No death before the fall

[_Rambo]

How do apologists answer where dinosaurs came from? They obviously died before the fall.

Is the other planet theory still working in Mormonism?

[_beefcalf]

The famed apologist, our own bcspace, explains it thusly:

When prophet after prophet have used the phrase "No death before the fall of Adam", what the actually meant was "No death just before the fall of Adam."

Did you miss it? That little word there: 'just'?

Yup. Mr. space realizes that there was a long evolutionary period of time where life lived and died and evolved, but then, right before the whole Garden of Eden was ready, God put a stop to all the dyin'... and then nothing died for a while, then the Garden happened. Then Adam fell. Then God said, ok, start dyin' again.

And there you have it.

To make this perfectly clear, his theory is not a discombobulated concoction of what he knows to be true combined with what he prefers to be true, despite it having the appearance of such.

And if you don't believe me, just ask him.

[_Stormy Waters]

Is the other planet theory still working in Mormonism?

I heard my own dad say that dinosaur bones were from other planets. Ugh. Yes, Dinosaurs are extraterrestrials that God took and buried them in the earth to test our faith.

[_Runtu]

My favorite was the BYU religion professor who told us that everyone knows that lizards don't stop growing until they die. Thus, since there was no death for so long, the lizards got really big, and we call those big lizards dinosaurs.

I am not making this up.

[_beefcalf]

Is the other planet theory still working in Mormonism?

I heard my own dad say that dinosaur bones were from other planets. Ugh. Yes, Dinosaurs are extraterrestrials that God took and buried them in the earth to test our faith.

35+ years ago, I was a little kid interested in dinosaurs, and a Mormon who went to Primary after school on Tuesdays, where I heard stuff that didn't jibe well with the whole extinct dinosaur narrative.

So I asked my mom about it.

She essentially said: "Dinosaurs lived and died on other planets, which were later destroyed. Heavenly Father and Jesus, when they were building our planet Earth so we could have a place to be tested, used pieces from those destroyed planets. That's why there are dinosaur bones."

This came from somewhere... too many people have heard this same bullcrap story. Was it an Ensign article? A story in the Improvement Era? A rogue Education-Week instructor?

I'd love the find out the genesis of this myth.

[_Stormy Waters]

I'd love the find out the genesis of this myth

I'm flipping through some of my older church books to see if I can find it. I swear I've read it somewhere. Flipping through the older books it really brings out a sharp contrast between how prophets spoke then and how Mormon prophets speak today. For example in Doctrines of Salvation by Joseph Fielding Smith in chapter 5 under "Physical creation of all things" it says "Since Adam was the first man on the earth, that does away with the false notion that there were pre-adamities."
It also flatly states that "Creation did not take millions of years."

[Guest]

How do apologists answer where dinosaurs came from? They obviously died before the fall.

The 1931 statement allows for the possibility of pre Adamites. Thus, while there is no death before fall, there is death before the garden. And therefore, one can have evolution and death and dinosaurs without conflicting with LDS doctrine. Besides the 1931 statement, the doctrine on D&C 77 in the D&C Institute manual implies this possibility as well.

For example in Doctrines of Salvation by Joseph Fielding Smith in chapter 5 under "Physical creation of all things" it says "Since Adam was the first man on the earth, that does away with the false notion that there were pre-adamities."
It also flatly states that "Creation did not take millions of years."

Non doctrinal work as it is not published by the Church.

[_Nightlion]

How do apologists answer where dinosaurs came from? They obviously died before the fall.

Is the other planet theory still working in Mormonism?

According to one Benedictine monk in the state of New York if lizards lived 900 years like man did before the flood, and lizards are known to continue to grow for their entire life, we get really big lizards. And since we only seem to find dinosaurs on the surface and relatively few, no dinosaur graveyards, perhaps they mostly died in Noah's flood. The Book of Job references behemoth with a tail like a cedar, and its likely that Job lived before the flood.

I am willing to rethink my extinction event before the Garden of Eden began. I am already beginning to think that the huge impact crater off the Yucatan is a blow out crater from the cataclysm of the Book of Mormon, when the earth shrank at the crucifixion of Christ so something had to give and this hemisphere got the worst of it. Perhaps a dollop from that blow out is what landed on the city of Moronihah which became a great mountain. That had to be some serious s**t.

Just thinking out loud here. Never mind me.

[_beefcalf]

See?

[_bcspace]

When prophet after prophet have used the phrase "No death before the fall of Adam", what the actually meant was "No death just before the fall of Adam."

Did you miss it? That little word there: 'just'?

Creative Period with evolution and death ------>Garden State (no death) ------> Fall ------> Continuance of evolution and death

As per the references I gave, the above timeline is not in conflict with LDS doctrine and one can accurately state (mathematically) that there was no death before the Fall.

It is absolutely clear that some apostles opined that there was no death before the garden state. However, actual LDS doctrine and scripture has left this open.