I thought today would be a perfect day to re-visit the oldest love story on earth, Adam and Eve.
I wanted to write about Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden in 1991 but realized I didn't have immortal characters everyone loves. When I read Twilight, I realized I had immortal characters. I just had to figure out how to get them into a "Garden of Eden." My entire book was written to get them off site to a new planet. I would not have cared enough to tell the story with any other ending.
Most people like the story until I end it with Edward and Bella on an empty planet. They don't like that extreme twist in the story, but my whole story was written to illustrate the point that Adam and Eve knew very well what they were doing when they ate the fruit. They could have remained as they were: immortal and incapable of change so therefore unable to produce offspring.
They knowingly chose mortality and it's accompanying ability to have children. (Well, Eve chose it. I had always wondered why it is Adam on every planet who will let his wife be the one to choose [I have a deep and abiding faith that it is men and will continue to be men who hold the Priesthood, which means every planet start will be the same; I was raised to believe that men and women are totally equal and find it demeaning for anyone to suggest my equality with my husband is only complete if I am able to have the Priesthood; that would equate with someone telling me I am not his equal unless I share his anatomy.] I had an "aha" moment while I was writing Noonday Sun. I don't believe any really good man would willingly choose childbirth for his wife - especially if he knows it could kill her. But he would love her enough to let her make the choice one way or the other, which Adam did.)
I start and end the story with two scriptures. The first one represents the tree of knowledge of good and evil. It is the tree that starts the journey into mortality. The words inside the shape talk about faith in Christ, the only way back to the immortality available in the garden. The second is in the shape of a tree and also a cup. It represents the tree of life. It was by drinking the bitter cup that Christ was able to achieve immortality for us all. We don't eat of the tree of life, but we partake of it through belief in Christ who drank the cup so we might all achieve immortality. This verse was the one that led me to write the book. I hope you can see what it meant when I read it.
To some it is given by the Holy Ghost
to know that Jesus Christ is the Son of God,
and that he was crucified for the sins of the world.
To others it is given to believe
on their words,
that they also might
have eternal life...
D&C 46:13-14
And worlds without number have I created;
and I also created them for mine own purpose;
and by the Son I created them,
which is mine Only Begotten.
And the first man
of all men
have I called
Adam,
which is many.
Moses 1:33-34
