David John Buerger's study of Brigham Young's Adam-God teachings and its reception by his contemporaries and modern members and critics of the Church.

Date
1982
Type
Academic / Technical Report
Source
David John Buerger
LDS
Resigned
Hearsay
Direct
Secondary
Reference

David John Buerger, "The Adam-God Doctrine," Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought 15, no. 1 (Spring 1982): 14-58

Scribe/Publisher
Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought
People
Brigham Young, David John Buerger, Michael, Adam
Audience
Reading Public
PDF
Transcription

. . .

The Adam-God doctrine has been a sensitive subject for most Latter-day Saints from the very day it was introduced to the Church. It is apparent that a substantial—and ultimately a dominant—number of Mormons rejected what Brigham Young held to be one of the "precious things of the kingdom." For Young clearly believed that Adam was the father of the spirits of mankind in addition to being the first procreator of mankind's physical bodies; that Adam came to this earth as a resurrected and exalted being; that he "fell" to a mortal state of existence in order to procreate mortal bodies; and that Adam was the spiritual and physical father of Jesus Christ. Had these beliefs evolved in to an official doctrine of the church, one supposes there would be relatively little controversy to discuss—but, they did not. If one accepts at face value the sermons of President Young and his colleagues, and their successors, on Adam-God, it is apparent that official (or even quasi-official) teachings on the subject have undergone considerable change.

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