John Larsen is back for a new series! Join us as we discuss Joseph Smith’s teachings of the devil in the Pearl of Great Price.
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Mormonism teaches that Lucifer came to earth with one-third of his siblings (billions of devils). They came all at once, a fixed population. The earth’s population fluctuates, but generally the number has climbed from two (Adam and Eve) to its current level of about 8 billion. So the ratio of devils to humans has gone down over the centuries. When it was just Adam and Eve, it was two against billions. Now it is billions against billions. So according to Mormonism, life should be getting better and easier for everyone, right? We’re all being stalked 24/7 by a handful of devils. But Adam and Eve were stalked by billions of devils.
Boy was that incoherent. I was hoping to learn about the Mormon concept and story of the devil as it evolved in Smith’s writings. Instead I got a hackneyed account of why it doesn’t make sense, unclear references to various scriptures, half mumbles, broken-up sentences, and confusing shifts between ostensibly Christian versus Mormon scriptures. Maybe Mormons who are steeped in the story as recounted in seminary and the temple could follow a thread or two but I found Larson’s account to be more problematic than even Joseph Smith’s. He has a right to his reactions, but as exposition, it didn’t measure up.