Adam is God, and Jesus was married: Gnostic ideas in Mormon fundamentalist beliefs

In this section, I will focus on two theological teachings that encapsulate the mystical worldview: The Adam-God doctrines and the characterization of Jesus as an historical polygamist. I focus on these separate, distinctly related teachings within one analysis for several reasons. The two teachings were share with me on multiple occasions by Mormon fundamentalists across sects, indicating doctrines that transcend denominational differences amongst fundamentalists. The teachings build on distinct sections from Biblical scripture: Genesis form the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament Gospels.

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Adam-God doctrine

As we hiked up Maxwell Canon in Colorado City, Arizona, Jack informed me that, before it was used as a proper noun in Genesis, the Hebrew word adam had meant man. Mormon fundamentalists have determined that the Greek New Testament phrase translated as “son of Man” (ο υιος του ανθρωπου) was derived form the Hebrew ben adam, or son of adam. Mormon fundamentalists interpret that Jesus Christ the Savior was not only the son of humankind (adam as a common noun), as it commonly determined—they believe that Jesus Christ the Savior was being described as the son of Adam (as a proper noun, the character from Genesis). Mormon fundamentalists believe that early Christians knew this implicitly, but its meaning was lost over the years of Christianity.

I was told that, when Jesus questioned his disciples, “Whom do men say that I the Son of man am?” (Matthew 16:13), he was referring to himself as the son of Adam directly. Because Jesus spoke Aramaic yet his speech was translated into Koine Greek in the gospels, the phrase ben adam would have gone through two conversions, from Hebrew to Aramaic to Koine Greek, before landing in the New Testament text. If Jesus is the son of God, a central belief in Christianity, and if Jesus himself said he is the son of Adam, then clearly Adam is God, according to the Mormon fundamentalist view.

Arguments are made that extend this interchangeability between Adam and God to other Biblical figures: the archangel Michael, God as Jehovah, and even Jesus (G. D. Smith 1987, 32). Additionally, just as Mormonism recognizes God the Father and his consort Mother in Heaven, Mormon fundamentalists apply the Adam-God connection to Eve and Mother in Heaven. Adam is God, and Eve is Goddess. It does not end there. If Adam is God, Eve is God’s wife (as is Lilith in some Mormon texts). Since Jesus is the Virgin Mary’s son through God the Father, Mary and Eve (and sometimes Lilith) are God’s plural wives.

This teaching is known as “the Adam-God doctrine,” and it originated with Joseph Smith and was clarified by Brigham Young. While the LDS Church no longer teaches this doctrine, it has become centrally significant in the Mormon fundamentalist religious worldview. I heard this teaching from Jack, a senior gentleman and member of Christ’s Church. Once I heard it the first time, I came to recognize it sprinkled throughout several conversations with Mormon fundamentalists across sects. On top of this, I noticed Adam-God doctrine books on the shelves in the homes I visited.

The Adam-God doctrine offers a generational model of God similar to the trimurti in Hinduism. In Hinduism, Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva make up a divine trinity as Creator, Preserver, and Destroyer. I believe that Hinduism’s trimurti is a more accurate analogy to Mormonism’s Adam-God doctrine than is the traditional Christian Trinity (Father, Son, and Holy Spirit). The Adam-God doctrine maintains a generational theology—God is reincarnated in different forms. I compare the Adam-God doctrine with Hindu theology because there is a similarity in the transcendent unicity of the incarnation or manifestations of God the Father, as Adam, Michael, Jesus, Jehovah/Yahweh—even “Grandfather God” and “Great-Grandfather God,” names Jack used for God the Father’s father and great-grandfather in a mythic telling of the creation of human civilization—are simultaneously distinct and interchangeable. They are one and the same, yet the incarnations can also speak with one another (Genesis 3:8, Luke 9:18, Matthew 26:39). This is seen in the east with which fundamentalist Mormons have addressed Adam and God the Father as distinct incarnations yet also having read Eve and the Virgin Mary as plural wives of the same being (Briney 2005, 157-60).

Espousing a corporal, embodied God, male-female pairings in the language of the divine and generational incarnations of God, the Adam-God doctrine has a particularly Gnostic flavor. The Adam-God doctrine is important to Mormon fundamentalists because it was taught in the Church by 1854 but also because of the carnality of God that is central in the Adam-God doctrine. Humans have a direct ancestral lineage to God. The average everyday human, even the above average who is worthy of the celestial kingdom, is not God walking per se. However, humans have a direct ancestral lineage to God, making the pursuit of righteousness, or godliness, that much more plausible. The Mormon fundamentalist reading of the sisters as Jesus’s plural wives also offers an intimate view of Jesus. Even without a record of Lazarus’s and Jesus’s history as brothers-in-law, upon conceiving them as brothers-in-law, one can imagine the bonding they have undergone in their relationship. The possibility of Lazarus as a brother-in-law and Mary and Martha as wives makes Jesus particularly human and relatable, themes that define Mormon theology, including the Adam-God doctrine.