AN OUTSIDE VIEW OF THE PRE-MORTAL BATTLE OF GOOD AND EVIL

I thought this was interesting!:

looks likes this was the original source.

Surprisingly enough, the best documented story of a clash between Adam and Satan is the scene in heaven. One old writing with unusually good credentials that trace back to books deposited by the apostles in the archives of the early church in Jerusalem is the Coptic "Discourse of the Abbaton, a sermon based on the text delivered by Timothy the Archbishop of Alexandria." fn

fn Text in E. A. W. Budge, Coptic Martyrdoms, pp. 225-49, translation pp. 474-96. A full account of the findings of the book by Timothy, giving strong indication of its authenticity, is included in the text, folios 1b, 41-5b.

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Surprisingly enough, the best documented story of a clash between Adam and Satan is the scene in heaven. One old writing with unusually good credentials that trace back to books deposited by the apostles in the archives of the early church in Jerusalem is the Coptic "Discourse of the Abbaton, a sermon based on the text delivered by Timothy the Archbishop of Alexandria." fn

The book belongs to the forty-day literature; and as it opens, the Lord on his last day on earth with the apostles just before his ascension asks them if there is any final request they would like to make of him—exactly as in "3 Ne. 28:13 Nephi 28:1. What they want most is to understand the role of death and its horrors in God's plan for his children. fn To explain this the Lord tells them of the council in heaven in the preexistence where the plan of the creation is being discussed. There was great reluctance among the hosts to proceed with the creation of the earth, the earth itself complaining, exactly in the manner of "Moses 7:48Moses 7:48, of the filthiness and corruption that would surely go out of her and begging to be allowed to rest from such horrors. (Fol. 10a-b.) Because of the council's reluctance to proceed, God allows the lifeless body of Adam to lie upon the earth for forty days, unwilling, without the council's approval, to let his spirit enter. (11b.) The Son of God saves the day by offering to pay the price for whatever suffering will be entailed, thus permitting "God's children to return again to their former condition." (12a.) Christ alone thus becomes the author of our earthly existence; amid joy and rejoicing God calls for a book, in which he registers the names of all the "Sons of God" who are to go to earth. (See "Gen. 5:1Genesis 5:1ff; Fol. 12b.) This of course is the heavenly book of the generations of Adam opened at the foundation of the earth, the book to which Enoch refers so explicitly in "Moses 6:46Moses 6:46, "Moses 6:88.

In the presence of all the hosts, Adam is next made ready to take over his great assignment. He is placed on a throne and given a crown of glory and a scepter, and all the sons of God bow the knee first to God the Father and then to Adam the Father in recognition of his being in God's exact likeness and image. (13a.) Satan, however, refuses to comply, declaring that he is willing to worship the Father but not Adam: "It is rather he that should worship me for I arrived before he did!" (13a-b.) (See "Moses 1:19Moses 1:19: "I am the Only Begotten, worship me.") God saw that Satan, because of his boundless ambition and total lack of humility, could no longer be trusted with celestial power and commanded the angels to remove him from his office. This ordinance they performed with great sorrow and reluctance: They "removed the writing of authority from his hand. They took from him his armor and all the insignia of priesthood and kingship." Then with a ceremonial knife, a sickle, they inflicted upon him certain ceremonial blows of death which deprived him of his full strength forever after. (14a.) Other accounts say that after these cuts he retained only one-third of his former power, even as he was followed by one-third of the hosts.

Next Adam was escorted to earth to enter his mortal body, and for a hundred years thereafter he was often visited by angels. (14b.) Thereafter, for two hundred years he lived happily in innocence with Eve, taking good care of the animals in his charge. Eventually Satan succeeded in getting possession of a mortal creature, which enabled him to carry on an extensive campaign aimed at Eve. (16a-17a.) Adam was greatly upset; but when Eve, the victim of a trick, took all responsibility, he joined her. (17b.)

Satan stopped Adam outside of the Garden and gloatingly told him that this was his sweet revenge for Adam's victory in heaven: Adam had got him expelled from heaven and now he had paid him in kind; what was more, he intended to continue his project—"I will never cease to contend against thee and against all those who shall come after thee from out of thee, until I have taken them all down to perdition!" (21a-b.) With the threat of death before him, Adam saw the bitterness of hell (19a, 21b), but calling upon God he received not only the assurance of salvation for the dead through the atonement of Christ (20b), but was told that death shall be sweet to those whose names are in the Book of Life (24a-b). Fear of death (the angel Mouriel) is wholesome and necessary to remind the human race of its fragility and constant need of repentance. This has the salutary effect of countering Satan's plan by providing a constant check on the tendencies of men to misbehave, a sobering and, if necessary, frightening lesson.

What comes after the showdown between our first parents and the Adversary? Our sources obligingly go right on with the story and follow Satan from his attempts to win Adam's obedience to his highly successful interviews with Cain, tracing the steady spread of wickedness among mankind down to its culmination in the days of Enoch. There is no better summary of the story than that given in the book of Moses, which is surprisingly close to the "Combat of Adam" version on every point. Let us briefly survey events leading up to the call of Enoch, as given in the Joseph Smith account.