Dreams and Gardens: The Mormon View of the Garden of Eden

Dave B.

February 13

A couple of months ago I posted about Michael Austin's recent book, The Testimony of Two Nations: How the Book of Mormon Reads, and Rereads, the Bible (Univ. of Illinois Press, 2024). It's an excellent book and you should all buy at least two copies (so you can give one away to a deserving friend or family member when so moved). I'm going to discuss a couple of his observations in Chapter Two, "Stories of the Fall," in particular his comparison of Lehi's dream in 1 Nephi 8 to the Genesis Garden of Eden narrative, in the middle section of this post. In the first section I'm going to set the stage with my own quick look at LDS garden narratives, in the middle section I'll talk about Austin's chapter, and in the last section I'm going to bring some historical criticism into the discussion.

Sometimes a Tree Isn't a Tree

A central feature of both the Garden narrative in Genesis and Lehi's dream is the Tree of Life. The first question to ask when reading a biblical narrative is genre. What type of narrative are we reading? This seems particularly important in an LDS discussion. The variety of genres in ancient texts are rather different from modern genres. The key distinction for this discussion, of course, is whether the narrative block is intended to recount actual historical events in some form or whether it is a didactic tale of some sort.

As presented in 1 Nephi 8, Lehi's dream is ... a dream. It is presented as a divine dream or an inspired dream, but still, it's just a dream. The features of the dream are symbolic, open perhaps to a variety of meanings or interpretations (the text in 1 Nephi 11-15 helpfully supplies some suggested meanings). The Tree of Life in Lehi's dream is a symbol, possibly representing the love of God or the condescension of God or something else. Most readers will, of course, tie the Tree of Life in Lehi's dream to the Tree of Life in Genesis 3, where the fruit of the tree bestowed some form of immortality. But the key point is that it's not a real tree, it's a symbol. It appeared in a dream. Most LDS readers will agree with this conclusion. They won't insist that there is an actual Rod of Iron next to a pathway somewhere out there in the real world.

That makes sense, of course, to an orthodox LDS reader who takes the Book of Mormon as an accurate translation of an authentically ancient text, accurately reporting (through Nephi) the actual dream of an actual person named Lehi, with additional explanation of the dream supplied by an angel to Nephi in later chapteres. But we all have access to the account not as a dream but as a narrative in the Book of Mormon. We aren't dreaming, we are reading a text. Taken as a text, the analysis really isn't any different (it's a short tale with symbolic features intended to convey a religious message or a variety of possible religious messages). But it's still worth emphasizing that we aren't really talking about a dream, we are talking about a text, 1 Nephi 8.

How do Mormons read Genesis 2-3? It's a similar sort of short narrative with filled with symbolic features. There are two trees with fruit that carries what would in any other story be called magical properties. There is a talking snake. There are a man and a woman with symbolic names. Adam as a name comes from adamah, Hebrew for land or soil. In one translation I have read, the name was translated as "mud man," consistent with Adam being fashioned from earth or clay ("the Lord God formed a man from the dust of the ground," Gen. 2:7 NIV). It's like if you were to pick up a book at the library, without glancing at the title or call number, and read a couple of pages from the middle of the book. If you read about two characters named "Man" and "Woman," you are 99% sure this is a fairy tale or didactic story, not a news report or a historical account. Nobody names their kids Man and Woman. Nobody names their kid Soil or Mother.

Plainly, Genesis 2-3 is written as an origin story with symbolic features, not a historical account. That is how the vast majority of biblical scholars see it and how many modern readers read it. But despite the similarities to Lehi's dream (which Mormon readers have no difficulty seeing as a dream or story, not a real-world account), the orthodox reading of Genesis 2-3, followed by LDS leaders and most Mormons and most BYU religion types, is that Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden is a historical account of what happened 6000 year. The "updated" LDS narrative in Moses (which is just the first few chapters of Joseph Smith's revision of the KJV Bible) substitutes Satan for the talking snake. Mormons don't even study Genesis 2-3 in the Old Testament curriculum (they read the Moses text instead).

It's a bit puzzling, really. I recognize that the LDS insistence on the historicity of Adam, Eve, and the Garden is rooted in the traditional (premodern) reading of Genesis and with current leadership's unwillingness to rock the boat by changing that approach. To many Christians, asking the natural question "so where was the Garden of Eden?" makes as much sense as asking where Middle Earth or the planet Krypton are. Fundamentalist Christians confidently answer, "somewhere in the Middle East." Conservative Mormons confidently answer, "it's in Missouri."

At the same time, these same Mormons (leaders, religion profs, rank and file Mormons) will draw all manner of lessons and meanings from the symbolic features of the Garden narrative: Adam symbolizes or represents mankind, at least all men; the fruit of the tree is the love of God (borrowing from Lehi); and so forth. Yet these same people who take the account so symbolically will react with pious horror if told it is truly a symbolic tale, not a historical account. This fundamentalist, literalist approach to the Garden narrative is more exaggerated in our day. Once upon a time, Mormons were instructed that the Garden account was simply figurative, as far as the man and woman were concerned.

The bottom line is that the vast majority of LDS read Lehi's dream as a symbolic fictional instructive account of the Plan of Salvation, but read the Garden of Eden account (whether in Genesis or Moses) as a symbolic non-fictional account. That distinction is worth keeping in mind as we compare the two accounts below.

Paradise, Lost and Regained

So let's look at the 20 pages that Austin devotes to comparing Lehi's dream to the Genesis Garden account (or, more accurately, reading Lehi's dream against the Genesis account). It would take 20 pages to do the chapter justice, so I'll just pick a couple of points.

First, he points out that the Lehi dream is an inversion of the Genesis account. In the Garden, Adam and Eve go from Paradise to the lone and dreary world. They are forbidden to eat the fruit of the Tree of Life. In Lehi's dream, Lehi moves from a dark and dreary waste (along the path guided by the rod of iron) to get to the Tree of Life. He and others partake of the fruit and are rewarded with joy. They move from wilderness to Paradise, inverting the Garden story. Austin also depicts the two narratives as sequential: Part 1, Paradise Lost (Adam and Eve expelled from the Garden, resulting in mankind's fallen state); Part 2, Paradise Regained (Lehi and his company, and by extension any reader, can regain Paradise or God's grace by eating the fruit).

Austin observes that this Book of Mormon retelling or refashioning of the Garden narrative in Lehi's dream (including modifications in the Moses narrative) doesn't simply provide a happy ending in place of a tragic fall. As he explains, the Garden narrative features clear commandments and directives (thou shalt not eat of the fruit of that tree) with a resulting punishment (cast out of the Garden). The Mormon narratives are presented differently, in terms of causes and consequences. There's a tree. If you eat of the fruit, here's what will happen, but you can choose for yourself. Carry on. The moral context of the Genesis narrative is commandment, shame, and punishment. The moral context of the Mormon narratives is informed free choices, accompanied by the natural consequences thereof. Which moral context do you prefer?

This changed depiction leads to the Mormon version of the fortunate fall, as evident in the Mormon formulation "Adam's transgression" (a transgression, not really a sin, sort of like a misdemeanor rather than a felony). Austin ties the Mormon view of things to the Pelagian view of sin and redemption in this helpful passage, which I'll quote and I hope you read:

In Augustine's time, a British monk named Pelagius gained a large following by teaching a doctrine of the Fall with many similarities to the one developed in the Book of Mormon -- including a denial of the concept of original sin. But Pelagius was condemned as a heretic and excommunicated, in part through Augustine's efforts, and Pelagianism has been considered a heresy for fifteen centuries by nearly all Christian denominations. It is the post-Augustinian interpretive tradition, rather than the text of the Bible itself, that the Book of Mormon disputes. (p. 45-45)

That's a great point. A lot of Evangelical criticism takes that Augustinian orthodoxy as the basis for criticizing and rejecting LDS doctrine, as laid out above. At the same time, even most Evangelicals don't buy the whole Augustinian package or even part of it. As far as I can tell, the prosperity gospel is a lot more popular with Evangelicals than Augustine's view of original sin or Calvin's view of total depravity and selective election. Evangelicals see Mormons as Pelagians, as latter-day heretics? Well, to put it bluntly, who cares what Evangelicals think? People who live in glass houses shouldn't throw rocks.

A Nod to Historical Criticism

Austin devotes some discussion to the Mormon view that God gave two contradictory commandments to Adam and Eve in the Garden: multiply and replenish, but don't eat of the fruit of that tree (the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil). In the Book of Mormon reading, Adam and Eve would have had no children, should have had no children (and by implication could have had no children) had they remained in the Garden. Tough choice. It's this reading that excuses, in the Mormon view, "Adam's transgression." While Austin doesn't exactly endorse this reading of Genesis, he gives a long discussion detailing the Mormon account.

Here's where historical criticism, not just literary analysis, needs to be consulted. The problem with the LDS account is that there are two origin stories presented in Genesis. There is the priestly account (from the P source) in Genesis 1 and the Yahwist's account (from the J source) in Genesis 2 and 3. Canonically, one may read them together in sequence, but these were two separate accounts. The two contradictory commandments were not presented as contradictory in the original sources because there were not presented in the same narrative. Reading them together creates a false sense of contradictory commandments. It is a misreading of the texts, understandable from a traditional reading but not defensible in the light of modern historical critical scholarship. I wish Austin had at least mentioned this in his discussion.

One good source that looks at the LDS view in light of modern scholarship is David Bokovoy's Authoring the Old Testament: Genesis - Deuteronomy (Greg Kofford Books, 2014). I couldn't find any mention of that book in any of the footnotes to the chapter, which is surprising because in the Acknowledgements section at the front of the book Austin mentions and thanks Bokovoy, among others, as reading portions of the book before publication and offering helpful feedback. Another good read is Stephen Greenblatt's The Rise and Fall of Adam and Eve (Norton, 2017), which Austin does reference in the Introduction. And I might as well mention Elaine Pagels' book The Origin of Satan: How Christians Demonized Jews, Pagans, and Heretics (Vintage Books, 1995), not mentioned by Austin. That book is helpful for understanding that Satan, as a personage and a Christian doctrine, developed over time. In the Hebrew Bible, Satan was a vague and minor figure. He only really took off with Christianity. It is something of an anachronism to place Satan in the Garden narrative. Which, of course, Genesis does not do. That's a later Christian interpretation and an even later Mormon re-writing of the Garden narrative.

So let's wind this up with a few items to discuss.

What do you think of the Garden narrative as presented in Genesis?
What do you think of the Mormon re-writing of the Garden narrative?
Did you previously realize the extent to which the Book of Mormon and other LDS sources rewrite the Garden narrative compared to the Genesis text?
Is the Garden narrative any less meaningful to you if it is a mythical origin story as opposed to a historical account of actual persons and events?
What do you think of Michael Austin's commentary on the LDS view of the Garden narrative and Lehi's dream as an inversion or an extension of the Garden account? (excusing my poor summary of his views -- you should read the book and also the footnotes).

Feel free to mention any books or authors that have enlightened your understanding of the LDS view or the scholarly view of the Garden account or Lehi's dream.