As part of my aborted preparation for last week’s Sunday School lesson on Adam and Eve, I read Stephen Greenblatt’s new book The Rise and Fall of Adam and Eve (W. W. Norton, 2017). Like all of Greenblatt’s books, it is terribly readable and very informative. It is highly recommended for any Mormon, given how greatly expanded the role of Adam (if not Eve) and the narrative of the first few chapters of Genesis has become in LDS doctrine and folklore compared to the standard Christian story. For Mormons, Adam is not just the first man but a great and noble spirit if not God Himself (see: things I learned from Brigham Young). For Mormons, Cain is not just the brother of Abel or the first murderer but the literal sidekick of a literal Satan and the architect of the first great Evil Secret Combination. Reading Greenblatt’s book helps Mormons understand where some of this doctrinal speculation and folklore comes from. It helps Mormons understand that no one else — not Jews, not Christians, not JWs or Scientologists — believes the things Mormons do about Adam and Eve and Satan and Cain and the Garden of Eden.
I can’t do a full summary of the book or even a full review. I’m just going to pick a few topics that jumped out at me in the course of reading the book and briefly discuss them.
On the whole, I’d rather be a Pelagian
On pages 104-5, Greenblatt contrasts Augustine’s view of Original Sin, “the taint you had inherited from the sin of Adam and Eve,” with the kinder and gentler views of Pelagius that were (thanks to Augustine’s tireless efforts and politicking) eventually declared heretical. Pelagius denied Original Sin. Here is the short summary of his views.
Pelagius and his followers were moral optimists. They believed that all human beings were born innocent. … We possess in ourselves the possibility of choosing good over evil. True, we are all descendants of Adam and Eve, … [b]ut that act in the distant past does not condemn us inescapably to sinfulness. How could it? What would be the mechanism of infection? Why would a benevolent God permit something so monstrous? No: we are at liberty to shape our own lives, whether to serve God or to serve Satan.
Thanks, John Milton
In a chapter on John Milton’s composition of Paradise Lost (which does at least as much to shape our view of Adam and Eve as the text of Genesis), Greenblatt recounts how the War in Heaven theme emerged and expanded within the Christian tradition, then was incorporated by Milton.
Developing the ancient midrashic speculations that some of the angels had objected to the creation of the first humans and envied the qualities that God had conferred upon them, Ambrose, Augustine, and their contemporaries began to posit behind the serpent’s temptation of Eve a backstory: the rebellion of Satan and his legions. By the Middle Ages these speculations had been elaborated into an account of a full-scale war in heaven, with Satan leading a third of the angels in a reckless, mad, doomed uprising against God and then, in defeat, plotting to harm God’s creatures, the first man and woman.
Sound familiar? The LDS story carries on even farther than the medieval story. Here’s from the Bible Dictionary entry for “the Devil,” pulled from LDS.org this morning (references omitted): “Since the devil and his premortal angels have no physical body of flesh and bones, they often seek to possess the bodies of mortal beings. There are many such instances recorded in scripture. Such can be evicted by the power of faith in Jesus Christ and the exercise of the holy priesthood.” This highlights the doctrinal link between the War in Heaven and the idea of demonic possession. Mormons sort of affirm possession and exorcism in theory but not in practice. Which spurs a bit of reflection. If Mormons affirm but don’t really believe in possession and exorcism, maybe Mormons affirm but don’t really believe the linked idea of the War in Heaven?
Narratives can die, too
Toward the end of the book, Greenblatt likens the mortality of Adam and Eve, as represented in the story, with the mortality of the story itself, that is the rather marked decline in modern belief in the literal Adam and Eve narrative. Here is Greenblatt’s commentary.
The mortality of a narrative — one that has, as an article of faith, been taken as true — is not the same as a human’s. The aging process is not comparable; there are no telltale signs of impending collapse; no heirs crowd in by the bedside weeping or hoping for a legacy. Above all, there is no moment in which the living myth decisively stops breathing and a licensed physician hurries into the room to certify that indeed it has all come to an end. What happens instead is simply that a significant number of people cease to believe that the story convincingly depicts reality. Others may continue fervently to believe after the decline has begun, but the ground has begun to shift, and the process is usually irreversible. Even those who think that the story is untrue may hold on to it for some time, whether because it is awkward or dangerous not to do so, or because the alternative is not clear, or because it still seems to convey something important about life. But its key elements have begun to shimmer like a mirage. They have ceased to be solid truths in the real world and have begun to drift toward make-believe. The narrative becomes a just-so story, a fanciful attempt to account for the way things are. If it is powerful enough, it becomes a work of art.
This concept of the dying narrative seems quite relevant for contemporary Mormonism. I’m sure you can think of examples.
Doubt your doubts, Darwin
The last chapter is titled “Darwin’s Doubts,” and starts off with this provocative statement: Darwinism is not incompatible with belief in God, but it is certainly incompatible with belief in Adam and Eve. I think he could have phrased that better. He should have said: “The theory of evolution, supplemented by modern genetics and our understanding of DNA, is not incompatible with belief in God, but is certainly incompatible with belief in the traditional story of Adam and Eve.” I suspect most LDS biologists would dispute the claim as stated by Greenblatt (because they can’t or won’t explicity reject Adam and Eve) but privately accept the rephrased version of the claim (because their story of Adam and Eve, however modified, is not really the traditional one). Here is a corollary to that claim: The more a church affirms and elaborates a literal, historic Adam and Eve story, the more it will dispute and reject the theory of evolution. Makes sense. That describes the official LDS position as most forcefully stated by Joseph Fielding Smith and carried on by CES and Mormon culture as a whole to this day. The attempt to have both evolution and Adam and Eve, exemplified by the various BYU biology departments and a distinct minority of Latter-day Saints, is a recent development. The way things are going, it may not last.
The book is so new I doubt any reader has had a chance to read it yet, but if you have, please chime in with your own comments on or responses to topics I did not cover.
Wheat & Tares 
I think the first verse of Follow the Prophet gives the best summary of how I view Adam & Eve.
1) Adam was the first prophet to worship/follow Eloheim Jehovah. He was certainly not the first human.
2) For some period during his life he lived in a location now known as Eden with his wife. Rumors of scandalous fruit munching may have been exaggerated.
3) Adam taught others to follow Eloheim Jehovah. Obviously, without the internet, his area of influence was quite limited.
4) Most humans (but likely not all) are descendants of his. But the same could be said of anybody living 6000 to 50000 years ago.
Greenblatt’s pretty great. I had the pleasure of meeting him ad speaking with him briefly once and he was quite down to earth, much more so than I expected.. I’m not a huge fan of New Historicism, but he did, in fact, entirely alter the landscape of literary studies in the 1980s. To me, the biggest takeaway from the book isn’t a particular point or issue Greenblatt makes or addresses; it’s his method. After reading a lot of LDS apologetics and other “scholarship,” it’s evident to me how much more readable and convincing Greenblatt’s arguments are. All scholars have an agenda, but the fact that Greenblatt isn’t desperate to prove that something is “true” (or false, for that matter), means he’s able to be relatively objective and it’s clear he isn’t freaked out by discovering things that his source material revealed. This is what true inquiry looks like. The writer is unafraid of what he may discover; in fact, he’s eager to discover/uncover the truth, whatever it may be and wherever it may lead him. He’s also obviously comfortable with nuance, with uncertainty and with making relatively educated guesses. It makes me wish that more Mormon scholars could write this way. It also makes me a bit depressed since a fair amount of Mormon scholars cling to the notion of “faithful scholarship” which is an oxymoron if I’ve ever heard one. Thanks for the post. Greenblatt’s got a readable (though flawed, IMHO) biography of Shakespeare as well, for those who might be interested. It’s called Will in the World.
The official church position is that evolution and the gospel are compatible. The 1910 1st presidency clarification of the 1909 statement, specifically states that the Lord has not disclosed how Adam’s body was brought to the earth, whether it be via natural evolution, or being born, etc.
The question I have is, is there any scriptural or official doctrine that says that Adam was the only human? Maybe Adam was either born of God, or had not genetic signatures of evolution, or he was also a product of evolution, but his children married other non-Adam humans whose bodies were from evolution. Therefore, Adam’s body, may or may not have been from evolution, and now we can reconcile science with religion…Adam could have lived 6k years ago, but his children married humans who lived tens of thousands of years ago, and have fully mixed with Adam’s seed. Is there any doctrine/scripture that discounts such a position?
I think you’re right in criticizing his statement on the compatibility of evolution and Adam and Eve.
I disagree, however, that the attempt to have both Adam and Eve and evolution is a recent development–it seems to me that James Talmage and B.H. Roberts attempted to have both, and certainly others (Henry Eyring Sr., etc.) agreed. Certainly things have evolved a bit as we (meaning science) has come to understand evolution better, but it seems to me that some church members and some leaders have accepted both for a long time.
I’m most concerned about your thought that “The way things are going, it may not last.” What concerns do you have about that changing?
Don’t neglect the Apocalypse of Adam in the Nag Hammadi library. We may have some wild beliefs about Adam but that book seems to support some of them.
It is unfortunate that our current church president seems to be heavily invested in a highly literal interpretation of the Bible. Exploding typewriters and all.
Moses is also having a bet each way, it says in chapter 3v7 Adam was the first flesh on the earth. In chapter 4 v 26 eve is the first of all women, which are many. It says after Adam, which are many. Does this allow there were others there too?
I suggest that we are going to have to be consistent across the entire book of Genesis on how we treat this narrative, either literally or with compromises or entirely allegorically. The chain of events is no stronger than the weakest link. For me the account of Noah and the flood is a bigger problem. It is a far less complex story with less room for compromise, if any. The scientific case against the world wide flood as described in Genesis that extended above the top of the highest mountains is implausible and preposterous. The Black Sea deluge is an excellent historical explanation of the origin of thes tory and also illustrates the exaggerations.
With our unique Missouri location for Adam and eve we are saddled with the world wide flood.
It makes no sense digging in on Adam or creating complex explanations which won’t hold up with Noah. We are left with too little with which to compromise and concluding that Joseph Smith was about as reliable on the issues in Genesis as he was with the translation of the Book of Abraham.
“It helps Mormons understand that no one else — not Jews, not Christians, not JWs or Scientologists — believes the things Mormons do about Adam and Eve and Satan and Cain and the Garden of Eden”
This is obvious to anyone who’s been on a mission or otherwise interacted with other faiths outside the Zion Curtain.
Who’s Joseph Field Smith?
On the apologist side, Nibley definitely believed in Pre-Adam humanoids.
Thanks for the comments, everyone.
Tim, it might not last because President Nelson has made public statements against evolution. Now that he is President of the Church, that will likely encourage CES types and the bureaucrats writing or editing LDS manuals to filter out any positive references to evolution and insert negative ones in LDS materials and lessons. At least that is a possible outcome. Time will tell.
jpv, correction entered.
Yeah, there’s a lot of wiggle room.
Like JLM said above, Adam was certainly the first priesthood holder. As such, all other people must be sealed to him within the priesthood family tree – by way of being born into the covenant or being adopted. As such, it might very well be that genealogical research can be done for Adam’s forerunners which would then be sealed within the priesthood line as sons/daughters of Adam… even though they lived before him.
Whether we need Adam to be the father of all in a stronger, more biological sense, is open to debate.
To me the story of Adam and Eve is a beautiful allegory of two friends, a boy and girl simply growing up.
Eve was the first to see the merit of eating of the fruit but Adam was right there (Moses 4:12 “…and also gave unto her husband WITH HER…”) and ate it after her.
This is just like in real life, girls mature faster than boys.
Now that they’re old enough to be held accountable for their sins, God has to leave so that they’re given the opportunity to be tested.
It would make perfect sense that, as along the lines of what JLM said, Adam was chosen by God and became the first covenant man.
That’s my take. What’s yours?
I read Greenblatt’s book when it was first published and thought it was quite good, though a bit superficial in places. For example, he does little more than contrast a proto-feminist quote from Corinthians with a misogynistic one found in Timothy, apparently oblivious to the fact that the majority of biblical scholars agree that Paul didn’t author Timothy. Also, if he had taken the time McKenzie’s “How to Read the Bible” or any number of other books about Pauline theology, he would have learned how extremely nuanced Paul’s views were about women.
More importantly, he almost completely ignores Paul’s idea that Christ was a “second Adam,” though he does make passing reference to this concept in the notes at the end of the book. Paul’s actual theology was far more important—and more interesting—than Augustine’s interpretation of that theology. This was a missed opportunity, but the oversight is not surprising given the size of Greenblatt’s subject and the relative brevity of his book. And,as you note, his chapters on Milton and Paradise Lost were very good.
Finally, as to how we should read the first three chapters of Genesis, I personally believe a literal interpretation has considerable value. But the first step of any literal reading of text is figuring out precisely what the text is actually saying, something church manuals fail to do. If you want to begin to grasp the meaning of the text and see what you have been missing, start with two short books by the biblical scholar John Walton: “The Lost World of Genesis” and “The Lost World of Adam and Eve.” In the truest sense of the term, what you’ll learn will be a revelation. And this revelation, you’ll find, is far more harmonious with Mormon theology than the folklore CES serves up.