Adam and Eve

The names Adam and Eve and their experiences in the Garden of Eden provide us with understanding regarding our own eternal roles and spiritual aspirations. Just as Adam (who is also called Michael) serves as the great archetype of all righteous men, so Eve is the prototype for upright women. And as Adam’s role is reenacted and dramatized in our temple ceremony, so Eve is evoked in sacred drama—the story of Adam and Eve is our own. Each of us have lived, transgressed, fallen, and then received redemption through Jesus Christ’s Atonement. In fact, Adam and Eve’s experiences in the garden are ritualized in very special ways in our temple. Our temple clearly demonstrates how Eve and Adam serve as types and shadows of women and men.

Adam is a type for all people (see Rom. 5:12–21; 1 Cor. 15:21–22). Like Adam, each of us lives in a fallen world; and also, like Adam, each of us can rise above the fallen world as we return to the Garden of Eden through temple ritual.

The Expulsion of Adam and Eve from Paradise, 1791, by Benjamin West, by Anglo-American painting, oil on canvas.