Even if J is read in isolation, Latter-day Saints bring to the table a the prominent teaching that we all have preexistent spirits. Even the animals of the J account have spirits by LDS tradition. The idea of “soulless” humans or even “soulless” animals is completely foreign to Mormonism. Mormons will read souls into the account, whether they are specifically mentioned or not.

But more importantly, the account is not presented in isolation. The temple ritual as you say, weaves together components of P, J, the Book of Moses, and other sources. There is no indication that we will or are expected to tease apart the various sources and then consider them in isolation. In fact, the ritual places the J account in context with P in such a way as to make it abundantly clear that both Adam and Eve have spirits. The echo of “we will put into them their spirits” has barely died down before both Adam and Eve appear with clear evidence of having spirits. It is inconceivable that the Creators simply changed their mind while walking into the Creation Room. We see Adam become animated when he receives his spirit, and so when Eve walks into the room fully animated a moment later, the clear implication is that her body has also been animated by her spirit as we have heard only moments before that she would be.

However, the actual depiction of woman’s creation derives not from this verse (P), but from the J account. In fact, with some cross-pollination between strands, the basic pivot around which P and J are collapsed is the creation of humans. Where the announcement partially echoes P, the actual portrayal of the event is drawn basically from J, and Eve is created as Adam’s derivative. This problem is exacerbated by the fact that Adam has been transplanted into the first account without Eve. Even you acknowledge that the assumption that Eve has a soul is based on extrapolation (i.e., it occurs “backstage”), which hardly constitutes clarity. The fact is that the two accounts of creation are not in agreement, and although we’ve adopted portions of each, the film actually portrays an interpretation of J–not P–when it comes to the creation of woman.

I don’t really understand the significance of the shift between P and J here. Does that take place in the middle of this sentence? It’s obviously been almost 20 years since I heard the previous version of the endowment (and I don’t have the stomach to look it up on the internet), but I don’t remember the sentence in question to have been revised. I know lots of explicit references to Eve were added, but I’m pretty sure this one was always there. In any case, the current ritual has spirits going into both males and females.

Now, I guess it’s possible that when it came time to actually do it, the Creators changed their mind about the whole putting spirits into women thing, but I think it’s still pretty strongly implied that they followed through. Adam is said to become a living soul when he receives his spirit, the breath of life. Eve obviously has the breath of life also, and is called the “mother of all living.” Adam’s body doesn’t start living and breathing until it receives his spirit. Since Eve is already living and breathing when she ritually appears on the scene, that would imply to me that her body must have also received her spirit, albeit backstage.