What’s going on in Genesis 2-3?

As with Genesis 1, here’s my attempt to gather together some resources for understanding Genesis 2-3 and common questions.

What’s going on here. A LOT.  I’m going to focus first on how ancient Israelite context and Church history undo much of perceived conflict between science and religion here, then some tidbits.

First, most of these questions revolve around different aspects of attempting to mesh a particular understanding of Genesis as “more or less a history, with some symbolic bits” with the scientific evidence of an old earth, fossils, etc.

Second, much of the dominant understanding of Church tradition on these questions was heavily reshaped after 1954 by Elder Joseph Fielding Smith, who had a very different way of reading scripture. For example, he popularized the idea that the 1909 First Presidency statement rendered evolution a heresy. The rediscovery of the documents of this earlier history undermined his representation of it, it changed things a lot. For some of that history, see this video/transcription.   It can be very surprising to people to learn that some of what was preached and taken as “doctrine” is not, in fact.  And some of those issues or questions around how we should read Genesis 2-3, which comes down in part to the assumptions we make.  So I’ll take these one at a time.

Third, all we really have to affirm, according to President Hinckley,  is the existence of Adam and Eve, which I do.   I suspect we get a historical Adam and Eve more from D&C 138 and other visions rather than so-called “literal” readings of scripture. But the existence of Adam and Eve does not imply a young earth, no pre-adamites, no “death before the fall,” etc.

Death and Reproduction?  The Church has consistently published affirmations that death and reproduction have been going on for millions and millions of years.

• See this post, or my published paper expanding on it for some of the evidence. Or look at some of the more recent publications, like “What does the Church believe about dinosaurs” or “evolution“?
• President J. Reuben Clark thought there was limited death in the garden itself.
• Elder James E. Talmage’s famous 1931 talk “Earth and Man” affirmed a very old earth with death and reproduction, the general reliability of science, and the fossil progression from less complex to more complex. It was heavily vetted and approved by the First Presidency for publication as a Church pamphlet, and then also distributed to England and Germany. Talmage responded to numerous letters he received, like this.
  

  I cannot agree with [the] conception that there was no death of plants and animals anywhere upon this earth prior to the transgression of Adam, unless we assume that the history of Adam and Eve dates back many hundreds of thousands of years. The trouble with some theologians — even including many of our own good people — is that they undertake to fix the date of Adam’s transgression as being approximately 4000 years before Christ and therefore about 5932 years ago. If Adam was placed upon the earth only that comparatively short time ago the rocks clearly demonstrated that life and death have been existent and operative in this earth for ages prior to that time.

Wait, How Old is the Earth?

• Genesis 2-3 doesn’t say anything about the age of the earth, but it bears repeating that the Church tends to lightly push the scientific evidence. “Using reliable methods of measurement, such as radiometric dating, scientists currently estimate the age of the earth to be approximately 4.5 billion years.” Source. On the days of Genesis 1, see my previous post

How long were Adam and Eve in the Garden? 

• Read closely, the text would seem to indicate not very long at all. But it’s kind of an odd question which presupposes a “historical documentary” genre for Genesis 2-3. See here for lengthy analysis. 

What about fossils and dinosaurs and cavemen and stuff?

• The idea that fossils came from previous planets doesn’t work, and it’s been shot down by Church leaders for over 100 years. See this article in Religious Educator or this video,  a popular version of a presentation I did at the Mormon History Association . https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lxxuKdzAHzY

What about Evolution?

• The Church has repeatedly said it has no revealed doctrine on evolution. See here most recently.
  • And scripture, read in context, literally, has little against it as well.
• Contemporary documents show that the 1909/25 First Presidency statements were not intended to put evolutionary science  out of bounds for Latter-day Saints.  President Smith in 1911 actually encouraged evolutionary science. See my published article in this volume, or shortened Q&A here.
• Both President McKay and President Hinckley— as well as other General Authorities— accepted the science of evolution.  On McKay as representative,  see here and here. On President Hinckley, he ghost-wrote the “Evolution” essay in the Encyclopedia of Mormonism  see the aside on Hinckley in my essay on teh 1909/25 FP essay in the book linked below.
• See my Evolution and the Gospel post or our entire free book here.
• The Church produced a short essay on Evolution as background for Saints (here), which I annotated and provided background on, here. Also in connection with Saints, the Church has an official Saints podcast, and invited me on to talk about relevant Church history in the 1920s-30s.

But doesn’t Evolution undermine the Atonement?

• Not really. There are few who believe this in Christianity, because the logic doesn’t actually work.  Many prominent Christians AND Church leaders have held to evolution AND Christ’s atonement. See my list and discussion here.
• This idea came from a British fundamentalist atheist (Robert Blatchford), which then came into LDS thought from a Seventh-day Adventist creationist, George McCready Price. As one scholar writes,
  

  it is sometimes argued that without a historical Fall, there is no longer any need for atonement or for a Savior. As a creationist battle cry goes: “No Adam, no Fall; no Fall, no Atonement; no Atonement, no Savior.” If that were true, the heart of the gospel would be jeopardized. Clearly, however, it is not true. The nature and necessity of Christ’s atoning work do not logically depend on the way in which we became sinners, but on the fact that we are sinners. And neither evolutionary theory in general nor the specific picture of human descent… rules out this fact.

  • See my talk here for more details and discussion https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k_3bOmzBBUY

Doesn’t the Temple Prove that Genesis 2-3 is a Essentially a  Historical Account of What Really Happened?

• I think that’s hard to assert, given the history of changes to the Endowment. But more importantly,  what is the genre of the Endowment? Presidents McKay and Lee have had something to say about that question, here. Attention to the details suggest that much of the Endowment is literary and ritual, not documentary reconstruction.
• Genesis 2-3 is presented in the Bible with strong ritual, typological, and mythical overtones. (And note, please, that “myth” simply means “worldview in narrative,” not “something false.”) See the various excellent essays in this free LDS volume, especially “Garden of Eden As Prototype Sanctuary.” Even the geography of the Garden is described in typological terms, as on top of a mountain, as the source of the four main life-giving rivers in the ancient Near East.
• Adam and Eve both have typological names, i.e. Human and Life. See my essay in this volume.

What is a “Help meet”?

• As it turns out, “help meets” don’t exist. You should insert a comma between “help” and “meet” to make better sense of it in the KJV, because “meet” simply means “appropriate, fitting” and the sentence continues. Another words, God made Adam a  ‘help’,  one meet for him.”  What we have here in the words history is a combination  of not understanding archaic KJV English around “meet,” and then historical sexism slurred it into “helpmeet” then “helpmate.” I wrote about this some 19 years ago, and it’s found both the Ensign here and Scripture Helps: Old Testament, which says, in part,
  

  The words translated in the King James Version as “help meet” come from two Hebrew words that mean helper, ally, or rescuer in an equal relation or role.”

Should Genesis 2:17 be translated “rule over” or “rule with”? 

• It’s quite clearly “rule over.” See here for more technical argument why. (It’s really not that complicated.) But again, look to context, because even translated that way, it doesn’t mean what we might presume. As Julie Smith points out in the comments of her post here, all the gender inequity appears post-Fall. It is clearly not prescribing men ruling over their wives as the eternal ideal, but describing the fallen reality that men tend to seize power and be jerks, and women tend to stick with them in spite of that.

What about Sin vs Transgression?

• Genesis 2-4 itself contains no terminology of “sin” or “transgression” or “iniquity” or even “fall.” That’s all later commentary. Article of Faith #2 refers to “Adam’s transgression,” but this was not Joseph making technical distinctions between sin and transgression as much as using the common inherited Christian phrasing.
• As pointed out by the New International Dictionary of Old Testament Theology and Exegesis (NIDOTTE), “the vocabulary for sin in the OT is notably rich because of the strong spiritual and moral sense of the biblical faith.” The three primary Hebrew terms translated as  “sin,” “transgression,”  and “iniquity”  are often used as synonyms in the Hebrew of the Old Testament, especially in poetry.  But when they are used with distinctions, they mean things different than we tend to think. 
  • Sin (Heb. chata’)  “with all its derivatives occurs a total of 593× and possesses the broadest range of meaning, covering sin, sinner, sin offering, etc.” (NIDOTTE) It means to take your best shot and miss, to fall short, fail, make a mistake. This is clearest in Judges 20:16.
  • Transgression  (Heb. pesha’) is deliberately crossing a line. “it normally implies willful violations by an inferior against a superior…. open and brazen defiance.” NIDOTTE.  It’s sometimes uses in parallel to marad, to rebel, and is used to describe criminal behavior.
  •  Iniquity  (Heb. ‘Avon) overlaps heavily with transgression, but tends to appear more in prophetic and ritual texts, per the Theological Dictionary of the Old Testament. 

As with so many other parts of the Bible, there is a lot of wacky and unfounded stuff out there. Do read up on the Church’s guidelines on seeking out reliable resources.