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Cover Image by Annie Henrie.

Soon after Adam’s creation, he is given stewardship over the Garden of Eden. He has free access to the myriad of trees there and may partake of every fruit except one.

And the Lord God took the man, and put him into the garden of Eden to dress it and to keep it. And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat: But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die. (Genesis 2:15–17)

And yet, God had commanded Adam to “multiply and replenish the earth” (Genesis 1:28). If the Hebrew text is examined grammatically, it is clear that the commandment not to eat of the fruit is directed to a second-person male: “you, man.” From the rest of the chapter, it is evident that Eve does know about the commandment. This, undoubtedly, is relayed to her by Adam, who is only trying to protect her. However, it is obvious from the singular masculine pronouns used in the text that she is not present when the commandment is given. What are the ramifications of this realization? Why does God not wait until after Eve is created to give the commandment not to partake of the fruit of the tree?

For millennia, the world has blamed womankind for the consequences resulting from Eve’s act in the Garden of Eden. They have assumed that if Eve had not partaken of the fruit, we would all be living in paradise. How wrong they were, on so many counts. As a graduate student at BYU, I took classes from a professor named Valerie M. Hudson who had joined the Church as a young adult. In The Two Trees, she relates that she had been taught many misconceptions about Eve from her youth. She grew up in a tradition where “the fact that Eve was created second was taken to mean that she was an appendage to Adam, that she was somehow inferior to Adam, that being derivative of Adam and not derivative of God, that she was two steps away from divinity, not one step as Adam was.”[i]

Dr. Hudson suggests that Eve is created second in order to demonstrate Adam’s helplessness before the first tree. She asks, “Could it be—two people, two trees—that Eve was foreordained to partake first of the First Tree?” She proposes that partaking of the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil means “to enter into mortality with a mortal body, to enter into full agency, and to have awakened in us the light of Christ.” She attributes the purposes of the two trees in the Garden of Eden to the different stewardships of men and women. “It is through women that souls journey to mortality and gain their agency, and in general it is through the nurturing of women … that the light of Christ is awakened within each soul.”

Every soul born into mortality comes through a woman. Dr. Hudson goes on: “The fruit of the First Tree symbolizes the gift that women give to every soul that chooses the plan of Christ. It symbolizes the role and power of women in the Great Plan of Happiness. It was not, in this view, right or proper for Adam to partake first from the fruit of the First Tree. It was not his role to give the gift of the fruit of the First Tree to others. It is interesting to think that even Adam, who was created before Eve, entered into full mortality and full agency by accepting the gift of the First Tree from the hand of a woman. In a sense, Adam himself was born of Eve.”[ii]

While the rest of Christianity bemoans the moment Eve partook of the fruit, Dr. Hudson asks us to consider what we were doing when we, as pre-mortal spirits, watched the goings-on in Eden. She asks, “Are we saying, ‘No, no, Mother Eve, don’t partake! No, I can’t look, don’t partake!’ Is that what we were doing? What do Latter-day Saints say? ‘Mother Eve, please eat the fruit, please, please, please eat the fruit!’ And when she did, are we crying and weeping? No, we’re shouting and celebrating!” Dr. Hudson explains why she feels it was proper for women to open the door to mortality. She believes that the daughters of God were given at least a glimmer of what would befall them—including rape, forced marriage, sex trafficking, and being treated as chattel throughout much of human history. She feels that “if no woman was willing to open the door to mortal life and all that it would mean for women, I don’t think it would have been opened, and that would only be just.”[iii]

Where does this leave Adam and his stewardship? Dr. Hudson asserts that Adam and the sons of Adam are given stewardship over the Second Tree, the Tree of Life. They are to administer all the ordinances and covenants that are necessary for the children of God to return home to their heavenly parents. She states, “Just as the veil into this life is guarded by the women, the daughters of God, so the veil that brings us home, is administered and guarded by the sons of God.” There are also two “hearkenings.” “Just as Adam hearkened to Eve in partaking of the fruit of the First Tree, so Eve hearkened to Adam in accepting the fruit of the Second Tree.”[iv]

While this may seem clear and equitable as we read about these two separate but equal stewardships, in actuality, many of us are far removed from the drama of our births and appreciation for the gift of life we each received upon entering mortality. We are all anxiously engaged in staying on the strait and narrow path that leads to the Second Tree, the Tree of Life, or eternal life. We see the sons of God who offer us the fruit of the Second Tree, the ordinances and covenants necessary to enter into God’s presence. We see no daughters of God offering us these ordinances. However, we must not forget how we got here. It is important to step back and look again at the whole picture that includes both women and men. There are two trees and two stewardships. Both are necessary for the God’s plan to work.

So, how is it that Eve is able to partake of the tree first? We continue with the story in Genesis 3:1 which reads: “Now the serpent was more subtil [cunning][v] than any beast of the field which the Lord God had made. And he said unto the woman, Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden?” Unfortunately, this translation is ambiguous. Is the serpent saying that God said not to eat from any of the trees of the garden? Modern translations render this as “Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden?’”[vi] The premise of this question is absolutely false, and Satan’s motivation in asking it of Eve is to undermine her assurance that God has her best interests at heart. Eve responds that his assertion is false and that God has allowed them to eat from every tree but one, whose fruit would bring death. “And the woman said unto the serpent, We may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden: But of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God hath said, Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die” (Genesis 3:2–3).

We know from Eve’s response to the serpent that she somehow knows about the directive not to eat from the tree of knowledge of good and evil. Adam must have decided to tell her about God’s command. In fact, he adds an extra prohibition. He tells her that God commanded them not to even touch the fruit. Apparently, he was trying to put a fence around the law, thinking that if she did not touch the tree, she would not eat the fruit. Adam must have assumed that if the fruit would be deadly to him, it would have the same effect upon Eve. It must have seemed logical to him to warn her of its danger. Here, biblical scholar Shira Halevi alleges that Adam made two mistakes. First, he had no business adding to what God had told him, and second, he had no business passing this commandment on to Eve. It wasn’t meant for her. She asserts, “It was no sin for her [Eve] to take this fruit for God did not command her not to eat it.”[vii]

Satan urges Eve to eat of the fruit by telling her that she will not die. Is this a lie? Yes, because she will become mortal and die, eventually. But it does not mean that she will die immediately, which is perhaps what she anticipated. “And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die: For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil” (KJV Genesis 3:4–5). Robert Alter comments on the grammatical syntax of this verse, saying, “the form of the Hebrew is … infinite absolute, the infinitive followed by the conjugated form of the same verb. … It is the pattern regularly used in the Bible for the issuing of death sentences. ‘Doomed to die’ is an appropriate equivalent.’”[viii]

The Armenian Apocrypha adds an interesting element to this verse. Verse 4 reads, “The serpent spoke with Eve: ‘(That is) not so! God was a man like you. When he ate of the fruit of his tree he became God of all. Because of that God said to you not to eat, lest you become an equal God.’”[ix]

The serpent insinuates that God is keeping something good from Eve because he does not want to share his glory as a god. Eve certainly has a lot to think about. She has trusted God implicitly, but this new information causes her to ponder on the tree and its merits. At some point she “saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise” (KJV Genesis 3:6). Douglas Clark makes a noteworthy observation about this realization. “That Eve saw that it was good—even before she ate the fruit and her eyes were opened!—is a remarkable echo of what God himself had repeatedly done during creation when he surveyed his work and ‘saw that it was good.’ In Eve’s ‘seeing,’ her godlike capacity was already being manifest.”[x]

The serpent has been speaking to Eve, but he uses plural pronouns in addressing her about being “as gods.” In an English translation, this is not apparent. He says “Ye (plural, man and woman) shall be as gods.” I wonder how she thought that would come to pass. Perhaps she pondered the commandment to “multiply and replenish the earth.” Clark asks, “Did she remember that the first commandment to multiply and replenish had been given to them both, but the second had come only directly to Adam? … Did she see that these two commandments were related? Did she begin to discern why the great gift of posterity had so far not been realized in the garden? Did she deduce that as long as they remained there, they could never keep the first great commandment?”[xi]

Jewish scholar Shira Halevi reports that according to tradition, children were not conceived until after Adam and Eve ate of the tree of knowledge of good and evil, and that the bearing of children was one of the consequences of the Fall.[xii] She suggests that this tree could have been called the Tree of Mortality, but that perhaps God wanted to emphasize the type of knowledge gained through mortality. She writes, “Remember, the Garden is also timeless. Without the progression of time, neither death nor birth can occur. Old age and fetal development, as well as the growth and maturity of a baby to adulthood, are all dependent on the forward movement of time—of days and months and years.” It could also be argued that opposites did not exist in the garden. “Therefore birth and death, those extreme opposites of mortality, could not exist.”[xiii]

Clark argues that Eve “knew that Adam had been placed in a situation in which he could not, without, Eve’s help, achieve his potential, for the command not to eat the fruit had come only to him. It was up to her to take the step that Adam could not take. Only if she ate first would he have to eat in order to obey the first great command to multiply. She must eat so her husband could become what he had been created to be, the father of the human race. Eve must eat for his sake and for hers, for the sake of their marriage and mankind.”[xiv]

And so, Eve “took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband [who was] with her; and he did eat” (KJV Genesis 3:6b). We sometimes conveniently forget about Adam’s presence during Eve’s conversation with the serpent, although the text clearly states that he was “with her.” As soon as Eve eats the fruit, she and Adam “were now drastically separated,” notes Hugh Nibley, “for they were of different natures.”[xv] Eve takes action in her role as an ezer, a rescuer of the race of mankind. She takes the first step necessary to bring mankind into mortality. Now she needs to bring Adam along with her. Nibley describes how she accomplishes this:

First she asked Adam if he intended to keep all of God’s commandments. Of course he did! All of them? Naturally! And what, pray, was the first and foremost of those commandments? Was it not to multiply and replenish the earth, the universal commandment given to all God’s creatures? And how could they keep that commandment if they were separated? It had undeniable priority over the commandment not to eat the fruit. So Adam could only admit that she was right and go along … but it was she who made him see it. This is much more than a smart way of winning her point, however. It is the clear declaration that man and woman were put on the earth to stay together and have a family—that is their first obligation and must supersede everything else.[xvi]

Halevi offers an alternate translation of Genesis 3:6, derived from changing the vowels placed in the Hebrew text by the Masoretes. Previously, the Hebrew text had no vowels and was open to a variety of interpretations. The text reads

beneficial to the (ayin) eyes
to the understanding
desirable (lehakasil) for gaining wisdom

The same phrases can be voweled differently to produce this translation:

beneficial for the (aiyeen) springs (which is a metaphor for children)
desirable above (leshashakol) grieving childlessness

This kind of parallel would not be possible with other words for barren, because they do not share root letters with wisdom. Likewise, there are more common metaphors for children, but aiyeen/springs shares root letters with the word for eyes, which in turn means “wisdom.”[xvii]

Halevi also notes that this reading fits the pattern of barrenness among the matriarchs in scripture. If the life stories of Eve and Adam, Sarah and Abraham, Rebecca and Isaac, and Rachel and Jacob are studied, the many common elements become apparent. “The inheritor of the birthright marries a woman of high standing in terms of kinship ties and social status. The couple enjoys comparative[ly] ideal living conditions: wealth, living conditions, and comely bodies. God promises, or in the case of Adam and [Eve], commands numerous posterity. The woman is afflicted with barrenness. In Sarah’s case over seventy years, Rebecca suffered seventeen years of long-term infertility, while Rachel endured seven years.”

She goes on to point out another element to this pattern, which is important in interpreting Eve’s encounter with the serpent. “When it came to bearing and rearing children, the matriarchs took decidedly aggressive roles, while their husbands receded into the background as passive participants.” For example, it is Sarah who insists that Abraham take a concubine so that she might be “built up” and obtain children by adoption. Rebekah determines the passage of the birthright through “manipulation, which neither Jacob nor Isaac protested with any strength or will power.” Rachel and Leah vie for Jacob’s sexual attentions as well as for fertility herbs. Similarly, Eve takes the initiative to “transform covenant promises into reality.”[xviii]

This Jewish scholar might be surprised to learn that she has echoed the message of Relief Society General President Julie Beck. They both characterize these women as lionesses protecting their offspring and the covenant. Halevi notes that just as Adam discovers that paradise without woman was “not good” and lonely, so Eve discovers that paradise without children is incomplete and unfulfilling. Eve’s motive is the same as Rachel’s. “Give me a child! Give me a child or I shall die!” (Genesis 30:1) “She experiences a natural and universal feminine emotion—the hunger for a child. … Barrenness conveys only a physical state of infertility. Shakot, on the other hand is a uniquely feminine kind of grief, arising from the anguish of a woman bereaved of her children.”[xix]

Why did the serpent tempt Eve instead of Adam? Didn’t the man have stewardship over all the earth? Halevi again unknowingly concurs with Dr. Hudson when she proposes that it is because Adam does not have the right to make that choice. Adam calls his wife “Eve,” which is a derivative of the word for “life.” She is the “mother of all living” (Genesis 3:20). She is the one who would bear the pain and most of the responsibility of childrearing. Eve would “bear the most painful and possibly fatal consequences of mortality. … Adam had neither the right to hold back the means by which [Eve] could conceive life—for such action would be cruel to her natural desires—or to force her to bear children, for such action would unjustly subject her to the physical and emotional pain of bearing and rearing children without her consent.” That is the reason why Adam is commanded not to eat the fruit. It is not his decision to make. Halevi asserts, “He [God] did not command the woman not to eat the fruit, for it was her right to eat or abstain. Adam remained silent because it was [Eve] who had the most to lose from eating the fruit that would make her mortal.”[xx]

Adam makes the conscious choice to leave the Garden of Eden in order to remain with Eve and to fulfill the commandment given by their Father to people the newly created earth. He unquestionably knows what he is doing in leaving paradise to come into the less friendly “world.” Life outside the Garden of Eden will be fraught with challenges and heartache. His actions foreshadow the Savior’s own actions in “leaving his throne to come to rescue mankind.”[xxi]

Gary Anderson writes, “Adam’s venturing forth from Eden to earth was typologically suggestive of the incarnation wherein God the Son left Heaven to come to earth to redeem humanity.”[xxii]

No wonder it was likely Adam who, as an angel, came to strengthen the Savior in the Garden of Gethsemane.[xxiii] (See Luke 22:43) They were both willing to die so that mankind might live.

Biblical scholar Shira Halevi suggests that Adam and Eve have entered a new phase of their existence as their eyes are opened. They have symbolically left their “Garden existence” and have moved forward into a new stage of mortality. “The Garden can symbolize several ideas simultaneously, … [the] idea of a holy place where humanity lives in the presence of God, or [the] idea of the biological and mental state of childhood.”[xxiv]

Our parents have left their childhood behind and are now ready to move forward to fulfill their appointed stewardship. God informs them of the consequences of living in the state of mortality that they have just entered. He first deals with the serpent.

And the Lord God said unto the serpent, Because thou hast done this, thou art cursed above all cattle, and above every beast of the field; upon thy belly shalt thou go, and dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life: And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel. Unto the woman he said, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow [itsabon] and thy conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children; and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee. And unto Adam he said, Because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree, of which I commanded thee, saying, Thou shalt not eat of it: cursed is the ground for thy sake; in sorrow [itsabon] shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life; Thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee; and thou shalt eat the herb of the field; In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return (KJV Genesis 3:14–19).

These verses are brimming with information to be unpacked and digested. First of all, notice that in doling out curses, the Lord never uses the word aror—curse—when referring to Adam or Eve. He curses the serpent and the earth, but not the man or the woman. His words to them are merely descriptions of what mortal life will be like. The same Hebrew word is used in describing the consequences of mortality for both Adam and Eve. In sorrow (itsabon) will Adam eat the fruit of the ground for the rest of his life. No more random picking of self-springing pomegranates and mangoes. He will have to labor and toil, the definition of itsabon.[xxv]

Likewise, Eve will have to labor to bring forth children, that is a given. Who ever brought forth a child without going through labor? (Excepting the emergency Caesarean section, of course.) Labor is work. It doesn’t make you “sorrow”-ful, but you do have to work. That’s what God is saying. Earth life takes work. But it will be good for your character. When God tells Eve that he will “multiply” her labor when bearing a child, he does not mean he will increase her pain, but that she will bear multiple children. She will conceive and labor over and over in bringing forth the children of the earth. This is a good thing. She wants to be the mother of all living. Both Adam and Eve will bring forth life with sweat and tears.

Halevi offers an alternate reading of Genesis 3:18.

Masoretic Reading
Thorns
and thistles
will she (the earth) sprout for you
and you will eat grain
of the plowed field

Alternate Reading
Awake! Arise!
Generation upon generation
will she (Eve) spring for you
and you will enjoy the yield
of her breast.[xxvi]

Halevi defends her translation: “This partnership consists of three parts: two readings of 3:18 and 3:20. Verse 20 is the strongest evidence that a double reading of 3:18 is not only feasible, but indispensable. … Without the double reading, 3:20 makes no sense whatsoever. … God informs Adam that he will live a miserable life and then die. Immediately after that grim pronouncement, Adam jumps for joy and calls his wife ‘Life’ because ‘she was Mother to all living.’” Halevi contends that such a reaction on Adam’s part would be impossible to understand without the meaning supplied by this alternate translation. It would be a non sequitur that would make no sense whatsoever. The reader can easily discern the causal link between Adam’s exclamation of praise and the promise made to him that Eve will bear him generations of posterity.[xxvii]

This passage has a familiar feel to it. It brings to mind the Abrahamic Covenant, with its “promise of a multitude of seed and the subsequent renaming of Sarah as the mother of nations,” Halevi notes. “Acknowledging the source of a patriarch’s greatness, namely his queenly companion, his life-giver, Havah [Eve] and Adam, like Sarah and Abraham, would achieve greatness together as a couple, through the painful toil of mortality and the life-nurturing task of begetting and rearing children.”[xxviii]

If we step back and look at the history of the world, God has always depended on a righteous couple to pass along the covenant. He started with Adam and Eve, then again with Noah and his wife. Abraham would not have been the man he was without his righteous Sarah, and passing on the covenantal power follows with their son Isaac and grandson Jacob, who seek wives who understand the covenant and value it. They know that worthy women are essential to the passing along of the covenant.

Sherrie Johnson provides some exciting insights into the naming of Eve. She points out that “Adam called Eve the mother of all living (not just the mother of mankind, but the mother of all living) before she ever had children.” At the time he names her the mother of all living, the only living beings besides the two of them are animals. “By partaking of the forbidden fruit, Eve initiated the change from an immortal Edenic state to the mortal state we now call life. Perhaps the name ‘mother of all living’ has reference to this ‘birth’ process.” Johnson notes that we learn much from what Adam names Eve, but what Adam does not name Eve is also significant. “He does not name her anything to do with himself. He does not name her ‘my help meet’ or ‘my servant’ or ‘the mother of my children.’ The choice of name indicates that Eve was recognized as a separate individual with a mission and talents and their oneness would come about by adding to each other.”[xxix]

In Genesis 3:16, God says to Eve that [her] “desire will be to [her] husband,” and that he will “rule over [her].” In English this comes across as the description of a master and his slave. She will have to fulfill her lord and master’s every desire, and he will rule over her with an iron fist. But the Hebrew does not say this. The word translated as “desire” is from the Hebrew word teshuqah, which has the sense of “stretching out after,” or “a longing.”[xxx] This is how a woman feels about a man who treats her like a queen. Her heart “longs” for him, and she “stretches out after” trying to please. It does not sound like a woman who is treated as chattel by her husband. God is telling Eve that if she is one with her husband, then he will treat her like royalty.

In the phrase translated “he shall rule over thee,” the Hebrew conveys a very different meaning. It says “he shall rule bak,” which is the preposition b– attached to the feminine pronoun for “you.” When I learned Hebrew, I was taught that there is a scarcity of prepositions in the Hebrew language. L– attached to the beginning of a word meant “to” or “for,” c– meant “like” or “as,” and b– meant “in,” “with,” or “by.” There is another preposition—al—that stands by itself and means a lot of things, but mostly “upon” or “over.” The preposition b– in this phrase should read, “and he shall rule with you.” Other places in the Bible translate b– before rule as “rule over,” but it is clearly talking about a king and his subjects, or one people ruling over another.

God has gone out of his way in this chapter and the ones before it to emphasize how the woman is to be an “equal” to the man—a “power” exactly corresponding to him. Together they are to have “dominion” over the earth and populate it. Eve will rule over this newly-created world with her husband. She will be his ezer—his rescuer, his deliverer, his strength. Elder Bruce Hafen of the Seventy concurs with this interpretation, teaching that the King James translation of Genesis 3:16 (“and he shall rule over thee”) is a mistranslation. In Hafen’s words, “over in ‘rule over’ uses the Hebrew bet, which means ruling with, not ruling over.”[xxxi] Elder L. Tom Perry puts the icing on the cake when he tells us, “there is not a president and a vice president in a family. We have co-presidents working together eternally for the good of their family. … They are on equal footing. They plan and organize the affairs of the family jointly and unanimously as they move forward.”[xxxii]

 

References

[i] Valerie M. Hudson, transcript of address given at FAIR Conference 2010, accessed at https://www.fairlds.org/FAIR_Conference/2010_The_To_Trees.html January 7, 2012.

[ii] Ibid.

[iii] Ibid.

[iv] Ibid.

[v] Robert Alter, Genesis: Translation and Commentary, (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1996), 11, fn. 1. “The kind of pun in which the ancient Hebrew writers delighted, ‘arum, “cunning” plays against ‘arumim, “naked” of the previous verse.

[vi] New International Version Genesis 3:1.

[vii] Shira Halevi, The Life Story of Adam and Havah: A New Targum of Genesis 1:26-5:5, (Northvale, New Jersey: Jason Aronson Inc., 1997), 174–175.

[viii] Alter (1996), 8 fn. 16–17.

[ix] Michael E. Stone, editor and translator, Armenian Apocrypha Relating to Adam and Eve, (New York: E. J. Brill, 1996), 25.

An additional references to man attaining godhood can be found in the Testament of Adam 3:2, in the Old Testament Pseudepigrapha, Volume 1, Edited by James H. Charlesworth, (New York: Doubleday, 1983), 994. God speaks to Adam after he partakes of the fruit saying, “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.”

[x] E. Douglas Clark, Echoes of Eden: Eternal Lessons From Our First Parents, (American Fork, Utah: Covenant Communications, Inc., 2010), 53.

[xi] Clark (2010), 54.

[xii] See 2 Baruch 56:6 in The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha, Volume 1, Edited by James H. Charlesworth, (New York: Doubleday, 1983), 641.

[xiii] Halevi (1997), 180–181.

[xiv] Clark (2010), 54–55.

[xv] Hugh Nibley, Old Testament and Related Studies, (Salt Lake City, Utah: Deseret Book Company, 1986). 88.

[xvi] Nibley (1986), 89.

[xvii] Halevi (1997), 185–186.

[xviii] Halevi (1997), 186–188.

[xix] Halevi (1997), 189.

[xx] Halevi (1997), 190–191.

[xxi] Clark (2010), 57.

[xxii] Gary A. Anderson, The Genesis of Perfection: Adam and Eve in Jewish and Christian Imagination, (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2001), 102.

[xxiii] See Bruce R. McConkie, Ensign, April 1985.

“We know that he [Jesus] lay prostrate upon the ground as the pains and agonies of an infinite burden caused him to tremble and would that he might not drink the bitter cup. We know that an angel came from the courts of glory to strengthen him in his ordeal, and we suppose it was mighty Michael, who foremost fell that mortal man might be.”

[xxiv] Halevi (1997), 197.

[xxv] James Strong, A Concise Dictionary of the Hebrew Bible With Their Renderings in the Authorized English Version, in Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible, (Peabody, Massachusetts: Hendrickson Publishers, 1881), 90, entry #6093 itsabon.

[xxvi] Halevi (1997), 232.

[xxvii] Halevi (1997), 232–233.

[xxviii] Halevi (1997), 233.

[xxix] Sherrie Johnson, Man, Woman, and Diety, (Salt Lake City, Utah: Bookcraft, 1991), 18.

[xxx] Strong’s Concordance, p.126, entry # 8669 teshuqah.

[xxxi] Bruce C. Hafen and Marie K. Hafen, Ensign, August 2007, “Crossing Thresholds and Becoming Equal Partners,” 24–29.

[xxxii] L. Tom Perry, Church News, 10 April 2004:15.