American Garden of Eden?

[Reid]

In 1838, Joseph Smith led a group of followers seventy miles north of present-day Kansas City, Missouri. There he founded a new settlement that he called Adam-ondi-Ahman. The place is significant in Mormon history for it is here that Smith claimed the first man, Adam, lived.

According to Smith, the Garden of Eden was located nearby in Jackson county, Missouri. Following his expulsion from the garden, Adam traveled northward to present-day Daviess county.

Joseph Smith taught that Adam, just prior to his death, called Seth, Enos, Cainan, Mahalaleel, Jared, Enoch and Methuselah, as well as the “residue of his posterity who were righteous,” to Adam-ondi-Ahman. It was there he “bestowed upon them his last blessing” (Doctrine and Covenants 107:53).

 

[Reid]

Tenth Mormon President Joseph Fielding Smith wrote, “In accord with the revelations given to the Prophet Joseph Smith, we teach that the Garden of Eden was on the American continent located where the city of Zion, or the New Jerusalem will be built. When Adam and Eve were driven out of the Garden, they eventually dwelt at a place called Adam-ondi-Ahman, situated in what is now Daviess County, Missouri” (Doctrines of Salvation 3:74).

 

[Reid]

I am very iterested to see how our LDS friends defend this doctrine of faith or dismiss it as hearesy or anit mormon.

 

[Tmaque]

Reid:

I am very iterested to see how our LDS friends defend this doctrine of faith or dismiss it as hearesy or anit mormon.

I was taught this growing up. I imagine it is still believed by faithful LDS. I’ve heard nothing to the contrary.

 

[majick275]

I fail to see the relevance of this. Is the exact location of the Garden of Eden an essential element of the faith?

I have seen scholarly debate on the theory that there was originally a single continent on Earth and that this was attested to in Genesis where Peleg is mentioned in the time the world was “divided”.

This being possible… who knows which current piece of dirt was left behind when the Lord barred man from the garden.

Think of the effects of the great flood. Besides, we certainly have reason to believe that the tree of life is no longer upon the earth so God could have done all kinds of things to this earth that would make it impossible to know where the garden was.

If your goal is to illustrate the false doctrines of the LDS church (of which , I believe there are many) then let’s focus on the important things and not get distracted off into the “how many angels can dance on the head of a pin” type arguments.

 

[Reid]

I actually came across this information recently and wanted to know the position of the LDS on how they would defend such a statement.

I did not know about the Theology debate going on, but did discover that JS said this truth was revealed to him, when he came upon the camp site or rock pile left behind from Adam and Eve.

I believe the Garden story was just a story to teach theology and foreshadow many events to come.

Now the LDS and JS not only state there was actually a Garden but it just happens to be in Missouri.

 

[PaulDupre]

majick275:

I fail to see the relevance of this. Is the exact location of the Garden of Eden an essential element of the faith?

Only in that is one of the bases for the 10th Article of Faith that says, in part, that “…the New Jerusalem will be built on this (the American) continent…”

They believe that the New Jerusalem will be built on the site of the garden of Eden - in Jackson County, MO.

 

[BonnieBj]

Aside from the multitude of errors that the Mormons teach their people, the fact remains that the original Garden of Eden, like everything else on earth, was destroyed in the flood. So people can speculate all they want - they will never find any trace of it and in Genesis its location is named, and it is not in America, it is in Mesopotamia in the Muiddle East.

 

[honeybear]

Reid:

I actually came across this information recently and wanted to know the position of the LDS on how they would defend such a statement.

I did not know about the Theology debate going on, but did discover that JS said this truth was revealed to him, when he came upon the camp site or rock pile left behind from Adam and Eve.

I believe the Garden story was just a story to teach theology and foreshadow many events to come.

Now the LDS and JS not only state there was actually a Garden but it just happens to be in Missouri.

Maybe an LDS can explain this. If the Garden of Eden is in Missouri, why are they in Salt Lake City? And does anyone know if Brigham Young really yelled Eureka I found it, when he came over the hill and saw the desert?

 

[flameburns623]

honeybear:

Maybe an LDS can explain this. If the Garden of Eden is in Missouri, why are they in Salt Lake City? And does anyone know if Brigham Young really yelled Eureka I found it, when he came over the hill and saw the desert?

Mormons are in Salt Lake City because of the fierce persecution which drove them there. I believe numerous efforts have been underway for decades to reclaim title or to purchase the land in Missouri which Smith professed was the site of the original Garden of Eden. Saints believe the Flood was absolutely worldwide, and that the Garden of Eden was destroyed in the Deluge–so finding ‘evidence’ of where the Garden once was is beyond our modern abilities. One can only trust Smith’s ‘revelation’ on the subject–if one so chooses. It really seems a peripheral point. After all- the Garden of Eden was SOMEWHERE–Missouri is as good a place to speculate about as any.

Brigham Young was reported to have said, rather matter-of-factly as I understand it, that “This is the place” as the Saints arrived in what is now the Great Salt Lake Valley. He marked with a cane–he was ill and bare ambulatory at the time–the place he designated for the modern Salt Lake City Temple. I don’t recollect any claims that he yelled ‘Eureka’ . Perhaps someone else can confirm this story.

 

[honeybear]

flameburns623:

Mormons are in Salt Lake City because of the fierce persecution which drove them there. I believe numerous efforts have been underway for decades to reclaim title or to purchase the land in Missouri which Smith professed was the site of the original Garden of Eden. QUOTE]

Explain please, “fierce persecution.” Why were they persecuted and by whom?

 

[flameburns623]

honeybear:

flameburns623:

Mormons are in Salt Lake City because of the fierce persecution which drove them there. I believe numerous efforts have been underway for decades to reclaim title or to purchase the land in Missouri which Smith professed was the site of the original Garden of Eden. QUOTE]

Explain please, “fierce persecution.” Why were they persecuted and by whom?

They were burned-out of homes and property in upper New York State, Ohio, Missouri, and Illinois by mobs. The motives depend largely upon whom you believe. Clearly religious bigotry played no small role: Smith made claims which challenged established churches. Smith and his followers were largely anti-slavery, which played a factor especially in Missouri, a ‘border state’ on the issue of slavery. For these things we can be rightfully sorry that our country failed to uphold the ideals of freedom of religion and of opinion which we venerate.

However Smith also–especially in Missouri and Illinois–began to indulge in some practices (polygamy) which provoked righteous indignation. Some have suggested that Mormons were not always the best or easiest of neighbors to live with and they often practiced ‘preferment’ (they would only engage in commerce with non-Saints if no Mormon were engaged in providing the needed goods or services). In Nauvoo Illinois Smith acted rather like a mini-despot, going so far as to destroy a press operated by some of his critics.

 

[honeybear]

flameburns623:

honeybear:

They were burned-out of homes and property in upper New York State, Ohio, Missouri, and Illinois by mobs. The motives depend largely upon whom you believe. Clearly religious bigotry played no small role: Smith made claims which challenged established churches. Smith and his followers were largely anti-slavery, which played a factor especially in Missouri, a ‘border state’ on the issue of slavery. For these things we can be rightfully sorry that our country failed to uphold the ideals of freedom of religion and of opinion which we venerate.

However Smith also–especially in Missouri and Illinois–began to indulge in some practices (polygamy) which provoked righteous indignation. Some have suggested that Mormons were not always the best or easiest of neighbors to live with and they often practiced ‘preferment’ (they would only engage in commerce with non-Saints if no Mormon were engaged in providing the needed goods or services). In Nauvoo Illinois Smith acted rather like a mini-despot, going so far as to destroy a press operated by some of his critics.

You are conjecturing. I would like something more specific as to who actually “fiercely” persecuted them and for what. For you see, if we chase down Jesse James because he has killed somebody in a bank robbery, he is chased down by the law. He may view it as religious persecution, and the state may simply view it as apprehending a criminal. So if you would be so kind as to offer something factual to back your claim that they were fiercely persecuted by religious bigots, I would like to read it.

 

[Reid]

One of our LDS friends claims to see no importance to whether or not the Garden of Eden is in Missouri or somewhere else.
This is one of the far fetched ideas that JS had, and I not as an anti mormon but as a Christian who was not raised LDS, have used reason to see that the LDS church’s doctrine is very different than any other “christian church”.

I picked the American Garden of Eden for one and below I will start a conversation of the rest of our American History viewed and believed by our LDS friends.

The detailed history and civilization described in the Book of Mormon does not correspond to anything found by archaeologists anywhere in the Americas. The Book of Mormon describes a civilization lasting for a thousand years, covering both North and South America, which was familiar with horses, elephants, cattle, sheep, wheat, barley, steel, wheeled vehicles, shipbuilding, sails, coins, and other elements of Old World culture. But no trace of any of these supposedly very common things has ever been found in the Americas of that period. Nor does the Book of Mormon mention many of the features of the civilizations which really did exist at that time in the Americas. The LDS church has spent millions of dollars over many years trying to prove through archaeological research that the Book of Mormon is an accurate historical record, but they have failed to produce any convincing pre-columbian archeological evidence supporting the Book of Mormon story. In addition, whereas the Book of Mormon presents the picture of a relatively homogeneous people, with a single language and communication between distant parts of the Americas, the pre-columbian history of the Americas shows the opposite: widely disparate racial types (almost entirely east Asian - definitely not Semitic, as proven by recent DNA studies), and many unrelated native languages, none of which are even remotely related to Hebrew or Egyptian.

 

[flameburns623]

honeybear:

flameburns623:

You are conjecturing. I would like something more specific as to who actually “fiercely” persecuted them and for what. For you see, if we chase down Jesse James because he has killed somebody in a bank robbery, he is chased down by the law. He may view it as religious persecution, and the state may simply view it as apprehending a criminal. So if you would be so kind as to offer something factual to back your claim that they were fiercely persecuted by religious bigots, I would like to read it.

I don’t believe the facts are greatly in question. I think my post was fairly balanced: I did not exclusively suggest that the early Latter-Day Saints were martyrs and victims, nor did I say that they provoked their neighbors into harrassing and persecuting them. Please note that I am not a Latter-Day Saint myself. I have no stake in whitewashing their history.

Most who have looked at the period agree that a great deal of injustice was done to the Saints, even if the Saints also brought some of their hardships upon themselves. You may have read something on the order of Richard Abanes’ “One Nation Under Gods” which skews the history of that era greatly against the Saints.

I would point out that Abanes is an Evangelical Christian with an end in mind which was NOT to produce a scholarly nor unbiased account of thehistory of the Latter-Day Saints. He relied heavily upon sources already jaundiced against the Mormons and that his work is a polemical one, geared to convincing people that the Mormon Church is an undesirable institution. There are secular books about the LDS Church which recount the history of the Church and find no reason to doubt that most of what the Saints experienced was unwarranted and unjust.

 

[flameburns623]

Some might find this article interesting: it proposes that the City of Zarahemla have been found, along with the Hill Cumorah, etcetera. Rather an odd claim since I think most mainstream archeaologists would deny outright that such a discovery has taken place:

ldsmag.com/ancients/050727geographic.html

Perhaps they will next claim discovery of the remantants of the Garden of Eden?

 

[majick275]

This article makes numerous unsupported claims and fails to provide any conclusion that could considered anyhting other than a guess. I don’t believe that the LDS church has ever found any archeological evidence that they were willing to endorse as “proof” of the book of Mormon. (despite a long history of very biased searching)

Regarding the original topic, The book of Genesis provides sufficient room (in my opinion) for the garden of Eden to have been just about anywhere. (The sundering of the land in the time of Peleg, the flood) I don’t see any conclusive way of proving or disproving any particular modern location.I could point to a rockpile in Hawaii or Arizona or Turkey or Madagascar and make the same claim with about the same chance of proving my claim scientifically or even scripturally.

I find it interesting that Joseph Smith would have us believe that the altar that Adam made somehow survived the flood and every other force of nature as well as man in a recognizable state. (recognizable to him at least)

 

[mormon_fool]

majick275:

This article makes numerous unsupported claims and fails to provide any conclusion that could considered anyhting other than a guess. I don’t believe that the LDS church has ever found any archeological evidence that they were willing to endorse as “proof” of the book of Mormon. (despite a long history of very biased searching)

Regarding the original topic, The book of Genesis provides sufficient room (in my opinion) for the garden of Eden to have been just about anywhere. (The sundering of the land in the time of Peleg, the flood) I don’t see any conclusive way of proving or disproving any particular modern location.I could point to a rockpile in Hawaii or Arizona or Turkey or Madagascar and make the same claim with about the same chance of proving my claim scientifically or even scripturally.

I find it interesting that Joseph Smith would have us believe that the altar that Adam made somehow survived the flood and every other force of nature as well as man in a recognizable state. (recognizable to him at least)

Nice post. As for archaeological finds supporting the Book of Mormon, I plead that you give us more time. We have only really known where to look since the early '80s and even now we only have a handful of trained archaeologists that are respected enough to lay out a case even when something is found.

The altar at Spring Hill has since weathered away. I would have a hard time, like you, believing it is the original altar. Rather Smith identified the spot where the original was and some culture had in the mean time, perhaps sensing the sacredness of the spot, built their own altar there.

My brother is planning a church history tour and was asking me about the altar. I have recently ran across a few links for those wanting to know more about the significance of identifying Adam’s past and future stomping grounds in mormon teaching.

A liberal mormon blog discussion:
timesandseasons.org/index.php?p=1271

A conservative article in a BYU magazine:
contentdm.lib.byu.edu/cgi-bin/docviewer.exe?CISOROOT=/byustudies&CISOPTR=21939

 

[majick275]

mormon fool:

Nice post. As for archaeological finds supporting the Book of Mormon, I plead that you give us more time. We have only really known where to look since the early '80s and even now we only have a handful of trained archaeologists that are respected enough to lay out a case even when something is found.

The altar at Spring Hill has since weathered away. I would have a hard time, like you, believing it is the original altar. Rather Smith identified the spot where the original was and some culture had in the mean time, perhaps sensing the sacredness of the spot, built their own altar there.

My brother is planning a church history tour and was asking me about the altar. I have recently ran across a few links for those wanting to know more about the significance of identifying Adam’s past and future stomping grounds in mormon teaching.

A liberal mormon blog discussion:
timesandseasons.org/index.php?p=1271

A conservative article in a BYU magazine:
contentdm.lib.byu.edu/cgi-bin/docviewer.exe?CISOROOT=/byustudies&CISOPTR=21939

I still don’t see much relevance in garden of eden location. BUT I would like to speak to the archeology issue. I believe that you will find that it is the LDS side that has pushed this. (any older Mormons remember the old Jack West slideshows, filmstrips, etc.?) Jospeh Smith started with the position that because he was a prophet, seer and revelator the church could in fact “know where to look” and to understand what they found there.

I would like for you to closely examine facsimile number 3 in your PoGP and think about the accuracy of Joseph Smiths description of this scene. You see, it’s this type of thing that causes most non-LDS to shake their heads at LDS articles on archeology, history, anthropology, etc.

I believe that you start from an indefensible position and further research, apologetics, etc. just makes you seem immune to facts due to your “testimony”. I’m still willing to look at whatever you come up with though.

 

[mormon_fool]

majick275:

Jospeh Smith started with the position that because he was a prophet, seer and revelator the church could in fact “know where to look” and to understand what they found there.

Being a prophet, seer, and revelator doesn’t confer some sort of omniscience on a person. In regards to Book of Mormon sites, the fact that Joseph Smith didn’t “know where to look” becomes evidence that he didn’t write the book. At least that is archaeologist John Clark’s professional opinion.

You see, it’s this type of thing that causes most non-LDS to shake their heads at LDS articles on archeology, history, anthropology, etc

.

Critics are going to have more than shake their heads if they want to counter the influence of LDS scholars (at least among the LDS). I can see where the non-LDS, who are investigators rather than critics, might desire more evidence before making a religious decision. But if they are going convert, they might as well convert to the mormon paradigm where plausibility + a spiritual witness are valued above pure rationality - any faith.

I I’m still willing to look at whatever you come up with though.

I appreciate your concern and willingness to act as a sounding board for some of my findings. I love this discussion board! I would have to admit that analysis of facs. 3 is outside my interests in mormon studies. If you have put the time in effort to seeing what proponents of both sides have said and come to an informed conclusion, kudos to you!

later,
fool