Study Helps for Old Testament Gospel Doctrine Lesson 4
Although I am still struggling to decide exactly what format my notes on the Sunday School lessons should take and what would be the most helpful type of information to provide, I wanted to make sure I got started with this series of posts and provided something. I guess what I’m trying to say is that the style, format, and content of these posts is subject to change as I get a feel for how I want to do this. Please bear with me. For those readers who are not members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, this series of posts is based on lessons from the LDS Church’s Sunday School program, which is focused on (this year) the Old Testament.
This week’s lesson covers Moses 4; 5:1-15; 6:48-62 (from Selections from the Book of Moses in The Pearl of Great Price)
From the Lesson Manual:
- a. Moses 4; 5:10-11; 6:48-49, 55-56. Satan comes to the Garden of Eden and seeks to deceive Eve. Eve and Adam partake of the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil (4:5-12). Having fallen, Adam and Eve are cast out of the garden (4:13-31). Adam and Eve later rejoice in the blessings of the Fall (5:10-11). Enoch teaches about the effects of the Fall (6:48-49, 55-56).
- b. Moses 5:14-15; 6:50-54, 57-62. Because of the Atonement of Jesus Christ, mortals are saved from physical death through the Resurrection and may be saved from spiritual death through faith, repentance, baptism, the gift of the Holy Ghost, and obedience to the commandments.
- c. Moses 5:1-9, 12. Adam and Eve begin life as mortals. They have children and teach them the truths they have learned (5:1-4, 12). Adam offers sacrifices in similitude of the sacrifice of the Only Begotten (Moses 5:5-9).
Helpful Links:
Lesson 4 – Meridian Magazine article by Bruce Satterfield
The Temple Symbolism of the Tree of Life and the Tree of Knowledge – another excellent article by Jeff Bradshaw
Adam in Ancient Texts and the Restoration – a remarkable article by Matthew Roper which gives a significant analysis of ancient materials related to Adam and how they contain many ideas which support Joseph Smith’s additional insights on the patriarch of the human race. Many of the aspects of the Book of Moses which today’s Christians may find odd or unfamiliar were known to ancient Christians.
Extra-canonical texts that retell the story of Adam and Eve (with many similarities to the Book of Moses):
The Testament of Adam – Thought to be a 4th Century Jewish pseudepigraphal text that retells the story of Genesis. This text is thought to have been reused by Christians and contributed to some of the later texts below.
The Book of Adam and Eve (or The Conflict of Adam and Eve with Satan) — A Christian pseudepigraphical text thought to date from the 6th century AD. Although it is quite drawn out, it is at times strikingly similar in structure to our Book of Moses.
The Apocalypse of Adam – A Gnostic work retelling Adam’s last words to his son Seth, including prophecies regarding future generations. A Coptic work found among the Nag Hammadi texts.
The Life of Adam and Eve (Vita Adam et Evae) – A very interesting early Christian text (poss. 6th century) that has many parallels to the Book of Moses. A more detailed account of the story of the Fall in Genesis which preserves some insightful ancient traditions. On the linked site they have provided English translations from the known versions, originally in Armenian, Georgian, Latin, Greek, and Slavonic.
The Cave of Treasures – A colorful retelling of the Adam and Eve story with many similarities to The Book of Adam and Eve (mentioned above). Also dated to the 6th century AD.
Some Comments:
Some of the distinct LDS doctrines that are learned from these sections of the Book of Moses are here summarized by Robert Millet (Man Adam, 1990):
1. Adam and Eve were vital parts of God’s purpose and plan-the plan of salvation-which plan has been in existence since the days that they first walked the earth. The Saints today, and all who will listen, become privy to a foundational truth concerning Christ’s eternal gospel-the knowledge that Christian prophets have taught Christian doctrine and administered Christian ordinances since the days of Eden.
2. Adam and Eve’s doings in Eden are not to be understood in a spiritual vacuum. And Lucifer’s actions in the garden must be seen as a part of his malevolent mischief begun in the premortal councils. The War in Heaven simply continues on earth. (See Moses 4.)
3. The fall of Adam and Eve was an essential part of God’s plan. Thus the Fall is viewed by Latter-day Saints with an optimism that is uncharacteristic of traditional Christianity. Simply stated, Adam and Eve came into the Garden of Eden to fall. In fact, their partaking of the fruit was as much a part of the foreordained plan as the atonement of Christ. “Because that Adam fell,” Enoch explained, “we are” (Moses 6:48; compare 2 Ne. 2:25).
4. God forgave Adam and Eve their transgression in the Garden of Eden. Though children are “conceived in sin”-though conception becomes the vehicle through which the effects of the Fall are transmitted to man- they are free from any original sin or guilt. Little children are whole from the foundation of the world. These blessings come as unconditional benefits of the atonement of Jesus Christ. (Moses 6:53-55.)
5. Through the redemptive labors of Christ and their own repentance, Adam and Eve were forgiven of their sins, born again, changed from a carnal and fallen state to a state of righteousness; they were justified, sanctified, and made ready for an entrance into the eternal presence (Moses 6:57-60). We can receive these blessings as well. Through the ordinances of salvation, Adam, Eve, and their posterity are “quickened in the inner man,” are born of the Spirit, and thus become the sons and daughters of Christ (Moses 6:64-68). Then, through receiving the blessings of the new and everlasting covenant of marriage, these Saints may ultimately qualify to become sons and daughters of God the Father and receive, as joint-heirs with Christ, all that the Father has. 3
In summary, much of what we know of the Creation, the Fall, and the Atonement-the three pillars of eternity-we know in large measure because of what God has revealed, principally in the latter days, regarding our first parents.
We read in Moses 5: 10-12, after Adam and Eve have been expelled from the Garden and have had time to contemplate the significance of their new fallen state:
10 And in that day Adam blessed God and was afilled, and began to prophesy concerning all the families of the earth, saying: Blessed be the name of God, for because of my transgression my eyes are opened, and in this life I shall have joy, and again in the fflesh I shall see God.
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.
12 And Adam and Eve blessed the name of God, and they made all things known unto their sons and their daughters.
These few lines contain some major theological statements that contribute greatly to the LDS understanding of the nature of the Fall of Adam and Eve. From my experience studying theology at non-LDS institutions, I can attest to the fact that these ideas represent a significant difference from the understanding of the Fall held by most Christians. As far as I understand it, while most Christians would say that God certainly, in his omniscient foreknowledge, knew what Adam and Eve would end up doing, they don’t seem to view Adam’s transgression as part of God’s initial designs for mankind and his Fall and departure from the Garden certainly wasn’t a positive consequence for the first couple. Although traditions vary, many would say that Adam and Eve were meant to stay in Paradise forever and that they were meant to “multiply and replenish” right there in the Garden, where their descendents (all of us) would have enjoyed a glorious and peaceful existence in the presence of God.
However, from the Book of Moses and other LDS Scriptures we learn that the Fall was an essential part of God’s plan for mankind. The reason that the earth was created was so that God’s spirit children (all of us) could be sent here to be tested (Abr. 3: 24-25). By partaking of the forbidden fruit, Adam and Eve gained the knowledge they need to choose between good and evil, which was essential to the exercising of their agency — their ability to distinguish between right and wrong and choose the right. If they would have remained in the Garden in their state of innocence, they would never have had experienced the opposition necessary to create an opportunity to choose the right.
I will continue on this topic after I introduce a second question from the text that many other Christians have difficulty with; that is the question of procreation in the Garden. In the above quoted passage, Eve makes it explicitly clear that if it were not for their transgression, she and Adam would have never multiplied and produced children (see also 2 Ne. 2:22-23). But didn’t God specifically command them, in the Garden of Eden, to “multiply and replenish the earth” (Gen. 1:28)? A reader of this blog from France who is familiar with the Book of Moses and LDS teachings recently asked me about this apparent contradiction between the biblical text and LDS scripture. The following was my response to him:
You are correct that LDS teaching is that Adam and Eve could not multiply in the Garden of Eden, before the Fall. You are also correct that God, in Genesis, does command Adam and Eve to multiply before the Fall. We believe that this is one of the great paradoxes of Adam and Eve’s situation before the Fall, and why God fully expected and planned for the Fall to take place. I will tell you why I believe there is no “distortion” between LDS teachings and the book of Genesis.
God’s first commandment to Adam and Eve was to multiply and replenish the Earth. Did they obey this commandment while in the Garden of Eden? No, according to Genesis, they did not. Genesis, unfortunately, is silent on the matter of why they did not. Nevertheless, according to Genesis, they only obeyed this commandment after the Fall. LDS believe that the reason that they did not multiply before the Fall is because they could not (or perhaps they did not know how). One possible clue from Genesis is the fact that the text states that before they ate of the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, they did not even know that they were naked. This is a rather odd circumstance and it is possible that there is some other meaning behind what the text says. Whatever the case may be, we believe that Adam and Eve, in the state that they were in before the Fall, did not have the knowledge or capacity to reproduce.
Why would God command them to multiply if they were incapable of doing so? Because he fully expected them to eat of the forbidden fruit and experience the Fall. LDS believe that this was part of his eternal plan of salvation from the very beginning. Men and women were supposed to come into the world to be tested, to see if they would be obedient to God’s commandments and thus prove worthy to return to his presence. They could not do this in Eden — in Eden, Adam and Eve were immortal and innocent — they did not know sin. Unless they were forced to leave Eden and the presence of God, they would not experience adversity — the opposition necessary to provide for them choices between good and evil. Outside of Eden, they would have to make these choices between right and wrong, to follow God or Satan. Likewise, their children would be born into a world where these choices were available, which would not be the case if they were born in Eden. By making right choices, we would progress and become more like God — we can experience the triumph over sin that merits enthronement beside the Son and the Father (Rev. 3:21).
However, God knew that we would not always make the right choices, so that is why he provided a Savior, Jesus Christ. Jesus was appointed before the Creation of the World to be our Savior, to reverse the effects of the Fall that Adam and Eve would bring upon the world. This was not an afterthought — a quick response by God to redeem the damage that Adam had caused. All went according to the plan that God had established from the beginning.
Sorry for the long answer — to summarize, we acknowledge the fact that God gave the commandment to multiply before the Fall, but believe He knew that they would not be able to comply with that commandment until after the Fall. According to God’s great plan, the children of Adam and Eve needed to be born into a mortal world, not the immortal paradise of Eden.
The reasons for our belief that Adam and Eve could not have children in the Garden, then, are inextricably tied to our beliefs regarding God’s Plan of Salvation. All of this is quite well illustrated in 2 Ne. 2:5-30.
After reading the email that I sent, my friend then wondered why the animals apparently multiplied after receiving that same commandment from God. My simple answer was that we don’t know that they did multiply — the text doesn’t specifically say that they obeyed that command. If they did multiply, that doesn’t necessarily reflect on Adam and Eve’s situation. For more on the topic of procreation before the Fall, see here.
Here are some more insights on these topics from Matthew Roper’s article:
Foreknowledge of God and the necessity for a Savior
Another theme found in the ancient literature on Adam is the teaching that God knew before hand that Adam would fall and in Christian literature, the idea that knowing before-hand of man’s future transgression, God would provide a Savior by which man could be saved. In a Coptic Christian work, the Discourse on the Abbaton, at the creation God sends an angel to retrieve clay from the earth to form man’s body. The earth objects, complaining of the wickedness that will be committed by man if he is created and placed upon the earth.
If thou takest me to Him, He will mould me into a form, and I shall become a man, and a living soul. And very many sins shall come forth from my heart (or, body), and many fornications, ans slanderous abuse, and jealousy, and hatred and contention shall come forth from his hand, and many murders and sheddings of blood shall come forth from his hand…. Let me stay here and go back to the ground and be quiet.23
In spite of the earth’s objections, the angel carries some clay to God for the formation of Adam’s body. After God creates Adam’s body, however, there is a discussion in heaven between the Father and the Son about what to do about man. According to this text
He left him lying for forty days and forty nights without putting breath into him. And he heaved sighs over him daily saying, “If I put breath into this [man], he must suffer many pains.” And I said unto my Father, “Put breath into him; I will be an advocate for him.” And my Father said unto Me, “If I put breath into him, My Beloved Son, Thou wilt be obliged to go down into the world, and to suffer many pains for him before Thou shalt have redeemed him, and made him come back to his primal state.” And I said unto my Father, “Put breath into him; I will be his advocate, and I will go down into the world, and will fulfil thy command.”24
It is clear from this text that God knows before-hand that man will transgress and that it is necessary to appoint an advocate for man, and that Jesus willingly offered to suffer the pains of man’s redemption, even before man was given life.
Adam in the Garden
Recent studies by Michael Stone, W. Lipscomb, Gary Anderson and others have focused on a set of Armenian Christian Adam and Eve texts. These texts were first published in Armenian in 1898 and only in English in the last several decades.25 These texts discuss the events which took place in the Garden of Eden before the Fall. In one of these entitled, Adam and Eve and the Incarnation, the serpent tells Eve, “God was a man like you. When he ate of the fruit of this tree he became God of all”26 In The History of the Creation and Transgression of Adam, the serpent states, “God was like you, because he had not eaten of that fruit, When he ate it, he attained the glory of divinity.” Speaking of devil’s words to Eve, Michael Stone, the editor and translator of the recently published Armenian and Georgian Adam and Eve texts observes, “The formulation in our text says not just that humans will become like God (gods)” but also that “God was himself originally human and became divine through eating the fruit.”27 This variation on the serpent’s words is also found in several later medieval Jewish texts about Adam and Eve.28 In the Transgression of Adam, after Eve partakes of the fruit, Adam asks her, “Why have you eaten the fruit?” Eve responds by saying, “The fruit is very sweet. Take and you taste, and notice the sweetness of this fruit” but Adam refuses, saying, ‘I cannot taste it.” According to this particular account Eve the begins to cry and beg Adam to eat and “do not separate me from you.” After some deliberation (three hours according to one account) Adam reasons, “It is better for me to die than to become separated and detached from this woman.” Then he partakes of the fruit as well.
These and other extra-canonical texts indicate that after the redemption of Christ that Adam would be taken to paradise and that after the resurrection he would be restored to his former inheritance which he had lost at the Fall. The significance here is that Adam’s restoration to his pre-mortal inheritance, where according to these texts he once reigned under God as a king and at God’s specific command was even worshiped by the angels, suggests a return to a state where he could again receive such adoration, a state clearly suggestive of deification. The theme of deification in fact is explicit in the Syriac Testament of Adam. There Adam explains to his son Seth that God would eventually fulfil Adam’s desire for deification. Just before being cast out of the Garden, the Lord tells him, “Adam, Adam, do not fear. You wanted to be a god; I will make you a god, not right now, but after the space of many years.”
For your sake I will taste death and enter into the house of the dead…. And after three days, while I am in the tomb, I will raise up the body I received from you. And I will set you at the right hand of my divinity, and I will make you a god just like you wanted.”*
More details on the exchange between Satan and Eve regarding God’s deification:
Michael Stone, in Armenian Apocrypha relating to Adam and Eve (p. 25), provides us with three manuscript versions (from the Armenian text Adam, Eve, and the Incarnation) of this exhange:
4 The serpent spoke with Eve: '(That is) not so! God was a man like you. when he ate of the fruit of this tree he became God of all. Because of that God said to you not to eat, lest you become an equal god, like himself.
4 The serpent said, 'Because God was a man like you, when he ate of this fruit he became God of all. Because of this matter he said, "Do not eat!" Lest you become god.'
4 But the serpent said. '(That is) not so! Bec cause God himself was a man like you when he ate of it, and he became God of all. Because of that he said not to eat of that, because you knew that when you eat of it, you will become a god, his equal. Because of that he said for you not to eat.'
From the similar text in The Cycle of Four Weeks: Transgression, 16-17:
The serpent said, ‘God wants to deceive you. For God was like you, because he had not eaten the fruit. When he ate it he achieved the glory of Divinity. For this reason he said to you not to eat of that fruit, so that you should (not) become equal, sharers both of God’s glory and his throne.'
Some thoughts on the “nakedness” of Adam and Eve after their transgression, from Jeff Bradshaw’s In God’s Image and Likeness (2010, pp. 234-237):
The Nakedness and the Clothing of Adam and Eve
Moses’ account depicts Adam and Eve as naked and without shame in the Garden,”’– and clothed by God in coats of skin only later, after the Fall.”` However, many of the earliest artistic depictions of the story show a surprising reversal of the situation, portraying Adam and Eve clothed in regal glory within Eden, and naked after their expulsion.124 How can this be?
Recalling the parallels between the Garden of Eden and Israelite Houses of God, Anderson points out that “the vestments of the priest matched exactly those particular areas of the Temple to which he had access… Each time the high priest moved from one gradient of holiness to another, he had to remove one set of clothes and put on another to mark the change”:125′
(a) Outside the Tabernacle priests wear ordinary clothes. (b) When on duty in the Tabernacle, they wear four pieces of clothing whose material and quality of workmanship match that of the fabrics found on the outer walls of the courtyard.’126 (c) The High Priest wears those four pieces plus four additional ones-these added garments match the fabric of the Holy Chamber where he must go daily to tend the incense altar.
In Eden a similar set of vestments is found, again each set suited to its particular space. (a) Adam and Eve were, at creation, vested like priests and granted access to most of Eden. (b) Had they been found worthy, an even more glorious set of garments would have been theirs (and according to St. Ephrem, they would have entered even holier ground). (c) But having [transgressed], they were stripped of their angelic garments and put on mortal flesh. Thus, when their feet met ordinary earth-the realm of the animals-their constitution had become “fleshly;’ or mortal.’127
Consistent with this schema, each stage in the sequence of changes in Adam and Eve’s status in the book of Moses is marked by a change in their appearance.128 The imagery of clothing is “a means of linking together in a dynamic fashion the whole of salvation history; it is a means of indicating the interrelatedness between every stage in this continuing working out of divine Providence;” including “the place of each individual Christian‘s [ordinances129] within the divine economy as a whole.”130 Note the chiastic structure of the sequence, which begins and ends in glory:131
- From glory to nakedness.132 Though “naked” because their knowledge of their premortal state had been taken away by a veil of forgetfulness,133 Adam and Eve had come to Eden nonetheless “trailing clouds of glory.”‘” While the couple, as yet, were free from transgression, they could stand “naked“ in God‘s presence without shame,135 being “clothed with purity’ in what early commentators called “garments of light“137‘ or “garments of contentment.“138 In one source, Eve describes her appearance by saying: “I was decked out like a bride, And I reclined in a wedding-chamber of light”139
In the context of rituals and ordinances based on the experiences of Adam and Eve, Nibley explained: “The garment [of light] represents the preexistent glory of the candidate… When he leaves on his earthly mission, it is laid up for him in heaven to await his return. It thus serves as security and lends urgency and weight to the need for following righteous ways on earth. For if one fails here, one loses not only one‘s glorious future in the eternities to come, but also the whole accumulation of past deeds and accomplishments in the long ages of preexistence.’
- From innocence to transgression.’”‘ Rabbinical tradition taught that, following his transgression, “Adam… lost his [heavenly] clothing-God stripped it off him.. “142 and similarly that Eve “was stripped of the righteousness in which [she] had been clothed..”143 Likewise, the Discourse on Abbaton records that both Adam and Eve “became naked” upon eating the forbidden fruit.144 According to the Life of Adam and Eve, God then “sent seventy plagues upon us, to our eyes, and to our ears and as far as our feet, plagues and portents laid up in his treasuries.“145 Anderson takes this to mean that “Adam has exchanged an angelic constitution for a mortal one,” in other words that he has been “clothed with flesh”146 Shamed by their loss of glory, Adam and Eve covered their earthly bodies with fig leaf aprons.147
Rabbinical writings describe how, in likeness of Adam and Eve, each soul descending to earth “divests itself of its heavenly garment, and is clothed in a garment of flesh and blood; 148 the prior glory being, as it were, “veiled… in flesh”149 The various “afflictions” of mortality initially giv¬en to Adam and now bestowed upon “all… generations”150 frequently number seven rather than the seventy mentioned above: “They are against the ’seven natures: the flesh for hearing, the eyes for seeing, the breath to smell, the veins to touch, the blood for taste, and bones for endurance, and the intelligence for joy’;151 or against life, sight, hearing, smell, speech, taste, procreation”‘” Though Adam and Eve were protected from fatal harm at the time of extremity, ancient texts recount that Satan had been allowed to hurt them, and the “wounds;” foreshad-owing the later wounds received by Christ at His crucifixion,153 “remained on their bodies””4 Nibley sees the wounds of nature and of Satan to various parts_ of the body as figuratively corresponding to the “blows of death” taught by Satan to Cain.’” He describes their enact¬ment in Jewish ritual as follows: “The wages of sin is death, and the dead body is chided at an old-fashioned Jewish funeral because its members no longer function, and each one is struck an impatient and accusing blow. This is the chibut ha-keber. `On the third day the departed is treated with increased rigor. Blows are struck on his eyes because he would not see, on his ears because he would not hear, on his lips because they uttered profanities, on his tongue because it bore false testimony against his neighbor, on his feet because they ran toward evil doing”‘156
Again, I am sorry for the poor formatting and organization of this post — I was trying to get in as much information as I could in the very little time I had to prepare this. Of course there is so much more that could be said of these rich passages from the Book of Moses, but hopefully some of this will be helpful. I will try to make my next post more organized and aesthetically pleasing.
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