The concept of premortal existence is an early and fundamental doctrine of Mormonism. In the faith’s eponymous text, the Book of Mormon, published on March 26, 1830, a pre-mortal Christ explains individuals were created in the beginning in the image of Christ. Further, a prophet named Jacob articulates the belief that our spirits participated in the conflict between God and Lucifer, “an angel of light,” and could have become evil “like unto him, and we become devils”. By inference, those born into life instead chose God as a pre-requisite to being born. This appears to be the justification for Jacob’s teaching that God’s atonement would redeem all those who died without knowledge of the law. Jacob and later writers in the Book of Mormon express the teaching that Christ’s sacrifice was intended to allow all mankind the possibility of return to that God who had given them life, presumably pre-mortal spiritual life. In 1833, early in the Latter Day Saint movement, its founder Joseph Smith taught that human souls are co-eternal with God the Father just as Jesus is co-eternal with God the Father, "Man was also in the beginning with God. Intelligence, or the light of truth, was not created or made, neither indeed can be."