The Earth and Man

Part of our book chapter reprint series, this article by James E. Talmage originally appeared in Science & Mormonism Series 1: Cosmos, Earth, and Man (2016).

Abstract: Elder James E. Talmage, the late apostle and geologist, asserts the reality of death before the Fall. He describes how vegetation and animals “lived and died, age after age, while the earth was yet unfit for human habitation.” He affirms the reality of Adam and Eve as historic personages, while asserting that “there must have been races of human sort upon earth long before” our “first parents” lived. While mindful that evolution was, in 1930, “but a theory, an unproved hypothesis” still in need of additional empirical support, he reminds the reader that the Gospel “is up-to-date and ever shall be.”

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About the Interpreter Foundation Book Chapter Reprint Series

The purpose of this reprint series is to make individual chapters from books published by The Interpreter Foundation more accessible to readers. Chapters from large format books will be made available as pdf files, while chapters from smaller format books will appear within the Interpreter journal, making this content available in a form suitable for many popular digital readers.

Although in some instances the formatting and pagination may have been changed, the content of this chapter, like others in this reprint series, is identical to what appeared in its original book publication. It has not been updated to incorporate research that has appeared subsequently nor to reflect the current practice of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to use the full name of the Church and to avoid terms such as “Mormon” and “LDS.”

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