KYLE - This question concerns the book Mormon Doctrine by Mckonkie (or a name close to that). I am troubled by the statement regarding life prior to 6K years ago. If my memory serves me well, it is stated clearly that nothing died on this planet prior to this time (6K ya). Is this truly a part of church Doctrine? Some i've asked default to a position wherein it is the authors opinion, and not in fact church doctrine. if that is true, has the church publicly and directly distanced itself from this work? i'm almost certain that if i were to publish a work purporting itself to be doctrine and made mistakes, mistatements, etc., once a certain distribution level was reached, the church would make clear it's position regarding it. seems to me that everyone has this book.

JOEL - Mormon Doctrine was Bruce R. McConkie's effort to provide Latter-day Saints with a gospel compendium to help them to instruct each other in the doctrine of the kingdom. Not he nor anyone else ever claimed it was perfect. In fact he admitted to some mistakes that appeared in the first edition and made corrections for subsequent editions. It was his best explaination of the doctrine of Christ as he understood it. As Bruce R. McConkie states at the beginning of his book:
"For the work itself, I assume sole and full responsibility."
He does not implicate the Church at all in his work. Most all church members are aware of all this, but still like to use it because of its comprehensive handling of most all gospel subjects. The church has not distanced itself at all from it, but only remind us that it is Elder McConkie's understanding of the Gospel and therefore may contain opinions that do not exactly reflect the official position of the Church; especially on things where the church has no position.
It is true that we believe that there was no death as it now exists prior to 6000 years ago. If we believe in the scriptures then this must be true. However, we only know that no "soul" has died before Adam fell and introduced death into the world. A soul is the combination of spirit and body. Adam and Eve and the animals that existed at that time had souls made of both body and spirit. The fall of Adam initiated the process of death caused by separation of body and spirit. We do not know how long the earth existed before that time. Perhaps it was millions of years before Adam as the scientists suggest; and the geological records would indicate that there was life in the form of dinosaurs during that time. It has been suggested that perhaps these were creatures without spirits(i.e. not souls) and only suffered a biological death and not the same kind of death(separation of spirit and body) that happened after the time of Adam. This debate between religion and science has been going on for centuries and will continue. We really don't know how it was all done but we do know that God was the one who did it. Some day He will explain it all to us.

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