The Truth, The Way, The Life

Why it’s on the list: B. H. Roberts’s systematic theology, written in the late 1920s, which made room for pre-Adamic creatures and treated Adam as the first true man placed in a world prepared for him. The Quorum of the Twelve, led in opposition by Joseph Fielding Smith, kept it from being published; it appeared only in 1994.

Where I heard about it

• Listed as further reading in a July 2026 study note on Adam, human origins and the covenant.

Connections

• B. H. Roberts — its author.
• Stretching The Heavens — tells the story of how the book was suppressed and casts Roberts as the last great Mormon theologian.
• Joseph Fielding Smith — the opposition that kept it unpublished.
• Plan of Salvation · Science and Religion