The universal depravity of the human family

[telnetd]

On 6/2/2023 at 10:59 AM, Benjamin McGuire said:

You aren't answering my question. What is it about a personification that prevents it from being read literally? I guess what I am trying to get you to explain is how you recognize something as a personification. By suggesting that the text is a personification, or recognizing that a text is using a metaphor, or is using symbolism - or any of a number of similar uses of text, you have already decided that the text shouldn't be read literally. You are skipping over the part that I am asking about. What is it about a text that tells you that you need to read it in a non-literal fashion. I don't want samples that show where you have done this - I want to understand what are your set of rules - and why you would argue that such a non-literal is necessary?

I apologize if I am not explaining myself in a satisfactory way.  If I see that a passage can 
be literal instead of figurative/symbolic, I apply a literal interpretation.

If I were to apply a literal interpretation to the females mentioned in those chapters of 
Proverbs I mentioned earlier, I would say there are only 3 flesh and blood females and one 
female ant.  One is wisdom (Proverbs 1:20-21; she [singular] is used). Another female is the 
strange woman (Proverbs 2:16).  Another is the ant (Proverbs 6:6-8). Another is understanding; 
the kinswoman of wisdom (Proverbs 7:4).

Do you believe wisdom (in Proverbs 1:20-21) is a figurative/symbolic woman or a literal flesh 
and blood woman?

Since we moved a little bit to the topic of symbolism and literalism, let me briefly bring in
several passages in the Bible (ESV):

"And I, the Lord God, caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam; and he slept, and I took one of
his ribs and closed up the flesh in the stead thereof; And the rib which I, the Lord God, had 
taken from man, made I a woman, and brought her unto the man. And Adam said: This I know now 
is bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called Woman, because she was taken 
out of man".

I cannot see how this is figurative so I view it as literal.  If you do not also view it in
a literal way as I do, maybe you can explain your understanding of that section from a
symbolic/figurative viewpoint.

In regards to the creation of Adam and Eve, I see literal instead of figurative teachings.

"So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he 
created them. And God blessed them. And God said to them, Be fruitful and multiply and fill 
the earth ..." (Genesis 1:27-28).

I see this as a literal command to have literal children through literal procreation.

"And God said, Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is on the face of all 
the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit. You shall have them for food" (Genesis 1:29).

I see this as literal tree for literal eating.

"And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, “You may surely eat of every tree of the garden,
but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil lyou shall not eat, for in the day that you 
eat of it you shall surely die" (Genesis 2:16-17)

I see this as literal trees for literal eating and a command not to literally eat from a
specific literal tree.

"But for Adam there was not found a helper fit for him. So the Lord God caused a deep sleep 
to fall upon the man, and while he slept took one of his ribs and closed up its place with 
flesh. And the rib that the Lord God had taken from the man he made into a woman and brought 
her to the man. Then the man said, This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; 
she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man" (Genesis 2:20-23).

I see this as a literal helper (Eve), a literal deep sleep, a literal rib, and God closing up 
Adam's literal flesh afterwards.

"And the man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed" (Genesis 2:25).

I see that they were literally naked. Later, they would make literal fig leafs aprons to
cover their nakedness and literally attempt to hide from God.  God would then literally
replace their fig leaf aprons with literal coats of skins (maybe by sacrificing an animal) 
and literally expel them from a literal garden of Eden, and then literally guard the Tree 
of Life so Adam and Eve would not eat from it.

Maybe you believe the garden, trees, fig leaf aprons, and coats of skins are really symbolic
objects to reflect totally different objects or meanings.  Maybe the animals were not really
given names by Adam also.
 

On 6/2/2023 at 10:59 AM, Benjamin McGuire said:

See what I mean? At the same time, do you believe that God is gendered? Do you believe that God is male? If you don't (and I suspect that you don't), then what do you make of the language of a gendered God throughout the bible? Do you see this as an indicator that the text should be read non-literally?

From all accounts that we have in scripture, the Father is depicted as male even though I see 
one or more sections where he is symbolically alluded to as a hen who protects her chicks.  I 
would assume the LDS version of Heavenly Father is male and Heavenly Mother is female.
 

On 6/2/2023 at 10:59 AM, Benjamin McGuire said:

I'll try and spell it out for you.

1: Everyone who is born in mortality pre-existed as spirits. You may not agree with the idea, but I don't think that you will contest that this is what LDS members believe.

Yes, I understand this from LDS teachings.
 

On 6/2/2023 at 10:59 AM, Benjamin McGuire said:

2: Everyone who has been (and will be) born was presented with God's plan to provide them with a mortal experience. This plan encompassed mortality (birth and death), agency, separation from God, and a variety of conditions within mortality. Do you dispute that this is what LDS believe?

From what I had read, I understand this is what LDS believe.
 

On 6/2/2023 at 10:59 AM, Benjamin McGuire said:

3: Everyone who has been (and will be) born chose to follow God's plan. Those that chose not to do so (and LDS scriptures identify some that did not), never enter into mortality. Do you dispute that LDS believe this?

From what I had read, I understand this is what LDS believe.
 

On 6/2/2023 at 10:59 AM, Benjamin McGuire said:

Taken together, these ideas mean that Cain, Abel, and everyone else made a choice in the pre-existence to leave God's presence and to experience mortality. They did so with a purpose, and saw the 'fall' as a necessity. This is LDS doctrine. I think that you will find complete consensus on this issue from the LDS members of this forum here.

From my reading of LDS teachings, everyone made a choice in the pre-existence to follow the
plan of Heavenly Father.  The fall of Adam in the garden of Eden (either him alone or with 
the addition of Eve) brought mortality upon all humans.  It placed them in a lost and fallen
state. I see this from Alma 12:22 (Now Alma said unto him: This is the thing which I was about 
to explain, now we see that Adam did fall by the partaking of the forbidden fruit, according 
to the word of God; and thus we see, that by his fall, all mankind became a lost and fallen 
people).

Cain and Abel (for example) did not bring mortality on themselves when they made a choice in 
the pre-existence but instead they inherited mortality when they were born to Adam and Eve.  
The animals did not bring about their own mortality either. Their state changed to one of 
mortality with the fall of Adam when he eat from the forbidden tree.

There is 2 Nephi 2:25 - "Adam fell that men might be; and men care, that they might have 
joy".  

According to that, Cain and Abel did not fall so that Cain and Abel might be.

Then we have Moses 5:11 - "And Eve, his wife, heard all these things and was glad, saying: 
Were it not for our transgression we never should have had seed, and never should have known 
good and evil, and the joy of our redemption, and the eternal life which God giveth unto 
all the obedient".  

It was not the transgression of Cain and his wife that gave them the powers of procreation.
 

On 6/2/2023 at 10:59 AM, Benjamin McGuire said:

I think that I am getting tired of rehashing this every few days ...

Thank you for your patience. It is tiring for me too but I appreciate your viewpoints. Like you 
said, LDS members use some language differently than other Christian groups.  I see the same
thing in LDS circles when it comes to whether Adam sinned or not in the garden of Eden.

Edited June 6, 2023 by telnetd

[Benjamin McGuire]

15 hours ago, telnetd said:

If the undergarments have a symbolic connection to the coats of skin instead of their likeness or color, then why would the garments worn inside the temple be in the likeness of the green fig leaf aprons?

I am not going to discuss the LDS temple rites in this forum. I can only say that your question involves ideas that are in my opinion inaccurate. There are a number of completely different sacred vestments used by the LDS Church - you are conflating them. Others may wish to say more. I do not.

[Benjamin McGuire]

15 hours ago, telnetd said:

I apologize if I am not explaining myself in a satisfactory way.  If I see that a passage can be literal instead of figurative/symbolic, I apply a literal interpretation.

You keep saying this - but I don't believe that this is actually what you are doing. Your examples haven't convinced me that this is what you are doing. And that tells me that you really haven't considered this issue - that you are making this decision not based on this rule but on assumptions that you bring to the text.

For example, many (if not most) parables can be read literally. Very literally. The prodigal son, for example, is really easily read quite literally. But we don't read it that way for a number of reason.

15 hours ago, telnetd said:

If I were to apply a literal interpretation to the females mentioned in those chapters of Proverbs I mentioned earlier, I would say there are only 3 flesh and blood females and one female ant.  One is wisdom (Proverbs 1:20-21; she [singular] is used). Another female is the strange woman (Proverbs 2:16).  Another is the ant (Proverbs 6:6-8). Another is understanding; the kinswoman of wisdom (Proverbs 7:4).

This isn't a literal reading at all. So maybe this is where the problem lies - that you have a poor understanding of what it means to read a text literally and figuratively. Proverbs 6:6-8 is meant to be read literally. And we read it literally (we don't read it figuratively). It reads (KJV):

Quote

Go to the ant, thou sluggard; consider her ways, and be wise: Which having no guide, overseer, or ruler, Provideth her meat in the summer, and gathereth her food in the harvest.

There is nothing here that isn't captured with a literal reading of the text. It is an ancient theme that we still know today because we continue to tell the story of the ant and the grasshopper. Now we could argue that the story has a moral, and so could be considered allegorical - and in that sense, perhaps figurative - but that isn't what is happening here in Proverbs 6. There is nothing in the suggestion that we should look to the ant as inspiration for our own willingness to work that needs to be read figuratively here.

15 hours ago, telnetd said:

Since we moved a little bit to the topic of symbolism and literalism, let me briefly bring in several passages in the Bible (ESV):

I have no interest in your examples - because you haven't yet put together a set of rules that makes any sense for me yet. All I am getting is that you sort of 'know it when you see it' and so when you see that it needs to be read figuratively, that's what you do.

15 hours ago, telnetd said:

From all accounts that we have in scripture, the Father is depicted as male even though I see one or more sections where he is symbolically alluded to as a hen who protects her chicks.  I would assume the LDS version of Heavenly Father is male and Heavenly Mother is female.

I have no interest right now in the LDS doctrinal point of view. I am interested in yours. Do you believe that God is gendered? I am not asking how God is depicted. Do you believe, for example, that Michelangelo's The Creation of Adam is reflective of reality in any way? Is God more or less like a man, with body parts and arms and legs and hair on his head, and so on. And, to repeat myself with the real question that I am getting to, do you think that God is male gendered?

Part of the challenge we have with Proverbs - at least from the perspective that you present, is that the word Wisdom is gendered female. And the Hebrew language necessarily then uses the female gender consistently in discussions about Wisdom. Is this intended to create personification everywhere? Or is it, at least in some places, merely an artifact of translation?

15 hours ago, telnetd said:

From my reading of LDS teachings, everyone made a choice in the pre-existence to follow the plan of Heavenly Father.  The fall of Adam in the garden of Eden (either him alone or with the addition of Eve) brought mortality upon all humans.  It placed them in a lost and fallen state. I see this from Alma 12:22 (Now Alma said unto him: This is the thing which I was about to explain, now we see that Adam did fall by the partaking of the forbidden fruit, according to the word of God; and thus we see, that by his fall, all mankind became a lost and fallen people).

Alma isn't relevant. I keep telling you this. You don't get to prooftext modern LDS doctrine from the Book of Mormon in this way. The Book of Mormon doesn't know of the pre-existence. It doesn't have the council in heaven. The plan of Heavenly Father discussed in the pre-existence included the fall as a fundamental and necessary part. So Adam doesn't choose for the fall to happen for all mankind on his own - he simply follows the plan that had been set forth in the pre-existence. This is current LDS Doctrine.

15 hours ago, telnetd said:

Cain and Abel (for example) did not bring mortality on themselves when they made a choice in the pre-existence but instead they inherited mortality when they were born to Adam and Eve.  The animals did not bring about their own mortality either. Their state changed to one of mortality with the fall of Adam when he eat from the forbidden tree.

No. This is mostly wrong.

First - spirits (souls - whatever we want to call them) are eternal in LDS thought. Mortality is a term we use to describe the human condition - which has a beginning and an end. Cain and Abel did not become mortal (their state did not change to one of mortality) when Adam fell. They became mortal only when they were born (just as with the rest of us). Death is simply the end of the mortal state of our existence. Since I view the creation narrative as figurative, I also argue that Adam and Eve didn't fall in some special Garden space, they were also born - marking the beginning of their mortality. You don't 'inherit' mortality.

15 hours ago, telnetd said:

According to that, Cain and Abel did not fall so that Cain and Abel might be.

As I keep telling you - you cannot prooftext modern LDS thought by using just the Book of Mormon that doesn't know of many of the doctrines of the restoration. Cain and Abel could not have been born (could not have become mortal) without first making the decision to do so (figuratively choosing to eat of the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil) in the pre-existence. This is LDS doctrine today.

15 hours ago, telnetd said:

It was not the transgression of Cain and his wife that gave them the powers of procreation.

And it wasn't the transgression of Adam and Eve that gave them the powers of procreation. The fall was necessary for it to happen (i.e. mortality was necessary before they could have mortal children).

So a couple of final thoughts this morning ...

I know that I have been asking you to try and articulate the rules that you use when reading. I also understand that this is a difficult thing for individuals who haven't taken the time to consider this sort of question before. We make decisions about the things that we read - and some of those decisions are made even before we start to read. This hasn't been about trying to catch you in some way, but about trying to frame the discussion in a way that it is easier to show why we disagree. I have to work with some assumptions that may not be very accurate - so I hope that I am not making too much of a caricature of your position here.

Consider the fairy tale, Cinderella. We usually read it quite literally (fairy tales may sometimes have morals, but we don't usually bother with them too much). Even if we read it literally, we can read it in more than one way. If we recognize its genre as a fairy tale, and then when we read it literally, it doesn't bother us that there are fantastic impossible things that happen. If we were to misunderstand the genre and read it as biography, then we are faced with a problem of the fantastic impossible things. We could continue to read it literally if we adopted the viewpoint that the woman being described in the biography was mentally unstable, who hallucinated, and so on. Or we could decide that it isn't meant to be read literally and try to understand it figuratively (and quite possible fail to come up with something meaningful in the process). Making these sorts of assumption that shift the understanding of the text doesn't change it from literal to figurative. We can still read all of the same fantastic and impossible things literally, we just sometimes need to provide a rational explanation for them.

This is an important issue, to the extent that we identify scripture as a genre - but what we take that genre to mean for the text is, I think, very different between the two of us (we read scripture very differently - and we participate in what I might describe as two very different interpretive communities). You (and the community you participate in) want to see the Bible as absolute truth in some way - so that it's meaning takes precedence over everything else. You translate this belief into your reading strategy by suggesting (among other things) that the biblical text as scripture is also accurate history (in the modern sense of history) so that we should accept a literal reading of the events it describes as privileged above any other sort of knowledge (including other accounts of history). Part of this is driven by your notion of the text's authorship, and your view (whatever it may be) of the text's history.

I believe that scripture is by nature mythic. I don't equate the word 'mythic' in this context as fiction - I merely mean that it uses foundational narratives as a way of describing the world as it is, without concern for accuracy in the sense of modern history or scientific truth. This is what drives much of the difference between us in terms of literal and figurative - you want it to be as literal as possible. And I see the text as indifferent to the question of literalness - it's message isn't about it being privileged in this way - or even about being true in this sense. The story of Adam and Eve isn't mean to provide us with a factual, historically accurate reconstruction of events but is instead trying to explain the nature of the human condition in a way that was both understandable a few thousand years ago and understandable today. When you see a conflict with scientific knowledge and the meaning you find in the text, you give the meaning you find in the text privilege over the scientific knowledge. When I see such a conflict, I can find a middle ground where I can accept the scientific knowledge and still recognize the truth of scripture - which isn't at all dependent on its historical or scientific accuracy.

So, to sum that all up, I don't read the text as literal wherever I can. Instead, I first ask what is the truth that the text is trying to explain - and apply all of the knowledge I have accumulated over my lifetime of experience into that process of understanding.

[telnetd]

On 6/7/2023 at 9:39 AM, Benjamin McGuire said:

Do you believe that God is gendered? I am not asking how God is depicted. Do you believe, for example, that Michelangelo's The Creation of Adam is reflective of reality in any way?

No.  I can't understand the true nature of the one and only Eternal God but I do know that He 
became a man in the form of Jesus Christ, with body parts.
 

On 6/7/2023 at 9:39 AM, Benjamin McGuire said:

The plan of Heavenly Father discussed in the pre-existence included the fall as a fundamental and necessary part. So Adam doesn't choose for the fall to happen for all mankind on his own - he simply follows the plan that had been set forth in the pre-existence. This is current LDS Doctrine.

What does 2 Nephi 2:25 mean when it says, "Adam fell that men might be; and men are, that they 
might have joy"?  Why not "We fell that we might be..."?

I know your position but when I read the following church teachings, it says that only Adam and 
Eve brought upon their own mortality and the mortality of all others.  Cain, Abel, and the other 
humans did not bring about their own fall. There is no mention of any other humans partaking of 
the forbidden fruit in the pre-existence or on earth.

https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/ensign/1994/01/the-man-adam?lang=eng

In the morn of creation, Adam, Eve, and all forms of life existed in a paradisiacal 
condition. All things were physical. They were spiritual in the sense that they were 
not mortal, not subject to death.

After taking physical bodies, Adam and Eve brought mortality into being through 
partaking of the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. With the fall of 
our first parents came blood and posterity and probation and death, as well as the 
need for redemption through a Savior, a “last Adam.”

https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/general-conference/2018/10/sisters-participation-in-the-gathering-of-israel?lang=eng
By President Russell M. Nelson

As President Eyring pointed out, it was our glorious Mother Eve-with her far-reaching 
vision of our Heavenly Father's plan-who initiated what we call 'the Fall.' Her wise 
and courageous choice and Adam's supporting decision moved God's plan of happiness 
forward. They made it possible for each of us to come to earth, receive a body, and 
prove that we would choose to stand up for Jesus Christ now, just as we did 
premortally.

https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/general-conference/1974/10/a-testimony-of-christ?lang=eng
https://www.lds.org/general-conference/1974/10/a-testimony-of-christ?lang=eng

It was also known by the Father before they came here that of their own free will and choice 
Adam and Eve would partake of the forbidden fruit, which would open the way for God's spirit 
children to take upon themselves mortality. 
 

On 6/7/2023 at 9:39 AM, Benjamin McGuire said:

Cain and Abel could not have been born (could not have become mortal) without first making the decision to do so (figuratively choosing to eat of the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil) in the pre-existence. This is LDS doctrine today.

Does that mean Adam and Eve became as Gods in the pre-existence when they chose
to figuratively eat of the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil there?
Figuratively speaking, what and where is the Garden of Eden?
 

On 6/7/2023 at 9:39 AM, Benjamin McGuire said:

And it wasn't the transgression of Adam and Eve that gave them the powers of procreation. The fall was necessary for it to happen (i.e. mortality was necessary before they could have mortal children).

When I read this General Conference talk, it seems to say this applies to their time on a 
physical earth, not in some pre-existence spirit world.

https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/general-conference/1993/10/the-great-plan-of-happiness?lang=eng

When Adam and Eve received the first commandment, they were in a transitional state, no longer 
in the spirit world but with physical bodies not yet subject to death and not yet capable 
of procreation. They could not fulfill the Father's first commandment without transgressing 
the barrier between the bliss [joy] of the Garden of Eden and the terrible trials and 
wonderful opportunities of mortal life.
 

On 6/7/2023 at 9:39 AM, Benjamin McGuire said:

So, to sum that all up, I don't read the text as literal wherever I can. Instead, I first ask what is the truth that the text is trying to explain - and apply all of the knowledge I have accumulated over my lifetime of experience into that process of understanding.

How do you understand this in a figurative way?  

Moses 3:21-22 - "And I, the Lord God, caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam; and he slept, and 
I took one of his ribs and closed up the flesh in the stead thereof; And the rib which I, the 
Lord God, had taken from man, made I a woman, and brought her unto the man".

[Benjamin McGuire]

2 hours ago, telnetd said:

No.  I can't understand the true nature of the one and only Eternal God but I do know that He became a man in the form of Jesus Christ, with body parts.

Ok. So, this brings us back to the earlier question. When the Old Testament refers to a gendered God, is this figurative? Literal? Does it fit into an in-between sort of space created by the nature of language (and more specifically the Hebrew language with its insistence on making almost everything gendered)?

2 hours ago, telnetd said:

What does 2 Nephi 2:25 mean when it says, "Adam fell that men might be; and men are, that they might have joy"?  Why not "We fell that we might be..."?

I keep telling you this - Nephi doesn't have an awareness of the pre-existence. At the same time, when we ask Nephi what the trees are in the Garden of Eden, he doesn't tell us that they are a literal tree, or that eating the fruit physically changes Adam and Eve so that they go from an immortal state to a mortal state. The questions you propose for Nephi aren't questions that his text is going to answer - because he isn't concerned about those questions. What is the tree of life? In 1 Nephi 11, we get this dialogue -

Quote

11:4-5 And the Spirit said unto me: Believest thou that thy father saw the tree of which he hath spoken? And I said: Yea, thou knowest that I believe all the words of my father.

Nephi believes his father saw a tree - the tree of life from the Genesis narrative. And then Nephi (in his experiencing the vision that his father saw) sees the tree -

Quote

11:8-11 And it came to pass that the Spirit said unto me: Look! And I looked and beheld a tree; and it was like unto the tree which my father had seen; and the beauty thereof was far beyond, yea, exceeding of all beauty; and the whiteness thereof did exceed the whiteness of the driven snow. And it came to pass after I had seen the tree, I said unto the Spirit: I behold thou hast shown unto me the tree which is precious above all. And he said unto me: What desirest thou? And I said unto him: To know the interpretation thereof -

If it was completely literal, in the way that you are suggesting, then this is unnecessary. There would be no need for an interpretation. Nephi sees a bit more - involved in the interpretation of the tree, and then we get this:

Quote

11:21-23 Knowest thou the meaning of the tree which thy father saw? And I answered him, saying: Yea, it is the love of God, which sheddeth itself abroad in the hearts of the children of men; wherefore, it is the most desirable above all things. And he spake unto me, saying: Yea, and the most joyous to the soul.

This makes the Tree of Life, taken from the Genesis account, and gives it a figurative meaning.

I bring all of this up because I am trying to make two points -

1: The Book of Mormon text (particularly Nephi, written around 2500 years ago) understands scriptures in a context which is limited when compared with modern LDS doctrine. There is no pre-existence in Nephi's understanding. So he can't say, the way that I can say, that the fall of man has its origins in the pre-existent Council in Heaven taught in modern LDS doctrine. But, Nephi can understand that the Garden of Eden narratives are not meant to be understood in a singularly literal way. He understands that they have a significant figurative nature, and can be understood figuratively.

2 hours ago, telnetd said:

There is no mention of any other humans partaking of the forbidden fruit in the pre-existence or on earth.

No one partook of the forbidden fruit. That is a literal meaning of the text that I believe should be read figuratively.

2 hours ago, telnetd said:

Does that mean Adam and Eve became as Gods in the pre-existence when they chose to figuratively eat of the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil there? Figuratively speaking, what and where is the Garden of Eden?

I think that your questions here are misleading. How did Adam and Eve become as Gods? Genesis 3:22 suggests that "Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil." To know good and evil requires, in LDS thought, agency and mortality. As this article points out:

Quote

“Adam fell that men might be; and men are, that they might have joy” (2 Ne. 2:22–25).

After Adam and Eve partook of the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, their eyes were opened, and Eve expressed gladness at the opportunity their transgression made possible: “Were it not for our transgression we never should have had seed, and never should have known good and evil, and the joy of our redemption, and the eternal life which God giveth unto all the obedient” (Moses 5:11).

Partaking of the fruit brought mortality, with its many opportunities to choose between good and evil, and enabled Adam and Eve to have children. Thus the Fall opened the door for Heavenly Father’s children to come into the world, obtain physical bodies, and participate in “the great plan of happiness” (Alma 42:8). “Therefore this life became a probationary state,” a time to learn and grow, to repent and overcome weakness, “a time to prepare to meet God” (Alma 12:24).

They don't become as Gods in this sense in the pre-existence, but they do when they experience the fall by being born into mortality. This is the same for all of God's children who are born into mortality.

You ask:

Quote

Does that mean Adam and Eve became as Gods in the pre-existence when they chose to figuratively eat of the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil there?

This is a meaningless question. It suggests that you still don't understand what "figuratively" or "literally" means. Figuratively and Literally deal with interpreting texts. We can say that eating of the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil is a metaphor for choosing to be born into mortality and accepting separation from God. But no one chooses to do something figuratively - conceptually, it makes no grammatical sense to say this.

2 hours ago, telnetd said:

How do you understand this in a figurative way?  

I think that you can understand it figuratively in that you can suggest that this shouldn't be understood as saying that God performed surgery on Adam (who then lived his life minus a rib) and that God then took that rib and created a woman from it - rather it was a way of suggesting that the relationship between men and women is tightly connected - and that God intended for them to be 'one' in some way or another - as part of the creation process they were separated - and through marriage they become one again. This description becomes a metaphor for the relationship between men and women. Earlier LDS leaders claimed that it was figurative because they didn't see the need for God to create woman from man - or to suggest that God created man, and only later, as an afterthought, created woman. Such an idea doesn't work in the context of the LDS view of the pre-existence.

Having said that, I have very nuanced view of the texts - one that isn't widely accepted by members of the LDS Church. It isn't that my views are heretical - they are simply connected to the decades I have spent studying the ideas of texts and authors, studying how people write, and how people read. I tend to accept the old Jewish tradition that we find in the Mishnah and in other places that God original created mankind (the Hebrew word for Adam can be either a proper name or a reference to mankind) without gender. Then God separated that first person into two gendered people - Adam and Eve. At least theologically, such an idea is very difficult for some people to accept - so they might argue that it should be read figuratively. I just chalk it up to the fact that it is a many thousand year old creation narrative, and go from there.

Genre means a lot. If we read Cinderella (the fairy tale), we can read it quite literally no matter how we understand it. If we understand that its a fairy tale, then we can read it literally - including the parts about magic, and turning mice into men, and so on. And we recognize that it is fictional, which helps us put some context around the literal reading. If we read it literally but don't recognize it as a fairy tale - we can still keep the literal reading - but because the things in the text are impossible (at least normally), we might find another way to explain the literal reading - Cinderella, we could say, is a psychotic young woman subject to hallucinations, and so on. But there isn't any need in either of these cases to read it figuratively. We could come up with a figurative reading if we decided to somehow moralize the story - in which case, the context (whether biographical or fairy tale) stops being quite so important.

This is more my take on these accounts in Genesis. They are creation myths. This is a genre decision. I can read the texts completely literally without having to believe that they are somehow actual history. They are a several thousand year old attempt to explain how humanity came to be without the scientific or psychological or even the moral and ethical knowledge that we have today. Most of the interpretive problems that come with the fall of Adam come because of an attempt to read the text in a way in which it was never intended to be read (and in fact a way in which for much of its existence, it wasn't read).

Nephi in the Book of Mormon illustrates this for me quite well. He can describe it as being literal - there really is a tree that can be seen. And at the same time, the tree has to be interpreted so that what it really means can be understood. He doesn't feel the need to create boundaries around the text in terms of the (only) way it should be understood. Instead he tries to learn from the text and make it real to his own experience and understanding. I do the same. It isn't difficult for me to talk about the figurative nature of the text because of this relationship between what the text means, and what it says. Nephi offers us one such perspective.

Edited June 12, 2023 by Benjamin McGuire

[mfbukowski]

2 hours ago, Benjamin McGuire said:

Having said that, I have very nuanced view of the texts - one that isn't widely accepted by members of the LDS Church. It isn't that my views are heretical - they are simply connected to the decades I have spent studying the ideas of texts and authors, studying how people write, and how people read. I tend to accept the old Jewish tradition that we find in the Mishnah and in other places that God original created mankind (the Hebrew word for Adam can be either a proper name or a reference to mankind) without gender. Then God separated that first person into two gendered people - Adam and Eve. At least theologically, such an idea is very difficult for some people to accept - so they might argue that it should be read figuratively. I just chalk it up to the fact that it is a many thousand year old creation narrative, and go from there.

What is the pupose/function of the story which is useful in your overall paradigm? What further understanding do you get by "tending to accept it"; what does it help you understand better?

I like the aspect of being one in love, then returning to that state.

When I met my wife, it seemed like I had always known her, and she felt the same.

A little "Saturday's Warrior" stuff?

Edited June 12, 2023 by mfbukowski

[Benjamin McGuire]

15 hours ago, mfbukowski said:

What is the pupose/function of the story which is useful in your overall paradigm? What further understanding do you get by "tending to accept it"; what does it help you understand better?

By itself, the story doesn't have much use in my personal paradigm. These stories tend to tell us much more about the ways that ancient people saw their relationship to God and to the world in which they lived. We have, for the most part, very different ideas - even if we consistently attempt to paint those ideas back onto the text. If there is something of value there, it is the idea that man and woman aren't differentiated in this understanding of the story in terms of priority or importance. The story also tends to emphasize the idea that together, men and women continue the creative acts of God. One challenge is that the text has already modified these early narratives in the later rewriting of the text - in ways that tend to move away from the potential meanings of the earliest stories there. This doesn't mean that I don't appreciate a lot of what has been written about these narratives over the last few thousand years - merely that I think we all have to form our own understanding of the questions that and answers these narratives represent. The sequence of stories is interesting to me. There is the idea that God curses the ground when Adam and Eve are sent from the Garden. But, then, the text tells us, in the flood event, when God destroys that creation and we get a new one, and Noah lifts the curse that God put on the earth (Gen. 8:20-21). This is triggered by a sacrificial offering made by Noah - and it is noteworthy that this is Noah's first action in the text that he is not told first as a command from God to do. What does this tell us about the complicated relationship between loving God and obedience? These stories deal with questions about the persistence of bad things (and bad people) in the world. They try to explain why creation is flawed. There is an effort here to explain the necessity of certain types of religious acts. In some of these areas, we have developed very different understandings. In some ways, we still don't have very clear answers to some of these issues.

The challenge we face with these texts is when we assume that they were written for us, and should be read as if the understanding that we get from them was exactly what their authors intended thousands of years ago. It is this insistence that we should read the texts as real history, as literally as possible, and that interpretations of the text should supplant all other types of knowledge that we have produced about these questions - these are the issues that I push back against.

[telnetd]

On 6/12/2023 at 1:33 PM, Benjamin McGuire said:

When the Old Testament refers to a gendered God, is this figurative? Literal? Does it fit into an in-between sort of space created by the nature of language (and more specifically the Hebrew language with its insistence on making almost everything gendered)?

I don't believe God is a gendered male.  But I believe he made appearances in the Old Testament
in human form and in the burning bush.  God, incarnated as Christ, is male-gendered.

On 6/12/2023 at 1:33 PM, Benjamin McGuire said:

No one partook of the forbidden fruit.

Why does the church teach it was literal fruit?

On 6/12/2023 at 1:33 PM, Benjamin McGuire said:

How did Adam and Eve become as Gods? Genesis 3:22 suggests that "Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil." To know good and evil requires, in LDS thought, agency and mortality. As this article points out:

I read the article.  There is a reference to Moses chapter 5.  In verses 10-11, what is the transgression Adam
and Eve refer to and when did it occur?

[InCognitus]

13 minutes ago, telnetd said:

Why does the church teach it was literal fruit?

Where does the church teach it was literal fruit?

And FYI, just because the church makes reference to the events depicted in that story, it doesn't mean it is taken literally.  

What you seem to be asserting is that mere recognition of the verse or the events depicted in the story is equivalent to taking the verse literally, but that's only because you personally can only view the verse literally (for whatever "literally" means to you). 

Consider John 15:16:  “Ye have not chosen me, but I have chosen you, and ordained you, that ye should go and bring forth fruit, and that your fruit should remain: that whatsoever ye shall ask of the Father in my name, he may give it you.”  Elder Joseph W. Sitati quoted this verse in his April 2015 Conference talk.  Does that mean that the church takes this verse literally?

If that's the case, then a true apostle of Jesus Christ would need to look like this (I'm trying to figure out if this is Peter, James, or Paul, it's hard to tell with all the fruit): 

 

[Benjamin McGuire]

4 hours ago, telnetd said:

Why does the church teach it was literal fruit?

Because the text says that there was fruit? The thing is that the Church doesn't teach that it is only literal. Or that the literal interpretation is the only interpretation you can take with the text. The Church doesn't spend a lot of time with the forbidden fruit - it spends much more time discussing the fruit of the Tree of Life (although I suppose we could call that the forbidden fruit as well, couldn't we). And the fruit of the tree of life is definitely taught as being figurative in the text. Anytime we discuss what something symbolizes, we are always discussing a figurative meaning. Here, for example, is a lesson where we discuss the figurative meaning of the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil (emphasis added):

Quote

Elder Bruce R. McConkie wrote: “The scriptures set forth that there were in the Garden of Eden two trees. One was the tree of life, which figuratively refers to eternal life; the other was the tree of knowledge of good and evil, which figuratively refers to how and why and in what manner mortality and all that appertains to it came into being” (A New Witness for the Articles of Faith [1985], 86).

So let's not get bogged down with trying to suggest that the LDS Church or its leaders and members are stuck with only believing that the text should be read in a literal fashion.

4 hours ago, telnetd said:

I read the article.  There is a reference to Moses chapter 5.  In verses 10-11, what is the transgression Adam and Eve refer to and when did it occur?

I think that part of your problem here is that LDS tend to understand the term "transgression" differently than you do. Take this:

Quote

Most Christian churches teach that the Fall was a tragedy, that if Adam and Eve had not partaken of the forbidden fruit, they and all their posterity could now be living in immortal bliss in the Garden of Eden. But truth revealed to latter-day prophets teaches that the Fall was not a tragedy—without it Adam and Eve would have had no posterity. Thus, the Fall was a necessary step in Heavenly Father’s plan to bring about the eternal happiness of His children.

More bluntly, from the same link:

Quote

President Joseph Fielding Smith (1876–1972) said: “I never speak of the part Eve took in this fall as a sin, nor do I accuse Adam of a sin. … This was a transgression of the law, but not a sin … for it was something that Adam and Eve had to do!”

Within LDS thought, each condition or state through which mankind passes exists with its own set of laws or rules (these are not laws necessarily like we think of commandments). In order to move forward in their progression, LDS teach, Adam and Eve (and the rest of humanity) had to leave the pre-existence (and whatever law existed there), to become mortal. This is what is called the transgression of the law. It is simply another way of looking at the choice that Adam and Eve made to become mortal along with all that this entailed - at some point, they had to leave the pre-existance to be born into the mortal part of our existence. And it is at that point in time that this change occurs. So when did this occur? After the council in heaven (the war in heaven) and before the birth of Adam and Eve into mortality. Mormonism is rather indifferent to trying to put a time frame on it. They believe that the spirits of God's children are in some sense eternal - and so trying to discuss the 'when' isn't very meaningful. And different members of the Church take different views. Some believe in a creation that occurred in 7 days several thousand years ago. Some believe in a very old creation (William Phelps, for example, suggested in 1844 that creation began more than 2.5 billion years ago).

[telnetd]

On 6/19/2023 at 8:39 PM, Benjamin McGuire said:

Within LDS thought, each condition or state through which mankind passes exists with its own set of laws or rules (these are not laws necessarily like we think of commandments). In order to move forward in their progression, LDS teach, Adam and Eve (and the rest of humanity) had to leave the pre-existence (and whatever law existed there), to become mortal. This is what is called the transgression of the law.

Thank you. I never heard it explained in that way.