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Word. I\u2019m BHodges. I blog at lifeongoldplates.com<\/a> and currently host the FAIR podcast<\/a>. I was invited to do a few guest posts over here at faithpromotingrumor this month. I\u2019m starting with a bit about B.H. Roberts\u2019s \u201cThe Truth, The Way, The Life.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\nB.H. Roberts considered his manuscript\u00a0The Truth, The Way, The Life<\/em> (TWL) to be\u00a0\u201cthe most important work that I have yet contributed to the Church, the six-volumed Comprehensive History of the Church not omitted.\u201d1<\/sup><\/a> TWL aimed to be \u201cthe most comprehensive treatise of the Gospel that has yet been published,\u201d as Elder George Albert Smith described it in 1929.2<\/sup><\/a> A committee of members of the Quorum of the Twelve was assigned to review the lengthy manuscript in order to approve it for use as a church manual. The committee attempted to convince Roberts to change some of his fundamental arguments in order to conform more closely to established church doctrine. \u201cSome learned men don\u2019t see some of its chapters so I am letting it ride until I have more time,\u201d Roberts wrote to a friend, \u201cWill not change it if it has to sleep.\u201d3<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n Until 1994 when it was woken up in two\u00a0separate\u00a0publications by Smith Research Associates and BYU Studies<\/em>, respectively. <\/em>In the next few posts I want to highlight some passages I found most interesting.<\/p>\n Much has been written regarding the doctrinal\/scientific debates between Roberts and Joseph Fielding Smith regarding TWL.4<\/sup><\/a> This post highlights an interesting argument Roberts employed in his scriptural exegesis regarding whether there was death on the earth prior to the fall of Adam in response to Joseph Fielding Smith. In part one I give\u00a0a little historical background on the exchange between Roberts and Smith. In part two I discuss the exegetical argument Roberts used to diffuse Smith\u2019s objections, an argument I haven\u2019t seen confronted in any of the subsequent literature.<\/p>\n Historical Background<\/span>:<\/em><\/p>\n Elder Joseph Fielding Smith was a member of the committee of Apostles reviewing Roberts\u2019s manuscript, and was its most vocal opponent. On April 5, 1930 Smith delivered an address to Genealogical Society of Utah to \u201cdenounce\u201d the ideas that the earth was peopled before Adam or that there was death on the earth prior to the fall\u2014ideas found in the unpublished TWL. Smith didn\u2019t refer to TWL directly, but his preemptive strike was published in the October issue of the Utah Genealogical and Historical Magazine<\/em>.5<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n Roberts must have been angry to see Smith\u2019s views published so easily while his own were undergoing intense scrutiny. On December 15 Roberts wrote to the First Presidency to ask if Smith\u2019s address had been approved by the First Presidency and the Twelve. Was it the official position of the Church? If not, why wasn\u2019t it labeled as Smith\u2019s own opinion? Roberts objected to its \u201cfinality\u201d and \u201cdogmatic\u201d style, questioning the \u201ccompetence\u201d of the author and citing Orson Hyde and Brigham Young as greater authorities than Smith who allowed for similar views to Roberts\u2019s.6<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n On January 7, 1931 Roberts met with the Twelve with a draft of TWL amplified by additional scientific evidence and quotes from Hyde and Young for ecclesiastical leverage. An \u201cAddendum\u201d to chapter 31 directly responded to Smith\u2019s main points about death on earth before the fall.7<\/sup><\/a> In the next part I\u2019ll highlight an interesting argument Roberts used therein to deflate Smith\u2019s assertion that Adam was \u201cimmortal\u201d in the Garden of Eden:\u00a0\u201cThere is no such thing as conditional immortality.\u201d<\/p>\n FOOTNOTES<\/p>\n 1.<\/a> B. H. Roberts to Heber J. Grant, 9 February 1931, quoted in\u00a0James B. Allen, \u201cThe Story of The Truth, the Way, the Life,\u201d B. H. Roberts, The Truth, the Way, the Life: An Elementary Treatise on Theology<\/em>, ed. John W. Welch (Provo, Utah: BYU Studies, 1994),\u00a0clxxxvi.<\/p>\n 2.<\/a> George Albert Smith to\u00a0John A. Widtsoe,\u00a0February 26, 1929, Ibid., <\/em>clxxv.<\/p>\n 3.<\/a> B.H. Roberts to Elizabeth Hinckley, May 1929, Ibid.,<\/em> clxxvii.<\/p>\n 4.<\/a> See, for instance, Truman G. Madsen, Defender of the Faith: The B.H. Roberts Story<\/em> (Salt Lake City: Bookcraft, 1980); Richard Sherlock, \u201cA Turbulent Spectrum: Mormon Reactions to the Darwinist Legacy,\u201d Journal of Mormon History<\/em> 5 (1978): 33-59;\u00a0\u201c\u2018We Can See No Advantage To a Continuation of the Discussion\u2019: The Roberts\/Smith\/Talmage Affair,\u201d Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought<\/em> 13 (Fall 1980): 63-78; Jeffrey R. Keller, \u201cDiscussion Continued: The Sequel to the Roberts\/Smith\/Talmage Affair,\u201d Dialogue<\/em> 15 (Sprint 1982): 79-98. An updated version of these was published in Richard Sherlock and Jeffrey E. Keller, \u201cThe B. H. Roberts\/Joseph Fielding Smith\/James E. Talmage Affair,\u201d\u00a0The Search for Harmony: Essays on Science and Mormonism<\/em>, eds. Gene A. Sessions and Craig J. Oberg,\u00a0(Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1993), chapter six<\/a>.\u00a0B.H. Roberts, The Truth, the Way, the Life: An Elementary Treatise on Theology: The Masterwork of B.H. Roberts<\/em>, ed. Stan Larsen (Salt Lake City: Signature Books, 1995), \u201cEditors Introduction<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n 5.<\/a> Allen, Ibid.,<\/em>, clxxix.<\/p>\n
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