Creation, Creation Accounts
Encyclopedia of Mormonism
Latter-day Saints have, in addition to the biblical Genesis,
two modern restorations of ancient scriptural accounts of the Creation in the
Book of Moses and the book of Abraham. Related authoritative information also
appears in the Book of Mormon, the Doctrine and Covenants, and the LDS temple
ceremony. Drawing on this wealth of creation literature, Latter-day Saints
understand that Jesus Christ, acting under the direction of God the Father,
created this and other worlds to make possible the immortality and eternal life
of human beings who already existed as spirit children of the Father. This
understanding differs from both scientific and traditional Christian accounts
in that it affirms God's purpose and role, while recognizing creation as
organization of preexisting materials, and not as an ex nihilo
event (creation from nothing). Furthermore, these accounts describe an active
role for God's spirit children in the Creation and include a more detailed
version of the origins of evil.
The frequent occurrence of creation accounts in LDS
scriptures and sacred ceremonies reflects a pattern of the ancient world
generally, and ancient
Creation plays a central theological role in the Book of
Mormon. The events surrounding creation are linked with the fall of that angel
who became the devil (2 Ne.
The creation account in the Book of Moses (revealed in 1830
as the beginning of the Joseph Smith Translation of the Bible) provides several
insights in addition to those found in Genesis.
First, the Book of Moses establishes Mosaic authorship of
its creation account indicating explicitly that it resulted from a revelation
given to Moses sometime between the time of the burning bush and the exodus
(Moses 1:17, 25).
Second, it clarifies the role of Jesus Christ in the
Creation: "By the word of my power have I created [these lands and their
inhabitants], which is mine Only Begotten Son" (Moses 1:32-33); "I,
God, said unto mine Only Begotten, which was with me from the beginning: Let us
make man in our image" (Moses 2:26-27); "And I, the Lord God, said
unto mine Only Begotten: Behold, the man is become as one of us to know good
and evil" (Moses 4:28). This is consistent with the teachings of John and
Paul in the New Testament (John 1:3, 10; Eph. 3:9; Col. 1:13-16; Heb. 1:2, 10).
Third, the Creation is placed in a much larger context of
ongoing creations of innumerable inhabited earths with their respective heavens
(in all of which Christ played a central role): "And worlds without number
have I created…for mine own purpose; and by the Son I created them, which is
mine Only Begotten…. And as one earth shall pass away,
and the heavens thereof even so shall another come; and there is no end to my
works" (Moses
Fourth, the origin of evil is traced back to the rebellion
of Satan, who sought (1) to replace God's Beloved Son, who had been
"chosen from the beginning," and (2) to receive and use God's own
power to redeem all humans by destroying their agency (Moses 4:1-4). The
importance of human agency is reaffirmed in the command to Adam and Eve
concerning the tree of knowledge of good and evil: "Thou shalt not eat of it, nevertheless, thou mayest
choose for thyself, for it is given unto thee; but remember that I forbid it,
for in the day thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die" (Moses 3:17).
Fifth, the account in Moses makes clear that there was a
spirit creation of all living things in heaven before they were created
physically upon the earth: "I, the Lord God, created all things, of which
I have spoken, spiritually, before they were naturally upon the face of the
earth…. And I, the Lord God, had created all the children of men; and not yet a
man to till the ground; for in heaven created I them; and there was not yet
flesh upon the earth, neither in the water, neither in the air" (Moses
3:5).
Certain LDS commentators have explored the possibility that
the Moses account could resolve the apparent conflict in the order of God's
creative acts between Genesis 1 and Genesis 2 by treating the first as a spirit
creation (O. Pratt, pp. 21-22; Roberts, pp. 264-68; cf. DS 1:74-76, which
explains a different view). Later revelations make it clear that mankind's
spirit creation had taken place long before the events described in any of the
accounts of the earth's creation. God, our Heavenly Father, is literally the
"Father of spirits" (Heb. 12:9). "Man as a spirit was begotten
and born of heavenly parents, and reared to maturity in the eternal mansions of
the Father, prior to coming upon the earth in a temporal body" (see First
Presidency, "The Origin of Man," Nov. 1909 [Appendix]; see also
Spirit Body).
The Abrahamic account is
distinctive among creation accounts. It describes a structured cosmos, with
many stars, one above another, with their different periods and orders of
government (Abr. 3:1-10). Within this context Abraham also learns about
eternally existing spirits, one above the other in intelligence, all the way up
to "the Lord thy God," who is "more intelligent than they
all" (Abr. 3:19; see speeches cited in bibliography). He is shown a group
of organized intelligences (or spirits, or souls-the words are here used interchangeably),
over whom God rules and among whom he dwells, and is taught that "in the
beginning" God came down in the midst of them, and said of some who were
"noble and great": "These I will make my rulers…. And he said
unto me: Abraham, thou art one of them; thou wast
chosen before thou wast born" (Abr.
Within this context of the divine assembly, or Council in
Heaven, Abraham's account of the Creation proceeds, generally following the
structural outline of Genesis. By the time Joseph Smith published this
"translation" in 1842, he had gained a much deeper understanding both
through additional revelation and some through study of Hebrew. In light of the
doctrine of the Council in Heaven, Joseph Smith had pointed out that the Hebrew
term Elohim, a plural form, should be rendered the
"Gods" in the creation account, not as the traditional
"God" (WJS, p. 379). It is so rendered throughout Abraham's account.
In light of the doctrine of the eternal nature of matter, the word
traditionally translated as "created" becomes "organized."
The phrase "without form and void" (Hebrew tohu
wa-bohu) is rendered, quite properly, "empty and
desolate" and describes the condition of the earth after it was organized,
not before (Abr. 4:2).
The term "day" (Hebrew yom)
for the seven "days" of creation is given as "time," a
permissible alternative in both Hebrew and English; and it is explicitly
pointed out that the "time" in which Adam should die if he partook of
the forbidden fruit "was after the Lord's time, which was after the time
of Kolob [a great star that Abraham had seen nearest
to the throne of God, whose revolution, one thousand years by our reckoning, is
a day unto the Lord]; for as yet the Gods had not appointed unto Adam his
reckoning" (Abr. 5:13; 3:2-4).
On the basis of the above passage, which clearly excludes
the possibility of earthly twenty-four-hour days being the "days" or
"times" of creation, some Latter-day Saint commentators have argued
for one-thousand-year periods as the "times" of creation as well as
the "time" of Adam's earthly life after the fall; others have argued
for indefinite periods of time, as long as it would take to accomplish the work
involved. Abraham's account does contain the interesting passage, in connection
with the "organizing" of the lights in the "expanse" of
heaven, "The Gods watched those things which they had ordered until they
obeyed" (Abr. 4:14-18). Abraham's account actually includes twelve
different "labors" of the Gods, divided up among the "days"
in the manner of Genesis. The later temple account of creation gives an
abbreviated version of those labors, divided up differently among the seven
days while retaining the same order, suggesting that it may not be significant
which labor is assigned to which day.
Abraham connects the seemingly differing accounts of Genesis
1 and 2 within the context of the Council in Heaven. Abraham's seven-day
account proceeds through the work of the first five creative times and part of
the sixth as the physical creation of the earth and its preparation to support
life before life was actually placed upon it. Thus, during the third time,
"the Gods organized the earth to bring forth grass…and the earth to bring
forth the tree from its own seed" (Abr.
Several themes in other ancient creation accounts-premortal conflict in heaven, divine victory over the
opposing powers of chaos, and the promulgation of law at the time of
creation-are also familiar from creation accounts in LDS scripture and theology
(2 Ne. 2:17; 9:8; Moses 4:3-4; Abr. 3:27-28; see also
War in Heaven; Pre-Existence). These ideas are alluded to in several places in
the Bible (cf. Ex. 15; Job 38-41; Isa. 40-42; Ps. 18;
19; 24; 33; 68; 93; 104; Prov. 8:22-33; Hab. 3:8; Rev. 12:7-12). From the early Christian era until
the end of the nineteenth century, traditional Christian interpretation has
generally treated these biblical texts allegorically or has not considered them
at all in discussions of the Creation. A profound transformation in the
Christian interpretation of these passages took place during the latter part of
the nineteenth century with the discovery and translation of creation accounts
from ancient
The doctrine of ex nihilo creation
has been the traditional Christian explanation. In recent discussion of the
subject, many Jewish scholars agreed that the belief in an ex nihilo creation is not to be found before the Hellenistic
period, while Christian scholars see no evidence of this doctrine in the
Christian church until the end of the second century A.D. The rejection of ex nihilo creation in the teaching of the Latter-day Saints
thus accords with the evidence of the earliest understanding of the Creation in
ancient
Anderson, Bernhard W. "Creation." In Interpreter's Dictionary of the Bible, Vol. 1, pp. 725-32.
Eliade, Mircea.
"The Prestige of the Cosmogonic
Myth." Diogenes 23 (Fall 1958):1-13.
Goldstein, Jonathan A. "The Origins of the Doctrine of
Creation Ex Nihilo."
Journal of Jewish Studies 35 (Autumn 1984):127-35.
McConkie, Bruce R. "Christ
and the Creation." Ensign 12 (June 1982):9-15.
Pettazzoni, Raffaele.
"Myths of Beginnings and Creation-Myths." In
Pettazzoni, Essays on the History of Religions, H. J.
Rose, trans., Vol. 1, pp. 24-36.
Pratt, Orson. "The Pre-existence of
Pratt, Parley P. "Origin of the Universe." In
Pratt, The Key to the Science of Theology, pp. 26-32.
Roberts, B. H. The Gospel and Man's Relationship to Deity,
pp. 256-73.
Salisbury, Frank B. The Creation.
Smith, Joseph. See speeches reported in WJS, pp. 9, 33, 60,
341, 346, 351-52, and 359 and their contexts.
Smith, Joseph Fielding. Man, His Origin and Destiny.
Winston, David. "Creation Ex Nihilo
Revisited: A Reply to Jonathan Goldstein." Journal of Jewish Studies 37
(Spring 1986):88-91.
Young, Brigham. Discourses of Brigham
Young, chaps. 2, 4, 9.
F. KENT NIELSEN
STEPHEN D. RICKS