In the early 1930s there was an intense debate between liberal theologian and general authority B. H. Roberts and some members of the Council of the Twelve Apostles over attempts by B. H. Roberts to reconcile the fossil record with the scriptures by introducing a doctrine of pre-Adamic creation, and backing up this speculative doctrine using geology, biology, anthropology, and archeology (The Truth, The Way, The Life, pp. 238–240; 289–296). More conservative members of the Twelve Apostles, including Joseph Fielding Smith, rejected his speculation because it contradicted the idea that there was no death until after the fall of Adam. Scriptural references in the Book of Mormon such as 2 Nephi 2:22, Alma 12:23, and Doctrine and Covenants sec. 77:5-7 have been cited as teaching the doctrine that there was no death on the Earth before the Fall of Adam and Eve, and that the Earth's temporal existence consists of a total of seven thousand years (c.4,000 BC-c.2,000 AD). Some maintain that those scriptural references pertain to a spiritual death, although others disagree. It is clear, however, that the LDS church does not conform to the same young-Earth creationist creed as many other faiths. The church has made it quite clear that the six days of creation are not necessarily six 24-hour periods. Brigham Young definitely addressed the issue (Discourses of Brigham Young, sel. John A. Widtsoe 100), and even the very anti-evolution Bruce R. McConkie taught that a day, in the Creation accounts, "is a specified time period; it is an age, an eon, a division of eternity; it is the time between two identifiable events. And each day, of whatever length, has the duration needed for its purposes. ... There is no revealed recitation specifying that each of the 'six days' involved in the Creation was of the same duration". James E. Talmage published a book through the LDS Church that explicitly stated that organisms lived and died on this earth before the earth was fit for human habitation. However, the official Church Educational System Student Manual teaches that there was no death before the Fall.