Brigham Young never attempted to contextualize his controversial statements about Adam (the first man) with references to Adam from the scriptures and Joseph Smith’s revelations and plain statements. Without clarity, the Adam-god theory was never a Church doctrine and members of the Quorum of the Twelve (e.g. Orson Pratt) firmly held to the traditional teachings in spite of the controversy.

President Young never devoted an entire discourse to the subject. Of the 1,500 known discourses of Brigham Young, a few dozen provides hints regarding his belief in the identity of Adam.

Knowing the exact nature and name of God does not change our form or worship or expectations of exaltation. The CES Letter exaggerates the importance of these unanswered questions.

In the scriptures Adam is called a “prince” and “archangel” but never a king (D&C 27:11, D&C 107:54-55, D&C 29:26, D&C 88:112).  In contrast, Christ is called the King of Kings (1 Timothy 6:15, Revelation 17:14, 19:16).

D&C 88:114 states that Michael will fight the battle of the “great God” and verse 115 states:  “For Michael shall fight their battles, and shall overcome him who seeketh the throne of him who sitteth upon the throne, even the Lamb.” By most accounts, the “Lamb” could only be Christ suggesting a subordinate role for Adam in that battle.

Moses 6:50-52 teaches plainly that God is not Adam: “But God hath made known unto our fathers that all men must repent. And he called upon our father Adam by his own voice, saying: I am God; I made the world, and men before they were in the flesh. And he also said unto him: If thou wilt turn unto me, and hearken unto my voice, and believe, and repent of all thy transgressions, and be baptized, even in water, in the name of mine Only Begotten Son, who is full of grace and truth, which is Jesus Christ, the only name which shall be given under heaven, whereby salvation shall come unto the children of men, ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost, asking all things in his name, and whatsoever ye shall ask, it shall be given you.”

Joseph Smith taught that Adam received his authority from Christ: “This then being the nature of the priesthood, every man holding the presidency of his dispensation and one man holding the presidency of them all even Adam and Adam receiving his presidency and authority from Christ, but cannot receive a fulness, until Christ shall present the kingdom to the Father which shall be at the end of the last dispensation.”

Respecting authority, Joseph Smith noted that “Christ is the Great High Priest, Adam next.” Joseph Smith also identified who was second to Adam: “The Priesthood was first given to Adam: he obtained the First Presidency and held the keys of it, form generation to generation; he obtained it in the creation before the world was formed as in Gen. 1:26-28.  He had dominion given him over every living creature.  He is Michael, the Archangel, spoken of in the scriptures.  Then to Noah who is Gabriel, he stands next in authority to Adam in the Priesthood.”

Brigham Young did not claim a full knowledge of God: “The trouble between Orson Pratt & me is I do not know Enough & he knows to[o] much. I do not know evry thing. There is a mystery Concerning the God I worship which mystery will be removed when I Come to a full knowledge of God.”

The CES Letter fails to tell its readers that a comparison of the stenographer’s account of the quote “our Father and our God, and the only God with whom we have to do” and to notes taken by Wilford Woodruff (as found in his journal entry for the date) reveals important discrepancies. The information provided by Woodruff potentially changes the meaning of Brigham’s Adam teachings that day.

Elder John A. Widstoe, of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles taught:  “Those who peddle the well-worn Adam-God myth, usually charge the Latter-day Saints with believing that: (1) Our Father in heaven, the Supreme God to whom we pray, is Adam, the first man; and (2) Adam was the father of Jesus Christ. A long series of absurd and false deductions are made from these propositions.  Those who spread this untruth about the Latter-day Saints go back for authority to a sermon delivered by President Brigham Young ‘in the tabernacle, Great Salt Lake City, April 9th, 1852.’ (Journal of Discourses, 1:50.) Certain statements there made are confusing if read superficially, but very clear if read with their context. Enemies of President Brigham Young and of the Church have taken advantage of the opportunity and have used these statements repeatedly and widely to do injury to the reputation of President Young and the Mormon people. An honest reading of this sermon and of other reported discourses of President Brigham Young proves that the great second President of the Church held no such views as have been put into his mouth in the form of the Adam-God myth.

Elden Watson explained: “Brigham Young believed that one of the names of God, our Heavenly Father is Adam, and in many of President Young’s discourses he referred to God the Father using that name. There are therefore two Adams, and although President Young did not use the designation, it will be simpler for us in the following discussion to distinguish between the two individuals by referring to them as Adam Sr. (When referring to God, our Heavenly Father) and Adam Jr. (When referring to the embodied archangel, Michael, who partook of the forbidden fruit, fell, and became the father of Cain, Able and Seth etc.). It follows that there are also two Eves, and although in English the designation is never used with women, we shall distinguish between them as Eve Sr. and Eve Jr. This understanding allows us for the first time to correctly interpret a well known biblical passage… In interpreting Brigham Young’s comments, one must therefore determine by the context of the discourse whether he was speaking of Adam Sr. or Adam Jr. This simple process will relieve 98% of the difficulties encountered in understanding Brigham Young’s discourses on the topic of Adam.”

Early anti-Mormon writers charged that under Brigham Young the Church practiced “blood Atonement,” by which they meant Church-instigated violence directed at dissenters, enemies, and strangers. The exaggerated claims that appeared in the popular press and anti-Mormon literature are easily disproven.

Hard evidence of “blood atonement” offered by critics inevitably comes from questionable sources such as ghost-written “confessions” or third-hand accounts from critics. Even when purporting to offer solid, indisputable evidence that blood atonement was practiced, critics inevitably spend the vast majority of their time and print rehashing the same old (and limited) statements from Church leaders primarily in the late 1850s.

During the nineteenth century, occasional isolated acts of violence that occurred in areas where Latter-day Saints lived were typical of that period in the history of the American West, but they were not instances of Church-sanctioned blood Atonement. The Church never officially condoned taking life other than through legal processes. Responsibility for any reversions to primitive practices of blood shedding were the result of fanatical individuals and were brought to legal justice.

Most Latter-day Saints seem to have recognized that the blood atonement sermons were, in the words of historian Paul Peterson, “hyperbole or incendiary talk” that were “likely designed to frighten church members into conforming with Latter-day Saint principles. To Saints with good intentions, they were calculated to cause alarm, introspection, and ultimately repentance. For those who refused to comply with Mormon standards, it was hoped such ominous threats would hasten their departure from the Territory.” Antagonists were generally tone-deaf as they reported such hyperbole as factual directives.

Reformation-era (late 1850s) rhetoric centered around the concept of capital punishment for capital crimes, not ecclesiastical executions. However, it was not represented that way by critics and those hostiles to the Church who made unverifiable over-the-top accusations against Church leaders.

The First Presidency issued an official declaration on the matter of killing apostates, as a form of blood atonement, in 1889. This declaration reads, in part:

Notwithstanding all the stories told about the killing of apostates, no case of this kind has ever occurred, and of course has never been established against the Church we represent. Hundreds of seceders from the Church have continuously resided and now live in this territory, many of whom have amassed considerable wealth, though bitterly opposed to the Mormon faith and people. Even those who made it their business to fabricate the vilest falsehoods, and to render them plausible by culling isolated passages from old sermons without the explanatory context, and have suffered no opportunity to escape them of vilifying and blackening the characters of the people, have remained among those whom they have thus persistently calumniated until the present day, without receiving the slightest personal injury.

We denounce as entirely untrue the allegation which has been made, that our Church favors or believes in the killing of persons who leave the Church or apostatize from its doctrines. We would view a punishment of this character for such an act with the utmost horror; it is abhorrent to us and is in direct opposition to the fundamental principles of our creed.

References to “blood atonement” in The CES Letter reflect its commitment to an antagonistic agenda, rather than an attempt to find the truth.