A. Last week we talked about the Creation. Think of what it means for humans to be created from both the dust of the earth and God's breath. We are given a willing spirit but weak flesh. We are torn between the temptations of Satan and the promptings of the Holy Ghost.
B. Does being created in the image of God only refer to our bodies? or might it also include attributes like free agency, emotions, capacity for learning and growth, ability to reproduce, etc.?
C. Did Adam and Eve have belly buttons? Were they born or was Adam an adobe brick and Eve an extruded rib? Brigham Young believed that Adam and Eve were born and raised on another planet and were transported into the Garden of Eden as mature adults. (see attached citations from the Journal of Discourses.)
D. Remember that Adam and Eve spent the 7th day in the Garden. The Earth was created as a Terrestrial planet, not a Telestial planet as we know it today.
(Articles of Faith 10: We believe in the literal gathering of Israel and in the restoration of the Ten Tribes; that Zion (the New Jerusalem) will be built upon the American continent; that Christ will reign personally upon the earth; and, that the earth will be renewed and receive its paradisiacal glory.)
E. The laws of physics, biology, and sociology that we know to operate in the world today are telestial laws. We have absolutely no clue about the laws of physics and biology on Terrestial (or Celestial) planets. We only have some hints about the laws of sociology for Terrestial (and Celestial) planets.
F. Therefore to extrapolate Telestial laws back to understand a Terrestial creation is pure folly and utter nonsense. The creation story can only be taken on faith. It can only be known through the Holy Ghost. That is by design from before the foundation of the Earth. It is a feature, not a bug!
G. When the Millenium arrives and the Earth returns to its Terrestial (Paradisiacal) state, we can then begin to study and learn the laws of Terrestial physics, Terrestrial biology, Terrestrial sociology, and then maybe have a hope of understanding the creation. Until then we will have to rely on the testamony of prophets (or become one ourselves).
If we only had the Genesis (3:6) account, Adam would come across as a mindless dolt--Eve gives him the fruit and he eats it without a second thought. Thank goodness for modern revelation in D&C 29:40 that teaches us that it was an intelligent choice on his part.
Again, if we only had the Genesis (3:12) account, Adam would seem to be engaging in petty finger pointing. But, in the modern revelation (Moses 4:18) the description "whom thou gavest to be with me" changes to the explanation "whom thou gavest me, and commanded that she should remain with me." In this short phrase, Adam explains that he ate the fruit because he held his marriage covenent so sacred and so important that he would suffer--even death--not to violate his marital vows. Would that we all were so faithful to our own spouses! What an example!
B. Pass out Atonement Matrix. Note how the Fall of Adam fits in. Have class find scriptures that fit into various cells.
A.. Might I suggest that parents are responsible for teaching the doctrines outlined in the Atonement Matrix to their children? I suggest using the Atonement Matrix as the basis of several Family Home Evening Lessons
B. Because it is the doctrines in the Matrix that we should be contemplating during the Sacrament, maybe for Family Home Evening, children could re-write in their own language some of the doctrines onto 3 x 5 cards that they can put with their scriptures.
Look for instance at Adam. Listen, ye Latter-day Saints! Supposing that Adam was formed actually out of clay, out of the same kind of material from which bricks are formed; that with this matter God made the pattern of a man, and breathed into it the breath of life, and left it there, in that state of supposed perfection, he would have been an adobie to this day. He would not have known anything. Some of you may doubt the truth of what I now say, and argue that the Lord could teach him. This is a mistake. The Lord could not have taught him in any other way than in the way in which He did teach him. You believe Adam was made of the dust of this earth. This I do not believe, though it is supposed that it is so written in the Bible; but it is not, to my understanding. You can write that information to the States, if you please--that I have publicly declared that I do not believe that portion of the Bible as the Christian world do. I never did, and I never want to. What is the reason I do not? Because I have come to understanding, and banished from my mind all the baby stories my mother taught me when I was a child.
Though we have it in history that our father Adam was made of the dust of this earth, and that he knew nothing about his God previous to being made here, yet it is not so; and when we learn the truth we shall see and understand that he helped to make this world, and was the chief manager in that operation. He was the person who brought the animals and the seeds from other planets to this world, and brought a wife with him and stayed here. You may read and believe what you please as to what is found written in the Bible. Adam was made from the dust of an earth, but not from the dust of this earth. He was made as you and I are made, and no person was ever made upon any other principle.
Here let me state to all philosophers of every class upon the earth, When you tell me that father Adam was made as we make adobies from the earth, you tell me what I deem an idle tale. When you tell me that the beasts of the field were produced in that manner, you are speaking idle worlds devoid of meaning. There is no such thing in all the eternities where the Gods dwell. Mankind are here because they are the offspring of parents who were first brought here from another planet, and power was given them to propagate their species, and they were commanded to multiply and replenish the earth. (Cited in Discourses of Brigham Young, p.104 - p.105)
This earth is our home, it was framed expressly for the habitation of those who are faithful to God, and who prove themselves worthy to inherit the earth when the Lord shall have sanctified, purified and glorified it and brought it back into his presence, from which it fell far into space. Ask the astronomer how far we are from the nearest of those heavenly bodies that are called the fixed stars. Can he count the miles? It would be a task for him to tell us the distance. When the earth was framed and brought into existence and man was placed upon it, it was near the throne of our Father in heaven. And when man fell--though that was designed in the economy, there was nothing about it mysterious or unknown to the Gods, they understood it all, it was all planned--but when man fell, the earth fell into space, and took up its abode in this planetary system, and the sun became our light. When the Lord said--"Let there be light," there was light, for the earth was brought near the sun that it might reflect upon it so as to give us light by day, and the moon to give us light by night. This is the glory the earth came from, and when it is glorified it will return again unto the presence of the Father, and it will dwell there, and these intelligent beings that I am looking at, if they live worthy of it, will dwell upon this earth.
The Prophet Joseph Smith is credited with having said that our planet was made up of the fragments of a planet which previously existed; some mighty convulsions disrupted that creation and made it desolate. Both its animal and vegetable life forms were destroyed. And when those convulsions ceased, and the rent earth was again consolidated, and it became desirable to replenish it, the work was begun by making a mist to rise, that it might descend in gentle rain upon the barren earth, that it might again be fruitful. Then came one of the sons of God to the earth--Adam. A garden was planted in Eden and the man placed in it, and there the Lord brought to him every beast of the field and every fowl of the air, and Adam gave names to them all. Afterwards was brought to Adam his wife, whom, since she was derived from man, he named woman; and she became his help-mate, his companion and the mother of his children. In this nothing is hinted at about man being made from the dust, and woman manufactured from a rib, a story which has been a cause of much perplexity to religious people, and a source of much impious merriment to reckless unbelievers. We are informed that the Lord God made every plant of the field before it was in the earth, and every herb before it grew on our planet.23 As vegetation was created or made to grow upon some older earth, and the seeds thereof or the plants themselves were brought to our earth and made to grow, so likewise man and his helpmate were brought from some other world to our own, to people it with their children. And though it is said that the "Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground"-it by no means follows that he was "formed" as one might form a brick, or form the dust of this earth. We are all "formed" of the dust of the ground, though instead of being moulded as a brick we are brought forth by the natural laws of procreation; so also was Adam and his wife in some older world. And as for the story of the rib, under it I believe the mystery of procreation is hidden.
Let us turn from the contemplation of scenes so sublimely fearful. Suffice it to say, the mandate came, darkness fled, the veil was lifted, light pierced the gloom, and chaos was made visible. Oh what a scene! A world without landscape, without vegetation, without animal life, without man or animated beings. No sound broke on the stillness, save the voice of the moaning winds and of dashing, foaming waters. Again, a voice comes booming over the abyss, and echoing amid the wastes, the mass of matters hears and trembles, and lo! the sea retires, the muddy, shapeless mass lifts its head above the waters. Molehills to mountains grow. Huge islands next appear, and continents at length expand to view, with hill and vale, in one wide, dreary waste, unmeasured and untrodden. The surface, warmed and dried by the cheering, rays of the now resplendent sun, is prepared for the first seeds of vegetation. A Royal Planter now descends from yonder world of older date, and bearing in his hand the choice seeds of the older Paradise, he plants them in the virgin soil of our new-born earth. They grow and flourish there, and, bearing seed, replant themselves, and thus clothe the naked earth with scenes of beauty and the air with fragrant incense. Ripening fruits and herbs at length abound. When lo! from yonder world is transferred every species of animal life. Male and female, they come, with blessings on their head; and a voice is heard again, "Be fruitful and multiply," Earth, its mineral, vegetable and animal wealth -- its Paradise, prepared, down comes from yonder world on high, a Son of God, with his beloved spouse. And thus a colony from heaven, it may be from the sun, is transplanted on our soil. The blessings of their Father are upon them, and the first great law of heaven and earth is again repeated, "Be fruitful and multiply." Hence the nations which have swarmed our earth. In after years, when Paradise was lost by sin; when man was driven from the face of his heavenly Father, to toil, and droop, and die; when heaven was veiled from view; and, with few exceptions, man was no longer counted worthy to retain the knowledge of his heavenly origin; then, darkness veiled the past and future from the heathen mind; man neither knew himself, from whence he came, nor whither he was bound. At length a Moses came, who knew his God, and would fain have led mankind to know Him too, and see Him face to face. But they could not receive His heavenly laws, or bide His presence. Thus the holy man was forced again to veil the past in mystery, and in the beginning of his history, assign to man an earthly origin. Man, moulded from the earth, as a brick! A Woman, manufactured from a rib! Thus, parents still would fain conceal from budding manhood the mysteries of procreation, or the sources of life's ever-flowing river, by relating some childish tale of new born life, engendered in the hollow trunk of some old tree, or springing with spontaneous growth like mushrooms from out the heaps of rubbish. O man! When wilt thou cease to be a child in knowledge?
3:6: And when the woman saw that the tree [was] good for food, and that it [was] pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make [one] wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat. 4:12: And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it became pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make her wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and also gave unto her husband with her, and he did eat. 116:8: And when the woman saw that hte tree was good for food, and that is was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree desirable to make her wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and also gave unto her husband with her. And he did eat and partook of the forbidden fruit and transgressed the commandment, wherein he became subject to the will of the devil, because he yielded unto temptation. And Adam was not deceived but the woman was deceived and fell into transgression.2
3:12: And the man said, The woman whom thou gavest [to be] with me, she gave me of the tree, and I did eat. 4:18: And the man said: The woman thou gavest me, and commandest that she should remain with me, she gave me of the fruit of the tree and I did eat. 117:5: And the man said: The woman thou gavest me, and commandest that she should remain with me, she gave me of the fruit of the tree and I did eat.