ParkerD,
Thus I have no motive to obfuscate consciously. I will now show that I have not obfuscated even accidentally, by demonstrating my correct use of the text you claim I pulled out of context. I quoted Young as teaching with reference to Adam-God, “Now, let all who may hear these doctrines, pause before they make light of them, or treat them with indifference, for they will prove their salvation or damnation.” Yet you point to the sentence immediately preceding, which reads, “Jesus, our elder brother, was begotten in the flesh by the same character that was in the garden of Eden, and who is our Father in Heaven.” Since Elohim was also in Eden, this is actually an orthodox statement.
I once thought as you do. Before the first time I ever quoted this passage, I hesitated on the basis of just this objection. Because both Michael and Elohim are called “father” in the sermon, both are in heaven, and since both were in fact in Eden, it is not at once obvious whether the Father in Heaven “that was in the garden of Eden” is Michael or Elohim. But further research revealed significant reasons to favor reading it in reference to Adam.
The first, weakest argument I hit upon is that Young says, “doctrines” in the plural, which means he refers to more than just the sentence immediately preceding. It embraces all that Young has been saying, including the statement that Michael “is our FATHER and our GOD, and the only God with whom WE have to do.” This argument is good but indecisive, because Wilford Woodruff records the same text in his journal without the word “doctrines.”
A second reason adds a little more to the case: the context gives more weight to reading it as Michael, because he is the only male person spoken of as being in Eden elsewhere in the sermon: “When our father Adam came into the garden of Eden, he came into it with a celestial body, and brought Eve, one of his wives, with him.” Again, this is a good reason, but not compelling.
The more powerful reason, the one the really persuades me, is that external witnesses support understanding it in reference to Adam. Other prominent Mormons, including Apostles, understood it in reference to Adam and Young did not attempt to correct them. Hosea’s Stout’s Journal that evening records, “Another meeting this evening. President B. Young taught that Adam was the father of Jesus and the only God to us. That he came to this world in a resurrected body, etc. More hereafter.” The same view can be found in a number of diaries written that night, including Woodruff’s, who quotes Heber C. Kimball reporting Young’s teaching as “Jesus Christ was his [Peter’s] God and the God and Father of Jesus Christ was Adam.” Samuel H. Rogers recorded that Young “said that Adam was the onley God that we would have, and that Christ was not begotten of the Holy Gost, but of the Father Adam, that Christ, was our elder brother.” No minority report exists to effect that it was Elohim, as distinct from Adam, who begat Jesus in the flesh. They all understood Young to mean that Adam begat Jesus.
As this point, I could hardly be charged for obfuscation for maintaining a view that agrees with all of Young’s firsthand hearers whose impressions of the sermon have been passed down to us. Of course, it is a seriously possibility that they all got it wrong, since Young just didn’t make it clear enough. If he spoke vaguely, they could have misheard him then in just the same way that I misread him today. The problem with that idea is that Young did not seek to correct anyone’s misunderstandings, even when the opponents of Adam-God repeated and then criticized the same interpretation of his words. Young’s persistence can be confirmed by another journal entry in Feb 1854, which shows that almost two full years later, Young had not disabused him of the mistake, but was continuing to reinforce that same understanding: “He (B.Y.) said that our God was Father Adam. He was the Father of the Savior Jesus Christ—Our God was no more or less than ADAM, Michael the Archangel.” I find this kind of report more persuasive than any transcript of a sermon, because it comes from someone’s conversations with Young, someone who knew him over the course of years, during which Young could have clarified such basic misunderstandings. Points of legitimate uncertainty that arise from the JOD transcript alone are firmed up in light of such evidence.
That is a taste of the kind of evidence that underlies my reading of the text from Young’s Address which you deem obfuscatory (Is that a real word?). Compared to your analogy about the stock market, I would say my reading has been rigorous.
