“Adam was made from the dust of an earth, but not from the dust of this earth. He was made as you and I are made, and no person was ever made upon any other principle
—-
Well what does that mean for our account of Genesis 2 that claims to be the creation on the earth with the dust Adam was made out of?”

I always like to read every GA’s statement on it’s own terms and consider the idea in my mind as it’s own truth without dwelling on rejecting it. Maybe I’m like Obi Wan willing to accept multiple truths “from a certain point of view”… But I don’t see much value in rejecting what a prophet said, especially since I can’t sit here and converse with them and give them the liberty of expanding on their thoughts. Other people will judge prophets just like they judge any other statement in a book or thesis. I’m more inclined to give them the benefit of the doubt.

Which brings me to my point about the above quote. If I wanted to harmonize Brigham’s words it’s pretty easy. Adam lived on another world before, he died, and was resurrected. Where and how was he resurrected if not “from the dust” of where he died. As an immortal, he helped organize the world, and with his eternal companion, he was placed in the garden and a veil was placed over him. Eve fell, and his eternal companion, followed her so they could be together, which was always some degree of the plan anyway, so that you and I might be brought into a fallen mortal existence and learn to choose for ourselves.

I’m happy with that line of thought, and I see no reason that the church or anyone should teach it. Because it’s not being taught by anyone in authority. But a creatively faithful member can read that and let Brigham’s teaching exist on its own terms without setting it to war against McConkie. It’s strange out often the progressive becomes the fundamentalist, and the conservative embraces nuanced open mindedness. It use the futility of labels.

Perhaps as Lehi said there is liberty when we choose God or captivity when we choose the devil. If you know whose side the prophets are on why chose another?

Felix, I think we have to be careful. There are reasons to require Adam to be an historic figure. There are reasons not to dismiss Gen 1-2 and its variants as merely myth or ritual. However I think we have to careful assuming that means the text’s primary aim is historic and that it’s accurate historically. I’m fine if people choose to read it that way, but I think there are compelling reasons to be skeptical of that way of reading it. The ways leaders in various periods of history have read the Adam and Eve story has varied a considerable amount. I’ve brought up Brigham Young’s readings not because I necessarily agree with them but just because they are so much at variance with how we typically read it today.

I don’t have a problem with taking the GOES story as recounted in the BOM or the PGP as just a repetition of the allegory. But the repetition of the GOES in the D&C (as well as references to Adam as the father of all humans) makes it more difficult to take these references as referring to an allegory. I have been unable to find any LDS author who has spelled out exactly how Latter-day Saints can reconcile the D&C with an allegorical interpretation of the GOES. Various people have said it is possible or might be possible in general to reconcile LDS theology with an allegorical interpretation of the GOES, but no one ever proves it (as far as I can tell). I have my own opinion about how to do this, but has anyone already tried? (Evolution and Mormonism: A Quest for Understanding by Trent D. Stephens, Jeff Meldrum, and Forrest B. Peterson takes the GOES literally as a historical event and not as an allegory).

My main concern is the problem of reference. As soon as you refer with a text that’s an indexical relationship which means the textual meaning can’t be locked down to author or audience understanding. For example if I talk about horses I mean real horses not merely by understanding or familiarity with horses. That should affect how we read texts, although not everyone follows that hermeneutic principle. My concern with NOMA really falls out naturally of how I conceive of semiotics.

There’s always an essential tension in a text between objects referred to and how the text represents those objects. Effectively this focus on ‘literalism’ is the recognition of that problem. No one really reads literally precisely because of how reference comes to play in how we read texts. An other way of thinking of the issue is by thinking of the contrast between dictionaries and encyclopedias. “Literalism” so called is the idea that hermeneutics is just a matter of looking at each word in a traditional dictionary and selecting the meaning (which is a very short sentence largely indicating synonyms). Yet the way we really read is by words tied to these large, long encyclopedia entries where things are much more vague. Further, since we often index real objects these entries can change. (This isn’t my idea – the idea comes from Umberto Eco’s work on semiotics)

“The Big Bang Theory is an excellent example of this process, as it is a very useful tool to describe several features of the observable cosmos, but admittedly it is also a theory that begins in mid-sentence. Not one modern cosmologist, astrophysicist, or math-theorist can definitively say anything about the where, what, or when of the original singularity from which the universe expanded. Many competing assumptions of a highly philosophical nature must be made before the formulas and schemas begin to apply. What we have with the Big Bang Theory is really not a conception of the origin of the universe, but a statement about the evolution of the universe after the origin already occurred. The same is true for the human microcosm, as biological theoretical-constructs only apply after life appears. Every cosmology begins just one step after “In the beginning,” and this is why all cosmologies are “interpretations in the light of theories.”” (Mythos & Cosmos 114-15)

When people are called literalists they almost never are.

The second point would be deciding what we bring to the text to lock down meanings (like temporal) or time issues. Then you get into the debate of how they know (why did Joseph Fielding Smith think all animals meant all contemporary animals rather than all animals at the time of Adam in the garden). Finally how you decide to pick one general authority over an other. (Brigham Young gets excluded when he says this creation wasn’t on this earth) Alas Rob decided not to get into those issues.