Ancient markings excavated in Jerusalem stump experts

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Matti Friedman of the Associated Press published news about a recent excavation in the City of David in Jerusalem, near the Gihon Spring. The excavation revealed an interesting set of markings carved into the stone floor of a room, and expert archeologists cannot determine what their meaning or use was. The markings consist of three “V” marks, or perhaps gammadia “Γ,” although one is inverted from the other two, plus a straight line mark. They date to about 800 B.C. Read More »

Matthew B. Brown passed away

Matthew B. Brown

Matthew B. Brown (1964-2011)

It is with sadness that I learned shortly ago that Matthew B. Brown has passed away.  He was dealing with complications after a heart failure incident which occurred on September 23rd while he was in the BYU library.  He was about 47 years old.  He will be sorely missed.

Matt Brown was a well-known scholar, historian, lecturer, and author of LDS temple and gospel studies, and a great influence and inspiration to me, and I’m sure many others.  One of his first books, The Gate of Heaven, was one of my first readings that inspired me to learn and study more about the temple, and helped me gain a strong love and testimony of the temple and the restored gospel.

His works include ten major books, many papers and articles in scholarly publications, lectures in a variety of venues, producer of a DVD documentary, and founded an annual gospel-centered symposium, EXPOUND.  He wrote two guests posts for this blog, for which I was very grateful - The Lord Speaks Again: Ancient Temple Patterns In D&C 124, and Sanctuary Vesture: A Brief Overview And Comparison.  He will be a great asset to the Lord’s work on the other side of the veil.

Memorial services will be held in roughly two weeks to allow his mother, who is in poor health, to attend.  His burial is this Saturday.  He is survived by his wife Jaimie.

Matt and his wife, Jaimie, didn’t have insurance, and she is now left with large medical bills and burial costs to pay.  An account has been set up for donations (100%) to Jaimie on the FAIR website at this link:  http://bookstore.fairlds.org/product.php?id_product=1261

Please share your thoughts and memories about Matt Brown in the comments.

Radically different views of Death

A couple months ago I received an email from someone who stumbled onto TempleStudy.com.  It read in part,

[The Bible] is purely a creation of man to placate the ego’s fear of death and nothing more. All religion was invented to buffer the ego against the fear of death.

That’s certainly one way to think of death.  Another way to think of it is that religion gives meaning to life and death.  Hugh Nibley often quoted a poem by A.E. Housman about man’s preoccupation with death:

. . . men at whiles are sober
And think by fits and starts,
And if they think, they fasten
Their hands upon their hearts.

The prominent literary scholar Harold Bloom once said,

What is the essence of religion? ... Religion rises inevitably from our apprehension of our own death. To give meaning to meaninglessness is the endless quest of all religion.

I recently came upon two vastly different modes of thinking about death.  The juxtaposition of these two starkly different views is very interesting.   Read More »

Seeing the Face of God in the Temple – Part 2

Moses Seeing Jehovah, by Joseph Brickey

Moses Seeing Jehovah, by Joseph Brickey

(Continued from Part 1)

In the last part of this post we explored what it means to see the face of God in the temple.  Seeing the face of God is promised to us in the scriptures, and as we showed, it was one of the foremost purposes of the prophet Joseph Smith in building up temples.  Such a witness was key to what was called the endowment.  As Joseph described the endowment,

All who are prepared, and are sufficiently pure to abide the presence of the Savior, will see him in the solemn assembly.

In the first part we discussed one interpretation of seeing the Lord – in a physical sense.  Many early members of the Church literally saw the Lord, Jesus Christ, and even God the Father, within the walls of the temple on several occasions, and have seen Him since in the temples of the Lord.

What else might “seeing God” mean?  Read More »

Does the Parable of the Ten Virgins Represent Endowed Members Only?

The Parable of the Ten Virgins

The Parable of the Ten Virgins

I had a reader ask me:

I have tried to find a statement or quote about the parable of the 10 virgins that says the parable is about endowed members of the church.  [Some General Authorities] say it has to do with members, not necessarily endowed.  On the web there are a few folks who say this is about endowed members, but don't back it up with a reference.  Any thoughts?

This was my response.   Read More »

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