can display his full power.  But, whether Job is a drama in parable form or an actual account of a man's life, you will note how formal it is.  Satan has an important function, one we must benefit from, regardless of our distaste for the process.