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We were discussing the fall of Adam in SS today. The point was made that their was no death of any kind before the fall. My question was when did the fall happen. Since there are fossils dated to 3 billion years plus, the exit out of the garden must have happened before any animals died to create fossils. Makes sense to me but then I am considered a trouble maker in class by asking logical questions or pointing out when comments are made that contradict known facts. So what about the fall? Did it really happen? When? Was it 6000 years ago? Was it literal as we teach in the church? Was the garden in a bubble with the rest of the world progressing on the outside? How do you explain the dinosaurs or the records of ancient man, these both happened long ago before the time we date the fall. Why would God put all these contradictions in front of me and then ask me to believe on faith. Or is it that we just ascribe much more detail to ancient scripture than is actually there.
In institute class we had one scientifically minded member say “Science teaches us how it happened and religion teaches us why.” I believe the Adam & Eve and the garden story is a myth that is symbolic of me. I am Adam & Eve. It has much more meaning to me that way.
If the creation stories are taken literally then we have to account for the different versions and decide how they can all be literal when they are all different. Or maybe they just all got messed up in the centuries of retelling. Lots of possibilities.
I think that the numbers are symbols, so I don’t like messing with them. I think they can be instructive parts of the mythology. I don’t try to make them fit scientific evidence since I don’t figure the stories are literal.
My brain doesn’t know if the story is literal or figurative. When Justme says that we are all Adam and Eve, that makes a load of sense. It seems to be what the temple is trying to say. But I also understand that Adam was Michael and was a literal dude who was given the stewardship of being the first dad. Apparently Eve shares that with him only we don’t know the specifics about her which is a disappointment in my world.
But anyway, I guess I wonder if there its not both. Who knows about all the timelines, though. I think that is on my list of questions for God.
Unfortunately, I don’t think your questions have actual answers. You either need to decide the answers for yourself or accept that the questions have no answer. If I were in your position, feeling troubled by these ideas, I would spend time pondering the story of the fall and see what resonates with you about it.
What resonates most with me is: 1) the idea that man chooses to experience life, and 2) knowledge or understanding is what moved man to the next level of progression.
The answers to the questions would not cause you to live your life differently so I don’t believe that they are important.
God doesn’t ask us to believe in the literal Adam and Eve story. He asks us to be good and love his children knowing that we will fail sometimes and He offers us forgiveness.
I’m sorry that this was troubling to you today. I hope that you won’t be troubled by it for long.
P.S. If you bring up the contradiction between science and scripture in a SS class, there are basically three types of unsatisfactory responses. First, science is a crock. Second, elaborate mental gymnastics to try to explain science with a scriptural context. Three, we don’t really know the answer.
My personal take: It’s symbolic of the pre-mortal life and the choices that needed to be made in order to accept The Plan of Salvation and leave God’s presence to live here on earth – with all the temptations and choices we face here. I absolutely LOVE the Garden of Eden narrative and the concept of The Fall. I take “The Fall” literally (as in, “being separated from God”), but I don’t take the narratives used to teach and explain it as literal. I think there was no way possible for the early prophets to understand things like evolution, and I think that particular knowledge was totally irrelevant and unnecessary for them – so we have a beautiful, symbolic narrative instead.
That’s my take, anyway.
Its nice to see so many who don’t take the Story literally. I was under the impression that the church did & always encouraged to teach it that way. I love the idea that I am Eve, & it’s a beautiful symbolism given in the Temple acting that out. I too see the fall as symbolic. The story is about beginnings and several firsts. The most basic is the first bodies inhabited by spirits on this planet. In scientific terms, this is the moment when sentience is achieved. And sentience brings all the rest: human dominance on the planet, choice, a quest for knowledge, and ultimately a quest to overcome death (to find eternal life) because as sentient beings we are aware of our mortality. Yes, I would love, love, LOVE to sit in a Sunday School class with all you guys! I have few topics that I get impatient with, but when members so adamantly declare that the concept of evolution thwarts the plan of God I can reach my patients limit fairly quickly. I don’t get why it’s so hard to grasp that God could use the process of evolution as his method of creation. I don’t see how it says there is no God – but that’s me. The scriptures say God formed man out of the dust of the earth, but it doesn’t outline the process of how this actually happened. I think evolution is as good an explanation as any. I think the fall has literal parts to the story, but mostly symbolic. I think Adam and Eve could be our 1st parents and could very well have lived on earth as real people, had Cain and Abel and the other children, held priesthood keys and established teachings to their children.
I also think the Garden of Eden account is symbolic. Like Ray said, it could be symbolic of the pre-existence and how we all had to make a choice to accept death (separation from God) in order to get knowledge through experiencing good and evil (opposites), because there is no other way. I can’t experience evil in God’s presence. And so I was Adam, chose to come to earth and will surely die.
I can accept the possibility evolution was how God could have created things…works for me.
I don’t believe in talking snakes (that would be like reverse evolution…going from talking to hissing, right?).
🙄 I guess everyone now takes the story of adam and eve to be symbolic. The literal explanations, which I am sure most of you have heard about, is that this earth was made up of the remnants of other worlds heretofore created. So the dinosaur bones and fossils came from them. Personally, I’m with you guys, I just thought that the literal side ought to at least be represented. We had an interesting discussion in sunday school yesterday, where the GD teacher said that prior to Abel, ALL of Adam and Eve’s children were wicked, there were no righteous children. I raised my hand and asked how he knew that and could make that conclusive statement with surety?
He said, “Because it doesn’t say there were any righteous children. After Abel, Seth and others are named, but prior to that, no one was named, so we know there were no righteous children”.
I’m ok with his interpretation, I don’t agree with it, but I understand what he means and why he believes that. For many, if the Bible says something or doesn’t say something, it is taken literally as fact.
I think that line of thinking can create problems with being so sure about things. When I think of how the bible came about, languages it went through and how we have it today, I find it difficult to accept it is word for word accurate in all things and is all literally true. Finding a scripture and saying, “Ah-ha…see that proves it” is a little shaky way to prove something, IMO.
But that doesn’t bother me…more important is the story of Cain and Abel and Adam and Eve, not whether they were quoted correctly and those quotations preserved perfectly through time.
It is easier for me to look at it all symbolically and metaphorically, and let others believe whatever story they want to believe, as long as we are all talking about the same teachings.
I am firmly in the metaphor camp too. I think if it ties into a literal and physical aspect, it would be human-like animals becoming sentient and “like the gods.” This could even be a story roughly describing a genetic manipulation event by highly advanced beings that imprinted a part of their nature on existing humanoids on Earth. Anyway, I see the story of Adam & Eve describing in metaphor an evolution of spiritual consciousness. I think it is a story of us as we became separate from God, and becoming conscious spiritual beings prior to our physical manifestation as humans.
I could go on and on, but I would not share this in Sunday School. It isn’t the right place for my metaphysical musings.
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