The Heavenly Tablets and the Book of Adam
By Kerry A. Shirts
Ancient literatures which have been found for the last 100 years have shown that Adam was a highly intelligent being, who, along with Eve, his wife, had the Gospel and in fact kept records of their prophecies and the commandments God had given them. Christianity has not understood that Adam had the Gospel until Joseph Smith proclaimed so in the early 1820 - 1840’s. They have felt that Christ was the first to have brought the Gospel as we have it in the New Testament. In this paper what I will do is show that Adam had the Gospel and in fact, records were kept of the Book of Adam from the very beginning, and Joseph Smith was correct to proclaim this.
Our understanding of the Gospel is that it was had right from the beginning, starting with Adam and Eve.
"And after many days an angel of the Lord appeared unto Adam, saying: Why dost thou offer sacrifices unto the Lord? And Adam said unto him: I know not, save the Lord commanded me. And then the angel spake, saying: This thing is a similitude of the sacrifice of the Only Begotten of the Father, which is full of grace and truth. Wherefore, thou shalt do all that thou doest in the name of the Son, and thou shalt repent and call upon God in the name of the Son forevermore. And in that day the Holy Ghost fell upon Adam, which beareth record of the Father and the Son, saying: I am the Only Begotten of the Father from the beginning, henceforth and forever, that as thou hast fallen thou mayest be redeemed, and all mankind, even as many as will." 1
D&C 84:16 declares that Adam conferred the Priesthood onto his children, clearly showing he had the Gospel. D&C 107:42 notes that Adam ordained his son Seth as well. Moses 6:4-7 declares that a Book of Rememberance was kept in the language of Adam and handed down through the generations, and "this same Priesthood which was in the beginning, shall be in the end of the world also." Adam’s prophecies were called "the book of the generations of Adam." (Moses 6:8).
In line with this understanding we note that Hans-Joachim Klimkeit’s translation of various Manichaean, Parthian, and Buddhist texts also show that the "Jesus of splendor, an emanation of the Third Messenger" came and taught Adam the true gnosis called "the saving knowledge of his origin and of the truth of himself. He made clear to Adam that his soul stemmed from the divine World of Light."2 In a Persian Cosmogonical Hymn we also read that "Resurrection was the destiny of the discerning soul of (that) fortunate one (Adam). He believed in the message of Ohrmizd, the good Lord. He eagerly accepted all the commandments, ordinances and seals of virtue, like a mighty hero; he put off the mortal body and was redeemed eternally."3
In the Vita Adae et Evae, Eve and Seth are told by Michael the Archangel, "When five thousand five hundred years have been fulfilled, then will come upon earth the most beloved king Christ, the son of God, to revive the body of Adam and with him to revive the bodies of the dead. He himself, the Son of God, when he comes will be baptized in the river of Jordan, and when he hath come out of the water of Jordan, then He will anoint from the oil of mercy all that believe in Him. And the oil of mercy shall be for generation to generation for those who are ready to be born again of water and the Holy Spirit to life eternal. Then the most beloved Son of God, Christ, descending on earth shall lead thy father Adam to Paradise to the tree of mercy."4
We read in the Apocalypse Mosis "yet when thou art gone out of paradise, if thou shouldst keep thyself from all evil, as one about to die, when again the Resurrection hath come to pass, I will raise thee up and then there shall be given to thee the Tree of Life."5 We further read that the Lord also promised the Resurrection, not only to Adam, but to "every man, who is of thy seed."6 Johann Reuchlin, the Medieval Christian Cabalist, noted that Adam, in the Cabalah, was taught about the sacred name of YHWH and how through his name his sins would be cleansed from him. He will bring forth the fruit of the Tree of Life for all to eat and enjoy salvation.7
Clearly, the knowledge that Adam had the Gospel from the beginning, which Joseph Smith taught could be placed in the category as a restored knowledge of the Gospel, and its importance to Adam from ancient times.
In the ancient Jewish, Christian and Muslim legends which have come to light, Satan as a being of light and splendor was carried away with himself and rebelled in heaven, taking a host away with him in his rebellion.8 Enoch, who was commanded to write down his visions in the Heavenly Tablets, noted that in the end days Michael, Raphael, Gabriel and Phanuel were to cast the Satans and their followers into the furnace of fire. This heavenly battle is also seen and discussed in the Dead Sea Scrolls.9 Enoch is told to read what is written on the Heavenly Tablets, which he does, and then he goes forth to the children of men and prophecies to them what happens to them.10 Enoch is credited in the Dead Sea Scrolls with having been the first to learn writing and recording.11 In the Book of Jubilees when Jacob is taken to heaven and shown what was to happen to Israel, he asks how he can remember all these things in his vision, so he is told "I will bring all things to thy remembrance," wherein he is instructed to write all things down he has seen and heard, and it was kept in the Heavenly Tablets.12
Abraham took the records of the Fathers before him, which were written in Hebrew, and he transcribed them so he could study them.13 He had the records precisely because Enoch had been commanded to write them on the Heavenly Tablets, from his visions and then hand them down to his posterity.14 This is one of the reasons Enoch was equated with Metatron, the angel with seventy two names as well as the scribe of heaven, recording the deeds of Israel. Enoch was later honored as having been transformed from a human into an Angel as Metatron.15 Philo claimed man had a higher ranking than the angels, but Maimonides understood that the term angel may apply to humans.16 This is interesting in light of the angel Moroni appearing to Joseph Smith. Moroni had been a human earlier in the history of Ancient America. The concept of a human becoming an angel was certainly taught to Joseph Smith through direct experience! In fact Joseph Smith’s emphasis on the angels and their ministering with men and to men in the drama of the last days is opposite of Protestantism, which, we are told, "minimize the role of angels."17 Joseph Smith’s involvement with angels and numerous discussions of their missions to humankind today is a direct reflection of the ancient ideas of the involvement of angels with the rest of God’s children. All of this, we have been told is recorded in the Heavenly Tablets, the Book of Life, which will be handed down and once again given via revelation. In the Book of the Secrets of Enoch, Enoch is specifically told that Michael will give him the "books of the handwriting, that is, the books of the handwritings of the fathers, Adam, Seth, Enos, Cainan, Mahaleleel, and Jared thy father."18 These books are to be transmitted to the generations of the world. These writings are also under the special guardianship of angels until the time of their disclosure and understanding has come!19 Nowhere is this more prominant than in the Book of Mormon, Pearl of Great Price, and the Doctrine and Covenants, all of which, we understand to be an ongoing revelation of the very Tablets of Heaven written anciently, and specifically guarded by angels who carried these books to mankind throughout history and into our day, the Latter Days, through the Prophet Joseph Smith. As prophecied in the book of Baruch, "the days come and the books shall be opened in which are written the sins of all those who have sinned...."20 Those books, among others, are the scriptures of the Latter Day Saints, restored among the generations of men today.
Endnotes
1. Moses 5:6-9.
2. Hans-Joachim Klimkeit, Gnosis on the Silk Road: Gnostic Texts from Central Asia, HarperSanFrancisco, (1993): 15.
3. Klimkeit, 39.
4. Vita Adae et Evae, in R. H. Charles, The Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha of the Old Testament, (hereafter A&P) 2 vols., Oxford, Clarendon Press, reprinted (1979) 2: 144.
5. Apocalypse Mosis, in Charles, A&P, 2:148.
6. Apocalypse Mosis, in Charles, A&P, 2:152. Cf. "The Conflict of Adam and Eve with Satan," in The Lost Books of the Bible and the Forgotten Books of Eden, Rutherford H. Platt, Jr., ed., World Bible Publishers, Inc., 1927: 6, where Adam is told of Christ, who is "the Word." Cf. p. 12 also. Chapter 24 [p. 17] is a vivid description of Christ as the Gospel! Cf. p. 28.
7. Johann Reuchlin, "De Arte Cabalstica," translated as "On the Art of the Kabbalah," University of Nebraska Press, Abaris Books, 1983: 73.
8. Leo Jung, Fallen Angels in Jewish, Christian and Mohammedan Literature, Jewish Quarterly Review, 16(1925-26):45-88; Robert Graves, Raphael Patai, Hebrew Myths: The Book of Genesis, Greenwich House, 1983, 57, 82-83.
9. E. Isaac, "1 (Ethiopic Apocalypse of) Enoch," in James H. Charlesworth, ed., The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha, 2 vols., Doubleday & Co., 1983 Vol. 1, p. 38; Raphael Patai, The Messiah Texts: Jewish Legends of Three Thousand Years, Wayne State Univ. Press, 1979, p. xxv, 90-91; Cf. Michael Wise, Martin Abegg, Jr. & Edward Cook, The Dead Sea Scrolls, a New Translation, HarperSanFrancisco, 1996, p. 130 for heavenly battle of Sons of Light with the Sons of Darkness.
10. Isaac, p. 59. Cf. Richard Laurence, The Book of Enoch, the Prophet, Wizard Bookshelf, 1977, p. 112.
11. Florentino Garcia Martinez, The Dead Sea Scrolls Translated, E.J. Brill, 1994, p. 241.
12. R.H. Charles, The Apocrypha and Pseuepigrapha of the Old Testament, 2 vols., Oxford, 1913, Vol. 2, p. 63.
13. Charles, p. 32.
14. James L. Kugel, The Bible as it Was, Belnap Press, Harvard University Press, 1997, pp. 102-105.
15. Gerschom Scholem, Kabbalah, Keter Publishing House, 1974, p. 377-379.
16. Philip Birnbaum, A Book of Jewish Concepts, Hebrew Publishing Co., 1964, p. 358.
17. John Gatta, Jr., "Little Lower than God: The Super-Angelic Anthropology of Edward Taylor," Harvard Theological Review, 75:3(1982), p. 364.
18. R. H. Charles, O.T. Pseudepigrapha, Vol. 2, p. 452.
19. R. H. Charles, O.T. Pseudepigrapha, Vol. 2, p. 452, note 9.
20. R. H. Charles, O.T. Pseudepigrapha, Vol. 2, p. 496.