Thursday, April 14, 2022

George Reynolds and Janne M. Sjodahl on the Narrative of the Fall in Genesis Being Poetic and Using Figurative Language

  

To the Book of Mormon prophets and writers, the Fall was a necessary part of the Great Plan. Adam and Eve were, in the beginning, immortal beings, and were not subject to death. But, “Subject to death they must become, however, if their posterity should inherit corruptible bodies. The Fall, then, was a deliberate use of law, by which act Adam and Eve became mortal, and could beget mortal children.” (John A. Widtsoe, Rational Theology, p. 47) The story of the Fall is not a myth. It is a record, in poetic, highly-figurative language, of an actual occurrence. It is a record of the transition of man from a state of innocent, childlike purity, to that of a more mature age, when, the immediate divine tutelage having been completed, Adam and Eve were prepared to begin for themselves the struggle for existence and progress. And so, “Adam fell that man might be.” (George Reynolds and Janne M. Sjodahl, Commentary on the Book of Mormon, 7 vols. [Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Company, 1976], 2:68, emphasis in bold added)