New Old Testiment Manual on Evolution

An excerpt from the new CES Old Testament manual makes clear the church is currently not interested in trying to reconcile science and religion when it comes to the creation life on earth and of man. Note the statement that states that there must have been no death before Adam!

Meanwhile, Utah Valley has just opened up the largest dinosaur museum in the world. Much of the material for that museum came from BYU. Also, BYU is one of the leading schools in evolutionary genetics.

This quote also tells us that we cannot accept both science and religion on this matter, but must choose one and reject the other. It would seem more prudent to leave such strong language made a half of a century ago out of our current manuals. Those who have a basic understanding of science are left in a quandary with such statements.

http://www.ldsces.org/manual_index.asp

Italicized text included in original

"Of course, I think those people who hold to the view that man has come up
through all these ages from the scum of the sea through billions of years do
not believe in Adam. Honestly I do not know how they can, and I am going to
show you that they do not. There are some who attempt to do it but they are
inconsistent -- absolutely inconsistent, because that doctrine is so
incompatible, so utterly out of harmony, with the revelations of the Lord
that a man just cannot believe in both.

"... I say most emphatically, you cannot believe in this theory of the
origin of man, and at the same time accept the plan of salvation as set
forth by the Lord our God. You must choose the one and reject the other,
for they are in direct conflict and there is a gulf separating them which is
so great that it cannot be bridged, no matter how much one may try to do
so. ...

"... Then Adam, and by that I mean the first man, was not capable of sin.
He could not transgress, and by doing so bring death into the world; for,
according to this theory, death had always been in the world. If,
therefore, there was no fall, there was no need of an atonement, hence the
coming into the world of the Son of God as the Savior of the world is a
contradiction, a thing impossible. Are you prepared to believe such a
thing as that?" (Smith, Doctrines of Salvation, 1;141-42.)