Regarding this revelation, Joseph Smith declared, “I saw Adam in the valley of Adam‑ondi‑Ahman. He called together his children and blessed them with a patriarchal blessing. The Lord appeared in their midst, and he (Adam) blessed them all, and foretold what should befall them to the latest generation” (History of the Church 3:388). The book of Moses tells part of the story, saying that “Adam . . . began to prophesy concerning all the families of the earth” (Moses 5:10; see also verses 4-8). We further read, “Now this prophecy Adam spake, as he was moved upon by the Holy Ghost, and a genealogy was kept of the children of God” (Moses 6:8).

The story is confirmed in a number of ancient sources, sometimes in amazing detail. One of the earliest is from the second-century A.D. Christian theologian Origen, who wrote only that “Adam also is found to have prophesied of some things” (De Principiis 1.3.7). (2) Other accounts give much more information.

The Samaritan Asatir 3:1-4 declares that “as the death of Adam drew near . . . all his children came to him to Badan. And he commanded them to carry him to cEyul Mtú which is the valley of Hebron (which means) place of joining, which he had seen in vision as having been made for the gathering of the righteous generations.” (3) The text has close parallels with D&C 107:53, where we read that “Three years previous to the death of Adam, he called Seth, Enos, Cainan, Mahalaleel, Jared, Enoch, and Methuselah, who were all high priests, with the residue of his posterity who were righteous, into the valley of Adam-ondi-Ahman.” (4) While the name of the valley differs in the two accounts, both suggest that the valley was for the gathering of Adam’s righteous descendants (see also D&C 116:1). (5)

Another passage in the Asatir (2:17-18) indicates that Adam “arose in the height of his wisdom and he foretold the Flood, and he also proclaimed the statement that so long as Enoch was alive it would not happen. And Adam was comforted by beholding the prince (head) and seeing his sons.” (6) The Pitron or “explanation” of the text adds that he “saw by the holy spirit the destruction of the whole world, and . . . the Advent of Moses . . . that no one would be saved from the Flood save Noah and his only three sons.” (7) This correlates with D&C 107:54-56, which says that “the Lord appeared unto them . . . And the Lord administered comfort unto Adam . . . And Adam stood up in the midst of the congregation . . . being full of the Holy Ghost, predicted whatsoever should befall his posterity unto the latest generation.” (8) Particularly striking is the parallel usage of words such as “arose/stood up,” “foretold/predicted,” “comforted/comfort,” “holy spirit/Holy Ghost,” “prince/Lord,” and “his sons/his posterity.”

In Life of Adam and Eve 30-36 and its parallel in Apocalypse of Moses 5-9, we read that Adam, knowing he was going to die, gathered his posterity and told them the story of the fall. (9) In Book of the Rolls (folios 98a-102), we read that Adam, prior to his death, assembled his family to bless and admonish them, after which he prophesied the future of his posterity. All of this was written in a “testament” by his son Seth. (10)
Adam's gathering of his posterity for blessing, admonitions, and prophecies is also discussed in a text usually called The Conflict of Adam and Eve. (11) In this account, the patriarch instructs his family to trust in God and to teach his commandments to each succeeding generation and to avoid mingling with the unrighteous seed of Cain (cf. Moses 7:22). After blessing his son Seth and his posterity, he placed relics (gold, incense, myrrh) from the garden of Eden into Seth’s keeping, saying that they would be preserved on the ark through the coming flood and later presented to Christ his birth. Adam also gave instructions to have his body taken on board the ark and to bury it in the middle of the earth, i.e., site of the future Jerusalem (Conflict of Adam and Eve II, 8:1-20).

The Prophecy

In another account, Adam, before dying, told Seth of the coming of Christ, the imminent flood, and the end of the world. Seth wrote the testament, sealed it and hid it with Adam's body, along with the gifts (gold, incense, myrrh) later retrieved from thence by the magi (Testament of Adam 3:1-6). Most of these elements are also found in a fifth-century Christian document, the Apocalypse of Adam 3-8, in which Adam tells Seth of the fall and his vision of the future, including the destruction of the earth by flood and fire, the rescue of Noah and his family, of Moses and Solomon, and of the coming of the “Illuminator,” and the victory over evil. (12) A short Armenian text called The Sons of God by its translator, indicates that Seth kept records, including an account of his prophecy of the destruction of the world by water and by fire, written on a bronze and a clay stelae.” (13) The Armenian History of the Forefathers, Adam and His Sons and Grandsons 41-44, which tells the same story, indicates that the stelae were made of baked brick and bronze. (14)

The same story was known to early Arab writers. In the eleventh century, Muhammad ’ibn cAbd Allah Al-Kisa’i wrote that, prior to his death, Adam called his son Seth and told him he would soon die and admonished him to keep the faith and informed him of what he had seen in his heavenly vision. He further told him that God had shown him his progeny, both righteous and wicked. Among other things, he said, “My son, God made manifest my progeny from my loins that I might be made to know them and everything about them. Now I have entrusted them to your seed, and I shall show you, my son, their forms that you may also witness them.” He then spread out a cloth from Paradise given him by God. “Upon it were the forms of the prophets and pharaohs, rank after rank; and the first of the prophets was Seth and the last Muhammad. He looked at the pharaohs, all of whom were descended from Cain's seed, while the best, the prophets and the pious, were from Seth's seed.” (15)

Al-Kisa’i also observed how, in a valley surrounded by angels, God made a covenant with Adam and, touching his loins with his right hand, gave him a vision of his future progeny. Adam saw Muhammad, then various apostles. When God touched his loins with his left hand, Adam saw “Cain son of Adam and after him the ‘people of the left,’ who stood to the left, their faces black.” Adam “looked at the people on the right and laughed and blessed them, but when he looked at those on the left he cursed them and turned away his face.” God then commanded the angels, “Bear witness also that Adam has blessed those on the right and cursed those on the left. The people on the right will, by my mercy, be in my Paradise. The people of the left will be in Hell, for they deny me my due.” Al-Kisa’i then noted that “Wahb ibn Munabbih said: On the Day of Resurrection, when all created beings are brought forth for the passing of judgment, Adam will be told to send one group to Paradise and the other to Hell.” (16)

Ibn Kathir, another early Arabic writer, wrote that “after creating Adam, Allah, Most High, touched his back and it yielded down all the mortals created by him of Adam’s progeny until the Day of Judgement. He made the light shine out from between the eyes of every one of them. He, then, showed them to Adam who asked: ‘Who are they, my Lord?’ He said: ‘They are thy progeny.’” (17)

Some Byzantine (Christian) writers also credited Adam with having prophesied the future. The eleventh-century chronographer Georgius Syncellus, in his Chronographia, noted that Adam, in his six hundredth year, repenting of his transgression, was given a revelation by Uriel and learned of the fallen angels, the flood, and other things to come. (18) The tenth-century scholar Georgius Cedrenus, in his Historiarum Compendium 1:17, also wrote that “Adam, in the six hundredth year, having repented, learned by revelation the things concerning the Watchers and the Flood, and about repentance and the divine Incarnation, and about the prayers that are sent up to God by all creatures at each hour of the day and night, with the help of Uriel, the archangel over repentance.” (19)

Adam’s foreknowledge of the history of the earth is likewise discussed in a number of other sources, such as the Armenian document called the Death of Adam. A Mandaean document, Haran Gawaita, mentions a “great revelation that was given to Adam the first man and to his descendants” that was written down. (20) The Ethiopic Conflict of Adam and Eve I, 53:6-7 has the Word of God telling Adam about the sins of some of his descendants that would result in their destruction by a flood and the deliverance of a righteous remnant. An early Persian hymn describes how Ohrmizd (the ancient Persian name for God) came to Adam and “clearly showed him all that had been and that was to be.” (21)

Jewish sources also know the story. Flavius Josephus, writing in the first century A.D., noted that Adam had prophesied the destruction of earth by water and by fire (Antiquities of the Jews 1.2.3). In Pirqe de Rabbi Eliezer 18, we read that God showed Adam the future of the world, including the coming of the Messiah. According to Abot de Rabbi Nathan (version A) 31, God showed to Adam all the future generations of the world with the leaders of each. (22) Regarding God’s foreknowledge of Adam’s posterity, version B of the same work declares, “Scripture says: ‘In your book were written down everyone of them (Ps. 139:16).’ Which is your book? It is the book of Adam, as Scripture says: ‘This is the book of the generations of Adam (Gen. 5:1)’” (Abot de Rabbi Nathan B 8). (23)

The Talmud (TB Sanhedrin 38b, (24) Abodah Zarah 5a) (25) and the Midrash Rabbah (Genesis 24:2-4) (26) similarly indicate that God showed to Adam each generation and its principal men and that this was all written in the Book of Adam referred to in Genesis 5:1. Zohar Genesis 90b-91b cites this story (among others) as evidence that the souls have the same form as the bodies they occupy in this world and that Adam actually saw the souls in their premortal form. (27) Referring to the “book of the generations of Adam” of Genesis 5:1, Zohar Genesis 55a says that “God showed Adam the visages of all future generations, of all the wise men and all the kings that were destined to rule over Israel.” (28)Citing the same Genesis passage, Zohar Exodus 70a declares, “‘We were taught’ they said, ‘that this verse indicates that the Holy One showed to the first man all the future generations of mankind: all the leaders, all the sages of each period,” and notes that “all the souls and spirits that enter human beings are alluded to in the words ‘generations of man (Adam).’” (29)

In Zohar Genesis 227b, we read that “God shows the righteous all generations before they come into the world, as He showed them to Adam, as it is written: ‘This is the book of the generations of Adam,’ (30) and also to Moses, as it says: ‘And he showed him all the land,’ (31) which we interpret to mean that God showed him all coming generations and leaders and prophets.” (32)

Midrash Rabbah Exodus 40:2 notes that, as Moses was about to descend from the mountain, God “brought him the book of Adam and showed him all generations that would arise from Creation to Resurrection, each generation and its kings, its leaders, and prophets.” (33)

Adam’s most important prophecy concerned the coming of Christ. (34) According to Zohar Genesis 117b-118a, Adam hid in a cave a book in which he wrote of the Messiah to come. (35) In Book of the Rolls f.95b-96a, 100a-101a, we read that when he assembled his posterity just prior to his deathbed, Adam spoke in great detail of Christ to come.

Summary

There is widespread textual support for the ideas presented in the book of Moses and D&C 107 about the assembly in which Adam prophesied the future of his posterity and about the book in which the prophecy was recorded. Of the various sources, only one–Josephus–could have been available to Joseph Smith. Most of the others were not even discovered until the late nineteenth and mid-twentieth centuries, and a few were available only to scholars in Greek and Hebrew. Though none of these documents is more than 2,000 years old and therefore do not date to the time of Adam, it is interesting that they support what Joseph Smith has told us about Adam’s prophecy to his posterity.