Volume 2 Chapter 11:186-187
Fundamental Flaws in the Book of Mormon
Smith pretended to locate Adam’s altar, again in his own area; so the Church has to continue with a belief in Adam and Eve as a reality rather than an etiological myth, even though science proves otherwise. Additionally, no ‘Adam’ would mean no ‘fall’ and no need for ‘redemption’. It is comical that fossils, millions of years old, were found in the rocks which Smith claimed made up the altar and yet (according to Mormon doctrine) death did not enter the world until after the fall of Adam. The web site www.lds-mormon.com holds the following devastating information: www.lds-mormon.com/bomquest.shtml#BOM
“Why does the Book of Mormon include a very literal account of such things as Noah’s Ark (Ether 6:7), Adam and Eve, or the Garden of Eden (Alma 42:2)? If Noah’s Ark, the Tower of Babel story of the languages or many of the other things mentioned in the Bible aren’t literal (and they aren’t by any stretch of the imagination) – neither are the portions of Book of Mormon history relying on these items as literal. Similarly, why did Joseph Smith state that Adam and the Garden of Eden were literally located in Missouri?”
“Like Roberts, James Talmage believed that the 5,931-year-old Adamic race had been preceded on earth by pre-Adamic life. The usually cautious father boasted to his son that in discussions among the Twelve he had been “bold enough to point out” some conclusive evidence against (Joseph Fielding) Smith’s position. He had personally inspected a pile of stones at Spring Hill, Missouri, declared by Joseph Smith to be part of “the altar on which Adam offered sacrifices,” and had seen that it contained fossilized animals. “If those stones be part of the first altar,” he reasoned, “Adam built it of stones containing corpses, and therefore death must have prevailed in the earth before Adam’s time.” (The original quote is from a letter written by James Talmage in 1931 to his son, Sterling Talmage, also a geologist. It is quoted in Ronald L. Numbers. The Creationists. The Evolution of Scientific Creationism. (Berkeley: University of California Press), 1992. The section on Creationism in Mormonism (pp. 308-314) is excellent. This quote is from page 311).
Jim Whitefield 