Home » News » New Never-Before-Published Adam–God Minutes
It is well know that there are dozens and dozens of sources regarding Brigham Young’s teaching that came to be known as the Adam–God Doctrine. It was not a simple one-time misquote, and it was recorded in numerous sources besides the Journal of Discourses. Wilford Woodruff recorded many entries in his journal discussing the Adam–God Doctrine, and many other diaries, letters, minutes, and other publications record this teaching from the time it was first publicized on April 9, 1852 until the Church began to condemn the teaching during Joseph F. Smith’s church presidency.
Brigham’s teaching in a nutshell was that God the Father first procreated our spirit bodies in the pre-existence, then the Father fell into mortality to act as the first man Adam to give physical bodies for his spirit children. Brigham understood that our Father was Michael in the Creation account in the Endowment, and Michel acted under the direction of two higher Gods, represented as “Jehovah” and “Elohim”, in performing the Creation.
In 2022 I published four issues of One Eternal Round addressing the Adam–God Doctrine. These papers were issues #21 “An Introduction to the Adam–God Doctrine,” issue #22 “A History of the Adam–God Doctrine,” issue #23 “The Adam–God Doctrine in the Endowment,” and issue #24 “Answering Questions and Contradictions to the Adam-God Doctrine.” I’ve also given a series of video presentations about the Adam–God Doctrine that can be found here.
In 2024 a researcher I was acquainted with specially requested and was given special access from the LDS Church’s Church History Library to restricted Adam–God material that has never been published and previously been unavailable and unknown to researchers. He shared it with a small group of a few other individuals, myself included. He requested that this material not be publicly shared or privately circulated, and I kept my obligation — as tempting as it was to want to share this exciting and significant new material with others.
Recently, I learned that this individual has now shared that document publicly online. Since he has opted to share that restricted material in its entirety publicly on a new website he created to promote the church he is affiliated with (certainly considered “illicit” to be sharing a privileged private source, violating the Terms and Conditions he obtained it under). I now feel the decision he made to share it on a public website supersedes the injunction not to share this material or discuss it publicly. So now on to the new material!
George D. Watt was present for the April 4, 1860 meeting of the Quorum of the Twelve where Brigham Young and Orson Pratt clashed over Brigham’s Adam–God teachings and Orson Pratt’s unique theological teachings. Previously, researchers have only had Thomas Bullock’s shorthand minutes to work with – George D. Watts’ minutes are significantly more detailed and capture many aspects of the conversation in a lot more detail that Bullock did. Significantly, many new comments about Adam–God were recorded in Watts’ minutes, including strong statements by Brigham Young that he had “personal positive knowledge” the doctrine was taught by Joseph Smith, and that not only did he know it but “so did Brother [Heber C.] Kimball and Willard Richards.”
Some of the new key Adam–God statements are as follows:
LaJean Curruth transcribed these minutes on December 30, 2013, and they are found in MS 4534 box 3 disk 2 1860b images 1a-21 in the LDS Church’s Church History Library. The minutes are linked below:
Orson Pratt, 4 April 1860, before Brigham Young and the Twelve Papers of George D. Watt MS 4534 box 3 disk 2 1860b images 1a-21 Sermon not in Journal of Discourses or in CR 100 317 Transcribed from George D. Watt’s shorthand record by LaJean Purcell Carruth 30 December 2013
Regardless of how one chooses to interpret this source, it is a fascinating and important source demonstrating a confidence Brigham Young had in his Adam–God theology and that he personally believed that Joseph Smith taught the Adam–God Doctrine.
New Never-Before-Published Adam–God Minutes
Posted on Friday, May 15, 2026 at 7:00 AM
It is well know that there are dozens and dozens of sources regarding Brigham Young’s teaching that came to be known as the Adam–God Doctrine. It was not a simple one-time misquote, and it was recorded in numerous sources besides the Journal of Discourses. Wilford Woodruff recorded many entries in his journal discussing the Adam–God Doctrine, and many other diaries, letters, minutes, and other publications record this teaching from the time it was first publicized on April 9, 1852 until the Church began to condemn the teaching during Joseph F. Smith’s church presidency.
Brigham’s teaching in a nutshell was that God the Father first procreated our spirit bodies in the pre-existence, then the Father fell into mortality to act as the first man Adam to give physical bodies for his spirit children. Brigham understood that our Father was Michael in the Creation account in the Endowment, and Michel acted under the direction of two higher Gods, represented as “Jehovah” and “Elohim”, in performing the Creation.
In 2022 I published four issues of One Eternal Round addressing the Adam–God Doctrine. These papers were issues #21 “An Introduction to the Adam–God Doctrine,” issue #22 “A History of the Adam–God Doctrine,” issue #23 “The Adam–God Doctrine in the Endowment,” and issue #24 “Answering Questions and Contradictions to the Adam-God Doctrine.” I’ve also given a series of video presentations about the Adam–God Doctrine that can be found here.
In 2024 a researcher I was acquainted with specially requested and was given special access from the LDS Church’s Church History Library to restricted Adam–God material that has never been published and previously been unavailable and unknown to researchers. He shared it with a small group of a few other individuals, myself included. He requested that this material not be publicly shared or privately circulated, and I kept my obligation — as tempting as it was to want to share this exciting and significant new material with others.
Recently, I learned that this individual has now shared that document publicly online. Since he has opted to share that restricted material in its entirety publicly on a new website he created to promote the church he is affiliated with (certainly considered “illicit” to be sharing a privileged private source, violating the Terms and Conditions he obtained it under). I now feel the decision he made to share it on a public website supersedes the injunction not to share this material or discuss it publicly. So now on to the new material!
George D. Watt was present for the April 4, 1860 meeting of the Quorum of the Twelve where Brigham Young and Orson Pratt clashed over Brigham’s Adam–God teachings and Orson Pratt’s unique theological teachings. Previously, researchers have only had Thomas Bullock’s shorthand minutes to work with – George D. Watts’ minutes are significantly more detailed and capture many aspects of the conversation in a lot more detail that Bullock did. Significantly, many new comments about Adam–God were recorded in Watts’ minutes, including strong statements by Brigham Young that he had “personal positive knowledge” the doctrine was taught by Joseph Smith, and that not only did he know it but “so did Brother [Heber C.] Kimball and Willard Richards.”
Some of the new key Adam–God statements are as follows:
“Who was preaching the doctrine of Adam being our Father? To my personal positive knowledge that was Joseph’s doctrine and what he believed. You perhaps never heard him say it, — but I have and so did Brother [Heber C.] Kimball and Willard Richards — that that was his belief and what he knew and he said that every one of us that kept the celestial law would be Adams too.” — Brigham Young (Shorthand Minutes of a Meeting of the Quorum of the Twelve, Transcribed by LaJean Carruth <4 April 1860> page 26, punctuation and grammar corrected)
“He [Joseph Smith] said that every one of us that kept the celestial law would be Adams too. That was Joseph’s doctrine — and as for Adam’s being made like an adobe it is the height of nonsense. I tell you where I had a revelation as much as any man ever lived on this earth. It was when we was in Luke Johnson’s room [in Winter Quarters] when the power came upon us so that it raised the neighborhood — they felt it all over the neighborhood like the earthquake. There I told the story that you and I if faithful we [would] be Adam — and before it we get a resurrected body then we was capable [and capacitated] of commencing the work in spirit [first and [then] it takes a natural body to beget a natural body. [Orson, do] you recollect that revelation tonight [to be] true? Woodruff, George A., and you recollect — it raised the whole neighborhood the shake of [the] power of God that came on the neighborhood.” — Brigham Young (Pittman Shorthand Minutes of a Meeting of the Quorum of the Twelve, Transcribed by LaJean Carruth <4 April 1860> pages 26–27, punctuation and grammar corrected)
“When a man gets his celestial glory and is crowned with crowns of glory, immortality, and eternal lives he has not yet the power to beget a [physical] body; but he begets spirits, but those are born in the eternities of the Gods, and when he has the privilege by his Dictator [saying] ‘you may have the privilege of forming a world’ he goes there and puts every seed and animal upon it [and] places every creature there is in the earth, under the earth, throughout the earth, and upon the earth, that flies in the heavens, [and] swims in the water. [It] is [all] placed by that Creator and he is called in the endowment Michael, [under] Jehovah, his Father, [and] Elohim, his [i.e. Jehovah’s] Father — or adopted Father (one of the two). [Michael] then comes to the earth and he begins to eat and drink until he charges his system to beget a natural body. He eats the oranges, lemons, figs, corn, wheat, apples, and lives upon the [natural] fruit [of the earth] and issues forth that [earthly seed] into the womb of his wife.” — Brigham Young (Pittman Shorthand Minutes of a Meeting of the Quorum of the Twelve, Transcribed by LaJean Carruth <4 April 1860> pages 27–28, punctuation and grammar corrected)
“When Adam comes here and his system [is] charged with the elements that pertains to this world, he then issues his seed that flows from that substance he has from the earth and it forms the body. The spirit is sent when the mother feels life and it enters into that body and that body begets other bodies and [so on for all the] people the earth. Does he [Adam] die and got to wait for the resurrection? It is the height of folly to talk about Adam going to grave and wait[ing] until Jesus rises. He had power to put off that he had taken on him at his pleasure and his Father came and visited him just as our endowment show[s]. He was visited by his Father and [he] sent messengers to him. …When he [Adam] got through he went to where he belonged. He had his kingdoms and thrones and power and went back home.” — Brigham Young (Pittman Shorthand Minutes of a Meeting of the Quorum of the Twelve, Transcribed by LaJean Carruth <4 April 1860> pages 28–29, punctuation and grammar corrected)
LaJean Curruth transcribed these minutes on December 30, 2013, and they are found in MS 4534 box 3 disk 2 1860b images 1a-21 in the LDS Church’s Church History Library. The minutes are linked below:
Regardless of how one chooses to interpret this source, it is a fascinating and important source demonstrating a confidence Brigham Young had in his Adam–God theology and that he personally believed that Joseph Smith taught the Adam–God Doctrine.
This news item can be discussed over at the One Eternal Round Facebook Group!