Was God once a Man?

[h2001st]

Thanks livy111us- I appreciate your quote. :)

[Faded]

Bytor's link will contain all the following information, but to summarize:

Shortly before he was murdered, Joseph Smith plainly taught that "God himself was once as we are now". Some years later, Lorenzo Snow (another president of the Church) coined the couplet, "As man is, God once was; as God is, man may become." While the scriptures are not quite so plain as this, they ultimately teach the same doctrine (e.g. Matthew 5:48 "Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect").*

Interestingly enough, the New Testament offers the most evidence of this. Jesus repeatedly says, "I do nothing but what I saw my Father do before me." He said this over and over again. This was a large part of the basis for the King Follet Discourse that you referred to. The only way Jesus can be referring to "what I saw my Father do" in the past tense is that it had already happened when he said it.

Now if I'm understanding the passages correctly, this would mean that everything Jesus Christ did on this Earth, God the Father did before him on some other world. Any conclusions drawn past that point are speculative and we don't have revelation to back them up.

The notion that it is the destiny of mankind to be what God Our Father is now -- it's an absolutely beautiful teaching. It is extremely unfortunate that the Creeds and Teachings of Early Christianity effectively pronounced this teaching as "unspeakable heresy." What is so terrible about children growing up to be like their Father?

I remember a religious historian I once read to have written that the brilliance of Judaism above any other ancient religion was that the Jewish god Yahweh embodied HUMAN virtue, and that Yahweh's followers were expected to adopt those virtues as their own and actually become like their god. This was unlike any other ancient religion, whose gods were quasi-human or completely inhuman figures that desired pacification to grant blessings, not parents of sons and daughters who were expected to embody the very virtues that made their deity a god.

Oh now that is BEAUTIFUL!! If you bump into the reference, please do share it with me.

[livy111us]

You'd be interested to read this:

Were Biblical Kings Considered Gods? - Mormon Apologetics & Discussion Board

Here are some Jewish quotes I have:

In an early Jewish document (mid. Alpha Beta dir. Akiba, bhm 3.32) the concept of

deification can be found. "the Holy One... Will in the future call all of the pious by their names,

and give them a cup of elixir of life in their hands so that they should live and endure forever.

..and He will also reveal to all the pious in the world to come the ineffable name with which new

heavens and a new earth can be created, so that all of them should be able to create new

worlds." (The Messiah Texts, pg. 251 Midrash Aleph Bet diR. Akiba. The Hebrew text was published in Adolph Jellinek, Bet ha-Midrasch (reprint Jerusalem: Wahrmann, 1967), 3:32, and the English translation is from Raphael Patai, The Messiah Texts: Jewish Legends of Three Thousand Years (Detroit, Michigan: Wayne State University, 1988), 251)

The second book of Enoch reads "And the Lord said to Michael, "Go, and extract Enoch

from [his] earthly clothing. And anoint him with my delightful oil, and put him into the clothes

of my glory." And so Michael did, just as the Lord had said to him. He anointed me and he

clothed me. And the appearance of that oil is greater than the greatest light, and its ointment is

like sweet dew, and its fragrance myrrh; and it is like the rays of the glittering sun. And I looked

at myself, and I had become like one of his glorious ones, and there was no observable

difference." (2 Enoch J 22:6-10)

Enoch notes that he actually becomes like one of the assembled members of the heavenly

council, who in the Dead Sea Scrolls are given the title of gods. "[El Elyon gave me a seat

among] those perfect forever, a mighty throne in the congregation of the gods. None of the kings

of the east shall sit in it and their nobles shall not [come near it]. . . . For I have taken my seat in

the [congregation] in the heavens And none [find fault with me]. I shall be reckoned with gods

<'elim> and established in the holy congregation. . . . I shall be reckoned with gods, And my

glory, with [that of] the king's sons (4Q491 [4QMa] 11, I, 11-24)." This translation is found in

Morton Smith, New Testament, Early Christianity, and Magic, ed. Shaye J. D. Cohen (Leiden:

Brill, 1996), 74-75; see Himmelfarb, Ascent to Heaven, 58. The Dead Sea Scrolls give a whole

new interpretation to 1 Corinthians 8:4-6.

Numerous Old Testament passages are provided from the Dead Sea Scrolls and

compared to the Masoretic text or Septuagint. The version of Psalm 135 from the Dead Sea

Scrolls (The Dead Sea Scrolls Bible, pg. 568) differs in many ways from the Masoretic text used

to prepare most modern Bible translations. One difference is the added emphasis given on

"gods" in verses 5 and 6. Here the Dead Sea Scrolls text, with changes relative to the Masoretic text:

5. I know that the LORD is great, and that our God is above all gods.

6. The LORD does what pleases him, in heaven and on earth, to do as he does; there is

none like the LORD, and there is none who acts like the King of gods, in the seas and in all

(their) depths.

"King of gods" is an interesting title for God, similar to the title "God of gods" in Deut. 10:17,

which is reiterated in Psalm 136:2. Such titles don’t make much sense if the ‘gods’ are

imaginary, evil beings. Would it be flattering to call someone the god of leprechauns and

poltergeists? But the true God of the Bible, the only God with whom have anything to do, and

whom all glory flows, is nonetheless properly praised as the God of gods. This makes sense in

light of the divine potential of man.

"of this doctrine of progressive deification, but one thing is certain: with this

anthropology Joseph Smith is closer to the view of man held by the Ancient Church than the

precursors of the Augustinian doctrine of original sin were, who considered the thought of such a

substantial connection between God and man as the heresy, par excellence." (Ernst W. Benz,

"Imago Dei: Man in the Image of God," in Reflections on Mormonism: Judaeo-Christian

Parallels, ed. Truman G. Madsen (Provo, Utah: BYU Religious Studies Center, 1978), 215-16.)

"Adam, Adam do not fear. You wanted to be a god; I will make you a god, not right now, but

after a space of many years .... And after three days, while I am in the tomb, I will raise up the

body I received from you. And I will set you at the right hand of my divinity, and I will make

you a god just like you wanted." ' (Testament of Adam 3:2, 4. See Robinson, "The Testament of

Adam," p. 994)