Amazongate-gate

On the heels of 'Climategate' came the revelation that buried in the 2007 IPCC report was an erroneous statement to the effect that Himalayan glaciers could disappear by 2035. This was dubbed 'glaciergate,' and was a ding in the credibility of the IPCC. Then came the allegation that the IPCC report also contained a fabricated claim that "up to 40% of the Amazonian forests could react drastically to even a slight reduction in precipitation." This was predictably dubbed 'Amazongate.'

The British newspaper the Sunday Times picked up on this and published a story that said that the 40% claim was unsubstantiated and came from a non-scientific environmental organization, and quoted tropical forest and climate change expert Dr. Simon Lewis in support. It was beginning to look like the IPCC was making all kinds of things up.

The only problem was that the 'Amazongate' controversy itself was entirely made up. You can read the sordid details here:

Newsweek - Newspapers Retract 'Climategate' Claims, but Damage Still Done

The Guardian - Sunday Times admits 'Amazongate' story was rubbish. But who's to blame?

Climate Progress - Sunday Times retracts and apologizes for shameful and bogus Amazon story smearing IPCC

After the mob rush to smear climate scientists and the IPCC last winter, sober analysis continues to largely vindicate them.

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Michael Ash on Lineage Histories

[This is part of a series of posts I initiated with Book of Mormon Scholarship as an Elias for Evolution.]

Readers of this blog might enjoy Michael Ash's column at Mormon Times, a website run by the Deseret News. Of particular interest in this series of posts is something he wrote about the Book of Mormon being a lineage history in Why aren't other peoples mentioned in the Book of Mormon? As you read the following quote, think about how this can apply to Adam and Eve, etc.

While dynastic histories claim to tell the entire story, they actually only deal with the story as it relates to a particular dynastic family. And unlike modern scholarly histories, ancient accounts often served as propaganda to support a particular leader or group. "Others" are peripheral to the main story. In traditional tribal narratives, no one else exists unless it was necessary to mention them with regard to interaction with the tribe.

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Some First Parents Are More First Than Others

[This is part of a series of posts I initiated with Book of Mormon Scholarship as an Elias for Evolution.]

The phrase 'first parents' occurs exclusively in the Book of Mormon, and is used ten times to refer to Adam and Eve. So according to the Book of Mormon, Adam and Eve were our first parents, end of story. Right? Well, maybe not quite. Interestingly, the phrase is also used three times to refer to other people. Here are the three passages.

Jacob 4:3

Now in this thing we do rejoice; and we labor diligently to engraven these words upon plates, hoping that our beloved brethren and our children will receive them with thankful hearts, and look upon them that they may learn with joy and not with sorrow, neither with contempt, concerning their first parents.

Omni 1:22

It [the stone with engravings] also spake a few words concerning his [Coriantumr's] fathers. And his first parents came out from the tower, at the time the Lord confounded the language of the people; and the severity of the Lord fell upon them according to his judgments, which are just; and their bones lay scattered in the land northward.

Helaman 5:6

Behold, my sons, I desire that ye should remember to keep the commandments of God; and I would that ye should declare unto the people these words. Behold, I have given unto you the names of our first parents who came out of the land of Jerusalem; and this I have done that when you remember your names ye may remember them; and when ye remember them ye may remember their works; and when ye remember their works ye may know how that it is said, and also written, that they were good.

In each of these cases the phrase 'first parents' means something similar to what we might call 'founding fathers.' In fact, in the third passage there is no female component at all because it is actually a reference to Lehi and Nephi.

None of this is to suggest that the Book of Mormon prophets didn't think Adam and Eve were literally our first parents. They probably did. The point is to show another example where words that would seem to have a definitive meaning are demonstrably more flexible. If other people existed alongside Adam and Eve, by the Book of Mormon's own standards Adam and Eve can still be called our first parents.

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Adam and Eve: Reading Between the Lines

[This is part of a series of posts I initiated with Book of Mormon Scholarship as an Elias for Evolution.]

We turn now to the narrative about Adam and Eve and their posterity, where we will look for clues for the potential existence of others. Below I simply describe or quote the relevant part of the story and ask questions about it.

Many of Adam and Eve's posterity rejected their teachings from the very beginning.

And Adam and Eve blessed the name of God, and they made all things known unto their sons and their daughters. And Satan came among them, saying: I am also a son of God; and he commanded them, saying: Believe it not; and they believed it not, and they loved Satan more than God. And men began from that time forth to be carnal, sensual, and devilish. (Moses 5:13.)

If Adam, Eve, and their children were the only people on earth, why did the children have such a hard time believing their parents? Who would tell them otherwise? Were they really having conversations with Satan? Is it possible that there were, in fact, other people influencing Adam and Eve's children? Could Satan's declaration, "I am also a son of God" actually be a reference to surrounding competing religions where, as Nibley noted, claimed ties between humans and gods were not uncommon.

Hugh Nibley also noted the following which, although specifically about a universal flood, has potentially broader application:

Speaking of Noah, God promised Enoch "that he [God] would call upon the children of Noah; and he sent forth an unalterable decree, that a remnant of his seed [Enoch's through Noah] should always be found among all nations, while the earth should stand; and the Lord said: Blessed is he through whose seed Messiah shall come." (Moses 7:51-53.) Methuselah boasted about his line as something special. (Moses 8:2-3.) Why special if it included the whole human race? These blessings have no meaning if all the people of the earth and all the nations are the seed of Noah and Enoch.

Enoch saw the city of Zion in vision, after which "Enoch also beheld the residue of the people which were the sons of Adam; and they were a mixture of all the seed of Adam save it was the seed of Cain..." Why does the text specify that the rest of the people were the 'sons of Adam'? Shouldn't that be obvious?

During Enoch's preaching, "there came a man unto him, whose name was Mahijah, and said unto him: Tell us plainly who thou art, and from whence thou comest?" (Moses 6:40.) Is it possible that Mahijah is an outsider, just as Sherem in the Book of Mormon seems to be?

Enoch and Noah both encountered 'giants', about whom nothing is known. In the Genesis text the giants are only associated with Noah. However, the Book of Moses adds a reference to them in connection with Enoch. Ancient traditions envisioned these giants (Nephilim) as the hybrid children of humans and fallen angels. However, I am not aware of any LDS commentator who accepts that interpretation.

Following the murder of Abel, Cain feared for his life. If Cain was really the first murderer among the very first family on earth, why would he be so worried about being killed himself, particularly since he would be leaving his homeland? Furthermore, in Genesis Cain goes to live in the land of Nod where he builds a city. Where did all the people come from to populate the city? The Book of Moses suggests that the inhabitants of the city were extended family members that Cain took with him. Did Cain really have enough sympathetic family members to build and populate a city? Is it possible that Joseph Smith added this detail because he also was puzzled by this issue? (Remember that in Joseph Smith's lifetime there was little reason to question the Ussher chronology, at least as applied to humans.)

Most of these elements can be given mundane interpretations consistent with Adam and Eve as the only people on earth. The point is not to suggest that an alternate interpretation is more natural or obvious. Rather, now that we have abundant evidence from archaeology and genetics, does the text contain possibilities that have been previously unappreciated?

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Before Adam

[This is part of a series of posts I initiated with Book of Mormon Scholarship as an Elias for Evolution.]


The groundwork for the argument that Genesis is an ethnocentric account was laid by Hugh Nibley in his "Before Adam," which was published in Old Testament and Related Studies, the first volume of The Collected Works of Hugh Nibley, and was based on a speech given in 1980. If you are not familiar with this article you should take some time to read it. However, you'll need to take his comments on science with a grain of salt. As FAIR puts it, "The science has advanced substantially since Nibley's article, and so its scientific claims should no longer be considered current. However, his theologic and historic perspective is still useful."

Nibley stressed the importance of keeping in mind the limited perspective of the people involved in the scriptural accounts. As we read we must keep asking ourselves what exactly was seen and understood. I would add that we should also pay attention to how words are used and their potential alternative meanings. For example, the Hebrew word for 'earth' can refer to the whole planet, or a limited area (i.e. 'land'). The Book of Mormon repeatedly uses the phrase 'the whole earth' in a context that clearly does not mean the whole earth (see 3 Nephi 8 for several examples), and at one point the Book of Moses explicitly notes that Moses "beheld many lands; and each land was called earth," (Moses 1:29).

Nibley also explored questions raised by the narrative. We'll look at some of those later. For now let's look at his conclusion.

Do not begrudge existence to creatures that looked like men long, long ago, nor deny them a place in God's affection or even a right to exaltation—for our scriptures allow them such. Nor am I overly concerned as to just when they might have lived, for their world is not our world. They have all gone away long before our people ever appeared. God assigned them their proper times and functions, as he has given me mine—a full-time job that admonishes me to remember his words to the overly eager Moses: "For mine own purpose have I made these things. Here is wisdom and it remaineth in me." (Moses 1:31.) It is Adam as my own parent who concerns me. When he walks onto the stage, then and only then the play begins. He opens a book and starts calling out names. They are the sons of Adam, who also qualify as sons of God, Adam himself being a son of God. This is the book of remembrance from which many have been blotted out. They have fallen away, refused to choose God as their father, and by so doing were registered in Satan's camp. "Satan shall be their father, and misery shall be their doom." (Moses 7:37.)

In reading Nibley again, I was struck by this next part. Again, we run into the ANE context of Genesis.

Can we call them sons of Adam, bene-Adam, human beings proper? The representative Egyptians, Babylonians, Greeks, and Romans, to name only the classic civilizations of old, each fancied themselves to be beings of a higher nature, nearer to gods than others who inhabited the land with them (and before them), or who dwelt in other lands. And yet they did not deny humanity to them.

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Book of Mormon Scholarship as an Elias for Evolution

By the early twentieth century it was becoming clear that the ancient Americas were largely inhabited by people with no apparent connection to Lehi or the Middle East. This clashed with the common view of the Book of Mormon as a history of the entire Western Hemisphere. However, some argued that the text of the Book of Mormon supported, or even demanded, a more limited geography. This view now seems to be dominant among LDS scholars and is advocated in publications by FARMS and FAIR.

This scaled-back view of the Book of Mormon is much easier to reconcile with science, especially as DNA evidence has shown Native Americans to have a significant genetic link to Asia. However, this view also runs into difficulties with the text of the Book of Mormon, which never mentions any people not derived from the Middle East. To resolve this problem it is argued that the Book of Mormon was an ethnocentric account, and that the text contains clues pointing to the existence of outsiders.

We face a similar problem in reconciling the science supporting human evolution with the scriptural belief that Adam and Eve were the first and only humans, and that all people are descended from them. Science has little to say about whether Adam and Eve were historical figures, but it does have something to say about where humans have lived and when, and it also has something to say about our genetic diversity. Rather than go into details now, suffice it to say that from a scientific standpoint, the notion that Adam and Eve are the exclusive ancestors of all people just isn't feasible.

It may be that Book of Mormon scholarship has prepared the way. One potential resolution to this conflict is to apply the same kinds of arguments as those made for a limited Book of Mormon geography. That is, that the account of Adam and Eve and their immediate descendants is an ethnocentric one focusing on the founding parents of the first gospel dispensation and God's covenant people, and that although the text is silent on the existence of others, their existence can reasonably be inferred from (or is at least allowed by) the text. This kind of argument preserves the historicity of Adam and Eve as well as their importance as the leading patriarch and matriarch of the human family while freeing us to accept the broad outlines of human history made clear through archaeology and genetics.

In forthcoming posts I'll sketch out a little more of what I think this argument might look like.

Posts in this series:
Before Adam
Adam and Eve: Reading Between the Lines
Some First Parents are More First than Others
Michael Ash on Lineage Histories
The Family of Adam
The First Man

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