The "Adam-God Theory"

[_gdemetz]

The prophet Brigham Young, no matter who thought what, did not believe that Adam was God. Perhaps some of the people who had a problem with his statements had reading comprehension problems with them. His critics often quote the August 28, 1852 statement in order to prove that he did believe that Adam was God, however, in that very statement itself he clearly is talking about people who will later receive their exaltations and refers to them as Adam and Eve!!!

[_gdemetz]

I am not allowed to discuss this in any detail, however, I hope that there are not many here who place their faith in the accuracy of the temple films, etc., because some of them are absolutely inaccurate, and I have discussed this matter inside the temple with a temple president who didn't understand why, just as I didn't.

[_bcspace]

Dream on BC. BY Taught Adam was God. It was in the endowment, it was understood as such by those who heard it. Your constant crow of victory is another example of how disingenuous you are.

I will offer you this challenge again and it is about the 6th time. Find me one contemporary of Young that understood his AG teaching as Adam SR/JR. Till you can do so shut up about it.

Such angst when you should be inhaling the Celestial airs instead.

Nutall proved you wrong on the former. That Adam-God is in conflict with the BY quotes I gave and the several critical doctrines it contradicts (and were never overturned or repealed during BY's tenure) is logic enough to crack this old chestnut. All the denial you can muster and bluster cannot prevent me from savoring the results actual scholarship.

[_Buffalo]

Dream on BC. BY Taught Adam was God. It was in the endowment, it was understood as such by those who heard it. Your constant crow of victory is another example of how disingenuous you are.

I will offer you this challenge again and it is about the 6th time. Find me one contemporary of Young that understood his AG teaching as Adam SR/JR. Till you can do so shut up about it.

Such angst when you should be inhaling the Celestial airs instead.

Nutall proved you wrong on the former. That Adam-God is in conflict with the BY quotes I gave and the several critical doctrines it contradicts (and were never overturned or repealed during BY's tenure) is logic enough to crack this old chestnut. All the denial you can muster and bluster cannot prevent me from savoring the results actual scholarship.

Nutall's wild theories have no doctrinal weight. Brigham Young's theories did.

[_gdemetz]

Don't worry, BC. It can not be any more obvious what Brigham Young meant than his very own August 28th statement in 1852! His critics say that statement shows that he believed in the Adam-God theory, but even a casual reading of that shows clearly that he was referring to some future "Adam" and "Eve" as future heavenly parents! This is the same thing He meant in the other statement I quoted that he used when referring to Heavenly Father, and it is consistent with all of the other statements he made concerning the same topic such as the second quote that I gave! Some people are just too proud to ever admit that they are wrong! They are just always in the attack mode, and they love to be on this site so they can fulfill their desire to attack! "Ye have eyes, but ye do not see." Ye have ears, but ye do not hear."

[_gdemetz]

BC, is it just me, or can other people get the same meaning that I do when I read the statement of Brigham Young of August 28,1852 that so many critics have condemned him for? To me, Brigham Young is clearly speaking of future "Adam's" and "Eve's" that will go to some future world and eat and drink of the fruits of the "garden" there to produce physical tabernacles for the first parents of that world!

[_Drifting]

BC, is it just me, or can other people get the same meaning that I do when I read the statement of Brigham Young of August 28,1852 that so many critics have condemned him for? To me, Brigham Young is clearly speaking of future "Adam's" and "Eve's" that will go to some future world and eat and drink of the fruits of the "garden" there to produce physical tabernacles for the first parents of that world!

You mean like they become Gods themselves and have their own planet?

[_Gentile Persuasion]

Brigham Young was inconsistent on this topic as well as on others. Most people who do a lot of public speaking are. I think that Elder Bruce R. McConkie got it right in his 2/19/81 letter to Eugene England:

"Yes, President Young did teach that Adam was the father of our spirits, and all the related things that the cultists ascribe to him. This, however, is not true. He expressed views that are out of harmony with the gospel. But, be it known, Brigham Young also taught accurately and correctly, the status and position of Adam in the eternal scheme of things. What I am saying is that Brigham Young, contradicted Brigham Young, and the issue becomes one of which Brigham Young we will believe."

The original post was interesting. But its biggest weakness is probably its very originality. Most of BY's contemporaries apparently believed he was teaching the Adam-God Theory in the form in which it is popularly understood -- i.e., giving the words their plain meanings, and not trying to force them into a complicated explanatory matrix.

This popular understanding is also shared by many fundamentalists (Elder McConkie's "cultists") of our own day. How is it that all of these people have maintained the theory in an incorrect form?

[_gdemetz]

Yes, this so-called theory has caused much confusion, even within the church! However, no matter who misunderstood Brigham Young, the fact remains that he was definitely misunderstood! You have to either believe that, or believe that he was so mixed up that he would teach one thing one day, and the next day teach another! However, as I stated before, his critics use the latter quote I referred to to try and prove their point, and their logic is greatly flawed in this because in this very same quote it is very obvious that he is referring to future exalted "Adam's" and "Eve's" who will produce physical tabernacles for the future worlds just as Heavenly Father did with "one of His wives" whom Brigham Young also refers to as (an) "Adam"!

[_Fence Sitter]

Sometimes Brigham Young wouldn't even wait one day to contradict himself, as was pointed out in Christofferson's conference talk this weekend, BY got up in morning conference during the approach of Johnston's army and preached one course of action for the saints against the invading army, then in the afternoon session asked the saints to forget about what he had said in the morning.

Much of his disagreement with Orson Pratt was because Orson Pratt was trying to make sense of BY's conflicting teachings.

Orson Pratt writes:

"Neither can I persuade myself even now" he wrote, " that minds accustomed to severe thought and meditation as yours have been these many years, can, after due reflection,and reading the vast number of revelations which seem most clearly to teach differently, still believe in a doctrine which appears to be so contrary to what is revealed ."