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For me it doesn’t matter much. I believe in one God as creator and divine source of life. He is called by many names. Elohim/Allah/Adam. It doesn’t really make a difference to me. If pushed I would consider the creation/garden story to be mostly figurative. I’m not sure there ever was an actual Adam. So I don’t think he’s the person I address when I say ‘Dear Heavenly Father…’
I don’t consider BY a particularly trustworthy source of doctrine. Having said that there are probably more quotes from him in the quotes thread than anyone else. He seems to have said so much that eventually some of it was worth keeping. Adam-God isn’t one of them for me.
mackay11 wrote:I don’t consider BY a particularly trustworthy source of doctrine. Having said that there are probably more quotes from him in the quotes thread than anyone else. He seems to have said so much that eventually some of it was worth keeping. Adam-God isn’t one of them for me.
Even a stopped clock is right twice a day, eh?
I’m equally puzzled by the Adam-Michael thing. Maybe, like the Jehovah’s Witnesses, we believe that Jesus=Michael as well, so in the end up, the Second Adam, is in fact, Adam?
But then again, Adam is merely the Hebrew for man, and we think that God was once a man, so…
wuwei wrote:mackay11 wrote:I don’t consider BY a particularly trustworthy source of doctrine. Having said that there are probably more quotes from him in the quotes thread than anyone else. He seems to have said so much that eventually some of it was worth keeping. Adam-God isn’t one of them for me.
Even a stopped clock is right twice a day, eh?
Indeed
Personally, I think Brigham Young was right FAR more often than a stopped clock analogy allows. I don’t agree with quite a few of the things he said and believed, but I think Adam-God, polygamy and his isolationist war rhetoric cloud and distort people’s ability to see an incredibly complex, caring, insightful, brilliant man instead of the caricature he has become to so many people.
I also think his utter lack of self-censorship didn’t help
:silent: – and it ought to serve as a reality check for members who wish our current leaders were more open with their disagreements and personal opinions. Dueling apostles might be interesting to study outside their own times, but they ended up too often leading to dueling denominations (or, at least, internal schisms) – and we tend to forget that as we see greener pastures from the past.Even a couple of months ago I would have wanted to hear “meatier” talks from the past. But not anymore. I don’t see it as green pastures. It frankly scares me. I think the reason we hear little more than plattitudes today is that for the most part they are helpful and don’t paint us into doctrinal corners. If it was more like the 1850s I’d probably not be able to find what little bit of middle ground I have. I’d have left long ago…
I’m glad a few plain and precious things survived and werent blown away in all the hot air of the past.
Perhaps the stopped clock analogy was a cheap shot. But I have issues with BY that can’t be resolved above the few you mentioned. But this isn’t the forum for that.
…
A thought on Adam-Michael…
Michael means “who is like God?” Then when he comes to Earth his name is Adam, meaning “man” or “mankind”.
Question and answer?
I find meaning in it anyways…
I agree, Wuwei, about the past. I’d pick my own time every day – and twice or thrice on Sunday. So the Adam-God theory has many problems. Brother Brigham taught that Adam had previously been through mortality on some planet, had died, been resurrected and exalted, came to the Garden of Eden with Eve, became mortal again, and later died again. I just don’t buy it. I don’t believe in reincarnation.
After resurrection, “they can die no more; their spirits uniting with their bodies, never to be divided; thus the whole becoming spiritual and immortal, that they can no more see corruption” (Alma 11:45). So Brigham later changed his mind and taught that Adam didn’t die again, but there are various scriptures saying that Adam did die.
David John Buerger supplied some quotes by Joseph Smith in an
articleI believe in the vision recorded in D&C 137, which reads:
Quote:The heavens were opened upon us, and I beheld the celestial kingdom of God, and the glory thereof…Also the blazing throne of God, whereon was seated the Father and the Son. I saw the beautiful streets of that kingdom, which had the appearance of being paved with gold. I saw Father Adam and Abraham; and my father and my mother…
To me, that clearly demonstrates that Adam is not the father of Jesus Christ at all. Adam is great and may be a father of earth and its people in some sense, but he was separate in this vision, and I pray to the Father who was seated with Christ.I like Matthew B. Brown’s summary in his
address
Quote:Brigham Young was the legitimate successor of the Prophet Joseph Smith but he was not a perfect or infallible man. President Young learned some things about Adam from the written and unwritten teachings of Joseph Smith and he (and apparently Heber C. Kimball) used this knowledge to form assumptions about Adam and also about those Saints who achieve exaltation. This mixture of ideology became an unofficial ‘One Eternal Round’ view of existence. President Young made errors in formulating his ideology because he was evidently not aware of how the Adam-related material restored through the Prophet Joseph Smith functioned in an ancient world setting. Some of Brigham Young’s assumptions about Adam are not compatible with canonized scripture and so those particular teachings are not binding upon any Latter-day Saint.
This theory doesn’t have merit in my opinion and I am not going to worry about this theory anymore.I have pretty well quit worrying about Mormon theology/myth entirely. Sent from my SCH-I535 using Tapatalk 2
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