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Subject: how and when did Adam get the priesthood? quandary - Elder Hales says Adam and Eve were sealed in the garden, which, I would think, would mean that he first received the priesthood. But it also appears that he wasn't baptized (again??) until he had grandchildren (Moses 5:1-12; 6:51-53,64-67) So, Gramps, do we have a chicken and egg problem here? Did Adam get the priesthood before baptism? Brian |
Dear Brian,
Eve was given to Adam before the fall, while the world was still in a Terrestrial state. Actually, Adam and Eve were husband and wife during the time of the formation of the earth. Brigham Young said,
"Though we have it in history that our father Adam was made of the dust of this earth, and that he knew nothing about his God previous to being made here, yet it is not so; and when we learn the truth we shall see and understand that he helped to make this world, and was the chief manager in that operation.
"He was the person who brought the animals and the seeds from other planets to this world, and brought a wife with him and stayed here. You may read and believe what you please as to what is found written in the Bible. Adam was made from the dust of an earth, but not from the dust of this earth. He was made as you and I are made, and no person was ever made upon any other principle." (Journal of Discourses, 3: 319.)
Adam operated in his role in the creation of the earth by the power of the holy priesthood, and as Brigham Young said, he and Eve were husband and wife when they were placed on the earth as its first progenitors. After the fall, when the earth became a Telestial sphere and Adam and Eve were expelled from the Garden, he obeyed all the principles of the gospel in that dispensation, including baptism, just as did the Savior during His mortal sojourn.
Gramps