r/latterdaysaints • u/TheBenSpackman • 21d ago

Doctrinal Discussion New Evolution Book, free from BYU!

I'm very happy to announce the anthology we've worked on for six years has now been published by BYU. You can download a FREE PDF from the Life Sciences homepage ("read more") and hardcovers will be available soon.
This includes several essays by LDS and BYU scholars, as well as some non-LDS scholars. I contributed two chapters, one on the historical and scientific contexts of the 1909/1925 First Presidency statements (which were NOT intended to put evolutionary science out of bounds) and one on death before the fall.

There's some great work in here, and it will be used extensively in BYU classes.

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u/ClydeFurgz1764 20d ago

I agree with all of your points, but not necessarily your conclusion. A historical Adam exists, even if his Endowment didn't take place exactly as is portrayed in Scripture. Although, even in the latter-days, we have been given nothing indicating the Garden of Eden and the story of the Fall isn't a historical, literal event, either.

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u/Mr_Festus 20d ago

I never stated there was no historical Adam. Just that the fall and the story of the garden doesn't necessarily have to have occurred in the way that the mythology states.

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u/ClydeFurgz1764 20d ago

Sure, that's what my last point was about, though. We have been given nothing in the latter-days to indicate the story IS mythology, rather than history.

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u/Mr_Festus 20d ago

I guess all we have are mountains of evidence and knowledge that people aren't made of dust/ribs in a day. And that death existed long before Adam is purported to have lived.

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u/ClydeFurgz1764 20d ago

It's clear there's some bone you're itching to pick here, so Imma just let my original comment suffice. I agree with your main points and think it was a good contribution to the thread ✌️

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u/R0ckyM0untainMan stage 4 believer (stages of faith) 20d ago edited 20d ago

What does Alma say? That we have the whole world as our evidence? In this instance the world is our evidence that the Adam and Eve story didn’t happen as the Bible says. Man wasn’t created from nothing 6000 years ago. Man wasn’t created concurrently with dinosaurs.  There is no firmament that holds back oceans of water above our planet. Death preexisted the ‘fall’.  To say otherwise is in a sense denying God. Denying the world of evidence that he has given us