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REESE - Did Satan appear to Adam and Eve, or did he use the serpent. I honestly feel that he appeared to them; and that somewhere in the translation and such of the bible a little was lost. Also a serpent is never used in the temple. It makes more sense to me that the original word was Seraph, because Satan can and will appear as an angel of light. also Jacob in 2 Nephi 9:9 says that Satan "beguiled our first parents, who transformeth himself nigh unto an angel of light." I am under the belief that Satan came as if he had authority to give them the fruit, But we know it is only Christ's to give and that he did give it to them "for it is given unto thee" Moses 3:9,17.
This actually leads me to my real question: was Satan necessary for the fall. again in the temple Satan says words eluding to other worlds and makes me believe that the other worlds fell on there own. Possibly because God taught them more truth about knowledge and they made the choice, or maybe they did it all on their own. It doesn't concern me much how they fell except to know if Satan was necessary for them to fall. I really believe they could have fallen on their own through time. I really hope that all makes sense what I have written.
Thanks for any insight you may have. And if you care to answer, how many questions do you get a day or month or whatever?
JOEL - In the Book of Moses we learn:
"And now the serpent was more subtle than any beast of the field which I, the Lord God, had made.
And Satan put it into the heart of the serpent, (for he had drawn away many after him,) and he sought also to beguile
Eve, for he knew not the mind of God, wherefore he sought to destroy the world.
And he said unto the woman: Yea, hath God said—Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden? (And he spake by the mouth
of the serpent.)" (Moses 4:5-7)
So apparently the physical form of a serpent(what ever that was, a snake?) was present and the serpent was speaking the
words that Satan caused him to say. So even though there could be mistranslations in the Bible we would hope that Joseph
Smith did not receive false revelation on this. Apparently there really was some kind of serpent there speaking the
words of Satan.
Cruden's Bible Concordance says that:
"the Devil is called a Serpent (Rev. 12:9), both because he hid himself in the body of a real serpent when he seduced
the first woman, and because of his serpentine disposition, being of subtil, crafty, and dangerous enemy to mankind" (p.
433).
James E. Talmage said:
"Satan presented himself before Eve in the garden, and, speaking by the mouth of the serpent, questioned her about the
commandments that God had given respecting the tree of knowledge of good and evil." (James E. Talmage, Articles of
Faith, p. 64.)
And ever since his activity in the Garden of Eden Satan has been called "that old serpent." (Rev. 12:9; Rev. 20:2; D&C 76:28, D&C 88:110.), representing a cunning, sly, subtle, and deceitful being.
However, it's a little hard to imagine why Eve would have a conversation with any animal as if it were not an unusual
thing to do. Did the serpent actually move his mouth as he spoke Satan's words? God was able to cause an animal to speak
(Num 22:28), so could Satan do that as well? Was he somehow standing upright as he talked to Eve, until he was cursed to
crawl on his belly and eat the dust of the earth from then on?
This would tend to make one think that perhaps some of the events that happened in Eden were meant to be taken
metaphorically rather than literally. In 2 Nephi, father Lehi informs us that the serpent is the devil (2 Nephi 2:18,
also Mosiah 16:3; D&C 76:28) as if serpent is just another nickname for Satan.
Some like you have suggested that the Genesis account should not read "serpent" but rather "angel of light." And that
the reason Eve was so easily beguiled was because Satan told her (according to the Temple ceremony) he was the god of
this earth, perhaps making her think she was talking with someone authorized by God. It is interesting to note that
after taking the forbidden fruit Adam and Eve recognized who it was who had deceived them, as if they remembered him
from the pre-mortal life.
Between what is said in the Book of Moses and other scriptures it is unclear as to whether we should understand that
Satan himself or a serpent representing Satan appeared to Adam and Eve during their stay in Eden. Opinions vary on this
so I don't believe you could say there is any "official" doctrine about this.
In regards to your "real" question there is a point in the temple ceremony when Satan is asked what he is doing on this
world and he replies that he is doing the same thing he has done on other worlds. So at least according to what we learn
in the temple, all worlds that are the mortal homes to God's children must have had their own Adams and Eves who were
beguiled by this same Satan, leading to the fall of those worlds. So apparently Satan was "necessary", or at least God
used him to perform this function.
I don't know if the other Adams and Eves could have fallen on their own if they were as innocent and unaware of the difference between good and evil as our own Adam and Eve were. I agree that after the Fall man was and is completely capable of committing sin without the help of satan, but in their paradise environment and inocence it seems they would require an outside influence such as Satan to trigger the act of disobedience.
Elder Orson Pratt said:
"The dealing of God toward his children... is a pattern after which all other worlds are dealt with .... The creation,
fall, and redemption of all future worlds with their inhabitants, will be conducted upon the same general plan .... The
Father of our spirits has only been doing what his Progenitors did before Him." Elder Pratt further explained that when
new worlds are formed, their inhabitants "are redeemed after the pattern by which more ancient worlds have been
redeemed." ("Man Adam", Robert L. Millet, Joseph Fielding McConkie)
In other words what happens here is what happens on other inhabited planets.
I get about 2 or 3 questions per week. It used to be more but people are now mostly finding my answers to their questions by searching my site for them before asking.
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