The Garden of Eden Story

[_bcspace]

The doctrine is that the rib story is "surely figurative". I think all sorts of details about the garden can be figurative though because of the way it's presented, there must be some historicity to it such as Adam and Eve being actual people.

As you may well know, I personally accept evolution as fully science does, able to live with LDS doctrine without conflict, and that modern homo sapiens have been around for more than a quarter of a million years; all prior to the garden state. A swiftly rising level of sentience, or uplift, or whatever (possibly caused by the idea that the spirits within homo sapiens were originally of lesser capability than what we are now) you want to call it is part my own personal hypothesis and I date the fall nearer to the rise of the first civilization, say 6-8000 B.C., maybe earlier.

[_SteelHead]

Earlier.... Research Gobekli Tepe

[_son of Ishmael]

When I first joined the church some 30+ years ago I believed the creation and garden stories to be just the way they were laid out in the sriptures and the temple. Latter I begain to think that maybe God waited for evolution to bring man along far enough where he could communicate with them, picked two of them (Adam and Eve), led them to an isolated "garden" where he instructed them. The devil and snake thing was just made up later to scare people.

[_moksha]

... the spirits within homo sapiens were originally of lesser capability than what we are now

They lacked the distinctive ability to yodel.

Bc, would you have the post-adamites interbreeding with the pre-adamites or replacing them?

[_bcspace]

Bc, would you have the post-adamites interbreeding with the pre-adamites or replacing them?

Either/Or/or a combination of the two.

With interbreeding, it's just homo sapiens with homo sapiens and after the Fall, the spirits being born are the spirit children of God. In that case, the notion of Adam and Eve being are literal ancestors becomes more figurative but not wholly so thus, imho, keeping it in line with doctrine.

Two sub cases here, one case less figurative (only those breeding with Adam and his descendents have children so born), one case more figurative (everyone breeding after the Fall has children so born).

Another advantage with the above is that there are no genetic problems such as when was the mitochondrial Eve, genetic bottlenecks, and so forth.

With a replacement only hypothesis it becomes much more difficult (but I think not totally impossible) to plausibly match known genetic conditions so I usually prefer to combine replacement with interbreeding.

[_bcuzbcuz]

Either way. I want to see a snake talk.

look in the mirror?

I would have called that a "low blow" but us snakes have a very low belt line.

[_Bazooka]

That is to say, some details may be allegorical but the event(s) is actual....so i suppose i may tend to have a rather medieval view of it being an allegory.

The LDS Church promotes the Garden of Eden story as actual events taking place circa 4,000 BC.
Do you think that's when it all happened?

[_bcspace]

The LDS Church promotes the Garden of Eden story as actual events taking place circa 4,000 BC.

Not necessarily. While there must be some historicity to it for the doctrine to be true, here is an example of a Garden event not being "actual" in LDS doctrine:

Moses 3:21–23. Adam’s Rib
President Spencer W. Kimball taught that Eve was not literally created from Adam’s rib. He said: “The story of the rib, of course, is figurative” (“The Blessings and Responsibilities of Womanhood,” Ensign, Mar. 1976, 71).

https://www.LDS.org/manual/the-pearl-of-great-price-student-manual/the-book-of-moses?lang=eng&query=rib+figurative

[_Equality]

Moses 3:21–23. Adam’s Rib
President Spencer W. Kimball taught that Eve was not literally created from Adam’s rib. He said: “The story of the rib, of course, is figurative” (“The Blessings and Responsibilities of Womanhood,” Ensign, Mar. 1976, 71).

That quote from Kimball can (and is) used by faithful Mormons to suggest that the rest of the Adam-and-Eve story is literal. Why point out that the rib portion of the story was figurative if the rest of the story were not literal? By explicitly excepting the rib portion of the story from the literal, Kimball implies that the rest of the story is not figurative, but literal. If he wanted to contest the 4,000 B.C. date for the event, he could have easily said that "The story of the rib, and the chronology in Genesis, is figurative." That he did not do so is evidence that Kimball believed the Genesis account, with the exception of the rib, was literal.

[_bcspace]

That quote from Kimball can (and is) used by faithful Mormons to suggest that the rest of the Adam-and-Eve story is literal. Why point out that the rib portion of the story was figurative if the rest of the story were not literal? By explicitly excepting the rib portion of the story from the literal, Kimball implies that the rest of the story is not figurative, but literal. If he wanted to contest the 4,000 B.C. date for the event, he could have easily said that "The story of the rib, and the chronology in Genesis, is figurative." That he did not do so is evidence that Kimball believed the Genesis account, with the exception of the rib, was literal.

I disagree. Other faithful Mormons, such as myself, note that since the rib story is figurative and SWK did not specify other parts as necessarily literal, other parts may be figurative as well. This is why neither creationism or evolution can be said to be LDS doctrine. It is not specified or implied and therefore, one can safely adopt whatever stance one wants on some of the details.