Latter-day Saints have an expanded view on the Fall of Adam and Eve and specifically about Mother Eve. While many Christian sects look down upon Eve for her sinfulness, Latter-day Saints believe Eve should be revered and honored. Here are ten teachings and quotes from Church leaders about Eve.
1. Glorious Mother Eve
President Joseph F. Smith saw a vision of the spirit world in 1918 and saw many ancient prophets, including Eve. He said he saw “our glorious Mother Eve, with many of her faithful daughters who had lived through the ages and worshiped the true and living God.”
2. A Splendid Influence
“It is true that man is first. First Adam was placed here as king of the earth, to bring it into subjection. But when Mother Eve came she had a splendid influence over him. A great many have thought it was not very good; I think it was excellent.” – Brigham Young | Journal of Discourses
3. Eve Was Happy
“Eve, so recently from the eternal throne, seemed to understand the way of life, for she was happy—happy!—that they had eaten the forbidden fruit. … Our beloved mother Eve began the human race with gladness, wanting children, glad for the joy that they would bring to her, willing to assume the problems connected with a family, but also the joys.” – Spencer W. Kimball | The Women of the Church
4. Eve Recognized the Way Home
“By revelation, Eve recognized the way home to God. She knew that the Atonement of Jesus Christ made eternal life possible in families. She was sure, as you can be, that as she kept her covenants with her Heavenly Father, the Redeemer and the Holy Ghost would see her and her family through whatever sorrows and disappointments would come. She knew she could trust in Them.” – Henry B. Eyring | Daughters in the Covenant
5. Eve Built and Organized
“Eve came as a partner, to build and to organize the bodies of mortal men. She was designed by Deity to cocreate and nurture life, that the great plan of the Father might achieve fruition.” – President Russell M. Nelson | Lessons from Eve
6. A Debt of Gratitude
“We all owe a great debt of gratitude to Eve. In the Garden of Eden, she and Adam were instructed not to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. However, they were also reminded, ‘Thou mayest choose for thyself.’ The choice was really between a continuation of their comfortable existence in Eden, where they would never progress, or a momentous exit into mortality with its opposites: pain, trials, and physical death in contrast to joy, growth, and the potential for eternal life.” – James E. Faust | What It Means to Be a Daughter of God
7. We Celebrate Eve
“Some Christians condemn Eve for her act, concluding that she and her daughters are somehow flawed by it. Not the Latter-day Saints! Informed by revelation, we celebrate Eve’s act and honor her wisdom and courage in the great episode called the Fall.” – Dallin H. Oaks | The Great Plan of Happiness
8. Eve Set a Pattern
“Eve set the pattern. In addition to bearing children, she mothered all of mankind when she made the most courageous decision any woman has ever made and with Adam opened the way for us to progress. She set an example of womanhood for men to respect and women to follow, modeling the characteristics with which we as women have been endowed: heroic faith, a keen sensitivity to the Spirit, an abhorrence of evil, and complete selflessness. Like the Savior, ‘who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross,’ Eve, for the joy of helping initiate the human family, endured the Fall. She loved us enough to help lead us.” – Sheri Dew | Are We Not All Mothers
9. A Decision
“A choice, it might be said, was imposed upon Eve. She should be praised for her decision.” Boyd K. Packer | For Time and All Eternity
10. The Crowning Moment
“We believe that the creation of a woman was the crowning, and final, and most glorified moment of human creation. That we start with light and dark; and land and sea; and we move through fish and fowl; and beast of the field; and we get to Adam and it’s still not good enough… and only when Eve was created — this is our theology. You say it’s political, but for me it’s theological. That is our theology — that the crowning creation and the glory of the human experience came with the creation of Eve.” – Jeffrey R. Holland | Q&A at Harvard Law School
