[Leonard J. Arrington]
He said that Dr. Widstoe had discussed with him one controversy. Apparently The Twelve had debated, again sometime in the 20's or early 30's the question of whether Adam was the first living thing on earth. Brother Joseph Fielding Smith took a strong attitude based upon reading Genesis and other scriptures that Adam was the first living thing. Brother James E. Talmage took the attitude that one must accept, where scriptures do not especially say differently, the findings of science that life preceded Adam for many thousands of years. Apparently Brother Talmage lost the scriptural debate. Not long afterward, he visited Adam Ondi Ahman in Missouri and in scratching around at that location found the fossil of a trilobite. He carried it back triumphantly to the next meeting of the Quorum of the Twelve as proof to them that there had existed trilobites--living things--before Adam had built his alter. A nice story {DEL:explanation}.
[Leonard J. Arrington Diary (typescript)]
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