This article is part of a series on Contradictions between the Book of Mormon and the Bible. Click on the link to access a brief overview of the series. 

The Book of Mormon teaches that the disobedience of Adam and Eve in eating the forbidden fruit was necessary so that they could have children and bring joy to mankind:

“And now, behold, if Adam had not transgressed he would not have fallen, but he would have remained in the garden of Eden. And all things which were created must have remained in the same state in which they were after they were created; and they must have remained forever, and had no end. And they would have had no children; wherefore they would have remained in a state of innocence, having no joy, for they knew no misery; doing no good, for they knew no sin. But behold, all things have been done in the wisdom of him who knoweth all things. Adam fell that men might be; and men are, that they might have joy” (2 Nephi 2:22–25).

The Book of Mormon makes two related claims here that contradict the Bible.

Adam’s Transgression: Sin or Not Sin?

First, the Book of Mormon claims that Adam (and Eve) needed to transgress and fall, because had they not done so they would have been unable to do anything good. The implication is that Adam’s transgression was not actually sin (although as a result humans came to know sin) but rather was a noble act that made it possible for humans to advance spiritually. Both 2 Nephi 2:22 and Moses 5:10–11 refer to the act of Adam and Eve as transgression, but not sin. Mormons interpret these texts to mean that Adam and Eve rightly committed transgression (a violation of God’s command) for the higher purpose of advancing spiritually, and thus their acts were not sin. Years ago, Dallin H. Oaks, who is now the LDS Church President, stated that “the act that produced the Fall was not a sin—inherently wrong—but a transgression—wrong because it was formally prohibited.”¹ Joseph Smith himself had stated “that Adam did not commit sin in eating the fruits, for God had decreed that he should eat and fall.”²

On the other hand, the Bible explicitly refers to Adam’s transgression as “sin.” Paul refers to Adam when he writes, “by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin” (Romans 5:12). (All biblical quotations are from the KJV unless noted otherwise.) As a result, everyone died between Adam and Moses, even those who “had not sinned after the similitude of Adam’s transgression” (5:14). In other words, Adam’s transgression was a particularly bad kind of sin. Presumably his sin was especially bad because it was committed by someone who had been innocent and not predisposed to sin, whereas all people after his fall do have such a predisposition. Thus, Adam was “one that sinned” (Romans 5:16).

The Old and New Testaments both represent Adam’s action as something disastrously bad, never as a noble or necessary action (Genesis 3:16–19; Romans 5:12–19; 1 Corinthians 15:21–22). Of course, it is true that God “knoweth all things” (1 John 3:20) and therefore knew that Adam and Eve would sin, just as he knows what sins you and I will commit in the future. This fact, however, does not make Adam and Eve’s act any less sin.

In Scripture, the terms translated “transgression” and “sin” are used together over forty times as two different ways of describing acts of disobedience against God for which people are guilty before him (e.g., Exodus 34:7; 1 Kings 8:50; Psalms 32:1, 5; 51:3, 13; Isaiah 43:25, 27; 53:12; 59:12; Jeremiah 33:8; Amos 5:12; James 2:9). Never does the Bible suggest that transgressions against God’s commands might not also be considered sins. Indeed, all transgressions of God’s commands are, by definition, sin: “for sin is the transgression of the law” (1 John 3:4; “sin is lawlessness,” ESV).

Children Possible or Impossible without the Fall?

Second, the Book of Mormon states that if Adam and Eve had not transgressed, “they would have had no children” (2 Nephi 2:23). This claim entails that God gave Adam and Eve two conflicting commands: the command to be fruitful and multiply (Genesis 1:28) and the command not to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil (Genesis 2:17). Adam and Eve thus chose to disobey the second command in order to obey the first command. This teaching—which the LDS Church advocates to this day—contradicts the Bible in at least three ways.

• After making humans as both male and female, and after commanding them to be fruitful and multiply, God viewed everything he had made as “very good” (Genesis 1:31). That statement could not be true if at the time (before the Fall) Adam and Eve were incapable of producing children.
• After Adam and Eve had transgressed, God told Eve, “I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children” (Genesis 3:16 KJV). That is, God did not tell Eve that now she would be able to have the joy of bearing children, but that she would experience increased pain in the process of giving birth to children. Note how the verse is translated in contemporary versions: “I will surely multiply your pain in childbearing; in pain you shall bring forth children” (ESV; similarly, NASB, NET, NRSV, etc.). The unavoidable implication is that Eve could have given birth prior to her transgression, but now she will experience pain in doing so.
• James teaches clearly that God does not tempt people to do anything bad: “God cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempteth he any man” (James 1:13 KJV). If God had put Adam and Eve in a position in which they necessarily had to commit a transgression (because they supposedly could not obey both commands), that would have been an act of tempting them.

In one short passage, then, the Book of Mormon contradicts the Bible by teaching that (1) Adam and Eve’s transgression was not sin but a necessary and even noble act and that (2) Adam and Eve could not have had children without first committing that act of transgression.